Film Thoughts

Recent Watches: 2/1/12

2012-02-01T18:06:00.000-08:00

There’s no shortage of movies about movies. Wither you’re talking about films about actors, directors, writers, or even the occasional metatextual comment on the format itself, you can find plenty. Something else there’s no shortage of are rise-fall, and usually, rise again stories. I’ll go ahead and factor in stories about the Golden Age of filmmaking too. The point of this is, “The Artist” is not exactly exploring new territory here. It’s a film concerned with the past.

This isn’t inherently a bad thing, of course. The delight of a film doesn’t necessarily have much to do with its subject matter. And, no kidding, “The Artist” is rather delightful in spots. In its opening sequence, silent movie star George Valentine, after a successful screening of his latest adventure hit, does a tap dance across a stage before an adoring, applauding audience. He clowns around and mugs for the audience, doing tricks with his little dog, them loving it all along. Another joyous moment, involves the first encounter between Valentine and Peppy, an adoring fan and aspiring actress herself. The meeting is accidental and, after the two literally bump into each other, you wonder how Valentine will react. Will he be the egotistical actor cliché? It’s a genuine moment of mild suspense and when Valentine laughs it off and proceeds to mug with his new friend. Honestly, the relationship between Valentine and Peppy is the heart of the film and the scenes of the two interacting, such as a sweet moment when he finds her in his dressing room, are some of the film’s best moments. Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo both have a lot of charm and chemistry.

However, it’s not hard to figure out where the story is going. Bejo is a star on the rise while Dujardin is all ready pass his prime. The film is set on at the end of the silent era and the beginning of talkies. Naturally, Dujardin’s Valentine is forgotten, washed-up, and falls on hard times while his once protégée surpasses him in fame and recognition. The film leans even harder on the death of silent film. George Valentine dismisses sound as a fad, sinks his own money into a destined-to-flop passion project silent epic. In a moment of exceedingly loaded visual symbolism, Dujardin has a dream where everyone can talk but him Later, he focuses on a cop’s flapping lips, apparently being unable to understand what he’s saying. The film falls into melodrama quickly. Considering this is a homage to golden age era melodramas, I guess I can’t really complain about that. Still, sequences of a drunken Valentine searching a burning building for a single film can or uncovering a room full of his old possessions lay it on a bit thick.

The movie does look fantastic. It perfectly captures the look and feel of silent cinema while convincingly looking the part. Since there’s (almost) no spoken dialogue, music is hugely important and Ludivic Bource’s score is fantastic. It evokes the era while filling in the missing emotions the lack of speech creates. The supporting cast is solid too, including a haggard John Goodman as your typical studio exec and James Cromwell as an overly loyal butler. The dog is adorable too.

I enjoyed “The Artist” a lot but it’s not a deep film. Visually fantastic, quite stirring, and leads up to a triumphant finale, it’s ultimately just dressing on a story we’ve seen and heard a thousand times before. It’s certainly very entertaining but the excessive amount of hype is misplaced. It’s still going to win best picture though. (7/10)

The Bangers n' Mash Show Episode 2

2012-01-26T16:52:00.000-08:00

So here's the second episode of my podcast-that-actually-isn't. In the second episode of the Bangers n' Mash Show, JD and I discuss the films of Full Moon Entertainment, focusing on the Puppet Master and Subspecies series. Spoilers abound for both franchises.

This episode is also full of laughing, swearing, audio errors, and generally babbling incoherence. I'll do better next time.

Oscar 2012: Nominations and Predictions

2012-01-24T20:50:00.000-08:00

Oscar season is a lot like Christmas for me. Except instead of unwrapping a bunch of boxes full of mystery and surprise, you get pretty much exactly what you expected because you’ve all ready been through a season full of other award shows. I know the Oscars are stupid. I know they’re meaningless. They don’t reflect the public’s taste in film and they don’t reflect the actual best films that came out last year. I know they are, at best, two and a half hours of Hollywood patting itself on the back and, at worst, a swindle game full of bribery and deceit so shady producer types can buy themselves prestige. I don’t care. I love them anyway. Each year, more and more, I find myself as excited as a kid on Christmas morning. I can’t wait to see what’s in the big box.

Last year’s Oscar show was almost unbearably dull and, after a few years of daring and interesting decisions, saw the Academy fall back on boring old formula wins. This year, Oscar seems more determined then usual to celebrate mediocrity. “The Help,” another mediocre, racist, inspirational dramedy about how black people need a sassy white woman to help them out, has a disconcerting number of nominations and seems primed to walk away with at least a few. “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,” despite being a syrupy nonsense story that ropes one of the worst tragedy in American history into its sob-fest, not to mention damn-near acidic reviews, snagged a few nominations of it’s own. Hell, even “Anonymous,” disaster-movie-maven Roland Emmerich’s bungled attempt to go straight, and “W.E.,” Madonna’s latest shit, managed to snag a nomination each. The Academy seems even more committed to distancing itself from actual critical opinion by sticking “The Tree of Life,” maybe the best reviewed film of the year, with a measly three nominations.

But maybe that’s the way it’s supposes to be? The Academy Members are, after all, a seemingly random selection of Hollywood talent, pulled from past winners and industry veterans. They’re sent hundred of screeners and surely their choices have nothing to do with hype. The Academy Awards is democracy in action, for better or worst. Usually for worst.

BEST PICTURE:

For the last two years, the Academy had ten Best Picture nominations for some reason. Seeing as how this didn’t make the show more appealing for young people or anything, this year they went with the strategy of, basically, “We’ll have as many nominations as we want!” They wound up with nine, as if to say, “We want to be different from last year, but not too different.”

There were no surprises in this category, at least no pleasant ones. “The Descendents,” “Hugo,” “Moneyball,” “War Horse,” and “Midnight in Paris” were all movies that found their ways into many a critic’s top ten list. “The Help” seems to be the populist vote this year, even if nobody liked it. Another movie nobody liked was “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.” Despite pissing off New Yorkers with its insensitive handling of a still raw issue, it too managed a nomination.

But none of that matters because “The Artist” is going to win. Very few seem to think it’s a great film, however, most agree that it’s a pretty good film. Moreover, it’s a loving homage to Hollywood’s golden age. And there’s nothing a self-congratulatory ceremony loves more then a movie congratulating the same things they’re congratulating. I suppose the fact that it’s a silent film could possibly damper its chances at success some. It is an election year, after all. I guess “Moneyball” or something could win. But I think this is “The Artist’s” game to loose.

Official Prediction: “The Artist.”

BEST ACTOR:

About a month ago, I would have told you that Gary Oldman’s acclaimed, low-key performance in “Tinker Tailor Solider Spy” was a sure-fire pick for Best Actor. But then the Golden Globes happens and America made it clear that the movie with the funny title was just too damn British for them. It’s a shame since it might be the veteran thespian’s only shot at getting a statue any time soon.

The Academy loves George Clooney and his sad-sack turn in “The Descendents’ seems right up their alley. Love for “The Artist” continues here and might mean a win for Jean Dujardin. Seems like Oscar loves to sneak in one or two nominations for some actor or film I’ve never heard of and this year’s surprise selection is Demian Bichir for “A Better Life,” whatever that’s about.

Despite all these fine choices and performances, I suspect America’s overwhelming love for Brad Pitt will probably lead him to gold here. Top-tier categories like this tend to favor crowd-pleasers and Pitt is nothing if not a crowd-pleaser, for reasons that have mostly evaded me. He was definitely going to get nominated and “Tree of Life” was too artsy. Baseball is something more people understand, it seems.

Official Prediction: Brad Pitt for “Moneyball.”

SNUBS: Mainstream critics loved “Drive.” Hell, I even liked it. But I guess even a critically acclaimed movie with a car chase and a head stomping was a car chase and head stomping too many for the Academy. Ryan Gosling was left out in the cold.

Likewise, Michael Fassbender for “Shame” and Michael Shannon for “Take Shelter” were also snubbed. I knew both were long shots but I had hoped Oscar would dislodge its head from its ass long enough to notice these two extraordinary actors. Gritty indies have no place at this ceremony unless the word “Weinstein” is somewhere in their credits.

BEST ACTRESS:
In a year full of wonderful performances from wonderful actresses, the Academy stuck by their list of old faithfuls. Meryl Streep and Glenn Close both received their umpteenth nominations despite “The Iron Lady” and “Alfred Nobbs” getting lukewarm receptions.

It seemed uncertain that “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” would receive any nominations, since the material is dark, edgy, and directed by David Fincher. However, this is a movie based on a million-unit selling book series and Lisbeth Salander has quickly become a beloved character. Either way, Rooney Mara is a surprising and welcomed noticed.

Similarly, Michele Williams is an actress I like and is hugely talented. She’s received her thrice nomination for “My Week with Marilyn.” By all accounts, Williams gives a great performance. If she’s ever going to win an Oscar, is going to be for playing the most iconic actress in the world.

But this is the year of celebrating mediocrity. I’m sure Viola Davis has given many fine performances over the years and will continue to but does she really deserve to win over any of the above for a routine piece of shit like “The Help?” The standard set by Sandra Bullock’s ugly, cartoonish, stereotype-ish, Oscar-winning turn in “The Blind Side” says, “Probably.” (I’m never going to forgive you for that, Oscar.)

Official Prediction: Viola Davis in “The Help,” because this show loves to disappoint and infuriate me. Having said that, I’m rooting for Michele Williams in “My Week with Marilyn.”

SNUBS: Elisabeth Olsen in “Martha Marcey May Marlene” is probably the most glaring omission for me, since that was one of my favorite performances of last year. As mentioned above, Oscar has locked out all the indies. Kirsten Dunst in “Melancholia,” Carey Mulligan in “Shame,” Tilda Swinton in "We Need to Talk About Kevin," and Adepero Oduye in “Pariah” were all ignored.

Supporting Actor:

Alan Rickman, Donald Sutherland, Steve Martin: 0. Jonah Hill: 1. I don’t care how good “Moneyball” is, that’s just shameful.

Max von Sydow, Kenneth Branagh, and Nick Nolte are all respected actors that have been in the business for a long time. They deserve Oscar nominations. That they’re nominated for forgettable stuff like “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” and “Warrior” is a bit of a shame. Academy might throw an old-timer like Sydow a bone, but all of these are legacy nominations, as far as I’m concerned. Branagh doubly so since he’s nominated for playing Lawrence Oliver.

“Beginners” is a movie I hadn’t heard much about until Christopher Plummer started picking up awards for it a few months back. Apparently he plays an old man who has a difficult relationship with his son, dies of cancer, and also comes out as gay. Shit, man, this thing couldn’t be Oscar-bait-ier if it was set during the Holocaust.

Like Sydow, Plummer is a seasoned character actor that has done a lot of work over the years. (Also like Sydow, he’s appeared in his fair share of schlock.) Unlike Sydow, I can’t really name a previous, single, stand-out performance. It’ll be Plummer’s night.

Official Prediction: Christopher Plummer for “Beginners.”

SNUBS: Patton Oswalt is having a Snub-Party and you’re invited, Albert Brooks.

Supporting Actress:

I don’t have much to say about this category since it’s populated with movies I don’t give a shit about. They couldn’t have nominated Jessica Chastain for literally anything else she was in this year? Must “The Help” be a double-nominee? And if “Albert Nobbs” was going to get another nomination, I’m surprise it wasn’t for Mia Wasikowska, who continues to do stand-out work in material far beneath her. I’m a big “Gilmore Girls” fan, so it’s cool that Melissa McCarthy got mentioned, though still not cool enough to get me to watch “Bridemaids.”

Basically, since all the other nominations seem to have been chosen solely because those movies were nominated in other, more important categories, Berenice Bojo seems to be the stand-out choice. I’m indifferent.

Official Prediction: Berenice Bojo for “The Artist.”

Director:

This is one of the few exciting categories. It’s full of respected, award-hoarding directors that have actually made a couple of good movies in the past. I think it’s fair to say that Woody Allen’s and Scorsese’s prime days are behind them and Alexander Payne has yet to reach them.

So it really comes down to two picks: Terence Malick for “The Tree of Life” and Michel Hazanavicius for “The Artist.” Now it’s obvious that Malick is the correct choice. Even if his films are frequently meandering and ponderous, the guy is clearly a visionary. The Oscars should be about celebrating that kind of scope and aspiration. However, the notoriously elusive Malick probably won’t show up anyway and the Best Picture winner usually takes home Best Director too, even if it doesn’t deserve it. (Which it frequently doesn’t.) It wouldn’t be the first time a legendary filmmaker was passed up for some Johnny-come-lately. Having said that, I’d still say the odds are 60/40 in Malick’s favor.

Official Prediction: Terence Malick for “The Tree of Life.” Probably.

Writing:

The writing nominations are usually a mixture of smaller pictures and lingering nods from the bigger movies destined to win other awards that night. “Artist”-fever could attack this category as well and if Woody Allen’s winning anything, it’ll be for his screenplay. Usually though, the winning space is reserved for a smaller picture. Comedies do better here and many people wet themselves over “Bridesmaids.” Likewise, a complex, foreign drama like “A Separation” has a better shot here then it does elsewhere.

The Based on Previous Material category is a little trickier. The Academy loves Aaron Sorkin but he did just win last year for “The Social Network.” Even Oscar isn’t obtuse enough to give the same guy the same award twice in a row. (Usually.) “Hugo” and “The Descendents” also have their best shot here, since they’ll be obscured by bigger films in other categories. Honestly, I’m still betting on “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” though. Maybe I’m just full of it, but it sure seems like it should win something, doesn’t it?

Official Predictions: “A Separation” and “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.”

SNUBS: I guess the Diablo Cody backlash stretched much farther and deeper then I anticipated. Not a single nomination for “Young Adult,” not even in the writing category where it seemed a sure-fire choice. Which is a bit of a shame since, from the sounds of it, it’s a much better film then her previous two scripts.

Music:

John Williams sure is popular around these parts, ain’t he? He’s got two nominations for the two Spielberg movies he scored this year, “War Horse” and “The Adventures of Tintin,” which was otherwise ignored. The second score is jazzier while the first is pretty much what you’d expect.

I feel like a broken record here, but “The Artist” is the favorite. The movie relies heavily on music and it’s a spirited, old-fashion score. I bet the Academy loves it. Alberto Iglesias’ “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” score is too subtle. Howard Shore’s work on “Hugo” doesn’t really stand out for me.

In an odd move, the Academy only deemed two songs worthy of a Best Original Song nomination. But, ur doin it wrong, Oscar. If any song from “The Muppets” deserved a nomination, it was “Life’s a Happy Song.” Even in a movie about felt puppets, they went with the ballad. “Real in Rio,” from that mostly forgotten cartoon bird movie, is a really shitty song, you shouldn’t listen to it, and it shouldn’t win.

SNUBS: Almost too many to mention. First off, Alan Silvestri’s brilliant score for “Captain America” as well as the show tune “The Star-Spangled Man” easily deserved nods. Considering its leading the nominations, ignoring “Coeur Volant” from “Hugo” doesn’t make much sense, especially since it’s also quite good. It might not be for everybody, but Zooey Deschanel’s original songs for “Winnie the Pooh” fit the material perfectly.

While they dug his work on last year’s “The Social Network,” I guess Trent Reznor winning an Oscar is something they just aren’t going to let happen twice, even if his “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” score was solid. It never had a chance but The Chemical Bros.’ score for “Hanna” was a stand-out for me last year.

Other Film Categories:

The animated film category is a weird mix this year. Neither Pixar’s “Cars 2” (rightfully) nor Disney’s “Winnie the Pooh” (regretfully) placed. Instead, two Dreamworks sequel carry the bulk of the weight with “Puss in Boots” and “Kung-Fu Panda 2.” Quirky, smart, theatrical “Rango” seems the likeliest winner, but Oscar might confuse and surprises us by picking one of the two obscure films nominated, “Cats in Paris” and “Chico and Rita,” neither of which I’ve heard anything about.

Foreign film is also a category I need some brushing up on. I can’t tell you anything about the nominations, other then “A Separation” sure was loved a lot. I guess that’s my default pick?

Real life events seems to favor “Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory” as the winner in Best Documentary, but “Hell and Back Again” was also well received. I know it was mostly a trifle, but I would have liked to have seen a nomination for Errol Morris’ “Tabloid.” “Project Nim” and “Bill Cunningham, New Yorker” were also snubbed despite near universal acclaim.

Naturally, I haven’t seen any of the shorts. (Hopefully, the Alamo Drafthouse will come through this year and screen the Oscar-nominated shorts again.) I won’t say anything else other then I really had hoped “The Ballad of Nessie” would score a nomination. Disney is doing some sterling work in traditional animation even if few people are paying attention.

Misc.:

David Fincher has the best team of editors in the world, so “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” will probably win best Editing, even if “Hugo” is the friendlier option. Scorsese’s latest probably will win in Art Direction, unless “The Artist” continues to sweep. The final “Harry Potter” film has a better shot in the Make-Up department then it does there.

Just like “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” making millions and millions of dollars world-wide is inescapable, so is it winning some technical award, probably Sound Mixing. “Drive” has its sole nomination in Sound Editing so that’s its one chance. Even Oscar can’t ignore the fawning over that movie forever. Visual Effects is a much tighter competition. “Harry Potter” and “Transformers” are going to be hard to beat, but people won’t stop talking about the motion capture in “Rise of the Planet of the Apes.” It’s my choice.

That none of the superhero movies from this previous summer got a single nomination is a major omission. The special effects in “Thor,” just for one, were incredible.

“The Tree of Life” is the obvious choice for Cinematography. I can’t imagine even cantankerous old Oscar disagreeing on that one. No, I don’t have an opinion on Costume Design. Ask someone else.

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And that’s that. Unlike most years, I’m going to make an effort to watch some of the nominated pictures I haven’t seen yet and post reviews. Like most years, I am live-blogging the show. So on February 26th, watch and gripe along with me! You know you want too! Come on, I can’t face Billy Crystal alone!

Recent Watches: 1/14/12

2012-01-15T01:17:00.000-08:00

“To Live and Die in L.A.” is a natural evolution of the themes of “The French Connection.” I like William Friedkin. With the exception of the muddled “The Guardian,” I’ve liked-to-loved everything of his I’ve seen. But “The French Connection” didn’t blow me over like it does some many. I found it mostly to be a fairly effective crime thriller with a great lead performance. Even the often touted car chase didn’t excite me that much. I don’t know, maybe I need to rewatch it.

By 1985, the cop genre had become an established part of movie and TV screens. This film is a major deconstruction of many of the reoccurring clichés and tropes of the genre. We have a renegade cop. (actually, a Secret Service agent, but close enough. The same rules apply.) He goes off the rule book, breaks the law in order to go after the criminals, and doesn’t have a good relationship with Da Chief. His old partner, who he respects above all else, is killed three days before retirement, by the main villain of the film, of course. (The dude even fucking says, “I’m getting too old for this shit.”) Our out-of-control cop is partnered up with a by-the-book, straight-laced guy, who is constantly shocked by his partner’s crazy actions.

However, instead of being a likable rogue who strives against authority in order to get the bad guy, Richard Chance is a reckless, gruff, mean-spirited, unlikable asshole. Early on, the character is shown base-diving and the movie makes it clear that his increasingly reckless behavior has more to do with thrill-seeking then righting wrongs. He is cold and emotionless with his girlfriend, a police informant. Midway through the movie, he legitimately breaks the damn law, gets a guy killed, and causes a huge car crash. We then find out that he’s in even deeper shit then we previously thought. The filmmakers and writer seems to agree that Chance is just a dick, considering the shocking plot-twist that happens at the end. Moreover, his partner, who looks all the life like the cliched nervous Jew, is allowed to freak-out, acting like a total nervous wreck throughout the movie’s most intense sequence. This is, of course, the most logical response with being stuck in the backseat of a car driven by a lunatic. The intensity and immorality of the situations he finds himself in has a realistically adverse effect on his psyche. The movie takes the clichés of the genre and extends them to their most brutal, logical conclusion.

In total contrast, the villain of the movie is way more likable then the hero. Willem DaFoe is a very good actor and this movie drawls attention to the fact that he could have been a handsome leading man. At least at this point in time, he was a good-looking guy with a lot of acting chops. However, he’s also got the voice of a slithering, sleazy snake, typecasting him as the bad guy or psychopaths in countless films to come. DaFoe’s Eric Masters is still a pretty bad person, being a counterfeiter, a murderer, and a cold-hearted criminal. But he’s also organized, rational, controlled, and sensible for what he does, contrasting him completely with the increasingly out-of-control Chance. Masters is even romantic and gentle with his girlfriend.

The movie functions fantastically as an action movie as well, albeit an incredibly nihilistic one. Friedkin set out to top the car chase of “The French Connection” and totally succeeds. It’s a long sequence and just keeps going further over-the-top, before climaxing in a great scene that has our “heroes” driving against the grain of busy, freeway traffic. And, boy, is this movie bloody. In non-horror films, shotgun blasts to the face really have this much splatter. There's even some, mostly unexplained, homoerotic tension between Chance and Masters. The two undress in front of each other in a gym, lounge around in just a towel in a steam room, call each other "Beautiful." There's one scene where, I swear to God, the two are about to kiss each other. And mention most go to Wang Chang's snyth score. Now, it mostly just marks the movie as an unintentional period piece of the eighties, but it does work. It certainly better then anything, say, Tangerine Dream would have come up with.

Like all great deconstructions, Friedkin seems to have wanted to put the cop movie out of its misery with a bloody bullet to the head. It didn’t work, of course, but “To Live and Die in LA” stands out as a brilliantly downbeat, gritty piss-take on the classic cop movie formulas.

So I started a podcast... Kinda'.

2012-01-13T19:55:00.000-08:00

So I decided to start a podcast. You can mostly blame the guys at Horror Etc. for putting the idea in my head that I can actually do this.

Of course, the big thing that has kept me from starting the podcast all this time is that, A) I have no money for file hosting. And B) I have no idea how to step an RSS feed or anything like that. All of this stuff is more complicated then I can figure out on my own. For now.

So, I just dumped the whole thing into a Youtube video. Presumably, I'll eventually figure out how to actually do this for real.

It's called the Bangers n' Mash Show, by the way. The general focus of the show will be on horror movies, with occasional digressions onto other topics. The focus of the first episode is on the Universal Monsters movies. Please listen.

2012 Film Preview

2012-01-06T14:06:00.000-08:00

As a nerd, I have a love-hate relationship with anticipation. It’s easy to get excited about an upcoming project, be it a movie, a book, a video game, or whatever. Frequently, when you’re really excited about something, it’s not hard to see the entire film in your head before you even get a trailer. More often then not, the final product in no way lives up to the movie you saw in your head. That initial disappointment is hard to get over and often leads to the most excited film of the upcoming year being your most hated of the next. I call it “The George Lucas Dilemma.” Frequently I find myself more excited for seeing a movie, then the actual movie itself, if that makes any sense.

Having said that, 2012 sure is shaping up to be an exciting year. I’ve manage to put together a very long list of upcoming releases this year I’m looking forward too. The latest entries in beloved franchises, auteur filmmakers returning to beloved previous projects and areas, tantalizing indies starring new and old talent both in front of and behind the camera… There’s certainly a lot of expectations riding on all of this and a bigger chance then ever to be disappointed. But why focus on the negative? Let’s talk about WHY we’re excited for so much the forthcoming year has to offer us!

Top Ten Most Anticipated Films of 2012:

1. The Avengers

This is a movie I’ve literally been wanting to see since I was about seven years old. Not only has Marvel been building up for “The Avengers” over the last four years with their series of uniformly pretty good movies, not only was it a massively ambitious undertaking to bring all these stars and budgets together to make it happen, but this is the world’s first superhero team-up movie. The first time we’ve had a group of pre-established superheroes coming together on the big screen. This is a momentous occasion by itself.

Yeah, Joss Whedon writing and directing is a sign of concern. He’s good with ensemble and Whedon’s dialogue is still usually pretty sharp, but his tendency for melodrama and contrived bullshit hasn’t done a lot to endear him to me in recent years. Hopefully, Marvel will keep him on a strong leash. (And I don’t think they’ll let him murder Captain America in the third act or anything. Agent Coulsen on the other hand…) We also still don’t have an official plot description, which is mystifying. But, whatever. “The Avengers” is a once in a life-time nerd movie event.

2. Prometheus

As excited as I am for “The Avengers,” it’s really running neck-and-neck with this one. I adore the original “Alien.” It’s hard to deny the qualities of the Cameron’s sequel and, hell, I even like “Alien 3.” But I generally believed that most of the sequels have strayed from the dark, chilly, sci-fi-gothic tone of the original film. So, Ridley Scott returning to the franchise he helped create is massively exciting.

Of course, Scott and Fox have been ambiguous about how much of an “Alien” prequel this actually is. (Though the trailer makes the connection fairly explicit.) Yet this is somehow more exciting, since it means the movie is reaching for far more ambitious, cosmic levels. The rumors of space gods promise to make the Lovecraftian undertones of the original even stronger, which is exciting in and of itself. The cast is fantastic as well, with newly minted big stars Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender top-lining.

Really, the only thing here that can even slightly dim my anticipation is the fact that Ridley Scott hasn’t made a really exciting movie in over a decade… And that it’ll probably be rated PG-13.

3. John Carter

There are two reasons this one has me so interested. First off, I’m a sizable fan of the source material. I like a lot of early pulp writing and Edgar Rice Burroughs was often the most imaginative of his contemporaries. Honestly, it’s a bit of a shock that the Barsoom novels have never been adapted for the screen before.

The second reason is that this is Pixar director Andrew Stanton’s live-action debut. That’s right, kids, there’s such a deficit of good directors in mainstream Hollywood that they’ve started recruiting from the best animation house in the industry. Following in Brad Bird’s footsteps, it’ll certainly be interesting to see if the mastery of sci-fi imagery Stanton showed in “WALL-E” will carry over into live-action.

Beyond that, I do have a lot of reservations about this one. The trailer isn’t very good and reminds me way more of “Conan the Barbarian ‘11” then any high profile project should. The mid-spring release date seems to suggest a lack of faith from Disney in what could be a summer tentpole. The supporting cast is top full of Hollywood’s best heavies, including Bryan Cranston, Willem DeFoe, Mark Strong, and Thomas Hyden Church, but lead actor Taylor Kitsch is still unproven in my book. What I’ve seen of Kitsch doesn’t impress me at all, either. So this movie, like “Green Lantern” from last year and many films before that, is the most likely candidate for “Film I get excited for even though it’ll probably be completely mediocre” for this year.

4. Django Unchained

I’m pretty much a Quentin Tarantino apologist at this point. I’ve loved everything he’s done so far. Even “Death Proof,” even “Jackie Brown,” even “Four Rooms.” Yeah, the guy is increasingly consumed by his fetishes these days and I’m not just talking about the foot thing. The guy only makes movies about movies, filled with lots of meandering dialogue scenes, random tonal shifts, and increasingly heavy-handed themes and social commentary. His films are pulp comic book experiences. Love them for what they are. I do.

Anyway, QT finally making a western is a pretty big damn deal. Considering the guy’s obvious love of Sergio Leone and spaghetti westerns, it probably should have happened a lot sooner. And like “Death Proof” was his unique take on the horror genre (in that it totally wasn’t), this is shaping up to be a singular take on the oldest American genre, with its deep South setting and a plot will probably do to slavers and racism what “Inglourious Basterds” did to Nazis and fascism. And the cast is, as you’d expect, incredible. Yeah, I’d rather it star Idris Elba then Jamie Foxx too, but Leonardo DiCaprio playing a by-all-accounts total bastard villain is something to look for too. If it’s anything like Christoph Waltz’ turn in the last film, I suspect Leo might finally win his Oscar for this one. For me, it’s always exciting to see what Tarantino will pull out next from his very deep bag of tricks-stolen-from-other-movies.

5. Cloud Atlas

If you recall, my most anticipated film of last year was the Wachowski Brothers’ “C.N.9.” You might have also noticed that movie totally didn’t get made. I guess the world just wasn’t ready for the sci-fi gay American solider/Iraqi insurgent assassinate George W. Bush love story. Some day.

Instead, the Brothers turned their attention to adapting David Mitchell’s epic sci-fi novel, which I have not read. The story, which involves different generations over six different eras, from 1850 New Zealand to a post-apocalyptic Hawaii, is exactly the kind of wildly ambitious concept I’d exactly expect the Wachowskis to tackle. It’s such an ambitious concept that it’s actually going to take three directors to get made. The “Run Lola Run” guy, Tom Tykwer, will be handling parts of the film as well. The cast is as huge as the story is, including Tom Hanks, Hugo Weaving, Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent, Keith David, Susan Sarandon, and, groan, Halle Berry. Yes, it will probably be much more low key then any the director’s previous films, (Like I said, I haven’t read the book but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t feature lesbians, wire-fu shootouts, or race car fight scenes), but this is still some pretty exciting stuff here.

6. Dark Horse

Todd Solondz’ deeply neurotic tragi-comedies are my sort of thing. His movies tend to be hilarious but only in the darkest, like-suicidal-staring-into-the-abyss, dark way. This latest seems to be deconstructing the “Outsiders fall in love and save each other!” cliché. While the premise might promise a softer, friendlier Solondz, I doubt anyone will make it out of this movie unscathed.

That’s not the only reason I’m looking forward to that. First off, the male end of the romance is an over-weight, adult age, collector of toys. Complete disclosure here: Those words could also describe me. The female end is Selma Blair, reprising her role from Solondz’ highly underrated “Storytelling.” (Second clue that this is going to be a deeply fucked-up love story.) The idea of people being ostracized within their own families is another theme the director has visited before to great success. Maybe more exciting then any of those things is the fact that Christopher Walken is in the movie. Walken and Solondz, a match made in neurotic, twitchy, weirdo heaven. Mia Farrow is cool, too.

7. The Iceman

Michael Shannon really came around this year. After working for years as a recognizable character actor, playing supporting roles in big movies, this year he’s received considerable praise and possible Oscar buzz for “Take Shelter.” He was also cast as the villainous General Zod in the upcoming new Superman movie.

However, this movie has been cooking before any of those and I’ve been a fan of Shannon since “Bug,” another underrated little flick. In this one, Shannon is perfectly cast as infamous mafia hitman Richard Kuklinski. This is exactly the kind of role almost guaranteed to win Shannon the Best Actor Academy Award he so obviously deserves. He’s propped up by a neat supporting cast including Chris Evans, comeback-ready Winona Ryder, and Ray Liotta, who is unsurprisingly playing a crime boss. Really, the only question mark here is director Ariel Vromen, who I’ll admit to not being familiar with at all. Also, that the IMDb list this with a 2013 release date, which seems surprising since filming’s all ready started and this seems likely to be picked up for a 2012 end-of-the-year award season friendly release date.

8. Skyfall

I think I was one of, like, ten people who liked “Quantum of Solace” as much as “Casino Royale.” Basically, I love Daniel Craig’s James Bond and his films have really reignited my fandom of the series in general. It seemed like this movie wasn’t going to get made for a long time but MGM has finally worked out their financial problems and the project is back on track.

Sam Mendes follows in the footsteps of Mark Foster as a director better known for drama chosen to handle the latest movie in this big action franchise. I’m honestly a little disappointed that the movie is dropping the Quantum storyline, which was primed to be the modern equivalent of SPECTRE. (I’m also disappointed that the movie isn’t called “The Property of a Lady.”) However, the newest storyline that promises to explore M’s dark past is pretty interesting. So is the supporting cast, which includes villainous Javier Bardem, Ralph Finnes, and a sexy young Ben Whishaw as the new Q, a character I can’t wait to see incorporated in the gritty, down-to-Earth rebooted series.

9. The Master

I recently converted to the church of Paul Thomas Anderson after finally catching up with “Magnolia” and “There Will Be Blood” on video, two movies which were as exactly as brilliant as everyone said they were. This is the movie the Church of Scientology doesn’t want you to see! (Well, the other other one anyway.) Being a fictionalized account of L. Ron Hubbard’s rise to infamy, riches, and self-appointed sainthood, that’s not surprising. Scientogists are notoriously cagey when people are actually honest about what a diabolic organization they really are and how big of an asshole its founder was.

