A Night To Dismember (1983)

JULY 3, 2008

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

It wasn’t long into A Night To Dismember that I realized I was in for something truly special... maybe 2 minutes tops in fact. As I watched a rapid fire collection of scenes with little cohesion speed by, endlessly narrated (by a guy that sounds like Charles B. Pierce) to hide the fact that there was no source audio, I decided that the film was simply divine. And it just got better as it went on, peaking at the halfway mark when the narrator describes a dream sequence thusly: “Vicky felt as though someone faceless was making love to her in bright flashing colors that were changing from one second to the next.” Of course, this is precisely what we are seeing, which leads me to believe that they stuck some guy in a booth and had him narrate whatever he felt like saying as this incoherent and mute film played before his hopefully astonished eyes.

And if you wonder how the narrator (a character in the film) could possibly know what she was dreaming, fear not – he even explains that. At the very end of the film, as a sort of cinematic P.S., he informs us that every single character in the film kept detailed diaries, which he presumably stole.

At first, I actually thought the film was some sort of joke by film students, where they just took assorted footage that they found and assembled a loose narrative from it, similar to what Joe Dante did with The Movie Orgy. But apparently, what really happened was, a fire at the film lab destroyed nearly half the footage, and director Doris Wishman couldn’t afford to reshoot all of it, so she made do with what was left. Apparently, incoherency and ineptitude was her style (I’ve never seen any of her other films – most of which seem to be pornos), so whether the fire story is true or not, I don’t know. It’s probably the only bit of actual trivia to be heard on the entire commentary track, most of which is simply Wishman yelling at her cameraman for ruining the movie and asking him if he likes whatever nonsense happens to be on screen. I can’t tell if she’s seriously under the impression that she’s made a good film, but she’s at least 80 at this point (she was born in 1918 and they reference South Park and Everybody Loves Raymond on the track – dating it late 90s, early 00s) so maybe she’s just senile.

I also love that a film without a single moment of source sound actually has a credited sound man (plus a boom operator!):

Was this before or after Civil War allegedly took his life?

As for the movie itself, you got me. It’s another one of those “evil family members plot to make another family member crazy” movies, in theory. Many scenes don’t quite fit into this plot, but whatever. After a while I stopped trying to understand what was going on and just focused on the movie’s real charms – hilariously dubbed dialogue (which is very rare anyway – most of it is narrated), cutaways to things unrelated to what is going on, frequent murder/nude scenes featuring the absolute worst fake violence ever (one scene involves a guy being lightly tapped with an axe – and then his head just falls off).

The music also deserves a mention. It seems to be all library music, and in several cases, I can only assume they didn’t even get the whole track. At one point, we hear the same 30 second loop 3-4 times over a single scene; it cuts off abruptly and starts over. And it’s not appropriate to the scene either. In fact, none of the music seems to fit with the onscreen action – we have goofy cartoon style music over dialogue scenes, “Sweeping shot of a vista” style stuff over the kill scenes, etc. Again, all part of the unparalleled charm of A Night to Dismember.

Like Cathy’s Curse and Scream Bloody Murder, this is one of those wretched movies that I love anyway, and rejuvenates my drive to do this whole Horror Movie A Day thing. There’s no way in hell I ever would have seen this were I not forcing myself to watch one every day. Bless my random whim!

I want to point that about half of the trailer isn't in the film, and seems to be advertising a movie with a different plot entirely to boot. Again, part of the charm.

What say you?

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Independent, Slasher, Weird,

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Sheitan (2006)

JUNE 2, 2008

GENRE: FRENCH, WEIRD
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

Anyone want a copy of Sheitan? I didn’t hate it, but I can’t imagine watching it again. This is why I more or less stopped blind buying; I end up owning films like this. And with the ‘rules’ of Horror Movie A Day dictating that I watch a ‘new movie every day’, I never have time to rewatch something unless I truly love it. Or it’s the Halloween remake.

Sheitan was recommended by my good friend Anonymous (twice!), and other folks with better names have sung its praises as well. And it’s certainly worth watching, but I have a problem with any movie in which the back of the DVD tells me more about what the fuck is going on than the actual film does. The movie, it would seem, is just about a batshit farmer named Joseph (the always interesting Vincent Cassell) who takes in yet another group of young thuggish French citizens (do ANY French people below 30 behave in a civilized manner?) and acts like a complete nut, but since they want to fuck one another the kids all stick around anyway. Finally he goes even MORE apeshit and begins punching and kicking them, before his wife/sister literally squirts out a kid, they make a doll and then smile, and the movie’s over. Huh? But the back of the DVD tells me that they are Satan worshippers and Joseph has made a demonic pact. Gotcha.

Still, it’s an entertaining movie, thanks to Cassell’s unpredictable behavior, the oddball supporting characters (including a trio of abnormally skinny redneck boys), some truly fucked up sequences (one of the girls our heroes lust after masturbates a dog for some reason), and my not-quite-resolved quest to understand what the hell was going on and how the movie was considered horror. On the surface, it’s another “kids run afoul of rednecks” movie, but it is presented in a manner quite unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Good or bad is your call, but undeniably different. Even though it was late and I was quite tired when I watched it, I never even dozed for a second (my standard “forgetting to read the subtitles” sickness applies, however – maybe the demonic pact stuff was better explained), because I was just too joyfully baffled by what was on the screen. Come on, how many movies feature the characters singing lyrics like “Hit up yo grandma and rape your dad”?

The movie also won me over a bit by reminding me of Tourist Trap. At one point our heroes walk into an attic and there are mannequins and doll parts (doll eyes, doll mouth, doll legs...), just like Chuck Connors’ workshop. If there’s anything I feel is entirely lacking in pretty much all modern horror, it would be things that remind me of Tourist Trap.

The only real unquestionable flaw in the film is when it stops cold about an hour or so in (the counter didn’t work for this particular DVD – anyone else have this problem? I had no idea how much was left, ever!), as one of the jerk heroes tells a story about a girl with an ugly vagina. Not that it’s without amusement, but it’s the type of thing that should have been in the film’s first act, not the last. It’s a slow film anyway (in terms of horror/violence), to stop it dead just to tell a goofy joke is a bit unforgivable.

As for extras, nothing to write blogs about – a making of/interview with Cassell that details the origin of the film and offers some standard behind the scenes footage of no real interest (though I was surprised to discover that the hot springs seen in the film was actually a built set). Which makes two in a row from Tartan that have been pretty lacking in this department – maybe I just lucked out with my first bunch of selections from the company, all of which were pretty wealthy in the features department. A few deleted scenes would have been nice, especially since there are a couple of noticeable gaps in the story (one of the girls disappears entirely with no explanation). The trailer is also there, but I don’t consider that an extra, it should be standard, like scene selection and anamorphic transfers.

(Somewhere, a Lionsgate exec is thinking that last line is in error.)

What say you?

