NECROTIC CINEMA

THE THING/2011

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Dan Courtney) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 14:35:00 +0000

I just finally had the chance to watch the new version of The Thing and over all I really did not find it to be that terrible a film. I can surely recommend it, but the movie certainly, for me, has the issue of remakes lingering in the front of my brain at the moment. I am reading through a book called American Horror Film; The Genre at the Turn of the Millennium by Steffen Hanke who deals with various dilemmas facing American horror films not the least being the sudden rash of films that are high tech but low brow remakes either of Asian horror films or, more recently, of older more successful and influential American films. Someone should tell Mr. Hanke though that film books with rambling 27 page introductions is another one of the new millennium’s concerns as well. No doubt American horror, once the innovator and standard bearer of the genre, is in a creative slump. The reliance on remakes, on the one hand, and shoddy straight to DVD drivel on the other does not help matters much and the whole remake issue is something I want to explore as a topic in another article later, but the issue cannot be side-stepped with this 2011 remake (or prequel more accurately) of the 1982 classic by John Carpenter. I would easily go so far as to say this was Carpenter’s best film and if I pressed to name my all-time favorite horror/sci-fi film -I feel the movie is a successful melding of the horror and sci-fi genres, much like Ridley Scott’s Alien was- I would not hesitate to name The Thing.

There is an element in some reviews on online of acting like films like The Thing is some sort sacred matter and to redo it even as a prequel (a euphemism or sorts for remake in this case since some scenes are obviously meant to be modern redoings of the same scenes from Carpenter’s film) is tantamount to heresy. The problem here is that Carpenter’s film itself is a remake, and one that was not received with open arms when it was released, not it did it fare well at the box office. Many people felt threw was no way the movie could top Howard Hawk’s original film, 1951’The Thing From Another World. As time has gone I think people would say that Carpenter’s film did not in fact “top” Hawke’s film (which is also great movie in every sense) but it took the same story and retold in a new a way and added to the story by not only making it in color –though there is nothing wrong with the original’s black and white- but by also adding then state of the art special effects by Rob Bottin and a classic music score by Carpenter and Ennio Morricone. Carpenter did with his version of The Thing that any filmmaker worth his weight in salt is supposed to do with a remake, and that is make the story his own and take it to a new level. Not one that has to outdo the original but at least equal it in some sense. And now my two cents worth on the raging debate on the Internet these days: does the new The Thing at least equal its predecessors in retelling the story of a hostile alien life form that can take on the appearance of creature it absorbs, those creatures currently being dogs and humans stationed at some remote and claustrophobic base somewhere in Antarctica. Well, my answer is that, no it does not match up to either Carpenter’s or Hawke’s films. It falls short. But is it a bad movie and one that should be avoided or loathed? I would say it is an okay movie, entertaining enough for the times we live in when half way decent horror fare is typically lacking. Of course where this article is going to be heading eventually is in dealing with yet another culprit damaging modern day horror films, and that is the murky matter of CGI effects. Carpenter used what was then state of the art special effects in creating still outstanding scenes in his that was simply not possible in the original. Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. has the same right to push the effects of the new version into the 21st century, and the film may have not worked without CGI in some capacity, but is newer always better and were the CGI effects overused? I had read before seeing the film that the filmmakers had opted to use only minimal CGI effects but all I saw were computer effects. I will get to that a little later on and share my feelings about it, but for now lets look at the basic storyline. And as always, if you hate spoilers you had best skip the next paragraph or two. I, too, hate to read them but I love to write them. I will try to keep them at a minimum however. I will just introduce the general story then critique afterwards.

Mary Elizabeth Winsted plays paleoanthropologist Kate Lloyd who is offered the chance to fly to Antarctica by one Dr. Sander Halvorson (Ulrich Thomsen) to examine the remains of what turns out to be an alien creature that has been frozen in the ice for about 100,000 years. She is soon at a Norwegian base surrounded by Norwegian guys and one other female. Later some Americans (including Joel Edgerton as Sam Carter) arrive to mix things up a bit and to allow more of the film’s dialog to be spoken in English. As well as the alien creature there is a huge space craft buried under the thick ice and snow. The creature is transported in a block of ice back to the Norwegian base where further tests reveal the creature’s cells are still alive. The creature wastes little time in bursting free of the ice and since we know the thing can assume the appearance of other life forms we can safely assume that by the next some people at the base are not who they appear to be. Sure enough people we least suspect start mutating into a monster that makes quick work of its victims one way or the other. Either by simply killing them or by absorbing them and thereby taking on its victim’s appearance. Paranoia mounts and nobody is sure who is and who is not themselves or the space alien that is intent on killing or absorbing everybody at the frozen base. To make matters worse a serious Antarctic storm is blowing in and no one can leave the base until the creature and its imitations are isolated. There are chases by the creature and confrontations between the crew in the building where they are all huddled for survival, but by the film’s final scenes the action shifts to the interior of the space craft itself. The film ends in a way that is supposed to open the door to the John Carpenter film but I am not so sure about that as there seems to be some loose ends in my opinion. If this movie is actually a prequel then a few scenes in the other film are left completely unexplained and I will touch on those but not make a major issue out of it all.

But before that I will have to give Mary Elizabeth Winsted a little credit for stepping into the impossible to fill shoes of Kurt Russell as R.J. McReady from Carpenter’s film. The role was iconic and I don’t feel she was trying to become any sort of “McRipley” character. One could question whether it was really necessary to have the lead role be filled by a female character but that is really the way modern action and horror films goes. People want to see a tough woman nowadays, and not only tough but attractive. That Carpenter’s film told its story without either a female character or a single teenager is yet one more reason to admire that story. To be fair the Howard Hawks film had a female character but we can still question the need to make this radical change in the mood and tone of the film. The Carpenter film achieved its classic levels of paranoia and claustrophobia from a few unique story conventions, one of them being the absence of a female character. The film does not exploit this too much really though a line is made about the last thing one wants to be is a woman in a camp of Norwegians in the middle of winter. Winstead plays Kate Lloyd a little shaky and insecure at first, but of course by the film’s end she is just another “Final Girl” being chased by the monster or killer through the scary house –or spaceship- and she is soon roasting anything and anybody that threatens her in true modern film heroine fashion. While she survives the film we assume she does not survive the continuing story, the way we assume McReady and Childs do not survive the ending of the 1982 film.

A couple issues with the loose ends here. There is more than a couple issues but I address some that left me wondering why the prequel did not cover these better, or did I miss something. The film covers the “melded two-faced” creature that is brought to the American base in Carpenter’s film with its still living cells. But the carpenter film opens with a husky being chased by Norwegians in a helicopter and the dog is taken in by the crew after the Norwegians all are killed one way or another. Now in the 2011 film we see a dog escape, biting the chain cage in a manner that harkens back to the 1982 film, but we are never informed as to who the Norwegians are that would be chasing the dog across the snow into the American camp, or if there is even a working helicopter left. Another scene in the Carpenter film says the Americans watching video footage of the Norwegians using termite charges to open the ice up around the space craft, but in the 2011 film they just walk down through an ice cavern. There are also unexplained scenes such as a suicide in the Carpenter film where a man is sitting in a chair with blood, now frozen, running from his wrists to the floor. There is no such suicide in the new film and I am left wondering if there are more Norwegians who come to the camp later or something. I am not going to beat my brains out trying to figure it out because it may be obvious here that I have seen the 1982 film several times and wonder if I will rewatch the new one even once more. Maybe as it was not really that bad.

And a word, of course, on the CGI effects. This is the way of the future I guess, for better or worse. Films will only be employing more and more CGI effects and not less and less and it is something we have to learn to live with. And I am not against this really but there is certainly something lacking in this film from the 1982 one by having the special FX all done in CGI. And they do all seem to be CGI. In one scene a guy on the helicopter begins to transform in the creature and his human face breaks away, and it just does not look that cool at all. Not as cool as Rob Bottin’s FX from about thirty years ago anyway. You cans just tell it is computer generated is the problem. And in the scenes where somebody bursts open and the creature’s tentacles come flying out and sloshing about all over it simply looks like computer generated images. You can say they are well done, and they are, but you are never unaware that you looking at something computer generated. And of course in the first film you are aware many times that you are looking at a puppet or artificial creation that is being manipulated by a crew of stagehands with little wires and pumps, but that was thirty years ago. Should something from the 21st century blow that all away? Seems like it should, but it never does.

The film never creates the atmosphere of paranoia the Carpenter film does as well though it seems like it should be able to. The story becomes just a series of set-ups for another scene with slick CGI effects. We don’t really connect with the Norwegians or the few American’s who show up later the way we did with the characters in the Carpenter film. We don’t ever really connect with the character of Kate Lloyd either but I am warning you not to surprised if her character does not wind up being written in a future film where she goes back to the American base after she has had time to recuperate somewhere, and there she and a team face the monster all over again. Mark my words, this is a possibility I have not seen anybody explore yet. This remake/prequel may well become a remake/sequel at some time in the near future.

THE NECROTIC CINEMA PODCAST: EPISODE 01

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Dan Courtney) — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 13:11:00 +0000

I am really trying to sort out what to do with this blog here. I have considered just trashing it really but in the end I know I would never do that. I have been working with some ideas on what I can do to generate more posts and activity here, including shorter posts, multiple-movie review posts, more posters and art collection, comic book reviews, music and who knows what. I had the idea only earlier today of doing a podcast here. It did not seem likely that it would take form but by golly here it is, the same day, the first Necrotic Cinema Podcast. Nothing much here in this first episode as it is a good idea to do a test post or two before you really get into fleshing out out a direction for the show to take. Whipped up a quick little banner and will be making an RSS feed for the show as well after a couple episodes. You can make feeds for individual labels for a Blogger blog but the new templates lack the link enclosure option that makes it easy to publish a podcast or audio file and have it playable on feed readers. I noticed some audio files I posted to the new Blogger template over at The Uranium Cafe do have have audio players in Google Reader, but older posts using the old template do. Oh well, one more problem to work out. let me get this one out there and see how it goes.

Note: I do not drink at all but I sound pretty drunk on this podcast. Really late and I am tired. Just letting people know that I am a tea-tottler however, I just naturally sound shit faced. Also, as if it matters, I made a mistake during the podcast and it is Emperor that leads in the show and Mayhem that takes it out with the bumper music. Did sort out the issue with link enclosures by reverting back to the old Blogger edit page. That sucks. Have to update audio files at The Uranium Cafe now. Hope Blogger sorts this issues out. RSS readers will not show a player (the standard Google Player) if you have no enclosure links. Come on guys! Get the hell with it!

THE NECROTIC CINEMA PODCAST: EPISODE 01

BEREAVEMENT/2010

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Dan Courtney) — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 07:42:00 +0000

Bereavement, by 3rd time director Stevan Mena, is not as bad as many reviews I read online make it out to be. If you are not a horror/slasher fan you will no doubt dislike it, and if you are a horror/slasher fan who has become overly jaded and bored with the same psycho-killer formula being repeated over and over ad nauseum for the past forty some years then you will be equally or more disappointed. But if you go into not expecting much new in the storyline department and can cope with a few let downs in terms of characters doing ludicrous things to propel the plot along and an inexplicable ending then you should enjoy the film. The direction is fairly tight and is a step above Mena’s Malevolence, which features the serial killer Martin Bristol as an adult. In fact, I had not yet seen Malevolence when I saw Bereavement and had no idea who Martin Bristol was or that Bereavement was a prequel to that film. I think that actually helped me to enjoy Bereavement a bit more than had I seen the first film and known that young, kidnapped Martin was being groomed by the psychotic Graham Sutter into becoming the monster he would evolve into in Malevolence.

Young Martin Bristol (Spencer List) suffers from some rare condition that prevents him from feeling injuries of any type. He is kidnapped from his swing set by Sutter and kept in the barn of Sutter’s pig farm/abbattoir where his spends his impressionable boyhood years watching Sutter torture and murder young women he abducts from surrounding areas around his rural Pennsylvania home. His home is a derelict old slaughter house that police never figure is worth checking out during the five years of Martin’s disappearance, nor does the constant disappearances of several local young women seem to warrant much concern. Even in downtown New York some detective with time on his hands would connect the dots and think “hey we gotta seral killer on our hands here” but beautiful girls vanishing from a farming community seems to be the norm here. And this is where the film starts to have problems of course. It is not with the acting which is pretty good by the leads (including Michael Biehn, Alexandra Daddario, John Savage –who yet again plays some sort of handicapped person, a role he has perfected since The Deerhunter- and Brett Rickaby as Sutter) nor with the direction or fine cinematography by Macco Cappetta, but with the odd plot gaps and incongruities that come part and parcel with slasher films in general. That being said the film is stull better than many of the new slasher stuff which are borrowing more and more from films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Hostel than from the masked slasher stuff from the 80’s, though Martin Bistol does wear a hood in Malevolence. Like Hostel many of the death scenes go on a bit too long, and watching women being tortured and slowly stabbed to death is not really scary. It is unnerving and unsettling but not scary in the way I prefer a horror movie to feel. Also I have problems, and have mentioned this before here at Necrotic Cinema, with the bleak, fatalistic endings of modern horror movies. I am not trying to give away the ending and yet how can I avoid it when I say at least one decent person should survive. It is not really a “clever” twist ending to have every half way likable person in the film killed off.
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The film tries to explore why a young and innocent Martin Bristol became the killer he becomes in Malevolence and on some levels it succeeds at that. Some people say it did not, but it certainly did better than, lets say, the newer Texas Chainsaw Massacre films explaining the origins of Leather Face, as if we need to even know that. Another problem might be with the lead character of Allison (Daddario) who plays the sullen and morose, angst ridden teenage girl who leaves the big city for the country and bring her life weary attitude along with her. Had she met Edward Cullen along the way things would have worked out better no doubt. Of course what other type of female character would work in this sort of story? I guess this winds up becoming the best of all possible worlds and yet it get s a bit annoying at times. And Daddario seems too mature to play the (I believe) 17 year old high school girl Allison. And while I have no major issues as a guy with seeing her massive jugs and erect nipples in tank tops as sees sits on the bed chatting with her uncle (Biehn) and aunt it just did not seem all that believable. And I do not go into these sorts of film looking for everything to believable of course. But I think we are, as a horror culture, long past the days of gratuitous nudity or erect nipples and boobage.

Like Malevolence Mena also scores the film and I think does a better job this time around. Martin Bistol is not a horrible entry to the elite community of super slashers and I have a sense we will be seeing a couple more films with his character in them. The film is well shot and the editing and pace are not unbearable. I am not a whimp but I did not like some of the protracted torture and death sequences but I have seen worse. There is a fine line that separates, in my view, a decent horror/slasher film from a cheap gore film. Bereavement does not cross that line really and there is definite talent involved with the project. Slasher fans will enjoy it. Cynics and weak stomachs will not.

BEREAVEMENT TRAILER

TOOLBOX MURDERS/2004/TOBE HOOPER

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Dan Courtney) — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 13:20:00 +0000

I am following up my review of Tobe Hooper’s Mortuary with the film that preceded it, 2004’s Toolbox Murders. A loose remake of the 1978 early Video Nasty and slasher prototype by Dennis Donnelly the film was considered a return of sorts to the big time by Hooper fans but if you go into it with those expectations you may be sorely disappointed. If you set your standards a bit lower and realize Hooper can make a decent film that does not have to pale in the shadow of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre you may enjoy the ride a little more. Hooper collaborates with Mortuary (and Crocodile, a film I have never really wanted to see) writers Jace Anderson, Adam Gierasch. The slasher genre is not one that lends itself to much originality and the films are expected to be derivative of themselves and often they get mired down in “clever” references to other more well known films. They either fall into the category of spoof or attempt at something serious and TBM falls into the latter category. Of course there is ultimately something a little comical about all slasher films and TBM can’t escape the genre curse. The idea of a masked, remorseless killer who is all but indestructible and beyond capture (even when he is living in a maze located inside the walls of an apartment complex in Los Angeles) is a little silly after you have seen about a hundred of these tings at least. But in the end I enjoyed the film but there are problems to be sure and the film may have been a high point for Hooper and fans in an otherwise waning film career, but in the end it is a just another masked slasher film. And if you accept it as that you will be okay. If you go in with the attitude of “this better be great cos’ Tobe Hooper directed it!” then you will join the legions of viewers who all but hate the film. I, like I said, enjoyed it and felt Hooper did a good enough job and that most slasher film fans will not be disappointed.

