World War Z (2013)

JUNE 22, 2013

GENRE: ZOMBIE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

I normally don't read a book that's due to be a movie until I've seen the latter (I've explained why dozens of times; to sum up - I know the book will be better, so why ruin the enjoyment of a new movie by noticing what's "missing"?), but as it turns out, the only thing World War Z takes from Max Brooks' (terrific) novel is the title and the basic premise of a realistic, global account of a zombie epidemic. 99% of all zombie films focus on a small area and leave a few radio/TV broadcasts to fill in the details of how it's spreading (via "Just heard... New York is gone!" type dialogue), but WWZ takes place in the US, Israel, South Korea, and Canada (replacing the original Russian location; more on that soon), and features more airborne sequences than movies about pilots. It is truly an epic adventure that shares just as much DNA with a James Bond movie as a typical zombie flick.

So it's kind of ironic that it's best moments are the ones that are straight out of any Romero wannabe. I particularly enjoyed a bit where hero Brad Pitt and his family stop at a grocery store to find inhalers for one of the daughters (if there was no such thing as asthma or diabetes, a lot of movies would have trouble creating an easy obstacle for their heroes). It's a scene filled with little surprises; when Pitt goes to find the inhalers and a man steps from the shadows with a gun, he doesn't rob/loot Pitt, but helps him find what he's looking for, and when a cop arrives after a scary situation, we see that he's there not as an officer of the law, but as a man desperate to find baby food and supplies for his own family. The best parts of the book were the smaller, personal stories set against the larger backdrop, so while the movie fails to adapt anything specific from it, they at least got the general tone mostly right.

Same goes for the (rare) focused zombie scenes. Those swarms of anonymous (and 99% digital) zombies scaling walls or whatever may look impressive and provide the trailer with its needed money shots, but in the film itself they're nothing more than empty spectacle. I much preferred the scaled down bits, like when Pitt and co. are racing up some stairs to get to a rooftop rescue with a few undead in pursuit, or when he and the other passengers on a plane work together to quietly block their section of the plane off from the tail section, where the zombies have begun biting their way through the other passengers. The larger scenes, such as the siege on Israel (as massive as it gets, really) are fine on their own, but with Pitt being the only character around that we know or care about (and the movie not close to ending), they lack any sense of terror. The PG-13 rating keeps things from getting too violent or gory, and that's fine - but there's not much excuse for being just plain ol' unscary.

Unfortunately, the "Pitt and a bunch of randoms" is a problem that continues throughout the movie. His family is safely kept on a battleship by the end of the first act, and from then on he's always on the go, meeting folks (many of whom don't even have names; David Morse is merely "Ex-CIA Agent") who either die or stay behind as he moves on yet again. The entire third act involves an attempt to locate an important sample from a lab at an overrun CDC type place called the World Health Organization, and the four people on staff who are there are collectively billed as "WHO Doctors" - they are the main focus for a 30-35 minute chunk of the movie and don't even get identifying traits to credit them properly! And poor Matthew Fox ("Parajumper" - a funny name anyway, even funnier when you consider we never see him do that) saw nearly all of his role left on the cutting room floor when the movie was reshot - he was originally a sort of human antagonist but is now only briefly glimpsed in a few shots.

Ah yes, the 3rd act. You can look around for details on what it originally was, but suffice to say (with minor spoilers ahead, but keep in mind this IS a PG-13 summer blockbuster released by a major studio) it's now much different, and less sequel oriented. Not that everything is tied up by the end, but the other "ending" stopped short of ANYTHING that could be considered a proper climax; Pitt was basically still out there looking for his family AND the cure, where at least the new ending resolves one of those things. I can't say which is BETTER since I haven't seen it (it SOUNDS pretty interesting, at least), but I will say that we lost even MORE of the film's already loose ties to the novel as a result, and that the new ending, while enjoyable as its own mini-movie, definitely doesn't jive with the rest of the narrative. For over an hour we're watching this global, epic-scale adventure, and then suddenly we spend the final two reels focused on a few rooms and a basic fetch mission (it's also easy to see that they didn't want to blow much MORE money on their new ending; replace Pitt with some guy from the Syfy channel and you have any Saturday night movie with regards to how expensive it looks).

So it's not a perfect film by any means, and bears more than a couple telltale signs of a reworked production, but it's nowhere near the disaster some folks had feared. Despite the involvement of Damon Lindelof, the plot is refreshingly straightforward - no "vague for the sake of vague" plotting or twist shenanigans. I would have liked them to do a better job explaining why Pitt's character is roped back into the UN (he has retired to be a stay at home dad) when he doesn't seem to possess any special skills beyond the ability to listen while people explain their situation to him, but I guess it's just shorthand - he's Brad Pitt, so naturally we want him to save us all (George Clooney was presumably quickly located and brought to safety). And again, we've never really seen anything quite like this for a zombie movie, so we can forgive a few missteps; if the whole movie was set in an isolated farmhouse or underground bunker, then its low points would be much harder to swallow. Not sure if Paramount wants to pursue it as a franchise as they originally intended after all the problems they had getting this one together (reports say there are, but I can show you a few articles about when Brandon Routh will be suiting up for a Superman Returns sequel too), but at least it paid off - the movie secured a HUGE opening weekend gross (Pitt's highest ever, in fact) and will be the all time highest grossing zombie film by the end of the week. Not too shabby for a movie everyone wrote off as a disaster a couple months ago. And as a bonus, it's a pretty enjoyable blend of typical summer action movie and zombie flick.

What say you?

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You're Next (2011)

JUNE 19, 2013

GENRE: SLASHER, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (FESTIVAL SCREENING)

I thought I had written at least a capsule review of You're Next when I saw at Fantastic Fest back in 2011, but apart from an article I wrote for BadassDigest bemoaning the fact that Lionsgate was sitting on it for too long (as it turns out, I was being optimistic!), I guess I never did. I assume it's for the same reason I'm about to put in words here as a full disclosure - I am friendly with a couple folks from the cast and crew, including the writer and director - but now that I've seen the trailer and marketing for the film, I thought I'd at least offer up my two cents as well as "spoil" a certain thing about the movie (not about its plot, don't worry!) that the advertising ignores. Also keep in mind this is the same team that made my least favorite segment of V/H/S/2, so if you want to claim I'm biased, there's some precedent to the contrary.

Anyway, I quite like the movie, and was happy to see it held up to my initial reaction from that long ago screening. Yes, it's unfortunate that LG sat on it for too long and now idiots will claim it's a ripoff of The Purge since both films deal with a family being terrorized in their own giant home by people with creepy masks, but trust me when I say that this is the superior film. Unlike the other film, it's always clear where the characters are in relation to another, and while the exterior of the house suggests potential for more chase/hide n' seek style scenes than we actually get, the location is utilized wonderfully. It's big enough to understand how something can happen (i.e. a murder) without the others hearing, but not so big that you feel "lost" and disoriented - because it's THEIR home and thus they should know every nook and cranny even if the lights are out (an ability the heroes in The Purge didn't seem to have). And speaking of locations, even though it's an isolated home in a remote area, there's an in-movie reason that the cell phones don't work (a jammer) instead of the usual "there's no service out here!" crap, which I appreciate.

Also, it's scary. Granted it's been a while, but I jumped TWICE, which is pretty rare anyway let alone for one I have already seen. And the crowd (men and women alike) were getting jolted much more often, of course (also if you're not familiar with the site, please don't take this as "I'm too tough to be scared" - it's just something that rarely happens that I chalk up to desensitization due to watching horror at a very young age). I've mentioned this before, but there's something that's more depressing/upsetting about seeing a family wiped out as opposed to the usual gang of teenagers, and even though they're dysfunctional and obviously don't get together too often, the movie is still able to take advantage of that inherent "Oh the boyfriend and the bitchy wife will die, sure, but the family unit will be safe" feeling we have sort of built into our subconscious after seeing so many other horror films that DON'T have the balls to say, let a daughter die right in front of her parents.

