Last Blog On The Left

Okay, I know I´m late as hell on this one but I figured why not throw my two cents worth in there? Just because I can, you know? I heard a lot of different things about this one beforehand and I wasn´t really sure what to expect but since I am a huge fan of Woody Harrelson, I figured that I was going to expect this one to be good. Turns out that for once in my life I chose the right path. Because this movie is actually a lot of fun and it´s much thanks to the Woody himself! I don´t know about you but I´ve liked the guy ever since I saw him on “Cheers” back when I was a kid. I realize that we live in a world where a goddamn ash cloud terrorizes people and we´re slowly running out of resources and all that and it´s easy to get mixed up in that but I also say this:

No matter how bad things are out there right now, the fact of the matter is that we also live in a world where Woody Harrelson are making movies pretty constantly and that, in my humble opinion, makes up for a lot of bad shit.

The fact that an actor like Harrelson keeps working makes the world just a little bit more beautiful. Think about it: in the last couple of years we´ve gotten “No Country For Old Men”, “The Grand”, “Transsiberian” and “Defendor” to name just a few. All of these movies were blessed with a dose of the wonder that is Woody.

And then we have “Zombieland”. Which you probably already have seen and if you haven´t I recommend you do it before you continue reading because I´m gonna go pretty heavy on the SPOILERS!!!, ok? But since we´re all intelligent people here, I´m gonna assume you´ve seen it but as a reminder, here´s the plot just so we´re on the same page, in case you saw one of the many other movies called “Zombieland” that´s floating around out there:

Jesse Eisenberg plays Columbus, who is basically a big wuss. You know, kind of like the roles Eisenberg usually portrays. Remember “Adventureland”? “The Squid and the Whale”? He´s basically the same whiny guy here.  But the good thing here is that when you’re afraid of being eaten by zombies, fear can keep you alive. He´s formed a set of different rules that he now lives by and it´s thanks to them that he´s managed to stay alive this long. He teams up with Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), who is an AK-toting, zombie-slaying’ bad ass whose single determination is to get the last Twinkie on earth. As they join forces with Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), who have also found unique ways to survive the zombie mayhem, they will have to determine which is worse: relying on each other or succumbing to the zombies.

Now, I´ve realized that one of the things that have divided the people of this planet is the everlasting discussion about whether you prefer zombies that walk or run. You know, should they stumble around like they do in Romero´s movies or should they run fast as fuck, as they do in “28 Days Later” and the remake of “Dawn of the Dead”? In case you haven´t noticed this is something that the people of the internet feel very strongly about. Many are the conflicts that have been started because of it! I´m not saying that this is a fact but if I remember correctly, running zombies appeared around the same time as those two planes crashed into the World Trade Center. I´m not sure about this, but I´ll just throw it out there and you´ll do what you will with it…

Now, I´m not gonna spoil the surprise for you by saying which kind of zombies you get in this one but I will say that the filmmakers quickly establishes how their zombies behave and it works very well.

In case you hadn´t realized this, this isn´t exactly a “horror” movie. I don´t think you´re gonna sit around biting your nails while you watch this because this is basically a comedy with zombies in it. A “zom-com” or whatever the hell they call it. I guess it might even be a “rom-zom-com” because there is a bit of romance as Eisenberg´s awkward teenage kid falls head over heels for Emma Stone´s character.

And that´s what makes this movie so great: it´s a comedy that´s genuinely entertaining, not only in the gags they stage but the dialogue is particularly entertaining as it makes room for some liberating non-PC jokes, like when one character notes that it´s good to practice your cardio if you´re gonna outrun the zombies, because “fatties go first”. Call me immature, but that kind of thing always gets a smile from me.

The key to why “Zombieland” works so well is because it sports some pretty well written characters that they managed to cast pretty well, too. Eisenberg and Harrelson make for an entertaining duo and they manage to create the kind of character that you just wanna hang out with and listen to whatever the hell they´re talking about. Because, to be honest, the story isn´t all that much. But I´m the kind of guy that is of the firm opinion that plot comes second, just as long as you have some great characters.

You know what, another movie that this one reminded me of is Richard Linklater´s last-day-in-high-school-classic “Dazed and Confuzed”. Just like that one, “Zombieland” is a funny and at the same time heartfelt coming of age-story. In “Dazed and Confuzed” you´re just dropped right into the story and pretty quickly you´re introduced to all the characters and within a second you get a sense of what this and that character´s all about. “Zombieland” works the same way: you´re dropped into the action but instead of a bunch of high school kids being hazed, it´s a bunch of zombies trying to eat our hero alive. In both movies you also kind of just drift along with the characters through the story but you never feel bored or shortchanged, as a viewer. “Zombieland” has a loose feeling to it that I really enjoyed. And yes, at times it´s a pretty touching love story that director Ruben Fleischer manages to tell.

And then there´s that cameo… by that actor… I´m sure you´ve heard about it by now but just to be safe here´s another SPOILER!!! for you persistent freaks out there. You see, a certain comedian, who has appeared in many classic comedies (I think he did one about a bunch of guys who started a company where they performed exorcisms or something) appears in this one as himself and I´m not kidding you when I say that this has got to be one of the most brilliant cameos ever! I don´t know if they wrote this part for this specific actor originally but no one else could´ve done such an insanely great job with it.

I´m just gonna come out and say it now, ok? It´s Bill Murray and as we all know, Bill Murray isn´t human like the rest of us. He´s a demigod as far as comedians go and actors in general, for that matter. And we´ve all heard the stories about him and his erratic behavior, right? Whenever you hear a celebrity talking about him on some talk show, they´re always telling some crazy shit about him pulling some stunt at a party or something like that. Remember when he got arrested in Stockholm for driving a Golf cart down the street, while intoxicated? Bill Murray just doesn´t subscribe to the normal conventions of society and that´s what makes him so brilliant. But the genius of his cameo in this one is that he plays it totally straight and that he appears to be nicest, most hospitable guy on the planet. The thought of that just makes me laugh out loud.

By the way, the best Bill Murray-anecdote I ever heard was some guy who apparently met him in an elevator at a film festival. It was just these two guys and when the doors closed, Bill Murray grabbed the other guy in a headlock and whispered “No one´s ever going to believe you…” and then got off on his floor and said goodbye.

So there you have it! I know it´s that time of the year again when the sun starts to rear its ugly face and the couples that have been in hiding all through the winter starts skipping down the street, hand in hand, and that can be a hard time for some of us. That´s why we need to laugh every now and again, people! And if you ever get that itch, this is the movie to watch, fuckers!

Sorry about that last part where I called you “fuckers”. I didn´t mean it. I meant it affectionately. It´s just that that whole paragraph before where I was rambling about how “we all need to laugh” and that crazy hippie shit felt a bit much and I had to outweigh it by throwing that in there. It won´t happen again.

