Last Blog On The Left

Remember when you still had to actually go outside, walk down the street and then enter this weird place called a “Video Store” to get your hands on the latest releases? And how you left that place with the latest straight-to-video-releases and the highest of hopes? Hopes that too often were crushed and you were left with a feeling of emptiness, disappointment and sadness. Kinda like after sex, come to think of it. But every once in a while you came across a movie like “Retroactive” or “Mute Witness”! Movies that are so great that all those hours you spent watching “Leprechaun in his own asshole” or “Puppet Master 8” seems worthwhile.

The reason you spent all that time wading through the miles of awful straight-to-video-releases was so that you could get to these gems every once in a while, these small nuggets of gold in pool of shit. That´s part of the fun of being a genre movie-fan: discovering these small, obscure movies! The sad thing is that this phenomena doesn´t occur that often nowadays. It´s been a long time since I saw a straight-to-DVD-release that genuinely surprised and impressed me. But wouldn´t you know? The other day it happened, just when life was at its bleakest, I sat down to watch the independently produced Canadian horror flick “Pontypool” and it´s been a long time since I felt so stimulated by a horror flick.

“Pontypool” is about “Shock jock” Grant Mazzy (played by Stephen McHattie, in the role of a lifetime) who has, once again, been kicked-off the Big City airwaves and now works at the only job he could get: hosting the early morning show at CLSY Radio in Pontypool, Ontario, which broadcasts from the basement of the small town’s only church. What begins as another boring day of school bus cancellations due to yet another massive snow storm, things quickly turn deadly when reports of people having bizarre seizures, developing strange speech patterns and evoking horrendous acts of violence, start piling in.

That´s the set up and if you haven´t seen the movie yet, I recommend that you stop reading now and watch it instead because I´m gonna give away a thing or two in the paragraphs to come, ok? SPOILER!!!-ALERT! Have you turned off the computer and started downloading the movie instead? Ok, talk to you later.

Now that we´ve gotten rid of those assholes, we, the enlightened members of the movie watching audience who have actually had the good taste to watch this film, can indulge in some high class intellectual banter about it. Let me start off by saying that it´s been a long time since I´ve been so impressed by a movie. The last time was “Deep Throat”, I think… All kidding aside, director Bruce McDonald manages to pull off something pretty amazing with this flick: he takes the familiar trapped-in-a-building-surrounded-by-zombies-set-up and gives it a very original spin. You see, the people outside are zombies but not the kind of brain munching bastards we´re used to seeing in Romero´s movies. The disease that infects them is of a totally different kind. This movie´s stroke of genius is that the disease spreads through the language! The English language, to be more exact. I don´t know about you but I sure as hell haven´t seen that before in a movie. I mean, how many horror movies that have linguistics as the major threat are there out there? Not a hell of a lot, I would reckon.

This is the kind of a movie that reminds me why I like horror in the first place. I´ve been going through a bit of a slump when it comes to the genre we all know and love, lately. Most of the movies I watch nowadays seem to be re-hashings of some previous superior movie. Ever since “Hostel” and “Saw” started pushing the envelope of what they could show in a mainstream horror movie, the genre has appeared slightly watered down, if you ask me. I mean, where can you go after you´ve actually shown a guy getting his dick cut off in a mainstream horror movie? You can return to a more classic way of telling horrific stories, that´s where!

That´s why an original, atmospheric flick like “Pontypool” is such a gift for the horror fan! It doesn´t berate its audience by dumbing it down and it doesn´t let itself fall into the traps of standard horror movie conventions. If I´m ever gonna use the term “cerebral horror movie”, I´ll use it when describing this movie.

I don´t know what it is but there seems to be something about horror movies and Canada. We all know that Cronenberg hails from there and he´s also a cerebral fucker, right? “Pontypool” reminds me of Cronenberg when he´s at his best in the way that McDonald manages to make what is basically an unseen threat very, very believable. I don´t think it´s wrong to assume that the concept of a viral disease spreading through the language is something that Cronenberg would appreciate. But knowing how twisted he is, he´d probably change it into that it spreads via vaginas that grows out of men´s assholes, or something like that.