But while it works on that typical survival level, it's not without crowd-pleasing moments. A few of the kills are frustratingly off-screen or edited around (so we see a weapon swing in closeup and cut to said weapon already embedded into a person's head), but they often have a Friday the 13th sensibility - I particularly enjoyed the upside down blender attack. Even a couple of the good guy deaths carry that perverse sense of humor you see in the Final Destinations or whatever, like when someone makes a run for it in a big hero moment only to be killed almost instantly. The body count is pretty high by the end, and the movie effectively balances our need to care about the people being killed and our desire to see some splatter and cheer for it - it's a tough act to pull off, and kudos to director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett for getting it pretty close to exactly right.

And that leads me to what I mentioned earlier - the movie is a lot funnier than the ads would have you believe. Yes, it's scary and dark and thus not a "horror comedy", but there's definitely a sense of humor to the proceedings. The dinner scene is damned hilarious, with the brothers (AJ Bowen and Joe Swanberg) sniping at each other, the daughter's filmmaker new boyfriend (Ti West) trying to explain what an "underground" film festival is, etc. And their fights continue even when the killers start attacking; Swanberg can't help but say Bowen's character is too fat (he's not fat) to be of any use to run for help, leading to another fight that you can barely hear because the crowd is laughing so hard. And without spoiling the particulars, the main bad guy's final dialogue moment had this audience laughing just as hard as they were in Austin, where I could hear the reaction from the bathroom because I couldn't hold my bladder any longer and (stupidly) assumed I wasn't going to miss much for the next 60 seconds. I guess in a way it's a smart approach, as it can be a surprise bonus to intelligent viewers, but sadly any horror film will attract some folks that simply aren't that bright, and thus they'll mistakenly assume the movie is just being "retarded" (as the idiot behind me described a moment that was, yes, SUPPOSED to be funny). So I figure if I can just let a few people know that the humor is intentional so that they can appreciate it all the more when they see the movie in August, it's worth the "spoiler".

Really, there are only two things about it I'm not completely on board with, and the first is minor though SOMEWHAT spoiler-y (I'll be as vague as possible) - at the end we discover a certain character was not meant to be harmed, but someone was very definitely trying to kill her/him at one point only to be thwarted at the last second by an outside element. It's one of those things that no one will notice on a first view, but on a second it stuck out as a bit of a cheat, making a scene out of something that logically made no sense (its akin to all those bits on 24 where someone will save Jack Bauer from certain death by anonymous goons in an isolated firefight, only to be revealed as one of the terrorists 3 episodes later). The other, more problematic one is Wingard's obsession with shaki-cam, which is thankfully much improved since A Horrible Way To Die, but in a way just makes it more jarring when he does it. It's particularly obnoxious during the dining room attack, with the camera bobbing and swishing around at random to give a sense of the chaos, but they go way overboard with it. Thankfully most of the big scenes keep it in check, but it's almost like he was saving his strength to jerk it around even more during those other moments.

But those are both dwarfed by what the movie gets right, and again, I'm happy to say it holds up on a second view, something I worry about when I like a movie as much as I did this the first time (where I was also a bit inebriated, hence the bladder problem). Not sure if that's quote-worthy ("I enjoyed it even when I was sober!" - Brian Collins, Horror Movie A Day would look nice on a poster, no?), but it's worth noting all the same. August 23rd, folks - don't let the long delay trick you into thinking this was something they were trying to hide. I truly believe they wanted to make sure that they had time to market this one properly and build up a buzz (no one could have predicted The Purge; hell it wasn't even SHOT until after You're Next showed at those festivals that got it picked up by the Gate in the first place), so let's reward them by packing those theaters in two months.

What say you?

P.S. The film was preceded by the short "The Apocalypse", which I had seen before but only online - was great to see with a crowd. It was also great to see post-This Is The End, as Martin Starr (who stars in the short) was reduced to a background extra in that film, so this sort of makes up for it. "I made a puddle!". Highly recommended, I believe it's online as well.

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Delivery (2013)

JUNE 18, 2013

GENRE: MOCKUMENTARY, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (FESTIVAL SCREENING)

I may be burned out on the "found footage" concept in general, but that's only because so many movies have done it wrong, and thus giving me a slight knee-jerk reaction to any such title that I stumble upon as of late. But IF they're done right, I can be won over, and thankfully Delivery (which premiered tonight at the LA Film Festival) mostly nails the approach, allowing me to forgive some of its missteps. Hell even if they got it totally wrong, the fact that it's not about a team of paranormal investigators automatically makes me like it more than the last 5-6 that I've suffered through.

To be clear, it's not a traditional found footage movie - our heroes Kyle and Rachel are actually starring in a reality show that depicts the ups and downs of their first pregnancy. To sell this idea, after a prologue that tells us that the mother is now dead and that this is something that happened in 2009, we are treated the the pilot episode of "Delivery", and director Brian Netto totally nails the tone/editing/style of a terrible TLC reality show. The constant establishing shots, the fly on the wall "personal moments" that are bookended by talking head interviews, cheesy music... it's all there, and you could easily strip out the occasional interruption of the horror angle and put it on one of those channels without anyone being aware that it was staged (well, more staged than an actual reality show, I mean).

Towards the end of the "pilot", Rachel suffers what seems like a miscarriage; she's bleeding and the doctors are unable to find a heartbeat. Faced with the choice of letting the miscarriage "run its course" or undergoing a procedure to remove it, they opt for the former - only for the fetus to suddenly come back to life the following morning. Everything points to it being a miracle, but then strange things begin to occur - the dog begins growling in Rachel's presence, and the cameras that are capturing their every move suddenly experience glitches whenever she is in their view. These audio/video glitches get mighty annoying as the film goes on and they occur more frequently - toward the end of her pregnancy I swear we hear the ZZZT! of a distorted audio track between every cut. Netta would have been wise to restrain himself with these things - at first they're actually good for a cheap scare, but they just get obnoxious and mildly headache inducing as the movie goes on, which is a big problem.

See, after the "pilot" ends, there's a lot of filler as we get to the night of the baby's birth (the obvious conclusion), and the attempts to mix things up a bit (like when a priest is brought in to bless the house) will mostly just remind viewers of Paranormal Activity. As it is, the couple is very similar to Katie and Micah, so anything else that might trigger some deja vu is unfortunate, and thus adding in a recurring irritant hurts the movie some - you might start wanting the movie to just get on with it. Some might also balk (spoiler!) that the supernatural element is never really explained - I personally didn't mind (better no explanation that a potentially stupid one that the movie can't recover from), but it's strange that they almost seem to be trying to suggest Rachel is just experiencing something psychological the whole time, but with the glitches and a few other "demonic" moments there's no question that it's something actually wrong with her pregnancy.

Otherwise, it works pretty damn well, and I'm super relieved that I didn't bring my wife along. I'm more excited about having kids than she is as it is (can you blame her? Look at me. She'll have to carry around another one that'll look like me for the better part of a year), and this probably would have scared her right off for good. The miscarriage stuff (which is gut-wrenching; it's the rare reality/mockumentary horror where I actually cared about the characters) is brutal by itself, but then you add in the "oh and your baby might be a demon or something and it'll make you break mirrors and stab the family dog and such" element? The movie should have a warning label for pregnant women - the physical harm of a roller coaster wouldn't match the psychological harm of seeing this stuff play out when you got your own bun in the oven. Even a movie like Rosemary's Baby (a superior film, don't get me wrong) doesn't get into the nitty-gritty of a pregnancy (Mia had too many other things to worry about, really) like this does, and playing on those fears and worries helps the movie clear the hurdle of all horror movies of this type: the "nothing is happening" factor. Kyle gets increasingly frustrated with the camera crew and they start to bicker a lot, but apart from the occasional freak out moment, we know that the movie will be action-lite until the very end. So toss in some real world problems (and avoid too many Rosemary flashbacks by glossing over whatever devilish element might be in play) and viola! The rare found footage horror that rarely bores.

Being that this was the movie's premiere at a festival, I doubt anyone will be able to see it for a while (though if you're in LA - it's playing again on Friday!), but since I've slowed down maybe this review will still be on the front page by the time we hear about distribution. But if not I'll remind you when it does - it's not a perfect film, but it's a step in the right direction for the found footage sub-genre, and I want to champion the films that apply that aesthetic to something besides Paranormal Activity sequels or a bunch of assholes poking around an abandoned building.

What say you?

