Rise Of The Dead

NOVEMBER 18, 2007

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

OK, let’s get something out of the way. Rise Of The Dead, despite its very zombie sounding title, not to mention rotten zombie guy on the cover, OR the fact that it’s called a “Frightening Zombie Thriller!” on the back, is NOT A FUCKING ZOMBIE MOVIE. A ghost possesses some folks, and when they are possessed they drool and get that dazed look on their face you might expect from a zombie, but once the possession is over they go back to normal. The people who are killed never come back either.

That said, this movie is an unparalleled, amazing piece of “what the FUCK?”ity. I’m gonna have to spoil the ending in a bit, but I hope you all go check this out. It’s only 72 minutes long, and the ending redeems every bad thing about the movie and then some. Spoilers begin now.

So OK, the people in the film are possessed by the ghost of a little baby who accidentally put a gun in its mouth and pulled the trigger (pretty impressive for a kid, I can see one or the other, but doing both? If he wasn’t dead, that kid would be ready for advanced Lego sets by the time he was 3). We learn that he was adopted, because the birth mother was only like 17 and didn’t have the means to take care of him. So throughout the movie, people involved (the adopted parents, the father, the doctor who delivered him, etc) with his birth keep dying or killing other folks. She figures out that it’s her son’s ghost like 40 min into the movie (but due to the length, that’s also with only 30 to go) and tries to warn everyone, but they don’t believe her. Fine.

Here’s where it gets weird. She realizes that the ghost is simply trying to be with his mother again. So to solve this problem, when her boyfriend (not the father) is possessed, she almost knocks him out, then pulls his pants off, says “come to mommy”, and proceeds to more or less rape him.

Now, for those of you following: yes, via possession, she essentially fucks her own son in order to get pregnant again so he can be reborn with the “right” family. Holy fucking shit. You think Shock or Ghost Son got a little weird??? Found it odd when the girl in Big Bad Wolf blew her boyfriend’s dad to get his DNA? This eclipses all of them, easily.

It’s almost like writers Joshua and Jeffrey Crook and Kris Scotto wanted to make a film that served as a metaphor for living up to your responsibilities as a parent, but somehow got forced to make it into a horror movie. The horror elements seem fairly shoehorned in (and the music is just a straight up ripoff of the Halloween score, for good measure), and hell, the movie doesn’t even end on a “scary” note, which makes the DVD’s excessive attempts to sell it as a zombie movie all the more puzzling. Granted, I have no idea how you can sell such a concept otherwise, but still. I wish they provided the commentary instead of the director and star doing typical “this is my friend, we shot this in blah blah” boring crap (however, they do point out a co-star who is now dead. A quick Google revealed she had like 3 DUIs and died of “suffocation”, which probably means “choked on her own vomit”.).

So yeah, I urge you to check this out, if only for the fact that 65 minutes of not very interesting stuff results in a scene that would make Freud himself go “What the FUCK?”

The film also features a supercute naked chick walking out into the cold and axing a guy.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Rise: Blood Hunter (2007)

NOVEMBER 17, 2007

GENRE: VAMPIRE
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

Have you seen Innocent Blood? Good, you’ve also seen Rise: Blood Hunter. The differences are barely worth mentioning, but since I already wrote a Blood review, I guess I gotta write something. Far be it from me to be lazy (despite the fact that the only reason I rented the movie at all was because it was right next to another movie that I was renting called Rise Of The Dead).

Yes, the film offers precious little new to the genre: a female vampire (Lucy Liu) who doesn’t WANT to be a vampire begrudgingly teams up with a cop who thinks she’s just a killer in order to take out a group of bad guys. Some flashbacks add a bit of brain work add muted interest to the proceedings, but it’s not enough to really make it stick out.

Two things DO stick out though. One is the film’s excessive length. 122 minutes for a movie with barely any plot other than what I described above? At first I was baffled by the claim that 25 minutes of never before seen footage was added to the film, since I thought it was direct to DVD, but apparently it played for a week or so last June (so, along with Fido, was I even fucking awake in June? Christ). By my math, that would make the theatrical version a much more manageable 97 minutes, though I couldn’t care less about what was removed/added. I’ll just say, if the 97 minute version IS available, I urge you to stick with that, the added stuff can’t possibly have made the film any better.

The other thing that caught my attention was the ridiculous amount of one scene turns in the film by people who are relatively well-known, but aren’t quite yet in the cameo stage of their careers. Marilyn Manson and Robert Forster are one thing (actually, two), but Elden Henson? Holt McCallany? Zach Gilford? Simon Fucking Rex? According to the IMDb, Nick Lachey also shows up, but I can’t place him. Not to mention how little Michael Chiklis, Carla Gugino, and Mako are in the film. No, this is almost all Liu, all the time, and since she’s really not that great of an actress, that’s kind of a bummer. At least offer more Gugino, you monsters!

Dammit Saracen, get out of this crap and back on the field!

I will point out that the film thankfully includes very few instances of Liu being all "grrrl"ish, nor does she seemingly hate every character with a penis for no reason (at least not as much compared to Tank Girl or whatever). I was talking the other day with a (female) friend about how much we wish that more action/horror films with females in the lead functioned more as actual movies of their genre and less as feminist fantasy. So in that department, for what it's worth, it does OK enough.

I dunno. Technically the film is fine, and there are nice set pieces here and there, but damned if I’ll remember a goddamn thing about it by the time I finish posting this review.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Bad Taste (1988)

NOVEMBER 16, 2007

GENRE: ALIEN, COMEDIC, INDEPENDENT
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK!!!)

One of the biggest surprise titles on the Chilling Classics set was Peter Jackson’s debut film, Bad Taste. Like Deep Red and Driller Killer, it was a film I had actually heard of before, due to the fact that it wasn’t a public domain curio from the 70s like 90% of the rest of the set. And unlike some of the other “big” titles, it didn’t seem to be an edited version. Obviously I didn’t remember much about the film from the one time I saw it back in high school, or else it wouldn’t be eligible for HMAD, but the gore seems intact and the running time is the same, so it’s kind of puzzling how Mill Creek got it on there.

