Last Blog On The Left

I´m gonna level with you here: I walked out of the theatre kind of disappointed after watching this one. I was definitely expecting more but that´s one of the dangers when Hollywood finally gets around to actually making one of those legendary scripts that´s been floating around for ten or fifteen years. I remember hearing about Robert Rodriguez´s “Predator”-script back in the 90´s and he dropped hints about in interviews and I sat there, foaming at the mouth, thinking “Jumpin´ Jesus Christ, that sounds like the greatest movie ever!” He mentioned that it took place on the Predator´s home planet and that either Schwarzenegger´s character or his brother was the lead character, something like that. He also said that you got to see how things worked on this planet.

Well, turns out that Robert Rodriguez is a big fat liar. Because you don´t get to see very much of this planet at all. And that´s what I was expecting! Ever since that sequence in “Alien VS. Predator”, where the Aliens attack that pyramid I´ve been thinking “That´s what I wanna see!” But now when we finally get a movie that´s set on this god damn planet the only thing we do get to see is the jungle and it looks exactly like ours, like in the first “Predator”.

But hey, I guess that´s also one of the good things: Predator is back in the jungle, for chrissakes! He´s not running around, fighting pizza delivery boys and Aliens in Small Town American sewer systems, he´s back in the jungle fighting soldiers! So I guess that this is one of those double edged swords that you hear about every now and then.

Here´s the story in broad strokes: Chosen for their different abilities, a group of individuals where some are trained to kill and some are not, must endeavor the alien race of predators that have set out to target them as prey. Dropped into the vast jungle of a distant world, these human predators must learn just who, or what, they are up against…

My one main objection with this set up would be that it takes too long to get going. If this were the first Predator movie released, the suspense would´ve been absolutely awesome and I would have absolutely flipped over it but honestly, this is a franchise we´re five movies into now so it´s pretty hard to recreate the same kind of tension that John McTiernan had going on in the original one. Maybe it can be done and god knows that Nimrod Antal tries here, but it just doesn´t work like that.

It´s not like it´s boring but to have a movie called “Predators”, which kind of suggests that you´re gonna go the Cameron route like he did with “Aliens” and create one of the all time greatest shoot ´em up-flicks, and then not have any Predators show up for at least 40 minutes? That´s just wrong, Nimrod! By the way, I wonder what it´s like going through life with a name like that? “Nimrod”? Fortunately, it worked out for this guy because like I said, they could´ve done a hell of a lot worse finding a guy to direct this one. Antal has proved himself to be a reliable director ever since his debut “Kontroll” (which I wrote about here) and the fantastic “Vacancy” (which is his best work to date, in my opinion). He kind of dropped the ball on his last flick, the heist-gone-wrong-story “Armored” but he still proved to have an appealing old school approach to the genre, which I hope he manages to maintain. Which is particularly pleasing in this one because when it becomes time for some of the action sequences, that means that because Antal approaches this like an 80´s movie it basically means that you can actually see what´s going on. It´s not filled with cuts that are so quick that they feel like they´re subliminal. Christ, it´s as if Michael Bay and his awful legacy on the film industry never occurred.

But anyway, instead of showing anything of how their planet and world order works, they reveal nothing at all so that they can keep on thinking about which direction they wanna go in future movies. The mythology is intact, so to speak. But I can´t help it, I wanna see more!

This is apparently a wild game preserve that our characters are dropped into and they have been handpicked by our old friends with the vagina-like faces because they have different talents that makes it a sport for the Predators to hunt and kill them, ok? But like I said, we´re five movies into the “Predators”-franchise now (or three unless you don´t count the ones where they squared off against the Aliens) and I think it´s time they blow the lid off of these creatures and their world. Here´s a list of things I´d like to see in the next movie:

• If one were to judge from the Predator´s weapon technology, they are pretty advanced, technologically speaking, which makes one wonder what their cities look like. I mean, we´ve seen what their holidays resorts look like (earth and the preserve in this one) so for the next one, I´d like to get a glimpse of their infrastructure, ok?

• Do these Predators work for a living? Since this is a wild life game preserve, I´m figuring this is something they do in their days off, right? What the hell are they up to when they´re not hunting elite soldiers in the shape of Adrian Brody and Laurence Fishburne?

• What else do they do for fun? Do these fuckers drink? Do they go online and download Predator-porn? I´d love to see a scene with a drunken barroom brawl between two Predators, fighting over some girl or something like that.

I really hope that this one make enough money so that the producers and the studio find it worth making at least a couple of more installments because as you can see, it´s pretty obvious that there´s more stuff to be mined from this mythology.

When it comes to the acting in this one, let´s just say that if we compare this to the last installment, we´re talking Oscar material here. I mean literally, because as you might remember Adrian Brody, who I guess plays the lead, did win an Oscar for “The Pianist”. Now, he isn´t the kind of guy you expect to show up in a movie like this but after the awful disaster that was “Giallo”, I say that anything goes. The great thing about Brody in this movie is that he´s not treating it like “Ha, ha, look at me! I´m an Academy Award Winner and I´m in a Predator movie!” Instead he´s taking it pretty seriously and he´s bulked up pretty good for this part so I´d say that he´s pretty believable as the silent, tough guy-type. But still… he´s Adrian Brody so when he´s next to Danny Trejo in a scene, there´s no doubting which one of them would win if push came to shove, ok? But all around, they managed to get some pretty good actors in there. Alice Braga from “Redbelt” is there as well, so I´m not complaining.

All in all, this is an above average action movie, it´s just that I had certain expectations that it didn´t live up to. But I really hope that Rodriguez gets to produce the next one, as well. The lean-mean approach they took with this one really works, with no subplots and shit like that. I´m glad that someone learned something from the abomination that was “Alien VS. Predators: Requiem”.

Until next time: take scare!

Thomas

Who out there amongst you doesn´t enjoy a good science fiction/horror flick? Hands up. No one? That´s what I thought. Unfortunately, a movie belonging to that genre doesn´t fall into your lap too often so we´re left to scavenge the past for the few decent entries in this subgenre because it isn´t exactly brimming over with new entries. It´s not like the vampire genre these days. That´s why you have to cherish those moment when a movie shows up, that actually seems to embrace both genres, has a decent budget and a good cast. I mean, how often does that happen these days? Hell, I think I work out more often than that.

That is why when you´re about to pop a movie like “Pandorum” into your DVD player, you´re kind of nervous. I know what most of you out there are thinking: “Wasn´t that the movie that was produced by Paul W.S. Anderson?” and yes, it is. That alone is enough to make most people run away from it in fear but let´s not forget that Anderson wrote and directed the space-horror classic “Event Horizon” and I dare you to find a movie that makes better use of the concept “haunted house in outer space”. “Event Horizon” is a severely underrated film and the trailer I saw for “Pandorum” a couple of months back made me very curious.

The movie starts out with two astronauts who awaken in a hypersleep chamber aboard a seemingly abandoned spacecraft. It´s pitch black, they are disoriented, and the only sound is a low rumble and creak from the belly of the ship. They can’t remember anything: Who are they? What is their mission? With Lt. Payton (Dennis Quaid) staying behind to guide him via radio transmitter, Cpl. Bower (Ben Foster) ventures deep into the ship and begins to uncover a terrifying reality. Slowly the spacecraft’s secrets are revealed…

Now, that´s a great set up for a horror movie in space, right? And at first the mood of the film is both tense and exciting. The scene where Foster wakes up from his hypersleep is pretty realistic, at least I would imagine so since I haven´t had that much firsthand experience from sleeping in a hyper kind of way. I mean, I have found myself in some pretty deep sleeps over the years, especially after I´ve done some drinking and it´s no picnic waking up from those but in my expert opinion I think that has more to do with the drinking than the sleeping. But anyway, it really comes across that this hypersleep-business isn´t a very pleasant experience.

