John Dies at the End (2011)

Okay, time for some full disclosure stuff.  I planned to have this review posted a bit earlier, as I went to the Portland premiere of John Dies at the End on Friday night.  But, a long week at work, combined with my early shifts and a couple of pints before entering The Hollywood Theatre, I incurred a series case of the head nods and dozed off during the final act.

So, you might expect this review to slam the film for being boring, but that’s not the case.  John Dies is fun, innovative and contained more interesting time travel moments than Looper.  And the film was so engaging, I had to see what I missed, so I returned to The Hollywood on Sunday afternoon and watched the entire film while awake.

Besides, I couldn’t write a review of a movie I didn’t see through till the end.  That would be wrong.

The film opens at a Chinese restaurant as David Wong (Chase Williamson) is telling the story of how he and his friend John (Rob Mayes) saved the world from an otherworldly invasion to a reporter (Paul Giamatti).  David is using a new drug called Soy Sauce, which gives a person incredible insight into reality and time traveling abilities.  But some of the users come back as breeding stock for beings from another dimension, and David wants to get the story out.

And that’s the plot.  It seems simple, yet director/screenwriter Don Coscarelli weaves together a tale full of seemingly nonsensical twists and turns that become clear as the movie progresses.  No stranger to dreamlike movies, Coscarelli’s Phantasm series has the same hallucinogenic feel as this film.  And, like Bubba Ho-Tep, the audience wants to believe the hero, no matter how much the surrounding characters, and the ensuing events, point out the fallacy of this belief.

The acting is very subdued and fits the story.  Williamson and Meyes come off like a couple of losers thrust into an adventure they can’t comprehend, let alone influence in any way, fitting the feel of the film and it’s overall conclusion.  The rest of the cast, including Doug Jones, Clancy Brown and Glynn Turman, keep a straight face throughout all the craziness, leading the audience questioning whether the story is just David’s bad trip.  Only Giamatti cuts loose, as the final resolution for his character’s arc allows for it, and makes perfect sense for whatever conclusion the audience come to concerning David’s tale.

But the genius of the film comes from the script (based on an e-novel by author David Wong), as the audience is given hints that David’s story is suspect and could be the results of a bad trip.  As events unfold, the script is always fuzzy on whether the events David is relating to the reporter are real or not.  And, as with Bubba Ho-Tep, Coscarelli doesn’t try to persuade the audience, but gives them enough to decide if the characters are true heroes or just seriously delusional.

As author Wong has written a sequel, This Book is Full of Spiders: Seriously Dude, Don’t Touch It, I want to believe David’s story, despite any hints that was all a bad trip.  It’s all in the hope Coscarelli will to make a follow up film and allow us to follow David on other world-saving, possibly hallucinated, adventure.  Because following him was much more fun than any financed Hollywood movie I've seen in a while.

Happy Birthday, George Romero!

I need to take a moment and wish George Romero a very happy birthday.  I'd like to say he was the person that hooked me on horror, but that's just not the case.  I was already a fan, but Dawn of the Dead changed my outlook on the genre.  Before that film, I was only into horror for the scares, for the unexpected, the jolt of adrenaline that comes from a good jump scare.  But Dawn showed me that horror films could be so much more.

My parents were rather strict when it came to the movies I watched.  I was born LONG before home video was even an idea, and I couldn't get into any R-rated horror film without a parent or guardian.  My mother would let me read anything, so I was devouring books like The Exorcist back in grade school, but I never got the experience adult horror films until I was 17 years old.

I missed the chance to see Dawn in the theaters (I was only 16, and the local theaters were very strict about the age requirements), but the 80s was a great time to be a young horror fan.  I was able to see countless horror films, from Evil Dead 2 to Zombie and several Corman classics in the theaters and loved every thrill.

But one day, I rented Dawn and my outlook on horror changed.  I bought a used copy, wore it out, bought another one, wore that one out, bought the DVD as soon as it was available, then got the four disc set.  And I keep watching it, at least once a year.  It's the movie I would want if I was lost on a deserted island.

