Frontière(s): Unrated Director's Cut (2007) directed by Xavier Gens France takes a whack at the Chain Saw Massacretheme with Frontier(s). I dunno. Maybe it's because this is the third movie this season I've seen involving Achilles tendon trauma, but it all felt rather been-there-done-that to me. However, there's a couple of gore gags near the end of the film that I thought were really cool. One involves Samuel Le Bihan (from Brotherhood of the Wolf!) getting shoved onto a table saw. Best table saw gag ever. Gallons of blood spew into the heroine's face as the blade continues to spin in the body even though the man is dead. The other follows closely and involves a head explosion rivaling that of the one in Scanners. Once the filmmakers take the leash of and start to have fun with things -- rather than trying to shoehorn some kind of political commentary in the film -- the movie starts to pick up. That happens a bit too late to really save the film for me, though. (6/10)
That's it for the Horrorfest 2007 movies. I had just about the same experience with this batch as I did with the ones from 2006. One movie I respect but have no desire to watch again (Borderland / The Abandoned). One movie I thought was cool enough that I'd buy it when I saw it for sale cheap (Mulberry Street / Dark Ride). One that had a lot of promise but ultimately disappointed (The Deaths of Ian Stone / The Tripper). And the rest vary between mediocre and utter crap. It took me a little longer than I wanted to get through this set. I think I'm still going to try to get the Horrorfest 2008 movies done before the end of Halloween this year. It would be nice to be caught for next year. So far in general, I'm doing a fantastic job of catching up on this decade's horror movies that I've missed. For some reason, I haven't been too keen on renting lots of horror in the 00s.
The Wolf Man (1941) directed by George Waggner I have to admit, I picked this Universal horror movie to watch mostly because the trailer for the remake gave me a taste for it. That, and all the coolkids are watching Universal horror movies this Halloween. You've gotta love Lon Chaney Jr. as Larry Talbot in this movie. He's just this damned nice guy who has some really rotten luck. All Larry wants to do is reintegrate into his old home town and get to know the folks living there. Instead, he's almost immediately bit by a werewolf and accused of murder, causing the whole town to hate and fear him. In the end, his dad has to beat him to death with a silver-tipped cane. Pretty grim stuff. I think it's a law that werewolf movies can never end well for the werewolf, no matter how likable. (7/10)
Låt den rätte komma in (2008) directed by Tomas Alfredson Let the Right One In, I kept reading online, is one of the best vampire movies ever made. Needless to say, I was really looking forward to watching it. I like a good vampire flick. I'd peg Near Dark as my favorite, with Martin a close second. Sadly, after watching it, I won't be adding Let the Right One In to my movie collection, much less considering it a favorite.
It's a cruel thing to write, but LtROI is a bit of a pre-teen Twilight. It's no where near as bad a movie as that piece of crap, but it certainly shares some plot similarities. A pair of lonely souls find each other. One happens to be an old vampire, and the vampire has to struggle not to eat the young human. The pair share lots of plaintive, silent glances with each other. They enjoy sexlessly sleeping next to each other at night. In the end, the vampire defends the human's life from other evil people and they go off to live happily ever after (maybe).
The major difference between the two films, I think, is the bullying plot thread in LtROI. I think this, in part, accounts for the strong love LtROI is getting from the online community. Being made up of more geeks than the average population, folks online can relate to being bullied as kids (note: I'm not excepting myself from this). And, in the film, except for the very last bullying incident, it's portrayed very realistically. Oskar takes the punishment, hates it, wishes he could harm his bullies, but never tells anyone. That's pretty much what kids do -- or did when I was his age, anyway. It's kind of an easy button to push to gain sympathy for your main character, but it does allow us to understand why Oskar has so little problem with Eli murdering people for food.
The crotch shot scene should've been cut. Among other reasons I can think of, it's unnecessarily confusing to anyone who hasn't read the novel. It's supposed to show that Eli is a castrated boy, which is supposed to make Oskar's love for him more remarkable. What I saw was a set set of rubber legs lacking any genitals and with what looked like a horizontal scratch south of the belly button. Logically, not having read the book, I concluded that vampires in this universe don't have private parts at all. I was waiting for this to tie into something in the movie later on, but it was ignored. I had to go online to find out what the hell the point of the scene was. Perhaps not a great adaption choice on the part of the screenwriter.
