Horror Movie A Day

Welcome!

2012-12-31T23:59:00.000-08:00

Before reading any of the "reviews", you should read the intro, the FAQ, the MOVIES I HAVE ALREADY SEEN list, and if you want, the glossary of genre terms and "What is Horror?", which explains some of the "that's not horror!" entries. There is also a handy recommendation thread that you can use to post suggestions for movies. And to keep things clean, all off topic posts are re-dated to be in JANUARY 2007 (which was before I began doing this little project) once they have 'expired' (i.e. are 10 days old).

Due to many people commenting "I have to see this movie!" after a review, I have decided to add Amazon links within the reviews (they are located at the bottom), as well as a few links to the Horror Movie A Day Store around the page, hopefully non-obstructively. Amazon will also automatically link things they find relevant, so there might be a few random links in a review as well. If they become annoying, I'll remove the functionality. Right now I'm just kind of amused what they come up with (for example, they highlighted 'a horror movie' in the middle of one review and it links to, of all things, the 50 Chilling Movies Budget Pack!!!).

Last but not least, some reviews contain spoilers (NOTE - With a few exceptions, anything written on the back of the DVD or that occurs less than halfway through the movie I do NOT consider a spoiler). I will be adding 'spoiler alerts' for these reviews as I go through and re-do the older reviews (longtime readers may notice that there is now a 'show more' which cleaned up the main page, as well as listing the source of the movie I watched, i.e. Theaters, DVD, TV) to reflect the new format. This is time consuming, so bear with me.

Thanks for coming by and be sure to leave comments, play nice, and as always, watch Cathy's Curse.

Hands Of The Ripper (1971)

2012-01-26T17:13:00.000-08:00

JANUARY 25, 2012

GENRE: POSSESSION, SERIAL KILLER
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX INSTANT)

Regardless of how I feel about each title, one thing I can say about all of the Hammer films that I’ve seen is that they’re not particularly sad in any way. I mean, sure, every now and then someone you like dies, but they never build toward what I’d call a tragic ending the way that Hands Of The Ripper does. I won’t spoil it, but I was surprised to get genuinely bummed out by its events, and thus it elevated the film from good to borderline great.

The cool thing about the movie is that it’s a Jack The Ripper story without Jack. Our heroine is actually the daughter of the killer, and the movie takes place about 15-20 years after his reign of terror. Due to a childhood incident with him that we see in the opening sequence, as well as a séance scene (I think?), the now grown daughter becomes possessed anytime someone flashes a reflected light in her eyes, taking on Jack’s MO and killing the “flasher”. The séance part I wasn’t sure about; it seemed like the lady running it was a phony, but something must have happened to set all this off, right? Otherwise we’d have to believe that no one ever flashed a light at her until now, and then it happens pretty much every day – otherwise she’d have killed more folks than her dad by now, right? I should note that there’s another thing that sets her off, but it’s presented as a sort of surprise – however, it’s equally if not more common an act she might encounter.

See, my problem with most Jack movies is that they get bogged down in trying to make their theory work, which is silly because (uh, spoiler) in real life he was never caught, so no matter what they come up with, it’s still just a movie – one that lacked an element of surprise because of the other problem with most Jack films. That would be the fact that many focus on possible suspects and cops, and never the victims. Every now and then some hooker we’ve never seen or heard of before is killed, with scenes built around typical cat and mouse ideas that are worthless – we know their fate already! But here, dealing entirely with fiction, they are free to create characters we care about a bit – the protagonist’s maid, the girl’s adopted mother, etc. So it becomes a bit of a mix between character study and something closer to slasher than typical serial killer tale. And as a bonus, by drawing on a famous tale (there’s even a hooker victim!), we’re sort of grounded in this world without the need for too much setup – it’s almost like a sequel in some respects. The kills start pretty early and we get 5-6 of them in the 85 minute movie: not too shabby at all.

It’s also well-acted across the board. Eric Porter (who reminds me a bit of pre-douche Kevin Spacey) is terrific as the conflicted Dr. Pritchard, who seeks to learn what causes someone to kill, which is why he takes an interest and then protects Anna once he sees that she is behind one of the recent murders (and understands that it’s not her fault). But he’s also a widower who dresses her up in his wife’s old clothes and lets her stay in his wife’s old room, so it’s got a bit of a sad, pseudo-psycho thing going on too – is he trying to help this girl, or replace his wife? I also enjoyed Keith Bell’s turn as Pritchard’s son, who is about to be married to a blind girl (something Pritchard seems to be opposed to), mainly because his makeup and hairstyle made him look like Edgar Allan Poe.

Angharad Rees is also quite good (and equally fetching) as Anna, who pulls off the tough act of being the film’s killer but also its sympathetic center. It’s a shame she didn’t make more features; most of her work seemed to be in TV and her last credit was in 1998 when she was still in her 40s! Retired too young if you ask me, unless she just wasn’t into acting, in which case I hope she’s well. She also gets to have the most fun in the movie – the kills are surprisingly graphic. Needles in the eye, a woman gets impaled and hung on a door… and the makeup is pretty decent as well. There’s also a terrific bit where a character uses a doorknob to “hook” the handle of a sword in order to pull it out after they’ve been stabbed – awesome!

Plus it delivers the usual Hammer style: colorful cinematography, excellent period recreation, lots of terrific mustaches… in some ways it’s one of the more unique Hammer films (female “villain”, the aforementioned tragic tone, etc), but it feels very much in line with their more famous titles, i.e. the Draculas and Frankensteins. In fact, a subplot about Pritchard blackmailing a guy to help him with his experiment is right out of Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, and the director is Peter Sasdy, who also helmed a couple of the Dracula sequels. And that’s probably why I dug it so much – it was a perfect blend of what I’d expect from a Hammer title, and what I DON’T.

Also: no Heather Graham. Important to any movie, really, but particularly beneficial to the ones about Jack The Ripper.

What say you?

The Eternal Evil Of Asia (1995)

2012-01-26T11:07:00.000-08:00

JANUARY 24, 2012

GENRE: ASIAN, REVENGE, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REVIVAL SCREENING)

According to Grindhouse programmer Brian Quinn, The Eternal Evil Of Asia (Hong Kong: Nan yang shi da xie shu) was programmed second so I could make it to the New Beverly in time (after work) to count it for my HMAD. I don’t like to think I influence anyone’s decisions in any meaningful way about anything, but even if just a ruse to get me to come it was nice to hear. And it worked! I coffeed up and put off satisfying my Skyrim fix until after the movie (which resulted in me staying up until 4 am). Everybody wins.

Luckily the movie was worth the efforts; like most of the Hong Kong horror films he programs every other month or so, it’s a wonderfully batshit multi-genre effort that shifts gears and tone so often you might suspect that a few scenes were missing that would explain how it went from almost charmingly sweet to totally sleazy in between scenes. Eternal Evil is actually a rape-revenge film of sorts, but with an unabashedly silly approach that prompted my buddy Dan to remark that the film was the first to have a “slapstick rape” scene. Spoilers ahead!!!

Now, obviously this might strike many as insanely offensive, and I do not argue. While we usually laugh at the rampant misogyny, casual murders, and other “taboo” things that these films usually feature, the rape stuff is a bit out of place. Luckily they do as much as they can to “soften” the act – for starters, the rapist and his victim aren’t even in the same room. Our villain is a wizard who has suddenly taken a liking to the girlfriend of one of his intended victims, and the climax of the film is just him standing in a small room, completely naked and thrusting away, using his magic powers to “ghost rape” the girl who is miles away, hanging on a chandelier. Every now and then they use a CGI outline to show the ghost (it kind of looks like “Not Me” or “Ida Know” from "The Family Circus"), but most of the time the act is completely mimed (somewhat impressively so, to give the actors a weird compliment). Also, the girl is kind of allowing it, because the secret to stopping him lies in the moment of his orgasm, so once he lets it fly (again, he’s just thrusting at nothing!) she is able to overpower him. So that’s good. Still – weird way to end your otherwise “fun” horror comedy (there’s also a shorter, more “traditional” rape scene that is thankfully brief and mostly incoherent). I should note that this was part of a group of "Category III" films, which is their version of X-Rated, so they had to have SOMETHING to justify the restricted rating, but the goofy tone of the film was more like a PG-13 thing, which is what made it so awkward.

Another criticism I could direct at it is probably a waste of time, because it assumes that they care about theme or full circle storytelling or anything, but whatever. As we learn in a lengthy flashback, the reason this wizard is killing our protagonists one by one is because they “killed” his sister. However this is not really the case – what happened was, he prepared a love potion to make one of the guys fall in love with her, because that’s the sort of thing that wizards do for their little sisters. Unfortunately the spell is received not by her would-be lover but by his three pals. So they all fall in love with her at the same time, and (per the spell’s “rules”) she falls for them equally, and thus they engage in a fairly routine fourway where she doesn’t seem to be too upset about the whole thing. It’s only when the spell wears off that she gets freaked out, and when they try to explain, she accidentally falls and dies. Thus, it’s really HIS fault that all this shit happened (and hers, for requesting it in the first place), but this never really dawns on him. A better script would find a way to play with his misguided, unnecessary “revenge”. But instead we just get, well, “slapstick rape”.

Otherwise it’s pretty cool. I just spoiled the hell out of it but I like that they kept the back-story to themselves for a while, making it a bit of a mystery for a while. And the kills are wonderfully gonzo – the movie starts with one guy thinking everyone he sees is a zombie and ends up slaughtering his family/neighbors before falling to his death. I know that doesn’t SOUND particularly funny, but it’s shot in a very early Raimi/Jackson-esque way (weirdly angled close-ups, zooms, etc), with lots of splatter and a charmingly sarcastic little kid tossed into the mix. The scene also keeps trashing Cup O’Noodles for some reason, which is just amusing. Then there’s a great “cannibal” bit and other assorted silliness.

The best, however, has to be the scene somewhere in the middle of the movie where a guy makes a particularly common insult and is then cursed by taking on the shape of this particular insult. I won’t spoil it, but it’s nothing short of amazing, and it even builds – a sight gag on top of the sight gag. It’s actually one of several instances in the movie where you will be subjected to the writer’s fascination with the private areas of males and females – we’re given a lengthy discussion on the best way to fondle a scrotum, a girl questions if a vampire would use her used tampons to make tea (WTF?), and not all of the ghost sex is non-consensual – our hero gets ghost head during one scene set to an awesome/cheesy sax riff.

Plus it has the always fun translation errors, including one that literally changed the point of what was being said when they changed a “can’t” to a “can” (I forget the exact context). However the best was during the aforementioned guy who fell to his death. Our hero calls his girlfriend and breaks the news to her, and after a few somewhat amusingly confused lines, he busts out this classic: “His body was stabbed to death by 7 fluorescent lamps.” The movie also begins with a mostly useless prologue where they explain ghosts/enchanting (which gets explained over and over during the movie), featuring a little ghost kid watching a movie while the narrator tells us “Don’t offend him or take him to toilet”. And if reading subtitles aren’t your thing, you can always enjoy the awesome, geek-friendly mid-90s movie posters on display in the heroine’s beauty salon – Die Hard 3, Pulp Fiction, and… er, A Walk In The Clouds.

Mostly what I was impressed with was that it went on very few tangents. If you think of the movie as being about the rise and fall of a well-meaning wizard (like Anakin in the prequel trilogy!), everything is more or less related to that. Even the sillier bits like the heroine being teased by her friend about not knowing how to give a good hand job sort of fits in, given how she has to use her body to defeat the guy at the end. Most of these Hong Kong movies discard plot threads and start new ones throughout the entire runtime, so that they’re not even recognizable as the same film by the time they finish, so I have to give this one props for at least telling an easily summarized story. Had they reigned in the rapey-ness of the third act it would probably be my favorite of the bunch.

Luckily, for once you can judge for yourself; while most of these movies are so obscure that they don’t even have basics like “cast” listed on their IMDb page, this one is actually available on Netflix Instant! And it’s got the same subtitles that we had, so you can enjoy all of the same crazy errors, with the added bonus of rewinding to make sure you actually read it right. Of course, watching in this manner won’t be nearly as enjoyable as seeing it with a good crowd, but at least you’ll know for sure I’m not making the movie up (something I could probably get away with at this point).

What say you?

A Darker Reality (2008)

2012-01-25T16:43:00.000-08:00

JANUARY 23, 2012

GENRE: SERIAL KILLER, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

Whatever the complete opposite of surprised is, that’s what I was when I discovered that A Darker Reality had been sitting on the shelf for a while. An ugly, dull, poorly constructed film that more than once reminded me of gems like Chain Letter and Curse Of The Zodiac, I only wonder why they ever bothered releasing it at all, now? Even at the time it was produced (in 2008) the torture genre was bottoming out, and none of the actors involved have made it big since – who at Phase 4 thought the time was finally right for this junk?

If there was anything remotely worth appreciating about this thing (besides a few decent practical FX), it’s that they split the time evenly between the killer (Daniel Baldwin), his would-be victims (a bunch of annoying girls, many of whom are possibly not actually actresses!), and the cops tasked with finding him. This of course makes the movie more of a mess, but since everyone is either an idiot or hateful, that means the viewer is never stuck with one of them for too long at a time. Suffer through a few minutes of the victims shrieking and telling each other to shut up, and you’re rewarded with the most laughably inept police investigation subplot in movie history!

Let’s talk about them. Despite a victim toll nearing 100, it seems only two cops are assigned to this case: a Michael Biehn-ish detective and a mega-hot forensic psychologist who almost exclusively wears workout clothes. Her character also only works from home, a silly character trait that I suspect was added to allow them to film all of her scenes quickly (the only other place we see her is at the hospital). Their investigation amounts to little more than going through files and talking to either an escaped victim of “The Ghost” and a guy that’s in jail for killing some children, and yet they’re able to determine his location (“Pico and Olympic” – a non-existent intersection, for the record) fairly quickly. You’d think a guy who killed even a tenth as many people would have been caught by now if this was all it took.

The movie also swipes from Silence of the Lambs, Seven, Saw… all movies you’d rather be watching, of course. Baldwin’s voice is sadly almost indistinguishable from his brother Alec, so his attempts at sounding scary (read: swearing a lot) just remind me of when ol’ Al left voicemails for his daughter calling her a selfish little pig. And when one of your sadistic serial killer’s first big scenes is of him getting off via auto-erotic asphyxiation, it’s a bit hard to take him seriously, let alone be scared of him. I just kept wondering if the ghost of Keith Carradine would appear and warn him to stop. So when the movie isn’t ripping off better movies it’s merely reminding me of a variety of TMZ articles, basically.

Honestly I’d go on but the movie has already passed out of my memory bank. The only thing I distinctly remember is the awful ending, which is either setting up a sequel or is just the result of this production not having the money to finish it (it’s also ripping off a scene from Eye See You, for the record). Anyway, it’s not worth the effort trying to recall anything else.

The DVD offers a few deleted/extended scenes, mostly character bits with our hero cops. It’s nothing that could have helped the film – knowing more about their characters' back-stories wouldn’t have helped the fact that their investigation seemed less authentic than a few kids playing cops and robbers in their backyard. But that’s it for extras, and thus there is no mention of the fact that this is a pseudo remake of an experimental film from 2006 that is simply called Dark Reality (this was originally called Dark Reality 2). From what I can understand even its own filmmakers hate that one; curious what they have to say here. I PRAY that this is an actual improvement, but I can guarantee I will never bother to find out for sure.

What say you?

HMAD's 5th Annual End Of Year Awards!!

2012-01-24T15:54:00.000-08:00

JANUARY 24, 2012

GENRE: AWARDS!
SOURCE: ME!

I know, I’m super late with these. I’ve had some real life annoyances to deal with, plus some side jobs (I even got paid for one!), so it’s the sort of “extra” thing that kept getting pushed off and almost forgotten. So I apologize, but believe me – it’ll be worth the wait!

You’ve had enough ado, so I won’t further it: let’s celebrate the Best and Worst of 2011!!

(note – as always, these movies reflect the 365+ films watched/ reviewed for HMAD in the calendar year, NOT when they came out. If you want a more traditional list, head over to Bloody Disgusting.)

BEST MOVIE ABOUT THE PLAGUE: BLACK DEATH
One of the year’s best films, Christopher Smith’s (Severance, Triangle) men on a mission tale about a group of badasses (led by Sean Bean) seeking out a supposed “plague-free” zone was unfortunately given one of Magnolia’s weird “let’s put it On Demand before dumping it in 6 theaters” releases – it’s a gorgeous film that deserved to be seen on the big screen. But on the other hand, I’m happy someone picked it up at all; there’s not much overt horror, and anything that plays on religious fears can cause some trouble. It also has one of the darkest endings to a film in recent memory. Smith continues to impress – let’s get him a mid-level studio feature!

