Night Of The Living Dead (1990)

FEBRUARY 22, 2011

GENRE: ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

I actually saw Tom Savini’s Night Of The Living Dead remake before I saw the original (both around 1994-1995), so maybe that’s why I’ve always preferred its ending to Romero’s. But that’s all I could remember about it; it had been so long since I had seen it, I don’t think I even had any real appreciation for Bill Moseley’s cameo as the ill-fated Johnny (I certainly didn’t realize they spelled his name wrong in both beginning and end credits). How’s it hold up?

Well, I still like the ending more, that’s for sure. While Romero’s ending was grim, it was also overshadowed by unintentional racial connotations (Ben was always meant to be shot by hunters who mistook him for a zombie; however the character was not written to be black). But here, Ben really did become a zombie (after the ironies are laid even thicker; i.e. the key that could have saved them was in plain sight in the basement that he stubbornly refused to enter), and Cooper was still very much alive, only to be (purposely) shot by Barbara as a glorious “Fuck you”. Maybe it’s just my sensibilities or fondness for karmic retribution, but I just think this is a better way to end things. It’s still a grim ending – the zombies still roam, Ben’s still dead, etc – but there’s a touch of crowd-pleasing darkness to it as well.

As for the rest of the movie, well, no, I prefer the original. I like the film, but overall Savini’s version just isn’t as scary. Some of his fake outs, where he uses your knowledge of the original to misdirect you into thinking a scare will come from somewhere only to have a zombie jump out elsewhere are successful (most notably the crazy old NOT-zombie man in the cemetery scene), it just lacks that unending creepiness and sense of dread that the original had (and still has, based on my most recent viewing – I’ll discuss more in that film’s review tomorrow). Part of the problem is the limited number of newscasts; whereas in the original we saw a lot of news footage and interviews with scientists and law enforcement types, here the news is pretty much limited to two brief moments, one of which is just an EBS message. In short, the film feels more insular, and Ben’s stories about what he saw before arriving at the farmhouse are pretty much the same as the original, so Savini and co shot themselves in the foot there – they could have used the opportunity to come up with new scenarios to try to ground the movie in its own reality.

But it’s still an effective zombie movie; it might be a bit light on gore (thanks, MPAA!) but there are a lot of unique zombies to enjoy, some good action scenes (I love Tony Todd’s tendency to kick the damn things), and while he may be a bit cartoonish (even more than Karl Hardiman), Cooper makes for an effective human villain, a seeming requirement of all zombie movies. But he’s not a mustache-twirling type – every “evil” thing he does can more or less be attributed to panic and fear, unlike the biker gang from Dawn of the Dead or the army types from Day of the Dead and 28 Days Later.

It’s also a satisfying remake, in that it doesn’t branch too far from the original but doesn’t copy it note for note either. I prefer Barbara as someone who can stand up for herself instead of sitting around in a catatonic state for the whole movie, and I like that Savini threw in some Dawn of the Dead at the end, where Barbara seemingly heads into Johnstown (where “those rednecks are probably enjoying this whole thing”). He also added some nice touches, such as the fact that the house owner was “M. Celeste”, in reference to the Mary Celeste, a ship that was discovered abandoned in the 18th century (a mystery still unsolved, and I’m guessing probably never will). He also uses his special effects know-how to good use, allowing for more variety to the zombies than Romero’s film could have allowed (but, more importantly, without the CGI “benefits” that all modern films – including Romero’s, sadly – rely on).

Savini also improves Ben’s arrival. I’m not sure if it was a case of not getting the footage or what, but Ben’s first appearance in the original is really awkward, and no matter how well the film has been remastered over the years, I still can’t quite tell what is going on when he suddenly just appears next to Barbara. Here, Tony Todd drives up, runs over a zombie (yeah!), and then get out of his truck, cigarette dangling from his mouth. Badass! Plus it’s always nice to see Todd in a good guy role (I believe this is his only starring role where he wasn’t a villain), and while he lacks Duane Jones’ Poitier-esque grace and stoic demeanor, he makes up for it in bona fide action hero style (his version of Ben is less stubborn, as well – but that’s another thing for tomorrow’s piece).

But he also tosses in a “release the car brake” scene. I never got these in movies – am I just too young? Did cars used to be built with brakes that you could release by pulling on a little knob (which would always instantly send the car rolling away)? At any rate they always bug me, even more than the car simply not starting. I really want to see someone in a modern horror movie try that only to discover that it doesn’t do shit; in my car, for example, the knob in that area just turns on the headlights.

Despite being a non top title, Columbia put some effort into the DVD release. Savini provides a commentary, and while he could have watched the movie again prior to recording (he admits he hasn’t seen it in years, and thus often just sits silently watching it), it’s a decent track. He points out some of the MPAA cuts, offers a few funny tidbits (such as when Barbara stands still for a moment before running – an off-screen grip is putting shoes on her feet so they wouldn’t be injured on the rough gravel), and explains how a few of the FX were achieved. Perhaps he could have used a co-commentator, but it’s worth a listen all the same. They also put together a decent retrospective piece that runs about 25 minutes, in which Savini, Patricia Tallman (who looks stunning in her interviews – the lady ages well), John Russo (grrr), and Russ Streiner talk about making the film. It’s the usual stuff, but I liked that they bothered – this was hardly a successful film (grossing a mere 5 million despite being released at Halloween time).

The final extra is the trailer, and normally I could care less but I found it interesting that the spot doesn’t advertise that it’s a remake. Nowadays it’s always like “the bold new reinvention of the immortal classic!” or whatever, but here they don’t even hint at the film’s legacy, despite having the same (very well-known title) and dropping Romero’s name in there for good measure. It’s also not a very good trailer. Maybe that’s why the movie tanked. Then again, The Blob bombed too – maybe folks back then just didn’t want to see color remakes of their late night cable staples.

It’s not as successful as Dawn’s remake, but it’s certainly better than the 2008 version of Day of the Dead, and it’s one of the few horror films from the 90s that I actually enjoyed revisiting. I wish Savini had made another feature, but oh well. Give it a chance if you haven’t seen it yet; thanks to the much maligned “30th anniversary” version as well as the 2006 3D remake with Sid Haig, its cred just continues to improve.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Night Of The Living Dead: Re-Animated (2009)

FEBRUARY 21, 2011

GENRE: ANIMATED, INDEPENDENT, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Last summer, I realized that there were enough versions of Night Of The Living Dead for me to make an entire week’s worth of content for HMAD, considering the 1990 remake was the only one (besides the 1968 original, obviously) that I had ever seen, and it was so long ago I couldn’t remember much beyond “I liked the new ending”. So I planned a NOTLD-only week, but didn’t get around to it until now. So hopefully you like the story, because that’s pretty much all I’ll be talking about this week, starting with Night Of The Living Dead: Re-Animated, an art gallery in cinematic form.

The concept, and even a good chunk of the execution, is pretty awesome – using the original movie’s soundtrack, the entire film is recreated via a series of edited together animations and drawings from over a hundred different artists. Stop motion, flash, cell based, video game style CGI, puppets, Barbie dolls, even some Furbys are used to tell the story, shot for shot. Due to the film’s unfortunate status as a public domain staple, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone with a passing interest in horror that hasn’t seen the film already, so it lends itself nicely to such abstract interpretation, and free of any potential lawsuits to boot.

