Vile (2011)

SEPTEMBER 13, 2012

GENRE: SURVIVAL
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX INSTANT)

It's been a while since I've seen anything that seems to exist only to entertain those who miss the Saw movies, so maybe that's why Vile hit the spot for me. After all, we're now almost two years since the last entry in that series, and the series' decreased popularity has resulted in way fewer movies per year that featured people trapped in a location and having to endure severe pain/torture in order to get out. Not that I'm complaining - I have just about had my lifetime fill of such things - but around this time of year, when the ending of the Saw franchise is most felt, I get a little nostalgic for inappropriate use of toolbox items.

And to Vile's credit, they get two things right that many (even some of the Saws) get wrong. First off, the torture is actually part of the point of the film, as our protagonists have been taken against their will and forced to inflict pain on one another in order to produce endorphins for their captors. A doohickey attached to their necks will collect the chemical as it is produced due to the pain, and once the captors have the amount they need for their drug, they will be set free. So the trick is to inflict the necessary amount of pain on each other, but not so much that they are killed or even handicapped, as they will be allowed to leave but don't want to have to carry anyone (after a day of torture, they wouldn't have the energy). Sure, it's the sort of logic that only works in horror movies, but it's better than people being tied up and tortured by the killers for no reason other than to pad the runtime in their plotless crap.

The other thing is that I actually liked the four main characters, who we meet on a camping trip (one that's successful, another rarity - they're on their way home when things go bad). The actors have great chemistry, and while they're not exactly the most interesting people in the world, it's nice to meet normal, likable people BEFORE they find themselves in danger in one of these things. So many of them just start when they're all waking up, it's refreshing to have this bit of backstory, as well as spare us the usual bullshit where people wake up and instantly accuse the others of being guilty of their predicament (the line "It's because of YOU that we're all here!" has been uttered many a time in these things, and it never fails to irk me). When the foursome wake up, the other people have already introduced themselves to one another, learned why they are there, and have plans in motion. It's a solid way to bring the audience into the story - it still fulfills the need for putting us in their shoes and letting us be just as much in the dark as they are, but with someone up to speed to explain it to them/us so we're not wasting too much time.

Also, though this might be a red mark for some, it's not too gory. Most of the torture involves prying off fingernails (usually off-screen, or at least not in closeup) or putting a hot iron on someone, as opposed to Achilles slashing or fingers being chopped off or whatever. I've seen enough of that nonsense in my life, so it doesn't faze me in the slightest that the movie is relatively "tame" in that department. The most heinous on-screen act is thankfully reserved for the movie's most obnoxious/hateful character, who kills one of them (sort of on accident) while trying to ward off the others when it's time for her turn to be abused. Without any reason to feel sympathy for this jerk, it's not even that hard to watch when one takes a wrench to her jaw in order to knock out some of her teeth. And they presumably do much worse to her, the movie fades to black, only to fade up on the screen showing their progress (much further than before they started in on her). The huge jump is not only a darkly funny "sight gag", but also spares us from the site of 3-4 people smacking a woman around for 10 minutes, as if we need to see it.

The score is also quite good; it doesn't really fit the movie in a traditional way - it sounds like Sigur Ros or something - but it's quite lovely and melancholy, and the few song selections are solid as well. Apart from the main Saw theme, I can't think of a single "torture" movie where I walked away wanting the soundtrack, so kudos to the filmmakers and their (uncredited) composer for pulling that one off. Speaking of credits - they're terrible. If anyone involved is reading this - call me for your next movie, I'll give you a good rate. No one should have to see a misaligned cast or the default Final Cut Pro font for the film's opening quote (by Gandhi!).

Otherwise, my only issue with the movie was its climax, which is dragged out and not particularly satisfying. One character's fate is left unexplained, and the reveal that one of them was helping the villains is not remotely surprising at all as he was obviously nudging everyone in the right direction, and his excuse for the existing scars on his body didn't make any sense. If we weren't supposed to be surprised that he was a mole, why even hide it? Show him being all shifty-eyed throughout the film, or even updating the head honcho on their progress (the main villain is underutilized as is). The movie does get a touch repetitive at times, so anything to break it up would have been a good thing.

Still, with its seemingly "you know what you're in for" title and the fact that I usually can't tell these things apart by the time I write the review, I walked away more or less impressed with what it brought to the table. And it's well made (though the audio was quite low - might have been a transfer error), most of the actors are solid, and gave me a reason to care about the folks being brutalized for a change. Any time one of these gets more right than wrong, I'm satisfied. Good work, folks.

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Queen Of Blood (1966)

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

GENRE: VAMPIRE
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX INSTANT)

Yesterday I came across this image, with the challenge to guess all of the movies being represented. I got most of them off the bat, and some I probably would have gotten easier if I had looked more closely (like Videodrome - didn't see the chest prosthetic). Twitter helped with the rest, and while I felt a bit stupid on some (I definitely should have gotten X), Q turned out to be Queen Of Blood, which I had never earn HEARD of until someone provided the answer. Luckily, it was on Netflix Instant, so I could quickly rectify this oversight. I mean, it's up there with American Werewolf and Nightmare On Elm Street, so surely it's a classic, right?

Well, no, it's not. I guess it's OK as a sort of "Watch it on Saturday afternoon with a cheesy local horror host" type movie, but everything in it has been done better since. And hell, some of it was done better ALREADY, as the very similar Planet Of The Vampires was released the year before, and is superior in every way (other than appearances of a young Dennis Hopper. This one's got Bava beat there). I assume it was released to cash in on that one, but they didn't even try to top it. You know when a video game system is more or less abandoned by its creators and only 3rd party guys make games that are released to the dump bins? That's what this is like.

Part of the problem is that it takes far too long for the Queen Of Blood to do anything. She's not even introduced until halfway through the movie, and then it takes another 10 minutes or so before she wakes up, and another 10 after that before obtaining some of that sweet blood (by killing someone). The movie's only 80 minutes long, so that's a hell of a lot of filler to get to the main event. I mean, shit, the monster in Alien didn't take this long to do stuff, and it had another 40 minutes at its disposal!

And that would be fine if this was working as a rich sci-fi story, but it's pretty basic: new race discovered, team goes to Mars to check it out, find only the Queen, bring her back to their ship, and shit happens. There's an interesting bit where one of the astronauts defends her actions, saying her killing a guy from another species to feed is not much different than us eating a steak, but otherwise there aren't any real heady ideas here - it's just junky sci-fi. And I do mean junky; the FX shots were cribbed from a couple of Russian sci-fi flicks, so the USA ships have Russian letters on them, and the sets are just the standard gray/silver boxes (control panels) placed in the centers of small rooms with a bunch of blinking lights. In other words, it's the same goofy set all 60s sci-fi had, but usually there's a better movie around it, so it didn't stick out as much.

