The Tenant (2010)

JANUARY 22, 2012

GENRE: MAD SCIENTIST, SLASHER SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

As previously mentioned, I hate repeating myself under any circumstances, but it drives me even more nuts when I have to repeat something that is IN WRITING. However, I do understand that I tweet a lot, and some folks like to follow over a thousand people for whatever reason to boot, so when I tweet something about the movie I said I was watching 2 posts ago and someone goes “What movie are you talking about?” I have to accept that maybe it’s too much of a hassle for them to investigate. So it’s kind of ironic that I actually DID put the name of The Tenant into my brief reaction, because then of course someone assumed I was talking about the Polanski one. Thus, had I not bothered trying to clarify, maybe I wouldn’t have had to clarify.

But the weird thing is, my post was pretty specific to this movie – it’s not like I said “The Tenant was kind of lame, but I’ve seen worse” or something; I specifically addressed the movie’s odd structure (Polanski’s film is fairly straight-forward) and admirably crass handling of its hearing impaired characters, something I cannot recall in the other Tenant. So maybe folks can’t even read the whole tweet, I don’t know.

Anyway, the mad scientist and slasher hybrid is pretty rare, so it’s worth noting that the two never really blend into one movie. The first half of the movie is essentially an overlong prologue depicting how the hulking brute slasher in the 2nd half came into existence. There’s very little “horror” in this setup (which is probably why a present day, pre-credits kill scene of no bearing on anything was added); we just watch a well-meaning but obsessed doctor (who looks like Rip Torn) conduct questionable tests on his pregnant wife (as well as Michael Berryman, second-billed for a single scene role). But she’s having twins, so one baby comes out fine while the other is a hideous freak. There’s a lot of stuff about their failing marriage and money issues, plus the Berryman scene goes on forever – it’s basically the most fleshed out, overlong version of the five or ten minute intro that would accompany something like The Burning or whatever: “Once upon a time THIS happened – now let’s get to our slasher story.”

Thus, by the time the slasher plot kicks in around the 45 minute mark or so, there isn’t much time for characterization or suspense-building. All of a sudden we meet a vanful of hearing impaired teens (young ones, like around 14), two older (college-age) counselors, their boss who looks a LOT like the mother in the first half (hmm…) and J LaRose as the hilariously crass van driver, an ex-con who repeatedly refers to the kids as “dummies” and has negative things to say about pretty much anything. Where they were going in the middle of the night in a huge rainstorm is none of our business, but the movie wastes no further time getting them into the now abandoned asylum where the now adult mutant boy is prowling around.

In a way it’s kind of remarkable how many clichés they run through in order to get to the point quickly: their tire blows out AND they’re out of gas, which is why they don’t just sit in the van to wait (it’s cold). Then they run through the “no signal” scene with their cell phones, with the exception of one that has a signal long enough to call a phone that was dropped in the rain, and then it promptly dies from a low battery. The only thing they forgot was getting lost, but I guess that would make the rather silly coincidence of the connection our heroine has to the asylum that they broke down in front of even stupider. On the contrary, she actually knows quite a bit about it, yet doesn’t piece together the connection until she finds some photos and files.

But, you know, whatever. I don’t ask for tight, surprising plotting from these things, and I was already kind of amused by the fact that they spent so much time explaining the killer’s origin. Once LaRose showed up and started spewing venomous insults at kids who couldn’t even hear him it entered See No Evil/Silent Night, Deadly Night territory, so you know I’m on board with that. Plus, the kids get killed! I figured MAYBE one of them would be offed to raise the stakes, but they’re only there for about five minutes before our killer pulls two of them through a wall and annihilates them. In fact, to give it an actual (not backhanded) compliment, they do a fine job of killing the folks you figured would be OK and vice versa (with the exception of the heroine, obviously). Of course, part of that is due to the fact that we barely learn any of their names (the whole “deaf” angle has no real point other than I guess to explain why most of them don’t have phones), but there are still some surprises with regards to the more “fleshed out” characters, i.e. the ones we can tell apart.

I’m less forgiving of the terribly directed/edited action scenes, however. That scene I mentioned where he pulls the girls through the wall? The heroes just look at the hole and then briskly walk into another room saying things like “We have to find them!”, as if there WASN’T a man sized hole in the wall that clearly led to where the girls might be, assuming they were still alive after they just wasted time walking in the wrong direction. There are a number of scenes where people seem to have no reaction to what is going on around them, as if the actors weren’t aware they were in the frame, and one character is CLEARLY dead at one point only to be alive and kicking a few minutes later.

But that just adds to my theory that the film was produced at two different times, as none of the actors in the mad scientist scenes ever interact with the ones in the slasher segment. Whether they didn’t have enough for one segment and decided to add the other, or they just simply didn’t know what they were doing, I don’t know – but the movie definitely suffers from a disconnect, both in the two-part structure and within those segments. The mad scientist parts are kind of sloppy too; the other patients in the asylum look to be more important at one point, only to be forgotten a few moments later. There’s a deleted scene on the DVD that I cannot for the life of me understand how it would have ever fit into the movie, and it’s interesting that all of them are from the movie’s first half. Was the slasher stuff a total “oh shit the movie’s too short let’s come up with something else!” affair?

Nothing on the making of suggests as much, as the director talks about the actors for a bit before they spend an inordinate time on sound editing, including the “reveal” that all of the dialogue in the “van in the rain” scene was looped, something I had written in my notes (“ADR?”) as I watched the movie. Nice try though. There’s also a blooper reel, but as is common with these low-budget horror movies, most of the bloopers aren’t distinguishable in any way – no obvious flubbed lines or even a boom mic dropping into the frame. But if The Tenant is your favorite movie ever you’ll probably enjoy spending a few more minutes with these beloved characters.

With some polish and a slightly less awkward structure, this could have been a minor gem. I appreciate the humanizing of the monster (to a degree), and utilizing practical FX will always earn my respect, but it never quite comes together in a satisfying way, and the tone/point of the first half doesn’t quite fit with that of the second. Nice, weird try.

What say you?

P.S. Enough with “Moonlight Sonata”! Thing’s getting more play than “Mockingbird” in horror movies as of late. Give Beethoven a break, huh? Try some Ives.

PLEASE, GO ON...

We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011)

JANUARY 21, 2012

GENRE: KILLER KID, THRILLER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

Much like The Skin I Live In, I got interested in We Need To Talk About Kevin when I started seeing it near the top of several "Best of 2011" lists. The thing was, these were horror-centric lists, and until that point I knew nothing about the movie except for its cast. Forgive my ignorance, but if I hear about a critically adored movie with Tilda Swinton and John C. Reilly, I'm going to assume it's awards bait and thus nothing I'd ever be interested in seeing (life's too short to watch a movie that exists primarily to win awards). So I looked into it, and discovered it was actually a killer kid movie! Sold!

Now, this is not a killer kid movie in the traditional sense. There's nothing exploitative or "fun" about it, like Orphan or Good Son; in fact unless I'm mistaken (inverse spoiler) there isn't a single moment of actual on-screen violence - even an attack on a dozen innocent eggs is left to our imagination. The closest thing I would compare it to in the genre would be Joshua, which interestingly enough was the current subject of a documentary that I was editing (about under-seen horror movies) prior to leaving for the theater*. Like that film, we stay with a parent more often than not, with the kid's evil behavior kept ambiguous, even though there is no doubt that he's got some severe issues.

But while Joshua stuck with the dad more often than not, Kevin is all about mom (Swinton), who appears in all but one (brief) scene in the film. And she is terrific, nailing the nearly impossible task of playing a mother who is torn between her unconditional love for her child and the fact that he has torn her entire life asunder. The story unfolds via flashbacks, jumping back and forth between the present day, where Swinton is working as a receptionist at a travel agency and living in a tiny house by the railroad, and the past, where we see Kevin at different stages in his life, building toward a truly devastating tragedy where Kevin's disturbing behavior can no longer be chalked up to her suspicions.