Unfortunately, far too much of the film is devoted to still images. Not to critique the art itself – I’m certainly no art critic, and like everyone else in the world, there are certain styles I just don’t care for in general – but a still image is not animation to me. Even when I didn’t care much for a certain artist’s animation (just throwing a bunch of filters over the actual movie – so what?), at least it fit the “Re-Animated” part of the title. It’s really jarring to go from a really interesting animation style (one guy essentially depicted everything with squiggles, sort of like the Tony/Ridley “Scott Free” production company logo) to a series of still frames, sometimes 2-3 for the same shot. While it’s cool to see different interpretations of say, the Bill Hinzman cemetery zombie in rapid succession, I’d much rather something more fluid. Here’s the drive to the cemetery done with miniatures and stop motion; here’s the death of Johnny in flash, here’s Barbara’s run to the house in stick figures, etc. I loved the idea of doing different styles, but they switch far too often and far too randomly. Some animations are only on-screen for a second or two, cutting to still frames or something before you get a chance to fully appreciate it.

The potential of DVD hasn’t been utilized, either. Why not have two cuts of the film – one with genuine animation and another with still frames? That would be far less jarring for the animation, and would allow for more submissions for the still frame artwork. Also, why not provide a subtitle track that informs us which artists’ work we are looking at, at any given moment? There’s an “artists call-in” commentary with about 20 of the artists talking briefly about what they contributed, over still frame examples (even if they provided full blown animation) , and a rapid fire roll call of each artist with a frame of their work (5 seconds each), but it would have made more sense AND been more helpful to have it over the film itself. Say I liked the animation over the scene where Ben and Cooper have their brawl – I’d have to click through every artist to figure out who it was in order to check out his or her other work. But if it was over the movie, I could just cue up that scene and find out instantly. I also would have loved more from the NOTLD “Maniac Mansion” style adventure video game that we see once or twice, as it’s obviously part of a larger whole (instead, we get a random, largely incoherent clip of a Pac-Man style game based on the movie).

This is even more of a bummer when you consider how jam-packed the disc is with stuff that few will care about, such as a promo for one of the websites that was pimping the film, random short films by a couple of the artists that have nothing to do with NOTLD nor do they provide any context (i.e. “This is the short that got (NOTLD:R-A ‘curator’ Mike Schneider’s attention” or something), and a full hour (!) of a generic zombie panel from some con, where you can barely understand anything being said because the audio is so muffled. There’s also a half hour devoted to a guy showing off his collection of NOTLD box art. I mean, yeah, it’s cool to see how many different ways the movie has been packaged over the years, but wouldn’t a still gallery make a lot more sense? Glad the guy’s such a die hard, but I don’t have the patience to listen to him wax nostalgic about each cover, especially when there are so many more interesting things that could have been on the disc. For example, there are some “making of” pieces with a couple select artists, and they explain how they pulled off their animation. At the end of one, they show their animated scene alongside the original footage – this would have been great for the entire movie (via a picture in picture option – use that damn “angle” button for once!). Again, NOTLD is in the public domain – you can do pretty much whatever you want with it, but footage from the film is surprisingly scarce on the disc.

Of most importance are the two commentary tracks: one with Schneider, the guy who runs the distribution company for the DVD, a horror journalist, and author Jon Maberry, who wrote the awesome “Patient Zero”; the other with Schneider again along with a filmmaker and some website guy. Both tracks are kind of arrogant in tone, and poorly recorded to boot (it’s kind of fitting for this particular movie though, I guess), but they do make a good case for the project, and explain part of the process of how it was all put together (apparently there were a lot of flakes). Some of their comments are a bit insulting, however – they take a few shots at the movie and at one point Schneider defends a complex 360 degree shot of the group that does not appear in the original movie, claiming Romero probably would have done the same if he could. Do not assume what a legendary and gifted filmmaker would or wouldn’t do, please (especially one that works as an editor, considering how grating this film’s editing can be). They also allude to art that has been removed or reduced in the film, but Schneider absolves himself of any blame, claiming that anything he removed from the film was based on comments from a few “test screenings” conducted at conventions.

So if you really dig art/animation, you’ll probably enjoy this to some degree. It’s not exactly something you’d want to watch as an actual movie (I expect to see it on a loop at the next hipster bar I go to around Halloween-time), but there’s a lot of great stuff on display. Just a shame the “curator” didn’t think to make it easier to know who was responsible for it. He claims it’s an art gallery – an actual art gallery doesn’t just give you a list of all the artists and ask you to figure out who did what.

Tomorrow: Savini’s 1990 remake!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Maniac (1980)

FEBRUARY 20, 2011

GENRE: EXPLOITATION, SLASHER
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (ONLINE RENTAL)

One of the several thousand bonus features on the two disc blu-ray for Maniac is the full Q&A session from a screening at the New Beverly, conducted in March of 2008. For the life of me I can’t remember why I didn’t go, but I assume I was stuck at work – same as I was a few months ago when it played at the Nuart (both times with director Bill Lustig in person). As for why I hadn’t already seen it before those screenings happened anyway, well I have no excuse. It’s just one of those movies that I never put my foot down and finally saw. Until now!

Unfortunately, I HAD seen the trailer a couple times, and that shows pretty much every kill in the movie, which would be fine for something like Scream, because there’s still a lot of story and plot twists to enjoy. But Maniac? There’s really not a lot to it beyond the death scenes. The story is thinner than even Halloween’s, the heroine doesn’t really enter the movie until the 3rd act, and worse, it’s cripplingly repetitive at times. Perhaps if Caroline Munro’s character was introduced earlier, there could be some fun at the idea of him trying to have a normal relationship with her in between scenes of him killing folks, but that isn’t the case. Instead, her scenes come so late, and their friendship so out of nowhere, it just seems like you’re watching a different movie all of a sudden. Even Joe Spinell’s performance changes; throughout the movie we have seen that he doesn’t really have the ability to converse normally with anyone (especially women), but all of a sudden he’s a charmer, making self-deprecating jokes, buying stuffed animals... it’s just really jarring.

But it’s also the best part of the movie. Until she arrives, it’s just an endless series of scenes where he kills someone, and then talks to himself/their “corpse” (a mannequin with their clothes and, in at least one case, their scalp) for a while, before heading out to kill again. He doesn’t seem to have any sort of job, no clueless friends, nothing. And it’s padded as all hell; at one point he chases a girl into a bathroom, and there’s a full THREE minutes of her just sitting in the stall hoping he will give up. There’s a difference between stretching out the tension and simply stalling, and this movie’s scare scenes often fall into the latter category. And, like I’ve said a million times, when you introduce a character right before they are killed, there’s not a lot of suspense there for me (even without the trailer having ruined it anyway), and with the exception of Munro, I don’t think a single character in this movie besides Spinell appears in two non-consecutive scenes. But unlike say, Friday the 13th Part V, the murders are too cold and gruesome for any of it to be any fun, so they don’t have that going for them either.

The craftsmanship seen on the kills is great, obviously, thanks to the efforts of Tom Savini in his prime. He recycled a lot of stuff from his other shows (look for Mrs. Voorhees’ bloody stump in the finale), but so what? They were great FX, why not reuse them? I particularly loved the opening kill with the guy on the beach, with loads of blood splashing over the sand (plus a nice throat garroting), and Savini’s head being blown apart is terrific as well. On that note, I won’t get into it too much, but it’s kind of ironic that all these women’s group protested the movie saying Maniac’s existence was simply an excuse to kill women, but the most iconic kill in the movie is that of a man.

I also dug the old-school New York vibe, as I did with Basket Case and some other indie horror films of the period. It’s not as prominent as in some of those other films, more or less confined to the first few scenes, when Maniac picks up a hooker, but it still makes me wish I had a time machine so I could go visit the city when it wasn’t as overrun with hipsters. The rest of my enjoyment largely stemmed from things that probably weren’t meant to be funny, like when Spinell tells Munro that she’s the most beautiful woman he has seen since his mother. The two cops at the end of the movie killed me too; they rush in, see him lying in a pool of blood on his bed, and simply shrug and leave without checking the body, looking around for any potential victims, or even calling it in.