They also set it in the future, for reasons I can't quite understand. The year, they say, is 1990, which explains the "future" clothes (yellow jumpsuits, not particularly flattering, but look what we actually got that year), but there's nothing else about it that demands to be set in the future, nor do they make any other attempts to sell it as such. There are only a couple of scenes set on Earth, and they're not particularly elaborate - one just has our heroes sitting around eating at a table in what looks like any commissary I've ever been to. THE FUTURE!

At least it offers John Saxon in the lead role, something I haven't seen all too much as he's usually playing supporting roles or the villain. He doesn't get to do much - a major plot point involves him not being part of the initial crew to go to Mars, which keeps him out of things for a while, but he comes off better than Hopper. Poor Hopper; his big scene is trying to show the Queen of Blood how to use a straw or eat, laughing as his attempts fail. Later, he is overcome by her 60's hairdo and the light that someone is shining in her eyes to make them (sort of) glow, and makes out with her, despite already having seen that she is dangerous. This summer's Prometheus would have similarly stupid scientists, so at least we can stop giving Ridley Scott shit for that bit - maybe it was a homage!

I also liked the grim ending, though it's clunky. Basically we see that her Queen of Blood eggs are going to end up on Earth, but we see that via an endless shot of the eggs being held in someone's hands - it seriously runs for 30 seconds, with neither the camera or the actor moving. It's almost like it was supposed to have credits rolling over it, or maybe one of the eggs was supposed to hatch and the effect didn't work but they didn't bother trimming the shot? Either way, while it's an awesome downer end, the poor implementation of the idea kind of undoes it.

All in all, it's passable entertainment at best, and I'm sure folks were fine with it at the time, but doesn't do enough to distinguish itself from other 60s sci-fi/horror that I've seen, nor does it hold up the way Planet of the Vampires did. And thus, it does not deserve the "Q" slot on that poster - Q: The Winged Serpent should have gotten it instead.

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Daughters Of Darkness (1971)

SEPTEMBER 11, 2012

GENRE: VAMPIRE
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

I had been putting off watching Daughters Of Darkness for a few days (I got the rental disc a week ago), because I knew it was a "lesbian vampire" movie, and also European (read: likely to be more explicit than an American counterpart) and thus I wouldn't be able to watch the film's two commentaries at work. Thus, I'd have to wait until I had five hours at home to go through it all, because I am self-forbidden from skipping commentaries before I write my reviews.

However, it's also been insanely hot (again) here in LA, so I don't want to spend 5 waking minutes in my house, let alone 5 hours. So I finally found a solution - I'd watch it at work after everybody had gone home, in my comfortable air conditioned office, on a night where I didn't have any actual work to do. That night was tonight, and within minutes my suspicions were made correct as I was treated to a fairly graphic sex scene right off the bat.

But here's the funny thing - the two big sex scenes in the film are both straight, featuring our male lead and his wife (scene #1) or a seductress at the hotel they were staying at (scene #2). As far as the lesbian stuff - I've seen more action on some network TV shows, as this angle is erotically charged, but not explicit. A few small kisses is as far as any of the actresses go with each other, but the impossibly gorgeous Delphine Seyrig merely smiling sexily at one of the other ladies is far more titillating than any full on love scene would be anyway.

That said, it's more of a fucked up relationship drama than a full blown vampire movie; there isn't a lot of vamp action, and what little there is is confined to the film's final moments. I don't even think anyone says vampire, and apart from blood drinking and the harm from sunlight, I think the only part of the traditional mythology that comes into play is the fact that they can't go under running water - which is one of the more rarely used elements in vampire movies. Garlic, crosses, mirrors - this stuff is ignored, but they go with the water thing, something I had actually forgotten about as I think I've only seen it in one other vampire movie (Dracula AD 1972), so I was actually kind of confused by the scene at first.

But the deaths are pretty nutty, so there's definitely a quality over quantity thing here as they seem like they might have inspired the Final Destination sequences at times. For example, a girl is falling, reaching around for something to steady herself, and grabs an open razor. She screams, slips further, knocks over some stuff, her lover rushes over, he slips, etc, etc, and eventually they both tumble to the floor, where she somehow lands on the razor, impaling herself. Later there's a car accident that ends in a reverse staking - it's applause-worthy to be sure, and more than makes up for the fact that the movie can be a little slow at times.

OK, make that very slow. It's all very sexy and peculiar, and I wasn't BORED, but if I were to sum it up for someone, they might be confused as to why it was 100 minutes long, as not much happens. There are a couple of wonderfully odd subplots (the man's "mother" in particular), but they could be excised without much harm, as the movie's really about just one thing - Countess Bathory (Seyrig) playing the young couple against each other so that she can eventually get rid of the guy and have the girl for herself. But doing it doesn't take much effort, so there's a lot of drawn out scenes and bits of randomness to keep it from happening too soon, or else the movie would be 45 minutes long.

But it works, if you're patient, and/or can appreciate the terrific performance from Seyrig, as well as a very off-kilter turn from John Karlen (Dark Shadows' Loomis), who often resembles Joe Pantaliano - I would love to see this movie paired with Bound, in fact, as that also has a lesbian character coming between a man (Pantaliano) and his unhappy wife. He's tasked with the rather unenviable position of being the male lead, who should be a hero since he's the human and Seyrig is the vampire after his wife, but he's actually kind of the biggest piece of shit in the movie. Add in the wonderful, not often seen Belgium locations and the great score by François de Roubaix (who sadly drowned a few years later, at the age of 36) and you have a plain ol' good film that happens to be a part of the horror genre.

Blue Underground's DVD has some terrific features, including those aforementioned commentaries. Both are worth listening to, though the one with Karlen is much more fun as he hasn't seen the movie in a while and snickers at some of its more out there moments in between some pretty strong recollections, including an unfortunate incident with director Harry Kümel that resulted in the two finishing the film as professionals and never speaking again. Kümel's track requires complete attention due to his thick accent, but it's worth the effort as he talks about the deeper layers of the story (which borders on narration at times, but not offensively so) and his inspirations. He also confusingly claims that the movie is not a horror movie, and in the same breath says he should have filmed an anonymous death of some guy on a bike with more blood, showing his head split open and such. Make up your mind, Harry. The two tracks are different enough to make them both worthwhile, but if you only have time for one I'd go with Karlen's, as it's more fun to listen to and less "stuffy".

But do find time for the supplements, which includes Kümel and co-writer Pierre Drouot traveling around the hotel that they shot the film at, some of which hasn't changed at all. The two men have a grand old time recollecting the shoot and bickering (in a friendly way) over what was shot where or when - it's much more interesting than seeing a fan of the film do it, which is what I'm used to for such "Locations: then and now" pieces. Then there are interviews with the other two women in the film; Danielle Ouimet who played Karlen's wife, and Andrea Rau who played Bathory's... uh, assistant? (her nature is never fully explained in the film). Like Karlen, they have fond memories of the shoot and of working with Seyrig, whose absence from this disc is a true shame as she died in 1990 at the age of 58, thanks to her heavy smoking habit. The film's ultra-schlocky trailer ("If you think these ladies are something, wait until you meet Mother... she's... something else!") is also included, if you want proof that ANY film can be given a trailer that makes it look like a silly B-movie.

