Godzilla Minus One (2023)

DECEMBER 3, 2023

GENRE: MONSTER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

Once upon a time, I got invited to press screenings and also went to more festivals, which meant I got to see newer movies before hearing too much about them. Which was great, because I’m (sadly) easily swayed by the hype (or the rumblings) and then end up feeling the opposite way, because my expectations have been skewed in one direction or the other. It’s something I try to avoid as much as possible, but it’s kind of unavoidable, especially when by the time I end up seeing something it’s from buying a ticket to the Sunday night showing of its opening weekend (by which point reviews have been going around for a week or two). But every now and then there’s a movie like Godzilla Minus One, where all the praise turned out to be pretty on the mark.

I should preface the rest of this review by noting that I’m hardly a Godzilla expert, but more of a casual fan at best. I’ve liked most of the ones I’ve seen (not too many; counting the new Monsterverse types I put the total at 12, including this*), but apart from the original and King of the Monsters I wouldn’t say any of them are movies I’d want to watch a second time (even though I have ended up revisiting a few for various reasons). Not that they’re bad movies (well, Emmerich’s is) but it’s just not my thing – I am entertained by them and then kind of forget about them a few days later. So me saying that Minus One might be my absolute favorite of the lot – or at least tied with the original – may not carry as much weight as a die hard aficionado saying as much (and I know some of those types who have indeed declared this their favorite), but hey, it should count for something, right?

Part of why it works as well the OG is because, well, it’s a period piece set around the same time – actually a few years before. Our hero is Shikishima, a WWII kamikaze pilot who is too afraid to carry out his suicide mission and flies to an island where planes are being fixed, claiming a maintenance issue with his aircraft. He’s barely just arrived when Godzilla stomps his way onto the island, killing all but one of the mechanics while Shikishima once again is too afraid to engage in battle. The only surviving mechanic, Tachibana, blames Shikishima for their deaths, and then the poor sod gets an even worse heaping of guilt when he returns to his hometown and discovers his parents have perished in an air raid that might have been prevented if he had committed to his duty as a kamikaze pilot.

It’s an intriguing and utterly messed up take on the “hero needs to atone” story, because basically everyone is mad at this guy for not committing suicide, and he himself feels bad about it. And thus as Godzilla continues to stomp and smash his way around Japan, Shikishima is basically on a path of “I need to kill myself to feel better about all the deaths I might have prevented!”, leaving us in the audience in the odd position of either hoping he continues to be a coward so that he won’t die, or egging on his demise. I kept thinking of the end of Armageddon, when Billy Bob Thornton is basically screaming at Bruce Willis to “push the button!” when pushing said button means killing himself – it’s basically that kind of weird moment stretched out for two hours.

Luckily, it’s not as grim as that sounds. In fact, it’s kind of a charming movie at times, particularly in the middle chunk of the film when it’s essentially Jaws but with Godzilla instead of Bruce. A few years after returning home, Shikishima gets a job on a boat that goes out on the sea to find and deactivate all the mines that were planted in the waters by both Japanese and US military during WWII, only to find G out there as he makes his way back to land. There’s a riveting sequence where they’re trying to use one of the mines they’ve collected to blow him up that is akin to the barrel scene in Spielberg’s classic, and the camaraderie among the four guys on the boat has elements of the Quint/Brody/Hooper dynamic as well. Honestly I would have been just as happy, perhaps even more so, if this was how the rest of the movie played out, with these four guys (each with their own reasons for being there) trying to stop Godzilla before he got back to the mainland, but eventually their boat is proven to be too small for the gig and more military/scientist types come to the rescue for a grander final act.

In fact if I had one minor complaint about the movie, it’s that the waterbound climax lacks the same kind of tension a land-driven one would provide. Sure, the crew of the two big battleships (plus Shikishima in a fighter plane) is at stake, but one of the things about the movie is that he keeps getting bigger, and that scale is hard to judge when he’s just surrounded by water instead of people and buildings. I also find myself puzzled in this sequence, as he appears to be just standing in the water in many shots but the plan involves using the two ships to tie a massive weight belt around him and sink him to the bottom of the ocean below, so he can’t be touching the ground where he is. I guess he’s just really good at treading water? All that said, it’s worth it for their plan B, which is that if sinking him to the bottom doesn’t kill him (from the pressure), they will remotely trigger some inflatable things on the same belt that will make him skyrocket back up and basically kill him from the bends. Again, I haven’t seen all of these movies, but of the ones I HAVE seen, the method of stopping him has never been from something Thom Yorke sang about back when he could still write coherent songs.

The other thing that the water prevents is G moving around with as much force, which is a bummer because he is legit terrifying in this one. The opening sequence with the mechanics is actually full on scary in ways that giant monster movies rarely are – the original Jurassic Park might be the last time I found myself really tensed up from a giant monster scene, as it really delivers on him being a MONSTER as opposed to a force of nature of some sort. Like, yeah, one swing of his tail can knock over a building and kill hundreds, but there’s something far more unsettling about him seeing a person and eating him or deliberately using that same tail to swat him hundreds of feet through the air and let him die when he lands. And by keeping the movie’s giant monster population to just one (another thing it has in common with the original), it avoids any kind of “Well he’s more of an anti-hero because we need him to stop this other monster” angle that too many others rely on, though I understand that the series would get quite stale if it was just “Godzilla is here/back, we have to stop him!” every time. It's a double edged spiky tail.

Naturally, as is always the case despite some erroneous claims to the contrary, a hefty portion of the movie is devoted to human drama, though as with Godzilla himself the material is well above average. Shikishima is a sympathetic hero and his relationships with the other characters are just as compelling as any of the effect-driven scenes. He has a neighbor who lost her children to the air strike and blames him for their deaths, though she slowly warms to him as he does his best to care for a survivor named Noriko, who is caring for a baby (Akiko) whose parents also died. It’s endearing to watch this little makeshift family come together, and I also enjoyed the strained relationship he has with the other guy who survived the opening island attack. Shikishima feels enlisting this man to help him fix the plane he needs to take out Godzilla will help make up for his cowardice then, and so the other man is given his own dilemma: help the man he despises, or do nothing and risk more deaths from the actual threat? So many of the ones I’ve seen have had rather corny human elements (the love triangle in Raids Again comes to mind, or the dull business dealings in Mothra vs Godzilla), so I liked that not only were these more interesting, but actually tied into Godzilla as well. It’s not that they have to put aside their differences to stop him – he’s the root cause of their differences in the first place!

Oh and the music is terrific. I damn near cheered when the main theme really kicked in at a key point during the climax. It was like the “Brothers in Arms” cue in Fury Road in how pumped it got me for the already exciting action on screen.

Honestly, unless you demand a certain number of buildings to be destroyed in these things, I don’t know how you can walk away disappointed with this one as long as you understand that these movies are always at their best when they have compelling humans on the ground that Godzilla stomps upon. Sure, it’s not as destructive as some others (including Shin Godzilla, which was also well received but I found rather average) and those accustomed to the monster brawls might be taken aback by the lack of another kaiju for him to fight, but it’s clear everyone involved wanted to truly get back to what made the original such a classic, and (quite impressively) giving it a modern spin despite the period setting. It really just works on all levels, and I suspect will be the go-to influence for any number of series entries over the next few decades. And I’m stoked it was given a proper US theatrical release, something that’s eluded the series for quite some time (Shin was given a limited release in art house theaters, and Godzilla 2000 was a recut version); since it’s been successful I hope the trend continues from here on out. It should always be just as easy to see the big foreign films here in the US as it is for them to see Marvel and Minions movies there. What say you?

