Breathing Room (2008)

OCTOBER 7, 2008

GENRE: INDEPENDENT, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

Maybe I should make a subgenre for a group of strangers who wake up in a room, trying to figure out why they are there. Since the first two Saw films, there have been several, and while Breathing Room fares far better than some of the others I’ve seen recently (such as Steel Trap), it still suffers from the same problems that they all have, resulting in a film that’s fairly well made but ultimately pretty dull.

Gabriel Cowan and John Suits are the two guys behind this one (one or both of their names appear in just about every credit on this movie), and to their credit, they do make a few nice adjustments to the formula. One is that they double the usual amount of folks. It’s usually around 6 or 7, but there are FOURTEEN here (though two die before the film begins), which at least keeps the body count up. Someone dies every 5-10 minutes, a far better return than Trap offered. I also like the sort of Paycheck-y way that there are about a dozen random objects in the room (a pen, a bottle of vodka, a lighter, etc), which must be put together in order to find a way out. It would have been easy to go the Saw route and just have them torture/kill each other throughout the movie, but instead they go for the paranoia/”no one is safe” angle.

But that’s part of the problem. They want us to be held in suspense the whole time, but it’s obvious right off the bat that the bad guy is one of two particular folks. Again, the Saw films had such great twists, it’s almost a guarantee that anyone making a film in their wake will try to blow our minds with some shocking revelation, so you will automatically suspect the “least” likely characters, and Breathing Room is no exception. It's a "It only works if you've never seen another movie" movie.

Another issue is that the killer has a scene alone which makes no sense in retrospect. It’s one thing to try to throw the viewer off, but to have a scene that simply should not logically exist is unforgivable. It would be like having Verbal Kint go to the bathroom and worry that the guy in the next stall is Keyser Soze*. And since after the scene I still suspected that this person was the killer anyway, it didn’t even work as intended.

Unlike the other indies in this trio of Anchor Bay pickups (apparently they are taking over where Lionsgate left off), the acting here is actually pretty solid. Our lead is Ailsa Marshall, and she looks a bit like Naomi Watts, which is fine by me. And while you still get the usual archetypes (the complete jerk, the guy who rises to the leader role, the hysterical woman, etc), there’s no one you want to see killed right away.

Anyway, I hope a moratorium is placed on these types of movies for a few years. There’s not a lot you can do with the scenario anyway, and there are just too many. Only way to tell them apart is to explain the motive (i.e. “Saw II is the one where the cop set up everyone up, and Jigsaw knew this somehow.”), and this movie doesn’t even offer a reason for the killer’s game. It’s like the inverse of Five Across The Eyes: these guys got the technical/acting parts right, but their script wasn’t up to par. Oh well.

What say you?

*Does anyone mind that I am constantly spoiling the end of The Usual Suspects in my reviews?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Vanguard (2008)

OCTOBER 6, 2008

GENRE: INDEPENDENT, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

I gotta hand it to the writer/director of The Vanguard, one Matthew Hope – he actually pulled off a fairly original zombie movie. It’s like "Y The Last Man" crossed with the original script for Day of the Dead (look for it online – it’s a completely different, if not necessarily better version of the basic story). It’s not entirely successful, but the budget was low and rather than do the umpteenth “small town gets overtaken by zombies, wiseass slacker fights them” movie, he attempted something more thought provoking and, for lack of a better word, “realistic”.

Unfortunately, he never manages to really focus on one of his ideas, and as a result the movie feels you’ve only seen half of it. There is a lengthy text at the film’s opening (I think only Alone in the Dark’s is longer), always a sign of “uh oh, this movie might not make any sense, better frontload some exposition we never shot”, and it talks about things that never really figure into the movie. For the most part, it’s just our hero (a deaf mute named Max – he looks like a hobo Topher Grace) running around the woods with a hatchet or a knife, making mincemeat out of zombies and also some soldier types who are chasing him. Actually, as the film goes on, the zombies sort of get forgotten about it as well.

Another issue is that the world is supposed to be desolate, lacking resources and becoming uninhabitable, but not only do we never see any of this supposed destruction, we spend the entire film in a forest that looks pretty goddamn healthy to me, and occasionally a gas powered vehicle will happen by to boot. Why bother even having all this stuff if you’re not going to follow through? Just say it takes place in Canada or some other heavily forested area and be done with it.

And this is minor, but it’s a bit strange to have a movie being narrated by a deaf mute.

Acting’s good though, as are most of the gore effects. The final bad guy is given a CGI geyser of blood for some reason (plus yet ANOTHER horrible composite background –that’s what, 3 in the past 5 days?) but otherwise it’s solid stuff. And I love how Max dispatches dudes – he never simply lops off a head or whatever. Instead he just goes apeshit on them, hacking and slicing away like that crazy German broad in Die Hard With A Vengeance.

I also loved the zombies. They’re sort of primal, ape type guys. They move fast, but they’re kind of clumsy/awkward too. Again, it’s just different enough to show that Hope and his crew were going out of their way to stick out. One thing that doesn’t quite work, however, are their post-processed vocals for when they scream. It sounds goofy and worse, obviously dubbed in (as does the occasional line of dialogue, but after Five Across The Eyes, I’m just happy to be able to make out what everyone is saying).

Once again, Anchor Bay hasn’t bothered to include any extras, so maybe Hope deleted a bunch of stuff, or maybe he plans a sequel that further explains/develops some of the movie’s key plot points. He definitely shows promise though – let’s hope his next film has the resources he needs to tell his whole story.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

October Extras 2: Assault On Precinct 13 (1976)

OCTOBER 6, 2008

GENRE: OCTOBER EXTRAS 2, CARPENTER
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)
LAST SEEN: JUNE 2008 (REVIVAL SCREENING)

In one of the stranger programming decisions I can recall, the Aero showed a double feature of Big Trouble in Little China and Assault On Precinct 13, in that order, but the only special guest for intermission was Assault’s Austin Stoker. So he did a Q&A for a film before it played. Most of the audience hadn’t seen the film yet, so it was kind of weird. But I didn’t care, because I had seen the film several times, as it is one of my favorite Carpenter films. Still, switch the order!

So today I am actually watching it with Carpenter’s commentary on, as it has been over a decade since I listened to it (on Laserdisc! Carpenter even alludes to switching to “side 2”, lol) and I recall it being one of his better ones. Also, now that I live out here, I know what the hell he is talking about when he points out specific LA locations.

It’s the first of what would eventually be at least five Carpenter films that focus, in whole or in part, of a group of folks that are trapped in one location and spend as much time fighting with one another as they do their common enemy (Prince of Darkness, The Thing, and Ghosts of Mars being the other 3 primary, and the 2nd half of The Fog follows this template to a degree as well). And even though it’s his least horror-y movie ever (it’s the only one of his theatrical films without even a shred of horror or sci-fi), the suspense is incredible - moreso than many of his subsequent films, if you ask me.