WORST MOVIE ABOUT THE PLAGUE: SEASON OF THE WITCH
There’s a lot of reasons to dislike Season of the Witch – it’s not particularly good, it confines all of its supernatural elements to the final half hour, and Cage is playing it straight for once, instead of “Caging out” and turning this into Medieval Wicker Man. But the worse was that it came out a few weeks before the infinitely more enjoyable Drive Angry, killing what little interest anyone had in Cage at that point. So this thing made nearly 30 million (still not impressive), while Drive Angry didn’t even hit 10. His next film actually more or less went straight to video, for the record. Let’s hope Ghost Rider 2 rejuvenates the public’s interest in one of our most entertainingly ridiculous actors.

BEST USE OF DANIELLE HARRIS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: STAKE LAND
Despite being the biggest genre name in the cast, Ms. Harris doesn’t show up until around the halfway point of Stake Land, and then barely speaks for another 20 minutes. But she’s quite good in the film, well outside of her comfort zone in that she plays an expectant mother AND sings on-screen (something she is terrified of). Also, her genre history pays off in the film’s third act, which goes against what you might expect from the character AND the actress.

WORST USE OF HARRIS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: CHROMESKULL
Can anyone explain what exactly Harris’ character is doing in the middle of a Laid To Rest sequel? She pops up as some sort of higher-up at Chromeskull’s company (you heard me), and is seemingly using ol’ Jesse to jockey for a promotion. Yes, because when you watch a Chromeskull movie, you want to see corporate intrigue. I assume they have more plans for her in future installments, but her scenes here just add to the sequel’s biggest problem – it’s called CHROMESKULL and yet the guy is kept on the sidelines for far too much of the runtime.

MOST IMPROVED SEQUEL: WRONG TURN 4: BLOODY BEGINNINGS
I LOATHED the 3rd Wrong Turn film, and so when I heard the same director (Declan O’Brien) was not only returning to direct but also write it himself, AND that it would be a prequel set in the snow, I figured this was the actual recipe for the worst horror movie of all time. But I guess all those negatives equaled a positive; while still far from the heights of Wrong Turn 2, this one delivered a lot of great (and mostly practical!) kills, a fast pace, and the most wonderfully silly climax in recent memory. Not a good movie by any means, but it hits the sweet spot for this sort of thing.

LEAST IMPROVED SEQUEL: SOMEBODY HELP ME 2
The original Somebody Help Me was the first movie I was given specifically for review on Horror Movie A Day, but I didn’t think too much of it, which is probably why they didn’t send me the sequel. But they made the right call; this is infinitely worse than its predecessor, with repetitious, kill-free plotting, obnoxious direction, and a killer who wears a mask in some scenes even though we know who it is (same guy as the original). Please don’t let there be a third, as threatened.

BEST MOVIE ABOUT JEFFREY DAHMER: DAHMER
Go-to franchise rejuvenator Jeremy Renner got an early break in this independent serial killer biopic (from the same company that gave us Gacy and all those others), and he’s pretty damn great in it. The movie doesn’t provide much context – it’s best viewed by those who are already familiar with the case – but the above average attention to detail and Renner’s performance make up for its low points.

WORST MOVIE ABOUT JEFFREY DAHMER: THE SECRET LIFE
Shot only a year after Dahmer’s arrest, this is like the complete opposite of Renner’s film – they provide a Cliff’s Notes account of the case sans any sort of insight, and tell the story via the lousiest collection of actors ever assembled for one of these things. Add in the constant, obnoxious voiceover and complete lack of detail (so many palm trees in Milwaukee!) and you have a movie that manages to be even crasser than the subject matter demanded.

BEST ASYLUM MOCKBUSTER: WHEN A KILLER CALLS
Not only is this infinitely better than the 2006 remake of When A Stranger Calls, I think it’s actually a bit better than the 1979 original as well (based on memory - haven't seen it since I was like 14, but I didn't like it). Like the remake, it keeps everything based around the first 20 minutes of the original, except here the body count is higher (nothing happened in the remake) and it’s surprisingly grim – not one but two kids are offed by our killer. And it even has a theme song, so I’m automatically in its corner.

WORST ASYLUM MOCKBUSTER: HILLSIDE CANNIBALS
I’m not as crazy about the 2006 Hills Have Eyes remake as many of my peers (it’s good, but the things they changed were for the worse, so just stick w/the original IMO), but it’s the friggin Exorcist compared to this thing, which doesn’t even come close to the very low standards of “OK for Asylum”. A straight up ripoff of the other movie would have been better than this, which kills everyone off in the first 10 minutes and then proceeds to tread water for the next 70. Ugly and boring, it’s the sort of movie everyone probably thinks ALL Asylum movies are like, when in reality it’s only like, half of them.

BEST MOVIE WITH A BAD TITLE: MANSQUITO
The title Mansquito sounds like something that would be made up for a comedic film making fun of 50s horror movies, but it’s a real movie from 2004 – and a pretty fun one at that! Taking cues from The Fly, we follow a slowly turning female victim, giving us the human drama that a good horror movie needs and often ignores. But, there’s also a fully formed Mansquito that goes around killing folks, so we still get a lot of monster action – it’s the best of both worlds! And then of course they fight at the end, which is always awesome. A shame more Syfy movies don’t follow this one’s lead.

WORST MOVIE WITH A GOOD TITLE: SHORT NIGHT OF GLASS DOLLS
Now, this isn’t a BAD movie, but that title is so damn creepy and weird; at the time I referred to it as “The Giallo-est title ever”. But they use it on a rather slow-paced, barely horror movie about a guy investigating his girlfriend’s disappearance. There isn’t even a killer per se, a couple of folks die but by different hands, and until the 3rd act it’s just pretty damn boring, honestly. And the title has almost nothing to do with the plot, making its misuse even more annoying.

BEST BATSHIT MOTIVE: CONTAMINATION .7
We’ve heard of nature strikes back movies like Long Weekend or Frogs, but this one goes the extra mile, with killer trees specifically going after loggers and such, seeking revenge against them for harming their habitat. By the time a cut down Christmas tree goes after someone in their own home, you can be assured that you are watching a truly inspired film.

WORST BATSHIT MOTIVE: BEAR
Since they used a real bear and no CGI, Bear could have been a decent survival thriller about folks fending off an angry bear if not for its jaw-droppingly awful script, topped off with a “twist” at the end in which we discover that the bear actually wants these people to atone for their sins (embezzling, infidelity, etc). And it’s played straight, as if anyone in the audience might go “Ohhhh… yeah, I GET it, man.” It’s almost worth watching just to see how straight they play this inanity, but the hateful, idiotic characters and repetitive, poorly edited action make that a hard sell.

BEST MOVIE ABOUT A RAPIST LANDLORD: SLEEP TIGHT
I couldn’t make any of the screenings of Sleep Tight (Spanish: Mientras Duermes) at Fantastic Fest, and had to opt for a screener viewing on my computer instead of one of the greatest movie theaters in the world, but in a way that helps clarify just how well this creepy thriller works. An ugly transfer on a relatively tiny screen couldn’t diminish the impact of Jaume Balagueró’s best solo effort yet, and I can’t wait to see it again – hopefully with a crowd, so I can amuse myself by watching them squirm as the plot unfolds.

WORST MOVIE ABOUT A RAPIST LANDLORD: THE RESIDENT
Even in the glory years of Hammer they produced some clunkers, but nothing was ever as bad as The Resident, a woefully stupid account of Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s disturbed landlord going to extreme measures to bang Hilary Swank, even though she seems into him. Featuring cinema’s all time most idiotic “let’s show you stuff from earlier in the movie now that it has a different context” montage, nonsensical character actions, and the total waste of Christopher Lee (he was treated better in the theatrical cut of Return of the King), this is NOT the sort of thing Hammer should be putting their name on as they try to get back into the horror game after a lengthy absence.

MOST TERRIFYING USE OF SPORTING EQUIPMENT: FINAL DESTINATION 5
Even detractors of the series often admit that the kills in the Final Destination movies are creative and enjoyably insane, and given that this is the FIFTH in the series, it’s sort of impressive that they can still come up with new ones. Even more impressive that it would have one of the series’ best – a typically Rube Goldberg-ian sequence centered around a gymnasts’ balancing beam that produces the most mangled corpse ever. There should be a Sniglet for my resulting mix of a laugh and a horrified groan.

LEAST TERRIFIYING USE OF SPORTING EQUIPMENT: STORMHOUSE
The climax of this already obnoxiously bad movie came down to a haunted fucking basketball bouncing around HARD in an attempt to make it scarier. Note – this was not played for laughs.

BEST NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD MOVIE: NOTLD 1990
Back in February I inexplicably decided to watch nothing but Night of the Living Dead related movies for the week (except for Rubber, which was a press screening that they refused to change for my sake), and most of them weren’t worth the effort. But Tom Savini’s remake (which I had seen as a kid) holds up fairly well – it’s not as tense or scary as the original, but it gets more right than wrong. And crucify me all you want – I prefer his ending to Romero’s (which is also his - George wrote the remake’s script, not Savini). And any movie that features an immolated Bill Butler can’t be too bad.

WORST NOTLD MOVIE: NOTLD 30th ANNIVERSARY
I bought this thing back when it came out in 1998, only to hear how bad it was before I ever got a chance to watch it. Thus, I vowed to hang onto it and thus keep anyone else from being exposed to it (the DVD is a limited release). However when I got this “Week of NOTLD” idea I realized the time had come to see for myself if it was really as bad as I heard. So I was surprised to see they were wrong – it was FAR WORSE than anyone had ever led me to believe. I’d comfortably call it one of the five worst movies ever made, in fact; the insanely misguided decisions that John Russo and the others (not Romero) made go beyond awful, where it’s not even funny to watch in the “Plan 9” way. When Russo croaks I hope they bury every copy of this piece of shit with him.

BEST ATTEMPT AT MAKING A JOHN CARPENTER MOVIE: ATTACK THE BLOCK
Joe Cornish’s debut succeeds in pretty much every area one could want from a film: it’s funny, it’s scary, it’s got terrific, crowd-pleasing action, and it moves like gangbusters – if there’s a dull moment in the film no one can remember it. And it’s knowingly inspired by no less a great than John Carpenter; the opening shot of the alien ship is a direct homage to The Thing, and the confined setting is right out of several of JC’s flicks. Plus, the protagonists are enemies on opposite sides of the law who are forced to team up to defeat their common enemy; which is straight up Assault On Precinct 13 (or, fine, Ghosts of Mars). One of my favorite movie-going experiences of the year – and the only film I paid to see a 2nd time.

WORST ATTEMPT AT MAKING A CARPENTER MOVIE: THE THING
For years fans have been scoffing – yet mildly intrigued – by the idea of a Thing prequel, showing what happened to the Norwegians even though we know that they’re all dead. However, constant attempts to make their film fit into Carpenter’s story (“SEE how the axe got into the door! LEARN the name of the guy who slit his wrist and froze!”) just make all of their missteps all the more obvious. The bad CGI is the most offensive, but I was more troubled by the lack of a single interesting or fun character. I’d pay handsomely for a Childs or Blair action figure; I couldn’t even tell you the names of any of the characters here. They should have just abandoned the prequel idea and made it a remake (which they sort of did, actually) – at least then we wouldn’t have to accept this Thing as part of the canon.

BEST INCOHERENT MOVIE FROM 1989: THINGS
Every even numbered minute of this movie will make you laugh or smile, every odd numbered one will make you shout “WHAT?”. Spider sandwiches, bizarre dubbing, a newscaster who seems to be reporting on plot developments that haven’t occurred yet… it’s just pure, insane bliss.

WORST INCOHERENT MOVIE FROM 1989: THE BLACK CAT
Most Italian horror movies don’t make a lot of sense, but even by their standards The Black Cat is a total mess. “Luckily” if you can’t follow a particular plot thread, it will probably get dropped and never mentioned again, since that’s what happens to most of them – it starts off as one of those “movies about movies” but ends with some sort of wizard battle involving planets. And I know that sounds kind of awesome, but it’s actually crushingly dull and shockingly low on gore/kills, which is probably why it remains relatively obscure despite some weird attempts to fit it into Argento’s Three Mothers series. P.S. not to be confused with Fulci’s 1981 Black Cat!

BEST MOVIE ABOUT SOLDIERS GOING NUTS: DEATHWATCH
I’ve heard about Deathwatch here and there over the years, and it’s been recommended by more than one reader – not sure what took me so long to get around to it. But it was worth the wait, upsetting and scary, with terrific performances by a mostly unknown (for 2002) cast, it’s the sort of movie that keeps me doing HMAD. Without the need to watch something every day, gems like this would continue to pass me by.

WORST MOVIE ABOUT SOLDIERS GOING NUTS: THE SQUAD
Hearing so many great things about Fantastic Fest over the years, I was under the assumption that no bad/generic movies squeaked through, but The Squad was obnoxiously starved for creativity, not to mention even basic scares or suspense. The only time I actually dozed off the entire time I was at the festival (regular readers should understand how much that means under normal circumstances – I was barely sleeping there!), and it wasn’t worth fighting to stay awake for the rest.

BEST HORROR MOVIE A DAY NEWS: MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS
For a while it looked like the Horror Movie A Day screening series at the New Beverly would come to an end due to some personnel issues at the theater, but as of April they have been resumed and even more frequent! And we’ve shown lots of great stuff, including Psycho II (with Dean Cundey in the house for Q&A!), From Dusk Till Dawn, Drag Me To Hell, and a sparsely attended but still glorious showing of The Descent, which is my favorite horror film of the decade. To everyone that has come to one or all of them – you are forever in my cool book. See you in 2012!

WORST HORROR MOVIE A DAY NEWS: NO MORE “EXTRAS”
Due to some staff cutbacks at my real job, I had to take on more work responsibilities. As a result, a lot of the extra stuff I liked to do – commentaries, “October Extras”, non-canon reviews, etc – had to be greatly reduced or eliminated entirely. I also wrote fewer full reviews for festivals I attended - there just wasn’t time for them anymore alongside everything else, because the time I used to spend doing extra stuff at work was now spent doing work (assholes!). It’s a bummer; I enjoyed giving you guys a little more than just the daily review (within reason; I never want to post “news” or interviews here), but alas, I just can’t do it anymore. I mean, look how long it took to get this up!

Of course, next month marks the amazing FIVE YEAR anniversary of Horror Movie A Day, and thus along with it the five year anniversary of daily horror watching (February 16th, 2007 remains the only missed day), so that’s pretty awesome. We’ll also hit some milestones within the genres (200th monster movie! 100th Italian horror movie!) and hopefully provide the same amount (if not more) of festival coverage – as always, money dictates those things so be sure to do all of your Amazon shopping HERE, or just hand me 100 dollars cash if you see me out and about! I also accept baked goods.

And of course, thanks for reading! Without you I’d be talking to myself even more than usual!

What say you?

The Tenant (2010)

2012-01-23T17:19:00.000-08:00

JANUARY 22, 2012

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

As previously mentioned, I hate repeating myself under any circumstances, but it drives me even more nuts when I have to repeat something that is IN WRITING. However, I do understand that I tweet a lot, and some folks like to follow over a thousand people for whatever reason to boot, so when I tweet something about the movie I said I was watching 2 posts ago and someone goes “What movie are you talking about?” I have to accept that maybe it’s too much of a hassle for them to investigate. So it’s kind of ironic that I actually DID put the name of The Tenant into my brief reaction, because then of course someone assumed I was talking about the Polanski one. Thus, had I not bothered trying to clarify, maybe I wouldn’t have had to clarify.

But the weird thing is, my post was pretty specific to this movie – it’s not like I said “The Tenant was kind of lame, but I’ve seen worse” or something; I specifically addressed the movie’s odd structure (Polanski’s film is fairly straight-forward) and admirably crass handling of its deaf characters, something I cannot recall in the other Tenant. So maybe folks can’t even read the whole tweet, I don’t know.

Anyway, the mad scientist and slasher hybrid is pretty rare, so it’s worth noting that the two never really blend into one movie. The first half of the movie is essentially an overlong prologue depicting how the hulking brute slasher in the 2nd half came into existence. There’s very little “horror” in this setup (which is probably why a present day, pre-credits kill scene of no bearing on anything was added); we just watch a well-meaning but obsessed doctor (who looks like Rip Torn) conduct questionable tests on his pregnant wife (as well as Michael Berryman, second-billed for a single scene role). But she’s having twins, so one baby comes out fine while the other is a hideous freak. There’s a lot of stuff about their failing marriage and money issues, plus the Berryman scene goes on forever – it’s basically the most fleshed out, overlong version of the five or ten minute intro that would accompany something like The Burning or whatever: “Once upon a time THIS happened – now let’s get to our slasher story.”

