Friday, March 29, 2013

We're Gonna Get You...

One of the advantages of living in a college town is that we get some cool shit.

And sometimes that cool shit includes ADVANCED SCREENINGS OF EVIL DEAD!

That's right bitches.  I saw the Evil Dead remake last night it was GLORIOUS!!!





I went to this movie with horror movie veterans and we screamed and laughed and "oh shit what the fuck"ed our way through the whole damn thing!

Now, because this is a remake, I'm going to assume, since you're reading this blog, that you've seen the original.  That being said, this is a fairly true remake with some updating and, sadly but not too sadly, a removal of a lot of the humor that was present in the original (and the sequel/first remake... Evil Dead has a strange history).  That's mostly because the plot in the first one was "two couples and one dude's sister go camping".  This one is "two friends take a third, somewhat estranged, friend's little sister to the woods for a cold turkey detox session and big brother's ditzy fuck toy comes along for the ride". 

We know how this works.  Even the commercials give it away to those who never saw the original.  The kids get to the run-down cabin and discover a book of vile darkness in the basement.  Like idiots, they read the book and unleash unspeakable evil.  This evil inhabits their bodies, in one case via the auspices of tree-rape (what have I told you about going into the woods, kids?), and makes them do things that normal people wouldn't.  Like, oh, I don't know, carving open their faces with shards of mirror.

You can't see it but half of her face is on the floor.

Attacking their loved ones with syringes.

That is a hypodermic needle.  Under his eye.  eeeeeeeee...

Locking their possessed sisters in the basement where they can toss Exorcist-like insults at you, drag you in there with them and bite your hand so you have to cut off your arm with an electric knife to stop the evil from spreading.

 Soooo many screams at this one.  College kids are fuckin' wusses.


Oh.  My.  Gawd.  This was INTENSE!  It was a BEAUTIFUL gore-fest.  It wasn't deep, but we don't want deep with our Evil Dead.  It was a hell of a lot bleaker than the original but I'm OK with that.  It had SOME humor to break it up but it still left me holding my gallon of Diet Coke with a vice-like grip.  I loved every fucking minute of it.

Of course, there were a LOT of shout-outs to the original which, seriously, is a hallmark of any good remake.  Mia, the lead girl, is found sitting on the car from the original series.  There was a fight scene in the flooded basement reminiscent of the fight in the well in Army of Darkness.  The barbed wire wrapping the book in this film makes a shape like the face on the original book.

There are twists, though, that I think even the fans of the original will be happy with because, seriously?  Big brother is an idiot and Ash in the original series is a smarmy ass.  Love you, Bruce Campbell, but even you have to admit that Ash isn't exactly likeable as a human being.  Fede Alvarez isn't afraid to switch things up and he does it RIGHT.  Not only right but RESPECTFULLY.  Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell chose their new director wisely.

One of the cool things about this is that there is NO CGI in this movie.  None.  At all.  Not even for missing limbs in summer dresses.  I want to see a "making of" feature on this because DAMN!  Pure, gory, gorgeousness.

Ubiquitous chainsaw.  WHEEEE!

I really think that THIS is the film to make remake-haters eat their words.  And I want to be there when they do it.  To smack them with a Hello Kitty ankle sock full of nickels for being idiots that don't rate movies on their own merits.

April 5th, kids.  Go.  Give me a call.  I might go see it with you because it deserves multiple viewings.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Emoticons Are of the Devil

The internet.  A wondrous thing.  From ARPANET in the 60's to BBSs to MUDs to Hypertext Markup Language to XML and MMOs, the internet connects us to the world outside our stinky basement lairs in ways we could never have imagined a hundred years ago.

And then some asshole makes a horror movie about video chat.






Smiley.

Really?

Seriously?

So... there's this internet legend (kind of like an urban legend but on the internet, like the Nigerian prince email and all of those stupid "hit Like and we'll give you an iPad" things on Facebook) where if you type in "I did it for the lulz" three times in video chat, you get to watch this Smiley fucker come in and murder the person you're talking to in Chat Roulette.

Because murdering complete strangers is a hobby EVERY internet user needs to cultivate.  It's like stamp collecting, only horrible.

 Aren't you glad you didn't turn on the light?

So, this girl does the whole internet Bloody Mary gig with her friend and she's freaked when the chat pertner is stabbed repeatedly but the girls decide not to go to the cops.  Because they're fucking dumb.  And then they go to a party where Idiot Girl gets drunk and runs into Smiley whereupon she wigs the fuck out and goes to the police only, duh, the police don't believe her and her friends are dropping like flies.

Only...  not?  YES, I'm giving away spoilers.  Suck it.  Yeah, this is all a big fucking "Anonymous-like" hoax designed to scare people.  Nobody dies except one girl at the end who's talking about Smiley since she was one of the idiots pranking Idiot Girl in the first place and we can't even confirm that.  Idiot Girl is shown to be alive after the end credits, anyway.


