Cold Storage (2006)

MAY 11, 2010

GENRE: THRILLER, WEIRD
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

Sometimes I don’t have any theories why a movie sits on the shelf for a while, but in the case of Cold Storage, my guess would be that it was damn near impossible to market. It’s not really a horror movie, it’s rich with odd/dark humor, and there’s not a lot of action to try to fake it into looking exciting. Even though Lionsgate releases a lot of non-commercial genre films, even they must have had trouble coming up with an angle on this one to get folks to rent it (besides serial horror movie renters such as myself). The trailer makes it look pretty standard, and thus hides the movie's off-kilter tone.

Luckily, writer/director Tony Elwood doesn’t try to hide his intentions in the movie itself. Early on, a woman is killed in a car accident, only to be discovered by a local crazy (Nick Searcy), who thinks she’s his dead wife come back to him. So he takes the body and tries to preserve it, as the woman's boyfriend and sister try to find out what happened to her in the surrounding town of Rainerspoint. But almost right from the start, we are spending time with superfluous characters that seemingly have full lives outside of their short scenes, as if Elwood was treating everyone like a main character. Someone can’t just go into a convenience store to ask questions; no, a drunk has to come in and try to buy beer in the meantime, which leads the clerk to begin yelling about buying excess alcohol because her friend’s husband died as a result of a drunk driver. And there are a lot of “what the hell?” moments, like when the sheriff drinks his egg yolk through a straw. You really get the impression that this is a fully developed town with living residents; something you don’t often see in ANY movie, let alone a low budget DTV horror movie.

Unfortunately, the main plot isn’t as interesting, and thus whenever we are stuck with our main characters (particularly the always dull Matt Keeslar), it’s just a slow paced variant on The Vanishing (I wouldn’t be surprised if the pitch was “Twin Peaks meets The Vanishing”, actually), or maybe the 2nd half of Psycho. But unlike The Vanishing, we know her fate almost right from the start (that she’s dead, though they do seem to try to keep us guessing for about a half hour by never showing her face), so it doesn’t have any urgency to it. Whether they find her today or next week or never, she’s still going to be dead, and there wasn’t enough investment in their characters for me to want to see them find her just for closure. Hell, even the Vanishing remake had that going for it. And there are no near misses with the character, something that gave Psycho some terrifically nerve-wracking moments, like when Sam and Norman talked at the motel; hell, Keeslar and Searcy never even really share a scene.

Nick Searcy’s performance almost makes this stuff compelling though. He’s a great character actor, and while he’s been the bad guy before (Timber Falls), he’s actually sort of sympathetic here. He takes the body because she reminds him of his dead wife, and since she’s already dead, it’s not like he’s torturing her or something. I actually felt kind of bad for the guy at first; it’s not until the 3rd act, where he starts trying to kill our heroes, that I was really seeing him as a villain, as opposed to a demented loner.

One thing the movie definitely delivers is gross out moments. In addition to the egg slurping sheriff, we also have Searcy squeezing a dog tick in close up, with its goo shooting off toward the camera. He then clears his teeth of buildup with a knife, which doesn’t go too well (more blood). And a character’s penchant for spitting chewing tobacco proves to be his downfall, as Searcy discovers the puddle of spit (and tastes it to be sure) and realizes who had been in his house. Oh, and the corpse-preserving doesn’t go too well. The moments may be minimal, but they are effective all the same - the dog tick alone is grosser than anything I’ve seen in a Troma movie.

Another surprise is the wealth of extras on the disc. So many of these movies have absolutely nothing about their production along with the film, but there are about a half dozen extras here: some typical making of stuff, a look at the three main actors, a rare collection of “crew” bloopers, a short bit of Searcy goofing off between takes, and a piece about the various locations. None of it is particularly long (it all adds up to about a half hour), but again, it’s so rare to have any sort of insight on these things, I was happy to have anything at all. I just wish that the film’s production company (synthetic fur) would lay off their logo a bit. Not only do we have to watch the same little animation for every bonus feature (which adds 2-3 minutes to the aggregate running time), but on the film proper, they also have the single most excessive and overproduced animated logo in the history of the form, making even the bloated Mandalay and Lakeshore logos seem subtle in comparison. Rule of thumb - if your tag is momentarily considered to be part of the movie, it’s too much. Scale the shit back.

So the film isn’t bad, it’s just sort of schizophrenic. The weird town stuff never really gels with the generic thriller storyline, and I ended up wishing that the focus was on one or the other. Maybe the town could be the backdrop for a good TV show, where each week some outsiders come for whatever reason, and their little drama gets resolved while we continue to learn more about the town and its residents. Like an inverse “Man on the road” show (Supernatural, The Fugitive, etc), where we stay put and the recurring, minor characters play a part in helping a revolving series of traveling "main" characters. And each week, the Sheriff drinks another thing that most people chew!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Kemper: The Co-Ed Killer (2008)

MAY 10, 2010

GENRE: SERIAL KILLER
SOURCE: CABLE (SHOWTIME)

How’s this for irony - I recorded Kemper: The Co-Ed Killer on cable, but before I watched it, I checked to make sure Mike Feifer had nothing to do with it, as I think I’ve had my fill of his serial killer movies for a while. Not seeing his name anywhere, I breathed a sigh of relief and hit play. 30 minutes later, I began to wish he HAD indeed been involved with the film, because then at least it would be somewhat interesting. Or would have Corin Nemec somewhere.

I’m not sure why Rick Bitzelberger (director) and Jack Perez (writer) thought that THIS would be the best approach to a story about Ed Kemper, but it’s almost the polar opposite of the right way to go. First of all, it’s only sort of suggested by the Kemper case, sticking to a few basics and making everything else up, including the timeframe. Kemper killed in the 60s and 70s, but the film seems to be set in modern times since a cell phone is one of the most important plot elements. Yet a major location and some of the décor seems straight out of the 70s, so I dunno - maybe they were going to try to make it a period piece and gave up after a few days of shooting?

Well, for whatever reason, it’s still the least of the movie’s problems. The biggest blunder is that nearly the entire film finds Ed talking on the phone to Harris (the fact that the two main characters are combined to make the name Ed Harris - whom actor Robert Sisko (Ed) seems to be channeling at times to boot - is about the most interesting thing about it), with Harris trying to keep him on long enough to trace the call or simply locate him through background sounds or whatever. I’m not going to say that the killer is always more interesting than the guy going after him, but this movie would certainly provide evidence to the suggestion, since Harris (Christopher Stapleton) is a dreadfully generic character. It seems like they are going for a bit of a Silence of the Lambs thing here, as the two men were friends and have a mutual respect for each other, but it doesn’t work at all, because Harris simply isn’t interesting - I could care less about whether or not he caught his man.