The movie had a protracted preproduction. Universal balked at the projected 35 million dollar budget, even though they frequently spend much more then that on movies from much less respected filmmakers. The script, which featured experimental images like a grown woman reverting back to a baby in the womb, themes of incest, polygamy, and graphic sex, was also apparently a factor. Despite all that rushing around, the movie is getting made, kept Philip Seymour Hoffman in the titular role, traded up from Jeremy Renner to Joaquin Phoenix, and added Amy Adams and Laura Dern too. The script has apparently been greatly rewritten, which I hope means it hasn’t lost any of the blatant Hubbard bashing or any of the aforementioned weird stuff. I was really looking forward to that. (Another movie with an IMDb listed 2013 release date, even though it’s all ready wrapped filming and seems like another favorite for this year’s Oscar season.)

10. Parker

So here’s the other movie I’ve placed on my list that’s pretty much guaranteed to not be very good. Once again, my interest and faith in the source material is the main in here for me. Donald Westlake’s gritty Parker character, always written under the pseudonym of Richard Stark, has been adapted to the screen numerous times before, but never under the character’s actual name. (Point Blank and Payback, both fine films, are probably the best known adaptations.) Jason Statham probably isn’t the perfect pick to finally bring Parker to life under his actual name, too young, too pretty. But Statham does well playing remorseless, amoral protagonist. Ruthless career criminal is a character type he’s certainly excelled at before. Adding additional grittiness to the cast is Nick Nolte and Michael Chiklis. The idea of seeing Statham going toe-to-toe with washed up, D-list action star Daniel “Jean Claude Goshdarn” Bernhart has its own trashy appeal as well.

There are a few things that give me pause here. Taylor Hackford, a director best known for “Ray” and “An Officer and a Gentleman,” doesn’t seem like the ideal choice for this kind of film. Jennifer Lopez appears to be playing the love interest, which comes off as bizarre to me. The script has apparently reimagined Parker as having a moral code of some kind, which is total bullshit.

However, the thing that the film most has going for is also its biggest issue of concern. Jason Statham’s films are increasingly samey. He had like four movies come out last year and I honestly don’t think any of them were really worth seeing. I’m worried this film will be just another one of his movies. If the movie is as good and interesting as it could be, it would be just the thing to take Statham off his Segal-like path of playing the same character in direct-to-video films of increasingly diminished quality. And if it sucks, we still have Darwyn Cooke’s excellent comic book adaptation.

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Other movies worth discussing from this year:

The Amazing Spider-Man
This series definitely needs a reboot, after Sam Raimi’s films fell into saulky nonsense. I like Andrew Garfield as Peter and Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy, as well as the slender, agile looking new costume. But do we really need another origin story? The overly moody trailer doesn’t point towards this being the sarcastic, wise-cracking Spidey of the comics that has never really been adapted to the big screen before. And the design for the Lizard is typical Hollywood bullshit.

Cosmopolis
I think we horror fans have given David Cronenberg a lot of rope when it comes to his recent, non-genre product. And he used all of that rope to cast Robert Pattison in his newest movie. The story certainly shows lots of opportunity for social satire and critique but, short of Pattison sprouting a meat-gun or turning into a fly monster mid-way through, I think I can say this is the first Cronenberg movies I have absolutely zero interest in seeing.

The Dark Knight Rises
I love “Batman Begins” and just about hated “The Dark Knight,” for reasons well documented on other parts of the internet. I’m very cautious about this one, even if it does have Talia al Ghul and Anne Hathaway in a leather catsuit. I’m not a fan of Bane at all and even I think turning him into a mumbley-voiced, pain-gas huffing terrorist is probably too much of an adaptational change. And if Christopher Nolan actually kills Batman, his head is even further up his ass, “Inception”-level 5 style, then I previously thought.

Dark Shadows
This movie couldn’t be Tim Burton-ier if he gave Barnabas Collins scissorhands. Burton’s increasingly workhorse like direction and his insistence of sticking Johnny Depp in a fright wig in everything has made me dismiss most of his more recent project. So why do I have a feeling that this adaptation of the cult supernatural soap opera is going to be pretty badass? Could be because it perfectly fits Burton’s style but he’s dialed down his cartoony visuals from what we’ve seen so far? The fact that, if the movie is anything like the show, it’ll be filled with a lot of classic horror trappings? Or maybe it’s just the awesome cast that actually features people other then Depp and Helena Bonham Carter? For whatever reason, I’m kind of really looking forward to this.

Dracula 3D
You’ve really got to dial back your expectations with Argento these days. His previous experiment with period-set gothic horror was notoriously bungled. The film preview that’s leaked to the internet shows a lot of 3D eye-gouging and Dracula turning into a giant praying mantis. Argento seems to be falling back on his all-to-typical-for-these-days reliance on gore and sex. Rutger Hauer as Van Helsing is cool but Asia Argento as Mina promises another really creepy nude scene. Considering the story, we’ll be lucky to get through this movie without seeing Asia in a(nother) rape scene.

The Expendables 2
I didn’t like the first “Expendables” very much, even though it was the best idea for a movie ever. My main point of complaint? The incoherent, shaky-cam direction that made all of the action scenes impossible to watch. First thing first, Sly fired himself from the director’s chair and hired Simon West. West’s last movie, “The Mechanic,” wasn’t a great film, but it did feature some pretty intense action and perfectly balanced, clear, steady direction. You actually knew who was shooting and/or punching who! The action star dream cast of the first movie has been pumped up further with the addition of personal favorites, Jean Claude Van Damme and motherfucking Chuck Norris, not to mention Bruce Willis and Arnie actually appear to do something in this one.

Gravity
Alfonso Cuaron is a good filmmaker and his last sci-fi film, “Children of Men,” was actually great. So it’s nice to see him returning to the genre. The story involves a single female astronaut repairing a descending satellite and is essentially a one-woman-show. Pretty cool stuff, right? But any anticipation I had for this one was sunk with two words: Sandra. Bullock. I hate her. A lot. Her presence ruins what was otherwise a sure deal.

No One Lives
Ryuhei Kitamura’s films are usually visually energetic, if not always good. His last American horror film, “Midnight Meat Train,” received a muted reaction from even hardcore horror fans, but I loved it. His newest film has the juicy premise of a pair of criminals kidnapping a teenage girl, only to discover she’s a prolific serial killer. It’s the kind of switch-a-roo premise that reminds me of “Hard Candy,” a movie I adore. Really, the only thing that gives me pause about this one is that WWE, as in the wrestling company, is distributing it. (The same can be said for decent-looking, post-apocalyptic flick, “The Day.”)

Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D
The first two Leatherface movies are stone-cold classics and the rest of the franchise is pretty much uniformly shit. It’s been made clear that nobody but Tobe Hooper really understood Leatherface or his family for the fascinating characters they are. So why bother with another sequel, much less one in gimmicky 3D? Well, first off, the series is out from under the crushing wings of Michael Bay’s Platinum Dune factory. Secondly, the script was apparently good enough to lure Bill Moseley and Gunnar Hensen back, if that’s worth anything. Finally, the storyline involves both a carnival ground and a female protagonist that is supposedly a little twisted herself. Mark me down as cautiously optimistic for this one.

Other upcoming releases I don’t feel like talking about include:

Brave, Bullet to the Head, The Bully Project, Chronicle, Detention of the Dead, Djinn, Don’t Go in the Woods, The East, A Fantastic Fear of Everything, Frankenweenie, G. I. Joe: Retaliation, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Ghost Shark 2: Urban Jaws, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunter, Haywire, The Innkeeper, Intruders, Jack the Giant Killer, Jay and Seth vs. the Apocalypse, John Dies at the End, Killer Joe, Livid, Lock-Out, Lords of Salem, Luna Mesa, Maniac, Men in Black III, Moonrise Kingdom, Nero Fiddled, ParaNorman, Piranha 3DD, The Raven, Secret World of Arrietty, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, Silent House, The Tall Man, Terror of Dracula, Violet and Daisy, The We and I, The Wicker Tree, The Woman in Black, World War Z, Wreck-It Ralph

Let’s hope the world doesn’t end so we’re all around to actually see all of those.

Zack Clopton's 2011 Movie Retrospective

2011-12-31T16:07:00.000-08:00

“I am on a drug, it's called ‘Charlie Sheen.’ It's not available because if you try it you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your…

ZACK CLOPTON’S 2011 MOVIE RETROSPECTIVE!!!”

Am I the only one that thought 2011 was kind of a mediocre year? Occupy Wall Street tried to bring attention to financial corruption and mostly got maced in the face for their efforts. The Republican Party desperately tried to find a presidential hopeful that wasn’t a complete joke. Japan tried to make their earthquake devastated, radioactive situation look slightly less horrible then it was. Casey Anthony tried to convince everyone she didn’t murder her kids. Jerry Sandusky tried to not look like a child rapist. The governments of the world tried to bring up the plummeting unemployment rate and stop the encroaching financial collapse. Over all, there was a whole lot of trying and not a whole lot of succeeding. With the exception of putting down some Middle Eastern boogey men, despite Charlie Sheen’s yells to the contrary, 2011 was less “The Year of Winning,” and more “The Year of Failure.”

But you know who didn’t fail?: Me, at watching movies! I saw 79 new releases this year, which is pretty impressive considering I was unemployed throughout most of the year! When even a respected stalwart like Roger Ebert can't keep a movie-review show on the air, my chances of becoming a real, honest-to-God movie critic are probably pretty slim. But whatever, it’s New Years and I'm saying hooray for me! I kept up my average rate of new movies seen.

It was a quietly good year for film. All year, as I worked on complying the list below, I kept thinking to myself, “2011 wasn’t a very good year for film.” The general output struck me as mostly mediocre. But as I was putting the final touches on this article, I realized, not only was there a lot of good movies released this year, I enjoyed a fair number of them immensely. More then a few indies came out of nowhere and surprised me with just how dang good they are. So, in the final tally, I suppose 2011 turned out a little better then I expected. At least on the filmic side of things.

Enough belly-aching. Here’s THE LIST, presented, as always, from absolute favorite to least favorite. See you on the other side, Hypothetical Person That Might Read This List in it’s Entirety.

FOUR STARS:

1. Captain America: The First Avenger
To compare something to “Raiders of the Lost Ark” must seem like a tall order, but “Captain America” does it. The perfectly casted Chris Evans leads us into exciting, funny, fast-paced retro-war action, along with a great ensemble cast, amazing special effects, and a bitter-sweet finale. The most briskly entertaining film of the year.

2. The Woman
Not an exploitation movie, but rather a movie about exploitation. Lucky McKee mixes feminist themes, perverse satire, and uncompromising horror, before adding a truly impressive cast. A fever pitch is reached in the last fifteen minutes with a shocking, unexpected twist. The most viscerally horrifying movie of the year but when it shocks, it’s for a reason.

3. Terri
You know a movie’s good when you really want to see its characters succeed and be happy. In the “high school dramedy about misfits” genre, it’s easy to screw up, but this movie never makes a dishonest move or aims for emotions that are unearned. It’s a gentle, thoughtful, character-oriented film that observes as much as it acts.

4. Super
Follows its own weird muse, tonal-consistency be damned. A superhero comedy for the first seventy minutes later becomes about contrasting real violence with comic book violence. The amazing cast includes a sad-sack-becomes-petty-badass Rainn Wilson, a boner-producing psycho Ellen Page in spandex, and hilariously villainous Kevin Bacon. This sure-to-be-cult-classic puts a unique stamp on a worn-out concept.

5. Submarine
Immediately establishes itself as a prime coming-of-age flick. The lead character and his internal monologue are hilarious and, more then that, brutally honest about adolescence. The French New Wave-inspired direction gives the witty script, A-grade actors, and the bittersweet tone that much more edge.

6. I Saw the Devil
Uncompromisingly brutal, this Korean revenge film features some of the most shocking, thrilling, and stylishly directed sequences of the year. The rivalry of cruelty between the stoic faced badass protagonist and the corrosively sleazy serial killer escalates to an incredibly intense final confrontation. A very unpleasant, but rewarding, study of the nature of evil.

7. Attack the Block
Introduces you to a group of street thugs and immediately makes you root for them. This extremely clever genre hybrid features a great ensemble cast, including a break-out lead performance by John Boyega, lovable characters, original creature designs, and more then one stand-out sequence. A must-see for sci-fi or horror fans.

8. X-Men: First Class
Easily the best X-Men movie yet. Dropping Wolverine etc allows this to be the first truly ensemble X-film. Matthew Vaughn continues to be a top action director and uses CGI extremely well, but never looses track of the human element, thanks to the mostly fantastic cast, especially Michael Fassbender. The story and pacing are also a lot tighter then previous franchise outings.

THREE AND A HALF STARS:

9. Midnight in Paris
Sure, the modern day supporting characters are shrill and annoying but the 1920 sequences are charming and enchanting. As Owen Wilson falls in love with Marion Cotlliard and the time period, so does the audience. But the movie also makes the point that everyone is nostalgic for an era they weren’t alive for.

10. Hugo
A love letter to classic cinema, a fable about film preservation, and a visually spectacular 3D ride. There’s a great ensemble cast here and more then one fantastic, thrilling sequence. Scorsese doesn’t manage to completely avoid kid’s movies clichés though.

11. Thor
Second-best Marvel movie since the original "Iron Man." The cast really makes it worth while. Hemsworth is grand and has a sweet romance with Portman. Their relationship is the heart of the movie. This is a surprisingly funny, sometimes campy superhero epic that does the small moments just as well as the big action effects moments.

12. Hobo with a Shotgun
Authentically retro, insanely over-the-top, endlessly violent, this would be unbearably ugly if it wasn't for a few things: The cartoonish style and Rutger Hauer, who instills the title role with a weird sincerity. As a fan of eighties vigilante movies, this is perhaps the ultimate eighties vigilante movie.

13. Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark
Sally is a child character in a horror movie that is developed and actually interesting. The movie never goes for the cheap jump scares, instead focusing on building atmosphere. Far from a perfect film, it relies too much on the admittedly very good CGI effects, but when most horror films are content to simply shock, it goes for real scares, rooted in deep childhood fears.

14. Bellflower
The yellow, grungy picture captures the “Mad Max”-obsessed, perpetually drunk world of our protagonists. Despite the flamethrowers, drunken brawls, and cricket eating, the first half is a sweet love story. Then it gets really dark. The increasingly disjointed last act pushes the “a break-up is like the end of the world” metaphor too far, but I found this indie moody and exciting.

15. Another Earth
Stirring sci-fi allegory about guilt, forgiveness, and catharsis. Brit Marling gives a fantastic lead performance and carries you through a genuine emotional journey, helped along by the wobbling, moody score. The movie is quiet and never slips into histrionics or over-the-top theatrics. The shaky, handheld direction is my only quam about this one.

THREE STARS:

16. Hanna
The movie that makes a ninety pound teenage girl throwing around grown men believable. The insanely catchy score propels the intense action scenes (The container park fight might be one of the best action scenes in recent memory), while the strong lead makes the heart scenes well worth the emotional investment.

17. The Tree of Life
Deeply personal, hugely ambitious, visually gorgeous, subtly moving, meandering, borderline ponderous, the film attempts to find where an individual human life fits into the vastness of the universe. It’s a singular piece of art, all be it a self-absorbed, overly long one.

18. Drive
Art house actioneer that is as tense and stoic as Ryan Gosling’s stone-faced protagonists. The car chase and motel shootout are thrilling, shocking sequences. The movie is driven along by the pulsating synth score, artful direction, strong leading man, and a top-notch supporting cast. I’ll admit to not digging the ambiguous ending and found all the CGI blood distracting.

19. Melancholia
Lars van Tier makes movie that delve fully into deep, dark, suicidal depression. This apocalyptic tale is captivating and strangely lyrical. Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg both give full, go-for-broke performances. It’s like a very dark dream, full of dread and anxiety.

20. Black Death
Starts out as a grimy, violent medieval thriller before turning into an equally bloody treaty on religious intolerance, and not just the kind you’re expecting. Fierce action scenes, intense direction, and a great performances from Sean Bean and Carice van Houten makes this one an easy recommendation for those who can handle some darkness in their costume dramas.

21. Martha Marcy May Marlene
A psychological drama shot with the starkness of a horror film. The scenes in the cult are chilly, disturbing, and full of creeping dread that something bad is going to happen very soon. Elizabeth Olsen is very good as the emotionally fragile title character and I like that the movie shows her family as less then understanding or helpful.

22. Meek’s Cutoff
Excellent performances from Michele Williams and Bruce Greenwood prop up a story where ultimately not a whole lot happens. Director Kelly Reichardt is very good at capturing isolation and despair among the wide, quiet wilderness, though I wish it was in service of a story a little more exciting.

23. The Adjustment Bureau
Smart, surreal, sci-fi that asks some interesting questions about fate. Great acting from everyone, genuine chemistry between Damon and Blunt, and a thrilling last act makes this so good, you don’t even mind the syrupy “love conquers all” ending or the blatant exposition.

24. Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Is this smart sci-fi, or just faking it? Either way, the character-oriented script gets the audience to sympathize with a CGI chimp. The deliberate pacing builds up to an impressive, climatic set-piece that makes the ridiculous premise believable and also works as exciting action. A foundation for a new “Apes” franchise that I’m okay with.

25. Immortals
Director Tarsem creates some breathtaking visuals, as expected, such as Poseidon diving into the ocean or a literal war in the heavens. Finally, the Greek Gods are shown as real head exploding badasses. While there’s nothing spectacular about the story or cast, this is an agreeable popcorn muncher and easily beats “300” or “Clash of the Titans” at their own game.

26. Winnie the Pooh
Playful and unabashedly sweet, this is even more of a throw-back then Disney’s last few animated features. The incredibly laidback tone calls to mind a little boy playing with his toys on a lazy afternoon. It isn’t out to redefine the medium but is daring in its own quiet way. The movie opens with a fantastic short, “The Ballad of Nessie,” that almost outshines the main feature.

27. The Muppets
Mostly gets it right. While the overly self-referral style and romantic subplot don’t really work, the Muppets are more or less the same lovable characters they’ve always been. Chris Cooper is hilarious as the villain and the movie does have some fantastic songs in it.

28. Tabloid
Fascinating right from the first frame. Joyce McKinney is a total nut, but a really interesting one. I personally like how the movie shows her obsessions transitioning from a Mormon in chains to a cloned dog. Once again, just by letting his subjects talk, Errol Morris has made a captivating documentary.

29. Final Destination 5
Features cartoonish characters, which worried me, but then the fantastic kills kick in. The dark humor’s back, as our expectations of the on-coming violence are subverted. The mythology is played with. Death isn’t even the primary threat in the last act! There’s a fun twist ending too. The goriest, funniest, most cringe-inducing, and most entertaining of the series since part 2.

30. Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
Tries to do for hillbilly horror what “Shaun of the Dead” did for zombies, and mostly succeeds. Alan Tudyk and Taylor Labine are almost as funny a skinny guy/fat guy duo as Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. The movie hilariously parodies and subverts the genre’s conventions, even if it’s “victims” are paper-thin caricatures.

31. Burke and Hare
A nicely morbid comedy that gets a lot of mileage out of its excellent cast. Simon Pegg, Andy Serkis, and Isla Fisher are delightful as the central trio. Some gleefully anachronistic liberties are taken with the story and Burke and Hare are reimagined as mostly pure-hearted rascals, even if the movie doesn’t back away from all the murder and grave robbing.

32. Kaboom
Gregg Araki is back to making movies about beautiful young people sleeping around and having apocalyptic adventures. The difference between this and his earlier work is the crisp visuals, whip-smart dialogue, and frenetic pacing. The endless boning of the first half is a lot more fun then the conspiracy theory madness of the second half, but I can still dig it.

33. Cave of Forgotten Dreams
More then once, Werner Herzog lets his camera stare at the oldest cave paintings in the world. The ethereal score and Herzog’s typically idiosyncratic narration provide the appropriate amount of awe. Honestly, any time the movie ventures out of the cave for some interviews it feels like padding, though Herzog catches his subjects at their most relaxed and conversational.

34. Super 8
An attempt to replicate ‘70s Spielberg but with a bunch of random lens-flares thrown in. The movie does a good job of balancing sentimentality, personality, special effects, and thrills, with a number of suspenseful sequences and a talented young cast. Yeah, the alien’s another hairless monkey crab, but it’s good to known old fashion monster movies can still get made.

35. Your Highness
Sure, it leans on the dick, pot, and gay jokes a little too hard, but Danny McBride acting like a hilarious asshole, especially when supported by such a gung-ho cast, is never not funny. Even without all the juvenilia, you’ve got a pretty satisfying fantasy romp here.

36. TrollHunter
Aside from Hans the Troll Hunter, none of the characters are very interesting and the movie’s episodic plot doesn’t do it any favors. But its trolls are fully realized creations, the found-footage style actually works, and the effects are great. You can tell a lot of thought went into this.

37. Source Code
Works well as a thriller, but a clueless protagonist, unnecessarily vilified supporting character, and romantic subplot slow down the dynamite premise. The story ends before the last act, which seems dumb, but the movie uses the extra time to resolve emotional loose ends, which does work. Then the damn thing won’t end. A successful film that could have used some tightening up.

38. Rango
A surprisingly smart flick that cracks jokes about Joseph Campbell, Hunter S. Thompson, method acting, Clint Eastwood, spaghetti westerns, and other stuff your kids won’t understand. The visual style is impressive but the movie drags a bit in the middle. It knows the formula and follows it, but not without adding endearing quirkiness, strong characters, and gorgeous visuals.

39. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Parts of this extremely slow Taiwanese fantasy are lyrical, surreal, creepy, or even oddly funny. There are moments that feel like a peaceful dream. But that doesn’t change the fact that the film is largely inscrutable and it’s reliance on static shots and long takes might test the patience of even willing art cinema fans.

40. Scream 4
Self-referral slashers seem quaint in the age of found-footage and torture porn. Kevin Williamson barely bothered updating his franchise for today’s youth. The new kids are half-way decent, the old ones each get a moment, there’s some okay gore, but the fun “who-dun-it?” aspect keeps the audience involved. It’s too bad Sydney lives.

41. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tide
Better then parts 2 and 3. Depp actually seems to have some fun and the supporting cast is solid. There’s also a handful of clever fantasy concepts sprinkled about. The story is still a little more convoluted then it needed to be and there’s about three extra endings too many.

42. Paul
Nick and Simon try to bring that emotional depth to their latest tale of bro-love and geekiness, but can’t quite hit it out of the park. The movie starts slow but gets funnier as it goes, even if there’s too much story and Paul is just as likely to annoy as to endear. There are a few hilarious surprises and the whole package is wrapped up in lovable-sci-fi-nerd sweetness.

TWO AND A HALF STARS:

43. The Ward
Ultimately, I liked the characters. Yes, there’s an over-reliance on jump scares, an unforgivably dumb twist ending, and there’s not much classic Carpenter style. But a decent atmosphere is built, there’s a handful of good horror sequence, and the ensemble works well together.

44. Green Lantern
Frustratingly, there are great scenes here, like all of the Oa sequences and most of the final battle. But the script is heavy on exposition, dragging Earth-bound moments, shaky pacing, an uneven cast, weak villains, and a few moments of CGI silliness. (Like the green race-car.) I’d still like to see a sequel just to see more of Mark Strong as Sinestro, who is excellent.

45. The Mechanic
Jason Statham starring in a Charles Bronson remake is appropriate, since he’s pretty much the only action star who still makes low-shin, brainless-but-not-too-stupid, bloody action flicks. This one has got at least two badass one-on-one brawls. The story’s pretty much nonsense and Ben Foster is more annoying then interesting.

46. Hellraiser: Revelations
The new Pinhead sucks, the movie is overly derivative of the original, and it ends abruptly. But I admire this sequel for returning the franchise to its roots and for capturing some proper “Hellraiser” atmosphere on what was obviously a very low budget.

47. The Skin I Live In
Odd, psycho-sexual thriller about gender politics, identity, and passion maybe? Unnecessary story digressions and a flashback-heavy second half truncates the pacing. A plot reveal near the end takes this in a distracting, peculiar direction. Two great lead actors, a good score, and there’s obviously stuff going on here, but it didn’t come together wholly for me.

48. Red State
Kevin Smith has Michael Parks and John Goodman in his corner, both fine performers. The script is jumbled as to what it wants to be and the political commentary is obvious. The movie is still kind of works, despite a number of problems.

49. Insidious
Legitimately creepy moments co-exist with jump scares and an asinine twist ending. Pros include spooky dream sequence, intense séance, intimidating villain, and deliberate pace. Cons include bombastic score, fistfights with jittery goth-zombies, sudden pasty-faced ghouls, and a questionable use of Tiny Tim. It’s not always successful but at least tries to be scary.

50. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II
Should I even bother reviewing this? I’m so completely outside of the Harry Potter fandom these days. For what it’s worth, there a number of thrilling sequences, the special effects are uniformly good, and it’s wraps things up in fairly satisfactory manner. I maintain that this franchise became inaccessible to non-hardcores in these last few films.

51. Sucker Punch
It’s just Snyder piling on the geeky shit that gives him a boner. (Of course, all of those things give me a boner too.) The action isn’t as mind-blowing as he thinks it is either. A midway twist actually got me to care and imbued the end with some pathos, but it doesn’t prevent this from being a self-serious, humorless, nerd-pandering fantasy that spoils its own twist ending.

52. The Green Hornet
Seth Rogan is a terrible superhero. The characters, almost all of them, are aggressively unsympathetic. (And not in a fun way.) When the movie tries to do the superhero thing straight, it comes off as mean-spirited and uncertain. Despite problems, the movie is still really funny and has some clever ideas. Chalk this one up as a case of too many cooks in the kitchen.

53. Chillerama
Go-for-broke in its crassness, crudeness, and vulgarity, this juvenile horror parody isn’t without its moments, especially the “Hitler Makes a Jewish Frankenstein” story. Tim Sullivan’s gay werewolf short seems to last forever and the very long shit joke at the end is awful, but I did kind the reference-filled framing device and goofy giant killer sperm opener.

54. Creature
Plays out like a decent eighties-style slasher/monster movie hybrid. Lots of nudity. Pretty decent cast. Creature effects could be better but I liked the design. The hero of the movie has almost as high a body count as the monster and the story takes some unexpected turns. The movie started to drag in the last twenty minutes and the ending goes on too long.

55. Cars 2:
“Pixar doesn’t make bad movies?” I wouldn’t call this bad, but just shy of mediocre. The visuals are beautiful and the spy action/race scenes are exciting. But this one leans far too much on Larry the Cable Guy, sends a problematic message about accepting asshole friends, and a generally silly plot. The proceeding ten-minute “Toy Story” short easily outraces the feature.

TWO STARS:

56. Stake Land
Just because a movie doesn’t resonate with me, doesn’t mean it’s bad. I understand this. This critically acclaimed film seemed to me to feature all the zombie movie clichés we’re sick of, just with vampires instead; an overly episodic plot, dull characters, and a sudden ending.

57. Griff the Invisible
The latest in the “real-life superhero” genre, this one focusing solely on fantasy and wish-fulfillment. It starts out decently but soon the clichés take over: a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, forced quirk, contrived drama existing solely for story’s sake, schmaltzy romance, and a bad indie-pop soundtrack.

58. Restless
Henry Hopper is awful as the guy who falls for a cancer-ridden Manic Pixie Dream Girl, played by the usually better Mia Wachowski. The good moments in the film are solely from the solid cinematography and don’t have much to do with the overly precious, tin-earred script. A serious topic like death is treated as just another step in the quirky indie-romance guidebook.

59. Fright Night
Despite turning lovable characters into unlikable douchebags for most of the movie, some ugly CGI effects, obnoxious 3D eye-gouging, and more then one annoying shock moment, I didn’t completely hate this remake. After everyone stopped acting like dicks, the characters won me over, there’s some well-done scenes, and a pretty solid last act. Still miles beneath the original.

60. Red Riding Hood
I want to like Amanda Seyfried but I’m beginning to think she just isn’t much of an actress. Like its star, this movie is pretty looking but the standard story of werewolves, witch-hunting, and teenage love triangles doesn’t offer anything new. At least it’s not as maudlin as the “Twilight” movies it blatantly emulates.

61. The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence)
Everything about this is calculated to repel. It presents a world devoid of hope and filled with nothing but depravity. Martin is perhaps the most unappealing protagonist ever. The only visible goal here is to disgust, which it succeeds at so, mission accomplished? Having said that, Tom Six has a talent for mood setting and grimy monochrome visuals. The energy level’s high enough and the movie short enough that it never becomes boring, just disgusting.

62. Drive Angry
In a market flooded with over-the-top throwbacks to eighties exploitation cheese, this doesn’t stand out. It fakes the attitude but doesn’t have the gusto to back it up. Nic Cage in sleepy action mode and an obnoxious Amber Heard don’t help any. A deadpan William Fichtner doing his best Christopher Walken impersonation almost saves the whole picture. Almost.

63. We Are What We Are
Frustrating thriller about an inner-city tribe of modern cannibals. It never reveals a reason for the rituals, focusing instead on the family members. This would be fine if the characters weren’t annoying. The movie has potential but chooses to be vague about its most interesting aspects.

64. Conan the Barbarian
Jason Momoa sure isn't Schwarzenegger. The movie could just as easily be a big budget "Deathstalker" remake. It delivers on the blood, barbarian action, gratuitous nudity, random Morgan Freeman, and features a decent supporting cast, save for a tone-deaf Rose McGowen. And it still can’t manage to be entertaining for its full runtime.

65. Dylan Dog: Dead of Night
Another cult property adapted into a mediocre flick. Combining detective tropes with the supernatural is overused. It feels very bland and non-cinematic. Brandon Routh is terrible in the lead role. The whole movie has a been-there, done-that feeling to it.

66. Tetsuo: The Bullet Man
When you have a non-English speaking director directing English-speaking actors, expect bad performances. For a “Tetsuo” movie, this feels disconcertingly like a normal sci-fi/action film. Yes, there are a few moments of surreal body-horror, industrial music driven intensity, and bloody action, but this is lacking many of the elements that made the original “Tetsuo” a classic.

67. The Last Lovecraft: The Relic of Cthulhu
The “nerds vs. C’thulhu-cultists” story is sort of clever. The movie is never laugh-out hilarious, but is consistently amusing throughout, even with the overreliance on crude humor, gay jokes, and geek stereotypes. It feels like a half-baked TV pilot, but not necessarily a completely bad one.

68. Columbiana
Equals parts “Le Femme Nikita” and “Leon: The Professional,” and not as good as either of them. There’s some decent action scenes here but the disconcertingly thin Zoe Saldana doesn’t look strong enough to beat up a man or carry a sniper rifle, much less the whole movie.

69. Rubber
Stiflingly meta, this works best when playing up the absurdity of its psychic killer tire premise. Most of the movie is focused on criticizing filmmaking and film-watching in agonizing obvious ways. If nothing else, it does successfully get you to relate to a tire. So there’s that.

70. The Violent Kind
Begins as a white trash biker flick before becoming a routine demonic possession film. Then some not-zombies appear and Tiffany Sheepis vomits up sparks. And then psychobilly sadists walk in and it becomes a home invasion movie. There’s more weirdness and genre-shifting before it’s over. The movie isn’t good but you keep watching just to see what it’ll mutate into next.

71. The Beaver
Despite a premise that would play best as high comedy, this is instead a straight-faced family drama. The most interesting parts are skipped over in montage. Following an unintentionally(?) hilarious fist fight between man and beaver puppet, the movie falls into obvious, turgid, sentimental melodrama. Mel Gibson’s racist rants were more entertaining and less heavy-handed.

72. Battle: Los Angles
This “on the ground, as it happens” alien invasion flick is sporadically thrilling, with above-average special effects. The characters are indistinct and more then a few war movie clichés are trotted out. There’s no reason to get involved here. The pro-war/pro-military tone is brain dead enough to turn me off.

73. F
Some decent atmosphere and a good main performance doesn’t make up for the thin story. The threat of the murderous hoodies doesn’t really register, there’s no intensity or thrills, and the movie certainly doesn’t earn its ambiguous ending. This British import gets a C-.

ONE AND A HALF STARS:

74. Husk
Out of the handful of killer scarecrow movies, few of them are good. Spoiler alert: This isn’t one of those few. Completely mediocre, this piles on the cheap jump-scares, annoying characters doing dramatic things just for story’s sake, shoddy plotting, and general boredom.

75. ChromeSkull: Laid to Rest 2
The first “Laid to Rest” was a plotless exercise in ultraviolent slasher killing. This sequel at least has a story. It’s a self-serious, tedious story with no relatable or interesting characters and a fetishistic obsession with latex, fake blood, and gory dismemberment. It exists only to top itself.

76. Tekken
Admittedly, I don’t know much about the “Tekken” video games, but I’m pretty sure they don’t involve dystopian corporatocracies, fights isolated to one location, gun battles, or butt cleavage. Despite some decent fight scenes, this movie is astoundingly brain-dead.

