Movies Archives - Page 29 of 86

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Leave a Comment / Arts & Letters, Movies / Mark / December 20, 2015

First, before the spoilers, it’s good. A dramatic improvement over the prequels, if perhaps not quite up to the legendary originals. But what could live up to that sort of hype? I tried my hardest to keep expectations in check, and as a result, found myself greatly enjoying this movie. Star Wars is a lot of fun again, which is something that was sorely lacking in the prequels. My biggest complaint, and it’s a small one, is that it’s too reliant on callbacks to the original trilogy. Everyone’s freaking out about this, so spoilers ahead I guess (I’ll try to be a little vague about it).

In the behind-the-scenes materials for the prequels (of which there is a lot of footage that was generously released), there’s an infamous scene where George Lucas notes that he’s trying to establish parallels between the prequels and the original trilogy, saying “You see the echo of where all is gonna go. It’s like poetry, they rhyme”

Star Wars Poetry from whoispablo on Vimeo.

The problem here is that George Lucas is no Shakespeare, so much of his attempts at this sort of thing come off as hamfisted and clumsy. It doesn’t help that the movies themselves aren’t very good. Now, true, J.J. Abrams isn’t Shakespeare either, but he’s a lot better at this sort of thing. He may have gone to the well a little too often, but the result is that this movie captures a lot of what made the original movies so wonderful (and he did so much better than he did with Star Trek Into Darkness). Ironically, J.J. Abrams has evoked a more Lucas-esque feeling than Lucas managed in the prequels!

So there are lots and lots of callbacks. There’s a bigger, badder Death Star. There’s an assault on that Death Star that evokes the end of the original Star Wars. There’s a dark, masked villain that is strong with the dark side of the force. He has a master that only appears in hologram. He also has a surprising familial relationship with someone. BB-8 is basically R2-D2, but he has that cool rolling propulsion. There’s a cantina scene. Heck, Han Solo (and Chewbacca), General Leia, and Luke Skywalker all show up in varying degrees.

And it works. Again, there might be too many callbacks, but for the most part, they rhyme, like poetry. Where the movie really shines, though, is with the new characters. Rey (played by Daisy Ridley) is utterly fantastic, a scrappy badass and the best addition to the Star Wars universe since the original trilogy. Finn (John Boyega) is heroic and funny, hitting a note of almost childlike wonder. He’s the most openly emotional, but still brave character in the film. Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) is charismatic and, well, not quite a rogue, but perhaps dashing. He’s a straight arrow, right out of the serials. What’s more, these three leads play off each other perfectly and the performances are spot on. One could quibble at the speed with which they develop their deep friendships, but this, too, rhymes with the original Star Wars trio of Luke, Leia, and Han. I love these three characters and cannot wait to see where they go next!

For his part, Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) is menacing and terrifying, reminiscent of Darth Vader, but by the end he’s carved out a wholly different identity. One that’s mysterious and vulnerable and intriguing, which softens the impossible comparison between the villains. I’m not quite sure what to make of this character, actually, especially where he ends up, but I’m really excited to see what happens here too. Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis) is still in the shadows at this point, but he seems suitably menacing. Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie) gets almost nothing to do in this film except look really cool in her snazzy chrome armor. My guess is that some of her stuff wound up on the cutting room floor, but that she’ll also get a chance to rebound and establish herself as a name villain in the next film. Nowhere to go but up for her.

Of the returning characters, Han Solo and Chewbacca get the most screentime, perhaps a little too much, but Abrams made it work. Princess (sorry, General) Leia is in the movie just about the right amount, and Luke is only teased a bit (he’ll certainly have more time in the next film). I was wary of this, and in some ways, my worries were justified, but it works out well enough in the end.

All in all, this is an excellent return to form for Star Wars, evoking the best of the original trilogy and yet showing enough potential to carve out its own identity in the following films. This will be crucial because otherwise, this will play out like lesser Star Wars. It’s all well and good for this film to recall the originals so much, but the sequels will need to do their own thing if this is to truly succeed. The good news is that all the pieces are on the board, and they’ve done a good job maneuvering so far. Episode VIII writer/director Rian Johnson is a Kaedrin favorite, and I’m guessing that he’ll shepherd this series on well. He’s also on board to write Episode IX, so I think we’re in good hands (though I have more trepidation about Colin Trevorrow as director).

As a science fiction nerd, I should note that this film is perhaps the least plausible of them all. And that’s actually wonderful! One of the worst, dumbest things Lucas managed in the prequels was the hackneyed attempt to explain the Force scientifically. This movie has no such pretensions, and that’s actually what Star Wars is all about.

If I may go off on a tangent for a moment here, I feel like I should mention the books that I always thought would make a great sequel trilogy. Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy is still wonderful and worth checking out, even though it is no longer official canon material. Grand Admiral Thrawn was a wonderful villain, so different from what you might expect, and that worked really well (still holding out hope for a Thrawn cameo in these new movies – come on Rian, just throw a dude with blue skin and a white Admiral’s uniform on screen somewhere). The heroes in that book were still primarily Luke, Leia, and Han, which wouldn’t really be possible in movies these days without recasting, and the new characters weren’t quite as lovable as the new trio we got in this film. Still, the series is worth checking out, and it’s really the only Expanded Universe stuff that I’ve really enjoyed.

Anyway, this movie is great. I will grant that I’m not particularly objective about this whole thing. There’s a lot of nostalgia and love in this series for me, so it’s hard to separate this from that. If I really wanted to, I’m sure I could nitpick a ton of stuff, but I don’t want to. In fact, much of what I could nitpick here is almost equally applicable to the original movie. There’s no sense in that, I just want to revel in this for now. I enjoyed this a lot more than the prequels, and this movie shows a lot of promise for future Star Wars efforts. Only two more years until Episode VIII (though we’ll get a Rogue One movie next year).

Mr. Dadier’s Juvie-Ready, Tough-As-Nails Blackboard-Bustin’ Back to School Movie Quiz

Leave a Comment / Movies / Mark / December 6, 2015

A couple months ago, Dennis Cozzalio of the Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule blog posted two of his infamous quizes. Given the Six Weeks of Halloween horror movie marathon, I tackled the horror themed quiz first, but am only now returning to the more standard quiz. Previous installments answering questions from Professor Hubert Farnsworth, David Huxley, Professor Fate, Professor Russell Johnson, Dr. Smith, Professor Peabody, Professor Severus Snape, Professor Ed Avery, Dr. Anton Phibes, Sister Clodagh, Professor Arthur Chipping, Miss Jean Brodie, Professor Larry Gopnick, Professor Dewey Finn, Ms. Elizabeth Halsey, and Professor Abraham Setrakian are also available.

1) Favorite moment from a Coen Brothers movie

This is impossible. After careful consideration, I was able to narrow this down to ten moments.

Tracking shot across the bar and over the drunk in Blood Simple.
The diaper heist in Raising Arizona
“Look into your heart!” from Miller’s Crossing (alternate: anything with Albert Finney)
“You know, for kids.” from The Hudsucker Proxy (alternate: Jennifer Jason Leigh’s Hepburn impression)
“Oh for Pete’s sake, he’s fleeing the interview! He’s fleeing the interview!” from Fargo (alternate: almost every other Marge Gunderson scene)
“Nihilists! Fuck me. I mean, say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.” from The Big Lebowski
The scene where the dog is chasing Josh Brolin across the river from No Country for Old Men (alternate: anything with Javier Bardem)
The scenes where David Rasche attempts to explain what’s going on to J.K. Simmons from Burn After Reading (alternate: anything with Brad Pitt)
The dream sequence fakeout from A Serious Man
“…wait a minute… are we trading again?” from True Grit

Also of note, about 10 moments from the Hail, Caesar! trailer.

2) Scratching The Ladykillers, Intolerable Cruelty and The Hudsucker Proxy from consideration, what would now rate as your least-favorite Coen Brothers movie?