Ed isn’t much better, and he will seem even more boring if you know about the real Kemper. In real life, Kemper was a necrophiliac, killed his grandparents, was locked in a basement at night growing up because his mother was afraid he would try to molest his sister, etc. Our guy makes phone calls. The only thing they really took from the real guy was that he killed co-eds and his mother (whom he decapitated, and then pinned the head to his wall with darts; in real life he also molested the head), but by stripping out the perverse stuff, it simply makes him a cheap, TV movie version of Ted Bundy (and we’ve already had a few cheap TV movie versions of Bundy, thank you very much). I’d stop short of saying “The movie fails because we don’t see a guy fuck his mother’s disembodied head”, but it’s not too far from the truth. And whether you know the story or not (in fact, I knew nothing of the story beforehand; I read up on it via Wikipedia after watching the film. I would imagine “fans” of Kemper would be even more bored/infuriated), you’d probably know that if you hit someone on the back of the head with the blunt side of a hammer, then it’s not very likely that a big blood splatter will hit the TV in FRONT of their head (and several feet away). Way to blow the film’s big centerpiece moment.

They’re also really stupid people. At one point they find a photo with the words “Ysatsce” and “Ynoga”, and the cop, who apparently had never read even the worst Hardy Boys mystery, thinks it might be Native American! I, and presumably most people, would instantly recognize what they were supposed to be, doing my friend Alucard (from the town of Nilbog) proud in the process. And Harris continually tries to keep Ed talking on the phone so he can trace him, even though he knows that Ed is a wannabe police officer and thus would likely know how long to stay on the line. Also, Harris has the single most shrill and annoying ringtone in the history of cinema, which makes the repeated phone call scenes all the more exasperating.

Did I like anything? Yeah, the opening titles, which are ripped off from Se7en, but it’s kind of charming to see someone still trying to recapture that greatness. And our boy chops off a few toes of a victim at one point, which is pretty unusual. And I was sort of tickled that, of all movies, Are You Scared? (which WAS produced by Mike Feifer! I love a good anecdote) was showing on TV at one point. It even helped me identify with the character a bit: “Hey, I’m watching a derivative bore on cable too!”

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Camp Utopia (2002)

MAY 9, 2010

GENRE: SLASHER
SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT VIEW)

I was all set to watch Nightbeast with my good friend Matt via Xbox Party, but for some reason Netflix doesn’t allow you to watch that particular film in a party, so we had to find something else. After some poking around, Matt stumbled on Camp Utopia, which sounded like a harmless enough “slasher goes after campers” movie. And since he doesn’t watch a horror movie a day, he thought it was the worst he had ever seen, at which point I pondered life without having seen Evil Woods or The Graveyard (both of which are worse).

But it IS pretty bad. The one thing a low budget generic slasher movie can offer you is a few good kills, but these are all abysmal (with at least one major one off-screen entirely). We get TWO “Killer comes up behind and swings something at the back of their head” kills, sans any splatter. Another guy is killed with a few projected arrows, which are pretty much bloodless as well. There is some decent carnage in the opening scene, but that doesn’t really count because it’s a flashback to a Charles Manson-y type singer who went crazy and began stabbing his followers. This is a slasher movie - our killer should be the one getting in the good kills.

And it’s supposed to be a surprise but it’s woefully obvious who the killer is - hell, I figured it out before the character was even introduced! Our two male leads are off to pick up their girlfriends and begin talking about a third girl that they don’t really know very well who has decided to join them. She also disappears for a while in the middle of the movie, something I wouldn’t have even noticed if one of the characters didn’t mention it with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. And even though her motive makes little sense, it doesn’t stop her from explaining it for what has to be a record 10 minutes (I’m not exaggerating). She drones on and on, in a suburban house (the whole movie takes place in the woods but they apparently shot the finale in Chatsworth or whatever), stopping only to complain about potatoes or something.

Also, the film is exponentially dated. See, the film was shot in 2002* but not released until 2005. So when our characters begin talking about “roughing it” in the woods, they mention things like CD players as what they will have to leave behind, instead of iPods or laptops, and only the yuppie character has a cell phone (which itself seems dated - most people had them by like 2000). So you have outdated technology being used to “modernize” what is a pretty outdated and tired setup.

The characters’ complete lack of concern with their situation is pretty much the only enjoyment I got out of it. The male lead’s best friend dies, and a bit later he’s making jokes about porn, and everyone else sort of looks at it as an inconvenience of sorts. And when HE dies, his girlfriend cries for a bit, and then apologizes later - she actually says “sorry for acting like a bitch earlier”. Yeah, finding your boyfriend’s head in your tent is YOUR problem, no one else’s.

I also kind of liked the weird sexual hang-ups the characters all seemed to have. One girl refuses to let her boyfriend do it without a condom (cue Jack Warden: “We didn’t have fancy birth control methods, like pullin’ out!”), and the other is on the rag. No one suggest blow jobs either. Also, when one of the guys puts the moves on the other girl, she refuses to go along with it. What the hell kind of kids in the woods slasher is this when no one fucks and acts responsibly? It’s pretty much the only original thing in the movie too.

The credits sport some eye-opening names though. You may be forgiven for missing it at the top of the film, because it lists EVERY SINGLE PERSON who ever steps in front of the camera (even unnamed extras!), but Timothy Bach (the Manson-y guy) is played by none other than Ratt frontman Stephen Pearcy, who also contributes a few songs (one of which is pretty damn good I must admit) from what I assume is a solo album. And the film is co-produced (and music supervised) by none other than Duane Whitaker, best known for Pulp Fiction (Maynard) and maybe Feast (Boss Man). He doesn’t actually appear in the film, oddly enough, but other than Pearcy he’s still the only name of note in the lot, which results in the following, rather odd sentiment: Duane Whitaker is slumming.

In short, if your Xbox viewing party is threatened by some odd exceptions in Netflix’s service, Camp Utopia should not be on your list of suitable replacements.

What say you?

*One of the actresses noticeably gains/loses weight throughout the film, so maybe it was shot (out of sequence) over a long period of time as well.

PLEASE, GO ON...

