The world of exploitation film ripped open and laid raw for you to experience. From 70's grindhouse to current underground, it is all here. So ripe you can practically smell it.
KILLDOZER (1974) D. JERRY LONDON Warner Archives Full Frame This made for TV shocker is fondly remembered by those who lived through the 70's. Mostly for the outrageous title than any sort of groundbreaking content. There were comic books and even a punk band that swiped the name. This is one of those weird little movies that entered the popular zeitgeist. Hell there is probably a Family Guy episode that references it.
But does that mean the movie is any good? Not really. It is perfectly functional and well made enough, considering the era it was made. yet this is pretty much by the numbers stuff. A meteor falls from space in all its paper mache glory and lands on the construction site of Warburton industries who are digging in Uganda to build some sort of something or other. The mutant space rock possesses the nearest bulldozer causing it to come to life and destroy things and kill people.
LEWD LIZARD (1985) aka CHONG D. Norman Chu REALLY shitty bootleg
This bit of total insanity from your friends in Hong Kong is easily one of the most outrageous ideas for a movie that I have witnessed in some time. A total gross out sexploitaion horror hybrid that aims to get a retching sound out of most anyone. Anyone but those with lizard fetishes that is.
The tortured insanity that passes as plot is as follows. A young man (played by director Norman Chu) is spurned by his cute girlfriend because she has run off and married the local Mafiaso. She explains to him that she was more or less pushed into the marriage, but doesn't love his dumb ass anyway. She is much better off now. So while in a major depression our hero is hanging out on the beach and discovers dozens of tiny little lizards. No bigger than your pinky finger these guys are fast and unpredictable. So Chu scoops them up and take a whole bunch of them home. Then suddenly he is peeping on women undressing, taking showers or hanging out at the beach. Why is he doing this? I am glad you asked because I asked the same question watching this filthy movie. He is stealing the panties of unsuspecting ladies. Stopping to sniff them to make sure they are saturated with the love juices of the women he stole them from. Soon it all makes sense as he uses the panties to concoct a potion that he then injects into the lizards (for real, yet another Hong Kong horror that PETA would love) sending the reptiles into a frenzy of pussy crazed lust! He stalks out various women that have spurned him, laughed at him or just generally pissed him off and attacks them. Pulling off there clothes in what looks to be a vicious rape. But instead he just dumps a beaker of the lizards onto the ladies and presto! They crawl into the women's underwear and right into the baby ovens.
NEW YEAR'S EVIL (1980) D. Emmett Alston Cannon Films FULL FRAME - On Netflix Instant This is yet another in the very long line of holiday themed slasher films that were released in the wake of HALLOWEEN. But this is not HALLOWEEN, it isn't even FRIDAY THE 13th. Hell this isn't even GRADUATION DAY!!!
The set up is interesting though. On New Years Eve while the standard end of the year TV show is being broadcast a psycho begins calling the host on the year threatening to kill someone she knows, every hour until the show goes off the air. He starts making good right at midnight killing a nurse in an insane asylum. Somehow the cops get it in their heads that he is killing someone at midnight in each time zone. But that doesn't actually seem to be the case as he works his way back to the hotel of the tired, past middle age sex symbol host.
The movie is too concerned with the melodrama of the Host's kid or her ex husband who we do not see for a large portion of the movie. If it isn't the melodrama then it is long padded scenes of really shitty pre new-wave bands playing during the show. There is actually very little horror on the film.
The movie reminded me a little of VISITING HOURS (1981) as it is clearly a larger budgeted production trying to mine the success of other indie horror films of the time. But where as VISITING HOURS is very aware of what kind of film it is, never afraid to do what it is needed to be both scary and attention grabbing, NEW YEAR'S EVIL tries to be too polite and fails because of it. REVIEW @ Andrew Copp
THE VICTIM (2011) D. MICHAEL BIEHN ANCHOR BAY ENT. 1.85 Actor Michael Biehn apparently had a blast working on Robert Rodiguiz's Grindhouse parody PLANET TERROR. So much that he was inspired to make his own Grindhouse movie with his girlfriend Jennifer Blanc. So together they wrote and produced THE VICTIM with Biehn taking the directorial reigns for the first time. The result is a movie that is endearing in the earnestness that it exudes. But suffers from a lot of the first time director blues.
