Puppet Master II (1991)

SEPTEMBER 19, 2010

GENRE: MAD SCIENTIST, PUPPET
SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT VIEW)

I'll give it this much, Puppet Master II is an improvement over the original: there's more puppet action, the villain's plan is slightly more coherent, and it's a few minutes shorter. But it also suffers from a lot of the same problems, and is marred by the fact that it's practically a remake of the original at times. I would suggest just watching the opening of the first film (the scenes with Toulon), just to get your bearings and some context, and then watching II for the best possible experience.

The main problem, once again, is that the film is incredibly bright at all times, despite a different director/DP team. And whereas in the first film it was just an annoyance, here it actually makes the movie ridiculous, as folks will be talking as if it WAS night but it clearly is not. At one point, our main characters plan to check up on a disappearance "first thing in the morning" (something you might say at midnight) with full daylight streaming through all the windows. Later, our heroine asks some guy to spend the night after because he must be tired from driving all day, and again, you expect someone in the next room to be making brunch. Do these people all have night school to attend or something? Film a fucking scene at night! Or at least throw some blackout material over the windows.

We also once again have our villainous puppets turning hero at the end of the film, but at least in the first film it was because the human villain began smacking around one of their own. Here it's because they realized they were being "used", which doesn't quite work. So our killer puppets don't actually want to kill? What do they WANT to do, on an average day? However, I do like that they are weaker in this one, because it allows for hilarious scenes of the humans stomping on them or whacking them with lamps and such. It's a bit depressing that they had to work in a "the puppets aren't as strong" subplot to explain full grown, purportedly intelligent human beings to be able to simply kick 12 inch puppets that don't move very fast, but hey, at least we get to see one of them tossed into a fire and another one get whipped by a small child (in one of the weirdest scenes in the movie).

Like I said though, there's a lot more puppet action this time. They kill off Tunneler and Leech Woman pretty early on (with Leech Woman never really living up to her name in the movie), but the new guy, Torch, is pretty cool, with his bullet teeth and penchant for potentially immolating children (did I miss it? Do they ever say whether or not he crisped that kid?). And Jester gets in on the action this time, after an appearance so brief in the first one that I missed it entirely. The animation is just as good, though there are a few strings visible every now and then - it seems they didn't want to use stop motion as often.

Speaking of strings, there are a number of hilarious goofs in the movie along those lines, but the best has to be when a lamp is knocked over and you actually see a grip or someone catch the damn thing before it falls to the ground. And this is on a cropped version, you can probably see his face on the 1.85 transfer (if one exists). Ironically, the lamp gets knocked over after being turned on, so before that is actually the only time in the movie that there's a horror-movie esque dark shot. IMDb says there's another shot where you can see the guy holding Jester to move him around, but I missed that one.

It's also a bit odd that the only sort of creepy thing in the entire movie doesn't show up until the last 5 minutes, when Toulon gets enough brain fluid for his formula and uses it to transform his soul (or whatever) from his Claude Rains-esque "temp" body into one that's essentially a human sized wooden puppet. Seeing this thing walk around and talk is possibly the most frightening thing Full Moon has ever done, and it's a shame it wasn't introduced earlier in the film.

Everyone tells me how good part 3 is, but I don't know if they mean it's good for real or if it's just good compared to the other Puppet Master movies. Hopefully it will show up on Netflix soon enough so I can find out, though hopefully future installments will be given a decent, non-cropped transfer. But who am I kidding, like Band will pony up the dough for that? They didn't even bother for the largely featureless boxed set that they charge 100 bucks for, which is about double what you'd pay for a James Bond set featuring about as many films in 2 disc collector editions. A steal, really.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Grimm Love (2006)

SEPTEMBER 18, 2010

GENRE: CANNIBAL, HORROR?
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

Like Pig Hunt, Fragile, and The Tomb, Grimm Love has been sitting on the shelf for years, only to be picked up by Fangoria for their Frightfest series. Unlike those films, however, this isn’t really a horror film in the traditional sense, because the A story of the film is a mostly accurate account of something that really happened, tastefully depicted (as tasteful as a story about a couple of German dudes eating one of their own penises could be, I guess), and the B story is about a girl looking to do her thesis about the case, only to... uh, cry.

Yes, throughout the movie you’re probably going to be wondering why they keep cutting to Keri Russell (besides the obvious) as she goes around taking pictures of the two men’s childhood homes and schools and such, because it’s nowhere near as interesting as the real story, and doesn’t seem to have any inherent drama or suspense to it. There’s some nonsense about her getting “too deep”, but we don’t really SEE this, we just hear voicemails from friends saying things like “Hey where you been? Call me!”, and Russell wears less flattering makeup as the film goes on. And then in the final act they try to make it seem like she is in some sort of danger, as she seeks out the videotape that the killer made, which is anonymously offered to her by someone who knows where she lives (because she gave him the address). But she gets the tape without any incident, watches it, cries, and we never see her again. We don’t even know if she finishes her thesis, let alone what she got on it. It’s possibly the first time that the “wrap-around” portion of a movie doesn’t actually wrap around it – we watch her cry and then it’s back to the German dudes for the rest of the film, without even a voice-over by Russell (an annoyance throughout the film, to be fair) to wrap up her part of the story.

Luckily the stuff with the two men is pretty interesting, and the actors are incredible. Both Thomas Kretschmann (as the killer) and Thomas Huber (as the guy who says, on more than one occasion, “Bite my thing off!”, i.e. the “victim”) won awards at Sitges for their performances, and its easy to see why – you sympathize fully with both men and really care about them, making even the murder scene somewhat uplifting, as they both finally got what they desired most, regardless of how twisted it may seem to the rest of us. I wish they had spent a little less time on their back-stories and more on their time together (not the killing/dick-eating part, but more like the car ride to the house where they carry out their plan, things like that), but that stuff is interesting as well, depicting why these two guys have ended up in such lonely predicaments.

And this makes the Russell stuff even more infuriating, because that time could have been spent on the far more interesting part of the story – the concept of whether or not Oliver really “murdered” Simon, since he was a willing participant and practically encouraged it. The framework of the film should have been the trial, but apparently that hadn’t even happened yet when the film was made (way to jump the gun on the “let’s make a movie out of this!” approach). The end of the film doesn’t even provide a caption explaining the outcome of the case, which is baffling – even though the trial hadn’t happened yet when it was originally shot, they certainly could have gone back and added something like that to the end in the 4 years or so that have gone by since production.

