The Caretaker (2008)

JULY 24, 2009

GENRE: CRAP, SLASHER
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

I grabbed The Caretaker to take to Comic Con mainly because it had no extras whatsoever, unlike the other films that I was watching (many of them rentals that I wanted to get out of the way). So it’s kind of funny that I learned the next day that it was at Comic Con LAST year that I got the damn thing; according to my friend Ryan, we got them in a gift bag or something. Good to know. Movie’s a complete waste of time, but at least I know how I acquired it in the first place.

The script isn’t the worst thing ever. There are some truly horrid lines and “jokes”, like a girl who for some reason doesn’t understand the term “female charms” in a double entendre setting, and repeated references to Myspace that make the film already feel dated, but the backstory is fine and the pacing harkens back to the older ones, where it’s half setup and half execution (as opposed to a “Kill every 10 minutes” structure that you get in most modern slashers). It’s a formulaic script, hitting every beat that you expect and doing very little new (it’s actually quite reminiscent of Prom Night IV, of all things), but there’s a certain comfort in that. Unfortunately, that comfort can only be obtained if the performances and direction follow suit, and in this movie, they most certainly do not.

Let’s start with the “actors”. Our only two names are Jennifer Tilly and Judd Nelson, and it’s pretty obvious that their casting blew the entire budget since the other actors are all amateur and terrible (not to mention that the film as a whole resembles a short film a real director might put on a DVD and say “Hey this is what I did when I was twelve.”). Tilly’s role is entirely worthless in the grand scheme of things, and if not for the fact that her cleavage is always on full display her scenes would be the absolute worst in the film. You could edit her character out entirely and it wouldn’t make a lick of difference, plus they carry an absurdist tone that the rest of the film lacks, making them stick out even more. As for Judd Nelson, well, he only has two scenes. And since one is early on, you could be watching the film on mute (not the worst idea) and know what his other one is going to be about (hint: he’s the killer).

Oh wait, the guy that played the Creeper in Jeepers Creepers also pops up as a limo driver who acts creepy for no reason other than to try to make you think that maybe Judd Nelson isn’t the killer. It doesn’t work.

Worse than the actors, however, is the film’s horribly cheap feel. A slasher movie should have iconic shots of its killer, if nothing else, but director Bryce Olson and DP Vern Nobles can’t even be bothered to give him a decent reveal. More often than not he just sort of lumbers into the frame without fanfare, and the terrible lighting means you never even get a good look at him. His weapon (a sharpened fruit picker) is pretty cool, but you never see it make an impact; the five or six drops of blood in this movie are on wounds that were already made. The non-killer stuff is just as bland; two-shot, two-shot, wide-shot, close-up... there is simply zero flair to anything on the screen. Plus it all takes place in a standard house that wouldn’t even make a good location for a porno, let alone a slasher film.

Again, the disc has no extras, so who knows what these guys were trying to accomplish. Other than possibly giving one pause the next time they go picking grapefruits, there is nothing in this movie that clearly demonstrates why it was even made in the first place.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Manson Family (2003)

JULY 23, 2009

GENRE: MOCKUMENTARY, SERIAL KILLER
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Of all the “legendary” serial killers, Charles Manson is probably the most widely known, but I’ve never really had any interest in his case. Someone like Bundy or even Charles Whitman is much more interesting to me, as there is a normal life and then a snap. Manson was seemingly crazy his entire life, and his claim to fame is that one day he told some of his moron followers to go kill some folks. But I recently took more of an interest due to taking part in a “ghost hunt” at a house next door to the infamous murders, where the ghosts of Sharon Tate and the others are supposedly haunting. I didn’t see anything while I was there, but it still got me to finally get around to watching The Manson Family, which I’ve heard about a couple of times and was sort of curious about even beforehand.

On paper it sounds like a great idea: It’s the whole-ish story told in a documentary style through the eyes of the followers. Manson is usually the focus, but since he’s not the one who actually committed the murders, other films have a strange disconnect where you’re following this one guy around and then the climax revolves around other people while he smokes weed at home or whatever he was doing. Indeed, Manson (Marcelo Games) all but completely disappears after the first 30 minutes or so, popping up only briefly in a handful of scenes.

And for a while, it works. The crazy cutting, insane sound design, and shockingly brave performances (particularly the Wil Forte-looking Marc Pitman) were quite compelling and unique; even succeeding in presenting an acid-induced state of mind. It’s sort of like a cross between the more psychedelic scenes in Natural Born Killers and the dinner scene from Texas Chain Saw Massacre, except for an entire film. But that’s also the problem. It’s not exhausting, it’s just tiresome. The rapid edits and super-imposed images and other assorted nonsense starts to feel less exciting and instead more juvenile, like a high school kid trying to be “edgy”. And Games' performance as Charlie (no one says the name Manson, for some reason) pales in comparison to Jeremy Davies’ from the TV movie Helter Skelter, which aired around the same time this film was finished.

Not helping matters is a ridiculous framing story about some punk kids planning to off the reporter making the documentary. Every now and then we have to watch them do their thing, and it completely throws the tone/pace off. Finally, the ending is just complete horseshit, they kill the reporter, and then each other after one of them explains what “Charlie Don’t Surf” means. I assume the point is to show Manson’s continuing influence on the scumbags of today, but it’s just such a poorly shot and acted scene that it fails to accomplish anything besides making an already overlong movie longer. Plus, it’s pure fiction, awkwardly edited into what seems like a fairly faithful recreation of what actually happened.

And when you consider the film’s production (at times more interesting than the film itself), it’s a wonder such things were even bothered with, as the money used to shoot/edit these scenes could have been allocated to improve the sections of the film that actually work. The film was shot without an actual budget; writer/director Jim Van Bebber would film when he could, over a period of ten to fifteen years (shooting and editing times are a bit muddled). He would show rough cuts at festivals to get money to shoot more footage that would be edited in for its next showing. I would have liked to have known why he even stopped shooting and finally said “it’s done”. There is no real narrative to the film itself, it is only dictated by what happened in real life, so it’s conceivable that he could have kept on filming to include well-known events that the film skips, such as Manson’s dealings with Brian Wilson.

So I dunno. I would certainly recommend seeing at least some of it, just for the sheer brashness of it all, but it’s sort of one of those things where you can watch it for 20 minutes or 4 hrs (it’s 95 minutes long, for the record) and come away with the same reaction. The film offers zero insight into the man, so Manson-philes won’t learn anything new, and the film is too “in its own head” for someone with zero knowledge of Manson to understand what the hell is happening.

What say you?

P.S. I understand there is a boxed set with a documentary about the film’s production, but this was a Netflix rental, so all I got was the film. The only extra on the disc is the trailer. If anyone has seen the doc and thinks I should check it out, by all means let me know!

PLEASE, GO ON...

