Piñata: Survival Island (2002)

JANUARY 18, 2011

GENRE: CRAP, MONSTER, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: CABLE (SHOWTIME)

Earlier today, I posted my weekly "Terror Tuesday" article for Badass Digest, and the topic for this week was how I was getting sort of sick of people recommending me movies to watch while adding "it's so bad", because I find enough bad movies on my own. Such as Piñata: Survival Island (aka Demon Island), a woeful piece of shit that is already my front-runner for the worst movie of 2011. I guess it's karma for complaining about bad movies. "You think you've seen too many bad movies, asshole?" shouted the gods of cinema; "You haven't even seen Piñata: Survival Island!"

Fitting then, that the film starred Jaime Pressly, best known for starring on My Name Is Earl, a show built around the concept of karma. She's also recently known for being arrested for driving while intoxicated, but I think the judge will show leniency if she proves that despite starring in Piñata: Survival Island nearly a decade ago, this was the first time she felt compelled to get dangerously drunk. I would have downed a half-bottle of Ouzo after the first screening, personally.

Right off the bat I knew I was in for a tough ride, as the film began with at least six minutes' worth of voiceover explaining the legend of the damn thing. Since I knew the movie was about a killer piñata going after a bunch of college kids, I assumed the legend wasn't really that important to the actual plot (and I was right), but that wasn't what was troubling me - the overly serious tone was. This movie's about a fucking killer piñata, so I assumed that it was supposed to be funny (whether it actually WOULD be or not was another matter), but this endless opening suggested otherwise.

Then the kids showed up, and all hope for a good-natured borderline spoof of these things went out the window. All the actors were playing it straight, our leads were saddled with an inane relationship subplot involving his suspicion that she was cheating on him, and despite the fact that the reason they were on the island was for a panties scavenger hunt, no laughs, attempted or earned, were in sight. And they don't even bother sticking with the "quarreling couple" storyline for long; Pressly and the guy (Buffy's Nicholas Brendon) make up about 30 minutes in, not that their relationship status has a goddamn thing to do with their character actions for the rest of the film.

Now, I did laugh at the killer piñata attack scenes, because they were so gloriously awful. Despite my initial excitement at seeing that the Chiodo Brothers were responsible for the creature FX, it became clear, and quick, that their work was either done as a favor for someone they didn't really like, or replaced with someone else's CGI, because the monster was atrocious. The scenes where it attacked were edited so frenetically it became impossible to understand what was happening, and his size seemed to change from scene to scene as well. Every now and then you can catch a glimpse of what may have been a goofy but still kind of cool monster, but it vanishes before you can give it any sort of reverence.

Worse still are the numerous "Piñata POV" shots, where we see... actually I have no idea what we're supposed to be seeing most of the time. Occasionally you can make out one of the actors in the middle of the frame, but mostly it's just a big pink blob of nothingness covering the screen, with a little triangle (of a darker or lighter shade of pink) in the center for some reason. Weezer fan, perhaps? There are at least 50 of these shots in the movie, and I started to suspect that the movie was running short and they were tossed in to pad it out a little bit, with the excessive filtering as an attempt to hide that the shots had fuck all to do with the rest of the scene.

Then the climax comes, and the movie reaches all new levels of terrible. First of all it's so dark that it's difficult to tell exactly what they are doing or why that random 3rd character is a. screaming and b. not dead, since these sort of things should always come down to one or two people, not three. But then they just BLOW UP the supernatural monster that's spawned from the souls of a dead village. As with Dolly Dearest, it seems to me that simply blowing up an abstract thing like a soul won't work - even End of Days knew better and did that whole "faith" thing at the end. And then, I shit you not, CAMPUS POLICE show up to "investigate". They're not on campus - the movie takes place on a deserted island. What the hell kind of jurisdiction do these guys have?

Actually this final scene does serve some purpose, unlike the ones that preceded it. First, it doesn't hint at a sequel, so I have to laud them on that one - even they knew this thing would be doomed (it's the rare non-MST3k episode or Gigli level disaster that's in the bottom 100 on the IMDb, in fact). Second, the directors appear as two of the campus police, so now angry viewers will know what they look like. I discovered this when I went to seek out their other films on the IMDb, so I could be sure to avoid them, only to find out that this is actually the THIRD movie from the pair I've watched. Yes, David and Scott Hillenbrand are also responsible for the woeful early HMAD entry Gamebox 1.0, as well as Transylmania, their horrid vampire spoof that somehow got a theatrical release back in 2009. And as much as I disliked that movie, it was still better than this. If they can continue the same rate of improvement, I eagerly await the film they release in 2079, which by my math will be kind of OK. Until then, screw these two. This is the type of shit that makes me want to quit HMAD.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Event Horizon (1997)

JANUARY 17, 2011

GENRE: HAUNTED HOUSE, PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

I quite enjoyed Event Horizon when I saw it in theaters in the summer of 1997 (summer of Fishburne! I remember seeing Hoodlum around the same time), but for whatever reason never got around to watching it again, thus making it prime HMAD material since I could no longer remember who lived or died, what the origin of the horror was, etc. Also, I was sick of watching Netflix streams.

While it’s not as good as I remember, it’s still a good flick (easily Paul Anderson’s best), and deserved a better fate than grossing only about half of its production budget. I think part of why I was so relatively impressed back then is because it was a big budget horror movie, released at a time when such things were pretty goddamn rare. The Scream-influenced horror revival had not yet begun (I Know What You Did Last Summer would kick that off in another month or two), and as I’ve mentioned several times, the 90s, particularly the period from about 1993 to 1997, was as horror bare as any point in history. Other movies featured on the cover of Fangoria in 1997 include Spawn (a PG-13 superhero film with minimal horror presence) and Lost World, twice! (again, not really the atypical movie to be on the cover of Fango). So along comes this movie featuring both living and dead folks being tortured in Hellraiser-esque ways, most of the top-billed cast being killed off, a guy without eyes... holy shit! Real horror again!

But it’s easy to see the film’s crucial flaw on this second go around – it’s sloppy. Due to a rushed post production schedule and hampered by less than enthusiastic test screening responses (probably not a good idea to test an FX heavy film without its FX), a good half hour was cut from the film and some other crucial scenes were never even filmed. The beginning of the film is really un-user friendly, as we’re never really given a proper introduction to Sam Neill’s character, or any strong reason why the Lewis & Clark has to be the ship that brings him to deep space to investigate what appears to be a signal from the titular Event Horizon, a ship Neill designed that disappeared some years before.

