Nurse 3D (2013)

JANUARY 30, 2014

GENRE: HERO KILLER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PRESS SCREENING)

If Paz de la Huerta had even a smidgeon of acting ability (or used it if she has; I've never seen her in anything else), Nurse 3D probably wouldn't work at all. It's basically a mix of American Mary and Single White Female, with the title character going around killing every man in the vicinity like the former and becoming dangerously obsessed with a female pal like the latter. On paper, that sounds like a recipe for a perfectly rote slasher/thriller that you'd forget about within moments of the film's conclusion, but since even merely saying a character's name proves to be an insurmountable task for Paz, it takes on this bizarre, nearly alien tone that, intentionally or not, turns the film into a trashy comic delight.

Again, I've never seen her in anything, so maybe it's just an unusual acting choice, akin to Nicolas Cage deciding to play a character with a heavy Southern drawl or something for no real reason. As we eventually learn (thanks to a hilariously on-the-nose exposition dump courtesy of Michael Eklund), her character killed her dad as a young girl and was raised in an institution, so she clearly has a reason to be "off" - she's never really had normal interactions, we can assume. However, none of the other characters in the movie seem to notice how incredibly awkward she is when making simple conversation; for the male characters (all of whom are constantly horny) I guess you can just assume they don't care because they want to have sex with her, but why do the other females, particularly Katrina Bowden, carry on as if there's no reason to suspect that this robotic woman has a few screws loose? So I have to assume that her clunky deliveries and jaw-droppingly insane moments of "rage" are the result of a bad actress inadvertently making a film funnier than it was meant to be, and that her co-stars merely did their best to ignore it.

Luckily, it seems director Douglas Aarniokoski WANTED to make a funny movie and lucked out with the casting. You don't do a slasher film in 3D unless you're looking to provide an audience with silly thrills, which is why when a guy gets tossed off a roof he can't just land on the ground or on a parked car - he has to land on an iron fence so we can see the spike burst through his chest and splatter CGI blood in our faces. But if Nurse Abby was played normally, the movie would be actually kind of dull. Surprisingly, there aren't a lot of comin at ya gags after that until the film's ridiculous climax, which finds Paz and Katrina tossing each other around various rooms at the hospital as the former makes a very bloody attempt at escaping capture for her crimes. In fact, if you can't find this playing in a theater near you (likely), you're OK "settling" for the (2D) VOD option, because apart from those occasional gags, it's a very flat 3D film (surprising, since it was shot with 3D cameras, not a conversion). Most of the movie takes place in small rooms inside the hospital or someone's apartment; the few exteriors are just alleys and the like (presumably to hide the fact that the New York-set film was shot in Canada), so there's not much depth to the shots - you can take the glasses off and not even notice a difference in several scenes.

Naturally, the warm-blooded males (and some females) are probably wondering if there are "other" benefits to the extra dimension, given the risque artwork and sex-driven narrative (Abby zeroes in on cheating male characters), but in this department it's actually tamer than I was expecting. Paz is naked more than once, but only has one true (brief) sex scene, and Bowden doesn't show off much either (butt in a long shot), so ultimately it's no more explicit than your average 90s "erotic thriller" (even when she cuts a guy's junk, we don't see anything - wimps). The sleazier elements mostly come from Paz's occasional voiceover - said butt shot is accompanied by Abby explaining that she's looking at "the same ass she was eating the night before", and you can laugh just as hard as that in 2D. The movie definitely earns its R rating, but it doesn't seem like they were aiming for anything more explicit.

As a narrative, eh, it's fine. There are some baffling choices (has anyone involved with the production ever used email before? Because that's not how it works) and a few dropped subplots (Nelson seems to have designs on Bowden, but nothing comes of it), but it's got a nice, fast-ish pace that keeps us from asking too many questions while we're watching. Plus, it's only like 85 minutes and Bowden catches on at the halfway point, sparing us too much time where we're way ahead of the film's sympathetic hero, but it still kind of follows the "____ From Hell" template rather closely - a 3rd party catches on to the secret past and is dispatched, our hero is framed for some of the psycho's crimes, etc. It may be short, but it's still copying the beats we've seen a million times, so if you're not on board with the movie's gonzo sense of humor (the "sassy black nurse" character is constantly dialed to 11, and it actually works), or find Paz's non-performance too much (little?) to deal with, there isn't a hell of a lot left to recommend here. One could enjoy the (too) brief turns by Judd Nelson and Martin Donovan as a couple of sleazy jerks (Nelson is the head doctor; Donovan is Danni's stepfather), but otherwise this is strictly a love it or hate it affair; I can't really see any possibility of a middle ground.

And that's a bummer, because I suspect watching alone on VOD will result in a lot of "hate it" reactions. It's a crowd movie that will rarely get the benefit of one, and it's possible that the big screen and 3D presentation, while unnecessary in the technical sense, added immensely to my enjoyment. There were only like 8 other people at the screening, but they were all laughing as often as I was, and post-screening tweets were all positive (but again, of the "so bad it's good" variety). That sort of thing doesn't quite work at home - I encourage you invite a few friends over if you can't find a theater nearby. And it's finally a win for Aarniokoski, who made the woeful-even-by-Highlander-standards Endgame and also the abysmal Animals (under a different name), which nearly scared me out of getting up early enough to drive to Santa Monica for the screening this morning. If he can channel this sort of attitude and energy into something meatier next time around, I'll forgive him for good!

What say you?

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Phantoms (1998)

JANUARY 29, 2014

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

I could have sworn I reviewed Phantoms a few years back, but if so, it disappeared just like the residents of Snowfield. I know I had only seen the movie twice; once when it first came out on VHS (!) and again when I bought it years later, which in my head I saw as a "For HMAD!" move, but after an exhaustive search (I typed "Phantoms" in the search and didn't see it) I have to just accept that I have never put my thoughts down on this, which will likely be the only legit horror movie my boy Ben Affleck ever makes unless you want to count his bit role in Buffy.

Therefore, unless you've read my running commentary review of Armageddon (or my Twitter, particularly on last year's Oscars) you're probably unaware of how much I love the dude, who not only co-starred in my 2nd favorite movie but also came from Boston (like me!) and managed to become a much in-demand filmmaker and actor after a few years where it seemed like I was the only one in his corner (2003-2006 or so... man, those were some dark times). It actually wasn't until I watched Project Greenlight that I realized what a genuinely smart and passionate guy he was, not to mention funny - even ignoring the Boston thing (there isn't exactly a surplus of Boston-based filmmakers in this generation), dude's a pretty good role model. His only flaw, far as I'm concerned, is that he seemingly has no interest in the horror genre, as his one and only trip to it is now a punchline in a career that has plenty of them. Speaking of which, I am truly baffled by the enduring popularity of that idiotic "bomb" joke from Jay and Bob Strike Back, and question the intelligence of anyone who still quotes it, even if ironically. I cannot for the life of me think of a hackier thing to say, and feel nothing but sadness and contempt for those who do.

