Last Blog On The Left

Good mourning, ghouls! 

I´ll tell you one thing about the Japanese, as long as we´re on the subject… When it comes to fancy, balls-to-the-wall, all-out, limited edition DVD´s, they don´t come any better than this! We all know the unfortunate fate of Robert Rodriguez & Quentin Tarantino´s double feature “Grindhouse”. The US audience failed to show up, so over here in Europe, we got two separate films instead. I´m not complaining about that. The cuts were longer, so that´s fine. The thing is, we never got the chance to get the whole “Grindhouse”-experience, like Rodriguez & Tarantino imagined. Until now… Thank God for the wonderful country of Japan. Not only have they given us the demented genius of Takashi Miike, but now they have issued one of the most fantastic DVD-editions I´ve ever seen: “The Grindhouse Complete Box” (see the picture here to the left for a look at some of the goodies) has the double feature (that the US audience got to see on screen complete with the fake trailers, thank God!), both versions of “Planet Terror” and “Death Proof” (which means the longer versions we got to see here in Europe and on US DVD) and a bonus disc that includes, among other things a Japanese interview with Tarantino and comments from Rodriguez, Tarantino and the fake trailer directors (Rob Zombie, Edgar Wright & Eli Roth). All in all, this is spread out over 6 separate discs. And best of all, it was waiting for me in my mailbox when I got home today… Sometimes life can be pretty sweet.

Take scare, ghouls!

Good evening, kittens! 

A couple of years ago, someone in Hollywood decided that it was a great idea to do a remake of John Carpenter´s classic “The Fog”. That is one of my favorite films, so I was a little bit skeptic, to say the least. However, I decided to give it go. Let´s just say that the remake didn´t hold a candle to Carpenter´s original version, and let´s leave it at that. After watching that movie, I remember thinking to myself: “Why won´t they pump some money into an adaptation of The Mist, instead of another remake…” This was something that had been talked about for years and I had read interviews with Frank Darabont where he talked about this adaptation as his dream project. Finally, that day is here and I will be forever grateful to Frank Darabont for sticking to his guns.                                            

For those of you who have been living in a closet and doesn´t know what “The Mist” is all about, here it goes: After a violent storm attacks a town in Maine, an approaching cloud of mist appears the next morning. As the mist quickly envelops the area, a group of people get trapped in a local grocery store -among them, artist David Drayton and his five-year-old son. It soon becomes apparent that something horrific lives within the mist. Like I mentioned earlier, “The Mist” is based on a novella by Stephen King and it´s basically a monster story. Not the kind of stories that King writes nowadays, it´s more of a throwback to the golden years of creature features. This is what Darabont have focused on in his adaptation. This is a monster movie, but it´s not a funny one. This is bleak, brutal, depressing stuff. It´s hard to imagine that this was directed by the guy who gave us “The Shawshank Redemption” and “The Green Mile”. These are movies that are so sentimental and sweet that you get a toothache just by watching them. Don´t get me wrong, I like both of them but those films are mainly about hope, but “The Mist” is more about the lack of hope. And somehow, that is so much more appealing to me…This is the perfect mix of a monster movie and a “siege”-flick. While watching it, I was thinking that “This is the ultimate John Carpenter film!” Carpenter have used the device of people being under siege, trapped in a confined space before (“Assault On Precinct 13”, “Pro-Life”) and we´re all familiar with this monster movies (“The Thing”). I have just watched some of the extras on the DVD but Carpenter´s name isn´t mentioned anywhere, which surprised me. However, in the opening scene when our lead character David Drayton (portrayed by Thomas Jane) sits in his studio, a poster of “The Thing” hangs on his wall. This is obviously Darabont´s way of tipping his hat to Carpenter because his mentality permeates the whole film. The ending of “The Mist” reminded me of the ending of “The Thing”, turned up to eleven! “The Mist” has a sense of nihilism that I usually relate to Carpenter´s work and I have really been missing this in Hollywood horror lately, considering the fact that Carpenter haven´t been that productive lately. The studio where Jane´s character does his work is filled with posters by the amazing artist Drew Struzan, who has done the classic posters for “Indiana Jones”, “Star Wars” and among others, “The Thing” (and of course, the one for “The Mist” you can see pictured here above). The first time we see Drayton, he´s working on a poster featuring Roland, the gunslinger from King´s epic “The Dark Tower”-series. The sight of this amazing poster makes one yearns for an adaptation of that work.