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French, Weird,

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Tender Flesh (1974)

MAY 13, 2008

GENRE: CANNIBAL, WEIRD
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REVIVAL SCREENING)

The worst thing about seeing a gem like Tender Flesh (aka Welcome To Arrow Beach) is that it’s so obscure that I can’t talk to anyone about it except the folks I saw it with. It’s never been released on DVD, and the VHS is long out of print (Half.com doesn’t even have an entry for it for you to ‘wish list’). I know one HMAD reader saw it, because I randomly sat next to him, but for the rest of you, I hope you’ve either seen it, or know a way to see it. The trailer is below (another fine idea from Chris!), to whet your appetite.

The film itself isn’t much to write about – a girl is invited into a home run by two weird folks (a brother and sister who kiss a bit too lovingly), and before long discovers that the guy is a cannibal. She escapes, no one believes her but her Dirk Diggler-y boyfriend, someone else enters the home who isn’t so lucky... standard stuff for this kind of movie. But what makes it so wonderful is the nearly nonstop quirkiness of the whole thing. For example, early on, our heroine (Meg Foster!) hitches a ride with an Owen Wilson-ish guy who promptly floors it, gets chased by the cops, and flips the car. He’s never heard from again, but while the cops investigate his car, they find a bag of cocaine. The chief (or sheriff, I forget) tells his deputy to take it back and that it “better all be there!”. He then rubs his nose and snorts. One assumes that he’s just clearing his nose of an errant booger, but the subject of the scene just makes it hilarious.

Later, Foster and Diggler are discussing whether to go back to the house or not, in the kitchen of her temporary home. On the walls are several diagrams that detail the different sections of cow, pig, chicken, and woodland creature that one could eat. A chicken’s head is a 6, for example. Why is that there? Who knows, but I love it anyway. It’s also around this time that one of the finest pieces of dialogue ever written, recited, and recorded is unleashed upon us all: “He kills people... GIRL people!”

There’s also another line that I can’t remember exactly, but the jist of it is “There are any number of places a girl can stick herself with a needle!” (they are discussing heroin). Again, it’s just off-kilter enough to be memorable.

Sadly, there isn’t much cannibal action, and the brother/sister incest never goes beyond a make out session (one that is cut from abruptly – not sure if the print itself was cut or if it was just a bad edit). It also gets a bit slow, as we spend too much time with the assorted cops going about their day. But the oddball dialogue (Foster’s in particular), silly background stuff, and soundtrack were more than enough to keep me entertained. In other words, perfect New Beverly movie. I'm actually quite surprised it's not on my Chilling Classics set.

Before Flesh was 2000 Maniacs, a film that I’d pretty much ONLY want to watch at the Bev. The print was pretty bad... color was OK but the audio was muffled almost the entire time. Two guests came, one of which is none other than Steven Poster, who is now a successful director of photography, most notably all of Richard Kelly’s films (and I got to talk to him about Southland Tales, I guess a Blu-Ray is being seriously considered, wooo). And it was good to see Grindhouse guru Eric Caidin up and about, as he was attacked in his store a couple weeks ago (you’d never know it though – the guy is definitely a trooper). All in all, definitely worth the trip, even if some cock in the ass totally stole my spot as I was trying to park.

What say you?

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Cannibal, Weird,

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Howling II: Your Sister Is A Werewolf (1985)

APRIL 29, 2008

GENRE: WEIRD, WEREWOLF
SOURCE: CABLE (FLIX)

I had to make a tough decision when choosing today’s movie. With a newly purchased copy of GTAIV in my hands, I really didn’t want to stop playing in order to watch my 500th horror movie in a row (give or take). So I thought about it, and decided that the film I watched had to be something I probably wouldn’t like anyway, rather than unfairly “waste” a good movie on a day when I would be watching the clock more than the film. So really, is there any better candidate than Howling II? Let’s look at the facts – I didn’t like the original very much; Christopher Lee, the film’s STAR, considers it the worst film he’s ever done (even after he made Attack of the Clones); and it’s been almost universally derided by everyone else for the past 20 years or so. In fact, in all of my life, I’ve only encountered one man who liked it, and this sod also likes, well, Attack of the Clones. So I figured it was a safe bet, and it’s reasonably running time ensured it wouldn’t be too long before I was back punching hookers in the face and running over cops. Not to mention - more time to play GTAIV.

To be honest, the film wasn’t exactly a train wreck. Well, it WAS, but in a mostly enjoyable way. It took a while, but eventually the nonsensical storyline, haphazard directing/editing, abysmally awkward scene transitions, and just plain cheapness of the film sort of won me over. It’s impossible to hate a film in which we get a clock wipe to a scene of three werewolves (two women one man) engaging in a ménage a trois, while the man makes this wonderful, almost melancholy musical howl. Then they checker wipe to a midget or something.

Yes, wipes. It’s as if the editor just got the Avid “transition” package (and a time machine, I guess, since Avids weren’t around then) and was determined to use each and every one of them in the film, regardless of sense. And you really can’t blame him for such proclivities, as few scenes in the film ever really connect to the ones before or after them (from either a visual or storytelling standpoint). For example, at one point our bland hero and blander heroine check into a hotel. He asks for two rooms, and is visibly angry that they have to share one. And yet, 12 or so seconds later, she asks him for a hug and he goes right into some good ol’ “against the wall” fucking. Why’d you want two rooms if you could hardly wait for the bellhop to leave before engaging in the film’s only non-werewolf based sex scene? The whole movie is like a cinematic non sequitur.

For a sequel in which not a single cast or crew member returned (Dee Wallace’s corpse is played by a woman who couldn’t look less like Dee Wallace if she tried), it actually does a decent job of retaining the original’s themes. “Werewolf as cult”, bestiality, boring dialogue scenes... they’re all here, just as they were in Joe Dante’s original. The only major difference is the pitiful effects. Whereas Rob Bottin’s work in the original continues to impress, this shit couldn’t even have been admirable in 1985. At one point you can pretty much see where the wolf arm ended on the human performer, and there are no full-blown transformation scenes either (we just see close-ups of things like arms and back hair). A mid 80s horror movie where the makeup effects are the WORST thing about it? This movie’s puzzling nature never ceases!

What say you?

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Weird, Werewolf,

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The Pit (1981)

APRIL 25, 2008

GENRE: KILLER KID, WEIRD
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

As I’ve said ones of times, the nice thing about Horror Movie A Day is that my complete lack of discernible criteria for choosing what I watch results in my finding not only a film I never would have watched otherwise, but possibly had never heard of at all (will one of the grammar police make sure that’s verbally correct? It looks wrong.). Such is the case with The Pit, a film that was recommended by Charmuh but I had forgotten about until a few weeks ago when I was rummaging through the cheap DVDs at Amoeba Music in Hollywood. There’s a zombie movie with Horshack on the flip-side of the disc – if that’s half as good as this movie, then it will be among the finest purchases I have ever made. And keep in mind, just last week I bought a chocolate pie.