Kingdom Of The Spiders (1977)

MAY 8, 2010

GENRE: PREDATOR
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

I love when I have the wrong impression of a movie and it turns out to be something I prefer to what I thought it was. For somewhat obvious reasons I thought Kingdom Of The Spiders was more of a sci-fi film, with Captain Kirk himself on some planet fighting giant spiders (not my cup of tea). So I was pretty excited to see that it was about normal-sized spiders in a small Southwestern town, with Shatner playing a ranch hand that was as far removed from Kirk as a hero could be.

Unfortunately this meant that it was a lot easier to copy Jaws at times, which is really detrimental to the movie. I know that these sort of “Animals strike back” movies were a dime a dozen in the late 70s, much like all of the slashers following Halloween and Friday the 13th, but I think it could have stood on its own had it not copied a few plot elements so closely. For example, early on in the film the town’s mayor is concerned about Shatner’s belief that there could be a problem, because there’s a big county fair coming up and he doesn’t want anything to hurt business, which is basically more of a tell-tale sign of a Jaws knockoff than an actual shark. And there’s a scene where Shatner goes to find a missing local and his head pops into frame.

See, without these things I probably wouldn’t have really given Jaws much thought. But once it’s there, I can’t help but notice areas where Spiders is weaker than Spielberg’s film. For example, the Matt Hooper type character is a female, with whom Shatner attempts a romance. The romance stuff is incredibly lame, and just reminded me of part of why Jaws worked so well - it was as much a buddy movie as it was a man vs. shark tale. Ask anyone what their favorite scenes from Jaws are, and they’ll tell you how much they love the scar comparison/Indianapolis scene. I doubt anyone’s favorite scene from Kingdom Of The Spiders is when Shatner and the girl go out to dinner. BUT, again, had they not taken stuff from Jaws early on, I probably wouldn’t have noted the contrast.

Otherwise it’s a fun, ensemble/siege type predator movie, more like Tremors or Arachnophobia than Jaws. The whole 3rd act finds our motley group holed up in a log cabin, and like those films, there’s the impression that our heroes are never truly safe (whereas in Jaws they simply need to stay on land to avoid getting eaten). And the spiders are all real, so there’s nothing really ridiculous about the attack scenes, unlike something like Squirm or even The Birds, where bad effects/fake antagonists tend to ruin everything. Shatner really does have the goddamn things crawling all over him.

And since it’s so real, I can forgive certain male characters having incredibly girlish screams. Seriously, there’s one guy that has the most feminine shriek I’ve ever heard. As a mild sufferer of arachnophobia, the movie was keeping me pretty tense for the most part, but that dude’s shrill cries took me right out of the movie.

I also REALLY loved the grim-ass ending (spoilers!). Not only is there a huge attack on the town, where we see people (including a young boy) being bitten and dropping dead on the spot, but our heroes don’t really escape either. They’re alive, but cocooned inside of the cabin, and an overhead shot reveals that they entire town has suffered the same fate. NICE! One thing I love about independent films in the 70s is that they have zero interest in making the audience cheer. Nowadays, a lot of indies play it just as safe as their studio brethren (the recent Homecoming comes to mind as a good example), so it’s nice to go back to a time when the filmmakers would be like “Let’s basically kill everyone at the end”, and not have to worry about it being changed on them. I think Knowing is the only studio film of the past 5-10 years that was ballsy enough to wipe out the entire cast.

Speaking of the 70s, another thing that makes this movie such a wonderful flashback is the complete lack of PETA or AHA type activity. In other words, spiders get smushed for real, and often. Nowadays, these goons come on set and make sure that even maggots (MAGGOTS!) are protected, but back then, Shatner and the others were free to stomp, run over, spray with chemicals, etc. any spider that they wanted to. Again, it makes the movie more realistic (and thus scary), but it’s also a sad reminder that it’s impossible to do a movie like this anymore with a bunch of CGI. Sigh. I should note that they do seem to be at least trying not to kill too many - it’s not until the film’s almost over that they actually start stomping on the damn things.

As with any Shatner film, the question is not if the film is good, but how he acts in it. Well, he’s actually sort of subdued (for Shatner), with only a few odd line readings here and there, and almost zero over-acting dramatics. Even when he’s being attacked by spiders near the end, he’s sort of restrained. It’s a refreshing change of pace, though like Nic Cage, I wouldn’t want him to make a habit out of being normal.

The DVD is packed with enough stuff to almost warrant a second disc (hurrah for dual layers!). Along with the trailer, Shatner contributes a new interview (where he refers to his co-star as ugly!), as do the spider wrangler and one of the film’s many writers. The latter two and some others also contribute an enjoyable commentary track; they talk over each other a lot and make a lot of corny jokes, but it’s almost entirely silence-free and they have a lot of good anecdotes and such. They also point out that there are indeed some rubber spiders, but damned if I ever noticed any (they don’t point out specific instances, unless I missed it - I zoned out at times). About 20 minutes’ worth of behind the scenes footage (some with source audio) is also included - it’s not particularly memorable footage but it’s worth skimming just to see the difference between behind the scenes footage then and now.

Most importantly, the film holds up well. The effects are all real, so it’s not like Giant Spider Invasion where you see the goddamn car underneath the titular monster, and nothing beyond a few hairstyles and soundtrack choices really date the film. So if anyone starts suggesting a remake, shut them right the hell up.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Satanic Rites Of Dracula (1973)

MAY 7, 2010

GENRE: HAMMER, VAMPIRE
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Even though I'm sort of tired of Dracula movies, I dug Dracula AD 1972, and thus was looking forward to The Satanic Rites Of Dracula (inexplicable US title is Count Dracula And His Vampire Bride - this is the LEAST romantic Dracula movie I've seen), as it was a direct followup (is this the first time I've watched two of the series in sequence?), plus featured the final match-up between Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee as Van Helsing and Dracula, respectively. Side note - I sort of wish they had switched roles for an unrelated production - would be interesting I think.

Sadly, it's not much of a Dracula movie. The big guy only appears ONCE in the film's first hour and change, which would be fine if it was some LOTR sized epic, but the movie is only 87 minutes with credits. And that one scene is just a generic "Dracula walks into the girl's chambers, bites her, and carries her away" deal. In fact, it ironically would have worked better WITHOUT this one scene, because his next appearance is treated like something of a surprise. Van Helsing takes a while to appear too, and while he has more to do, Cushing seems a bit bored this time around (maybe because they started filming practically on the day the previous film was released). Without Dracula (or some buxom brides) to fight, he's mostly just yammering with some Scotland Yard folks and listening to exposition from others.