The story is pure pulp novel fodder. A couple of strippers (Jennifer Blanc and genre workhorse Danielle Harris) go out for an afternoon of naughtiness with a couple of cops (Ryan Honey and Denny Kirkwood) but when Harris dies during some rough sex play, it puts her friend on the run. She runs right to the cabin of Hermit Michael Biehn who doesn't take nicely to being disturbed and a fairly violent bit of cat and mouse ensues. On the plus side the acting is fine all the way around. The entire cast clearly is in on the sense of play and gives it all they got. When the movie gets down to tacks, it gets really violent with a head crushing that could stand up next to DRIVE or IRREVERSIBLE. The script, by no means great, at least takes a fair amount of time setting up the female characters and their friendship. Through several flashbacks we get to know them, which adds a lot to the base of the movie. The twist in the final reel, though not shocking, is a nice turn of events.
On the down side the movie has some really clunky direction like having characters talk directly into the camera when they are talking to each other. Or some severe padding. We used to tease a friend of mine who made backyard movies that his driving scenes existed just to fill enough time for him to play a song he liked. Well here that is actually true as there is a driving across the mountains scene that goes on for several minutes so we can fill time and hear the entire music cue. There is also an embarrassing opening credit scene that apes SE7EN so much that it becomes really funny. Right down to the NINE INCH NAILS rip off music. Throw in some really eye-straining day for night photography as it all adds up to hurting the final film.
THE VICTIM does do one thing I have never seen before. The ends credits, the film actually shows you the entire crew as their name appears. You see this with actors all the time, but never production staff. The movie goes through person by person and tells you what they did and shows you who they are. It certainly made me hang out through the whole credits. THE VICTIM is not a ground-breaker, but it is diverting enough for an hour and a half and I hope Michael Biehn makes some more films.
THE TALL MAN (2012) D. PASCAL LAUGIER IMAGE ENT. 2.35 I had heard a lot of poor word of mouth about this movie, the sophomore effort from Pascal Laugier director of MARTYRS. Of course it isn't going to live up to that film because it is one of the best, most important horror films of the last decade. But I am pleased to say that THE TALL MAN is a vivid, brave and intelligent horror film that is for grown ups. It may not be as visceral as his previous film, but it makes up for it with great plot twists and fantastic acting. Structurally it is very similar to MARTYRS in that it opens with one storyline and half way through switches gears dramatically to explore the story from a very different point of view. even the last couple of minutes have a slight shadow to his previous film. THE TALL MAN deals with a small mountain mining town in which the industry has basically vanished. Also vanishing is the children in the town and a legend has grown up to explain it. That a mysterious, probably supernatural force called THE TALL MAN has snatched the kids. Local Nurse Julia (Jessica Biel) is doing what she can to take care of the people in the region. But she is a single mom herself and very busy trying to keep her own home life together. Then one night the Tall Man comes calling for her son, leading to a harrowing chase in which he is snatched away. But when she returns to the town, battered, bloody and mentally shaken everyone in the town seems to be against her, and harboring some sort of grudge... To say anymore would be to give too much away. The film goes to some very interesting places including some rather savage social commentary. The movie is very intense, growing more so as the film progresses and turns. The ending is surprisingly touching and effective.
NIGHTWISH (1990) D. Bruce Cook Vidmark Ent. (Available on Netflix Instant) 1.33 Surprisingly good late 80's sci-fi/horror potboiler with decent acting, tight direction and fantastic special effects by the then just getting started KNB Effects. It starts out with a zombie/slasher scene in which Elizabeth Kaitan is threatened and stalked. Turns out she is part of an experiment at the local college in which the students go into a deprivation tank and have their dreams studied. The idea being they can effect their dreams with enough energy. The teacher heading up the experiment is a genuinely psycho old man who is going to lead them into more trouble.
They are a little supernatural investigative team and the teacher sends them to an old farmhouse. The legend of the surrounding area talks of contamination, inbreeding and how the people that still live around there are mentally handicapped. Buffed out Brian Thompson (later on the X-Files) drives the kids out and is clearly loose in the screw dept. But it doesn't take long before things are going crazy. the kids are kept prisoner by the teacher and the haunted house starts taking over their minds. Soon Aliens are thrown into the mix.
