DVD Review: "Blood Creek"

While we had every intention of seeing Thor this past weekend, D and I postponed seeing because a mutual friend was 'unavailable.' Rather than give up spending time together, we decided to spend the evening in with another friend Ritchie, watching films from D's truly vast collection. We watched one movie none of us had seen, and another which only D and myself had seen.

The one none of us had seen was Joel "Batsuit Nipples" Schumacher's 2009 Nazi Sorcerer/Zombie/Vampire/Torture Porn mash-up from writer David Kajganich (The Invasion - pee-yew! - and the scheduled remake of Pet Sematary), Blood Creek. Uncle P has been reading plenty of good and bad things about this movie for a while, and I have to concur. There is plenty of good and bad about it.

The first 15 minutes or so are set in 1936, and filmed in black and white. We meet the Wollners, German immigrants who have settled into farm life in rural West Virginia. Despite Mama's reservations, Papa Wollner jumps at the chance to house a Third Reich scholar (Michael Fassbinder) in exchange for as many marks as the Fuhrer will pay. The guest -- Herr Wirth -- is creepy, to say the least, able to whisper a few ancient syllables in order to bring a bird back to life...

Quickly jumping forward to the present, we meet Evan Marshall (Superman in pre-production, Henry Cavill). Evan's war-hero bother Victor ("Prison Break" alum Dominic Purcell) has been missing for the past two years. Evan's aging father blames him for Victor's disappearance and Evan's guilt is eating him alive. But one night, Victor - filthy, ragged and unshaven - appears in Evan's bedroom, appealing for his help, but warning him that "what happens will change everything, forever." Filial love endures and as Victor showers and shaves, Evan prepares guns, ammo and a boat. Victor leads Evan to the last place he was seen and they set off downstream to a remote compound -- the Wollner farm. Turns out, the barn's foundation was made using a Norwegian rune stone from which Wirth draws power which renders him and the Wollners immortal. Apparently, this is accomplished through ritual blood-letting, explaining the disappearances of several young men in the region over the years. Victor's path for vengeance fuels the slim, but original premise. 

The biggest problem with Blood Creek is that it doesn't really know what kind of movie it wants to be. Is Wirth a zombie, a sorcerer or a vampire? Or all three? Or something else altogether? We're never sure, because the movie never takes the time to tell us. Borrowing from a hundred genre movies including the Indiana Jones trilogy; Sleepy Hollow; The Keep; The Village and any number of better or worse movies, Blood Creek is one of those rare movies that suffers from over-thinking, rather than under-thinking. If nothing else, I must admire Schumacher, who at age 70 has made an almost original Horror movie that almost succeeds as much it fails. He may have put nipples on the Batsuit, but Schumacher remains unafraid to take cinematic chances:

Entertaining, but ultimately silly (we were shouting out MST3K lines well before the halfway mark), Blood Creek at least features some eye-candy from both Purcell and Cavill, though I must admit that I'm not still sold on the young Brit as Kal-El, just yet. It seems to me that everyone involved just tried too hard and the result ended up being somewhere in-between Warlock, Ded Sno and Hostel.  Sadly, Schumacher hides his most talented actor under CGI vestments and bad makeup FX, while ignoring sensible plot points and coherent motivations.  *(One out of Four Stars)

After that, we watched Tobe Hooper's celluloid version of my worst nightmare, The Texas ChainsawMassacre 2, starring Dennis Hopper. Ritchie spent much of this film with her face buried in her arms, which pleased D and I to no end. Sadistic, ain't we?

More, anon.
Prospero

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Review: "Trick 'r Treat" (Finally)

This delightful little chap in the poster is Sam, aka Peeping Tommy. Sam is the most important of the many threads running through Michael Dougherty's long-delayed and much anticipated Trick 'r Treat. I say most important because ultimately Sam is both figuratively and literally the Spirit of Halloween, teaching horrible lessons to the non-believers, as much as any spirit that tormented Scrooge. Happily, none of the four interwoven stories in Trick 'r Treat end on a happy note (this is a horror movie, after all).

