The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr. Hyde (2006)

JUNE 30, 2008

GENRE: MAD SCIENTIST, PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

The credits for The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde offered not one, not two, but THREE Hatchet veterans – Tony Todd (star), John Carl Buechler (director here, makeup/cameo-er on Hatchet) and Andy Garfield (music), which perhaps raised my expectations a bit. And to be fair, it’s far from a bad movie, but like many of these films, suffers greatly from a lack of resources/money. I guess it’s a crapshoot – you can write whatever you dream up and hope that your money covers it, or you can write knowing your limitations and thus restricting your imagination (and most likely end up with a lousy script to boot). Buechler and co. clearly chose the former, though the script could have used some work as well.

At least the cast is good. In addition to Todd as the title character(s), you get Tim Thomerson (in a far too brief role) and Carpenter regular Peter Jason as two of the many cops who populate the film. Unfortunately, Tracy Scoggins is wasted here. Not because she’s a good actress, because she’s actually not very good at all, but she’s usually smoking hot (see: Otis, for absolutely no other reason) and thus provides necessary visual flair. But the makeup person botches this notion by giving her truly hideous and unflattering eyeshadow that makes her resemble Amy Winehouse, one of the most hideously ugly and horrible women to ever defile the planet. Also: VERNON WELLS. Anyone well versed in 80s action cinema has to appreciate a movie that gives him a sizable role.

And Buechler provides many a nice touch I appreciated. For example, in the film’s first kill scene, we get the standard POV shot of Mr. Hyde stalking the girl. Usually this is followed by a shot of the girl spinning around and seeing nothing, and THAT is usually followed by me yelling “How the fuck did he get out of her line of vision so fast?!?!?” Well here, we actually see the POV shot suddenly jerk to the left as Hyde makes his way behind a corner. Why he is hiding makes no sense, but it’s a good idea nonetheless.

I also particularly liked how silly the movie got at the end, as Hyde suddenly transforms into a monkey man. This means that we get alternating shots of Todd wearing a ridiculous ape mask, or a CG head is badly mapped to the actor’s body. Either way, you have a giant monkey running around all of a sudden, and that is awesome.

Sadly the CG is terrible here and in the other scenes it is used. It’s sparse, to be fair, but uniformly bad nonetheless. That, along with not very good digital video and the editor’s strange habit of badly zooming in on shots (resulting in blurry/grainy footage that doesn’t match anything else in the sequence) gives the film a very cheap feel, and while it’s not likely they had much to begin with, these type of things make it feel even cheaper than it probably was, which is a shame.

Garfield’s score is also pretty good, if a bit overbearing at times. It’s almost like they forgot to tell him that the movie had no money, so his sweeping, big orchestra-sounding score feels a bit off when played during a scene that looks like it cost 12 cents. Still, it has a very classic horror feel that is appropriate given the subject matter. I was a bit disappointed that the film had no musical numbers, given that Buechler IS the director of Troll, a film with one of the most deliriously hilarious musical numbers in film history.

Having never read the source material, I don’t know if some of the dialogue is taken directly from it, but either way, there are lines that don’t quite fit right with the rest of the film. It’s mostly kinda hokey and fun, but every now and then (especially in the final 10 minutes or so), Buechler gives Todd and a few others some lines that sound like quotes from “Philosophy for Dummies” instead of from the script they have been following for the bulk of the film. Still, Todd gives it his all, and provides more proof that he should have had a more successful career in Hollywood. He got a few meaty roles in the 90s (like in The Rock) but nowadays he’s mostly stuck in stuff like this. He’s not exactly Oscar caliber, but he’s definitely a presence, and it’s nice to see him get to have some fun with a dual role.

I dunno, worth a look on a lazy Sunday I guess. Could have been better, but everyone makes do with what they have. I've seen far worse, but sometimes mediocre is less desirable - it's only been a few hours and I'm already forgetting most of the movie

What say you?

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Mad Scientist, Psychological,

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Brain Dead (1990)

JUNE 9, 2008

GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

After 550 movies or so, I’m having trouble remembering some of the older ones. When someone asks what I thought about a movie that I watched around the beginning of Horror Movie A Day, I sometimes have to go back and look at the review to remember. Kind of sad, but I guess there’s only so many critiques of obscure horror movies your brain is allowed to hold. However, some particularly sharp memories remain, which is why as soon as I saw a particular building in Brain Dead, I recognized it as the same location used in Dead Heat, which I saw (once) over a year ago.

It’s even more interesting when you consider the film’s subject matter, which deals with the brain and how it works, and a new technique that can be used to call up (and then destroy, if so desired) specific memories. Yes, all you folks who think Charlie Kaufman is an unparalleled genius who doesn’t have a single unoriginal idea in his head – Eternal Sunshine was preceded by a Roger Corman movie.

Actually Corman wasn’t personally involved with the film, as far as the credits are concerned anyway (he’s not listed anywhere, though his wife Julie is the film’s producer and the movie was released by his company New Concorde), and I think it shows. Because, despite the Corman ties and the cast of usually amusing folks like Bill Paxton/Pullman and Bud Cort, Brain Dead is a very serious, borderline depressing psychological thriller, with very little gore and almost no laughs. The “stretched face” image usually on the cover is only in the movie for like a minute, and there are no other real makeup effects to speak of other than the occasional exposed brain. I was under the impression that the film was more an update of The Brain That Wouldn’t Die, but it’s actually a sort of Jacob’s Ladder retread, with Pullman’s character spending the entire movie seeing impossible things, only to find out at the end that the whole movie is just the psychological episode he is having right before he dies.

Hey, two spoiled movies for the price of one!

The problem is, I’m just not a big fan of these type of scenarios (though I DO love Jacob’s Ladder), because to me it just seems like an easy way out of any scene. Write yourself into a hole? No problem, it’s all a dream/fantasy/whatever! The film makes less and less sense as it goes, since you’re never quite sure which is the dream and what is the reality, and even at 80 minutes it feels like some stuff is in there just to pad it out a bit. Ultimately, the real story isn’t as interesting or exciting as some of the subplots that are introduced and abandoned in the process of confusing the viewer, and that’s sort of a shame. I would have liked MORE of the memory wipe stuff, and thus fewer scenes of Pullman saying “I’m not crazy!” while doing crazy things.

That said it’s not a bad film in the technical sense (despite the awful full frame VHS transfer), and the acting is good (particularly Paxton, in one of his last sleazy roles before being the traditional ‘nice guy’ in pretty much everything he does). And Pullman is always more interesting in his ‘dark’ roles than he is in nonsense like Independence Day. In fact, halfway through the film his identity changes, foreshadowing his Lost Highway role that would come along 6 years later.

I should also point out that Paxton and Pullman are often confused, and I’m not sure why. Their names are a bit similar, sure, but they look nothing alike and never play the same type of roles. Paxton played jerks and then heroic everymen (Apollo 13, Twister); Pullman is most known for his romantic comedies, a genre I don’t think Paxton has ever really explored. However, this confusion has led to a great Simpsons joke, when Homer spoils a Julia Roberts movie:

Dr Hibbert: I thought she was going to end up with that rich snob!
Sea Captain: -Ably played by Bill Paxton!
Homer: It’s Bill PULLMAN, you fool!