The set up is pretty cool, as well: the two crew members can´t remember who or what they are because of them being in hypersleep for so long. This means that the audience is left there right alongside them, without a clue of what´s going on. Now, since both you and me have probably seen a hell of a lot more sci-fi-horror movies than these two guys, it doesn´t take long for us to figure out what the hell it is that´s going on but for a pretty good amount of the film, they actually manage to string us along and keep the audience in the dark. And when I say that they keep us in the dark, I mean that literally!

You see, this whole business with the darkness is a matter all of its own. I can understand that director Christian Alvart wants to create a certain kind of mood and it is pretty obvious that the guy´s inspiration is the first “Alien” movie and all that, but really… it´s too fucking dark! Hell, most of the time you can´t even see what´s going on. You´re not supposed to have to wear one of those night vision goggles just to keep up with what´s happening on the goddamn screen, are you? At first you kinda buy into it but after about 45 minutes of just flashlights, it gets pretty tiresome. Remember “The X-Files” and how when Mulder and Scully entered a crime scene, all they had were their two flashlights that lit up the place? Hell, it´s like watching two hours of those scenes.

“Pandorum” also takes a cue from Neil Marshall´s “The Descent” in that it does place its leads in a fair number of pretty uncomfortable scenes and the ones where Ben Foster are forced to crawl through tight ventilation shafts and whatever the hell it is, are pretty claustrophobic.

I wanna say that I really liked “Pandorum” and that I recommend it but to be honest, I´m not sure exactly how much I liked it. This movie might just be a case of me being so starved for something, anything at all, to come along in this genre that I´m not sure if I liked the movie for that reason alone. You almost feel a debt of gratitude towards Alvart and Anderson for making this movie and because not that many sci-fi-horror movies are being made these days, you´re willing to accept the fact that it may not actually be that good.

But I´m gonna take the high road here and say that I did like it. I do think that they could´ve been a bit more generous with their editing tools because it does drag on a bit every now and then, and say what you will about “Event Horizon” but at least it wasn´t boring, right?

By the way, since Dennis Quaid is in it, let´s discuss him for a while. I´m pretty fascinated with that guy´s career lately. I´ve always been a fan of his but I´m pretty surprised at the fact that the guy seems to be starring in genre movies exclusively now. That´s a pretty weird turn for his career to take, I think. In the last couple of years the guy has been in “Horsemen” (serial killer), “Legion” (angels running amuck on earth) and “G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra” (toy soldiers blowing shit up). It´s not like I´m complaining, I like the guy and I´d rather see him in action or horror movies than in weepy dramas but I think it´s surprising, considering the fact that during the 90´s we didn´t see him in hardly any genre movies. However, that “Legion” movie was inexcusable. Let´s not force anyone to sit through a pile of dredge like that ever again, ok? You need to get your priorities straight there, Dennis…

But back to “Pandorum”. Despite the fact that you can´t hardly see what the hell is going on in the long corridors of the ship for most of the time, I have to say that director Alvart does a pretty good job of raising the tension along with Foster moving deeper and deeper into the heart of the ship. I also like how they add the threat of mental illness into the mix. We don´t know who is showing signs of Pandorum, which is kinda like a jacked up version of cabin fever, and if there´s something that every movie that´s set in deep space needs, it´s the lurking threat of dementia. So basically, these guys know their genre and they use the conventions to maximize the tension and I think that it works.

Now, since we´re gonna round up this rambling here, there are one last thing that I have to discuss, but if you haven´t seen the damn thing here´s a SPOILER!!!-alert for you. I don´t think that it´ll come as a big surprise for you that the ship is haunted by monsters and we all love that, right? However, what I didn´t expect was that those fuckers from “Ghosts of Mars” and the crawling creeps from “The Descent” parts I & II apparently have gotten together on their spare time and managed to spawn the bastards we see in this one. Every good horror movie that´s gonna feature some sort of a monster or mutant needs a good one and I´m afraid I was a little disappointed in this one. It was just too similar to ones we´ve already seen.

But on the other hand, I did get to see a brand new science fiction-horror flick, so what the hell am I complaining about? Sometimes, that´s all you can ask from life.

Until next time: take scare!

Thomas

Here´s another movie that I´m late as hell with but do you know why that is? It´s because I am somewhat of a rebel and tend to do things when I feel like it, no matter what everyone else says! Either that or it could be the fact that I´m just a lazy son of a bitch. To be honest, I don´t know why it took me until now to check this one out. When I first heard that it was McG that was gonna be directing this one, I (like most of the internet community) was pretty worried. But (unlike most of said internet community) I didn´t spend all my waking hours to whine about it. But I actually was kinda worried. Although I can appreciate the “Charlie´s Angels” movies as much as the next guy, I wasn´t particularly eager to see McG bring that kind of aesthetic to the “Terminator”-franchise. But then again, I wasn´t that eager to see anyone else beside James Cameron direct a “Terminator” movie but then they got that Jonathan Mostow guy to do the third one and I really enjoyed that one, so you never know, right? That´s why I was trying to keep an open mind about this one.

But then something weird happened with this movie: everyone seemed to suddenly have decided that they weren´t gonna like this movie at all, before it was even released! Do you remember this? Do you remember how shocked everyone was when that recording of Christian Bale throwing a tantrum leaked onto the information superhighway? “Who does the guy thinks he is” and “What the hell does he have up his ass” and whatever the hell everyone was saying and then suddenly, everyone had always hated Christian Bale even though no one really said that when they were creaming their pants during “The Dark Knight”.

But anyway, without a doubt this movie got a bad rep because of that whole recording being leaked. I think that maybe it was because of this that it took me so long to finally get around and actually watch the damn thing. I was afraid that I wasn´t going to be able to concentrate on the film and just sit there and as soon as Bale showed up, I was gonna go “I wonder if this is the scene where he lost his marbles? Or maybe it´s this one? Or this one?”

Well, I finally felt that I had matured enough as a human being to overcome this obstacle in the way of me enjoying this fourth installment in the “Terminator” saga. Which begs the question, did I enjoy it? Well, kind of. It´s definitely not a failure on any level but it´s definitely the least entertaining “Terminator” movie yet. I´m not counting that “Sarah Connor Chronicles” TV-series because I couldn´t muster up the energy to watch that one.

Somehow this one doesn´t quite feel as a “Terminator” movie, really. And I guess it isn´t because the big man himself, Anhuldt, isn´t in it. But besides that, one of the reasons why this one doesn´t feel like a “Terminator” movie is because this is the first one in the series that takes place exclusively in the future world that we´ve only gotten glimpses of in the previous films. And what is so weird is that ever since we first saw that goddamn robot foot stomp down on that skull back in the early 90´s, I´ve been going on and on about how frickin´ cool it would be to see an entire movie set in this world and now that it´s here, I´m sitting here and complaining about it! What the hell is wrong with me?

I think that this is what´s going on here: “Terminator: Salvation” suffers from a clear case of the “Alien 3”-syndrome. Now, you should know that “Alien 3” is my favorite in that series. What I mean with “Terminator: Salvation” suffering from this is that this is a movie that is so clearly different from the previous installments and maybe I just wasn´t ready for that. God knows I wasn´t with “Alien 3” but since then it has grown on me and now it´s my favorite one. Maybe this one will too, in the years to come but I have a hard time seeing myself preferring this one over part I and II, to be honest.

But I guess that I have to admire McG for having the guts to make this movie as bleak as he did. One thing I didn´t like was when it for a brief scene turned into “Transformers” with a giant Terminator robot chasing Christian Bale & Co. I was really worried there for a minute or two but fortunately McG managed to keep his inner demons at Bay (Get that one? “Transformers” and Bay as in Michael Bay? Christ, I´m good) and keep the movie from turning into one long never ending scene of a million zillion cuts and things exploding, which to be honest, this could´ve easily been. This is why this is one of those weird movies where I don´t feel as much disappointment for it not being great as I feel appreciation for the director not fucking it up royally. At least we´ll always have that, huh?

But I welcome this development in McG´s style. The fact that he actually lets his action sequences play out without cutting them to shreds shows some hope for the future. No matter how entertaining I find “Charlie´s Angels: Full Throttle”, I don´t think that my psyche could take another movie done in that fashion.

