FTP: Honeydew (2020)

MARCH 7, 2022

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

A while back, I was reading an article about Honeydew in Fangoria and came across a passage that left me confused and then delighted. The film's director was talking about his cast, and when it came to one performer in particular he opted not to reveal their name, saying that their persona would cloud people's perception of the film. "That's weird," I thought, "Unless it was like, Lena Dunham, who cares?" So I had to laugh heartily and give myself a little pat on the back when I looked it up and found that it was indeed Ms. Dunham that played a bit role in the film. She's credited, so it's not a spoiler or anything, but he's kind of right - I tend to steer clear of anything with her name.

But I was still curious since the film was about a couple whose car breaks down in New England somewhere (it's never specified which state; someone said "The woods between Pennsylvania and Maine", and I like that!) and, naturally, run afoul of evildoers - i.e. the sort of thing I tend to like just fine. Since Dunham wasn't the female part of the couple I figured whatever role she played wouldn't be enough to derail my enjoyment (or blame her specifically if I didn't like it), so its time in the pile wasn't as long as some others (there are movies that have been in there since said "pile" began its official life as an actual pile before it became a box, and then a bigger box - I really need to get through these faster*).

Anyway, the movie (and Dunham, to be fair!) are fine. If it was 85 minutes I'd probably be considering it a minor gem of the sub-genre, but unfortunately it's more than 20 minutes longer than that, and that's the problem. Long movies are fine if they need to be (I've said before: Titanic could have been longer! They fall in love in between scenes it seems) but this is, you know, a movie about a couple whose car breaks down and they run across some weirdos. Even if you've never seen a horror movie before I think your gut would tell you that the heroes are in deep trouble from the second they knock on the door of the isolated farm, but writer/director Deveraux Milburn stretches the premise into breaking point territory. He doesn't cripple the movie, but he sure gives it a noticeable limp.

Even the nature of what the creepy old lady is up to isn't a surprise. I left it out of the genre tags for those (imaginary?) people who have indeed never seen a horror movie before and are making this their first, but when (hints at the spoiler ahead, skip this paragraph if you don't want a big clue!) the primary discussion of the couple's conversation with the old lady is almost entirely about the issues with the local cows not being OK to eat and also their own vegan diets, you should be able to know exactly just what is in store for them. So you're just kind of waiting for that to happen.

And even when it's finally spelled out, the movie keeps going. Even its epilogue is too long, as if we were watching an assembly cut instead of an edited version. On the commentary they said the movie was shot over 10-11 days, so I can perhaps assume that some of the film's length is due to not having the right coverage to hide edits (indeed, the director even notes a deleted scene that they had to remove entirely due to it not cutting right), but it doesn't change the fact that they're asking a lot of our patience for reveals that won't be too surprising to any astute horror fan (likely the primary audience, given its distribution from my pals at Bloody Disgusting).

But Milburn does get a lot right. The couple is well cast and believable as a strained couple - they're not at each others' throats the whole time like in Children of the Corn or something, but just kind of bored of each other and wanting different things out of life; you get the idea they're both waiting for the other one to break it off so that they can get off easy and are now in a stalemate. And the nature of their obligatory "weird kid", Gunni, is actually fairly inspired - he ended up being the film's most interesting character. Also, Barbara Kingsley is terrific as the old lady, finding that right balance where she's clearly unhinged but never to the point where you question why they aren't running for the hills - it's almost more like they feel bad for her as she's starting to lose her marbles.

The disc is surprisingly packed, with the commentary, a decent behind the scenes piece, a festival Q&A, some of Milburn's short films, and two things I haven't seen for a while: an isolated score (which is quite good) and an "evolution of a trailer" collection that shows how they used more or less the same footage/dialogue in different ways to try to find the most appealing approach. I wish it had some kind of commentary attached to explain the thinking behind this or that, but it's interesting on its own. The commentary mentions the possibility of deleted scenes, but alas if they're there they must be an Easter egg that I had no drive to find.

So it's a terrible "pile" movie as I still don't know if I want to keep it or not! It's pretty good, the kind of thing I like more in hindsight than in watching when I'm constantly thinking things like "How is there stil another half hour?", but I also know that if x number of years from now I decide I want to watch again, I'll be like "Nah it's too long let me find something shorter." But for those who are more patient than me (or simply less attuned to knowing where a movie is headed based on context clues) I'm sure you'll agree it's a pretty good entry in this sub-genre, buoyed by strong performances and some directorial flourishes (split screen effects!) that give it a little more personality than its two line synopsis would suggest.

What say you?

*Thanks to Birth.Movies.Death dying, it thankfully hasn't expanded as much as it might have, as I no longer have any other regular/high profile outlets to write for. So a lot of those review copies that kept the box growing have stopped coming, and I'm actually fine with that. Maybe someday I CAN actually get through the whole thing!

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Skinned Deep (2004)

AUGUST 17, 2021

GENRE: BREAKDOWN, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

Gun to my head I would have guessed that Skinned Deep was an early '90s movie more or less produced for the VHS market, something that would have gotten coverage in Fangoria during those pre-Scream years where big screen horror was so intermittent that the mag had to noticeably step up its coverage of smaller films (the '80s rarely afforded them the opportunity). But nope, it was actually released in 2004 (by Fangoria, natch) and started shooting in 2000, long after the heyday of both the film's subject matter (Texas Chainsaw-esque demented backwoods killers) and the home video market it was chasing. DVD had taken over by then, as had the video chains over the mom and pop types, leaving these sort of things in the dust as Blockbuster would rather stock another copy of The Ring than devote shelf space to more than one copy of something like this.

No, this was clearly just a labor of love from writer/director Gabe Bartalos, making his debut as a director after years of makeup and FX work. His resume dates back to the mid '80s, and I swear I've seen him on at least a dozen DVD/Blu bonus features over the years thanks to his work on Frank Henenlotter films and Charles Band productions. Needless to say I was curious what kind of film he'd make on his own, and I was happy to discover it wasn't just a bland slasher that gave him an excuse to show off his FX skills every ten minutes, but instead offered a singular vision of a filmmaker who cared about every frame in the film, regardless of whether or not it had anything that would excite gorehounds.

The basic story is nothing new; a family of four is traveling, their car gets a flat, and the nearest place for help is run by murderous weirdos. But there's something "off" about the proceedings that should tell even the most jaded viewer (including me, at first) that this isn't going to be a run of the mill affair. The actors (heroes and villains alike) are all very bizarre and exaggerated, as if they stepped out of a David Lynch music video, and when the killing starts, Bartalos saves the most gruesome death for the young boy of the family, i.e. something most wouldn't dare to do at all. After everyone else in the family is dispatched, the focus falls squarely on the teen daughter, who catches the fancy of Brian aka Brain, so named because... well, he has a giant brain on his head.

Yes, this enters into sci-fi territory, as our villains have seemingly been created by, er, The Creator, a mysterious puppet master we meet later. Brain/Brian is seemingly sympathetic and longs to run naked through Times Square (a vision we see for real; Bartalos obviously didn't have permits and just shot the sequence guerilla style - the actor was subsequently arrested, but they got the shot!). His "brothers" are the more murdery ones, one is called Plates after the sharpened dinnerware he uses as weapons, and the other is the Surgeon General, the machine-mouthed guy on the cover. A few actors played him based on availability and what not (it was a long production, as noted) but Plates is played by Warwick Davis (Bartalos did his makeup for all of the Leprechauns), painted to look like an albino and dropping off kilter line readings into most of his scenes.

