Ghost Machine (2009)

DECEMBER 19, 2009

GENRE: GHOST, VIDEO GAME
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

Maybe someday, someone will crack the nut that is the “Trapped in a video game” horror movie. The sub-genre is littered with the corpses of things like Brainscan and Gamebox 1.0 (I give Stay Alive a pass due to its Sophia Bush-ness and Air Supply references), and it seems like no one ever learns from the mistakes of their predecessors. And now we have Ghost Machine, which is better than most but still falls into the same traps as the others, namely the basic fact that it’s hard to feel worried about someone who is just sitting in a chair and in danger of being brain-fried, as opposed to a flesh and blood villain inflicting actual harm on the people it is “killing”.

See, the reason Freddy worked (at first) is because it played on dreams, something we all do on a nightly basis. But not everyone plays virtual reality games, so there’s that inherent sense of detachment already, and then when you’re constantly cutting away from the “action” to show people sitting in chairs with helmets and wires attached to their person, you lose a lot of the suspense as well.

Now to be fair, it’s not a traditional video game, but a combat simulator. So we are spared a bunch of faux gamer lingo and nonsensical visuals (until the climax anyway), not to mention the usual ridiculously out of date (or just plain incorrect) depiction of video games. The simulator seems largely accurate, and I enjoyed little beats here and there, such as when Rachael Taylor’s character is admonished for only killing an enemy because her brain reminded her that she was just playing a game. And in turn, the villain is more interesting than usual - it’s the ghost of a suspected terrorist who died from being tortured in a post 9/11 military base.

But in a way that’s also sort of the main problem with the movie - it’s a deadly serious approach (using true life storytelling devices) to a goofy plot about a ghost killing people inside a video game. The reason a movie like Stay Alive works (for me, I know I’m in the minority there) is because the characters are cardboard movie kids and they’re all having fun, only to be dispatched by a ridiculous plot device. But just because Ghost Machine deals with 9/11 and torture doesn’t mean that we can take the horror stuff any more seriously, and in fact their lack of sync is what keeps the movie from being good. A more traditional ghost movie would have made more sense, I think. Or, if they wanted to use the combat simulator motif, then they should have dealt with less serious matters and had the villain be some generic ghost (or hell, the Devil, like in Evilspeak).

It also takes too long to get going. This is definitely the type of movie that should have an opening scene kill that sets up the basic plot (i.e. some random guy logs into the simulator, meets the ghost, and gets killed). Instead we just get an endless scene of them driving to the base, and a subplot about Taylor being harassed by one of her superiors, and a sort of love triangle between her and the characters played by Luke Ford and Sean Faris, and a bunch of other stuff. It’s almost like they were embarrassed about making a killer video game movie and tried to keep that element out of it for as long as possible.

But once it DOES get going, it’s at least entertaining to a degree. There’s a few too many shots of our (small) cast wandering down hallways with their assault rifles at chest height, and the location is as dull as you can get in a movie, but the more interesting antagonist and largely likable cast makes it easier to swallow, and the requisite human villain is a truly disgusting being, and the filmmakers wring some decent suspense out of whether or not he will try to assault Taylor’s character yet again. And the ghost has a pretty sweet design (at least it’s not another long-haired Asian girl, even if she occasionally acts like one), so there’s something. In short, it could be worse (i.e. Arcade).

The DVD has a couple of extras, neither particularly essential. One is a standard making of, and the other is an interview with one of the writers. It’s worth noting that both pieces are poorly edited, with people often being cut off in mid-thought (including the final line from the screenwriter, who is in the middle of making a point about the lack of Irish-lensed horror films and is faded into end credits). Pretty annoying. Also, Faris seems to confuse ghostly phenomena with simple science; he provides an anecdote about feeling cold in a certain room, only for it to feel warm 10 minutes later when it is filled with people (he chalks it up to spirit energy dissipating when more people are around. Yeah, it sounds cooler than “body heat”, I’ll give you that.). The boring backgrounds of the film spread over to the piece as well; Taylor and Ford are filmed in front of an off-white wall. Everything appears to be shot with a webcam too, for some reason. I don’t get why studios continue to produce such dull filler for their DVDs - it’s been almost a decade since anyone was impressed that their disc came with more than “just the movie”, so either produce something truly interesting, or give more of your bit budget over to the feature! I should note that the audio is pretty disappointing on the film - even at full volume it was far too low, even though the extras and Anchor Bay’s usual assortment of trailers sounded fine.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Echo (2008)

DECEMBER 18, 2009

GENRE: GHOST, REMAKE
SOURCE: DVD (SCREENER)

The back of The Echo has one of my favorite quotes in recent memory: “Jesse Bradford Grabs The Audience Whenever He’s On Screen!” (efilm critic). As opposed to when he’s not on-screen? Who is grabbing us then? Also, as today is Avatar day, I momentarily considered a 3D version of The Echo where Bradford LITERALLY grabbed audience members (through the growing power of 3D technology) and tossed them about the theater as he worked out his anger at going from being the star of a Clint Eastwood prestige film in 2007 to starring in DTV horror movies today.

Anyway, it’s a decent enough little movie. You know exactly what you’re in for - the front of the DVD proudly points out that the film is from the exec producers of The Ring and The Grudge, and the cover features not Bradford and his audience grabbing appendages, but a little scary ghost girl. That the film goes its entire 96 minutes without a single scene of someone being soaked and dripping is about the only real surprise about it.

But it’s been a while since I’ve watched one of these things, and that it’s NOT based on a Japanese film (it’s based on a Filipino one! Name is Sigaw, and director Yam Laranas helmed both films) renders it far more worthwhile than the pointless remakes of Shutter, One Missed Call, etc. For starters, they don’t try to blend the two cultures together, or base it on some sort of “real” phenomenon, which allows the film to focus on mood and tension instead of people yammering on about “spirit photography” or EVP or whatever. We as a people understand the basic idea of scary ghosts, and that’s what the film offers us.