Thus, by the time the slasher plot kicks in around the 45 minute mark or so, there isn’t much time for characterization or suspense-building. All of a sudden we meet a vanful of deaf teens (young ones, like around 14), two older (college-age) counselors, their boss who looks a LOT like the mother in the first half (hmm…) and J LaRose as the hilariously crass van driver, an ex-con who repeatedly refers to the kids as “dummies” and has negative things to say about pretty much anything. Where they were going in the middle of the night in a huge rainstorm is none of our business, but the movie wastes no further time getting them into the now abandoned asylum where the now adult mutant boy is prowling around.

In a way it’s kind of remarkable how many clichés they run through in order to get to the point quickly: their tire blows out AND they’re out of gas, which is why they don’t just sit in the van to wait (it’s cold). Then they run through the “no signal” scene with their cell phones, with the exception of one that has a signal long enough to call a phone that was dropped in the rain, and then it promptly dies from a low battery. The only thing they forgot was getting lost, but I guess that would make the rather silly coincidence of the connection our heroine has to the asylum that they broke down in front of even stupider. On the contrary, she actually knows quite a bit about it, yet doesn’t piece together the connection until she finds some photos and files.

But, you know, whatever. I don’t ask for tight, surprising plotting from these things, and I was already kind of amused by the fact that they spent so much time explaining the killer’s origin. Once LaRose showed up and started spewing venomous insults at kids who couldn’t even hear him it entered See No Evil/Silent Night, Deadly Night territory, so you know I’m on board with that. Plus, the kids get killed! I figured MAYBE one of them would be offed to raise the stakes, but they’re only there for about five minutes before our killer pulls two of them through a wall and kills the shit out of them. In fact, to give it an actual (not backhanded) compliment, they do a fine job of killing the folks you figured would be OK and vice versa (with the exception of the heroine, obviously). Of course, part of that is due to the fact that we barely learn any of their names (the whole “deaf” angle has no real point other than I guess to explain why most of them don’t have phones), but there are still some surprises with regards to the more “fleshed out” characters, i.e. the ones we can tell apart.

I’m less forgiving of the terribly directed/edited action scenes, however. That scene I mentioned where he pulls the girls through the wall? The heroes just look at the hole and then briskly walk into another room saying things like “We have to find them!”, as if there WASN’T a man sized hole in the wall that clearly led to where the girls might be, assuming they were still alive after they just wasted time walking in the wrong direction. There are a number of scenes where people seem to have no reaction to what is going on around them, as if the actors weren’t aware they were in the frame, and one character is CLEARLY dead at one point only to be alive and kicking a few minutes later.

But that just adds to my theory that the film was produced at two different times, as none of the actors in the mad scientist scenes ever interact with the ones in the slasher segment. Whether they didn’t have enough for one segment and decided to add the other, or they just simply didn’t know what they were doing, I don’t know – but the movie definitely suffers from a disconnect, both in the two-part structure and within those segments. The mad scientist parts are kind of sloppy too; the other patients in the asylum look to be more important at one point, only to be forgotten a few moments later. There’s a deleted scene on the DVD that I cannot for the life of me understand how it would have ever fit into the movie, and it’s interesting that all of them are from the movie’s first half. Was the slasher stuff a total “oh shit the movie’s too short let’s come up with something else!” affair?

Nothing on the making of suggests as much, as the director talks about the actors for a bit before they spend an inordinate time on sound editing, including the “reveal” that all of the dialogue in the “van in the rain” scene was looped, something I had written in my notes (“ADR?”) as I watched the movie. Nice try though. There’s also a blooper reel, but as is common with these low-budget horror movies, most of the bloopers aren’t distinguishable in any way – no obvious flubbed lines or even a boom mic dropping into the frame. But if The Tenant is your favorite movie ever you’ll probably enjoy spending a few more minutes with these beloved characters.

With some polish and a slightly less awkward structure, this could have been a minor gem. I appreciate the humanizing of the monster (to a degree), and utilizing practical FX will always earn my respect, but it never quite comes together in a satisfying way, and the tone/point of the first half doesn’t quite fit with that of the second. Nice, weird try.

What say you?

P.S. Enough with “Moonlight Sonata”! Thing’s getting more play than “Mockingbird” in horror movies as of late. Give Beethoven a break, huh? Try some Ives.

We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011)

2012-01-21T18:26:00.000-08:00

JANUARY 21, 2012

GENRE: KILLER KID, THRILLER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

Much like The Skin I Live In, I got interested in We Need To Talk About Kevin when I started seeing it near the top of several "Best of 2011" lists. The thing was, these were horror-centric lists, and until that point I knew nothing about the movie except for its cast. Forgive my ignorance, but if I hear about a critically adored movie with Tilda Swinton and John C. Reilly, I'm going to assume it's awards bait and thus nothing I'd ever be interested in seeing (life's too short to watch a movie that exists primarily to win awards). So I looked into it, and discovered it was actually a killer kid movie! Sold!

Now, this is not a killer kid movie in the traditional sense. There's nothing exploitative or "fun" about it, like Orphan or Good Son; in fact unless I'm mistaken (inverse spoiler) there isn't a single moment of actual on-screen violence - even an attack on a dozen innocent eggs is left to our imagination. The closest thing I would compare it to in the genre would be Joshua, which interestingly enough was the current subject of a documentary that I was editing (about under-seen horror movies) prior to leaving for the theater*. Like that film, we stay with a parent more often than not, with the kid's evil behavior kept ambiguous, even though there is no doubt that he's got some severe issues.

But while Joshua stuck with the dad more often than not, Kevin is all about mom (Swinton), who appears in all but one (brief) scene in the film. And she is terrific, nailing the nearly impossible task of playing a mother who is torn between her unconditional love for her child and the fact that he has torn her entire life asunder. The story unfolds via flashbacks, jumping back and forth between the present day, where Swinton is working as a receptionist at a travel agency and living in a tiny house by the railroad, and the past, where we see Kevin at different stages in his life, building toward a truly devastating tragedy where Kevin's disturbing behavior can no longer be chalked up to her suspicions.

As with most killer kid films, one parent is oblivious, so it's a stroke of genius to cast John C. Reilly, who excels at playing guys that are innocently ignorant of their surroundings (his turn in The Good Girl was similar - he's not an idiot, he's just a bit under-equipped for these particular situations). Practically from birth, Kevin has had a unique ability to be a perfect angel around his dad, while he just has it in for his mother and never cooperates with even the simplest things. There's only a single moment in the entire film where he shows her any affection, which cleverly hides a bit of foreshadowing in the process, because it's such a warm and yet shocking surprise.

One thing that I really appreciated about the film was how much the outside world was kept out of it, particularly in the flashback scenes. In the present day, we see Swinton being harassed by neighbors and locals, and we don't yet know why, but otherwise she keeps to herself - there's a heartbreaking moment where she lies to her mother (over the phone) about having people over for Christmas dinner, before sitting alone with a sandwich instead. But in the past, we barely ever leave the house that they live in, and there aren't any outside characters of note. No shrinks, no friends (of anyone). The minimal scenes dealing with their jobs are handled via phone calls, and apart from a brief scene with a doctor (Kevin breaks his arm at home) it's not until the third act that we ever see Kevin sharing the screen with other human beings besides his family. Whether this was intentional or not, I am unsure - but I have to assume so. This was based on a book, and in that there was a best friend character as well as some other students at school that he had particular interactions with, but that has all been excised entirely here.

And yes, it's scary. Not in the jumpy sense (though there IS one of those, oddly enough), but in the unnerving, getting under your skin kind of way, it's one of the most terrifying movies in years. Right off the bat director Lynne Ramsay makes the audience feel uncomfortable, with off-kilter closeups, heightened audio editing (you'll hear every crunch as Kevin mashes some Fruity Pebbles into dust), and just an overall sense that something awful has happened - just in the first five minutes! The non-chronological structure also allows for some terrific "when is it going to happen?" plot threads - I don't want to spoil things, but one character sports a horrific injury in the first few minutes, but it's about 90 minutes into the movie by the time we know how it occurred. So every object that COULD cause such an injury gets a bit of a murmur whenever it shows up on-screen, which is even more fun when it turns out to be a misdirection. "Ohhhh, that's how - oh wait, nope..." It's like the serious, upsetting version of the running gag from Hot Tub Time Machine regarding Crispin Glover's missing arm.

There's actually a lot of misdirection in the film, though one bit doesn't quite come across as successful as the others. At one point in the flashback scenes Swinton and Reilly discuss a certain family matter (I'm trying to be as spoiler-free as possible since it's still in VERY limited release) that would seemingly explain her situation in the present day scenes, however it doesn't really work as there's a fairly useless scene a few minutes later that resolves the issue. I think without this bit, a devastating scene later on would have even MORE of an impact; I almost wonder if the "useless" scene was inserted so the audience wouldn't go into hysterics at the other one - the useless one kind of prepares us for it! I know this makes almost no sense but when you see the movie you'll hopefully get what I mean, even if you don't necessarily agree.

There's a certain real life tragedy (actually a few, though one is the "go-to" version to name-check) that is echoed in the film, one that other films have used as the basis for something far less effective - I think this is the first that has put the parent as the focus in this particular way. While Swinton's character may have her faults as a mother, anyone can plainly see that what Kevin does is in no way the result of bad parenting or a "broken home" (she's not a stripper, is what I'm saying), yet she has to live with everyone assuming that she is (the book apparently had more of this element - I think the movie made the right call to strip it down to the bare minimum and keep it more personal). It's devastating on many levels, and the fact that it's wrapped in a psychological thriller of sorts makes it a must-see film whether you're just into horror or not. Easily one of the best films of 2011; I will forever kick myself for choosing to watch the (mostly bad) short films at Fantastic Fest while this terrific film was playing in the next room. Don't make my mistake - see it (LEGALLY!) when the opportunity arises.

What say you?

*In that doc someone compared Joshua's score to the one in There Will Be Blood, which was by Johnny Greenwood of Radiohead... who also composed this film. WEIRD.

Underworld: Awakening (2012)

2012-01-20T19:33:00.000-08:00

JANUARY 20, 2012

GENRE: VAMPIRE, WEREWOLF
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

It’s ironic, I went back and read my review of the 2nd film before heading out to see Underworld: Awakening, which was written as an open letter to director Len Wiseman*. In it, I pointed out that I think he’s a pretty good director (on a visual level), but shouldn’t be allowed to write the scripts. And yet, on this film he is given screenwriting credit (amongst others, including J. Michael Straczynski) while others direct, and yet it’s the best of the “Selene Trilogy” - which completely negates my theory. I’m not sure if I liked it more than Lycans; I’d have to sit down and watch them all to re-assess, but it delivered what I wanted from the first two films. And in 3D!

Actually, the 3D was the only real letdown. It was a native 3D film, not a post-convert (if it was I wouldn’t have bothered; there was a 2D option as well), but at times it almost seemed like it WAS something that was created later. Not only was it rarely impressive with regards to the depth in a shot (“Comin at ya!” shots – which I largely hate – were used sparingly), but it had a number of elements that seemed exaggerated, which is a frequent problem with the converted 3D films I’ve seen. Characters often seem too far apart, elements blend together as if they weren’t separated, etc. They even turn the images on some security monitors into 3D, which doesn’t even make sense.

Otherwise, I was surprised at how enjoyable it was. It largely ditches the convoluted “mythology” of the first two films (and the romantic trappings of all of them) and sticks to a straight up “mission” movie, with Selene and a few other vampires (and one human) connecting with and then having to rescue a young girl who turns out is Selene and Michael’s daughter. The Lycans (werewolves) have her because she shares Michael’s prized DNA as well as Selene’s, making her perfect fodder to experiment with as the Lycans work to eradicate their silver weakness, which will allow them to take over the world. And that’s pretty much it – the movie is only 88 minutes long with credits, and almost never slows down. There’s a bit around the halfway point (maybe further) where Selene actually has a quiet dialogue exchange with someone and I realized that it had been a while since the movie had been quiet enough to hear people talking behind me.

The action is pretty good too, albeit a bit repetitive. The werewolf based fights are a ton of fun (particularly the crazy car chase early on), and the FX continue to impress, but more often than not it’s just Kate (who seems kind of bored this time, admittedly) shooting and diving around anonymous corrupt cops/henchman types, which gets a bit monotonous after a while (and I swear, if you drink every time she drops into frame from above, you’ll be dead before the movie is over). And these guys never stand a chance (unlike the giant werewolves), so it’s like a Jackie Chan movie where the guys keep getting their asses handed to them but still stand around and fight him one at a time, except without his movies’ sense of humor. There are a couple of moments that made me laugh (mostly involving Eve, the vampy daughter), but as usual the creative team seems pretty serious about their vampire vs. werewolf movies. Or, people vs. werewolf movies - Kate also doesn’t get to show her vamp side nearly enough, though when it DOES appear it’s pretty dang awesome. Quality over quantity!

One thing in its favor was the way that the story branched out. With Viktor, Lucian, etc, all dead, it’s time for new villains, and they stick to series tradition by hiring actors who you don’t expect to find in FX heavy horror movies: Stephen Rea and Charles Dance, specifically. Dance only appears in two scenes (guessing he’ll be more prominent in the 5th film if one comes to pass), but Rea is in it quite a bit as the head scientist of the evil werewolf-run lab. His transformation is kept until the climax, but it’s worth the wait – his design is a bit different than the others; much scarier in fact. The Michael storyline is kept to a minimum; Scott Speedman wasn’t asked to return but they got some guy that looks almost sort of nothing like him at all (but with the same hair!) to appear in the few scenes that he was needed. In other words, if you haven’t seen the others, you won’t be lost – if anything you might even be in a better position to enjoy it as the recasting might be too annoying for the die-hard fans. Then again, a newcomer won’t appreciate the little nods to the others; there’s a terrific bit where Selene reprises her famous “shoot in a circle and fall through the floor” bit from the first film, albeit in an inverse way – I cheered and I don’t even like that one!

I also liked that they flashed forward 12 years, and presented the Lycan race as dying – the first few we see are kind of sickly and weak compared to the ones near the end. In fact I could have used more of this stuff; her 12 year coma doesn’t seem to bother her much, and the movie’s pace is too fast to bother much with what might be different about the world now (most of it is addressed in the first reel and then never mentioned again). Then again, at 88 minutes I have to assume the pace was tightened from something a bit more meaty (the first film is just under two hours, for comparison’s sake), so perhaps this stuff was excised since it didn’t have much to do with the main plot – i.e. Kate running around and killing folks/wolves in her attempt to free her daughter from Rea and his cohorts. Still, the little that’s there gives the overall storyline a bit more of a scope – it’s cool to see how their little war has affected the rest of the world.

So it’s hard to tell how fans will react to it. On one hand, Kate is back after sitting the last movie out, and you’d have to be insane not to be interested in watching her do her thing in 3D (one ad even flat out says “Kate Beckinsale In 3D!”). It continues the story of Evolution without demanding that you can remember the details (or even seen it at all – there’s a bit of a “Previously, on Underworld” thing at the top of the movie either way), and opts to stick more with action and FX than scenes of British thespians standing around arguing with each other using silly words. On the other, it unceremoniously drops the 2nd lead from the first two films, and limits Dance’s screentime to almost nothing, which won’t help anyone forget about the great Bill Nighy. And there’s not a lot of vampire action; more often than not it just resembles one of the Resident Evil flicks, in fact (think Alice vs. random Umberella goons), and thus the “dumbed down” approach of this one might be insulting to those who can actually follow the storyline of the first two. So it might appeal more toward those who WEREN’T huge fans of the others instead of those who were. Your call – but unless you’re a total junkie for the format I think I can definitively say that it’s not worth the extra 3 bucks to see it in 3D. That being said, it’s also in IMAX – and I would never dream to suggest it’s not worth a couple extra bucks to gaze upon a 60 foot screen covered with Ms. Beckinsale’s face during her many closeups.

What say you?

*In that same letter to Wiseman I mocked his overuse of blue filters and offered to show him what the color red looked like. So I had to laugh when the logo for the Red camera (which this was shot on) came up… in blue.

HMAD Screening: PSYCHO III

2012-01-20T19:08:00.000-08:00

We're back! Due to the fact that the Christmas/New Year's holidays fell on the weekend, there was no HMAD screening in December, saving folks from having to hear me pimp Black Xmas (which is what I would show - and yes I mean the remake). But I'm making up for it - February's screening is already booked as well, and I'll announce the title at THIS month's screening, which is Psycho III!

Some of you were probably at last year's Psycho II screening, which, while not typical midnight movie material, was a damn great time and won over a lot of fans. Psycho III, on the other hand, is PERFECT for midnight, as it adds a layer of sleaziness, has a higher body count, and... well, it's 20 minutes shorter. Always a plus, especially for serial dozers like me.

We're still working on guests, but I'll have a TON of DVDs to give away, plus my usual rambling intro and the announcement of next month's screening, which I'm very excited about for reasons I'll explain when I'm up on stage. The screening takes place Saturday, January 28th at 11:59pm, and as always, you can buy your tickets at the door for 8 bucks (cash only!) or online at BrownPaperTickets. The New Beverly is located at 7165 Beverly Blvd in Los Angeles, 2 blocks west of La Brea. All the info is also on the awesome poster below, which I encourage you to steal and post about on your own sites/blogs/twitters/what have you. Let's pack this joint!