Messengers 2: The Scarecrow (2009)

JULY 22, 2009

GENRE: SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

Much like Martin Barnewitz’s last film (Room 205), Messengers 2: The Scarecrow has a few really good moments, but you have to wade through tedium to find them. Nothing about it particularly angered me, and I was never completely bored, but it failed to really resonate either; most of the movie left my head by the time I sat down to watch the commentary a few days later. One thing stands as a definite plus though - you don’t have to watch the original to understand it.

As PG-13 horror movies go, The Messengers was pretty much middle of the line. The central concept was fairly interesting (well, OK, the concept that the trailer discussed was - the whole “they only speak through children” thing wasn’t really prominent in the actual film), it introduced Kristen Stewart to horror fans, and gave a rare villainous role to the preternaturally charming John Corbett. Oh and the Cigarette Smoking Man was in it, so there’s something. But it was bogged down by some obvious tinkering, generic ghost gags, and an overall sense that no one involved was really giving a shit. So while it was watchable, it’s certainly not worth going out of your way to see just to ensure you are well-versed in the Messengers universe so you can enjoy a killer scarecrow movie.

In fact, I have yet to discover anyone that can definitively place where the film falls in relation to the first. By all accounts, this one is a prequel, but it’s not about the family that was discussed in the first film. No year is given - no one has cell phones or modern cars, but then again it’s about poor farmers so they wouldn’t have those things anyway. So really, other than “name recognition”, I’m not really sure why they bothered putting it in the series anyway - it’s not like the original was really loved, and the rating is now an R, so it won’t even attract the same fanbase. At least Boogeyman 2 (which I liked) had some ties to the original to ensure that the fans would be less disappointed by the fact that it was otherwise a completely different type of movie.

Because whereas the first film was more of a typical haunted house movie with some Eastern flare (courtesy of original directors the Pang Brothers, who were replaced in post), this is more a straight up “Careful what you wish for” supernatural tale, with a scarecrow seemingly killing people in the name of our hero, played by Norman Reedus. So like, a banker threatens to take the property away because Reedus hasn’t been paying his bills, and then he gets run over by a truck (this scene is AWESOME). In the morning, Reedus finds the guy’s wallet and gold watch underneath the scarecrow. A romantic rival is also dispatched, and also his crops have begun flourishing. There are no Messengers to speak of.

One flaw is that we’re supposed to suspect that Reedus may be going crazy and doing all the killings himself, but this never seems like a viable outcome. Given how the scenes are depicted, it would be a major cheat for this to be the case as it would mean that what we were seeing wasn’t really happening (shades of High Tension), so I never really entertained this notion. Instead, I just kept wondering when the damn scarecrow would come to life, which is probably why I found the film to be dull on more than a couple occasions. There are only so many times I can see Reedus find or see something peculiar, get a puzzled look on his face, and then get distracted by his wife or one of his kids to end the tension and his train of thought (the dude never follows through on a single unexplained event).

And I can’t really call this a flaw, because it’s simply not the intention, but I was surprised how humorless the film was. There’s a snarky line here and there, but otherwise it’s all taken very seriously, which is a surprise when you consider that the film was written by Todd Farmer, who wrote Jason X and My Bloody Valentine 3-D. Those films were imbued with a winking tone and a general sense of “Hey we’re here to have a good time, have a beer”, but that’s not the case here. I was sort of hoping for a more fun, 70s/80s throwback approach to the killer scarecrow storyline, but it was not the case. On the plus side, it’s good to know that Farmer is (unlike myself) capable of working outside of his comfort zone.

I certainly enjoyed the R rating-ness of it all though. There aren’t a lot of kills, but they are sufficiently gory, and there’s some wonderfully colorful language to enjoy as well. But the real surprise was the unabashed nudity. Reedus sees a woman bathing herself in the nude in the middle of his cornfield, and then later she borderline rapes him. Reedus and his wife also engage in a couple of sex scenes; one romantic and one rough. Outside of slashers, where it’s sort of a rule, sex scenes are becoming more and more infrequent in horror films, so when they pop up (heh) it’s a nice little bonus.

The only extra, besides Sony’s increasingly unwieldy trailer reel (this movie just came out this week - do we really need a trailer for Boogeyman 3, which came out over half a year ago?), is a surprisingly enjoyable commentary by Barnewitz and Farmer. Two incredibly interesting things are revealed right from the start - one being that it was the first time that the two men met in person (production communication was kept to Skype, Gmail chat, etc), and the other being that the film was actually just a slightly re-worked version of Farmer’s script for the first film! Apparently, his original script was heavily rewritten by others for the first film, so much that he was able to make a sequel using his pre-rewrite script, which has to be a first. He also discusses the film’s original (superior) ending, in which you would find out that Reedus had actually killed his entire family and had been talking to ghosts the whole time. Not only would this have been more interesting from a storytelling standpoint, it would also at least be more in line with the backstory that was given in the first film, and we’d only have to accept that Reedus became John Corbett. But back on point, it’s an engaging track throughout, and Farmer is one of the few writers I’ve listened to who is well-spoken and respectful when it comes to the subject of being rewritten. He also helps the Danish Barnewitz with some unfamiliar American phrases, and also explains what a gourd is.

The cover has two quotes, neither of which are particularly helpful or even really praise. One is just “The Shining Goes Country”, which is probably what the pitch was, and the other is “Bloodier Than The First Film”, which is a no brainer considering the difference in rating. I only wish they had come to me, as I would have said “I’m fairly sure that it’s marginally better than the original.” And then they could have taken the last four words and had a good one to use. Next time, Gadget....

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Antichrist (2009)

JULY 21, 2009

GENRE: HORROR?, PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PRESS SCREENING)

You know, I probably won't write a full review for Lars Von Trier's Antichrist. It's just not my thing, it's pure art house melodrama with some weird freaky horror shit thrown in (the end credits list a "Specialist in Horror Films" or something like that - not something you see in a true horror movie, right?). No sense rambling on and on about it; just like I wouldn't bother to read an art house lover's review of Shocker, I can't imagine a full review from me would be of any use to anyone. In short: Not for the squeamish, very slow paced, and impressively simplistic (only three people appear in the film, one only for a single scene). That's about all I'll probably say on it.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Nightmare City (1980)

JULY 20, 2009

GENRE: ITALIAN, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Lots of folks like to blame Zack Snyder for “fast” zombies, despite the fact that Danny Boyle had them two years before in 28 Days Later. And Boyle may have gotten the idea from as far back as 1985, when Dan O'Bannon used them in Return Of The Living Dead. And given that film’s toxic/military explanation, it’s fairly reasonable to bet that he got the idea from Umberto Lenzi’s Nightmare City (Italian: Incubo Sulla Città Contaminata), which was released in 1980. In short, anyone who complains about fast zombies being some product of a post Michael Bay world really needs to shut the Christing fuck up and pay attention.