Heroine Tina runs afoul of them and other baddies over the course of the film's (slightly overlong) 97 minutes, but they take out others on occasion, like a group of elderly bikers who seek revenge after one of their number is killed trying to help the girl. Bartalos is seemingly well aware that this sort of movie can feel "samey" to the astute horror fans who will undoubtedly make up the majority of his audience (there is zero attempt at making this thing mainstream friendly, I assure you), so he keeps things forever lively by keeping Tina on the run, allowing the production designer enough of a showcase for an entire demo reel. When Tina ends up in a room that is covered ceiling to floor in newspaper, you truly get the sense of how much work went into the movie to keep it engaging. He could have thrown the girl in a typical bland basement room with a few pipes in the background, but instead you get this strange, claustrophobic visual that had to have taken dozens of man hours to put together.

It's that attention to detail that makes the film stand out where it could have been another 90 minute chase flick. Again, yeah, it could have been tightened in spots, and you need to forgive some wonky ADR and the like, but there is almost never a moment in the film where you can't pause it and say "Look at how much work they put into creating this scene", between the complicated makeup (Brain's took four hours to apply, and he's in it quite a bit), crazy set designs, and yes, the gore, which is mostly practical but Bartalos also knew better than to institute a ban on CGI. Any good FX artist knows that utilizing the best of both worlds is the way to get the most ideal results, and so some sneaks in here and there, and only a fool would complain about it.

Severin's blu has two featurettes, one a vintage piece from (I assume) the first DVD release back then, and a new retrospective where Bartalos and a few others answer fan questions. There's also a commentary track with pretty much the same people as the later retrospective, which is kind of annoyingly out of sync with the movie so there are times where Bartalos is saying "OK this shot coming up right..... HERE was (tech talk)" but from context we can tell he is referring to something we saw 15 seconds earlier. But otherwise it's chockfull of production info and anecdotes, with occasional ball-busting and self deprecation, i.e. an ideal track for both fans of the film and also for detractors who assume things like this can just be slapped together in a weekend. Even if you're not down with all of the movie's choices, no one can deny that it is the result of a hard working filmmaker that wanted to put his own spin on classic horror movie material, one who made sure to put every dollar of his (not large!) budget on the screen instead of blowing half of it on a pointless cameo by someone who didn't happen to have a horror convention on his schedule that weekend.

It's sad though, because I kept having the "They don't make em like this anymore" thought for a movie that was only a couple years old when I started doing Horror Movie A Day. I mean yeah it's depressing to think I'm that much older, but in general the idea of anyone doing this sort of thing (on film no less, though there are a handful of well-matched digital shots) is practically unthinkable nowadays. Indie horror exists of course, but the things that find distribution are mostly A24 lite affairs, with gonzo stuff like this being "underground" fare that probably costs less than I spend on electricity every year. It's rare I come across anything that the filmmaker spent years of their life tinkering with to get just the way they liked it, shooting when they could instead of shitting it out over a week and trying to salvage something from what they shot (on their iPhone). Oh, and doing it before he could ask people on the internet to pay for it, reducing their own interest in making sure it got done right. I'm sure those sort of productions still exist, but they don't come across my desk as much as I'd like. Hopefully that'll change.

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House of Wax (2005)

JULY 11, 2021

GENRE: BREAKDOWN, SLASHER
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

Even if I disliked 2005's House of Wax, I'd be forever indebted to its existence, because in the Fangoria writeup on the film around the time of its release, director Jaume Collet-Serra noted that it was actually more of a remake of Tourist Trap than its Vincent Price namesake. Knowing next to nothing about Tourist Trap, I tracked down a copy and quickly fell in love with it; in fact it's one of the very few DVDs in my collection that I've watched more than once or twice, as there's almost always another good excuse to revisit it. But, sort of as a bonus in retrospect, I quite liked House of Wax too, and watching again for the first time in over fifteen years (Jesus...) proved it has held up nicely.

In fact I'd almost say it was the best Dark Castle movie if not for Orphan, which is, incidentlly, also from Collet-Serra. I credit him with 50% of Wax's succes, if I'm being honest, as the script (by the Hayes brothers) is nothing particularly special on its own. While it admirably moved away from the Price film (naming a character "Vincent" is about the only connection it has beyond the title) and even Tourist Trap (albeit to a lesser extent), it's for the most part a fairly generic slasher on the page. Our characters run through all the cliches: taking a shortcut, having car trouble, poking around creepy places... in some ways it's almost admirable how unambitious it is on that level, as if they knew whatever flourishes they added would be ignored and any such ideas should be saved for another screenplay where inventiveness might be better received (as any Friday the 13th filmmaker can tell you, the more you divert from the formula, the more you risk angering the fanbase). The one thing they do bring to the table is allowing cell phone use and even letting someone be alerted to danger by a phone message, instead of going the usual "no service" route early on like most of these things. So I'll give the writers that much.

But Collet-Serra is giving 110%, so that you might not even notice how on-rails it can be at times, especially to anyone who had seen the then-recent Texas Chainsaw remake, which it often resembles right down to surprisingly killing the heroine's boyfriend first (a move that might even play better now since said boyfriend is Sam Winchester himself, Jared Padalecki, i.e. a guy you'd think would outlast the three other dudes). Crane shots, diopter shots, long lenses... at a time when TV directors were getting these gigs and giving the movies no personality at all, this newcomer was clearly fired up, doing the sort of work that should make it no surprise he'd be helming big budget Liam Neeson movies in a few years. That he wasn't afraid to hold back on the gore/violence (even against the heroine, who loses a finger and probably wouldn't want to apply lipstick anytime soon after her ordeal) was just icing on the cake; even if shot for PG-13 I suspect his efforts would have been noticed and put him on the list of people to keep an eye on in the future.

The other half of the movie's strength comes from the production design. By now this was sort of a guarantee with the Dark Castle movies, but they hit their apex here with the titular house, which (unlike the original) was indeed made entirely of wax, allowing the fiery finale to showcase some truly icky visuals even though blood/violence wasn't really a factor by that point. There's something incredibly gross about seeing our heroes endlessly sinking and clawing through the mud-like house as it slowly caves in around them (I think I heard on one of the bonus features that it was peanut butter), and after seeing a million scenes of the angry killer smashing through a door to get at his would-be victims, it's kind of great to watch one casually slice through it and then peel it apart without really breaking a sweat. Even if you hated the rest of the movie, that ten minute climax would be something you'd dig, I think.

And the wax figures (read: corpses covered in wax) are no slouches either, as Elisha Cuthbert and Chad Michael Murray run across well over a dozen as they make their way through the town and give us closeup looks at many (one of which the camera lingers on for a bit as if setting something up, but turns out was a *payoff* for a deleted prologue showing her demise). As we learn on the behind the scenes, most if not all of them were actually living people wearing wax masks, as opposed to just dressing up mannequins or whatever. While this may have been a needless expenditure (not to mention set the filmmakers up for gaffes when the actors inadvertenly moved a bit), it pays off - we've seen dummies/corpses propped up in any number of movies, but the unspoken fact that they're legitimately alive gives their scenes (particularly the movie theater sequence) an extra dose of atmospheric creepiness.

