Pot Zombies (2005)

APRIL 20, 2010

GENRE: COMEDIC, INDEPENDENT, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

I assume at least some of you are pot smokers, so I hope you appreciate me suffering through Pot Zombies to coincide with its namesake “holiday”. I’ve never taken a puff in my life, and had to ask (not today, years ago) why 4-20 meant anything to marijuana enthusiasts, and of course I got the “it’s the police code” story, which is, as you hopefully know by now, not true. In fact, 4-20 doesn’t seem to have a sound origin; leave it to potheads to forget the meaning of their own holiday.

Anyway, even if you were blasted beyond belief, I can’t imagine liking this sorry excuse for a movie. Leonard Shelby himself would be appalled at the lack of a discernible narrative or any sort of connection from one scene to the next, and it’s not even an hour long (and if I had known that prior to viewing, I wouldn’t even have considered it for HMAD-ing; the box promises a 90 minute run time). There is no main character or even Pulp Fiction-esque tapestry to speak of; it’s just a bunch of scenes that all follow the same pattern: some folks meet up, talk, smoke, and then one of them turns into a zombie and eats the other. Lather, rinse, repeat. Even the fucking aspect ratio is inconsistent - the opening scene has a small matte on the top and bottom, which disappears once the overlong opening titles begin. I don’t think the target audience is reading who the composer is at all, so I’m not sure why they felt the need to leave each credit on screen for like 10 seconds. Maybe they were trying to pad it to a still-not-feature-length running time.

One scene actually amused me, however. A guy in an old VW is being chased by a “police car”, and he ultimately pulls over and tells this long, incoherent, fairly funny anecdote about chicken. Compared to everything else, it’s comic genius, and the guy playing the burnout gives it his all. Oh, if you’re wondering why I put “police car” in quotes, it’s because it’s actually just some Oldsmobile or something, with a digitally created/animated set of police lights placed over it. But the animator was also high, or just terrible at his job, as the lights don’t match the movement of the car in the slightest, so they just slide around, change scale at a different speed than the car, etc. It may be the most jaw-droppingly awful use of animated elements since the CGI vent in Doomed.

The effects guy also has a lot of trouble with the eyes on the zombies. You’d think they would at least try to make sure their zombies looked good, but no, the needless CGI green eyes shift often around even when the zombie’s head is still. Their bodies also turn green instantly, like they were the Hulk or something. More often than not, the zombie transformation seems to be the result of director Justin Powers getting bored with the scene and throwing green paint over one of the characters to move things along.

The film is apparently the result of Troma’s “Make Your Own Damn Movie” program for young filmmakers. Since Troma opted not to include any information on this program, or any sort of commentary/making of about the film, I have to assume that said young filmmakers pitch movies to Troma and get 10k (the movie’s reported budget) to make it. Admittedly, the film has a certain Troma quality to it - boobs, tasteless gore, eye-rollingly bad humor, etc. And Lloyd Kaufman appears in two scenes as a retarded pizza delivery man, giving that added Troma feel. But, legitimate Troma productions also have narratives, fun cameos, and a shot of a blue car flipping over somewhere in New Jersey. Powers and his buddies can emulate it all they want, but it’s missing the basic charm and (negligible, to be fair) basic professionalism that makes actual Troma movies worth watching.

So what IS on the disc? A few music videos which I assume are for songs in the film, none of which I need to hear again, the film’s trailer, and a drinking/smoking game that will give you a prompt to either drink or smoke (or both!) at certain points in the movie. “Every time you are asked to suddenly care about new characters that you have no interest in, drink!” Lloyd also offers his usual intro, once again promising that we are going to see the director’s cut of the film (this must be a joke that I just don’t get - there couldn’t possibly be a SHORTER version of this goddamn movie, right?) and even that sucks compared to his others. Finally, a short film that the filmmakers made a few years before Pot Zombies is included, sans any sort of context. It’s actually not bad, a completely silent account of a date that ends in bloodshed, but it seems like they just included it to fill up space. Not that I really want to spend more time with Pot Zombies, but a little bit of backstory never hurt anyone, and like I’ve said before, I’m more forgiving to a film if the filmmakers offer up a legitimate defense. If they think this movie speaks for itself, well, I’m sorry to break it to you, but it’s a piece of shit. Hopefully future entries in this “series” fare better.

What say you?

P.S. Oddly enough, tomorrow night Lloyd will be at the New Beverly for a Toxic Avenger screening (which will be my HMAD for the day, as I’ve never seen the whole thing). Should I throw this disc at him while yelling “Take this back!”, or sell it for 10 cents to SecondSpin? Though it seems to be out of print, so maybe I will hold onto it, in case it's some sort of ironic collector's item.

PLEASE, GO ON...

Creature Of Darkness (2009)

APRIL 19, 2010

GENRE: ALIEN, CRAP
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

For the first time since January, I will be dubbing a movie “Crap”, which has to be a record “lapse” in between seeing such films. And Creature Of Darkness (formerly the even more generic Hunter’s Moon) is even worse than the last one (Trunk), because at least that movie didn’t have horrendous CGI throughout its entire 3rd act, and there were only two people to hate instead of the eight or nine we have here. Thus, this may very well be the worst movie I've seen this year so far (8 months to go, folks!).

I’m sure it’s not the first movie to have a more interesting backstory than anything on screen, but it has to be one of the best examples. Like that it was funded by a Powerball winner, or that it was directed by the guy who Devon Sawa was portraying in the movie Wild America, back when Sawa’s movies played in theaters (he also stars in this, though I suspect that director/writer/producer Mark Stouffer did not base the film on any personal experiences this time around). Or that it was shot in 2005, finished in 2008, and is just seeing release now. For five years, even Lionsgate wouldn’t pony up the dough for this movie? It must be good!

And the saddest thing is that it kind of had a decent idea at its core - essentially combining Predator with a “teens in the woods” slasher movie. Seems our alien wants to collect a specimen from each race, so our coincidentally multi-ethnic group of college kids (including one played by a 36 year old Siena Goines, but I’m not complaining as she’s the only one of the group that’s tolerable) makes the perfect target, despite their lack of Asians. But every single thing about it is botched.

For starters, either Mr. Stouffer has no idea how to shoot an action scene, or the Powerball jackpot must have been pretty shitty that week. Either way, I can barely even understand what was happening during many of the kill/chase scenes, because he never has any impact shots. We see an axe swing and then someone screams, and then Stouffer will cut to a shot of some trees or something. Or the alien will throw a lasso, and after he releases it, we cut to someone on the ground, with the thing neatly tied around their legs. So basically, everything seems like a particularly vicious TV edit of a Friday the 13th movie, which you know you’re not watching because the actors swear like sailors (and Goines disrobes). And it’s not just when the humans are being attacked - the heroes’ attacks on the alien (largely spear throws and at least one scene of it being run over) are left completely up to the viewer’s imagination as well. With something like this, cool kills are about the only reason to watch the goddamn thing, so that we are continually denied them over and over is just excruciating.