*The others being the original, Raids Again, King Kong vs, Mothra vs, vs Biollante, Emmerich, 2000, Shin, and the three WB/Legendary ones.

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The Piper (2015)

NOVEMBER 2, 2022

GENRE: REVENGE
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

We’ve all seen trailers that have perhaps spoiled a film’s plot points, but The Piper is the rare one where the damn poster gave its 3rd act away. The cover of the DVD (which I got for a buck, so I can’t really get upset about this to be clear!) shows the film’s hero in bloody clown makeup, not wholly unlike The Crow or something along those lines, seemingly leading a charge of rats. The synopsis clarifies things, saying that a man is betrayed by the people who hired him and killed his loved ones, so... kind of obvious what this movie is about, right? A sort of hybrid between The Crow and Willard, more or less?

Well, I mean sure, eventually. But the movie is 108 minutes long and there are only 23 left (including end credits) by the time the thing that needs to be revenged actually occurs. So the poster image of the hero in his makeup, leading the rats, is akin to making a poster for Avengers: Endgame with everyone gathered at Tony’s funeral or something (to be fair, this cover is actually slightly less spoiler-y than the original poster, which shows the actual final scene!). Yes, you won’t have the context, but it only takes a few minutes of the movie, once you know who the guy is (and, more importantly, that he’s not one to wear makeup nor is he on the rats’ side) to put it together in your head. Instead, the first hour or so is completely horror free (other than a few grisly shots of the rat’s reign of terror on the local cat population and a few scattered flashbacks involving leprosy), telling a tale of a simple man and his ailing son who are trekking to Seoul in hopes of getting the kid treatment for his tuberculosis. Along the way they find a village where everyone seems unnerved by the presence of a stranger, except for their leader who welcomes the pair into his home so they can rest for a bit before continuing on their way. Learning about their rat problem, the man offers to help drive them out with his music in exchange for some money to help pay for the kid’s medical needs.

And so we watch as he tries some things, eventually succeeding, while also becoming friendly with some of the townsfolk and in particular a widow who takes a liking to him. Knowing that it’s a genre film (a Korean one at that!) we can be sure that something tragic (and likely brutal) will happen regardless of what the poster promised, but I must admit I checked the runtime more than once, curious when it would get to that point. Not that I was bored or anything, but I knew what was happening: the longer we spent with this kind man and his adorable son, the harder it would be to watch when the inevitable happened. I couldn't help but think of Pumpkinhead; even before I had a son of my own I was left kind of devastated by the inciting incident (as a dad now, I can’t even watch it), and that happened like 20 minutes into the movie! Here we get to know them so well that each extra minute just made it that much sadder when it happened.

Worse, they salt the wound not once but twice by giving us reason to think maybe the kid will be OK. First the townsfolk just drive the two of them out after cutting off a few of the Piper’s figures (presumably taking away his ability to play), giving them food that is poisoned – and the kid is about to eat it but stops, and you’re like “Phew, he knew better!” Then he realizes the flute is gone, so he sneaks back into town to retrieve it, so you’re probably thinking “Oh no, they’ll catch him and this time they won’t let him go!” But no! He gets his father’s prized possession and heads back out… only to then take a bite of the poisoned food after all (so we realize that he didn’t stop earlier out of suspicion – he got distracted by noticing that the flute was missing). It’s such a gut-wrenching moment, the sort of thing that if I were to rewatch the movie I’d be hoping that somehow it’ll work out differently on this viewing (a strange phenomenon that I experience on rare occasions; one of the most notable is in Cast Away when he loses Wilson. EVERY GODDAMN TIME I watch that movie I hope this time he’ll wake up and retrieve him in time!).

Making the whole thing sadder is that most of the issues start with the belief that the Piper is in fact a spy for the Communists, as the movie is set in the immediate aftermath of the Korean War. The chief is telling his people that the war is still going, to exert control and keep some secrets of his own from getting out, so he worries that the Piper will tell the locals the truth. And his main bit of “proof” is a mysterious note that neither man can read, which the Piper says is the address of the doctor in Seoul but the chief believes to be information for the commie spies. Only us in the audience know the truth: it’s just a mean slur at the Piper’s expense, written in English. There’s something kind of heartbreaking about both the hero and the villain going to extreme lengths because they weren’t educated enough to decipher a simple four word note, as you realize literally nothing in the movie would have happened if either of them could read it: the man wouldn’t have been traveling to Seoul in the first place, and even if he was, the chief would have known he really was just a poor outcast trying to care for his son.

Anyway, for what it is, it’s pretty good, though the slow pacing to get to the “horror” part of the movie will likely be too much to ask for impatient viewers, and admittedly there isn’t much inventiveness or excitement to seeing him get his revenge, as it’s quickly raced through and relies on not always convincing CGI rats swarming toward one of the town jerks. But as a tragic drama (based on the “Pied Piper of Hamelin” story, yes) it’s a solid little flick, and certainly worth the buck I paid. Hell it’s probably the best of the movies I’ve gotten at Dollar Tree! Put THAT on the poster, at least it ain’t spoiling the ending.

What say you?

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Monstrum (2018)

OCTOBER 22, 2020

GENRE: ASIAN, MONSTER
SOURCE: STREAMING (SHUDDER)

It's a shame that The Great Wall was overshadowed by people complaining about Matt Damon starring in it, claiming the role should have gone to an Asian actor (if they bothered to wait and see the movie first, they'd know the film's plot was about an outsider the rest of the cast didn't trust, so it was kind of the point), because it was actually rather enjoyable save for the dodgy FX. Luckily for everyone, Monstrum hits a number of the same "action + monster in a historical setting" beats but without Jason Bourne or any other white guy around to bother them, and hey, the monster looks better too! Everyone wins. Except Matt Damon, I guess, poor sod.

It's one of those movies that makes me glad I ponied up for a Shudder sub a while back, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't wish I saw it at the CGV Cinema here in LA if if played there. And it'd be weird if it didn't, since it was a big budget Korean film that has been their bread and butter for as long as I've attended (they also throw in some American films with Korean subs), which means I need to pay more attention to its listings once theaters are safe again. I was thinking the monster was something lion-sized, but it was a proper giant monster that could swallow a man whole and swat away a few of them with one paw, i.e. the sort of thing that would not only be better represented on a similarly oversized screen, but also benefit from a crowd cheering as it wiped out some of the traitorous jerks that tried to murder our heroes.

Perhaps I was thinking "lion" because it actually shared some similarities to Brotherhood of the Wolf? The plot is about a monster that's eating people in the countryside, but it's actually a more complicated issue involving political machinations, not unlike that underrated 2001 film. Weirdly (though this may be a translation error, or just me missing a line somewhere), the plot is seemingly about a conniving cabinet member who is trying to overthrow their king and take the throne for himself, who "invents" the Monstrum story as a distraction for his own murderous shenanigans, and for a while you're legit unsure if there really is a monster or not. But there is, so... he made up a story and it turned out to be true? It's a bit odd.