Fading Of The Cries (2011)

2012-01-19T21:03:00.000-08:00

JANUARY 19, 2012

GENRE: SUPERNATURAL, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

One of my favorite underrated flicks in the past few years is Night Watch, which combined vampires with a more action/fantasy type story (the sequel, Day Watch, wasn’t as good, and I’m still bummed that they didn’t continue the series since there are four source novels and the two movies only covered the first). So I was kind of interested in Fading Of The Cries, because it sounded like a similar scenario albeit with zombies instead of vampires. Add in Brad Dourif (and the fact that it actually got a small theatrical release) and it should be a fun time-killer at worst, right?

Wrong. By telling a convoluted and yet uninteresting story via a constant stream of terrible VFX shots, almost nothing about the movie qualifies as “fun”. Any sane person would grow tired of seeing digital blood (and skies, and people, and pretty much everything else) before the first act was through, and the action isn’t even all that exciting – most of it is simply our hero (Jordan Matthews) running around and swinging a sword in the general direction of zombie/demon things, most of which appear to have been shot separately. Writer/director Brian Metcalf is seemingly under the impression that everything will look cooler if there’s a lot of it, so Matthews is constantly fighting off dozen of zombies at once while literally hundreds of them run around in the background. Unfortunately for him, he’s completely wrong – any discerning audience member would rather an actual fight with a handful of the things, WITHOUT the distracting, poorly composited extras in the background.

I mean, obviously this was not a big budgeted film – why stretch your production value even thinner by constantly adding in VFX that aren’t necessary? Nearly every shot of the sky in this movie seems to be added in via a demo copy of After Effects, which is just a distracting eyesore that adds nothing. Other elements are needlessly “enhanced” – at one point our heroes are at Disney’s Ranch a bit north of LA, an area I am familiar with because they shot part of Hatchet II there. I instantly recognized the bridge that housed a lot of the equipment during filming (the bridge itself doesn’t appear in the film – it’s next to the swamp where Ed Ackerman’s character got his face sliced off), and then laughed as I saw that they were trying to make it look 10x as long using cheap visual effects, and having the actors run over the same patch of it over and over again to make it seem longer than it actually is (which is about 100 feet). But why? If they’re trapped, what difference does it make how long it is? If anything the shorter length would actually be SCARIER – because there would be less room for them to maneuver.

However even if I was just sitting here reading the script I’d have problems, because the movie is all over the place. I knew we were in trouble early on, when we see Thomas Ian Nicholas drive up to a house, get out of his car, and walk inside. Some voiceover tells us that his wife and child had died and that he’s living there to try to get over it and also write his next book. Then we watch the opening credits, which are followed by a “14 years later” card. 14 years after a widower walked into a house? Who the hell cares? And like every other scene in the movie, it’s filled with ugly CGI skies and such, so lopping it off entirely could have not only strengthened the movie’s pace a bit, instead of starting it off so awkwardly, but also would have given these overworked FX guys either a break or more time to improve the other shots in scenes that DID serve a purpose.

Anyway, Nicholas dies in his “14 years ago” timeline, and thus for obvious reasons he never really interacts with our other heroes. The back and forth between the two storylines never has any motivation behind it, and since we know he’s dead from our first “present day” scene, they carry little interest once you know where they are going. He also narrates them for some reason, as if his story was supposed to be being learned via his journal or something, instead of just being edited into the narrative at random intervals. Most of his scenes involve him slowly walking around his house (“I heard a noise and decided to check it out”, voiceover Nicholas tells us, as his character hears a noise and decides to check it out) or breaking glasses of every sort – water glasses! Mirrors! Tumblers! Why his character’s magic powers seem to revolve entirely around glass is never explained, but I assume it’s just easier on the FX guys than having him break, I dunno, wood or something.

The villains don’t make a lot of sense, either. I never quite understood what evil wizard Dourif was trying to accomplish, but let’s just assume “Destroy the world!” for the sake of our sanity. But why does this require turning seemingly everyone in the town (except for our protagonists and their immediate friends) into zombies? What purpose did they serve in the grand scheme of things? And what’s with the girl with a white sock on her head? Also, he only appears in spurts, talking cryptically to our heroes and then disappearing again. A movie like this needs a villain that matches up to our heroes. Think The Matrix – Mr. Smith was just as interesting as Neo after a while. Dourif never gets that much to do – even Wormtongue had more of an arc and he wasn’t even the main villain!

Like many a fantasy film, at the center of the battle is an amulet, which is fine. The problem is, the amulet’s owner (Hailee Hirsh, cute but playing an obnoxious character) is phased out of the movie in favor of her younger sister, who is basically a glorified extra until the third act. Suddenly, Dourif kidnaps her and our hero goes off to save her while Hirsh – who we’ve been with for most of the movie – just stays home and (spoiler) dies along with her mom, a story point that might be grim or shocking if the story gave us any real reason to care about them beyond the fact that they were on-screen the longest. This results in what I would call the year’s weirdest closing shot if not for the fact that I’m one of the 14 people who have seen Beneath The Darkness.

I was also continually confused who the movie was made for. The R rating is for “bloody horror violence”, and while it’s certainly more graphic than Twilight, the fantasy feel and the fact that everyone is an anonymous zombie probably could have gotten them a PG-13 if they asked nicely. However there are also a couple of F-bombs, so they clearly weren’t TRYING for a PG-13, despite the teen-friendly story (it reminded me a bit of the Dungeons & Dragons movie on more than one occasion, in fact).

It did have a few moments of merit, however. Dourif is always a delight, even when I had no idea what the hell he was talking about (and despite the fact that his near-top billing suggested a lot more than his 10 minutes or so of screen time). There’s a cool “trapped in a barn” scene that uses an aggressive surround mix instead of the usual bad FX to sell the idea, something that the movie should have relied on more often. And there’s a weird little demon that looked kind of creepy (you can see it in the trailer, the one in the cornfield). Also, the movie sort of resembled a live-action anime at times, something that COULD be done well; I wouldn’t want to dissuade anyone from trying. Just make sure it’s better than this.

The disc contains the trailer for it as well as other Lionsgate properties, including Highlander 2. Word of advice – no one wants to be reminded of the existence of Highlander 2, ever, so putting it at the top of a disc is somewhat foreboding, as if you’re telling us to be prepared for massive disappointment. The only other extra is a making of, where everyone just talks about how great everyone/everything is, with Dourif praising his character’s dialogue (?) and Matthews hilariously revealing that he read “The Art Of War” to prepare for his one-note, shockingly uninteresting character. Well, beats reading the script I guess.

I hate knocking on ambitious movies – there’s a severe lack of them in the genre nowadays, and again, I think the blend of horror and fantasy is something that could be really cool when done right. But giving a pass to something merely for ATTEMPTING something unique doesn’t do anyone any good – if nothing else, you have to give your ambitious idea some real characters to bring it to life, or something that’s truly exciting on a visual level. This might work as a 6-8 issue comic miniseries, but a 90 minute film isn’t nearly enough to handle this many subplots and ideas, especially when half of it is devoted to mindless zombie “attack” scenes that pale in comparison to even a Syfy level movie.

What say you?

Stage Fright (2005)

2012-01-19T20:54:00.000-08:00

JANUARY 18, 2012

GENRE: SLASHER, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX INSTANT)

In honor to succeed, a slasher film must deliver on one of two levels: the story has to be interesting (Scream) or it has to be stylish and scary (Halloween). I can also accept “a whole bunch of cool kills” (Hatchet), but that sort of falls under style. Unfortunately for anyone who makes the mistake of watching Stage Fright, it delivers absolutely none of those things – it’s actually MORE plot-less than Halloween but has zero style, without a single good kill or interesting killer to make up for its other faults.

Director/producer Rick Jordan (who also co-stars) also can’t even bother to pick a tone. It starts off like a farcical comedy of sorts, with a bunch of actors sitting around doing little shtick-y things as a cartoonish producer yells at someone over the phone – no suggestion that it’s even a horror/comedy mix, just a flat out (unfunny) comedy. Finally after seven minutes the rest of the credits show up (out of nowhere; I had actually already forgotten that they weren’t complete. The Fugitive would be proud) and the characters go from the original theater to a different one, where a weird janitor and some creepy music informs us that we are indeed watching a genre film.

To its credit, it doesn’t waste much time getting to the kills, and it seemingly unfolds almost in real time from the moment where all of the characters are aware that they are trapped with a killer. But that’s also one of its problems – we haven’t had any time to differentiate between the complete strangers who make up our cast (I had trouble telling two of the males apart in particular), or know their names when they are mentioned. “Where’s Rob?” someone will ask, and I’m just thinking “WHO is Rob?”. In other words, caring about any of them is impossible, but unlike even an MPAA-mangled Friday the 13th entry, the kills aren’t anything to look forward to. Even New Blood (the most eviscerated entry) had the sleeping bag kill.

So that just leaves story, which is a mess. There’s a couple of killers, with different motives – something that would be fine if used in any meaningful way, but it just seems like a way to pad out the runtime; our main killer is taken out (via a sword fight! Points for novelty, I guess), and then another character we had forgotten about comes back and helps add another 15 minutes to the thing. Thanks, asshole. Supernatural elements also come into play, and like everything else, are too vague to be particularly interesting. There’s an inkling of a decent idea here about people disrespecting theatrical works (Shakespeare in particular), but there’s absolutely nothing compelling about the way it is presented here.

To sum it up (there’s no sense going on and on, this movie is remarkably obscure for a fairly recent American horror movie – I couldn’t even find another review! Clearly no one cares, nor should they), the movie is just THERE. It’s aimless and tone-deaf, features not one memorable moment or performance, and simply doesn’t work on any level. It’s the type of bad that doesn’t even get me angry at the time/money wasted on putting it together; I might as well get angry at wind or upset at the sky. It’s just another movie that makes the Netflix streaming library look more impressive than it actually is, and nothing more.

What say you?

Evil Eyes (2004)

2012-01-17T16:38:00.000-08:00

JANUARY 17, 2012

GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX INSTANT)

The other day I lauded The Asylum for actually managing to make a real movie for once (Zombie Apocalypse), praising its scope, decent acting, etc. You know, things you people who only see theatrical movies take for granted. However, their gambles to actually produce something of relative merit don’t always pan out; Evil Eyes (which I wasn’t aware was an Asylum flick until it was over) has a cool idea and some good actors at its center, but it mostly fails to deliver any real suspense or thrills, and ultimately becomes too confusing for its own good.

Part of the problem is that there’s almost no buildup – we meet our hero (Adam Baldwin) as he is supposedly having trouble with his screenwriting career, but practically as soon as we learn that he is meeting with Udo Kier, who offers him a job writing a film about a true life massacre that occurred 35 years ago. “Crisis” solved! And other things get raced through just as quickly – he figures out the film’s hook in the first 20 minutes! It’s one of those “writer discovers that what he is writing on the page is happening in the real world” things, which usually takes a couple of instances for the protagonist to catch on, but no! In the first time he sits down to write this script, he writes a car accident, and then his ex-girlfriend dies in the same way moments later. Roughly 12 seconds after that in the narrative, he’s all “It’s my fault! I WROTE it!” So much for the element of discovery.

And hell that could almost work if the movie opened up the story a bit, using this element as a kickoff for some larger plot, but for the next 45 minutes or so it just plays out in a fixed cycle – someone does something to offend him in some way (for example, Crowley from Supernatural gets a gig he had been pining for), and then he writes them dying, which then happens. Then he feels guilty or something, sometimes Udo Kier will show up to remind him to keep writing, and the whole thing happens again.

Worse, as this is a high concept horror movie, it eventually goes off the rails, like pretty much all high concept horror movies. I don’t even know what was happening at the end; it seems his wife might have been the one behind some of the killings, he starts running around with an ax, and Udo continues to just pop up at random without his character’s motivations ever becoming clear. There’s even a scene where Baldwin demands to know the colors of a Rubik’s Cube that are facing her; I don’t know if it’s just a weird continuity error or her fucking with him or what, but she answers the first one correctly and then says red when it’s green – either way, why is he even asking her in the first place? Without a coherent motivation behind his question, it’s unclear what exactly her reason is for answering him wrong. Unless it’s just like some sort of weird, villainous test for color blindness or something.

Not sure if Baldwin is the best guy to play this role, either. He’s an engaging presence, no doubt about it, but if you look at his filmography, one word should come to mind: HARDASS. Here he’s supposed to be a lovable family man, almost a pushover, so that it really blows our minds when he starts going crazy near the end. But come on, it’s fucking Jayne Cobb! His buddy from Firefly, Alan Tudyk, might have been a better choice – HIM I can totally buy as a nice guy/kind of loser, and be weirded out with the sight of him screaming and waving weapons around. You start the actor in his comfort zone and THEN have him go off the beaten path; not the other way around. It’d be like casting Bruce Willis as a pacifist who has to build up the confidence to shoot a bunch of guys.

The direction was awkward as well – all hand-held, shaki-cam closeup shots that rarely cut together, making the film look more like a bunch of kids screwing around with their dad’s camera than a real film (“Film me!” “OK now you film me!”). I’m sure the intent was to make things uncomfortable and erratic, but again, you need to ground us first before spiraling into this sort of “madness”. Without anything to grasp on from the start, it’s just a total mess. And Udo’s not in it nearly enough to make up for it; if he was in every scene at least it would be a delightful train wreck, but his ten minutes of screen time aren’t nearly enough to make up for the nearly impenetrable narrative, ugly visuals, and lack of action (most of the kills are more or less off-screen).

So now I can’t help but wonder, as this was such an early production in The Asylum’s output – did they used to try to make real movies and keep failing, only to strike gold with the “Mockbuster” model they mostly use today? They’re also behind Stuart Gordon’s King Of The Ants, a pretty good (but uneven to a fault) dramatic thriller – hardly the type of thing you’d expect from the guys who gave us Transmorphers. I’d be interested if they would occasionally use the profits from their mockbusters to fund things along these lines; even if it didn’t work out, I’d rather see an interesting failure than another Paranormal Activity wannabe that they shot in 6 days.

What say you?

P.S. Couldn't find the trailer - enjoy some outtakes instead.

More Brains: A Return To The Living Dead (2011)

2012-01-16T13:30:00.000-08:00

JANUARY 16, 2012

GENRE: DOCUMENTARY
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

A couple months ago I wrote this article for Badass Digest, about all of the franchise documentaries that had sprung up over the past couple years. And having not yet seen it, I included More Brains, because I was under the impression that it was about the entire Return of the Living Dead series. In fact part of why I held off watching it was because I was waiting to see all of the movies first, so now with Rave to the Grave under my belt I figured it was time to hear about the films from their own creators. However, I was mistaken/misinformed; the film is actually only about the first movie in the series, with parts 2 and 3 covered only in the bonus features – 4 and 5 aren’t even mentioned in passing.

I’ll get back to that. As a full length (seconds under two hours) documentary on a single film, More Brains delivers. For starters, it assembles just about everyone of note – apart from Jonathan Terry (Colonel Glover), the only absentees are, sadly, deceased. But everyone else is on board – Clu Gulager, James Karen, Thom Matthews, all of the punks (save the late Mark Venturini), Don Calfa, FX man Tony Gardner, the producers, the DP, the casting director… EVERYONE! There’s even an exception to the “death” rule - Dan O’Bannon appears briefly, in a clip from his final known interview. Christ, even John Russo shows up, discussing his original (terrible-sounding) script and offering some thoughts about the film as well as the initial legal battle to get the film made (Romero’s lawyers got involved due to the title similarity).

It also covers the movie’s production in pretty great detail. The script development, getting the money together, casting, the problems with the makeup designs, production, the music… everything gets explored with the mix of candid “water under the bridge” stories and the always fun contradictory recollections. Only the post-production process is glossed over – there’s very little about the MPAA or deleted scenes. A while back there was a workprint version of the film floating around that ran 20 or so minutes longer, so obviously there was some tinkering, but these things aren’t really covered. They also skip over the army characters almost entirely; even if Terry couldn’t be brought in, it’s a bit odd to never discuss his character or any of the scenes involving him (especially since he has my favorite line in the entire film – “The usual. Crap.”).

But who cares, what kind of dirt is spilled?!? Let’s not pretend we’re all good people who just want to hear happy tales of a smooth production, we want to know who hated who! Well, you won’t be let down. Gulager v. O’Bannon, original makeup guy (name escapes me) vs. producers, and Jewel Shepard v. pretty much everyone at one point or another are covered. Again, their memories don’t always match up, but it doesn’t make these segments any less enjoyable (especially the stuff with Clu, who is one of my favorite people in the world). No one seems bitter or resentful toward anyone else, so it’s all in good fun.