Not as excruciating as the characters though. Like I said, Goines is tolerable, but that’s probably just because I like the actress. She’s also paired off with the MOST annoying character, but she can’t stand him either, which helps make her more appealing. Everyone else spends the entire movie yelling at each other, causing fights, or sucking at fighting the monster. Even Sawa is annoying, because he starts the movie off as a crazed weirdo (sort of like how he is in Final Destination when they all get off the plane), and then in the next scene he’s fine. He’s also a moron - when the annoying guy causes one of their motorcycles to blow up, he rushes the guy with a frying pan in hand, but then drops it and opts for just pushing the guy. Knock that fucker out, Casper!

And the alien starts off as a practical effect, we see its head and one of its arms a lot. But it also has a long coat on (kind of like a Mimic monster) for the first 45 minutes or so, which keeps us from seeing its full body, so while it looks cool, the scenes are a bit awkward and very repetitive. Worse, once the coat is discarded, it becomes a completely CGI creation, albeit one without the slightest bit of high quality to it. It moves awkwardly, it doesn’t match its footage, and it seems the compositor actually went out of his way to make every shot look fake. And one of the alien’s powers is to create solid illusions over holes in the ground or walls that it makes, an effect that looks terrible the first time around, but Stouffer keeps using it over and over. In the three years in between shooting this thing and submitting it for copyright, they couldn’t get the effects to look right? The Asylum knocks out better shit than this over the course of two weeks!

The making of will have you believe you saw a different movie though. Stouffer is shown working with the actors and encouraging minor performance tweaks, the creature designer goes on and on about the various elements in his design, and an actor who has about 30 seconds of screen time (he’s the first to die) talks for a minute about his wild man character. A few of them also wax poetic on the nature of horror movies. I honestly think I would have hated the movie more if I watched this piece first, since they appear to be making a better film than I was even expecting (which wasn’t much), and thus I would have been even more disappointed. The awful trailer and a bio for Stouffer are also included, the latter of which is suspiciously sparse on titles - despite boasting 120 TV episodes, 18 features, and 18 network specials, not a single title is mentioned (except for this and some other movie he was working on at the time). Curious, I looked up his IMDb and discovered that these numbers seem to be fudged, as his director filmography (which includes all of the above types) only lists a total of 14 entries. Even if I include the films he just produced, the number is only around 20 since most of his producing credits are for films he directed himself. The bio (and IMDb) also claim 2 Emmy wins and another 9 nominations, but for what films or shows are nowhere to be found (one nomination - which was shared with three others - is all I could find). So I dunno what that’s about. Maybe he’s counting home movies and fantasies/dreams. Again, everything about this movie is more interesting than anything on screen (except for Goines’ shower scene, obviously).

One final note to people who worked on or are distributing the film - it’s a bit odd to see two people (with new accounts) positively reviewing the film after seeing it at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, nearly a year after said screening. If you’re going to write fake reviews, you gotta try to make them sound plausible. Wait until around the DVD release and say you got a screener from a friend, or something. Also, write up a few other reviews, good or bad, just so you look SLIGHTLY less fake. I swear, if the IMDb made you submit like 10 reviews before they actually started posting them, we’d be seeing a lot less bullshit on that site.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Dead Air (2009)

APRIL 18, 2010

GENRE: ZOMBIE
SOURCE: CABLE (SHOWTIME)

One of the first videos I edited for Bloody Disgusting was a set visit for the film Dead Air, where Mr. Disgusting talked to director Corbin Bernsen and stars Bill Moseley and Patricia Tallman. I sort of forgot about the movie after that (this would be like spring of 2007), and thus was surprised to see it on cable, as I wasn’t even aware that it had hit DVD yet (my Blockbuster really sucks when it comes to carrying new DTV horror films). Supposedly it’s been completed since 2007 (and was originally destined for a theatrical release that year), so I’m not sure why it’s taken so long to be released, but it turns out to be a crippling decision.

Why? Because we already have Pontypool doing pretty much the same thing, only better. Even if I had seen Dead Air first, I would have liked Pontypool more, because it simply sticks to its own guns in a far more successful way. The main problem with Dead Air is that Bernsen and screenwriter Kenny Yakkel are either too impatient or too dim to actually keep the film confined to the radio station. When you have a siege movie, it doesn’t matter how long it takes to get there, but once you are, you can’t leave! Look at Die Hard - no one leaves once they arrive. We go to the outside world to meet Al Powell, buying his Twinkies, but once he arrives on the scene he doesn’t leave the premises (thanks to John McClane’s gift from above), which makes us feel like he's trapped there as well. But here, not only do we keep cutting away to the terrorists who released the toxin in the first place, but we have a lengthy scene where Moseley’s co-host goes out into the city on a motorcycle and engages in some fairly week escape scenes, only to eventually turn and attack the people he was supposed to be rescuing.

Worse, we get a “the next morning” scene where Moseley ENDLESSLY walks around his house looking for his family. Again, think of Die Hard - when the hero leaves the building, the movie is over. The gimmick of this movie was the radio station - without it it’s just a low budget, generic zombie film, and anytime we leave the station we are reminded of it. How great would the scene of the guy leaving have been if the entire thing had just played out with his voiceover, like an old-fashioned radio show but with better foley work? Nope, we see it, and it’s pretty lame - the zombies look like a bunch of angry punk kids, the stunt work is dull, and Bernsen and DP Eric Petersen can’t find even a moment of excitement or suspense in the proceedings (nor can they in any of the radio scenes - Bernsen’s directorial style can best be described as Kevin Smith-esque). At least if we just watched Moseley’s face the whole time (or better, Tallman’s - for a 50+ year old woman she’s still a knockout), we could have imagined something cool.

The ending also has a horribly executed “sum up” voiceover montage with an entire movie’s worth of ideas and revelations compressed into about 2 minutes, going by so fast that I couldn’t even follow all of it. Why even bother with the “we’re trapped in a radio station and we don’t know what’s going on” concept if you can’t stick with it? I don’t give a shit how the zombies (sigh, INFECTED) got that way, or why it was done, or what happened after. Again, this sort of stuff just turns it into yet another zombie movie, as if we haven’t had about 94 of those.

One thing I DID like was that Bernsen recruited a few of his LA Law buddies for cameos. Susan Ruttan plays one of the employees at the radio station, and spends half of her screen time as a crazed infected, throwing people around and then getting killed. And Larry Drake (’s voice) probably has the best scene of the movie, as he calls in to Moseley’s show and we listen to his demise. No Alan Rachins though, or whoever that broad was that fell down the elevator shaft (so awesome).

Moseley is also quite good. I racked my brain and couldn’t think of the last time I saw him playing a significant non-villain role, if ever, and he acquits himself nicely. You know, the hitchhiker standins for Chainsaws 3 and 4 (Viggo Mortensen and Matthew McConaughey) went on to have big A list careers, it’s a shame Bill has, for the most part, been relegated to DTV junk like this, with only a few showy villain roles hitting the mainstream (i.e. Devil’s Rejects). He’s a solid character actor with a lousy agent, I guess. And really, the acting (his co-host is great too, and Tallman does as much as she can with a thankless, underwritten role - there’s a great bit with a plant that’s probably the best non-radio call moment in the entire movie) is about the only thing this movie has going for it, which just makes Moseley’s performance all the more appreciated.