Whether you love or hate the movie (or just think it’s OK and a bit overrated, like me), you have to be impressed with the supplemental package that Blue Underground put together here. Even the first disc is pretty impressive; the 2nd disc is just icing on the cake (and maybe a bit of overkill). The main draw on disc 1 is probably the pair of commentaries, one recorded in 1995, another recorded last year. Lustig appears on both, he’s joined by Savini and some others on the 1995 track but the other two guys don’t say much, and one of the co-producers on the new track. He repeats a lot of the same information, so overall I’d say the older track is more essential since Savini’s comments are far more valuable than the producer’s on the newer track. However, on the newer track, he points out that the end credits style was stolen (font, layout, even crew order) from Halloween! Other than the sting-heavy score, this is one of the few post-Halloween slasher films that doesn’t really seem influenced by that film in any way, so it’s kind of funny that they copied the credits instead of the structure or setting or whatever.

Then there are four new featurettes; one with Munro (who doesn’t think much of the film, but loves Spinell), one with Savini (where he tells a pretty funny story about two young kids asking him to watch some footage from the movie they were working on – the kids were Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert; the movie was The Evil Dead), one with the composer (where even HE chimes in about the film’s controversy with women’s groups), and a goofy little piece where Lustig goes to talk to the songwriters behind the song “Maniac” (from Flashdance) and gets the real story on the myth that their song was based on the film. All told, this stuff, plus a promo reel for Maniac 2 (which, as far as I know, was an in-name only sequel, with Spinell playing another guy), totals about an hour. Add in the commentaries, plus the usual trailers and TV spots, and you’re looking at nearly five hours of bonus material on the disc.

And then there’s disc 2! The big draw is “The Joe Spinell Story”, a 50 minute doc about Joe’s life, featuring anecdotes from a ton of folks – his sister, Lustig, Robert Forster, Exorcist star Jason Miller, etc. Don’t look for a lot of “dirt” here, because everyone seems to have the same opinion of Joe – he was a great, extremely loyal guy. At least three times on the set we hear how the “set” for Maniac’s apartment was built by a Russian guy that Joe was trying to help out, and there’s also a story about how he turned down a well paying role in one movie because he promised Stallone he’d do Rocky (for free). Then there’s about two hour’s worth of archive material from the film’s release, including Lustig’s appearance on something called Movie Madness (48 minutes), a cable call-in show (inexplicably in black & white) that is prone to feedback noise and other technical glitches, not to mention some morons calling in that proves that “talkbacking” always attracted trolls. I was most entertained by a selection of news broadcasts from the time of the film’s release, with footage of protesters and even Gene Siskel weighing in, claiming that all slasher movies are intended to tell women to “stay in their place, don’t go outside or a man will kill you”, and also ponders whether or not showing scenes from the movie can be considered disturbing the peace. There’s also an Easter Egg of Spinell doing standup, which... well, Joe sure was a nice guy, huh? Anyway, all in, disc 2 will take you about another 3-4 hours to go through. Again, some of it is overkill (the news broadcasts are all pretty much the same; the trailers don’t really differ much), but you gotta respect the effort here, and with the exception of maybe deleted footage or makeup tests (if any exist), there really isn’t anything else you could want from this package.

Ultimately, I appreciate the movie more than I enjoy it. Grats to everyone involved for putting something so extreme (and yet relatively well made) into mainstream theaters, when many films of this extreme nature (i.e. Henry) more or less went straight to video, but it’s hardly a great film. If anything, I enjoyed the bonus material more than the movie, which is kind of ironic – the movie’s only worth a rental but the wealth of bonus material makes it worth a purchase.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Alien Vs. Ninja (2010)

FEBRUARY 19, 2011

GENRE: ALIEN, SPLATTER
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

I wasn't a big fan of Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl, but I figured I'd give the "From the producers of Tokyo Gore Police!" genre another try with Alien Vs. Ninja. But the real reason is, it was the only new movie I skipped on the main screen at Frightfest last year, so I wanted to end 6-7 months of wondering "Should I have watched it instead of going off to drink at the Phoenix?"

Well, probably not. The Phoenix is a great bar and my new London friends are wonderful folks that I wish I could have spent MORE time with, not less. However I wouldn't have been ANGRY if I stuck around to watch the film; it's painfully slow going at first, but once the alien finally shows up around 25 minutes in, it becomes a fairly delightful and surprisingly splattery romp. And in retrospect, I would have welcomed such a film at the festival; so many of the offerings were dark/depressing tales involving rape and/or torture, the levity AvN offered would have been most welcome.

It's also a sleep-proof movie for the most part, meaning you can doze off for a while (or go make a sandwich, smoke, whatever your poison) and not really miss much while you're gone. Once everything is established, there's hardly even any real dialogue, let alone important plot points - it's just a non-stop action account of what is promised in the title. Some folks die, obviously, but otherwise there's no way to get "lost" in the movie, and if anything taking a break would be beneficial, because the movie gets fairly repetitive after awhile - one of our ninja heroes spots an alien (or is ambushed by one), and they have a fight. More often than not, the ninja wins.

There are some wrinkles to the plot in the 2nd act, such as the "possession" angle in which the aliens control some of the humans via a slimy baby alien thing rammed into their throat. But unlike say, poor Kane from the Nostromo, these folks can be saved! All that's required is someone else pulling the thing out of their throat, which is as gross/funny as it sounds. But this allows for some brief human on human fighting, giving the main aliens a break. And that's fine, because (somewhat disappointingly) all the aliens look the same. The one at the end of the film sprouts wings (paying off the fact that their heads look like pterodactyls), but otherwise they're all pretty much the same type with the same abilities.

But such is a "limitation" of putting a guy in a suit instead of rendering the alien with CGI! For whatever faults the movie may have had, I LOVED that the CGI was largely confined to stunt actions (swords and shurikens being thrown about), with the fighting usually just good ol' human being vs. another human being stuff. I don't know about you, but I find it far more satisfying and entertaining to see a guy in a suit kicking or punching a ninja than seeing some swirling mass of poorly rendered pixels flying around or shooting ANOTHER mass of poorly rendered pixels at a ninja.

And the splatter! At first I was sort of surprised at the movie's total lack of blood (during the opening ninja on ninja fight), but they more than make up for it once the alien arrives. Three "redshirt" ninjas are quickly torn apart by the thing, and then the fights contain plenty of grue, especially when a ninja dies. AvN must hold some sort of record for number of stomped on heads in a single film. Add in the bodily fluids and general ickiness involving the throat "controllers", and you have a perfectly "wet" affair.

In short, what I'm saying is, I should have skipped whatever movie played BEFORE AvN (Red Hill, which was a great western but not a horror movie anyway) and gone to the pub, gotten drunk, and went back to enjoy this nutty movie in its proper context. It's not like the DVD has a lot of excellent bonus material that I would have otherwise missed out on (I don't care how much I love a movie; I never have time to rewatch anything anymore so my DVD buying habits have been reduced to "Oh it's on sale for five dollars on Black Friday? OK."); the only extra is a fairly standard 20 minute making of that walks us through some of the more notable kills, and also has the actors talk about their characters, which is rather extraneous for this particular film. I would have preferred a music video for the awesome end credits song, which is in Japanese but the guy occasionally dips into English for the chorus.