And like the Grudge (actually, the film as a whole is reminiscent of Grudge 3, in that its confined to an apartment building and every now and then a resident is killed just to keep things from getting too “moody”), we actually have a couple ghosts, and part of the fun of the film is figuring out which ones mean us harm and which ones are trying to warn us (if any). Since one of them is played by Kevin Durand, you know he’s bad (this guy is great, by the way, and I hope Legion does well enough to give him more exposure), but the little girl and the mother are a bit less obvious, and I must say I was surprised by the end, where we finally learn what the ghosts were after (not a proper burial for once), making the film a bit of a morality tale in the process.

By the way, it’s a bit of a spoiler to say that they’re all ghosts, but anyone who has seen a single one of these movies should know that right away, especially as Bradford seems to be the only one who sees them and the goddamn box art shows the little girl as one anyway.

I also liked that the hero was a guy for once. Naomi Watts, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Shannyn Sossamon, Rachael Taylor, Jennifer Connelly, Jessica Alba... you see a pattern here? For once, instead of saying “I’d like to get her drunk”, I was thinking “I’d go for a beer with this dude.” And since he was easier to identify with, I was also thinking “Why can’t I live next door to ghosts?” and “I wonder if the original had a dude or if they changed it from a woman just to give this movie a bit of its own identity on the store shelves?” (NOTE - I didn’t know it was a remake until I saw it in the credits).

Of course, if you dislike these things than it won’t do anything to change your mind. It plays out in the same way as they all do (guy moves in somewhere, starts hearing noises, has to deal with people thinking he’s crazy, etc) and the story is a bit thin compared to some of the others. It also has its fair share of repetition (this movie must hold the record for numbers of scenes of characters listening to doors being locked from the other side) and some rather worthless supporting characters, such as Bradford’s ex’s friend. But like I said, it had been a while since I watched one of these things, and since I was about to embark on a tour of Pandora, I was somewhat charmed by its simplicity (plus some of the smaller scares are pretty creepy). I don’t expect everyone to feel the same way.

My screener has no extras, not sure if the final DVD had some. But my main interest is seeing the original anyway, so I just queued it up. Anyone see it? Good, bad?

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Arachnophobia (1990)

DECEMBER 17, 2009

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

As a young lad, I used to read novelizations for movies I didn’t to go see (what was that company that would send the order form to your school? Scholastic?), and Arachnophobia was one such title. I read the book a few times before I finally saw the movie when it came out on VHS, and I remember not liking it much (by the time I was ten I already knew that these books were sometimes sanitized, so I assumed they were leaving out a lot of the action). However it has a strong following, and a cast of folks that I didn’t know much about at the time and have come to appreciate (Jeff Daniels, John Goodman, Carpenter regular Peter Jason), so I figured it was ripe for re-evaluation.

Well, I think I like it more, but it’s still an underwhelming movie for me. The humor is usually spot on (I love the bit where Daniels gives the football team their examination and the last dude just sort of goes “ahem” - i.e. he’s got no balls), but the spider action is poorly paced, in my opinion. It almost plays out like a particularly low body count slasher, with a single spider “stalking” someone and then their body is found later. Also, the movie is pretty long (110 minutes) and it’s not until the 90 minute mark that we finally have multiple spiders on the attack, which is a bit troublesome as with credits and the epilogue it sort of confines the spectacle to about 12 minutes. You can’t help but think of Gremlins (small town, colorful supporting cast, tiny monsters, comedic slant, Spielberg/Kennedy/Marshall), and that film knew enough to keep the “what’s going on?” stuff in the first half and let things go nuts for the bulk of the second.

But it’s definitely got its charms. Daniels is a great everyman here, not unlike your Bill Pullmans and Paxtons. He seems like one of those actors who casting folks simply don’t know what to do with (nowadays he largely plays shadowy government types for some reason), but his laid back charms are perfect for this sort of thing. And Goodman isn’t onscreen enough, but when he is he is a delight (“You thinkin’ bout buying some property here?”). And I was also tickled that Julian Sands’ character seemingly was the inspiration for Alan Grant, at least in the wardrobe department:

Speaking of Sands, he is center stage in what is undoubtedly one of the most overlong “prologues” in film history. Friday the 13th 2009 at least had the intent of trying to fool us into thinking that the group at the beginning was the REAL group, but I can’t sense any such approach here - I don’t think anyone thought this movie was about a photographer following some scientists around in a jungle. But it goes on and on, bringing us to a full 20 minutes before Daniels shows up. And again, the movie is kind of slow even without this opening. I get why we need to see how the spider got into the town to begin with, but it seems like they could have sped things along all the same.

For no real reason I’d like to mention that as a young man I had a crush on Harley Jane Kozak (largely from Necessary Roughness). I was kind of bummed that she got largely left out of the climax, though Daniels’ one on one showdown with the queen spider is pretty awesome. In fact, I honestly think a lot of this movie’s glowing reputation is due to the fact that the final 15 minutes are pretty awesome, letting people walk out of the theater feeling pumped.

The non-anamorphic DVD has only a single extra, an EPK behind the scenes featurette produced at the time of the film’s release, and is thus 110% fluff and features more clips from the film than interview footage. I don’t think I need to watch the film again anytime soon (I’d probably enjoy a revival screening though - the crowd reaction to the comedy would probably make up for the rather slow horror), but given its fan base and outdated technical presentation, I hope Disney ponies up the dough for a new edition. One that hopefully has the dangling spider on the cover over the moon (why is it gone from this case?). I also wouldn’t be opposed to someone trying to re-edit the film into something a little faster paced. At 90, even 95 minutes this could rank up there with Gremlins or Tremors (and yes, I know Gremlins is also around the same length - the difference is that it didn’t FEEL that long), but it just feels spread too thin for me.

One final note - the film was co-written by Don Jakoby, who is better known for his screenwriting efforts with Dan O’Bannon (Lifeforce among them), who sadly just passed away. Co-writing Alien and Dead & Buried would be enough to cement his place in the genre, but he also directed Return of the Living Dead, which puts him on an even higher level and thus makes this an even greater loss. RIP, Mr. O’Bannon.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Silent Night Deadly Night 4: Initiation (1990)

DECEMBER 16, 2009

GENRE: CULT, HOLIDAY (?)
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

Lionsgate recently did horror fans a solid and FINALLY released the final 3 Silent Night Deadly Night sequels on DVD (which means I actually bought SNDN 3 twice this year, after obtaining a VHS copy earlier in the spring). While the DVD is a bit of a ripoff (all full frame transfers, no extras whatsoever, for 15 bucks?), and it is given a completely misleading cover (a killer Santa, something that is not a plot element in any of the films within), it's nice to finally have them all, especially Silent Night Deadly Night 4: Initiation, which was the only one in the series I had never seen in whole or in part.