Luckily, I just watched Alien a bunch of times while going through the (awesome) Blu-ray, and writer Philip Eisner was clearly drawing from that film when writing his, so I was able to fill in those narrative/character gaps with the explanations given in Alien, seemed to work OK. But still, it feels like the first half hour of the movie is condensed into 10 minutes – they’ve already arrived at the Event Horizon by the end of the first reel. And the rushed feeling continues – Sam Neill seemingly goes crazy right after he arrives (guess that could be a Shining reference – there are a few), we only get a few glimpses of what happened to the previous crew, Jason Isaac’s deepest fear is never explained which renders his ironic death just plain gratuitous... Yet, they left in one of the more clunky examples of foreshadowing I can recall, which just sticks out because it doesn’t really make any logical sense to me (that the ship would be pre-loaded with explosives just in case they needed to separate the two halves of the ship and use the non-exploded part as an escape shuttle - this is standard procedure?).

But yet it still works, largely due to the intriguing “Haunted house in space” scenario and the ballsy approach to killing its stars. I doubt few could accurately predict who would live or die based on the first half hour or so, and one death in particular (the first) is a wonderful shocker even on a second view. That they were largely more respectable folks than you’d expect in a movie this unabashedly R-rated (Kathleen Quinlan, Laurence Fishburne, etc) made it all the more fun/surprising. I also enjoyed how Eisner’s script and/or Anderson’s direction managed to find a way for every single cast member to dive sideways away from an explosion or some other danger throughout the course of the film (I’d screenshot but as you might have noticed if you’re a regular reader, this review is late enough as is due to the four hours of bonus features that I wasn’t aware the disc had).

I also impressed that the CG largely held up. Some of the exteriors are a little Star Trek-y, but the ship itself, the various explosions, etc, all look better than most films of the era do nowadays, and even better than some that followed (looking at you, The Mummy). This being a standard def DVD, maybe it wouldn’t survive the upgrade to Blu-ray, but even then I’m sure it could be considered one of the better examples of CGI during that 90s craze. It’s a shame Anderson doesn’t work more in the realm of realistic horror – all of his other films (AVP, Mortal Kombat, the Resident Evils) have a bunch of monsters and other crap, and they’re OK, but he’s clearly more comfortable using CGI to enhance what’s there instead of creating something from scratch.

The CGI work is the focus of one of the five lengthy featurettes that make up a 100 minute documentary about the film, created for this DVD. I always enjoy the “retrospective” look at a film, as the principals are now being more honest instead of pimping it to a potential audience. The CGI and production pieces are nothing special, but the first (about the film’s inception) and the last (post-production/release) are must sees, as everyone speaks very candidly about the film, while (correctly) hailing its attributes, such as the overall look of the film, the cast, etc. Speaking of the cast, the only one who came back to do interviews was Isaacs, which is a bummer, but I’m guessing Jack Noseworthy and Richard T Jones simply had better things to do.

The commentary is also worth a listen, as (again) Anderson is up front about the film’s shortcomings (including those for which he himself is to blame – at one point he’s like “I really screwed this scene up”) and speaks freely about some of the troubles they had with the studio (surprising on a studio-released disc), and producer Jeremy Bolt chimes in similar sentiments on occasion. But they also hadn’t watched the film for some time (I think they say it’s 2004 at one point?), so there’s a lot of silence too – I wish they had a second party watch the film and edited the two tracks together, but alas.

Then we get a lot of deleted material, sometimes just in storyboard form, others taken from VHS. Anderson narrates all of it, explaining why it was cut or never finished/shot, and while some of the scenes wouldn’t have helped much (the “rescue” for example), others, such as Neill’s meeting with his superiors at the beginning of the film, would have helped the narrative considerably. I also would have liked to have seen the full video of the EH team’s demise (where they, in Anderson’s words, “fucked each other to death”), but apparently most of the footage is gone forever, due to Paramount’s notoriously awful film storage practices.

There are also a few behind the scenes pieces (again with Anderson commentary), nothing particularly exciting but there is something I want to point out. In one, we see Fishburne running down the rotating tunnel (which Anderson says IS inspired by the common theme park attraction – yes!), and while the fireball is CGI, they still have a giant orange light sliding along behind him, in order to give him the proper lighting and thus have less work to do in CGI. And that’s the sort of thing I don’t think Anderson gets credit for – he’s actually a pretty good director. Can’t write worth a shit, and I would love to see what he’d do without Bolt (who I suspect may be the cause of some of the problems people have with Anderson’s films, though I can’t figure out why), but he does have a strong and smart visual sense, and this attention to detail (and more importantly, time consuming step to avoid having to “simply” light the actor with CGI later) is something I quite appreciate, and I wish more folks would stop giving the guy such a hard time. I don’t think any of his films are downright awful (though Death Race came close), and lest we forget – his PG-13 AvP movie is better than the R rated sequel that he had no involvement with. That should earn him a few points, right?

According to the fine print on the DVD, there is a novelization of the film – I’d love to read it, assuming it has all of the excised material. Anyone read it? Worth hunting down?

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Vampire Circus (1972)

JANUARY 16, 2011

GENRE: VAMPIRE
SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT VIEW)

For whatever reason, I had the foresight to not watch Vampire Circus at work a few days before as I had originally planned, since it boasted a PG rating and thus I figured it would be “work safe”. Far from it. In addition to some fairly graphic kills (the crossbow beheading is amazing), this movie has a ton of nudity, including a brief full frontal shot. I can only assume that the US PG version had all of this stuff cut, though it’s not mentioned in the “alternate version” section of IMDb, which makes it sound like it was just the violence that was cut.

Anyway, it’s a pretty good movie, though I spent a lot of it seeing ways it could be improved. Also learned from the IMDb, some scenes were never shot due to it running over schedule, which I guess would explain why it feels very choppy at times, with characters coming and going frequently, and some plot points explained over and over while others were left maddeningly vague. For example, the titular circus is supposedly distracting folks away from the plague, but the plague element is so minimal, I had actually forgotten about it by the time someone makes this point.

Yet, it has the longest goddamn prologue I’ve ever seen outside of a James Bond film. It’s an 87 minute movie and a full 13 are given to setting up the vampire’s beef with the folks in the town. I mean, it’s not too complicated - the children of a “dead” vampire try to revive him using the blood of the children of the folks who killed him. If they hadn’t spent so much time shooting this stuff, maybe they could have shot some more of the plague subplot, or perhaps a few establishing shots that would keep it from feeling so “loose” at times, especially in the 2nd act when they cut back and forth between the circus and the town with alarming and jarring frequency.