Instant slasher killer.  Just add mask.  Now in flesh tone!

FUCK ME, this movie was bland.  There was a fantastic idea, here, and Michael Gallagher, who needs to stick to directing YouTube shorts, did absolutely nothing with it.  Nothing.  There's not enough gore for the gorehounds, there's not enough suspense for the suspense fans, the action goes "murder, cops, denial, murder, cops, denial" for about an hour and a half and the fact that there's a group of spoiled internet "hacktivists" committing fake murders has less bite than any other Scream imitator, ever.

For realsies, I like Final Destination 5 better than this barker.

I blame this kind of lazy film making on permissive parenting and "everybody's a winner" upbringings.  You're not a special unicorn princess, Michael Gallagher.  If you want a successful film, you actually have to work for it.  Just because Mommy will hang this trash on the refrigerator doesn't mean it's good.  In fact, it makes me want to take your juicebox and squirt it in your face and take the Twinkie out of your lunchbox.  I would never DO that because I hate bullying but I WANT to and that makes me sad.

Asshole.

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

What Did I Tell You About The Dead Broad?

Gather 'round kids while Uncle Bob tells you a little story about one of the most fucked up movies he's seen in a long time.  It's got drama.  It's got intrigue.  It's got teenagers.  It's got an abandoned mental hospital.  It's got Noah Segan.

And it's got necrophilia.  Eew.


So, like any good coming-of-age horror story, the movie begins by introducing us to Rickie (Shiloh Fernandez) and J.T. (Segan), two slackers that apparently can't get with the ladies.  Because in Hollywood, the nerds are attractive.

And because these two are kind of immature, they spend their afternoon playing hooky and rooting around in the abandoned mental hospital.where they find a naked woman wrapped in plastic and chained to a table.  At which point, I would call the police but these two are fucking idiots.

Call.  The POLICE!  Assholes.

J.T., who apparently is a sicker motherfucker than we at first imagined, decides to keep her,  Like a pet, only the kind of pet that's chained in a basement and fondled inappropriately.  He discovers that she is not quite alive through the auspices of trying to kill her.  Because J.T. is, again, more twisted than a forkful of linguini.  He nicknames her "Deadgirl".

Over the course of the film, we find that J.T. is pimping the zombie out and he gets himself scratched after Rickie lets one of her hands free.  It's at this point we find out that whatever this chick's got is contagious.  Because what fun would it be if it wasn't?  Ain't no point in a zombie apocalypse if'n there's only one zombie.

ANYhoo... While J.T. sticks his dick in the corpse, without, I'm sure, the benefit of douching, Rickie asks the lovely and unattainable JoAnne (Candice Accola) out.  Her boyfriend then proceeds to beat the snot out of Rickie and Wheeler (Eric Podnar), the other dude that spends his spare time poking the corpse with dicks, who proceeds to blab his fat fucking mouth about Deadgirl at the top of his lungs.  He refers to her as "our own fucking whore" which I'll get into later.
Yeeeeeaaaah... that's attractive...

Long story short, J.T. and Wheeler decide that this one's worn out her welcome and they need to make a new Deadgirl and they pick JoAnne because revenge, duh.  

SO.  Let's dig into why this movie is awesome, shall we?

First off, this is SUPERBLY acted for an indie film.  Noah Segan always plays a razor-sharp crazy.  

Second, like all of the great zombie movies, it examines a few societal horrors that SERIOUSLY need discussion in this country and, really, the world.  It touches on bullying and the role of outcasts in our youth and doing stupid things as kids that we wouldn't get away with as adults (which leads to JoAnn telling Rickie to "Grow up" at the end) and all that touchy-feely crap that a lot of horror movies already examine but what it focuses on, with a fucking microscope, is rape culture.
  
The fact that these kids, and, yes, they are children, feel that it's OK to take advantage of what they think is a helpless woman is utterly abhorrent.  The fact that she carries a fuckin' zombie virus is the director telling us that these kids WILL be punished for their actions and since that virus won't allow a person to die, they will suffer for a very long time... or at least until they get the double-tap to the head.

Why wait?  Douchey haircuts should always earn a double-tap.

Considering the recent Steubenville trials (in which the sentence was woefully inadequate), every person should be watching this movie, right now.  Every, single, last one of us.  We should watch it, not only because it's a superb film, but to showcase rape culture and instill in our society that rape is not, ever, OK.  It shouldn't HAVE to come to a horror movie to do this but if it works, it works.
  
Every boy needs to be taught, from BIRTH, that it is not cool to refer to a woman as a whore.  Every boy needs to be taught, from birth, that unless a person gives permission, it is not OK to park your dick in them.  Every boy needs to be taught, from birth, that there is NO situation that alters the last statement.  There are no qualifiers to rape.  It doesn't matter if a person is doing cartwheels nude down the boulevard, if they say no, it means no.

