When the cable goes out, things turn ugly....
Alone (2011)
Starring: Candice Wilson
Director: Damaine Radcliff
Rating: Six of Ten Stars
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Friday, October 5, 2012
31 Nights of Halloween:
Deja Vu & Milla the Destroyer
Deja Vu & Milla the Destroyer
The short-film countdown to Halloween continues. Today's offering is bit rough in the sound editing department and the stock music used is a bit overblown, but it still has some effective moments and is brimming with Halloween Spirit! (Bianca Perez may also have a future as a professional screamer!)
Deja Vu (2011)
Starring: Bianca Perez and Aneudy Garcia
Director: Raifis Rodriguez
Rating: Five of Ten Stars
So, in observation of this once-in-history event, we're offering images of Milla Jovovich posing as the different ways the Earth might be come to an end. Just like no one knows exactly what day doom will come to us all, you will never know when another image of Milla the Destroyer will appear as the 31 Days of Halloween unwind.
Deja Vu (2011)
Starring: Bianca Perez and Aneudy Garcia
Director: Raifis Rodriguez
Rating: Five of Ten Stars
Special Bonus Feature: Milla the Destroyer, Incarnation One
Supposedly, the ever-so-wise Ancient Mayans foresaw the end of the world sometime late in 2012. And, hey, they must have been right--because not only did the calendar they carved in stone end this year, but the "Cute Cats" calendar hanging in my kitchen ends on December 31st as well! Coincidence? I think not!So, in observation of this once-in-history event, we're offering images of Milla Jovovich posing as the different ways the Earth might be come to an end. Just like no one knows exactly what day doom will come to us all, you will never know when another image of Milla the Destroyer will appear as the 31 Days of Halloween unwind.
Full Moon Friday: When Charlie Met Howie
Every Friday in October, as part of our 31 Nights of Halloween series, we'll be featuring a round-up post of cinematic madness produced by B-movie mogul Charles Band. We're kicking it off with a selection of films based, quite loosely in some cases, on the writings of H.P. Lovecraft.
Re-Animator (1985)
Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott, Barbara Crampton, David Gale and Robert Sampson
Director: Stuart Gordon
Producer: Brian Yunza and Charles Band
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars
Dan's new roommate and fellow third-year med student, Herbert West (Combs) draws him into his bizarre (and successful) experiments with re-animating dead bodies.
"Re-Animator" is one of the craziest movies ever made, and it ranks up there with "Dead Alive" as one of the funniest creepy movies ever made. While it is nowhere near as gory as "Dead Alive" and the slapstick isn't quite as sharp, it features a cleverer script and a superior cast.
Jeffrey Combs is particularly excellent as Herbert West. We get the sense that he's a bit weird early in the film and highly strung; Combs performance puts the viewer in mind of Peter Cushing's Victor Frankenstein in the first couple of Hammer Frankenstein films... coldblooded, arrogant and probably sociopathic but not necessarily completely bonkers. When West calmly a bone saw through the chest of a zombie and then immediately sets about reanimating its recently deceased victim, it's clear not just from his actions but from Combs performance that he more than a little off. And when he later animates the severed head of an obnoxious rival (likewise brilliantly played by David Gale), it's clear that he is completely unhinged.
Speaking of the severed head, it gives rise to some of the most unnerving moments in the film, as well some of the funniest. I don't want to go into too much details, because I'd ruin the shock value. Suffice to say, it's something that needs to be seen.
Credit also needs to be go to Bruce Abbott and Barbara Crampton. While Combs and Gale are giving performances that seem like they just teleported in from a Hammer Films set in 1960, they play their characters mostly low-key. This, combined with the fact that their characters are nice and normal people, give the audience someone to identify with as the film unfolds and provide an island of calm in the middle of the evermore turbulent sea of madness that is this movie.
"Re-Animator" elevates Herbert West among the great movie mad doctors, even if, according to the very informative interview included on the Anchor Bay edition of the film, he was actually a minor character in the script and through most of the filming. It wasn't until "Re-Animator" was crafted into a releasable movie that the emphasis shifted to Herbert. (Comments in the interviews on the DVD even make me wonder if the filmmakers knew they were making a comedy until late in the process....)
Whether intentional or accidental art, this is one of those movies that gets everything right, from the mood-setting prologue, through its score (which spoofs Bernard Hermann's famous music for "Psycho") to its chilling end. It also feels as fresh as when it first released in 1985. This is one of those very rare horror movies that actually deserves the label "classic."
From Beyond (1986)
Starring: Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Ken Foree, Ted Sorel and Carolyn Purdy-Gordon
Director: Stuart Gordon
Producers: Brian Yunza and Charles Band
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars
A pair of physicists (Combs and Sorel) create a machine that causes our dimension to merge with another. They end up unleashing horrors--and sexual perversion--unlike any our world has ever seen before.
"From Beyond" is one of those gory, goopy movies that you do NOT want to watch while eating. If you like fast-paced monster movies with a high quotient of mad doctors--there is only one out of the five major characters who isn't a doctor who is unhinged in some fashion--and you don't mind sexually-themed horror, then you'll enjoy the heck out of this movie.