Or any scene with the strong man. I dig the “circus of villains” concept, but the Strong Man should have been left out. You get the creepy midget clown, the vampire ringleader, etc – and then the strong man, who just looks like he wandered out of a 3rd rate Hercules or gladiator movie. I also could have done without the scene where the townfolk storm the circus and kill many of the animals – who wants to see a poor monkey get gunned down? Plus, it dilutes the strength of the climax a bit – they once again storm the circus only this time they go after the people who actually pose a threat.

But it’s still a unique and worthy entry to the Hammer canon. I liked seeing the vampire tale taking place outside of the usual castles and foggy villages, and they don’t hold back on the carnage despite the plan to murder children. There are also a lot of wonderfully strange/creepy moments; I particularly liked when a would-be victim sees something watching her through some trees, but as they get closer we see it’s actually a guy with shiny “eyes” glued to the shin area of his pants for some reason. And even though the animation is a bit primitive, I liked the concept behind the blood dripping onto the dead vampire and being absorbed, instead of the usual “reverse footage of someone melting” stuff.

And it starred Lynn Frederick! I was smitten with her after seeing Schizo, and was hoping to see another film with her (she didn’t make many – she was sort of ostracized from Hollywood and died young due to heavy alcohol intake). She was only 17 at the time this was filmed, so it’s a bit creepy, but oh well – she was a comely lass. In fact pretty much all of the women in the film are fetching, adding to the allure and making me wish I was like 30 years older (which would make me about 20 when this movie came out, you see). HMAD reader Robert R. should have mentioned this when he recommended it - I would have got to it sooner!

Points off for pink blood though. I don’t get it – what was so hard about making fake blood back then? Maybe it just didn’t photograph the way it looked on set? I’m always baffled by this – it’s not like alien goo or something that no one has ever actually seen. At one point they toss it on some plants during a particularly confusing kill scene (it involved a panther) and I wasn’t sure if the victim had gotten killed or if someone was playing paintball nearby.

Now that Hammer is back, I think they should consider doing a modern version. Replace the plague with one of our wars (or even better: economic woes!), give the circus folk a little more depth, but retain the Nightmare on Elm St-esque “kill the children for revenge” motif, and you have a kick-ass modern horror movie. Just make sure the lead villain actor is a little better than Anthony Higgins is here – he overacts a bit much and looks more like a cheesy 70s singer (I kept thinking of Air Supply) than a vampire. His death scene is also unintentionally hilarious – I would bet money it was the inspiration for Paul Reubens’ death in the Buffy movie.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Eye Of The Beast (2007)

JANUARY 15, 2011

GENRE: MONSTER
SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT VIEW)

All I ask from my Maneater movies is that someone dies every 15 minutes, preferably at the hands (paws, claws, tentacles) of a giant monster or mutated animal of some sort. But Eye Of The Beast simply doesn't deliver, saving nearly all of its giant squid action for the film's climax, with only TWO brief attacks in the first 70 minutes. Christ, even Jaws had more action in its first two acts, and that's a legitimately great movie! The Maneater series should be concerned with quantity over quality, since they can't deliver on the latter on their budgets or affordable talent pool.

Hence why this movie has James Van Der Beek in the Richard Dreyfuss role. Nothing against the Beek - I was an avowed fan of the Creek and I enjoyed his work in The Plague. But the script gives him almost nothing to do beyond look at monitors and listen to other people talk, which is kind of shitty for a hero. It's not even clear if he wants to kill the thing or bring it back to be studied - it seems his primary motivation is looking good to the love interest, Sheriff Tomas, who claims to have seen the monster when she was a little girl and has been ridiculed ever since (much like Poltergeist III, I am again baffled by this - hot girl claims to see monsters/ghosts/whatever - I'm even MORE interested in her!).

So is there a Quint? You bet! Plague co-star Arne MacPherson is of course a total asshole to our heroes at first, but grows to respect them after realizing the Beek wants to nail Tomas. Seriously. They "bond" over the Beek smiling after he watches her leave the room. It's actually kind of creepy. Anyway, he's the best thing about the movie, because he gets attacked while sitting on a dock with his girlfriend, which is why he finally stops mocking the others and joins the cause to find it. And he survives, so he's got one up on Quint.

But it's just such a snoozer. There's a rival group of fisherman, and most of the movie is about the two groups claiming that the other group is responsible for the lack of fish lately. And the Beek's got some parental issues, and Tomas isn't experienced as a cop (the sheriff recently died and she just took over), and there are a trio of all-but-anonymous women who get a lengthy scene in a bar that I couldn't even begin to understand what purpose it serves in this giant squid movie; one of them we never even see again. It's a full 57 minutes into the movie before MacPherson's character gets attacked, the 2nd sighting of the thing in the movie after the obligatory opening scene, which features two young lovers getting attacked in the middle of the night (wonder where they got the inspiration for that?).

But that one doesn't really count, because it seems largely CGI and doesn't have a money shot. To give the movie some credit, the squid is mostly depicted via puppet or animatronic tentacles, with CGI limited to the blood spray (understandable, but still annoying) and the one shot of the whole monster that we ever see. But when it's a tentacle thrashing around or wrapping itself around folks (or tearing a dude's face off - yes!), it's either a real prop or the best CGI I've ever seen in one of these things (then again, Netflix's transfer wasn't particularly good, so perhaps the tell-tale signs of CGI were being obscured by low-res imagery). So props for that.

There's also a good example of someone being interrupted before getting to a juicy part of whatever story they are telling at an early point of the movie. I notice in a lot of movies, folks will be telling a story, and right before they get to the important part, they'll be interrupted by a phone call or someone knocking on the door, allowing the writer to reveal this big secret later in the movie. Here, Dawson is about to explain to his lady friend why he had some trouble at his job, when he sees a corpse of someone that got attacked (off-screen). Since they were walking along the beach looking for this person, it makes sense that she'd suddenly lose interest in the answer to her question (and so will we, since a dead body is vastly more interesting than whatever sort of "trouble" a marine biologist can possibly get into on the job. Unless he fucked a fish or something). See the movie The Innocents for a really obnoxious example (a couple of them, actually) of interrupted-exposition writing.