Of course, some, including Lenzi himself, would argue that these things aren’t zombies, and for once I can sort of see their argument. They sort of look like crazed burn victims more than anything else, and their penchant for using weapons, issuing “come on!” type orders to their brethren when they see victims getting away, and focus on the neck when it comes to eating (more like drinking) is outside the zombie norm. BUT, on the other hand, they only die when shot in the head, those they bite become infected, and a lot of the things they do seem ripped off from Dawn of the Dead, so I’m going to have to call this one a zombie movie. Sorry, Lenzi.

It’s certainly one of the faster paced zombie movies; no more than 5-10 minutes ever goes by without some sort of attack, often one on a very large scale. Hospitals, runways, hangars, etc. are the setting for scenes in which dozens of zombies wipe out dozens of random extras. And since they use guns and axes and knives and pokers and whatever the hell else they can find, it never feels very repetitious, because you’re always like “Huh, I’ve never seen a zombie slice a woman’s face off in one of these things.” The gore isn’t always the best, but the quantity over quality approach has a certain charm to it.

There are also a few Fulci Zombi-inspired scenes, including one where the wife of a major character is besieged in her own home. These smaller scenes are also pretty good; not only do we still get the unusual weapon-heavy kills, but they contain a bit of suspense as well. Since the movie’s pace is so breakneck, I was never quite sure who the main characters were, allowing me to suspect that anyone could die. And they often do, so win-win. Some aren’t totally successful though; there is one where our heroes (once I figured out that they were indeed our heroes) approach a priest and it’s supposed to be a surprise that he’s a zombie. Not only is it obvious from the way he’s just standing there, but it’s also botched from a technical standpoint - the way the actors are standing in relation to each other, there is no way in hell that she didn’t see the burns all over his face. Then he awkwardly spins almost 360 degrees toward her to “reveal” his face. Think things through, people!

Speaking of our heroes, I love these two, because during the occasional slow scenes they debate whether we are to blame for this mess (due to mankind’s insistence on having more power) and other existential and philosophical matters. It’s rare to see any sort of reflection or insight from a character in one of these things, so even though it’s a bit clumsy, it adds to the unique flavor this one provides.

Part of the clumsiness may be due to the half-assed dub job. The lip matching isn’t as bad as some others, but several lines have a strange vagueness to them that I found pretty distracting. For example, when an airport is attacked, the newscaster says “An attack at the major airport”, instead of “At JFK” or “At LAX” or whatever (Nightmare City does not appear to have a real world name). Some common phrases are also bungled, such as when a guy urges a panicked person to “Hold your socks on”.

One thing that wasn’t mis-translated was the name of the news studio - BWC! Those are my initials! Every now and then you’d see a guy reporting with a big graphic next to him that said “BWC NEWS” (instead of WBWC or KBWC). And it got me thinking - how awesome would it be to have a news station devoted to you-centric news and topical discussion? “Today, on BWC - BC’s chosen brand of ginger ale: does it give him gas? Then, join us for an exclusive one on one interview with the guy who sat next to him on opening night of Rob Zombie’s Halloween!”

The only extras on the disc are the overlong and quite redband trailer (boobs!), and a 12 minute interview with Lenzi where he talks about how the film seemingly predicted the AIDS outbreak. He also dismisses his lead actor (Hugo Stiglitz), which I noticed is quite common with these Italian maestros. I wish American directors were as frank; nothing would be more hilarious than seeing McG give an interview and be like “Oh, Christ, that fucking Bale guy...”. Italy: the REAL "No Spin Zone".

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Vengeance Of The Dead (2001)

JULY 19, 2009

GENRE: GHOST, REVENGE
SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT VIEW)

Last night, some friends and I were discussing Project Greenlight, and how only the 3rd season guys (John Gulager, Marcus Dunstan, and Patrick Melton) managed to make a career for themselves, while the winners from the other two seasons were never heard from again (Pete Jones made another film, which played a festival in 2004 and was released on DVD in 2007 - I haven’t seen it). So imagine my surprise when the opening credits for Vengeance Of The Dead revealed that the film’s DP was none other than Peter Biagi, the douche-y DP for Pete Jones’ Stolen Summer!

Now to be fair, the reality show editing process can make anyone look like a douche, so maybe the guy is all right. But the fact that I remembered his name from a show I watched 7 years ago should be a good indicator that he left an impression with his antics. Anyway, this was shot after Stolen Summer (or at least, it was COMPLETED after Summer, Vengeance seems to have been shot over two time periods), and on a technical level, it’s certainly a step down. It often resembles a student film, one shot in 1986 at that. More than once I thought I was watching The Dark Power, and wondering when Lash LaRue would step in and whip the shit out of something.

But it’s not too bad. At 72 minutes (8 of which are credits), it’s not long enough to really annoy or bore you, and there’s just enough weird stuff going on to warrant a look. For starters, the plot revolves around a ghost getting revenge on the 3 men who killed her in a fire. They are all old guys, and since she believes in equal revenge, this means that our setpieces all involve old men being immolated. So if you’re an MST3k fan, think of the climax to The Puma Man (“Burn, an old man, singe all his skin off!”) and times it by three!

The 2nd old man has the best one though, because of the damn near ten minute icky shower scene before it. His granddaughter tells him like five times that she’s about to take a shower, and then strips down and does just that. He goes into the room below it and looks at her undressing through a spyhole, while he planes some wood (that’s what the kids are calling it these days...). He then begins to fantasize about her doing some sort of aerobic routine while coming on to him (“you like this Grampa?”). I understand it’s Morgan Freeman’s favorite movie.

That’s just one of the many wonderfully batshit scenes/lines in the film. A radio report comes out of nowhere to tell us that someone shotgunned three kids, a kid who looks like he’s 19 talks about high school as if it were decades ago (he even describes it as “back when I had my whole life ahead of me”) before building a model rocket with his grandfather, and good ol grampa describes a guy as “a fella that surprised a lot of folks round here some years back when he killed himself”. It’s charming.

Less charming is the music, often ripped directly from 80’s era John Carpenter scores (The Fog and Prince of Darkness, mainly), as well as the really annoying “echo” that all of the (many) flashbacks have. The dialogue is kind of generic anyway, and this dumbass design ensures you have to hear it all twice. This of course, just helps pad the film out; despite its short length it has plenty of stuff that could have been tightened or removed entirely. Christ, even the shower/fantasy scene goes on too long. If a film has a scene where an attractive woman is seducing her grandfather, and I’M the one saying it’s too long, then you KNOW it’s too long.

The ending is particularly harsh. Not only do we find out the identity of the 3rd bad guy (which isn’t too surprising because there are only like 4 people in the entire movie), but our hero is immolated as well. His ghost gets to make out with the ghost of the woman that put him up to all of this though, so I guess it works out OK enough. Besides, he already graduated high school, so his life was pretty much over anyway.