As for the cast, they're, you know, doing their job. Even Paris Hilton seems to "understand the assignment" as the kids say today, and I can't tell if it's funny or sad that, despite her notoriety (and the film's "See Paris Die!" ad campaign) she's actually more likeable than anyone in, say, Texas Chainsaw 3D or some of the other films in this vein that came along later. Hell, I'd root for her over most of the people in the two Fear Street movies that have been released thus far, and it ain't out of any particular fondness for the woman - she's just more sympathetic. Her death IS great though, and I'll always wonder if they pumped it up a bit after she was cast. Also, having not seen it since it came to DVD (i.e. long before Friday the 13th 2009), it was funny to see that Chad Michael Murray's role in the film is a lot like the one Padelecki played in F13, as if he took that role if only to make up for being killed off so quickly here. "Now it's my turn!"

Scream Factory's blu-ray has a new transfer that looks fine to my eyes (as I've noted in the past, I'm not particularly diligent when it comes to tracking these things; as long as I don't have to adjust my existing settings or say "Hey, this looks like shit", I think it's a good presentation) and carries over all of the bonus features from Warner's own DVD/Blu. They also add four new interviews, including one with Hilton, who is very proud of her work here and speaks highly of the cast, Silver, etc. Unfortunately, as was the case before there's almost nothing from Collet-Serra across the board; he pipes in with a few soundbites on the fluffy making of, but that's about it. I would have loved to have known why they cut the original opening, as not only did it have a great kill but the movie took its time to get to the carnage, so it would have bought it some goodwill for those who were getting impatient.

Somewhere on those older features Silver notes that the movie will be in theaters on Halloween, but that ended up not being the case as it was moved up to May, and I'd love to know more about that. Not only did that potentially eat into their post production time, but it also may have cost the movie a few million at the box office, as if they waited they would have the star of Supernatural as another marketing hook (the show premiered that September) but also nabbed the people who tend to get more excited about horror movies in October than they do in May. I assume it was because the October schedule ended up being sort of competitive with IP offerings (The Fog, Doom, and Saw II, all with far more built-in awareness than a 50+ year old Vincent Price movie offered), but again, this is the sort of thing the director would probably address if he was on hand to give his thoughts. Oh well. Maybe for the eventual 4K UHD? I'd be down to get it again; that peanut butter wax will look more viscous than ever!

What say you?

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Willy's Wonderland (2021)

MARCH 1, 2021

GENRE: BREAKDOWN, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (DRIVE-IN SCREENING)

Since it was announced, Willy's Wonderland seemed like a can't miss bit of B-movie nirvana: Nicolas Cage trapped in a Chuck E. Cheese type place where the animatronic mascots came to life and started murdering people. No, it probably wasn't going to be a masterpiece, but something you could knock a few drinks back and enjoy the silliness of the plot and also what would almost certainly be some choice bits of Cage screaming or delivering a few "Put the bunny back in the box" type howlers. Unfortunately, it seems the people behind the film came up with the concept and then set out with one goal in mind: to misappropriate the budget and make every wrong choice they possibly could in a mere 85 minutes.

The first bizarre choice is that the nameless hero doesn't speak. As a fan of Cage (legitimately, not ironically) I was dismayed to hear that he wouldn't utter a word in the entire film (for reasons never explained; a few grunts proves he is at least capable of some kind of vocalization), because it seemed to be denying him one of his strengths. To his credit, he actually gives a pretty good performance, and even offers a few gems for the people who love to meme him to death; his "Janitor" seems to have an affinity for pinball, and he stops a few times to go play an old machine, dancing and gyrating as he plays while guzzling an energy drink (a running gag in the movie is that he will stop everything he is doing - including fighting the monsters - when his watch alarm reminds him it's time for another break). It also never stops being funny when he stares down the animals, who look back at him in equal silence with their idiotic faces.

But if you're going to have a silent hero, why spend the money on Cage? They could have gotten someone cheaper with some cache in this VOD realm and spent a little more money on the set and creatures, or at least to come up with some variation on the action. Another curious decision is that the animals waste no time making their "alive" status known to Cage, and he kills one of them within minutes of being locked in the restaurant - only to nonchalantly go back to cleaning it (he is hired to do so in exchange for getting his car fixed, more on that soon). Without dialogue to mix it up a bit, this means that after 20 minutes they've kind of already exhausted their movie's tricks when it comes to the one-line premise of "Cage vs Chuck E Cheese". Some local kids who are trying to burn the joint down are thrown into the mix eventually, but when it comes to Cage's matchups, they're all the same: he silently tussles with one of them, eventually subduing it, and then rips out its gears to kill it while getting covered in blood. Then he puts on a fresh Willy's staff shirt and starts cleaning again. Rinse and repeat. It's funny the first time, sure, but when the climax of your movie could be swapped with the very first action scene and it wouldn't matter (as the angle is usually just on Cage's increasingly bloodied face/chest, the animal largely off-screen) there's a big problem.

It also curiously leaves the movie without much of a reason for him to even be there. The premise is that the animals (brought to life from some kind of satanic ritual) were offing people throughout the town until the sheriff, the guy who owned the building, and the mechanic all made a deal of sorts with Willy and the rest of his band: leave the townsfolk alone, and they'll bring strangers to them to satisfy their bloodlust. So the mechanic throws a dragstrip out on the road nearby to disable anyone that passes through, then tells the car's owner(s) that he can only accept cash but will call it even if they clean up Willy's. But the local kids who are tired of hearing the stories (and worrying about Willy perhaps not being satisfied with the random motorists) have decided to burn the place down, and then they get trapped there too. They provide Willy and pals with their kill quota, so not only is there no in-movie reason for Cage to be there anymore, but with him not speaking/not really caring about the situation, he's almost a non-entity within it. Without him, this would be a silly but entertaining time-killer, as opposed to a disappointment.

I mean, I'm sure he's not getting the same paydays he used to, but I guarantee he accounted for a hefty chunk of the film's budget, and I spent most of the time wondering what they could have spent that money on instead (ditto for however much they paid to use "Free Bird" near the end, another weird choice). Maybe they could have improved the set, as despite the fact that most of the movie takes place within the restaurant I never got any kind of good sense of its layout, and more than once the characters were in a room I for the life of me couldn't quite place as being a normal part of this kind of joint. And/or maybe they could have had a few more exterior scenes, which would not only draw less attention to the confused interior, but also mix it up a bit since the movie shows us pretty much everything it has to offer before the halfway point.

Or they could have improved the animatronics, of which there are also too many (eight! The actual Chuck E band only has four or five). The designs are pretty good and in line with the things they're spoofing, but they don't DO much. Their faces have some expression, but their body movements are just as limited as their normal robotic counterparts, which is perhaps part of the joke but never comes off as particularly funny. Worse, it reduces how threatening they can be while also leaving you, the viewer, wondering how it is they've managed to do this for so long and even start to wipe out the town at one point. Once again, this thing that has been happening for years is finally stopped because someone knocked them over and punched them a few times? No one ever tried that? Or did it just need someone as badass as Nic Cage to do it, an idea that would work if he was doing anything more interesting than... knocking them over and punching them a few times. If it's supposed to be part of the joke, why isn't it funnier?