And the climax is actually a lot of fun, since a boat gets destroyed, the squid attacks frequently, and it gets killed by an electric javelin being tossed into its eye. Not too bad. If you were flipping channels and the 20 minute finale was just starting, you could be forgiven for thinking that this was an above average Syfy monster movie. But when you're watching the whole thing... it's almost impossible to be invested enough into the movie's generic story and stock characters to actually care about anything that happens until that point. Too little, too late.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Madhouse (1974)

JANUARY 14, 2011

GENRE: SLASHER
SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT VIEW)

Now THIS is a slasher! Actually, Madhouse is NOT a particularly good slasher, since the killer’s identity is blatantly obvious after about 20 minutes (tipped off from the very first line in the movie!), but it’s got great characters, some fun kills (double impale for the win!), and most importantly: both Vincent Price AND Peter Cushing in the same movie, and even interacting! They had both been in the same film before (Scream and Scream Again; were there others?), but this is like Heat – I’m pretty sure it’s the first time they shared a scene.

Unfortunately Cushing largely disappears after the first act, so their chemistry is not exploited to the fullest. Another scene or two with them together would have not only been fun (making it more Righteous Kill than Heat, I guess, if you want to keep the analogy going), but also would have possibly made the big reveal slightly less obvious, since (spoiler) it’s blatantly apparent that Cushing is the killer. Christ, Price’s character is living in the dude’s house and he’s still never around! And the first line of the film explains that Cushing used to be an actor but Price got more successful so he turned to writing – we have our motive before we have a killing!

But it’s still a lot of fun. Since Price plays an actor, he gets to poke fun at his image a bit, as he plays the star of a series known as Doctor Death, which sounds (and looks) completely ridiculous from the tidbits we get throughout the film. Sadly they didn’t create any actual Doctor Death footage for the movie in the movie; instead they use clips from Price’s other films (mostly the Poe ones), which is a bit awkward because Dr. Death is a skeleton looking dude and Price is always just plain Price in the clips we see, but whatever.

There are other little in-jokes throughout; Cushing dresses up like Dracula at one point, and Robert Quarry, who plays the guy we’re supposed to think is the killer, dresses as Count Yorga himself. There’s also a bit of meta-fun at the idea of them being rivals in the film, as Quarry was supposedly being groomed to replace Price as the go-to guy for these sort of things. Not sure if it worked – I’ve only seen him in the Yorgas and the Dr. Phibes sequel, but this is like the 15th Price movie from the era I’ve seen. Maybe it’s just the luck of the draw.

Speaking of Price's other films, this would make an awesome double bill with Theatre Of Blood (indeed, they are paired on the DVD), as both have him playing an actor, and there’s a lot of metaphorical truth to both films; in Theatre he’s frustrated with never being appreciated for his Shakespeare (read: non-horror roles), and here he’s a guy forced into doing the sort of thing he’s lost interest in (B horror movies). But perhaps ironically, he gives some of his best performances in these. The moment where he finds his fiancé dead shows a vulnerable side we don’t often see from the guy – good stuff.

I also enjoyed the movie’s odd anachronistic feel. Price travels from US to London by boat instead of flying, and everyone uses candelabras. Yet it’s definitely not a period film; he appears on cheesy talk shows and the cameras and other stuff for the Dr. Death TV show are all up to the standards of the time. Plus I’m always tickled by the way candles light the set in movies – it’s this little tiny flame but it can expose the entire room (and send it into complete blackness when blown out). It’s also frequently out of sync, a goof that charms me every time.

One thing I wasn’t sure about – were we supposed to think that Price could be the killer himself? He often leaves the room right before someone dies (unlike Cushing, who is clearly sitting with the others during one murder – whoops), and he hilariously runs away after seeing a body – way to throw off any suspicion, Vince. But even with this stuff, I never suspected him for a second (again, practically spelling it out that it’s Cushing in the first reel didn’t really help). I was also a bit baffled by his “death” scene – why does he suddenly go insane and begin rambling what sounds like Shakespeare or something? And why is his girlfriend suddenly made out of wax?

Oh well, nitpicks really. It’s a lot of fun, and I was surprised how slasher-y it was (actually more Giallo, since the killer had black gloves, but since everything made sense and the killer’s identity could be figured out it felt more slasher to me) – the kills are very Friday the 13th-y and there’s even a chase scene! Except instead of the virginal Final Girl, it’s Vincent Price, which just makes it awesome. A total delight, and probably my favorite movie of the year thus far (take that, uh... Ticking Clock).

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Maze (2010)

JANUARY 13, 2011

GENRE: SLASHER
SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT)

Someone asked what I thought of “Hoodie Horror” recently, and named some examples (Ils, F, Eden Lake). Until then I didn’t realize it was a sub-genre, and I still think it’s just a cheap way to work around the stressful process of designing a mask that will be cool, but either way, you can add The Maze to that group, as our killer is hidden by his red hoodie for the bulk of the film, and that’s about the only distinguishable characteristic he has until the final reel.

It’s also not until that final reel that the film becomes less than just another generic slasher movie, which is a shame since most folks will have checked out by then, and the reveal isn’t QUITE good enough to make up for the movie’s shortcomings. Had the characters been a bit more interesting, or if the scares/suspense weren’t so pedestrian, the reveal could be icing on the cake. Instead it’s like finding a really zesty Dorito in an otherwise stale bag; a nice surprise but not enough to validate the whole experience.

Part of the problem is the location – the titular maze. A corn maze can be scary, but it’s also as visually uninteresting a locale as you can possibly imagine, and the very nature of the thing (a MAZE) keeps you from ever understanding the geography, which is a problem in slashers. You need to know how far/close the characters are from each other, from safety, etc. When Laurie Strode backs into the closet and Michael enters the room, we understand how close she is to him and what his options are (the closet or out the window), which is what creates the tension. There’s no tension here, because I could never figure out any sense of the layout. It’s just corn. I spent half of the movie wondering why the characters weren’t constantly running into each other – it seemed like they were in the same rows, going by the visuals.

Plus they get there way too soon; by the 12 minute mark our characters have entered the maze AND split up (and that includes an opening flash-forward to the morgue attendant sifting through the remains of our eventual victims). It’s your titular locale – you need to build up to it a bit, and also develop the characters while you’re at it. The obvious Final Girl has some sort of tension with one of the other guys, but that’s about it for back-story or even distinguishing characteristics. It’s so dark in the maze, it was a bit hard to tell who was getting killed at times, because they hadn’t really given the characters any distinction even when it was light out.

The kills are pretty decent, thankfully. There’s a nice beheading, and the cute girl died way quicker than I expected, so that was a decent jolt (the scene leading to her death, with the killer taunting her with her glasses, was also pretty good). I could have done without the random phone call scene in the middle of the maze carnage though – it was jarring and it felt like padding. The maze owner also felt a bit like padding; I get that it was a bit realistic that he’d be nearby and come look around, but since he hadn’t been introduced prior, it just seemed shoehorned in rather than a natural part of the story.

