Dorm (2006)

JULY 11, 2009

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

The nice thing about Dorm (Thai: Dek Hor) is that it’s not really a horror movie. I mean, yeah, it’s about ghosts and an accidental death and all that good stuff, but very little of the film is concerned with scares or even suspense; it merely uses a familiar horror movie staple to tell a nice story about a kid who learns to stop being such a fucking asshole.

See, our hero is, for the bulk of the film, largely unlikable. He whines, he’s selfish, and he has no respect for his dad. The look on the poor man’s face as he makes his third or fourth attempt to call the brat (who has been sent to boarding school) only for the kid to hang up on him is one of the most heartbreaking parental moments I’ve seen in a film since poor Chick Chapel was introduced as a salesman. Few are the films where you spend the entire movie thinking “I would really like to smack this hero in the fucking mouth.”

But that is, of course, the point. The movie is about him growing up and learning to accept his role in life, and thus if he was pleasant throughout the film there would be little concern as to whether or not he succeeded. It would be like watching a movie about the greatest pro sports player in history hoping to win the lottery or something. In a few ways, it reminded me of Tim Sullivan’s underrated (also horror-lite) Driftwood, which also concerned a kid at a boarding school and a ghost.

Also, I liked that it didn’t take the entire movie for us to be told that the hero’s best friend, who takes an instant liking to him and never speaks to anyone else, is (spoiler) a ghost. You will probably figure it out pretty quickly, but unlike The Uninvited or whatever, the movie gives us that information by the end of the first act or so, sparing you having to feel like an idiot in case you somehow DIDN’T figure it out. It also allows us a few scenes we don’t usually get in such scenarios, like the hero asking the ghost how he became a ghost in the first place (such a conversation probably would have ruined The Sixth Sense). The movie also has a bit of a Stand By Me feel, so the scene has the unusual stigma of a horror movie scene being both quirky (he literally says “How did you become a ghost?”) and touching, and plays out like any number of the scenes between Wil Wheaton and River Phoenix in that film.

The only issue I had (besides, as always, the length - would it kill these Thai guys to make something that clocks in under 100 minutes?) is that they give us all of the information in one giant stretch of the film during the 3rd act and then Return Of The King the narrative with three or four scenes in a row that could easily be the film’s ending. There are two parts to the mystery - one revolving around the ghost kid, the other around a weird teacher, and it would have been nice to have the information on one, then some scares or even more character scenes, and THEN get the rest of it. Instead, we get it all in one giant blob of exposition, as if the director realized he had been dicking around for too long and needed to catch up on answers. Sort of like the 4th (strike affected) season finale of Lost.

Also, though this is presumably no fault of the filmmakers, the DVD looks like ass. I can’t recall the last time I saw so many halo/rainbow effects on an image. It’s also not very detailed, it often looked like a DVD might when you use the zoom feature on your player. This may be a result of the above average number of extras on the disc coupled with the nearly two hour film. There is nearly a half hour’s worth of deleted scenes, many of them worth a look as they fill in more of the story of the kid’s home life before he went to the boarding school (one in particular would have helped make his attitude toward his dad easier to sympathize with). Then there are a number of short behind the scenes pieces (some of them seem to have been created for a website or something) that focus on the characters and story, and also one focusing on the green-screen effects during the climax. Nothing groundbreaking, but worth a look if you dug the movie. There is also a commentary, which is in Thai with English subs (thank you!) but I don’t have time to listen to it. I am sure it’s fine.

And I know they are out of business now and that is a damn shame, but Tartan needs to be smacked around for opening the disc with a company promo that cannot be skipped, bypassed (via the menu button), or even fast-forwarded. Christ, the old “hit stop and then hit the menu button” trick doesn’t even work, because it won’t even let you stop the damn thing! You literally HAVE to watch it. It makes Lionsgate’s “you WILL watch our awesome logo!” behavior seem reasonable. The disc came at the tail end of their release output, so maybe it was a last ditch effort to ensure people were aware of their slate, but egads man. Take out an ad on a website where we are used to being annoyed by promotional malfeasance.

If you’re looking for Ju-On or whatever albeit set in an all boys’ junior high school, then you will probably be bored to tears and should stick to one of the umpteen remakes/sequels to that film. But if you were a fan of Driftwood, or merely enjoy a “quieter” horror film with an emphasis on character (and coherency!) over scares, this would be one of the better recent examples, of the few that exist. Worth a look.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Cell 2 (2009)

JULY 10, 2009

GENRE: CRAP, SERIAL KILLER
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

I don't usually read any reviews of a film until after I have seen it, but perhaps I should have made an exception for The Cell 2. Not reviews from fellow critics, mind you, but rather the "user reviews" on the IMDb. Because I would have noticed that there were two kinds: outright slams from regular IMDb commenters, or praise from people who seemingly loved the movie so much that they apparently felt compelled to make an IMDb account just to be able to share their thoughts on this masterpiece.

I am, of course, being sarcastic: the comments are clearly the work of New Line's marketing team, who are trying to balance all of the negative reviews by writing their own raves, all of which sound identical to one another. And since it only takes a click on the "writer's" name to see that they have no other reviews to their credit, I have to wonder who is actually being fooled by this nonsense. The type of people dumb enough to fall for it are probably dumb enough to enjoy this piece of shit anyway, so they are just preaching the choir.

Nothing about this movie works. The porn-star-esque lead is the least convincing psychic in movie history (even fake psychics like Whoopi Goldberg at the beginning of Ghost are more believable), backed up by the fakest police force this side of Suburban Sasquatch. And the killer! If you don't instantly (and I mean INSTANTLY, as in, the second he appears on screen) identify Frank Whaley as the killer, you're just brain dead. Not only is the only semi-famous actor in the film, but everyone in the world is smart enough to know that the producers would make sure to secure a "name" for the killer since they obviously couldn't get one for any of the heroes. Thankfully, they "reveal" Whaley as the killer around the halfway mark, thus preventing future embarrassment on their part had they tried to save it for the end.

Plus none of the movie makes sense. Why does the killer hide his identity from his victims if he plans to kill them? Just in case they escape? So he's the world's first killer with a built-in plan to make up for his ineffectiveness. He also disguises his voice for good measure (with a voice box that is seemingly inside of his mouth, as he uses this unseen device without any sort of assistance from his hands). And the cops might as well be security guards at a Toys R' Us for all the intelligence they display; at one point the hero is framed for the killings, and when they bring him in for interrogation, he basically says "No, it's Frank Whaley!" and they instantly believe him. Their lab folks aren't any much help either; for some reason no one ever thought much of a guy named "David Berkowitz" buying needles by the metric ton. I'm sorry, but the name "David Berkowitz" is sort of a major red flag, wouldn't you think? That's the type of name that, if you somehow had it for real, you'd change it. They might as well have gone all out and had the guy use the alias "Hitler".