First, I resent the inclusion (er, exclusion) of The Hudsucker Proxy in this question. In my opinion, it’s one of the more underrated Coen Brothers movies. Anyway, this might get me disbarred from movie nerddom, but I really didn’t like Inside Llewyn Davis (and my runner up is another fan fave, Barton Fink). Just bounced right off of those movies.

3) Name the most underrated blockbuster of all time

This is hard, because if a film is actually a blockbuster, it’s not really underrated. It was busting blocks, guys! But if you define it as something that people tend to ignore these days (as opposed to when it opened), it gets more manageable. My first thought was the original Rocky, a film that tends to get unfairly slagged because it won the Best Picture Oscar, beating out film nerd favorites like Taxi Driver, Network, and All the President’s Men. It also suffers because most of what people know about Rocky comes from the sequels and not the film itself.

4) Ida Lupino or Sylvia Sidney?

Sylvia Sidney’s had a long career, and I’ve actually seen stuff all throughout, including Beetlejuice (which she is fantastic in!) and Hitchcock’s Sabotage (which is great).

5) Edwards Scissorhands – yes or no?

Yes! It is a bit indicative of the indulgent excess that would sink a lot of Burton’s later work, but here it is still fresh and interesting.

6) The movie you think most bastardizes, misinterprets or does a disservice to the history or historical event it tires to represent

The thing with this is, is that most bastardizations generally make for a better movie. No one gets on The Inglorious Bastards for being inaccurate. Indeed, that’s the whole damn point. So the trick here is to find a movie that is bad, which thus does much more of a disservice to history. As such, a couple that come to mind are Pearl Harbor and The Patriot.

7) Favorite Aardman animation

This is pretty simple: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

8) Second-favorite Olivier Assayas movie

I haven’t seen enough Assayas to comment on this one, so here’s my first mulligan.

9) Neville Brand or Mike Mazurki?

I’ve seen more things with Mike Mazurki, but guys, Neville Brand is in Killdozer.

10) Name the movie you would cite to a nonbeliever as the best evidence toward convincing them of the potential greatness of a favorite genre

I always feel like a cheat when I answer The Godfather, because it’s so universal and can be the answer for such a wide variety of questions, but then, here we are. Gangster movies can be trashy, but this is anything but…

11) Name any director and one aspect of his/her style or career, for good or bad, that sets her/him apart from any other director

Too many answers to count here, but the first to come to mind is the weaponized quirk of Wes Anderson.

12) Best car chase

There are so many iconic car chases in film that it’s hard to narrow down, so I think I’ll try to highlight some more obscure personal favorites. I guess The Blues Brothers isn’t that obscure, but it’s an unexpected source for great car chases. Death Proof is notable because it’s a practical effect in an era of CGI. I’ve always enjoyed the care chase in Running Scared. But of course, the answer to this is The Road Warrior (and, I suppose, Mad Max: Fury Road).

13) Favorite moment directed by Robert Aldrich

Opening the box at the end of Kiss Me Deadly…

14) The last movie you saw in a theater? On home video?

In the theater, it was Krampus, a delightfully mean-spirited Christmas horror movie that nevertheless generated a few laughs. On streaming, it was Barely Lethal, a weirdly fluffy child assassin goes to high school movie that is more successful than, say, Kick-Ass 2, but that’s not saying much. And on BD, it was Magic Mike XXL, also fluffier than expected, and more episodic than the first film, oddly weightless… but maybe better for that.

15) Jane Greer or Joan Bennett?

Jane Greer because Out of the Past.

16) Second-favorite Paul Verhoeven movie

Total Recall behind favorite RoboCop. “Consider that a divorce!”

17) Your nominee for best/most important political or social documentary you’ve seen

Can it be anything other than The Thin Blue Line? That’s the answer, right? Alright, there’s lots of worthy answers to this, but Errol Morris’ masterwork is my pick.

18) Favorite movie twins

It’s corny and the movie is not that good, but the pairing of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito in Twins is goofy and fun by itself. On a more serious note, the Jeromy Irons twins in Dead Ringers are haunting.

19) Best movie or movie moment about or involving radio

The two that leapt out at me are Samuel L. Jackson’s Radio DJ from Do the Right Thing and the backdrop of “K-Billy’s Super Sounds of the Seventies Weekend” (DJed by the deadpan Steven Wright) from Reservoir Dogs.

20) Eugene Pallette or William Demarest?

I will go with the “Gargantuan-bellied, frog-voiced character actor” Eugene Pallette, a memorable presence for sure.

21) Favorite moment directed by Ken Russell

William Hurt’s psychedelic journeys into the isolation chamberAltered States

22) All-time best movie cat

My first thought ran to Jonesy from Alien, but that’s more indicative of my love for that movie and all its minutiae than because of the cat itself. Similarly, Elliot Gould’s cat in The Long Goodbye is more memorable because of the movie it’s in than because it’s a cat. Finally, I settled on Irena from Cat People, because she’s a giant cat.

23) Your nominee for best movie about teaching and learning, followed by the worst

Real Genius is one of my favorite movies and while the teaching and learning are not direct, I’ve found that the most valuable stuff I learned in college was not in the classroom, so there is that. Plus, all the other answers I could think of had similar flaws.

24) Name an actor/actress currently associated primarily with TV who you’d like to see on the big screen

Krysten Ritter has been in several TV shows and is always a memorable presence, even when she’s not the lead like in Jessica Jones, where she’s still awesome and proves she could totally headline a big screen film.

25) Stanley Baker or David Farrar

I’ve seen a few movies from each filmography, but to be honest, I don’t have a preference, so another mulligan for me.

26) Critic Manny Farber once said of Frank Capra that he was “an old-time movie craftsman, the master of every trick in the bag, and in many ways he is more at home with the medium than any other Hollywood director, but all the details give the impression of a contrived effect.”

What is the Capra movie that best proves or disproves Farber’s assertion? And who else in Hollywood history might just as easily fit his description?

I think the second question betrays the difficulty of the first. There are tons of old-time craftsmen out there, and most film is contrived. That being said, even if It’s a Wonderful Life gives the impression of a contrived effect, we should all strive to be so contrived. The other director who might fit this description? Alfred Hitchcock, naturally.

6WH: Speed Round and Halloween

Leave a Comment / 6 Weeks of Halloween / Mark / November 1, 2015

It appears that time flies when you’re scared out of your wits and the infamous Six Weeks of Halloween ended with the main event yesterday. As per usual, I have not covered all of the movies I watched during this glorious six week period, whether that be because it didn’t fit with a given week’s theme or perhaps I’ve already seen and written about it or maybe I just didn’t have that much to say about it. So here’s a quick roundup of things I saw that haven’t already been covered…