Unlike Frankenstein Girl, which was overloaded with pointless subplots and a clunky presentation (poor editing, bad dubbing, etc), this one was pretty fun and refreshingly straight-forward. A little more variety to the proceedings (either with different types of aliens and/or some location-based fights beyond "the forest" or "the cave") wouldn't have hurt, but it held my attention and made me laugh and go "Whoa! Hahaha, YES!" every now and then. And it was only 80 minutes, which automatically made it more attractive to me. Fun stuff.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Bad Seed (1956)

FEBRUARY 18, 2011

GENRE: KILLER KID
SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT VIEW)

Why are movies based on plays always so damn lazy with regards to actually transferring it to the big screen? Even if The Bad Seed's opening credits didn't point out that it was adapted from a play (which was adapted from a book), it would have been pretty obvious, since 90% of the movie takes place in a parlor at the house where the titular character lives. I think A Few Good Men is one of the only movies based on a play that doesn't FEEL like that; even though there's a lot of courtroom, the characters travel around DC quite frequently (and even go to Cuba at one point). Everyone follow their lead, please!

Anyway, the movie is a bit too long, but it's a fun killer kid movie. I knew that the Hayes Code would keep it from being too explicit, so the fact that everything happens off-screen (quite awkwardly so in the case of the gardener) didn't bother me, and I liked that it didn't waste much time getting to the point where the mother begins to suspect her child is a murderer. Also, since I had Orphan on the brain (I watched the movie in honor of Orphan director Jaume Collet-Serra's new film Unknown hitting theaters today - which I'll be seeing as soon as I have a car!), I was happy to see how twist-free it was. It's not a misunderstanding, she's not just a jerk like Mac in The Good Son (total body count: 0), and she's not actually a midget - little Rhoda is legitimately a murderous eight year old child. Hurrah!

Back to the Code, it's a wonderful reminder of how ridiculous their guidelines were (spoilers for 55 year old movie ahead!). Since one of the things was "Crime cannot pay", the movie couldn't retain the book's ending, where Rhoda lived and her mother died of suicide. No, the Code thought it would be better if a little girl was zapped and fried by a bolt of lightning at the end of the film. Why couldn't they just send her to juvie or something? How is quite violently killing a child somehow more acceptable than her getting away with it? And since it's the only bit of "violence" that we see in the entire movie, it makes it even sillier.

Well, there's one other bit of violence, also against the child. Instead of the usual cast card at the end of the film, a voiceover announces each actor, who comes out and takes a bow (likely inspired from the play - most of the actors in the film were reprising their stage roles). And then when it comes to announcing Nancy Kelly, who played the mother, she suddenly looks off to the side after her bow and goes "And as for you!", then walks over to the couch, where young Patty McCormack is sitting, and proceeds to playfully spank her bottom. It's almost like they wanted to make sure no one was too offended by the on-screen crisping of a little girl and threw this in so that everyone could be reminded it was just a movie. The silliness continues immediately after that, with a card asking folks not to "divulge" the ending. Was it commonplace for endings to be spoiled back in the day? Did people just walk out of the theater and go "So Rosebud was the name of his sled!" or "A shame Rick and Ilsa didn't end up together..."?

At least it's intentionally funny, however. Kelly was nominated for an Oscar for her role, which I guess is just another example of how much things have changed over the years, because she borders on "Faye Dunaway as Mommie Dearest" level hysterics at times. The scene where her father visits and reveals to her that she was adopted (her birth mother was a serial killer, a plot point that is largely glossed over) is supposed to be upsetting and dramatic, but I was chuckling at her over-the-top theatrics for most of the scene's duration. It doesn't help that the guy playing her dad is a straight up no bullshit "I'm going to just frown and say my lines in an authoritative tone" type of actor, making her outbursts look all the more melodramatic.

Also, not for nothing, but for a 2 hour movie, was it necessary to awkwardly foreshadow the existence of a revolver in the house in the first 10 minutes? As soon as it was mentioned I knew it would come into play later, but you have to wait 100 minutes or so for it to come back. And then of course you don't even SEE the damn thing. Again: this isn't a play anymore! You're not limited to one set, props that can be hidden until needed, etc! Apparently there was a 1980s TV movie remake that wasn't well received, but I am curious if it was at least more visually creative. Eli Roth was supposedly going to do a remake at one point as well, but I think it would cut into the time he spends talking about how he's friends with Tarantino, so I wouldn't expect it any time soon. Plus, why bother when Orphan just came along? Not like anything's going to top that.

But even with some concerns, I still dug the movie, and respected it even more. I looked, but couldn't find an older killer kid movie, so even if it wasn't perfect, it still spawned a sub-genre that I very much love. Plus, I'm always amused by movies that were affected by the Code, and this is definitely a pretty hilarious example. If you got the time, recommended!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Baghead (2008)

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

GENRE: COMEDIC, SLASHER (?)
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

It took some convincing for me to see Baghead, which folks have been recommending for over two years now. For starters, I took a look at the rating, and it didn't say anything about violence or "scary images" or any of the other things one would expect to see in the reasons for a particular rating on a horror film (just nudity and language). But even more than that, I was concerned that it would be the type of indie with a lot of improv and annoying camerawork that I tend to dislike.

And, well, it was. I didn't hate the film, but if there was ever a perfect example of "not my thing", this would be it. I mean, really, the only thing holding my interest was finding out if Baghead was a legit killer or if it was all a prank (guess which it was? Note the question mark after the "Slasher" tag for a hint), but luckily the film was so short I didn't have to wait long to find out.

The biggest problem is, oddly, the horror angle. When it's just the four characters sitting around, talking over each other while the cameraman zooms and pans around like mad, hoping to catch it all and retain some semblance of focus, I was merely disinterested. If the whole movie was like that, it would just be a harmless indie rom-com that I'd probably never watch but wouldn't hate if I did. But whenever they do a legit horror scene, they more or less drop the comedy and relationship drama that fuels the rest of the film. If you took the 3-4 "scare" scenes out of the film and strung them together, you'd be convinced it was a collection of scenes from any slasher movie - there's a creepy "killer watching through the window" bit, a tense search for a friend, even a chase or two. Had they found a way to retain the humor in these scenes (even the "bag over the head" idea isn't particularly funny; the footage is often so dark it can easily be mistaken for The Town That Dreaded Sundown's killer, or Jason from F13 Part 2), it might have been more successful.

See, I know damn well that the scare scenes aren't going to amount to much, so they don't quite work as horror scenes, any more than Frank Drebin or Topper Harley making their way through a parody of an action scene from Terminator or Rambo works as a legitimate action scene. And they're so generic (intentionally so, I assume), these scenes hardly even resonate. It's far more entertaining when the characters are playing tricks on each other; there's a bit where two of them dress as Baghead and move in to scare a guy who they think is sleeping, but it turns out he was masturbating. That scene's hilarious, and fit the "slasher spoof" concept to a T. But the legit, humorless slasher scenes just stick out like sore thumbs; it's actually the rare time where the "it was all fake" solution was preferable - if this was supposed to be legitimate, Baghead would be the lamest slasher of all time.

Luckily, I found some of the humor quite on target. I loved the opening scene at the film festival, where a guy shows some pretentious garbage and gets lauded for it (and they capture the festival Q&A process perfectly - the first question is ALWAYS "What was the budget?"), and I chuckled at the guy using his wallet to simulate a cell phone when trying to sneak into an after party. And even though I couldn't stand Greta Gerwig's character for the most part (on the commentary, they reveal at least one reviewer thought her character might be suffering a mental handicap of some sort, and believe me, it's not a stretch), she gets one of the better lines in the film, when her disbelieving friends ask why she was so upset and she replies that "a" Baghead didn't attack them (like the Bagheads are a race of some sort).