And there's a LOT of that, because this is the most over-plotted Dracula movie I can recall. In fact, half of it is like a Bond film of sorts, with spies and assassins and such, and even an "end of the world" plot involving members of government. Not that I mind mixing things up (if anything I prefer it after 20+ Draculas) but Lee's minimal screen-time makes it feel like they had a spy script and decided to shoehorn Dracula into it right before they went into production. And when all the science stuff comes into play, I felt like I was watching a Quatermass movie (which I DO want to watch! I've only seen two of them.)

I had to laugh at one segment in which we discover (after what, six films?) that Dracula is susceptible to silver bullets, which is not often part of the vampire lore. I laughed because all I could think of was the scene in From Dusk Till Dawn where Sex Machine is convinced that silver can harm vampires too, and yet couldn't remember which movie had it. Guess he was a Hammer fan.

On the plus side, it's nice to have some sort of continuity for once, with the Scotland Yard guy returning from 1972, as well as Van Helsing's granddaughter (albeit played by a different actress). I'm still unsure when he had the necessary child that would allow for a granddaughter, but that's OK. And some of the action takes place in a building that was built over the spot Drac died in the last movie, which is kind of cool. But things like that just sort of remind me how much more interesting 1972 was, with the Dracula minions and such.

Indeed, I started thinking about what would happen if the movie was called The Satanic RIGHTS Of Dracula, in which Dracula is brought to trial for sacrificing goats and such, claiming he has the religious right to do so. They could bring Van Helsing in as a character witness, Drac could use his hypno-stare on the court stenographer... has there ever been a Dracula-based courtroom drama? Let's get on this!

The DVD I got (not the one listed below) was a horrid budget release (non-anamorphic widescreen though, a slight step up from full frame I guess) from Platinum, who felt the need to put their logo on the bottom corner every 20 minutes. It's bad enough that pay-cable channels do this now (through the whole movie), but on a stand-alone DVD that retails for about 10 bucks? Fuck you! The major networks can do whatever they want - we don't pay to watch them. Anything else should be blemish free. What's next, movie theaters showing their logo on the screen during reel breaks? Guess I shouldn't give them any ideas.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Effects (1980)

MAY 6, 2010

GENRE: INDEPENDENT, THRILLER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REVIVAL SCREENING)

I remember stumbling across Effects in a Best Buy a while back (pre HMAD), with a cover boasting Joe Pilato and Tom Savini, and a cool/trashy cover with a bloodied corpse on the floor next to a director’s chair. In other words, it looked like yet another “killer stalks a horror movie set” film, which I was sort of tired of even then. So I forgot all about it until I saw that it was showing at the Egyptian with Joe Pilato in attendance, and then did some research and saw that it was actually filmed in 1978 (the IMDb actually says 1974 - I submitted a correction), and that it was actually about a horror film crew learning that they are involved in making a snuff film. Now curious, I decided to make it my movie for the day.

Well, maybe I should have just grabbed something else from the screener pile. Not that anything in there is probably any better, but 10 bucks for the ticket, couple bucks for parking, gas, etc - Effects certainly wasn’t worth my effort. Even on DVD, at home, I probably would have been disappointed, but factoring in all the extra time and money made it even harder to endure. And to top it off, Pilato was more or less sedate, a far cry from his outlandish, seemingly drunk/high appearance at the New Bev earlier this year when they screened Day of the Dead.

The main problem with Effects is writer/director Dusty Nelson (working from a novel by William H. Mooney) apparent insistence on redefining the term “woozy narrative”. I mean, pretty much all “East coast” independent films from the 70s could benefit from an actual editor (as I’ve said before, some of these movies aren’t edited, they’re assembled), but this one is 10x as pace-challenged. We watch minor characters walk off into the distance for 30-40 seconds before cutting to the next shot, there are several scenes of no seeming relevance to the plot, and a few subplots are never really explained. For example, our lead actress seems to be cracking up as she shoots the scenes for her movie, a storyline that is dropped after about a half hour. Of course, this might just be the plot of the movie she’s making, but if so a. it just goes over to the “these scenes have no point” pile, and b. they’re also showing us an entire scene of a movie that could not possibly exist between yelling “action” and “cut”. Either way, it’s wrong. And I never got a sense of why the villain was doing this - did he get off on it? Was it just a better way of making a horror movie to have actual deaths on-screen? How many times has he done this before? How did our non-snuff folks get involved in the production?

Also, we watch pretty much every “movie in the movie” scene twice, due to a blown take or whatever. Again, since it’s basically a MacGuffin to the plot of the actual movie, this is pretty annoying - it’s double the paddage! We also get a few too many scenes of characters doing things that aren’t going to be of any interest to anyone but filmmakers, such as Pilato using a dark bag to remove the film from the camera and put it in a can for developing. Sure, I felt a bit nostalgic for film school when I saw this (man I hated changing film in the bag, feeling around in the dark... when I did my thesis film I took on every single job of the production at one point or another, EXCEPT for this. Too nerve-wracking), but I can’t imagine a general audience to care or even know what he’s doing (he doesn’t explain it - why would he? Every character is on the film crew). It's like the actual movie is elsewhere and we were watching the deleted scenes collection, missing only the director saying that they were cut because they slowed the film down.

Scenes also just come out of nowhere, with no buildup whatsoever, and many end just as abruptly. A major character is suddenly attacked in her home by another character, and then we never see them again. We find out later that the girl was indeed killed, but what came of her attacker? Guess it doesn’t matter. Around the same time, Savini and another character are chasing our hero through the woods, and even though he doesn’t seem to go very far, they are never seen again. Even when he stops to nurse his injuries (somehow he gets shot in the foot when the guy fires at him at chest range), they are apparently unable to keep up. And the climax involves a car exploding, which comes out of nowhere. I would think if two major characters were to get killed by what I assume is a bomb of some sort, that it would be set up earlier in the movie. How do a bunch of cokeheads know about rigging explosives?

Oh yeah, the coke. This is the most pro-coke movie I’ve ever seen, with literally every character snorting away and never having any sort of bad reaction to it. And it’s delightfully casual, like when Savini produces some and the other characters argue about what they should snort it from. Again, none of this has anything to do with the plot (it’s not like they get coked up and start killing people in their drug induced hysteria), so I guess it’s just a particular preference of the filmmakers and cast, since coke is more of an 80s generic drug. This being the 70s, shouldn’t they all be high on the pot, as the kids say?