Until next time: take scare!

Thomas

Ten years ago Troy Duffy directed a flick called ”The Boondock Saints”, which was pretty enjoyable and I guess that some people regard that movie as sort of a straight-to-video classic today. I have to admit that I have seen it more than once. It´s not like it´s “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” but I think it´s a pretty fun flick. But after it was released, something weird happened: writer-director Troy Duffy was in a nuclear accident and as a result of this he did not get any super powers but his ego ballooned to a size that mankind had not witnessed before! All this is documented in the excellent documentary “Overnight” (except for the nuclear accident thing. Apparently they left out that part), and his career was pretty much over. Until now, that is, when the much delayed sequel “The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day” have finally been released.

To be honest, I never thought that this one would see the light of the day. If you´ve seen “Overnight”(and if you haven´t I once again urge you to watch it. Seriously, do it!), you are familiar with the fact that this Duffy fella has quite the mouth on him, and he´s been going on and on about this movie for ten years now with not much happening so I thought “Yeah right, Troy Duffy, I´ll believe it when I see it”.

I have seen it now, so I guess that I have to believe it. One thing I can´t believe though is how disappointed I was with it. I almost wish that Duffy didn´t got this one made and then we could continue fantasizing about what movies this guy would make if he only got the chance, instead of actually watching them! I liked to think of Duffy as this almost mythical figure and what if the guy is some sort of misunderstood genius? I mean, the first “Boondock Saints” showed that he obviously was a guy who could spin an entertaining yarn and he definitely knew his way around a camera, right? It was a fairly confident exercise in style considering that it was his first movie. Hell, he could be the Orson Welles of Tarantino-inspired action flicks, for chrissakes!

As it turns out, I was wrong. I don´t know what Duffy´s been up to all these years but he sure as hell hasn´t been fine tuning this script. It´s surprisingly clumsy and unoriginal, considering that he´s been gestating on the thing for ten years now! But I gotta say this: the guy gives the fans what they want. At least, if what they want is basically the same thing all over again.

The movie starts with the MacManus brothers (still Norman Reedus and Sean Patrick Flanery) living on Ireland with their father (Billy Connolly), and a bunch of sheep (sheep). They seem to have some sort of contest going on regarding who can grow his beard the longest, because they look pretty shitty. Kinda like those homeless guys you see in the park sometimes. Anyway, the brothers have to bow out of this contest because they have to go back to Boston because someone is trying to frame them for the murder of a catholic priest. And then blah blah blah…

You know the deal, the brothers go back and they start killing off gangsters to the left and right. It turns out that the gangster ruling the city this time around is the son of the one they killed in the first one and he´s played by the wild kid dressed in black from “The Breakfast Club”, Judd Nelson. Christ, I guess I always knew that that kid would end up bad but I never thought it´d go as far as this, that he´d end up a goddamn kingpin in Boston! I wonder what Principal Vernon would say if he knew about this.

Like I mentioned earlier, you can´t fault Duffy for not giving the fans what they liked in the first one but that´s about it! The attempts he does at expanding the mythology doesn´t work very well so you lose interest in them pretty quickly. For instance, the back story of Il Duce is Duffy´s attempt at creating a “Godfather Part II”-style story of how an innocent Irish immigrant is forced into crime to make ends meet, like Don Corleone back in his day. The problem is, Duffy ain´t no Coppola, even though he surely thinks so himself and the guy he´s found to play the young Billy Connolly sure as hell ain´t no Robert De Niro. He´s not even the Robert De Niro-on-autopilot that we saw in “Godsend”. Hell, he´s not even the over-the-top Robert De Niro that we saw in “Rocky and Bullwinkle”! That´s how uninteresting this guy is, unfortunately.

I think that one of the reasons why the movie sits so badly with me is this: it´s hard to appreciate it after you´ve seen “Overnight”. The first “Boondock” was a fun Tarantino-rip off with some over-the-top, hardboiled dialogue but when you watch “Overnight” you realize that “Holy crap, this is the way that this Troy Duffy-guy talks in real life! He really thinks he is a Boondock Saint!” That´s why some of the scenes in this movie made me very uncomfortable, the main one being the dream sequence in which Rocco from part I appear. They´re standing in the middle of a hockey rink and screaming about how they are men and “real men do not cry, real men don´t pout, real men jack you in the jaw and John Wayne didn´t talk about his feelings because he died with five pounds of undigested red meat in his ass” and so on and to be honest, this is one of the more embarrassing scenes I´ve seen in a long, long time.

The reason why I found this so embarrassing isn´t because I object to what the characters is saying or anything like that (which I do, for the record). If I would´ve seen this scene in another movie I probably would´ve found it pretty funny, but like I mentioned: it just isn´t funny when you know that this is writer-director Troy Duffy expressing his inner most thoughts to us, the audience. This is probably the emotional depth that this guy has to offer his surroundings.

Then we have the fact that this dialogue is being spoken by Reedus, who hasn´t aged one day since the first one, and Flanery. Now, Flanery has probably aged quite a bit and decided that the process of growing older wasn´t for him so he looks like he´s Botox-ed the hell out of his face! And I don´t think that these two got any direction at all during the making of this movie because all they do is basically scream their dialogue. I´m not saying that the first one is some sort of masterpiece of nuances but at least Reedus and Flanery didn´t act like they were part of some shitty summer stock revival. All this adds up to what is the most embarrassing sequence so far this year.

But Reedus and Flanery aren´t the only ones guilty of supersized acting in this one, oh no! Clifton Collins, JR, who is usually a reliable performer throws all caution to the wind acts like he´s trying to beat Nicolas Cage in a contest to see who is capable of the widest grins and loudest screams. I guess he´s supposed to be the comic relief sidekick of the movie but I´m not sure. He´s not particularly funny and neither are the three returning detectives Dolly, Duffy and Greenly but you get the sense that Troy Duffy himself finds every one of their lines hilarious!

Then there´s Julie Benz from “Rambo 4” and “Dexter”, who plays an FBI agent named Eunice who´s investigating the case and for some weird reason she speaks with a southern accent that´s worse than Brad Pitt´s Irish one in “The Devil´s Own”. There´s no explanation for this and the only one I can see is that Troy Duffy probably found this funny, in some weird way. Hell, even Peter Fonda shows up toward the end and he does the worst accent of them all. You´re not gonna believe your ears…

I guess that if I hadn´t seen “Overnight”, I might´ve enjoyed this one a bit more but I sincerely doubt it. So maybe it was wrong of me to recommend it to you at the beginning of this rant? Let´s play it like this: watch this one first and if you like it, don´t watch “Overnight” because if you do, your image of Troy Duffy and ability to embrace anything he might make in the future will be forever tarnished. If you don´t enjoy it, seek out “Overnight” immediately to fully grasp what weird universe this man lives in!