With excellent special effects--particularly during the final battle against the monstrous creature from beyond--and great performances by all the actors, this movie is a fun ride. Although only the first few minutes of the film is actually based on H.P. Lovecraft's story of the same title, Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton both capture the obsession and the madness that was a hallmark of many of his characters and stories. Further, the creatures and the entire style of the movie evokes the atmosphere of Lovecraft's writings. Even better, the film provides some great laughs to offset the terror, with Ken Foree (best-known for his role in the original "Dawn of the Dead") serving double-duty as comic relief and Macho Action Hero and succeeding equally well at both.
"From Beyond" is an excellent movie to show at a Halloween party where adults or older teens make up those in attendence. If you want to get a copy to show, make sure you get the unrrated DVD director's cut, because it features some really cool scenes that were cut to earn it an R rating during its original release--such the scene where Dr. Bloch (Carolyn Purdy-Gordon) has her brain sucked out through her eye-socket and some of the bits of a tentacle-beast from Dimension Lovecraft getting to know Dr. Katherine McMichaels really well.
Lurking Fear (1994)
Starring: Blake Bailey, Ashley Lauren, Jeffrey Combs, Jon Finch, Allison Mackie, Vincent Schiavelli, Paul Mantee and Joseph Leavengood
Director: C. Courtney Joyner
Producers: Charles Band, Oana Paunescu and Vlad Paunescu
Rating: Three of Ten Stars
A recently paroled convict (Bailey) travels to an isolated California town in search of stolen loot buried in the cemetery there. Unfortunately, a crime lord and his coldhearted gun moll (Finch and Mackie) are hot on his trail and equally hot for the money. Even worse, they arrive in the town as its remaining citizens are taking up arms against underground-dwelling horrors who have been murdering them at night.
"Lurking Fear" is loosely (very loosely) based on a short story by H.P. Lovecraft that is the origin point of what we think of as ghouls these days. Lovecraft stories are difficult to translate to the screen, and as successful as producer Charles Band's earlier forays into Lovecraft Country had been (the very excellent "Castle Freak" and "From Beyond") this film is a failure on every level.
So, while the poster image above says Lovecraft, and the preview featured below say "action-packed horror movie," the movie itself does not live up to the promises of the promtional material.
The problems start with the fact the film was shot in Romania, with a Romanian neighborhood trying to pass for a small Californian town and a Romanian church--complete with 400 year old eastern European Catholic iconography--trying to pass for a small-town church in the American west.
These problems are aggravated by a sloppily written script and even sloppier directed film that ignores plot points, common sense, and even characterization in favor of keeping an evermore incoherent plot moving forward.
Completing the trifecta of crapitude that sinks this movie is the lame performances given by just about every actor appearing in the film. There are several performers who'll you recognize from dozens of other A- and B-movies (like Ashley Lauren, Jon Finch and Vincent Schiavelli) and some Full Moon regulars (Blake Bailey and Jeffrey Combs), but only Finch and Combs give performances that even hint at the caliber of talent appearing on the screen.
The end result is there is no way even the most willing-to-be-pleased viewer will be able to find himself engaged with the movie, so it never manages to build suspense. The 71-minutes of running-time seem a lot longer than they are.
I realize that the actors must have known what an awful film they were appearing in, but they could have at least have had the self-respect and professionalism to earn their paychecks. It looks like Finch and Combs were the only true professionals working on this film, as everyone else didn't even seem to be trying. (And I can't even be sure about Finch; his voice was reportedly looped by a different actor in post-production.)
Everything else about this film is so lazy and sloppy that it ends up ranking with some of the worst that Full Moon released during the 1990s.
Castle Freak (1995)
Starring: Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Jessica Dollarhide, and Jonathan Fuller
Director: Stuart Gordon
Producers: Albert Band, Charles Band and Maurizio Maggi
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars
John and Susan Reilly (Combs and Crampton) travel to Italy with their recently blinded daughter Rebecca (Dollarhide) to inspect a castle they've just inherited. The Reillys soon discover the old owner of the castle had harbored a deep and twisted secret... a secret which has escaped and is now roaming the shadowy halls claiming victims.
"Castle Freak" is a horror film of such exceptionally high quality that it's surprising to learn it was made as a direct-to-video release. It is without question one of the best movies to come out of the Full Moon low-budget fantasy factory.
The film features a great script that presents three-dimensional characters dealing both with all-too-real horrors that normal people face every day (a family that's disintegrating due to a tragedy caused by the negligence of one parent, the inability of another to forgive, and the strain and guilt both feel in trying to live with the reality that one child is dead and another is permanently crippled) and the inconceivable horror that lurks within their new home. Even minor characters, such as the chief of police in the small town by the castle, feel fully realized and come across as living, breathing human beings.
These very well-rendered characters are brought to full life by the extremely talented cast, with Jeffrey Combs delivering a particularly impressive performance. In other films I've seen Combs in, he's seemed most comfortable when doing comedy--he was a bit wooden in "Doctor Mordrid" , but he ROCKED in "Re-Animator" and the 1991 version of "The Pit and the Pendulum" where he played roles that were marked by dark humor and twisted levity--but here in "Castle Freak" he plays a part that is purely dramatic and he delivers a nuanced and thoroughly convincing performance of a man who is trying his best to make up for a horrible shortcoming while trying to save what's left of his family. His eventual transformation from Everyman into Hero when he realizes the danger his family is in is more convincing here than in just about any other horror film you'd care to mention.
Another remarkable performance is given by Jessica Dollarhide who plays the recently blinded Rebecca. She portrays a kid who is genuinely nice and likable, someone who wants to be independent yet who also recognizes that her parents have needs as well. She plays the part with very little of the obnoxiousness and hysteria that seems to be the hallmark of teenaged characters in this genre... except for the well-justified hysteria that arises when the "castle freak" visits.
