Plus trailers, shorts, and other Halloween related stuff. I'll be posting as I go, so, check back and see what you are all missing.
How did posters of the day capture this imagery? The original poster (at right) is straight forward: creepy pumpkin face, giant butcher knife. Although pumpkins do show up in many scenes in the movie, Mike is not wearing a pumpkin mask.
At first glance, it is creepy. Mostly black, broken by an energetic blue-white bolt of lightening, with some poor disembodied head screaming, all centered around the dark figure of Mike Meyers. There's just a little splash of color, the deep red of fresh blood. Making the knife the focal point of the poster is a great idea, as it tells you what you need to know about the film. Then, your gaze travels up to see the face of Mike Meyers. And you start to giggle. Sigh.
The mask used in the film, as is well known, started life as a Bill Shatner mask (no Bill Shatners were harmed in the making of the movie...or poster) that was modified and painted white. And it is disturbing. It is so de-natured, so weird, it looks more like a shamanistic mask from some primitive tribal rite than the representation of the greatest Canadian to have ever lived.
In this poster, he looks like a deranged Disney character. Anime eyes and a silly, smirk do not make for a frightening visage. Although the poster has a lot going for it, the interpretation of the face is not one of those things.
Anyway, overall a good poster; But changing the face from the iconic, inhuman look from the film to this oddly humorous image was a bad idea.
Well, it is still a great movie.
The Collection features the Collector (Randall Archer) super-smart, super-rich, super-capable killer (he has to be all of these things to do what he does). His schtick is that he kills lots of people in "creative" ways, mutilates others (he wants to create insects out of human body parts), creates elaborate traps, creates vicious drug zombies...all because he is an insane entomologist. Is there another kind? Anyway, Arkin O'Brien (Josh Stewart) is the only person to escape his clutches (which I assume is the story told in the first film, The Collector). He is "recruited" (i.e., forced) by a team of mercenaries led by Lucello (Lee Tergesen) to lead them to the collector's lair. They have been hired to recover Elena Peters (Emma Fitzpatrick). She is the only survivor of a massacre at a rave (which is the opening set-piece), in which the Collector rigs up traps that kill hundreds of people. The team finds the Collector's hiding place (an abandoned hotel) that has been turned into a maze of death. Bloody mayhem ensues, leaving only Arkin and Elena alive. Arkin tracks the Collector to his home - although the film cheats; there is simply no way the Collector could have escaped the fate we see befall him; Arkin sets him on fire and the building he is trapped in explodes. Arkin captures the Collector, presumably to torture and kill him. The end.
I'll start with the good. The movie looks nice. The camera work is competent, the effects are okay, and the sound construction is well done. Also, final girl Elena is easy on the eyes and has screen charisma. When she is on-screen, the film gets a little bit livelier. But, that's it.
Many of the scene set-ups are visual cliches. In particular, the rave scene looks like a director's audition reel for a music video gig. The story is an implausible Saw copy and the Saw movies are implausible to begin with. The Collector has the resources to turn a hotel (the Hotel Argento...which made me want to watch Suspira a much better movie) into a murder factory and no one notices. He can create a nightclub of death, complete with a ceiling mounted wheat thresher, and no one notices. How does he do this? Does he do all the work himself? Does he hire people? Because the kills and the apparatus used in them are so outlandish, these questions are reasonable.
Cinema is replete with killer who do things that require a suspension of disbelief (e.g., Hannibal Lector, John from Se7en, Mike Meyers from Halloween), but we can accept them. Why? For a few reasons. First, they are vaguely plausible. John's kills in Se7en, while elaborate, mostly take patience and the right environment, one in which no one cares what goes on around them, which is a central theme of the film. Which leads into the second reason, the story is powerful enough that we don't care if plot elements stretch plausibility. This is what allows us to overlook the more outlandish aspects of a movie like Silence of the Lambs. Specifically, Hannibal Lector somehow creates a butterfly tableau using a dead police officer in the space of a few minutes. This makes little sense; but the story, acting and images are so powerful that the viewer is carried through moments that in a lesser film would be problematic. Finally, there can be an element of the supernatural. Mike Meyers in the original Halloween is initially just a psychopath. As the film progresses, it is clear he is something more than that. What is never defined in the original film (except when Loomis (Donald Pleasance) says he is the "bogeyman"), but he is shown to be impervious to lethal injuries and has an uncanny ability to appear and disappear from a scene. The supernatural aspects are built up over the course of the film, which is one reason why they work so well. By the end of the movie, when Loomis looks at where Mike was lying, seemingly dead, and the body is gone, the viewer buys it.
