Latest Issue Of New Frontiers Is Out

The latest issue of New Frontiers is out. In addition to all the great stuff from other people, I have a review of The Fog in there, as well as part one of a ghost story. Enjoy.

31 Days of Halloween - The Green Slime (1968) With Slimey Alien Spoilers

I first saw this movie late one night when I was about 12. That's probably the best time and age for the film. I still enjoy watching it; but the part of me that really likes it is my inner 12-year-old.

Synopsis

It is the future. A large space station orbits the Earth, commanded by Vince Elliott (Richard Jaeckel). A massive asteroid is spotted on a collision course with Earth. Commander Jack Rankin (Robert Horton) is sent to the space station to lead an expedition to destroy the asteroid. He and Vince were once friends, but had a falling out. In part, this was due to a decision that Vince made that got some men killed. Vince is also engaged to Lisa (the oh-so-hot Luciana Paluzzi) who once was Jack's girl.

The mission to the asteroid is successful. However, a member of the science team inadvertently brings back a strange organic substance, the Green Slime. It rapidly evolves into s horde of squat, tentacle-armed electricity generating monsters, whose blood generates more creatures. Despite the best efforts of the crew, the station is soon overrun. Jack and Vince rig the station to burn-up in the Earth's atmosphere; but Vince is killed in the process. The aliens are destroyed, Vince gets to die heroically and Jack gets Lisa. Happy endings for everyone. Well, not so much for Vince. Or the Green Slime for that matter. So, happy ending for the arrogant, annoying guy and his hot ginger love monkey.

Analysis

Luciana Paluzzi.
Do you think I'm NOT going to post a pic of a hot redhead?
Do you know which site you are on?

Toy-like miniatures. Rubber suit aliens. Unlikeable characters and clunky dialogue. A cheesy rock song with lyrics like;

What can it be, what is the reason
is this the end of all that breathes, and
Is it something in your head?
Will you believe it when you’re dead?”

In other words...completely awesome! Or, perhaps some other word!

One way to look at this film is as the side of a cinematic coin shared with another sci-fi movie that came out the same year, 2001: A Space Odyssey. While it may seem heretical to mention Kubrick's masterpiece with this firmly b-movie space opera, they do represent two types of sci-fi cinema that are still jostling for dominance. 2001 exemplifies a mix of hard science and metaphysical musings. The Green Slime is pure space opera, science fiction as an adventure movie with no pretensions of anything else. The characters in 2001 take back-seat to the technology. They are cyphers with the artificial intelligence HAL showing more personality than the men who created him. Kubrick was purposeful in what he did; his future man has reached a dead end. In contrast, the characters in The Green Slime are more "human." That they are cliches involved in melodramatic conflicts doesn't detract from the fact they are much more "alive" than their counter-parts in Kubrick's film. The color palette is starkly different. 2001 is very sterile, with lots of whites, blacks and greys. The Green Slime is a riot of color, from the bright red asteroid to the brightly colored walls and uniforms on the space station. While the future depicted in 2001 looks plausible, The Green Slime looks more like pop art.

Space opera remains more popular than the cerebral science fiction film. While the latter exist (Moon, Melancholia, and Her are recent examples), most science fiction films are more closely related to The Green Slime. While effects technology has advanced to the point that even modest budgeted films can look good, they still have space opera sensibilities. A film like Avatar, for example, looks amazing. However, it is populated by bombastic characters not out of place in a movie like The Green Slime and the story is a simplistic framework for colorful action scenes. For a time, it looked like science fiction films might take a more serious route. 2001 was seen as a masterpiece, The Green Slime as a juvenile example of B-movie sensibilities. With the success of Star Wars, however, the action-adventure space opera became the dominant style of sci-fi cinema. The children of the Green Slime live.

The Green Slime are coming for you! Well, not really.
THey're just heading out for coffee and bear claws.

Verdict

The Green Slime is a fun movie. It is bright and fast paced. The characters are archetypes and played with the intensity of wood chippers. The story is straight-forward; survival horror in space with a love triangle subplot. The effects are, um, quaint. The silly monster suits and extensive, but toy-like, miniatures add to the charm of the movie. Check it out.

Bonus: The rockin' theme!

31 Days of Halloween - Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006) - Spoilers...But Who Cares?

What can the prequel to the 2003 reboot of the 1974 original really offer? Other than Diora Baird, of course. If you don't know who that is, I have provided a handy gallery at the end of this post. Because I care.

Synopsis

This will be a quick one. Tommy "Leatherface" Hewitt (Andrew Bryniarski), his bug nuts insane adopted uncle Charlie (R. Lee Ermey) and a couple of other family members (Marietta Marich and Terrence Evans ) start their killing/cannibalism spree in July 1969. Tommy kills his boss at the local slaughterhouse when it closes and Charlie takes out the last sheriff in the country and assumes his identity, Hoyt. A foursome - Vietnam vet Eric (Matt Bomer), his draft dodging brother, Dean (Taylor Handley) and their girlfriends Chrissie (Jordana Brewster) and Bailey (Diora Baird), as well as a couple of bikers (Cyia Batten and Lee Tergesen), cross paths with the Hewitts. None of them escape. The end.

Analysis

Before going over the technical details and storytelling, let's address the central problem a film like this has. We already now that Leatherface and family can't be killed or discovered. So, there is absolutely no tension. We know that nothing that puts the antagonists in danger or that could result in a protagonist surviving is going to happen. So, when it looks like Chrissie might escape at the end, the audience knows this can't happen. That means, no tension and no suspense.