Luckily there’s a scene every now and then to keep it from being a complete atrocity. The sequence where they watch a snuff film is a bit unnerving, and there’s a strange tension to the later scenes where Pilato is trying to escape and we keep hearing his tormenters narrate his every move (sort of like My Little Eye). I also really dug the score by John Harrison (who plays the film's villain), which had a creepy electronic vibe to it and single-handedly made a few scenes late in the film feel a bit more alive than they actually were. But a few OK scenes and a fun score does not a good movie make, and while I’m sure Nelson and his crew had more ideas than their budget allowed, it’s simply a meandering and un-involving movie that never even comes close to delivering on the intriguing promise of its plot. I hate to utter the following phrase, but it’s true - you’re better off watching 8MM.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy (2010)

MAY 5, 2010

GENRE: DOCUMENTARY
SOURCE: DVD (SCREENER)

(Disclaimer - For what I don’t know, but I am special thanked at the end of the film. If you think that makes me biased, then don’t read my review. Go read one of the others - they’re all positive so far!)

As I’ve said a few times over the course of revisiting all of the Nightmare On Elm St movies, Freddy was always my least favorite of the big franchises. And yet I still loved just about every minute of Never Sleep Again, an epic four hour (!) documentary about the series. For a casual fan to enjoy something that long (I only paused it to go to the bathroom and do some quick work related tasks), a big fan will probably have a heart attack with all of the information here.

The film is from many of the folks behind His Name Was Jason, but it’s not a Freddy-fied version of that film. With the exception of Jason Mewes, who appears in a brief clip mocking the “Jay” rip-off character in Freddy Vs. Jason, every single person who appears in this film is directly involved with the films. No journalists (sorry, friends), no fan filmmakers, no guy from Psych... for the four hours, you will only hear from the people you WANT to hear from if you’re sitting down to watch a documentary about Nightmare On Elm Street.

And chances are you’ll hear from your favorite character from the series, because they are also batting pretty close to a thousand in terms of getting the primary cast and crew back for new interviews. Some holdouts are probably pretty obvious (Johnny Depp) but they got every director, pretty much every writer, and at least 75% of the main cast for each film, and in some cases all - I don’t think there’s a single holdout of note from Freddy’s Revenge, Dream Master, or Dream Child. Dream Warriors is the only one with some unfortunate gaps (no Patricia Arquette, Bradley Gregg, Frank Darabont, Larry Fishburne, or Craig Wasson), and Freddy vs. Jason’s cast is largely MIA - basically just Monica Keena, Brendan Fletcher, and Zack Ward - but I could care less about that one anyway. In short, it’s the most comprehensive and complete reunion I’ve ever seen for any of these films, and that’s not counting folks from the Freddy’s Nightmares TV show, comic books, or novelizations, or various New Line personnel such as Jeff Katz, a fan who eventually worked at New Line and was instrumental in finally getting FvJ made. And I dig how each actor was introduced in the film, by reading their character’s introduction from the original screenplays for their respective films (Tina was supposed to be 15?).

I also like how it was broken down film by film, instead of by theme as the Jason doc was. Don’t like part 4? Skip over that part. Need to know what they have to say about Freddy’s Revenge right now? Cue up chapter 3. And superfluous Freddy-centric stuff, such as the video game or the large fan base, is left to disc 2. The only time in the doc that they go “off track” from the films is a brief piece about Freddy’s Nightmares, and a little eulogy for New Line, which was of course “The House That Freddy Built” and was more or less shut down in 2008 after some merging and staff overhauls.

And they’re not afraid to dish some dirt, though it’s entirely civil and “eh, water under the bridge” in tone. Yes, the gay subtext of Nightmare 2 is finally addressed (in fact, I think the section on that film is the best in the doc), with the writer admitting it was all intentional and line producer Joel Soisson confessing that he was completely naïve to not have noticed it. The rushed production of 4 and 5 is covered, though it’s largely told from 20 year old memories instead of actual on-set evidence, since they didn’t have full time DVD crews back then. There is a priceless, but brief, shot of Englund getting frustrated with some delays on the set of 4 - I would have loved more stuff like that, but it probably just doesn’t exist. And while I don’t want to get ahead of myself, if you’re wandering what they think of the idea of remaking the film (the film proper ignores it), then be sure to check out the “Extended Interviews” on Disc 2.

Now, I have to dip into “guy” mode for a paragraph here, because these movies were very seminal in my pre-pubescent “discovering girls” years. I am quite sure that Stacey Alden (the nurse) in Nightmare 3 is the first pair of breasts that I ever saw, and I had big crushes on Taryn (Jennifer Rubin) and Alice (Lisa Wilcox) back then. And so, while I love hearing all of the stories and anecdotes, I am also curious to see what these ladies look like nowadays. Some haven’t aged particularly well, others aren’t even recognizable (Tuesday Knight is one “that’s HER?” example), and at least one has apparently become a goth clown with a submissive (I’m not kidding), but I think fans of Amanda Wyss, Jennifer Rubin, Kim Myers, and Brooke Theiss (and yes, Ms. Alden) will be quite pleased with how gracefully these women have aged in the 20-25 years since they first “impressed” kids like myself. Of course, this just makes it all the more depressing to see how bad implants and such have wrecked the looks of some of the others, when they’re talking back to back.

As for our beloved Nancy, Heather Langenkamp needs to fire whoever did her makeup for her interviews. She has her own documentary coming out, which is previewed on disc 2, and there we can see that she’s still a very naturally pretty woman, but during her interviews she has horrid makeup and a bad tan, which is a shame. Oh, and on the male side of things, Jsu Garcia practically looks the same, and many of the other guys look about what you’d expect them to after this much time, but some are damn near unrecognizable - I’m still not convinced that it’s really Shon Greenblatt (John from Freddy’s Dead) talking in those segments.

Back on less chauvinistic topic, even if you don’t like a particular movie, you’re bound to enjoy the segment on it (if not more so as you’re likely to get a new perspective on its production). I mean, I have zero love for Dream Master, but hearing how Renny Harlin fought to get the job was a nice story (especially today, where our new Nightmare film is directed by a snobby douchebag who turned it DOWN 2-3x before being convinced by the almighty power of Michael Bay), and it’s good to know that Rodney Eastman (Joey) agrees with my sentiment that recasting Kristen hurt the film’s storytelling. I know the four hour length may be a bit daunting for some, and I’m sure it could be pared down some (especially with the 2nd disc providing more interview space), but trust me, you won’t want to skip over any of it. If you start getting sick of hearing the words “New Line” or “Much darker than the previous film”, just take a break.

