No Posting For A Few Days

Unfortunately, your humble narrator is heading into a telecommuncation dead zone for a few days. Regular posting will resume Tuesday. Coming up, more Westerns, more kaiju, some new features (including screen hotties...yes, it'san excuse to regularly post images of attractive women...sue me), and, after almost a year of procrastinating - I mean, planning - my video blog.

Into The Storm Effects

Into The Storm sounds like a terrible movie, a needless copy of Twister, which is also a terrible movie. While I'll probably check it out on Netflix when it shows up (next Tuesday, if the weak BO is any indication), there was no way I was going to pay the $87.00 that my local multiplex charges for a ticket.

However, the effects look pretty good and, over at the Cinefex blog, there is an extensive article on how they were planned and executed. Check it out here.

Evil Dead (2013) - With Demonic Spoilers From Hell

A remake of The Evil Dead, Sam Raimi's 1981 low-budget classic, Evil Dead is competently made. It has good special effects, some well-executed scenes of graphic violence, appropriately gloomy sets, effective sound design and good cinematography. The cast is bland, but not bad; they are hampered by underdeveloped characters and the sacrifice of story for gruesome spectacle.

The film opens up promisingly enough. A young woman is being chased through a dark forest. She is clubbed over the head and tied to a post in the basement of a cabin. Dead cats hang from the ceiling on hooks. An old woman reads from a book of demonic evil in an odd tongue. Inbred hillbillies line one wall. The girl's father emerges from the shadows. She begs him to release her. He says she killed her mother and douses her with gasoline. The girl's eyes turn yellow and the demon that has possessed her begins taunting him. He lights her on fire and blows her head off with a shotgun.

That's the first three minutes. It's an impressive opening.

A new set of characters arrive at the cabin. They are there to help one of their number, heroin addict Mia (Jane Levy), go cold turkey. The characters - Mia's brother David (Shiloh Fernandez), schoolteacher friend Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci), nurse friend Olivia (Jessica Lucas) and David's significant other Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore) - settle in and each have a few character moments, none of which amount to much. In due course, the basement is discovered and the book of evil found. Eric reads it for no fathomable reason. Given that it is wrapped in barbed wire, bound with human flesh and has numerous dire warnings scribbled on its pages, the scenes of him thumbing through the book and reading the Latin (or whatever) incantations are unintentionally humorous.

This results in demons being set loose on the unsuspecting characters. Mia is possessed first when a slimy, black worm-vine slithers into her body. Soon, characters are slicing their faces off, getting perforated with a nail gun (whenever a movie features a nail gun, you know this is how it will be used), performing self-dismemberment with an electric carving knife and being subjected to numerous other acts of bodily harm. David, the only survivor, manages to free Mia from possession in a scene that makes little sense. He then sacrifices himself to save her. Blood rains from the sky, a last undead monster emerges from the ground, Mia kills it with a chainsaw (after having to pull her own hand off) and then the sun comes up.

The problem: when the end credits roll, you are left wondering "what's the point?" This is a common question when dealing with remakes, re-imaginings and reboots. The marketing rationale is clear - take a known, successful product (even if it only succeeded in embedding itself in the cultural consciousness), and change it to reflect the sensibilities of a new cohort of viewers. This isn't something to dismiss out-of-hand. People have been doing this to the works of Shakespeare for a long time. Think of the number of remakes and alternate takes have been made of Frankenstein and Dracula. Far from being the reflection of a lack of ideas out of Hollywood, recycling stories has a long tradition in literature, theater and cinema.

There is something, however, that a remake needs to do, in addition to the normal measures of a film's worth: it has to add something to story told by the original.

The problem is that the Evil Dead, while maintaining a high level of graphic violence and keeping the serious tone of the original (the slapstick action and darkly humorous one-liners didn't start until Evil Dead 2), doesn't really add up to anything more than a generic horror movie. The manic energy of the original is missing. Raimi's film stood out because no one had seen anything quite like it before. It featured over-the-top gore and camera work that had the energy of a Looney Toons cartoon. The cast and crew had a low budget to work with, but didn't let that hinder them.

The remake includes some of the signature scenes and techniques from the original - for the example, the camera work giving the audience a point-of-view for the "force of evil" crashing through the woods - but nothing feels particularly fresh or innovative. Key plot points from the original are included: reading an evil book in an isolated cabin leads to possession and mayhem. The remake looks better. The cinematography is more professional, the cast is no worse than that of the original and the plot is slightly more complex (although the most interesting new elements - the heroin addiction of Mia and tension between Mia and David over how the latter left the former to care for their dying mother - have little impact on the story). With a higher budget ($17 million versus $375,000) the gore effects are not as garish and cartoonish.

The problem is that movie has a very generic feel it. There is none of the personality that the original has. There is none of the feeling of shoestring creativity. It is too polished for its own good.

Each of Raimi's Evil Dead films, while following the same basic plot (someone reads from the book of evil, people are possessed and undead monsters attack), have a unique twist. The first film is gritty and gore-filled, the tone of the second shifts to horror slapstick and the third is a low-budget, period-piece epic. In terms of creativity and originality, the remake is a watered down version of The Evil Dead. There was an opportunity to do something different - perhaps using the heroin angle to make a surreal horror film. Instead, the filmmakers focused on the most obvious characteristic of the original, the gore. With the graphic violence that can now be seen in films and on TV (The Walking Dead, for example), a film needs more than a few cringe-worthy moments of bloodshed to stand out.

In part, the remake suffers from the shallowness of the original. The Evil Dead is a triumph of creativity over budget. Its story and plot are functional, nothing more. The characters are little more that one-dimensional punching bags. It is a great movie; but that stems from the on-screen energy and the context in which was released.

For a remake to be successful the source material either has to be rich enough that it lends itself to new interpretations or the remake has to improve on the original. Evil Dead can't reproduce the feel or energy of the original; that is tied into the state of cinema when it was released and how the creative team attacked the low budget. Evil Dead is a decent horror movie. However, it fails to add anything of interest to the plot, performances or tone of the original. It joins the long list of remakes that will be remembered mostly as a marketing gimmick, not as a fresh and worthwhile reinterpretation of the source material.

One Paragraph Review - Evidence (2013)

A found footage survival horror film, Evidence has a couple of interesting moments and a twist ending that is reasonably effective. The acting is okay, with True Blood's Vampire Bill (Stephen Moyer) and Radha Mitchell (Pitch Black) as detectives investigating a mass killing in the Nevada desert. Bill and Radha spend much of the movie watching video from a couple of cameras and cell phones found at the crime scene, hence the found footage aspect. This is a nice framing device; however, the film has many problems. Some of them are: a slow pace; significant amounts of time spent on boring and useless "character development" footage; weak acting across the board; the usual issues with found footage movies, which I won't repeat, except to mention that the director loves Dutch angles, whether appropriate or not; and the lack of any real motivation for the killers. There is an explanation for why these people were killed; it just isn't well supported by the plot. Not the worst of its kind, Evidence has a few interesting moments and ideas, but is mostly a dull retread of better movies.

Short Attention Span Review - The Late Great Planet Earth (1979)

The Seventies were a time when the end seemed just around the corner. Nuclear war. Overpopulation. Oil Shocks. Economic malaise. Disco. The signs were there for all to see. The apocalypse was imminent.

At least, that was the message of Hal Lindsey's book, The Late Great Planet Earth (1970). Lindsey tried to match up the Book of St. John - as well as other End Time stuff from the Bible - to current events. The message: the anti-Christ was on his way and Hell followed with him. The book sold a ton of copies and spawned a "documentary" in 1979. The film is noteworthy for being narrated by Orson Wells who served as narrator for a number of films like this (e.g., The Man Who Saw Tomorrow(1981)); hey, as long as the paycheck clears, right?

