Orphan (2009)

JULY 17, 2009

GENRE: KILLER KID
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PRESS SCREENING)

Omen remake aside, there haven’t been any big studio “killer kid” movies in ages, and the few that there were have been pretty weak. The Good Son, for example - it was rated R, but for what? He kills a pet and says “fuck”. Ooooh. So I wasn’t expecting much from Warner Bros.’ Orphan; maybe she’d cause a car accident or something, but I didn’t think she’d actually kill anyone.

So imagine my surprise when, not even an hour into the (2 hour) movie, she takes a hammer to a woman and kills the ever-loving shit out of her. Yes! A “killer” kid movie with actual kills! And while the body count doesn’t get much higher (one more kill, though a fairly surprising one), Esther is a vicious little bitch. She attempts to kill both of her siblings on several occasions, threatens to castrate the brother (“I’ll cut your hairless little dick off before you even know what it’s for”), brains a bird, stabs a guy to death... it’s pretty goddamn brutal. There’s also a taut scene where a girl who bullied Esther at school is inside of a giant playground castle/house thing. Because it has corridors and doorways and such, it actually feels like a typical stalking scene that would occur in a real house, only now with children. It’s an interesting visual, and ends with the little girl getting tossed down the slide and breaking her leg. Again - Esther’s not all talk and no action like some of her killer kid brethren.

But even without Esther the film packs a punch. The opening nightmare scene is more horrifying and disturbing than anything in the Nightmare on Elm St. films ever presented for a nightmare (the fact that it actually RESEMBLES a dream, with unexplained character/location changes and such, doesn’t hurt). And then later there is a terrific bit that plays on our understanding of cinema. Vera Farmiga pulls up to a red light and begins daydreaming as she spies a pregnant woman walking across the street. She keeps watching for a while, and then we hear a car honk. We all know this means that she’s daydreamed past the light turning to green again, so she starts driving toward. And then BAM! she narrowly misses getting side-swiped. It is then that we see the light, which is still red - the honking was unrelated. Great misdirection.

Speaking of instant identification, there’s a scene later on when Esther first comes to live with them, and they are all giving her gifts. As the scene begins, you can hear Cheap Trick’s “Surrender” in the background, and despite the lack of a visual clue, I instantly knew it was Guitar Hero II. Sure enough, they finally cut to the other side of the house where the brother is playing the game instead of joining in the festivities. He then tries to get his dad’s attention because he’s doing really well, but the dad (Peter Sarsgaard) is focusing on his new daughter and couldn’t be less interested. In the dad’s defense, “Surrender” is the easiest song in the game and the kid is only playing on Medium. Thus, the scene is somewhat botched for GH fans, because why would anyone be impressed with doing good on that? The kid should have been running through “Through The Fire And Flames” - THAT would sell the notion that the dad wasn’t interested in the kid’s achievements because he was too busy paying extra attention to another kid.

The dad is the one who blindly accepts Esther’s excuses for strange occurrences, while the mom gets suspicious. This is fine by me, as it allows Fermiga to have more screen time. She is one of the most beautiful actresses I can recall, and a terrific one to boot, so I was happy to see her carry the film. It’s familiar territory for her (Joshua), but in that one she was kind of crazy herself and spent most of the movie in hysterics and moping around. Not the case her - she’s the pro-active one, and by the third act she’s completely untrusting of Esther, which leads to some great physical moments. She frantically drives through a snowstorm, gets to smack Esther in the face, swears a whole bunch... it’s a kickass performance, and it certainly didn’t hurt my crush on her any. And if you enjoyed her “washing machine” scene in Running Scared (one of the most underrated films of the decade), you should enjoy a similar scene her, in the kitchen. The lady likes her household appliances.

Unsurprisingly, Vera’s character is also the one that finds out Esther’s secret. Much has been made of the twist, and no I won’t spoil it here. I just want to say that it was a bit goofy and somewhat deflating, but the film as a whole was solid enough to that point to allow me to give it a pass. There is another critique I can level at it, but to do would be heading too far into spoiler territory. Maybe when the film comes out on DVD I’ll edit the review. At any rate, when Vera sees what Esther had in mind, her reaction is one of the best hilarious reaction shots in horror movie history; on par with Joel Moore’s classic “Oh you gotta be fucking KIDDING ME?” when a sudden rainstorm douses the fire he just set on Victor in Hatchet.

Besides that, the only complaint I really have about the film is that it’s a bit long. There are a few too many scenes of Sarsgaard being presented with overwhelmingly damning evidence of Esther’s guilt, only to ignore it. Not only does it stretch out the film, it also makes his character seem kind of stupid at times, which I don’t think was the intent. Taken out of context, his rationales are often believable for the incident in question; but 3 or 4 in a row? Open your eyes man. And yet at the same time, things often seem to move too fast; there’s a line about Esther being a “perfect angel” when she’s with the father, but at that point we had never seen the two of them alone together. This makes it a bit harder to gauge how much time has gone by as well.

But otherwise, it’s an unexpectedly solid film. The child actors are all terrific (something that could easily kill a film of this type), the violence is as shocking as it’s supposed to be, and the tone is right on the line between creepy-sinister and trashy fun, which is fine by me. As a great man once said, “Recommended!”

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Hydra (2009)

JULY 16, 2009

GENRE: MONSTER
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

I often wonder if the other customers at Blockbuster think I am insane or mentally disabled when I pick up a film like Hydra off the shelf, look at the cover, and cackle to myself as I walk up to the front of the store without even bothering to look at the back. Or if I’m feeling cocky that day, I wonder if they realize I’m the Horror Movie A Day guy and are like “Oh nice, I know what today’s movie will be!”

(Yeah that never has or will happen. Let me dream, damn you.)

Anyway, I laugh because I assume it will be awful, but I gotta say, Hydra ain’t all that bad. Unlike the usual group of commandos or scientists who can turn into commandos when necessary, the humans in this one are hunters or hunted, as the non-monster part of the story is essentially a "Most Dangerous Game" retread. Have you ever watched Surviving The Game or Hard Target and thought “Yes, fine, but you know what would really make this movie great? Mythological creatures!”? The makers behind Hydra clearly did.

Now, nothing about this movie will win any awards. The acting is actually fairly sub-par across the board (even Texas Battle, who was fine in Wrong Turn 2, seems a bit stiff), the music is atrocious (it reminded me of what the score for a crappy late 70s or early 80s James Bond ripoff TV show would sound like), and it gets a bit repetitive at times. But my usual enjoyment of the MDG story allowed me to forgive it its trespasses and more or less have a good time with it.