But who cares? Giant monster! The big guy makes his grand entrance around the 40-45 minute mark, inadvertently saving our heroes from the bad guy's henchmen. The film actually gives us a pretty even mix of giant monster action and normal martial arts/swordplay stuff between the two warring factions, and sometimes we get both at once! Not all of the FX work is top notch, but it's mostly pretty good, and they seem to have some kind of practical element for a few closeups, so no harm no foul. And it stays the same size! So many CGI creatures seem to change size depending on the scene, but it's pretty consistent to my eyes.

It also gives us a solid group to care for. Our hero (Kim Myung-min) is a former guard who was exiled for saving a child from execution (her mother and everyone else around was believed to be carrying the plague), called back into action because he was the best the king ever knew and also knew he could be trusted, and he is joined by his now grown "daughter" and his right hand man (he refers to him as brother but I think it's honorary?). This information is given to us via flashback; when we meet the trio they are barely surviving due to the men being unable to hunt properly, leading the girl to think they're just incompetent - she actually laughs when someone comes to call them into action again. The look on her face when she discovers that they really are pretty capable fighters is a great moment, and they continue to impress throughout (there's a silent neck break moment near the end that's way more badass than anything John Wick did in his last adventure). And Parasite's Choi Woo-shik is fun as a page who accompanies them, due in part to his crush on the daughter. But that stuff never really takes center stage, thankfully; I was dreading an Armageddon style ending where Kim's character sacrifices himself so the two young lovers would be able to live happily ever after, but no - they stay focused on the main plot.

The only thing I didn't like were its occasional video game-esque fight scenes, where the camera zooms in and out of the action and pans around to showcase a different fighter without cutting. It honestly just looks like those canned animations you get in games like Arkham City or Assassin's Creed, where if you pull off a proper combo it gives you a more cinematic animation before returning to the gameplay, except far less engaging because it's a movie, not a game. The only good thing about those in games is a quick break from having to worry about being hit since you'll be invulnerable for the second or two - it's otherwise just distracting, and that's all it is here. I'm sure the actors are capable fighters (or at least, the anonymous stunt guys they're fighting are) but these moments make them look like cartoons. Also not a fan of the strobe-y slo-mo during a few of the attacks, but they are thankfully quick.

I've said on many occasions that Korean films tend to be more in line with my sensibilities than other countries with healthy genre output (certainly when compared to other Asian countries, at least), and this is no exception. It's nothing I'd need to watch a million times, but it's a solid adventure with a great monster, likable and interesting characters, and a genuine plot that kept me intrigued in between the carnage. What more can I ask, besides the director not making it look like a PS3 cutscene on occasion? Not much!

What say you?

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Seoul Station (2016)

SEPTEMBER 25, 2020

GENRE: ANIMATED, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: STREAMING (SHUDDER)

I enjoyed Train to Busan, but I thought the frequent claims of it being one of the best zombie movies ever made were, at the very least, overblown. It was, you know, pretty good! But so were things like Warm Bodies and The Rezort - where's the love for those equally serviceable/enjoyable movies? The awkward pacing (that train sure stopped a lot) and removal of the film's best character barely over the halfway point kept it out of top 10 contention in my house, but I was still happy to see it find success, though it took me nearly four years to finally get around to watching its animated prequel film Seoul Station (Korean: Seoulyeok), and I will admit it's partly because the sequel (Peninsula) is now hitting the US and I wanted to be all caught up should I get the chance to see it.

I was also kind of unsure how exciting a prequel would be, because Train to Busan didn't have much going on at the beginning. Like Night of the Living Dead, we didn't see the exact start of it, but it was far from a major outbreak - things were still continuing as normal with just the odd thing happening in the background for a bit (let's not forget that Busan's characters were mostly people going to work or school). So in my head, a prequel would be what is usually the least interesting thing about any zombie movie that bothers to include it: how it specifically started. Funnily enough, the night before at horror trivia there was a round on that very thing - they would name a movie (i.e. "Zombieland") and we'd have to identify the cause for the zombie outbreak ("Mad Cow disease"), and for at least half of them my initial reply was "Who cares?" Romero never fully explained it, just follow his lead!

Plus I remember that there was quite a bit of the other film devoted to the hero's work troubles, as they had some kind of connection to what was going on, so I was also worried we'd spend half the movie with an animated version of him at work while his bosses did shady shit. Long story short: I didn't want a prequel! But I'm on the HMAD clock, so whatever. And thankfully I was wrong; it starts a few hours before Busan did and the final 15 minutes are actually overlapping the timeframe, albeit with different characters (best as I can tell, no one from Busan is featured here). I still feel some of its events should have been enough for things to be in more of a panic mode in Busan, but it's forgivable, because honestly - for the most part I think I actually prefer this to its bigger budgeted, live action sibling.

I mention the budget because honestly, the only thing holding this one back is the presentation. The art style itself is fine, but the animation itself is very stiff, and whenever there's a crowd they don't even try to hide how often they are reusing the same zombie (and human) "extras", which is fine for a video game* but doesn't quite pass the smell test in a feature film. It's very distracting for starters, and if you think about it, it's completely unnecessary - as a prequel, they should be keeping mobs of either side of the war to a minimum, because again this is all leading up to a film that is pretty calm when it starts. If this was the prequel to something that kicked off like Dawn of the Dead (i.e. panic, people abandoning their normal lives in droves, etc.) then fine, but when you see the events of the back half of the movie it makes Busan's characters all look like clueless morons.

Otherwise, I found this more compelling and less "stock" (hat tip to Lars Ulrich) than Busan. Smartly, it focuses on a few people as opposed to just a standard absentee dad (I still shake my head that they doubled down on "movie dad" cliches with that guy, missing a recital AND buying a lame gift), and I was a bit stunned to see it focus on grimmer issues than I would expect from an animated movie. Perhaps this is the norm, as I don't watch a lot of animated films for adults, but over 90 minutes the movie tackled prostitution, homelessness, rape, and class struggles - hardly what I was expecting, especially since the live-action counterpart kept things pretty light. Like, if I told you that there's a live action movie and an animated one about the same event, and had you guess which one had a pimp beating one of his girls up and then trying to rape her, would you guess the latter? Because you'd be right.

The opening scenes feature a homeless man struggling to find medical help for his brother, who seems to be patient zero for the whole thing, but it's not long into the movie that it basically cuts back and forth between Hye-sun, a runaway who has been trying to escape her life of prostitution, and Ki-woong, her boyfriend who is fine with her continuing that lifestyle if it means they can pay rent. After a fight they get separated just as things start becoming crazy, and the film is more or less their attempts to reunite as the world around them starts falling apart. Ki-woong is joined by her father, who I kept expecting to feed him to the zombies since he can't stand him, but the two eventually work together and the guy even saves the young man's life at one point. Hye-sun, on the other hand, is joined by another homeless man who helps her get across the city via the subway tunnels and other means.