The slow pace (acknowledged by pretty much everyone on the bonus material; even Kümel admits it's too slow) and minimal vampire action will obviously turn some folks off, but for those who can appreciate something a little more dramatic and alluring should be quite satisfied. This is the sort of thing I love finding for my daily movie - even if I never watch it again I'll single it out as one that made this 5+ year journey worthwhile.

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Brain Dead (2007)

SEPTEMBER 10, 2012

GENRE: COMEDIC, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX INSTANT)

There's a difference between fun and funny, and so far Kevin Tenney's films have mostly worked when they stuck to the former. Witchboard, for example (his best film, IMO) isn't something to be taken too seriously, but there aren't exactly a lot of jokes in the film - it's just a breezy horror flick. Ditto for Pinocchio's Revenge - it's even less "funny" than Witchboard, but you can FEEL Tenney smiling throughout. However, Brain Dead opts for more overt comedy - one-liners, bad puns, cartoonish behavior - which puts it into dangerous territory. If you're not on the same wavelength with the writers' funny bone, it's going to get grueling at times.

Luckily for me, it wasn't too bad. Sure, the ratio of successful funny lines was like 1:5 (being generous), but the fast-ish pace and surprisingly decent splatter FX made up for it. Plus, it's from 2007, so you can't fault anyone for trying to add levity to the genre at a time when just about everything was EXTREME thanks to the success of Saw and Hostel. Remember how grim so many horror movies were back then? Obviously this was an independent production without a lot of money at its disposal, so kudos to them for doing something that required a hefty FX budget and wasn't cashing in on a trend, instead of latching on to the "torture porn" wave that would seemingly get any movie with a girl chained up to a chair an instant distribution deal.

It also had the type of scenario I always like in a horror flick, where you get a bunch of different folks who don't know each other banding together against their common enemy. It's always preferable to the "group of friends" setup, because a. it lends itself to slightly more characterization (strangers need to tell one another what they do for a living, why they're there, etc - friends telling each other these things are just awkwardly giving exposition), and b. it makes sense when they fight. I've said it a million times - I hate not understanding why these carloads of kids even hang out, as they always seem to hate each other with their constant bickering (and usually a subplot about one of them cheating on his girlfriend with her best friend), so when they actually have a good reason to not get along (i.e. they just met under trying circumstances), it actually adds tension. Sure, most of it is deflated by the fact that people act silly, but it's still a step in the right direction.

Oh, and there's a Fletch Lives reference. Now, I, like any sane human being, was left pretty disappointed by this sequel, but it's not without merit (and apart from Christmas Vacation it's better than just about any Chevy-starring movie that followed), and thus I've watched it enough times to spot a reference. To wit, there's a corny TV preacher named Reverend Farnsworth, which was the name of R Lee Ermey's character in the film. At first I figured it was probably just coincidence, because that's a weird movie to reference, but then the girl he is with turns out to be named Smoot - which is one of the aliases Fletch uses when visiting Farnsworth in the film ("Claude, Henry, Smoot.").

Then again maybe screenwriter Dale Gelineau just was looking at the "F" part of his DVD collection for inspiration, as Fled comes up too - two of the characters are prisoners who are handcuffed together for the first half hour or so. Yes, that's the plot of Defiant Ones, but which movie is more likely to be in the collection of a guy writing a zom-com with juvenile humor? And like those films, the chains are removed too early (I want someone to do a real-time version where they have them on until the final reel), but the difference is they're both white - their opposition stems from one being an insane psychopath and the other being a guy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Guess which one survives to be the hero?

Speaking of which, I really didn't care for the movie's wraparound scenes, where one of the survivors is in jail telling the story. He comes off as a complete jerk in both, as opposed to his rather likable self in the main story (he's sort of like Sawyer from Lost as played by Trey Parker), and why bum us out at the end? It doesn't set up a sequel or anything (though a prison-set followup would be pretty great - from Night of the Living Dead to Assault on Precinct 13!), and it's not like the movie was only 65 minutes long and they needed something to pad it out, so I just don't get the need for these scenes.

I also don't get why they call the movie "Brain Dead" when there are two other movies with that name, one also a splatter-y comic version of a zombie movie (technically Braindead - one word). Especially when people can't be bothered to scroll back a tweet or two; I don't know how many times I've gotten replies from lazy people who mistake one movie I'm watching for the one they've seen. So (this is a made up example, for the record) if I say "I'm watching Alone In The Dark, a 1982 film directed by Jack Sholder" and 2 minutes later say "Alone in the Dark is so underrated", some jackass will instantly start bitching at me that Uwe Boll is the devil and ruined the game. Sure, the zombies here are specifically after brain matter, but come on - put a little more effort into the titles. Unless you're HOPING people buy your movie thinking it's the other, then you're just scummy.

Speaking of how the zombies operate, it's the rare zombie film in which you never see more than one or two undead at once. It's more like a parasite, so one person is turned as the original one is dispatched, and then they infect someone before getting killed, and so on. There's no big siege climax like most zombie films - it once again comes down to a single zombie advancing on a couple of humans, same as the attacks throughout the film. I prefer some escalation, but if the time they'd spend applying zombie makeup freed them up to enhance the kill scenes, so be it. I particularly liked the girl whose head had a giant hole in it, her now-corpse still upright and wandering around a bit.

Like I said, it mostly works. I'd happily trade 10 bad lines for one good one (or another location - the cabin isn't very big and they never stray very far from it), and those bookends should be excised from every copy that exists, but I had fun and was rarely bored, and I'm glad to see Tenney is still out there making films that aren't too far below his best work in terms of quality.

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Red Riding Hood (2003)

SEPTEMBER 9, 2012

GENRE: KILLER KID
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX INSTANT)

I'm always excited to see genre hybrids; even if they don't work, at least it shows some ambition, and paves the way for someone to get it right later. So once I realized Red Riding Hood was a combination of Giallo and Killer Kid movie, I got a bit giddy, hoping it would just get more awesome as it went. But alas, this will have to be the one the next guy uses to see what went wrong and make sure he doesn't make the same mistakes.

A big problem is that the twist is far too apparent, to the extent where I wasn't sure it was even supposed to be a surprise until they "reveal" it in the film's climax. I mean, I'm sure there's SOMEONE who was blown away by the fact that the killer George, our precocious main character's giant best friend who rides a bike and wears a goat mask, was actually just in her imagination and that SHE was the one actually killing everyone... but that person was not me. I mean, if they were trying to hide it they did a pretty terrible job - at one point she "sics" George on someone in a tunnel, and she noticeably disappears from the background as George advances on the victim. You'd think the director would have been careful about things like that if he was trying to preserve his secret.

