moving picture trash

Beginnings and Endings: Sam Peckinpah's Major Dundee (1965)

2011-07-26T18:13:00.011-04:00

Well shit. I meant to write this thing up a few weeks ago as part of my Peckinpah retrospective that I’m hoping to someday finish. Unfortunately, the latest movie I watched was a bit of an epic slog. Peckinpah was just coming off the critically lauded Ride the High Country which Charlton Heston had actually seen and liked. He was just the type of director to shoot Heston’s next project, something called Major Dundee (oh wait, the picture I’m writing about) in the style of such epics as Lawrence of Arabia or maybe Heston’s own El Cid. You know, a three hour picture complete with an overture, interlude, etc. The kind of picture that won Oscars and made millions. Anyway, watched this thing a few weeks ago. My memories a little fuzzy. Details come in and out. I think it’s about a Major or some shit during the Civil War, except it takes place in the Old West which is not where many Civil War battles were fought. Or something. Apaches figure into this thing. There’s a Scottish or Irish Captain who fought for the South. And a young bugler narrates the story, although his narration is so few and far between that we forget who he is and why he's talking over a Heston/Peckinpah collaboration. The end.

Okay, I’m just messing with you. That’d be a shitty review. Truthfully, I wrote this thing the other night and I thought it came out pretty good. The words just flowed out of me. Then blogspot lost it (without saving) and I nearly threw my laptop out the window. Now I’m just trying to remember it piece by piece and it ain’t working out too well. Like I said earlier, Heston hand-picked Peckinpah to direct this feature thinking he’d found some young genius filmmaker (he had) that he could control (not quite). Peckinpah was allowed to be himself on the set which is to say belligerent with the crew, drunk all the time, slapping around women, and shooting out mirrors in his hotel room (I’m theorizing here). I keep hearing/reading that Heston tried to run Peckinpah through with a saber. Not sure if that’s true or not. I think I read it in some book somewhere. So, Peckinpah was not the easiest guy to work with. And then the picture went overtime and over budget and got shut down with several scenes yet to be shot. That’s fine, they thought, we can stitch together a piece of crap and it’ll still make money.

What I managed to get my hands on is the extended edition which the DVD back cover claims to be “A Restored Masterpiece.” Well, the whole “masterpiece” thing got me thinking about what they meant by “masterpiece”. So, I decided to look it up in the ol’ dictionary.com. First thing I noticed is it’s a noun. Second thing I noticed is it’s got three definitions. Shit, when did dictionaries get so complicated? The first one defines “masterpiece” as “a person’s greatest piece of work, as in an art.” That definitely doesn’t apply here since this thing isn’t even as good as the last Peckinpah I watched. Fuck, I may have mislabeled that thing myself when I called it his “first masterpiece” since according to this definition you’re only entitled to one in your lifetime. The second definition states it’s “anything done with masterly skill.” So, I guess this one might work here. I don't think so but if you're being a pussy I could see how you might think so. We're getting a little too lenient in what qualifies as a masterpiece. Using it in a sentence, I guess I’d go with "Father didn’t let son help build his Pinewood derby car in the hope that it could actually be labeled a masterpiece." The final definition claims it’s “a consummate example of skill or excellence of any kind.” That last definition throws me for a bit of a loop. “ANY kind”? Farting, apparently, can qualify. Quitting, could even be considered a masterpiece. I guess you could consider it a masterpiece when I won the eagle feather at Camp Sunrise (a Cub Scout, thing) but I consider it more of a masterpiece when I quit Boy Scouts after one meeting. It wasn’t quite what I expected. Anyway, we got a few definitions of masterpiece to contend with here. Major Dundee doesn’t qualify for any of them, in my opinion. I guess this is the part where I ramble on to try and explain myself.

Major Dundee, for the most part, doesn’t even feel like a Peckinpah picture. We got here the story of a disgraced Major in the Union army named Dundee (no relation to Crocodile, far as I can tell). Dundee fought in one of the big skirmishes in the Civil War, something like Salisbury Hill or Gettysburgh. Like I said, it’s not easy remembering this shit. Well, turns out Dundee made some tactical blunder in the hopes of achieving glory and got a bunch of men killed. As punishment, he was sent out to the New Mexico territory to warden over some prison. The picture opens with the aftermath of an Apache massacre of a family on a ranch. Dundee sent in a small army and they were also massacred (we don’t see any of this shit). The Apaches don’t discriminate when it comes to slaughter except for young boys who they capture to develop into warriors. Dundee sees his chance for redemption. Gather up an army and pursue the Apaches across the Rio Grande and into Mexico, rescue the boys, get sent back into the real war with maybe a plaque or a statue or something, bed some broads, etc. It’s the perfect opportunity.

Of course there’s a scene where Dundee has to put together his rag tag army. Some are regular soldiers; the bugler, his bookish lieutenant, etc. The majority end up being horse thieves, rapists (I’m pretty sure), drunks, etc. We got a black regiment mixed in there somewhere, back of the line-ish, and this coming 20+ years before Glory. That’s pretty impressive. We also got a scout, played by James Coburn, with one arm. It’s a decent special effect for the time. Looks like they just stuffed something in his left sleeve and tied it off where the stump would be. No CGI as far as I could tell. Coburn’s a friend of the injun, sorry Indian. He calls them his brothers. They have wrestling matches and Knife fights for fun. Typical brother shit. Most interesting, we have a few jailed confederate soldiers led by Captain Tyrese or Tyrel or whatever. He’s played by the ahab-ish (Quint-ish?) boat captain from that movie Orca. The picture where Bo “10” Derek gets her already broken leg bitten off. Anyway, Tyrell and Dundee were friends at West Point. Can’t remember exactly what happened but they had a falling out. Tyrell (an Irish or a Scotsman) went to fight with the South while Dundee fought for the North. Now, here’s Captain Tyrese in Dundee’s prison where he and his men are given the option of hanging or joining the army and taking orders from Dundee. I can’t imagine hanging prisoners of war being acceptable, so maybe Tyrese and his men did some other shit before being captured. Also, Warren Oates is one of the confederate soldiers. Moustache and all. And R.G. Armstrong plays a man of god but isn’t quite the zealot he was in the last picture. Slim Pickens is a drunken horse thief I think, but other than a few lines, he barely resonated.

Basically, this picture is a bunch of scenes of Dundee and his men riding across the countryside, having unmemorable skirmishes with Apaches, dealing with uninteresting dissension among the ranks, encountering some French assholes, bedding a couple women here and there, wrestling, eating, drinking, bugling, etc. Hell, I even forgot what they were out there looking for. Oh yeah, a couple of kidnapped boys. The Apaches are complete non characters, none more so of a non-character than their chief, Chief Sonny Chiba (I think). This guy is a legend, a nightmare of the western plains yet I don’t even remember getting a look at his face or even hearing him talk. The villain of the picture is faceless. We’re supposed to fear him because of what we’ve heard he’s done but we never see any of that shit.

I suppose we could look at the major conflict of the picture as being between Dundee and Captain Tyrone and, actually, this is where the picture comes closest to feeling like a Peckinpah picture. We got two manly men (well, Tyrone is a bit dainty, truthfully) who used to be on the same side but have been driven apart by circumstances and are now fighting on opposite sides. Friends respecting, but trying to kill one another is a Peckinpah theme (see Holden/Ryan in The Wild Bunch or Coburn/Kristofferson in the Billy the Kid picture). Unfortunately, once Dundee and whats his face have to set aside their differences for the common good it veers into more of a Hollywood cliché, rather than Peckinpah territory. The French army doesn’t really work as a source of real conflict or villainy either. Fuck, Dundee and his men storm into a French occupied town looking to pillage for supplies after their army was ambushed. Dundee and his crew are the invaders, in this scenario. Then they have a party and Dundee’s army ends up bedding some Mexican women. I think Dundee bedded a broad too, but it was never made overtly clear. Even the bugler banged a Mexican broad. Shit, these Mexican women, who can’t even speak English, are just happy as can be to get some gringo dick. Poor bugler was reprimanded the next morning when he stumbled out for revelry, or whatever it’s called, pants around the ol’ ankles.

Where was I? Oh yeah, the picture lacks conflict. It lacks resolution. It lacks a cohesive story. It lacks those unique Peckinpah touches. Oh sure, we got a bunch of men acting tough together, mistreating their women, and drinking gallons of whiskey. What it lacks is Peckinpah’s soul. The man’s an artist. His great pictures usually have all his problems thrown up on the screen for the world to see. This just feels like a picture that deserves to be forgotten. There’s almost nothing on screen that would have been presented differently if, say, Heston had directed the thing himself. Or, some other guy. Whoever. Doesn’t matter. Point is, this doesn’t feel like a Peckinpah. We got no slow motion action scenes (which admittedly, he wouldn’t use until his next picture), we got no mirror shooting, we got little sense of a character’s motivations. We know Dundee wants to redeem himself for his previous war blunders. We’re not quite sure what he did (at least, I don’t remember what he did) . We’re just kind of told he wants that glory that eludes most men. Captain Tyreke tells him something along the lines of did you ever stop to think that maybe there’s a reason you’re the warden of a prison while there’s a war going on. In other words, he’s kind of a chump. I will say Heston makes a great chump. We see his desperation, he drinks a lot, takes an arrow in the leg like a man, etc. He’s still a chump.

Unfortunately, the picture (already a great big slog) just falls completely apart at the end. Finally, Dundee and his men come face to face with Apache Chief Chiba. The battle is unexciting and too quick. Chiba is unceremoniously dispatched (with minimal fight) and his body gets pushed down a ravine. I think that’s how he went out. Before the men can high five each other one of Dundee’s men looks across a meadow and says “Oh fuck, we forgot about the French.” The French, who are coming to get their revenge, apparently. The battle takes place in the Rio Grande, on horseback. Guns blaze, swords thwack, soldiers fall into the river before they’ve been struck. It’s an appallingly incompetent scene and I refuse to believe Peckinpah had any part in it. I’ll just believe he was kicked off set before they even got to it. What comes next is even more un-Peckinpah, in my opinion. Of course, one of either Tyreen or Dundee are probably going to die. I would have gone with Dundee. Instead, Tyreen is mortally shot. The first French wave has been disbanded but French reinforcements are racing towards the river. Tyreen singlehandedly charges into their masses giving Dundee and his remaining men just enough time to escape. Like fucking cowards. What was the point of Tyreen’s sacrifice (which wasn't much of a sacrifice when you consider he was already moments from death)? He allowed for a deeply flawed and cowardly (again, not a trait Peckinpah would respect) man to escape. What was the point of the picture? The picture ends as soon as Dundee makes it to the other side of the river. Sure, they had revenge on Chief Chiba, a man the audience could give a shit about. It’s possible I dozed during the part where they rescued the kidnapped children. I’ll just assume it didn’t happen. I don’t know, it’s all a bit muddled. Could have used a better climax is what I’m saying. Also a better middle. And a better beginning. Not one of Peckinpah’s finest works, but I’m not sure it’s entirely his fault. Maybe he’ll have more luck with his next picture.

Also, Oates gets shot in the back. By his own man. Spoiler alert. So, basically what I'm getting at is Major Dundee is a classic picture deserving of it's "restored masterpiece" status. Fucking with you again. Major Dundee is a Major Disappointment. Fuck, who am I? Gene Shalit? I'm not ending with that bullshit. Let's just say Peckinpah was really,really drunk. The perfect catch-all excuse.

Apologies to Richard Harris. I know who you are. I just couldn't keep your character's name straight. My bad.

Next Up: Ernest Borgnine makes his Peckinpah debut and gets (spoiler!) shot full of holes for his trouble.

Motifs: Um, old West setting, some drinking, a few broads get hurt (this time more emotionally, than phsyically), guy talk around a fire, lots of men, etc

Peckinpah Regulars: R.G. Armstrong, Warren Oates, Slim Pickens, Dub Taylor, James Coburn, L.Q. Jones, Ben Johnson, maybe a couple others

Beginnings and Endings: Sam Peckinpah's Ride the High Country (1962)

2011-07-12T20:44:00.006-04:00

Well, here we have it. A bonafide Peckinpah classic. It only took him two attempts. This one hits on some themes that Peckinpah will use throughout his career; friendship, betrayal, growing old during changing times, etc. Also, gleefully shooting chickens for the hell of it as well as a heoine who's in constant peril. Unlike his previous film (The Deadly Companions), Ride the High Country is eminently rewatchable and endlessly quotable. Unlike the majority of Peckinpah pictures, it features a central character we can get behind 100%. Joel McRea, as Steve Judd, is a good man whose only ambition is to walk into his home "justified."

Judd's an aging ex-lawman. A man the world is quickly passing by. He rides into a Californian town, a town immersed in carnival atmosphere, looking for work. Peckinpah is not subtle in this scene with townspeople referring to Judd as "old man", "old timer", "gramps", etc. It's in this town that Judd runs into an old friend (also, former lawman) Gil Westrum, played by Randolph Scott. Westrum has been relegated to running a carnival shoot-em-up game while dressed as Buffalo Bill. Judd's got a job offer from the local bank. Transport a quarter of a million dollars in gold bullion from a mining town called Coarsegold back to the bank's vault. Unfortunately, after meeting with the bank managers, the bounty has been lowered to twenty thousand dollars. An undertaking of great importance has suddenly become something like "eh, take it or leave it...what do we care?" Still, a jobs a job. He wants Westrum to be his partner, just like old times. Westrum wants to bring along his new friend, the young, brash, and incredibly named Heck Longtree (Ron Starr). Our introduction to Heck comes as he races a camel against a thoroughbred, wins, and then punches out the losing jockey. That's so Peckinpah (I don't know what that means).

So, we got this threesome, two old friends and one arrogant son of a bitch, riding over the High Sierras to collect some gold and return it to the bank for forty dollars a day (split three ways). Time's sure have changed, but it's an honest living. At least, that's the way Judd looks at it. Longtree and Westrum have other ideas. Well, one other idea. The plan, along the way, is to convince Judd to make off with the gold for themselves and retire somewhere nice. Westrum's got a few days to convince him in his own subtle ways. He tells him shit like "a poor man dies with only his clothes of pride on his back" while Longtree's got other, more blunt, methods: "Let's just bend the gun barrel over his head." After all, splitting the gold two ways is better than three ways.

Like most good Peckinpah movies, this one's full of some colorful characters. They spend one night in a farmer's barn. The farmer, Joshua Knudson, is played by Peckinpah regular, R.G. Armstrong. He's the kind of character that often shows up in his films. Bible fearing, apt to quote scripture at the dinner table, dead wife, etc. I could be wrong, and it's been a while since I seen it, but I think Armstrong plays the exact same type of guy in Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid. I'll let you know when I watch it again. Well, this Knudson fellow also happens to have a lovely, young, tom-boyish daughter named Elsa. If you read my previous entry in this series, you can only imagine what kind of shit she endures.

Eventually, our three gold transporters make it to Coarsegold with Elsa in tow. Long story, but Elsa is somewhat betrothed to a miner in town and decided to run away from home after her father slapped her around. Course, she was talking to Heck at the time, so in Joshua's eyes, she deserved it. Slut. Anyway, she's to marry this guy in town named Billy Hamlin. Unbeknownst to her, Billy's got four brothers, all scum bags. One of those scum bags is another Peckinpah regular, L.Q. Jones. It's possible you know him as the director of A Boy and His Dog. It's probable that you don't. Another brother, my favorite brother, is named Henry and played by Warren Oates (yep, you guessed it, another Peckinpah regular). Oates doesn't clean up too well. In preparation for Billy and Elsa's wedding (to happen that very night she wanders into town) the brothers drop him in a trough. So, Elsa's to be married and, apparently, whored out by her new husband to his four brothers. Meanwhile, Steve, Gil, and Heck continue into town to collect their gold.

Well, shit, sometimes the good movies are the hardest to write about. And this one's pretty great. The script is simple, yet fairly profound. We got lots of great dialogue like when Judd talks about the younger generation: "Boy's now adays. No pride, no self respect....all gall and no sand." There's not much in the picture's technique that makes me think Peckinpah; we got no slow motion (he still hasn't worked up to that yet), we got no shooting of mirrors, we got no freeze frames. It's all in the feel. There's a sadness hanging over every frame. The dying of the west, a new breed of men taking it over, things becoming more cut throat, friendship meaning less than the ever loving dollar, etc. Also, women still getting smacked around. Some things are timeless, I guess.

The score is nearly iconic. Fuck, it's great and wasn't even a Jerry Fielding score. It's by George Bassman who did things like The Wizard of Oz and The Road to Zanzibar. The script (which Peckinpah was actually allowed to tinker with before shooting) is chock full of great little character moments. Like the scene where Judd lectures Heck about littering on the mountain. I particularly liked the drunken judge who, upon marrying Billy and Elsa, says "a good marriage is like a rare animal, hard to find." Then Billy takes Elsa into the honeymoon suite to begin their, ahem, consensual consumation only to be knocked out cold by a falling bookshelf. Of course, in to the honeymoon suite struts two of his brothers, more than prepared to uphold that value which the Hamlin family holds most dear, the value of sharing.

A late night rescue ensues, followed by a flight across the mountains, pursuit by those idiot Hamlins, betrayal, mountaintop gunfights, escape into the valley, and....spoiler....ultimate tragedy. The very end of the film is moving in the way that most great films are. It's legitimate. It's earned. The last image, of Judd looking up into the high country, should be famous. We rode with these characters and we cared for them. They're not two dimensional (well, maybe Elsa...and the Hamlins). The one who surprised me the most was Heck Longtree who evolved into a god damned, fully formed individual by the time this thing ended. And then there's Warren Oates, who, in the middle of a hectic, edge of your seat, fight for your life, climactic gun battle starts shooting the heads off of bothersome chickens. Ah, that's so Peckinpah.

Next up: Charlton Heston tries to run Peckipah through with a sword

Motifs: aging men in changing times, friendship, betrayal, drinking, abused women, shooting the heads off of chickens

Peckinpah regulars: R.G. Armstrong, L.Q. Jones, Warren Oates

Beginnings and Endings: Sam Peckinpah's The Deadly Companions (1961)

2011-07-05T21:12:00.018-04:00

I'm going to attempt something a little different going forward. I'm going to trace the careers of varying directors, see how they evolve (or, in some cases, devolve). For the most part, I'll pick directors that are not so widely known. Maybe a guy (or gal) that only had a few films to their credit. In some cases, I'll write up each film in their filmography. In other cases (probably with Peckinpah) I'll only pick out some of their pictures, the ones deemed important (by me, anyway). I'll try to pick up on things like motifs (snooty critic term for recurring themes) and other directoral touches that appear from time to time. I don't know, we'll see how far I take this thing. I might begin and end with Sam Peckinpah.

I'm sure we're all aware of the story of Sam Peckinpah, the barely functioning alcoholic auteur (another fancy critical term I'll be abusing) who drank like a fish, verbally and physically abused the women in his life and made sure all his transgressions ended up on screen. Eventually, he succumbed to his drinking at the age of 59 which, considering how much he drank, should be considered a ripe old age. Yet, despite his temper, his drinking, his physical altercations, he maintained several relationships that lasted until his death. Some of his friends even loved him, claimed he was misunderstood, etc. He worked with the same actors over and over. Guys like Warren Oates, L.Q. Jones, R.G. Armstrong, James Coburn, Kris Kristoferson, Slim Pickens, Steven McQueen, etc. Not many women worked with him more than once though. Not many women had important roles in his pictures. The women in his pictures were rarely what could be considered strong. Almost always subservient to their men. Whores, harlots, prostitutes, rape victims, etc. I'm getting a little redundant here. Point is, Peckinpah apparently had a problem with women. I'm not for advocating most of his views. I mean, I like a little gun violence from time to time but demeaning women ain't really my thing. It's just not a very politically correct thing to do, even for a guy like me. I love women. However, it doesn't change the fact that the man knew how to shoot and put together a picture. Some of what he created are outright masterpieces. Others, brilliantly flawed. Some, interesting failures. Very few can be considered mediocre. Some might be awful, but worth a viewing. Maybe one or two are hilariously bad. In his later years, he was supposedly too drunk to make it to many of his sets so whichever picture he was shooting at the time had to be shot by someone else (usually James Coburn). Eventually, the drink claimed his life. Thankfully, he left behind some pretty great shit (I'm referring to his movies).

Anyway, Peckinpah's first film, The Deadly Companions, doesn't feel much like a Peckinpah picture at all. It's the story of an ex-Union soldier named Yellowleg (played by Brian Keith) who comes into a typical western town with his two companions (I'm guessing they're pretty deadly), named Billy and Turkey. Their plan: to rob a bank. However, before they can get to robbing the joint some other hoodlum already started robbing it. There's a shootout and amidst the chaos a little boy is shot and killed. Turns out this little boy is the son of the town harlot (Maureen O'hara - a pretty big name since even I heard of her). And the killing bullet was revealed to have shot out of Yellowleg's pistol. The harlot, her name's Kit, beset by grief, decides to journey across Apache country to bury her son with his father in a small, long abandoned, town called Sorenko (or some shit like that). Yellowleg, beset by guilt, offers to guide her safely through Apache country. Of course, Kit isn't too thrilled with him so she doesn't accept his offer. He follows her, determined to protect her, along with his two companions; the grizzled old Turkey (Chill Wills - heard of him too) and the young, brash Billy (some guy, can't be bothered to look him up).

Now, I'm no Peckinpah expert. I mean, I've seen a bunch of his pictures, read his biography called "Bloody Sam", and refreshed my brain by skimming on the wikipedia. Maybe that does make me a scholar of the guy, I don't know. My guess is not. What I do know is the guy had some serious issues. He was a boozer, a womanizer, a drug user, prone to violence, fits of rage, etc. Anyway, typical issues and shit. This kind of shit is always showing up in his movies too. His characters always drink, push around women, and shoot other characters, usually in artsy slow motion. When I say "push around women" what I meant to say was forcibly have sex with them to the point where the woman actually starts to enjoy it. See, what did I say? The guy's a real sweetheart.

Also, the guy (Peckinpah, again) has a thing against mirrors. He likes to have his characters look at themselves in a mirror and then shoot out the mirror. I guess they don't like what they see. It's some sort of metaphor or something. Guy shooting a mirror is a guy figuratively shooting himself. See, that's pretty artsy. To be honest, I only remember one other movie of his where a guy shoots a mirror. It's right at the end of Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid when Garrett shoots himself in a mirror after killing the Kid. Sorry, for the spoiler there. Garrett shoots, and kills, Bill the Kid. I hope you've already seen the movie. I'm sure there was a similar mirror scene in The Wild Bunch (but I don't remember it) and maybe in Straw Dogs. There's no way Dustin Hoffman could have liked looking at himself in the mirror after what happens to Susan George in that movie. Anyway, in The Deadly Companions the Billy character shoots himself in a mirror at the beginning of the picture. They're in a saloon and he and Yellowleg have just rescued Turkey from being strung up after cheating at cards. This mirror shooting scene is one of a few Peckinpah touches in this movie.

From what I read about this picture, Peckinpah had no input on the script or control in the editing room (I guess that's why we got no slow motion shootouts). Apparently, he wasn' even allowed to talk to his leading lady. So, any of his touches probably had to be smuggled into the movie, so to speak. I'm sure he told Billy to shoot that mirror even though it likely wasn't in the script. Weird aside: I remember reading that Peckinpah used to get drunk and shoot out mirrors in his house. Not sure if this is true or not. If it is, he really had a thing against mirrors. Wonder if Martin Sheen drunkenly Tai Chi'ing that mirror in the beginning of Apocalypse Now was some sort of homage to the guy?   What's the subject again? Oh yeah, those Peckinpah touches. Let's just say that the character of Kit was a typical Peckinpah lady. A whore, devoid of competence, constantly needing to be saved, a target of sexual violence, incapable of driving a stage coach across even the smallest of streams, etc.  Of course, since Peckinpah had no input on the script and couldn't even talk to O'hara he probably had some go between tell her what he wanted. Or, maybe he used telepathy. Or, maybe this type of female character was more common in the old style westerns which, let's be honest, this sort of is.

So, let's get something straight.  After Yellowleg kill's Kit's son, she eventually, albeit reluctantly, agrees to let him drive her stage coach? She agrees to let his two deadly companions come along as well even though the younger one is constantly cracking wise about how he's going to get with her? The old west was a strange place, a place where women were pretty much good for one thing. Whoring themselves out, apparently. Or gossipping in church about women whoring themselves out even though they, themselves, were probably turning tricks out behind church as soon as service got out. Or maybe during the sermon they snuck out to give nickel handjobs or something.  The west was a fucked up and pretty great place I must confess. Nah, I'm just kidding. It was only so-so. I'm sure none of the whores (the movie's word, not mine) back then looked anything like Maureen O'hara.

Well, I'm now going to talk about something that will make any women readers out there (Do you even exist?) a bit uncomfortable. Peckinpah really, I mean really, had it in for women. He had it so far in for them (bad choice of words?) that almost all of his sex scenes would (by modern standards) be considered rape on some level. That's bad enough. It gets worse. Not only do a bunch (all?) of his female characters get raped but they usually end up getting...ahem...into it.  We're talking moaning, some oohing, some ahhing, etc. Does Peckinpah believe that women enjoy rape? It sure seems like he might. Is he going to be winning any feminist of the year awards anytime soon? Probably not, but that's because he's dead. Also, a misogynist. I wish I remembered more details about his personal life to provide some insight here. I could make some shit up if you'd like? Anyway, Kit doesn't get raped, but she does get almost-raped. At no point does she seem to enjoy her almost-rape and then she is saved by Yellowleg.  I bet you assumed the almost rapist was a sex starved Apache? Racist. No, clearly it was Billy. If Peckinpah had been able to rewrite the script we definitely would have had Yellowleg save Kit only to push her down and ravish her himself. That's just the kind of hero he should be, is what Peckinpah probably was thinking to himself.

Well, shit, I'm running a bit long on a picture that isn't very Peckinpah and was actually pretty mediocre. I only included it because I wanted to show how he began. As a gun for hire. That's pretty much the same way he ended (see The Osterman Weekend). The picture's only interesting in showing where a legendary director began. Otherwise, it would be forgotten by just about everyone (it likely has been). It's poorly shot, the night scenes (of which there are many, including an absolutely incomprehensible Apache raid of the companion's camp) are horrendously lit, the acting ranges from slightly over the top (the guy that plays Billy) to homeless man's John Wayne (Brian Keith).   Speaking of Yellowleg, there's an interesting bit about his hat. It's kind of a motif (there's that word again) throughout the movie. Why does he refuse to take it off? Even in church?  The reveal is pretty ridiculous and then I forgot all about it. Also, he wanted revenge on the guy who was responsible for him never wanting to take off his hat. Could be his barber. I really don't recall. The old west was known for barbers giving out bad haircuts. That's why everyone wore hats. Even the women had bonnets and shit.

Oh, one other thing I sorta liked. Yellowleg had a "ball" (old west term for bullet) lodged in his shoulder. So, his gun arm was pretty useless. It lead to some pretty embarassing moments of him dropping his pistol when confronted by Billy, etc. The last shootout also shows him to be a pretty bad shot. That's one more theme in these Peckinpah flicks. Flawed heroes. Although, most of them can shoot straight. I don't think many other Peckinpah "heroes" would have much time for this Yellowleg fellow. Also, he's got "yellow" in his name. It's pretty fucking obvious.

Anyway, this is where Sam Peckinpah started (excluding his television work). A mostly shitty movie with only a few of his trademarks (mirror shootings, abused women). Also, there's a church service, I alluded to earlier, that takes place in a bar. I guess the church hasn't been built yet. I liked how the bartender had to pull blinds over the nudie pictures adorning the tavern walls because the pastor didn't appreciate them as much on sundays as he did on other days. Not sure if that was Peckinpah or not, but it sure felt like it was. This one just feels small and stagey. The score isn't by Jerry Fielding so we can surmise that it's a non-iconic, typical Westerny, middling affair. The wide open west, in this picture, is not so wide open. This one's on Netflix instant. Don't bother checking it out unless you're some sorta ridiculous completist.

Next up: Peckinpah's first masterpiece (I'll get to it when I get to it).

Motifs: aging men in changing times, abused women, drinking, shooting oneself in a mirror, betrayal

Peckinpah regulars: Chill Wills

Welcome to the Jungle (2007)

2011-03-15T19:32:00.013-04:00

Well, this isn't exactly how I wanted to get back in the game, but here you go. A write up for a picture made within the last decade. I'm not gonna lie. I got extremely bored with the whole blogging thing. If I could, I'd make my own website just so I wouldn't have to refer to myself as a blogger. Unfortunately, I'm not that technically inclined. On top of that, I couldn't figure out which direction I wanted to go in with this thing. I have no interest in discussing current theatrical releases. I have no interest in writing proper reviews. I enjoy reading reviews, but writing that shit just isn't for me. But, that's exactly what I started to do. Also, I was burned out...completely burned out. Less than a year ago, I quit my second job and that helped a little, but not enough. I was just mentally exhausted. And, did I mention bored? Getting rid of the second job was a good thing. A great thing. It just took me a while to get motivated to attempt this thing again. I'm taking baby steps. These things are going to stream out a little at a time, like urine from an infected tract. Shake it off. I'm determined not to burn out again.

Anyway, I'm back with a review of a picture from an era, an era I won't often be dealing with. My heart lies with the 60s, 70, and most of the 80s. Sure, a more current movie may creep in every now and then, but don't count on it. Unfortunately, my first write up is for just such a creeper. It's also unfortunate that this picture is of the "found footage" genre, a genre that has pretty much run its course. Welcome to the Jungle is the story of a couple of Australian girls who meet up with a couple of American guys while vacationing within a short boat ride of New Guinea (where exactly is never clearly explained or, more likely, I just hadn't started paying attention yet). The foursome, after nights spent imbibing and fornicating, eventually become a pair of twosomes. The annoyingly responsible pair (Mandy and Colby) and the obnoxiously enabling pair (Bijou and Mikey). While at a bar, and drunk, they hear a pilot relate the story of how he saw a 70 year old white man amongst one of New Guinea's cannibal tribes. Well, just so happens that back in 1961, 23 year old Michael Rockefeller (putting him at about 70 at the time of this picture) disappeared while canooing in New Guinea (true story). Theories had him drowning, being eaten by a shark or crocodile, or being eaten by a local tribe. Now add a new theory... that he was apparently made into some sort of white shaman and allowed to live out his days among them. The two couples decide to take their video camera into the jungles of New Guinea in the hopes of capturing footage of Rockefeller and selling that footage to a tabloid for millions. It's a noble idea.

Of course, this idea has been done. Refer back to Cannibal Holocaust, Ruggero Deodato's 1980 film with essentially the same premise. Deodato's film is infamous for its depiction of animal slaughter and realistically graphic violence. Deodato was actually arrested at one point for having made a snuff film. He was later vindicated when the cast came to his defense to show that they were actually still very much alive. If there's ever a film where you need to take a shower afterwards, that's the one. Welcome to the Jungle is not even close to being a film like that and, for that reason, feels slight. A fine diversion for an hour and a half, but not much more. It's easily forgettable. A product of its time.

What Welcome to the Jungle does have going for it, however, is a couple of characters (in Mikey and Bijou) that become more unbearable with each passing moment. I couldn't wait for their slaughter. Unfortunately, it comes offscreen, after they wander off, drunkenly of course, from the other two members of their group. We do get to see their leftovers, so there's something. Bijou's remains are an (fortunately, or unfortunately) homage to a similar scene in Cannibal Holocaust, involving the suspension of a cadaver through a pole. It's just a matter of which opening supports the suspension pole. Sorry for the minor spoiler. This version of girl on pole is much more family friendly than the Deodato version. Of course no one gets out alive. It's a found footage movie.

Mikey's character is a big problem. At first I thought he was full of false bravado. A typical preppy American. Then he starts shit with a group of New Guinean youths, calls someone a "zipperhead", and tries to fight a policeman armed with an AK-47. Empowered by booze, Mikey struts through the movie with a complete disrespect for everyone (including those in his group). His demise, while welcome, is wholly unsatisfactory.