As with most killer kid films, one parent is oblivious, so it's a stroke of genius to cast John C. Reilly, who excels at playing guys that are innocently ignorant of their surroundings (his turn in The Good Girl was similar - he's not an idiot, he's just a bit under-equipped for these particular situations). Practically from birth, Kevin has had a unique ability to be a perfect angel around his dad, while he just has it in for his mother and never cooperates with even the simplest things. There's only a single moment in the entire film where he shows her any affection, which cleverly hides a bit of foreshadowing in the process, because it's such a warm and yet shocking surprise.

One thing that I really appreciated about the film was how much the outside world was kept out of it, particularly in the flashback scenes. In the present day, we see Swinton being harassed by neighbors and locals, and we don't yet know why, but otherwise she keeps to herself - there's a heartbreaking moment where she lies to her mother (over the phone) about having people over for Christmas dinner, before sitting alone with a sandwich instead. But in the past, we barely ever leave the house that they live in, and there aren't any outside characters of note. No shrinks, no friends (of anyone). The minimal scenes dealing with their jobs are handled via phone calls, and apart from a brief scene with a doctor (Kevin breaks his arm at home) it's not until the third act that we ever see Kevin sharing the screen with other human beings besides his family. Whether this was intentional or not, I am unsure - but I have to assume so. This was based on a book, and in that there was a best friend character as well as some other students at school that he had particular interactions with, but that has all been excised entirely here.

And yes, it's scary. Not in the jumpy sense (though there IS one of those, oddly enough), but in the unnerving, getting under your skin kind of way, it's one of the most terrifying movies in years. Right off the bat director Lynne Ramsay makes the audience feel uncomfortable, with off-kilter closeups, heightened audio editing (you'll hear every crunch as Kevin mashes some Fruity Pebbles into dust), and just an overall sense that something awful has happened - just in the first five minutes! The non-chronological structure also allows for some terrific "when is it going to happen?" plot threads - I don't want to spoil things, but one character sports a horrific injury in the first few minutes, but it's about 90 minutes into the movie by the time we know how it occurred. So every object that COULD cause such an injury gets a bit of a murmur whenever it shows up on-screen, which is even more fun when it turns out to be a misdirection. "Ohhhh, that's how - oh wait, nope..." It's like the serious, upsetting version of the running gag from Hot Tub Time Machine regarding Crispin Glover's missing arm.

There's actually a lot of misdirection in the film, though one bit doesn't quite come across as successful as the others. At one point in the flashback scenes Swinton and Reilly discuss a certain family matter (I'm trying to be as spoiler-free as possible since it's still in VERY limited release) that would seemingly explain her situation in the present day scenes, however it doesn't really work as there's a fairly useless scene a few minutes later that resolves the issue. I think without this bit, a devastating scene later on would have even MORE of an impact; I almost wonder if the "useless" scene was inserted so the audience wouldn't go into hysterics at the other one - the useless one kind of prepares us for it! I know this makes almost no sense but when you see the movie you'll hopefully get what I mean, even if you don't necessarily agree.

There's a certain real life tragedy (actually a few, though one is the "go-to" version to name-check) that is echoed in the film, one that other films have used as the basis for something far less effective - I think this is the first that has put the parent as the focus in this particular way. While Swinton's character may have her faults as a mother, anyone can plainly see that what Kevin does is in no way the result of bad parenting or a "broken home" (she's not a stripper, is what I'm saying), yet she has to live with everyone assuming that she is (the book apparently had more of this element - I think the movie made the right call to strip it down to the bare minimum and keep it more personal). It's devastating on many levels, and the fact that it's wrapped in a psychological thriller of sorts makes it a must-see film whether you're just into horror or not. Easily one of the best films of 2011; I will forever kick myself for choosing to watch the (mostly bad) short films at Fantastic Fest while this terrific film was playing in the next room. Don't make my mistake - see it (LEGALLY!) when the opportunity arises.

What say you?

*In that doc someone compared Joshua's score to the one in There Will Be Blood, which was by Johnny Greenwood of Radiohead... who also composed this film. WEIRD.

PLEASE, GO ON...

Underworld: Awakening (2012)

JANUARY 20, 2012

GENRE: VAMPIRE, WEREWOLF
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

It’s ironic, I went back and read my review of the 2nd film before heading out to see Underworld: Awakening, which was written as an open letter to director Len Wiseman*. In it, I pointed out that I think he’s a pretty good director (on a visual level), but shouldn’t be allowed to write the scripts. And yet, on this film he is given screenwriting credit (amongst others, including J. Michael Straczynski) while others direct, and yet it’s the best of the “Selene Trilogy” - which completely negates my theory. I’m not sure if I liked it more than Lycans; I’d have to sit down and watch them all to re-assess, but it delivered what I wanted from the first two films. And in 3D!

Actually, the 3D was the only real letdown. It was a native 3D film, not a post-convert (if it was I wouldn’t have bothered; there was a 2D option as well), but at times it almost seemed like it WAS something that was created later. Not only was it rarely impressive with regards to the depth in a shot (“Comin at ya!” shots – which I largely hate – were used sparingly), but it had a number of elements that seemed exaggerated, which is a frequent problem with the converted 3D films I’ve seen. Characters often seem too far apart, elements blend together as if they weren’t separated, etc. They even turn the images on some security monitors into 3D, which doesn’t even make sense.

Otherwise, I was surprised at how enjoyable it was. It largely ditches the convoluted “mythology” of the first two films (and the romantic trappings of all of them) and sticks to a straight up “mission” movie, with Selene and a few other vampires (and one human) connecting with and then having to rescue a young girl who turns out is Selene and Michael’s daughter. The Lycans (werewolves) have her because she shares Michael’s prized DNA as well as Selene’s, making her perfect fodder to experiment with as the Lycans work to eradicate their silver weakness, which will allow them to take over the world. And that’s pretty much it – the movie is only 88 minutes long with credits, and almost never slows down. There’s a bit around the halfway point (maybe further) where Selene actually has a quiet dialogue exchange with someone and I realized that it had been a while since the movie had been quiet enough to hear people talking behind me.

The action is pretty good too, albeit a bit repetitive. The werewolf based fights are a ton of fun (particularly the crazy car chase early on), and the FX continue to impress, but more often than not it’s just Kate (who seems kind of bored this time, admittedly) shooting and diving around anonymous corrupt cops/henchman types, which gets a bit monotonous after a while (and I swear, if you drink every time she drops into frame from above, you’ll be dead before the movie is over). And these guys never stand a chance (unlike the giant werewolves), so it’s like a Jackie Chan movie where the guys keep getting their asses handed to them but still stand around and fight him one at a time, except without his movies’ sense of humor. There are a couple of moments that made me laugh (mostly involving Eve, the vampy daughter), but as usual the creative team seems pretty serious about their vampire vs. werewolf movies. Or, people vs. werewolf movies - Kate also doesn’t get to show her vamp side nearly enough, though when it DOES appear it’s pretty dang awesome. Quality over quantity!

One thing in its favor was the way that the story branched out. With Viktor, Lucian, etc, all dead, it’s time for new villains, and they stick to series tradition by hiring actors who you don’t expect to find in FX heavy horror movies: Stephen Rea and Charles Dance, specifically. Dance only appears in two scenes (guessing he’ll be more prominent in the 5th film if one comes to pass), but Rea is in it quite a bit as the head scientist of the evil werewolf-run lab. His transformation is kept until the climax, but it’s worth the wait – his design is a bit different than the others; much scarier in fact. The Michael storyline is kept to a minimum; Scott Speedman wasn’t asked to return but they got some guy that looks almost sort of nothing like him at all (but with the same hair!) to appear in the few scenes that he was needed. In other words, if you haven’t seen the others, you won’t be lost – if anything you might even be in a better position to enjoy it as the recasting might be too annoying for the die-hard fans. Then again, a newcomer won’t appreciate the little nods to the others; there’s a terrific bit where Selene reprises her famous “shoot in a circle and fall through the floor” bit from the first film, albeit in an inverse way – I cheered and I don’t even like that one!