And to give it some genuine praise, the effects are above average for these things. The compositing is, as always, a problem, but the thing seems to be the same size regardless of the scene/shot, the design on it is quite good (lot of detail on its body, it moves around fairly naturally, etc), and the death scenes are so damn bloody you won’t even notice that it’s not interacting properly with the actor. Man, EVERYONE gets it good in this movie. No off camera shit, no scream into the camera and cut away, nope - folks get torn asunder, devoured in chunks (one Hydra head will eat the guy’s head, then another will eat its torso, then another will eat his legs), gored... hell yeah. Director Andrew Prendergast thankfully understands what so many other DTV directors do not - we don’t rent these things for long-winded exposition about how the monster came to be, or lengthy backstories for the characters, or any of that crap. We want a monster, and we want that monster to kill as many people in the cast as it can. Hydra boasts a healthy body count of around 14, and while a couple are killed by other humans and merely shot, most of the deaths are via the titular monster. Thank you.

One thing about the backstories, what little they give us is needlessly awkward. In order to keep anyone from being too black and white BAD, we find out that the hunters have all had some sort of tragedy in their lives; one’s wife was killed by a drunk driver, another’s daughter was raped and killed, etc. So the entrepreneur guy who brings them all to the island (the hunters pay him to find “sport” and an island to hunt them on) finds people that were convicted of similar crimes, giving the hunters a motive to kill them. Seems like a lot of work, and I’m not sure how killing a guy who did something similar that some other guy did to you would help. Sort of like Bush going after Saddam for 9/11 instead of going after Osama, I guess. And one of the guys was merely brought to the island because the captain of the boat hated him and wanted to see him suffer, so I guess one of the hunters wouldn’t get his proxy vengeance even if the Hydra hadn’t shown up to kill the living fuck out of all of them regardless of what they did in the past.

Speaking of the captain, he’s actually the biggest human villain. You expect this character to develop a conscience and refuse to aid the hunters or whatever, but instead it’s the other way around. The entrepreneur guy decides to pull everyone off the island and give them a refund, but the captain won’t let him. Again, everyone’s kind of in a gray area in this movie, which I liked.

One thing I didn’t like is the volcano aspect. There’s a big volcano on the island and it’s about to blow for the whole movie, so you think it will blow and the lava will kill the Hydra, or blow as the humans try to make their escape and maybe kill one of the remaining bad guys, but nope. It never goes off. And the shots of it probably cost a few bucks of the FX budget, and that could have gone into fixing the snake a bit, so I cry foul on this subplot.

On the flipside, the snake dies by the hand of our hero, instead of some damn lava. And the kill is AMAZING. Dudebro reaches into a model of a volcano (I dunno), pulls out a giant sword (just go with it) and begins hacking Hydra heads off left and right. And if you can’t get enough, don’t worry - it happens again in a 2nd ending. The Hydra is seemingly dead, and our heroes get back to the boat, but one of the heads grows a new body, gets onboard, and begins killing everyone there as well. A deckhand then throws the sword to the hero guy, who once again hacks away, killing it for good. And the icing on the cake - as it explodes into CGI dust and ash, the sword magically floats away with the particles. Yes! Even the shitty music here makes it kind of awesome, as it’s so cheesy and bombastic.

No extras on the DVD, but I kind of like that. Let Hydra speak for itself.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

7 Days To Live (2000)

JULY 15, 2009

GENRE: HAUNTED HOUSE
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

I’ve often wondered how many fictional authors and/or their families would be alive today if they could just learn how to write in the house that they already lived in. It seems to never really work out for them, because not only do they never finish their book, they are always besieged by ghosts, possession, psychotic mailmen... (I still want to read a novel about four poker buddies that knock over a casino). So I am happy to report (spoil) that the nice folks in 7 Days To Live not only survive, but they publish a book that goes on to sell into a third edition in under a year!

Unfortunately that’s about the only original thing about the movie. The rest cribs heavily from The Shining, with some Poltergeist thrown in for good measure. Like Kubrick’s version of King’s book, our protagonist goes crazy pretty much the instant he sets foot in the house, rendering him wholly unlikable. In Shining it kind of worked because we all love Jack Nicholson, so even though he was never really “nice” in the movie, you’re not completely turned off, because... it’s Jack! And then, folks often complain about “replacing” Jack with Steven Weber for the TV version of Shining, but at least the guy was actually sympathetic based on his onscreen role. Sean Pertwee doesn’t benefit from either scenario - he’s instantly crazy, but he’s not quite as lovable as Jack Nicholson. A badass yes, but not likable.

Sort of luckily, the wife isn’t much better. Since she’s played by Amanda Plummer, you can guarantee that she’s already a bit kooky - the haunted house doesn’t even seem to really change her demeanor. But it also makes her character hard to sympathize with, because she never really stands up for herself, even when Pertwee goes completely apeshit in the film’s final act (tied to a bed after being knocked out and dragged around the house, she still hopes they can work things out). They never really feel like a real husband and wife either; at first I thought they might be brother and sister, as their “happy mode” bickering has no romantic chemistry to it. And they are pretty much the only two people in the movie most of the time (they have a couple of pals, and the requisite kindly older “guy who knows the story”, but they are never placed in any danger), so not a hell of a lot happens; Plummer sees something weird, tells an annoyed Pertwee who usually yells at her or throws something, then the next day she sees something else weird, and apparently forgets that he doesn’t care because she tries to tell him again, starting the cycle over again.

Pet Sematary is also borrowed from, so it’s good that just watched it the other day. Not only do we have a young kid dying (complete with a NOOOOOOOO!), but a character dreams about something evil in their backyard, only to wake up with muddy feet.

But it’s not too bad. Plummer and Pertwee are always interesting to watch, and it’s rare to see them carry a film. It goes through the motions, but in a way that’s more or less enjoyable. Since they are both crazy, the finale is pretty amusing, as they just start whaling on each other, War of the Roses style. And I liked the ridiculous manner in which Plummer got her titular warnings: the first one is on a street sign (do all the people driving by have seven days to live?), another is delivered by a radio weatherman. My favorite has to be her three days warning, when her Scrabble tiles tell her as much. Not only am I a big Scrabble fan, but I am tickled that of all the days to use, they would use the one with the most letters. This results in her drawing NINE letters (twice) instead of the standard seven. If it was “Six Days” or “Two Days”, or even “For (sic) Days”, they could get their Scrabble scare and maintain accepted rules. Plus, if she has just drawn seven (or nine, fine) letters, that means she just played a bingo, so good for her!

On the disc’s only extra feature (5 minutes’ worth of interviews), the director proudly states that this is “the first German haunted house movie”, so there’s something. I’ve wanted to see more foreign films from countries not often associated with horror (i.e. Italian and Asian), and Germany is certainly a country I haven’t seen too much from (I think Antibodies is the only other one I’ve watched). Hopefully they have some more original stuff to discover. But at least this one stole from the best; I don’t need to see a German-fied version of The Haunting remake or whatever.

What say you?

P.S. The trailer is in German. Only one I could find. I like it; Sean Pertwee's dubber is amazing.

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Objective (2008)

JULY 14, 2009

GENRE: ALIEN (?), SURVIVAL
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

Well it’s taken ten years, but one of the Blair Witch Project guys (in this case, Dan Myrick) has finally made a film that comes close to living up to their promise. The Objective is hardly a perfect film, but it’s a good one; compelling for most of its running time and interesting in the ways that count, which is more than I can say for many of their other post Blair films.