The picture meanders along for about an hour. After reaching the port of New Guinea, they acquire a van, and drive around for hours, relying on their GPS, and various travel advisaries. One such advisary warns them of kids being planted in the middle of the road so men, armed with guns, can proceed to rob and likely beat the people in the car (sometimes to death). Guess what happens about five minutes later? Frustratingly, one of the girls is driving and refuses to drive around the kid for fear of hitting him. Women drivers! Get what I'm saying guys? Lots of shit like this happens. I expected a crocodile attack at some point based on all the foreshadowing croc talk, but I guess rigging something like that wasn't in the budget. We do get a group of Christian missionaries in the jungle though. Well, we see two of them and are told the rest of the group is a mile away. Extras cost money, after all. Mikey, predictably, makes fun of them. At least it looked like this picture was shot on some sort of location. I'm told Fiji. A good vacation was had by all.

Besides being populated by cannibals, the jungle is home to another Australian. Call him Kurtz. He's a fat gas station attendant looking motherfucker. He berates the kids when they mess with some sacred burial mounds or something. Tells them to go back the way they came. I mentioned this was a "found footage" picture right? Well, we got one camera to this point and it's used pretty well. The shakey cam usage seems authentic and is not overly distracting. Lots of good shots of Mikey and Bijou frolicking through the jungle, making fun of Colby and the other broad - already forgot her name, rolling cigarettes, drinking all the booze, eating all the food, etc. In other words, an hour of fun for the viewer.

The first reveal of a cannibal is matter-of-factly creepy. I didn't even see the guy at first. Then, Mikey pans the camera, revealing more. By this point, Mikey and Bijou have completely left the other two behind. They've taken a raft (someone just left it there, apparently) and made their way down a river. Things end badly and then we switch to camera #2 (conveniently, the other broad had a spare in her bag). Also, the cannibals have no interest in filming their deeds. I don't know man. This thing was ok. Not every movie has to set the world on fire. The acting was fine, for what they were asked to do (annoy the shit out of the audience). I won't reveal what happens to Colby and the remainig girl other than to say they end up eating a "meal" with some "friendlies".

Then they get murdered and eaten and some old white guy walks in front of the, now, unmanned camera. How did this footage ever get found? Why ask questions like this? I'm sure the cannibals preserved the camera and kept it safe from the rain, other jungle elements, etc. Maybe one of them got greedy and sold the footage to some grocery store rag. Doesn't really matter and, to be honest, I'll forget about such questions as soon as this post is published. If you must watch some cannibal fare, I'd suggest Cannibal Holocaust (as long as you can stomach the animal kills) or perhaps Umberto Lenzi's Eaten Alive (chock full of hilarious misogyny). Both made in an era where you could show some actual nastiness while not hiding behind a lame gimmick. Anyway, this was fun (the write up). Maybe I'll do it again some time.

2010-09-27T17:56:00.001-04:00

Shit, I have a blog don't I? Someday I'll get back to writing on this thing. Someday, soon. Someday, when they stop calling these things blogs. Till then...

Trucker (2008)

2010-07-15T17:36:00.002-04:00

Trucker opens with the sounds of sex. The camera eventually reveals the sex to be between Diane (Michelle Monaghan) and Joey Lawrence's brother. The sex is taking place in a seedy hotel room. It was possibly pre-arranged, maybe even paid for. Diane certainly wants to keep it anonymous. As soon as it's over she splashes some water on her face and leaves the room after rebuking the kid's request to stay in touch via email. The camera follows her as she crosses a parking lot. She then gets into a big rig and hauls it out of there. Whoaaaa (as Joey might say), this broads a trucker. Pretty hot. The title now makes sense.

Trucker is one of those indie dramas that I don't review (or watch) that often. It's a simple story about a woman truck driver who is reunited with her estranged son who she hasn't seen since he was a baby (he's now 11). The boy's father (Benjamin Bratt) is in the hospital with colon cancer and the stepmother (Joey Lauren Adams) has to attend to her own ailing father. Diane's their last option. Reluctantly, she takes the kid. The kid ain't too happy about it either.

You see, Diane is one of those independent type women. This kid's gonna cramp her style. All she wants to do in life is drive her rig (which she proudly owns) and get drunk with her good buddy Runner (Nathan Fillion). There's no room in there for a kid. Meanwhile, the kid just wants to be back with his daddy who is a pretty great daddy in the opinion of the kid. He takes care of him, pays attention to him, plays games with him, and puts food on the table for him. Diane isn't really willing to do any of those things. Will she come to love the little guy? Will he love her back?

Basically, what we got here is a story not unlike more popular shit like The Wrestler or Crazy/Heart only the central character is just a regular Joe (or Joan) and not some former celebrity trying to reclaim past glory. Diane's a truck driver. That's pretty much all she wants to do. In that regard I guess it makes sense that they got the blue collar Michelle Monaghan to play the part. Although, if Charlize Theron or Sandra Bullock had taken it they'd probably have another Oscar on their mantle. Monaghan just doesn't come with the same name recognition which is a shame since she does great work here. The script is a little on the predictable side. She and her kid don't get along. Then all of a sudden they do get along just in time for the reveal that they're going to have to spend a lot more time together than originally planned. Commence the tugging of heart strings.

My favorite part of the picture was when Diane has to take the kid on the road with her. She gets tired and pulls off to the side of the road. Kid is like "what the fuck are you doing?" She tells him to get in the back of the cab, shut up, and go to sleep. Kid's like "I don't think so....we're going to a hotel". Cut to them walking into a hotel room. Later, the kid gets pushed down by a couple of punks while trying to buy a toothbrush. Diane runs out in a skimpy tee shirt and panties and kicks their asses. There's more bonding like this throughout the movie as the two come to realize just how alike they are. They play baseball together, kid hits some guy with a bat that may have been thinking about assaulting Diane, breakfast burritos with Fillion, etc.

Overall, I give this a plus rating. Sometimes I just want to watch a little of the ol' slice of life type shit. The supporting cast is good. Nathan Fillion plays a guy whose wife is apparently cheating on him with some asshole but that's ok cause he's in love with Diane anyway. Fillion's acting range lies somewhere between puppy dog nice and slightly older dog nice, but he's great within that range. Bratt is good in his limited screentime, another nice guy. And whoever played the kid isn't bad either. Not too annoying. Anyway, this is one of the better trucker type movies out there. It could have used an orangutan but that's a nitpick.

Predators (2010)

2010-07-12T20:08:00.003-04:00

Predators is to Aliens as is Predator is to Alien. Did I get that right? It's been a long time since I've had to worry about analogies. Predators pretends that the other Predator sequels (Predator 2, and especially Alien versus Predator I & II) never existed. This is the first picture in the series that feels like the first Predator. Actually, if you take away the alien (or predator, if you're confused) setting (which greatly resembles the Guatemalen jungles anyway), it's pretty much the same damned movie. Throw that analogy above right the fuck out. Still, plenty of good fun to be had here.

Predators opens abruptly. With Adrien Brody being jolted awake by the fact that he is plumetting from the sky towards a jungle landscape thousands of feet below. He lands with a thud, seconds after his shoot finally opens. He has no idea where he is or how he got where he is. A few feet away, lands Danny Trejo with a couple of uzis at his disposal. Brody's got a rifle. Some crazy Russian bastard who landed a bit further away starts shooting at them with the same gun Jesse Ventura used in the first picture, you know, the "big fucking gun" (to quote The Rock in Doom). Brody, obviously some sort of skilled survivalist type, easily flanks the Russian and gets him to calm down. Others fall from the sky: We got a female sniper (and potential love interest for Brody), a guy that fought in the Sierra Leone, that guy that was in "The Shield" as a death row inmate/rapist/comic relief, a Samurai Yakuza, and Topher Grace, from "That 70s show" as a doctor who seemingly doesn't belong in this situation.

If this had been the first picture in the series I might have been intrigued by the opening in an "Outer Limits" sort of way. Why are they here? Who, or what, brought them here? What do they all have in common? The characters even have some fun with their plight wondering in a Lost-ian sort of way if, perhaps, they're all dead. Too bad we know from the trailers and also the title that they were brought here by a bunch of predators for the simple joy of being hunted and killed in horrible ways. Also, Brody calls it a "gaming preserve" in the trailer, which doesn't make much sense since there ain't much preserving of game in this thing. Point is, lots of spoilage before I even saw the damned thing.

So, the characters spend a lot of time walking around a jungle. The sniper, who I mentioned is a broad, analyzes the terrain, and the topography, and has no idea what jungle they're in. It's not Africa, or Asia, "I guess it could be the Amazon", but she doesn't sound convinced. Then they wander onto a cliff and notice the giant moon and also the fact that there are multiple giant moons. If this doesn't convince them they're fucked maybe the alien dogs with large protruding spikes on their faces will.

Other than the dogs, another alien that runs on two feet, Laurence Fishburne as a guy who has lived through "ten seasons", and the fact that they are being hunted by three predators instead of one, this is practically the same picture as the first one. Brody makes a serviceable action hero. He's bulked up considerably but remains wire-y in contrast to Arnold's bulkiness. He's a highly intelligent bad ass. One other difference is that he doesn't smoke cigars like Arnold did. I'm sure there were others. The girl sniper reminds us of the girl from the first one. I thought she was her daughter or something but they didn't go there so ignore this sentence. The guy from Sierra Leone looks like a nicer version of Bill Duke's character from the first one and is also the first to notice the predator looking down at them from the treetops and to be seen in predator-vision (just like Dukes). Topher Grace is the seemingly weak, yet slightly smarter, version of the Shane Black character. Slightly smarter until the part where he wanders off from the group and gets someone killed. I guess that makes the Russian this picture's version of Jesse "I ain't got time to bleed" Ventura. They're nothing alike except that they carry the same type of gun. The Yakuza would be this picture's version of Sonny Landham. They're both quiet, spiritual, and with a strict honor code that doesn't allow them to flee during a key moment. I can't remember if Landham walked around the jungle barefoot or not.

I guess there is no Carl Weather's character in this one unless we want to say the rapist character would be his stand-in but I'm not gonna do that to Carl Weathers even if his Dillon was an asshole.

So, these characters wander around, set up defensive perimeters, and fight a predator, just like the first one. Ok, they fight three predators, hence the title. And, a forth predator even factors into this one but they don't fight him. Lots of predator-vision which had higher resolution than the predator-vision in the first one. Not as pixellated, so good for the predators. They've advanced. Anyway, over the course of the picture they find cages which had also parachuted down to the planet. What was in the cages? Other prey, perhaps.

Eventually, the picture goes on a slightly weird tangent when they encounter Laurence Fishburne who has managed to survive a long time. He even killed a few predators, and stole some cloaking armor. He takes them back to an old crusty grounded spaceship where he's been hiding. He's also a schizophrenic which makes you wonder how he could possibly have lasted this long. He doesn't last much longer.

The picture's not unique but it manages to move itself along well enough. The rapist has a funny speech about what he's gonna do if he ever makes it home (hint: The Accused) and Topher has an equally funny reaction to that speech. There's some gore in this thing. One guy has his spine ripped out from the base with his head still attached. One guy is blown up by one of those predator tracking energy beam things which doesn't exactly mesh with what happens when you get shot by one of those predator tracking energy beam things in the first one. Then again, these predators are constantly advancing. Their advancement might be the point of this whole hunting exercise, you might say.

The terrain of this world makes little sense. Start in the jungle, walk a mile and you're on rocky terrain. Walk another mile and you're in a field that might be a great place for a Samurai duel (spoiler). The director is the superbly named Nimrod Antal who also made the adequately entertaining Armored (also with Laurence Fishburne). The score contains plenty of notes from the original, not quite iconic, score.

The finale involves a betrayal, an unexpected alliance, paralyzing neurotoxins, a blown up predator space ship, redeeming shots from a sniper rifle, serial killer shenanigans, beheadings, and etc. Also, we got a mud covered Adrien Brody going man-o y predator-o with a predator. I have to wonder though. Do these predators know we are calling them predators? What would they prefer to be called? I mean, we are lumping them in with Lions, bears, snakes, and such. Not very original. And one more thought. If they let the pianist manhandle them too badly should we even be calling them predators in the first place? Despite these questions (and a few more) this was an enjoyable romp through a world of predators and others that may or may not beat them up.

Two Minute Warning (1976)

2010-07-12T18:25:00.002-04:00

I couldn't figure out if Two Minute Warning was attempting to be an important film about the randomness of violence or if it was trying to be a fun, big budgeted 70s disaster type movie. You know, like The Towering Inferno, Earthquake, or The Poseidon Adventure. In the end, I sided with the latter perspective and just embraced the picture for it's non politically correct values as well as it's...well...random acts of violence.

What we got here is a picture about an all star cast converging at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for the Super Bowl where they are targeted (or not targeted with the violence being random and all) by some crazy guy with a sniper's rifle who has dug in at the top of a tower right above the scoreboard. We know what this guy is capable of since as the picture opens we see his point of view (through a sniper's scope) as he blows away an innocent bike rider from his hotel window. The guy quickly packs up his things, disassembling his rifle and putting its various parts in varying compartments in his jacket, and leaves, not forgetting to check out. We never see his face. In fact, we don't see the guy's face until the very end but we are constantly treated to his perspective. This guy is like the giant wave, or the earthquake, or the meteor from all those other 70s movies I referenced earlier. Or, like the swarm of killer bees. It doesn't matter what his motive is. He probably doesn't have one. He exists and he's gonna cause a massive panic and probably take some lives in the process. The only difference being he's human (he might as well not be) so we infer he's stoppable.

Just like every other big disaster movie from the 70s this picture features an all star cast. We got Charlton Heston and Martin Balsam as a couple of detectives. We got John Cassavetes as the leader of the SWAT team. We got a very young and, relatively thin, Beau Bridges as a father that beats his kid. Jack Klugman (Quincy M.D.) plays a degenerate gambler. David Jannsen (the fugitive) and Gena Rowlands play a bickering married couple. Walter Pidgeon is a pickpocket. Some guy plays a catholic priest, there's another young couple, a guy in charge of maintenance at the stadium, etc. Howard Cosell, Frank Gifford, and Dick Enberg appear as themselves. The president (I believe it was an actor, not the real thing) appears in his motorcade on the way to the game. There's footage of a real football game but it was just a college game so it's not easy for us to buy them as genuine professionals. Ah, who am I kidding? I bought it.

We're introduced to the cast in separate stories as they make their way to the game. Their stories, for the most part, don't intersect although the gambler and the priest end up sitting next to each other at the game. A few of the stories are actually somewhat compelling if entirely generic. The gamber, as played by Klugman, is a nastily funny man who is shown being dangled from his ankles outside of a high rise building due to his inability to make good on his excessive gambling debts. He's got one chance to make it to tomorrow alive. Hint: that one chance involves the Super Bowl and more gambling. The priest is shown checking his watch as he gives his sermon. Beau Bridges is shown smacking his kid at the ticket booth. There are other characters in here as well (see my list above) doing stuff before they get to the big game.

Then there's the sniper who puts on his rifle concealing jacket, buys a ticket (same day since the Super Bowl must not of been popular in those days), walks into the stadium, up some stairs, picks a lock, feeds a couple guard dogs some steak, and climbs up to the top of the tower so he can wait for the perfect moment to strike. The early parts of the picture were treated not unlike a slasher movie where we see things from the killer's perspective never even catching a glimpse of his identity. The closest we get is when we see him climbing the tower ladder from a distance.

I won't spoil what happens except to say that not much happens (outside of the game) for most of the picture. It's a bit of a slow burn although I can't say it ever got boring. It's very 70s in that it meanders a bit, plods along, takes its time, etc. Hell, the sniper is spotted during halftime but the cops don't do anything about it for fear of causing a panic. The maintenance guy attempts to take the law into his own hands and get's butted in the head with a rifle and pushed off the tower to his death for his troubles. At one point, we see the sniper time his shot to match up with the shot from a referees pistol but we never see if he shot anyone or not. Also, don't think referees use pistols anymore precisely for the reason that some insane sniper might be waiting to time his killshot to match the referee's shot. Anyway, the last twenty to twenty five minutes of this thing are gloriously glorious mayhem.

Roger Ebert reviewed this picture back when it came out and gave it one star claiming:

"The movie tells us nothing at all about the gunman. But it takes great pains to establish other characters who are in the movie for a dreadfully simple reason: One by one, they will be shot. The clue is in the decision to keep the gunman anonymous. The movie's totally uninterested in the reasons behind his action; he's necessary only as an agent of violence, so we can be entertained by his victims. I found that disturbing."

I don't entirely disagree. At the same time, lighten up young Ebert! Had this been a low budget schlocker with a no-name cast I wonder what his reaction would have been? Well, I'm sure it would have been the same because Roger Ebert seems like a man of principle. He tends to stick to his guns and I respect that about him. Hell, maybe it is reprehensible that they would make a fun movie about an anonymous sniper picking off people at the Super Bowl. It's almost too prescient. A bombed out blimp flying into the superdome is one thing but a sniper (think Charles Whitman or later, John Allan Muhammad) hits a little bit close to home. Basically, what he got here is a slasher movie with a giant cast and a large budget. Ultimately, when the slasher is gunned down, we get no real satisfaction since the guy was just a device. He was the meteor, the earthquake, the raging inferno, the big wave. He wasn't a person. He doesn't necessarily need a motive, but he needs a face, a personality. It's almost like remaking Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer as something fun. The filmmakers attempt to tack on some deeper meaning to the preceedings when Balsam and Heston, standing over the dead killer try to make sense of it all saying something along the lines of "we have no idea who he is, but in the next few days we'll learn a whole hell of a lot" (commenting on the media or some shit). Whatever.

Shit man, I lost my train of thought. I didn't mean to make it sound like I didn't enjoy this thing because I did. I enjoyed the hell out of it. The shit involving whether or not to evacuate the coliseum or sending in the SWAT team was some good shit. When the shooting starts, this shit gets visceral. I'll close by saying that Two Minute Warning may or may not be morally reprehensible but in the end it's a gamer and lots of gamers have loose morals.

Out of the Past (1947)

2010-06-30T22:19:00.004-04:00

If there's any picture out there that might get you to take up smoking and boozing it's probably this one. Everyone smokes in this thing and they look pretty good doing it. We got Mitchum smoking. We got Kirk Douglas smoking. We got femme fatales smoking. We got Mitchum drinking. A lot. We got bars. We got cabanas. We got smokey night clubs. We got bourbon. We got smoking while driving. Maybe a little drinking while driving. We got smoking in black and white which looks much better than smoking in color. Hell, we even got some smoking before and after fishing. This picture's got everything an addictive personality could want and dread at the same time. If some kid came up to me with a cigarrette dangling from his lips and said he saw this picture and had to try it for himself I'd probably just nod my head knowingly and ask if I could bum a smoke. If this picture came out today it would probably be rated X for smoking. Fucking MPAA.

What we also got is a pretty god damned labyrinthine story that nearly lost me at about the halfway point which is one of the reasons I just gave up and started paying attention to all the smoking going on. What is it with these noirs (film term I learned on the internet) that strive for befuddlement as an emotion? Well, I haven't seen too many noirs to be honest. Just this and The Big Sleep (off the top of my head). The Big Sleep makes this one seem like Star Wars in regards to plotular complications. And yet, despite my confusion, I can honestly say this is a great motion picture. It's involving (emotionally and intellectually), beautifully shot, has some great performances, and never becomes predictable beyond the fact that we know a lot of these characters are gonna die. Yeah, half the time I had no idea what was going on, and I'm dreading the part of this write up where I mention the plot, but I was never less than captivated. Shit man, I'll say it. Great fucking movie. Better than The Big Sleep anyway.

The story started off simply enough. We got a guy coming into a small town called Bridgeport looking for a man named Bailey. Bailey runs the gas station and is played by Robert Mitchum so we're pretty sure he's not entirely on the up and up. You might even say the guy looking for him has come out of his past. Whenever bad men try to turn their lives around their past almost always catches up with them. Bailey is trying to live a quiet existence now. He's friends with some deaf and dumb kid that works for him at the gas station. He's got a girl that he plans to marry. And he loves to fish and smoke. He's covered up his past for the most part as exemplified by the part where his girl asks him if he's ever been married before and he responds with "not that I can remember".

Well, this guy comes into town thinking Bailey is somebody else. That somebody would be Jeff Markham, who used to work for a heavy named Whit (Kirk Douglas). Apparently, he used to be some sort of private dick a while back, had a partner who still works as a bag man for Whit, but whatever shit he used to pull is never made abundantly clear. His past is mysterious and he did some bad things is the point. This part of the picture reminded me of Cronenberg's History of Violence except that Bailey/Markham gives up pretty quickly and confesses to his girlfriend, who is surprisingly accepting. Jeff's gonna go with this man to Lake Tahoe, meet with Whit, see what he wants, and then come back so they can get married. No complications whatsoever, he promises her.

Complications ensue. Turns out Whit wants him to find an old flame of his named Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer). That's what he's good at, apparently. Finding people. Whit wants her back. Kathie's fled to Mexico and Jeff is forced/payed to follow her. He finds her and, predictably, they have a whirlwind affair. Some time passes, things are going well, Jeff and Kathie make plans to run, Whit and his cronies show up in Mexico, awkwardness, tension, drinking and smoking, etc. Jeff has to cover things up, says she's already moved on, here let's have some bourbon and some smokes while Jeff contemplates how to get out of this sticky situation, etc. Kathie walks into view, Jeff says "hey, look over there", etc. The story then takes Kathie and Jeff, via steamer, north to San Francisco. Jeff told Whit she headed down to South America, but he's too smart to buy that shit. Things get progressively complex as Jeff's former partner, and current Whit employee, Stephanos spots Jeff at the racetrack...and now I just realized I'm regurgitating plot. Sorry, there's a lot of it.

Here's a quick sum up: Jeff and Kathie have a falling out involving murder and forty thousand dollars. Jeff returns to Bridgeport and his bride to be. His past catches up with him again. Jeff's hired for another job by Whit. Kathie is back in the picture. He does the job Whit hires him for. There's another murder. Back to Bridgeport. More shit comes out of his past, etc. A lot of shit happens in this one. Very few characters are innocent. Even the deaf and dumb kid shows how a simple rod and reel can be a lethal weapon. I stopped trying to keep up with the goings on and just began focusing on the characters and the thick atmosphere. Also, the snappy dialogue which was incredible.

For example. An exchange between Kathie and Jeff when she thinks he's going to kill her.

Kathie: I don't want to die.
Jeff: Neither do I, but if I have to, I'll die last.
puff puff

Jane Greer portrays Kathie as one of those nasty type bitches that you can't help but love even as she's twisting a knife into your back. Slowly. She's the definition of a femme fatale. Mitchum's Jeff Markham is interesting in that he seems pretty slow half the time but he somehow manages to stay ahead of the game, just enough. Things aren't going to end well for anybody. People die off screen and then their bodies just show up. There's no chance Markham can escape his past and have that life he tried to have, but we root for him anyway. It's not often that Mitchum can make us sympathize with his characters, but he achieves that here.

Someday I'll check out more of these film noir type deals. The director (Jack Turner?) is probably best known for his Cat People picture (unseen by me) and I guess a couple episodes of "Bonanza". I can't imagine anything he's done topping this one however. It's overly complex without becoming boring. We're not sure why the characters are doing what they're doing or which side they're on half the time. These are all bad, selfish, people even if some of them are trying to change their ways. Despite all this, the heartbreak we feel at the end is genuine and deserved.

Blood Sucking Freaks (1976)

2010-06-28T19:59:00.004-04:00

So, I followed up Combat Shock with a, much more offensive, little gem of 70s sleaze called Blood Sucking Freaks (aka Sardu; Master of the Screaming Virgins which was then re-titled The Incredible Torture Show). Apparently, Troma (them again) picked it up for distribution and slapped on the title that eventually stuck, Blood Sucking Freaks. Whereas Combat Shock was completely lacking in the nudity department, Blood Sucking Freaks, from what I can remember, didn't have a scene without nudity. Unfortunately, almost all of the nakedness onscreen is of the tied up girls being humiliated and tortured variety. Beggers can't be choosers. Sorry if I've used this line before.

What we got here is a look into the world of underground S&M shows that took place in the basement theaters of New York City. One such theater, the one the picture focuses on, is run by Master Sardu (a fu manchu looking mother fucker) and his perverted dwarf assistant, Ralphus. Ralphus looks, and behaves, similar to that sinful dwarf you may or may not be familiar with, Olaf. In fact, these two deviants might be related. Perhaps Olaf faked his death at the end of The Sinful Dwarf and escaped across the pond (Brit term for the Atlantic) where he got a job doing what he really loves. Hint: that job involves raping and torturing young women that are tied up against their will. Anyway, if this is true, Olaf (now calling himself Ralphus) has found the perfect life partner in Master Sardu. They share laughs, and the occasional cigar, while whipping and mutilating young women. Good times, am I right?

The picture opens with one such show, set before a captive audience, where a girl is bound to a chair and has her eyeballs gouged out and eaten by Ralphus or something. Also, the girl is naked. Master Sardu announces that what they are witnessing is real. One guy, a critic who somehow was admitted to the show, calls bullshit and says "I've been to the Grand Guignol theaters in Paris and you sir, are no Grand Guignol". I'm not sure if this guy works for the New York Times or not, but I can imagine that if any form of entertainment would be critic proof then this kind would be it. Also, guy is a torture snob. Fuck him. Anyway, Sardu is offended and plans to kidnap the critic in the hopes of forcing him into writing a good review. He also plans to kidnap the pretty ballerina sitting in the front row whose boyfriend thought a show where young, completely naked, women are being tortured (real or fake) would be a good first date. Having a ballerina in the show might lend them a little more artistic merit or something. Sardu licks his lips in anticipation. Ralphus licks some girl's lips.

Lots of 70s type nudity in this thing which is to say plenty of bush shots and natural breasts and also welt marks from the constant whipping these poor girls are subjected to in the name of entertainment. Also, in a sub basement there is a cell where lots of insane hairy naked women are locked away. Every now and again, Sardu throws them some food (people) and these broads go to town. If naked women fighting over who gets to eat what part of their screaming, writhing (also naked) victims, well....

I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about some of the methods of torture. I think one such scene involved a rat but that might have been a different movie. There's a scene where Sardu and Ralphus enjoy a game of darts with the dartboard painted on the backside of one of their slaves. They enjoy smokes and single malt scotch while throwing. Not sure who won, but Sardu hitt bullseye at one point. Couldn't figure out if they were playing cricket rules or not. One poor girl is put in a guillotine, naked of course, and the rope keeping the blade in position, is placed in her mouth. Then Ralphus starts whipping her on the backside. A lot of torture involving backsides in this one. If she screams.....well, if she screams I can only imagine that Ralphus will do something unsavory with the decapitated head which would be years before High Tension had a similar scene. If she screams, but I don't know, she looks like a tough girl, so I'll give her a puncher's chance.

Thankfully, the picture manages to maintain a somewhat campy tone. Otherwise, it would be unwatchable by most people. Ralphus and Sardu are simply too ridiculous to take seriously. The treatment of women, while horrendously exploitative, is not that uncommon for the time period. I can't imagine anyone watching this thing and saying something like "I need to start me a sex slavery ring/torture show". Also, the villains get what's coming to them (of course, I'm struggling to remember how it happens, was probably tacked on to secure distribution) so there is that. Oh wait, I think their demise involved the animal-like women locked up below? Anyone seen this thing? Help me out.

There's a sideplot involving the ballerina's boyfriend and some detectives trying to find her. There's some hilarity involving the chained up critic. The picture is gritty looking. Can't remember the music so I'm assuming it was subtle. Once again, I'm devolving into a typical boring review. That's what happens when you can't remember the story. There's a scene where a poor girl has her brains removed that is downright wrong. The character of Ralphus shows, once again, why dwarfs, in horror pictures, can fucking go to hell. So, the picture moves along at a brisk pace, there are lots of naked women, plenty of gore, some funny shit happening for, you know, the kiddies, and a final comeuppance for the devious duo that makes us feel it was somewhat worth our time. I probably wouldn't display this in my collection (at least not proudly) but I'm not upset I watched it. I think this is a breed of film they don't make anymore and I feel it's my duty to watch it for, you know, research and stuff.

Combat Shock (1986)

2010-06-28T17:57:00.006-04:00

It's been a while. Sorry about that. I probably lost about half my audience in the process, so we're down to four of you. Thanks for sticking with me. I'm not really sure what happened. A part of me just lost interest there for a bit. Watching movies is easy. Writing about movies is slightly less easy. Easier to just watch another movie. In addition, the quality of my write ups over the last year or so has gone downhill. I'm not interested in writing proper reviews, but that's exactly what I've been doing. As if I know shit about directing, and colors, acting, or music, etc. Well, I know a little but to tell you the truth, I don't really care. Give me a good story, some breasts, a weird diverging subplot or two, some capable action, and a few funny lines. That's the kind of stuff I appreciate. So, again, I'm sorry I haven't been there for you lately. I'm trying to get better. Well, not really trying that hard. I am pretty god damned lazy after all.

Anyway, so we're back with this picture called Combat Shock which has been labeled a "Tromasterpiece" by Troma themselves. I find myself agreeing. It's the only Troma movie I've seen that actually feels like a real movie. And, it's depressing as all hell, although that depressed feeling is lightened somewhat by several goofy vintage Troma moments as well as some shitty acting.

The picture opens with some cheap scenes set in Vietnam where this guy Frankie was sent to fight the Cong. Things didn't go well over there for Frankie but at least he made it home. Unfortunately, his home was Staten Island which, if you ask this movie, was not much better than Vietnam at the time. See, Frankie returns home a broken man and also a broke man. He has a wife but she's an overweight nagger with an annoying New Yawk accent. He's got an infant son but his son has been mutated due to the agent orange that got into Frankie's sperm. He's got a job but his job only involves walking around all day, avoiding gangs, waiting in line at the employment office, talking with his best friend whose a junkie, and avoiding underaged hookers and their pimps. And, his job doesn't pay.

So, like most movies that deal with Vietnam War veterans life is not good. It's downright terrible. You might say that you can take Frankie out of the war but you can't take the war out of Frankie to regurgitate some oft used cliche about war veterans. Combat Shock does something no Troma film (at least ones I've seen) has ever been able to do. It manages to achieve a gritty realism. The acting is shoddy, almost across the board, but it's not self referential. It's not cutesy. Strangely, it feels genuine. Basically, this is Troma's Taxi Driver. We got the Vietnam veteran that hates what his city has become. A vile cesspool of filth and smut. At one point, Frankie even talks to a fifteen year old prostitute but that conversation is abruptly cut off by her pimp and we never see her again. Unlike Travis Bickle, Frankie isn't really interested in cleaning up the streets. He just wants to "save" his family. If you're wondering why I put save in quotes you can probably guess that it means he wants to save them in the wakco sense of the word and not the literal sense.

The entire picture takes place over the course of one day. Frankie walks around. A lot. Every now and then we're treated to a flashback from the war of Frankie in "the box" or some shit like that to illustrate what he went through and kind of give us a sense of why he is where he is. He calls his father, who had a lot of money, from a payphone and begs for his help. His father doesn't recognize him at first, thought he died in the war, and is dying himself. Also, he lost all his money so thanks anyway pops. Frankie is in debt to some loan sharks who hound him throughout the picture. Eventually, they catch up to him and beat the shit out of him in some abandoned warehouse. During the course of his travels that day, Frankie came across a gun. He blows his assailants away in the first truly visceral moment of the entire picture. Unfortunately, it took nearly an hour for us to get to this point. Everything else before was just about the slow build to what is ultimately a brutally shocking, and strangely humorous, climax.

Spoilers to follow so beware. Frankie finally makes it home where his wife has spent the day scrounging around their filthy apartment looking for food to feed the baby (she settled on stale bread crumbs and water). She immediately starts in with the nagging to which Frankie responds with a pull of the ol' trigger of love....meaning he shoots her. Ok, none of this is really "strangely humorous". I'm not sure where I got that from now that I think about it. He blows away his wife and then walks into his kids room and blows away his baby (which by the way, resembles the love child of E.T. and Belial). As the sirens close in, he grabs the baby and drops the thing in the oven (and turns it on) before putting the pistol to his own head and pulling the trigger in a shot that is an obvious nod to the climactic blood bath of Taxi Driver. So, the part with the baby in the oven elicited a bit of a chuckle from this guy probably because the thing was a mutant but also because of now why the hell would he put the baby in the oven? It's just so absurd. Maybe he thought the starving baby could eat itself when it was done? I have no clue.