The Babadook – Dear Lord, that kid is obnoxious. That’s kinda the point, I guess, but it’s the sort of thing that kept me bouncing off of this. It is wonderfully atmospheric, and when the horror starts creeping and crawling, it levels off into something that kinda works, but most of the runtime doesn’t seem to engage with the horror of the premise, instead focusing on themes of maternity and whatnot. I can see why critics love it, but again, I mostly bounced off it. **
From Beyond – Stuart Gordon was on the shortlist for the “Obscure Horror Auteurs” theme that drove the first half of this year’s marathon, but it was not to be. However, I did catch up with this one, based on a Lovecraft tale (as is a lot of Gordon’s best work) about a “resonator” that allows you to see other realities… the problem is that they can see back! Some interesting ideas here and it’s reasonably well executed, but this just doesn’t hold together quite as well as Re-Animator. **
The Monster Squad – Delightful as always, horror fun for the whole family. Especially effective when you’ve seen all the old Universal horror flicks this draws on and even expands (I especially like what they did with Wolfman, and not just the “nards” bits. Frankenstein is heart wrenching too.) Whatever happened to the director of this, Fred Dekker? Was Robocop 3 really that bad that he wasn’t allowed to work again? After Night of the Creeps and Monster Squad, you’d think he’d be able to weather a flop… Anywho, you should totally watch The Monster Squad, it’s great. ***
Hotel Transylvania – I’m not really a fan of Adam Sandler, but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this. This is perhaps more due to the other talent involved, like Genndy Tartakovsky or Robert Smigel, but whatever the case, this is fun stuff, also drawing on old monster lore and it features some genuinely likable characters. I liked the ending. It’s a little bland, but as a kid’s movie it works, and it’s fun. There is, however, a rapping Dracula, something I just can’t fathom in this day and age. **1/2
Hotel Transylvania 2 – No rapping Draculas, which is a plus, but also not much else to recommend it. Not bad, and there’s some nice bits (I like the intersection of the normal world and the monster world), but it doesn’t really go anywhere new. Still, decent for a kids movie. **1/2
Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence – Kinda going for a Bride of Maniac Cop thing here, but I guess that wasn’t in the cards. Maniac Cop is brought back by voodoo and wreaks some havoc in service of a female cop who is wrongfully accused or somesuch. Robert Davi returns as the hard boiled detective, Robert Z’Dar is Robert Z’Dar, and Caitlin Dulany is the helpful doctor. It’s all in good fun, though it drags a bit more than previous iterations. **
Vamp U – This movie is objectively terrible, it makes no sense, and yet, I had fun with it. Some interesting ideas here. A vampire who is impotent, meaning that he can’t “fang out” because he once accidentally killed his love. He now teaches history at a college and is surprised when a student comes to class who looks exactly like his long lost love. There’s a lot of fun stuff here. The vampire is named Wayne Gretzky for no reason, something that could have been endearing if the rest of the movie supported it, but it feels kinda tacky overall. Decent performances from Adam Johnson as Gretsky, and Gary Cole as his friend and confidant. Only abbout a third of the jokes actually land, so this isn’t quite calibrated or effective, but it’s the sort of thing that could maybe work if they took more time to develop it. *1/2 but I’d totally watch this again for some reason.
The Visit – A little too uneven to be called a true return to form, but this does at least represent a reversal of course for Shyamalan, halting a long skid of mediocrity and outright bad films. There’s a lot to like here, but the dialogue and plot are a little too on the nose and hamfisted. The overarching story works well and contains enough thematic heft that things come out alright in the end though. On the other hand, there are three (count ’em, three) scenes in which a white kid does freestyle rap and it is more horrifying than anything else Shyamalan has ever done (in, uh, a bad way). Once again, I don’t understand how we’re still using rap from an unexpected source (like a white kid or Dracula) as comedy in this day and age. A middling effort, but given where Shyamalan has been for his past few movies, that’s a major improvement. **1/2
Cargo – Probably more science fiction than horror, but this doesn’t really hold up in either genre. It’s fine, to be sure, but I had heard a lot of good things and thus my expectations were perhaps a bit too high. In the far future, earth is mostly destroyed and humanity lives in cramped space stations, awaiting a trip to new planet Rhea. Rich people can go there easily, others have to work menial jobs, etc, etc… you can see where this is going, right? And that is where it’s going. It’s fine, and reasonably well executed, but it’s not the SF or horror masterpiece I was lead to believe it would be. **
Puppetmaster – Haha, this is way more trashy than I remember it being, but it’s still fun and you have to admit, those little puppets are supremely well designed and memorable. This is one of those movies I discovered as a youngin trolling cable at, like, 3 am or something, so there’s a tinge of nostalgia at work here too. Originally scheduled for the Killer Dolls and Dummies week, I just didn’t get to it in time. **
Madman – I’m always surprised when I find yet another decent flick from the golden age of slashers, but I shouldn’t be, as there are, like, hundreds of them. This one is pretty fun, and I love the opening scene around the campfire. So glad I caught this one, I didn’t realize how much I was craving a good, old-fashioned slasher. Like a comfy sweater on a cold autumn day. Alright, so it’s not exactly “good” but I enjoyed the hell out of it. **1/2
No One Lives – I wasn’t that excited for this movie, but it turned out to be one of my favorite discoveries of late. A group of petty criminals attempts to kidnap a wealthy woman… but all is not what it seems. As it was unfolding, I was thinking to myself that it would be cool if the husband was actually a serial killer or something, and then was surprised to learn that this was actually the case. I love stories like this, where bad people tangle with worse people and get their comeuppance. This one was fun. ***
Ghostbusters – It’s a classic and you don’t need me to say anything more about it. Needless to say, if you haven’t seen it before, you need to watch it, whether you like horror movies or not. ****
Trick ‘r Treat – This is becoming an annual tradition around here, and I think I like it better every year. ***1/2
Halloween – Duh. ****
Scream – I watched the previous three films on Halloween eve, saving Halloween day for a minature Wes Craven marathon. First up was Scream, which holds up great if you put it in the right context. The opening is still brilliant, and the self-referential bits are well done. It’s just a lot of fun watching this. I really wanted to watch Scream 4 again too, but I never got to it. ***1/2
Deadly Blessing – One of the few Wes Craven movies that I’d never seen before and, well, let’s just say that there’s probably a reason for that. It’s not bad at all, actually, but there’s not a ton going on either. It’s set in Amish country (not technically Amish, they call them Hittites in the movie) and there’s some decent stuff here. You can certainly see some of Craven’s touches. For instance, he reuses a shot in the bathtub in Nightmare on Elm Street, but the latter is perfected while this one is less effective. Lots of stuff like that in this film, and a kinda bonkers final couple of scenes also remind of his later work. Worth a watch for Craven completists and horror historians. **1/2
A Nightmare on Elm Street – Finished off the marathon with the classic, Craven’s most purely distilled horror. Yeah, sure, there’s some third act issues, but at this point, they’ve become charming, haven’t they? I still love this movie. ****
Scream Queens – I watched the first two episodes of this and almost immediately forgot I even did so. It’s got some interesting stuff, but it feels overdrawn and too small for a full season of television. It’s definitely trying (and mostly failing) to channel that sorta Heathers-like gleeful dark comedy, but it’s too unfocused and blatant about it to work well. Some great performances, but there just wasn’t enough there to keep me engaged…
iZombie – This show, on the other hand, engaged me way more than I’d have ever thought. Perhaps that’s because the Zombies in this are so different than your typical Zombies, and also the sorta procedural case-of-the-week stuff that tends to pull me in. Some neat ideas here, like the fact that Zombies are basically just normal people who retain their intelligence, but have really pasty skin and bleached hair. Oh, and they crave brains. And when they eat a brain, they take on that brain’s characteristics and even get some of their memories. This is a neat premise for a police procedural. Really enjoyed the first season and blew through it on Netflix in a couple weeks.

Phew, so there you have it, another successful Six Weeks of Halloween. Be sure to check out Six Weeks of Halloween and Film Thoughts for their final thoughts as well. See you for another six weeks next year!

The Scarlet Gospels

Leave a Comment / 6 Weeks of Halloween, Arts & Letters / Mark / October 29, 2015

“I am doing another Books of Blood collection and I’m writing a sequel to the book on which Hellraiser was based – this will be Pinhead’s first appearance on the page, because he isn’t even named in the original.” – Clive Barker, from an interview in Imagi-Movies, Vol 1, No 2, Winter 1993/94

The story that would eventually be published as The Scarlet Gospels has been a long time coming. To my knowledge, it was first mentioned in 1993, and has gone through innumerable permutations on its way to its current incarnation, published in May 2015. First it was to be but a single small story amongst others, then it ballooned into a 230,000 word behemoth, and finally it was cut back down to around 100,000 words. It’s been quite a journey, and while I remain fully committed to the notion that authors don’t owe their readers anything, teasing a story for 20+ years is perhaps a bit excessive. The biggest problem with this novel is one of expectations. Even if I found myself enjoying the book, it’s hard to live up to 20 years of anticipation.