77. Seconds Apart
Psychic twins are a decent start but this doesn’t do anything but aggravate. Shaky-cam nightmares, annoying unoriginal characters, boring performances (When the 7 Up Yours guy is the best actor in your movie, you’ve got problems), crass gross-out moments, and asinine, pointless twist ending… All the AfterDark elements of suck are present and accounted for.

ONE STAR:

78. King of Fighters
Why spend the money buying the rights to a semi-popular game series and then make a movie that has nothing to do with those games? The fighting here is pretty poor, the acting is atrocious, and the story is incoherent. And Mai is nowhere near hot enough.

79. The Resident
The movie starts with the ridiculous concept of somebody being romantically obsessed with Hilary “Horse-Face” Swank. It gets more insulting from there. This is a contemptibly routine thriller that follows every expected step, right to the boring, jump-scare laden end. The characters are uniformly thin, even with Jeffrey Dean Morgan and an underused Christopher Lee in the cast.

-

As always, thank you graciously for reading. My annual list of Most Anticipated Films of 2012 will be up soon. More articles, Director Report Cards, and general ranting and ravings are coming soon. Until then, I sent out hope and prayers to everyone that 2012 will be a better year then the one that proceeded it. Let's hope where all still around come this time next year.

Recent Watches: 12/14/11

2011-12-14T21:51:00.000-08:00

I promised myself that this new Recent Watches feature wouldn’t become a year-round version of my Halloween Horror-a-thon write-ups. But, as the end of the year approaches, my obsessive-compulsive need to see every new horror movie of note that comes out during the year is catching up with me. So, when other people spend the month watching seasonal favorites about rednosed reindeer and magical snowman, I’m watching movies about monsters, madmen, and murderers. Oh well.

I love the original "Fright Night." It's my all-time favorite vampire movie, pretty much. So I went in to the recent remake really expecting to hate it. The characters seem overly hipped out and the cast included Anton Yelchin and Colin Farrell, two actors I've never liked. I figured this was just an example of a studio trying to cash in on the vampire craze and whatever name recognition they figured an underseen cult classic from the mid-eighties had.

And it's mostly all of those things for the first thirty minutes or so. In the original, Charlie was a huge nerd with a shitty car, a best friend who hated him, seemingly no other friends, and a girlfriend that looked like a boy. 2011’s Charlie has six-pack abs, hangs out with a bunch of collar popping would-be frat boys, and a rail-thin girlfriend who's hot in a really uninteresting way. Even his mom, originally frumpy and clueless, has been all sexed up, recast as a cleavage barring Toni Collette. Everyone has pretty much been transformed into huge douchebags, Charlie in particularly. Peter Vincent has been turned into an embarrassingly shrill "Celebrities are vapid assholes!" cliche. (And he has a Columbiana girlfriend who is even more annoying and unnecessary.) And, yeah, Evil Ed was pretty much always annoying and creepy, but any of the pathos, layers or humor Stephen Geoffreys brought to the part are lost here, even more so when he does become a full-on vampire. Christopher Mintz-Plasse, otherwise known as McLovin forever, plays him as a nasally dweeb who, despite getting bullied a lot, is a bit of a bully himself, essentially blackmailing Charlie into being his friend.

The movie has some ugly CGI effects, a lot of forced 3D "Comin' right atcha'!" nonsense, and more then a few obnoxious jump scare shock scenes. There's also a vulgar, crass streak running through things that makes the movie even more unlikable. There's almost no humor here at all. All the gay subtext is gone. Jerry is pretty much an irredeemable creep, where in the original he was at least funny. There's no romance to him. He's a straight-up monster vampire... Which would might have been refreshing in this Glitterpire era if the movie wasn't working so hard to make me not like it at this point. Colin Farrell plays the part as a charmless sexual predator.

But, a little over halfway in, something happens. The characters stop being such unlikable dicks all the time and some pretty decent, maybe even suspenseful, sequences roll through. I like the way the movie doesn't wait until the end of the second act to really ramp up the action. That's like the only one visible improvement over the original. The entire car chase/road fight sequence is pretty good, as is Evil Ed's assault on Peter Vincent's penthouse. While I laughed at the idea of Charlie marching into Jerry's house with armor and a crossbow when I saw it in the trailer, it actually kind of works in the movie itself. Charlie Brewster actually becomes a fairly effective badass. The entire last act of the movie is pretty solid, truthfully. Even Peter Vincent 2011, despite being saddled with a sudden tragic origin story, actually becomes funny and likable. (Solely due to David Tennet, I suspect. Not a "Dr. Who" fan but the guy is charming.) The movie even resists the stupid jump scare twist ending, thank god. (Though there is a bizarre acoustic version of "99 Problems" playing over the credits for some reason.) They even keep the iconic design of Vampire Amy more or less the same. So I didn't completely hate "Fright Night" 2011 by the end, despite itself. I'm not saying I liked it though. The original is a campy, hilarious, but still occasionally scary celebration of nerddom, outcasts, and faith in one's self and one's beliefs. The remake is overly hip, sneeringly cynical, and frequently annoying. It’s not charming, horror comfort food.

And some of the horror movies I watched aren’t new. “The Dead Hate the Living!” is a fairly obscure outcast from Full Moon Productions misbegotten shot-on-video late nineties days. It’s a zombie movie from the days before zombie movies were cool again. The film is really, really cheap. There’s only really three or four zombies in the whole movie. The blood we see is of the overly bright, corn-syrupy variety. Near the end of the movie, some really bad digital effects, like straight out of After Effects bad, are trotted out. The movie also has terrible pacing. When you’re struggling to keep your eyes open during supposedly exciting scenes of zombie sieges and living dead dismemberment, you know things are bad. There are some cool ideas here, like a body getting pulled away by the entrails, or real life horrors being dismissed as movie special effects, but the totally listless pacing and cutting prevent any of that from really working.

Despite these glaring problems, the movie is kind of likable. The film is often criticized for its overly referral tone. Lucio Fulci’s “The Beyond” is named-dropped, referenced, and flat-out stolen from countless times. The characters are horror fanboys and often talk about their favorite zombie movies, directors, and stars, even while being attacked. Yeah, it’s winking and obvious, but still sort of funny. More over, the characters are likable. The performances, while definitely amateur, are still kind of fun. If nothing else, the actors are very sincere and heartfelt. There aren’t any recognizable faces aside from the late, real-life giant Matthew McGrory. The make-up, though obviously limited, is pretty decent too. I particularly like the zombie design with no lips whatsoever. I wouldn’t call “The Dead Hate the Living” essential or even good, but it’s not without interesting moments.

Recent Watches: 21/2/11

2011-12-02T21:48:00.000-08:00

Welcome to a new feature where I talk about some of the movies I’ve seen recently. It’s a strictly non-stress feature. I’ll post them whenever I want and talk about whatever movie I want (as long as it’s still recent in my brain) for as long as I want. It’s primarily a feature strictly to keep this damn blog active.

It’s no secret that I’m a pretty big fan of the Muppets. I remember watching the original TV show in reruns on Nickelodeon in the early nineties. And while I loved the show as a kid, it has really been the movies that have kept my interest alive. The first film, with its fantastic Paul Williams songs, has always been a favorite of mine. After not having a new Muppet movie in theaters since the somewhat dubious “Muppets from Space,” Jim Henson’s fuzzy felt creations have returned to the big-screen… Somewhat successfully.

First off, the good stuff: “The Muppets” is pretty funny. While I’m not one-hundred percent happy with it, Jason Segal is clearly a fan of the characters and gets things more right then wrong. If nothing else, the dude is a fully committed comic actor and goes for broke several times throughout. The movie has a number of pretty funny sequences, including Jack Black getting his head shrunk to a barber shop quartet version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or how very easy it was to convince Rowf the Dog to join back up with the old group. That old comic stalwart of a bunch of smaller people climbing inside of a single suit and trying to be a whole person is marched out again, to some success. The film’s heart is in the right place, and despite Frank Oz’s objections and the lack of his signature voice, all of the Muppets players are more or less in character. Honestly, Piggy is the only character that kind of gets the short stick. (I was honestly really worried at first about the whole Gonzo being a plunger mogul thing but the movie deals with that pretty quickly.) The movie was definitely made by fans, as there’s a lot of references to classic Muppet lore and more then a few obscure characters put in appearances. (I honestly don’t think Uncle Deadly’s had this much screen time since the original series.) The line-up of celeb cameos, a mainstay of the film series, is pretty weak in this one, but there are a few happy surprises, including two “Community” cast members and a surprise appearance from a golden age film legend. (And my arch-enemy.) The movie also does the Vertigo shot with a felt puppet, which I thought was pretty impressive.

The best thing about the film is its music. Bret McKenzie of “Flight of the Conchords” fame wrote the music and it’s pretty fantastic. “Life’s a Happy Song” is a clever, funny, insanely catchy number that’s worthy to be a classic. The entire “Man or Muppet” sequence is a pretty hilarious parody of the overwrought plot-changing musical number in addition to being a successful take on that cliché. “The Rainbow Connection,” one of my all-time faves and, in my opinion, one of the best film songs of all time, gets a stirring rendition here as well. The film was directed by James Bobin, the same guy who did many episodes of the “Flight of the Conchords,” and more then a few of the musical numbers here are reminiscent of that show. “Me Party” in particular feels very much like something world's number-three folk-comedy duo would have busted out during season one. Chris Cooper is hilarious, probably the most entertaining actor in the film, and his villainous song is probably the comic high-light of the picture, especially since it takes a particularly hacky comedy concept and completely makes it work. I also like the way he says “Maniacal Laughter” instead of actually laughing.

And, now, the stuff I wasn’t so happy about. Despite the movie’s heart being so much in the right place, it… Kind of misses the point. The Muppets have always had a degree of fourth wall breaking humor to them. I mean, in the first movie, Kermit and Fozie do read the film’s actual script to advance the plot. But I feel the meta approach to the script was kind of unnecessary. All the talk about how the world has forgotten the Muppets is kind of forced, seeing as how it’s not like the characters have been entirely absent from the pop culture biosphere. If anything, thanks to the internet, appreciation for the Muppets seems to have actually risen in recent years. No reason is given for why the Muppets broke up in the first place. It seems like an unlikely plot development.

And, like I said, I mostly like Jason Segal and Walter. Walter is far from the irritating forced new addition to the canon I feared he might be. Though his big plot-saving move at the end of the story, otherwise known as the Deus Ex Muppet-ina, pretty much comes out of nowhere and has zero foreshadowing. However, you can’t escape the fact that the movie spends a lot of time focusing on these new additions when it could be dealing with Kermit or Fonzie… You know, the characters we actually care about and came to see. Gonzo, my personal favorite, doesn’t get much screen time at all. Other faves like Sam the Eagle or Statler and Waldorf aren’t given much to do. And, honestly, the whole thing about Animal undergoing anger management and not drumming chains up one of the funniest characters and prevents him from doing his main shtick. (Pepe the Prawn is thankfully given very limited screen time.) Amy Addams gives it her all but the love story subplot is a drag and was completely unneeded. I overall found the movie’s referencal tone to be a little much.

The non-original musical cues, which include “Back in Black,” Gary Numan’s “Cars,” and, ugh, Starship are completely uninspired. (Really, that was the only song they could find with the word “Build” in its title?) Original songs would have been a preferable option. The nadir of this nostalgia heavy take is probably the character of Eighties Robot, who is pretty much one long walking “Old things sure are old!” joke. Wait, scratch that, the inexplicable kung-fu fight scene is the nadir.

Segal and his director where obviously more influenced by the actual TV show then the movies. This becomes apparent in the third act when we finally get to the theater saving telethon. While none of the acts, like the chicken clucking rendition of “Fu…,” uh, “Forget You,” are bad, they do hinder the movie’s pacing. Overall, there’s a lot of talk here about keeping the dream alive and all that. But I think, if the movie really wanted to show that the ethics and messages behind Jim Henson’s critters were still relevant, maybe it should have just, you know, made a Muppet movie, instead of being really meta and clever about everything.

Having said all of that, I am glad the film has been relatively successful, both critically and financially, if for no other reason then it means more Muppet products in the future. There’s all ready been a new sitcom announced and that’s hopefully the first of many.

I’ve definitely ranted on way more about this then I intended too. I had expected this to be a multi-review entry but I don’t want it to run long. So, more reviews coming soon. Promise.

Lo, changes!

2011-11-28T23:34:00.000-08:00

So, I don't know if anybody noticed... I seriously don't know if anybody noticed, but, over the last month, I've gone back and changed up the blog a bit. It was a long overdue overhaul, in my opinion.

First off, I added a sidebar with links for all the completed report cards, director or otherwise. That's another long overdue addition, honestly. I've also added sidebars for my yearly retrospectives and my Halloween write-ups. Those three features, I feel, form the foundations and heart of Film Thoughts. Depending on how next Feburary goes, I might add a sidebar for my Oscar coverage as well. I've also thrown in an updated list of potential future report cards and a label cloud, because why the hell not?

As for those early report cards, they're rough. I personally don't think my skills as a reviewer became any good until around the Star Trek report card. But I've kept those around for historical value and for those with any interest.

Beyond that, I've gone through and spell-checked everything and updated labels. I've boosted the font size for all articles. I've also went through and fixed all the HTML and formatting fuck-ups, some of which were just damn shameful. Over all, the goal here was to make Film Thoughts a more readier, appealing, and accessible blog.

Moving to the future, I've got a number of nearly completed report cards that will be posted soon. I've also decided on a few new features in order to keep the blog alive in-between report cards. This new material is forthcoming and soon. I PROMISE!!!

Halloween 2011: October 31 - HALLOWEEN

2011-11-01T17:31:00.000-07:00

Halloween day was mostly spent with an all-day horror movie marathon. We got snow in my area recently, if you can friggin' believe that, so most of my weekend plans ended up being canceled. So JD and I didn't make it to the "Rocky Horror" experience this year. Maybe next year.

I tried to make the most of the situation, by dressing up in my "All the Big Summer Movies of 2011" costume, carved pumpkins, and handed out candy to the few trick r' treaters we got. (Three groups for a total of 9 kids.) Over all, the day was kind of lackluster.

House of 1000 Corpses (2003)
Rob Zombie is probably the most divisive figure in the horror fan community in recent memory, but, if I remember correctly, “House of 1000 Corpses” was fairly well liked, at least by fans, upon premiere. The film had a protracted post-production and, if it had been released in 2001 as originally planned, before the turn of the century horror revival really started, it probably would have been even better received.

It’s a conflicted film and I’m tempted to say it’s not very good. Honestly, the movie is a lot like being inside the “Dragula” video for 88 minutes. (The movie even features the song-title-lending “Munsters” episode.) The stock footage, the psychedelic imagery, and the constant cutaway sequences certainly feels more like a Rob Zombie music video then the 1970s grindhouse fare the movie aspires to. This style has a twin effect of making the movie schizophrenic and borderline incoherent while also establishing an appropriately nightmarish tone early on. It’s distracting at first but, once we get to the titular house, it actually starts to work in the film’s favor. The Firefly family exists in its own exceedingly twisted world and this movie is willing to take you there. The movie is the product of a mind that has seemingly consumed nothing but old horror movies, southern hick culture, and drugs his entire life. If it was a better movie, I’d say it’s the apotheosis of low-culture, trash cinema.

Rob Zombie’s white-trash obsession and often vulgar, abrasive dialogue makes his films most definitely not for everyone, but it’s hard to deny he can create memorable, distinct characters. (Or at least a few. More on that in a minute.) We meet Sid Haig’s Captain Spaulding in the first scene, a character both hilarious and disgusting. It’s not surprising that Haig, who gives a very funny, energetic performance, would go on to become something of a genre mainstay after this film. If he hadn’t all ready been in movies for over thirty years, I’d say this was a star-making turn. Sherri Moon can be just as divisive a figure to the fans as her husband is, because of her perceived questionable talent and Rob’s insistence in sticking her in everything. The character of Baby is pretty much the movie in a capsule: Psychopathic, sadistic, existing in her own weird horror universe, annoying, but arguably unique. Bill Moseley’s Otis is undeniably the brightest star of the film. Moseley made Chop Top a lovable fan favorite and, while Otis is nowhere near as manic or funny as that character, Moseley brings the same level of charisma and gusto to an exceedingly more cruel, sadistic character. A delightfully trashy Karen Black rounds out the film’s psycho ensemble. (For the record, my favorite character in the movie is actually giant, silent, comparatively benign Tiny.)

And thus we come to one of the main problems with Rob Zombie’s skills as a screenwriter. While he can write a great psychopath, his normal people come off as much less likable and well rounded. Jerry, the bearded one, is kind of an abrasive asshole and seems to do nothing but force his friends into more danger as the movie continues. Rainn Wilson’s character is clueless and any likable attributes he has are because of the performer, not the script. The two girls are indistinct from one another and defined solely by their relationships with their men. When the hard ass Tom Towles cop is the most interesting non-murderous character in your movie, you’ve got problems. So basically the middle section is about enjoying the mayhem, torture, and depravity the psychopaths inflict on these victims. Honestly, horror fans do that all the time in films like this but the torture and murder here is just grimy, explicit, and unlikable enough that this becomes a somewhat queasy, uncomfortable experience. (The rape, torture, and necrophilia performed upon the cheerleaders are the hardest bits to swallow.) Despite heavily referencing and featuring the Universal Monsters films, this as about as far removed from the benign horrors of those films as you can get. Having said that, the middle part of the film is probably the best, solely due the great cast. The movie sort of falls apart in the last act too, partially because the focus is shifted back to our victims, but primarily because the movie slips totally into incoherence. Why do the Fireflies have zombies in a cave system under their house? What’s the point of the weird, backwards tape they play? Why are their old guys in bunny suits wandering the caves? Are we to believe the Fireflies have really been killing and torturing people for that long, totally undetected? (The real reasons the old guys are there is to get our final girl out of her own bunny suit.) And while Dr. Satan is cool looking, his collection of retarded weirdoes makes for something of an anticlimactic final reveal. The movie descends totally into standard, slasher-chase stuff at the end before the obvious twist. Honestly, when your psychos are your movies main selling point, removing them from the story at the end leads to a weak end.

Despite these reservations, the movie does have some fantastic elements. The entire “I Remember You” sequence, in which our villains gun people down to the strings of an old country song, is pretty great. (But I sort of always love musical juxtaposition.) And the set design of the film is particularly notable. Rob Zombie’s past as a designer really shows here. I love how the Fireflies home is decorated totally with old monster movie posters, scrawled children’s drawings, and kitschy Halloween decorations. And also bones and chickens and scarecrows and shit. And while cut-aways to color-reversed redneck rants about a rapin’ skunk ape and a random, old, violent black man ranting incoherently about Heaven and Hell add nothing to the story, they’re certainly interesting. And that’s “House of 1000 Corpses” in a nutshell, more or less. It’s not surprising the film had a cult following, even before the sequel and action figures. (6.5/10)

The Car (1977)
I legitimately like this movie a great deal. Yes, the premise, essentially “Jaws” in the desert with a phantom car instead of a shark, is hokey. But the movie has likable characters, a laidback setting, some genuine thrills, and a unique main threat in its favor. Of course, I’m somewhat partial to car chase movies in general and killer car movies in particular.

Which is weird, because it’s not like I’m a motorhead or anything. Car culture kind of mystifies me, to be honest. I think why the killer car is such a good horror threat is because you’re way more likely to be killed by a car then you are by a vampire or werewolf or what have you. The titular Car in this film is a fantastic creation. First off, it just looks cool. Designed by the same guy who made the Batmobile and the Munsters Koach, the Car is specifically designed to make an everyday object look as threatening and sinister as possible. Its squat cab emphasizes the face of the car. The prominent headlights, wide grill, and angled hood gives the Car a glaring, grinning face, perfect to commit murder. Beyond being an excellent design, the Car just does cool shit, like flip onto its side and roll over two oncoming police cruisers. And if it’s possible, the vehicle is even driven in an expressive, personality filled way. Just look at the scene where, after being denied access to its victims because they’ve fled onto holy ground, the Car does donuts in frustration. Or the way he pushes and manipulates other vehicles around. This is why, despite being ridiculous, the Car works as a horror movie monster.

Another reason why I think I like the film so much is because it’s small Utah town setting is so appealing. Very quickly and early on, the town is established as a comfortable little town. Our cast of characters are equally lovable. James Brolin is the pillar of the community, a noble, family man of a sheriff that’s extremely ethical but far from unfaultable. Kathleen Lloyd is especially likable as Brolin’s girlfriend and the local school teacher. She’s got two great scenes: When she’s found that one of her teenage male students has drawn a picture of her naked and the older, heavier, teacher’s response to it, and when she mocks, taunts, and yells at the Car from a safe distance. Lloyd is such a delightful presence that when she exits the film, it registers as a real shock. Ronny Cox has a great role as the Barney Fife of a deputy. Other quirky characters in the film include a French Horn playing hitchhiker, a drunken wife-beating asshole who still gets off some funny lines, and an American Indian deputy who doesn’t take any nonsense off of anyone. Also, an old woman yells “Cat poo!” (Or “Tadpole,” so says the DVD subtitles. Hmm…)

Most surprising of all, the movie actually has some real thrills in it. As mentioned above, spoiler alert!, Kathleen Lloyd doesn’t make it out of the movie. The scene is set up during a stormy dark night. She stands in her kitchen, talking on the phone, getting increasingly panicked, worried about the Car. And THEN, two bright headlights appear in her window, slowly getting closer and closer, until that hellish horn honking breaks the night…! Other notable horror moments in “The Car” includes the vehicles first appearance, where it pushes two bicyclists off a bridge, and when the Car appears in Brolin’s garage and attempts to asphyxiate the man with fumes.

So, whatever. Opinions differ but “The Car” is a goodie in my book. I think as long as you accept and get over the innate ridiculousness of the premise, you’ll enjoy it as well. (7.5/10)

Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965)
I love a good horror anthology. Amicus Production, the rival to Hammer Studios, got a lot of the same stars Hammer had but, in order to distinguish itself from that iconic studio’s output, it focused on and specialized in the anthology format. “Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors” was actually the first anthology film they ever did. It’s… Not as good as I remember.

The set-up is classic Amicus. Five guys get on a train car together, among them Christopher Lee and Donald Sutherland, and are soon joined by a strange man calling himself Dr. Shriek (Back when that name was associated with the German word for terror, not a CGI cartoon ogre.), played by a nicely ominous Peter Cushing. Using his deck of tarot cards, Dr. Terror proceeds to predict each of their futures, all of the predictions ending in violent death via supernatural creature.

The first three stories are a major drag. The opening sequence features an old house, an entombed werewolf, a family curse, and a kind of cool twist ending that’s sort of predictable. But the segment spends most of its time on set-up and only gets really good in the last few minutes. Following that is a story about murderous creeping vines. This story has a lot of droll scientific information in it, takes place mostly on one set, and has a seriously anticlimactic conclusion. The third story has the fun premise of a pop song writer stealing the melody to a voodoo ritual song. But it goes on way too long. Far too much of the segment is devoted to musical performances. It’s actually the longest story in the film and feels every minute of it. It does have a somewhat spooky walk down a darkened street and a decent conclusion.

The movie doesn’t actually start to get good until the last two stories. The fourth story stars Christopher Lee as a wonderfully catty and bitchy art critic and co-stars Michael Gough as the painter who is destroyed by the bad reviews. When Gough looses a hand in a car accident, it’s not hard to figure out what happens next. Seeing two Hammer all-stars like Lee and Gough face off, especially when given juicy material like this to play with, is the main treat here. Once the disembodied hand comes calling for Lee, the movie makes the ridiculous threat work by just making the damn thing indestructible. The last story, in which Donald Sutherland is convinced by his doctor that his new wife must be a vampire, has an obvious twist ending you see coming immediately but the good performances and a decent horror mood makes it worth watching.

The framing device then concludes in a very memorable, darkly amusing way. (The same ending that Amicus would continue to use in many of their other horror anthology films.) Honestly, because of that ending, the cast, and the last two stories, I always remember “Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors” being a lot better then it actually is. The fact that the film has never been released on DVD and I watched it on my well worn, very dark VHS didn’t help any. While it’s the first one made, the best place to start if you want to get into Amicus horror is “Asylum” or “Tales from the Crypt,” two of the best films the company would make. (5/10)

Curse of the Fly (1965)
A very strange sequel. There’s no fly monster in this movie. The curse of the title refers to the Delambre family’s bad luck with teleporters. The movie also seems to heavily retcon the events of the first two films, letting Andre get out of the mishap of the first film unharmed and changing Philippe to Henri. (And into a huge asshole.) The fly DNA being mixed into the family bloodstream has caused Henri’s son to have accelerated aging and he must take a shot to prevent a sudden on-set of death. None of this information is given to us until well into the film itself. The movie starts with a scene of a woman in her underwear escaping from a mental institution in slow-motion. (While a slow paced, romantic version of the “Fly” theme plays.) Though Martin Delambre, his dad, and the teleportation technology enters the story soon afterward (After the crazy woman falls in love with Martin), the movie is mostly about this girl, a concert pianist recovering from a nervous breakdown. Either somebody had an unrelated screenplay he decided to latch to a sort-of-popular franchise, or somebody decided to take this series in a vastly new direction. Or they couldn’t afford a fly monster? Either way, “Curse of the Fly” is an odd film and definitely a product of the sixties.

If you’re thinking, “None of that sounds like a horror movie,” wait, there’s more. Martin and Henri have been experimenting with cross-Atlantic teleportation… And they have the stable full of mutants to prove it, among them Martin’s ex-wife. (Ex in the sense that he’s ignoring her now that she’s a mutant. They’re still technically married and this is a plot point.) While turning humans into deformed mutants and then treating them like animals is pretty evil, Henri insist they keep it up, “in the name of science.” Patricia, that’s escaped mental patient girl, is keeping her own secret from Martin and folks, making “Curse of the Fly” partially a film about secrets and how they can eat away at otherwise healthy relationships. An aged blind Inspector Charas from the first movie (though played by a different actor) shows up briefly as well, just to tell us some back story.

It’s not a bad film. Carol Grey gives a good performance as the increasingly panicked woman and all of the strange, divergent plotlines build nicely to the ending. The film has some atmospheric black-and-white cinematography. The radiation deformed mutants are an early example of body-horror and an interesting addition to the story. (The name Martin and the presence of creatures like that makes me think this film was an influence on “The Fly II.”) The lack of Vincent Price does hurt the film and it’s easy to see how the part of Henri was originally imagined as Price’s character. He probably would have done a better job then Brian Donlevy, who can't seem to combine the character’s nice and insane attributes. The movie was a British production and directed by Don Sharp of “Kiss of the Vampire” fame. It’s not really good enough to be a hidden gem and instead is more or less an odd curio for “Fly” fans. (6/10)

The Descent (2006)
It’s weird that after a huge hit like this, that Neil Marshall would kind of disappear. Was “Doomsday” really that big of a bomb? I haven’t seen “Centurions” but it didn’t look very interesting. “The Descent” remains as effective now as it was upon release. What’s really exciting about the film is that this is a monster movie that didn’t need any monsters at all. If this had just been a movie about a group of girls lost in a perilous, unexplored cave system it would have been just as good and probably just as exciting. There’s a solid hour of claustrophobic suspense before the Crawlers even show up. The scenes of Sarah getting stuck in the collapsing cave or the sequence of Holly falling and shattering her leg are particularly harrowing.

But once the monsters do show up, the film really ramps up into frenzied terror. One of the things I've always admired about “The Descent” is that, despite being shot on sets, it feels like it was shot in a real cavern. Never once do you feel like the characters are in a false environment. The darkness and red light of flares makes it clear that our protagonists are not in their own world. This puts them at a definite disadvantage to begin with and, when the Crawlers appear, it becomes clear just how defenseless they can be. Why I don’t think they’re super original designs, the gray, shrieking, skittering Crawlers are effectively creepy horror movie monsters. The movie makes it clear that anybody who faces these things unprepared is going to meet a nasty end. After establishing the creatures as a threat, the movie then delights in putting our characters in constant peril from them. More then once, someone has to keep absolutely still and quiet while a monster sniffs around them. It’s an old trick but it works, and never better then here.

Another thing that’s so strong about this film is that there’s nothing simple about it. Our characters are not unambiguously the good guys. The Crawlers are obviously wild animals, defending their territory. They’re no more evil then a grizzly bear. Towards the end, as our heroines tear the monsters apart with picks and their bare hands, the film doesn’t shy away from suggesting that the humans in the story can be just as vicious as their attackers. From the Crawlers’ point of view, this could be a movie about strange invaders coming into their area and wrecking havoc. There’s a lot of deceit and distrust among the girls as well. I’ve always thought what Sarah does to Juno at the end of the film was kind of a dick move but the film makes it clear that Juno isn’t exactly a good person.

The cast is strong, even if only about four of the girls get any real decent development. Sam and Rebecca are mostly Crew Members 5 and 6, to be honest. The boisterous, adrenalin junky Holly has always been my favorite character. The movie seems to intentionally design her as the most fun character, since Sarah’s in morning, Juno’s somewhat duplicitous, and Beth is mostly the mediator between the rest of the group. But because this is a horror movie, a particularly uncompromising one, the most likable character is the one who bites it first. (Pun.) Holly essentially fills the same role Burt Reynolds did in “Deliverance,” the person you’d think would be the most help and the big hero in the story who actually ends up becoming useless fairly early on. Shauna MacDonald and Natalie Mendoza also give very good performances as Sarah and Juno. These are the two characters that really shape the world of the film after all and drive the plot forward.

I also love that the movie is unapologetically symbolic. Sarah blames her self for the death of her husband and child and has never really recovered from the grief. When she climbs down into the cave, she’s really climbing down into her own psyche, a frightening, dark place full of demons. The “Apocalypse Now” sequence of her emerging from a pool of blood a stronger, more dangerous person is rife with feminine symbolism. By bathing in the blood, a classic symbol of primal femininity, she’s gotten in touch with her own inner wild mama bear. (The fact that she immediately kills a female Crawler after this scene isn’t an accident.) And it’s only then that she’s able to leave the cave and move on pass her own psychosis… At least in the American ending. In the original ending, she doesn’t make it out of the literal cave or the cave of her own making, as some people never do. While I like the character enough to want to see her live, I can’t deny that the intended ending is the stronger thematic one. (9/10)

A Night at the Movies: The Horrors of Stephen King (2011)
Basically “Danse Macabre: The TV Special.” While I’m not exactly a huge Stephen King fan, the guy is knowledgeable about the genre he works in. (And should really only talk about his own genre. His “Entertainment Weekly” column was often excruciatingly tin-earred.) To listen to him chat about his favorite horror films or his opinion on the facets of the genre in general is basically like just sitting down with another fan and chatting with them. The way he compares the “I Was a Teenage…” series of the fifties with the modern “Twilight” fad is an interesting thought and I generally agree with his assessment of the vampire genre. I also find myself agreeing with his disinterest with the “gore-for-gore’s sake” spectacle that rules the genre today, even if I think it’s perfectly all right to relate too and route for the killers and psychos in movies. The anecdotes about him first seeing “Carrie” in an urban theater full of large black men or watching “Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers” as a child only to have the showing interrupted by the news of Sputnik’s launch are anecdotes he’s told before. But they’re good stories and ones well worth hearing again.

What’s really fun about this special is hearing King’s opinions on the adaptations of his own work. It’s good to know he holds “Cujo” and “Christine” in such high regard, two adaptations I’ve always thought were underrated. His frankness about his dislike of Kubrick’s “The Shining” and his performance in “Creepshow” are interesting and refreshing. Despite his massive fame, King has always come off as a generally laidback sort of person. While wholly inessential, “The Horrors of Stephen King” is a fun little feature. Turner Classics Movies is good at this kind of thing. (7/10)

The Innocents (1963)
When you’re a nerd, wither it be a horror, movie, comic book, or anime nerd, you probably find yourself sitting down and making up a mental list, if not an actual list, of all the stuff you consider essential to the genre. It’s either a list of all the stuff you need to see but haven’t seen yet or a list of all the stuff you think you have to see before you can call yourself a proper fan. In my on-going journey through the horror genre that I’ve been on for about twelve years now, there aren’t too many essential films left that I haven’t seen all ready. Lots of obscurities or hidden gems, sure, but not too many have-to-sees. “The Innocents” is one such film that has escaped my sights until tonight.