Sadly, it also keeps the Pontypool similarities in mind, as that film’s radio host was ALSO played by an underrated actor who is mostly stuck playing villains in low budget movies (Stephen McHattie). Now, to be fair, Dead Air was shot before Pontypool - but Pontypool was based on Anthony Burgess' book that was released in 1998. Whether Yakkel read it prior to writing his film, no one knows but him, but like Repo/Repo Men, I would like to think it’s just a coincidence that two zombie/radio station movies were produced around the same time, even if one was based on an existing (but obscure) property. Ultimately, Dead Air’s biggest issue isn’t that it’s “been done”, it’s that it’s been done better.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Blessed (2004)

APRIL 17, 2010

GENRE: MAD SCIENTIST, RELIGIOUS
SOURCE: CABLE (SHOWTIME)

The fact that Blessed wanted to be a modern day Rosemary’s Baby was pointed out right in the plot description, and the filmmakers were cute and clever enough to make sure they lingered on a sign that named the school where Heather Graham’s character taught “Saint Rosemary’s”, so there’s no question where the filmmakers got their influence. But that is also their downfall, because it just proves how much better Polanski handled the material in his film, and thus provides an example for pretty much every way that Simon Fellows and crew botched theirs.

Let’s start with the home. The building in Rosemary’s was practically its own character, and the film also worked as an identifiable satire of living in an apartment highrise. Here, Graham and James Purefoy apparently have THREE domiciles - an apartment in New York, a small cabin near the facility where they go to have science give their child-making process a little boost, and then a beautiful lakeside home. Few are the films with TWO sequences of characters moving into a new home, and the fact that they seemingly don’t bother getting rid of at least one place is just baffling. There’s a scene later in the film where Purefoy runs into one of the homes and panics because he can’t find Graham, but instead of worrying for our main character along with him, I just couldn’t help but wonder why he didn’t bother to check one of their other homes.

How about the music? Rosemary’s score is beautiful and creepy. Stephen Jones' work for Blessed sounds like something from a “Sounds of the Rainforest” CD that would be accompanied by a touch button sample display at an Ann & Hope or Zayre’s department store. Even during a fight scene, the score was making me want to do some light yoga or maybe paint a fruit-bowl.

And it’s not even fair to compare them in the actress department. Mia Farrow got a Golden Globe nomination and a variety of other nominations and wins for her performance, whereas Heather Graham would probably be the dark horse for a Nickolodeon Kid’s Choice Award for one of her comedies, something she’s far more fitted to than a dramatic role (and I don’t even think she’s much of a comedienne, to be honest). She delivers pretty much every line with the same expression one might use to tell a 4 year old that there’s ice cream waiting for him at home, and when her character begins to lose her husband, she merely pouts as if he said she looked fat in those jeans. And while I usually like Purefoy, again the Rosemary-wannabe approach kills it, because the movie doesn’t have the balls to let him go full blown dark side, which makes his sudden shift to hero at the end as disappointing as it is awkward, since it lacks any sort of real motivator. One minute he’s willingly being wined and dined by the Satan folks, and completely shutting out his wife, then suddenly he’s like Harrison Ford, wife savior extraordinaire.

It’s also just a sloppy movie, something that would be a problem even if it was the most original movie ever made. When someone looks at a website, you see text repeated over and over, and on more than one occasion, placeholder text with (never followed) instructions to fill in the space with certain info. See the pics below and laugh along with me!

And they’re on screen long enough to be seen too, it’s not like I had to go frame by frame to catch their laziness. Yet later in the movie, when they have an anagram solution written on a napkin, they don’t let you see it long enough for it to register (“Evangelists” becomes “Evil Agents”). Great editing work, folks. And it’s impossible to tell how much time has gone by, which is pretty weird for a movie about a pregnancy (Graham shows a still flat stomach in one scene even though it’s been months since she got pregnant, then has a completely full rounded belly in the next scene that takes place what seems to be only a few weeks later). Maybe they shot the movie out of order, like normal people, but forgot to put it back in order during editing, like idiots.

For a change of pace, the end sets up a sequel that rips off The Omen, except with twins. And this is a shame (I won’t hold my breath for Re-Blessed or whatever), because the twin angle might be interesting based on what we see here. At the end, there’s a Halloween party, and the twins (dressed as angels) cause a kid (dressed as the devil!) to choke on a grape, and then his head melts/burns, Halloween III style (no snakes though :(). Juding from their expressions, one twin is clearly into it, the other just seems confused. So it might be interesting if one twin got all of the Satan blood (that’s how they’re evil, by the way - the clinic had a vial of Lucifer’s blood and injected it along with the artificial insemination) and the other was purely good. Then again, maybe it’s just that one of the toddler actors could actually act and the other was just a typically bored kid. Either way, the final scene in the film should never be the only one that intrigues the viewer.

Oh, and can we get a moratorium on movie characters storming into a suspected villains’ office or home in order to accuse them of being villains, and stupidly accepting a “cup of tea” or whatever? Don’t worry about looking rude if you turn it down - chances are it’s fucking poison. If you simply must accept a drink from a suspected villain, make sure it’s a bottled water with the plastic top still attached to the ring, or maybe a juice with the safety button not yet popped up. It’s the only way to be sure.

What say you?

I couldn't find a trailer, so enjoy this guy's rant about the (now aborted - heh) actual Rosemary's Baby remake from Platinum Dunes.

PLEASE, GO ON...

Sauna (2008)

APRIL 16, 2010

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

I recently did a trivia contest on Twitter, and the winner was Toni, who lives in Finland and thus asked me to just review Sauna in lieu of (quite expensively) sending him a DVD. Also, if I DID mail him something it would probably still be sitting in the cargo plane at LAX or whatever due to the Icelandic volcano, since this was the week I actually made a trip to the post office (a very rare occasion) and would have sent it then. So instead, I got to watch a very beautifully shot and very baffling movie, and he isn't being denied his prize due to ash. Everyone wins!

Sauna is not a film for the average horror fan. In fact, there are really only like 2-3 isolated moments of horror in the entire movie. I think fans of movies like Dead Birds will really dig it though - both films are very atmospheric and "slow", punctuated with occasional moments of "WTF??" horror that may not make complete sense on a first viewing (and in my case, a second). And it should certainly win over fans of originality - I defy you to name a single other horror film where the primary characters are mapmakers (let alone mapmakers in 16th century Sweden/Russia), with the plot largely revolving around a patch of unclaimed swampland that houses a mysterious sauna, one where someone can be truly cleansed of their sins.