It also fails across the board on a technical level. For starters, it's also SHOT like a porno, which doesn't help the lead actress any. Everything is overlit to the point of not having any detail; even the supposedly dark scenes in the killer's lair are quite bright. Chase scenes seemingly go on forever, as it will be snowing and then not (and then snowing again) during the dull affair. Speaking of the chases, there's a couple of "rules" for a good car chase. Like, they should have destruction of some sort, there should be obstacles in the form of cars and pedestrians, and the cars should at least make contact with one another. None of these things are present here; the chase centers around what seems like a completely closed off mall parking lot, the cars never hit anything or each other (come on, knock a fucking side mirror off at least!) and most of it consists of shots of the cars spinning out and then righting their direction to try to escape/gain on their suspect. Of course, the IMDb fake reviews all make sure to point out how "awesome" the chase is, despite the fact that there have been better ones on the news.

And the EFFECTS! My god. The first film wasn't really great, but at least it had some truly amazing visuals. Not so much here, every single CG effect is terrible, and the screenwriter/producers (Lawrence Silverstein and Alex Barder, upon whom I place the entire blame for this bullshit) made the idiotic call to have a lot of them. In the film's only somewhat decent idea (even though it's largely cribbed from Dreamcatcher), memories are presented in a sort of warehouse, as a series of slides. Whaley "erases" memories by picking these memories up and then smashing them on the floor. It looks awful, so you'd think they'd show it once and then use sound effects or something for the rest. But nope! We see him smash slide after slide of sub-PSone level graphics on the floor. And at one point, I swear to God I'm not joking here, the heroine is menaced by the Windows "Pipe Maze" screensaver. Except it doesn't look as good as the one on your 1997 Pentium II processor with 13 inch CRT screen. The compositing and other CG effects are also abysmal; more than once I thought I was watching the cut scenes from The 7th Guest or maybe Phantasmagoria.

(Huh, Phantasmagoria is a real word, according to this spellchecker. Compositing is not, however.)

Speaking of Dreamcatcher, Cell 2 rips off all manner of films. Saw is pretty evident; Whaley puts this giant box contraption on their heads that looks like something David Hackl might have made as a joke and then thrown away. The room he keeps them in even looks a bit like the room in Saw IV where Matthews is being held. At one point, Whaley puts them in a machine that seems stolen from The Princess Bride ("Not to fifty!"), and a later scenario with the hero is taken directly from Hard Rain. I'm sure that last one wasn't intentional, but that was an hour and ten minutes into the movie and the movie still hadn't done anything to earn a benefit of the doubt. In fact, the ONLY good thing I can say about the movie is that it's ten minutes shorter than advertised, since the end credits is over 10 minutes long (largely in part due to two behind the scenes clips inexplicably inserted into it).

Thankfully, the disc's only extra is a half hour (!!!) making of that covers all the usual bases. Silverstein and Barder frequently point out the short shooting schedule and limited budget, as if there was a demand for a sequel to a nine year old movie no one remembers. But even this is botched, because they hired Tim Iacofano to direct. See, he has directed a number of episodes of 24 and Supernatural, both of which have smaller budgets and shorter schedules and yet look 10x better than anything in this steaming pile, so there's REALLY no good excuse for the film's shortcomings. There is also a look at the stunts, and at this point I began to feel bad in advance for my review, because you see the stunt coordinator doing her thing, and I realized that for all of the "below the line" folks on the movie, the movie's failure is not their fault. They are just doing their job, and for the most part, doing it well (though would it have killed someone on the stunt team or camera crew to make sure the brunette hero's stunt double didn't have blond hair?). So I apologize to them. It's not their fault that this movie is so fucking bad, and unlike Silverstein and Barder, your names won't be an automatic red mark on future films (oh, yeah, I looked them up on the IMDb too; they were responsible for the equally abysmal Ring Around The Rosie).

The piece ends with actor Bart Johnson apologizing for wasting everyone's time, but he is only referring to the making of. Take him out of context though, and apply his sentiment to the entire DVD (which begins with a lengthy spot about the virtues of Blu-ray, despite the fact that it's in standard def and not even anamorphic), and you'll have an apology New Line will never offer, since they are too busy writing fake reviews that try to make this movie sound like anything but what it actually is: total shit.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Thirst (2009)

JULY 9, 2009

GENRE: ASIAN, VAMPIRE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PRESS SCREENING)

It’s rare I get to see any Asian horror films in theaters; I usually have to settle for a DVD or a cable viewing, months or even years after they’ve been fawned over (or remade). So I was elated to get a chance to see Chan-Wook Park’s newest film, Thirst (Korean: Bakjwi) , a full two weeks before it came out in theaters and certainly a long time before I’d get to see it on DVD. I hadn’t even watched a trailer - all I knew was that it was about vampires and had a very good chance of being quite good.

And it was, so that’s good. In fact, it just misses being “great” due to the fact that Park was seemingly afraid to tighten his film. It’s not that it’s simply “too long” - when the pacing was 100% right, I felt like I could watch the movie all day. But some scenes go on a bit longer than necessary, and what should be the midpoint event of the film (when a certain character is turned into a vampire) actually occurs around 2/3 of the way, perhaps even further along (I’m not good with the fractions). The climax, which is terrific with regards to character and story development, also goes on a bit too long, resulting in a somewhat diminished impact. Some movies suffer from extraneous scenes and the like, this one merely suffers a bit from letting great scenes wear out their welcome.

Some of those great scenes include a terrific sight gag early on, right after our hero (Kang-ho Song from The Host) becomes a vampire (for all intents and purposes). He is visiting his honorary family, and the mom tries to get him to eat some of her cooking, which causes him to gag. He explains that it wasn’t the food, but that he caught a whiff of blood. Suddenly, the young woman of the family looks embarrassed and quickly walks to the bathroom. Not only is this a funny gag, but it was also one of the moments that made me glad I was watching it in the theater, as I love when a subtle gag takes a bit longer to register with some of the folks in the audience (there were like 3 or 4 different reaction times for this particular one).

I also loved the overall concept. There have certainly been a number of horror films that revolve around priests that used to be cops (or vice versa), or priests that turn into ass-kickers, or whatever, but I think this is the first that turned the hero priest into the monster itself. Not only is he a good guy anyway, but as a priest he is doubly against things like murder, so watching him find ways to feed his addiction and also justify his behavior later in the film when the thirst becomes stronger was quite unique and entertaining. There is nothing like the hallway fight scene in Oldboy that will really grab your attention on a technical level, but the story itself more than makes up for it.

There are also a number of wonderful touches that turn standard vampire movie scenes into truly memorable ones. When he has to confess that he is a vampire to his girlfriend, and defend himself (“I didn’t ask for this!”) type stuff, Park purposely tracks back a bit and shifts the camera a bit to the left, in order to allow us to see Kang-ho Song’s reflection in the mirror as he gets to the “I’m still human!” part of his speech. Clearly, these are not vampires in the traditional sense - he has a thirst for blood, superhuman strength and can’t handle sunlight, but garlic, crosses, mirrors... those things do not apply here. For lack of a better term, it’s a “real” version of vampirism.