The sad thing is that there´s a gnawing feeling throughout the film that somewhere inside, there actually is a great film just waiting to come bursting out, kinda like the alien did from that dog´s stomach in “Alien 3”. But unfortunately, it´s hankered down by a subplot that is mostly uninteresting and a couple of acting performances that isn´t particularly good, to be honest.

I mean, this Sam Worthington guy? Between this and “Avatar” he hasn´t exactly convinced me that he deserves to be Hollywood´s new go-to-guy for the lead in every huge action movie being made, like the case clearly is at the moment. And the subplot I mentioned that didn´t exactly float my boat is the one involving Worthington´s character Marcus Wright and Moon Bloodgood´s character Blair Williams. That one could´ve easily been excised from the film and I think it would´ve made it much better. But then on the other hand we wouldn´t have had the opportunity to watch the credits where a name like “Moon Bloodgood” actually appears! This has got to be the greatest name for any actress in the history of movies. Jesus Christ! Why isn´t there a crime fighting comic book hero named this? Get this girl her own comic book now, Hollywood!

But anyway, I guess you´ve all already seen this one but if you haven´t, it´s definitely worth two hours of your time, despite all its flaws. And like I said: I have the strange sensation that this one will grow on me.

Until next time: take scare!

Thomas

A couple of weeks back I decided to re-visit Richard Kelly´s “Southland Tales”. Now, some of you might call that foolish, some of you might say that I´m pushing my luck and some of you might even call me brave for sitting through that movie voluntarily again. But some of us have to do these things, even if it costs me my mental health in the process. You see, someone has to try to make some sense of this movie and I decided that enough time had passed now and I had matured enough as a human being. I was once again ready to take the plunge.

I´m guessing that I wasn´t the only one who really looked forward to this movie back when it was announced that it was being made? Richard Kelly´s “Donnie Darko” had sneaked into the cult movie pantheon out of nowhere and since that movie appeared without too much hype and proved to be a frickin´ masterpiece, the expectations on “Southland Tales” were raised to inconceivable levels. Then Kelly showed the movie in Cannes and he was booed off the stage and chased through the village with French villagers carrying burning croissants and demanding his head on a stick, the movie was re-edited and about a year or so later it was unleashed upon an unsuspecting human world.

I was baffled. But I have to admit that I liked the movie. It may be a sprawling mix of an infinite number of genres and most of the time you have no idea what the hell is going on onscreen but it sure as hell isn´t boring. This is one of those kinds of movies that you wonder how the hell Richard Kelly ever get made. That alone is an achievement worth mentioning. You see, we´re talking about a movie that tries to be a science fiction drama, a black comedy, a political thriller as well as a romantic social satire. Hell, it even has a musical number in it!

In order to try to get the most out of my second sitting with “Southland Tales”, I decided to maximize my effort and watch it the way Kelly intended, which means that I read the five part comic book miniseries that was published before the movie was released. This tells the story of The Rock´s character Boxer Santoro and how he was found out in the desert, mostly. Now, if anyone out there thinks about doing the same thing I can now report that the comic book does very little to add to your enjoyment or understanding the wonderful disaster that is “Southland Tales”.

The weird thing is that what happens in the comic book is later related in Justin Timberlake´s voice over narration. As an example, this is how it works: Timberlake´s character Pilot Abilene tells us that Santoro was found out in the desert a couple of days ago and it´s these events that we are supposed to learn of in the comic book. However, the comic book shows us how he is found but you´re none the wiser about what the hell he was doing out there in the first place. So, you might say that the comic book does over the course of 200 pages what Timberlake does in one line of expository narration. So, I can´t really say that it enhanced my appreciation of “Southland Tales”.

Now, if you are about to embark the endeavor to watch this movie, I think you´ll get the most of it if you just sit back and marvel at the sheer weirdness of it. I´m not even gonna try to explain the story but let´s just say that its plot concerns alternative fuel sources, existentialism, drugs, ocean tides, high technology pornography and rifts in time and space. You get the idea, right?

Imagine a plot that complex populated by what has to be the weirdest ensemble cast in the history of movies: Seann William Scott plays a pair of twins, The Rock plays Boxer Santoro, Sarah Michelle Gellar is a porn star and Justin Timberlake is the scarred soldier who watches everyone and narrates. They´re the main players, ok?

Then we have the supporting actors and it sure as hell doesn´t get any less weird there: Mandy Moore as a Senator´s daughter, John Larroquette is in there as a lobbyist, Miranda Richardson as the Senator´s wife, Wallace Shawn as the mad genius behind the alternative fuel source, Zelda Rubinstein as… well, a midget obviously, Bai Ling does her usual schtick as a weirdly, provocatively dressed sex pot, Kevin Smith plays an old legless guy and Christophe Lambert is an arms dealer. “Wow, that´s one weird cast” you say but it doesn´t stop there! You see, Kelly also decided to give a large portion of the roles to former Saturday Night Live actors so as an added bonus we get Amy Poehler as free-wheelin´ poet, Norah Dunn, Jan Hooks, Cheri Oteri as a militant feminist and Jon Lovitz as a psychotic cop with a blonde haircut. If I remember correctly we also get to see Janeane Garofalo in an extremely brief cameo.

I´m usually a big fan of comedic actors in dramatic roles because in most cases, they´re pretty good actors. Think about Bill Murray in “Lost in Translation”, for example. However, when Kelly litters his entire movie with them this way, it just adds to the surrealism of the film. It´s like you´re watching some strange alternative universe where comedians try to be “serious”.

It´s hard to explain exactly how weird and strange this film is! I can´t quite put it into words. I mean, when you´re watching a movie where in the other scene The Scorpion King and Stifler from “American Pie” discusses bowel movements and in the next one Justin Timberlake muses on the sins of mankind and reads from The Bible, you know that this is something out of the ordinary.

I have no idea what Kelly tries to say with this movie, other than to show the world that he has a huge Philip K. Dick-obsession but I still like it! And like I said, I think it´s because I can´t for the life of me imagine how the fucker got this thing off the ground! It´s a goddamn miracle that not one single producer or executive ever pulled the emergency brakes and asked “Hey, Richard… I´ve been watching the dailies and I saw the ones you shot last week, you know the ones with Amy Poehler on the toilet, talking about the bible and how about animals have the free will to take a shit… I watched that one and also that musical number where Justin Timberlake lip synchs Killers´ song and I think that maybe we should stop filming for a while so that you can figure out exactly what this movie is about…”

The fact that this movie exists is something that we should applaud! No matter what you think about it, it is truly one of a kind. I´d imagine that if you were the kind of guy or girl who likes drop a tab of LSD every now and then, this movie would probably wreak havoc on your brain.

You´re probably not gonna like it but I still think you should check this one out.

Until next time: take scare!

Thomas

Some movies just seem so much better on paper, don´t they? “Hey, what if we were to make a scary alien abduction movie, based on real events, using real life recordings of the victims recollections during hypnosis, and then we hire Milla Jovovich to play the lead and almost forgotten character actor Will Patton to play the sheriff who investigates the whole thing?” Who wouldn´t wanna watch that? I love alien abduction movies but unfortunately there arent´that many good ones floating around out there. I´ve sang my praises for “Fire in the Sky” on this site before (here) and for my money, it´s still the best movie in this genre. It managed to keep things interesting and the viewer emotionally invested in its character, while being scary as hell. Not an easy thing to do. Just ask Olatunde Osunsanmi, the writer and director of “The Fourth Kind”.

Here´s what the damn thing is about: Dr. Abigail Tyler (Jovovich) a psychologist in Nome, Alaska, is still traumatized by her husband’s violent, mysterious death. She has vowed to continue the psychological study that he had begun, which employs hypnosis to help patients remember traumatic events they’ve blocked out.