As for the teens, they're, you know, whatever. Each are given one trait and you can probably guess the order in which they'll be killed. And apart from the lead one (Emily Tosta) they rarely interact with Cage, so most of their scenes just feel like the result of someone realizing that their jokey premise could barely sustain a short film, let alone a feature, and added them in at the last minute. It also sadly wastes Beth Grant as the town sheriff (and Tosta's adoptive mother), who allows all this to happen even though it seems pretty easy to stop it since (spoiler) the climax makes no suggestion that Cage's actions had no effect and some supernatural force would keep them coming back again and again. So why did she do it? She even stops Tosta from blowing the place up early on, suggesting a "it's not that simple" type reveal later that never comes.

And the kicker? I could have forgiven so much of this if not for the presence of one of its producers: Grant Cramer. If that name sounds familiar, it's because he played Mike Tobacco in Killer Klowns From Outer Space, a film with a similarly silly concept that works infinitely better. That film found a way to balance the campy ideas with some genuine menace, and after seeing his name among the 45 other producers (including Cage himself) at the top of the film I couldn't help but feel disappointed that they had a bonafide veteran of this sort of thing right there and still kept fumbling. Again, I wasn't expecting a great movie, but I also wasn't expecting them to coast on the elevator pitch and nothing else. Even with a concept as silly as this, you gotta try, and I just wasn't seeing that effort.

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Blu-Ray Review: Plague Town (2008)

DECEMBER 6, 2020

GENRE: BREAKDOWN, KILLER KID
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

"Since the audio was a bit blown out, I may rent the DVD just to hear the music again, [and] it’s also on Blu-ray, so I may check it out just to see what a Super 16 movie looks like on the format."

That's from my 2009 review of Plague Town, and if you're a longtime reader of my stuff you'd know that anything I say I'll do soon in a review is something I won't do for years, if ever. So it shouldn't be a surprise that by the time I did watch the film on Blu-ray I no longer remembered much about it at all, let alone whatever audio issues it had when I saw it. The film (slightly retitled to A Slaughter in Plague Town) has been re-released on Blu courtesy of Severin (director David Gregory's company; it was originally issued via Dark Sky), carrying over all the old supplements as well as premiering a new retrospective documentary that runs a couple minutes longer than the film itself.

It was something of a scary revisit for me, because I included the film in my book without seeing it a second time, so I was worried it didn't hold up (I've certainly been "off" in my initial assessments of many films) and people have been spending their hard earned money to get a book where I tell them to spend more hard earned money to check it out. Luckily, I agree with 2009 me: this is a solid little creeper, and in one way it actually holds up better than I remembered, since it was shot on film at a time when low budget films of this sort were always digital. As anyone who watches a lot of movies can attest, digital technology continues to improve, so older stuff shot on the format tends to look uglier and uglier as time goes on, so other movies from that year would not be very pleasing to the eye now, over a decade later (in my opinion they looked bad then too, but that's a matter of opinion). Now that even major films are also pretty much all shot digitally, it was wonderful to see a relatively modern film in glorious Super 16, presented in a solid transfer here. Also, I was amused to see comedian Erica Rhodes as the brattier of the two daughters, as I would have had no idea who she was when I first saw it (this was her first film) and usually when a comedian is in a movie they're not far removed from their stage persona, but her character is a total 180 from her standup work.

But beyond all that time capsule-y stuff it's just a really well done little chiller for the most part (the abrupt ending still irks me; I DID remember that much), proving Gregory is just as adept at making scary movies as he is making documentaries about their production (if you haven't seen Lost Soul yet, about the ill-fated 1996 Dr. Moreau, get on that). His simple tale of a family (plus one hanger-on) getting lost in the Irish countryside and running afoul of a group of murderous children doesn't skimp on the scary stuff (there's one moment that's downright hard to watch, in fact. It involves a hubcap) but is also drenched with atmosphere, and I remain impressed that they shot the film in Connecticut, not Ireland - it is a much more than adequate fascimile. Someone get David Gregory to reshoot Jason Takes Manhattan! He can pull it off! And the idea of a town trying to breed out a curse is the right kind of icky, where their intention is more or less understandable but they're going about it in the worst way possible.

And it's all even more impressive when you watch the supplements, which prove that this was a far from easy shoot. The location, while they pulled it off just fine, was not always well suited for their needs, and the budget was (as always) very tight for what they wanted. Makeup issues kept cropping up throughout the shoot due in part to inexperience and optimism on the part of the designer (there's a painful bit in the longer documentary where you see Gregory's heart just fall when he sees the first appliance being done), who in turn would get frustrated when he'd be told to apply makeup on the children by a certain time and it would be falling off their faces by the time they were finally needed on camera, 7-8 hours later. Even the older, shorter doc showcased a few of the various production issues, but the newer one (which, again, runs longer than the film) really gets into it, with plenty of candid interviews from both the original production and newly shot ones.

I should note that the new footage is mostly via Zoom and Facetime type applications (yay, Covid!), except for Gregory who utilizes his professional setup. Just about everyone from the movie is around to share their memories, but the technical qualities (which are addressed straight away via text disclaimer) can be a little rough on your ear muscles, particularly for producer Derek Curl who not only shot himself portrait mode (!) but is out of sync as well. He's a pretty fun guy to listen to, as the commentary can attest (he's possibly the MOST candid of the lot, including about his own shortcomings) so it's a bummer that I got the idea he probably would have been featured more often if the quality was better. The only ones you don't hear anything from are the Dark Sky guys, who apparently had no faith in the film and put no effort into helping it get into festivals and the like. With that in mind, I assume the team is very relieved that they were able to get the film back and give it a fresh coat of paint.

This sort of thing is why I hate that supplements are becoming extinct. I got a new genre film the other day, relatively high profile and from a studio whose name any genre fan would recognize, and the only bonus feature on the disc is a (sigh) Zoom Q&A with two of the actors, which naturally didn't explain much about this or that confusing story point or why all the digital blood in the movie looked so terrible. We can give the benefit of the doubt, sure, but this movie has actual production footage showing exactly why this or that thing in the movie that didn't quite work, so there's no reason whatsoever to just assume they're bad filmmakers. A little honesty goes a long way, and even in technically flawless movies it's always interesting (to me, anyway) to hear someone defend and explain their creative choices. As time goes on, we're less and less likely to get this glimpse behind the curtain, making me appreciate discs like this all the more.

Also Rosemary is still creepy AF and should be a common Halloween costume.

What say you?

P.S. The Severin version of the disc was a Black Friday exclusive, and I'm not sure if it will be available again. Keep an eye on their site HERE for a hopeful re-release (perhaps without the soundtrack, which was included on a separate CD). The below link is for the older release.

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The Monster (2016)

OCTOBER 29, 2020

GENRE: BREAKDOWN, MONSTER
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX)

It's been a long time since I watched a proper "the car breaks down and now they're going to die" movie (assuming I haven't forgotten to use the tag, the last one was a revisit of 1000 Corpses over a year ago), so I was happy for the reminder that I never saw The Monster when it hit VOD a while back. It was an intentional skip at the time; after being so disappointed with Mockingbird I didn't want to be let down by Bryan Bertino again so soon and figured I'd give it a while (and maybe some good word of mouth) before risking it. And then I just forgot it existed! He has a new film coming out called The Dark and the Wicked and I honestly thought it was his third, not fourth. Sorry, The Monster.