And in the wake of Twilight, I couldn’t help but occasionally compare the two, as this film is primarily a romance (albeit a twisted and unconventional one). Like Twilight, there is a scene where the man takes his human lover on a “ride” of sorts, using his superhuman strength to give her a thrill she would never be able to experience without him. In Twilight, he sort of tosses her on his back and flies around the woods. Here, Kang-ho Song holds her in his arms and begins making giant leaps from rooftop to rooftop. It’s an exhilarating sequence, and unlike Twilight’s, you can actually FEEL the excitement and thrill as it occurs. As I said in my review of that film, I felt that Catherine Hardwicke’s “indie” style direction hampered the film, and now I more or less have proof, as the scenes are thematically/dramatically identical and yet Park’s version is 10x as powerful.

One minor thing tickled/kind of bothered me - the subtitler’s insistence on using “Cuz” instead of “Because” or even “ ‘cause ” whenever it came up in the dialogue. The characters are intelligent, grown people - I am sure they aren’t using street slang. It just made these lines of dialogue feel kind of childish.

Pacing issues aside, it’s a terrific addition to Chan-Wook Park’s filmography, and I am glad that Focus is giving it a respectable (and well marketed) theatrical release. Hopefully it will catch on with jaded vampire movie fans who have long grown tired of guys with Euro-trash accents and plastic fangs stalking Romanian sets. Like Larry Fessenden’s Habit, it’s an “alt-vampire” tale that you almost wish was actually the norm.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Sound Of Horror (1964)

JULY 8, 2009

GENRE: MONSTER
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 4!!!)

At this point, I have to believe that the Tales Of Terror box is not going to have as many gems like the Chilling Classics one did. Some have been pretty sweet (like The Vampires' Night Orgy), but for the most part, they are all dull and forgettable, like Sound Of Horror (Spanish: El Sonido De La Muerte). The movie only ended a few hours ago but I’ve already forgotten pretty much everything about it. And this was one of the (not many) films in the set that actually sounded (pun just realized) pretty fun, so I can’t imagine how lousy the ones I skipped over are going to be.

I mean, I’m sure I have seen worse monster movies, but like I’ve said before, sometimes outright bad is better than bland. At least stuff like Monster From A Prehistoric Planet has the cheesy effects and ridiculous dialogue to enjoy, but this is simply one of the most inert monster movies I can recall. All of our characters are the least pro-active in horror movie history; most of the film finds them simply hanging out in the house waiting for the monster to go away (or die of old age, perhaps). Christ, the 3rd act begins with all of them dozing in the living room. The only time they spring to action is when a character is in danger, as the others rush to help get their friend back safely doing nothing.

And the monster is invisible, so you don’t get a goofy costume to enjoy. Sure, this leads to some occasional funny effects (like when they throw weapons at it and they all “stick” haphazardly in mid-air), but it also makes some of the attacks confusing. At one point it starts whaling on a guy in a cave... or at least that’s what I THINK is happening. He’s just sort of flailing around like a jackass, and every now and then they cut to a closeup of a wound on his torso. But is it the monster causing the gashes, or all of the jagged rocks that he keeps brushing against as he spazzes out?

As for the titular “sound”, apparently, the sound of horror is that of a bird making the car alarm “whooooooooOOOOOOOOOOP” noise. Though to be fair, the sound design is pretty much all the movie has going for it. There’s a cool scene where the monster is trying to get in, and the camera pans 360 (well, a little over 180) degrees around the place as we hear it scratching and clawing on the outside, trying to find a weak spot. Good stuff.

But the PADDING! It’s among the worst I can recall. Early on there is a full 30 second establishing shot that doesn’t even seem to be where the next scene takes place. Whenever something happens (not often), we get a solo reaction shot of each character, accompanied by a musical sting. It also has history’s longest “car won’t start” scene; the guy tries it (no exaggeration) 15 times, as the other characters just sort of sit there. Then finally, one of the guys in the back of the car says “Try it again.” Yeah, good plan.

Now that I think of it, there ARE some choice lines of nonsensical dialogue to enjoy. The first line of the movie is “I’m scared of explosions”, followed by “You’ll get used to them.”. And the heroine has a touching moment of reflection where she announces that life shouldn’t be about treasure hunting (the film’s macguffin is a treasure), but instead about dancing. Yeah, why get rich when you can swing your arms around and pivot?

I’d say more, but I can’t. I’ve already forgotten it all. I’m sure I’ve seen worse monster movies, but none of their titles come to mind right now. But if you are in the mood for a Spanish horror film featuring an invisible monster, maybe three kills (two of them “for the team!” suicides), and a central location that may remind you of the one from The Killer Shrews (“But these walls are ADOBE!”) I hope you can do better than Sound Of Horror (and why doesn't this movie have a "The" in the title?).

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Mimic 2 (2001)

JULY 7, 2009

GENRE: MONSTER
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

I suppose that most people who would go out of their way to see Mimic 2 are big fans of the original, and not merely watching whatever horror title they come across during their browsing, even sequels to movies they didn't remember much about. Therefore, those folks wouldn’t have spent the entire movie thinking that Dimension couldn’t get any of the original actors to return, as I did. Actually, if not for the fact that I thought lead actress Alix Koromzay was cute and wanted to see what else she had been in, I probably wouldn’t have ever known that her character (Remy) was actually in the first Mimic. Who the hell was she, though? I only remember the people who went into the sewer and mostly died.

Anyway, it’s actually not too bad of a movie. This is back when the Neo Art And Logic team would actually shoot their films on sets and locations instead of greenscreens, so it’s certainly more professional looking than a Pulse sequel. Also, the effects aren’t too bad, and they are kept to a minimum anyway. If the movie has one real issue, it’s that all the kills occur in the first 10 minutes or so, only to spend the next hour with three people that you know won’t die (2 kids and Remy). Oh, and a heroic cop who you know won’t die until the end. The key to any good monster movie is to give you a nice stable of characters who you can actually feel concerned about. Think of say, Jurassic Park. Did you automatically “know” that Malcolm or Hammond would live? You shouldn’t, especially since they died in the book.

Another nice touch is that there’s actually some character development. Remy has no luck in love, and is obsessed with her bugs. So the idea of a giant human-ish bug that wants to mate with her is one that almost seems plausible. Also, there’s a nice bit of how after she gets her heart broken, she takes a Polaroid of herself and pins it on the wall with the name of the heartbreaker written on the bottom. Sort of cheesy, but a hell of a lot more than you get in these things. And of course, the hero sees the photo (after accusing her of being the killer) that she made after dealing with him, which gives him enough motive to risk himself to help her. Awww. It’s certainly better than what I thought would be the payoff for the Polaroids (a picture of the two of them together at the end of the film, all happy and such).

Some of the horror bits are above average as well. My hatred of insects allowed me to feel a bit queasy during a scene where a hundred baby Judas breeds scramble over our three heroes, who stomp on them mercilessly (what this movie lacks in blood, it makes up for in insect goo). Paul Schulze’s death scene is also pretty nifty; a full grown Judas sort of flies by and slashes him over and over, confusing the hell out of him until it drags him off and pulls him through a narrow pipe. And if a movie has to have a goddamn “Heroine steps over the body of the maybe-not-yet-dead villain” scene, it might as well have one where instead of an arm she is stepping over a raised tentacle claw thingie pointed right at her lady parts.

Oh and kind of like Deep Blue Sea, the movie finds a ridiculously awesome (I mean awesomely ridiculous) way to get her to strip down to her underwear. Thank you movie.