The novel brings together two of Barker’s most famous characters. There’s the Cenobite popularly known as Pinhead (but don’t call him that to his face), who we meet as he’s finishing off a quest to obliterate all living human magicians and in so doing, wrest all of their arcane knowledge for himself. You probably know Pinhead from the myriad filmic portrayals in the Hellraiser series of movies, but his origin is rooted in Barker’s novella The Hellbound Heart. Then you’ve got Harry D’Amour, the private detective with a knack for finding himself at odds with the supernatural, as he did in Barker’s The Last Illusion (from Cabal) and Everville. Here, he starts off on a routine assignment to clear out a dead man’s magical library. Amongst that man’s possessions is Lemerchand’s Configuration, the infamous puzzle box capable of opening a door to hell that is usually occupied by our Pinheaded friend. It turns out that Pinhead would like Harry to act as a witness for the next phase of his nefarious plan. Harry is naturally reluctant, but when Pinhead kidnaps Harry’s best friend Norma Paine, an old blind woman who can nevertheless see and speak with the dead, Harry has no choice but to round up a posse to chase after Pinhead. Their travels naturally lead them to hell, where Pinhead is waging all out war on hell’s establishment.

I tend to vacillate back and forth on Barker. I love a lot of his short work, but he also has a tendency to get lost in language and stylistic machinations. That being said, I often find that he’s able to right the ship just before I’m about to actually give up on what I’m reading. His best work manages the balance incredibly well, other works are a little more uneven. This one actually veers towards the more page-turnery side of the divide, but perhaps he’s gone a bit too far. It feels pretty mainstream for what I normally think of from Barker. Even his grotesque imagery feels a little staid, nowhere near that edgy stuff he was writing in the 80s. On the other hand, this was actually quite a fun read, and I mostly enjoyed the whole experience.

I tended to prefer the plot threads centered around Pinhead, who remains a fascinating and somewhat obtuse character. On the other hand, I think I’ve figured out that I’m not a particularly big fan of Harry D’Amour. He’s fine, but I feel like we’re constantly told how badass he is, rather than actually seeing him doing something cool. For the most part, he seems to just blunder through the story, barely making it through alive. This story is often pitched as Pinhead versus Harry D’Amour, but if that was the case, Harry’d be dead on page one. He just doesn’t display the competence that we’re constantly informed he is supposed to have. Take, for instance, his encounter with Lemerchand’s Box. He actually recognizes it for what it is (competence!), but he picks it up and starts playing with it anyway, thinking to himself that he can stop before it goes too far. As a reader, you’re just sitting there in shock that a character who is supposedly smart when it comes to the supernatural is doing something so utterly stupid. He does slightly better as the story proceeds, but that’s mostly just because he’s so ineffective that no one actually considers him a threat, and thus he can act as Pinhead’s witness.

Hell is always an interesting place to visit, and Barker’s hell is an interesting one. A bleak, blasted landscape filled with impossible architecture and grotesque creatures, not to mention an almost bureaucratic streak that runs through everything, Pinhead guides us through it all with aplomb (Harry just follows along in Pinhead’s footsteps like a dope). We’re eventually treated to a glimpse of the morning star himself, Lucifer, and what follows is a well plotted and interesting confrontation. The ending seems oddly appropriate, though I have no idea where hell is supposed to go from here…

So was it worth the wait? It doesn’t really feel like it, but that doesn’t make the book bad either. It’s clearly missing the edge that Barker’s earlier work so astutely captures, but it’s still worthwhile and actually quite entertaining (if a bit on the perverse side). It was certainly a good Halloween season read, which is all I can ask for…

6WH: Week 6 – Now Playing

Leave a Comment / 6 Weeks of Halloween / Mark / October 25, 2015

As usual, this week is something of a cheat since most of these aren’t exactly playing at a theater near you. On the other hand, the advent of OnDemand and other streaming services means you can watch these in the comfort of your own. Truly, we are living in wondrous times.

The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror V: Nightmare Cafeteria
Ravenous (trailer)
The Necronomicon (short)
Bone Tomahawk – I guess Kurt Russell figured that if he was going to make the effort to grow a bitchin frontier beard (for Tarantino’s upcoming epic Western, The Hateful Eight), he might as well leverage it to make another Western. This one decidedly more dark.

Picture The Searchers, but with more cannibals and slightly less racism. A posse of cowboys rides off to rescue a group of captives from what appear to be cannibals. There’s not much of a plot, and yet the 2 hour plus runtime doesn’t feel too long either. There are some serious deficits facing our heroes, but they make due, and while tensions sometimes rise, there seems to be a grudging respect granted between each other by the (gruesome) end. The film is buoyed by a fantastic ensemble cast, lead by the aforementioned Kurt Russell, but also including an injured Patrick Wilson, an almost unrecognizable Richard Jenkins, and Matthew Fox (who manages to ham it up without going too overboard, well calibrated). It’s hard to call this a “fun” movie, but it is captivating and worth a look (unless you’re squeamish, but if you are, why are you even reading this?) ***
Thursday the 12th (Robot Chicken)
Thanksgiving (fake trailer)
How Scream Should Have Ended (short)
The Final Girls – This movie puts a new wrinkle into the clever, self aware slasher sub-sub-genre by not just having its heroes steeped in slasher movie knowledge, but by actually inserting them into the movie (Last Action Hero style). As such, it comports itself well, with a nice ensemble cast, a few clever references and laughs, and plenty of dashed expectations. Most slasher tropes are hit hard here – tragedy in the past being revisited upon the present (with multiple, Inception-like levels), a masked madman, a machete and some gore (though still a distressing lack of variety in weaponry/kills), no real nudity, but plenty of pretty faces.

Including Malin Akerman, who can somehow pass for both a mother of a teenager and… a teenager herself. Also of note, Nina Dobrev, who plays the typical “bitch” character, but knows exactly what happens to such characters and charmingly leverages her bitchosity to move things along. The stereotypical final girl is played by Taissa Farmiga, and Alia Shawkat (of Arrested Development fame) plays her best friend. Thomas Middleditch plays the “Randy” type character who knows a lot about the movie they’re stuck in, and Alexander Ludwig rounds out our regular cast as the hunky love interest. This has some nice tweaks on a played out theme and is wholly enjoyable, though perhaps not quite destined for big recognition. Still, very enjoyable and recommended. Great ending too! ***
It’s the Gifts That I Hate (Robot Chicken)
Tucker & Dale vs Evil (trailer)
Just Before Dawn (trailer)
Cub – Belgian film about troubled youngster Sam as he heads off on a weekend camping trip with a group of Cub-scouts, only to find… something lurking in the woods around them. Part slasher, part hillbilly horror, this is a short one that comports itself well enough and then goes to some very dark places. I’m especially not sure what to really make of the ending, which is rather bleak. It appears there are actually two killers, one a big dude who we’re lead to guess was laid off when the local factory shut down (a common feature of hillbilly horror: soft, capitalistic city dwellers head out to the countryside only to be the subject of rural revenge). Lots of stalking and sneaking, a la a slasher, but the kills are generally done with elaborate and increasingly improbable booby traps, as befits most cinematic hillbillies. Also, kids are involved. It’s amazing how many “summer camp” horror movies there are that don’t actually feature young kids. Teenagers, usually councilors, are the cannon fodder of such movies. Here, we have a bunch of 12 year olds, including our protagonist, Sam. Even one of the killers (spoiler, there’s more than one) is a kid. It’s a little odd, and gives the movie a serious edge. I learned about this movie from a couple of folks talking about Fantastic Fest last year, and this is a movie very well suited to that atmosphere. Which I sometimes love, but which takes a certain mindset that isn’t particularly common. I can’t see this one being particularly crowd-pleasing, at least, not with that ending. That being said, I’m glad I watched it and it might even be something I’d revisit, because it’s got a lot to chew on. **1/2

Phew, hard to believe it’s been 6 weeks! Do not despair, as we’ll still have a wrapup post on Sunday, along with the usual “Speed Round” of stuff I watched but haven’t yet covered. Also look for a book review on Wednesday. And don’t forget about Kernunrex and Zack, who continue to rock the Six Weeks like no one’s business.