A word of advice to any potential viewers - do NOT take your eyes off the subtitles for even a single moment. Part of the reason that I had to watch it again is because some of the stuff that WAS explained was a bit confusing to me, such as the fact that the "girl" in a pivotal plot scene early on was left to die by the more violent brother. It's somewhat of a difficult movie to get a handle on already due to certain period concepts not being common knowledge (at least to me - it seems understanding a bit about the war would help at least get a sense of where the characters had gone through), it will be even doubly so if you are watching it without your full attention and missing even a line or two of crucial dialogue.

And you might be tempted to ignore the subs just because it's such a gorgeous film. Not in the "oh I'd like to visit this country due to how pretty it looks" way, though - on the contrary, it makes 16th century Europe look even less desirable than I had imagined - just woods and shacks and swamps. But it's wonderful to look at all the same, particularly near the end during a snowfall that seems to be in slo-motion. I could see myself buying the film on blu-ray and watching certain scenes on mute just to enjoy the cinematography by Henri Blomberg.

On the other hand, I could also just listen to the score by Panu Aaltio on a loop for hours. It's very sparingly used in the film, but it's a fantastic, sad score, and I in fact DID loop the end credits a few times just to enjoy the piece. This truly is the rare film that I like more for technical reasons than creative ones.

And that is not just because I didn't understand the final scene (is the kid someone's re-incarnate?). It just seems like there are some missing chunks in the narrative at times. For example the Russian map-team is written out very quickly, as if there was a crucial scene leading up to the final one that wasn't present. Likewise, the sauna itself is under-used. I understand the point of saving its full reveal for the finale, but a few flashes of what was happening to the characters who entered it prior to that point would have been nice. The younger brother is also written out of the movie very abruptly, which works as a shock but not as a satisfying denouement for his character. Again, this is sort of like Dead Birds, where you have this long buildup and then a very quick climax (that the movie was 10 minutes shorter than promised on the Netflix label didn't help - I was EXPECTING another ten min and then the credits began to roll).

Ultimately though, it's the type of movie I started HMAD for - one where people can talk about it (and I like it! Unlike Deadline, which I get different theories on every other day but since I haven't thought about the movie since I watched it I can barely even put said theories into context). What do you guys think about the ending? Was the town really populated with the ghosts of the folks that Erik killed? Or was he just projecting that out of guilt? And why is that kid running around like a vampire at the end? I have to rely on you guys, since the DVD's only extra is the trailer (which has its own menu - wouldn't it be easier to just put "Trailer" on the main menu? We have to double the number of clicks!), despite a making of being available on other regions' release of the film.

So please watch the movie and answer my questions. I'll be over here listening to the score.

What say you?

P.S. I think this is my first Finnish horror movie!

PLEASE, GO ON...

Splintered (2008)

APRIL 15, 2010

GENRE: SURVIVAL
SOURCE: CABLE (SHOWTIME)

It’s rare I see a new film as seemingly under-the-radar as Splintered. Even if I had seen it at a film festival, I’d be surprised with its relative lack of coverage: it doesn’t even have a basic Wikipedia page, the IMDb page has but 4 user reviews (no external ones), and the messageboard only has a few general inquiries (including someone who was looking to be cast in it). It doesn’t even seem to have a DVD release, which is odd for a 2 year old film that’s airing in the middle of the night on cable (as opposed to a prime-time “world premiere” or something).

And it’s a shame, because the movie is pretty good. I like when a horror film takes a generic setup (in this case, 5 kids going into the woods) and ultimately applies it to a different type of movie, and does things differently to boot. Regardless of the killer’s archetype, you assume that the obvious Final Girl will be left alone for the bulk of the film while her friends die one by one after scattering for whatever reason. But nope, our heroine is taken hostage early on, leaving her friends to go look for her (and then die one by one). Adding to this wrinkle is the fact that she was the one who dragged them out there to begin with, so there’s this oddity to the procedure - the friends have to venture out into the unknown parts of the woods to find their friend, despite the fact that it’s the sort of action that made them not want to be there in the first place.

I also liked that they used cell phones, instead of simply going the dead battery/no service route. Service is actually just spotty, so messages are received later than they were sent, adding to the confusion. The phones don’t help much in terms of getting help, but it’s nice to see that the kids have some means of contacting one another for once, even if it ultimately doesn’t really do them any good. I mean, look - I wouldn’t keep watching these movies if I didn’t have a soft spot for the basic formula. I don’t want someone to reinvent the wheel - it’s the little changes and inventions that make me happy.

I was also reminded of the Friday the 13th remake, as it also had our heroine chained up for most of the movie. The difference is, our girl here is way more proactive, and genuinely interesting beyond “well she’s not a slut so she’s our final girl”. In fact, her sexual hang-ups are part of the plot: throughout the film she/we flashback to being afraid of a monster that appeared to her when she was younger. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who the “monster” was, but maybe a genius should have been hired to come up with a better way of having her get over this trauma (basically screaming “I’m not a virgin!” to the killer as she takes him down). It’s rare to see sexual abuse dealt with in a horror movie (Nightmare on Elm St is the only other one that I can think of, and it was phased out anyway) and while the resolution to this aspect of her character is a bit hokey, I appreciate them having the balls to try.

Another thing I appreciate? The fact that the filmmakers are obviously Supernatural fans - the three main male characters are named Sam, Dean, and John, and the movie as a whole felt like an old-school (pre-angel nonsense) episode setup, where they hear about something freaky and just drive there to check it out as if there weren’t law enforcement groups to deal with it.

It gets a bit confusing near the end though - are they just feral, or do they indeed have some sort of werewolf powers? They certainly seem to be stronger than regular humans, and one of them obviously freaks out when the full moon rises. There are also a couple of visuals that I’m not sure if they were hallucinations or legitimately happening. Speaking of which, there’s a dream scene early on that is way too obviously a dream sequence right from the start. Word of advice - if you’re putting your main character in a dream sequence that the audience is supposed to think is real, then it has to start with some semblance of reality. Here, our girl “wakes up” in the car and all of her friends are gone. We as a horror audience know that the others aren’t dead yet, and they as characters wouldn’t just leave her in the car without telling her where they were going. So the suspense of the scene was deflated before it even really began. So when we’re supposed to think it’s real we know it’s fake, and when we should know what’s going on we don’t. I can chalk some of it up to the dark and somewhat aurally muddled cable transfer and my admittedly lousy ability to understand thick accents (it’s a British film), but it still seems like there are some unanswered questions (such as where the hell that priest came from).

In short, of all of the horror movies that air on premium cable in the middle of the night that I’ve never heard of, it’s one of the best. Take that, The Devil’s Ground!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Non Canon Review: Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)

APRIL 15, 2010

GENRE: SLASHER, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)
LAST SEEN: 1999 (DVD)

Things were pretty awesome in September of 1991, because I got to see two R rated horror movies in theaters practically back to back (my first ones, at that - my only previous theatrical horror experience was the PG-13 Poltergeist II). First was Child’s Play 3, which I got to see on its first showing on opening day, as it was the last week of summer vacation before I went back to school. So when Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare opened, I had to “wait” until Saturday afternoon to see it. Stupid school! Sadly this would end my streak; I think the next horror movie I got to see in theaters was Pet Semetary 2, in August of 1992.

