The other day I tweeted about movies where it's very important that the "The" in the title is included, because sometimes it's the only difference between it and a much lesser movie. For example: THE Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a terrific film, whereas Texas Chainsaw Massacre is... not so much. Or THE Eclipse, a wonderful ghost drama (fans of Mike Flanagan's work should be tracking this one down) that should not be confused with Eclipse, aka Twilight 3. Well now we have The Cursed, which was originally titled Eight for Silver, but was changed to something that might get it mixed up with Cursed, the 2005 film technically directed by Wes Craven. And worse, both are werewolf movies! I sure would like to deliver a swift kick to the shins of whatever dumbass exec decided, out of all the words in the English language, to change their werewolf movie's title to one that's already been used by an unrelated, largely hated werewolf movie. Dumbass.
Anyway, THE Cursed is a pretty solid film that harkens back to Hammer style monster movies, which is a great idea for a modern horror movie because, as Hammer enthusiasts know, the studio only ever made one actual werewolf movie. So this kind of spiritually fills in a gap in their library, in a way? I mean it's too long (just under two hours), but on a narrative level it's got all the hallmarks of those old flicks: the local tavern of suspicious types, a curse, a gypsy camp, and - most importantly - lots and lots of fog. I don't think the actual sun appears more than once in the movie; it is consistently (beautifully) overcast and foggy throughout most of its runtime, and was even shot on film - I hope like hell I can see it on 35mm someday.
It's also got a pretty good hook for a werewolf story, in that the gypsies (note: their word, not mine - I know it's not the PC term) are actually keeping the werewolf curse at bay, but when the local landowners decide to chase them off their land (read: murder them all), the curse is set free, and the first victim is actually a young boy (son to the landowner himself), who can change others just as quickly as a vampire or zombie might add to their numbers. No, this doesn't result in dozens of wolves running around by the end, but instead allows a slight sense of mystery to the proceedings, as there are moments where we know *a* wolf has been put down or is elsewhere, but doesn't necessarily mean the other characters are safe wherever they are. Bonus: there's an evil scarecrow that pops up from time to time (albeit in dream sequences, though they are effectively done).
It also invokes the Beast of Gévaudan, the story best known here for inspiring Brotherhood of the Wolf. The film's hero, a pathologist named John McBride (Boyd Holbrook), lost his family to the Beast and has been tracking it ever since, ending up in this out of the way locale. The landowner, Seamus (Alistair Petrie) and his wife Isabelle (Kelly Reilly) believe their son to be missing, perhaps taken by the beast - neither they nor McBride are aware that he has become the beast himself. It's the rare instance of being ahead of the characters actually working in the movie's favor; if they all knew the kid had become a monster, they'd be doing dumb things to protect it when the chance arose to kill it. Instead we get to feel Isabelle's untainted grief, so we're also hoping that maybe a cure can be found without constantly rolling our eyes at their "stupid" actions.
There is also a surprising amount of gore, even on a child; an early victim is seen having his arm torn apart and later we're given more than a quick look at his maggoty corpse, the sort of thing we have gotten used to filmmakers avoiding (especially for a film that ended up showing next to Spider-Man at the multiplexes). It's possible that there are other gnarly gags, but unfortunately the director and editors make a terrible call and employ what looks like a broken projector effect over nearly all of the attack scenes. Some have said this was to hide some bad CGI and/or practical FX (apparently the film didn't just get a new title since it debuted at Sundance over a year ago - it was also reworked a bit), but I'd rather just look at an abysmal rendering/see the zipper on the monster suit than see anything presented like this, where the image gets doubled and shifted around so you can't really focus on what is happening.
The effect is even worse when you consider the masterful early scene where the gypsies are massacred by the landowners' mob. It's presented in one wide master shot that runs probably two minutes or more, as the mob rides up, has some words with some kind of town elder, shoot him and then proceed to torch their tents/wagons and shoot/slay the rest of the group. It's the sort of thing that is not only impressive to watch, but also to consider how much careful planning it had to have taken to execute properly; if something went wrong, they'd have to reset everything and start all over. I know those epic long shots that find their way into a lot of movies over the past few years are also difficult, but it's also easy to hide a cut somewhere (someone going through a door or passing a black/blank wall) - here, with something like forty people moving around fire, horses, etc, it seems like it'd be impossible to combine takes. And even if so, that's the actual magic of movies working on me again, after 20-30 years of just assuming they used a computer effect to pull something off!
Besides the dumb "glitch effect", the only other issue I had with the movie is a pair of wraparounds set during WWI (the bulk of the movie is set in the late 19th century). The first one is fine enough, but the return to it at the end, in order to sell a twist of sorts, felt very rushed and incomplete, as if there was supposed to be more to it and it got cut short (I don't want to spoil the particulars, but if you've seen it: after the _____ was removed, shouldn't that character... do the thing?). There's also a cursed character who is shot with the appropriate silver bullet and is cured - which I THINK is due to where the bullet was beforehand, but again it's not particularly clear. It was one of those things where I looked at my watch and knew how many minutes were left in the movie, thinking "How can they possibly wrap everything up in the bookend story with x number of minutes left?" only to then discover that, you know, they couldn't.
Alas I don't think I know anyone who saw it at Sundance, so unless a restored version comes to Blu-ray (or someone from Sundance wrote a particularly spoilery review) I won't know if this was always the case or if it was hacked down a bit to get it under two hours. Luckily, it wasn't enough to kill the movie for me - just a blemish on what was otherwise a welcome return to slower paced horror that wasn't "elevated". The A24 version of this movie would have the first (only?) wolf appear in the final 20 minutes at best, and replace all current shots of people on fire or dreaming of freaky ass scarecrows with more shots of people quietly eating dinner. It was invoking a kind of movie that wasn't roller coaster paced itself, but still delivering the goods at an even clip (also, the wolf design, while unusual, is pretty good). Hell even I stayed awake for the whole thing, and I was tired when I arrived at the theater (I didn't get an afternoon nap in as I hoped). That's gotta mean something, right?
What say you?
P.S. Part of the silver stuff invokes Judas' silver, specifically, which makes the title change to one of Wes Craven's movies even more amusing, as Dracula 2000 (which he produced) proposed that Dracula's fear of silver was due to the fact that he was in fact, Judas himself.
If 1981 is the golden age of slasher movies, then 1982 is the "weird" era, as there were a lot of movies like Deadly Games that were marketed as slashers but often don't really feel like them in the slightest. If one were to describe the film in the most general way possible - a masked killer is offing women in a small California town - then yeah, it'd fit right alongside Halloween or whatever. But I'd guess only about 10 minutes or so of the entire movie (which is 95 minutes long) involve such elements, and the rest just focuses on the would-be victims, most of whom aren't even concerned with the killer.
In their defense, the opening kill (a pretty great sequence on its own) is chalked up as a suicide since the woman went out her window and it looked like a jump to the cops. But since we know it wasn't, this is one of those things where a plot point needs to be believable to the audience as well as its characters in order to have the correct effect, because it's hard to keep remembering, over and over, that as far as everyone in the movie is concerned, there's nothing to worry about. Not that it matters much, because even after a second victim is killed - from the same friend group no less - most of the others don't seem overly concerned about it. And then there's a long stretch before anyone else is attacked, so even the audience might forget what kind of movie they were being sold on by then.
Instead it's more of a soap opera, as these women (six of them in total) are friends but also have little issue with sleeping with one another's husbands. Even our heroine, Keegan (whose sister was the opening victim) is fine with openly carrying on with a married cop, who is also banging one of the other women anyway. And when one guy is caught with another's wife, his apology is about as sorrowful as one might be if they mistakenly took the last beer in the fridge or something. It's almost kind of charming in its way...