Anyway, like Evil Dead, the film is a bittersweet reminder of how inventive and borderline insane the director used to be. Considering that the opening weekend of any of the LOTR films outgrossed all of Jackson’s other films combined, I think it’s not entirely ignorant to assume I was one of the few people going to see Fellowship because I was a fan of the director, not the material. While not bad films by any means, I much prefer his older films, where the inventiveness and sheer joy of making films was evident in every frame. Sure, the visuals in LOTR and Kong (a film I barely like at all) are spectacular, but it will always be more impressed with a well done beheading in a film that cost about 10 grand than to see a dinosaur in a film that cost 200 million.

Yet it took 15 years for him to win an Oscar.

Plus the movie is just funny as hell. The scene where Jackson (playing one of two characters) runs around shooting aliens while making the "Neh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh" sound of the machine gun is just one of many laugh out loud moments. There’s also some brilliant off-kilter dialogue (“We are here to fight any threat to the planet Earth!” “And the moon!”). And of course, the gore itself is played for laughs. Fuck, the movie is just fun. As was Dead Alive, and Meet The Feebles, and even The Frighteners for the most part. Then he got all serious and shit. Now he’s making a movie about a 13 year old who gets raped and killed. Yay?

Like Raimi, it’s great that Jackson has gone from making movies with his friends, for no money, in his backyard, to helming the biggest films of all time, but damn if I don’t wish they would return to their roots every now and then. His Hollywood films might be flawless in their presentation, but technical wizardry doesn’t replace genuine inventiveness.

I should also note that this marks the end of my affair with the Chilling Classics set. You may notice that there are only 45 reviews for the 50 film set, but Medusa, Death Rage, War of the Robots, and The Bloody Brood contain no horror elements whatsoever, and Legend of Big Foot is a documentary. I think it was just about exactly one year ago that I bought this little bundle of joy, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t kind of sad to be ‘retiring’ it. While nothing ever matched the amazingness of Cathy’s Curse or Scream Bloody Murder (two of the earliest selections), I was almost always entertained with the films, if not for the intended reasons, and I can only hope that Horror Classics and Decrepit Crypt sets will live up to Chilling’s legacy.

RIP Chilling Classics: November 2006 – November 2007.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Little Shop Of Horrors (1960)

NOVEMBER 15, 2007

GENRE: COMEDIC, HERO KILLER, MONSTER
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 2!!!)

One of my favorite movies growing up was the musical version of Little Shop Of Horrors. I had the film taped off of HBO (complete with the “Feature Presentation” music, which I still “miss” when I watch the film on DVD), as well as the soundtrack, which used to bug me because some of the songs were different. I even went to a stage production in Massachusetts a few years back. Yet, it took me like 20 years to finally see the source film.

I was surprised how much I enjoyed the 1960 version. Notoriously shot in only 2 days, I think the movie’s pretty well done, considering. I miss the songs (the dentist just isn’t as hilarious without “You’ll be a DENNNNNNNNTIST!”), and obviously the climax isn’t as exciting, but it more than makes up for it in black humor and just plain weird nonsense that finds its way into the film.

Principal among the film’s strange highlights is Dick Miller’s character. He plays a guy who eats flowers as if it was the most natural thing in the world. When Seymour brings up his new project plant, Miller tries to entice Mushnick to let Seymour display the plant in the shop, beginning his argument with “I’ve eaten in flower shops all over the world...”. Then, a bit later, he exits a scene by claiming he has to get home, for his wife “is making gardenias for dinner.” Hahahah what? Awesome.

The film is very similar in structure to A Bucket of Blood, complete with an ending in which our “hero” is chased for a bit before becoming part of the very thing he became known for in the first place. But what do you expect from Corman? It’s a wonder he didn’t use the same set.

MST3k fans might like to know that Mike Nelson has recorded a commentary for this film, on the DVD released via Legend Films. I have bought a few of his other releases (Plan 9, Night of the Living Dead, Reefer Madness, etc) and for whatever reason, they aren’t nearly as funny as his Rifftrax commentaries. So I haven’t checked this one out yet, but I am sure I will someday. If anyone reading this has already done so, let me know how it is, maybe I’ll fast-track it.

Also, I’d like to mention that I do a damn good rendition of “Suddenly Seymour” if I do say so my damn self.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Virus (1980)

NOVEMBER 14, 2007

GENRE: POST-APOCALYPTIC
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK!!!)

Well, I think it’s safe to say that I will never stretch the term “Horror” as much as I did for today’s movie, Virus (like everything else in existence, do not confuse it for the 1998 Jamie Lee Curtis movie set on a boat haunted by robotic spiders). While it certainly SOUNDS horror-y, in reality, other than the somewhat scary notion of the end of the world, this isn’t a horror movie at all. No, it’s more a sci-fi version of Fail Safe or something, with most of the film played out in rooms with lots and lots of cranky old men.

That said, it’s actually a pretty decent movie. We follow the stories of several different groups of characters, many of them played by old school genre faves like George Kennedy and Robert Vaughn. Hell, even Sonny Chiba shows up. True, they are mostly just standing around talking while the unknown/minor stars do all the action stuff, but hey, what are you gonna do?

What was surprising about the film was how much of a downer it is. President Pa Kent and his staff die like 20 min into the movie, and by the end just about everything and everyone else is dead too, giving the film TWO armageddons, so to speak. Also, it’s amazing what stats are given for the survivors: “855 men, and 8 women.” Of course, for the women, this means an incredibly varied selection from whom they can begin repopulating the world, but for the guys – that’s fucking HARSH.

Messiest Oval Office ever.

Apparently, close to 50 min of the film has been removed for this version, most of it dealing with Japan. I would like to see the whole version of the film, not to mention in widescreen format, since the pan and scan job was atrocious at times (see below).

It’s far from a great film, but it’s certainly one of the more professional films in the set. Also, it’s pretty eerie that, in a montage of major cities and their death tolls (displayed onscreen with the lamest titles I’ve ever seen in a film), New York’s number is shown in a shot that begins with a closeup of the World Trade Center.