The film is also perfectly photographed and expertly edited. Director Stuart Gordon and cinematographer Mario Vulpiani use every trick in their cinematic bag to make the castle where the film takes place--which was a genuine 12th century castle owned by Full Moon Entertainment, and which served as the location for a number of the company's productions--take on a life of its own and make the film that much more intense. The effectiveness of the gore and make-up effects are gut-wrenchingly believeable, and, together with the skillfully executed camerawork make this movie seem like it was made for ten times the money that was actually spent.
"Castle Freak" truly is a film where every dollar of the budget is visable on the screen, and it's a movie where they get just about everything right.
Unfortunately, the one area where they miss the mark is with the titular "castle freak." The film would have been perfect if he had been just a little more sympathetic (ala Boris Karloff's portrayal of the Frankenstein Monster in the 1932 version of "Frankenstein"). All the elements are here to have made the creature an object of our sympathy--and given the horrible tortures that shaped him into what he is, we still end up feeling a little sorry for him, but not as much as we could have if Jonathan Fuller had been an actor of Karloff's caliber. Fuller isn't bad as the creature, but he's not great. (A more sympathetic portrayal of the "castle freak" would have made the gruesome cannibal rape scene all the more horrific.)
A slighlly bigger flaw than Fuller's okay-but-not-great performance is one that's built into its very basic story. The old duchess dies and no curious townsfolk or police do a walkthrough of the castle? That's all it would have taken to find the poor "castle freak" in his prison, and subsequently turned this from a horror movie to a Hallmark Special about a family resettling to a castle in Italy and rekindling their love for each other.
Despite that one glaring plothole, "Castle Freak" is a film that's deserving of more attention than it gets, and it's a worthy addition to the library of anyone who appreciates well-made horror films.
Re-Animator (1985)
Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott, Barbara Crampton, David Gale and Robert Sampson
Director: Stuart Gordon
Producer: Brian Yunza and Charles Band
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars
Dan's new roommate and fellow third-year med student, Herbert West (Combs) draws him into his bizarre (and successful) experiments with re-animating dead bodies.
"Re-Animator" is one of the craziest movies ever made, and it ranks up there with "Dead Alive" as one of the funniest creepy movies ever made. While it is nowhere near as gory as "Dead Alive" and the slapstick isn't quite as sharp, it features a cleverer script and a superior cast.
Jeffrey Combs is particularly excellent as Herbert West. We get the sense that he's a bit weird early in the film and highly strung; Combs performance puts the viewer in mind of Peter Cushing's Victor Frankenstein in the first couple of Hammer Frankenstein films... coldblooded, arrogant and probably sociopathic but not necessarily completely bonkers. When West calmly a bone saw through the chest of a zombie and then immediately sets about reanimating its recently deceased victim, it's clear not just from his actions but from Combs performance that he more than a little off. And when he later animates the severed head of an obnoxious rival (likewise brilliantly played by David Gale), it's clear that he is completely unhinged.
Speaking of the severed head, it gives rise to some of the most unnerving moments in the film, as well some of the funniest. I don't want to go into too much details, because I'd ruin the shock value. Suffice to say, it's something that needs to be seen.
Credit also needs to be go to Bruce Abbott and Barbara Crampton. While Combs and Gale are giving performances that seem like they just teleported in from a Hammer Films set in 1960, they play their characters mostly low-key. This, combined with the fact that their characters are nice and normal people, give the audience someone to identify with as the film unfolds and provide an island of calm in the middle of the evermore turbulent sea of madness that is this movie.
"Re-Animator" elevates Herbert West among the great movie mad doctors, even if, according to the very informative interview included on the Anchor Bay edition of the film, he was actually a minor character in the script and through most of the filming. It wasn't until "Re-Animator" was crafted into a releasable movie that the emphasis shifted to Herbert. (Comments in the interviews on the DVD even make me wonder if the filmmakers knew they were making a comedy until late in the process....)
Whether intentional or accidental art, this is one of those movies that gets everything right, from the mood-setting prologue, through its score (which spoofs Bernard Hermann's famous music for "Psycho") to its chilling end. It also feels as fresh as when it first released in 1985. This is one of those very rare horror movies that actually deserves the label "classic."
From Beyond (1986)
Starring: Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Ken Foree, Ted Sorel and Carolyn Purdy-Gordon
Director: Stuart Gordon
Producers: Brian Yunza and Charles Band
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars
A pair of physicists (Combs and Sorel) create a machine that causes our dimension to merge with another. They end up unleashing horrors--and sexual perversion--unlike any our world has ever seen before.
"From Beyond" is one of those gory, goopy movies that you do NOT want to watch while eating. If you like fast-paced monster movies with a high quotient of mad doctors--there is only one out of the five major characters who isn't a doctor who is unhinged in some fashion--and you don't mind sexually-themed horror, then you'll enjoy the heck out of this movie.
With excellent special effects--particularly during the final battle against the monstrous creature from beyond--and great performances by all the actors, this movie is a fun ride. Although only the first few minutes of the film is actually based on H.P. Lovecraft's story of the same title, Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton both capture the obsession and the madness that was a hallmark of many of his characters and stories. Further, the creatures and the entire style of the movie evokes the atmosphere of Lovecraft's writings. Even better, the film provides some great laughs to offset the terror, with Ken Foree (best-known for his role in the original "Dawn of the Dead") serving double-duty as comic relief and Macho Action Hero and succeeding equally well at both.