However, even if the sequels weren’t considered worthy of inclusion, I do think they deserve a MENTION in the main film, particularly when it comes time to discuss its lasting impact. We see clips from Simpsons and Family Guy that reference the film, and everyone talks about how they still get asked about it and such, but it’s really odd that there isn’t even a “and it spawned four sequels” line in the finished film. Hell, the doc’s trailer even shows Brian Yuzna and the actors from 2 and 3, but they’re nowhere to be seen unless you access the bonus features, which won’t always be possible for viewers watching on Netflix Instant or whatever.

Then again, that just makes the disc more enticing to would-be viewers, because you get another two hours’ worth of stuff to enjoy. Both ROTLD2 and 3 are covered in 20-25 minute segments each, albeit with limited participants compared to the first film’s roster. Hilariously, the only one who has anything positive to say about part 2 is Michael Kenworthy, the little kid from the movie and thus would be the right age to enjoy that film's juvenile humor. Everyone else rightfully points out that it didn’t work; Thom Matthews and James Karen seemed to enjoy working together again but that was about it (and apparently even called Don Calfa – originally meant to return as well – and told him he was lucky for being left out). ROTLD3’s segment is much more positive; the film is the only good sequel in the bunch, after all, and thus most of the memories recollected here are positive. Shame that they couldn’t get Mindy Clarke to contribute a new interview, however.

The rest of the extras are again centric to the first film. Brian “Scuz” Peck (who also narrates the film) and Beverly “Tina” Randolph take us on a tour of the shooting locations and how they look today (the cemetery is now a housing development; don’t bother making a Poltergeist joke, they have it covered); I was surprised to see that the studio was right near where I work (I thought it was all downtown LA). Then there are about 20 deleted “scenes” from the documentary, mostly little anecdotes that wouldn’t really fit anywhere, as well as a trailer, a music video for “Tonight”, and a fun little piece where all of the actors say their classic lines in sequence.

But the real jewel here is the full interview with O’Bannon, used only once in the film for maximum impact (I suspect this is also because it was shot in his home unlike everyone else who was shot on stage). Surprisingly, he admits that he was a pain in the ass during the production, and doesn’t harbor any grudges toward anyone – with one exception (it’s hilarious). It’s just under a half hour, and every bit as entertaining as the film itself – O’Bannon was a character, and his portions were always highlights on documentaries about Alien or whatever, so giving him 30 minutes to himself is pretty much pure bliss. It’s a damn shame that he died so relatively young (in his 60s) – as Clu points out, the world was robbed too soon of whatever scripts he may have written or films he may have directed.

So if you’re a fan of the whole series for some reason you might be pretty disappointed – the recent book “The Complete History of ‘The Return of The Living Dead’” (from the same writers of the documentary) covers ALL five films, though I haven’t read it so I can’t vouch for the participants or if 4 and 5 are just given a page or two each to cover the bases. But if you only really care about the original, there’s little to complain about here – the doc itself is thorough and well-stocked with contributors, hits all the marks on the technical level (I LOVE the EC comic style transitions, by the way), and provides lots of info and reveals things I’ve never heard despite attending a couple of retrospective screenings and going through the original DVD. It may not have “belonged” in my article about the franchise documentaries, but it certainly measures up to them.

What say you?

P.S. If you still nurse a crush on Ms. Quigley, you might not want to watch the movie. I don’t know what the hell she has done, but YIKES. She looks like Robert Blake in a wig. Hopefully it was just a really bad makeup day or something.

Zombie Apocalypse (2011)

2012-01-15T21:19:00.000-08:00

JANUARY 15, 2012

GENRE: POST-APOCALYPTIC, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

Guys, sit down. Take a deep breath. Calm yourself. What I am about to say can cause shock and panic.

…The Asylum’s Zombie Apocalypse is good.

And I don’t even mean “Good for Asylum”, I mean it’s a genuinely decent and fun zombie flick, with likable characters, a ton of action, and a lovably batshit finale. As long as you accept that the excess (and not very good, though I’ve seen worse) digital blood is allowing for more action, you should agree – especially since the dialogue is otherwise the worst thing about it. When folks are killing zombies, they're not stopping to talk.

To be fair, the dialogue isn't ALL bad – there are some decent exchanges here and there, and again, the characters are likable for a change. Even when some hardass humans show up in the 3rd act, they’re not “evil”, and they actually end up becoming good allies. Any zombie movie that skips over the usual “but MAN HIMSELF is the real villain!” stuff is already on my good side – not that the plot point is bad on its own, but it’s become such a cliché, and rarely seems thought out; the goals of the human villains usually make less logical sense than the idea of zombies in the first place.

But unfortunately, a lot of the dialogue falls on the exposition-y side of things, which can get tiresome. Our heroine is Taryn Manning (well, by default anyway - she doesn’t DO anything in the movie but she’s the most well-known of the female stars), and she’s not as experienced at killing zombies as the other characters. So we get a lot of exchanges where someone will say “Let’s pop and drop!” and she’ll have to have it explained to her. And then five seconds later someone will refer to a “runner” and she’ll need THAT explained to her. It borders on ridiculous as well; our hero is telling a story about how someone recently died, and says “we encountered a pack.” As always, she has to ask what that is – isn’t it kind of obvious what it is when discussing how someone was killed by zombies? It’s a bunch of fucking zombies! I’d almost rather they use weird terms and not explain them than over-explain things that are pretty damn self-explanatory.

Luckily, things never get too talky, a problem that plagues most Asylum films, where we see scene after scene of people looking at monitors from control rooms while Giant Octopus and Mega Shark do awesome things off-screen. In the first 20 minutes we get three big zombie fights, with lots of dismemberment and decapitations. Again, it’s all done digitally, and it rarely looks good, but I’d almost rather they were consistent instead of doing it right (i.e. practically) every now and then, which would just make the digital stuff look even worse when cut together with the practical effects. Their goal here was quantity over quality, and usually they botch BOTH.

I was also surprised how much Ving Rhames was actually in the film. I saw his name on the cover (which adds a “2012” to the title) but figured he’d be in the movie for like 10 minutes or so, tops. But nope, he’s there until the final reel, and there’s only one instance where I caught them using a double. Every now and then they find ways to keep him out of the camera range when his character is present (his character usually brings up the rear, so the camera will go in close on the guys up front, cutting him from view), but it’s a real lead performance, not just the usual bait and switch you get from these things. And for a guy far more respectable than many; no offense to Dean Cain, but when the distributor tries to sell a movie on his name when he’s only in it for five minutes, it just looks doubly desperate to me.

It also has some scope to it, again something that often escapes Asylum films. It’s obviously all LA when it’s supposed to be somewhere in the Midwest TO LA, but there are like 5-6 locations in the first half hour alone, and the characters never hole up anywhere for too long. A school, a sporting goods store, a shipyard, houses, lots of different exteriors… again, it’s like a real movie! Hell at one point they could have even stayed longer in a spot; there’s a fun bit where the survivors are trapped in a work van, surrounded by zombies on the outside while one of their number starts to turn. They could have milked the claustrophobia a bit more, but the matter is settled and they’re on their way again after a few minutes.

On that note, it kind of reminded me of Left 4 Dead. The plot is similar to any level of that game, where your four characters make their way to some sort of rescue vehicle (in this case, a boat). There are different kinds of zombies (including a “tank” type), the weapons are similar, and like the game, it’s remarkably straightforward. Again, no evil humans, but there aren’t too many other obstacles either – it’s just all run n’ gun, with zombies as the only real threat. That said, they took a bit from "The Walking Dead" as well – in addition to an off-screen character named Kirkman (someone mentions Pittsburgh as well – they did their homework!), our badass black female character almost exclusively uses a sword as her weapon. But hey that means they’re reading stuff instead of copying popular shows/movies like usual – Michonne hasn’t appeared on the AMC show yet!

The DVD has a pair of fairly worthless features; a gag reel in which I can’t even see what went wrong (if anything; some of it just appears to be random shots of people hanging out), and a brief making of that focuses mostly on the cast. I’d actually love a look at the Asylum “creative process”, and if they were ever to do such a thing I’d prefer it was on something like this, where the movie’s actually pretty fun, than some piece of junk like Amityville Haunting or whatever. But hey, if cutting corners on those other productions is what allowed this one to be pretty enjoyable (the co-production with Syfy probably helped, too), so be it. Good work guys; too bad you opted for your usual fake quote on the back – I would have given you “Best Asylum movie ever!” for real.

What say you?

P.S. Don’t comment “Why didn’t you mention the ____?”, because I won’t post it. Yes, it was awesome, but mainly because I didn’t know anything about it. Let people be surprised for once.

Anna's Eve (2004)

2012-01-14T17:58:00.000-08:00

JANUARY 14, 2012

GENRE: GHOST
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Weird connection - some of the folks who worked on Anna's Eve were also involved with the 2002 movie Love And A Bullet, and select crew from that went on to make April Fools, the abysmal slasher movie. Perhaps I should seek out Love And A Bullet to see if I can understand the mystery of how the people who made it went on to make separate but equally amateurish horror films that seem like no one involved understood how horror WORKS.

But whereas April Fools had some lovingly stupid moments (and who can forget "People call me POOP"?) and had the good sense to come in at 72 minutes, this overlong (95 minutes) bore is free of anything that can be considered amusing. At no point do the actors seem to realize that the movie they are acting out is pretty pointless and dull and thus maybe they should try to spice it up a bit by over-acting. It's almost kind of remarkable in a way; the back-story involves a social work case gone horribly wrong, and Grayce Wey's script (in which she stars as the main character) manages to make the ghost/murder scenes just as uninteresting as the ones involving writing up follow up reports about certain child welfare cases.

And director Kantz (that's the whole name) is no help, botching the few scare scenes that are actually on-screen. Most just occur entirely in our imagination; at one point a character seemingly runs to safety only for some dialogue in the next scene to inform us that she was actually killed. A good director would at least show the ghost running after her or popping up in their path, which would be a "good enough" choice if they weren't able/willing to actually SHOW the kill, but Kantz doesn't roll that way, I guess. This also leads to plain ol' confusion at times, particularly in the opening sequence. The movie starts awkwardly anyway; I thought the DVD had somehow skipped the first chapter as it seemingly starts mid-scene, but then the main character goes into a house and sees... SOMETHING, which causes her to scream as we cut to the main titles. Then it's "eight months later" and she's now addicted to pills and driving a different car, so whatever she saw was pretty important - why the hell didn't they SHOW it then? Again, we just hear it through dialogue, as if Kantz had come from the radio drama world and hadn't gotten used to the idea of working in a visual medium yet.

Now, off-screen kills can be fine if they serve a more interesting or twisty story, but this one is just the usual "ghost seeks revenge for her death/improper burial" thing that you've seen in a million Asian horror flicks, and we even get a scare ripped off directly from Ju-On for good measure. Plus their attempts at twists just render the story incoherent - the "bad guy" is not actually the killer, and his actions/character motivations are constantly at odds with one another (without spoiling too much - though I don't know why I'd bother - he sure has a weird way of showing how devoted he is to the woman he loves). Worse, the ghost doesn't even seem to distinguish between who killed her and who is just kind of a jerk; it's almost like she SIDES with her killer because somehow deep down she knows the other guy is really to blame. It'd be like if the Poltergeist ghost confronted the Freelings and was like "Look, I know you didn't know that you built the home over my grave, so just give me the address of your boss and I'll go haunt him instead." In short, a rational ghost is not a scary one (and my example isn't even as stupid as what happens here).

It's also a shockingly ugly film. Kantz likes to shoot everything in master shots or soap opera-esque closeups, sucking all of the energy out of what could be exciting scenes. And I'll ignore the fact that it's shot with non-top of the line high def, but not their attempts to filter obvious day for night shots by seemingly drenching the image in Smurf blood. But I guess at least they were TRYING to color correct that stuff; other scenes go by with one side of a conversation drenched in orange sunlight and the other just regular daytime, slightly bluish tones. The productions attempts at matching locations are also abysmal - at one point they cause confusion by using the heroine's hallway for someone else's home as if we wouldn't notice that the layout is exactly the same as long as they threw up a beaded curtain to "distinguish" it. Nope. Maybe it'll fool a child, but a kid would have turned the thing off long before this particular shot, having been bored to tears with the repetitive plotting and lackluster ghost scenes.

You'd never know the movie was a mess from the commentary by Kantz, Wey, and Lemar Knight who plays the film's "comic relief" character of a local crackhead (indeed, he IS the only amusing thing about the movie, but his character is awkwardly introduced and is there only to provide crucial info - I wondered if he was a ghost himself since he just showed up at important moments to help move the plot forward). Apparently the script was written in a week (what took THAT long?), they were frequently shooting without permits, etc. Kantz only second guesses ONE of his many botched scare scenes (one that wasn't even that bad, really), and Wey explains some of the movie's confusing plot points )mostly revolving around the ever-present teddy bear), but does so in a way that makes it sound like we're dumb for not understanding it, not that her week's worth of writing may not have been enough to produce a good script. To be fair they claim that 30-40 minutes were cut (and IMDb lists a runtime of 110 minutes) so maybe these things would have worked before, but they're sitting there watching their independently produced movie - if there was anything important missing they probably would have mentioned it. I do like the bit where they laugh at a health-conscious actor's work with a bag of Cheetos though - he spends the scene trying as hard as he can not to actually eat any. So for about 70 seconds I was finally entertained by Anna's Eve. Thanks guys!

What say you?

Murder Obsession (1981)

2012-01-13T18:07:00.000-08:00

JANUARY 13, 2012

GENRE: GIALLO
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

The main user comment for Murder Obsession (Italian: Follia Omicida; aka Murder Syndrome) on IMDb claimed that the story was "a mess even by giallo standards", which got me all excited - I was in the mood for a good "What the FUCK?" laugh-fest. But that viewer must not have been too bright or have seen many gialli; it's pretty standard fare with regards to the killer's identity, and his/her motive is clearly established throughout the film instead of just springing a bunch of back-story out of nowhere during the climax.

However, there were some elements that never quite gelled, so I guess if you're putting a lot of stock into them (or again, simply aren't used to the rather scattershot plotting of these things) then it might seem confusing. There's a subplot involving psychic/supernatural nonsense that mostly just seems to exist in order to smooth over a few would-be plot holes, and the "black mass" elements are never fully clarified, but again, these don't have much to do with guessing who the killer is, or even their main goal. It's like saying Die Hard 3 was a mess because you couldn't figure out the five gallon jug riddle.

Anyway, it's a cool flick; one that is partially influenced by the splatter films of the time as well as traditional gialli from the early 70s. It takes a little while to get to the kills, but they deliver - a chainsawed head being the big gore highlight. And if you enjoy the nudity in these things, this more than delivers - I think just about every female cast member disrobes at one point or another.

There's also a slight hint of incest between the mother and son, which is interesting to note because a similar element played into Tragic Ceremony, which was the previous horror film from director Riccardo Freda. Now THAT one was all over the place, certainly, but they both blend more fantastical elements with straight up thriller, giving them a unique identity in the sub-genre. This one isn't as funny (there's nothing as glorious as Ceremony's "monster or steamroller" news report), but it's never dull either; even with pretty much all the kills confined to the final 35 minutes, it's still peppered with "action".

And that includes some wonderfully goofy attempts at keeping everyone as a suspect - it's remarkable how many characters own black gloves, and how they act sneaky with regards to wearing them. I like to think that because this was 1981, the characters had all seen a bunch of gialli by now and realized that owning black gloves might make you look suspicious to anyone else. I was also charmed by a ten minute "dream sequence" that includes a giant spider and a bunch of bats on strings - and since it was a dream sequence, the strings don't even matter! We're told it's a dream right off the, er, bat (sorry), and parts of it really do resemble dreams (instantly changing locations and such), so it's nice that Freda gets to go for broke, without the usual crutch of having to try to fool the audience into believing that what they are seeing is actually happening.

I also liked that it seemed to have a small homage to Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None" (aka "Ten Little Indians"), as important information is relayed on a recording, utilizing a device that is set up similar to the way the killer in that story had himself killed. Maybe it was unintentional, but as with the story, it's sort of a "Here's the part of the story you weren't aware of" thing delivered by a character who is already dead, so it's certainly similar enough to warrant the thought.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get backup from the accompanying DVD booklet. Unlike Body Puzzle, Raro didn't commission a detailed analysis of this one, so all we get is a synopsis (which thankfully doesn't reveal the killer), a brief mini-review of sorts, someone's picks for the best scenes (who cares? Also, these DO spoil the ending), a couple of notes about the cast, and a mini-bio of Freda. In other words, it's a nice little booklet, but it's all stuff you could get on the IMDb page or something. I would think that the fact that it came out at the time when Italy was primarily focused on zombie films would warrant more insight from someone far more respectable than myself (so, pretty much anyone), but no dice. The disc's only extra is an interview with makeup man Sergio Stivaletti - this was his first job and he recounts a funny story about pissing off Freda on the first day, but he doesn't say much about the film itself (I would wager that it was taken from a longer interview about another topic, actually).