Of course, prequels (and their cousins, flashbacks) can work. The Godfather II is a great example of this. While not strictly a prequel, enough of the runtime is taken up with the story of Vito Corleon (Robert Di Niro) and his early rise to power in America that it can be seen as a hybrid sequel/prequel. As the audience, we know that Vito is going to become the Godfather. However, his backstory is told in an interesting fashion, is well acted and, most importantly, a dramatic movie works by different rules than a horror film.

In a horror film, particularly survival horror, much of the thrill of watching comes from seeing who will live. If you know that a) none of your antagonists can die and b) none of your protagonists can live, then you diffuse much what makes a film like this interesting. Of course, it can still be entertaining. In the Friday the Thirteenth series, you know most of the people are going to die. But, you don't necessarily know who, even if the cannon fodder characters are often pretty easy to spot. In a drama, character development is more important. Knowing why Vito behaved the way he did and how his rise to power differed from that of his son, Michael (Al Pacino) is important, because it creates motivation and adds layers to the characters.

The Beginning isn't so much bad as it is pointless. The cinematography by Lukas Ettlin is pretty good. The film has a nice black and washed out yellow color palette. The gore effects are a good example of practical makeup. The acting by Matt Bomer is pretty good. And Diora Baird and Jordana Brewster are easy on the eyes. There are a couple of sequences that are well-conceived and executed; in particular, a scene in which Hoyt forces Dean to do push-ups while beating him is brutal and, in a film in which tension was present, would've worked really well.

On the downside, in addition to the pointless nature of the film, there are other defects. The film meanders from one act of brutality to another with little effort made to create a plot. The film drifts back and forth between gritty horror and dark humor. While this mix can work (e.g., Cabin in the Woods) there isn't much of flow between the two moods. Most of the humor comes from Ermey scenery chewing performance, which seems more like the actor doing what he wanted and less like planned tonal shifts. The movie relies heavily on jump scares and the ending insults the audience. Chrissie is in a car, about to escape, when Leatherface basically appears in the backseat. There is no way he could've gotten there or that she would've missed him when she got in. You should never end your film by pissing in your audience's face.

Verdict

It is actually frustrating to watch the movie. There are some good actors involved. The film looks good, assuming you like dark, grim images. Some of the characters are interesting and there was the possibility of seeing how they interact and develop. But, it is all in service of a story that is meaningless, that is devoid of tension. It's a waste of time, resources and effort.

If all you want to see is R. Lee Ermey overacting and some good gore effects, then The Beginning might work for you. If not, then I have to say avoid at all costs.

In case you are wondering, Here's the trailer:

And, as promised, more Diora Baird than you shake your...um...a stick at. Enjoy.

And here's an interview she had with Maxim. Because we care about her thoughts and stuff.

31 Days of Halloween - Trick R Treat (2007) - With Pumpkin-Headed Spoilers

Trick R Treat has become a staple of my annual Halloween moviefest, displacing Halloween (1978). It's a fun horror romp. It's bloody, creepy, funny, has zombies, ghosts, demons, werewolves and boobs. Sweet, naked boobs. Perfect!

Synopsis

The entire movie takes place on Halloween night, in Warren Valley, Ohio, a town that throws a huge party for the best holiday of the year. The film follows five different, but interwoven, stories. The timeline bounces back and forth throughout the film. Rather than completely spoil things - and try to explain the timeine - I'll just tell you the basics of each story.

Story One: Emma (Leslie Bibb) and Henry (Tahmoh Penikett) are coming home from the Halloween festival. Emma wants to start taking down their decorations that night. Henry goes inside to wait and falls asleep. He wakes up later and goes outside to check for his wife. Unfortunately, she has incurred the ire of Sam, a child-sized demon who enforces the traditions of the season and serves as a common thread in the stories. Henry finds her mutilated corpse and the opening credits roll.

Story Two: Steven Wilkins (Dylan Baker) is a school principal. He finds Charlie (Brett Kelly), an obese and annoying teen, stealing candy and smashing pumpkins. He sits him down to talk to him and gives him a candy bar which has been poisoned. It turns out the principal is a serial killer. There are some shenanigans in the backyard while he's burying bodies involving his unpleasant neighbor Kreeg (Brian Cox). His son, who is around 7, keeps pestering Wilkins to carve a jack o' lantern before he heads to the festival. The segment ends as we find out that dad is teaching junior all about the family pastime.

Story Three: A group of teens is collecting pumpkins to take to the local abandoned, flooded quarry. They are doing so in order to play an elaborate prank on Rhonda (Samm Todd), a girl who appears to be autistic. Along the way, ringleader Macy (Britt McKillip) tells the story of the "Halloween School Bus Massacre," an event from 20 years ago, in which a bus full of mentally deranged children was driven into the quarry. After executing the prank and scaring Rhonda, the zombie-like corpses of the dead children rise from the water to kill the mean kids while Rhonda looks placidly on.

Story Four: Anna Paquin and a group of hotties (Lauren Lee Smith, Rochelle Aytes, and Moneca Delain) are in town on the prowl for men. While the three other girls quickly find "dates" Anna goes for a walk around the Halloween festival. She attracts the attention of Wilkins - who is dressed as a vampire and already killed one girl at the festival. He stalks her into the woods, but when he attacks her, she effortlessly tosses him through the trees, right into the spot where the party is happening. It turns out the girls - and there are more there than Anna and her three companions - are all werewolves and have come to party in their own way. Their way involves picking up guys and killing them. The girls shapeshift and Wilkins dies at the claws and teeth of Anna. Not a bad way to go.