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Blu-Ray Review: The Howling

JUNE 18, 2013

GENRE: WEREWOLF
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

Power of 35mm! I was mixed on The Howling the first (and until now, only) time I saw it in the early days of HMAD, but watching again on a beat up film print with a (surprisingly large) crowd of people at the HMAD screening last weekend, I recognized its power. I still think the 2nd act has some pacing issues (in fact the movie as a whole could benefit from tighter editing), but once Belinda Balaski's character really gets into her investigation, it works like gangbusters all the way until the glorious finale. And yes, this was a screening I myself was hosting, so you might ask why I'd host a movie I wasn't the biggest fan of, but in a way it's a perfect choice: doing HMAD as a whole was a way to reevaluate how I felt about the genre, so if I can't spread the gospel of Alone In The Dark or Of Unknown Origin (prints don't exist for either), why not pick movies that I myself could look at with a fresh(er) pair of eyes?

I also realized what may have been part of the trouble my first time around - it's not as funny as other Dante's other films. Gremlins (and its sequel), Innerspace, The Burbs... these are all pretty damn funny films, yet work in their respective other genres as well. But The Howling doesn't have as much comedy as those (or even its friendly rival, American Werewolf in London); there are a few funny lines here and there, plus some great in-jokes (the Corman cameo still cracks me up), but it's not a "horror comedy" by any stretch. So now that I know better, not only can I enjoy the horror (and drama) more, but those rare comedic bits land perfectly. Hell I didn't even REMEMBER the "Mazda" joke from my first viewing, and that's one of the funniest things to ever appear in one of Dante's pictures.

But as I mentioned, the editing can work against the movie at times; it's just over 90 minutes but 85 or so probably would have been the sweet spot. Even the transformation, as glorious as Rob Bottin's work is (and holds up under the microscope of a high-def transfer), could be trimmed some - it actually starts to lose some of its effect by going on so long (why doesn't she just leave?). It's almost hilarious; I'm sure part of the thinking was "This looks great, show everything we got!" and nowadays part of the reason you get these super quick-cut edits during FX scenes it's because they don't want anyone getting too good of a look at the sub-par CGI. No surprise that Jurassic Park remains the benchmark for monster movies of this generation - produced at a time when CGI was primitive enough that it couldn't be relied on entirely, but exciting enough for everyone to bust their ass and make it look amazing alongside its practical brethren. A shame to think that we'll probably never again be sitting there wondering "how did they DO that?", but its a testament to Bottin's genius that 30+ years later I'm still not sure how he was able to pull some of those FX off.

Thus it's a shame he doesn't appear on any of the new bonus features on Scream Factory's otherwise perfect special edition, only in the older ones you may have already seen. As is (I believe) always the case, they have ported over all the bonus features from the previous special edition, and they're all worth a look if you missed them on laserdisc or the 2003 DVD special edition from MGM. The commentary with Dante and three of the actors can be obnoxiously choppy (clear edits when other companies are discussed; MGM must not have had any balls back in the day), and Dee Wallace's constant cackling like a drunk aunt can be grating, but it's a fun track all the same. Dante's motormouth offers anecdotes and jokes in equal measure (has he ever had a lengthy talk with Martin Scorsese? That would be more entertaining than all of their movies put together, I think), and since the track was recorded for the laserdisc quite some time ago (I peg it around 1989 based on a few of their movie references, but it HAS to be before 1995, as that's when Christopher Stone sadly passed away), the memories are still fresh. The lengthy retrospective documentary "Unleashing The Beast" from 2003 is also highly recommended; nearly everyone of note that's still alive is on hand to discuss the cast, the makeup, the script, and the film's legacy - Dante's rundown of the various sequels alone is almost worth the price of admission ("That one had were-kangaroos, or something..."), and thankfully Shout! has edited all of the segments (originally broken up into 5 parts with a "Play All" function) into one piece, sparing us multiple views of its end credits sequence.

Then there's a shorter piece called "Making A Monster Movie" (directed by Mick Garris!) that was made back when the film was released, which is fun but not essential. All of the interviews are promotional, not reflective, and it's got that cheesy "news special" feel to it - plus some of the info (and footage) was used in the full doc, though Dante's haircut alone makes it worth a look (also, check out Bottin - anyone else think his look inspired Kurt Russell's in The Thing?). A collection of deleted scenes is also carried over, with optional Dante commentary on why they were cut (distributor wanted it shorter, pacing, etc - though he can't remember why he cut one scene that explains Stone's absence for a while). Plus some outtakes and other promotional material - this stuff is for the completists only, and while I personally have no use for anything beyond a trailer (which spoils the film's ending!), again, I love that Shout/Scream makes sure every little bit is carried over, making it easy to ditch your old copy to reclaim some shelf space. Anchor Bay almost never bothers to do this, which is why I have multiple copies of all their Halloween titles - they refuse to do "ultimate" editions that render the others worthless. They even brought back the awesome Easter Egg featuring Dick Miller! THAT'S fan service.

As for new stuff, Scream has recruited Red Shirt to provide their usual interviews with a few of the folks that weren't featured on the previous doc, making it well rounded without too much repeated info. Editor Mark Goldblatt and executive producer Steven A. Lane both offer their thoughts on the film, though in the latter's case he also gives some info on each of the sequels (he was around for all of them except New Moon Rising, which coincidentally is the only one I didn't catch during the "real" era of HMAD), which is pretty fun. He is basically OK with all of them except part 4; obviously I (and no other sane person, I assume) would agree with him but if you DO like one of those other entries you at least don't have to have your heart broken hearing the producer slam it. Goldblatt's interview is a bit overlong (irony!) but he's fun to listen to and pretty candid at times, so it's all good. They also tracked down Terence H. Winkless (the other screenwriter; John Sayles appears in the older doc) to get his thoughts on how he got involved and how they changed the original novel by Gary Brandner ("We threw out everything but the title!"). Brandner himself offers a new solo commentary, moderated by Mike Felsher, though those looking for much talk about The Howling (movie OR his novel) might be disappointed; they only directly refer to the screen ONCE in the entire thing, and only occasionally talk about the changes from the novel to the film. Instead, Felsher takes Brandner pretty much through his entire career, so if you're a fan of the author's work you'll find much to enjoy, but if you don't really care about his process behind the novel The Brain Eaters, you can probably skip it.

The transfer, unsurprisingly, is terrific, and I am happy to report that the audio problem that plagued a few earlier Scream releases (where the dialogue was hard to hear on the new 5.1 mixes) has been corrected - it sounded great, as did the 2.0 HD mix. As usual, they don't list their new features on the back for whatever reason, so I hope other reviewers follow my lead in stressing which are new, as if you're just looking at the back of the package you'd probably think it was just a straight port of the ten year old special edition. I'm sure they have their reasons since they do it almost every single time, but with more and more people opting for streaming versions, it baffles me that they wouldn't tout the things that can make these editions attractive not only to new buyers, but to those that already own a previous version. That said, this one does NOT have the additional DVD copy like many of their others; you can buy the DVD or the Blu, but there's no package with both.

So, in short - I'm glad I gave it a second chance. Even with quitting the daily version of HMAD, I still find myself with very limited free time, so I certainly have to be selective for which movies I revisit in the hopes of liking more than I did on my first viewing. The Howling, it seems, made for a fine choice.

What say you?

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The Amazing Adventures of the Living Corpse (2012)

JUNE 10, 2013

GENRE: ANIMATED, MAD SCIENTIST, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

If I was a guy who called the shots on anything, I'd have a weekly animated series based on The Amazing Adventures of the Living Corpse on the air ASAP. The concept is fun, I loved the animation style, and lord knows there needs to be more animated genre fare... but the movie ultimately disappoints, because it seems Justin Paul Ritter (whose name appears in the credits more times than I can count, so let's just sum up and say he's behind it all) tried to cram far too much material from the source comic into his 88 minute feature. With room to breathe and time to flesh out the world created by Ken Haeser and Buz Hasson in their comic, this could be kind of awesome.