Because, see, even with "Fangoria", the previous DVDs, convention Q&As, and all the other stuff I’ve read/listened to over the years, Never Sleep Again still offers some trivia you probably didn’t know, and skimming over a few minutes might result in missing out on some pretty jaw-dropping trivia. Do you know who was originally cast as Freddy, to the point where he even had makeup tests on him (which we see)? I won’t spoil it, but it’s a fascinating “What if?” scenario. I also didn’t know that Englund was briefly replaced on Nightmare 2 (over salary disputes, a problem that runs throughout the series when it comes to returning cast OR crew) with a stuntman, and we get to see the horrible results for a few precious seconds.

We also get some tantalizingly brief rejected script excerpts from time to time:

Bet you’ll never guess who wrote that colorful line.

I also want to make a special mention of the kick-ass stop motion animation that punctuates each section of the film (not to mention a lengthy credit sequence). It’s sort of like the brief stop motion stuff we saw in Dream Warriors (Phillip’s death), and both the animation itself and the impressive detail in the miniature sets are worth a look even if you hate Freddy. I just wish disc 2 had provided some information on their creation or an interview with Michael Granberry, who was responsible for the pieces. In fact, I wouldn't have minded hearing from any of the folks involved with putting the film together. Yes, I want a documentary about the documentary.

And Wes admits he uses booby traps too much in his movies and had to force himself to stop. That alone made the movie worth my while.

Disc 2 is loaded with another 2 hrs of unused interview pieces (once again broken down by film). They aren’t “finished”, in that they still have the green-screen backgrounds and aren’t edited together with clips, which is a bit of a bummer at times, as the talent will be discussing a particular shot and I won’t know exactly what they are talking about, but the information presented here is no more or less interesting than what’s in the finished film. The rest of the stuff is a mixed bag - I really dug the focused look on the poster art and the music/scores from each film, but I could have done without the “Angry Video Game Nerd” segment (again, Zero Punctuation is the alpha and omega of hilariously bitter video game reviews), and stuff like “For The Love Of The Glove” will just reassure ignorant people’s fears that horror fans are psychotic (the dude scares ME for Christ’s sake). And “A Nightmare On Elm Street In 10 Minutes” is just the actors saying their famous lines in sequence, which isn’t nearly as amusing as having Joe Lynch and Adam Green summarize the series as they did for the Jason doc (which is what I thought this piece was going to be, since it had the same title scheme). The “actors saying their old lines” thing is cute, but the end credits of the feature had it as well, once was enough for me. Again though, I’m not a die hard fan; I’d probably listen to 5 hrs’ worth of Halloween actors doing the same thing without complaining.

As I mentioned, there’s also a preview for Langenkamp’s documentary I Am Nancy, which just seems like it will be kind of a depressing movie as it shows things like her sitting at a table without anyone coming up to her (as Englund’s line grows and grows at the next table). I assume the entire movie isn’t this much of a bummer, but either way I can’t say it got me really excited to see it. However, it does seem to be a completely self-financed production, and will likely have a personal touch that the NSA doc can not provide, so it might be worth a look once it’s complete.

With eight full hours of content, the purchase of this disc is a no-brainer if you’re a Freddy fan, even a casual one. It’s a bit ironic that a documentary about the films is more compelling and interesting than some of the sequels, but since arguing over which films are better than others is an important part of being a horror fan, it’s invaluable to more or less have the people who made them offer their unfiltered thoughts on the matter. Kudos to all involved for finding everyone (Mark Patton was particularly elusive, from what I understand) and keeping the film focused on the Nightmare team.

What say you?

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Bone Eater (2007)

MAY 4, 2010

GENRE: MONSTER, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: DVD (SCREENER)

After Komodo Vs. Cobra, there weren’t too many things lower on my mental laundry list of movies to watch than another Sci-Fi Original directed by Jim Wynorski (Bob Robertson on the film itself - the guy has more aliases than most Italian directors), but since I’m between rentals, I had to dip into my screener pile for something to watch, and Bone Eater was the first one I came across that looked entertaining. And it didn’t mention Wynorski, so they sort of tricked me twice (the alias being the other).

Well it’s certainly better than KvC, by virtue of having (slightly) better effects, less porn acting, and a few ringers like William Katt popping up in small roles, which is always good for making me go “Whoa, nice!” and distracting me away from whatever dull scene they were slumming through. And the score was quite rousing; kudos to Chuck Cirino (who has seemingly composed all of Wynorski's films) for being the rare composer of a DTV/Sci-Fi film that I would actually enjoy listening to on a 30 second menu loop (if my screener had a menu, that is).

I also liked the surprisingly high body count. I swear, the creature (a ghost/skeleton thing that resembles a villainous Bionicle) kills thirty people in this movie, and while the death scenes are almost all the same (he swipes or throws a bone at them and they turn to dust, clothes and all), I never really got tired of seeing folks get disintegrated over and over. I just wish that when a major character got killed that they were given a slightly more memorable demise; one protagonist gets killed so unceremoniously, there isn’t even a cutaway to someone else yelling NOOOOOOOOO! or anything like that And two other fairly big characters just go careening over a cliff (as they are being chased by the ghost skeleton riding a ghost horse - this movie’s kind of awesome, now that I think about it), without the aid of an explosion or a quick shot of their corpses to confirm that they were dead. I kept thinking that they’d come back, but nope, it seems they were dead. RIP, I guess.

It just gets really repetitive, because in between the scenes of the ghost dusting people (many of whom are introduced seconds before their deaths) are scenes of hero Bruce Boxleitner trying to figure out what’s going on, and listening to a bunch of mumbo jumbo from the local Native Americans (who refer to their language as “Indian” at one point), and being overly protective of his daughter, who keeps reminding us that she’s 17, perhaps because she believes if she says it enough it will become true (the actress is about 24). Some of this stuff seems borrowed from Twilight, but even if it was the most original aspect of the movie, it would still be tiresome after about 2 (of the 5 or 6) scenes.

And some of the low budget stuff hurt the movie in a more than usual way, such as when an important flashback scene that’s supposed to be 30 years ago features characters with modern clothes and hair. I momentarily thought it was just another random “hey let’s go kill some people” sequence until the girl telling the tale started narrating again. And since it was filmed at the Sable Ranch, go-to spot for all low budget horror movies shooting in Southern California, I began having undesired flashbacks to Lake Dead. I mean, I know that these things can’t afford to build sets or go off and find new locations, and that they just go with what they know will work, but can’t they at least dress it up a bit or something? Or in Sable’s case, simply shoot the back of the goddamn thing? I recognize that long front porch more readily than I recognize my own apartment building. I guess it could be worse though; it could be the Linda Vista (if they ever make a horror movie about a ranch hand who has to go to a weird hospital, it might very well be the death of me).