Story Five: Kreeg is under attack from Sam. He battles it throughout his house, but even a shotgun blast to the head doesn't kill the little monster. However, the moment he is about to be killed, he holds out a candy bar. Sam accepts this as tribute and leaves. However, Kreeg is also the bus driver responsible for the Halloween School Bus Massacre. There is a knock at the door. He opens it And sees the zombies waiting for him, with murderous intent. The end.

Analysis

It's hard to be objective about a movie I like so much. There's not a lot of depth to the film; but the point of the movie is not to tell a single story with a handful of well-constructed characters. It is to replicate an issue of a horror comic like Eerie. Five stories, each with sharply drawn but one-dimensional characters. Each story has a tight scripted build-up which ends with a well-earned shock. The effects are well-done. There is no shortage of gore. In short, it is a movie that knows exactly what it wants to be, knows how to tell it's stories and had a crew with the technical skills to make it all look good.

I do think that the timeline is a little hard to follow the first time around. I was able to keep track of what was happening when, but some of the people I watched it with had to stop the movie and piece together what they had seen and how it all fit together. Also, you have to like the anthology format and horror comic book sensibilities. If you don't, you'll probably find the film unsatisfying. Keep in mind; you don't have to like horror comic books to enjoy this movie. But you do have to accept that the stories set up a situation, give you some shocks and then wrap things up. Also Keep in mind that the film is only 82 minute along, so each of the main segments (2 - 5) gets about 15 minutes of screentime.

Verdict

Anthologies have to be judged by different standards than a traditional narrative. In general, you'll have more characters and more stories lines with less time to develop them than a traditional film. My standards are along these lines:

1. Does it have a consistent theme and tone? One thing that I find throws me off in an anthology is if you have stories that don't have similar tones (so, if you had one segment that was light comedy, the next grim torture porn) or if there is no thematic core.
2. Do the filmmakers use the limited time in each story to create memorable characters? They probably won't be well-rounded; but, they have to stand out.
3. Does the wrap-up equal the build-up? This is particularly true with horror anthologies. The stories will try to end on a shock. Do they?
4. The usual standards for films also apply: acting, dialogue, cinematography, soundtrack and so forth.

In the case of Trick R Treat the film meets all my criteria for a good anthology.

Check it out.

Short Attnetion Span Review - The Haunting of Helena (2012) - With Toothless Spoilers

I watched this movie for two reasons. One, it is on Netflix streaming. Two, because of this image:

Pretty creepy, right? Well, that's about the only thing that works in this boring film. The movie deals with a ghost of a woman who liked to eat people and lives in a swamp drained by Benito Mussolini. Or something like that. The film is terribly plotted and acted. Character motivation is lacking and each actor seems to be competing with the others in a race to see who can be the most disinterested in their role. The film has a grey, washed out look. In some films, this can be moody; in this film, it only serves to heighten the tedium. While I will give it a point for the ending - spoiler: the mom fails to save her daughter from the hungry ghost - that's about the only thing that was original or noteworthy. A tired retread of better stories, told with no flair and weighed down by a boring cast, The Haunting of Helena isn't worth anyone's time.

Oh, a note to filmmakers: mosquitoes are not scarey. The ghost somehow controls the little blood suckers and uses them to kill people. This looks silly on the screen and gives our monster an obvious weakness to Off! Deep Woods. The only way to make them a menace (other than by infecting them with malaria) is to make them big a rubbery, like this monster from Mosquito:

31 Days of Halloween - Stakeland (2010)

"A horror film set in a vampire-ravaged America? Sounds awesome!" Which is what went through my head when I heard about this movie. I knew it was low budget (under a million) so I didn't expect to see hordes of vampires going up against armies of humans in the ruins of New York (or wherever). I hoped that I’d get something original with a good story and decadent acting. Did it succeed? Keep reading and find out.

Synopsis

The film follows the adventures of Mister (Nick Damici) and Martin (Connor Paolo) as they travel across what's left of America. The night is owned by vampires, depicted in this film as mostly unintelligent, savage monsters. The day is left to the remaining humans. Some are decent, living in functioning fortified settlements. Others are marauders; chief amongst these is Jebedia Loven (Michael Cerveris) and his band of Christian wackos (The Brotherhood) who see the vampires as a holy judgment against man.

The film begins with a flashback to Martin’s family being wiped out by a vampire. He is rescued by Mister, who takes him under his wing and teaches him how to fight the undead. They are heading north, towards some imagined safety in what was once Canada (now known as New Eden). They stop in a town and trade vampire teeth (the new currency) and antibiotics for booze, food, and a haircut. They then run into a pair of Brotherhood douches, who are chasing a nun, "Sister" (an unrecognizable Kelly McGillis), in order to rape her. Mister kills one and leaves the other for dead. It turns out the one he left is the son of Jebedia and he lives just long enough to tell dad who killed him.

Of course, this means that the Brotherhood is now after Mister. They capture him and Jebedia rants about his dead son and how vampires are the instruments of God. Instead of just killing Mister, they leave him in vampire country. Of course, Mister evades the vamps, mostly off-screen, because the set-up makes escape impossible. Martin escapes the Brotherhood camp - he walks away - and meets up with Mister at their car.