But again, the camerawork just is not my thing. Folks mock Michael Bay and the like for cutting every second, but I find that far more enjoyable than constantly zooming and whipping the camera around. And the more characters that are in a scene, the worse it gets; the early scene where they start tossing around ideas for "Baghead" (the four characters in the woods to write a script about Baghead - though the meta-ness is kept to a minimum) was nearly unbearable for me to watch. I kept wanting to smack the cameraman, or at least make sure he hadn't forgotten his seizure medication. Sorry, I just can't get into a movie when I'm constantly being distracted by what the camera is doing. It's one thing if it's a documentary (or a found footage thing), but if it's a narrative it just drives me up a wall and prevents me from concentrating.

However, while I may not care much for their shooting style, I did find myself quite charmed by the Duplass brothers, both on their commentary and the only bonus feature of note, in which the brothers sit on their couch (with a static shot, go figure) and answer the most common questions they get about the film (including, yes, what the budget was). It's a good mix of both self-deprecating humor and (justified) self-congratulatory remarks, and the fact that they are both cradling their children (one a newborn, the other seems about 12-18 months) makes it all the more charming. Their commentary follows a similar pattern, and while it may frustrate some to listen to since a good chunk of it is about alternate or deleted material that doesn't appear on the disc, just hearing about "what could have been" was enough for me. I was also surprised to hear that they tested the film several times - I always figured these sort of things were just released as is.

The only other extra is an odd collection of videos of Bagheads popping out and scaring friends. I assume they are staged and were shot for a contest on the website or something, but the fact that they are presented without any context makes them kind of useless to me. And since it's a Sony DVD, it starts with a commercial for Blu-ray, boasting about how much clearer it is than DVD despite being on a standard def disc that can't back those claims up in any way. It's like putting a picture of a perfect steak and telling you how much better it is than a Big Mac on the door of a McDonald's.

If you really dig these "mumblecore" movies, you'll probably enjoy Baghead, as the horror angle is present enough for it to stick out from all the others, but not enough to offend or frighten. But as a horror film (or even a horror comedy), the elements are too lacking to really satisfy. Stick with Severance if you want a funny "alt" take on the woods-based slasher, or Shaun of the Dead if you want a good rom-com with a side of blood.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Peeping Tom (1960)

FEBRUARY 16, 2011

GENRE: HERO KILLER
SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT VIEW)

Today marked the 4 year anniversary since the first and only time I ever missed a day since I began doing Horror Movie A Day, so it’s kind of fitting that I chose to watch Peeping Tom, which questions our role as a viewer for horror films (not entirely unlike Funny Games, but in a far less condescending/far more enjoyable way). But also, it’s one of the classic films I hadn’t yet seen, which was part of the reason I started HMAD in the first place – if not for daily viewing, I probably never would have found the time to check the film out. Indeed, back in 2006 (pre-HMAD), I read a book called “The Rough Guide To Horror Movies”, and Peeping Tom was one of the few I hadn’t seen but it was the ONLY one I hadn’t even heard of, so I was like “I must see this!”. Five years later...

The ironic thing about the film is that at the time it was released, it was not only hated and barely released, but it was also considered shocking due to its subject matter. Folks were outraged at the material in the film, such as.... uh, a pair of breasts and a killer who we’re meant to sympathize and identify with. There’s actually precious little on-screen violence in the film; I can’t imagine what would have happened if they showed a graphic murder scene or two. Director Michael Powell probably would have been executed, instead of merely run out of town as he was.

The DVD was released via Criterion, but since I watched the Netflix streaming version I didn’t have access to the bonus material. However, I did read the obligatory essay on the Criterion site, which points out that “it stands in opposition to British realism and merges with the European fantastic, such as ETA Hoffmann and Hans Christian Andersen, and also hovers on the edge between popular and high cultural traditions, marking the uneasiness of English culture”. Yeah, whatever. I just thought it was a really good thriller. If you want that sort of analysis, look elsewhere (I don’t even know who ETA Hoffmann is, for starters). But I guess it’s another feather in the movie’s cap – I didn’t have to read between the lines or place it in its cultural context to enjoy it.

And I certainly don’t need to brush up on my 1950s British politics to enjoy the performance of Carl Boehm as the “Tom” of the title (his name is Mark, for the record). He was inexplicably German, but it sort of fit the idea of him being a guy that didn’t quite fit in with the world around him, and the “mistake” didn’t bother me in the slightest. Boehm is indeed quite sympathetic; the scene where he spots the necking couple and instantly reaches for the camera that his date forced him to leave behind is actually kind of sad (maybe I just sympathize with someone not fully being used to not having something they’ve always had at their reach for the past 14 years – I MISS HAVING A CAR, DAMMIT). I was also tickled by his demeanor, which reminded me of Misha Collins’ performance on Supernatural as Castiel. If you’re a fan of that show, imagine Castiel impersonating Udo Kier or maybe Tim Curry and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what Boehm brings to the film.

I had to wonder though – what is up with people in movies always being drawn to weirdoes who clearly possess some disturbing baggage? As with Roman, Spiral, etc, our female protagonist is inexplicably drawn to a guy who most pretty girls would cross the street to avoid. Our guy barely says a word, creepily carries a camera around with him at all times, and was raised by a guy who filmed everything he said and did for years. Yeah, what a catch. It didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the film, mind you, but I’m always kind of confused by this sort of behavior – I’d prefer some sort of inciting moment that kicked off their relationship (i.e. she was using him to make someone else jealous, or whatever).

Another thing I enjoyed was the occasional humorous tone, such as an early scene where a gentlemen tries to discreetly buy some pornography at the photo shop that Mark works for (love that he forgets to take the non-porn items he paid for). There’s also a shrink character who is introduced in the 3rd act who was a total delight; he seems more interested in watching how movies get made (Mark is a camera operator for a studio) than helping a recent trauma victim (an actress who found one of Mark’s victims stuffed into a prop chest) or offering any sort of expertise or analysis to the police. The heroine’s mother also has a wonderful sharp tongue; if they were doing a remake they’d get Jessica “Mrs. Bluth” Walter for sure.

The way Powell works in a sort of “history of film” motif is great too; whenever Mark watches footage from his ‘documentary’ (which has no source sound), the soundtrack turns to a jaunty piano score that you’d expect to hear over a silent film. And the climax is essentially that of any Universal horror monster movie, with Mark (in a Frankenstein type role) literally dragging a female around his lab, throwing switches in a crazed panic as the police close in from outside. All that’s missing is a fire and some pitchforks.

And now that I’ve talked about the end of the movie, I must mention the brilliant opening, in which we see Mark kill a hooker, largely through the POV of his camera. In the following scene, we watch Mark watch what he shot – cementing the central concept of the film in an instant (and with remarkable economy!). Again, this is why I found the film far more successful than Funny Games; both films make us question what we want to see in these movies, but the violent killer in this film was sympathetic – I don’t know if we necessarily want to see him kill anyone, but we DO want him to “succeed” as we would any protagonist. It’s just that his goal seems to be killing folks. Far more effective “makes you think” tactic than having a couple of snobby assholes killing other snobby assholes, at any rate.

If I had one genuine issue with the film, it would be its rather abrupt ending. I would have liked more police involvement (they question him briefly and don’t really seem to think he’s the culprit), or perhaps more of his panic leading up to the finale. It’s also abrupt in the more technical way – there’s no end credits or even a “The End” title card. It just fades to black and then Netflix tells you what you just watched (Peeping Tom, in this case). Apparently, some footage excised by the censors back in the day was never fully restored and is considered lost forever, so perhaps that played a part in the 3rd act’s somewhat uneven pace, but it wasn’t really damaging.