But you’ll realize something is amiss when the Final Girl “kills” the killer and escapes the maze around the 55 minute mark. Either this movie has the longest end credit sequence in history, or there’s more to it than this. However, it’s a bit awkward – the movie is called The Maze and they leave the maze with over a half hour to go, and it feels like you’re watching the sequel to The Maze all of a sudden: “Picking up where the original left off, our survivor is taken to the police station to give a statement. Meanwhile, our not-dead killer is still on her trail...” Hell, we even stay with him for a while as he wanders around a bit, sort of stalks a girl at a convenience store, bums a ride off some annoying dude (Adam Johnson from Frozen), and finally gets around to revealing his true identity.

Now, this was a pretty inventive and unique twist, and I tip my cap to the screenwriters – I did not see it coming and it’s pretty cool to boot. BUT, the awkward transition from traditional slasher to cat and mouse thriller required a lot of adjusting; it would be like if you were watching a Hot Shots style parody for an hour and then it suddenly became a Neil Simon farce. It would probably work better on a second viewing, but it’s the surprise that makes it interesting, so I guess it would just cancel itself out. The final “gotcha” moment for the killer is pretty top notch though; again I laud the writers for doing something I haven’t seen before (the best use of a tape recorder since Saw!).

Oh, and I almost wish the end credits WERE the longest ever – the sequence is pretty great; an animation of bloody photos and random objects from the movie with the camera sweeping around. Good stuff.

It’s a bummer, because like I said, this could have been a really great slasher (technical aspects are all professional - more than I can say for the last corn maze movie I watched) with just a few key changes. Here’s what I’d do. When we first meet our characters, they are telling ghost stories, and had the opening flash-forward simply had a different climax, we could be tricked into thinking it was just their story and not a glimpse of the future – makes for a cool “ohhhh” moment once you figure that out. And they could be telling us these stories from a diner or something, instead of being on the side of the road for some reason, giving the film some much needed scenic variety (they’re on a typical Utah road – i.e. nothing around), and maybe having the opportunity to give the kids a little more personality. Then they go to the maze while it’s still open (in the daylight), allowing us to familiarize ourselves with the layout (or at least how far it was from civilization – there’s no establishing shot at all). They stay inside by choice or human error, and then the suspense/killings start up. And the twist could even play out the same way, but on location – the cops could come to the farm or whatever that the maze was part of, and then the killer could “come back” and do his thing there, instead of the awkward 10-15 minutes of him traveling to the police station. Add in some good better suspense/chase scenes and viola! A perfectly good modern slasher, instead of just a “kind of OK” one. What’s the statute of limitations on remaking indie movies?

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Uninvited (2008)

JANUARY 12, 2011

GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

The other day I wrote an article for Badass Digest about the five horror movie plots I was sick of seeing, but if I had written it after today I would have replaced one with “Woman Confined To Her House Deals With Shit” (Repulsion, Solitary, 100 Feet, etc). I like them OK enough, but I realized about halfway through The Uninvited that I just don’t care to see one ever again, either.

On that note, I don’t want to see another movie called The Uninvited for a while, either. This is I think the 3rd or 4th for HMAD alone!

Of course, maybe I’d feel different if the movie was any good – “Yes, more women confined to their home movies!” But alas, after a promising (but slow) opening, the movie just flies way off the rails, getting worse and worse (and more confusing), as if the writer was suddenly paralyzed with fear that he might never make another horror movie and had to toss in as many tropes as he could.

Let’s see, in the first hour of the movie we pretty much only see Marguerite Moreau and her husband. Other characters, like her friend (or sister, couldn’t tell) appear briefly, but they appear long enough to say their lines and disappear. But the last 20 minutes or so – there’s an old lady eating a baby arm, a zombie looking dude, a monster, and probably other shit that I missed while double checking the info on the DVD player to make sure I was watching the same movie. And her husband’s assistant, who appeared once early on as well, suddenly hijacks the movie, rambling about her baby – it actually took me a moment to remember who she was, because her character was so insignificant. I guess it’s nice to be surprised, but I shouldn’t be wondering “Wait, did I miss like, 20 minutes of this movie where we even knew this girl HAD a baby?”

And the movie never really capitalizes on Moreau’s phobia, which was the best thing about the film. We’re told that it’s not exactly agoraphobia, but instead the extreme opposite of claustrophobia – she wasn’t even comfortable in her own home unless she was looking at a wall that was in close proximity to her. So she can’t even look at the ceiling, because it’s too far away. It’s an interesting hook for a movie – it’s not that she can’t go outside, she can’t even peek around a corner or she’ll freak out. But it’s never really used in the movie. And it’s really awkward – the film opens with portions of a documentary about her illness, and then when the documentary stuff ends, she’s totally fine in the present day. So you’re thinking – her phobia comes back due to the killer or whatever this movie’s horror angle is, right? Well, not entirely. She has lapses and momentarily freaks out, but it never seems to get as full blown as we saw in the documentary, rendering the illness rather extraneous to the story – why not just say she’s agoraphobic (which is something we understand) and spend less time having to explain it, and then use that time to develop the other characters?

Especially her husband, who comes across as a creep from minute one and... turns out to be the bad guy. I had his motive pegged wrong – the couple has money issues so I figured he was intentionally trying to drive her crazy again to profit off of it somehow (he was the guy who made the documentary – what a fucking sleaze!). But who could have predicted his motive, when it comes out of nowhere and makes absolutely no sense (something about a baby for Satanists)? On the commentary, the director says he could make a sequel concerning what the husband was doing for the bulk of the movie – I’m all for it, as long as someone else writes and directs it.

He also alludes that the house wasn’t entirely appropriate to what he had in mind (something about no light coming in so it looked dark at all times), but says nothing about why the last 30 minutes of the movie don’t make a lick of sense. And since they all involve heavy makeup and other effects, he can’t blame the budget – those things were a waste of money, as far as I’m concerned. The husband could come back home and things could be explained perfectly well, but instead he tosses in all of these ghost/monster things (real or imagined) which just confuse matters. As with the documentary/phobia stuff, he’s inserting stuff that just crowds the movie and keeps what’s actually working about it from shining through.

He also doesn’t bother resolving other plot points. At one point Moreau’s friend/sister claims she saw her husband behind her and waving (they’re using Skype or something along those lines), when he’s supposedly not even home. Explained? Not that I could tell. And her phobia was caused by a childhood tragedy of sorts, which also goes maddeningly underdeveloped; there’s more about the porch she wants to build on her historical house (another vague plot point involves some murders that occurred there). I swear, it’s like they made 3-4 different movies starring Marguerite Moreau and edited them together at random.