Well, at least he got this one made, which is pretty impressive after all. You gotta give him that! It doesn´t give him any credit that in ten years time, this was the best script he could come up with, though. Maybe he´ll vindicate himself in part III, which we´re promised at the end of this one?

A special mentioning should go out to this guy Bob Rubin who plays a character called Gorgeous George. Now, out of all the examples of overacting that is on display in this movie, this guy takes the prize! If Troy Duffy can sit around and watch dailies with this guy in them and not realize something is very, very wrong, he really is out of his mind. No doubt about it.

Until next time: take scare!

Thomas

I have seen the future of horror and its name sure as hell isn´t Dario Argento anymore! Unfortunately, his time has finally come. I´ve officially given up on him! I never thought I´d say this but Dario Argento has lost his touch! It´s gone! You have a better chance of finding a virgin in an abortion clinic than Argento ever has of making a good movie again! That´s how bad his latest, “Giallo”, is. This is one of the most embarrassing attempts at horror I´ve seen in a long, long time. I´ve seen home movies scarier than this! Hell, I´ve even been in home movies scarier than this!

But to be perfectly honest, this doesn´t come as a surprise. Argento´s been preparing us for this ever since “The Phantom of the Opera” back in 1998. That´s when he first started showing signs of making movies that were totally devoid of anything that bore a semblance of mood or tension. In 2004 the mediocre thriller “The Card Player” was unleashed upon the world and the indifference that I started feeling when it came to Argento´s filmmaking started to rent a permanent room in my soul. It even expanded its inhabitance when the TV movie “Do You Like Hitchcock?” was released.

But then Argento pulled his cruelest trick yet. He did two episodes of the “Masters of Horror”-show and one of the episodes, “Jenifer”, was absolutely brilliant and showed signs of the old, almost sickeningly talented Argento. But as it turned out, that was just a mean trick that the bastard pulled on me: to infuse me with hope, only to pull the rug from out of under me again. Things were looking pretty good for his concluding installment in his “Witches”-trilogy, “Mother of Tears”. Just when I thought that Argento was back to his old tricks, he released his worst film yet and the expectations he had forced me to raise were reduced to rubble. “Mother of Tears” was truly awful (read my eulogy here)!

But that was nothing… absolutely nothing compared to the ludicrous, embarrassing mess that is “Giallo”! How the hell Argento ever got an Oscar winning actor like Adrian Brody to agree to star in this one is a goddamn mystery. Maybe Dario has some compromising footage of him doing the dirty deed with his daughter Asia or something like that, it´s the only thing I can think of, because nothing can explain why someone would ever wanna participate in such an utter failure!

I remember back when this movie was first announced. Fangoria and Rue Morgue Magazine were creaming their pants about how these two guys who had had nothing of theirs produced before, Jim Agnew and Sean Keller, had written this fantastic script called “Giallo”, which (surprise, surprise) were an homage to the old Italian giallos of the 70´s and in particular Argento´s. Somehow, this script made its way into the hands of Dario himself and everyone were all fired up about it. So, as fate would have it the script that these two guys had churned out were now being made by the guy they´re paying homage to. Well, good for them. Not so good for us. Because somewhere along the road the script turned to absolute shit…

Let me just give you the rundown before I launch into another rant here: Celine (Elsa Pataky), an American model, is abducted by a taxi driver in Torine, Italy while en route home to meet her sister Linda (Emmanuelle Seigner), visiting at her apartment. The next morning, Linda reports that Celine is missing – the sergeant in charge directs her to F.B.I. agent Inspector Enzo Avolfi (Adrian Brody). He’s from the Special New York City Department investigating a serial-killer that kidnaps foreigners to destroy their beauty. He fears that the same perpetrator has kidnapped Linda´s sister…

So far so good, right? You might think so at a first glance but this movie is a goddamn minefield of lapses in logic! Almost every scene has you wondering about something. For instance, that “Special New York Department” that Enzo works for? What the hell is that? I mean, I am a European so I think I would´ve heard about this kind of thing? Does the city of New York actually have special departments all over major European cities? And when they say “special” do they actually mean “mentally challenged”? Because that is how Brody´s character conducts his investigation.

Let me just run this by you and see if you find anything strange with conducting an investigation this way: let´s say you´re a detective and investigating a serial killer and you are contacted by a woman who says her sister has been kidnapped by said killer. This woman has no experience whatsoever in police work, so what would be the right thing to do? To conduct the investigation on your own with the help of your colleagues and then keep her posted if any progress occurs? Not if you´re part of the world famous “Special New York Department”, you don´t! What you do then is you include this woman in every aspect of the investigation and take her to visit different crime scenes and wander around like she owns the goddamn place! She doesn´t even show any ID to prove that she is in fact the person that she says she is. Brody´s world class detective just takes her word for it and that´s it. I wonder how he interrogates suspects:

-          So, is it true that you killed the girl? We did find you naked, hunched over her dead body, covered in her blood and laughing like a madman…

-          No.

-          Really? I guess you´re free to go then… You have a good night, Sir!

Hey, it´s not like I demand a movie to be totally realistic, ok? I don´t mind a gap here and there as long as moves the story forward but here it feels as if Argento has actually gone out of his way to make this movie as illogical as he possibly can. But what about the gore, you ask? Well, there is gore on display but what the hell does that matter when there´s not one iota of tension in the entire film? It´s as if some sort of weird repo man came on set and repossessed Argento´s talent:

“Sorry, Dario, you haven´t made your payments these last couple of years so we´re repossessing your keen eye and ability to create interesting stories… Yeah, we know that it sucks but what you´re gonna do? You just haven´t been trying hard enough”

And there´s just something weird about the casting of this movie… I mean, how the hell did Brody end up in here? Maybe he´s a lifelong Argento fan, I don´t know, but the guy can´t be happy about the result here. I do know that he is dating Elsa Pataky in real life so that´s probably how she ended up in there and Brody did work with Emmanuelle Seigner´s husband, Roman Polanski, on the “The Pianist” so I guess that it´s thanks to him that she´s in there, too. Is this movie just some kind of weird reason for Adrian Brody to hang out with his girlfriend and European friends? What the hell is going on here? This is what that goddamn New York Special Department should be looking into, how the hell they cast this fucking movie because nothing, and I mean nothing can justify anyone ever giving a role to Emmanuelle Seigner, no matter how good looking she may be, ok? It´s just sad watching her trying to convey some kind of emotion when all it does is make her look like she´s crapping her pants. By the way, look at that poster there. Doesn´t Seigner look like the spitting image of Radha Mitchell these days? When the hell did that happen?