Sorry about the rant but this is 2013, not the fucking Bronze Age.  We, as a global society, need to, as JoAnne says, grow up. 

Watch the movie.  You'll learn something.

I'm gonna go watch something to calm down, now.  
Ooh!  Beetlejuice

Monday, March 25, 2013

Here. Have a Slice.

OK, KIDS!  Back on the damn horse.  Please note, I am typing this with a head full of Vicodin and my grammar may go all cattywumpus and run-on sentences may play in heavily.

Netflix, lately, is a grab-bag full of awful.  You reach in and you're lucky if you don't get hepatitis or lead poisoning on the way out.  That's why I was a little surprised to find Slices of Life.



This indie gem does, in fact, bring me the wooden acting and audio problems that I so abhor but it also brings me ex-porn actors in see-through plastic rain gear and since half of my life is led by my penis, I'm perfectly OK with that.

Slices of Life is an anthology which means that you actually get three chances to suck out loud instead of one.  The law of averages says that at least one of these segments will be good enough to talk about but the other two should be bland and boring something fierce.  Please note that this particular set of averages only applies to indie films.  Studio anthologies tend toward the awesome.  Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, for example, wins solely due to the presence of Debbie Harry, because Blondie is awesome-sauce.

I don't have a picture of Debbie Harry so pretend there's one right here.

ANYWAY, this anthology deals with the horror of the everyday.  We find a young woman passed out on the lawn of a motel.  She could be Lindsay Lohan.  Who knows?  We don't.  She certainly doesn't.  Let's pretend she is.  Anyway, she's set behind the desk of said motel because she... runs the place?  Maybe?  And she tries to put together the pieces of her mind with three sketchbooks.  Each flesh-bound book tells a different story.

A/S/L?

Work Life:  A lonely basement-dwelling nerd is trying to find love in all the wrong places and sets off the nano-bot zombie apocalypse.

Home Life:  A young housewife becomes obsessed with missing children and missing children become obsessed with the contents of her uterus... much like Republicans.

Spooky shadow-puppets...


Sex Life:  While escaping sexual abuse at home, a brother and sister look for refuge only to find... ummm... not... refuge...

And all the while Amnesia-Lady thinks she's seeing these people milling about the motel.  WOOOO!  Cheap-ass mind-screw!

Yeah, I kinda wanted a nap, too.

It's not really that bad.  For folks I've never seen before, they do rather well.  They're a little stiff but they're new.  Considering the content I'll allow it.  The audio still sucks, though.  Maybe that's WHY they're so wooden.  They have to emote loud enough for the suck-ass microphone to pick up their lines over the freeway next door because SOMEBODY didn't invest in a fucking microphone cover-thingie.

And, yes, since it's an indie film, there's tits everywhere.  Because for some dumb-ass reason, fanservice is a necessity in indie-horror.  Somebody needs to get in on the fact that there are female and gay male horror fans if you know what I'm sayin'.  Not that anybody needed to see Roger Bart get his tallywhacker whacked in Hostel 2 but I digress...

Made ya look.

ANYWAY, it sounds like I'm complaining about this piece but I'm not.  This did not suck.  I was actually kind of pleased with it.  It made great use of the anthology format, gave us a nifty twist at the end and the stories (except for Home Life which ran slow) were engaging and fun to watch.  

Pay no attention to the slab of beef in the raincoat.  I never expected big things out of him, anyway.  No, really.  Steroid use.  Shrinkage.  No big things, no way, no how.

When you get a minute, give this one a try.  I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Friday, March 22, 2013

More technical difficulties...

Sorry.  No post today, either.  Surgery is a bitch.  At least there's plenty of blood and painkillers.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Master Bates

Today I'm not reviewing a movie.  I know.  Sad face, right?

No, today, I'm reviewing a television show and it's one that I've been looking forward to for a while.

Great Googlie-Mooglie this show is starting off FANTASTIC!

You all know about Norman Bates and his relationship with Mother.  The new series goes deeper into that relationship as it's a prequel to the movie.  Norman's father dies and 6 months later, Mom goes all "free-spirited" and buys a motel.  That part's a given, really.  Dad dies a little mysteriously for my taste but I'm sure we'll get into that later in the season.  Norman makes a few friends at school that Mother does not approve of, of course, and one of the neighbors gets pissed at them because they bought his family's property.

NO, I'm not going to tell you any more.  Suffice it to say that since we are only one episode in, we're just getting a glimpse of the crazy to come.  Vera Farmiga is delightfully twisted as Norma Bates and Freddie Highmore has always done quirky well so he's KILLING it as Norman.  He even seems to have taken on some of Anthony Perkins' mannerisms.

