The Toybox

SEPTEMBER 6, 2007

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

Not that my genre classifications are in any way definitive, but I think the one for Slasher is pretty accurate. That said, The Toybox, described as a slasher on the back of the DVD, is NOT A FUCKING SLASHER MOVIE. Assholes. Just because some folks die (mostly offscreen, for the record), doesn’t make it a slasher movie. I don’t know what the hell it is, but it’s not a slasher.

It’s also not very good. There’s some good, even great ideas presented here, but they are horribly botched by the Peter Jackson wannabe camerawork, nonsensical plotting/structure, and giant plot holes. For example, at one point the main character is seen fading into invisibility as she walks from one house to another. Why? We never know. There are some occasional hints that she has magical powers, but if that’s true or not is never made clear. There’s also a scene where a guy types some quote on Microsoft Word for some reason, then reads it himself, which suddenly gives him an idea. What? Imagine writing down “I need pie" for no real reason, and then looking at it and saying “Hey, I need pie too!” and then running off to the store for some. That’s about as much sense as it makes.

The film also opens with a child’s game that neither makes sense, nor does it seem like a game any kid would find interesting. It’s called “Freddy’s Gone Missing”, and apparently the object of the game is to hide your pet mouse while the other kid covers his/her eyes. Then, once they open them, you say “Freddy’s Gone Missing!”, and the other kid goes “Where?” and then… you show them. Why have them cover their eyes if you immediately say where the goddamn thing is? How is that fun? Then, naturally, the stupid kid puts the mouse in the blender and then turns it on for some reason. Nice.

The rest of the movie combines the “dysfunctional family at the holidays” plot with the “brother is possessed by the spirit of an old legend, one that involves him anonymously sending his father pictures of clowns in the mail and quoting Black Sabbath” plot. In theory, fine, but while the movie begins quite good, it eventually just spins off the rails, to the point where it’s not only unclear as to what is going on, but also what the point is of anything that happens. It takes a certain kind of talent to tell a story that involves a masturbating grandfather, a mother who seduces her daughter’s boyfriend, a magic amulet, and occasional hints at a brother’s lust for his own sister, and yet make a film so dreadfully uninvolving. I wouldn’t even mention that the eponymous toybox never really figures into the plot, at least in any way that I can understand, but I just did.

The DVD’s mastering is equally inept: as the DVD starts there’s a trailer for a movie that looks just as pointless, only you can’t skip it. There’s also some inappropriate early 80’s new wave-y style music playing over the menu, and the commentary track (the discs only extra) is hidden in the setup page. What if someone had a regular TV with no surround sound – they’d have no reason to enter the setup menu, and thus would miss the commentary. Idiotic.

At least it’s anamorphic.

What say you?

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Psychological, Weird,

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Sasquatch Hunters

SEPTEMBER 5, 2007

GENRE: CRAP, MONSTER
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Sweet merciful Christ, who in the name of Zeus’ butthole puts the money up for shit like Sasquatch Hunters? Are they blind? Retarded? Jerks? All of the above??? Like I’ve said before, there is NOTHING wrong with making a movie when the primary goal is to make some green. That’s all Halloween was, but the difference is they made an excellent film at the same time (and so help you Jebus if you think “which version?”). It was original, it was technically incredible, and the cast was made up of actual actors.

You can’t say any of that about this goddamn thing though. Other than besting the woeful Trigger Man by also having three redneck-ish hunters, only giving them more dialogue and character development in 3 minutes than Ti West provided his characters with in the film’s entirety, there is absolutely nothing nice I can say about this movie.

Oh wait I take that back – the score, which is ridiculously inappropriate and quite obviously recycled from something else, is quite nice, sounding like a decent enough (and random enough to appreciate) cross between Jurassic Park and Meet Joe Black. There. And they killed off the most sympathetic character like halfway through. That’s all I will give you, movie.

For starters, the title doesn’t even make sense. The folks are not hunting sasquatches, they are simply wandering aimlessly around the woods looking for artifacts. Or maybe it means that the sasquatches themselves are the hunters? Well it doesn’t matter, because there are no sasquatches in the film, only animatics of a gorilla whose size changes from scene to scene.