In the movie's defense, it allows itself to be read a couple of different ways, which I love. You can see the movie as a simple romance: despite their great differences, Oskar and Eli found love in each other and hold onto it no matter what. I read it differently. Eli, we can't forget, is much older than he looks. The movie actually reminds us of this in one scene, where Eli's face briefly transforms into that of an old woman. As such, I think his relationship with Oskar is selfish and manipulative.
I think that Håkanwas Eli's previous Oskar. Years ago, he was probably someone Eli seduced/bonded with in order to get human help. Stockholm has 18 hours of daylight in the middle of summer. A vampire there is going to need a regular human to make sure no one opens any curtains on them while they sleep, etc. Håkan also kills people for Eli. This is a task you can see Eli grooming Oskar for, as he first encourages Oskar to hit his bullies harder than he thinks possible and later speaks to him about killing people. I think picking a human on the verge of puberty, close to his apparent age, is an easy way for Eli to gain the help he needs for 50-60 more years. Evil perhaps, but I don't think bullied and lonely Oskar minds so much. (7/10)
Unearthed (2007) directed by Matthew Leutwyler How did a Sci-Fi Channel Original Movie sneak into Horrorfest? Okay, though it has no connection to the Sci-Fi Channel -- er, I'm mean Siffy -- Unearthed would feel right at home next to Mansquito and Lake Placid 2. It has a crappy CGI monster -- who looks like a cross between a xenomorph and an iz -- that terrorizes some pretty people in a remote town. That's pretty much the plot of all those "SyFy" movies. There's a vague attempt at some characterization with the sheriff -- she's a drunk who accidentally shot a little girl -- but everyone else in the film is either fodder for the beast or an exposition spouter (or both). They even cast Charlie Murphy and didn't bother giving him anything cool to do before he was killed off. I knew I was in for a bad flick the first time I checked the elapsed time and only twenty minutes had passed. Outside of a couple of cool gore effects -- Charlie Murphy's split head was kinda neat -- there's absolutely nothing special about this movie. (4/10)
Week 4 begins... the halfway point of Halloween season.
Silver Bullet (1985) directed by Daniel Attias This would be a great first "real" horror movie for a kid. Aged ten or eleven, I'm thinking, would be a good Silver Bullet age (about the same as the main character). Though it's rated R, it's really not excessively gory. Well, there's some werewolf scratchin' and punching of heads off, but it's all sufficiently rubbery-looking to not be too scary. Plus, as I mentioned, the main character is a kid, himself. Stephen King always writes children really well. Marty in the movie, though paralyzed, gets to do all kinds of cool stuff 11-year-olds dream of: shooing off illegal fireworks, racing around on a custom motorcycle, climbing out the window in the middle of the night to have fun, shooting a werewolf with a silver bullet... And, I suppose, in the end this film teaches the valuable lesson that not all priests are kind to children. Can't learn that one soon enough. (7/10)
Week 3 ends with Mrs. K and I venturing to the theater. Later, we'd watch a film with my mother... always hard to pick a horror movie when that happens.
Zombieland (2009) directed by Ruben Fleisher A bucket of fun. More of a comedy than a zombie film (whereas I might say the opposite about Shaun of the Dead). Sure, the story, when you boil it down, is pretty Hollywood-standard: lost souls wind up together by accident, dislike each other at first and then end up as a happy family. I know, I'm aware that amusement park rides require an operator and don't just go on their own once they sense someone sitting in them. Yeah, a certain actor in a cameo isn't really as rich as they made him out to be. Doesn't matter. This stuff is in the film to drive the fun, not to make sense.