Professor Abraham Setrakian’s Virulently Vampiric, Malevolently Monsteriffic Super-Strain Halloween Movie Quiz

Leave a Comment / 6 Weeks of Halloween, Movies / Mark / October 21, 2015

It appears that Dennis Cozzalio of the Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule blog is back on track, having posted two whole movie quizes within a couple weeks of each other. Given the Six Weeks of Halloween horror movie marathon, I’m going to tackle Professor Abraham Setrackian’s horror themed quiz first (I will do the other one after 6WH). Previous installments answering questions from Professor Hubert Farnsworth, David Huxley, Professor Fate, Professor Russell Johnson, Dr. Smith, Professor Peabody, Professor Severus Snape, Professor Ed Avery, Dr. Anton Phibes, Sister Clodagh, Professor Arthur Chipping, Miss Jean Brodie, Professor Larry Gopnick, Professor Dewey Finn, and Ms. Elizabeth Halsey are also available.

1) Edwige Fenech or Barbara Bouchet?

When I was coming up with “Obscure Horror Auteurs” for this year’s Six Weeks of Halloween horror movie marathon, one of the filmmakers I looked into was Sergio Martino. I may still get to him at some point, but I ultimately decided against it because many of his movies just aren’t conveniently available. However, like a lot of giallos, they do have worderfully catchy names, such as the Edwige Fenech led Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (alas, seems hard to find). She has lots of other nifty titles to her filmography too, including some that I’ve even seen. Barbara Bouchet, on the other hand, is a little less known to me, and to be honest, Don’t Torture a Duckling is not really my favorite giallo. So Edwige Fenech it is!

2) The horror movie you will stand up for when no one else will

I feel like there are whole sub-genres I stick up for when few others will (don’t forget, this is the internet, someone somewhere is standing up for nearly everything), in particular, the slasher film is treasured by us here at Kaedrin. It’s horror movie comfort food, like a comfy sweater on a cold autumn day. There are many specific films I could list here, but I’ll go with one of my favorites, Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI.

Jason Lives!

Other contending slashers that few stand up for: My Bloody Valentine, The Prowler, and April Fool’s Day. Another much lamented sub-genre: Torture Porn. It’s not really my thing, but I think people in the future will view those movies the same way we view slashers today. Finally, to take this question in another direction, one movie I’ll stand up for when no one else will…. because they don’t even know about it… is Detention. It’s a divisive film to start with, but no one’s heard of it, and I love it to death.

3) Your favorite horror novel

It’s cliche to say Stephen King’s The Shining, so I think I’m going to settle for Dean Koontz’s Phantoms, followed closely by Midnight. The major caveat here is that I haven’t read any of these books in, like, 20 years, and my teenaged self didn’t have quite as refined of a taste. That being said, Phantoms is the one I’d be most interested in revisiting.

Phantoms

Also of note, F. Paul Wilson’s The Keep, another one I haven’t read in a long time but which I remember fondly. I… should really read more horror these days. Special caveat here, if we were to include short stories, that opens things up considerably, and would probably involve some sort of Clive Barker or Richard Matheson story.

4) Lionel Atwill or George Zucco?

This one goes to Lionel Atwill by default, since I’ve actually seen Captain Blood, but I can’t say as though he made a major impression.

5) Name a horror film which you feel either goes “too far” or, conversely, might have been better had been bolder

Martyrs is the film that leaps to mind, but then, going too far is kinda the point, I guess. It’s one of those movies that prompts you to question what the hell you’re doing watching such depravity, but you also have to admire its dedication and unflinching exploration of its concept.

6) Let the Right One In or Let Me In?

Hands down, Let the Right One In. Nothing inherently wrong with Let Me In, except the fact that it doesn’t really do enough to justify remaking the original movie.

7) Favorite horror film released by American International Pictures

I will eschew the typical Poe/Corman answers and jump to The Abominable Dr. Phibes, which has always fascinated me because of its influence within the genre.

8) Veronica Carlson or Barbara Shelley

I’m not really the biggest fan of Hammer Horror, but I tended to appreciate the Frankenstein films moreso than the Dracula ones, so Veronica Carlson it is!

9) Name the pinnacle of slasher movie kills, based on either gore quotient, level of cleverness or shock value

Fantastic Fest is this great film festival that focuses on genre fare, and they have this one event called 100 best kills where they show clips of the best kills, as curated by a couple of weird dudes who love this stuff. They have this great A/V equipment that allows them to speed up or slow down and easily replay the kills so you can see them in all their glory. It takes like 3 hours. So to answer this question, well, I’m not going to spend that long… but I probably could. Here are some great examples. First up is an obvious one, Jack in Friday the 13th, blatantly stolen from Mario Bava’s A Bay of Blood (aka Twitch of the Death Nerve), but the added starpower of Kevin Bacon always keeps it relevant. Jason has a lot of great kills, actually, including a slew of other Bava-inspired ripoffs in the early films, but also the Sleeping Bag kill in Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (with a wonderful callback in Jason X), when Jason boxes with that guy in Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan and knocks his head off, death by liquid nitrogen in Jason X, the list goes on. Also of note, from Jason’s rival Freddy Kreuger, two all time classics in A Nightmare on Elm Street, including Tina’s death (interesting because she’s dying in her dream, but we’re watching her being thrown around like a rag doll out here in the “real” world) and Johnny Depp’s death (for its improbable amount of blood; they really got a lot of use out of that rotating room rig thing). But you already know all those, right? What are the more obscure ones? Tom Savini worked on two movies with lots of great stuff, The Prowler (the pitchfork being particularly memorable) and Maniac (though it should be noted that Maniac’s most famous kill involves a shotgun, a decidedly non-slasher implement of terror). You’ve got to love the raft scene in The Burning (I particularly love the way he poses with those garden sheers, despite how pointless that pose would be in that situation) and oh, that scene where the girl accidentally skateboards into a mirror in Pieces. I should probably stop right now before I really disturb everyone, but you know what’s funny? I’m using a pretty restrictive definition of “Slasher” here, not including neo-slashers or proto-slashers (I mean, yes, of course I want to talk about the trombone with a knife attached in The Town That Dreaded Sundown, but you have to draw the line somewhere, right. But it’s a trombone with a knife attached!)

10) Dracula (1931; Tod Browning) or Dracula (1931; George Melford)?

Alas, I have not seen the Spanish-language version, so I must take a mulligan here.

11) Name a movie which may not strictly be thought of as a horror film which you think qualifies for inclusion in the category

In the interest of not always falling back on my favorite movies (but The Terminator fits here!), I will go with Coherence. It certainly doesn’t start out that way, but as the implications of what’s happening start to emerge, it gets pretty horrific.

12) The last horror movie you saw in a theater? On home video?

Last one in the theater was The Visit, M. Night Shyamalan’s attempt to clime out of the decade long hole he’s been digging. It has its moments, and I have to appreciate the goofiness of the premise, but it also has some cringeworthy stuff (I thought we got over the whole isn’t it funny when white people try to freestyle rap thing, like, 20 years ago, and there are 3 goddamn scenes in this movie where a kid does horrible rap). Not a return to the promise that started his career, but at least a movie worth watching, so he’s on the right trajectory.

On home video, well, I’ve been chronicling them pretty thoroughly of late. Last week was Dolls and Dummies, before that was Comic Horror week, then a mini-Henenlotter marathon, and also some Larry Cohen and Mario Bava (the last three there part of a series of “Obscure Horror Auteurs”). It’s been fun so far, and we’re covering some new(ish) releases this weekend (stay tuned!)

13) Can you think of a horror movie that works better as a home video experience than as a theatrical one?