Using Final Cut Pro! During the documentary sequence we also see the husband editing (and adding a cross fade transition – fancy!) the movie, and it’s definitely FCP, and more than likely the same system the movie itself was edited on. I’m not an FCP fan (of the big three it’s my least favorite, but that’s mainly due to my general PC > Apple attitude), but I am always delighted to see editing software in movies. I also enjoyed the (I think) deliberately cheesy editing in the documentary, with the pretentious shot of the chair being turned to face the world over the end credits. Hell, I think I’d rather just watch this whole documentary – it should have been a bonus feature on the DVD (all that’s there is the commentary).

Oh well. Interesting premise, admirably batshit twist, and Moreau carries the film, but as a whole it was too jumbled and sloppy for me. Shitty sound editing too – learn how to transition room tone!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Dolly Dearest (1992)

JANUARY 11, 2011

GENRE: PUPPET, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT)

Sometimes I wonder why there weren’t more Child’s Play ripoffs, but I think Dolly Dearest has the answer – the concept was just too goofy to work more than once. I suspect the reason that the sequels got increasingly silly (I hated the 5th movie) was because the scare factor only worked once, due to it being a rather new idea (having a genuinely good director in Tom Holland didn’t hurt). So it’s not too surprising that Dolly doesn’t really have a lot of doll action and adds a possessed little girl into the mix.

It also pretty much sucks. Writer/director Maria Lease kept switching gears too often; at first she seems to be suggesting that the little girl is possessed or just plain troubled by the doll and possibly might end up being the killer herself, but then the girl disappears for about 20 minutes while we switch focus to the doll factory, where we learn that ALL of the dolls are possessed. Then the movie stops cold so a nun and Rip Torn (playing a Mexican!) can explain everything to mom Denise Crosby. Finally, Torn and the dad who runs the factory decide to put an end to all of this nonsense, again leaving the little girl out of it. Imagine if Andy Barclay just disappeared from Child’s Play halfway through? One could assume she just did these things to distinguish her film from Holland’s, but all it did was make me appreciate that film all the more. Child’s Play is how you do a killer doll movie, and Dolly Dearest is how you don’t.

Having several dolls running around also hurts the movie. It’s funny, when Child’s Play 3 began and showed Chucky’s blood being dripped into a vat of plastic, I figured it would make several Chuckys – now I know what a potentially bad idea that would be. One doll is scary – it can hide, use your “it’s just a doll” attitude to its advantage, etc (I can’t believe I am dissecting this). But with a whole bunch of dolls, it’s just another tiny killers movie like Critters or whatever. Worse, the doll has no personality whatsoever. It utters a few “creepy” lines here and there like “Come play with me!” or whatever, but it’s all generic crap like that, and its signature move seems to be scurrying around in the background while the actor in the foreground looks in the wrong direction.

The humans aren’t much better. Again, Rip Torn plays a Mexican, so there’s some inherent value in that, but the family members are terribly bland, with the exception of the son who is just plain annoying. And poor Lupe Ontiveros, playing one of her several hundred housekeeper roles, is also stuck playing another stereotype – the superstitious Catholic who has to carry crucifixes around at all times and pray in every other scene. She’s also the first to die though, sparing her from being the one to explain everything later (the nun does that – it’s her character’s sister, natch).

And the ending! I’ve never seen something so incredibly botched and sloppy. Sam Bottoms (the dad) and Torn decide to blow up the factory with all the dolls. I’m of the opinion that blowing up an ancient curse wouldn’t work – can’t the giant blob of animated red light that we saw at the beginning of the movie just transfer to something else? But anyway, that’s their plan. And we see the dolls running around and putting out all of the dynamite that they are tossing around, but nothing comes of it! They don’t even seem to notice, and the place blows up good anyway, rendering every single shot of the dolls putting the dynamite out completely worthless. And really, it’s that simple – they just run around with dynamite, blow it up, and the movie’s over. Hell, Torn even survives! I figured the only reason he was in the movie was to provide it with one last death in the climax, since they can’t kill anyone in the family, but no, he runs out with Bottoms and then their stunt doubles jump out of harm’s way. Screw you, movie. I had my heart set on a Rip Torn version of “Ay dios mio!” and you took it from me.

Oh, and you can’t pass off Santa Clarita for Mexico. Even before I double checked on the IMDb, I was like “This doesn’t look like Mexico to me. I’m pretty sure I saw that road on the way to play paintball last month.” Next time I go play paintball I will ask the locals where they shot the movie, and then I will shoot the hell out of that studio (with paint).

And this fucking thing is on the cover of Fangoria, so if Ms. Lease ever does a public appearance I’m going to have to talk to her so I can get her autograph (since I finished my quest to obtain every issue of Fango, I picked up another – getting every cover signed by the director of the movie on it). The hell am I going to say? “Hey, nice to meet you... I really liked, uh... the end titles, because at least they spelled Lupe Ontiveros’ name right on those (they didn’t in the opening credits).”

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Dead Space: Aftermath (2011)

JANUARY 10, 2011

GENRE: ALIEN, PSYCHOLOGICAL, VIDEO GAME
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

OK, I don’t keep up with anime – is this “let’s have 5-6 different animation teams do a single narrative” approach the common thing now? The first Dead Space animated movie, Downfall, had just the one team (at least for the characters), but now the 2nd, Dead Space: Aftermath follows the Dante’s Inferno-style method of knocking you right out of the narrative every 15 minutes or so by changing animation styles. And it’s a shame, because it’s otherwise a pretty good movie, and got me even more pumped to play the game (which is the only reason it exists, I’m sure).

Luckily, it’s not AS jarring as Inferno, because there’s at least some sort of rhyme and reason behind the animation shifts, whereas in Inferno it just happened every now and then without fanfare (sometimes even mid-scene). Aftermath’s narrative employs flashbacks, as the four survivors of a space disaster recount their tale one by one. So one team handles all of the present day stuff, and then each time someone tells their part of the tale, we get a new team. However, it’s still disorienting, and often difficult to tell which character is which at first, especially in the case of the Borges character, who becomes black in one team’s version. If not for the fact that I recognized the actor’s voice (it’s Carlos from Desperate Housewives!), it probably would have led to a lot of confusion as the film went on.