So it’s kind of a bummer that it’s more or less the same movie as Blair, albeit shot by someone who knew how to hold a camera. Some folks go out in search of something, get lost almost instantly, see weird stuff, some of them disappear without a trace, supplies run low and tensions mount, and then everyone else dies. It’s in the desert instead of the woods, and it’s a group of soldiers instead of documentary filmmakers (though Mike Williams pops up in this group as well, albeit far too briefly for my tastes. Love that guy), but that won’t stop you from getting some serious déjà vu at times.

It also reminds me a bit of the recent film Red Sands, which also detailed a group of soldiers encountering strange phenomena while being stranded in the desert. Both were shot around the same time so I don’t think one was cribbing from the other, but whichever film you see first is likely to kill some of the novelty factor of the other; it’s a unique setting/situation for a horror film, and now we have two within months of each other.

Luckily for Objective, the film doesn’t need to rely on any extensive special effects to depict its monster. It’s just a triangular thing usually seen through a night vision camera, so even if it looked bad it’s seen through a poor image anyway. Folks just sort of vaporize in thin air, so there’s no gore or anything either (except for when a corpse is found halfway or so through the film - it looks like it was put in a meat grinder). Like with Blair, it keeps everything to your imagination, and allows the limited budget to be applied to things that matter a lot more than special effects.

What Red Sands certainly has over this movie, however, is lack of narration. The main character in Objective, played by newcomer Jonas Ball (if Myrick is going to hire no-names to topline his film, why not cast me? I still wear a Blair Witch shirt with pride!), never shuts the fuck up, and his droning is as annoying as I can recall. I’d rather listen to Kiefer Sutherland’s opening narration in the theatrical version of Dark City than this drivel. The ending gives us a sort of reason for the narration, but it doesn’t make it any less annoying or intrusive. It’s not a particularly complicated story; we don’t need someone breaking up otherwise eerily quiet scenes to tell us things like “Water is running low.” No shit.

The ending is also a bit of a sore spot for me. It leaves questions unanswered, but not in a creepy way like Blair's (Did Heather get knocked out, did she die, or did she simply vanish into thin air?). Then there is a news report with one of the characters' wives, who holds up a notebook that he sent her shortly before he disappeared. Knowing Myrick's habit of creating full universes in which his film is just a part of it, I wouldn't be surprised if this book was actually fleshed out, but as far as I know it's not available anywhere, so the scene just makes you feel like you're being setup for a sequel, not being invited to look beyond the movie (the website is pretty standard, some behind the scenes stuff but nothing "meta").

Before the end though, there IS a certain (and surprising) level of creepiness to some of the scenes. I don’t find the desert particularly scary (at least, not as much as the woods), but there are still a handful of eerie bits. I particularly liked when they go to drink from their canteens and find them all filled with sand. Not only does it bring to mind a classic scene from Three Amigos, but it also provides a tangible and real scare, which are a bit scarce in this movie. Sure, I’m afraid of the unknown, but since it can appear anywhere, I know there’s nothing I can do about it. On the other hand, water turning into sand is something upsetting that can seemingly be prevented or fixed. I’m also always a sucker for a scene where people look at a map and realize that they have been going in circles or are off the map entirely. Helplessness is a state that is usually reserved for the final moments of someone’s life in a horror movie; building a good chunk of the movie around it is still fairly unique.

The DVD has a few extras worth watching; all together they only run 30 minutes, and since the film is 6 minutes shorter than the DVD promises, you’ll likely have time to check them out. There is a 20 minute making of that details the issues that may arise when fiming with A. a low budget and B. in a foreign country. Then there is an interview with Myrick, and another one with DP Stephanie Martin. It’s rare to see a female DP, and even rarer to see a DP get their own piece on a DVD, so this is a welcome addition, especially when the film is well shot (love the look of the early morning dawn-lit scenes). And kudos to Martin - it’s cliché to mock the camerawork in BWP, so to come out of a film from the same director noting how well it was shot is more a compliment to her than Myrick. The trailer is also there, but watching it means suffering through more of Ball’s narration.

After Solstice and Believers, I had lost a lot of hope for Myrick (Sanchez has only released one film, the decent but uneven Altered; something called Seventh Moon is completed but still unreleased). But Alien Raiders, which he produced, turned out pretty damn good. And now with this, I have a feeling maybe he’s still got some juice in him after all. I still hope he and Sanchez work together someday, but at least his solo work is improving.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Covenant (2006)

JULY 13, 2009

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

How The Covenant ended up in my collection is a bit of a mystery. I can only assume I got it from Mr. Disgusting to review (I have owned it since before I began doing HMAD) or as a gift bag prize or something. And every couple of months, when I look to make a few bucks by selling a few unwanted DVDs, I look at it and say “No, this will make a funny HMAD review, I’m sure” and keep it (I also promised HMAD reader Kelly that I would review it). So now I have finally given it a look, and yes, I can guarantee that it will be going in the “sell it back” pile.

On a technical level it’s fine. The CGI is pretty good, the direction and production value is top notch (it only cost 20 million, but it’s all on the screen), and despite a few laughable transgressions, they do a good job faking Eastern Massachusetts in Canada (we don’t have giant fucking cliffs for thrill-seeking warlocks to drive off of, and our rainstorms aren’t usually typhoons). And it features a good performance by Taylor Kitsch, who along with Chace Crawford is the only one of the guys in the movie that I’ve seen in anything since.

But holy Christ is it dull. Nothing fucking happens in this movie! It’s like they forgot that you can still kill people even if you have a PG-13 rating. There are four good guys and one bad guy... you would THINK at least one of the good guys would get killed in this supposedly massive battle, but no. The bad guy puts one in the hospital with some sort of vague injury. Two of the others never even face any danger at all. It just comes down to the main good guy fighting the bad guy. Christ, the bad guy isn’t even dangerous; at one point he has the hero’s girlfriend under some sort of spell, and the hero’s like “Leave her alone!” and... the bad guy does. Oooh, scary. When your film’s only villain can’t bring himself to actually do anything evil, where is the danger or suspense going to come from?

Christ, the movie can’t even be bothered to kill him either! He is tossed into a fire, but the epilogue makes sure we know that he survived. So these Warlocks are all powerful, but all they can manage to do is knock each other around for a few minutes. Speaking of their powers, it seems they can do whatever the hell they want: fix cars, blow up skirts, make cars fly, make dudes puke, and even survive certain death when they drive head on into a giant fucking truck (the car just puts itself back together, the driver completely unharmed). But they seemingly forget how powerful they are at times, as they merely hide when almost caught by a security guard instead of just flying the fuck away or making themselves invisible or whatever. Likewise, Kitsch is felled by a motorcycle accident, without even trying to use his powers (and in the wake of the “car accident” earlier in the film, it doesn’t really make any sense that he could be injured at all by such a thing).