None of this applies to this dull collection of murders, torture and grotesque images. It is hard to judge the actors, since their characters are so poorly drawn. They do aggressively stupid things (like not notifying the cops when they find the killer's lair), although, since we have few insights into how they think, maybe they are supposed to be dumb. The team of mercs is so poorly conceived that I don't even think they were all given names. The Collector has no personality and no motive, beyond the obvious "I like killing people." There is no tension in the film and Stewart makes for a weak lead. While there could have been an interesting story, focusing on Elena's attempt to escape, the plotline following Arkin and the mercs is a pointless distraction. While the film looks good, if you are not telling a story or creating a compelling character study, then you are just wasting film.
And that's what The Collection. A waste of film...and my time.
The goal this year is to fill each day with horror-related posts. Here's a handy list of what I'll be looking at (and, besides, by posting this, hopefully it will keep me honest):
There you go. A lot of fun stuff for this month. Stay tuned!
 An image that fueled a thousand nightmares. Well, a thousand of mine, anyway. |
I had a complex childhood.
When I finally saw the film years later, I was a little disappointed. It’s a pretty good horror movie and it does have some neat gore effects. But, like the rest of Lucio Fulci’s work (The Beyond, The House By The Cemetery), the story is a mess and the acting is all over the place. Fulci is good at creating arresting images...but is not very good at directing people.
The film begins with a literal bang as a shadowy figure shoots a shrouded figure in the head. The shooter than says “the boat can leave now.” It is a great opening. We have no idea why this is happening; but, it does kick you in the eyeballs and make you want to find out.
We then cut to “the boat” sailing past lower Manhattan. It is adrift and, apparently, abandoned. A harbor patrol boat approaches, police board the ship and find a bloated zombie aboard. The creature is shot and falls overboard, but not before it bites - and kills - a cop. At that point our main protagonist, Peter West (Ian MCulloch), is introduced. He is a reporter who is assigned to look into the incident. While doing so, he meets Ann Bowles (Tisa Farrow, who has one expression, heavily medicated) whose father owns the boat. The two of them travel to an island in the Caribbean that was her father’s last known location. They meet up with a couple - Brian (Al Cliver aka Pier Luigi Conti) and Susan (Auretta Gay) - who own a boat. En route Susan goes topless scuba diving (and yes, she has nice flotation devices - no way was I going to pass that opportunity up) and is attacked by a zombie. The zombie, in turn, is attacked by a shark and the two wrestle for a while, in what is an inspired sequence.
 Scene cut from the final episode of SpongeBob SquarePants |
While not particularly frightening, the movie is gruesome. The zombie makeup and gore effects by Giannetto De Rossi and Maurizio Trani are in general effective. In particular, the aforementioned shark attack is well-executed. One particularly nasty scene occurs when the wife of Dr. Menard (played by Olga Karlatos, who is kind enough to provide us with a shower scene before her death) has a splinter of wood jammed into her eye before being torn apart by the hungry undead. Fulci also stages a creepy cemetery reanimation sequence, including the beauty featured on the movie poster. And the final battle in Dr. Menard's clinic, while a bit long and repetitive, is still well-executed and features an abundance of head shots, throats torn out, zombies on fire and falling apart and other forms of mayhem. The score by Fabio Frizzi (who worked on a number of Fulci films) and Giorgio Tucci is also worth mentioning; it is an effective electronic soundtrack that coveys a feeling of dissonance, of a world out of order, which fits the story perfectly.