Other than that...well, it has a weird charm. Hal Lindsey is the main speaker, although there are also snippets of interviews with other people (scientists, politicians, theologians) who talk about how the world is sliding into chaos, that we'd be fighting water and oil wars by the 1990s, that there would be mass starvation in the US, etc. This would culminate in a massive war in the Middle East. Before you say "hey, that sounds kinda plausible" in order to make the "prophesies" work, the Chinese would have to send a 200 million man army into Iraq. I don't see that happening any time soon. Of course, the point was never plausibility. The point was to play into the fears and hopes of people. Humanity has a fascination with the end of the world. Guys like Lindsey coupled that to the fervent hope for renewal (in this case, Armageddon leading to a new age of peace under Christ) and made a ton of money.

The film is an interesting artifact of the time. I won't say it is worth watching for everyone. However, if you have an interest in obscure Seventies cinema, find apocalyptic pop-theology interesting or want to see some of the fears that people had in the Seventies, then check it out.

Here's the full movie via YouTube.

Boob Tube - Haven

I started watching Haven recently. I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it through the first season. The premise is pretty good - a town in Maine is full of metahumans, people with mysterious, supernatural powers. An FBI agent (Emily Rose) is sent to the town on a routine case, finds the weirdness and decides to stick around, joining the local police force. Every episode focuses on some supernatural crime. The tone is jokey, a humorous (in theory) take on The X-Files, Fringe and similar shows. It lacks the outsider perspective - the protagonist is introduced as a believer in the supernatural and doesn't have a "Scully" around to balance her out or serve as a natural reason for exposition.

The problem is the writing, which is terrible. The stories are poorly constructed, the characters nothing but big balls of quirks and cliches (think Twin Peaks), episodes rely on "Scooby Doo" style resolutions with the full confession in the last 90 seconds apparently a favorite. We also have a protagonist who finds one metahuman after another and, apparently, doesn't think to tell her former employers in the FBI. There's the usual "deep dark secret" that one finds in shows these days (something about "The Troubles," a spike in supernatural activity, returning and the protagonist has a mysterious connection to the town). Mostly though, it's such a lifeless, by-the-numbers exercise in lazy writing, cliche ridden dialogue and bland acting.

Of course, it might get better, so I'll probably watch a few more episodes. But, if it doesn't pick up soon...buh-bye.

Happy Trailers - The Pyramid (2014)

Another found footage movie...great. Because, the world doesn't have enough films featuring shaky cam, budget-saving cuts from the interesting stuff (like the monsters) in favor of character reaction shots (I'm looking at you Cloverfield), silly "video artifacts" (I've never had a video camera, DSLR or handheld suddenly get digital snow or any other artsy imperfection) and mysterious editing. Who's editing footage that has been found in an abandoned camera? And, who is the audience? Sometimes it is established, sometimes, it isn't. However, since there are some films that use these conceits to good effect (e.g., Blair With Project, Europa Report, Diary of the Dead) I don't reject found footage movies out-of-hand.

The opening of the trailer, a faux-history lesson told with still images, works for me. It sounds ominous, the images are stylishly rendered and presented and it creates a nice background for the film. And then we get...toxic air. I remember this scene from The Mummy. So is this an homage, a rip-off or have we all suddenly forgotten the pinnacle of Brandon Frasier's oeuvre?

I do like the idea of a massive, buried pyramid being found. It is a neat concept and a good jumping off point for a whole host of stories. So, why do we get a retread of The Descent? Monsters and mazes...that's the best the creative team could come up with? I mean, really, there seems to be nothing else to this movie. Also, why the heck are the deaths of most of the characters shown, including, apparently, the finale? Of course, this may not be the case; you can't really tell from a few seconds of footage. However, I have the bad feeling that, like many found footage movie trailers, we just saw a lot of the "money shots" in what will be a long, dull slog through badly lit sets with the occasional CG-monster jump scare.

Not impressed; but, I will watch it at 2 am when it shows up on Netflix in a few months.

Check out the trailer below; maybe you'll see something to like that I missed.

Neill Marshall Looking For A Gig

Neil Marshall has made some pretty awesome movies. Dog Soldiers, The Descent, and Centurion were all fun genre movies. The Descent 2 and Doomsday had their flaws, more in the latter than the former, but were still stylish, fast paced movies that were sufficiently entertaining.

He had a few things to say about his interest in a future Marvel film. During an interview with Vanity Fair he had this to say:

VF: If you were to ever go for one of those mega-budget movies, would you consider doing that female superhero movie everyone’s clamoring for? You have a great history of writing strong cinematic females.

NM: I think I’d like to do a big movie with a strong female lead, whether or not she would be a superhero. I’m more interested in characters like Scarlett Johansson in Lucy. I’m less interested in people with superpowers because I can’t identify with them. Very rarely do they get killed off, and when they do get killed off, chances are they’re going to be back . . . somehow. Yes, I’d love to do a big splashy movie with a great female lead, but it has to be someone I can believe in.

VF: Since you mention Scarlett Johansson and no superpowers, what about a Black Widow movie?

NM: I would love to do a Black Widow movie. That’s perfect, I would love to do that. That character is really interesting, she doesn’t have any superpowers, she just has extraordinary skills, and the world that she comes from, being this ex-K.G.B. assassin, I find that really fascinating, yeah.

This would be a great match-up. Marshall has shown a talent for writing and directing strong female characters. And his action sequences are a nice mix of gritty and cinematic. In other words, perfect for a Black Widow story. Finally, Johanssen starring in a solo Black Widow feature is a great idea in any case. She has a strong screen presence and Marvel could use a female-centric movie. Bring Yelena Belova, Russian intel's replacement Black Widow, in as the villain (maybe have Katrina Bowden; she was fun to watch in Tucker and Dale and I can imagine her in a skin tight jumpsuit) and have some sweet girl-girl fights.

Um, okay, maybe that was a little too much of my own inner movie theater coming out there.

Must Buy - Zombies Of Anarchy

Released today are a couple of disc sets that I have to buy. Sons of Anarchy Season 6 and The Walking Dead Season 4 are out. These are probably my two favorite series still in production. Sons is an amazing gonzo family soap opera, populated with great characters and consistently solid writing. Dead is uneven; but it still shows how to take a well-known genre (zombie horror), maintain the tropes (lots of gut chomping) and take the whole thing to another level by using the setting as a catalyst for character studies.

Sons of Anarchy, Season 6

In addition to the episodes, you get:

• Deleted Scenes
• Commentary on Episode 1, "Straw," featuring Kurt Sutter, Paris Barclay, and Jimmy Smits
• Commentary on Episode 13 (The Finale), "A Mother's Work," featuring Kurt Sutter, Paris Barclay, Maggie Siff and Katey Sagal
• Anarchy Afterword
• Season Premiere
• The Mad King
• Season Finale
• Character Good Byes
• Sons for Sandy
• Gag Reel

The Walking Dead, Season 4, Blu-ray

• Extended Episodes: Episodes 9 (“After”), and 14 (“The Grove”) are extended on the Blu-ray™ only.
• Inside THE WALKING DEAD
• The Making of THE WALKING DEAD
• Drawing Inspiration
• Hershel
• The Governor Is Back
• Society, Science & Survival
• Inside KNB EFX
• A Journey Back to Brutality
• Deleted Scenes
• Episode Commentaries

There's also a special edition. Pretty sweet looking!

The Last Man On Earth (1964) - With The Last Spoilers On Earth

The first film adaptation of I Am Legend, Richard Matheson's horror masterpiece, this Italian production opens promisingly. A deserted city at dawn, filmed in washed out black and white. Bodies and abandoned cars litter the streets. A church sign proclaims that "The end has come." Inside a boarded up house, Robert Morgan (Vincent Price) wakes up to the jangle of an alarm clock and begins to go through his daily routine. Mark off the date on a makeshift calendar scribbled on the wall - the year is 1967. Check for the pungency of garlic strings hanging from his doors. Top off the fuel in his generator. Clear up the bodies on his front lawn. Have some coffee. Check his shortwave radio for any sign of life. Then start making stakes on the lathe in his living room for the day's hunt.

