The MFF Podcast #76: The Blair Witch Pod (1999-2016)
Download the pod on iTunes, PodBean, or LISTEN TO THE POD ON BLOG TALK RADIO.
If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome!
Summary: This week we discuss The Blair Witch Project (1999), briefly address Book of Shadows (2000), delve deep into the links between Blair Witch (2016) and the original, and address fan theories of time distortion.
We answer the tough questions in this podcast! For example…
“What do Bigfoot and the Blair Witch have in common?”
“What animated films should get live action remakes? How about Anime?”
“After Olympus and London Has Fallen, where should Gerard Butler go to murder more people?”
“Just what exactly is going on with these time distortions in the Blair Witch’s woods?”
LISTEN TO THE POD ON BLOG TALK RADIO, PodBean, or
head over iTunes, and if you get a chance please SUBSCRIBE, REVIEW, RATE and SHARE the pod!
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MFF Special: The Top Five Cinematic Presidents
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With the presidential election looming I decided to compile a list of my five favorite cinematic presidents. These five men are all incredibly different but if you combined them into one person our world would be a better place. What I love about these men is they have no problem making tough choices, jumping into fights and delivering amazing speeches.
The presidents might also have Jedi powers…
Here are the top five cinematic presidents!
5. President Thomas J. Whitmore – Independence Day
Thomas J. Whitmore (Bill Pullman) is a true hero who monologues like a champ and has no problem engaging in air combat with devilish aliens. I have deep respect for a man who leads his country into combat and survives to tell the tale. What impresses me the most about Whitmore is how he was able to belt out a rousing speech on the fly. He had no speechwriters or aids telling him what to say or do. He simply stood up and delivered a speech that saved the world.
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4. President Tom Beck – Deep Impact
Morgan Freeman is the best and his President Beck character in Deep Impact is the president everyone wants. He is cool, calm and has a beautiful voice that could prevent war. If an asteroid was headed towards earth, I’m pretty sure the only thing that would calm me down is a speech by Morgan Freeman. Anything that comes out his mouth sounds reassuring and I would briefly forget that a massive rock was headed my way. We need more Morgan Freeman president characters.
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3. President Merkin Muffley – Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Peter Sellers is my hero (watch Being There) and Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is my second favorite film (Jaws is #1). What I love about President Merkin Muffley is how relaxed he seems in the face of chaos. One of my favorite all time scenes involves Muffley talking to the Russian leader about potential nuclear war. It is the funniest phone conversation ever and proves that Peter Sellers can do no wrong.
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2. President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho – Idiocracy
Terry Crews is an underrated comedic actor and his portrayal of President Camacho in Idiocracy is a blend of earnestness, anger and bouncing pecs. He is the type of president who will get down and dirty and allow others to have a voice (before he busts out his machine gun). Idiocracy is an underrated film that has managed to stay relevant and topical during the current election. I’d like to think that Camacho could make this country great again.
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1. President Tug Benson – Hot Shots! Part Deux
I’ve watched Hot Shots! Part Deux countless times and it never gets old. It is loaded with hilarious sight gags, one-liners and characters. My favorite of the bunch is President Tug Benson (Lloyd Bridges). What I love about Benson is how he isn’t afraid to throw himself into action and occasionally incapacitate bad guys via stinky farts. The final battle between he and Saddam Hussein is a neat mixture of weird moments, asbestos skin and Terminator 2 gags. If our country was ever in trouble I would happily trust that Benson would save the day and still not remember who his wife is.
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Five Reasons Why Jeff Nichols is the Best Working Director Today
If you see one of my movies and don’t like it. It is totally my fault.
Jeff Nichols – Wired – 2014
My Jeff Nichols appreciation dates back to 2008 when a friend of mine recommended I watch a film called Shotgun Stories. I looked into it on IMDb and realized that Jeff’s brother Ben is the frontman for the alt-country band Lucero. I was excited to see that Ben’s music was featured on the soundtrack, and I gave the film a go because I wanted to see if Ben’s brother was as talented at directing as Ben was at music. The movie totally drew me into Nichols version of the midwest and I loved every second of the contemporary southern tragedy. Since Shotgun Stories, Nichols has been a beautiful tear with Take Shelter, Mud, Midnight Special and Loving. They are all damn near perfect and everything Nichols touches turns gold.