That is a LOT of neck, man... it's freaky.

The only thing I'm concerned with is that it takes place in the present.  They go for a vintage feel but I'm thinking they should have gone for actual costume porn instead of just the look.


Pretty, yes, but he likes it, too.

No, I really don't have anything to bitch about, yet.  I'm sure I'll get into it more, later, but this gave me a solid start and, time period notwithstanding, Bates Motel is rocking my world, so far.  I hope they take us down a rabbit hole of madness and incest (squicky but essential to the plot) and I hope that, at some point, they go into what happened to Mother and let Norman take it on his own.


Get into it, kids.




Monday, March 18, 2013

Zombie Week: Hey! Teacher! Leave Those Kids Alone!

Hey, sorry for no notice on this, but Disturbing Films is holding their third annual Zombie Week so I'm all contributing and junk!  WOOOO!

Anyway, 

Oh, Bob Clark.  What in the world would we do without you?  Why, if it weren't for you, we wouldn't have the 1972 B-Grader bomber, Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things.





Oh, MAN is this a barker. 

So, the movie starts with a cemetery caretaker being attacked and a corpse being replaced with what appears to be another, this time ambulatory, corpse... it's very surreal.  Then creepazoid Alan takes he theater troupe (who he calls his children... eeeeew) to an abandoned island cemetery for some macabre "fun".  Fun for him, anyway.  His troupe probably should have gotten the hint that this guy was an ass when he asked them to exhume a corpse.  After the troupe turns on him, for using a couple of cast mates to play a "living dead" joke, Alan berates his cast and uses the legit corpse they replaced to play sick jokes on this "friends" and threaten their jobs until he decides to hold a seance from a "grimory" because he can't pronounce "grimoire".  It doesn't take long to realize that the ritual actually worked and the dead have risen.  They (as with any good zombie movie) take shelter in the "old dark house" and have to decide if they run for help or stay put. 


Again.  Alan is a dick.

OH.  MY.  GAWD.  I haven't seen this much scenery chewing since Night of the Lepus.  Let's forget about the fact that these people actually KNOW Alan and probably shouldn't have followed him to the island cemetery in the first place but DAMN!  I would have found another job.  Ain't no fuckin' way.  And, seriously?  Grave-robbing?  The stink alone should have driven the sensitive actors running to the hills. And these "jobs" they have.  They're likely local theater wages in 1972.  I'm fairly certain that panhandling pays more.  Why are they so worried about losing them? 

Scary Gypsy Lady ain't got no time fo' dat.

And, really?  Taking the corpse back to the cabin to party a la Weekend at Bernies?  Making the troupe apologize TO THE CORPSE when they SHOULD be burying the stiff where he belongs?  Stupidness.

I just really can't go on anymore.  This is HILARIOUSLY bad.  Frankly, all of these idiots get what they deserve for being dumber'n'a bag o' hammers.


Friday, March 15, 2013

Island of Misfit Psychopaths

While we're talking about remakes, what happens when you remake a film that relatively few people have heard of?

Come Out and Play is that remake.





Come Out and Play is a remake of the 1976 Spanish film Who Can Kill a Child?.  The original film was a statement on the effects of war on children.  We're not quite sure what's happening in the remake.

Francisco and Beth (who is very pregnant) are out to enjoy their last vacation in Mexico away from the kids before their third child is born.  They rent a boat after a huge carnival and head out from mainland to a remote island for some fun in the sun.  The island is inhabited by children.  Lots of children.

The lack of adults around should probably have given them some kind of clue that they shouldn't be there because, yep, you guessed it, these kids are fucking crazy.


Shadow-puppets of DOOOOOM!


No explanation is given for the kids' behavior.  They just point and giggle when an adult is slaughtered.  One adult is beaten with a cane.  Another is stabbed multiple times and has a chuck of cement dropped on his head.  In the film's climax, Beth's unborn child is somehow affected by whatever is turning the ankle-biters into LITERAL ankle-biters and kills her from the inside.


Nanny-Nanny-Boo-Boo!

I kind of have mixed feelings about this one.  On the one hand, it's shot beautifully and Ebon Moss-Bacharach's performance is stirring.  On the other hand, there's no fucking plot.  It really seems like the director (Makinov, who, per Dread Central, is apparently a weird-ass motherfucker, what with wearing a mask all throughout shooting) just said, "Hey, let's get some kids to kill stuff."

However, while there's no meat to this movie other than the dead bodies, the suspense and tension are here in spades.  This is, in large part, due to the ethereal score with it's theremin drones and the fact that you know something's wrong the minute you meet the kids for the first time.  NONE of these kids speak a word, by the way, which makes them creepier.

SAY SOMETHING!!!