I didn't get what the film was saying at first, as most of my horror experiences till that time were the cheap thrillers I watched on late night television.  But, even with my limited experience in critically dissecting horror movies, I knew the film was saying something.  And once I attended college, which allowed me to see beyond the superficial trappings of art, I understood what Romero was saying in the film.  Regardless of the buckets of blood, the spilled entrails, the gapping holes from bites into flesh, the movie had a message.  It was saying something about the evolving human experience, how our society works to change us and the consequences of such actions.  Over the years, each viewing seems to revel something new, as if Romero knew how societal influences would continue to assault us over thirty years later.

So happy birthday, Mr. Romero, and I can not thank you enough.  I hope this post doesn't suggest I'm degrading your other works.  I love Night, Day, Land and Diary, and Survival was quite fun.  Creepshow is a blast, Monkey Shines is pretty damn freaky and The Crazies is a horrific vision of the military industrial complex.  You've always pushed the edge of horror, but Dawn will always hold a special place in my heart.  You showed me that horror could have a meaning, a way to comment on the human condition.  And you did it with spilled entrails and lots of great, gory fun.  Bravo and, again, happy birthday.

Damn, that shot is still AWESOME!

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)

Given the title, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters could have be a glorious slice of cheesy goodness.  But director Tommy Wirkola (best known to American audiences for Dead Snow) delivers a lazy, cliché-ridden movie saddled with a serious tone that sucks any sense of fun out of the story, despite a few moments of humor early on.

The story opens with a brief retelling of the classic fairy tale, but with one little twist:  Before pushing the witch into her oven, young Hansel and Gretel discover they are immune to spells, at least those cast at them.  And if you don’t think that will be important later, it’s obvious you missed the Harry Potter films.

After escaping from the Gingerbread House, the two become renowned witch hunters.  Soon, their journeys lead them to the German town of Augsberg, where, hired by the mayor, the siblings (Brett Renner and Gemma Arterton) start their investigation into the disappearance of eleven children by preventing Mina (Pihla Viitala) from being burned at the stake as a witch.  

This infuriates the local sheriff (Peter Stormare), who attempts to thwart their investigation, which complicates the sibling’s confrontation with the Grand Witch Muriel (Famke Janssen) and her plans to make her followers immune to fire.  And, of course, part of her plan involves Hansel and Gretel’s arrival in town. 

The film starts out with several moments of campy humor, giving one hope for a decent popcorn cruncher, including a vendor selling milk with drawings of the missing children tied to the bottles, and a geeky fan of the siblings played for laughs.  But any hope for a fun, campy film is dosed when the sheriff attempts to frame Mina as a witch. 

Sure, he’s an evil character and his attempt to undermine the witch hunters propels the story, but his motivations are never explained.  The script implies a power struggle between him and the mayor, but why he is willing to kill an innocent woman, and sacrifice the lives of the missing children, is never explained.  He’s just a cardboard character, one of many in this film, whose behavior lacks any motivation other than to move the story forward. 

But the cliché rut gets deeper.  To no one’s surprise, Hansel falls for Mina, who harbors a secret that is apparent within 10 minutes of her first appearance.  The film also introduces a troll named Edward (Derek Mears), who seems to be attracted to Gretel, yet is compelled to serve witches.  Yes, of all the troll names the filmmakers could have chosen, they went with the sparkly vampire one.  Yet the script never acknowledges it, despite any groans from the audience.    

At this point, it’s obvious a dark family secret will be discovered, Hansel will learn that some witches are good, (guess who; oh wait, it’s not a surprise) and Gretel will discover her mother’s heritage.  Oh, and Hansel has diabetes from eating all those sweets in the witch’s lair as a child, yet his daily injections become important only during the film’s climax.  Bet you didn’t see that one coming.

While all the characters and situations are cliché-ridden, Gretel takes the most abuse from the script.  In the beginning, she’s smart, sexy and a major ass kicker.  Yet midway through the film, she’s taken down by the sheriff and his men, despite holding her own with several more powerful witches earlier, and needs to be saved by Edward the troll.  Than, at film’s climax, she’s chained to a tree and must be save by another male character (her brother) before taking out a few witches.  While the script does explain her role in Muriel’s plans, it’s horrid that another capable female character ends up a damsel in distress.  Sure, the average filmgoer might not have found Renner chained to the tree as sexy as Arterton, but such a role reversal could have been fun and an interesting twist in an otherwise boring action film.