Anyway, Darabont also handles the dynamics of the group trapped in the supermarket, very well. We have a religious extremist (Marcia Gay Harden), a sweet schoolteacher (Laurie Holden) and a store clerk (Toby Jones), to name a few. With the apocalypse knocking on their door and Harden´s character whipping up the tension with predictions of old testament-style horror, naturally the question of who is the real monster comes into question. It´s easy to fall into the trap and making these scenes really heavy-handed, but Darabont manages to walk this line pretty nicely.  He also deserves respect for not pulling any punches. Make no mistake; this is a hardcore, hard “R”-tale and it´s clear from the get-go that no character is safe from the monsters that lurks within the mist. It´s hard to believe that the guy who wrote and directed this latest film was “The Majestic”, starring Jim Carrey! I had hoped that Darabont had it in him somewhere. After all, he wrote the screenplay to “A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors” and the remake of “The Blob”. “…Elm Street 3” is the best sequel of the bunch and “The Blob” is an underrated romp, but he, as a director, had never proven his chops when it comes to “real” horror. Well, the days of quiet disbelief are over. I hope that Darabont uses his talent to create hard hitting horror from now on and leaves the saccharine-covered tales behind.

It seems that, when it comes to movie adaptations, it´s a good time being Stephen King right now. Last year we also got “1408” which was a competent adaptation. “The Mist”, however… is probably one of the best horror movies I´ll see all year.  And definitely one of the best Stephen King-adaptations I´ve EVER seen! It´s also one of the best John Carpenter-films I´ve seen in a long, long time…

Stay ghoul, stay sick & stay in touch, fiends!

Good evening!

Here´s the lay of the land: I´m a massive fan of “Donnie Darko”. When I first saw it couldn´t believe my eyes. I thought it was one of the greatest films I´d ever seen. I still love it. However, I wish that Richard Kelly hadn´t deluded my memory with the greatness of the theatrical cut by releasing his director´s cut a couple of years later. But never mind that, I remember thinking when I first saw “Donnie Darko”: “Who the hell is this Richard Kelly guy?” It was pretty clear that this guy had an amazing mind and I was already looking forward to his next film. Then along came “Domino”, which he scripted for Tony Scott. I liked that one, too. It was by no means a masterpiece and although it doesn´t stand a chance to Scott´s earlier endeavors, such as “True Romance” or “The Last Boy Scout”, it was a pretty entertaining, twisted action film. By now, I was gearing up for Kelly´s own directorial sophomore effort. This was to be called “Southland Tales” and most of us know the story of how it in its original 160-minute cut was booed when it was screened at the Cannes Film Festival. Kelly then proceeded to strip it down to the 140 minute cut that is now being released on DVD. It has been a long wait for us “Darko”-fans out there but it is finally here, and I sat down to watch it the other night. My hand was trembling as I put the DVD in my player. “What if those damn Cannes-critics are right? What if this is a massive failure?” Needless to say, I was pretty damn nervous about the outcome. A friend of mine, who´s usually pretty reliable when it comes to movies of this sort, had started to watch it a couple of days before me and he told me that he stopped after half an hour. Things were looking bleak for the lone “Donnie Darko”-fan as I pressed “enter” on my remote…

So what did I think of the film? I´m not sure yet. This was one of the most peculiar movie-experiences I´ve ever had. I had a feeling when it was over that I had only grasped a small portion of what this film was about. The plot is pretty hard to follow and there are A LOT of characters to keep track of. The main character (if there is one) is Boxer Santaros (portrayed by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson), an action star with ties to both Hollywood and right wing politics who returns to Los Angeles after waking up in the desert. He suffers from amnesia and everyone else in the movie seems keen on tracking him down. Justin Timberlake plays Pilot Abilene, a veteran from the war in Iraq, who functions as our narrator. The film opens with him telling us that this is “how the world will end. Not with a whimper, but with a bang”. That´s basically what this movie is: a 140 minute long, epic, sprawling BANG!You can´t accuse Richard Kelly of not being ambitious. This is, without a doubt, one of the most ambitious films I have ever seen. I agree with all the critics who say that he doesn´t pull it off. He don´t, but he deserves all the respect in the world for trying. I´m not exactly sure what he was striving for with this film? Kelly clearly is strongly influenced by Philip K. Dick´s writings and this becomes pretty apparent towards the third act (at one point a police officer says “Flow my tears”, if you know what I mean). The end also has echoes of “Donnie Darko” and its dabbling in time travel and I admit that I have no idea what happened at the end of “Southland Tales”. He works with a cast that, at times, can be pretty distracting. Kelly obviously has a fondness for casting comedians and there are plenty of them here: Jon Lovitz, Nora Dunn, Seann William Scott, Cheri Oteri, Amy Poehler and John Larroquette all have roles in the film. At times it feels like you´re watching a “who´s who” of “Saturday Night Live”. And much like he did in “Darko”, when he gave old 80´s-favorite Patrick Swayze a role, here he casts Christophe Lambert as an arms dealer. This doesn´t mean that these actors doesn´t pull it off. Especially Larroquette, Lovitz and Oteri are very good, but it gets a bit distracting when Eli Roth is shot dead in one scene and Janeane Garofalo is in one scene with Justin Timberlake, without speaking a single line. At times like these, it becomes obvious that Kelly were forced to make some edits in his story. I felt that the Timberlake-storyline weren´t complete. I guess that somewhere down the line, we have a triple disc-director´s cut with commentary by Kelly where he will explain everything about this film and I don´t know how to relate to this. When he did the same thing with “Darko”, I was disappointed. The mystery of the film disappeared and I´m not sure that I want that to happen to “Southland Tales”. How curious I may be, I don´t wanna ruin the film…