So, this is one of the better Troma movies. It's a bit of a smolder, has some ridiculous parts, but, other than the finale, never really turns offensive which is why it might throw some people off a bit. I mean, it's weird watching a picture like this and not being subjected to even just a little bit of nudity. And, not much happens until the last twenty minutes. It's probably not well made enough to be taken seriously by most film critics or film snobs but if you're looking for something a little different that might end up punching you in the balls while also tickling them a little bit (not in a sexual way, more in a I'm laughing and this is sort of uncomfortable kind of way) this picture might be what you're looking for.

The Alligator People (1959)

2010-06-15T19:55:00.002-04:00

Roy Del Ruth's The Alligator People is an interesting picture. What we got here is a monster movie almost completely devoid of actual monsters. By that I mean, there are no creatures out to get us. Only encroaching nature and a drunken one handed lunatic. I don't mean that as a negative. This picture is actually pretty impressive. It's the story of what happens when you inject reptile hormones into mutilated accident victims and also the unfortunate bastards that are cursed with loving them.

Also, this controversial treatment involves being zapped with gamma rays.

Anyway, we got that all-to-common framing device where a couple of doctors inject their nurse with sodium pentathol (truth serum) and the nurse recalls a series of astounding events. In her hypnotic state, she flashbacks to a time when she went by a different name (Joyce Webster) and she's a newlywed on a train travelling to an unidentified location. She's just been married to a guy named Paul Webster. He seems like a good guy. No skeletons in his closet would be a good assumption. Assumption blown as soon as a train attendant delivers them some mail including one letter that causes Paul to quickly get off the train at the next possible stop and, presumably, disappear from Joyce's life forever. Joyce spends the next few years tracking him down. Her investigation leads her to the Louisiana bayou. Paul once listed some plantation (The Cypresses) down there as his address. At the train station in the bayou, she manages to hitch a ride with a hook handed Lon Chaney Jr (playing a character named Manon), the Cypresses drunken caretaker.

Chaney Jr is brilliant in the role, a sort of cajun Captain Hook. The drive to the plantation reveals him to be a man full of grudges. And all those grudges are held against alligators. He badmouths the things the entire ride. Joyce finds herself in the somewhat awkward spot of having to defend them. Manon points out she wouldn't survive ten minutes in the swamp. She relents. He then spots a gator up the road and guns his truck towards it, running it over in one of the pictures more visceral, and convincing, scenes. He's Ahab of the bayou. Gator took his hand. He wants it back. Also, no gators were harmed during the making of this picture. They used real gators and those wrasslers were professionals. And that gun Manon fired wildly at them was full of blanks. Also, he was drunk and kept missing.

On the plantation lives a strange off putting woman named Lavinia and her slaves...er staff. Lavinia takes an immediate dislike to Joyce. Wants her to leave. Train won't come until morning. She'll stay until then under the condition that she doesn't leave her room which is pretty much an open invitation to leave the room and go snooping. Lavinia is hiding something. When Joyce asked her about Paul, Lavinia proved herself a bad liar. Eventually, we and Joyce learn the truth. We get there first.

Turns out there's a clinic down in the bayou easily accessible by river boat. The clinic is run by Doctor Mark Sinclair. We see patients, with strange masks concealing their faces, manhandled by beefy orderlies. Later, one of the patients sneaks onto the plantation and into the house so he can play a few keys on the piano. We see his scaly face in shadow. Joyce follows the music in an homage to Frankenstein (or maybe Mel Brook's homaged this scene in Young Frankenstein. Who can remember?). The shadowy stranger turns out to be (spoiler) her husband. An accident victim from years back. Apparently, the procedure was a success. At first. Then the doctor telegraphed Paul (somehow knowing exactly where he was and on what train, etc) to let him know that, not only were the results temporary, Paul would eventually turn into some kind of weird reptile man-thing...alligator people. Understandably, Paul took off before Joyce was subjected to some kind of bizarre reptile-man coitus. He was protecting her, still loves her, wants to get it on with her, but doesn't she find him hideous?

What's truly unusual about this picture is just how tragic it all is. Sure, plenty of monster movies attempt to emphasize the tragic elements of their creatures, but in the end it's just a misunderstood creature stomping all over civilization. We can almost buy the science here. Reptiles are known for regenerating limbs so why not isolate what causes this regrowth and apply that shit to humans? Ok, so it's 3rd grade science. Still, works for me. What's really tragic is the real monster in this picture is Manon whose hatred of alligators extends even to alligator people. Why is this tragic? Once again, a drunk is the villain.

Things are not going to end rosey. How could they, in a swamp? Turns out Lavinia is Paul's mother. She wants to embrace Joyce but tries to turn her away to protect Paul. Circumstances are keeping these people apart and will likely end up destroying their lives. Joyce will probably be left so traumatized that she'll block everything from her memory, change her name, and become a nurse or some shit. The fact that she did this leads us to believe that Paul stayed in the bayou and that everyone else was probably killed in a radioactive explosion or something (only a spoiler if true).

I don't know man, I really dug the picture. The atmosphere was thick, the music strung us along, and the makeup more than did the job. At 74 minutes this thing flew right by. I liked how it wasn't routine. The "mad scientist" wasn't mad at all. He was just an aging doctor who has dedicated his life to helping people. The character is full of traits that make him human; empathy, love, humor, kindness, stupidity, god complexes, etc. We also got the interesting flashback framing device, the monsters that want to be human, the human that wants his hand back and is figuratively a monster, and also the hero who, in a last ditch effort to make himself normal, gets zapped with gamma rays that may or may not leave him with a ridiculous looking gator mask for a face. The alligator people are more human than most humans and especially that drunken biggot Manon who tries to kill Paul after attempting to have his way, sexually, with his wife, which is a pretty monster-ish course of action, even by bayou standards. So, if you ever want to see a movie like Swamp Thing crossed with Frankenstein and maybe a dash of Moby Dick, then look no further.

The Objective (2008)

2010-05-26T23:09:00.007-04:00

Well, the director of The Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrick) has done it again. He made another movie. It's almost as good as Altered, the movie his co-writer and co-director (Eduardo Sanchez) from Blair Witch made. Basically, what we got here is Aliens. Only, it's told from the perspective of the Paul Reiser character. Also, there ain't no fucking aliens in this thing. Also, minimal action. And, it takes place in the blighted deserts and mountains of Afghanistan. Throw in some mysticism and some awkward performances and we've got ourselves a picture. Still, it was all kind of...interesting.

Jonas Ball stars as CIA agent, Benjamin Keynes. Keynes is in Afghanistan weeks after 9-11 under the guise of leading a mission to overthrow the Taliban. He recruits a not-so special forces unit to aid in his mission. Their goal is to find some Afghani cleric and record a statement from him that will apparently dissolve the Taliban. Somehow. Along the way, they pick up Abdul, an Afghani guide who will take them through the treacherous mountains. Also, there's an Aussie in the unit for some reason. And none of the troops look particularly fit. The captain looks like Steve Austin after a year long bender and with a pasted on beard. Still, I found myself captivated by this bullshit for some reason.

Keynes narrates the action in the drollest of monotones. He's Fox Mulder on prozac. He scans the horizon with his infra-red, and radiation detecting, equipment. After a brief firefight leaves one of their men dead, and no enemy bodies, things get weird. The mountains of Afghanistan hold many secrets. Lights dance around the sky, compasses are useless, GPS systems fail, radio communication is fruitless, the water in their canteens is replaced with sand. Keynes isn't opening up about anything. His narration is using the present tense. We understand his survival is no guarantee.

I'm not sure where this thing was filmed (and I'm not about to look it up) but it seemed to use a pretty authentic location. Could have been Death Valley for all I know. The picture provides few answers and is the better for it. We got weird triangles in the sky, men evaporating, guys jumping off cliffs and, in one case, some poor bastard wakes up to find himself nothing but guts and clothing (he didn't actually wake up, sorry for making it seem like he did). I'm not sure what the picture is saying about the war in the Middle East. I'm not sure it's saying anything. We all know war is hell. Sometimes you live. Sometimes you get evaporated by a giant triangle in the sky.

Well, if we are to believe the South Park mythos, what these guys were up against was none other than Moses and his army of macarroni pictures. Of course, this is the real world and so South Park mythology gets thrown out the fucking window. What we have here is something deeper than that. Something involving satellite pictures of some weird mystical phenomenom in some Afghanistan mountain range. Not sure if that phenomenon has anything to do with Osama Bin Laden, but that's who we were searching for in those mountains immediately after 9-11 went down. Not these guys though. Shit man, I think Muhammad shows up at the end. Is it ok to have an actor portray him in shadow or is that shit a death sentence? I don't know, but I hope Daniel Myrick lives long enough to make another movie. This one wasn't bad.

The Curse (1987)

2010-05-26T18:06:00.005-04:00

The Curse is one of those 80s type films involving a meteor crashing to Earth in, or around, a small town and messing shit up for the yokel locals. In this case, it lands on the property of abusive farmer Nathan Hayes, played by the spectacularly sinister Claude Atkins. Nathan is a puritanical monster ruling over his familial unit with an iron backhand. The meteor contains an oozing menace that infects his crops as well as the town's water supply. The crops mutate into worm infested apples or something, while the tainted water changes those who imbibe into puss spewing creatures of the night (I think).

Loosely based on Lovecraft's "The Colour Out of Space" and directed with a sure hand by David Keith (yes, the actor), The Curse is an enjoyable tale well told. Atkin's plays the Hayes patriarch as a cross between Mitchum's Harry Powell and....well....a puss dripping monster. Able support is given by Will Wheaton as Nathan's ill fitting (adopted?) son and John Schneider (yep, Bo Duke) tags along as a scientist researching the town's odd happenings.

A side story about evil developers out to buy the Hayes farm on the cheap so they can put in strip malls or some shit only adds to the fun. Also enjoyable, is the way Nathan continues to deny anything strange is happening even after his wife tries to eat their children. Creepiness ensues after she's been locked in the cellar. And then the house disintegrates for some unknowable reason that left me scratching my head. Even some horribly shoddy effects work (meteor on a stick, anyone?) can't undermine this thing.

As an added bonus, here's a quickie review of The Curse II: The Bite. Well, shit man, this one is just a couple good scenes strung together by what seems like hours of tedious bullshit. We got a guy and his girlfriend driving through the desert (were they running from someone or something? Can't remember). They stop to do some sightseeing on the side of the road when the guy is bit by a radioactive snake and then, SLOWLY, his arm starts to change into one (a snake I mean). The two good scenes are the one where the young couple drive over a highway littered with snakes, which are beaten and battered in slow motion, and also when the guy's arm changes into a snake, while in bed with his girlfriend. Then the guy chases his girl through some drainage pipes or whatever. None of this has anything to do with the first picture. Not much to recommend here. Well, except for Jill Schoelen, as the girlfriend, who is fairly adorable. I can't remember if she got undressed in front of the camera or not. Find out for yourself.

Triangle (2009)

2010-05-06T17:46:00.003-04:00

Wow, that poster is one giant fucking ball of spoilage. I expected the picture to be about a group of young sailors stuck in the Bermuda triangle getting eaten by sea monsters or some shit (this was before I saw the poster). At the very least, maybe some syfy channel level of storytelling and special effects thrown in. Then I recognized the name Christopher Smith. He did the disappointing (although not completely devoid of merit) Severance and also the fairly chilling horrors lurking in the London subway picture called Creep. Neither picture blew me away but both have style and atmosphere. Maybe this is the time Smith actually brings a story to match his visuals. It doesn't hurt that the thing stars Melissa George (30 Days of Night).

Well, what we got here instead is a nice little twisty story marred by some atrocious computer generated imagery. I guess water is pretty tough to render. Anyway, this is the story of a single mother named Jesse (George) who goes sailing with some friends. I know what you're thinking. They end up in the Bermuda triangle. Well, you'd be wrong. Their boat is called the Triangle. Also, they end up in some other triangle type anomaly somewhere off the coast of Florida. One moment they're sailing along nicely. The next moment the wind stops abruptly and their boat is overturned (tensest moment of the picture) by a massive storm that swoops in out of nowhere. Also, weird distress call came over the radio just before they were flipped. Also, Jesse has been weirdly antisocial the whole trip and now they're all clutching to the hull of their overturned ship excluding the one girl that was swept out to sea and presumably drowned. And then a large cruise ship called "The Aeon Flux" or some shit, looking like something from the early 20th century pulls up next to them. Saved! Not so fast.

So, they board the ship and then shit starts getting even weirder. They keep hearing someone else, while not seeing them. It's a ghost ship. It's old looking. Their ship was called "The Triangle". Jesse is acting strange. Blood is all over the ship. Some guy with a sack on his head starts picking them off one by one or two at a time. Who the fuck is piloting the ship, if anyone? Well, I can't really discuss the movie in any more detail without spoiling more shit, so here goes:

Turns out they went through some sort of time rift. The person they spotted on the ship was actually Jesse (Jesse from the past). The guy with the sack on his head killing them all with a shotgun or an axe is actually a gal. A gal named Jesse (from the past). Why is she killing everyone? Well, turns out the only way to set things back and give them all a chance of escaping the ship is for them all to end up dead (even Jesse). Once they're all dead I guess "The Triangle" will appear and the friends will board the boat. If present Jesse can prevent that from happening or, escape the ship when the other boat appears then maybe she can make it back home to Florida to pick up her special needs kid from school or something. Anyway, it's going to take a lot of trial and error for things to get straightened out. If this sounds like the movie Timecrimes its because they have an almost identical plot except this one takes place on a boat. We got the time travel angle and the guy (or gal) wearing a sack on their head angle. See, basically the same picture.

I enjoyed it. Melissa George gives a terrific performance as Jesse. She's vulnerable, menacing, sympathetic, fierce, etc. Lots of adjectives to describe her character so we can surmise she did a good job. Lots of twists and turns in this thing. The action becomes a bit repetitive at times but never really tedious. Some truly shocking moments in this thing like when the one girl, after being knifed by Jesse in the gut, crawls up to some deck only to realize she's already crawled up there to die 50 times previously. Or, when Jesse hits a seagul with her car and goes to drop it over a ravine only to discover hundreds of seaguls piled up below. Real interesting shit like that. Unfortunately, all the other performances are overwhelmed by George's. We could really give a shit about anyone else. They seem like fine people, but fuck 'em.

I spoiled a lot but there are still a couple moments of goodness left for you to discover. Like the scene where Jesse is revealed to be an abusive parent. Is that Jesse Prime or one of her copies slapping the shit out of her retarded kid for spilling paint? Who the fuck knows? Also, sorry for spoiling that Jesse makes it home so she can beat on her kid. I promise that's the last spoiler. I dug this picture. It kept me guessing. I rank it slightly behind Creep and way ahead of Severance (maybe I should see that one again to be sure). I guess Smith is at his best when he sticks to the dark and dour stuff, while leaving comedy-horror concoctions to the experts.*

*There are no experts. A good horror/comedy almost always happens by accident. Most good movies with elements of both are either comedy heavy or horror heavy. An American Werewolf In London is the only example I can come up with that's a perfect blend. Can you think of any?

Search for the Beast (1997)

2010-04-29T17:49:00.001-04:00

This movie is such a piece of shit that I couldn't find a poster for it anywhere. Or, DVD artwork for that matter. Apparently, it's only available as part of a Big Foot compilation. The best I could come up with is the above screen shot I found using google. That's the beast. It's intended as a genuine beast. Unlike Shriek of the Mutilated (available on the same DVD set) it's not supposed to be some guy in a costume luring unsuspecting teens to some kind of Satanistic, Cannibalistic, Ritualistic dinner. Nope. It's an actual beast. That loves to fuck.

I did learn a little history so my experience with this thing wasn't all bad. I learned that the Algonquin Indians used to sacrifice all their hot virgins to Big Foot in order to stave off slaughter. If, however, the squaw was a little "rough around the edges" Big Foot would take his disdain out on the tribes in what could only be described as a maelstrom of slaughter and rape. I'm pretty sure the American cavalry used similar tactics. Anyway, point is Big Foot's got standards.

Basically, what we got here is a lose remake of Aliens. We got the scientist type (played by Rick Montana) hired to go back into the mountains of Okaloosa, Alabama and bring back proof that Big Foot exists. He's sent in by a shady executive (some guy stepping in for Paul Reiser and then re-writing the part so he doesn't actually have to get off his fat ass) to bring back evidence of the existence of Big Foot or Big Feet. Accompanying him will be an armed squadron of rednecks and also porn starlet wannabe, Miss Holli Day. Of course, the shady business guy is working a double cross ("kill the thing at all costs"). Montana wants to just leave it be (even though the thing is believed to have killed and raped at least forty people in the last year or so (including - spoiler - the executive's son and girlfriend)).

I'll be the first to admit that this sounds like an amazing plot for a movie. Almost impossible to fuck up, right? Well, the first thing they did is shoot on cheap home video with some of the worst sound quality I've heard. Then they edited the scenes in such a way so that nothing makes sense. We got an allusion to Montana saving Day's life but are never shown this event actually happening. Maybe it was when they were scaling a "treacherous" "rock" "face" a few minutes back? I guess they climbed down using some rope that was being sliced into by a rock, but never broke. Maybe they forgot to put in the scene where it breaks causing Day to fall on Montana's dick? Anyway, as a reward, Day fucks the shit out of Montana that very night in his tent, while the other rednecks, and their sister, jack off outside. Of course, the rednecks in the group (i.e., everyone) assume she's fair game and, therefore, are justified putting their dicks in her whether she likes it or not.

The filmmakers also do some weird shit with the dubbing. I couldn't tell if 99% of the vocals were intended as inner monologue or if the characters were speaking out loud. Montana is eventually swindled, tied up, left for dead, and has his girl stolen from him by the rednecks. All of a sudden, the guy becomes John Rambo, shooting and stabbing his way through the mountainside while being chased by barking dogs that we can hear, but never see. Also, there's a sasquatch (see picture above for proof).

Seriously, Big Foot has only about three minutes of screentime (at one point, I think a close up version was a cartoon - primitve CGI?) and that was probably too much. So, I don't know. This thing never bored me too much but I can't say I enjoyed watching it. It's only 69 (haha) minutes long. The highlight of the picture is probably the part where this kid is taking his girl from behind when Big Foot sneaks up behind him, pushes him out of the way, and steps in without the girl even noticing. Other than that, there were a lot of bad parts like anytime Big Foot peaks out from behind a tree or the final revelation (spoiler) that Big Foot is actually working for a couple of Banjo players (The Deliverance band, I believe they're called) by bringing them women, chaining them up, ripping off their clothes, etc. Also, bad parts involved anytime a character spoke or anytime shot footage was shown on my tv. So, to sum up i guess we can say the good thing about this movie is the nudity. The bad thing about this movie is everything else (including the quality of the girls getting naked).

Truth or Dare? A Critical Madness (1986)

2010-04-21T19:37:00.002-04:00

Let's keep this string of classics going. Here's one that won a few academy awards and also that you'll find on most top 100 lists. Or, maybe I'm mistaken. Do they give academy awards to slasher films? Probably not. I'm also thinking they especially don't give academy awards to inept slasher films. Well, I thought it had some good parts. For example, this is one of the only movies ever made that features a drive by chainsawing. The other one I'm thinking of is, of course, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. Am I missing any others? Anyway, at the very least, this is superior cinema to the Madonna documentary of the same name. This one even has a cool subtitle: A Critical Madness. Other than that subtitle and the drive by chainsawing, and also some boobies, this is mostly a piece of shit, albeit a sporadically enjoyable piece of shit. Sorry for misleading you into thinking this was a multi-award winning classic.

The picture opens with a couple of people fucking which is probably how every movie ever made should open (well, maybe not Bambi). We got boobies right away in this thing (and unfortunately, never again). Tim Ritter, the director, masterfully cuts between the fucking and some nerdy bespectacled guy driving his car. Turns out, he's the husband of the wife who is fucking some other guy. Mike Strauber (the husband) is on his way home to give his wife, Sharon Strauber, some very good news. He got the promotion at his accounting firm (or wherever it is he works). Eventually, he arrives and walks around the house a bit calling out for his "honey". While in the throes of passion she can't hear him. It's amazing that he can't hear her either. Finally, he gets to the bedroom, opens the door, and immediately slams it shut after seeing what's going on inside while shouting "Sharon! How could you?" He flees, she tries to stop him, then tells him "I'm sorry, I tried to tell you, this ain't working. Maybe you should go out and find some good friends, live your life, etc."

Then we're subjected to long scenes of Mike driving to the beach, flash backing to all the hints of his wife's infidelities that, at the time, went unnoticed. Long interminable scenes. Later, he picks up an impossibly voluptuous strawberry blond, brings her to a campsite, builds a fire, sets up a tent ("you don't mind if we sleep in the same tent do you?"). A rousing game of truth or dare ensues. Starts out innocently enough ("Do you still love your wife?") and ("I dare you to lift up your blouse"). Progresses to shit like "I dare you to gouge out your eye" and "I dare you to slice open your chest". Also, the impossibly voluptuous strawberry blond was all in his head. So, of course, Mike ends up in a sanitarium.

Basically, the movie goes like this. Mike goes crazy, usually flashing back to his childhood and humiliating games of truth or dare. Also, his crazy mother appears at times. After these visions, Mike does something bad and ends up back in the psych ward. Mike is later released, goes crazy again. Back to the loony bin. Mike escapes, goes crazy. Back to the loony bin. Rinse, wash, repeat. Eventually, he completely loses it and plays truth or dare with a couple fellow inmates using the knife he apparently smuggled in using his anal cavity. One guy cuts off his hand. Another guy eats a grenade (also smuggled in somehow). Mike cuts off his face and, I guess, this is the point where it becomes a traditional slasher film (about an hour in) since Mike now dons a copper mask. He drives around like Michael Myers in that Halloween picture. He also acquires an arsenal of weapons; including a chainsaw, a machine gun, a medieval mace, nun-chucks, hunting knives, etc.

Truth or Dare was shot in, and around, West Palm Beach, Florida so we got a lot of sunny, boring atmosphere. We got a couple of bumbling cops hot on Mike's trail. One cop accidentally burns down the town drunk thinking it's slasher Mike. Later, he loses his car keys and has to drive around town in the back of a cab. The end of this picture is pretty bat shit crazy as Mike just drives around killing people that remind him of other people that apparently tormented him throughout his life. This being Florida, several of these victims are elderly including a poor trio that he machine guns while they're waiting for the bus. The kills are extraordinarily unconvincing which sorta adds to the brilliance. There's even a car chase that ends with one guy catching fire and getting shot multiple times as he burns. Lots of fire in this thing. That's where the budget went. I almost wonder if the fire truck in this thing was a real fire truck responding to a fire these bozos started for the picture.

So, It's pretty fucking far from a classic but if you can wade through some of the boring parts there's a lot of fun to be had here. I laughed every time they cut to the insane asylum when Mike is returned there. Like I mentioned earlier, the kills were horribly executed. Sometimes (all the time?) the camera would linger on the victim and would catch them breathing or scratching their ass or some shit. Almost as if Tim Ritter were daring them to hold their position. They never did. Especially that one little leaguer that got drive-by chainsawed. I can't wait to see some of this guy's other stuff.

Freaks (1932)

2010-04-21T17:15:00.003-04:00

I feel like I don't cover enough of the classics so I'll try to rectify that shit. A couple weeks ago, I wrote up The Wolf Man and its sequel (which I determined isn't worthy of "classic" status). Well, here we got a pre-code picture from 1932 that is pretty bonafide in my opinion. It's a picture about circus freaks simply called Freaks and was pretty controversial back in its day. Tod Browning, the man behind the reputed classic Dracula, has fashioned himself a shocking work about deformed people (freaks) working the traveling carnival circuit and the people who are appalled by them while at the same time taking advantage of them. Audiences were disgusted by what Browning put on film (real live freaks, no special effects) which makes this picture even more interesting because it exposed his audiences, as well as most of the normal people portrayed in the film, as prejudiced sons of bitches. Browning was insulting his audiences years before Haneke.

What we got here is a picture that takes place entirely within the world of a traveling carnival. We got the sideshow attractions (the titular freaks) and a few normals. A couple of these normals, Olga the trapeze artist and Hercules the muscleman, begrudgingly put up with the weirdos. We got lots of setup for what amounts to a barely longer than sixty minute picture. The carnival is run by a little person named Hans who is pined after by another little person named Freida. He feigns interest in her but only until something better comes along, better meaning normal. Like maybe the blond trapeze artist for example. Turns out Hans is due to inherit a large sum of money. Olga might be interested after all. She conspires with Hercules. She'll marry the little bastard, poison him, and then the two of them can make off with the loot. That's pretty much the plot. This thing really isn't about what it's about though. It's about how it's about what it's about.

Today this thing would be full of special effects. Can't use real freaks. Exploiting freaks would cause an uproar. Browning wanted realism in his picture and he got it. Lots of real freaks in this thing. We got "the human torso" which amounts to a guy with no arms and no legs who still manages to light his own cigarettes. We got the siamese twins who have aspirations of marriage but haven't quite figured out the bed situation yet. We've got the three sisters (I think) with bird like heads (one of them looks like Sid Haig). We got the young woman with no arms that eats and smokes with her feet. We got a couple dwarfs, one of whom went on to play the "master" part of "master-blaster" in Mad Max Beyond The Thunderdome. We got the standard bearded lady type deal...only this one falls in love with a human skeleton. And, most impressively, we got the guy with no lower half (who, as it turns out, is probably the best actor of the bunch). There are a couple sympathetic normals who stick up for their co-workers. Obviously, one of these sympathetic characters is a clown.

As I mentioned earlier, for a sixty minute picture, this thing takes a while to get going. That's a good thing. We get a peak into the lives of these freaks. Character is important and we got lots of characters here. One thing weirded me out though. I'll be honest. At first I thought Hans and Freida were children. And brother and sister. So, I found it inappropriate that they were alluding to things like love and marriage. Also, could we get a translator for these two? I couldn't understand a god damned thing they were saying. Except when Hans would constantly refer to his normal employees as "swine".

Anyway, in the portrayal of the lovable freaks and also Cleopatra and Hercules what the picture is doing is showing us that freaks are more human than most humans. Until the end when the freaks gather up knives, guns, etc and chase Cleopatra through the rain soaked forest and then chop off her legs, melt down her hands, cut out her tongue, gouge out an eye, tar and feather her, etc (some of this wasn't shown in the movie, I had to read it on wikipedia). The movie loses its message a bit with that climax when it turns the freaks into monsters. Admittedly, the bitch did have it coming. I also understand that Browning needed to excite the audiences with some sort of horrific climax. You know, to sell the thing. Nothing more horrific than a bunch of freaks crawling through the muck on their way to disfiguring some broad I guess.

So, this is a classic alright. I loved it. Being pre-code and all we got bosomy women wearing skimpy outfits and some sexual innuendo between Hercules and Cleopatra, like the conversation about how many "fried eggs" would he like to eat for "dinner" and shit. That's weird innuendo, but it worked. The final reveal, the shock moment, that I already spoiled, is equal parts horrific and funny. Then there's a tacked on scene involving Freida and Hans getting together at his newly acquired mansion which feels a bit perfunctory. Should have left it out. Oh, and sorry for overusing the word freaks. I just like saying freaks. Of all the movies about freaks, and especially called freaks, this one is probably the best, or close to it.

Robot Jox (1990)

2010-04-19T18:18:00.005-04:00

I didn't expect to enjoy Robot Jox as much as I did. Stuart Gordon (director of The Re-animator, Dagon, Stuck) and Joe Haldeman (author of the great "The Forever War") joined forces (along with producer Charles Band) to create something that manages to work despite its paltry budget. Basically what we got here is a gladiator picture set in the distant future where the combatants are giant robots fitted with all kinds of crazy weapons and piloted by men (and a woman). Nuclear war has ravaged earth and out of the dust rises two superpowers; The Market (the USA basically) and The Confederation (those evil bastards from the USSR). War has been abolished. Conflicts are resolved in the arena. The Confederation has laid claim to the province of Alaska (the last vestige of natural resources on the planet). The Market objects and demands they settle this thing as if they were in Ancient Rome. Only with giant fucking robots.

The picture is a mash up of Rocky IV, Starship Troopers, and Voltron. We got the reluctant American hero known as Achilles (a solid Gary Graham) versus the lovably loony Russian, Jox Alexander (Paul Koslo). Koslo has a blast as the villain. His performance leaves the earth's atmosphere (literally and figuratively). He encompasses nearly every Russian stereotype and does it all with a ridiculously absurd accent. At one point, telling Achilles over drinks, "you make my vodka taste like blood." The picture opens with Alexander destroying the robot of one of Achille's teammates in battle and then stomping on the cockpit until the poor guy is dead, cackling with delight as he does it. The referees seem mildly pissed off as a result (yes, these battles are pointlessly refereed). No suspension or forfeiture though. Just a little tongue lashing.

So, we got this awesome villain and a hero in Achilles who isn't perfect. He's a drunk, a misogynist, kind of an all around asshole. Still, it's a tribute to Graham's performance that we actually kinda like the guy. The first battle between Alexander and Achilles is a memorable one. It ends when Alexander's robot launches an errant missile/giant robot hand that locks in on a few thousand spectator's seated comfortably in the bleachers. Achilles blocks the missile with his robot chest to save the crowd. Unfortunately, the blow knocks him backwards crushing hundreds. As a result, spectators are barred from future contests and the match is declared a draw. Also, Achilles retires in shame (a retirement which predictably will be short lived).

In addition to Achilles we also got a female robot jock with the code name Athena. She's a fucking annoying character but thankfully we see her bare assed in the co-ed shower scene (predating Starship Troopers by nearly a decade). She's cocky, hotheaded and, ultimately, incompetent especially when it comes to piloting a giant robot. Sure, she does well enough during training exercises (including one that results in death or paralysis if you fail) but when the chips are down (i.e. ownership of Alaska) she comes up short. Also, she pretends to be Achilles to get access to his robot for the final fight and then proceeds to get the shit kicked out of her by Alexander.

There are other parts of this picture I liked such as the scene when a traitor is unmasked and he makes a hilarious "getaway". The sets are cheap. We're talking painted cardboard. The special effects veer from the adequate to awful like the part where the giant robot foot is coming directly at the control tower window (reminded me of the shot where Jaws swims towards the underwater window at Seaworld and then Lou Gossett jr. tried to fend it off with his cane). The robots are brought to life with what looks like a combination of model work, stop motion animation, and men in suits. The last battle between Achilles and Alexander includes a moment where they launch their robots into space which serves no purpose other than to have a scene take place in space. And then this thing ends just like Rocky IV minus the awkward speech. Shit man, I had a great time with this picture.

Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man (1943)

2010-04-16T17:48:00.001-04:00

The title Frankenstein meets The Wolf Man is a bit of a misnomer. First of all, Frankenstein isn't even in the picture. It's Frankenstein's monster. I suppose that title could be referring to Dr. Frankenstein's daughter, Elsa but I doubt it. Obviously, what they are really referring to is the monster which, of course, isn't Frankenstein. It's his creation. So, anyway, The Wolf Man and Frankenstein's monster meet up for about ten minutes. This thing was almost as disappointing as Alien Vs. Predator. Mostly it was just boring.

Still, I can't dispute the atmosphere in this thing. We got a full heaping of that shit. Again with the matte paintings, the forest scenes filmed indoors, the fog machines, the beautiful black and white. Unfortunately, all that production is let down by an incredibly slight story and Bela Lugosi's laughably bad performance as Frankenstein's monster. According to the wikipedia (or some other source I can't remember) Lugosi turned down the role in the original Frankenstein because he wanted dialogue. Here, they gave him some...and then cut all those moments out. Thankfully for us, Karloff was the one that made the monster famous.

Anyway, I didn't enjoy this picture nearly as much as I enjoyed The Wolf Man. What we got here is a sequel that throws continuity out the window. If you remember the first picture, the Wolf Man (aka Larry Talbot - a returning Lon Chaney jr.) was beaten to death with a silver walking stick by his unknowing father, Claude Rains. As this picture opens, a couple grave robbers enter the cemetery hoping to rob the monies that Talbot was buried with. They unearth the corpse which is then revived by the full moon. Jugulars get ripped (off screen) and now we have ourselves a movie! Unfortunately, things get really boring from there. No one believes Talbot is actually Talbot. And, why should they? He's dead. That would be impossible. Anyway, Talbot spends the entire picture moping around and trying to figure a way to kill himself since obviously silver is ineffective.