Of course, this being a Fulci film, the story isn’t very impressive. Characters repeatedly freeze in terror at the attacking zombies, allowing the slow moving ghouls a chance to chomp into them. The ending - Peter and Ann listening to a radio announcer describing the zombies overrunning new york city - is pretty ludicrous since it ends with the announcer telling his audience that the “zombies are at the studio door” followed by a goofy scream. The central problem, however, is that the story just doesn’t go anywhere. The characters have no arc and are poorly developed and the plot is really an excuse for zombie attacks and gore effects. This doesn’t mean it is a bad film, per se; it does mean that you need to accept it for what it is.
 Zombie attack or Monday morning in my house. Hard to tell the difference. |
If you like horror films and have not seen this movie, I’d recommend it. While there are limitations, it’s a fun, gory romp and well worth watching. If you wind up liking it and want to check out more of Fulci’s work, watch The Beyond, which is his best film...even though it makes almost no sense as a coherent narrative.
A little bonus trivia; the film was released as Zombi 2 in Italy. Why? Because Dawn of the Dead was released as Zombi and the film was marketed as a sequel, even though the two have nothing to do with one another (other than having zombies as the monsters). Even in a zombie apocalypse, marketing matters.
Rick has on the same shirt. Must be pretty ripe.
Farmer Rick growing a nice crop of guns. And zombie hunger.
Well, the farmyard looks pretty neat. Awww...the pig's name is Violet.
All pigs should be called Bacon.
Carol and "Mr. Dixon" need to hook up already. And, how does geeky kid survive the zombie apocalypse?
Aww...Pooky...Carol and Daryl are so cute.
Glenn is having performance anxiety :-(
Hey, T-Dog 3.0...stop complaining...and hitting on a chick covered in zombie gore...oops, never mind...
Herschel's blonde daughter is meant for Carl, not generic survivor boy.
Hey, Hershel has a leg. And he knows agronomy.
Sweet...Michonne on a horse!
And she brings comics and a much needed razor for Grizzly Rick. So thoughtful.
The Council...so, democracy has broken out. That won't last very long.
Why would Rick NOT have a gun with him?
So far so. Good intros for new characters, new power structure, the sense that the prison community is evolving and building...and that the zombie menace may be changing as well.
Ugh...Comic Book Men...biggest waste of time on TV.
Uh, is the survivor chick Swedish?
Oh, and kinda of green.
No Rick...don't trust the Scottish Wood Nymph!
Question one: why are you Scottish?
Question two: why do you have chlorophyll in your skin?
Question three: do you have access to a supply of Twinkies? If so...you are so in Prisontopia.
Carl is into soccer?!?! Aw, he's even more awesome..er.
Also, Carl is definitely becoming the alpha-male.
Daryl Dixon, homicide detective...right...
Man, I like how he's screwing with him as well...
Also nice establishing how "well-oiled" the scavenging team has become.
Now I wanna see Captain Phillips...darn you the power of advertising.
Yuck...spider...
So, Scottish Wood Nymph is on the worst vacation ever.
Is this going to cannibalistic or something?
Apparently, you learned to live without ever bathing...ever...
Hey...leave the standee alone.
Dude, there is a ton of booze. Do not leave it behind. Oh, wait, do you have a "dark secret."
Ha ha ha! The dangers of drinking, I guess. And, also of having too many zombies on a roof. It's an entrails pinyata!
Awesome, getting body bombed.
See, this is why you should never drink...because you'll get caught under a shelving unit and have zombies drop on you. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
Jeez...does everyone whine in an apocalypse?
Sweet goo-scalping.
How many zombies were on the roof? Apparently 500 or so.
Darly's like "I'm gonna have a helicopter drop on me...not cool."
Sweet...just pull the brains out dude.
See, cannon-fodder cannot have Herschel's blonde daughter. The power of Carl will not be denied.
She is a cannibal...a Scottish Wood Nymph cannibal...feeding her zombie boyfriend's head.
Annoying...but dead in one episode...that's good writing then.
Rick...put her out of her misery dude.
What was that about, exactly? Other than filling up some time.