A few months back I reviewed a film called Freaky Farley, a lovable, if uneven, independent oddity that featured a guy claiming that monsters lived in the woods. The funniest part of the movie was the reveal that the monsters were in fact, real. There’s a similar aspect to this film – our creepy killer kid claims that something called Trollogs live in a giant pit in the woods. About 20 or so minutes into the film, he goes to talk to them, and sure enough, there are four or five hairy goblin things in there. It’s fucking hilarious. Another, sadly unexplored odd aspect to the plot is that his teddy bear is alive as well. At one point, we see the bear’s head move, but this idea is never addressed again. According to the IMDb, the monsters were always intended to be a figment of the kid’s imagination, but this was changed during production. I think it’s all for the better – the movie wouldn’t be nearly as charmingly insane if the kid was just, well, insane.

Another hilarious thing about the movie is that you can’t really blame Jamie for tossing folks into a pit. As the film begins, he simply goes to talk to an older kid, and the dude punches him right in the face. A neighbor girl is so mean to him it makes Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown look sort of sweet and kind, and an old lady calls him a freak for no reason whatsoever. Sure, the kid is a bit off, but these people are downright vicious. Kick their ass, Jamie! Also, it has a really odd sense of what women can or can’t do. The babysitter picks up a knife after Jamie offers to get it. When he gets mad, she explains “Women are capable of a lot more these days.” Later, when someone claims that they can’t spell very well, she replies “Who can?” I can, you dumb broad!

It’s also a genuinely creepy movie at times. Jamie falls in love with his babysitter, which leads to a scene where he convinces her to bathe him. In addition to the fact that she washes his back for like 10 minutes straight (it’s fucking clean, woman!), at one point during this lengthy wash Jamie alludes to his mother molesting him while she bathes him. Also, he just watches her sleep at one point, and she’s barely concerned. This creepiness carries over to the production itself – again, according to the IMDb, the director’s wife didn’t allow him to film any of the nude scenes, except for the ones with his own daughter. Uh....

And this is the first thing we see in the film. Not even a production logo flashes by before we are subjected to a terrifying clown cake.

The only thing I didn’t like about the movie is that Jamie disappears for like 20 minutes straight during the film’s 3rd act. He’s the best part of the movie (the not-exactly Oscar caliber acting of Sammy Snyders helps immensely), so to have him MIA for so long definitely blunts the film’s impact. He re-surfaces in time for a delightfully mean-spirited ending though, so not all is lost.

Granted, the film is rather obscure (the fact that almost everyone involved never made another film again doesn’t help), but even with that, I was amazed to discover how little known it was even among horror nerds. I kept asking folks about it at the Fangoria convention today, and the only guy I spoke to who knew what I was talking about was an Anchor Bay rep – and they are the ones who distributed the damn thing! I believe it’s still in print (my copy was new, not used), so it shouldn’t be that hard to find. For the love of talking Teddy Bears and clown cakes, I urge you to seek it out and watch it. Christ, just look at the poster (in the Amazon link)! How can you NOT love this movie already???

What say you?

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Killer Kid, Weird,

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Audition (1999)

APRIL 19, 2008

GENRE: ASIAN, WEIRD
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

Since I believe the day I was born, people have been telling me to watch Audition (aka Ôdishon), saying "You'll love it!", "It's the most fucked up movie ever!" and things along those lines. What no one DID tell me is that it is in fact an incredibly boring movie, one that's not very well-filmed to boot, with all of the horror confined to a 10 minute chunk near the end of the film (save for a random shot of a bag throwing itself across the room about halfway through).

Afterwards I was told that that was the point of the movie - to lull you into boredom so that the torture stuff was all the more shocking and hard to watch. Well, fine, but that's not a movie. That's an exercise. Maybe it would work in 1999, on an audience who didn't even know it was a horror movie, but a movie that can only work under very specific circumstances isn't something I can particularly recommend, even if I HAD watched it under said circumstances. You know, Memento hinges on a gimmick as well, but it's still a well-crafted, highly enjoyable film to watch a 2nd or 3rd time.

And this isn't a complaint, but more of a warning to anyone who hasn't seen it yet and feels compelled to do so after reading this review: the torture really ain't all that disturbing. She cuts off his foot and sticks a few needles in his body (and eyes - the most cringe-worthy part of the entire sequence is when she "flicks" the needles protruding from his ocular region), and that's about it. Her frequent repeating of "Kittykittykitty" (misspelled Japanese for "Deeper, deeper") is more chilling than anything she's actually doing, and a decade later, it's almost kind of funny that the film had to be cut for an R rating; the stuff in the R-rated Saw films is far more graphic and disturbing. So if you're looking to be TRULY disturbed, you probably won't find it here if you've kept up with your modern "torture porn".

One thing I did like is how they filled in back-story via a hallucination that the main guy suffers as he is passing out from a drugged drink. It's one of those "is this real or completely imagined" type sequences, and it's probably the highlight of the film. More stuff like that and the film would have been great, but since it's more or less an experimental piece, it would nullify his attempt.

I'm glad the movie has its fans, and I do wish I could go back and watch it completely un-prepared for what I was about to see. But I can't say that even then I'd be particularly amazed by it, because intentional or not, the fact remains that 95% of the movie is lifeless and dull (and since it's not in English, I don't even have the option of "just listening" to it while I work on a Sudoku or something). I didn't see Psycho until the mid 90s; I didn't see Exorcist until 2000 (thankfully, it was the original version, not the 2000 "Version You Wish You Never Saw" or whatever the fuck it was called), etc., and I was still able to enjoy those films immensely, despite the "outdated" feel of certain sequences and the fact that I had already seen the dozens of movies that ripped those films off in subsequent years. And in Psycho's case, the comparison is incredibly apt, as the big "thrill" of that film for a first time audience was seeing its heroine killed 1/3 of the way through - something I already knew! But it still worked, because the performances, the technical aspects, the story, etc. were almost or just as compelling. That's how you do it!

I've only seen one other Miike film - his Masters of Horror (Imprint), which I really liked, due to Billy Drago's insane performance, the truly upsetting imagery (fetuses + river = ew), and the fact that it was half as long as Audition. Knowing that, which of his movies would you, dear reader, think I might enjoy? I assume not all of his films are the equivalent of an inverse pop quiz.

What say you?

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Asian, Weird,

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Blood Diner (1987)

APRIL 8, 2008

GENRE: COMEDIC, HERO KILLER, WEIRD
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REVIVAL SCREENING)

Have I ever explained the strange law of the universe that dictates that whenever I work the night shift (I alternate my work schedule – one week I start at 930 am and leave at 6, the next I start at 1 pm and leave whenever everything’s done, usually round 7:30) on a night that I have something to do, I will get out late? However, if I have zero plans or opportunities, I will be out even earlier than average. It never fails. I’ve even tested it, buying tickets for a 10 o clock movie and watching as my twelve bucks got wasted as I sat in my office until close to 11, a record “late” night at the time. So my chances for seeing Blood Diner were pretty slim, as it was the first of the double feature at the New Beverly tonight.