The following post covers five reasons why Jeff Nichols is the best working director today.
1. His First Five Films Have an Average 90.8% Rating on Rotten Tomatoes
The 90.8% average for his first five films is higher than the first five films of Wes Anderson, Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, Alfred Hitchcock, Katheryn Bigelow, James Cameron, Francis Ford Coppola and Akira Kurosawa. This is an incredible feat considering the amount of talented directors that have been making films for decades.
What I love about his films is how unique they are. Aside from the true story Loving, Nichols has brought the world some original gems that are unlike anything you’ve ever seen.
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2. Take Shelter Is the Best Film of This Decade
Take Shelter is a heartbreaking film about a man trying to protect his family. Is the world ending or is he getting his first symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia? Take Shelter glued me to my seat and I sat through the credits trying to absorb what I had just watched. Nichols direction alongside the performances of Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain create a wrenching film that lingers long in your memory. The final song by Ben Nichols is heartbreaking as well. Take Shelter is cinema at its most beautiful and absorbing.
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3. He writes All of His Films
I like that he writes his own films and you can tell he loves his source material. All of the characters are written with care and I like how he explores the lower class with class. He doesn’t pander, stereotype or dumb his characters down and that makes them real. The contemporary southern films are all important to Nichols and he draws inspiration from his family, children and everyday experiences which make the films real and not forced. Nichols wrote Midnight Special after a harrowing ordeal involving his child and you can see his personality shining through in this neat little exchange.
Alton Meyer: Dad?
Roy: Yeah?
Alton Meyer: Are you scared?
Roy: Yes.
Alton Meyer: You don’t have to worry about me.
Roy: I like worrying about you.
Alton Meyer: You don’t have to anymore.
Roy: I’ll always worry about you Alton. That’s the deal.
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4. He Always Gets Final Cut
I Need Two Things: Michael Shannon and Final Cut
If a Jeff Nichols movie is bad it is because Jeff Nichols messed up. I love that he puts himself out on a ledge and keeps full creative control because there are no excuses if it turns out to be bad. Nichols recently did an interview with Hitflix and here is what writer Drew McWeeny said to say about his creative control:
One thing I found interesting in our conversation was just how little he cared about whether people like the ending to Midnight Special. That may sound arrogant, but I think it’s the opposite. Instead of worrying about how people will react, Nichols simply focuses on telling the best version of the story, something that ties his film together thematically and dramatically. It’s a punishing game for filmmakers to try to one-up each other and whatever’s come before, and it leads to films that have these preposterously-scaled third acts full of glowing doodads on rooftops and CGI beasties. While not everyone is going to like the destination in Midnight Special, it’s clearly a carefully crafted conclusion to this very particular story.
5. He Gets the Best Out of His Actors
I still hope that Jessica Chastain and Michael Shannon receive honorary Academy Awards for their work in Take Shelter. You can tell the actors enjoy being in Nichols’ films, and I love how the lack of plot and expository dialogue force them to bring their A-game. I don’t know how Nichols does it but I appreciate how he is able to get the best out every actor. There is a naturalist vibe and he manages to play towards their strengths while not making it easy for them. Watch this clip from Mud and you will see McConaughey in all his McConaissance glory.
What is your favorite Jeff Nichols film? Let me know in the comments.
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The Fifth Element (1997), Milla Jovavich’s beloved sci-fi character Leeloo saves the Universe from darkness.
MY CALL: Easily one of my favorite movies…EVER! It’s a zany, exhilarating, sci-fi adventure movie about hope, love and overcoming evil to save the Universe. Featuring a slew of highly memorable and quotable characters, this is one of my Desert Island movies; I can happily watch it any time. MORE MOVIES LIKE The Fifth Element: For something newer try Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005), for something older maybe Total Recall (1990).
Director Luc Besson (Leon: The Professional, La Femme Nikita) is an artist, and bonkers characters fill his pallet. From the zany opening scenes we find a strangely divine character dynamic in Egypt, an evil planet attack loaded with sci-fi zest, and our graphic novel-esque antihero starts his day to one of the most cosmically cool soundtracks to emerge from the 90s.