Ah, the good ol’ days, when Simpsons had lines worth quoting.

What say you?

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Psychological,

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Psycho II (1983)

JUNE 7, 2008

GENRE: HERO KILLER (?), PSYCHOLOGICAL, REVENGE
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

I recently picked up the collection of Psycho sequels, and when I opened it I discovered that while III and IV had to share one disc (one side in fact), Psycho II got one all to itself. Having never seen any of them in their entirety (only edited TV broadcasts when I was 15 – and I don’t think I watched III all the way through either), I can’t vouch for this being a sign of their quality, but I do know that II is a damn fine followup, and nowhere near the disaster that it could have been.

For starters, Tom Holland’s screenplay (which is entirely unrelated to the sequel novel written by original author Robert Bloch) is great in that it managed to find a way to present another mystery angle without betraying or rewriting the original film (unlike say, Scream 3, which apart from being fucking terrible, changed the reasoning for the actions of the first film’s killers). Sure, the final scene may be a bit on that side, but it’s not like they came out and said that the woman who Norman killed wasn’t the one who had raised him, or that he killed someone else entirely.

The only flaw in the mystery is that it is spoiled relatively early in the movie for those who know the first film well. Norman’s new friend introduces herself as Mary Samuels, which is the same name that Marion used when she checked into the motel. It’s OK to assume that Norman has forgotten the “coincidence”, since he has been locked up for 20 years and probably has other stuff on his mind (his penchant for sandwiches, for example), but to an audience it’s pretty much a dead giveaway.

However, I must point out what my buddy Rob (a true Psycho expert if there ever was one) pointed out to me – in 1983 the home video market hadn’t really taken off, so apart from TV broadcasts of the film (at least one of which was canceled at the last minute due to a real life tragedy), Psycho hadn’t been seen for years, and thus the majority of the audience probably had forgotten as well. I keep having the idea for Bloody Disgusting where we’d have a page with movie news that would have been posted if the internet was around in the early 80s, this would be something worth posting: “I just read the script for Psycho II and it turns out that the girl Meg Tilly plays in the movie is the niece of Marion Crane! Also, the guy who was a deputy in the first film is now the town sheriff. If you use this, call me BatesFan23.”

Minor nerdy issues aside, it’s simply a well done, respectable sequel. It would have been easy to simply have Norman escape and kill some folks, but Holland and director Richard Franklin went the classier route, with Lila Crane (now Loomis –she married her sister’s boyfriend! Nice.) trying to drive Norman crazy so she can get him locked up again, and Norman struggling to keep his sanity. Sure, the body count is a bit higher, and there is actual on screen violence (including a particularly nasty death in the famous basement), but compared to the other horror films of the period, it’s practically G rated in that regard.

It’s also got more Perkins, which is fine. Of course, he doesn’t show up until about a half hour into the first film, and Lila and Sam’s investigation eats up some screen time as well. But here he’s pretty much in every scene, and is terrific both as “sane” Norman (his incredibly awkward conversations with Tilly are a particular highlight) and “nutty” Norman, who becomes convinced his mother really is alive. And if you thought he was pretty nice in the first, he’s downright sympathetic here. Even when he starts to crack, you still root for the guy to pull through and be OK.

Tilly is also a delight. Mainly because she is ridiculously cute, but she also has a bit more personality than Marion got to display (again, she also has more screen time, for obvious reasons), and it’s nice to see her actually develop a bit of a kinship with Norman. The rest of the cast is good as well; it’s funny to see Dennis Franz in one of his earliest roles as a total scumbag (as opposed to the more lovable plain ol' jerks he plays in stuff like Die Hard 2).

I also love how isolated Fairview is. We know the motel is off the main road or whatever, but the diner Norman works at for about 8 minutes also appears to be in the middle of nowhere (who the hell would go there?). “Downtown” is mentioned though not really seen, but you got to imagine that there’s a perfectly good diner in the middle of the alleged civilized part of town.

Franklin also stages some terrific scenes. There’s a bit where “Mary” is arguing with Lila, and a maid with a vacuum drowns out what they are saying, to the dismay of a nosy hotel clerk who is trying to listen to what they are saying. And Franklin also makes good use of shadow and silhouette; there’s a spooky scene where Norman confronts Mary, who is seen only in silhouette, and thus keeping us on edge. The numerous scenes of people looking through the hole in the bathroom wall are also unnerving, especially since it’s never really made clear who is looking in when (there are like 4 killers in the film, ultimately).

Compared to the first sequels of other great horror films (Halloween II, Nightmare on Elm St 2, Cube 2: Hypercube), it’s in a class of its own. You can’t really top Hitchcock, but to keep the spirit of his film intact while making it your own is something I doubt many could accomplish. Kudos to those involved for pulling it off.

What say you?

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Hero Killer, Psychological, Revenge,

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Sex And The City: The Movie (2008)

MAY 28, 2008

GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL, SUPERNATURAL, VAMPIRE, WEREWOLF
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PRESS SCREENING)

While I love gore and insane prosthetic effects as much as the next guy, it’s nice to see a horror film that eschews all of that stuff in favor for more subtle horrors; a sort of ‘alternate’ horror film, much like Martin or something of that nature. Sex And The City: The Movie fits that mold; despite the R rating, there is actually only suggested violence in the film, along with a few morbid visuals.

Based on the TV show, the film is about three female best friends, each of them a different type of monster. Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) is a vampire, Samantha (Kim Cattrall) is a succubus, and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is a werewolf. There is also a fourth friend, a human named Charlotte (Kristin Davis) whose only role in the film is show off her perfect human life to her friends, all of whom aspire to find her happiness while retaining their own monstrous needs.

Carrie the vampire is the film’s main character. She is engaged to a fellow vampire, a man only referred to as Big even though his name is John something or other. Unlike most cinematic vampires, they are not harmed by sunlight (the film even makes a little joke about this – they turn down an apartment because it doesn’t get any sun), but they are immortal. We know this because they have been dating for 100 years and have broken up and gotten back together some 15 times (this is explained to us a few times via dialogue – I assume it was detailed in full on the show). Big stands her up at the altar, and she begins a downward spiral – she’s been with him forever, and was prepared to give up her immortality in marriage. Now she is faced with being immortal forever, and alone.

Next up is Samantha, the succubus. She doesn’t live in New York with the others, instead she lives in LA where her kind is more common. The film’s opening sort of “previously, on Sex and the City” thing shows her pre-devouring of several men, and then finding a man she truly loves and thus does not want to eat. Now they’ve been together for five years, and she is discovering that she misses her succubus ways, thanks to a new neighbor who is actually a male succubus, taking a new woman every night.

And then there is Miranda, the werewolf. Her problem is more simple – she’s not allowing herself to indulge in the pleasures that come with being a lycanthrope. As the film begins her husband, a nerd who obviously gets off on nailing a she-wolf, is sexually frustrated, and cheats on her. So she throws him out, and now has to make a new life for herself and hopefully rediscover her carnal instincts.