And, true to form, I got out of work around 8:30, an hour later than usual for a Tuesday night. So I raced down to the Bev, hoping to get there in time to find parking, buy some “refreshments”, and enter in time for the start of Scream Bloody Murder, which was supposed to start around 9:30. But I had a sneaking suspicion that the movie started late, so I went to the box office before I bought beer, and discovered that Diner had only started about 10 minutes prior (due to the raffle, guest introduction, usual 20 minute delay due to the long concession line, and 15 minutes of trailers). Hurrah!

Sadly as it was dark I couldn’t find any friends, so I had to sit alone and experience this masterpiece of gloriously batshit cinema. It would pair nicely with Pieces (both movies even involve a human jigsaw puzzle!), as it’s just so ridiculous, so strangely plotted, and so damn delightful that it could only be appreciated with a big crowd. The plot finds a pair of brothers looking to appease their uncle, a talking brain with googly eyes*, by serving up human food to their diner patrons, while constructing a reincarnation of the goddess Sheetar. Nazi wrestlers, a nude aerobics class, rival diner owners, and a ventriloquist hobo also fit into the plot.

The strange thing about it was that it was eventually exhausting. I noticed that even the New Bev crowd began growing silent as it went on, with the laughs coming less frequently and not lasting as long. The finale picked up a bit, but it was a bit odd to “hear” silence for a couple minutes at a time once the film passed the halfway mark.

The funniest thing about the movie is what little concern the non-killer characters displayed for the horrible violent acts going on around them. At one point the brothers try to enter a club and the bouncer gives them a hard time. So they toss him out into the street, where he is immediately killed by a passing car. No one seems to care much. It’s breathtaking. There’s also a lot of random background stuff, such as a scene where three cops walk down a hall discussing the case. In the background, there is a scuffle between a prisoner and a few guards, which no one else seems to notice. Then again, the foreground has its own violence, as the police chief guy suddenly decks the hero cop for making a crazy suggestion (which probably turned out to be true).

How can you not love this movie?

Even weirder, it’s directed by a woman (Jackie Kong)! Almost every female character in the movie is needlessly punched or slapped around, so this little factoid, which I learned after the movie, is pretty surprising. Also, it makes Slumber Party Massacre (also surprisingly female-helmed) another fine choice for a double feature with Diner.

I had never heard of this one before it was announced for a screening at the Bev (apparently it's a quasi-remake of Blood Feast, which I haven't seen either), so I thank them again for letting me discover it. And Scream Bloody Murder was just as delightful as it was when I first saw it, though the laughter of the crowd resulted in my beloved “Who ever bought you a steak before?” line being completely drowned out. I should point out that the laughter was from an earlier line in the film, and NOT the annoying woman sitting near the front who kept MST3king the movie. The occasional comment is fine (preferably if it’s actually funny), but for the most part, these movies are funny enough on their own. We don’t need would-be Tom Servos borderline ruining it for everyone else. And the thing is, no one laughed at a single thing she said! Other occasional comments from other folks in the crowd were met with a small smattering of laughter, but hers fell flat every single time. You’d think after a few duds that she would realize that the rest of the crowd didn’t “appreciate” her genius and shut the fuck up, but no. She just kept saying random things that barely even made sense half the time. Luckily, one of the guys who run the Grindhouse told her to shut her pie hole after a while. Thanks pal!

What say you?

*They were actually regular eyes, not googly eyes, but the amazing SNL sketch with Christopher Walken was still fresh in my head, so everytime they showed the damn thing I had flashbacks and laughed my ass off. “Eye contact is important!”

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Comedic, Hero Killer, Weird,

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Shrooms (2006)

MARCH 18, 2008

GENRE: SLASHER, WEIRD
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

Sometime this week, Bloody-Disgusting will be posting a list of the 10 dumbest slasher motives in history (history being the ones I’ve seen, and then in turn, remember). Shrooms made the cut, but unlike most of the other movies on the list, I actually kind of liked the movie, so the motive didn’t really anger me.

It IS really stupid though.

I was surprised that I liked the movie at all, because all SIX of our main characters are druggies. Lame as I may be, I’m pretty much against all drug use, so giving a shit about 6 people who are SPECIFICALLY going into the woods for no other reason than to get high is asking a lot of me. But I kind of liked them to a degree, and luckily (surprisingly, in fact), little of the film is given to them sitting around eating mushrooms and “tripping” (not even as much as in The Tripper, in fact). In fact, the film had more in common with Severance, in both look (both movies look like they were shot entirely at 7 o clock in the morning) and structure (both films end in a large compound in the middle of the woods – sure, why not?). And you all know I love Severance.

However, it’s not all killing either (though there’s a lot more bloodshed than I was expecting as well). It seems everyone in this group dislikes everyone else, so there’s a lot of bickering and catfighting to put up with. In fact, I could have used a bit MORE “tripping” as a result; it was vastly more amusing to see a guy talk to a cow than listen to two girls fight over a guy who’s already dead (unbeknownst to them). There’s also a part where a guy grabs a slimy mass and says “You see this frog cum?” that had me laughing for like 10, maybe 12 seconds straight.

Also, the movie is smart enough to avoid having any of the characters fall into a giant mushroom and hallucinate for the entire episode. If you know what I’m referring to – is that also the moment you realized that show really started to suck?

In the end, my only real problem with the film was its confusing subplot of a certain mushroom giving the girl the ability to see the future. First of all, what? How the hell would that work? Second (BIG SPOILER HERE), this character turns out to be the killer! Why bother giving the one person who doesn’t have any need to prevent anyone’s demise a big idiotic superpower that renders certain sections of the film annoying/wholly implausible (plausibility being a relative term when it comes to movies like this)? Sure, it helps make the ending of the film a bit more of a surprise, but it’s still entirely unnecessary in the long run.

End spoilers.

Also, an important plot point relies on our believing that the main dude wouldn’t want to nail this girl:

Uh, no. He’s got her alone in the woods, they’re both a bit fucked up, and he’s gonna ignore her? I don’t buy it. Horror nerds may be interested to learn that she is Lindsay Haun, aka the main evil girl from Carpenter’s Village of the Damned remake. It’s good to know she grew up cute, and now there’s even more reason not to watch that movie (who wants to look at a little girl now that they know she’s going to be hot in 12 years?)

The DVD has a nice collection of extras: deleted scenes, alternate endings (which are the same in terms of who the killer is, they just have alternate epilogues), and an audio commentary that is much dryer than I was hoping for. They take the film very serious, and even though Shrooms is nowhere near as goofy as I was expecting, the track could have used the same amount of levity that the film had. And according to the track, the film was shot on HDD, and looks fantastic. More stuff like this, and maybe digital films that look good will be the rule, rather than the exception.

What say you?

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Slasher, Weird,

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Underbelly (2008)

MARCH 12, 2008

GENRE: INDEPENDENT, THRILLER, WEIRD
SOURCE: DVD (SCREENER)

Sometimes a movie I watch for the day is sort of contrarian to the original idea of Horror Movie A Day, which is to basically “talk” about a horror movie, albeit in internet form (as opposed to a typical review). But a movie like Underbelly doesn’t quite fit the bill, because it’s not out yet. It’s just now gearing up for a festival run, and as far as I know, has no distribution as of yet. Hopefully that’ll change soon so some of you folks can check it out with relative ease.