Also a surprise for a Dimension DTV of the era, there are a decent number of extras. Nothing particularly essential, but there’s about 20 minutes of behind the scenes stuff, which focus on both the usual nonsense as well as the job details of lesser known crew members. There’s also a nice piece on sound mixing (is Gary Rizzo the first re-recording mixer to ever get his own extra on a DVD?), and a handful of deleted scenes which are actually finished and mostly enjoyable. I would have liked a commentary by Joel Soisson and Mike Leahy, as they are always fun to listen to, but oh well. Besides, unlike most of their tracks (the Dracula sequels, for example), this is actually a decent movie, so their track might not be as mocking. Or if it was I might be annoyed.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

DVD Review: [Rec] (2007)

JULY 7, 2009

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

So now it’s full circle. After seeing a rather poorly translated screener (“Keep filming for your fucking mother!”), and then the remake (Quarantine), I now finally have a nice, pristine DVD of [Rec] (originally reviewed HERE) to enjoy. And not only does it obviously look the best anyone has probably seen it on a digital format, it also has actually improved in the wake of Quarantine, because it continues to be effective despite a shot for shot remake that could have lessened its impact.

As I said in my review for Quarantine, that version worked fine as a zombie movie, but failed monumentally as a “found footage” thing because every single actor in the movie, even those in small roles, was a recognizable actor. It became impossible to buy into the “realism” of the situation, something that is not an issue for [Rec]. And no, I’m not gullible enough to believe that these events really happened, but if you’re going to try to pass something off as a documentary, it seems sort of counter-productive to make it as superficially as possible.

And so now, having seen [Rec] before, and the remake, it’s remarkable how effective it is. I got scared all over again at the fireman’s body hitting the floor, and still find the situation impressively tense throughout, something that most found footage films never truly achieve (even Cloverfield had its lapses in this department). And while the performances in Quarantine were all fine, [Rec]’s cast is uniformly natural and believable, something I appreciate even more now. Usually these things have a weak link (for example, the FBI agent in Poughkeepsie Tapes, ironically directed by the guys who helmed Quarantine), but I can’t find one here. Ángela Vidal (the lead) sometimes annoys me, but that’s a character thing; actress Manuela Velasco herself is great.

The DVD transfer is quite good too. It actually looks like HD footage shot by a frightened man (Quarantine was a bit too cleaned up), and the occasional camera “glitches” look legit. Some of these movies go way overboard with such things (again, Poughkeepsie Tapes is a good example; the glitches were all clearly made in post production), but having used HD cameras myself, I can vouch for the authenticity of the pixel shifting and such that occurs during the more frenetic scenes.

Sony, however, has pulled a Magnolia with the subtitles, offering up “summed up/dumbed down” text instead of what is actually being said. All you need to do is turn on the dub track (not the worst, but none of the voices seem like they belong to the actors; the old lady sounds like a 30 year old) to see the difference. For example, when the SWAT team is sealing off the building, the head cop says “All officers in position?”, whereas the subs merely offer “Ready?”. It’s not a dialogue heavy movie, and the exposition type scenes are pretty accurate, but still, I don’t understand why the studios keep doing this on their subtitle tracks. Are the subtitle people paid by the letter or something? Or is the subtitle places themselves that are half-assing their job? Either way, it’s kind of a shame, you either have to deal with a distracting dub or a dummy’s subtitle track.

The DVD also has a 20 min making of, and it’s actually nice to see in the wake of Quarantine. That film’s featurette was pointless, because they’re all talking about the film as if they weren’t flat out copying another existing one ([Rec] was only mentioned once on the entire DVD, in passing on the commentary track). So it’s nice to see Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza (the actual creators) talk about their work for once. I only wish it was longer and/or less clip-heavy.

[Rec] 2 is on the way, and while I am not sure how it can live up to the original, I am excited about it. I hear Sony is planning a sequel to Quarantine as well, not sure if they are following the story of the [Rec] sequel or going off on their own (much like The Ring Two). Either way, it’s a franchise I enjoy; it’s just a shame that it took this long for the better version to reach the US (unlike The Ring or The Grudge, most people who saw Quarantine weren’t even aware of an “original version”) in a legitimate fashion.

One final note - my DVD from Sony came in a new form of the traditional Amaray DVD case. It uses up less plastic by cutting the traditional “recycle” logo on the left side (under where the insert would be if the DVD had one) and also cutting out behind where the DVD itself is stored. I’m no math wizard, but I would say it takes up 20-25% less plastic per case, which is pretty sweet. It kind of bums me out how trash seems to be encouraged in Los Angeles (almost no apartment buildings have recycling beyond bottles and cans), so to see a big studio take this measure is worth lauding, I think. And I appreciate that they are doing it in a way that cuts down on plastic without actually changing the shape of the package, which is annoying. You know those new water bottles? They fucking suck, because there is a lot less plastic along the bottom, so now they don’t stand up right. Anyway,let's hope more studios adapt this new case style.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Beneath The Surface (2007)

JULY 6, 2009

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

There’s a pile of DVDs in my room, the origin of many have been completely forgotten. Some are freebies from conventions, others were given to me by Mr. Disgusting, and a few were sent by smaller distribution houses that forgot to follow up with me (i.e. make me say “Oh shit I gotta watch that”)... who knows. All I know is, when I am between Blockbuster/Netflix deliveries, they come in handy. One such film is Beneath The Surface, which sounded like a decent enough indie zombie comedy.

And that’s exactly what it was: decent. There’s just as many pros as there are cons, resulting in a film that’s just plain ol’ OK. And it could have edged into the “pro” column had the synopsis not made the film sound a lot more complex and interesting than it really is. For example, the synopsis claims that the hero and the heroine are kept apart by “Shane and his gang of corrupt goons”, which suggested a sort of Crow style scenario. However, in the actual movie, Shane is the only real antagonist. He has a few friends, sure, but they don’t really factor into the action (in fact they pretty much disappear after the incident that sets off the horror angle).

Another thing the synopsis promises is that “Ethan makes a discovery that leads him beyond the realm of living and into a forgotten past. Now he must walk a fine line to prevent all hell from breaking loose.” Sounds awesome, right? Well, again, that’s not really what’s going on. Ethan resurrects the girl, and then keeps her in his room for the entire movie. The “forgotten past” comes in the form of an awkward, late in the game delivery of some exposition about some Haitians or whatever, providing a “sure, why not?” explanation for why her resurrection isn’t working as planned . And Hell doesn’t even seem to be concerned with what is going on at all, let alone about to break loose. In fact, synopsis aside, the film’s most crippling flaw is that there doesn’t seem to be anything at stake. They resurrect the girl in order to get her to identify her murderer, but we know who the killer is, she’s not a violent zombie by any means, and she doesn’t seem to be decomposing or anything. The laid back approach is kind of refreshing in a way, but after a while you just kind of want something to be concerned about.