Most of the cast does what they can with their stereotypical roles.  Jenssen delivers a few delicious, campy moments when the script allows her, and Arterton is good at flipping from ass kicker to damsel in distress as the script dictates.  But I had a problem with Renner, who seemed rather bored with the role.  His character could have used more swagger and bravado, but he takes the easy route and plays it straight, coming off like he’s just interested in collecting a paycheck. 

And his performance echoes the main problem with the film.  No one has fun with the outrageous concept.  The action sequences are loud and wild, but lack the sense of goofiness that should infuse any scene involving a blessed Gatling gun taking out a coven of witches.  And if the filmmakers were hoping the R-rated violence would thrill the audience, most of the gore scenes are rather mundane.  Even the IMAX 3D format couldn’t infuse any excitement into the standard blood and guts thrown at the camera.

You might think I went into this film with high expectations, but that’s not true.  I went in with low expectations.  I wanted a Syfy Saturday night monster movie and this film couldn’t even meet those standards.  In fact, I think The Asylum would have done a better job with Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters.  Sure, the effects would have been awful and a few past-their-prime 80s stars would be in the cast, but that film would have been much more fun than this big budget failure.

Mama (2013)

Mama (2013)

Like most horror fans, I await any film with Guillermo del Toro’s name attached to it.  The man knows and loves the genre and has a deep respect for its fans.  So I went into Mama wanting to love the film.  But the film is too bloated with pointless scenes, superficial characters and cheap jump scares to develop any suspense or fear.

The film during the recent stock market collapse, after Jeffrey (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), who’s firm is suffering heavy losses, shoots several people at his office.  He flees to the home of his estranged wife, kills her and drives off with their two daughters, Victoria and Lilly.

On a ice covered mountain pass, Jeffrey loses control of the car, which goes off the road.  The three survive the crash, and Jeffrey leads his daughters to an abandoned cabin.  Unable to deal with the collapse of his world, Jeffrey plans to shoot the girls, but a spectral figure kills him before he can pull the trigger.

The film’s credits start, playing over a series of drawings (which, we find out later, cover the cabin’s walls) as the girls change over the ensuing years.  Lilly, just a baby at the time of the crash, becomes feral, walking on all fours, and Victoria soon follows her younger sister.  It’s one of the more effective scenes in the movie, and perfect for setting up the rest of the story.

Cut to five years later, as a search party funded by Jeffrey’s brother, Lucas (Coster-Waldau in a dual role), finds Victoria (Megan Charpentier) and Lilly (Isabelle Nélisse) living like wild animals in the cabin.  Lucas attempts to gain custody of the girls, but their aunt Jean (Jane Moffat) challenges him in court. 

Docter Dreyfuss (Daniel Kash), the psychologist in charge of the girls, tells Lucas that he is inclined to side with Jean.  He doesn’t feel the lifestyle led by Lucas and his rock musician girlfriend Annabel (Jessica Chastain) would be a suitable environment for the girls.  But Dreyfuss offers to side with Lucas, and allow them access to a house owned by his clinic, in exchange for continued access to the girls.  Lucas agrees, and he and a reluctant Annabel set up a home for Victoria and Lilly. 

But they are unaware that Mama has followed them, and she is very jealous of anyone trying to take the girls from her.  Lucas is attacked and put in a coma, forcing Annabel to take over parenting duties, fend off Jean’s attempts to gain custody and, in time, keep the girls from Mama’s grasp.

The acting in the film is solid.  Charpentier and Nélisse are terrific and it’s easy to believe both their feral behavior (obviously enhanced by make up and CGI) and their slow progression back to a more human state.  All the adult actors are quite good as well.  And the fact that Chastain isn’t glamorized makes the character more realistic than if she looked like a Hollywood starlet playing a musician.

It would be easy to blame the film’s failure on several rather shabby CGI effects (don’t get me started with the hair crawling on the floor; a robotic floor sweeper with a wig on it would look scarier), it’s the script, written by Neil Cross, director Andrés Muschietti and his sister Barbara Muschietti, that causes dooms the movie.  Though the story has potential, the screenplay needed another rewrite to tighten things up and flesh out the main characters and maybe write out others.