Never released theatrically in the U.S., the 2007 festival fave was finally released on DVD two weeks ago, and I am ashamed to be just now getting to review it. And I am also happy to admit that it was worth the wait. Dougherty's script is clever; ironic; surprising; hilarious and original, all while being quite gory; gruesome; creepy. and completly fun. The cast of familiar faces - Dylan Baker (Spider-Man; Fido); Anna Paquin ("True Blood"); Tamoh Penniket ("Dollhouse"); Bryan Cox (the original Hannibal Lecter) - are uniformly excellent (even the youngest of cast members). Baker is particularly good as a particularly bad elementary school principal; as are Paquin as a sweet young thing on the prowl and Cox as a nasty old man who painfully learns why it's best to be generous with the sugar on Halloween. All four tales take place on the same Halloween night in a small Ohio town obsessed with the traditions of the holiday.

The creepiest of the four stories involves a group of kids collecting jack-o-lanterns (purportedly as part of a "UNICEF scavenger hunt") and an urban legend about a school bus full of "special children" which led to an unfortunate incident. The young actors in this segment are just terrific and creepiness of the "special kids" in their exceptionally weird Halloween costumes is off the charts. And of course, there's 10 year-old Quinn Lord as Sam/Tommy. An essentially silent role, Sam is Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Jack Skellington, and the 'Zuni fetish Warrior' from "Trilogy of Terror" all rolled into one creepy little hydrocephalic creature. And while much of the work is done by stunt people and CGI, Lord's physicality in what couldn't have been a very comfortable or easy-to-wear costume is surprisingly effective and spooky. The SFX are kept to a minimum, but the ones employed are quite good (and include a particularly interesting version of the werewolf transformation). The jokes are truly funny and the surprises are mostly really surprising. The movie looks gorgeous, thanks to Cinematographer Glen MacPherson, Production Designer Mark Freeborn and Costume Designer Trish Keating. Every penny of the film's budget is one the screen and Dougherty's love of 70's Horror Comics is evident. Trick 'r Treat deserved a wide-release, big-screen run and it's a damned shame it didn't get one.

Fun, smart, original and great-looking, Trick 'r Treat is truly a Horror fan's treat. Let's hope Dougherty gets to make a sequel, because i can't wait to see what he has in store for us, next.
**** (Four out of Four Stars).

And of course, the evening was topped off by seeing Sam Raimi's brilliant Drag Me to Hell for the first time since I saw it on teh big screen and I enjoyed every single moment of it again, and this time really got to take note of Raimi's use of seamless transition from scene-to-scene. The movie never drags, never bores. The shocks are still shocking, the gross-outs are still disgusting and the shocks are still shocking (which may be thanks to the passing of five months since my first viewing) and the movie is every bit as fun and effective as it was the first time I saw it. If you haven't seen it (and once I again I shame for not having done so), do yourself a favor and see both of these movies before (or better yet, on) next Saturday!

And on a completely bizarre and unrelated note, a childhood hero of mine has passed and I'd just like to say "Thanks for the laughs, Soupy. There's more laughter in Heaven, tonight."



More terrors, anon.
Prospero

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DVD Review: "Deadgirl" & "Grace"

I know I promised a review of Trick 'r Treat, and I promise that it is coming. I just didn't expect every retailer in my area to be out of it already. That's what I get for not pre-ordering. Live and learn.

Anyway, to make up for it, I'm reviewing two movies that generated a lot of festival buzz this year and are now both available on DVD.

First up, last year's Deadgirl, a twisted little indie film about two high school buddies, J.T. (Noah Segan) and Rickie (Shiloh Fernandez). J.T. is the cigarette smoking Rebel Without a Cause type while Rickie is the introspective boy with an Emo haircut, still pining for the love of his first kiss, JoAnn (Candice Accola). While skipping school, the two break into the conveniently close-by abandoned insane asylum for some beer drinking and wanton vandalism. While exploring the tunnels which run between buildings, they come across a girl bound and chained to table and covered in plastic. Horrified, sensitive Rickie wants to cut her loose and take her to the hospital, but J.T. snaps for some reason and insists they "keep her" for themselves as a sex slave. To make things worse, J.T. discovers that she isn't quite as alive as they thought she was. Naming her Deadgirl, J.T. starts to invite a few other outcasts to play and of course, invites a whole sh*tstorm of trouble along with them. When JoAnn's football jock boyfriend is tricked into getting his penis bitten by Deadgirl (a long story), J.T. also realizes that the increasingly-decaying Deadgirl can produce more of her kind and thus can be replaced with a fresher, hotter girl.

