Movie Review- The Town That Dreaded Sundown

The Town That Dreaded Sundown has been an elusive movie for many years. It was never released on DVD and only recently received a Blu-Ray release. Has it been worth the wait? Not really.

The film is more of a true crime police procedural story than a horror film. There are elements of a horror film in Town, but on the whole the film falls more in line with America's Most Wanted than anything that could be considered scary. The film even includes narration throughout, intermittently popping in to give us backstories for characters. It's kind of jarring; opening narration is not uncommon in movies, but to have it pop in during the middle feels out of place. Due to the low budget and the true crime approach, the film feels more like a TV movie that managed to get a theatrical release. 

I'm not against the idea of making a police procedural/horror hybrid. It worked well for the Hannibal TV show. Unfortunately, the focus is almost entirely on the police force going through banal routine police activities. Perhaps taking a page from The Last House on the Left's redneck cops, the filmmakers decided to have a comic relief character named Sparkplug. This Barney Fife wannabe lopes around, doing zany things such as dumping out a drawer full of things in search of car keys, or driving a police car into a lake. He is an irritating character that detracts from any dramatic weight the movie may have had. 

When the movie remembers that it also features a masked madman and not just wacky cops, it goes into horror mode. The horror-centric scenes are par for the course if you have ever seen a slasher movie. Teens in cars on lover's lane are subjected to such cliches as "Wait, I think I heard something" and worn-out jump-scares. Granted, this movie predates the slasher subgenre, but the cliches were still overused even then. Speaking of slasher movies, the killer is a man wearing a sack as a mask, which Friday the 13th Part 2 clearly ripped off for Jason's appearance in the film. There's nothing particularly frightening or even intimidating about the villain, so the horror scenes feel dull and seem to drag. Strangely, the killer uses a pistol. For all the variety of weaponry used in horror movies, this is the only film I have seen where the killer brandishes a gun. Even stranger, the one time the killer decides to not use his gun, he creates an impromptu trombone-knife. The scene is truly bizarre. One of his victims is a trombone player returning home from a school dance. The killer finds his victim's trombone, tests it to see if it works, ties his knife to it, and then tests it again before stabbing them. I don't know how the filmmakers expected anyone to be horrified or repulsed by this scene. It's by far the only thing memorable about the film, it's so absurd.

The film's ending is also disappointingly anticlimactic. In the film's only truly exciting moment, the police finally catch up to the killer and have a shootout. The chase leads the police into the outskirts of a swamp. The killer is shot in the leg, but manages to escape when a train comes down the track and impedes the police from following him. And then the movie ends. The film is loosely based on a true story, and the killer really did escape in real life, never to be found. But the movie didn't seem to care about factual accuracy at any other point in the movie, so they could have at least fudged the facts and made a more interesting ending. 

The Town That Dreaded Sundown is an unfortunate dud. The idea of a police procedural/horror combo is promising, but the movie fails to deliver in either department. The policework is boring, and the horror scenes aren't creepy or thrilling. The characters are one-dimensional and boring, and the visuals aren't interesting either. It's a dull affair all the way through, save for that bizarre trombone-knife scene. If you are a die-hard horror fan interested in seeing a proto-slasher of sorts, be forewarned, this is a dull watch. Everyone else, don't even bother.

Movie Review- Kung-Pow: Enter the Fist

Kung-Pow: Enter the Fist is a neat idea for a movie that fails in its execution. It's a re-dubbed and re-edited kung-fu movie. The film's writer/director/star Steve Oedekerk is then digitally inserted into the footage in place of the original actor, sort of like they did in Forrest Gump. In a way the film is ahead of its time, predicting the remix culture of YouTube, as well as the obnoxious and juvenile humor most remix videos employ. And much like YouTube remix videos, Kung-Pow seems to have been created by an immature middle schooler.

For every funny joke in Kung-Pow, there are 25 stupid ones rushing in to crush any enjoyment the viewer may be experiencing. At its best, the film recontextualizes the old footage into jokes. For example, in the original film a character goes into a coughing fit due to his failing health. The filmmakers digitally inserted a bug into the film, which then flies into the man's mouth, making it appear as if that was the trigger of his cough. But clever manipulations of the material are few and far between. Most of the jokes consist of "what if I made this character have a silly sounding voice?"" or "what if I made this character say something really stupid in a silly sounding voice?". When the jokes aren't being immature, they're just obvious potshots. There's a extended sequence in which Oedekerk fights a poorly-animated CG cow in a cheap parody of The Matrix. The film's climax is a stupid joke about the French. The list goes on.

Steve Oedekerk, writer of the Nutty Professor remake, Ace Ventura 2, and Bruce Almighty is no stranger to stupid and juvenile humor. Despite their lowbrow jokes, at least those movies were competently made. Kung-Pow feels like a collection of all the jokes Oedekerk cut from his other movies for being too stupid. The movie barely even clocks in at 75 minutes long, and the last few minutes are actually a fake trailer for the movie's sequel. For a movie that is largely the passion project of one man, he sure did get lazy putting it all together.

I have seen criticisms against Kung-Pow suggesting that the film may have worked better as a short skit as opposed to a feature-length film. I feel that a movie like this could actually work if more thought was put into the jokes, and less time was spent playing fart noises over old footage.  I really like the concept of this film, so it really disappoints me that the execution was so shoddy. There are enough jokes that actually work that have me convinced the idea could be pulled off if given to the right creative team. If the idea of the film interests you, it's worth looking in to because it's the only one of its kind, but don't expect much from it.

Movie Review- Mad Max: Fury Road

I am not a fan of the Mad Max movies, and their enduring cult status is somewhat baffling to me. I had no interest watching Mad Max: Fury Road, but critical and fan reception of the film was so overwhelmingly positive, I felt compelled to see it for fear of missing out. Before watching the series' fourth installment, I decided to revisit the original trilogy to see if perhaps I would find some value in the series that I had previously missed. In doing so I was only reminded of why I disliked the films to begin with.