On the flipside, the movie is actually ideal for this site’s intentions, because the film doesn’t explain or spell out a lot of its horror elements. It is open to interpretation, so everyone will probably come away with a different idea of what happened at the end and want to post their thoughts.

As this is an independent film, the actors are hardly well-known. However, they are all surprisingly good. More surprising, none of them share the same last name as the director. Likewise, the production value is good across the board – then again I’ve said before that it would actually take effort to make Texas look bad on film; it’s the most photogenic state there is! While it’s a small film, there are a lot of different locations, allowing the film to seem bigger than it is in actuality.

I say that because this is a rather slow film, with very little action. Like The Lost, it’s bookended by some top notch thriller stuff, but the middle can get a bit slow (not nearly as crippling as The Lost though). Writer/director Matt Cade made the interesting choice to follow not the “hero” of the film, but the villains instead (the film centers on 2 disappearances, the hero’s wife and the villain’s sister). They are a largely unpleasant lot, but they also have a dark sense of humor that permeates their actions. This presents some tonal problems (it’s kind of hard to laugh at a guy’s ironic joke after he’s just raped someone) but the unique point of view is enough to keep these matters from permanently damaging the film.

Aside from that, I really dug the movie’s strange tone. There are occasional musical numbers, and a full minute of the film is given to a guy beating the shit out of a cell phone (which he’s not very good at, after like 12 stomps the damn thing still looks intact). There’s also a gonzo scene where the villains visit the site of David Koresh’s cult compound and the leader waxes philosophic about his admiration for the group, while an acoustic ballad with reversed lyrics plays over the soundtrack (I plan to utilize the PS3’s handy “play sound while in reverse” function and see what the guy is saying). Fans of David Lynch will appreciate these moments.

Speaking of the music, it’s great. There are songs and score, all seemingly done by the same group of folks, and I enjoyed them all. There are a few songs that remind me of The Refreshments/Peacemakers, which is always a good thing as far as I’m concerned. If you’ve never heard the Freshies’ "The Bottle And Fresh Horses", you’re missing out on some grade A southern flavored pop rock.

Also the composer/star of the movie is a guy named Fritz Beer. That’s the best name ever.

Like I said before, the horror elements are left largely to interpretation. Discussing them would be spoiler-ish (I don’t do spoilers when it’s likely not a single reader has seen the film yet), but suffice to say that those who like everything spelled out (or even generally explained) will be frustrated by the film’s lack of answers. I didn’t mind not understanding them all, but I DO wish there was a little more tension to the plot, which would make these scenes more effective. The disappearance of the two women seems largely forgotten for a while, to the point where I was wondering if that plotline was merely a macguffin – but the fact that the climax revolves around the conclusion to this story thread nullified that as an option. Hell, one character disappeared for so long I forgot what he looked like. But, it’s rare I see a movie (especially now, when I’m watching so goddamn many) that I am still thinking about a few hours later, replaying scenes in my head to try to see if information I got later in the film gave them new meaning. Hell, I may even watch it again!

Like Return In Red, this is the type of movie where you gotta be patient and accept that it’s not going to have a big Bruckheimer-ian climax. And like that film, Underbelly more or less overcomes the limitations of a REAL independent production (I love when I look at Boxofficemojo and they point out the record breaking figures for “independent” films like Rob Zombie’s Halloween) and turns out pretty good. It’s not for everyone (what movie is?), but I enjoyed it overall, and for once it’s nice to see an indie where none of the problems are technical and/or acting related. If it’s playing at a festival near you, check it out (movie's website is HERE).

And thank CHRIST, it’s actually an anamorphic DVD! So for those keeping score – DVD that was possibly burnt on the director’s home computer – anamorphic; Multi-million dollar movie from a major studio starring Shannyn Sossamon – non anamorphic. Fuck you, Lionsgate!

What say you?

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Independent, Thriller, Weird,

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Repo: The Genetic Opera (2008)

MARCH 4, 2008

GENRE: MUSICAL, WEIRD
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (TEST SCREENING)

NOTE – As this is a test screening, the following review may not 100% reflect the final product. Furthermore, as a lazy man who is often broke, I can’t guarantee that I’ll see the film during its theatrical release and/or update the review to include any changes. - UPDATE! - there were a few minor changes, all for the better.)

I first became intrigued by Darren Bousman’s Repo: The Genetic Opera a year or so ago, when he mentioned Shock Treatment as a sort of influence. While I’m not a die hard fan of the Rocky Horror “series”, I do quite enjoy both films, and particularly liked how utterly batshit Shock was (I still don’t have a goddamn clue what is going on during large chunks of the film), and how it managed to “outweird” the original film. Well, Repo makes both of them look sane. And I mean that in the goodliest way possible.

The movie is based on a play (which Bousman directed a version of a few years ago, before he entered the world of Jigsaw), but since I haven’t seen it I don’t know how close the film follows it. There is no real “main plot”, but instead a series of interconnecting stories about a group of folks with ties to a futuristic organ donor/replacement company called Geneco. The film’s central character is Shiloh, played by Alexa Vega, aka the chick from Spy Kids (she’s like 20 now, so it’s OK to think she’s hot, right? Hope so.). She is suffering from some blood disorder and kept largely confined to her bedroom by her dad, played by Anthony Head (Giles!). Unknown to her, he works as a Repo Man for Geneco; killing and “taking back” organs from patients who failed to keep up with their payments. Geneco is run by Paul Sorvino, who is dying, and his kids (Paris Hilton, Bill Moseley, and Ogre from the band Skinny Puppy) are fighting one another over who gets to run the company once he passes. Sorvino also holds a grudge against Head, and there’s also an opera singer (who is also Shiloh’s godmother) and a grave robber who is over-medicating the surgery obsessed Hilton. While some plots are justifiably given more screen-time than others, it’s to Bousman’s credit (as well as the screenwriters, Terrance Zdunich and Darren Smith, who also appear in the film) that the film weaves so many different story threads while never once really pausing to let the audience take a breath, yet maintains coherency and a pace that builds and builds at a steady rate.

Also, this isn’t Rocky Horror or Nightmare Before Christmas, where the best musical numbers come in the first half and then the film sort of treads water for a while – here the best numbers come near the end. In fact, the one concern I had with the film was that it took 15 minutes to get to the first song that would make for enjoyable “stand-alone” listening (many of the “songs” are just a verse explaining story details). The opening of the film is a graphic novel style prologue explaining what has happened to the world in the future and how Geneco came to be – I’d rather they had a big number with these plot elements explained in the lyric. But the way the film just builds and builds up more energy as it unfolds is pretty astonishing, so in a way the “slow” feel of the first few scenes makes total sense – think of it as a roller coaster with a 10 foot climb rewarded by a 100 foot drop.