Another great thing is how it’s impossible to gauge who lives and who dies right off the bat, something many of these types of movies often fail to accomplish. The Assault remake got a lot of stuff wrong, but they wisely retained the “no one is safe” concept, which is why Maria Bello’s character was killed and not Drea De Matteo’s. And of course, anyone who has seen the film will never forget the film’s first (and still shocking) character death, nor will they likely ever order a vanilla twist from an inner city ice cream truck ever again.

One thing the remake definitely botched was the score. After Halloween I would say Asssault has Carpenter’s most memorable theme music (dun dananana. DUN DANANANA!), whereas the remake settled for forgettable, formulaic shit that you’d never want to try to spell out with a bunch of Ds, Ns, and vowels in a movie review. The laserdisc had the score isolated, which was great, and it also had the ice cream music for some reason. I forget if it was ever officially released on CD, but my friend figured out a way to get the isolated score onto a cassette tape (!), which was permanently located in my car for when I would drive around harassing single fathers and ice cream vendors.

On the commentary, Carpenter frequently points out how he should have edited the earlier part of the film down a bit in order to get to the action, which is an unfortunate result of his latter day approach to filmmaking. I think the film is perfectly paced, and I love the early stuff, as it’s rich with character development, and also has just the right amount of ominous dread contained within. Now he’s always in such a rush to finish a movie, he skips both the character AND the action, resulting in nonsense like the finales to both Ghost of Mars and Vampires.

It also began Carpenter’s tradition of memorable antiheroes. Napoleon Wilson may not be as great a character as Snake Plissken or Jack Burton (though I can’t help but wonder if I’d feel the same had Kurt Russell played the character, and the late Darwin Joston is pretty fucking great in his own right), but he’s just as compelling, and blows Laurence Fishburne’s generic gangster in the remake right out of the water. I’m always a sucker for any movie where bad guys team up with good guys to take on other bad guys, and this movie has some of the all time best moments of stuff on that angle. My favorite is when Stoker (the cop) tosses Napoleon his gun, which Napoleon then returns to him once the danger is eliminated. Fuck yeah.

One shitty thing about the DVD – its non-anamorphic (at least, the one I have is – I think it’s been double dipped to correct this, but I forget). Hopefully Blu-Ray will catch on enough for stuff like this to get released in the superior format (wouldn’t surprise me – this was actually one of the first DVDs released, so obviously it’s a title folks are after). I like my Nancy Loomis in full 1080p, thank you.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Five Across The Eyes (2006)

OCTOBER 5, 2008

GENRE: INDEPENDENT, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

When I did an interview with The Awful Show, they asked me if I had seen Five Across The Eyes, which I hadn’t (I hadn’t even heard of it at that point, actually). But it got me interested, and some research revealed that it would be hitting DVD courtesy of Anchor Bay later on in the year. Now the time has come! Does it live up to my mild curiosity?

No, not really. If there’s ever been a film that I would 100% support a remake, it would be this. The script is more or less great, but everything else betrays it. The acting is pretty abysmal across the board, and the camerawork/sound leave a lot to be desired as well. Apparently they only had 4 grand to work with, but that is no excuse for some of this stuff. Paranormal Activity’s budget was around the same – that movie looks like 100 million compared to this, if you want to believe that it costs a lot of money to record decent sound and present a quality image (wanna know a secret? You don’t!)

But again, the script is pretty great. A real time survival horror film with five girls trapped in a car, relentlessly pursued by an insane woman whose motive is never quite clear (we are led to believe her husband cheated on her and she is taking it out on these broads for whatever reason – more than Halloween offered for why Michael was after Laurie, at any rate). It’s pretty fast paced, and the realtime gimmick works nicely (one rule of thumb for realtime films is that not a hell of a lot happens until the end).

Sadly, it’s pretty much all undone by everything else. The audio is particularly troublesome; I had to turn the subtitles (actually close captions – so I got to read “thud” and “music playing” along with the dialogue) in order to understand a good chunk of what the girls were saying. They often shriek over one another, miss words entirely (lets pretend this is a result of great actors playing terrified, not amateur actors trying to remember their lines), etc. Granted, it’s not like the story is so complex that understanding every word is necessary (indeed, it would probably work just as well on mute), but it’s still an annoyance. Some of the dialogue is pretty wacky though – at one point the girl driving the van asks (shrieks) “Where’s my seatbelt!”. There is also a heartfelt moment where one girl apologizes to another for shooting bottle rockets off in her face (this IS Tennessee).

Worse though, is the camerawork. I’m all for frenetic “you are there” shakicam, a la the Bourne films or even Cloverfield, but it’s overboard here. There are better (and easier) ways to film events in a way that makes it difficult for the audience to tell what is happening, if that is the intent, but still come off like you know what you’re doing behind the camera. For example, at one point a girl hides in the trunk area as a girl is attacked in the front seat. We stay with the girl in the back, not quite sure what is happening to the girl up front. This is fine, but the camera begins turning 90 degrees clockwise, then 180 clockwise, back and forth – what the fuck? It’s bad enough I don’t know what’s happening to the girl off camera, but I don’t know what’s going on with the girl I am watching either!

Plus, since it’s shot with consumer grade...something (it’s so ugly I cant even tell what it is), it unintentionally gives the effect that there is a 6th person in the car with them who is filming the events as they occur. I almost wish that Albert Pyun had teamed up with these guys (Greg Swinson and Ryan Thiessen) and they made this film together, using his Invasion camera setup/idea but their script (none of the existing actors would be involved in this scenario, however).

I also wish they kind of had some more balls. Spoilers follow!

No one dies. They find some anonymous corpses, but none of our five girls get theirs. After a while, this seriously diffuses the tension, as it becomes kind of obvious that Swinson/Thiessen are seemingly unwilling to off any of their protagonists (on several occasions the antagonist has one at gunpoint or whatever and fails to do anything, there is also a lengthy scene where four of the girls scatter, we hear gunshots... and none of them are seemingly injured at all, let alone killed). It would also present the filmmakers with an easier way to film their movie – two or three fewer girls in the car would give the camera guy more room to move around, and the sound quality would likely be improved as well with only half of the shrieking going on at once. This can be addressed in the remake as well.