The first two films are too ambitious for their tiny budgets, and as such fail to deliver on the promise of grand car chases through post-apocalyptic desert landscapes. The third film, Beyond Thunderdome benefits greatly from a higher budget, finally portraying an engaging and visually-pleasing desert locale in the market settlement of Bartertown. Unfortunately the plot derails after the first act and returns to the series' biggest problem: boring stories and uninteresting characters. Thoroughly discouraged at this point, I trudged ahead into Fury Road. Shock of all shocks, I still don't like this series.

I am mystified as to this series' appeal. There aren't many good post-apocalyptic films out there, so perhaps fans of that genre are content to settle with what the Mad Max movies have to offer. Perhaps the series is appealing in the same way that some people find monster truck rallies appealing. I am generally not a fan of watching cars go fast and smash things, unless I have reason to be involved in what's going on. The Mad Max movies fail to engage me on a level that I can stay interested in repetitive vehicular carnage.

As previously mentioned, the first two Mad Max are very low-budget and thus the extent of the vehicle stunts are little more than watching a NASCAR accident. Beyond Thunderdome was a slight improvement with a train chase scene that at least looked expensive, even if it left me feeling empty. Fury Road has been pumped up with a bloated Hollywood blockbuster budget, which is finally enough money to give this series the scope and scale director George Miller has been trying to accomplish. Unfortunately that doesn't fix the boring characters, threadbare plot, and uninteresting action scenes.

Mad Max himself barely participates in the movie; his role feels tacked on as an afterthought, and Tom Hardy seemed to be half-asleep during his scenes (I don't doubt that he was added in to secure a larger budget because of the franchise appeal). The film is more about Imperator Furiosa, played with varying degrees of disinterest by Charlize Theron.We're supposed to care about her character because she nobly decides to rescue a group of sex slaves, but she doesn't exhibit any likable traits or do anything else of interest. Despite being more of a main character than Max, Furiosa does almost nothing other than drive throughout the film. At least Max has the decency to actually participate in the 3rd act fight scene.

The film's villains are basically recycled from the previous three films. An army of zany-looking guys in souped-up cars that huff spray paint. Yawn. There's an attempt at depth with the villains at least. Apparently they're all cancer-ridden child soldiers, but the movie doesn't spend enough time developing this idea to make it truly interesting. The big baddie, the stupidly-named Immortan Joe, has a cool looking breathing apparatus, at least.

The Mad Max series has always been light on plot, and Fury Road is no exception. The film is more or less an extended chase scene punctuated with the occasional shootout or fistfight. That's not inherently a problem. Plenty of action movies, such as The Raid: Redemption or most Shaw Brothers productions have been able to get by on little more than clunky exposition to link the fight scenes together. The problem is that Fury Road''s action scenes lack the finesse or intensity of a kung-fu movie, or even the over-the-top machismo of Schwarzenegger-type action movies.

American action films are in a sad state. They are choppy, shaky messes full of boring choreography. I feel that too many critics give Fury Road too much slack because we are in an era of action movies that can't be bothered to actually create action. Fury Road at least attempts to make competent action scenes, but still falls into the same trappings of modern action movies. The editing at times in the movie is an atrocious eyesore. During the movie's chase scenes, the frame rate will suddenly drop to a jittery mess. Apparently this is Miller's homage to silent films. Put your homages somewhere more appropriate, please. In an action movie it's distracting and disorienting. There's still a lot of shaky-cam used in the action scenes, which when compounded with the frame rate drops, leaves me reaching for a bottle of Tylenol.

I'll give the film credit; despite the uninteresting plot and characters, at least the designs are interesting this time around. All that money has been put to good use. The cars are all neat to look at, and the army of Quan Chi lookalikes are pretty unique as far as movie villains go. The desert locales are gorgeously shot, too. There are lot of swooping, spectacular wide shots that help to convey the epic grandeur that George Miller has spent three films trying to capture. Fury Road is boring, but at least it's nice to look at.

Perhaps I'm biased. I don't like the Mad Max series, so maybe I'm not the best person to judge the merits of the series' fourth installment. But as a fan of action movies, and just movies in general, I can tell you this movie is not that great. Even compared to its colleagues, Fury Road is only slightly more competent than The Fast and the Furious. I just don't get the hype.

Movie Review- Punisher: War Zone

Punisher: War Zone is one of the few comic book movies to ever do justice to the source material. The movie is campy and overly violent, but in doing so is largely faithful to the spirit of the comics. I have not seen the previous two standalone Punisher films, so I can't speak to their quality, but with the bar set by War Zone, I can't imagine they are very good in comparison.

I feel like superhero movies these days all look the same. Punisher has the benefit of a unique visual style. It looks as gritty as a digital film can possibly look, and the lighting is colorful and stylized. Often the lighting opts for a single color to fill the scene, a look I do not enjoy, but I still appreciate the unique visuals put forth.

In addition to a stylized production design, the movie is filled with extremely stylized action scenes and violence. The biggest criticism I have seen lobbed against War Zone is the excessive violence. I can't deny that the film is extremely violent, nauseatingly so at times. But the action scenes are a cut above the typical superhero fight scene. The opening scene in which the Punisher hangs upside down from a chandelier and unleashes an assault on a mafia dinner party is a particular treat.

The movie is very to-the-point with what it offers. If you are interested in seeing a relatively faithful adaptation of the Punisher comics or enjoy violent action movies, this is worth checking out.

Movie Review: Goosebumps

I'm surprised that they waited so long to make a Goosebumps movie, and equally surprised they made one at all. The franchise is 23 years old, and as far as I'm aware isn't exactly relevant to today's kids before the movie came out. There was already a TV show in the 1990's, which is the better format for the series anyways. Perhaps the movie's purpose was to reinvigorate sales for a new generation or something. They sure didn't make it because anyone actually wanted a Goosebumps movie.