I watched this at 2 in the morning and it’s getting super late, so I don’t have a super lot to say about this one. I also think I need to re-watch it to absorb all the layers and subtleties there. But I can tell this is an excellent film. Deborah Kerr gives a wonderful performance as a repressed woman who, by trying to save a pair of children from a perceived threat, actually says more about her own conflicted faith and repressed sexuality. Martin Stephens, who would go on to play the exact opposite side of the “horror movie kid” scale in the original “Village of the Damned,” gives maybe one of the best performances from a young child I’ve ever seen. His character is an old soul, somebody very young who seems to know quite a bit, and Stephens himself seems like one as well.

The film starts out slowly, introducing us to this world and its characters. However, there’s a distinct point when it really begins to work. Miss Giddens see an apparition of a man atop the manor tower. She rushes inside and looks up the center of a spiral staircase. This is the first example of such rich, atmospheric direction and soon after we find ourselves in a house full of shadows, full of whispering voices and spectral faces. We have stepped over into the world of the unknown. There are severally extremely creepy moments here. The scene of Kerr discovering an old photograph in the cobweb ridden attic is followed up with a man’s face appearing in a window and then coming closer, the music building. Kerr quickly becomes more and more frenzied as the film goes on, convinced of her own theories. Even up to the end, the movie is ambiguous about wither or not there really are ghosts at work her or if Kerr is just delusional. The film keeps piling on strangeness and unnerving behavior before building up to the incredibly intense finale. (They put an innocent little turtle in peril, a moment that I won’t deny totally got me.) Once the tension in that moment subsides, the movie immediately builds it up again for the real finale. It’s an ending liable to leave you with just as many answers as questions, but that’s what’s great about it. If any story should be mysterious and ambiguous, it’s a ghost story. (Or a story about the dark recesses of the repressed mind, depending on how you look at it.) The movie explores the secret world of children and, in an unsettling move, suggests a child corrupted by the sexual advances of an adult. The scene of Martin Stephens kissing Deborah Kerr deeply on the lips is just as unsettling as any of the ghost moments. Because the film gets the audience to sympathize with Kerr’s potentially dubious world so much, simple scenes like a kid dancing alone by the lake or riding a horse become raked with tension.

“The Innocents” is, overall, a hugely successful mood piece. The shadowy atmosphere, provided by future Hammer and Amicus director Freddie Francis, is extraordinary and the movie makes great use of music and sound design. I really should have seen this one sooner. With this and “The Haunting,” 1961 was a good year for ghost stories. (9/10)

So in total, this Halloween I watched 88 movies and television episodes and wrote reviews for 79 of them. I was hoping this would be a substantial improvement over last year but, nope, not really. Last year I wrote 84 reviews. I guess, considering all of this year's reviews were much, much longer, that is an actual improvement. (I've probably doubled my yearly word total just this October.) And I did attend my first horror con this past fall. I suppose Halloween 2011 was a major improvement in that sense. But I definitely had a lot less fun this October in comparison to last year.

Oh, well. Better luck next year, I guess. More updates coming soon. And I mean it this time.

Halloween 2011: October 30

2011-10-30T20:43:00.000-07:00

Island of Lost Souls (1932)
This is pretty much the DVD release of the year for me. As you know, I’m a classic horror aficionado, particularly of the Universal cycle. While “Island of Lost Souls” was actually a Paramount production, Universal owns it and it was released as a part of the Universal Monsters video series in the early nineties. The film is widely regarded as a classic of the genre but its been unavailable for a long time. It’s never gotten a DVD release and TV airings are rare. I had hoped for a long time that “Island of Lost Souls” would be shuffled onto one of the classic horror sets Universal was releasing almost ever year there for a while and figured that would be the best release we’d ever get. So when Criterion announced that the film was coming out, I got pretty excited. I was eagerly counting down the days for its release. So much so that when Amazon said it wouldn’t be at my house until November 2, after the end of my Halloween viewing, I was pretty disappointed. Luckily it arrived in time.

So, anyway, this movie’s a masterpiece. Have you ever seen a film so good that it makes you kind of mad that you haven’t seen it before? There are a couple big differences between golden age Paramount horror and Universal that I’ve noticed. As I pointed out earlier, Paramount’s cinematography is generally more expressive then the stagey, silent film style Universal had. The movie has a lot more dollying and some very creative staging, including a fantastic shot seen entirely in the reflection of a lake. But the movie stands besides the Universal films because of its wonderful use of shadows. In at least two scenes, fleeing characters shadows are cast on the wall behind them, looming large. Early fog filled boat sequences also recall the Universal films of the same era. Over all, the titular island is a deeply atmospheric place. The print restoration is incredible. On DVD, the film practically looks brand new.

Secondly, Paramount’s pre-code output was very daring, pushing the envelope on sex and especially violence. “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” featured sexuality and sexual sadism as a major theme and “Island of Lost Souls” follows suit. A major subplot involves Dr. Moreau’s intention to mate Parker with the seductive Lota the Panther Woman, his most perfect creation. Parker nearly goes through with it too, charmed by Lota's raw animal sensuality, before realizing that this attractive young lady isn’t exactly human. As soon as Parker’s fiancé Ruth arrives on the island, the Beast-Men eye her hungrily and it’s not long, with a little prodding from Dr. Moreau, before one of the animal men attempts to have his way with her. And the movie’s hideously violent. As in the book, there's a preoccupation with vivisection here. A scene where Dr. Moreau calmly uncovers a recently performed-on animal man, still bloody and screaming, is particularly unflinching. It’s not really the level of violence that makes the movie unsettling so much as it’s the stifling mood of cruelty that hangs over the entire film. “Island of Lost Souls” is a movie practically about the politics of cruelty, of control, and oppression. When Dr. Moreau’s creations inevitably revolt and destroy him, it’s not shown so much as evil being overthrown, as the cycle of violence starting over again. The movie ends in flames and deafening screams of agony. “Island of the Lost Souls” is one of the most oppressively nihilistic horror films of the 1930s.

Charles Loughton is unsettlingly good as Dr. Moreau. He rules over his island with an iron fist. He considers himself a god to his animal-men creations. Though relatively soft-spoken, Loughton’s Moreau is always plotting. You can see the evil wheels turning in his head. But what’s really frightening about the character and the performance is that Moreau is completely self-justified in his sadism. When our shipwrecked sailor claims his vivisection of live creatures is cruel, he waves him off. “Don’t bother me with such petty horrors.” This is a man that can justify anything in the name of science. As portrayed here, Dr. Moreau might be the most devious and sadistic of any of the golden age horror villains. (Rivaled perhaps only by Lionel Atwill in the similarly grisly “Murders in the Zoo.”) Kathleen Burke, though naturalistic and untrained, suits her role of the Panther Woman extremely well. Bela Lugosi, as the Sayer of the Law and the eventual leader of the Animal-Men, gives a tortured, passionate performance. I’ll say it’s a better performance then his Dracula.

The Beast Men are fantastic creations. Though the make-ups, composed mostly of hair glued to face, is primitive, it’s incredibly effective. The low-key make-up is actually one of the things that work very well for the film, since it makes it seem plausible. Unlike the Universal monster movies that featured supernatural, fantastical creatures, “Island of the Lost Souls” has creatures that seem oddly possible. So not only is the film grisly, disturbing, and actively concerned with hot button concepts of bestially, evolution, misintegration, racism, fascism, torture, sadism, and cruelty, but it seems like it can actually happen too. Now that the film’s finally been released on DVD, perhaps this classic can be rediscovered by a new generation of classic horror fans and film watchers. (9/10)

Slither (2006)
Pretty much the closest thing we have to a modern “Evil Dead 2.” This is a horror-comedy that is just massively entertaining. It’s a shame the film bombed. It should have transformed Nathan Fillian into a modern matinee idol. At the very least, he could have so easily been the new Bruce Campbell. Instead, he’s doing some cop show… Sigh. The movie seemed to have stunted James Gunn’s career some as well, since it took the admittedly excellent “Super” a long time to get made. In an alternate time line, “Slither” was a big hit and James Gunn has since pleased us all with many more funny, twisted, endlessly entertaining pictures.

The movie has got crazy worm things, acid-spitting space zombies, great gore effects, a woman growing up into a giant ball of flesh and then exploding, and mixes body horror, sci-fi, redneck, zombie, and eighties creature feature tropes extremely well. The creature effects are phenomenal and Grant Grant, in his slug form, is one of the best monster designs in recent memory. And there’s some fantastically quotable dialogue here. (Even the DVD special features are highly quotable. “I’m Bill Pardy,” indeed.) But there’s more here then just all that and Nathan Fillian mugging it up. The central love story(?) between Starla and Grant Grant provides the movie with a heart. Despite being a marriage of convenience for her, Grant is crazy about her and she really does feel something for him. Michael Rooker really does give a good performance. I especially like the scene where he has to pull himself away from her, holding back his evil alien tentacles' need to impregnate her with his space seed.

I don’t really have a lot to say about “Slither.” The movie more or less speaks for itself. It’s a great flick for horror fans. (9/10)

Them! (1954)
Ah, the movie that kicked off the giant bug craze of the fifties. And I’d argue that’s its more or less the only really good one, at least out of the stuff I’ve seen. (“Tarantula” isn’t bad though.) I’ve always dug this film since I was a little kid. While the giant ants may very well be scientific impossibilities, they are honestly pretty real looking. They’re pretty effective special effects. I think, in a weird way, the film predicted the sci-fi special effects action extravaganza that flood the theaters every summer. The scene of a cop taking a machine gun to one of the giant ants feels a lot like the 1954 equivalent of Michael Bay. Despite lying more over to the sci-fi/action side of the horror scale, the film still has it’s effective horror moments. The little girl screaming out the film’s title is a pretty memorable scene, as is the ants attack on the police outpost. Good stuff.

The movie plays a lot like a mystery throughout its run time. James Arness, Joan Weldon, and Edmund “Santa Claus” Gwenn form kind of a central power trio, as they follow leads and clues, trying to find the latest ant colony. I especially like the scene of three spelunking down into the ant colony, stepping over the dead giant ants. Weldon ordering everyone to get out of the colony immediately is a good moment. The final military invasion of the new ant colony, formed in the city sewer systems, is an intense sequence and nicely plays up the cramp quarters.

What has really made the movie endure and elevates it above the copy-cats that would follow are the numerous quirky elements in the film. Edmund Gwenn plays his scientist as a knowledgeable but somewhat absent minded man. The scene of him fumbling CB terminology is cute and funny. Future Davey Crocket Fess Parker has a memorable small role as a fighter pilot claiming adamantly he’s not insane. Even more entertaining is the very active, and very funny, drunk that provides the final clue needed to find the ants. Overall, the film is intelligent, witty, funny, and also a bit scary. (8/10)

Halloween 2011: October 29

2011-10-29T20:25:00.001-07:00

Return of the Fly (1959)
A pretty routine sequel. Twenty years after the events of the first film, history repeats itself when Philippe, the son of the original fly, decides to continue his father’s research into teleportation technology, despite the warnings of his uncle, played by a very somber Vincent Price. Philippe is a bad judge of character, so his lab assistant turns out to be a real asshole, planning on stealing the teleporter blue prints so he can pay off his gambling debts, I think. (His partner in crime is a neurotic mortician, one of the few interesting parts of the film.) After beating him up, the asshole intentionally sends Philippe through the transporter with a fly, creating another fly-headed monster. This proves to be a bad move and backfires spectacularly for our villains. Fly-Monster Philippe, after awkwardly wandering around the woods for a while, tracks both guys down and murders them. Luckily, his girlfriend and his uncle find the fly with the human head, sends both through the teleporter, leading us to a happy ending.

Despite the short running time, the movie drags a lot. None of the fly stuff happens until well pass the halfway point, so the first half revolves mostly around Philippe worrying about flies (His phobia is one of the film’s few clever bits) and Vincent Price warning him not to mess around with that teleporter shit, man. (“I told you about teleporters, bro. I told you.”) The film starts with a funeral and the overly somber tone continues throughout. There’s none of the humor here of the first film… At least not of the intentional value. The film’s special effects are big step down from the first one. There’s some gigantism thrown in with the teleporting for some reason, so our inevitable fly-monster has a giant head. This is incredibly awkward for the stuntman playing him, who stumbles a lot, and you can tell the prop head almost falls over a few times. The human-head fly is created through cheesy photography tricks, as is the human-handed rat critter that shows up too. If the creations in the first film where absurd in an unsettling way, these are absurd in a strictly hilarious way. In the first film, the teleportations sequences was a series of flashing lights and phasing, while here people in the glass box just vanish abruptly.

There’s also some pretty big logic holes. If a guy went through a teleporter with a fly again, whose to say it would pop out exactly like what happened in the first film? Why doesn’t Philippe just have a giant fly ass or something? And why would sending the two hybrids back through together fix things? Wouldn’t that just lead to more gene-splicing? One of the things they talk about in this movie is teleporting somebody and then leaving their atoms just floating around in the air overnight, which seems dangerous and a wild abuse of science. Fox went to the expense of shooting this flick in Cinemascope, but not in color. Of course, I love black and white, but it’s not use all that well here. The direction is pretty bland. The scenes of a body jumping out of a casket is pretty much the only effective moment in the whole film. “Return of the Fly” is a blatant retrend of the first film with none of the energy, character, humor, or suspense. (5/10)

Community: “Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps”
I don’t watch a lot of TV. I’m pretty squarely a movie guy. So it’s not often that a TV show really grabs my attention and gets me to tune in every week. But I love “Community.” I really do. After the shaky season two, season three has been excellent so far. Every episode has been a winner.

The last two Halloween episodes have been total classics. The season one Halloween episode is got me into the show in the first place and last year’s “Epidemiolgy” is, not only pretty much the best zombie movie I’ve seen in years and such an improvement over the handful of zombie homages we’ve seen in the past decade, but it’s also probably my favorite episode of the whole series. “Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps” isn’t as good as either and, in particular, doesn’t really live up to its horror anthology premise, but it’s still a solid B+ in my book. The show is very character oriented so each variation of the story really tells us more about the character telling them then anything else.

The episode is still full of very funny moments. Britta’s retelling of the Hook story includes the character’s all talking in her mumbled, awkwardly paced style of speaking. Abed’s story features characters that follow the rules of the genre strictly, relying on a hilarious super-logic. Annie’s “Twilight” spin gets especially funny when she has to stop and teach the vampire how to read. (It also features some fantastic Allison Brie cleavage, something this episode is full of.) But my favorite segment is Troy’s story, which is a bro-tastic, silly spin on the mad scientist concept, recasting himself and Abed as super-awesome jet fighters who get super-awesome psychic powers.

Any way, anybody who’s never seen an episode of “Community” probably has no idea what I’m talking about so I’ll finish this up. In short: Good episode. Also, watch this show. (8/10)

Ghost Story (1981)
Funny story behind this one: When I was around, I don’t know, ten maybe, and right in the beginning stages of my horror movie obsession, my mother told me the plot of “Ghost Story,” detailing everything. It sounding like a fantastic film but I didn’t get to see it until many years afterward, once Netflix finally rolled around. I was immensely disappointed. The movie in my head was so much better. But, in the services of fairness, I decided to give this one another shot.

The film is notable mostly for bringing together an ensemble of some of the most respected actors of Hollywood’s Golden Age. In today’s youth obsessed market, I can’t imaging a horror film being sold starring nothing but elderly men, even if it’s based on a national best seller. In order to compensate, the movie throws in a lot of nudity and sex, including some male full frontal. The story revolves around the Chowder Society, a group of friends who gather to tell frightening stories and have done so since the early 1900s. And now, as these things happen in the movies, a ghost from the past has come to pick the men off one by one. The story telling format lends the film an episodic feeling. Twice, the current flow of the film halts abruptly so a character can drop some back story.

Oddly, the movie works best when it travels back to the early 1900s and replaces its old man cast with a group of younger actors. The movie seems to be of two minds. The direction is very strong during the period settings and the director seems fine with the explicit romantic scenes. But the movie falls apart during the scenes of horror. Many of the deaths involve someone being startled by the gruesome sight of the ghosts and falling to their deaths. However, while there’s certainly nothing wrong with the corpse make-up, it’s never as shocking or disturbing as the movie needs it to be. A bizarre subplot features a homeless man and his little brother as servants of the ghost woman. For reasons that are never explained, the little boy roars and makes animal noises. It’s not a scary effect, for a fact it’s quite comical. (I hear these characters get more development in the novel.) It’s really not until the movie’s very end, when the camera roams the dark, abandoned house, that the movie begins to have any success as a horror film at all. The effects work in general is kind of clumsy, including a scene where a car flipping over sounds like a toy car rolling around in the snow.

When the movie does work, it’s strictly because of its prime cast. Fred Astaire is the only really likable member of the Chowder Society, though John Houseman commands a lot of authority with his deep voice and intimidating figure. I like a moment when Melvyn Douglas breaks down from the stress. But it’s really Alice Krige, future Borg queen, as the vengeful ghost who gives the best performance. While the movie oversells her beauty a bit too much, she still manages to be very sexy when she needs to and appropriately sinister at the same time. “Ghost Story” is mostly a failure though. The film seems to have no idea how to create a successful horror atmosphere. (5/10)

Halloween 2011: October 28

2011-10-29T00:53:00.000-07:00

The Prophecy (1995)
Here’s an example of overheated schlock that would probably be completely unwatchable, or at least unlikable, if not for its cast. And what a grossly overqualified cast it is. The pay must have been phenomenal because the majority of the actors are far above the material.

“The Prophecy” details a war in heaven and the humans caught in-between the warring factions of angels. The idea of angels being jealous of God’s love for humanity and people’s possession of souls is an interesting idea, in the “Neon Genesis Evangelion” mode, as is exploring angels as morally ambiguous characters. The movie is gleefully blasphemous too, recasting Archangel Gabriel, a righteous figure by most accounts, as a ruthless cartoon supervillain and even having Satan more-or-less save the day. And God is silent in all of this too! Over all, apocryphal Christian mythology is a great place for a genre film to start.

However, the film uses these potentially daring concepts in services of a potboiler chase plot. Its clichéd story includes a Catholic cop who has lost his faith, the unstoppable horror antagonist, a prophecy about the end of the world, magical American Indians, and a possessed child who says creepy, inappropriate things. The Christian concepts are used strictly as plot points and devices, and the film doesn’t seriously explore any of the philosophical implications its plot raises. The director brings all the flash and style of a secondhand Segal flick. The straight-out-of-the-nineties-era-Skinnemax electronic score drives the film towards its puzzling narration-provided moral. (Something about not understanding God’s plan. It doesn’t really make any sense.) Worse yet, the movie is completely convinced its plot and ideas are original and ingenious, treating the material in an extremely self-serious manner. The movie is humorless…

Except for one thing: Christopher Walken. This man single-handedly makes “The Prophecy” worth watching. Dressed like a door-to-door Bible salesman, his black hair slicked back, and swaggering like a Southern Baptist televangelist, Walken sinks his teeth into every juicy, hammy line. I suspect much of his dialogue was improvised, as Walken’s humorous quipping is far more clever then anything else in the script. Great moments in Walken: The back forth he has with his undead slaves, especially during the grave digging scene; hamming it up as he sets Eric Stoltz’ face on fire and generally tortures the guy, relating how he is responsible for shushing every human at birth, sharing breath mints and his trumpet with a gaggle of school kids, his monologue about how humanity can never understand the motivation of an angel, walking into a hospital and forcing a random nurse to sleep, a hilarious scene where he selects his next zombie servant among the terminal ward, passive-aggressively badgering a waitress at a diner, flying through the windshield of a pick-up truck and becoming increasingly pissed-off, etc. Basically, if you love to watch Christopher Walken just get his Walken all over things, this movie is worth seeking out.

Like I said, the cast is incredible in this thing. The Weinsteins must have gotten this script and “Pulp Fiction” in some sort of two-for-one bargain because, aside from Walken, it also features Eric Stoltz and Amanda Plummer. Indispensable character actor Elias Koteas plays the faith-lapsed cop. It’s a hoary cliché of a part, but Koteas does his best with the material and makes for an easily watched lead. Virginia Madsen has certainly appeared in her fair share of schlock but, Christ, she’s an Oscar nominated actress. Her part as the school teacher drawn up in the chase is the flimsiest role in a film full of ‘em. I don’t know what she saw in a part as hopelessly thin as this (The paycheck, probably) but she certainly makes it go down easier. Eric Stoltz is at his best here when beating the shit out of people, but his interaction with the little girl Mary is good. Amanda Plummer is highly amusing as a dying-dead-dying-again ghoul, playing miserable in a very funny way. Steve Hytner delivers some brisk comic relief as a chatty mortician. And attempting to out-ham Walken, and almost succeeding, is a pre-“Lords of the Rings’ Viggo Mortensen as the Devil himself. Glowering, cackling, and delivering every line in a horse, sarcastic whisper, Mortensen makes a character that is essentially a walking deus-ex-machina and exposition dropper very entertaining. I love the scenes where he describes Hell as being open “even on Christmas,” mocks Koteas’ praying habits, and tries to pursue the heroes over the dark side while snacking on Walken’s recently removed heart. If Walken makes the movie worth watching, then Mortensen makes it worth watching until the end.

Bizarrely, “The Prophecy” went on to spawn four sequels, all of them direct-to-video, two of which somehow manage to snag Christopher Walken. I guess he just really liked the character? I remember two being along the same lines as the first and three being just about unwatchable. (Walken’s part in it is very small.) Considering their lack of Chris, I never bothered with four or five. During the dried-up, dead nineties, I guess horror fans took what they could get and just about anything could blossom into a franchise. Despite all of the criticism above, “The Prophecy” really is rather entertaining, in spite of itself. Dock your brain, all of it, at the door. (7/10)

Ringu (1998)
I love urban legends. I can’t exactly say why but I suspect it has a lot to do with my interest in pop culture sociology, symbolism, and archetypes. The same drive that makes me want to obsessively collect as much information as possible on horror archetypes and icons, and indeed figuring out what even constitutes an archetype or icon, probably also drives me to read up on as many urban legends as possible and to postulate just what exactly they mean. American urban legends and Japanese urban legends both feature malevolent figures that trick and destroy people for little or no reason, often with elaborate back stories of their own. The big difference is the menacing figures in American modern folklore are more likely to be escaped mental patients, murderous gang members, or phantom cars, while the frightening figures of Japanese urban legends are often ghosts, spirits, and demons, many of which with their roots in mythology. (Obviously, America lacks a centralized mythological background. Our cities worry more about violent crime so of course that’s the background our stories drawl from. The ghosts in classical American urban legends tend to be more of the Vanishing Hitchhiker variety – less likely to violently mutilate you then just to freak you out with their mere existence.) But I digress. Many Japanese myths directly involve ancient spirits or ghosts directly interacting with modern technology or moving among modern cities, representing Japan’s position as a country indebted to tradition and a deep mythological history but also a country at the peak of scientific advancement and technological progress. And thus my long, meandering diatribe brings us to “Ringu.”

The opening sequence plays like an urban legend brought to life. On paper, the concept of a killer video tape sounds absurd but the film’s execution is straight-faced and creepy enough that it sells it. It successfully plays on the gullible, easily frightened part of your brain. The film shifts into a mystery, as Nanako Matsushima, a likable relatable lead, goes about trying to solve the enigma of the killer video tape. When he she finds the tape, the story takes another turn into to the undeniably creepy. And now the sleuthing continues but the stakes are much higher, and the film smartly continues to elevates. By the time we get to the island and the facts in the mystery are laid out… Well, getting all that information dumped on us doesn’t sound very fun, but the first part of the film is so successfully mysterious that the reveals feel like a proper pay-off. The climb down the well sequence proves to be an exciting, satisfying conclusion, but the screws aren’t done turning yet. The true climax, in which we get a real payoff to all this “You’ll die in one week” business, is one of the most disturbing, get-under-your-skin moments in horror history, in league with the shower sequence from “Psycho.” The movie then wraps up on a surprisingly mean-spirited note.

Perhaps the film’s story wouldn’t work at all if the movie wasn't so damn creepy. The movie doesn’t waste too much time before showing us the infamous video which is just as disturbing, unusual, and freakish as its reputation implies. Even before we see the creepy video, there’s a sense of dread hanging over the whole film. While the film doesn’t back away from the occasional jump scare, it’s more interested in building an unsettling horror atmosphere. The excellent sound design, which amplifies every creek while adding a great deal of odd, discordant noise, contributes to this greatly. Basically, “Ringu” is a film that commits to being as freaky and creepy as possible and, more or less, succeeds at this goal.

The film spawned se qu els, rem akes, and so many rip-offs that the ghost girl with the long black hair became as ubiquitous in Japan in the early 2000s as the slasher killer was during the American eighties. The American remake is generally considered as good as the original by most but not me! Like most American remakes of foreign films, its slicker, louder, less intelligent, and has less mystique. A lot of people say the Japanese original is confusing while the American version is more concise. I had the exact opposite reaction, finding the American remake convoluted and complicated. Yes, in Japan, most of the story revelations come from random psychic flashes and subconscious hints, but that somehow works more for me then the loose ends and tail eating featured in this country. If you have a choice between the two, always go with “Ringu” instead of “The Ring” (8/10)

Halloween 2011: October 27

2011-10-27T18:34:00.000-07:00

Friday the 13th Part II (1981)
Another part two beloved in the slasher fan community that I’ve never been impressed with. I had always regarded it as a cheap cash-in and retrend of the first, with some elements blatantly swiped from superior proto-slashers like “Twitch of the Death Nerve” and “The Town That Dreaded Sundown.” I’ve always felt that the franchise really didn’t find its strength until Jason found his trademark mask. (The point when some people think the franchise lost its spark.) Obviously opinions differ. But it had been a long time since I had seen “Friday the 13th Part II” and I decided to give it a fair chance. After all, the slasher genre, more so then any other horror subset, is built primarily on formula and stealing from better movies.

The first thing I immediately noticed about the film this time around is Steve Miner was a director who could build up a set piece. The long, drawn out scenes of characters going about their business in silence, waiting for something to jump out at them loudly, is and was a cliché, even in 1981. But Miner makes it works. (It’s a good thing too, because this film is loaded with jump scares. If there is such a thing as the cheap jump scare, I suppose these are expensive jump scares?) The reason the camera lingers seems to come more out of a legitimate interest in atmosphere and building tension as opposed to just stocking up for the next shock. Dare I say, the way the camera patiently watches is almost naturalistic and artful.

Anyway, the point is: The opening sequence is great. The very first shot is of a little boy’s feet splashing in a puddle, who is then called inside by his mother. Immediately following, the boots of Jason Voorhees (who, of course, audiences in 1981 wouldn’t have recognized or related to) splashes through the same puddle. This image phrases the first film's hook visually: The safety of childhood, for example summer camp, being invaded and violated by malevolent forces. (I’m probably reading too much in to it.) The camera voyeuristically watches Alice, the original film’s sole survivor, already subconsciously invading her privacy while suggesting the killer’s presence, another trick swiped from the Italians. Alice is all ready living in a violated world, haunted by the memories of her long night at Camp Blood, which the movie helpfully recounts for newcomers, and nagged by a mother who is worried about her but Alice regards as a nuisance. The mother is an important figure in this franchise’s mythology, an idea blatantly taken from “Psycho,” and Alice’s trouble with her own mom seems to foreshadow the decapitated head of another mother in her fridge. Anyway, THE POINT IS: I like the scenes of Alice milling about in her home, oblivious to the danger about to pounce on her. It works and builds atmosphere. The Spring-Loaded Cat that is thrown through her window is a bit much but the movie, like good porn, builds successfully to the money shot: Alice finding Mrs. Voorhees’ still squishy head in her fridge and then getting an ice pick buried in her temple. The jumping kitty watches the violence, licking its lips. If Steve Miner is as smart as I’m beginning to think he possibly could be, could this image be a metatextual comment on the audience’s own hunger for carnage? Is it possible that a franchise as brainless, vulgar, and unapologetically derivative as “Friday the 13th” has really been biting the hand that feeds it as early as part two? As the proceeding film demonstrates, probably not, most definitely not, but its fun to think so.

All of this suggests that the movie is a lot better then it really is. Because, let’s face it, this isn’t high art, this is “Friday the 13th.” Once we get back to the summer camp, we are immediately introduced to a disposable cast of interchangeable twenty-somethings-playing-teens. None of these characters have any fucking personality. There’s an obnoxious pranksters who brings a real spear to camp for some stupid fucking reason. There’s a paraplegic jock and the girl who wishes to bone him and a couple defined solely by their desire to bone, all vague character sketches at best. As for the rest, who the hell knows and/or cares? The movie establishes its crass streak around this time too, with menstruation jokes and a protracted shot of one of the mindless babe’s (admittedly very nice) ass straining to explode out of her Daisy Dukes. A very gross dead dog carcass is found too. (And Kane Hodder said Jason doesn’t kill dogs…) The sequels had the audience’s affection for Jason to fall back on and usually took the time to at least designated stereotypes to his victims. I’m completely indifferent to this cast of indistinct knobs. Final girl Ginny is well-regard in the fandom and far from the virginal stereotype, since she’s got a grabby boyfriend, but even she’s thinly defined at best. Her only real character moment is when she questions and discusses Jason’s motivation during a buddy-buddy bar drinking spree and her only real trait is feisty determination in the face of death. I suppose this is a decent start for the nascent slasher franchise, but Amy Steel isn’t Jamie Lee and Ginny isn’t Laurie Strode.

Once all that set-up bullshit is out of the way, night falls and the movie gets down to its purpose. Our final girl and her boyfriend are removed from the setting. Exploitation reigns as people get naked, show off their gross tan lines, have sex, and think about having sex. And then the movie can go about whittling down its cast. Any time a character is left alone, you now their time has come. Very few of the death scenes, the foundation upon which the entire franchise would eventually rest, are memorable. A guy hanging upside down in a noose becoming a victim is a good idea but undermined by soft special effects and some fake looking blood. The wheelchair jock getting a faceful of machete and rolling back down some steps is cool, but unoriginal. The best death scene, the double impalement of the aardvarking couple, is, as I said, a total rip-off of Bava. I didn’t even remember how Terry, who is apparently the skinny dipper in the short-shorts, got killed and had to look it up just now. The elaborate executions Jason would engineer as soon as part three are nowhere to be seen here. He seems content to solemnly stab and slash throats, with little energy or interest. Crazy Ralph, another holdover from part one, and a random cop pad out the body count further. At least the movie goes about its business briskly. Everyone’s dead and we’ve rolled around to the third act before you know it.

And somewhere in the middle of all this tedium, we get moments of visual spark. Vickie, that’s the chick who wanted to pork Wheelchair Jock, has a great death scene and it’s completely without blood. Looking for the horny couple who were her friends I guess, she instead finds Jason hiding under the bed sheets. It’s the first clear look we get at Baghead Jason and it’s a fitting introduction. Slowly, he pulls a knife and corners the girl. The camera focuses on the blade as he slowly approaches her panicked face, her screams building. It’s an intense, sadistic moment of cruel horror. There are other occasional sparks. We see Jason drag one of his victims down the stairs, the camera focusing on her feet as they fall from step to step, in a surprising moment of stark horror. The movie needed more flashes like that.

Anyway, once Ginny and Paul, that’s her boyfriend, make it back to the camp, the movie stops sucking and gets good again. The first film paused its last act chase with occasional safe spots but part 2 is unrelenting. Poor Ginny is pursued for a very long time. Jason was obviously still learning the ropes here and I like how she occasionally outwits and outmatches him. It’s here that I begin to understand the affection for Amy Steel. Ginny does the standard amount of running and hiding, including another unnecessarily gross moment of bladder betrayal, but mostly she fights, fights with tooth, nail, and even chainsaw. The big, dumb, loud score pounds away during the chase scenes and stops during the soft scenes, preparing us for Jason to stick his hand through the window or a pitchfork through a door. These jump scenes are oddly effective though. Like I said, Miner knows how to play the waiting game just as well as he knows how to play the jumping game. The image of Jason running towards Ginny, as glimpsed through a window, is also oddly memorable. The finale, where Ginny confuses Jason with a sweater and then he goes down like a total bitch from the kind of shoulder wound that wouldn’t even faze Part Four’s Jason, is a total cheat but, what the hell, it works. If nothing else, it shows our final girl as more resourceful then the rest. The final jump scene, a moment first employed by “Carrie’ and then every other horror movie afterward, is unnecessary and also doesn’t make any fucking sense but, whatever, it was standard issue even in 1981. Let’s look at Jason’s make-up and throw our popcorn out of our laps!