"From Beyond" is an excellent movie to show at a Halloween party where adults or older teens make up those in attendence. If you want to get a copy to show, make sure you get the unrrated DVD director's cut, because it features some really cool scenes that were cut to earn it an R rating during its original release--such the scene where Dr. Bloch (Carolyn Purdy-Gordon) has her brain sucked out through her eye-socket and some of the bits of a tentacle-beast from Dimension Lovecraft getting to know Dr. Katherine McMichaels really well.
Lurking Fear (1994)
Starring: Blake Bailey, Ashley Lauren, Jeffrey Combs, Jon Finch, Allison Mackie, Vincent Schiavelli, Paul Mantee and Joseph Leavengood
Director: C. Courtney Joyner
Producers: Charles Band, Oana Paunescu and Vlad Paunescu
Rating: Three of Ten Stars
A recently paroled convict (Bailey) travels to an isolated California town in search of stolen loot buried in the cemetery there. Unfortunately, a crime lord and his coldhearted gun moll (Finch and Mackie) are hot on his trail and equally hot for the money. Even worse, they arrive in the town as its remaining citizens are taking up arms against underground-dwelling horrors who have been murdering them at night.
"Lurking Fear" is loosely (very loosely) based on a short story by H.P. Lovecraft that is the origin point of what we think of as ghouls these days. Lovecraft stories are difficult to translate to the screen, and as successful as producer Charles Band's earlier forays into Lovecraft Country had been (the very excellent "Castle Freak" and "From Beyond") this film is a failure on every level.
So, while the poster image above says Lovecraft, and the preview featured below say "action-packed horror movie," the movie itself does not live up to the promises of the promtional material.
The problems start with the fact the film was shot in Romania, with a Romanian neighborhood trying to pass for a small Californian town and a Romanian church--complete with 400 year old eastern European Catholic iconography--trying to pass for a small-town church in the American west.
These problems are aggravated by a sloppily written script and even sloppier directed film that ignores plot points, common sense, and even characterization in favor of keeping an evermore incoherent plot moving forward.
Completing the trifecta of crapitude that sinks this movie is the lame performances given by just about every actor appearing in the film. There are several performers who'll you recognize from dozens of other A- and B-movies (like Ashley Lauren, Jon Finch and Vincent Schiavelli) and some Full Moon regulars (Blake Bailey and Jeffrey Combs), but only Finch and Combs give performances that even hint at the caliber of talent appearing on the screen.
The end result is there is no way even the most willing-to-be-pleased viewer will be able to find himself engaged with the movie, so it never manages to build suspense. The 71-minutes of running-time seem a lot longer than they are.
I realize that the actors must have known what an awful film they were appearing in, but they could have at least have had the self-respect and professionalism to earn their paychecks. It looks like Finch and Combs were the only true professionals working on this film, as everyone else didn't even seem to be trying. (And I can't even be sure about Finch; his voice was reportedly looped by a different actor in post-production.)
Everything else about this film is so lazy and sloppy that it ends up ranking with some of the worst that Full Moon released during the 1990s.
Castle Freak (1995)
Starring: Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Jessica Dollarhide, and Jonathan Fuller
Director: Stuart Gordon
Producers: Albert Band, Charles Band and Maurizio Maggi
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars
John and Susan Reilly (Combs and Crampton) travel to Italy with their recently blinded daughter Rebecca (Dollarhide) to inspect a castle they've just inherited. The Reillys soon discover the old owner of the castle had harbored a deep and twisted secret... a secret which has escaped and is now roaming the shadowy halls claiming victims.
"Castle Freak" is a horror film of such exceptionally high quality that it's surprising to learn it was made as a direct-to-video release. It is without question one of the best movies to come out of the Full Moon low-budget fantasy factory.
The film features a great script that presents three-dimensional characters dealing both with all-too-real horrors that normal people face every day (a family that's disintegrating due to a tragedy caused by the negligence of one parent, the inability of another to forgive, and the strain and guilt both feel in trying to live with the reality that one child is dead and another is permanently crippled) and the inconceivable horror that lurks within their new home. Even minor characters, such as the chief of police in the small town by the castle, feel fully realized and come across as living, breathing human beings.
These very well-rendered characters are brought to full life by the extremely talented cast, with Jeffrey Combs delivering a particularly impressive performance. In other films I've seen Combs in, he's seemed most comfortable when doing comedy--he was a bit wooden in "Doctor Mordrid" , but he ROCKED in "Re-Animator" and the 1991 version of "The Pit and the Pendulum" where he played roles that were marked by dark humor and twisted levity--but here in "Castle Freak" he plays a part that is purely dramatic and he delivers a nuanced and thoroughly convincing performance of a man who is trying his best to make up for a horrible shortcoming while trying to save what's left of his family. His eventual transformation from Everyman into Hero when he realizes the danger his family is in is more convincing here than in just about any other horror film you'd care to mention.
Another remarkable performance is given by Jessica Dollarhide who plays the recently blinded Rebecca. She portrays a kid who is genuinely nice and likable, someone who wants to be independent yet who also recognizes that her parents have needs as well. She plays the part with very little of the obnoxiousness and hysteria that seems to be the hallmark of teenaged characters in this genre... except for the well-justified hysteria that arises when the "castle freak" visits.