...especially because the film seems to be a minor influence on Scream. In that film, we learn that Sidney's mother's transgressions (and that it was an "open secret") were actually a big part of the plot, but here such behaviors are not only shrugged off, but seemingly expected of one another. That said, the Scream DNA is undeniable at times, as both not only have the opening kill with creepy phone calls, but it even has the same "the heroine goes to *make* a call for help only to be startled by the phone ringing again" gag, not to mention the victim's early playing along with her mystery stranger. And there are not only mentions of horror movies, but Psycho in particular, with Keegan being warned not to use the shower and her saying that there aren't any Norman Bates around. Also (spoiler, I guess), there are two killers, though it's not as overt about it.
So basically, going in expecting a typical slasher will do it no favors, but if you want a soapy bit of '80s melodrama with some mild thriller elements, it should amuse you just fine. Jo Ann Harris is a pretty charming Final Girl (well, Final Woman - everyone is in their early 30s, another thing that keeps its slasher status questionable), talking to herself and being silly with her new fella, plus it's simply amusing to have one who is not concerned about potentially being murdered until the movie is almost over (imagine Annie as the heroine of Halloween and you'd be in the right ballpark). And the men are fun to just hang out with as well; Dick Butkus shows up for a few scenes as a guy who has resigned himself to being cuckolded, feeling he didn't have any better options, and the great Steve Railsback plays the most obvious candidate for the killer, a Vietnam vet who is good friends with the cop guy.
(SPOILERS) Those two, who also have a maybe-homosexual love for each other (kind of like Doc and Mo in Terror Train) play this strange board game that is seemingly based on the Universal Monsters, but we also see the killer playing it, which deflates the mystery far too early, though I guess "it's actually both of them!" counts as some kind of twist. The reveal of one of them is so casual I almost started wondering if I had missed an earlier reveal, though rewatching with the historian commentary proved I didn't (though there is a shot of the killer in his mask that leaves very little doubt if you're familiar enough with the actors' faces, not hard since most of the male characters disappear by the halfway point anyway). But the point is: I want that game! I wish this movie was successful, then I'm sure someone would have made a replica by now.
The only two extras of note are an interview with one of the actresses (who later married the director) and with the FX guy, which must have been a pretty easy gig since almost no one dies with any sort of wound, the killer usually just strangles them or buries them alive or whatever. It's no surprise he spends a good chunk of his time talking about other things he worked on (including The Office); I literally wondered "WHAT effects?" when I saw the listing in the bonus features menu. The actress is sadly one of the least memorable characters in the movie, though it's not her fault - her death scene didn't make the cut, so her character just disappears pretty early with no explanation (she also refused to return to the set to play her corpse in the obligatory "find the dead friends" sequence). She's fun to listen to (real Jamie Lee energy), but don't be surprised if you are momentarily confused as to which character she played.
I do enjoy watching these obscuros from the era; I've long since resigned myself to believing that none of them are going to be particularly great (or else I would have heard of them before, if only from other fans begging for something to replace their worn out VHS), but there's a certain charm in seeing how filmmakers were attempting to escape from the standard slasher template. Arrow put out another one in the same vein not too long ago (Death Screams), and Vinegar had Whodunit? (aka Island of Terror), all of which wouldn't be the first, second, or even 20th slasher movies I'd recommend to someone looking for a crash course, but definitely help defend the subgenre against criticisms that they're all the same. Also, even if this lacked those occasional highlights, I STILL might recommend watching this one if only for the baffling/amazing freeze frame ending, which involves what I THINK is supposed to be one of the film's primary characters, but it's not clear because it seems they're using a stuntman, and yet freezing on his face anyway. Bless their hearts.
What say you?
P.S. Confusingly enough, Colleen Camp appears for a bit in this (and looking as lovely as ever), and right now one of the other outlets is heavily pushing their release of the very similarly titled Death Game, which stars... Colleen Camp. So don't get em mixed up if you're blind buying!
This new film is titled Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which you might think "again?" but it's actually the first one by that title, as it drops the "The" and restores the "Massacre" that was left out of Texas Chainsaw 3D, the last one that was allowed to be a box office hit. Its followup and now this film have largely bypassed theaters in favor of a streaming service, which lowers expectations, though in both cases they weren't designed for VOD - one has to wonder what sort of stuff they'll do if not encumbered by the need to fulfill mainstream expectations or the looming threat of the MPAA. Here's hoping that if this proves to be successful enough for Netflix, a tenth film is commissioned where the filmmakers know they can go for broke right from the start.
Once again billed as a direct sequel to the original (same route taken by Return/Next Generation and TCM 3D, and hell even 1990's Leatherface seemed to be ignoring TCM2), this one has Leatherface as an old man who is apparently living a kill-free life with his adoptive mother (Alice Krige) in a different Texas town. But said town is dying, and some internet startup types have apparently worked to buy what's left of it and auction the buildings off with the intent of turning the main street into a gentrified hipster haven; one girl wins a building and says she'll turn it into a brunch spot. "I love brunch!" says her friend, and thus we quickly understand that when Leatherface inevitably starts killing them all, it'll offer the same sort of glee we got when he took on the two preppy jocks in the opening of TCM2.
In fact, we're practically supposed to feel sorry for him, as he enters the story when Krige has a heart attack after the influencers force her to leave her home, claiming they have bought it just like all the other buildings. She claims she settled the matter with the bank and is still the rightful owner, and only a drunk child will be surprised to learn she is correct, and our "heroes" just forced a woman out of her rightful home. She eventually dies from her heart failure, which naturally pisses Leatherface off enough to start killing again, though first he makes a new mask out of his beloved ma (why he uses her face instead of one of the two cops he murdered immediately after, I don't know. Weird tribute, my man). Then he makes his way back to town, digs out his chainsaw from where it's been sealed up (yes, it's basically a John Wick "I'm thinking I'm back!" kind of moment) and starts killing everyone else in the movie.
Honestly, all of that would be enough to give the movie a pass; there are some nice gore gags (he breaks one guy's arm and uses the protruding/shattered bone to stab him in the throat), it's paced reasonably well, and basically it all just feels like a leaner, less obnoxious do-over of TCM3D, complete with the dumb idea to omit the other family members and let Leatherface be a solo act, i.e. just another generic slasher. But because this is a modern franchise movie, we have to have TRAUMA!!! And we get it in the form of Lila (Elsie Fisher), sister to one of the town-buyers who has tagged along for their road trip. As we learn just before Leatherface has his reawakening, she has survived a school shooting and is thus naturally hesitant around guns/violence. This idea isn't terrible in itself, but the filmmakers bungle it so badly it becomes downright distasteful, because when the big lug starts swinging his 'saw around the bus full with all these anonymous influencer jerks (most of them aren't even credited or given names), Lila, crouching on the floor, starts to mentally compare it to her school shooting experience - an incredibly tone deaf idea for a scene where they've gone out of their way to make us more or less root for Leatherface. That, plus the fact that she eventually has to learn to trust and use guns, makes the whole thing just incredibly icky, and I am baffled that no one on the production thought to point out how misguided it is in its depiction.
They also totally screw up their big selling point, which is that this film brings back Sally Hardesty as Laurie Strode. I'm not really joking; the whole franchise horror genre is built on some level of copycat-ism, but this takes it to another level, giving her the same hair that Jamie Lee had in Halloween 2018 and even making her say "I've been waiting for him for 50 years" as Laurie did (and, no surprise, she's obsessed with but he doesn't even remember her). Maybe it'd work with Marilyn Burns actually returning to the role instead of a new actress (as Burns passed away in 2014), but even then I'm guessing that (big spoiler here, fair warning!) it'd still leave us with a big "Why did they bother?" feeling when Sally is killed almost instantly, without really doing much and being such a limited part of the movie that she could practically be removed from it entirely without it making any difference.