McDonald manages to manipulate our expectations on what the threat is in ways I haven´t seen in a long, long time. He insists on keeping the focus on his actors, which aren´t that many but they are perfectly cast, which he should be applauded for. I´d love to see this guy tackle something by H.P. Lovecraft in the future.

But back to the actors! This Stephen McHattie-guy… I´m fairly sure that you recognize this guy because he´s been in close to 200 movies but as far as I know, this is his first leading role. And it´s not a day too soon! Maybe you remember him as one of the hit men from the opening scenes of “A History of Violence”? He was pretty unpleasant in that one. He was in “Shoot ´Em Up”, as well, and he always does a fine job. He´s like one of those old school character actors, like Peter Lorre or Harry Dean Stanton. I am extremely happy that this guy has finally been given the opportunity to show that he command a movie like this. He´s in every single scene on this movie and he does a fantastic job at it!

I can´t for the life of me figure out why this movie isn´t hailed as one of the best zombie movies of the last 10 years? “Pontypool” is such a taut little film and at a lean 90 minutes, it doesn´t outstay its welcome. McDonald and Tony Burgess (who wrote both the script and the novel it was based on) have done a beautiful work while pacing this movie. It moves along very effectively and every now and then we do get some blood.

But let´s not forget the fact that however exciting “Pontypool” may be, it´s also a genuinely funny movie. There´s a fantastically silly and funny scene at the beginning when Mazzy´s visited in the studio by a weird singing group dressed as Arabs, called “Lawrence & The Arabians”. For some reason, one of the guys seemed to be dressed up as Osama Bin Laden. Don´t ask me why he is but that scene made me laugh out loud.

The best way to describe this movie is as if the Cronenberg decided to write a script for John Carpenter. Grant Mazzy is exactly the kind of protagonist that Carpenter would´ve had a field day with: cynical, nihilistic and pissed off! McDonald also makes good use of the classic siege-set piece that Carpenter has used so many times in his films.

Even though I don´t like to talk shit about my man M. Night Shyamalan I can´t help but wonder how “The Happening” would have turned out if Bruce McDonald and Tony Burgess would have written and directed it instead.

So seek this one out, fuckers! 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

I am about to tell you something now that isn´t very politically correct and this isn´t something that I am particularly proud of but someone has to say it… and that someone is me! You see, every once in a while you come across someone who always has to point out that whenever someone is pregnant, how beautiful they look and how the pregnancy becomes them. These people are full of shit! I don´t care what you say but I don´t think I will ever look at a pregnant woman and say to myself: “Oh my god, how beautiful! That is truly a wonder of nature!” I know, I know, I know that it´s all part of the circle of life and that we shall celebrate it and on and on and on without end but I have a hard time coping with this. I admit that I don´t have much experience when it comes to pregnancies. I don´t have any kids myself and I am a guy so getting myself pregnant is out of the question. At least for a little while longer it is anyhow, but I watched this fascinating documentary on TV the other night about a scientist (who looked very much like the current governor of California) and how he´s come up with a way to make men pregnant! I know, it sounds incredible but just wait a year or two until they get the kinks worked out of the system and then we´ll have no more excuses, guys!

What I´m trying to get at is that I am willing to go along with how happy having a child makes people but are you telling me that there´s women out there who, if they had the choice, would choose to go around, bearing that kid for nine fucking months and then go through an excruciating delivery if they had a better option? Don´t think so. That´s why I have such trouble seeing the beauty in this! From where I´m sitting a pregnancy seems to be a fucking nightmare where your body is distorted and a god damn living thing is growing inside you! Does that sound like anything else you´ve seen? That´s right, fucking “Alien”!

And what´s this shit about everything that is a part of nature has to be beautiful? Dying is a natural part of life but we don´t stand around looking at dead women while some new age-like guy with a ponytail says that “Doesn´t she look beautiful?”

What I´m trying to say, in my not so subtle way, is that pregnancies frighten me and everything that is a part of nature isn´t beautiful. And I´m not talking about having a kid and having to take responsibility and all that shit, that´s a piece of cake! What frightens me is the fact that another human being is living and breathing inside someone´s stomach. That´s kind of creepy, if you ask me. I´ve always thought so and I think I always will find it somewhat disturbing, I´m afraid.