SNDN 4, I now realize, is sort of like the Halloween III of the series, in a couple of ways. Like that unfairly maligned film, SNDN4 has no relation to the previous films, other than (possibly) the character Clint Howard plays. He is simply called Ricky, and that was of course the name of the killer from parts 2 and 3. Now, the fact that it's a different actor means nothing; if it IS the same Clint would be I think the seventh actor to portray him. Likewise, seeing a clip from SNDN 3 on the TV wouldn't really mean much either - Ricky goes to see the first SNDN in the 2nd film, despite being a direct sequel. Look - this franchise is either as lazy or as meta-crazy as they come, if not both.

It's also like H3 in that it concerns a cult using bugs to get their not-very-clear plan set in motion. Cockroaches are the primary antagonists here, though some traditionally icky worm like creatures (courtesy of Screamin' Mad George) show up as well. But unlike H3, the film's ties to its namesake holiday are incredibly thin; if not for a few shots of Christmas decorations and an extended discussion about Christmas vs. Hanukkah, the film could just as easily have occurred in the middle of June.

Otherwise, it's a surprisingly fun movie. The batshittedness of the whole thing was a definite plus (dude this movie has a giant swirling mass of killer pasta at one point), as are the light lesbian undertones and a brief role by Reggie Bannister back before his casting was little more than a gimmick. And George's makeup effects are pretty awesome (read - pretty damn gross), especially a scene involving a parasitic worm thing being inserted in the heroine's belly button and then emerging (much larger) from her mouth. Ew/YES!

Plus, any movie where Clint Howard dons a phallic mask and takes part in a ritual led by crazy lesbians can't be all together bad.

In a few days I will watch the 5th film, which I saw some of when I was 12 and is apparently a prequel to this one (since Clint reappears as Ricky, who dies at the end of this one). I believe that makes him the only actor to appear in more than one film of the series (not counting flashback footage), so congrats to him! And while no film in the series is particularly great, I will say this: so far it's the only major horror franchise that never got boring. The quality of the films vary, but they are all uniquely strange and often surprising. Who would have thought while watching part 2 that the next film would include a killer with a mixing bowl on his head?

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Black Torment (1964)

DECEMBER 15, 2009

GENRE: GHOST (?), REVENGE
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Who the hell recommended The Black Torment to me? At first I thought it was something I read about in "Rue Morgue" or something, but the DVD was printed in 2003, long before I even read that magazine (and certainly before I was blindly renting horror movies). And it’s not the type of thing that would come up in Blockbuster’s pitiful recommendation programming. Nor does it have any actor I recognize. So again, what the hell?

Well at any rate I’m not going to recommend it to anyone else. It’s not terrible, just sort of uninteresting. The plot seems cobbled together from a dozen other films of the era, what with people thinking that they are seeing ghosts and families fighting over land and a lot of melodramatic misunderstandings across the board. And (spoiler) any movie where they just pull out the “it was your twin brother!” twist is automatically worthy of scorn. Come on now, did people really accept this sort of horseshit back in the 60s? I couldn’t even accept it in Shriek If You Know... and that was a lowbrow spoof movie! This movie is deathly serious, so they should refrain from resorting to such hackery.

Now by deathly serious I mean by intention, not execution. There are certainly a couple of unintentionally hilarious lines, such as when a woman innocently inquires “She killed herself because of a Latin quotation?” (wouldn’t be the first time! "Carpe diem", Mr. Sean Leonard). And I’m always delighted by the sight of a bunch of powdered wig-donning girly men running around a big mansion. And the head wig guy gets so bored by the climactic sword fight that he begins addressing other matters as he watches it go down, issuing a command to take away a body with all the conviction of a guy asking his wife to turn the TV up a bit because she’s closer.

But man is it dull for the most part. There’s a five minute chunk of the film devoted to two guys arguing over whether or not one of them ordered a custom saddle. The whole movie is built around people saying that this guy has been seen doing things in town when he claims to have been 100 miles away, so why they’d add another such example that revolves around a fucking saddle - one of the least interesting objects in all of creation - is beyond me. And the aforementioned sword fight is just as endless and un-exciting; I could care less about the outcome, yet they milk it for a good 3-4 minutes.

It’s also exceptionally dark. Here’s an example:

Now, I haven’t the slightest goddamn clue what the hell we are seeing there (an unlit candlestick... I THINK some stairs), but it seems to be scary, because the composer suddenly begins to make some horror movie music instead of the Yankee Doodle-esque brass stuff he favors in most of the other scenes. It might be an artifact of the DVD (I’ve never heard of the company - Salvation Group?), but the daytime scenes seemed to be correct (as opposed to being too dark as well which would likely be the case if it was just a poor transfer), so I dunno. Either way it botches a few scares and renders a few others a bit puzzling, as people will be talking and you can’t see who. It actually works for the opening scene though, as the killer’s hands are all we really see as he takes out his first victim (it’s also the best scare scene in the film, which kind of sucks as it’s the first and then there’s another 80 minutes or so to go).

The DVD has a photo gallery. Why people would want to see a bunch of stills from the movie they just watched, I don’t know, but hey, at least it keeps me from saying “The disc doesn’t have any extra features” again.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Carriers (2009)

DECEMBER 14, 2009

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

In a move worthy of Lionsgate, Paramount oddly dumped their film Carriers into about a dozen cities (Los Angeles not even among them) in September, sans any sort of advertising or promotion. Even more puzzling, it stars Chris Pine, who carried the summer’s most satisfying (and one of its most financially successful) blockbuster Star Trek, itself a Paramount film. You’d think they would be able to recoup some of their dough just by having the “new” film with Hollywood’s newest overnight star, but they didn’t even try.