Which brings him to Dr. Frankenstein's lair. Maybe Frank can help him to die? Unfortunately, the good doctor is away...or dead. Who can be bothered with remembering all this shit? He does encounter the Doctor's daughter though. I guess they had a fling. Maybe not. I watched this a week ago. Struggling to remember minor details. Anyway, Talbot ends up in some catacombs where he finds some tall doofus looking fellow trapped in ice (I think I missed that particular Frankenstein sequel). He frees him and the creature shambles around clumsily as if he's in an Abbot and Costello picture. He's fucking goofy. No menace here. So, some things happen. More things happen. Talbot and the monster fight eventually. They're both swept away in a flood or some shit and then the picture ends. Lugosi was better as the gypsy-wolf in part one. Am I wrong for not enjoying this shit?

Last House On the Beach (1978)

2010-04-14T17:28:00.035-04:00

Well, here's an offensive, tasteless, and joyless slice of exploitative sleaze that may have passed you by. Renamed Last House on the Beach (not sure of the original title) to capitalize on Craven's Last House on the Left, this is a nasty picture with few redeeming qualities. Let's just jump right into it, shall we?

The picture opens with a brutish bank robbery orchestrated by three thugs led by some guy named Aldo that vaguely resembles Luke Skywalker. One guy sorta looks like Ralph Malph from "Happy Days". Anyway, these guys make off with some loot, kill a couple bystanders, and head for the shoreline where they come across what appears to be the only house on the beach (so the title actually fits!). Living in the house is a Nun, Sister Somebody and her five (maybe six) teenage students (all twenty something females). Also, we got a maid, but she's taken care of, almost immediately, when a hot iron is implanted in her face. Then, Ralph Malph attempts to have his way with one of the girls as she strips nude in the bathroom but all he gets for his troubles is a sharpened comb (or maybe a pin) stabbed into his upper leg. Wounds like this tend to fester, get infected, maybe migrate up to the stomach, etc. So, things are bound to spiral downward from this point on.

The first thing I wondered is who the hell shot this overly stylized piece of shit? Couldn't be bothered to check, however. The opening robbery is shot, almost entirely, from the ground level. We got no faces unless they're off in the distance. Lots of feet though. We see one of the robbers off a ways wearing a mask. Weird cinematic shit. Anyway, the picture then cuts to a scene at the beach house where all we see are women's feet and I got worried the whole thing would be shot this way. Thankfully, things relax and we get to see the women in their entirety. And, by entirety, I mean they're naked a lot. Unfortunately, most of that nakedness is of the forced kind so unless you're a sexual deviant, best keep those flies zipped.

The Aldo character, and leader of the gang, is someone the filmmakers try, somewhat despicably, to get the audience to relate to. Here's a normal guy; in shape, blond, articulate. He went to college but dropped out after realizing it would take him a hundred years to make a million dollars. Why not just speed up the process by robbing banks? Or, he could just work harder and get a better job. One of the girls (the very blond one) develops a bit of Stockholm syndrome, seems to dig the guy, maybe she can get through to him, etc. Then, during the first night, he looks on as one of his cronies puts on makeup and rapes one of the girls (with Malph on the other side of her) in slow motion while David Lynch orchestrates the sound effects and also the camera angles. So, Aldo ain't exactly a guy we can get behind (neither figuratively, nor literally). Oh, and he also rapes the nun and then comments on the lax standards of the catholic church these days "'cause clearly, she wasn't no virgin when they took her in." Alright, maybe I'm making up quotes here....I think the guy articulated it a little better since he did, after all, have a year of college under his belt.

Anyway, For the most part, I got a problem with this particular genre of moving picture....let's call it the "men have their way with innocent women only to have the tables turned on them by the end" genre. Into this genre falls such pictures as Last House on the Left, The Night Train Murders, Day of the Woman (aka I Spit On Your Grave), Hitch-Hike, House on the Edge of the Park, etc*. A picture like Day of the Woman is full of misogyny, but ultimately justified (by it's many defenders, not me) because it eventually "empowers" women. Well, sure, it "empowers" them. But not until the audience has been subjected to a 30 minute rape scene that takes place in two parts. They're "empowered" if they've survived the raping and the bludgeoning. The woman in Day of the Woman gets her revenge. She uses her sexuality (which is hardly an empowering notion - as if to say a woman can't use her wits or her non sexual physicality) to undo her tormentors. The "classic" moment in this particular picture is the bloody castration in the tub. Well, it should be the "classic" moment except I was still caught up on the 30 minute two part rape sequence. Unlike Last House on the Left, which at least raises a challenging moral issue or two, Day of the Woman has nothing to really offer its viewer beyond the horror of a 30 minute rape sequence broken up into two parts. Also, the slicing off dick part.

Anyway, Last House on the Beach falls into Day of the Woman category of the "men have their way with innocent women only to have the tables turned on them by the end" genre in that it has no reason to exist beyond its ability to disgust. The ending, aka the comeuppance, feels tacked on at the last minute of filming (much like the ending of House on the Edge of the Park). There's no natural progression. We got an hour plus of women being harassed, terrorized, violated, beaten, stabbed, tortured, penetrated with canes, etc. It's all shot tastefully of course. We got the aforementioned slow motion. The director (from what I can remember) made a conscious effort not to show the naughty parts during any of the assaults. I guess for fear of titillating his perverted audience. Doesn't matter. We know what's going on. And then there's the one scene where Ralph Malph approaches a helplessly bound girl with his phallic cane. This shot was so "awesome" that the director chose to show it twice! Yes, you guessed it. In slow-mo!

For an exciting climax, we got the nun (trained as a nurse) doing the proverbial ol' "turning of the tables" and poisoning the wounded guy and blowing another guy's head off with the wounded, now dead, guy's gun. And so, it all comes down to a brief sequence pitting the Stockholm sufferer against our lovable rapist, Aldo. Are the girls justified in their vengeance? Of course. No question. Does the audience feel satisfied? Of course not. We're still hung up on all the torturing and, you know, the violating. Other than all the negative shit I just mentioned, Last House On the Beach is a borderline passable entertainment. Mainly because, once you take that shit out you got about five minutes of movie.

*For the record, I think Hitch-Hike and, in particular, Night Train Murders are pretty great pictures precisely because the rape isn't the point. They're both shocking, brutal and, yes, borderline misogynistic, but, like Last House on the Left, they place the characters (and the audience) in situations involving fairly heady moral quandaries.

The Wolf Man (1941)

2010-04-13T17:33:00.004-04:00

Having recently seen The Wolf Man remake and having not properly reviewed it (it was good bloody fun) I thought it would be a good idea to watch the original. And, so, I did watch it. It's certainly one of the more interesting of the classic Universal horror pictures out there. To be fair, I've only seen (off the top of my head) Creature From The Black Lagoon, Frankenstein, and The Bride of Frankenstein. Bride was, and still is, the best of that lot.

Lon Chaney jr stars as Lawrence Talbot who returns home to his families estate after the mysterious death of his brother. Claude Rains plays his father. Some broad plays Talbot's love interest. Also, there are gypsies (some old broad and Bela Lugosi). Talbot's love interest sells him a walking stick. There's tension between father and son. Not much happens for a little while. Good set-bound atmosphere; matte paintings, fog machines, fake trees, etc. One night, Lugosi turns into a wolf and attacks some dame. Talbot fights it off with his stick which, incidentally, is made of silver and eventually kills it. Not before he's been bitten. With the bite comes a curse, the old gypsy recites a poem, something about the mark of a pentagram, people think Talbot's crazy, he turns into a wolf, maybe kills someone, Talbot gets depressed, etc, etc.

I loved this picture but let's be honest here. It ain't perfect. First of all, Chaney (perhaps due to his rampant alcoholism) looks about ten years older than Claude Rains. It's not a deal breaker, but their differing appearences stand out like a sore paw. Second of all, why is it that (in these old pictures) the guy changing into a wolf always seems to change feet first? What's with the feet? Sure, maybe the transformation effects are great for their time, but couldn't they at least have started with the face...or maybe the midsection?

Minor quibbles aside, the character of Lawrence Talbot is a good one. At first, he looks for ways to cure his curse but then he just sorta settles for wanting to die. This shit is more tragic than the misunderstood monster from Frankenstein. Talbot's a bit like the incredible hulk. Once transformed, his humanity takes a back seat to his instinct and also his snapping jaws. Instead of foiling criminal masterminds, he rips out jugulars. Unfortunately, learning to control the wolf part is not really an option. Only thing he can do is bite his girlfriend and then maybe they can have some adult wolf fun during the next full moon. That doesn't happen.

One more quibble. If you have a silver walking stick you shouldn't really fear walking around the English moors during a full moon. Hit the beast once and it goes down. Keep at it and he's dead within a minute or two. Why is it so easy? I can understand the whole silver bullet concept. Bullet pierces the skin, hits an organ, infects the blood stream. That's pretty understandable. Beating the thing with a silver walking stick? Not the same thing. Maybe it stings a bit, causes a welt, some bruises. I don't know. Is it like kryptonite? I guess that would make more sense. I guess we could kill Superman with a kryptonite walking stick? Just hit him a few times? Whatever. Regardless, The Wolf Man is a great movie.

Jennifer's Body (2009)

2010-04-07T15:07:00.024-04:00

Jennifer's Body takes the tragedy of the 2003 fire at the Station Nightclub and exploits the shit out of it. If the picture had been more than passable I might have been able to excuse it. I will say that the picture at least manages to empower women. Why do I say this? Because it's written by Diablo Cody (of Juno and former stripper fame) and also directed by a woman. So, we can assume it must be all about girl power and shit. Megan Fox is smoking hot and look at her use her awesome body to lure boys to their doom. She gives new meaning to the term "boyeater", which is a term I just made up. If Fox (as the titular character) were ugly then these boys would think twice about trying to get biblical with her. Well, maybe not (boys will fuck anything, even fresh out of the oven cherry pies - see, my schtick is referencing late 90s comedies) but that's not the point I'm trying to make. Also, Amanda Seyfried shines in the role of Jennifer's needy best friend Needy. Needy is ugly and boring. We know this cause she wears glasses. Take those glasses off and you wouldn't even recognize her. Needy is desperately in love with Jennifer, wants to be her, wants to probably have sex with her, stands up for her when the boys call her a slut, etc.

Oh, and the movie takes place in a town called, if I'm remembering correctly, Devil's Falls. It's called this because there's a waterfall in town and at the bottom of the waterfall there is a whirlpool that seemingly has no bottom and is apparently the portal to hell or something. Also, this is a picture about high school kids that are in their twenties which isn't very original. Anyway, we got this town called Devil's Falls and in this town are Jennifer and her friend Needy. One night, they go to a rock club on the outskirts of town where this hot new band is playing. They're called Low Shoulder and fronted by the witty Jewish kid that was in the O.C. He's the best part of the movie by far. Needy overhears the band talking about Jennifer, how the O.C. kid wants to fuck her and stuff because she looks like a slut. Or maybe they don't want to bother with her because of the sluttyness? Shit, what was it again? Anyway, bottom line is they called her a slut. Needy overhears and puts the O.C. kid in his place by saying that Jennifer's a virgin. Later, we learn that Jennifer isn't "even a backdoor virgin".

So, the O.C. boy is now interested in Jennifer. The band starts playing and a fire somehow starts behind the band, quickly envelops the walls, spreads through the club, pretty much kills everyone, etc. Except for Jennifer, Needy, and the band. O.C. guy shows up nonchalantly outside of the now smoldering club sipping on some whiskey and invites the girls to his van so he can "comfort" them by exposing them to the comfortably familiar surroundings of the interior of his van. Also, I guess his dick. Needy is against going as she's in shock and also a skittish prude. Jennifer is all for it though cause she is, after all, still a slut, albeit a moderately traumatized slut. She goes off with the band and appears later that night in Needy's kitchen covered in blood and vomiting up black oil which isn't normal. What's even less normal is when she develops an appetite for teenage boys. I'm glad that these fuckers could use the tragedy of 100 people dying horribly to craft a nuanced masterpiece about a girl that literally eats boys and that is also peppered with Dawson's Creek level witticisms such as "Who's Phil Collins?" Also, in response to an invite to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Jennifer says "I don't like boxing movies" which is pretty much the definition of wit.

So, I didn't like it. I would have liked it a hell of a lot more if the picture had focused on the band but I don't think Diablo Cody is capable of writing that movie. Turns out (SPOILER) the band tried to make a deal with the devil so that they could sell more albums. They brought Jennifer to the town waterfall and were gonna sacrifice her to Satan on account of her being a virgin and all. Unfortunately, they didn't realize that Jennifer wasn't even a "backdoor virgin". If you sacrifice a slut you open said slut to demonic possession. She becomes a succubus, starts eating the football team, can float through the air, maybe even eats Needy's boyfriend (kid is slumming - she's heinous in those glasses), etc. Meanwhile, the band becomes famous based on the media attention given to the fire. So, I guess their immediate fate* is better than Great White's who lost a guitarist in their fire and also became more infamous than famous which is not a good thing I don't think. Also, how did the fire start? I initially thought Jennifer started it with her mind, but then I guess I didn't realize she was just "high school evil" at this point. Then I figured maybe it was Satan that started it. Either Satan or faulty wiring. One of those two.

Megan Fox and Amanda Seigfried weren't bad in their parts. Seigfried plays a decent "ugly" and neurotic girl. She almost fooled me. I liked when she finally decided Jennifer was actually like evil for reals and decided something had to be done about it. She even did some library research which is where she read up on succubi. No wikipedia in Diablo Cody's world of 70s and early 80s pop culture references that teenagers today would'nt even think about using. I liked this gimmick better in Juno because the characters in that picture were genuine. Doesn't work as well in a less serious, supposed to be cultish, possibly offensive (am I reaching with the Station comparison?), horror picture. Megan Fox is better here than in Transmorphers I and II but this performance still doesn't set the world on fire. Nope, just a dingy little nightclub on the outskirts of some fake town.

*watch the credits for their ultimate fate which, in the movie's defense, is worse than Great White's (which, admittedly, hasn't been totally decided yet)

Robot Monster (1953)

2010-04-06T17:18:00.011-04:00

At this point, I have a hard time distinguishing the bad pictures from the good ones. To me the worst possible thing a movie can be is boring. I'm not a fan of the phrase "so bad, it's good". If a movie is bad then it's bad. If it's good, it's good. I like to keep it simple. Plan 9 From Outer Space is great. I enjoyed every second of that thing. Well, I'm here to tell you that Robot Monster is even better. Somehow the director, Phil Tucker, has made a picture that features scene after scene of an alien Robot, with the body of an ape and the head of a deep sea diver, lumbering across a desert canyon highly entertaining. It probably doesn't hurt that this thing clocks in at a brisk 62 minutes either.

What we got here is the story of Ro-Man (the ape/diver/alien/robot) who has come to earth on a mission to cure it of the virus known as man (also women and children). Why? Because if they don't kill us then we'll kill them. He's got a point. So, Ro-Man arrives and destroys most of humanity with a calcinator ray. This ray is so powerful that it also manages to bring back stock footage of fake dinosaurs that proceed to destroy one another for no reason other than it looks pretty "cool". Unfortunately, for Ro-Man, the ray fails to kill a scientist and his family; which includes a couple of children (Johnny and Sally or some shit), a pretty hot broad considering the alternatives (I think her name was Alice), etc. There's also an assistant to the old scientist (who has the hots for Alice). Also, the scientist's wife. Why are they alive? The scientist has developed some sort of serum or whatever that defrays the effects of the calcinator ray. Why doesn't the Ro-Man just kill them with his bare hands? Apparently, the scientist has found a way to cloak their home from his scanners. Their home consists of a rock wall which is apparently within short walking distance from Ro-Man's cave. This is the set up.

What follows is a series of video conferences set up between Ro-Man and his otherworldly supervisor, who happens to look and talk just like Ro-Man, and also between Ro-Man and the last surviving family on earth. During one such conference, Johnny sticks his tongue out at Ro-Man to which Ro-Man replies "that child is impertinent!" Ro-Man proposes a truce: He offers the humans a "painless surrender death" as opposed to "the horrible resistance death". Ro-Man falls in love with Alice and can't bring himself to kill her. He has no such problem in dealing with the little girl. The child's murder does result in one of the picture's most touching scenes when the scientist, in a heartrending eulogy, offers these words of comfort to his remaining brethren: "Well, we enjoyed Sally while she was alive...", rubbing hands together...."we'll just have to think of something else to enjoy now". Maybe I'm paraphrasing.

Anyway, Robot Monster is a classic alright. We got sub par acting, horrid special effects, some incredibly hamfisted acting, inept plotting, etc. And yet, all this shit comes together to create something breathtaking. I hope they rerelease this thing in 3D someday. Oh yeah, almost forgot about the score created by oscar winning composer Elmer Bernstein (Thoroughly Modern Millie). Um, it's not bad. Perhaps I wouldn't be as enthusiastic about Robot Monster if it had been longer. 62 minutes is the perfect length. It's 17 minutes shorter than Plan 9 From Outer Space. Shorter, in this case, equals better. Check it out.

Funhouse (1981)

2010-04-05T17:42:00.014-04:00

The Funhouse is an interesting slasher film in that, after a terrific opening scene which pays homage to (while also spoofing) Halloween, it can barely be considered a slasher at all. I mean, we got lots of buildup for a movie that comes down to a retarded mutant and his father chasing four horny teens around a funhouse and offing them with little to no imagination. Tobe Hooper's followup to his adaptation of Stephen King's Salem's Lot is an interesting misfire which borrows Frankenstein's monster (in this case, Jason Vorhees if he'd lived long enough to become a teenage rapist) and places him within the interesting world of carnival sideshows. The opening scene is a classic of stalking and slashing and what can only be considered some wildly inappropriate nudity. For the first 30 or 40 minutes I was entertained by scenes of carnival peep shows, two headed cows, a fetus in a jar, crotchedy old fortune tellers, and the promise of "teens" (Buzz looks about 35) in "love" getting it on. Unfortunately, the picture eventually collapses under a mountain of tedium.

Basically, what we got here is a movie with a teen girl (Amy), her bratty younger brother (Joey), her boyfriend (the aforementioned Buzz), her two friends, and a carnival which leaves a series of murders and rapes in its wake. At the previous town, a couple girls were found dead so understandably Amy's father doesn't want her anywhere near the thing. So, they come up with a story about going to the movies or some shit and head out for a fun night of making fun of freaks and sneaking a peak at real live boobies. Then, one of them (I'm sure it was a guy) comes up with the brilliant idea of hiding in the funhouse, waiting for the carnival to close for the night, and then having sweet, sweet sex on the disgusting floor. Also, Amy's brother Joey sneaks in. Also, they witness a carny in a Frankenstein mask about to have sex with an old fortune teller, prematurely ejaculate, and then murder the old hooker rather than pay up. Also, the guy's a mutant and the shame of his father (also a carny) who, upon discovering the corpse, beats his son for forcing him to cover up yet another murder. Also, I think they found out the kids saw everything so then spent the last thirty minutes or so stalking and slashing them. Also, ZZZZZZZZZZZ......

I didn't like this one very much. I did enjoy the carnival atmosphere. It seemed like they filmed this thing at a real carnival. They even set up some rides and shit. I loved the stuff with them just walking around and taking it all in, mocking the weirdness of it all, staring at the two headed cow, etc. Once they witness the murder things just take a turn for the worse. I was bored. I mean, we know right away who the killers are. No suspense there. We know who is going to survive. The kills are all sort of matter-of-fact. We got a guy hung up by a noose and then axed to the head after he's already dead. We got a girl clawed to death. We got a gunshot wound I think. Strangulation. Not too many teens in this thing so not too many deaths I guess. Since we don't have much death or gore I guess the thing we'd look for is suspense, but this picture doesn't have any. What we're left with is an atmospheric exercise. Yeah, it looks pretty good and there's some nudity and shit but so what? Maybe this was enough in 1981 but today I got something called the internet. No reason to sit through a ninety minute picture looking for boobs when I can just find thirty second clips online. I guess my attention span is getting smaller. Hooper let me down here.

Twilight (2008)

2010-03-29T16:57:00.021-04:00

"I watched this movie called Twatlight...hahahaha.....It's a movie about teen Vamps and teen Wolves and shit...and Twatlight...LOL....it sucks and, by the way, fuck it's fans...they are so annoying...they ruined horror for me and my elitist horror loving friends...LOL....Twatlight..."

Well, shit...the above is paraphrasing what most people in the webisphere seem to think about this picture called Twilight that came out a couple years ago. It seems the "horror community" was up in arms that someone would have the gall to make a film with vampires that wasn't aimed at them. I mean, what the fuck is that shit about? These are the same people that revere something like The Lost Boys as some sort of pinnacle of 80s horror. I mean, have they seen The Lost Boys lately? In no universe can that thing be considered good. Sure, it's enjoyable but as an actual work of film it's....shit, I'll stop right there. Now I'm doing what those "Twatlighters" enjoy doing so much.

Anyway, I was gonna go on this whole rant about how we live in a contrarian society where people love to try to convince others why they should hate something they love and blah blah blah blah blah, but I'm sometimes guilty of that shit too. Hell, if I had come to Twilight when it was released I probably would have fallen into the "Twatlight" camp. A couple years has given me some perspective. I'm happy for it's fanbase. I know what it's like to claim "ownership" over things like movies and music, to be amongst the first to experience them. It feels good. Here's a movie made for them. Have at it. I am legitimately happy for you. First they had the Stephenie Meyer books and now they have the movies. That's great.

So, now that I've seen the picture what do I think? It's not awful. It's not exactly good either. The screenplay is problematic to say the least. I think this picture was mostly made for people that read the books. I scratched my head a few times. So, on a script level this is not really good film making. What we have here is a traditional fish out of water story. In this case, the fish is a 17 year old Arizonian sent to a small Washington town to live with her father. Her name is Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart). She's nothing like her name, however. She's awkward, selfish, rude, bitchy and all around not very pleasant. In other words, a typical teenager (if not the perfect sort of character to build a movie series around).

Anyway, Bella moves to a small town in Washington and, soon after, falls in love with this Edward Cullen guy who she doesn't have much in common with on account of him being an old as shit vampire. Edward, as played by Robert Pattinson, is almost as unpleasant as Bella (at least, in the beginning). He broods a lot. On first meeting Bella he covers his nose as if she's farted (it was explained to me that the smell of her blood is overwhelming, but this fact is never made clear in the movie). Inexplicably, it seems like all the kids in this town love Bella. The all american guy that asks her to the prom, the native american that used to make mud pies with her when they were kids, the would be rapists in the back alley, etc.

This picture's not all unlikable characters though. We got Bella's dad, who she refers to as Charlie. He's a good dad, doesn't "hover", loves Bella while having a hard time finding ways to express that love. Billy Burke, as Charlie, gives a strong performance. We like the guy. We got the native american chief, and buddy to Charlie, played by Graham Green. We got Jacob, the native american kid and also the one who has a thing for Bella even though the chances of his affections being reciprocated are small. Um, I also liked the friend...I forgot her name, the one with the big smile and the blondish hair that the all american boy ends up going to the prom with after being spurned by Bella. That one.

In the Cullen family, we got a few characters I liked such as the guy that looked like Lestat , was the town doctor, and also the "father figure" to his little vampire squad. Edward's sister, Alice, who immediately accepts Bella despite her many shortcomings and also was perky for a vampire. And then there's lovable Jasper who tries to eat Bella but later feels bad about it. Apparently, Jasper also has some sort of "mood thing" that he does which is never explained (lazy, lazy script). Actually, all the vampire's seem to have different powers; Alice sees the future (only it's constantly changing on her), Jasper does that "mood thing", and Edward can fly and maybe something else, can't remember what it was (and yes, parts of the movie - especially the part where Edward put Bella on his back and flew up a mountain - did remind me of Superman I in a fairly superficial way).

Basically, the movie is about forbidden love. Bella loves Edward and will do anything (which includes possibly destroying her own family) to be with him. Edward loves Bella but can't be with her because he also would love her with a little salt and pepper. Other boys love Bella too, but she won't give them the time of day. And, then some bad vampires wander into the surrounding woods killing folks and blaming it on giant wolves. One of these bad vamps takes a liking to Bella (as one would like a juicy, bitchy steak) and starts hunting her. It's up to Edward and his family to save her. Also, vampires love baseball. And, sparkling in the sunlight. Yep, they love that shit too. I'd never seen them vampire's do that shit before.

Why did this harmless, not entirely devoid of entertainment value, picture offend so many people? Is it because Stephenie Meyer took the basic tenets of vampires; stake through the heart, sunlight=bad, fangs, cloaks, vampires hate baseball, etc and fucked with them? Doubtful. I think it's simply a matter of numbers. More people saw, and loved, Twilight than saw, for example,the similarly themed Let The Right One In. Is LTROI a better movie? Of course it is. So, why are they upset? Why does it even matter? One picture just happens to appeal to a wider audience, that's all. Don't worry, they're remaking Let the Right One In for American audiences (shudder).

In Meyer's world the only way to kill a vampire is to tear him/her apart and then burn the pieces. This happens. Unfortunately it's just hinted at. One thing she doesn't get into is how vampires have sex. Could have used some sex. They don't eat or drink normal food. Do they take a pee? Drop the kids off at the pool? Would the doctor comment on all the blood in their stool? I guess when you're immortal you don't see a doctor. In the case of Ed's family, his dad's a doctor so that particular base is covered not that he'd ever have to see him. Just in case he got a sun rash or something.

Anyway, this picture wasn't made for me but that's fine. I sort of enjoyed it. I still don't like Bella or Edward. Maybe they improve as the series goes on. She is, after all, only 17. Plenty of time to mature. Edward on the other hand is 109? He's out of excuses. Thankfully, Catherine Hardwicke (the director) has made a picture that's, at least, pretty to look at. One thing I found odd, and potentially interesting, was that Edward and his "siblings" actually bothered going to high school. After a scene during science class, where he identified some shit in his microscope that he barely looked at (as if he's taken that class before!), the fact that he's been at the same grade level for decades isn't really addressed. I also would have liked some more high school shit, in general. Could have used some bullying or some shit by the "normal" kids as well. Also, what did the "normal" goth kids at school think of the "abnormal" goth kids? Missed opportunity in my opinion.

So, yeah. I watched Twilight and didn't hate it as much as I was supposed to. Wanna fight about it?

Also, I can finally watch my copy of the super lame Taintlight and know why that shit is supposed to be funny.

Crash (1996)

2010-03-24T17:32:00.016-04:00

So, I watched this picture about people that get off on car crashes and, I have to say, while I was never bored by it I'm not really sure I understood it either. I'm not even sure if this is a real fetish. I'm afraid what google might bring up if I try to find out. It's a Cronenberg, so you know you're gonna have lots of weird touches like the leg wound that looks like a vagina and eventually gets fucked or even the whole "takes place in Canada" aspect. I mean, I watched the NC-17 version and, I gotta say, there is a lot of fucking in this thing. Only, it's not exactly of the erotic variety. Lots of fucking near car crashes, after car crashes, etc. Twisted metal and damaged bodies are a real turn on to these people.

James Spader starts out as a pretty normal guy who is fucking his secretary (Deborah Karr Unger). Later, he gets in a head on collision (his fault) that kills Holly Hunter's husband while managing to somehow undo Hunter's shirt, exposing her breast. Spader gets kind of turned on while the dead husband, who flew through his own windsheild and into Spader's, lies dead next to him. They both rehab at the same joint, encounter each other in the hall (he makes a weak apology attempt), and later, meet again, at the junkyard. Spader gives Hunter a lift and they end up fucking in his car while it's parked in a crowded parking garage.

Hunter introduces Spader to Elias Koteas who takes pictures of wounds and, in his spare time, recreates fatal celebrity car crashes in front of an appreciative audience. He also dates Rosanna Arquette who has a hideous vaginal leg wound and seems like she's part machine (another fascination of Cronenberg's is the melding of technology and flesh - so he keeps his themes going). Later Spader fucks Arquette (and the aforementioned wound), Koteas fucks Unger, Unger fucks Arquette, and Spader fucks Koteas. Then they all get in crashes and shit. Koteas gets jealous when his buddy stunt driver dresses up like Jayne Mansfield and re-enacts her crash without him, complete with dead puppy in the back and near-decapitation.

The picture ends with Spader causing Unger to crash and then fucking her, as she's possibly near death, in the divider between highways as cars just continue on their merry way. Lots of fucking in this one. Sorry if I spoiled all the fucking. And some dirty talk between Unger and Spader including when Unger asks Spader "if he'll put his penis in [Koteas'] asshole" or something like that. Anyway, lots of sex. A couple car crashes (some off camera..some on) and then more fucking. Not too much talking. It's a quiet movie about fucking and car crashes and the link between them and lots of other shit I don't really understand. Good performances. Lots of baring of souls and various other parts. I'd still rather watch this than the picture of the same name that won best picture a few years back. Recommended for sick fetishists or Cronenberg fanatics or for people that want to watch a movie called Crash.

Strange Behavior (1981)

2010-03-23T17:02:00.011-04:00

Strange Behavior is the first in a planned "strange" trilogy from director Michael Laughlin and writer, and future Oscar winner, Bill Condon. The second film, Strange Invaders, tanked at the box office and so dreams of a trilogy were dashed (thanks wikipedia). Well, shit, why don't I just start regurgitating everything I read in wikipedia? Did you also know the song played during the famous synchornized dance routine at the costume party was Lou Christie's "Lightnin' Strikes"? And that the soundtrack is by Tangerine Dream (see also Sorcerer)? Or that the star Michael Murphy was also in McCabe and Mrs Miller, a movie I just reviewed? Well, that shit wasn't in wikipedia and to be honest I didn't even notice he was in McCabe. I found that out when checking imdb to see if he was in The Car (he wasn't).

Anyway, what we got here is a pretty strange attempt at a slasher film and one that, probably, inspired the Katie Holme's (barely memorable) Disturbing Behavior. Kids are dying around the small town of whatever the name of the town in this movie is called, Illinois. We got a kid stabbed in the face, we got a human scarecrow, a shower murder, a near drowning, a back stabbing, etc. Sheriff John Brady (Michael Murphy) is reluctantly on the case. Meanwhile, his teenage son Pete tries to get laid. Throw a mad scientist in here somewhere and we got ourselves a plot.

The murders start out as your typical stalk and slash type killings with all of them, with a few exceptions, being perpetrated against kids. We got a kid home alone. He finds some cigarettes. The lights go out. He gets knifed in the face (in beautiful silhouette). Eventually, things get weirder though. We got one girl stalked while she steps outside of a party. The killer forces her into a pool, she splashes around alerting other guests, and the killer flees. Then...he stops. Takes off his mask and reveals himself as (SPOILER) Pete's best friend. Ok, the weird kid's the killer. Big deal. Later, we see another killing. And another (one scene includes a levitating killer's point of view), and another. Each time the killer is revealed (SPOILER) to be a different kid. Kids killing kids using the ol' stalk and slash technique. Interesting concept.

Well, of course there's something much more sinister than just simply kids killing kids going on. It might involve the lab running tests on local high school kids, a lab run by a mad scientist, who's supposed to be dead. Note to parents: Labs run by mad scientists are probably not good places to send your children. I gotta be honest, I kinda liked this approach. I'm a sucker for hackneyed science in film. However, a part of me wishes they had just kept with the randomness of kids killing other kids. Random usually equals scarier. Hokey science equals Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Still, glad this thing was mostly played straight. Mostly, except for one scene.

That scene being the absolutely amazing costume party sequence I referenced earlier. Forget, for a second, about the flying nun who isn't "wearing any panties" and concentrate just on the synchronized dance scene. Pay attention to Batman (my favorite character in the whole movie and he doesn't even have a line!). It feels completely out of place (which is just one reason I loved it). The dance culminates at about the 2:33 mark. After that, you can stop watching (or, by all means, don't). And, you know what, the rest of the movie isn't too shabby either. We also got genre stalwart Louise Fletcher (Invaders from Mars the remake) looking drunk in a throw away part. I'm pretty sure you'll like this one.