That´s why I´m such an easy target for a movie like “Grace”. I know that as a man in today´s enlightened society you´re not supposed to say this but I honestly can´t see myself taking part in the delivery of my child, if I ever have one. That absolutely terrifies me! That´s why “Grace” is such an effective little flick.

The movie is centered around Madeline Matheson (Jordan Ladd) is eight months pregnant and determined to deliver her unborn child, Grace, naturally. When an accident leaves Grace dead inside her, Madeline insists on carrying the baby’s corpse to term. Weeks later, when Madeline delivers, the baby miraculously returns to life…

But as you might´ve guessed, Grace is not your ordinary cooing, wonderful baby. But this is just not a re-hash of “It´s Alive” (which actually was re-hashed in a remake that was released recently but I haven´t yet seen it) because writer-director Paul Solet makes the wise decision to focus on Madeline´s descent into desperation and madness. This could´ve easily made for an unbearably boring movie but first of all Solet is equipped with a well written script, which is always a good place to start if you´re gonna make a movie, right? This is a slow burning, deeply unsettling movie that manages to keep the tension alive all through its relatively brief (85 minutes) running time.

One of the reasons why this movie works so well is Jordan Ladd. She plays basically the same kind of role that Vera Farmiga did in “Joshua” but does it so much better. I´m very grateful that she didn´t opt to go down the “screaming-in-hysterics”-route but manages to convey the demise of her sanity with much smaller and more effective gestures. If this part doesn´t get this girl some serious work, I don´t know what the hell is wrong the movie industry today. It´s time that this girl is officially appointed to one of today´s leading horror movie queens. Christ, she was in “Cabin Fever” as well! Doesn´t that count for anything nowadays?

But she´s not the only one who has got it going on in this movie: Gabrielle Rose, who plays Madeline´s mother-in-law Vivian is pretty fantastic, as well. She portrays a much more realistic version of dementia and does some pretty disturbing things, as well. During the movie she re-discovers her own femininity in some ways that I´ve never seen portrayed in a movie before.

This is very compelling film but it´s disturbing as hell! Like I said, pregnancies and deliveries creeps me out and that´s probably because I´ve spent way too much time at a much too young age watching David Cronenberg´s body-horror movies over and over again and maybe that´s why this movie resonated so well with me: Solet is obviously influenced by Cronenberg and I mean that in the best possible way. The movie starts off in a clean, sterile environment only to become increasingly filthy and squalid, just like so many Cronenberg movies do.

But guys, listen to me, honestly: do not attempt to watch this with your girl or wife if you are in one of the stages of pregnancies or have a newborn at home, ok? That won´t do you any favors, ok? Just take my word for it.

This is definitely one to check out. Just don´t go expecting a fun-filled-rollercoaster-ride-of-thrills-and-gore, ok? This isn´t exactly “Final Destination” but it´s one hell of a movie nevertheless! The thing that impressed me the most is that Solet manages to both set it up for a sequel, while finding the absolutely perfect ending to his story. I´m not gonna spoil it for you but “Grace”´s final scene is one of the most disturbing I´ve seen in a very, very long time. Very impressive!

Until next time: take scare!

Thomas

I don´t know exactly how familiar you are with actor Thomas Jane but I kinda like him. Maybe you´ve seen him on that HBO show “Hung” where he has a huge dick or something like that, I´m not sure. I haven´t seen it yet but everyone keeps nagging me about how great it is. Someday I will get around to it, I promise. I don´t know if you´re aware of this but Thomas Jane has a small part in another huge-dick-epic, “Boogie Nights”. Granted that Jane wasn´t the one equipped with the giant schlong but I´m sensing a pattern here: what is it about Jane and giant dicks? All of a sudden he seems a lot more fascinating. He has an interesting name, as well. “Thomas Jane” has a nice ring to it. Wouldn´t it be great if someone wrote a country song about him and his obsession with giant dicks and named the song “A Boy Called Jane”? Hell, I´d buy that.