They find a roadhouse, hang out for drinks, and pick up a pregnant chick, Belle (the oh-so-hot Danielle Harris). They head to another settlement, where the Brotherhood stages a pretty creative attack; dropping vampires into the town from a helicopter. The group - now including Sister, who escaped to the town and Willie (Sean Nelson) a former Marine - keeps heading north. During the journey, Sister and Willie are killed. Jebedia, who has been turned into a vampire, is stalking them. He kidnaps Belle and uses her as bait. Mister has a final confrontation with Jebedia. The surprisingly articulate vampire is killed as is Belle. Continuing north, the duo finds another random chick, Peggy (Bonnie Dennison). Mister leaves Martin and Peggy to wander Stakeland alone. Our young couple arrives in Canada, heading towards an uncertain future. The end.

Analysis

I have mixed feelings about Stakeland. It features some decent acting, particularly from Danielle Harris. The film looks good; the cinematography is top notch and the film creates a believable visual setting for apocalyptic America. The effects are mostly good; some are a little rubbery, but given the budget, this is not a major problem. There are some good ideas (e.g., vampire teeth being used as a form of currency) and nice set-pieces. The vampires being dropped into the town is a neat idea and is well executed.

Also, the interaction between Mister and Martin is pretty good. The dialogue is okay (although there are a lot of cliches tossed in) and the acting isn't bad. Since this is more of a character driven story (as opposed to plot driven), this interaction is a strong point of the film.

However.

The film suffers from being nearly plotless. The story meanders and has no real direction. It is little more than a series of set-pieces strung together. The ultimate goal - New Eden - is so poorly defined that it is not a strong motivation for the quest storyline. The movie drags near the end, with seemingly endless scenes of people wandering through the woods. A lot of the dialogue is cliched, either tough guy talk or the stereotypical Christian blather from the religious nutjobs.

Although the movie looks good, there are moments - like a nighttime standoff in a junkyard that is brightly lit, even though there should be no source of light - that really detract from the film. Some of the plot elements - like Jebedia leaving Mister to be killed by vampires or retaining his intelligence when he becomes a vampire that make little sense. There are a lot of scenes that don't make much sense. There is one in particular that involves Martin, a charging vampire and Mister suddenly pulling him into the trunk of the car that is so dumb, so obviously a ploy to generate tension, that it is offensive,

There is also a lot of narration from Martin. Far too much. Many things that should either be shown or actually are shown are also yammered about by Martin. This is a bad idea. Movies should never resort to narration when images or dialogue can handle the same task. There are some exposition dumps from Mister and Willie that work okay and seem like natural ways to convey story elements. However, the narration leads to questions like; who is Martin talking too? Why is he telling us that the government has collapsed when we can clearly see that? Why bother telling us about the religious fanatics when we are shown all we need to know when the characters meet them? And it is never a good idea to have a character use narration to describe inner feelings. It's sloppy, lazy and annoying. Want a good example of how to world build without narration? Check out the opening credit sequence from Snyder's Dawn of the Dead

Verdict

For all its flaws, Stakeland is still worth checking out. It is a great idea and, when one considers the budget, an impressive looking film. If only the filmmakers had come up with a stronger plot and had trusted their own skills to tell a story visually, instead of relying on clunky narration, it would've been much better. Still, it gets a weak recommendation from me.

Hey, and here's the trailer.

31 Days Of Halloween - The Collection (2012) - With Tortured Spoilers

Halloween started off this morning with a random Netflix pick, The Collection. Does it measure up to my demanding standards? Let's see.

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.

One Paragraph Review - You're Next (2011) - With Minor Spoilers

You're Next is a pretty generic low-budget entry intro the slasher/home invasion genre. A large family - mom, dad, 3 sons, 1 daughter, all with significant others - are attacked in their remote estate by a group of masked killers. The film looks good for a movie made for around $1 million. The pacing is good, with few moments that drag. The acting isn't bad; Sharni Vinson is particularly good as the kick-butt final girl Erin. The practical gore effects are well-done. And, that's about it, as far as good things. The story doesn't make much sense, the plot relies on characters acting really dumb (splitting up, running off into the dark woods where the killers are, etc) to move forward and there are a number of clunky exposition dumps needed to explain what is going on. The characters are all pretty one-dimensional; but, it's not that important since they are killed off pretty rapidly. I won't spoil the second act twist, except to say that it makes most of the actions of the killers nonsensical. Anyway, if you are in the mood for a dumb, but well-paced survival horror film with a great final girl, check out You;re Next. If you are prone to thinking too much about movies - like I am - you might find the plot holes and contrivances annoying; but, I still recommend checking it out.

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.

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.

MegaMonsterMonth! #7 - Earth Vs The Spider (1958). Trapped in a Web of Spoliers.

It's Bert I. Gordon again. For someone who wasn't that good a filmmaker, I seem to like watching his stuff. Today I'm checking out Earth vs the Spider.

Synopsis

Jack Flynn (Merritt Stone) is driving home to a small town in the southwest after purchasing a birthday gift (a bracelet) for his daughter, Carol (June Kenney). He hits something and his truck crashes. The next day Carol and boyfriend Mike (Eugene Persson) go looking for him. They find the truck, but no body. Spying a nearby cave and thinking he may have crawled in there for shelter they venture inside and find...a giant spider! The local sheriff (Gene Roth) and high school science teacher, Kingman (Ed Kemmer) are eventually convinced that the spider is real. They venture into the cave and gas the spider with DDT. It collapses, apparently dead. But not so fast! While being stored in the high school gym, the spider is revived by rock and roll and gyrating teens (none of whom seem to be under 30). It breaks out and goes on a rampage through the town.