The biggest problem the movie faces before it even begins is how to approach the movie format. Not counting the numerous spinoffs, the original Goosebumps series is 62 books long. Most of them are standalone novels, which further complicates the task of trying to condense the series into one movie. When I heard they were making a Goosebumps movie I figured it would be an anthology movie, in the vein of Twilight Zone: The Movie and Creepshow. Instead, the movie goes with a weird meta plot, in which R.L. Stine is a character in the movie and has to fight off his literary creations with the help of a group of boring teenagers. I respect the creative team's choice to go in an unusual direction with the adaptation, but it ultimately fails in execution. At least the anthology approach would have left the window open for sequels.

Goosebumps appears to be taking from the Smurfs school of nostalgic adaptations. There's nothing there for the adults who grew up the original product, and instead spends its time trying to make itself appealing to an otherwise uninterested modern audience. I would have almost preferred it if the movie tried to pander to millennials with 90's nostalgia. That being said, I realized quickly what I was in for and tried to keep a kid's mindset. If you have kids or siblings or other 8-12 range children that want to see the movie, they'll probably enjoy themselves. It's fine as a mindless diversion for kids, just don't expect to get anything out of it yourself.

Jack Black plays R.L. Stine in the movie, seemingly cast just to secure the film's financing or to coerce parents into seeing the film because of name recognition. Probably both. He doesn't bring anything to the table that he hasn't already done in other films. The teen characters are all decently acted, each getting the occasional moment to be charming in spite of the tepid script. But the kids aren't coming to see this for Jack Black or the teenybopper wish fulfillment inserts, they're coming to see it for all the monsters.

Part of the problem inherent with the approach Goosebumps takes is the lack of actual monsters in the source material. There aren't many Goosebumps books with villains that translate well to screen, a majority of the books feature a ghost or haunted object as the source of scares. But the Goosebumps movie wants to have a highlight reel of CG monsters to chase Jack Black, so they picked a bunch of obscure monsters from the books instead. They also added a bunch of characters not from the series, such as a flying poodle with fangs and the obligatory cliche scary clown. I was surprised that they left out the Horrors from One Day at Horrorland, as I recall them being one of the more iconic villains from the series when I read the books. (I mean come on, the finale takes place in an abandoned theme park, and you leave out the only theme park related villains in the series?)

Slappy the ventriloquist dummy, who is an unofficial mascot for the series, serves as the central antagonist for the movie, but nothing he does makes any sense or has any clear motivation. There are a few undercooked moments where it seems like Slappy has unresolved father/puppet-son relationship issues with Jack Black, but it gets dropped almost immediately for more CG junk flying at the screen. I wasn't exactly expecting any logical sense from the Goosebumps movie, but they tried to give the movie sense and then fell flat on its face. His half-assed daddy issues raise several questions into the logic of the fictional-characters-come-to-life concept, when a simple "He's an evil puppet" would have sufficed.

The Goosebumps books were never exactly good, even by kid-lit standards. I read a majority of them growing up, and while I enjoyed them at the time, even then I knew they were hokey. In that aspect, I guess Goosebumps does actually succeed. It's escapist fluff kids, just like the books. It's the kind of thing, just like the books, that's fun for kids while they're kids and then really dumb and silly when looking back as an adult. The movie doesn't have high ambitions at any point, only trying to be entertaining for children. It doesn't try hard, but at least it's competently (if not mechanically) made. It's strictly kid's stuff. There are better horror-themed kid's movies out there, but as far as kid's movies go in general, this one is passable.

Movie Review: Brain Damage

Brain Damage is a 1988 horror-comedy from director Frank Henenlotter. It's sleazy, it's bloody, and above all it's incredibly silly. It's exactly what you would expect from the guy who directed movies like Frankenhooker and Basket Case. The movie sets its sights low and revels in its own goofiness. It's refreshing to see a movie that isn't afraid to have fun being dumb, a movie that doesn't have to wink at the audience and let them know that it's in on the joke.

The plot is very simple: A twentysomething guy named Brian winds up host to a talking brain parasite named Aylmer. The parasite injects Brian's brain with hallucinogens, and then lets the stoned Brian wander around to find victims for Aylmer to feast on. Eventually Brian tries to get rid of Aylmer, but this proves to be harder than expected.

For a movie made for less than a million dollars, Brain Damage looks fantastic. The low budget actually works to the film's advantage, as the cheap locations exude the creepy, grimy feel of 1980's New York City. The film is surprisingly well-shot, particularly the night scenes; it's well above the usual mediocre cinematography of similar movies. The special effects are stellar for the budget as well. The initial hallucination scene plays out like something from a Ken Russell movie, and it looks great. The effects for the Aylmer puppet are very clever, and his overall design is fittingly silly. His cartoon googly-eyes and dopey grin almost make him strangely adorable. He's a severely underrated movie monster.

The acting is passable, but the actor voices Aylmer deserves mentioning. He was voiced by John Zacherle, a TV horror host from the 1950's-60's. He has a very goofy Vincent Price sounding voice that is simultaneously unfitting and very fitting for the monster. Despite looking very silly, Zacherle actually manages to make Aylmer feel like a threat when necessary. It's a rare instance of a B-Movie having a memorable role because the actor was good.

If there's anything bad to say about the movie, is that the movie has a dumb ending. During the climactic confrontation, Brian is injected with a lethal overdose of Aylmer's hallucinogenic juice. This causes a weird growth to form on Brian's forehead, so he tries to shoot himself to stop the head-lump. The movie then ends with Brian's brother finding him not only alive, but with a giant glowing hole in his head. Cut to credits. It's a disappointingly abrupt ending to an otherwise fun movie.

If you have a strong stomach for gross violence played for laughs or an appreciation for crazy B-Movies, Brain Damage is worth checking out. It has surprisingly high production values, clever low-budget special effects, and a great monster. It's unashamedly silly movie and it's a ton of fun to watch. If you're looking for a B-Movie that's both entertaining and relatively well-made, this is the movie for you.

