Horror movie sequels have a bad rap for spawning endless amounts of terrible sequels. But while most horror movie sequels don't do well critically, there tends to be an enjoyable camp value with many of them. Sure, it might not be as creepy or inventive as the first, but horror movie sequels can at least bring a laugh or two to horror fans. But there is a line that can easily be crossed; the comically over-the-top elements found in great "good-bad" horror movies can quickly turn from hilarious to mind-numbingly annoying. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 crosses that line.
The idea of a demonic figure that kills you in your dreams, while a bit silly, lends itself to a lot of creative opportunities. Dreams and nightmares have no grounding in reality and could easily produce some great and terrifying results. The first film handles the premise pretty well, and although it's very dated by today's standards, the first NoES still manages have a couple of creepy scenes throughout. NoES2 decides to scrap most of the dream element and go for a possession-based horror movie. The plot this go-round revolves around a kid named Jesse, who moves into Nancy's house five years after the first movie. Freddy decides to possess Jesse, using him to randomly kill a few people, despite Freddy already being capable of killing people in their dreams, which is much more efficient. The movie tries to play up a psychological aspect, where Jesse questions whether he's the one killing people or not. This doesn't work, though, because we already know Freddy existed in the first film, and so there's no suspense when the mystery aspect was already answered in the preceding movie.
Another major flaw with the film is the subtitle, "Freddy's Revenge". This is a strange choice for a subtitle, because Freddy is merely returning, and not exacting revenge. The movie even tries to play up the revenge aspect, in that Freddy is possessing Jesse so he can kill people again. This makes no sense however, because the only person he would want revenge on is Nancy, because she sort of killed him in the first movie. Heck, the first NoES could have been called "Freddy's Revenge", because he's getting revenge by killing the children of the people who murdered him. There's no motivation for his killing spree this time, except for "because he's the bad guy". There's no connection to any of the characters from the last movie, except that it takes place in the same house as last time. Having someone live in Nancy's house again might have awoken Freddy's spirit, but if he were out for revenge, he would have gone after Nancy. It's established that Freddy can make Jesse travel long distances when possessing him, so why he didn't try to exact revenge when the theme and subtitle of the movie is literally "Revenge" is anyone's guess. Although it's probably because "A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy Kills Some People Because He's Evil" was a hard sell, and too difficult for the writer to work around. (In retrospect, Freddy might have been trying to get back into the real world using Jesse, but one would think being able to haunt dreams is a big advantage for a horror movie villain; you can't really do anything to him, and he pretty much has full control over you. And he takes a serious beating when he's dragged into reality in the first NoES, so I'm not sure why he'd want to return to human form. He's not really a smart one, that Freddy.)
If there's any reason to remember this film (and even then, it's hardly a reason), it's because of the unintentional homoeroticism. NoES2 is notorious amongst horror fans for its numerous scenes of half-dressed sweaty men running around, a dream sequence that appears to take place in a gay club, and a scene where Freddy murders a guy in a shower room after stripping him nude and whipping him in the butt with a towel. This doesn't really add much watchability to the film, but the shower room scene is so bizarre it's somewhat worth a chuckle. There's also a lot of painfully garish 80's fashion going on, so if you get a laugh out of overly feathered hair and loud clothing, it might be worth looking up a few scenes on Youtube.
The characters are all forgettable, but it's worth at least mentioning them. Jesse, the main character, is the flat, boring guy. Lisa, the love interest, is the flat, boring girl. All other characters get around five lines of dialog, and that's about it. There's a coach-type guy who's supposed to be a bad guy, but he dies early on in the movie. There's also some guy that's supposed to be the best friend character, but he's barely around, and he ends up dying before anything of interest is done with him. There's also Jesse's family, but their characters are so thin even a sitcom would reject them for being too archetypal.
Death scenes are a staple in slasher movies, and creativity really counts. As a whole, the Nightmare on Elm Street series has had some really interesting death scenes and some great special effects to go along with them. But NoES2 is surprisingly lacking. While I believe in quality over quantity in horror movies, and that less can often be more frightening, there really is a lack of death scenes, and the few that we get are really lame. Freddy whips a guy in the butt with a towel a few times and then claws his back and stabs one guy. That's really it. He kills a few people during a party sequence, but these are treated as generic background character deaths that aren't really focused on, so those don't really count. (Like how you never hear people commenting on the various anonymous deaths in Indiana Jones; you only ever hear about all the ones at the end when the major bad guy dies.) Speaking of villain deaths, Freddy gets an even weaker death than the last film. In probably the lamest part of the original NoES, Freddy gets killed off by being told he doesn't exist. This time, Freddy gets killed by getting kissed by Lisa, the romantic interest. This inexplicably causes Freddy to burst into flames, which somehow frees Jesse from his clutches. It makes even less sense than last time, and is somehow even stupider than getting zapped into thin air. There's also a strange scene early on the film in which Freddy somehow possesses Jesse's pet parakeet, causing the bird to fly around terrorizing Jesse's family, only to have him explode into flames moments later. In all honesty, the exploding parakeet is really the only memorable thing about this movie. The gay undertones have nothing on a fiery parakeet explosion.