As I watched this on Netflix instant, I don’t have access to the extras. Apparently the disc is jam-packed and includes a commentary. I wouldn’t mind listening to it, but time is, as always, a factor (even worse this week due to Comic Con) so that’ll probably never happen. So I’ll just assume its low points are the result of a troubled production and give a final vote of not too bad. More entertaining than Stolen Summer anyway.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Homecoming (2009)

JULY 18, 2009

GENRE: BLANK FROM HELL, TEEN
SOURCE: “THEATRICAL” (DVD PROJECTED ON A SCREEN)

Define irony: A film is made for teens and the youngest person in the crowd is a 29 year old guy with gray hair. Such is the sad fate of Homecoming, an independent “horror” film (teen thriller) that was released on two screens this weekend; its only press stemming from the fact that Mischa Barton apparently would rather kill herself than attend the film’s premiere. After sitting through it, I can’t say I blame her.

OK, to be fair, I’m sure the poor lass has other problems than appearing in a really lousy horror movie, but it certainly can’t help any. This is the worst kind of bad movie - the type that rolls along on rails, neither good enough to enjoy or bad enough to entertain. If credited screenwriter Katie L. Fetting was actually some acronym for a script producing robot, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least. From the awkwardly structured scene near the beginning where our hero, driving a car, stops to let his girlfriend talk to her ex, to the final shot where our villain opens her eyes to assure us that she’ll be back for more (and that the film retains its strict policy on nothing interesting happening), nothing in this movie could be accused of being interesting or exciting. Christ, newborn infants can probably put the entire film together from its underwhelming trailer.

There are precisely three good moments in the entire film. In the first, director Morgan J. Freeman (the young independent one, not the older, granddaughter-fucking one) takes a shot from Halloween, as the film’s only likable character (played by Final Destination 2's Michael Landes) pulls a Sam Loomis and turns his head at the exact wrong time and misses seeing the very car he’s looking for driving past in the background. In the second, a crazed Barton swings an axe at a phone to prevent Jessica Stroup from making a 911 call, and then cuts her own leg when she pulls the axe out and dangles it by her side. It doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense, but it’s an odd little moment nonetheless.

The third is the best though. Throughout the repetitive film, Stroup tries to escape (the film as a whole is sort of Misery meets Fatal Attraction, complete with broken feet) and Barton catches her. During the 3rd or 4th such sequence, Stroup manages to get out to her car, which is locked. In a panic, she sets off the car alarm, which just tells Barton where she is. Barton approaches her, and then digs into the pocket that Stroup is wearing, which has the car keys that Stroup neglected to look for. It’s nice to see such a generic scene have a new punchline. I also like to think that Stroup had seen all of the movies that this film was stealing from, and figured there was no way in hell the keys would be accessible.

I’d like to talk about Stroup for a minute. She’s fucking hot and a fun presence, but she keeps making bad movies (or TV shows). Can someone please get her a decent movie please? I may have been kinder than most to Hills 2 and Prom Night, but like Tiffany Shepis, I’m sick of saying “she is the only reason this movie isn’t Crap”. Hell, put em in a movie together. What hasn’t been remade yet...

Besides the generic-ness of it all, the real reason the movie fails is that it refuses to take any chances. It’s going out “unrated”, but the MPAA could probably be convinced to give this a PG if the filmmakers thought the rightful PG-13 would be too harsh. Mischa drops an F bomb and shoots (largely off camera) the guy you know is dead right from the start, because he’s the hero’s best buddy who has a thing for her. That’s it. She doesn’t die (again, her eyes OPEN! at the end), and despite having no reason to keep Stroup alive, she barely inflicts any harm on her (the foot injury was caused by the initial car accident, Barton merely makes it worse). Even after she kills the other guy in plain view of Stroup, Barton doesn’t bother to kill her. Why? She also keeps all of the incriminating evidence about the death of her mother (Barton poisoned her with some sort of plant mixture) in the house, complete with photographs depicting her slow demise that were taken for no reason other than for Stroup to find them I guess.

The fact that this thing is an independent film is the real shocker. You hear “indie horror” and you assume it’s got something that was too harsh for a big studio to ever dare to release. But Christ, even the theatrical cut (PG-13, in case you forgot) of Prom Night itself was more vicious, not to mention more mean-spirited (the death of her boyfriend was pretty harsh, as was the stabbing of her mother). I guess it’s nice to know that even the little guys are capable of making generic crap that panders to the CW crowd, but it doesn’t make me any less annoyed at spending 7 bucks (matinee, thank Christ) to find out.

Speaking of money, the most appalling thing that occurred during my time at the cinema was not on screen, but in the crowd. A few minutes into the film, a homeless woman entered the theater and took a seat. A guy who looked like an insufferable prick anyway instantly stood up and went out into the lobby, yelling “There’s a homeless woman in there!”. Now, this particular theater only has one entrance, manned by the ticket ripper. For someone to get into an actual screening room, you have to pass the box office, the ticket taker, and at least two concession stand employees. Not to mention, this woman wasn’t exactly svelte, and had her giant luggage roller thingie with her. In short - there’s no way in hell she “snuck in” - she clearly bought a ticket same as everyone else. And had Doucheface McFucknuts considered this before standing up and causing more of a disturbance than the woman did, he could have saved himself a walk and me a paragraph. Not that I can blame him for using any excuse to skip a few minutes of the film, but come on man. She’s a human being too, and if she wants to spend her panhandling money on a shitty movie, let her.

You’d really have to go out of your way to see this thing in theaters, so I won’t bother trying to dissuade you from that. Just make sure you aren’t fooled when it comes on DVD with a new cover, glamour shots of the attractive stars, and a big ol’ UNRATED! tag that will attempt to make you think you’re getting anything BUT a ball-less bore.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Orphan (2009)

JULY 17, 2009

GENRE: KILLER KID
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PRESS SCREENING)

Omen remake aside, there haven’t been any big studio “killer kid” movies in ages, and the few that there were have been pretty weak. The Good Son, for example - it was rated R, but for what? He kills a pet and says “fuck”. Ooooh. So I wasn’t expecting much from Warner Bros.’ Orphan; maybe she’d cause a car accident or something, but I didn’t think she’d actually kill anyone.

So imagine my surprise when, not even an hour into the (2 hour) movie, she takes a hammer to a woman and kills the ever-loving shit out of her. Yes! A “killer” kid movie with actual kills! And while the body count doesn’t get much higher (one more kill, though a fairly surprising one), Esther is a vicious little bitch. She attempts to kill both of her siblings on several occasions, threatens to castrate the brother (“I’ll cut your hairless little dick off before you even know what it’s for”), brains a bird, stabs a guy to death... it’s pretty goddamn brutal. There’s also a taut scene where a girl who bullied Esther at school is inside of a giant playground castle/house thing. Because it has corridors and doorways and such, it actually feels like a typical stalking scene that would occur in a real house, only now with children. It’s an interesting visual, and ends with the little girl getting tossed down the slide and breaking her leg. Again - Esther’s not all talk and no action like some of her killer kid brethren.