Movie Review- Puppetmaster

Puppetmaster is a 1989 direct-to-video horror film from renowned B-Movie producer Charles Band. The film is part of a wave of killer doll movies that experienced brief popularity in the late 1980's and early 1990's, many of which were also produced by Band. While not as technically impressive or enjoyably silly as fellow doll film Child's Play, Puppetmaster still has a few redeeming qualities that make it memorable, at the very least.

The film follows a group of psychics who are investigating a hotel in California after an invitation from a former colleague. Upon arrival at the hotel, the group is informed that their colleague has recently passed away. The psychics deduce that their colleague was on the trail of Andre Toulon, a puppeteer who reportedly had the power to bring inanimate objects to life. As the psychics investigate into the hotel and their colleague's mysterious death, they are slowly killed off by Toulon's puppets.

Puppetmaster has a fairly interesting premise; but the execution leaves something to be desired. The film's pacing is sluggish and full of padding, and the characters are not distinct enough to warrant emotional investment. The setting and characters had potential to be engaging, but neither are given the proper attention to be effective. After most of the movie spends its time mindlessly milling about, the ending decides to take a sharp turn into a convoluted twist. It's revealed that the dead colleague killed himself and then came back to life using Toulon's magic so he could live forever. It's never made completely clear why he needed the puppets to begin with, or why the puppets decide to turn against the villain and kill him at the climax. It's all very needlessly complicated for an otherwise simple movie.

The main draw to this film is the troupe of killer puppets, and the movie competently delivers in that aspect. The designs of the puppets are all creative, even if some of them are more silly than spooky. I particularly like the ghoulish looking puppet, aptly named Blade, who has a hook and knife for hands. It looks like a cross between the masks from Scream and the Phantom of the Opera, and it's the only puppet of the bunch that actually manages to look creepy. The effects are well done considering the low budget, are a nice blend of stop-motion shots and puppetry.

It's also worth noting that the film has a decent musical score for a low budget production. The main theme that plays a few times during the film is enjoyably eerie. The theme sets a suitable mood for the movie, even if it never quite matches that atmosphere visually. Lower-budget productions typically tend to have really cheap or nondescript scores, so actually having a memorable theme is much appreciated.

Puppetmaster is not a good movie, by any means of the word. Most of the movie is nondescript and dull, but there is still some fun to be had for the niche audience this movie caters to. The special effects and puppet designs are neat to look at, and the movie is competently made to the extent that it's at least watchable. If you're looking for a killer doll movie other than Child's Play, this one is worth a shot.

Movie Review: The Road to El Dorado

Originally written August 9th, 2014.

I seem to have the inability to learn from my mistakes, because I have yet again listened to Tumblr’s movie suggestions. This time I watched the 2000 Dreamworks movie The Road to El Dorado. I have become infected with the Dreamworks smirk. Someone call a doctor.

For once the Tumblr hivemind was onto something. This isn’t actually that bad of a movie. For a kids’ film, it’s pretty solid. As long as you don’t mind the usual cliches that run rampant in kids’ movies, you ought to have a good time.

The movie follows two con men who find the legendary city of El Dorado. The citizens of El Dorado mistake them for gods and then hijinks ensue. It’s a straightforward and predictable story, but the characters make up for it. The two con men befriend one of the Mayans, and the three have really good chemistry. There’s a lot of fun banter between them, and most of the jokes hit. Surprisingly the movie steers clear of the usual kids' movie potty humor and is mostly just funny dialog and slapstick. It’s refreshing to see that for a change.

The other strong suit of the movie is the animation. I wish Dreamworks still did traditionally animated movies, because this movie looks fantastic. The character designs are great, and the locations are gorgeous. The animators did a great job capturing the look of Mayan artwork and architecture. It’s a very unique look, and anyone interested in animation is sure to pleased with it.

Overall, it’s a pretty good kids’ movie. The songs are painful to sit through and there are a lot of narrative cliches, but the same could be said of most kids’ flicks. If you have children or siblings that want to watch a movie, this is a good one to put on. It’s entertaining enough if you have to watch it too, and it’s not going to rot your kid’s brain or anything. It’s not the kind of movie you necessarily need to seek out, but if you get the chance to watch it, you’ll be pleasantly surprised

Movie Review: Cockneys vs Zombies

Originally written August 6th, 2014.

Netflix is awash with all sorts of no-budget horror mashups. From Zombie Strippers to Sharknado, there’s no shortage of awful B-Movies. However out of the mire comes Cockneys vs Zombies. This poor man’s Shaun of the Dead is the cream of the crap.

There’s not a lot to say that the title doesn’t already explain. Do you want to see cockneys fight zombies? Of course you do. Watch this movie.

The premise is incredibly stupid and the movie just runs with it. It doesn’t try to be anything more than it is- a ridiculous horror-comedy full of swearing Brits. A team of bank robbers and a group of retirees banter back in forth in near-unintelligible cockney accents. If that appeals to you, it delivers.

It’s far from perfect and even farther from being good, but it’s a fun ride. If you want mindless entertainment that’s of some (minimal) substance, this is the flick for you. Decent effects, decent performances, ludicrous zombie action, it’s all good.

Movie Review: Guardians of the Galaxy

Originally written August 3rd, 2014.

The internet was abuzz with talk about Guardians of the Galaxy this year. The biggest question seemed to be “How will mainstream audiences be able to handle a talking raccoon and a giant tree-man?”. The answer is simple- Water everything down to a family and consumer friendly package. Who cares about those trivial things like interesting characters and a compelling story? They’ve got to make their money back, darn it!

I’m not exactly a big expert when it comes to the GotG comics, but I have been reading the current series since it started last year. The thing I like the most about the series is the characters and their banter. The clashing personalities of the ramshackle team leads to great dialog and is generally fun to read. How does the film adaptation hold up? Well, they at least made them look like their comic book counterparts. Sorta.