After her patients all recount the same terrifying scenario, Abby finds herself the latest target of her patients’ persecutors: aliens. Her colleagues (Elias Koteasand Hakeem Kae-Kazim) try to believe and help her, which is more than can be said for the unsympathetic local authorities (led by Will Patton). Abby will have to contact the aliens herself if she’s to save herself and her child.

Now, if that doesn´t sound like a cool set up for movie with great potential to be scary, I don’t know what is. I really wanted to like this one. It had all the ingredients to be fantastic. But unfortunately, it´s about as successful as a virgin trying to pick up chicks at an abortion clinic. And it didn´t take me long to start worrying. You see, the movie opens with a message where Milla Jovovich introduces herself as “Milla Jovovich, the actor who will portray Abigail Tyler” and she warns us of extremely disturbing scenes, with real footage and everything.

You see, the minute Jovovich steps out onto the screen and introduce her as herself, the illusion is broken. I couldn´t get past that initial message. How the hell are we supposed to buy her as this psychologist when we about five minutes later gets to see the real Abigail, filmed in a therapy session. I gotta admit that this footage is pretty intense and after the first clip of this I thought “Hey, this might actually be pretty scary after all”.

But it isn´t due to the fact that as soon as the director cuts back to Milla as Abigail, the whole movie loses momentum. Because unfortunately, Milla isn´t up to the task the same way as the actress who portray the “real” Abigail. That´s right, I said “actress” because guess what? The “real” Abigail isn´t Abigail at all. She´s an actress apparently and as it turns out this movie has no basis in reality whatsoever. So this whole marketing campaign turned out to be fake. Kinda like “Blair Witch Project”. But I don´t mind that too much, really. However, the thing that bothers me is that the footage with the actress portraying the “real” Abigail and the other interviewees has a certain hypnotic effect to it, something that the “movie” footage is sorely lacking. I think that these actors are pretty believable, for the most part. It´s not like I have much experience of people under hypnosis, but I found them pretty captivating and that´s what matters, whether the movie is “real” or not. Apparently there is a place called Nome in Alaska and several persons have disappeared there during the past years but it turned out they weren´t abducted by aliens. Their vanishings were instead alcohol-related, apparently.

But I gotta give writer-director Osunsanmi credit for trying his best to create the illusion that this actually happened in real life. He uses a split screen for much of the movie where he shows the “real” footage on one side and the reenactments with Jovovich & co on one side. But whenever this happens, I was much more interested in the “real” characters.

Like I said, Milla isn´t quite up to the task in this one. Now, I like her as much as the next guy and the fact that she has embraced genre movies wholeheartedly is fantastic but I´m afraid she´s in over her head with this one.

My main objection with this movie is that it´s too schizophrenic for its own good (yes, schizophrenia can be a good thing in movies, rarely with people). I think that Osunsanmi should´ve gone with either one: either make a straight up movie with only Jovovich & co or just gone the whole ten yards and made a fake documentary with the other actors. As it stands now, the two things doesn´t mix too well.

You know what this reminded me of, actually? A long episode of “Unsolved Mysteries”! Do you remember that show, where Robert Stack narrated reenactments of horrible and unsolved crimes? That show was always on at around two in the morning on Saturdays when I was a kid and I used to stay awake to watch it, because every now and then it turned out to be pretty creepy and I´d be scared as hell going to bed. That show was made up of about four of five different segments consisting of interviews with the real life victims and actors portraying them. In other words, the same format as “The Fourth Kind”. And let me tell ya, there´s a big different watching a ten minute segment with Robert Stack narrating with his fantastic voice and watching an hour and a half of Milla Jovovich narrating and trembling her way through these scenes. It just doesn´t work! As much as I liked “Unsolved Mysteries”, I don´t think that I´d wanna watch one of those segments stretched out to an hour and a half, no matter how scary it might be. Call me crazy but that´s how I feel.

And even though Milla Jovovich´s performance leaves a lot to be desired, it´s good to see Will Patton back on the screen again, even though it´s a fairly standard portrayal of your average small town psychotic sheriff. I don´t know about you but if I lived in Nome, I wouldn´t worry too much about the aliens. I´d worry about the freaking cops who seem to behave like they´re on methamphetamine or something. My favorite scene in the entire film is when Will Patton goes all bug eyed and is within an inch of beating Abigail. Why does he do it, why would he want to assault a widowed mother of two children in this way, you ask? Because she claims to have been abducted by aliens, that´s why! Take in mind that this happens despite the fact that the sheriff´s own deputy have witnessed some strange sky phenomenon. Gotta love his hands-on approach, at least… I wonder how they solve murders in this fucking town?

Until next time: take scare!

Thomas

Christ, this had me worried when I started watching and I realized that it had Bruce Willis in a really bad looking wig. And I mean really bad looking. Forget about “The Jackal” or “Bandits”, forget about “Perfect Stranger” because what we have here is the mother of all bad Bruce-wigs. Fortunately it turns out that this is just Bruce´s surrogate, it´s not his real hair. Thank god for that! You see, in the future, humans live in isolation and only interact through robotic bodies that serve as surrogates. These surrogates all look young, perfect with no wrinkles and shit like that. If you remember how Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen looked at the beginning of “X-Men 3”, when they were airbrushed to look like their young selves, you´re pretty close. Anyway, several humans are murdered when their surrogates are destroyed so Bruce Willis has to investigate these crimes via his own surrogate. After a near fatal encounter, Bruce’s surrogate is destroyed and forces him to bring his human form out of isolation and venture out into the real world to kick some ass, Bruce Willis-style.

By the way, don´t you love that Bruce Willis has become the kind of actor that you don´t even bother learning his character´s name when you talk about his movies? You don´t go “… and then Malcolm Crowe realizes that he´s dead!” whenever you talk to someone about “The Sixth Sense”, do you? Of course you don´t! You go “… and then Bruce Willis realizes that he´s dead!”, right? Kinda like Clint Eastwood. Who the hell cares what his character´s name is? I love the fact that Bruce Willis has become that much of an icon. He´s not quite Clint yet, but he´s working on it. Who would´ve figured that when you stayed up late, just to catch “Moonlighting” on TV back in the day?

Anyway, let´s get down to the essentials: when the real Bruce Willis steps out into the future world, he looks like the Bruce Willis we all know and love: resolute and bald! So that´s all good. What´s not so good is, unfortunately, the rest of this movie. Like so many action movies I´ve seen lately, this one too feels like a missed opportunity. I mean, you´ve got Bruce Willis in a sci-fi-action movie and about 80 million dollars in budget and this is all you manage to come up with? If you´re gonna market a movie as an action movie starring Bruce Willis, you could at least to get some action in there. I don´t know if it ended up on the cutting room floor or what the hell happened but it sure as hell isn´t in the movie.

Maybe I was expecting too much. But the thing is that this movie was directed by Jonathan Mostow, who´s responsible for a whole slew of pretty entertaining action movies, like “Breakdown”, “U-571” and “Terminator 3” (which is pretty goddamn underrated, if you ask me). I mean, “Terminator 3” was a surprisingly good all-out-balls-to-the-wall-action-fest, so when I heard that Mostow was gonna make another sci-fi-flick, I was pretty excited. When I heard that it was gonna star Bruce Willis, I was fucking ecstatic!

But I still kind of like this movie. You see, I watched this the same day as I watched the abomination that is “Gamer” and these two films deal with the same kind motifs: corporations trying to protect their product and living your life vicariously through the internet or online-gaming or whatever the hell you wanna call it. And if you compare this movie to “Gamer”, this is “Lawrence of Fucking Arabia”, this is “The Thing”, goddamn “Repo Man”! You get the idea, right? And it does explore these issues in a somewhat interesting way (much more interesting and competently handled than in “Gamer”) and it does have something to say about today´s youth-fixated culture and isn´t that what all good sci-fi is supposed to do: hold up a mirror to today´s problems? At least it makes for a couple of pretty cool scenes when Bruce is walking around, all beat up with cuts and bruises in this world of perfectly looking surrogates. And we all know that the more cuts and bruises Bruce gets, the cooler he looks. I just wish that they would have elaborated more on this streak of social criticism. Then it could´ve been a really interesting film.