Nell and Steven Barrows (Angela Bettis and Brent Roam) move into their room at the Lussman Arms (the now demolished Ambassador Hotel used in hundred of films over the decades, including David Fincher’s Se7en) and are soon beset upon by a host of strange characters including their landlord, oddball neighbors and a fairly obviously deranged handyman who must have come pretty cheap to the landlord who is always talking of the buildings eccentric charm while avoiding doing necessary repairs. The room is cheap since there are renovations going on, and said renovations have riled up another occupant of the Lussman Arms, a guy we come to know as Coffin Baby and who lives in a rather large complex of rooms hidden inside the walls of the apartments. The complex of rooms that go from floor to floor have gone undetected all this time, and since anybody nicknamed Coffin Baby is going to be a banana or two short of a bushel he has been busy killing of tenants for decades and storing their bodies in various places behind the walls. In fact it seems that in the character of Coffin Baby we have found the actual killer of Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia, whose old room just happens to be Nell and Stevens. There is some strange sub-plot that is not explored too deeply about Coffin Baby being involved in the occult and so explaining, sort of, why the building is adorned with mysterious symbols that provide him with immortality. So there is a supernatural twist to things and I tend to not like supernatural serial killers and slashers. Call me old fashioned. I think in the end a good killer just needs a butcher knife or pair of panty-hose and he is good to go. No need for the Necronomicon.

The killings begin right off the bat and pretty little Mrs. Rob Zombie, Sheri Moon, herself is the first victim and is beaten effectively enough with claw hammer. As the title suggests the murders occur by various construction tools and industrial solvents. The death scenes are fairly gory and some of the freakiest stuff Hooper has set to film. Really, his films have been fairly tame in the death scene departments since The Texas Chainsaw massacre II. The film suffers from not enough mayhem really and too much of Nell unraveling the mystery of disappearing neighbors and the buildings arcane history. The pace is not bad at all but there is not much to pace at times. Hooper delivers in the areas of camerawork, odd characters and, one of his trademarks, creepy psycho dwelling places. Coffin Baby’s digs harken back to the underground maze of the macabre from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre II but does not come off, to me anyway, as a reference or homage.
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So not the big comeback film Hooper fans had hoped it would be but still a lot better than what was around the corner with Mortuary. The character of Coffin Baby is left unexplained enough to open the door to a sequel, which is now out but without Mr. Hooper at the helm and the trailer I saw online did not make me anxious to track it down. I tend to like Hooper’s work and this is no exception. Not a great film by any stretch if you’re setting the bar too high but better than most slasher type films. I will probably watch it again some day and that is as a good a recommendation as any film can get from me. Review of Eaten Alive coming soon.

MORTUARY/2005/TOBE HOOPER

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Dan Courtney) — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 11:14:00 +0000

I will say from the beginning that I was disappointed in this film but there was an upside to the experience actually. It rekindled my interest in Tobe Hooper and I am rounding up a few of his films I have not seen before such as Toolbox Murders and Eaten Alive. Just never around to seeing them. And I like a lot of his stuff other people tend to pan regularly such as Lifeforce and Invaders from Mars. Nice looking and stylized films with some story issues but good movies as far as I am concerned. So I was recently in the mood for a horror film and saw The Mortuary listed on an Internet thing of movies here in China. It is called PPTV and is basically just pirated movies with Chinese subtitles (and sometimes dubbed Chinese language) but I can get a bunch of movies off of it and what them on the iPad in bed with my earphones. What lives of quiet desperation some of us lead, right? I did not expect this movie to be great and I was right. But this is being made by Tobe Hooper, whose career has been spotty at best but usually turns out something worth sitting through even when it is sub-standard. But he, along with the writers of 2004’s Toolbox Murders, really missed the mark with this film that seems more on the level of a first time horror filmmaker’s efforts than a man who has worked with Steven Spielberg and with one movie about inbred cannibal hicks in Texas helped to redefine the road modern horror would travel down.

There seems to be mixed feelings about this one online and some people defend it as a fun movie not to be taken seriously. They seem to using Hooper’s penchant for well timed dark humor as a basis for their arguments but they are simply gilding the lily here. The film is not clever or comical and any laughs are unintentional and are at the expense of the filmmakers and actors themselves. And while I feel CGI effects for horror is the way of the future whether we like it or not I also feel those effects need to be done well if not perfectly to please the masses. Now I wonder just how much Spielberg actually had over the excellent special effects in Poltergeist since the effects in this one rank among some of the worst I have ever seen in a horror film. Okay, I have seen much worse, but again I expect more from Hooper than this mess. The special effects were worse than stuff I have seen on TV shows. Add these problems to a script that had some potential but ultimately sells out scene after and you have a really disappointing film by a guy who was reported have gotten back on top of his game with Toolbox Murders (which I will be seeing shortly). One writer tries to defend the ending and gave a long argument for his reasons, but the ending is a sell not and not a clever twist like he argues it to be. Just because something is “unexpected” does not make it clever or original. Sometimes unexpected means the filmmakers had no idea what the hell they doing and took the obvious easy way out to just end a troubled film.

And what is this troubled film about? The story itself seems to offer possibilities. Nothing fantastic but at least a middle of the road Hooper film could have been achieved, and a mediocre Hooper film can still be better than the competition. Recently widowed Leslie Doyle (Denise Crosby of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Pet Semetary) packs up and moves her kids Jonathan and little sister Jamie (Dan Byrd –who delivers a solid performance- and Stephanie Patton) across the country to some desolate town in the California desert to work as the town’s mortician. She has been studying mortician science and what a lucky break for here. The Fowler Mortuary is ridiculously dilapidated to the point of being absurd. Sure, run down and atmospheric is the only way to go, but the house is simply too decrepit to believe. To make things worse sewage is being pushed up into the surrounding yard (which is simply dirt), caused by the recent torrential rains, the heaviest rains in some fifty we are informed. Even more annoying than the house and gooey shit over the yard is the laughing gimp of a real estate Mr. Barstow (Adam Gierasch) agent who cackles and snickers his way through every scene. What was up with this guy? At what point did Hooper think that this actor’s performance was something to not criticize? It is simply annoying and in the end bad acting, but not the type of bad acting you can ignore. Other obligatory strange characters include the stuttering sheriff who wants to make sure there are “no more graveyard babies” made in the cemetery and some angry punk kids who sit in the diner and make Jonathan’s life miserable. To make his life more bearable though he also meets the attractive but angst ridden Liz (Alexndra Adi) and her gay pal Grady (Rocky Marquette).
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The house comes with a history of local lore. Murder and families vanishing and maybe victims of local boogeyman Bobbly Fowler, the abused and deformed child of the Fowler family who used to run the mortuary. The house also comes with a strange fungus that covers everything and that is attracted to blood. I know fungus and molds can be sort of scary in a Lovecraftian way (and the film makes some references to Lovecraft with a quote on a crypt door) but to be honest fungus and stuff aren’t really that scary. I am not a fan of plant/mold movies in general anyway. But soon Jonathan and his new friends from the local diner realize that there are strange things going on in the house and surrounding graveyard and that the creepy mold may have something to do it, or maybe even Bobby Fowler himself. And by strange things I am referring to the usually considered strange event of the dead returning to life and attacking the living. The corpses in the mortuary are reanimated by the black fungus which slithers out of the drain pipes and enters the bodies through any orifice I guess, and then said reanimated corpse is able to infect the living by vomiting in their face. Leslie Doyle herself is soon infected as is the stuttering sheriff and bitter punks. And of course Bobby Fowler is nor just a legend and soon the cleft lipped psycho is terrorizing the gang and little Jamie along with the fungus, zombies and recently infected humans. I draw some distinction between the reanimated corpses and the humans infected with moldy zombie barf but I am not sure that is really necessary other than the fact that the recently infected humans can still talk and stutter. I am not a zombie expert and yet we seem to be dealing with some sort of zombie hierarchy here.

The film seems to be deliberately (I would hope) referring back to some of Hooper’s earlier films. A dining table sequence is reminiscent of the iconic scene in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Bobby Fowler’s underground world looks like the strange tunnels in Texas Chainsaw Massacre II. The simple minded, cleft lipped creature who yearns for love harkens back to Funhouse. Nothing wrong with making references to older horror films but it is bit more clever when someone else is paying homage to another filmmaker’s work and not the original filmmaker creating references to his own. I don’t now. That seems a little corny or desperate to me. Oh and the ending. That “controversial” ending that seems to have the horror masses divided. It is a bad ending. Makes no sense whatsoever. It is a cheap shot and copout and nothing more. Hooper should have known better but maybe he simply did not care any more. Of course movies are not shot in some sort of chronological sense and the ending may have been the first scene shot, but you still get the feeling that this ending was tacked on with not much thought or consideration to the rest of the story –or the thing that resembles and has some basic attributes of a story- that preceded it.

I am still a Tobe Hooper fan and look forward to the three new films I am downloading right now from The Pirate Bay. But of all the films of his I have seen this has to the worst. I have not seen all of them. Never saw Crocodile and that looks pretty lame. But it is hard to believe this is actually even a Tobe Hooper film. I am thinking Mr. Hooper would have done better to let “Alan Smithee” take credit for this one.

THE GRAVES/2009 / FEATURING THE WASTED TALENTS OF TONY TODD AND BILL MOSELEY

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Dan Courtney) — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 08:26:00 +0000

The Graves director, Brian Pulido, is known in the comic book world as the creator of Lady Death and the Chaos comic book line. In the movie world he is now known as the creator of a totally piece of crap movie called The Graves. And Pulido wastes little opportunity in promoting himself when in one scene one of the female leads holds up a copy of Lady Death while being video taped by her sister in a comic book store –with copies of other comic books Pulido is connected with behind her-before they both head out on a road trip through the deserts of Arizona. One sister is Megan Graves (Claire Grant) and the other is Abby Graves (Jillian Murray). Ergo the film’s title; The Graves. Pretty God damned clever, eh? Megan is the older and ‘stronger’ sister while Abby is the more whiney and dependent younger sister. Of course anyone who has evolved past a single celled organism and seen even half a dozen of these “survival” type horror films will anticipate the weaker character being the survivor and becoming even stronger than the character whose shadow they lived in all their lives. Right off the bat I had problems with the sisters because try as I might I found I did not like either one of them enough to care if either survived or not at the film’s end. So many modern horror films are stocked with characters so grumpy, anti-social and depressed that one begins to see the killer as some sort of redeemer really. The psychotic killer can’t be much worse than the cranky, spoiled teenagers they are killing off and for me that can be a problem in a film. I guess it is easier tow rite unlikable characters than likable ones. The sisters are so stereotyped as far as modern female horror leads go (or sometimes female leads period). They angrily flaunt their jugs and cast aspersions on each other and everyone they run into along the way to see the “world’s biggest thermometer”. Of course they are soon deriding and being condescending to rednecks and hillbillies in the truck stops along the way as big city folk always do in these films.

In one such truck stop they run into the reverend Abraham Stockton played by Tony Todd in what amounts to another cameo role in a horror film by him really. He is on screen more here than in films like, lets say, the deplorable Murder-Set-Pieces and more deplorable (if possible) Hatchet, which also featured a cameo by Robert Englund. I am not sure what this turned is about, taking someone who should be on the screen as a central character and paying them enough money half a day’s work then plastering their names on the DVD cover to dupe gullible people into paying money for it. Hey, I was duped into this one and I just downloaded for free and feel ripped off. Todd is okay here as the clichéd evil Christian minister we have seen a million times in these films and yet we just don’t see enough of him his performance matter. At the diner the girls are told by a waitress to check out the local attraction called Skull City. Seems this is much cooler than the world’s biggest thermometer, if that is humanly conceivable. And here is another problem (among too many to mention) I have with this film, and that is the very existence of this road trip, which is nothing more than a formulaic vehicle to get the girls into some weird backwoods area and have inbred weirdos stalk and try to kill them. They are from the “big city” of Phoenix (I think) and the idea that they would suddenly want to drive into the desert dregs of Arizona before Megan heads off to New York City for school in order to do some sisterly bonding is absurd. All the more absurd since all we are treated to is nothing but sibling squabbles from the get go. Another cliché from modern horror films; a group –or sometimes just a couple- of people who loathe either all decide it might cool to go on a road trip in one car together or sleep in a small cabin in the mountains together and go nuts observing one another’s idiosyncrasies. I don’t know. Call me old school. I don’t want to drive across a hot desert with some one I tend to spend all my time arguing with anyway.

So I wonder if it would come as any surprise and ruin the film if I told you that Skull City is loaded with a hillbilly family of psychos who tend to kill off all the people who go there to check it out? The Atwood family run Skull City and see it as no major issue to kill off paying guests. Jonah Atwood wears welding goggles or something and has a lot of mixed feelings about killing people all the time. He is like the alcoholic is always swearing off drinking and will stop tomorrow. His brother is Caleb Atwood – or Cookie to his friends and family- and he has little remorse about his calling in life. And why would he? He is played by none other than the crown prince of hillbilly lunatics himself, Bill Moseley. This is the type of role Moseley can play in his sleep and he does it well enough but like Tony Todd he is simply not on the screen long enough. In fact his character, and Jonah’s for that matter, is killed off way too easily. There is even a scene where he has the girls and would have no problem killing them, but decides it might be ore gaming to let them have a running start. Oh come on. This has nothing to do with Moseley’s character but has everything to do with crappy writing. This might work in a comic book but in this film it was so obvious Pulido just did not know what else to do to keep the story moving.

Soon the girl’s are just running around Skull City and hiding in one shack after another. To break the tension and pad the time some other Skull City tourists show up and they are quickly killed off by having their throats slit. After Jonah is killed off by the girls a new twist is thrown into the story. An unnecessary and goofy twist. Seems there is a supernatural element in Skull City in the form of a demonic wind that appears in the form of cheesy CGI effects. And not only does the demon appear and people shrivel up in CGI but there is simply too much CGI blood. Even in one scene there is spilt blood lying on the ground and that is even done in CGI. They can’t even afford to throw a bucket of “real” fake blood on the ground for a scene? The CGI blood in this one really annoyed my. Not the worst I have seen but it got real old real fast.

There is just nothing new here at all. Of course films like this rely in many ways on clichés and stereotypes. The road trip thing is a useable device to get city people out into the woods, mountains or desert where are those weirdos really live. No weirdos in the crack houses of Compton. Hillbillies can be scary I guess. I like crazy hicks. But the supernatural twist ruined an all ready bad experience for me. I was settling in for a low quality girl running from the slasher flick at a certain point but soon I was simply getting annoyed at how a tried and true formula suddenly got sodomized by a no talent director and writer. So what if he can write comic books. Pulido blew it on this film and I am hard pressed to find even one supportive review of this mess online. Sometimes I want to say something like “oh the camera work was okay’ just so I don’t sound too bitter, but hell, the camera work was nothing great. It was hot on video and looked too bright and crisp to give the story any mood. Something grittier would have worked better but I expect that this look will be more and more of what we will seeing in the future. Why? Because it is cheap and does not require much skill to achieve. The film ends in such a way to suggest a possible sequel but it been a couple years since this was released in 2009. I don’t know what Pulido has been up to since then but I hope it has nothing to do with movies.