The film is also perfectly photographed and expertly edited. Director Stuart Gordon and cinematographer Mario Vulpiani use every trick in their cinematic bag to make the castle where the film takes place--which was a genuine 12th century castle owned by Full Moon Entertainment, and which served as the location for a number of the company's productions--take on a life of its own and make the film that much more intense. The effectiveness of the gore and make-up effects are gut-wrenchingly believeable, and, together with the skillfully executed camerawork make this movie seem like it was made for ten times the money that was actually spent.
"Castle Freak" truly is a film where every dollar of the budget is visable on the screen, and it's a movie where they get just about everything right.
Unfortunately, the one area where they miss the mark is with the titular "castle freak." The film would have been perfect if he had been just a little more sympathetic (ala Boris Karloff's portrayal of the Frankenstein Monster in the 1932 version of "Frankenstein"). All the elements are here to have made the creature an object of our sympathy--and given the horrible tortures that shaped him into what he is, we still end up feeling a little sorry for him, but not as much as we could have if Jonathan Fuller had been an actor of Karloff's caliber. Fuller isn't bad as the creature, but he's not great. (A more sympathetic portrayal of the "castle freak" would have made the gruesome cannibal rape scene all the more horrific.)
A slighlly bigger flaw than Fuller's okay-but-not-great performance is one that's built into its very basic story. The old duchess dies and no curious townsfolk or police do a walkthrough of the castle? That's all it would have taken to find the poor "castle freak" in his prison, and subsequently turned this from a horror movie to a Hallmark Special about a family resettling to a castle in Italy and rekindling their love for each other.
Despite that one glaring plothole, "Castle Freak" is a film that's deserving of more attention than it gets, and it's a worthy addition to the library of anyone who appreciates well-made horror films.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
31 Nights of Halloween: Love Hurts
Welcome to the fourth of the 31 Nights of Halloween, where you will find a different horror short to chill your blood each and every night.
And the little shocker we have for you today shows that ghosts are everywhere--even public rest rooms. (I think this may be the first haunted toilet stall story I've ever come across.)
Love Hurts (2009)
Starring: Medi Broekman
Director: Sharif Nassr
Rating: Six of Ten Stars
And the little shocker we have for you today shows that ghosts are everywhere--even public rest rooms. (I think this may be the first haunted toilet stall story I've ever come across.)
Love Hurts (2009)
Starring: Medi Broekman
Director: Sharif Nassr
Rating: Six of Ten Stars
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Wrong Turn Wednesday:
'Wrong Turn 2: Dead End'
'Wrong Turn 2: Dead End'
It's the second Wednesday of 31 Nights of Halloween, so that means it's time for a look at another installment of the Wrong Turn Series.
Wrong Turn 2: Dead End (2007)
Starring: Erica Leehrsen, Texas Battle, Henry Rollins, Aleksa Palladino, Daniella Alonso, Steve Braun, and Matthew Currie Holmes
Director: Joe Lynch
Rating: Six of Ten Stars
The contestants and crew of a reality show are stalked by in the deep forest of West Virginia by inbred cannibal mutants who want to add them to the menu.
"Wrong Turn 2: Dead End" is one of those surprising sequels that improves on the original. While the first "Wrong Turn" movie was a lazy collection of slasher movie tropes, the writers here actually seem to have made an effort to come up with something a little different.
While most of the characters are the usual assortment of cliches you expect to find populating a movie like this--the obnoxious hipster, the sullen goth chick, the slimy filmmaker, the nail-spitting lesbian--there is usually enough of a twist on the character to make it appealing... and if the character itself doesn't have an interesting dimension, the casting and direction is solid enough that you still regret to see the character fall victim to the marauding cannibals.
The most fun character in the film is Dale Murphy, a retired special forces colonel portrayed by Henry Rollins. A typical approach in a film like this is to have the Hollywood-type who appears to be a bad ass turn out to be all bark and no bite when the real danger manifests itself--"Wrong Turn 2" took a different approach and made Murphy every bit the bad-ass he appears as on the reality show, and then some, as well as being a heroic figure to boot. It was nice to see a character take the fight to the psychos immediately instead of waiting until cornered.
The filmmakers even managed to make the reality show conceit work, something which only the minority of the five or six other films that have tried that have managed to do. The set-up and the approach to filming it felt real to me, and the way the show's producer became a contestant and ultimately a victim was also very well handled. All in all, the filmmakers did a nice job of making me buy into the possibility that a reality show could be made like this, and they did an even better job of threading the hi-tech multi-media aspect of that set-up through the entire film.
Now, the film is not perfect. By using the same setting as the first film, they leave a big question out there: How the hell can these cannibals still be running around given the fact they were so thoroughly exposed in the first film? I find it heard to swallow that state troopers didn't flood those woods and raid every cabin spotted from the air or the ground. The easily accessible location where the film's climax took place seems particularly fantastic given the ending of the original "Wrong Turn". There are also several examples of characters being stupid just because if they weren't, the film would be a lot shorter.
But I can forgive those flaws because of Henry Rollins running around kicking cannibal butt. Having his character in the mix really makes this movie for me.
While I can't recommend you waste your time on the first film in this series, I think the fun factor in this one makes it worth checking out. I'm not saying it's a masterpiece, and you're going to need a high level for gore for the sake of gore--but if you didn't, why would you want to watch a movie featuring cannibal mutant hicks in the first place?--but there are worse movies you could waste your time on.