One fun thing about screeners that I don’t often mention is the ridiculous “selling points” that they often list on the back. For real movies, they will mention the box office or how many screens it was on, but for DTV junk like this, they have to be more creative. So what is, in Lionsgate’s mind, a “Key Marketing Point” for Bone Eater? “From the Producer Of Poison Ivy II!” Hell yes! I actually had no interest in this title, but if it’s from the producer of a sequel to a movie no one remembers, then surely it must be worth my time! Order me a dozen!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Evil Remains (2004)

MAY 3, 2010

GENRE: POSSESSION (?), PSYCHOLOGICAL (?), SLASHER
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

Daniel Gillies, you’re on notice. Anyone who had anything to do with Captivity is already on thin ice with me, but you especially since you also appeared in Evil Remains (aka Trespassing), which isn’t as bad (what is?) but is still a wreck of a film, one with fellow red flags Estella Warren (Planet Of The Apes remake) and Ashley Scott (Into The Blue), plus that guy from this season of 24 who distracted Katee Sackhoff away from her true purpose as being yet another plot-hole ridden “don’t they EVER do background checks on these people” mole at CTU. Christ, why did I rent this movie?

Anyway, I guess it could be worse. It’s sort of nice to look at, though director James Merendino and DP Tom Calloway are a bit too in love with long shots that track from right to left, particularly of the main locale of the film (a “cursed” house), which they cut to and track around at least a dozen times in the movie. And in certain scenes, Warren resembles a capable actress, which is fairly remarkable considering her woeful appearances in Apes, Driven, and Kangaroo Jack, during which even Anthony Anderson mocked her abilities. Maybe she was just confused by the big crews and catering trucks on those films.

Also, I suspect there is some post production finagling involved. Everything reeks of a botched release, starting with the DVD case itself. We have cover art that displays Scott with a different hair color than the one she has in the film, a different title (it played in theaters under the name Trespassing, which is still retained on the end credits), and a quote (“Scarier than Cabin Fever, more terrifying than Jeepers Creepers!”) that is attributed to no one.

I also have to believe that Merendino and editor Esther (Ester on the DVD case) P. Russell are not as sadistic as their editing suggests. Potentially tense moments are deflated by cutting away to other characters, major deaths occur off-screen, and the end credits run for a full 10 minutes in order to pad the film out to a standard 88 minute length. Worse, the ending is just a giant “What the fuck?” leaves entire portions of the movie unresolved. It’s one thing to leave the movie ambiguous, but in this case it truly feels like parts of the movie are missing. And normally I’d be more forgiving, but this thing actually played in theaters, so it doesn’t get the DTV handicap.

I was also baffled by the opening credits, which listed its bigger actors after the unknowns, and unceremoniously placed Kurtwood Smith (the film’s biggest star) after the title, instead of with an “And” or “Special Appearance by” credit. Also, the multiple producer credits feature commas between their names, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. At first I thought that for once they were just being honest, and that Warren and the others weren’t in it as much as the others, but that’s not the case - Warren is the main character. Top billed Clayne Crawford (who?) is the first to die (actually, I now realize that all of the actors are listed in order of their deaths, with the only two survivors coming last, so the credits actually double as a cross between foreshadowing and a spoiler).

Kurtwood’s scenes also seem very disconnected from the rest of the film. He never shares the screen with the other listed actors (there’s a quick, badly matched shot of the Gillies character from behind, but that could easily be a double), and even the shooting style is different - the entire first scene is shot with just two awkward setups, one dead on shot of Smith and an oddly high angled shot of Gillies, a stark change from the rest of the film, which is largely hand-held and constantly moving. And his second scene is with some random character we don’t know and seems to exist solely to provide exposition that should have been revealed to Warren and the other characters. It basically makes that scene at the end of Psycho feel less tacked on.

So what did I like? The opening scene! It’s a quick slasher bit, but it’s got a good mirror scare and some squishy sound effects, plus a welcome cameo by Maryam D’Abo. And unlike the rest of the movie, it’s actually fairly clear as to what is going on, so it’s got a bit of novelty as well. The rest is just a mix between generic slasher moments and incomprehensible attack scenes, where it’s almost never possible to tell what is happening. And again, the ending doesn’t bother to explain any of it in even a basic sense (i.e. were they possessed and killing each other, or was there really a killer after them?), which just makes them even more baffling. But at least it started off on the right foot.

Odd bit of trivia - the film was released one week before the original Saw. I mention this because a character is actually caught in a giant trap at one point, and another character has to inflict harm on himself in order to try to free him (which he fails to do), a setup that is used in any number of Saw films. And again, Gillies went on to appear in Captivity, which is certainly the low point of Saw-inspired films. Which is weird, because any sane person would tell you that, as with Captivity, you’d be better off watching a Saw movie than this.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Twists Of Terror (1996)

MAY 2, 2010

GENRE: ANTHOLOGY
SOURCE: CABLE (SHOWTIME)

A made for cable anthology film doesn’t have any excuse for its shortcomings. Cable gave us Tales From The Crypt, with episodes that rivaled/surpassed most big-screen fare of its time. The same network (Showtime) gave us Body Bags, which is hardly a classic but is still fun and features a rare “longer than a cameo” acting performance by John Carpenter, back when he was still enjoying his career. So Twists Of Terror, you can blame the director, or the writer, but you can NOT use the “hey we’re just a cable movie” excuse in this particular sub-genre.

For starters, NONE of the stories are very good. No anthology bats .1000 (even Creepshow has a snoozer, IMO), but you can usually count on at least one story being worth your trouble. But Twists of Terror doesn’t deliver. Each one has a few moments to keep it afloat, but that’s about it. Part of the problem is the title - I spent half the time trying to figure out where the promised twists were in each story. I know most anthology tales have a twist ending of some sort, but not ALWAYS, and even if that was the case, they’re usually fun enough to distract me away from trying to figure it out. But every story here is completely bland and dour - nearly all of the characters are unlikable, and none of them have any sort of supernatural bent that could elevate them out of TV movie trappings. I mean, our protagonists are: an unhappily married couple, a greedy businessman, and a lonely single gal who just wants to find love. We’re an anorexic and a split personality shy of a Lifetime Original mix tape (indeed, most of director Douglas Jackson’s resume looks like a Lifetime scheduling sheet - titles like My Daughter’s Secret or A Wife Betrayed, that type of drivel).