I’ve gone back and forth on the film more than any other in the series. Seeing it on the big screen was a big thrill, and thus I “loved” it. But then I started thinking it really wasn’t all that good, only to like it again after a couple of viewings on VHS. And the last time, I REALLY didn’t like it, to the extent where I considered it the worst one. But now I kind of like it again. I dunno what it is about this goddamn movie that I can never really pick an opinion on it. Ask me again in 10 years and I may hate it.

What I like about it is that it’s the first film in the series that managed to be kind of creepy even when Freddy wasn’t around. The entire sequence where they go to Springwood, with its childless, possibly insane residents wandering about, is wonderfully strange (with a clear Twin Peaks influence), and I wish they could have stayed there for the whole movie. I also liked that the characters were actually kind of funny for once instead of just Freddy - John’s “Nothing will get me about of this bed!” bit is still worth a chuckle. Hell, even Freddy managed to make me laugh for once, when he’s dancing around and generally being an asshole behind the deaf kid.

Oh yeah, there’s some goddamn blood in the movie too. Deaf kid’s head explodes, and John gets impaled by a bed of spikes. And in one of the nightmare scenes, one of our heroines bashes her abusive father with an iron, resulting in a pretty kick ass effect. As with Dream Child, there’s only three deaths in the entire movie (all dudes too - has to be a first for a horror movie), but the less convoluted plot and genuinely interesting backstory keeps it from being an issue. And since only one of those deaths is worth watching (the deaf kid), maybe it’s for the best. Another excruciating death sequence like the one for Spence (Breckin Meyer!) could have killed this movie for good - it’s by far the absolute worst/most annoying sequence in the entire series.

I can’t recall if there was any uproar about Freddy having a daughter - it’s true that she was never mentioned before, but no one ever said he DIDN’T have one either. Most of his backstory either involved his conception or the final days of his human life, so there was never any reason to go into his stint as a family man anyway. And it makes sense - if he was killing kids for a while, I would assume that it’s because no one thought to suspect a guy with a wife and a kid of his own. A janitor who lived alone probably would have been suspected right off the bat, no? And I really liked the mystery as to which of our two (three if you count Tracy, though she was an obvious red herring to me even when I was 11 and didn’t yet know what a red herring was) characters was Freddy’s child. Unlike the previous two films, Rachel Talalay and Michael De Luca’s script pulls off the Psycho twist quite well - John really is our connection to the film, but Maggie was developed enough to easily take over the film once he died at the end of the 2nd act. It was a great surprise.

Oh yeah, those last two films? They’re not mentioned. Alice and Jacob aren’t around, and when Freddy lists off the different ways he’s been “killed”, he doesn’t mention being torn apart by the souls inside of his body, or... well, whatever the hell happened at the end of Dream Child. They also don’t even bother explaining his resurrection this time around - he just shows up in John’s nightmare (there’s a thing about how he’s the last Elm Street kid, which would also make more sense if you ignore the last two films). Innovation released a 6 issue comic series that sort of bridges the two films, but after reading it on the official NOES website, I can assure you you’re not missing much. The story was needlessly convoluted, involving Alice, Jacob, Dr. Gordon, Nancy, the Dream Warriors, Dan, Yvonne, etc. And it STILL doesn’t explain where John came from anyway, so it’s wholly unnecessary unless you love “funny” Freddy, as he just delivers pun after pun throughout the story, stopping only to deliver clunky exposition that rivals his nonsense in FvJ.

A “timeless” soundtrack rears its ugly head again, after the largely song-free Dream Child (the Kool Moe Dee rap song played over the end credits, remember). But it’s kind of amusing to hear pre-power ballad-only Goo Goo Dolls, who have two songs in the film, which is probably why the film finally got a soundtrack release in the mid 90s, at the height of the Dolls’ popularity thanks to their hit “Name”. Iggy Pop’s closing credits title tune is pretty far from a toe-tapper, but it’s better than the rap stuff, and plays over a montage featuring highlights from the previous movies (even 2, which was otherwise ignored throughout the entire series). And in keeping with series tradition, the film opens with a quote, only this time it’s followed by one from Freddy Krueger (“Welcome to prime time, bitch!”). Unlike Jason Goes To Hell, this “final” entry really catered to the fan base with these sort of shout-outs, instead of completely ignoring the bulk of the series and sending off its killer in a movie in which he barely appeared.

I do wish the ending was a bit better. It’s a bit anticlimactic to go to the “bring him into the real world” well, since that’s what they did in the first one (though Nancy was actually still dreaming that whole time, so I guess it’s OK), but that they just blow him up is kind of weak. And not even in Springwood at that! If you’re going to kill Freddy fucking Krueger, you gotta do it in an iconic fashion AND setting - not with a homemade pipe bomb in the basement of some halfway house.

Maybe this wasn’t the intention though. According to a (post-release) Fango article, the ending sequence was originally much more elaborate, but it had to be toned down due to the 3D eating up so much of the budget and time. If you ask me it wasn’t worth it - even in theaters (this was my first 3D experience) it was hardly amazing, and it doesn’t work at all at home. I mean, the gimmick was that Freddy was finally being killed - did it really need 3D on top of that? Plus, the idea that Maggie needs to wear 3-D glasses in her dream never makes any sense (nor does her laughable explanation that she’s still seeing things the way she does in her dream - so you’re seeing real life in three dimensions? WHOA!). If anything it sort of detracted from the experience - here we are, killing off one of movie-dom’s all time great monsters, and I’m too busy fiddling with a piece of cardboard so I can see it right, and looking at background/foreground depth instead of what’s happening.

Speaking of those Fango articles, it’s funny to see how the style of the magazine evolved just from reading the respective articles for the past 3 NOES movies. Whereas the articles on Dream Master and Dream Child were loaded with dirt and people complaining (Englund flat out says he doesn’t like the scripts for either film - in the article ostensibly promoting it!), the Freddy’s Dead articles are all happy and sunshine-y, with even comments about the previous films kept largely positive (basically just “this one’s going to be even better!”). There is also a lack of context or insight to the pieces for this film - nothing about why it ignores those films, why they had 3D in the first place, or even why they decided to kill Freddy off for good (heh) this time around. It’s all fluff, and it would just get worse over the years (I can barely even read any recent issue; when they’re not completely spoiling movies with photos and set visit descriptions, they’re ass-kissing all upcoming films and judging all others based on their box office performance). I guess you could say the glory days of Fango died along with Freddy, except they never really came back (ironic footnote - the magazine just underwent a massive overhaul, including a new editor - just as the new NOES film is about to hit theaters! Hopefully the mag will have a creative resurgence).