Hercules in the Haunted World (1961)

2010-03-19T15:32:00.018-04:00

I've seen only a few Hercules pictures and, until now, none from the Italian beefcake sub genre. I guess Hercules was some Greek wrestler back during the times of mythical beasts and performance enhancing magic. From what little I can remember Hercules was fathered by a grizzly bear. After Herc was born, the bear threw his mother into outer space after which, Herc grabbed papa bear by the tail, twirled him around, and launched him through the stratosphere where various god's and shit took his frayed hide and used it to make Orion's belt (also, his loafers). Later, Herc became a world champion wrestler and all around Grecian idol posing for various magazine covers like "Going Greek" and "Playgirl". This, I'm pretty sure, is all just a legend.

Anyway, that great maestro of Italian horror, Mario Bava (Black Sunday, Black Sabbath, The Whip and The Body), decided to give a Hercules picture a shot. I got to say, this one isn't awful. We got plenty of signature Bava moments. Most notably, his use of color to enhance atmosphere. This is probably as cheap as movie's get so the guy had to navigate around these monetary limitations. For the most part, he did a good job. I liked the way the picture looked. The Hades (or "haunted world") scenes were obviously fake, but in such an over the top manner that they became interesting. Unfortunately, the story is pedestrian which isn't nearly good enough for a story about a half bear-half man oafish lout.

We got Hercules returning home from various adventures to learn that the woman he loves is under some kind of trance inducing spell. Christopher Lee plays the king of this particular realm. He plays it rather smarmily and, unfortunately, not with his own voice (Italian film = all voices dubbed). Apparently, Lee (King Minos or Lycos or something) has made a deal with the devil (or the Greek version of the devil) which grants him a kingdom and Herc's broad. Can't remember what the devil gets in return. Maybe Herc? So, Herc returns with his buddy and I think maybe an effeminate Moe from "The Three Stooges". They need to journey into the underworld to retrieve some golden apple. I think the golden apple assures that they can leave the underworld without having to give up their lives. Sounds like a moronic catch-22. Anyway, that's the task presented them.

Herc solves all problems by throwing rocks. His two buddies (after being separated from Herc) are attacked by some sort of rock monster who places them on torture devices and then has the most absurd stream of consciousness ranting I've yet heard come from a rock monster: "I am gonna stretch you out until you are as long as the table you lie on and then you will be dead as the rope which binds you and then I'm gonna tie you into a knot". Direct quote. Herc appears at the last minute and throws the rock monster against some other rocks. The rock monster costume was, shall we say, quaint?

Herc's favorite mode of transportation is tying a rope to a large rock (or boulder) and heaving it across a wide chasm so he and his buddies can shimmy across. He does this several times. So, anyway, I liked the gothic elements. The red and yellow haze in Hades effect, the narrow corridors, the copious amount of rocks. I enjoyed some of the hammy-ness. Only one scene really stuck out as anything original, however. It involved Herc standing atop a hill and heaving giant rocks at an advancing zombie army.

I got to say, I can't imagine that the humor came from Bava. Maybe I underestimate the guy. There is a scene at the end when the Moe character shows up with a new broad who seems to genuinely be interested in him. Until Herc's other buddy steps in and steals the broad away from him (I guess it's his wavy blond hair and "not-quite Herc sized" but still pretty good muscles). Moe threatens to drown himself in the ocean a fit of depression and struggles against the waves, is bashed by the surf, etc. Meanwhile, Herc and his own broad just laugh and then the movie ends. This picture is not pro-weakling is the message I suppose. Must be a product of the times. Regardless, I'm gonna go hit the gym.

I'm probably not gonna rush out to see any of the other Reg Park Hercules pictures. Apparently, he inspired Arnold Strong to get into bodybuilding. Strong later appeared in Hercules in New York ( might have to see that one) and later Conan The Barbarian where he was billed as Arnold Schwarzenegger. Hercules in the Haunted World is probably for Bava completists or nerds only.

Ricco The Mean Machine (1973)

2010-03-18T15:02:00.010-04:00

Ricco The Mean Machine is a weird title for this picture when you consider that the title character isn't really mean at all. I mean, here's a guy that goes away to prison for two years while the local mafia kingpin kills his father and steals his girlfriend. When Ricco finally gets out, he's got this laid back surfer dude type attitude about the whole thing. Upon first seeing his sister and her husband, they roll around on the ground laughing. His mom tries to hand him his father's gun in the hopes that he'll kill Don Vito (the aforementioned mafia kingpin)and avenge his father, but Ricco replies that he'll handle it his own way. His "way" could be cooler.

Starring as Ricco, we got the son of Robert Mitchum. Aside from his surfer hair cut, he looks just like his father. That's where the comparisons end. He's terrible in this thing, alternating between dazed looks and stilted laughter. His character hooks up with Barbara Bouchet, who plays a slutty counterfeitter and also the cousin of his stolen girlfriend. She looks great naked and seems like she'd be a lot of fun to hang out with.

My favorite character was probably Don Vito played by Arthur Kennedy, who looked familiar. This is a mobster who has built his empire on soap. Soap, which he exports across the world. Also, if you cross him you might get the shit kicked out of you by his henchman and dropped in a large vat of the stuff. If you get caught sleeping with his girl you might find your dick being cut off with a switchblade and shoved into your screaming mouth as you're dropped in the stuff. This actually happens and it's shockingly realistic. It's no surprise then that Don Vito can't stand his own product. At the very least, don't wash your face with it.

Anyway, this is a pretty good exploitation movie. We got a main character who sorta accomplishes shit by accident. I enjoyed the interview where Robert Mitchum's son talked about how he's a blackbelt in kenpo karate. You can't tell by watching this picture. The fight scenes are laughably bad. I counted three moments where Ricco would have been killed if not for the intervention of someone else. He also doesn't really think things through too well. He breaks into Don Vito's fortress to talk to his ex-girlfriend but didn't come up with an escape plan. Once again, he's saved by the smarts of someone else (in this case, Bouchet). So, he's not your typical badass I guess. Even after Vito has the rest of his family murdered (spoiler) all Ricco can think to do is sit out side Vito's front gate with a pistol ready to fire. I'm not sure if things are going to end well for Ricco.

So, it's enjoyable and you see a guy's penis snipped off and shoved into his mouth (balls first). If that's the kind of picture you want to see then look no further.

The Killer Snakes (1975)

2010-03-17T20:36:00.016-04:00

The warning label for The Killer Snakes states that it "contains extremely sick and disturbing scenes" and also that this is "not meant for most people". Boy, they weren't kidding. The Killer Snakes is one of the most exploitative pictures I've ever seen this side of XXX - the rating, not the picture (or The Sinful Dwarf). The picture opens with an abrupt black and white scene involving a young boy playing with snakes as his mother is smacked around for sexual gratification in the next room. Yet another boy with mother issues growing up to be weirdly perverted. It's that kind of picture. And more!

Shaw Brothers was like the Warner Brothers of China. They've got that classy logo (located on the window on the door of Shaw Studio offices). So, it's weird to see a picture of this ilk coming from them. We know about their kung fu stuff (Five Deadly Venoms, The One Armed Swordsman, etc). They also delved into dramas and comedies. Not many people are aware of their horror output and that includes me. I watched this thing with my jaw on the floor.

I don't know though. I liked it. We've got a lead character named Zihong who can't keep a job, can't get a girl, and is being constantly bullied. He lives in a basement apartment with holes in the walls and crumbling bricks. He's got his eyes on a pretty girl (Xiujung) who feels sympathy for him, but that's about it. Strangely enough, we actually feel sympathy for the guy even after he does some of the things he later does. This guy basically needs some friends. Well, all it takes is one injured snake slithering through a hole in his wall. The thing had its gall bladder removed (which have "overrated" healing powers, according to Zihong) so he takes it in, sews it up, and gives it love. The snake then tells it's friends and suddenly hundreds of snakes are living in his shit hole of an apartment, having a great time, doing his bidding, etc. "I've got so many friends", Zihong now exclaims.

This picture is like China's answer to Taxi Driver only instead of driving around in a cab this guy bosses around some snakes. Also, it was made two years earlier so I guess that makes Taxi Driver our answer to The Killer Snakes. At first, Zihong just uses the snakes for innocent stuff. You know, pranks and shit...like, when he puts a cobra in his pants and visits the prostitute that helped get him fired from his last job as a delivery boy. First he fucks her, then he has the snake kill her friends. Then he brings her back to his dungeon where he ties her up, strips off her clothes, and has his little scaly friend violate her to death. Yup, that's pretty much as innocent as it gets. You can imagine some of the other shit without me having to describe it, I hope.

The Killer Snakes is a sleazy journey into the underbelly of deviant human behavior. It left me feeling a little filthy to be honest. Especially the part with the gilla monsters. I signed on for killer snakes, but not that shit. This probably isn't movie night appropriate unless your guests are as fucked up as you are. The lead (some Chinese guy) is exceptional as Zihong. His love interest (Chinese gal) is adorable. Eventually, she falls into some danger and has to be saved...or, maybe avenged. Basically, the end is just a tragic free for all of snakes; we got cobras, pythons, bulls, boas. And, I'm sure there were some milk snakes thrown in there. Maybe an anaconda or two. Vipers maybe. I'm making this shit up as I go along. I know shit about snakes. I did find it interesting how they seemed to communicate with Zihong through a low hiss. These snakes are good actors.

Oh, and did I mention the nudity? We got tons of nudity. None of it very titilating. Mostly it's just the tied up and gagged while snakes bite their breasts and faces type of nudity. I didn't notice if there was a line at the end of the credits claiming that "no snakes were harmed during the making of this movie". I don't think there was which makes me wonder about the scene where the guy with the sword was chopping up snakes as they jumped at him. Oh yeah, these snakes jump. Well, I can't think of anything else to add for this one. I'm gonna go take a shower.

Red Sun (1972)

2010-03-16T16:49:00.011-04:00

I guess the best thing I can say about this picture is it was serviceable. Serviceable doesn't really cut it, however, when your picture stars Charles Bronson and Toshiro Mifune. It also stars Alain Delon who I probably should know, but, after looking over his imdb page it turns out I don't. Ursula Andress is also in this thing and pretty attractive. She gets naked in this picture so I'm gonna change her name to Ursula Undress. See what I did there? Clever.

Anyway, it's been a couple weeks since I saw this one. If I'm gonna keep reviewing a movie a day during the week then I gotta pick something so this one wins out. I remember enjoying it. It takes place sometime in the late nineteenth century. A Japanese ambassador travels to the United States with a couple samurai guards accompanying him. This being the nineteenth century we can assume (and then have confirmed by watching the movie) that he takes a boat across the Pacific to California and then hops on a train to take him to Washington, D.C. Once there, he'll present the President (I don't know...Arthur or Garfield or something) with a ceremonial sword on behalf of the emperor. Oh yeah, and one of the Samurai's with him is Yojimobo, in the flesh.

Well, no one told these guys about the wild west 'cause as soon as they board the train a bunch of rough and tumble outlaws come on board with guns. Since guns are better than swords they steal the sword (maybe diamonds too, but I can't remember). One of Yojimbo's buddies doesn't like the idea of being disgraced so he goes after one of the bandits and gets shot dead (off screen). Oh, and two of the bandits are played by Delon and Bronson only Delon betrays Bronson and makes off with the sword (and maybe diamonds). This leaves Bronson to, reluctantly, team up with Yojimbo and pursue Delon. They have a time limit (couple weeks) after which Yojimbo will be forced to kill himself (seppuku). Plenty of time for some Rush Hour like hilarity. Oh, and Andress fits in here somewhere as Delon's lover who is also willing to whore herself out to Bronson as long as it benefits her somehow.

My favorite parts are the ones with Bronson and Mifune walking through the desert, in pursuit of Delon. Bronson creates such a likable character (sorry, forgot his name) that even though he'd kill Mifune if the opportunity came up we still root for him (not to kill Mifune, but to at least stay alive). He spends the first thirty minutes or so trying to get away. Mifune is pretty persistent. And, so is Bronson. Bronson keeps coming at Mifune who keeps beating him down. Bronson pushes Mifune off a mountain but he makes it back before Bronson's gone ten feet. Neither gives up. That's why we like them. Later, of course, they come to respect each other and ultimately become friends.

Unfortunately, while this picture has two guys that worked with Sergio Leone and Akira Kurosawa, it doesn't have anyone on the other side of the camera with Leone's or Kurosawa's sense of style. Which is why I labeled this thing "serviceable" earlier. The director worked on a couple of early James Bond pictures and then some other shit I never heard of. He's good, but not exactly an artist. Not too many beautiful wide shots and lots of poorly staged fights. Yojimbo fights an Indian at one point, one on one, so maybe the director is comparing the plight of the Indians to the plight of the Samurai. Sorry, Native Americans?

Anyway, it's a good one but if you want to see a movie with a similar theme and a better story I'd suggest Hell in the Pacific where Mifune plays a Japanese soldier during World War II marooned on an island with Lee Marvin. Mifune doesn't speak a word of English and the filmmakers don't bother translating, yet it's still a terrific performance. He's better there than here is what I'm getting at. So, I recommend this one as long as you lower your expectations.

McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971)

2010-03-15T20:32:00.006-04:00

Poor kid. I'm referring to Keith Carradine's nameless cowboy who drifts into the town of Presbyterian Church looking to lose his virginity and leaves (spoiler) as a corpse half submerged in an icy river. The picture's not really about him. He has maybe five minutes of actual screen time and, yet, from the moment he steps into the whorehouse until he is shot dead he brought an injection of life the picture was in need of. His cowboy is just a kid. A gullible (some might say dumb), innocent kid with a wide and goofy smile. He carries a gun, but, as he tells his eventual killer, "I couldn't hit nothin' with it". His death is more heartbreaking, and meaningful, than any in the picture. Finally, here, amidst all this dreariness, is a character we like. Everyone likes the kid. Even the whores he paid. When he attempts to leave town and buy some supplies he must cross a bridge to get to the store. On the other side, awaits a bored (previously seen shooting at a can in the river) gunman, also a kid, younger than Carradine. Any other Western would have presented Carradine's "aw-shucks" demeanor as just an act. Not this one. Nope, in Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller there are no heroes.

So, I got mixed feelings about this one. I'll be honest here. The only Altman I've seen are Popeye and Mash and I saw those when I was a kid. This picture opens with a gambler (that would be McCabe played by a nearly unrecognizable Warren Beatty) riding into town, winning some money, and then opening a whorehouse which is later managed by Julie Christie. Later, some men come into town looking to buy the whorehouse. McCabe refuses. Men react by hiring some gunmen to kill him (including the kid that killed Carradine). This being an Altman movie (I hear this is his style and have to concur after watching this), everything is naturalistic, we got long moments of muted conversation or even silences. The set design is wonderfully filthy (and therefore seems authentic) and we've got non period songs by the likes of Leonard Cohen. Lots of improvising on this picture I'm sure and, to be honest, some genuine boredom on the part of this viewer. Yeah, I'm calling myself out. I didn't appreciate this "masterpiece" quite as much as I'd hoped.

What Altman has done is present us a snow bound "wild west" type town completely devoid of heroism. Beatty is very good as McCabe but he's not exactly someone that lives by a code, unless it's the code of "do whatever it takes to stay alive". The picture doesn't round into form until the moment Carradine's cowboy is killed and then we have long scenes of McCabe awkwardly running from building to building desperately trying to escape being shot. He shoots the first gunmen he sees directly in the back so we know this guy is no Eastwood or John Wayne. He shoots the next guy he sees through a window and also in the back. McCabe is a coward but I guess Altman is saying that most of us would pull the same shit, and I can't disagree. Nobility has left Presbyterian Church. Hell, even the town minister threatens to shoot McCabe if he doesn't leave the "sanctuary" of his church. Guess he doesn't practice the parts of the bible about not turning your back on a fellow man. I haven't read it, but I'm sure there are parts like that in there.

Then the church burns as Julie Christie sits in an opium den. Wouldn't be surprised if Altman and his cast and crew partook (basing this statement on reputation...since I wasn't there). Anyway, this is a strange picture. I guess that ultimately I liked it. The beginning meanders too much for my tastes. Too much drifting in and out of conversations, too little focus. It's weird 'cause I'm a huge fan of Terrence Malick, who has a similar style often to the Nth degree, but I just had trouble getting into this one. However, the end establishes itself as a mini-masterpiece where McCabe struggles to survive amongst some drifting snow and Christie (oh yeah, she was Mrs Miller) continues to get high on Opium. Also, there was lots of nudity. So, I guess between the so-so beginning and the masterful ending let's just split the difference and call this one good.

Sorcerer (1977)

2010-03-11T21:41:00.012-05:00

William Friedkin's Sorcerer, a remake of Clouzot's Wages of Fear, is unabashedly a man's movie; made for men and about men doing manly things. A picture packed full of violence, explosions, endless fires, truck driving, dynamite, sweat, dirt, etc. Women need not apply. The only woman that makes an appearance in this thing is a bride at a wedding...and she's got a black eye. So, take that for what it's worth. This is not really a good date movie. It is, however, every bit the masterpiece Wages of Fear is. I'd wager it's even a bit better.

The picture spends it's first hour character building. We're introduced to four criminals, notably Scanlan (Roy Scheider) and Victor (Bruno Cremer). As the movie begins, they're spread throughout the world engaged in a variety of nefarious activities; bombing buildings, stealing from high stakes bingo games, gun fights, car chases, etc. Eventually, unaware of each others existence, they converge in a small Venezuelan town, a town controlled by a major oil conglomerate. When an oil well erupts in flames 200 hundred miles away, it's determined that the only way to put out the fire is to dynamite it. Trouble is, the only dynamite within thousands of miles is in the town (200 miles away). Even more troubling, the dynamite is sweating nitroglycerin. One little nudge could set it off. As one character points out, "We can barely move this shit 10 feet and you want us to move it two hundred miles!?" When money is burning, what choice does one have?

A plan is established. Load the boxes of volatile dynamite onto two trucks and drive to the oil site. Who would be stupid enough to undertake such a task? If only we knew of some criminals who, with the law closing in, might want a way out of town. Also, twenty thousand dollars each. At the risk of life and limb. They load the boxes in the trucks and pack them in sand to keep them from shifting. Scanlan takes one truck, Bruno the other. Each with a co-pilot to guide them through the excessively rough terrain, of which there is plenty.

Shit man, this is as tense a picture as I've seen (and I've seen Wages of Fear). Along the way, these guys encounter vicious storms, blissfully unaware natives, hijackers, treacherous bridges (including a scene on a rope suspension bridge that had me completely on edge, knuckles whitening - the thing didn't look like it could hold me, let alone a 2 ton truck) pot holes, mountains, roads encroached upon by a seemingly unending rainforest, etc. Friedkin periodically treats us to shots of the dynamite, as they shift in the sand or collect rainwater from the storms. He's at the top of his game.

Friedkin has given us some of the greatest car chases in motion pictures (The French Connection, To Live and Die in L.A.) What he does here is just as amazing, if a little different. He presents us with two trucks, often moving at a snails pace, and yet it's as intense and exciting as anything he's ever filmed. We still get the traditional vehicle's eye view, but the stakes have never been this high.

Scheider and Cremer are in excellent form as the two drivers, both saying more with their faces than they ever could with words. Pay particularly close attention to a scene near the end where the camera hold's Scheider's face for an extended moment; sweat and grime covered, unshaven, crooked frown. Yet his eyes say all we need to know.

How the fuck did this movie fail? It nearly derailed Friedkin's career. A box office and critical flop. Today it's something else...and more than deserving of the proper treatment. Get this fucking thing on Criterion now (and no, not as a supplement to Wages of Fear). The current DVD treatment is piss poor, not even widescreen. The images are beautiful, the action extraordinary. At times, I felt like I was watching a Herzog film with Scheider as Aguirre. This one's not to be missed. Like Wages of Fear, Sorcerer ends in irony...only, none of that hoity-toity French kind. Nope, it's a good, old fashioned, American brand of irony.

p.s. I'm trying to review a movie every weekday. this one counts as friday.

The Roost (2005)

2010-03-11T16:49:00.011-05:00

I was pretty hard on Ti West's House of the Devil a while back. Said I liked the look of the film enough to maybe give the guy another chance. Man, I'm glad I did because The Roost is pretty fucking great. Like House, The Roost is heavy on atmospherics. Unlike House, however, most of the characters were likable, and the story actually seemed like it was heading somewhere. Basically, I gave a fuck.

In the picture's only misfire, the story is structured around a late night horror program starring Tom Noonan (House of the Devil, Manhunter) as some sort of crypt keeper. Noonan introduces the tale with a complete lack of relish (which is something Noonan probably couldn't muster anyway). He periodically interrupts the tale to methodically babble on about some shit before returning us to what we actually give a shit about. I liked the idea of this much more than the execution. The best I can say about the horror show stuff is it's in black and white. This shit might work better if this were an anthology film. My one nitpick aside, let's move on.

The real movie concerns four friends driving through the middle of nowhere (of course) to attend a wedding. It's nighttime. It's Halloween. They're already late. I loved the lighting of these scenes, shot entirely in the little car, lit in a reddish hue, the two characters in the front seat arguing over being lost while a horror program softly warbles from the radio.

Cut to an old couple, living on a farm, jumping into their truck to head out for a night on the town (or maybe the old country buffet. Whatever, doesn't really matter). The old man forgets to lock the barn, heads on down (the distance from the barn to the house seems unnaturally far) and disappears. After a while, the wife follows. Back to the four friends who, after crossing a creepy bridge, drive into a ditch. Hmmm, we just saw an old farmhouse back down the road. Maybe we can call a tow truck there? Let's just ignore the creepy barn in the background. And, why the fuck don't we get cell phone service out here? Is that a bat I just saw?

So, it's a classic set up to a horror movie. The Roost takes it's time. At only 80 minutes it almost takes too much time. The kids go to the house. They separate. A cop shows up, but he's not as much help as they'd like. And, then there's the barn. What's in the barn? West shows a deft hand at creating a highly stylized world (as he did in House of the Devil). His shots are framed just right. His use of colors is masterful (I'm thinking he's studied his Bava). It almost doesn't matter what's in the barn. Almost. Thankfully, we find out.

While not on the level of Evil Dead, The Roost is probably only a notch or two below. I don't want to spoil anything but let's just say we see the old couple again and they're still hungry. I'm guessing they didn't make it to the buffet. Also, there are bats. Big ones with sharp teeth. The special effects are not the film's strong suit, but luckily West knows when not to go into overkill. He uses them subtly. This thing's more about the characters and slowly building dread anyway. Pay attention and you'll catch the Larry Fessenden (Session 9) cameo. As disappointed as I was with House of the Devil, I didn't expect much from this thing. I'm usually not this thrilled when I'm wrong.

Spider Baby (1968)

2010-03-10T16:45:00.014-05:00

Spider Baby (or, The Maddest Story Every Told) is an oddity. A cult film if there ever was one, complete with a bizarre opening title song, performed by Lon "wolfman" Chaney Jr., star of the film. The picture concerns the Merrye family; which, as the story begins, consists of a trio of inbred "children" (they look to be in their 20s) and their butler, Bruno (Chaney jr). The children are Virginia (who thinks of herself as a spider), Elizabeth (I guess the ringleader), and Ralph (sexually repressed). Together, they live in the old family house, isolated from general society, with Bruno, who takes care of them as an oath to their long dead father (who, by coincidence, still rests in an upstairs bedroom). Unfortunately, the children suffer from a rare disease, a disease so rare that they're the first to have it, dubbed "Merrye syndrome", described as a "progressive regression" of the brain which culminates in deformity (check out the people under the stairs).

Into this mess, arrives a money grubbing aunt looking to cash in on the family fortune, a hitler moustached lawyer and his secretary, and a sincere uncle looking to do what's best for the children, maybe get drunk, and hopefully score with the secretary. This isn't going to end well for anyone.

I tried watching this thing drunk a while back and let me tell you, it plays much better sober. There's too much going on to even think about following any of this loopy shit inebriated. When we're first introduced to Virginia, she's shown catching a mailman in her "web" and slicing off his ear with her "stingers". The picture has a strange sense about it. It's not scary, not overly funny (although it will induce chuckles...maybe a smirk or two), not gory, etc. It is deranged. Clearly having borrowed a thing or two from Psycho (the house, the skeletal parent in the bedroom), Spider Baby can also, most surely, be considered an influence on another classic horror picture, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. We got a family of cannibalistic inbreds living in the middle of nowhere. We got a classic dinner scene (The dinner scene in Spider Baby provides the funniest moment of the film; it involves salad). And, we got a family living within their own sense of normalcy. Which, is to say completely fucking abnormal.

Anyway, it's an interesting picture. Look for Sid Haig (looking Michael Berryman-esque) as Ralph, who is constantly showing up hiding in the dumbwaiter when he isn't sniffing panties or peeping in windows. It's a great, and silent, portrayal. We actually kind of feel for the guy. Lon Chaney jr is great, and likely drunk, as the loyal butler. Quinn Redeker is blissfully brilliant as Uncle Peter who, even as he's being tied in Virginia's "web" and about to be subjected to her "stingers", is perfectly sure there's a logical explanation for all of this. Redecker also has a great scene where he and the lawyer's secretary drive around town, after a night of binge drinking, looking for a hotel (all have "no vacancies" signs), only to, of course, end up back at the Merrye house for what promises to be a rousing climax.

Spider Baby isn't for everyone. It is, after all, a cult film. If you have an open mind, enjoy some macabre shit that doesn't take itself too seriously, might even laugh at itself, by all means, give this one a shot. Usually, I don't go for the camp shit, but this one felt like it was played straight enough. Not too much winking at the camera, something I have a low tolerance for. Well, that's all I got at the moment. Thanks.

Brown's Requiem (1998)

2010-03-09T17:01:00.012-05:00

I've been a fan of James Ellroy for probably about fifteen years so it was a shock to find an adaptation of his work that I didn't know existed, made around the same time that my fandom began. And, I'm happy to say, as an Ellroy picture, this one holds it's own with the likes of Cop (based on "Blood on the Moon"). It's no LA Confidential, but it's well ahead of shit like The Black Dahlia (as a movie it's sorta fun, but as an adaptation it's god awful).

Based on the novel of the same name (Ellroy's first I believe), "Brown's Requiem" (the novel) is Ellroy, probably too closely, aping the noir of Raymond Chandler. This is before he found his own bat-shit staccato voice. We got the down on his luck private eye (as well as disgraced former beat cop, repo man, alcoholic, misogynist, etc) Fritz Brown operating in, and around, Los Angeles. As the film begins he is repossessing a car when the owner comes running out with a baseball bat. This kind of thing is all too typical for Brown so he turns to private dicking to lighten things up a bit. One of his first cases involves a fat caddy named "fat dog" (Michael Sasso) who wants Brown to look into the dalliances of his sister, Jane Baker (Selma Blair), who is apparently getting boffed by some tycoon named Solly K (Harold Gould). Solly happens to be old enough to be Jane's grandfather. At first, fat dog just wants to know the nature of the relationship. In typical noir fashion things are never simple. More shit's involved. We got some welfare check scam involving Solly K and the internal affairs cop (Brion James) that got Brown booted from the force. We got people who aren't what they seem, we got innocent dames that ain't so innocent, we got skeleton's in Brown's closet. Etc.

For being a picture I didn't even know existed for the last dozen or so years I gotta say I was impressed. Set apparently in the 90s, the filmmakers (led by director Jason Freeland) did a good job of creating a sort of timelessness to the thing. The score was jazzy, but a subtle type of jazz. The voice over by Rooker, seemed right from Ellroy's text (though I'm too lazy to verify this or not...the book is buried somewhere on my shelf and I forgot to take notes). Peopled throughout are some pretty good character actors like Brad Dourif (as a cancer ridden informant) and the guy that played Jigsaw (as a hardass). We also got one of the actor's from "Law & Order" as a hard talkin detective. Also, Kevin Corrigan (Goodfellas, The Departed, other stuff) makes an appearence as Brown's tragically alcoholic nephew.

Through all this shit is Michael Rooker in probably his best role after Henry. The guy just shows up and we believe him. He's a hard man, but not all that tough. He's reluctant which is why he always asks for the money up front. He's not the brightest bulb but he's smart enough when he needs to be. Rooker shines in the part and manages to create a man who starts out broken, patches himself up a bit, seems to be heading for some sort of redemption, etc. Whether he gets there, I'll leave that for you to decide. It's an interesting arc.

So, this is a good one. I love it when a movie succeeds despite it's budgetary limitations. This one succeeds. The violence that occurs here occurs sparingly and in short bursts. That's appropriate. Prolonged shootouts rarely happen. Bullets are too quick for that. If you're a fan of Ellroy, or film noir, Michael Rooker, or maybe even Selma Blair (sorry, I think the most we see is her in her bra and panties. wait....c'mon, she's playing a sixteen year old. Sickos!) then give this one a shot.

Jacob's Ladder (1990)

2010-03-08T20:16:00.010-05:00

Revisiting Jacob's Ladder after all these years, a couple things occurred to me. First, shit, I bet this thing, with it's flash forwards and flash sideways, inspired "Lost" (at least a little). And, second this might be the biggest downer of a mind fuck I've ever seen. Most mind fucks end and you just want to talk about the experience (good or bad), attempt to put the puzzle together in reverse, whatever. This one ended and I just wanted to crawl into bed and think of ways to stave off my own demons. This is not a feel good experience.

But it is an experience worth experiencing. Directed by Adrian Lyne (Fatal Attraction) and starring Tim Robbins (Bull Durham), Jacob's Ladder is the warped tale of an American soldier (Robbins) wounded during a horrific battle in Vietnam and shipped back to the states (to a city that vaguely resembles 1970s New York City) where, despite having a doctorate in something, he becomes a postal worker (no shame there - trading in one uniform for another). His name is....well....Jacob. One night, on his way home (it's very late), he falls asleep on the train while reading a novel (I'm sure the novel is significant, but I forgot to check what it was), and misses his stop. He finally gets off at a deserted station, discovers he's locked in. On the other side of the tracks is an exit that appears open. He begins to cross, steps in a deep puddle, dances in front of an oncoming train while blinded by the lights, and finally dives to safety as weird faces stare down at him from the windows of the train that doesn't even stop. Shit gets even weirder from there. Jacob has a girlfriend (Elizabeth Pena) and apparently an ex-wife and three boys, one of whom (MacCauley Culkin) was killed in an accident. Anyway, Jacob's life seems to be spiralling from this point on. His doctor gets blown up in his car. Someone seems to be following him. He sees demons everywhere he goes. Heads do this weird jittery thing in front of him. His girlfriend looks like she's getting fucked from behind at this party by a guy with a tail. According to a fortune teller his lifeline indicates he's already dead. Seems like the government may have subjected his platoon to some sort of mind altering drugs they had the good graces to test on monkeys first ('cept the monkeys tore each other to shreds as a result). Old war buddy gets blown up in car. More demon shit. And, etc.

Then, Jacob gets sick (fever of 106) and is submerged in ice water. When he comes to he is living with his ex wife Sarah and says all that other shit was a dream and now we don't know what to believe. And then he wakes up again and is back with Pena. This bullshit is getting confusing. The picture is somber. Lots of quiet moments, subtle scoring, interrupted by the periodic demon shriek type of sound effect. You know, the jarringly loud sound effect meant to wake you if you've fallen asleep (which, I gotta be honest, might happen). Having said all this, I really really like this picture and was most likely blown away by it on my first viewing. The impact is lessened slightly by the fact that I know where it's all heading.

We got probably the best performance of Tim Robbin's career. He's such a sad sack shaggy dog in this thing. Can't help but feel sorry for the guy. We got a terrific Elizabeth Pena as his girlfriend/possible hallucination (spoiler?). We got a funny Danny Aiello as Robbin's wacko chiropractor. Also, early performances from Ving Rhames, Eriq La Salle, and Jason Alexander (as an asshole lawyer). The performances, the visuals, the sounds, the writing all make this thing worth watching on repeat viewings, long after the twist has been revealed. Which I'm gonna do here, so be warned if you haven't seen the thing. It's twenty years old so I'm not gonna feel bad. Holy shit, Jacob's Ladder is twenty years old??? That makes me feel fucking old. Depressingly so. Looks like I'm not that far from the ol' ladder myself.