It is surprising how many horror movies are better, or at least different at home. Horror movies are almost always scarier at home (assuming you’re playing along), but there are some that work better with audience participation. Still, I feel like most of the classics benefit from a quiet, dark home viewing. The Exorcist comes to mind as something you don’t really want to hear other people reacting to (there are probably a million others, but I’ll stick with that one).

14) Brad Dourif or Robert Englund?

Robert Englund, full stop. I mean, Freddy Kreuger is almost as much his creation as Wes Craven’s, and even beyond that, Englund has established himself as a sorta grand old man of the genre, instantly classing up whatever film he’s in (and he’s not above appearing in trashy independent fare either, thus giving those films a nice little boost).

15) At what moment did you realize you were a horror fan? Or what caused you to realize that you weren’t?

When I was younger, I was absolutely terrified of horror movies and hated even the thought of watching them. Then I went over a friend’s house on Halloween to go trick ‘r treating and when we got back, he put on Carpenter’s Halloween. Nothing like good old peer pressure to force you to watch something new, but lo and behold, I fell in love with the horror genre during that viewing. Since then, I’ve been mildly voracious when it comes to horror.

16) The Thing with Two Heads or The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant?

I have, sadly, not seen either of these movies, but at least the former has been on my radar (while I’ve never heard of the latter).

17) Favorite giallo or giallo moment

Blood and Black Lace is, by far, my favorite giallo. My favorite scene is probably the one with the handbag at the fashion show. Bava makes great use of the frame in that sequence, and builds tension like the master he is.

Blood and Black Lace

18) Name a horror remake, either a character or an entire film, that you prefer over its original or more iconic incarnation. (Example: Frank Langella’s Dracula/Dracula > Christopher Lee’s Dracula/Dracula)

While recent remakes don’t have the greatest reputation, there are a surprising number of remakes that are far superior to the original. Two examples from the 80s immediately jump to mind: The Fly and The Thing. A few weeks ago, The Canon podcast pit these two against each other, claiming that only one could make it into the canon of great films. This seems like conclusive evidence that this “canon” that they are building is nigh worthless, but it’s a fun episode nonetheless. However, since this is my blog, I don’t feel the need to choose one over the other. They’re both great and you can’t make me choose.

19) Your favorite director of horror films

An impossible task, so I’m going to have to narrow the definition of horror here, such that it excludes some obvious greats like Alfred Hitchcock (who, to be fair, was more of a thriller/suspense director than straight up horror). It’s still tough though. John Carpenter has two bonafide classics that are among my favorite movies of all time (Halloween and The Thing), but a lot of his other movies skirt away from horror. Wes Craven has several classics to his name and a more consistently horror genre filmography, but only A Nightmare on Elm Street rises to Halloween/Thing levels in terms of my tastes (though clearly The Last House on the Left and Scream are influential). I’m having a hard time choosing between them, so I’ll just leave it at that. Other notables: David Cronenberg, Mario Bava, Don Coscarelli, and plenty of others. I was actually trying to think of someone more modern, but there is not a huge amount to choose from. James Wan definitely heads that list, Adam Green, Ti West, and Adam Wingard all show promise as well. It’s hard to tell these days, though, since so many horror directors move on to other genres rather than get pigeonholed into horror (even Wan has apparently moved on, directing Fast & Furious movies and the like)…

20) Caroline Munro or Stephanie Beacham?

Caroline Munro is actually a name I recognize and look forward to seeing in stuff, including some of my favorite bad movies, like Slaughter High and Maniac, so let’s go for it.

Caroline Munro

21) Best horror moment created specifically for TV

This is a bit of a broad question, so I’ll just go with the first thing that came to mind, which was The X-Files: Home (Season 4, episode 2). I’ve written about this before, so I won’t belabor the point, but it’s an intensely disturbing episode that pretty much outclasses even the films in its sub-genre.

22) The Stephen King adaptation that works better as a movie than a book

The problem here is that the clearest answer is The Shawshank Redemption, which is not a horror story. Plus, it’s not like I’ve read all of King’s books… Looking through the list, though, a couple possibilities include Misery and maybe The Mist. Special mention to Kubrick’s The Shining, which isn’t really better than the book, but which is different enough that it carves out its own identity, allowing both novel and movie to stand as classics. That’s enough of an accomplishment to warrant a mention here.

23) Name the horror movie you most want to see but to this point never have

There are a bunch of silent films that I’d like to catch up with sometime, one of which is The Phantom Carriage. Others include Faust and The Golem. I smell a theme for one week during next year’s Six Weeks of Halloween. In the meantime, I’ll also mention the upcoming film I’ve not seen yet but really want to, Bone Tomahawk. See you on Friday.

24) Andre Morell or Laurence Naismith?

Laurence Naismith, mostly because I can actually recognize him as having been in horror movies I’ve seen…

25) Second-favorite horror film made in the 1980s

Oy, I’ve already told you, I will not choose between The Fly and The Thing, but the answer is probably one of those. Or A Nightmare on Elm Street. Or Evil Dead II. Or… you know, I’ll just stop now before my head explodes, a la Tom Savini.

26) Tell us about your favorite TV horror host and the program showcasing horror classics over which he/she presided/presides

The obvious choice is Elvira, but to be perfectly honest, I don’t have any specific memories about horror movies when it comes to her (I have memories of, um, other things). So I will go with Joe Bob Briggs because he sticks out in my mind the most. In part, this is because I kinda hated him the first time I saw him, but repeated late night horror viewings hosted by Briggs ended up being fun, and I warmed to the guy, who clearly has a lot of love for the genre, knows his stuff, and doesn’t take himself too seriously. Also worth checking out: Zack’s podcast episode on the subject.

6WH: Week 5 – Dolls and Dummies

Leave a Comment / 6 Weeks of Halloween / Mark / October 18, 2015

It’s funny how many horror sub-genres are derived from harmless entertainments of years past. Most infamously, clowns are pure nightmare fuel these days, but this week, I focused on a more goofy sub-genre, that of dolls and dummies, particularly of the ventriloquist variety. For the most part, when you see a doll or dummy on screen these days, chances are that it’s being played for scares. And it’s not hard to see why. Dolls often seem to occupy the same Uncanny Valley territory that CGI characters, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and pretty much any other politician inhabit (zing!) Ventriloquist dummies, in particular, have lots of metaphorical potential – a body that must be occupied from the outside just begs to be filled with something supernatural, right? So let’s take a look at some dolls and dummies:

Chinga (The X-Files)
The Dummy (Short)
The Inheritance (Friday the 13th: The Series)
Magic – This movie has the most weirdly impressive pedigree of anything I’ve watched for 6WH this year. Directed by Richard Attenborough, written by William Goldman, starring Anthony Hopkins, Ann-Margret, Burgess Meredith, and Ed Lauter, none of whom are particularly well known for horror movies (except perhaps for Hopkins’ turn as Hannibal Lecter over a decade later). While a lot of “Demonic Dummy” type stories have an element of goofy irony to them, this movie plays the whole thing completely straight, not even a trace of ironic winking. What’s more, this approach actually works. Anthony Hopkins plays a talented stage magician that doesn’t really have any stage presence. Cut to a year later, and he’s a big star, doing Johnny Carson and talking to the networks about a series of specials. What happened? How did he turn it all around? With his ventriloquist dummy, named Fats, of course!