The DVD’s only “extras” are the aforementioned subs. Nothing else. Even the trailers that play at the top of the DVD aren’t accessible from the main menu. The main menu plays a crazy song that I can only describe as electronic metal though, so that’s cool. I let it run for at least 20 minutes before moving along to my next DVD. My traditional Monday “Watch the extras and write the reviews” marathon is doubly troublesome in the month of October extras – so actually, the lack of extras on the disc is a blessing. Still, I would have liked some production info or whatever. Oh well.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

October Extras 2: Hard To Kill (1990)

OCTOBER 5, 2008

GENRE: OCTOBER EXTRAS 2
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REVIVAL SCREENING)
LAST SEEN: 1992? (CABLE)

As you may have guessed from yesterday’s October Extras entry, I am a big Dolph Lundgren fan. 2nd to him, however, is Steven Seagal, and Hard To Kill was the film to beat when I was a kid. I guess you never forget your first; this was his second movie but I actually never saw all of Above the Law until very recently. But like a lot of films I loved as a kid, it somehow never got carried into high school and beyond; I honestly don’t think I’ve seen it since 1992 or so. Does it hold up?

Well, kinda. Obviously it’s still fun to watch, but in that whole “let’s laugh at the corny dialogue and ridiculous Seagal-isms” way, not in a genuine “wow this is a great movie” way, like I Come In Peace. It holds up better than some of Seagal’s other films of the era, and was always better than anything he made past Under Siege 2, but it’s certainly no Out For Justice (a movie that just gets better with age, IMO).

The main problem with the movie is that it’s terribly edited. There is not a lot of story here, and like many 80s films, it seems to only have two acts instead of three, but it’s STILL too long, due to the fact that editor John F. Link just didn’t know when to cut a shot. If someone needs to exit a house and then drive away, we see the whole process: the guy walks out the door, down the driveway, opens the car door door, gets in, closes the door, starts the car, and finally drives away. Move along!!

Also, something I didn’t notice as a kid is that Seagal’s kind of an asshole in this. The whole thing is supposedly about him trying to avenge his wife, but he nails another broad without even the slightest bit of resistance or “I shouldn’t be doing this...” attitude. Also, when he first sees his kid for the first time in seven years, he gives him a slight pat on the head and more or less says “Yo” before continuing to beat the piss out of a dude. Now, the older, more cynical me thinks this is pretty great, but it makes the ending frustrating. Seagal finally gets his man, and he... lets him get arrested. Since when do you have any sense of decency? And what the fuck kind of action movie is this where the hero doesn’t kill the main bad guy? Then again, Seagal always stiffed folks on the goods, such as in Under Siege when he just blew up the boat Gary Busey was on, depriving us of a kick ass Seagal v Busey brawl.

Otherwise though, it’s still a blast; a perfect example of how great action movies used to be, before all this PG-13/plot bullshit got in the way. Nowadays, you’d never get a movie as simple as this (it’s even pretty simple by Seagal standards), nor would there be as many fights. Outside of Bourne, I don’t think any modern action films feature a significant amount of hand to hand combat, and Seagal was always good at balancing the fighting with the shooting/chasing style. One thing about Van Damme movies, especially the ones from around this time – they were always about fighting, and nothing else. Did the dude even touch a gun until he already had like 5 movies under his belt? Seagal caters to all action crowds.

And it has a lot of the weird moments that are sort of a tradition with Seagal. The milk man part is probably my favorite (in the middle of a car chase, someone offscreen yells at a milk man for some reason), but there are a lot of others. For example, they keep talking about how its Oscar night, but the actual Oscars never figure into the plot (a la Naked Gun 33 1/3 or Bodyguard). And Kelly Le Brock’s character is entirely weird; she pines for a guy in a coma, brings him a flower for no reason, and doesn’t seem too fazed that everywhere she goes with this guy ends up becoming a battlefield.

One thing about seeing the movie at the Bev that kinda sucked is that the crowd actually drowned out some of the best lines. For example, when Seagal sees the bad guy on TV uttering his catchphrase “You can take that to the bank!” he replies “Oh I’ll take you to the bank. To the BLOOD BANK.” But everyone cheered at the first part of the line, so no one could hear the even funnier 2nd part. Then again, since he never actually really harms the guy, I guess its an empty promise anyway.

After the movie they showed a whole bunch of Seagal trailers, and it’s funny how once they stopped using his situation as the title (Seagal IS Hard to Kill, Seagal IS Out For Justice, etc), the fans lost interest. Some pictures were more successful than others, but his first flat out bomb was Fire Down Below (Seagal IS Fire Down Below? Nope, doesn’t work at all), and his next movie went DTV. Then he came back with Exit Wounds (his only non “is” hit), but Half Past Dead referred to someone else, and he hasn’t had a theatrical release since, regardless of how the title related to his character. I also noticed a similar thing with Adam Sandler; once he stopped naming the movies after his character (either their name or their occupation), they became unfunny and boring. Maybe they should do a movie together.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

October Extras 2: I Come In Peace (1990)

OCTOBER 4, 2008

GENRE: OCTOBER EXTRAS 2
SOURCE: VHS (OWN COLLECTION)
LAST SEEN: 2004 (VHS)

18 years ago, I was over at my friend’s house, and his parents said they wanted to see Ghost. We could either join them, or see something else that started around the same time. Our only choice was I Come In Peace, a film neither of us had heard of. But we were promised an R rating, so off we went.

And I still have my ticket stub!

Not only is it possibly the pinnacle in Dolph Lundgren’s career, I Come In Peace is simply an awesome movie in pretty much every way. It’s from 1990, but few films define the 80s as well as this one. You get pretty much every generic action movie plot (revenge for partner killed, mismatched partners, drug dealers, and for the hell of it, aliens) rolled into one, and all the usual plot devices (cop being taken off the case, girlfriend who is sick of the hero’s lack of commitment, etc.) to boot. But through it all, the plot is actually pretty original – an alien drug dealer (!!!) has come “in peace” to Earth, in order to extract endorphins from human beings and mix them with heroin, which creates an incredibly potent drug that he will presumably sell on his homeworld to alien crackheads. There’s also a good alien out to stop him.

Dolph, of course, is the cop. He teams up with Brian Benben (then sort of popular due to Dream On; I recall the audience cheering with laughter when he was first introduced), making it one of the few white/white buddy cop combos as well. Dolph even has his hair dyed black (leftover from The Punisher), so they don’t even have different hair colors. But Dolph is of course, a supercop who plays by his own rules, and Benben is a bureaucratic nebbish who wears a suit and won’t drink on the job. But even this is played against type; instead of the usual messy apartment with pizza boxes lying all around, Dolph’s apartment is pretty ritzy, and he has vintage wine to offer. We never see Benben’s place though, but maybe his was a shithole, to offer another difference.

I also love how the drug dealers in the movie are presented as white collar yuppies. They have a boardroom and everything. Dolph infiltrates their headquarters by setting off their car alarms, which sends them all into a panic. Then the head dealer guy (played by Bernard from Lost!) bemoans how his partner had to fly coach on a recent flight to Rio. Hahaha, awesome.