Favorite line of dialogue: “You gave me a goddamn PLACEBO?!?!?”, yelled by one of the film’s many crusty old guys. Man, I really am gonna miss the Chilling Classics set.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Black Sabbath (1963)

NOVEMBER 13, 2007

GENRE: ANTHOLOGY, ITALIAN
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

I was going to watch Scream, Bloody Murder today, but as is often the case, Blockbuster sent me the 1970s movie with the same name, which I had already watched (and wouldn’t mind watching again, truth be told, that movie was awesome!). I don’t know why they can’t get their “doubled” titles straight, but it happens every single time. I can only hope that somewhere, someone wanted to watch the original SBM (maybe even based on my recommendation!) and got the low budget slasher from a few years’ back. And that they send it back, pronto. So, short story shorter, I watched Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath (aka I Tre Volti Della Paura) instead.

Granted, it’s an anthology movie, so I wasn’t expecting much, but it was pretty OK for the most part. The final story is terribly weak compared to the others, and much shorter than those to boot. What I liked most about the first two tales is that they didn’t feel rushed, like many anthology movie stories do. The middle tale, The Wurdalak, almost feels feature length (it’s like almost 50 minutes worth of the 92 minute movie!), and since it also co-stars Boris Karloff, is the best.

Karloff also provides the film’s bookend sequences, and I must admit, there’s something kind of odd about watching a guy speak English, which is then dubbed into Italian and given English subtitles. Anyway, in the first scene he’s apparently on the same stage that Walt Disney used to pal around with Mickey Mouse on, then at the end he is riding a horse as obvious fake trees rush by. Bava then reveals that it’s SUPPOSED to be fake, as the camera zooms out to reveal that Karloff is more or less playing himself on a sound stage.

Yeah, fine. Whatever.

I am puzzled as to why I have thus far been sort of underwhelmed with the Bava films I have seen. While none of have been BAD by any means, I must admit I was expecting more enjoyment out of them than I have had so far. I love his son’s films, and I love (his would be successor) Argento’s films, so I don’t know what the fuck my problem is. The only one I’ve been truly struck by is Shock, and that’s like half Lamberto’s movie I guess.

At any rate, I believe this finishes off the Bava Volume 1 set (at least as far as HMAD is concerned; there’s a Viking movie on there that I assume cannot qualify as a horror movie), which is good because I already got Volume 2 and I was supposed to review it for Bloody Disgusting like a month ago (let’s hope Anchor Bay calls it even with me for sending me the Hatchet prizes a full two months after the contest ended). That, coupled with my recent canceling of Netflix, means there might be a lot of Bava coming your way!!!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Monkey Shines (1988)

NOVEMBER 12, 2007

GENRE: PREDATOR, PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

While Dawn of the Dead is one of my favorite all time movies (not just horror) and I pretty much love the shit out of the other four in the series, I have seen relatively few of Romero’s other films. I saw Dark Half as a kid, don’t remember a damn thing about it (future HMAD entry!), and obviously I've seen Creepshow, but otherwise I’ve somehow missed everything else. And my desire to watch something that might actually be good led to finally taking in a viewing of Monkey Shines, which I bought a while back and never watched until now.

It’s a bit too long, but otherwise it’s a really solid, creepy film. Everyone knows monkeys will eventually kill us all, so to see one slowly go nuts and take out the close friends and family of one crippled dude is as terrifying as it is prophetic. Plus, the damn thing is so cute (the part where the monkey turns off the lights so the guy is forced to stop reading and pay attention to her is ridiculously lovable), even when it’s killing folks I’m still going “Awwwww” every 5 minutes.

OK, the movie's kind of weird.

Lots of they-weren't-yet familiar faces in this one too (it came out in 1988). Stanley Tucci plays an oily prick of a doctor (his reaction to being introduced to the main guy’s coach is pretty priceless), Stephen Root shows up as a rival scientist, and Janine Turner (mmm) plays the main dude’s girlfriend, who leaves him for Tucci and, obviously, is immolated by a primate for her actions.

The only thing I didn’t like about the film was the music. It usually seems to contradict the scenes it accompanies. For example, during the suspenseful and freaky climax, the score suggests romantic comedy more than anything else. Maybe this is an intentional joke, but if so it doesn’t really work.

It’s a shame Romero didn’t get to make more films in his prime, as he was always the victim of projects falling apart (usually for financial reasons) just before production was due to begin. He’s always been one of the genre’s more intelligent and interesting filmmakers, which of course, is probably why many of his films failed at the box office (including this one). The DVD is bare bones, of course, but I still recommend it.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Slaughter

NOVEMBER 11, 2007

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

I rented The Slaughter a few days ago, and as usual I had never heard of it. I didn’t even bother reading the back of the DVD; I could tell it was a horror movie, so that’s all I needed to warrant a viewing. But as the film unraveled, I realized that no description could do this utterly bizarre movie any justice.

See, for the first hour or so, the film is a standard Evil Dead ripoff, with some light slasher elements thrown in for good measure (and, yes, yet again, fucking real estate 'intrigue'). The characters are pretty annoying, and for whatever reason, writer Jay Lee saw fit to inject the film with lots and lots of pointless sociologically and psychologically tinged dialogue. Instead of the usual drivel these types of characters usually spout out, we get debates about socialism and free speech and the like. At one point, someone points out that reading the Necronomicon-esque book out loud is the worst idea since the Bush administration (and then they clarify by pointing out they mean George W. Bush). What the hell all of this stuff is doing in the middle of a horror movie is beyond me. The same type of crap helped to make the execrable Drive Thru even worse. If it had any bearing on the plot, or even the theme, it would be fine, but using it just to try to make your characters seem a bit smarter, or as an attempt to make your film seem more relevant, is fucking stupid.

Then, something sort of strangely wonderful happens. With 3 kids left, the film suddenly becomes an ironic parody; the very type of humor I use in my (as yet unproduced) animated show Fright Reviews. The characters don’t care if they are in danger, or that their friends are dead, they begin arguing about trivial matters when they are under attack by zombies, and even ponder whether the zombies are “Romero style” or the “new, fast kind”. Had the entire film been presented in this manner, I’d probably be declaring it the best of the year, but since it comes so jarringly so late into the film, it’s just baffling and nowhere near as funny as it would be if you hadn’t watched the hour that preceded it.