There might be an explanation for this though: the film was edited by Nicolas De Toth. Nothing against his actual skill as an editor, but this is the same guy who turned Hitman into the most flaccid R rated action movie of all time, and Die Hard Faux into the neutered mess that it is. His skill seems to be sucking the life and viscerality (not a word) out of theoretically exciting films, and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn if he did the same thing here. The few actual acts of violence in the film are entirely off-screen; the one death occurs to a guy we never even met. There is a scene in a bar where two guys are suddenly fighting, and everything is edited around showing any actual impact. There’s a hot-headed (non-powered) bully character, but he disappears from the film around the halfway mark. And again, it’s entirely unclear as to what Kitsch’s injury is, he’s just in the hospital. Not only does it keep the film from being exciting, but it also betrays the actual concept of the story - they are supposedly all powerful and all that, but we never get even a glimpse of what they can actually do or why people should have any reason to fear them.

In fact, their biggest power seems to be the ability to shoot balls of CGI at each other. There’s no other way to describe it - they thrust their arms forward and a swirly ball of graphic comes out and hits the other guy. The overlong climax literally revolves around the two guys shooting CGI balls at each other over and over for like 15 minutes. No injuries result from these things, nor is there any indication that they can run out of energy or whatever, so I spent the entire climax wondering why they didn’t just use some other superpower and if they would ever run out of MP and be forced to use melee attacks (or use the escape command and run back to town for an ether).

The end also feels like yet another competition, which is pretty much all the previous 80 minutes were about. These guys never stop engaging in friendly contests: swimming, foosball, pool, girl chasing... and CGI magic ball throwing. Since they aren’t hurting each other in any meaningful way, it feels like the supernatural version of a high school fencing match. All it’s missing is the other three guys cheering them on, which is pretty much what their roles are reduced to for the bulk of the film.

And yet we see male ass. I think that’s a first for a PG-13 horror movie, and I’d hate to think that was the tradeoff. Like Renny Harlin was like “I need this ass shot!” and the MPAA was like “Fine, but you have to cut out any sort of violence and the kids can never get as much as a bruise on their arm!” But the ass-shots don’t help the fact that the movie often feels a bit like a big budget David DeCoteau film, what with all these handsome dudes spending so much time brooding in dark rooms together (and ignoring their girlfriends on more than one occasion in order to continue their totally hetero competitions).

Like anything else related to the story or characters, Harlin’s commentary doesn’t provide any insight on the matter. If you are hoping to become a key grip or matte choker or maybe even a 2nd unit assistant director though; this track is essential. Harlin never stops talking for more than a second, but it’s all technical - how this was shot, where the CG elements are, how it was lit, etc. It’s like a Carpenter solo track but without the occasional humor. The only time he speaks about anything else is during the end credits, when he explains how he first heard of the project on a Tuesday, got drunk with the producer on a Wednesday, and signed up to directed it on Thursday afternoon, blowing off another film in the process. Good story. The only other extra is a making of, which is worth a look if only to hear Wendy Crewson (The Good Son!) talk about how amazingly handsome the actor playing her teenage son is. Good to know if the whole acting gig doesn’t pan out, she’s got terrific potential for a career in Cougaring.

One final odd note - I started this one late, so it was a bit past midnight on the 14th when it finished. And strangely enough, July 14th is the bad guy's birthday, they even make a big deal out of it. I wouldn't have thought much of it, but in Con Air the little girl's birthday is July 14th, which is also the day Nic Cage is released from prison. Good day for fictional people. Also it's Bastille Day.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Pet Sematary (1989)

JULY 12, 2009

GENRE: SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

I saw Pet Sematary once or twice as a kid, but once the 2nd film came out I saw little use in the original anymore, as the sequel had more of what I cared about: gore, kills, humor (“I’m just fucking with you!”), and actor Clancy Brown. But in the 18 or so years since I last saw it, I’ve not only become a little more grown up when it comes to how I judge a film (I still give any film with Clancy Brown an automatic pass though), but I’ve also experienced the death of both pets and close family members, so I figured it would resonate more than it possibly could have as a child.

And indeed, the very things that would have appealed to me as a kid are the things that annoy me now. I’d rather watch Dale Midkiff (whatever happened to that dude?) grieve over his son than watch his wife running around airports while Headwound Harry helps her along. One of King’s late 90’s novels focuses on a grieving husband ("Bag of Bones") and what works best about the book is his isolation for large chunks of it. I’ve never read "Pet Sematary", but since King tends to copy himself a lot, I can assume that these type of scenes would have been quite good in the source material. However, Midkiff is entirely absent for what seems like a half hour after Gage is resurrected; we only focus on the wife and good ol’ Jed Crandall (Fred Gwynne, whose Maine accent borders on xenophobia).

The most common complaint about King’s writing, and it’s certainly a justified one, is that his dialogue tends to suck. He is a genius at inner monologue, but when it comes to having people talk... yikes. So while theoretically having an author adapt his own book for a film is a great idea, in King’s case it’s NOT, because a movie, of course, has no inner monologue. This results in people talking to themselves unnaturally to get certain points across, and this is where King’s weakness hampers the film.

More damaging is the rushed feel of certain key events. The little girl’s reaction to the resurrected (and clearly not right) cat is addressed once (“He smells!”) and never again - in fact I don’t think the two even share a scene together after that point. It could have provided a great parallel to the film to see the girl dealing with her zombie cat and then later with the dad and his zombie son, but no dice. Also, the son’s funeral - which should be the most horrifying part of the entire film - is far too rushed a scene. The father-in-law, who hasn’t even been introduced in the film before then, instantly starts throwing accusations at Midkiff as soon as the scene begins, instead of letting things simmer and escalate until that point is reached. And Midkiff accepts the idea of a magic burial ground a bit too easily for my tastes. In short, there are lots of missed opportunities to make what should be a depressing/interesting horror morality tale really resonate. The opening credits, where we see the titular locale as we hear little kids say goodbye to their pets, is actually more upsetting than the death of the kid.

(And since The Ramones' theme song only appears in the film's END credits, this may be the first film in history where the best stuff is the "once upon a time" and the "happily ever after" instead of the actual story.)

I must say though - Midkiff’s NOOOOOOOOOO! is easily one of the top five all time best NOOOOOOOOO!s in motion picture history. Possibly as a result of the failure of Maximum Overdrive (steamroll the little leaguer!), we don’t actually see the kid being hit, so we get the standard “focus on the now-ownerless toy rolling/flying away” shot instead. But that’s fine; the NOOOOOOOOO! totally sells it anyway.

Now, it’s not a bad film. It works as a long-form Tales From The Crypt style horror movie, with the lessons learned and the downer ending and what not. And the gore effects are quite memorable; Pascow’s head wound is still disturbing, 20 years later. Ditto the scenes with the wife’s sister (actually played by a man), which are on par with the bathtub woman scene in The Shining. Again though; since the husband is the main focus, these scenes, while fine on their own, should have been excised or trimmed down in favor of staying with him more.