Corbin (Bruce Willis; A Good Day to Die Hard) is a has-been decorated military officer who now struggles to keep his cat fed and license to drive his hover-cab valid. He awakens like a washed up John McClane after a rough night, expresses that he wishes he had a woman in his life, and dodges calls from his pestilent boss and mother.
Despite the massive amount of looney transpiring on screen, we meet numerous memorable and substantial characters and all of them will make you smile. Tiny “Zeus” Lister (Friday, No Holds Barred) is an intergalactic President. Father Vito Cornelius (Ian Holm; Lord of the Rings, Alien) informs him that they have only 48 hours to stop a cosmic force of ancient evil which will wipe out all life in the Universe and only one thing can stop it: a mystical supreme being.
After an attack, remnants of an engineered lifeform are recovered and reconstituted into a genetically “perfect” orange-haired woman. Clothed in the thermal bandages so beloved by Comic Con cosplayers around the world, Leeloo (Milla Jovavich; Resident Evil 1-7, Faces in the Crowd) escapes into a world that she clearly doesn’t understand and falls into Corbin’s cab babbling a dead language and being all sorts of indescribably adorable.
When she asks Corbin for help, hardly understanding her own tear-soaked words, no one with a heart could say no. Although Corbin almost does. But in helping her, he earns her trust and becomes her antihero protector and the co-savior of the Universe.
Peppering more crazy into the cast, Gary Oldman (Leon: The Professional, The Dark Knight) serves up his villainy deliciously as Zorg. Despite being a super-rich evil mastermind, he makes a lot of poor decisions. Rounding out all manner of plays and players, Chris Tucker (Rush Hour 1-3, Friday) is brilliantly idiosyncratic as the manic sex-addict Radio Host Ruby Rod, and Maïwenn (High Tension, Leon: The Professional) plays the mystical operatic Diva.
The favorite scene of mine would have to be the Diva’s concert. The Diva’s song is unlike anything you’ve heard, and its high notes score and punctuate the action of Leeloo’s awesome fight sequence on the Floston Paradise cruise ship. There is nothing technically wowing about the fight choreography, which is clearly meant to be more amusingly dynamic than a demonstration of martial prowess, but with the music and Besson’s humorous approach I could watch it all day. This scene steamrolls into a bigger, longer, more explosive action sequence full of Corbin’s cynicism, Ruby’s hysteria, and Leeloo’s endangerment.
Now almost 20 years old, The Fifth Element’s special effects will not wow you. And whereas I feel they hold up more than well enough on their own, when combined with the score the scenes remain highly entertaining. The music alone will ignite your attention. This is especially evident during the taxi-police chase scene, during which I completely forgive the dated CGI as I watch Leeloo pinballing around the back seat to Cheb Khaled’s “Alech Taadi.”
Most entertaining for me is how Leeloo (the supreme being) speeds through the internet learning 5000 years of history, culture and language, along with mastering Kung Fu in order to save all humanity much as Neo (“the one”) did in The Matrix (1999)…two years later, and now apparently less original. Of course, The Fifth Element isn’t 100% original either—in fact, Ug in Critters (1986) did the same thing. You’ll find parallels and homages to loads of other sci-fi. Many ships look like Empire Star Destroyers, there’s the Dark Side of the Force and Mr. Shadow coming to bring darkness to the Universe, and the Diva appears to be a cross between the Xenomorph and Jabba’s Twi’lek slave girl dancer Oola. Oh, and Bruce Willis is basically playing Die Hard in Space—but in the best way possible!
For all its awesome fun, it’s Leeloo that breathes life into this film. Leeloo is among the most beloved characters in the Sci-Fi genre—making the ranks of Yoda, Luke and Han. When Leeloo smiles it’s sincere emotion, naïve to the workings of the world around her, and she will infect your heart. There is such purity to her goodness. And when she says “multipass” it will brighten your day.
I recommend this movie to everyone. EVERYONE. I was 16 when I saw it in theaters so I know this movie carries a lot of nostalgia for me. But watching this just makes me feel good, satisfied, happy, hopeful, warm-fuzzy, awesome…all that. I expect it to affect you the same. Enjoy!