Now, it’s not that the film isn’t funny before then. No, in fact it’s hilarious, albeit unintentionally so. We have a guy who gets so high that he turns homosexual, a character staring at some dirt and screaming, and dialogue like “He’s a hard worker AND he busts his ass!” We are also witness to some of the worst compositing/rotoscoping work I have ever seen in a film, low-budget or not:

Also, during the opening titles, the film has the rather strange final credit “A film by Jay Lee” in lieu of pointing out that he wrote, directed, shot, and edited it. It’s admirable that he did so much (and it IS pretty well shot, at any rate), but perhaps the film would have been improved if he hadn’t spread himself so thin. It’s certainly not horrible, but the strange tonal shift during the third act, worthless “commentary” dialogue, the pitiful CG work, and rather slow first act make it hard to recommend as anything but a curiosity.

However, if you like the humor of the final 20 minutes, please write your congressman, or any producers/agents you may know, and tell them to carry Fright Reviews.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Tooth & Nail

NOVEMBER 10, 2007

GENRE: CANNIBAL, POST-APOCALYPTIC, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

IT HAS BEGUN!

Yes, another “8 Films To Die For” collection is upon us, and like last year, I managed to make it out for one of the films (hey, this site doesn’t make me a red cent, I try to limit how much it COSTS ME to keep it going!). Luckily, my choice, Tooth & Nail, was far better than the one film I saw in theaters last time around (do I really need to mention it by name, again?), though still far from very good.

The key problem with this film is how blatantly obvious the twist is. Let’s see, one of the good guys is killed by an unseen killer, even though the bad guys are a loud, unstealthy and cartoonish lot. Also, their apparent leader (Michael Madsen, once again introduced via a shot of his feet) is killed shortly after he appears. And since it’s obvious Vinnie Jones shot all of his scenes on a break from whatever Guy Ritchie movie he was filming, who will be the “big bad?” And gee, how did this quiet non-threatening blond chick (Rachel Miner, from the not as bad as I expected Penny Dreadful) manage to escape these bloodthirsty cannibals so easily? OHHhhhh......

Also, all of these people have really stupid names, most of them American car models: Neon, Viper, Nova, etc. Why, I dunno. Maybe its a Postman reference. Luckily, otherwise the film doesn't resemble that film at all. Which brings me to my biggest compliment I can give to the film – for once, though it was probably a budgetary limit and not an artistic choice, the post-apocalyptic future looks like it should: the same as it does now. I never got why, in all these “30 years from now, our world fell to shit” movies, that the engineers and designers around the world decided to completely overhaul our transportation and industrial centers, OR (as in Postman), somehow find a way to make the entire world look like a desert. Is putting an elevated subway and designing loud and garish skyscrapers really their solution to combat annihilation? No, in Tooth, the buildings and everything look like they do now, just a bit more rundown and of course, empty. Nice work.

However, they still raided the Mad Max museum when it came to designing the cannibals; even though the good guys wear standard sweaters and jeans, the bad guys took the time to design outlandish metal and leather costumes. Maybe designing them takes their mind off of being so hungry. Also, their motives are a bit unclear – they claim that they are simply hungry, but if that is the case, why do they go to all the trouble hunting their prey? Wouldn’t it be easier to wear some khakis and a polo shirt, walk up to a guy, shoot him and then eat him as you see fit? Oh well, who am I to judge Michael Madsen (who also executive produced)?

The cast is pretty recognizable, which is nice. In addition to Madsen, Miner, and Jones, we got Robert Carradine (as a professor, lol), Rider Strong (who has an odd tendency to delay his responses to other characters), and the guy who played CJ in Dawn 04, playing, well, another asshole who becomes a hero. Also, there’s a guy in the movie who looks EXACTLY like Richard Tyson, but it’s not him. Which bummed me out.

So there it is; the first of what will probably be another half dozen or so ho-hum and forgettable, if not exactly BAD, group of films, plus one good one (my money's on Mulberry St) and one god awful piece of shit.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Wicked Little Things (2006)

NOVEMBER 9, 2007

GENRE: ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Finally, I may rest. The empty hole in my soul has been filled. Life as I know it is no longer as incomplete. Because, now that I have seen Wicked Little Things, no one can ever accuse me of not watching all eight of After Dark’s 8 Films To Die For from 2006. And of course, today marks the release of eight more, so let’s see how long it takes me to finish all of THOSE.

Like most of them, WLT, as it’s known only in this sentence, is not particularly good, but not horrible either. I do like the idea of having only children as the antagonists in what is essentially a zombie movie, but they aren’t menacing enough, and in fact by the end they are more or less the heroes.

How does that work, you might ask? Well, once again, this horror movie has a subplot about, you guessed it, real estate. The least fucking interesting thing in the world has now served as the driving force behind three horror movies I have watched this year. One more and I will be forced to add it to the subgenre list. Yes, as it turns out, the zombie kids are really after a greedy land developer guy, not so much the 3 heroines (including Scout Taylor Compton, aka fake Laurie Strode) or the local exposition- er, mountain man. They kill a few other folks while they’re at it, but I prefer 100% motiveless zombies, not ones that sort of test the waters and then decide on a course of action for the last 20 minutes.

I also like it when our heroine is likable, which isn’t the case here. Scout was a bit annoying at times as Laurie Strode, but here she’s just a plain old bitch. She whines about everything, steals food from her little sister, and mocks rednecks. Can someone cast her as someone I don’t want to punch in the stomach? I don’t know how her mother in the film manages to go the whole 90 minutes without at LEAST giving her a backhander.

Still, as the film began with some folks moving into an old house (and then looking through newspaper clippings with lots of helpful backstory), I was expecting a goddamn haunted house movie, so when some zombies showed up, however lame they were, it was a nice surprise. Also, the finale features some “don’t move or they’ll see and then kill you” action, a stock moment but nicely elevated by the fact that they continue to stand still as a victim is killed in the room above them, and his blood pours through cracks on the floor, drenching them as they remain still. Nice!