“Friday the 13th Part II” is undeniably sloppy. The merry prankster character disappears without reason midway through the film. (Not that anybody missed him.) Just where the hell was Jason hiding? I always assumed the death of his mother prompted some sort of supernatural resurrection but, nope, the movie makes it clear that he was just hiding out in the woods for thirty years. How come he never attempt to contact Mom, who was obviously around? How come he never killed before? And, most importantly, how come none of the people living or working around the lake noticed before? Jason’s behavior is obviously inconsistent throughout the series but it’s inconsistent throughout the film itself. Why did he kill the cop? Why does he spend so much time watching when he could have just been killing right from the get-go? And how the hell does Ginny’s little gambit at the end even succeeds? Jason’s might be murderous but there’s no evidence to suggest that’s he’s delusional. Aside from all the other indicators, like the shitty writing, there’s time when it’s very obvious this sequel was rushed into production with little thought for quality or logic.

But, what the hell, I don’t hate the movie. All of my criticism stands but there are moments when it’s undeniably effective, like the badass opening scene. Eventually, Paramount would ramp “Friday the 13th” up into a tight cheap-thrills-delivery machine, churning out back-to-back series best with Part 3 and 4 and later 6 and 7. Part 2 represents the series, as a series and not a stand alone film, at its earliest and shakiest. It’s messy, it’s stupid, it’s unreasonable, it’s ultimately not very good, but I’m beginning to maybe see what seemingly everyone else sees in this one. And, fuck, who doesn’t love Muffin the dog's completely inexplicable cameo appearance at the end? Also: Holy cock, did I really just ramble on about this goddamn movie for over three pages? I need to reconsider my life decisions. (6/10)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
The ultimate classic in paranoid horror. I really don’t have a whole lot to say about this one because I was kind of dozing while watching it. Which is appropriate, considering what happens to the characters in this film when they sleep. So here’s some disorganized thoughts about 1956’s “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”

- Kevin McCarthy gives a really good performance. I love the way he gets increasingly more panicked as the film progresses, climaxing during the brilliant, iconic, amazing, one of my all time favorite scenes in movie history, shots of him screaming at people on the highway. He correctly illustrates what high stress and a lack of sleep will do to a person. But, even when at other volumes besides screamingly insane, he’s good. It’s really easy to tell why this guy is such a pillar of his community. There’s not much to the supporting cast, but I like Dana Wynter.

- The sequence where Larry Gates, after being replaced by the pods, talks about how nice thoughtless conformity can be is really successful. It actually makes having your individual soul stripped away by pods from space sound kind of inviting.

- Seems like a lot of movies based on the Body Snatchers premise makes the pod people cold, emotionless, and robotic. But not so here in the original. The pod people seem content, almost jovial at times. These aren’t soulless robots, these are creatures with a mission, determined to take over the world. And what better why to do that then with a smile? The threat is truly insidious. And, best yet, you never noticed the pods have won until it’s all ready too late. The paranoia really builds in the second half of the movie, when it becomes apparent that the people McCarthy thought he could trust have all ready been replaced.

- McCarthy and Wynter trying to blend in and then escape the compromised town is a fantastic situation, iconic for a reason. There’s something subtly sinister about the shots of pods being piled on trucks and shipped out of town. And what a way to build suspense! “Don’t show any emotion.” Has a better metaphor for subversives trying to hide in the crowd ever been written? And how their cover is blown is just as much a classic as anything else.

- The movie is widely regarded as sci-fi but, make no mistake, this is a horror movie too. The gooey creation of a pod person ranked high on the gross-out scale back in 1956. The detailless blank pod person prototype seems to have confronted concerns about the Unreal Valley fifty years before it really became an issue. Our protagonists hiding from the running crowds of attacking foes under flimsy floorboards is played for fantastic suspense. But the movie’s biggest shocker moment comes quietly, when McCarthy kisses Wynter and realizes she’s not the girl he fell in love with. It only takes a second, one slip up, to loose your entire personality and be taken over. Remember what I said about this being the best in paranoid horror?

- The opening and happy ending feel as tacked-on as they really are. McCarthy’s expositionary voice-over is also unnecessary and intrusive. Imagine if Don Siegal could have gotten away with the ending as originally planned. The studio added the epilogue because the ending was unsettling which, of course, was completely the point. I think it would have blown many a teenage mind in 1956 if, the last thing they saw before walking out of the theater, was Kevin McCarthy’s sweating, panicked face, screaming directly at them, “YOU’RE NEXT!” Which brings me to…

- So Don Siegal, the cast, and writers made it more then known over the years that they never intended the film to have any subtext. The majority of the film seems to support that theory, since it’s less about one specific group robbing us of our personalities, souls, and rights, then it is about the overwhelming power of conformity in general. I don't think the film and its premise would endure so much otherwise. But then there’s the scene where our hero looks out the window, down into the town square. A pod person stands before a crowd and dictates from a list all of the duties that need to be done today. This, to my sleep-deprived two AM brain anyway, seems to intentionally bring Communist Russia to mind. Maybe it’s just me…

While where here, I’ll just say I’m not a fan of the 1978 remake. The majority of people seem to prefer that version to the original but I found the self-absorbed seventies Me-Generation cast to be largely unlikeable. I do like the 1993 Abel Ferrara version however, with its icky body-horror-style pods and brutal anti-military themes. But the original is the version I saw first and one I’ve always liked the most. (9/10)

Psych: “This Episode Sucks”
The Halloween episodes of “Psych” are usually pretty good. Nothing has ever topped the slasher episode they did a few years back. That’s my favorite horror-related episode and my favorite episode from the show in general. But I would put this on par with the werewolf and haunted funhouse episodes from past Octobers. I like that the show focuses a little more on Lessiter’s human side, since that character so often exist to be nothing more then an exaggerated foil for Shawn. The love story he has here is legitimately sweet, even if the show takes it too far at the end. And, man, Kristy Swanson looks great! I didn’t even realize it was her at first. She manages to bring the “Deadly Friend” cuteness at times while also being “Buffy ‘91” hot at times too.

The presence of a former Buffy isn’t the only in-joke here. Corey Feldman shows up in a bit part and they even play “Cry Little Sister” when he first appears. Shawn and Gus spend a large portion of the episode dressed as Lestat and Blacula. (People keep mistaking Gus for Count Chocula. Is the character of Blacula really that obscure for the normals out there? I feel so disconnected at time.) There are a couple of great jokes made about garlic and holy water here, even if I feel Gus and Shawn’s vampire obsession is maybe taken a little too far over the top. I also like the scenes involving the black cat, which is quite amusing. The show also takes the effort to throw some fog in there too, just for the classic horror look.

Overall, a solid episode of a reliably goofy, fun show. It certainly won’t changed the opinions of anybody who think the show isn’t serious enough or that the main characters are annoying or overly quirky. But it’s a good show to watch with your Mom. (7/10)

Halloween 2011: October 26

2011-10-26T20:18:00.000-07:00

The Kiss of the Vampire (1963)
I’ll admit, the non-franchise Hammer vampire movies always felt a little out-of-place. “Kiss of the Vampire” uses the original ending of “Brides of Dracula” and, in general, feels like it’s made up of unused ideas cooked up for “Dracula” films. This has the bizarre effect of making the movie play with the conventions and expectations of the subgenre some. Instead of just one vampire being the primary threat, such as a Dracula or Baron Meinstar, we have to contend with a whole family of vampires. A family that, as the story goes on, seems more and more like a cult. (Right down to the matching white robes.) Our vampire hunter character is even more off-putting and strange then Van Helsing, seeming very off-balanced and dangerous during large portions of the film. He even saves the day by using Satanic magic. (Correcting the point I made in my “Brides of Dracula” review, the vampire hunter uses the exact same cure to fix a vampire bite.) The early presence of an automobile should clue you in that “Kiss of the Vampire” is a little off-beat.

The movie has an excellent opening sequence. A mostly silent funeral procession is broken only when the gravedigger drives the shovel through the coffin lid and into the corpse’s heart, the vampire’s scream shattering the overwhelming silence. The movie never quite lives up to that moment but does a good job of building atmosphere. The audience knows the family is composed of vampires early, during another atmospheric scene where a vampire girl discovers the shovel-impalement from the opening, but the two main characters do not. It’s the classic bomb-under-the-table scenario and works pretty well. The vampire family is nicely neurotic too, with a lot of tension and fear within the family. I also like the quirky inn owners that end up playing an important role in the latter half of the film. The masquerade scene is also a highlight.

Sadly, the movie kind of looses a lot of steam after the girlfriend is kidnapped. Seems like the story starts to go in circles as the husband attempts to break into the castle and rescue his girl only to be kicked back out again. The final scene of magically summoned bats being used to destroy all the vampires sure is a bizarre kicker of an ending. “Kiss of the Vampire” is mostly an off-beat, overlooked little part of the Hammer cannon. It’s a nice counterbalance to all their other vampire films. (7/10)

The Fly (1958)
You know, I loved this movie when I first saw it as a ten-year-old. Absolutely adored it, was obsessed with it for a long time. Along with the Universal monsters, this if the film probably responsible for my horror fandom. Which is really weird, because this film is a melodramatic, campy, stagey film with a standard 1950s moral about man meddling in the affairs of God. The French Canadian setting makes it an even unlikelier favorite of a pre-teen kid obsessed with monsters, dinosaurs, anime babes, and robots.

Oh, but the movie is so successful at what it does. It starts out as a chamber mystery. We begin with a fantastic set-up. A man was crushed in an industrial press by a seemingly sane, loving, calm wife, whose behavior becomes increasingly erratic, developing an obsession with flies. We are well into the movie before we get the flashback that explains exactly the cause of this. What a tasty, catchy set-up. How can you resist that? Vincent Price wasn’t known as a horror star yet and he plays the straight man, along with Inspector Charas, reacting to the increasingly strange events around them, unbelieving and unsure of how to react.

Once we get to the meat of the story, the flashback, things get a little crazier and more overheated. Andre and Helen are such a loving couple who are completely devoted to one another. She is the perfect wife, taking care of the house and kid while Andre toils down in his laboratory, changing the world one invention at the time. They live in this perfect little microcosm, straight out of a 1950s sitcom. Of course, we all know this is going to have a gory ending, but the movie doesn’t build for suspense. Instead this time is used to build up characters and set-up. The flashing teleporter lights come off as very campy and retro now but have a hypnotic angle to it. The movie continues to work as an extremely effective mystery story even in this section. Andre attempts to work out each one of the kinks in his teleporter, discovering new ones, solving old problems, always working forward. The movie gets undeniably campy in scenes… “A stream of cat atoms” being the most obvious moment but the scenes were the couple sit on their front lawn and discuss the relation of science to God also smacks of 1950s moralizing. But you’re still hooked. As unrealistic and arch as it seems, Andre and Helen can’t help but be enduring characters.

Once things go wrong, the movie continues to work like a great page-turner. The Fly is only revealed one little piece at a time. Weren’t not sure what’s going on at first and the movie takes it’s time laying out clues and reveals. The shot of his claw emerging from the white lab coat, even with the melodramatic score playing underneath, remains startling. More effective then the make-up or monster antics is David Hedison’s performance under the make-up. I love the way he illustrates how he’s loosing control over his mind and body. The shot of him grabbing the trembling fly-claw is great. And, of course, the unmasking of the Fly is a classic sequence. The multi-lens shot of Patricia Owens’ screaming face is rightfully iconic. The Fly head design is pretty subtle truthfully, especially compared to the over-the-top creature design in “The Return of the Fly.”

The movie’s conclusion is ultimately an emotional one. Despite their relationship coming off as corny and unrealistic, this is still a successful love story. The sequence of Andre, his human mind succumbing completely to the fly’s brain, scratching out the message of “love you” slowly on the board, the last message he can ever send as he looses his sanity, really does pull at your heart strings. The happy ending is admittedly tacked on but Vincent Price assuring little Philippe that his father was an adventurer and a courageous man feels right within the context of the film’s emotional heart. (It also helps dispel some of the film’s unseemly, reactionary, “He tampered in God’s domain!” tone.)

Honestly, the equally iconic “Help me!” scene comes off as a bit of an afterthought. It wraps up the story’s loose ends and is a fantastic, surreal, image to take the film out on. (The half-human/half-fly make-up ends up predicting the body horror of Cronenberg’s remake.) Maybe it’s the film’s oversized emotions and melodrama, it’s main detractions, that are exactly the thing that made it a beloved film for ten-year-old me. That, along with an understated, hearty Vincent Price performance and some very famous, effective horror scenes. “The Fly,” flaws and all, is a classic. (8/10)

Halloween 2011: October 25

2011-10-25T20:45:00.000-07:00

The Brides of Dracula (1960)
Another Hammer film I’ve always remembered loving, though I’ll admit it’s been a while since I’ve seen it. This time, rewatching, it certainly seemed to take a very long time to get going. The scenes of Marianne exploring the Meinstar castle are quite good and slowly form a foreboding atmosphere. I also love the idea of Baroness Meinstar, a great performance by Martita Hart by the way, knowing her son is a vampire and keeping him locked up. However, if you know the Baron is a vampire, and it’s fairly obvious even to first time viewers, the scenes don’t exactly have a lot of suspense to them. You’re pretty much just waiting for the Baron to get free and start with the vampiring. The fact that the film is almost over before Marianne is aware that the Baron’s a vampire doesn’t make her the most compelling Hammer heroine either. There are a few nice scenes of Marianne talking with her students, the best moments occurs over burnt toast, but generally I find the female parts here a bit thin. (They’re not as sexy either. Seems like the trademark Hammer light-eroticism didn’t become a part of the films until the next year’s “Curse of the Werewolf.”)

But once Van Helsing shows up, it’s a whole different movie. Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing remains my favorite take on the character. Cushing and the filmmakers continue to show Van Helsing as an action-ready combat pragmatist. Swinging from ropes, dangling from wind mills, tossing crucifixes across tables, and always confronting the evil head-on, Cushing’s doctor is the prototype for the current concept of the kick-ass vampire hunter. When the doctor starts talking about how all vampires are evil affronts to God’s goodness and must be eliminated thoroughly, it could sound bad coming out of anybody else’s mouth. But Cushing is as gentle as he is strong. You believe what he’s doing is right. The Hammer variety of vampires are a far cry from the morally neutral creatures of today anyway. Without Christopher Lee around, this movie becomes a full blown showcase for Cushing’s unique style of badassery. My favorite display of this trait is also one of the movie’s most famous, and unique, moments. After being bitten by the Baron, Van Helsing cauterizes the wound with a iron and dashes holy water on it. It’s a method for immediate vampire cure that I’ve never seen before or since. Van Helsing himself seems surprised that it works.

The movie is full of other interesting, indelible moments. The insane, cackling servant urging a fledgling vampire out of her grave is a great moment. Similarly, the discovery of the insane servant and the remorseful, transformed Baroness is another good, earlier moment. Van Helsing later puts the Baroness out of her misery, in a rare example of a sympathetic Hammer vampire. The scene of Gina rising from her coffin and attempting to “kiss” Marianne is another moment, dripping with casual lesbian undertones. And, of course, the entire final confrontation in the mill is a fantastic action set piece. After creatively saving himself from a vampire’s bite, Van Helsing cooks up an equally creative way to deal with Baron Meinstar. This movie continues to improve on and add to the Hammer style of foggy, English atmosphere. In that regard, it’s a better film then “Horror of Dracula.”

“The Brides of Dracula” has only one major distraction. David Peel sure ain’t any Christopher Lee. He’s too young and pretty to be intimidating and too flat to be charismatic. He’s a pretty weak substitute for Lee’s Drac. The way the brides are also assumed to perish in a fire off-screen at the end is also a bit anti-climatic. Overall though, “Brides of Dracula” is another Hammer classic and one of the studio’s best productions. (9/10)

The Phantom of the Opera (1962)
One of my least favorite adaptations of the “Phantom” story. (Though, admittedly, the only version I really like is the Lon Chaney one and nothing tops the Dario Argento take for badness.) First off, the Phantom isn’t really a threat in this film at all. He’s not the villain of the piece. He doesn’t kill a single person. He doesn’t do anything except tutor Christine in singing and threaten Michael Gough. For whatever bizarre reason, this film takes the same origin for the Phantom that the 1945 Claude Rains-starring adaptation did. The Opera Ghost wasn’t born deformed, doesn’t have a history of assassination, and shows genius in no other category but music. The Phantom isn’t even Erik anymore, being recasted as Professor Petrie, once again someone who has his music stolen and has his face horribly burnt in an accident. The villain of the piece is obviously Michael Gough as the sleazy, asshole-y opera house owner and all of the violence, kidnapping, and traditional Phantom antics are delegated to a mute, dwarf assistant, another awkward addition to the tale. A sympathetic version of the Phantom certainly wasn’t unprecedented even in 1962, but a non-murderous one is unacceptable. Herbert Lom, a veteran genre performer even in the early 1960s, plays the Phantom as a scatterbrained, brain-damaged old man. It’s not a bad performance I suppose, but the character comes off as utterly neutered. The scene of a single tear running down his mask is hopelessly melodramatic.

I’ve never liked this one but decided to give it a fair shot. I only ended up noticing other problems. While Terence Fisher did a fantastic job of making the sets on the other Hammer films look like anything but, here his camera feels very boxed in. “The Phantom of the Opera” is the first Hammer film where it was obviously the movie was shot completely on sets. Instead of the story building to any sort of climax, we instead get a lot of singing. A lot of singing. Obviously it comes with the territory but the entire last ten minutes of the movie being devoted to an opera performance doesn’t match up to other last act Hammer theatrics. (The Phantom doesn’t even get his revenge on Gough, leaving two character arcs uncompleted.) The love story between Christine and Raoul-stand-in Harry is okay I suppose, and the couple get a few sweet moments, but it just feels like further stalling of the horror elements. I understand that it was a practical, budgetary decision, but relocating the story from Paris to London seems to drain a lot of its mythic power. London’s opera house certainly doesn’t have the history that Paris’ does.

Even with all of these issues, nobody could program a set-piece like Terence Fisher could. There are several memorable moments in an otherwise unmemorable film. The hanged body tearing through the curtain hand first and swinging towards both the figurative and literal audience is a fantastic scene. The Dwarf gets a great introduction, his face suddenly appearing in an opened window. Bach’s “Tocatta and Fugue,” so heavily associated with the character, is incorporated extraordinarily during the scene where Christine is kidnapped. The decision to have the Phantom himself crushed beneath the obligatory falling chandelier is a clever way to kill two birds with one stone as it were. I also like the red dropping curtain being one of the final images of the film. That’s appropriate. And though he throws the mask off for no reason other then the movie has to have an unmaksing scene, the Phantom make-up is very good, nicely gruesome while still being an accurate depiction of an acid scarred face. Heck, I even like the opening credit scene, as the camera hovers just over the water, watching the Phantom play his organ.

Hammer’s “Phantom of the Opera” definitely isn’t up to snuff with the classic Universal version, despite these stand out moments. The whole is definitely not the sum of its parts here. And the adaptations of the classic story would just continue to get further removed from the original novel’s tone, if not it’s story. And usually worse too, climaxing with Andrew Lloyd Weber’s musical for lonely housewives and the embarrassing sexypants film version, featuring a sun-burnt Gerald Butler as the titular villain. (I’ll give Weber this much, and this is the only time I’ll compliment his monstrosity, but at least his Phantom actually kills people.) (5/10)

Halloween 2011: October 24

2011-10-24T20:44:00.000-07:00

Fantastic Dinosaurs of the Movies (1990)
Unlike “Hollywood Dinosaurs,” this is a straight-up trailer compilation with no narration or anything. The tape starts with a short promotional video taking us inside Ray Harryhausen’s work shop and showing off early sketches for many of the monsters from “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.” The video also includes more then one lingering shot of starlet Kathryn Grant’s cleavage. So there’s that. The tape throws a much larger net then “Hollywood Dinosaurs” did as well, including a lot of trailers from non-dinosaur related movies. “Earth vs. The Spider,” “The Giant Claw,” “The Giant Gila Monster,” “20 Million Miles to Earth,” “Jason and the Argonauts,” the incredibly cheesy "Jack the Giant Killer," and a few other unrelated giant monster movies are tossed in for the heck of it. It’s all pretty entertaining stuff though I’ll admit the lack of coherence makes it better suited to background watching.

I don’t have too much else to say about this one, other then it throws in more obscure titles then “Hollywood Dinosaurs.” “Journey to the Beginning of Time,” “The Loch Ness Horror,” and the “The Crater Lake Monster” are ones I’ll admit I haven’t seen yet. This is also the third time this weekend I’ve seen the trailer for the Irwin Allen version of “The Lost World.” I haven’t seen that one either and the slurpasaur packed wonders it promises doesn’t exactly make me want to rush out and see it. I wonder what ever became of Frosty the Poodle? (6/10)

Curse of the Werewolf (1961)
I find Hammer horror is usually resistant to sociological readings, but there’s definitely something here. In the long prologue, a beggar wanders into a cruel nobleman’s castle, where he is humiliated before being “bought” and imprisoned in the castle dungeon. Years later, the mute daughter (Played by the gorgeous Yvonne Romain, with a plunging neckline.) of a castle servant is harassed and assaulted by the same nobleman before being locked up with the forgotten beggar. The rape, murder, and escape that follows is the origin for our werewolf protagonist. Later on, when Leon is a grown man, as he walks into town looking for work, an affluent man riding by in a carriage splatters him with mud. Similarly, a rich, well-dressed fop keeps Leon and his love, Carissa, separated. In the end, the lovers are kept apart by the spinning wheels of bureaucracy. The same system refuses to confront Leon’s lycanthropy, resulting in the werewolf’s climatic rampage through the town. Is it possible the film is saying that the rich, upper levels of society tend to treat the poor as if they were, *gasp*, animals? Though the metaphor seems to be forgotten once the film decides to focus on the werewolf attacks, there’s definitely a deliberate subtext here that you don’t usually find in Hammer’s films.

Any subtext werewolf movies usually have deal with puberty or uncontrollable lust. There’s some of that too. That the impetus of the werewolf’s birth is a sexual assault certainly doesn’t go unnoticed. Leon happens to be visiting a brothel when he first transforms into a werewolf. Most obviously, the cure for his lycanthropy is love… Good, clean, Christian love, though his relationship with Carissa is chaste only do to lack of time. It should be apparent by now that “Curse of the Werewolf” is not your typical werewolf movie. It’s not only the unusual origin of the curse that marks the difference. The film holds off on showing the werewolf make-up until the end, focusing more on the aftermath of his attacks.

Terence Fisher’s direction is more stylish then usual as well. There’s a few sweeping pans and, my favorite shot of the film, cuts from a swooping cloak to a wide shot of the tower’s courtyard. I love the final shot of a couple crying, isolated in the courtyard. I always really dug the werewolf make-up here. Classic it is, the Jack Pierce Lon Chaney make-up never really looked like a wolf. While it’s subtle and mostly involves a single forehead appliance and some fur, the werewolf design actually looks like a wolf. The performances are quite good as well. Oliver Reed isn’t all bluster like his performances usually are. He cries a lot too. In all seriousness, it’s a good performance. Clifford Evans and Hira Talfrey are also very good as Leon’s surrogate parents.

Overall, “Curse of the Werewolf” is one of my favorite Hammer films and one of their best productions in general. It’s a shame they never revisited the werewolf concept. (9/10)

Halloween 2011: October 21

2011-10-22T16:21:00.000-07:00

Hollywood Dinosaurs (1991)
You find the most amazing things in your basement. In a box of old VHSs, tucked in with SatAM and Power Ranger tapes, I found this. The public domain 50-movie box seems to have replaced the humble trailer compilation tape in dollar store dump bins. Which is a shame, because I really prefer a good best-of reel to slogging through hundreds of hours of forgotten dreck. “Hollywood Dinosaurs” isn’t just a straight-up trailer compilation either. It sets out to be a history of dinosaurs in film, starting from the 1920 silent version of “The Lost World” and going from there. Most of the important bases are covered, such as Willis O’Brien’s “Creation,” “King Kong,” “The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms,” the slurpasaurs, both versions of “One Million BC,” Harryhausen, and lots and lots of Godzilla and his other Toho cohorts. There’s also a few gems thrown out in there, such as “Dinosaurus!,” “The Beast of Hollow Mountain” which I had manage to completely forget about, the hilarious “Reptilicus,” “Gorgo,” and the complete and uncut “Bambi Meets Godzilla.” Early on, a lot of silent movie footage has Godzilla sound effects played over for no particular reason but, luckily, the movie cuts that out soon enough. The movie is lucky enough to have been made in 1991, so they don’t have to talk about “Jurassic Park” and spend a lot of money on expensive clips from that blockbuster.

There’s a wry narration going over the whole thing, which is knowledgeable and fun without being disrespectful to the source material. The movie was written and directed by Ted Newsom, a guy who has made a few of his own B-movies over the years but seems to have mostly worked in the nineties video compilation world. There’s a lot of neat tidbits throw out, most of which a seasoned genre fan probably all ready knows about, but the effort is still appreciated. (The movie at least dismisses the “King Kong vs. Godzilla” ending myth. Thank goodness.)

Though, obviously, the dino-footage is the main drawl here. The “Valley of Gwangi” trailer shown here, with the word “Gwangi!” hissed over and over again musically, remains an all time favorite of mine. (And hard to track down.) The movie really reminded me of how fluid Harryhausen’s creature effects could be. Most of my enjoyment of “Hollywood Dinosaurs” is based in nostalgia, not going to lie about it, but even a veteran sci-fi fan can find a few things in here he hasn’t seen yet. (7/10)

Dylan Dog: Dead of Night (2011)
Like “Blood: The Last Vampire,” here’s another foreign cult property adapted into a low-budget, astoundingly mediocre direct-to-video American flick. I’ve only read a few “Dylan Dog” comics and liked what I saw. I know enough to know that this movie doesn’t take much from its source material besides Dylan’s trademark red shirt and jacket and his shitty luck with women. Instead of something more surreal or melancholy, Dylan fights vampires and werewolves. Early on, we find out that humans drink vampire blood as a drug… Christ, how many times has that idea been used recently? “True Blood?” “Lost Boys 3?” What’s up with that? Similarly, the idea of combining private detective fiction tropes with the supernatural is similarly worn-out and overused. (Brandon Routh’s unnecessary, irritating voice over doesn’t help in.) The idea of making a mob family and a werewolf clan the same thing is something I’ve definitely seen before as well. Over all, the whole movie has a been-there, done-that feeling to it.

This feels less like a movie and more like an episode of “Buffy” or something. The look is very bland and non-cinematic. The creature effects are half-way decent, especially the zombies and the demonic final boss. But the werewolf make-up is just a mask over dudes in shirts. The plot is fairly episodic and unremarkable as well. Dylan follows all of the leads before discovering the plot’s MacGuffin midway through. (Thanks to a grating infodump from a character introduced solely to drop exposition) Afterward, he walks into a building and, literally, just grabs the evil, mystical item and walks out. There’s a plot twist that comes fairly out of nowhere before, at the last minute, we find out this is a movie about Van Helsing Hate Crimes. And, again, the world ending threat, as often is in these story, is defeated way too easily.

Brandon Routh is terrible in the lead role. This dude is seriously uncharismatic. I liked the zombie sidekick and the idea of a service that provides replacements parts for rotting zombie. But “Dylan Dog” is pretty aggressively unspectacular. (5/10)

Zombie (1979)
Thanks to Blue Underground and the Alamo Drafthouse, I was able to catch this one on the big screen. I’ve never held Lucio Fulci in the same regard as the other pillars of Italian horror, Argento and Bava. His direction is certainly not as stylish. The colors are general kind of drab and dark, and there’s a lot of rough zooms. However, Fulci isn’t without his own stylistic elements. When the zombies rise from their graves, we get several shots from the undead’s point of view, including dirt falling off the lens. Fulci always made good use of music and atmosphere. While the Caribbean score doesn't always work for me, the main theme is a complete classic and very creepy. The scenes of the shambling zombies walking out of the night and slowly approaching the church are quite atmospheric. (The superior “The Beyond” makes great use of this talent for foreboding dread.)

But for the most part, and I don’t think even fans of the film will deny this, “Zombie” is a gore film. It’s really built around a series of gory set pieces. There’s the opening sequence with the zombie on the boat, the meme-tastic “zombie vs. shark” scene, the equally infamous splinter in the eye, and the disgusting discovering of what happened to the wife. Honestly, the movie is a bit slow during the early going scenes. I like the moments of the detective and the girl sleuthing in New York but, once they get to the island but before the zombies show up, things drag just a tiniest bit. It’s really not until we get the Conquistador’s graveyard that the movie kicks into high gear. The throat-tearing and head-bashing that follows is pretty memorable. It’s a blatant steal from “Night of the Living Dead,” but once our heroes board themselves up in the chapel against the hordes of zombies, the film finally finds a stable narrative groove. It certainly leads the most zombie shambling and gory mayhem. The movie also has a great ending. The shot of hordes of the undead shambling towards New York City, cut together with a newly created ghoul pushing against a locked door, makes for a nicely eerie conclusion.

The movie has got some pretty blatant logic holes too, and not the kind of stylish holes you come to accept with Italian horror. Seems like every female character, when faced with approaching death, just stands there and screams, waiting for a man to save her. How long it takes somebody who’s bitten to turn seems to vary depending on the needs of the story. And, honestly, throwing Molotov cocktails around inside a wooden building seems like faulty planning. So is deciding that, in the middle of the graveyard surrounded by flesh-eating zombies, is the best time to start putting the moves on your lady friend. I guess when you’re watching a movie mostly for the blood and guts, you don’t really think about these things too much.

It was fun to see this on the big screen, even if I don’t hold it in the same high regard as a lot of other Italian horror fans. Seeing it in a theater full of like-minded individuals certainly adds to the fun, as it always does. And, of course, since it’s the Alamo, you can eat while you watch the movie. Nothing like gnawing on chicken wings as you watch zombies gnaw on people. Classic. (7/10)

Halloween 2011: October 20

2011-10-20T17:48:00.000-07:00

As the night of Halloween drawls closer and closer, I find myself with a lot less time. Sorry about missing the last two days. I'll try to do better.

The Hitcher (1986)
This movie is amazingly effective. When I first saw it a few years ago, it managed to catch me completely off-guard and had me jumping several times. For a jaded horror fan, that’s a pretty big deal. But would it hold up, I asked myself as I put the DVD in the player? Well, I still found myself glued to the television, completely sucked into the suspenseful world of “The Hitcher,” where nothing is certain and you are never, ever safe.

All of which is weird, since “The Hitcher” isn’t really a horror movie, now is it? The majority of the film takes place in the hot, sun-soaked afternoons of the Texas desert. It’s cat-and-mouse story is more thriller and the car chase antics that make up a large portion of the film’s most exciting sequences are right out of seventies carsploitation pictures then straight-up horror. Though there’s plenty of blood, most of the actual murders take place completely off-screen. When the violence does happen, it’s startling and unexpected, like the glass behind the driver suddenly exploding, along with the driver’s head. But it’s hard to classify “The Hitcher” as anything but pure horror, if for no other reason then it successfully places the audience in the seat of it’s protagonist. A protagonist who is being endlessly chased by one of the most effective villains in movie history.

Yeah, I said that. John Ryder is one of most effective bogeymen ever committed to film. As far as we know, he’s never come back from the dead, isn’t a vampire, an alien, a robot, or anything but an ordinary man. And yet, he’s completely unstoppable. In most any other film, the sight of a man shooting down a helicopter with a handgun from the comfort of his driver’s seat would come off as completely ridiculous and utterly improbable. But it works here, strictly because the film makes Ryder both seemingly inhuman but oddly relatable. He could literally be anywhere and do anything. I don’t think there was ever a better role crafted for Rutger Hauer’s steely eyed intensity then this one. His performance is soft-spoken and mysterious. He doesn’t have to yell or shout to let us know how easily he could destroy anyone of us. We never find out anything about him. His name is all we know and that could easily be a pseudonym. He appears out of the desert like a phantom and disappears back just as well. Despite his seemingly supernatural aptitude, he is very human. The film implies that he is a man with nothing to loose. He wants to die but cannot self-terminate, so he chooses victims at random, in hopes of finding someone who can take him down. Jim is a normal kid. There’s really nothing extraordinary about C. Thomas Howell’s performance other then what a perfect audience cipher he makes. His freak outs over the ever escalating situation seems genuine. The reason Ryder fixates on him is simply because he’s the only person to ever face him and live. Clearly, this is the kid for the job. The movie suggests a connection between hunter and prey and eventual switch of the two positions. (It also suggests something else too. This is the second movie I’ve seen this season with a hearty gay subtext.)