One thing to remember, though, is that the movie isn't about the "why", it's about the reaction of the protagonists.  How are they going to get out and how can they do it without hurting children?

Frankly?  I say fuck it.  The minute a rugrat comes after me with a sharp object, I'ma bust out a smackdown.

This is another one of those "Your mileage may vary" movies.  I kinda liked it (probably due to my fascination with killer kids) but I say give it a watch and decide for yourself.

Thursday, March 14, 2013

One... Two... You Know the Rest.

In my continuing defense of remakes, I feel I must address the 2010 remake of A Nightmare On Elm Street.

Because I liked it.  Probably more than it deserved.





Just a quick recap of the story, kids have killer dreams about murderous, knife-glove wielding child molester who is seeking revenge on the parents of said kids who torched him in a boiler room for... y'know... molesting their kids.  Kids are dropping like flies in their sleep (although it really doesn't look like they just passed on quietly considering the gaping wounds and all) because if you die in your sleep, you die for real and it's up to Nancy to stop the Kentucky Fried Fiend.  It's the circle of supernatural death!  WOOHOO!  Somebody needs to get National Geographic on this, y'all!


NOTE!  This is NOT, by any stretch of the imagination, a reduction of the value of the original because Wes Craven is a fucking master and Robert Englund will ALWAYS be Freddy Krueger. 

That said, a whole lot of people absolutely hated this movie.  Personally, I'm blaming it on that cultural zeitgeist called "I hate remakes".  I really don't think people sat and judged this on its merits because, other than the MTV quick-cut editing, this was a great movie. 

SCREEEEEEE!!! Take that, assholes.

For one, as I always say they should, Samuel Bayer DID treat the original series with respect.  Even though he most definitely went darker and edgier with it, he left in enough humor to make it bearable.  They didn't want Krueger to be all wise-cracking and goofy and I appreciate that.  Seriously, Freddy got to be a bad joke by the end of Englund's run.  Frankly, I think they could have left out a lot of the background stuff and given us better chases but I get what they were trying to do.  They did make the punishment of Krueger AND the burn-scar makeup more realistic, though, and that was kind of awesome in and of itself.

Next, the acting in the remake is TONS better than the original.  Sorry, Wes, but you were still very much in the throes of "the same diction coach" period of leading ladies when you cast Heather Langenkamp (who was amazing but still felt stiff).  Rooney Mara, in comparison, is an Oscar™ winner (in this role... we know she was a nominee for Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).

Yep.  She sleeps gooooood.
 
Also?  I'm sorry but Jackie Earle Haley was FUCKING PERFECTION as Fred Krueger.  The man has this creepy short-eyes vibe to him in real life that translated note-for-note and the rage that he pulled out as the vengeful Krueger was chilling.  I didn't NEED jokes.  I wanted to be scared and Haley's electronically deepened voice did the trick.  

The movie really did play to the fans by giving us moments that we recall from the original, though.  The wall scene (above), the gooey hallway/stairs and the bathtub scene in particular.

And, apparently, we've found Rooney Mara's "good side".

On top of that, there are little trivia bits through the whole movie, right down to the character's names.  Nancy and Freddy are obviously the call-backs from the original but Jesse is from Freddy's Revenge and Kris is from Dream Warriors and Dream Master. 

It's all of these little bits and pieces that make this a fun flick for me.  
 
You don't have to agree with me.  I'm fully aware that this is a derivative work.  I just don't think it deserves the low opinion people hold of it.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Lord of Tears

Hey, all!  I just got an update from Lawrie Brewster about the Lord of Tears release Kickstarter Campaign.

They're reached their first goal of $15k and Sultan Saeed Al Darmaki (author of My Black Halo) just became an executive producer but they still need a little help.  Right now Kickstarter is the only way to pre-order the DVD and the kickstarter is to get the movie printed, marketed, complete the soundtrack project and sent to festivals and such. 

So, that said, here's the link.  Please donate if you can.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lawriebrewster/lord-of-tears

I'm lookin' forward to reviewing it. 

Scalpel... Forceps...

I'm trying to come up with the words for this but they're fighting me.  I'm pretty sure this review is going to leave me bruised.

I guess the best way to do this is to just jump right in.

Excision.  Richard Bates Jr's feature film directorial debut.





Pauline (AnnaLynne McCord) is a deeply disturbed teenager with a controlling and emotionally distant mother (Traci Lords), a milquetoast father (Roger Bart) and a little sister with cystic fibrosis (Ariel Winter) whom her parents dote on.  She fantasizes about becoming a doctor.  More accurately, she fantasizes about performing surgery on her classmates in a gruesome, over-the-top fashion which makes her the BEST surgical candidate EVER!  Only, not.

She's obsessed with blood, to the point of licking her own tampon  (FUCKING EEW!  EEW, EEW, EEEEEEEEEEEEW!).