Luckily it's a return to form; not AS good as The Strangers but in the same wheelhouse and offering the same kind of tension. Just as Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman were going through an awkward rough patch (she had just turned down his marriage proposal while they were staying in an isolated cabin), Monster offers us Kathy (Zoe Kazan) and her 12ish daughter Lizzy (Ella Ballentine) who are never more than a muttered insult away from practically killing each other, due to the former's lacking skills as a parent. So lacking, in fact, that she is actually driving Lizzy to live with her father for the foreseeable future, seemingly for both their sakes, as Kathy is a drunken mess, mildly abusive (more verbally than physically) and the young girl is tired of having to take care of her instead of getting a chance to be a normal little girl. Flashbacks give us some low-lights of their relationship over the previous year, including a shouting match that has them both bellowing F bombs at each other until Kathy drives off, leaving Lizzy alone at the house and still needing a ride to her own school play. I mean, oof.

In other words, as with Strangers, it might have been a pretty tense and interesting movie even without the horror stuff, just to see if these two can actually make it to the dad's house without killing each other (Kathy's smoking habit is a constant source of contention). But then they have a blowout AND swerve to avoid an animal (a wolf! Nice change from the standard deer!) which causes Kathy to lose control and spin out, breaking her wrist and the car's front axel, stranding them in the obligatory middle of nowhere. They actually have cell service, but another accident is clogging up resources and the road to get to them, so it'll take a while to send the tow truck and ambulance... and there's a damn monster to boot!

Bertino doesn't spring the beast too soon, opting for a more gradual and subtler reveal. First they notice that the wolf has some injuries that are seemingly from a fight with another animal, then the corpse just disappears from its spot on the road. It's not until Lizzy goes looking for the corpse that we get a shot of the title character, and it's in the dark/blurry area behind her. The full reveal eventually comes, and it's not exactly the scariest looking monster in the world, but it IS a practically done one (in fact there's even a quick goof where we see the creature performer's human hand), so it's forgivable. And in fact it's probably intentional; the idea here is that kids can't always trust their parents, whether it be when they tell you that you don't have to be afraid of monsters or just because they might be shitty people, so giving it a sort of "child's drawing come to life" appearance, while perhaps not great for out of context still images, works for the film as a whole in a thematic way.

Naturally, if it's just the two women and nothing else this would be a largely event-free movie, as even by applying horror movie logic there's only so much of a chance they can possibly stand against the thing, with one being injured and the other being a child about half its size. The tow truck eventually arrives, driven by Aaron Douglas from Battlestar Galactica (nearly unrecognizable with long hair and a beard), so you can guess what happens to him. And later on the ambulance shows up, with two paramedics, some much needed supplies (I'm guessing Kazan grew to truly hate the tiny blood pooled bandaid she had to wear for most of the runtime), and a new vehicle for the monster to wreck. Between those diversions and the flashbacks (one of which features Speedman making a quick cameo as one of Kazan's jerk boyfriends) the film is never dull, despite the minimal plot and cast.

Over 90 tight minutes we see Kazan learn to finally be the protective mother she should have been all along, coupled with the irony that because of her lapses as a parent, her daughter had generated the survival skills she might have otherwise lacked. It's a great two hander setup, and both actresses pull it off wonderfully. The final flashback is downright heartbreaking, and I think it's key that these memories are never clearly identified in time nor are in any particular order. As much as they scream at each other, they ultimately have that bond that nothing can break, and so these flashbacks - some tender, some horrible - all could have happened in one day for all it mattered. Had they never encountered the monster, that love/hate relationship would likely ping-pong back and forth for the rest of their lives. And by keeping the dad confined to the other end of a phone instead of showing up to save the day (or get killed as well), Bertino never loses focus on how it's their bond that is driving the film toward its conclusion, with no other distractions.

Apart from a rather silly contrivance about the tow truck (the dude locks it up in the dark and pouring rain, as if anyone else was around to steal it?), everything works quite well here, and ranks as one of the better "trapped in a car" type movies. And more importantly, it got me excited to check out his new one after feeling equally unsure about it (I skipped a chance to see it at Beyond Fest this month); in fact it's coming to Shudder soon, and while I can't guarantee it'll be a day one viewing, I PROMISE it won't take me literal years to get around to it, either. Hopefully it'll be another win and I can be assured that Mockingbird was just a sophomore slump kind of thing. And if not? Well, he'll still have a minor slasher/survival classic and a really solid monster film on his resume, which is double (or more!) what many other genre directors can ever manage. No one hits it out of the park every time, but if you can pull off two wins? That's someone to keep an eye on for the long haul.

What say you?

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House of 1000 Corpses (2003)

SEPTEMBER 13, 2019

GENRE: SURVIVAL
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

I honestly don't know when the last time I watched Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses in its entirety, in fact it's possible that I only saw it the one time, theatrically (where I dozed off for a bit to boot). I could have sworn I watched my DVD at some point before Devil's Rejects came along, but today I found myself struggling with Lionsgate's notoriously obnoxious security adhesive (where they seal all three sides of the disc, and use a sticky solution that often leaves residue on the case) as I opened it for the first time. With 3 From Hell coming in a couple days, I wanted to refresh my memory, but as I watched the film I realized my memories were so poor it was essentially like watching the movie for the first time.

Indeed, even two of my "specific" memories of the film turned out to be wrong. I thought I remembered a scene of Baby (Sheri Moon) ordering pizza, but it was just booze - I had it mixed up with Texas Chainsaw 4 I guess? And then I vividly remembered the scene where Bill Moseley executes a man, depicted via a long slow-motion crane shot, but in my head it was the father of one of the girls the Firefly family was terrorizing - this was also wrong, as the father was gunned down earlier in the sequence. No, the man who got the crane shot was none other than Walton Goggins, a name I was surprised to see in the credits anyway, further proving how long it had been since I took a look at the film (yes, I remembered that Rainn Wilson and Chris Hardwick were the two male heroes).

In turn, the movie was better than I remembered. I wouldn't say I loved it - it's kind of all over the place and has about two too many villains - but I was never bored, and found myself frequently impressed by how much memorable imagery Zombie managed to cram into the 88 minutes of his very inexpensive movie. The set dressing alone is on par with things like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Nothing But Trouble, in that you can watch the movie a dozen times and still be noticing strange props and decor around the (equally colorful) characters. The Natural Born Killers-esque cutaways (recolored footage, video mixed with film, etc) get a bit overused, but otherwise I was impressed by how clearly Zombie established himself as a filmmaker in his first attempt.

Granted if you hate his "thing" then there's no chance to enjoy the movie, but just as I came around on his 2nd Halloween entry (in director's cut form) I found myself really appreciating how he was basically applying his distinctive style to a particular brand of horror (in this case, a Texas Chainsaw kind of thing, though he has some Eaten Alive in there too). I remember someone saying that if they had to guess what a Rob Zombie was like (for better or worse), their mental image would be almost identical to his film 31 - but they were saying it dismissively, whereas I kind of love that I know what I'll get when I sit down for one of his movies. If he was making them every year, I'm sure it'd get tiresome, but 3 From Hell will be his 3rd movie in the past decade - that's a big enough gap in between to enjoy his hillbilly hijinks as a diversion from the supernatural horror movies that make up an increasing percentage of what horror films are playing in our multiplexes.