Also, the flashback animations all looked really good, but the “wraparound” stuff (3D CGI) seemed looked a bit too simplistic, like they were barely past the animatic stage – no detail on the faces, bland backgrounds, etc. This makes the shifts even more awkward – you go from a detailed cel-based version of a character to something that looks like a PS1 cut-scene. I understand that animated films require a lot of folks and that these things probably don’t have the biggest budgets, but the first movie didn’t suffer from this problem, and now Dead Space is a proven IP – surely they could have gotten the money required to make the thing visually consistent. But as I said, I don’t follow anime much – maybe this is just how they do things now.

I do follow movies about space monsters though, and this is a pretty good one. The flashback structure actually works quite well – they don’t waste much time on the characters we know didn’t make it, and the journey showing how they got from the beginning of the story (on a planet that’s about to implode) to the end (on a spaceship not unlike the one you were on in the first game) was more complex and interesting than I expected at first. It goes into surprisingly morbid territory too – one guy snaps and kills his wife and baby, and another keeps seeing the ghost of his daughter (who was seemingly hit by a car – another grim moment) wandering around everywhere, which usually causes him to freak out and kill someone.

It also does a good job of fitting into the existing universe without being impenetrable to those who are new to the Dead Space franchise. Game hero Isaac Clarke is only mentioned at the very end of the film, and as far as I can tell, all of the characters we follow are specific to this story (they take a while to explain why one dude is missing an arm though – until that point I figured he was from one of the other stories but he explains about halfway through that it was a mining accident). The Dead Space universe has spanned five games, a comic, two novels, and now two animated films – there’s a lot of backstory and mythology to work with, but even though I’ve only played the first game and seen the other movie, I wasn’t lost or even momentarily puzzled as to what they were referring to. However, the stuff involving the “marker” might be a bit vague to newcomers; I’d suggest at least reading a few Wiki entries to get up to speed on that aspect, if time is short and you don’t have time for the game.

And it has a lot of references! The ship is called the O’Bannon, which better be an obvious reference to anyone watching horror movies set in space. One of the minor characters plays Dante’s Inferno on his space-PSP (and points out that the movie is better – heh), and the ending is pretty much an homage to Armageddon, as someone has to stay behind and press a button manually in order for the mission to succeed. With the animation shifts annoying me, these minor moments of levity helped even things out.

I could have done without the profanity though (I know, ironic). The occasional F-bomb is fine (the movie IS R-rated after all – there’s even some nudity), but it sounded excessive at times; Ricardo Chavira’s character would often drop it twice in one sentence (like, “Stop fucking around or I will fucking kill you!” or whatever). I also wouldn’t have minded another action scene with the monsters; they have less of a presence here than I remember from the first movie.

The DVD and Blu are pretty bare-bones though; the only extra is a trailer for the game, which shows off some of the (awesome) new monsters and reveals that Isaac actually talks this time (he never uttered a word in the first game, even in cut scenes). I didn’t love the first game, due to that and the repetitive nature of the missions, but it looks like those issues have been fixed for this one (there’s also multiplayer), and I never got too tired of shooting up Necromorphs once I had maxed out my weapons. So I’m certainly feeling the itch to play the sequel, and the movie certainly played a part in that. It’s a bit short (only 76 minutes, including lengthy end credits and a full minute or so of “ so and so company presents” at the beginning), but it’s an enjoyable blend of psychological and monster action (shades of Pandorum), and I think animation buffs will enjoy seeing how different teams interpret the characters.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

And Soon The Darkness (2010)

JANUARY 9, 2011

GENRE: SURVIVAL, THRILLER
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

Possibly the least essential remake yet, And Soon The Darkness is an update of an early 70s British chiller, but released about 3 years after the whole “never go vacationing!” genre had lost steam thanks to the back to back to back box-office failures of Turistas, Hostel 2, and The Ruins (all of which I liked, by the way). Since then we’ve had a bunch of DTV efforts, but mostly they were “original” films and/or had something new to bring to the table, such as Thirst which didn’t really have any enemies either than nature itself. Darkness, on the other hand, brings absolutely nothing: it’s both yet another goddamned remake and yet another goddamned movie about how traveling to exotic countries will get you killed.

The only thing the movie had going for it, script-wise, was the usual fun of trying to guess which of the mysterious townspeople were bad, and which were trying to ward away our heroes before they got hurt. Karl Urban’s character is a good example – it’s not until very late in the film that you can finally definitively say that he’s not in cahoots with the villains (and then, hilariously, he sells out our heroine in order to save his girlfriend). But “someone” (likely a producer) decided to add in a scene at the beginning of the film showing a girl (Urban’s girlfriend, I think) being tortured, complete with a quick but not quick-enough shot of her tormentor, whom we meet 15 minutes later hitting on Odette Yustman’s character. So right off the bat, a big chunk of the mystery is “solved”, and many of the other local characters never reappear again – I’m still not sure if the hotel keeper was trying to help them or not.

Worse, the opening scene, as well as a couple of quick cuts to Odette’s kidnapping and later peril, wipe away much of the mystery of the disappearances. If you think about the great kidnapping thrillers – The Vanishing, Breakdown, etc – you’d realize that in those movies, we are kept in the dark for a long time as to whether or not the victim is dead or alive. Hell even yesterday’s Short Night For Glass Dolls had that much going for it (if anything it took TOO long to get to the reveal). Not so much here – we know Odette is tied up, being given water, etc. Only the actual motive for her (and many other girls) being taken is hidden until the end, but the fact that they are all young females should be a pretty big hint.

And it doesn’t help that Amber Heard literally just stumbles upon Odette and her kidnapper. I don’t know if it was a budgetary issue or a matter of filmmaking limitation (on the commentary the director alludes to having to rewrite certain parts of the film due to actor/location availability), but she follows a cop out into another “middle of nowhere”, walks around for a while (not following the cop anymore), and suddenly just wanders into the room where Odette is being held. There’s no tension or surprise whatsoever, and it just renders most of the movie idiotic – if she can just literally walk into a room and find her friend, why hasn’t anyone else been able to do this?

Thus, the only real reason to watch the movie is to ogle the two leads and/or the beautiful Argentina scenery, all of which looks spectacular on Blu-ray. Those hoping for some nudity from the leads will be very disappointed; the film probably could have gotten a PG-13 if anyone fought for it. Both girls are decent enough actresses, but the script does them no favors – they’re both idiots. Odette is supposed to be the more carefree and reckless one, but Amber’s character doesn’t even know basic Spanish phrases (you’d think a “responsible” one would at least understand that much before heading off to a Spanish speaking country for weeks), and the reason that they get into trouble starts when they decide to go out to a bar AFTER bemoaning how early they need to get up in order to get the last bus out of town. Oh, and they DO miss the bus, aided by one of the sillier reasons for the alarm not going off in movie history – a guy banging on the wall makes the plug fall out.