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John’s Horror Corner: Critters (1986), a sci-horror comedy creature feature follow-up to Gremlins (1984) with viciously cute flesh-eating aliens.
MY CALL: A satisfyingly fun creature feature for fans of Gremlins (1984) and Ghoulies 2 (1988). Not much of a plot, but loads of off-the-wall inventiveness, playful nods to the genre, and likably cute miscreant monsters. MORE MOVIES LIKE Critters: Critters 2 (1988), Gremlins (1984), Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990), Ghoulies 2 (1988), Tremors (1990), Grabbers (2012)…maybe even Munchies (1987) and Hobgoblins (1988), although they are of considerably lower quality.
This movie’s opening is as cheesy as it gets. After a batch of fuzzy little aliens escape a maximum security “prison asteroid” they are followed to Earth by a pair of intergalactic bounty hunters reputed for their destructive methods.
Meanwhile on Earth, Helen (Dee Wallace; The Howling, Lords of Salem, Halloween, Cujo), Jay (Billy Green Bush; The Hitcher), and their kids April (Nadine Van der Velde; Munchies) and Brad (Scott Grimes; Critters 2) have a pretty normal life…that is, until the critters land their spaceship on their family farm to turn Kansas into their buffet.
Their small town has its fair share of personality. Sheriff Harv (M. Emmet Walsh) tries and fails to keep the peace while Deputy Jeff (Ethan Phillips; Star Trek: Voyager, Critters 3) hits on their dispatcher Sally (Lin Shaye; Insidious 1-4, Chillerama). And keeping the sheriff on his toes is Charlie (Don Keith Opper; Critters 2-4), an alcoholic simpleton whose belief in little green men is known all throughout town. His “crying wolf” archetype and friendship with Brad clearly served as a model for the similar dynamic in Leprechaun (1993), which is a decent R-rated horror comedy follow-up for adult fans of Critters.
The shape-shifting bounty hunters learn about Earth much as Leeloo and Neo (in The Fifth Element and The Matrix) and assume the form of a rock star (Terrence Mann; Critters 2-4) and a few locals. This hardly serves the story, but it garnishes an additional layer of silly icing on this cheesy B-movie cake.
The special effects feature a transformation scene that serves as a predecessor for Hellraiser (1987) with reverse time lapse wax melting. The UFO and scenes in outer space are forgivably laughable—mostly because it all feels deliberate and suits the younger PG-13 demographic. This movie transcends the “so bad it’s good” territory and finds itself comfortably in the “good” zone…in the sense that it’s timelessly entertaining. I mean, the critters’ main objective on Earth is comically “food,” they roll around like Sonic the Hedgehog, and they grow as they eat creating a giant Tribble-like threat. Much as Ghoulies 2 (1988) has a giant ghoulie, Critters has a giant critter.
I still like the creature effects. The critters’ toothy maws are menacing. These critters are met with a comical impish first impression. But make no mistake, they are here to kill and eat! They rampage a steer leaving a ripped up gory cadaver, they eat April’s boyfriend Steve (Billy Zane; Demon Knight, Bloodrayne, Survival Island), and brutally maul any within biting range. To level the playing field these diminutive monsters are 50% teeth, swarm like piranhas when they can, and they shoot tranquilizing sleep quills.
Helming his first of many feisty movies to come, director Stephen Herek (Rock Star, The Three Musketeers, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure) knows how to entertain us…and our kids! That’s right. Horror for kids? This is PG-13 but it’s every bit as gory as some convincing R-rated movies of its time—although it’s not trying overly hard to shock us and there is nothing brutal or mean-spirited about it. There are a few swear words here and there (uttered by cute aliens and our kid hero Brad), but this is easily suited for preteens. It’s never really “scary” and you never “see” anyone die (although it’s implied once).
There’s a lot to love about this movie—but most of all is that Stephen Herek really tries to entertain you instead of doing just enough to hold things together between special effects. It’s kind of adorable that the critters are intergalactic fugitives, Brad hypothesizes that the critters are radioactive gophers created by the government, a critter confronts an ET plush, Brad’s cat is named Chewie, and Jay’s bowling team shirt looks like the Ghostbusters’ logo. Also grin-worthy is that when the critters “speak” it sounds like a Pomeranian shaking a chew toy, despite the subtitles of totally normal dialogue.