Overall, this is not a very good movie. The idea of Freddy trying to possess someone is kind of lame, considering he usually kills people in their dreams, and thus has no need for a human form. The script is obviously rushed, as NoES2 came out exactly a year after the first movie debuted, and had a little more time been put into the story, we could have gotten a movie where Freddy-possession might actually made sense. Instead, we got a lackluster slasher with enough sweaty shirtless guys to put an action movie to shame. There's no point in seeing this movie, unless you're going through and watching all of the movies in the Nightmare on Elm Street series. If that's the case, may God have mercy on your soul. You may not survive the experience. If that's not the case, stick to the original. But if you have a strange urge to watch a horror movie sequel, Friday the 13th 2-4 are decent, and the first two Child's Play sequels are good for a laugh.
Enjoyment- 2/5
Quality- 2/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089686/
October 11, 2012
October 2, 2012
Movie Review- Fright Night (2011)
Fright Night was a cheesy and forgettable horror movie from the 1980's. It had promise, but ultimately it fell flat because the characters and script were really weak. This was by no means a film that ever needed to be revisited again, as evidenced by the unpopularity of the 1988 sequel. But since the success of the Twilight movies, studios have been scrambling to produce as many vampire-related films as possible. And as a result, someone had the bright idea of revamping this dud. As is usual, the remake is worse. The 1985 version of the film certainly isn't the worst movie in the world, but the remake is absolutely atrocious.
The plot is exactly the same as the original, which is one of the core problems with this movie. It's just not that interesting. When I first heard about this movie, I thought it was more along the lines of Rear Window with vampires, a slow-burn type movie where Charley's realization that his neighbor is a vampire would be a big reveal or a unforeseen plot twist. Just like last time, the plot is as follows; Teenager Charley realizes his new neighbor Jerry is a vampire, and must enlist the help of a washed-up actor to rescue his romantic interest from Jerry's evil clutches. Again, there's virtually nothing to the plot outside of this, except the pacing is different this time. If there is anything nice to be said about this movie, it's that the pacing is better than the original's. The 1985 version had terrible pacing, and many scenes dragged on for far longer than necessary. At leas this time the plot runs a little a smoother, giving us a faster paced movie. This isn't much, but it's a nice touch.
In a B-Movie, characters are usually the least important part of the movie, but the remake of Fright Night is clearly not a B-Movie like the original. There's always an expectation of higher quality in current films, no matter what time period. We expect a movie from 2011 to be better in some way than the original from 1985. This is a silly expectation, but it's there nonetheless. I would have honestly expected the characters to have improved from the 26 year gap between the original and the remake. As I said, this isn't a B-Movie anymore, and I'd expect a little more than the bland characters that permeate this movie.
In the original Fright Night, our main character was Charley, a bland mix of various 80's stereotypes. This go-round Charley is an extremely obnoxious teenager from the tech generation. The character himself is not a particularly annoying character per se, but the actor playing him is unbearably irritating. Basically, Charley is still the same character from the original, but tweaked slightly to appeal to current audiences, but he's no longer played as a John Cusack knockoff. This go-round, Charley, played by Anton Yelchin, alternates on-and-off between being bland and being obnoxious. At times he's a harmless, albeit drab and generic, teenage character. But occasionally he switches gears and plays the character as a snarky, preppy type, even though the script seems to indicate otherwise.
The supporting cast suffers from the same problems as Anton. The script indicates that we're supposed to find these characters likable and relatable, but all of the actors alternate between being boring or being a jerk. But the main problem is that everyone in this movie gives a generally underwhelming performance. Most of the cast members have been in several other movies, so it's expected of them to being giving a good performance by now, but no one does. Much like Chris Sarandon in the original Fright Night, Colin Farrell fails to capture the needed elegance and creepiness necessary to play a vampire. Albeit his character is poorly written, Colin plays the character with a strange arrogance that feels really out of place for a vampire, as they're typically known for alluring and graceful personalities. Even David Tennant somehow gives a boring performance. Most of the time he seemed to be just standing around being British, as if his heart wasn't really in the role and he's only there for the money. (Come to think of it, that's probably the case with everyone involved with this film) His character was weak to begin with, but he doesn't give it any pizzazz, and fans of his work in Doctor Who are likely to be disappointed with his performance here.
Jerry the vampire is still as boring as ever, but the character lacks subtlety and is far more aggressive this time. He actively pursues Charley almost right off the bat, whereas the original Jerry didn't try to attack him until more than halfway through the film. Evil Ed, the Beavis lookalike from the original, is now just plain Ed, and his character is still thin as ever. Instead of just being some weird kid who abandons his friends for vampirism like in the original, Ed is now a pretentious nerd who abandons his friends for vampirism, and he does so even sooner than 1985 Ed. Strangely enough, Ed is the one who first discovers Jerry's secret, and it's only until he disappears that Charley actually starts to care and investigate his neighbor's nightly activities. Ed is also left out of the film almost completely after joining the legion of the undead. Whereas Ed got two fight scenes with some decent special effects, Ed shows back up in the remake for a boring and CG-ridden fight scene before biting the dust. In the remake, we also get the addition of two of Charley's friends, two guys who I assume are supposed to be preppy or something, but the film doesn't quite indicate. They're barely in the film, but their brief presence on screen is very annoying, and it adds nothing but some padding to the film's run time.