Another "unlisted" extra is that the film is presented with a few scenes that were originally cut from the US release, which also may have contributed to the IMDb guy's confusion if he saw the other version - one in particular explains (or at least, further hints at) the "psychic powers" subplot; without it those elements must REALLY be out of nowhere. The new scenes are easy to tell - they're still in Italian while the rest of the movie is dubbed, as once again Raro has misled the audience with the film's language. While it claims "Italian with English subtitles" (which are listed as "New and Improved" in the special features column!), the only option is a dubbed English track, excepting the 3 minutes' worth of restored footage (which was presumably never dubbed). Considering the work they put into the booklets and restoring the films, it baffles me that Raro has opted not to include the original soundtrack. For Body Puzzle I didn't mind much - half of the cast was speaking English anyway - but here it's a fully Italian-speaking cast, and while the dub is fine, those few moments in the original Italian are enough to make you bemoan the switch back to dubbing. That the original soundtrack is promised on the back of the DVD is just twisting the knife.

But again, it's great that they are releasing these films uncut for the first time on DVD (in the US anyway) and given nice transfers and respectable (if slim) extras as well. I'm sure I'll die before I ever get a decent release of Cathy's Curse.

What say you?

Return Of The Living Dead 5: Rave To The Grave (2005)

2012-01-12T16:51:00.000-08:00

JANUARY 12, 2012

GENRE: COMEDIC, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

I certainly didn’t LIKE Return of the Living Dead 4: Necropolis, but I will stand by my claim that it was a mild improvement on the 2nd film, which inexplicably brought back two actors to play different characters, focused too heavily on the comedy, and neglected to use the already established story from the original to create a faster pace – if anything it was SLOWER. Necropolis, on the other hand, suffered from some of the same problems… just in a slightly better way. However, Return Of The Living Dead 5: Rave To The Grave, is just as abysmal as ROTLD2, possibly even worse; the only interesting thing about it is that it actually mirrors that one in ways that I assume are not intentional.

The biggest is that it once again brings back actors from the previous film but doesn’t continue their actual character arcs. But it’s WORSE than 2, because there they were supposed to be different people in similar situations (how audiences were supposed to understand that, I have no idea), whereas here they are the same characters but have seemingly forgotten everything that happened to them in the previous movie! It’s Peter Coyote’s nephew and his girlfriend again, yet they have not only forgotten about Coyote’s attempts to kill them (he dies in the first 5 minutes of this one and the kid is actually broken up about it), but they seemingly don’t even recall anything about the zombies! Granted, I haven’t exactly stored the 90 minutes of Necropolis on my brain’s hard drive, but I’m pretty sure I’d remember if the characters were all brain wiped at the end of the film.

And again, despite the fact that the zombie problem has already started, we AGAIN have to start all over, which allows the filmmakers to keep the film from having any real action until the final reel. It’s a problem in pretty much every movie, which is unique to this particular zombie series – Romero only rebooted it once (in Diary), otherwise he always used the previously established problem as a means of getting into the meat of his story, which is what any intelligent screenwriter will do. But these two movies were written by Bill Butler, who also gave us gems like Demonic Toys 2 and Gingerdead Man, so telling a good story doesn’t seem to be something that concerns him.

But yeah, it’s Rave to the Grave – I shouldn’t expect wacky things like decent storytelling or interesting characters. Nor would I care that the movie lacked them, IF it was actually entertaining on some level, which it is not. Again, the zombie outbreak starts from scratch, so the promised “Rave” doesn’t even START until past the movie’s one hour mark, and then there’s a bit before the zombies start showing up there. The movie’s only good idea is that the Trioxin has found its way into some designer drugs, so all the idiots that are at the rave are popping the pills and turning, and no one else thinks much of it because they’re also high or just “feeling the music” or whatever it is that people at raves do instead of playing Skyrim like normal folks (level 26! Almost maxed on Smithing!). But even though they set up that pretty much everyone in attendance will turn into a zombie, it’s remarkably low-key, and even when “all hell breaks loose” they keep stopping the action to focus on two characters talking in a room or isolated, meaningless gags involving less than a handful of zombies attacking one dude.

They also bring back the Tarman, who earns one of the movie’s few laughs (and is given a nice modern makeup look by John Vulich) but it reeks of desperation, serving only to remind us exactly how far the series has fallen. It also just makes their refusal to follow the original’s “rules” more puzzling – it’s the same Trioxin, Tarman’s still around, etc – so why does a shot to the head actually work now, when the fact that it WOULDN’T was such a big factor in the original? And how many cans of this shit can possibly fall into the wrong hands, anyway? Coyote mentions that it’s one of the “original” cans – in 20 years they still haven’t found them all? It’s the rare sequel that would have been better if they had just ignored the other entries – at least then I could assume they slapped the title on an unrelated movie, a la all of those Demons “sequels”. But by constantly trying to tie it in, they just make it worse for themselves.

The only saving grace is Jenny Mollen, who plays the female lead and seems to be the only actor in the film capable of delivering a line (that she’s one of the few non-Bulgarians helps), and like Lance Henriksen, doesn’t let the fact that this is a worthless role in an equally worthless film deter her from actually putting some effort into it. I guess Coyote is as good as always too, but since he’s dead before the end of the first chapter it’s kind of hard to judge.

This was shot back to back with Necropolis*, which probably accounts for why that one was “not TOO terrible” and this one is “somehow more awful than you’d expect”, because they probably put more money/effort into that one and were all just burned out by the time this thing rolled. Someday there will actually be a good 2nd entry in a back to back production (every single one of them has failed – excepting LOTR which is a wholly unique situation), but until then we can continue to use movies like this as an example of why they shouldn’t even try in the first place.

What say you?

*According to an IMDb post, the scripts for the two films were actually swapped before production, so perhaps the giant plot holes were caused from that. However it doesn’t help much – that means Coyote would have died before his far bigger role in the other movie! What a friggin mess.

Midnight Son (2011)

2012-01-11T16:34:00.000-08:00

JANUARY 11, 2012

GENRE: VAMPIRE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PREMIERE SCREENING)

Ordinarily I wouldn’t want to drive down to Santa Monica on a week night (or ever, come to think of it, but even less so on a week night), but it’s been a while since I’ve seen a good new vampire movie – all of the ones I’ve enjoyed recently (save some ironic enjoyment of Breaking Dawn, I guess) are older films. Thus, if I liked Midnight Son, I’d have something new to champion, having seen it before its release. And if I didn't, well, at least it was free and I got to see a couple of pals. But I liked it AND saw pals! Everything worked out nicely.

What works most about the film is its steady build toward a fairly surprising ending. Following in the footsteps of movies like Habit, there’s a not too thinly veiled metaphor for vampire-as-drug-addiction here, and usually those movies go down a certain path that this one avoids. At its heart is an awkward romance between our guy (Jacob) and Mary, a girl he randomly meets one night and connects with. She’s a cokehead, but who is he to judge – dude is starting to enjoy the taste of blood (including her own, from a bad coke bump – one of the ickiest “first taste” scenes I can recall).

Hilariously, they even take the drug metaphor a step further than usual, with a guy who apparently goes around draining folks of blood and selling it like drugs (he even gives a free bag, hooking Jacob in, and then drives up the price the next time around). Replace the blood with any drug, and this is a fairly typical “drugs sure do ruin lives” movie – there’s even a scene where Jacob shows up all “strung out” and causing a scene, which makes his dealer rough him up a bit. This plotline also goes to some interesting places though – as with a lot of the movie, it sets up things that you will probably assume will go a certain way, only for it to take a turn somewhere and make it a little more interesting and fun.

I did have two quibbles though. One is that the pacing can be a touch slow and repetitive – Jacob and Mary have THREE would-be sex scenes that go wrong for one reason or another, like they’re stuck in a loop from the final reel of some bad romcom where they have a blowout, come back together for some reason, make up, have a blowout… sure, it’s nice that we’re spared the usual lovey dovey shit, and I liked that the movie addresses the reality of two people who don’t really know each other trying to kick-start a relationship when they have things to hide, but it doesn’t change the fact that the plotting can feel a little cramped. There are only about 6 or 7 people of note in the entire movie, and it’s only near the very end that any of them besides Jacob interact with one another – mixing it up a bit might have helped.

I was also a bit confused as to why Jacob suddenly started getting sick. We learn that he’s had this disorder since childhood, but there seems to be no inciting incident for his “thirst”. There’s a bit about how the body grows until the age of 25 and he’s 24 – is this supposed to be the “final stage” of him becoming, essentially, a vampire? If so, what were the other stages? Maybe a couple of the scenes with Mary could have been shortened, with flashbacks showing other “events” that could fill that time? I would assume puberty had its complications or something, but based on what the movie (quite hilariously) shows us, the bulk of the usual vampire weaknesses are nonsense, and he doesn’t even have fangs, so is that it? You’re (we assume) born as a vampire, somewhere in there you find out you can’t go in the sun, and then when you’re almost 25 you wake up one day feeling super hungry and figure out that blood is the only thing that’ll do the trick? And that’s it? For a character driven take on a well-established legend, I think they could have fleshed out their “rules” a bit more – granted they obviously weren’t working with blank checks here, but talk is cheap, no?

Of course, thoughts like that only result from movies that you’re genuinely interested in, with characters you want to know more about. I don’t care in the slightest about how the kids in Spiderhole ended up homeless, or why our hero in Beneath The Darkness stopped running track, because there wasn’t any reason to WANT more than what they were offering. Here, I could have easily enjoyed another half hour of the tale – I realize this is a bit of a compli-sult, but if I didn’t point it out, the review would be too short. I went in knowing almost nothing, you should too.

One thing I WILL point out just so you’re prepared is that the movie was shot a few years ago, so the “ancient” phones and (for LA folks) plans to go to Spaceland (it closed in 2010) aren't odd stylistic choices. There’s also a plot point revolving around a video store membership card, something that might date it a bit as such places continue to close (indeed, I just discovered one of the last two Blockbusters in my area is now closing as well, which may be why this particular bit stuck out). Apparently they had shot the film and then lost their money for post, so it took a while to raise the cash to finish it (Blair Witch guru Eduardo Sanchez was one of its saviors – respect). Sometimes movies like that are total messes by the time they come out, victims of too much second-guessing, re-editing, etc, so I was quite happy to discover that it bared almost no signs of a troubled road to get to the screen. AND it’s worth seeing, making it even better.

The film will debut on Fearnet; if you’re like me you probably don’t have the channel in your lineup yet. Call 1-877-FEAR-247 and tell them your cable provider/zip code (calling your own cable provider and asking for Fearnet can’t hurt, either), because if they’re picking up indies like this for distribution, they’re clearly on the right track to doing this right (they’re also behind Adam Green and Joe Lynch’s horror-themed sitcom Holliston), so kudos to them. And if you’re reading HORROR Movie A Day you must be excited about the prospect of having a station dedicated to the genre, so do your part to help it succeed.

What say you?

Spiderhole (2010)

2012-01-10T11:42:00.000-08:00

JANUARY 10, 2012

GENRE: SLASHER, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX INSTANT)

The most interesting thing about Spiderhole is its title, which could suggest a giant spider movie from the Maneater series (but come on, they’d just call it "Spider Attack" or something), but as it’s a low budget British/Irish import starring a bunch of teens, the moniker is just sort of meaningless. It’s a very thin metaphor about the fact that a spiderhole is a term for a hole that soldiers use to conceal themselves (usually covered with branches or something), and our killer uses holes in the walls and such to get around the “abandoned” building while offing our group of squatting teens.

However, apart from the squatting backdrop, the movie is largely indistinguishable from a dozen other flicks, and director Daniel Simpson’s script squander its few interesting elements, so ultimately the title is the only thing that gives it any identity. If it was called, I dunno, “Death House” it would be impossible to remember anything about this movie in a week or so. I should note that there are also a few random shots of Daddy Long Legs crawling around to add to the “theme”.

As I was joking about on Twitter, this is one of those movies where a news report foreshadows an event that will pay off later, and our heroine is inexplicably interested in the story even though it has absolutely nothing to do with her. Early on, as she sits in a sort of daze because she can’t pay rent (me too!), she suddenly perks up when the newscaster points out that today makes the 10th anniversary of the disappearance of a little girl. As far as I can tell, she never knew her or anything, so why this would catch her ear over the other news stories is beyond me… unless you’re well versed in horror movies. Then you’ll know perfectly well that the bad things that are about to happen to them JUST MIGHT have something to do with the girl’s disappearance.

So it’s sort of funny that Simpson more or less forgets about this plot point until the final 30 seconds, when our final survivor is tossed into yet another room and we realize (spoiler) that the little girl is still alive and is now feral, living in the walls and eating the victims of our killer. Points for the grim ending, but why wasn’t this stuff brought up earlier? It doesn’t work as a twist if it’s shoehorned in like that – a less astute viewer might not even remember the first scene’s newscast part by the time this comes up at the end. If anything it just makes matters confusing: why did the killer hold on to this particular girl, when he kills everyone else pretty quickly? Was this his house, or was he a squatter himself? Why are these kids so hellbent on living in this shithole? I’d also ask what the odds were that four good friends would find themselves homeless simultaneously, but why bother?

The kills aren’t even that impressive (most of them are off-screen, in fact). The best is a telegraphed bit where two of the heroes beat one of the others to death with spiked 2x4s, thinking that he is the killer (Valentine provides the best one of these), because it’s visceral and over the top – which just makes the climax all the more obnoxious when our heroine DEFINITELY has the killer in her grasp but settles for merely conking him on the head once with a non-spiked piece of wood. What, did killing her friend take all of her energy? Does she no longer have the heart to at least make a guy bleed?

And how’s this for depressing – I actually fell asleep during the following scene, even though the movie was 5 minutes from ending (believe me, I was keeping track). Part of the movie’s dumb gimmick is that they are trapped in the house (that they had to break into in the first place! Clever!!), because he’s boarded everything up and has multiple locks on everything. So of course, when she gets to the door with his keys, she has to open a few locks and doesn’t know which key is which. The scene goes on so long that I actually “rested my eyes”, only to wake up when the movie stopped a few minutes later. Granted, I fall asleep at movies a lot, but it’s usually during the middle act when things are in between being set up and being resolved. Falling asleep during what should be the highlight of the movie is pretty much unheard of for me; even at midnight movies that I’ve seen 10 times I can manage to wake up for the finale. So I had to go back and rewatch this nonsense, which also included the big “twist” that wasn’t worth the effort.

At least it looks OK enough. Mr. Simpson is a much better director than writer, it seems – the digital image is nice despite the low light setting and he occasionally makes good use of the scope image. Even the layout of the house is clear – except when intentional, I always had a pretty good grasp of where everyone was in relation to each other, which is a common problem in these single location/multiple room movies. And the kids get along for the most part – they’re idiots and criminals, but if they also spent most of the movie hating each other I don’t know if I could get through the whole thing.

But it just doesn’t register on any level; not bad enough to qualify as a train wreck, and what little it does (relatively) right has been done better. If you want to see kids get killed, the body count is too low and kills too bland to compete even with 1980s sequels, let alone newer stuff. If you want torture, the Hostels deliver AND give decent stories to go along with them (well, the first two anyway; still haven't seen the 3rd). And hell, if you just want a killer doctor, just watch Dr. Giggles. At least the title is more fitting.

What say you?

Hallowed (2005)

2012-01-09T16:57:00.000-08:00

JANUARY 9, 2012

GENRE: INDEPENDENT, SLASHER
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

With a name like Hallowed, this film is bound to end up next to/in front of a very important genre classic on a DVD rack – but that didn’t really cross my mind until the movie began, as the score seemed more than a tad influenced by Carpenter’s iconic cues. How naïve I was; this movie is actually pretty much a full length version of an in-jokey reference to the film, something that might annoy me on another day, but since real life has been such a giant asshole of late (financial/car issues), the earnestness of the whole thing was kind of charming.

See, after an opening kill and a lengthy, unnecessarily padded opening titles sequence that alerted me to the fact that this film was going to be the type that stretches itself to the bare minimum requirement to be called a feature film, we see a low angle shot of a street along with a title card giving the name and town (Fullerton, CA). “Heh, like in Halloween,” I thought. “Cute.” Then the main character/killer appeared, riding his bike around – and he drives right by the Doyle house. Before I could even finish my thought as to whether or not this was intentional, he drives by the Myers house! Now, to anyone who’s been there, you’d know those houses aren’t even in the same town (the Doyle’s is in West Hollywood, unlike the other Pasadena locales), so obviously they were LITERALLY going out of their way to give Carpenter’s film some love. As the scene progressed he even drives by the Strode house (which looks exactly the same) and the bush that Michael hid behind while Laurie and Annie were walking home.