 
Was not kidding.


She also experiences very extreme dreams about mutilating people in a chic and fashionable setting.  Because, apparently, she has never seen the inside of a hospital.  I'm fairly certain that scented candles and Elizabethan collars are not considered sterile.

 
Seriously, I just posted this for the man-candy.


We get to watch as she destroys lives one by one and slips deeper into her delusion despite going to counseling as suggested by her mother (religious counseling, which she bristles at because she thinks the pastor is a hypocrite).  The boy who takes her virginity (which she arranged to occur while she's on her period)?  Check plus his red wings.  His girlfriend?  Check.  The girl next door?  Check.  Her own family?  Check, check, check.  Seriously, fuckin' checks everywhere.  BAM!  Parental disappointment.  BAM!  A face full of uterine lining!  BAM!  Chloroform!  BAM!  No med school for you!

TV Night=Teen Torture

Now, while the troubled teen is by no means a new concept in horror, I don't think we've ever gone so deeply into their psyche before and that includes May.  This kid has some SERIOUS delusions of grandeur borne from a subconscious need to make mommy love her again despite what she says.  She wants acceptance from her parents that she's not getting because her parents are as deeply flawed as she is.  She wants acceptance from her peers but she's fucking weird and her classmates can sense it.  The only character that isn't flawed emotionally is flawed physically which is what causes the emotional flaws to begin with.

Don't get me wrong.  This is a FANTASTIC movie with plenty of blacker-than-black humor and a bleak outlook but the characters... NONE OF THEM... are likeable in the least.  Everyone in this movie, except for the little sister, is an asshole.  The fact that mother and daughter only see each other eye-to-eye at the end is only indicative of the schism that they have created between them.

LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!!

As a study of the modern, dysfunctional family, this movie is pure brilliance.  The dynamic between Pauline and her mother is vitriolic and painful to watch.  It's not abuse, per se, because the mother just wants a daughter that makes her look good (and who doesn't) but the fact that they are both portrayed as utterly selfish and unwilling to bend feels natural even as the actors are gnawing on the sets.  

And the fact that we're not watching a descent into madness, but, rather, a FURTHER descent, makes this a fascinating watch.  Bitch was crazy to begin with.  We just get to watch the natural progression of it.

To top it all off, we have this dichotomy of an unattractive, quirky, utterly insane Pauline in "real life" as compared to the surgical, fashion-forward goddess Pauline of her dreams.  AnnaLynne McCord is a strong-jawed elfin beauty and the make-under is kind of amazing.

All in all, this movie has flaws.  It's slow-paced.  It's a little heavy-handed.  It features Traci Lords as a mother-figure (seriously?).  Those things aside, it's a great film and it's highly recommended.  


Be prepared to be uncomfortable. 

Monday, March 11, 2013

Yer so cool, Brewster!

HEY!  I'm gonna review a vampire flick!  This is a first!

As we all know, the 80s brought us some of the best horror, even if it was filled with enough Aqua Net to last RuPaul for the rest of her life and shoulder pads designed to kill.

This extends to vampire movies, too, in the form of Fright Night.





Fright Night was an odd duck in the vampire genre because it didn't take place in a city or in Romania or London.  It brought the vampire to the 'burbs and with a plot not unlike Rear Window, it added a distinctly Hitchcockian vibe to it.  Add a touch of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf and the American staple of the late night TV horror movie host and you've got a heapin' helpin' o' bloodsuckin' awesome.

Our story goes like this:  Charlie Brewster is a huge horror fan, watching the local late night horror show whenever he can, Fright Night, hosted by Peter Vincent.  This, of course, leads him to be particularly sensitive to the fact that his new, (supposedly... at least he's pretending to be) gay neighbor, Jerry Dandridge, is a vampire.  Nobody believes him but if they did, the movie would be about 20 minutes long.

What the fuck am I doing here?


Since his future lesbian girlfriend, Amy Peterson, doesn't believe him, she enlists the actually quite cowardly Vincent to assist in proving Dandridge is not a vampire.  Peter is, wisely, skeptical but goes along with it.  And then he sees Jerry's lack of reflection in the mirror. 

This causes Dandridge to hunt down future gay porn star Evil Ed and future lesbian girlfriend and turn them into vampires in an effort to lure Charlie to him for the purposes of, DUN Dun duuuuuun, revenge.

YOW!  Black'n'Decker Pecker Wrecker, much?

Tom Holland gave us yet another example of how humor and horror are used successfully together.  Not only did this scare the pants off of my 12-tear-old self, but it made me laugh out loud.  The blending of the different types of vampire films up until that time was brilliant.  The classic aloof vampire. The Hammer-inspired host.  The Renfield-like Evil Ed.  Finding the references made it that much more fun!

Plus, there's this face.  GAH!