Peter Vincent, the washed-up actor from the 1985 film is in the remake as well, but this time he plays a Criss Angel-type magician from Las Vegas, and he's even blander than last time. But instead of his shoehorned-in "crisis of faith" subplot, this time Peter reveals that his parents were killed by a vampire (and conveniently it was Jerry that did it, too). I think this was supposed to give Peter a reason to fight Jerry, but he never seemed interested to begin with. Even Amy, Charley's girlfriend is worse than in the original. In the 1985 version, she was the generic romantic interest character, but in the update her character is now not only an uninteresting romantic interest, but she's also objectifying towards women. Whereas the 1985 Amy dressed modestly and mostly refused Charley's advances, she now is a tawdrier version of the character, wearing overly provocative outfits (and ones certainly not appropriate for a girl that's supposed to be sixteen), but she straight-up tries to seduce Charley halfway through the film. Strangely enough, that particular scene is very uncharacteristic for this regularly bland character, and makes the women-objectification all the more blatant.
Another strange facet of this film is the humor. The original Fright Night is often labelled as a horror comedy, which is strange because there's literally no humor in the conventional sense. There's potential for a few laughs at campy moments, depending on your sense of humor, but the script clearly was written to be taken seriously. The remake on the other hand, has many jokes abound. None of them are particularly funny, and most of them don't even make sense. And although humor is subjective, if you find humor in tasteless sex jokes and gratuitous swearing, then you're probably not old enough to be watching an R-rated horror movie to begin with.
And of course the worst part of this film are the special effects. The original Fright Night withheld the special effects until the end, and actually had some cool ideas that worked fairly well within the confines of the budget. But as with many modern movies, regardless of genre, Fright Night revels in cheap CG. The special effects don't really kick in until the third act of the film, but when they do, it's atrocious. The design for Jerry in his more vampiric form is absolutely ridiculous, looking like a cross between Mileena from Mortal Kombat and some sort of zombie. A good rule of thumb with horror is leaving things to the viewer's imagination, or at least keeping the appearance of the villain to a minimum. The remake says "Screw that!" and blasts us with horribly fake CG shots of Colin Farrell towards the end. Most notably, and most laughably, a scene in which a newly-turned vampire disintegrates explosively, strangely leaving behind one of he legs. But even better is Jerry's death scene. He gets dragged into the sun and his chest starts to disintegrate, exposing his beating CG heart like some sort of video game villain. Charley stakes Jerry, and Jerry bursts into flame. The resulting shot is worth looking up Youtube if you enjoy bad special effects. The shot of Jerry bursting into flame is unnecessarily in slow-motion and so horrendously fake-looking that it's the only laughable part of the movie.
Unfortunately, the rest of the special effects fail to transcend to the hilariously bad category, and stay stuck in the just plain bad category. This is chiefly visible in all the other death scenes. For some reason, the special effects team decided to use CG blood as opposed to using their creativity and shelling out some extra cash for fake blood. If there's one thing that looks horribly fake in CG, it's blood. It's hard to recreate the look of liquid in CG, and it's best left to animated films that specialize in that department. But unfortunately a bunch of hack visual artists were assigned to one of the laziest and most fake-looking shortcuts in the visual effects handbook.
Overall, I really disliked this movie. If there's anything positive to say of it, it's that I didn't like the original Fright Night all too much, so I didn't experience any "Oh no, they're ruining everything that was good about the original movie" moments, like fans of the original might have. (Yes, the original has fans. Or at least people that mildly enjoyed it. It's currently at a 7.0/10 on IMDB) But even if you ignore the original, Fright Night fails as its own movie. It's just not good. The story is bland, the acting is bland, and there's an endless amount of stupid moments littered throughout the movie. (Jerry has a secret hallway that looks like the inside of a hospital hidden behind his closet, for the purpose of detaining victims, Jerry has vampires buried in the walls of his basement for some reason, Charley gears up in a flame-retardant combat outfit and lights himself on fire to fight Jerry, etc.) It's mind-boggling how a movie as stupid as this can get produced, but at the same time, it's really irritating when you realize it was only made to cash in on another franchise. Although, in a nice twist of fate, the film bombed. Just because you can cash in on another franchise doesn't always mean you should.
Quality- 1/5
Enjoyment- 1/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1438176/
September 19, 2012
Movie Review- Fright Night (1985)
There are many hidden gems to be found in the realm of 1980's horror films. Fright Night is not one of them. In theory, this should have been at least mildly entertaining. It's a horror-comedy about vampires. What could possibly go wrong? As is usual, the answer is everything.
From the start, Fright Night is doomed. The plot can easily be summed up as follows: After teenager Charley Brewster realizes his new neighbor is a vampire, he must enlist the help of a washed-up actor to save Charley's girlfriend from the bloodsucker's clutches. And that's literally it. No twists, no turns, no subplots, and certainly nothing interesting going on. The story often feels incomplete, and many scenes seem to drag on for no other reason than to pad the length of the movie.