Kelly published three graphic novels before the release of the film. These comics were supposed to tell the story that leads up to the beginning of the film. I have not read these and I don´t know if they will help me understand the film anymore, but I ordered them today. Some might say that this is just lazy of Kelly and that if he can´t tell a narrative within the running time of one film, then he shouldn´t bother. I don´t think that Kelly published these just because he didn´t have the energy to work the stories into the film. Like I said earlier, this has to be one of the most ambitious films ever and it´s clear that Kelly pulled out all stops here. In my mind, there´s never been a completely successful collaboration between comics and movies and it must be pretty tempting for a director like Kelly, who has grown up steeped in comic book-lore, to attempt a successful marriage between these two mediums. After all, it´s obvious that Kelly knows his comics. “Donnie Darko” was, in my opinion, one of the greatest superhero origin-stories ever committed to celluloid. If these graphic novels will help me to understand the movie further remains to be seen. I guess I´ll have to wait for the director´s cut.

I mentioned earlier that I wasn´t sure what I thought about the film. Well, I can´t stop thinking about it so I guess I like it. I recommend you to see it, but don´t expect a film along the lines of “Donnie Darko”. This a completely different beast…

Stay ghoul, stay sick & stay in touch!

Hello, fiends!

Hope you survived the Easter holiday. It was a close one but I´m still here.  These last couple of days I´ve been spending a lot of time over at Joe Dante´s website “Trailers from Hell”. It´s a site where horror directors, such as Dante himself, Eli Roth (“Cabin Fever”, “Hostel”), Edgar Wright (“Shaun of the Dead”), John Landis (“An American Werewolf in London”) and Mick Garris (“The Stand”) to name a few, selects their favourite horror/grindhouse-trailers and do a running commentary for them. It´s a great site, but it´s addictive! There are 110 trailers posted now and if you enjoy listening to these directors commentaries for their own films, you have to check out his site. It´s really fun to hear John Landis, since he haven´t done a commentary for one of his own films yet as far as I´m aware.  When you listen to these commentaries it´s obvious that these directors, who have created some of the genres most well-known films of latter years, still are in love with the genre they have helped to form. I can really recommend Eli Roth´s commentary for “Three on a Meathook”. Those of you who have seen the film itself knows that it´s a pretty crappy film but the trailer has to be seen to be believed. It´s fun to hear these directors speaking as horror fans about these amazing trailers. They sure don’t make them like that anymore…You can find the site over here: http://www.trailersfromhell.com/Take scare & stay ghoul!

Good afterghoul! 

There´s not that many geniuses working in the film industry today, if you ask me… There´s David Lynch, there´s David Cronenberg. Then there´s Paul Thomas Anderson… I´ve been a fan since I first saw his debut film, “Hard Eight” aka “Sidney” (1996). After that he wrote and directed “Boogie Nights” (1997) at the age of 27. If you think about it, that´s pretty damn amazing! Imagine that he had such confidence and capability to direct that film at such a young age. I mean, I turn 29 this year and I´ve just recently managed to figure out how to put on my pants without getting trapped in a snare. Anderson´s latest film is called “There Will Be Blood” and although the title suggest a bloody horror film, it isn´t. Well, it is a horror film of sorts. The lead character (portrayed by Daniel Day Lewis) is a pretty horrific character that does some despicable things and the movie allows you delve into the darkest corners of the human psyche. It´s an amazing film and an incredible achievement. The thing is, I´ve always said that if there´s one director out there that NEEDS to direct a horror film, it is P.T. Anderson. Remember that scene in “Boogie Nights” when Mark Wahlberg´s character is so deep down in his drug abuse that he resorts to getting paid while masturbating in a stranger´s car? That is one of the most suspenseful scenes I´ve ever seen. Anderson is a master at creating suspense and mood and I think that he could create a great horror film in the style of “The Exorcist”, “Rosemary´s Baby” or “The Shining”. If you have seen “Punch Drunk Love” (2002), you know that Anderson knows how to use a film´s sound design to achieve amazing things. He does this in “There Will Be Blood”, too. Imagine, if he dedicated his talent to scare the pants off us… I even had the great pleasure of telling him this in person when he visited the Gothenburg Film Festival, but that´s another story.