Wrong Turn 2: Dead End (2007)
Starring: Erica Leehrsen, Texas Battle, Henry Rollins, Aleksa Palladino, Daniella Alonso, Steve Braun, and Matthew Currie Holmes
Director: Joe Lynch
Rating: Six of Ten Stars
The contestants and crew of a reality show are stalked by in the deep forest of West Virginia by inbred cannibal mutants who want to add them to the menu.
"Wrong Turn 2: Dead End" is one of those surprising sequels that improves on the original. While the first "Wrong Turn" movie was a lazy collection of slasher movie tropes, the writers here actually seem to have made an effort to come up with something a little different.
While most of the characters are the usual assortment of cliches you expect to find populating a movie like this--the obnoxious hipster, the sullen goth chick, the slimy filmmaker, the nail-spitting lesbian--there is usually enough of a twist on the character to make it appealing... and if the character itself doesn't have an interesting dimension, the casting and direction is solid enough that you still regret to see the character fall victim to the marauding cannibals.
The most fun character in the film is Dale Murphy, a retired special forces colonel portrayed by Henry Rollins. A typical approach in a film like this is to have the Hollywood-type who appears to be a bad ass turn out to be all bark and no bite when the real danger manifests itself--"Wrong Turn 2" took a different approach and made Murphy every bit the bad-ass he appears as on the reality show, and then some, as well as being a heroic figure to boot. It was nice to see a character take the fight to the psychos immediately instead of waiting until cornered.
The filmmakers even managed to make the reality show conceit work, something which only the minority of the five or six other films that have tried that have managed to do. The set-up and the approach to filming it felt real to me, and the way the show's producer became a contestant and ultimately a victim was also very well handled. All in all, the filmmakers did a nice job of making me buy into the possibility that a reality show could be made like this, and they did an even better job of threading the hi-tech multi-media aspect of that set-up through the entire film.
Now, the film is not perfect. By using the same setting as the first film, they leave a big question out there: How the hell can these cannibals still be running around given the fact they were so thoroughly exposed in the first film? I find it heard to swallow that state troopers didn't flood those woods and raid every cabin spotted from the air or the ground. The easily accessible location where the film's climax took place seems particularly fantastic given the ending of the original "Wrong Turn". There are also several examples of characters being stupid just because if they weren't, the film would be a lot shorter.
But I can forgive those flaws because of Henry Rollins running around kicking cannibal butt. Having his character in the mix really makes this movie for me.
While I can't recommend you waste your time on the first film in this series, I think the fun factor in this one makes it worth checking out. I'm not saying it's a masterpiece, and you're going to need a high level for gore for the sake of gore--but if you didn't, why would you want to watch a movie featuring cannibal mutant hicks in the first place?--but there are worse movies you could waste your time on.
31 Nights of Halloween: The Banshee
Legend holds that the cry of the banshee heralds death. Four vacationing friends will learn that there is truth behind the legend...
Banshee (2010)
Starring: Michael Elkin, Catherine Laine, Andy Kempton, and Michele de Broel
Director: Michael Elkin
Rating: Six of Ten Stars
Director: Michael Elkin
Rating: Six of Ten Stars
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
31 Nights of Halloween: The Guest
Here's a "killer in the house" film with a twist. It's well acted and makes great use of sound throughout. Enjoy!
The Guest (2010)
Starring: Alyshia Ochse, Robert Seay, and Suzanne Quat
Director: Bryan Ryan
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars
The Guest (2010)
Starring: Alyshia Ochse, Robert Seay, and Suzanne Quat
Director: Bryan Ryan
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars
 |
| Alysia Ochse: Future Saturday Scream Queen? |
31 Nights of Halloween
'Halloween: Nightdance'
'Halloween: Nightdance'
Halloween: Nightdance (Devil's Due Publishing, 2008)
Writer: Stefan Hutchinson
Artist: Tim Seeley
Rating: Ten of Ten Stars
Lisa is a teen struggling with a variety of personal demons... and she is about to come face-to-face with something far worse than any of them. Halloween is fast approaching, and so is the silent serial killer Michael Myers....
"Halloween: Nightdance" is one of those rare graphic novels that will actually manage to invoke dread as you read it--horror comics are even harder to do well than horror movies, but Hutchinson and Seeley succeed brilliantly.
Hutchinson's writing is fairly sparse and evocative, using just the right amount of words in the right places. He even seems to have a handle on how to properly tell a story in the comic book format, something tragically few writers in the field seem able to do. Hutchinson's pacing is spot-on throughout, whether you look at in on a page-by-page basis, or over the book as a whole.
The same is true of Seeley's artwork. Seeley is one of those also increasingly rare artists who understand how to lay out a comic book page and effectively move the story--and the reader--along just through the visuals. He also delivers several grotesque scenes beside which which some of Michael's film exploits pale. Even the murders seem more horrific here than in any of the films... perhaps because the images are frozen on the page, so the horror remains in front of you rather than flitting by at 24 frames per second.
The book is also as successful as it is because it invokes the mood of the original John Carpenter "Halloween" without aping it; it tells a unique story, in a unique fashion, but it does so while incorporating all the things that make a "Halloween" story a "Halloween" story.. Hutchinson clearly understands the elements of the "Halloween" property that make it different from other slasher films out there--and it's not just the knife-wielding guy in the jumpsuit. (I suppose that shouldn't surprise anyone, given that he was the creator of the acclaimed "Halloween: 25 Years Later.")