And there are other things; certain shots are aped from the film, the killer likes to pop up like Myers… there’s even a montage of shots showing empty locations after he disappears near the end of the movie. Along with the music, you’re never more than a few minutes from another Halloween reference, and unlike most bad movies where I say “I’d rather just be watching that”, I’ve seen Halloween probably 100 times in my life – I could use the break. Besides, their own story wasn’t that similar, and they pull off a pretty great third act shock that I didn’t see coming, so it’s all good.

Plus it’s short. As I’ve mentioned a couple times, I’m all about Skyrim right now, so watching my HMADs cuts into how much time I spent crafting leather bracers and smiting the hell out of bandits with my awesome battle axe (45 dmg, 14 pts fire damage!). So I was happy to see that Hallowed had a Netflix envelope listed runtime of a mere 85 minutes, and even happier to see that the disc itself promised only 80. Thus, the fact that the movie was actually only 71 minutes (!) was nothing short of orgasmic. Hallowed filmmakers – your refusal to add a character or two or even slow down your end titles to hit the promised 80 minutes meant I was able to dick around looking for ore veins in the cave I was clearing. Bless you.

Of course, if you have no love for Halloween I don’t have much faith that you’ll be as entertained as I was. The story is RIDICULOUS and under-developed even by slasher standards – basically this guy wants to spread the word of God and decides to “save” this one girl at random (maybe in the sequel we will learn they were brother and sister), and this very occasionally means he will kill someone else along the way. Why he chose her, how often he does this, why he needs to kill her friends… none of this seems to matter. He also doesn’t do a lot of stalking – considering their nearly psychotic love of Halloween, I was a bit shocked to see so few scenes of him kind of playing around with his victims or even POV shots. He does the Myers-style “standing there and then he’s gone” thing once or twice, but that’s pretty much it.

The low body count can probably be attributed to Halloween as well, but it could also be due to the movie’s obviously spotty production. Our two main characters change hairstyles more than once (the film was shot over 6-7 months), and the guy playing the killer is noticeably “Bela’d” in a few scenes. At one point he gives the girl a bible, but the entire scene plays without seeing his head because it’s a different actor (I noticed this BEFORE it was confirmed on the commentary track) – kind of weird for one of the few scenes that actually moves the “plot” along. And there are other disjointed scenes that the commentary will reveal were added later to make the movie longer, which is kind of depressingly hilarious when you consider that it’s still technically too short.

Oh, and the killer talks. Not a lot, thankfully, but actor Rich Lava (come on, that cannot be a real name) is pretty terrible, delivering a performance that falls somewhere between Eric Freeman and the robot from Rocky IV. This could be taken as campy, but with the occasionally vicious kills and that aforementioned shock, this isn’t really a “fun” slasher, and even if it was, he doesn’t talk ENOUGH to ever get used to it. Thus when he appears and says something, it’s just jarring and bad. I’m not sure if they fully explained what happened to him on the commentary (all I heard was “we lost him 3/4s of the way through the shoot” – which could mean anything given the lengthy production), but I couldn’t help but wonder if the actor that played him the rest of the time would have been better.

The commentary is hit or miss; director Rocky Costanzo and producer Roy Thomasson are slightly more candid than I’m used to (one of them points out that he thought another girl was better for the main role but was outvoted, but both of them compliment her good looks more than once), and they’re up front with the obvious replacements and reshoots, but they’re also a bit TOO proud of the movie at times. It’s entertaining enough and they got it finished, so they deserve some praise, but it occasionally turns into a bit of a back-slapping fest, and they also keep referring to their other movies a bit too much for my tastes. And then the confusing ending is given an obnoxious “People have asked us what it means, we leave that up to you” bullshit explanation, adding that they merely thought “it was cool”. No, it merely stopped reminding me of Halloween long enough to say “Why are they referencing Jason Takes Manhattan all of a sudden?”

The only other extra is a somewhat depressing “World Premiere Montage”, which is a slide show of images from the movie’s gala premiere at some multiplex in Huntington Beach, where the film showed alongside such cinematic treasures as The Ringer, Fun With Dick And Jane, and (yes!) Bloodrayne – a film that I can count as *my* first premiere (I won tix from Bloody Disgusting, back before I worked there). There’s also a shot of the attendance sheet, for some reason, as well as the empty theater before people file in. It’s just some standard multiplex stadium screening room, who needs to see a picture of it?

So, yeah. Not much to it, and there’s certainly nothing special about it, but it hit the spot and tickled my Halloween fan-bone. And for 71 minutes I forgot that I might not be able to pay rent next month, so that’s always good. Thanks, Hallowed!

What say you?

Beneath The Darkness (2011)

2012-01-08T15:04:00.000-08:00

JANUARY 8, 2012

GENRE: THRILLER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

I almost never look at reviews of a movie before I see it, but the plot description of Beneath The Darkness toed the line of what I'd call a horror movie, so I wanted to get a little more analysis than a synopsis written for publicity's sake would provide. And in the one I looked at, which referred to it as a B-horror movie (yay!), they pointed out that this is the first time in his career that Dennis Quaid has played the bad guy. Well to that I say, I guess you haven't seen Pandorum (blacked out since it's kind of a spoiler to say so), but yes, there is some novelty in seeing Quaid, one of our most "All-American" type hero actors, having some fun as a batshit crazy mortician.

Now, I'm not spoiling anything by saying he's the villain - he buries a guy alive in the first scene. Why he did this isn't explained until the final 5 minutes, but believe me when I tell you that it's hardly worth the wait. Part of the problem with the movie is that there's no mystery or intrigue of any sort with regards to whether or not Quaid is a killer, but the movie doesn't focus on him, like Psycho or Henry or whatever. Instead, it focuses on a group of typical high school teens (admirably played by actors within 2-3 years of the age they are playing, for a change), who get bored one night and decide to spy on Quaid and see if he's doing anything creepy in his house.

Well, uh... yes, he is. We saw it in the first scene - who cares if these kids find out about it too? Why would anyone want to watch a movie about a bunch of uninteresting teenagers trying to catch up to the audience? Every now and then they dip into nail-biter suspense territory, such as when an investigating cop almost finds one of the teens (who is buried in a makeshift coffin right below his feet), but otherwise the movie acts as if we don't know if Quaid is a killer or just some lonely, strange guy.

Worse, there's almost zero action. A movie about Quaid covering his tracks (he kills one of the teens pretty early on) might be at least mildly enjoyable, but as he is a high school football hero (because of course he is, he's Dennis Quaid AND the movie is set in Texas), everyone else in town believes his story that the kids were robbing him and one of them tripped and fell down the stairs. After that, it seems as if the kids could have just learned their lesson and left him alone. Instead they just keep going back trying to find evidence, and each time is less interesting than the last - they even recycle the same scuffle on the stairs! But the entire movie unfolds through their eyes - there are precious few scenes that are from his perspective, and unsurprisingly they are the best thing in the movie, even if they're occasionally pointless (there's a scene where he argues with a mechanic about the cost to fix his van - a "subplot" with absolutely no bearing on anything). Still, it's better than anything with the kids, and the others are even better - I wouldn't dream of spoiling its contents, but I shit you not - the film's final NINE SECONDS are the only reason this movie isn't in the crap bin.

It's also loaded with painfully bad dialogue, which I feel a bit guilty about mentioning since the screenwriter sadly passed away a few months ago. But come on, lines like "You got a 100 on this test. That was the highest mark in the class!" are just too awful not to point out. Speaking of the class, it seems the writer couldn't make up his mind over which obligatory literary metaphor to go with, so he awkwardly went with both - for some reason the kids are studying "Tell-Tale Heart" (because it ties into crazed murderers - like Quaid!), but then she tells them to finish Act III of "Macbeth"? So they stopped reading 2/3s of the way through a Shakespeare play in order to cover a Poe short story? But "Macbeth" deals with ghosts and guilt and such, so that ties in as well.

Well, sort of. There's a potentially interesting subplot about one of the teens seeing ghosts (something about his sister's death - a subplot that seemingly has no connection to the Quaid stuff, despite some dialogue that seems to suggest otherwise), but like the broken down van, it goes nowhere. One of the kids also disappears from the narrative at one point, which is fine because he was useless anyway, but it just further proves what a mess this is. And messes can be fun, but it's a BORING mess, with a minuscule body count and a total lack of any sort of suspense.

Plus, a villain that isn't allowed to really chew the scenery until the final 9 seconds. As with Legion, Quaid seemed to be channeling his buddy Meat Loaf at times (Loaf's pal Brett Cullen also pops up), as his character has a weird tic like most of Meat's characters do (in this case, he constantly puffs an electric cigarette) and his mannerisms are similar to Loaf's performances in movies like Black Dog and Rustin. But Loaf would have let himself go a lot sooner, giving the movie more of a spark. Quaid reigns it in too often, and I could never buy him as a mortician, either - Loaf would have been pretty believable in that role (and a football hero, as well).

(Speaking of Legion - second Quaid movie where he co-stars with a Friday Night Lights star; that one had Tara/Adrienne Palicki, this one has Julie Taylor/Aimee Teegarden. Do a buddy cop movie with Kyle Chandler! It'll be amazing!!!)

Ultimately, it just lacks any clear purpose. At times I wondered if it was based on a true life incident and they just forgot to embellish it in order to make an exciting or interesting movie - it's too straightforward and bland to work as a thriller, but the characters aren't defined well enough to work as a drama, either. It's just THERE. In fact I can sum up my feelings with this minor note - two girls came into the movie 10 minutes late and began yammering. I "shushed" them after a few minutes, which worked for a while. Later, they started talking again, but by this point the movie had lost me and I didn't care. "Hey, you're ruining my total lack of enjoyment in this pointless movie!" Here's a photo of the mess they made:

When a movie is so dull that I can't even bother to insult the sort of losers who trash a theater like this, you know it has truly failed.

What say you?

P.S. Odd bit of "trivia", on my way into the theater the ticket-taker made me discard my soda from the Taco Bell next door. I was going to rant about this idiotic policy (I'm not going to buy your soda at 5 dollars a cup, morons), but I felt like I might have done that before - and I did, in my review of Pandorum... starring Dennis Quaid. Weird. But screw it, I'm going to say it again: I understand the basic point of this policy, but it in no way actually produces the desired effect. I'm not going to buy theirs to replace the one they made me toss out, and if anything I'm going to rethink going there again in the future, because they clearly don't care about me having a good experience when I go there. I would also suggest that people might not try to "sneak in" outside drinks if they weren't overcharging so much. If Taco Bell can serve a 20 oz cup of soda for two bucks, why are you charging five? And thus I would stress to theaters - if you have a bunch of eateries nearby, introduce competitive pricing on the items that folks can buy next door. I'd have no problem GIVING THEM MORE MONEY if they weren't charging over double what places within 50 yards are asking. Something to think about.

The Skin I Live In (2011)

2012-01-07T08:20:00.000-08:00

JANUARY 7, 2012

GENRE: MAD SCIENTIST, THRILLER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

Having to ask if something can count as a horror movie is usually a sign that it probably isn’t, and honestly had I just watched The Skin I Live In on its own, I probably wouldn’t have thought of it as a genre film. But literally everyone that answered my Twitter query said it was, and it made a few horror-centric “Best of 2011” films, and it’s even featured on the cover of a recent Fangoria, so I guess it qualifies under a few of my “rules” even if I don’t necessarily agree.

And that’s kind of ironic, because it fits into two genres quite well. One would be the mad scientist group; a terrific Antonio Banderas plays a Frankenstein type character here – a doctor with a great idea, going about it in very unusual and illegal ways, losing sight of what he’s trying to accomplish once a personal agenda comes into play, etc. The goal is a new type of skin that can help protect the body it covers – we see him test it with a malaria-ridden mosquito that refuses to bite the skin, which to me is the best thing ever (having spent much time in Maine during the summer, I have put on too much of that awful Off stuff in my life – I want mosquito proof skin!). As is usually the case, he is testing this on a not particularly willing subject, and the movie is essentially about their relationship, which isn’t always antagonistic. The woman he is testing can be tender or abrasive depending on the scene, and the film’s fractured narrative helps keep things interesting – a scene where she defends Banderas is just as surprising as one where she lashes out against him.

The other genre would be somewhat spoiler-ish to discuss, so I have left it out. As I mentioned, the film isn’t told in a linear format, and thus after a half hour or so where we see Banderas testing, getting a sense of what Vera’s life is like while imprisoned in his home/laboratory, we flash back a few years to meet a few new characters and find out how exactly Vera came to become part of his life in the first place. I won’t spoil, but it’s part of what gives the movie its “horror” identity – it’s definitely out there and unique, and more than a touch disturbing. But director Pedro Almodovar (who is beloved and lauded and has several Oscar nominations and even a win, so of course this is the first one of his movies that I’ve seen) never flaunts the movie’s genre origins – even the movie’s most batshit plot element is underplayed, and with the time jumping structure it easily skips over what could have been the more horrific scenes in the film.

It’s also got a surprising (but small) sense of absurd humor, best exemplified with the sequence late in the first act when a man dressed as a tiger (for Carnival) more or less breaks into Banderas’ house, where his mother is employed as the live-in maid/housekeeper/voice of reason to Banderas. Again, without spoiling, he makes advances on Vera that he thinks will be reciprocated, and she DOES, albeit not for the reasons he expect. It’s very uncomfortably odd/silly in a way, and he keeps his tiger costume on the entire time, so it’s sort of an extended sight gag (and she never bothers to learn his name; for the rest of the movie she refers to him as “the tiger”).

Back to the structure for a second – if I had any real complaint it would be that certain questions are left unanswered, ones I can’t ask here without spoiling, but I can do one in inviso-text I guess (How did Vera’s vocal chords change? Hormones or not, they’re usually a dead giveaway for this sort of surgery). Some of the “6 months later” type stuff almost seems like an easy work-around to avoid answering such questions, and as the film is based on a book, I couldn’t help but wonder if those elements made more sense/were more fleshed out there. Also, Banderas has one opinion of Vera that changes, which seems out of character and even a bit confusing (inviso-text time – he seems to actually enjoy banging Vera – it’s almost like he forgot who she really was, i.e. someone he should hate) which also may have made a bit more sense with some more time or even a straightforward narrative where we see his feelings change over time, instead of trying to piece it together as we’re watching. Perhaps someone can edit the film in chronological order and see if his behavior feels a bit more natural.

Or maybe I’m just dumb, I dunno - in fact, halfway through the movie I realized I didn’t want to write up a review. You know me, slashers and zombies are more my speed when it comes to critiquing – I feel a little under-qualified to be appraising such “adult” fare (in a foreign language from a celebrated filmmaker I have no experience with, no less). But in a way that’s almost praise for the film – I really dug it just as a viewing experience, not as a “HMAD entry”. This wasn’t a chore; I would have been happy to go see this strange sounding movie that came highly recommended from friends (and at the New Bev, yay!), as opposed to say, Amityville Haunting or whatever, where I’m just watching it because I needed something to review for Thursday. And also, a big part of my enjoyment came from not knowing much about it, which is why I kept things vague here even though the movie has already come and gone in regular release. I wouldn’t go in expecting a horror movie by any means, but if you like offbeat dramas with disturbing elements and this wasn’t on your radar, by all means seek it out (legally!) and be as surprised as I was.

What say you?

The Devil Inside (2012)

2012-01-06T19:44:00.000-08:00

JANUARY 6, 2012

GENRE: MOCKUMENTARY, POSSESSION, RELIGIOUS
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

Last night I complained about a giant chunk of my twitter feed essentially spoiling the ending of The Devil Inside (one of the offenders even asked “who” had done it, as if he wasn’t guilty), but after seeing it I realized they had inadvertently done me a service of sorts – maybe if I wasn’t prepared for it I would have been just as angry as they were, but it didn’t bother me, and I was able to more or less enjoy the flick with a few reservations, as opposed to downright hate it as many of them seemed to (haven’t read their reviews, but as with many of my peers, they seemingly wrote half of it in 140 character bursts).

Note – I will talk around the actual ending, but if you’re not on Twitter and haven’t heard anything else, you should choose whether or not to read on – you might be costing yourself some good ol’ fashioned indignation!

So basically, their problem is that the movie just cuts out at a point where it seems like a big climax is about to begin, before an on-screen epilogue tells you to visit a website and then an Asylum-esque SLOOOOOOOOW end credits sequence begins, which means this 85 minute movie is actually a 75 minute one. But I think the real problem isn’t the actual ending itself – it’s that the ad campaign focused on a subplot that is left unresolved, which makes the movie understandably feel incomplete. If you stand back and look at the movie as a whole, you realize that it’s actually about the two documentarians and the two priests they follow around – not the girl’s mother, and thus the fact that the mom’s story isn’t satisfyingly concluded isn’t THAT big of a deal – she was only in two or three scenes! The fates of the four real main characters are definitely resolved, so it's got one up on Last Exorcism.