Anyway, when it comes to straight up horror there is one man working today that rises above the competition and that is Rob Zombie! I think that White Zombie was a pretty crappy band. I´ve enjoyed some of Rob Zombie´s solo work since but I never gave the man much thought. I liked the fact that he got the amazing Basil Gogos to draw the cover to his solo album “Helbilly Deluxe”. It was stunning and that was pretty much what all I thought about the man. Until “House of 1000 Corpses” was released back in 2003, that is… I had pretty high expectations for that film. It was delayed because the company thought it was too gory, if you remember that whole affair. I liked the film. I thought it was a fun throwback to the gore-filled horror films of the 70´s. Zombie clearly wore his heart on his sleeve and I liked that. Sid Haig gave a great performance as Captain Spaulding and Zombie clearly had a knack for writing filthy dialogue. Then “The Devil´s Rejects” (2005) came along and I realized that maybe Rob Zombie isn´t a god, but definitely a semi-god! I think it´s one of the greatest films so far of this century. Not just in the horror genre, but greatest film period! I don´t know how many times I´ve seen it so far but it still holds up. It definitely reminds me of a gritty, down´n´dirty, 70´s exploitation film but it´s also a prime example of when a filmmaker uses today´s technology and pushes the envelope when it comes to gore.

So now you have the background. Imagine my joy when I was reading one of the latest issues of the British film magazine “Total Film”. To my great joy, there was a lengthy interview with P.T. Anderson and towards the end of the interview, here´s what he says when the reporter asks him if he´s a fan of the horror genre: “I am. To my mind, some of the more exciting things that I´ve been seeing recently are the horror films. They´re done cheaply and have one goal in mind, which is to scare the shit out of you. And they do it. They do it really well.”The reporter then follows up with asking Anderson what horror films he has enjoyed recently:

“There was a film called Hatchet that came out a couple of months ago that was really quite good. And I love Rob Zombie´s films; I think he´s a mad, perverted scientist – really great.”

Imagine that, fiends! He´s not only a genius, he also has great taste when it comes to horror films. Now he just has to make one himself. I am convinced that that would be one of the greatest films ever made… Take scare & stay ghoul!

Hello again, ghouls!

So you think that the Christmas eves you´ve been forced to spend with your families are painful? Do you think they´re rough? Sometimes you might even ask yourself if you´ll make it out of this one alive, right? Just to put it all in perspective next time you´re forced to sit around the Christmas tree and act surprised when you open your gift, you NEED to watch “Calvaire” (2004), or “The Ordeal” as it is called in the States and the UK. Because the Christmas that the lead character in this film, played by Laurent Lucas, is forced to endure makes our Christmas ordeals pale in comparison. Lucas portrays Marc Stevens, a lounge singer who travels to homes for the elderly and performs french love ballads. He is adored by his public and in the opening scene an old women asks him to grant her one wish: to have sex with her! This opening scene gives us a good idea where the rest of the film is heading. This is not an easy, enjoyable kind of film but it´s pretty damn entertaining and disturbing. Stevens leaves the old ladies and the manager of the home´s (played by the legendary Brigitte LeHaie) sexual advances behind and heads off to the next gig. Unfortunately his van breaks down in the woods and he´s forced to take up residence at a Inn in the woods. This Inn is managed by the odd Bartel (played by the hilarious Jackie Berroyer). The two strikes up a strange kind of friendship, at least that´s what Bartel thinks, while he promises to have Steven´s van fixed. Bartel has other plans for Stevens, however. I will not reveal too much of them but let´s say that Bartel becomes convinced that Stevens is Gloria, the wife who left him several years before. And let´s just say that the villagers who lives nearby aren´t that mentally stable, either.“Calvaire” is the kind of film that you can analyze until you puke University points, but it´s also the kind of film that you can just accept and go with it. It works either way. For instance, the title “Calvaire” , or Calvary is a religious term meaning a representation of the Passion of the Christ or the crucifixion. You do get to witness a sort of crucifixion towards the end, but I don´t think that you should overanalyze the religious aspects of “Calvaire”. You can do it but then you miss out on the fun of it. This is a pitch black comedy. As black as comedies get, this is blacker and I love it! Director Fabrice Du Welz paints a perverted world for the viewer. It has constant overcast, filled with run down farms and deeply, deeply disturbed individuals. It´s also obvious that Du Welz knows his horror genre. For instance, the owner of the inn is named after cult actor-director Paul Bartel who directed such classics as “Death Race 2000” (1975), “Eating Raoul” (1982) and “Private Parts” (1972). The village in “Calvaire” reminds us of that in “The Wicker Man” (1973). There´s also nods to such classics as “Don´t Look Now” (1973), “Deliverance” (1972), “Night of the living dead” (1969) and of course “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (1974). The infamous dinner scene in the latter one is recreated here.“Calvaire” manages to exist in that borderland that not many horror films dare to go: it is, at the same time, deeply disturbing and wildly humorous. You can´t help but laugh but seconds later you´re choking on your own laughter, appalled by the atrocities committed on the screen. Director Du Welz deserves a lot of credit for this. It bodes well for his future in the genre if he dares to go this far in his debut film. So, the next time grandmother asks you the same question for the fifth time on Christmas eve, it´ll be a little easier to get through the evening if you´ve seen this masterpiece. You have to see it, if not only for the already legendary dance sequence. I would love to hear what David Lynch thought about this film…Stay ghoul, stay sick & stay in touch!