"Halloween: Nightdance" was the first in a series of graphic novels and comics that Devil's Due produced as part of the 30th anniversary of the release of Carpenter's "Halloween" film. It is well worth a look if you appreciate well executed horror stories... and that goes double if you're a fan of classic "Halloween". Heck, you'll even enjoy it if you're a fan of the recent Rob Zombie-helmed travesties... you'll get a taste of what "Halloween" should be when it's done right.
Writer: Stefan Hutchinson
Artist: Tim Seeley
Rating: Ten of Ten Stars
Lisa is a teen struggling with a variety of personal demons... and she is about to come face-to-face with something far worse than any of them. Halloween is fast approaching, and so is the silent serial killer Michael Myers....
"Halloween: Nightdance" is one of those rare graphic novels that will actually manage to invoke dread as you read it--horror comics are even harder to do well than horror movies, but Hutchinson and Seeley succeed brilliantly.
Hutchinson's writing is fairly sparse and evocative, using just the right amount of words in the right places. He even seems to have a handle on how to properly tell a story in the comic book format, something tragically few writers in the field seem able to do. Hutchinson's pacing is spot-on throughout, whether you look at in on a page-by-page basis, or over the book as a whole.
The same is true of Seeley's artwork. Seeley is one of those also increasingly rare artists who understand how to lay out a comic book page and effectively move the story--and the reader--along just through the visuals. He also delivers several grotesque scenes beside which which some of Michael's film exploits pale. Even the murders seem more horrific here than in any of the films... perhaps because the images are frozen on the page, so the horror remains in front of you rather than flitting by at 24 frames per second.
The book is also as successful as it is because it invokes the mood of the original John Carpenter "Halloween" without aping it; it tells a unique story, in a unique fashion, but it does so while incorporating all the things that make a "Halloween" story a "Halloween" story.. Hutchinson clearly understands the elements of the "Halloween" property that make it different from other slasher films out there--and it's not just the knife-wielding guy in the jumpsuit. (I suppose that shouldn't surprise anyone, given that he was the creator of the acclaimed "Halloween: 25 Years Later.")
"Halloween: Nightdance" was the first in a series of graphic novels and comics that Devil's Due produced as part of the 30th anniversary of the release of Carpenter's "Halloween" film. It is well worth a look if you appreciate well executed horror stories... and that goes double if you're a fan of classic "Halloween". Heck, you'll even enjoy it if you're a fan of the recent Rob Zombie-helmed travesties... you'll get a taste of what "Halloween" should be when it's done right.
Monday, October 1, 2012
31 Nights of Halloween: Scare
As part of the month-long Halloween celebration here at Terror Titans, every single day until Halloween, we're presenting a different horror short film that you can watch right here!
Kicking things off, we submit for your consideration the tale of an unsuspecting motorist and a pair of pranksters looking to launch the next viral video craze....
Scare
Starring: Ian Alexander Maddox, Adam Conn, and Bob Telford
Directors: Drew Daywalt and Paul Hungerford
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars
Kicking things off, we submit for your consideration the tale of an unsuspecting motorist and a pair of pranksters looking to launch the next viral video craze....
Scare
Starring: Ian Alexander Maddox, Adam Conn, and Bob Telford
Directors: Drew Daywalt and Paul Hungerford
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Saturday Scream Queen: Erica Leerhsen
The daughter of a gossip sheet editor, Erica Leerhsen was born and raised in New York City. In 1998, she graduated summa cum laude from the Boston University College of Fine Arts with a BFA in Acting..
Leerhsen's first major film role was in "Blair Witch 2: The Book of Shadows" (2000), a valiant, but misbegotten, attempt at blazing a new path following the runaway success of the "found footage film" that launched a thousand imitators "The Blair Witch Project".
For the past decade, Leerhsen has remained busy with occasional guest-shots or ongoing supporting roles on various television dramas, and most her her big-screen time being divided between appearing in horror films, such as the remake of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (2003), "Living Hell", "Wrong Turn 2: Dead End" (2007); "Living Hell" (2008), and "Lonely Joe" (2009); and Woody Allen films, such as "Hollywood Ending" (2002) and "Anything Else" (2003).
Leehrsen has also made inroads into the theatre, appearing in stage productions such as Woody Allen's "A Second Hand Memory" in 2005. However,. she remains a front-and-center scream queen--with a heavy emphasis on scream, as there is no question that Leehrsen has one of the best set of shrieking pipes in the business today--and this past year she starred in the psychological thriller "The Message" and appeared as part of an all-star cast in "The Butterfly Room".
Leehrsen recently completed work on "Phobia", a Victorian-period horror film in which she plays a doctor treating a patient who may or may not be a vampire. It was screened for cast and crew earlier this month, but no release date has been announced as of yet.
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
If you end up watching 'Wrong Turn',
you may have chosen badly.
Welcome to the first Wrong Turn Wednesday... even if I'm already starting to regret the decision to watch and reveiw these flicks as part of the build-up to Halloween..
Wrong Way (2002)
Starring: Desmond Herrington, Eliza Dushku, Emmanuelle Chriqui, and Jeremy Sisto
Director: Rob Schmidt
Rating: Five of Ten Stars
A group of twenty-something beautiful people are stalked and brutally murdered by mutant cannibal hicks in the deep woods of West Virginia.