Rick, why would let zombie boyfriend head still live.
Okay, looking forward to Ender's Game as well.
Nathan Fillion...Sweeeeeet!!!!!
Carol on knives, the most awesome lecture ever given.
Wait, so Carol is gonna get in trouble for teaching survival skills? Huh?
Oh man, Violet is dead...I miss her more than Scottish Wood Nymph.
T-Dog 3.0, stop bitching. Maggie not preggers. And the other chick is named Beth. Got it. Let's see if I remember it next week. Doubt it.
Daryl: Hey, the generic guy you were face sucking is dead. Beth: Oh, that's too bad. Here, let me fiddle with my overly quirky signage.
Michonne is fixated on Macon. Why is that? Maybe because it rhymes with bacon.
Uh oh, is Poindexter going to come back as a zombie? Well, duh.
Hmmm...are we seeing an evolution of the zombie virus?
Well, not bad, even if the payoff for the Scottish Wood Nymph story wasn't really there. Looks like we're gonna be losing a lot of cannon-fodder in the next episode.
Today was my annual Halloween horror movie festival. The theme this year were ghost movies...although there was some drift involved as the night progressed.
Trick R Treat: This has become our new Halloween kick-off film, replacing the original Halloween. It's a fun anthology film, with four interwoven stories. Dylan Baker is a serial killer teaching his kid the trade (hey, it's a ll about family values) before heading out looking for a "date." Anna Paquin is a virgin werewolf, out with her pack sisters looking for her first kill. Samm Todd is an idiot savant who is the victim of a mean practical joke...and who sees her tormentors get their comeuppance at the hands of some very angry revenants. And, finally, Brian Cox is angry old man with a dark secret who is attacked by a demon/pumpkin monster/spirit of Halloween. Good acting, fun stories, creepy effects, tightly shot and plotted...a definite winner.
Ju On: The Grudge: One of the best J-horror flicks, with multiple stories all revolving around a haunted house in Tokyo, one that houses a creepy kid, his evil cat, the kid's homicidal spectral mom and, in the end, his murderous ghostly father makes an appearance. A little confusing at times, since we jump around in time, the characters are not all drawn very distinctly and the "rules" of the ghosts change as the story progresses. Still very creepy with some arresting images - like one scene where a character has the mother ghost show up in her bed and suck her in. The US version (with Sarah Michelle Geller) is a bit more coherent and lays out why the ghosts are haunting the house...and why they are so angry.
The Fog: A classic from John Carpenter. A ghost ship, with a ghost crew to go with it, return to attack a small California town 100 years after the treachery of the town's founders, led to the ship's destruction and the death of the crew. It has a great cast - Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis and Tom Atkins are the highlights - and a creepy atmosphere. While not really scary, it is tense and moody. As long as you don't expect a lot of action and can get into the mood of dread the film is creating, you won't be disappointed.
House On Haunted Hill: It is apt that the main character, played by Geoffrey Rush, builds and runs amusement parks, because that's what this movie is; a roller coaster ride. Like any good ride, it doesn't slow down once it starts and will have you both jumping and laughing as you watch. It has some good gore, imaginative effects and creature designs, funny one liners (particularly from Chris Kattan) and a lot of Famke Janssen.
Diary of the Dead: Not Romero's best, but a neat 'found footage' take on the zombie apocalypse story. The conceit doesn't quite work - like most found footage films there are moments when no sane person would hold a camera - and there are a few moments of humor that are at odds with the grim tone of the film. Romero's main message - about how the media creates the news and how we are so overwhelmed with information that we can't separate the signal from the noise - isn't insightful these days. Still, not bad and you will get your zombie fix. Avoid the follow up, Survival of the Dead, at all costs.
Running a tight 70 minutes, The Wolf Man tells its story economically, quickly sketching out its main characters, setting up some interpersonal tension and then getting to the horror. Chaney plays Larry Talbot, a man returning to his family home in England after 18 years in America (which explains why he doesn’t have an accent). His older brother has died in a hunting accident, so Larry has come home to help his father John (the always wonderful Claude Rains) run their estate.