I also liked that they flashed forward 12 years, and presented the Lycan race as dying – the first few we see are kind of sickly and weak compared to the ones near the end. In fact I could have used more of this stuff; her 12 year coma doesn’t seem to bother her much, and the movie’s pace is too fast to bother much with what might be different about the world now (most of it is addressed in the first reel and then never mentioned again). Then again, at 88 minutes I have to assume the pace was tightened from something a bit more meaty (the first film is just under two hours, for comparison’s sake), so perhaps this stuff was excised since it didn’t have much to do with the main plot – i.e. Kate running around and killing folks/wolves in her attempt to free her daughter from Rea and his cohorts. Still, the little that’s there gives the overall storyline a bit more of a scope – it’s cool to see how their little war has affected the rest of the world.

So it’s hard to tell how fans will react to it. On one hand, Kate is back after sitting the last movie out, and you’d have to be insane not to be interested in watching her do her thing in 3D (one ad even flat out says “Kate Beckinsale In 3D!”). It continues the story of Evolution without demanding that you can remember the details (or even seen it at all – there’s a bit of a “Previously, on Underworld” thing at the top of the movie either way), and opts to stick more with action and FX than scenes of British thespians standing around arguing with each other using silly words. On the other, it unceremoniously drops the 2nd lead from the first two films, and limits Dance’s screentime to almost nothing, which won’t help anyone forget about the great Bill Nighy. And there’s not a lot of vampire action; more often than not it just resembles one of the Resident Evil flicks, in fact (think Alice vs. random Umberella goons), and thus the “dumbed down” approach of this one might be insulting to those who can actually follow the storyline of the first two. So it might appeal more toward those who WEREN’T huge fans of the others instead of those who were. Your call – but unless you’re a total junkie for the format I think I can definitively say that it’s not worth the extra 3 bucks to see it in 3D. That being said, it’s also in IMAX – and I would never dream to suggest it’s not worth a couple extra bucks to gaze upon a 60 foot screen covered with Ms. Beckinsale’s face during her many closeups.

What say you?

*In that same letter to Wiseman I mocked his overuse of blue filters and offered to show him what the color red looked like. So I had to laugh when the logo for the Red camera (which this was shot on) came up… in blue.

PLEASE, GO ON...

Fading Of The Cries (2011)

JANUARY 19, 2012

GENRE: SUPERNATURAL, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

One of my favorite underrated flicks in the past few years is Night Watch, which combined vampires with a more action/fantasy type story (the sequel, Day Watch, wasn’t as good, and I’m still bummed that they didn’t continue the series since there are four source novels and the two movies only covered the first). So I was kind of interested in Fading Of The Cries, because it sounded like a similar scenario albeit with zombies instead of vampires. Add in Brad Dourif (and the fact that it actually got a small theatrical release) and it should be a fun time-killer at worst, right?

Wrong. By telling a convoluted and yet uninteresting story via a constant stream of terrible VFX shots, almost nothing about the movie qualifies as “fun”. Any sane person would grow tired of seeing digital blood (and skies, and people, and pretty much everything else) before the first act was through, and the action isn’t even all that exciting – most of it is simply our hero (Jordan Matthews) running around and swinging a sword in the general direction of zombie/demon things, most of which appear to have been shot separately. Writer/director Brian Metcalf is seemingly under the impression that everything will look cooler if there’s a lot of it, so Matthews is constantly fighting off dozen of zombies at once while literally hundreds of them run around in the background. Unfortunately for him, he’s completely wrong – any discerning audience member would rather an actual fight with a handful of the things, WITHOUT the distracting, poorly composited extras in the background.

I mean, obviously this was not a big budgeted film – why stretch your production value even thinner by constantly adding in VFX that aren’t necessary? Nearly every shot of the sky in this movie seems to be added in via a demo copy of After Effects, which is just a distracting eyesore that adds nothing. Other elements are needlessly “enhanced” – at one point our heroes are at Disney’s Ranch a bit north of LA, an area I am familiar with because they shot part of Hatchet II there. I instantly recognized the bridge that housed a lot of the equipment during filming (the bridge itself doesn’t appear in the film – it’s next to the swamp where Ed Ackerman’s character got his face sliced off), and then laughed as I saw that they were trying to make it look 10x as long using cheap visual effects, and having the actors run over the same patch of it over and over again to make it seem longer than it actually is (which is about 100 feet). But why? If they’re trapped, what difference does it make how long it is? If anything the shorter length would actually be SCARIER – because there would be less room for them to maneuver.

However even if I was just sitting here reading the script I’d have problems, because the movie is all over the place. I knew we were in trouble early on, when we see Thomas Ian Nicholas drive up to a house, get out of his car, and walk inside. Some voiceover tells us that his wife and child had died and that he’s living there to try to get over it and also write his next book. Then we watch the opening credits, which are followed by a “14 years later” card. 14 years after a widower walked into a house? Who the hell cares? And like every other scene in the movie, it’s filled with ugly CGI skies and such, so lopping it off entirely could have not only strengthened the movie’s pace a bit, instead of starting it off so awkwardly, but also would have given these overworked FX guys either a break or more time to improve the other shots in scenes that DID serve a purpose.

Anyway, Nicholas dies in his “14 years ago” timeline, and thus for obvious reasons he never really interacts with our other heroes. The back and forth between the two storylines never has any motivation behind it, and since we know he’s dead from our first “present day” scene, they carry little interest once you know where they are going. He also narrates them for some reason, as if his story was supposed to be being learned via his journal or something, instead of just being edited into the narrative at random intervals. Most of his scenes involve him slowly walking around his house (“I heard a noise and decided to check it out”, voiceover Nicholas tells us, as his character hears a noise and decides to check it out) or breaking glasses of every sort – water glasses! Mirrors! Tumblers! Why his character’s magic powers seem to revolve entirely around glass is never explained, but I assume it’s just easier on the FX guys than having him break, I dunno, wood or something.

The villains don’t make a lot of sense, either. I never quite understood what evil wizard Dourif was trying to accomplish, but let’s just assume “Destroy the world!” for the sake of our sanity. But why does this require turning seemingly everyone in the town (except for our protagonists and their immediate friends) into zombies? What purpose did they serve in the grand scheme of things? And what’s with the girl with a white sock on her head? Also, he only appears in spurts, talking cryptically to our heroes and then disappearing again. A movie like this needs a villain that matches up to our heroes. Think The Matrix – Mr. Smith was just as interesting as Neo after a while. Dourif never gets that much to do – even Wormtongue had more of an arc and he wasn’t even the main villain!

Like many a fantasy film, at the center of the battle is an amulet, which is fine. The problem is, the amulet’s owner (Hailee Hirsh, cute but playing an obnoxious character) is phased out of the movie in favor of her younger sister, who is basically a glorified extra until the third act. Suddenly, Dourif kidnaps her and our hero goes off to save her while Hirsh – who we’ve been with for most of the movie – just stays home and (spoiler) dies along with her mom, a story point that might be grim or shocking if the story gave us any real reason to care about them beyond the fact that they were on-screen the longest. This results in what I would call the year’s weirdest closing shot if not for the fact that I’m one of the 14 people who have seen Beneath The Darkness.

I was also continually confused who the movie was made for. The R rating is for “bloody horror violence”, and while it’s certainly more graphic than Twilight, the fantasy feel and the fact that everyone is an anonymous zombie probably could have gotten them a PG-13 if they asked nicely. However there are also a couple of F-bombs, so they clearly weren’t TRYING for a PG-13, despite the teen-friendly story (it reminded me a bit of the Dungeons & Dragons movie on more than one occasion, in fact).