The last third of this movie breaks out some unexpected plot twists and some seriously unsettling special effects. This is one of those movies that is actually really creative and has some nasty stuff to offer. Why it doesn't have more of a following than a lot of stuff from that era is a mystery. I had only vaguely heard of it and that was because of some documentary on KNB I had seen years ago that showed some of the effects.
It also was competently unplanned to watch another movie with Elizabeth Kaitan in it. It was just some weird synergy that two movies in a row had her as the start (and I was clueless about either one). This is on Netflix instant so it doesn't even cost much to take a look at it.
STRAIGHT INTO DARKNESS (2004) D. Jeff Burr FULL FRAME This horrors of way style film from director Jeff Burr is a pretty impressive accomplishment. Though an intimate and small character driven film the logistics of the movie spread out all over with lots of big set pieces, cast and production design. It is far from a small movie.
The film opens in 1945 with two soldiers being taken to the prison camp for desertion. Losey (Ryan Francis) is a quiet and demure man, with hard morals about peace. The other man Demming (Scott Macdonald) is loud, cruel and the direct opposite. Through a twist of fate they both of them end up free of the MP's and go on a cross country trek to escape. The eventually land at a small villa with an elderly man (David Warner) his wife and many small children they have trained to be killers. A Nazi tank battalion corners them all and a huge fight takes up the last quarter of the film.
THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE CAMPUS CORPSE (1977) aka THE HAZING D. Douglass Curtis SHREIK SHOW/ CODE RED 1.85 The potboiler released by Code Red is an unusual beast indeed. Billed as a horror film in some circles and a comedy in others, it really is neither. It is a bizarre attempt at a campus based thriller with a twist ending.
The movie follows rising track start Craig Lewis (Jeff East, the spitting image of William Katt) as he starts at the best school on the continent. He foolishly agrees to pledge the big frat house, The Delts along with his new friend Barney (Charles Martin Smith, the "name" involved here since he was hot off of AMERICAN GRAFFITI). But during their hazing in which they are forced to run across country in their jock straps, Barney is badly hurt. By the time Craig returns, Barney is dead leaving the fellas to hide the body and come up with a plan to fake his death. Naturally none of it goes quite as planned.
This TV series from Britain is finally
making it's debut stateside with all of the footage intact. All
appearances in the U.S. were shortened and had the naughty bits cut
for broadcast. There are thirteen episodes all with different casts
and directors. I will review them as I actually watch them.
The first episode is called WITCHING
TIME and deals with madness and a modern day incarnation of a witch.
A man in his thirties who scores horror films for a living suspects
(rightly so) that his wife is having an affair. One evening while she
is away boning the local doctor a freak storm happens and our hero
finds a red-headed woman asleep in the stable. She claims to be a
witch from the sixteen hundreds. Soon she is turning his already
messed up life into a mockery. He calls his friend the Doctor for
help but it only convinces the both of them he is losing his shit.
Soon the witch has seduced him and claimed him as her own. Just in
time for his wife to come back around out of concern. Then things get
really weird for everyone.
The lead character is a whiny little
goofball, making it hard to be too concerned with him. But the fact
that both the wife and her lover are concerned about him and try to
do what they can to help is a nice touch. Instead of the wife and
lover teaming up to kill the husband, then spend a great deal of time
trying to help his disturbed frame of mind. It is a nice sideways
look at a typical situation for these kinds of films. The finale gets
a little silly as fire, water and voodoo dolls all come into the mix.
But over all it is a fun, if a bit silly, entrance into the show.
The next episode is called THE
THIRTEENTH REUNION and is directed by Hammer stalwart Peter Sasdy.
This entry deals with a reporter for the local women's magazine who
is assigned a story on the local weight loss guru. She meets and
almost falls for a heavy guy who takes a pill he was given from the
Guru and goes batshit crazy driving off the road and into a tree. She
teams up with an amateur sleuth and they investigate the killing.
They soon discover there is something much more sinister than just
weight loss going on. Think a modern, somewhat higher tech BURKE AND
HARE.With some implied cannibalism thrown in for good measure.
An early scene in this episode involves
the Guru leading a group therapy session, Here he berates a middle
aged, heavy set women for her weight problem, screaming at her that
she is “fat and disgusting” and how her husband could never want
to be around “Such a fat cow” like her. While the show spends
most of the time being a fairly straight forward horror/thriller
piece it never hits the repellant heights of this disturbing scene again. It is
cruel, unpleasant and downright upsetting to watch. You REALLY want
to see him get some sort of comeuppance before the piece is over.