Director Martin Weisz (who went on to direct Hills Have Eyes 2) provides a hilariously lo-fi commentary track (along one of the producers, who says about 9 words the entire time), where you can hear someone preparing some sort of food dish in the background along with other assorted background noises. And he sounds only slightly better than my commentary tracks, which means it sounds lousy. But he’s at least honest about the fact that the movie’s been shelved for a while, pointing out that it’s been years since he saw it (gotta be a first for a movie not being released as some sort of anniversary special edition) and also discussing at length the number of cuts that were made to the Russell story, which included a boyfriend that was cut entirely. While it may have helped give her scenes a less random feel, I doubt that they would have made her segments a more viable part of the film, and thus I agree with the decision to cut her screen-time in half. You can see some of them on the deleted scenes, which includes the sort of wrap-up approach to her story that the film SHOULD have included. But they’re also out of order and more often than not just extended versions of stuff that was in the movie anyway, so as a whole they don’t really do much for me.

The end titles also feature the most redundant back-to-back credits of all time.

If you know nothing about the story, then this is probably the best way to learn, as you can get the facts of the case delivered by two terrific actors as opposed to a dry Wikipedia entry or newspaper article. But if you’re like me and have already read such things, the movie actually offers less information than those (again, because it lacks any details of the trials – there were two, the 2nd of which resulted in a life sentence for the guy), rendering the movie a bit pointless, sort of like reading the Cliff’s Notes for a book you read and fully understood. A missed opportunity, for sure.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Devil (2010)

SEPTEMBER 17, 2010

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

While it's not exactly a difficult feat, Devil is the best thing M. Night Shyamalan has been involved with since Signs, which is fitting as it explores similar themes at times (I won't go into specifics, potential spoiler material). Which is ironic, because I am of the opinion that he needs to let someone else write his scripts and just direct, but this is sort of the opposite: it's his story, but it's directed by John Dowdle, who made the STILL unreleased Poughkeepsie Tapes, which I quite liked, and Quarantine, which isn't a BAD film by any stretch of the imagination, just a bit on the needless side. And if this film is any indication, he's headed for bigger/better things.

The only real flaw the film has is that it might not have much repeat value, as much of its success depends on the audience trying to figure out which of the people in the elevator is the Devil before the people in the movie can (and, since this is M Night's story, find the other twist you know has to be in there somewhere). Luckily it's short enough (barely 80 minutes with credits) that a future viewing won't be too much of a bother. But man, is it one near perfect, sometimes almost unbearably suspenseful thriller. Brian Nelson's script never makes any character more or less obvious a choice as the Devil, which is a genius move on his part. Rather than make it the person you "least" expect, or "most", he simply keeps them all on a level playing field, and really, any of the 5 options would have been satisfactory in the end.

A while back I watched another elevator-set movie called Black Out, and that movie failed in this regard, by making the bad guy seem innocent - it was a dead giveaway. In Devil, we meet everyone around the same time, and since the elevator stops almost instantly, we know little to nothing about them prior to the understandable panic and paranoia that sets in when they realize they are stuck and begin pointing fingers and grilling one another on who they are, what they do etc. So there's no obvious hero, but more importantly, there's no obvious "they're trying to make you think this person is totally innocent" maneuvers either.

And yes, it's scary. I damn near jumped out of my seat at a scare involving a maintenance guy who is trying to figure out why the elevator stopped, and the occasional Devil "sightings" are brief enough to be scary/creepy but not long enough to be silly. I also like how pretty much every scare happens in total blackness. Obviously it has to be that way in order to preserve the mystery, but it also allows your imagination to run wild, using just the sound design (which is superb) to guide you.

Like The Descent, it also works as a claustrophobic nightmare, to the extent that even without the Devil stuff, the movie would still work. Admirably, the 5 of them never leave the elevator to engage in silly rescue/escape missions that you know won't be successful anyway. There are a number of POV shots and Dowdle (and his DP, the amazing Tak Fujimoto, who has shot most of Night's films) makes terrific use of the elevator's mirror to work everyone into a shot despite the cramped location. And I don't think it's spoiling much to say not everyone survives, so when the living have to share this tiny space with the dead, it becomes even more nerve-wracking.

But we can't stay on the elevator the whole time, because there's not enough there to work with for a full 80-90 minutes. Thankfully, Nelson's script provides a couple of security guards and a cop (the terrific Chris Messina - get this guy a starring role on a TV show or something!) that are interesting enough in their own right, so that when the movie focuses on what they're doing (trying to get the people out, trying to figure out who they are, etc) it's just as compelling as the elevator stuff. Some of Messina's character moments seem to be lost (the lovely Caroline Dhavernas appears as a forensics officer who Messina appears to have a relationship with, but her role is limited to 3 nearly wordless scenes - seems silly to hire a known actress for such a thin role), and I'm guessing some if not all of the deleted scenes on the eventual DVD will be about him and Dhavernas.

Which leads me to another great thing about the film - its relatively unknown cast (even more of a good thing since the way too famous cast was a major problem for me with Dowdle's Quarantine). Apart from Dhavernas, the only folks I recognized were Bokeem Woodbine (as one of the trapped folks/possible Devil) and Matt Craven, who played the head security guard. Going back to the "even playing field" thing, it adds to the suspense, because the actors are on just as equal ground as their characters. I've seen so many horror movies where a major twist is spoiled just by the casting of it - i.e. Frank Whaley is the killer in The Cell 2 because he's the only name. Woodbine has been around for a while but he's hardly an A list star, and thus his minor exception doesn't ruin things.

Now, one caveat - you might have noticed that this has some ties to religion (if the title didn't give that away from you). If the idea of God/everything happening for a reason bugs you, then don't see the movie. It does factor into the twist and if you don't believe in any sort of divine intervention or things of that nature, you're liable to hate the 3rd act revelations. Everyone else will be rewarded with a film that uses religion as a backdrop but doesn't force it down our throats or come across as preachy. This is never more than a movie about real people stuck in a horrible situation; it's not some sort of Catholic propaganda masquerading as a horror film.

It's been a pretty slow year for major release horror films, but the odd thing is most of them have been really good for a change. Now that it's Halloween-time, we literally have them coming out every week, so this could change by November, but for now, Devil ranks as one of the year's best genre films - it's the most suspenseful one since Frozen, the first since Crazies to actually make me jump at a scare, and most importantly it's just plain entertaining - can someone tell me how a movie about 5 people trapped in an elevator managed to be more exciting and fun than the one about God sending angels down to kill us all? Or the one about a bunch of hot chicks killing zombies in 3D? I just hope future "Night Chronicles" (it actually has a "1" after the logo) are as strong, because the bar has been set quite high.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Outback (2009)

SEPTEMBER 16, 2010

GENRE: SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

For a while, I thought The Outback (aka Prey, and also, for some reason, Dreamtime’s Over), was going to rise above and be better than most “6 kids go to a remote place and die” movies, because they took three cars instead of the usual one, wasted no time in getting to the part we care about, and the villain was not a redneck or random family of mutants, but an aboriginal shaman who commanded snakes and could make zombies. Points for originality!