It did have a few moments of merit, however. Dourif is always a delight, even when I had no idea what the hell he was talking about (and despite the fact that his near-top billing suggested a lot more than his 10 minutes or so of screen time). There’s a cool “trapped in a barn” scene that uses an aggressive surround mix instead of the usual bad FX to sell the idea, something that the movie should have relied on more often. And there’s a weird little demon that looked kind of creepy (you can see it in the trailer, the one in the cornfield). Also, the movie sort of resembled a live-action anime at times, something that COULD be done well; I wouldn’t want to dissuade anyone from trying. Just make sure it’s better than this.

The disc contains the trailer for it as well as other Lionsgate properties, including Highlander 2. Word of advice – no one wants to be reminded of the existence of Highlander 2, ever, so putting it at the top of a disc is somewhat foreboding, as if you’re telling us to be prepared for massive disappointment. The only other extra is a making of, where everyone just talks about how great everyone/everything is, with Dourif praising his character’s dialogue (?) and Matthews hilariously revealing that he read “The Art Of War” to prepare for his one-note, shockingly uninteresting character. Well, beats reading the script I guess.

I hate knocking on ambitious movies – there’s a severe lack of them in the genre nowadays, and again, I think the blend of horror and fantasy is something that could be really cool when done right. But giving a pass to something merely for ATTEMPTING something unique doesn’t do anyone any good – if nothing else, you have to give your ambitious idea some real characters to bring it to life, or something that’s truly exciting on a visual level. This might work as a 6-8 issue comic miniseries, but a 90 minute film isn’t nearly enough to handle this many subplots and ideas, especially when half of it is devoted to mindless zombie “attack” scenes that pale in comparison to even a Syfy level movie.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Stage Fright (2005)

JANUARY 18, 2012

GENRE: SLASHER, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX INSTANT)

In honor to succeed, a slasher film must deliver on one of two levels: the story has to be interesting (Scream) or it has to be stylish and scary (Halloween). I can also accept “a whole bunch of cool kills” (Hatchet), but that sort of falls under style. Unfortunately for anyone who makes the mistake of watching Stage Fright, it delivers absolutely none of those things – it’s actually MORE plot-less than Halloween but has zero style, without a single good kill or interesting killer to make up for its other faults.

Director/producer Rick Jordan (who also co-stars) also can’t even bother to pick a tone. It starts off like a farcical comedy of sorts, with a bunch of actors sitting around doing little shtick-y things as a cartoonish producer yells at someone over the phone – no suggestion that it’s even a horror/comedy mix, just a flat out (unfunny) comedy. Finally after seven minutes the rest of the credits show up (out of nowhere; I had actually already forgotten that they weren’t complete. The Fugitive would be proud) and the characters go from the original theater to a different one, where a weird janitor and some creepy music informs us that we are indeed watching a genre film.

To its credit, it doesn’t waste much time getting to the kills, and it seemingly unfolds almost in real time from the moment where all of the characters are aware that they are trapped with a killer. But that’s also one of its problems – we haven’t had any time to differentiate between the complete strangers who make up our cast (I had trouble telling two of the males apart in particular), or know their names when they are mentioned. “Where’s Rob?” someone will ask, and I’m just thinking “WHO is Rob?”. In other words, caring about any of them is impossible, but unlike even an MPAA-mangled Friday the 13th entry, the kills aren’t anything to look forward to. Even New Blood (the most eviscerated entry) had the sleeping bag kill.

So that just leaves story, which is a mess. There’s a couple of killers, with different motives – something that would be fine if used in any meaningful way, but it just seems like a way to pad out the runtime; our main killer is taken out (via a sword fight! Points for novelty, I guess), and then another character we had forgotten about comes back and helps add another 15 minutes to the thing. Thanks, asshole. Supernatural elements also come into play, and like everything else, are too vague to be particularly interesting. There’s an inkling of a decent idea here about people disrespecting theatrical works (Shakespeare in particular), but there’s absolutely nothing compelling about the way it is presented here.

To sum it up (there’s no sense going on and on, this movie is remarkably obscure for a fairly recent American horror movie – I couldn’t even find another review! Clearly no one cares, nor should they), the movie is just THERE. It’s aimless and tone-deaf, features not one memorable moment or performance, and simply doesn’t work on any level. It’s the type of bad that doesn’t even get me angry at the time/money wasted on putting it together; I might as well get angry at wind or upset at the sky. It’s just another movie that makes the Netflix streaming library look more impressive than it actually is, and nothing more.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Evil Eyes (2004)

JANUARY 17, 2012

GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX INSTANT)

The other day I lauded The Asylum for actually managing to make a real movie for once (Zombie Apocalypse), praising its scope, decent acting, etc. You know, things you people who only see theatrical movies take for granted. However, their gambles to actually produce something of relative merit don’t always pan out; Evil Eyes (which I wasn’t aware was an Asylum flick until it was over) has a cool idea and some good actors at its center, but it mostly fails to deliver any real suspense or thrills, and ultimately becomes too confusing for its own good.

Part of the problem is that there’s almost no buildup – we meet our hero (Adam Baldwin) as he is supposedly having trouble with his screenwriting career, but practically as soon as we learn that he is meeting with Udo Kier, who offers him a job writing a film about a true life massacre that occurred 35 years ago. “Crisis” solved! And other things get raced through just as quickly – he figures out the film’s hook in the first 20 minutes! It’s one of those “writer discovers that what he is writing on the page is happening in the real world” things, which usually takes a couple of instances for the protagonist to catch on, but no! In the first time he sits down to write this script, he writes a car accident, and then his ex-girlfriend dies in the same way moments later. Roughly 12 seconds after that in the narrative, he’s all “It’s my fault! I WROTE it!” So much for the element of discovery.

And hell that could almost work if the movie opened up the story a bit, using this element as a kickoff for some larger plot, but for the next 45 minutes or so it just plays out in a fixed cycle – someone does something to offend him in some way (for example, Crowley from Supernatural gets a gig he had been pining for), and then he writes them dying, which then happens. Then he feels guilty or something, sometimes Udo Kier will show up to remind him to keep writing, and the whole thing happens again.

Worse, as this is a high concept horror movie, it eventually goes off the rails, like pretty much all high concept horror movies. I don’t even know what was happening at the end; it seems his wife might have been the one behind some of the killings, he starts running around with an ax, and Udo continues to just pop up at random without his character’s motivations ever becoming clear. There’s even a scene where Baldwin demands to know the colors of a Rubik’s Cube that are facing her; I don’t know if it’s just a weird continuity error or her fucking with him or what, but she answers the first one correctly and then says red when it’s green – either way, why is he even asking her in the first place? Without a coherent motivation behind his question, it’s unclear what exactly her reason is for answering him wrong. Unless it’s just like some sort of weird, villainous test for color blindness or something.

Not sure if Baldwin is the best guy to play this role, either. He’s an engaging presence, no doubt about it, but if you look at his filmography, one word should come to mind: HARDASS. Here he’s supposed to be a lovable family man, almost a pushover, so that it really blows our minds when he starts going crazy near the end. But come on, it’s fucking Jayne Cobb! His buddy from Firefly, Alan Tudyk, might have been a better choice – HIM I can totally buy as a nice guy/kind of loser, and be weirded out with the sight of him screaming and waving weapons around. You start the actor in his comfort zone and THEN have him go off the beaten path; not the other way around. It’d be like casting Bruce Willis as a pacifist who has to build up the confidence to shoot a bunch of guys.

The direction was awkward as well – all hand-held, shaki-cam closeup shots that rarely cut together, making the film look more like a bunch of kids screwing around with their dad’s camera than a real film (“Film me!” “OK now you film me!”). I’m sure the intent was to make things uncomfortable and erratic, but again, you need to ground us first before spiraling into this sort of “madness”. Without anything to grasp on from the start, it’s just a total mess. And Udo’s not in it nearly enough to make up for it; if he was in every scene at least it would be a delightful train wreck, but his ten minutes of screen time aren’t nearly enough to make up for the nearly impenetrable narrative, ugly visuals, and lack of action (most of the kills are more or less off-screen).