Well dip shits (just kidding, I love you) the movie is called Jacob's Ladder which if you know your bible is like the ladder to heaven or something. I figured it was a metaphor or some shit, but nope they actually are being literal here. See, Jacob never made it home from Vietnam. Apparently, he was bayonnetted by one of his own mind altered men (if we are to believe this aspect of the story) and then died in a bivouac after fever dreaming this entire picture. Were the scenes with his ex wife actually flash backs? Did he really have kids? I think the whole damned thing was made up. So, anyway, at the end, he realizes that demons were showing up to mess with him until he was ready to move on (to the afterlife)...at which point, an angel(s) will show up to bring him home (i.e. up some stairs and into a bright light led by Culkin who I guess is the angel or something). I guess I was supposed to be happy for the guy, getting to go into heaven and shit, but I was more depressed for him since he was dead and fought the whole movie to come to his senses only to realize at the end that it didn't really matter. Dead. Kaput. The end.

Still, good movie.

Shriek of the Mutilated (1974)

2010-03-05T00:12:00.009-05:00

Shriek of the Mutilated is several different kinds of movies rolled into one. Firstly, it's a Yeti picture, intended to capitalize on the big foot craze of the early 70s. Secondly, it's a satanic horror picture. Thirdly, it's a cannibal picture. Fourthly, it's a harrowing portrait of domestic abuse brought on by alcoholism. Shot somewhere in New York state on a less-than shoestring budget, I'm having a hard time imagining this thing eliciting shrieks from the drive-in audiences of the time. Laughter? Perhaps.

Enjoyable on it's own, very low, level, Shriek is the story of a college professor who coerces some of his students to go on a weekend expedition into the wilds of New Jersey (I think...actually, I spent the entire first half thinking they were trying to pass this shit off as Tibet), specifically Boot Island, to search for the ever elusive Yeti that apparently got trapped there when an ice bridge melted. Once on the Island, the kids are introduced to a Doctor (his name eludes me) who lives there along with his Native American servant (whose tongue was conveniently misplaced). During the weekend they go out, venture off alone, get eaten by a Yeti, etc.

However, before any of this shit goes down, back on the mainland, we are introduced to a former partner of the professor (another name that eludes me). This guy was the only survivor of the previous expedition. Now, he's a drunkard and a wife beater. In an opening scene, he slits his wife's throat with an electric carving knife and then proceeds to take a bath. His wife, not yet dead, crawls to the bathtub dragging along a plugged-in toaster. "Holy shit, this picture rules" was my reaction too.

Anyway, about this Yeti. It's a pathetic costume. Made more pathetic by the fact that the guy in the costume is barely 5' in high heels. So (SPOILER)...clearly the filmmakers decided it could never convince an audience. They rewrote the script. Made the whole weekend a ploy to lure unsuspecting students into the wild where they could be murdered and cannibalized all in the name of satanic ritual. See, the "Yeti" is actually the doctor in costume! Even the town sheriff is in on this shit. In my opinion, the filmmakers would have been better off going with the original script and just showing less of the Yeti, but what do I know? Anyway, this is not a good movie but it's still way better than the Overrated, boring, time waster that is The Legend of Boggy Creek. If you enjoy awful characterizations, unconvincing gore, horribly dim film quality, barely any nudity (none that I can remember), and a 5' Yeti that isn't even a fucking Yeti, than look no further.

Dinosaurus! (1960)

2010-03-04T16:39:00.013-05:00

Irvin Yeaworth's follow up to The Blob is a hilariously inappropriate mash up of Godzilla meets King Kong meets "Gilligan's Island". This son of a bitch, with it's endearingly lousy special effects and horrendously offensive view of women (and cavemen, I guess), was dated the moment if fell off the assembly line. Here's the story: An American engineer, while building a harbor off a tropical island using dynamite, uncovers a frozen Brontosaurus, Tyrannosaurus Rex, and a caveman. He leaves them in the care of his "best" man overnight while they thaw out (don't ask how they were found frozen in the first place), only they're struck by lightning and brought back to life. "Best" man is eaten in an egregiously unconvincing scene. Dinosaurs roam the island. T-rex eats people. Brontosaurus befriends little boy. Caveman acts like headhunter from Gilligan's Isle (in wide eyed goofiness only, not by the act of placing people in bubbling cauldron's filled with oversized veggies). Fuck man, I had a blast with this piece of shit.

This picture really doesn't do females many favors. The character of Betty Piper, and love interest for the American hero, exhibits many womanly qualities. First, she's a moron. Prone to motor boating in the vicinity of dynamite blasts and then diving into the water looking for month old canisters or some shit. Of course, this requires a man swimming out, risking his own hide, to rescue the dumb broad. Second, she assumes all cavemen to be maniacal rapists. After this particular neanderthal saves her dumb ass from the T-Rex, she tries to lull him to sleep with a caveman lullaby so that she can escape with her hide untapped. Personally, I think the guy deserved a nice hj for his troubles.

So, basically we got 3 prehistoric creatures roaming around a tropical island causing all sorts of mayhem. Eventually, the Brontosaurus, the caveman, the American, the little boy, and the woman (who screams helplessly in the background) team up to take on the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Things happen. People die. Some asshole native that thinks he owns the island (and subsequently the caveman apparently) might be killed under falling rocks. Lastly, we have the American, in a bucket loader, battling the T-Rex, a scene later homaged in the mini-dino (that's little dinosaurs, folks) classic Carnosaur. Speaking of homaged scenes, check out the T-Rex eying the busload of tourists (Jurassic Park). The effects are of the stop motion variety and so automatically earn the love of this reviewer. The stories a joke but, hell man, that's half the fun. Check this one out!

Paranormal Entity (2009)

2010-02-11T22:34:00.019-05:00

Have you heard about this picture? It was all the rage back during Halloween 2009. We got ghosts and shit caught on tape. Also, it's a "found footage" type picture so we know that most of the people in this thing end up either missing, dead or possibly both. I believe this picture has already been assigned the "masterpiece" label. And, to think it only cost 11 thousand dollars. This thing, in rough cut form (could it get any rougher?), scared Steven Spielberg shitless. He thought the tape he took home to watch was actually haunted. Can you believe that shit? Anyway, he embraced it, recommended it to some producers, and the rest, as they say, is....oh, wait....this isn't that movie? Shit, I was pretty sure it was...Oh, that thing was Paranormal Activity? This is the one inspired by the 1982 Sydney J. Furie picture about the ghost that rapes Barabara Hershey? Yeah, I remember that thing. That was a pretty good movie what with invisible hands squeezing Hershey's breasts, etc. Good effects work.

Well, I have to confess that I watched Paranormal Activity a while back. Maybe even reviewed the sucker. I think I liked it. This thing is similar only the "entity" takes his crush on the female character a bit further in that he actually sexually assaults her. The lesson I learned here is that entities rape, activities don't rape. Also, Paranormal Entity was directed by The Asylum who is known for producing "mock-busters" (thanks wikipedia). A "mock-buster" is an homage (insta-ripoff?) to mega hollywood blockbusters. For instance, he did Snakes on a Train which is funny since I thought Snakes on a Plane tanked at the box office. Also, he did Transmorphers, The Terminators, Street Racer, Cloverville, that megashark versus giant squid movie, etc. The Asylum (I assume he was a wrestler or something) has a pretty solid track record. What's interesting about Paranormal Entity, however, is that he's paying "loving" "homage" to a movie that cost peanuts to begin with. Usually, he takes on shit that cost millions of dollars and so his works tend to suffer in comparison. Here, he's probably got a budget that exceeds that of the original. This shit's impossible to fuck up is the point I'm making.

By god, The Asylum has almost done it. I'm not gonna say Entity is better than Activity. I will say that it doesn't embarrass itself. Both pictures have amateur actors and I'd actually argue that the ones in Entity acquit themselves a little better. They're a little more likable. We got three main characters in Entity. A mother who likes her drink. A daughter who looks to be in her twenties and is always walking around in a bra and panties. And a son who also appears to be in his twenties and is constantly filming his sister in her bra and panties. Also, there's some sort of entity, but we never see it. Also, some kind of parapsychologist shows up at the end for about a minute. The premise goes as follows: Entity inhabits house, fucks with the sister, knocks shit over, tracks ash on the ceiling, etc. There's some hinting of assaults of a sexual nature against the sister (and later, a little more than "hinting"). A doctor tells them to document the shit. The son sets up cameras all over the house and also walks around with one. During the day scenes we got some bickering and then the night scenes (with everyone asleep except for the entity and the cameras) involve shit falling off walls, doors slamming, tvs turning themselves on, possible entity rape, etc.

I must be pretty fucking easy cause I didn't hate this thing. It was like watching a solid episode of "Ghost Hunters" only if one of the ghost hunters got assaulted. Sexually. The effects aren't quite as grandiose as they were in Paranormal Activity. We got no scene where a demon tracks three toed footprints in the bedroom and no Ouija boards catch on fire. All the cool shit happens off camera. There's even a mention of the girl getting dragged out of bed but that took place off camera and in a hotel (another difference between this picture and Activity is that they actually tried to leave). There is a scene where the son (I don't remember any of their names, sorry. I think there was a subtitle to the movie that gives the family name....the something something murder tapes....wait, just scrolled to the top. "The Finley Murder Tapes". There you go)....anyway, there's a scene where the son finds footprints on the ceiling. Holy shit, this entity walks on the fucking ceiling. Another difference between entities and activities is that entities walk on the fucking ceiling. He inspects the shit the entity tracks in though and discovers it's ash. Uh oh...he goes downstairs and finds the urn that contained his fathers ashes smashed to the ground. Oh yeah, the father died in an accident about a year before. The story goes the mother tried to communicate with the father and instead invited in an evil presence, an entity.

Anyway, that's one way of looking at it but I think the picture actually hints at something far more sinister. Like, this family seems pretty messed up. The mother's a drunk. The daughter sleeps in a barren room, with dark walls, and a solitary crucifix hanging over her bed. She's overly morose. I don't know, the picture of the dad by the urn was a little creepy is all I'm saying. I'm not calling paranormal social services to come take him away from his daughter, not yet anyway. Why do we automatically have to go blaming some kind of evil demon? Too much finger pointing in the direction of where we think evil demons are standing. Shouldn't ghost dad, at least, be a suspect?

So, I didn't hate this picture but it's not perfect either. Too many scenes are direct lifts from Paranormal Activity. Besides the raping, and the hinting at a history of child abuse, there's nothing original here. Barely a reason for it to exist. We got the scene where the bed sheets miraculously lift off a sleeping woman. We got a scene where a seemingly possessed woman gets up and walks around and even calls for someone (in this case, her brother). It's all done pretty well but still feels a little "been there, done that". There's a great (and scary) scene towards the end involving the mother which I won't spoil here. The ending feels too abrupt but somehow, maybe that's fitting. The psychic guy stops by, tells them everything's gonna be alright and then suddenly the footage jumps ahead to a (SPOILER!!!!!!) closeup of the psychic dead on the floor, the son passed out apparently, and the daughter screaming as she's being assaulted in the bedroom, a "what the fuck just happened" scene if there ever was one. So, I got to hand it to The Asylum for this one. He is getting better. I'd like to see him tackle even more small, intimate, projects in the future. How about The Asylum's A Serious Guy? Maybe The Asylum's A Single Guy? Or, how about The Asylum's Up In The Sky? I don't know, I'm not very good at coming up with movie ideas.

The House of the Devil (2009)

2010-02-03T20:45:00.018-05:00

The House of the Devil is a brilliant and loving recreation of classic 70s and 80s horror movies covering shit like Suspiria, Rosemary's Baby, some slasher shit, maybe The Beyond, various other stuff, etc. What Ti West (the writer, director, and editor) has done is beyond extraordinary. He's created an authentic period piece (down to hair styles, clothing, cars, news reports, phones) and also filmed the thing using the techniques of the period (including the fantastic opening credits) on what must have been a pea sized budget. What we have here is a picture evoking, not only the best American horror films of that era, but also the strongest of the Italian giallos (from masters such as Argento, Fulci, Bava, etc). This movie puts modern shit to shame by ditching the irony, focusing on the atmospherics, giving the audience a nice slow burn that they all so clearly.....ah hell, I can't do it. What Ti West did was basically remake all the boring parts from those movies we love. Let's face it, the majority of those pictures (I still love them) have long stretches of tedium. The House of the Devil is a glorious recreation of that tedium.

The picture gets off to a good start by introducing us to the lovely Samantha Hughes (Jocelin Donahue), a sophomore at a small town college looking to improve her living situation (dorm mate snores and has sex lots). She meets up with landlady Dee Wallace (whose only reason for being in the picture is to remind us how in love with the genre this film really is) who agrees to give her the apartment if she can come up with three hundred bucks up front. Sam's only got $84 in her bank account which might be a problem. She has until monday. Luckily, she notices flyers strewn around campus looking for a babysitter. She calls the number. The calmly disheveled voice on the other end of the phone tells her to meet him at student services. He doesn't show up. That's that I guess. Also, she used a pay phone if you weren't sure this was taking place during another time.

Anyway, guy calls her back. He's in a bind. His other sitter bailed. Would she be willing to come out tonight? Job pays $100. She gets her friend with the Farrah Fawcett hair to drive out with her. They drive and drive and drive. Through woods, etc. Also, there's a full lunar eclipse that night. Eventually, they arrive at the house (of the devil) and are greeted by Tom Noonan (the voice on the other end of the phone) and his cane. Nobody does quiet, nice and psychotic quite like Noonan. Noonan explains the job. It's not really a kid, it's his mother. Sam says "time to leave". Noonan eventually agrees to give her $400 if she'll stay (Sam's demand). That'll take care of the apartment and maybe score her some coke! Her friend doesn't like it, wants her to leave, and then leaves by herself with a promise to return at midnight to pick Sam up. While pulling out of the driveway she stops to light a smoke but can't find her lighter and the car lighter is taking too long. Luckily, a svelte looking Kevin Smith shows up with a zippo. SPOILER: Then he blows off her face with a revolver.

Ok, so now I'm fully on board even if the spoiled effect (referenced above) did look a little too good for the time period. Noonan introduces Sam to his wife who was in Eating Raoul (which I still haven't seen despite referencing it in two reviews; this and Chopping Mall). They seem nice enough. There's a number for a pizza place on the fridge. I know this because Noonan says it four times. Finally, Noonan and his wife head out. The old lady is apparently upstairs but Sam doesn't have to do anything. Just hang around until they get back. Let the excitement begin.

I waited and waited and waited. We got scenes of Sam walking around the house. She racks up a pool game. She sits down. She tries calling her friend. She hits a few keys on the piano. She orders a pizza. She watches the local news. She listens to her walkmen (which, I'm not sure, but this might be an anachronism.....probably not). She dances. She calls her friend again. This shit goes on forever. I closed my eyes a couple times. I can take slow movies if there's a point. Here, I couldn't figure out what that point was. If this were a war movie we could attribute it to the horrors of waiting for the actual battle to start. Here, there is no sense of dread. I mean, I know right away that Noonan and his wife and Kevin Smith are up to no good. I was also pretty sure that nothing would happen during any of these carefree moments since the director was doing nothing to prepare us for that shit. Sure, there's the third phone call to her friend who pulls the old "hello...haha you dumbass, you thought it was me" trick on her answering machine (and who the hell had answering machines back then anyway?). Ok, the answering machine thing and the walkmen thing are what amounts to insignificant nitpicks. Bottom line, for a good 30 minutes or so I was bored.

Then the pizza guy arrives and it's the same guy that blew off Sam's friend's face only Sam doesn't know that. We do, but I'm not sure I gave a shit at this point. I liked Sam and all. I mean, she's cute but I certainly didn't love her. She got herself into this shitstorm and then had the gall to press Noonan for an extra 100 bucks. So, she eats the pizza but it tastes funny. Then she passes out for some reason and when she comes to she is bound to a pentagram on the floor in the basement or something. We got Noonan, his wife, Smith, and some old witch (I'm guessing mom) doing satanic rituals on Sam. Whoa...I felt like we just showed Sam watching the news for 30 minutes and now we have pentagrams being painted on her belly and blood being funneled down her throat through a goats head and all this has taken like 30 seconds. The pacing could use some work is what I'm getting at.

So, I admired the intent more than the finished product. Also, what's with the modern sound effects (which evoked Saw for me) every time we see a quick flash of the devil, or that witch, or whomever? That shit took me out of it a bit. There's enough here to like that I'll definitely pay attention to West in the future, maybe check out Cabin Fever 2? The ending could have possibly set up a sequel but I kinda hope the guy moves on to something different. Maybe he had too much on his plate for this one? Some tighter editing for the middle parts and maybe a little looser editing for the climax and he might have had himself a moderately effective little chiller. Instead it's just a somewhat masturbatory homage which is sorely lacking tits and ass. I can understand the lack of bush (who has time to wait for an actress to grow that shit out) but no tits? No ass? What is this?? The fucking 90s!?

Orphan (2009)

2010-02-01T17:10:00.024-05:00

If you've ever considered adoption as an option then this is probably not the picture for you. If you're a woman who had to carry a dead baby in your womb for a few weeks before expelling the fetus and also you had a problem with alcohol and maybe a husband who strayed once or twice in the past then this is definitely not the movie for you. Orphan will probably do for adopting nine year old Russian children what Jaws did for going in the water or what Alien did for breaking off return voyages to earth in order to investigate derelict space crafts. This is a surprisingly good movie.

Vera Farmiga (The Departed) stars as Kate Coleman, a woman in a so-so marriage to Peter Sarsgaard and also with two children, Max (a near-deaf mute girl) and Daniel. Kate and her husband don't seem very happy, especially with the whole carrying a dead baby to term thing, so it seems like the appropriate thing would be to take the love they were gonna give the dead baby and give it to some other child in need of love, perhaps an orphan or something. So, without further adieu, they hit up the local orphanage (run by nun CCH Pounder) and, after a brief bit of window shopping, decide on the seemingly brilliant, wise beyond her years, incredible painter, able to play Tchaikovsky and so on, 9 year old Russian girl with the odd, out dated manner of dressing, bow ties in her hair, incredible grasp of english, etc. I know what they were probably thinking. This girl may be weird but if she keeps developing at this rate she'll probably be worth millions. We're gonna be fucking rich, etc. Unfortunately, they're not aware of the spoiler that I'm not gonna spoil. Fuck, they ain't gonna get rich off this "little" brat at all. Unless by "get rich" I mean get dead, which I don't.

Also, I love the adoption process in this movie. Most places, it probably takes months (or longer). Here, you get your pick of the litter, sign a few papers, and after a few weeks of waiting get to bring the little shit home. I mean, I don't even remember a scene where CCH said anything about background checks they need to run on the Colemans (alcoholism, infidelity, etc might be issues). Also, what about a background check on this little girl? This little girl that is supposedly from Russia, where her last family was burned down with a house (an unsolved case of arson). There are questions that need some answerin is all I'm saying. Also, her name is Esther which is a pretty odd name for a nine year old girl even if she is from "Russia". And, what's with me putting quotes around various words that describe Esther. Could it be she's not whatever or whomever she claims to be (also claimed on her "official" papers)?

So, anyway, Esther comes home and needs to be integrated into the family. Max immediately falls in love with her but I think it's just because Esther learned sign language in about three days. Sarsgaard's father character adores her but I think it's because she tells him everything he wants to hear except for towards the end when she starts telling him things that no father wants to hear his daugther tell him. Daniel is immediately jealous which eventually turns into suspicious, but he's got his reasons. Things seem to go well until Esther goes to school and is made fun of for the way she talks, dresses, walks, etc. It doesn't pay to be different if you're a "little" girl is one of the morals of this story. Also, don't make fun of "little" girls because they might push you off a slide or maybe threaten you with castration, etc.

Things quickly deteriorate within the household. Sides are taken. Max and the Sarsgaard character (I think his name was John) initially side with Esther while in the other corner we got Kate and Daniel. Kate's corner isn't very strong though since she's got the whole alcoholism thing in her past which threatens to crop up especially after bottles start appearing even though she didn't drink from them. And then Daniel gets trapped in a burning tree house and ends up falling out in an effort to save himself. Now, I'm not gonna say Esther is to blame but it doesn't look good when we see her douse the thing in lighter fluid and then light the match. Also, the scene where she murders CCH Pounder who shows up with some information that might lead to Esther being taken away. Also the scene where she tells Daniel after he witnesses some of her shenanigans "If you tell anyone what you saw I'll cut off your hairless little prick before you know what it's for". Now, I gotta be honest. These aren't the type of things you'd expect to hear coming out of the mouth of a "nine year old" girl. Just seems strange is all. She's either older beyond her years or maybe she forged that birth certificate. Nah, can't be. She looks nine to me.

The picture relies a little too much on jump scares at first but then it settles in nicely as Esther plays Kate and John against each other which ends with John threatening to leave Kate unless she quits drinking. Even the shitty therapist Kate is seeing doesn't believe her when Kate says "her child" is evil personified. "Just look at her" the therapist says, "Does she look evil to you?" I don't know. I think...yes, she kinda does. I have to say that Farmiga is terrific in this role. We got her back story involving the failed pregnancy and the alcoholism which led to one child almost falling through some ice and dying (which leads me to believe there might be some foreshadowing involved here). We got her strained relationship with Sarsgaard who has that whole minimalist, always calm, style of acting down to a science. We got them having weird, inappropriate (considering the kids upstairs), sex in the kitchen. We got the relationship between her and her mother in law which seems a bit tense to say the least. But we also got a mother who will do anything to save the lives of her kids. It doesn't take long before she realizes Esther ain't one of her kids so if she needs to ---spoiler --- die, then fuck it. The bitch dies. Not that Kate flat out murders the "little" (hint: quotes are not used in reference to size) shit or anything.

Isabelle Furhman as Esther is sort of a revelation who may never find work outside of this type again. She needs to disappear for a while and come back to acting, ideally, after having her name legally changed. She's creepy as hell. Yeah, she looks evil but unlike that Omen remake kid she does more than just look the part. She embodies it. The climax involves her doing things no child actor should ever be asked to do. Is it exploitative? I think, probably, yes it is. Is it effective? Absolutely. The twist, which I have in no way hinted at above, might seem ridiculous at first. But it worked for me. I heard about it when this thing came out and then I completely forgot about it until it was revealed. If you don't see the movie and just have it spoiled for you, you probably won't want to see the movie anymore. There are a couple murders in the picture that are shockingly brutal (and realistic) when you consider that the perpetrator is only "nine" fucking years old. This is a good one, probably underrated. It's more consistently entertaining than The Other with an almost as horrific ending. I was surprised.

The Other (1972)

2010-01-27T17:06:00.014-05:00

The Other is a slooooooow burn. Some might say it simmers. Others might say the cook forgot to switch on the burner during parts. Let's be frank here. It gets a little tedious at times. I dozed off about forty minutes in. This has nothing to do with the lack of on screen kills or nudity. The picture just tends to meander. Yet, it does eventually manage to ignite. This thing ends in an eruption of (possible spoiler) Kentucky fried baby, extra spicy.*

The Other is the story of the Perry family. A typical family living on a farm in 1930s Connecticut. The opening of the film introduces us to eleven year old twin boys, Niles and Holland Perry. Holland gets the two involved in various forms of mischief involving rats, pitchforks, pushing mother down the stairs, spoiling magic shows for everyone, babynapping, etc. Also, Holland's dead, killed about a year before, a result of falling into a well (while about to drop a kitty down the well) . Whether or not he's a ghost, a figment of Nile's imagination, or in possession of Niles is left fairly ambiguous. Sort of. Also living on the farm are their immigrant grandmother (Uta Hagen), their shell shocked mother, an immigrant farmhand, their uncle, a young John Ritter and his wife, and a cousin (same age as Niles - also a reputed snitch).

Interestingly, the director (Robert Mulligan - To Kill a Mockingbird) never shows Niles and Holland, despite being played by real twins (Chris and Martin Udvarnovsky), in the same shot. This plays up the ambiguity as to whether or not Holland is a physical entity, a ghost, or inside Nile's head. Like I said earlier, the movie meanders, goes off on weird little tangents. Like the part where Nile's grandmother teaches him how to see the world through the eyes of a bird, predating The Beastmaster by a good ten years. The bird soars through the sky and catches a glimpse of a pitchfork left in a pile of hay that Nile's young tattle tale cousin is about to jump into. What's one more funeral for the Perry family?

About an hour into this thing, after I woke up, the grandmother takes Niles aside and is like "look you little brat, your brother's dead, died last year, fell in a well. Stop acting like he's still around, start acting like a normal fucking child, etc. Look, don't believe me" - yanks him to the cemetery - "here's his god damned grave stone" - huge reveal, stunned musical notes - "see, it says 'Holland fucking Perry'! Get over it, sheesh!" Ok, I may have paraphrased a bit there, but you get the idea. Niles seems to go along with grandma until late that very night when she comes down the stairs to find him still talking to Holland. She just sits down and shakes her head. Seriously though, it's all Grandma's fault. She's an enabler. She went along with this innocent "game" after the funeral. Should have put an end to things then, didn't expect things to go quite this far. We got one dead cousin, one dead neighbor, a snatched - possibly murdered - baby, spoiled magic tricks, one paraplegic mother, and lots more general mayhem-ic shit.

The relationship between Niles and his grandmother is actually pretty sweet. It has to be considering the state his mother's been in since the death of Holland, and, before that, her husband/their father. She doesn't leave her bed, barely eats, never speaks or engages in any type of motherly behavior. Then "Holland" pushes her down some stairs rendering her completely immobile. So yeah, grandma's got her hands full. Niles clearly has issues. Like, why is he carrying around a small case containing a ring that was supposed to have been buried with Holland? Also, what's with the wrapped up - spoiler - severed finger in the same case?

Of all the killer kid movies I've seen, I can say that this is better than something like Devil Times Five. It's no masterpiece and has difficulty sustaining itself for its full run time. Still, I gotta be honest. I sorta appreciated the meandering. The picture doesn't rely on cheap scares, quick editing, blood, gore, tits, etc. We got a general creepiness that slowly evolves into a terrific, and horrifying, conclusion. The finale is almost enhanced by the meandering, as long as you're awake for it.

*note: baby not fried

The Top Ten Films of 2009!

2010-01-11T17:29:00.020-05:00

When I originally set out to do this list (some time ago) I thought I'd have trouble coming up with ten films I really liked. While perusing the list of films released in 2009 I started to realize how great the year had actually been. How in hell was I going to keep this thing limited to just ten pictures? Consider some of the pictures that just missed the cut: Coraline, Watchmen, Knowing, Star Trek, Up, Avatar, etc. Shit man, I could probably do a list of twenty and not be stretching things too badly at the end. Anyway, enough with the bullshit. I'm gonna just give you the list. Short and sweet. Feel free to post porn links in the comments.

10. My Bloody Valentine 3D

Do I really think this is one of the top ten pictures of 2009? No fucking chance. But this is Moving Picture Trash after all so it makes the list. This thing's got it all. Tits, gore, Tom Atkins, 3D, and that iconic gas mask. It's not even better than the original but I'm still putting it on the list. Hell, I can barely remember the plot. There's a mine, a masked killer, a teen party, and a bit of a mystery as to the killer's identity. The scene that sold me was the one at the hotel where some naked broad runs from the killer for an extended amount of time. Jiggling in 3D. Yeah, it's probably a piece of shit. Yet, here it is.

9. World's Greatest Dad

Holy fucking shit, this picture pretty much came out of no where to hit me right where it counts. Bobcat Goldthwait , yes that Bobcat Goldthwait, directs Robin Williams in what has to be his best performance in years. Williams is Lance Clayton, an unpopular and soon to be downsized high school poetry teacher. Clayton's directionless son (a hilarious Daryl Sabara) attends the same school. His son's one passion in life is internet porn. Really fucking filthy internet porn. One night, Clayton comes home and finds his son in his room, blankly staring at some filthy shit on his computer, with a belt tied around his neck. Dead. Auto erotically asphyxiated. Clayton covers it up and writes a suicide note which makes its way into the school paper and before long his dead son has become a national folk hero. A fucking tragic figure whose depth goes beyond simply labeling all music "gay". Clayton's lie escalates to the point that the entire school becomes Bruce Hornsby fans. And Clayton gets the girl he pines for (from behind), while becoming the school's most popular teacher. Not since Election has a movie deconstructed the shittery that is High School and made me laugh so hard while doing it.

8. Where The Wild Things Are

I've already reviewed this picture here so I'll keep this to a minimum. It's been a while since I've seen it but I still think about it from time to time and can't wait to watch it again. The picture made me a little melancholy in that it made me wish I was a kid again. Yeah, it's a picture about growing up but it's also about just enjoying the ride to adulthood. Sure, there might be some hardships and pain along the way, but there's also lots of building things and then destroying them. That's fun too. And a great soundtrack by Karen O.

7. Moon

It's been a long time since I've seen this one (early summer 2009 I believe). Hence, the problem with these lists, especially considering I haven't written up everything I've seen. I do love intelligent sci-fi. I love character based sci-fi. Basically, we got Sam Rockwell starring as Sam Bell, an employee of lunar industries, working on the moon, mining for helium. His job is to maintain the equipment. His sole companion is a robot named GERTY (terrific voice work by Kevin Spacey). Sam is nearing the end of his three year contract, at which point he will return to Earth, making way for his replacement. Towards the end, Sam starts to lose it, hallucinates, and crashes his moon rover, later waking up in the infirmary. How did he get back? Something seems wrong. Things begin to spiral out of control, he starts to question his mission. GERTY tries to remain helpful. To reveal anything further about the story would be to massively spoil it. This is quiet, introspective (but not boring) sci-fi at its best. The director, Duncan Jones (son of David Bowie) is on my radar.

6. Observe & Report

This might be the most polarizing picture on this list. People I've talked to seem to either love it or hate it. Seth Rogen, as Ronnie Barnhardt has never been better (or creepier). Somehow, we still kinda root for the guy. Rogen plays a mall security guard desperate to be a police officer. So desperate, that he vows to solve the case of the parking lot flasher (yeah, we see some junk). Ray Liotta plays the actual cop assigned to the case. Anna Farris (hilarious) is the flashee. The movie is dark (probably too dark for some) and frequently funny. What lands it on this list are the performances and the underlying sweetness which, while struggling to surface, never gets in the way of the laughter. Danny McBride, per usual, steals his scene. The ending involves Ronnie's best Travis Bickle impersonation that works because it's in his character. This isn't Paul Blart. It's fucked up. If you liked The Foot Fist Way or East Bound and Down, also by director Jody Hill, you'll appreciate this.

5. A Serious Man

I'm not even sure where to begin with this one. I should probably watch it again, but fuck it. I'm putting it on this list. Late 60s. Minnessota. Jewish community. Rabbis. Dybbuks. Bar Mitzvah's. Jefferson Airplane's "somebody to love". Extreme weather. Shit man, only the Coen Brothers could make this work. I think they did. Michael Stuhlbarg (who?) gives one of the years top performances as Larry Gopnik, a math teacher and all around nice guy, that bad things seem to keep happening to. I guess he's Job (I've heard of the story, never read it). His wife is divorcing him for his best friend, his son is an F troop junkie and pot addict, his brother Arthur has been sleeping on the couch for a while, one of his students attempts to bribe him for a good grade, someone is sending anonymous letters to his school's faculty in an attempt to prevent him from getting tenure. And these are the least of his problems. He sees a couple rabbis (who progressively become funnier and weirder) but they just tell him seemingly unrelated stories. The third rabbi (The man behind the desk - a Coen staple) is too important (and old) to even see him. Things seem to get better and then there's a phone call and what's with that funnel cloud. I don't know, this is just one of those movies I guess. Would make a good double with Barton Fink. Lots of Yiddish in this one that flew over my head but never stopped me from being compelled. It's also very funny. And, oh boy, what an ending.

4. Inglorious Basterds

Quentin Tarantino's version of a World War II movie isn't even a World War II movie. Really. It's a remake (in name only, except for the spelling of Bastards) of a 1970s exploitation-y war picture. Hell, this picture isn't even about the Basterds. They're a part of it sure. Basically, they're a squad of allies sent behind enemy lines to kill nazis. Utimately, it's a revenge picture broken up into four chapters. Like most Tarantino pictures the influences are all over the map. We got spaghetti westerns, men on a mission pictures (The Dirty Dozen), De Palma pictures, lots of weird musical choices that work, perfectly (David Bowie's Cat People song....what the fuck?), and some great star making performances (Christopher Waltz as Hans Landa is almost certainly going to be the best supporting actor winner this year). The first time I saw it I was put off by the juvenile ending (Tarantino remaking the end of the war). The second viewing I practically embraced the choice. It's a movie for people who love movies. Just like all his pictures.