Of course, if they did that the movie would be even shorter, as it's only about 75 minutes without credits, so I've basically left nothing out in my four short (for me) paragraphs worth of description. The only thing of note I haven't mentioned yet is Richter, a local redneck type who drives an exhaust-spewing pickup and carries an assault rifle, so we are supposed to look at him as another antagonist, but (big shock here!) he turns out to be not all that bad of a guy at all. He is far more interesting than any of our protagonists (and he looks kind of like Stephen Dorff, which is amusing re: franchise history), so naturally he doesn't last long - yet another dumb decision in a movie that is positively stacked with them by the time its over, nearly all of its goodwill completely undone by said bad calls.
And I looked, but failed to find any nods or connective tissue to the other films, so I am guessing producer Fede Alvarez was merely doing some damage control/spin when he said that while the film is only directly referring to the original, "I wouldn't say it skips everything. I think it's up to you to decide when and how the events of the other movies happen." Well, all due respect sir, but this film posits that after the events of the first film, Leatherface was taken in at this orphanage run by Alice Krige's character and he's been quietly living there ever since, with Sally living not too far away and dedicating her life to finding him. Seems anywhere from one to four other major attacks over the years would have, if nothing else, given her more to work with in order to track him down, no? She arrives on the scene of this incident within about an hour of being called, so it's not like she's let her self apointed avenger duties slide. So how could any of the other films have ever happened? Even if we assume Sally was just lazy, are we to believe Leatherface simply left his ailing mother from time to time to join other random families, do his thing, and then come home? "Ma, I'm back! Killed some kids coming back from prom, god they were annoying. Vilmer says hey!". Re-cementing up the wall to hide his chainsaw again every time must have gotten exhausting!
Basically, it's just a big ol' "It is what it is" affair. I didn't sit down expecting anything even on the level of TCM3 or The Beginning, nor did I receive it. The handful of good gore gags (for what it's worth, it's the first entry in the series that has "Massacre" in its title and an actual massacre in the film), brisk pace, and hilariously mean spirited final scene (which utilizes a Tesla's autopilot mode in a most delightful way) kept me from hating it, but the sheer number of poor decisions, lack of any real suspense, and completely worthless revival of the series' most beloved survivor meant I didn't actually LIKE it either. It's just there, another entry for our most inconsistent and mismanaged franchise, providing another excuse for the next team to hit the reset button again in a few years. It's about the only consistent thing this franchise can offer anymore.
What say you?
P.S. Don't put too much stock in John Larroquette's return - he's actually just narrating an Unsolved Mysteries kind of special about the first film's events that Lila sees on TV. It's about half the length of his others; he probably just recorded it himself at home and attached the .wav to a text.
Two things certainly didn't occur to me when I made up approximately 12% of an opening weekend Saturday night showing ofGhosts of Mars (which dwindled to 33.3% by the time it reached its finale). One: that it would be the last time I got to roll up to any random multiplex to see a new John Carpenter movie*, and two: that it'd be over 20 years before I finally got around to giving it my long promised second chance. What seemed like a can't miss proposition of Carpenter applying his Assault on Precinct 13 "cops and crooks band together" plot but setting it on Mars and diving even deeper into his western stylings left me feeling cold or indifferent throughout most of its runtime, but after two decades I honestly couldn't remember what I disliked about it.
Or much about the movie at all, really. As it turns out, even my lone memory wasn't accurate (spoiler: all I "remembered" was Clea Duvall and Jason Statham both dying on the train on the way out, but it was actually running TO the train that they got offed), and very little came back as I watched, so it might as well have been for the first time. But it didn't take long to at least zero in on why the movie didn't work for me: the confusing, needless flashback structure that constantly undercuts the tension. It'd be fine if it was just bookend scenes of Natasha Henstridge telling her story to her skeptical superiors, one at the beginning and another at the end, but Carpenter repeatedly cuts back to them over and over, as if we may have forgotten that this was a flashback.
But I mean, would that have been so bad? The fact that she is presented as a "lone survivor" type has already weakened much of the film's potential for suspense, but maybe we could temporarily forget that most of her co-stars clearly weren't going to survive if not for the reminder every ten minutes or so. Worse, Henstridge's character herself arrives on Mars after a lot has happened, so even part of her flashback story is devoted to listening to the flashbacks of the handful of people who have survived thus far. I'm not saying a linear version of this movie would solve all of its problems, but I'd bet good money that it'd be much improved.
The plot also curiously involves the idea that Ice Cube's Desolation Williams (amazing name) may have been responsible for the dead bodies Henstridge and pals find, but by that point we already know it's something much more powerful, so it's a go nowhere plot point. Perhaps this stuff got re-edited some, because it also seems like Cube's introduction is pretty flat, as if there was a bigger entrance at one point that got chopped out and resulted in something less grandiose for the first time we see him. Either way, long story short the first half hour or so of the movie is a real mess, making too much work for the final hour to win us back.
And as you probably know, it doesn't quite succeed. Because the other issue with the movie is that it exacerbates something that hurt Vampires and Escape From LA as well: Carpenter's seeming disinterest in crafting tight action scenes. Rather than stage specific (scripted) action, he keeps doing this thing where he seemingly has each actor just run (or hangglide, in LA's case) around the set tossing grenades and stuff, then films a bunch of shots of stuntmen going flying through the air, and then puts it all together later to give the idea of a big chaotic sequence. Unfortunately, what ends up happening (at least for me) is that I can't really care about what's going on, because there's no real plot point driving anything forward, it's just a bunch of stuff happening for five minutes until they've run out of juice for the stuntmen's air rams. Say what you will about the surfing scene in LA - as dumb as it is, at least there's a cause and effect built into it and, thanks to Snake needing to catch up to Eddie, it does something to move the plot forward as well. Here, there's a sequence where the entire group runs for a train that isn't there, only to run right back to where they were! At least if they went to a different building it'd feel like some kind of plot momentum had occurred, but if not for a handful of minor character deaths during their pointless journey, you could cut it out entirely and it wouldn't even make a difference.
That leads to another big issue - nobody ever cares or even notices when their comrades die. Cube has a little bit of temporary sadness over his brother's death, but it passes quickly, and Henstridge and the others don't even blink when their partners are killed. Not that anyone has a great death; Duvall's is kind of funny because she ducks under a blade only to get decapitated by another as she rises back up, but without anyone else seeing it or having any kind of reaction, it doesn't mean much. It's almost like since we know Henstridge (and maybe Cube) were the only ones to live right from the start that Carpenter felt that there's no sense dwelling on their deaths, but it'd be nice if their friends could at least shout a "Noooo!" or something to give it a tiny bit of meaning. It also undercuts the "enemies teaming up" premise when he kills off all of Cube's guys within about 30 seconds of each other, long before the conclusion, so it's basically Henstridge's team with a rando who happens to be a criminal.
He also frequently employs dissolves to move things along, more than once just chucking out part of a shot. It's a trick that works on occasion (think Desperado with Antonio making his way up a loooong stretch of road) but he does it for someone walking down a short hallway, removing what could only be a second of footage in between. We've all heard him bemoan how slow he finds some of his earlier films when he comes back to do a commentary, and this seems to be the nadir of that kind of thinking - anything to make things move faster, no matter how silly it looks or how much it draws attention to the movie-ness of it all (see also: bad model shots, which he calls out on the commentary track that he recorded before the movie was even released!). Maybe it's part of the point, but if so it doesn't work for me.