The fact that the people in this world use their surrogates because they´re ashamed of their own physical imperfections, is also an interesting idea. “Surrogates” manages to show this in a much more nuanced way than “Gamer”, which basically shows an insanely obese guy sitting in front of this TV, controlling a woman on his computer screen and stroking himself. Nice going, retards!

I´m sorry about that “retard”-remark. To call the makers of “Gamer” retards is an insult to retards all around the globe. Sorry about that, guys.

Another thing I wish is that it wasn´t rated PG13. I mean, let´s face it: who the hell wants to watch an action movie rated PG13? When are the executives gonna realize that? Come on, wasn´t “Terminator 2” rated R? The “Alien”-movies? As I seem to remember it, those movies made a buck or two and show me one guy, I mean one single guy, who will rather pay money to go to the theatre and watch an action movie starring Bruce Willis that´s rated PG13 over one that´s rated R. That´s all I´m asking here: show me one single guy and I´ll stop bitching and moaning about this. After I have him committed, of course.

However, it´s not only the action sequences that are somewhat of a missed opportunity (although there are one pretty cool scene where Bruce´s surrogate chase down a bad guy and loses an arm while doing so) but the casting of Bruce Willis is also a missed opportunity. I mean, why cast Bruce if he´s not allowed to be Bruce? I can understand that he wants to do different kinds of roles and he certainly has done that the last ten years but this is unfortunately a part that doesn´t give him much to do at all. His usual Bruce-like charm is nowhere to be found and it´s not like he´s super broody and low key, like in “The Sixth Sense” so I can´t really see why he wanted to do this one. I´m hoping that his upcoming role in Kevin Smith´s “Cop Out” takes full advantage of the magic that is the Bruce Willis persona. I mean, no one can smirk like Bruce Willis, so why not let the guy smirk his way through a movie?

It´s a shame about this movie because it feels like it has much going for it but it never comes to fruition. For instance, Bruce´s marriage and the fact that he and his wife have lost a child isn´t made especially much of. It feels like Mostow tried to make an adult science fiction thriller but then the studio decided that they wanted something lighter and oh, while you´re at it: let´s trim those action scenes as well because then we can get it in the theatre as a PG13 and everybody wants that, right? Sorry, Mostow. I haven´t given up on you, though. You managed to make a pretty good third installment in a franchise, let´s not forget about that. Doesn´t happen very often (except for “Police Academy 3: Back in training”) so that has to mean that you have some talent. You´re still on my radar for filmmakers to watch. It´s also nice of you to keep giving Jack Noseworthy roles. Haven´t seen him in a while.

Until next time: take scare!

Thomas

Ok, so now I´ve finally done it: the thing we´ve been waiting for the last twelve years! I´m not talking about finally working up the courage to finally shooting Michael Bay in the face, although I haven´t given up on that actually happening one of these days. No, I´m talking about finally watching James Cameron´s latest science-fiction-extravaganza-bonanza-three D-a-go-go-balls-to-the-wall-opus “Avatar”! It´s finally here, folks! It´s kind of hard to believe, isn´t it? This is the movie that´s supposed to revolutionize the movie making process and the way we watch movies. This is basically the movie equivalent to Jesus Christ descending upon our wretched asses to walk the earth once again, ok? We´re talking about the new movie from the director of “Titanic”, one of the most successful movies of all time, ok? Written and directed by the guy who gave us “Aliens”, one of the best sequels ever, ok? We´re talking about the guy who gave us the two first “Terminator” movies and revolutionized the way they used special effects in the process, ok? Not to mention that he directed “Piranha II: The Spawning”, ok?

So I think it´s safe to say that this movie has quite the expectations to live up to, wouldn´t you agree? Well, how about it then? Is it any good? Unfortunately, I was pretty disappointed when I walked out of the theatre only to face the bitter winter cold of Sweden in December; feverishly clutching the 3D-glasses I had been given. Don´t get me wrong, if you have the opportunity to watch this movie in 3D, you should. You absolutely should! If there´s one aspect of this movie that Cameron has succeeded with, it´s this. I´ve never seen anything quite like it before! This is not the kind of 3D that you experienced when you were a kid and you sat there with those damn paper glasses, with one red and one green eye, in front of the TV. This is the first 3D movie I´ve seen in the theatre and I´ll say it again: color me impressed, Cameron!

By the way, if you haven´t seen the movie, you should probably stop reading now because I am going to refer to some specific moments in the movie, ok?

But anyway, that just begs the question: what the hell happened with the actual movie, Cameron? What the hell were you thinking? I have made a conscious effort not to see any footage of the movie and tried to find out as little as I can about the actual plot but I think that this did me a disservice, instead. I went in there expecting a totally different kind of film. I´m not even gonna try to explain the plot of the movie this time around because every god damn one of you out there should be familiar with it, unless you´ve been locked up in a cellar in Austria or something like that for the last fifteen years.

But the first thing that disappointed me was the fact that if you´re watching a movie by the director of “Aliens” and it features a bunch of marines and even the same kind of cargo suits that Sigourney Weaver fights the Alien queen with, it kind of promises a  lot, doesn´t it? Hell, Sigourney Weaver is in this fucking movie and it´s pretty damn awesome when she wakes up from the cryo-sleep in one of the opening scenes. It brings back a lot of memories, to say the least. The thing is that in “Aliens” the marines were the good guys, they were the ones we were rooting for but I guess since Cameron made that movie, a lot has changed.

For one, Cameron has become pretty environmentally aware and let me just say that his filmmaking suffers from that. It not only suffers, it´s laying there on the floor, bleeding and crying! It´s actually kind of sad to behold. Listen, I´m all for a positive message regarding the world and nature we´re living in, ok? Don´t get me wrong, I recycle and shit like that but I do feel that when a filmmaker tries to weave that message into a movie, it suffers from that. Nobody wants to be beaten with a big stick that says “Save the environment!” over the head when you´re trying to watch a movie, do they? The only director that I know of that has managed to create a great genre movie that actually has something to say about the way we treat the environment, without overstating it, is Larry Fessenden and “The Last Winter”.

Cameron should take a cue from him.

What makes me so sad is that it feels like this movie is made by a guy who´s pilfering his past and trying to wrap it all up in some kind of new age-smelling, environmentalist message: we´ve got the marines from “Aliens” and this whole Pandora world is filled with a lot of jellyfish-like creatures that looks like they´re straight from Cameron´s “Ghosts of the abyss” documentary. Hell, Giovanni Ribisi actually plays Paul Reiser from “Aliens”, which I found to be kind of weird. Why not get Paul Reiser if you´re gonna use the exact same character?

I should point out that the nature of Pandora looks pretty spectacular. In that sense, this is a groundbreaking film. Not so much story- or acting-wise, unfortunately.

One of the reasons that this movie fails is because of these Na´vi creatures. All through the movie (and we´re talking two hours and forty fucking minutes here), I was unable to relate to them or identify with them. They look pretty awful. Not quite Jar Jar Binks-awful, but almost and that´s saying a lot. I was reminded of that awful “Final Fantasy”-movie. I can´t believe that they still haven´t solved the biggest problem with CGI-animated characters yet: the eyes! They still look like they´re completely lifeless and how the hell are you gonna relate to a character like that?

It is pretty obvious that this movie is made by a filmmaker who is in love with this world and it is incredibly detailed, no doubt about that. As a matter of fact, it´s too detailed! The movie takes too long to get going. It has a fantastic opening when we´re thrust into this world of year 2154 and within a couple of moments, Cameron has painted an entire existence in front of our eyes but then it starts dragging. I felt that we don´t have to see every goddamn insect or flower on this planet but then again, I didn´t spend the last twelve years designing this fucking thing. I spent my last twelve years drinking, mainly, so I guess that Cameron´s got me beat there.