There are lot of good bits stuffed into the picture. I loved Tallahassee's quest for a Twinkie and Columbus' quest to simply push stray hair behind a girl's ear. The zombies were of the fast type, but this okay due to both the awesome slo-mo shots of them chasing food (especially the stripper zombie) and so that Columbus could have his amusing cardio rule. The scene in which the four main characters have a blast trashing a highway tourist shop struck me as unique. In these zombie apocalypse films, I can't recall anyone ever just having fun with the situation (at least, without the scene ending in someone getting bitten or eaten). That was nice. That's one thing I would do myself if zombies were everywhere.
It's not exactly a deep reflection on the end of the world, but it is one of the funniest horror-comedies I've seen. (8/10)
Bubba Ho-tep (2002) directed by Don Coscarelli I hadn't seen this in while and it seemed like something mom might possibly get a kick out of. Of course, I'd forgotten how much Elvis talks about his pecker throughout. Ostensibly about a mummy who eats the souls of old people in a rest home, this really isn't much of a monster movie. It's more of a comedic mediation on old age. Most of the movie has little to do with the title character; it's Elvis ruminating on what it means to have lived so long you're about to die of old age. As such, it's not exactly the most exciting mummy movie ever made. You have to be a certain frame of mind to enjoy this one, I think. I suppose this is the frame of mind that finds the idea of a mummy writing dirty graffiti on the wall of a toilet stall while taking a dump amusing. Afterward, mom expressed disbelief such a thing was ever shown in real theaters, stating "that was a weird movie." (7/10)
Book of Blood (2008) directed by John Harrison After everyone was asleep, I popped in this Netflix acquisition. I read the short stories this was based on so long ago, I had no idea what it was going to be about. It was sort of Clive Barker's version of Poltergeist, in a way. Very much in line with Barker's style, it mixed horror, sexuality and metaphysics as it told the story of a college professor investigating a haunted house. Turns out the house exists at an intersection of a ghost highway, where their realm and ours mix. Turns out also that the ghosts are really sensitive to people messing with them, going so far as to rip the faces off of teenage girls performing seances. It's a bit slow-paced in the middle when the ghosts aren't doing any real harm to people, but I dug this one. (7/10)
The Mist (Black & White) (2007) directed by Frank Darabont I was skeptical of the idea, which is why I watched the color version first, but I now agree with the director that the black & white version is better. In his intro, Darabont kept mentioning how it reminded him of the B&W '60s horror movies he saw as a kid. I'd go back further than that; I kept think of the '30s and '40s Universal horror movies. The starkness of the image gives it that classic feel. It could just as easily be the wolfman emerging from the fog as an interdimensional monster. The mist itself looks really good in grayscale, as well. Now it seem as though its swallow the color and life out of everything. B&W also helps to hide the fakeness of the CGI, which is a nice bonus. (8/10)
Tooth & Nail (2007) directed by Mark Young I really wanted to like this one. Post-apocalyptic stories are among my favorite. Sadly, the movie kept failing at everything it tried. The cause of the post-apocalypse was unique -- as far as I know -- for these types of movies: our oil ran out. However, this has absolutely no bearing on the rest of the film. The cause could've been a virus, a nuclear war, a meteor or global warming and nothing would've been different. I suspect the director/writer just wanted to be the first to make a film with this particular apocalyptic idea as the back drop.
The movie's really about a gang of cannibals who snatch people one by one from the hospital they're holed up in. That's all fine. Unfortunately, we never get to really know most of the characters who are killed, making their deaths lack any impact at all. Similarly, two of the cannibals are played by the awesome Michael Madsen and Vinnie Jones, but they're used far too little. Madsen is killed very early on. Jones runs around the halls chasing a little girl until she locks him in a closet. It's disappointing. The rest of the cannibals are just generic big-guy scary-dudes.