If you've seen even one killer redneck movie, you've already seen everything "Wrong Way" has to offer. They may do it better here--depending on what film you watched--but it brings nothing new to this slasher film sub-genre. The characters you expect to survive do so, and the characters you expect to get killed fall in predictable order. The film feels like the writers and director were working form a list of check boxes of genre tropes and once they got them all included, they felt their work was done.
There is nothing all that good about this film, but there is also nothing outright awful. The scene in and around the old observation tower is the high point of the movie (hurh-hurh... I made a pun), but it is nowhere enough to elevate this cookie-cutter, lazy genre film above its mediocre status.
What's more, the good will that scene earns this picture evaporates during the its climax where the filmmakers show us that not only are they not terribly original, they don't know when enough is enough and subsequently manage to transform the final fight stand of the Beautiful People against the Hideous Hicks from thrilling to ludicrous.
(By the way, filmmakers... if you want to make a movie about mutant cannibal hicks who have murdered so many people that they have a whole glade full of cars, you might want to NOT have them start killing cops and forest rangers. I can kinda-sorta accept that everyday people might be written off... but when it's law enforcement that starts going down, my ability to suspend disbelief goes down, too.
Unless you simply can't get enough of malformed cannibals haunting the back-country of West Virginia, or are a founding member of the Eliza Dushku or Jeremy Sisto fan clubs, "Wrong Turn" is a film you can safely skip.
Wrong Way (2002)
Starring: Desmond Herrington, Eliza Dushku, Emmanuelle Chriqui, and Jeremy Sisto
Director: Rob Schmidt
Rating: Five of Ten Stars
A group of twenty-something beautiful people are stalked and brutally murdered by mutant cannibal hicks in the deep woods of West Virginia.
If you've seen even one killer redneck movie, you've already seen everything "Wrong Way" has to offer. They may do it better here--depending on what film you watched--but it brings nothing new to this slasher film sub-genre. The characters you expect to survive do so, and the characters you expect to get killed fall in predictable order. The film feels like the writers and director were working form a list of check boxes of genre tropes and once they got them all included, they felt their work was done.
There is nothing all that good about this film, but there is also nothing outright awful. The scene in and around the old observation tower is the high point of the movie (hurh-hurh... I made a pun), but it is nowhere enough to elevate this cookie-cutter, lazy genre film above its mediocre status.
What's more, the good will that scene earns this picture evaporates during the its climax where the filmmakers show us that not only are they not terribly original, they don't know when enough is enough and subsequently manage to transform the final fight stand of the Beautiful People against the Hideous Hicks from thrilling to ludicrous.
(By the way, filmmakers... if you want to make a movie about mutant cannibal hicks who have murdered so many people that they have a whole glade full of cars, you might want to NOT have them start killing cops and forest rangers. I can kinda-sorta accept that everyday people might be written off... but when it's law enforcement that starts going down, my ability to suspend disbelief goes down, too.
Unless you simply can't get enough of malformed cannibals haunting the back-country of West Virginia, or are a founding member of the Eliza Dushku or Jeremy Sisto fan clubs, "Wrong Turn" is a film you can safely skip.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Saturday Scream Queen: Jessica Whitaker
Aside from a minor role in Bryan Ryan's off-center horror short "The Guest", Whitaker has starred in "Killjoy 3: Killjoy's Revenge" and "Killjoy Goes to Hell", both directed by John Lechago for Charles Band's Full Moon Features. Whitaker shows a great deal of charisma in these horror comedies, and I hope she'll become a Full Moon go-to brunette like Megan Ward and Charlie Spradling as she builds her career toward bigger and better things. She certainly has both talent and looks.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
'Carny' is a decent monster flick
Carny (2009)
Starring: Lou Diamond Phillips, Simone-Elise Girad and A.C. Petersen
Director: Sheldon Wilson
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars
When a honest-to-God monster escapes from the carnival freak show where it has been on display, a small-town sheriff (Phillips) faces danger not just from the monster itself but from those around him and their hidden agendas.
"Carny" is one of those rare films that showed up on TV under the "A SyFy Original Movie" banner that is a great monster flick. The special effects are a little dodgy at times, but the acting is decent all around, the dialogue is solid, the characters are well enough drawn that the viewer comes to care about them, and the story is well-paced. The final showdown between hero Lou Diamond Phillips and the escaped creature is one of the better monster fights to grace a first-run film on the SyFy Channel.
I wouldn't be surprised if it shows up again this October--it should... it's one of their better films. Check it out if it does.
Starring: Lou Diamond Phillips, Simone-Elise Girad and A.C. Petersen
Director: Sheldon Wilson
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars
When a honest-to-God monster escapes from the carnival freak show where it has been on display, a small-town sheriff (Phillips) faces danger not just from the monster itself but from those around him and their hidden agendas.
"Carny" is one of those rare films that showed up on TV under the "A SyFy Original Movie" banner that is a great monster flick. The special effects are a little dodgy at times, but the acting is decent all around, the dialogue is solid, the characters are well enough drawn that the viewer comes to care about them, and the story is well-paced. The final showdown between hero Lou Diamond Phillips and the escaped creature is one of the better monster fights to grace a first-run film on the SyFy Channel.
I wouldn't be surprised if it shows up again this October--it should... it's one of their better films. Check it out if it does.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