Speaking of Rio, he’s there because he killed Dolph’s partner (Dolph got distracted by a liquor store robbery, a scenario sort of lifted by Seagal in Out For Justice). And he’s still there at the end. The dead partner turns out be a Macguffin, a rarity in a B-movie like this. However, at the end of the film Dolph suggests they vacation in Rio, so maybe I Also Come In Peace will just be about that, without any alien shit whatsoever.

And of course – the weapon: KILLER CDS! When I was 10 I had no appreciation for the foreshadowing in the first scene, in which a yuppie fiddling with his CD player is “attacked” by an overzealous eject CD button (as a kid I was just mesmerized by the idea of a CD player in the car; I don’t think the family car even had a tape deck at this point). It doesn’t get used much in the film, but when it does, oh man. Has there ever been a more awesome weapon in a movie? It even got ripped off in the game Revolution X.

Speaking of music (sort of), there is a rap song in the film that I fucking love, and would kill to find. It’s on the walkman of one of the alien’s victims. Some sample lyrics: “She’s an ugly woman, and this is the truth!” and “She’s the queen of Halloween!”. If anyone has this song on Mp3, you are to send it to me at once or risk... well, there’s not much I can do.

One last thing I must mention, because someone will bitch if I don’t – the film’s final exchange between the alien and the Dolph. For the final time, the alien says “I come in peace!” (which is all he ever says in the movie; though the other alien seems to have a pretty good grasp on the English language), and Dolph, after loading up the cool-ass alien gun (not the CD one though; which would have been more awesome but lacked an explosion), replies “And you go in pieces, asshole.” It’s the “asshole” that really sells it, but in theaters it was hard to hear because everyone was already cheering and laughing from the first part of the line. But if you think about the greatest one-liners of the type in history, they are all punctuated by profanity: “Smile you son of a bitch.” “Get away from her you bitch!” “Yippie Ki Yay mother fucker!”, etc. Dolph just happened to have one that was awesome even without it.

You may have noticed that the film was watched on VHS. That’s because it was never released on DVD. Anchor Bay/Elite put out a widescreen VHS tape in the late 90s, but that’s not the one I have. Nope, I got the old school MEDIA tape (which I had to rewind today – it was charming in an annoying way). Hilariously, it starts with a little text PSA asking you to service your VCR twice a year. Since I was using the VCR for I think the first time since the last time I watched the movie 3-4 years ago, I guess that’s one suggestion I have neglected to follow.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Pulse 2 (2008)

OCTOBER 4, 2008

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

I’ve already forgotten most of what occurred in the first Pulse, and my review didn’t help jog my memory much. But I feel safe in saying that Pulse 2 is better, and if not for some truly abysmal greenscreen work ruining damn near half the movie, I would even defend it should the need arise.

Let’s get that greenscreen shit out of the way. Apparently, this is just a new tradition for Dimension (or, more specifically Neo Art + Logic, who produced both films), as Feast 2 also suffered from terrible greenscreen work. But at least there it was seemingly confined to the skyline for all of the scenes on the roof, and on a TV that’s not properly color balanced, it’s not really noticeable. But in Pulse 2, we have a greenscreen log cabin, suburban house, city street, gas station, field... in other words: ordinary, everyday shit. How hard could it have been to find a goddamn cabin to film in? Instead, we get poor Jamie Bamber standing in front of a log cabin wall that is lit entirely different than he is, scaled too large (Bamber seems about 4 feet tall in front of it), and looks entirely flat. Plus sometimes the actors are opaque, because the effects guys obviously tried too hard to blend together the mismatched footage. I felt like I was watching the cut scenes of a bad CD-ROM game from 1994. It’s actually kind of ironic; if you’re familiar with Bamber it’s because of Battlestar Galactica, so instead of seeing him in front of obviously not real (but usually quite good looking) outer space footage, we see him in front of every day things looking as unnatural as any actor ever has. Even the driving shots, which are pretty much always shot this way in every movie, look better than the bulk of the others, probably because it’s actually footage instead of still images. They obviously went around shooting all the backgrounds, but why they did it with stills and not video, I have no idea. Christ, it’s almost as if they went out of their way to make the film look terrible.

Roger Rabbit blended better with his backgrounds.

But otherwise, the only problem with the movie is that it’s feels more like a few episodes of a Pulse TV show strung together than an actual full length film. There is the obvious through-line of Bamber trying to get his daughter to safety, but every half hour the movie switches gears. The cabin stuff is all the first half hour, and then there’s a never explained bit where a guy dressed entirely in red (which keeps the ghosts away) kidnaps Bamber and makes him pick up a specific piece of computer hardware that takes up another 20-25 min. Finally, it’s like a stripped down version of The Mist, with Bamber and his daughter driving, running out of gas, and feeling despair. You could remove any of these lengthy sequences and be left with pretty much the same movie.

That said, it’s enjoyable enough, in a small way. Bamber is actually pretty good here (I’m still on season 1 of BSG, so maybe this changes, but he hasn’t impressed me so far on that show), and the backstory of him and his (hot) exwife is much more compelling than that of the annoying kids in the original. Since the film is rather stripped down in terms of horror and effects, they actually have time for character development, so that was appreciated.

The horror bits are OK too. John Gulager cameos, in his underwear. Terrifying. And a couple of the shots of ghosts appearing out of nowhere are pretty effective. Again, this is all compared to the original, which was frenetic and incoherent at almost all times. It doesn’t hold a candle against something like The Eye 2 or The Ring, but as DTV sequels to crappy films go, I can think of many that are far worse.

The DVD has a commentary with pretty much all of the creative/technical guys on the credits, but none of the actors. It’s an enjoyable enough track, but they seem to think their greenscreen work is terrific, and they never once say “Hmm, maybe we should have just shot this part in an actual location, since one could be found anywhere”. Apparently it was a time-saving technique; they wouldn’t need the actors for as much time as they would if they needed to send them off to different locations every day. But Christ, I would have starred in the film for free if it meant that they would put me in an actual cabin or city street and end up with a better film. But at least they seemingly have at least some sense of humor about their other films; they point out that Kristen Bell made fun of Pulse in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and then they launch into a series of Phantoms lines from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Ah, Dimension... so many terrible films for us to mock as one. They also suggest that the next sequel will explain the purpose of the aforementioned computer chip, so there’s something. There’s also a brief teaser for Pulse 3, as well as a pair of deleted scenes of no real use. Since they are so proud of it (Joel Soisson even compares it to Sin City and 300!), I am actually surprised that there isn’t a single making-of type thing focusing on the greenscreen process.