These first two episodes are vastly
different from each other in approach and content. I am quite
interested to see how the other eleven play out.
DON'T OPEN TILL CHRISTMAS (1984) D. EMUND PURDOM MONDO MACABRO 1.66
Producer
Dick Randall, hot off the success of his slasher flick PIECES, made a two
picture deal with UK based F/X man Peter Litten for this film and
another slasher called APRIL FOOLS DAY - which was retitled SLAUGHTER HIGH
to avoid litigation from Paramount. For this Christmas themed gore
flick Randall brought in his PIECES star Edmond Purdom to play the lead
again. But Purdom would only do it if he could direct too. Which led to
such a hack job that three other directors ultimately took over to patch
this mess into the hilarious monstrosity it is today.
Yet
in some ways, this may be my favorite if the X-mas themed slasher films
from the era. The film is just, top to bottom, so insanely wrong-headed
that it is constantly entertaining. Delivering consistently for the
whole running time.
The scant story has some psycho
scouring the streets of London killing street Santas. Very brutally in
fact, burning off faces, slicing throats in peep booths and castrating
one poor St. Nick in mid piss. Purdom is the dick on the case
investigating and he is convinced a flute playing street musician is the culprit.
Naturally he isn't. The killer is exactly who you
think the first time you meet him. But you will be distracted by
the naked saggy boobs, overflowing blood and incredible dialogue. Like
when flute boy is almost caught by a couple of cops in the street with a babe in a Santa
cape and exclaims "they are gonna think we are a couple of GAYS!" Or
when Purdom finds a dead body and two women gasp, he tells them "it's
ok I'm a police officer!" Then two men approach and he tells them "go
phone the cops!"
I also love how every dime store Santa in
England is a drunk or a pervert or both. They get killed because the
stumble drunk into dark alleys or go into peep booths for a wank. Except
for one poor Santa who stumbles inexplicably into Carolyn Munroe's
sound check! She looks super hot, the song kinda sucks, the guy gets
killed and Carolyn never shows up again!
Of course it is
all some flimsy psycho sexual trauma. But you won't care. This is the
kind of thing that is only as good as the piles of absurdity it can
muster. Trust me, they don't come much more absurd than this.
The
dvd has an hour long vintage behind the scenes that showcases mostly producer
Dick Randall. But they don't even try to hide how troubled of a
production it was. Instead they made a humorous behind the scenes film
about it.Joking about the multiple shoots, body doubles and new directors. But even better is the Mondo Macabro made extra THE WILD WILD
WORLD OF DICK RANDALL that is a wonderful and loving overview of his life and
career. That extra alone is worth the price of the disc and make my all bleary eyed for an era of exploitation film that will simply never exist again.
The movie looks fine, grainy in places, belying
its very low budget roots.but better than if ever has considering it has floated around in bootlegs sourced from 20 year old VHS and one full frame DVD of questionable originans from nearly ten years ago. Add to that the mind melting Mondo Macabro trailer reel and you
get a package that is fit to open well before Christmas indeed.
THE AGGRESSION SCALE (2012) D. STEVEN C. MILLER ANCHOR BAY ENT. 2.35 - 1
This tightly wound little thriller literally hits the ground running when hit-man Lloyd (Dana Ashbrook from TWIN PEAKS) enters a suburban home and calmly blows the person out the front door with as shotgun in front of their kids. After a couple more equally bloody and unsettling murders we come to find out he is working for local mob boss Mr. Bellevance (Ray Wise). Seems someone has absconded with $500,000 of his money and he is none to happy about it. If Lloyd doesn't get the money in 48 hours, he gets put under the ground.
Then we meet slowly fracturing, newly thrown together family. Bill(Boyd Kestner)and Maggie (Lisa Rotondi)have just gotten married and are moving their two teen aged children up to a new house to start over. The kids are not happy about it. The daughter Lauren (Fabianne Therese) is a typical spoiled bitch who is complaining about everything. But their son Owen(Ryan Hartwig)is a different sort of child, clearly autistic and introverted, he never utters a word throughout the film. But we get wind early on that something is brewing inside of him when he kills a spider with a makeshift blowgun...
Before longLloyd and his brutal gang of thugs (Including Derek Meyersfrom theFRIDAY THE 13th remake and THE HILLS HAVE EYES remake) are there killing their way through the supporting cast, but what they didn't count on was the Owen is actually the concern of the title.