So now I can’t help but wonder, as this was such an early production in The Asylum’s output – did they used to try to make real movies and keep failing, only to strike gold with the “Mockbuster” model they mostly use today? They’re also behind Stuart Gordon’s King Of The Ants, a pretty good (but uneven to a fault) dramatic thriller – hardly the type of thing you’d expect from the guys who gave us Transmorphers. I’d be interested if they would occasionally use the profits from their mockbusters to fund things along these lines; even if it didn’t work out, I’d rather see an interesting failure than another Paranormal Activity wannabe that they shot in 6 days.

What say you?

P.S. Couldn't find the trailer - enjoy some outtakes instead.

PLEASE, GO ON...

More Brains: A Return To The Living Dead (2011)

JANUARY 16, 2012

GENRE: DOCUMENTARY
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

A couple months ago I wrote this article for Badass Digest, about all of the franchise documentaries that had sprung up over the past couple years. And having not yet seen it, I included More Brains, because I was under the impression that it was about the entire Return of the Living Dead series. In fact part of why I held off watching it was because I was waiting to see all of the movies first, so now with Rave to the Grave under my belt I figured it was time to hear about the films from their own creators. However, I was mistaken/misinformed; the film is actually only about the first movie in the series, with parts 2 and 3 covered only in the bonus features – 4 and 5 aren’t even mentioned in passing.

I’ll get back to that. As a full length (seconds under two hours) documentary on a single film, More Brains delivers. For starters, it assembles just about everyone of note – apart from Jonathan Terry (Colonel Glover), the only absentees are, sadly, deceased. But everyone else is on board – Clu Gulager, James Karen, Thom Matthews, all of the punks (save the late Mark Venturini), Don Calfa, FX man Tony Gardner, the producers, the DP, the casting director… EVERYONE! There’s even an exception to the “death” rule - Dan O’Bannon appears briefly, in a clip from his final known interview. Christ, even John Russo shows up, discussing his original (terrible-sounding) script and offering some thoughts about the film as well as the initial legal battle to get the film made (Romero’s lawyers got involved due to the title similarity).

It also covers the movie’s production in pretty great detail. The script development, getting the money together, casting, the problems with the makeup designs, production, the music… everything gets explored with the mix of candid “water under the bridge” stories and the always fun contradictory recollections. Only the post-production process is glossed over – there’s very little about the MPAA or deleted scenes. A while back there was a workprint version of the film floating around that ran 20 or so minutes longer, so obviously there was some tinkering, but these things aren’t really covered. They also skip over the army characters almost entirely; even if Terry couldn’t be brought in, it’s a bit odd to never discuss his character or any of the scenes involving him (especially since he has my favorite line in the entire film – “The usual. Crap.”).

But who cares, what kind of dirt is spilled?!? Let’s not pretend we’re all good people who just want to hear happy tales of a smooth production, we want to know who hated who! Well, you won’t be let down. Gulager v. O’Bannon, original makeup guy (name escapes me) vs. producers, and Jewel Shepard v. pretty much everyone at one point or another are covered. Again, their memories don’t always match up, but it doesn’t make these segments any less enjoyable (especially the stuff with Clu, who is one of my favorite people in the world). No one seems bitter or resentful toward anyone else, so it’s all in good fun.

However, even if the sequels weren’t considered worthy of inclusion, I do think they deserve a MENTION in the main film, particularly when it comes time to discuss its lasting impact. We see clips from Simpsons and Family Guy that reference the film, and everyone talks about how they still get asked about it and such, but it’s really odd that there isn’t even a “and it spawned four sequels” line in the finished film. Hell, the doc’s trailer even shows Brian Yuzna and the actors from 2 and 3, but they’re nowhere to be seen unless you access the bonus features, which won’t always be possible for viewers watching on Netflix Instant or whatever.

Then again, that just makes the disc more enticing to would-be viewers, because you get another two hours’ worth of stuff to enjoy. Both ROTLD2 and 3 are covered in 20-25 minute segments each, albeit with limited participants compared to the first film’s roster. Hilariously, the only one who has anything positive to say about part 2 is Michael Kenworthy, the little kid from the movie and thus would be the right age to enjoy that film's juvenile humor. Everyone else rightfully points out that it didn’t work; Thom Matthews and James Karen seemed to enjoy working together again but that was about it (and apparently even called Don Calfa – originally meant to return as well – and told him he was lucky for being left out). ROTLD3’s segment is much more positive; the film is the only good sequel in the bunch, after all, and thus most of the memories recollected here are positive. Shame that they couldn’t get Mindy Clarke to contribute a new interview, however.

The rest of the extras are again centric to the first film. Brian “Scuz” Peck (who also narrates the film) and Beverly “Tina” Randolph take us on a tour of the shooting locations and how they look today (the cemetery is now a housing development; don’t bother making a Poltergeist joke, they have it covered); I was surprised to see that the studio was right near where I work (I thought it was all downtown LA). Then there are about 20 deleted “scenes” from the documentary, mostly little anecdotes that wouldn’t really fit anywhere, as well as a trailer, a music video for “Tonight”, and a fun little piece where all of the actors say their classic lines in sequence.

But the real jewel here is the full interview with O’Bannon, used only once in the film for maximum impact (I suspect this is also because it was shot in his home unlike everyone else who was shot on stage). Surprisingly, he admits that he was a pain in the ass during the production, and doesn’t harbor any grudges toward anyone – with one exception (it’s hilarious). It’s just under a half hour, and every bit as entertaining as the film itself – O’Bannon was a character, and his portions were always highlights on documentaries about Alien or whatever, so giving him 30 minutes to himself is pretty much pure bliss. It’s a damn shame that he died so relatively young (in his 60s) – as Clu points out, the world was robbed too soon of whatever scripts he may have written or films he may have directed.

So if you’re a fan of the whole series for some reason you might be pretty disappointed – the recent book “The Complete History of ‘The Return of The Living Dead’” (from the same writers of the documentary) covers ALL five films, though I haven’t read it so I can’t vouch for the participants or if 4 and 5 are just given a page or two each to cover the bases. But if you only really care about the original, there’s little to complain about here – the doc itself is thorough and well-stocked with contributors, hits all the marks on the technical level (I LOVE the EC comic style transitions, by the way), and provides lots of info and reveals things I’ve never heard despite attending a couple of retrospective screenings and going through the original DVD. It may not have “belonged” in my article about the franchise documentaries, but it certainly measures up to them.

What say you?

P.S. If you still nurse a crush on Ms. Quigley, you might not want to watch the movie. I don’t know what the hell she has done, but YIKES. She looks like Robert Blake in a wig. Hopefully it was just a really bad makeup day or something.

PLEASE, GO ON...

Zombie Apocalypse (2011)

JANUARY 15, 2012

GENRE: POST-APOCALYPTIC, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

Guys, sit down. Take a deep breath. Calm yourself. What I am about to say can cause shock and panic.

…The Asylum’s Zombie Apocalypse is good.

And I don’t even mean “Good for Asylum”, I mean it’s a genuinely decent and fun zombie flick, with likable characters, a ton of action, and a lovably batshit finale. As long as you accept that the excess (and not very good, though I’ve seen worse) digital blood is allowing for more action, you should agree – especially since the dialogue is otherwise the worst thing about it. When folks are killing zombies, they're not stopping to talk.

To be fair, the dialogue isn't ALL bad – there are some decent exchanges here and there, and again, the characters are likable for a change. Even when some hardass humans show up in the 3rd act, they’re not “evil”, and they actually end up becoming good allies. Any zombie movie that skips over the usual “but MAN HIMSELF is the real villain!” stuff is already on my good side – not that the plot point is bad on its own, but it’s become such a cliché, and rarely seems thought out; the goals of the human villains usually make less logical sense than the idea of zombies in the first place.