You missed some, Doc.

One effect that’s not as successful is the killer Gage puppet. Miko Hughes is terrific as the crazy, scalpel-wielding terror, and I am amazed how much shit they put this poor kid through (at one point he legit whacks his head on a wall). But the puppet that they throw at Midkiff is laughably stiff and fake, ruining the tension after the film’s best scare (when Miko is laughing before he “jumps” through the trapdoor onto Midkiff).

The DVD has a few standard extras, none of them long enough to really resonate but they are certainly well made and include some nice tidbits. But like any “retrospective” documentary on a DVD for a film that came out long after DVDs were invented, I’m more interested as to why certain people are absent than anything the ones that are there are saying. King rarely appears in these sort of things anymore, but where the child actors, or Denise Crosby? Midkiff and Brad Greenquist (Pascow) are the only actors to appear in new footage, the rest are taken from the film’s production in 1988. Lambert also pops up, and also provides a commentary. But since the track was recorded in 2006 it is of no use to me, as the only thing I want to hear from her is an apology and explanation for The Attic, which she shot a year later.

A remake has been threatened (Clu Gulager for Jed and Battlestar’s Aaron Douglas as Dr. Creed, please!); hopefully someone else takes a crack at it and makes it as strong as I am quite sure it can be. As it stands, it’s a decent enough yarn, and like always, makes me want to finally read the book.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Dorm (2006)

JULY 11, 2009

GENRE: ASIAN, GHOST
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

The nice thing about Dorm (Thai: Dek Hor) is that it’s not really a horror movie. I mean, yeah, it’s about ghosts and an accidental death and all that good stuff, but very little of the film is concerned with scares or even suspense; it merely uses a familiar horror movie staple to tell a nice story about a kid who learns to stop being such a fucking asshole.

See, our hero is, for the bulk of the film, largely unlikable. He whines, he’s selfish, and he has no respect for his dad. The look on the poor man’s face as he makes his third or fourth attempt to call the brat (who has been sent to boarding school) only for the kid to hang up on him is one of the most heartbreaking parental moments I’ve seen in a film since poor Chick Chapel was introduced as a salesman. Few are the films where you spend the entire movie thinking “I would really like to smack this hero in the fucking mouth.”

But that is, of course, the point. The movie is about him growing up and learning to accept his role in life, and thus if he was pleasant throughout the film there would be little concern as to whether or not he succeeded. It would be like watching a movie about the greatest pro sports player in history hoping to win the lottery or something. In a few ways, it reminded me of Tim Sullivan’s underrated (also horror-lite) Driftwood, which also concerned a kid at a boarding school and a ghost.

Also, I liked that it didn’t take the entire movie for us to be told that the hero’s best friend, who takes an instant liking to him and never speaks to anyone else, is (spoiler) a ghost. You will probably figure it out pretty quickly, but unlike The Uninvited or whatever, the movie gives us that information by the end of the first act or so, sparing you having to feel like an idiot in case you somehow DIDN’T figure it out. It also allows us a few scenes we don’t usually get in such scenarios, like the hero asking the ghost how he became a ghost in the first place (such a conversation probably would have ruined The Sixth Sense). The movie also has a bit of a Stand By Me feel, so the scene has the unusual stigma of a horror movie scene being both quirky (he literally says “How did you become a ghost?”) and touching, and plays out like any number of the scenes between Wil Wheaton and River Phoenix in that film.

The only issue I had (besides, as always, the length - would it kill these Thai guys to make something that clocks in under 100 minutes?) is that they give us all of the information in one giant stretch of the film during the 3rd act and then Return Of The King the narrative with three or four scenes in a row that could easily be the film’s ending. There are two parts to the mystery - one revolving around the ghost kid, the other around a weird teacher, and it would have been nice to have the information on one, then some scares or even more character scenes, and THEN get the rest of it. Instead, we get it all in one giant blob of exposition, as if the director realized he had been dicking around for too long and needed to catch up on answers. Sort of like the 4th (strike affected) season finale of Lost.

Also, though this is presumably no fault of the filmmakers, the DVD looks like ass. I can’t recall the last time I saw so many halo/rainbow effects on an image. It’s also not very detailed, it often looked like a DVD might when you use the zoom feature on your player. This may be a result of the above average number of extras on the disc coupled with the nearly two hour film. There is nearly a half hour’s worth of deleted scenes, many of them worth a look as they fill in more of the story of the kid’s home life before he went to the boarding school (one in particular would have helped make his attitude toward his dad easier to sympathize with). Then there are a number of short behind the scenes pieces (some of them seem to have been created for a website or something) that focus on the characters and story, and also one focusing on the green-screen effects during the climax. Nothing groundbreaking, but worth a look if you dug the movie. There is also a commentary, which is in Thai with English subs (thank you!) but I don’t have time to listen to it. I am sure it’s fine.

And I know they are out of business now and that is a damn shame, but Tartan needs to be smacked around for opening the disc with a company promo that cannot be skipped, bypassed (via the menu button), or even fast-forwarded. Christ, the old “hit stop and then hit the menu button” trick doesn’t even work, because it won’t even let you stop the damn thing! You literally HAVE to watch it. It makes Lionsgate’s “you WILL watch our awesome logo!” behavior seem reasonable. The disc came at the tail end of their release output, so maybe it was a last ditch effort to ensure people were aware of their slate, but egads man. Take out an ad on a website where we are used to being annoyed by promotional malfeasance.

If you’re looking for Ju-On or whatever albeit set in an all boys’ junior high school, then you will probably be bored to tears and should stick to one of the umpteen remakes/sequels to that film. But if you were a fan of Driftwood, or merely enjoy a “quieter” horror film with an emphasis on character (and coherency!) over scares, this would be one of the better recent examples, of the few that exist. Worth a look.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Cell 2 (2009)

JULY 10, 2009

GENRE: CRAP, SERIAL KILLER
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

I don't usually read any reviews of a film until after I have seen it, but perhaps I should have made an exception for The Cell 2. Not reviews from fellow critics, mind you, but rather the "user reviews" on the IMDb. Because I would have noticed that there were two kinds: outright slams from regular IMDb commenters, or praise from people who seemingly loved the movie so much that they apparently felt compelled to make an IMDb account just to be able to share their thoughts on this masterpiece.

I am, of course, being sarcastic: the comments are clearly the work of New Line's marketing team, who are trying to balance all of the negative reviews by writing their own raves, all of which sound identical to one another. And since it only takes a click on the "writer's" name to see that they have no other reviews to their credit, I have to wonder who is actually being fooled by this nonsense. The type of people dumb enough to fall for it are probably dumb enough to enjoy this piece of shit anyway, so they are just preaching the choir.