Because Robert Morgan (Robert Neville in the book) is the last human left on a planet of vampires.

The Last Man on Earth follows the book closely, which is not surprising, given that Richard Matheson had a hand in writing the script. The two main points of departure are the excising of a significant part of the book that details Neville's attempt to gain a scientific understanding of the plague and the ending, in which Morgan's blood might be a cure for the disease; in the novel, there is no cure. Of the three direct adaptations - the other two being The Omega Man (1971) and I Am Legend (2007) - The Last Man on Earth is the most faithful, including key plot points that are not in the other two films.

The most important of these is the inclusion of two types of vampires; the almost mindless, zombie-like monsters that surround Morgan's house and a second strain that is intelligent. The latter is in the process of forming a new society. They view Morgan - who, unaware that there two species of vampire, has been indiscriminately killing both - as a threat. Morgan realizes that by his actions, he has become a boogeyman-like figure in the new vampire civilization (a vampire's vampire) and as such will live on in their stories forever, the last example of the dead race of Man (this point is more explicit in the novel). It also provides another perspective on Morgan's struggle to survive, in the sense that societies look at any outsider as a threat - as a monster - even if they engage in the same actions to ensure their own survival. In both the book and film, the vampire society is also hunting down their feral cousins with a brutality equal to that of Morgan.

Although hampered by a low budget and some clumsy dialogue, the film does have a number of strengths. Vincent Price does a convincing job conveying a necessary numbness, while giving way to moments of rage and despair. He is someone suffering from an ongoing traumatic stress disorder. His struggle for survival is presented as a monotonous series of chores, not an exciting "Robinson Crusoe-esque" adventure. While there are elements of this genre of survival fiction present - we see how Morgan has transformed his home into a workshop, how he has stockpiled food, etc - the film deconstructs them, making them more dully realistic and, in some cases, sinister.

Morgan's daily "chores" - replacing garlic, making stakes, his door-to-door search for the undead, an endless nightmare of staking and burnings - is effectively demonstrated as necessary for his survival, yet ultimately pointless; there is no one left who isn't a vampire. His attacks on the undead are not rousing actions sequences; they are presented as Morgan descending on lone, sleeping creatures, who have been shown to be weak, uncoordinated and posing little threat on their own or even in groups. The pointlessness of his task is demonstrated effectively in a brief scene where Morgan is plotting out the day's hunt on a map. Even with such a pathetic adversary, in the years since the plague, Morgan has only managed to clear out a small part of his city. It is never explained why he thinks the vampires wouldn't just migrate back into the cleared areas. At this point in the film all the viewers know is that the entire human race has either died or been turned into slow-moving monsters. In theory, he could be faced with having to stake millions of vampires, a Sisyphean task.

Set design also plays an important thematic role. Morgan's house, his island in the sea of vampires, at first glance is impressive with its living room lathe and radio set-up, the huge refrigerators of food and garlic, the garage generator allowing for some comforts (home movies and a stereo). On closer examination, however, this staple of survival fiction (the comfortable and safe home hacked out of the dangerous wilderness) is shown to be lacking. After three years, Morgan has yet to board up his windows with anything more than a few two-by-fours. While adequate to keep out the vampires (another indication of how little they actually threaten him) they seem laughable as a defense. Why not install shutters or metal bars? The vampires have little strength, pitifully pounding on his front door with whatever debris they can find. Why not put up a fence and keep them away from the house (and provide Morgan with a little peace and quiet, since he is obviously bothered by the constant noise)? While one could write this off as an issue of the film's low-budget, everything about the home mise-en-scene points to a purposeful goal, a planned visual theme. The walls are hung with askew paintings. There is no division between work space and personal space. Morgan sleeps in a cluttered room, on an unmade bed, fully-clothed. This is the environment of trauma. It is survival stripped of purpose, the mechanics of life when there is no future.

Dressed for post-apocalyptic success.

When he inevitably finds his "Friday" (Ruth Collins, played by Franca Bettoia) the film (and book) turn this genre standard on its head. Instead of becoming the faithful companion (and mother of a new human race with the help of a potent hero) she turns out to be an intelligent vampire, sent to spy on him. Her ultimate mission; to set him up to be killed by her brethren. She provides him with no comfort, telling him his daily vampire hunts have resulted in the deaths of many of her friends and that he is viewed by the new society as a monster worse than the shambling corpses outside his door.

In the world of The Last Man on Earth human survival is, at best, a lonely, agonizing exercise in dull terror and endlessly repetitive tasks with no ultimate meaning.

On a technical level, the film is uneven. Some of the imagery is unsettling and has gone on to become genre standards. The burn pit at the edge of the city where the corpses of first plague victims and later the vampires Morgan dispatches are burned, where the fires never end. The gas mask wearing troops loading bodies into trucks, then tossing them into the pit like garbage. The shambling hordes of the undead trying to break into a boarded-up house (George Romero acknowledges that both I Am Legend and The Last Man on Earth influenced Night of the Living Dead). The empty cityscapes, conveying a dead world. The dirt covered, reanimated corpse of Morgan's wife, come back from the grave and waiting for him at his door.

However, the film has its weaknesses. The day-for-night sequences are painfully obvious. The flashbacks which show life before and during the plague are bland; while they serve to explain the background of the world, they are dull, are hampered by poor dialogue and overacting by the cast. The post-dubbing is terrible and makes the film seem more amateurish than it is. While the slow moving vampires serve the film thematically, they don't make for a very compelling menace. At no point does Morgan actually seem to be in danger...at least until the machine gun toting intelligent vampires show up. While Morgan's home is an interesting set, his pre-apocalypse workplace - a virology lab - is sparsely dressed, with only a microscope and a couple of beakers on a lab table. And, due to the lack of menace and action, the film does drag at spots, which can make its 86 minute run time seem to go on a bit longer.

The Last Man on Earth is a worthwhile adaptation of Matheson's book and a satisfying horror/sci-fi film. While not without flaws, the film is engaging. Price, who is on screen the entire film and who has to carry much of the narrative on his own, does a good job, playing Morgan in a way that at first seems stoical (and, therefore, in keeping with the tropes of the survival hero); it only becomes clear as the film progresses that Morgan is an emotionally shattered man going through the motions of life, not a square-jawed hero ready to rebuild the world. Some of the scenes and images are unsettling and have gone on to become standards of the survival horror genre.

For these reasons, The Last Man on Earth is a rewarding viewing experience.

Watch the full movie below.

Short Attention Span Review - Race With The Devil (1975) - With Texas-Sized Spoilers

A tightly scripted and action filled thriller, Race With The Devil (1975) is an entertaining blend of paranoia and car crashes. Peter Fonda and Warren Oats - along with their wives Loretta Swit and Lara Parker- set out on a well-deserved vacation to Aspen from their home in San Antonio. Traveling in a decked out RV - a motorized manifestation of the suburban dream - they stop for the night in a rural backwater...and witness a Satanic mass that ends in murder. From that moment on, they are pursued across Texas by an ever-widening conspiracy of Satanists.

Among the cast, Fonda and Oats carry the show. While Swit turns in a strong performance as Oats' wife, Parker is mostly wasted, due to her being reduced to a stereotypical shrieking damsel in distress. Perhaps this is the greatest weakness of the script; both Swit and Parker don't have much to do, leaving the fighting to the men. In fact, the dialogue and plot points (the men serve as the primary emotional attachment for each other) makes the women almost superfluous.

For those looking for thrills, the vehicle stunt work is impressive. A number stand-out chase scenes are the action centerpiece of the movie and the practical effects and stunt work is a nice contrast to the CGI-heavy films of today. When a car flips over in 'Race', it actually is a car, not pixels on a workstation.