Ok enough of this rambling shit, here´s a movie I really wanted to like but I couldn´t just seem to find enough excuses for it. Unfortunately! I want to stress that part. You see, it´s directed by and stars Thomas Jane, whom I´ve always liked. Hell, I´ve liked the guy ever since he made his fantastic entrance as Todd with that porno mustache in “Boogie Nights”. The scene where he and Mark Wahlberg try to rob Alfred Molina´s drug den is pretty fantastic and Jane delivers a great performance. One of the things that I love about Jane is that he genuinely seems to enjoy playing the lead in genre films, such as “Deep Blue Sea”, “The Mist” and “The Punisher”. He doesn´t shy away from those roles and he always treats the characters with respect and doesn´t just phone in his performance because “… it´s just a horror movie”, like so many other actors would do. That´s why when a guy like that finally gets around to directing a film, I went in with the best of intentions…

And I´m not saying that “Dark Country” is a bad movie! It´s just that I was expecting something else. I got the impression that I was about to watch a movie that was a bit more horror oriented but this is definitely more of a thriller steeped in the Noir-heritage and as such, I guess that it works pretty good.

The movie is centered around Dick (Jane) and Gina (Lauren German) who wakes up in a desert motel after getting married the night before while being shitfaced. They get into Dick´s car and head on out on the highway, only to run into a weird guy with a bloody face who´s obviously been in some sort of accident. Then that old familiar shit hits the well familiar fan…

One of the good things about the movie is that our boy Jane turns out to be a pretty good director. He´s smart enough to keep the number of actors down to a minimum and also has the good taste to hire Ron Perlman for a small but pivotal role. That alone shows that the man knows what he´s doing, right? Not only that, Jane also manages to deliver a pretty believable performance while directing the thing. So, color me “impressed”, Thomas Jane!

Now, being the super serious film critic that I am, I am now going to counter one of the good things about the movie with something that isn´t quite as good, ok? Some might even say “bad”. Are you ready for this? Here we go: although Jane knows how to frame a shot, which is pretty apparent at the beginning when the movie still takes place in daylight, this is without a doubt the darkest movie I´ve ever seen. You thought that “Se7en” didn´t have a high electrical bill? “Dark Country” beats “Se7en”´s ass any day of the week in that department, ok? The guy doing the lighting on this movie has got to have landed the easiest job in the movie industry ever! I´m telling ya, I could´ve pulled it off. Now, I don´t a particularly high quality TV and it might have something to do with that but I had some serious problem even registering what the fuck was happening on the screen at times! I don´t think that that´s a particularly good thing while watching a movie. That´s taking it a bit too far, actually. So you could´ve shelled out a couple of more bucks for the lighting, Mr. Jane. Just my opinion but when the movie you´re watching is darker than a coal miner´s asshole, something is wrong.

However, I do like the fact that they have shot the movie so that it reminds you of one of those old school process shots, like Hitchcock used. You know, if it´s good enough for Alfred, it´s good enough for Jane. I read somewhere that this one was shot in 3-D but its theatrical release got cancelled. I don´t know in what way that affects the movie´s look but I have a hard time imagining how you´d see anything at all with those fucking red-and-green glasses in all that darkness.

Jane also knows how to pick some cool music that manages to contribute to the paranoid state of the characters. So that´s another thing that´s pretty good about it, as well.

Hell, I just now realize that I might like this movie even more than I thought. But you see, there´s one thing that I can´t get past and that is the fact that just like the movie I wrote about last time, “Book of Blood”, this is a movie that feels a lot like an episode of either “The Twilight Zone” or “Tales for the Crypt” and if they would´ve shortened the script with about half an hour, it would´ve been a lot of fun. Unfortunately they didn´t and as the movie stands now, it´s just too long winded. The script manages to be pretty predictable as well and that´s never ever a good thing if you´re going after trying to create a “Twilight Zone”-kind of mood.

But I wouldn´t say that it´s a complete disaster. I still think that you should check this one out, if not for the pretty awesome acting that is on display here. Thomas Jane and Lauren German ( you remember her as the girl from “Hostel Part 2”) carries the entire movie on their paranoid shoulders and not once did I doubt that they were newlyweds who´s slowly descending into a state of paranoia in the middle of the desert, and that´s quite an achievement. If you think about it, the camera is on them the entire movie and if you wanted to, this is the kind of movie that could easily be translated to the stage as a play. That might actually work in its favor, come to think of it.