The cast is about as random as one could get (Paris Hilton and Bill Moseley as brother and sister? Giles playing a murderous boogeyman?), but there isn’t a single weak link in the cast. In fact, I must admit that Hilton is QUITE good in her role, both acting and singing (all of the primary characters sing their own songs). I usually can’t stand her in anything, but she won me over here. Moseley also has some great moments as the most violent character in the film, and it’s nice to see Head finally play the “Ripper” he never got a chance to be on Buffy. However, the godmother character, played by Sarah Brightman, doesn’t get to work with the other characters as much, so her scenes have a slight disconnect, and she is sort of MIA (other than TV screens) for the first half of the film – I would have liked to have her given something earlier on that would make her importance to the second half of the film have a bit more resonance.

The movie’s also just damn hilarious. Moseley singing “I’ll shoot you in the face!” to a guy offering him decaf is possibly the best moment in movie musical history. There’s also a rocking number called (I think) “I’m 17!” by Vega, who rocks around her room while two of her stuffed animals headbang along and Joan Jett shows up out of nowhere to provide the guitar riffs – I was laughing my ass off the entire time.

As for the violence/gore, it’s pretty over the top, but also sparsely displayed throughout the film. I would say it’s about as violent as Sweeney Todd (but also about 20 min shorter), and it doesn’t stick out as much as it did in Todd, since the over the top slashing and “repossessing” is just as nutty as everything else in the film.

I’m sure that Lionsgate will market the film as “Saw meets Rocky Horror” or something to that effect, but that would be selling it short. While it’s certainly an easy way to describe it, the real hook for me was just the sheer originality and insanity of it all. You know how Sweeney Todd was almost all songs, but would occasionally “stop” and just have dialogue? No such thing here. There were a few songs that I really dug and wanted to applaud after, as is sort of customary for musical films, but the problem was: I couldn’t. My applause would be interrupting the next musical segment. I just hope people give the movie a chance and appreciate, if nothing else, the sheer originality on display. Anyone reading this site knows how many horror movies I endure, so when I see one that never ONCE reminds me of other movies (even the obvious comparisons – Todd, Rocky Horror, etc, only came to mind in generalized thoughts), and is able to totally suck me in and keep me entertained almost nonstop for 90 minutes, I get pretty thankful and happy. Sure, I love my formulaic slashers and action movies about guys taking over some sort of vehicle only to be thwarted by a rogue cop, but I secretly crave for more movies like Repo; where I am almost at a loss as to how I can review it or recommend it to others. It truly does need to be seen to be believed, and I hope you fine folks not only do just that, but enjoy it as well.

What say you?

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Musical, Weird,

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Death Knows Your Name (2006)

FEBRUARY 29, 2008

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

Is there anyone besides me who has seen Death Knows Your Name? I went on the film’s IMDb page – there isn’t a single user comment, the messageboard only has one post from a guy who liked the trailer, and the external reviews page had precisely two links – one from a guy who just goes on and on about the studio tampering with it (it’s an independent film – what studio???) and another who admits he watched the Yankee game and his daughter playing half the time the film was on. Come on! I can’t do this shit alone, I need backup! And Yankees suck!

I especially need fellow sufferers for movies like this, which fall in that narrow category of being bad but not fun. I can’t really think of anything to make fun of, and no one thing in the film sticks out as being particularly bad (other than the film’s audio, which is often distorted), but yet I didn’t actually LIKE anything in it, and after 20 minutes or so, couldn’t wait for it to end. The concept was interesting, at least the concept on the back of the DVD was – it makes it sound like there is a huge outbreak at a hospital, but this ‘outbreak’ is limited to a few shots of guys in hazmat suits. I was hoping for a film like Infection (aka Kansen), but instead I just got a very plodding Spanish version of "Dorian Gray" crossed with any random (bad) movie about an insane asylum.

It’s also a movie that explains its own one-liners. There’s some nonsense about a mirror being the root of all the evil in the film, and at one point the hero says to his dad (2nd movie in a row that featured a father-son team!) “Are you afraid of having seven years of bad luck?” Now, who the fuck doesn’t know that this is referring to a broken mirror? Apparently: the intended audience for this film, because the movie stops cold to let the guy add “Let’s go break a mirror!” Thanks pal. It reminded me of an SNL sketch where John Goodman felt the need to improvise a line that “explained” a reference to Close Encounters From The Third Kind (the other guy in the skit said “Close Encounters Of The Bat Kind”, because he had just hit Richard Dreyfuss with a bat). I hate shit like this, it’s like they think the audience is too stupid to get a bad joke. In SNL’s case Goodman probably just thought no one got it because they didn’t laugh during the live broadcast – but what the hell was Death writer Demian Rugna’s excuse?

On a visual level the film is decent enough. They go out of their way to make the digital video look like film, and the occasional makeup effects are quite good. Also, the framing of this shot is awesome:

Hahaha. Skull Man! But that’s 23 minutes into the film, and there’s still another 60 to go. Perhaps if every other scene in the film featured a character partially obscured by a perfectly lined up portion of a skeleton, this one would be good. It’s worth investigating... someone remake this with a cast of medical school skeletons and get back to me!

This review is short(er than usual - anyone want to work as an editor? I pay in ginger ale) because no one has seen the film and thus won't have anything to add. Is anyone even reading this review? Who’s Googling “Death Knows Your Name” anyway? Oh, the hero looks like Barry Watson and Tim Olyphant. There, that’ll get me a few search engine hits.

What say you?

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Supernatural, Weird,

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Troll

JANUARY 27, 2008

GENRE: MONSTER, WEIRD
SOURCE: CABLE (FLIX)

I would have loved to have seen the reaction of the person who had to read the script for Troll and then decide he/she would put his/her money into actually making the goddamn thing. How would a non-little kid or severely brain damaged adult react to reading “The little girl runs around the house yelling "Ratburgers!" and other nonsense, as the ex-mayor of Palm Springs explains that the kid’s noisemaking could impact his swinging lifestyle” (not a direct script quote)?

I’ll tell you how I reacted. I muttered “maybe I should watch something else”, but then the non-ex-mayor character revealed that his name was Harry Potter, which reminded me of the film’s unintentional notoriety. Yes, despite coming a good decade and change before JK Rowling’s internationally beloved tomes of Satanism and pre-pubescent sexual escapades (though I am told that the versions I read are in fact “slashfic” and not the real ones, something I have yet to investigate), the lead character in this ridiculously stupid movie is Harry Potter, a young lad who is given dangerous things to do by elderly batshit adults, fights monsters small and large, and dabbles in magic. Some folks accuse JK of stealing from this movie, but honestly, I’m sure she had better things to do than watch this goddamn thing.

The problem with the movie is that is apparently aimed only at ironic 20 somethings who saw it as a kid. A young kid would (or should) be a bit baffled about all the things that happen in the film (such as when a troll turns Julia Louis Dreyfuss into a tree and tries to fuck her, or something), but an adult would just be appalled at, well, the idea of a kid’s movie in which a troll tries to fuck a tree version of Julia Louis Dreyfuss.