The most inattentive posse ever.

It eventually grows bored of eating people and heads back to the cave, where the sheriff traps it with dynamite; but not before Mike and Carol head inside to look for her birthday gift! The teens manage to survive long enough for the locals to get to the kids, where Kingman arms Mike with an electrode. The two of them catch the spider in an electrical arc which stuns it. The multi-limbed menace falls onto a stalagmite and the film ends with the monster impaled and dead.

Analysis

This is probably the most competent of Gordon's movies. The effects are okay with the matte shots avoiding the transparent look of some of his other movies. There are some pretty gruesome corpses, drained of fluid by the spider. The acting is amateurish, but adequate. Gordon keeps the movie moving along, he throws in enough spider action to balance some dull character interactions and, at 73 minutes, the film does not overstay its welcome. The opening - with Jack screaming into the camera as something slashes across his face, is an arresting way to start he film.

Of course, there are a lot of things wrong with the movie. The effects, although adequate for a film of this type (low-budget) and era(the late-Fifties), look pretty sad when compared to other films of the time (like the superior Tarantula (1955)). The acting is wooden and the "teen" cast is far too old. Although this is often the case in films (with actors in their twenties playing teens) in Earth, some of the high-school students look like they're pushing forty. The script is pretty bad, having characters doing some amazingly dumb things, even by horror movie standards. Would you really want to stage an impromptu sock hop in a room with a huge spider, even if you think it is dead? Would you really go back into the cave of death to get a bracelet? And the dialogue, which tries - clumsily, painfully - to channel the teen slang of the day - laughable.

Notes

One thing I like about this movie is that there is no explanation for the spider. It's not radioactive. Toxic waste hasn't seeped into the ground water. It didn't drop into a tank of bovine growth hormones. It's just a big spider living in a cave. Why? Are there more? Is this just an outlet for a vast, underground world of giants? Who cares?!? Not Bert I. Gordon.

Verdict

This is a bad movie I love. HThe dialogue is goofy, the acting is sub-local theater, the effects are barely competent, but something about the movie makes it fun to watch and doesn't get boring. Because of the this, the many flaws and failings are acceptable, since the movie itself is entertaining and endearingly silly. Check it out.

Here's the trailer:

MegaMonsterMonth! #4 - War of the Colossal Beast (1958) - Now With 60-Foot Tall Spoilers!

Bert I. Gordon. The name is a legend among B-movie afficiandos. Active mostly in the late-Fifites and early-Sixites, Gordon produced and directed a string of low-budget horror and sci-fi movies.

Here are a few that any genre fan will recognize:

• The Amazing Colossal Man (1957) - The first part of the Glenn Manning Saga!
• Beginning of the End (1957) - Peter Graves versus giant grasshoppers!
• Valley of the Giants (1965) - Super-sized teenagers, a scourge of the 60s!
• The Food of the Gods (1976) - HG Wells comes back as a giant rat!
• Empire of the Ants (1977) - I want to pollinate Joan Collins! With sex!

Anyway, his films are generally low budget, have terrible special effects, laughable scripts, c-list actors...basically, everything you'd associate with drive-in fodder. They are also pretty entertaining, as long as you have the right mindset.

Synopsis

Picking up where The Amazing Colossal Man left off, Beast finds the 60-foot tall, diaper-clad Colonel Manning (Dean Parkin) horribly scared and driven insane from a bazooka blast he received at the end of the last film. He is living in the hinterlands of Northern Mexico, menacing the locals. He is eventually captured and brought to Los Angeles. While being held in an aircraft hangar, his sister Joyce (Sally Fraser) tries to reason with him, unsuccessfully. While chained to the floor, Manning has a lengthy flashback, retelling the story of The Amazing Colossal Man. All of the highlights of that film are shown. Manning eventually escapes. He makes it to the Griffith Observatory where he is surrounded by police and Army personnel. Joyce talks him out of destroying a convenient bus load of school kids. He has a brief moment of sanity, grabs hold of some high tension wires and evaporates. The End.

Analysis

By any reasonable standard, War of the Colossal Beast is a bad film. The acting is wooden. The effects are bad, even for the time, with Manning often transparent, a sign of poor mattes. While the make-up is effective in a few shots (and in stills) whenever he moves his mouth it looks like a latex appliance glued onto the skin. Which, of course, it is. The decision to go briefly to color stock for the finale when Manning electrocutes himself is pretty neat, even if it is only there for a ballyhoo effect; but it adds nothing to the movie. The music seems to be the same stock the Gordon uses in all of his films. And the direction is comprised mostly of static shots.

There are a few good scenes. The opening, where a Mexican teen (Robert Hernandez) is being chased by some unseen menace is well shot and tense. The initial appearance of the horribly scarred Manning delivers a jolt, as he emerges from behind a hill top, while our heroes stand among the wreckage of cargo trucks Manning has been raiding for food.