The weakest link in the film turns out to be Annabel.  In her first appearance is when she is celebrating a negative pregnancy test.  Annabel doesn’t want to be a mother, though she takes on the role because of her love for Lucas.  That aspect of her character works, but her transition from reluctant parent to caring mother never feels real.  The script makes no attempt to show why the audience should believe Annabel’s change, or why she would form such a strong bond with Victoria, other than this development is needed to move the story forward.

The script never explains what motivated Lucas to spend so much money to continue the search for his brother and nieces, or why he’d risk his relationship with Annabel to care for two feral children.  Yes, they are relatives, but they’ve also lived like animals for five years.  Why Lucas would want custody, or that any court would believe that a normal home environment would be best for the girls, is never answered.

The secondary characters are little more than evil stereotypes written into the script to provide dramatic conflict and for Mama to attack.  It is obvious Dreyfuss is more interested in his research than the girl’s well being, though his true motivation isn’t reveled until later in the film.  And Jean is little more than an evil, rich relative wanting to keep the girls from Lucas for no discernable reason.  The character has no impact upon the story and the film might have been stronger had she been written out of the script.

And by reveling Mama too soon, director Muschietti hobbles the film.  The audience knows Mama is a supernatural force when she stops Jeffrey from killing Victoria, but keeping her unseen would have helped the script.  First, not reveling Mama as a spirit would have been a terrific red herring.  No one questions how Victoria survived, let alone kept her sister alive, for five years in the Northwest wilderness.  If Muschietti had led the audience to believe Mama was human, perhaps a crazed hermit living in the woods, who helped the girls survive, the film might have generate more suspense playing the low key creepy moments in the film.  And the eventual revel of Mama’s true form would have delivered quite an impact.  But, as Mama is shown to be supernatural during the opening scenes, the audience can only wait for the inevitable appearance of her spectral CGI form in an endless parade of jump scares.

That’s not to say the film isn’t without some truly spooky moments.  The playful tug of war scene with Lilly and an unseen opponent, blocked from the audience’s view by a wall, is creepy.  And a few other moments are rather unsettling, but these scenes are overpowered by too many jump scares and pointless dream sequences.  And several of these moments seem added on, as if the CGI effects were added at the last minute to try punching up the tension.

I hate calling Mama a failure, as it could have been the creepy little fairy tale it aspired to be.  But the film’s effective moments are too few, and the script stumbles too often for the audience to become invested in either the characters or the story.  And though it’s easy to make filmgoers jump with a CGI ghost scare, it doesn’t mean they’ll have fond memories of the movie after they leave the theater.

The Boogens (1981)

1981 was a banner year for horror fans.  First, we were inundated with over a dozen slasher flicks, including genre classics such as Halloween II, The Burning, The Prowler, My Bloody Valentine and Friday the 13^th, Part 2.  The year also included future classics like The Howling, The Evil Dead, An American Werewolf in London and The Beyond, so it’s no surprise a little monster movie called The Boogens became lost in all the cinematic mayhem.  But the film developed a following and is now out on DVD for the first time. 

The film opens recounting the tale of a sliver mine that was closed a hundred years ago after a devastating tunnel collapse.  The sole survivor said the miners that survived the cave in were attacked by something living in the tunnels, though his claims were disputed and he was taken to an asylum. 

Now a company wants to reopen the mine and has hired two recent college graduates, Mark and Roger, two recent college graduates, to help.  Mark is looking for a break before entering the job market, while Roger just wants to spend the winter with his girlfriend, Jessica, and take advantage of the nearby skiing resorts. 

Traveling with Jessica is her friend Trish, another recent graduate with a job waiting for her in the area, and Jessica’s dog Tiger.  They all plan to spend the winter in a house the guys rented and are moving into that night.

Upon blasting open the tunnel, the crew finds a subterranean lake and the remains of the missing miners, little more than a scattered pile of bones.  But they don’t know that the tunnels are connected to several houses in the area (of course, all old houses in a mining town have tunnels leading into the basement, right?) and the night after the blast, Mark and Roger’s landlady is attacked in the house as she gets it ready for them to move in the next day.

Toss in a clichéd harbinger of doom, several revelations (such as Mark finally figuring out the skeletal remains are a disordered pile, not the bones of people that died of starvation or oxygen deprivation) and a very slow revel of the Boogens and this movie becomes a rarity for the early 80s, one that spends more time building characters than wallowing in mayhem every few minutes.