The flair that Argento once showed in his old movies magically disappeared, like Little Richard´s wrinkles, which makes even the gore boring too watch! I mean, if you´re gonna make a movie that´s a goddamn tribute to the classic giallos of yesteryear, wouldn´t you try to make sure that you had at least one or two spectacular kills in there? Argento doesn´t even try. In one scene the killer uses a hammer. A hammer? The guy doesn´t even use a knife, for chrissakes, which is like watching “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and Leatherface uses a Swiss army knife to chop up his victims. If you think about it, this movie isn´t even a giallo at all! How the hell did you get that wrong, Argento?

It´s been a long time coming but now the cat´s finally out of the bag: I´ve given up on Argento! I never thought I´d say it but the guy is just going through the motions and if that´s what I wanna watch, there´s a lot less talented directors out there covering that field. You´re too good for this, Dario… You deserve a better end!

Hey, I know that we can´t expect every single movie from this guy to be a new “Suspiria”, “Deep Red” or “Inferno” but honestly, not even the most hardened Argento-apologists can justify this one. At least the guy has had a pretty good run, huh? Let´s focus on the positive things in life from now on.

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

Every once in a while, not very often, a filmmaker comes along with a debut film that is so fantastic that while you´re watching it, you realize that there´s no way that he will ever top it: that this is the best that this guy is ever gonna be, no matter how hard he will try he won´t be able to better that initial achievement. It´s the same thing with debut albums. Oftentimes bands have had several years to write songs for their debut album and when they finally get that elusive contract they have about five years´ or more worth of songs to pick from. However, when it´s time for the second album it´s time to start writing new songs and it´s not a coincidence why everyone always refers to that as “the second, difficult album”. I mean, how the hell are you supposed to accumulate the same amount of ideas and fine tune your songs the same way in maybe a year which the first time around you spent maybe five years doing? It´s the same thing with movies! When a director gets that first break you can sometimes see him pouring everything into that movie because this may be his only shot. When the second one comes around, you kinda get the feeling that maybe he´s a little spent. This is what I feared when I finally sat down to watch “Vinyan”, written and directed by Fabrice Du Welz.

You see, Du Welz´s first movie was called “Calvaire” and it´s nothing short of a masterpiece! It´s one of the more original “horror” movies I´ve seen in the last ten years or so. The more astute readers out there might notice how I put the word “horror” in quotation marks and that´s because “Calvaire” is one of those movies that simply transcends genres: yes, it is horrific but at the same time it´s incredibly funny but not in that “Braindead”-splatter kind of way. It´s simply a very, very original movie directed by a man with a very original take on the whole genre.

And that´s why I´ve been putting off watching this movie for close to a year now: I just knew that no matter how great “Vinyan” might be, it won´t come close to the demented greatness of “Calvaire” and do I really need another disappointment in my life? I guess I do because the other day, I finally sat down to watch this one and like I suspected it wasn´t nearly as great as “Calvaire”. But it´s still a pretty great film and definitely scarier than “Calvaire”! As a matter of fact, this is one of the creepier films I´ve seen in quite a while.

Janet and Paul Belhmer (Emmanuelle Béart and Rufus Sewell) are attending a fundraiser to collect money for building schools in third world nations. Everything seems normal between them, mingling with friends and fellow entrepreneurs. When the group assembles in the living room to view a new film, shot in Burma, with protection from the Triads, the ground begins to give way. Janet is sure that a boy in the film is her son; there can be no mistake. Paul tries to comfort her through his skepticism and beliefs that their son died in that infamous tsunami in Thailand a couple of years back. Unable to shake the possibility that he may have survived, only to be sold in the Asian black market, Janet persuades Paul to go with her, no matter what the cost, and at least see if they can find him.

Now, this movie is pretty hard to define. This isn´t your usual “horror” movie, just like “Calvaire” wasn´t your usual “horror” movie either. But this one is far more disturbing. Part of the appeal when it came to Du Welz´s debut film was the fact that it was so twisted and had such a dark sense of humor about it. There is no humor in “Vinyan”. The trip that the Belhmers embark is one grim and dark fucker of a trip. I can guarantee you that you won´t be going online to search for cheap trips to Thailand after watching this one.

To give you an idea what this movie is like, I´ll say this: we´ve all seen “Apocalypse Now”, right? The scenes that sticked with me the most after watching Coppola´s masterpiece is the ones where Martin Sheen travels by boat further and further into the jungle and the mist starts getting thicker and then suddenly, the natives appear, all white painted and creepy as hell. Now, imagine a whole movie like that scene: that´s “Vinyan” for you!

I don´t know what it is but there´s just something about Asian kids painted white that gives me the creeps. But Du Welz and his editor has done a pretty spectacular job at keeping you on edge, from the first frame of film. I admire Du Welz for not going the same route and opting for the Lynchian-“Deliverance”-like riffing as in “Calvaire” but instead trying to create something that is truly horrifying and what can be more horrifying than losing your child? I don´t have any kids myself but fortunately I am equipped with a brain (some might argue that point) and a heart (even though it´s pretty dead and cold) so I don´t have any problem relating to the situation the films protagonists find themselves in. Honestly, if you lost your child and your wife/husband wanted to search for it and you knew that they would never have peace of mind until they did that, wouldn´t you help them?

Another thing that makes “Vinyan” such uncomfortable viewing is the fact that its locations are extremely beautiful, stunning as a matter of fact, but depending on the situation the couple find themselves in, they´re just as horrifying as they are beautiful. One second they´re standing on a beach with their guide, it´s a beautiful day and the sun is shining and you can hear all sorts of animals from the nearby jungle. The next second their guide has a bullet in his head and now that beach seems pretty desolate and that jungle is no place where you wanna spend the night. It´s the fact that Du Welz pulls the rug out from under the viewer like this that keeps you on edge throughout the film.

Du Welz is also one of those directors that have realized the importance of sound design. You know how David Lynch´s movies always feel eerie and scary, even though nothing particularly frightening is happening on screen? That is how this movie feels and just like with Lynch, it´s thanks to the sound design. It keeps you on edge and sometimes it´s an almost mechanical, booming noise that you can barely hear and sometimes it sounds like some sort of animal in pain. No matter what it might be, it does the trick! The opening scene alone is scary as hell and forces you to see how much your psyche and ears can endure without reaching for the remote, without much happening at all! It sure as hell sets the tone for the rest of the movie, though.

So, to conclude this diatribe of incoherent opinions I have to say that even though “Vinyan” didn´t come close to the genius of “Calvaire”, it definitely still has me interested in Du Welz as a filmmaker. Probably even more than before because if he´s able to make this kind of leap from his first to his second film, who knows what the fucker will be able to achieve with the third one? I see great things in his future.

Until next time: take scare!