While a low-budget can be used to explain some deficiencies (like threadbare special effects work or the caliber of a cast) it cannot be used to justify a poorly written story. The film lacks drama. The characters who should get most of the screen-time, Joyce, is often pushed into the background. There are scenes that are in the film just to pad it out, like a 3 minute segment showing different agencies in DC passing the buck about who is responsible for the giant. It's a weird sequence that stops whatever forward momentum the film has and one that adds nothing to the story. The long, unneeded flashback (well, unneeded except to pad the movie run-time with recycled footage) is another scene that has nothing to do with the story and has no apparent impact on the character of Manning. It is there solely so Gordon could reuse footage. There are a number of scenes like this that exist to extend the film to feature length.

Not all of Gordon's work was like this. The Amazing Colossal Man is pretty good with Glenn Langan displaying some real pathos as the man slowly becoming an alien in his own body. Earth vs the Spider is a likeable enough romp, some decent effects and some fun moments of giant spider action. Even Beginning of the End (showcased in one of the best MST3K episodes) had decent acting by the Beginning was literally achieved by having grasshoppers crawl on photographs). While Gordon never made a really great movie, he did make films that tried to be entertaining. Unfortunately, War of the Colossal Beast is just lazy.

Notes

Even though it continues the story of The Amazing Colossal Man, Beast has a different cast and wasn't marketed as sequel.

Verdict

Beast straddles the line between so bad it's bad and so bad it's good. It is not one of Gordon's better films, mostly because of how, even at only 69 minutes long, it feels padded. It has some amusing moments and isn't a horrible way to spend an hour. However, if you want to check out a decent Gordon movie, check out The Amazing Colossal Man or Earth vs The Spider.

Check out the trailer.

MegaMonsterMonth! #2 - Cloverfield (2008)

Cloverfield promised, in the words of producer JJ Abrams to give America "our own...monster, and not like King Kong. I love King Kong. King Kong is adorable. And Godzilla is a charming monster. We love Godzilla. But I wanted something that was just insane and intense." Did the movie deliver? Not really. That doesn't make it a bad film; other elements of the movie do that. But, aside from the apparent lack of knowledge Abrams has about the long history of giant American monsters, it did not have the impact he thought it would.

Synopsis

A group of young urbanites living in New York City has gathered to say goodbye to their friend, Rob (Michael Stahl-David) who is leaving for a job in Japan. On the night of his going away party, an enormous monster emerges from the Atlantic and attacks the city. While the creature rampages, Rob, his brother Jason (Mike Vogel), his brother's girlfriend Lily (Jessica Lucas), hanger on Marlena (Lizzy Caplan) and stereotypically annoying friend and cameraman Hud (T. J. Miller ) first try to escape New York. While attempting to cross the Brooklyn Bridge, the monster attacks, destroys the bridge, killing Jason and stranding the rest of the party in Manhattan. Rob receives a call from Beth (Odette Yustman) who is his friend, recent one-night stand and secret love of his life. We get to see snippets of the last date in tiny snippets throughout the film. Beth is trapped in her apartment. Rob resolves to rescue her and the rest of the gang come along because...why not? They have some close encounters with the main creature and are attacked while traveling in a subway tunnel by dog-sized parasites that are dropping off the monster, losing Lizzy Caplan to a disease the parasites carry which causing the victims to explode. Eventually they find Beth in her apartment, impaled by re-bar but still alive. Freeing her, they make it to an evacuation site. Lily leaves in one helicopter, while Rob, Hud and Beth board the last chopper out before the "Hammer Down Protocol" is initiated by the military. The chopper is swatted out of the sky by the monster, who proceeds to eat Hud (best part of the movie). Rob and Beth survive just long enough to record goodbye messages and profess their love for each other before the Air Force blasts lower Manhattan - and the monster - out of existence. The End.

Analysis

This movie starts with one strike against it; found footage. Readers of this site know I do not like found footage movies, in general. Why? Because it is often used as a lazy way to hide a low budget.

Not all found footage films are bad (I include mockumentaries in this genre). Anything - The War Game, Privilege, Punishment Park - by Peter Watkins is great. This is Spinal Tap is one of the funniest movies ever made, using the framework of a rockumentary to showcase its deadpan humor. Blair Witch is a tight, little horror movie, where the visual format heightens the tension. [Rec], [Rec2] and Apollo 18 show how the visual style of this genre can be used as an integral part of the story, enhancing the film. But, with the recent glut of found footage films, the bad movies greatly outweigh the good ones.

With Cloverfield it does not work. While the idea is sound, since the movie steadfastly refuses to focus on the action - we see very little of the monster - it would require a story and characters that we can become invested in. In this regard, the screenplay is a complete failure. Our protagonist is enamored with a women who is presented as a vapid, kind of whorish, woman-child. Three weeks after sleeping with Rob, she shows up at his party with a new boyfriend. That is not the mark of a friend and does not make for a character we want to see rescued. Of course, Rob is a shallow dolt as well, whose main traits are his product rich hair and slavish devotion to a woman who shows little interest in him. There is no particular motivation for any of the characters to follow him on his trip to save Beth other than the movie needed a camera operator (Hud) and some cannon fodder. Since you can't possibly care about one-dimensional, rather unlikable people - Hud's character in particular is so stupid and so annoying you wonder why anyone would befriend him - there is no reason to have any feelings about Rob succeeding or not.

Lizzy Caplan, the best thing - well, best human thing - about the film.
Too bad she explodes.