But unfortunately, a lot of the dialogue falls on the exposition-y side of things, which can get tiresome. Our heroine is Taryn Manning (well, by default anyway - she doesn’t DO anything in the movie but she’s the most well-known of the female stars), and she’s not as experienced at killing zombies as the other characters. So we get a lot of exchanges where someone will say “Let’s pop and drop!” and she’ll have to have it explained to her. And then five seconds later someone will refer to a “runner” and she’ll need THAT explained to her. It borders on ridiculous as well; our hero is telling a story about how someone recently died, and says “we encountered a pack.” As always, she has to ask what that is – isn’t it kind of obvious what it is when discussing how someone was killed by zombies? It’s a bunch of fucking zombies! I’d almost rather they use weird terms and not explain them than over-explain things that are pretty damn self-explanatory.

Luckily, things never get too talky, a problem that plagues most Asylum films, where we see scene after scene of people looking at monitors from control rooms while Giant Octopus and Mega Shark do awesome things off-screen. In the first 20 minutes we get three big zombie fights, with lots of dismemberment and decapitations. Again, it’s all done digitally, and it rarely looks good, but I’d almost rather they were consistent instead of doing it right (i.e. practically) every now and then, which would just make the digital stuff look even worse when cut together with the practical effects. Their goal here was quantity over quality, and usually they botch BOTH.

I was also surprised how much Ving Rhames was actually in the film. I saw his name on the cover (which adds a “2012” to the title) but figured he’d be in the movie for like 10 minutes or so, tops. But nope, he’s there until the final reel, and there’s only one instance where I caught them using a double. Every now and then they find ways to keep him out of the camera range when his character is present (his character usually brings up the rear, so the camera will go in close on the guys up front, cutting him from view), but it’s a real lead performance, not just the usual bait and switch you get from these things. And for a guy far more respectable than many; no offense to Dean Cain, but when the distributor tries to sell a movie on his name when he’s only in it for five minutes, it just looks doubly desperate to me.

It also has some scope to it, again something that often escapes Asylum films. It’s obviously all LA when it’s supposed to be somewhere in the Midwest TO LA, but there are like 5-6 locations in the first half hour alone, and the characters never hole up anywhere for too long. A school, a sporting goods store, a shipyard, houses, lots of different exteriors… again, it’s like a real movie! Hell at one point they could have even stayed longer in a spot; there’s a fun bit where the survivors are trapped in a work van, surrounded by zombies on the outside while one of their number starts to turn. They could have milked the claustrophobia a bit more, but the matter is settled and they’re on their way again after a few minutes.

On that note, it kind of reminded me of Left 4 Dead. The plot is similar to any level of that game, where your four characters make their way to some sort of rescue vehicle (in this case, a boat). There are different kinds of zombies (including a “tank” type), the weapons are similar, and like the game, it’s remarkably straightforward. Again, no evil humans, but there aren’t too many other obstacles either – it’s just all run n’ gun, with zombies as the only real threat. That said, they took a bit from "The Walking Dead" as well – in addition to an off-screen character named Kirkman (someone mentions Pittsburgh as well – they did their homework!), our badass black female character almost exclusively uses a sword as her weapon. But hey that means they’re reading stuff instead of copying popular shows/movies like usual – Michonne hasn’t appeared on the AMC show yet!

The DVD has a pair of fairly worthless features; a gag reel in which I can’t even see what went wrong (if anything; some of it just appears to be random shots of people hanging out), and a brief making of that focuses mostly on the cast. I’d actually love a look at the Asylum “creative process”, and if they were ever to do such a thing I’d prefer it was on something like this, where the movie’s actually pretty fun, than some piece of junk like Amityville Haunting or whatever. But hey, if cutting corners on those other productions is what allowed this one to be pretty enjoyable (the co-production with Syfy probably helped, too), so be it. Good work guys; too bad you opted for your usual fake quote on the back – I would have given you “Best Asylum movie ever!” for real.

What say you?

P.S. Don’t comment “Why didn’t you mention the ____?”, because I won’t post it. Yes, it was awesome, but mainly because I didn’t know anything about it. Let people be surprised for once.

PLEASE, GO ON...

Anna's Eve (2004)

JANUARY 14, 2012

GENRE: GHOST
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Weird connection - some of the folks who worked on Anna's Eve were also involved with the 2002 movie Love And A Bullet, and select crew from that went on to make April Fools, the abysmal slasher movie. Perhaps I should seek out Love And A Bullet to see if I can understand the mystery of how the people who made it went on to make separate but equally amateurish horror films that seem like no one involved understood how horror WORKS.

But whereas April Fools had some lovingly stupid moments (and who can forget "People call me POOP"?) and had the good sense to come in at 72 minutes, this overlong (95 minutes) bore is free of anything that can be considered amusing. At no point do the actors seem to realize that the movie they are acting out is pretty pointless and dull and thus maybe they should try to spice it up a bit by over-acting. It's almost kind of remarkable in a way; the back-story involves a social work case gone horribly wrong, and Grayce Wey's script (in which she stars as the main character) manages to make the ghost/murder scenes just as uninteresting as the ones involving writing up follow up reports about certain child welfare cases.

And director Kantz (that's the whole name) is no help, botching the few scare scenes that are actually on-screen. Most just occur entirely in our imagination; at one point a character seemingly runs to safety only for some dialogue in the next scene to inform us that she was actually killed. A good director would at least show the ghost running after her or popping up in their path, which would be a "good enough" choice if they weren't able/willing to actually SHOW the kill, but Kantz doesn't roll that way, I guess. This also leads to plain ol' confusion at times, particularly in the opening sequence. The movie starts awkwardly anyway; I thought the DVD had somehow skipped the first chapter as it seemingly starts mid-scene, but then the main character goes into a house and sees... SOMETHING, which causes her to scream as we cut to the main titles. Then it's "eight months later" and she's now addicted to pills and driving a different car, so whatever she saw was pretty important - why the hell didn't they SHOW it then? Again, we just hear it through dialogue, as if Kantz had come from the radio drama world and hadn't gotten used to the idea of working in a visual medium yet.

Now, off-screen kills can be fine if they serve a more interesting or twisty story, but this one is just the usual "ghost seeks revenge for her death/improper burial" thing that you've seen in a million Asian horror flicks, and we even get a scare ripped off directly from Ju-On for good measure. Plus their attempts at twists just render the story incoherent - the "bad guy" is not actually the killer, and his actions/character motivations are constantly at odds with one another (without spoiling too much - though I don't know why I'd bother - he sure has a weird way of showing how devoted he is to the woman he loves). Worse, the ghost doesn't even seem to distinguish between who killed her and who is just kind of a jerk; it's almost like she SIDES with her killer because somehow deep down she knows the other guy is really to blame. It'd be like if the Poltergeist ghost confronted the Freelings and was like "Look, I know you didn't know that you built the home over my grave, so just give me the address of your boss and I'll go haunt him instead." In short, a rational ghost is not a scary one (and my example isn't even as stupid as what happens here).

It's also a shockingly ugly film. Kantz likes to shoot everything in master shots or soap opera-esque closeups, sucking all of the energy out of what could be exciting scenes. And I'll ignore the fact that it's shot with non-top of the line high def, but not their attempts to filter obvious day for night shots by seemingly drenching the image in Smurf blood. But I guess at least they were TRYING to color correct that stuff; other scenes go by with one side of a conversation drenched in orange sunlight and the other just regular daytime, slightly bluish tones. The productions attempts at matching locations are also abysmal - at one point they cause confusion by using the heroine's hallway for someone else's home as if we wouldn't notice that the layout is exactly the same as long as they threw up a beaded curtain to "distinguish" it. Nope. Maybe it'll fool a child, but a kid would have turned the thing off long before this particular shot, having been bored to tears with the repetitive plotting and lackluster ghost scenes.