One thing it definitely has going for it is a slightly off-kilter tone, especially in the first act. Odd background gags, insane realtors, a club dude who keeps dancing around like that one guy in Hot Rod, and a hero who keeps reading comics from 1991 (the movie was shot in 2005) all tickled me. And at one point, after the hero and the girl have been studying for hours, he gets blood on her shirt due to an injury that he suffered earlier in the day. So he’s just sitting there with an actively bleeding wound on his wrist? But the crème of the crop is definitely the villain’s dad, who is pretty much the best dad ever. He lets his son raid the liquor cabinet while he goes off to Vegas to fuck hookers (the son knows this), lets him swear, they mock each other... the dude rocks. And he looks kind of like Roger Corman, so he’s doubly awesome. I also dug the hero’s friend, but that’s mainly because he makes fun of jam bands and resembles my friend Phil.

But again, even the minor good things have equally minor bad counterparts. The acting is a bit all over the place, and I don’t mean some actors suck and some are great - I mean the individual performances from certain actors. The hero guy is fine in some scenes, others he seems like he wasn’t even aware he was due on set, saying his lines so fast that they have no resonance. The woman who tells him about the resurrection spell either overacts like a senile old bird, or like a caring grandmother. The weak acting also ruins some of the humorous dialogue; there are attempts at casual “Oh by the way we’re about to die” type humor near the end, and they all fall flat because of the “reading it off a card” delivery. And the laid back approach is fine to an extent, but stopping the movie cold halfway through the third act to show a band perform an ENTIRE SONG at a club is pretty unforgivable.

And why doesn’t this comic shop stock Dark Horse’s Star Wars comics?

Still though, it’s certainly well made, which is more important than a perfect script or actors when it comes to these types of films (which can be shopped around in order to show what the filmmaker can do with limited means). The film is enthusiastically directed by Blake Reigle (his first film), and he doesn’t try to create a storyline beyond his means like many other indie zombie films do (you know, where they are like “It’s the end of the world! Just take our word for it.”). And at its center is a fairly sweet story about a guy losing his true love to violence and how he tries to cope with it. At times it reminded me a bit of Zombie Honeymoon, which sounds schlocky but is actually a really sad “single zombie” tale. Not bad company to be with. And while it could use some tightening, the editing on the whole is above average.

Unadvertised on the DVD, the disc has a few deleted scenes (skip em), a blooper reel (eh), a photo gallery, and some music videos. The only thing of any real worth is Reigle’s commentary. He’s a young guy, but unlike a lot of others in his age group, he’s not afraid to admit his mistakes on occasion, and also knows his shit about horror, name-checking old-school zombie films like I Walked With A Zombie instead of 28 Days Later or whatever. He also points out a lot of cast/location info (the hero’s best friend was in an Avril video!) and provides technical shooting details, always a plus since these types of tracks are more likely to be listened to by fellow budding filmmakers than anyone else. I just wish he had mixed the track along with the film better; there are a lot of rock songs in the film, and when they pop up in the film they sort of drown his commentary out.

Without even realizing that I owned it, I have actually considered renting this a few times from Blockbuster, so it has obviously been picked up for wide-spread distribution (some of the films in my freebie pile are unreleased). If you can appreciate a truly indie comedy/drama with a zombie, by all means check it out. Here’s hoping Reigle’s efforts pay off for him.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Dead Snow (2009)

JULY 5, 2009

GENRE: COMEDIC, SLASHER, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

There are two reasons why I always put the source at the top of my reviews. First, it helps add weight to the “yes I am really watching one every day” thing. But more importantly, I honestly think the setting is important to the film’s success or lack thereof. Because I was baffled why so many of my friends disliked Dead Snow (Norwegian: Død Snø), when I (and clearly everyone else in the theater) had a lot of fun watching it. And then later it made sense, when I discovered that every single one of them saw it at home on bootleg DVDs, instead of in a theater.

Now, I’m not saying that it’s impossible to enjoy the movie unless you’re seeing it on the big screen. But if someone is watching it with a watermark, and talking with whoever’s with them, and probably dividing their attention between the film and their laptop, then sorry, I can’t really give their opinion much weight. Yes, the film starts off a bit slow and the characters are kind of generic. That’s part of the point, and I think it’s easily missed if you’re already bitching about the film’s merit. Because the way I see it, the movie is actually a hybrid of slasher and zombie film, and writer/director Tommy Wirkola is simply doing the same thing that Neil Marshall did with Doomsday - paying tribute to his favorite movies by tossing elements of them together into one goofy fun ride.

So yeah, maybe it’s “slow” for a zombie film, many of which have full blown attacks in their opening reel, but it’s structured EXACTLY like a slasher. We have an opening kill, then our teens are introduced, they get to their destination, a crazy local gives them (us) the backstory before getting killed, the next morning arrives, things get weird, and eventually our heroes are offed one by one. The villains may be Nazi zombies, but everything about the film screams slasher. Christ, the resident movie nerd guy even name-checks Friday the 13th (as opposed to Night of the Living Dead or whatever), just to help make it a bit more clear.

Note - the hot girl who inexplicably likes the movie nerd then mentions April Fool’s Day, but says it’s from 1984. I thought this was a setup, and he’d prove his nerdiness by correcting her and saying “1986”, but he doesn’t. So the only one that proved their nerdiness was me, I guess. Also she refers to it as “well-regarded”, which means she must read Horror Movie A Day and also my friend Matt’s BloodandSleaze.com, because I’m pretty sure we are the only two who like it.

I’ve also read reviews that complained about the lack of Nazi-ism to the Nazi zombies. So I guess they would prefer a zombie film where only Jews were eaten? Or conducting nonsensical experiments in between feeding on human flesh? What the fuck can they do? Like all zombies, they are merely re-animated corpses. Besides, they have more of a purpose than usual, as they seek their lost gold (shades of The Fog here) that was stolen from innocent people during WWII, and they’re also still in full uniform and even have a commander of sorts, so compared to generic zombies, they are far more three-dimensional than we are used to. Hell, even compared to other Nazi zombies they leave a lasting imprint; I’ll take these over the ones in Shock Waves any day of the week.

Now, one thing I can agree with is that the story-telling is a bit too loose at times. One guy has a machine gun all of a sudden - you would think that it’s too big of a plot point to come out of nowhere, but it does. Also, there is no real explanation for why the Nazis A. have come back to life and B. why they are doing so now. Our hero’s girlfriend lives in the cabin, so it’s not like they are the only people to have ever set foot there or something. And this is more minor, but Wirkola blows what could have been an even better scene by giving it to the wrong character. One of our heroes is repulsed by blood and actually gets sick at the sight of it. Later on, a different character suffers a massive neck injury and has to sew it up himself. It would have been way more queasy/awesome to have the blood-fearing guy do this, especially since the fear never really has any payoff for him.

Speaking of the injury, not one but two characters survive certain death only to come back and get killed for real later. It’s not the worst plot point, but it is an annoying one, as it gives a film the feeling that they aren’t in any real danger. Knock em off a cliff, nearly decapitate them, whatever... they’ll be fine. So to do it twice in one movie is a bit of a dumb call. Sure, both of their “real” deaths are great, but it’s not worth the groaning of seeing them alive again in the first place. And the very first one is at night, and it’s so dark that it’s hard to tell what is going on. I know that they were probably trying to hide the design of the Nazi zombies until later, but it’s hard to tell which one is the zombie and which one is the victim.