Things might have been better if we had seen more of the monster. While the narrative device limits the number of believable panoramic "glamor" shots of the monster, it does not explain why the camera seems to be shy about focusing on the monster for more than a few seconds. And, why is almost everything either a dutch angle, shaky cam or a nauseating combination of both? In low-budget found footage movies, this conceit - that the camera operator behaves in a way that no real person would, focusing on anything but an effects heavy monster - is done in order to save money. With a budget of $25 million, Cloverfield did not suffer from a lack of funding. Even when the creature is in the scene, in a location where it would be in full view, Hud would rather film things like his friends reactions, rather than the enormous monster destroying the city. This starts out as an interesting artistic choice, but becomes increasingly annoying as the film wears on.

And, it does wear on. For a movie with a run-time of only 85 minutes (of which 11 minutes are closing credits) it drags. It has no interesting characters, a story that focuses on things I don't care about, a visual style that is frustrating in that it shows very little of what we want to see (a monster destroying New York city) and far too much of what we don't want to see (generically pretty people engaged in a quest that has no dramatic weight to it).

A decent shot of the creature.

There are a good parts to the film. The effects team does a great job of animating the creature and a creating a convincing ground level view of the destruction being left in its wake. The monster has a pretty unique look to it, one that succeeds in creating a believably otherworldly menace. There are a few nice shots. A real stand out is a brief scene in which a B-2 bomber unloads a string of bombs on the creature. You get a good feel for how big the creature is and how devastating the fighting between the monster and the military as been in the city.

As far as the story, only knowing what the characters know - that on a seemingly normal day, the city they live in is attacked by a monstrous creature - works to keep our interest, at least to some degree. Trying to piece together what is happening, catching little hints of the larger story scattered here and there, is engaging. Having the little parasites dropping off the larger creature is a nice touch, both because it hints at a complex ecosystem and gives the characters something to fight. And the ending, with almost everyone dead, is satisfying, avoiding a cliched "our heroes make a last minute escape" finale.

Notes

Cloverfield had an intensive viral marketing campaign, with websites, hidden messages in trailers, videos you could piece together...a whole host of items that hinted at what the movie was going to be about, without giving too much away. Unfortunately, by the time the film was over, I had a feeling more effect was put into the marketing than into telling an interesting story.

Verdict

Cloverfield is a movie I wanted to like. I've given it a number of chances, hoping that in the right mood the film would finally appeal to me. Unfortunately, each time I watch it, I wind up thinking about the missed opportunity to actually achieve what Abrams set out to do; create a monster (and, a franchise) to rival Godzilla. Unfortunately, with the thin characters, dull story, lack of monster action and terrible use of the found footage tropes, the film fails to achieve much of anything. Since it is so short, seeing it once for the good elements is worth the investment of time.

Short Attention Span Review - We Are What We Are (2013) - So. Many. Spoilers.

Synopsis
In Redneckland, USA, a family living on the fringe of a small town has a dark secret. They've been eating long pork for centuries. The latest generation (two teenage girls, one boy around 5) are a little reluctant to embrace the family legacy. Mom dies from kuru (which comes from eating human brains), dad is infected, the locals are getting suspicion when a teen goes missing and bones - showing signs of being boiled) start turning up in the river...and the eldest daughter has to take over for mom when it comes to killing the yearly people feast. Cannibal wackiness ensues.

Analysis
What a great movie. Really, this is one of the best films, horror or otherwise, I've seen this year. The acting is low-key and very believable. The quiet nature of the characters and the way the actors portray them makes the instances of violence far more powerful than they might otherwise be. I was particularly impressed with Julia Garner and Ambyr Childers who portray the teen cannibals. Both do good jobs portraying complex characters, who are torn between a life they have been raised to believe is correct, but not one they really want to embrace. Director Jim Mickie and cinematographer Ryan Samul give the film an appropriately dark, washed out look, one that perfectly captures the grimness of the story without being showing or gimmicky in any way. There are a few moments of graphic violence, but these are used sparingly, like a scalpel, not a machete.

There are a few plotholes that nag. The biggest one is, how does this family keep reproducing for centuries? There is one tiny hint that there might be incest involved, but it certainly is not explicitly stated. So, how exactly do you explain to new family members the finger in the soup? Also, there is a real question of how a family living in a small community could keep this secret for centuries. But, these plot issues do not detract significantly from the overall story and viewing experience.

This is a glorious twist on family values, on concept of loyalty to one's "kin," on the idea that small town America, the place where people have deep roots (our cannibal family's ancestors arrived in the area in the late 18th century), is somehow a better place than the urban coasts. While this is not a new theme (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a great example of a satirical looks at the American family and pioneer spirit) the sombre, quiet nature of this movie sets it apart from its backwoods slasher relatives.

Additional Notes
This is a remake of a 2010 Mexican film, Somos lo que hay. I have not seen this version, so I can't compare the two. Based on the trailer, however, it looks like it has a very different tone, from the setting (urban) to the parent lost at the beginning being the father, rather than the mother, leading to a different set of family dynamics and familial expectations for the children to the apparent lack of reluctance on the part of the kids to participate in the family past-time. However, I'll have to track the film down and see if these impressions are correct. You can see the trailer here at IFC films.

Verdict
See it now. It is currently on Netflix, so if you can stream, stop reading this blog and check it out. Or, you can buy the movie on Amazon.

Short-Attention Span Review - Insidious 2 (2013)

Insidious 2 is a lackluster sequel to 2010's Insidious. While not exactly revolutionary, Insidious had a nice pace, some interesting ideas and pretty good visuals. It also had a ton of plotholes and a so-so cast; but, it moved along briskly enough and was a pretty fun, occasionally jump-inducing romp.