This movie has been torn apart on the IMDb, but other than the greenscreen stuff, I don’t think it deserves such a thrashing. I suspect that the abysmal look of the film is what’s actually turning people off, but I also suspect some folks actually like the original, so whatever.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

October Extras 2: Stay (2005)

OCTOBER 3, 2008

GENRE: OCTOBER EXTRAS 2
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)
LAST SEEN: OCTOBER 2005 (THEATRICAL)

Right before I moved out to Los Angeles, I went to a double feature of Doom and Stay, which had 4 letter monosyllabic titles but otherwise nothing else in common. And apparently, I was one of very few people in the entire country to buy a ticket for the latter film, as it has one of the worst opening weekends ever recorded for a wide release, according to BoxOfficeMojo. Also, at a reported budget of 50 million (with a gross of less than 4 million), that would make Stay one of the biggest failures of all time (again, for wide release) in terms of investment to return percentage. And yet, 3 years later, director Marc Forster is at the helm of the next James Bond movie. Movie jail my ass!

But the fact that the film has been completely ignored makes it all the more satisfying that it’s actually pretty solid. You’ll never run into the Juno/Little Miss Sunshine style backlash of Stay, because not enough people will ever see it for it to become omnipresent and thus annoying. And since it’s not like, a mindblowing, amazing film, I don’t feel the need to try to drum up support for it as I do with other unjustly ignored films (such as Halloween III).

I DID think it would make a good entry for OE2 though, because Forster continually breaks continuity and the 180 rule for dramatic effect. Frequent readers of the site will know that there are few things that annoy me more than when a director can’t be bothered to follow the 180 rule (which is making sure that if you are filming two angles of a conversation, the camera is always on one side of the room, so you don’t end up with two shots where the actors are seemingly facing the same way), but in Stay it’s done correctly. Spoilers follow!

See, the whole movie is just a fever dream/hallucination of Ryan Gosling’s character, which he suffers after a horrific car crash. And in turn, the onlookers become characters: Ewan McGregor’s good Samaritan becomes his shrink, Janaene Garafalo plays the woman on the other side of the car crash in reality, but in the dream she’s his former shrink. Every minor character in the film reappears at the end, a sort of twisted psychological thriller version of Wizard of Oz. So, back to my point, breaking the 180 rule, fucking with continuity, and all the other little things that make you feel uneasy are actually all the cinematic equivalent of things in a dream that don’t make sense. If you think of a dream, things are always jumping around without any logic, so Forster did a great job of presenting that skewed POV here. It’s actually among the most realistic portrayals of a “dream world” I’ve ever seen in a movie, because it’s damn near impossible to get a grasp on anything.

Of course, yeah, that means that movie is a bit baffling at times. Some things are never quite explained in any way that I can understand (Naomi Watts’ character suddenly discovers that all of her paintings are from Gosling’s character – huh?). Part of the problem is that even though it’s technically all in Gosling’s head, there are several scenes in which he is not present, which is a bit of a cheat. There is also a lot of misleading imagery to make you think they are going for a Fight Club deal where McGregor and Gosling are perhaps the same person, which as far as I can tell, is there only to mislead you and nothing else. Psychological red herring?

Forster also uses that goddamn body mount cam that I hate. I just don’t understand the point of this camera angle (where a camera is strapped to the actor’s chest, pointing up at their face). It’s neither a 1st person nor a traditional 3rd person perspective; it’s like, well, a 2nd person perspective. And it’s annoying as hell. Hitcher, Wrong Turn 2, Hostage; all movies that would be improved had it not been for a brief use of this lame camera setup in each of them.

Only gripe though. Otherwise it’s just an enjoyable, fast paced, and ultimately sad movie in the vein of Jacob’s Ladder. Gosling is always interesting to watch*, and the supporting cast is made up of familiar faces (Bob Hoskins!) that manage to make themselves memorable despite only having a scene or two each. And it’s a really slick looking movie; had it not tanked I would imagine it would be an oft-requested title for Blu-Ray. The 50 million apparently all went into set design and the like (love the endless spiral staircase at the college), not to mention the gruesome (and realistic) car crash. Definitely use the slo-mo function to appreciate the makeup/stunt work seen in that sequence.

I should note that the DVD tries to sell it as a horror film (a supernatural one at that!), but I don’t consider it one at all. It’s not scary, no one seems to be in any danger, there are no monsters... I know it’s the go-to phrase for a studio trying to avoid their film being labeled a horror movie, but it really IS a “psychological thriller”. Maybe they figured it was the only way for folks to check it out. And here I am, reviewing it on a site called Horror Movie A Day. Irony, you rock.

Anyway, even though I just spoiled it, I hope some of you check it out and enjoy it. And if you don’t, well, it’s still better than Doom, right?

What say you?

*At the premiere party for Craptivity, I saw Gosling and, in addition to telling him how much I enjoyed this film, explained how he was my wife’s “freebie”. He seemed genuinely touched by at least one of these facts.

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Ape Man (1943)

OCTOBER 3, 2008

GENRE: PREDATOR, MAD SCIENTIST
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 4!!!)

The Ape Man is is more or less the exact same movie as The Ape, except that instead of Karloff you get Lugosi, and instead of a guy dressing up as an ape for plot reasons, you get a guy dressing up as an ape for “a real ape probably can’t be trusted to only fake killing Lugosi” reasons. Otherwise, same shit – dames in distress, reporters, something about spinal fluid, inept police, etc.

This one’s a bit better though. Lugosi is turning into an ape, and he has fun doing the walk and wearing the hairy makeup. The transfer is also a hell of a lot better, so I was actually able to follow the story at all times. But still, like all these 40s movies, it’s pretty dull, and I spent half the movie wondering what the equivalent of these movies are today. I would guess DTV scarecrow movies. I’m really curious as to how these movies were received by horror fan audiences back then. Did they get annoyed when they’d see a cool poster/star’s name but wind up with the umpteenth “let’s run around the house finding bodies until the final 2 minutes” movie?

This one does have a pretty unique element though. At the very end of the film, the screenwriter drives up and talks directly to the camera about what a ridiculous story it was. Then he rolls up his window, on which THE END is printed. OK, whatever.

I also dug how Lugosi’s character dealt with both gorillas and apes, as it kept alive my streak of not knowing which is which.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Feast II: Sloppy Seconds (2008)

OCTOBER 2, 2008

GENRE: COMEDIC, MONSTER, SPLATTER
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

When one of the PR firms asked me to interview John Gulager, I said yes almost instantly, because I knew it would score me an early copy of Feast 2: Sloppy Seconds, a film that’s title alone was enough to get me anxious to see it. But more importantly, having met John a few times at various screenings (he and his father Clu are regulars at the New Bev), I knew he’d be fun to talk to. Also, in another of my “I remember when...” moments, I remember watching Project Greenlight when it was detailing the making of the first Feast and thinking “Man, this dude seems cool.” And now I get to call him up and talk about cat fucking with him. Life’s awesome sometimes.

Cat fucking is one of the 2 or 3 moments in the film that would send PETA and the American Humane Association into hysterics. If there’s anyone that can pull off a dog being shotgunned to pieces (in the film’s first 2 minutes!), its Gulager and writers Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton, who have managed to blend “sick” and “hilarious” together better than pretty much anyone else making horror films right now. And they really outdo themselves here; some of the gags are so delightfully tasteless, it gives even Silent Night Deadly Night a run for its money. And that’s not praise I give out lightly.