But it all falls apart, largely due to the inane twist at the end and a near total lack of believable actions on the part of the characters, and I say we talk about that first so you can read for a bit before I spoil the ending. Granted, I don’t know what it’s like to get lost in the outback, to watch one of my friend’s heads get crushed, or run afoul of a shaman who looks like an older Rob Zombie, but I’m guessing even in those unusual circumstances, I’d still care if one of my friends died, especially if it was one I was sleeping with. But no one seems to care much when anyone dies or gets attacked, which is funny the first time but just plain annoying by the end. At one point a zombie grabs one of the two remaining folks, and the other just nonchalantly stands there watching for a few seconds before finally deciding to help.

And then there’s the twist. One of the things I liked about the movie was that the bad guy seemed to be killing these poor sods just for the hell of it. There was no trespassing on his property scene, or anything like that – he just starts commanding snakes and what not. But no, as it turns out, he was specifically after the Final Girl, because 20 years ago, her brother ran him over. In keeping with horror movie fashion, he kills everyone except the one he had the beef with, which is fine, but what the fuck? Was he just sitting around for 20 years hoping she’d pass through again? Real shit luck on her part. It’s not as bad as Spike or whatever (where the villain was planting traps hoping to get her), but come on! Revenge scenarios only really work if the villain actively goes after the folks he’s seeking to hurt – if they just happen to cross his path, then it’s just ludicrous.

Also his powers are a bit confusing. He’s a ghost, or at least can project his spirit or something, and he can command snakes, and also make people rise from the dead, except they come back looking like the T-1000 at the end of T2, with half burnt orange lava faces. Why? I have no idea. Also he can apparently screw with compasses, rendering our heroes completely lost. Again, points for originality, but these things just don’t fit together. It’s like the time I didn’t have a Halloween costume so I just bought some shit from the dollar store: a witch hat, some sort of door hanger thing that I carried like a purse, and crepe paper. Yeah, no one else at the party had the same costume, but why would they? It was fucking stupid!

I was slightly amused by the fact that he was a wizard of sorts, because a while back in my review for The Woods I pondered a horror movie in which a wizard killed our heroes instead of whatever you expected would happen after a generic opening (so in this case, I figured they’d break down and run afoul of a mutant kangaroo or something), so that was kind of funny. Also, I will admit I didn’t see the ending coming, which found our two surviving women inexplicably become lesbian lovers, despite the fact that they both started their journey with boyfriends.

There was apparently even more lesbian action in the original cut, but it was removed, because who in their right mind would want to see two attractive women taking a shower together while making out? There are half orange zombie folks to not attack! This is addressed, and the absent director is mocked, in the disc’s sole extra, a 20 minute making of that combines on-set interviews with the actors with candid, obviously post-initial release interviews with the writer and producers. One producer also tells some of the story that this movie was sort of based upon, where two Americans went into the outback and disappeared. Their car was found 3 weeks later without any signs of trouble, and then many years later their bodies were found, roughly 1000 miles apart, back in America. Creepy, right? Too bad the movie wasn’t.

With a few friends and a fine assortment of beers and pizza-based items, this movie would be a hoot. It’s reasonably well paced, has some minor Evil Dead-esque dismemberment, and out of nowhere lesbianism to sweeten the deal. But it’s just such a ridiculous concept, and our characters barely act like human beings, which makes it a bit hard to swallow. The ADR syncing is atrocious too – I’ve seen movies with the actors getting dubbed in other languages that looked better than this. Try harder, everyone!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes (1978)

SEPTEMBER 15, 2010

GENRE: COMEDIC, MAD SCIENTIST
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

I knew Attack of the Killer Tomatoes was silly, but I was honestly surprised how often I found myself laughing at the film. A lot of times (especially with older films), I find the humor corny or just plain dated when its blended with horror, but I was pretty consistently chuckling or downright laughing my ass off throughout the film, which combined some ZAZ-style sight gags (personal favorite – a trolley going up a hill with Alcatraz in the background… and the caption says “New York”) with a bit of Dr. Strangelove-esque satire, wrapped together with loads of genuine low budget charm.

In fact, most of my notes are just references to things that made me laugh:

“Little Room” – Possibly the gag that’s milked the most (besides the basic concept) is that the planning/war room that was assembled “on short notice’ is basically a closet, with everyone having to climb over each other/the table to get in and out, or to stand at the map to point out areas of interest. It never stopped being funny for a scene to stop dead so that someone could spend 20-30 seconds just trying to get into a desired position.

“Racist” – there was a delightfully odd, somewhat racist joke where a character says “There’s a little jap in the air”, to which someone replies “He means nip.” It’s the sort of anti-PC gag that you just don’t hear anymore unless it’s in something that’s trying to be offensive (South Park, the movie Postal, Family Guy... that sort of thing). Here it’s not trying to shock, it’s just a goofy joke to make. I miss that casual approach to humor.

“Bulletin” – as someone who hates most radio stations due to the fact that they seem to be 75% talk to 25% music, this was probably my favorite non visual gag in the entire film – a news announcer interrupts the usual broadcast to announce a bulletin, and then spends 30 seconds or so pointing out that the bulletin is for the public safety, and it’s brought to you by Schlitts beer, etc. We never actually hear the bulletin.

“Giant tom men bigger pzza” – so I don’t write very well, but I can decipher this scribble: “Giant tomatoes mean bigger pizzas”. There’s a subplot (one that ultimately makes little sense, since the protagonist of these scenes turns out to be the villain) of the press secretary going to a place called Mind Makers, an ad agency tasked with trying to spin the giant killer tomato outbreak into something positive. That was one of their best ideas. I’m not sure what it has to do with anything, but they also had an ad with a cop directing traffic and then it’s revealed that he’s blind (and then we hear smashing and crashing). Goofy, Police Academy level stuff, but I guess I was in the right mood, I laughed my ass off. These sequences were probably my favorite in the film.

“42:29” – that’s my standard note for a screenshot. So here you go! (this is another one of Mind Maker’s genius spin ideas)

“More tom less Mus” (“More tomatoes, less music”) – my only real complaint about the film is that there are long stretches without any killer tomato action, and 2-3 more songs than necessary. I could be more forgiving if the killer tomatoes were animated or something, but they’re either giant foam ones or real ones being rolled/thrown around – hardly an expensive effect. They really should have just cut to random people being killed every now and then to keep the whole “killer tomato” aspect front and center. With the ad agency, an assassin trying to kill our hero, a love story, the war room stuff, etc, there’s too much going on, and it seems as a result they forget about the goddamned tomatoes.