Back to the movie though: overall, I like more about it than I don’t like, which I guess qualifies it as a success. I think it improved on the previous two films, and it’s certainly more successful than Jason Goes To Hell (which is the only other definitive “final” horror franchise entry I can think of - there was never a Halloween: Michael Myers Dies At The End or Leatherface’s Last Massacre). And its box office success allowed for the daring and mostly great New Nightmare, so thanks for being pretty good and a total lie, Freddy’s Dead!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Stepfather II (1989)

APRIL 14, 2010

GENRE: BLANK FROM HELL, SLASHER
SOURCE: CABLE (TMC)

Even though I hadn’t seen it since 1991 (at the latest - might even be 1990) Stepfather II (the sequel drops the “The”) left a very odd lasting impression on me - the name Grayland. It’s only mentioned once or twice in the film, but according to the IMDb it’s the ONLY movie that I’ve seen with a character named Grayland, and I’ve never known anyone by that name. Yet, I’ve used it for pretty much every video game I’ve ever played - World of Warcraft, Oblivion, etc., dating all the way back to Final Fantasy VII, where you could name your characters (Cloud = Grayland) and thus make reading walkthroughs really confusing (“Which one is Aeris? The one I named Jessica after the girl I liked at the time?”). It’s a cool name.

Anyway, Stepfather II is about the best sequel to The Stepfather one could hope for. It’s got some logic issues, and Jerry/Gene/Whatever does something uncharacteristically stupid in the third act that gives away his secret, but as I discovered when I re-watched the first film back in 2008, even the original isn’t exactly as perfect as its sometimes made out to be, so that the sequel still manages to entertain is impressive. And it helps make the remake look even MORE abysmal - here is a sequel that asks you to buy that Jerry lived, that he could escape from an institute with little trouble, and that he could buy a home, lead a group therapy session, and get married under a false name while living less than a day’s drive away from where he escaped, and yet it STILL seems smarter and more plausible than anything in the remake did even though it was the “first” one.

As he did with the underrated Leatherface, director Jeff Burr brings some nice dark/dry humor to the proceedings. Gene stopping to listen to the “snap, crackle, and pop” of his Rice Krispies (actually “Crispy Rice”) is brilliant, and the sequence where he watches the introduction tapes for a video dating service (do those still exist?) tops any of the humorous scenes even in the original (he skips over one woman as soon as she confesses to using a diaphragm). And the finale is amazing, with the all time best "walk down the aisle" scene in movie history, I think.

I also liked the change in dynamic. Not only does his intended wife have a son this time around, but the kid actually likes him, instead of suspecting him from the start and snooping around all the time like Jill Schoelen in the original. Here, Gene is more or less trying to keep unwanted folks from disrupting his perfect family, such as the ex husband and his fiance’s best friend (I realize now that the remake took a lot from this one as well), instead of constantly trying to keep them in line as in the previous film, where they were constantly disappointing him. Had he not fucked up with the wine bottle, you get the idea that they would have been married and happy forever - it’s sort of an ironic Greek tragedy in that sense/

There are a couple of missed opportunities though. When we first meet the Caroline Williams character, she seems to be almost flirting with Gene, but he’s only got eyes for the Meg Foster character. It would have been interesting to see what Gene would do if he had an unwanted romantic interest, but after this initial setup, it’s never addressed again. Plus, the movie sort of skips through time haphazardly, with only throwaway lines of dialogue to tell us how long it’s been. Apparently the movie takes place over the course of a year (and they STILL haven’t found him in Los Angeles from Portland? He doesn’t even have a disguise this time!), but you’d only know it from these 2-3 lines - there are no montages or anything of that nature. This also requires us to fill in things like Gene and Carol’s entire engagement - he tells her he likes her and then in the next scene they are announcing their engagement to all their friends. This also makes the next scene, where we discover that they haven’t had sex yet, a bit confusing. We have to assume they had an actual courtship, but in all this time not only have they not made love, but it’s never even come up?

And the complete lack of investigation seems odd. Obviously he can’t get caught, but it seems like the police aren’t even trying. Like I said, he doesn’t really go very far, and the story of his escape is even on the news in his new home - though the news report that Carol watches is conveniently (read: ludicrously) missing his photo, something you think would be a crucial element for a special bulletin about an escaped killer. The original also ignored things that may have been too hard to logically explain (something the remake should have followed suit with), but the familiarity of the concept isn’t distracting us away from such matters like it did before.

Then again, maybe these elements were originally there but cut. Burr has said on record that a new director came in after he refused to do some reshoots (at the request of the Weinsteins, who distributed the film theatrically), and removed some of his scenes in order to make room for more gore (though the film is hardly splattery - the two biggest kills are entirely bloodless in fact). The special edition DVD (released last year to coincide with the remake) apparently has around a half hour of deleted/extended material, but I have yet to obtain a copy of it. Maybe I’ll rent a copy and check out the bonus material, as Burr also provides a commentary, and there’s a retrospective as well - sounds like a pretty great package (though I miss the original poster design, even though it made no sense - why the dog and the little girl?). It’s not as good as I remembered it (again though, neither was the original - maybe I should stop revisiting movies I liked as a kid but haven’t kept up with), but it’s a worthy sequel to a very limited concept.

Oh, in case anyone was wondering - I have no interest in revisiting the 3rd one, as I didn’t even like it as a kid (though props for explaining why he looked different - I wish EVERY recast role in movie/TV history had plastic surgery explanations, just for the hell of it). No Terry O’Quinn - no sale (even though he’s seemingly bored at times even here, so it’s probably a good thing he didn’t return)!

What say you?

P.S. I put the trailer below but it spoils pretty much every single thing in the movie, including the ending. If you haven't seen the movie yet, I urge you not to watch it.

PLEASE, GO ON...

Student Bodies (1981)

APRIL 13, 2010

GENRE: COMEDIC, SLASHER
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

“Before there was Scream, there was Student Bodies” is printed on the DVD, but the film is much more in line with Scary Movie, in that there are some genuinely biting and smart jokes sprinkled throughout the film, but more often than not it goes for cheap gags, with a lot of groaners (though not too many direct parodies). At times it almost forgets to be a parody - unlike Airplane’s non-stop barrage, Bodies will go a minute or two without any real jokes. And it’s a shame, because had they put a little more effort into the movie, I think it would be a classic like those older ZAZ movies, instead of rather disposable (but not without merit) like the better Scary Movie films.

Some of the best laughs unfortunately come in the opening scene, where after trying “Halloween” and “Friday the 13th” as dates, it settles for “Jamie Lee Curtis’ Birthday”. Plus: a meowing cat turns out to be a dog, the Carpenter-y score plays on the other end of a ringing phone, and (my favorite), the boyfriend trying to scare his girlfriend goes way too far. And I loved the random moment where the dad comes home and sees a piece of “broken” fried chicken on the floor and thus re-assembles it with a rubber band and puts it back in the fridge.