3. District 9

District 9 is almost perfect. At times evoking Cronenberg's The Fly, Verhoeven when he's at the top of his game, modern docu-style war films, etc. It's violent, moving, funny. What happens when an alien race that resemble fish men ("Prawns") break down over Johannesburg, South Africa? They're offered "assistance", which is to say placed in camps and forced to endure a slum life. Sharlto Copley, as Wikus Van de Merwe, is a revealation in his first acting role. His character starts off as a boobish bureaucrat (kinda remiscent of David Brent), placed in charge of relocating the aliens from district 9 (a concentration camp) to district 10 (a concentration camp further away from the city). Things don't go as planned, there's some brutality, aliens and humans die, and Wikus is infected with some sort of alien goop. Wikus, who in an earlier scene callously destroys alien eggs, comes to empathize with the oppressed. Perfection is lost (only a little) in the heavy handed message. Still, one of the best pictures of the year.

2. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Werner Herzog. Vintage Nicholas Cage. "Remake" of Abel Ferrara's own Bad Lieutenant. Val Kilmer. Iguanas. Will the baby alligator seek vengeance for it's road kill momma? Dancing spirits. Smart. Hilarious. Eminently re-watchable. Cage asking a young clubber "did your parents molest you?" Iguanas. "There ain't no iguana".

1. The Hurt Locker

I like Kathryn Bigelow. Always have. But there's no way anyone could have predicted she was capable of this. Point Break is good. Near Dark is good. Hell, I'm a fan of Blue Steel. Missed K-19. The Hurt Locker is one of the best war movies I've seen in a very long time. Expertly filmed action scenes filled with unbearable amounts of tension. A brilliant opening scene that immediately lets us know what the stakes are. We basically have a bomb squad locating and disabling IEDs (improvised explosive devices) in Iraq. While protecting themselves from an enemy that could be hiding anywhere, always watching. Jeremy Renner is Staff Sergeant William James, the replacement Sergeant for Bravo companies bomb squad (previous Sergeant killed). I knew Renner would become a star after seeing him in 28 Weeks Later. I guess this is his coming out party. James is an interesting character; brash, compassionate, cocky, humble. The story is simple. The politics on the back burner. Here's a refreshing twist on a war film; Yeah, war is hell but how about we focus on the job at hand and try to get the hell out of there? Exciting and heart breaking. A thinking/feeling person's action/war film.

Honorable Mentions:

Outlander
Coraline
Watchmen
Knowing
Star Trek
Up
Land of the Lost
Avatar
The Road
Fantastic Mr. Fox

Eyes of a Stranger (1981)

2010-01-08T17:07:00.010-05:00

So, I realize I've been MIA for a while. Nothing serious. I didn't die or anything like that. I didn't stop watching shit. All that happened was I got a little burned out from working two jobs, one of which is in retail. Put the retail together with the holiday season and you can maybe imagine not having the energy to write after getting home around midnight (with an early wake up looming the next morning). I'm gonna try to be better about this kind of shit in the new year. I've already scaled back my hours a bit at the second job. Of course, that means less money to buy booze but I guess I'll have to make do. I also realize that I've got no top ten list for 2009. I'll try to get something done by the end of the January. Gotta be honest, not sure if I saw ten movies from 2009 that I loved enough to fill up a list. Not sure I saw enough movies I hated to fill up a list either. Oh well, I'll try to get something but I gotta be honest again: I'm not a big fan of compiling lists.

Anyway, 2010 is off to a good start. I watched this little picture from the early 80s with a very (too?) young Jennifer Jason Leigh called Eyes of a Stranger. Tom Savini did the effects but I have a feeling most of the gory shit was cut out. The guy that directed that Nazi zombie movie, Shock Waves, directed this as well. Basically, what we got here is Rear Window by way of The Miracle Worker. Jason Leigh is the Helen Keller part, rendered deaf, blind, and mute by a childhood trauma (involved abduction and other unsavory details). She now lives in a luxurious apartment building with her newswoman sister, Jane Harris (Lauren Tewes), in Miami. Meanwhile, there's some psychopath going around the city prank calling women, fondling their breasts, and then murdering them. Thankfully, Leigh is sheltered from this kind of stuff since she can't read the paper, listen to the radio, or watch her sister deliver the news reports.

Turns out, their apartment tower has a twin. What are the chances the killer lives directly across from their balcony? In a city of millions, I would figure not very good but since this is a movie I'd say the odds are more likely 1:1. The picture does a poor job of concealing the killer's identity. I mean, it could only be that creepy businessman who comes home late one night, parks in the garage (while Jane watches), has blood on his shirt, and disposes of some suspicious garments in the trash. Jane is already paranoid as indicated by the scene(s) where she interrupts her news casting partner to reiterate that women should report anything they see that appears out of the ordinary (1981 predates 9/11/01 so this is some eery shit).

Jane figures out which apartment the guy lives in (via some Nancy Drew-ish type bullshit) and then begins an investigation of her own. At one point, she even steals his key from the super, snoops around his place, etc only to have the creep come home mid-snoop, leading to a daring escape by swinging down to the balcony below. The suspense from this picture is generated not by the killer's identity, but, I guess, by who will live and who will get their head hacked off and shoved in a fish bowl. I can deal with this type of suspense.

John Disanti plays the killer as sort of a blank. He's good. We know the guy wears suits but we don't know what he does for a living (besides raping and murdering). We know he's got resources which allow him to get ladies phone numbers and also know when they are home or at work alone. His abilities frequently border on the supernatural such as the time he calls the secretary that's working late at her desk. She flees to the elevator and he calls her there. Then she flees to the her car in the underground garage and I'm pretty sure he's gonna be waiting for her in the back seat. See, here's what doesn't make sense about this scene. It becomes established that the secretary heard music on the other end of the phone. Jane discovers that this music came from the cuckoo clock in the killer's apartment. Now, how in hell did the killer get from his apartment (where presumably he called from) to the parking garage - miles away- in a matter of seconds? Wait, am I actually dissecting Eyes of a Stranger? Moving on.

There are a couple effective scare scenes. One involves a stripper, as these type of scenes usually do. Our killer (who, by the way, sorta looks like Raymond Burr) follows a stripper home from her club (plenty of boobies there). She gets home, takes a shower. We expect a slow Hitchcockian build up to her death. Not really. Immediately after starting her shower, she turns around (more boobies) and sees the killer with his face planted on the shower door. It's jarringly unexpected, which is why it works so well. The other scene involves Jennifer Jason Leigh being home alone only to have the killer break in, strangle her seeing eye dog, and then fuck with her. His fucking with her involves rearranging things around the apartment. At first, it's kinda silly but quickly progresses to disturbing. Of course, he wildly underestimates Jason Leigh's character. Yes, we see her breasts. I'm still not sure if she's of appropriate age. I guess I could look it up but I don't really want to know the answer.

Anyway, this is a pretty good picture. As far as Rear Window knock offs go I'd say it's about on par with Mimic 3 and Abominable. There's not an original bone in it's body. The cinematography is pedestrian. The performances are mostly solid though, especially John Disanti as the killer and Jason Leigh (in a mostly silent performance). It's probably worth your time. This was Jennifer Jason Leigh's first performance. Also, her breasts.

Altered (2006)

2010-01-05T18:29:00.010-05:00

Altered is the long awaited follow up to Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick's The Blair Witch Project (this time, minus the Daniel Myrick). Well, maybe not so "long awaited" after all, I mean, I never heard of this one until a friend stuck it in my hand last week and told me to watch it. I always wondered what happened to Sanchez and Myrick though. I guess they found out making real movies is tougher than shooting a couple of douche bags lost in the woods and shaking the camera around real fast. I'm mostly kidding. Blair Witch is an effective little chiller but it's not something I would show film school students. Of course, it went on to spawn a series of copycats (Cloverfield, REC, Paranormal Activity, etc) in the so called "found footage" genre, some more successful than others. Hell, it was even accused of being a copycat itself (by that pretty shitty Jersey devil movie that I can't remember the name of). Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that Altered is actually a real movie. We got real actors, constructed scenes not involving running while the camera shoots the ground, and real (often shitty) special effects. I kinda liked it.

Although, I think I liked the idea of the premise more than the actual execution. What we have here is an alien abduction picture only where the tables have been turned on the alien. Three country bumpkins (in their 20s) venture out into the woods (the scene of their abduction, by evil little green men, when they were teenagers). Their plan: to abduct a little green fucker and then, I guess, torture him. I don't really think they thought this thing through beyond the simple notion of vengeance. See, it turns out that five teens were abducted, but only four returned (our three numb skulls here, and also some survivalist named Wyatt who, coincidentally, doesn't live too far away from the scene of this particular space crime). The fifth guy apparently caught some sort of alien wasting disease and died during experimentation. As luck would have it, aliens are always out and about in these particular woods so catching one proves easy. A bit too easy perhaps. With bound alien in tow, the three friends head for Wyatt's isolated house, where a battle of wits, followed by an actual physical battle, commences.

The picture actually manages to be creepy, at least for the first half. We see the alien in pieces. Forehead here, arm there, claw over there. It spends most of the movie wrapped in cloth, tied to a table, and helmeted. Turns out Wyatt was the only one to have received successful experimentation, which means, I guess, he can read minds and is immune to the wasting disease they spread (through biting or clawing). We've got conflict between the friends (Wyatt wonders what purpose they're serving by bringing the thing here when all it has to do is telepathically communicate with it's friends to find it's location and also did you know that if one alien dies then the aliens will think nothing of curing the earth of humans?). There's also a conflict between the alien (when it wakes up) and the humans which consists mainly of biting and clawing, nail gunning, acts of torture, mind control, taunting, etc. It's an evil little green mother fucker basically.

I appreciated the fact that the alien was just a man in a rubber suit. The thing looked like a cross between Streiber's little gray men and Ripley's toothy Xenomorphs. Unfortunately, towards the end we see way too much of the thing (culminating in a ridiculous scene where it flies through the air at Wyatt - I think I've pretty much established him as the hero). I also had trouble figuring out motives of an alien race that travels billions of light years just to fuck with rednecks. What's with the fucking scene where the thing digs out one redneck's intestines and threatens to yank them all the way out if other rednecks come any closer? There's lots of this type of shit. Thankfully, the gore is effective (if a little bit comical at times). The acting is inconsistent as well. Adam Kauffman (as Wyatt) gives probably the most consistent performance with Brad William Henke (as Duke) fluctuating wildly between a "dag gummit" sheep farmer and a Seth Rogan type stoner. Hell, the best performance may have been James Gammon as the sheriff (it's a small part) who asks for something stronger than beer as his intestines mop the floor.

The conclusion sorta just comes out of nowhere and we're not really set up for it. These aliens have the ability to wipe out humanity with the push of a button but are apparently suseptible to a little C4. Still, nit picks aside I liked the thing. Some scenes actually border of the scary. Similar to Shyamalan's mostly brilliant Signs, it falls apart a little at the end (substitute water for explosives I guess). Like Signs, we see way too much of the creatures at the end. I'm excited to see where Sanchez goes from here. As a director, he's better than Syfy quality. Perhaps something that might hit a theatre or two, like ParaAbnormal or Blair Witch 3? Holy shit, I didn't make those up.

Sodoma's Ghost (1988)

2009-11-29T21:45:00.007-05:00

Shit man, do I still have a blog? Totally forgot. Apologies. So, I had a few friends over and we watched this masterpiece called Sodoma's Ghost. Directed by Lucio Fulci (Zombie, The Beyond, Four of the Apocalypse, etc), Sodoma's Ghost is the story of some sexually depraved Nazi's who take over a brothel in France (during the WWII), indulge in sexual depravities, and then die (apparently)mid to post coitus when the house is bombed by Allied forces. I think. Then these dead aryan motherfuckers rebuild the house and wait for 40 some odd years for a group of horny teenagers to get lost, find the house, and become subjected to more depravities of a sexual nature. By ghosts. It's absurdly thrilling.

By "absurdly thrilling" I mean tedious, pointless, thrill-less, not erotic at all, etc. Piece of shit is the gist of what I'm getting at. There's an orgy at the beginning. It's not titillating in the least. I mean, we got naked breasts but no real context. It's like flipping through a late 80s playboy or something. Mildly amusing, can't not look at naked breasts, but you forget about them almost immediately. Also, it's unfortunate that I didn't take any notes because I can't remember certain details. For example, I don't know the names of any of the characters. Also, what the hell was the plot? I think I made that first paragraph up.

Uninvolving is a good way to describe this thing. It's a "later Fulci" which I guess is a way of describing pictures he made simply for the point of making a picture. Going through the motions is a good way of putting it. Unfortunately, Fulci's not good enough to pull this kind of shit off. Basically, what we got here is a ghost story with no scares. No tension. Fuck, I can barely remember any gore. I do remember the teenagers stumbling upon the house. I remember they had surf boards on their car?? Not sure where they were going to surf as there's no water in sight. I remember they got separated once inside the house. I think someone got their throat cut but that might be from a different movie. There's a blond Nazi ghost soldier in here somewhere. He appears to them as a solid human, I'm assuming so he could perform sexually. Some things happen, teens die, there's a scary mirror at one point, maybe some possession (?), and a few more breasts.

Then, the movie ends (major spoiler) with the house being bombed again or something, and the teens all wake up outside. Turns out the house was destroyed all along, it was all in their heads, or maybe this was a new set of teens and the ones from the beginning become sex starved apparitions for use in the, still unproduced, sequel? I don't know. Who can remember this shit. Also, I was drunk. Not Fulci's finest hour (and a half).

The Road (2009)

2009-11-28T13:00:00.015-05:00

The Road is the story of a road which is traveled by a father and son whose goal is to survive the road. Sounds easy enough I guess. What's so dangerous about a road anyway? Well, we learn early on that some sort of cataclysmic event occurred that destroyed civilization. We don't know what occurred and it's never really mentioned, only hinted at. Aliens? Meteor? War? Neutrinos from the sun melting the earth's core causing the crust to surf on the lava is my assumption based on the earthquakes. The picture is based on the novel of the same name written by Cormac McCarthy and endorsed by Oprah Winfrey. So, before we even watch this we can probably guess that this won't be your father's post apocalypse. No gangs of raving mad punk rockers, no talking dogs, no big, or even medium sized, action sequences, etc.

I'm always eager to see how a book I love (and I loved The Road) is adapted for the big screen. This one worried me a little bit. I mean, the trailer focused on disaster footage. Almost looked I Am Legend-ish which wouldn't be right for this picture. I had faith in John Hilcoat (directed the McCarthy-esque The Proposition) and Viggo Mortensen to get it right. They pretty much did. The movie is pretty minimalist. We got snippets of McCarthy's prose (in voice over form), we got heart ache, we got struggles to survive, and even a few tense situations (although these don't really define the picture). Oh, and bleak shit. Lots and lots of bleak shit.

The movie centers around the father (Viggo) and the son (Kodi Smit-McPhee). See, the son was born after the world ended. He knows nothing else. The father has two objectives. To teach his son how to survive after he is gone and also to protect him while he still lives. They head for the coast. It seems like a good idea. Along the way they scavenge for food, avoid contact with other people (most of whom will just try to eat them anyway), and stay warm. The world, meanwhile, continues to die. Earthquakes cause dead trees to fall. Fires burn the hills. All wildlife is pretty much extinct, excepting the occasional cricket which get eaten by the father and son.

I appreciated the washed out look of the thing. The performances by Mortensen and Smit-McPhee were very good. The people they meet on the road were all performed admirably by actors such as Robert Duvall, Garrett Dilahunt, Michael K. Williams (particularly heart wrenching), Guy Pearce, etc. The Nick Cave/Warren Ellis score is suitably minimalist, though not quite on par with work they did for The Proposition or The Assassination of Jesse James. There is a lot to admire here. It's nice to see an end of the world picture actually make things look shitty. I'm not sure it'd be a roller coaster action adventure (like in 2012). People would die. Horribly. Slowly. Governments would fall. Teeth would rot. Suicide rates would skyrocket. Cannibalism. Rape. All that shit. This picture, along with Testament and Time of the Wolf before it, seem to have a clue as to what this type of world would be like.

I guess the question is "Ok, all fair and good, but why do I need to see this shit?" Simple answer. You don't. Despite the Oprah recommendation this material probably ain't for everyone. I have a morbid curiosity. And, despite most of the shit I watch and write about, have a desire to see quality pictures from time to time. And, there is a little bit of hope to be found here (actually, there's a lot when you consider the obstacles these characters are facing). Sure, this world is a shitty place to live and it likely won't get any better. Sure, there's a scene where the father instructs his son the fine art of blowing out your own brains (they have two bullets left, one for each of them - better than being cannibalized), sure, there are horrors pretty much every where they go, etc. I don't know, if amidst all this shit people can still manage to do good to one another (i.e. "carry the fire"), then maybe there is hope for us. There will always be bad guys but the movie also makes a point to note that there will always be good guys too.

And don't be put off by the Charlize Theron part. She appears only in flashback. She's very good and her scenes work. We understand her decision not to continue on. There are several dreams the father has of sunnier times (fingering wife at a concert, waking up after a night of sex in a car, etc) which he awakens from as if he's just had a nightmare only to realize oh wait, I'm living the nightmare. The nightmare is that shit's all gone. These additions are almost necessary to keep the movie from being dragged down in bleakness.

I don't know what else to say except it's a good movie but probably not as great as I'd hoped it would be. Perhaps the book is not very adaptable. Or, Perhaps I liked it too much. Viggo Mortensen gives an oscar caliber performance. The end is incredibly moving, Guy Pearce shows up to lighten things up with the one little bit of humor the picture allows at the end. Which I think is also a moment where the viewer is supposed to think oh wait, that guy said something funny, maybe they're not completely fucked? There's some scary shit in a farm house basement. The kid tries to feed everybody they meet and make his father give them back their clothes after he steals them. I'm not sure I'd label this thing as "oscar bait" like I've heard some mention. I mean, what about this thing screams "oscar"? The cannibalism. The child murders. The rape? The fact that the death of the world is being depicted with relentless realism? Well, with the expansion to 10 best picture nominees I guess it's a possibility. If you enjoyed Testament or Time of the Wolf than you will probably enjoy this one too. Which is to say you're a fucked up individual for having enjoyed them.

Dead End Drive In (1986)

2009-11-13T15:02:00.013-05:00

Dead End Drive In is the 80s. Aussie style. Which is to say its got the neon, the synthesized music, but also the punks with mohawks, bleached hair, and souped up cars. I imagine this is supposed to take place in the same world as Mad Max, only in the city (Sydney). Also, the world didn't crumble necessarily as a result of nuclear holocaust. Mainly, it was just the apathetic youth and their gang mongering. We got economies failing, riots breaking out, wholesale slaughter, gangs roaming the streets, rampant racism, and in Cape Town there was even something called "The Great White Massacre". Hundreds of thousands killed in that one. Great white sharks mutated, grew legs, and took to the streets. I assume. Anyway, back in Australia we've also got car crashes. Lots and lots of car crashes.

So, you can imagine that while most industries are failing at least the tow truck industry is booming. These guys are the bad asses of the post apocalyptic 1990s (yeah, the movie may have dated itself a little). Frank (Ollie Hall) is the poster boy for bad ass tow truck drivers. His younger brother Crabs (Ned Manning)? Not as much. Crabs (so named because he "thought (he) had it once") is small, but he tries hard. The life of a tow trucker is dangerous, but he wants in. Frank isn't so sure. His mother says he can eat all the shit he wants, work out as hard as he can but he'll always be small. Frank reluctantly takes him along one night. They come upon an accident. The cops are useless. People are dead or dying. Another tow truck arrives simultaneously. Frank lays claim to all three cars. So does the other guy. Frank's bigger. They strip the cars while fending off roving gangs. Just another night.

I liked the introduction to this world. I like that a guy with blue collar skills is king. And, like most kings, Frank's got his treasure; a gorgeous red 57 Chevy. He won't mind if Crabs takes it out for a spin, maybe pick up Carmen (his girl) and hit the drive in for a night of Ozzploitation films? He'll have the car back before Frank even knows it's gone. Well, like most futuristic worlds this one's got some unusual rules. Like, it's illegal to walk on an "S" road which sucks for Crabs after his tires are stolen while making love to Carmen in the back seat. So, he and Carmen are stuck there. Just like all the other teenagers wandering around the place. I guess they didn't notice all the broken down cars when they pulled in? Or, the electrified fence, or the locking gates? Man, this place is like a serious dead end or something.

Crabs isn't like most post apocalyptic 90s Aussie teens though. He's not content to live a life of movies, junk food, and raucous parties (filled with sex, drugs, booze, etc). He wants out. Carmen's more typical. She befriends some girls and before you know it they're doing each other's hair. Punk style. Crabs befriends the manager of the establishment (the only adult on site). He wants new tires, a phone, anything. Frank's gonna be pissed! Crabs settles for a fosters and some talks. There's gotta be more to life than this.

I had a lot of fun watching this picture. I mean, imagine a concentration camp for teenagers? We got lots of great 80s sounding music. A few explosions, a car chase, a couple fights. I expected these kids to form gangs and battle it out, but that never really happened. The only conflict, in this regard, was that Crabs wanted out and the other teens want to stay. The atmosphere is intensely 80s and helped by the fact that the whole thing is set in a drive in. I recognized a couple of the movies shown; Brian Trenchard Smith's great Turkey Shoot and The Man From Hong Kong. Trenchard Smith directed this picture as well. Also, the one where the leprechaun goes into space. Stick to the Aussie shit, man. This one would have been fun with a few friends and a few beers. I made due without any of those things.

Knowing (2009)

2009-11-11T20:14:00.039-05:00

Knowing has one big strike going against it. And a couple little strikes. The big strike, of course, is Nicholas Cage. I'm not saying Nicholas Cage is a strike against the picture being any good. I'm just saying that he's a huge reason why people won't see the thing. For every Ghost Rider or Bangcock Dangerous or The Wicker Man the guy makes, his detractors seems to forget how good he was in shit like The Weather Man, Matchstick Men, Adaptation, Bringing Out the Dead, Red Fucking Rock West, Wild at Heart, Raising Arizona, or even god damned Peggy Sue Got Married. Fuck man, I ain't gonna defend something like the remake of The Wicker Man, but I gotta say I enjoyed the hell out of that thing, warts and all. It's fun to watch Cage work even against god awful material. He gives it his all, every fucking time out. You'll never see him sleepwalk through a performance. Seems to me, all anyone ever wants to talk about, when discussing his performances, is his hair. Shit, I didn't even mention Birdy, Moonstruck, or even The Lord of War. All good pictures. All good performances by Nicholas Cage. I have noticed a correlation though. People didn't seem to hate him until his hair started getting weird. Maybe he should just shave it all off? Point is, I like the guy.

Another strike against Knowing is the director, Alex Proyas, who hasn't really made a worthwhile movie since Dark City. Apparently, Proyas wasn't as visionary as we originally thought. His follow up to Dark City was a little seen drama about a rock band called Garage Days. Middling reviews and even more middling box office on that thing led him to an adaptation of Asimov's I, Robot* which is probably the equivalent of someone like Ridley Scott (I was going to say Michael Bay, but figured that would be too cruel) adapting Shakespeare's HAMLET, stripping it bare of any meaning, and giving all the character's machine guns. Actually, in light of Baz Luhrman's Romeo & Juliet or Titus, that's a fucking terrible analogy. Point is, Proyas was going downhill, needed a hit. Why not hook up with Cage (whom most people seem to hate) and a script about the possible end of the world? What's the result? Just his best film since Dark City, that's what. Ok, that doesn't mean shit. How about: This could easily end up on my 2009 top ten list (if I get around to doing one this year). It's that fucking good.

A possible third strike is the supposed theology/scripture/belief in god/whatever the picture supposedly embraces. The only people seeing this are those who would blindly believe in God's lack of an existence rather than just saying something like "I don't know" or "I don't really believe, but what are you going to do?". You know, atheists (not all atheists, just the angry ones). In my view, the movie isn't preachy . There's no god pulling the strings here, in my opinion. I hate bringing religion into anything. I hate talking about it. I don't go to church and I don't really believe in God. Will I say God definitely doesn't exist? Not if I can't prove it, I won't. Uh....anyway...Knowing is just a story. A good story. I'm pretty sure the bible had a few of those. It's ok to like this picture.

Shot in Australia, but taking place in Boston (for the most part, this works as we got exterior shots of actual Boston coupled with closer shots that seem like they could be in, or around, Boston - if you don't live there that is), Knowing is a story about big ideas interlaced with a ridiculous premise that somehow works. The film opens in 1959 as students at a Lexington elementary school are preparing to place their drawings of what the future will look like in a time capsule. One girl places a sheet of paper filled with numbers in the capsule. Later, they find her in a closet scratching more numbers into the door. Also, she hears whispers. Cut to 2009 and the time capsule is about to be ceremoniously dug up. A student at the school, Caleb (Chandler "what the fuck is this? a decent child actor" Canterbury), receives the sheet of numbers and takes them home. His father, John Koestler (Cage), chastises him for taking the paper home and then slowly becomes drawn in by the numbers. By the end of the night, bottle of whiskey in hand, he's obsessed with them. One particular sequence stands out: 91120012996. On September 11, 2001, 2,996 people died. He starts googling other numbers on the paper. They all lead him to other disasters. We got the date and the number of people killed. All written back in 1959 by a young girl hearing voices. All the disasters dating back to 1959, in order. If only he could figure out what those other numbers within each sequence that seemingly have no meaning mean. Uh oh, are those voices Caleb begins to hear?

Koestler is a professor of astrophysics at MIT. He gives a lecture on randomness vs determinism. How is it possible the earth was situated at the exact distance from the sun that would allow for life to evolve? Was it luck or was a higher power involved? A student asks what he thinks. "I think shit just happens". As Cage grows more obsessed with the numbers his tune begins to change. He notices three sequences that haven't happened yet. One happens, in a virtuoso scene, when he discovers what those other numbers mean. I'll just say the scene involves a horrific plane crash which, unbelievably, appears to have been shot in one continuous take.

Like all good suspense pictures this one actually manages to be suspenseful. We got strange beings that appear to Caleb, and are usually spotted by his father as they creepily shuffle off into the woods. They're the source of the whispering. So, who are they? What's their purpose? The answer to who they are is not really made clear. Gods? angels? aliens? Mormons? Eerily reminiscent of the strangers in Proyas' earlier masterwork, Dark City, these beings loom over the picture as some sort of sinister chorus, subtly guiding events with a little nudge here, a giant kick to the balls there.

Eventually, John and Caleb meet up with Diana (the luscious Rose Byrne) and her daughter Abby. Diana is the daughter of the girl with the numbers from the 1959 sequence. Her daughter also hears voices. John and Diana feed off each others paranoia. Hysteria ensues while the children remain strangely calm. Maybe they know something we (also, John and Diana) don't?

Fuck man, we got a man struggling with his faith here (a pretty common theme in film). John lost his wife to a fire years back. That disaster is found within the numbers. He could have saved her. He's estranged from his father, a minister. His sister says she'll pray for him but he just shrugs her off, tells her to leave. How is it he can believe in the numbers but not in a higher power? Who says it's god relaying the numbers? Ok, fuck it...this picture's almost a year old. I'm going to spoil the mother fucker.

Here goes....major spoiler to follow. Tread carefully. Seriously, only read past this point if you've seen the movie or harbor an irrational hatred for everything Nic Cage. You've been warned.

Seriously....

Anyway, turns out the numbers that appeared to not have any meaning were actually coordinates. The final sequence of numbers ends without giving any coordinates. It ends with the numbers "33". Why, that's not so bad in the grand scheme of things, right? 33 people? Not even the equivalent of a scratch. Well, fuck man, turns out that's not a "33" at all, but an "EE" ("everyone else"?). Koestler heads to an observatory where he and his colleague come to the realization that a solar flare is going to envelop the earth. Well, what the fuck do we do now? There isn't time to organize a space shuttle mission to the sun with a giant bucket of water. They're pretty much fucked.....end spoiler.

thankfully, I went back and realized I kept spoiling this mother fucker below even though I clearly said I wouldn't. Sorry.

I won't give you anymore else. Or tell you if, and how, they get out of this one. Shit just happens man. I will say that it irritates me when detractors of this picture are turned off by any kind of religious allegory the story purportedly evokes. I don't know man, those beings might be angels but maybe they're just aliens that look like angels and that's how angels originally made their way into our stories. Maybe god is an alien? Maybe there is no god, just a society of aliens that leave trails of mist that sometimes, if you look at it in the right light, vaguely resemble the wings of angels? This picture has no agenda is the point I'm making. Well, it does actually. It's agenda is to entertain you, first and foremost. Are you fucking serious with that "I don't like the fact that they pushed god and his angels down our throats and then the heavens opened up and the kids were transported to a new Eden" kind of bullshit? What about the final scene with Koestler and his father, reconciling as the flames engulf the entire world? Are we to understand the movie wants us to believe they're off to a better place? I don't think so. Maybe Koestler halfheartedly believes so. His father says "this isn't the end" and seems to mean it. It's good to know that Koestler maybe regained some faith right before he and his family were cooked. Wouldn't we all like a little faith at that very moment? Unfortunately for them, the movie never seems to indicate, or even mildly support, that there's a life after death. If those strangers really are aliens I'd argue that the movie argues against it. But then again, that would mean inferring that the movie really argues for anything at all. Except for you to be entertained, an argument it easily wins. I was. A fucking lot.

*I recently revisited I,Robot and I have to say it's not as bad as it seemed when I first saw it. Some parts even border on the soulful. Sure, it's Asimov on steroids. Steroids are sometimes acceptable with a doctor's note.

Mute Witness (1994)

2009-11-11T16:49:00.016-05:00

Mute Witness surprised me by being a picture from the 90s which I'd never heard of that actually managed to be pretty good. I'm always finding shit from the 70s, and sometimes the 80s, unheard of by me that's pretty decent. Truth be told, I usually don't even bother looking at 90s shit. Most of it's direct to video, shot on video, cheaper than a two dollar hooker,etc. So, yeah, what a shock it was to stumble upon Mute Witness, a picture full of vibrancy and featuring one of the more sympathetic leads you'll ever see in a movie you're unfamiliar with. Also, lots of tension, solid chases, some Hitchcockian turns, zooming cameras, never ending hallways, creative effects, and..uh...some nice cans.

Our story opens on a film set (inside some vast warehouse) in Moscow where an American film crew is hard at work on a cheap slasher picture. We got a director (who seems like he's 18), his girlfriend (can't remember her job on set), and the girlfriend's sister; a woman who works as the special effects artist. Her job consists of creating the fake blood, making the blood burst on impact, etc. Also, she's a mute girl. I wonder if she'll witness any shit?

Anyway, the shoot closes up for the day and the crew files out. The mute girl (Billy) forgets something and goes back inside, she'll meet the others later. While inside she hears something, sounds like sex. She stumbles upon another set and watches from the shadows. It's a porno shoot with some guy in a mask boffing some blond Russian bimbo. Billy becomes amused and keeps watching (my kind of girl). Suddenly the masked star pulls something out from beneath the pillow, a knife. The cameraman keeps filming. Billy screams. Mutely. The knife comes down, the blood flies, Billy runs away, but can't get out because she's locked inside. What follows is a tense game of cat and mouse between her and the snuff filmmakers as she alludes them in the warehouse. She hides in an elevator shaft, under garbage bags full of body parts, etc. She tries to make phone calls, but cannot speak. Luckily, her and her sister have come up with a "tap" system of communicating. It's clear the director, Anthony Waller, has studied his Hitchcock, De Palma, Coens, etc in the way he constructs these warehouse bound scenes.

Eventually, the action leaves the warehouse and the picture loses a bit of steam. Cops become involved, but are they really cops? What's Alec Guinness doing taking what amounts to a 1 minute cameo as "special mystery guest"? Guinness plays a shady character who apparently is the head of the Russian snuff film industry or some shit like that (I'm sure he had no idea what the picture was about before signing on or even after his five minutes of work was complete).