The characters are also severely lacking. Normally this doesn't matter much in a horror film, as most characters are usually just there to die. But Fright Night insists that we care about these characters, to the point of trying to cram in character arcs in the 3rd act. But this is to no avail, because our cast is nothing more than a grab bag of 1980's character archetypes, most of whom strangely look like other (and better) actors. Our main character is an amalgamation of John Cusack types with a dash of Billy Peltzer from Gremlins. He's supposedly obsessed with horror movies, which I can only assume is because he always has his TV set to the late-night horror movie channel. Other than that, he's just like every other bland protagonist in 1980's teen movies.
For our side characters, we have the vague Sigourney Weaver lookalike as the girlfriend, who scoffs at Charley's tales of vampires living next door, until she randomly changes her mind and sticks with him wholeheartedly the rest of the film. Then there's the sidekick, Ed, who looks strangely like Beavis. Towards the end of the film, Ed randomly (and rather traitorously) lets himself be turned into a vampire, with the promise of no longer being picked on after joining the undead. This makes absolutely no sense, because his character is never once shown being bullied, and up until then seemed to be getting along quite well with everyone else. The last of our protagonists, Peter Vincent, is a washed up actor who runs a late night horror movie program on TV. He doesn't really do much other than serve as a sidekick after Ed turns evil, so there's not much worth mentioning. Our antagonist, a vampire named Jerry, is played with extreme blandness, on par with every other actor in this film. The actor playing him doesn't look very menacing in the first place, and he fails to make up for appearance with his acting.
The film is also billed as a horror-comedy, which is odd considering there's not a single joke in the whole film. The tone isn't even tongue-in-cheek. The closest Fright Night ever comes to being funny is the sidekick Ed, who is only funny because he looks eerily like Beavis, and that wasn't even intentional. On the subject of Ed, I'm pretty sure his character is meant to be humorous, but he never says anything that would qualify as a joke. There's no allusions to other horror films, no winks to the audience, no flat-out humorous dialog, and not even an ounce of slapstick in the fight scenes. And yet somehow this film is labelled a horror-comedy. By today's standards, the film is pretty dated, and that may get a laugh out of some people, but other than that this film legitimately tries to play itself serious.
Special effects are often the strongest suit of horror movies and can greatly improve the quality of an otherwise terrible film. This is almost true of Fright Night. Aside from a brief scene early in the film, Fright Night is a vampire film with a surprising lack of vampire-related special effects. Thankfully we do get a few good effects in during the end fight scene. At one point, Ed transforms into a wolf and is subsequently killed with a stair banister. He then slowly transforms back into a human, which is probably the only truly interesting effect in the movie. During the last few minutes of the film, Jerry the vampire briefly turns into a large bat, and while the creature is obviously on strings half of the time, the design of the creature is very convincing. We also get a bizarre melting-type death when Jerry's henchman gets stabbed with a stake and then sort of just turns into green goo. But despite the apparent effort put into the special effects, their time in the film is fleeting, and sadly crammed into the last 15 minutes of the movie.
Overall, this is a disappointing dud of a vampire movie. It fails to deliver the very few things it promised to begin with; cheap scares and a few laughs. Even as a B-Movie, the film is lacking. The acting is bad, but it never veers into the over-the-top territory. And while the plot and dialog are often lame, they're both coherent enough to still be taken seriously, so we don't get any goofy one-liners or ridiculously forced banter. But then again, this film never promised much to begin with. If you like B-Movies, you may still want to check this one out, if only for the special effects, but you can probably find the ending on Youtube and save yourself the trouble. They're really the only good part of this movie.
Enjoyment- 2/5
Quality- 2/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089175/
From the start, Fright Night is doomed. The plot can easily be summed up as follows: After teenager Charley Brewster realizes his new neighbor is a vampire, he must enlist the help of a washed-up actor to save Charley's girlfriend from the bloodsucker's clutches. And that's literally it. No twists, no turns, no subplots, and certainly nothing interesting going on. The story often feels incomplete, and many scenes seem to drag on for no other reason than to pad the length of the movie.
The characters are also severely lacking. Normally this doesn't matter much in a horror film, as most characters are usually just there to die. But Fright Night insists that we care about these characters, to the point of trying to cram in character arcs in the 3rd act. But this is to no avail, because our cast is nothing more than a grab bag of 1980's character archetypes, most of whom strangely look like other (and better) actors. Our main character is an amalgamation of John Cusack types with a dash of Billy Peltzer from Gremlins. He's supposedly obsessed with horror movies, which I can only assume is because he always has his TV set to the late-night horror movie channel. Other than that, he's just like every other bland protagonist in 1980's teen movies.