Back to those deaths though - oh man. The gore/effects in this movie are pretty awesome. A skull ripped in half (vertically), a guy that’s pulled apart in every direction, an axe through the head, self-cauterized arm stump, and (my favorite) a guy gets a piece of his intestine caught on a tree, keeps running another few yards, and then turns to see why he is “stuck”. Fuck yeah. The limited number of characters keeps the body count rather low for a zombie film (more like... wait for it... a slasher!), so at least they all have pretty great payoffs. They also kill out of the order you would expect - my pick for the first to die was one of the last, and the movie nerd guy is killed before he even gets to make any more movie nerd jokes beyond the ones that introduced him as the movie nerd guy!

The zombie rules aren’t well-established, but I didn’t have a problem with that. Every vampire movie that comes along has it’s own version of the “rules” (i.e. Twilight and their goofy sparkling vampires), so I don’t see why every zombie film has to follow the “only a shot to the head can kill it, you get bit you die” standard. Actually, another “this is more of a slasher” thing - none of the hero characters come back as zombies (of course, most of them are so dismembered that they CAN’T, but still), which is pretty rare.

It’s only playing in two theaters, so I can understand if you don’t get to see it until DVD. But Christ, give the movie (and all movies, for that matter) the benefit of a proper viewing, and let your patience and respect get rewarded. Even some of its biggest detractors admit the finale is a lot of fun; it’s just a shame they didn’t realize that most of what led up to it was just as enjoyable.

What say you?

P.S. The trailer’s use of "Ode To Joy" is not only awesome, but warranted! It’s in the movie too, however not used quite as epically.

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Birds (1963)

JULY 4, 2009

GENRE: PREDATOR
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (BACKYARD SCREENING)

I believe The Birds will be the last “Holy shit you’ve never seen that?” type review, but just in case - I know, it’s shameful that I have seen all three Dark Harvest movies and not revered Hitchcock classics. Shit happens. But keep in mind: part of HMAD’s original intent was to ensure that all gaps such as this were filled, so in a way, I should actually be keeping movies like this out of arm’s reach. Once I know I’ve seen all the classics, there won’t be as much drive to keep going!

(Sadly, I HAVE seen The Birds II: Land’s End.)

Plus it’s not like I had completely missed the film; in fact, it seems like I have seen every major setpiece already, via “10 Scariest Movies” type specials on TV, the game SceneIt, and even in some cases, on the TV of a character in a different movie, which was the case in The Hitcher, back when Platinum Dunes was planning a remake. That train wreck seems to have been averted though; Fuller and Form have been sort of dismissive of it in recent interviews, and now that I have seen the entire movie I am actually kind of glad. Not that I dislike the Dunes films; on the contrary I probably give them a higher batting average than anyone else would. But everything that makes The Birds so good are the type of things that their films always fall short on, and so even if I enjoyed it, it wouldn’t be worth my breath or keystrokes to try to defend it on deaf ears (a lesson I learned on The Hitcher, incidentally). Best everyone just walk away.

For starters, the film is strong on character. Having seen most of the action already, I was surprised to find out how much more exciting it was when I actually knew who the people swatting the birds away were. I especially loved the hero, Mitch (played by Rod Taylor - whose appearance in Kaw was an in-joke that was lost on me). He’s a charming wiseass, the best type of hero in my opinion, and I liked that he managed to pull off the romantic stuff as well as the action. Oddly, he kind of reminded me of Liev Schreiber, the real-life husband of Naomi Watts, who has been long rumored to be taking the Tippi Hedren role should the remake come to pass. But if I had to pick someone to fill Taylor's shoes, I’d go with Nathan Fillion in a heartbeat. Sure, he’s done the town under siege hero role before (Slither), but the role seems tailor-made for someone of his stature.

Tippi’s character is pretty interesting too, but mainly because she’s essentially psychotic. She has a meet-cute with Taylor (one of my favorites ever, actually, because it’s the rare one where the guy has the upper hand the entire time and makes the girl look like a fool for once), and then proceeds to go to extreme measures to see him again. First she has her dad’s friend track down his address via his license plate, and then goes to his house only to discover that he went on vacation. Does she go home? Hell no! She drives up the coast, grills a post office clerk for his address (and a schoolteacher for his sister’s name - the ruse has a sub-ruse!), rents a boat so he won’t see her car, breaks into his home, leaves the gift behind, and then goes back outside and hides so she can see his reaction. Whatever happened to just touching a guy on his forearm so he’d know you liked him? Especially when you look like Tippi Hedren - it’s not like it would take much effort to gain his attraction. It all reminded me of the classic Onion article: “Romantic Comedy Behavior Lands Real Life Man In Jail”.

Another thing that the Dunes would almost surely eschew is the terrific restaurant scene, where pretty much everyone in the town has seemingly gathered to weigh in with their opinions of what is happening and why. It’s a lively, rapid-fire scene, effortlessly blending humor (love the woman who keeps trying to shield her children from hearing about killer birds, only to fail; it’s capped off with a terrific punchline as well) and story/character development. Instead, the Dunes would likely replace it with a scene where the reason for the bird attacks was definitively explained (this film has no such thing, thankfully), and it would likely be a stupid reason revolving around marijuana.

And finally, suspense. This film thrives on it; their films seemingly never even attempt it. I was amazed to discover later on that it was a full two hours long, as it never feels that way due to the light fluffiness of the first act followed by the unnerving tone of the rest. BECAUSE we have no idea why the birds are attacking, the scenes in which they are present (which is nearly all of them) are real nail-biters, because they’re always there and you never know when they’re going to resume their attack. And Hitch knows this, because he constantly has the birds “calm down” and then sends a human to walk by/around them. These scenes are actually more terrifying than the attack ones in a way, because it becomes not an “If” but a “When” they will strike. Adding to this uneasiness is the fact that the film doesn’t have any sort of score. The chirping and kawing of the birds is all you hear during certain scenes (even the actor’s natural sounds - footsteps and such - are sometimes obliterated), which was a great choice on Hitch’s part.

Oh, and they would probably use shitty CGI instead of throwing birds at actors or rear-projecting them in a fairly decent fashion (the projection of a road behind Hedren as she “drives” actually looks worse than the shots of birds swarming around a group of children).

The only sort of complaint I have regards the film’s ending. Specifically, it doesn’t really have one. It just sort of ends. There was originally a sequence of them driving through the town, fending off one last attack, and getting out of Bodega Bay, but it was never shot for budget/logistic reasons. So instead the movie ends with them leaving their house, which isn’t quite as compelling or dramatically satisfying. There was also supposed to be a cool ending where the birds would be seen covering the Golden Gate Bridge, but this was also eschewed once it became clear that there was no way to do it right. And that is probably the single concept behind the entire idea of remaking this movie in the first place - it couldn’t possibly be the track record of Hitchcock remakes (Psycho, A Perfect Murder, etc).