What transpires id that this young boy with extreme autism, is actually as dangerous, if not more so, than these thugs and killers. That he has been training himself for survival strategies and this whole situation becomes an extremely bloody game for him.
It would be easy to dismissTHE AGGRESSION SCALE as HOME ALONE for adults. That is the easiest short hand for it. But that also cheapens what is one of the freshest, most exciting thrillers I have watched since HANNA (2011). Constantly exciting, lean and to the point, viciously brutal and uncompromising, it is edge of your seat stuff. Sure there are missteps along the way. Owen's actions are sometimes way too exacting, with him having the forethought to do things that ONLY make sense if he were to know the script itself. The daughter, Lauren, gets really annoying with her teenage angst early on, but thankfully the films spends very little time with that before getting to the action.
Some horror fans pride themselves in
searching the outer reaches of the genre for those films that will
psychologically scar them. Recent years have seen the genre move to
those outer edges in a reaction to a not so subtle seismic shift in
our culture after 9/11, ten years of a war in Iraq, and watching our
economy plummet while people blame each other. The horror film has
always been a mirror to the anxiety of the society of the time, and
with the viciousness of our current times it is no surprise we have
ended up with films like EDEN LAKE, MARTYRS, BROKEN and of course the
very ugly and controversial A SERBIAN FILM. Now we have another very
unsettling film to throw onto the short list of movies that will lay
a long and nasty scar on your brain. Adam Rehmeier's and Rodleen
Getsic's searing cinematic assault, THE BUNNY GAME.
But this one is quite different than
even the other (some quite excellent) films mentioned, as it is as much an art film as a
horror film. Shot in harsh black and white, and edited with near
brilliance at times, this is a movie that is very aware of the
artifice being used to bring it to the audience. The film-making on
display is never less than completely assured, coupling with a nerve
wracking use of sound design and loud and abrasive music all collide
to make THE BUNNY GAME an experience that only a brave few will make
it out alive from.
The story is really very simple. A
young woman played by co-scripter Rodleen Getsic, is BUNNY, a woman
who has found herself a prostitute. Whoring her way on the streets to
survive. These early scenes, which make up roughly the first quarter
to a third of the film, are deeply unpleasant and the perfect flip
side to a movie like PRETTY WOMAN which makes prostitution look easy,
clean, and never really dangerous. BUNNY is shown plying her trade in
hardcore close up, sucking cocks but never for a second enjoying it.
Soullessly getting roughed up, but taking it because it means enough
money to get through the day. We see her in the shower in tears as
she adjusts to getting past her last encounter and on to the next
nasty John. Much of this is scored with super loud and abrasive death
metal music just to add to the even more aggressive feel.
Soon she is picked up be a seemingly
benign old truck driver played by Jeff Renfro. After a brief
discussion of exchanging money for sex, he offers her some drugs and
next thing she knows she has been kidnapped and her life is about to
become a living nightmare.
From here on out the film is an
aggressive onslaught of humiliation and torture. The Trucker
systematically sets out to break her, emotionally, spiritually and
sexually. Holding her captive in the back of his tractor trailer,
stripping her down, shaving her head and playing an extending,
extremely brutal S+M based game of total dehumanization. Oddly enough he never actually sexually penetrates her, but the
entire enterprise is basically one long extended emotional rape of
her very being. During some moments she has a rather disturbing
rubber Bunny mask on that further dehumanizes her. All the while the
Trucker laughs maniacally becoming a very demonic presence, leading
the charge in this nightmare.
THE BUNNY GAME could have been just
another torture exhibit freakshow for gorenographers to jerk off to.
But instead the film-making on display sets it apart from that. There
is real force of nature at work here. Seriously unpleasant stuff, but
not without merit. Even if I had not known the back story why this was
made I would look at this film and see there was more to what was on
screen than simply an exploitation of a woman’s suffering.
One thing that indeed set's this apart
from the horror film of it's peers is that NOTHING on screen is fake.