Director Jack Starrett (The Losers, Cleopatra Jones) keeps everything moving along at a brisk pace. Even the moments of quiet have a tense edge to them, particularly as the characters and the viewer becomes aware of the scope of the conspiracy, mostly conveyed through lingering glances and slightly distorted close-ups of random people, who may or may not be Satanists. The chase sequences are well-filmed, conveying a solid kinetic feel without resorting to bane of the modern action film, the "shaky cam." 'Race' is a great example of how fluid camera work and deft editing - by John Link (Predator, Die Hard) - can propel an action sequence, while not inducing motion sickness in the audience.

While the filming by Robert Jessup is adequate, it at times has a "movie of the week" feel to it (although this is not a surprise given that most of Jessup's work both before and after 'Race' was in television) looking flat and dull - although, to some degree this reflects the time of year the film is set, January. One thing that is conveyed is a sense of a washed out, colorless landscape, in which the only things that brighten up the drabness are exploding cars and Satanist bonfires.

On the surface straightforward horror-thriller, 'Race' has a few deeper themes, something that rewards a careful viewing. Made during a time of social dislocation and national exhaustion - the aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate, the recent '73 oil crisis and overall poor economic performance and ongoing changes in race, gender and class relations - 'Race' presents a picture of the middle class under assault. During the course of the film, a jarring coalition of authority figures (the police, the rural power structure), big business (as exemplified by the apparent involvement of the telephone company in the conspiracy) and the working class (the "average" citizens who track the protagonists and serve as foot soldiers for those in power) make up the ranks of the Satanists. The fact that all this takes place in the poster state for conservatism and the myth-space of the Old West (in which men were rugged individuals, not robe wearing lapdogs of Satan!) further emphasizes the theme that no one can be trusted, whatever there surface appearance or professed beliefs and that old standards and socio-cultural norms are dead. In our own age of the National Security State, ubiquitous surveillance and attenuating personal ties, this message of profound alienation is, if anything, more powerful.

Overall, Race with the Devil is a rewarding mix of exploitation film standards and deeper themes that reflect the time the film was made...and which still resonate today, as we sit at home and wonder who, if anyone, can be trusted.

True Blood - Farewell, Adieu, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye

Over the years, True Blood has been entertaining. It delivered tons of sex, violence, okay writing, a cast that, for the most part, was fun to watch and a sense of naughty, campy fun. However, the last few years demonstrated writer and actor fatigue. Stories became repetitive - Sookie in danger, Sookie rescued by Bill/Eric/Alcide, Sookie whines about being a freak/unable to love/a danger - and boring. Some of the actors - Alexander Skarsgård, Kristin Bauer van Straten, Ryan Kwanten, Deborah Ann Woll and Carrie Preston - still seemed to be having fun, even when their characters were badly mishandled (Jason in particular). Others, Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer in particular, seem to have given up. Whether that is because they aren't good actors or because the writers failed to provide them with consistent motivation I'll leave up to the viewers. I will say that, in Paquin's case, it has more to do with the writing. After seven seasons, the writers never managed to make Sookie an interesting, compelling character. She whined a lot, got involved in sick situations (for example, the Warlow relationship) and had a character arc that seemed to consist of "me me me...wait...yep, me me me." By Season Seven, even the writers seemed to have realized this, as the voice of reason (Pam) is consistently and accurately critical of how self-centered Sookie is.

True Blood always had problems with creating interesting villains. Russell Edgington was the most interesting and that's because Denis O'Hare gave a great performance. Last season's Truman Burrell failed as a villain because a) he was too much of caricature and b) because he was basically right about the threat vampires represent. Earlier villains were just as bad, little more than plot-devices. And, the underlying theme - that vampires represent the LGTB community and that True Blood is about the importance of accepting the basic humanity of everyone - makes no sense because the vampires - even the "heroes" - are murderous, bloodthirsty monsters, most of whom see humans as either pets or prey. The analogy, therefore, completely collapses. And, with it the idea of a thematic center to the series. You can't really have heroes who murder dozens, even hundreds, of people, many innocent. There were people who were heroes (I think Sam and Alcide fall into this category) but the Central characters - Bill, Eric and Sookie - are self-centered, massively destructive and, in the case of Bill and Eric, responsible for the deaths of many, many people. You can have anti-heroes - Han Solo, for example, is a great example of someone who starts off with a self-centered, amoral worldview; but, by the end of Return of the Jedi he has changed in a believable way to someone who cares about others. This does not happen in True Blood. In the episode "Karma" Bill murders a lawyer, just because he doesn't like her decision not to help him with a legal matter. This is the act of a killer and villain; but Bill is supposed to be an honorable man (at least, when he isn't being a morose vampire god).

So, how was the last episode? First, by now, I don't care at all about Sookie and Bill. Terrible writing and bad acting have combined to create a complete lack of interest in their storyline. So, every second spent with the seems like a waste of screentime. Bill wants to die so Sookie can have kids? Fucking adopt. The problem with this is that Bill is a killer with faux-morals and Sookie is a self-centered child-woman. While this was okay in the first few seasons as the characters were developing, these remain their defining traits. The scenes with Pam and Eric are, as usual, delightful. I could easily watch a Pam and Eric show. The writers mostly know what to do with them and the actors care about their roles. Jessica and Hoyt's story...sigh...who cares. I like the Jessica character, and Woll as an actor, but that storyline seemed so rushed and Hoyt is such a weak, annoying character whose arc originally ended at an appropriate point, that their hooking back up means nothing. And the wedding; it would be hard to come up with a better way to show how vapid and lacking motivation your characters are. This episode demonstrated all of the worst traits of the show; random stuff happening, characters acting in ways that make no sense, even in the context of a trash-horror series, a few amusing scenes from the actors who are actually good and a lot of stuff that leads the viewer to scratch their heads and wonder how a show that started so strong collapsed so utterly.

Well, at least Bill died. A last minute deus ex Sookie would have made a bad episode (and season) even worse.

Oh, and what was the point of the creepy sister-brother sex talk, where Sookie all-but-tells Jason to have sex with a woman he just met? This is just abusive to the character. It's like the writers want her to seem like the most horrible, inappropriate person possible. Well, good job guys, you succeeded.

Ultimately, all the stylistic blood and sex in the world can't make up for incoherent character motivation, repetitive story lines and the lack of well-constructed plots. True Blood had its moments; but it burned out about 3 years ago.

Short Attention Span Review - Horror Express (1972) - With Non-Stop Service To Spoilers

Horror Express is a tasty sci-fi/horror stew. Set on the Trans-Siberian Railway a few years before the Russian Revolution, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing star as scientists battling a lethal visitor from space. A frozen prehistoric corpse unearthed by Lee holds within it the life force of an extraterrestrial, left here eons ago by his inattentive fellow aliens. While these elements lend the film it's science fiction flavor, the movie owes much of it's look and story elements to gothic horror (particularly of the Hammer Films variety).

The setting is pure 19th Century gothic, with the cramped train interiors and baroque decorations a suitable stand in for crumbling castles and dark crypts. Alberto de Mendoza's Father Pujardov, a Rasputin-like mad monk, would be equally at home standing in a ghost-haunted cemetery. The monster kills by draining it's victims of life and memories by making eye contact, can leap from body to body and even raise some it's victims from the dead, powers more in keeping with some ghoulish supernatural entity.

The forces of authority are pretty much useless, standard for films of this genre. Julio Pena's Inspector Mirov is mostly interested in not "panicking" the passengers, the refrain of every cop or government official in every horror movie. When Telly Savalas and his band of trigger-happy troops show up, they mainly serve as cannon fodder and, later, a pack of shuffling zombies.