“The Hitcher” is also extraordinarily well shot. It’s not surprising to read that the director got his start as a still photographer. After Ryder has been kicked from Jim’s car, the camera glides up the road towards the leering murderer, dawn slowly breaking over his head. It establishes the man as a living legend, the urban myth of the murderous hitchhiker brought to life. And the car chases, man! The chase with the cops, and the pile-up that follows, has got to be in the top ten best car chase scenes ever. I’ll admit to having a soft spot for old-fashion car stunts and, boy does this movie ever deliver. When it isn’t slamming fenders into fenders, the movie is building shadowy suspense. The scene of Ryder sneaking into our heroes hotel room and abducting his love interest (An underdeveloped role built up by a feisty Jennifer Jason Leigh performance) is dark and mysterious, like a dream building into a nightmare. And the fate that follows for Leigh’s character, which I will not spoil for those who have yet to see this one, should be in film-class textbooks as the way to build and payoff suspense in a movie. I also love the little detail of a tiger’s roars layered over Hauer’s face as he leaps from moving vehicles to car hood, another potentially campy, clichéd moment the movie pulls off fantastically. It’s a shame that director Robert Harmon’s never really did much anything else of note. This is a fantastic start for a directorial career. (He did bring us “Highwaymen,” which plays like a much goofier version of “The Hitcher” but delivers similarly intense car battle action. I might also have to reevaluate “They” now.)

Enough gushing. “The Hitcher” kicks ass! See this movie! Definitely do not see the remake or the sequel, both of which are blasphemous. (9/10)

Faust (1926)
The pretentious film geek in me wants to say something like, “Silent cinema is true cinema.” That’s an easy thing to think, since silent movies had nothing to rely on but the visual aspect of movie-making. But it’s not really true either, since it implies silent films are inherently better then modern movies. This is the problem when dealing with classic cinema. The great movies survive and are talk about forever. Nobody remembers all the shitty ones. But, right from the very first opening scene, “Faust” got me. The image of the four horsemen of the apocalypse riding through the heavens is haunting and mythic. They are obviously puppets but, the way the sequence is shot, ladles on the foreboding atmosphere. “Nosferatu” clearly wasn’t a fluke. F. W. Murnau sure knew how to capture shadows, fog, the creepy, and the disturbing on camera. Much of “Faust” feels like a half-remembered nightmare. Seems like all of the demons in this film have gleaming eyes. An early appearance by what we assume to be the devil himself, hidden in shadow, has oddly unnerving glinting eyes. In maybe the movie’s creepiest moment, Mephisto appears, not in a dramatic plume of red smoke, but as a strange beggar in the streets, nothing unusual about him save for his glowing eyes. (And his tendency to reappear everywhere.) In perhaps the film’s most famous scene, the devil looms large over the city as a black smog sweeps over the populace, infecting everyone it passes with the black plague. (Murnau was clearly terrified of the plague and considered it synonymous with evil. Just as Graf Orlock brings bubonic carrying rats with him to London in “Nosferatu,” the devil’s presence is identified here with a sweeping epidemic.) In another fantastic scene, a monk begging the people to turn to God and the church, is shouted down by a swarm of hedonistic partiers, their shadows cast over him. “Faust’ is both a visual feast and a fantastic mood piece.

At least for the first fifty minutes. The evolution of “Faust” from a story about how dirty pagans die horribly to a story of good intentions paving the way to hell to a story about how love saves and God forgives is a pretty wild path. The film seems to start out going with the second version, as Faust is portrayed as a god fearing alchemist who takes Mephisto’s offer strictly to save his village from the plague. But then he is tempted by pleasures of youth and Mephisto, who up to that point was dress in commoner clothes, switch into a flashy red evening wear. What follows is a long, mostly pointless but at least visually interesting scene of Faust seducing a princess. He then goes back to the village of his youth and falls in love with a maiden named Gretchen. The film then falls into a very long rut. Despite this being Faust’s story, his name is right there in the title after all, the movie spends an awful lot of time developing Gretchen and her family. That’s fine I suppose, but then there are long comic relief sequences involving an old woman’s attempts to seduce Mephisto. After another very long scene in which Faust is framed for the murder of Gretchen’s brother, the movie begins to focus on her exclusively. This leads to a forty minute long section about how much her life begins to suck, from being shoved into the stocks in her town, rejected and mocked by everyone who ever knew her, becoming a single mom, becoming homeless, nearly freezing to death in a snowstorm, her baby definitely freezing to death in a snowstorm, and then being sentenced to burn at the stake for letting her child die. This section plays a lot like melodramatic misery porn and, worse yet, has nothing much to do with our main character’s story. Right before being sentenced to death, Gretchen cries out for her lover, her face sweeping across the sky to Faust, who has apparently just being hanging out somewhere all this time. He rushes to her, rejects the devil, and meets up with his girlfriend just in time for both of them to burn to death together. But it’s not a downbeat ending, because loves saves and God forgives. Man, the devil got kind of screwed on that one. “God cheats at cards” is another moral you can take from this.

It’s a shame the movie is almost sunk by this meandering subplot. Otherwise, it’s fantastic. Emil Jannings is perfect as Mephisto, glowering like an imp while being as slick as a used car salesman. Gosta Ekman successfully portrays both an old man and his younger self, showing a lot of emotion on his face. More then that, the film is a visual triumphant. I understand why it’s a classic but a wavering story cements “Nosferatu” as Murnau’s real masterpiece of horror. (I really wish his version of the Jekyll/Hyde story, "The Janus Man," starring Conrad Veidt and Bela Lugosi wasn't a lost film. I'd be tempted to make my own Faustian bargain to see that one.) (7/10)

Halloween 2011: October 17

2011-10-17T19:56:00.000-07:00

Silent Madness (1984)
Now my friends will know what the hell I’m talking about when I talk about faith in work pants. Bleeding Skull described “Silent Madness” as a cozy, unambitious, slasher snack. But is it, really? The plot of a mistakenly released psychotic killer returning to the sorority house where he murdered a bunch of girls decades ago is as about routine a slasher premise as you can get, but the movie does a few things a little differently.

First off, the main characters aren’t brainless teenagers preoccupied with boning. Instead, it’s a responsible, work-a-holic female doctor, bristling against the corrupt staff at the mental institution responsible for freeing pasty-faced, beady-eyed psycho Howard Johns. Belinda Montgomery gives a pretty solid performance too. She’s not just a screaming, panicking girl that succeeds mostly through luck. She’s a pretty feisty chick. Also, her newspaper editor boyfriend… preoccupied with boning. (The movie’s not that different.) The supporting cast is equally eccentric. Lisping, grouchy, antisocial Sheriff Leggitt swears, whines, barks orders, and never actually does anything to help anybody throughout the course of the film. I suppose that makes the character sound annoying, but he’s actually endearing in an anti-heroic sort of way. (His relatively small amount of screen time might help too.) Seemingly the only other person working at the newspaper, an old woman, is also kind of bitchy but similarly entertaining. The sorority sisters aren’t defined to a great deal, but they’re never annoying or actively unlikable. I imagine if the film was longer, we certainly would have found out more about them. Stack a mysterious sorority mother with a funny accent on top and you’ve got a kooky character sundae.

The corrupt hospital staff, occupied by asshole doctors and especially sleazy orderlies provide another interesting, different aspect to the film. The twist ending more then implies that it’s actually the deranged hospital attendants that are responsible for making Howard Johns a silent, murderous madman and, when ordered to silence our lead lady, they seem far too eager to get their murder on. Maybe this subplot and its characters was added just to increase the body count but, even then, it further distinguishes “Silent Madness” from the rest of the pack.

Of course, there’s lots of good old fashion murder and exploitation to be had too. The first thing Mr. Johns does upon being released is murdered a naked couple in a van and crush a rollerskating teenage girl's head in a vice. Once he makes it back to the sorority house, he makes creative use of ropes and dumbbells. When we get to the inevitable climax of the final girl (Or woman, in this case) alone in an isolated building together, the movie features an intense chase through the ventilation shafts and an unexpected twist ending that successfully changes much of the film’s plot. The movie was originally filmed in 3D and the blades, blood, and other implements comin’ right atcha ya! ups the enjoyment even more. My copy of “Silent Madness,” purchased from the VHSPS booth, even features an MST3k style stinger at the end. Perfect. Seek this one out. (7/10)

Seconds Apart (2011)
Why do I keep taking a chance on After Dark Films’ unoriginal, mean-spirited, boring little pieces of shit? The concept of psychic twins seems like a decent start for a genre film but, sigh, “Seconds Apart” doesn’t do anything but annoy and aggravate.

First off, why the fuck are all of these HorrorFest movies shot in the same goddamn style? If I have to see another shaky-cam, music-video style nightmare sequence, Jesus Christ, I don’t know what I’ll do. Beyond that, seems like most of these movies are shot in the same gloomy, blue and grey color. And the cast members are always the most generic set of vapid, pretty young things that never seem to have more then one or two emotions. When the 7 Up Yours guy is the most interesting actor in your movie, you’ve got problems. And even then, his character has the most generic fucking arc you can imagine. He’s a bitter detective with a dead wife, reoccurring nightmares, and lots of guilt. (The token alcoholism has been substituted with an inability to quit smoking.) Gee, I wonder if he’ll manage to resolve his emotional problems right around the same time he resolves the case?

I had hoped that, twins being a different kind of subject, that the characters themselves would probably be interesting, right? Nope. Thing 1 and Thing 2 are mean-spirited little pricks, indifferent little monsters, that are, as far as I can tell, trying to experiences heavy emotions like love or disgust. This is sort of funny since they don’t seem to have any problem with other, run-of-the-mill emotions. Using their telepathic abilities, they force disgusting, unlikable people to do disgusting, unlikable things like shoot themselves, fuck random strangers on video, or drive into oncoming trucks. Before long, some random girl decides she wants to bang one of the twins for seemingly no reason and, even though the girl has no discernible interests or personality, the twin decides he loves her. (And doesn’t screw when she gets all naked and slutty with him. Because he's got feelings.) Hmm, could this relationship conceivably cause a conflict between the brothers? Duh. And, hey, let's throw a little bit of incest on there too, why the hell not?

Another key ingredient to the After Dark formula of suck is an asinine, pointless twist ending. Naturally, “Seconds Apart” delivers in that capacity. Not that the twist the hack writers came up with make any fucking sense. That’s not important. All that’s important is that they totally blow your mind, man!

About the only thing positive I can say about “Seconds Apart” is that the scene of the priest pulling the worm out of his leg is kind of cool, even if its as crass and gross as everything else. Also, it's short. For the people who manage to get through all of these things every year, I salute you. You’re stronger men then me. (2/10)

Curse of Frankenstein (1957)
This is what I needed to wash the flavor of that trash out of mouth. This was my introduction to Hammer and, along with “Horror of Dracula,” defined the studio style. Right out of the gate, the movie goes out of its way to distinguish itself from the Universal Frankenstein films. Instead of focusing on the monster, it focuses on the doctor himself and would continue to throughout the whole series. The creation doesn’t even show up until well after the halfway point.

This might have been a disappointing, frustrating move if it wasn’t for one point: Peter Cushing is fantastic as Baron Frankenstein. Cushing could play both ends of the spectrum. His Van Helsing was practically a superhero, always going head to head with Lee’s Dracula and bravely battling evil in all its form. His Baron Frankenstein, on the other hand, was devious, deceptive, sadistic, and focused solely on his mission of creating life, morality be damned. Throughout this movie and its many sequels, he has no qualms about murdering or betraying anybody who gets in his way. The Baron isn’t exactly evil to begin with and the movie makes it clear that his obsession steams from his parent’s early death. But it doesn’t take him long to fall off the slippery slope. He commits murder pretty much without any pause or concern. It’s not the richest character but Cushing goes at it with gusto, creating one of the most memorable villain protagonists of all time.

The thing I noticed this time when watching is the role women play. They are heavily featured but aren’t super important to the story. Hazel Court gets a lot of screen time as Elizabeth and the movie seems to set her up as Frankenstein’s moral compass. But the doctor’s pretty much evil right from the beginning and Elizabeth doesn’t actually do much beyond get threatened by the monster at the end. The doctor even gets a mistress in the form of maid Justine, but her role is small too. If anything, it’s the almost homoerotic relationship between Frankenstein and his best bro and science buddy Paul Krempe that provides the tension. The “Frankenstein” story has always been laced with a gay subtext but its pretty evident here. Frankenstein and Krempe are devoted to each and determined to create life on their own… At least until Frankenstein’s commitment to science breaks them up. The scene of Paul and the doctor fighting over a jarred brain, which ends with Paul damaging the brain like a passive-aggressive girlfriend, plays not like one man fighting the immoral decisions of an old friend, but more like a lovers' spat.

If anything, the movie slows down some once Christopher Lee’s monster shows up. Lee gets a truly fantastic introduction and his make-up is fantastic but the creature certainly doesn’t have the pathos of Karloff’s take, if for no other reason then he doesn’t have as much to do. He’s also more generally psychotic then Karloff, as his violence is mostly unprovoked. The movie does feature a lot of the standard Hammer bright red blood but it comes mostly from the doctor’s dissections then the monster’s rampage. Even without the monster, “Curse of Frankenstein” would have been a classic, just based on the strength of Cushing’s performance. (8/10)

Halloween 2011: October 16

2011-10-16T20:54:00.000-07:00

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)
I’m of the opinion that “Halloween” never should have been a franchise. The original’s ending was never a sequel hook. It was instead a stark evaluation of the damage done and a reinforcement of Carpenter’s favorite theme of undying evil. The near-universal love part 2 gets confuses and aggravates me. Making Laurie Michael’s long-lost little sister was a desperate, last minute reasoning for a sequel, Carpenter has admitted as much, and completely removed the random nature to Michael’s evil. It’s a bad writing phantom that has haunted this franchise ever since. The series inability to let go of such an obvious, hacky story device would eventually drag it down into incomprehensible convoluted mythology. Overall, I find most of the sequels, including this film, too samey. They all hump the corpse of Carpenter’s genius way too much. (Which, despite not really liking them, is why I still defend part three and Rob Zombie’s films. They may not be good but at least they’re different.)

So it goes without saying that “Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers” isn’t my favorite movie ever. The only reason I own it is because I found a double feature set of both this film and part 5 in the Wal-Mart five dollar bin and couldn’t resist such a bargain. (Especially since both films are the complete, extras-loaded special editions and not a bare-bone flipper disc as I assumed.) So I tried to clear my mind of preconceived expectations and enjoy this film on its own merits, even though it has no right existing in the first place.

First thing first, Michael Myers looks terrible in this film. The mask appears to be some god awful dime store thing and, worse yet, the actor is wearing obvious shoulder pads. Myers was never suppose to be a hulking, towering monstrosity like his slasher brethren, but, holy shit, this scrawny bastard was the best they could find? Hollywood isn’t full of imposing stuntmen? Especially since Myers is elevated into a Jason-style super-strong mega-maniac who can tear people apart with his bare hands in this film, the visual is even more unbelievable. (I have problems with that too, by the way.) The actor playing the Shape is generally a little too robotic. The movie continues the series’ reputation for forging mythology out of thin air by making Myers’ “evil” into a literal presence that can swap bodies. Dr. Loomis also gets a boost here, not-dying as hard as John McClane. Not only did he survive a fiery explosion with only a little scar on his face and hands to show for it, but, despite being well into his sixties at this point, also survives a dive out a glass window with little to no damage. (The screenwriter at least justifies the burns. On the commentary, he explains the movie originally started by showing Loomis getting blow out of the flames by the force of the explosion. There’s no such tidy explanation for the other incident.) Beyond just nitpicking logic holes in a horror sequel, I’ve always thought the movie looked very cheap. There’s not much atmosphere here.

Not that I hate the movie. There are a few clever elements. The movie has a fairly small cast and takes some time to develop its characters. Jaime would become the central plot puppy for the franchise’ middle chapters, but her sweet relationship with Rachel provides a little heart. And while the character doesn’t do much beyond being a living, breathing MacGuffin, Danielle Harris is at least a competent child actress. The teasing she receives from the kids at school provides a little depth. Kelly and Brady probably could have been indistinct slut and asshole parts but the actors at least give them a little personality. (The rivalry between Rachel and Kelly provide some humor during the slow going middle chapter.) Another thing I like is, unlike the majority of the “Friday the 13th” movies, the killings don’t take place in a vacuum. The town of Haddonfield is full of cops and trigger happy rednecks that react to the violence around them. And while I don’t really like the implications of the ending, it’s at least something different. It’s not a twist ending dependent solely on Michael not actually being dead at the last minute, as if we had any doubt. If Akkad had the guts to follow up on it, the franchise might have actually gotten interesting.

Distinguishing itself so strongly from the slasher glut also comes with a price. The movie is relatively low on the blood and features no gratuitous nudity. It might be puerile but those are the primary reasons we fans watch these films. The movie’s low on atmosphere and fun slashery, doesn’t really do anything exciting with the premise, but it’s got half a brain. I guess that’s worth something. (6.5/10)

Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)
Despite its reputation as the black-sheep of the franchise (You know, after all the other ones.), I actually kind of like this one a lot. The reasoning behind this may very well be completely nostalgic in origin. This was the first film in the “Halloween” franchise I ever saw, it was one of the first R-rated horror films I ever saw, and also one of the first slasher films I ever saw. For all of these reasons it holds something of a special place in my heart. It’s flaws are evident and easily picked out: The way Michael inexplicably escapes his very final seeming death in the previous film, the opening’s odd implication that Michael just hung out on some hermit’s couch for a year in-between movies, the way it lazily retcons away part four’s ballsy ending, how it brutally kills off one of the few “Halloween” sequel cast members you actually care about, the hilarious “cookie woman” scene, the bizarre quasi-comic scenes of a Myers in an old man mask with a hot girl kissing on him, the comic relief cops who come with a precursor to the Bunk and Skull theme, Michael’s face suddenly being a big deal, tattoos, tears, obvious reshoots and inserts, a slasher movie ending that resolves even less then usual… I think I got ‘em all. Anyway, the point is, I find all of these flaws easy to forgive for some reason.

The movie immediately fixes one of the biggest issues I had with part four: Myers doesn’t look like an asshole. Yeah, the mask has got a receding hairline and a fat neck, but it’s a major improvement over goofy-eyes from last time. Moreover, Donald Shanks is big, but not unbelievably so, and he actually carries himself with some threatening character. Jamie Lloyd is given more to do as well. Yeah, the psychic link is a bit silly but, if you’re going to play up the supernatural aspects of Michael and his connection to his niece, I prefer this over Jaime becoming the vessel for his nebulous “evil.” Danielle Harris does a good job with her imposed muteness and her performance is an improvement over part four’s.

I love Dr. Loomis. He’s my favorite character in the series. I’ve also loved the implication that he’s just as crazy and dangerous as his favorite patient. The movie plays that angle up a lot. Donald Pleasence is drunk and his scratchy voice, lack of regard for personal body space, and willingness to put a little girl in peril makes him a fantastically unbalanced protagonist. Loomis takes even more improbable damage then is possible and I adore the scene of him beating the shit out of Myers with a 2x4. Basically, get Donald Pleasence to scream raspily about THE EVIL and I’m having a good time. The rest of the cast isn’t really worth discussing, but I do like the stuttering little boy with the crush on Jaime. That’s a nice touch. (I like the anachronistic greasers too, much more then I liked them in “Friday the 13th: A New Beginning.”)

I’d say the movie is an improvement over part four in a lot of other ways too. The direction and atmosphere are better. Right from the carving pumpkin opening, the movie has more of a Halloween flavor and I like how deep and black the nights are. The gore is great in this movie and Myers is, overall, very violent and pissed-off, killing people hardcore but without sticking his fingers in people’s heads and necks. Though it never provides a satisfying reason why, Michael definitely, emphatically wants to get his hands on Jaime. Yeah, the Myers house suddenly being a mansion doesn’t make much sense but, as far as last act suspense sequences go, I’ll take part five’s laundry chute over part four’s rooftop any day of the week. Also, for what it’s worth, the movie has got absolutely the hottest sex scene of the entire series. (And lots of gratuitous cleavage for extra exploitation value.) It makes absolutely zero sense and would lead to part six having one of the messiest storylines, but at least the ending doesn’t even give the slightest illusion that the story’s actually over. I admire that level of directness. Have I made enough of a case for “Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers?” It’s not high art but it’s not like I’m looking for that either. Its light-years better then other horror part fives, that’s for sure. (7/10)

Night of the Demons 2 (1994)
Pop quiz! Which minor eighties horror franchise with a killer named “Angela” has two sequels from the dark days of horror that I vastly prefer to the original? If you answered “Sleepaway Camp,” you would be correct but “Night of the Demons” (which I will remind you is about neither ruins nor sasquatch) would also be an acceptable answer. Not to say I dislike the first film, but its horror/comedy tone is uneven and I feel like it peaks early with the rightfully famous Bauhaus dance sequence. Not necessarily a flaw, but that movie is more zombie film then slasher.

Part two fixes a lot of those issues, far as I can see. It leans far more heavily, and far more successfully, on horror/comedy then the first. It also has more of a slasher tone, with Angela engineering clever kill scenes for individual characters, and rightfully builds Angela up into the kind of iconic character she could always be. (Mimi Kinkade is hilarious, by the way.) When the movie covers her in make-up and dubs her voice over in the last act, it looses some steam. The Catholic school setting makes for an awesome, and logical, starting point. The cast and characters are really fun to be around. Mouse is the kind of meek, traumatized film character you just want to hug. Moreover, that the film’s central conflict is based out of sisterly love adds a lot of genuine tension. I really love the scene where Johnny and Bibi decide not to go all the way, I feel like that adds a lot to the characters. The movie is full of fun, smart, little character orientating sequence like that, such as the opening peeping tom sequence or the scenes of kids making out in a van. Shirley is an excellent Libby and you really can’t wait for her inevitable descent into evil. Jerry, the demonology expert, could have easily been a broad annoying character, but the movie makes him work. But, as far as memorable characters go, nothing really tops the kung-fu nun Sister Gloria (a strict Catholic nun that manages to be neither annoying nor a cliché. And in a horror film, no less!), or the deadpan, dryly humorous Father Bob.

It’s really the movie’s sense of humor I like. It successfully uses the “Evil Dead 2” model of horror sequel escalation by throwing more creativity and outrageousness at the material. You’ve got demonic naughty lipstick, grabbing tits and grabbing-tits, possession via French kissing, improvised demon smiting weapons including nunchuck rosary beads (Would that be a nunchuck? Thank you, I’m here all night), decapitation basketball, and a climatic transformation into a giant snake monster. The first movie focused heavily on how people could become demons by being attacked. This one smartly saves those antics until the finale and it provides a nice build-up. Hull House also seems much more shadow filled, cobweb infested, and generally more atmospheric then before. And, if nothing else, this one features a boatload of nudity.

Looking this movie up, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to find it was made by the director who brought us films as varied in quality and concept as “Turkey Shoot,” “Stunt Rock,” “Dead-End Drive-In,” “Escape 2000,” “BMX Bandits,” “Leprechaun 3” AND “Leprechaun 4: In Space,” “Megiddo: The Omega Code 2,” “DC 9/11: Time of Crisis,” and “Aztec Rex.” What a weird fucking career path this guy has had. I might have to investigate further. Anyway, “Night of the Demons 2” is pretty much a blast from start to finish. I don’t like it as much as the other-other Angela, but then again, what do I like that much? (7/10)

Halloween 2011: October 15

2011-10-15T20:17:00.000-07:00

Masque of the Red Death (1964)
Here’s my official rankings of the best of the Poe/Cormon/Price cycle: “Fall of the House of Usher” is the most well made and put together. “Pit and the Pendulum” is my personal favorite. And this film, “Masque of the Red Death” is the most artistic. It also has the highest production values of any of the films.

It’s generally accepted that this film’s heightened artistry is a result of Nicholas Roeg, who would go on to direct impenetrable art films in the seventies, being the director of photography. While Roeg’s involvement in the film certainly contributed, especially in the movie’s brilliant use of color, Cormon was directly influenced by Bergman and other Euro-Art directors during the making of this film. It’s a gorgeous movie to look at. The scenes of characters passing through the various multi-colored rooms are fantastic. The movie’s philosophical ending and Hazel Court’s nightmare (In which she is menaced by an Aztec priest, what I think is a Turkish warrior, and an Indian kabuki actor, for seemingly no reason.) certainly makes this the trippiest of the series.

Prince Prospero is one of his Vincent Price’s nastiest roles. While he’s not as flatly sadistic as Matthew Hopkins, Prospero is unapologetically mean-spirited and enjoys torturing people both physically and psychologically. The movie’s story is pretty straight forward but pads the running time with a mini-adaptation of Poe’s “Hop-Frog” and Prospero’s wife’s attempt to sell her soul to Satan. The finale, in which the Red Death indeed makes itself known, is fantastic. Sadly, the theme of decadent rich hedonist locking themselves away from the poor, suffering masses is even more relevant now then in the sixties. (I write this as a news story about the "Occupy Wall Street" movement plays on television.) (8/10)

The Premature Burial (1962)
This movie suffers greatly from the lack of Vincent Price. Ray Millard certainly isn’t a bad actor. (The fact that I’m more of a fan of “X” instead of the melodramatic “Lost Weekend” should surprise nobody reading this.) But he’s a little too morose and bipolar in this part. It’s very easy to see how much better Price would have played this role, especially during Guy’s climatic descent into madness.

It’s obvious from very early on that the people around our main character are attempting to gaslight him. It’s pretty obvious who’s responsible too, despite the abundant red herrings. The scene of our protagonist showing off his various insurance plans in case he’s buried alive (Spring-loaded coffin lid, poison, dynamite?) is oddly jovial and never pays off. There’s a psychedelic nightmare sequence very similar to the one in “Masque of the Red Death,” right down to the green tinting. When the titular premature burial inevitably happens, any of the dread it could have produced is undermined by the somewhat goofy voice-over. (Though the shot of Millard’s face being covered with dirt is pretty cool.) After being exhumed by Chekov’s Graverobbers, the now completely mad Guy goes about offing the people responsible for his entombing, in a somewhat proto-slasher sort of way. The movie does have some fantastically foggy atmosphere and isn’t without a few decent jump scares. But it’s easily the weakest of Roger Cormon’s Poe adaptations. (6/10)

The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976)
Generally regarded as something of an out-of-print classic, “The Town That Dreaded Sundown” plays almost like a feature length episode of “Unsolved Mysteries.” It claims to tell the true story of the Phantom Killer that terrorized Texarkana, Arkansas in 1946. A dramatic narrator chimes in throughout while the majority of the film is composed of what are essentially dramatic reenactments. This method isn’t always successful, especially in the scenes revolving around the police investigation. The director, Charles B. Pierce, plays a bizarre comic relief character named, god help us, “Sparkplug.” This character is straight-up Barney Fife and his broad, slapstick antics, which included crossdressing, are a serious distractions from the mood. Likewise, Ben Johnson’s over-the-top performance as a cowboy hat sporting police captain called onto the case seem to intentionally clash with the docu-drama tone.

But the movie is well-remembered for the scenes recreating the Phantom Killer’s night time assaults. Stepping right out of an urban legend, the Phantom attacks a necking teenage couple at a Lover’s Lane. Later on, the Phantom chases an innocent victim, played by Dawn “Mary Ann” Welles, through the woods. Once he has her pinned down, he tortures her with a trombone, in a particularly surreal, unsettling moment. The most frightening sequence actually takes place in a brightly lit room, as the killer shoots a man through a window and then chases his wife through a cornfield. The appearance of the killer undoubtedly influenced eighties slashers. The simple white hood over his head was copied in “Friday the 13 Part 2” while the killer’s steady, rhythmic breathing, in which his breath sucks the front of the hood in and out, might have influenced Michael Meyer’s similar heavy breathing. It’s often been said that the faceless mask horror movie villains wear are meant to block their human features, so the audience can’t relate any emotions or feelings to them. I’ve never put much credence in that theory, but it totally happens here. The killer and his white featureless face are truly the stuff of nightmares.

The film does a great job of illustrating the panic and dread the town feels as the murders carry on. I also love the final chase through the swamp, where the Phantom literally disappears into legend. While the mockumentry style hampers the film in some ways, the night time attack scenes are shocking, startling horror stuff. I give this one a hearty recommendation and will probably have to see the same director’s similar, earlier “The Legend of Boogey Creek.” (7/10)

Halloween 2011: October 14

2011-10-14T16:56:00.000-07:00

Deep Star Six (1989)
So what was going on in 1989 that so many underwater set sci-fi/horror films came out? Was everyone just racing to rip off “The Abyss?” Was there some sort of news story or cultural event that influenced this? Anyway, “Deep Star Six” has a lot in common with another one of the films released the same year, “Leviathan.” While Cameron was going for something a lot more cerebral, these movies were content to be simple B-movie monster flicks. Both films are about a group of blue-collar scientists (A lot like “Alien,” undoubtedly an influence.) and workers stuck in a research lab at the bottom of the ocean before uncovering some ancient, possibly alien threat, that invades and destroys the lab. Spoiler alert ahead, both films even end in startlingly similar ways, with a duo of survivors abandoning the lab and floating to the surface where, of course, the monster follows them, resulting in a fatal explosion.

Both films have pretty strong ensemble casts, though “Leviathan” wins since it has Robocop, Col. Troutman, and a Ghostbuster in it. The best this movie can muster is Agent Albert Rosenfeld. The creature designs are kind of evenly split though. “Leviathan” had Stan Winston in its corner and featured some cool, giant shifting mass of body-horror, but that was abandoned in the end in favor of a cheesy fish-monster. “Deep Star Six” features one pissed-off giant lobster thing. While the monster is kind of cumbersome, it’s not a bad design and is brought to life believably. It’s also not as featured as much. The film instead focuses on the hazard of a deep sea ship for its first half. “Deep Star Six” is also the gorier film, featuring an aquanaunt bitten in half and a dude exploding upon depressurization.

Also like “Leviathan,” the movie really doesn’t do anything interesting or new. It’s a simple creature feature with a sci-fi slant. The most exciting moments in the movie are watching Miguel Ferrer go crazy. I can’t really say that you should really go out and see “Leviathan” in favor of seeing “Deep Star Six” instead, since neither film are really worth seeing all that much. But, if you want to see a giant lobster kill some folks, some beautiful underwater photography, and also be able to see what else Sean S. Cunningham has ever been up to, it’s worth checking out, I guess. (6/10)

Burnt Offerings (1976)
An interesting subversion of the traditional ghost story. This isn’t the story of a house that’s haunted, so much as it is the story of a house that haunts people. The sprawling, gothic manner is a living entity onto itself. It seems to live off the life force of the new family that moves in, slowly regenerating its old, run-down appearance, with the eventual goal of outright absorbing the family into its walls. The movie is intentionally mysterious, leaving much of its mythology up to the viewer to figure out.

My biggest issue with the haunted house genre is, “Why don’t the people just leave?” The movie gets around this by having mother (a very capable Karen Black) immediately smitten and possessed by the house. Despite the protest of father (Oliver Reed at his blustery best), son, and great-aunt (a very entertaining Bette Davis), the family stays in the house, even after it becomes apparent how much of a threat it is to their lives. When they do finally try to leave, the home physically, intentionally blocks their escape with a downed tree. The house’s intentions are carried out subtly. When we do see creaking doors or creeping vines, its long after the creepy slow-burn has settled in. Before revealing the truth, the movie suggests that the supernatural going-ons could just as easily be explained with mental illness or bitterness slipping into an old marriage. (Indeed, the movie could easily be read as a metaphor for a marriage going bad, since it’s about discovering your loved one is literally a different person.)

Suspense and scares are supplied throughout. A playful underwater episode between father and son unexpectedly turns deadly. Later on, the pool proves fatal again, but now the parents are forced to watch, helpless to do anything about. In the film’s most famous scenes, Reed’s reoccurring nightmares about a ghoulish, smiling chauffer at his mother’s funeral bleed over into reality in a fantastically creepy set of sequences. The movie ends bleakly, with a nose-dive out a window and into a windshield, and spares nobody. While writer/director Dan Curtis is best known for television work, “Burnt Offerings” is free of stale, TV style staging. It’s a mysterious, creepy, and unique take on the haunted house concept. (7/10)

Tales from the Hood (1995)
One of the earliest entries in the “urban horror” subgenre. (Though “Candyman” came first, and the sub-genre is just a natural evolution of the seventies blaxploitation films.) As soon as I saw Spike Lee’s name in the credits, I knew to expect something a little more sophisticated then, say, “Snoop Dog’s Hood of Horror.” The movie does a good job of combining classic EC Comics/Amicus tropes with socially conscious material and an inner-city perspective.