This one picks up where the first one left off, but neither Balthazar Getty or Krista Allen return. We are lead to believe they are going to be OK as they drive off into the sunset. However, the Bartender (Clu) and Honey Pie (Jenny Wade) DO return (yay on both counts), as does Diane Goldner as the twin sister of her character from the first film. Everyone else is new (save for a brief dream sequence featuring another victim of the original, I won’t spoil it but the back of the DVD case does – don’t read it!), and while none of the new characters are as memorable as Henry Rollins (or as surprisingly dispatched as Eric Dane), the actors play off each other well, and unlike the original, there aren’t any weak links in the acting department. A lot of the new characters are pretty despicable (one is obsessed with "The Secret", ugh), and by now you should know that a Feast movie doesn’t spare the “good and pure” type characters; if anything, they get it worse than anyone.

It’s also a more ambitious film, something even more impressive when you consider that the budget is considerably lower (according to the IMDb anyway). Instead of a bar, we are in and around a whole (small) town this time, sort of like Tremors. There is also a lot more daytime footage, which is appreciated (however some of it seems to be shot inside with a fake sky added in – it’s pretty bad and distracting, but luckily some of the movie’s best gags occur during these scenes to even it out).

One thing that might turn folks off is the fact that this film is tonally very different than the first. The original had a sort of snowball pace, where it just got more and more ridiculous as it went on. This is more of a traditional stop n’ go. Those of you who are expecting another nonstop splatter flick will probably be disappointed; it’s, for lack of a better word, a less commercial effort than the original. If you find yourself getting bored after 20 min or so, don’t bother with the rest, as it’s not going to improve in your eyes. I, on the other hand, appreciate that they mixed it up a bit, and while I think it could probably use some trimming (it’s about 10 min too long, but then again so was the original), I like the direction they took. And either way, the laughs keep coming, so it hopefully won’t be too much of an issue. Clu in particular is a riot; nearly everything he says is worth quoting (“Ever seen these things fuck? I mean... it’s disgusting.”).

And yes, fuck. The monster’s apparent horniness is much more on display this time, with the aforementioned feline fuck, Honey Pie being molested, and a dead monster’s cock... well, you’ll see. I am willing to bet more money was spent on various “goo” than anything else for this movie. I mean, Christ, at one point, a character is asked to “Pour some of Grandma out” of a bag the poor woman has been stuffed into.

The DVD has some minor extras. There’s a nice piece about the Gulager clan, and another traditional making of that features nudity and lots of stuff about the monster cocks. There is also a commentary with the Gulagers plus writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan. Gulager himself disappears an hour into the track for unexplained reasons, but it’s still a lively track, and tidbits about the 3rd film are dropped. Also, it is revealed that my beloved New Bev is actually in the film; specifically, the bathroom where I have pissed and threw cold water in my face several times (YOU stay awake during a midnight movie after 6 beers!!).

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

October Extras 2: Memento (2000)

OCTOBER 2, 2008

GENRE: OCTOBER EXTRAS 2
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)
LAST SEEN: 2002

I think the longest I ever drove for a movie was for Memento, in the summer of 2001. It was only playing at a small 2nd run theater in Danvers, MA, which was about a 40 minute drive from where I lived at the time. And it was worth the gas cost (and even would be today, nearly triple what it was then). One of my top 25 movies of all time; it’s a masterpiece that I never really grow tired of watching.

Of course, it’s been like 6 years since I last saw it, and my memory is gradually becoming more and more like Leonard Shelby’s. Also, I actually watched the “chronological” version that time, which is a bore but also makes you appreciate the film’s brilliant structure even more. When you watch the film in order, you’re seeing the “climax” (Teddy being killed) last, sure, but there’s no real excitement to it. In reality, the most exciting part of the story actually DID happen first, so when you watch... OK I’m getting confused. Look, don’t bother with the chronological order version.

I also forgot how funny it was. Joey Pants is always comic gold, but Guy Pearce also has a lot of great little throwaway lines (“Fuck, I need to get my own place,” he mutters, in response to having to dig through his pockets to know where his hotel is). And I never grow tired of the bit where the wonderfully (and always) sleazy Mark Boone Junior accidentally lets Leonard know that he’s been scamming him by renting him two rooms. And even better, those moments of levity never distract from the tension/suspense of the narrative.

Another thing that makes the movie so damned amazing is how relatively simple it is. It’s even more apparent when you watch the chronological version – not a real lot happens in it. Guy Pearce drives around to his hotel, Teddy bugs him, and Moss fucks with him. There’s a brief chase scene (another great laugh – “OK, I’m chasing this guy... nope, he’s chasing me!”), and two deaths, and that’s it in terms of action. Yet you are glued to the green for the entire 2 hr movie. There are only a handful of movies that I genuinely got sad when I realized that they were about to conclude, and this is one. I could watch it all day, just going further and further back (one thing the movie doesn’t quite make clear is how long it has been since the accident).

Less impressive is the DVD. This is the first film I ever double dipped, after being disappointed with the barebones original release. But the special edition is so goddamn frustrating and obtuse, I’ve actually never bothered with any of the extras except for the chronological version, and I had to get a goddamn flowsheet instruction page to figure out how to access it. I like that they tried something unique, and had I all the time in the world I would probably have fun with it, but I really wish they had you choose right from the start whether you wanted to fuck around with memory and logic puzzles, or just watch the goddamn movie. I finally today watched the commentary (again, I needed the internet to help me find it), and it’s a good track, as Nolan covers all bases (technical, creative, set anecdotes, actors...). It makes me even more annoyed that he never recorded a track for Batman Begins. The 2nd disc also has a lot of the usual type of stuff, but I’ve never watched any of it.

If you’ve never seen the film, you’re missing out on one of cinema’s all time great puzzles. Repeat viewings are rewarded, and nitpickers will find almost nothing in terms of continuity/logic holes. The director has gone on the make the 2nd highest grossing film of all time, so a re-release on DVD that touts that bit of info wouldn’t surprise me, but you really should just go buy whatever version you can find (a Blu-Ray is also available) ASAP. Few movies can be recommended more.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

"Twist Movie"

OCTOBER 1, 2008

GENRE: THRILLER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (TEST SCREENING)

I don’t want to say the name of today’s movie on the main page, because I can’t talk about the film without spoiling some of it. And even if I DIDN’T spoil anything, just me saying “I don’t want to spoil it” would in fact, spoil it, because it’s a pretty thin premise and can only have one of two revelations. So if you absolutely hate having anything spoiled for a movie, do NOT read the rest of the review, even the next paragraph. Apart from the film’s title (which is a generic phrase), I will also avoid using any full names, so that Google Alerts and the like won’t inadvertently spoil anything.