Instead, it's just something I'd throw on in the background for a Halloween party; it's frenetic and colorful enough to draw the eye, but never engaging enough to actually distract someone away from conversation (though if they were talking to me, I'd probably just be talking about underwhelming horror movies I saw, natch). The jumps in the narrative are incredibly jarring - at one point (the end of the second act, basically) they just skip ahead 15 years as if it was only an hour or so, and even individual sequences suffer from the same "and now we're over here!" issue. Our hero zombie and villain are seemingly trapped in a lab, but suddenly they're in what appears to be a church. A seemingly important character named Asteroth disappears for the last 20 minutes or so, and even the end is obnoxiously abrupt, as if they were supposed to put in an epilogue but forgot. Having not read the comic, I can only assume that they were trying to adapt an arc that lasted several issues and highlighted their favorite parts?

Another way to look at it would be the cut-scenes from a video game strung together without the gameplay (and "codex" style entries) that would actually give it some context and structure. It's hard not to think about games - some of Ritter's angles seem to be specifically recalling the over the shoulder approach of your Mass Effects and Dead Spaces, while more than once there's a long zoom into a character's back that reminded me of any big open world type game where the first big cutscene transitions to gameplay. The music frequently has that repetitive "boss battle" looping feel to it, and even some of the plot and art style was reminiscent of the Splatterhouse reboot from a few years back. I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad approach - I certainly love games and, as with the animated format, feel that there aren't enough of them that appeal to horror fans - but with the disjointed approach to the narrative, it doesn't work as well as it could.

Which is a shame, because again, the animation style is kind of awesome. No one will mistake the CGI for Pixar or whatever, but the character designs strike a great blend between being appropriately horrific and also "heroic" (it's the sort of thing where most of the good guys are monster and the bad guys are human), and even in the human world there's an appropriately colorful but dark look to everything that I quite liked - sort of Paranorman meets the art of Clayton Crain, I guess. The backgrounds can be sparse, but that's fine - this was an independently made production and quite an impressive one for the most part, so things like that are not unexpected. I was a little more disappointed with the vocal work; not sure if the mix wasn't great or what, but it felt very disconnected, and I had trouble distinguishing voices when I couldn't actually see who was talking.

And it got me interested in reading the comic, so on that level it's a success. The story involves a man who becomes a zombie and turns good when recognizing his son as a would-be victim (his wife and daughter - too late!), and how he lives with the curse (still needs to eat folks to live!) while hoping to protect his son from bullies and mad scientists alike. Not quite sure what the mad scientist villain was up to since it involves a bunch of gobbledygook, but I DO know that in the 3rd act he has an exposed brain in a glass bowl like Bill Moseley in Silent Night, Deadly Night 3, so there's something. Again, the story jumps around a lot, so I had trouble following it on more than one occasion, but assuming the comics make sense, it seems like a fun "good vs. evil" yarn where the sides are swapped - I mean, the movie's most endearing character is a little troll demon named Worthless Merk. I'd totally read an issue about him.

The Blu doesn't have a single goddamn bonus feature, which surprised me - they had a premiere at Comic Con, it's an indie production, and it's based on a comic book - surely there is a wealth of "built-in" supplements, and they don't even give us a trailer? What gives, Anchor Bay? They could at least show us some art from the comic and how it compares with the 3D animated version, or some animatics or whatever. So that plus the underwhelming narrative makes this a tough sell, but they have the elements - let's see about doing a web series or something! I'd even toss in a couple bucks on Kickstarter.

What say you?

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Ninja III: The Domination (1984)

JUNE 11, 2013

GENRE: POSSESSION
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

Most of my nightmares are based on things that I've never experienced, or saw in movies that weren't horror at all - tidal waves and being stuck in out of control cars (my brakes almost never work in dreams!) are far more common than being chased around by Michael Myers or whoever. But one of the most vivid I've ever had was certainly caused by a movie; 6-year old BC saw Ninja III: The Domination at his grandfather's house, and later on was menaced in the middle of the night by the film's ninja villain, perched on my 2nd floor window, pounding on the glass and shouting NINJA! over and over. I even told my mother about it the next morning as if it was just a really scary thing that happened in the middle of the night and not just a nightmare, and to this day I still get some goose bumps thinking about it. Shit was scary, man.

Maybe that's why I never watched the movie again until now - not-too-subconscious fear of that ninja coming back to get me again. But I am a dedicated reviewer of the stuff I get sent to me, and so when Shout! Factory sent along their new Blu-ray I knew I had to man up and face my 25+ year fear. Which is hilarious, because despite being about a possessed woman and listed as a horror movie in the IMDb (the first two films in the mostly unrelated series - Enter The Ninja and Revenge of the Ninja - have no horror elements whatsoever), this is the furthest thing from a scary movie that I've ever reviewed on the site, I think (OK, maybe Ghost Town). I mean sure, there are a couple of gory kills (ninja throwing stars!), and there's a couple of baffling scenes inspired by Poltergeist, but it's a straight up action/martial arts movie at heart.

I'm not knocking it though - it's awesome in its cheesy 80s way. I don't think you could come up with a more 80s plot if you TRIED; it's about a ninja who possesses an aerobics instructor to get revenge on the cops who killed him - the only thing that's missing from this "80s movie Bingo" is a subplot about drug smuggling. But they make up for it in the details; there's a hot tub, V-8 juice, a giant ugly clock, lots of pastel clothing, an out of nowhere sex scene... in short, there isn't a frame of the film that you can look at and not know for sure that it was from an 80s film.

Plus it's pretty action packed, and with tons of impressive stunts despite the low budget. The opening sequence is a masterpiece of old-school stunt work - it goes on forever as the Ninja seemingly decimates an entire state's worth of cops, all in spectacular fashion. Tossing them out of helicopters, stabbing them as they drive, knocking them off motorcycles - it's super badass. Star Lucinda Dickey isn't as impressive with her fighting skills (her aerobics skills are unmatched), but it's not even a big deal - after a while she dons a ninja outfit to lay waste to more random stuntmen and at that point the film's stunt guys take over for her anyway. Plus the good guy ninja (Shô Kosugi) has an eyepatch and fights a bunch of folks on his quest to kill the bad ninja once and for all, so you're never more than 12-13 seconds away from someone being kicked or killed.

Another hilarious thing about the movie is that every single man in the universe is a stocky stunt guy. It's fine that the cops are inexplicably all well built, but why do random hospital orderlies, aerobics dudes, and morgue attendants also look like brick walls? The movie must have employed every single working stuntman in Hollywood at the time of its production, and they STILL didn't have enough - on the commentary, stunt coordinator Steven Lambert frequently points out scenes where he'd play the ninja AND the guy he was killing (in separate shots) which is just hilarious. The special FX work isn't great (there's a dummy of Dickey at one point that couldn't have looked good even on a murky VHS, let alone this pretty eye-catching blu-ray), but it's kept to a minimum anyway, so it's no big deal - after all it's a martial arts flick with some horror, not the other way around, and thus the effort/skill went to what really mattered.

Lambert and director Sam Firstenberg aren't afraid to point out a few of their missteps or laugh at some of the weirder bits in the movie (like that V-8 scene), but their commentary is thankfully not a MST3k audition tape - they're proud of their flick and the work that they did on it. Lambert can drone for a bit too long at times, pointing out who was who and who did what in a short sequence (paraphrasing here, stuff like "That's me in the closeup, and that's Ted, and that's me doubling for Ted..."), but Rob G from Icons of Fright/Fearnet (and my horror trivia teammate!) thankfully does his job as a moderator and keeps the conversation moving, giving both men equal time to talk (it's a shame Dickey couldn't be located to join them, however). Firstenberg discusses the movie's Poltergeist influence and working with Cannon (who ELSE would make this movie?), and about the differences between the 2nd film, Revenge of the Ninja (which he also directed), and points out that even though Ninja III came out after, it was actually shot BEFORE Breakin', and it was Dickey's work here that got her the job on that fellow Cannon production, and then they worked together on the immortal Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo.

There's also a pretty substantial collection of behind the scenes photos, posters, and lobby cards for the film, which makes up for the lack of the trailer or any video supplements. However, you DO get a DVD copy of the film along with the Blu, so you can keep the high def copy for yourself and pass along this batshit masterpiece to a friend. As I pointed out on Twitter, Ninja III actually sold more tickets than movies like Office Space and Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (domestically anyway), and it's a shame that a movie this earnestly ridiculous will never get a theatrical release again, let alone a wide one that allows it to compete with the big budget productions (on the weekend it opened in 1984, it had the highest per screen average of any film in the top 10). So pick the disc up and celebrate a bygone era where it was OK for movies to be silly and nuts, before "grim" took over as the key element for pretty much every other movie that comes out.