Good mourning, ghouls!

I have to admit that I really liked the “Hostel“-movies. I´m not particularly fond of the genre that´s become known as “torture porn”. The reason I thought that the “Hostel”-movies DID work was partly its setting. Eli Roth let those movies take place in Eastern Europe, more specifically the Czech Republic. That, to me, is what really sells the movie. If you have ever been to that part of Europe, you know what I´m talking about. It´s still a sort of unexplored territory to most of us and it feels like anything can happen in the Czech countryside. I´m well aware of the fact that Roth clearly acknowledges the stereotypical image we have of eastern Europeans, but what fun would horror be without its fair share of stereotypes, right? It´s the same stereotype that all Americans who live in the southern states are inbred and plays the banjo, right? There´s gotta be some truth to it.

This brings me to the film that I really wanted to recommend. I´m sure that most of you have already seen both “Hostel” and “Hostel part II“. No sir-e, I´m talking about a film that most of you might have overlooked and missed and if so, that is a mistake that needs to be rectified. I´m talking about Spanish director Nacho Cerda´s feature length debut “The Abandoned” (2006). Let me be clear about this: I like a slasher film with teenagers on the run as much as the next guy, but “The Abandoned” is a refreshingly adult take on the haunted house genre. The movie revolves around Marie, a 40 year old, divorced movie producer (played Anastasia Hille). She was adopted at a young age and never knew her real parents, who were Russian. One day she receives a letter, stating that her parents have died and that she has inherited their home, in the Russian countryside. She arrives at the house, but it´s clear that everything isn´t the way it´s supposed to be. Pretty soon she, and what appears to be her long lost brother (played by Karel Roden fom “Hellboy”), is seeing ghostly apparitions of people, including themselves. Roden´s character Nicolai describes these events best in the film: “We are being haunted by ourselves”.

I have to admit that when the credits rolled I´m not entirely sure what the hell just happened. “The Abandoned” is a pretty surreal film that doesn´t offer you all the answers that a more straight-forward horror film would, but that´s what makes is so scary. This is one of those films that you´re never sure what is gonna happen and that makes you so much more uncomfortable. One of the things that makes this so unsettling, at least to me, is its Russian setting. The film is beautifully photographed but it´s pretty grim and bleak at the same time. Cerda is definitely a director with a clear vision of what he wants to put on the screen and that comes across. He treats the haunted house-genre in a realistic way, that´s been a long time since I saw in a horror film. I think that this is basically a love it or hate it-film. This is by no means a groundbreaking horror film in any way. People who dislike it will point at previous entries in the genre like “The Shining” and “Session 9” and say that this has all been done before. And I guess that it has, but Cerda has a way of knowing what we expect of this kind of film and play on those expectations and then pulling the rug out from under the audience. “The Abandoned” is basically a pretty simple ghost story with all that that entails: you got the haunted house and the creepy woods that surround it but you need to see this film not for what it shows you, but HOW it shows you it.
“The Abandoned” is a low budget film that did not get seen by enough people but it really deserves an hour and a half of your time. Cerda is a director with an unique vision and I can´t wait to see what his next film will be…
Take scare and stay ghoul!