You’ve been warned!!!

Today I saw a test screening of Middle Of Nowhere, the new film from the director of Below, which is a great fucking movie that no one’s ever seen. I didn’t know much about the film, only that it was about a pair of newlyweds being stalked by a pair of killers. I didn’t know who played who, but as the film unfolded, I realized that was the point.

See, you get Fuller and Alice (not the actual character names, but hints to their actor identity - they are names of other horror characters they have played) on their honeymoon in Hawaii. Early on, they encounter a pair of hitchhikers who seem a bit “off”, and then later they hear about some murders that took place nearby. But by this point they have met Mickey and his girlfriend Lily, so the “smart” audience will say “ah, they want us to think it’s the hitchhikers, but the killers are really these two!”. BUT, and here’s the kicker, nope. In actuality, the killers are... the newlyweds! After the reveal, a lengthy flashback explains most of the potential story holes; showing how the information we heard was actually vague, and the audience misinterpreted this information as we are supposed to assume that the killers were Mickey and Lily.

However, this is what causes a bit of a problem. In order for this twist to work, you have to spend a lot of time identifying with and rooting for Fuller and Alice. At the same time, Mickey and Lily (and for that matter, the hitchhikers) can’t do anything bad or evil, because, well, they’re not. So you have an hour or so of just... well, not much. Lot of talk, lot of beautiful Hawaii scenery, etc. It’s a great twist, and it’s pulled off well (though there is one potential hole that is skipped over in the flashback – I’ll have to watch the movie again I guess), but in the end, the movie is serving a twist, not the other way around. I mean, yeah, Sixth Sense has a great twist, but the movie itself is compelling even without it. The “Bruce is dead” stuff can almost be considered an epilogue. But that’s not the case here, and I am curious as to how the film will be marketed when it’s impossible to show a lot of the “action” without spoiling who’s who.

Another issue is that audiences may be hip to the fact that the director is hiding things. The opening credits play over a wedding video in which we never see the couple’s faces. A surveillance photo of the murderers is shown in a way that you can’t tell what you’re looking at. Again, the audience is supposed to be mentally filling in these blanks, but it’s still pretty distracting. I found myself thinking “this guy makes a shitty wedding video, you’d think he would film the actual couple every now and then.” And thus, I spent a good chunk of the film suspecting that Fuller and Alice were the killers after all.

Once the twist is revealed and the movie gets going though, it’s pretty goddamn great. The suspense is nerve-wracking, the cinematography is top notch, and our four leads pull off their sort of role reversals without any trouble. Particularly great is Mickey, an actor who I’ve enjoyed since I first saw him in Scream 2 (where he WAS the killer). In addition to a hilarious Nic Cage impression, he is damn near flawless as the guy you’re supposed to think is good, then bad, then good again, something he pulls off brilliantly (and more importantly, without any real logic betrayal). There’s a shot of him going to fight Fuller that I can almost guarantee will be in the trailer (Fuller’s not in the shot, so you can look at the shot either way), and if you’re a fan of the guy, you will definitely cheer this moment.

Apart from waiting around for the twist, the only real drawback to the film is that it’s not really horror. They said it was, but it’s really just a thriller. The murders aren’t a focal point of the film, the violence is confined to the final 5 minutes, and the suspense is no different than that of a movie like The Fugitive (same writer, incidentally) or whatever. There ARE some pretty nasty gore gags, however (a knife through a leg, for example), so there’s something. It’s kind of odd that in a time when R rated horror (I think this will be R anyway, if mainly for language) is doing so poorly at the box office that a studio would try to sell a genuine thriller as a horror movie, but what do I know?

But again, it’s a test screening, so maybe some of this will change by the time it comes out. As it stands, it’s a good movie, but a frustrating one. I wish there was a way for the twist to work without keeping the film in neutral for so long, but at least the visuals (two hot women, Hawaii locales, Mickey’s always entertaining performance) is enough to keep it afloat.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

October Extras 2: Drowning Mona (2000)

OCTOBER 1, 2008

GENRE: OCTOBER EXTRAS 2
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)
LAST SEEN: 2002?

In honor of my friend’s birthday, I chose Drowning Mona to kick off October Extras 2. Why get someone a card or a present when you can write a review of a movie you watched together 7 or 8 years ago (a review they probably won’t even read)? Makes perfect sense to me.

It wasn’t until I wrote down the “Last seen” date that I realized it had been so long since I had watched this minor masterpiece. But like most comedies, I don’t watch it very often, because I’d rather still find the jokes funny when I put it on. I love Christmas Vacation, but if I actually laugh once when I watch it now it’s a miracle, due to watching it every day as a kid. I can (and have, apparently*) recite that movie in my sleep at this point. Still though, 6 years is too long, especially for a film as jampacked with little jokes and throwaway lines as this one. I’m still hearing lines said under the breath by off camera characters that I had never caught before, which is pretty awesome.

It’s a shame that the movie tanked in theaters (and apparently never got a second life on DVD; few people I speak to ever remember it), but I can see why it was a tough sell. Black comedy is never easy, and in this case, the jokes simply aren’t “trailer ready”. There’s very little in the film that one would find amusing when taken out of context. And the lines that DO work on their own (“Dude, she’s thirteen!” says the hero. “Yeah, finally!” his dimwit friend replies) aren’t exactly the type of thing that would make a general audience want to see the film. “Hey, let’s go see that comedy about a dead woman and a pedophile!”

But for those lucky enough to have seen it, man, is there a better movie to quote from the past ten years? The following paragraph won’t make any sense unless you’ve seen it.

“No, no, no, no! He’s not a sheriff!” “Yeah well you snooze you lose.” “Shit salad?” “We need milk.” “Peaches ran over Jeff?” “Cuz his name don’t start with P!” “Don’t do it, it won’t feel good!” “Can’t you do a brotherly de-boning?” “One less won’t kill her.” “He said... ovaries?” (and the response: “Oh yeah, all the time.”). “Is that with Kurt Russell?”

And then, my all time favorite: “I’m married?”, which was a line from Tracey Walter’s character (my still unproduced animated series has a running gag that is an homage to this character/line). Walter is one of the many great cast members in the film; another reason why it’s relatively obscure status puzzles me. You got the great William Fichtner in one of his few comic roles, Neve Campbell as white trash (mmm), future Oscar nominee Casey Affleck (in a role he disowned, the fucker), and even Will Ferrell in a rare supporting role (this was back when he would play a character, not just surround himself with sports stuff and yell a lot). A mere eyebrow raise and nod from him here is funnier than anything in Semi-Pro.