ALIENS INDUCE SLEEP IN ALIEN ADUCTION: INCIDENT IN LAKE COUNTY

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Dan Courtney) — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 11:54:00 +0000

Alien Abductions: Incident in Lake County is a docudrama style movie made for the UPN network and produced by Dave Clark. It is directed by Dean Alioto and has an actual cast listing at the end of the film, even giving credits for the actors who played the aliens. The film had a budget and special effects crew. Why do I mention all this? Well there is more to this little film than may first meet the eye and one thing is that some people actually believe it is real footage of an actual abductions. Others at least believe it is a re-filming by Alioto of an actual video taken of the abduction of the entire McPherson family somewhere in the backwoods of Montana one night (and is also said to be based on an abduction incident in Hopkinsville Kentucy). I have not read about Alioto himself claiming that he saw some original video tape of the "real" abduction but once you enter the realm of alien abductions and the people who believe in them you have entered into the world of the die hard true believer and what a truly scary world that is. The show has some of the feel of those “could it have really happened” docudramas like The Blair Witch Project and predates Blair by about a year. On that note and the fact that the project was a pretty successful show for UPN and generated a “controversy” that still lingers to this day I will give some credit. That being said I hate these kinds of films usually and I had to fast forward through this one to get to the end. The live tape footage –sometimes “found footage” for these types of films, meaning a video tape of an “actual event” is found later by some one else later- is sprinkled with commentaries by various experts and one, a film maker, makes the comment about how the people in the tape (and I paraphrase) could not be actors and that there is really no plot line to speak of. This is supposed to make the film sound even more authentic. Of course the people are actors. You can see their names listed on IMDB and Wikipedia with the characters they played, but they are just incredibly bad actors and the lack of plot is simply the result of the lack of writing skills on the part of the filmmakers themselves (the script being attributed to Alioto, story, and Paul Chitilik, teleplay).

I just could not stand this film. It is much the same as a couple recent entries here at Necrotic Cinema, Paranormal Activities and The Last Exorcism, in that the films are shot from the perspective of someone holding a video camera and either intentionally or unintentionally taping events that will later come to challenge the sensibilities of the viewer and shake even the opinions of the most hardened skeptic. Well, that seems to be what they are trying to do and I doubt the filmmakers are taking too much of what they are doing seriously. There is a no budget quality to the projects and the simple reality is you can tell that these are simply bad actors in these things reciting lines from a bad script. Yet there seems to be quite a few people who totally believe in the whole alien abduction myth and are convinced if someone disagrees with them then that person is part of a vast and intricate conspiracy to cover up the mountains of evidence out there…somewhere. If they are not duped into that fallacious mode of thinking from listening to too much Art Bell then they at least fall for a goofy ass movie and consider it scary as hell. You doubt me? Here is a quote –unedited because not even I can make this many mistakes- from a reviewer at IMDB:

Well, I'm actually sitting here, now in 2006, actually scared more than half to death , I'm on my own, the film finished about 10 minutes ago its 1.10am, and Wow...am I scared! Apart from still shaking ( I don't like horror films at the best of times ), it was a really really good film, the screenplay and acting of all the characters was too perfection ( apart from the Black guy, his performance let things down I think ) The imagination and initiative of the scrip to make it seem like it was not plotted was one to be reckoned with, a truly amazing, spine-shivering film. I still have tingles going round my body..I doubt I will sleep tonight!

First of all I thought the “black guy” did okay myself. But what the hell was this guy smoking or snorting! I could barely stay awake and I think I honestly spent 10 minutes of actual viewing time as I fast forwarded through this mess to just get it over with. “Spine shivering”! Never heard of that before, just like “tingles going round my body”, so we can conclude from his inability to remember simple cliches that this guy is a doof-ball and we can also safely assume that he believes in actual alien abductions. Just like the people who found The Last Exorcism scary probably believe in demonic possession or powerful satanic communities, or people who couldn’t sleep after Paranormal Activities probably actually believe in, er, eh, whatever it is people like that believe in. Some people are trying to defend this film against debunkers, believing it is somehow true or based on something true, like the whole alien autopsy hoax. I don’t think this film was ever meant to be a hoax. I think the filmmakers were just making a docudrama of an urban legend and it turned into some sort of Orson Welles War of the Worlds situation where gullible ass people will simply believe anything. Okay, so what is my opinion on alien abductions then? They don’t happen! Aliens aren’t taking people aboard space craft. Lost time is experienced by brain dead people. Aliens aren’t dissecting cattle and implanting little triangles into people’s shoulders. None of this is happening. Aliens aren’t even flying around the swamps of Alabama at night probing hillbilly’s anuses. Crop circles? Hoaxes. How many? 100%. There is not one crop circle that is not the product of a human being somewhere. No one has ESP or can remote view. Okay, that being said I still like a good scary flick and I am able to suspend my disbelief and enjoy a film like Close Encounters or The Exorcist. With a movie like this I can’t suspend my disbelief that anyone could possibly believe it could be true or even be unable to sleep after seeing it. What is wrong with humanity? Here is a short quote from Amazon.com:

“Everything in the film is quite believable:”

What movie was this yoyo watching? Not the same amateurish dribble I had to fast forward through. And he says “everything”. I will counter that with a reasoned and calculated reply and say that NOTHING in this mess is believable, including the fact that someone put up the 1.2 million dollars for the film’s budget (to quote Alioto in an article I read). It has the feel of the X-Files and supposedly some of the X-Files special effects guys helped Alioto out. Hey look, some people loved it. Why listen to a cantankerous old cynic like me. Check it out for yourself (keep your thumb on the fast forward) if you can find it. Seems a bit hard to locate but I seem to have a knack (or curse) for finding this obscure stuff. It is a boring terrible film but others differ in their views it seems. Maybe you will agree with this other reviewer from Amazon.com:

It's brilliantly produced in all of its ultrarealistic facets. Had this film garnered a theatrical release and been played up and marketed in an underground Blair Witch fashion, I believe it would have made a killing at the box office. I dare you to watch this film alone late at night.

I dare you watch it alone at night and try to stay awake.

NECROTIC CINEMA IS NOT DEAD (not in a bad way anyway)

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Dan Courtney) — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 14:17:00 +0000

Just a quick note. I have gotten way behind here since my other blog, and once my main site, was killed off by hackers. Actually my account was canceled by my lame hosting service without so much as a "sorry, but..." because they could not prevent, after years, hackers from getting into my site and injecting malware. Their web page boasts about having all the latest malware protection but I guess they forget to turn it on for my site. I found out later I was not the only person to suffer chronic hackings there, so if you're looking for a hosted website DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT waste your time and money at maiahosting.com. they could not even set up a redirect for me. The guy there said he would but then maybe later he read some negative reviews I gave maiahost at some review sites and canceled his promise to help me out in that area.

I also blew about $40 on a website security service called "wewatchyourwebsite" and that was a bunch of crap too and I recommend you flush them down the toilet as well. My site continued to get hacked right up to the time it was cancelled. This guy could do nothing even though he had access to my FTP and CPanel. When I contacted him after my site was taken offline he said "I sent you an email last week saying I had lost FTP access. I need FTP access". That was a total lie since there was no email anywhere in my Yahoo account. Like I can't go back and search my email or check mails I've received over the last few days or week. Come on. Later mails to him were basically ignored. When I finally requested I get some sort of refund since my blog was removed from the net only a month after paying for his services that mail was ignored too. I mean, maybe it is not the guy's policy to return money for incompetent work and that is cool, but at least f'ing respond to the email. Just make another lie at least. Totally unprofessional.

Well, the deal is then I have been busy trying to get the new Uranium Cafe off the ground over at http://theuraniumcafe.blogspot.com. It is basically going and so I am going to swing back here and do some more modern horror flicks shortly. I have a feeling I will be putting in more time here now that my labor of love died. And it died with a real whimper too. I think I got about four comments or emails expressing regret. I got one friggin' email of condolence from the League of Tana Leaf Drinkers though I sent out an email to all the members. Just goes to show you the idea of a "community" on the net is basically a myth. At least amongst horror bloggers. Probably more community amongst porn purveyors. But screw all that. Spilt milk and all that. Should have something new up here shortly. Dealing with the fallout of some personal life issues and work and visa stress here in China, but I must not, nay cannot, let that interfere with me reviewing crappy ass horror movies.

LET ME IN: THE FAR SUPERIOR HAMMER REMAKE OF LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (Just kidding, But I know that will piss off somebody)

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Dan Courtney) — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 05:09:00 +0000

“Finally, those who worry about that dreaded cinematic dirty word, “Americanization,” are going to likely feel justified in their fears. Let Me In is indisputably a shiny and polished Hollywood product…”

“ …Tomas Alfredson made art out of Let The Right One In. Alfredson took the slow-burn pace of Lindqvist’s script and created some stunning Mise-en-scéne, certainly the best I’ve seen from modern vampire movies. Let The Right One In moved slowly, had little dialogue and even less ambient music, but every frame told a distinct story and every scene alluded to so much more than what was simply on the surface.”

Screen Rant

I wanted to open my take on the most excellent film Let Me In with these quotes from the Screen Rant website not only because I disagree with them but the general tone of the comments are fine samples of the way movie bloggers often write when they compare American cinema to European cinema. They just can’t avoid terms like “mise-en-scene” (here made more pretentious by the inclusion of the adjective “stunning”) as if simply because a director or cinematographer is American they can’t possibly properly frame a shot. And that “…every scene alluded to so much more than what was simply on the surface.” is a little too much to swallow. It is gilding the lily a wee bit too much for me. Now, let me clear, I thought Let the Right One in was one of the best horror films I had seen in a long time. I have seen it about three times and plan on watching it again soon with the wife. But the return of Hammer production -which is, of course, a British/European company- is as good as the original if not better, and that is saying a lot. However, I am not going to dismiss the remake as even slightly inferior on the grounds that it was “…a shiny and polished Hollywood product…”. Yea, who wants to see a polished film, and yes, the American version is much more polished and tight. My feeling about the matter has been that it is not that European films are so much better than American ones but that American films are no worse than European ones. And I tend to really enjoy European cinema quite a bit, all those subtle existential nuances American filmmakers are incapable of, but I have never seen it as superior. Just because the director may drink his tea with his pinky extended does not make him a genius. Now that I have gotten that out of my system lets look at this excellent American remake of an excellent European film. Or to be more precise, the American adaptation of the Swedish vampire novel Låt den Rätte Komma, by John Ajvide Lindqvist –who also wrote the screenplay for the original film- that translates into something akin to the titles of the two films. The article will not be a qualitative comparison of the two films since both are equally excellent and highly recommended.

Let Me In tells the story of two lonely young teens named Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and Abby (Chloe Grace Mortez) whose paths crossed a snowy and desolate apartment project in Los Alamos New Mexico, the birth place of the atomic bomb. Owen is scrawny kid with a dark imagination and is the target of school bullies. Of course in both films we immediately see where things are heading with the geeky, weird kid and the pack of alpha-males who make his life a living hell. His parents are going through a divorce and his dad is absent from his life and his mother is either drinking or quoting the Bible all of the time and neither parent ever seems available to Owen. This is the backdrop in which he meets Chloe one night in the apartment complex playground while Owen is stabbing a tree with his new pocket knife. They do not hit it off well and both lay claim to the playground but soon a mutual interest in puzzles –like that damnable Rubik’s cube- form a bond between the two brooding loners. While Owen is a strange lad and spends his time alone peeping on his neighbors with a telescope and wearing a freaky plastic mask his issues pales in comparison to Abby’s, who lives with a man old enough to be her father but we find not is not her father and we never really find out who he is except that she has remained 12 years old while he has aged from the time they knew each other as kids. We are not really sure if Abby is even a girl and a couple deliberately scenes add to this ambivalence in the storyline. In the book –which I have not read but would like to if I can find it in some form here in China, which I doubt- it seems that Abby was in fact a boy at one time who was castrated when he was 12 years old, the same age he/she became a vampire. The relationship, in the book, between Abby and the older man (Eli in the original film and book) is a little more seedy than the films deal with, with the man actually being a pedophile that Eli traps into serving her/him. Both film versions felt this was a bit over the top (rightfully so I think) and the original film let the relationship unexplained while the remake explored it from an audience friendly angle. The man is never named in the film though Abby makes it clear to Owen that he is not her father.

It takes some time for Owen to discover that his eccentric new friend Abby is a actually vampire and in the meantime the bond between them strengthens as both suffer challenges in their lives. Owen with the bullies and Abby with the loss of her “father” while he is out collecting blood for her. Abby is soon forced into going on risky nocturnal hunts on her own and Owen’s interaction with the bullies gets more complicated after, on Abby’s advice, he stands up to them and wallops the leader up alongside his ear with a pole. A detective (Elias Koteas) is not really sure what is going on with the strange recent spat of deaths in Los Alamos and suspect a satanic cult. He becomes aware of Abby’s presence and soon suspect more is going on than he can understand. Owen is forced in a scene in deciding between helping save the detective’s life or helping Abby feed. I think we know what choice he makes. The film concludes with Abby and Owen leaving Los Alamos together and we are reminded of a shot showing a photo strip picture of Abby and “father” when he was a boy no older than Owen and perhaps faced a similar moment of decision in his life. We never know how old Abby is though the book, I understand, suggests she is between two and three hundred years old. We never know how she became a vampire though I have read of deleted scenes in Let Me In that offered some suggestion. The mystery of not knowing these details makes the film more, than less, engaging. The story keeps true to the original film and there are no surprise twists really. Director Matt Reeves does a fine, if not superb, job despite apprehensions by many that he could not really pull it off after his found footage, big monster film Cloverfield.

Hammer producer Simon Oakes stated that Let Me In became a project long before the original film became so popular. Thinking the original might just remain an underground hit in Europe he felt the needed a retelling for a wider audience. There was some shock after the original became so popular but the production went forward anyway and has met with some harsh criticism from fans of the original, some who even refuse to see the new version. If that if the take some reader have then that is too bad since the remake is a fine film and in a rare case of film making does not over shadow the original in some negative way. Some shots –like the swimming pool scene at the end- are done with reverence to the original. Some else could have been done with the new version but Reeves seems to acknowledge he cannot add to perfection. I have read online that the book contains another film’s worth of material and yet I really hope there is not a sequel, either from Hollywood and Hammer or from Sweden. I haveseldom seen two films so worthy of simply being left alone as they are. The acting between the young leads in Let Me In is darkly wonderful. The cinematography and effects word fine and the CGI is not overdone and, in my view, works well. There are those who feel any CGI is bad CGI and I am not from that school. The score works with the film and the selection of the deserts of New Mexico as a substitute for the bleak Swedish winter is amazingly effective. It is a great film I can’t say enough about. See ‘em both. But I am not worried at all about saying that Let Me In is the more entertaining (i.e. more “polished”), even if ever so slightly, of the two films.

MANSON GIRL: BEWARE OF CANADIANS WELDING HAMMERS!

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Dan Courtney) — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 11:10:00 +0000

Vietnam and the Bible made me do it!