Naturally, zombies attack on the regular, and it never stops being suspenseful thanks to the back and forth structure. The homeless man could go any minute, leaving Hye-sun alone, and then in the other scenes since both men are trying to find her, there would still be momentum if one of them happened to perish. Plus, being a zombie movie, you're of course just waiting for some human to turn out to be evil, which also adds to the tension (and when it happens, it's actually a solid surprise). And through it all, there's the heartbreaking element that these characters are all disposable in the "normal" world. Hye-sun says she just wants to get home, and her partner weeps that he just wants to have a home at all - it's a pretty sobering moment, especially now as millions of my fellow Americans are going to end up like him if Covid can't get under control. None of these people are bad, they're just the unfortunate reality of a world where the rich jerks in charge simply do not care about anyone but themselves, and that's something we can certainly identify with now. Indeed, in the wake of hearing how much our "billionaire" President pays in taxes, how much of your $1,200 stimulus do you have left in your account? And don't forget we have to pay taxes on it next year!

I haven't seen Peninsula yet, though from what I hear it was a letdown (then again that's from the people who loved Busan so maybe I'll be the opposite on that too). But if you ask me, it's best to just ignore the connection to the films when watching this one. Again, there are no shared characters, and the spectacle of the third act doesn't quite jive with Busan's opening scenes (it reminded me in a way of trying to watch Fulci's Zombie as a sequel to Dawn of the Dead). Just take it as a standalone film that wanted to shine a light on the poor and underrepresented people who will be the first to get killed and forgotten in a plague like this, and - janky animation aside - you'll hopefully agree that it's one of the better zombie films of the past decade.

What say you?

*Funnily enough, I just finally started playing Dead Rising 2 and was again kind of blown away, as I was in the original, at the variety of zombies you can see at once in any given crowd scene. The first game is what made me want to buy a 360 after playing a bit of it at E3 in 2006 - my mind kind of reels at what they can accomplish with the upcoming Series X if the series is revived.

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#Alive (2020)

SEPTEMBER 9, 2020

GENRE: ASIAN, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX)

Hopefully someday all social media will be wiped off the planet, because there is simply no argument against the fact that the world was better before the likes of Twitter and Facebook came along. Yes, they have their merits, and I am a frequent user of both, but mostly out of a necessity - everyone is simply expected to be on them now, and staying away from them means being left out of birthday parties, not knowing what's going on with close friends or family since no one picks up a phone anymore, etc. And should that day come, we can look at film titles like #Alive (translated from #Saraitda, if IMDb is correct) as a relic of the past: "Back in the 2010s we used the pound symbol to denote a trend or make a Twitter joke! And Twitter was something we could use to make fun of the President!"

Until then, at least the annoying "timely" title makes sense in the context of the film, which is largely pro-social media for the record (the final shot makes it clear, it's almost uplifting until you remember those same accounts have probably been on one end or both of some kind of reprehensible message). Our hero, Oh Joon-woo, is a Youtube streamer/gamer who pretty much lives his existence online, and uses other hashtags throughout the film, which takes place mostly in his apartment as a zombie virus rages outside. For a while it's a sort of one-man show, as the zombie breakout occurs within seconds of the film's opening and he is home alone in a highrise apartment, so he barricades the door and uses his various tech to communicate with unseen others or post updates to his channel. He doesn't have much food or supplies, and one by one services are cut out, leaving him more isolated and desperate. It's only when he decides to off himself that another survivor makes her presence known - a girl who lives across the street in another apartment, who uses a laser pointer to get his attention and convince him not to give up yet.

And so for a while it's a two person piece, as he uses a drone to attach a rope stretching across their balconies so that she can send food over (she's more fully stocked) and he can send a walkie talkie over for them to talk and warn each other of dangers, since he can see zombies above or below her and vice versa. It's not particularly exciting or unique, but the two leads are charming enough to make up for it, and thanks to zombie movie law, you know that if there's only two people in the movie, one of them is either going to get bit, or sacrifice themselves to save the other, so there's some tension in knowing that an inevitable tragedy is coming just as they're getting to know each other and find a reason to live.

But then, alas, the movie dips into the worst zombie trope: EVIL HUMANS. They decide that their apartments are no longer sustainable and try to get to a safer one together, only to get overrun and then rescued by a third survivor, who takes all of 11 seconds to poison them and try to feed them to his now zombie wife. As these sort of things go it's not the worst example, to be fair, but it doesn't matter - the thing that was making the movie stand out a bit in its overcrowded genre was now lost. Chevy Chase could have shown up to save them while dressed as Snake Plissken and playing the Shocker soundtrack from a boombox and it wouldn't have been able to get me back in its corner after that.

Worse, they actually have some fun ideas for the zombies, making them an above average threat for this sort of thing. Taking a cue from Romero, they retain some of their memories, which comes to a head when a climber type manages to scale the outside of the building up to the girl's balcony. This could have been utilized throughout to present new dangers for them to overcome - the building's super could have the keys, a zombie could (clumsily) drive, whatever the case may be - instead they once again decide that in a world of undead monsters, the REAL THREAT IS YOUR FELLOW MAN. You know, like in 75% of every zombie movie ever made. Is it realistic? Well, yeah - we're seeing it now with the pandemic. But realism isn't a requirement, especially with something as fantastical as zombies, so why so many zombie filmmakers feel the need to resort to this tired trope so often is beyond me. No other sub-genre is constantly undermining its own marquee threat, it'd be like if Quint suddenly put on a mask and tried to murder Brody and Hooper on the Orca, or Jason Voorhees having to compete with that oil slick from Creepshow 2.

At least it's serviceable enough until that point, though I have to insist if you're watching on Netflix that you switch the default English dub over to its original Korean and turn on the subtitles, as the dubbing is not great. The subtitles aren't lazy either; they are pretty good with translating the various notes and on-screen messages so that we can follow along (the title itself is one such example, when he puts it in his video). Ironically though, the best scene in the movie doesn't really require sound at all - it's a scene where his family all walks in, happy to see that he's OK, his mom gently scolding him for not keeping more food in the house as he gives her a giant hug. Then they fade away and we realize it's just a daydream/hallucination of sorts, prompting him to break down and cry as he/we realize that they are in fact, probably all dead. Since he's relatively safe inside his apartment, there isn't as much traditional action in the film, which allows for these kind of moments that are rarer in other zombie films where constant threat/run and gunning is the order of the day.

Years ago there was a similar German movie named Rammbock that, for my money, was better than this one. It was not only a half hour shorter, but it added some levity and even a dash of absurdity to the situation to make up for the rather generic zombie mayhem that we've all seen a million times. If you're starved for new zombie fare, this should more or less do the trick, but given how we're all trapped in our homes and increasingly isolated these days, I'd say track down the funnier version of the same scenario (linked below since this one isn't physically available in the US). Might help your mental health. And if not, well, again, it's 30 minutes shorter. You can get back to Twitter quicker and find out what fresh hells have been unleashed since the movie began.

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FTP: Undertaker (2012)

DECEMBER 5, 2019

GENRE: ASIAN, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

I have no idea where Undertaker came from - I assume I won it at trivia since it's from a company I don't often receive review copies from, but it's a perfect movie to restart the "From the Pile" reviews. And that's because if someone were to ask what an ideal "pile" movie was, it'd be this: a reasonably entertaining but forgettable movie that I won't ever need to watch again, and certainly won't need to make room on my permanent shelf for. It'll go to a good home, I won't have to reorganize my collection to make room for it (though as a "U" film it wouldn't take long; it's those "A" and "B" films that REALLY need to win me over to be kept), and I get a little bit of quick HMAD content for you all. Everyone wins!