 Larry suffers from a Propecia overdose. Men, don't let this happen to you! |
A band of gypsies enters town. Larry, Gwen and Gwen’s friend Jenny head to the gypsy camp to have their fortunes told. Larry finds out that Gwen is engaged, but takes this as more of challenge than a deterrent. While he’s hitting on Gwen, Jenny is meeting with the gypsy Bela (Bela Lugosi). He sees a pentagram in the palm of her hand, indicating she will be his next victim...because Bela is a werewolf. Bela shifts into wolf form and mauls Jenny to death. Coming to her aid, Larry kills Bela by beating him with the silver head of his cane, but not before being bitten.
Interestingly, Bela turns into a wolf, while Larry turns into a wolf/human hybrid. Is this an indication that Bela has given himself over to his animal side, while Larry still fights to retain his humanity?
 Larry's seduction strategy leaves something to be desired. |
 Would you like a flea and tick collar? |
Filmed in black and white, the film is a very moody with many of the scenes filmed on fog shrouded sound stage forest sets. The makeup by Universal Studio legend Jack Pierce (Frankenstein, The Mummy) is neat, particularity the paw-feet Larry has in wolf form; it's a nice touch. Larry’s weird dream/hallucination sequence is well-done, giving us an idea of what's going through his head and how the curse is contaminating his thoughts. The acing is fine, although all of the characters are underdeveloped. Or, rather, they are developed just enough for the lines they are supposed to deliver. The big problem is that the attraction between Larry and Gwen is never established. We are just supposed to assume it is there. Since Larry comes across like a stalker-ish weirdo throughout the movie, there is nothing shown that indicates why she is attracted to him.
This is a great film and a good example of how to tell a compelling story in a pared down, steam-lined fashion.
Anyway, Monster from Hell was the last of the Hammer Frankenstein films. And, if you don't know what I mean by 'Hammer' check out Mondo Esoterica’s Hammer Studios page for a nice thumbnail history of the company. Even better, pick up The Hammer Story, a great, coffee table style book about the studio.
The short version: Hammer is best know for their series of Gothic Horror films made from the late-fifties through the early-70s (although Hammer made films in just about every genre from it’s founding in 1934 through the end of it’s film production in 1975). The sumptuous, colorful gothic horror films, starting with 1957’s The Curse of Frankenstein and ending in 1974 with Monster From Hell, were the movies that made a mark on cinematic history.
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The film opens by introducing a new character, Dr. Simon Helder (Shane Briant) who is sent to the asylum for body snatching, using corpses in an attempt to replicate Frankenstein’s work. He finds the Baron at work as the asylum doctor. He has blackmailed the unstable asylum director into “killing off" Frankenstein and establishing a new identity. Although his hands are damaged from a fire, he is serving as the asylum doctor. He is assisted by the mute Sarah (the stunning Madeline Smith), rendered voiceless from shock after her father - the aforementioned director - tried to rape her. Frankenstein quickly recruits the talented Helder to help him out, first as an orderly, then as an assistant on his project to give life to a cobbled together body.
 Madeline Smith...now, don't you feel stunned? |
Of course, the experiment works...after a fashion. The body is reanimated, but the brain, that of an imprisoned professor, eventually goes mad from his horrifying condition. It is also implied that the body - that of a barely human murderer - retains some its homicidal impulses. Violence ensues and Frankenstein’s latest creation is torn apart by the inmates. But he and Helder survive and prepare to continue the work of instilling life in lifeless matter.
There are many nice touches. For example, we find out that Frankenstein is tone-deaf and unable to appreciate music. This is an elegant way of reinforcing Frankenstein’s detachment from anything that is not coldly logical, purely scientific. The claustrophobic asylum serves to reinforce the feeling of being inside Frankenstein's psyche, a place of solid walls of reason...but with the demons of madness lurking within. Although Frankenstein is sane in the conventional sense, he so obsessed with his work that nothing else - including human life - matters.