There’s a commentary track but it’s as boring as they come. Unless you really love hearing about Bulgarian film crews.

The film was directed by J.S. Cardone, who made the Near Dark/Lost Boys wannabe The Forsaken, a mostly terrible film that somehow got a theatrical release in spring of 2001 (I remember seeing it back to back with Along Came A Spider. What a shitty day at the movies). Other than a hot girl or two, the movie was pretty worthless, but it still endeared itself to me a little bit, since the lead character (Jack from Dawson’s Creek) played a guy who edited trailers. That’s me! Sort of. Sadly, Wicked Little Things didn’t have any such character for me to relate to, so I am sure I will forget every single thing about it within a few days or so. But you won’t yell at your TV or attempt to euthanize your DVD player while you’re watching the film, so in that respect, I guess it’s OK enough.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Fido

NOVEMBER 8, 2007

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

I must have been in traffic or something the day Fido was in theaters. What else could explain it? I remember hearing about the movie a lot in the spring, and then I sort of forgot about it. Then yesterday I am at the video store and there it is, Billy Connolly’s zombie face snarling at me. A quick check of Boxofficemojo confirms the film came out on June 15th, 2007, and eventually grossed a paltry $304,533, but I’m still a bit fuzzy as to how I missed its entire theatrical run. I live in LA! We’re a select city!!!

Anyway, I didn’t miss much. It’s an OK enough film, but a lot of the jokes seemed pretty obvious to me, and others were just recycled from other zombie comedies (including a few that were done in a short film I myself edited, 6 years ago!) or movies that satire the 50s suburban dream. There are some great jabs at the current state of “protection”, such as when a government agent happily announces that everyone will have their photo taken for protection, but they are few and far between.

In fact that’s kind of the problem with the movie: it’s supposed to be a lot funnier than it is, but it doesn’t really work as a zombie movie either. I’ve seen Shaun of the Dead so many times that I no longer laugh at 90% of the things that made me piss myself the first time around, but I am still entertained by the film. I can’t imagine watching Fido again will be a particularly thrilling experience, especially since the film barely has a narrative and instead functions as a collection of setpieces.

The film’s most interesting character is a neighbor played by Tim Blake Nelson. He has a zombie pet that subs for a lover, and he knows how to fix (or break) the collars the zombies wear to keep them in control. All of his scenes are a delight, and I wish there were more of them. Plus, I admit... I wanted to see a guy nail a zombie. Comedically.

The strangest thing about the movie is that I was consistently having déjà vu as I watched it, but yet couldn’t place any of the movies that it was somehow reminding me of. Like, it seemed like I had seen Dylan Baker play this exact same role before, but all of his roles I can think of have nothing to do with playing a somewhat assholish dad in the 50s. Likewise, the film’s main focus (the friendship between the kid and Fido the zombie) seemed familiar, but I can’t think of another film that even had domesticated zombies other than Day of the Dead (and the end of Shaun), which this movie obviously does not resemble. Weird.

Like I said, it’s not a bad movie, but they failed to milk the ideas and satire for what they were worth, settling for obvious gags and repetitive “Oh it’s funny because he’s a ZOMBIE!” type scenarios.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Mist (2007)

NOVEMBER 7, 2007

GENRE: MONSTER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PRESS SCREENING)

What the hell has happened to the world of horror? For years, there was two things you could always depend on: Dimension mucking up what could have been a good film, and good Stephen King short stories becoming pretty bad movies. But now, twice this year, a King short tale has been turned into a film courtesy of Dimension, and not only are they good, but among the best of the year. The Mist is the 2nd (after the thoroughly enjoyable 1408), and it may very well be the best wide release horror film of the year (and hell, the best limited release, Inside, is being released on DVD on Dimension Extreme! Up is down, down is up; dogs and cats, living together...)

The film begins with one of the best things I have seen onscreen in years: Tom Jane, playing a poster artist, putting the finishing touches on what is quite obviously a Dark Tower movie poster. I love the DT series more than just about anything in the world of the written word, so this literally sent shivers up my spine, even though it’s sadly quite fictional (for now, anyway) and just meant to be a little joke. NOT FUNNY, DARABONT!

I was a bit curious what changes Frank Darabont would make to the source material, if any. While Shawshank Redemption (one of the finest films ever made) stuck pretty close, at least on a storytelling level (the novella wasn’t as uplifting), The Green Mile, good as it was, was almost mechanically faithful to the source material, to the point where the film seemed a bit cold (of course, that’s the one that made the most money). So I was happy to discover that while he once again stayed faithful, he actually improved on the short story in several ways. Side characters are given more to do, the trip to the pharmacy (something that takes less than 5 pages in the 120+ page “short” story) is now a major setpiece, and, most significantly, there is now an ending. I won’t spoil it, but it should be pretty interesting to see how people react to it. I loved it, and it gave the film a bittersweet moral that the short story lacked. Hopefully the majority will see it my way (then again, I wish that for everything. God, why do you people continue to hate The Hitcher remake?!?!?). Also, the Mist’s “backstory”, only hinted at in the novel, is a bit more defined here, though it’s still barely a factor. Much like Lost is about the people, not a magic island; the mist isn’t the driving force behind the film, and so spending precious screen time explaining it (or worse, trying to “stop” it) would be pointless.

The only real OMISSION to the story was a brief, sort of nonsensical sex scene between the main character and one of the women he meets at the supermarket. It was a pretty dumb segment of the book, and Darabont was wise to remove it. Not only does it make the hero (played by Tom Jane here, faring far better in King territory than he did in Dreamcatcher) less of a dick, it also keeps the film’s pace in check, instead of stopping cold to have some guy you’re supposed to like leave his kid for a while to cheat on his wife in the manager’s office of a supermarket under siege by prehistoric spiders (holy SHIT there are a lot of prepositional phrases there).

On a technical level the film is impressive as well. Darabont carried over the crew from The Shield (he directed an episode a year or so ago), and gives the film the same sort of documentary/real feel that that show has. Not everything is in perfect focus, the camera zooms and whips around in long takes rather than carefully staged multiple angles, etc. It heightens the tension, obviously, but it also works in another way – helping to sell the effects. When things feel more real (i.e. less like a big budget movie), a giant tentacle slithering under a door will make for a far more effective scare.