Not sure how long the stream will be available on Netflix; I guess Criterion is pulling all its titles from the service as part of their new deal with Hulu Plus. However, Criterion already lost the rights to this particular film (the physical disc is now out of print), so maybe it’s exempt. I dunno. All I know is, if you haven’t seen it yet, you’re missing a terrific thriller, one that would make a fine pair with Psycho (for the obvious reasons) as well as Inception (both films tackle the role of a filmmaker in a unique way, though obviously in Inception it’s more of a metaphorical theory). Or just watch it on its own. Your call!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Trespassers (2006)

FEBRUARY 15, 2011

GENRE: CANNIBAL
SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT)

It’s kind of a bummer that horror movies *have* to take place at night, and also that the heart of the genre lies within independent films, which are now all shot with digital cameras that produce less than flattering images in the dark. At its core, Trespassers (aka Blood Waves) is actually a pretty cool movie, but the lo-res and underexposed images just turn the entire 3rd act into an incoherent blur of pixels and artifacting errors. In fact, even the daylight stuff looks pretty bad at times, which makes me wonder just who the hell chose this camera and/or who was in charge of transferring it.

Ironically, this problem is made worse by the film’s biggest asset – it’s inspired by 70s horror fare like Hills Have Eyes, in that it doesn’t really kick into high gear until that third act. So the first hour, which is largely visible, is mostly just folks walking around looking for the other folks who wandered off earlier, or talking to locals, and generally not getting killed. And that's fine - I like slow builds and I dug the throwback approach. Problem is, once they get to the goods, the film's already questionable presentation just gets worse.

But there's a lot of sexual frustration to enjoy! One dude legitimately runs away from the others so he can jerk off. Also, the two female characters, played by uber-hot Michelle Borth and Hatchet’s Joleigh Fioravanti (though she uses the name Pulsonetti here, for whatever reason) are fighting over one guy who seemingly doesn't seem to care which one he ends up banging. There's also a gay dude, who was my favorite character because he stayed out of their shenanigans and was also the most intelligent of the group. Joleigh hits on him too, but then returns her attention to the hero guy, at one point even offering to “suck your cock all the way back to LA”, which sounds exhausting for both parties.

And thus, of course, Borth’s character is a prude, not even letting him put lotion on her backside (but getting angry when Joleigh encourages him to do the same for her), and then getting angry at the two of them and taking off with the other guy to go look for help. But she makes up for it in the most random way possible; igniting a sex scene after they’ve been chased into a little cave by the cannibal zombie things. Of course, it’s so dark you can’t see a goddamn thing, but it’s the thought that counts I guess (also, they are interrupted before he can finish, so the poor sod has to fend off zombies and run around and such with blue balls).

The back-story is also a bit more novel than I am used to/was expecting) Rather than the usual “look if you go to a foreign country you’re just going to end up being killed” xenophobic approach, the cannibals are actually former or recruited members of a cult that was in love with the land and thus decided to live off of it. But when food ran scarce (possibly because they set up their HQ on a friggin’ beach – try a farm, assholes), the leader decided to start feeding them little kids without telling them what the “meat” was. Things got ugly, folks died, and now they attack anyone who comes around that is disrespectful of the land (i.e. by dirt biking around on it, or littering, etc). Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but I like that it was almost sort of noble – they kill only to eat and to keep douchey surfers from trashing the place. Can’t really go fault them on that one.

Also, I liked that it took place on the beach, which is surprisingly rare for horror movies. I racked my brain while watching, and honestly couldn’t think of another horror film set entirely on the coast and in various sand dunes and such near the water. Most of the time, it’s stuff like Jaws or Piranha, where there will be a few scenes on the beach and then they get out on the water or lake, but here they stayed on dry land for pretty much the whole movie.

I just wish I could have SEEN it! I mean, I can cut it some slack because I’m sure Netflix’s stream didn’t help, but I can tell the difference between a poor transfer and a poorly made movie. The cameraman’s shadow makes so many appearances it should have been given its own cast credit, and the lighting (when they have it) is obviously a bright spotlight being moved around, getting as much of the actors and background in its beam as possible. It starts to resemble a documentary or episode of Ghost Hunters or something, because there’s a constant light source that has no place in the scene but never lets you stop being aware of it. And then, again, for the 3rd act they didn’t even bother turning it on anymore – you never really get a good look at the monsters, and I could never tell who was winning during most of the fight scenes until someone walked away (thankfully, or perhaps intentionally, the hero wears a light sweatshirt, so he’s easy to spot). The camera itself seemed kind of low-rent too – you know how any movie with a character who has a video camera will switch to his/its point of view, and it’s noticeably different than the footage being used for the actual movie? Yeah, that doesn’t happen here. We switch to his POV and back and I couldn’t even tell the difference.

And I find that odd, because the director had several other (non-horror) films under his belt, plus Borth and Fioravanti were already established actors... why did they have to shoot this thing on what appears to be a Youtube brand camera? Or did someone just fuck up royally in post? Either way, most dark rooms are better lit than this movie, so it wouldn’t have helped the “hey what am I looking at here?” aspect of many of the action scenes. A pity – the script was worthy of a better presentation.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Ninjas vs. Zombies (2008)

FEBRUARY 14, 2011

GENRE: COMEDIC, INDEPENDENT, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (SCREENER)

Note to all indie filmmakers – stop referencing, ripping off, paying homage to, or in any way acknowledging the existence of Kevin Smith, in particular Clerks. All it does is make any sane viewer sad, reminded of a time when he was an entertaining voice and appealing writer, instead of a blowhard crybaby. Luckily, for lack of a better word, Clerks is just one of the several movies that are referenced in Ninjas vs. Zombies, so it doesn’t really stick out as any more annoying than the rest.

I’m all for referencing stuff, but this movie takes it to new extremes: Ghostbusters, Jurassic Park, Star Wars (and related sequels), Pulp Fiction, Evil Dead, Clerks, Indiana Jones... you name a geek property, it’s probably referenced here. Sometimes the characters actually just say what movie they are talking about, but others are a bit more subtle; the Jurassic Park reference is simply two folks eating ice cream (“It’s good.” “Spared no expense.”). Those I don’t mind; if you haven’t memorized Jurassic Park you probably wouldn’t even realize it was being given a shoutout. The Clerks one, on the other hand, involves a guy saying whole lines of dialogue and then having to explain what movie he’s referencing to his confused/annoyed friend. I guess if you like Family Guy, that sort of “humor” will be right up your alley, but I just found it rather irritating, especially when it reaches Friedberg/Seltzer levels of pointlessness.

Luckily, some of the humor was right up my alley, which means I was never too far from another laugh. I particularly liked when the bad guy allowed his victim to have his breakfast before killing him, so they just sit there in silence while the guy eats his cereal. Some of the references even made me laugh; I mentally noted that one actor looked a bit like Widmore from Lost, and then a few seconds later the guy he was talking to muttered “4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42”. There was also a gag I myself had in my own no-budget zombie movie (never completed; barely even started actually), where a guy gets all geared up for battle a la Evil Dead (though I didn’t have the character say “Groovy” at the end of the sequence), only to be killed as soon as he walked out the door. They say that great minds think alike, but apparently so do ours.

And more importantly, the movie is surprisingly action packed, which keeps the reference overload to a minimum, particularly in the 3rd act which is comprised of nearly non-stop fighting. Some individual battles go on for too long (the main villain and hero fight in a tiny movie theater for what seems like 10 minutes), but I admired the ambition and effort on display; even big budget movies don’t always offer as much carnage. The FX and stunts are a bit clunky, but that is to be expected and I don’t fault it for that (again, I’ve seen studio films with FX that were just as amateurish; what was THEIR excuse?).