It's also legitimately tense at times. The finale is kind of a dud (Zombie always knew this, for what it's worth) but there are some really great sequences along the way to make up for it. The first big attack on the group as they attempt to escape is fairly harrowing (and again, this was a movie released at a time that the likes of Darkness Falls was able to top the box office), and even the fakeout bits, like Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig, in what was his first major role in years) pretending to get angry at Wilson's character for mocking him, carry their fair share of unnerving energy. Also, Zombie's penchant for zooms and film distortion lends the film the appropriate "grindhouse" flair four (really seven since it was filmed) years prior to the film Grindhouse, so he deserves some credit for bringing that sensibility into the mainstream long before it became tiresome.

Its only real flaw (again, if you're on board with its general vibe in the first place; it's admittedly a tough sell) is that it's got so much packed into it, it ultimately kind of feels like Zombie lost interest in his own villains. The final 15 minutes finds the one survivor (Erin Daniels) facing off against Dr. Satan (a character we've heard about but not interacted with) and his creations, leaving Moseley and Sheri Moon pretty much on the sidelines, which is not only awkward but simply unsatisfying - it'd be like if Sally Hardesty's final ordeal found her fighting off the random drunk from the cemetery instead of Leatherface. There's also an ongoing subplot about five cheerleaders that is continually referred to for a solid hour of the movie, only to be discarded without fanfare, making me wonder why Zombie didn't just confine them to an introductory prologue so we could focus on our hero quartet the rest of the time.

I'm gonna revisit Devil's Rejects too; I KNOW I haven't seen that one since theaters (but retain more memories of it), and in my mind it's still his best film - curious to see if it holds up to that. I don't outright love anything he's done, but I don't hate anything either (hell even his Halloween - his worst film - has stuff I enjoy), and while early reviews on 3 From Hell have been pretty scathing, I suspect I'll walk out enjoying it. I just hope I'm not doing it a disservice by refreshing my memory of the first two, when he was still hungry (and had more budgetary support for his ideas) and what he was doing was something wholly unique in the landscape. I'll know on Monday!

What say you?

P.S. I went to the 1,000 Corpses maze at Universal Horror Nights last night, my first time in one even though it's like the fourth time they've done one based on the film (which was partially shot on the same backlot), and not only did I quite like it, but was amused at scenes in the film that were essentially playing out the same as these mazes, with the girl wandering through corridors as things jump out at her. It's the first one you'll come across after you enter the park, so make sure you check it out if you plan on hitting up the event!

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Sendero (2015)

DECEMBER 16, 2016

GENRE: BREAKDOWN, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: STREAMING (ONLINE SCREENER)

A while back, I saw a film called Hidden in the Woods, which was seemingly designed to offend as many viewers as possible, or at least inspire some self-righteous politician to try to resurrect the Video Nasties list. I wouldn't say I loved the film or anything, but I appreciated its sheer audacity, throwing everything from incest to cannibalism at you and never letting another five minutes go by without another gory (mostly practical) murder scene. I'd never want to watch it again, but at least I was engaged on some level, which is more than I can say for Sendero (aka Path), which also hails from Chile and also tosses a lot of these same elements at you, albeit without much of the bravado. Where Hidden was laudable in its rampant disregard for human life and basic taste, this just seems like yet another ripoff of Texas Chain Saw Massacre and the like, with only fleeting moments of inspiration to keep it from being a total waste of time.

At least writer/director Lucio A. Rojas doesn't waste time either letting us know what kind of movie we're seeing, or making us wait to get to the horror stuff - our heroine and her pals are more or less introduced making plans for a drive, the car breaks down at the ten minute mark, and they run afoul of the bad guys shortly after that. No points for originality, but at least they score high marks for efficiency, I guess. Unfortunately, just because he was in a rush doesn't mean he had anything new to show us, and the next hour is little more than a series of chase scenes where they try to escape. To its credit, there isn't a lot of torture-y stuff - on the rare occasions anyone is tied up it usually isn't for long, and most of the people who die in the film (on either side) do so quickly. It's not particularly unpleasant, in other words, so if you're turned off by torture stuff but are in the mood for one of these things, it can at least offer you that much.

But man, if a scene goes by that doesn't make you think of another, superior film, it's because you weren't paying enough attention. Chain Saw is an obvious one, but they dip into Mother's Day, Frontieres, a mild touch of Martyrs (or Texas Chainsaw 4 - basically some rich jerk shows up and calls the shots, but they don't explain much about him) and even Calvaire for a bit. That last one is the most intriguing; while one of the captors does the usual gross things to the females, groping and licking them (but always getting stopped by one of his partners before going any further), his brother (?) has a thing for the males instead, and pleasures himself while standing over one after rubbing his chest a bit. Then the other guy stops HIM from going any further, and punishes him by raping him (though he doesn't put up much of a fight, if any). I've seen innumerable male on female assault scenes in these things, but apart from Calvaire (which was much more vague, if memory serves) I can't recall male on male, so... there's something, I guess? But merely putting a male in a spot usually reserved for females (and making the victim one of the villains as opposed to a protagonist) doesn't really change things that much - it's still yet another icky scene in a horror movie that could have used that screentime on something more interesting.

However, all of this could be forgiven, or at least given a pass, if not for the film's biggest sin: its editing. Rojas is the culprit here as well (though Cristian Toledo is co-credited), and I don't know if they just didn't have the footage to cut things together or were going for a certain effect that didn't quite land, but either way it was some truly abysmal work. There are at least two occasions where he is cutting between two action scenes (a fight in the house and a chase scene outside, for example), and there is zero rhythm to how it's presented - the back and forth seems more random than anything, keeping us from being engaged by either scenario, let alone both at once. And in one such instance a character seemingly teleports from one situation to another, suggesting these were separate scenes that played out normally, but spliced together to try to intensify things or something. He also fails more than once to clearly show us important details, like when Ana and her boyfriend stumble upon a truck with a family inside, and ask them for help. Rojas never cuts to the family's faces, so we're not even sure how many of them there are - and thus we just have to assume the little girl that appears out of nowhere a few minutes later was in the truck/is the daughter of the driver. No film is perfect and there are always going to be shots the director missed, but the idea is to keep the audience from ever noticing that, and they really drop the ball in that department.

Speaking of the family, one of the film's unintentionally most entertaining elements is how many good Samaritans are killed throughout the runtime. Since our heroes are almost always on the run, they are constantly stumbling across random people who live in the town (an isolated ranch/farm kinda place), and they're always murdered by the bad guys moments later. In fact, I'm pretty sure more random innocent people are killed than there were in the protagonist group to begin with, which might be a record since most movies only opt for one, MAYBE two such characters (usually a passing motorist or a cop answering a call). But in what becomes true Rojas form by the end of the film, it's unclear who actually murders the last one - it might be one of the bad guys we've met, but the way it's shot and from the vague hints we get that the bad guys are powerful/wide-reaching (so we get a bit of Hostel, too?), it could be a new antagonist brought in to help clean up the mess or whatever. The movie just randomly ends here, which would annoy me if I was at all invested in it.