Thomas

Here´s a movie that, judging from its reviews, is supposed to be so horrible that you can´t watch it without consuming some kind of heavy liquor or narcotics. Well, I can understand how a lot of people would find this movie silly and not the least frightening, but I gotta admit that I had a blast watching it. Now, for those of you out there who´ve been living in a cellar chained to the wall for the last year and are not familiar with “Jennifer´s Body” or its star Megan Fox, I´ll give you a quick rundown: “Jennifer´s Body” is written by Diablo Cody, the stripper-turned-screenwriter, who wrote “Juno” and won a bunch of awards and got stinking rich. After the success with “Juno”, she created a TV show called “United States of Tara” and when it got time to write another movie she found herself in the position of being able to do basically whatever the hell she wanted. If she would´ve called up the executives and said that “Yeah, this is Diablo Cody… That´s right, the Diablo Cody! I´m thinking about writing an all nude-musical starring nothing but mongoloid dwarves, would you be willing to bankroll that?”, I´d bet my left nut that they would´ve agreed to that.

Now, I´m just gonna come right out and say it: I thought “Juno” was a fantastic film! It was one of the better teen comedies I´ve seen in the last ten years and it was pretty obvious for anyone with at least one ear that this Diablo Cody girl had one hell of an ear for writing some snappy dialogue. Granted that it´s not the most realistic dialogue to ever grace the silver screen, but who gives a damn. I thought it was great! Hell, I even read her book about how she started stripping and enjoyed that one, as well. So if one were to call me a “Diablo Cody fan”, I wouldn´t argue with them. Unless I were in a bar, surrounded by a bunch of bikers, maybe. Maybe then it´s not the most masculine thing to admit.

But anyway, I think she´s one of the more interesting screenwriters around today and if you´ve seen “Juno”, you´d also know that she´s a horror movie fan. Ellen Page´s character has some pretty entertaining discussions about both Dario Argento and Herschell Gordon Lewis, if I remember correctly. So it´s not that surprisingly that she wants to try her hand on a horror movie (although I think my all-nude-dwarf-musical would be more interesting). Naturally, this one is set in the harsh world of High School, as well.

Needy Lesnicki (Amanda Seyfried) and Jennifer Check (Megan Fox) are best friends, though they share little in common. Needy is a nerdy reserved bookworm while Jennifer is an arrogant, conceited cheerleader who has every guy drooling after her. One night Jennifer convinces Needy to accompany her to local dive bar Melody Lane to watch a band called Low Shoulder perform. When the place is set on fire, Jennifer is abducted by the band in their van. Later she appears at Needy’s home covered in blood, throwing up a dark liquid and behaving all around weirdly…

So we´re not talking Oscar material here, ok? “Juno” did win one for best original screenplay, if I remember correctly, but there were not much chance of Cody reprising that feat with this one. And I don´t think that that ever entered into Miss Cody´s mind. This is not a movie that´s trying to be anything it isn´t, and that´s what I like about it.

However, one might argue that the movie isn´t sure exactly what it wants to be. Like I said, if you go into this expecting a “horror” movie, you might be disappointed. This one is more along the lines of a movie like “Heathers”. It´s dark yet funny but unlike “Heathers”, “Jennifer´s Body” does more than just flirt with the horror genre: it embraces it and plays around with its conventions, but it doesn´t quite succeed with creating tension or suspense. I´m not sure if that ever was the filmmaker´s goal, though.

However, one thing that director Karyn Kusama does succeed with is the portrayal of teenage girls and their so called “friendships”. I´ve always been amazed and fascinated with how teenage girls behave when they spend time with each other because it´s pretty unlike the way boys behave. I´ve always thought that girls´ friendships are more like a pair of sworn enemies who, from time to time, realize that they actually like each other. Kusama manages to convey this pretty well, amidst the bloodletting and satanic rituals that we get to witness. And to be honest, this is what I found to be the best thing about the movie: the two girls´ friendship. It´s refreshing to see an American teen movie where the cheerleader is best friends with the nerd and doesn´t exclusively spend time with other cheerleaders or jocks. These girls are at the stage in their friendship where they are friends with each other because that´s what they´ve always have been since they were kids but you get the feeling that maybe Needy´s starting to sense that they are growing apart. I don´t know what it is, but the dynamic between two persons whenever this happens is something I find fascinating and it´s interesting to see this portrayed in a movie of this kind.

But like I said, the greatest thing about this movie is the fact that it doesn´t try to apologize for being, what is essentially, a B-horror movie with a fairly shitty premise and instead plays it straight and rolls with the punches. And I still enjoy Diablo Cody´s dialogue and just like in “Juno” they´ve managed to find actors that pulls it off without sounding too forced. Hell, even Megan Fox pulls it off! Which kinda surprised me, to be honest. I mean, we´ve all seen “Transformers”, right? Those clunky CGI-robots had more life to them than she did in those movies but here she actually works as a sexy/scary high school girl. But maybe that says more about Michael Bay´s abilities than Megan Fox´s?

I can´t quite understand why this one got such bad reviews. The more I think about it, the funnier I think it is. There are a couple of scenes that particularly reminded me of “Heathers” that stands out. My favorite is the one at the funeral where the local EMO-kids gets a mouthful from a grieving mother, which kinda reminded me of the “I love my dead gay son!”-scene in “Heathers”. I also like how the band, Low Shoulder, is portrayed. They represent exactly what´s wrong with rock music today: black dressed guys with mascara who sings songs slow songs with poetic lyrics about pain and suicide; the kind of bands people with half a brain refers to as “wimps”. Adam Brody is particularly funny as the singer. I guess that he´s got firsthand experience from hanging out with bands like that from his days on “The O.C.” so he could go all Method when it became time for this role.

However, I do have one beef with “Jennifer´s Body” (well, not the body itself, that part is quite fine) and that is the fact that it falls into that old trap of having one of the leads play a nerd and how do we do that in the best way? Naturally, we hire one of the up-and-coming girls in Hollywood and then we stick a pair of glasses on her! Then everyone will immediately think that “Oh my god, can you believe how freaky she looks with those glasses?” I´m sorry to say that this isn´t the way it works and Diablo Cody should know better. Didn´t you learn anything from “She´s All That”? I am one of those guys that have a pretty strong preference when it comes to girls with glasses and I´m not afraid to say it. 9 times out of 10, stick a pair of glasses on a girl and her sex appeal is instantly elevated and it´s time that Hollywood acknowledges this! I can´t be alone in feeling this way, I know that. They´ve been doing that old glasses-on-a-beautiful-girl-routine since the 80´s, for chrissakes. I think it´s time to lay it to rest now. So this is me taking a stand for every girl in the world who wears glasses. Don´t stop! Don´t switch to contacts! Deep down, every guy appreciates that secretary look, no matter what they tell you.

Until next time: take scare!