Finally the human one, Charlotte... well, she doesn’t really have a storyline, because she is not one of the undead. Like I said, she’s just there to sort of remind her friends that happiness is possible, though they never quite make clear if being human is essential. Later in the film she finally has something to do (she gets pregnant), but until then she’s merely just sort of hanging out with them. Ironically, she is the focus of the film’s sole gross out gag, a scene in which she contracts dysentery and shits her pants. It’s an odd moment, but mainly because it’s actually pretty funny, where the rest of the film is incredibly overdramatic and sour.

The little moments in which their monstrous sides are actually on display are among my favorites in the film. At one point, Miranda begins growing her werewolf hair all over her legs, and the succubus chastises her for it. She usually shaves it all in order to hide her lycanthropy from her coworkers (she’s a lawyer – another sly injoke to her true nature), but since her separation from her husband she is letting herself go. The three monster girls, particularly the vampire, also have an unnatural addiction to red wine (for contrast, the human only drinks water). I would have liked more of these type of scenes, but since the film is about the human side of monsters (and not the monstrous side of humans) it makes sense that they are kept to a minimum.

Still, it does have some scare moments. The succubus, who is the oldest of the group, strips nude and covers key parts of her anatomy with sushi (a nice reverse on the succubus way – she is inviting her lover to essentially eat HER), a ghastly sight. She also threatens on more than one occasion to devour two separate men’s manhood, which will give the male viewers a chill (the females in the crowd cheered at these lines).

In the end, it’s a decent attempt at doing something different. In the end, all of the monsters have accepted their true nature and found happiness, which is nice. I would have liked maybe one transformation or two, but the effects are pretty much limited to Dick Smith style old age makeup. It won’t be for everyone, but it’s certainly the most unique horror film of the year.

What say you?

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Psychological, Supernatural, Vampire, Werewolf,

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Non Canon Review: Psycho (1960)

MAY 21, 2008

GENRE: CLASSIC, PSYCHOLOGICAL, SERIAL KILLER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REVIVAL SCREENING)

When I saw that my beloved New Beverly would be screening Pyscho, I knew what I had to do: go see it. But before that, I had to get the night off of work, because there was no way in hell I would miss it. See, I had serious atoning to do, because not only had I never seen the film in the theater, I had seen the goddamn remake TWICE in such a matter. The first time is one thing - I was curious. But why in the name of Christ would I subject myself to that monstrosity a second time?*

Psycho is also one of the first DVDs I watched once I bought a home theater (I love irony – it’s a goddamn mono film), and at the same time, the first full beer I ever consumed (I was out of hard lemonades, which is all I drank until that point). Yes, anyone who knows my age and has a familiarity with when the film was released on DVD now knows I somehow went all through high school without drinking a beer. But let’s stay on subject.

Hitchcock’s film is, quite simply, a masterpiece. You all know that. But what you DON’T know, possibly, is how suspenseful it still is after a half dozen or so viewings. I know everything that’s gonna happen, but some sequences still make me feel nervous, such as the first scene between Norman and Arbogast. Watching Norman screw up his story still carries an incredible amount of “Oh shit!”, making me feel uncomfortable still to this day, a feat most movies can’t even reach on my first viewing, let alone my 6th or so (more if you count three views** of the shot for shot remake). And even knowing perfectly well that he is the killer, his ‘discovery’ of Marion and subsequent cleanup is also still quite suspenseful (oh no, a car!).

It’s also a hilarious film, something I always forget (I actually don’t think I have watched it all the way through since that time with the (non)surround sound and beer – two elements I recreated last night). I love the other broad at the beginning who assumes that the business man didn’t bother flirting with her just because she had a wedding ring on, and not that, no offense, she’s nowhere near as hot as Janet Leigh. And Norman’s pleased little smile when the car finally submerges is classic. Also, the Sheriff’s wife has the most ridiculous look on her face during the entire scene where Loomis and Lila go see them in their home.

I also love the completely tactless shrink at the end of the movie. “Did he kill my sister?” Lila asks. “Yes,” he says, as if she was asking if it was raining. But then he says “And no!”, which, if it were me, would sound like he meant my beloved sibling wasn’t dead after all. Jerk.

Another oddly puzzling thing – what’s with everyone getting out of their cars on the passenger side? When Marion does it when she first arrives at the motel, it’s one thing – it’s raining and the passenger side is closer to the sheltered porch (she gets soaked anyway). But why does Arbogast do it?

Man, if you don’t like this movie, you simply just don’t like horror movies. The shower scene may not be as effective anymore (and on that note, since Janet Leigh is billed under just about everyone else, it’s a wonder her death was such a shock. If you’re the “And...” cast member in a horror movie, you’re either the old professorial character with all the answers, or you’re dead!), but the movie as a whole is just wonderful in both technical and creative terms. And when Gus Van Sant goes to hell, I hope Satan cockpunches him twice as much as anyone else for his horrendous remake stinking up its legacy.

What say you?

*Answer: a really cute girl. One I never hooked up with anyway. Double waste of time!
** I actually watched the remake again on DVD, with commentary, to see if they explained themselves in a manner I could accept. They did not.

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Based On Novel, Classic, Non Canon, Psychological, Serial Killer,

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The Hand (1981)

MAY 16, 2008

GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

When you think of an Oliver Stone film, you think “politics”, “war”, “controversy”, or maybe “John C. McGinley”. But none of those things are evident in The Hand, one of his first films (many claim it IS his first, but in fact he directed another horror film called Seizure in the early 70s), and one can’t help but wonder that if the film had done well, Stone may have gone on to make more horror films, and fewer presidential biopics.

Then again, on the commentary (which I was really surprised by – not only by the fact that it existed, but it was recorded in the past 2 years) Stone claims over and over that he is not a fan of horror films, that he doesn’t have the knack for it, and that the only reason the film works for him is because of the psychological and character based elements. Apparently, many of the more traditional horror elements (such as the scene when Michael Caine investigates a leaky faucet and then a tree smashes his window) are studio mandated reshoots, which Stone shot, albeit begrudgingly. And I agree with him to some extent; without all that stuff, I think the film would still work.

However, it would NOT work without the two ridiculous gore moments, which elevate the film from minor psychological thriller to... well, psychological thriller with ridiculous gore moments. The second is pretty minor, but as it comes during a particularly batshit finale, it’s pretty outstanding. The first though, when Caine loses his hand, is a masterpiece as far as I’m concerned:

And that’s just SOME of the blood Caine is seen losing in the scene. It’s amazing he even survived. It’s so over the top, it helps earn the film some goodwill, as it is rather long (1:45) and gets a bit slow at times. Since this is a character based film, that is to be expected, but still, there are scenes that go on far longer than necessary, such as when Caine meets up with his romantic rival at a bar (an odd POV sequence to boot).

That rival is played by none other than Bruce McGill, who modern audiences know as “That guy that’s like a less menacing JT Walsh”. McGill is obviously much younger here, and looks like a country singer. Two other familiar faces pop up, one being Charles Fleischer, who was the voice of Roger Rabbit (how would that make him a familiar face? – Ed.) (shut your goddamn mouth! – BC), and looks a lot like David Cross. Also popping up near the end is Tracey Walter, who is best known (to me, anyway) as the killer in the criminally underrated and hilarious Drowning Mona (he has one of my favorite lines in the film – after confessing to the murders and bemoaning that he wouldn’t be invited to another character’s wedding, he is told that he WAS invited, as was his wife. Walter replies “I’m married?”). And Stone himself shows up as a bum.