I was an art student way back in my mostly wasted college days. An art degree hovers somewhere around a philosophy or literature degree in terms of future usefulness and anyone pursuing art as a college degree had best minor in cheap kitchen help or custodial labor to insure some sort of employment later in life. That is not to say I did not learn things in college (I was also interested in philosophy and literature…woo hoo!) and one thing I learned in my art classes was the value of subtly. Subtly is not always necessary of course and is mostly absent in much modern cinema, art and music. People seem to respond now to ‘being hit overt the head with a hammer’ in order to receive a message. And the makers of the film Manson Girl (aka Leslie, My Name is Evil) seem to do nothing but but drive their anti-American message home over and over with a hammer. The anti-American message may have had more impact if the film makers had actually been Americans and not Canadians! Director Reginald Harkema just can’t stop pointing out how hypocritical Americans –or, to be fair, those ‘evil’ conservative Americans- are when they condemn Charlie Manson and his Family for the brutal the Tate and LaBiancas murders yet support or ignore war atrocities committed by the one true ‘evil empire’, the US of A, in Vietnam. The film ends with a shot of a Vietnamese woman holding baby and the two of them being toasted slowly by some napalm. What the...? What does this have to do with Charles Manson? Nothing, unless you're Michael Moore. Even more annoying then this malarkey laden message is the idea that somehow Charlie and his girls, including Leslie Van Houten, are the sad by-products of this truly sick –in the filmmaker's eyes anyway - conservative American culture. The problem isn’t even this inane attempt at adding some ‘deep’ message into the Manson murders that I, for one, do not need, in a b-movie, but with the lousy quality of the film itself. To be sure there are moments were the film seems to be heading somewhere and the sets and some camera shots show genuine skill and ability on somebody’s part, but in the end the film is going off in too many directions and nothing get tied together. It winds up being not in the least thought provoking as some reviewers try to claim but irritating and disjointed at best. One reviewer seems to moved into introspections of the profound sort when he writes:

Harkema’s ultimate mission, it seems, is to expose the hypocrisy of an American public that will condemn anybody involved with Manson and his cult at the same time as endorsing or ignoring the massacres of the Vietnam conflict.

I think Harkem’s ultimate mission next time out should be to make a film that does not, after all is said and done, suck.

I can't help it! I'm hot for hopped up,
mass murderer type chicks!

There is one thing about this film, okay ore than one thing but one thing at time, that I really hated. I have to address that now before I do into my ‘spoilers section’ of my article. Any film that deals with Charles Manson must have an actor that can do a good Charlie. That is simply number one. The two Helter Skelter films with Steve Railsback (1976) and Jeremy Davies (2004) as Manson were watchable films because of the riveting performances of the two lead actors. I used to think Railsback was the definitive Manson but I think Davies outdid Railsback’s excellent interpretation in the 2004 version of the film version of LA prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi’s book of the same name. Actor Ryan Robbins just is not even close. And not all of the problem is with his acting inability but the goofy dialog he is given where he keeps spouting off how he is Jesus Christ incarnate or something is poorly written and…well… poorly written. This again is Harkema as screen writer trying to make some sort of social commentary about something, I guess, but I don’t care what it is. I don’t. If I want to waste two minutes of life on it what could I possibly come up with? Thinking about Christ too much and having Christian parents will drive you to become insane like Manson was? I am not a Christian but I get sick of the way Christians, conservative or liberal, Catholic or Protestant, are portrayed in films anymore, including this one. The parents of Leslie Van Houtan (played well enough, considering the corny lines she was written to read, by Kristen Hagar) and the young man who would sit on the jury to judge her Perry (played a bit over the top really by Gregory Robbins) are conservative Christian types who, it seems, have driven their poor children over the edge with dinner prayers every night. In any case I almost barfed at the goofiness of the scene showing Robbins as a crucified Manson/Christ in some sort of tie-dye robe. The man can’t really act good enough to carry the role and he is actually a bit too handsome and buff and his hair a bit too well trimmed to make his Charlie remotely acceptable. His constant Sermon’s on the Mount seem like contrivances by Harkema who seems to want to bring back the old ‘down with the establishment’ –I guess the more evil establishment of America than Canada where life is perfect- movement of days of yore. I am more concerned with the more contemporary 'down with pretentious and crappy movies’ movement that needs more followers.

I didn't write the music! Or this lame script!

So what the hell is the movie about? It is a fictitious account of how the lives of sniveling cry baby, drug abuser, hippie-slut and cold blooded murderer Leslie Van Houten crosses paths with jury member Perry something or other and they exchange over acted glances during the trial. Perry has stood up to his super conservative father by saying he did not want to go fight in Vietnam and his father of course goes bananas denouncing his decision as un-American. The parents of both Perry and Leslie are one dimensional comic book styled charactures at best and do not come even close to the portrayals of ‘true believing’ middle class Vietnam era Americans in films like Oliver Stone’s (a real American filmmaker who actually served in Vietnam and not an America hating Canadian like Reginald Harkima) Born on the Fourth of July. The scenes of the family at dinner or in their kitchens and living rooms are often set up in some stylized fashion that looks like a comic book drawing even. Poor Leslie leaves home because mom and dad argue a lot and it hurts her feelings and soon she is a Deadhead looking westcoast flower child who hooks up with some of Charlie’s girls. She buys into Charlie’s preachings and allows his sexual advances and ultimately would stab a lifeless Rosemary LaBianca sixteen times in her stomach and never show any remorse. Van Houton’s real life story is far more interesting than this lame little film leads you to believe. She was granted two retrials and her original defense lawyer Ronald Hughes disappeared and was later found murdered. Maybe by free Manson family members? No one knows. The courtroom scenes are simply terrible and there is a huge American flag hanging on the wall –that looks like the Bruce Springsteen Born in the USA album cover- behind the defense team and as far as I can find this is simply not true. I may be wrong and if someone can produce a picture that proves this I will recant. Oh I guess this is another hammer over my head message from director/writer Harkema, something about…umm…America and… ah… shit, I don’t know. It’s too deep for me man. Any courtroom room film has to have believable courtroom drama and this one has none. Maybe the guy is making a parody of American justice with the bad acting and poorly written lines. Oh yea, that is probably it.

How Canadians imagine courtrooms in the USA.

Leslie Van Houtin overcome with guilt
while in jail. Poor thing.

The murder scenes of the LaBiancas are a bit poorly done as well. Overacted and poorly shot. Well, more than a bit. It is hard to know if some of the scenes in the film were done in such a crappy fashion on purpose or if it was some part of Harema’s higher vision that went over my head. I think it may be that the scenes were done the best they could be, which was not much. There seems to attempts at comedy almost but I am not sure if it was intentional. The scenes of Leslie and Perry meeting eyes and sighing to themselves is just corny. And not that cool sort of corny that rates a rewind. The movie has it moments but not really that many. The film makers try to insert some sort of political and social message into the film but utterly fail on every level. If you want to make a movie about napalmed villagers in Vietnam then do it, but to try to show some connection between those events and the Manson murders on any level is absurd at best and more shows the superficial intentions of the anti-American filmmakers more than any truth about American society.

The sleaze king of Baltimore John Waters actually said he was offended by the film’s original title (Leslie, My Name is Evil) as was, get this, Leslie Van Houton herself and both have denounced the film and said they would never see it. Who the fuck even cares what that nut job thinks and why would that ruthless murderer and criminal even have an opportunity to see it. Some reviews try to give the film credibility by saying something like it sparks debate and dialog over these issues. But back to my art classes. My old mentor Mark Pritchet once said about things that spark discussion and debate that a group of people could stand around a pile of dog shit (not exactly his words) and talk about it. But in the end all they are talking about is dog shit. Get my point? See, I can be deep and sarcastic too, just like Reginald Harkima.

At least John Waters believes in me!

CAN I SUM UP THE LAST EXORCISM IN TWO WORDS? HOW ABOUT... DEMONIC TURD!

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Dan Courtney) — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 14:07:00 +0000

I can't say nobody bent over backwards to make this film.

I can’t believe I actually read some positive reviews about this utterly abysmal mess that Eli Roth had something to do with in terms of production. Are people just trying to like horror movies anymore out of desperation? Trying to find something nice to say about a modern horror film? God knows I am trying. I will admit that I fell for the eye catching cover art on the DVD package –which I bought as a pirated version here in China for about $1 so thank Lucifer I am not out any real cash on this one- and the Eli Roth endorsement. Now that I think about it what the hell has this guy ever done since Cabin Fever or Hostel that is really special? Has he even done anything? Now he is a ‘producer’! I do not even know what a producer does but in old films it always went A) Producer B) Writer C) Director, at the end of the opening credits. Now it goes A) ten or twelve producers or associate producers B) Ten or twelve executive producers C) Writer D) Director. So it seems a producer does less and less these days but it must be nice to have one name among the dozen or so people may recognize and than plaster that all over the DVD jacket to dupe people into thinking it may have been actually been creatively controlled in some way by some one or two hit wonder like Eli Roth. For all the influence Roth actually seems to have had on the film you may have well plastered another producer’s name, like Thomas A. Bliss, on the cover. What a scam. There was a time when a producer’s name gave you some idea about what a film was going to be like but those days have long vanished. It was directed by some German guy but who even cares unless he's the one to contact to get your money back from if paid to see this tripe.

And while I am at it I would like to get something off my chest. I have said this before here at Necrotic Cinema and that is that so called paranormal horror movies are the worst for me. I guess if you allow for the possibility that there is something like ESP or another world where the dead hang out and torment the living by turning toasters on and off then these kinds of movies will probably scare you. I know here in Asia all of that is scary stuff. Especially ghost films where there is a young girl who just peers at you through her unkempt hair. Well I don’t think its scary in the least though it makes for some great DVD cover art. I would lump in exorcism films along with paranormal horror, as I would haunted house films and stuff like The Sixth Sense. I like tangible monsters and slashers. And I am not really that into The Exorcist as I used to be. The last time I watched it, with the crawling backwards down the stairs bit and all, I just did not like the film like the first time I saw it though I think William Friedkin is a good director. But no exorcism film has ever topped that one. Remember all those god-awful Italian exorcism films from the 70’s? Even the great Mario Bava did one and it sucked. The horror genre itself needs to exorcised of these lame films but like Beelzebub himself the damned things keep crawling back out of the sulpheric depths of hell to torment movie-goers over and over. Not with great cinematic horror but with crappy effects, bad acting and sub-standard script writing.

Hey! Look at cute lil' ol' me! I'm a producer now! No need to write or direct anymore!

The film is shot in that annoying-ass shaky handheld camera style but to be honest it is not as nauseating as most in that department. It is a ‘mockumentary’ though at no time do you ever feel like you’re watching anything other than 2^nd rate actors reading memorized lines. The movie is a ‘found-footage’ story –where the unedited documenary film footage shot by a crew that is now most likely all dead is later found and put together by someone like Eli Roth I guess- that follows the Reverend of little faith Cotton Marcus (played well enough by Patrick Fabian) and his film crew of assistant Iris and cameraman Daniel to make a documentary of Marcus’ last exorcism. He has no qualms about joking about the shallowness of his followers and has had little remorse about taking money from believers who seek him out to perform exorcisms. He soon gets cynical and his conscience eats at him after various news stories report on the negative consequences of some exorcisms. He will take his crew with him to perform an exorcism at the Sweetzer farm in the backwoods of Louisiana. He will document all his slight of hand antics and trickeries he used to dupe the believers into thinking they have witnessed a real exorcism and then, through the power of their own superstitions, believe that they have been released from the control some sort of demonic power. Nell Sweetzer (Ashely Bell) proves to have more issues than Marcus is prepared for and about half way into the film things seem to heading a good direction. I really thought things were going to get wild and crazy and that there was going to be some real demonic shenanigans going on at least, but it never happens. The plot gets all off course with the crew’s theories and conflicts about Nell being the victim of child abuse or incest, which is fine, but it just goes on and on. We are introduced to other characters like the pastor of the local church and his assistant who looks like that fat semi-dwarf woman from Poltergeist – a paranormal style movie that I liked actually- and rather than being written out of the script or brought back later in a believable role they come back at the end in what has to be one of the worst ‘tack-on’ endings I have seen in a long time.

Ain't this a spooky image? Nothing like it appears in the entire movie.
Can't even trust the devil anymore!

Hey, I know the feeling maybe. Sometimes (like right now) I am writing a post on some movie and I start of with lots of steam but soon I am just wanting to get it over with. I leave out trains of thought I organized in the beginning simply because, well, I don’t give a crap anymore. And that is how the ending of this movie feels. Either the filmmakers got tired of the project and wanted to get it all over with and get it shown with that cool banned in Britain poster with Eli Roth’s name on it or they simply lacked the talent to pull it all together at the end. Maybe there was another version of the script somewhere but one of the half dozen producers wanted a ‘shocking ending’ that would appeal at a gut level to what he must have thought would be an audience of chimpanzees. The movie, which was already teetering on the precipice, falls to total shit when a crappy final few minutes that seems like a mixture of Rosemary’s Baby, Race with the Devil and the Blair Witch Project hits you in your slack-jawed face. The only film that the ending bears no resemblance to is The Exorcist. The film actually ends having nothing to do with demonic possession at all. The pastor and his gnomish assistant lead the devil cult and Nell’s brother Caleb, who we think supports Nell, is involved while her father Louis, portrayed as a possible violent abuser, winds up being a victim himself. Oh so many twists and turns and shocks and surprises. It is all so clever and catches us all of guard. But it is a tacky and poorly executed –as in goofy- conclusion to a film that could have gone somewhere but loses its way about half way through and, unlike the prodigal son, is never found again. In Jesus’ name I cast this movie out of theaters and DVD stores! BE GONE!

NECRO-OPINIONS: THE CGI BLOOD DEBATE

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Dan Courtney) — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 07:11:00 +0000

The general mood on horror blogs about the CGI blood debate is usually pretty negative if not downright hostile. There even seems to a sense that CGI effects border on some sort of heresy in horror or sci-fi and yet the genres themselves would seem to be the very ones that would be the most likely to be prone to incorporating such experiments. And not only that but that horror fans would be the most open to seeing what could be done, in terms of enhancing a film experience, with this new technology, and yet the opposite effect is what we seem to be witnessing. And I have to say that I am a bit disappointed by what I am seeing as well as far as the use of CGI in horror films. The end result seems to appear to look more like computer game graphics and many CGI monsters looks about as cheesy as some guy running around in a rubber monster suit. I for one am not against the idea of CGI monsters and gore. What has been done with computer effects by people like James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, Robert Zemeckis and Peter Jackson is often seamless along side the real situations characters in the films they oversee. Of course there will be some people who can even find fault in the works of filmmakers like these innovators and so how on earth will that crowd ever be able to accept effects operating on a lower budget and with less talent behind the lens and keyboard.

While it is reasonable to think that people with less skill and vision than someone like James Cameron or Peter Jackson are not going to produce the greatest monsters with CGI effects is it too much to ask that they at least get something going with CGI blood? It is like asking how are they ever going to pass calculus when they cannot even get a D in arithmetic? I guess it is cheaper to do some blood spatter with a computer program now than to use exploding condoms filled with fake blood that may require several takes to get it all just right. The problem is that CGI blood effects simply have to be as real looking as that exploding condom to satisfy any horror fan. Despite criticisms the whole CGI blood things seems to be the direction in which things are headed and yet the results do not seem to be getting much better. It is as if since the trend has become established no one even seems to care now about raising the bar. Even Sam Raimi used some pretty crappy CGI blood effects in his return to horror film Drag Me to Hell. I found a screen capture to give an example below. Even in the still the blood running from actress Alison Lohman’s mouth looks fake as hell. I mean did they really have to use CGI blood in this particular scene? And if so, why not try to set an example. Why should any aspiring, independent horror director try to do anything better when people like Raimi do not even seem to give a shit.