It’s also a bit too long, even though it’s only 85 minutes. Again, maybe cutting a few of the songs out would have helped (especially the army one near the end – terrible, unfunny song, and a real pace killer to boot), but even then they could have used some trimming throughout. Apparently there is a “director’s cut” available that has some stuff added, other stuff removed – maybe this one works better. I actually thought I was getting the special edition version, but this one only has the trailer.

Doing my “research” (looking at the Wikipedia entry), I discovered two interesting things: 1. the kid singing “Puberty Love”, which is kryptonite for the tomatoes, is none other than Matt Cameron, the 2nd drummer named Matt for Pearl Jam and their 5th overall (they’ve also had two named Dave). I’ve always joked that all of their ex-drummers should form a band, so if Matt ever moves on he can totally be the singer. The other was that there are THREE sequels to this thing. I knew about Return, because of the Clooney factor, but there was one where they Strike Back and then after that they apparently went to France. There was also an animated series and a few video games. How the hell did they never go to space?

I can totally see myself watching this in a different mood and hating it. There isn’t enough action to maintain total interest, and there are definitely some dud songs that practically kill the movie. But as long as you’re on board with the irreverent, rather dry humor (well, as dry as you can get in a movie about killer tomatoes), I think you’ll dig it. Let’s put it this way – if you didn’t laugh at that screenshot, don’t bother with the movie.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Video Dead (1987)

SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

GENRE: INDEPENDENT, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT VIEW)

I think The Video Dead is one of those movies that fellow horror friends recommended to me back in grade school, but I never got around to it. And then I forgot the title even existed, until my good friend Tall F’in Joe (legal birth name) told me that it was on Netflix Instant and said it would make a good HMAD entry. Well he’s a goddamn liar. Not about being on Netflix, because it is (in a surprisingly nice transfer to boot – pretty good for a film that was never released on DVD), but about it being a good HMAD entry. Contrary to the beliefs of some, I actually want to watch good movies more often than not, and this thing sucked.

The biggest problem is that I could never tell if it was supposed to be campy/spoofy fun or not. Only skilled actors can make that distinction clear, and these folks are most certainly not skilled actors. You will not be surprised to learn that Rocky Duvall, who plays the film’s would-be hero, has no other IMDb credits to his name (neither does the broad who plays his sister), since he is hands-down one of the worst and annoying screen presences this side of Jake Lloyd. This whiny bastard, I could never tell if he was supposed to be stupid or if he just couldn’t deliver his lines properly. Either way I couldn’t stand him, which made his surprise death 20 minutes before the movie ended (spoiler) all the more pleasurable.

But that adds to the problem – if this is supposed to be funny, why are they brutally murdering our hero when the movie’s not even over? It’s OK for a closing shot kind of thing, like in the Final Destination movies, but he dies and then we switch to his sister, who has been largely absent from the zombie action. And then she ends up in a mental institution as a result of her “ordeal”, which also isn’t really funny “ha ha”. I mean sure, I laughed, but the movie doesn’t seem to be aimed specifically at assholes.

Another red mark is that the zombies act more like slashers, which doesn’t quite work. At one point our heroes are standing there talking about a dead dog (two dead dog movies in a row, ugh), and the camera pans to reveal a zombie just standing there watching them. What the hell? And no one they bite/kill turns into a zombie, which sort of defeats the purpose if you ask me. Then again they don’t leave them in much of a state to return, twisting off victims’ heads and such. I guess I can give them points for originality or something, but originality alone cannot make a movie good – the idea has to WORK. This one doesn’t.

It’s also painfully boring. Once our idiot hero gets himself caught in a trap armed with a chainsaw (one that an old lady zombie eventually gets and chases him with – easily the best part of the movie), it picks up a bit, but until then he just hangs around doing nothing, unless you count his relationship with a neighbor, who is the least discerning person on the planet. She sees him outside of his house, raking, and immediately introduces herself. Just as quickly he invites her inside for a drink, which she accepts. I was shocked they didn’t just start boning right there in the foyer.

Intercut with this drivel are a series of scenes where the zombies kill folks we’ve never seen before in their own homes. This would have been fine if they were good kills, or if they were adding to their zombie numbers, but no – it’s the same five or six zombies throughout the entire movie (they all came out of a presumably better zombie movie that was playing on TV). I should note that the zombie makeup is actually quite good; it’s inconsistent (one is a Romero green/blue, the others are more like Fulci style “rotters”) but looks better than most indie zombie films. And since it was made before the digital boom, nothing looks too bad, from the image itself (yay film!) to the zombie appearance to the occasional blood/prosthetic effects.

Then again, they SHOULD be good, because there are so few of them to be seen. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by things like The Dead Next Door or Automaton Transfusion, but those films (and others) prove that a low budget doesn’t meant that you can’t have any action. Christ, Night of the Living Dead offers more carnage and they had about 11 cents. People love playing zombies – why are there so few here? Do these people not have any friends? I appreciate the fact that the movie was made and is technically proficient, but this is the type of movie that should never be boring.

Writer/director/producer Robert Scott has never done any of those things for a feature film again (there is something called Ratdog in his directing filmography, but the total lack of any other information on it suggests to me that it is a short film at most and totally non-existent at least). He now works as the 2nd 2nd AD on shows like House and Heroes. For those of you don’t know, this means his biggest job is to supervise PAs (the folks who do all the shit work) and assist with the 2nd AD in making sure actors get from their trailers to the set without killing themselves or getting lost. Which, I think, is a fitting punishment for making The Video Dead.

P.S. “Joshua” is not a good name for a supposed badass zombie killer from Texas. Especially when said badass is repeatedly being called for by a whiny annoyance.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Pig Hunt (2008)

SEPTEMBER 13, 2010

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

Many things surprised me about Pig Hunt (or Pighunt, depending on what side of the DVD case you look at), but the most unexpected thing was that it was actually a very useful source of information. So join me as I count the things that we as a people can learn from this "not just a" giant pig movie from Fangoria's Frightfest series.

1. Hippies are evil. Some of us already knew this (and that you should never follow them to a second location), but Pig Hunt offers incontrovertible proof, as they turn out to be the film’s real villains, after the red herrings of local rednecks and giant pigs. Sure, they are no saints either, but the rednecks only go after the city folk after they kill one of their own, and the pigs are seemingly under the control of the hippies, so you can’t put all their actions on them.

2. Film still exists. Despite being a low budget independent horror film from the mid to late 00’s, Pig Hunt was shot on honest to goodness film (Super 16 I believe), and it gives it the appropriate look for its 70s Grindhouse feel. Apart from a cell phone and references to the war in Iraq, the film could very well have been made in 1977 or so – even the pigs are all real (and thus rarely seen), and the big "Hogzilla" is an animatronic/puppet thing, which is a bit stiff but still miles better than some ugly CGI abomination.