Then again, maybe if this was a bigger creative or commercial hit, he'd be coaxed back for something (I mean, he's played Daredevil and now he'll be Batman - it's not like he's opposed to the sort of thing he'll get Oscar nominations for). If Phantoms was the only horror movie I ever saw, I probably wouldn't start watching them every day of my life. That said, it's actually not that bad as these things go (by things I mean pretty much every Dimension horror movie post-Scream). The first 40 minutes or so, until the military shows up, are actually quite solid - a pair of sisters (Joanna Going and Rose McGowan) arrive in their hometown and discover that every resident has seemingly vanished. Ironically I wish Affleck didn't show up as soon as he did, because the REALLY good stuff is when it's just the two girls looking around, getting freaked out... when Affleck (as the sheriff) and two fellow officers arrive, some of that eerie tension is deflated (plus, it's hardly one of his best performances, though I quite like Liev Schreiber's turn as a twitchy/creepy deputy character). But it's still a solid chiller for a while after that; I particularly like the bit where they find a pile of watches and jewelry... and gold teeth and pacemakers. Joe Chapelle keeps up the balance between answering questions and providing reasonably exciting scare scenes (including a surprisingly early kill for one of the cast), and there's a refreshing lack of the irony that permeated most horror films of the period - it's just a good ol' fashioned monster movie.

But then Peter O'Toole (RIP) and the military enter the picture, and it starts to falter. The occasional (practical!) smaller monsters are replaced with a giant CGI thing of no interest, and our protagonists are sidelined in favor of a bunch of anonymous guys in hazmat suits or military gear, clearly fodder. And O'Toole is largely wasted; reduced to rattling off exposition and the occasional witty line to liven things up (you can be assured that they don't know what to do with him when he's introduced sipping tea and tapping at an ancient typewriter - because that's what all old British guys do, right?). By the time Affleck and Going finally snap back into action (McGowan's role throughout the entire movie is simply to stand slightly behind the other characters and ask questions or offer "hilarious" reactions), that solid first half is little more than a memory, and you're left with watching a slightly above-Syfy level monster movie.

Of course, this IS a Dimension production, so we can assume that it was more interesting when shot and just got edited down to a hollow shell later. The monster's "backstory" is actually quite fascinating, but they whittle it down to almost nothing so they can get back to random CGI-heavy kills. Reshoots aren't hard to spot since Affleck had his teeth fixed in between, but since the movie was not part of a major series like Halloween, nor a success in any way (it's actually one of his lowest grossing films - even Gigli places a bit higher), there hasn't been the slightest bit of movement to get the original cut released. I doubt it'd ever be a masterpiece, but if the strength of the first half had carried over to the second, it'd actually be one of the better late 90s horror films (that it was one of the few that wasn't a slasher automatically makes it a bit more interesting - even if it has two Scream cast members on the poster).

If I programmed double features, I'd probably have it as the B-movie to The Mist, which also came from Dimension (but is good the whole way through - yes, I am a fan of the ending). Both deal with confined characters battling an ancient evil that takes many forms (including moth-type things), and offer a much better group of actors than their B-monster movie plots would attract otherwise - I think it'd be fun to watch them back to back. They're both sort of anomalies in the Dimension canon (these two plus Mimic are pretty much the ONLY true monster movies they've produced in the past 20 years; they otherwise stuck to slashers and traditional villains like vampires and werewolves), and are both underrated - not on the same level, obviously. But The Mist certainly should have been a huge hit and Phantoms deserves better than being a go-to punchline for the embarrassingly lazy.

What say you?

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I, Frankenstein (2014)

JANUARY 23, 2014

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

Like any good horror fan, I get annoyed when people refer to the monster as "Frankenstein", and so the I, Frankenstein title has been a sore point since I first read up on the film and discovered that Aaron Eckhart was indeed playing the monster, not the doctor. As it turns out, however, this is the LEAST of the movie's offenses; I was laughing at it within minutes of its opening frames, and then mostly just bored for its scant 80 minute or so runtime (without credits). I may not be the biggest Underworld fan in the world, but even the worst entry in that series wasn't as soulless and idiotic as this - I actually started to MISS those movies at one point.

I'll get the few things I liked out of the way. One, it's cool to see gargoyles in such a prominent role in a big film like this. Sure, they spend more time in human form and the overuse of CGI means that they're just another generic flying monster for most of the movie, but the closeups usually look pretty great (I almost regretted not seeing in 3D, however since it was a convert it probably wouldn't have been worth the extra 3 bucks) and at least it's conceptually more interesting than another form of werewolf or vampire. And their enemies are demons, who can be killed instantly (too easily, actually) with anything that bears the gargoyle's symbol, which you'll see several dozen times in the film since they slap it on everything (even their building is shaped like one).

But that's also part of the problem. It's unfortunate enough that it's clear from the start that the demons are bad and the gargoyles are good, because it gives Adam (the Monster) nothing to really DO in the movie. The gargoyles find him almost instantly and explain their entire war to him and how evil the demons are, and then the demons show up and have the modern shitty CGI-fest equivalent of twirling their mustaches. It might have been fun to toy with expectations and have the Gargoyles turn out to be the real villains while the monstrous demons were actually good (shades of Nightbreed, basically), but the movie can't be bothered to do anything interesting like that. So it plods along on rails, tossing us one dull action scene after another, broken up only by lengthy globs of exposition from one of the supporting cast members.

Even sillier, the whole Frankenstein element has almost nothing to do with anything. The demons, led by Bill Nighy, want him because they want to recreate Frankenstein's experiment and use it to give life to a bunch of demons that are housed in a Matrix-y hive - but in execution it's no different than any "he/she is the chosen one!" scenario, and for the bulk of the runtime he's just running around killing demons or getting tossed through walls or ceilings, giving us almost nothing to latch onto. It almost seems like the movie would play out exactly the same had he never gotten involved at all, and even that would be OK if there was an interesting Gargoyle hero to make up for it (like 13th Warrior - Banderas is supposedly our hero but Buliwyf is the true badass in the scenario), but they're all blank slates, with the exception of poor Miranda Otto as the Gargoyle Queen (yep) and Jai Courtney as the most gung-ho in their cause (which is basically just killing demons). There's an almost kind of interesting beat at the hour mark where the Gargoyles turn on Adam and it looks like he might join the demons, but it goes nowhere.

Actually, most of the movie goes nowhere. It's just "stuff happening"; even the first scene (after racing through his backstory - which was likely a real sequence at one point and just chopped up to what amounts as a "previously, on Frankenstein" montage) just has a bunch of demons show up and start fighting him before a bunch of Gargoyles show up and fight THEM. And since this is a modern action movie, the fights are nearly incomprehensible - closeups of limbs and things being smashed before CGI takes over. After this we get what I can only describe as a tutorial scene from a video game - he is walked down a corridor while someone rambles (like in Arkham Asylum when Batman is being led to the Joker's cell), and then - I shit you not - there's a scene where they explain the weapons and magic system. I half expected an "Achievement Unlocked!" window to pop up on the screen. Bill Nighy tries his best to give some weight to the proceedings (he's the main, human looking villain - so of course the ending has him covered in CGI-enhanced makeup when he turns into a monster), but his villain is as generic as Eckhart's hero.

Another bizarre thing about this movie - it's strangely underpopulated. The whole hook of bringing Frankenstein's monster into the modern world is a complete non-starter; there's only a single scene of him interacting with the human populace (to give the movie credit, it thankfully avoids any corny Rip Van Winkle type jokes), and the rest of the time he's either in the Gargoyle manor (which resembles any LOTR or Game of Thrones type castle) or on the empty streets of the city. The only other modern touch in the entire movie is the computer equipment in the lab run by the film's only two human characters of note. One of them is Yvonne Strahovski, who is saddled with one of the most thankless female roles in ages. I guess they figured simply making her a scientist would be enough to avoid criticism, and therefore just had her go through the "potential love interest who eventually needs to be rescued" motions as if there's a single person on the planet who wouldn't roll their eyes at such things by this point.