Back to that batshit ending – what do you folks think about it? The whole movie makes you think the hand is killing everyone, only to reveal that it was Caine all along, killing everyone during blackouts. But in the final scene, he’s strapped to a chair and the hand kills the doctor testing him. So was the hand real all along? Or was the ending part fantasy as well? And will The Hand vs Idle Hands ever come to pass?

For no real reason, I'd like to point out that there is no scene selection menu. There are chapters, but if you want to know what random frame would be used to give a viewer an idea of what that chapter is about, you're shit out of luck!

What say you?

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Psychological,

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The Off Season (2004)

MAY 8, 2008

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

Despite living in Los Angeles, it’s very rare I see LA set movies that I can definitely pinpoint their exact shooting location. Most LA movies are set in the downtown/south LA area, and I live north, in the loathed and lovable Valley. The only movie I can recall being shot ‘in my neighborhood’ was the utterly loathsome piece of shit Crash (the scene where they ‘hijack’ Terrence Howard – he drives right by my street), and that was actually a year before I moved here. The town I grew up in, to the best of my knowledge, has never had a single film shot there (School Ties was shot 2 towns over, that’s about as close as we got). But I do have a sort of third home – Old Orchard Beach, Maine, where I went every summer of my life until I was like 18 and didn’t ‘have to’ go anymore with the rest of my family. So at last weekend’s Fangoria convention, when Angus Scrimm mentioned that he had shot a film called The Off Season there, I immediately top of the queued it.

The opening credits were a particular highlight, as Rick and Kathryn (our main characters) drove down the main “downtown” street (where all the rides and amusements are); a street I have walked up and down probably a thousand times. Of course, the title signifies when the film was shot, so it was a bit odd to see everything closed down and empty – even when it rains in the summer, the street is always mobbed with cars and pedestrians. Unfortunately, that’s about the extent of the visual joy, as the characters soon check into a motel and we barely see anything outside their room for the rest of the film.

It’s also not a very good movie, either. It starts off great, a sort of low-budget spin on The Shining (hey, it’s Maine, might as well mine King material while you’re at it). We get the writer, the oddball supporting cast, almost subliminally creepy sightings, etc. And there’s even a few chilling-ish moments. My favorite part of the film was when we see Rick in the foreground and Kathryn in the background. As she strips off her pants and wipes her brow from sweat, he shivers and wraps a blanket around himself. Sadly, this nice little subtle moment is ruined when they actually call attention to it.

But after a half hour or so, it’s clear that the film isn’t really going anywhere. Nothing we see is ever explained, other than (sort of) a bloodstain on a mattress that comes and goes throughout the film. The Jason Sudeikis-y Rick eventually becomes a drunk who doesn’t write, but this is never really explained, nor is his sudden departure from the film (he claims to go off to LA, but then we see him in New York at the end?). Kathryn suddenly becomes the main character, and all of a sudden we are introduced to the history and career of ANOTHER writer who once lived at the motel. The last 15 minutes of the movie almost seem like the first few scenes from another film, though one that is equally as plodding.

Just some of the questions that are never answered: Why is the bathroom covered in poop? Why does Kathryn’s dead mother keep calling? How did a ghost give her a black eye? Why don’t we ever actually SEE Rick go off to drink with his buddy (as this is an independent horror film, naturally his buddy is played by Larry Fessenden, who delivers cinema’s longest middle finger giving scene)? Why do they keep alluding to making dinner when the motel room clearly does not have a kitchen? Why do all of the horror elements suddenly disappear so we can hear about some author’s books that spill dirt on prestigious Maine residents? Why is poor Angus Scrimm rambling about plants for 90% of his (4 minutes’) screen time? I’m all for a few unanswered questions, but only when the film itself is entertaining and the basic story is resolved, neither of which apply here.

It’s almost difficult to review the film, because I feel I only watched a few deleted scenes from it. Seeking answers, I went into the special features menu, only to discover that “Version of the film that is worth a damn” was not among them. The only actual extra is a making of that has more Scrimm footage than is in the film itself, which really depressed me. Here’s Angus talking about all the preparation he did for his 5 minute role, more effort than anyone else (cast or crew) clearly put into it. There’s also a shot of director James McKenney en route to a casting session, driving down a street in Burbank right near my work (he’s following me, Denzel Washington in Déjà vu style!). There are also Spanish subtitles, so Spanish speaking folks can be just as bored and baffled as I was.

Whatever, movie. Way to make Old Orchard boring.

What say you?

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Independent, Psychological,

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Crazy Eights (2006)

MAY 6, 2008

GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

It’s no secret that I will often give a generic movie a slightly better review if it’s technically proficient (blame all of the movies I’ve watched that couldn’t get either the technical OR creative aspects correct), but what do I do when it comes to a movie like Crazy Eights? It’s one of the best shot low budget films I’ve seen in ages, and certainly made with more effort than any of the other After Dark films from this year (save for Mulberry Street, which remains the only one I really consider independent). But the movie itself? Couldn’t make heads or tails of it. At no point in the entire film was I quite sure why the horror-ish things were happening, and the ending was even less coherent.

But man, what a great looking film. Director James K. Jones and DP Stephen M. Lyons have somehow found a way to combine M. Night Shyamalan’s endless takes (entire scenes play out in one or two shots) with Michael Bay’s non-stop camera movement. If there’s a still shot in the entire film, I didn’t catch it. They are also fond of Dutch angles, which when combined with the almost floating camerawork give the film a very interesting and energetic feel, which is all the more impressive when you consider that the entire film consists of five folks standing around looking at walls and news clippings and old toys.

And yes, five. The plot description will say six, but the film has a Noonan, played by Dan Deluca. While he is given his own death scene (and his death is acknowledged by his friends, which puts him above his namesake), his character is so extraneous it’s almost laughable in certain scenes. For example, after the funeral that serves as the reason for these estranged friends to get back together, they all go out to eat. During the dinner, everyone but him not only talks, but gets a closeup. I wasn’t even aware he was actually with them until a wide shot revealed him sitting in between two of the others. Poor sod. Naturally, he is the first to die, and even before then he is more or less written out of the film by the most exaggerated injury in film history (he falls down maybe 5 steps and yet his leg looks like it was run over by a truck and then partially eaten).

Actually, there is almost another non-character, but since she’s played by Gabrielle Anwar, she gets elevated a bit. Like Deluca’s character, she disappears for long stretches and doesn’t really interact with the others. She spends most of the film rocking back and forth on a chair (what I wouldn’t give to be that chair...) before shoving her hands down her own throat and ripping it out from the inside. Not sure why they would hire a relatively well-known actress to do so little in a film, but hey, any Anwar is fine by me.

The real casting surprise is none other than George Newbern as the lead. He plays the least obnoxious priest in movie history (he wears jeans and smokes instead of telling everyone how to live their life before molesting little kids), and even though he’s third billed, he’s essentially the lead. Newbern is the star of one of my favorite movies as a kid: It Takes Two. It’s the tale of a man who is about to get married, but before he does so he wants to buy a sports car. He does, but the car falls apart, then he eats some bad Mexican, fucks some hot blonde woman, blows up the car dealership, and gets married on time. It’s never come out on DVD, but occasionally airs on cable. It’s also got one of my favorite movie scores ever, composed by none other than Carter Burwell (I believe it was his first film) who is known for his work with the Coens. Anyway, good to see him again.