Of note to horror fans, it has a couple of Halloween connections. Jamie Lee Curtis is obvious, but also Raymond O'Connor, who played the hospital guard in Halloween 4 (“Jesus ain’t got nothing to do with this place!”), pops up as a priest. And Neve, of course, is best known for the Scream movies, which owe their existence to Halloween (this movie came out right around the same time as Scream 3; it was a good month for me, who harbored a severe crush on the lass until she decided to disappear off the face of the earth.).

If you enjoy irreverent and dry comedy, this one should be in your collection. The DVD is probably like 2 bucks nowadays, and has some nice extras (a good commentary, some deleteds, etc). But if you don’t think an establishing shot that features a car driving backwards (at full speed) is funny, I guess you should stick to the cinematic talents of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer.

What say you?

*At a party a few years back, I passed out on the couch while watching Christmas Vacation with a few others. Later, I was informed that I was still mouthing the lines, even though all evidence pointed to me being asleep. Awesome.

PLEASE, GO ON...

Dark Harvest 2: The Maize (2004)

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

GENRE: GHOST, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

The original Dark Harvest was one of my unofficial trilogy of “Dark” films (Harvest, Fields, Ride) that pretty much epitomize what is wrong with horror movies nowadays. But it’s the only one that has a sequel (though a Dark Ride 2 has been threatened), and I figured it couldn’t possibly be worse. However, Dark Harvest 2: The Maize is not really a sequel, just possibly the most blatant ripoff in Lionsgate history.

It’s actually a movie simply called The Maize: The Movie (LOL), without even the slightest resemblance to Dark Harvest (it’s not even the same subgenre). What happened was, Lionsgate bought the film and renamed it, and even put the scarecrow killer guy from the “first” movie on the cover, which is the icing on the douchecake. Making matters even more confusing (for me anyway), The Maize has its own (legit) sequel, but I can’t find any evidence of it being released on DVD, by Lionsgate or anyone else. I DID discover that Dark Harvest 3 is another unrelated film, so I look forward to watching that one soon. And people bitch about Halloween III not having Michael Myers...

But it’s easy to see how it could be sold as a sequel, as it is also a completely inept and overlong bore, like the original, and it also has a cornfield. But instead of a kid with variant hair seeking retribution against the killer scarecrows who dare to believe he has a different last name, this one’s about a dad who spends the entire movie looking for his daughters inside a corn maze. And he has ESP.

And it’s an hour and forty five minutes long.

Now, it’s a terrible movie, and nothing could save it, but while the length is unforgivable, it also adds to what makes it such a trainwreck delight. I spent more time laughing at this movie than I have at any other film in recent memory, and a lot of it was due to my disbelief at just how long certain scenes go on. For example, there’s a bit where the two girls, who are for some reason filming a movie about them getting lost (using the same camera that I suspect was used to shoot a good chunk of this actual film. It’s meta-low-budget!). One of them tells the other to keep screaming into the camera. We watch this, not exaggerating here, for 3 straight minutes. Director Bill Cowell (who also wrote, produced, and starred) occasionally has editor Robert Imbs cut in some shots of birds flying in a V formation (Gordon Bombay, are you out there?) to break it up a bit, but it doesn’t diffuse the sheer non-energy that this scene delivers. The fact that the little girls (one of whom is Cowell’s daughter) can’t act worth a shit just adds to the greatness.

Random cutaways and inserts actually make up what seems like half (or more) of the movie. Shoes, shovels, clocks, birds, pumpkins, hands... if it’s a noun, chances are at some point it gets a jarring closeup in the film. It’s actually kind of impressive how many cuts there are in this movie. A lot of these no budget indies suffer from “Master Shot-itis”, in which entire scenes are filmed from one stationary angle, but not The Maize! There’s a cut every couple seconds or so, and some of them even match.

Another wonderful element of this film is the fact that Imbs apparently just learned how to use Adobe After Effects, and by golly he wanted to prove it. So whenever the dad (Cowell again) uses his ESP, we get concentric circles emanating from his head, courtesy of AE’s ripple effect, set at about 100 radius, 40 width (for those of you at home who want to make your very own Dark Harvest 2 homage film). Another thing he likes to do is get use out of extra footage by having it float around the screen in little windows:

I am guessing he had a vague memory of the double/triple/quadruple type images you see on 24 and was trying to replicate it. It’s a shame though, I really cannot do the effect justice by describing it. You just have to see it, over and over throughout the film. But hey, anything that breaks up the hour or so of footage in the film that is simply Cowell wandering through rows of corn yelling “Girls!?” over and over is fine by me.

There is also a supernatural element of some sort. The reason the two girls can’t escape the corn maze is because they are being trapped by the ghosts of two OTHER little girls who were killed there a year before. They need to do this so that the dad will come looking for his daughters and help the ghosts solve their murder, or something. I didn’t care much once it became apparent that the only real reason that they were in the movie was to rip off the little girls in The Shining (possibly the reason for the ESP nonsense as well).

Also, the first half of the movie takes place in the daytime, and that’s fine. But when night falls, Cowell apparently didn’t take on a 6th role as “Guy who rents a generator and some lights”, so the scenes are all lit by a light on the camera. This wouldn’t be as big of a problem if the camera wasn’t constantly moving around, or if they had some sort of narrative reason for a small circular light that shines on our actor’s face and upper torso and nothing else, but nothing is offered in that department. More than once I thought I was watching a “found footage” type film as a result.

So add all that together, and you have a modern Plan 9, a movie so inept and yet made so earnestly (if Cowell was just looking to make a buck, I’m sure he could have come up with a plot that was more marketable than “A guy runs around a cornfield”) that you can’t really hate it. There may not be a seconds’ worth of intentional entertainment in the entire film, but what it offers in unintentional hilarity is more than enough to make up for it, and a few other movies to boot. It currently ranks 5th on IMDb’s bottom 100 (1 being Disaster Movie), which is pretty good for a film that went DTV and was never featured on MST3k. Everyone involved should be proud of their non-achievements here.

And there are extras! There’s a trailer, in which I learned that the film was rated R (for what, I have no idea. Nude corn?), and it succeeds in making the film look exciting, though it gives away the non-sequel angle by having someone explain that it’s “been one year” since an event that wasn’t in the first movie. Then there’s a “making of” that’s really just a blooper reel. And even that rips off The Shining, as Cowell (presumably) jokes that it took 127 takes to get a simple “walk and talk” down correctly. Hey, we read that trivia on the IMDb too, pal. And while they may find it amusing, it’s kind of sad how many takes are blown by tripods and microphones in the shot (and not like “oh I didn’t realize the camera would catch that on the side of the frame” type mistakes; some of the damn things are dead center in the image).

I can only hope Dark Harvest 3 (aka Scarecrow, but not the Scarecrow I already watched) lives up to this non-franchise’s promise of inept nonsense, corn, and false advertising. If anything on the cover of the film is actually IN the film, I will feel ripped off.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...