It's also unfocused, as the movie spends far too much time on the rather ridiculous notion that our little girl "heroine" could not only live on her own in Italy (her stepmother abandoned her with loads of cash) but control her grandmother, who has come for a visit. At one point she yells at the poor woman and throws a bunch of tourist guides in her face, telling her she can go explore by herself - and this grown woman more or less agrees without a fuss. Smack the girl across the face! I mean, if they're going for absurdist humor, fine, but it doesn't quite gel with the horror plot of a girl killing people she deems unworthy (thieves and adulterers, mostly). Maybe it's because this stuff feels a bit like Saw (George even resembles the Pig-man getup that characters would use when carrying out some of Jigsaw's plans - and please note that this film is older than Saw), but it felt like two movies rammed together; one a strange "horror vigilante" movie, the other a Misery-esque psychological horror about a dysfunctional grandmother/granddaughter pair.

So it fails as a cohesive film, but there are a number of inspired moments to keep it more or less entertaining, particularly the gory murders carried out by a 12 year old girl. The best is when she catches her married dentist banging his assistant, so she tracks them to a hotel and kills them both with a nailgun - not sure how that translates to their crime (earlier victims were attacked in a justified manner; i.e. a thief got his hands cut off), but it's certainly an enjoyably splattery setpiece - especially if you see past the "George" thing and realize it's a little girl doing all of this. There's also a nice allusion to "Don Quixote" running through the film (she's reading the book for her home-schooling), as they're both about someone who seems deranged but is possibly the last one that is sane as they try to make the world a better place. And she's the one reading it more or less on her own, so it's a lot better than the usual thing where a teacher drones on about some literary classic that foreshadows what will happen later.

Oh, and there's a theme song, which is a big band type thing where the singer cheerfully explains the girl's terrible home life ("Mom's a hooker, Daddy left and Grandma's no looker" or something like that). Even better, it's an in-movie song, as at one point she turns it off! That's even better than the "Quixote" stuff - she even found a SONG that mirrors what's happening in her own life! Of course, this just adds to the overall problem of the film, that it's hard to tell if we're supposed to be taking any of this seriously, but hey, theme songs are rare these days, so I'll take it.

I won't take the obnoxious, confusing ending, however (more, less obvious spoilers ahead!). It's a few months later, and the little girl is in an institute. She looks out the window and sees someone who offended her near the top of the film, so she goes outside to finish the job - only for George to reappear. Now this would have been fine, but they keep going, as she demands to know who George is and it's revealed to be... her zombie dad? They then sing "Que Sera, Sera" and the movie ends. It's like the screenwriter wrote himself into a hole and decided to shrug a "fuck you" to the audience rather than come up with something that made sense. Still, it's not as baffling as the end credits, which play out normally and then we keep listening to the song for an extra three minutes over a blank screen. What a weird little movie.

The movie was produced and co-written (under a pseudonym) by Ovidio G. Assonitis, best known around these parts for writing/directing the immortal Beyond The Door. He was also the guy who meddled with James Cameron on Piranha II and eventually had him fired, so thank him for whatever Cameron has done since. Sadly this seems to be his swan song; he worked pretty steadily over the years but hasn't had a credit in any capacity since his work here. He'll never top his 70s work (he was also behind Tentacles!), but I really miss these guys, and Italian horror in general. I keep hoping there will be a revival and a whole new crop of guys will start making nutty ripoffs of our movies, but then again I guess we'd have to make some good flicks for them to copy first. Not like anyone's going to do a bunch of sleazy knockoffs of The Possession or The Raven.

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Raaz 3 (2012)

SEPTEMBER 8, 2012

GENRE: REVENGE, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

The Laemmle theater in West Hills (about 20 minutes north of me, 30 or so north of Hollywood) regularly plays Hindi films, and is seemingly the only theater in that area that does, so I assumed Raaz 3 would be somewhat crowded, being the newest selection and the 2nd day of release. But no, in fact for the 2nd time since moving here I had the entire theater to myself (the other being Don't Go In The Woods, and rightfully so), allowing me to burp without worry, mutter "Whoa..." at nonsensical plot points, and (sorry) check my phone during the two dance numbers, as they weren't subtitled so I had no idea what they were saying anyway.

And yes, only two! I have long heard about Bollywood films and their frequent, out of nowhere dance numbers, so I was actually kind of interested in seeing how they fit into a horror movie narrative (or any narrative, since this was my first Bollywood movie), and given the movie's 140 minute runtime (with a plot that only has three characters for 90% of it) I figured there would be several. But no, just the two, and both of them are just extended "movie in a movie" bits, as the film's three main characters are a director and the two women he is torn between. So we see one of them film a dance scene early on, and then the other has her own about an hour later. And again, there's no subtitles during these scenes for whatever reason (the lyrics for the soundtrack songs are usually subtitled, however), so if the songs had some tie to the plot the effect was lost on me. Likewise, at the end of the film the hero gives a monologue in voiceover that is also left to my imagination - all the weirder when you consider that they even subtitle the frequent lines that are spoken in English.

Anyway, the movie is pretty fun, though the length is a major hurdle since the plot isn't very complicated and there aren't a whole lot of horror scenes, either. Basically one actress is getting older and jealous of a rising star, so she has her boyfriend (the director) cast her in his next movie so he can be close enough to put some slow-acting curse potion into her water or tea. He has to administer a dose each day for some reason, and of course with each day he finds himself feeling more guilty about it as he falls in love with her, so the angry actress has to step up her game and reveal... that they are sisters! Huh? It's a wonderfully soap opera-esque twist that has almost no bearing on the plot, but I admired the nuttiness.

The horror elements mostly stem from the moments where the poison takes effect, with the best being one of the first. A PA tells her she has to go to set #3, and then we see set #8, as the left side of the "8" disappears to make a "3". So she walks in there, and of course no one is around... except for a demonic killer clown! This Pennywise wannabe chases her around for a while, until she gets out, after which the clown never appears again. Except in your nightmares! No one in the audience means I can snap a pic!

There's also this zombie/demon type dude with flies buzzing around him, and a swarm of CGI insects, so they mix up the enemies but the scenes are all the same - freak out the poor girl until she embarrasses herself. Eventually it harms her career and she is replaced on a movie with the villainous woman (their names are Shanaya and Sanjana - had trouble remembering who was who), and the director switches sides. There aren't a lot of deaths in the movie either; there's a great bit where the good actress' assistant begins jabbing herself with shards of glass, and she ends up dead, and a magic expert loses his head trying to help end the curse, but otherwise it's just these glorified hallucinations until the climax, some 2+ hrs into the movie.