And now that I’ve watched it, I’m still unsure if they made the right call. On one hand, it does have a growing star and a scary premise that would pack in audiences (especially with its PG-13 rating), but on the other hand it’s an uneventful film, lacking a big climax or the usual sort of setpieces you see in virus movies (there is nothing here that equals the horror of say, the tunnel scene in The Stand). So in that respect, maybe it will work better at home, where its smaller approach to the traditional “last few survivors” story will fit a TV screen snugly.

At any rate, it’s a pretty good movie. As we learned from Trek, Pine is an engaging everyman actor, and the supporting cast includes the always welcome Piper Perabo (how come this woman never made it bigger?) and a couple of ringers like Chris Meloni. And there are JUST enough little mini scares to keep it from getting too sluggish; by design the film focuses on the characters instead of the action, but that doesn’t stop directors David and Alex Pastor from tossing in few brief moments, such as when Pine’s brother (Lou Pucci, from the equally discarded Horsemen) searches a car only to discover that the “dead” owner isn’t quite dead yet. And of course, one of the characters gets infected and hides it from the others, which leads to some tense moments (and a pretty harsh outcome).

I also enjoyed the occasional bits of levity, such as when Pine recklessly drives around on a golf kart for a while. Or, even more amusing at this particular moment in time, when they go to a driving range and the cute blond girl of the group says “Tiger Woods can kiss my ass!” after a particularly long drive. As they are younger, it makes sense that they would take a bit of enjoyment in being some of the only people left in the world, but I assume the film’s low budget prevents them from getting too crazy a la Zombieland (no deserted Hollywood or amusement park takeovers here).

Ultimately, the film is simply kind of sad, which is what sets it apart from some of the others. It’s not spoiling much to say that not everyone makes it, and even those that do realize that their life is fairly empty without those who have been lost. And Meloni’s final scene is particularly gut-wrenching; he knows he is about to be left for dead with his infected daughter, and tries to shield her from realizing what is going on as his eyes fill with despair.

The only real flaw of the film is the lack of curveballs. You can probably guess which of the group won’t make it, and the story is basically them going from point A to point B and encountering the expected obstacles (“bad” humans, a broken down car, a deserted rescue station, etc) along the way. We aren’t given much info about the virus; I don’t even think it’s made clear how long it’s been since it first began killing people. I don’t often care about such things, but here I think a little more rounding out of the story would have been helpful, as the journey itself, while far from bad, is a bit basic and thus these sort of things would have helped it carve out its own identity a bit. To be fair, I DID just see The Road which has a very similar premise and a bit more money behind it. It’s not fair to compare the films though; The Road is far more bleak and less adventurous than Carriers.

The disc has no extras, which doesn’t surprise me as I understand Paramount is the least courageous studio when it comes to potentially ruffling feathers (the film has been on the shelf for 2 years and has undergone some reshoots). They pulled Uncle Creepy’s commentary on F13 6 just for taking a few shots at the characters in the movie, so I can’t imagine they’d want a director’s commentary for their troubled and abandoned film, or a making of depicting scenes that were no longer in the final film. Still, I wish studios would have more balls about these matters; the only people that would give a shit probably already know that the film had production troubles; why not give yourself the opportunity to state your case? It can only help - it’s not like there’s a guy who thinks Paramount (or any other studio) is infallible and wonderful and will thus be crushed to discover that some of their execs tinkered with one of their films. Why not try to explain your side of things and maybe make angry fanboys (which I can certainly be at times) think twice about putting all the blame on you?

Or at least put the damn trailer on there.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Reborn (2009)

DECEMBER 13, 2009

GENRE: INDEPENDENT, SLASHER, TECHNOLOGY
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

As I pointed out in yesterday's review, Reborn is actually a sequel to Machined, a fairly terrible film that Lionsgate was right to try to disassociate itself from. I don’t often like to watch two films from a series back to back for the first time, but Lionsgate’s bait and switch forced my hand - I never would have rented Reborn in the first place if I knew it was a sequel to an unseen film. That’s just not how I roll, dammit.

Well the good news is, it’s a slightly better film than Machined, and seeing it back to back with the lesser film probably helped me notice that. Had it been a year (and 365+ movies) in between, I might not have noticed the improvements so readily. For example, it’s still shot on digital, but it’s far more professional looking than whatever the fuck they used for the first film. And Craig McMahon (once again taking on nearly every behind the scenes job himself) has also gotten a little more interesting as a shooter/editor - some of the scenes even approach basic suspense, such as when the killer robot thing is being “stalked” by a pair of cops.

However, he seems to have gotten worse as a storyteller. Reborn is essentially a remake of the first film (Motorman Dan even comes back, despite dying in the first film - no effort is made to explain his reappearance), with an endless series of people stopping by this junkyard and getting killed 4-5 minutes later. But he’s added a few things to the mix, none of which make any goddamn sense. First off, the place now appears to be haunted as well, with our heroine seeing J-horror type apparitions every now and then (and getting momentarily fondled by one, apparently). And the robot thing staples a woman’s scalp to his head for reasons I never quite understood; I thought it was going to be a series of moments where he would attach a body part from his newest victim over his robot shell, but nope. He just has a ladywig.

And instead of breaking down, our protagonists discover the place because... they bought it. Our hero blindfolds his wife and brings her there, and then he’s like “it’s ours!”. When she protests living there, he informs her that he let the lease on their apartment expire. She then brings up the commute, and he tells her that he quit his engineer job in order to run an auto shop (he’s not trained for that, by the way) in the middle of the desert. So we are dealing with who is undoubtedly the dumbest fucking hero ever created for a movie (not to mention a REALLY shitty husband). Of course, he’s dead/robotic 20 minutes later, so at least he doesn’t have to talk anymore, but still, how the fuck are we supposed to care about a guy so wholly idiotic? He makes the average F13 victim look like a Mensa candidate.

He also fails to bring audiences up to speed about the events in the first film (which makes Lionsgate’s retitling all the more frustrating). The murders are vaguely mentioned enough to be annoying, and again, they don’t explain how Dan came back to life. Which he must have done, because if he WAS alive, why isn’t he in jail? And where was he when the real estate people were showing the hero guy around before he bought it? Way to inspect the property, douches. Plus, one actor returns, but he’s not playing the same character, which I only learned from the IMDb as it’s hard to catch any of the character’s names since they’re all killed within minutes of their introduction.