But even without Esther the film packs a punch. The opening nightmare scene is more horrifying and disturbing than anything in the Nightmare on Elm St. films ever presented for a nightmare (the fact that it actually RESEMBLES a dream, with unexplained character/location changes and such, doesn’t hurt). And then later there is a terrific bit that plays on our understanding of cinema. Vera Farmiga pulls up to a red light and begins daydreaming as she spies a pregnant woman walking across the street. She keeps watching for a while, and then we hear a car honk. We all know this means that she’s daydreamed past the light turning to green again, so she starts driving toward. And then BAM! she narrowly misses getting side-swiped. It is then that we see the light, which is still red - the honking was unrelated. Great misdirection.

Speaking of instant identification, there’s a scene later on when Esther first comes to live with them, and they are all giving her gifts. As the scene begins, you can hear Cheap Trick’s “Surrender” in the background, and despite the lack of a visual clue, I instantly knew it was Guitar Hero II. Sure enough, they finally cut to the other side of the house where the brother is playing the game instead of joining in the festivities. He then tries to get his dad’s attention because he’s doing really well, but the dad (Peter Sarsgaard) is focusing on his new daughter and couldn’t be less interested. In the dad’s defense, “Surrender” is the easiest song in the game and the kid is only playing on Medium. Thus, the scene is somewhat botched for GH fans, because why would anyone be impressed with doing good on that? The kid should have been running through “Through The Fire And Flames” - THAT would sell the notion that the dad wasn’t interested in the kid’s achievements because he was too busy paying extra attention to another kid.

The dad is the one who blindly accepts Esther’s excuses for strange occurrences, while the mom gets suspicious. This is fine by me, as it allows Fermiga to have more screen time. She is one of the most beautiful actresses I can recall, and a terrific one to boot, so I was happy to see her carry the film. It’s familiar territory for her (Joshua), but in that one she was kind of crazy herself and spent most of the movie in hysterics and moping around. Not the case her - she’s the pro-active one, and by the third act she’s completely untrusting of Esther, which leads to some great physical moments. She frantically drives through a snowstorm, gets to smack Esther in the face, swears a whole bunch... it’s a kickass performance, and it certainly didn’t hurt my crush on her any. And if you enjoyed her “washing machine” scene in Running Scared (one of the most underrated films of the decade), you should enjoy a similar scene her, in the kitchen. The lady likes her household appliances.

Unsurprisingly, Vera’s character is also the one that finds out Esther’s secret. Much has been made of the twist, and no I won’t spoil it here. I just want to say that it was a bit goofy and somewhat deflating, but the film as a whole was solid enough to that point to allow me to give it a pass. There is another critique I can level at it, but to do would be heading too far into spoiler territory. Maybe when the film comes out on DVD I’ll edit the review. At any rate, when Vera sees what Esther had in mind, her reaction is one of the best hilarious reaction shots in horror movie history; on par with Joel Moore’s classic “Oh you gotta be fucking KIDDING ME?” when a sudden rainstorm douses the fire he just set on Victor in Hatchet.

Besides that, the only complaint I really have about the film is that it’s a bit long. There are a few too many scenes of Sarsgaard being presented with overwhelmingly damning evidence of Esther’s guilt, only to ignore it. Not only does it stretch out the film, it also makes his character seem kind of stupid at times, which I don’t think was the intent. Taken out of context, his rationales are often believable for the incident in question; but 3 or 4 in a row? Open your eyes man. And yet at the same time, things often seem to move too fast; there’s a line about Esther being a “perfect angel” when she’s with the father, but at that point we had never seen the two of them alone together. This makes it a bit harder to gauge how much time has gone by as well.

But otherwise, it’s an unexpectedly solid film. The child actors are all terrific (something that could easily kill a film of this type), the violence is as shocking as it’s supposed to be, and the tone is right on the line between creepy-sinister and trashy fun, which is fine by me. As a great man once said, “Recommended!”

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Hydra (2009)

JULY 16, 2009

GENRE: MONSTER
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

I often wonder if the other customers at Blockbuster think I am insane or mentally disabled when I pick up a film like Hydra off the shelf, look at the cover, and cackle to myself as I walk up to the front of the store without even bothering to look at the back. Or if I’m feeling cocky that day, I wonder if they realize I’m the Horror Movie A Day guy and are like “Oh nice, I know what today’s movie will be!”

(Yeah that never has or will happen. Let me dream, damn you.)

Anyway, I laugh because I assume it will be awful, but I gotta say, Hydra ain’t all that bad. Unlike the usual group of commandos or scientists who can turn into commandos when necessary, the humans in this one are hunters or hunted, as the non-monster part of the story is essentially a "Most Dangerous Game" retread. Have you ever watched Surviving The Game or Hard Target and thought “Yes, fine, but you know what would really make this movie great? Mythological creatures!”? The makers behind Hydra clearly did.

Now, nothing about this movie will win any awards. The acting is actually fairly sub-par across the board (even Texas Battle, who was fine in Wrong Turn 2, seems a bit stiff), the music is atrocious (it reminded me of what the score for a crappy late 70s or early 80s James Bond ripoff TV show would sound like), and it gets a bit repetitive at times. But my usual enjoyment of the MDG story allowed me to forgive it its trespasses and more or less have a good time with it.

And to give it some genuine praise, the effects are above average for these things. The compositing is, as always, a problem, but the thing seems to be the same size regardless of the scene/shot, the design on it is quite good (lot of detail on its body, it moves around fairly naturally, etc), and the death scenes are so damn bloody you won’t even notice that it’s not interacting properly with the actor. Man, EVERYONE gets it good in this movie. No off camera shit, no scream into the camera and cut away, nope - folks get torn asunder, devoured in chunks (one Hydra head will eat the guy’s head, then another will eat its torso, then another will eat his legs), gored... hell yeah. Director Andrew Prendergast thankfully understands what so many other DTV directors do not - we don’t rent these things for long-winded exposition about how the monster came to be, or lengthy backstories for the characters, or any of that crap. We want a monster, and we want that monster to kill as many people in the cast as it can. Hydra boasts a healthy body count of around 14, and while a couple are killed by other humans and merely shot, most of the deaths are via the titular monster. Thank you.

One thing about the backstories, what little they give us is needlessly awkward. In order to keep anyone from being too black and white BAD, we find out that the hunters have all had some sort of tragedy in their lives; one’s wife was killed by a drunk driver, another’s daughter was raped and killed, etc. So the entrepreneur guy who brings them all to the island (the hunters pay him to find “sport” and an island to hunt them on) finds people that were convicted of similar crimes, giving the hunters a motive to kill them. Seems like a lot of work, and I’m not sure how killing a guy who did something similar that some other guy did to you would help. Sort of like Bush going after Saddam for 9/11 instead of going after Osama, I guess. And one of the guys was merely brought to the island because the captain of the boat hated him and wanted to see him suffer, so I guess one of the hunters wouldn’t get his proxy vengeance even if the Hydra hadn’t shown up to kill the living fuck out of all of them regardless of what they did in the past.