You know, this is probably the kind of movie that I will watch again in a couple of months and realize that I actually kind of like it but sometimes it´s hard to shake that feeling of disappointment that´s holding your hand in a tight grip. I was expecting a horror film but got a clever, little thriller instead and as far as I´m concerned you could do a hell of a lot worse. To be honest, it could´ve done with a giant dick in there somewhere but hey! You can´t get it all, right?

Until next time: take scare!

Thomas

There is something that you need to know about me if we´re gonna continue this relationship, besides the fact that I like to murder hobos while indulging in auto-asphyxiation, and that is that I am a huge fan of Clive Barker! When it comes to horror, that man is as close to genius as we´re gonna get. There´s nothing that that fucker can´t do: he´s directed one bona fide classic, the first “Hellraiser”, and two severly underrated films, “Nightbreed” and “Lord of Illusions”, written I don´t know how many truly great books, including “Coldheart Canyon” which is a fricking masterpiece! As if that wasn´t enough, he also paints. There´s no end to this guy´s talent. That´s how I feel about the man. There´s no one like him, working today in the realm of horror.

I guess that it´s a good time to be a Clive Barker fan because this year we´ve not only gotten the DVD release of “Midnight Meat Train”, which is based on a novella by Barker, now we´re also treated to “Book of Blood”, which is a straight-to-DVD release, based on his work.

Good times, huh? Well, not as good as they could be. You see, “Midnight Meat Train” was a pretty good horror movie. It was entertaining, slick and with a fair amount of gore. Pretty much all you can ask for in a horror movie. Not like that crappy “Pig Hunt” I wrote about a couple of weeks back but hey, that´s another story. Anyway, “Midnight Meat Train” was a fun flick but “Book of Blood” is pretty… I don´t know how to put it… What´s the word I´m looking for… Wait, I got it: boring!

The thing is that this is the kind of movie that I don´t wanna bash. It is obvious that the filmmakers have their heart in the right place and their intention is admirable but that doesn´t cut it, unfortunately.

Director John Harrison does his best to create a slow burning mood piece and he´s not a bad director at all. The only other thing I´ve ever seen that he´s been involved with is the episodes he directed of that “Dune” miniseries a couple of years back, but I definitely think that he shows some promise. He manages to create some tension in “Book of Blood” and the atmosphere is pretty good. That´s not where its faults lies, it´s in the script!

The story revolves around a psychic researcher, Mary Florescu (Sophie Ward), who employs medium Simon McNeal (Jonas Armstrong) to investigate a haunted house. McNeal, at first, begins to fake his visions, but then real ghosts present themselves. They attack him and carve words in his flesh, and these words, claims the narrator, form the rest of the stories, stories written on a literal, living Book of Blood…

We´re talking basic Barker stuff here. It bears all his trademarks: kinky sex (unfortunately not “Hellraiser”-kinky but oh well…), mutilation and bodies full of scars! And however intriguing the story may sound it´s painfully obvious that is a movie that would work much better as an episode of either “Masters of Horror” or “Fear Itself”. I mean, think about it: Barker didn´t write an entire book, did he? He choose to do this particular story as a novella and I think we should trust his judgment when it comes structuring a story. He has a pretty good track record, after all. One hour and forty minutes it´s just too long! This is a fifty or one hour-story, at best. What should´ve been a slow burning mood piece becomes a snail-paced uninteresting movie and that is not how I want my Barker served, ok? If I´m not mistaken, the writers have borrowed a couple of things from another story by Barker called “On Jerusalem Street” to flesh out the script but that doesn´t help much. They would´ve needed to pillage at least a couple of more stories to make this a truly good film.

I´m guessing that director Harrison wants to create some sort of link to Barker´s masterpiece “Hellraiser” by setting most of the movie in the attic and what happens to Simon is sort of like the reversal of what happens to Frank in the first “Hellraiser”-flick but that´s where all the similarities end. Well, we do get to see Doug Bradley in a very brief cameo but that´s it.