One film people really bash as far as the CGI blood goes, but one that I thought worked out fine, was The Midnight Meat Train. Here I thought some of the CGI gore and violence was a cut above what I was seeing elsewhere and yet viewers were still not satisfied. Are we to shoulder some of the blame as well for not being a bit more open to this new technology and where it could be headed in time and in more capable hands? Surely the death scenes in Meat Train were a leap beyond many of the goofy death scenes of the 70’s and 80’s where bright red barn paint colored blood was amateurishly employed. It seems this is where things are heading and not much can be achieved by complaining and longing for the good ol' days though I am as guilty of this as anybody else. If Peter Jackson can do King Kong as flawlessly as he did (in my opinion, which is not shared by everybody) then surely 'simple' blood spatter can be done better, at least as good as Midnight Meat Train and then better. No less than that. And that is not to say that the use of real 'fake' blood does not have its drawbacks as well. Such as how fake-blood tends to dry and congeal under the studio lights quickly so that a person with a recent wound suddenly has dried blood on his or her face –i.e. Umma Thurman at the beginning of Kill Bill 2 for example- because the blood that should still be running and pumping out of the body has dried up after multiple takes under the hot studio lights. I am not anti-CGI. I welcome the process. I am simply anti-BAD CGI and the fact that things seem to be getting worse and worse rather than better and better. In closing an issue I really have more than with blood spatter effects –like someone’s brains getting blown out and CGI being used to represent the action- is the use of CGI to represent blood stained clothes, floors or walls. I think this is going too far even for my tolerant nature. Here I see no reason to not use real-fake blood and think the way things should be going is a combination of both higher level CGI effects in horror films and old school exploding condoms, ala Tom Savini. Is anyone out there just 100% anti-CGI blood effects (or anti-CGI period)? Maybe together we can resolve this heated subject and make the world a better place for all people to live in. Please participate in the poll in my side bar and express your opinion.

Typical fan reaction to the use of CGI blood in modern horror films.

NOTE of 29 DEC 10: Well, with three days to go on my well received side bar poll (I have 2 whole f***ing votes and one is mine) the opinion on CGI effects is tied. I have decided that if I want to get interaction on my site I need to develop a female alter ego called Biffy the Horror Blogger and post some fake images of some teenage gal with massive hooters and say 'like' every six words and abuse the elipsis (...) and I will have a very popular Blogger site.

I FINALLY FINISHED AN ENTIRE SAW FILM! SAW V

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Dan Courtney) — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 12:29:00 +0000

Saw V is actually the first Saw film I have sat all the way through. I began watching the first film and someone actually spoiled the ending about a quarter of the way through the film. A friend of my wife’s felt the need to ruin everything and I saw no point in finishing the film. I actually did not care much for what I saw and no never watched another until this one, the fifth of the series. Since there seems to be some slight need to watched the previous films to have an idea of what is going on in this one I was a little lost but do not feel compelled to go get the other films to fill in the gaps. In fact I was at one of the DVD stores I frequent here in China and could have picked up the rest of the DVDs for about one dollar each but passed. They even had the new 3D Saw but I did not pick it up and I may at some later point. Probably most people reading this will know more about the series one way or the other if they have watched at least a couple more than I have.

I was a little confused here and it seems to start off with because it seems to saying Jigsaw, the mastermind serial killer with a penchant for elaborate torture gizmos, is dead and yet he seems to be alive and well and played by actor Tobin Bell as in previous films. But reviewers are complaining about Bell not being present and doing his nasty stuff. So I wonder am I reading about the same film? What are a couple reviewers complaining about? Can someone clear this up as I am not going to get Saw III and IV to try and make sense of it. Probably one day I will but I am not up to it right now. I am simply not a big fan of this style of horror film. People being tortured slowly is unnerving but the films lack the sort of atmosphere and tension I really prefer in a horror to make it something I can recommend, though the franchise hardly needs my recommendation as it is one of the most successful in movie history.

I have seen other films that are obvious inferior spin offs of this and the Hostel films and have developed a dislike for the whole ‘torture porn’ sub-genre. Director David Hackl –former assistant director and production designer for the previous films directed by Darren Bousman- seems capable enough behind the camera but it is what is going on in front the camera that left me dissatisfied overall. Again Jigsaw (Bell) is supposed to be dead and the acts are being carried out by a cop named Hoffman but Jigsaw is alive and well and pulling all the strings as I assume he did in the previous films. I have issues with how plausible it is that anyone can have access to the cavernously spacious locales used for arranging the tortures that occur. I also do not know how the various apparatuses could be constructed outside some major metal shop. You just cannot just devise some of these machines with a screw driver and blow torch. If they are being contracted out wouldn’t at least one employee become suspicious and report to the police his company is making machine similar to the ones being reported in the Jigsaw murders?

The idea too that somehow the tortures are being used to redeem the victims is a bit unacceptable unless we accept that Jigsaw is totally insane which I guess is a given. At no point do the crimes of the victims equate to what Jigsaw of his protogees perform. The victims in this film are connected to some ‘dark’ real estate deal that went bad and a building was burned in order to raze it and erect a new strip mall or something and some people living in it died. Yea that is bad but not as bad me having to sit through the mess that follows. A group of people, each with some tenuous connection to the crime, are compelled to traverse a series of torture chambers requiring a bloody solution to escaping or die by an exploding glass jar of nails. I am not the only person to have this thought I read online, but why not just break the glass jar and let the nails spill onto the floor rendering the bomb all but useless? Each situation is more absurd than the one before and the most unbelievable is saved for last. In order to fill up a couple containers with the right amount of blood to open the locks on an iron door the two survivors must run their arms from between their fingers to near their elbows through a table saw! It cannot be done. Did I winch as it happened, yea sure. But so what? What sort of achievement is that in a film. I winched in Hostel as well but I liked that movie overall for some reason though it falls into the same category of torture horror. I am picky about this crap I guess.

Most likely one day I will pick up the other films and finish the first one and give them a go one by one. I have read some fans consider this to be the weakest in the series so far but I just seem to have a hard time with the concept and execution of what I have seen so far. It just seems like something I need to watch as a horror blogger due to the franchise’s success and popularity, but I hope it doesn’t wind up being me feeling like I am a victim of one of Jigsaw’s schemes by having to sit through some of this. I must saw off all my fingers with a dull, rusty butter knife or watch the entire film to its conclusion.

TRAILER FOR SAW V

30 DAYS OF NIGHT AND DARK DAYS

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Dan Courtney) — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 12:46:00 +0000

I just recently saw 30 Days of Night: Dark Days, the sequel to 30 days of Night and was sorely disappointed. I know that I was a straight- to-video release and had much less of a budget and no big league names like Josh Harnett in it but I just came away a bit dismayed because I have long felt the first film was simply great. Based on the graphic novel by Steve Niles the movie takes an interesting twist on the vampire myth by pitting the residents of the far north town of Barrows Alaska against a band of vampires who strike during the period when any sunlight is absent for a month. I thought it was great idea and the film played out well from start to finish and director David Slade (Hard Candy, Twilight Sage: Eclipse and numerous music videos) generates plenty of action and drama between the characters, good and evil, who play out the roles of hunters and hunted in the dark little town until the sun rises again. 30 Days of Night had a budget of $ 30 million to work with which is a fairly healthy chink for a horror film. The film made its money back and then some and even had a number one spot at the box office for a few days.

I have not had the opportunity to read the graphic novel (that wonderful euphemism for comic book) but would like to. While the film is rather popular and successful I still want to say something about it since 30 Days of Night and its shallow sequel are excellent examples of what it is about newer horror films that I both love and hate. And for better or worse I notice I see myself preferring those films with the bigger budgets and talent anymore. Dark Days is not, as far as I can tell, shot on video but it is a shabby story at best even though Steve Niles co-wrote the script and said that the storyline was closer to his comic book vision. While the original film leaves you wondering who these truly sinister vampires were and where they came from and where they are heading the sequel left me numb to discover they are now in LA of all places. The vampires in both films have some resemblance to zombies I felt but in the sequel it is almost hard to tell the action from any number of zombie flicks out there. In some scenes you have vampires in dark tunnels simply running unamrmed into machine gun fire and being killed off by the gun fire even. The addition of some ‘royal’ type vampire figure named Lilith –jeesh, of all names why that one- really brought the film down to the cornball level and the dark mystery surrounding the vampires of the first film was lost. I simply do not accept this and prefer to keep my own original theories about them.

The characters in the first film were fleshed out and developed well while in the second film they seem more to be characters in an actual comic book with comic book problems and solutions. The role of Stella was played deftly by Melissa George in the first film but in the sequel Kiele Sanchez tries to turn Stella into one of those annoying and unbelievable new tough gals who stare you down and deliver Dirty Harry style one liners with an icy tone. The relationship between her and the small band of vampire hunters is superficial at best even when she has sex with one. The camera work in the first film was excellent with its dark ttones and frantic editing as was the soundtrack, but in the sequel all of that is discarded due to the lack of budget and therefore the lack of talent that no money projects attract. For me it was hard to go from a professionally made film like 30 Days of Night to Dark Days and not feel a little ripped off. Of course I live in China and bought a pirated version of both films for about one US dollar. I either buy cheap DVDs here or get all my stuff from BTs or Rapidshare sites, so I am not out money. But I was out an evening’s worth of entertainment. I am surprised to see some negativity towards 30 Days of Night online and that may be due to its success and the connection via David Slade the film has to the rabidly maligned Twilight series. I think it is, to be frank, a far superior film to what Slade did for the Twilight films which did seem to fizzle after the first film.

I think if the second film had been about something else other than the continuation of the story from the first film I would have accepted it as a decent little low budget vampire flick, but I have seldom seen a supposed sequel miss the mark as much as this one. Or if the first film had been a low budget straight-to-video feature itself I would not be comparing them as I am now with an obvious slant towards the first and much better film. If you have not seen either film I can recommend the first film as one highly. Loaded with explicit violence and bloodstained snow it is sure to satisfy the gore-hound in most of us, but it also develops the human characters and their distress and frictions. It also creates some of the most interesting vampires I have seen in a while –the leader played with villainous charm by Danny Huston- who even speak in their own hellish language. The second film just sucks and even shows Stella’s character nude and having sex with one of the vampire hunters. Total cheap shot and the scene seems to have nothing to do with the character as she was portrayed in original film. And the films title has nothing to with the original either since LA, as far as I know, does not black out for thirty days in the winter. Avoid this one or proceed at your own risk, or just know what you’re getting into which is something as far from the first film as you can get.

STOP AT THIS REST STOP AT YOUR OWN PERIL

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Dan Courtney) — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 12:47:00 +0000

This article really will cover the two Rest Stop movies put out by the Warner Home Video label called Raw Feed. These are films (videos most likely) that will be straight to DVD releases and that will entail all the good and bad that comes with such releases. The good, I guess, is that the films will simply have an opportunity to be seen as they probably would never if they had to relay on being shown at theaters where people probably would not want to pay that much to see a low budget/no name film. Another good point may be that the films can be as gory and sexy as they want without having to deal with ratings. In theory there is nothing really wrong with the concept of a film being released straight to DVD. There is no reason a film cannot be entertaining and yet avoid the pressures put it from having to show and compete in the Cineplex market. No doubt one has to lower his expectations when getting one of these straight to DVD films and I am sure most people do. One can sort of think of them as a kind of made for TV experience. But therein lies the problem really; made for TV movies, like straight to DVD movies, typically suck. Most straight to DVD films, if not all really, are horror or action type films. If the film is sci-fi (which though related to horror in some respects usually requires a higher budget) it is one of those post-apocalypse type sci-fi flick like The Road Warrior. Except that the Road Warrior was a great film and most of these other post-apocalyptic movies are horrible at best. Straight to DVD tends to be a euphemism for lack of money and talent. Some people can argue that a super low budget does not mean there will be no talent involved and of course there are exceptions (I am trying to think of one now but can’t right now, I’ll get back if something comes to me, and please don’t tell me about the British zombie flick Colin okay, God that was awful) but for the most part film makers who have choices shy away from horrible scripts with unknown actors and directors. But for some reason horror is one genre where people seem to say "hey, we don't need a good script or good actors or a good camera or any money to make a movie! Just a bottle of ketchup and some girls who will flash their boobs!"

MORE REST STOP HERE >>

Now all that being said I was not totally disappointed with the Rest Stop movies though hardly thrilled either. They weren’t that bad, but they were sure as to hell bad. In the end I finished them both without ejecting them and that is about as good a recommendation as I can give. John Siban, who produced the X-Files TV series, produced wrote and directed the first Rest Stop (Dead Ahead) and produced and wrote the second film (Don’t Look Back) which was directed by Shawn Papazian. And then you get into this deal where you try to research a name like Shawn Papazian you see he has directed one other straight to DVD film called Horror High. Siban seems to be more of a producer and has only directed two other items and those were episodes of television shows. Again that does not mean a person cannot make the transition from TV to movies but typically it does not bode well.

There is not much real reason to review each movie separately and to talk about them back and forth and even get the plots and stories all mixed up is not really that big a deal. The basic plot of each film is about small groups of teenagers who are stalked by some demonic redneck slasher when they stop to pee at a rest stop on an unmapped highway. The films are pretty derivative of the whole Saw and Hostel type horror which seems to rely on people being tied up and tortured slowly. Heavy on gore (though the blood in Rest Stop looks pretty red and syrupy for a modern horror flick) and weird inbred type country folk driving around southern California the films look like a million others. The supernatural element only serves to make the stories more confusing really and could have been totally done without. But I am seeing this thread in other hick killer films lately like The Graves. But what else can a filmmaker with no real budget do I guess, either you make a zombie movie or a movie about murderous hillbillies stalking lost, horny teenagers. To make a variation on a theme I guess you can throw in some satanic subplot and give the killers extra powers but I don’t know if I really like that. I think killer hicks seem even more goofy when they are imbued with demonic powers.

I was going to write more and go into each film a bit but I have decided to just wrap this up. I’ll put up a few screen captures I found online and call it a review. I really try to be open to these straight to video/DVD productions but I find myself talking about them the way I do restaurants in China (where I live) most of the time. If after I meal if I can say “well, that wasn’t so bad” then I have broken even I guess. Most of these films, like Rest Stop, lack the charm to really be good camp fare as well. The violence is utterly gratuitous and pointless. The characters are all basically unlikable so you do not care if the killer gets to them or not. The weird family in the Winnebago are caricatures from a dozen other films like this. The father quoting the Bible, the mother a nympho, twin brothers who just stare and do nothing and a midget or dwarf who loves taking Polaroids. They are over the top and you can see the director trying to come up with yet another weird thing for the family to say or do. It is simply unoriginal and wears thin quickly since the movie has nothing much to offer. It is shot on video (I assume since it looks like crap) and no one can act. One redeeming performance is a small role by Steve Railsback as a gas station operator in part two. Look I sat through them both back to back and if you’re in the right mood they may have something going for them so long as you know in advance to lower your expectations. But if you’re reading this blog then you’re already used to that aren’t you.

MOVIES I SHOULDN'T LIKE MAYBE BUT DO ANYWAY: KATE BECKINSALE AS SELENE IN UNDERWORLD

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Dan Courtney) — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 06:20:00 +0000

I am not going to review Underworld as it is not really the type of film I review. I prefer things a little more obscure and sometimes less successful at the box office either to further pan or pander. I do not think Underworld needs my help to make any more money but I have begun to notice I like some films that most of the horror community I follow do not really seem to care much for. I decided also –for the time being anyway- not to try and analyze why that is and instead just do a post on the film and openly admit to the world I enjoyed the film over multiple viewings. I did this with Twilight a while back and Underworld is another film that, while successful and popular, is often panned by many of the blogs I visit. I have seen the film several times as it is a film I find suitable for watching in class with my students. It is probably more of an action/romance than a real horror film loaded with chases and gunfights and Matrix influenced hand to hand combat scenes. But no doubt the focus of the film is the brooding and statuesque Selene played to the hilt by Kate Beckinsale. I am really not a big fan of the stone faced femme fatale. I am not sure if Beckinsale’s Selene is the inspiration for all of them that I see anymore but I can’t stand the tough, formidable, frozen faced female who does back-flips in a long black trench coat and lands like a cat with one hand propped up behind her and never changes facial expressions. Lot of Asian films seem to have this sort of female character now. They just don’t have the bearing to pull it off. But I love to see Beckinsale do it in this film. A decent action-horror film that does not deserve the online attacks it seems to be the target of still. And Kate Beckinsale is simply great as the black leather clad –very tight black leather I might add- and solemn Selene.