Speaking of the captain, he’s actually the biggest human villain. You expect this character to develop a conscience and refuse to aid the hunters or whatever, but instead it’s the other way around. The entrepreneur guy decides to pull everyone off the island and give them a refund, but the captain won’t let him. Again, everyone’s kind of in a gray area in this movie, which I liked.

One thing I didn’t like is the volcano aspect. There’s a big volcano on the island and it’s about to blow for the whole movie, so you think it will blow and the lava will kill the Hydra, or blow as the humans try to make their escape and maybe kill one of the remaining bad guys, but nope. It never goes off. And the shots of it probably cost a few bucks of the FX budget, and that could have gone into fixing the snake a bit, so I cry foul on this subplot.

On the flipside, the snake dies by the hand of our hero, instead of some damn lava. And the kill is AMAZING. Dudebro reaches into a model of a volcano (I dunno), pulls out a giant sword (just go with it) and begins hacking Hydra heads off left and right. And if you can’t get enough, don’t worry - it happens again in a 2nd ending. The Hydra is seemingly dead, and our heroes get back to the boat, but one of the heads grows a new body, gets onboard, and begins killing everyone there as well. A deckhand then throws the sword to the hero guy, who once again hacks away, killing it for good. And the icing on the cake - as it explodes into CGI dust and ash, the sword magically floats away with the particles. Yes! Even the shitty music here makes it kind of awesome, as it’s so cheesy and bombastic.

No extras on the DVD, but I kind of like that. Let Hydra speak for itself.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

7 Days To Live (2000)

JULY 15, 2009

GENRE: HAUNTED HOUSE
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

I’ve often wondered how many fictional authors and/or their families would be alive today if they could just learn how to write in the house that they already lived in. It seems to never really work out for them, because not only do they never finish their book, they are always besieged by ghosts, possession, psychotic mailmen... (I still want to read a novel about four poker buddies that knock over a casino). So I am happy to report (spoil) that the nice folks in 7 Days To Live not only survive, but they publish a book that goes on to sell into a third edition in under a year!

Unfortunately that’s about the only original thing about the movie. The rest cribs heavily from The Shining, with some Poltergeist thrown in for good measure. Like Kubrick’s version of King’s book, our protagonist goes crazy pretty much the instant he sets foot in the house, rendering him wholly unlikable. In Shining it kind of worked because we all love Jack Nicholson, so even though he was never really “nice” in the movie, you’re not completely turned off, because... it’s Jack! And then, folks often complain about “replacing” Jack with Steven Weber for the TV version of Shining, but at least the guy was actually sympathetic based on his onscreen role. Sean Pertwee doesn’t benefit from either scenario - he’s instantly crazy, but he’s not quite as lovable as Jack Nicholson. A badass yes, but not likable.

Sort of luckily, the wife isn’t much better. Since she’s played by Amanda Plummer, you can guarantee that she’s already a bit kooky - the haunted house doesn’t even seem to really change her demeanor. But it also makes her character hard to sympathize with, because she never really stands up for herself, even when Pertwee goes completely apeshit in the film’s final act (tied to a bed after being knocked out and dragged around the house, she still hopes they can work things out). They never really feel like a real husband and wife either; at first I thought they might be brother and sister, as their “happy mode” bickering has no romantic chemistry to it. And they are pretty much the only two people in the movie most of the time (they have a couple of pals, and the requisite kindly older “guy who knows the story”, but they are never placed in any danger), so not a hell of a lot happens; Plummer sees something weird, tells an annoyed Pertwee who usually yells at her or throws something, then the next day she sees something else weird, and apparently forgets that he doesn’t care because she tries to tell him again, starting the cycle over again.

Pet Sematary is also borrowed from, so it’s good that just watched it the other day. Not only do we have a young kid dying (complete with a NOOOOOOOO!), but a character dreams about something evil in their backyard, only to wake up with muddy feet.

But it’s not too bad. Plummer and Pertwee are always interesting to watch, and it’s rare to see them carry a film. It goes through the motions, but in a way that’s more or less enjoyable. Since they are both crazy, the finale is pretty amusing, as they just start whaling on each other, War of the Roses style. And I liked the ridiculous manner in which Plummer got her titular warnings: the first one is on a street sign (do all the people driving by have seven days to live?), another is delivered by a radio weatherman. My favorite has to be her three days warning, when her Scrabble tiles tell her as much. Not only am I a big Scrabble fan, but I am tickled that of all the days to use, they would use the one with the most letters. This results in her drawing NINE letters (twice) instead of the standard seven. If it was “Six Days” or “Two Days”, or even “For (sic) Days”, they could get their Scrabble scare and maintain accepted rules. Plus, if she has just drawn seven (or nine, fine) letters, that means she just played a bingo, so good for her!

On the disc’s only extra feature (5 minutes’ worth of interviews), the director proudly states that this is “the first German haunted house movie”, so there’s something. I’ve wanted to see more foreign films from countries not often associated with horror (i.e. Italian and Asian), and Germany is certainly a country I haven’t seen too much from (I think Antibodies is the only other one I’ve watched). Hopefully they have some more original stuff to discover. But at least this one stole from the best; I don’t need to see a German-fied version of The Haunting remake or whatever.

What say you?

P.S. The trailer is in German. Only one I could find. I like it; Sean Pertwee's dubber is amazing.

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Objective (2008)

JULY 14, 2009

GENRE: ALIEN (?), SURVIVAL
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

Well it’s taken ten years, but one of the Blair Witch Project guys (in this case, Dan Myrick) has finally made a film that comes close to living up to their promise. The Objective is hardly a perfect film, but it’s a good one; compelling for most of its running time and interesting in the ways that count, which is more than I can say for many of their other post Blair films.

So it’s kind of a bummer that it’s more or less the same movie as Blair, albeit shot by someone who knew how to hold a camera. Some folks go out in search of something, get lost almost instantly, see weird stuff, some of them disappear without a trace, supplies run low and tensions mount, and then everyone else dies. It’s in the desert instead of the woods, and it’s a group of soldiers instead of documentary filmmakers (though Mike Williams pops up in this group as well, albeit far too briefly for my tastes. Love that guy), but that won’t stop you from getting some serious déjà vu at times.

It also reminds me a bit of the recent film Red Sands, which also detailed a group of soldiers encountering strange phenomena while being stranded in the desert. Both were shot around the same time so I don’t think one was cribbing from the other, but whichever film you see first is likely to kill some of the novelty factor of the other; it’s a unique setting/situation for a horror film, and now we have two within months of each other.

Luckily for Objective, the film doesn’t need to rely on any extensive special effects to depict its monster. It’s just a triangular thing usually seen through a night vision camera, so even if it looked bad it’s seen through a poor image anyway. Folks just sort of vaporize in thin air, so there’s no gore or anything either (except for when a corpse is found halfway or so through the film - it looks like it was put in a meat grinder). Like with Blair, it keeps everything to your imagination, and allows the limited budget to be applied to things that matter a lot more than special effects.