Worst, the movie is really just a re-skinned Aliens. The cannibals are the xenomorphs, chasing people through dark hallways in a hospital that replaces the colony on LV-426. Lead, female cannibal Neon is the queen xenomorph. Mute, teenaged Nova is clearly Newt's clone. Rescuing Nova/Newt from the cannibals/aliens is Dakota, standing in for Ripley. Dakota starts off weak but eventually toughens up to battle the monsters at the end, including spouting a pithy line at Neon/the queen that has the word "bitch" in it. One minor difference here is that Viper/Hicks dies, but the character performs the same function at the end of the film. If you're gonna rip off one of the best sci-fi flicks of all time, you're gonna have to do better than this. (5/10)
Nightmare Man (2006) directed by Rolfe Kanefsky Afterward, I was not at all surprised to discover that the director had lots of experience directing soft core. Though there isn't a lot of nudity in this slasher flick, it just has that skinemax feel to it. The bad acting and the amateurish way it was shot has a lot to do with this feeling. The movie doesn't take itself too seriously, but it's not wacky enough to be a fun-bad B-movie. Rather, it's mostly Troma vet Tiffany Shepis making wisecracks whilst chewing scenery. Admittedly it's pretty damned funny to behold the Nightmare Man when he takes possession of a girl wearing only a bra and panties. Something about a demon face on an otherwise normal lingerie-wearing woman is hard to look away from. (6/10)
I finished Eternal Darkness. It took me about 12 hours, according to the in-game clock, which seems to be reasonable for this sort of game. Speaking as someone who just finished reading every scrap of fiction he wrote, this is the best H.P. Lovecraft-inspired game I've ever played.
What makes it so, more than any other bit, is the oft-praised insanity meter. Every time you see a monster, a little bit of you sanity goes away. Once it gets low enough, the game attempts to damage the player's sanity. Suddenly, the screen will go black with just the word "VIDEO" in the corner, as if the video signal was lost. In the soundtrack, you hear the sounds of your character being attacked and killed... only for everything to snap back to normal. Or, you'll enter room and realize you seem to be walking on the ceiling. Or, you'll go to save you progress only to have the game pretend to delete your save file. The insanity effects are very fun and there's a surprising number of them. I saw some new ones on this, my second time through. Nintendo even patented the idea.
Outside of the sanity stuff, it's a solid adventure / horror game. The combat is far better than anything in a Silent Hill or Resident Evil. You can target specific body parts if you choose, making it simply to chop zombie heads off. One complaint might be that the game is too easy, though some of the puzzles had me stumped for a while. On to Resident Evil 4 next!
Shaun of the Dead (2004) directed by Edgar Wright The second zombie movie I got my wife to watch this season... with slow zombies, even! I hadn't seen this one since it was in theaters. Then, I thought it was OK, but wasn't laughing up a storm as others seemed to be. The second time around, it was much funnier. I gotta say, I was also impressed with the amount of realistic crying Simon Pegg does in this one. There's some real heart in the film amongst the dry British humor. (8/10)
Le pacte des loups: Director's Cut (2001) directed by Christophe Gans Brotherhood of the Wolf probably doesn't qualify as a horror movie, but a film about a "beast" terrorizing a village in pre-revolutionary France gets pretty close. It's a beautiful movie, with mist-covered French countryside, a castle and elaborate period costumes. I found it easy to fall into to film, which was helpful given the 2.5 hour runtime.
At the worst, my only complaints would be about the kung-fu fighting and one of the plot points. The fighting -- though very well done -- doesn't really feel like it fits in the 18th century setting. I don't think people generally did lots of flips and roundhouse kicks when brawling back then. I could be wrong. It all looked cool, anyway. Also, one of the plot points towards the end of the film is bit repetitive / manipulative. We're made to think that Marianne has died, leaving Grégoire alone. This happens shortly after we're fooled into thinking Grégoire has been poisoned in prison. Once is fine, but twice in the same movie is pushing things.
Other than that, the film is pleasure to behold. (8/10)
Mulberry Street (2007) directed by Jim Mickle It's about rat people attacking Manhattan, but I liked it. I think because the characters in the film are so well-drawn, it elevates what could've been a lame 28 Days Later clone. They all feel authentic, with real histories behind them. One small example: as the chaos starts to envelop the apartment building, some yuppie tenants are seen fleeing with bags. "Go back to Connecticut," shouts one of the characters in a thick NY accent. Heh.