And those CGI bugs are atrocious, which is a bummer since it's basically the movie's big centerpiece horror scene. The more of them in the shot, the more it seems to tax the abilities of the animators; on several occasions you can see one supposedly crawling on her chest or upper arm only for the other arm to flail in between them, as if they were merely crawling on a piece of glass 10 feet in front of her (which is how such effects USED to be achieved, before CGI theoretically could do it "right"). I was also confused by the hospital set climax, as the villain is seen wandering through the halls looking for the heroes, and you don't see a single nurse or orderly the entire time - are they in Haddonfield hospital, or what? Where is everyone? It kills a lot of the tension that it should have, as you feel there's no real danger or stakes - it might as well have been set in an abandoned warehouse (or the closed down movie set, which would have been great since the whole filmmaking aspect of the movie is more or less abandoned after the first half).

But it still mostly works, thanks to the assorted silliness and Mulholland Drive-lite story of ambitious actresses. The two women are gorgeous, and the hero's involvement gives it some extra weight - you want to root for him even though he's the one actually doing the poisoning. It's also got some inadvertently hilarious moments, like when the hero starts to come clean and the soundtrack fades out his dialogue and replaces it with a song. So you just see him confessing everything to another character, and their expression, but it feels like the director knew that YOU already knew all these things so why not enjoy a song instead? There's also a curious bit where he suspects that the bad actress has put the poison in their water bottles, so you see him dumping them and replacing them with fresh water. But the good one sees him doing it, so he makes a "You know me, I'm just weird" expression (again we have a song over the scene, forcing everyone in the sequence to mimic), which she laughs about as if this WAS indeed something she should be used to by now. Also, she has a Fright Night remake poster up in her house, possibly hinting that she's evil too.

Then again, maybe it's just a tip of the hat to a fellow 3D movie, as this was shot in 3D (but not playing in 3D here, sadly). Apart from a few comin at ya type shots during the scare scenes, I don't really see the need for the extra dimension. Most of the film is just two of the three main characters talking in a room or something, so it hardly lends itself to the sort of thing 3D excels at (intricate, vast settings, big action scenes, etc). I'm sure no one would argue about seeing the two leading ladies in the third dimension during their dance routines (or even when they're just talking), but overall I can't say I was ever disappointed that I was seeing it flat.

Thus, for my first Bollywood film I was more or less impressed. I probably wouldn't want to sit through it again, but it was much more focused than I was led to believe these type of movies usually are, and while the horror elements were brief, most of them were worth the wait (and it earned its R rating). Maybe I'll look into seeing the first two (unrelated) entries before I wrap the site up - has anyone seen them? Pros/cons? Or any other Bollywood horror films you can recommend?

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Laddaland (2011)

SEPTEMBER 7, 2012

GENRE: SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

Maybe it's just coincidence, but it seems I've seen way too many "based on a true story" horror films lately - why are we not hearing about these exciting stories when they happen? I understand how it can add an extra layer to the marketing, but 9 times out of 10 you won't even find the alleged true story, and the other time it will be so modified, as is the case for Laddaland, that you can pretty much say any movie is based on a true story. Armageddon? Based on a true story! There ARE asteroids and there IS a space program, right?

It's pretty much the same thing here. There is a real place nicknamed Laddaland, and some urban legends surround the place for whatever reason, but nothing's ever actually happened there, best as I can tell. This "true story" is merely an embellished/modified version of one of those urban legends, which is like the Kevin Bacon-y form of a true story, if you ask me. But I can't deny it works on the easily duped portion of the audience (and let's face it, most horror movies are aimed at these folks) - I clearly remember overhearing a guy at Best Buy telling his friend that the super 8 "evidence reel" at the beginning/end of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake was the actual evidence from the real case.

Anyway, all that nonsense doesn't matter if the movie's good, and Laddaland is in that ballpark. With some tighter editing and maybe one more big scare scene this would rival the top draws in the Asian horror genre, in my opinion, as it focuses on the story of its main characters instead of the story of its ghost. So many of these things spend so much time explaining the hows and whys of its villain that I lose sight of why I should care about the main character - that doesn't happen here. Similarly, it's coherent! Everything about the ghosts is pretty cut and dry, and most of the horror stems from the main character's growing desperation as his life crumbles around him - it's more like Session 9 than The Grudge, in other words.

It starts off like a typical Poltergeist type thing, with a family moving into a new home inside a gated community - living the ideal life. The dad buys a new flatscreen, they have a fully automated air conditioning system (this elaborate setup seems to exist just to justify a scare later, but fine), etc. But then his office goes bankrupt, and neighbors start dying off... could it all be related? The answers might surprise you if you've seen enough Asian horror, since it's usually so much more convoluted, but I liked that they opted for a "keep it simple" option for a change. Even when there's a big twist, it serves the main narrative about a guy who is coming undone, as opposed to something that gets tossed in just to give the film a scare when it "needed" one.

But director Sopon Sukdapisit (who wrote Shutter) botches a potentially great scare scene, one that should have been the "Nurse in the hallway" (from Exorcist III) moment in this film, where everyone walks away talking about how scary it was. Our hero is looking for his son, and he sees a fridge that has been taped shut, which then shakes. Assuming his son is trapped inside, he frantically tears all of the tape off, and as he gets the last piece, his cell rings. Rather than open the door, he answers it, and of course it's his wife telling him that she found their kid, he's home safe. So we're supposed to be terrified that there's SOMETHING in that fridge, but it's impossible to get too worked up because any sane person would be shaking their head at why he stopped to answer his phone before opening the door. What should have happened is, he's on the phone already and then notices the fridge, and starts tearing off the tape. Just as he gets to the last piece, the wife can say "Oh, false alarm - here he is!", leaving him/us with the dread that he just unknowingly freed a ghost/demon/whatever. That extra beat just kills everything.

This also could have helped the movie's other issue - being too long. It runs just under two hours, which is a lot for a movie that doesn't really have much of a plot or even a lot of scare scenes. One could argue that the extra time spent with the family makes the ending all the more tragic, but I think I would have been just as sad (it's a REALLY sad ending, capped with a salt in the wound montage of events that led up to the film's beginning) if the movie was only around 100 minutes, perhaps even more so as there wouldn't have been so many stretches where nothing of note was happening (there's a lengthy scene with the daughter and her pals that could have been cut in half, easily). It also has some unnecessary Snorri-cam shots that could have been removed entirely without hurting the movie at all.

But while there are some questionable visual elements, the surround sound is top notch. Even though the subtitles seemed to be dumbed down compared to the dub track (like "Hey, what time are we having dinner tonight?" becomes "When's dinner?" - that sort of thing), I opted to listen to the original language with subs just so I could be sure that I was getting the full surround mix, as it was terrific. More than once I actually looked behind me because I thought my cat had knocked something over or there was a commotion out on the street, only to realize it was just a well placed surround effect. Many films that I watch don't bother taking advantage of what Dolby offers, so when I realize how much I'd be missing without it, it makes the time I spent setting it all up worthwhile.