I also began to wonder how Motorman Dan’s robot men survive. They are pretty fucked up when they are put in the suit, but they are then unable to eat or drink anything on top of that. So what sustains them? And their brain function is still intact, so they must have some bodily functions going on, right? What the hell?

The movie also has the strangest cutaway I’ve ever seen. Prior to becoming a killer robot, our idiot hero has gotten his arm caught in some machinery. His wife is working to get him out, and then all of a sudden it just fades to black. When it comes back, they are in the hospital and his arm is bandaged. What the hell? In fact, the movie as a whole has a bit of an overabundance of fadeouts; McMahon utilizes them at least once in pretty much in every scene (sometimes you’ll get 2-3 in a single scene/minute). If he would just slam cut to black and then bring the image back, maybe the movie would actually run the 80 minutes it was advertised as, instead of 86 (either way, its thankfully shorter than the original).

We also get an extra feature this time, a brief making of where the actors talk about their roles (I learn far more about them here than in the film) and the difficulties of shooting certain scenes. Oddly, McMahon doesn’t appear at all in the piece, which is pretty baffling as he was responsible for every facet of the film’s production. Maybe he was tired. Or the one shooting the interviews with the actors. Either way, if you’re looking to get into the head of this guy (who is surprisingly prolific, churning out a film a year), the DVD won’t help you in any meaningful way.

So if you absolutely MUST watch one of the films, I’d go with Reborn. The back of the DVD sort of helps clarify the events of the first film that are alluded to several times in the movie, and trust me, even if you DO see the first one, it doesn’t make this one any more coherent. But it’s slightly more professional looking (the score is much improved too!) and ten minutes shorter, so it has the edge.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Machined (2006)

DECEMBER 12, 2009

GENRE: INDEPENDENT, SLASHER, TECHNOLOGY
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

In an ironic turn, Lionsgate (the studio that made a Dark Harvest “franchise” out of three movies that were as unconnected as you can possibly get) released a film titled Reborn, which I rented the other night only to discover that it was a sequel to another film. And since I hate watching sequels first, I emergency-queued up the first one, Machined, and looked forward to a weekend full of killer robot action. And after about 20 minutes, it became pretty obvious why they would try to hide Reborn’s association with it.

While I’ve certainly seen worse, the film was just an endless and poorly paced series of setpieces in which people show up at this junkyard/auto repair shop in Arizona and are killed moments later by a human/machine hybrid that was put together by “Motor Man Dan”, a typically disgusting (read: overweight with an unbuttoned shirt) voyeur who watches (via a complex surveillance system) his creation kill folks as he talks (stutters) to himself and occasionally masturbates.

Now you might think that sounds awesome, and in the hands of an appropriately gonzo but talented filmmaker (likely an Italian) it would be. But Craig McMahon has zero visual panache and even less of an ability to pace a story, so it becomes monotonous before the 1st act is even through, and downright torturous by the time we hit the 3rd. It appears as if he has no patience whatsoever - characters are introduced in typical “these are our protagonists” fashion, and then they all get killed moments later. This might work once as a shock, but with each new character introduction/death cycle, it gets less and less interesting. And why are so many cars breaking down in this exact spot in the desert?

And there really is no one to blame but McMahon - he wrote, directed, shot, edited, produced, composed, and did the special effects for the film. And in some (well, one) respect that is admirable of him, and my initial distaste at giving himself a credit at the top of the film (when none of the cast or other crew was given one) waned once I realized that this WAS indeed “his” film. But all it does is re-enforce the common notion that the more jobs one takes on a film, the less impressive each of those jobs will be. Maybe if he wasn’t so busy producing and directing he could have had time to write a better script; and maybe if he wasn’t so attached to all of the footage he wrote/shot he could have been a more judicious editor. And... well, I have no idea what could have resulted in a better score, but he really should have just handed that over to someone else. The movie isn’t worth much to begin with, but the horrid, literally two-note score drives it down another notch or two.

He’s also not much of a speller.

I was also pretty disappointed at how poorly the junkyard was utilized. I was hoping for a few chases around the place, not to mention more creative things used to assemble the robot killer thing, but alas, other than a couple of (tight) establishing shots, the junkyard setting is completely absent, and all of the kills occur in a typical machine room dungeon, the type of thing we see in any Saw film. As I mentioned in my review for Hurt (which is now on DVD - go check it out!), the junkyard is a sorely underused setting for horror movies, and it’s a shame to see the rare film that DOES take place in one botch it so badly.

The best I can say about the movie is that it’s mildly amusing at times (the introduction to Dan is pretty great, as he murders a blow up doll and then masturbates) and the design of the robot is pretty cool, at least when you can see it (McMahon apparently went to the Peter Hyams school of lighting). But neither “perk” is enough to make slogging through the whole boring and repetitive film worth your time (which, since there are no extras on the DVD - thank Christ - is a maximum of 95 minutes, which is still too long).

And just think, tomorrow I get to watch the sequel!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Lovely Bones (2009)

DECEMBER 11, 2009

GENRE: GHOST
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

It's rare that I dislike a novel that I read. For starters, I don't read many (especially these days); I'm lucky to get through 6 books a year (which includes non-fiction stuff). So I don't just read any old thing, I usually need to be sold on it. And since Alice Sebold's "The Lovely Bones" was praised by everyone, I figured I would enjoy it when I picked it up in 2004. But alas, I was mostly bored by it. I liked the concept, and it did strike a nerve here and there, but it was ultimately overlong, somewhat unfocused (for a while the book was more about her sister's burgeoning relationship than anything else, like someone stuck a "Sweet Valley High" book in the middle of my ghost novel), and ultimately anticlimactic; the final 50 pages or so reminded me of Bartledanian literature. But that Peter Jackson fella is a pretty gifted filmmaker, so I was pretty optimistic that The Lovely Bones would be a success on film.

And it is, to some degree, but ironically it's the big CGI spectacle stuff that Jackson brings to the table that weighs the film down. Despite the usual wooden performance by Mark Wahlberg (what happened to this guy? It's like after Departed he figured "It's all downhill from there, so why try?") the film is close to great whenever we are sticking with the family, and in those scenes Jackson is able to find a bit of a focus that the novel lacked, as well as some truly nerve-wracking suspense (the scene where Susie's sister goes into the killer's home alone makes this scarier than most legit horror movies I've seen this year).