Thomas

The world of low budget moviemaking is a strange one. It´s not like I´ve ever actually made one myself but God knows I´ve seen my fair share of them. And let me tell ya, after about twenty years of actively seeking out these low budget flicks of varying quality and enduring them, you become pretty jaded. Unfortunately, I might add. I´m not totally at ease with this cynical movie viewer I´ve become in recent years. It´s hard to muster up enthusiasm these days for a movie that have gotten awful reviews, directed by someone whose previous movie was “Basement Date Rapist Part 4” or something along those lines. But one of the filmmakers that I haven´t discarded completely is good old Albert Pyun.

Let me just say this that my relationship with this filmmaker and his work is a bit schizophrenic. I think that some of his movies are insanely bad! So bad that they actually invoke feelings of anger in me! But you see, that´s part of the reason why I like the guy. He is clearly a talented filmmaker that is able to make a movie out of a cardboard box and some bubble gum, if that´s all he has at hand. The thing is that quite a few of his films show so much more potential than what actually ended up on screen and that´s what pisses me off.

You see, Pyun is the kind of filmmaker that I always root for: working outside the studio system, doing his own thing and keeps on working and making films, no matter what. He´s sort of the modern day Roger Corman, come to think of it. And no matter how lousy one of his films may be, there´s always at least one sequence that clearly shows you what a talented filmmaker the guy actually is.

So, the bottom line is that I like Pyun and kind of admire him, although I hate some of his movies. That was why I didn´t have the greatest expectations when I sat down to watch his latest flick, “Bulletface”. The premise sounded great and God knows it has a cool title but it has been that way with so many of his films, only for them to not deliver on that initial promise:

DEA agent, Dara Maren, while protecting her younger brother, gets herself arrested and gets thrown in a prison in Tijuana. Now, this isn´t your usual prison. Hell, this one even puts the one in “Caged Heat” to shame! Not only is Dara subjected to rape on what seem to be a daily basis, prison officials even harvest organs from the inmates. Meanwhile, Dara’s brother is murdered by a drug lord who’s creating a new DNA-altering drug made from human spinal fluid tapped from the living. Hundreds of dead bodies are turning up along the border, and the drug addicts become something less than human. The drug is so addictive that even law enforcement and government officials are on the stuff. A rogue FBI agent (played by Steven Bauer) bribes the prison officials to let Dara out to avenge her brother’s murder as well as bring down the drug lord in ways the Feds cannot.

Most of Pyun´s films are plagued by the low budget movie curse: his movies aren´t just coherent enough. I mean, look at “Omega Doom”, for example. I enjoyed that one but what the hell is going on in it? Since Pyun is always working with such low budgets it´s not surprising if he has to constantly accommodate the script to its budget, which in turn can lead to huge gaps in the movie´s logic and plot. And like so many low budget flicks, there´s a lot going on in “Bulletface”. I mean a lot!

About twenty minutes in, this movie has covered more ground than most movies do in their entire running time. But what separates this from so many other low budget efforts is that the plot never gets too confusing or too complicated to grasp. Just think about the many Steven Seagal efforts of later years, for example: as much as I enjoy them I couldn´t tell you what the hell half of them were actually about. Pyun doesn´t make that mistake here and keeps the plotline lean and mean. And that´s what makes this film so enjoyable. Pyun has gotten rid of everything that would seem superfluous to tell this, at times very hardboiled, story.

But he´s also got another ace up his sleeve and that is the actors. This girl who plays the lead, Victoria Maurette, really does a pretty good job at it. She´s bound to have a bright future in the realm of action/horror movies. She´s got the looks but she´s not too pretty. You absolutely buy her as a DEA agent and when she starts going Charlie Bronson on everyone´s asses, you buy that as well. In other words: this girl has got it going on and I think it´s safe to say that Pyun made quite the discovery when he cast her in his previous movie “Left For Dead”. I mean, this is the kind of gal I bet every director dreams of discovering: a good looking girl who, for what it appears as, can act as well! Kind of revolutionary, huh? If I were you, Albert Pyun, I´d hang on to her as long as I could.

But she´s not the only one who delivers here. We´ve got the mighty Steven Bauer from “Scarface” and “Traffic” as the rogue agent. Now, let me just say this: Steven Bauer´s looks has changed quite a bit since he strutted, alongside Al Pacino, through that immigration camp in “Scarface”, ok? But I think it suits him. It fits perfectly for playing this kind of role: the world weary agent who doesn´t give a damn anymore. Now, there´s a fine line to tread for actors in low budget movies who portrays characters who doesn´t give a fuck anymore because most of the times, it seems as if the actor himself doesn´t give a fuck. We´ve all seen that and it´s not a pleasant thing. Think Michael Madsen in “BloodRayne” for example, where he stumbled around and sluddered his lines, wondering what the hell he was doing on this set when he could be making a movie with Tarantino instead. Fortunately, Steven Bauer doesn´t take this approach and actually acts his way through the movie.

Listen, I´m not trying to convince anyone that this is some kind of low budget masterpiece that will transcend genres because it has revolutionized filmmaking or anything like that, but if you´re one of those guys or gals that do enjoy this type of movie, I really recommend it. I had more fun watching this one than most big budget action movies I´ve seen so far this year. But like I said, this really is an acquired taste. You can´t shove this in front of someone whose idea of experimental filmmaking is Tarantino because he has such quirky characters, ok? But if you are the kinda guy who like to venture outside the given realm of mainstream action movies every now and then, this one might be for you. Take this one for what it is and I´m fairly certain you´ll have a good time.

Hell, at least you gotta admire the fact that Pyun apparently shot this movie in five days! If not they should show it to aspiring filmmakers, just to show them how you can make an entertaining movie on a shoestring budget in just a couple of days.

These last couple of years my love-hate relationship with Pyun has been more “off” than “on” but with this one he officially has me interested in his upcoming sequels to “The Sword and the Sorcerer” and “Streets of Fire” respectively, “Tales of an Ancient Empire” and “Road To Hell”.

Now, all we have to do now is get his director´s cut of “Cyborg” out there, along with a DVD edition of “Knights”. It´s good to have Pyun back in style and the fact that he still knows how to churn out a gritty, grimy, sleazy low-budget-revenge-action-flick makes life a little more endurable.

Until next time: take scare!

Thomas

So, here´s a movie about a dead girl but it´s not your typical ghost movie. It´s also about a teenage girl but it´s not a coming-of-age film, either. Peter Jackson´s “The Lovely Bones” is kind of hard to define, actually. And I guess that´s what makes is worth watching. But let me just say this: if I hadn´t read the novel that it´s based on, I wouldn´t think that this movie is half as good as it is. If that sounds strange to you, let me explain: like so many other schmucks out there, I heard about Alice Sebold´s novel “The Lovely Bones” when it was published and became a bestseller. It got rave reviews and for a while everyone was talking about it, so I figured “what the hey” and picked it up. I did not like it. I thought that Sebold was a fairly good writer but there were a number of things concerning the novel that I had a problem with. I won´t go into them here because that´ll probably ruin the movie for you but let´s just say that Sebold made a couple of narrative choices that I didn´t agree with.