The DVD has a few interviews from what appears to be the film's press junket, and the subtitles seem to be translated by machine (or a non-English speaker), so they're not of much use unless you enjoy hearing people describe the characters you've already been through a journey with, and explaining how scary it will be. I did laugh at one bit, however - the lead actor praises the little kid playing his son (who has the awesomest name ever: Gobgab) for being able to work until 3 or 4 in the morning without a fuss. We have rules about that sort of thing here in the US, so it's funny that not only is it allowed over there in Thailand, but apparently something they flaunt. The trailer for this and some other films in the same vein are also included - hardly a special edition, more like a mint on your pillow.

It's probably a bit too slow and "conventional" for those who really get into Asian horror, but I really appreciated the more character driven, dramatic take on this sort of material, having long grown tired of haunted devices and vengeful spirits that were buried in the walls or in a well or whatever. If someone were to fan-edit it down to 100 minutes or so, it would be one of my all time faves of the sub-genre, but even as is it's still more memorable than most. Good work, everyone!

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Baby Shower (2011)

SEPTEMBER 6, 2012

GENRE: CULT, THRILLER
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX INSTANT)

Few things annoy me more than movies that seem unwilling to kill its characters, and if you share the sentiment, then you should probably avoid Baby Shower, in which it seems the entire second act revolves around people coming back to attack someone after they had apparently been dispatched (and then that person will come back to knock out someone else). It completely sucks all the tension out of the film, because it just seems like everyone has Wolverine-style regenerative powers - KILL SOMEONE! Let me know that there are actual stakes here!

And it's a shame, because the first half starts off pretty tense and unique, as the movie concerns a very pregnant woman who has assembled her friends for a shower, not waiting long to reveal her true motive: finding out which one of them has been sleeping with her husband. But then the studly housekeeper is attacked, and it seems like we have a Twitch Of The Death Nerve type thing going on. So far so good, right?

But then we also meet a strange group of hippie types who have been assisting Angela with her pregnancy, and the movie switches to focus on them. It seems the housekeeper guy is part of the group, and he was merely being knocked out as punishment for banging one of the friends (it's against their beliefs of being pure and all that horseshit). Then another cult person shows up, and another, and everyone seems to hate each other, and blah blah blah - the movie basically devolves into a series of scenes in which someone suddenly lashes out against a person that they thought was their ally, like 9 seasons of 24 twists compressed into a 50 minute section of a horror film.

This sort of thing can work (Rabies did something similar, and we can even keep the Death Nerve comparison alive), but those movies had the surprise factor working for them, steadily escalating and pulling the rug out from under you. Not that case here; writer/director Pablo Illanes just keeps returning to the "but they're not really dead yet!" trick, and the original mystery of who was sleeping with the husband has a shrug of a reveal (not that any answer would matter, because we never meet the husband until late in the film anyway). Sorry, but The Descent has already had the greatest "Find out your best friend is banging your husband" subplot in horror history (and perfect execution of how it plays out in the larger picture), so when you're screwing everything else up in your female driven horror film, the director might as well just turn to the camera and tell you to go watch that instead.

It doesn't help that everyone's kind of annoying. Angela has a reason - she's about to give birth (to twins), she isn't feeling well, and her friends/husband have betrayed her. But the friends are largely terrible people: an egotistic cougar, a meddlesome worrywart, and an instigating "tough broad" type (who turns out to be the one banging the husband), plus a whiny assistant to one of them who just tags along for the ride (and gives Illanes someone to kill relatively early, though she puts up a fight too). And the villains just come off as cartoonish, spouting their babble about "Universal Truth" or whatever the hell. The movie gets back on track near the end, when Angela finally takes a stance (she spends the bulk of the movie just kind of hanging out as the cult and her friends battle - if we're supposed to wonder whose side she's on it doesn't quite work), but it's too little too late - the movie had completely lost me by then.

Luckily, it's a foreign horror film, so it has a decent chance of being remade, thus giving them an opportunity to fix it. Balance the two subplots properly, make the characters more interesting, and have at least one villain come off as competent, and this could work as a gruesome, slightly dark comic thriller. As it stands, it's merely serviceable; yet another film that can't stick the landing and leaves you having trouble remembering what you liked about it initially.

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Darkness Falls (2003)

SEPTEMBER 5, 2012

GENRE: SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

When I added Darkness Falls to my Blockbuster queue, it was to merely see the parts I missed when I slept through most of it in theaters. That was in 2005. Now it's been so long (and I've neglected to re-order my queue) that when it came I realized that I couldn't remember what little of it I saw, and since it had been nearly 10 years, it qualified for an actual HMAD entry. I then hoped the movie would entertain me enough to not notice how old it made me feel that I'm already forgetting stuff from the same year I got my first apartment.

Well, it didn't. It's a mess of a film, with convoluted rules that are mostly broken (she can't go in the light, except when she does) or ignored (a major part of the climax involves a police car - no one thinks to turn the lights on to ward her off). And despite three credited screenwriters, no one ever managed to give the movie a 2nd act - we learn what the issue is and what the stakes are, and then the climax kicks off. I guess the bit about the hero being accused of the killings is supposed to be its middle, but it covers maybe 7 minutes of the movie and just seems to be padding.

Ordinarily, I'd say "and should have been cut" for such matters, but this movie needed all of the help it could get in the runtime department, as the actual movie (which includes a lengthy prologue and an epilogue that seems to kill the idea of a sequel) only runs 74 minutes, which is why the end credits run forever (there's like 10 seconds of nothing in between each actor name) and also why I couldn't remember much - it's possible I was asleep for more than half. There are some deleted scenes on the DVD, and while most are useless, I'm shocked they didn't put them in just to make their narrative less laughably short - there's even a big, fairly decent scare scene that got cut, so their editing logic is baffling.

It's also distractingly "wrong", where the actors and the location didn't quite match the script but no one bothered to fix it one way or the other. So we have a kid that looks like he's 14 losing his last baby tooth (!), but he's in middle school so he should only be like 11. Then it's 12 years later (which would make him about 23) and he's become actor Chaney Kley, who is about 30 and looks nothing like the actor playing the younger him. Not that it matters much to the narrative, but it's just silly that they have actors who are all noticeably older than they are supposed to be and nothing like their younger counterparts (Emma Caulfield's character is played by Sucker Punch's Emily Browning for the flashback - another one that doesn't quite work).

But that's nothing on the location, which is supposed to be a coastal Maine town. Some of the basic look could pass for the area, but the fact that Kley and Caulfield are the only ones that aren't Australian is a bit of a giveaway, and the actors' attempts at hiding their accents are usually unsuccessful. Odd looking license plates and a distinct lack of Canadian tourists are also dead giveaways, making me wonder why they didn't just say it was set in Australia and save themselves the embarrassment. Caulfield's character is also curiously in charge of her younger brother, with not a single mention of her parents - why not just make him her son? Add all this stuff together, and you have a very clunky, jarring movie that seems to be going out of its way to distract the audience from ever believing a second of it.