Still, there’s something a tiny bit endearing about the whole thing. Early on, Harry Potter is looking for his sister, when he suddenly says, apropos of nothing, “Have you been playing with dead cats?” There’s also a midget who draws bunnies, a weeping mushroom, an old lady with an apparent chronic addiction to making pancakes, the aforementioned Sonny Bono as a swinger (he gets turned into a tree too, in fact just about everyone in this movie except for the Potter family turns into some sort of plant), a few trolls that are obviously paper mache puppets, etc.

And then, of course, there’s the song. The way this thing is worked into the film is nothing short of astounding. At first it’s just the film’s score, so we think nothing of it. Then, suddenly, softly, the trolls begin singing in hushed tones, which we see for a few seconds before cutting back to the midget guy delivering some exposition. Then the trolls go all out, belting out the lyrics (which I cannot understand for the life of me) in full force. It just sort of sneaks up on you, and then ends all too soon. That might sound like I am describing an orgasm, but really, that’s pretty much what this song is, albeit in John Carl Buechler-directed low-budget musical form.

Speaking of Buechler (who sort of appears in the film, in a painting), between this and Friday the 13th part 7 (the absolute worst of the Paramount era) I think it’s safe to say he should stick to makeup effects. And he should take Robert “Buried Alive, The Rage, and Wishmaster” Kurtzman with him.

What say you?

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Monster, Weird,

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Feed

JANUARY 24, 2008

GENRE: SERIAL KILLER, WEIRD
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

For over a year now, my buddy Ryan (from Shocktillyoudrop.com) has been telling me to watch Feed, the long-awaited (by someone, I assume) return to filmmaking by Brett Leonard, who made a decent-sized name for himself in the 90s with The Lawnmower Man and Virtuosity, the film that is better than American Gangster in only one respect: having several scenes with both Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe instead of only one.

I think. I dunno; I forget most of that movie. The point is: I wish they had more scenes together in American Gangster.

You might wonder why I’m dwelling on other movies in my Feed review... well, that’s because Feed doesn’t give me much to write about. It’s an overlong bore of a film that has shock value, sure, but it wears off rather quickly. Seeing a fat woman devouring hamburgers while being videotaped for the internet may gross you out the first time, but by the 7th or 8th, you just kind of want the movie to move on. Sadly, it doesn’t. There is a slight variant when the killer tries unsuccessfully to pleasure himself while watching the woman smear cupcakes all over herself, but it’s simply not enough. The last thing I was expecting this movie to be was boring, but it’s the sad truth.

The problem is that the movie doesn’t really do anything with its concept, and if you replaced the fat feeding scenes with basic murders, you’d be left with the least interesting movie ever made. However, at first, this doesn’t seem to be the case. Early on, our sort-of hero (an asshole cop who looks like Daniel Baldwin from the side) discovers a man slicing off parts of another man’s anatomy and feeding it to him. Neither are being forced into it. Coupled with the fat woman/internet thing, I thought this would make for an interesting and consistently ‘shocking’ movie, as the cop discovers more and more abhorrent behavior in the world of “feeders” as he investigates a mystery. But other than this brief interlude, it’s strictly limited to the one fat broad, the killer (whose identity is revealed from the start), and the cop. It could almost be a play.

Further boringing matters is the fact that most of the killer’s rants are just variants of “I’m not the bad guy, SOCIETY is!” Again, the first time around, it might get you thinking, but by the time the screenwriter must have had to use a thesaurus to find enough words to make these soapbox “points” sound different from one another, you’ll be wanting to force feed yourself instead. And since our cop is kind of a dick anyway, the movie leaves us no one to really root for. Fucking kill em all, let me get back to my sandwich.

So the script sucks, but does it work on a visual level? Well, no. No it does not. Leonard keeps using ridiculous filters (usually yellow, though a blue one pops in a few times) for scenes, giving the film an unnatural look that doesn’t really service anything. He also uses a lot of smear focus lenses, so you can see the actor clearly but not the things right next to him, which again, gives the film no added meaning or value. The editor is also suffering from some sort of hyperactive disorder; with many jump cuts, speed ramps, avid farts, strobe edits... if it’s an annoying editing technique best used for an MTV special about Lohan or Paris, then you’ll find it in Feed.

The moral of the story is, of course, never listen to a guy who wanted to walk out of Dead Silence but didn’t even MENTION Halloween on his worst of the year list. Just listen to me, the guy who tells everyone to watch The Hitcher remake.

What say you?

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Serial Killer, Weird,

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Kill House (2006)

JANUARY 1, 2008

GENRE: COMEDIC, INDEPENDENT, SLASHER, WEIRD
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

Happy New Year... nothing has changed at all. You need a new desk calendar (assuming you keep up with it; mine is currently on November 18th) and you’ll probably write the wrong year on your rent check today. That’s about all that’s different, yet most of you probably went out last night and drank; spending your hard earned money in order to honor a clock.

Anyway, since I didn’t party, I am not hungover and thus in a happy mood, which has to be why I found The Kill House so engaging. As I consult my notes and actually THINK about the movie, there is absolutely nothing good about any of it (almost every one of my notes ends in a question mark, in other words, my reaction to the scene/event in question was simply “huh?”), but I was thoroughly entertained and even sort of charmed by this bizarre little movie.

For starters, the film’s opening credits spend at least two straight minutes establishing that they are in San Francisco. Which is fine, but only that and the following scene take place there. The rest of the film is, I assume, set in Los Angeles. It’s quite obviously LA just from the scenery (West Hollywood hills, best as I can tell), and while they never actually reveal the intended setting, the main character goes to Beverly Hills seemingly every other day, and the hospital that incoherently factors into the film quite a few times is clearly labeled “Hollywood Medical Center”. San Fran is never seen again. Whatever.

As for the hospital, you got me. At one point the Final Girl’s brother suddenly complains of chest pains (he also suffers from Lupus for some reason) and goes to the hospital, then just gets up and leaves while still wearing his gown. At another point, the lead detective goes there to kiss someone goodnight (who this person is is none of our business). And the film’s nonsensical epilogue features the killer wearing a wig and breaking into a patient’s room to steal his money (he’s also limbless, for the hell of it).

Speaking of wigs, in one of the film’s stranger plot developments (which speaks volumes, if you’ve read the above paragraph), our wannabe Janet Leigh character who gets killed a half an hour in is clearly wearing a red wig. This is sort of explained when she gets a phone call from her doctor, and she says “the results are in? Is it cancer?” And the doctor says that she can’t tell her that over the phone. So the wig is to cover her bald head from chemo, right? Wrong. A. We still see her real hair under it, and B. if she didn’t even definitely HAVE cancer yet, why would she already be taking chemotherapy? Doesn’t matter, she gets killed moments later, and thus we never know if she has cancer or not.

The film is also significant for having what may be a record amount of full frontal female nudity in a film that has not one sex scene. Our lead (another oddity – how often do you see the Final Girl in a slasher movie even go topless, let alone completely nude) is constantly baring all in an attempt to entice the family’s groundskeeper, a man who was convicted of murder and now has to pee in a cup as part of his probation (....? Hey at this point, anything goes in this movie). And at one point I thought she was flirting with her brother (hey-o!), but at any rate there is no bedroom action whatsoever in the film.