 The Monster From Hell...in serious need of a body waxing |
The makeup is well done, even if the “monster suit” worn by David Prowse (who played Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy) looks a little rubbery. Still it is imaginative and one of the most visually arresting Frankenstein monsters. There is some gruesome body par business with jars full of eye balls, lopped off hands, graphic brain surgery - including a hilarious scene where he steps in a pan containing a brain he’s going to dispose of. The sets are appropriate gloomy, looking more like a medieval dungeon than a place of solace and healing.
 The Doctor is in...sane!!!!!!! Sorry, couldn't resist. |
The Baron’s true madness surfaces as his creation begins to revert to a more violent, primitive state. He decides the only way to salvage the experiment is to mate the creature with Sarah. Helder is appropriately horrified - he says that there have to be limits to science. There is a story problem with this development. How would impregnating Sarah prove anything? Frankenstein doesn't really say. It won't help arrest his creation’s deterioration. For a fairly tightly plotted film, it’s a weird moment; unfortunately, it also sets up the finale, so it’s pretty important. However, we’ve already seen that Frankenstein isn’t completely rational; for him, the thing is to keep the experiments going. You get the feeling that Frankenstein is constantly in search of new intellectual stimulation. Over the course of the film series, you have the feeling that part of his drive is to stave off boredom. He constantly experiments with the boundary of life and death because it keeps his own existence interesting. In this sense, mating his creation to Sarah can be seen as just another test of how well his creation mimic natural life. But, this is not explained; it is something I am inferring.
For modern audiences, the set-bound, fairly low-key proceedings might seem boring. however, it is well-acted, has a number of great images - the brain surgery, a nightmarish scene where the monster digs up the grave where his brain’s body is buried - and is taut little Gothic Horror story. Check it out.
Carpenter's Vampires is a good example of the parts being greater than the whole. The movie has some very nice scenes, images, ideas and acting, starting with the first ten minutes. James Woods plays Jack Crow, leader of a team of vampire hunters, supported by the Catholic Church. The movie opens on a sun blasted southwestern plain, with the team approaching a dilapidated ranch house. They have located a nest of vampires ("goons" as they call the less powerful creation of "master" vampires) and are going to exterminate it. These first ten minutes see Carpenter at the top of his game. Carpenter conveys a sense of professionalism through the use of specialized equipment (chainmail neck guards, metal pikes, highly polished and functional looking steaks), the look of the team (scruffy, but tough), the direction of the action (the team seems to function as one, using various tactics that look like the product of years of fighting the undead) and Woods scenery chewing, but effective, take on the team leader, complete with a list of "rules" for vampire hunting. In short, in this ten minutes you get the sense of what a team of vampire hunters would actually be like, if vampires existed.
 Jack Crow and company ready to kick some undead ass. |
Some of the acting is good as well. Although Woods plays his profane, violent, misogynistic, fanatical vampire hunter in the most bombastic, hyper-macho mode possible, it works in terms of the film. You would have to be an ultimate badass to survive fighting against monsters that are stronger and faster than humans and almost indestructible. And Woods has a screen presence, something some of his co-stars lack. Time Guinee, playing Father Adam Guiteau also does a good job as the newest member of the team, assigned to Crow after his last priest (and most of his team) is killed.
 They should have stayed at a Motel 6. |
Unfortunately, there are significant problems. Daniel Baldwin, playing Anthony Montoya, Crow's right-hand man is terrible, with two emotional states - screaming and sleepy. Sheryl Lee, playing Katrina, a hooker who is bitten by the chief vampire and sharing a telepathic link to him, is fun to look at, but seemingly bored with the role. Thomas Ian Griffith, playing Valek, the protagonist and, apparently, the source of all vampires, has no personality. In spite of Carpenter trying to create a new more "realistic" type of vampire - at one point Crow tells Guiteau they aren't "hopping around in rented formal wear and seducing everybody with cheesy Euro-trash accents" - what we get instead are Goth looking people who mostly growl.