Science, however, comes to the rescue, with Lee and Cushing tag-teaming their way to defeating the menace (well, with the aid of a long drop and and a big explosion; it's action-science!). Of course, the science in question is very 19th Century. Knowledge is "engraved" on the human brain, so, when the alien performs a knowledge suck, the brain becomes smooth. Memory is stored in the fluid of the eyes. When the alien leaps from the ape-man to Inspector Mirov, he somehow sprouts a hairy, Neanderthal hand. You know....Science!

The film does have some effective chills and some interesting plot points. The ape-man costume looks pretty good (aided by the fact that it's kept in shadow) and the attacks are well done. The confined spaces of the train and the frequent use of close-ups and tight shots create a suitably claustrophobic feeling. The lead actors all do a fine job with their roles, particularly Lee and Cushing, who make believable men of action AND intellect. Mendoza has a lot of fun with the Pujardov character. He's so intense and greasy the screen almost sweats when he's spouting off about the alien being Satan or, later, groveling at the creature's feet. And it is refreshing that the goal of the alien is not conquest or destruction; it just wants to rejoin it's fellow brain suckers in space, even if that means advancing human civilization.

Is it a great movie? No. Many of the effects are pretty bad. The musical score is too bombastic for the events of the film. The alien's powers are driven more by the needs of the plot than any sense of consistency. The ending - where Moscow orders the train to be destroyed - makes no sense, since there's no indication that anything is wrong, other than a couple of murders. However, for a fun and genuinely creepy 90 minutes, get your ticket and take a ride on the Horror Express.

Check out the full movie below.

Masque Of The Red Death (1964) - With Color-Coded Spoilers

Synopsis

An old women wanders a stage-bound hillside, collecting firewood. She encounters a man dressed in a red hooded robe who gives her a rose and tells her to return home, proclaiming that the "day of...deliverance is at hand."

So begins Roger Corman's Masque of the Red Death. Part of the American International Pictures series of films based on Edgar Allen Poe's works, Masque stars Vincent Prince as Prince Prospero, a man of calculating evil who rules over a Medieval wasteland. While tormenting a village of his peasants, Prospero discovers that the old woman's "deliverance" is the Red Death, a disease that causes one to bleed from the pores, dying in agony.

As the plague spreads across the countryside, Prospero gathers the local nobility into the safety of his castle. Of course, how safe can you be with a man who worships the devil, likes to spout off about the true nature of terror and occasionally murders people? As it turns out, not very safe.

The local 1% engages in the usual debauchery, while Price tries to convince local villager Francesca (the beautiful, but a little bland, Jane Asher) to embrace evil. The gathering soon devolves into death and madness. Prospero's consort, Juliana (Hazel Court, who oozes smoldering sensuality) pledges herself to Satan as his bride and, after a experiencing a drug-induced hallucination of Hell that leaves her wanting more, is killed by a raven. Alfredo (the great Patrick Magee as a sadistic, sexually deviant noble, a base version of Prospero) is incinerated while wearing an ape costume during the climatic masquerade ball. Gino (David Weston) and Ludovico (Nigel Green) - Francesca's lover and father, respectively - are forced to play a game involving a poisoned dagger that ends with one of them dead. Fun and games in 14th Century Europe.

As the masquerade ball nears its climax and Francesca is apparently ready to give herself over to Prospero, the "Man in Red" makes an appearance and gives Vincent Price a final, fatal insight into how the world really works.

Analysis

If there is a central theme, it is the victory of entropy over everything else. Prospero thinks that by declaring God to be dead and creating an Id-driven, solipsistic universe, he has achieved insight into mankind's place in the world, as a passion driven animal. Francesca clings to a fuzzy notion of a God of Love, although, as she admits when Prospero tries to engage her in a philosophical discussion, "I have no learning." Her's is the faith of the innocent...or, as Prospero obviously believes, the common herd. Gino and Ludovico, focus on a more relationship driven world, one in which the bonds of friendship and love will win out over the immoral world of the lonely Prince Prospero. Juliana is has made Prospero's attention the center of her universe, doing anything, even risking her soul, to gain his approval. Prospero's various sycophants are followers, doing whatever degrading acts he commands, whether for safety, wealth or, in the case of Alfredo, the license to indulge one's animal instincts.

Hazel Court and Jane Asher make for a delicious duo.

The Red Death wipes all of these attempts to define existence away. Although ostensibly a personification of Death, it is more accurate to see it as the force of universal entropy. It not only brings an end to life; it crushes belief and reveals the universe to be a blank slate, one that we all imprint meaning on; but all meaning is ultimately pointless. In the end, the Red Death - the force of entropy - is the only truth

It is the sophistication of theme and presentation that makes Masque such an impressive film. Sumptuously filmed, with vibrant colors, a suitably disturbing soundtrack, impressive sets for a film of this budget (recycled from the film Beckett) and an effective cast, without this thematic sophistication, it would be intellectually empty. Instead, it is a brooding meditation on the meaning of all things, one that rewards the careful viewer with a provocative examination wrapped in the trappings of a moderately budgeted period horror movie

Film Highlights

• Just about any of Vincent Price's soliloquies on the meaning of life and the manifest failings of humanity. From such an accomplished and charismatic actor, what could seem to be amoral justifications for atrocities, come across as well-reasoned lessons on human nature. It is easy to see how someone like Francesca could, in the end, come at least part of the way towards Prospero's world-view.
• When the village is being torched by Prospero's men, a peasant runs out of burning hut, clutching a baby. Another peasant picks up the kid and leaves the burning man lying on the ground, unaided. It succinctly sums up the tension between human mercy and the brutality of existence that will be repeated throughout the film.
• The use of obvious sets for outdoor scenes contributes to the feeling that our reality is just a facade, something laid over a truth that will be revealed over the course of the film.
• Hazel Court and Jane Asher are a pair of truly fetching redheads...wait, redheads...in a movie...about the Red Death...it's all connected.

Verdict

This is a great movie, a true classic. It should be considered mandatory viewing for anyone who considers themselves a cineaste.

American Horror Story Teaser; Short, Creepy, Perfect

This trailer epitomizes everything that is great about AHS. It is something normal, turned 90 degrees into unsettling weirdness.

Henri - A Tale Of Feline Existential Ennui

How is it that I have never heard of the Henri series? Madness, that's how.

The idea of videoing your cat, then providing voice-over of his morose, angst-ridden thoughts in French, is brilliant. Sort of Garfield if done by Truffaut. Probably the best no-budget French New Wave parody I've seen. Great stuff.

Here's episode one.

Invisible Invaders (1959) - With Visible Spoilers

Like any art, movies reflect the culture that they emerged from. Invisible Invaders, a low-budget alien invasion film, came from a culture with deep seated fears and insecurities. The ambiguities of the Cold War, concerns of nuclear proliferation, the tension between the military and science, varying attitudes towards pacifism and military preparedness and fears of communist infiltration are all on display. That these themes are sandwiched between moments of ludicrous melodramatics, scenery chewing acting, dull direction and cinematography and a lot of stock footage does not detract from them.

Synopsis

The film opens with an accident in a atomic weapons lab, an explosion that kills Karol Noymann (played by John Carradine; although he is referred to as Karol by the cast, he is listed as Carl Noymann in the end credits and is called Carl in the opening narration). This leads Professor Adam Penner (Philip Tonge) to resign from America's nuclear weapons program because of the threat it represents to the human race. His family, friends and colleagues don't understand why he thinks working on weapons that can destroy civilization is a problem. His daughter Phyllis - played by Jean Byron - exemplifies this attitude, hoping "he gets over it."

The night after Noymann's funeral, his reanimated corpse shows up at Penner's door, to deliver a message from the "Invisible Invaders." The aliens - whose ships and bodies are invisible, hence the name, and who can possess human corpses - want Penner to tell the world that the human race must surrender in 24 hours or a massive invasion force will be launched from the Moon. The alien explains that they are going to attack because mankind is developing nuclear weapons and space travel and might be a threat to their "dictatorship of the universe."