Luckily there is SOME fun to be had, mostly in the last half hour. There's a great sequence (thankfully free of the dissolves and other goofiness) where Henstridge and Cube take turns with Statham and Duvall, two taking point and fending off ghosts while the others reload as they back their way down a corridor, offering the sort of Precinct 13 energy that the film often lacks. And while they don't really do much with it, the idea that killing their attackers only leaves them more likely to be possessed themselves (as the "ghost" seeks a new host) is pretty fun, and you almost get the idea that maybe this might have been better if he was reinventing The Thing instead of P13. And, perhaps this is why the film has had some renewed defense recently, I do quite like that it's a matriarchal future and no one is questioning Henstridge's authority (indeed, she replaced another woman who dies early).
In other words, it's not a total disaster, and there's enough Carpenterisms (Peter Jason pops up, the score's pretty good, the western motifs) to make it feel like a genuine entry in his filmography as opposed to the more anonymous nature of The Ward. But it's also only because his name is there that anyone - including myself - is willing to give it that much benefit of the doubt. If this was some music video or TV director who got plugged into the director spot, few would even remember its existence after even five years, let alone twenty. For what it's worth, I put in my dusty DVD (yep, I never even bothered to upgrade to Blu - his lone major film I don't own on the format) after watching the movie on Hulu and he seems pretty happy on the behind the scenes stuff, and his commentary with Henstridge is one of his more engaging ones (if the movie had been a hit, I suspect they would have worked together again, as they seem very chummy), so this doesn't seem to be a Memoirs kind of case where he was just collecting a check. Sometimes things just don't work out like you hope, whether you're sitting in the director's chair or the theater.
What say you?
P.S. I wasn't actually going to write this up, but today is the 15th birthday of Horror Movie a Day! So you get this little treat.
*I did see The Ward in theaters, but it was only playing once a day at a tiny theater here in Los Angeles, where you'd assume it'd be easier to catch any flick let alone the new one from someone like Carpenter.
One of my New Year's resolutions is to make a serious dent, if not completely obliterate, the dreaded "pile" that has long since become an overflowing box. For those uninitiated (or have forgotten since I haven't done one in a minute), these shorter "FTP" ("from the pile") reviews are derived from this surplus of discs that I've accumulated over the years; unwatched films that I either got for review (unrequested; if I *ask* for them I get to them right away), won at trivia, bought from a clearance sale, etc. The thinking is that these movies aren't *likely* to be ones I'll keep forever, but I can't handle the unknown element of getting rid of them without seeing them - there could be a Cathy's Curse-level treasure in there! So every now and then I grab one at random, such is the case for An Angel For Satan (Italian: Un angelo per Satana), and hope for the best.
And it's an ideal "pile" movie! By which I mean I enjoyed it but probably won't want to watch it again, so I have little need to make space for it on the permanent shelf. It's most famous for being Barbara Steele's swan song in the "Italian gothic" sub-genre that she began with Black Sunday, and luckily for her she went out on a high note with a role that lets her run the gamut. In some scenes she's a sweet, innocent love interest, in others she's devilishly conning every man in town to do her bidding. Sometimes she goes back and forth within a single scene, coming on to a guy and then angrily pushing him away when he responds, but being that this is Ms. Steele in her prime, we never once question why it's so easy for her to sway them or keep coming back after she's been so cruel. We get it.
The mystery of the film is why she is acting like this; sometimes she even identifies herself with a different name entirely, so is she possessed? Is there an evil twin? The answer isn't... too exciting (notice that "supernatural" or anything like that does not appear in the genre listing), but it's fun going on the ride all the same as she systematically turns everyone with a penis against each other or their pre-existing loved ones - a guy who seemingly loves his wife and children is later seen slapping them around in disgust that they're tying him down when he could be with Steele's character, heh.
Whatever the cause for her behavior is, it seems to have something to do with a statue that the hero, Roberto (Anthony Steffen) has been tasked with restoring. A stranger to the area, hired for an artistic task, he quickly falls for the local beauty and even has a lengthy bout of fever, so it unfortunately reminded me more than once of Mill of the Stone Women, which I only watched a few weeks ago. Whether it was a direct influence on this film I have no idea, and this isn't a carbon copy or anything like that, but the atmosphere and general vibe of the whole thing was similar enough to leave me feeling with deja vu more than once, so I wonder if I'd be more into it had it been months or even years between seeing the two films.
Severin's Blu has a pair of commentaries, one with Steele and two moderators (Severin guru David Gregory and historian David Del Valle), the other with Kat Ellinger. Naturally, the former is the more enjoyable; the specifics of what's on screen are rarely addressed but it's kind of hilarious to hear Steele getting increasingly bored with the process, shifting in her seat and seemingly even moving further away from the mic for a while as if she got up to make a sandwich or something. Her recollections are spotty (not an issue; they liken it to trying to specifically remember the first three weeks of 5th grade, i.e. who can blame her for not remembering every movie she did 50+ years ago) but the stories she does offer are a delight, and sometimes it's just funny to hear her interrupt one of their largely unrelated thoughts to actually point out something on screen. As for Ellinger, as I've said in the past I find historian commentaries are more fun when they're paired with someone, so as a solo effort it can be a little too academic/dry for my tastes, especially as she too rarely bothers with what is happening in the movie. There's also an interview with one of the poor sods that falls under Steele's spell in the movie, which is fun because my man hates horror and only did this one because his character didn't get involved with the scary stuff.
This is the sort of movie I think I'd enjoy more as part of a set of Steele's films or something, where the appeal of the whole package makes up for this or that shortcoming within the films themselves. On its own, it's understandable why it's more known as her last go round with this type of movie as opposed to being remembered for its actual plot or other characters. The disc is lovingly remastered, and it has a few hours' worth of extras for those who are so inclined... but all for a movie that doesn't quite have that same kind of pull that Black Sunday or some of the others from that era offer.
Despite, you know, everything, Scream (aka Scream 5, goddamn them for adding confusion!) is projected to make around 40 million dollars this weekend, which means it will outgross 2011's Scream 4's entire take in three days. One can attribute this revived enthusiasm to a variety of things: the new (and very diverse, correcting one of the few flaws of the original) cast bringing in a different set of fans, the polarizing Halloween Kills leaving slasher junkies wanting something a little more traditional, the fact that Scream 4 has found a bigger fanbase over the years (mainly from younger viewers who weren't able to see it in theaters)... but ultimately I think it boils down to one primary thing: it simply looks GOOD.
And it IS good! Really good, in fact! But - and not to shamelessly plug, I touched upon this in the newest issue of Fangoria, so apologies for repeating myself a bit here - the trailer's tone suggested that this, unlike the previous two entries, was returning to the suspense and scariness of the first film and its 1997 sequel, which until today was the only one I found to be a worthy successor. Whereas the first two films were horror movies with humor, the 3rd and 4th films were closer to comedies with some scary stuff thrown in; S4 tried to split the difference, but the tone was still a bit too light for my tastes, and there was no real sense of danger, to either our core trio of Sid, Gale, and Dewey, or the new kids who had their screentime (and thus, chance to flesh out their characters) handicapped by constantly having to step aside and let the original stars continue to be the main characters.
At this point I'll have to just warn you that there are some spoilers ahead. I will not say who the killer or killers is/are, or reveal any other surprise appearances or who dies, but I will be getting more into the film's story than the marketing has let on, because it's somewhat unavoidable. You are warned to proceed with caution, and if you want to stop now, I'll just leave you with my ranking: 1, 2, 5, 4, 3. That should more or less tell you how much you may or may not enjoy this one.
This film's all-new creative team (directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett of Ready or Not fame, writers Guy Busick and James Vanderbilt) bites the bullet and (finally!) sidelines the veteran cast members, wisely opting to focus exclusively on the new cast for like a half an hour (with the exception of Marley Shelton's Judy Hicks, who is now the sheriff but is primarily used as the mother of one of our new leads) before slowly working our old pals into the mix. Our new hero Samantha (Melissa Barrera) is a former Woodsboro resident whose sister (still living there) is attacked by Ghostface, so she returns to town and quickly realizes why someone with *that* costume might be targeting them. And so she turns to "the expert": Dewey Riley, who has retired and is no longer married to Gale, instead living in a trailer like Heath Ledger in the 3rd act of Brokeback Mountain, alone with his regrets.