In short, it's a goddamn waste of time for everyone involved, including the audience. There isn't a single good action scene, the characters are an insult to cardboard cutouts, and if it were released in 1996 it would likely be outclassed by the cheapo/quickie tie-in video game for the Sega Genesis. And it apes so much from the Underworld movies that even that series' biggest detractors will just wonder why they're not watching one of those instead. There's a possibility that it was an interesting script at one point, but through an endless development process (this thing was announced in 2010 and there are at least 9 credited producers), and possibility some additional editing after that, any trace of a unique or creative movie has been completely washed away.

What say you?

P.S. If you ignore me and see the movie anyway, be sure to watch all of the credits. There's no extra scene, but there IS a Special Thanks to Mary Shelley. I nearly shat myself.

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Devil's Due (2014)

JANUARY 16, 2014

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

Had Devil's Due been shot traditionally, it probably would be pretty good. It's got a pair of likable leads, a fairly fast pace, and a "modern Rosemary's Baby" flair that is refreshing from all the haunted house movies that we've been getting lately. It'd be the sort of movie you watch, more or less enjoy, and forget about until it pops up on cable, prompting you to say "Oh yeah, this was pretty good" and watch a few minutes before remembering you have an Xbox. But alas, they had to go and make it a goddamn found footage movie, and that's where the movie all but completely falls apart.

The problems start as soon as the FOX logo fades from screen, as we're treated to a bloody Zach (Matt Saracen, né Zach Gilford) fumbling with his wedding ring while sitting in a police interrogation room. The date tells us it's March 30th, and he tells us "I didn't kill her". So we know his wife is dead, and then when they ask what happened, they go back just a little over 9 months, which tells us that whatever happened, there's a 99.999999% chance it happened on the night their child was born. So we're already way too far ahead: we haven't even met his wife but we know she's dead, and we also know that she'll make it to the end of her pregnancy. But I held out hope that there would be a twist to the proceedings, like in Memoirs of an Invisible Man where Nick/Chevy is telling his story to us but catches up to the present with another 20 minutes or so to go, letting us know that maybe he DOESN'T have a pre-seen happy ending.

Well, there isn't. Instead, the movie just plays out exactly as the bookend suggests, without a single justification for essentially spoiling the movie before it even begins. No twist, no further context to what we saw, nothing. Hell they even once ask him "Tell us what REALLY happened!", threatening a Moebius strip of a movie where we just see the same damn thing over and over. Similarly, there's no real justification for the use of a camera - the bad guys steal the tapes (at one point literally from under Zach's nose, not sure how that one worked), so there's no in-movie explanation for how WE'RE seeing any of it, and I guess we just have to assume that the bad guys got a hold of the 4-5 other cameras that were filming one of the movie's big scare scenes (the priest bleeding during a mass that you saw in all the trailers), or else his innocence could be proven fairly easily.

So we just have to put up with the usual found footage cliches for 90 minutes, just because it's the cool thing to do nowadays I guess. We know nothing major will happen until the due date, so we settle for mostly weak scares - the baby REALLY kicking, a guy watching the house, Samantha lashing out in her sleep, etc - until the big day arrives and shit can finally hit the fan. To be fair this is no different than most found footage movies, but that's exactly the problem: we've seen all of this before. At least without the bookend we could wonder if either parent would survive - it'd be kind of ballsy (and relatively shocking) to kill Gilford off at the halfway point and let someone else pick up the camera, but alas, the movie is on rails 90% of the time, and those few inspired moments (such as when a group of kids stumble upon Samantha eating a deer in the woods) aren't quite enough to make up for following the found footage template so closely.

The one saving grace is Ms. Miller, who is not only VERY photogenic but also effortlessly natural, the latter being a must for this sort of thing. I've only seen her in 1-2 other things, and was smitten with her in those as well, but at no point did I think about her other characters - she truly made Samantha feel like a real person (can't say the same for Gilford; whenever he got upset or angry all I could hear/see was Matt Saracen). The plot dictates that she spends most of the 2nd half either half asleep or in silent "possessed" mode, but for the first 45 minutes or so, she makes it more believable than even the ones starring complete strangers. I've said before that casting recognizable actors in these things is a detriment, but if they could deliver performances like this, I'd never think twice about it.

She's also able to overcome the painfully bad exposition her character has to spout. We are told at least three times in the first 20 minutes that Samantha's past is a question mark: her parents died when she was born and she grew up in a foster home (she even tells Zach this information, as if he didn't know by then). Since they kept hammering it home you'd think it would have a payoff, but no - the fact that she is chosen by this cult to birth the antichrist seems to be random dumb luck, not some predetermined fate like in End of Days. I guess if I was being charitable I could describe this as misdirection, but if that was their intent - why do it so clunkily? I mean she actually says to her fiance (and they've been together for years) something like "I wish I had home movies, but my parents were gone as soon as I was born", as if he wasn't already aware of that. It'd be a bad line in any movie, but it's exponentially more face-palming when it's presented under the guise of "reality".

Oh, and not for nothing, but for those who don't follow me on social media - my own wife is pregnant right now, and thus I am going through some of the same things Zach is (such as unintentionally annoying his baby mama with his excitement and worry). It's rare I see a horror film I can identify with in any meaningful way, so when I see one that's focused around something I'm not only going through (minus the satanic cult and supernatural powers), but that's also SCARING ME in real life... it's almost unforgivable that it can't get under my skin or even provide any real anxiety. I got a standard jolt or two from well designed jump scares, but I got that much from Paranormal Activity 4. This is better than that (most movies are), but it's still a huge disappointment that it failed to connect on this level - it should have been a given.

Ultimately, the main issue I had with the movie (besides the idiotic wraparounds) was that it actually had a talented filmmaking team behind it. The collective known as Radio Silence, who made one of the best parts of the first V/H/S (the Halloween one at the end), makes their feature debut here, and while there is some of that short's inspired lunacy (particularly in the climax, where Zach has a GoPro attached to his shirt and is thus free to be more active), it's depressing how often they stoop to tired found footage gags. When the evil cult dudes show up and install 15 cameras in their house I groaned, because I knew it would lead to lame Paranormal Activity-style gags, and sure enough - before long we're watching multiple angles on a single scene. If you can't stick to your premise (and if they have so many cameras, why are the members also following our heroes around at all times and standing outside their house?), then maybe just film the movie traditionally and use surveillance footage when it actually lends itself to that style? One of the film's few inspired bits isn't even one of the characters' cameras - it's grocery store surveillance of Samantha (a vegetarian) eating raw meat and disgusting the fellow shoppers. Along with the deer scene, that means the best parts of this POV movie aren't from the POV of its two main characters. Something's broken. It's not a disaster by any means, but I can't help but feel let down that it's not even the best found footage horror movie playing right now.

What say you?

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HMAD Screening: THE EXORCIST III

Oh hell yes! When I first saw The Exorcist III a few years back (yes, a few. I was late to the party on the entire franchise - I didn't see the original until I was 19!), I realized how great it would be to see the film with a big crowd, thanks to one of cinema's all time best jump scares. Having been hosting these screenings for nearly 5 years now (!), I know a lot of folks are seeing the film for the first time, so it's going to be great to watch those "virgin" reactions on January 25th, when we kick off HMAD's 2014 schedule at the New Beverly with this 1990 sequel, often considered to be the only worthy followup to William Friedkin's original.