I wanted to like this movie a lot more than I did, though I certainly liked it more than the friends with whom I watched it. The performances by the mostly young, unknown cast were mostly fine (if a bit rough around some edges). The movie could have either been 15 minutes shorter, or gotten to the goods a lot sooner, allowing for more mayhem in the third act. Writer Trent Haaga has a long list of acting credits for a whole bunch of horror movies no-one's ever heard of, and while his premise is interesting, it attempts to address too many issues and leaves too many unanswered questions. Deadgirl doesn't know if it wants to be a story about sexual awakening; sexual perversion; teen-angst; necrophilia; dis-associative personality disorders or zombies. It didn't matter to me that we never discover who put Deadgirl in that room, because we know why. What bothered me most, was that we only discover the final fate of a few characters, which perhaps was the filmmakers' way of leaving room for a sequel, but a very unsatisfying way of ending a film. ** (Two Out of Four Stars)

We took a break, had a smoke by the fire and another drink, and settled in to watch our second movie, Grace. The feature debut of director Paul Solet, Grace stars Jordan Ladd (Cabin Fever) as Madeline, a woman who wants nothing more than to be a mother. Several weeks before she is due, Madeline and her husband are in a car accident and both Madeline's husband and unborn daughter are killed. For reasons only known to herself, Madeline decides to carry the baby to term and when her former lover/midwife Patricia ("4400" and "Supernatural" alumnus Samantha Ferris) delivers the baby, she hands it over to its mother, who somehow wills the baby to life. Grace is, by all appearances, a beautiful baby girl. But we know there's something very wrong here. Grace won't drink milk. Grace drinks... can you all say it with me?... blood. And not just any blood, mind you. Sore from nursing a vampire/zombie baby, vegetarian Madeline buys a whole sh*tload of red meat, draining the blood from each package into Grace's bottle. Grace (naturally) promptly projectile vomits the beef blood all over her frustrated and soon-to-be-anemic mother. No, only human blood will do.

Add an over-bearing mother-in-law who is a Criminal Court Judge, an OBGYN in said Judge's pocket, rampant lesbian jealousy and some rather disturbing images, and you have another smart little film that was either 15 minutes too long or needed to get on with it sooner. Ladd is terrific as the obsessed mother, willing to go to any and every length to ensure her child's well-being. And Gabrielle Rose ("Eureka," Jennifer's Body) gives an extraordinary performance as a grieving mother determined to go to any lengths to ensure her grandchild's well-being.

Echoing the Larry Cohen classic It's Alive (we'll talk about that movie again, I'm sure), Grace addresses the stereotypical fears of the new mother, adding a rather grim (and often disgusting) twist. Grace smells. Grace bleeds when bathed. Grace attracts flies. Grace draws blood when she nurses. How many more signs does a mother need? And how far is a mother willing to go to keep her child alive? As I am sure every mother reading this (are there any?) would tell you, pretty f*cking far. I just wished they would have gotten there sooner. A touch more mayhem and little less introspection would have made Grace a lot more interesting. **1/2 (Two and a Half Out of Four Stars)

More terrors (and a Trick 'r Treat review -- I promise), anon.
Prospero

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The Gayest Thing(s) You'll See This Week

Don't ask me what Mitt Romney has to do with it (other than Mormon homophobia, I suppose), I just thought it an amusing image -- but that has nothing to do with this post, which is about celebrating all things gay. And by all things, I mean silly gay boys doing silly things on camera and posting them on YouTube.



For me, the trend really started with Shane Mercado and his racy bedroom version of Beyonce's Single Ladies., which I talked about in my very first "Gayest Thing" post, way back when. It's a great song that I never tire of hearing or of seeing new versions and parodies.