Of course, no one listens. The invasion commences; it consists of stock footage of various disaster, inter-cut with a few scenes of reanimated corpses lumbering about the countryside (all of whom are well-dressed, middle-aged white men). Our heroes (the Penners, scientist - and the initial, ambiguous love interest for Phyllis - John Lamont (Robert Hutton) and Air Force Major Bruce Jay (B-movie regular John Agar, who gets the girl in the end...of course)) retreat to an underground bunker, working desperately to find a weapon to defeat the invaders. After only three days, mankind is on the brink of extinction. However, at the last minute, our heroes succeed in developing a sonic weapon that can defeat the aliens.

The movie ends with the protagonists being thanked by the UN and the human race learning a valuable lesson; that in spite of our differences, we can cooperate

Analysis

While the story is pretty straight forward (and adequate for the 67 minute runtime) it does have a number of themes in tension. The attitude towards nuclear weapons is conflicted. They are responsible for the death of Noymann, Penner cites environmental contamination from tests and accidents as a reason he is leaving the project and their development prompts the alien invasion. The military justifies their development by saying the Russians are working on them, so we have to as well, a pragmatic/realist view of nuclear deterrence. While the aliens cite the development of nuclear weapons as one reason for invading, the fact that they wiped out the original inhabitants of the moon, shows that they are a genocidal menace. In this case, the argument can be made that nuclear weapons themselves are not the problem. Rather, the problem is that they cannot be employed as a deterrent. An incomplete, but potentially threatening defense is more destabilizing than either no defense or one that is a capable deterrent.

Best. Dressed. Zombies. Ever.

There is a mixed message regarding pacifism and peace advocacy. Penner is approached by the aliens because he has been an advocate for peace. Apparently, pleading for peace and cooperation leaves you open to manipulation by aliens, communists, and whatever other inhuman monsters are menacing America. However, it is the lack of peace - in the sense that building nuclear weapons is indicative of a lack of peace - that prompts the aliens to invade Earth when they do. They have been observing Earth for thousands of years; it is only when our technology is approaching the point where we can take our warlike ways into space that they finally see us as a threat.

With the specter of a catastrophic nuclear war hanging over America in the '50s, it is not surprising that attitudes towards peace were complex. Peace was desirable, particularly in the wake of the global devastation of the Second World War. However, advocating peace and disarmament while the "other side" prepared for war was seen as suicidal. It was also not clear what could provoke the USSR and Communist China. Would they launch an attack if they thought the US was too weak and passive? Or would an arms build-up lead to a preemptive assault?

The film also looks at the tension between the scientific and military communities (a standard note of tension in science fiction films of the time). While science and the military are intertwined in many of the films of the era, it is an uneasy partnership. From the military's initial lack of understanding of Penner's reasons for quitting the nuclear weapons program to Lamont shifting from proponent of a robust defense to sniveling coward ready to surrender to the aliens (which leads to a fist fight with Major Jay) to Jay's no-nonsense "just build something to kill the enemy" attitude, the alliance between science and the military is not a comfortable one. That it is the clash between Jay and Lamont that leads directly to the means to destroy the aliens can be seen as an indication that this uneasy relationship is both necessary and complex.

Finally, the film touches at the need for unity among the nations of the world. While the story focuses on the United States and the efforts of our American heroes, it is telling that the first clue to the alien's weakness comes from a Russian scientist working in Moscow. It ultimately takes the efforts of the entire human race to win the war, even though our heroes develop the weapon that can destroy them. This is in contrast to other, similarly themed movies of the time. For example, in The War of the Worlds, the Communist block nations are never mentioned. It is a small moment, a tiny bit of dialogue, but it does reinforce the theme that we all stand or fall together.

Verdict

Invisible Invaders is a watchable, low-budget movie that has some thematic complexity, although it it is hampered by the reliance on stock footage, dull direction, flat cinematography and mediocre performances. Check it out.

Short Attention Span Review - It! The Terror From Beyond Space (1958) With Stow-Away Monster Spoilers

Synopsis

It is January 1973 and the first American spacecraft to Mars crash lands. Six months later, a rescue ship finds mission commander Edward Carruthers (Marshall Thompson, star of Fiend Without A Face), the only survivor. The crew of the rescue ship - in particular, ship captain Colonel Van Heusen (Kim Spalding) - believes that Carruthers murdered his crew in order to survive. Soon, however, they find that they have a stowaway; the real killer, a Martian predator. The crew must wage a life-and-death struggle against a seemingly indestructible creature. Will they be able to find a way to kill "It" before "It" kills them?

Analysis

It! The Terror From Beyond Space is a B-movie classic. While most of the individual elements (story, acting, special effects) have problems - some serious - the film works as a whole. Running a lean 69 minutes, It! benefits from a streamlined, economical story. The narrative moves forward rapidly, keeping the tension at an engaging level. The cinematography - heavy on the use of shadows to both obscure some of the shoddier special effects and minimal sets and to heighten tension and the claustrophobic feel - is sophisticated enough to elevate the film above some of its workmanlike peers. Some thought went into the characters, although developing them is hampered by both the short run-time and the acting, which never rises above the adequate.

The problems are evident and typical of low-budget films of the period. For example, the special effects are not very good, even by the standards of the day. In part, this was due to a low budget (around $100,000) and poor communication among the production team. The monster costume, designed and built by Paul Blaisdell (The Day The World Ended, It Conquered The World) - a special effects man well known among fans of low-budget science fiction and horror films of the 1950s - suffers from having been made by Blaisdell for himself to wear. When the suit was delivered, he learned that Ray Corrigan - a B-movie actor and stuntman considerably larger than Blaisdell - had been cast as "It." This proved a problem, since the mask was fitted for Blaisdell's smaller head. He had to quickly come up with a fix; he made a new lower jaw for the mask and then made Corrigan's chin up to look like the creature's tongue, since it stuck out of the mouth of the mask. Given that the costume is problematic, the less seen of the creature, the better. Director Edward Cahn (director of Invisible Invaders, the subject of Cult Cinema Review #8) and cinematographer Kenneth Peach (cinematographer for 25 episodes of The Outer Limits, among many other television and movie credits) wisely keep the monster mostly in the shadows. When it is seen to "full effect" the costume detracts from the film. Other effects - a space walk on the surface of the ship, a painting of the surface of Mars - are ambitious, but look cheap, again due to the low budget. This was not a limitation of the special effects technology of the time. A visually stunning film like Forbidden Planet (released two years earlier) demonstrates what could be done, given time and resources.

The story itself has some significant problems. There is a missed opportunity with the story-line that Carruthers may have killed his crew. Since the audience sees the monster within moments of the film's beginning, we know Carruthers is innocent. What could have been an interesting twist and generated actual tension among the characters, is undercut by the decision to show the monster too soon. While the crew is co-ed, the female lead - Shawn Smith playing scientist Ann Anderson - mainly serves as the apex for a tepid love triangle with Carruthers and Heusen. The eventual method of killing the monster - "It" needs to breath, so they suffocate It by venting the ships atmosphere into space - is presented as a great revelation. However, it seems like a crew of scientists and engineers would figure this out pretty easily. And, there are some plot points that are just head-scratchers; for example, why is a rescue mission going to a planet that is assumed to be lifeless armed with hand grenades and bazookas?

Verdict

Even with these problems, the movie is still worth watching. The pace is rapid, the film is well shot (given the limitations - the sets consist of a handful of rooms on the ship and featureless exterior of the ship for the space walk), and the acting is not particularly bad (with the exception of the shrill, scenery-chewing of Spalding). With the caveats of budget and time limitations in mind, It! is an enjoyable and entertaining science-fiction film.

The Crawling Eye (1958) - With Head Munching Spoilers

An eye...that crawls. Doesn't sound too frightening, does it? How about one that's as big as a bus, is telepathic and eats people's heads? Still laughing at The Crawling Eye?