That very fact risks making this a bit of a geek show, but it also
lends the movie a visceral, raw authenticity that makes it impossible
to escape from. So when we see BUNNY being bound, gagged and
tormented it is for real. When her head is shaved and she is force
fed a whole bottle of vodka, it is real. In the same scene there are
cars in the far distance driving by that are clearly not part of the
film-making crew. Just people tooling down the highway that adds a
very disturbing edge in that we are watching this bound, naked woman
being abused and people are just driving past. The sexual scenes
early on are not fake, and there are several scenes of things like
cutting and branding that are not fake either.
All of this is possible because
Rodleen Getsic comes from a performance art background. Most of her
former work dealt with feminist and political themes. She also was
very involved with things like political activism and was well known for
her charity and philanthropic work during the Katrina disaster. It is this background that
allowed her to take the punishment netted out in the part. But more
importantly is the WHY she conceived the the film and role. It is my
understanding that some where in her past she was indeed abducted by
a sexual sadist and suffered greatly while held hostage. To wipe the
experience from herself she conceived this project as a way to
exorcise the demons. Getsic fasted for forty days to get to a
physical place to play the role and they shot the for film for 13
days during which she committed to taking all the abuse as close to
reality as possible. Including the very real violence. Once the shoot
was finished she went away to a retreat for a month to rid herself of
the emotional experience of the shoot and the memories it was based
on.
Some films are not meant to be enjoyed,
or even be entertaining. Some are meant to be endured as they very act
of making them were acts of rebellion for the filmmakers. THE BUNNY
GAME is one such film. It isn't for everyone, only a select few will
be able to stomach the horrors on display. Approach it with extreme
caution, and understanding that what you are seeing is an act of
extreme catharsis. It could damage you if unprepared.
Kevin
Smith's controversial thriller is by no means a horror film, no
matter how much he or his fans try to tell you it is. But much to my
surprise is actually IS a fine little film. Mostly sure handed,
offering no easy answers, exciting when it should be, brutal and ugly
when it needs to be, and forces a lot of thoughtful ideas into the
laps o an audience that probably would never give any of those ideas
a chance had Smith's name not been attached. The movie only falls
down in the last reel when it seems that Smith himself seemingly just
couldn't handle not throwing in his typical smarmy smartass humor,and
a final walk off image that simply doesn't work. But 90% of the movie
that leads up to it is challenging stuff.
The movie begins
with a small scene in a high school class room where a very liberal
teacher goes over the first and second amendment briefly and how it
applies to the FIVE POINTS CHURCH and their leader ABIN COOPER (in a
galvanizing performance by Michael Parks). This church are basically
a version of the Fred Phelps clan protesting any and everything to do
with Homosexuals. That they are agents of Satan. In the High School
class are three teen boys Jared(Kyle
Gallner),Travis(Michael
Angarano)
and
Billy Ray (Nicholas
Braun)
have been talking to a middle aged woman online about meeting her for
group sex. On the way to meet this woman they run into a parked car,
inside of which a gay couple are having sex. Which turns out to be
the town Sheriff and his secret gay lover, This is a key point of
interest later in the story. The kids meet the woman (Melissa Leo) at
a trailer park and she drugs them and takes them hostage for the FIVE
POINTS CHURCH and Abin Cooper who intends to slaughter them during
one of his sermons as a sacrifice to the lord to show he is cleansing
the Earth of the filth and sodomites. The Sheriff has sent his Deputy
out to find who hit his car, more to see who might have found out his
secret than anything. The Deputy finds something amiss at the Church
and gets shot for his trouble, Leading the Sheriff to call in the
BATF lead by John Goodman who have been trying to find solid evidence
that the church have been hiding guns on the premises. But when the
BATF get on the site and their commands go south once the shooting
starts, the government's involvement is as questionable as the
church's.
The
movie is a clear acid in the face of the WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH and
their evil protesting of Gay rights issues, soldier's funerals and
everything else they do. RED STATE could be easily summed up as THE
WESTBORO CHURCH discovers the second Amendment and becomes THE BRANCH
DAVIDIANS. But what makes it so unique is that for the most part
Smith is careful to not lay too much of the blame at one one
particular door step. The fanatical church is clearly shown as
misguided people, blinded by their religion. But when the government
is called in the decisions made by them are really no less fanatical
or humane. Once again no easy answers are given, and no chance at
true living or presented. Just as much faceless slaughter is
there.