As expected, Darabont gets all his actors’ A games (though Jane gets a bit over the top in his final scenes), and it’s nice to see all his regulars (Bill Sadler, Jeffrey DeMunn, Brian Libby) together again. Marcia Gay Harden (is it wrong I think she, a 50 year old classy lady, is pretty damn hot?) manages to make a truly wretched character (a Christian fanatic) compelling and even somewhat sympathetic, no small task. Andre Braugher is also good (playing Norton, who was a pudgy white guy in the book – providing another similarity to 1408), no surprise there. And Jane is one of the more interesting actors in his age bracket, so it’s always a plus when he toplines a film that has a script worthy of his talent (he usually seems to be one of those guys who get smaller roles in great films and bigger roles in crap films – see Boogie Nights and The Punisher, respectively, for examples). Hell, even the little kid is good.

I should also point out the music. There isn’t any. At least, not until the end (that I noticed anyway – if there was any before then it was quick and as unobtrusive as any score has ever been). When seen out of context, certain scenes may feel lacking due to this choice, but the film as a whole benefits greatly from it (though the score is a bit overbearing when it is finally used). Then again, when the acting and filmmaking are this spot on, a score that tells you how to feel or what kind of scene it is isn’t necessary.

Jesus Christ, I IMPLORE you; do not let this one tank at the box office. It takes real talent and effort to make a smart, thought provoking film out of what is essentially a giant monster movie, and it would literally pain me to see it trampled on by the likes of Fred Claus or whatever the fuck. Darabont easily proves that the story doesn’t have to be set in a prison in order to make a truly wonderful Stephen King adaptation, and you should reward him for his hard work. He’s one of our best filmmakers, but the failure of The Majestic meant we had to wait 6 years for him to get back behind the camera (not to mention getting burned by Lucas on Indy 4 - Indy's loss is our gain I guess). I don’t want to wait that long again. Nor do I want to have to wait till DVD to talk about the ending of the film and what it meant to me. If 1408 can pull in 80 million in the middle of summer, there is no reason in the world why this one can’t surpass 100 when there’s almost zero genre competition. You don’t want to see the year’s best horror film on DVD (or worse, a bootleg – fucking scum).

November 21st. Be there.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

With You

NOVEMBER 6, 2007

GENRE: GHOST, HAUNTED HOUSE, INDEPENDENT
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Today’s movie, With You, is another I have no recollection of adding to my queue. The Blockbuster page doesn’t even have a synopsis (nor did the little sleeve the disc arrived in). Having no idea what I was in for, I put it on, and discovered it was a no-budget, shot on video, largely amateurish ghost/haunted house movie. Complete with a DVD that has no menu other than "Play Movie" (yep, another disc without a damn scene selection menu – something I have never seen in my life and now I’ve seen it twice in the past 3 days).

Actually, it’s a haunted “other house” movie. Because, for whatever reason, the main character is harassed by ghosts not because he lives in a haunted house, but because his home is the only one that OVERLOOKS a haunted house. What the hell kind of half-assed backstory is that? It’s the first movie in which planting a few trees on a hill could have saved someone’s life.

Anyway, the film is fairly boring and not very original, but there’s a strong sense of earnestness that endeared itself to me, enough to give this one a pass. Obviously they had no money, but they made the best of it, and on a technical level, despite some pretty brutal breaking of the 180 rule, the film is made with some actual effort (i.e. no glaring continuity errors, no boom mikes, etc).

Also, it begins with the main character
making this pitiful little doodle.

There’s some puzzling screenwriting choices throughout the film though. Why is the main guy’s friend so friendly to old people? He acts like a surrogate son to what seems like half the town. Why does the town’s one cop invite a total stranger to check out a crime scene? What’s with all the talk about the lead character drinking? Why does his landlord assume that he’s “not the type of person who bathes”? And what the HELL is up with the totally homoerotic ending, which features a guy buried alive with a zombie who keeps gently biting him on the back? Yikes.

I dunno, it’s not a particularly good movie, but A for effort and all that. For a reported 30k, they made a movie that doesn’t give fellow indie filmmakers a bad name. Like yesterday’s Kaw, it’s a lot better than you’d expect considering the circumstances, so I laud their efforts.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Kaw (2007)

NOVEMBER 5, 2007

GENRE: PREDATOR
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

Yesterday I walked into Blockbuster and scanned the shelves for a horror movie to watch, not really knowing what I was in the mood for. Slasher? Monster? Pretend someone is back from the grave in order to scam another person out of an inheritance (I really need to name this genre)? Then I spotted Kaw, which I had never even heard of previously. But seeing a giant bird on the box next to a “scary” font, I knew immediately that A. it was horror, and B. it would be a fun review to write. Come on, it’s fucking called KAW for Christ’s sake. It seemed like the film existed solely for me to make fun of it on HMAD.

So when I sat down to watch it today, and in a bad mood no less, I was saddened to discover that the film really isn’t all that bad. Obviously it’s no masterpiece, but I was entertained, the production value was high, it looked professionally made by people who weren’t just cashing a check, and the script genuinely surprised me in terms of who would live or die.

And Powder is in it.

The only bad thing I can really say about the movie is that the raven effects were wildly uneven. Good CG, bad CG, good editing with the real birds, bad editing with real birds... it ran the gamut. Obviously some CG is to be expected, so that’s not a real problem. But the inconsistency of the effects was pretty distracting.

Otherwise though, the film was pretty good. Whoever cast it should be commended, as not only are the actors good, but they seem natural in their roles. I hate a horror movie that casts the most beautiful women in the world as like, coffee shop owners or whatever. Come on now. But here, everyone is totally believable in their blue collar settings.