As for the killer (who also appears briefly nude, who is also like 50 years old and not very attractive, and is also the film’s director), I can’t even begin to understand her motive behind most of her kills. Killing the rival real estate agent makes sense, as does the owner of a property she wants to sell, and to a lesser extent, the Lupus brother, who sort of stumbles on her devious plans. But why does she kill a couple who plans on buying one of the houses? And even dumber, why does she kill the guy she had just, two scenes earlier, set up to take the blame for the killings???

The questions don’t end there. Why does the groundskeeper guy have a black eye in some scenes but not others? Where did he get it to begin with? Why did they cast an overweight (but cute) girl to play a character whose biggest character trait is that she rides horses? Why the extended scene of the killer kidnapping some schoolgirls to pass them off as her own (a scene that involves terrorism and several threats to cut off the girls’ parents heads) to someone she is about to kill anyway? Why name a character Mark Harmon? Why all the transsexual jokes and references in the film’s first half hour? Why the lesbian cop partnered with the effeminate male cop? Why ANYTHING in this movie?

The deleted scenes are no help. Not only is it impossible to tell where any of them would occur in the film (they’re not even in order, since the final two in the collection feature a character who was killed a half an hour in), but few last more than a couple seconds. And I can’t tell why they were considered any less relevant or worthy than the ones left in the film, such as the one titled “The Secret Life of Lettie” (the detective), which consists of nothing but the woman happily buying an ice cream from a truck.

But, I swear, it’s awesome. As you can tell, there’s nothing good I can say about it (though the DV looks pretty good). Even the back of the DVD is confusing (there’s an asterisk next to “special features”, but it doesn’t have any sort of connecting footnote; the ratio is listed as a “4x3 1.77:1 letterbox presentation”, which doesn’t even make any goddamn sense). But yet, I wholeheartedly recommend it. It’s just so goddamn weird in a very lazy way.

Also, I should note that the only reason I watched this movie in the first place is because the cover, which makes it look like a Saw film (same font and color scheme), has the tagline “Escrow Just Closed”. Not only is that the least foreboding tagline in horror movie history, but it also led me to believe that the film might possibly be the pinnacle of real estate horror, something faithful HMAD readers know is a “favorite” of mine. And in a non-sort of way, it truly is.

What say you?

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Comedic, Independent, Slasher, Weird,

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Terror Toons

DECEMBER 12, 2007

GENRE: COMEDIC, CRAP, WEIRD
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 3!!!)

The best, and pretty much only, good thing I can say about Terror Toons is that it’s the best movie I have seen so far on the Decrepit Crypt set. Out of two.

Otherwise it’s just a mess. I THINK it’s supposed to be funny, but it’s not, which makes about 90% of the movie fail from the start. We have guy in drag playing the mother of two girls who are supposed to be like 16 and 18, played by 20 and 34 year olds, respectively. OK. The plot about cartoon villains invading the real world is even stupider than it sounds, and the effects, cartoonish or not, look like shit.

Granted, there is a certain charm at times to the film, particularly in the opening sequence, which combines intentionally (I think) childish 2D cel animation with a “torture” scene, but it’s nowhere near enough to make the film even remotely worth watching. After that scene, it’s just one painfully unfunny scene after another, without a single thing such as inventive gore, wit, or even competent filmmaking to make up for it.

Also, cinema’s worst Devil. Ever.

The sad thing about this is that this movie was pretty much the only one on the set I had ever heard about before (not counting Matthew aka Scream Bloody Murder), and even looked forward to seeing it. Anyone who knows me or has read my reviews that allude to my cartoon knows how much I love the idea of combining humor and horror via animation. And yet the movie botches so much, I barely even THOUGHT about my own creation while watching this goddamn thing. I’m a pretty self-deprecating guy, but even I can safely say I could do a lot better than this.

Some folks I talked to (OK, one) got this mixed up with Evil Toons; which is pretty much the same movie from what I can gather. But it can’t possibly be worse, right? Anyone care to elaborate?

And I know someone else has the Decrepit set... tell me these are among the worst on the set, because if not I don’t think I will be able to get through the whole thing. I’ve already put the box back on my shelf at home rather than in my desk at work (which is where I would watch them, if ever).

What say you?

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Comedic, Crap, Decrepit Crypt, Weird,

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It Is Fine. Everything Is Fine!

DECEMBER 8, 2007

GENRE: HERO KILLER, INDEPENDENT, PSYCHOLOGICAL, WEIRD
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (EVENT SCREENING)

Uh... um... the uh... yeah.

How can one review a film like It Is Fine. Everything Is Fine!? Any film directed by Crispin Glover is bound to be a bit strange, but this makes an average David Lynch film look like the epitome of mass appeal.

The film was written by its star, Steven Stewart, a man who suffered from cerebral palsy (and died from it a month after filming was complete). The fact that he wrote it should dispel any notion that Glover is exploiting him, but I’m sure some folks will still see it that way. Still, it doesn’t make the film any less uncomfortable to watch, especially when, about an hour into the film, we are shown Stewart being given oral pleasure (for real, not fake “head bobbing” style), shortly before he kills the girl by running her neck over with his wheelchair.

Oddly enough, a few years ago I suggested a film in which the villain was an actor who had downs syndrome or some sort of handicap. My feeling was (and still is) that they had just as much potential to be bad as anyone else in the world. The person I was talking to was quite offended by this notion. But she was (and still is) female, so it’s probably OK when Crispin Glover does it.

Glover finances the films (this is the 2nd part of a thematic trilogy, the first of which, What Is It, was finished a year or so ago after nearly a decade of production) with the money he makes from appearing in what he calls “corporate” films such as Charlie’s Angels. Which is pretty awesome, if you ask me (at least he’s honest), but on the flipside, it means that the film is shot in small chunks over a long period of time, without a lot of the resources one would usually have for a film. Unsurprisingly, this results in some technical issues (overly grainy footage, out of focus shots, etc), not to mention some fragmented storytelling (one character, played by Lauren German from Hostel II, disappears about 20 minutes before the end).

And, while it’s not exactly an issue, it should be noted that Stewart is often very difficult to understand and his dialogue is presented without subtitles (everyone in the film understands him perfectly, and usually it’s obvious what the gist of what he’s saying is). Glover, during his endurance test, er, Q&A (which lasted longer than the film itself), explained that putting subtitles would send the wrong message, and I agree. Still, a guy who watches a horror movie every day and eats pasta without sauce isn’t exactly the average person whose opinion you would want on such matters.

Glover has no plans to release these films on DVD; he likes to be in the audience and talk about them with everyone. So if you’re curious, check out his official website and see if he is coming around. The evening also comes with a signing and an hour or so of Glover reading some “books” he wrote, which are slide shows that don’t make any goddamn sense but are still more or less entertaining. If you like something different, you can’t do much better (or worse, depending on your POV) than this.

What say you?

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Hero Killer, Independent, Psychological, Weird,

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