A big part of that acclaim is the cast: George C. Scott takes over for the late Lee J. Cobb as Kinderman, Jason Miller returns as Karras, and it boasts small roles from everyone from a young Kevin Corrigan (as an altar boy!) to Samuel L. Jackson, in one of his first appearances. But one of the most memorable turns is easily Brad Dourif's as the Gemini Killer, and I'm pleased (and more than a little giddy) to announce Mr. Dourif will be joining us for pre-movie Q&A! He's genre royalty, as far as I'm concerned - Chucky alone would cement his legacy, but X-Files, the LOTR films, (previous HMAD show) Urban Legend, and, for my money, the best thing about Rob Zombie's Halloween remake put him over the top. And he's almost assuredly the only Oscar nominee I'll ever have up there, so I'm pretty damn honored/nervous!

Luckily otherwise things will be normal: I'll have crappy DVDs to give away for easy trivia questions, and the Q&A will be BEFORE the movie so you want to get there on time. The New Beverly is located at 7165 Beverly Blvd in Los Angeles (90036), 2 blocks west of La Brea. Street parking is plentiful (aim for Formosa) and tickets are a mere 8 bucks, cash or card at the door (you can also buy in advance at BrownPaperTickets. The show is at 11:59pm on Saturday, January 25th - be on time for the Q&A! See you there!

P.S. As always, feel free to post the below image on your own blog/site, tweet the link, Facebook, etc - I want the place PACKED for that jump scare!

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We Are What We Are (2013)

JANUARY 6, 2014

GENRE: CANNIBAL
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

A friend of mine recently asked what the best After Dark title thus far was, and my answer (after some thought; there's like 40 movies to choose from and my memory sucks) was Jim Mickle's Mulberry St., a low-key zombie film that stood apart from the others by actually resembling the sort of independent production that I thought the label was supposed to be catering to. Mickle impressed even more with his followup Stake Land, a terrific vampire/post-apocalyptic drama that added some familiar faces to the mix (Danielle Harris has never been better in a film, and it was great to see Kelly McGillis again), and now he's 3 for 3 with We Are What We Are, a very good remake of an impressive but very slow Mexican film that I saw at Frightfest back in 2010.

I just reread my (mini) review of the original, and I called it boring, but it's one of the films that you might not think much of at the time, but sticks with you for one reason or another, and I'd probably like it more if I ever found the time to revisit it. And I should do that before making the next claim, but screw it: I think I like this one even more (even though it's actually longer!). It's a very different execution of the same basic idea (siblings - who happen to be cannibals - cope with the loss of one of their parents on the eve of their annual "feast"), so you can watch the two movies back to back and not feel much repetition, but I think the way Mickle and his writing partner Nick Damici (who has a smaller acting role here than in their previous two films) speaks more to my sensibilities, which allowed me to enjoy it more right off the bat.

And it's amazing how it all spirals from reversing the sexes - the mother dies instead of the father, and it's two sisters and a brother instead of two boys and a girl. So everything different about its narrative stems from that basic change; the loss of a mother means that the young boy has no one to comfort and nurture him, and since the father is still alive there isn't much of an income issue. Likewise, the son isn't old enough to engage in "I'm the man of the house now" type plotting - in fact the children here don't take much of an active role in the family "tradition" until the very end of the film, whereas the original dealt heavily with the boys trying to take their dad's place and failing miserably. It's a very unique approach to a remake, which is surprising since it seems so obvious - what better way to FORCE yourself into having a fresh take on a story than to just swap the sexes of its characters and go from there?

But even ignoring the remake aspects, it's just a solid film. Like Stake Land, it's closer to drama than full blown horror, allowing those "scary movie" bits to really resonate in ways they never could in a traditional genre flick. The body count is low, but each one counts - there's a kill at the end of the second act that shocked me both times I saw the movie (I caught it during its brief theatrical run in October, but never got around to writing it up as it was during Screamfest), and it's got another gruesome moment early on (someone whacking their head on a pipe) that made me cringe all over again. It's also got an interesting, morbid hook - the small upstate NY town has been flooded thanks to constant torrential downpour, and thus the bones of the Parker family's victims (i.e. food) are rising to the surface and floating down the river. More and more bones surface as the film goes on, and local doctor Michael Parks is convinced that they're not animal. You could probably make an entire movie just about his character, in fact - his daughter has been missing for quite some time and he starts to suspect that the Parkers may be to blame, so he starts investigating sans any help from the local police. Parks is a terrific actor and plays the most sympathetic character in the film; you'll likely wish you had seen more of him when the credits begin to roll.

You might also wish there were several hundred more hours of Jeff Grace's score when all is said and done. The film actually has a few composers; apparently Grace did some music and then Mickle needed more, but Grace was unavailable, so other composers Phil Mossman and Darren Morris were brought in for the rest. And their stuff is good, but Grace's contributions are simply phenomenal; there's a cue called "Preparing the Body" that plays over a rather sad montage of all these lonely, broken people going about their day - it's the sort of thing you'll put on repeat if you had the CD (the editor of the making of doc apparently feels the same way - he uses it several times). I've sung Grace's praises before, but this is his crown jewel, in my opinion, and I honestly believe it elevates the film. Likewise, the gloomy cinematography and near constant rainfall also adds to it - it's hard not to instantly feel for these people when they can barely step out of their house without drowning.

And that's even more impressive when you watch the making of (which runs just under an hour) or listen to the commentary and discover that there was only ONE shot in the entire film where it was actually raining during its production. It's not even an important shot - just one of the still shots that make up the opening title sequence. Everything else was faked with machines and digital trickery (and the cinematography by Ryan Samul, who has served on all of Mickle's features), making the documentary pretty interesting at times because you'll see how bright and shiny it was during the film's gloomiest scenes. It's not much of a doc though; apart from occasional "Oh the camera's pointed at me so I'll say something" moments, it's just a silent assembly of footage from the film's production. Things occasionally seem to be going wrong, but there's no one to explain to us what the issue really is, so it can be a bit of a dull affair given its length - you'll see how a dolly track is assembled, but insight on what they're shooting or how it fits into the story.

The commentary is much more essential; at first I was a bit worried since Mickle and Damici are joined by Samul and two of the actors Bill Sage and Julia Garner); a red flag that it could turn into a jokefest, but it's actually pretty enlightening and chock full of real info on both the production and its story (plus some good natured ribbing). There are some priceless anecdotes about Parks, and Samul doesn't get too bogged down in technical details like some DPs tend to, so it's as accessible as it is entertaining. There are also a few interviews with Mickle, Sage, and Garner, where they talk more about the characters and story, and the line of thinking that got Mickle wanting to make the movie in the first place (I won't lay it all out, but basically it amounts to when you start to question your families' traditions). The film's trailer is also included, making this a pretty nice package, though I should note the audio mix could have been a bit clearer - Sage in particular is hard to decipher at times since the character is soft-spoken. Subs are included if you still can't hear him when you turn it up full volume!

Ordinarily I'd roll my eyes at the idea of an exciting new filmmaker dipping into remake territory so quickly, especially when it's a remake of a film that's only a couple years old (it was hitting festivals at the same time as Stake Land, in fact), but they've done a great job of making this story their own while paying the original its due respect (the father still repairs watches for a living). It's not like Let Me In where it seems simply doing the story in English seems to be the primary motivation - this is a fully developed film that can stand on its own (while encouraging folks to check out the original if they haven't already). And it just further positions Mickle as one of the most interesting new genre directors working right now, so it's a winner all around.