 Sheryl Lee giving us her best "come hither" look. |
The story has some serious problems, particularly how Valek (and all vampires) were created created by an "inverse exorcism" and how his master plan is to complete it so he can walk in the daylight. Um, okay...but,if the exorcism was to drive out evil (and something went wrong) why would completing it make him more pwoerful? And, while some of the set-pieces work well, others do not. Much of the second act in a motel room having to watch Baldwin and Lee try to emote which is, frankly, dull. and, there is a nasty streak of misogyny with both Crow and Montoya. I guess it was to make the characters as old-school, un-PC as possible. What it does is make them seem like dicks. And, finally, there are some pretty clunky lines...or, at least,they are poorly delivered.
It is unfortunate that Carpenter took a great premise - a professional vampire hunting team - and didn't go anywhere with it. Instead we get another one of his riffs on Westerns (in this case, Rio Bravo) with horror trappings. Still there are enough fun bits that I don't ever mind watching the film; I just see what could have been, something that could've made the movie a classic instead of just okay.
Really.
Katt plays a successful horror novelist who is also a Vietnam vet. Before the movie begins, his son mysteriously disappears from his aunt’s house, leading to a divorce from his wife, the very attractive Kay Lenz. A short time later his aunt commits suicide and Katt returns to the house to work on his latest book, an autobiography of his time in Vietnam. He soon finds that the house is a portal to a spectral realm full of ghost, goblins...and a very angry Moll.
 Isn't this how all authors dress when writing? I know I do. |
 Kay Lenz orders a pizza...or something. |
 Richard Moll preparing for his Night Court reunion show. |
So, what do I like about it? It’s just a FUN movie. Although it starts a little slow, midway through the second act the action picks up and doesn’t stop. The effects are rubbery, but look neat and fit the sense of an alien reality bleeding into ours. The spirit world is minimal - a dark jungle set - but given that it is a reflection of Moll’s evil spirit and represents a part of Katt’s life that he never got over, it works. And the movie is pretty funny. And, yes, there is nostalgia at work. I was a kid when I first saw the movie. Like other films from that time - e.g., Fright Night, Hellraiser, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 - seeing them does take me back to those days. And, that is part of the appeal of Halloween for an adult. The chance to indulge in a child’s sense of wonder and terror.
 If Mary Stavin showed up looking like this, asking for baby sitting services even I would say yes. |
Based on Wes Craven's 1977 film of the same name, THHE06 is a tense, violent, brutal film. It also is a good movie, thanks to Alexandre Aja direction - he knows how to build visual tension, as demonstrated in High Tension - and the cast, who quickly make their characters sympathetic. The special effects - both the plentiful gore and the mutant make-up - by Greg Nicotero is great, with some imaginative kills and gruesome (and believable) mutants.
The Carters - patriarch Big Bob (Ted Levine), matriarch Ethel (Kathleen Quinlan), son Bobby (Dan Byrd), daughters Brenda and Lynn (Emilie de Raven and Vinessa Shaw), son-in-law Doug (Aaron Stanford) who is married to Lynn, granddaughter Catherine (some baby...they're all the same, right?), and two dogs, Beauty and Beast - are traveling across country, heading for San Diego where Big Bob, a retired cop, is going to start a new life with his family. They are directed into a former nuclear test site by Tom Browser, playing a nameless gas station attendant who is working with the cannibals. Soon, their vehicle has been disabled and, when night falls, they are attacked. Half their number (Big Bob, Ethel, Lynn and Beauty) are killed, Brenda is raped by two mutants and Catherine is taken. Whether this is done to taunt the survivors, bring some new blood into the clan or as a snack isn't clear.
 Brenda welcomes the mutants to the camp |
The next morning, Doug and Beast head off to find Catherine, while Bobby and Brenda rig up a warning system and trap around the disabled camper. From this moment forward, the film is relentless, with Doug engaging in various acts of brutality to save his daughter, while Bobby and Brenda get some payback against the head of the Cannibals - Papa Jupiter, played by the always great Billy Drago. As the film ends, most of the mutants are dead. Doug, Brenda and Bobby are all traumatized, but still alive, having shown just what people are capable of when their survival - and family - is threatened. Of course, this being a horror movie, the last scene is the survivors walking out of the desert...and then we see they are being observed by another mutant through binoculars. The end.