Also on hand are Dina Meyer, Frank Whaley, and Traci Lords. It’s the most impressive cast assembled for an After Dark film yet, and I think it helps smooth over some of the film’s shortcomings (you know, like, not making any goddamn sense). I’m not sure if it was the INTENT to never really explain anything (some theories on the IMDb seem to make sense, but damned if anything in the film really support them), but if so they did a piss poor job. Then again, the film has one of the strangest writing credits I’ve ever seen – “Additional Screenplay Rewrites By...” followed by three names, one of which (Jones again) is also credited with the screenplay itself? Who the fuck credits himself for rewriting his own script?

And once again, the DVD is completely lacking in extras, which is incredibly strange, since all of the AD films from the first year had at LEAST a making of featurette. So far this year, the only ones with extras are Nightmare Man and Mulberry, which incidentally are also the most truly independent of the series.

Still, the atmosphere, the pace (it’s only 80 minutes long with credits), and occasional (brief) gore are admirable, and the cast much better than this type of stuff is usually afforded. I can’t go so far as to say it was GOOD, because I think story should come first above all else, but the craftsmanship alone puts it above many others. Maybe a few more (or less?) of those credited rewrites would have resulted in this being the best of this year’s offerings, but instead we are left with a mixed bag – A well made and well cast movie that unfortunately doesn’t have a script worthy of the efforts.

What say you?

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After Dark Fest, Psychological,

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Dead End (2003)

APRIL 8, 2008

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

Two goddamn full frame movies in a row! This is unacceptable! (It’s also the 2nd movie in the past few days to be adorned with a quote from B-D). Though, take the good with the bad – Dead End was distributed by Lions Gate long before they became the bane of the home video world, which means that while we have to suffer through a full frame transfer, we do NOT have to suffer through 18 trailers for truly awful movies like The Eye or whatever.

And the movie is pretty good. The cast is a big part of its success; few can pull off darkly humorous hysteria like Lin Shaye and Ray Wise, and the kid playing their son is pretty good as well (if overly, and randomly, homophobic – of all the people in the car who’s definitely NOT gay, it’s his sister's boyfriend, yet he consistently alludes to him being a homosexual). With a less capable cast, this one would probably be a giant bore, but Wise and Shaye keep you entertained with their off kilter reactions and dry delivery. At one point, Shaye, who is going a bit crazy after the death of her son, draws a picture of her daughter’s boyfriend, who was found dismembered all over the road, and shows it to her:

Bahahahaaha.

It also doesn’t feel too padded, which it easily could since the movie is essentially four people in a car driving on a road without an exit. Unlike the similar Wind Chill, writer/directors Jean-Baptiste Andrea and Fabrice Canepa had the good sense to keep the movie moving along, make the characters somewhat likable, and consistently seek ways to keep the movie from becoming too much of a Moebius strip, even when at its core that is precisely what it is. Nice job.

Alexandra Holden is also in the movie, as the daughter (once again, she plays the daughter of two genre faves that don’t resemble her at all, a fact written into the plot). She’s pretty much the only character who never made me laugh, which is a bummer. Oh well, still hot.

The theme of the movie appears to be dirty secrets – everyone eventually reveals something about their past that comes as a shock to everyone else – Holden is pregnant, Shaye had an affair, etc. It’s a nice idea but I would have liked to have seen it worked into the finale, which (spoiler) is merely a decent twist on the ‘it was all a dream’ ending. It was all a dream, yes, but everyone else is STILL dead, which is a plus. Makes it easier to swallow (the underrated Reeker had a similar denouement). However, this presents a few holes, or at least provides some genuinely disturbing information about the surviving character. There’s a scene in the movie in which the brother goes off into the woods to jerk off. But if this was all one of his family member’s hallucination, why the fuck would they be imagining that?

All in all, a decent little movie that deserves a better DVD (in addition to the shitty video, the sound is merely stereo) . Region 2’s release is widescreen, with a few extras to boot. If you can watch R2, I urge you avoid the region 1 disc. Had I watched it at night instead of 11 am, it’d probably be even more effective, as it’s the type of low-budget creepfest that would scare me as a kid when I’d watch them when it was dark and everyone was in bed. Watch it in the dark, folks!

I'd also like to point out that this is the 3rd "Dead End" film in HMAD history, following Wrong Turn 2: Dead End, and Dood Eind (aka Dead End). How many more will there be? Call now and vote!

What say you?

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Psychological, Supernatural,

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Hide And Seek (2005)

MARCH 16, 2008

GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL, THRILLER
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Ah, the first movie where the ending is spoiled by the LACK of a particular genre tag. If you notice, there is no “Killer Kid” listing for Hide And Seek, so despite all of the trailer’s (and movie’s) attempts to make you think Dakota Fanning is the killer, that’s simply (and sort of sadly) not the case. I won’t reveal who the killer ACTUALLY is, but it’s really not that hard to figure out. FOX clearly thought differently (they shipped the film without its final reel; those reels were hand-delivered and signed for at each theater in order to prevent the ‘shocking’ twist from getting out), so I’ll play along with their delusion.

DeNiro’s the killer.

Fuck! Sorry.

To its credit, the movie does a decent job of using clever editing to make it look like DeNiro couldn’t possibly be the killer. For example, there’s a scene of him in his office, writing notes. Then someone is killed. As the body hits the ground, he suddenly awakens from the nap he presumably fell into while working. But if you pay attention, he’s in a different spot entirely, and it’s darker outside. But you will be so shocked by the death that just occurred (which WAS a surprise, to be fair) that you won’t notice the discrepancy, or at least, so the filmmakers (and studio) hope.

Actually, I knew the ending before I watched the film (I forget who spoiled it, but it was when the film was still in theaters – at least I waited 3 years to be a dick), so it was kind of fun to watch how they tried to trick you (beats watching the film a second time). A lot of red herrings are set up, but again, the dialogue is very cleverly written. Early on, DeNiro sees Dakota talking to their neighbor, Robert John Burke. Since Burke was in Robocop 3, DeNiro is instantly suspicious of the guy. Later we find out that he lost his own daughter and Dakota reminds him of her. So near the end, the guy confronts DeNiro, and says “What’s wrong, I just saw you walking out of the woods with a shovel...” And the audience will not think of anything of that, because we too saw DeNiro with shovel, after burying his cat. However, that scene occurred the day before, so why would Burke be concerned now? But before we can process that (again, they hope), DeNiro stabs him in “defense” and there’s a chase scene. Nice work.

Sadly, they screw up the whole multiple personality thing. I’m no expert, but I do know that MPD sufferers don’t have any “memory” of their other personalities, yet the climax seems to suggest that the good DeNiro is remembering all of the things that the bad DeNiro did. This scene also suggests that a lot of what we saw the good DeNiro doing never actually happened (his notebook is completely empty, for example).