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Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014)

JANUARY 2, 2014

GENRE: MOCKUMENTARY, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PREMIERE SCREENING)

When Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones was announced, it was as a "Latino-centric spinoff" of the series, hence the lack of a number in its title (an actual Paranormal Activity 5 will hit this October after taking a year off). Now, maybe Paramount has a different idea of what "spinoff" means, but in my house, that means it's something that doesn't require a full working knowledge of the flagship series - it takes place in its universe but otherwise tells its own contained stories. Think Prometheus; quality of the film aside, you can't say that any part of it REQUIRES you to have seen Alien or its sequels - it just adds to (or subtracts from, depending on your POV) the experience. That is not the case here; if anything it's more connected than the last "true" sequel (it at least explains more about what's going on) and a good chunk of it won't make a lick of sense to anyone who hasn't seen (and retained a solid memory of) the 2nd and 3rd films.

But getting into more about that would be spoiler territory; nearly all direct references to the previous films are confined to the 3rd act, so I can't talk about them without ruining some of its surprises. However, I will say that some of it seems shoehorned in - an appearance from a returning character (not Katie) is so brief, and the dialogue so exposition-heavy, I couldn't help but wonder if it was added late in the game, as if they got cold feet about making a film that was entirely free of the increasingly convoluted mythology the series has (sort of) established. I mean, the person literally shows up and explains a few things, without a single "Oh, since that happened to me I've been doing this and that", or even seeming like they are traumatized from their experience (though the trailer has footage from this scene that didn't make the final, so perhaps a longer cut will change that). It's odd, to say the least, and the appearance of another series regular isn't very organic, either - and it adds even MORE nonsense to this concept to boot.

So let's just focus on the first hour or so, where we meet our new heroes Jesse and Hector, best friends who have video cameras so they can film themselves doing dumb shit like riding a laundry basket down a flight of stairs. For the most part it's thankfully a single camera affair this time around, most of it is shot through Jesse's standard video camera, and they have a GoPro that they use sparingly (though there's an unexplained third one during a would-be sex scene), and while that means more handheld stuff that might make you nauseous, it gives the film an energy that the others lack - at no point are we treated to a title card saying "Night #1" or whatever and then forced to watch 30-60 seconds of a bunch of different views of the house showing nothing happening. Of course, the flipside is that there's little to no reason for them to be filming as the plot thickens (unlike the others where they could just cut to the always running security cameras), but at least the faster pace and heightened sense of simple MOVEMENT keeps you from questioning it while the movie's still playing.

It's also got a different plot and more characters - the main location is an apartment complex where roughly half of the residents are involved with the story at one point or another (plus Jesse's friends who seemingly never leave). And instead of someone noticing traditional haunted house bullshit, it kicks off with our heroes hearing noises and investigating by lowering their GoPro camera through a heating vent so they can see inside the apartment below. What they discover is a strange blood ritual of some sort, and it's not long afterward that the woman in the apartment is killed by an acquaintance of theirs. Shortly thereafter, Jesse starts noticing "changes" (and what appears to be a bite mark on his arm), at which point the movie turns into Chronicle for a bit, with Hector filming his friend as he demonstrates his newfound ability to lean back at 60 degree angles without falling over, or toss a would-be mugger 30 feet with little more than a shove.

In other words, it spends a lot of time distancing itself from the mythos AND style of the flagship series, making it all the more puzzling when the 3rd act becomes, basically, Paranormal Activity 5. It had been such a relief to see a central location that wasn't a gorgeous SoCal home, and to be free of the increasingly gibberish storyline, so it's kind of a drag when it climaxes (twice!) in familiar spots, with "old friends" making appearances (and even a copy of one of the original's best scares). There are a lot of exteriors this time around, which is another change of pace (the film's two best jolts are outside, in fact), so when it turns into another "guy walking around a house using night vision" finale, I couldn't help but feel let down. If anything it would have made more sense (and been more satisfying) to start it off like a typical PA and then go off into new territory, not unlike Rec 3.

And I was also sad that they didn't use the GoPro more often. Part 2 introduced the multiple cameras (Micah only had one or two), Part 3 gave us the awesome oscillating fan-cam, and 4 had all the Skype stuff. The portability of the GoPro could have been used for some unique scares and scenarios, and if it was mounted on a helmet or something the movie wouldn't even have to explain why someone was still filming - it'd be hands free and probably forgotten about! But the device makes an exit fairly quickly, with nothing to take its place (thankfully, no one uses their phone this time). As for the new tradition of using toys in odd ways (Teddy Ruxpin in 3, a Kinect in 4), we have a couple of goofy/fun sequences where an old Simon game is controlled by the spirit, using the green and red buttons to answer "yes" and "no", much to the superstitious grandmother's dismay (they should have made this character the maid from PA2!). It's not the most terrifying thing in the world, but it sure beats another Ouija scene, and real toys that we know/love always help ground these things into a form of reality we can recognize - nothing takes me out of a movie quicker than some fake video game (usually using the SOUND from Donkey Kong or something to make it seem even more phony) or generic toy.

So overall, it's a decent enough entry in the series (my rank would be 1, 3, 2, 4 - this would be around 2, can't decide if I like it more or less though), but by stripping it of its trademarks, it doesn't do much to distinguish itself from the 11,000 found footage movies currently playing on Netflix or VOD, unless you count the Latino focus and less isolated setting. And when it DOES make efforts to fit into its franchise, it does so at the expense of including newcomers, which I thought was part of the point. Plus, it adds even MORE questions in that area, so whether you're a die hard fan or a complete newcomer, the film is likely to frustrate you for one reason or another, so your ability to be scared and get sucked into a "try to help our possessed loved on before it's too late" scenario will determine how much you can still enjoy it.

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Die, Monster, Die! (1965)

DECEMBER 28, 2013

GENRE: HAUNTED HOUSE
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

It's a shame actor Nick Adams just sort of looks like an asshole, because it made Die, Monster, Die! harder to get on board with at the beginning, when his character is trying to find a ride to the Witley House. After a cab refuses to drive him there, he starts asking to rent a car or a bike, but still explains where he's going even though he should have already figured out that the town hated the place and wouldn't help him out. So why does he keep saying that's where he's going? Just say you're going for a leisurely drive, man! It makes him come across as a moron as well as a guy you'd probably want to smack, so it's not until Karloff shows up that you can start getting into the movie.

And you can get into it even more if you haven't seen House Of Usher, since it's pretty much the same scenario: a guy comes to a spooky, giant house seeking his fiance, only for her relative (also played by a horror icon) to try to keep him out and send him away. There's even a wall of portraits, where a character explains who everyone is and lets us know that there's seemingly a curse on the family, hence why they've become hermits and why the town fears them. Luckily, it starts taking its own path (though it still ends in a fire), and isn't vague with the source of the family's problems.

Well, not AS vague, I should say. Whereas Usher leaves it up to you to decide if Usher was crazy or correct, this one lets you know what it is: a green rock from a meteor that they've cut up and used in their greenhouse to grow giant tomatoes and also some weird creatures that just sort of sit there waving back and forth ("Jim Henson's Cthulhu", is what I'd say if I was writing for MST3k). As to WHY the rock had such a varied number of effects (it also turns people into glowing monsters), I can only assume that it makes more sense in the short story, but then again it's a Lovecraft story so maybe not, as being perfectly clear wasn't exactly his thing.

That said, based on what little I know of his story (titled "The Colour Out Of Space") from its Wiki page, it sounds like one of the more film-ready entries in his bibliography, with a team of scientists and a full family at the house (a farm in the story) to provide the action - it sounds like it could have been molded into a Quatermass sequel, actually. The film, on the other hand, just offers a three character piece for the most part, unless you count Karloff's wife who spends the movie behind a sheet in her bedroom, plus drops the scientific angle down to almost nothing. The story was adapted again in 1987 as The Curse, and was much more faithful from what I understand - I'll give it a look someday. Here, it's clear that AIP wanted it to fit the mold of their successful Corman/Poe cycle (which included The Haunted Palace, which took Poe's title but used a Lovecraft story for its narrative), so the farm had to go. Incidentally, first time director Daniel Haller was the production designer on most of those Corman movies, so it's no surprise that it looks so similar. All stately manors, all the time!