Dewey in turn messages Gale and Sid, telling them that there's a new Ghostface and urging them not to come back, but as the body count starts to rise, they naturally don't listen to him. Thankfully, enough happens to make it clear that it would take some incredible 4D chess manuevering on Ghostface's part if their plan was to ruin Sidney's life, as it almost seems a surprise to them that she arrives on the scene when she does. Not that Sid is peripheral to the story (though I wasn't surprised to see Neve Campbell got the "and" billing, with her pals under "with"), but the killer's motive has to do with the whole Woodsboro history, not specifically Sid, so she is just part of the puzzle as opposed to the main focus. And even if the killer wasn't concerned with her at all, fans will absolutely adore her scenes, both in terms of where she is in her life now and how she has come to accept her seeming inability to keep Ghostface out of her life for good. It's clear the filmmakers have seen 2018's Halloween revival (indeed, it's directly mentioned in the film), but thankfully their interpretation of our girl isn't inspired by either of Jamie Lee Curtis' big returns to that franchise*; if anything it's closer to how Leia was used in the newest Star Wars films.
You might think that's an odd comparison, but it's an easy one to make since the movie cracks a joke about Rian Johnson "ruining" the Stab series by directing the 8th one, a not too subtle gag about how much whiny SW fans overreacted to his The Last Jedi (aka Episode 8). One of the new characters is Randy's niece Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown), who more or less fills in his duties as the one who knows how these things work, so it falls on her to clue her less astute pals into what they're dealing with. In a very well done scene with all the new kids plus Dewey, she's the one who explains that remakes are no longer in vogue and what people like now are "requels", in which new characters are blended with the older ones (it's here that she references Halloween, but the new Star Wars films are the better example). And yeah, that's kind of what Scream 4 was doing as well, but as those namechecked movies - which didn't exist yet - proved, we don't need to center everything around the older stars, and it can occasionally even work better without them. Without spoiling any particulars, a Scream 6 COULD have older characters back, but honestly, this film's efforts have demonstrated that they can be left out of it entirely and the film will still be appealing. I might not have been as excited for this film without their return (as they did a lot of heavy lifting to legitimize it as a real Scream movie when Wes Craven was obviously not involved and Kevin Williamson's participation was largely ceremonial), but if Paramount announces that Scream 6 will focus on the new survivors and leave the old guard out of it, I'd certainly be just as interested, if not more so.
And that's one place they succeeded where Scream 4 failed, at least for me. By constantly working the legacy characters into the story and once again having the killer blame Sidney for the misfortunes in their own life, the new cast in S4 never got a chance to come into their own, and then the script killed them all off anyway (except for maybe Kirby, whose fate is finally cleared up in this one), making it seem like two hour exercise in returning things to status quo. That's not how this one plays out; everything is from the POV of Sam or her sister Tara (Jenna Ortega), and by the end you will care as much about them and the others (Sam's boyfriend Richie, Tara's girlfriend Amber, Mindy and her brother Chad, Judy's son Wes, etc) as much as you did Randy, Tatum, etc. And, without giving away names or numbers, I think it's safe to say the script wisely leaves more than just one or two of them alive to see a Scream 6 if one should be commissioned.
But fear not, this isn't a tame film by any means. Craven probably spun in his grave if they were able to pass this film with minimal MPAA issues, as it is BRUTAL. Not torture-y, thankfully (Scream 4 was the time to tackle that aspect of horror, and they blew it), but Ghostface is more stab-happy than he's been since he killed Randy, as nearly every victim is stabbed multiple times, with copious amounts of blood and even the occasional prosthetic gag (someone gets it in - and back out of - their neck, it's gnarly as hell). One victim's pool of blood legit left me unsettled, though part of it was that they were one of the film's most endearing characters and I was sad to see them go. The body count may not be as high as some of the others, but the kills all matter, and the new team establishes a real sense of menace that allows the tension to keep rising in ways the previous two sequels lacked. At one point I legit feared for Sidney's life - that hasn't happened in 25 years (let's not forget early drafts of Scream 2 did leave her mortally wounded, so it's not like the idea is completely out of the question).
They're also hellbent on being suspenseful again, teasing out many kill scenes and utilizing our familiarity with horror to their advantage. There's a great sequence where a would-be victim - in a house where we know Ghostface is lurking - manages to find a way to open multiple doors and then close them, with our expectations (aided by Brian Tyler's score, which is quite good and a fine replacement for Marco Beltrami) deflated over and over as we expect the killer to suddenly be there when the door is closed. There are some really good moments involving everyone pointing fingers with others not knowing who to believe (shades of the bit in the original where Randy and Stu are both accusing the other), and while there aren't a lot of full on chase scenes, there is one good one involving a "Find Me" app that is not only a good sequence but also checks off the "use new technology" box that S4 sometimes over-relied on. There's nothing as scary as that opening from the original or as well crafted as the AV room chase in S2, but there is a clear intent to *aim* for those highs, and they occasionally get real close. I mean, I'm 42 years old in a few weeks - I can't expect to be jumping out of my chair like I did all those years ago when he appeared on the other side of the window with Casey. But by emphasizing suspense and not undercutting the horror moments with comedy as much as the previous sequels (hell, even 2 did this a bit), I barely noticed.
Fear not though, it still has some solid humor. Again, tonally it's very much in line with the first two films, but when they do go for a laugh, it actually works. An early victim scoffs at movies like Stab, saying she prefers "elevated horror" like The Witch and The Babadook, Sid and Gale's sort of jaded attitude about having to deal with another of these guys is hilarious (at one point they see someone crying for help, bleeding, and they stop to discuss whether or not it's a trap) and there is a gag about Dewey texting Gale that floored me. There are also some great easter eggs/jokes for hardcore fans; as a little nod to Williamson, a character watches Dawson's Creek in the hospital (and the particular episode they chose was... well, you'll see. But Josh Jackson wasn't the only Scream veteran to be on the show, I'll leave it at that!). And I advise you to listen very carefully to Gale's morning show monologue, as well as train your eye at the "related videos" when someone watches a review of Stab 8 on Youtube.
On that note, there's something in the film I found very smart in addition to satisfying a personal pet peeve: empty text message histories! The logic of filmmakers is that characters never have older messages on their screen when they are texting plot matters to other characters, because the audience will be distracted trying to read the other ones and the editor doesn't want to have the phone on screen that long. Which I get in a way, but it still drives me insane when I see someone text their boyfriend for what appears to be the first time in their life. Here, most of the screens do indeed have older, inconsequential messages above the one they're typing, BUT! there are two exceptions, which stand out in this film of otherwise loaded text screens and quickly tells us, without having to spell it out, that these are characters who are no longer on speaking terms. It's just a little thing, but it just goes to show how much thought they were putting into the film's reality, instead of the indifference that peppered the previous two entries.
As for the killer or killers, I obviously can't get into that too much; maybe by the time it comes to Blu-ray I can do a "Collins' Crypt" style piece somewhere with my thoughts (and I have plenty!). However, I will say that their motive was not only more interesting than "I just want to be famous", but also pretty spot on and even somewhat worrisome, circling back in a modern way to the "blame the movies" idea in a way that actually makes some interesting points about modern fandom. I do wish there could have been something more personal along with it to match Billy's second motive (the one that seemed to surprise even Stu), that Sid's mother is the reason his own mother left, but since the premise of the film is built around people with connections to the original crew (Randy's niece and nephew, the new owners of Stu's house, etc.) I suppose it might veer into silly territory if there was yet another link.