I do wish they had a less annoying actor as the villain though. Imagine Randal from Clerks only 2x as smug (and only about half as good of an actor – and that’s not a compliment to Jeff Anderson), and you’ll get an idea of the guy here. He delivers every single line with a cocky laid-back smile that drove me insane; I couldn’t wait for him to die. In fact, pretty much ALL of the characters were laid-back, which got kind of exhausting; it’s not until near the end of the film that any of them seemed to care about anything that was going on.

The screener surprisingly had a commentary track by the director and two others (blanking on who). Usual stuff for a backyard indie; they poke fun at some of their less than successful shortcuts, mockingly suggest that the film is award-worthy, and bust each others’ balls while divulging set anecdotes and how they were able to secure this location or who that particular extra was related to. They mention another commentary; not sure if that just never happened or if the screener wasn’t “complete”, but honestly most screeners don’t even have proper menus let alone any of the supplements, so it was a nice little surprise.

And, as I’ve said before, I have all the respect in the world for anyone who manages to pull together their friends and make a movie for pennies (especially a zombie comedy, given my unsuccessful attempt). Besides, my main issue with the movie was the humor, but I’m also pretty picky with what makes me laugh, especially compared to the majority (the top two sitcoms on TV: Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men, I’ve tried to watch a few times and sat in silence until giving up and/or falling asleep on the plane). And even with that “handicap”, I was still more or less entertained and impressed, so once you get past the low-budget-ness of the movie, I’m sure most folks who enjoy these sort of things will find that it’s one of the more successful.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Dahmer (2002)

FEBRUARY 13, 2011

GENRE: SERIAL KILLER
SOURCE: CABLE (SHOWTIME)

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a full film on Jeffrey Dahmer, so I was a bit disappointed that Dahmer wasn’t a more typical serial killer film (i.e. one that depicted his “rise and fall”, for lack of a better phrase), because I wasn’t too familiar with the specifics of his case. Hell, I couldn’t even remember how he got caught, and the movie doesn’t even show THAT. However, it features a knockout performance by Jeremy Renner, and thus fans of his work in Hurt Locker and The Town should check it out ASAP.

Renner is in pretty much every frame of the film, and actually bears a strong resemblance to the real guy (particularly when he has those ugly ass glasses on), making it the rare occasion of an actor being perfect for the role. Sometimes the actor gives a great performance but doesn’t look a damn thing like the real guy (Corin Nemec as Bundy would be a good example), or the actor looks good but isn’t particularly suited for the material, but Renner brings the best of both worlds. And he’s fearless when it comes to the more lurid aspects of the case – at one point he rapes a guy that he’s drugged, and he frequently poses (sans most clothing) and “cuddles” with his victims.

And that’s a good thing, because otherwise this would be like a G rated account of one of the more twisted killers (only Gacy and Henry Lee Lucas were more vile, of the 20th century guys anyway). There’s only a single on-screen murder in the film, despite Dahmer’s 17 (at least) killings, and absolutely no mention of cannibalism or necrophilia. If you were to use this movie as your reference, Dahmer was a rapist who once killed a dude when he was in high school. Not that I need wall to wall violence or lurid subject matter, but Renner is so good it’s almost sort of a shame that they don’t explore these areas, if only to see how well Renner handles them.

His performance also helps the movie’s not-always-successful fractured timeline, which tells his current story in order while offering his flashbacks in reverse; something I didn’t quite pick up on until about halfway through the movie. Renner actually manages to look appropriately younger in these scenes, so if you were to watch the first and last flashbacks, you could see the difference in his depicted age (both of which are different than his modern day look). I honestly couldn’t figure out while watching the movie how old he was, and was astonished to learn that he was 30 years old during filming. But I’m not sure what purpose the reverse chronology served; I guess it allowed them to “build back” to his first murder, however that’s sort of an anticlimactic moment for a movie about a serial killer (especially when we’ve already seen that he kept the guy’s head in a box).

The scope could also have used some broadening as well. There’s a montage of sorts depicting why Dahmer was no longer allowed at a certain gay bar (because of all of the guys he drugged and raped), but all they do is smack him around and toss him out on the street. But when he is caught the bartender yells “That’s the guy!” so obviously what he’s been doing is known – wouldn’t they call the cops on him? In fact the police in the film are depicted as rather incompetent; one pulls him over for swerving around, smells alcohol on his breath, and simply lets him go (and accepts that the trash bags in his car were indeed lawn clippings). Others buy his story that his obviously drugged victim (who had managed to temporarily escape) was his boyfriend and that he simply had too much to drink. Now, apparently this one is true, but later he was arrested under similar circumstances – seems they could have shown that as well just to keep the Milwaukee police from looking completely inept.

Other elements are left rather vague, such as his parents’ divorce. It apparently played a big part in his demeanor, but the two characters don’t even share a scene together. His grandmother also just sort of disappears from the movie, and it wasn’t until I read his Wikipedia entry that I realized that the dog skull on a stick that he knocks to the ground at one point was something that he himself placed there. Again, it’s not that it’s a bad movie, but it’s not a great introduction to this guy. On that note, it DOES seemingly stick remarkably close to the facts – save for the names of victims and things of that nature, nothing seems made up. Many of the “slice of life” scenes are based in reality – his job at the chocolate factory, his theft of a mannequin, etc. And despite changing the name, they kept in some of the details about the guy who escaped, such as the fact that he still had handcuffs attached to one hand.

Had the Dahmer story already been made into several films (like Manson or Bundy), this would be an excellent “alternative” version of the story, focusing more on the man and putting a lot of detail into one particular chapter of his story instead of sticking to the serial killer bio template. However this is only the second, and the first is rather obscure (and was released only a year after his arrest, which suggests it was a quickie TV movie or something). So if you know nothing about him, I’d recommend reading the Wiki or True Crime Library entry first, and then watching this vague “gist” of his actions, savoring Renner’s terrific performance and admirable attention to detail without being somewhat left in the dark as to what certain things meant.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Virus X (2010)

FEBRUARY 12, 2011

GENRE: MAD SCIENTIST, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

Wasn’t one of the Bond movies about a plan to make a fortune by designing a virus and then selling the antidote that they had the patent to? Sounds like something one of those dudes would do anyway. Well, it’s also the plot of Virus X, but since it’s a horror movie (of sorts), instead of a handsome, ageless Brit skiing and boning his way around the world in order to stop it from happening, we get five 20-30ish moderately attractive folks trapped in what appears to be an oil rig, looking for a way to cure themselves before time runs out, and if they happen to save the world at the same time, well, bonus!

Joking aside, the script actually isn’t all that bad; I liked the idea of tying it into the H1N1 virus, as well as the fact that the mega-villain wasn’t some Euro-trash dude but Sybil Danning herself, in a rare screen appearance (she’s only appeared in four films since 1990, one of them is just a trailer in Grindhouse). Always nice to see her, and she runs the gamut over the course of the film: she’s a standard "megalomaniacal but cool-keeping" super-rich villain at first, but by the end of the film (spoiler) she’s been literally given a taste of her own “medicine”, looking like shit and begging for her life. I’m so used to stars of her stature (i.e. from a bunch of older horror movies) appearing in a single scene or two (much like she herself did in Halloween) that I was actually surprised every time she showed up again in the film; I figured she’d be on-screen for maybe 2 minutes tops.

She’s also not the only villain. In addition to the virus itself, there’s also some henchman type creepy guy who looks like Fred Armisen playing Ozzy Osbourne with a blond wig. He isn’t as threatening as he should be, and spends more time talking to Danning on the phone than he does getting into altercations with our heroes, but he’s a wonderfully odd addition to the mix. You also got the standard “God forgive me!” scientist who is evil at first but eventually realizes he was doing a bad thing. Plus, our five folks are trapped together, so they yell at each other and occasionally scuffle – there are a lot of ways you can get killed or injured in this movie is what I’m saying.