But he keeps shooting himself in the foot by cutting away from these scenes to show Susie running around a big CGI landscape. The effects are actually quite astonishing on a technical level, but they serve no real function and constantly distract away from the part of the film that works best. Worse, they never seem to progress in any meaningful way; every one of these scenes is essentially Susie running around alongside giant versions of something that she remembered from her time on Earth (snow globes, ships in a bottle, etc), and then yelling something that the people on Earth seem to sense. And even as spectacle, they no longer impress after a while, because they all resemble Scott Mutter photographs depicted as 3D screensavers. Doubling the irony is that Saoirse Ronan (as Susie) delivers the film's best performance, albeit in its least successful scenes.

The film's other great performance is Stanley Tucci as Susie's killer, Mr. Harvey. The PG-13 rating prevents him from being too vile, but Tucci is able to convey the story's more horrifying aspects (i.e. the fact that she was raped as well as killed) with his gestures and looks. Susan Sarandon is also a delight as the typically colorful grandmother, who smokes and drinks and always has a snappy one-liner to enjoy.

But like most of the other family members, she seems to lack an arc of her own, and you never really get a grasp on what she is feeling about the situation. Rachel Weisz is almost depicted as an un-caring mother in contrast to Wahlberg's obsession, to the point where she actually leaves the family for a while. In the book she had an affair with the cop, which is hinted at in the film so briefly that I wondered why they even bothered including it at all. And Susie's little brother doesn't even appear in the third act, presumably because they couldn't figure out a way to properly age him (aging is a problem throughout - Sarandon seemingly ages 15 years, Susie's sister maybe 6, and Wahlberg not at all). And it all comes back to the same problem - too much time spent on the CGI showcase reel nonsense. I wouldn't be surprised if Jackson had another half hour or so of worthy "character" scenes that were cut for time; if that is the case then I think he cut back on the wrong stuff. Reducing the afterlife scenes (and their truly woeful "other girls that were killed" characters - the movie is overstuffed just with the family, do we really need this shit on top of it?) to a single scene or two and using that time on the family might have resulted in one of the year's best films, instead of its most uneven.

It's rare to see a movie that's main problem is that it was simply overproduced (at least, outside of Bruckheimer/Bay's output), but that is exactly the problem with Bones. Without any effects and an emphasis on character (which would be sort of a given if the budget was kept small), it could have been another solid win in Jackson's career (not to mention make up for the equally overproduced King Kong). Instead, it's a mixed bag, and I suspect a chunk of my warm feelings are the result of my dislike of the source material and surprising bad word of mouth (it's worth pointing out that the film, in limited release, wasn't even close to full on its opening night - not a good sign for supposed Oscar bait). It'll make a pretty Blu-ray though, that's for sure.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Daybreakers (2009)

DECEMBER 10, 2009

GENRE: VAMPIRE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PRESS SCREENING)

The 4th movie I watched for Horror Movie A Day (pre-review days) was the Spierig Brothers’ Undead, and I didn’t much care for it. It was impressive for its small budget and all, but the story was all over the place and the humor didn’t really work for me. So I wasn’t expecting much out of Daybreakers (that it’s been on the shelf for almost 2 years didn’t help), despite a kickass trailer and some positive notes after it played at Fantastic Fest a few months back. But I was wrong - it’s a damn good movie.

The thing I liked most was that it didn’t have this giant backstory and a bunch of lore and curses, like the Underworld films get bogged down in. It’s actually a pretty straight forward tale told against a huge backdrop (a future where 95% of the population is comprised of vampires, who are now starving due to a lack of blood). If this movie takes off, Lionsgate can milk the property for years across a variety of mediums (it would certainly make for a good comic), because it’s a pretty vast (and believable) world and this particular story only focuses on a few people living in it.

Our main guy is Ethan Hawke, a vampire who only drinks animal blood and has a soft spot for humans. He is attempting to invent a blood substitute at the request of the evil businessman who runs the mob-like pharmaceutical company (sort of like Rotti Largo in that respect), played by Sam Neill. But what Hawke really wants to do is find a cure for vampirism, so that they can become human again. And along comes Willem Dafoe and some other folks as an outlaw group of humans who may just have the answer.

I won’t spoil what that answer is, but suffice to say Hawke and Dafoe have a breakthrough, and the film is basically a race against the clock/chase movie in which the evil vampire groups are trying to get Hawke back on their side (and kill his new human friends) before the blood runs out for good. The growing panic is largely depicted in little vignettes that are otherwise unconnected to the main story, such as when the Starbucks-esque coffee company reduces how much blood they put in their coffee and the customers riot. These scenes are a nice contrast to the Hawke scenes, which are largely built on character and suspense. Not that their scenes are completely action-free, but as Hawke is a form of pacifist, it wouldn’t make much sense for him to be running around guns blazing too often. Even in the finale, Hawke uses his brains instead of weaponry, but the Spierigs provide us thrill-seeking audience members with a big battle between some vampires and humans elsewhere in the building.

Dafoe, on the other hand, is having a grand old time with his trusty crossbow and penchant for colorful one-liners (“that makes about as much sense as bare-backin’ a five dollar whore!”), and he gets behind the wheel for the film’s top-notch car chase that occurs around the end of the first act. After Antichrist, it’s nice to see him having some fun in a real horror movie (though this is more sci-fi action in tone, albeit with some applause-worthy gore and splatter). If not for the sort-of love interest (the very lovely Claudia Karvan), it could easily have been a buddy movie with Hawke and Dafoe taking on evil vampires, and I doubt anyone would complain. It’s always fun to see a “dramatic” actor appear in genre entertainment, so to get THREE in one movie (a good one at that) is worth the price of admission alone.

WETA’s effects are, unsurprisingly, phenomenal. There are different stages of vampirism (most of them still look human save for their yellowed eyes, but the ones that are starving/sick are more bat-like creatures) and they all look great, and the assorted kills are all delivered with the utmost skill. It’s also a good looking film; shot with the digital Genesis camera system. I don’t fully understand the technical jargon about the camera, but it seems to be some sort of film/digital hybrid (according to Wikipedia, Repo was also shot with the camera), and assuming it’s cheaper than film (which is the big selling point for digital filmmaking) than I, huge proponent of film, can totally live with it. Looks a hell of a lot better than whatever the fuck they were using for Public Enemies, at any rate.