Ultimately, I have very few complaints. One is just a "me" thing - I pegged (a or the) killer pretty early on, which I attribute to just overdosing on these things; it's not a dealbreaker, but I wish I had turned out to be wrong just to remind me that I don't, in fact, know everything when it comes to slasher movies. Another is more valid: there's a third act attempt to have us suspecting a character who we had previously seen being menaced by Ghostface when they were otherwise alone, which might have worked somewhere in the *first* act, but by that point we knew the film was too smart/careful to try to pull that sort of nonsense on us, so I wish they had rethought their approach. It'd be like Ghostface-Stu stabbing Billy without Sid in the room to see it. And that aforementioned use of Stu's house is treated as a big reveal, complete with a "dun dun DUNNNNN" zoom out of the doorway to reveal the exterior, which cuts into the tension of the moment for something that viewers would have already realized anyway (the interior hasn't changed much!) or still won't really understand the significance.
But I mean, come on. Two of my three complaints are nerdy nonsense, which should tell you how much they got right in my eyes. My main disappointment had nothing to do with the movie, it was simply that Scream 4 exists. When Dewey calls Sid and tells her "it's happening again", marking her first appearance in the movie, you almost wish that you could imagine a. it's been 20 years since we last saw her and b. it's been even longer since she had been back in Woodsboro. Alas, Scream 4 already stole that "Sid finally returns home" thunder, so it's not quite as impactful (I liken it to how much better Terminator: Dark Fate might have fared as the "return of Arnold" (post-Salvation) if not for the awful/earlier Genisys) as it could have been if not for a film that otherwise gave her so little to do. This film doesn't erase S4, but, kind of like how Die Hard with a Vengeance seems more naturally progressing from the first film as opposed to Die Harder, perhaps the reason they didn't want to call the film Scream 5 is because what it really feels like at times is that they wanted to be a truer followup to Scream 3 (there's another easter egg involving Sid that backs up this theory; if you're hazy on the 3rd one, I'd advise a rewatch or, at the very least, a reading of the cast list). And if that was indeed their intent, for my money they succeeded admirably. I'm tough to please with these things, and all I really wanted was for it to be better than the last two movies, even if only by a little, but instead I walked out as happy as I did with Scream 2 all those years ago. I had doubts, but they truly nailed it.
What say you?
P.S. I cried at the final dedication to Craven. If you've purchased Collins' Crypt: Remastered and read the new piece in the Wes-centric chapter, you know that I've been feeling guilty wanting to see this movie when my man wasn't behind the camera, so seeing that made me feel better. And yes, they bring the old-school font back after Scream 4 had a different, blockier one! Also, for those curious, "Red Right Hand" also makes a return, though it's used rather oddly, seemingly playing on a car stereo during a kill scene.
*Because I am writing a piece on Scream 3 this week, I've been diving deeper into it than I ever have and I am only just now realizing how much of it was seemingly inspired by H20, which made Dimension a lot of money the year before Scream 3 went into production. Scream 3 used the same location, the "our heroine is living in Northern California under a new name" plot device, AND had an opening scene where someone is killed to get her whereabouts. For good measure, both films also were edited by Patrick Lussier and featured Creed songs over the credits, not to mention had less Kevin Williamson involvement than was originally planned. I bet a double feature would even yield more similarities.
Hey everyone! Just wanted to let you all know that my new book, Collins' Crypt: Remastered is now available HERE at Amazon. As the title suggests, it's a collection of many of my Crypt articles from Birth.Movies.Death (RIP) from over the past decade, but with a few nips and tucks to improve grammar, correct the odd typo, etc, while also adding notes/updates where appropriate. I always tried to make sure my pieces were still of value weeks/months/years later (unlike the casting news stories that make up the majority of movie sites' content), and when going through the pieces and curating which ones to include, I was happy to see that most of them were indeed just as relevant now as they were when they were written.
But the real draw (I hope!) is that the book contains eight brand-new Crypt essays that were written exclusively for this collection. So yes, while the majority of the book is something you can - and may already have - read for free (albeit with ads and broken images), you're getting a decent amount of new material, for around the usual cost of a monthly Patreon subscription. Except you'll only have to "subscribe" once, and you already know you're getting plenty in return! Show of hands: who else has signed up for a friend's Patreon only to see them let it basically lapse while still collecting your monthly fee? It sucks, right? Well, this avoids the potential ripoff you endure out of loyalty! Some of the new pieces include a comparison of the two versions of Exorcist 4, an apology of sorts for being excited for a Wes-free new Scream film, and a celebration of the insanity that is Hausu. Plus: a new installment of the much loved Minute by Minute series - the first one in over eight years!
If you enjoy it, please take a moment to submit a rating and/or review to help get it on more eyeballs. I'd love to do more volumes (a second one is already partially planned out) but only if it sells enough to warrant all the work it takes (not to mention paying an editor and cover artist). And of course, plug on your socials if you feel so inclined; it's just so hard to get something on anyone's radar these days, so every bit helps. Thank you in advance, and Happy Holidays to you all!
One fun thing about diving so deep into older films is that I (and I assume most others) can usually tell more or less when a film was made just by looking at the film stock; I can usually get within a five year period after looking at a single shot in motion, regardless of the fashions or the age of any recognizable actors. It was a skill that threw me for a loop when watching Mill of the Stone Women, because for some reason I thought it was from 1972 but could tell just by looking at it that it had to be at least a decade older. And I was right - it was produced in 1960, and is in fact the first Italian horror movie made in color. I love seeing the firsts!
Ironically, if my eyes (and looking at the back of the damn Blu case, which noted the year) hadn't told me otherwise, I'd be convinced the film was a response to not only the Corman/Poe/Price films, but later Hammer Frankenstein entries that made Peter Cushing into more of a villain than the 1958 original. But no, it (obviously) came before those, being produced more or less at the same time as Corman's first Poe film (House of Usher) and having only the first two Hammer Frankensteins to draw from. The real influence (besides the Frankensteins and other Hammer films from the late '50s) were the two wax movies: House of Wax and Mysteries of the Wax Museum, as the titular Mill is actually a museum of sorts where historical women made of "stone" can be gawked at by townsfolk and tourists.
Being that it's a horror movie, there's no real surprise to learn that they're not stone, but the plot is still more interesting than you'd think. Turns out it's kind of a two birds with one stone (heh) kinda deal, as the resident mad scientist is indeed killing women and using them for his attraction, but he's doing it for a noble (to him) reason: his daughter Elfie (Scilla Gabel, an absolute stunner - thank you, remastered Blu-ray) has a rare blood disease that kills her whenever she gets excited or distraught, so he and his assistant find women with the right blood type, drain them out to revive his daughter, and use their corpses to keep his museum going instead of using actual stone or whatever earthly materials. It's a very environmentally friendly horror plot, I must say.
But being that this is a genre film from the olden days (61 years old! They didn't even have feature movies that old when this came out!), it takes a while to get to that stuff. It can be a bit "slow" at times, even when you consider its age, but then again, being that it was their first attempt at something like this (in full lurid color - there's even a brief nipple shot, which kind of stunned me) it shouldn't be a surprise that it wasn't exactly roller-coaster paced. Luckily, the hero, Hans (Pierre Brice) isn't as dull as a lot of the guys in those Corman movies it resembles - in fact, the plot kicks into gear because he cheats on his girlfriend with Elfie on the day he meets her, the dog. And it's his "I shouldn't have done that, sorry" dismissal that leaves her emotional enough to instantly drop dead, so he's feeling justifiably guilty on two levels for the rest of the movie - it's one thing to cheat on your girl, but to basically cause the other woman's death as a result? Damn.