Fright Night had a soul to it that a lot of vampire films don't.  Maybe that was because of the change in setting but it felt like "This is what happens when a normal person has to deal with the weird".  And, really, there was only one complete asshole in the film and that was Evil Ed.  I liked the character but he does get to be annoying after a while.  It's that voice of his.  Nails on a fuckin' chalkboard.

Even 28 years later, it's still a fun watch.  Bust it out and laugh all over again.

Friday, March 8, 2013

The Source of All Fear

In the annuls of horror movie history, there is only ONE movie that has had any kind of lasting impact on my psyche and I should have covered this AGES ago because THIS is the reason I won't go into water higher than my ankles unless it's clear as crystal.






Jaws is a kind of mish-mash of suspense/thriller/nature-hates-you genres that, ultimately, ends up being one of the most terrifying screen experiences ever filmed and it most definitely earned its place as horror movie royalty.  It is a movie that people STILL talk about today and, frankly, I try and watch it a couple of times a year because it's that awesome (and maybe to remind myself that it's only a movie and that I actually can enjoy snorkeling without paranoia).

It kills me that anyone would be unfamiliar with this movie but here's a quick rundown.

A summer resort town finds itself the collective victim of a man-eating Great White shark that comes with its own ominous, John Williams musical score.  It starts with an idiot teenager skinny-dipping at dusk.  Because idiot teenagers forget that dusk and dawn is when sharks hunt.  She gets dragged around and under by an unseen force (we'll touch on that in a bit).

Sheriff Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) discovers the body the next day and the medical examiner informs him that she was a victim of a shark attack.  Brody wants to shut the beaches down, because that's the smart thing to do, but due to political pressure from Mayor Vaughn (who is possibly the most idiotic mayor in the history of film except for that asshole from The Bay) the medical examiner rules the death a boating accident, Brody, like an asshole sheep, goes along with it and the beaches remain open.  Enter the screaming, panicking populous, a dead kid, a mother in rightful anguish, a bounty-fueled amateur shark hunt that pulls up the wrong shark, a tiny, bearded marine biologist and Quint.  The Fourth of July kicks Brody's ass into action when HIS kid is almost a victim.

This woman should have won an Oscar.  Chilling.

Brody hooks up with Quint and Hooper (the aforementioned tiny, bearded marine biologist) to hunt down the monster and, following a night of drinking, male bonding and the maudlin, creepy story of the USS Indianapolis, the shark rears its ugly head.  Manly things happen and the shark is destroyed.  HOORAY!  


Manly.

This movie is not only one of the most iconic films ever made but it's also got one of the most interesting "making of" stories ever told.

The film was originally offered to Dick Richards (The Cullpepper Cattle Co.) but since he didn't understand the difference between "shark" and "whale" he was scrapped in favor of Steven Spielberg who actually wanted the job... at first.  He tried to drop the project so he wouldn't be "the truck and shark guy" but Universal called in his contract.

ANYWAY, then they called in Peter Benchley, the author of the original novel, to write the first draft of the script.  He wrote three drafts in all, keeping the meat of the plot but dropping a bunch of sub-plots (like the affair between Hooper and Brody's wife) but Spielberg still felt the characters were assholes so there were a few more uncredited rewrites before basically giving Carl Gottleib the "head writer" chair so that the bleak was tempered with appropriate comedy.  All in all, there are 27 scenes that do not appear in the book.

It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure this is one of them.

Let's not talk about casting.  There was obvious tension between Dreyfuss and Shaw and it showed on camera.  It probably didn't help that Shaw was a tax-dodging, rum-soaked asshole.

The BEST part of the backstory, though, is "Bruce", the three prop sharks that were notorious for not working.  Because Spielberg is a fuckin' genius, though, he decided not to show the shark more than he had to.  The forced restraint made the film a paranoid fantasy.  This "eyes of the killer" approach made the movie the scarefest that it is today.  Yes, the shark is freaky-lookin' when we DO see it interact with the actors but it still scares us out of our fuckin' pants.  Popcorn and drinks-a-flyin'.

Bigger boat, indeed.

Much like Creepshow and Gremlins, this is a classic that should (and will) be left to our kids, and their kids, and their kids, etc.  The Oscar™-winning score is iconic and pervasive (and was used as a punishment in my house because my mother would play it and I would leave quietly so I didn't have to listen to it), the acting is superb, the creepiness is still evident to this day and the movie is eminently quotable.  My only regret is that it did not win the Best Picture award.  (Granted, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is probably more deserving but it would have been neat.)  Just consider the fact that beach attendance went down sharply while shark sightings went up in 1975 due, specifically, to Jaws.  Alien was pitched as "Jaws in Space".  After Jaws, the Man-Eating Animal genre exploded with Piranha being touted as the best of the Jaws ripoffs.