So what we have here is a movie, directed by a filmmaker I really like, based on a novel that I didn´t like, written by an author I thought was pretty good. That can´t be particularly good, can it? As it turns out, it can. Surprisingly enough. It´s obvious to anyone that Peter Jackson has matured quite a bit as a filmmaker since his “Bad Taste” and “Braindead”-days. I´m not sure that that is an altogether good thing, though. I wasn´t too fond of the “Lord of the Rings”-movies, no matter how spectacular and grandiose those movies may be and they definitely made me miss the days of Grandma eating a bowl of her own ear. The good thing about “The Lord of the Rings”-trilogy was that they did give Jackson the power to pursue whichever projects he wanted, which in turn gave us “King Kong”, which I did think was a spectacular film. He also produced the fantastic “District 9”, which I´m pretty sure he wouldn´t have been able to do unless he hadn´t done those hobbit-flicks. So thank you for that, Frodo and Bilbo and whatever the hell your names are.

But when I say that he´s matured as a filmmaker, I don´t mean technically, because it´s pretty obvious to anyone that ever since Jackson directed “Bad Taste” back in ´87 or whenever the hell it was, he´s been a filmmaker at the top of his technical game. The difference is that nowadays he´s not afraid to tackle more heartfelt and emotional issues in his films. And if there´s one thing that “The Lovely Bones” has, it´s emotions. In abundance.

You see, this is the story of Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan), a 14-year-old girl who lives in suburban Pennsylvania with her family: her older sister, little brother and parents (played by Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz). Now, being a teenage girl can´t be all easy with your emotions running wild and the nervousness of your first kiss and all that. The teens can be a rough phase in one´s life but to complicate things even further, Susie is murdered by her neighbor down the street, Mr. Harvey (played by Stanley Tucci). Don´t you hate it when that happens? Your own puberty doesn´t seem so bad now, does it? So, the rest of the story is told from Susie´s perspective, which basically means from Heaven, showing the lives of the people around her and how they have changed all while attempting to get someone to find her lost body.

I admit that this doesn´t sound like the greatest movie ever done but Jackson gets away with surprisingly much with this film. Some things are disgustingly saccharine-coated but for most of the time he manages to keep a pretty tight rein on the many bursts of emotion. But there are a couple of things that doesn´t work. One of them is Susan Sarandon.

Now, I like Susan Sarandon as much as the next guy. There´s no denying that she´s a great actress and I like the fact that she´s a woman who has managed to age with grace and managed to find significant roles. She hasn´t succumbed to the plastic surgeon´s siren-like call out there in Hollywood, which means that she still looks like a human being. This helps enormously when you´re gonna portray a human being in a movie. However, her character in this one is pretty superfluous. She plays Susie´s booze-guzzling, glamorous, world weary grandmother. To be honest, I didn´t remember this character at all from the novel but apparently she´s in there, as well. However, in the movie she basically serves as the comic relief and that sits pretty ill at ease with the rest of the movie. There´s a montage halfway through that shows her trying to take of the typical “mom”-duties around the house, such as cleaning, washing and cooking, which seems like it belongs in another film. I thought I´d fallen asleep in the theatre and somehow accidently ended up at a retrospective showing of “Mrs. Doubtfire”. That´s how badly it fits!

Along with the scene of Wahlberg going out into the cornfield where Susie was abducted to investigate things and ends up getting assaulted by a quarterback, it´s easily the worst of the movie. This potentially suspense-filled sequence is ruined by the 70´s style guitar-masturbating that´s taking place on the soundtrack. I don´t know what the hell Jackson was thinking here but it sounds like if Captain Beefheart drank too much cheap booze and stumbled out into an alley and threw up and then that vomit took some guitar lessons and then laid down the track that is playing over this scene. It´s pretty awful to say the least and ruined what could´ve been a great moment in the movie.

Then there´s the voiceover… I don´t see how they could´ve done the movie without it but at times, it´s a bit too “New Age”-y for me and that brought me out of the film, unfortunately. But this is exactly the same problem I had with the novel: there were just too much of everything: emotions, the horror of a child being murdered, the parent´s grief and so on. No matter how horrible these things may be, Sebold didn´t quite knew how to pull her punches and after a while it got to be quite tiresome. Fortunately, Jackson has realized this and toned some of these elements down but it´s still a bit much for a stoic guy like myself.

But there are quite a number of things that do work, as well. Wahlberg is one of them. This is one of his good performances. Man, that guy has to be one of the least consistent actors in the history of movies. One minute he´s acting up a storm in “The Departed” and the next he´s wandering around looking like he just got a colonoscopy performed by André the Giant in “Max Payne”! I don´t get it. But he´s pretty good here. He´s also one of those actors that looks pretty cool in 70´s style fashion. I´d keep those sideburns if I were him.

I also liked Stanley Tucci´s portrayal of Mr. Harvey, the killer. In some scenes he´s walking a fine line between the usual twitchy clichés that actors who portray serial killers usually revel in, but I think that he manages to stay on the right side of “over the top”. It´s good to see him back on the big screen, as well. He´s not used enough these days.

So I guess that this puts this movie in category of movies that are actually better than their literary precursors. This is a pretty exclusive club and its only other members that I can think of at this moment are Clint Eastwood´s adaptation of “The Bridges of Madison County” and Paul Thomas Anderson´s “There Will Be Blood”.

If you and your date for the evening ever wanna check out a surprisingly sweet movie that contains a young girl being brutally murdered, this is it. I like the direction Peter Jackson´s career has taken but I would love even more to see him go back to his roots with a down and dirty horror movie, like Sam Raimi did the other year with “Drag Me To Hell”. That would truly be something to behold!

Until next time: take scare!

Thomas

Thank you, ”Blood Creek”, for pulling me out of my slump that I´ve been in lately. Like a true friend you saw that I wasn´t doing too well and came to the rescue with exactly what I needed: a big dose of good old fashioned fun in the shape of unpretentious, blood stained horror. I gotta admit that I didn´t expect very much when I sat down to watch this one. The only thing I knew about it was that it was directed by Joel Schumacher and that it featured Nazis, in one form or another. Now, some of you out there might argue with me when I tell you that I actually try to watch every new Joel Schumacher movie that´s being released. I like the guy even though he is the man responsible for the decay of Batman back in the 90´s. Say what you will about “Batman & Robin” and I´m not gonna argue with those of you out there who thinks that that movie is the cinematic equivalent of Japanese water torture, but if I´m gonna level with you I think that no matter how you look at it, that movie is pretty entertaining in all its glorious failure. The only thing that comes close has to be “Battlefield Earth”.