 The mutant Pluto asks Doug "Want to see my butterfly collection?" |
The movie does make some stabs towards larger issues instead of just wracking up the body count. The cannibals are a stand-in for the poor, their clash with the Carters a very physical manifestation of class warfare. And, both are to some degree victims of the government/upper class. The mutants are descendents of people who were exposed to radiation from nuclear weapons tests, albeit their ancestors refused to leave the area when ordered to by the government. The Carters are not the "1%." They are solidly middle class. But, because the government/the rich can't clean up the messes they make they become victims. Okay, not a very "deep" theme; but, it is there and it does shown that writers Aja and Gregory Levasseur (who worked on High Tension with Aja) had more of an agenda than just a sun-blasted entry into the gore-porn genre.
Anyway, check it out.
 Doug wakes up on the mutant version of a therapeutic mattress...finds he does not like it |
Day One: Re-read volume one (issues 1 - 6) of Walking Dead. I've been reading Walking Dead for years. Robert Kirkman establishes strong characters early on, which helps distinguish this tale of a world overrun by the flesh eating ghouls. Tony Moore's moody, detailed black and white art is the perfect accompaniment to the story, creating a stark, gritty world of dead cities and hungry ghouls.
Day Two: Cruising through Netflix, I came across Episode 50. It sounded interesting - a reality show crew of skeptical ghost hunters and a team of Christian believers who think ghosts are evil spirits or demons or something - who go into an old asylum and encounter something nasty. Okay, could be cool. Unfortunately, the acting is terrible, the conceit that all of the footage was found after the two teams were wiped out makes no sense, since there are numerous scenes where there are no cameras that could've picked up the action and the "rules" of the ghosts/demons/whatever seem to change as the movie goes on. For me, a horror movie needs to have internal rules that are coherent and consistent. They don't have to resemble anything in the real world, of course. But, they should make sense in the context of the movie and not just change due to poor writing. Would I recommend it? If you have Netflix - or Amazon Prime, etc - sure. But, unless you want to own every "found footage" or ghost story, I can't tell you to buy it.
Day Three: I love some of George Romero's work. One of his films I have mixed feelings about is Land of the Dead. It has a lot going for it: pretty good acting; good zombies effects; appropriate levels of gore (at least in the unrated version that I have); and the expected social commentary (rich vs poor, the rise of the national security/paranoia state in the aftermath of 9/11) is there and as blunt as ever. However, there are problems. The main one is the story. There are things - like the obsession with money, in a world where most civilization is gone and scavenging and barter are the only economic activity - that makes no sense. Character motivation - like Simon Baker's protagonist wanting to leave the city, when there is nothing outside the walls but zombies or John Leguizamo's obsession with extorting money in a world where it has no worth - often doesn't make sense. And most of the characters aren't even one-dimensional, introduced to serve as zombie fodder. This can be okay; expendable characters who are there to demonstrate whatever the danger is, are a horror film standard. In this case, however, the time spent with them detract from the character stories that are both interesting and need development. Land of the Dead is worth seeing; however, it is a definite step down from Romero's original zombie trilogy.
Day Four: Watched the Raymond Burr version of the original Godzilla. After watching the trailer for Gareth Edwards upcoming Godzilla movie, I felt the need to check out a movie with the Big G. This was the first one I came across in my movie collection, so, in the PS3 it went. And, as usual, I loved it. Shot in moody black and white, it has a documentary feel to it. The scenes of destruction are brutal and the various human sub-plots are well done (if a tad melodramatic). Of course, the dubbing is pretty bad and the Raymond Burr inserts seem tacked on (which, of course, they are). I have the Japanese version as well and prefer it...but, I also have thousands of movies and had little patience for looking through them today. And, to be fair, the Burr inserts aren't horrible; he just doesn't put any effort into the roll and they are transparently info dumps, to make up for what was cut out. With that said, both versions are worth seeing. Godzilla is a classic for a reason and a movie that everyone should see.