Most of it takes place inside the mill or their homes, but there are a few exteriors that were lensed in gloomy Holland, giving it that proper foggy atmosphere that will make this an easy recommendation for the Halloween season. But even the interiors are quite nice to look at; both DP Pier Ludovico Pavoni and director Giorgio Ferroni have a lot of "sword and sandal" type movies on their resumes and are thus accustomed to having bigger areas to shoot in, but they clearly didn't let themselves be hamstrung by the confines of relatively small sets - the mill in particular is top-notch work, at least inside (the exterior miniature isn't very convincing, alas). The colors are also all vivid and lush; apparently they wanted to assure the money men that color film was worth the extra dough. I can't say the movie wouldn't work in black and white, but when coupled with its occasionally sluggish pace, it'd certainly be less memorable.
Arrow's deluxe set for the film includes a whopping four versions, but alas I did not have time to go through them all. The one to go with is, naturally, the Italian version, as it is the most complete, but it should be noted that the film has an international cast all of whom are speaking their native tongues, so you're still going to encounter some dubbing. You can just go with the English version (the content of the film is the same, I believe?) if reading the subtitles is an issue, but as is often the case the dub track and the subtitle track offer varations on nearly every line, so basically no matter what you're dealing with compromise. On the second disc there's a French version, which has a scene that was added at the insistence of its French producers (a conversation that clarifies some of the character's histories with one another), but is missing a few others, so it wouldn't be the best place to start. And the other version is of no use to any newcomer, as it removes those scenes AND the added French one, from what I understand. But I like that they went out of their way to include it; I'm sure it's someone's preferred version due to having it on VHS or whatever, so hey, now they can have their hacked up take looking all lovely on the remastered high def transfer.
There are also some bonus features, including a video essay by Kat Ellinger (I am a big fan of these; they're like Cliff's Note commentaries) and an interview with Liana Orfei, who plays one of the unwilling eventual Stone Women. There's also a commentary by Tim Lucas, who is the go to guy for Bava and thus it wasn't much of a surprise that the conversation turned to him a few times (he launches a convincing argument that Bava actually ghost-directed a couple of key scenes), though I was cerrtainly not expecting a history of LSD to be included. Overall it's not a bad track but one of the ones where I wish he was paired with someone to bounce off of and keep it a little more lively, as Lucas always sounds like he's reading from a report and thus it can be a bit dry to listen to even when the information is sound. The deluxe edition also includes a book that has two essays (one on the film's overall legacy, the other tracking its multiple versions) as well as some review excerpts from the time, which is interesting as not all of them are exactly glowing.
It's definitely a "not for everyone" kind of film, as its horror elements are relatively muted and it will probably remind any seasoned viewer of more exicting films, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. The pre-giallo era of Italian horror is one area I am definitely not as well versed in (as I've noted, I "appreciate" Bava more than I "enjoy" his films, for the most part), so I'm always happy to fill that gap in a little more, and anything that might have helped influence my beloved Tourist Trap is obviously something I'm going to admire. And I love seeing so much care for it on Arrow's part; it's not exactly a film that people are beating down their doors for them to release, and yet they offer it this deluxe release with a book, a poster, four cuts of the film... basically, everything a fan could want, even if there aren't a lot of them out there. Every movie deserves this kind of treatment!
Vinegar Syndrome has released a few volumes of "Forgotten Gialli", with obscure entries in the sub-genre that are, as can be expected, pretty hit or miss (otherwise they wouldn't be forgotten), but it's been a while since they put one out. Luckily, Arrow has picked up the slack and gone in the opposite with a collection they have dubbed Giallo Essentials, collecting a trio of previous releases at a lower price point than buying them individually. As far as I can tell the discs are identical to their standalone counterparts, and the boxed set doesn't save you any space either, so if you already own them there's no reason to pick this up. However, if you haven't already been blessed by The Fifth Cord, The Possessed, and The Pyjama Girl Case, then it's a no brainer to pick this up.
The only one I had actually seen before was The Fifth Cord (Italian: Giornata nera per l'ariete), and you can read my full review HERE (feel free to chuckle at the "source" - remember when we called it that? Or when they actually had obscure films like this on the service? Memories...). No sense of repeating myself too much, except to say that it's just as good a second time around (possibly better, since I got to watch it in Italian this time), especially since it had been so long that I forgot who the killer was anyway. I also forgot how people apparently found it hard to follow, which baffles me as much now as it did then - this is one of the most coherent entries in the entire genre! I always try to be optimistic, but ultimately I may have to just accept that a lot of people are simply very stupid.
The disc has a lot of bonus features I obviously wouldn't have had access to on "Netflix Instant" even if they existed then (looks like the majority were created in 2018). It's a solid mix of recollections from people involved, including star Franco Nero and editor Eugenio Alabiso, as well as the historian efforts like a commentary from Travis Crawford and a terrific video essay from Rachael Nisbet that highlights underappreciated director Luigi Bazzoni's visual style, particularly his penchant for filming characters in front of or behind blinds or glass (sometimes both!), embellishing their feelings of being trapped or whatever. Gialli critics like to assume it's all just a bunch of zooms and "male gaze" kind of stuff, and there certainly is a lot of it across the genre, but things like this really help illustrate that these filmmakers aren't just a bunch of horny hacks.
Bazzoni codirected the earlier The Possessed (Italian: La donna del lago) with Franco Rossellini, which is sort of a "proto-giallo" that is not only shot in black & white (not unlike Bava's The Girl Who Knew Too Much, widely considered the real origin of the genre) but is also based on a true story. One that, according to the historian commentary by Tim Lucas, actually had more murders than the film offers! It's more of a sad drama with some thriller elements than anything one might conjure when thinking of a giallo - for starters, I don't think the hero of the film is ever in any real danger until the final moments. He's a struggling author who has returned to a hotel where he once stayed, hoping to get his creative juices flowing but really hoping to get reacquainted with one of their employees, who he had a brief fling with on his last visit. Alas, the girl (Tilde) is nowhere to be found, and since we're technically in giallo territory it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that she has in fact died. The reports say suicide, but...
So, yeah, the movie is about a guy trying to solve a months-old murder, but it doesn't seem like the killer is active and ready to strike again, which is why it feels more like a drama about a lost love. The thriller elements are enjoyable, but I think anyone expecting Deep Red or Don't Torture A Duckling style excess will be disappointed, to the extent that it might be even doing the film a disservice to include it on a GIALLO ESSENTIALS set - it'd be like putting Peeping Tom in a set with The Burning and Silent Night Deadly Night or something. Not that I didn't enjoy the film - on the contrary, I found it quite engaging and enjoyed the change of pace, but some viewers may not adjust as quickly and feel bored. Just a warning! Enjoy it for what it is, don't dismiss it for what it isn't!
The third film on the set is also kind of light on the violence, but it too is based on a true story so you can't really blame them for having some tact. The Pyjama Girl Case (Italian: La ragazza dal pigiama giallo) is based on a real life mystery involving an unidentified body, and uses the names and more or less the same motive as the person ultimately convicted of the crime, although many believe the case was never truly solved (for starters, the victim had different color eyes than the woman the murderer claimed he killed!). At any rate, it's an engaging film that splits its time between the detectives (including a hilarious Ray Milland as a grouchy old-school cop that scoffs at psychoanalysis) and a woman named Linda who is desperate to find love. She is currently dividing her time between at least three men, each having something the other lacks, presumably trying to feel out which one would be best in the long run.
One might assume she is the killer's next victim, but (spoiler for 45 year old movie ahead) after a while it shouldn't take too many brain cells to realize that the film has a split timeline, and she is in fact the dead woman that the other characters are trying to identify. It's an unusual approach to this sort of thing, and director Flavio Mogherini treats it as a twist of sorts, neglecting to note that half of the scenes are essentially flashbacks by coloring them differently or doing on-screen "Six months earlier" kind of text. Saw fans will be accustomed to this sort of thing (given that it's set in Australia, I'd be very curious if the Aussie directors of Jigsaw are fans, as it did the same thing albeit more overtly in service of a twist), but a casual viewer might just be puzzled why the two sets of characters aren't interacting and - perhaps more importantly if they sat down for a giallo - why no one else was being killed.