The first story tells the classic “Revenge from Beyond the Grave” style tale, but the trigger for the revenge is a Rodney King style beating, in which an innocent black man is beaten to death by a trio of drug-pushing, sadistic white cops. The revenge is often ironic and the segment features some top-notch zombie make-up. The second story has the trappings of both a “Strange Child” and “Monster in the Closet” story, but handles the issue of child abuse. The disturbing subject matter is told in up-close, queasy detail. Perhaps too close, considering the overall tone of the film and the magical conclusion. And, boy, is this not your typical David Allen Grier performance.

The third story is the obligatory killer doll segment. It directly references “The Trilogy of Terror” with the chattering, sharp-teeth monster dolls, but their target is a racist white politician (played nicely by Corbin Benson) whose campaign falls back on the ol’ “Affirmative Action is reverse-racism!” bullshit. The dolls are brought to life in stop-motion Full Moon style and this part of the film proves the most entertaining. The last story builds on the “Strange Experiments” archetype, but mainly discusses the motivation behind gang violence. A murderous thug, after being imprisoned, is forced into an odd “A Clockwork Orange” style experiment, directly confronting him with his own violence. It’s definitely the strangest part of the movie.

There’s a framing story too, of a trio of hoods breaking into a funeral home and trying to buy drugs from a strange, story-telling mortician. Anybody who’s ever seen a horror anthology before can quickly figure out where this is going. (It’s like there’s a rule list you have to follow to get one made.) Clarence Williams III sure has a blast as the storyteller though and the movie nicely ties its framing device into one of the stories.

While the themes of racism and violence might seem urban-centric, they are obviously universal and the movie knows this. Mixing horror with the gangster rap culture certainly makes a lot of sense, considering both have a preoccupation with death. (The opening image of a skeleton wearing sunglasses, a doo-rag, and holding a joint and a gat is only partially ironic.) Christopher Young’s gothic score is nicely ominous and his use of European violins would crop up again later in his superior “Drag Me to Hell” score. While I would hardly call it a classic, this movie is ultimately a lot smarter then it gets credit for. I’d recommend it to both Amicus and Spike Lee fans. (7/10)

The Black Scorpion (1957)
I haven’t seen this one since I was a young kid. I remember liking it enough at the time. While I previously stated I wasn’t super crazy about fifties sci-fi/horror in general, I do like some of the giant bug flicks. Insects and arachnids are naturally repugnant, so super-sized insects and arachnids makes them perfect horror film subjects. This movie almost completely forgoes sci-fi elements in general, instead playing out like a hybrid of westerns and strange land adventure fiction, with the giant bugs being the thing that holds it all together. There’s no radiation, atom bombs, or mad science anywhere in the film. (The cliché of radiation making normal animals into giant sized killers doesn’t apply to the majority of the sub-genre’s films, anyway.) The movie owes more to “King Kong” then “Them.”

Obvious segue here, but the “Kong” connection is even deeper then that. The movie is most notable for being Willis O’Brien’s other giant killer creature feature. When our scientist and cowboy hero lower themselves into the volcano that released the titular scorpions, they find themselves in a wild, savage world, inhabit with giant insectoids. It’s believed that this sequence was a recycling of the infamous “Spider Pit” sequence that was cut from “Kong” for being too disturbing at the time. (Those who watched the WETA Effects reconstruction of the Spider Pit scene that’s on the special edition “King Kong’ DVD will recognize the tentacled, weird worm creature that briefly appears here.) In the final act, the killer scorpion even derails a train. The giant animatronic scorpion head used throughout recalls a similar prop from “Kong” as well.

The movie certainly isn’t in the same league as that classic, but it does deliver on the simple pleasure of a giant killer bug flick. O’Brien’s stop-motion work is fantastic, as expected. The movie’s tone veers more towards horror. The sequence where the giant scorpion chases a fleeing man up a telephone pole generates some suspense. If nothing else, the Scorpion’s desire to just fucking kill everything in its way makes it a viable, memorable threat. And while the Mexican setting doesn’t afford the kind of collateral damage New York does, it does create a unique, South of the Border atmosphere.

The romantic subplots in these films are usually a drag, but Richard Denning and Mara Cordey actually have a nice chemistry together and their catty dialogue makes the dating scenes entertaining. (Even if they do feel like they’re from a different movie.) The movie relies far too much on stock-footage, reusing the expensive stop-motion scenes over and over again. O’Brian’s great creature effects are latter ditched in favor of unconvincing rear-projection work. There’s also an annoying kid that exist solely to be put in peril. (Luckily he gets out of the way for the finale.) I’d say “Black Scorpion” is a minor classic of the short-lived big bug fad. It has a enough unique elements to rise above the pack. (7/10)

Halloween 2011: October 13

2011-10-13T20:10:00.000-07:00

10 to Midnight (1983)
It didn’t take long for the conventions of the slasher movie to trickle down into other genres. Considering that gritty crime stories, action movies, and horror probably all share the same audience, it really shouldn’t be a surprise that movies like this or the similarly themed “Cobra” (which features an entire cult of brutal knife-nuts) cropped up pretty quickly. “10 to Midnight” is basically “Dirty Harry” multiplied by itself. The hero is even more uncompromisingly conservative. The villain is even more crazy and vicious. The movie is even sleazier.

Charles Bronson had kind of an odd career path. He was a work-a-day character actor for a long time, grabbing a couple of decent roles here and there, before “Death Wish” happened and completely solidified his career. From that point on, he played the exact same role in each movie, a stern-faced enforcer of old-fashion ethics who strikes back against an ineffective society by taking the law into his own hands, preferably by popping a punk or two. Bronson’s performance is actually a little more involved then usual. He’s playing the same character he always does, of course, but he actually seems to have an iota of emotional investment in the material, as opposed to his usual stone-faced determination.

Gene Davis gives a really bizarre performance as the killer. His dialogue is often spoken stiltedly. The guy acts like a whiny, petulant child half of the time. He puts on a fake Spanish accent, has a giant picture of himself in a karate gi on his wall, hits on women in the most uncomfortable way imaginable, and never gives Bronson or the audience doubts that he’s anything but a complete creep and a total psychopath. The movie is so blatant that his murderous rage stems from oppressed, twisted sexuality that Bronson even says as much almost immediately. (Most movies would be content with simply implying that the killer’s knife is his dick, instead of out-right saying as much.) This all leads to the movie’s main gimmick, which is that the villain does all his stalking and slashing completely in the buff. There is so much bare man-ass in this movie, and almost as much wobbling wang. His targets are exclusively young, female, busty, and usually naked. Fucking, showering, or undressing is often interrupted only by brutal stabbings. The movie’s tidal wave of misogyny peaks with the Richard Speck-inspired finale, where the killer massacres an apartment full of nurses.

Despite a decent Bronson performance, enough slashing to satisfy the gorehound, and an intense finale, “10 to Midnight” is just a bit too mean-spirited and ugly to be enjoyable. It’s free of eighties camp. (6/10)

To the Devil a Daughter (1976)
What an inauspicious way for Hammer Studios to go out. “To the Devil a Daughter” wound up being their final film production. The studio finally broke with its period settings to make a modern story of demonic influence, obviously an attempt to jump on the Devil stories trend that was popular in the mid-seventies. The results are unfortunately droll. The story essentially boils down to an occult writer (Richard Widmark) and a Satanist priest (Christopher Lee) battling for control of an innocent young girl (Nastassja Kinski), who is destined to be the Earthly avatar of the demon Astaroth. However, Widmark and Lee never even come face-to-face until the end of the movie. Lee spends the majority of the run time staring off-screen, while people in other rooms get murdered or burst into to flames or, in the film’s highest camp moment, a glowing image of Lee’s face appears above a window. Scratch that. The movie’s campiest moment is the Satanic ritual where the symbol of Astaroth, a golden statue doing a split on an inverted cross, is moved suggestively over Kinski’s prone body, while an orgy breaks out around her, including Christopher Lee’s naked ass. (Thanks for that one, movie.)

Widmark proves to be an overly literary, uninvolving protagonist. He spends large portions of the film talking on the phone or looking at a book. Lee actually does an okay job as another villain. It’s certainly a more involved performance then his last few go-arounds as Dracula, but his character doesn’t have much to do. Kinski would bloom into perhaps the most beautiful woman in the world in a few years (And does some gratuitous full frontal here. Not a complaint) but her performance is a bit on the sleepy side.

The film ends on an almost hilariously anti-climatic note. Lee has captured Kinski and is ready to transfer the demon’s spirit into her body, the altar surrounded by a magic circle of protective blood. Widmark walks up to him, the two argue over confusing mythology for a while, Widmark throws a small rock at Lee’s head, picks up the girl, and walks off. That’s it. And I thought Lee getting killed by a magic bush in “The Satanic Rites of Dracula” was an undignified death scene.

When “To the Devil a Daughter’ isn’t being boring, it’s being overly icky, like the extended sequence of the demonic baby (which looks like a bloody bear fetus) performing cunnilingus on an all too willing Kinski. The movie also wastes a great supporting cast, including Denholm Elliot and Honor Blackman. The movie is all the more disappointing since it wound up being the original Hammer Studio’s final offering. (4/10)

How to be a Serial Killer (2008)
Kind of like “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer,” if “Henry” was a comedy. It has a similar story, of a veteran serial killer taking on an apprentice and teaching him the modes of murders. The big difference is that Mike is an up-beat can-do kind of guy, who uses serial killing to make the world a better place, while his student Bart is willing but kind of reluctant.

One of the really interesting aspects of the film is there are “instructional,” inspirational speaker style interludes with Mike, done in the style of a late night infomercial, often commenting on or reinforcing the plot. Even odder insertions are documentary style interviews with many of the supporting characters. You’d think these out-of-stories moments would disrupt the story’s pace but, surprisingly, they don’t. Instead, they reinforce the wryly comical tone.

Midway through the film, a major supporting character is killed off, rather unexpectedly and off-screen. In a sequence somewhat reminiscent of “American Psycho,” Mike, in order to cover up one witness, ends up having to kill every single person in his apartment complex. After this sudden story move, the movie is never quite as amusing as it was before. Most of this is forgiven once the conclusion, which is blatantly sympathetic to our serial killer, comes around. I really didn’t have a lot of expectations for “How to be a Serial Killer” but it’s pretty clever. (7/10)

Scissors (1991)
After reading a review on Kindertrauma, I decided to give this film a look, one I probably wouldn’t have check out otherwise. “Scissors” is a mess, but it’s hysterical, high-camp tone makes it an entertaining mess. Sharon Stone plays a repressed, doll-collecting, emotionally disturbed 26-year old virgin. (Take a moment to stifle your laughter.) After being assaulted by a red-bearded man in an elevator, and fending him off with a pair of scissors, she takes comfort in the arms of her neighbor, a gentle, kind of nerdy soap actor played by Steven Railsback. Sadly, the neighbor has got a creepy, paraplegic twin brother, also played by Railsback. In the first few minutes of the film, Stone has her butt patted by an overly friendly shop owner and, from that point on, the movie goes to great lengths to point out Stone’s sexual repression. Her relationship with the good brother and her fear, paranoia, and antagonistic relationship with the creepy brother dominates the first 45 minutes of the film. Despite so much attention being paid to it, this subplot turns out to be nothing but a red harring, building up to nothing, and never quite gets resolved.

Almost half way over with does the movie actually get to its point, with Stone locked in a strange apartment, with a dead body, a talking raven, bolted down furniture, a miniature version of the city that has a pre-recorded message over it, and televisions that play back her memories. It doesn’t take long for her to go completely nuts. If you pay attention to which actors get billing, it won’t be hard to figure out who’s really behind all of this.

Stone’s performance is wide-eyed, shrill, and becomes increasingly hysterical as the movie goes on. Railsback hams it up as the creepy brother while Ronny Cox sleepwalks through a supporting role. The score is as bombastic as anything else in the movie, but its main theme is actually a bit on the creepy side. The film’s lurid set design is colorful and interesting. Though it seems to take a long time to get there, the ironic ending is pretty amusing. “Scissors” certainly isn’t a good film but I don’t regret watching it. It’s not quite like anything else you’ll see. (6/10)

Halloween 2011: October 12

2011-10-12T18:57:00.000-07:00

Nude for Satan (1974)
The movie doesn’t deliver on its title. Oh there’s plenty of nudity. But Satan is a no show. The story begins like so many horror stories do: A car crash, which occurs off-screen, forces a couple, in this case complete strangers, to seek lodging in a strange house, in this case a vaguely gothic castle. The dude with the crazy sideburns stumbles inside, while the lady remains comatose. A cryptic guy in a black cape appears and then disappears, there’s an old book, Astaroth gets name-checked, and then some random nudity.

The next morning, our female protagonist awakes, wanders the castle, and encounters some guy in evening wear. When he first sees her, he immediately gets a psychedelic shot of her in the buff. Side-burns dude soon runs into a version of the girl that dresses in antiquated fashion and is overly horny. After a random lesbian encounter in the shower, the chick runs into an equally horny old-timey version of the dude. Boning ensues. Meanwhile, the woman dreams of another unexplained lesbian encounter, we get a sequence of some unidentified woman being whipped and then sacrificed at some sort of ritual. Not long after, the lady (the car crash survivor) falls into a giant spider-web and is menaced by the fakest looking damn spider I have ever seen in a horror movie.

Yes, there are deviant doubles of both of our main characters running around the castle. But don’t ask why. Our couple (the non-lecherous versions) attempt to leave the castle, but evening-wear guy suddenly appears in a shattered mirror and tells them to stay. Honestly, that would probably make me want to leave more. There’s also a scene of Side-Burns running around the castle grounds for a long time that I’ll admit to not understanding at all.

We get a half-way explanation of just what the hell is going on and then, for the climax, the movie descends into totally incomprehensible sleazy Euro-art weirdness. Men in loincloths, half of their body painted red and the other half blue, appear out of nowhere and dance around, along with a pair of naked ladies in see-through gowns. I’d assume these ladies are spirits or demons or something, especially since the one girl’s rip cage sticks out disturbingly far. (That’s not a special effect.) But I don’t think spirits have tan-lines. And, yes, if it wasn’t blatantly obvious from the beginning, the movie ends with a stable time-loop… I think.

All of this is dubbed too, by the way, with the high standard audio work you generally associate with seventies euro-sleaze. To add to the incoherence, the DVD starts with a long company logo composed of a naked lady with breast implants getting bitten by a vampire(?) with fuzzy TV-static eyes. The only hint that this is a DVD logo and not the actual movie is that this footage was obviously shot on digital video. “Nude for Satan” is kind of boring truthfully, not quite the hilarious sleaze-fest the title implies, but it does have just enough what-the-fuckery to be worth seeing, preferably late at night while extremely drunk. (5/10)

Genesis (1998)
I saw Nacho Cerda’s “Aftermath” some time ago. That movie might have a reputation as a shock film (And is certainly only for the strong stomached.) but there was ultimately an artistry and a point behind the carnage on-screen. Though “Genesis” is definitely more polished, it lacks the visceral gut-punch reaction “Aftermath” had. Like that film, it’s dialogue-free. The set direction is effectively dank and gloomy. The story, of an artist and his sculpture slowly trading places, is rife with symbolism.

The film never out-right states but instead visually illustrates that this is a husband making a sculpture of his dead wife. His nightmares, showing a burnt-out car and shot in a jittery metal-video “Saw” style, nail that point home a little too hard. And, honestly, considering Cerda’s obvious visual strength, it’s disappointing that he’d rely on such a tired, obnoxious style for even a small portion of the film. Despite the lack of dialogue, the movie’s sound design is top notch, as is its melancholy score.

“Genesis” is less exciting then “Aftermath.” That film portrayed its message about death and the living’s relation to it in a naturalistic, if graphic, manner. In comparison, “Genesis” seems like more typical art-school (pun), foreign made short film abstractness. It’s still good but Cerda’s next film “The Abandoned”, his first and only feature, would fall into the same trap of relying more on surreal asides and tone then anything else. (7/10)

Blood and Roses (1960)
The first screen adaptation of “Carmilla,” the prototypal lesbian vampire novel, this is pretty soft on the lesbian content. For a fact, Carmilla seems more attracted to her best friend’s finance then the girl herself. The movie is character-based and focuses on Carmilla’s duel personality and loneliness, displayed through an inner monologue. The movie climaxes with a surreal dream sequence and there’s a framing device, discussing the nature of myths. The movie is pretty slow and I’ll admit to preferring Hammer’s later sex-and-violence laden adaptations of the same material, but the thick atmosphere and interesting execution makes this a recommendation. (7/10)

Halloween 2011: October 11

2011-10-11T17:19:00.000-07:00

The War Game (1965)
A different kind of horror movie. Though the threat of Cold War nuclear annihilation is a fear mostly belonging to the previous generation, growing up as a teenager in the post-9/11 world certainly created its own paranoia that my normal, simple life could be vastly disrupted and destroyed any minute now by international forces beyond my control. As a kid I was obsessed with the end of the world and nuclear war anyway, mostly because of my Dad showing me “The Day After” at far too young an age.

Anyway, “The War Game” did it first. (And better.) The story behind the film, how it was created for the BBC but ultimately banned from television and then went on to somehow win the Best Documentary Oscar that year, despite being a film composed entirely of dramatic reenactments of hypothetical scenarios (In other words, completely fictional), is well-known.

Though the movie threatens to go over into camp in a few scenes, such as the flaming living room sequence, the sterile, withdrawn documentary style and impassionate narration keeps the film grounded. What’s really interesting here is once the film moves on from the initial bomb strike to the aftermath. The majority of films about this subject seem to focus on small groups surviving in the desolation, or society immediately breaking down into tribes of crazed cannibals. Here the break-down of society works much slower. The government and police force continue to exist, even in the face of the dead, the severely burnt, the insane, and eventual food riots. The sights of whole crowds of people burnt char black or cops terminating the suffering and dragging the dead to piles, are quite harrowing. The movie is disquieting, especially since it doesn’t even pretend to suggest that any sort of happy ending is possible. (I wonder if this film influenced the nihilistic sci-fi of the seventies.) While I usually don’t believe in altering films after the fact, a newly added postscript briefly discussing how there’s even more nuclear weapons in the world now and how, even though nobody talks about it much, a disaster as displayed in this film is still very much possible, would be an appropriate addition. This is the first Peter Watkins film I’ve seen. He seems to be a pretty interesting filmmaker. “Punishment Park” is now on my list of stuff to see. (8/10)

The Monster That Challenged the World (1957)
Many classic horror fans love the sci-fi/horror creature feature/giant bug movies from the 1950s. (Probably due to nostalgia, since these types of movies use to be the bread and butter of Friday night monster shows. You know, back when those existed.) While I certainly don’t dislike the subgenre (And I love a few of the individual films), it’s never resonated with me as strongly. The heroes of these films are often military men or scientists (unless it’s one of the movies were the scientist are tampering in God’s domain.) or other similar voices of authority. Compared to the monsters, victims, and mad scientists of the 1930/40s Golden Age, I can’t really relate as much. That’s my main problem with “The Monster That Challenged the World.” Not only are its heroes all stationed on a military base, its main character is a boring hard-ass middle age guy.

The most interesting characters in the film are the least featured: The mother who has to deal with her rebellious daughter and then the death of said daughter, the highly eccentric bookkeeper, or the morgue attendant who keeps sandwiches in the cold lockers. The title monsters are also giant killer sea mollusks. While the creature effects are honestly quite good, it’s hard to get over the fact that we’re essentially fighting slugs here. The monster(s) don’t exactly challenge the world either, though I suppose “The Monsters That Challenged the Salton Sea and its General Surrounding Areas” isn’t as catchy a title.

An egg containing one of the monsters is captured early on and kept in the laboratory, waiting for the last act when it can be revived and menace an isolated woman. This is forgivable, the kind of genre conventions one comes to accept. However, one of the characters being directly responsible for releasing the monster (In this case, a little girl wanting to warm up some bunny rabbits) is less forgivable. The movie is pretty fast-paced and never drags, even if the monsters aren’t actually on-screen much. But I don’t think I’ll be revisiting this one. (5/10)

Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988)
Fate was clearly conspiring to get me to watch this movie. Two separate people mentioned Cassandra Peterson’s trademark character to me within 24 hours of each other and, look at that, the movie’s right there on Netflix Instant. To tell you the truth, the peak of Elvira’s popularity was a bit before my time and we never got her show down in my part of the country. But, as a fan of both horror movies and cleavage, her act is tailor-made for me.

The movie is a pretty entertaining little piece of goof-ball comedy. The story, of a wacky outsider coming into a strait-lace town of squares and shaking things up is pretty standard eighties screwball comedy. (Even older then that, honestly.) The movie does shake things up with a witchcraft subplot, a snake hand puppet in a casserole pot, and bits taken straight from Elvira’s show. (And some “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” too.) Though her gimmick might seem pretty simple, Peterson really does have a way with a one-liner and sharp comedic timing. It’s sort of a shame that a character as arguably one-note as Elvira has dominated her career. Born thirty years earlier, she could have been a vaudeville superstar.

As for the film itself, “Elvira: Mistress of the Dark” knows who its central audience is. Aside from all the blatant fanservice and lecherous lingering shots of Peterson’s body, the movie is a breezy little slapstick comedy full of plenty of quick gags, including everything from punk-rock poodles to random Rambo references. As the movie’s supernatural plot comes to a resolution at the end, the movie looses some steam, but it makes up for a lot with the closing Vegas show tune. The movie’s certainly not very smart, it’s fair to say it’s pretty dumb, but it’s a ready made guilty pleasure if I’ve ever seen one. (7/10)

Deranged (1974)
Though he’s inspired many films, books, and rock albums, very few productions actually set out to accurately adapted the life, times, and deaths of Ed Gein. Though “Deranged” certainly takes its fair share of liberties, it sticks to the facts far more then similar takes on the story do. Written and co-directed by Alan Oamsley of “Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things” fame, the film has an odd framing device. A reporter pops into the film at pivotal moments, explaining certain details. While he never interacts with the action, he does stand in the shot, as if he was there.

Considering the nasty details of the real life case, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the film. The opening scene has Ezra Cobb, our Gein surrogate, forcing his dying mother to eat spoonfuls of pea soup, that are soon filled with blood. The somewhat disturbing opening jives with the rest of the film, which is practically a full-fledged comedy. Most of the humor derives from Robert Blossoms’ lead performance. Best known as the creepy old man next door in the original “Home Alone,” and who just passed away recently, Blossoms is likablely kooky. His eyes stare ahead unfocused while he mutters, stutters, and generally wanders around, acting as if he’s in another universe. Blossoms seems legitimately disturbed. There are other blatantly comical elements, like an old fat woman prone to séances or the way his friends laugh off Ezra’s insanity, completely unaware of the lunatic in their midst.

Despite the countless grindhouses and drive-ins it undoubtedly played in, “Deranged” actually shies away from Gein’s oddest tendencies. While there’s plenty of grave robbing, Cobb never actually wears a skin-suit stitched together from dead flesh and Gein’s necrophilic-transvestitism is hardly touched on. The first murder doesn’t occur until after the one hour point. These aren’t negatives. The film takes its time and seems more interested in exploring Gein’s odd world then indulging in his depravity. I much prefer it over the later, ostensibly more accurate “In the Light of the Moon,” if for no other reason then this movie doesn’t feature the spectre of Gein’s dead mother commanding him to kill. “Deranged” is odd enough, sick enough, and well made enough to be actually earn the title of cult classic. (7/10)

Halloween 2011: October 10

2011-10-10T18:14:00.000-07:00

Madhouse (1974)
I went in expecting a typical Vincent Price AIP film but then I saw in the opening credits the words, “An American International Pictures / Amicus Co-Production” and I got excited. While I’ve never liked them as much as Hammer, I am a fan of the better Amicus anthologies and even their weaker films have a unique flavor all their own. They have the foggy British atmosphere of Hammer but the typically modern settings and often ironic endings (to the point of formula) put an individual spin on things.

And “Madhouse” indeed feels more like an Amicus production then one from AIP. Aside from the presence of Price and Robert Querry, the murder-mystery story, which essentially boils down to someone trying to gaslight an old horror movie actor, has the modern setting and serious mind-trick tone of classic Amicus. Price’s performance here is more understated. Since he is playing an over-the-hill horror actor, you can’t help but wonder what personal insight he brought to the role. At the same time, this was also his last horror movie for AIP. He might just be tired. It isn’t particularly hard to figure out who the real killer is, considering which actors get which billing, but the story keeps you involved, if not guessing. Each victim is introduced not long, sometimes just minutes, before being offed and almost each murder is triggered by the showing of one of Price’s character’s old films. (The movies-within-the-movie footage is compiled of Price’s AIP library, a cost-saving measure Arkoff/Nicholson must have loved.)

There are some fun elements thrown in to shake things up, like a spider-obsessed burn victim girl living in the basement, or Price really beginning to loose his marbles during the fiery fake-climax. Vincent Price and Peter Cushing also sword fight at one point, which is almost worth seeing the whole film for. And the Dr. Death make-up is indeed a classic. (Rob Zombie agrees.) “Madhouse” doesn’t shake up the formula or anything but, as far as late night horror entertainment goes, it excels. The performances and the atmosphere make it an easy recommendation. (7/10)

Tales of Terror (1962)
This collection of short stories seems to get overlooked among the other AIP Poe adaptations. Of the ones featuring Vincent Price, it’s probably my least favorite. (Though I’m not remembering very much about “Liegia” right now.) Which isn’t to say it’s not good, because it’s pretty solid. The atmospheric framing device of the film features close-ups on a beating heart and dripping blood (which seems to be a set-up for an adaptation of “The Tell-Tale Heart” that never comes.) and ominous narration from Price. The first story “Morella,” is easily the weakest, featuring not very likable characters and not much going on. However, the scene of Morella emerging from her death bed and her shadowy figure crossing the room to her daughter’s body is fantastically creepy.

The second story, an adaptation of “The Black Cat,” stars a perfectly cast Peter Lorre. I would’ve loved to have seen a straight adaptation of the story with Lorre in the lead but, alas, this instead deviates wildly from the source material and is mostly a farce. (It’s would still be the most faithful adaptation for a long time, until the “Masters of Horror” episode came along.) Lorre is great though as the embittered alcoholic. Price has a great deal of fun as the foppish wine critic. The story also mixes in the most famous elements of the often referenced and quoted but rarely adapted “The Cask of Amontillado.” Lorre’s post-intoxication state includes vivid hallucinations of snakes, spiders, his victims breaking out of the entombed wall, lobsters, and an iguana. (An influence on Werner Herzog, perhaps?) Despite being the title character, the black cat doesn’t do much in this story, aside from the ending, obviously, which is quite good. This take on “The Black Cat” is funny and has a great cast but, as I said, I can’t help but think of the missed opportunity here.

The final tale, “The Case of Mr. Valdemir” is easily the darkest of the three. Basil Rothbone plays the villain of the piece and is fantastically nasty. This last segment gets off to a slow start but builds to a great ending, that even features Price in some monster make-up. “Tales of Terror” isn’t as colorful, intense, or wide in scope as the other Cormon-directed films from this cycle, but it’s still worth seeing for its stellar elements, a fantastic Les Baxter score, and its great cast. (7/10)

The Comedy of Terrors (1964)
I was worried, since the opening features sped-up comedy, something I usually don’t find amusing. But no worries. This is a jolly pitch black dark comedy. Vincent Price plays a completely unforgivable asshole. He’s abusive to his wife, a drunkard, greedy, and completely rude to everyone in his life. But, it’s still Vincent Price, and he’s having a ball with the opportunity to play such a total jerk. His darkly comical lines are delivered perfectly. Peter Lorre plays the sad-sack, often abused sidekick and it fits the actor pretty perfectly. Price and Lorre have a nice back-and-forth. Boris Karloff shows up too as the half-dead father-in-law. (Karloff looks half-dead too.) The premise of morticians killing people to drum up business isn’t exactly fresh or clever, but the movie still manages to be highly amusing.

The gags are often broad, such as the attempts to bury a most-definitely-not-dead old man, the stealthy break-in into a house that proves anything but, or the climatic sword duel. I don’t know how memorable it’ll end up being but “The Comedy of Terrors” is pretty funny and a nice counterpoint to the Edgar Allen Poe films Price was doing at the same time. It's maybe better written then the similar “The Raven,” even if I think I like that film a little more. (7/10)

Halloween 2011: October 9

2011-10-09T20:37:00.000-07:00

Once again, ever present movie-watching pal JD joined me for another evening of horror mayhem. After grabbing decorations and candy from our local "Party City," we settles in for a day full of horror parodies, which was chosen as the theme seemingly at random.

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! (1978)
This one is honestly pretty rough to get through. Talk about extending a one-note joke to feature length. Which isn’t to say that “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” isn’t funny. Initially, the weird grumbling noise the tomatoes makes it pretty funny. There’s a number of amusing one-liners, the bit about submarines probably being my favorite. There’s a smattering of absurdest gags sprinkle throughout, such as someone warning a dead body of approaching danger or the complete non-explanation we get for the killer tomatoes. However, the movie is completely without focus. Is it a parody of fifties creature features? You’d think that but, beyond the premise, the film doesn’t really take much else from those films. The movie tries to split time between each member of its crack team of specialist, preventing any of them from being properly developed. More over, the hysterical, over-the-top tone wears itself out very quickly. This would have been a hilarious twenty minute short. Even at a brief eighty-five minutes, it bottoms out long before it’s over. The movie reaches its nadir around the time of the “Tomato Stomp” musical number. (Oh, yeah, it’s a musical too, did I mention that?)

There’s also some intensely un-PC humor there, such as some blatant Japanese epitaphs tossed around for little or no reason or a character randomly dressing as Hitler for no reason. Despite all of these problems, the movie has developed a cult following. It strongly resembles “Airplane!” and the other Zucker Brothers parody films, but actually predates them. Even though it’s not a very good movie and I only liked about half of it, you really can’t beat owning this one and being able to pull “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!” off of your shelf when ever you want. Supposedly the sequels are much smoother. (5/10)

Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)
Now here’s how you do a genre parody. If it wasn’t for the fact that the film’s menace are killer klowns (from outer space), this would play like a straight-up fifties alien invasion movie. (Right down to the obnoxious comic relief.) You’ve got a young heroic couple right out of “The Blob,” you’ve got the hard-nose authority figure who is clueless and disbelieving, and you’ve even got a group of bikers who think it’s a good idea to try and tough up the monsters. Similar to “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes,” this is technically a one-joke movie. Unlike that film though, this one doesn’t leave the one joke as is and then adds a bunch of peripheral goofiness to make up. Instead, it mines that one joke for all it’s worth, producing a wide array of visual sight gags. Of course killer klowns have acidic cream pies, heat-seeking popcorn guns, murderous shadow puppets, and a big top shaped UFO. Of course they turn people into cotton candy before eating them or have to be shot in their big red noses to be killed. Going by this logic, even the Klownzilla final boss makes sense.

I don’t know if the actors in this movie where just told they where in a serious film or if they’re just that much in-tuned with the material, but they all strike the perfect tone. (Only John Vernon seems aware that he’s in a comedy, but his hamming is perfect for the role of the hard-ass sheriff.) The special effects are nicely cartoony and the inside of the circus tent ship has some fantastic set designs. Also, the Dickies theme song is a total favorite of mine. “Killer Klowns” is pretty much a B-movie delight from start to finish. Is the sequel ever getting made? (7/10)

Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV (2000)
The Dadaist would have loved Troma, a studio all about celebrating independence, vulgarity, throw-it-in creativity, broad social satire, and general mayhem. “Citizen Toxie” represents maybe the penicle of the studio. It’s certainly funnier then just about anything else they’ve ever released and that humor makes up for a lot of the roughness, crudeness, and nastiness that permeates this film, as in all other Lloyd Kaufman joints. The movie has maybe the funniest “Citizen Cane” reference ever, (“Nose blood!”) a joke that had me laughing for literally three minute. There’s a lot more word-play here then in previous installments, and I love the way Toxie is basically transformed into the straight man, reacting to all the insanity around him. (When he isn’t tearing people apart anyway.) The concept of good and evil fetuses battling it all in the womb also strikes me as oddly hilarious. And, once again, great use is made of the musical montage and stock footage. (The infamous car flip footage is nicely lampshaded.)