Next, was this fellow's bath towel-clad version of Kelly Clarkson's I Do Not Hook Up. Classic and very funny, especially as he continually needs to adjust the towel.



Then, a few weeks ago, (via) I saw this fan-made vid for Miley Cyrus' "Party in the FIP," by several scantily-clad silly gay boys on Fire Island:

I guess they're sort of cute. They sure look like they were having fun. the song itself is sort bland, though. Everything one might expect from Billy Ray's girl (and as you know, Billy Ray sported the most magnificent mullet in all of redneck history).

Then a friend sent me a video by a group of silly gay boys in Asbury Park, NJ (which is quickly becoming the Fire Island/Provincetown/New Hope of New Jersey. Here is the gay version of Ms Hot Mess Whitney Huston's Million Dollar Bill:

Okay. There were some cute silly gay boys in that video, too. And s lightly better song. I hate most of today's pop music, so what do I know? Further proof of my looming obsolescence, I suppose.

Then today, (also via) comes news of group from South Central L.A., gayin' up the slums. Here is Spice Boys 5 performing Stop:

Oh, dear. Grim and not adorable at all. What's wrong with the silly gay boys in da hood? Still, pretty gay, eh?

And to end on a not-so-gay note, a movie I have waited nearly two years to see is finally being released on DVD; dircetor Michael Dougherty's horror anthology Trick 'r Treat. Those have seen it, rave about it (and I hate them). Anyway, Yahoo Movies has the newest trailer here. I can't wait!

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The Gayest Thing(s) You'll See This Week

"Britain's Got Talent" may have Susan Boyle and that 12 year-old R&B singer, but "Sweden's Got Talent" has naked boys doin' it "In Da Butt." Via D-Listed comes this delightful little video (possibly NSFW) of "Naked Boys Dancing":

That vid makes me wish I either spoke Swedish or that the producers had provided subtitles. I'd love to know what the judges are saying.

And speaking of speaking Swedish, I just saw Let the Right One In again on DVD. All I can say is, I sincerely hope the American re-make doesn't f**k it up. A truly brilliant film, made all the creepier by it's quietness.

And speaking of American re-makes, I also saw Quarantine this weekend, the American version of the Spanish horror flick, Rec. I really enjoyed it (especially seeing Hostel hottie Jay Hernandez - why isn't he a bigger star? - and Steve Harris from "The Practice"). Towards the end, it reminded me of going through one of those Halloween haunted houses, where you never know what's going to pop up around the corner. Intense and quite plausible, Quarantine is a fascinating take on the zombie genre and a truly well-made hand-held, first-person perspective horror movie.

Finally tonight, via Towleroad comes this super slo-mo sports video posted by Andrew Sullivan on The Atlantic. Sullivan calls it "Mormon Porn." Enjoy:

I-Movix SprintCam v3 NAB 2009 showreel from David Coiffier on Vimeo.

More, anon.
Prospero

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DVD Review: "Quantum of Solace"

Wow! It's been so long since I've rented a movie, I almost forgot how to work my DVD player!

When it was announced that British character actor Daniel Craig was going to be the new James Bond in 2006's Casino Royale, there was a furor among Bond fans like no other. I even found myself among the non-believers. How could this short, blond, sour-faced guy be the suave MI6 spy so many of us had come to love? But the film turned out to be absolutely terrific and Craig proved the nay-sayers (myself included) wrong.

Now comes the next Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, the first ever direct sequel in the Bond series. You may remember that at the end of Casino Royale, Bond's true love, Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) was killed, though it was made to look like a suicide. Quantum picks up almost immediately where Casino left off, with Bond seeking revenge for Vesper's death. Turns out that Casino's villain, Le Chiffre, was laundering money for a secret organization with ties so deep, they literally have people everywhere, including MI6. Even M (Judy Dench) isn't safe, as her personal bodyguard of the last six years turns out to be a member of the secret cabal. So, Bond is off to Haiti, where he encounters Camille (Olga Kuryenko), who turns out to be a Bolivian Secret Service agent, seeking her own revenge on the sadistic general who murdered her parents when she was a child. Camille has hooked up with one Dominic Greene (Mathieu Almaric), a supposed environmentalist who is secretly diverting Bolivia's water supply in order to create a monopoly for his company. The plot gets too tangled to go much further, and to be honest, I'm still not sure what the secret organization (apparently called "Quantum") is, who they are or what they want. Though I suppose (and hope) that will be explored in the next film.