But you know what, I´m gonna come clean here: I actually enjoyed “Titanic”! It´s true. I didn´t cry at the end but I thought that it was a fairly touching and tender love story and I was surprised by that. I didn´t know that Cameron had it in him, but with that one he did, obviously. He tries to achieve the same thing in this one but let me just say that it´s pretty embarrassing here. There´s a scene where two of these blue Na´vi fuckers actually makes love to each other and that´s when I pretty much gave up on the movie. I had to bite my tongue to keep myself from laughing out loud.

Another thing that left me feeling robbed of a fantastic movie experience is the thing I´ve mentioned earlier: that the marines are the bad guys here! That means that the members of the audience are never allowed to feel genuinely excited when they bring out their heavy artillery and big guns and bombs and whatever the hell it is they got. Because when they do, you´re supposed to feel sad for these Na´vi creatures (whom you cannot identify with anyway because they are a bunch of lifeless, cold looking bunch of fuckers), who are forced to fight these assholes with bows and arrows. That doesn´t exactly gets a rise out of you, does it? It´s not like in “Aliens” when they start testing out those giant machine guns and you wanna jump and scream with joy. That´s the kind of movie I was expecting from Cameron. Instead I got some weird hybrid between “An Inconvenient Truth” and Smurfs acting out the story of “Dancing With Wolves”. Even though Cameron has dabbled with this kind of heavy handed message before in “The Abyss”, I felt that he handled it much better there.

Christ, this is kinda heartbreaking. I mean, I really wanted to like this movie. I love James Cameron´s movies but there´s no way I can justify this movie´s flaws enough to fool myself into liking it. It´s way too “New Age”-y for me. Hell, the music nearly killed me! Every time Cameron wants to signal that an emotional scene is coming up, he lays the Enya-like, indigenous sounding score on pretty god damn thick. Bring me the head of James Horner, people!

However, one thing I really did like about the movie was Stephen Lang´s bad ass, creepy Colonel Quaritch. It´s good to see him back on the screen. I would´ve loved to see more scenes between him and Sigourney Weaver. I don´t know if there´s something wrong with me but I was actually rooting for the guy. Don´t ask me to analyze that one. And why the hell didn´t you throw Michael Biehn in there somewhere, Cameron?

So what should´ve been James Cameron´s Christmas gift to the movie audiences across the world turned out to be a pretty hollow package. It´s a cruel and harsh world out there, kids, and don´t you forget it!

This will be my final post before Christmas and I hope you have a great time! Talk to ya soon and until next time: take scare!

Thomas

A week or so back, the fantastic sci-fi-horror-flick “Hardware” was finally released on DVD in an edition worthy of its name. And wouldn´t you know it? A year or so back I wrote a pretty darn fantastic review of it, so it´s time for some recycling now. We´ve gotta think about nature, right? That´s why I give you my take on this awesome film and don´t worry, I´ve updated it. This was the way I intended to write it the first time around so one might say that this is “Hardware – The review (Writer´s Cut)” so pour yourself a glass and lean back. Here we go:

You have to admit that living in the future seems to suck, doesn´t it? Just think about it: have you ever seen a sci-fi movie where they depicted the future in a way that you thought “Christ, wouldn´t it be awesome to live there”? I´m sure that there have been many movies but I can´t think of any right now. Except for that crappy “The Island”-movie by Michael Bay. I don’t know about you but Scarlett Johansson in a tight, white dress is something that I could learn to live with in the future. But if you think about the sci-fi classics of recent years, their take on the future kinda suck: “Children of Men”, “Starship Troopers”, “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace” (just kidding!)… And Richard Stanley´s “Hardware” is no exception. I can´t even begin to describe how much it would suck to live in the city where this one takes place. It´s an absolute mess! It´s the standard deal for these kinda movies: there seems to have been some kind of nuclear war or something so the decaying city is surrounded by a wasteland where only the hardest badasses , like Moe (played by Dylan McDermott), dare to venture.

In the first scene Moe is hanging out at a weird-looking pawn shop, run by a freaky-looking dwarf (yes, it´s THAT kinda movie). While Moe´s making small talk there, a “Nomad” wanders in (surprisingly enough, played by near recluse Carl McCoy, singer in Goth rockers Fields of the Nephilim). He sells Moe the remains of a warrior robot called MARK 13. Moe buys it for his girlfriend Jill (Stacy Travis, who is one of the few women in sci-fi history who I actually believe could kick Linda Hamilton´s ass), who´s into making strange metal sculptures. He brings it home to her, she´s ecstatic, which is a good thing for us cause that means we get a dirty looking sex scene in the shower. But then the infamous shit starts to hit that old fan…

Whenever you buy a used warrior robot for your girlfriend you can bet your ass that it´s gonna start re-assembling itself when you´re not there to protect her, right? I hate it when that happens. Actually, I wouldn´t know. I once briefly dated an art-chick and while I tried very hard to get her a killer robot, I couldn´t find any. Maybe that was why it didn´t work out. But maybe it was for the greater good cause then she would´ve been forced to get out her old chainsaw and go Leatherface on the poor old robot´s ass… That can´t be good for any relationship.

“Hardware” was written and directed by Richard Stanley. It was his debut film and that´s pretty impressive, by any standards. He wasn´t that old either. About 25, I think, and that´s a hell of a lot more than I had accomplished when I was 25. I´m pretty embarrassed now. Although the film is pretty dated in some places, I still think that it holds up. Stanley really manages to create a believable “Mad Max”-type kind of world on the low budget he had to play with. However, there is one thing that bothers me. He decided to shoot the whole thing through a red-looking filter and this is the main objection I have when watching the film today. I remember thinking that it looked awesome when I saw it the first time but this effect was used to death during the 90´s. It´s kind of like the filters they use on those damn “CSI”-shows. You know, in the “New York”-one everything has a blue-tinted feel and the one that´s set in Miami has the same color as David Caruso´s hair. “Hardware” kind of looks like that and that can get to be quite a burden for the eye. Other than that, it´s top notch! The future in “Hardware” is dirty, clothes and vehicles are worn-out and everything feels used and lived in. Not like the god damn CGI-movies they make nowadays.

Oh wait, there is one more thing that kind of sucks and that´s the soundtrack. It´s pretty dated, too. There´s this weird song that keeps playing throughout the film, where everything they seem to be singing is “This is what you want, this is what you get”. I have no idea what that´s supposed to mean! Did she WANT to get locked in an apartment and chased by a bloodthirsty, horny robot, so that´s why she got it? It has to have some significance cause it´s not that great of a song for Stanley to include it otherwise. I´m sure it means something but hey, I´m no Dr. Phil!

As you can see, the future of “Hardware” is a pretty grim and depressing place. The film is bookended by a radio DJ, Angry Bob (voiced by a rabid Iggy Pop), who spews doomsday-propaganda and let me tell you: I´d hate to wake up to that in the morning. Not a good start to the day. Not only that, just to illustrate exactly how grim and hard the future is, there´s a scene where Moe and his friend Shades grab a water-taxi, driven by none other than Lemmy! They don´t call him Lemmy or anything like that (he´s credited as Taxi Driver) but during the ride he says “Check this out” and plays a tape with Motörhead´s “Killed By Death”. Now, it comes as no shock to me that Lemmy would survive a third world war. I can picture it: after the dust settles and the cockroaches come crawling out, it wouldn´t be long before Lemmy and Keith Richards would be right there beside them, snorting whisky and shooting cocaine. I mean, they´ll never die! If they´ve survived this far, nothing will kill ´em! So Lemmy managed to survive the blast wave but not even a bona fide rock´n´roll legend like him is able to make a living on his music in this cruel future world? He has to drive a cab, for chrissakes! That´s just wrong! I mean what´s next: Glenn Danzig driving a fucking bus? It´s every man for himself in the future, kids. Remember that!

Also, there´s this whole part with Jill´s extraordinarily creepy neighbor who has drilled small peepholes through the bathroom wall, Norman Bates-style, so he can watch her shower and stuff like that. He´s played by the late, great William Hootkins, who some of you might recognize from the original “Star Wars” as Pilot Red Six at the end when the Death Star goes to smithereens. He gets to say some pretty obscene lines but I´ll let you see that for yourself. If I´d write them here, I´d probably get flagged by some government official.