At least the gore FX are satisfying; Rojas clearly knows that prosthetics are the best and offers a number of sufficiently goopy and bloodied corpses and body parts. There's a pretty great head bashing that rivals Dave Foy's (unrated!) death in Hatchet II, and a wonderful sight gag where a guy's skin is torn off and we see his heart (I think?) pumping since he's not actually dead yet. It's interesting that many of the low/no budget foreign horror films I see tend to make sure they don't skimp in this department like their American counterparts, though when you consider the usual excuse you hear for going digital (no time to do it right) and look at all of the editing blunders on display here, you can't help but wonder if the Americans have a point. Would Rojas have had time to get all those reverse angles and inserts if he wasn't lovingly showing a fake head getting bashed in? Perhaps, but would the movie actually be any good with better editing? Less likely; it might be less puzzling at times, but it'd still lack any decent ideas or exciting plot turns. Maybe not every viewer will have seen so many of these things, but I am willing to bet there will be very, very few who manage to get surprised at a single thing in it anyway.

What say you?

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Munger Road (2011)

FEBRUARY 4, 2013

GENRE: BREAKDOWN, GHOST (?)
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

A few years back (well, more than a few, it was pre-HMAD!) I saw a movie called Fingerprints, which concerned an urban legend about a bus full of kids that stalled on railroad tracks and were killed by an oncoming train, and now their ghosts would push your car if you let it idle on those tracks. It wasn't a great movie, but it held my attention and had some decent performances, and focused on a pretty cool little legend. Munger Road tackles the same legend, but doesn't quite succeed at the "held my attention" part, and none of its idiot teens are as likable as that film's Leah Pipes.

It also largely leaves the story behind after the first 25 minutes, focusing instead on the four teens sitting in their broken down car waiting for help to arrive and disappearing one by one. Meanwhile, a pair of cops (Bruce Davison and Randall Batinkoff, the film's only recognizable actors) investigate the possible return of a serial killer to their quiet town (the box art claims this is a Halloween type thing, but it's actually more like My Bloody Valentine), which means they spend 75% of their screentime waving flashlights around in abandoned buildings and such. His story has nothing to do with the thing that the kids are investigating, so there's a disconnect between the two storylines that never quite gels together. We're supposed to assume that the killer HAS returned and is the one stalking the kids, but it never quite feels like that.

Plus (big spoiler), it isn't, anyway. As with MBV, the chief learns that the killer actually died already and thus couldn't possibly be the one who killed 3 of the 4 kids. Which means.... uh, I have no idea. The movie doesn't explain it. Davison gets the call that the killer has been dead for 24 hours (he got hit by a truck shortly after escaping the institution), turns to the survivor and asks "Then what happened here?" as another character looks at the footage from their video camera. So now you're thinking they're gonna go all High Tension on us and show us video footage proving the surviving character was the one who killed everyone, but no. The movie just ends, with a "To Be Continued" text that should go over slightly worse than the URL at the end of Devil Inside, since at least that movie didn't leave it up in the air as to what IT WAS ACTUALLY ABOUT. Is this a serial killer movie? Psychological slasher? Ghost? All of the above? Or none?

Don't mistake my questions for genuine interest, however - I couldn't care less if Munger Road 2 ever came to pass. I used a public restroom the other night, and I'm more concerned with the health of the total stranger in the adjacent stall; sounded like he was having a tough time getting things done in there. Even if the movie was terrific up until that point, this kind of an ending is a complete slap in the face to a paying audience - I don't care if the sequel was already in production at the time this one was released (and it wasn't/still isn't), you do not end your first movie like that and just hope the audience wants to come back for more. We tell YOU if we want a sequel, not the other way around. It's fine to leave a movie OPEN for a sequel, like Halloween, or pretty much any monster movie ever made that shows that one last egg remaining, but that's only after the story is completed. Michael Myers gets away, but Laurie is safe, Loomis feels validated that he wasn't crazy, etc. If writer/director Nicolas Smith was making Halloween, he'd end it right around when Loomis sees Tommy and Lindsey running out of the house or something.

Of course, someone will point to the low budget as an excuse. Well I could counterpoint that you don't need an Oscar nominated actor playing a major role in this sort of movie, but for all I know he did the movie for free so I'll just say that the movie's problems don't seem to be budget related, unless they were shooting the movie in sequence and ran out of money with 10 pages of the script to go. It doesn't look any worse than most indie horror films of late (read: it's shot on less than perfect digital equipment, all of which looks bad to my eyes but I guess I just have to live with it), and I've certainly seen worse acting. The production moves around a lot; the kids are just in the car but the cops go all around town, and just the fact that it's Illinois instead of goddamn Louisiana is enough to satisfy me on a visual level. No, it's all scripting issues: the time wasted on a go-nowhere pregnancy subplot, the constant bickering between the girls and the guys, the disconnect between the two storylines, and (most of all) the pitiful "go fuck yourself" of an ending - THIS stuff is what brings the movie down, not poor FX or cheap sets that can take the blame in some of these movies.

Unsurprisingly, the writing process is one of the areas NOT really covered on the quintet of making of featurettes, which all together run about 35 minutes. Much is made of the town helping out by closing roads and such, and of course the real life legend, but not "We thought it'd be cool give you cinematic blue balls with our unfinished script". I did get a slight sense from the producers that their primary interest was spending a small sum of money on a movie that would be easy to market (the occasional POV/camera sequences will certainly help, which is probably why they feature prominently in one of the trailers), but Smith at least seems to be passionate about it, and I liked seeing how young everyone was - the DP probably couldn't officially go see R rated movies until like, 2003. They're pretty dull to watch, however; the only one I'd recommend for a laugh is the post-production one, which starts with Smith, completely sans irony, saying that when production ended he felt that the movie was only 50% done. Yeah, I felt the same way after watching the DVD that I grabbed off a store shelf.

In closing, I'd like to offer Mr. Smith and his producers a quote that I quite like, just in case any of them are reading real reviews when not posting fake ones on the IMDb (I counted at least 7). It's from Javier Grillo-Marxuach, who worked on Lost during its first two (best) seasons: "bad cliffhangers withhold...good cliffhangers reveal." Keep that in mind for next time.

What say you?

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Night Drive (2010)

DECEMBER 5, 2012

GENRE: BREAKDOWN, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: DVD (SCREENER)

I could probably exclusively use my screener pile to supply daily movies until Horror Movie A Day is over, because for every ten (mostly from the awesome Jacqueline Greed) I get, I probably only watch one. I have my reasons though: the DVDs tend to have poor transfers, are almost always watermarked (ugh), and they almost certainly won't have the bonus features that the release disc will, and if I dig the movie (or despise it) I will miss not having access to them. Night Drive, for example, apparently has deleted scenes and some making of information that I would like to see, but it won't be worth the effort of queuing up the disc and waiting for it to come - I'll have moved on by then.

Luckily for its makers, this is one of the former examples - I dug the flick. Apart from a needlessly convoluted opening 10-15 minutes (something those deleted scenes might have helped out with), I found myself surprisingly engaged with the tale of 7-8 folks on a safari of sorts in the African Bush who find themselves targeted by human poachers, led by a guy called Hyena Man, who wears a skull mask and tribal garb while chanting voodoo stuff. I mean, it's basically The Africa Machete Massacre, but it worked, holding my attention for its 103 minutes even though I had just arrived back in Boston (which means I'm usually giving the movie only one eye, with the other on my phone and email as I make plans with friends/family).