In fact, the entire ending leaves a few questions. In addition to the notebook thing, they also suggest that Dakota herself has a split personality, which is a bit odd. So were they both killers? Or is she just a jerk? Well, either way she gets a kiss from Famke Jannsen every morning and night now, so she wins.

This wasn’t even four years ago!!! *sigh*

I had to laugh at one part of the commentary – the director points out how he believes that you should be able to follow a film even if its on mute. I myself watched the bulk of the film more or less without sound, as my wife was vacuuming/rug cleaning for about 75% of the time I was watching it (hey, my daily movie can’t always be under the best circumstances), so I was watching with subtitles on most of the time. The subs were pretty amusing, because they point out every sound in the film ([“Sighing”], [“Wind blowing”], [“Owl hooting”]). However, the rest of the track is pretty dull, and it’s also noticeably edited, as the 3 (the DP and the writer are there too) are pretty chatty, but there will suddenly be abrupt gaps and then when they resume the topic will be different.

The deleted scenes don’t amount to much (though thankfully they are actually deleted scenes, not “deleted shots in the middle of scenes you just watched”), nor do the “previz” sequences (scenes that were never shot, presented in storyboard form). One exception is a scene of Dakota with a really cute babysitter, which would have been good to leave in the film, as it features a really cute babysitter. There’s also a brief bit of typical EPK cocksuckery (sadly, DeNiro is nowhere to be found – I would have loved to hear him say “I always wanted to work with Robert John Burke” or something). Like the movie itself, there’s nothing particularly BAD about the extras, but at the same time, their existence is largely moot – no one but die hard fans of the film would find any of this stuff interesting, and there’s no such thing as a “die hard fan” of Hide And Seek. It’s a movie you watch, nod at more or less approvingly, and forget all about 10 minutes later.

What say you?

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Psychological, Thriller,

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Let's Scare Jessica To Death (1971)

MARCH 13, 2008

GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL, VAMPIRE (?)
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

My biggest regret as a human being is that I wasn’t born in 1959 or so. I would have loved to have been a kid in the 70s, getting to experience pretty much all of my favorite horror films when they were first released, instead of 10-20 years later, after many of them had their impact blunted by ripoffs (and now remakes). Such is the case with Let’s Scare Jessica To Death, a film I probably would have loved had I hadn’t seen too many other “A woman is seeing things... or IS SHE?” movies (that were probably inspired by Jessica to boot).

It’s still a good flick though, definitely one to watch late at night with the lights off, instead of during the bright daylight like I did (this is due to the fact that at night I wanted to play Condemned 2, a game so dark I literally can’t see it when there’s the slightest bit of glare in the room). After April Fool’s Day, the title had me expecting that the movie was all just a prank (as in “Hey Guys, Let’s Scare...”), so the fact that it was indeed a legit supernatural horror film (albeit yet another slow burn of one – I REALLY need to watch a nonstop gorefest before this week is through) was a nice surprise, and not without some well-appreciated creepiness. There’s a scene late in the film where the heroine’s husband walks into a general store, and then 4 or 5 of the creepy townsfolk slowly follow him in and close the door – foreboding and creepy as hell!

Unfortunately I really couldn’t stand the lead actress, Zohra Lampert. She was supposed to be a former mental patient (which they never quite explain), so some of her awkwardness could be chalked up to that, but Lampert went above and beyond what is required for such a character, to the point where I wished she would stop speaking. Also, her character (and to be fair, her husband and his buddy) are slow as molasses – they see a century old picture with a woman who is CLEARLY the strange girl they allow to stay with them, and yet it takes almost the entire movie before anyone makes the connection.

However, the aforementioned strange girl (Gretchen Corbett) looks a lot like Ginny from the Harry Potter movies, so there’s something.

The film flies by as well. It’s only 88 minutes long, but it felt even shorter. And since there is very little “action” until the final 5 minutes or so, this is even more impressive. In fact, the film definitely could have used a few more minutes in the narrative to explain some of the under-developed plot threads (in addition to never explaining Lampert’s past mental problems, her husband seems to fall in love with Corbett without ever spending as much as a single scene alone with her).

As for the “Vampire” tag – I’m not sure. Corbett is alluded to being a vampire, and neck-biting seems to be the modus operandi for any of the film’s killings, but the finale, in which Lampert escapes the town, finds all of the pursuing townsfolk acting more like your standard zombies. In fact, the movie very much reminds me of the “sort of zombie” Messiah Of Evil (which came after Jessica), so any fan of that film will probably enjoy this one.

Strangely, the film has a PG-13 rating, despite being released some 13 years before that rating was invented. I am guessing it got a PG back in the day and has been re-rated due to some creepiness (and some all-too-brief lesbian undertones), but since Paramount couldn’t be bothered to include even a trailer for the damn thing on the DVD, answers to such questions won’t be found here (and the film’s Wiki/IMDb pages are no help either, though the Wiki does reveal that the film was originally written as a comedy!). They DID however change the box art, and thus now the movie’s title is in the Trajan font. Add it to the list, Kirby!

What say you?

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Psychological, Vampire,

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The Lost (2006)

MARCH 9, 2008

GENRE: HORROR?, PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

A while back I watched The Girl Next Door, which was a pretty good movie based on a book by Jack Ketchum, whom I was not familiar with. It wasn’t a masterpiece or anything, but it got me more interested in seeing The Lost, which was also based on one of his novels, but directed by Chris Sivertson, who impressed me with his work in the ludicrous and yet totally endearing I Know Who Killed Me (which was actually shot long after The Lost, which is just now hitting DVD). And he repeats continuously that the books have been faithfully adapted into films, so I think it’s safe to say that after watching both films: the guy needs to branch out a bit.

Both are based on true stories (though Lost seems to stray further from reality than Girl did with its respective true event), and both involve mostly unlikable people doing horrible things. Here it’s a guy named Ray Pye, who looks like any hipster douchebag you might encounter at Amoeba Records in Hollywood. There was scarcely a moment in the film where I didn’t want to just punch him in the fucking neck and wipe his stupid self-painted “beauty mark” off his face. And that’s kind of a problem, because there isn’t really anyone else to identify/sympathize with, other than few supporting characters who are only given 2 or 3 scenes each and thus stink of “They were more important in the book”. No, the entire two hour film is basically Ray being a douchebag, drinking, doing drugs, and fucking women.

On that note, I should point out that this film has more nudity than any non-pornographic film I can recall, including a montage of Ray bedding at least two girls (the footage is all sped up and Avid farted to death so it’s hard to tell, there might be a third in there). And since there was nothing really “horror” going on (that’s 3 of my last 4 films! I need to narrow my standards), I began wondering if maybe there was a guy doing Porno Movie A Day, and if he was maybe watching what he thought was a porno but was really a horror movie. I also wondered how chafed he was. “I’ve been doing PMAD for 6 months now, and I haven’t missed a day... it really stings down there.”

(Note – this is what happens when a movie is more or less treading water for over an hour – the viewer begins wondering about the movie watching/masturbating habits of non-existent people.)

Anyway, the last 15 minutes finally include some truly gripping psychological horror, as Ray kidnaps a few girls and tortures them. But until that point, the only scary thing about the movie was the sight of Ed Lauter in bed with a girl at LEAST 40 years younger than him. Gah! And it’s a shame, because if they had the good sense to shave at LEAST 20 minutes or so out of the middle of the film, they could have had a really great movie here.