And that's a big problem when the director was going for a more atmospheric movie than one with a bunch of kills (being PG-13, he didn't have much of a choice). Such films can only succeed if you're completely buying the reality of what's going on - they can't even make me believe in the location of the town, let alone the creepy tooth fairy that's haunting it. And by racing past character development and such, it feels like we've arrived at the finale before we've gotten a handle on everyone, so there's just little reason to care about who lives/dies, or even what's happening at all.

On the plus side, it's well shot by Jonathan Liebesman (his first film) and DP Dan Laustsen, who has a number of similarly impressive looking films on his resume (including The Possession, currently the top box office draw) - I may not believe it was Maine for a second, but the Australian coastline and various light/dark interiors look terrific even on this overstuffed DVD (both cropped/widescreen versions are on the same side, plus about 40 minutes of video supplements) - if the movie was better I'd probably pick up the Blu-ray if it was cheap enough, just to enjoy the look. And I've harbored a crush on Ms. Caulfield since Buffy, so that'd be another high def bonus.

The commentary tracks are more entertaining than the film, sadly enough. One is with Liebesman, co-writer James Vanderbilt, and two of the producers, and they bust each others' balls and laugh about the film's various "issues" (they're particularly amused by the endless end credits) - it's the sort of track that actually pays off those "the views belong to those who said them, not the studio or their affiliates" disclaimers at the top of any recent special edition DVD. The other track by producer/co-writers Joe Harris and John Fasano isn't quite as fun, and some of the same ground is covered, but it's similarly honest. If you have time for both, fine, but otherwise I think just the first track will suffice your need for more Darkness Falls trivia.

The making of and storyboard comparisons can also be bypassed unless this is your favorite movie of the year or something, but the piece on the "real" legend of Matilda Dixon (the tooth fairy) is pretty fun, fleshing out her tragic story and how she has appeared over the years. It's also set in Australia, further confusing the issue about where the film was supposed to be taking place. Then, as mentioned, there are a few deleted scenes, most of which probably could have been left in the movie without harming it any - one even smooths over what seems like a major narrative leap where Caulfield randomly calls a childhood friend from a payphone in the hospital (the deleted bit shows a doctor suggesting she get a second opinion from someone who had dealt with this sort of night terror before). None of it explains why she's taking care of her little brother, however (though Fasano says something like "everything that doesn't make sense DID at one point" on his commentary, though doesn't say if the explanation was ever shot or merely excised through rewriting).

So it's not a good movie, but it's got some merit, and the mostly worthwhile bonus features make it a worthwhile rental, at least (and I'm telling you this now, 9 years after it hit DVD). And also, I'm kind of charmed that a movie this low budget, star-free, and shoddy would have gotten a wide release AND been a big hit just under 10 years ago. The best something along these lines could hope for nowadays is a limited release as part of the next After Dark Horrorfest - but more likely it would debut as a Syfy Original. I suspect it got a bigger push after supernatural horror got hot again thanks to The Ring a few months before, and was possibly rushed (the making of shows them working on the score a mere 6 weeks before it was released), which may account for its sloppiness. Either way, kind of shocked it never got a sequel. What a peculiar little movie.

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The Toxic Avenger: Part 2 (1989)

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

GENRE: COMEDIC, MUTANT, SPLATTER
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX INSTANT)

I'm sure there's an audience for The Toxic Avenger: Part 2, but I can't say I'm part of it, finding only the barest of bare minimums' worth of entertainment in its bloated 103 minutes to keep it out of the crap bin. Not that I loved the original by any stretch of the imagination, but it had an odd charm and a fun spin on the revenge plot, a far cry from this rubbish, which is little more than a series of barely connected sequences in which Toxie takes on a bunch of random villains over and over.

And no, that's not a typo - this fucking thing is 103 minutes long (Casablanca is 102 minutes, just to make one unfair comparison), despite a plot that boils down to "Some guys want Toxie to leave Tromaville, so they send him to Japan for a while until he comes back." Apparently there's a 96 minute cut out there, but it's missing all the gore, which is one of its few saving graces. I wish I could tell you to seek out the shorter one if you absolutely must watch it, but alas it would actually be a bigger waste of your time, as some of the FX are kind of impressive.

I can also give it this much: there's a fun variety to the bad guys he fights ad nauseum throughout the film. In the film's endless opening sequence he battles an American Indian (as well as the other Village People personas), some 1930s gangster-looking dudes, a giant that is dressed like Super Mario, a midget Mr. T type guy... the costumer on this movie must have had the most work to do. And this motif continues once he goes to Japan, with Kabukiman, samurai dudes, etc all taking their turns being brutally murdered by our hero.

But the fights are dull - they all amount to someone trying to kill Toxie by running at him, maybe swinging a weapon as they do, before he grabs them and rips their head off or impales them with a nearby object. Worse, director Lloyd Kaufman is more interested in humor than actual horror violence, which means if you don't find cartoon sound FX and over the top mugging from hero and villain alike to be particularly amusing, you're going to be shit out of luck with this one, as every single fight is peppered with shit that would probably embarrass Friedberg & Seltzer. Especially when everything in between is even worse - scenes of Toxie wandering around Tokyo (lot of fish out of water "humor") or talking to either of his two love interests (one of them another blond woman who is blind, but not the same one as the original) are about as dire as they come. Worse still are any scenes where the villains are discussing their evil plans, which make little sense even for a Troma movie and are played by the film's worst actors. At one point the villainess even explains what happened "in the first movie", despite the fact that this is supposed to be a direct continuation (meaning, it's not like Halloween III where they watch Halloween, as it's established as a separate movie-verse).

To be fair, there are a couple of funny lines here and there, usually in the otherwise grating voiceover from one of the two actors who play the character this time (neither of them are the guy from the original). I liked his observation that he knew he had to be half-Japanese because he always had non-American urges to work hard and not live off of credit cards, and there's an inspired bit (probably stolen from something) where someone quotes Shakespeare and the person they're addressing offers "Fuck you!" and attributes it to David Mamet. With roughly 1000 more lines like this, the movie could have been tolerable.

But alas, it's just an endless series of not particularly exciting or funny sequences, culminating in a car chase between Toxie (in the back of a taxi) and the villain (named "The Black Rider" - second one this week!) that's about as low-key as you can imagine for the climax of a movie. That the Black Rider is an out of nowhere villain that we have zero association with is the least of its problems (though it gave me unfortunate flashbacks to last month's pathetic Bourne Legacy), but at least there's a couple of car explosions along the way to break up the tedium.

I later learned that the film's first cut was nearly four hours long, which would explain the half-assed "ending" of this one - it's basically the halfway point of a movie. The 2nd half was turned into Toxic Avenger III, which I guess I'll suffer through soon enough just so I can see how his uninteresting fight against the evil corporation all plays out. At least that one's a minute shorter, so I'm already more likely to prefer it.