But, as with most Bond films, plot is secondary to action, and there is plenty of that to go around. Starting with a heart-pounding car chase through the Italian countryside and moving on to a roof-top foot chase, the action sequences are everything we've come to expect from a Bond film. There is plenty of gun play, hand-to-hand combat and even an aerial chase between a clunky old plane and a jet-fighter.

Director Marc Forster (Finding Neverland; The Kite Runner and the up-coming World War Z) handles the action well, and the script by Paul Haggis (Crash) and Neal Purvis (The World is Not Enough; Die Another Day) makes as much sense as any Bond flick, though it ends leaving more questions than it answers. Craig is terrific, baring less of his magnificent body than he did in Casino Royale, though looking worse-for-the-wear after many fight sequences and bringing a darkness to the role that previous actors may have overlooked (his Bond is more Bourne and less Brosnan). Kuryenko is fine in her 'Bond Girl' capacity, though I still miss Halle Berry's Jinx. A few other fine actors waste their time here: Dame Judy Dench, Giancarlo Giannini and Jeffrey Wright reprise their roles from Casino Royale, though I also missed Q (MI6's gadget genius), most recently played by the incomparable John Cleese. There are a few one-liners that will bring a laugh and the Bond tradition of ridiculously-named women continues with Strawberry Fields (oh, Pussy Galore, where are you?). There's even an homage to Goldfinger.

If you're a fan of the Bond series (I have been since I can remember) or a fan of outrageous action and stunt work, you'll most likely enjoy Quantum of Solace (probably the worst titled Bond film, ever). But to be honest, give me Dr. No or Goldfinger over any of the more recent Bond movies, any day. There's just something about Sean Connery's Bond that makes me weak at the knees. *** (Three out of Four Stars).

More, anon.

Prospero

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DVD Review: "Mirrors"

French director Alexandre Aja made one of the most terrifying and frustrating horror films ever; the aptly named High Tension. The film's downfall was it's logic-defying plot twist, which while unexpected, was physically impossible. Aja fared slightly better with his first American film, 2006's remake of the Wes Craven classic, The Hills Have Eyes, which wasn't terrible so much as boring. James Wan, Leigh Whannel and Eli Roth all got to the torture porn alter before Aja, and it showed. Aja's most recent film, Mirrors is a mixed-bag, at best.

Keifer Sutherland (Lost Boys; "24") plays Ben Carson, an NYPD detective on disability after being shot by and killing a suspect. He's taken a job as a security guard at a once-magnificent Manhattan department store, 'Mayflowers,' nearly destroyed by fire and now vacant while litigation drags on. A month sober, no one believes Ben when he starts to see weird things in the mirrors at Mayflowers, which had once been a psychiatric hospital before transformation into the "grandest department store of them all," least of all his estranged wife Amy (Paula Patton), who is afraid to allow Ben time with their children because she believes he is still emotionally unstable. Even Ben's sister (Amy Smart) thinks it time he sought help.

Aja has previously proven his skills at piling on suspense and for the first hour or so, Mirrors is a creepy, suspenseful thriller with a central mystery that needs solving in order to break the cycle of death or evil or whatever. Sadly, the film breaks down in the third act, becoming downright ridiculous when SPOILER ALERT - SKIP THE REST OF THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU WANT TO AVOID SPOILERS Sutherland kidnaps a nun at gunpoint and NO ONE CALLS THE FRIGGIN' POLICE!!!!! To clarify - he tracks the woman down to her hiding spot in the black hills of Pennsylvania (and hey - I live in Pennsylvania - it isn't a bit like West Virginia at all, despite what horror movies would have one believe), a monastery (?!!) where the nuns communicate only while behind screens, like some sort of Catholic Taliban who's ass Jack Bauer would have kicked into oblivion. Jack... uh, I mean Ben, then forces his way into her room at gunpoint and makes her come back to New York with him, knowing full well that it will mean her death. Oh - maybe this is WWJBD (What Would Jack Bauer Do?), after all.