3. “From The Director Of Skinwalkers” is apparently a good thing, somewhere. The box art for the film features a giant pig with blood dripping out of its mouth, standing on a pile of human skulls. Why mar that with a blurb that might actually turn people away? James Isaac’s Skinwalkers is a terrible, terrible movie that was also a giant box office failure – who the hell thought it would be a good idea to remind anyone that it exists at all, let alone that it shares a director with the film they’re trying to promote?

4. The Alien shot has officially been overused. You know the one – our monster will get in close to our hero and snort or breath or something, inches away from their terrified (but trying to be still) face. It’s been used to good effect in a few films (Spiral comes to mind, and it’s subtle enough that you might even miss it), but this one is just a complete annoyance, as have a few recent other uses. Worse, the scene where its used is a bit too similar to the one in Rogue for my tastes, so the climax just feels copied from other movies (Rogue was shot well over a year before this film, for the record).

5. No one can ever make a killer pig movie that’s just a killer pig movie. This is I believe the 3rd or 4th one I’ve watched for HMAD, and all of them turn out to have other (human) villains. Pigs are giant things that love to eat – why do they always feel that we need an explanation for them to want to eat us? Ultimately, the pigs only kill one or two folks in the film, whereas hippies/rednecks rack up about a dozen. That said, the movie is actually sort of charmingly all over the place, with hippie communes, pot farms, killer pigs, redneck priests... I can safely say that this is the least generic James Isaac movie ever.

6. “Annoying fat guy” characters can die without the audience caring. The annoying fat guy in a horror movie is a staple going back decades, but a lot of them are sort of endearing in their own way. Franklin from Texas Chain Saw, Shelley from Friday 3... these guys are a pain in the ass, sure, but I was still sad when they died. But the guy here? I couldn’t wait for him to die, as he whined and moaned before anything bad happened and then whined and moaned twice as much when it did. Hell, he has a dog, and I didn’t even get sad when it died, because if nothing else it was a guarantee that his owner wouldn’t be too far behind him in hell. Grats to the rednecks for blowing his goddamn head off.

7. Les Claypool is a lazy composer. I’m not much of a Primus/Claypool fan anyway, but even their biggest fans would probably get annoyed by the credit saying “Music by Les Claypool” (with a smaller, “additional music” credit for David Russo) when it’s just the same riff over and over, repeated ad nauseum throughout the film. It’s actually part of an equally annoying song called "Booneville Stomp" (which we hear once or twice in the film as well), so I’m not sure how he got the music credit anyway. He also appears in the film as one of the rednecks.

8. I’m a big ol’ softy. The movie is far from perfect, but I was actually kind of digging it for a while, and that’s due to the fact that the rednecks and the city folk were actually getting along and bonding, instead of just antagonizing each other until the breaking point. They’re introduced as sort of would-be villains, but before long they’re sharing their booze, helping the amateurs learn about how to skin a pig, even comparing scars! I was happy to see rednecks portrayed as non-villains for once. And then they become villains, after one of the city guys shoots one (sort of in self-defense) and the other goes back to their “town” and rallies the troops. Once the action kicks back up (i.e. evil hippies) things get back on track, but still, I was really enjoying seeing them get along. Like I’ve said a million times, it’s much more interesting to me when a “bad” person starts doing good things, as the other way around just often feels like a cheap shock for shock’s sake.

9. We can still get no-bullshit commentaries on DVDs. It’s funny, ever since that disclaimer started appearing at the top of every disc (“The views in the commentary are that of the speaker and in no way reflect...”), commentaries have become chores to sit through for the most part, as they’re always so PC. Not the case here – Isaac and one of his producers are pretty up front about everything, from bitching at actors for complaining (and not getting nude) during the shoot and other production issues, to discussing on-screen hand-jobs, to how they feel about pigs (“they should all be killed”). It’s informative and entertaining! There’s also a 40 minute making of that’s a bit too long, since a lot of it is just behind the scenes footage with no narration or context, but again, at least it’s not watered down fluff (it actually starts with a guy bitching about DVD extras, so there you go).

So that’s what I learned from Pig Hunt. Ironically, I’ve actually had a screener of the film for about two and a half years now, and never bothered, assuming it was wretched since I haven’t been a fan of Isaac’s other films (all of which had long delays as well – hmmm). But I was pleasantly surprised – it’s entertaining but not silly, and surprising without being loaded with plot twists. This makes the current Fangoria Frightfest score 3-2, not bad! Next is Grimm Love (another one I've had a screener of forever - it seems almost all of the Fango films are just long-shelved pickups), which is about a dude who asked to be castrated and eaten by his gay lover. And I’m not joking when I say it’s based on a true story.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Raven (2006)

SEPTEMBER 12, 2010

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

You know how just about every band releases one really “off” album and you never listen to it, but every now and then you’re like “I don’t remember what it was I don’t like about this... how bad can it be?”, and then you listen and you’re like “Oh right....”? That’s how I am with Ulli Lommel films. I watch about one a year, hate it, and then months later I always figure “well, that last one is bad, but I’ve seen a lot of awful crap since then, so I’ll have a new perspective.” And then it’s just as bad if not worse than the one before. Well, if I may offer dim praise, The Raven might be one of his better films (of the ones I’ve seen), because it at least offers me some nostalgia.

Based on the billboards that pop up in scenes filmed on Sunset Blvd, this movie was shot right around the time I moved to LA. In fact there’s a Masters of Horror billboard in one shot – that show premiered the night I arrived in town. There’s also a Harry Potter and The Goblet Of Fire billboard in another shot, which was one of the first movies I saw here once I had settled in. Memories...

Also, back then I wasn’t watching shit like this on a daily basis.

The most curious thing about his resume is how often he manages to get people to return for his next film. The main girl, one Jillian Swanson, has appeared in like 4 films with the guy – doesn’t she learn? This is the sort of thing that can ruin your career (indeed, after her last Lommel feature, she has only scored but one credit, on an episode of a TV show I’ve never heard of), and she probably could have gone on to better things. She can’t lip sync worth a damn, but it seem she’s a decent actress (compared to the rest of the cast anyway), and attractive; certainly enough to get a 2 episode stint as Drama’s girlfriend on Entourage or some shit.

As for the plot, your guess is as good as mine. Best I can figure, Lenore (Swanson) was raped by this dude, and then she killed him in her tub. Some undetermined time later, he or his ghost comes back, sometimes dressed as a raven (yep), and kills a bunch of her friends, which doesn’t seem to concern any of them all too much. I couldn’t tell how much time had passed during the movie; it would seem like days later but folks would act like whatever they were discussing just happened an hour before. But even so, there are odd events that Lenore just seems sort of puzzled by instead of genuinely concerned, like when one disappears out of a dentist chair even though she was sitting in the lobby and thus couldn’t have missed the girl deciding not to get a filling after all.