Nothing about this movie works. The porn-star-esque lead is the least convincing psychic in movie history (even fake psychics like Whoopi Goldberg at the beginning of Ghost are more believable), backed up by the fakest police force this side of Suburban Sasquatch. And the killer! If you don't instantly (and I mean INSTANTLY, as in, the second he appears on screen) identify Frank Whaley as the killer, you're just brain dead. Not only is the only semi-famous actor in the film, but everyone in the world is smart enough to know that the producers would make sure to secure a "name" for the killer since they obviously couldn't get one for any of the heroes. Thankfully, they "reveal" Whaley as the killer around the halfway mark, thus preventing future embarrassment on their part had they tried to save it for the end.

Plus none of the movie makes sense. Why does the killer hide his identity from his victims if he plans to kill them? Just in case they escape? So he's the world's first killer with a built-in plan to make up for his ineffectiveness. He also disguises his voice for good measure (with a voice box that is seemingly inside of his mouth, as he uses this unseen device without any sort of assistance from his hands). And the cops might as well be security guards at a Toys R' Us for all the intelligence they display; at one point the hero is framed for the killings, and when they bring him in for interrogation, he basically says "No, it's Frank Whaley!" and they instantly believe him. Their lab folks aren't any much help either; for some reason no one ever thought much of a guy named "David Berkowitz" buying needles by the metric ton. I'm sorry, but the name "David Berkowitz" is sort of a major red flag, wouldn't you think? That's the type of name that, if you somehow had it for real, you'd change it. They might as well have gone all out and had the guy use the alias "Hitler".

It also fails across the board on a technical level. For starters, it's also SHOT like a porno, which doesn't help the lead actress any. Everything is overlit to the point of not having any detail; even the supposedly dark scenes in the killer's lair are quite bright. Chase scenes seemingly go on forever, as it will be snowing and then not (and then snowing again) during the dull affair. Speaking of the chases, there's a couple of "rules" for a good car chase. Like, they should have destruction of some sort, there should be obstacles in the form of cars and pedestrians, and the cars should at least make contact with one another. None of these things are present here; the chase centers around what seems like a completely closed off mall parking lot, the cars never hit anything or each other (come on, knock a fucking side mirror off at least!) and most of it consists of shots of the cars spinning out and then righting their direction to try to escape/gain on their suspect. Of course, the IMDb fake reviews all make sure to point out how "awesome" the chase is, despite the fact that there have been better ones on the news.

And the EFFECTS! My god. The first film wasn't really great, but at least it had some truly amazing visuals. Not so much here, every single CG effect is terrible, and the screenwriter/producers (Lawrence Silverstein and Alex Barder, upon whom I place the entire blame for this bullshit) made the idiotic call to have a lot of them. In the film's only somewhat decent idea (even though it's largely cribbed from Dreamcatcher), memories are presented in a sort of warehouse, as a series of slides. Whaley "erases" memories by picking these memories up and then smashing them on the floor. It looks awful, so you'd think they'd show it once and then use sound effects or something for the rest. But nope! We see him smash slide after slide of sub-PSone level graphics on the floor. And at one point, I swear to God I'm not joking here, the heroine is menaced by the Windows "Pipe Maze" screensaver. Except it doesn't look as good as the one on your 1997 Pentium II processor with 13 inch CRT screen. The compositing and other CG effects are also abysmal; more than once I thought I was watching the cut scenes from The 7th Guest or maybe Phantasmagoria.

(Huh, Phantasmagoria is a real word, according to this spellchecker. Compositing is not, however.)

Speaking of Dreamcatcher, Cell 2 rips off all manner of films. Saw is pretty evident; Whaley puts this giant box contraption on their heads that looks like something David Hackl might have made as a joke and then thrown away. The room he keeps them in even looks a bit like the room in Saw IV where Matthews is being held. At one point, Whaley puts them in a machine that seems stolen from The Princess Bride ("Not to fifty!"), and a later scenario with the hero is taken directly from Hard Rain. I'm sure that last one wasn't intentional, but that was an hour and ten minutes into the movie and the movie still hadn't done anything to earn a benefit of the doubt. In fact, the ONLY good thing I can say about the movie is that it's ten minutes shorter than advertised, since the end credits is over 10 minutes long (largely in part due to two behind the scenes clips inexplicably inserted into it).

Thankfully, the disc's only extra is a half hour (!!!) making of that covers all the usual bases. Silverstein and Barder frequently point out the short shooting schedule and limited budget, as if there was a demand for a sequel to a nine year old movie no one remembers. But even this is botched, because they hired Tim Iacofano to direct. See, he has directed a number of episodes of 24 and Supernatural, both of which have smaller budgets and shorter schedules and yet look 10x better than anything in this steaming pile, so there's REALLY no good excuse for the film's shortcomings. There is also a look at the stunts, and at this point I began to feel bad in advance for my review, because you see the stunt coordinator doing her thing, and I realized that for all of the "below the line" folks on the movie, the movie's failure is not their fault. They are just doing their job, and for the most part, doing it well (though would it have killed someone on the stunt team or camera crew to make sure the brunette hero's stunt double didn't have blond hair?). So I apologize to them. It's not their fault that this movie is so fucking bad, and unlike Silverstein and Barder, your names won't be an automatic red mark on future films (oh, yeah, I looked them up on the IMDb too; they were responsible for the equally abysmal Ring Around The Rosie).

The piece ends with actor Bart Johnson apologizing for wasting everyone's time, but he is only referring to the making of. Take him out of context though, and apply his sentiment to the entire DVD (which begins with a lengthy spot about the virtues of Blu-ray, despite the fact that it's in standard def and not even anamorphic), and you'll have an apology New Line will never offer, since they are too busy writing fake reviews that try to make this movie sound like anything but what it actually is: total shit.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Thirst (2009)

JULY 9, 2009

GENRE: ASIAN, VAMPIRE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PRESS SCREENING)

It’s rare I get to see any Asian horror films in theaters; I usually have to settle for a DVD or a cable viewing, months or even years after they’ve been fawned over (or remade). So I was elated to get a chance to see Chan-Wook Park’s newest film, Thirst (Korean: Bakjwi) , a full two weeks before it came out in theaters and certainly a long time before I’d get to see it on DVD. I hadn’t even watched a trailer - all I knew was that it was about vampires and had a very good chance of being quite good.

And it was, so that’s good. In fact, it just misses being “great” due to the fact that Park was seemingly afraid to tighten his film. It’s not that it’s simply “too long” - when the pacing was 100% right, I felt like I could watch the movie all day. But some scenes go on a bit longer than necessary, and what should be the midpoint event of the film (when a certain character is turned into a vampire) actually occurs around 2/3 of the way, perhaps even further along (I’m not good with the fractions). The climax, which is terrific with regards to character and story development, also goes on a bit too long, resulting in a somewhat diminished impact. Some movies suffer from extraneous scenes and the like, this one merely suffers a bit from letting great scenes wear out their welcome.