I absolutely loved, when Clutch went out to rescue Kay, that he decided just to punch out the rat people he encountered. He's a former boxer. His fists are the weapons he's most comfortable with. Why not? It's a fresh idea. We've seen zombies/the infected being shot, burned, beaten and run over by cars over and over. Punched out: not so much.
Actually, if they'd just dropped the rat people thing, this could've been an even better horror movie. People being bit by rats and turning into rabid, rat-like people... it's hard to take seriously. It's actually such a goofy idea, it kicks you right out of the movie. Just drop the rat part of it entirely: one day, people in Manhattan started to go batshit and no one knew why. That's all you need to get the horror going. (7/10)
Fear Itself: "Community" (2008) directed by Mary Harron Sort of in the same universe as The Stepford Wives and "The Lottery," "Community" is about a HOA from hell. Superman and his wife move into a gated community in the hopes of raising a family there. Not having really read the contact they signed for their house (?), they quickly discover the community has a rather puritan morality code. Rather than pack up and leave, Superman hatches an irrational plan involving sneaking his wife away to a cabin and having a friend's wife pretend to be her to fool the cameras hidden in their house. Of course, they all get caught. Somehow the wife is magically brainwashed to accept the situation, and Superman's legs are cut off as punishment. I dunno. Not much makes sense in this one, but HOA are indeed scary... (6/10)
Fear Itself: "Sacrifice" (2008) directed by Breck Eisner The best one of these so far, which isn't saying much. Criminals take refuge in a very cool 18th century-style fort. Three sisters and their father live there, who've never ventured outside of the fort's walls. Seems their family's been keeping a vampire fed and contained in there for centuries for the good of the rest of the world. Needless to say, the vampires eat some of the criminals and some shit hits the fan with the sisters. There's some nice moments and good acting to help make this an enjoyable episode. (7/10)
Tales from the Crypt: "Death of Some Salesmen" (1993) directed by Gilbert Adler Did you ever want to see Ed Begley Jr. have sex with Tim Curry? Me neither, but it was amusing anyway. Curry plays three roles in this episode: an entire redneck family who hate salesmen. That, by itself, is enough for a good time. Throw in a cameo by Lily Munster and a classic "scumbag gets what's coming to him" EC comics plot to make a for fun season five opener. (7/10)
C.H.U.D. (1984) directed by Douglas Cheek Somehow, this is one '80s horror flick I'd never seen before. I really wasn't missing much. For being about underground cannibals (who are also humanoid dwellers), the critters don't do any on-screen eating that I remember. They actually don't do much of anything for the majority of the movie. Most of the film follows a preacher, a police captain and a photographer as they slowly unravel the mystery of the disappearing underground homeless people. It's kinda slow, but not the good kind of horror movie slow where the tension is built. I did dig the gritty NYC setting, though. (6/10)
Intercessor: Another Rock 'N' Roll Nightmare (2005) directed by Benn McGuire & Jacob Windatt Ah Thor, I love you, buddy, but this wasn't the sequel I was hoping for. The movie is jam-packed with bad acting, crappy special F/X, non-existent sound F/X, inept editing, lame ideas... but we expect that based on the original movie. No, those aren't really the problem with this flick. It's more fundamental than those things. The main fault of the film is that Thor just doesn't kick enough ass.
That's all I really wanted from this movie. I wanted the end of the first movie, in which Thor turns into the Intercessor and beats the shit out of a rubber puppet of the devil while a kickin' Thor song plays in the background, repeated a bunch of times in this movie. That's all. Instead, they focus on some greasy-haired weenie for the first half of the movie. When Thor finally starts to carry the film, they give him a lame "mace" -- which appears to be a child's karaoke microphone -- which he uses to zap CGI lightening at the bad guys. Yep, instead of having the body-builder hero punch the bad guys, they have him point a plastic toy at them and the computer F/X team draws in some lightening. Weak. He does get into one real fight... but it's with the branches of a weeping willow tree. C'mon Thor -- you got better in you than this. (4/10)
High Tension: Director's Cut (2003) directed by Alexandre Aja I'd heard that this was a great movie except for the ending. For six years, I carefully kept myself spoiler-free, not wanting to ruin the movie should I get around the seeing it. Well, I got around to seeing it. It's just a slasher movie with the Fight Clubtwist, nothing more.