Also, there’s a pretty big cast (a dozen or so main characters), and in addition to some decent attempts at character development, it’s kind of hard to tell who will live or die. If anything, the movie sort of goes out of its way to kill off the nicer people in the movie, but not in a mean-spirited way (other than at some of the CG birds, I didn’t laugh once watching this movie, intentionally or not). Kind of like Tremors, they don’t go the usual horror movie route and kill all but two people, so it makes the attack scenes a bit more suspenseful when you know they aren’t out to simply whittle the remaining cast down to nothing in order to save on SAG fees.

Hell, they even give a decent enough explanation for why the birds went nuts. Whether it makes any scientific sense I have no idea, but I certainly don’t care either (drop a nuke into a hole a mere 800 into something the size of Texas and it will split in two and miss the Earth? Sounds good to me!). And it’s given about one minute of screen time, so even if you totally hate the ‘motive’, it’s not like it makes up the whole movie.

Now, again, this is no masterpiece. But for a direct to video movie (which I suspect may actually have been made for TV – the gore is incredibly light and there is no profanity at all) with almost no known actors or creators (and obvious script rewrites – the ‘story by’ credit is given to someone other than the names on the ‘screenplay by’ credit) I was fairly surprised at its relative professionalism and decency. I expected the worst, and I got OK. That’s more than I can say for like 75% of these “blind rents”.

So kudos, cast and crew of Kaw, for not making me angry!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Deadly Friend (1986)

NOVEMBER 4, 2007

GENRE: MAD SCIENTIST, TECHNOLOGY
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

As far as I am concerned, DVD took a decade to hit its peak. That would be last month, when they finally released Wes Craven’s Deadly Friend legitimately (a bootleg DVD popped up at conventions for years until Warner announced it as part of their Twisted Terror collection). The DVD is still wholly disappointing (mono sound, no extras, doesn’t even have a fucking scene selection menu), but I don’t mind. I hadn’t seen the film since I was like 8, and retained fond memories of it (if only of the film’s most memorable moments – i.e. the basketball kill) I was mighty curious to see how it would hold up now that I am older and wiser, not to mention stupider.

What I didn’t remember was how fairly goofy the movie was. It’s essentially a kid’s movie, but with insane gore. I mean, he’s got a big yellow robot; he meets cute with not only a girl but a guy (the movie’s kind of weird); fights with a neighborhood bully, plays Halloween pranks... there’s even an old woman neighbor who they all fear. It’s sort of like a less whimsical Monster House. I honestly think the target audience for this movie are folks who were kids who were allowed to watch horror movies when it came out and are now easily amused assholes. Because really, who the fuck else could possibly enjoy this movie if they saw it for the first time as an adult? But on the flipside, you couldn’t be considered a very good person to recommend it for small children, what with all the rampant gore and violence.

Jesus, LOOK at this fucking thing.

Of course, the basketball kill is pretty much the most famous scene in Wes Craven’s career; the type of thing Youtube was invented for (strangely, going by the trailer, one would assume this kill was a reshoot, as the spot shows the victim being killed by getting smashed into a door). And it still holds up (i.e. makes me laugh my ass off) as well as it did back in 1987 or so. However, there aren’t many other kills in the film (the killer robot/zombie angle isn’t even introduced until about the 2/3 mark), but there’s enough gore in them to keep gorehounds happy.

Kristy Swanson has never been better, playing an expressionless robot.

The ending is pretty astounding. Showing signs of the “What the FUCK”ity of the Craven who would make Shocker, the conclusion finds a fully formed robot somehow nested inside the corpse of the girl. It bursts through her skin, complete with big monster teeth, and presumably eats the hero (offscreen). Then we hear, for about three straight minutes, the film’s non-theme theme song, which is just some guys going “Bee-bee. Buh-buh-buh-Bee-bee BEE-BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE” over and over. What the christing hell? Shocker may be the finest moment in Wes’ career (in terms of sheer awesomeness, not actual quality), but it is now abundantly clear to me that Deadly Friend laid the foundation for it.

This one’s based on a book simply called "Friend". I can’t imagine it’s anywhere near as hilarious, but I must know. Someone please buy it for me for Christmas.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Beowulf (2007)

NOVEMBER 3, 2007

GENRE: MONSTER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PRESS SCREENING)

Shockingly enough, I can’t remember much about a poem I read in 9th grade, so I don’t know how much of the source material was changed/removed for Beowulf. Then again, I DO remember that the story was an oral tale that was told for hundreds of years before being written down, and has been re-translated several times since, so really, it’s kind of difficult to pinpoint what is “faithful” and what isn’t... it’s sort of like the monster movie version of a game of Telephone.

Either way, it’s still a mostly enjoyable film, which is all that matters. The CG, all motion-capture animation is some of the best ever seen on film (far less creepy and odd than Polar Express), and the action sequences rival those in any live action film of a similar nature. However, I should point out that the film’s finale seems to have been written with the video game in mind, as Beowulf has to dodge trees, time his jumps, and even locate the weak spot on the bad guy. I half expected some moving platforms or maybe a powerup to get thrown in.

As said, the “acting” is far superior to the other films of its kind. Crispin Glover in particular; you can TELL it’s him, even though he’s been deformed and turned into a trollish mumbling thing. The rest of the cast more or less looks like their real life counterparts, with the exception of Ray Winstone, who has been made to look like Sean Bean for some reason. Winstone is a fantastic actor, and although he usually plays villains, it’s certainly understandable why they would want an actor of his caliber to play what is essentially the lead role, but it IS a bit distracting that he resembles another actor so much (especially one who has played Odysseus, a character fairly similar to Beowulf to begin with).

At Comic Con, we were told the film would be R, but that is not the case anymore. Still, it’s fairly graphic for a PG-13, and there’s even some nudity on Angelina Jolie’s half snake woman thing. Also, Sean Beanstone plays an entire scene nude, and while his privates are usually obscured, I am sure the animators snuck in a frame or two of CG penis for people to enjoy on DVD.