My only sorta issue with the movie is that it sometimes races along a bit too quickly. Maybe it was edited down a bit (it’s only 98 minutes long with credits), and if so I hope we see that stuff put back into the DVD. For example, Undead’s hero Mungo McKay plays a guy who hates vampires and is clearly at odds with the idea of having to work with Hawke’s character. But they set this up and do nothing with it, and he dies in the first half hour (at least I think he does, I can’t recall him even having a death scene. He certainly doesn’t appear anymore once Hawke starts solving the problem). It’s clear that the Spierigs were just as interested in character and story as they were action and effects, but sometimes the editing doesn’t seem to match that approach.

But it’s hardly a real problem, and again, for all I know it was just meant to throw you off; you expect a clichéd, traditional sort of “I hated you before but now I see you’re right and we’ll be friends” type of scene only for him to be discarded in the first half hour without ever really interacting with Hawke again, making it more of a surprise. I dunno. All I know is, the movie is a damn good time, and since most other great vampire films of late are based on comics or games or books (Let The Right One In, Night Watch), that makes Daybreakers the best completely original vampire film in years.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Devil's Partner (1962)

DECEMBER 9, 2009

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

At this point I would say there are JUST enough good movies on the Tales Of Terror set to make my purchase worthwhile. While its certainly had its share of stinkers and it’s getting harder and harder to find a film on it that sounds remotely interesting (or even eligible - many of them are under an hour long), there have been a few gems I would otherwise never have seen, such as Devil’s Partner, which is a fairly grim and well-written “sell your soul to the devil and then pay the consequences” movie from 1962.

The thing that works best about the movie is that it oddly feels a bit timeless. Sure there are things that might sound a bit funny (6 gallons of gas sets a guy back a whopping $2.30), but it’s not as broad as most horror films of the era were. The characters are largely believable and real (especially the heroine, the rare female character in a 50s/60s horror movie that exists beyond meeting/falling in love with the hero and being put in danger near the end), and they even have some wit about them that I don’t often see. At one point a cop asks our soul-selling protagonist why he doesn’t seem to be as uncomfortable in the heat as everyone else, and the guy replies “Well I’m actually from hell”, which of course the cop thinks is a joke.

I was also impressed by the makeup on the hero’s face. He gets mauled by a dog early on, and gets a big scar from his forehead, across his eye, and down to his cheekbone. The eye is almost completely exposed (sort of like Two-Face), which is pretty good for the pre-Savini/Smith years. I just wish they put a tad more effort into the production design for the devil worshipping scenes - the dude appears to be sacrificing stuff to an uneven, blank hexagon, instead of a pentagram with symbols and shit like that all over it.

Speaking of sacrifices, this is definitely not a favorite of PETA. While no animals are harmed onscreen, there’s an inordinate number of furry/scaly characters killed. In addition to the requisite sacrificing of a goat, a snake is shot and said mauling dog is bludgeoned. But very few humans die in the film to even it out. One dog is equal to what, 50 people? Yet there are only about 3 human deaths.

Only two issues really are with the very beginning and very end. The opening credits spoils what should be a surprise (that one actor plays two characters, one under heavy makeup so as not to be recognized), which is kind of a bummer as I probably wouldn’t have guessed it otherwise. Hopefully this movie will attract the attention of our nation’s illiterate. The other issue I had was that the ending was far too abrupt. Our guy is injured (he was the snake that got shot, then reverted back to human form - told ya, cool movie for back in the day). Then they just shoot him again a few minutes later without any sort of fight. Then scarred guy is miraculously healed, though it is unclear if the goat came back to life too as a result of this sort of spiritual “undo”.

But that middle? Good stuff. Not great, but for a movie I paid 40 cents for, I am pretty pleased. Also the main guy looked a bit like Oliver Reed when he got angry, so that was a plus.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Door Into Silence (1991)

DECEMBER 8, 2009

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

Hello! I am hoping you have found this site, and this particular review, because you have never seen a horror movie in your life and were curious as to what all the hubbub was, and thus Googled “Horror Movie” and got me as the first hit. Well, if that is indeed the case, than I suggest that you watch the film Door Into Silence (Italian: Le Porte Del Silenzio) as your very first, because if you HAVE seen even one other horror movie in your life, even one without a single connection to this film, then you will instantly guess the plot twist and then be as bored as I was for the next 85 minutes.

Spoilers (as spoiler-ish as this can be at this point) ahead.

Yes, once again we have a Carnival Of Souls wannabe, with a main character who has been dead the entire time (from a car accident to boot). And since I figured it out about 3 minutes into the film, I let my mind wander, and I got to thinking: It’s a good thing I just took another look at The Sixth Sense, because I had a nice fresh comparison in my mind to identify the reason why that film worked whereas this one fails miserably. See, Sense and a few others that crib Souls’ signature twist (Room 6, and hell, even Campfire Tales) are written by folks smart enough to distract you away from the fact that the hero is dead. In Sense it was the character arc for Bruce to redeem himself by helping Cole after failing to help the Donnie Wahlberg character, and in Room 6 it was the “find the boyfriend” plot. But Silence offers no such distraction. The movie begins with a car crash (we don’t see who is driving or even what kind of car it is), and then we watch cinema’s longest funeral march before finally introducing our hero (John Savage) who is standing in the cemetery for no reason. "Gee, I wonder what his deal is."

The rest of the movie is just Savage driving around (it’s pretty much in real time), constantly being held up by narrow roads, raised bridges, and crossing trains. He also engages in at least two scenes where he is attempting to pass a hearse who keeps swerving back and forth to prevent him from doing so. Another quarter of the movie is devoted to him making phone calls or looking through phone books for addresses. Though, to the movie’s credit, he never tears out the page with the info he needs, like every other movie character. I always wanted to see a scene in a movie where a guy goes to a phone booth to get a number or address, and finds the page ripped out because the last guy took it for another name on the same page.