Now, I haven’t seen the original, so for all I know these silly plot contrivances were taken straight from that, but if so we can just go back to my original point – why was this movie made? We have dozens of similar movies at our disposal, all of which provide both more interesting reasons to kidnap folks (forced breeding, organ donating, etc). The original isn’t particularly well revered – I doubt there was much of an uproar about them remaking it, but I would be pretty disappointed to discover that this was actually an improvement. The leads are all likable and somewhat popular, but few would be drawn to the film based on one of their names alone; even I don’t bother watching anything with Odette that’s not horror, and I think she’s one of the hottest new actresses in ages.

(Note: if you agree with me – you will very much enjoy her “karaoke” scene. #divinyls)

The commentary doesn’t really shed any light on the matter. Even though director Marcos Efron also co-wrote the script, he speaks little about the story, the original, or what drew him to the project in the first place. He and his co-commentators (the DP and the editor) gush much about the cast and crew and frequently comment about how good everything looks (and rightfully so – it’s a technically proficient* and wonderful looking film, and SHOT on film to boot), but have almost nothing to say about, say, why they decided to remake a nearly 40 year old film in the first place. And there are about 7 minutes of deleted scenes, but none are necessary in the slightest (though one at least pays off the “subplot” of the strange homeless man who is always around; in the film itself he just disappears like most of the other supporting players). The director’s diary is largely useless, unless you’re a budding DP or something, because it’s interesting to see how much color grading went into some of the climactic scenes when they show on-set footage of them being shot next to the finished product.

I guess if you’ve never seen a single one of the previously mentioned films, you might find this entertaining, but otherwise – everything in the movie has been done better. For a while I was considering maybe that the film was shot 4 years ago and just being released now, but they say Urban had to leave the shoot to do press for Star Trek, which places it in early summer 2009. Still a bit of a delay, sure, but still long after these movies had worn out their welcome. I’m up for a revival, but it needs to be something totally unique, the way Nightmare on Elm Street revived slashers after the post Halloween/Friday the 13th wannabes had died out. But this ain’t it.

What say you?

*For the most part, anyway. I don’t usually notice continuity errors, but the flower in Amber’s ear drove me insane – it disappeared and reappeared several times, and then actually switched ears before she finally got rid of it for good.

PLEASE, GO ON...

Short Night Of Glass Dolls (1971)

JANUARY 8, 2011

GENRE: GIALLO (?), THRILLER
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

When I tweeted that I would be watching Short Night Of Glass Dolls (Italian: La Corta Notte Delle Bambole Di Vetro), I pointed out that it was one of the Giallo-est Giallo titles of all time. So it was kind of funny that the movie itself was barely an actual Giallo (despite being included on a set from Blue Underground titled “The Giallo Collection”, which would suggest that these were the crème of the crop), as it featured only one or two on-screen kills, no actual murderer, and almost no misogynist dialogue whatsoever.

However, it WAS pretty good, or at least, the last act was. It’s a VERY slow burn – it takes about a half hour for the girlfriend of Jean Sorel’s character (our hero) to disappear, which is what basically kicks the thriller plot off. And then he wanders around for nearly an hour looking to find out where she went and why, but he’s a pretty lousy investigator, since the bad guy just explains everything to him. It kind of reminded me of Eyes Wide Shut at times, since the answers involve both secret societies and orgies.

But it has one key difference: he’s “dead” (spoiler). About a third of the movie actually takes place in a morgue or hospital, where Sorel has been taken after his body was found in a park. The twist is, he’s not actually dead yet – he’s just extremely paralyzed (Nikki and Paulo style!). So the movie actually cuts between the present day, with him in the morgue, about to be autopsied, and with him in the past, flashing back to how he got to that point (again, like Nikki and Paulo – the Lost writers must have seen this). They cut to this stuff a bit too often - it’s very repetitive (obviously he can’t wake up or really die until the movie’s almost over, so it kind of limits how much they can do in these scenes) and sometimes a bit jarring; they could have used a transition or sound effect (like, er, Lost) to signify when they were flashing back and forth, but it’s a cool idea all the same, and helps prevent the first part of the story from being too thrill-challenged.

It’s got some really creepy moments sprinkled throughout, and I was additionally entertained due to the fact that I couldn’t always tell if the creepiness was intentional or not. For example, there’s a scene with a scientist talking about something he’s done to a tomato, and behind him is an assistant or student of some sort, staring at him without any sort of movement whatsoever, as if he was paralyzed too (or just a really bad actor/extra). I also enjoyed the scene on the bridge, where Sorel was to meet someone with some answers, who ALSO just stood there motionless.

There’s also some light sleaze, which of course I enjoyed. Sorel’s best friend spends a scene groping a girl who doesn’t seem to mind, and when he goes to a library he catches a couple (also with much groping) in one of the aisles, which he smiles at. But nothing could have prepared me for the climax, where the villains (aging high society members who wish to retain their power and youth) are all naked and gyrating around; the average age of the breasts on-screen is around 75 years too-old. And the Grindhouse patron in me had to cheer when Sorel (who is spending the movie looking for his girlfriend, remember) beds the older lady who is helping him. You sly dog.

Another thing I appreciated was the dubbing, which was better than usual. I’m always puzzled why the original Italian isn’t made available on these “special editions”, but at least the dubbed track was acceptable. There are a few instances where the dialogue overlaps due to something apparently taking longer to say in English than in Italian, but the lip matching is pretty close and the actors are putting effort into it. Not dubbed is the disc’s only real extra, an interview with the writer/director, the anagrammically named Aldo Lado. As is often the case with these old Italian guys, he’s hilariously blunt and honest (one anecdote refers to punching the DP after he referred to the movie as a piece of shit), but he’s got a good memory too, unlike some of the others. He also explains the rather baffling title – apparently it was supposed to be “Short Night Of Butterflies”, which makes sense since butterflies are part of a plot point, but there was another movie with “Butterfly” in the title, so it was changed later despite “Glass Dolls” not having a goddamn thing to do with the movie, as far as I could tell.

If you enjoyed movies like Bava’s The Girl Who Knew Too Much, this should be up your alley, but the lack of traditional Giallo elements might disappoint some (at least if they are expecting them – I started enjoying the movie a lot more after 40 minutes or so, when I got up and checked to see if this was really a Giallo and found similar sentiments on its IMDb page). It’s not particularly great, but it’s got some interesting ideas (and an Ennio Morricone score!) and a fun finale. Just takes some effort to get there.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...