I know it’s stretching it for horror, but I mean, come on, it’s a movie about a giant monster that runs into a dining hall and tears people apart. That’s certainly horrific, no? They can’t all be LionsGate scarecrow movies.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Buried Alive (2007)

NOVEMBER 2, 2007

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

At Screamfest, I had the not very pleasurable experience of watching Robert Kurtzman’s The Rage, a movie that should have been fun but was hampered by atrocious acting, astonishingly bad digital video, and terrible effects. Now we have a sort of polar opposite with Buried Alive. This time, the acting’s still bad, but the film looks great (actual film helps), the production value is good (albeit with some extremely poor sync sound effects), and the effects are pretty impressive. But the script is devoid of anything even approaching fun. One wishes Kurtzman applied his resources to The Rage, and left this piece of crap forever buried (it’s not a pun unless I capitalize “buried”!).

Much like yesterday’s Slashed Dreams, a big part of the problem is that NOTHING FUCKING HAPPENS in it. We have ONE kill in the first hour, and it’s a almost bloodless gag, one that was done infinitely better in Wrong Turn 2 (axe down the middle) to boot. Christ, with only 15 minutes to go (including credits), the three main characters are still unaware that they are in any danger! Granted, this isn’t a necessity (you can almost say the same for Halloween), but the difference is that there’s no suspense or interesting story to keep your attention.

The back of the DVD is borderline offensive with its blatant false advertising. “A night of extreme truth or dare and wild partying gives way to sheer fright...” No one plays truth or dare, the ‘partying’ is pretty much limited to standing around drinking bottled beer, and sheer fright is kind of hard to come by when all of the horror elements occur in the film’s final 10-15 minutes. They also try to make it sound like Kurtzman directed From Dusk Til Dawn, when all he did was come up with the basic story and work on the effects along with the other KNB guys (who, no offense to Kurtzman, have done their best work in the past couple years, after “K” left to make movies like this. Bad choice dude!). “Packed with sex, shocks, and supernatural horror!” - One PG-13 sex scene and maybe 5 minutes of bland and forgettable horror scenes is hardly what I call packed.

And the characters are a largely unlikable lot – two stoner dudes, three airheads (though one gets smart like halfway through the movie for some reason), and a little nerdy dude who ends almost every sentence by saying the last word twice. “Hey guys guys.” “Where are we going going?” Etc. Sounds fun, right? Christ. In lieu of horror/suspense, Kurtzman and writer Art Monterastelli assume that an audience will have more fun watching a bitchy girl force two sorority pledges to walk like robots, stand on their heads, etc. Shockingly enough, they are completely wrong.

I should note that the ending is KIND OF a downer. Does it count as a downer if the two people we’re supposed to like/root for (but we don’t) die in a pointless scene that doesn’t really pay anything off? Sure, why not. Let’s give the movie something.

The only thing of any note about the entire film is that the two main characters are cousins who apparently never got instructed that kissing each other (at one point, right in front of her barely interested boyfriend) is kind of weird. The film even begins with a dream sequence in which they more or less make out, and then he drowns her in the tub, which ends up being just another thing that never pays off, at least that I could tell.

And poor Tobin Bell shows up. Granted, the guy’s not exactly Olivier, but whenever he shares a scene with these stiffs, it makes them look all that much worse. At least he seems to be having fun, what with his gold teeth and bandana. Like all good cameos, he more or less drifts in and out of the film at random, pulling pranks that don’t seem to make any sense once you learn he’s not the bad guy. But whatever.

Like the execrable Broken, this one comes from Dimension Extreme, a new DTV label from the worst studio in existence. I’d say they were a total failure, but three of their upcoming releases (Automaton Transfusion, Storm Warning, and Inside) are among the best of their respective subgenres of the past few years. Hopefully they’ll come sooner rather than later, before the already woeful name is completely sullied by this type of crap.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Slashed Dreams

NOVEMBER 1, 2007

GENRE: CRAP, HORROR? RAPE-REVENGE (?)
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK!!!)

At long last, October is over! I can go back to the standard, sane, simple, single movie a day. And I feel even better about that when my daily movie is as bad as Slashed Dreams (aka Sunburst), because I don’t want to run the risk of watching another film that might turn out as boring and pointless as this one for at least another 24 hrs or so.

This may be the most plodding movie I have ever seen in my life (certainly the worst offender for HMAD). LITERALLY nothing happens in the film. Except a rape. Nice, huh? We watch 2 folks sort of shuffle about the woods for nearly an hour (swimming, frolicking, eating...) before a couple of rednecks harass them (very tamely. One of them actually seems borderline nice). Later on, they come back and hit the guy a few times and rape the girl (at least, we are told as much. It’s sort of hard to tell if the guy is raping her or just hugging her. It’s certainly the least graphic rape scene ever committed to film, so it’s got that going for it at least). Then Robert Englund shows up, philosophizes about tea, the boyfriend tries to fight the rednecks, who both run away, and then the good guys go swimming. The end. I’m not exaggerating, that’s the movie. No one dies or gets jailed for their crimes. And the heroes barely seem perturbed afterwards. You could almost remove the scenes with the rednecks entirely and the film would just seem like the filmed version of a Bartledanian novel.

As you can probably tell from that image, the movie was very poorly retitled from Sunburst sometime after Nightmare on Elm St, in order to try to give the film some cash-in value. Usually, this is certainly fine by me, but there are two problems with it this time: 1. It’s the most obvious retitling I’ve ever seen (I wish I could convey how ridiculous the little zooming animation on the green box looks), and 2. Englund’s not even the fucking bad guy! He’s some hippie (heh, OK, so maybe he is). He doesn’t even show up until the final 10 minutes or so. Come on now. This is purely a scam.

His reaction to being told that his friend was raped is pretty astounding. The boyfriend tells him she was raped, and Englund doesn’t ask anything like “Who did it?” or “Where did they go?” He just asks if the girl has had some food yet. At first, I thought he was going to turn out to be an even worse villain, but no, he just makes her some tea and then more or less exits the film again.

This movie is also stuffed with folk music, most by a female singer. Terrifying, perhaps, but not in the intentional way. If not for my little safety that I can qualify (and judge, unfortunately for the filmmakers) a film as horror if it is presented as such (which being on the Chilling Classics set certainly does), I wouldn’t even consider it horror at all. It’s Rape-NonRevenge, a thankfully obscure genre that is hopefully comprised entirely of this one sorry film.

Oh there’s a bear scene too.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...