Whatever atmosphere Aja manages to create in the first 2/3 of the film is sadly ruined by outlandish predicaments and a predictable and weirdly melancholy ending. The stuff in the ruined store is very creepy and disturbing (in particular, the screaming woman in the fitting room). Sutherland, no stranger to the genre, actually plays a schlubbier version of Jack Bauer and does it without pretense. The rest is the cast is fine and everyone does a terrific job of keeping a straight face, throughout. There are one or two terrifically scary moments early on, and some of the FX harken back to 80's horror, but none of it is enough to sustain our interest or even try to care about this quasi-religious psycho-babble twaddle. Much like Lewis Carroll's Alice, our trip through the looking glass is more nonsense, than anything else. *1/2 (One and a Half out of Four Stars)

More (in fact - a special tribute to Cheesy 70's Horror), anon.

Prospero

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DVD Reviews: "Igor" and "Saw V"

I was busy catching up this weekend. Besides Repo! I saw two other movies on DVD.

The first was Igor, the animated comedy from MGM. Ostensibly made for family audiences, Igor takes place in the mythical country of Malaria (get it? yawn...), once a thriving and sunny place, now a land covered by storm clouds and home to evil geniuses. In Malaria, one is either an evil scientist or an evil scientist's assistant (an Igor). The King makes money for the country by extorting it from the rest of world, threatening to unleash an evil invention each year at the evil science fair. The Igor of the title (voiced by Jon Cusack) is an inventor in his own right and he dreams of evil glory. His previous inventions include an immortal rabbit, Scamper (Steve Buscemi) and an idiot's brain in a robotic jar, Brain (Sean Hayes). He works for Dr. Glickenstein (John Cleese) a perennial failure at the annual fair. When Dr. G dies, Igor decides to enter his own invention in the competition, a decidedly not evil monster named Eva (Molly Shannon). The reigning champ, Dr. Schadenfreude (Eddie Izzard) wants to steal Eva (as he has every invention) for himself and employs his girlfriend, Jaclyn (Jennifer Coolidge) to help him. Jay Leno voices King Malbert, who has apparently deceived all of Malaria about their condition. The result is a boring mess; too dark for young children, not funny for adults and featuring animated visuals ripped off from The Nightmare Before Christmas, a far superior film. Only Cleese was smart enough to have his character die early on, saving him from the wretchedly unfunny script by Chris McKenna (the equally unfunny Grumpier Old Men). Director Anthony Leondis previously made The Prince of Egypt and The Road to El Dorado as well as two Disney Direct-to-Video sequels, which leaves one to question his skills as a director of animated fair in the first place. The movie has one or two funny moments, but the excellent voice cast is wasted here on a lame script and inferior CG animation. * (One out of Four Stars)

********

Next I watched Saw V. I have to admit, I thoroughly enjoyed Saw, an original and intense thriller which started the so-called "Torture Porn" movement in horror, and had an ending which surprised even me (not an easy feat - I figured out The Crying Game and The Sixth Sense, well before their reveals). It started the careers of writer/star Leigh Whannel and director James Wan, and caused a bidding war at Sundance. Saw II was nearly as good as the original, but the sequels have been increasingly bad and Saw V is no exception. Kostas Mandylor ("Picket Fences") and Scott Patterson ("The Gilmore Girls") reprise their roles from Saw IV and Tobin Bell returns as Jigsaw in flashback sequences. Wisely, few of the other actors in the series make appearances, other than in photos or occasional clips from the first film. The plot stretches credulity to the limit and the death-inducing puzzles are increasingly sillier and sillier. If blood and guts turn on you on (and if they do, I suspect you need help), then Saw V may be your cup of tea. But if genuine scares and good story-telling are your thing, then I suggest you skip this lame sequel. No stars.

More, anon.

Prospero

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