I say animatics because there is no way in hell that these are supposed to be finished effects. I literally laughed out loud every single time they showed the goofy thing "running" around the forest in money-saving closeup. See, there’s a big difference between bad CG and a costume where you can see the zipper. With the zipper, there’s a sort of charm to the cheapness of it. And at least it shows they were sort of trying. But bad CG carries no such benefit. Bad CG (especially in a film where an occasional genuine monster suit is utilized) just screams of laziness and, well, dickishness. It doesn’t take much effort to at least composite your goofy CG gorilla with the background properly. The fucking cartoon robot I made for my still unfinished short film looked more realistic, and I didn’t have the benefit of money, investors, etc.

The acting is also abysmal from start to finish. Most annoying – the actors swear a lot, and yet they ALL manage to sound like a 4 year old saying ‘shit’ for the first time. It’s almost surreal that even after saying it 30 times, an actor can’t make a line like “We have to get the fuck out of here!” sound convincing. Since all of the kills are off screen (and the film has many TV movie style fade outs), you gotta wonder why they didn’t just tell the actors NOT to swear, since they don’t even know how, and make the film a PG thing for kids or Fox Family Channel viewers to enjoy. It would at least be less insulting.

The story of how I came to learn about this monstrosity is vastly more entertaining than the film itself. In line one day at Blockbuster, I began to chat with another patron who noticed I had Grudge 2 in my hand. “That movie stinks,” he told me. I explained that I enjoyed watching bad horror movies. He then said “Oh, I got one for you then. It’s about a Bigfoot, only there’s a bunch of them…” As he droned on, I began to suspect he was referring to Abominable, a film I not only enjoyed but was directed by a buddy of mine. As I was about to strike him (or, more likely, insult his stupid bald head) he said “I think it was called Sasquatch Hunters.” Crisis adverted; I queued the film the next day (and consider how long ago it was I watched Grudge 2, which should give you an idea of how long my queue is).

OK, maybe it wasn’t more entertaining than the film. But the point is, Abominable is a pretty good movie. And Grudge 2 was at least entertaining. This movie is a flaming pile of shit.

And once again, my movie for the day was non-anamorphic, just adding insult to fuckfacery.

What say you?

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Crap, Monster,

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The Skeleton Key

SEPTEMBER 4, 2007

GENRE: SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: HDDVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Ah, The Skeleton Key. The latest (well, when it came out it was the latest) in a (too) long line of alleged horror movies starring respectable actresses. It seems they all have one, and they are all uniformly bad. And since this one is written by Ehren Kruger, one of the worst prolific screenwriters in recent memory (he also bestowed upon us Scream 3, Reindeer Games, and The Ring Two), I figured I would be in for one god awful ride.

So I was surprised to find the movie was merely dull. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone except Peter Sarsgaard completists, but I never once wanted to kick my TV and defecate on the disc, so there's something. And it's got sort of a downer ending, which is odd when you consider it's a big budget, big studio PG-13 horror movie.

Kate Hudson is damned hot when you can't see her ridiculous ears, and we even get some side boob, so the movie at least manages to occasionally hold your attention. But, and it seems like I've said this a million times, the film's story isn't complex or deep enough to warrant a full length film. This could have certainly been done in a Twilight Zone or Masters of Horror episode. By stretching it out to 1:40, we get lots of padding and extraneous shoe leather, not to mention a healthy dose of repetition.

As you may have noticed, I watched this on HD DVD. Which means I won't be watching the commentary or most of the extras, since I can't bring myself to listen to commentaries at home anymore. That's a "work watch". I did check out the deleteds, but they were mostly useless.

According to the Wikipedia page for this movie, "the house resembles the one used in the 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre". No it fucking does not. And even if it did, how the hell is that trivia? Christ.

What say you?

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Supernatural,

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Rick Mofina's "A Perfect Grave"

Rick Mofina's third book in the acclaimed Jason Wade series, A Perfect Grave, releases today.

Here he explains which talented (and bankable) actor he'd like to see in the lead role of the film adaptation of his novel:

Sure, I admit I have often cast a movie version of my books. It's fun to play around. Actually, I always pictured Ethan Hawke in the role of Jason Wade, a crime reporter with the Seattle Mirror, who is the lead in my newer series. It debuted with The Dying Hour, which was named a finalist for 2006 Thriller Award by the International Thriller Writers. It was followed by Every Fear and A Perfect Grave, released September 2007.