So like I mentioned, finally this movie is available on Region 1 DVD and it´s a pretty fantastic edition. It´s Severin Films who´s done the world a great cultural favor by releasing this. It´s a double disc and contains a shitload of extras, like Richard Stanley´s short films and a near hour long making of that´s pretty fascinating. Stanley is always a great subject for interviews: candid, eloquent, intelligent and fascinating. The guy´s a class act and it´s great to hear him talk about the making of this movie! Unfortunately, this making of doesn´t touch upon the rift that occurred between Stanley and Dylan McDermott, which I would´ve loved to hear his take on. But we do get to hear (and see!) Stacy Travis talk about the making of it and she still looks great! I remember seeing this movie when I was about 12 or 13 and I was absolutely mesmerized by her and the deep red color of her hair. Maybe that´s why I´ve always had a weakness for women with chainsaws ever since, hmmm… But it´s a shame that this girl didn´t get bigger roles after this one! I´ve seen her in a couple of TV shows every now and then and she had a pretty big part in “Ghost World” but she deserves better. Oh well, Stacy… at least we´ll always have Paris, huh?

The best part of the Bonus Material on this DVD has to be when Lemmy shows up, filmed in a bar, wearing a German Nazi Officer´s hat explaining how he got offered the part and how “... this geezer came up in a bar and offered me money to show up…” There is only one Lemmy, folks!

One of the great tragedies of our time is not the Vietnam War or even the Second World War, as some of you might think, but the fact that Stanley never got to film his sequel. I´ve actually read the script, it´s available online (that´s how big of a nerd I am!) and it would´ve been absolutely frickin´ awesome to see it on the screen. It´s a pretty crazy script and Stanley´s talked about it in interviews and how he envisions it as an apocalyptic sci-fi western influenced by Sergio Leone´s “Dollar”-trilogy. If that doesn´t get your pulse racing, you my friend, is one cold and cruel individual. Once again I find myself wishing that I was a drug kingpin, just so that I could bankroll Stanley´s film. This man has a unique vision of the world and anyone who´s seen “Dust Devil” can testify to the fact that he´s able to pull off the scope of a Leone-film. Just check out the opening scenes where Robert John Burke´s hitchhiker invokes the spirit of Clint Eastwood´s Man With No Name. He talks about it briefly in a featurette on the DVD and it´s just as heartbreaking every time to hear him enthusiastically describe different scenes from it. To think that we will never get have the privilege to see this on the screen makes me cry a bit every time…

That´s it, fiends! I´m washed out. See ya and until then: take scare!

Thomas

Whenever you´re about to sit down and watch a movie that you haven´t seen in years, which you liked very much when you were a kid, there´s always a very palpable sense of dread: what if it doesn´t hold up? What if the effects really suck? You know how it is. Many are the times when I´ve sat through movies that I remember liking only to find that they were actually kind of crappy. There´s another dilemma to this experience: sometimes you find yourself liking the movie based purely on nostalgic reasons. These were the huge existential questions I was battling with when I sat down to watch Fred Dekker´s “Night of the Creeps” for the first time in about fifteen years. Would it hold up or would I purely enjoy it because I did so as a kid, kinda like those Terence Hill and Bud Spencer movies I´ve been re-watching recently? It became painfully obvious that those movies weren´t particularly good, to put it mildly.

Well people, I am pleased to report that “Night of the Creeps” still holds up! Sure, it is pretty dated when it comes to the music, clothes and shit like that but this is a solid piece of filmmaking with a pretty great script. Exactly the kind of movie you don´t see too often nowadays.

“Night of the Creeps” opens on a spaceship located somewhere in outer space. After an “experiment” is accidentally released from the ship in a tube, it crashes on Earth where it infects a college kid in the 1950s. Flash forward to the mid 1980s, and the youth is now cryogenically frozen in a university lab for study. That is until Chris (Jason Lively, who by the way also played Chevy Chase´s son in “National Lampoon´s European Vacation”) and J.C.  (Steve Marshall) release him as part of hazing prank, and he begins infecting countless members of a small college town.

That´s the setup for ya: Classic 1950´s horror stuff that owes a lot to movies like “The Thing from another world”, Romero´s zombie movies but also to John Hughes, which is a bit more unexpected. Remember that this was made back in the 80´s when Hughes were still making movies and was one of the most successful directors around. I´m not saying that we get to see Chris and J.C. sit around an entire Saturday at detention or anything like that but Dekker actually manages to portray Chris and J.C.´s friendship as fairly realistic. They´re both “nerds”, in that way that only American kids can be in movies: Chris is a sensitive kid who´s still trying to recover from his girlfriend dumping him and J.C. is the fast-talking, witty, sarcastic kid that always seems to be around American High Schools. I know that these characters sound like a cliché but they´re actually pretty believable, as portrayed by Lively and Marshall.

In fact, there´s one scene that´s genuinely touching. It´s when J.C. gets enough of Chris´ whining and pining and he lets him have it about how he´s tired of listening to his crying all the time and how he´s his best friend and he´s always trying to make him happy. What makes this so moving is that it´s not totally unrealistic that a friend would react this way but the fact that J.C.´s on crutches due to some condition and how that will definitely be an obstacle for him when it comes to him meeting girls later in life. I think it´s pretty amazing that Dekker manages to get a scene like this into what´s basically a horror-comedy about Zombies shooting slugs out of their heads to infect people. Pretty good stuff!

But you know, a major part of the reason that this movie is so fantastic and a contributing factor to why it still holds up today is because of the actor who plays the detective who´s assigned to investigate what´s going on: the one and only, amazing, impeccable Tom Atkins! It´s a joy to watch him in this role! Hell, I´d even go so far as to say that this is his best work ever! Just to give you hint at how great this character is, he always answers his phone: “Thrill me!”

And that´s not the only great line he gets to sink his teeth into. Man, there´s so many I can´t remember them all but one of my favorites is when a sorority house is surrounded by zombies and Atkins says “I got good news and bad news, girls. The good news is your dates are here. The bad news is they’re dead”

You know, if you´re at all into a horror movies, I´m pretty certain that this is the kind of movie that you cannot dislike! It´s just too much fun! Another guy who also thought that this movie was pretty fun was James Gunn who, a couple of years back, decided to do his own homage in the form of “Slither”, which was a pretty great film, as well. Get your hands on those two and have yourself a fantastic double feature. You´ll laugh your ass off.

However, one thing that´s pretty distracting about the movie though is something I didn´t remember: almost every character is named after a horror movie director! That´s why Chris last name is Romero and J.C.´s Hooper. Tom Atkins´ police detective is called Cameron. We also get to meet a Detective Landis and a Sgt. Raimi, as well as the love interest Cynthia Cronenberg. I´m not too fond about movies that uses this gimmick. Sure, it lets you know that the filmmakers is “one of us” and a horror movie fan but it takes you out of the movie as soon as someone´s name is mentioned and you spend more time trying to guess what the next characters name will be than you do following the movie. But I´m gonna let this one slide because this is basically the only objection I have.

I know that a lot of you are huge fans of another one of Dekker´s movies, “The Monster Squad”, and sure, I like that one as well but it doesn´t hold a candle to “Night of the Creeps”. I just wish that the rest of Hollywood would watch this movie and realize that Fred Dekker is a pretty good god damn good writer-director. Let´s not keep blaming him for “RoboCop 3” any longer, ok guys? He´s been ostracized from the movie industry for over fifteen years now. I think it´s time we lift the blacklisting and get this guy another gig.

So, if you haven´t seen this one you should get your ass off the couch and order the newly released DVD as soon as possible. You´re in for a god damn treat, my friend!

Until next time: thrill me & take scare!