Luckily, Sivertson assembled a great cast. In addition to the always welcome (just not in bed with a girl who could play his granddaughter) Lauter, we get the great Michael Bowen (from, ironically, Lost), Richard Riehle, Dee Wallace, and the blond from Black Xmas. Also, the film “introduces” Robin Sydney, which shows how long it’s been sitting on the shelf, since she’s been in at least a couple movies I reviewed months ago.

There’s also some nice black humor. Late in the film, someone we thought was dead suddenly begins trying to escape. “The fuck is she still alive for?” Pye yells. “I already fucking shot her!” The guy playing Pye is actually a good actor (at least I hope he’s acting, if he’s really like that then... Christ), and there’s a few instances like this in the film that help keep the film afloat. Then again, for every line like that, there’s one like “It can’t be a wrong number, not at this hour,” in regards to a late night phone call. I’m sorry – it’s late, lots of folks are either drunk or their contacts are starting to dry out, plus it’s dark. Wouldn’t it be MORE likely to have a wrong number than during the day?

The disc’s extras are largely worthless. There are some outtakes, many of which are just more of the same type of stuff that there is too much of in the movie to begin with, though there’s a pretty funny beer “buying” scene that’s worth a look. The scenes are presented entirely out of order in relation to the film, but it’s not too hard to figure out where most of them would go. There’s also some audition footage (an extra I never quite understood the appeal of – I’d rather see the actors who DIDN’T make the cut) and a storyboard thing.

The worst is the commentary track though. It’s Ketchum and another novelist named Monica O’Rourke. Over 119 minutes, they discuss things that pertain to this actual book/movie for maybe 10. The rest of the time, O’Rourke is simply asking Ketchum about his other books, what he’s working on, what he was like as a kid, where he was on 9/11, etc. I swear to Christ I thought she was eventually just going to ask him what he was having for dinner or if he saw the game last night. And while he drones on (the guy is certainly not against talking about himself), she says “Right” over and over and then he punctuates every anecdote with “Yeah.... yeah...” I’m sorry, but when I watch an audio commentary for a film, I want to learn more about the film (or if it’s a Kevin Smith film, lots of jokes at the expense of Ben Affleck). And certainly there was a wealth of material he could have drawn from – the real life case, changes from the book, how he felt about casting decisions vs how he pictured the characters in his mind, etc. but he sadly barely touches on any of that, resulting in a track that should have been presented as a highly edited interview with Ketchum. But hey, if you ever wondered what kind of car Monica O’Rourke drove when she was 19, this is the commentary for you!

All in all, a decent film that could have used another edit or two, coupled with extras that only die hard fans of the film (or would-be Ketchum biographers) would enjoy. Girl Next Door was much more enjoyable and much more gut wrenching – even though the violence here is actually more disturbing out of context, the film’s endless middle section coupled with the fact that none of these people are likable (at least the kids in Girl had some moments of innocence) sort of counteracts the ending’s intention – it’s supposed to shock, but by that time I was actually just “excited” something different was happening.

(I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that I am in the minority here – this film has cleaned up at festivals and won acclaim from several critics/sites, including Bloody Disgusting. And again, it’s not a BAD film, just a missed opportunity to be a great one).

What say you?

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Based On Novel, Horror?, Psychological,

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Premonition (2007)

MARCH 7, 2008

GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: BLU RAY (STORE RENTAL)

Anyone who’s ever moved cross country (east to west) has probably noticed that they will receive text messages from east coast friends 3 hrs “before” they were sent, due to the time zone difference and small technical... technicalities. Anyway, the first time this happened to me, I thought I had just received a text message from the future. I then got an idea for a movie where a guy gets a “I’m about to die!” message from his girlfriend and has 3 hrs to save her. My twist? She dies because he distracts her during his ‘rescue’ attempt, and had he just left her alone, she’d be fine. I thought of this while watching Premonition, because not only does it have a similar premise, but the ending is also straight out of my vague plot outline.

(NOTE – This review will spoil the ending of the film.)

While the trailers made the film look like a linear sort of Groundhog Day retread, where Sandra Bullock (starting to age, sadly. Why can’t she use whatever Madeline Stowe or Courtney Cox use to look HOTTER as they age??) is told of her husband’s death and then has a week to figure out how to prevent it, it’s really more like Memento. The film takes place over the course of a week (Sunday to Saturday), but the death is on Wednesday, so half the time she is dealing with the loss and the other half she is trying to stop it from occurring at all. And while everyone else seems to be living the week in order, Bullock experiences it on shuffle – Thursday, Monday, Saturday, Sunday, Friday, Tuesday, Wednesday (or something like that). The theme is that as you get older you start losing track of time (yes, this is essentially a filmed version of “All day Wednesday I kept thinking it was Thursday”), and it’s actually pretty solid. Rewatching the film with the commentary, I saw how well it was constructed, and with only minor quibbles with the “time traveling” aspect that would be too difficult to explain here (the short of it – on say, Saturday, her family and friends should have remembered her crazy behavior from Thursday).

Unfortunately, there are two problems. One, despite it’s attempts to make it look like one, it’s not really a horror movie, but a romantic drama with light thriller and psychological elements. Of course, by adding in horror elements, the film would become more ludicrous (a la The Forgotten) so I guess it’s a good thing. And per my rule, IMDb classifies it as horror, and there are a few “only in horror movie” shots, such as when her daughter runs through a glass door and mangles herself badly. There’s also an unintentionally hilarious bit where the husband’s casket falls out of the hearse, and then his disembodied head falls out of the casket. Have you ever seen a head roll around the street in a PG-13 movie (one without Leslie Nielsen anyway)? A+!

The other problem is that Bullock actually causes his death in the first place! In the end, she doesn’t save him, but their renewed love resulted in her getting preggers. That’s nice and all, but it doesn’t change the fact that if she didn’t make him turn his car around on the road, he’d be alive. The themes and point of the film would have been much more meaningful and “awww”-worthy if they had come up with a way to kill the poor sod in a manner that would have occurred even if Bullock wasn’t there at all. Hell, even if she simply called him and his distraction made him forget to look where he was going, it would be fine. But he’s on the side of the road, completely out of danger, and she tells him to do a U turn on a major road. He does, the car stalls, and then he’s hit by a truck that would have simply driven by him had he never moved. Nice work, Sandy!

Still, I actually liked the film. I’m a sucker for sentimentality, and damned if the scenes of the two of them all lovey dovey while Klaus Badelt’s incredibly good (read: perfectly manipulative for folks like me) score plays didn’t make me a bit sad. And I really liked how well the chronology was implemented; once you buy into the sort of fantasy idea that Bullock isn’t REALLY living her days out of order, but that they are simply glorifying the “I don’t know what day it is” feeling people get once their lives become routine, it really works well. The cast is also quite good; Julian McMahon plays a non asshole for once, and he’s actually bearable (I hate Nip/Tuck, and his performance as Doctor Doom is pretty much the bane of all comic book movies). Amber Valletta (who also appeared in the underrated Dead Silence, which was released the same day as this movie) manages to get some sympathy for her ‘other woman’ character, and the great Peter Stormare shows up as a psychiatrist. This is actually a bit manipulative from a casting standpoint – you see Stormare and you automatically begin thinking he’s the “bad guy”; that Bullock’s confusion is a result of him trying out some new drug on her or something. Nope, he’s just a regular shrink. Awesome. I wish he was in it more though, his entire role occurs over a 10 min segment in the middle of the film.