For our side characters, we have the vague Sigourney Weaver lookalike as the girlfriend, who scoffs at Charley's tales of vampires living next door, until she randomly changes her mind and sticks with him wholeheartedly the rest of the film. Then there's the sidekick, Ed, who looks strangely like Beavis. Towards the end of the film, Ed randomly (and rather traitorously) lets himself be turned into a vampire, with the promise of no longer being picked on after joining the undead. This makes absolutely no sense, because his character is never once shown being bullied, and up until then seemed to be getting along quite well with everyone else. The last of our protagonists, Peter Vincent, is a washed up actor who runs a late night horror movie program on TV. He doesn't really do much other than serve as a sidekick after Ed turns evil, so there's not much worth mentioning. Our antagonist, a vampire named Jerry, is played with extreme blandness, on par with every other actor in this film. The actor playing him doesn't look very menacing in the first place, and he fails to make up for appearance with his acting.
The film is also billed as a horror-comedy, which is odd considering there's not a single joke in the whole film. The tone isn't even tongue-in-cheek. The closest Fright Night ever comes to being funny is the sidekick Ed, who is only funny because he looks eerily like Beavis, and that wasn't even intentional. On the subject of Ed, I'm pretty sure his character is meant to be humorous, but he never says anything that would qualify as a joke. There's no allusions to other horror films, no winks to the audience, no flat-out humorous dialog, and not even an ounce of slapstick in the fight scenes. And yet somehow this film is labelled a horror-comedy. By today's standards, the film is pretty dated, and that may get a laugh out of some people, but other than that this film legitimately tries to play itself serious.
Special effects are often the strongest suit of horror movies and can greatly improve the quality of an otherwise terrible film. This is almost true of Fright Night. Aside from a brief scene early in the film, Fright Night is a vampire film with a surprising lack of vampire-related special effects. Thankfully we do get a few good effects in during the end fight scene. At one point, Ed transforms into a wolf and is subsequently killed with a stair banister. He then slowly transforms back into a human, which is probably the only truly interesting effect in the movie. During the last few minutes of the film, Jerry the vampire briefly turns into a large bat, and while the creature is obviously on strings half of the time, the design of the creature is very convincing. We also get a bizarre melting-type death when Jerry's henchman gets stabbed with a stake and then sort of just turns into green goo. But despite the apparent effort put into the special effects, their time in the film is fleeting, and sadly crammed into the last 15 minutes of the movie.
Overall, this is a disappointing dud of a vampire movie. It fails to deliver the very few things it promised to begin with; cheap scares and a few laughs. Even as a B-Movie, the film is lacking. The acting is bad, but it never veers into the over-the-top territory. And while the plot and dialog are often lame, they're both coherent enough to still be taken seriously, so we don't get any goofy one-liners or ridiculously forced banter. But then again, this film never promised much to begin with. If you like B-Movies, you may still want to check this one out, if only for the special effects, but you can probably find the ending on Youtube and save yourself the trouble. They're really the only good part of this movie.
Enjoyment- 2/5
Quality- 2/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089175/
September 14, 2012
Movie Review- Carrie (1976)
Carrie is a 1976 horror-thriller based on Stephen King's debut novel of the same name. Seeing as it was King's first book, it's certainly not his best; it's not particularly frightening, and the pacing seems off at times. Coincidentally, the movie suffers from many of the same problems as the book. But whereas the book is a fairly entertaining read, the movie is actually quite boring. But that being said, it's certainly not terrible, and at least tries to respect the source material.
The main problem with the film is the book it's based on. Carrie adapts the book as close as is cinematically possible. But the book constantly switches back and forth between the regular narrative and excerpts from various psychology books and magazines that mostly focus on Carrie's psyche and an attempt at discovering what happened on the night of her high school prom. This adds a strangely suspenseful angle to the book, by giving the reader brief glimpses of the ending, which builds up until we finally see what happens from the regular narrative standpoint. The film leaves these parts out, as it would have not translated well to film. Unfortunately this kills a lot of the suspense, and the movie's ending lacks the punch that the book had. And while the film version thankfully fixes some of the pacing problems with the book, it does so at the price of further killing the suspense.
If there is anything good to be said about the film, however, it's the acting. Sissy Spacek was the perfect choice for Carrie. She fits the description King gave her in the book, and she has the acting skills to pull the character off. And while the ending does lack suspense, we genuinely feel sorry when Carrie gets humiliated in front of her peers. Piper Laurie was also a great choice for Carrie's mother. While personally I didn't think she looked like how I envisioned the character, Laurie still does a great job of portraying a religious zealot without turning it comical.
Artistically, this is a very strange film as well. After reading Carrie, the only word I could think of describing it as was "strange". And the film adaptation is very strange, too, but not in the same way. There's a great deal of soft light used throughout the film, causing many scenes to look like watercolor paintings. There's also a strange overuse of low-angle and high-angle shots, which then typically end up zooming in on something. There are scenes of normal conversation that are filled with these shot sequences, and it becomes very annoying and distracting after a while. Perhaps the director was trying to go for some artistic angle I'm unaware of, but regardless I still think the cinematography is strange.
Both the book and movie versions of Carrie are famous for their ending, in which Carrie kills all her fellow students with telekinesis after having a bucket of pig blood poured onto her. The scene is so famous, in fact, that it was depicted on the film's poster and subsequent home video releases. But one people often forget is that the sequence is much shorter in the film, and a lot less creepy. The last third act of the book is spent on detailing the sheer amount of carnage that Carrie brings upon the town. She literally decimates half the town, after blowing up the school, blowing up a gas station, downing power lines, and cutting the water supply to all the town's fire hoses. In the film she sprays people with a fire hose and some people accidentally get electrocuted. Needless to say, the movie's ending seems a bit underwhelming.