What Red Sands certainly has over this movie, however, is lack of narration. The main character in Objective, played by newcomer Jonas Ball (if Myrick is going to hire no-names to topline his film, why not cast me? I still wear a Blair Witch shirt with pride!), never shuts the fuck up, and his droning is as annoying as I can recall. I’d rather listen to Kiefer Sutherland’s opening narration in the theatrical version of Dark City than this drivel. The ending gives us a sort of reason for the narration, but it doesn’t make it any less annoying or intrusive. It’s not a particularly complicated story; we don’t need someone breaking up otherwise eerily quiet scenes to tell us things like “Water is running low.” No shit.

The ending is also a bit of a sore spot for me. It leaves questions unanswered, but not in a creepy way like Blair's (Did Heather get knocked out, did she die, or did she simply vanish into thin air?). Then there is a news report with one of the characters' wives, who holds up a notebook that he sent her shortly before he disappeared. Knowing Myrick's habit of creating full universes in which his film is just a part of it, I wouldn't be surprised if this book was actually fleshed out, but as far as I know it's not available anywhere, so the scene just makes you feel like you're being setup for a sequel, not being invited to look beyond the movie (the website is pretty standard, some behind the scenes stuff but nothing "meta").

Before the end though, there IS a certain (and surprising) level of creepiness to some of the scenes. I don’t find the desert particularly scary (at least, not as much as the woods), but there are still a handful of eerie bits. I particularly liked when they go to drink from their canteens and find them all filled with sand. Not only does it bring to mind a classic scene from Three Amigos, but it also provides a tangible and real scare, which are a bit scarce in this movie. Sure, I’m afraid of the unknown, but since it can appear anywhere, I know there’s nothing I can do about it. On the other hand, water turning into sand is something upsetting that can seemingly be prevented or fixed. I’m also always a sucker for a scene where people look at a map and realize that they have been going in circles or are off the map entirely. Helplessness is a state that is usually reserved for the final moments of someone’s life in a horror movie; building a good chunk of the movie around it is still fairly unique.

The DVD has a few extras worth watching; all together they only run 30 minutes, and since the film is 6 minutes shorter than the DVD promises, you’ll likely have time to check them out. There is a 20 minute making of that details the issues that may arise when fiming with A. a low budget and B. in a foreign country. Then there is an interview with Myrick, and another one with DP Stephanie Martin. It’s rare to see a female DP, and even rarer to see a DP get their own piece on a DVD, so this is a welcome addition, especially when the film is well shot (love the look of the early morning dawn-lit scenes). And kudos to Martin - it’s cliché to mock the camerawork in BWP, so to come out of a film from the same director noting how well it was shot is more a compliment to her than Myrick. The trailer is also there, but watching it means suffering through more of Ball’s narration.

After Solstice and Believers, I had lost a lot of hope for Myrick (Sanchez has only released one film, the decent but uneven Altered; something called Seventh Moon is completed but still unreleased). But Alien Raiders, which he produced, turned out pretty damn good. And now with this, I have a feeling maybe he’s still got some juice in him after all. I still hope he and Sanchez work together someday, but at least his solo work is improving.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Covenant (2006)

JULY 13, 2009

GENRE: SUPERNATURAL, TEEN
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

How The Covenant ended up in my collection is a bit of a mystery. I can only assume I got it from Mr. Disgusting to review (I have owned it since before I began doing HMAD) or as a gift bag prize or something. And every couple of months, when I look to make a few bucks by selling a few unwanted DVDs, I look at it and say “No, this will make a funny HMAD review, I’m sure” and keep it (I also promised HMAD reader Kelly that I would review it). So now I have finally given it a look, and yes, I can guarantee that it will be going in the “sell it back” pile.

On a technical level it’s fine. The CGI is pretty good, the direction and production value is top notch (it only cost 20 million, but it’s all on the screen), and despite a few laughable transgressions, they do a good job faking Eastern Massachusetts in Canada (we don’t have giant fucking cliffs for thrill-seeking warlocks to drive off of, and our rainstorms aren’t usually typhoons). And it features a good performance by Taylor Kitsch, who along with Chace Crawford is the only one of the guys in the movie that I’ve seen in anything since.

But holy Christ is it dull. Nothing fucking happens in this movie! It’s like they forgot that you can still kill people even if you have a PG-13 rating. There are four good guys and one bad guy... you would THINK at least one of the good guys would get killed in this supposedly massive battle, but no. The bad guy puts one in the hospital with some sort of vague injury. Two of the others never even face any danger at all. It just comes down to the main good guy fighting the bad guy. Christ, the bad guy isn’t even dangerous; at one point he has the hero’s girlfriend under some sort of spell, and the hero’s like “Leave her alone!” and... the bad guy does. Oooh, scary. When your film’s only villain can’t bring himself to actually do anything evil, where is the danger or suspense going to come from?

Christ, the movie can’t even be bothered to kill him either! He is tossed into a fire, but the epilogue makes sure we know that he survived. So these Warlocks are all powerful, but all they can manage to do is knock each other around for a few minutes. Speaking of their powers, it seems they can do whatever the hell they want: fix cars, blow up skirts, make cars fly, make dudes puke, and even survive certain death when they drive head on into a giant fucking truck (the car just puts itself back together, the driver completely unharmed). But they seemingly forget how powerful they are at times, as they merely hide when almost caught by a security guard instead of just flying the fuck away or making themselves invisible or whatever. Likewise, Kitsch is felled by a motorcycle accident, without even trying to use his powers (and in the wake of the “car accident” earlier in the film, it doesn’t really make any sense that he could be injured at all by such a thing).

There might be an explanation for this though: the film was edited by Nicolas De Toth. Nothing against his actual skill as an editor, but this is the same guy who turned Hitman into the most flaccid R rated action movie of all time, and Die Hard Faux into the neutered mess that it is. His skill seems to be sucking the life and viscerality (not a word) out of theoretically exciting films, and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn if he did the same thing here. The few actual acts of violence in the film are entirely off-screen; the one death occurs to a guy we never even met. There is a scene in a bar where two guys are suddenly fighting, and everything is edited around showing any actual impact. There’s a hot-headed (non-powered) bully character, but he disappears from the film around the halfway mark. And again, it’s entirely unclear as to what Kitsch’s injury is, he’s just in the hospital. Not only does it keep the film from being exciting, but it also betrays the actual concept of the story - they are supposedly all powerful and all that, but we never get even a glimpse of what they can actually do or why people should have any reason to fear them.

In fact, their biggest power seems to be the ability to shoot balls of CGI at each other. There’s no other way to describe it - they thrust their arms forward and a swirly ball of graphic comes out and hits the other guy. The overlong climax literally revolves around the two guys shooting CGI balls at each other over and over for like 15 minutes. No injuries result from these things, nor is there any indication that they can run out of energy or whatever, so I spent the entire climax wondering why they didn’t just use some other superpower and if they would ever run out of MP and be forced to use melee attacks (or use the escape command and run back to town for an ether).