The kill scenes are equally baffling. Most of them involve the killer standing there watching the victim for a while (it sounds creepy but it’s just boring, trust me), and then his knife will appear in an impossible place (such as coming up from inside a laundry machine), before they cut to another angle with him holding the same knife to the character’s throat. So are there two killers? One who can fit inside laundry machines and under car seats, and the watcher guy? Who the hell knows/cares.

What does any of this have to do with Poe, you might ask? Well, as a child who looked nothing like her present day self (it seems they actually went out of their way to make this aspect of the movie confusing by casting the least similar looking child on the planet and then never really having a point to any of the flashbacks to boot), Lenore was taken in by a weird old man (Lommel himself I think) who liked to read Poe stories to her. But he died and left her a house, which is a typical Poe-ian plot point, albeit it has no bearing on anything.

In fact there are a lot of “What the hell?” plot points and characters in the movie. In addition to the dentist (TWO of the characters in the movie are going to the dentist on this day, plus they talk about going for a good 5 minutes before it happens), there’s a rock band and recording studio, a body shop, and also a couple of nuns (one of whom sports a wedding ring) who take care of someone who I think is supposed to be Lenore’s sister. She seems like a mute invalid for most of the movie, sitting in her wheelchair, incapable of putting food in her own mouth, but then suddenly starts talking normally, right around the time the nun spills some food on the girl’s shirt and instantly removes it, making this the rare film that offers nudity from a character confined to a wheelchair. If I had to guess, these folks were all investors who wanted to be in the movie, so Lommel worked them in as more or less themselves despite the fact that it’s jarring and pointless.

As with his Zodiac movie (still one of the absolute worst films I’ve watched for HMAD), he occasionally has the killer (or him) narrate some pointless nonsense, like “Skinner kills all bitches!” But this time he has on-screen graphics to accompany these random outbursts. He also takes quite a liking to electrical poles/wires, as shots of them are inserted into the film every 47 seconds or so.

Unsurprisingly it looks/sounds like ass. Some scenes resemble a rather third rate reality show as our characters wander around a location like a body shop, rambling about nothing in particular. Most of the sound is obviously recorded with the camera’s built in microphone, and the picture quality is that of a home video. The cameraman appears in reflections more often than not, and every now and then Lommel inserts shots from a different movie entirely (one shot on film) for some reason. They also spell Poe’s name wrong (Allen instead of Allan) in the credits, but I’m guessing the Poe estate probably appreciates it, as it will only help them prove that they had nothing to do with this nonsense.

The only bonus feature is a trailer. Thank you. But this is an LG release, so there are a whole bunch of trailers. Interestingly, there are back to back spots for The Descent, which is possibly the best horror film of the decade, and Murder Set Pieces, which is inarguably the worst. And also a spot for Open Water 2: Adrift, which inexplicably remains my most popular review. And more nostalgia, Saw III, which opened the weekend I began writing for B-D. So, shit film, but very eclectic trailer reel!

What say you?

P.S. According to Wikipedia, Lommel has since quit making horror films, as he has found Christ or something. Good riddance. I feel bad for Christ.

PLEASE, GO ON...

Cold Prey II (2008)

SEPTEMBER 11, 2010

GENRE: SLASHER
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

Interestingly, many folks on my twitter feed were discussing piracy today, as a certain independent genre film about to hit DVD has been leaked and downloaded thousands of times on the torrent sites. The argument for many of these pieces of shit is “I wanted to see it.” Well, fucking WAIT. It’ll be on DVD in two weeks. You can’t wait two weeks, you have to resort to stealing and essentially taking money out of the filmmaker’s pockets? And that’s a movie that just came out a few months ago; I’ve been waiting almost two goddamn years to see Cold Prey II (aka Fritt Vilt II), as I saw the original in January of 2009, when the sequel had already been completed.

But for whatever reason, Anchor Bay, who had released the first film here, has yet to even announce the sequel, let alone put it out (maybe it wasn’t a big seller?). The point is, rather than download the damn thing, which I could have done ages ago, I waited and waited, and when it became clear that AB (or any other US distribution company) was in no rush, I located a legitimate copy via Amazon. And I was surprised to see how many people never thought to just look there – I hardly had to “dig”, yet I got a few “where’d you find it?” type comments. It’s really sad that the mentality for so many fans is “out of sight, out of mind”, but it’s better than the others, who just take whatever they don’t want to wait and/or pay for.

Well, enough of that. Cold Prey II is a pretty great sequel, and that sentiment should be shared by anyone else who appreciated the first film’s old school, straight up slasher thrills. Especially considering the approach here, which takes place exactly where the first one left off and is set largely in a hospital – sound familiar? But unlike Rick Rosenthal’s inferior sequel, this one is just as scary/suspenseful as the original. It works as an extension – it’s not trying to “one up” the original. The body count is about the same, the kills are just as basic, and it expands the backstory just enough to keep it interesting but still leaving plenty of room for future entries (though I understand the next one is actually a prequel, so oh well).

And granted it has been a while, but I was very surprised to discover that the film had a different director. Mats Steinberg takes over for Roar Uthaug (who apart from contributing some of the story, appears to have no involvement here), but he’s just as skilled a filmmaker. The film looks beautiful, and like his predecessor, he gets some good use out of the 2.35 compositions. And he wrings some great suspense in the first act out of a clever misdirect and (at least in my case) a lack of 100% accurate memory of the original. See, I remembered that there were 5 kids, and an old guy living nearby, plus the killer, for a total of 7 people. The final girl lived, so that leaves a body count of 6. At the beginning of this film, they find 5 bodies, which are taken to the hospital, while 2 cops stick around, investigating the carnage at the hotel. But we don’t see the bodies clearly, and I couldn’t remember if the old guy got tossed into the crevasse with everyone else. In short, I wasn’t sure if the killer was with the other bodies at the hospital, or already up and about and ready to kill these two hapless deputies. So I got an extra little bit of unexpected early suspense here – very nice.

Once again, the characters are actually likeable. There’s an awkward would-be romance between a nurse and a deputy that I found quite charming, and the cop who is investigating the original disappearance of Geir Olav Brath (the killer) when he was a young kid is interesting to watch as well. And the lovely Ingrid Berdal returns as Jannicke, and here is where the Halloween II comparison actually sort of helps the movie. Because instead of letting her spend the entire thing in a bed, zoned out of her mind, she actually becomes a sort of Ripley-lite, hellbent on killing the guy that killed all of her friends. Also unlike Halloween II, they introduce a worthy new final girl type, one of the nurses at the hospital. Part of the problem with Halloween II is that it’s just a lot of time killing until Laurie finally gets out of bed, as the new female characters were all obvious fodder. But I actually believed this girl could take over for Jannicke if she was incapacitated, which allows for the scenes where they are in danger to work far better than most slasher films that put their lead characters in danger.