In both versions, Carrie eventually comes home, where her crazed mother tries to kill her. The film version ends with Carrie's mother being killed with not-so-subtle religious undertones, and then Carrie's house collapses in on the both of them. There's a brief scene showing that one of the characters still lived, a cheap jump scare, and then the film's over. The book ends similarly, except without the overtones and Carrie dies in a parking lot instead of a collapsed house. Not much difference there, but it feels like the film should have scrapped the house-collapsing scene and used the money for a better prom massacre scene.
Overall, Carrie is a strange but faithful adaptation of the book. It tries really hard to be as good as the book, but fails for the most part. If you haven't read the book, you'll probably enjoy the movie a lot more, but if you have already read the book, it's still worth looking in to. I'm sure there are a lot of people who enjoyed the book more than I did, and so those people will probably like the movie a lot better, too. As is with most of the movies I review, I certainly didn't hate it, but I thought it could have been a lot better.
Enjoyment- 3/5
Quality- 4/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074285/
The main problem with the film is the book it's based on. Carrie adapts the book as close as is cinematically possible. But the book constantly switches back and forth between the regular narrative and excerpts from various psychology books and magazines that mostly focus on Carrie's psyche and an attempt at discovering what happened on the night of her high school prom. This adds a strangely suspenseful angle to the book, by giving the reader brief glimpses of the ending, which builds up until we finally see what happens from the regular narrative standpoint. The film leaves these parts out, as it would have not translated well to film. Unfortunately this kills a lot of the suspense, and the movie's ending lacks the punch that the book had. And while the film version thankfully fixes some of the pacing problems with the book, it does so at the price of further killing the suspense.
If there is anything good to be said about the film, however, it's the acting. Sissy Spacek was the perfect choice for Carrie. She fits the description King gave her in the book, and she has the acting skills to pull the character off. And while the ending does lack suspense, we genuinely feel sorry when Carrie gets humiliated in front of her peers. Piper Laurie was also a great choice for Carrie's mother. While personally I didn't think she looked like how I envisioned the character, Laurie still does a great job of portraying a religious zealot without turning it comical.
Artistically, this is a very strange film as well. After reading Carrie, the only word I could think of describing it as was "strange". And the film adaptation is very strange, too, but not in the same way. There's a great deal of soft light used throughout the film, causing many scenes to look like watercolor paintings. There's also a strange overuse of low-angle and high-angle shots, which then typically end up zooming in on something. There are scenes of normal conversation that are filled with these shot sequences, and it becomes very annoying and distracting after a while. Perhaps the director was trying to go for some artistic angle I'm unaware of, but regardless I still think the cinematography is strange.
Both the book and movie versions of Carrie are famous for their ending, in which Carrie kills all her fellow students with telekinesis after having a bucket of pig blood poured onto her. The scene is so famous, in fact, that it was depicted on the film's poster and subsequent home video releases. But one people often forget is that the sequence is much shorter in the film, and a lot less creepy. The last third act of the book is spent on detailing the sheer amount of carnage that Carrie brings upon the town. She literally decimates half the town, after blowing up the school, blowing up a gas station, downing power lines, and cutting the water supply to all the town's fire hoses. In the film she sprays people with a fire hose and some people accidentally get electrocuted. Needless to say, the movie's ending seems a bit underwhelming.
In both versions, Carrie eventually comes home, where her crazed mother tries to kill her. The film version ends with Carrie's mother being killed with not-so-subtle religious undertones, and then Carrie's house collapses in on the both of them. There's a brief scene showing that one of the characters still lived, a cheap jump scare, and then the film's over. The book ends similarly, except without the overtones and Carrie dies in a parking lot instead of a collapsed house. Not much difference there, but it feels like the film should have scrapped the house-collapsing scene and used the money for a better prom massacre scene.
Overall, Carrie is a strange but faithful adaptation of the book. It tries really hard to be as good as the book, but fails for the most part. If you haven't read the book, you'll probably enjoy the movie a lot more, but if you have already read the book, it's still worth looking in to. I'm sure there are a lot of people who enjoyed the book more than I did, and so those people will probably like the movie a lot better, too. As is with most of the movies I review, I certainly didn't hate it, but I thought it could have been a lot better.
Enjoyment- 3/5
Quality- 4/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074285/
August 1, 2012
Movie Review- Tales from the Hood
Tales from the Hood is a horror anthology film produced by Spike Lee. It features a primarily black cast, and mixes real-life horrors such as domestic abuse with a supernatural element. This is a really interesting idea for a horror movie, and it mostly hits the mark. While most horror anthology films feel like rejected Twilight Zone episodes crammed into a movie, Tales from the Hood feels more like rejects from Tales from the Dark Side (A 1980's Twilight Zone knockoff). The horror elements work for the most part, but the twist endings and attempts at discussing important issues come across as clunky and poorly planned, much like Tales from the Dark Side's more serious episodes.