A shy, timid man, he gets scared of his sudden success and packs his bags to return to his hometown and visit with his old crush. Soon, though, we begin to suspect that Fats has other plans. This is a surprisingly effective movie. It’s hard to really call it horror, but there are several very suspenseful, Hitchcockian sequences. Fats is suitably creepy, and the movie does an excellent job maintaining plausibility (Fats never really speaks or movies unless Hopkins is in he room with him). Things do get a little more farfetched as the film moves along, but by that point, we’re wrapped up enough in the characters to give it a pass. Hopkins is excellent here, and I don’t know that the movie would work without his performance. A surprisingly decent film! ***
The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror III: Clown Without Pity
Buffy Season 8 (Robot Chicken)
Child’s Play (trailer)
Bride of Chucky – I’ve never been a huge Child’s Play/Chucky fan, but the franchise has some serious legs, and this fourth installment had a surprisingly good reception back in the day. Clearly influenced by the self-referential Scream, this film took the series in a decidedly more comedic direction than the first three films. The Chucky doll is liberated from the police evidence locker (where you get glimpses of a bunch of other horror icons and their masks and whatnot) by his former girlfriend Tiffany, played by Jennifer Tilly, who immediately sets about trying to repair and revive the “dead” doll (using a “Voodoo for Dummies” book, obviously) Tiffany and Chucky have an argument, and Chucky throws a TV (which is playing Bride of Frankenstein, obviously) into her bubble bath, then uses his own voodoo to transfer her spirit into another doll.

From there, they employ some unwitting teenagers (one of which is played by a very young Katherine Heigl) to drive them to Chucky’s grave, where they can retrieve the amulet… you know what, it doesn’t really matter. It’s all in good fun, and Chucky/Tiffany do a good job framing out unsuspecting teen heroes. This isn’t exactly deep stuff. The references are ham fisted and superficial, Jennifer Tilly’s voice has always grated on me, and the whole mean-spirited black comedy bit is overplayed, and yet, it worked well enough, and somehow manages to entertain for the full running time, and it ends pretty damn strong, with the only real unexpectedly interesting tidbit in the movie. It’s fun, but nothing more than that. **
Living with Jigsaw (short)
Sawed by the Bell (Robot Chicken)
Annabelle (trailer)
Dead Silence – James Wan must have something for creepy dolls. Saw employs a creepy doll, as does The Conjuring, not to mention other movies he had less involvement with, like Annabelle. Then you have this film, his follow up to Saw, a film about a man who receives a mysterious ventriloquist dummy in the mail. Shortly after that, his wife dies in suspicious circumstances. He returns to his hometown to investigate a local urban legend about a ventriloquist who gets you if you scream, and quickly starts to unravel. Wan is visually talented and that’s the best part of the movie; it looks great. Lots of well constructed sequences with the dummies, some very creepy imagery, and nifty enough twists late in the story. Some of the beats are a bit tired and predictable, but there’s always room for good execution in my book, and Wan certainly manages that. There’s no real irony here either, but it does rely on the supernatural quite a bit, so perhaps not as effective or as metaphorical as Magic, but still a creepily entertaining sit. **1/2

There you have it. Stay tuned for a horror quiz and next week, we’ll tackle some recent releases (I think).

6WH: Week 4 – Comic Horror

2 Comments / 6 Weeks of Halloween / Mark / October 11, 2015

It occurs to me that this year’s Six Weeks of Halloween movie marathon is about as long as possible (assuming the six weeks begin on a Sunday) because Halloween falls on a Saturday this year. As such, we’re just a hair over the midway point of the marathon, and after last week’s batshit insanity, I decided to go a more humorous route this week. Some genre mashups go together like ink and paper (numbers on a calculator), but balancing horror and comedy is a tricky beast that few films manage to tame. Some figure it out by accident; the fabled “so bad it’s good” type of movie often runs on an engine of unintentional comedy. But intentionally mashing these genres up takes a deft touch, and even the best examples often veer hard in one direction or another. I’m hard pressed to think of two better examples than Shaun of the Dead and Ghostbusters, but you already knew about those, didn’t you? So let’s troll the depths of Netflix in search of more.

Shining (Fake Trailer)
The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror V: The Shinning
What We Do In The Shadows (trailer)
Housebound – After a hair-brained attempt to rob an ATM machine, Kylie is sentenced to house arrest by the judge. The catch is that it’s her childhood home with her step-father and frustratingly talkative mother. Also, apparently, ghosts! With the aid of the security officer who monitors her ankle-band (he is an amateur paranormal investigator, naturally), Kylie transitions from selfish punk to mildly-interested in figuring out what is going on. Apparently, house arrest is quite boring so you could argue otherwise, but Morgana O’Reilly plays Kylie with such aplomb that you can’t help but fall in love with her, despite her curmudgeonly sneering and initially self-absorbed whining.

We are spared any romantic subplots, allowing that central performance to really shine through, and O’Reilly doesn’t waste the opportunity. I don’t want to say more about the plot, especially as it really starts to twist and turn later on, but it’s quite enjoyable, with a good proportion of creepy atmosphere and just enough of that quirky New Zealand weirdness to win you over. Of the movies I watched, this one is the clear winner. Great central performance, just enough humor to carry the day, and the best use of a cheese grater ever. Recommended! ***
The Ring Video Dating (Robot Chicken)
The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror: Bad Dream House
The Hitchhiker’s Guide To Murder (short)
Out of the Dark – Stephen Chow’s made a career out of genre mashups, and this early one works reasonably well for fans of the genre, even if it isn’t nearly as seamless as Chow’s best work (Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer are excellent and worth checking out). The Looney Tunes-like slapstick is the highlight of the film, mostly driven by our intrepid hero, played by Chow, a literal mental patient who dresses up like Leon The Professional and fancies himself a ghost hunter ever since he visited a circus and confused the paper mache monsters for the real thing.

The scenes with him training the security personnel of a haunted building are delightfully well structured and build on the humor with each variation. The romance is a little less successful, though one can’t help but appreciate her pluck when she goes to visit Chow’s character by dressing up like Natalie Portman in The Professional. There are one or two decently creepy moments in the film, but the balance tends to favor the more slapsticky side of things, which gives the film less coherence than you’d usually want. The plot, concerning a haunting of a high-rise, is pretty standard stuff and doesn’t really hold much interest. This is a fine movie, but Chow doesn’t quite hold it all together the way he managed later in his career. Worth checking out for students of the genre. **
Tremors (trailer)
A Ruined Nation (Robot Chicken)
The Netherbeast of Berm-Tech Industries, Inc. (Short)
Grabbers – An Irish monster comedy that plays into the stereotype, this one mashes up several tropes and sub-genres to get to the finish line. You’ve got your typical monster movie conventions, then we’ve got the the by-the-book cop gets assigned to a rural town and falls in love with the local whilst solving a string of mysterious murders sub-genre (yeah, that old chestnut), and then a good old-fashioned drinking film, a stereotypically Irish sub-genre. Our hero is played by Ruth Bradley, a charmingly prim and proper young woman who is partnered with the generally drunken, curly haired local cop. She looks askance at his general approach, but unlike Out of the Dark‘s romance, this one works reasonably well.

The monster works well too, all tentacles and goop. When it’s discovered that the attacking monsters can’t process alcohol and thus avoid drunk victims, our intrepid heroes endeavor to get the whole town together in the pub to tie one on. You know, for their own safety. This isn’t quite as uproariously funny as you’d hope, but it’s got plenty of laughs balanced out by solid monster movie execution. This isn’t the sort of thing that feels the need to reinvent the wheel or to go particularly deep, but it knows what it’s doing and it does it well. Definitely worth checking out, if for no other reason than to see Ruth Bradley’s adorable drunken bravura. **1/2

Also of note, What We Do in the Shadows, a movie already covered on the blog (ever so briefly), but highly recommended and hilarious (would make a great double feature with Housebound)! A generally successful mission in Week 4, and you know, Shaun of the Dead and Ghostbusters are pretty much annual rewatches at this point, but you already know about them so I don’t need to go over them, right? Good. Stay tuned for next week’s theme, scary puppets. Or something like that.