The concept is pretty interesting, one I'm not sure I've seen before in the other 8,000 zombie movies I have seen. Our hero isn't a mortician per se - he's a zombie hunter who is hired by families to locate their loved ones (who have since become zombies) and put them to rest, so that they don't have to live wondering if their beloved son or daughter is out there being a monster. Having been watching Mandalorian on Disney+, it's an interesting parallel to that guy's MO for bounty hunting - there's something kind of compelling about him tracking a specific zombie in a world overrun with the damn things. I could easily see this being an ongoing series, or perhaps a comic.

A comic would also carry the benefit of not being restricted by the budget, something that was clearly an issue here. It's all well done for what it offers, but it just doesn't really offer that much. After a really good opening sequence and setup, the movie suddenly feels like a real time account of one particular mission - with almost no dialogue (let alone other characters) to boot. The movie is only 65 minutes long with credits (and the pre-title sequence is 16 of those minutes), and nearly half of it is basically one long sequence of Ryouichi wiping out an area's supply of zombies (not a lot of them, mind you - a half dozen or so) until he finds the one he's looking for. It starts to feel like there were loftier ambitions at one point and they had to just draw out what might have been the first act of a more engaging story. Maybe that isn't even remotely the case, but that's how it came across.

But again, for what it is, it's well done. Ryouichi doesn't use a gun to kill zombies, preferring a sharpened shovel that he wields like a blade, and he puts on a show for the audience more often than not - when you don't have thousands of zombies, you gotta make the kills count! There's some decent splatter to go along with the kills, and the zombie makeup is solid to boot. But there's also an animated butterfly that looks pretty goofy, however, so I feel I should warn you about that. Synapse's disc comes with a making of piece that runs almost as long as the film, some deleted scenes, and the original short film "On Your Back" that director Naoyoshi Kawamatsu made earlier and, amusingly, actually has a more complicated story despite running less than a third of the time of the feature.

Basically if you like Japanese zombie movies, there's enough here to recommend, but the brevity of the film and its threadbare narrative might be hard to get past, especially on a purchase, and this doesn't seem like something you'll find at Redbox. Hopefully director Kawamatsu can expand on his ideas someday if he hasn't moved on - the concept deserves something with a little more meat on its bones.

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Train To Busan (2016)

JULY 28, 2016

GENRE: ASIAN, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

I'm sure there ARE some, but as far as HMAD (and thus, my memory) is concerned, I've never seen a traditional, non-comedic zombie film out of Asia until now. Train To Busan takes the usual "band of strangers" zombie movie concept and applies it to a fast-moving train, and takes the concept quite seriously - there are a few character-based lines that are funny, but otherwise it's more dramatic than "fun". It didn't even really dawn on me until the zombies really started appearing en masse that I had never seen a Korean (or Chinese, or Japanese, etc) film like it before, when I tried thinking of how others had depicted their own undead and then realized that I had nothing to really compare it to. Again, I'm sure there are some others I just missed, but overall the film I kept recalling was World War Z.

And that turned out to be apt, because I also realized (a bit later) that the film was clearly PG-13, or at least the South Korean equivalent of it (turns out it was K-15, which would be like the PG-15 rating we've often pushed for but will seemingly never get). There's a lot of action in the film, and our cast is reduced to a very small number by the end, but it's mostly splatter-free (95% of the film's blood is either smeared on a wall or on a surface wound) and the deaths are usually played in the "they are swarmed and pulled down out of frame" way, if not off-screen entirely. As for the zombies, none of them get those sort of classic deaths you cheer for - no one has any really destructive weapons (why would they? Most of them were just on their way to work or whatever) so a few baseball bats courtesy of a traveling high school team are all they really have at their disposal - Dead Rising it is not. Even the film's biggest jerk character, when zombified, gets a pretty mild death as opposed to the crowd-pleasing (read: gory and violent) version you would expect from a big zombie film.

But that's (mostly) fine, it's not a knock on it really. It's not like we're starved for that sort of thing - it's more just a heads up for those who might think they're in for a bloodbath. Instead it's more of a survival adventure in a way - our hero Sok-woo is a generic absentee dad (he missed a recital AND got her a dud gift for her birthday - way to double down on the cliches, movie) who is taking his young daughter to see his ex-wife in Busan. Naturally, the film will show him learn to be a real dad, care about what really matters, and all that stuff. It's not exactly the most original character, but it works well enough when placed in context with another passenger, a man whose wife is pregnant and is trying to be the best dad ever already. They meet when Sok-woo is scrambling through train cars with his daughter and shuts the door behind him, momentarily trapping the couple with zombies in the other car. After some hesitation he lets them in, but the damage is done - the other guy is pissed at him and proceeds to call him "A**hole" or "Douche" throughout the rest of the film.

However, the tone of how he says these things changes - he never calls him by his real name I think, but the insult almost becomes a term of endearment as the film proceeds, as the two save each other more than once and fight alongside each other until the end (the end of one of their lives, I mean - not the end of the movie. More on that soon.), giving the film much of its overall appeal. The other guy (named Sang Hwa) is also the film's resident badass, fighting off most of the zombies himself and getting the best action moment when he swiftly grabs a riot shield while running for the train and uses it to bash some ghouls aside. It's possibly the one real drawback of the limited rating - you know he woulda torn one apart with his bare hands if the censors would allow it. Sok-woo is our main character, but Sang Hwa is the guy you'd want the action figure of, and I'm sure I wasn't the only one hoping for his survival more than they were for Sok-Woo's. The actor was in Nameless Gangster, which I saw at the same cinema (the CGV in LA, which plays Korean films as well as some American ones with Korean subs), and I hope I see him in future ventures - he's got great presence.

As for the other characters, it's a pretty stock set - the young lovers, an elderly pair (sisters, in this case), and, of course, an insufferable prick in a suit who causes several deaths while selfishly protecting himself. Luckily, we don't spend too much time getting to know these people before the outbreak - they each get a quick beat to distinguish them from the extras, but they're all on even ground when the zombies start attacking, making it hard to tell who will die first/become a second main character/etc. The character development comes mostly out of how they act accordingly once their lives are on the line, and the situation is too frantic for them to stop and chat all that often. However, I wish the screenplay had taken the time they spend on Sok-woo's job problems and either cut it out entirely or given it to some of the others, because this stuff is very unnecessary. I don't know if it's a bad translation issue or if these scenes were left over from an earlier draft (or even longer cut of the film), but Sok-woo repeatedly calls into work and gets updates about what cities are safe or quarantined, and also their company's possible connection to what is going on. He's an investment banker, so unless they bought stock in Zombie-Co or something, I can't quite piece together how he is in any way responsible for it. And even if he was, it doesn't really matter to the narrative - there's no attempt at a "cure" or even a bit where people wonder where they came from (they DO refer to them as zombies, however), so it's just needless, go-nowhere exposition that the 118 minute film didn't need.