The kind of girl that would never go to Starbucks with me.

AM I WHACKED TOTALLY FOR LIKING THE BOURNE IDENTITY? THEN BY CROM I AM WHACKED!

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Dan Courtney) — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 14:38:00 +0000

I was reading over an exchange of comments at a social network site earlier and the content of the exchanges made me reflect for a bit on how jaded many movies watchers –no doubt including myself- have become. I wonder what it is we expect from to movie to get to it qualify to be decent enough that we can spend an evening watching it without experiencing feelings or revulsion and contempt. The name of the film that was commented on was The Bourne Identity. I know from reading over the net most people bash the movie to no end. The vitriol raged against it is not as hostile as a film like Twilight that seems to generate nothing short of hatred from some bloggers. But I thought The Bourne Identity was a decent film. Was it a great film? An immortal classic of one sort or another? Far from it. In fact there one of the three films, the 3rd one I believe, that I have to be honest I did in fact hate because that stupid jerky camera style. Jesus just mount the camera already and stop with this artsy pseudo-documentary technique that worked at the beginning of Saving Private Ryan but does not have the same effect when the camera is bouncing around two guys sitting around a coffee table. But the 1st Bourne film was a fair film and not one that should inspire such contempt in people who are film watchers and bloggers.

Hang on Matt buddy, I'm on you're side on this!

I go through many horror films here looking for something decent and trying to give movies the benefit of the doubt for the most part. I literally sit through actual garbage of the type that I do not even want to write about the film. But I seem to be missing something here and find myself enjoying quite a few more main stream type films that a most bloggers I follow all but castrate with dull knives. I even fear to admit that I sort of like Matt Damon for the most part. Of course all this is a bit outside the regular theme of Necrotic Cinema but I guess it is my blog and I can write about anything I want. In fact I am burned out with modern horror films and can hardly find any material to write about and lately spend my time watching stuff from the 50’s and 60’s mostly. But I also am watching a lot of so called regular films with the wife as she is not really into Al Adamson and Larry Buchanan films to the degree I am I guess. Maybe that is an element to films like Bourne Identity as well, something I can share with the wife when we have some free time. In fact I am thinking now of rewatching the first two Bourne films. They are good films and I am at a total loss why they garner such rabid disdain in most blog reviews I have skimmed over. Other films I like that usually work like an emetic on people are Van Helsing, Twilight (which is also lambasted as ‘bad literature’), The Lost Boys and Underworld. There are more but why list them all. Maybe I have watched so many real b-movies and crappy no-budget Asian films that I am at a loss as to what most people think constitutes bad directing and acting in main stream films anymore. What standard is being used? Maybe there is something wrong with me. Some sort of bi-polar disorder perhaps. But I think I am going to rewatch the Bourne Identity later tonight and I am going to really try and see what is wrong with it and if there is some glaring shortcoming my flawed thinking process has missed before I will admit the errors of my way and get back here and report it.

Necrotic Addendum: The wife and I watched Bourne Identity one and two last week and after watching them I have changed my opinion to some degree. While I really like the first film directed by Doug Liman I found myself hating the second one directed by Paul Greengrass. While I felt the story in the second film was great I just could not deal with the shaky, artsy camera work. On this point I find myself in total agreement with the always astute Andre Dumas over at The Horror Digest in regards to an exchange of comments I saw posted on Facebook.

And as I now recall I had this same reaction the first time I saw the second and third Bourne films. I simply hate that rocky camera technique and I am at a loss as to why it is even employed other than to make movie viewers nauseous. I have no issues actually with the stories for parts two and three, just the fact a chimp is holding the camera all of the time.

NERDY PSYCHO STALKS HORNY YOUNG PEOPLE IN THE AUSTRALIAN DESERT IN 1990's MIRAGE

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Dan Courtney) — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 10:51:00 +0000

I am not sure what to say about this odd entry from Australia into the stalker/slasher genre. It is not really an unwatchable and I can recommend it but for the most part it failed to deliver the goods I had hoped it would provide. I cannot find much about it on the internet and even had a hard time finding a low quality poster scan. The AVI I downloaded is definitely a VHS rip and the quality is not too bad. I do not know about everybody out there but sometimes I actually like getting an old VHS rip and watching it when I am in the mood. Can't remember where I downloaded it even but it looks like something from Tracker 3.Not any info on director Bill Craine that I can locate. Craine directed, co-wrote and co-produced the film. A Brian Craine did the music score and editing. The Craine boys are certainly no Coen Broters and I will take a wild guess and say that the actors and rest of the crew are pals of the Craines. One slight mistake I may have made with this one is that I watched it with my wife whose film viewing standards are a bit higher than mine and after a while we were both sort of ripping the movie apart too hard. I just wanted to be cool and seem smarter than I am but had I watched it alone and been under less pressure to appear sane I may have enjoyed it more.

The film takes place in the deserts of Australia where three pair of 20 somethings go out for a weekend of beer drinking and getting frisky. Wouldn’t you know it though but a twisted psycho trolls the desert flats in his black jeep and the sight of horny attractive people pushes him over the edge. As it would any self-respecting psycho-slasher of course. One thing low budget films like this tend to do is pick a cheap locale to shoot in such as a forest or beach or in this case a desert. Now a desert provides a great backdrop for a western or epic like Lawrence of Arabia but one would have to be a pretty capable director and have a good script to pull off a slasher flick in the desert. I never really thought Wes Craven did it with The Hills have Eyes (though I did like the remake) and the poorly funded Caine brothers do the best with what they have and the end result is not really that terrible.

The cast is pretty small. It stars Jennifer McAllister as the heroine and B.G. Speers as the killer and Todd Caldecott, Kenny Johnson, Kevin McParland, Nicole Anton and Laura Albert as the members of the body count. Now I found the deaths to be nothing special and a couple even take place off screen. In a film like this one needs to have bloody gruesome death scenes –and some basic nudity here and there which this film has- for it to overcome its budget shortcomings. The ‘actors’ here can’t act and so why not kill them off in imaginative and gory fashion one by one. There is one fairly bloody death sequence involving a tree, a chain and the jeep pulling on of the hapless youth in half but that is really about it. There is one scene where one of the blonde pretty boys gets buried in the desert up to his neck and we were both expecting some grisly death but it never happens. In fact the scene was well shot and shows the black jeep driving off into the hazy desert heat as the guys screams for help and mercy. In the distance you see the jeep slowly turn around and return and I thought this was pretty good. But they totally blew by having the killer toss a hand grenade (!) out the window and have it land by the guy’s head. The explosion takes place off scene. Why not just run the guy’s head over like a ripe watermelon here? There a few more gory moments that aren’t over done really but they are few and far between and do not make up for all the bad acting and dialog we have to endure between these brief bloody moments.

And the choice of weapons by the killer is another issue with me as well with this movie. A good psycho does not have to rely on things like hand grenades and shotguns (yes he uses a shotgun as well) to eliminate his prey. Usually he is content to uses objects readily at hand or things found in his tool box. Another issue is that the killer must have charisma. Albeit evil charisma but charisma nonetheless. Through most of the film all we see of the psycho are his boots and black gloved hands or his all black jeep with dark tinted windows. We are trying to imagine who and what he looks like and when his face is revealed he winds up being the goofiest pyscho-slasher I have ever seen. He even talks goofy and you almost expect him to start going ‘yuck yuck’ at any moment. He is also a dumb ass since he hands the weapon of his destruction back to Chris (MacAllister) and dares her to kill him with it. There are some formula twists at the end with one left wondering how many times the killer can come back to life after being shot through the face with an arrow and then blasted point blank in the gut with a shotgun. And then we are left with tries to be a clever psychological twist of an ending that really does not work. Was there ever really a killer in a black jeep? Or was he just a mirage and pretty Chris in her assless blue jeans is the real killer? Oooooohhhh! So deep. But I recommend the film to fans of 80’s style slasher flicks. I love them and I love picking at the faults and inanities. These are some of the funnest movies in the world to watch. This one is really hard to find so good luck. You can try tracker 3 (which is where I think I got it) or the movie is on Youtube in 8 or 9 parts. I am providing a clip of one of those parts at the bottom of the post. This is the scene where the doofy new age guy walks like a sissy boy up to the jeep and flips off the killer. I wonder what happens to him?

CLIP FROM MIRAGE

I REALLY HATE GOREGOYLES

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Dan Courtney) — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 11:55:00 +0000

I think it is fair to say that to review a film and give an honest opinion of it one should see the film first. Or one should be able to sit through most of it from beginning to end. I rarely use fast forward. I find many moments that some people would use FF to be curious and worth at least one watch. If I use FF then the film - for me anyway - is going to be something I will never see again nor could I recommend it to anyone. And I am also aware that one man’s feast is another man’s famine. What I may like is not going to appeal to everyone else and what someone else goes gaga over may leave me bewildered at best. But there is a category of film I have been running into regularly that is so amateurish and basically shitty that I am finding myself fast forwarding as much as I can with nothing in mind but the intent to come here and pan the film. These so called films are usually super no-budget independent tripe shot on video camera and featuring no name casts directed by no name directors. This type of film has always sort of existed in the horror genre and some have become camp classics. But what I am seeing lately is nothing but exercises in no talent and bad taste. These may be the kind of little things that would be fun for the makers and their friends to sit around and watch while getting stoned and drunk and having some laughs. But I do not find myself laughing and I have to admit that this is a first for me; a review of a ‘film’ – actually a video tape – that I could not watch because it was so bad. I just could not do it. Life is too short.

I got the movie from Horror Charnel and the cover looked interesting enough with a gargoyle monster on it. I thought it might be sort of like an old made for TV film I remember called Gargoyles with Cornell Wilde which was a good little movie. As far as I could tell there was not one damned Gargoyle or Goregoyle or anything similar in Goregoyles. I remember one scene with some gal all covered in entrails and doing some sort of Satanic ritual. I saw some short scenes of the host Uncle Vicious and figured this is some sort of series. I found out later it was and I think the screen caps I put together in Photoshop Image Ready are from another part than the one for the DVD cover I used. This is the cover for the two films I had. Maybe I had parts one and two together. Who knows. Who even cares? I deleted them and hope they are burning in video/DVD Hell for all eternity. Bad script. Bad direction. Bad acting. Bad photography. Bad audio. Bad effects. It would simply be beneathe me to watch this turd all the way through. I wasted at least five minutes of life with fast forward to just get out this warning. Not sure who could enjoy this and wonder if anyone saw this and has even a little say in its defense. You are welcome to post your view here. I will not argue or debate with you. Anyone who would defend this movie is not someone I want to make angry.

I'm pissed off and want you to die too!!!

NO SKULL!

THE SKEPTIC WAS A LITTLE HARD TO BELIEVE

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Dan Courtney) — Thu, 27 May 2010 13:18:00 +0000

I am back to blogging here at Necrotic Cinema and hopefully will meet a reasonable goal of two posts a week at the least here as well as at my ‘cult’ movie and culture blog The Uranium Café. But first before I explore this post’s feature The Skeptic I just want to make something clear. This site and my other site panders some pretty strange films and artwork. My interests are obviously outside the range of what one may term traditional family values. That however does not mean I am the kind of guy who calls a crucifix in a jar of urine ‘art’ or anything I even care to have an opinion on. It also means my comment box is not a forum for people’s vulgar and offensive sexual babble. It especially does not mean people can direct sexually suggestive phrases at female commenters. Hell man I do not even get enough hits or comments at this site that I want to have some social deviant deciding he wants to make a nest here. All comments are moderated but I let a couple unaccpetable ones slip through accidentally because Blogger’s comment moderation page only allows part of a sentence to appear and not the whole comment before approval or rejection. There are two deviants right now whose comments will be deleted in advance no matter what the content. The bottom line is that Necrotic Cinema is a blog about sick and twisted films and NOT a forum for sick and twisted people to discuss their boners at. Get your own blogs weirdos.

Now that I have gotten that off my chest lets take a look at The Skeptic, a really disappointing feature that looked like it was going to be at least decent. I get all of my stuff here in China from Bittorrents and my premium Rapidshare account. My ISP blocks BT traffic and I have had to do some major tweaking with encryption and proxies to get anything through at all anymore. The reason I supply you with this insight into my movie acquiring process is that I tried hard to get this through Demonoid and finally gave up after a couple weeks as the file was stuck at like 17% or something. I searched and other BTs were as troublesome on my connection but I finally got a copy from Surrealmoviez, the Cinemageddon of Rapidshare sites. So I reallyw anted to see this. As is typical I avoided any reviews of the film in advance as I hate spoilers (though in a twisted sort of irony my reviews are full of them) or someone poisoning the well with a negative review. Well I am going to give this piece of celluloid Sominex a bad review no more than one and a half skulls despite the fact the film is basically well made and well acted.

Unfortunately for the film it falls under the haunted house umbrella (as did Paranormal Activity, another waste of time) and it is a horror genre I have little cared for. I care for it less than I do the man eating plant genre actually and that is pretty bad. I do like the old style haunted house features by companies like AIP, the type of films with Vincent Price, or even old campy films like Hillbillies in a Haunted House. But these new ones that are trying to be seriously terrifying just don’t cut it in my book. The film is also known as The Haunting of Bryan Becket and that is about as pompous a film title as I have heard in some time. The film is written and directed by Tennyson Bardwell and I am not sure that any film called “Tennyson Bardwell’s The Haunting of Bryan Becket” could ever live up the expectations the title evokes. But in the end this film could have been called “Harry Smiths’ Scary House” and the result would have been the same. The problem is not with the acting by leads Ted Bundy look-a-like Tim Daly, underused Tom Arnold and Zoe Saldana as the obligatory medium who can feel the presence of something the moment she enters the house. The film has a quality look to it. Not rushed and for a time the dialog and plot seems like it going to head somewhere. But it never does. I am not going to waste much time and energy with the story here. Bryan Becket (Daly) is in the middle of marital problems when he inherits his aunt’s house. Becket is a real prick essentially which is fine since he is also a successful attorney. He is cold and logical. A skeptic! He decides to hang out in the house while he and his wife Robin (Andrea Roth) work through their troubles. Actually he is going to play cold and aloof until she comes begging him to return home and be the same heartless bastard that used to turn her on (from his perspective anyway).

After a night or two he starts hearing things and seeing women sitting on his steps. He is all spooked out by a closet where nothing ever happens, though it is the center of evil according to psychic Cassie (Saldana). At one point in the film Becket’s son is heard screaming and they rush into the room and the boy is starring wide eyed at the closet door and says ‘there is something in there’. That’s all that happens. That might be the scariest moment of the whole film in fact. Nothing ever happens. Becket at first argues the power of reason with the local priest and the head of some paranormal research center but soon comes to find himself believing in spooks. But it all happens way too slow. In fact nothing happens at an excruciatingly slow pace. Some people may be scared by scenes of little boys looking at a closet door. I am sure there are a few. Others may revel in how the skeptic is broken down little by little and comes to be a true believer by the film’s end when the malevolent spirit finally wins out, although there was not much of a real contest or battle prior to its victory. I am not even sure what to write this review about. I can only remember the boy in his Lion King Halloween costumes looking at the closet door. There were some scenes with ‘creepy’ swooshing sounds and voices murmuring “Bryan… Bryan”. Yea, that was pretty unnerving I guess. Oh I almost forgot there is the petrified corpse of the aunt the cops find at the beginning. In about the first two or three minutes. The only real jolt in the film used up immediately.