When I got home I put on my DVD, which I own as part of a nice Hitchcock set that Universal put out a few years ago. I noticed that it was the only one of his films to be upgraded in its MPAA rating (to a PG-13!), though I can’t say I am surprised due to the surprising number of attacks on children and the ghastly sight of an eyeless dude (it’s a low body count film, but when people die Hitch isn’t afraid to show their corpse). There were a nice smattering of extras, though nothing seemed newly produced. There is a trio of never filmed/lost scenes (including the ending I mentioned before), presented via stills, storyboards, and the script pages, which roll by too fast to fully read. Then we get a couple of charmingly cheesy newsreels, a lengthy storyboard/screen comparison of the attic scene that you can’t fast-forward (you can advance the stills though), and Hitch’s awesome five minute teaser where he displays his usual deadpan humor. I would love to see a modern audience sit through a five minute teaser that doesn’t even contain footage from the movie. Come back, Hitch!

The final extra is Hedren’s screentest. While I would never argue with the idea of putting more Hedren footage on the disc, it’s a bit of an odd piece. They don’t do any dialogue from the movie (they address each other by their real names), plus I spent the entire time wondering A. Why she was testing with Marty Balsam, and B. Why he was being such a complete ass. At one point he began bitching at her for coloring her hair blond, because since he pays for her hairstyling it should be the color he wanted. I was actually getting kind of uncomfortable with the idea of her being treated like this. Maybe they were improvising, but I can find nothing that says that Balsam was ever even up for the role, so I don’t know. It’s a wonderful little slice of a time gone by, that’s for sure. And she looks as beautiful as ever, so win-win.

In closing, please don’t remake this movie. It’s great as is, and you’re just setting yourself up to be lambasted. It’s hard enough defending you guys. Focus on a remake of, I dunno, The Dorm That Dripped Blood. No one will give you any shit for that.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Count Yorga, Vampire (1970)

JULY 3, 2009

GENRE: VAMPIRE
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Pretty much since I began doing HMAD, my buddy Chris has been asking me to review Count Yorga, Vampire. Not sure why it took so long to get around to it; I don’t see enough non-Dracula vampire movies anyway, plus I always enjoy a good comma in my movie titles. So I finally watch it, and then he tells me that the sequel is better. I can’t win.

It’s not that bad of a movie. I think I’ll put it in the pile of “I should have seen this when I was younger” vampire movies, like Salem’s Lot. There’s nothing particularly bad about the movie, but my enjoyment of it is dampened by having seen 200 others that do nearly the same thing. Indeed, it actually follows the Dracula template fairly closely, right down to awkwardly transferring the hero title from the young guy to the doctor halfway through the story.

Plus it’s actually kind of perfect for kids, as it features no direct violence (and the requisite 60s/70s vampire lesbian action is kept off-screen entirely), nor is the plot very complicated. The heroes meet Drac-, er, Yorga, and the women fall under his spell while the men sit around discussing how they need to kill him. Then they do. The end.

There is a certain level of late 60s/early 70s quirk that I enjoyed though. First off, everyone smokes, the doctor moreso than the others. Even when he’s treating people! There are also a few choice lines that made me laugh heartily; in what is probably my favorite part of the entire movie, two of the guys are making crucifixes out of household stuff, resulting in this exchange:

“What is that, a broom handle?
“Yes.”
”Well, why not. Let’s go.”

Hahaha, awesome. There’s also a strange bit where the doctor tries to explain why he is leaving in the middle of the night to his seemingly brain-dead mistress, using examples that seem to make the matter even more confusing. I also liked the performance of Michael Murphy, who spends most of the film baffled before he is unceremoniously killed off halfway through. There’s one lengthy sequence where he and the doctor walk around what seems to be the entirety of the San Fernando Valley, with Murphy telling the story so far, despite the fact that we’ve already seen it all. It kind of reminded me of the part from Naked Gun where Drebin walks around as he puzzles over the case, only to end up in the middle of the woods somewhere (“And where the hell was I?”).

I also enjoyed the performance of Robert Quarry as Yorga (comma Vampire). The script doesn’t give him a lot to do, but he manages to take a generic Dracula wannabe role and still make it interesting; there’s a terrific bit late in the film where he has a battle of wits with the doctor, and he’s so good you actually start rooting for him a bit. And the few “scare” type scenes are definitely the type that can leave a lasting imprint on a young child, as he widens his eyes and gnashes his teeth (not too bad of a job on the fangs by the way) in a threatening manner a couple of times near the end. It’s a pose that would make a terrific model.

I will check out the sequel someday; I guess MGM has put them together in a double feature. Assuming my friend is correct and the sequel is better, then it’s probably a decent enough purchase for under 10 bucks, especially if you haven’t seen umpteen Dracula movies already.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Midnight (1982)

JULY 2, 2009

GENRE: CRAP, CULT
SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT VIEW)

I hate it when someone gets to coast forever based on their involvement with one great movie. John Russo is one such person. Because he co-wrote Night Of The Living Dead (respect), you can’t just flat out dismiss him as worthless like you would any other hack. But let’s put it this way: Without Russo, Romero made Dawn of the Dead, Creepshow, Day of the Dead, and Martin. Without Romero, Russo made NOTLD 30th Anniversary, which is legendarily awful, and Midnight (based on his own novel - anyone read it?), which is less a film than a series of loosely connected scenes that ends when a 90 minute mark is reached as opposed to when all plotlines are wrapped up.

There is nothing in this movie that would lead me to believe that the filmmaker had any grasp on things such as pace, storytelling, character development, dialogue, or scares. For a movie about a cult, there sure is a lot of scenes where our heroine and two would-be heroes are driving around Pennsylvania (they are allegedly going to Florida, but after what seems like at least a full day’s drive they appear to be in the same backwoods PA town). The cult is in the first scene, and they don’t show up again until about an hour into the film, by which time you’ve probably forgotten all about them. Also, top-billed Lawrence Tierney appears to be a different character in every scene. In his first, he’s a drunken lecherous man who tries to rape his stepdaughter, only to be subdued when she lightly taps a conveniently placed alarm clock (on the bed?) against his temple. Then later he’s a conniver, convincing his wife that she came on to him and then ran away. By the end of the movie he’s a full blown hero, going to great lengths to try to save her. Of course, if he was the actual star of the film, this could be construed as an arc as we would see him naturally progress toward this point, but the scenes in which those three things occur are pretty much the entirety of his role.

And the dialogue! Everyone says exactly what is going on. Like early on, when the girl is talking to her friend on the phone. Tierney for some reason rings the doorbell to his own home, so she puts the phone down to open the (unlocked) door for him. When he tries to kiss her, she says “I need to get back to the phone; I put it down to come get the door for you”. Like he fucking cares! Most of the dialogue is of a similar nature, or just completely inane, like when the cult members go out of their way to say the names of the girls that they are holding captive, just so Tierney (hero mode scene) knows he has the right place. Cause, you know, evil cults are just helpful like that.

Oh, and another guy is described as “being real mean when he gets stoned”. Who the hell gets angry when they smoke a joint? It’s the complete opposite reaction one would have! Maybe he should snort some coke, his dick might get bigger.