And that's the other thing - the movie's a bit too long. I was sure that they would eventually stop and get off the train for a bit, because nearly all of these vehicular movies do that (Con Air, Under Siege 2... hell even Speed keeps cutting back to Jeff Daniels at the police station), and also they had the zombie problem contained into a few cars so obviously something had to happen for them to bust out again. But there are actually THREE scenes of the train stopping and our characters getting off slowly, looking around to check for imminent danger and seeking a new shelter (or train, in one case). The appeal is being trapped on a moving vehicle, so stopping three times to get off (one's at the end, to be fair, but it's a lengthy sequence until credits roll) weakens the high-octane feel they're going for. Plus, the first time they get off is the best - they're told to stop where the military will be waiting to bring them to safety (actually quarantine), and make their way from the track through the station down to the place where the military is waiting, only to discover they've all been infected - resulting in a mad rush back to the train. Here's where we get chaos, hero moments, even a few scares - leaving very little for the 2nd stop to introduce beyond a bit of destruction. Reworking this stuff and giving the film one big detour in the middle before getting back on the train and staying there until it was time for the film to wrap up would have improved it overall, I think. It even robs the film of a chunk of its emotional impact, because a major character dies in a sacrificial moment, something that should be paving the way for the big finale, but it's like, barely over halfway through the movie as it turns out, and later someone else dies in almost the exact same way/context, so we should be sad but I'm sitting there thinking "I've already seen this." The very end had me getting choked up because of my now-standard dad traumas (it also swiped a beat from Armageddon for good measure), but had it come closer to the film's other big moving moment, the movie would be a knockout instead of merely "solid".

They got the zombies dead right though. I mentioned World War Z earlier, and they're used in similar ways during the more hectic action scenes - during one of the rushes back to the train two swarms of them collide like waves, causing a pileup with some at the top just kind of tumbling their way back on their feet to pursue their food. There's a terrific bit late in the film where they form almost a sort of net for the others to clamber across - it's such a cool visual, and justifies the stops (for a movie about zombies on a train, its three best zombie moments occur outside), at least in the moment. I also liked how the zombies 'work' here - they're blind, and almost shut down when its dark (train tunnels providing such moments), plus they move in a very spastic manner that gives them a creepier vibe than the average rotting corpse. None of them stand out (except the humans we got to know before they turned zombie, obviously), which is the right way to go about it - they don't distract away from the heroes. If this movie had a line of toys, it'd be of the humans, not "Punk Zombie" or "Nurse Zombie" or whatever the hell.

The film is doing quite well in its US run (it's the first of the CGV movies I've noticed on the box office chart), already nearing the top of Well Go USA's all-time chart for domestic releases, and apparently broke some record or other in Korea, so clearly its finding its audience all over, which is great. I've mentioned before that I'm baffled about how few major zombie movies there are in this day and age - and what few there are tend to be comedic (like last fall's underrated Scouts Guide) or gimmicky (PPZ, though to be fair it wasn't as goofy as I expected). R rating or no, this was a legit zombie horror film with an emphasis on characters and even a sense of adventure - even if it didn't hit every mark well, I'd love to see more like that.

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Zombie Fight Club (2014)

FEBRUARY 9, 2016

GENRE: ASIAN, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

All those Jason Takes Manhattan haters who whine about how limited his time is in the Big Apple better steer clear of Zombie Fight Club, which not only confines its titular club to the film's final half hour, but doesn't even establish such a thing until that point. The segment actually feels like a rushed sequel to the first hour of the film rather than its organic 3rd act (unlike JTM, which at least sets up the Manhattan carnage during the opening credits and puts Jason on a boat heading there); in fact it even has on-screen text at the hour mark explaining where the world stands now, as a film might at its very beginning - I honestly can't recall ever seeing such a thing at what's technically the end of act two.

Even funnier, the first hour rips off a different movie: The Raid. Our hero (Andy On) is one of a group of cops who enter an apartment complex intending to steal a cash stash from some drug dealers, only to get trapped there when all zombie hell breaks loose. There are other characters (the drug dealers, some partying idiots, an old man/asskicker stolen directly from The Horde, etc.), but he's clearly the main focus in this loose ensemble, and the action scenes revolving around him definitely recall Gareth Evans' exhilarating action opus. Eventually he meets up with some of the other characters (he's the only honest cop out of the lot, so his crooked partners get their just desserts in due time) and escapes, and it feels like the movie is over - at which point its built-in sequel starts up. It's the most jarring switch this side of Riding with Death (look it up), and the segment is almost over by the time you finally readjust to its new, flimsily established scenario.

It's also not as good as the first hour. It's no masterpiece; in fact it skirts close to being just plain bad, but there's a crazy energy to the proceedings that I couldn't help but admire. The zombies follow no discernible rules - one even turns into a full blown monster, with a chest cavity forming a giant mouth that eats another character (it's the chest/belly version of From Dusk Till Dawn's infamous/unrated-only vagina kill), and whether they retain motor skills depends on the director's whims at the moment, I guess. The human characters aren't much different; I'm not sure how the nebbish father who sees his daughter killed by one of the crooked cops ends up turning into a Governor-esque big shot during the "Fight Club" segment, but by that point I had stopped questioning the movie's tenuous grasp on what you or I might refer to as coherence.

Again, it's the energy that really kept me entertained. Most of the blood is digital, but considering the amount of it that is sprayed I'm not sure even a Hollywood studio production could afford all the Karo syrup that would be required to do it practically. On is a formidable fighter, so while he uses guns and other weapons on occasion, most of the time he just darts around and flat out punches zombies hard enough in the head to send the red stuff flying, which never got old to me. It's almost like watching a classic Jackie Chan "scramble and fight" sequence at times, as he never stops moving and improvising, but makes sure to off some poor walker every few seconds as well. Who cares about the bad digital blood when you have such a great special effect in the form of a human being? He doesn't get as much to do in the Fight Club sequence, oddly enough - there's a Gladiator-esque tournament (every scene in this movie is lifted from another one, pretty much) and a terrific fight against another human in/around a bus (with zombies surrounding them), but otherwise he really gets his best moments in the apartment building.

Those who hope to see a female equivalent better run as far as they can in the opposite direction; one survives but goes through hell to get there (including a very sad moment where she's so hungry that she barely seems to notice that she's being raped when she spies some bread on the table she's been bent over), and she's hardly the only one to get victimized over the course of the film. It's more than a bit misogynist (not that men get off any better), and mostly unnecessary. There's a quick bit where it seems like director Joe Chien might even the odds and have On sexually assaulted by a dominatrix prison guard (one who has already forced herself on a female prisoner), but a. he starts practically asking her to take him and b. when she doesn't, she sends in a rather rotund woman to presumably pick up where she left off, much to his dismay. It's too stupid to be offensive to me, but every day I see people getting outraged about everything and anything (the one to beat this week: people calling for Rob Lowe's head because he tweeted about a millionaire football player acting like a jerk), so your mileage may vary.

The disc only has one real bonus feature besides the trailer: a behind the scenes piece that spends a full third of its time simply recapping the cast (most of whom aren't even involved in the footage that follows it). It's fun to see a few brief glimpses at the (equally few) practical action beats, like a car driving off a 2nd story parking garage and crashing below, but it's so short (under three minutes) that it's barely worth the time it takes to access the "bonus" menu and select it. I'd much rather see a full on look at On running through one of his big stunt scenes, or even a showcase for how the massive amounts of digital effects were put together. I'd particularly love to see whoever had to add glowing orange embers to seemingly every other shot in the film, which along with its blue/orange tint for the exterior scenes, makes the movie resemble an adaptation of a modern movie poster.