It’s no wonder that this H. Simon Kittay guy never made another mov- wait, WHAT? This was a Lucio Fulci movie?!?!?!

Yes, this is indeed from the same man who gave us The Beyond and Zombi (and it’s produced by Joe D’Amato, another guy who I didn’t think was CAPABLE of making a boring film). In fact, it’s Fulci’s last movie; he died a few years later, just before he was about to begin shooting his full blown return to big filmmaking (a Wax Museum update written by Dario Argento). As swan songs go, Door Into Silence falls somewhere in between Paul Newman’s voice in Cars and (apparently) Sean Connery’s turn in LXG. Granted it seems to be a TV movie, so it’s wrong to expect his trademark gore, but even the non-gore scenes of his other films are usually batshit enough to entertain on their own. There is nothing of the sort here (and it’s worth noting that Fulci wrote the script as well); the only real moment of entertainment in the entire movie is when Savage is inexplicably accosted by a hooker, so tries to ride him in the front seat of his car before getting a numb leg and accusing him of being impotent. She then storms off, and we follow her down the road until another guy picks her up. I almost thought the movie was about to change gears and become about her (it’s the only time in the movie we’re away from Savage), but they return to him as soon as the other car drives off.

The only other thing about the movie that left me with any sort of positive feeling is the fact that it’s largely silent. You’d expect Savage to talk to himself a lot, like in other “single person” movies (Roadgames obviously comes to mind), but he hardly utters a word, even during the car “chase” scenes (where you’d expect a few “Come on!” or “Dammit!” exclamations) he stays mute. It doesn’t help the movie’s lack of excitement any, but it’s still rare to see a modern film that is content to keep its mouth shut.

The DVD has no extras whatsoever, and it’s pretty poorly transferred to boot. In addition to an unusually flat image, it also has what appears to be an all-but transparent paper towel pattern over most of it. It’s sort of fitting given the low-grade quality of the film itself, but come on people, Fulci deserves better all around. Christ, John Savage deserves better all around.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Summer's Moon

DECEMBER 7, 2009

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

Hey, Twilight fans, riddle me this - why are so many of the actors from your favorite movie also in horror movies with incest themes? Robert Pattinson fucked his aunt in The Haunted Airman, and now Ashley Greene fucks her half-brother in Summer’s Moon. Not to mention Anna Kendrick’s Elsewhere featuring a creepy father/daughter relationship, and Jackson Rathbone is in Dread, which features a character who was molested by her father (he also had a oddly close relationship with his sister in Hurt). Plus the Cullens themselves are made up of vampires who pair off with (i.e. fuck) their step-siblings.

Anyway, Summer’s Moon is, obviously, kind of a weird movie. It’s like the “torture porn” version of Taboo 2, with every possible (straight) pairing between four members of a family played out or at least planned. SPOILERS AHEAD! Basically, the movie is about a guy named Tom (who has been shacking up with his mom) kidnapping and sleeping with a girl (Greene) who turns out to be his half-sister (something he learns and yet keeps nailing her), and then their father comes back and intends to make Greene (his daughter) his new woman. But instead of hardcore sex, there’s a bunch of killing and people tied up in basements and such.

There’s also a bit of Motel Hell in there, as our guy kidnaps the girl but also wants to make her his bride, and she sort of goes along with it. And hell, he even has a garden! But instead of people it’s just actual plants, and the people are sort of metaphorical plants, in that he wants to tend to them and let them flourish, albeit under his control. As “it’s ____ meets _____” plots go, it’s certainly the most wacky combination, I’ll give it that much.

But it never quite reaches its full potential. For a movie so steeped in crazy shit, it also feels oddly stunted at times. All of the deaths are off-screen (often cutting away to a character’s horrified reaction), making the movie feel like a TV cut instead of a movie that is rated R for “bloody violence”. And not to sound pervy, but there isn’t any nudity either; even when the father (Stephen McHattie!) takes in a hooker, we are spared anything graphic. It’s obvious the movie was designed to be sort of out there, so it’s strange that they kept pulling their punches. It’s the “classy” version of your usual “incest clan that kills hookers” story.

It’s also a tad on the inert side. They all but flat out say that Greene is McHattie’s daughter at a certain point in the movie, but it takes another half hour for it to be officially “revealed”, so the movie just spins its wheels until it hits that point. And the subplot about the snooping father of the last girl the family killed is wholly anticlimactic, since we know the guy’s a goner and again, we know nothing major will happen until McHattie returns to the family home in the 3rd act. The elements are all there, but they’re sort of in the wrong order and awkwardly paced.

I had fun with it though. The gonzo subject matter and McHattie’s fully animated performance smooth over many of the issues (such as a few terrible edits; the brother guy is injured at some point but how it happened and the exact nature of his injury is never made clear), and I was quite happy to have Greene front and center for a film, even if she’s made to look weary and filthy for most of the running time (I also miss her pixie ‘do).

I was also tickled by the fact that the guy plays classical music for his plants. I read an article a few years ago about scientists playing different music for plants to “listen” to as they grew, and they discovered that the best things were classical music and... wait for it... Bat out of Hell! Yes, apparently listening to Jim Steinman’s bombastic perfection made those particular plants grow faster and stronger. I actually relayed this information to Steinman, who brought up another study saying that it’s the worst thing to listen to when driving (because you’re more likely to get killed as you speed up along with the character in the song, I assume), and how the song thus had its own unique cycle of life or death. I love that man.

Oh and there are constantly flies buzzing around and landing on/near the brother guy, which also tickled me. Seriously, almost every time they cut to him there’s a fly on his shoulder or flying around near his head. And for every time you see a fly, there’s probably an equal number of times that a character threatens to cut out the tongue of another, a warning that makes at LEAST three appearances in the film. Make a drinking game out of it!

The DVD has only a trailer and a brief making of in which the director keeps saying that it’s not a horror movie. Since he is only credited as the director and not one of the three credited writers (none of whom appear), I assume this is probably exactly why the movie has such an unbalance. They wrote a horror movie, but he didn’t shoot one. The result is an entertaining but flawed film, and with its biggest appeal being Greene (the trailer even uses Twilight’s font), it will likely miss most of its intended audience and merely scar the minds of teenaged Alice Cullen fans.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...