Part of what I liked was that there was a good variety to the group, and they were actually fairly interesting to boot. It would never be mistaken for a character study, but I tend to like the "motley crew" horror films more than the "5-6 friends" ones, as it lends itself to natural discussion of their backstories and basic character traits (close friends don't usually tell one another what they do for a living), and also makes more sense when tensions flare. And again, they were a mixed lot; you have an elderly couple celebrating their 50th anniversary, a young couple who just met, and a late 30s-ish couple who are having some serious problems. Then you have the game warden and his estranged son (an ex-cop who is going out to spread his mother's ashes), so there's a lot of different motives for being there, and real personalities instead of "the jock, the stoner", etc.

And writer/director Justin Head doesn't blow his wad too early, nicely pacing out the hints at the horrors to come while giving us the necessary exposition and back-stories for everyone, so that when the shit hits the fan around the halfway point, you will likely care about a few of the people. But he provides enough action up until that point that you shouldn't be bored by then either - it's rare to see a film of this type paced so well. I wouldn't have minded spreading out a few of the deaths (three or four people get taken out in a 5 minute span), but it's tricky to pull off the balance of giving us a reason to care without boring us before anything of note happens, so it's excusable that he borrows from the Burning playbook and sort of "catches up" on kills during a very brief segment of the film.

I was also impressed with its technical quality, which isn't something I can say too often about these kind of movies. Again, on a story level it's covering very familiar ground (though there's a reveal about Hyena Man I didn't see coming), but the setting itself is fairly unique (not a love of horror movies coming out of AND set in Africa - in fact it's only one on IMDb that was shot in "Pelinduna Adventures, Broederstroom, South Africa", for what it's worth). And Head has a good eye for composition; even with the cramped 1.85:1 ratio (boo) he gets plenty of mileage out of his location (nearly the entire film is exterior), and despite the title offers plenty of daytime action that looks terrific. On that note, the night scenes can be a bit TOO dark, but that may be another screener issue so I won't hold it against the movie too much. Hell, even the Snorri-cam shots worked well in context, and I tend to hate those things.

Oh, and the end title sequence was awesome. My mom's TV is to small to deal with squinting through the scroll to see who was responsible, but whoever did that, with the names coming through the trees from the POV of the jeep - my hat is off to you.

One thing struck me as a bit unfortunate, however - the movie doesn't have a single sympathetic black character. All of the villains are black, which is to be expected I guess, but the only two black folks on the protagonist side are kind of dickish (well the guy is anyway) and also (spoiler) among the first to die. The heroes/only survivors are white, of course - it didn't really strike me as RACIST, per se, but it was definitely a bit disheartening to see that they couldn't have evened things out a bit, maybe let one black character live and/or make one of the poachers white. The female characters don't come off too well; most of them are victims or damsels in distress, so again it was just a bit of a bummer that the main female character didn't really get a big kickass moment. Perhaps this wouldn't have been as noticeable if there weren't great female characters in most of the classics of this sub-genre, but I'm sure Head has seen the same movies we have, so why didn't he know that we like to see the ladies kick ass just as much as - if not more than - the males?

The screener DID include a trailer for the film, which was truly terrible, focusing on the movie's less interesting aspects (i.e. the rather typical chase/kill scenes) and also curiously low on dialogue, almost coming across like a trailer for a foreign language film for the most part. Despite having been available for almost a year now, the film is relatively obscure (as of this writing, the IMDb board has a single unanswered post), and I can't help but wonder if this bland, generic trailer was keeping folks away. Again, it's not a game-changer, but a solid, above average entry in a genre that is overcrowded with lousy efforts that leave no impression. It deserves better.

What say you?

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No Tell Motel (2012)

NOVEMBER 12, 2012

GENRE: BREAKDOWN, GHOST
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

Folks ask me often why I'm quitting HMAD in a few months, and since I hate repeating myself, I think from now on I'll merely instruct them to rent No Tell Motel, which should answer the question handily. If it was just the watching, I could probably keep going, but writing the review after is the problem - I just can't think of anything else to say about all of these generic horror flicks. Not that I haven't seen worse, but really, the only reason I made it to the end of this was because I "had" to so I could write up this review for y'all and fulfill my daily promise. Not really the best use of anyone's time.

At times I swore I had actually watched the movie before, as it dealt with a group of five kids who experience road trouble (their motorhome flips over) and end up at a strange location, in this case an abandoned old motel. As the film progresses, everyone reveals a secret about themselves (drug addict! cutter! etc!) and I once again watch a film where I don't understand how any of the characters were friends prior to the film's beginning. Conflict works best when the people DON'T know each other (Night of the Living Dead) or when it comes after we've spent some time seeing how close/friendly everyone is. But here, as in far too many modern horror films about a group of high school/college age folks, everyone in the circle seems to actively hate one another, and if not we will find out that they SHOULD.

For example, our heroine buys a pregnancy test early on and mentions getting black out drunk on Halloween. We're supposed to assume it was with her boyfriend, but there's a vagueness to it, and then later his brother expresses feelings for her. And then, at around the one hour mark, he tells her/us what we already figured out - he was the one who got her pregnant in her blacked out state. So yay, we also have a rapist in the mix. Worse, no one in the movie (including the heroine) acts like a human being - even after she is told she was raped, she mostly just seems annoyed, as if he told her it was him that took the last Hot Pocket or something. And this comes after her best friend is killed, another huge deal that she doesn't seem to get too worked up about beyond simply saying that she's upset. I'm not sure if she's just a weak actress or wasn't well directed (or, like me, simply didn't care about anything in the script) but since the story weighs so heavily on people facing up to their mistakes and taking responsibility for their actions, it would have been nice to buy them as real people instead of cardboard cutouts.

The ghost scenes (or three dimensional flashbacks, I guess) were oddly directed as well, with present day characters standing near the ghosts without any sort of effect to differentiate what was happening in the present and what was in the past. So our heroine will watch part of the backstory from a few feet away (like Lisa Zane seeing the flashbacks in Freddy's Dead) but there's no transition or color shift to show us the change; it just looks like the flashback characters are ignoring her. It's especially problematic when the script opts for a "history repeats itself" climax, with present day characters inhabiting the roles of those in the past, shot exactly the same. Change the lighting or something at least, jeez.

I will give it this much: it doesn't waste time, which at first seems like a good thing before you realize that the plot sort of NEEDS you to have some sort of attachment to the characters in order to be invested in the proceedings. But still: they crash in the first 5 minutes or so, plus someone gets hit by a car in a manner much like Gage Creed. And one of the five is dead before long, so you can't accuse the movie of taking too long to get going. Perhaps a Lost-style series of flashbacks could have helped to flesh out their backstories a bit, and then cut down on the repetitive "looking around the motel"/"Where is ____?" type scenes that make up the bulk of the 2nd act. I don't deny that there's a decent idea somewhere in here, but the execution always falls under one of two modes: lifeless or clunky.

And can we give ghostly little children a rest for a while? You've actually managed to kill their inherent creepiness due to omnipresence. How about ghost teenagers, like Victor Pascow (sorry for all the Pet Sematary references; I don't know why it keeps popping in my head) or that one stalker guy in the Twilight movies? Those are due for a revival, I think. Give little girls with white dresses and sunken eyes a break.

What say you?

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