But the slow build works in the film’s favor.  The limited cast of characters/victims are developed beyond standard horror clichés (except for the harbinger) and they all are likable.  The script avoids writing any characters that would lead the audience to root for their demise, so as the cast dwindles in the final act, the audience is left rooting for all of them to survive.

The script isn’t perfect, and contains some clunky dialog, but writers David O”Malley and Bob Hunt deliver a very tight script.  The acting is quite good, surprising given the low budget for the production.  And the filmmakers were very lucky to find animal trainer Karin McElhatton.  As with the husky in John Carpenter’s The Thing, Tiger has enough personality to become a member of the cast, not just a token dog.  Yes, the pooch is that good.

The only disappointment is when the Boogens are reveled, which director James L. Conway keeps saves until the film’s final eight minutes.  And it’s easy to see why, as the Boogens look like a cheap Gamara knockoff and an earlier revel would defuse any tension.  But by showing only glimpses of claws and tentacles for most of the film, Conway keeps the tension high, and earns enough good will to keep you involved until the end of the film.

The DVD release is rather bare bones.  Though the transfer isn’t cleaned up much, OliveFilms found a great print to work with and the transfer looks pretty good.  The only special feature is a commentary with director Conway, screenwriter David O’Malley and actress Rebecca Balding, but it’s one of the best I’ve heard in a while.  Equal parts good-natured reminiscing and a reveling look at the pitfalls of making a low budget film, the commentary track is lively and never drags.  OliveFilms should be commended for putting in the effort to deliver a feature more special than a simple transfer of the trailer.

It might not a rapid paced, blood soaked slasher, but The Boogens has enough charm and energy to make it a lost classic.  And OliveFilms delivers a DVD worth the expense.  Fans of the film will be quite pleased, as will any horror fan that decides to check this one out.

Piranha DD (2012)

Alexandre Aja’s 2010 remake of Piranha was no cinematic masterpiece, but it was grand fun.  Chocked full of gratuitous (female) nudity and jaw dropping gore, the movie captured the frantic energy of the low budget features that filled in the slots between the blockbuster seasons during the 80s.  So when Piranha DD was announced, the filmmaker’s promise to top the prior version seemed unachievable.  But falling short of Aja’s maniacal mix of blood and boobs is the least of this sequel’s problems.  

If you saw the preview, you know the plot.  The piranhas survive an eradication program in Lake Victoria (the lake in the Aja film) and find their way into an adult themed waterpark.  Of course, mayhem ensues, shotgun legs are fired and someone learns how to swim in the nick of time.  And, as expected, another sequel is set up in the closing minutes.

Movies like this don’t need a great plot, or even to make sense, in order to be fun.  Aja’s Piranha contained stereotypical characters and clichéd dialog, but wrapped these elements with gory deaths, lots of female flesh and a show stopping assault on a massive spring break party.  This type of film works because, once the plot is set in motion, the story moves at a relentless pace, barely giving the audience a chance to breathe. 

Piranha DD fails to match both the energy and spectacle of the previous film.  For starts, the gore effects are rather tame, lacking the successive over-the-top moments that peppered Aja’s film.  Though one scene (hinted at in the trailer) will have viewers of both sexes cringing, most of the gore is limited to bloody water and floating body parts and the film suffers for not matching the original.

While a rushed production schedule and ultra low budget could account for the lackluster gore, Piranha DD has deeper problems.  The script by Patrick Melton, Marcus Dunstan and Joel Soisson, is flat and fails to deliver on the mayhem.  The script has a few attacks leading to the invasion of the waterpark, but the scenes aren’t exciting and fail to build in intensity.  And once the fish enter the waterpark, director John Gulager can’t find any way to generate excitement, which isn’t a surprise as all the victims need do is get out of the pool.  No sinking platforms or boats to be trapped upon, no frantic swim for yards to reach the shore, and no water vehicle/victim interaction.  Gulager is limited to countless shots of people running out of the pool, as any sense of isolation from safety is removed by the setting.