Look it is obvious that I did not like this one at all. I like a scary movie were people die. Someone. Where some sort of monster or ghost actually appears once in a while and not in the form of a woman sitting on the stairs. Where there is some blood or at least some torn clothes. I guess the lesson here is to avoid films written and directed by people living in the modern age who have names that sound like someone who would have sipped Absynthe with Oscar Wilde. I think if you have to choose between a film by Tennyson Bardwell and Rob Zombie you know, after this review, which flick to take home.

A MASKED PSYCHO ON THE LOOSE IN 2009's THE COLLECTOR AND MUSINGS ON TORTURE HORROR

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Dan Courtney) — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 10:49:00 +0000

The Collector is a film that comes from the writers of Saw IV and Saw V Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan. Dunstan also directed the film. Most of the reviews I read online make multiple references and comparisons to the Saw film franchise and I guess this would be a good a time as any to make a rather embarrassing confession. I have never seen any of the Saw films. Okay I did begin watching the first film and someone I was watching it spoiled the ending less than half way through the film. I made some excuse that I had to make lesson plans for the next day and they left. I never finished the film or watched another movie with this person. Not that I am against the films or feel I would not enjoy them but I just have never watched one. I do know that they are of the ‘torture horror’ variety and it is not my favorite type of horror film. I am old school and like a clear cut good persona and clear cut evil person and I like the good guy or gal to win in the end. I also do not like the good guy or gal to win and yet have all their fingers chopped off or wind up in an inane asylum. Call me old fashioned. I sort of liked Hostel and some other similar films but in the end they are too nihilistic and pointless for me. Killing everyone off seems the easy way out of the script. And yea the guy in Hostel survives but gets his head cut off at the beginning of the sequel. So he dies and the woman who survives in part two doe so only because she is essentially the same sort of person as her tormentors. Where is the higher moral message I ask! Are these films only trying to hasten the apocalypse?

The Collector is not really a bad film and I can give it a marginal recommendation though it is essentially torture horror and is filled with plot gaps and glaring illogic that left me a little dissatisfied. I always go into a horror or sci-fi films with my suspension of disbelief dial turned way up and if there are some consistency issues that go off the ‘still within reason gauge’ then I can have a hard time swallowing enough of the film to say that it fits into a category of really good horror films or films in general. A good horror film is usually also a good film, period. The Collector is the story of small time criminal Arkin (played well enough by Josh Stewart) who just got out of jail and is trying to set things in his life right. But he is soon under pressure to rescue his ex-wife or girl friend (seems to be ex but we are never sure really since she vanishes from the script as quickly as she is written into it) from ruthless loan sharks. His solution is to crack a safe at a house he did some construction work on earlier. He knows the well to do family is going on vacation and the house will be empty. It all seems easy enough but when he breaks into the house later he soon finds himself in the middle of a gruesome nightmare organized by the masked Collector himself.

We never find out anything abut the collector of his motives. We do not know why he targeted this particular family. We do not find out too much really about the family. We are introduced into their world and lives briefly but soon enough they are all gagged and incoherent from torture. A strange and dangerous game ensues where Arkin moves throughout the booby trapped house trying to free the family and locate the missing daughter before the Collector can finish his sadist handy work on them. And when I say booby trapped I mean the place is filled with all sorts of death traps. These includes some sort of fly paper type substance on the floors that eat flesh, nails on the stair steps, things that fly through the air and impale you after you trip a wire, boards on all the windows with blades that hack at you if you get your hands through, floors covered with huge bear traps and strings that fling scissors at you. And this is one of the big problems with the film for me. Essentially how and why? Arkon had been in the house earlier on the same day and realizes that the family never had a chance to leave on their vacation. First how did the Collector rig up this entire huge mansion with so many intricate booby traps in the space of hours basically? And second is why would he do it? When Arkin arrives the husband and wife are bound up in the basement and have already been subjected to torture sessions. I am not even sure the Collector knows that the little girl is in the house or that the teenage daughter is coming home later with her date. No reason to believe he does. The point is why does he go overboard in designing all these devilish traps when he has his victims bound in the basement probably from the word go? Okay it really screws up Arkin as he sneaks through the house in the dark but how would the Collector know a cat burglar was going to be breaking in? And the guy can break in with no problem but then can’t get out!

Well I don’t care what anyone says it makes no sense to me. Now that moves us to the next aspect of the film and that is the graphic violence. It is nothing that I can’t handle or that made me feel nauseated in anyway. But I am a jaded horror film watcher and I can say that many of the scenes will unnerve most middle of the road horror viewers. And in the end isn’t that what all this torture horror is? Just cheap shots to get a jolt and reaction out of the viewer. Prolonged scenes of some hapless person having their face peeled off with some kitchen appliance and then have them die a meaningless death later? Then we can say 'well it has some value since it created a discussion' of which I am myself guilty of engaging in at this very moment. The Collector is full of cheap shots and pointless suffering of innocent people. Okay not innocent in the sense that all of us have not at some point told a lie or stole a quarter from our grandmother’s purse but innocent in the sense that they really do deserve the fate meted out to them by tone of the new generation of sadistic masked killers. Killers who always seem to driven by some some sense of moral superiority over their victims. The fact that some guy had sex with his secretary seems to give the psycho the moral high ground and excuse the fact he wants to pour fire ants in to the guys rectum later to make him see the error of his ways more clearly. Say what you may about Jason or Michael Myers but usually their victims died instantly or within less than thirty seconds or so. And I never felt Jason moralized. It was sheer coincidence most of his victims were humping out of wedlock in a bunk bed when he whacked them with his machete. It could have been anybody. The new breed of horror film madman likes to meticulously select his victims from which he will pound out teeth slowly with chisels and pull off finger nails one at a time while staring emotionlessly from some sort of S/M type of mask or outfit. Lets be honest too, this is a good way to fill up frames of film as well. Why develop characters with things like dialog when you can just bind them up and torture them slowly.

In the end the Collector character becomes yet another super-maniac who is always one step ahead of everyone else. No one is as smart or as strong or as intuitive as the masked killer. The new breed of killer usually lacks the supernatural abilities of someone like Jason but is just as unstoppable because they are so intelligent and precision trained in their skills. The Collector is the same type of super-evil madman and you are never safe from him. Remember the rather cute tagline for The Ghoulies ‘They’ll get you in the end’ with a little ghoulie smiling from inside a toilet? Well these new torture killers are same. You can run but you can’t hide. They’ll get you in the end.

But all of that being said The Collector does not entirely fail as a film and there is some real tension and suspense as Arkin slithers through the house trying not to let the Collector know he is there. The jerky, quick editing and use of special effects filters looks like so many other horror film these days and that is that they look like music videos. I am getting used to it though it is not really overdone here. Josh Stewart handles his acting duties capably enough sense most of the film is focuses on him. The Collector himself will probably not be a character I will develop an interest in though I would probably check out a sequel if one is made. He certainly is not as interesting as Terence Stamp’s lonely butterfly collector Freddie Clegg in the 1965 film of the same name and with which this film has no similarities. They don’t really make movies like that one anymore. You have to settle for the new Collector. A guy in a mask who never says anything and tortures and collects people in a trunk for a hobby. It is better than The Ghoulies though.

JAPANESE HORROR ART

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Dan Courtney) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 12:26:00 +0000

Not sure why I struggle with this Blogger blog sometimes. I only get about 20 hits day and hardly any comments. Yet I am driven to persevere no matter what. Not sure how to put some life into it but I know if I want it to exist at any level I need to update it. Just not really into writing lately. I am back to work teaching ESL in China and have not readjusted to the schedule and demands of the job. Just run down. Also have some new recording software and hardware I am working with that takes a lot of focus and energy. So, to keep the site afloat until I have something to write about (and I do, been checking out lots of modern horror lately, some good and some bad) I will just do an art type post. It is the first one here at Necrotic Cinema and will begin a new category for comics and art. Probably will begin doing some poster art as well soon. Just trying to branch out a bit. Feel I am in a rut here. The theme here for this post is some nice uplifting school girl horror art from the cheery island of Japan. No trivia on any of it. Just pure eye candy. Enjoy.

REMAKES AND REBOOTS I HAVE LIKED AND DISLIKED

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Dan Courtney) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 09:51:00 +0000

In a further attempt to ‘reboot’ Necrotic Cinema I going to take a stab at a sort of list thing. It is my first ever and I was inspired by a post over at Chuck Conry’s Zombies Don’t Run blog. I usually visit a series of blogs from my blogroll each morning with some stout coffee and see what other people are recommending or bashing. Unfortunately I do not always have time to leave a good comment but I am working on that weak point of mine recently as well. But if I left even a short comment on every site I check out after I wake up it would simply be over whelming. And while I tend to shy away from lists myself I do enjoy reading other people’s lists. Chuck did a list (not a top ten style) of remakes/reboots he either likes or dislikes to some degree or another. I thought about it and realized how I have some similar feelings as his about some of the films he listed and I will share my feelings. I will stick to films, the remakes, I have seen from Chuck’s list. First I will say I am not against remakes and I am in particular not against horror/sci-fi film remakes. I am skeptical of course when I hear news that Jack Hill’s Spider baby will be remade but not adamantly opposed to the idea. Redoing an old horror film or reviving a story or character (rebooting) opens the film up to modern special effects and production and new generations of actors and audiences. I am in no way saying that this is always a good thing but it is not always a bad thing either.

I LIKED:

First off let me start with a film that has garnered almost more disdain online, almost, than Twilight. That is the remake of Friday the 13th. It is not too hard for me to like this film since truth be told I never really liked any of the previous Jason films. I have seen them all except the one where he battles Freddy (I welcome the upcoming reboot to the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise after it all went to hell after the 1st film) and never saw any reason to see that since I really do not like wise-cracking and unscary Freddy Kruger as a character. My favorite of the Jason franchise was Jason X where he hacks up men, beautiful women, cyborgs and horny teenagers on a space ship. I like that film for some reason. So for me I did not expect too much at all from the remake and I was not disappointed. In fact I was surprised. It would have had to have been really, really bad to be worse than any of the original films. I felt the new Friday the 13th was the best rendition of Jason as evil incarnate so far. The tone of the film was darky and moody but still filled with clueless teenagers making out on the dreaded shores of Crystal Lake and being brutally offed one at time by a soulless Jason Vorhess. Why this film is so despised is beyond me. It is okay. Are horror viewers jsut totally jaded and burned out anymore? Jason was never so evil. I look forward to more done in this style.

I also like the Rob Zombie Halloween films for about the same reason. Other than the original Halloween and the first sequel I never really cared too much for the Michael Myers character. I am not really a huge fan of masked hackers and slashers who have some gimmick they are identified with (Freddy’s claws, Jason’s hockey mask etc.) who usually stalk half dressed and stoned teenagers. Mind you I have seen so many of these types of films I cannot even estimate the number. Most wind up being attempts at trying to be an instantly campy or cheesy film or are parodies of the more successful masked killer type films. For that reason I cannot take the genre too seriously but enjoy many of these films as mindless entertainment. I felt Zombie tried to make a solemn and serious Halloween film and succeeded overall. I am not going to say that the Zombie films were not without problems, especially H2, but I enjoyed both of them for the most part. The murders were unsettling and Michael Myers was absolutely chilling and lethal. I like Zombie’s style of direction and his soundtracks. Not terrible films despite the venom you read online. What do people expect from horror films I begin to wonder?

I did like the Dawn of the Dead film though it is a loose remake at best. But they did wind up in a shopping mall fending off zombies so there is that connection. IOne issue I had is that I am not a fan of fast zombies. I think the idea can work in a way. For example right after a recently living person has been bitten and dies and comes back it seems reasonable that they would be as fast, but not faster than, they were when alive a few moments earlier. But eventually rigor mortis is going to set in as well as brain damage and tissue decay and they will have to slow down. But they would not eb stronger and faster than they would have been inthere actual living life. Many of the zombies here seemed to be recently revived and so I could accept their pumped up dispositions for the most part. But the film is also simply a good film even if it is not a real remake of the original. The original DOFD is perhaps untouchable in some respects. This movie has good acting and editing and some pretty good looking zombies. I am a little burned out on zombies really. Sorry. I loved zombies at one time. I loved zombies before zombies were cool. But a zombie movie now has to be the type I like and that is, essentially, the George A. Romero type. No surprise maybe that my favorite recent zombie flick are his Land of the Dead and Diary of the Dead. While not perfect films they still are better than all the other zombies films for the last five years combined and I am looking forward to Survival of the Dead. I am sure it will be hqcked to death online by all the 'experts' but I know I will enjoy it already, without even having seen a trailer.

And while we are on remakes of George Romero zombie films Chuck appears to favor, as I do, the unfairly bashed 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead. This is a fine and clever remake that Romero scripted and backed. The film was made so Romero could actually make some money off his NOTLD concept since he didn’t make any to speak of off his original film. Savini’s direction is good and Tony Todd is great as the film’s hero. The character of Barbara is toughened up and there are story twists that anyone familiar with the original story will appreciate. Again I have to wonder what horror fans want if they think that this is a crappy film. Is a good horror story revived with some modern touches. It sticks true to the original film except for, as I said, some deliberate twists to keep fans of the 1st film amused.

I DID NOT LIKE:

I did not like the original My Bloody Valentine all that much. In fact I didn’t like it all. I hated it come to think of it. I saw it on VHS God only knows how long ago and it really epitomized the whole 80’s masked killer with a gimmick thing I could never take too seriously. The original failed for me even as a camp feature whereas Prom Night (I did not see the remake) did make it as a nice piece of cheesy fun. The remake tried to darken up the film’s atmosphere and make it all a bit more serious and menacing but it just did not make it. It also became one of those goofy ‘who is the real killer’ type films and I prefer simply knowing who the psycho is, or never knowing, from the start in these sorts of films since they always try to make the killer the person you would least suspect, so automatically I begin suspecting the person I least suspect from the start and 95% of the time I am right. Unless it is one of those ‘who is the real killer films’ where it is the actually the person you would most suspect who winds up being the actual killer at the end. Whoa! Didn’t see that coming.

I did not hate the remake of The Hills Have Eyes but I did not like it enough to put it in the top 'I liked' category. I think I almost liked it. It is not a film I would want to see again really but do not recall hating the movie. One problem with this film is the connection with the name of Wes Craven, a person whose horror films I simply cannot watch. While I did like the original Nightmare on Elm Street I cannot watch anything else this guy has ever made. I still see sites praising Last House on the Left (I did not bother with the remake on this one but probably will see it eventually) which is a goofy film at best. I would review it at Then Uranium Café under the camp and cheese category but I tend to only review films at that site I like. And I hate Last House. Bad acting. Bad photography. Stupid dialog and a chanisaw scene! So The Hills Have Eyes is tainted. The well has been poisioned. I will say that I felt the remake was better than the original. But I never liked the original really so it is not much of a recommendation. I would definitely recommend the remake here.

The original When a Stranger Calls is a great and much imitated suspense film. A great cast of 70's stars with Tony Beckley as a truly creepy psychopath in the old school Norman Bates tradition only worse, since this guy kills kids. In the remake the film is nothing but the killer stalking the scared girl in the house routine from the near start to finish. Almost the entire film takes place inside one single house one basiclaly one single 'actor' carrying the show. We never know anything abut the stalker/killer. The only real connections to the original film is that the guy (voice of Lance Henrikson) calls the girl and terrorizes her over the phone and, well, the title of the film. I actually have a completed review of this film somewhere in a draft folder. I have had it for over a year in there and for some reason never even think about it anymore. The review was negative and I saw no reason to even post a completed negative review about this mess. The ‘girl in the house with the killer’ routine is usually fbest saved or the last ten or fifteen minutes of a suspense film, not for the entire ninety minutes. Can it work sometimes? Yes. Panic Room succeeded. But you have more than one girl (basically one character on the screen) who can’t act her way out of a paper bag running around in hysterics. Panic Room had the talents of people like Davis Fincher, Jodie Foster, Forest Whitaker and everyone's favorite actress Kirsten Steward involved. Stick to the original here. It is not 100% perfect, of course, but it is much better than this shabby remake in name only.