That said, as with Possessed I found it quite involving, aided greatly by both Milland's delightful performance (wait til you see his final send off to a pervert suspect) but also the lovely Riz Ortolani score, which also includes a pretty haunting/amazing theme song sung by Amanda Lear (listen here if you've never been blessed). Ortolani is on hand for an interview along with actor Howard Ross and editor Alberto Tagliavia, but for my money the highlight of the video extras is a lengthy interview/essay by Michael Mackenzie, who speaks about the "globalization" of giallo, i.e. how many of them feature plots of visiting Americans (or any non-Italian really) being caught up in a murder mystery in Italy, or an Italian going somewhere and, yes, being caught up in a murder mystery. To his knowledge (so I'll believe him) this is the only one set in Australia, which certainly gave it some new flavoring even if Mogherini seemed a bit obsessed with showing the Opera House in Sydney. There's also a Troy Howarth commentary, but it's a little icky at times - he is clearly quite infatuated with the actress playing Linda (who is indeed beautiful), laments at the brevity of a lesbian scene, and at one point basically admits to masturbating. I know I complain about them running off the filmographies of the actors, but I'd rather listen to that, I must say.
A second volume is already on the way, including Torso, What Have They Done To Your Daughters, and Strip Nude For Your Killer, all of which definitely fall in "your mental image of a giallo" territory. And I've seen them all (in fact I think I have the original Arrow releases!), which is a bummer because I was hoping to discover more, but I like that they're being released so close together. A new fan to the genre can get both and enjoy a trio of traditional entries, and then another group of more offbeat, dare I say classier (or at least, less sleazy) titles that, when you group all six together, really shows off the range and potential of this somewhat underappreciated genre. Add in all of the bonus features and you can basically go from newbie to halfway decent scholar for the price of two boxed sets!
One thing about covid that's interesting is that it's given movies a new possible reason to be underwhelming, as the logistics of mounting a production under these circumstances can be pretty daunting on top of the usual hurdles filmmaking must entail. So when you add in the fact that there has been and possibly will never be a foolproof formula for adapting a video game into a successful movie, it's almost a miracle that Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City is even watchable, let alone "OK" and even kind of fun at times. But I could never shake the feeling that it could have been closer to "genuinely good" if it was produced in 2019, or (hopefully?) a year or two down the road.
Literally from the start, something seemed off about the film. It opens on a flashback of our eventual heroes, Claire and Chris Redfield (I'm going to assume you have at least passing familiarity with the games, just fair warning) at an orphanage, with the former being woken up - seemingly not for the first time - by a mysterious figure no one else thinks exists. The scene seems to last twice as long as any opening flashback of its type should, and there are other examples throughout the film that had me wondering if these scenes weren't supposed to take up as much screentime as they do, but merely had to be padded out in order to get the film into acceptable runtime (which, nowadays, means over 100 minutes, as anything shorter suggests it was compromised) as there were other scenes that had to be scrapped because there was no way to do them right under covid restrictions.
Similarly, there are at least two occasions in the movie where it felt like a scene was dropped, with characters appearing in new locations when they were far away the last time we saw them (in one instance, the character seemingly abandoned their spoken plan entirely and went in the opposite direction). There are also some dropped subplots, like armed mercenary types from Umbrella who are seen executing townsfolk, only to never appear again, let alone be a continual threat to our heroes. It's possible these scenes were indeed filmed and merely dropped for pacing or whatever, but when you consider the aforementioned scenes that go on for so long or simply have no followup, only an 11th hour hack job on par with the "glory years" of Dimension could explain these gaps.
No, I suspect covid and/or perhaps a reduced budget had writer/director Johannes Roberts forced into the unenviable position of having to streamline his ideas into something that could still be coherent and offer up the requisite number of scares and thrills. The movie's heart is clearly in the right place, something that will be very apparent to fans of the games who were left cold by Paul Anderson's dismissal of most of its canon. His films had pretty much all of the franchises' main players show up in some capacity, but the plots never really even came close to the storylines from the games (not surprising since they all revolved around Milla Jovovich's Alice, who has no game counterpart).
In contrast, Roberts definitely dives into the first two games, with Chris and Jill heading to the mansion to investigate what happened to a previous team, while Leon and Claire are out in the city as the latter searches for her brother. The movie presents these narratives as occurring simultaneously (the games were a couple months apart, if memory serves), which works just fine in some cases, but also keeps the two leads apart for far too much of the runtime. With Roberts using the Carpenter font and setting up a big chunk of the film's first half in a police station, it's not hard to think about a potential Assault on Precinct 13 style narrative, where you'd have all these characters with different motives all having to band together to fight zombies and monsters (either at the station or the more famous Spencer Mansion), but the movie is almost over by the time Claire and Leon finally meet up with the others.
(Speaking of Leon, the guy playing him is awful and grating. However you feel about how the character was used in the 5th entry in the previous franchise, at least that actor looked and felt like the actual Leon. This guy's like obvious cannon fodder you have to put up with for the whole movie, and seemingly ends every one of his scenes on some variation of "What the f___?" Maybe non gamers won't notice/care, but considering how much of the rest of the movie seems designed to please them, it's a really bizarre choice.)
Instead, we just keep going back and forth between the two groups, which means there are a couple of good sequences on their own (love the bit of a Licker making its presence known by lumbering on the floor above, making the hanging lights sway in succession until it's obviously right above our hero), but a noted lack of tension. Every time we switch to the other team, it's like hitting a soft reset, and by the time things start getting going with their story, it's time to check in with the others again. Plus, two small teams means there's entirely too much "safe" action - there's a noted lack of non-game characters who are around for more than a scene or two, and you don't have to be a game fan to know that the Redfields, Leon, and Jill are not going to die in this would-be franchise (re)starter, so apart from a few well done jolt moments, there's not a lot of terror to be found. There are bits in that first game - some recreated here! - that can still get a little yelp out of me, but too much of this film felt more like the 5th and 6th games, where action took precedence over horror. People say these movies are as fun as watching someone else play a game, but this goes further - it's like watching someone *expertly* play these games, robbing the viewer of true carnage.
I also couldn't understand the point of the 1998 setting apart from being faithul to the games. Umbrella seemingly controls every aspect of this town, so a simple "no cell phones" excuse doesn't work - they just would have blocked them anyway. It's actually kind of ironically funny when a character is given a Palm Pilot and has no idea what it is; if the movie was set in 2021, anyone under like 35 (as the character is) would be just as confused anyway. Roberts tosses in some '90s pop songs (no Steinman though, so Strangers 2 remains his peak in that department), but otherwise there isn't much point to the setting; for the most part you're likely to forget that it's supposed to be set nearly 25 years ago. And really, given its covid-era production (it was shot in late 2020) it almost seems like a missed opportunity to not draw on it for their plot about a virus spiraling out of control.
The good news is, unless you are simply Pavlovian with your reaction to Easter eggs and references to the games (I admit to laughing out loud at a "Jill sandwich" gag), you don't need to be a fan of the games to get as much enjoyment out of it as you can - I suspect newcomers and hardcore fans alike will agree that it misses the mark. It's certainly a decent enough timekiller, but never really rises above its straightforward goal of "being more faithful." Yeah, sure, you nailed that - but most if not all of Anderson's movies are more engaging and exciting, regardless of how they "ruined" this or that character. So in my book, that's not really an improvement; I'd rather a filmmaker tossed everything and made a movie that stands alone rather than watch one where more time was spent on matching the floor plan of a building than thinking of interesting things for the characters to DO in that building.
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