You'd never know the movie was a mess from the commentary by Kantz, Wey, and Lemar Knight who plays the film's "comic relief" character of a local crackhead (indeed, he IS the only amusing thing about the movie, but his character is awkwardly introduced and is there only to provide crucial info - I wondered if he was a ghost himself since he just showed up at important moments to help move the plot forward). Apparently the script was written in a week (what took THAT long?), they were frequently shooting without permits, etc. Kantz only second guesses ONE of his many botched scare scenes (one that wasn't even that bad, really), and Wey explains some of the movie's confusing plot points )mostly revolving around the ever-present teddy bear), but does so in a way that makes it sound like we're dumb for not understanding it, not that her week's worth of writing may not have been enough to produce a good script. To be fair they claim that 30-40 minutes were cut (and IMDb lists a runtime of 110 minutes) so maybe these things would have worked before, but they're sitting there watching their independently produced movie - if there was anything important missing they probably would have mentioned it. I do like the bit where they laugh at a health-conscious actor's work with a bag of Cheetos though - he spends the scene trying as hard as he can not to actually eat any. So for about 70 seconds I was finally entertained by Anna's Eve. Thanks guys!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Murder Obsession (1981)

JANUARY 13, 2012

GENRE: GIALLO
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

The main user comment for Murder Obsession (Italian: Follia Omicida; aka Murder Syndrome) on IMDb claimed that the story was "a mess even by giallo standards", which got me all excited - I was in the mood for a good "What the FUCK?" laugh-fest. But that viewer must not have been too bright or have seen many gialli; it's pretty standard fare with regards to the killer's identity, and his/her motive is clearly established throughout the film instead of just springing a bunch of back-story out of nowhere during the climax.

However, there were some elements that never quite gelled, so I guess if you're putting a lot of stock into them (or again, simply aren't used to the rather scattershot plotting of these things) then it might seem confusing. There's a subplot involving psychic/supernatural nonsense that mostly just seems to exist in order to smooth over a few would-be plot holes, and the "black mass" elements are never fully clarified, but again, these don't have much to do with guessing who the killer is, or even their main goal. It's like saying Die Hard 3 was a mess because you couldn't figure out the five gallon jug riddle.

Anyway, it's a cool flick; one that is partially influenced by the splatter films of the time as well as traditional gialli from the early 70s. It takes a little while to get to the kills, but they deliver - a chainsawed head being the big gore highlight. And if you enjoy the nudity in these things, this more than delivers - I think just about every female cast member disrobes at one point or another.

There's also a slight hint of incest between the mother and son, which is interesting to note because a similar element played into Tragic Ceremony, which was the previous horror film from director Riccardo Freda. Now THAT one was all over the place, certainly, but they both blend more fantastical elements with straight up thriller, giving them a unique identity in the sub-genre. This one isn't as funny (there's nothing as glorious as Ceremony's "monster or steamroller" news report), but it's never dull either; even with pretty much all the kills confined to the final 35 minutes, it's still peppered with "action".

And that includes some wonderfully goofy attempts at keeping everyone as a suspect - it's remarkable how many characters own black gloves, and how they act sneaky with regards to wearing them. I like to think that because this was 1981, the characters had all seen a bunch of gialli by now and realized that owning black gloves might make you look suspicious to anyone else. I was also charmed by a ten minute "dream sequence" that includes a giant spider and a bunch of bats on strings - and since it was a dream sequence, the strings don't even matter! We're told it's a dream right off the, er, bat (sorry), and parts of it really do resemble dreams (instantly changing locations and such), so it's nice that Freda gets to go for broke, without the usual crutch of having to try to fool the audience into believing that what they are seeing is actually happening.

I also liked that it seemed to have a small homage to Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None" (aka "Ten Little Indians"), as important information is relayed on a recording, utilizing a device that is set up similar to the way the killer in that story had himself killed. Maybe it was unintentional, but as with the story, it's sort of a "Here's the part of the story you weren't aware of" thing delivered by a character who is already dead, so it's certainly similar enough to warrant the thought.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get backup from the accompanying DVD booklet. Unlike Body Puzzle, Raro didn't commission a detailed analysis of this one, so all we get is a synopsis (which thankfully doesn't reveal the killer), a brief mini-review of sorts, someone's picks for the best scenes (who cares? Also, these DO spoil the ending), a couple of notes about the cast, and a mini-bio of Freda. In other words, it's a nice little booklet, but it's all stuff you could get on the IMDb page or something. I would think that the fact that it came out at the time when Italy was primarily focused on zombie films would warrant more insight from someone far more respectable than myself (so, pretty much anyone), but no dice. The disc's only extra is an interview with makeup man Sergio Stivaletti - this was his first job and he recounts a funny story about pissing off Freda on the first day, but he doesn't say much about the film itself (I would wager that it was taken from a longer interview about another topic, actually).

Another "unlisted" extra is that the film is presented with a few scenes that were originally cut from the US release, which also may have contributed to the IMDb guy's confusion if he saw the other version - one in particular explains (or at least, further hints at) the "psychic powers" subplot; without it those elements must REALLY be out of nowhere. The new scenes are easy to tell - they're still in Italian while the rest of the movie is dubbed, as once again Raro has misled the audience with the film's language. While it claims "Italian with English subtitles" (which are listed as "New and Improved" in the special features column!), the only option is a dubbed English track, excepting the 3 minutes' worth of restored footage (which was presumably never dubbed). Considering the work they put into the booklets and restoring the films, it baffles me that Raro has opted not to include the original soundtrack. For Body Puzzle I didn't mind much - half of the cast was speaking English anyway - but here it's a fully Italian-speaking cast, and while the dub is fine, those few moments in the original Italian are enough to make you bemoan the switch back to dubbing. That the original soundtrack is promised on the back of the DVD is just twisting the knife.

But again, it's great that they are releasing these films uncut for the first time on DVD (in the US anyway) and given nice transfers and respectable (if slim) extras as well. I'm sure I'll die before I ever get a decent release of Cathy's Curse.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Return Of The Living Dead 5: Rave To The Grave (2005)

JANUARY 12, 2012

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

I certainly didn’t LIKE Return of the Living Dead 4: Necropolis, but I will stand by my claim that it was a mild improvement on the 2nd film, which inexplicably brought back two actors to play different characters, focused too heavily on the comedy, and neglected to use the already established story from the original to create a faster pace – if anything it was SLOWER. Necropolis, on the other hand, suffered from some of the same problems… just in a slightly better way. However, Return Of The Living Dead 5: Rave To The Grave, is just as abysmal as ROTLD2, possibly even worse; the only interesting thing about it is that it actually mirrors that one in ways that I assume are not intentional.

The biggest is that it once again brings back actors from the previous film but doesn’t continue their actual character arcs. But it’s WORSE than 2, because there they were supposed to be different people in similar situations (how audiences were supposed to understand that, I have no idea), whereas here they are the same characters but have seemingly forgotten everything that happened to them in the previous movie! It’s Peter Coyote’s nephew and his girlfriend again, yet they have not only forgotten about Coyote’s attempts to kill them (he dies in the first 5 minutes of this one and the kid is actually broken up about it), but they seemingly don’t even recall anything about the zombies! Granted, I haven’t exactly stored the 90 minutes of Necropolis on my brain’s hard drive, but I’m pretty sure I’d remember if the characters were all brain wiped at the end of the film.

And again, despite the fact that the zombie problem has already started, we AGAIN have to start all over, which allows the filmmakers to keep the film from having any real action until the final reel. It’s a problem in pretty much every movie, which is unique to this particular zombie series – Romero only rebooted it once (in Diary), otherwise he always used the previously established problem as a means of getting into the meat of his story, which is what any intelligent screenwriter will do. But these two movies were written by Bill Butler, who also gave us gems like Demonic Toys 2 and Gingerdead Man, so telling a good story doesn’t seem to be something that concerns him.