I was also tickled by one of the hospital guards looking at a website on how to solve a Rubik’s cube, because I’m pretty sure it’s the same one I used when I was “training” myself to solve them. I can now get very close to solving one on my own!

As for the killer, he’s a little more interesting this time. He’s played by a different guy, one who seems a bit more lean/tall than his predecessor (again, it’s been a while), and for the most part he sheds some of the bulk on his costume (the hood, for example), which I think is a good choice – he’s much more “action figure ready” here. Sometimes it seems like he’s needlessly going out of his way to carry out a kill (what’s with the wire/pulley thing?), but I liked that it didn’t seem that they designed the kills first and figured out the rest of the movie later. Sure, they might not be as visually exciting, but the low-key approach keeps the movie grounded, and more importantly, scary.

And they still leave some up to your non-Norwegian imagination, but they do a better job than whoever translated the original in providing text for newspaper headlines that are important to the plot. I am convinced there’s a big chunk of the back-story that I’m missing because they don’t bother to translate newspapers and other on-screen text, but at least they do a few here. The 3rd one will supposedly go into the killer’s childhood (great... what’s Norwegian for “Love Hurts”?), so hopefully all answers will be revealed then. I should note, the DVD supposedly also Chinese and Russian subs, but you’ll need the subtitle button on your remote to access them, as the main menu just has “Play” and “Scene Selection” as your options (luckily, the English subs default to on). Also, it made a terrible grinding sound in my regular player, but played fine on my PS3.

The 3rd film is hitting theaters in Norway in a few weeks, so who knows how long it will take for a legitimate release (import or not) to be available to us poor American schmoes. Since it’s a prequel I’m not as excited anyway, but I’m happy to report Cold Prey II lives up to and in some areas (pace) improves on the original, and hopefully AB will come to their senses soon so that you’re not forced to buy imports (I also miss the copious bonus features on the first film’s disc, since this one is barebones).

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010)

SEPTEMBER 10, 2010

GENRE: VIDEO GAME, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL ("IMAX" SCREENING)

The most surprising thing about Resident Evil: Afterlife, besides it's puzzling lack of action in the first two acts, is that it's the first one I stayed awake through my initial theatrical viewing. I dozed a bit during the original and Extinction, and through almost ALL of Apocalypse (I never even saw Mike Epps or the Nemesis), but despite being a midnight screening after a long day at work that began with some frustrating news about my car (it's basically dead), I saw every second of this movie. Go me.

But like I said, there's a lack of action, which makes this a puzzling fact - shouldn't I have dozed off during any number of the endless scenes of Milla Jovovich walking around and talking to people about "Arcadia"? Because just thinking about them now is making me sleepy. The movie kicks off with a gonzo, largely Matrix "inspired" (read: borderline plagiarized*) shootout sequence in the Umbrella headquarters, which climaxes with Wesker taking away Alice's powers. But he needn't have bothered, because it seems by the time she has any reason to use them again, they've either come back or she's just figured out how to fight just as well without them. You'd think after ending the first reel with her being powerless that they'd put this predicament to ONE DRAMATIC USE in the entire movie, but no. By the time they get back to any action over 45 minutes later, she's expertly shooting zombies, diving off of buildings without a second's hesitation, etc. Sure, she doesn't use her psychic powers anymore, but who the hell cares? It's not like she used them much in the first place; even with a bunch of clones helping her in that opening sequence she still goes for hand to hand combat most of the time, instead of just Carrie-ing them all to hell. And if she doesn't have any sort of "advanced healing power", how the hell does she survive a plane crash without a scratch?

To its credit, it resembles a real movie more than the others, with attempts at characterization (I love that Boris Kodjoe's character was a famous basketball player in the pre-zombie world) and a refreshing lack of annoying comic relief characters like Epps. But I mean, this is part 4 of a rather goofy series; why turn all serious now? Christ, unless you count the Majini (called Axeman here), there aren't even any mutant/monsters in this one, just advanced zombies that have splitting heads like the ones seen in RE5.

Continuing the tradition of Extinction, the film introduces a game character and gives no explanation for who they are or why they're important. It's not as crippling as Claire's "introduction" in Extinction, but still, Chris Redfield (Wentworth Miller) just happens to be held in the prison where the bulk of the film's 2nd half takes place, a coincidence made even more ridiculous when he reveals that he is Claire's brother. Since Claire has memory loss from a never-explained "bug" placed on her chest, she doesn't recognize him, and if she ever does, then it must have been deleted - the two never really converse again after that moment. And no one seems to question the odds of siblings finding each other in a world that seems to have about a hundred living people, and in Los Angeles when neither of them came from there. Maybe they played the games and figured it out for themselves.

I do like that Wentworth, Michael Schofield himself, plays a character who knows the best way to escape from a well guarded prison. Intentional or not, it's pretty amusing.

Of course, the big question is: How is the 3D? Unfortunately I cannot give a definitive answer, because I saw it in a Fauxmax screen that was curved (the AMC Burbank 16, for the record - don't see it there!), which is a huge no-no for a 3D image. So the center looked really great, but everything on the sides was "off", which was constantly distracting me. Also, a lot of the movie had that weird green-screen/composite look of the Feast/Pulse sequels, and I couldn't tell if it was an issue with the 3D rendering or just odd color timing. But I must stress that this was NOT a convert job, it was shot with the same 3D cameras that Cameron used for Avatar, and I have no doubt that if it was being projected properly that it would look spectacular. Even with the curved screen, many shots looked amazing, and it's kind of funny that Anderson toned down his usual frenetic style in order to allow the 3D shots to linger long enough for the brain to process them. Sometimes he goes overboard with the approach - the Axeman fight SHOULD have been more frenetic/exciting, instead of depicted entirely in slo-mo, but it's definitely his most accomplished work as a director. I also applaud him and the rest of the crew for not converting the footage from Extinction that pops up from time to time so that we can follow the dense, richly convoluted narrative.