Thomas

For those of you out there who know me, you might be familiar with the fact that sometimes I am the type of guy who likes to live on the edge. Not always, but sometimes. Some might even say that I am a rebel. Well, at least that´s what I keep saying. That´s why I am brave enough to sit down and expose my mind and senses to the types of movies that most of you only hear about mentioned in passing in weird conversations which takes place in obscure basement locations. I do this only so that you won´t have to. I do this as a favor to you, my dear friend!

“Why?” you ask and the reason for this mental beating that I subject myself to is because every now and again you stumble upon that rare beast of a movie: a straight-to-DVD-movie that is actually worth your time! I´ll admit that it doesn´t happen very often but once in a blue moon you get lucky. Sometimes you hit the jackpot and come across a straight-to-DVD-sequel that is actually worth your precious time! I know, I know, it sounds ludicrous but it can happen, believe me. A lot of people will tell you that today´s straight-to-DVD-sequel, “S. Darko” is not one of those but don´t listen to those nay-sayers, ok? I´m here to prove them wrong and take a stand in the name of all that is good and pure and right about this world, ok? That´s just how I roll, baby.

Now, if you´re not familiar with “Donnie Darko” (the movie that this one is a sequel to), then I don´t know what to tell you. It is one of the greatest American films of the last ten years, ok? It was Richard Kelly´s debut film and I don´t know what the fucker did but he really managed to create something special by mixing a comic book-origin story with David Lynch and setting it all in an American High School during the 80´s. It really is a one of a kind movie! I should also add that I´m talking about the theatrical cut, ok? I wasn´t too thrilled about the Director´s cut, which actually managed to give too much away, but the theatrical one is still a frickin´ masterpiece.

We all know the story of what happened to Kelly after this: he wrote and directed the much berated “Southland Tales” and when it was shown in its original 8 hour cut at the Cannes Film Festival, someone decided to put a price on Kelly´s head (and it wasn´t the Grand Jury Prize, if you know what I mean).

I´ll admit that “Southland Tales” is one weird movie and I wrote about it a long time ago (here) but I still kind of liked it. Now Kelly has a new flick opening soon called “The Box”, which looks great, so I´m not ready to count him out yet. However, when it came to making a sequel to “Donnie Darko”, he passed. Now, who would the company then call upon? They would have to be forced to find someone with similar artistic integrity, someone with a similar original take upon different genres, right? That´s why the job went to Chris Fisher!

What? You haven´t heard of him? I´m not too surprised, to be honest. He´s the writer-director behind such movies as “Night Stalker”, “Rampage” and “Dirty”. If I were to tell you that this guy isn´t exactly the most well-liked guy in the bizarre world of internet geeks and fanboys, I wouldn´t be lying, ok? He´s not exactly on the same level as Uwe Boll, but he´s definitely not popular. This is kind of a shame, if you ask me. But you know me, crazy, mixed up old Thomas who´s always gotta go against the grain, right?

But you see, I actually do like his movies. Well, not the first one, “Night Stalker”. That one was too much and the editing on that one made me feel like I was having a epileptic seizure and a cardiac arrest at the same time. Even though Danny Trejo had a part in it, I just couldn´t get past the editing and that fucking death metal-soundtrack. Sorry about that, Chris, but that´s just how the cookie crumbles. However, I was one of the few living people on this planet that actually did enjoy “Rampage” and “Dirty” so I actually had a small amount of hope when I finally sat down to watch this sucker.

Now, I´m not gonna try and tell you that this movie blew my mind, ok? I´m not even gonna try to tell you that it´s particularly good but in a weird way, I did enjoy it. I´m gonna try to do my best in explaining why but don´t hold it against me if you´re left with a clueless expression, asking yourself what the hell I´m talking about, ok?

The first thing we´ve gotta get straight is the fact that we can´t compare this movie to the original “Donnie Darko”-flick, ok? Like I mentioned earlier, this is a straight-to-DVD-sequel, which means that you can only compare it to other straight-to-DVD-sequels, ok? A movie like this can´t be judged on its own merits like a regular movie. The world of straight-to-DVD-sequels is a shady one, friends. Now, if we do compare this one to other sequels, only then do I think that it holds its own. In the realm of straight-to-DVD-sequels, this is actually a pretty decent effort.

Now, some of you out there might be wondering what the hell this sequel is about. It is after all called “S. Darko: A Donnie Darko Tale” so does that mean that we get to hook up with Jake Gyllenhaal as Donnie once again? True to the format of straight-to-DVD-sequels, Gyllenhaal is nowhere to be seen.

We do however get one returning cast member from the first movie and that is Daveigh Chase, who played Donnie´s little sister, Samantha (that´s right, genius! “S” stands for Samantha). A couple of years have passed since the first one and Samantha is now 19 years old and have together with another girl, Corey (Briana Evigan), left their hometown for L.A. to start over. They find themselves stranded in a small desert town due to some car trouble. This doesn´t bother Corey so much since she starts partying pretty quickly. Good girls go to heaven and bad girls go everywhere and all that crap, right?

So far so good but it´s at this point that everything starts getting weird: a meteorite strikes a windmill, and a crazy-ass burned-out Desert Storm veteran predicts the end of the world in four days. Samantha starts hallucinating while sleepwalking, young men disappear from town, and cars come out of nowhere to cause accidents and so on. Basically, your average Norman Rockwell-small town, right?

When I first heard that they´re were gonna make a sequel centered on the character of Samantha, I was hoping that it was gonna follow her on the road as she was traveling around the states, performing with her dance ensemble Sparkle Motion from the first movie, and then she runs into Patrick Swayze´s self-help-guru/kiddie porn-character from the first movie. Maybe that weird, creepy neighbor mom could be their manager. Unfortunately, that didn´t happen. But you know, I´m not too down about that. I would´ve loved to see the Swayz-dog in there somewhere but maybe that would´ve soiled the genius of his performance in the first one.

Fortunately, the other actors in this one do a pretty good job. I´m not saying that they´re leaping off the screen but at least they´re above average for a straight-to-DVD-sequel and as long as that is the case, I can´t complain too much. But as this one has a much lower budget than the first one, we do not get the privilege of seeing Drew Barrymore or Noah Wyle as High School teachers. Instead we get Elizabeth Berkley (of “Showgirls”-fame) as a fanatic religious chick. But you know what? I never was too fond of Drew Barrymore, anyway. At least Elizabeth Berkley was in “The Real Blonde” and that movie kicks all of Barrymore´s movies asses combined, so I´m not complaining.

One thing that´s pretty weird about this movie is that John Hawkes (from “Deadwood”, “Miami Vice” and “East Bound & Down”) has a part. He plays a motel manager and I can´t for the life of me see why they hired Hawkes. The guy is a great actor and pretty well known but in this one he plays a role that is… well, meaningless! It doesn´t amount to anything and they could´ve probably saved a bunch of money by hiring someone else. I think that if you´re gonna cough up the dough to hire Hawkes, at least write him a part that makes use of the guy´s talent, ok?

I think that Fisher does a pretty good job of keeping the mood and tension going throughout the movie. He does keep it a pretty languid pace so don´t go expecting any “Crank”-style shootouts, ok? But you gotta at least admire Fisher for having the guts to keep this movie as dark and gloomy as he does. He could´ve easily gone another, more accessible route with this movie and I´m pleased that he didn´t.

Now, I´m gonna give away parts of the ending so if you haven´t seen it, turn away, ok? SPOILER!!!-warning coming your way! One of the things that Fisher fails at (besides giving John Hawkes something to do) is the fact that he doesn´t manage to tie together the thing at the end. And that kinda sucks, to be honest. But I guess that he gets away with it because let´s be honest here: we didn´t quite understand what the fuck was going on in part 1, either. But at least he sets it up for another part.

That´s where I come in, Chris Fisher! That would be a golden opportunity for you to use my idea: Samantha returns home, starts up Sparkle Motion, becomes a nationwide success, starts touring the country, all the while those CGI-worm-like things that looks like penises from “The Abyss” follows her. Unfortunately we can´t get Swayze´s character in there since he passed away recently but feel free to use my idea, Chris Fisher! You´re very welcome, thank you very much.

Until next time: take scare!

Thomas