But aside from the fantastic failure that is “Batman & Robin” and the weird decision to put nipples on Batman´s costume, let´s not forget that Schumacher actually have been responsible for quite a number of really, really good movies and at least one bona fide classic. Naturally, I´m talking about “The Lost Boys”. I gotta admit that maybe it isn´t the greatest vampire movie ever and it doesn´t hold up particularly well today but you can´t deny its place in pop culture. It´s thanks to this movie that we haven´t been able to get rid of Corey Feldman and why he´s still lurking around the outskirts of Hollywood, claiming to be an actor.

And let´s not forget that Schumacher is the guy behind such great movies as “Falling Down” and “Phone Booth”. But the weird thing is that one minute he´s making a great film like gritty Vietnam drama “Tigerland” and the next he´s making “Bad Company”, which is so stupid that it makes MTV look like the work of a genius. So he´s a bit uneven to say the least, our boy Schumacher… That´s why I didn´t know what to expect from “Blood Creek”, which was released straight-to-DVD, none the less! That didn´t bode very well for the quality of this movie, either.

But guess what? Sometimes the movie gods look down on you, smile and says “You know what, you´ve been through a lot lately and you´ve seen some pretty shitty movies so we´re gonna give you this one. We know that you like horror movies, right? Check. How about the occult? Check. We´re gonna throw some Nazis in there, as well, just for good measures, how do you feel about that? You like that, too? That´s amazing, you´re really gonna enjoy this one. Tell you what, we´re even gonna throw a monster in there as a special treat, just for you. Enjoy!”

Now, before I let you in on what the damn flick is about I´m gonna have to recommend that you watch this one before you continue reading. Much of my own personal enjoyment came out of the fact that I didn’t know much about what was about to happen or what to expect. That, and the fact that I had imbibed a fair amount of alcohol before watching it. Just kidding. Here´s what it´s about:

In 1936, the Wollners – a German family living in rural Morgan County, West Virginia – are contacted by the Third Reich to host a visiting scholar, Professor Richard Wirth (played by the excellent Michael Fassbender). In need of money, they accept Wirth into their home, without knowing much about him or his mission. After 71 years, in 2007, Evan Marshall’s (Henry Cavill) life has stalled at twenty-five years old. Left without answers after his older brother Victor’s (Dominic Purcell) disappearance from a camping trip near Town Creek, he has tried to move on. But when Victor returns one night, very much alive and having escaped his captors, Evan asks no questions – at his brother’s request, he loads their rifles, packs up their boat and follows him back to Town Creek on a mission of what appears to be revenge.

Now, this is a very un-typical movie for Schumacher to make. If I didn´t know it, I never would´ve guessed that he directed it. The movie starts with a prologue, filmed in grainy black-and-white, which shows us how Wirth arrives at the family´s farm. This kinda sets the tone for the movie, without revealing too much what the movie will be about. Fassbender is great in this scene and manages to be both charismatic yet creepy at the same time.

The other ace that Schumacher´s got up his sleeve in this prologue is the farmhouse itself. He´s managed to find a great location, which really sets the mood later on in the movie, as most of it takes place at this farm. It´s a single house in the middle of nowhere and don´t ask me what the hell they grow on that farm because it looks pretty goddamn barren to me but who cares? It looks great! It´s desolate and windy in that way that only farms in horror movies can be.

Now, as I´m sure that you´ve followed my advice to watch the movie before you continued reading this, I am about to go into detail a bit more so here´s one of those (SPOILER!!!)-alerts for those of you who needs it spelled out, ok? What I found so enjoyable about this flick is the fact that Schumacher managed to keep the tension and suspense of what´s about to happen alive for a surprisingly long time. Even up until the two brothers arrive at the farm and the bloodletting starts, you´re still not sure what it is that this family actually has done. Schumacher could´ve fumbled the ball on that, but he doesn´t. I mean, let´s be honest here: it´s not like Akira Kurosawa directed the movie. I love the guy but let´s not forget that this is the guy who tried to assassinate our eyes with the sight of Arnold Schwarzenegger as Dr. Freeze, spouting lines such as “Tonight´s weather forecast: It will… freeeeezeeeee….” For being that guy, he shows some considerable restraint here and the movie benefits from it.

I think that the guy who wrote the script, David Kajganich, probably deserves some credit too because he´s managed to come up with a wonderfully economic story with some brilliantly sparse dialogue. For instance, when Victor has returned after disappearing all those years ago, Evan tells him:

-          We searched every inch within ten miles

-          Well, you missed me…

Then we see Victor hand Evan a shotgun and tells him to get ready to bust into the house and Evan demands a reason, since he has no idea why he´s doing this. Victor then calmly tells him:

-          I´m the reason…

I don´t know about you but I´m a sucker for that kind of dialogue. “A man´s gotta do what a man´s gotta do” and so on. You know the deal. I´m not saying that the acting is top notch, though. I´ve always had a problem with this guy Dominic Purcell, ever since he played one of the stiffest vampires in the history of stiff vampires in “Blade: Trinity”. He didn´t exactly set the TV screen ablaze on “Prison Break”, either. He´s a bit of a dud, actually, but I´m willing to let that one slide here because this movie is just too much fun! And fortunately, we´ve got Michael Fassbender in that small role so he evens out the amount of acting talent just by showing up in the goddamn film.

All in all, this one is worth seeking out. Schumacher manages to throw some pretty respectable gore in there and the fight sequences doesn´t feel too choreographed, which is always a good thing. When they fight, they really go at it and it not the usual “I hit you and then I wait so that you can hit me”-kind of shit. Instead they tumble around and stumble every now and then. Kind of like when two angry-as-hell people go at each other in real life.

Schumacher also managed to make some inspired choices here and there, like the scene where our heroes have to fight a “possessed” horse. I´ve never seen that before and it didn´t feel too computer generated, which I was shocked to notice. I mean, this is a straight-on-DVD-flick we´re talking about here! One that doesn´t reeks of a perversely low budget, as well! Jumpin´ Jesus Christ! It´s even got an orchestral score (or what sounds like it, anyway), which always contributes to setting the right mood. Unless your name is John Carpenter, that is. Then it´s ok to use a synthesizer.

One thing I noticed, though: this guy Evan who is apparently making his living as a nurse or medic or something along those lines (as we are shown at the beginning) should really think about a career change. He doesn´t seem to know what he´s doing. At one point, a character is having trouble breathing and is very close to choking to death. Evan runs to the rescue and his first question is this: “Do you have any aspirine?”

Now, I´m not a trained professional in any way and even though I can understand that dying could be a painful thing, I just can´t see how an aspirine would help this guy in his situation. I don´t know what you paid for your education, Evan, but I think you should consider asking for a refund.

Have a nice Easter and until next time: take scare!

Thomas