Star-Lord is the resident Han Solo of the series. In the film, he’s just a generic bland protagonist. Chris Pratt was great casting for the role, but the writing is so bad that he can’t make much of it. Gamora is the other Han Solo of the series. (Okay, the entire team is just a bunch of Han Solos.) She’s a badass space assassin, but in the movie she’s kinda just there. Her fight scenes are scant and boring, and she’s completely butchered by a wooden performance. Zoe Saldana is easily the worst performance in the movie. When you’re being out-acted by Vin Diesel and redneck Michael Rooker, you know it’s bad.

Drax is basically Gamora mixed with Arnold Schwarzenegger. In the movie, he’s inexplicably gray instead of green (pulling a Hulk, maybe?) and played by professional wrestler Dave Bautista, who unsurprisingly gives a dull performance. (Seriously, stop putting wrestlers in movies. They can’t act.) Rocket Raccoon is the only enjoyable character in the film. Bradley Cooper is great at capturing the spirit of the angry runt, and the CG for the raccoon is never once distracting. It’s still clearly an effect, but it’s such a good effect that you don’t notice. God bless you, you crazed rodent. Groot is the team’s Chewbacca, a lumbering behemoth that can’t speak coherently. Unfortunately he’s relegated to the dopey comic relief for the film. They even gave him a more family friendly look, vaguely reminiscent of the guy from Little Big Planet, instead of his usual intimidating appearance.

So, they almost completely ruined the main characters. Surely the movie is at least nice to look at, right? Right? Nope. Take every boring sci-fi cliche and toss it in there. Generic dark/dank prison full of exposed pipes and circuitry? Check. Generic craggy abandoned planet? Check. Pristine 50’s-esque utopia? Check. Pointlessly shadowy and cavernous bad guy ship? Check, check, check and check.

I’m pretty sure 90% of the budget went to Rocket Raccoon and Groot. The CG on the pair looks great. It’s not distracting at all, and they both are stunning to look at. Well, except Groot’s face. Poor guy got turned all market-safe and sweet. The rest of the effects must have been an afterthought. The space battles and landscapes are all just generic CG crap, and it’s neither convincing nor interesting to look at. Even the alien designs are awful. Taking a page from the original run of Star Trek, the makeup team just slapped body paint and forehead prostheses on the actors and called it a day. Seriously, Karen Gillian looks like a cosplayer and less like a character in a big-budget blockbuster movie.

The story is crap, too. I’m sick of every superhero movie feeling the need to be an origin story for the first film. It leads to the same narrative structures and tropes and I can’t stand it anymore. Why not go the route of the original Batman or X-Men and only show origin stories in flashbacks, if at all? Plus the whole “Star-Lord’s mom died” thing has almost no payoff and only serves as a cheap way to make you sympathize with his wooden plank of a character. Michael Rooker’s character was equally pointless and annoying, too. The villains are rushed to make room for the “getting the team together” crap, which is a shame because Ronan the Accuser and Nebula seemed like interesting villains. It feels like their whole purpose was to introduce Thanos for Avengers 3. Thanos is definitely a highlight of the film, but I’d rather have more of the other villains. Stick to your own movie, Thanos.

Overall, this is a dull mess of a movie. The characters are shambling unfunny husks of their comic book counterparts, and there’s nothing fun to look at to distract you. Rocket Raccoon is awesome, but the little fuzzball is hardly enough to carry the film. It’s not particularly funny either. The jokes are few and far between and the ones that are actually funny are even fewer. The Avengers was more of a comedy than this crap. I’m shocked Marvel screwed this up so badly. Heck, even the soundtrack sucks. If you like out of place 70’s soft rock, then go buy yourself a ticket. Otherwise, skip this piece of interstellar debris and watch something else. After this, I’d rather see a Howard the Duck reboot than a GotG sequel.

Movie Review: Mimic

Originally written May 24th, 2014.

Mimic is a long-forgotten horror movie from director Guillermo del Toro. While not his finest work, it’s still a decent creature feature. The premise might seem silly to some, but if you can look past some of the goofy Hollywood science, it’s a fun watch.

The movie follows an entomologist who engineered a species of super-bug to kill off disease-carrying cockroaches. Cut to a few years later and somehow the bugs have mutated rapidly into giant carnivorous monsters. After a series of disappearances the scientist and her husband suspect that her mutant bugs may be the culprit.

Despite the silly premise and the typical monster movie execution, Mimic is a very creepy film. The movie takes itself seriously, and puts genuine effort into making the idea of giant bugs seem plausible. The buildup to the monster reveal is very effective and unsettling. The bugs have adapted to disguise themselves as a human-like figure, and we only see glimpses of them in this form for most of the movie.

The bugs make this gross clicking noise when they near their victims, and that’s mostly what we hear the entire movie instead of actually seeing the monsters. Surprisingly using only sound effects to represent the monsters works great. It’s reminiscent of the sounds the monsters in Silent Hill make as they shamble around in the darkness. In a really cool touch, the movie’s sound effects are full of various clicking noises, as if the bugs are hiding everywhere.

The main problem with the movie is the ending. It’s anticlimactic and stuck with a studio-enforced happy ending. The whole movie seems to be building up to a climactic battle with the queen bug, or at least a really large boss-battle bug, but all we get is a slightly large male that’s defeated in less than a minute. The whole ending feels very rushed, and it’s a shame because the rest of the movie is really fun and it’s a shame to see it wrapped up in such a lackluster fashion. Apparently there’s a director’s cut of the film available, but I only saw the theatrical version. The director’s cut has the originally intended ending that was more pessimistic. (It doesn’t do anything to fix the anticlimax, though) If you decide to watch the movie, I’d try to hunt down a copy of the director’s cut.

Overall, Mimic is an entertaining monster movie. There are tons of “Giant ____ attack” movies, but this is one of the better entries in the genre. It’s silly and full of the usual monster movie cliches, but it has a creepy charm that sets it apart from its peers. It’s nothing highbrow, but it’s a fun popcorn flick. It’s definitely worth checking out if you like sci-fi or monsters.

Movie Review: Lifeforce

Originally written May 31st, 2014.