What say you?

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The Purge (2013)

JUNE 6, 2013

GENRE: SURVIVAL, THRILLER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

Even before I began making a living by creating them, I always stuck around to watch the end credits of a movie if possible; not only is there an increasing chance that there will be an extra scene, but you can gain some valuable insight on occasion. Such is the case in The Purge; buried deep down in the traditional crawl there's a break to allow for a full-screen credit for an "additional editor" - this is very unusual, and almost certainly a sign of a movie that was edited once and then heavily reworked by a fresh pair of eyes. Since the movie was shot well over a year ago and clocks in at a mere 85 minutes including credits, it's not too much of a stretch to suspect there's a different - and possibly superior - version of the movie buried on an Avid somewhere.

By now we all know the concept - in a near-future, the country's government (never seen, and only briefly described as the "New Founding Fathers") has implemented the titular Purge, where once a year (perhaps not too coincidentally on the first day of spring) for a period of 12 hours, all crime is legal and no emergency services will be available. There are some underexplained exceptions - no heavy weapons (i.e. you can't just go blow shit up, I guess), no attacks on government officials (duh), etc, though the movie curiously only focuses on murder/assault related crimes. Not that I need/want to see rape or torture, but the idea is that people can give into their urges without repercussion and thus be OK for the other 364 and a half days of the year, so what about those who just want to, I dunno, jerk off in public? As presented in the movie, The Purge is really just "Go ahead and kill people if you want".

As a result, once this rushed, only vaguely defined world is explained, the movie merely becomes another home invasion film, complete with masked, ahem, "strangers" and people being silently followed around their own home, albeit with more gunplay than usual (the killers brandish machetes and such, but at least 75% of the deaths in the film are by gunshot). At this point, it's no different than Straw Dogs or whatever - regardless of the "law" that says you can kill someone, Ethan Hawke and his family are merely defending themselves from attackers in their own home, which is legal anyway. The moral dilemma comes in the form of a homeless vet (and, while not explicitly brought up, a black man) who Hawke's son lets into their home after seeing that he needs help. His pursuers, led by a guy who stepped out of an American Psycho lookalike contest, find him quickly enough and offer Hawke a pretty easy deal - kick the guy out of the house and let them have their Purge fun, and they'll leave him and his family alone. Otherwise, they'll tear the doors down and kill everyone.

And this is where the movie's insurmountable problems really begin, and the underwhelming (and, despite what the ads play up, not as scary-leaning as you might expect) home invasion elements certainly can't save it. Yes, it's easier said than done to just hand a guy over to be killed, but he's hiding in the house (which now has no electricity; the security runs on a generator but not a single light, I guess), giving us an entire reel's worth of Hawke and wife Lena Headey (who doesn't get to do anything badass until the last 5 minutes - why hire someone who could mop the floor with everyone else in the movie? It would make more sense to hire a NON-asskicker so that when that moment arrives, it actually shocks as intended) looking around their own house for someone who inexplicably turns on them even before the strangers show up with a reason to do them harm. Worse, their idiot son has led him to a secret hiding spot that they seemingly don't know about, so now we have to believe that Hawke, who sells security systems for a living, doesn't know the layout of his own home.

But then again, neither does director James DeMonaco, apparently - throughout the entire movie I had trouble understanding where anyone was in relation to each other or even what floor they were on, or the passage of time. Yes, it's a big house, but how long could it take for Hawke and Headey to look around not only for the vet but their daughter, who has ALSO gone hiding for reasons that never quite make sense. See, the movie needs an obvious "protagonist" kill, so of course her boyfriend has snuck into the house before they locked it down for the Purge (and yes, despite having no reason to go outside or anything, they wait until the last minute to turn on their security system, for some reason). But how (spoiler!) he dies is completely ridiculous even for this movie, and you have to ask yourself - what exactly did the boyfriend plan to do if his original plan had worked out? Would have been a pretty awkward 12 hours.

Anyway, so it's "Hide and seek" the movie, where no one is hiding for a logical reason, and when they DO find him (via a completely botched attempt at what could have been a decent suspense piece - the daughter decides to go hide in the same spot), more time is wasted on the struggle to get him outside. It's as if DeMonaco thought traditional home invasion stuff was far more interesting than the fascinating sci-fi concept that the movie was supposedly about; every single thing that happens from the moment the strangers arrive until the last one has been dispatched could be cut and pasted into any other scenario. Every now and then someone will mention the Purge, but again - once a guy smashes through your window and tries to lop your head off with an axe, you are free to shoot him in the chest any day of the year. The final few minutes finally come back to the scenario and how it doesn't necessarily come down to a war between the haves and the have nots, but the explanation we get for certain characters' behavior is beyond idiotic - and that's with the clumsy foreshadowing that gave it away in the film's opening scenes.

In short, the movie botches pretty much every good idea it has, and while there are a handful of great moments (I love that one stranger terrorizes Headey by tickling her), it never adds up to anything fully satisfying as a think-piece OR a horror/thriller. Even if the characters WEREN'T idiots (SPOILER - Hawke decides NOT to turn the guy over and instead fight the attackers - but leaves the guy (a trained, able-bodied man) tied to a chair rather than hand him a gun to help), it's nearly impossible to get into the movie when they've left so much unexplained. I've said it a million times; I'll accept ANY movie's plot, no matter how ludicrous, as long as the movie takes the time to at least try to explain its interior logic within that idiotic scenario. Armageddon is the easiest example to use (and fitting, since this was co-produced by Bay's Platinum Dunes - their first film in over 3 years): everyone makes the joke about it being easier to train oil drillers to be astronauts than the other way around, but the movie gives it a "fair enough" explanation (drilling problems come up that you need to deal with quickly or else you'll die; the oil drillers didn't have to fly the damn shuttles, just sit there and do their thing once they landed, etc). So, fine. I'm sure it's still nonsense in the real world, but it's SOMETHING for *this* world - The Purge never even offers us that much. We're told that this thing happens and that's that; any questions you may have about how it WORKS (for example - no emergency services, but what if someone falls in their home and needs an ambulance? They just die?) are left to your imagination, because DeMonaco and his producers (including Jason Blum, so of course there's a goddamn video camera in there somewhere) never made the effort to dig deep into their intriguing scenario because they were too busy focusing on the stuff we've seen done better elsewhere. That, or they edited it out. Here's hoping the Blu-ray (or the already planned sequel) has some of that "fleshed out" feel the movie sorely lacked.

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V/H/S/2 (2013)

MAY 13, 2013

GENRE: ANTHOLOGY, MOCKUMENTARY
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PRESS SCREENING)

I liked but did not love V/H/S, having issues with pretty much every segment (some more damaging than others) and being disappointed with the total lack of payoff in the wraparound sequence. But happily, I can confirm what a lot of pals have told me (thanks to SXSW/Sundance screenings and such): the sequel, originally the much better S-VHS but now simply V/H/S/2, is superior in just about every way - hell, they even improved the (already awesome) VHS tracking ravaged/ugly font end credits that simulate a VCR's on screen display. It's not quite Creepshow or Trick R Treat, but any sequel that surpasses its original is always to be commended.

The wraparound segment is similar, and confusingly unrelated - it's about a sleazy PI and his partner hunting for a missing college student and tracking him to a house filled with VHS tapes, but it's not a. the same house from the first movie or b. even one of the same aged kids who disappeared in the first film. I thought it would be a fun way to build a mythology (a 3rd film is already planned) out of wraparounds, which would be unique for this genre (not that sequels are common to begin with), but it seems they just wanted to keep the idea of VHS tapes and disregard everything else. Nothing against it; it's not like I've been clamoring the IMDb boards to theories on what happened at the end of the first wraparound sequence, but as a fan of sequel mythology in general (see: my love of the Saw movies) I was a bit bummed. Luckily, as a whole it works better than the original's, with a terrific scare and a fun little resolution that suggests something a little more supernatural is at play - which may also explain how all this high tech camera stuff ends up on cruddy VHS tapes in the first place.