The 2nd story fares best, simply because it has the most action. It’s yet another “creepy hospital in the middle of nowhere” tale, but it’s fast paced at least, and has a guy beating an evil dog with a gas pump, which is something I don’t see every day. Also, the main bad guy reminded me of the small-footed terrorist in Die Hard for some reason, so I spent half the time saying “You’re a policeman. There are RULES for policemen” and thus keeping myself entertained, since the movie didn’t seem interested in doing that for me.

The first I’ll give props simply for taking the generic Carnival of Souls setup and turning it into something else, though it’s preposterous (and was somewhat done in Nightmare Man, which I’ve already seen - I have a strict limit on movies with husbands looking to get out of their marriage by setting up ridiculous horror movie situations). And I can’t give it props for its clunky writing (“I thought our marriage was on the rocks”, the wife says, as if anyone has ever actually said that aloud at all, let alone to their partner) or its pointless double twist, which, as anyone who’s ever watched a season of 24 can identify with, renders previous actions completely implausible. Nor can I forgive it for being a cable movie with Jennifer Rubin as an adulteress and yet never offers any Jennifer Rubin nudity. Oh, and she’s the biggest star in the movie, which is another issue - the whole point of anthologies is to attract big stars to do a day or two’s work. Even the weakest ones - Hood of Horror - can boast a few good cameos. Their big draw is the chick from Nightmare on Elm St 3 and Bad Dreams, almost a decade later. Even the guy doing the wraparound is some no-name, nor is his character ever explained, which means his scenes have zero appeal.

Anyway, the third story is by far the worst. Like the first, it features characters acting strangely for no reason other than to mislead the viewer, which is horrible screenwriting 101 at its finest. If you’re writing with tricking the audience in mind, with no plausible motive for your characters to behave the way they do, then you’re an asshole. Anyway, that’s not even the worst thing about the entry - that it’s a complete and utter bore is. After watching this frigid woman get stood up and remind the audience how lonely she is over and over and over (candlelit dinner for one? Check. Video dating service? Check. Cats? Check (also birds and fish!). A “fun” friend who has to practically yell at her in order to get her to go out after work? Check. Etc), she dives right into a three way, and then kills the two guys. Because guess what? She’s a serial killer! Wow!

See, again, they are all about their twists, and even if the other two stories hadn’t ran this concept into the ground, it would still be pretty obvious that the guy she was seeing wasn’t a killer or whatever, because it was “too obvious”. But since there are no other characters of note, or any sort of actual plot beyond their meeting and first date, it’s pretty obvious from the start that she’s the one we should be worried about. Yet it drags on and non (if its not the longest story of the three I would be amazed), finally reaching a (rather abrupt) conclusion in at least twice the amount of time it should have taken.

Showtime really should remake this thing. Each story had some potential to be good, and with some game, recognizable actors playing against type, plus a creative team that truly made the most of their cable freedom, it could be a pretty good modern anthology. It’s almost impossible to think that the network that gave us Masters of Horror and Dexter could give us something so toothless and cheap.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Goodbye Gemini (1970)

MAY 1, 2010

GENRE: HORROR?, WEIRD
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Sometimes I think they just call a movie a horror movie because it’s a better fit than any other genre. Goodbye Gemini (aka Twinsanity) could never be considered a Western, for example. But just listen to this plot description: “Two 20 year old twins have a bizarre incestuous relationship. Julian and his sister Jacki carry on the affair and only reveal their secrets to a stuffed teddy bear named Agamemnon. While their father is absent, they murder the housekeeper and run wild at night. Drugged out parties with transvestites and homosexuals leads to blackmail, debauchery, and murder. Julian soon finds himself unable to escape the dark and strange world and finds his fantasies have becomes his worst nightmares."

Horrible grammar and redundancies aside (Oh, two twins? I thought there were seven twins. Thank for you for clarifying), it sounds pretty awesome, right? Well, the incest thing is just shy of a complete lie - there is no affair, but rather the brother wants her for himself and occasionally tries to kiss her, which she never allows. Not much of an affair, right? Also, THEY don’t kill the housekeeper - HE does. In fact, the sister is curiously absent from the scene, and the housekeeper character is never mentioned again, so the whole thing is just a complete waste of film. Not only is it without any consequences, it also makes what should be a shocking moment later on in the film feel a bit anticlimactic, as we know that Julian is capable of murder. And poor Agamemnon gets phased out as the film goes on, so he doesn’t get to hear about their final adventures.

In fact, the biggest problem with the film is that it starts weird and gradually gets more normal, with the third act being a fairly dull drama more than anything else. After the big murder, Julian disappears from the movie entirely (Hey! I thought his fantasies were supposed to be becoming his nightmares!) until the final scene, and Jacki just sort of hangs out “in hiding” with a slumming Michael Redgrave. No bear, no trannies, no debauchery... just a lot of hanging out in hotel rooms and such. This is no way to end a movie that features a teddy bear named Agamemnon!

When it’s being weird it’s kind of fun (and certainly different), however. The murder scene is a particular “whaaaa?” moment, as they cut sheets with swords to make full body coverings, and the sister stands on a cushion so that the intended victim won’t know which one is which from the height (I guess they hope he doesn’t look too closely at their eyes). And any movie in which a guy is threatened with blackmail via photos of him being more or less raped by transvestites can’t be altogether bad.

It’s based on a book, so I am curious if the book had more weird shit that they didn’t think would fly in a film. On the commentary, with Judy Geeson (Jacki) and producer Peter Snell, they discuss how incest was frowned upon in films back then (as opposed to today where its encouraged?), so maybe these elements were toned down (or really, removed entirely) and thus other stuff had to go with it. The commentary is a bit dry; they talk a lot about how difficult it is to get a movie made, and compare it to the horror films of today (and I mean TODAY, it was recorded fairly recently, as they discuss Sorority Row and Halloween II being in theaters), and actress Helena Bonham Carter for some reason. They also just sort of watch the movie a few times, so I eventually tuned it out for the most part after a while. The trailer, which tries really hard to make it look like a swingin’ giallo, is also included. All in all, a somewhat satisfactory package for a somewhat satisfactory movie.

P.S. I bet the bear from The Pit would kick Agamemnon’s ass.

What say you?

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