6WH: Fellow Travelers

2 Comments / 6 Weeks of Halloween, Link Dump / Mark / October 6, 2015

It appears I’m not the only nutbar engaging in an enthusiastic horror movie marathon and general seasonal festivities. These people are awesome, check them out:

Six Weeks of Halloween – I can’t not include the man, the myth, the legend who created the 6 weeks of halloween all by his lonesome many moons ago. It appears that his is more busy with family and professional responsibilities this year than in recent years, but he is watching all of the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street movies, and he’s doing a great job so far. I particularly like the little notations on “favorite sin” and “Jason’s mood” etc… on each entry. Great times, as usual.
Film Thoughts – As usual, Zach puts everyone to shame by reviewing two movies and two television episodes every day. And these aren’t chinsy capsule reviews like I do, these are full fledged, detailed overviews of each and every movie, even the bad ones. There’s no way I could maintain a schedule this crazy and will probably only watch about half as many movies as he does during this timeframe (somewhere on the order of 30-40, while he will probably hit 80-90). He’s got a great perspective, check him out (and he’s active all year round too!)
Final Girl – Every year, she does this SHOCKtober thing, and while this year seems less interactive, she actually has been posting up a storm (despite anemic posting otherwise during the year). As always, her reviews are hilarious and even a little insightful.
Hey Look Behind You – The usual 31 days of horror marathon here, but always good stuff, with a focus on shorts too!
She Walks Softly – A Halloween countdown that takes a broader view and includes more than just movies, a welcome change of pace.
Halloween Special – Nifty look at some movies and other spooky happenings and random creepiness, including a pretty detailed calendar of events. Much more organized than I am, that’s for sure!
Countdown to Halloween – And if the above doesn’t satiate your appetite for Halloween goodness, check out this list of other websites doing their own thing for Halloween…

And that’s all for now. Stay tuned for some general comedic horror zaniness on Sunday…

6WH: Week 3 – Frank Henenlotter

Leave a Comment / 6 Weeks of Halloween / Mark / October 4, 2015

The “Obscure Horror Auteurs” theme continues with the grossest auteur yet, Frank Henenlotter. With his trademark combination of shameless bad taste and an almost complete lack of self-restraint, Henenlotter made quite a name for himself in the 80s and early 90s, after which he became involved with Something Weird Video, a film distributer specializing in rescuing obscure exploitation films (most notably the gory films of Herschell Gordon Lewis). He made a brief return in 2008, but has essentially remained silent since the early 90s. In terms of what he goes for, it’s, uh, difficult to really encapsulate. His movies are generally set in pre-Giuliani New York, they go for sleazy melodrama, often touching on the intersection of sex and gore, and they are, of course, very low budget. I can’t say as though I love his aesthetic, but it’s sometimes fun to spend some time in the gutter, you know?

The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror VII: The Thing and I
Horror Movie Daycare (short)
The X-Files: Humbug
Basket Case – As mentioned above, Henenlotter is all about the seedy New York city before it was cleaned up in the 90s, and this movie revels in that setting. A naive young man named Duane Bradley arrives in town with a wad of cash and a locked wicker basket, quickly taking up residence at the Hotel Breslin. You see, Duane was once part of a Siamese twin that was separated against his will. Now he’s reunited with his deformed brother Belial (who lives in the titular basket) to take revenge upon the doctors who so rudely performed the operation. Along the way, Duane meets a woman who, er, comes between him and Belial.

This is clearly pretty silly stuff, but while there is some sense of perverse humor here, Henenlotter is mostly playing it straight. The other folks at the hotel are colorful, Belial’s an amusing little monster, and Duane is weirdly, like, under-the-top naive. It’s one of those so bad it’s good kinda things here, which is good because it doesn’t really work without that added level of ironic detachment. You really just have to go with the flow on this one. Looking for meaning in these films is probably a fool’s errand, but hey, separation anxiety is a thing, so let’s go with that. The ending gets to be a little on the ridiculous side and one character is unnecessarily dispatched (rumor has it that Henenlotter’s crew walked out on him before filming that scene), which leaves a bit of a bad taste in your mouth, but then, I’m pretty sure that’s what Henenlotter’s going for. All that being said, this is the “tame one” of his films, so if this is too much for you, you might not want to explore more of his work. I find it impossible to rate these movies, so I’ll just use question marks instead of stars: ??
Shivers (trailer)
Slither (trailer)
Bad Milo (trailer)
Brain Damage – This is probably the Platonic ideal of a Henenlotter movie. It’s all here, sleazy melodrama, gross sex metaphors, perverse dark humor, psychadelic drugs, disturbing gore… This movie has it all, and while I wouldn’t say restraint was involved, the elements are kinda proportional here. Brian is just your typical guy with a girlfriend and a roommate… until he unexpectedly encounters a smooth-talking, brain-eating, slug-like parasite named Aylmer.

Aylmer injects a highly addictive blue hallucinogen directly into the brain in order to control Brian, who takes Aylmer out to find unwitting victims. It’s an incredibly gross movie, featuring another infamous scene in which Henenlotter’s crew walked out on him (this one much more taboo than the previous instance, I must say), but there’s something at the heart of this movie that kinda clicks. As mentioned above, looking for thematic heft is probably a bad idea, but this is probably a better anti-drug movie than anything kids are likely to see at school. While the budget is still microscopic, this one actually looks pretty good, with some decent shots and not wholly incompetent acting (I mean, it didn’t win any Oscars, but it’s a big improvement over Basket Case). The voice of Aylmer, played by famed television horror host John Zacherle, is utterly brilliant, and it’s a testament to the performance that his generally evil actions don’t seem to matter much. We’re even treated to a quick history of Aylmer, who seems to have originated in the Fourth Crusade (though it’s implied he was a lot older than that) and passed from host to host.

The ending goes to some batshit insane places (including, once again, the death of our protagonist’s girlfriend – one wonders about this recurrent motif in Henenlotter’s work), but the final shot is actually pretty fantastic, even if I have no idea what the hell is going on. ????
Bride of Frankenstein (trailer)
Frankenstein’s Fiancee (Robot Chicken)
Frankenweenie (trailer)
Frankenhooker – Yeah, so you know pretty much exactly what you’re in for just from the title alone. A mad scientist’s girlfriend dies in a freak lawnmower accident, so he seeks to bring her back. The only problem is that the lawnmower did a number on her body, so he’ll need to find some more viable parts to rebuild her… but he only has a short time to put all this together, so where’s he going to get the parts? Yep, let’s take a trip to New York and pick up some hookers. A pretty despicable premise actually, but Henenlotter’s in on it this time, and the ironic ending of the film puts a nice cap on it (even if it probably doesn’t actually make up for what came before). Not as balanced or gross as Brain Damage, this one leans pretty heavily on the comedic side of things. There are actually a lot of great lines here, and our mad scientist’s plan to lure crack-addicted hookers to him with his “supercrack” is inspired lunacy (if, again, totally disgusting). Here’s an example of some dialog:

Jeffreys Mother: Oh Jeffrey! I’m worried about you.

Jeffrey Franken: Yeah, well so am I, Ma. Something is happening to me that I just don’t understand. I can’t think straight anymore. Like my reasoning is all twisted and distorted, you know? I seem to be disassociating myself from reality more and more each day. I’m antisocial and becoming dangerously amoral. I’ve lost the ability to distinguish right from wrong, good from bad. I’m scared, Ma. I mean I feel like I’m plunging headfirst into some kind of black void of sheer, utter madness.

Jeffreys Mother: You want a sandwich?

And another, from the news broadcaster describing the girlfriend’s demise:

In a blaze of blood, bones, and body parts, the vivacious young girl was instantly reduced to a tossed human salad… a salad that police are still trying to gather up… a salad that was once named Elizabeth.

So yes, lots of absurdist dark humor and even one-liners here. What initially seems like a deeply misogynistic is at least somewhat mitigated by the ending, if not completely. Like I said above, looking for meaning here is probably not wise. It’s fun batshit insanity, but yikes. ???

Well that was fun? Lets, uh, take a break from this whole Obscure Horror Auteurs thing and maybe go a little more lighthearted next week, shall we? I’ve got plans for some horror dummies and comedies, and perhaps even a currently playing post in the works. Stay tuned!