The DVD has a nice collection of extras, and because this was Blu-Ray, I had to watch them all at home (I usually watch my extras at work), making it the first time I have watched a commentary track from my couch in about 3 years or so. The track isn’t particularly exciting, though there’s some nice trivia to learn. The best extra is director Mennan Yapo summarizing the film in sequence (from Sunday to Saturday). Here you can really see how well the supporting cast develops over the course of the week, not to mention how hard it must have been for Bullock to keep track of her character. The deleted scenes are mostly useless, though there’s another one of Bullock’s character smoking, which is significant because how often do you see a non-villain character smoke in a film anymore? Never. Also included is an alternate ending, which was thankfully not used as it makes the film MORE horror-ish, and thus kind of stupid (they don’t show him, but you get the impression that 6 months later he’s suddenly alive again). There’s also a 45 minute doc on real people with premonitions, which I didn’t watch, because, well, come on. I got games to play.

All in all, it’s not going to be a favorite among horror fans, but those who like a nice little character drama with thriller elements should check it out. It’s the type of movie you might be a bit bored/baffled by while watching it, but will stick with you.

And again, you get to see Dr. Doom’s fucking head roll around in the street while his entire family looks on. Amazing.

What say you?

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Psychological, Supernatural,

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Headspace (2005)

FEBRUARY 24, 2008

GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: CABLE (SHOWTIME)

The other day I watched Wrestlemaniac, which gave Irwin Keyes top billing for one scene. Well he’s got nothing on the cast of Headspace, which gives the first four starring credits to Olivia Hussey, William Atherton, Larry Fessenden, and Sean Young, despite the fact that all of their scenes combined make up less than 20% of the 90 minute film. Come on, there’s not a lot of Atherton movies to begin with, at least don’t promise a wealth of his presence in one and then kill him off 20 minutes in!

One thing I will NOT complain about is how small Sean Young’s role is. In fact, she’s dead before her credit even appears. I can’t stand the woman, and beginning a film by having half her fucking head blown off is a surefire way to win me over, lack of Atherton or not.

Unfortunately the film never quite comes together as well as I’d hoped, and more or less squanders a lot of its opportunities to be really good. The plot is interesting, but it’s never really fleshed out or explained either. The ending is baffling, the kill scenes are drenched in ambiguity (did the guy kill everyone himself, or just use his mind to make them kill themselves?), etc. For every plus the movie has, there are just many (if not more) minuses, which results in a movie that just sort of cancels itself out.

Some of those pluses include the acting. In addition to the aforementioned “stars”, there are also small roles by Udo Kier and Dee Wallace Stone (honestly billed via “with” and “and” titles). And the REAL leads of the film are good as well, whoever the hell they are (the main dude looks kind of like the guy playing John Connor on that Terminator show, but it’s not him). And the gore/makeup is highly impressive as well – in addition to the Young’s head blast I already praised, there is a nice face ripping for Udo, some impressive full bodied monsters (only seen in glimpses, sadly), and other nasty bits that look far better than one might expect from a film with such an obvious low budget.

Unfortunately, it’s one of the few technical aspects I can give any praise to. The editing is atrocious at times, not to mention sort of pointless – at one point they flashback and show a suicide when we already know the results, so it’s only there for shock value. Since the editing is so bad I can assume that some of the questions I have were once answered in a longer cut (I watched the film on cable, apparently the DVD has 40 min of deleted scenes). The film is also needlessly dark at times, though that may be a result of poor transfer for cable (it's certainly a bad cropping job - the director of photography credit reads "irector of photograph").

In the end, it’s certainly well meaning, and I appreciate the idea of doing a psychological gore movie (it almost comes off as Jacob’s Ladder as directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis), but it never quite gels into a cohesive whole. This is the type of movie that should be remade with competent post production people and better resources, but I’m sure it will just eventually be forgotten about entirely, which I am pretty sure is a shame. Then again, for all I know, the writer might just be some Richard Kelly wannabe who writes shit even he himself doesn’t understand in an attempt to look smart.

What say you?

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Psychological,

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The Innocents (1961)

FEBRUARY 19, 2008

GENRE: GHOST, PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

One movie I never quite understood why people liked it was The Others, the 2001 Nicole Kidman movie. It wasn’t bad, but it certainly wasn’t scary/suspenseful (to me anyway), and the twist wasn’t all that surprising either. I thought about that movie a lot while watching The Innocents, because it had a similar premise/setting, that of two annoying kids in a giant house and the beautiful woman who takes care of them. And some ghosts.

I liked Innocents a lot more though, because the ending wasn’t necessarily a twist, but a downer nonetheless, and there were a few good scare scenes. Like many an old film, I’ve seen so many of the movies that have ripped it off over the years that it felt like I had already seen it, but I was able to put that aside and enjoy the movie anyway.

Adding to that enjoyment immensely was the lush black and white photography by Freddie Francis. This is easily one of the best looking B&W movies I have seen in ages. Lots of times the lack of color (and often poor transfers) results in a somewhat flat image, but this one seemed practically 3D at times, due to the deep focus and sharp detail in the transfer. Thanks, FOX! I can almost forgive you for putting the widescreen version on side B instead of A. A = better, and thus should be the widescreen side! Savages!!

One really sweet thing I dug was how the first 50 seconds of the film are black. The FOX logo THEN comes into frame, and fades out for some more black. I like that, it makes you feel uneasy (actually it made me check my HDMI cabling) right from the start. Also I liked when the little kid kissed the woman on the lips and for a split second she kisses him back. Creepy, vaguely incestuous overtones? Awesome.

However, one thing I DIDN’T like so much was how the script (by Truman Capote, of all people, working from Henry James’ “Turn of the Screw”*) was written in “Interrupto-plotting”. What this means is, rather than get all of the exposition at once, they simply have a character start to tell a story, providing SOME of the information, and then they are interrupted by someone else at the worst possible time. So if the characters weren’t rude, and instead waited to speak, lots of the movie could have been avoided. Using this device once or twice is fine, but they use it for pretty much every scene involving the backstory.

Another blemish is the rather odd fact that the house supposedly has a gardener, a cook, another maid, etc. and yet we never see any of them, resulting in a rather laughable scene where the heroine thinks she sees a man on the roof. She then asks the maid if anyone else works there besides the people she’s met, and proceeds to rattle off about a dozen house employees that WE have never met, nor were they ever previously mentioned. It kind of ruins the scare – we only think there are 4 people in the house, which is why the sight of another is unsettling. But why is she scared when there is apparently a busload of folks walking around the house at any given time?

Regardless, it’s a nice bit of uneasy horror. Patience is required, but it’s worth the effort, and far better than The Others.

What say you?

*Incidentally, I had rented this DVD a month ago and couldn’t find it, only to finally uncover it under my Lost episode guide. Lost fans will know why this is freaky.

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Based On Novel, Ghost, Psychological,

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