But it's still kind of fun. Karloff is always great to watch, and does a fine job playing a character who isn't exactly the hero but not an outright villain either; sort of like Usher but more sympathetic (being in a wheelchair helps!). The various makeup FX for the "cursed" family members are also effective for their day, particularly the glowing super-monster guy during the climax, though I'm sure the full reveal of Karloff's wife caused a few nightmares to any kids who snuck in during its run (which was with Bava's Planet of the Vampires! Moviegoing was so much more awesome in the 50s and 60s). And while Haller is certainly no Corman in the directorial department (it's not much of a surprise he only did a few other features before settling into the world of episodic television; his last credit of note was directing a few episodes of Matlock), he delivers some nice atmosphere at the beginning when Adams is making his way to the house, and the fire sequence is impressive.

He also shot it in 2.35 (again, like the Corman films), which makes a peculiar effect of the film all the more noticeable. Whenever there's a lengthy tracking shot, the left and right sides of the frame are noticeably squeezed; the objects become thinner as they pan on or off the screen (it's most obvious during a cemetery scene around 2/3s of the way through). I'm not sure if it's the transfer or the type of lens that they used, but it's very distracting, and since there's nothing really that requires the wider image, I almost wish it was just 1.85 like most movies of the day so it wouldn't be an issue. I looked on Youtube to see if it was on any of the clips, but the only one I found was presented at the wrong aspect ratio anyway, and the trailer didn't have any of the shots where it'd be noticeable.

Speaking of the trailer, which is the only bonus feature on Scream Factory's new Blu (not even a scene selection! Come on guys), it's one for the ages. Not only does it spoil most of the movies kills and reveals (including the villain's death), but it neglects to include any sort of information about the film - no title, no "Coming Soon" or "AIP Presents"... not even a "Starring Karloff!". Just completely blank. Maybe that's why it spoils so many of the film's surprises? Figures the audience won't know what's being spoiled? Weird.

This is the sort of movie you'd expect to find on a budget pack rather than a stand-alone Blu-ray (one with a pretty good transfer to boot), and it's not memorable enough to really justify a solo release. But maybe Scream can repackage it with other Karloff films and do a nice boxed set like they did with Vincent Price last fall - these are the sort of movies that are great to throw on around Halloween time and just enjoy the simplicity and low-key charm of this era's genre output. I remember a couple years ago, Nic Cage tried getting a studio interested in funding a film that would be in this vein (with Corman attached to boot!) but none of them would bite. Perhaps now, with the success of (heavily 70s inspired) The Conjuring and the Hammer entry The Woman In Black, he can try again? I'd be all for it. Even when they're not great, they're harmless, the sort of thing we can show our kids and enjoy ourselves.

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Sorority House Massacre II (1990)

DECEMBER 19, 2013

GENRE: SLASHER
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX INSTANT)

Supposedly, Sorority House Massacre II was written and directed in a mere ten days, and thus the easy joke to make would be to wonder what they did with the other nine. It's stiff, poorly acted across the board, and features what has to be a record for kill scenes that play out entirely with shadows and cheapo bladder devices being used to shoot blood all over the wall. But, damn my eyes, I couldn't help but enjoy the shitty little thing. Maybe it's just because I haven't been exposed to as much rubbish in 2013 as I was from 2007-2012? I only get 1-2 movies a week to watch for my Netflix gig, and while they are almost always shitty horror movies (if I was a grading man, this would be a C at best and it was one of the better ones I've seen on their dime), that's still a huge reduction in how often I am exposing myself to "worst movie ever made" material (per IMDb message board users). So, like McDonald's or old man whiskey, I know it's terrible for me, but you gotta indulge every now and then.

I can't recall much about the first film (I couldn't even remember SEEING it until I looked up my own review), but I DO know Slumber Party Massacre pretty well, which left me equally amused and baffled when a character in this movie told Slumber's story via flashback as if it were the events of the first Sorority House Massacre. He also gives Slumber more plot than it actually had, giving a name to its previously unidentified killer (Hokstedter, which wasn't the name of the killer in SHM1, for the record) and claiming that this house that the sorority girls are inhabiting was the scene of his crimes. That we SEE the house in the Slumber footage and it looks absolutely nothing like the one they are in now is something we should probably ignore, I guess.

This character is named Orville Ketchum, and he's played by the lecherous, abusive stepdad from Freddy's Dead - which makes him the only recognizable actor in the movie, pretty much. The movie wants us to think that he's the killer, but with all of the kills occurring off-screen, you know it can't be that easy. Plus, there's a Ouija board sequence in the first act, so you can be assured that the answer is more supernatural based than the first film (of either series, I guess it's fruitless to try to separate them at this point). There's some half-hearted attempt at a twist, but with everything off-screen and Hokstedter's ghost apparently jumping around bodies like Horace Pinker, it doesn't have much of an impact.

However, if you enjoy looking at a variety of breasts, or are just an adolescent young man, the movie will be fondly remembered for years. Just about every female in the cast disrobes, with some of it being more gratuitous than the intentionally over-the-top shower scene in Slumber. There's a wonderful bit where they all run out in the rain in their underwear (no one wears actual clothes after the first 20 minutes or so) and stand around getting soaked while they argue their next move, allowing them to have see through nighties for the rest of the picture.

Needless to say, the movie was directed by Jim Wynorski.

I was also ironically charmed with the movie's ancient stock footage for the storm; I'd have to dig out my copy to be sure but I'd place a small bet on that it was from The Terror (this being a Corman production as well). One of the girls even comments that the raging storm makes her feel like she's in "one of those old horror movies", and I couldn't help but wonder if the film might have been elevated to "genuinely kind of good" had they embraced the spoofy elements more often and went all out. With the notoriously cheap Corman and Wynorski at the helm, it's hard to tell if the fact that they're using another, more famous franchise's footage to flesh out its backstory is supposed to be a joke (sort of like when Airplane spoofs Saturday Night Fever or From Here To Eternity in its flashbacks) or just them trying to save a few bucks and hope that no one noticed or cared.

Another inadvertent benefit of the movie being so cheap and made so quickly is that it's impossible to gauge who the Final Girl is, because the girls only separate when they're going off to die or shower (actually in the latter, one comes in before the other is finished, but there's sadly no "action" to sleaze it up a bit). Otherwise, they're constantly grouped together and framed in master shots, making them rather indistinguishable. Your best bet at placing any sort of stock in one over the other will be based entirely on how attracted you are to them (sadly, the gal I liked was one of the first to go), as they have no specific character traits; even basic things like "the bitchy one" are hard to pin down (though some have random European accents). So when they start getting offed, there's no sense that any one of them is safer than the others, a rarity for even the best slashers.

Incidentally, Netflix also assigned me Cheerleader Massacre 2, which had many of the same problems and also a penchant for laughably gratuitous nudity. However, I did NOT see that original film, so maybe its bizarre combination of slasher (like Cheerleader Camp, it involves a cheerleading competition where many of the participants and various horny male hanger-ons get offed) and killer robot (!) tropes are familiar to its fans. All I know for sure is that it sets up a sequel that I won't be watching unless Netflix forces me to, though I admired the high body count and oft-ridiculous kills - if they weren't all done via low-rent CGI I might have had more fun with it.