Some of those great scenes include a terrific sight gag early on, right after our hero (Kang-ho Song from The Host) becomes a vampire (for all intents and purposes). He is visiting his honorary family, and the mom tries to get him to eat some of her cooking, which causes him to gag. He explains that it wasn’t the food, but that he caught a whiff of blood. Suddenly, the young woman of the family looks embarrassed and quickly walks to the bathroom. Not only is this a funny gag, but it was also one of the moments that made me glad I was watching it in the theater, as I love when a subtle gag takes a bit longer to register with some of the folks in the audience (there were like 3 or 4 different reaction times for this particular one).

I also loved the overall concept. There have certainly been a number of horror films that revolve around priests that used to be cops (or vice versa), or priests that turn into ass-kickers, or whatever, but I think this is the first that turned the hero priest into the monster itself. Not only is he a good guy anyway, but as a priest he is doubly against things like murder, so watching him find ways to feed his addiction and also justify his behavior later in the film when the thirst becomes stronger was quite unique and entertaining. There is nothing like the hallway fight scene in Oldboy that will really grab your attention on a technical level, but the story itself more than makes up for it.

There are also a number of wonderful touches that turn standard vampire movie scenes into truly memorable ones. When he has to confess that he is a vampire to his girlfriend, and defend himself (“I didn’t ask for this!”) type stuff, Park purposely tracks back a bit and shifts the camera a bit to the left, in order to allow us to see Kang-ho Song’s reflection in the mirror as he gets to the “I’m still human!” part of his speech. Clearly, these are not vampires in the traditional sense - he has a thirst for blood, superhuman strength and can’t handle sunlight, but garlic, crosses, mirrors... those things do not apply here. For lack of a better term, it’s a “real” version of vampirism.

And in the wake of Twilight, I couldn’t help but occasionally compare the two, as this film is primarily a romance (albeit a twisted and unconventional one). Like Twilight, there is a scene where the man takes his human lover on a “ride” of sorts, using his superhuman strength to give her a thrill she would never be able to experience without him. In Twilight, he sort of tosses her on his back and flies around the woods. Here, Kang-ho Song holds her in his arms and begins making giant leaps from rooftop to rooftop. It’s an exhilarating sequence, and unlike Twilight’s, you can actually FEEL the excitement and thrill as it occurs. As I said in my review of that film, I felt that Catherine Hardwicke’s “indie” style direction hampered the film, and now I more or less have proof, as the scenes are thematically/dramatically identical and yet Park’s version is 10x as powerful.

One minor thing tickled/kind of bothered me - the subtitler’s insistence on using “Cuz” instead of “Because” or even “ ‘cause ” whenever it came up in the dialogue. The characters are intelligent, grown people - I am sure they aren’t using street slang. It just made these lines of dialogue feel kind of childish.

Pacing issues aside, it’s a terrific addition to Chan-Wook Park’s filmography, and I am glad that Focus is giving it a respectable (and well marketed) theatrical release. Hopefully it will catch on with jaded vampire movie fans who have long grown tired of guys with Euro-trash accents and plastic fangs stalking Romanian sets. Like Larry Fessenden’s Habit, it’s an “alt-vampire” tale that you almost wish was actually the norm.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Sound Of Horror (1964)

JULY 8, 2009

GENRE: MONSTER
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 4!!!)

At this point, I have to believe that the Tales Of Terror box is not going to have as many gems like the Chilling Classics one did. Some have been pretty sweet (like The Vampires' Night Orgy), but for the most part, they are all dull and forgettable, like Sound Of Horror (Spanish: El Sonido De La Muerte). The movie only ended a few hours ago but I’ve already forgotten pretty much everything about it. And this was one of the (not many) films in the set that actually sounded (pun just realized) pretty fun, so I can’t imagine how lousy the ones I skipped over are going to be.

I mean, I’m sure I have seen worse monster movies, but like I’ve said before, sometimes outright bad is better than bland. At least stuff like Monster From A Prehistoric Planet has the cheesy effects and ridiculous dialogue to enjoy, but this is simply one of the most inert monster movies I can recall. All of our characters are the least pro-active in horror movie history; most of the film finds them simply hanging out in the house waiting for the monster to go away (or die of old age, perhaps). Christ, the 3rd act begins with all of them dozing in the living room. The only time they spring to action is when a character is in danger, as the others rush to help get their friend back safely doing nothing.

And the monster is invisible, so you don’t get a goofy costume to enjoy. Sure, this leads to some occasional funny effects (like when they throw weapons at it and they all “stick” haphazardly in mid-air), but it also makes some of the attacks confusing. At one point it starts whaling on a guy in a cave... or at least that’s what I THINK is happening. He’s just sort of flailing around like a jackass, and every now and then they cut to a closeup of a wound on his torso. But is it the monster causing the gashes, or all of the jagged rocks that he keeps brushing against as he spazzes out?

As for the titular “sound”, apparently, the sound of horror is that of a bird making the car alarm “whooooooooOOOOOOOOOOP” noise. Though to be fair, the sound design is pretty much all the movie has going for it. There’s a cool scene where the monster is trying to get in, and the camera pans 360 (well, a little over 180) degrees around the place as we hear it scratching and clawing on the outside, trying to find a weak spot. Good stuff.

But the PADDING! It’s among the worst I can recall. Early on there is a full 30 second establishing shot that doesn’t even seem to be where the next scene takes place. Whenever something happens (not often), we get a solo reaction shot of each character, accompanied by a musical sting. It also has history’s longest “car won’t start” scene; the guy tries it (no exaggeration) 15 times, as the other characters just sort of sit there. Then finally, one of the guys in the back of the car says “Try it again.” Yeah, good plan.

Now that I think of it, there ARE some choice lines of nonsensical dialogue to enjoy. The first line of the movie is “I’m scared of explosions”, followed by “You’ll get used to them.”. And the heroine has a touching moment of reflection where she announces that life shouldn’t be about treasure hunting (the film’s macguffin is a treasure), but instead about dancing. Yeah, why get rich when you can swing your arms around and pivot?

I’d say more, but I can’t. I’ve already forgotten it all. I’m sure I’ve seen worse monster movies, but none of their titles come to mind right now. But if you are in the mood for a Spanish horror film featuring an invisible monster, maybe three kills (two of them “for the team!” suicides), and a central location that may remind you of the one from The Killer Shrews (“But these walls are ADOBE!”) I hope you can do better than Sound Of Horror (and why doesn't this movie have a "The" in the title?).

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Mimic 2 (2001)

JULY 7, 2009

GENRE: MONSTER
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

I suppose that most people who would go out of their way to see Mimic 2 are big fans of the original, and not merely watching whatever horror title they come across during their browsing, even sequels to movies they didn't remember much about. Therefore, those folks wouldn’t have spent the entire movie thinking that Dimension couldn’t get any of the original actors to return, as I did. Actually, if not for the fact that I thought lead actress Alix Koromzay was cute and wanted to see what else she had been in, I probably wouldn’t have ever known that her character (Remy) was actually in the first Mimic. Who the hell was she, though? I only remember the people who went into the sewer and mostly died.