Insidious 2 has none of the strengths of the original and all of the weaknesses. It is a boring, loud, uninspired mess. More angry ghosts are haunting our family, more time is spent in the gloomy nether world, more pasty faced dead people scream into the camera. There are a few moderately interesting ideas - like contacting the dead with the use of dice with letters on the faces - but most of film just drifts across the screen in an ugly series of either cliched (on no, a ghost jumps out of nowhere at the camera) or boring scenes. People act like idiots to propel the plot, internal rules are inconsistent and the overall plot isn't even that clear...something about transvestite killers and bad parenting.

Sequels are a dicey proposition in the best cases. A sequel of a movie that was "style over substance" is even more of a challenge, since it can only work if a) the creative team ramps up the style or b) they add in some substance. When you bleed out the style and don't add any substance, you wind up with a movie that isn't even a good time waster. Avoid Insidious 2.

Short Attention Span Review - Ritual (2012) - Spoliers

John Evans (Rio Dewanto) wakes up in a shallow grave. He doesn't remember his name or how he got there. Over the course of a day, he finds that his wife is dead and his children are missing. Or...are they? Ritual strives for some originality in its stalk-and-kill formula. While it succeeds in having an original framework for the killer - John is the killer; he goes to elaborate lengths to pick a target family, kill the father, then, with the help of drug-induced amnesia, make himself believe that it is his wife who has died and that the children are really killers stalking him - the film fails to be interesting enough to recommend. There is some nausea inducing shaky cam. There are numerous scenes of John screaming, sweating or drooling. The killer's plot relies on many coincidences to function, the biggest one being "what if amnesiac John doesn't head in the right direction and wanders out of the woods?" And the ending is unnecessarily long. After seeing John go through the paces and kill the last members of his "victim" family, we see how he sets up the next one. This goes on for about 20 minutes and is unnecessary as any viewer who was paying attention can figure out the hows and whys.

It's not a bad movie. I respect what it is trying to accomplish; a new take on a well-worn story. But, it strikes me that this film would've been better as a thirty-minute short. As it is, the film feels unnecessarily drawn out. It's on Netflix streaming, so if you that, check it out. Otherwise, I have a hard time recommending this film.

Her, The Longer Review

I really enjoyed the movie Her. In addition to my One Paragraph Review, I had a longer reviewed published on Yahoo. Check it out here.

One Paragraph Review - Her (2013)

Set in the near future, Her follows the relationship between Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) and Samantha (Scarlett Johansson). The twist - Samantha is an artificial intelligence, existing on Ted's home computer as is operating system (the AIs are referred to as OSes in the film). Ted quickly falls in love with the funny, insightful Samantha, a feeling reciprocated by the OS. Problems arise, as they do in any relationship; however, as the film reaches its conclusion, something unforeseen happens that effects Ted, Samantha and all of the AIs...and which I won't reveal. Her is a great movie. It is not perfect; there are some plot points that are not fully developed. However, the story (by Spike Jonze, who also directed) is gripping, addressing a number of themes in a sophisticated fashion. Not only does the movie look at the obvious, the relationship between man and technology. It also addresses issues of how people connect to one another, how we idealize the past, how social media and ubiquitous communication technology creates new modes of community formation and is also a great love story. As a character driven story, Her relies on its cast as much as its writing. Everyone from Phoenix and Johansson on do great jobs. Johansson in particular conveys the complexity of her character using only her voice (the OS is never more than a voice in Ted's ear). An amazing film and one everyone should see and think about.

A movie with Scarlett that does not have her dressed like this? I don't know about that...

One Paragraph Review - Devil's Pass (2013) (SPOILERS Ahead)

Sweet!!!! Renny Harlin, the auteur responsible for Cutthroat Island - sorry..."the masterpiece of the cinematic form Cutthroat Island" - decided to give us just what we all have been clamoring for; another found footage horror movie. Yay! A group of bland documentarians (except for Gemma Atkinson, pictured below, who is no way bland) head to Russia to look into the Daytalov Pass Incident (an actual event in 1959 in which 9 people on a sky trip died under odd circumstances; you can read all about it at wikipedia the font of all knowledge in the universe). Stuff happens, people die, we find out that the Soviets had some kind of underground base in the area where they were working on teleportation and time travel, the Philadelphia Experiment is name checked, and we get one of the most telegraphed "twist" endings I've seen in a long time. Like most found footage movies, it has plausibility problems (why would a cameraman keep filming when horrifying monsters and hostile gunmen are following him?) and the bonus issue of how some of the footage is found. Given the story, there is no way anyone would see all of the footage we are shown...a real problem when that is your central conceit. The monster CGI is poorly done and the creatures are cliched in design, tall gaunt pale skinned creatures with big mouths (see I Am Legend, Rec, The Descent, etc.). The cinematography is the usual found footage mix of dull static shots, shaky cam and shots that no one actually using a handheld camera would get, given the circumstances. It's not brain cancer inducing; it's just dull and unoriginal in execution. Which is unfortunate, since the idea for the story (what really happened to the first expedition...something that isn't actually answered in the film) and, in the hands of a better director, could have made a good movie. Oh, and please, no more found footage movies. That is one cinematic style that needs to be retired.

Gemma Atkinson at no point wears this outfit in the movie. That might have made it worth watching.