The era of this particular brand of slasher has long since passed (hell, even by the time the original came out the slasher era was pretty much over). Post-Scream (which is 17 years old this week! I FEEL OLD.) you have to either do it straight (like Cold Prey) or constantly remind your audience that you're in on the joke, which gets tiresome more often than not. Cheerleader was made in 2009, and I couldn't help but wonder if the killer robot nonsense was an attempt to modernize an old script that they forgot to make when it would have been relevant. As for Sorority, it was made in 1990, when this sort of thing was only being churned out for the hardcore fans looking for something new at the video store - Hollywood productions (or even acquisitions) were a thing of the past. The odds of me finding a slasher from that period that I really like are slim to none, but I'm happy that there are still some I missed as a young lad that can provide some basic entertainment to 33 year old me.

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HMAD Screening: END OF DAYS

I never like skipping a month for HMAD screenings, but that just makes their triumphant returns all the more special! After sitting out November, we are back on Saturday, December 28th with a 35mm revival screening (likely the first) of the 1999 Arnold Schwarzenegger vs. The Devil epic End Of Days! Directed by Peter Hyams, this is sort of an anomaly in Arnold's career, as at times it skews closer to films like Seven than his shoot em up classics. It's certainly the only one I'd ever do for a HMAD screening (though I could probably be swayed to do Total Recall).

And like HMAD, Arnold decided to make End of Days his comeback vehicle, after taking off over 2 years due to heart surgery. It was a bit of a curious choice for a big return, since it was so unlike most of what he had done before - if you've seen the movie you know it's hardly him at his most indestructible. You'd think he'd pick a movie that had him kicking ALLLLL the asses, but he gets beat up pretty good, nearly gets killed in his first action moment, and, well, he cries. And he also gets the movie stolen away from him by his co-stars; this was the beginning of a still going period where Arnold would be surrounded by a great cast of actors who you otherwise wouldn't expect to see in an Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle. Rod Steiger plays a priest who knows what's going on, Gabriel Byrne plays the Devil (with Udo Kier (!) as his eyes and ears on Earth), and Byrne's fellow "Usual Suspect" Kevin Pollak plays Arnold's partner.

Pollak actually gets all the great one-liners in the movie, too (though Arnold's "I want you... to go TO HELL!" is pretty great), which is why I'm stoked to announce that (schedule permitting) the actor will be joining us for pre-movie Q&A! He's been in a few of my favorite movies (Usual Suspects, A Few Good Men, 3000 Miles to Graceland) and is, I believe, the first actor that has played a (fictional) President that I've had for one of my Q&As, so that's pretty damn great. Plus I'll have the usual stack of DVDs to give away for easy trivia, and, as long as the theater lets me, I'll be making Jericho Cane's legendary breakfast smoothies (ingredients include coffee, pepto-bismol, and cold pizza) and passing out samples, so it will be a damned awesome time for all the folks that are like me and stuck in LA for the holidays.

As always, tickets are a mere 8 bucks at the door, or online via BrownPaperTickets. The Q&A with Mr. Pollak will be BEFORE the movie so get there on time! The New Beverly is located at 7165 Beverly Blvd in Los Angeles, 90036. Parking can be found on Beverly or on the side streets (Formosa is the best bet; just watch out for the odd permit-restricted areas!), and the theater now takes credit cards if you forget to go to the ATM. End of Days runs a bit longer than most of my midnight shows (just a hair under 2 hrs) so we will be trying to start as close to on time as possible - please be there for the 11:59pm start time! See you there!

P.S. As always, feel free to steal the poster and blog, tweet, Facebook, etc to help get the word out for the screening! Thanks in advance!

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The Conspiracy (2012)

DECEMBER 8, 2013

GENRE: CULT, MOCKUMENTARY
SOURCE: STREAMING (SCREENER)

I recently felt guilty about all my "enough found footage!" ranting on Twitter, as I have a few friends with FF movies on the way (two of them I even did credits for!) and it comes off like I'm telling you to avoid them. But that's not true; the fact remains that I will champion the hell out of the GOOD ones, but that people who have no idea what they're doing need to stop clogging the sub-genre with their nonsense, making everyone sick of them as a whole. It's like Rock Band/Guitar Hero; there's nothing wrong with their last games, but there were so many crappy ripoffs and unnecessary spinoff games (Guitar Hero: Van Halen?) that everyone just checked out as a whole. Thankfully, there will still be movies like The Conspiracy, which avoids ghosts and creepy asylums in favor of something a little more interesting.

Indeed, for a while it's not even in the neighborhood of horror; it depicts a pair of guys (Aaron and Jim) who are doing a documentary on Terrance, a conspiracy theorist that is the kind of guy who shouts "9/11 was an inside job!" at passerby from the park and has an apartment wall covered with newspaper clippings that explain how everything is connected. In other words, it's a documentary SOMEONE MIGHT ACTUALLY WANT TO WATCH, unlike about 90% of found footage horror films that start out this way. Anyway, one day Terrance disappears without a trace, and while Jim is happy to just wash his hands of the whole thing, Aaron digs into his disappearance and discovers that the guy might have been on to something, with several signs pointing to a mysterious "Tarsus Group", which is sort of like the Masons crossed with the UN.

Needless to say, the group is pretty sinister, and the last half hour of the film is creepier than most traditionally shot horror movies of late, as our heroes worm their way into a Tarsus group meeting that's not dissimilar to the cult sequence in Eyes Wide Shut. And the first person camera actually adds to it, as both of them are wearing button cams that provide awkward angles on the proceedings while also handily avoiding the "Why are you still filming?" issue. Plus, the documentary aspect means everyone's face has been blurred out, adding to its unsettling nature (though I had to laugh as even though he was blurred out I still recognized Patron Saint of Canadian Horror Julian Richings as one of the group's higher ups).

In fact this stuff works so well that I can forgive some of writer/director Christopher MacBride's missteps with the logic of the camera in the pre-cult scenes. It SEEMS as if they only have one cameraman with them (before they "get too deep" and do the camerawork themselves), but conversations get back and forth cutting, meaning there has to be a second guy shooting. Even when they are tailing a Tarsus member, there are cuts back and forth, making me wonder why they even had ONE extra body with them, let alone the two that would have to be there for the incident to have been shot as depicted. I know it sounds like a nitpicky thing, but it's really not - the whole point of these movies (besides to cash in on a trend) is to give us a character's POV on the proceedings, so if they are constantly switching perspectives, it's leaving the audience at bay. And either way, their cameraman is a non entity, another thing that bugs me - it makes sense for him to be quiet when they're shooting parts of the documentary, but when he keeps shooting after they've finished for the day and are just sort of hanging out, why is he sitting there like a mute? Shouldn't he be "off the clock" and acting like a human being?

But otherwise, I was impressed by how well it was structured, completely turning around at the 30 minute mark or so and then switching again when they crash the meeting. If not for the recognizable actors (Aaron is played by Aaron Poole, from Rosalind Leigh) I could believe that this was an actual blend of reality and fiction, not unlike JT Petty's S&Man. Terrance is spouting off about real world things and namechecking actual politicians, and getting into the nitty gritty about foreign policy and such, which went over my head just as any real conspiracy theorist's rants would. I don't know how much time they spent developing the backstories and such, but I assure you if I just started watching this completely blind (i.e. not knowing it was a horror film) and didn't recognize Poole, I'd be totally duped into believing it was a real thing, at least until they go to the Tarsus lodge. But by then I'm on board and sympathetic toward the characters, so it worked as it should - by the time it became a horror movie, I was invested into the "reality" part of it. Not an easy thing to pull off, and it's a shame more FF films feel the need to make sure we know it's a genre film right off the bat.