Lifeforce is freakin’ weird, man. No other way to put it. It’s just flat-out strange. Whether or not you enjoy this movie will likely be based on how high your suspension of disbelief is. Many will be turned off by a movie with space-vampires. The remaining few who stay are in for a treat.

For starters, the movie is based on a science-fiction novel called The Space Vampires. That’s the most amazingly stupid title for a book since the days of pulp fiction. Then there’s Alien scribe Dan O’Bannon writing the adaptation. The guy has a history of taking far-fetched and weird ideas and turning them into enjoyab, and Lifeforce is no exception. The movie is tightly paced and full of suspense and intrigue the whole way through. While the film’s content is more akin to a horror movie, the script runs like a great thriller, and it’s never a bore.

So what’s the movie even about? It’s quite a doozy. A NASA mission to scan Halley’s Comet discovers a strange spacecraft in the rock’s orbit. The astronauts go to investigate and find a trio of humanoids encased in pieces of the Fortress of Solitude. The astronaut find themselves compelled to bring the specimens aboard the ship, and that’s the last we see of them. When the ship returns to Earth’s orbit full of dead astronauts, their fellow scientists decide to get the bottom of things.

They bring the alien specimens in for examination, but one of the aliens escapes. The scientists realize that the creatures feed off of human souls, literally draining them of life. As the scientists tail the escaped alien, they realize that she has the ability to drain small portions of vitality, so that the alien can hop between the consciousnesses of people. Then for reasons barely explained, the partly-drained victims become zombie-like creatures, and the plague spreads like wildfire throughout London. This somehow sends soul-energy to the alien spaceship, which is now orbiting Earth. The scientists ultimately catch up to the alien, and the lone survivor of the NASA mission (who escaped in a handy-dandy escape pod) sacrifices himself to kill her. This apparently stops the flow of soul-energy and sucks the scientist and the alien up into the unknown. And that’s it. Freakin’ weird, man.

If that summary didn’t seem too weird for you, I highly recommend getting a hold of this movie. The scenes in space are stunning, especially considering the movie came out in 1985. The designs for the alien spaceship are gorgeous, and the movie has an overall fantastic look to it. Tobe Hooper, director of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Poltergeist helms this flick, and he has always had an eye for cinematography.

Even if the movie is a bit loopy, there are still plenty of tense moments. The survivor of the NASA mission formed a psychic link with the female alien and finds himself inescapably drawn to her. His struggle to resist the mind control is constantly tense and played with great subtlety. There’s also a fantastically creepy scene where we see what happens when the vampire drains her victim completely, and what happens when the victim tries to restore itself. The practical effects in that scene are horrifyingly grotesque, and really convey the sheer deadliness of the vampires.

Overall, this is a great sci-fi flick. There’s a smorgasbord of horror elements thrown in even if they don’t make sense, and that’s part of the fun. It’s a crazy and inventive take on the vampire mythos, and it never has a dull moment. If you have a high tolerance for weird stuff, this is certainly worth a watch.

Movie Review: Wishmaster

Originally written June 14th, 2014.

Wishmaster is a 1997 monster movie from FX wizard Robert Kurtzman. It’s been largely forgotten since its release, and it’s pretty much been universally panned. I’d hardly call that fair. It’s a terrible movie if viewed as a generic monster movie, but if you have the right mindset it’s a fun movie. It’s nowhere near perfect, but it is fun.

The movie is basically a 90 minute parade of special effects. If that sounds appealing to you, Wishmaster will deliver. This is purely Robert Kurtzman’s vanity project. Any notion of sense or logic is thrown out the window in favor of rubbery monsters and gore. The acting is beyond awful; the cast is nothing but goofy cameos and a few soap opera actors. The dialog is hilariously terrible and the plot is mind-bogglingly stupid. The negative reviews are completely valid, but I’m surprised there’s no cult following for this so-bad-it’s-good pile of weird.

Right off the bat we’re thrust into an orgy of makeup effects. The movie opens in 12th century Persia where the titular Wishmaster, a demonic djinn, is putting curses on the townsfolk, turning people into trees, snake-men, and making people's skeletons jump out of their skin and run around. This all happens suddenly with barely any explanation, and it’s hilarious. Not to mention, the effects look absolutely fantastic. This may be a stupid movie, but Kurtzman really knows his stuff. The king of Persia realizes his mistake in unleashing the djinn and imprisons him in a large ruby.

According to the movie’s logic, genies are trapped between the spiritual realm and the earth, and granting 3 wishes for their master will free them and allow them to take over the world. They also have the odd compulsion to grant a wish for anyone they meet. All the wishes are goofy “be careful what you wish for” twists. The twists are so stupid and predictable you can’t help but laugh.

Cut to the 20th century, and Robert Englund is overseeing a statue being unloaded off of a cargo ship. His assistant, played by Ted Raimi, is promptly squished by the statue when the crane unloading it short circuits. This is the first in a series of pointless but hilariously hammy cameos from horror veterans. It’s clear that none of the horror vets were taking their roles seriously, because every single one of them is played as over-the-top as possible.

The genie-ruby falls out of the statue and eventually winds up in the hands of a jeweler named Alexandra. The jeweler somehow awakens the djinn and becomes his master. The genie then breaks free from his prison and proceeds to go around killing people. This takes up a majority of the movie until Alexandra realizes that she can just wish the genie away by wishing that the statue never broke and released him. The end. A no-frills straightforward plot.

The best part obviously is all the special effects. The djinn makes a deal with a hammy hobo and kills another cameo character, that ice cream man from Phantasm. He then goes and steals a cadaver’s face which somehow allows him to disguise himself as a human and stay within the budget. It’s a shame that he spends most of the movie as a human, because the makeup and costume for the monster is great. He looks like a weird cross between the Green Goblin and a Power Rangers villain.