It’s a shame the script nearly cripples itself with not one but two inane “romantic” scenes, practically back to back. I get the whole “well we’re going to die, might as well have one last roll in the hay” concept, but both scenes come more or less out of nowhere (and again, within minutes of each other), which just makes it silly. Worse, the participants are covered in blood and other bodily fluids, as it occurs at a point when the virus is starting to really take home, so it’s just completely ill-advised.

The direction, however, DOES really hurt the film. In the hands of someone more capable and/or less show-offy, this might have been a really solid survival thriller, but it gets downgraded to just “OK” thanks to the efforts of director/DP/editor Ryan Harris, who rarely lets a scene go by without some sort of annoyance, be it a bunch of zooms, excessive use of shaki-cam during non-action scenes, or cutting in bursts of static during fight scenes, rendering it nearly impossible to tell what is going on. He also inexplicably bathed 90% of the film in over saturated blue filters with bits of bright orange here and there, which not only makes the film look ugly, but also gave me unpleasant flashbacks of certain Albert Pyun movies like Mean Guns or Adrenalin: Fear The Rush. And really, with those particular credits belonging to him, there’s no one else to blame for the movie’s look.

At least it looks better than the disc’s sole extra, a few interviews with Harris, Danning, one other actor and a producer, which were taken from something called "Eye On Entertainment". The videos look like basic cable nonsense that you’d see at like 3 am after waking up on the couch, and then the next morning you’d wonder “Did I really see that, or was I just having some sort of waking dream?” Hosted by a somewhat ditzy but sweet blonde and complete with its own theme song, this program must be seen to be believed, and I’m baffled that THIS was the best Lionsgate could find for bonus material. Harris’ interview in particular is a delight – the host seems genuinely shocked that he could pull off both directing AND writing, and he seemingly chose his attire from a bunch of shit he found on the ground: fingerless gloves, red socks under Velcro sneakers, and the world’s ugliest tie. Nice shirt and pants though. Danning’s is fun because she seems particularly unimpressed (and rightfully so) and barely blinks when the host (her name escapes me, sorry) applauds her recent win as “One of the 10 sexiest werewolves of all time according to LatinoReview”. A delightful train wreck.

The trailer’s also on there, but I think we’ve long since passed the point where that can be considered a bona fide bonus feature, unless it’s for an older film.

Hey I just realized – this movie’s sort of like The Alpha Incident (bickering folks quarantined due to virus, race against the clock to find a cure, lot of monitors...), which I reviewed almost four years ago. But I wish it was one of the many reviews where I said “Someone should remake this!” because then I’d feel like I made a difference in that time. Oh well.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Backwoods (2008)

FEBRUARY 11, 2011

GENRE: CULT, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT)

Like a good stew, Backwoods is comprised of bits and pieces from a bunch of movies you’ve already seen, but sort of hits the spot anyway. Plus, a better than usual cast and admirably fast pace make up for its creative shortcomings, AND it’s shot on film, which automatically signals that the folks behind the movie had our best interests at heart. And really, that’s all I ask for anymore.

If you’ve seen the following films, you’ve pretty much already seen Backwoods: Severance (company retreat goes wrong), Wrong Turn (ranger comes to help, gets killed instantly next to his own car), Timber Falls (religious weirdoes kidnapping women and forcing them to breed), and pretty much any movie where our heroes stop for gas at a place run by hick looking folks that are quite obviously not upstanding citizens. But it’s sort of fun to see them all put together like this – I figured it would be a straight up “hicks vs. city folk” affair; the religious cult was not expected. I was also sort of impressed by the fact that the movie opened with a couple being picked off (again like Wrong Turn), but the female pops up a couple of times throughout the movie, and plays into the obligatory “they’re not all dead” final scene as well. It’s like when a band plays one of their signature hits at a concert but they expand the intro or outro to keep you from being totally bored; you’ve heard the jist of it a million times but there’s just enough extra zing to make it its own thing.

And again, the cast is pretty good. Ryan Merriman was pretty much the only good thing about Final Destination 3 (I know folks hate the last one, but it was an improvement over 3 for sure, IMO), so I liked seeing him again, playing the obvious hero because he doesn’t share his co-workers gung-ho mentality, but isn’t a complete spazz like the character played by Jonathan Slavin (Byron from Andy Richter Controls The Universe!). Also, the film sports major stars from two big Oscar-type movies: Mark Rolston from Shawshank Redemption (and also Aliens, respect) and Danny Nucci from Titanic. Then there’s some guy who looks like Bradley Cooper and Haylie Duff, who I guess is like the Billy Baldwin of the Duff family. I recognized some of the other actors as well; in short, it’s not the usual gaggle of generic young folks and then maybe a Bill Moseley or Sid Haig to add “marquee value” – it’s one star away from boasting a theatrical ready cast.

I’m also glad I watched the movie now, as opposed to maybe 2 months ago or more. See, I recently played paintball for the first time, and before then I was always under the impression that the things don’t really hurt unless you’ve been shot point blank. Not at all – even from a distance using low caliber guns (which are harder to aim but hurt less), they can give you a pretty big welt, or even break skin if they connect with a non-protected area. My buddy got a pretty good cut on his neck from when the ball “shattered”, in fact. So when our heroes arm themselves with paintguns, you might be tempted to laugh, but it’s actually a pretty smart idea – a good hit to the face could blind an enemy, and you’d have to be superhuman to keep advancing on someone who was pelting you repeatedly in the chest with the damn things. Keep in mind, these guys are computer programmers on a company retreat, not survivalists.

I just wish the directing/editing was better, and by better I mean less insanely obnoxious. Whoever made the call to cut every 15 frames or so during the scene where Merriman and Duff jump into a lake should be banned from ever working on a feature film again. It’s like they shot the scene from 3 angles and figured they had to use all of them, so they just cut back and forth between them all in rapid succession, which is even more annoying than it sounds (especially since one angle is merely a bit wider and about 10 degrees to the left from the other). Ditto for the reaction shots of the bad guys. There’s seriously something like 40 cuts in 10-15 seconds. There are also a lot of those annoying establishing shots where the camera zooms in and shakes a bit (accompanied by a WHOOOSH or something on the soundtrack), though thankfully they become less frequent as the film goes.

The script has some pretty dumb moments as well. Most preposterous is when Duff is about to be ceremoniously raped by a big brute, and she convinces him to untie her by pretending to be into it. Look, granted these guys are dumb brutes, but the fact that he falls for it so easily (and repeatedly, she makes him undo both hands and one foot and he STILL doesn’t catch on) just makes him a rather weak villain. Nucci’s character also has the most extreme case of denial I’ve ever seen in a film – not only does he refuse to believe that the guy they were shooting at wasn’t one of their coworkers, but later when they find their camp destroyed and gas siphoned, he thinks that it’s the other paintball team messing with them (he also assumed they were the ones to set a pretty advanced trap in the woods – despite the fact that they are, again, computer programmers who didn’t even really want to go). He almost makes up for it with his death scene though – he gets caught in a trap, with several spikes impaling him through the chest and what not, but he’s not dead yet – so he grabs his gun and begins firing at the advancing cult folk while the others get away! BADASS.

Well, whatever. If you’re in the mood for one of these things, you can do better, but you can do a lot worse as well. I wouldn’t go so far as to defend it against a naysayer, but it held my attention for the most part and was refreshingly light on the type of annoyances I’ve come to expect from this genre. I’ll forget everything in a week or so, but thanks for providing 84 minutes of inoffensive entertainment today, Backwoods crew!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...