Kevin Smith loses his focus in two sections of the
movie. In the last ten minutes of the movie he slips back int his
normal smart ass, snarky writing with several new major characters
making useless sexual/ comedic banter that is very out of place. Also
the plotting ends up turning on a very loose bit of very lucky plot
devices that feel like he had painted himself into a corner and
needed something o get out quick. Also the handling of the gay
Sheriff character is fumbled pretty badly, making him a drunk,
insecure character, which would be fine, but with him being the only
openly gay character in the film to make him a laughing stock and a
loser it sends a bad vibe to the audience. Also killing him of
violently sends a nasty message to the audience. But my theory is the
Sheriff is the stand in for Kevin Smith himself, the very in the
closet gay guy who can't come out at all under in circumstances, that
it would ruin his life if he did. So it is ok to make that character
a bit of a laughing stock. At least in Smith's own eyes.
But those are the few small
complaints. For the most par I still say this is Smith's most mature
film, even with the small slip ups, and if he intends to keep making
movies in the this vein I will be glad to see what he is up to in the
future.
MORE BRAINS: A RETURN TO THE LIVING
DEAD (2011) D. Bill
Philputt. CAV RELEASING
From the
creative team behind the award winning four hour documentary NEVER
SLEEP AGAIN on the NIGHTMARE ON ELM ST. series comes this in depth
exploration of THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD. But unlike that film
this is only a look at the first film in the series. At least as far
as the first movie itself is concerned. Once you get into the extras
they delve into the first two sequels at length (and for my money get
a little more interesting, but more on that in a moment).
So
all the expected criminal minds are present from producer Tom Fox
from the original screenwriter John Russo, the entire cast and lots
of crew people to even Suzi Q to talk about her musical contribution.
In fact the only missing contributor is obviously Dan O'Bannon
because he had recently passed away (but there is a lengthy interview
with him as a DVD extra) and oddly enough Tobe Hooper who had
originally signed on as director by left the project before shooting
began and then Dan O'Bannon signed on and totally recreated it from
the ground up. Apparently there is some animosity there.
For
me there wasn't a ton of new information, but then again, I have
followed the film for years, through the various video and dvd
incarnations AND read and re-read the CINEMAFANTASTIC article that
went into major depth about the troubled production back when the
movie was released. But for fans who haven't spent years reading
about the film there is a lot of news here. Stuff I found of interest
was finally getting to hear the controversy about the effects work
from the mouths of those involved and seeing actual pictures of F/X
man Bill Munns' aborted work. I couldn't believe how truly awful it
was, for years I read about his dismissal from the film, but couldn't
believe it could be as bad as the people involved claimed. He is
interviewed here and admits it is not his best work, but the pictures
tell the story and it is, well, embarrassing. I give the man props for
being willing to take part in this documentary and own up to what
went down.
The actors have a lot of fun stories, but oddly
enough not very many people have a lot of nice things to say about
Jewell Shepard, and she herself comes off pretty jaded about the
production. There is also some pretty insane stories about Glu
Gulager not getting along with Dan O'Bannon including him going after
him with a ball bat and a big metal can.
Not shockingly John
Russo down plays the successful nature of the film in his interviews
where it is clear he just doesn't get it, the humor or what they were
trying to do with the movie. The mind boggles at what kind of immense
piece of crap this would have ended up as if he and his buddy's would
have stayed at the helm. He talks at length about how he
would have opened the movie, which ended up in his raping and
pillaging of the 30 Anniversary of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.
The extras include fairly in depth
explorations of Part 2 and Part 3. Part 2 sounds like an abortion
from the get go, from the fact that director Ken Weiderhorn who was
hired because he had done a few other horror films, said on set he
didn't like making horror. Though that entry had probably the best
actual effects of the three it is the most uneven tone wise. It is
basically a kids film, the comedy is all over the place and it seems
the the set was miserable at best. The actors all talk about how they
did not have a good experience being there. They also all talk about
how terrible the script was.
Part 3 has a lot nicer things to
be said as everyone seems to have had a much more pleasant time on
that set and agree it is more unique film. Though the film was
basically green lit from a farming out of ideas until they found one
that stuck. Everyone involved agreed that an undead love story was a
fantastic approach that took the series into a new direction.
The
interview with Dan O'Bannon is bittersweet at best now that he isn't
with us. But his enthusiasm is infectious and his final walk off line
about loving all his fans is quite beautiful. It is a sentiment that
everyone should remember about being famous.
If you are a fan
of this series there is no reason you shouldn't pick this up.