I´m not exactly sure where it all went wrong. These movies are being produced by Barker´s own company but when they decided to do “Midnight Meat Train” they at least hired a director with some sort of a visual flair and a vision. Even though Harrison is an able director I think that he´s been spending too much time in TV-land because this movie screams out “made-for-TV!” It has about as much of a visual style as any Steven Seagal-movie shot in Eastern Europe.

Another thing about the movie is that if you´re gonna make a movie that only has about three actors in it, you better be god damn sure that those three actors are good. The ones they managed to round up for this one are a bit too bland and uninteresting. Simon, who´s supposed to be very handsome, doesn´t leave much of an impression, if you ask me.

However, one thing that “Book of Blood” has going for it is the fact that it does contain quite an amount of gratuitous nudity, both male and female so there´s something for both the boys and the girls, people! Isn´t that thoughtful of the filmmakers?

What bothers me most is the fact that the best thing about this movie is the scenes that bookend the movie, particularly the introduction where we get to see Simon (with his flesh horrifyingly scarred) being kidnapped and pressed for information. Those are the only scenes that really manage to capture the essence of what makes Barker´s writing so great: the horror, fantasy and the gore. Unfortunately, these scenes only makes up for about ten minutes of the entire movie´s running time, which means that I, the viewer are shit out of luck!

I think it´s great Barker are producing these movies based on his work but they really need to give the gigs to some directors with more chops. They also need to pick their stories with care. I read somewhere that the next one on the slate is “Pig Blood Blues” and that´s a brilliant short story and I´ll definitely check it out when it´s released but I think it may suffer from the same things that plague “Book of Blood”. They desperately need to get a good writer in there to flesh the damn thing out, ok? Take my word for it, Mr. Barker! I just want to see you succeed, ok?

Until Next time: take scare!

Thomas

Ok, so the French may be an ignorant people that guzzle down red wine, smell of sweat and weird cheeses and have hair in places that others do not but they do love movies, you gotta give ´em that! I mean, have you seen the DVD editions they release over there? They put us all to shame, let me tell ya that much. But now they´ve really topped themselves. According to this article they´ve inducted Clint Eastwood into the French Legion of Honor. As we all know, Clint Eastwood is the greatest man who ever lived and finally there´s a country out there who realizes that! I´m surprised they just didn´t make him president instead of that fucker they got now and got done with it. Hell, make Clint the official leader of the free world!

I´m old enough to realize that I will never ever learn to appreciate red wine but I´m very impressed by this decision. Good work, France! Clint can´t get enough appreciation and even though I´d like for him to live forever, sadly that can´t be. Sooner or later the guy´s gonna drop dead and this world will be a lesser place for it and it would be kinda sad if the guy didn´t feel appreciated when he goes, right? I can´t even imagine a world without a new Clint Eastwood-movie being released every other year or so…

Anyway, color me “impressed”, France! Three cheers for you!

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

In Sweden we have a saying that a good laugh makes your life longer. Everybody knows that that´s bullshit. Laughing gives you cancer, everybody knows that. That´s science! Yet somehow, I find myself doing it from time to time. There´s a certain type of comedy that I love and that´s the kind that doesn´t try to be funny! They don´t cater to the audience and there are no cheap laughs. Instead they´re so pitch black in their sense of humor that at times you´re left wondering if this is even a comedy at all. A movie of this type that springs to mind is Danny DeVito´s “The War of the Roses”, which is basically a dark, psychological, Greek tragedy which is made funny because of its relentless darkness. One might argue that “Observe and Report” is a movie that would fit into this category. Hell, I´m not even gonna argue, I´ll just tell it like it is, ok?

It revolves around Ronnie Barnhardt (played by Seth Rogen) who is a bi-polar underachiever. He works as the head of mall security at the Forest Ridge Mall, while secretly wanting to become a police officer (mainly so that he can carry guns legally). A pervert begins flashing women in the parking lot, and after he exposes himself to Brandi (Anna Faris), who works at the cosmetic department and who Ronnie has a crush on, he takes it upon himself to find the flasher and bring him to justice.

Now, let´s get one thing straight: Ronnie Barnhardt is one of the greatest creations movies have seen in many years! He is such a repulsive character with delusions of grandeur and not-so-subtle streaks of racism and other politically incorrect personal traits. You can´t help but love him!