Anyway, it’s actually not too bad of a movie. This is back when the Neo Art And Logic team would actually shoot their films on sets and locations instead of greenscreens, so it’s certainly more professional looking than a Pulse sequel. Also, the effects aren’t too bad, and they are kept to a minimum anyway. If the movie has one real issue, it’s that all the kills occur in the first 10 minutes or so, only to spend the next hour with three people that you know won’t die (2 kids and Remy). Oh, and a heroic cop who you know won’t die until the end. The key to any good monster movie is to give you a nice stable of characters who you can actually feel concerned about. Think of say, Jurassic Park. Did you automatically “know” that Malcolm or Hammond would live? You shouldn’t, especially since they died in the book.

Another nice touch is that there’s actually some character development. Remy has no luck in love, and is obsessed with her bugs. So the idea of a giant human-ish bug that wants to mate with her is one that almost seems plausible. Also, there’s a nice bit of how after she gets her heart broken, she takes a Polaroid of herself and pins it on the wall with the name of the heartbreaker written on the bottom. Sort of cheesy, but a hell of a lot more than you get in these things. And of course, the hero sees the photo (after accusing her of being the killer) that she made after dealing with him, which gives him enough motive to risk himself to help her. Awww. It’s certainly better than what I thought would be the payoff for the Polaroids (a picture of the two of them together at the end of the film, all happy and such).

Some of the horror bits are above average as well. My hatred of insects allowed me to feel a bit queasy during a scene where a hundred baby Judas breeds scramble over our three heroes, who stomp on them mercilessly (what this movie lacks in blood, it makes up for in insect goo). Paul Schulze’s death scene is also pretty nifty; a full grown Judas sort of flies by and slashes him over and over, confusing the hell out of him until it drags him off and pulls him through a narrow pipe. And if a movie has to have a goddamn “Heroine steps over the body of the maybe-not-yet-dead villain” scene, it might as well have one where instead of an arm she is stepping over a raised tentacle claw thingie pointed right at her lady parts.

Oh and kind of like Deep Blue Sea, the movie finds a ridiculously awesome (I mean awesomely ridiculous) way to get her to strip down to her underwear. Thank you movie.

Also a surprise for a Dimension DTV of the era, there are a decent number of extras. Nothing particularly essential, but there’s about 20 minutes of behind the scenes stuff, which focus on both the usual nonsense as well as the job details of lesser known crew members. There’s also a nice piece on sound mixing (is Gary Rizzo the first re-recording mixer to ever get his own extra on a DVD?), and a handful of deleted scenes which are actually finished and mostly enjoyable. I would have liked a commentary by Joel Soisson and Mike Leahy, as they are always fun to listen to, but oh well. Besides, unlike most of their tracks (the Dracula sequels, for example), this is actually a decent movie, so their track might not be as mocking. Or if it was I might be annoyed.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

DVD Review: [Rec] (2007)

JULY 7, 2009

GENRE: MOCKUMENTARY, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

So now it’s full circle. After seeing a rather poorly translated screener (“Keep filming for your fucking mother!”), and then the remake (Quarantine), I now finally have a nice, pristine DVD of [Rec] (originally reviewed HERE) to enjoy. And not only does it obviously look the best anyone has probably seen it on a digital format, it also has actually improved in the wake of Quarantine, because it continues to be effective despite a shot for shot remake that could have lessened its impact.

As I said in my review for Quarantine, that version worked fine as a zombie movie, but failed monumentally as a “found footage” thing because every single actor in the movie, even those in small roles, was a recognizable actor. It became impossible to buy into the “realism” of the situation, something that is not an issue for [Rec]. And no, I’m not gullible enough to believe that these events really happened, but if you’re going to try to pass something off as a documentary, it seems sort of counter-productive to make it as superficially as possible.

And so now, having seen [Rec] before, and the remake, it’s remarkable how effective it is. I got scared all over again at the fireman’s body hitting the floor, and still find the situation impressively tense throughout, something that most found footage films never truly achieve (even Cloverfield had its lapses in this department). And while the performances in Quarantine were all fine, [Rec]’s cast is uniformly natural and believable, something I appreciate even more now. Usually these things have a weak link (for example, the FBI agent in Poughkeepsie Tapes, ironically directed by the guys who helmed Quarantine), but I can’t find one here. Ángela Vidal (the lead) sometimes annoys me, but that’s a character thing; actress Manuela Velasco herself is great.

The DVD transfer is quite good too. It actually looks like HD footage shot by a frightened man (Quarantine was a bit too cleaned up), and the occasional camera “glitches” look legit. Some of these movies go way overboard with such things (again, Poughkeepsie Tapes is a good example; the glitches were all clearly made in post production), but having used HD cameras myself, I can vouch for the authenticity of the pixel shifting and such that occurs during the more frenetic scenes.

Sony, however, has pulled a Magnolia with the subtitles, offering up “summed up/dumbed down” text instead of what is actually being said. All you need to do is turn on the dub track (not the worst, but none of the voices seem like they belong to the actors; the old lady sounds like a 30 year old) to see the difference. For example, when the SWAT team is sealing off the building, the head cop says “All officers in position?”, whereas the subs merely offer “Ready?”. It’s not a dialogue heavy movie, and the exposition type scenes are pretty accurate, but still, I don’t understand why the studios keep doing this on their subtitle tracks. Are the subtitle people paid by the letter or something? Or is the subtitle places themselves that are half-assing their job? Either way, it’s kind of a shame, you either have to deal with a distracting dub or a dummy’s subtitle track.

The DVD also has a 20 min making of, and it’s actually nice to see in the wake of Quarantine. That film’s featurette was pointless, because they’re all talking about the film as if they weren’t flat out copying another existing one ([Rec] was only mentioned once on the entire DVD, in passing on the commentary track). So it’s nice to see Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza (the actual creators) talk about their work for once. I only wish it was longer and/or less clip-heavy.

[Rec] 2 is on the way, and while I am not sure how it can live up to the original, I am excited about it. I hear Sony is planning a sequel to Quarantine as well, not sure if they are following the story of the [Rec] sequel or going off on their own (much like The Ring Two). Either way, it’s a franchise I enjoy; it’s just a shame that it took this long for the better version to reach the US (unlike The Ring or The Grudge, most people who saw Quarantine weren’t even aware of an “original version”) in a legitimate fashion.

One final note - my DVD from Sony came in a new form of the traditional Amaray DVD case. It uses up less plastic by cutting the traditional “recycle” logo on the left side (under where the insert would be if the DVD had one) and also cutting out behind where the DVD itself is stored. I’m no math wizard, but I would say it takes up 20-25% less plastic per case, which is pretty sweet. It kind of bums me out how trash seems to be encouraged in Los Angeles (almost no apartment buildings have recycling beyond bottles and cans), so to see a big studio take this measure is worth lauding, I think. And I appreciate that they are doing it in a way that cuts down on plastic without actually changing the shape of the package, which is annoying. You know those new water bottles? They fucking suck, because there is a lot less plastic along the bottom, so now they don’t stand up right. Anyway,let's hope more studios adapt this new case style.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...