The first proper story has a great hook - there's a camera inside the experimental cybernetic eye that has been put into the victim of a car accident, which gives him a bit of a Terminator look at first (but seems to heal quickly). As with Maniac, this means we get not entirely convincing shots of the actor (Adam Wingard, who also directed) looking at a mirror more than seemingly necessary, but it's a great way around the "Why are they filming" thing (something that seems to have been a goal of every short's crew). The horror kicks in when he starts seeing ghosts with his new eye, and then a mysterious girl (and not very good actress) comes over to explain that she has an ear implant from the same people that allows her to hear ghosts talking to her, at which point all hell breaks loose as the ghosts begin their assault. I can't help but think this deserved a feature or at least a longer segment; not only do we know very little about the ghosts (kind of important in a ghost story) but it's never fully clear what the company can gain from doing this. Sadly the film's weakest installment, but the jolts work and the concept itself is intriguing.

Next up is a zombie tale from none other than Eduardo Sanchez, half of the writer/director team behind Blair Witch Project (who co-directs here with BW producer Gregg Hale). I loved the scenario behind this one - a bicyclist with a GoPro on his helmet is bitten by a zombie while racing through the woods, and then we see his transformation and resulting attack on innocent bystanders all from the POV of the camera that's still attached to his head. It's the most fully satisfying of them all in terms of closure - I didn't feel it was too short (or long), nor did I feel it deserved more explanations or backstory for anything that was going on - it was a simple story with a unique idea, done quite well save for a few unfortunate digital blood sprays mixed in with the practical ones.

The third will probably be everyone's favorite, and not just because it's from Gareth Evans - the director of The Raid, the current go-to movie to name check when you want to complain about Hollywood does everything wrong. As with the first story I can't help but feel this could have been longer, as our filmmakers (with a variety of cameras here, though at least one is in a shirt button to explain the "still filming" aspect when things go apeshit) seem to get easy access to this very disturbing cult sect on a day that is apparently very important to them - why'd they let them in in the first place? But otherwise it's an intense slice of WTFery, rivaling the first film's haunted house segment in terms of how insane it gets from where it began. At one point a room full of cult members shoot themselves in the head simultaneously, and that's not even in the top 5 moments that left my eyes widening and muttering "Holy shit..." I heard someone say the final shot was too much, and I won't spoil it, but I will say that I loved it - I'm all for things just going for broke and being as nutty as they like.

And that is why I was left SOMEWHAT disappointed with the final entry, directed by Jason Eisener (Hobo With A Shotgun). It starts off with kids playing elaborate pranks on the older sister of two of them (and her boyfriend), and then things go awry when aliens invade mid-prank. It's certainly intense, but kind of one note - the aliens (standard pale skinned/giant eyed things) just sort of swarm around as a giant white light explosion/loud noise out of a current movie trailer (BWWWARRRRRRRRRM) goes off over and over. It's so chaotic (and lo-fi - the camera is attached to a dog which suggests another GoPro, but it looks like mini DV at best) that it's often hard to tell what is happening and who has been taken (except for the poor dog - UNNECESSARY, JERKS!), so it gets a bit tiresome by the end as it's basically just one long attempt to run away from a not-very-well defined villain. I actually preferred the pranks part - the kids are kind of awesome and foul mouthed (making me wish Eisener would just redo Super 8 and give it a better 3rd act this time around), but since each segment was better than the one before it, I wanted the film to keep topping itself, and it doesn't QUITE get there.

But again, overall it worked better than the original, and each segment had its merits (something you couldn't say about the first movie thanks to that terrible one in the woods); the weakest spots here are as good as the best in the first film, which is commendable. Plus it's shorter, and there was more variety between each one - aliens, zombies, cults, mad scientists... - and I liked that they found ways to attach the cameras to something other than someone's hand as often as possible. Add in the improved wraparound and you just have an overall better experience; the biggest hurdle it has is that it's closer to spiritual remake than sequel, so the novelty has worn off some. Thankfully, since they're NOT related, if you haven't seen the first yet, feel free to just start with this.

What say you?

P.S. In the interest of full disclosure, I do know some of the folks behind the movie (and it was produced by my old boss from Bloody Disgusting), but I certainly don't know the Raid folks and that was my favorite part. Also, just an FYI, over time my opinions have shifted on the first one; I previously liked the Skype story the most but have come to like the haunted house one above all. And that 3rd story is my least favorite, not the 1st (the "bat girl") as my review states. Should I do a HMAD 2.0 and re-review every movie? (I don't care what you say, I won't actually DO that, but it'd be interesting to handpick a few others and see if my opinion has changed.)

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Blu-Ray Review: The Town That Dreaded Sundown

MAY 22, 2013

GENRE: SERIAL KILLER
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

It's a (very minor) shame Rolling Thunder doesn't hit shelves until next week, because it would have been really weird/cool to see it come out the same day as The Town That Dreaded Sundown (both from Shout Factory), as I saw the films together back in 2007 at the New Beverly as part of a festival Quentin had programmed to celebrate the release of Grindhouse. As both films were long sought after DVD titles (neither of them ever hit legitimate release on the format), it's a testament to both the service that Shout (and their Scream Factory sub-label) is performing for film fans, as well as their impeccable taste in titles (QT loves The Burning too, for what it's worth).

Of this week's Scream Factory releases, Sundown would be my pick if you could only afford one. Even Burning's biggest fans have to admit that there isn't much there that they couldn't see in other camp slashers, but there's nothing quite like Charles B. Pierce's account of the still unsolved murders that plagued the town of Texarkana in the late 1940s. If I had to narrow it down, I'd describe it as a feature length Unsolved Mysteries recreation, thanks to the frequent, grave narration and largely truthful recreations of the murders - basically everything except Robert Stack's trenchcoat and the prompt to call 1-800-876-5353. But Pierce clearly wanted to make something a little more exploitative for the drive-in audience, and thus stages the murders like bonafide slasher scenes, embellishing when necessary (sorry folks; the killer never used a trombone to kill anyone - though a saxophone was taken from one victim) and actually making them pretty effective setpieces.

See, the first attack doesn't actually kill either victim, and thus unless you've seen the trailer (which explains each attack and its outcome), it's not a foregone conclusion that anyone will die. So while it follows the pattern of many serial killer films and doesn't introduce any victim until they're about to be attacked (as opposed to a slasher, where we know everyone more often than not), they ARE quite suspenseful; the final one in particular, with the killer stalking none other than Dawn "Mary Ann" Wells, is a terrific nailbiter (and even a pretty solid bloodspray effect - keep in mind this predates any major slasher save the rather bloodless Black Christmas), and the trombone sequence, while not surprisingly made up, is still pretty effectively unnerving. There are four major attacks in the film, plus a (completely fictional) chase at the end to give the movie SOME sort of climax - it's a fine balance between the facts and typical entertainment.

However, Pierce can't be satisfied with this, and also tosses in some very jarring attempts at humor, mostly centered around a dimwitted deputy that seems to all but prove that he saw Black Christmas, as "Sparkplug" is a completely fictional character that is almost exactly like Sergeant Nash in that film. The character in Christmas worked; not only was there humor to be found elsewhere (the house mother, the Santa at the party, etc), but it wasn't a true story - it's one thing to add some theatrics to the kill scenes, but it's another to treat the events as a joke. When Sparkplug drives his car with the other two cops (played by Ben Johnson and Andrew Prine) into a swamp during a chase with a potential suspect for the murderer, it's just plain awkward. Oh, and he's played by Pierce himself, which just makes it feel self-serving on top of everything else.

Thus, I am guessing Sparkplug won't be around in the upcoming remake, though maybe NONE of these people will - early word suggests it's a meta-remake/sequel hybrid, with a young girl being targeted by a killer during an annual viewing of the movie itself? And trying to solve the original murders at the same time? It sounds a bit too up its own ass for my tastes, BUT it's not like they don't have precedent of sorts - THIS movie ends with the killer attending a screening of a movie based on the murders (also called The Town That Dreaded Sundown), after all. So it'll be like a Stab/Scream thing, I guess? Ryan Murphy is producing, and while I've hated that guy's work throughout his career, I did find myself quite charmed by the first season of American Horror Story (haven't seen the 2nd season yet), so maybe he can pull off something admirable here. I think we can safely assume that the real Phantom Killer will never be "caught" - the murders were in 1947 and he was said to be 30-40 years old, which means if he's still alive he won't be for long (best case scenario - he's 96 years old right now), but maybe some digging or a forthcoming relative can shed some light on the topic - new movies tend to bring folks out of the woodwork.