I saved the worst for last. While I liked the above Romero remakes the 2008 remake of Day of the Dead, perhaps my favorite zombie film, is the worst movie on this list. It is a sickening and deceitful rip off and I can’t go on enough about how lame and ridiculous this mess is. It seems marketed as a sequel to the 2004 Dawn of the Dead and even stars Vinge Rhames, who was in the 2004 film and was great in that. Here he is totally wasted and must have showed up to get a check only. He even looks weak and sick. The film has no connection to the original Romero classic but his name is blatantly exploited on the poster. The original sentient zombie ‘Bub’ becomes ‘Bud’ the vegetarian soldier here, trying somehow to explain the Bub character I guess in the original film. Oh I see, maybe this is a 'prequel'. Yea yea. The zombies here are just plain idiotic. They grimace and snarl at the camera in displays of the worst kind bad acting and not only can jump through the windshields of Humvees with ease but they are able to scramble on ceiling tiles and across concrete walls like spiders. Often people are divided on films. I know from the comments left on Chuck’s sites not all people are on the same side of the fence as I am regarding, lets say, the Friday the 13th remake. And that is cool. We can all have different opinions on films and in no way is my opinion the final word on any of this. My God I liked Twilight so my credentials are shot all to hell according to 90% of the horror bloggers I read. I am no authority. Except in my opinion on this peice of crap. I cannot be disproved or challenged. this movie is dreck. I do not think I have ever read one positive review about this so called film and wonder why the director , Steve Miner, is still allowed behind a camera, even when the position has been relegated, it seems, to doing TV shows. Is there one person out there who liked this? Please come forward.

Well those are simply my opinions and there is much flexibility (except with 2008’s Day of the Dead) as to what remakes/reboots are worth your time to watch. As stated earlier I am not against remakes of horror films. It seems to be a genre where remakes work and have a long standing tradition. I stuck to Chuck’s list for this experiment in a new form but I may explore some other remakes on my own soon. I am genuinely looking forward to the Freddy reboot. I am going in that one with an open mind.

A REFRSHING BREATH OF FRESH AIR AND SPACE MADNESS IN 2009's: PANDORUM

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Dan Courtney) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:11:00 +0000

This post here at Necrotic Cinema will mark a slight change in direction for some, though not all, of my reviews here and at The Uranium Café. Up until recently most of my reviews have been pretty much filled to the brim with spoilers and I am going to try and restrain myself from giving away too much of a film’s plot and storyline. It is not that I am adverse to spoiling a film with my reviews but I just want to try and talk about the movie in a new way. Reviews I read go either way but in terms of newer films I think I will try to hold back. Now if someone is going to complain (and I have had no complaints about spoilers) that over at my more ‘classic’ film blog The Uranium Café I spoiled some film like Them, The Blob or The Bride of Frankenstein then I do know what to say. I just assume everyone knows those stories already even if they have never seen the film. But even there I am going to try some new approaches for a while and see where it leads.

So onto the film for this post called Pandorum, directed by Christian Alvart and starring Ben Foster, Dennis Quiad, Cam Gigandet and Antje Trau. I tried again to watch the British zombie film Colin and I am sorry I just could not get into it. Some people see genius in the lack of production values and I simply did not. Anyway, I will not bash Colin here today and will get around to finishing it eventually and reviewing it. But I simply got tired of all these ‘indie’ horror films I had gotten from Demoinoid and Horror Charnel recently. I wanted something with some technical skill to it and some passable acting and a camera that was actually mounted on a tri-pod once in a while and a film where the photography consists of what appears to be a drugged spider monkey running around with a cheap video camera. I had not heard of Pandorum before and took a chance and was pleasantly surprised by the experience. In that horror movie sort of way of course.

The film has gotten some good reviews on the net but of course there are those who just feel the need to see lack of absolute perfection in any horror/sci-fi film that comes out and I wonder why some of these people even run horror/sci-fi blogs in the first place. I wonder if many horror viewers have just become too jaded and cynical. One criticism I read from a couple sites is that the look of the film and storyline are ‘derivative’ of prior great and original horror/sci-fi films like Event Horizon, Alien, Resident Evil and a few others. My response is so what? A student of classic horror will discover that even those great films were inspired or influenced in style or story by films that date back to the 50’s. That’ does not take away from those newer films in the least and how original would a new film have to be so that there is not one malcontent’s declaration it is ‘derivative’. Totally original does not mean good or watchable either. There are reason that rock songs built around simple chord progressions like A, D, E are listenable but ones with way out diminished minor chords are never heard. Okay, I like diminished minor chords and King Crimson but I am trying to create an analogy here. I certainly felt the look of the film was influenced by Event Horizon, Outland and Alien and that school of thought in regards a space ship. That a rusted and dark and a smoky, ill-lit space ship looks cooler than a brand spanking new craft where everything is spit polished and working.

The general story (with minimal spoilers I promise) involves various crews of people aboard an ark type space ship called the Elysium. Most people spend the entire trip to a new world in hyper sleep but the flight crew must be awakened in shifts to run the ship. During one such crew’s watch affairs aboard the Elysium are discovered to be completely out of sorts. Flight crew Bower (Hudson) and Payton (Quiad) are jolted out of hyper-sleep and into amnesia and mayhem. The ships controls are not working properly and the reactor seems on the verge of a melt down. There are other passengers who are awake and surviving on the gigantic space ship by any means they can. Not only is food an issue but there are bands of mutant hunters who are super humanly strong and fast who track down the humans as though they were animals. We are never sure who the mutants are or where they come from despite various conflicting theories. On top of these and other matters is the possibility one could be suffering from a form of space madness called Pandorum and not be aware of it. Bower must make his way to the reactor room and restart the reactor in order to give the ship enough power to be operational and to prevent it from becoming unstable and blowing up. Bower must crawl through claustrophobic passage ways and fend off hostile mutants while trying to decide which freed passengers he can trust and which ones he can’t while trying to regain his memory and make it to the reactor room in one piece.

The film succeeds on all required levels including acting, direction, film score, photography and set designs. Don’t pat attention to reviews that say Ben Foster and Cam Gigandet (James from Twilight) compete with other for ruining the film. They do absolutely fine as does Quaid. Are there some criticisms I might have? Of course. I am a cranky old guy anymore. The whole matter of the space madness, Pandorum for which the film is titled, is not really explored enough. I agree with a couple criticisms that this could have been more a part of the story and the mutants could have been less. The mutants are okay but the photography in those sequences is edited too quickly. The shots are bouncy, dark and rapid, like the shots of the monsters in The Descent or Feast. Or the mutant side could have been explored more. More crew members could have been woken from hyper-sleep and stalked by the mutants and brutally killed off. But I can watch any film, horror or otherwise, and say ‘I wish this and I wish that’. I wish Woody Allen had not broken with Diane Keaton at the end of Annie Hall. But what the hell do I know. I watch movies and I do not make them. That does not mean I have to accept anything I shove into my DVD player either (like Colin) simply because I cannot write or direct a film.

I have been waiting for a film to get me back in the mood of reviewing modern horror films and Pandorum did just that. I read that this film was originally to shot on video in an abandoned paper mill for a budget of about $200,000. I guess if that had happened I would not be praising it now. Luckily it got big studio backing from Impact Pictures. The ending, which I will not spoil and it is a good ending, does leave the door open to a sequel but if there is not one that would be okay. This movies stands on its own as it is now just fine. And see, hardly a spoiler at all.

PANDORUM TRAILER

BUYING AND WATCHING HORROR FILMS IN CHINA PART TWO: AVATAR AT THE KUNMING IMAX

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Dan Courtney) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 11:50:00 +0000

At a loss about what to write about concerning modern horror these days and so will continue with my series on buying and seeing films here in China. Be back to some horror one of these days I promise. Sort of trying the give Necrotic Cinema a little more flexibility than it was allowed in the past so bear with me while I go through a transition period here.
Bill

Saw the James Cameron film Avatar this morning at the IMAX theater here in Kunming China and thought I would share the experience with my four or five readers. The film is not really a horror film and I am not going to review it but if I were to I would give it 5 skulls. I have actually not given a 5 skull rating to any film yet here and wonder if I ever will. It is a well made film and actually does not fit in here with the usual low budget scum-cinema I comment on here. I am aware a lot of people hate the film and there is some ‘controversy’ around it. Such as the supposed racist overtones that it takes a ‘white guy’ to pull the poor natives up by their bootstraps and set them on course. Hey look it was a crippled white guy at least so chill out. Well there is some China related controversy that is a little interesting than that recurring complaint I have been hearing for a couple decades. For example here in a China (a nation of ‘navel gazers’ if ever there was one) there is chatter over the net here that the movie is actually a commentary on the current Chinese policies concerning mass evictions of peoples and the razing of communities in the name of development. The ‘property’ seizures are a fact and Kunming has had some riots recently related to people being dragged from their apartments so it can be destroyed. But that the film is a commentary on that is something I failed to see. People here are easily offended (the ancient art of ‘losing face’) and almost anything can be as a slight. When it came out here that the States had contributed more to the Haiti relief effort than China had lots of netizens, as they are called here, felt insulted that America only wanted to one-up China’s donations and support. They did not rejoice that the Haitians were getting relief only critical that another country was number one in helping with relief. Well that may seem a little off the topic but I wanted to make the point how seriously many people see the film as an insult to the way the Chinese government handles it domestic affairs.

There is another controversy I will touch on and then move on to my personal experience of seeing the film here in Kunming. The film has become the #1 grossing foreign film here in China. The government here tightly controls the foreign film market allowing a total of twenty or so foreign films a year to played in the cinemas here. These films can be edited and even horribly redubbed into Chinese to insure the ‘harmonious society’ here is not unsettled by decadent western messages and images. Recently the film Kong Zi (Confucius) was released here. To insure the film had a competitive chance at the movie theaters China did what anyone with a fair sense of competition would do: they removed Avatar from all the regular cinemas here. It is still allowed to play in IMAX theaters here. All eleven of them in the entire country. Here is an edited article from an article at Digital Journal on the removal of the film from theaters here:

China Pulls Avatar From Theaters Despite Huge Ticket Sales

By Leo Reyes.

Subscribe to author

Jan 20, 2010

The blockbuster movie Avatar is being yanked from theaters in China despite its record-breaking sales as Chinese authorities gave way to a locally- produced movie about the life of Confucius.

China is pulling out the blockbuster film Avatar from theaters across China in the next few days despite its record breaking sales.

The futuristic sci-fic movie will be removed from theaters without 3-D technology to give way for a locally produced movie about the life of Confucius according to reports from state-controlled media.The futuristic movie can be viewed in 2-D and 3-D versions.

China limits the number of foreign films permitted to be shown in the country to 20 a year, and it also regulates the amount of time each of those films can be shown. Officials ban any foreign films deemed unfriendly to the Communist Party but it also wants to ensure that any foreign imports deemed acceptable do not dominate the market and smother local film producers.

The film made $76 million since it was shown last January 4 in 2,500 theaters across China, making it the most successful foreign movie shown in China.

Cui Weiping, a film critic and a professor at the Beijing Film Academy, said: “So many people are dying to see it, including me. ‘Avatar’ is driving people crazy right now. The government makes these decisions whenever it wants to, with no consideration for the market or the desires of the audience.”

This not an uncommon practice here really. A couple years ago all foreign cartoons, almost all from the US and Japan, were yanked from TV here. The only foreign cartoon allowed to continue was a dubbed version of Sponge Bob. Why? Because no one was watching the domesticly produced cartoons. Why? Because they are stupid and look amateurish at best. So how to get people top watch made in China cartoons on TV? Improve the quality of the productions? No. Simply ban all the cartoons from outside China and give the people no other choice. Except Sponge Bob.

The removal of the film from the cinemas of course created more of a mystique around the film and in the cities where it is playing the lines are really long. People wait for hours to get a reservation to the film at one of the IMAX theaters here. Not all people wait for hours of course since people here cut line all the time but most people stand their turns in line. The people here are curious about the film and the reaction on some forums here (called a BBS) is one that the people feel they make their own choices about how they spend their money and what films they want to see. The government here is as unmoved as the evil Marine Colonel in Avatar.

The IMAX Theater in Kunming China

Okay, so enough of that and let me share my experience. I have actually only seen two other movies in the cinema since I have been in China. Thos were Kung Fu Panda and 2012. I used to go to a couple a week or more back in Seattle. There are a couple reasons I tend to stay away from cinemaplexs here. One is DVDs are so cheap and usually a pirated version of the film appears here at about the same time the film is released in the states. I would rather lie on the sofa and watch a DVD and be able to rewind and pause a film than sit through it in a cinema anymore. Also people here can be pretty loud in a movie. Not as bad as I thought really but then I have only seen three films in over five years. People here just talk in a full and often booming voice anytime they want and that includes in the middle of a film. And they take cell phone calls during films as well and blab in a full voice. Damn, I hate that. Another reason is that foreign films here are often dubbed in Chinese and that is another post altogether. I want to discuss dubbing and subtitles here in more depth. But Twilight was released here for the first time for a limited run a couple months ago. But all the versions we could find were dubbed into Chinese. Not one friggin’ English language version. I am an English teacher here and most of my students (and younger people in general) would rather see the film in English (or its native language) than a corny dubbed version but again the choice does not seem to be theirs.

We had bought the tickets a couple weeks ago. We went and stood in a short line actually but at least one lady cut in front of us. I mumbled ‘cha dui’ (break line) and she said ‘mei you, mei you’ (did not). Well that was the least of the problems since one woman monopolized the ticket seller for fifteen minutes at least trying to decide where she wanted to sit. Shit. It was ridiculous but we got our two tickets for today the 18th at 9 AM. Let me be clear on that. Nine in the morning! That is because the film is so popular they set up times when the theater is normally closed for showings. I have never started a film at 9 AM but probably have finished a few at that time. We woke up at 7 Am and I am totally addled brained at that time. We are on a long holiday from our teaching jobs here and I tend to stay up night watching movies or monkeying with blogs. So essentially I got maybe and hour or two of sleep then we are out the door on a cold morning and catch two buses and take a short taxi ride to get to the theater. We do not have time for any sort of breakfast or coffee even. The line was short when we got there and we got in quickly. To be honest all things worked in our favor in some ways. We had a short line to buy the tickets and a short line to see it one of the few IMAX theaters in China and the crowd was well behaved. My wife sat next to some kids and she asked them to be quiet (an jing keyi ma) and they said ‘keyi’ (can do). We also got a cheaper ticket since the show was at 9 AM. Out ticket was 100 RMB each or about $15. Yea. $15 American dollars paid for in Chinese RMB. But people here are forking it over and Kong Zi is not doing much of anything. People here, as far as I can tell, as burned out with the safe historical dramas here. The young people in China want something big and well made. They love Yankee cinema, TV and music. They love the fantasy world a film like Avatar evokes and are hungry for more and more of such experiences. I can love watching a film in class with my students here because they get into it so much (and also I can sit back and not try to talk for a couple hours). They are enthusiast and make the film exciting for me and that will be a topic in this series one day; watching movies in class. My wife said some of the older Chinese people in the theater found the experience miserable. A pair of old ladies left the theater saying over and over ‘hua qian mai zui shou’ or ‘pay so much money to feel miserable’. The whole 3-D IMAX thing may be too much for people of that generation in China but the younger generation cannot get enough of this film here and it is quite literally a phenomenon I had the opportunity to be a part of. I enjoyed the film and the experience.