The narrative that weaves the short stories together is a strange one. Three drug dealers go to a funeral home to pick up drugs from a mortician, who claims to have found a stack of drugs in a back alley. As the mortician leads the dealers through the funeral parlor, he tells them stories about the corpses that are currently residing in the funeral home. These stories segue into the different segments that comprise the film. Once they reach the back of the funeral home, we're given a rather unexpected twist ending. The twist ending doesn't make a lot of sense, because there was no subtle buildup to it, but it was still a great creepy ending to finish the film. The scenes in the funeral home aren't all that great, though. The mortician is incredibly hammy, drawing overly long breaths between sentences for dramatic effect, and trying to hoarsely whisper his lines in an attempt to be creepy. Other than that, this is a fairly solid narrative; it serves its purpose and ties all the segments together.
The first story of the film is probably the best of the four. The mortician shows the drug dealers the body of a man he claims died from insanity. This leads into a story about some corrupt policemen who kill a senator that was out to stop crooked cops. A rookie cop witnesses the event, and quits the force. Weeks later he hears a voice telling him to bring the cops to the senator's grave. The rookie does so, and when the police arrive, the body of the senator comes back from the dead and gets revenge on the cops that killed him. It's then revealed that this all happened inside the rookie's head and that he's now in a mental institution for murdering the policemen. Out of the four stories in the films, this is by far the most serious and suspenseful of them. The characters are set up fairly well within the short span of time, as is the suspense. The special effects are good too, although the last death scene is a bit strange. However, as with the rest of the film, there is an undertone of social issues (In this case, police brutality and corruption) that doesn't quite flow with the horror elements of the film.
The next story could have easily been the best of the segments, but the ending ruined it. The mortician shows the dealers another casket, but this time we don't see the body. This time the story involves a little boy named Walter, who annoyingly whispers all his lines. His teacher suspects that Walter is a victim of domestic abuse, but Walter adamantly claims that he was hurt by a monster. When the teacher comes to visit Walter's home and speak with his parents, he's quickly thrown out by Walter's father, who turns out to be a monster. Ultimately Walter saves the day because he has magical powers that allow him to kill whatever he makes a drawing of. He crumples up the drawing, leaving the stepfather comically twisted into a pretzel. He lights the paper on fire, and we fade back to the mangled and burned corpse of the stepfather, in his casket at the funeral home. This could have been a very good sketch, but again the unpleasant undertones of social issues (this time domestic abuse) take away from the horror elements. The social issue aspect is never brought to light in any of the stories, and never discussed in any form, we're just left with unpleasant undertones.
The third story is the silliest out of the four. This time the mortician shows the dealers a voodoo doll. This segues into a story that involves a former KKK member who is running for governor in the south. He decides to take up residence in a former plantation that was once the scene of a massacre in the mid-1800's. There is apparently a local legend in the town that the spirits of the slaves who died in the massacre were put into voodoo dolls by a local magic practitioner, and the dolls are somewhere in the plantation. The politician refuses to believe the legend, until his PR assistant dies in a freak accident. Soon after, he starts seeing a doll all over his house. He eventually shoots it, but to no avail. A swarm of dolls appear and attack him, which is where the story ends. This is a really goofy segment. The main character is ridiculously bigoted and spews racial slurs constantly. The special effects are equally ridiculous. The puppets are completely mobile, and run around in some fairly decent stop-motion animation sequences, but it mostly looks like rejected footage from the Puppetmaster series. The ending is also very abrupt. Albeit, there wasn't a lot of room for the story to go from there, but it still felt like the story ended too quickly.
The last of the stories is by far the weirdest. The mortician shows the dealers the body of a man they once knew. This leads into a story about a man who is nearly killed in a gunfight, and sentenced to a life in prison. After a few years, he's offered a free pass out if he subjects himself to government testing. He's taken away to a surrealistic and strangely cartoonish testing facility, where's he put in a cage next a Neo-Nazi. The next day the man is taken to a room to be tested on by a female scientist who shouts most of her lines, and seems like she previously worked in community theater. The man is strapped to a table and subject to Clockwork Orange-style brainwashing, except he's forced to watch gang violence layered with rap music. The man is then put in a sensory deprivation room, where he hallucinates about everyone he's ever killed. He snaps back to reality, and in a strange twist is still in the gunfight from the beginning of the story, but this time he dies. The mortician finishes the tale, and it's revealed that the killers were the drug dealers. The film ends with the aforementioned plot twist.
Overall, this is a pretty decent film, but it suffers from shoehorned-in sociopolitical messages. If this were more of a thriller, the messages may have had more of an impact, but the importance is lost amongst goofy horror violence and terrible acting. The first segment is definitely the best, as it manages to create good suspense and some fairly decent characters within the time constraints. The sociopolitical themes are still prevalent, but it's the only segment where it actually fits in with the story. The twist ending at the end of the film is pretty good, too, if not a bit sudden. If you're looking for a change of pace in horror movies, this is good film to check out. But if you're interested in the horror anthology subgenre, the 1982 film Creepshow is a much better place to start.