Well, you probably are. However, for a modestly budgeted Fifties sci-fi film, this English production (originally titled The Trollenberg Terror...I think the name change helps...otherwise, I'd be expecting menacing Swiss people) delivers a good story, some nice visuals, and even a few moments that are pretty gruesome for a film of this era.

Synopsis

The film starts off with an arresting scene - a trio of climbers on Mount Trollenberg (also the name of the near-by town) hear an odd beeping noise. This is followed by one of them being decapitated by an unseen force. Soon, Alan Brooks (Forrest Tucker, exuding beefy charm) arrives in the town with a pair of English sister in tow, Anne (Janet Munro) and Sarah Pilgrim (Jennifer Jayne). Ann is telepathic - the sisters are a "mind-reading act" - who is able to listen in on the alien's thoughts, something they are aware of and not too happy about.

As the death toll mounts, it is revealed that Brooks has encountered similar events - mysterious deaths on a mountain in the Andes, psychics experiencing visions, a radioactive cloud hugging the side of a mountain - and has come to Trollenberg to help a colleague (Professor Crevett, played by Warren Mitchell), a local astronomer conducting cosmic ray experiments, who was present at the events in South America. Soon, one of the victims - one who keeps his head - is brought back from the dead and tries to kill Anne. When this fails, the aliens attack the town and Trollenberg is overrun. The townspeople flee to Professor Crevett's mountaintop science-bunker (it is built like a fortress because of avalanches). After trying to fight off the aliens with molotov cocktails, Brooks convinces "the authorities" to napalm them, killing the aliens on the mountain; but, the invasion (or whatever it is the aliens are doing on Earth) goes on. The End.

Analysis

The film suffers from threadbare special effects. The model work is laughable, and the aliens - giant brains with a single, cyclopean eye - are too goofy to be menacing. The scenes on the mountain are obviously set-bound. Most of the movie takes place in a hotel, which obviously saved on costs by limiting the number of set needed. For those who are connoisseurs of B-movies, these are familiar limitations.

The movie also suffers from uneven acting. Janet Monroe, while easy on the eyes, over plays her role, translating 'psychic in distress' into enthusiastic scenery chewing. Forrest Tucker is adequate as a leading man, although he looks a lot older than his 39 years. Many of the supporting cast affect faux-German accents.

The movie's strong points, however, outweigh any faults. The story is logically constructed and, for the most part, the characters behave in a believably fashion. In particular, the efforts by the protagonists to piece together what is happening, proceed rationally. It's never clear why the aliens are doing what they are doing. A few theories are thrown out, but nothing is confirmed. This makes sense and adds to the verisimilitude of the film; the protagonists would be in the dark, given what little information they have and how alien the creatures are. The way the movie is tied into an earlier event serves to increase the believability by making it part of a "larger world." This also provides motivation for the protagonists, both to investigate what's happening on the mountain, as well as explaining why Tucker's character is reluctant to inform the authorities. He was scoffed at and humiliated when he reported the events in the Andes, so he's not about to go through the same thing again. It is this kind of care in storytelling that makes it easier suspend disbelief. Jimmy Sangster, the screenplay's author, had a long career in horror films, penning some of the best Hammer films (e.g., The Curse of Frankenstein and Dracula: Prince of Darkness). Sangster's scripts always were tightly written, with memorable characters and a distinct lack of condescending attitude towards the subject matter.

Film Highlights

• Forrest Tucker is not the guy to be around if you're trying to de-tox. Within the space of a short time, he offers the sisters a flask - because Ann had a bad dream - and a pack of smokes. I assume the scene where he pulls out the heroin was cut.
• Actually, everyone drinks and smokes. Vast amounts. Most of the film seems to take place in a hotel bar, with everyone getting hammered, regardless of the time. When a pair of mountain climbers is abut to head to the Trollenberg, they get liquored up first and make certain to pack extra booze for the climb. I think I should've lived in the Fifties.
• The first thing the alien animated corpse (Brett, a local guide) sent to kill Anne wants; a drink and a smoke. Of course.
• Professor Crevett boasting about how much money he has gotten from the government for his experiments, all spent on things that seem superfluous to "cosmic ray" research. This is where your tax dollars go.
• Brett's arm melting when exposed to heat...a simple optical effect, but still pretty gruesome.
• While hampered by poor model work, the final attack of the aliens on the mountain observatory is pretty awesome. Tense and audacious - a half-dozen giant brains, Molotov cocktail armed heroes, jets dumping napalm on the aliens who writhe in agony...pretty neat.

Verdict

By treating the subject seriously and creating believable characters with understandable motivations, The Crawling Eye is set apart from lesser efforts in the science fiction and horror genres. Too often, the creative team behind these movies treats them as a disposable product, with more emphasis on special effects or shock scenes, and little thought given to story, plot or characters. This is not something found only in low-budget films or b-movies. Modern films like Avatar, with a budget thousands of times greater than The Crawling Eye, are content with providing pretty pictures and hyper-kinetic action scenes, while short-changing character development and story. While it would be easy to see only cheap special effects or overacting, an attentive viewer will also see good story telling, visual inventiveness and a movie that is a prime example of how to over come the limits of a low budget.

Short Attention Span Review - The Den (2013) - With Chat Room Spoilers

This is a random watch for me. I was looking for some background noise while “working” on a short story. This turned into me drinking coffee and watching the film. Short story, still sitting around waiting to be finished.

Elizabeth is a grad student engaged in a project to examine an online community called The Den. She eventually gets sucked into an online snuff ring, where people are being killed by a group of hooded killers. Apparently, this group is everywhere, as friends and family of Elizabeth are targeted. It ends with Elizabeth being killed and other people paying to watch the video online. The End.

This wasn't the worst use of found footage that I’ve seen. For a sub-genre I don't like, I seem to watch a lot of these movies. Of course, since every other horror film is found footage and I watch a lot of horror films...I guess I’m kind of stuck.

The concept isn’t bad and the story doesn’t require any huge leaps of logic to work. Except, of course, the idea of a mass conspiracy. But, it reminded me of one of my favorite Seventies horror films Race with the Devil, where all of rural Texas is infested with Satan worshipers. This kind of suspension of disbelief is fine with me.

The acting is adequate and our protagonist does a number of smart things. For example, she contacts the police on a number of occasions and, in general doesn’t act too stupid...except she doesn’t just turn off her freaking computer. But, if that happened, no movie. So, I can give them that. The filmmakers try to spice up the static shots with a few things like a go-pro section and some handheld stuff from smart phones. The edited scenes - cutting between different cameras when Elizabeth fights with and kills one of the hooded snuff guys - works, since we are watching the film that is being marketed online. Not a bad concept. I would assume that means the the killers even add in the soundtrack.

The overall message - that you can’t trust anything on the Interwebs and that anonymity gives people an excuse to do anything they want - isn’t very original. But, you could also look at this as just another “mass conspiracy paranoia” film like Race with the Devil or Hostel.

The Den is okay and worth checking out. It is not a great movie, but it is a solid low-budget thriller.

Happy Trailers - Automata (2014)

Set in the year 2044, Automata follows the adventures of insurance agent Antonio Banderas who is investigating what appears to be emerging self-awareness in robots.

The story isn't unique; however, the trailer gives the impression that this might be a more thoughtful version of the dreadful I, Robot. The world has a very Blade Runner feel to it. You have a collapsing eco-system, a mix of high and low tech and a mono-color palette (black in Blade Runner, white in this film), as well as the subject, how artificial intelligence might come about and the ramifications. Visually, the tech and city designs we see in the trailer look good. And the cast is serviceable.