If I’m being honest, there’s not really much more to the movie. It’s just the genie going around and killing people in hilariously stupid wish scenarios. As I said, all complaints about this movie are valid. The effects are fantastic throughout, except for some horrendous 90’s CG. If you like stupid monster movies and haven’t heard of this one before, I’d say give it a go. If you like your movies to have a bit more brain to them, I’d skip it. Take it for what it’s worth, a shameless excuse for Robert Kurtzman to show off his special effects skills.

Movie Review: Candyman

Originally written June 18th, 2014.

I’m not a big fan of Clive Barker as an author, but I was pleasantly surprised by Candyman. It does a great job of expanding a short story into a feature-length screenplay, and generally outdoes its source material. It’s eerie and chilling movie from beginning to end. In a decade largely devoid of good horror movies, Candyman stands head and shoulders above its peers as one of the creepiest flicks of the 90s.

One of the film’s strongest suits is its production value. The movie looks fantastic, with many scenes shot on location in the Cabrini-Green projects. Poor housing projects are dreary and unsettling enough to begin with, and putting a boogeyman in there just ramps up those feelings. Plus there’s a lot of eye-catching imagery in the colorful graffiti that forms most of the film’s backgrounds. That shot of the giant Candyman mural is both visually stunning and disturbing at the same time, and has stuck with me for quite some time.

The acting is some of the best I’ve seen in a horror movie. Horror movies are almost always chockfull of bad acting, and the memorable performances are usually from over-the-top character actors. Memorable and fun, certainly, but not high quality stuff. That’s not the case with Candyman. Virginia Madsen definitely deserved her Saturn award that year. (She plays the “is it all in her head” bit perfectly.) Tony Todd’s role as the titular Candyman is probably the creepiest horror performance of the 90s. He is just fantastic. From his deep gravelly voice, to his creepy placid demeanor, the guy just knocks it out of the park.

The score is excellent, too. Avant-garde composer Philip Glass penned the score for the film, and he did an amazing job. The music has a spooky music box feel to it. The score is mostly ethereal piano loops with choir vocals thrown in here and there, and it’s creepy as heck. The main piece played throughout, Helen’s Theme, is reminiscent of Promise (Reprise) from Silent Hill 2. If you like that song, it’s worth looking up the Candyman soundtrack, it’s a really cool track.

As a standalone movie, Candyman is excellent. But how does it stand up against the source material? The movie is based on the Clive Barker short story, The Forbidden. It follows roughly the same plot as the story; a woman named Helen discovers the urban legend of the Candyman and faces the deadly consequences of her continued investigation. Overall the movie does a better job of telling the story than the story, but there are a few key differences that bothered me.

For one, they give the Candyman a backstory that does everything except explain why he only shows up when you say his name five times in front of a mirror. It seems kind of arbitrary for him to use that as his main method of transportation when they clearly show he can appear wherever he darn well pleases. As a means of drawing out the runtime, the writers threw in a “was it all in her head” element. Virginia Madsen plays this device really well, but if you’ve read the story then you know it’s not in her head after all. Thirdly the filmmakers felt compelled to “kill off” the Candyman in this version. The ending for the movie is definitely better than the Wicker Man ripoff the story has, but they could have kept the Candyman alive without it affecting the ending at all. Plus it makes no sense how they even killed him in the first place. (A flaming piece of debris? Really?)

Overall, Candyman is a knockout piece of horror cinema. It takes its time, builds up its atmosphere, and then hits you with creepy bee-infested ghosts. It’s a fantastic horror movie and definitely worth watching. I highly recommend it.

Movie Review: StageFright: Aquarius

Originally written July 18th, 2014. 

This oddly-subtitled flick is a 1987 Italian horror film about a community theater group that gets terrorized by an escaped maniac. The twist? The musical they’re performing is about an escaped maniac. Oh the irony! Plus it’s written by the guy who penned Porno Holocaust. How could you say no?

Overall, it’s a by-the-numbers slasher horror, but with one exception. As is typical of Italian horror, it’s gorgeously shot. Everything looks ethereal and surreal, and it’s really unsettling. The story is nothing special, but it has tons of stupid-silly moments to keep you entertained until the action starts.

Once the killer appears, things start to pick up. The gore is extreme to the point of being ridiculous, which adds to the surreal feel of everything. Plus the killer wears this ratty old owl mask, and it’s creepy as hell. It’s still the usual “And Then There Were None" deal, but it’s pretty intense. The final act has some great suspense and even better visuals. Things kinda fall apart in the last 5 minutes, when they try to force in one last scare before the movie ends, but other than that it’s pretty solid.

If you like horror and want to try something different, check out StageFright. It’s a poor man’s Dario Argento in a way. It has all the same creepy visuals, but on a smaller scale and a weaker story. There’s enough silly campy stuff to entertain during the dull parts and enough suspense and terror to fulfill the “Fright” part of StageFright. 

Movie Review: Sinister

Originally written July 20th, 2014.

Do you have a weird fetish for 8mm projectors? Then boy, do I have the movie for you. Sinister is approximately 90% shots of Ethan Hawke assembling and fiddling around with an old film projector. The remaining ten percent is like that processed mystery meat in hotdogs, except with cliches.

Sinister scored big at the box office in 2012 because the only other horror movie with half a brain that year was Cabin in the Woods, and Cabin required too much thought from the average viewer to be successful. It did so well that the director was picked to direct the upcoming Dr. Strange movie for Disney. It’s as if everyone forgot this guy directed Hellraiser V and the Day the Earth Stood Still remake. Because the foul stench of this guy’s filmography hasn’t left Sinister.

The movie follows Ethan Hawke, who plays a true crime writer investigating a young girl who disappeared in the late 70’s. He decides to move into the victim’s old house for some reason (a fact his wife is amazingly oblivious to). While moving in, Ethan Hawke finds a box of Super 8 home movies and decides to watch them. To his surprise (well, the script wants him to be surprised but Hawke seems so disinterested in his role that he might as well have been asleep) the movies are graphic snuff films, and he suspects a connection between them and his case.