The movie also does a lot to expand the Troma-verse. There are some great supporting characters. Though Tito and Sweetie-Honey might come off as one-note jokes, seeing as how they’re very broad stereotypes of the mentally handicapped, the characters are actually pretty well developed, if for no other reason then their actors just go for broke. Tito the Retarded Rebel even has an honest to God character arc. Pompey is a bizarre, hilarious character thrown in for the hell of it. Of course, Joe Fleishaker (who is not actually Micahel Herz, I just discovered. Thanks Wikipedia!) was born to play the legendary role of Lardass. But my favorite new character isn’t actually a new character at all. Sgt. Kabukiman (N.Y.P.D!) is almost unrecognizable from his feature debut. I might not have a more favorite trope then the failed superhero and drunken, depressed, useless, amoral Kabukiman certainly fits the bill. (Dolphin Man too, may he rest in peace.) Noxie and all the other evil universe variations are also the first time the Toxic Avenger has ever had a worthy adversary. Usually he just tears his enemies apart in seconds, so it’s nice to see him go up against someone who actually poses a threat.

Of course, the movie is still full of casual misogyny, homophobia, fat jokes, and general misanthropy. It’s a near endless buffet of the crude, disgusting, and shameless, making parts of it a pretty ugly viewing experience. Though, if you’ve ever seen a Troma movie before, you should know that all ready. Since the opening manages to make fun of the mentally afflicted, Mexicans, school shootings, police corruption, media scapegoating, pregnant teachers, and diaper fetishists within minutes it should be easy to figure out wither or not this is your style. For those that do dig it, it’s a hilarious pus, blood, vomit, and shit filled Christmas present. I mean that as a compliment. (8/10)

Shaun of the Dead (2004)
This is a great movie and I adore it. However, it’s not the best choice for the tail-end of a night of horror parodies. Because “Shaun of the Dead” really isn’t a parody. It’s an extremely character driven comedy that just happens to revolve around people stuck in a zombie apocalypse. It’s honestly a bit like the cast of a Kevin Smith movie getting dropped down in the middle of “Dawn of the Dead.” (Only, you know, good. I’ll be burning Kevin Smith all fall. Cause that’s how long it’ll take him to burn up! Oooooooh!)

Honestly, this has to have one of the best structured screenplays I’ve ever seen. There are so many elements introduced in the first act that are perfectly played up on in the last. This is an example of a film catching every ball it throws up in the air. Even better, you never actually notice because you’re so perfectly adsorbed into the film’s fully realized universe. Thanks to Judd Apatow, the market has become flooded with “Man-child grows up” movies, but few actually take the time to develop all of its characters into fully formed human beings. (If I never see the “shrewish nagging girlfriend/wife” cliché again, I can die a happy man.) Liz wants Shaun to grow up, but because she actually loves him, not because she’s a one-dimensional bitch determined to ruin his bro-down. Further more, the movie is all too willing to acknowledge the homoerotic undertones of Shaun and Ed’s relationship. (And the Pegg/Frost/Wright team would take it even further in “Hot Fuzz.”) But the movie shows Shaun becoming agitated with his emotionally arrested best friend. Nobody can be as close as those two and not have some issues between them.

Some people have complained about the tonal shifts in the film. However, I consider them natural evolutions of the movie. Because the characters are so strong, it only makes sense that they would react to these events, not as buffoons in a movie predesignated as a comedy, but because they’re human beings. Maybe I’m giving these guys too much credit, but “Shaun of the Dead” is really just that well-made in my eyes. Even if it isn’t the perfect end-note for a night of horror-parodies. (9/10)

Halloween 2011: October 8

2011-10-08T18:09:00.000-07:00

Invasion of the Bee Girls (1973)
Now here’s some good ol’ fashion American exploitation. They don’t make sleaze like this anymore. The premise of the movie is that queen bee babes, created through the magic powers of radiation, are going around screwing men to death for reasons that aren’t really important. This concept allows for copious amounts of female nudity, which the movie indulges it at every opportunity. When the bee girls aren’t stripping naked and offing/boinking some random old guy, they’re parading around in their secret laboratory, covering new recruits (who are naked, naturally) in a white goop, pushing them into a room full of bees, and there’s also a jungle gym and a disco ball involved. Did I mention the scientists are wearing short lab coats and nothing else? Or that they get their casual lesbian on while they watch?

William Smith, mainstay of the ‘70s drive-in circuit, plays the hardboiled hero, who shoots, fights, drinks, and is just generally a swaggering all-American ‘70s badass. The only reason he isn’t banging every one of the girls that come his way is because that would have killed him. (And also would have turned the movie into a porno.) Victoria Vetri plays the scientist co-star. Ms. Vetri, especially her fur-bikini-clad turn in “When Dinosaurs Roamed the Earth,” had a, ahem, profound effect on me during my early teen days. She’s rather delightful here, managing to be quite cute when she isn’t smoking hot.

Beyond the general premise of ladies fucking guys to death, the movie piles on the casual misogyny, what with the attempted rape scene, the finale where our hero kills a bunch of half-naked women (With a gun for extra Freudian points), or the epilogue where he does everything but directly stick his dick in her mouth to get a woman to shut up. Did I mention that not a single actress in this movie has anything smaller then a C-cup? (Thanks IMDb!) Or that there’s a scene of a naked lady riding a motorcycle for no particular reason? Or the wacky main musical theme featuring a la-la-la-ing chorus? Or that this was Nicholas Meyer’s, the guy who made two of the best “Star Trek” movies ever, first writing credit? Or how about the end titles running over footage of bees while “Also Sprach Zarathus” plays, because why the hell not? This review probably made me sound like a total pervert but, it’s the movie, I swear. Unapologetic sleaze like this has adverse effects on my brain. (7/10)

Lisa (1989)
Gary Sherman is an underrated horror auteur, the guy behind cult fave “Death Line” and the excellent unconventional zombie picture “Dead and Buried.” Much like “Robocop 3” ended Fred Dekker’s promising career prematurely, “Poltergeist III” seems to have offed Sherman before he had a chance to build a real reputation among fans. However, before the aftermath of that film hit hard, he managed to get this little movie out.

“Lisa” is more of a thriller or even a character study, before going much darker in its last act. Lisa is fourteen, has a really close relationship with her single mom, and is eager to start dating. Mom has put the kebash on that until Lisa’s sixteen. But the girl and her best friend still like to play a game were they get a random cute guy’s license plate number, finagle his phone number and information out of the local police, and call him up, talking cute with him. There’s also a serial killer around town, a guy who follows single women back to their apartment, leaves threatening messages on their tape-deck answering machine (That dates the movie pretty effectively to the late eighties.), before strangling them to death. Naturally little Lisa and strangling Rick bump into each other and begin a phone courtship, both unaware of who they really are. Shit gets real before the movie’s over. Lisa and her mom have a realistic relationship. She's pushing against the rules, like any teenager would, and her young mom is uncertain and nervous about romance herself. The movie ends up being about a teenage girl playing pretend in the grown-up world, but unprepared for the nasty circumstances. (I guess that makes the movie a metaphor for teen pregnancy, maybe?) Stacy Kenan (otherwise known as the daughter from “My Two Dads”) is really quite good while her mom, played by Cheryl Ladd, has an equally strong screen presence.

The movie’s horror roots really begin to show at the end, where the situation builds to an intense, bloody finale. I’m not real crazy about the guitar screeching score, even if it does lead to an excellent jump-scare. I’ll fully admit that “Lisa’ sucked me in totally. It’s a strong character-oriented thriller. I’m seriously considering adding Sherman to my Director’s Report Card project now. (8/10)

Borderland (2007)
Gory, greasy, and unpleasant. However, the movie has moments of sporadic intensity. Sean Astin plays nicely against type as the main villain of the piece. He hams it up to sleazy highs. Unlike “Hostel,” a movie it superficially resembles, the characters are actually likable and are developed beyond their desire to bone and get high. (Though there’s still some of that.) Unlike most DTV torture horror films, there does seem to be some reason behind the mayhem and nastiness. Considering the low expectations I have going into anything from “AfterDark Films,” all of this is actual something resembling praise. (6/10)

Halloween 2011: October 7

2011-10-07T19:14:00.000-07:00

The Last Horror Film (1982)
A spiritual sequel to “Maniac,” “The Last Horror Film” brings all the grease, sleaze, insanity, and eighties-ness fans of that film will expect. It’s not as good but it’s a bit weirder, shakier, and over all more Bleeding Skull. Joe Spinell is still pathetic, unhinged, and obsessed with Caroline Munro, but the difference this time is that he’s would-be filmmaker and horror fan. He pursues Munro to the Cannes Film Festival where he plans to make her the star of his first movie, wither she likes it or not. (The movie was shot guerrilla style on location during the actual festival.) Naturally, the people around her begin dying.

Joe’s character is prone to self-critical fantasies where he, as a famous director, berates himself for being such a loser. There’s a cowboy who wanders on-screen to deliver a few lame jokes for little to no reason. All of the movies-within-the-movie seem to revolve solely around a young woman being brutally murdered and that’s it. A person panicking in the streets is dismissed as a publicity stunt by everyone. A horror film gets serious critical consideration at the Cannes Film Festival. Clearly this movie exists in its own weird little universe.

Despite his greasy weirdness, you do sympathize with Joe and his performance is oddly captivating. Caroline Munro is an actress I really want to like, even if the acting chops aren’t quite there. The movie’s synth-pop score is surprisingly good and the songs successfully elevate the mood. The story has a twist ending, in which our seemingly psychotic protagonist winds up becoming the hero… Maybe. And then in the surreal, sarcastic epilogue, things get meta and an old lady lights a joint. “The Last Horror Film” probably won’t appeal to most people but it clearly knows its demographic. (7/10)

Night of the Scarecrow (1995)
Considering the time period (mid-nineties) and the subject matter (scarecrows are a favorite of crappy horror movies), I was really expecting this to be a bottom-of-the-barrel slasher flick. What I got instead was something far more ambitious. The film’s antagonist is supernatural in nature, and not just because he comes back from the dead. The scarecrow doesn’t just go around hacking up teenagers with farm implements. (Though there is some of that too.) Instead, his victims (most of which are older adults) are offed in bizarre body-horror-style transformations. The killer doesn’t crack any shitty one-liners either, further cementing the movie’s corn-fed-“Hellraiser” tone. And like a Southern-fried Clive Barker, the movie does share an interest in corrupt religion and kinky sexuality.

The special effects are actually quite good, surprisingly sophisticated for the budget. Also surprising is how the supporting cast is peppered with recognizable character actors, like Stephen Root and Bryan “Crispin’s Dad” Glover. The movie’s even got a believable female lead, decent romantic chemistry, and a subtle sequel hook. I’m officially calling “Night of the Scarecrow” an overlooked gem, at least for horror fans with low expectations. That means there are now at least three good scarecrow movies. (The other two are “Dark Night of the Scarecrow” and “Scarecrows,” by the way.) (7/10)

Crawlspace (1986)
A really off-beat, surprising little horror picture. Christopher Walken wishes he could be as creepy as Klaus Kinski. (Of course, it helps that Kinski was actually insane. Walken’s just pretending.) He’s really the protagonist of the story and the movie is all about taking you inside his bizarre little world. He’s the landlord of an apartment complex. He spies on all of his tenants (All of which are attractive young women) through the overly spacious ventilation ducts. He’s the son of a Nazi and, after euthanizing patients as a doctor, has decided to take up murder as a hobby. He doesn’t just go out and stab people, aw no, that’s for amateur. Instead, Kinski invents these bizarre death traps, mostly comprised of stabbing things popping out in unexpected places. He has a tongueless women locked in a cage in his crawlspace, as well as the spare parts he collects from his victims. After every murder, he plays a game of Russian roulette with himself. The movie’s weirdness level crescendos with the scene of Kinski, his face smeared in eye-liner and lipstick for reasons never explained, goosestepping to footage of Hitler.

Naturally, he’s obsessed with the slightly bookish girl who rents one of his room and the brother of one of his previous victims is after him. You’d expect both of these things to form the backbone of the film’s story. However, the movie dispenses with all extraneous plot lines well before the last act, something that’s either very daring or bad writing. After it’s just down to our final girl, Kinski, and a building full of death traps, the movie’s intensity level really ramps up. And there’s still a surprise or two in there as well.

I’m a big fan of David Schmoeller’s “Tourist Trap” and I like “Puppet Master,” but his direction here is really something else. The opening credits play as the camera roams the previously mention vents. Kinski’s Russian roulette games are played in his kitchen with heavily contrasted checker floors, which are shot in a stylish way, making the room look like something out of “Suspiria.” We get two cool variations on the “Vertigo” shot too. When he’s solely associated with schlock these days, it’s hard to believe that a Charles Band production could once attract talent like Kinski or composer Pino Dinaggio, but “Crawlspace” proves to be well above par, a weird horror/thriller that subverts the rules and plays with expectations. (8/10)

(These movies each have pretty awesome poster art, I think.)

Halloween 2011: October 6

2011-10-06T17:25:00.000-07:00

Aberration (1997)
This movie really goes to lengths to justify its premise: Giant killer geckoes (Yes, geckoes.) that adapt to wounds and weaknesses faster then the Borg. This is a pretty goofy place to start. But then the movie is set in the isolated mountainous countryside during the middle of a blizzard, habitat and weather geckoes usually don’t inhabit. And then the Russian mafia gets involved…

The lizards are played, most of the time, by half-way convincing puppets, but a few times the movie substitutes them with really awful early CGI or cheesy hand-puppets. The lizards reproduce like crazy and lots of them get squished, accompanied by the cheesiest stock “squish” sound-effect you can imagine.

The movie has some occasional moments of self-aware humor. The hero of the piece is a limp-wristed science nerd who gets blinded (the geckoes spray venom too, by the way), can’t shoot for shit, and sets himself on fire throughout the course of the film before suddenly transforming into an uber-confident one-line slinging badass at the end. The movie might have been going for an Ash style transition, but this guy sure ain’t Bruce Campbell. There’s a couple other absurd one-liners thrown in and the Russian mobster blowing away dozens of mutant geckoes in seconds, spraying the room with lots of fake blood, is so absurd that it had to be intentional. The movie isn’t very good but I do have to admire its old-fashion schlocky style. The performances are kind of amiable and the movie gets some okay mileage out of its New Zealand setting. It doesn’t have much charm but MST3k-ready creature features are few and far between these days. (5/10)

Watchers (1988)
I think the “Watchers” franchise is probably the last major eighties horror franchise (if you could call it major), that I haven’t gotten to yet. Though a cult classic, the series has never exactly garnered a lot of critical favor. (And Dean Koontz fans seem to hate it. But, being Dean Koontz fans, I don’t value their opinions very highly.) This first one is a pretty fun little slice of eighties camp. Corey Haim isn’t very convincing as the young male lead, but Michael Ironside is pretty awesome as the ruthless government agent. Most of the film’s charm comes not from the horror element so much as the appeal of having a super smart dog that can play Scrabble with you. People getting torn apart by a guy in a not-totally-convincing orangutan suit has its own entertainment value, of course. And, admittedly, the movie does a fairly decent job of disguising the shoddy suit, at least until the end.

The climax of the movie, where Corey goes commando on the monsters, is well-known among schlock fans. It’s not as hilarious as I heard. And, slight spoiler alert here, but you wouldn’t think the “Ultimate Killing Machine,” that the government invested so much money in, could be taken down by a faceful of buckshot. “Watchers” is dumb fun. I bet it makes great stumble-upon late night cable viewing. (7/10)

The Guardian (1990)
Despite directing one of the greatest horror films of all time, William Friedkin really isn’t a horror filmmaker. “Cruising” kind of counts (I certainly think it does), but this is his sole other foray into the genre, and not a particularly well-regarded one either. It’s strange, off-center film.

Nonthreatening horror threats seem to be an unintentional theme tonight. While a killer tree might sound campy on paper, the movie handles it with complete seriousness. The scene of an animated tree tearing a trio of punks apart is both absurd and somehow unnerving. There are a couple of moments like that in the movie. An early nightmare sequence is pretty creepy. The sequence with the wolves does a good job of building intensity, but undermines it when one of the wolves pulls a Nicholson-in-The-Shining, sans “Here’s Johnny!” of course. (Though that would have been kind of awesome.) The endangerment of an infant provides the film with an unseemly, jittery nervous quality. Seeing as how the movie totally goes there in its opening minutes, you know literally anybody can go, creating a grim atmosphere. The exact nature of the evil babysitter/Druid/tree lady is handled in a surreal, sometimes effective way. The movie is pretty gory in spots, especially the finale. Gore is obviously used here not to titillate but in an attempt to unnerve.

But, still… Killer tree. It’s hard to escape the absurdity of that. “The Guardian” left me feeling, not so much disturbed, as slightly disquieted. And not by its content but by its odd pacing, presentation, and tone. I’m not really sure what Friedkin’s interest in the odd-ball material was and he isn’t trying to make another “Exorcist” here, except when he is. This is just a weird, uneven film. (5/10)

Demons of the Mind (1972)
A deeply psychological film about insanity, incest, and murder among an isolated aristocratic family. This certainly isn’t your typical Hammer film. Indeed, the lack of any supernatural elements or exploitation that you normally associate with the company makes this something of a slow burn. The movie builds and builds as a quack hypnotist tries to help the patriarch of the family prevent his self-fulfilling prophecy of insanity. (That this insanity is based on a failed performance on his wedding night adds extra Freudian flavor to the story.)

The movie is intensely acted and directed but it really didn’t have me sold until the very end, when things finally go off the rails into carnage. “Demons of the Mind” is ambitious and worth seeing, but it’s not exactly the light horror viewing you’ve come to expect of Hammer. (7/10)

Halloween 2011: October 5

2011-10-05T19:21:00.000-07:00

The Prey (1984)
Dare I say, this movie seems more competent every time I see it. I was recently discussing on The Bodycount Continues message board how it’s a thin line between low-budget horror being incompetent, boring, unwatchable junk and accidentally becoming outsider art. Thanks to the randomly inserted animal footage (Apparently giant centipedes are native to the California forest) and Ranger Mark O’Brien’s impromptu hardcore banjo solo, what would have otherwise been a routine “Teens go camping, get killed” flick becomes a bizarre, dream-like trip through free-association zero-budget grime-bucket cinema.

Of course, I’ve seen the original cut of “The Prey.” I know the unusual path it followed to come into existence. In the seventies, director Edwin Brown shot a softcore porno about gypsies coming into town and seducing all da’ white women. For whatever reason, that film wasn’t completed. For whatever other reasons, the director dug up the footage in the late seventies/early eighties (Accounts of when the film was shot vary.) and decided to build a spam-in-a-van slasher around it. (The original footage was told as the campfire story in the film and provides the killer’s origin.) But then, presumably in order to make the film more marketable, all of the porn footage, that was the film’s whole point for existing in the first place, was cut out, leaving the movie too short. Thus, gratuitous nature footage and gratuitous Mark O’Brien stood in for gratuitous humping, padding the film out to feature length.

Without even knowing this, it would be obvious the movie was directed by a pornographer. All the characters seem preoccupied with getting laid, even more so then is typical for teens in a slasher movie. A good ten minutes in the middle are devoted to necking and non-graphic groping. Of course, in the end we find out that the so-called monster (Who is really just a horribly burnt seven-foot tall gypsy. Played by Lurch! And the “Twin Peaks” Giant!) is killing not to protect his home from interloping teens, but because he’s horny. It was something of a relief, when I finally saw the long-rumored porno scenes last year, to see that they were completely unrelated to the distinctly rape-y ending.

But, back to my original point. If you can make it through the unrelated dream-logic of the film’s first hour, you get rewarded with Jackie Coogan (the second “Addams Family”-related cast member in the film. What are the odds?) eating a cucumber sandwich and Captain Marvel freaking out over some vultures. If you make it through that, you get a stark, dread-filled slasher in which a young girl’s friends are ruthlessly, brutally murdered. Even her would-be rescuer is struck down. In the end, she’s confined to a fate worse then death: Being the unwilling breeding partner of a horrible beast, pumping out presumably similarly deformed and psychotic off-springs for all eternity. It’s almost Laymon-esque in its nastiness. All of this adds up to make “The Prey” a distinctly bizarre, utterly unique film-watching experience. See it late at night, with a bunch of drunk friends and a bowl of sugary snacks near-by to keep you awake during the boring parts. (The bootleg copy I bought in Baltimore even ends with a trailer reel of completely unrelated titles also available from Thorn EMI Home Video. Glorious.) (8/10)

Hands of the Ripper (1971)
A really strong late Hammer production. The gritty production values and themes of psychology versus magic gives this more depth then you’d expect. Eric Porter gives an excellent performance, determined to save an orphan girl, which turns out to be the daughter of Jack the Ripper and shares his homicidal tendencies. Despite the heady themes at play here, the movie still ladles on some pretty intense gore. Creative use of a looking glass and an improvised de-swording provide the high-lights in that department. The movie has a sad, nihilistic tone, and despite Angharad Rees giving a mostly catatonic performance as the girl, her arc proves appropriately tragic. (8/10)

Surf Nazis Must Die (1987)
You really can’t undersell the power of a good title. If it was just called, say, “Beach Wars,” “Surf Nazis Must Die” would be completely forgotten. But that great title has gained it a lot of notoriety, causing it to often be placed, incorrectly, among other Troma classics. That label implies campy sleaze but “Surf Nazis Must Die” is completely serious and short on cheap thrills. The movie is slow, features far too many scenes of people surfing in slow-motion, and a turgid electronic score. The titular surf Nazis aren’t anywhere near as outrageous as the name implies and the movie is mostly about beach turf wars, then it is about the Nazis need to die immediately. Once Leroy’s Mama comes calling for revenge, it’s too little too late. The image of an elderly overweight black woman blowing away beach punks provides some brief amusement, but the movie’s pretty much all ready over by that point. You really don’t need to see “Surf Nazis Must Die,” no matter how much the title compels you too. (5/10)

Halloween 2011: October 4

2011-10-04T17:44:00.000-07:00

Ever-present movie watching pal JD joined me today to ring in the proper begin of Halloween season. He requested a vampire theme for some reasons, and, well, vampires were had.

Horror of Dracula (1958)
JD wanted to see this one when I told him that it concluded with a big throw-down between Dracula and Van Helsing. Indeed, one of the things that are so appealing to me about the Hammer horror films is how physical both Christopher Lee’s Dracula and Peter Cushing’s Van Helsing are. Early in the film, while his bride attempts to seduce Harker, instead of just telling the girl to back off, Dracula leaps over the table, grabs her by the arm, and tosses the vampire across the room. Cushing would graduate to full-on action star in “Brides of Dracula,” but he still remains pretty badass in this one, especially during the final confrontation with the count. (Compared to the Universal Dracula, where the Count is disposed of off-screen with a simple stake to the heart, it’s a quite a culture-shock.) Lee’s massive physicality is used to horrific affects as well. As the Count barges into Mina’s room, filling her door way, he backs her into a corner, onto a bed, and pushes her down. It’s an implicit rape and I’m shocked Hammer was able to get away with it.

While “Curse of Frankenstein” would really set the standard for Technicolor gore, “Dracula” still has the vivid bright colors. It’s almost more like a comic book then a movie, heightened reality. It’s as much a part of the Hammer atmosphere as the black-and-white Gothic fog is a part of the Universal series. It takes a while to get started, but it’s easy to see how this film revived and reinvented the classic monsters in the fifties. (8/10)

The Monster Squad (1987)
This is pretty much the perfect dude movie for JD and I. We can shout along with the best dialogue. We laugh during the hilarious bits, cheer along with the exciting parts. Cheese-covered junk foods are required while watching. It’s easy to see ourselves in multiple members of the cast. I’ve seen the movie multiple times but it never stops being awesome. If anything, it’s more entertaining with each repeated viewing. (We even provide our own one-liners. “That’s a wrap.” You guy’s know what I’m talking about.)

Something I noticed about the movie this time is that it’s pretty rough for a supposed kid’s movie. Dracula is really a vicious bastard here. He blows up a cop car, completely immolating somebody. (The black guy, obviously. At least he’s not the first one to die.) He has a trio of innocent schoolgirls locked up in his closet, in a moment that carries more then a few unpleasant implications. In a great scene, he walks down the street towards his desired target, decimating any of the cops that try to stop him with simple hand movements. Of course, he also blows up a tree house that he believed to be full of little kids. All of this is before screaming in a little girl’s face and calling her a “Bitch!” Dracula is always undeniably evil, but he’s usually not this mean. The movie’s tone is dissonant in other ways too. The Wolfman getting blown up is pretty gory for a PG rating. The Gillman does crush a guy’s head, albeit bloodlessly. And, of course, Scary German Guy sporting a concentration camp tattoo is unusually sobering. All of this occurring back to back with Wolfman’s nards and Dracula getting burnt with a slice of pizza makes for a bit of whiplash.

I don’t really mind though, obviously. The movie’s tone is actually perfect because it’s exactly the kind of thing a twelve year old monster fan would write, mixing the goofy, classic, and gory in equal measures. This is somewhat ironic since, when I was a twelve year old monster fan, I didn’t actually like “The Monster Squad.” I found it too campy and nitpicked little things, like monsters of divergent backgrounds being brought together with little or no logic. Now I realize it doesn’t really matter how the monsters came together or even why they’re together. The movie is about the classic monsters hanging out, not about why they’re hanging out. The movie is cheesy, campy even, enthusiastically so in spots. But now I get why that’s awesome too. You learn a lot with age. (9/10)

The Night Stalker (1972)
Since I did do a comprehensive “Kolchak” marathon last Halloween, I wasn’t planning on revisiting the series this season. However, JD requested a vampire theme tonight and had never seen the original “Night Stalker” movie, so we popped it in. (He thought it was too slow, by the way. He’s not use to seventies television.) I don’t have too much of anything else to say about this one that wasn’t said last year. Kolchak remains my fictional hero and, while this movie is very good, has a fantastic villain, and an intense finale, I contend that the Kolchak formula wouldn’t be perfected until the TV series. (7/10)

Countess Dracula (1971)
I really like the early seventies Hammer output. The company was experiencing diminished returns with their gothic horror films and, instead of switching to modern stories, just decided to toss some graphic sex and gore onto their traditional period settings. Basically an amplified version of their usual style. The company was still out of business by the end of the decade, but they did give us “Vampire Circus,” “The Vampire Lovers” and “Lust for a Vampire,” fantastically entertaining guilty pleasures. “Countess Dracula” comes from that same time period and, while it’s not as good as the above mentioned title, it has a lot of the same chutzpah. Of the few Elizabeth Bathory films I’ve seen, this is definitely the best. Ingrid Pitt maybe wasn’t a great actress, but she was always easy to watch in a film, and for more then just the obvious reasons. This is a strong leading role for her. The supporting cast is great too while the short running time, copious nudity and gore, and sadistic story make this a pretty tasty snack for horror fans. (Also, not technically a vampire movie, but close enough.) (7/10)

Director Report Card: Mario Bava (1974-1976)

2011-10-03T18:43:00.000-07:00

20. Rabid Dogs
“Rabid Dogs” is Bava at his most trimmed down and gritty. It’s an intense, vulgar crime thriller. A trio of criminals commit a robbery, their heist quickly exploding into violence. A woman is abducted, another innocent woman brutally stabbed to death, before the criminals high-jack a car, driven by a man with a sick child. The man is forced to drive the trio to their hideout. This set-ups the next ninety minutes, which unfold in real time.

The movie is uncompromising. The violence is direct and fierce, without the stylized finesse of Bava’s other films. The characters are nasty, as vicious as the title suggest. Bava rarely used profanity in his films but “Rabid Dogs” doesn’t hold back, with Don Backy’s character unleashing a shocking tirade of vulgarity early in the film, as if to let the audience know that no punches will be pulled. A riveting chase scene in a cornfield, featuring a jazzy saxophone score, is the movie’s least forgiving moment, recalling the infamous “Piss your pants” scene from “Last House on the Left.”

As the story builds towards its conclusion, more and more inconveniences are thrown in the characters’ path. Fidgety toll booths, a fender-bender, a pit stop is confounded when one of the robbers hits on a passing-by woman, the gas tank empties and a crotchety gas station attendant refuses to serve them. An irritating, vocal woman bums a ride to the nearest mechanic. An angry grape farmer with a rake gets involved. What could have been a simple trip is complicated at every turn. Bava never misses a chance to introduce another inconvenience and drive the intensity level up even further.

Bava’s direction is completely stripped down. None of his usual flourishes appear and the majority of the film takes place in one location, a cramped car. Heat is an important element in the film. Every character sweats profusely and the viewer can easily feel the boiling heat of the hot, long summer day.

The small cast further drives home the frenzied focus of the film. We aren’t really given a proper name for any of the criminals. Maurice Poli plays Doctor, the leader of the thugs, who seems controlled and coldly calculated, but only too aware of how he could loose control. Don Backy, as Bisturi (which translates to Blade), is unpredictable, deviously curious one minute, and a completely unhinged psychopath the next. Later on, he even shows a delicate insecurity. The towering George Eastman, best known to Italian horror fans as the title villain in Joe D’Amato’s “Anthrophageous Beast,” plays Thirtytwo as a lascivious, amoral thug, a nasty clown that could explode into violence at any minute. Lea Lander gives a lot as Maria, the film’s only true victim, never backing away from portraying the character’s humiliation honestly. Riccardo Cucciolla is the pin holding the movie together, preventing a complete descent into madness. He keeps his head the entire time. Considering the presence of a child in the story and Riccardo’s cool head throughout, the twist doesn’t come as a huge surprise, but it does make for a nihilistic final statement.

The story behind “Rabid Dogs,” about how it went unfinished in Bava’s life time because of the producer’s death and was later reassembled after Bava’s passing, is well known. The version available on DVD is actually a polished work print with a temp score. In 2002, Lamberto Bava recut the picture as “Kidnapped,” adding some new footage and an inferior score. The furiousness of the film is still evident in that cut, but I prefer the “Rabid Dogs” version. Though lost for many years, “Rabid Dogs” is Bava’s most startling film, totally different from the rest of his work but nonetheless impressive and vital. [Grade: A-]

21. Shock (with Lamberto Bava)
The film starts off a bit slow and the first thing you notice is the lack of color, relatively stationary direction, and the grainy picture quality typical of late seventies/early eighties Italian horror. You begin to wonder if Bava wasn’t going soft in his old age. However, following a sequence involving a porcelain sculpture moving on its own, we are led on our way to creepy-ville and the movie never looks back.

While this is most definitely a ghost story, the film holds back on any actual supernatural content until the finale. Most of the spooky elements come from Marco, the little boy. He seems like a pretty normal kid at first, with a close and very sweet relationship to his mother. However, he slowly begins to show some disturbing behavior that becomes progressively creepier as the story goes on. Creepy little kids are one of the hardest horror archetypes to convincingly do. You never want to lay down more cards then are necessary. Bava and his team understand this and the subtle way Marco’s transformation is pulled off is the most frightening aspect. David Collin Jr. doesn’t always seem aware of what he’s doing but is good in the part anyway.

(If you’ll allow me to digress… Young Mr. Collin also acted in the Italian “Exorcist” knock-off “Behind the Door” three years earlier. When “Shock” was first brought to America, it was re-titled “Behind the Door II.” Collin’s presence is the only connecting thread and the two films are otherwise completely unrelated.)

Daria Nicolodi is given a rare chance to play a fully developed character and really shines. She is convincing as a mother struggling with her son’s upsetting changes. She brings vulnerability, warmness, and a surprising sexiness to the part.

The music is interestingly varied. Though we get the expected prog-rock guitar tinglings (Not from Goblin but from one-time band, I Libra, which features Goblin’s former drummer!), it’s the softer piano driven moments and overwhelming cacophony of noise that are really impresses. The slow-burn atmosphere leads into the finale, which has at least two jump-out-of-your-seat shocks leads to the chilling ending.

Granted, not everything in the film works. The floating box-cutter nightmare is pretty laughable and, as mentioned above, Bava’s direction isn’t as exciting as usual. (His son, Lamberto, a relatively bland director in comparison to his dad, did some uncredited work here and I’m blaming the weaker stuff on him.) Luckily the number of zooms here are limited.

As the last theatrical work of a legendary director, “Shock” is a fantastic ghost story and shows that Mario Bava never lost his spark. [Grade: A-]

So, there it is, the Mario Bava report card, finally finished. This ended up taking a lot more time then I expected. But it was a great journey. Bava is one of my all-time favorite directors and I always look forward to his films. More Halloween horror madness tomorrow!