There's a terrific moment when the snuff guys have to convince the cops that the "mute witness" doesn't know what she saw. She didn't witness a murder. It was all special effects, see. She, as an effects artist, should know better. It's a reasonable explanation made even more reasonable after a shocking demonstration. In a thriller type picture involving people that make thrillers type pictures we can never have enough surprise fake deaths. Well, maybe this picture layered them on a bit too thick.

So, we got quite a few deaths. Some of them real. Some fake. We got some black humor. We got some light humor (such as the weird scene where the director and his girlfriend go out to eat and he squirts the sauce on his meat). We got some almost, but not quite, full frontal female nudity. We got several ingenious scenes where Billy runs from trouble, screaming, but no one can hear a god damned thing. Marina Zudina as Billy is something close to a revelation. She does a great job of making us root for this character who can't talk, grunt, scream, etc. She also gives a striking physical performance (unclothed and fully clothed). All this contributes to her being dubbed the "silent scream queen" (by me).

The other performers acquit themselves ok. Evan Richards and Fay Ripley are fine as the director and his girlfriend (mute girl's sister) but it's not surprising that we still haven't heard of them. Richard's, in particular, is at least able to milk this thing for some comedy (note his reaction to his girlfriend beating the tar out of a policeman). The snuff thugs (couple of Russian actors) are amusingly incompetent, but also menacing enough that we believe they'd have the gall to snuff a mute girl even if it does take Alec Guinness ordering them to do so. They're reluctantly menacing. Guinness is just old. His legacy is in tact because the picture is far from an embarrassment. I guess much of that credit can go to Anthony Waller, the director. He's someone to watch out for. He ratchets up the suspense, the chills, the blood, etc. He knows when to move the camera and when to keep it still. Parts of this picture played like some sort of strange homage to Powell's Peeping Tom. The guy clearly knows his film. Let's hope he doesn't go and blow it with his next picture. Oh wait, he did...and he's done nothing worth talking about since. Oh well. In his case I guess it's too bad he'll always have Paris.

It's Hallo-fucking-Ween (a week and a half late): Wrapping it up with some mini-reviews!

2009-11-10T16:58:00.018-05:00

Yep, Halloween was a week and a half ago and I'm just finishing this thing up now. No apologies necessary. It's my blog and I don't get paid for this shit. Also, I wasn't around on Halloween and then I just sort of forgot all about it. Also, I don't have any movies fresh in my head to finish this countdown off with. So, instead of the standard shit, you're getting the shorter, less detailed, shit. I may expand on these write ups at some point.

Tourist Trap (1979)
Tourist Trap is just strange. Like Pixar's Cars it's a movie about the death of the small town. The interstate highway system swoops in replacing the old system of routes and..uh...non-interstate highways. Little towns become disconnected from all but the most patient of travelers. Businesses must either relocate or eventually fade into oblivion. One such place is SLAUSEN'S LOST OASIS, an old timey wax museum run by Chuck "The Rifleman" Connors. Still open for business, but failing to get any. Connors (as Mr. Slausen) is forced to be aggressive to drum up customers. Luckily for him, he comes across four teens searching for their friend (the friend's demise is splendidly depicted in the opening scene). By "looking for their friend" I mean skinny dipping in a swimming hole (unfortunately for us, no nudity which is an absolute shame when you consider that Tanya Roberts is one of the teens. Doubly frustrating when you remember that she showed her assets in the PG rated Beastmaster). The teens end up at the tourist trap (car trouble?), admire the wax figures for the life like artistry, drink sodas, get separated, and then slowly picked off one by one. You know the drill. Standard shit, except for several unique touches strewn throughout. You got weird humor, telekinesis, creepy mannequins that seem to come alive, chases through a swamp, and an oddball score. The final freeze frame is hilarious in its bizarreness. A somewhat forgotten oddity that deserves a renaissance.

Kidnapped (1974)
Out of all of Mario Bava's pictures, this is definitely my favorite. It's easily his most modern. Shelved for over twenty years (after Bava died and the studio went bankrupt) it was finally released in the 90s. I've seen two different cuts (Rabid Dogs and Kidnapped) and if they were fresher in my mind I might actually take the time to dissect the differences. What we have here is something completely unlike any of Bava's other works. Gone are the gothic trappings, the supernatural elements, any of that giallo shit we might be used to. Instead, everything is stripped bare. It's like the Bava accoustic album (don't worry, the score is pretty fantastic). It's like Bava watched Last House on the Left and then decided to make something similar while setting the entire thing in a car. Not just any car. A little car. The plot is simple. Four hoods, with names like "Blade" and "Thirty Two" rob a bank and, in the process of getting away (during which their driver is shot and killed), commandeer a new car and take some hostages (a man, a sick child, and a woman). Bava prepares us for the trip by involving the hoods in a standoff with the police where one of the hoods slits a woman's throat to show they mean business. We now realize anything can happen in that car...and anything pretty much does. Their boss attempts to maintain order and, for a while, he's successful. The tension escalates until it becomes nearly unbearable. Bava plays around with identity. The horrors here are real. We even got a scene where a poor woman urinates for her captor's amusement (and if that doesn't sell you on this thing, well, uh....). I was going to mention how this was a clear influence on Reservoir Dogs (at least in part) but according to the imdb it was released five years after Tarantino's film. You'll be disturbed and exhilarated simultaneously. The ending of this mother will shock you.

Chopping Mall (1986)
I'd long considered Chopping Mall as one of my own personal holy grail type films. The kind I'd long heard about but wasn't quite sure if I'd ever get a chance to see it. Basically, I'm lazy since this film really isn't that hard to track down. It's not on NETFLIX but damned if I couldn't find it on AMAZON. Anyway, I found a shitty edition in NEWBURY COMICS for ten bucks and it was totally worth it. A science fiction/horror amalgam filled with humor, references to Roger Corman films (his wife produced this), large naked breasts, and gore. Several horny teens get trapped in a shopping mall. It's a high tech mall with steel doors that slam shut and won't open until morning. Also, there are some security bots roaming around. Actually, they were security bots until a random lightning strike rendered them killbots. Now they're out for blood and also to make sure people "have a nice day". Apparently, the stars of Eating Raoul (unseen by me) have a cameo. As does Dick Miller reprising his role as Walter Paisley (now a beatnick janitor apparently) from Roger Corman's great A Bucket of Blood. The cast of teens are disposable. Thankfully, they are. Disposed of I mean. The funniest moment involves them hanging out in a department store, broken off into couples, as the camera pans across them displayed (on furniture) in various states of fornication. It comes as no surprise that the two nerds of the group are shown platonically sitting on a couch engrossed in a shitty B movie. I want to say "clearly they lived" but I was too drunk to possibly recall such minute details. One girl's got porn star tits, and she shows them. That I remember. The robots are ridiculous looking but they get the job done. If you must, go to youtube and spoil the head shot.

That's all I got time for. Maybe check these out and pretend it's halloween or something.

2 Days: Dead and Buried (1981)

2009-10-30T19:04:00.011-04:00

I came to Dead & Buried a little late. Almost 30 years after it's release. I remember staring at the VHS box whenever I went to the video store but, for whatever reason, I always went with something else. It's a good thing because I'm not sure my young, slightly less mature sensibilities would have appreciated this thing. You see, this is one of those pictures I think might qualify as a masterpiece, albeit a slowly burning one. I've been known to be wrong about these things though. Let's delve a little further.

Dead and Buried is the story of a quaint little seaside town called Potter's Bluff. Apparently it's situated in Maine but I kept getting the feeling it was Oregon (even though I've never been there...weird). Turns out it was filmed in California with fog machines turned up full tilt to give it that New England, non sunny, type of feel. So, what we got here is a California town that feels like Oregon, looks like Maine...and is heavy on the atmospherics. Also, only two breasts in the whole damned thing and they come at the beginning. In addition, I think there's a male ass in here somewhere.

Potter's Bluff is a fishing community where people don't do much in the way of fishing. The opening scene tells me what kind of picture I'm dealing with here. We got a guy, a tourist, alone on the beach snapping photos (a heavy motif throughout) of things one would encounter on the beach; shells, sand, rocks, a half naked broad waiting to throw herself at you, etc. They have a great little introductory conversation where she gives him the name Freddie ("you look like a Freddie") and he dumbly accepts it not really giving a shit. Then he starts snapping photos of her telling her what great potential she has, she could be in PLAYBOY, holy shit can't believe she just took off her top and now I'm snapping her tits, etc, etc. Tell 'em what they want to hear and you'd be surprised what they'll do for you is a common mantra amongst some men. Not me, of course.

Anyway, at some point during the nude shoot on the beach, Freddie and the girl become surrounded by some sinister looking townsfolk. One guy takes the camera and starts taking photos of Freddie. They mess him up a bit, tie him to a pole, douse him in gasoline, and set the poor bastard on fire. Welcome to mother fucking Potter's Bluff, mother fucker. The town has a lot of skeleton's in it's closet I guess is the point of that opening scene, which is one of the better openings I've seen in a genre filled with...uh...good openings.

People come into this town, but they don't come out. Freddie's body is later found and Sheriff Dan Gillis (a splendid performance by James Farentino) is on the case. Only Freddie ain't dead yet. He's brought to the burn ward at Potter's Bluff General where he eventually succumbs to a syringe shoved into his brain by way of his eye courtesy of Nurse Lisa (the girl on the beach) in a scene that Tarantino was probably thinking about when he shot a similar scene in Kill Bill (also Brian DePalma).

Farentino gives his all as Gillis but the show is nearly stolen by that old stalwart Jack Albertson as William G. Dobbs, the local mortician. Albertson, in his final performance, is a joy to watch. Dobbs considers himself an artist and is never too broken up when a fresh corpse is brought to him. He prides himself on restoring his subjects to beauty whether they've been burned beyond recognition, knifed, gouged, etc. He's good at what he does but is "what he does" actually good? Also, what the fuck does he does?

Gillis is an outsider to Potter's Bluff himself. He met a local teacher (Melody Anderson), fell in love, married her, came to her town. Lately, she's been acting a little weird though. Teaching her class about voodoo is a little weird I suppose, but certainly nothing to get worked up over. Gillis is a bit of a straight arrow I have to admit. Though, her disappearing most nights is also a bit odd and perhaps his cause for concern is justified.

The picture layers on surprise after surprise but does it in a subtle way. We learn a little bit about Dobbs, a little about the townspeople, a little about why when a corpse is exhumed they don't find the corpse but instead just a wrapped up human heart, and so on. All important reveals, sure, but it's all just a set up for the final reveal which I have to admit I didn't see coming and is a slight nudge to the balls if not a full on kick. A few innocents try driving through the town but, like I blatantly spoiled earlier, not one of them makes it out. The attacks are increasingly tense with one guy snapping photos of the horrified victims as the rest of the townspeople close in for the kill. It's like a zombie attack only if one of the zombies had been a photographer in his prior life and remembered the act of snapping photos but not what it signified. Or, whatever. This is scary shit. Also, why do victims of this zombie-like mob turn up later working at gas stations in Potter's Bluff or at the grocery...or the local strip bar (I'm assuming the Bluff has a strip club and that some of these victimized women turned up working there).

The picture's got everything you want, but rarely get, in a horror film. An incredibly ominous atmosphere (fog machines, a real seaside town, believably creepy architecture), some terrific performances, genuine shocks, and some perfectly realized gore effects created by Stan Winston. Speaking of Alien, this thing was also written by Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shushett, who co-wrote that earlier masterpiece as well. Two masterpieces in row is pretty rare, but I think they've done it. My seal of approval comes with the knowledge that I watched this thing sober and still enjoyed the hell out of it. Try to keep at least one eye open or you might miss a very young Robert Englund as one of the creepy residents. Also, Barry Corbin (Wargames, No Country For Old Men) shows up and doesn't speak a word of dialogue that I can recollect. Shit man, just watch the thing. We got tits, scares, creepy going ons, etc.

Wow, Halloween is really tomorrow???? (note: I'm finishing this up on November 9).

3 Days: Village of the Damned (1995)

2009-10-29T14:46:00.013-04:00

I'm desperately trying to catch up here with a remake of a 1960 classic called Village of the Damned. I gotta be honest, as I always try to be. I never saw the original. All I know about it is that there are some creepy kids and it's black and white. So, this picture keeps the creepy kids, but loses the black and white. I guess I can review this thing based on its own merits.

Of those (merits) there are too few.

Which is disappointing because Carpenter made some great stuff leading up to this. We got his early shit like Assault on Precinct 13 (remake of Rio Bravo), Halloween (original concept? Perhaps inspired by Black Christmas), The Thing (remake of the The Thing From Another World), Christine, Prince of Darkness, They Live, and, right before Village, In the Mouth of Madness. That's like a murder's row of 80s to early 90s genre shit. I'm not even bringing up Big Trouble in Little China, Escape From New York, or Starman. The guy was on a roll. Unfortunately, with Village of the Damned, the cracks begin to show and by the end of the picture, everything's collapsed. I'd argue he'd never really recover. He got lazy. Sure, Escape from L.A. has a few moments and it retains much of the intelligence strewn throughout his earlier work. Vampires is a fun western. With vampires. Ghosts of Mars is like a remake of his own Assault on Precinct 13 only set on Mars. And with Ghosts. It's unwatchable. I've tried to sit through it many times and always pass out around the time Pam Grier loses her head. Anyway, the point is Carpenter isn't what he used to be and I think that Village of the Damned is where the train went completely off the rails.

Which is an absolute shame because the picture gets off to a great start. We got a quiet little Rockwell-esque village known as Midwich, U.S.A. We got a tight little community where everyone knows everyone. Even the town drunk is sorta just accepted and loved. We got Christopher Reeve, one of the sincerest actors in the history of acting, in his final role before the accident that left him paralyzed and ultimately killed him. So, I guess that leaves a bit of a pall over the entire project. Reeve plays the town doctor and is very good here.

The opening scenes are magnificent as some sort of unseen force ripples through the town causing everyone to pass out. Michael Pare (Eddie & The Cruisers), despite being one of the "stars" passes out at the wheel of his truck and dies in a fiery crash. One guy passed out while cooking barbecue and did a face plant on the grill. And, of course, ten women (including the doctor's wife, Pare's widow, etc) woke up only to discover they were pregnant. In some cases, it's impossible (one girl's a virgin, one couple wasn't having sex, one husband was away in Japan for the last half a year, etc). Anyway, the government shows up to investigate, led by the Kirstie Alley. She's the opposite of Reeve; completely insincere and, just all around, not good (her acting and her character).

The story then jumps ahead nine months. An infirmary is set up for the mothers, doctors lined up, birthing procedures followed, etc. Only, Alley's a little too quick to announce one baby as stillborn while rushing it off to her private lab. Then the movie jumps ahead a few years. The space babies are now kids with platinum white hair. They got mind control type powers. Mara, Reeve's daughter, appears to be the leader. She convinces his wife, her mother, to submerge her arm in boiling water, walk off a cliff, and so on. Basically, to generally kill herself. Point is these kids got no humanity. They're evil. They hate people. They'd enslave them but since they can also read minds they know the people would eventually revolt. So, destroy them is the best option I guess. No way can they co-exist. Well, one of these kids actually develops a little differently than the others. David actually seems to love his mother, doesn't have this rationally, irrational hatred of mankind. I think we may be heading for some sort of showdown type thing.

Sort of. I mean, I liked this one in parts. Meaning, I liked the beginning. I liked some of the mind tricks these kids would pull. The whole project is pretty lazy though. We don't got much tension. I really only cared about Reeve's character. Hated Alley's character (which is good 'cause she eviscerates (spoiler) herself). I mean, an example of the inherent laziness of the script is the scene where a dad of one of the kids goes looking for his daughter in his truck. He gets a staredown, some eyes turn red, and next thing you know he's driving off the road and smack dab into a giant barrel of gasoline which just happens to be lying out smack dab in the middle of nowhere. Maybe the kids imagined it, I don't know.

There's also some shit about this being a global epidemic, we got threats of nuclear annihilation, etc. We got a scene where Reeve thinks of a brick wall so those little shits can't read his thoughts which is good because he's holding a briefcase with a bomb inside. They ask what's in the case but all that mind reading shit made them lazy and unable to properly deduce. There's shit involving a mob of townspeople which doesn't go very far. Some policemen turn their guns on each other, etc etc. Unfortunately, after a great beginning my interest began to wane. Where did these kids come from? Why is it that an alien race that has the technology to cause ripples that can knock out an entire population needs to concoct an overly elaborate plan just to destroy the human race. I'm assuming while the town was unconscious they sent down a couple of alien Cassanovas to have their way with the hottest women? Maybe these guys are just sex starved. Either way, this movie, for me, symbolizes the end of John Carpenter (or, is it?) and Christopher Reeve, so I gotta say I don't like it.

4 Days: Mark of the Devil (1970)

2009-10-28T21:51:00.010-04:00

Here we have a SAW for the 18th century. The inquisition comes to Austria in Mark of the Devil, an early 70s exploitation "classic" that takes a sledge hammer to history, pours some tar on it, throws it on the rack, and finally cuts off it's head after having ripped out it's tongue. In other words, it's a pretty good movie.

Udo Kier (Mother of Tears) stars, in an early role, as Count Christian, the earnest assistant to the Grand Inquisitor, Lord Cumberland (Herbert Lom). Christian is sent ahead to a small mountain town to prepare for his lord's arrival. He believes in their work, wants to make the world a better place, is sincere in his mission, etc. Immediately, Christian strikes up a conflict with the resident witchfinder, Albino (Reggie Nalder). Albino abuses his power just a bit. After throwing himself at Vanessa, a beer wench, and being rejected, he immediately accuses her of being a witch, points out her mole as being the "mark of the devil", etc. Basically, the guy goes around raping maidens and then bringing them in for torture, confession, and ultimately, burning. Christian saves Vanessa's life and they immediately fall in love. That love is tested when Cumberland arrives and Vanessa is brought before his counsel on the charges of witchcraft (Albino is a devious son of a bitch). Cumberland upholds the charges while Christian remains passive.

The picture is built around grotesque acts of torture. One woman is placed on the rack, has her feet burned, her fingers squashed, etc. This shit goes on for hours. She is brought before the increasingly sadistic Cumberland who says she is to die. She thanks him for putting an end to her torture. Cumberland's reply: "We want confessions, not more corpses. Torture her some more." This leads to the picture's money shot, where the poor girl has her mouth clamped open and her tongue ripped out. The torture and gore is plentiful.

The picture, unfortunately, let's itself down by killing off Albino in the first thirty minutes and replacing his great, sadistic villain with one slightly less so (Cumberland). Albino is one of those characters an audience loves to hate. We'd actually root for the guy to die a horrible, preferably slow, death. Alas, we're left with a tepid choke job at the hands of Lord Cumberland after Albino calls him "impotent". A great character like this deserves worse. I mean, this is the kinda scum bag that would see a naked girl in a 2nd floor window, head up with his cronies, kill her boyfriend, and have his way with her, while accusing her of witchery.

The marketing campaign was pretty brilliant and helped to propel it ahead of the Vincent Price classic, Witchfinder General at the box office. Stuff like "This movie is rated V for violence" or claiming, in the tagline, to be "the most horrifying film ever made". Barf bags were handed out in theatres and, apparently, a few of them were used. It's all overblown of course. I can't argue with the "V for violence" thing, but I've certainly seen worse. The movie has one truly horrifying moment (the tongue scene). If you know where to look you can find far more exploitative shit.

My favorite scene involves a family being accused of witchery because they were putting on a marionnette show in their home. Apparently, the puppets were used to capture the soul of the viewer. The husband was promptly murdered, the wife and two children thrown in jail. Later, a slimy inquisitor is shown attaching puppet strings to a real live bunny rabbit. I have no idea what the significance of that is.

Still, I liked it. The setting looked completely authentic. We got real castles, real horse drawn carriages, period dress, period torture devices, etc. The performances, by Kier, and in particular, Nalder are effective. The women are mostly beautiful and come with large heaving bosoms. The cleavage on display here is astounding. You know, I guess the inquisition was a good time to be alive if you're a horny zealot. You can go around accusing women of being witches without one iota of evidence. Hell, I'm sure some of them were blackmailed for their bodies. Thank god this kind of history doesn't repeat itself. This could never happen today. Blackmailing women into having sex with you!? What a crazy world this used to be. Anyway, Mark of the Devil is a good one. The picture skimps on the supernatural elements completely. Not one confirmed witch. All those women burned at the stake were supposedly innocent. Crazy. The ending is graphically morose. The townspeople revolt. There's mayhem, graphic violence, nudity, minimal slow parts, etc. Give it a look.

5 Days: Teeth (2007)

2009-10-27T14:54:00.015-04:00

Revisiting Teeth, after having seen it over a year ago, I was struck by how god damned funny the picture is, an element that mostly escaped me the first time. Of course, a large part of one's appreciation of a film depends on their mood at the time they watch it. Perhaps, the first time I expected something more horror-ish, intense, whatever. There are several laugh out loud moments strewn throughout and, thankfully, they were all intentional. This isn't camp or any shit like that. It's all played pretty straight.

We're introduced to a high school student named Dawn (a terrific performance by Jess Weixler). She's a spokesperson for a group of christian virgins called "The Promise". She wears unicorn tee shirts. Her home life is a little off despite a loving mother (terminally ill) and stepfather. Her stepbrother, Brad, has been in love with her since they were little. Dawn, however, is not like most girls. For one, she doesn't put out. Also, she's got teeth in her vagina which, at first, she's unaware of since she's a virgin.

Well, shit, all the guys in this thing are assholes. Dawn meets a "nice" guy at one of her meetings. They go to the movies. The "R" rated picture isn't even a consideration, the "PG-13" one could likely have scenes of making out, so they settle on some "G" rated thing (we don't see the picture, sounds like looney tunes). Later, they go to a swimming hole, Dawn's friend points out a cave where people go to do "you know". Then they leave. It's all perfectly innocent. Dawn might be in love, fantasizes about marrying Tobey while in bed, feels something tingle...and reaches down...

This leads to guilt, humiliation, proclamations of "we can't see each other anymore", and finally, a rendezvous at the swimming hole where Dawn leads Tobey to that cave. Things progress a bit. There's some kissing and then Dawn says they should go. Tobey relents (a little), then freaks out ("I haven't jerked off since Easter!"), hits her, and carries on. Dawn comes to with him doing his business when suddenly there's a crunching sound, Tobey screams, his dick falls off, he goes into the water, and we never see the guy again. Dawn, for a while, convinces herself that she imagined it. She even goes back to the cave later and is shocked to see, in a great visual gag, a crab eating Tobey's penis. After researching vaginal mutations on, where else, the internet, she pays a visit to the gynecologist (another male scumbag) who does things like lube up all his (glove less) fingers to "test for elasticity". Later, as he writhes on the floor, clutching his fingerless hand he starts screaming "it's true! Vagina Dentata!"

Fuck, I never thought I'd enjoy a man-hating movie this much. I guess it's because it's hard to take it all seriously. Dawn's stepbrother Brad (John Hensley) gives great support. He's the worst of the worst. He still lives at home, doesn't work, mooches off his parents, smokes weed in his room, flirts with his stepsister, and bangs his girlfriend doggie style to her chagrin ("you know, I have a perfectly good pussy"). The guys idea of a joke is to hide naked in the shower while Dawn is brushing her teeth and surprise her when she tries to get in saying "I got you bitch". It's a little uncomfortable. Even more uncomfortable is the opening scene where Dawn and Brad (as young children) sit in a kiddie pool and somehow Brad ends up with a chewed up finger. Not sure how that happened.

As bad as Brad is, Dawn's "friend" Ryan isn't much better. Her supposed "hero" is good at telling women what they want to hear. She buys it, they have successful sex in his bedroom, a converted garage. Of course, this is after he pines her with alcohol and she comes to with him using some sort of stimulating device on her. Somehow, she accepts it. Later, during even more coitus, he answers his phone. Turns out he won a bet. In a later scene, during surgery, the doctor looks at Ryan's detached penis and comments "it hardly seems worth it". That's the last joke I'll spoil. There are many more.

How exactly does one get teeth to grow in their vagina? Well, I don't know? Maybe has something to do with those giant pollution emitting smoke stacks looming over Dawn's home? Or, perhaps she really is a mythical creature in need of a "hero" to save her. I guess the teeth are the villains and need conquering.

This is a thoroughly enjoyable romp through the trials and tribulations of discovering ones sexuality and then biting off dicks with it. Well, maybe "romp" isn't the most fitting term here. It's a "horror" picture in the sense that kids are losing their dicks and we see the results. There's some gore here. There isn't much in the way of scares, but it's not really that kind of picture. A scene involving a dog and a severed penis goes a little too far, in my opinion. That one hurt. None of this would work without the note perfect performance of Jess Weixler who is reminiscent of early Wynona Ryder. Actually, this one reminded me a lot of Heathers and just a little of Deadgirl. If I was still in high school it might make me consider that jerking off is actually a viable alternative to getting laid. Fuck, I'm sure I'd still take my chances (not that I ever did).

Day 10 - 6: Paranormal Activity (2007)

2009-10-26T19:44:00.016-04:00

Well, this picture will have to cover a few days (for now) since I've fallen so far behind and I'm not sure I'll be able to catch up by Halloween. Paranormal Activity would fall into the "found footage" sub genre of horror (The Last Broadcast, The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield, Cannibal Holocaust, etc). Fortunately, I wasn't aware it was a found footage type of film going in. Unfortunately, they spoil the thing with a bit of text at the beginning stating that the producers would like to thank the families of Katie and Micah (our two leads) which sorta implies that they're either dead or missing. My expectations were more along the lines of this being a "ghost hunters" or a Poltergeist type situation, only they tried to fool us into thinking this was actually real. You know, a few scares, a few jumps, everyone comes out ok in the end except for the ghosts who are still dead.

Instead (and slight spoilers may abound, so tread carefully...or don't tread at all) what we get is a little different. Katie and Micah have been dating for three years. She's a professional student. He's a douchey day trader. She moves into his house in San Diego, a two floor number with a pool out back, three bedrooms, sparse furnishings, giant tv, etc. The house isn't isolated. We got a sunny neighborhood, lots of houses, mind-their-own-business neighbors. The house looked brand new, so not your typical haunted house either. Well, here's a minor spoiler. The house ain't haunted. Katie is. Turns out she's had experiences since she was 8; feeling a presence, strange noises, unexplainable fires, etc. Micah has a point when he says this information could have been useful before she moved in.

Of course, Micah embraces this as a great opportunity to capture some paranormal type activities on camera. He sets one up in the bedroom, on a tri-pod to see what happens while they sleep. They turn the thing off once during the entire picture and it's for the freaking sex act. Everything in this picture is shown through the lens of that camera. During the day, Micah walks around with it while Katie tells him to put the thing away. She tells him that often. The first night, around 3 AM, everything seems fine. Then suddenly the door moves a few inches, then it moves back. Could be those swirling San Diegan crosswinds coming in through the window I guess. Things progress a bit, Katie calls a psychic who doesn't really help much. Apparently (and here is another spoiler) they're not dealing with a ghost. It's a demon, not the psychic's realm of expertise. He gives them the number of a good demonologist and leaves claiming "I've angered it just by being here." Thanks man, big help.

The "activities" progress from relatively harmless (the door) to pretty fucking terrifying (loud crashes, loud footsteps coming up the stairs, growls, and much worse). Micah doesn't help matters by calling out the demon, saying things like "this is MY house", buying a Ouija board which promptly burns on camera, of course, while they're out. Micah is incredibly unlikeable, but Katie's got our sympathies. The performances by these two non-actors are, for the most part, convincing. Katie calls the demonologist, against Micah's wishes, but he's out of town. Things get more desperate, bodily harm becomes a possibility. I guess there are no other demonologists in California?

This one's a rollercoaster. We got the moments of calm (daytime, for the most part) which lead to terrifying moments (anything after bed time). The anticipation becomes unbearable. The creepiness nearly unrelenting. I looked forward to the day time shit just so I could catch my breath. After a while, the character actions start to border on the idiotic. You got the footage, the proof! For chrissakes, have a bunch of friends stay the night, show the police, contact some family, do something! Don't just go to bed the night after Katie (spoiler!) is dragged from it. Call another demonologist, please. The special effects are seamless to the point that you'll be asking yourself "how did they do that?" a few times.

I guess we're all just a bunch of voyeurs, demons included. While our couple records every occurrence in their bedroom in hopes of catching a glimpse of the entity, our entity is clearly watching their every move. Whether, it's infatuated with Katie is never overtly explained. There's some connection there. Ironically, the one time they turn off the camera is to have sex. The demon saw it all and probably wasn't too happy, especially not with the "that was illegal in Kentucky" line. The demon wanted that ass first, Micah. Way to anger the demon.

The movie nearly blows it with an ending, apparently suggested by Steven Spielberg, that shows way too much while giving the audience their first view of some clearly computer generated bullshit. Something more subtle would have been preferred, perhaps one of the two alternate endings that were actually filmed. Despite that disappointment, this one might scare you. There's no escaping this type of entity. Katie can run, but it will follow (or so the psychic tells us). Still, I'll take my chances in a fully staffed hotel. I was more creeped out during the movie than actually frightened. Then, later that night, I lay in my bed until 2 or 3, watching TV, afraid to go asleep since it could mean waking up in an hour or two when my bedroom door opens and slams shut (on it's own). Or worse, with my roommate standing at the foot of my bed in a state of catatonia although, that would be horrific for other reasons.

I Blew It (2009)

2009-10-23T00:16:00.003-04:00

This ain't a movie. I had a feeling this might happen. I closed the last two nights at my 2nd job and didn't get home until after midnight each time. I thought about writing something, last night and now, but decided you might actually deserve something half way readable (unlike my review of The Crazies. Sorry George, you deserved better!) So, I'm going to fuck things up a bit and write these reviews when I have time to actually put some effort into them. I'll try not to half ass them too much.

Here's a sampling of some pictures in the pipeline. They might not all get written up. If you definitely want my thoughts on some of them leave a comment. I'll be back. Real soon.

Hardware
Teeth
Trapped
Hellgate
John Carpenter's Village of the Damned
Kidnapped
Cabin Fever
Dead & Buried

If there's something not from this list you want me to cover (and I can get it in time), Let me know!

11 Days: The Crazies (1973)

2009-10-20T13:56:00.006-04:00

Well, here we've got an extremely short review. I just got home from seeing the Raveonettes play with the Black Angels at the Paradise. Great show. Had a little too much too drink. Perfect segue to a bunch of characters who aren't acting themselves in a little George Romero film called The Crazies. We got the perfect Romero set up. Basically, the government blew it.

We got a little town called Evans City, Pennsylvania. We got a small group of citizens. We got some soldiers wearing gas masks. We got a bio-chemical weapon called Trixie. Here's what happens. Trixie gets in the water or some shit like that. People drink it. People go crazy. That's the gist of it.

We got some documentary type footage of government types invading a town, quarantining it, shooting citizens without impunity, etc. A couple of them try to find a cure, realize there ain't one. A couple of them go crazy themselves. I don't know man, this ain't my favorite Romero picture. It falls somewhere under the tier that includes Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Martin, and Land of the Dead. Also, maybe Monkey Shines. There are two stories. We got a group of government types debating whether or not to nuke the town. We got a couple of citizens trying to survive and dealing with infection amongst their midst. All told in a verite style. It sorta works.

I liked the nurse character. Her husband was alright. The husband's friend was a douchebag. I hated all the government bastards. This one's ripe for a remake and thank god we're getting one. Just don't watch the trailer since it will spoil the shit out of it. The best thing about this picture is the nature of the disease. Basically, people go crazy (i.e. "the crazies") and begin killing their loved ones. One guy tries raping his daughter. It's crazy shit all around. However, this isn't the rage virus. The infected can still communicate. One guy kills a few people, sees a friend and says something akin to "hey buddy what's up?" It's loco shit. I dug it, didn't love it.

Also, some of the acting is atrocious. Guys get shot, hold their stomachs, and fall down minutes later. A little too melodramatic for my taste. Then again, I guess that's to be expected when you hire high school kids to portray your gas masked soldiers. Still, worth checking out. A solid follow up to Night. Seriously though, skip the trailer for the remake. It gives everything away.

Well, as with most things in life, there's a lesson to be learned here. Don't drink and blog.