But after that the laughs become more infrequent. Most of what works is the really odd stuff, like the teacher who is obsessed with horsehead bookends, or the extended scene where our heroine goes to see the school counselor, who has run out of tissues and thus offers her random objects to wipe away her tears. In other words, stuff that would work in any spoof movie, and has almost zero to do with horror. Maybe the filmmakers didn’t actually SEE any of the slasher films they were more or less spoofing (which might explain the lack of direct parodies, though then again Airplane didn’t really have any either - seems to be more of a 90s thing), but they fail to really milk the films’ easy-mark potential.

For starters, there’s not a single drop of blood in the film. Why not go all out, in the name of humor? There’s a (rather stupid) running gag to all of the kills - the girl gets it first while the guy is out of the room (usually to get a condom), and then the guy is put in a garbage bag while he’s still alive. It would have been hilarious if they had obvious dummies being used for Savini-esque prosthetic work (hell, maybe even show the guy applying the makeup!), but the film makes the original Halloween look hyper-violent in comparison. And there’s a complete lack of nudity too, another potential goldmine for humor. In fact, the movie makes a joke out of this - at one point a guy cuts in and says that people will only go see horror films if they are rated R, and then adds “Fuck you” in order to secure said rating, because nothing else in the film would warrant even a PG-13. Of course, there are multiple ironies here - there WAS no PG-13 back then, but the film as it stands now would easily get one (“Fuck” can be used in a PG-13 as long as it’s not used in a sexual way), and nowadays we have horror movies being edited down to ensure a PG-13 because they make more money. But back on point, there never seems to be any payoff to the lack of R rated material, and the joke certainly isn’t funny enough to warrant it to boot. If it wasn’t for the irony - which obviously wasn’t the intention, unless the filmmakers were psychic - it would actually sort of piss me off.

And whereas the ending of this type of movie should be legendarily funny, it seems to eschew humor altogether in favor of an “it was all a dream” ending. Again, this will probably just annoy most viewers on principle, but the fact that it’s not funny (except for the fact that someone who really DOES die gets a funeral one hour later) makes it all the more frustrating. The final chase scene just seems like something out of an Italian film, with our heroine running around the school being chased by both victims and suspects. If there’s a joke in there, I must have missed it. And the two killer reveal (prior to the ultimate “dream” reveal) isn’t as much as a cheat as it is boring. Now, I know - it’s a spoof movie and I shouldn’t be taking it too seriously, but the problem is that THEY seem to be taking it seriously at times, so I couldn’t help it. You could mute a few of the more ridiculous lines (the principal explaining that the death of the students is probably a real drag for their parents, for example) and the first half hour or so would play like a regular slasher movie. And once it hits the third act it relies almost entirely on the antics of the retarded Janitor (played by former comedian “The Stick”) for humor, instead of going for what I would think would be easy gags - finding the dead friends, the endless chase by the killer that no one ever interrupts, etc. Christ, they even have the finale during a prom and they don’t bother spoofing Prom Night in any way that I could detect!

Yet, it still entertained me. There was something charming about the whole thing, and the idea that the killer actually called himself "The Breather" (and would sometimes turn his heavy, Myer-esque breathing into a melody or words) was inspired. And I liked that he used a bunch of weird elements - a paper clip, an eggplant, and, yes, a horsehead bookend, among other things. When a chainsaw is broken out I almost felt ripped off. But the real draw for me is that it wasn’t being mean-spirited about the movies I love. Even when mocking certain archetypes - the killer specifically goes after fornicating couples, for example - it’s in a loving way, and that’s where the Scream comparison makes sense: in the realm of slashers, Student Bodies is a class clown, not a bully. And any movie that features a football player grabbing the coin out of the air and yelling “Mine!” before kickoff is automatically worth watching (the whole football game sequence is pretty funny, in fact - once again, it’s the non-horror related gags in the movie that work best).

The DVD’s only extra is the (overlong) trailer, though I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. With the exception of Richard Belzer (billed as Richard Brando) as the killer, none of the cast appears to have had any sort of career (it’s the only billed role for many of the cast members, including cute lead Kristen Riter), and producer Michael Ritchie took his name off the film before it was released, giving it a rare producer credit for Alan Smithee. Writer/director Mickey Rose (who used to work with Woody Allen - he co-wrote What’s Up Tiger Lily!) has apparently retired from show business as well; his last credit is for writing a few episodes of 227. So a big deluxe retrospective and commentary would probably be pretty hard to pull off. And that’s a shame, as I am sort of fascinated by the film’s production - it was obviously produced around the same time as many of the films it would be competing with (it was released in August of 1981, which means Friday the 13th and Halloween had yet to be sequelized when the film was being shot), and for a producer to take his name off means that something obviously went wrong. Come on, someone spill the dirt!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Monster In The Closet (1986)

APRIL 12, 2010

GENRE: COMEDIC, MONSTER
SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT)

Any movie that starts off with the following line can’t be all together bad:

"The most mysterious, inexplicable and incredible events often take place in the most ordinary places. Usually these seemingly unexplainable occurrences are eventually explained. But every so often they remain mysteriously inexplicable. Sometimes it is best to accept the unexplainable, rather than search in vain for inexplicable explanations. For some things are simply unexplainable."

And any movie that follows this silliness by mocking Psycho (the sliding across the screen, largely pointless date and time cards) is definitely worth a watch. Monster In The Closet may lack laughs as it proceeds, but its certainly one of the more unique Troma films - real actors, some semblance of pace and story, and a complete lack of Ron Jeremy.

Real actors, you ask? How about a young Paul Walker as ‘The Professor’, a young kid who makes a whole bunch of weird devices and pretty much saves the day throughout the movie. I am a big fan of Walker, and it was great to see him at such a young age (and he was good then too! Easily the least annoying performance by a child in a Troma movie ever). Fergie also pops up as another youngster, though we don’t get to see her torn asunder, which is a shame. Donald Moffat plays the army general taxed with bringing the monster down, Henry Gibson plays a Doc Brown/Einstein-y guy, and both Paul Dooley and John Carradine both contribute cameos. And people make a big deal of Marisa Tomei popping up in Toxic Avenger.

It also has production value! There’s a nice shot in the middle of the movie or so where we see the town being evacuated, with lots of extras, army trucks, big tents, the whole nine yards. And it appears to be shot in a Los Angeles suburb, not some burnt-out New Jersey parking lot. Maybe we can attribute this to it being directed by someone besides Lloyd Kaufman, but for whatever the reason, it’s clear that SOME money and SOME effort went into this one, though the money may have come from the Nestle company due to all of the Crunch bars we see in the film.

As for the monster, well... it’s not the best thing, but... OK it’s kind of lame - a big rubber thing that looks like the Garbage Pail Kids version of Harry Henderson (odd since it was played by the same guy, the late Kevin Peter Hall), albeit with a Giger Alien-esque protrusion that SEEMS like it’s going to eat someone’s head off or something when it pops out, but usually just snarls and nips at a guy. But it’s not a (bad) puppet or anything, and thus looks better than any monster they’ve made in the past decade or so. I just wish he could have done more than lumber around and smash through doors - we are treated to at LEAST three scenes of the thing kicking and punching through a big frame door. Try a plate glass window or something!