Gulager does attempt to match Aja’s parade of topless women, but his direction is rather dull and uninspired.  While Aja delivered several moments that looked more artful than lecherous, director John Gulager seems content to leer through his lens, neutering his film by delivering the same fratboy viewpoint that horror fans have seen since the 80s slasher craze.

As for the acting, it’s pretty good for this type of film, especially David Hasselhoff’s self-parodying performance.  He’s such fun to watch, he outshines the mayhem and nudity at times, which is not good in a horror film that promises to, “Double the action.  Double the terror.  Double the D’s.” 

Yet even The Hoff’s performance can’t elevate this to the level of a decent time waster on a rainy Saturday afternoon.  You’d be better off watching Aja’s remake or John Gulager’s first film, Feast, if you’re looking for cheap, cheesy fun during the winter months.

Hell Night (1981)

Pray for the end of this film is the more apt tagline.  Coming on the heels of Halloween and Friday the 13^th, Hell Night fails to generate any suspense or gore, resulting in a dull, overly long slasher film.

The film takes place during Hell Night at a college, as four pledges (including Linda Blair and Vincent Van Pattern) are locked into a mansion with a horrid history (including mutant births and murder) as part of their initiation.  Of course, the frat president and his flunkies plan to scare the pledges with some lame haunted house antics, but everyone soon discovers that someone living in the house doesn’t tolerate unexpected guests.

As with most slasher films, you don’t expect much in the way of plot, just an isolated location with enough victims to keep the kills coming on a regular basis.  But director Tom DeSimone and writer Randy Feldman can’t stop messing up this simplest formula, as their film ends up wasting over 100 minutes with pointless character development, stupid scares and endless scenes of people moving down assorted hallways, garden paths and tunnels. 

The ways this duo are able to bungle the slasher formula are surprising.  For starts, the body count is incredible low.  Sure, Halloween only had four onscreen deaths, but that film had style and atmosphere.  As the slasher genre got into full swing, most films made up for such shortcoming by including more frequent and violent deaths.  But DeSimone and Feldman missed that memo.  To be fair, the first kill is a spectacular beheading (possibly trimmed for the MPAA), but the mayhem devolves as the film goes on, until the deaths take place off screen.  Not a smart movie for a fillm released more than a year after the original Friday the 13^th.

A low body count means fewer main characters, so rather than spread out screen time getting to superficially know multiple victims, we end up spending too much time with four very dull characters.  The rich guy whines about being part of a wealthy family, the underprivileged gal complains about what she has to do become a sorority member, and the horny, drug-fueled couple try to be sympathetic victims.  Rather than giving the audience disposable stereotypes for a few moments before they are slaughtered, the script tries to make these characters likable.  Rather than giving the audience disposable stereotypes for a few minutes before they’re killed, the script tries to flesh the characters out, but only makes them more annoying.

But the filmmaker’s most egregious error involves Linda Blair’s portrayal of the worst Final Girl ever filmed.  It’s easy to criticize Blair for this one, as she’s not a good actor (her performance earned her the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress that year), yet no other actor could have done any better.  The script forces Blair to whine, shriek and hide behind her potential romantic interest for over 90 minutes, before she is forced to stand up to the killer.  Yet even than, shear luck is the predetermining factor in her survival, as she “takes out” the killer while screaming in a car that must be on autopilot, as Blair’s hands are everywhere but on the steering wheel.  It feels screenwriter Feldman fashioned his character after a heroine from a 50s horror movie, and only bothered to try and create a Final Girl in the script’s last pages.

Trimming about 15 to 20 minutes off the running time might have helped by tightening things up.  Yet editor Anthony DiMarco (using the name Tony Di Marco, a pseudonym common to his work in less “prestigious” films like Chained Heat and The Giant Claw) appears to have been content to just paste scenes together using as much footage as possible.  Or maybe director DeSimone wouldn’t allow any of his footage to end up on the cutting room floor.  Either way, the film lurches between some fairly suspenseful scenes and long, tedious moments that destroy any suspense generated earlier in the film. 

I could go on, but Hell Night took up enough of my life.  Unless you need to see Blair’s heaving bosom filling out a dress more suited for a gothic Hammer tale, this film is the cinematic equivalent of a razor blade filled apple in a slasher fan’s trick or treat bag, and should to be avoided at all costs.