The slasher component is one horror movie cliche after another. The female protagonist hides from the killer in the bathroom. We think she's in the bathtub, but, nope, the killer flings the curtains open and she's not there. Whew. She tries to call the police, but the phoneline in the house is cut. She hides in a closet and sees the killer though the slats in the door. She asks a gas station attendant for help and he's promptly killed. Homage though it is, I found it a bit boring as a veteran slasher fan.
The Fight Club component wasn't constructed very carefully, I don't think. You'd expect, if you went back and watched the movie a second time, there'd be an explanation for every time the imaginary character does something. I don't think that's the case for the car accident scene near the end. Marie is in a car chasing herself driving an old truck. Fine: one of the vehicles is imaginary. The car crashes and she gets cut pretty badly. We know these cuts are real, because she has them in the institution at the end. However, she later pulls Alex out of the back of the truck she imagined she was chasing. So the truck is real for having Alex in it and the car is real for cutting Marie... how did she drive two vehicles at the same time? (6/10)
The Twilight Zone: "The Toys of Caliban" (1986) directed by Thomas J. Wright I've had strange memories of this episode stuck in my brain for 23 years. As a wee lad of nine, I watched it with my dad when it originally aired. I never knew what the title was or even which anthology series it was in. I finally googled a vague description and discovered I had the episode in the house. It's about an old couple with a retarded son. The son has the ability to teleport anything he sees a picture of. They allow him a picture book filled with toys, but keep every other photo in the house locked up. Part of the problem is that any living thing he "brings" arrives dead. He's also starting to figure out how to teleport things from memory. Things begin to unravel when he brings himself some food-poisoned donuts and his weary parents have to take him to the hospital.
As a kid, I think part of what disturbed me about this episode -- besides the obvious scare of when he brings his dead mother back, who appears as a gross corpse -- is the same reason Bizarro is Superman's scariest enemy. A mental incompetent with super powers is terrifying. You can at least understand why Lex Luthor does what he does. You can try to reason with him. If Toby from this episode sees you on the street and telelports you home with him, you're gonna die and he won't understand what's he done.
The episode's actually not made to scare, though. It's really about a parent's unwavering love for his kid, no matter what the kid can do. Though it ends on a depressing note, it's really quite touching. (7/10)
Are none of these people parents? What the hell is Terry Gilliam thinking? At least Lynch has the excuse that he's not exactly sane. John Landis obviously empathizes with escaping punishment for harming children, so I can see why he signed. But, why does the director of my favorite movie have the be there? The next time I watch Taxi Driver, am I to think Scorsese's really sympathizing with Sport? Goddammit.
Ghostbusters (1984) directed by Ivan Reitman Listen! Do you smell something? I think this is probably my favorite comedy of all time. I can't think of any other movie with as many quotable lines.
One aspect I've always appreciated about this film was that the supernatural stuff in the film was taken relatively seriously. The crazy architecture of Ivo Shandor and the return of an old god are very lovecraftian. Ghosts are kind of explained in scientific terms, with technobabble throwaways about P.K.E. readings, ectoplasm, laser confinement grids and proton packs. It all sounds plausible enough to buy into. The reaction of the public to the increase in ghostly activity is pretty true-to-life: religious people are freaking out, liberal magazine The Atlantic Monthly ponders on a cover "Do Ghosts Have Civil Rights?", a talk host hosts asks if the boys have seen Elvis. I'm sure Dan Aykroyd can be thanked for all of this, given his real-life beliefs. (9/10)
Chronocinethon. That's my made-up name for watching the films of a favorite director, or movie personality, in chronological order. This gives me a sense of where they came from, where they went, how much or little they grew, and whether it was worth buying their worst film (I own Intolerable Cruelty?). Guest reviews and other movie-related posts will also show up here.