Shout made a good call when it came time to record their standard commentary track - rather than get Prine or someone to talk over the whole film (Pierce himself passed away a few years ago), they have gotten an expert on the case to fill in some details and updates. His name is Jim Presley, and he grew up in the area and seems to be the world's biggest expert on it (there's a new book on the case - which seems to be the first - and he is mentioned frequently by the author), so he's loaded with great info and even a few updates (one guy has a theory that the Phantom was also the Zodiac killer - the two cases ARE fairly similar, for what it's worth). The moderator doesn't add much, and by his own admission this isn't Presley's kind of movie, so if you don't have much interest in the case and just want to know about the movie itself, stick with the three new interviews. Prine, Wells, and DP James Roberson all offer up the standard Red Shirt interviews where they talk about each other in succession and then offer their final thoughts while plopped in front of a green-screen and equipped with a lav mic that no one tried to hide - maybe it's because I'm watching a dozen of these a month, but can they break up their template a bit? Anyway, of the three Prine's is by far the most entertaining, as he recounts getting drunk with Johnson and having to shoot the climax while very hung over ("I'm told we had a wonderful time the night before!"), and even explains how he wrote the ending himself because Pierce's script didn't really have one. Roberson also tells a cute story about how the woman who became his wife told him how much the film scared her when they met, and Wells talks of her unsuccessful attempt to talk to the woman she was portraying. I kind of miss when they'd combine all this stuff into one longer retrospective piece (like Halloween II and III), but at least it's easier to find the time for them in 5-10 min segments I guess. A text essay about the real case and film's legacy is also included.

You also get a DVD copy of The Evictors, which if memory serves is the best possible way to sell it - for free inside the case of a superior film. Though my buddy Dick says it's one of his favorite horror films, so maybe I should give it another look. No extras on that one, but you also get a DVD of all the Sundown material (and the movie, duh), so it's a pretty nice package for a movie that was inexplicably ignored during DVD's 10 year reign as the superior home viewing format (though it was worth the wait - the transfer is from an occasionally battered print but it looks phenomenal otherwise). It's a shame Pierce never got to offer his thoughts in detail on it (Johnson's been dead since before DVD even existed, and many of the people involved with the case - such as the person Prine played - were already dead when they made the movie in 1976). I'd be curious to read the book (it just came out last week - why the sudden fascination with this case?), and yay - since I don't do this every day anymore I'll actually have time to do so!

What say you?

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Black Rock (2012)

MAY 21, 2013

GENRE: SURVIVAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

I don't know why I felt compelled to make an old-school "HMAD Today is..." tweet for Black Rock; even though I've updated a few times since "retiring" I haven't used that opener once, even when I knew I'd be reviewing the film (Evil Dead, Lords of Salem, etc.). So it's somewhat ironic that it's the sort of bland, mercenary horror movie that I grew so tired of that I wanted to quit in the first place - if not for so many movies like this, it's possible I might still be going at it every day for a little while longer.

And thus, I wasn't even going to bother reviewing it until I read this interview with its director/star Katie Aselton, where she dismissed horror in general and specifically name-checked The Descent by saying she wanted her movie to be what Descent wasn't. I'm sorry, but it's bad form enough to throw another "little" movie under the bus (if you want to make fun of Dark Knight Rises, go ahead), but of all the movies to reference, why The Descent? I'm not alone in considering it one of the best horror films of the past decade (hell, we can almost get to 20 years before it starts having heavy competition), so it's a really baffling movie to use when making a "I did it better" argument. Hilariously, while several movies came to mind while watching this chore, Descent was NOT one of them, but now that I think about it, it's a great example to use to illustrate how badly Ms. Aselton (and her husband Mark Duplass, who wrote the script based on her, ahem, "original story").

In The Descent (if I'm spoiling it, you're a bad person - stop reading my drivel and go watch it right now), our heroine finds out that one of her pals was sleeping with her husband, something that may have actually caused his death (he was distracted while driving; presumably he was either regretting or daydreaming about the affair). And thus she gets the ultimate revenge for it (and for the accidental death of another friend), leaving her to die in the cave and providing a distraction to escape (if she did, of course). There's a similar backstory here; Aselton's character Abbie still harbors a grudge against Lake Bell's Lou (short for Louise), who slept with Aselton's then boyfriend six years before, and of course they will have to work past their issues if they're going to survive and blah blah. But there's no payoff to it - Abbie finally lets it go, and Lou doesn't do much to make up for her transgression. Worse, every bad thing in the movie happens because Abbie was actively trying to cheat on her husband with one of the trio of hunters they come across, so there's absolutely nothing to learn from it beyond "Don't cheat", which we don't need a derivative horror movie to teach us.

And it makes her character a rather puzzling one - should we feel bad for her, or not? She got cheated on, now she's cheating on her own husband (not the same guy, mind you), and that's what leads to all of the death that will follow. She drunkenly lures one of the also drunk guys out into the woods and asks him if he wants to have fun, and then changes her mind when he starts getting going. A near-rape ensues, but she kills him with a rock before he actually does anything (I assume? The blocking and lighting throughout the film leave much to be desired, though it's ultimately the least of its problems), but for the sake of argument let's say he's actually forcing himself inside of her when she kills him - fine. But his two buddies then terrorize all three of them... after she AGAIN (and sober, now) instigates them by calling one a pussy and spitting on his face! This results in them killing one of the other two girls and nearly killing the other, leaving Abbie relatively unscathed despite literally every single thing in the movie being her fault. Yes, the guy should back off when she says no after saying yes, I don't argue that - but it's her irrational behavior AFTER that that really does the damage to the group, and she walks away without a shred of comeuppance or even regret. The right way to pay off the stuff about hating Bell's character for so long is to sacrifice herself to save her after getting her nearly killed, but it comes closer to the other way around.

So it's thematically a mess, but does it deliver as a straightforward Deliverance/Mother's Day ripoff? No; if anything it's even more lackluster in that department. Every single thing you expect would happen does indeed happen, without even a shred of originality or surprise - I even correctly guessed (SPOILER) that Kate Bosworth's character would be killed, because she was the most innocent and had been playing peacekeeper between the other two for the entire first act. Someone on the IMDb board had the idea that the movie was actually about a psychotic woman killing these guys for no reason (sort of like a serious take on the Tucker and Dale twist), which would have been interesting - but alas, it just hits every expected mark, making its scant 80 minute runtime feel like double that because at no point will you find yourself seeing something you haven't already seen a dozen times. And I'll leave it to you to decide which is preferable; the off-screen murder of one redneck or the grade-school level effect on the slit throat of the other.

Speaking of them, rarely has a movie of this sort offered such a weak villain team - the leader (and most sane one, presumably) is the would-be rapist, leaving his two buddies - neither of whom have barely spoken yet - to take over as our primary antagonists. I honestly can't even remember their names anymore and it's only been 12 hours since I saw the film, and the extent of their backstory is "they were in the war so they're crazy". But that just adds to the sneaking suspicion I got while I watched the film (which that AV Club interview confirmed), that Aselton and/or Duplass hated the genre, or at least had zero affinity for it. The one-note villains, the pointless nudity, generic plot - all of these are the sort of things that you'd see from someone who didn't understand how the genre worked, and worse, assumed that they DID. "Give them what they want" is the attitude, without even the slightest notion that we want the same things out of a horror film that you can find in a drama (interesting story, sympathetic or identifiable characters, an intriguing antagonist, etc). Yes, there are a lot of crap horror films (even worse than this) made by people who just see it as a way to make money, but there's a difference between a couple of rich dentists in Iowa somewhere trying to cash in on a trend and acclaimed, prolific filmmakers shrugging one out for whatever reason (this was a Kickstarter film; my pal/boss Devin has a theory that they slapped together a sell-able horror movie (the script was written in 18 hours) as a means of raising the dough to buy themselves a new camera). Those guys may be hurting the genre, but they're not actively insulting it and its fans as these two are.