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Blu-Ray Review: Piranha 3DD

SEPTEMBER 3, 2012

GENRE: COMEDIC, MONSTER
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

Usually when I do Blu-ray or DVD reviews of movies I saw theatrically, I find my opinion has changed some. Usually I find that a movie (such as Shark Night) is nowhere near as enjoyable the 2nd time around, but every now and then I find myself warming up to a film in the comfort of my own home, such as Pandorum. Piranha 3DD, however, is an anomaly - overall, I feel exactly the same about it as I did three months ago, when I managed to be one of the very few people in the country to find it at a nearby theater.

Yes, in all their infinite wisdom, Dimension - who gave a wide release to the star-free chore Apollo 18, remember - dumped their followup to a recent hit movie on a mere 86 screens, most of them rundown or second rate places that never draw the sort of big crowds that make movies like this much more enjoyable (oddly enough, it played in the exact same screen that the original played for its press screening). And they didn't exactly promote the theatrical release, choosing to focus more attention on the film's historic debut on Facebook (the first, from what I understand), where you could "enjoy" the film's native state of the art 3D via conversion to the inferior anaglyph ("red and blue") format. Kind of ironic - the first film was a (poor) post-convert that enjoyed thousands of screens and a real presentation, and this time they shoot it right and convert it to the shit kind for most of its viewers. Someday Bob Weinstein will make a decision that makes any goddamn sense to a rational human being, and I just hope I'm still alive to see it.

Luckily, the real 3D format has been preserved for Blu-ray, so those with 3DTVs and equipped Blu-ray players (or an updated PS3) can enjoy all the boobs and blood (and fish) in all its native 3D glory. I sadly do not have such a TV as of yet, but I assume it looks as it should, given that Anchor Bay (who handles all Dimension home releases) traditionally does a fine job with their transfers. And they give you plenty of options: the set comes with a standard def DVD and a traditional (2D) blu-ray, and at a 29.99 price point (less than half that on Amazon right now) it's one of the cheapest I've seen as the 3D Blu-rays tend to run an extra 5-10 bucks WITHOUT the extra discs.

I would have traded any of those discs for an unrated cut of the film, however. Since the MPAA was so harsh on the team's Feast films, I imagine they had to have demanded a few snips here and there, and the film's brief running time (82 minutes, with TWELVE of those given to end credits) suggest there was a little more meat on this bone originally. But alas, it's the same cut that played in theaters (actually missing a shot, according to the commentary, but they don't elaborate and I have no idea what they're referring to), so if you were left disappointed (or downright hating it) there's no need to give it another shot, as like I said I don't think this one benefits (or weakens) from repeat viewings.

For those that more or less enjoyed its gratuitous nonsense (or haven't seen it, which is more likely), you know what you're in for, especially if you're familiar with the Feast films. It's less mean-spirited than those (I'd stop short of saying "commercial"), but it offers the same bad-taste smorgasbord of despicable characters and a glorious lack of restraint. Any movie where a little girl is run over by a golf cart while grieving over the body of her mother (a piranha victim) is automatically OK in my book, and there are even a few bits of genuine suspense, such as the extended sequence with Katrina Bowden trapped on a small section of a dock that has been ripped apart by the hungry, swarming fish. And it's too short to get bored with, with each act of the film amounting to barely more than a standard reel of film.

But, as I said before, they don't save enough for the big finale, which was the original film's strong point. Rather than give us little tastes before opening the floodgates when the fish attack the water park, they never hold back - by the time it comes we've already seen plenty of nudity, a man cut off his own penis (which is being bitten by a fish), another sexual encounter that results in slaughter, and Gary Busey biting the head off a fish that just entered the world thanks to the excessive flatulence of a dead cow. I mean, what the hell is left to do besides kill off a couple of the main cast (though not as many as you'd think, considering the body count of the Feasts) and let David Hasselhoff make fun of himself for another few minutes? It's also a brief attack - thanks to the time display on my player I know now that the big attack lasts less than 13 minutes, and that includes a lot of slo-mo shots of the Hoff or other characters in closeup, reacting to carnage we don't actually see right at that moment.

I also would have traded one of those discs for some better bonus features, as none of them are really worth the disc space. Hasselhoff, Busey, and David Koechner each get a 2 minute segment to themselves, a mix of their best lines, some on-set footage, and a couple of outtakes - your mileage will vary depending on your tolerance of the actor (though Busey - whose shtick stopped amusing me a long time ago - does offer up a nifty "Buseyism" for "fart"). The behind the scenes piece is also mostly a waste of time, merely stretching the film's trailer out with a few extra short clips and soundbytes from the film's junket, where everyone just says how much they like everyone else. The deleted scenes aren't very exciting, either - two of them just focus on the film's obnoxious fat stoner guy, and there's no commentary to explain why they were cut (for time? The movie's barely longer than an episode of Game of Thrones!). Finally, the most baffling thing I've seen in ages - a short film where John McEnroe plays tennis with some spoiled asshole. I haven't the slightest notion what the hell this is doing on the disc, but if you're a fan of McEnroe's legendary anger issues it's also probably the only supplement that's worth your time. I don't know how you can have a special edition about a horror movie and not have a single bit of information on how the FX were done, but yet, here we are.

Then there's the commentary by John Gulager and co-writers Marcus Dunstan and Joel Soisson (3rd writer Patrick Melton is absent; they say he's delivering a speech on fish, having become an expert after all the research they did for this movie). For starters, it's either recorded poorly or just not balanced right, as I had to turn up my level to nearly 60 to hear it clearly (my usual range is 40-45), so that was annoying. But it's also not very spirited; their Feast tracks are a blast but they're seemingly being watched or something here, offering up little dirt and barely even busting each others' balls like usual. As mentioned earlier, there's apparently a missing shot in a scene, but they don't explain what it is or why it was cut, and there's not a lot of actual info on any topic, really. Strip away the praise heaped on every actor and makeup man Gary Tunnicliffe, and you're left with something that's about as in depth as one of those pop up trivia tracks.

But if you dig the movie, or think you will, you can't argue with the value if you're a 3D owner, as I've yet to see a new release retailing for a mere 15 bucks even on its own, let alone with two extra copies of the movie that you can give to friends. Hell, split the cost among you and increase your value! It's not a great movie by any means, but if you know what you're in for, the ridiculous setpieces and goofy charm should entertain you, especially if you have a beer or two handy. And assuming the 3D is as solid as it was in theaters, it should make for a good disc to throw on when showing off your set to pals (it's a very colorful movie, a big step up from the muted/dim look of the Feast films). Your call.

Film: 6/10
A/V: 8/10
Extras: 3/10
Overall: 5/10 (bump to 6 for 3D owners)

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