I'm kidding, of course. Ultimately, the biggest problem with the movie is that it's not ABOUT anything. Alice tries to kill Wesker, fails, so everyone schmucks around for a while and then she tries again, once they figure out how to get to him on Arcadia (a boat that they can see). That's about it. There's no new wrinkle to the virus, no evil doctor shenanigans, no personal stakes in anything... hell they don't even bother having someone get bit and turn; the characters who are killed die instantly and are never spoken of again (love how cavalier Alice is toward the death of one character; she watches the person die and 30 seconds later she's got a big goofy grin on her face and cracking jokes as she finds a stash of weapons). Sure, it's entertaining (at least when there's on-screen carnage; this movie has the most amount of zombies of any of them, I'll give it that much), but even by the rather low narrative standards set by the others, it's entirely weightless.

And of course it ends on a cliffhanger for the next one, with Jill Valentine. And she's nearly unrecognizable; I know the actress is blond in real life but couldn't they have at least given her the same haircut or something to clue us in? It's been 6 years and Sienna Guillory has "blossomed" quite nicely - but they don't even bother have someone saying "Ms. Valentine?" or any other cinematic shortcuts commonly used to identify a character. But anyway, it seems she's bad now. See you in 2013, I guess.

Overall, it's a slight improvement over Extinction; the action is more satisfying and the new characters, paper-thin as they are, are somewhat enjoyable (though the movie criminally wastes Kim Coates). And no warm-blooded male on the planet would argue with the appeal of having Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter, or newcomer Kacey Barnfield jumping and diving their way around, falling practically into your lap. But it reeks of laziness, as if the 3D alone would be enough to forgive the movie its numerous weak spots. Come on folks, you can do better.

What say you?

*It was actually worth seeing the film on this crappy screen for the moment that Milla (actually two of them) jump out a window backwards and begin firing straight up into the air, despite the fact that their opponents are about 90 degrees (and down a hallway) away from the direction of their pistols; a guy a couple seats over from me yelled "What the hell are they shooting at?". Sometimes, the annoying "vocal" crowd at this terrible theater can actually add to my enjoyment.

PLEASE, GO ON...

Metamorphosis (2007)

SEPTEMBER 9, 2010

GENRE: VAMPIRE
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

A hefty portion of my 1500+ reviews have been from DVDs, but I do believe Metamorphosis is the first one in which one of the most significant bonus features was a Hungarian rap video. At least, I think they’re Hungarian – neither the video nor the end credits gives them a name or any sort of information about their existence. The movie’s from Hungary, as is the director, and the song is so ill-fitting (and terrible) that I have to assume they are friends of the director or one of the producers.

Well, it doesn’t matter. What matters is this: Metamorphosis is nothing like I was expecting. Based on the box art and description, I figured it was the usual sort of crappy DTV vampire movie with a few young folks getting picked off one by one, and that Christopher Lambert would appear in 2-3 scenes that had little bearing on anything else. But it had more to it than that; too much, in fact. It’s a damn slow movie, but once Lambert shows up as a vampire and begins wreaking havoc around the castle, it’s pretty fun. Also, it’s not the first horror film to use the Elizabeth Bathory story as a backdrop, but it’s the rare (only?) one that actually paints them in a sympathetic light (Lambert’s character is actually the last descendant of the family that was responsible for Bathory’s death), which is pretty cool.

But all the goodwill earned by letting Lambert chew the scenery and kill annoying folks (I truly hated all three of the American heroes, due to their terrible acting and even worse dialogue) gets tossed out the window when we get a twist that sort of negates the purpose of all the Lambert stuff. Worse, the twist needs to be explained over and over to the main character, who doesn’t believe it at first and then just won’t accept it. Seriously, the movie drags on for another 15 minutes after he first finds out the true nature of everything that has happened during the movie. A good twist has to come, sock the audience in the gut, and then lead to an ending no more than 3 minutes later. Can you imagine if say, in the Sixth Sense, Bruce found out he was a ghost and then spent another half a reel talking to the kid about it? “I’m a ghost?” “Yes.” “No way, that’s impossible.” “No, trust me, you’re a ghost.” “Really? Like, REALLY, I’m dead?” “Afraid so.” That’s pretty much what happens here. That it’s a damned stupid twist doesn’t make things any easier to swallow. If the movie had just ended when the bad guy got killed and the remaining heroes reunited, it would have been a minor success, instead of an almost one.

They’re also pretty loose with the vampire rules, basically just using the ones they like and dismissing the others with no rhyme or reason. Sunlight’s OK, but they still don’t cast a reflection. Also, we get this line: “If you’re a vampire, you can move freely through time and space!” Uh... huh? Since when is that a ‘thing’? I guess it explains the 1920s vamp in Dracula 3000 though. I’m all for changing the mythology a bit, but there has to be some sort of explanation for it. Why doesn’t sunlight hurt them? They just say “don’t believe everything you read” and that’s the end of the discussion. You mean the same thing I read that said you had no reflections, which IS part of your nature?

But all problems I had with the movie are washed away whenever Lambert is on-screen. I’ve long been a fan of his, ever since I saw Fortress back in 1993 (which remains my favorite Stuart Gordon movie). He’s got a limited range, but he’s a very unique action hero. And this is the rare time I’ve seen him play a villain, and he seems to be having a grand old time. His outfit (and hair) makes him look like he’s dressed up as Steven Seagal, and he gets to do his little laugh 3-4 times – it’s the only time the movie really comes to life, but it’s so enjoyable it actually makes up for the slowness in the first 50 minutes or so.

Another thing I liked was that neither he nor Elena Hoffman played their respective ancestors in the film’s opening sequence, which is truly rare for this sort of thing. You ALWAYS see actors playing the ancestors of their main characters in these prologues, which I never got – I’ve seen photos of my ancestors, I don’t look much like them at all, let alone EXACTLY like them (if you think about it, it’s sort of a slap in the face to the other side of the family that produced the person – i.e. if I was playing my dad’s great great grandfather in a prologue, what about my mother’s side?). Another nice touch was that Lambert wasn’t really playing a villain in his first (pre-vampire) scenes. Given the usual nature of big stars (compared to the others anyway) in these things, I really thought he was done with the movie when his (serious, seemingly decent) character died 10 minutes in, making his 3rd act reappearance as a villain a nice surprise.

Also there’s an old guy who looked a bit like Bob Shaye, so that’s cool.

The movie was shot in 2005, and first premiered at a festival in 2006, where it won awards for Hoffman and director Jeno Hodi. Clips of this are shown on the other bonus feature (the non Hungarian rap video one), which is a usual sort of EPK style 20 minute making of, albeit with Hodi providing commentary over the non interview portions, which is something I’d like to see more often. You won’t really learn anything earth-shattering, but it’s a well put together piece all the same. But I wanted to know why the movie took so long to see release – a lot of these things aren’t exactly hot from the oven, but 5 years is a long time, especially in this day and age, as the film is a vampire movie with romance – hardly a tough sell in the current Twilight/True Blood/Vampire Diaries climate. This should have been on shelves for people like me to rent at least two years ago!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...