It's really disappointing to see something this lazy from a female director; there should be more of them working in the genre, and if nothing else they should be able to provide a different perspective on its traditions - not stick to them so rigidly that the movie never manages to have its own identity. In short, if you think the genre is beneath you, feel free to ignore it. No one will miss you or your condescending addition to the world of horror.

What say you?

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Blu-Ray Review: The Burning

MAY 18, 2013

GENRE: SLASHER
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

If you follow me on Twitter but do NOT follow my good friend AJ Bowen (@LenHamhock), you miss out on some amazing ball-busting, as while we share a love of Armageddon and a few other select films, we tend to DISAGREE quite often, especially on slasher movies. So when I tweeted that my attempt to enjoy The Burning more on a second viewing was not a successful one, he tossed out a mocking tweet (not @ me) in response, leading to a loving "fight" where he made his case for the flick. That happens at least once a week, so please follow him to ensure you don't miss out on Twitter-comedy gold (caveat: following him means you'll occasionally be told that the Fright Night remake is superior to the original, so proceed with caution).

I certainly get why AJ and many others dig the film, but I am also willing to bet that a vast majority of them saw it as a kid, maybe as one of their first slasher movies, and thus have a heaping dose of nostalgia aiding their good feelings toward it. And in a way I'm jealous, I really WANT to like this one, but I was too late to the game (I only saw it for the first time in the early days of HMAD), and just can't help but see it as a rather dull, largely personality-free slasher that doesn't do anything better than any of its peers. It's not BAD (though everything between the shower prank and that first on-site kill is pretty interminable), but by 2007 I had seen 75% of the other slashers released in that glory year of 1981, and I could make a case for why just about all of them were better. So it was akin to eating your 100th Big Mac when the bun was a bit too dry and they didn't put enough special sauce on it - it fell just short of hitting the "average" mark, and thus I can't help but feel a bit disappointed.

The biggest issue for me is, sadly, what should be its biggest asset - Cropsy. He's a shockingly underdeveloped slasher right from the start; a bunch of kids we don't know tell us that some guy is "a real jerk" and thus play a prank to "get back" at him, and we just have to take their word for it. Being a slasher movie, the prank goes wrong and Cropsy ends up horribly burned, landing in a hospital for years until breaking free one night. At this point he does what anyone would do - seeks out the nearest hooker and kills her, in a rather sleazy sequence that feels taken out of Don't Answer The Phone or Maniac and really doesn't fit the movie at all (I was not surprised to discover that this sequence was added at the insistence of the Weinsteins, who "demanded something happen every 10 minutes", according to director Tony Maylam*). Then he heads off to camp, where he proceeds to dick around doing nothing for 40 minutes, and hinges a good chunk of his plan on hiding in a loose canoe, hoping that the people he left stranded down river would build a raft and come across him.

Now I'll venture into spoiler territory for a 32 year old film. At the very end, we discover that our male hero was actually one of the kids who played a prank on him at the beginning. Since it's a different camp I'm not sure if this was just a coincidence for Cropsy or if he had supernatural tracking powers, but either way this leaves two big questions. One, why did he go after THIS guy, who wasn't even the one that put the candle in his shack that caused his disfigurement? And two, what about the others? Why single out one of them? Another odd thing, the kids pranking him at the beginning are all male, yet the bulk of Cropsy's victims in the movie are female (including not one but TWO scenes where a couple splits up and he goes after the female first). It's ostensibly a revenge slasher, but it's unforgivably random on that front - they would have been better off a. not trying to pull a "twist" that our hero was one of the kids, and/or b. giving him a real tragic opening sequence that would help make him a little more sympathetic (see: Terror Train).

And for whatever reason, we only really see him once, at the very end of the film, so it's a slasher without an actual slasher. Doing the POV thing is fine for a whodunit (a la Friday the 13th, which has its own issues), but with so few kills it's puzzling that he has such a poorly defined appearance. The legend goes that Tom Savini chose to work on this film instead of Friday Part 2 (which is a shaky story since they didn't shoot at the same time - seems he could have done both if he wanted), but even Friday 2, with its inferior makeup, gave Jason a presence. It's almost like they wrote it as a sort of whodunit ("Oh shit, it's the guy from the beginning! He survived!") but forgot to change the rest of the script when they added those hospital scenes that tell us who it is.

That said, it does get one thing right - the kids are pretty likable. I don't agree that the ones in Friday the 13th are the types you're "waiting" to be killed (someone says this on the bonus features, I can't remember who though - might have even been Savini), but apart from the asshole bully Glaser, they're all charming and get along, making it no surprise that this has the record for most appearances by future stars: Holly Hunter, Jason Alexander, and Fisher Stevens all made their debuts here, and even some of the others, while not huge stars, have enjoyed lengthy careers and are recognizable (such as Ned Eisenberg, who plays a long running recurring character on Special Victims Unit). Sure, they're probably too old to be playing the characters they're portraying (the one playing Alfred the nerd was like 24), but it's not as silly as My Bloody Valentine, with a bunch of 30 year olds being called "Kids" every other scene.

However, many agree they got a lot more than that right, and they should be more than satisfied with this new special edition (and first Blu-ray appearance) from Scream Factory. MGM put out a special edition a couple years ago, and all of those extras (commentary with Maylam moderated by Alan Jones, interview with Savini, and some behind the scenes video from the production) are carried over, and then some. Once again Shout has neglected to list all of the bonus features on the back, which is puzzling as anyone who already owns the MGM edition would see no need to upgrade beyond having the Blu-ray transfer (which is terrific, as is always the case with them). There's a new commentary by actresses Shelley Bruce and Bonnie Deroski, which can be a bit dull as neither of them was a huge part of the movie and the moderator (missed the name) just asks basic questions like "Did anything funny happen on set?" (in contrast, Jones is so entertaining as a moderator on his I almost wish he was solo). They also ditch the track with like 5 minutes left of the movie, which is a bit odd - perhaps they should have just done select scenes (i.e. the ones they're actually in?) or at least gotten a moderator that could add his own insight.

But the other new features are terrific; there's an interview with editor Jack Sholder that's pretty revealing, as he's not afraid to dish a little dirt, unlike Maylam (Maylam says the Weinsteins were tough but he enjoyed working with them; Sholder explains that they locked the director out of the editing room at one point), and also admits that the film isn't that great (he also explains why the "build up" to the raft scene is more like "needless padding" - the Weinsteins insisted on adding more back and forth shots between the raft and canoe). There's also a new interview with actress Leah Ayres, the would-be Final Girl who actually sits the climax out (one of the more peculiar things about the movie, especially considering the time it was released). Some of the anecdotes are repeated, but she looks back fondly on the film (and still looks great for anyone who may have crushed on her in their youth), which is nice to see/hear, especially after hearing the director point out that Hunter and the others have taken it off their resumes. And Cropsy himself, Lou David, also provides a new interview, which is somewhat sweet - he recalls how he had to go off to play him right after his son was born and how it bummed him out, and also admits he's not the one doing the killings (Savini or Maylam himself would play the hands in the kill scenes), making him more trustworthy than some of the guys who claim they played Jason when in reality they were only there for a few shots (as David was, basically). A very oddly formatted copy of the script (as a PDF) and some advertising material rounds things out, pretty standard there. And as always, if you don't like the new box art Shout has created for the release, the original is on the flipside for your convenience.

And that's the great thing about this line - even when I don't like the movie much, I'm still happy to have it in my collection, because they put a lot of effort into giving these junky movies the best possible presentation possible, putting the studio releases to shame. It's plain to see that they have the fans' best interests in mind by bringing over the old extras (take a note, Anchor Bay) and creating enough new ones to make swallowing that double-dip a lot easier. I almost wish they took a cue from Criterion and gave them all numbers - it'd make it that much harder to skip over one. Plus, maybe I'll give it a shot again in another 6 years. Everyone that yelled at me on Twitter (not just AJ) can't be wrong, right?

What say you?

*They missed the 20, 30, and 40 minute marks, unfortunately.

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