This is a character that springs from the same well as Jim Carrey´s fantastic turn in “The Cable Guy” and those two movies actually have a lot in common: the leads were played by two comics who had recently made it big and who used their new-found clout to get an extremely dark comedy made. The result was of course that both these movies collapsed at the box office but “The Cable Guy” have since found its audience on DVD and I can assure you that “Observe and Report” will, too. Unless it´s something seriously fucked up with this world. I know that ozone layer is going to hell and all that but I´m telling ya, if this movie doesn´t become a cult hit, I don´t wanna be a part of this world any longer! That´s how god damn funny this movie is!

The interesting thing about “Observe and Report” is that it´s basically “Taxi Driver” in a mall. The only thing that differentiates these movies is the fact that in “Observe and Report” we get Seth Rogen, who we know is a comedian, in the Travis Bickle-part. I´d bet my ass that if this turn would have been played by any other actor, this movie would´ve been regarded as a drama. This is a character study about a bi-polar guy and his descent into psychological traumas. Sounds like a laugh riot, doesn´t it?

One thing I love about writer-director Jody Hill´s approach to comedy is the fact that he´s not afraid to include things that a less daring director would´ve steered clear of. For instance, Ronnie and his friend indulge in some pretty heavy drug abuse at one time. This almost seems to be a motif of Hill´s since he had one character in his previous movie “The Foot Fist Way” indulge in this, as well. Hill also played a part in the making of HBO´s fantastic “Eastbound & Down” where they too did their fair share of cocaine snorting.

But the taboo breaking doesn´t stop there. What´s so fantastically great about this movie is that even though it nods its hat to tall those great, dark character studies about humans in psychological decay that were made during the 70´s, this one takes it even a step further. For instance, in one scene our “hero” basically date rapes a girl! Hell, not even Travis Bickle did that! He just took the girl to a porn theatre where they showed Swedish educational movies. The fact that Hill & Rogen manage to keep our sympathies for this guy is pretty fantastic. It´s hard to describe just how unsympathetic Rogen is here: he terrorizes customers, makes racial slurs and keeps sexually harassing Brandi. It´s funny as hell! I mean, a comedy that manages to include drug abuse, alcoholism and a flasher can´t be bad, right?

Another thing that´s pretty damn hilarious is the fact that much of the movie is narrated by Rogen in a “Dark Knight”-style voice over, complete with that gravelly, whispering Christian Bale-like voice. Let´s just say that how Ronnie perceives and sees things doesn´t add up with how they actually are. It makes for some pretty great comedy.

And then we have the great Ray Liotta who plays the police detective who is assigned the case of the flasher roaming the mall. Well, it´s Ray fucking Liotta, do we need to say more? Didn´t think so.

We´re also treated to a brief turn by Patton Oswalt as the head of the coffee and pretzel stand. I don´t know what it is about that guy but just the sight of him makes me laugh. He gets some great scenes where he makes fun of an employee whose leg is in a cast.

You know, at times I was reminded of Todd Solondz´s masterpiece “Happiness” while watching this one. Just like “Happiness”, this one deals with a bunch of taboos in today´s society, even though this one does it in a slightly more lighthearted way. Let´s just say there´s no pedophile in “Observe and Report”, thankfully!

This is that rare beast of a film: it manages to be both offensive and sweet at the same time. I can´t wait to see what Jody Hill will try his hand on next. He is without a doubt one of the few true auteurs working in comedy today. I think that he has proven that he´s the genuine article with this movie. He´s a writer-director who can´t help but have his obsessions seep into his work, like he has proven with both this one, “The Foot Fist Way” and “Eastbound & Down”. You know, kinda like Sam Peckinpah did and David Lynch does today. Both Hill´s movies are about men who are regarded as failures by their surroundings but who try to do the right thing (at least in their mind) and his work are surprisingly frank about issues usually avoided in comedies today. And just like such other great directors, like Paul Thomas Anderson, he seems to draw upon the great movies of the 70´s for inspiration.

Mark my words, Jody Hill may be one of the greatest directors working today in America!

Check this one out. Either you´ll love it or hate it, it´s as simple as that. But if you hate it, take a good look in the mirror because chances are you may be an ignorant asshole.

Until next time: take scare!

Thomas