The end also feels like yet another competition, which is pretty much all the previous 80 minutes were about. These guys never stop engaging in friendly contests: swimming, foosball, pool, girl chasing... and CGI magic ball throwing. Since they aren’t hurting each other in any meaningful way, it feels like the supernatural version of a high school fencing match. All it’s missing is the other three guys cheering them on, which is pretty much what their roles are reduced to for the bulk of the film.

And yet we see male ass. I think that’s a first for a PG-13 horror movie, and I’d hate to think that was the tradeoff. Like Renny Harlin was like “I need this ass shot!” and the MPAA was like “Fine, but you have to cut out any sort of violence and the kids can never get as much as a bruise on their arm!” But the ass-shots don’t help the fact that the movie often feels a bit like a big budget David DeCoteau film, what with all these handsome dudes spending so much time brooding in dark rooms together (and ignoring their girlfriends on more than one occasion in order to continue their totally hetero competitions).

Like anything else related to the story or characters, Harlin’s commentary doesn’t provide any insight on the matter. If you are hoping to become a key grip or matte choker or maybe even a 2nd unit assistant director though; this track is essential. Harlin never stops talking for more than a second, but it’s all technical - how this was shot, where the CG elements are, how it was lit, etc. It’s like a Carpenter solo track but without the occasional humor. The only time he speaks about anything else is during the end credits, when he explains how he first heard of the project on a Tuesday, got drunk with the producer on a Wednesday, and signed up to directed it on Thursday afternoon, blowing off another film in the process. Good story. The only other extra is a making of, which is worth a look if only to hear Wendy Crewson (The Good Son!) talk about how amazingly handsome the actor playing her teenage son is. Good to know if the whole acting gig doesn’t pan out, she’s got terrific potential for a career in Cougaring.

One final odd note - I started this one late, so it was a bit past midnight on the 14th when it finished. And strangely enough, July 14th is the bad guy's birthday, they even make a big deal out of it. I wouldn't have thought much of it, but in Con Air the little girl's birthday is July 14th, which is also the day Nic Cage is released from prison. Good day for fictional people. Also it's Bastille Day.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Pet Sematary (1989)

JULY 12, 2009

GENRE: SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

I saw Pet Sematary once or twice as a kid, but once the 2nd film came out I saw little use in the original anymore, as the sequel had more of what I cared about: gore, kills, humor (“I’m just fucking with you!”), and actor Clancy Brown. But in the 18 or so years since I last saw it, I’ve not only become a little more grown up when it comes to how I judge a film (I still give any film with Clancy Brown an automatic pass though), but I’ve also experienced the death of both pets and close family members, so I figured it would resonate more than it possibly could have as a child.

And indeed, the very things that would have appealed to me as a kid are the things that annoy me now. I’d rather watch Dale Midkiff (whatever happened to that dude?) grieve over his son than watch his wife running around airports while Headwound Harry helps her along. One of King’s late 90’s novels focuses on a grieving husband ("Bag of Bones") and what works best about the book is his isolation for large chunks of it. I’ve never read "Pet Sematary", but since King tends to copy himself a lot, I can assume that these type of scenes would have been quite good in the source material. However, Midkiff is entirely absent for what seems like a half hour after Gage is resurrected; we only focus on the wife and good ol’ Jed Crandall (Fred Gwynne, whose Maine accent borders on xenophobia).

The most common complaint about King’s writing, and it’s certainly a justified one, is that his dialogue tends to suck. He is a genius at inner monologue, but when it comes to having people talk... yikes. So while theoretically having an author adapt his own book for a film is a great idea, in King’s case it’s NOT, because a movie, of course, has no inner monologue. This results in people talking to themselves unnaturally to get certain points across, and this is where King’s weakness hampers the film.

More damaging is the rushed feel of certain key events. The little girl’s reaction to the resurrected (and clearly not right) cat is addressed once (“He smells!”) and never again - in fact I don’t think the two even share a scene together after that point. It could have provided a great parallel to the film to see the girl dealing with her zombie cat and then later with the dad and his zombie son, but no dice. Also, the son’s funeral - which should be the most horrifying part of the entire film - is far too rushed a scene. The father-in-law, who hasn’t even been introduced in the film before then, instantly starts throwing accusations at Midkiff as soon as the scene begins, instead of letting things simmer and escalate until that point is reached. And Midkiff accepts the idea of a magic burial ground a bit too easily for my tastes. In short, there are lots of missed opportunities to make what should be a depressing/interesting horror morality tale really resonate. The opening credits, where we see the titular locale as we hear little kids say goodbye to their pets, is actually more upsetting than the death of the kid.

(And since The Ramones' theme song only appears in the film's END credits, this may be the first film in history where the best stuff is the "once upon a time" and the "happily ever after" instead of the actual story.)

I must say though - Midkiff’s NOOOOOOOOOO! is easily one of the top five all time best NOOOOOOOOO!s in motion picture history. Possibly as a result of the failure of Maximum Overdrive (steamroll the little leaguer!), we don’t actually see the kid being hit, so we get the standard “focus on the now-ownerless toy rolling/flying away” shot instead. But that’s fine; the NOOOOOOOOO! totally sells it anyway.

Now, it’s not a bad film. It works as a long-form Tales From The Crypt style horror movie, with the lessons learned and the downer ending and what not. And the gore effects are quite memorable; Pascow’s head wound is still disturbing, 20 years later. Ditto the scenes with the wife’s sister (actually played by a man), which are on par with the bathtub woman scene in The Shining. Again though; since the husband is the main focus, these scenes, while fine on their own, should have been excised or trimmed down in favor of staying with him more.

You missed some, Doc.

One effect that’s not as successful is the killer Gage puppet. Miko Hughes is terrific as the crazy, scalpel-wielding terror, and I am amazed how much shit they put this poor kid through (at one point he legit whacks his head on a wall). But the puppet that they throw at Midkiff is laughably stiff and fake, ruining the tension after the film’s best scare (when Miko is laughing before he “jumps” through the trapdoor onto Midkiff).

The DVD has a few standard extras, none of them long enough to really resonate but they are certainly well made and include some nice tidbits. But like any “retrospective” documentary on a DVD for a film that came out long after DVDs were invented, I’m more interested as to why certain people are absent than anything the ones that are there are saying. King rarely appears in these sort of things anymore, but where the child actors, or Denise Crosby? Midkiff and Brad Greenquist (Pascow) are the only actors to appear in new footage, the rest are taken from the film’s production in 1988. Lambert also pops up, and also provides a commentary. But since the track was recorded in 2006 it is of no use to me, as the only thing I want to hear from her is an apology and explanation for The Attic, which she shot a year later.

A remake has been threatened (Clu Gulager for Jed and Battlestar’s Aaron Douglas as Dr. Creed, please!); hopefully someone else takes a crack at it and makes it as strong as I am quite sure it can be. As it stands, it’s a decent enough yarn, and like always, makes me want to finally read the book.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...