Of course, if this film doesn't want to be a generic action/effects orgy, it needs to have a good story. And that is something that you don't get a sense of from the trailer. It looks interesting - I like the idea of a non-standard hero being brought in (insurance guy) and that the sign of emerging self-awareness are robots modifying their bodies. It will also be interesting to see what they do with the concept of a robot refugee camp. How much time will be spent developing an AI society? Will this be an examination of where technology could be taking us, both good - creating a new form of intelligence - and bad - the eco-collapse that the world appears to be in the midst of? Or will we get robots running around doing sinister thing? From the tone of the trailer, this does not appear to be the case. However, the only way to know is to get my butt in a seat when the film comes out. And, the trailer presents enough of the story and visuals to make me want to do that.

Short Attention Span Review - Xtro (1983)

Xtro is part of the wave of science fiction movies that came out in the late-70s and early-80s. While hampered by a low-budget, production problems, lackluster acting and a story that is at times incoherent, the movie is not without merit.

Synopsis

The film has a strong opening. Rachel (Bernice Stegers), her husband Sam (Philip Sayer) and their son, Tony (Simon Nash) are spending some time at cottage in the English countryside. Rachel heads into town, while Sam and Tony play around in the yard. Although it is the middle of the day, the sky turns pitch black. Sam is drawn into a bright light that descends from the sky. Three years later, Rachel and Tony are living with Rachel's boyfriend Joe (Danny Brainin) and au pair Analise (the fetching, and repeatedly naked, Mariam d'Abo).

The alien ship returns, depositing a rubbery looking monster that impregnates a woman (Susie Silvey). Her abdomen rapidly swells and she gives birth to an adult Sam, in a graphic scene that ends with him biting through his umbilical code. Sam reunites with Rachel and Tony, throwing their domestic world into chaos. In short order he: offers no reason to Rachel for his absence of three years, saying he doesn't remember; freaks out his son by eating his pet snake's eggs; explains to Tony that he's been on an alien world and has been "changed" so he could survive there; and injects Tony with a substance that begins mutating his body so he can return with Sam to his new home.

Tony soon finds that his changing body gives him fantastic powers, including telekinesis and the ability to warp reality, making his fantasies become real. He animates some of his toys, kills off a pesky neighbor, the building superintendent and Analise's boyfriend. He then uses his mouth to inject Analise with a substance that turns her into an egg producing cocoon suspended from the bathroom ceiling. Sam heads back to the cottage he was abducted from and gets Rachel to go to bed with him. This ends poorly, since his human skin is rotting off, revealing the alien within.

Joe and Tony head to the cottage. Joe is killed by Sam. Sam and Tony, who is also shedding his human skin, head into an alien spaceship, leaving mom behind. The film ends with Rachel returning home to find her apartment turned into an incubator for alien eggs...one of which hatches, the creature within attacking her and, presumably, implanting some form of alien life within her. The end.

Analysis

The film's problems are numerous and obvious. It is shot in washed out colors and is set mostly indoors, in cramped homes and apartments, creating a dreary looking movie. The acting is low-key, to the point of being emotionless at times. None of the actors put much effort into their roles, giving performances that are perfunctory at best. Some of the alien make-up effects are rubbery. The internal logic of the film is lacking, with events happening that are never really explained. This is particularly true when it comes to the alien life cycle and powers. For example, Sam is able to melt a phone early in the film and, later, melt a phone line. He isn't shown doing this to anything else. So, are phones allergic to aliens? Why does Rachel's apartment turn bright, glowing white at the end of the movie? Did Tony permanently alter reality with his unexplained powers? While science fiction and horror movies often require some suspension of disbelief, a well-crafted story will have understandable, internally consistent rules. If the established rules change, they have to do so in a reasonable fashion.

Not your usual father-son outing.

Character motivation is also a problem, particularly regarding Rachel. Sam shows up after being gone for three years and claims he has had amnesia...and Rachel accepts the explanation. Her lack of suspicion is comical as Sam's behavior becomes increasingly suspicious. There is also a question about Sam's mission. Is it just to retrieve Tony? Is it to lay eggs on Earth? Why doesn't Sam infect Rachel with whatever he used to alter Tony? He said he wanted to reunite with his family; but in the end, he is only interested in Tony.

Even with these flaws, there are some interesting things happening in this movie, particular in terms of themes. If you look at the story as a child's view of divorce and adult relations it becomes a much more interesting film. Seen through Tony's point-of-view, some of the faults become, if not virtues, at least understandable.

One of the aliens from Xtro.

Tony's father "abandons" him, something he has not gotten over; the opening abduction is presented as a reoccurring nightmare. The detached acting, punctuated by bursts of graphic violence, creates an image of adults, as remote, mysterious, powerful creatures. The photography - the muddy colors and the tight spaces - lend the film a very oppressive atmosphere, as if Tony's world has become cramped and colorless with the absence of his father. Even the rubbery special effects create a sense of magical reality. This whole movie could well be the wish fulfillment of a lonely little boy. When dad comes home, mom's new boyfriend is killed, the young man on the cusp of puberty gets to have his way with the hot, young au pair and, in the end, he gets to go with dad, now with the powers of an adult (alien). Mom is left behind to be orally assaulted by an alien, while hearing her son's voice, a clearly Oedipal image.

Verdict

Is Xtro worth watching? Definitely. In spite of its failings, it does have some arresting imagery and, if looked at as a metaphor for divorce and modern relations as seen by a child, a thematic depth that rewards a viewer willing to perform a little creative analysis.

Marvel - No More Origin Stories?

The story making the rounds of the Interwebs is that Ant Man will be the last Marvel film with an origin story (see Latino Review). Which. Is. Awesome. I mean, how many times do we need a Spider-Man origins movie? I would say, "none times."

Guardians showed you can introduce new characters with minimal "origins" material and, as long as the story, acting, and visuals are good, the movie will work. Marvel has also set the stage with their first 10 films, creating a universe teaming with superhumans, aliens, guys wearing powered armor, etc. Viewers will have no problem just accepting someone like a Doctor Strange (the first "new character without an origin film") as the magic-using Sorcerer Supreme without needing 45 minutes being told how this happened.

Short Attention Span Review - Attack Of The 50 foot Cheerleader (2012)

I first heard of this movie at the 2012 San Diego Comic Con. It was at a panel with Bill Shatner and Roger Corman and, among all the other awesomeness, Corman was pimping this film (he is the producer). It sounded…well, it sounded like a movie about a 50 foot tall cheerleader.

I was browsing through Netflix the other day, saw that they had the film and decided, “why not; how bad can it be?”

Cassie (Jena Sims) is a brainy college student who takes an experimental drug designed to enhance beauty. She does this in order to join the college cheer squad, to be accepted at a sorority and to fulfill her mother's (Sean Young) expectations. At first, the drug works and she becomes increasingly popular (as well as increasingly busty). However, the drug causes her to grow to enormous size (50 feet).Her rival - screechy Britney (Olivia Alexander) - is also injected with drug, grows rapidly and confronts Cassie during a football game, where the two titanic babes wrestle for a while. Eventually, everyone is returned to normal(ish) size. The end.

Sasha Jackson setting a high bar for hotness.

This is a pretty innocuous movie. There’s some nice nudity, a few moments of humor, more moments of attempt-and-fail humor, and serviceable low-budget effects. It does have a gratuitous shower scene, which always goes into the plus column. The acting is pretty bad, although Sasha Jasckson as Jett, Cassie's spunky, oversexed alt-girl roommate is okay, as is Ryan Merriman as Kyle, Cassie's research partner. Treat Williams (remember him?) is moderately amusing, chewing scenery as the head of the corporation that sponsored the development of the drug who wants to experiment on Cassie. The pacing is slow at points, as we watch Cassie going through the motions of rushing a sorority. And Jena Sims is way too hot, even in "plain girl" guise (basically, glasses and some latex zits). I guess that's why it's called suspension of disbelief.

I wouldn't watch it again; but, if you are in the mood for a throwback to exploitation/drive-in fare of the 60s and 70s, Cheerleader isn't bad. You can check it out below on YouTube.