Jaws is, in all actuality, my Moby Dick.  I will continue watching it until I no longer feel the effects of its instilled paranoia.

In the meantime, sharks still fascinate and terrify me.  As they should.

Because they're fuckin' sharks.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Wake 'n' Bake

Occasionally, my friend Liam points me in the direction of movies I hadn't seen.  Because he's cool that way.

A couple of weeks ago, he told me about Hansel and Gretel Get Baked and I almost laughed it off but, DAMN YOUR EYES, BROTHERS GRIMM, I must watch anything fairy tale adjacent.






Duuuuuuuuuuude.  I don't even smoke pot (not that I have an issue with it) and this gave me the munchies.  I got a contact high from a movie.

See, Gretel and her boyfriend, Ashton, are totally potheads and they found this strain of pot called Black Forest which they ran out of and need to get more because OMG, this weed totally goes with gingerbread cookies and THAT little idea was put in their heads by Hansel who likes to make fun of his stoner sister and her boyfriend.  Ashton goes to get more from the little old lady that sells it (who is played by Lara Flynn Boyle who oozes her way across this movie like a stoned house cat and wears one of the best old age makeups I have ever seen on film) and, you guessed it, Agnes turns out to be a cannibal witch.

That is one gorgeous babushka.

Yeah, it's not news but it works.  Gretel gets kind of obsessed with finding her boyfriend (who was on the receiving end of a barbecue fork) and joins forces with her dealer and his fiery latina of a girlfriend.  There's a drug war.  There's cages.  There's zombies!  There's an angry doberman.  It's just fuckin' craziness and it's DELICIOUS!

I did NOT see this coming.  I expected it to be all Scary Movie stupid and shit but this is actually intelligent, well-acted and, gosh darn it, it's FUN!  

Ms. Boyle is AMAZEBALLS even given the fact that her plastic surgery is starting to reach American Mary levels of creepy.  I don't even care if she looks totally pissed that she's in this b-grade schlock to pay the bills!  It worked.  She was totally chill the whole time.  She has that kind of "I can't open my twinkies" frustrated look through the whole movie and I LIVE for it.

Hon... seriously... lay off the collagen. 

Yancy Butler is in the flick for all of 10 minutes and she looks HAGGARD but, bless her, she's trying. 

But, there are little things that make this movie kind of perfect.  Gretel's outfits have a decidedly "dirndl-like" flair and Hansel's tan pants and camera strap are reminiscent of lederhosen.  The fact that Agnes is peddling pot out of a former mortuary (thus, the built-in oven).  Gretel laying out a path of Skittles that dealer's girlfriend eats... These candy-like touches all add up to a horror movie that actually feels like the fairy tale it's telling.  "Witch Hunters" had it, too, but it was more literal.

Even if you're not a pot-smoker, raid the local mini-mart and check this one out.

And bring me some nachos!

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

It's a Barbeque!

Y'all know how much I kind of despise "found footage" flicks, right?  I'm really fuckin' tired of shaky-cam bullshit.  Stop making me have to take Dramamine before going to the movies, film makers!  Somebody's gonna get a kickin'.

ANYWAY!  I'm going to prove my point.  Again.  


I had heard about Long Pigs a while back but I didn't get a chance to watch it until recently.  It was released to select theaters in 2004 but it's Canadian so US horror fans didn't get a lot of exposure to it.  It hit the film festival circuit but it didn't get a release on DVD until 2007.  Those DVDs?  Came with jerky.  Real.  Edible.  Jerky. 

It's about a documentary film crew that follows a cannibal around. 

Ummm...

Hmm.

Yeah.

That's it. 

Seriously?

Hooker butchering.  The next extreme sport.

Yes, there were statements about the implications of media and its affect on the world but, we've seen that before.  Yes, they actually tried to philosophically and ecologically justify cannibalism which made the film kind of disturbing.  Yes, the documentarians in the movie tried to use a cannibal to get revenge (and almost got caught when their car broke down at, appropriately enough, a pig farm).

And met a creepy pig farmer because I'm not sure there's any other kind.

And, yes, they discover that the cannibal is a CREEPY MOTHERFUCKER THAT KILLS PEOPLE AND EATS THEM!  Seriously?  We had to have the interview with the father of a little girl that the asshole ATE to learn this?  WITH THE KID-EATING ASSHOLE IN THE ROOM?!?

What the fuck?

I know there are a ton of gore-hounds that love this film for its butchery but I gotta say I was not a fan of this film.  It's not that it was badly made, it's just played out, bleak and their attempts at humor fell flat on their collective face.  If you want a horror mockumentary, watch Behind the Mask, instead.  It's a MUCH better film with a much more satisfying pay-off and better acting.

Long Pigs won a bunch of awards on the festival circuit but I really have no idea why.

This movie just made me feel dirty.