Enjoyment- 3.5/5
Quality- 3/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114609/
The narrative that weaves the short stories together is a strange one. Three drug dealers go to a funeral home to pick up drugs from a mortician, who claims to have found a stack of drugs in a back alley. As the mortician leads the dealers through the funeral parlor, he tells them stories about the corpses that are currently residing in the funeral home. These stories segue into the different segments that comprise the film. Once they reach the back of the funeral home, we're given a rather unexpected twist ending. The twist ending doesn't make a lot of sense, because there was no subtle buildup to it, but it was still a great creepy ending to finish the film. The scenes in the funeral home aren't all that great, though. The mortician is incredibly hammy, drawing overly long breaths between sentences for dramatic effect, and trying to hoarsely whisper his lines in an attempt to be creepy. Other than that, this is a fairly solid narrative; it serves its purpose and ties all the segments together.
The first story of the film is probably the best of the four. The mortician shows the drug dealers the body of a man he claims died from insanity. This leads into a story about some corrupt policemen who kill a senator that was out to stop crooked cops. A rookie cop witnesses the event, and quits the force. Weeks later he hears a voice telling him to bring the cops to the senator's grave. The rookie does so, and when the police arrive, the body of the senator comes back from the dead and gets revenge on the cops that killed him. It's then revealed that this all happened inside the rookie's head and that he's now in a mental institution for murdering the policemen. Out of the four stories in the films, this is by far the most serious and suspenseful of them. The characters are set up fairly well within the short span of time, as is the suspense. The special effects are good too, although the last death scene is a bit strange. However, as with the rest of the film, there is an undertone of social issues (In this case, police brutality and corruption) that doesn't quite flow with the horror elements of the film.
The next story could have easily been the best of the segments, but the ending ruined it. The mortician shows the dealers another casket, but this time we don't see the body. This time the story involves a little boy named Walter, who annoyingly whispers all his lines. His teacher suspects that Walter is a victim of domestic abuse, but Walter adamantly claims that he was hurt by a monster. When the teacher comes to visit Walter's home and speak with his parents, he's quickly thrown out by Walter's father, who turns out to be a monster. Ultimately Walter saves the day because he has magical powers that allow him to kill whatever he makes a drawing of. He crumples up the drawing, leaving the stepfather comically twisted into a pretzel. He lights the paper on fire, and we fade back to the mangled and burned corpse of the stepfather, in his casket at the funeral home. This could have been a very good sketch, but again the unpleasant undertones of social issues (this time domestic abuse) take away from the horror elements. The social issue aspect is never brought to light in any of the stories, and never discussed in any form, we're just left with unpleasant undertones.
The third story is the silliest out of the four. This time the mortician shows the dealers a voodoo doll. This segues into a story that involves a former KKK member who is running for governor in the south. He decides to take up residence in a former plantation that was once the scene of a massacre in the mid-1800's. There is apparently a local legend in the town that the spirits of the slaves who died in the massacre were put into voodoo dolls by a local magic practitioner, and the dolls are somewhere in the plantation. The politician refuses to believe the legend, until his PR assistant dies in a freak accident. Soon after, he starts seeing a doll all over his house. He eventually shoots it, but to no avail. A swarm of dolls appear and attack him, which is where the story ends. This is a really goofy segment. The main character is ridiculously bigoted and spews racial slurs constantly. The special effects are equally ridiculous. The puppets are completely mobile, and run around in some fairly decent stop-motion animation sequences, but it mostly looks like rejected footage from the Puppetmaster series. The ending is also very abrupt. Albeit, there wasn't a lot of room for the story to go from there, but it still felt like the story ended too quickly.
The last of the stories is by far the weirdest. The mortician shows the dealers the body of a man they once knew. This leads into a story about a man who is nearly killed in a gunfight, and sentenced to a life in prison. After a few years, he's offered a free pass out if he subjects himself to government testing. He's taken away to a surrealistic and strangely cartoonish testing facility, where's he put in a cage next a Neo-Nazi. The next day the man is taken to a room to be tested on by a female scientist who shouts most of her lines, and seems like she previously worked in community theater. The man is strapped to a table and subject to Clockwork Orange-style brainwashing, except he's forced to watch gang violence layered with rap music. The man is then put in a sensory deprivation room, where he hallucinates about everyone he's ever killed. He snaps back to reality, and in a strange twist is still in the gunfight from the beginning of the story, but this time he dies. The mortician finishes the tale, and it's revealed that the killers were the drug dealers. The film ends with the aforementioned plot twist.
Overall, this is a pretty decent film, but it suffers from shoehorned-in sociopolitical messages. If this were more of a thriller, the messages may have had more of an impact, but the importance is lost amongst goofy horror violence and terrible acting. The first segment is definitely the best, as it manages to create good suspense and some fairly decent characters within the time constraints. The sociopolitical themes are still prevalent, but it's the only segment where it actually fits in with the story. The twist ending at the end of the film is pretty good, too, if not a bit sudden. If you're looking for a change of pace in horror movies, this is good film to check out. But if you're interested in the horror anthology subgenre, the 1982 film Creepshow is a much better place to start.
Enjoyment- 3.5/5
Quality- 3/5
IMDB Page- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114609/
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