And even though the movie is obviously a spoof on monster movies of old, I wish they could have at least TRIED to explain why the monster’s appearance meant “the end of the world”. It doesn’t appear to cause anyone harm - even scenes where army dudes are shooting at it don’t result in much defensive ass-kicking. And as we discover near the end, he gets his powers from closets, and so once people learn that and destroy his closets, he just sort of dies, leading up to an obvious King Kong joke (he also spends the last 20 minutes of the movie carrying our non-protesting hero around like Fay Wray). I honestly can’t recall him killing anyone after the first half hour, unless you count Gibson’s character (who seemingly dies from a heart attack). I was hoping he would at least kill the asshole reporter/hero’s rival, but nope. That dude lives.

The rating might have something to do with this. Whether it was designed that way or not, it’s a PG film, which means no blood or drugs or whatever. There IS some nudity thanks to Stella Stevens and a shower, but boobs were allowed in PG movies back in the 80s, for some reason. Ah, the good ol’ days...

The laughs are more infrequent as the film goes on (save for the hilariously nutty climax), but it’s admirably goofy throughout, and plays just as good as a spoof of the films as it does a homage to them, not unlike Monsters vs. Aliens. That it comes from the Troma factory (or at least a building in its vicinity - it was executive produced by Lloyd and Michael, but they otherwise seemingly had no involvement) makes it all the more interesting. And again, you get to see Fergie die.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Richard Speck: Chicago Massacre (2007)

APRIL 11, 2010

GENRE: SERIAL KILLER
SOURCE: DVD (SCREENER)

A while back, businessman Mike Feifer took the time to write a comment on one of my reviews for his films, defending his work while pretty much admitting to the very thing I don’t like about it - that they are made on the cheap in order to sell them to Lionsgate (he also mentions having a degree in architecture, which is nice. I often wonder what a Frank Gehry horror movie would look like). In that comment, he singled out his film Richard Speck: Chicago Massacre as being a “biographical history”, so I was hoping it would be his masterpiece. Unfortunately, its typical Feifer - it has a good lead performance (by Bundy’s Corin Nemec - is he the first actor to play two notorious serial killers?), but it’s wasted on a muddled script and a complete lack of attention to detail on Feifer’s part.

Sure, not everyone can be as anal as David Fincher was for Zodiac (where he would even make sure that the goddamn ceiling tile matched the real location’s), but would it kill Feifer to at least TRY to sell his period setting beyond the wardrobe? It’s supposed to be the 1960s, but I see computers and fax machines, and a key scene in a hotel has modern day electronic pass key devices on the doors. And Los Angeles doesn’t QUITE sub for Chicago when you see palm trees in the background (not to mention modern day lights on the very distinguished LA high-rises). I know, I know (because he bitched about it in the comments for the Bundy review), he shoots his films fast and cheap, they all sell for a profit, blah blah blah. Well if they’re making him so much money why can’t he put that money toward making a better next film? I’ve seen four of his serial killer films, out of the order that they were produced, but they all suffer from the same problems and never look better (or worse, to be fair) than the ones before or after. You’d think as a filmmaker he would learn how to be more creative with his shooting/editing to hide the obvious setting errors, or learn to hire better actors for key supporting roles (the girl playing the one survivor is hands down the worst actress he’s hired yet), or at least learn how to tell a goddamn story, but nope. I liked Bundy OK enough, but with each other film I see (BTK and Henry Lee Lucas), I become more convinced that it’s only because unlike these other killers, I knew a lot about the Bundy story and was able to fill in the narrative gaps that Feifer’s style always manages to leave behind.

And that is particularly problematic here, as I know NOTHING about Speck. My only real exposure to him is from watching Naked Massacre (loosely based on the titular event, albeit set in Ireland). There is one positive thing about this - I don’t know what Feifer is making up (and, from what I can gleam from Speck’s Wiki page, it seems Feifer stuck to the facts much more closely than usual), and thus I wasn’t distracted by “creative diversions” the way I was in Bundy. Instead, I was just distracted by a complete lack of understanding how any scene in the film related to another. As usual, the narrative is all out of order, but there are no title cards to explain where we are in time. Scenes of the nurse massacre (which are very repetitive and largely exploitative) are sprinkled throughout the film, along with scenes of two cops (Andrew Divoff and Tony Todd, though Todd checks out after about 20 minutes or so) investigating the murders, and flashback scenes of Speck being his “lovable” self (including a scene with Debbie Rochon that seems to be one of the film’s complete inventions). It’s never immediately clear if such scenes take place before or after the nurse murders, and even if it was, it would still make for a pretty obscure narrative. As always, Feifer doesn’t seem too interested in showing things from the victims’ point of view, nor is there any attempt to decipher why Speck did the things he did (we settle for a quick scene of his stepdad slapping him around). It’s just a bunch of scenes, many of them poorly acted and few of them suspenseful or intriguing in any way. Maybe a Speck expert would be able to put them into context, or at least in order, but he shouldn’t be assuming the audience knows as much as he (presumably) does.

And that is a shame, because the film briefly touches upon something that IS interesting, which is that Speck did not make a model prisoner, due to his sentence of 400-1200 years (on prison, Speck said: “If they knew how much fun I was having, they’d throw me out”). He also began taking female growth hormones in prison and willingly provided oral pleasure for other inmates. Not that I want to watch 90 minutes of Parker Lewis going down on dudes, but there is something interesting about a guy whose prison sentence seemed to actually improve his way of life and his demeanor (there is nothing to suggest he ever harmed another prisoner during his term, which ended prematurely in 1991 when he died of a heart attack). Had the film been set largely in prison, which flashbacks showing what got him there, I think it could have been a really good movie. And it would probably help sell the period better - it’s not like most prisons keep up with the latest technologies. But all of this stuff is confined to the final few minutes, most of which comes after the obligatory text crawl explaining what happened to Speck after the events of the film conclude, so it just feels tacked on from a different (and again, better) movie. Oh well.

The real DVD has a commentary, but my screener does not. But from what I recall about his other tracks, I doubt I'm missing much beyond pointing out relatives in the cast and explaining that he didn't have a lot of money. But the thing is I wouldn’t even care about the "low budget" flaws if his films ever truly delivered on a story-telling level. He’s certainly better at the serial killer film than his generic folks-in-peril ones like Dead Calling and The Graveyard - these are at least watchable - but it’s a shame to see these potentially intriguing stories (and good lead performances) wasted over and over again by a guy who is seemingly working from a template instead of putting some effort into telling a story. The time and resources he used for this and his other serial killer films probably could have been spent making one really great one. Luckily (for me), he seems to have moved away from the horror genre, as his next five (FIVE!) films (2 finished, 1 filming, 2 in pre-production according to IMDB) are not horror related (though one seems to be a thriller of some sort) - he’s got a comedy, two dramas, and an action movie on the way! I, on the other hand, still have the Boston Strangler and Ed Gein movies to see - should I bother?

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...