Also it just looks like crap. The budget (according to Russo in his self-congratulating book “Making Movies”) was under 80,000 dollars, so I can forgive some blemishes, but not the fact that even daytime scenes are often murky. The one saving grace of the film is that Tom Savini did the effects, and this was when he was in his prime (1981), so every attempt should have been made to ensure that the gore shots were filmed properly, but even that’s a wash. Apart from a throat slitting, none of them are memorable and most are so dark you can’t really see them anyway.

The ending has some entertainment value. Not from the storytelling or technical qualities, but from the fact that the rather man-ish looking female lead is dressed in a white shirt, dark pants, and black vest, a la one Han Solo. So when it’s dark, you can understandably think you’re suddenly watching some really shitty deleted scene from New Hope.

Now to be fair, maybe even Russo doesn’t care much for this one. He barely discusses it in his book (The Majorettes gets its fair share though), and when he does it’s mostly to provide examples (i.e. the budget) for something else he’s talking about as he tries to teach you how to be a hack just like him. But it was a completely independent production, made at a time when he already had made a name for himself, so he is not allowed to use the low budget as an excuse for the film’s failure. Besides, the film’s biggest failing is Russo’s muddled script, and, as I’ve said a million times, a good, coherent script is free to write.

One last note on his book, for those of you who may be interested. I can save you the time it takes to read it and sum it up: it’s best to get your name on one good movie, and then use it as a calling card for the next forty years to try to hide the fact that you used up all of your creativity on it. Russo finds a way to mention Night every other page, boasting about how he co-wrote it and played the zombie that gets lit on fire, all the while going into detail of how to cut corners by, for one example, hiring friends and family instead of actual actors or trained crew people. And the book was published in the 80s, so unfortunately it doesn’t contain a chapter on how to bastardize your one good creation by re-editing it with new footage that you shot without the real director’s involvement (or permission, for that matter) 30 years later and rightfully earn the permanent scorn of every horror fan that ever existed. It also won’t tell you how to publish a series of awful comics bearing that film’s name. Maybe he should update it for the hacks of today; I’m sure Mike Feifer would get some use out of it.

What say you?

P.S. Funny sidenote - I saw the box art on Netflix and somehow knew it was a Lionsgate (re)release.

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Crimson Rivers (2000)

JULY 1, 2009

GENRE: SERIAL KILLER
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

Finally, a serial killer movie I like without any reservations! There aren’t many, so I get a bit excited when I see something like The Crimson Rivers (French: Les Rivières Pourpres), which doesn’t re-invent the wheel, but merely does what it should and does it well. You get the good acting (Jean Reno!), the red herrings, the standard mid-way foot chase, and unlike even the classics of the genre (Se7en, which I’ve honestly never really been in love with), an intriguing mystery.

See, the thing with Seven (it’s too annoying to type out it’s “real” name) is that it didn’t take long for them to figure out the hook behind the killings (the seven deadly sins). Here, a good hour or so is spent on uncovering clues, talking to potential suspects, etc. We don’t know why the guy is killing people, but that’s nothing. Why is he filling their eye sockets with rain water? Or placing them in the fetal position? That’s the stuff I love. There’s something about a guy sifting through old records and typing names into a computer that I find incredibly intriguing. So to have more than half the movie devoted to that is like a godsend.

There are also a great number of little touches that I loved. Vincent Cassell’s character (a good guy for once!) is shown a horrific crime scene photo of a girl who was run over by a truck, and instead of showing us the photo in all its gory detail (ew) or hiding it entirely (weak), director Matthieu Kassovitz (best known here as the guy who told us all not to see his film Babylon AD because FOX butchered it - and we all listened) places the camera near the ground pointing up at Cassell’s reaction, and allows us to faintly make out the image through the light streaming through the backside of the photograph. There are even a few touches of humor, like when Cassell fights a few skinheads set to the music/sound effects of a previously established Tekken-type game someone is playing in the background.

Plus, I like that it’s a buddy cop movie, but only in the 2nd half. Reno and Cassell don’t even meet until they’ve already gotten pretty much every piece of the puzzle, so when they finally meet it starts coming together for them (and us), resulting in a fast paced third act that features a terrific (if too short) car chase, the aforementioned foot chase (way better than Seven’s, if you ask me), and a finale built around an avalanche. And the killer isn’t just pissed that his/her dad never went into their room.

Actually the killer’s motive ties into Nazis. Sort of like The Unborn, they just spring it on you late in the film, but it’s a nice touch. Beats the umpteenth biblically-motivated serial killer. In fact, the whole thing is kind of convoluted, but if you pay enough attention you should be able to understand it all with little trouble. In fact, the only issue I had with the film is a relative lack of viable suspects; it’s certainly presented as a whodunit but you really can only believe two people and one of them is killed halfway through or so. The motive is the real mystery, but it would have been nice to have another character to mislead us.

Then again, maybe the people who are confused were using the dubbed version of the film, instead of going by the dumbed down subtitles. Much like Let The Right One In, it seems that Sony didn’t want us reading too much, so they sort of “summed up” a lot of the dialogue. For example, this is what the dubbed track (presumably created by the filmmakers, seeing as Reno and Cassell do their own voices) offers for a line of dialogue early on between a coroner and Reno:

“I figured you’d want to see him as the killer
wanted us to find him. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The subtitles, on the other hand, merely offer:

“I figured you’d want to see him intact. It’s incredible.”

Yeah, it means the same thing, but it’s still the Cliff’s Notes version of the dialogue. I don’t have time to go through the entire film and spot all the differences, but for the 5 minutes that I was watching the dubbed audio with the subtitles activated, not a single written line matched what was being said, and the subs were always shorter. Even minor character details were just left out entirely, the coroner tells Reno that he attended one of his classes “in Nice”, but the location is left out of the subtitles. Does it really matter where the guy attended school? No, but it just shows that the subs are half-assed. Had I known this from the start (I discovered it after I watched the film, when switching around to see if the commentary was in English) I would have just watched it dubbed, especially since Reno and Cassell (and possibly others) were doing their own voices anyway.

At least they provided enough extra features to make up for it. There’s a 50+ minute documentary on the film’s production, which contains some fairly candid revelations from cast and crew alike (Cassell in particular seems frustrated with the production’s tendency to rewrite the script on the spot), and a peek at some scenes that were deleted (or never even filmed - Kassovitz himself was supposed to play a role but budget cuts resulted in his character being written out entirely). Then there are a trilogy of pieces in the vein of Sundance’s “Anatomy of a Scene” series, where every aspect of putting a scene together (editing, sound, makeup effects, the actors, etc) is detailed. The one for the autopsy scene runs a full half hour, the others are only about 10 minutes each. Still, all that plus a commentary (which is in French, but has its own subtitles) gives you around three and a half hours of material, which is far more than I was expecting. And the video quality doesn’t seem to suffer either, which is even more impressive as it’s all on one side of the disc.

I didn’t listen to the commentary (wasn’t in the mood to read for another 100 minutes), but unlike a lot of these blind buys, I will be keeping this one, so I will hopefully find time to check out the commentary in the future. There’s a sequel, but neither Kassovitz or Cassell returned, so my interest is a bit muted. Anyone see it? Any good? I hear Christopher Lee speaks French, that might be enough to warrant a view either way.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...