I don't know if I've ever explained "OWN COLLECTION" on the source when it comes to movies I don't particularly like. I don't blind buy these things; I often get sent full retail discs (not screener copies in generic plastic holders) from the various distributors that have found my address over the years, and I do my best to watch all of the horror ones I get (they're not all horror - I inexplicably get a number of family movies that seemed directed to black audiences, and it delights me every time before I put them in a pile for trade-ins). But nowadays, if I didn't specifically ask for them I treat them as "if I have time" affairs, keeping them for a week or two past their release date and if I still haven't gotten to them, putting them in the garage with all of the other movies I would like to see but probably never will (damn my Powerball loss!). However, with my resumed commitment to updating HMAD regularly (1-2x a week, minimum), you guys will get to see more of these little random ones, as I'll be forcing myself to make time for the movies that will otherwise end up in my garage next to my son's old carseat and a bunch of my wife's work junk.

Rest assured, it won't be *staying* in my collection now that I've seen it, because I'm pretty selective with what I keep these days (mostly due to shelf space), but I'm mostly glad I gave it a shot. Even with its appallingly haphazard storytelling, it's worth watching to enjoy On's considerable prowess with the punching/kicking that you really don't get to see often enough in zombie fare, and as a Horde fan I was surprised/charmed to see it get ripped off so blindly. If this was just a straight (meaning: serious) zombie ripoff of The Raid, instead of a exploitative cartoon, it'd probably be everyone's favorite movie of the year. Alas, it's definitely not going to be for everyone, though at least it hits the ground running - you'll know whether or not you're in that group pretty quickly. If you hate the first five minutes, it won't improve in your eyes - abandon ship and leave it for those who can stomach its foibles on the strength of its sheer ridiculousness.

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Over Your Dead Body (2014)

JANUARY 6, 2016

GENRE: SUPERNATURAL, WEIRD
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

If there's one gaping hole in my modern horror knowledge, it's the work of Takashi Miike. I have only seen a pitiful two of his horror films*, and one of them is One Missed Call, which is probably the equivalent of using Always as half of your experience with the films of Steven Spielberg. The other is Audition, and from what I understand, this new film, Over Your Dead Body (Japanese: Kuime, and not to be confused with Over Her Dead Body, the movie that took three of the most charming people in the world and make us hate them), is more in line with that 1999 classic than the majority of his other work - however when I say "classic" I'm not speaking for myself, as I didn't really like it all that much, which (along with One Missed Call) is a big reason of why I haven't bothered seeing anything else, despite people saying "See Ichi the Killer!" or whatever every time I mention my lack of enthusiasm for the filmmaker.

Incidentally, what other of his work I HAVE seen is smaller form - his Three Extremes segment and his Masters of Horror episode, both of which I've enjoyed more than his films. And that impression kept coming back during Body, because it was very drawn out, though I am pretty sure that's part of the point. The film concerns a production of Kaidan (a Kabuki traditional play) and how its narrative begins to blend with the real lives of its actors, and I suspect Miike wanted to mirror that feeling for the audience. Like the actors who forget that what they're saying is fiction, I found myself getting so drawn into Kaidan's narrative during the long rehearsal scenes that I'd forget that it was technically just the flavor to the "real" tale being told (it'd be like if you were more into Fargo's Bruce Campbell-starring soap opera than Fargo).

And that's actually kind of helpful, because I do not know the Kaidan story very well. I saw Nakata's 2007 film version of it, but couldn't make much sense of it and also it was almost seven years ago, so that was no help. Miike gives you enough of the story to get the gist of it, but it didn't help much in the 3rd act, when pretty much all lines separating the play from reality are dropped - I had very little idea what was going on. Plus sometimes the actors are in their costumes but not in character, and it was hard to tell which - and again, that may be the point, but in this case I think you'd need to know Kaidan inside and out to suss out those subtleties properly. Or at least read a thorough synopsis beforehand, which I did not do because I didn't know any better. Let this be my gift to you!

All that said, I still enjoyed the movie, more or less. For starters it's GORGEOUS; the play's rotating stage is a marvel of production design and Miike shoots the hell out of it, but gives the outside/at home scenes plenty of visual appeal as well (that fish tank!). A lot of the Japanese films I see (or, SAW - I haven't seen too many since quitting the daily aspect of the site) are shot with cheap video cameras, but this looks wonderful and I'm glad I saw it on Blu-ray to do its visuals justice. The occasional FX were pretty good as well, and I loved how Miike teased us with repeated shots/closeups of a giant metal plate that you knew would decapitate someone eventually (it's part of a construction site that the protagonists have to pass by on the way to work every day), with a payoff that is definitely worth the wait.

I mentioned Audition earlier, and for good reason - fans of that film's tendency to offer out of nowhere WTF moments will be satisfied here, though one of the best such moments is spoiled by the trailer (don't watch it beforehand! It's kind of a lame trailer anyway but showing off its best scare moment sans context really stings). It's also got one of the all-time great "I know she's doing something I won't like but I don't know what it is yet" sequences, where we see a character throw a lot of metal objects into a big pot, which made me think she was setting up a microwave explosion. Then she filled the pot with water and boiled all of the instruments, and I thought she was planning to torture her jerk boyfriend and wanted options, but... well, it's not long after that where her intentions become clear, and I assure you it's far more horrifying than the rather benign stuff I had considered. I always like these sequences, where the pieces of some terrible plan are slowly falling into place and you can usually be assured that you're not fucked in the head enough to get too far ahead of the filmmaker (I mean, if you knew what she was up to the second she started banging her kitchen utensils around - why aren't YOU making movies for me to watch and review?).

But also like Audition, I think it's best to go in not knowing it's a horror movie. He doesn't wait as long to tip that hand (at least, as far as my memory of Audition can attest) but it's again treated as an out of nowhere development - nothing before that moment screams or even really hints "genre film!" (the first closeup of that metal sheet occurs early on, but I've seen dramas where road hazards are telegraphed in a similar manner). It would make those shocking developments play better, I think, if you (like its characters) just think you're in a story about lonely/broken people trying to have fulfilling relationships while putting on a production of an equally tragic play. As to why I opted to make it my first entry in the "revived" Horror Movie A Day, I have no idea (well, I do - it was on top of the pile of unwatched movies I have that I'm supposed to review).

Overall, I liked it more than Audition, which I know isn't saying much (that said, I should give that one another chance - my review seems harsher than I feel about the movie in my memory), but it falls into that same category of movies that are a bit too slow for my liking when you consider the payoff. When a slow pace culminates in a terrific finale to make it worth the wait, I'm a happy viewer - but this doesn't QUITE hit that mark for me. It comes close, enough to justify my viewing (and again, it's a terrific looking film), but not enough to keep the disc or speed up my laughably slow attempts to see more of Miike's work.

What say you?

*I've also seen Gozu, and I stand by my claim that it isn't a horror movie.

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The Hotel!! (2002)

MARCH 28, 2013

GENRE: ASIAN, GHOST
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX INSTANT)

Every Thursday, landscapers come and drown out everything for about three hours, and if I have the morning off that's when I'd be watching my daily horror movie. So I try to stick to foreign films when that happens, because I'll be reading anyway and thus don't mind if I can't actually hear a few lines, rather than keep turning up the volume and hoping that I don't blow out my speakers. And I have had my eye on The Hotel!! for a while now, as it was from Thailand but sounded more like a slasher movie, which could be interesting (plus it was 108 minutes, making it a tough sell), so I made today "the day" as, well, I won't have to worry about the landscapers for an obligatory horror movie on Thursdays anymore.