Rather than turn the films over to the police like a sane person, Hawke keeps them and tries to solve things himself. After porting the footage onto his computer, Hawke realizes that there is some sort of creature found in the background of the films. Hawke finally decides to get police help, so he of course enlists the comic relief cop. He is neither comic or a relief in this long slog of a movie. The cop puts him in contact with Vincent D’onofrio, a historian who gives as dead a performance as Hawke.

D’onofrio tells Hawke that the creature he saw was likely some ancient demon known as Mr. Boogie. (Yes, that really is what they call him.) The ol’ boogster apparently eats children and bears a striking resemblance to the Slenderman. And as an added bonus during one of his few on-screen appearances you can clearly see the actor’s green-screen glove. How frightening.

Eventually Hawke finds another box of tapes, quite seriously labelled “The Extended Cut”, and pops them in his projector. The bonus footage reveals that (no shock at all) it was the missing children from the films that killed everyone! Apparently the boogeyman makes kids murder people instead of eating them. This is supposed to be a twist or something, but it’s blatantly obvious what happened within the first 15 minutes of movie. And then Hawke’s daughter ax-murders him to continue Mr. Boogie’s kill streak. And then there’s a stupid jump scare to finish things off. The End!

Overall, this is just a bland movie. Structurally the movie is sound, because the pacing is admittedly really good (it’s dull but at least it doesn’t drag) and it has a great creepy ambient soundtrack. The problem is that nothing is particularly scary in the movie. There’s the occasional creepy visual like the opening tree scene, but the movie always follows up and does something stupid to ruin the creep. (They left that tree branch there? For 30 years? Really?) The acting is wooden and the characters aren’t engaging, so there’s no investment when anything happens to them. The only fun part is the comically lame Mr. Boogie, but he’s barely even in the movie. There’s nothing outstandingly bad about Sinister, it’s just middling and dumb. It’s best to pass on this one.

Movie Review: Thir13en Ghosts

Originally written July 21st, 2014.

My love of practical effects and prosthetic makeup is going to be the death of me some day. I recently saw a scene from Thir13en Ghosts on YouTube and decided to watch it solely on the awesome/gross effect of a guy getting bisected by a pane of glass. Robert Kurtzman of Wishmaster and Greg Nicotero of Army of Darkness were doing the special effects so it couldn’t be that bad, right?

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a major studio film with editing this bad before. This is Birdemic: Shock and Terror bad. But at least Birdemic has the excuse of being a zero-budget amateur production. The entire movie lurches blindly ahead like a rickety rollercoaster. Even in low-key dialog scenes the cutting is so frenetic that it’s a headache. There’s never that natural pause between dialog; it feels like the lines are all trying to force their way out of a door at once and then all come spewing out at once.

Editing needs to be paced properly so that things don’t feel rushed. There are numerous scenes of exposition that needed to be played slowly to ensure all the information is presented clearly, but the characters rush through everything so fast it leaves your head spinning. The action scenes are even worse. I think the director was trying to go for a music video feel, with lots of flashy jump cuts and things jumping at the screen, but it comes across as disorienting and obnoxious. It’s like someone trying to punch you in the face with a strobe light.

I’m all for unique editing styles. Edgar Wright pulls off jump cut sequences fantastically, and Event Horizon uses rapid-fire editing really well for its brief glimpses of hell. But both of those examples use the techniques sparingly. Thir13en Ghosts uses them the entire movie, and it’s an eyesore. It’s so difficult to tell what’s going on during the action sequences that anything of interest is immediately lost.

Despite the massive headache that is the editing, there are a few good things about the movie. There are some very creative ideas here and there, like the production design. The idea of having the house be a maze of shifting walls and stairs is pretty cool, and the glasshouse/clockwork design is stunning. The ghosts are really cool, too. We don’t get to see much of it, but the effects work from Kurtzman and Nicotero is top-notch. The naked ghost woman is really creepy, as is the guy covered in nails, and that guy with the cage on his head. It’s a shame the editing ruined everything, because visually, the movie had a lot going for it.

Overall, this movie is a complete wreck. When the movie isn’t jump-cutting your eyes into dust, it’s shoveling everything forwards at an unnecessary breakneck speed. There are momentary glimpses of a good movie trying to break through, like the bathroom scene and that “Black Zodiac” thing, but ultimately it’s all lost in the dang editing. The ghost designs are cool, and the effects work is great for 2001, but they get butchered to oblivion along with everything else. I haven’t seen the original 1960 film, but I have no doubt it’s better than the remake. So go watch that one instead and save your self the potential seizures.

Movie Review: The Lost Boys

Originally written September 8th, 2013.

The Lost Boys is a 1987 horror-comedy from director Joel Schumacher. Despite Schumacher’s checkered past with bat-related movies, The Lost Boys is actually a very fun and entertaining movie. It’s one of the few horror-comedies I’ve seen to properly balance scares and laughs, without one dominating the other. It’s also one of the only good vampire movies I’ve seen.
For starters, The Lost Boys is really, really funny. The relationship between Corey Haim and his brother is hilarious; after finding out his brother is a vampire, Haim’s first thought is to rat him out to their mom. Then there’s Corey Feldman, who plays a wannabe Van Helsing with a pseudo-Schwarzenegger voice. Plus the movie is very over-the-top 80’s, and if you get a kick out of the goofy hairstyles and clothes, you’ll appreciate this movie all the more.
The Lost Boys is really creepy when necessary, too. I normally don’t find vampires all that frightening, but Keifer Sutherland has a very intimidating presence, and the vampire attack scenes are shot very well, keeping the vampires hidden, leaving a lot to the imagination. The end is spectacularly creepy, too. Corey Haim and company have to fight off Keifer Sutherland’s vampire gang, leading to some excellently grotesque vampire deaths, and an awesome vampire duel between Sutherland and Corey Haim’s brother.
The movie is all around fun to watch, and while it is campy and has a bit of a deus ex machina ending, it’s still very funny and creepy, and a very entertaining movie. If you like horror-comedies, this is one of the best titles the genre has to offer.