But yeah, it’s Rave to the Grave – I shouldn’t expect wacky things like decent storytelling or interesting characters. Nor would I care that the movie lacked them, IF it was actually entertaining on some level, which it is not. Again, the zombie outbreak starts from scratch, so the promised “Rave” doesn’t even START until past the movie’s one hour mark, and then there’s a bit before the zombies start showing up there. The movie’s only good idea is that the Trioxin has found its way into some designer drugs, so all the idiots that are at the rave are popping the pills and turning, and no one else thinks much of it because they’re also high or just “feeling the music” or whatever it is that people at raves do instead of playing Skyrim like normal folks (level 26! Almost maxed on Smithing!). But even though they set up that pretty much everyone in attendance will turn into a zombie, it’s remarkably low-key, and even when “all hell breaks loose” they keep stopping the action to focus on two characters talking in a room or isolated, meaningless gags involving less than a handful of zombies attacking one dude.

They also bring back the Tarman, who earns one of the movie’s few laughs (and is given a nice modern makeup look by John Vulich) but it reeks of desperation, serving only to remind us exactly how far the series has fallen. It also just makes their refusal to follow the original’s “rules” more puzzling – it’s the same Trioxin, Tarman’s still around, etc – so why does a shot to the head actually work now, when the fact that it WOULDN’T was such a big factor in the original? And how many cans of this shit can possibly fall into the wrong hands, anyway? Coyote mentions that it’s one of the “original” cans – in 20 years they still haven’t found them all? It’s the rare sequel that would have been better if they had just ignored the other entries – at least then I could assume they slapped the title on an unrelated movie, a la all of those Demons “sequels”. But by constantly trying to tie it in, they just make it worse for themselves.

The only saving grace is Jenny Mollen, who plays the female lead and seems to be the only actor in the film capable of delivering a line (that she’s one of the few non-Bulgarians helps), and like Lance Henriksen, doesn’t let the fact that this is a worthless role in an equally worthless film deter her from actually putting some effort into it. I guess Coyote is as good as always too, but since he’s dead before the end of the first chapter it’s kind of hard to judge.

This was shot back to back with Necropolis*, which probably accounts for why that one was “not TOO terrible” and this one is “somehow more awful than you’d expect”, because they probably put more money/effort into that one and were all just burned out by the time this thing rolled. Someday there will actually be a good 2nd entry in a back to back production (every single one of them has failed – excepting LOTR which is a wholly unique situation), but until then we can continue to use movies like this as an example of why they shouldn’t even try in the first place.

What say you?

*According to an IMDb post, the scripts for the two films were actually swapped before production, so perhaps the giant plot holes were caused from that. However it doesn’t help much – that means Coyote would have died before his far bigger role in the other movie! What a friggin mess.

PLEASE, GO ON...

Midnight Son (2011)

JANUARY 11, 2012

GENRE: VAMPIRE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PREMIERE SCREENING)

Ordinarily I wouldn’t want to drive down to Santa Monica on a week night (or ever, come to think of it, but even less so on a week night), but it’s been a while since I’ve seen a good new vampire movie – all of the ones I’ve enjoyed recently (save some ironic enjoyment of Breaking Dawn, I guess) are older films. Thus, if I liked Midnight Son, I’d have something new to champion, having seen it before its release. And if I didn't, well, at least it was free and I got to see a couple of pals. But I liked it AND saw pals! Everything worked out nicely.

What works most about the film is its steady build toward a fairly surprising ending. Following in the footsteps of movies like Habit, there’s a not too thinly veiled metaphor for vampire-as-drug-addiction here, and usually those movies go down a certain path that this one avoids. At its heart is an awkward romance between our guy (Jacob) and Mary, a girl he randomly meets one night and connects with. She’s a cokehead, but who is he to judge – dude is starting to enjoy the taste of blood (including her own, from a bad coke bump – one of the ickiest “first taste” scenes I can recall).

Hilariously, they even take the drug metaphor a step further than usual, with a guy who apparently goes around draining folks of blood and selling it like drugs (he even gives a free bag, hooking Jacob in, and then drives up the price the next time around). Replace the blood with any drug, and this is a fairly typical “drugs sure do ruin lives” movie – there’s even a scene where Jacob shows up all “strung out” and causing a scene, which makes his dealer rough him up a bit. This plotline also goes to some interesting places though – as with a lot of the movie, it sets up things that you will probably assume will go a certain way, only for it to take a turn somewhere and make it a little more interesting and fun.

I did have two quibbles though. One is that the pacing can be a touch slow and repetitive – Jacob and Mary have THREE would-be sex scenes that go wrong for one reason or another, like they’re stuck in a loop from the final reel of some bad romcom where they have a blowout, come back together for some reason, make up, have a blowout… sure, it’s nice that we’re spared the usual lovey dovey shit, and I liked that the movie addresses the reality of two people who don’t really know each other trying to kick-start a relationship when they have things to hide, but it doesn’t change the fact that the plotting can feel a little cramped. There are only about 6 or 7 people of note in the entire movie, and it’s only near the very end that any of them besides Jacob interact with one another – mixing it up a bit might have helped.

I was also a bit confused as to why Jacob suddenly started getting sick. We learn that he’s had this disorder since childhood, but there seems to be no inciting incident for his “thirst”. There’s a bit about how the body grows until the age of 25 and he’s 24 – is this supposed to be the “final stage” of him becoming, essentially, a vampire? If so, what were the other stages? Maybe a couple of the scenes with Mary could have been shortened, with flashbacks showing other “events” that could fill that time? I would assume puberty had its complications or something, but based on what the movie (quite hilariously) shows us, the bulk of the usual vampire weaknesses are nonsense, and he doesn’t even have fangs, so is that it? You’re (we assume) born as a vampire, somewhere in there you find out you can’t go in the sun, and then when you’re almost 25 you wake up one day feeling super hungry and figure out that blood is the only thing that’ll do the trick? And that’s it? For a character driven take on a well-established legend, I think they could have fleshed out their “rules” a bit more – granted they obviously weren’t working with blank checks here, but talk is cheap, no?

Of course, thoughts like that only result from movies that you’re genuinely interested in, with characters you want to know more about. I don’t care in the slightest about how the kids in Spiderhole ended up homeless, or why our hero in Beneath The Darkness stopped running track, because there wasn’t any reason to WANT more than what they were offering. Here, I could have easily enjoyed another half hour of the tale – I realize this is a bit of a compli-sult, but if I didn’t point it out, the review would be too short. I went in knowing almost nothing, you should too.

One thing I WILL point out just so you’re prepared is that the movie was shot a few years ago, so the “ancient” phones and (for LA folks) plans to go to Spaceland (it closed in 2010) aren't odd stylistic choices. There’s also a plot point revolving around a video store membership card, something that might date it a bit as such places continue to close (indeed, I just discovered one of the last two Blockbusters in my area is now closing as well, which may be why this particular bit stuck out). Apparently they had shot the film and then lost their money for post, so it took a while to raise the cash to finish it (Blair Witch guru Eduardo Sanchez was one of its saviors – respect). Sometimes movies like that are total messes by the time they come out, victims of too much second-guessing, re-editing, etc, so I was quite happy to discover that it bared almost no signs of a troubled road to get to the screen. AND it’s worth seeing, making it even better.

The film will debut on Fearnet; if you’re like me you probably don’t have the channel in your lineup yet. Call 1-877-FEAR-247 and tell them your cable provider/zip code (calling your own cable provider and asking for Fearnet can’t hurt, either), because if they’re picking up indies like this for distribution, they’re clearly on the right track to doing this right (they’re also behind Adam Green and Joe Lynch’s horror-themed sitcom Holliston), so kudos to them. And if you’re reading HORROR Movie A Day you must be excited about the prospect of having a station dedicated to the genre, so do your part to help it succeed.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...