Wade is loner who grew up in the shadow of a brewery in a blue-collar neighborhood. His old man, Henry Wade, is an alcoholic who crawled into a bottle after Jason's mom walked out on them years earlier when Jason was just a kid.

Henry Wade let go of life to take a job in a brewery, haunted by an incident that happened a life time ago when he was a rookie Seattle cop. He never revealed his dark secret to Jason, who refused to be dragged down with his old man as he battled his demons.

Jason instead pursues his dream, putting himself through community college driving a forklift while freelancing crime stories. He eventually beats the odds, and several arrogant wealthy interns from big schools, to land a staff reporter covering crime at the Mirror.

Ethan Hawke, has the still-waters-run-deep, persona to capture Jason. He has the dark, quiet intensity I see in Jason. Hawke's mind-blowing Oscar-nominated job supporting Denzel Washington in Training Day did it for me.

Jason's gritty, edgy, but honest, hard-working, afraid at times, but the kind of guy who just will not give up. He learns from the mistakes he makes along the way to becoming what he is: An every day hero who does not consider himself a hero. A kind of Springsteen-esque street warrior.

Jason first saves himself from what should have been a dead-end life, then he works on rescuing his old man.

For the role of Henry Wade, I always thought of two guys. Nick Nolte, or Harvey Keitel. Each has the presence, weight and depth to play a man whose spirit died in single-life changing instant that haunts him. An incident he cannot disclose or discuss it. One so painful it has to be numbed by alcohol.

To see Hawke and either, Nolte or Keitel, take my story from the page to the screen would be very cool.

In addition to the Jason Wade series, Mofina's novels include Be Mine, If Angels Fall, Cold Fear, No Way Back, and Blood of Others, which won an Ellis award for Best Novel. He won a second Ellis award for his short story “Lightning Rider” in the anthology Murder in Vegas.

The Page 69 Test: Every Fear.

Visit Rick Mofina's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

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Dead Man's Hand: Casino Of The Damned

SEPTEMBER 3, 2007

GENRE: COMEDIC, CRAP, GHOST
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

I believe it has been over 10 years since I have subjected myself to a Full Moon movie. I think the last one was Demonic Toys, a delightfully bad movie that features a line I often repeat, apropos of nothing: “I’ve been imprisoned in that corpse for 66 years.” Even as a kid, I never shined to FM’s filmmaking style – painfully low budget movies trying to be big budgeted movies. It just doesn’t work. If you only have $100,000 or so, maybe NOT make a movie about a miniature man fighting aliens, for example. Yet, I rented Dead Man’s Hand, assuming maybe either they have gotten better with age, or perhaps I would be more accepting of their style.

Nope.

This movie is even worse than the ones that made me shrug off the company in the first place. Not that I have a lot of good memories about dreck like Bad Channels or Arcade, but I don’t recall bad music playing NONSTOP over the entire goddamn movie, or idiotic subplots about a guy pretending to fuck his girlfriend so his friends won’t suspect that he is impotent, or dialogue like “You looking to get punched?” (said by an alleged ‘good’ guy to his girlfriend). Dead Man’s Hand has all this and more!

Let’s see, there’s the requisite cat hiding in the closet scare, only we don’t actually SEE the goddamn cat, only hear it (Movies On A Budget 101’s primary lesson!). There’s effects that look like they were rendered on a Commodore Amiga, acting that ranges from awful to terrible, and of course, ugly, laughable puppets like this:

Yep.

The ending is as lazy as they come. Sid Haig, playing the devilish ghostly casino dealer, makes a deal with the heroes. The heroes win, and then Haig... lives up to his end of the deal. Scary villain, huh? He literally shrugs, snaps his fingers, and disappears. The movie then ends.

Now, considering that none of the characters seem particularly frightened or even interested in the ghostly blackjack dealers who are wandering about killing their friends, one must assume the film isn’t meant to be taken seriously. Which is fine, except that there is only one genuine laugh in the entire movie (when a ghost bets for one character’s cookies – random enough to make me giggle), and everything else is painfully unfunny.