Sadly, the slasher element only lasts for the first couple of kills; the film switches gears and focuses more on typical ghostly revenge plotting, with the kills taking on a more ridiculous, Final Destination type of approach - one guy is pinned down by shards of glass before a final one lops off his head, a far cry from the simple stabbing that had occurred 20 minutes or so before. The ghost story isn't bad, but as a slasher fan, AND as someone who has seen enough pissed off Asian ghosts to last a lifetime, I wish it didn't take such a familiar route to tell its story of a bunch of siblings who inherit a hotel and then try to figure out what's going on when guests and renovators start dropping like flies shortly thereafter. Maybe it's because the You're Next trailer just hit today (at long last!) but I was kind of into the idea of someone targeting a family for some reason to be revealed, with lots of slashing, but no - we actually find out who the bad guy is at like the halfway point.

And that's problematic, because even if you're way more excited about ghosts than slashers, the movie really starts to drag in the 2nd half, with an endless flashback scene explaining why he's so pissed off and an overlong, action-lite finale where the ghost makes his case to the woman he still loves. There's also a silly bit where the survivors are flushed out to the ocean as the hotel crumbles, which is really pushing things. I don't know what I like less - 70 minute movies that are stretched to 80 with credits and other filler, or 90 minute movies that are stretched to 108 by dragging their damn heels and not knowing when to quit.

There's also some jarring tonal shifts, particularly surrounding a cop who is investigating one of the earliest murders and sticks around for a while. He acts all goofy at times, but other times he feels like he can almost be the movie's hero (shades of The Guard Post), so I never knew what to make of him. There's one brother (or cousin? I couldn't quite get a grasp on the family tree) who is introduced as the idiot they all love to tease, but then he never displays much of that behavior again. At times it felt like a Dark Shadows movie, where there were all these characters fighting for screentime because they were important and the fans would be mad if they weren't there, except as far as I know The Hotel!! is a standalone movie.

Oh, the exclamation points. Only one appears on the poster, but IMDb and the on-screen subtitle give us two, and I'll be damned if I can explain either of them. I can assume the second one on the movie was just a subtitling error, because there are plenty of those - verb tenses and the like are atrocious, and sometimes words are just skipped entirely; I think he means "hotels" when a character says "because Lots of large have been build there", though why he felt the need to capitalize "Lots" is still a mystery. Bad subtitles always confuse me - someone's being paid for this, right? Can't they find someone who can understand both languages to do it, instead of handing a guy the script and hoping his word for word translation gets the gist of it? It's fine for a Hong Kong movie consisting primarily of guys punching and kicking each other, but when it's a plot/character driven film like this, it'd be nice if they could put a little more effort into it.

For all its problems though, I will defend it for one bit at around the halfway point, when a cat suddenly lands on the table between a few characters in the middle of a discussion. It's identical to 2895 other cat scares you've seen, but one guy demands an explanation - he first points out that no one owns a cat, and when that is explained by the cop (he suggests one of the renovators brought it with him), another guy backs him up, pointing out that there's no tree near the window for the cat to have jumped from. In all these years, I think the only other cat gag that had this much thought put into it was the intentional spoof of such things on Community, which doesn't count. But sadly it's also what kicks the ghost story into full gear, so it's also the beginning of the end of my enjoyment of the movie. Oh well. I've seen worse, but I'm not surprised it's so obscure (zero user reviews/board posts, and only a single external review - in German! - on the IMDb), either.

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Strange Circus (2005)

MARCH 4, 2013

GENRE: ASIAN, PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX INSTANT)

For the past couple years, I've watched movies that are both foreign and "unusual" (read: kind of fucked up) on my birthday, and I wanted to go all out this time because it'd be the last time I spend part of *my* day worrying about seeing a movie in time. Well, it's not as horror-driven as the others, but I doubt I could ever get more upsetting a movie than Strange Circus (Japanese: Kimyô na sâkasu), which involved a young girl who is being raped by her father before she starts enjoying it and wanting to take her mother's place permanently, with tragic results. And that's just the first half hour or so - it goes even further into WTF territory by the time it's done.

As you might expect, there are a lot of head scratching plot developments, and I'm not even sure I fully understood it all by the end. To keep things from getting TOO disturbing (relatively speaking), we thankfully never see the young actress during the sex scenes - it's always played by the woman playing the mother, as we're seeing it through her head where she has taken the mother's place. But as the plot goes on, we learn just how much of an "unreliable narrator" she is, on top of the fact that there's the possibility that all of it is made up by an author looking to score a best-seller. Oh, and the entire thing is wrapped up in bookends where the story is being told at some goofy circus/stage show, so when you add in the flashback driven narrative of the third act and all the plot twists, it starts to make Tale of Two Sisters look kids' show simple in comparison.

But man, what a flick. Even if I was risking an aneurysm trying to keep it all straight, I was enjoying director Shion Sono's vivid photography and the impressive set design, particularly the classroom that looked made out of blood covered sheets. Folks have been telling me to watch Sono's movies for a while now (Cold Fish seems to be the go-to request), and I have to say if they're all as nutty but enjoyable to look at as this, I won't be putting it off much longer. The story's pace got a bit sluggish at times (particularly when the movie first switches focus to the author and her assistant), but it never stopped being visually interesting, making it a lot easier to forgive. And considering how many twists and turns it takes (through multiple layers - it's a story about a story about a story, after all), that it clocks in at around 1:45 is actually kind of impressive (Cold Fish is 2.5 hrs long, which is the REAL reason I've been putting it off).

So how is it a horror movie? Well, like Audition, I think going in expecting one is detrimental, though in a different way. While Audition is very much a horror movie, it's best not to know that going in, and letting that element shock you like the characters in the movie. Here, it's a "how far will this go" tale of madness and psychological obsession, culminating in a gruesome, highly disturbing visual that firmly puts the movie in genre territory but hampers folks like me (even with my casual approach to spoilers) from discussing it much, and if someone asked I'd just tell them the movie was a psychological thriller. It's right gory though, I'll say that much.

I got to thinking after - it must be nice to make a movie like this without being vilified and hoarded by negative press right off the bat. A few years ago, Dakota Fanning made a movie called Hounddog where she was raped, and long before anyone had the chance to see it, folks crusaded against it, resulting in a VERY limited release (11 theaters, most of them dropping it after a week) and zero fanfare since. I can't imagine what this movie, which also has these elements but adds incest, would go through over here - it'd probably be edited down to nothing and STILL buried. But Sono seems to have been able to make the film as he liked and free of the sort of picketing and overblown outrage that would accompany something even half as taboo as this had it been made in the States. Not that folks don't have a right to piss and moan, but since the film is ultimately a tragedy and an account of how this sort of despicable act can affect more than just the victim, all of it is justified - none of it is meant to titillate or glorify the act, which is a lot more than I can say for a few "rape-revenge" type films (not to mention borderline comedic adult films like Taboo 2). I'd say those would be far more damaging and upsetting to a victim of rape or incest than this is, and if you get past the puzzle nature of the plot and usual Japanese "WTFery", there's a real, sad story at its heart. Highly recommended for those who can stomach its nature without getting on a soapbox.

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