It's also got a downer ending that doesn't leave any plot holes. 9 times out of 10 I am left wondering who found this footage (Apollo 18 remains the champ), and with this sort of thing I'd also have to wonder why these all powerful people didn't have it destroyed, but here there's a narrative explanation for its "return". And it's not because it's got a happy ending with everyone surviving - it's actually pretty grim and disturbing, and the fact that there probably IS some variation on the Tarsus group in reality (not THIS far-reaching, I hope) gives it an edge that even the best "ghosts in the mental hospital" faux doc could never manage. It should be hitting DVD soon (it's been released on disc in other countries, and Amazon has it on their streaming service), so keep an eye out for it. Ti West's terrific The Sacrament covers similar territory (in that it fully/realistically establishes its documentary subject before turning scary), but that won't be out for a while - this is a perfect appetizer if you've been waiting for that one.

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Dawn Of The Dead (1978)

NOVEMBER 28, 2013

GENRE: ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

The first time I ever watched Dawn of the Dead was on Thanksgiving (in 1994, if memory serves), and for the next few years I made it a tradition. The irony is that when I was 14 I didn't even pick up on the satire re: consumerism, and when I got my car a couple years later I would join the rest of the folks on Black Friday shopping the following day - the very sort of thing the movie was commenting on, which has only become more apt as the day (which now stretches into Thanksgiving itself) becomes more and more insane. It's pretty easy to find screencaps of Romero's movie placed next to shots of Black Friday shopping, in fact.

So it's kind of ironic that by the time I caught on to the movie's subtext, the tradition was waning. I added End of Days to my Thanksgiving tradition, and when life got too busy for both (a girlfriend (now wife) meant two family gatherings), I went with Arnold for my sole tradition, since that one had a challenge built into it (staying awake for the whole thing, post-dinner). And then during HMAD's "golden" era I had to use that time in the morning for a new movie anyway. So when I quit the daily aspect, I was stoked that I'd be able to revive the tradition - even if it's just this one time, it was a delight to wake up and sit on the couch in my pajamas with my favorite zombie movie, like I did as a kid.

...I have weird bouts of nostalgia.

BUT, I did opt to mix it up a bit. After querying folks on Twitter, I realized that I had never actually seen the European cut (sometimes referred to as the "Argento cut") of the film. My copy growing up was the theatrical, and when I got Anchor Bay's DVD, I only watched the extended version. Not sure why I thought I had seen the European version, but I was tipped off when I learned that version had ALL Goblin music, and none of the library stuff - I knew for sure I had never seen it without that goofy theme at the end (which is now used - albeit in chicken cluck form - for Robot Chicken's end credits). So it was a bit of a mix of old and new, making it ripe for a HMAD entry (which have been lacking thanks to my Twilight Zone column, and again I apologize).

So what's the verdict on this one? Well, it's certainly not BAD - the worst editor in the world could probably still make a good movie out of the footage Romero and his team created. But I certainly wouldn't recommend this version to someone who was a complete virgin to the film, as the changes aren't necessarily for the better and some of Argento's edits render things slightly confusing without the context of footage you had seen in the other cut(s). For example, when Roger and Peter move the trucks to block the doors, he omits the entire first sequence, which goes off without a hitch and fully explains what they're actually doing - it starts with Roger already getting a bit cocky and Peter telling him to calm down. So not only is it unclear as to why he is so excited, it's a bit vague as to what they're actually DOING, and thus when they move the second (now first) truck, it kind of makes them look incompetent as well, since everything goes wrong there.

Another bizarre edit comes early on, when they're in the chopper. As they pass over Johnston, the sequence with the rednecks plays out pretty much the same way, but it omits Stephen's line "Those rednecks are probably enjoying the whole thing." So now the movie just cuts in a lengthy sequence of previously unseen (and never to be seen again) characters shooting at zombies and discussing their ammo over coffee, with zero explanation or setup. I mean, it was always kind of an extraneous sequence anyway, but it sticks out even more here - I suspect they just left it in because it's got some zombie kills. Indeed, the most obvious thing about this version (and Argento's intent with it) is that it's faster paced; many of the shorter character beats have been omitted, leaving all of the action more or less intact (it's been a while since I've watched it, but I'm pretty sure the biker attack at the end goes on even longer). Without all those quiet moments, the movie is long past its halfway point before they even "settle in" at the mall, and then it goes right into "We have to leave" mode.

But if you ARE hip to the original version (or the longer (too long?) extended cut), then it's all good. I love the library music cues, but few would argue that having more Goblin is a bad thing, and Romero's version DOES get a bit lax at times (as most of his films do). And it doesn't omit anything you love, though I think they trim even MORE out of the dock scene - I'd have to go back and check, but even though Joe Pilato only showed up in the longer version, didn't the guy asking for cigarettes still appear in the theatrical? Speaking of smoking, I still love how much the pregnant Frannie smokes (and drinks); they talk about aborting it but it seems like she's well on her way to killing the kid on her own. Ah, the 70s! And while some say that this version omits the humor, there's still plenty of it - Peter and Stephen posing for the bank camera, Frannie "shooting" Stephen with the hair dryer, etc. Hell it even keeps in the stupid biker guy that is obsessed with checking his blood pressure during a zombie attack, as well as the pie in the face gags.

And what's important is that the SCOPE of the film has been left intact. It hits the ground running (few films, sequel or otherwise, have managed to convey such chaos and doom in their opening sequence) and rarely lets up as the characters make their way to the mall, stopping to off some zombie kids and (in Peter and Roger's case) take down a zombie-infested highrise. I quite like the remake, but there's so little buildup to them getting to the mall, and they more or less have it secured much quicker as well. Some of my favorite scenes in this Dawn are when they're just trying to find their way in, or going on a supply run for just a couple of things, BEFORE they decide that they can pretty much just live there. Even with this faster version, it still gives us time to know our four heroes and make sure we understand that securing this giant mall isn't something they can do in a couple hours (as always, it's impossible to tell how much time passes from the moment they arrive to the time where Roger dies, but it seems at least a week or so).

The effects also hold up; I'll never shine to the "melted pink crayon" look of the blood, but the bites and headsplosions all look great, and I couldn't help but wonder if Tom Savini ever watches Walking Dead and feels insulted that his former protege (Greg Nicotero) is relying on horrible digital blood/impact shots on the show. I know it's TV and they have to move a bit quicker, but certainly Nicotero and his team (otherwise the best in the business, as far as I'm concerned) can be doing better work than this, and have to feel at least slightly embarrassed to see their stuff stacked up against superior work from 35 years ago. And Romero/Savini didn't exactly have all the time in the world either - all of the mall stuff was shot during closing hours, so they had to start late at night and be out of there early - hardly the most luxurious shooting arrangements. Maybe making it look so bad helps them get past the AMC censors?

So, in conclusion: I think this "Dawn of the Dead" movie is a keeper. If you're reading this site and haven't seen it yet, I'm not sure what the hell the problem is, but certainly any one of the 11,000 Anchor Bay releases are available at your local used DVD store. Again, if you haven't seen it yet, either version of the US cut is where you should start, but for fans who have also neglected to check this version out - it's definitely worth a look, but don't be surprised if you go back to your preferred one the next time you take a trip to Monroeville Mall.

What say you?

P.S. The viewing inspired me to load up Dead Rising for the first time in over 6 years and wander around slicing up zombies. Forgot how damn tough that game was, especially if you get captured by those cult assholes.

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