There’s also a scene at the beginning where the two heroes are canoodling and rambling about their upcoming marriage. After what seems like an eternity of this drivel (complete with the never ending, omnipresent score), the girl casually mentions their friends, who are revealed to have been sitting there the entire time. Kind of like that scene in Shaun of the Dead, only completely stupid and again, unfunny.

The only extra feature (oh, and the movie isn’t anamorphic either – thanks assholes) is a behind the scenes montage, mostly of interviews spliced with un-matching film clips (“We wanted to be original, and scary” – as they cut to an exterior shot of the casino). Band seems convinced he is making a worthy successor to The Shining, and everyone praises him, which would be less annoying if he wasn’t the producer of the goddamn thing (I’d like to be in the editing room when Band gave his approval of the piece. “I think we need just one more shot of someone saying how great I am, otherwise it’s great!”). There is also a full FIVE FUCKING MINUTES (more time than the film itself spends on the idea) of the cast and crew explaining the "Dead Man’s Hand" (aces and eights) over and over and over, sometimes even in the same goddamn phrasing. And then at the end, Band threatens us with Dollman 2 and Doctor Mordrid 2, as well as yet another fucking Puppet Master movie. Christ.

Main girl is cute though.

What say you?

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Comedic, Crap, Ghost,

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Driller Killer

SEPTEMBER 2, 2007

GENRE: EXPLOITATION, SERIAL KILLER

SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK!!!)

This review should be read LOUD!

How can a movie called Driller Killer be so goddamn boring? Come on! This one reminded me of Naked Massacre for some reason, but at least that film, itself no masterpiece, moved along fairly nicely. This one took FOREVER to get to the driller killering and then it moved so fast I couldn’t even understand what was happening at times.

The ending, however, is pretty sweet, and rescued this one out of the crap label. Like yesterday’s Alone With Her, it’s a downer ending. It’s also given one of the strangest cinematic presentations I can recall. The film fades to red and we simply listen to the climax. More ideas like that that could have made this film worthwhile.

The rest though is as generic as they come. There’s the usual padding, awful acting, nonsensical asides (why is Reno on the roof watching a guy get randomly stabbed?), kills that make little to no anatomical sense, etc. There IS a brief lesbian scene though, so there’s something. We are also given the world’s most over-populated band (there’s a scene where a couple of their back up singers fight some of their OTHER back up singers!!).

This one’s being remade. I am all for it. Remaking films that were good ideas done badly should be a lot more common than it is. I just hope that someone, someday, can make a decent movie out of Vampire$.

What say you?

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Chilling Classics, Exploitation, Serial Killer, Video Nasties,

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Alone With Her

SEPTEMBER 1, 2007

GENRE: BLANK FROM HELL, PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

You gotta love that as apparently every horror fan in the world was in theaters watching a relatively big budget film with all the potential and resources in the world at its disposal turn out to be a total bore, I was watching Alone With Her, a film made for less than I make a year (that’s the REAL scary part) and starring Tom Hanks' son and the girl from that god awful My Boys show. The film managed to do all the things Zombie’s film failed to; namely: be suspenseful, disturbing, and take time to develop a goddamn character or two.

Storywise it’s your standard “Boy meets girl, boy becomes obsessed with girl, boy forces himself into her life” movie, but that’s not a concern of mine. The film is presented entirely via fixed angle cameras that the main character has placed around the girl’s apartment, or from another camera he has hidden inside his shirt button or something. So while some of the plot developments are pretty standard for the psycho stalker genre (pretends to like her favorite band, her best friend distrusts him, etc), the presentation is unique and near flawlessly implemented, which more than makes up for it. And more importantly, we get to know and care about the protagonist.

Also the ending not only surprised me, but also left me unsettled. Last time a movie did that? No idea, but it sure as hell wasn’t during the Horror Movie A Day period. Kudos to writer/director Eric Nicholas for doing what 200+ other horror movies have failed to do (which is, scare me).

It's a damnable shame this one didn’t do too well in its VERY limited theatrical run, but hopefully the DVD is doing well. Highly recommended!

P.S. the DVD includes an inferior alternate ending that some of you might prefer.

What say you?

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Blank From Hell, Psychological,

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