Also, how I managed to watch TWO movies this week with misleading trailers, I have no idea. Can we PLEASE try to market the movies truthfully? If they’re not easy to sum up in two minute (or less) spots, that just means they are more interesting and less generic. Embrace that, don’t hide it.

Like last year’s underrated (but similarly flawed) The Rite, the movie is more about the exorcists than the ones possessed. Our actual heroes are a pair of priests who engage in “rogue exorcisms” when they feel they are warranted but are forbidden to act upon them by the church. The church doesn’t just do an exorcism for anyone who claims they’re possessed – they must undergo strenuous investigation and evaluation and get approved by the higher-ups (not the pope – that’d be kind of awesome though), and our guys rightfully think they’re too strict. However – and this is what the movie is actually about – they might have a point about being so strict, as we learn that maybe had our protagonists just left well enough alone, a lot fewer people would be dead. Certainly, a movie with the message “Maybe the church is right” isn’t going to go over well with everyone.

But it’s also an independently produced horror movie being put on thousands of screens by Paramount, which means that it’s another found footage movie (two of THOSE this week too!). The other two main characters are the ones making a documentary; Michael the camera operator isn’t seen too much (but plays more of a part than say, the guy who filmed [Rec]’s events), and our heroine, Isabella, whose mother is in an institution after a suspected possession. They’re not quite as interesting as Ben and David the priests, but it creates an interesting dynamic, with everyone having clashing goals: Isabella wants to help her mom, Michael wants to make a movie, Ben wants to prove himself right to the church, and David just seemingly wants everyone to be at peace. So many found footage movies lack genuine conflict amongst the characters beyond squabbling about whatever is happening at the time (Mike throwing away the map, for example), it’s nice to have that extra bit of dimensionality for a change.

In fact, as with the far more problematic Apollo 18, I’d argue that the verite approach is a handicap in some ways. Along with the constant “stop filming” issue (partially solved with a bunch of mounted cameras inside their car – a goofy workaround to say the least), the genre has become overcrowded – this is actually the 3rd or 4th “found footage” exorcism movie – and thus the audience has grown accustomed to cheap jump shocks (which the film offers, though not too many) in place of the more story and character-based horror that the film is actually going for. Also, the shaki-cam might turn off the older viewers who might be more interested in this kind of story (granted it was midnight, but I’m pretty sure I was the oldest person in the fairly packed crowd). That said, they did a fine job of recreating 1980s style news footage, and even left a couple of moments off-screen to keep up the realism – if they caught EVERYTHING of note it would be ridiculous. Also, without spoiling its actual contents, the anger over the ending is overclouding that it’s a terrific mini-setpiece in its own right, nearly justifying the choice to go with found footage on its own.

As with other religious (read: Catholic) based horror movies I’ve watched, I think my upbringing may also contribute to why I enjoyed it more than most. 200 days of the year I spent 6-7 hours a day looking at the icons and images, hearing about miracles and damnation and the Devil and whatever else. And then every Sunday (or Saturday afternoon) I’d be taken out of my preferred element – sitting around playing video games or watching horror movies, usually – to listen to a sermon and read about the same sort of stuff. Even though I don’t think about it too much anymore, you can’t spend that much time being exposed to something without it leaving an impression (especially during one’s formative years), so perhaps I just have a subconscious attachment to this sort of material. I mean, I’d probably really enjoy a horror movie that took place in the fascinating world of end credits design, too.

But to be fair, the movie DOES drop the ball in a few areas. In addition to the mother, there's another subplot regarding the Ben character that is left unexplained, and given the movie's super-short runtime I can't help but wonder if these elements (which would be dialogue driven) were excised in favor of a version that got to the scares more often. They also don't do enough with the "exorcism school" - a few more scenes there might have helped explain why Ben and David were so driven to go against their practices. In fact, I'd still love to see a whole movie centered around this exorcism school - even if it was a straight up drama, I think it would be kind of fascinating, seeing these guys train for a job that their superiors don't actually want them to do (but there's a dog-based jump scare! Can't get enough of those!).

However, I found a lot more here to like than not, so even with its problems I'd still count it as a win. It’s less schlocky than the trailers had led me to believe, and again, those same trailers are more to blame for the negative response (nearly the entire theater booed) than the film itself, which like Blair Witch Project tries to spin a new mythology in which the film is only part of the story (to a much less successful extent, admittedly). If you’ve read this far, I think you should check out the www.therossifiles.com site BEFORE you see the movie, as it gives you some back-story to the characters and some other little tidbits, but doesn’t actually “follow” anything from the film as the on-screen text seems to suggest. THEN go see the movie and make up your own mind!

What say you?

P.S. Kudos to Paramount for picking up another indie and giving it a wide release – I would love to see this sort of thing more often. Given that the film recouped its entire production budget just from the midnight screenings, perhaps we will. Get your as-yet undistributed indie movies in good shape, fellas!

Blu-Ray Review: Shark Night (2011)

2012-01-06T19:33:00.000-08:00

JANUARY 6, 2012

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

Folks were pretty divided on Shark Night when it was (briefly) in theaters this past September; some hated the idiotic “revenge” plot and cookie cutter characters, others (like me) had a good time with what was essentially a traditional slasher movie except the bad guy used sharks instead of a knife or a machete. Along with the 3D effect and the fact that we hadn’t had a big screen, wide release horror movie all summer (the last one was Priest, which was more of an action movie anyway), it sort of hit the spot, not unlike a bottle of Bud Light on a hot summer day – satisfying for folks who have better things to do than worry about keeping it classy. So how does it fare at home, in the middle of winter and lacking the extra dimension?

Unsurprisingly, not as well. It’s still enjoyable, and it still has Katharine McPhee running around in a bikini and Josh Leonard having a grand old time as a redneck named Red (!) with pointed shark teeth, but it’s not quite as charmingly ridiculous on the second view. See, now I don’t have the element of surprise helping me along (with regards to the bad guy’s plot, plus a few other moments I won’t spoil if you haven’t seen it yet – judging by the box office, you haven’t), leaving me just with a PG-13 killer shark movie. There’s still some stuff to admire – the sharks start attacking pretty quickly once they get to the lake, and I liked that there was a variety: hammerheads, great whites, “cookie cutters”, etc, but as they say, “the thrill is gone”. This is pretty much a “one time only” kind of flick; not crazy enough to warrant too many repeat viewings, and certainly not deep enough that a 2nd viewing will clue you in on things you didn’t notice the first time around (unless you left before the end credits had concluded – that part hasn’t diminished one iota in my mind). There’s nothing wrong with that – not every movie is designed for repeat viewings – but it’s still kind of a bummer, because the killer shark genre certainly lacks diversity. Even if it’s not that great, I’d rather see another Shark Night-esque take on the genre than the umpteenth Jaws wannabe (no “close the beaches” subplot here!) – but it’s kind of hard to convince folks we need more of these when there isn’t a hell of a lot to say about the one we already got.

And, again, there isn’t a 3D option, and not just because I lack the equipment (my loan has 11 payments left – the month after, I’m buying a new TV to celebrate). No, for whatever reason, FOX has opted not to put out a 3D Blu-ray of the disc at all in Region 1 (looks like the UK has one), so even if you do have one of those nice 3DTVs you’re still going to be sighing as shark guts and pieces of an exploded boat come toward the screen but never “out” of it. Luckily David Ellis was wise enough not to overload the movie with such moments, but it will just make you miss the (quite good) 3D when they do appear in their now flattened glory. Worse, it’s not a particularly great transfer – the scene where the black guy and the male model dude (names escape me) try to escape on a jet-ski has the murkiest, oddly colored presentation I have ever seen on a Blu-ray, and many of the interior scenes suffer from washed out coloring and crushed blacks. The clarity/detail is good - you can count the hairs on Sara Paxton’s head if you wish - but the image is remarkably flat. I should note that this may be true of the 2D theatrical version as well though – I only saw it in 3D (where judging such things is impossible due to the glasses and the brighter bulb trying to compensate for it).

Oh, and no unrated cut, either. Maybe they just never shot gorier material, but I guess we will never know. It’s a shame – certainly this is the type of movie that would best be viewed with a few alcoholic beverages, yet they don’t provide the stuff people that are old enough to consume them will enjoy. Teenagers - if your parents are lax on your alcoholism but strict about the MPAA ratings, Shark Night is the movie for you!

The bonus features are no help, sadly. No commentary (no alternate audio track of any sort, in fact – there’s an audio menu but only one option?), no deleted scenes, no in depth making of… just four 4-5 minute fluff pieces that were probably created for the website or something. The only one worth a look is the one that shows that not all of the sharks were CGI creations – models and such were implemented just as often, and we see a bit of their design and how experts were consulted to ensure they had the details right. Then there’s a montage of all of the movie’s deaths, which is the sort of thing that is only worth it when the kills are super ridiculous and/or gory (think a typical Friday the 13th entry), but here it’s mostly just a bunch of folks being pulled under the surface and/or shots of bloodied water. Equally silly is a segment with a bunch of shark facts – some hilariously inane like “90% of shark attacks are on men”, followed by “Only 10% are on women” for those folks in the crowd who could figure out that complicated math equation on their own. Then there’s a look at Ellis, which unsurprisingly features a bunch of the cast and crew talking about how great he is. The spoiler-filled trailer and a digital copy round things out.

So I dunno. If you’ve already seen it, the sub-par transfer and lousy extras aren’t worth the cost of an encore, and even virgins aren’t given enough here to warrant a purchase. If you haven’t seen it yet, rent away – otherwise just hold on to your pleasant memories of the big screen/3D viewing (if you hated it then you probably haven’t read this far anyway), and pop in Deep Blue Sea instead. That one holds up no matter what!

What say you?

Movie: 5/10 (7/10 on first viewing, for the record)
AV: 6/10
Extras: 4/10
Overall: 5/10

The Amityville Haunting (2011)

2012-01-05T19:45:00.000-08:00

JANUARY 5, 2012

GENRE: HAUNTED HOUSE, MOCKUMENTARY
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

Every now and then I am reminded of how much better some of my peers are when it comes to writing insightful stuff about horror movies. The other day, Devin wrote up an amazing analysis of Poltergeist, which not only brought up some amazing points/theories about the deeper meanings behind many of the film’s scenes and characters, but even basic stuff I never really picked up on (like that the fade to an empty kitchen was supposed to trick us into thinking that the Freeling family had moved out). However, I can take some comfort in knowing that most of the stuff I watch, such as The Amityville Haunting, doesn’t require any further analysis than what is directly on-screen and/or conveyed through direct dialogue.

Here’s what I don’t get about the Asylum’s “found footage” movies – there’s no excuse for being so lousy. I can forgive their I Am Omegas and Transmorphers for biting off a little more than they can chew and just kind of looking pathetic in general, because their inspiration comes from movies with blank check budgets. These, on the other hand, are ripped off from movies that were ALSO shot on small budgets and over a period of a few days. The two granddaddies of the genre (Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity) were shot in about a week each, for somewhere around 50k each. The thrills and scares were based on almost nothing – doors opening and footsteps in Paranormal, piles of rocks and a guy standing in the corner in Blair. So again, making a movie this terrible can’t simply be chalked up to “We didn’t have the money/time to do anything better”.

And like Gacy House, this one drags a real story through the mud, in this case obviously the Amityville story. Now, the Lutz family probably made up most of their claims, but no one can deny the true story of the DeFeo family, where Ronald killed his parents and siblings (6 victims in all) one night in the 1970s at their home on Ocean Avenue. Most of the sequels ignored all of this, focusing on unrelated haunted house nonsense (sometimes chalking it up to evil lamps from the house!), but this one directly name-checks the DeFeo family and, according to the IMDb credits (the movie itself doesn’t have any), the ghost is none other than Ronald himself. There’s also a ghostly kid named John Matthews (or Matthew, it depends on the scene I guess); I have no idea who the hell he is supposed to be. But hey, they’re all dead except for the guy who killed them, so who cares about turning their tragedy into a piece of crap DTV movie, right? Stay classy, Asylum.

By not crediting the actors (only a few of them have been entered on IMDb), they can spare themselves the ridicule, since they’re all pretty much terrible, particularly the two males. Unfortunately, they’re the ones with the most presence; the father is often the focus of his son’s camera, and the lad turns it on himself once a night for a sort of “wrap up” of the day’s events, though sometimes what he says doesn’t match up to what we just saw, so I guess there’s some value to them (making the movie seem clumsier than it already is?). He’s also atrocious, possibly the worst child acting performance I’ve seen since Jake Lloyd’s turn in Phantom Menace. But the dad “owns” the movie’s most jaw-droppingly terrible acting moment, which is also his final one in the movie – maybe they shot in sequence and by then he just didn’t have the energy or care to even TRY to give a realistic performance in the scene? Either way, it’s the sort of bit that can actually kill a movie, so it’s a good thing the whole thing sucked up until that point anyway.

Also, for a movie that tries REALLY REALLY hard to sell itself as a totally real “found footage” movie (again, no credits, and the packaging says over and over that it’s 100% real and such), they sure as hell didn’t put much effort into fooling anyone with what is on-screen. Even excusing the obvious – bad “ghost” FX, for example – even someone with the most basic knowledge of the story knows that the house was on a river, which doesn’t appear here. They do a pretty good job hiding the palm trees in the exterior shots (as with all Asylum movies, this was shot in Los Angeles), but the architecture of the house is completely wrong as well. Hilariously they tell us that the house has enough bedrooms for everyone, which would mean four, but we only ever see two of them (and two doors in the hallway). Ironically, the only thing they get “right” is probably an accident – the famous windows are nowhere to be seen (they’re on the poster of course), but that would actually be true if this was indeed the real house, since they have been removed/remodeled so they wouldn’t attract sightseers. I should also note that anyone who has followed the case knows that the owner who bought the house in 1997 just sold it last year, contradicting this movie’s claims that six families have lived in it in the past 10 years and none of them lasted more than a few weeks before moving back out. They also botch the Lutz story, claiming that they were there for 2 years when in reality they left after 28 days.

And that's even more interesting when you consider that the movie is basically a remake of the original (or the remake), albeit with the 1st person perspective and set in modern day. There's the family of five (with two kids much younger than their sibling), they buy the house because money is tight and they don't want to pass up the opportunity for a full sized house that they can actually afford, the dad kind of goes nuts, the little girl does spooky things... you get the idea. It's probably no surprise that the best part of the movie is the largely unrelated opening, where four kids break into the house to party and get killed roughly three minutes later. In fact, if they stuck with these kids for the whole movie (maybe some sort of real-time approach), it might have been OK - at least we haven't seen that Amityville movie two or three times already.

There’s also the sound mix, which is too “good” for what a kid is shooting with his camcorder. Everyone sounds perfectly clear, even when they’re whispering in the next room (his zoom function apparently improves their sound too). At one point the dad sets up a cheap little security camera in the corner of the living room and even that produces crystal clear sound, when in reality those things don’t record sound at all. You gotta love that they seemingly put effort into making this thing sound “wrong” – if they just used actual camcorder sound it would improve the movie’s attempts at authenticity.

Speaking of authenticity, you gotta love the idiotic notion that at least THREE people would die in the house over the course of a week and yet the only police presence is a uniformed officer who stops by to fill out a report. Even with the alleged notoriety of the property, I highly doubt that the police wouldn’t be hauling the adults off to jail after a delivery man, a neighbor, and a family friend all died in about as many days. Hell the delivery man doesn’t even seem to inspire any sort of investigation at all; the kid films everything nonstop yet after the dude takes a tumble (leaving a giant pool of blood at the foot of the stairs) we just cut to the mom being kind of upset about it. SO REAL.

Only at the very end does it finally start getting a bit entertaining, but that’s a given on pretty much any haunted house movie – the subtle stuff is gone and now the ghost is on a rampage. The little girl – the best performer in the movie, incidentally – finally gets a little more to do than talk to “John”, and a character is given full body burn makeup that’s actually kind of freaky. Needless to say, it’s too little too late, but at least there’s SOME sort of “reward” for slogging through this inane shit.

The only extra is a brief featurette that continues to try to sell the movie’s realism, focusing on the guys who have been tasked with going over the footage and assembling it into a narrative, as well as a few experts and a psychic that is obscured/given a distorted voice, so the ghosts that watch this thing don’t know what she looks like, I guess. I’ll give them this much, when they commit to a plan they stick to it. They BOTCH it, and miserably, but they never use their failure as an excuse to drop the act and out the “creators” of these things so we know who to blame.

What say you?

P.S. I didn’t know this was Asylum until after I rented it; had I known I probably would have waited a few weeks as two Asylums in one week is just too much to ask of a man. I’m still kind of surprised that they have permission to use the name – I would think MGM and/or Dimension would have that locked up pretty tight by now.