This fun creature feature will happily please fans of Gremlins (1984) and Ghoulies 2 (1988). What it lacks in cohesive plot, it more than compensates in off-the-wall inventiveness, frequent self-aware nods to the genre, and likable miscreant alien monsters.
Watch this, then watch for more since, at the end, they laid eggs!!!
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John’s Horror Corner: Wrong Turn (2003), if The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) family had a cabin in the woods.
MY CALL: If The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) family had a cabin in the woods and swapped chainsaws and cleavers for bows and axes, this fun gross-out hillbilly horror is what you’d have. Highly recommended for fans of brutal horror. MORE MOVIES LIKE Wrong Turn: Wrong Turn 2 (2007), The Hills Have Eyes 1-2 (1977, 1984, 2006, 2007), Just Before Dawn (1981), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) will all continue to satisfy the hillbilly horror subgenre.
After a playful death scene, the opening credits are accompanied by a montage of news clippings about legends of mountain men, deformities from inbreeding, disappearing hikers, freakish strength and psychosis, and maps of West Virginia (our lovely Appalachian setting).
That’s right. When it comes to inbred cannibal redneck hillbilly horror, the locals are the monsters. They scramble through the forest laughing with maniacal yips and haws rustling every bush in their path all the while as noisy as simian Planet of the Apes extras. But what changes the pace from most of the horror genre is that these woods are well-lit and gorgeous.
After finding some barb wire tire caltrops and crashing, Chris (Desmond Harrington; The Neon Demon, Dexter, Ghost Ship) ends up stranded in the woods with Jessie (Eliza Dushku; Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Soul Survivors), Scott (Jeremy Sisto; Six Feet Under), Carly (Emmanuelle Chriqui; Entourage, Thundercats), Evan (Kevin Zegers; The Colony, Vampire, Frozen, Dawn of the Dead) and Francine (Lindy Booth; Cry_Wolf, American Psycho II, The Skulls 2) on a dirt mountain road. Of course, they separate almost immediately as two stay behind while the others go seek help.
They find an old shanty cabin besieged by old broken-down cars with some very old models among them. “Maybe they have a phone we can use.” Yeah, right! The interior is alarmingly unclean. Bowls of car keys; crude rusty cutting implements; crates with sorted cameras, shoes and children’s toys; and all manner of sorted organs in jars create the hoarded décor. In case that wasn’t enough, the fridge is loaded with leftovers (i.e., Tupperware filled with kidneys).
Can’t find the phone?
Well, the owners seem to be getting home so we can just ask them.
This gory shock flick may run deeper in the tropes than it does in the woods, featuring cliché horror drags pulling victims off-screen, tank topped scream queens, and maniacal briar-stirring mongoloids with a taste for human flesh. In the beginning when Chris stops by a gas station, the owner (Wayne Robson; Cube, Wrong Turn 2) is about as “harbinger creepy” as they come. He’s filthy, sparsely toothed, chugging Pepto-Bismol (because whatever), and his phone doesn’t work. That’s a lot of red flags screaming for an escape to a populated city! But, unluckily for Chris, the road is blocked and he decides to take an unpaved detour that surprises even the uber-creepy backwater gas station attendant.
The characters are decently written considering there isn’t much to the story (i.e., victims are stranded in the woods and are hunted by cannibals), but the highlight is clearly Jeremy Sisto’s idiosyncratic comic relief—he almost reminds me of Jeff Goldblum. Outside of his clever banter, we’re really just waiting for the cast to get through their lines so as to hurry us along to the next death scene. But this is due to the absence of story development and not because of bad acting. The acting is fine.
The kills are generally more fun than brutal (but still a bit brutal), including a mangled variation of a choking and an excellent pseudo-decapitation high in the tree canopies.
And speaking of tree canopies, that “set design” was pretty unrealistic and mostly CGI. I didn’t even notice this when I first saw it (in theaters 13 years ago), but now it is blaringly obvious.
Whether audibly sawing flesh and chopping limbs as they butcher a victim, or their wheezy grunts and maniacal laughs—someone put a lot of thought into the visceral sounds. And if it “sounds” uncomfortably brutal then know you’ll love the gory butchered corpse, exaggerated hair lips, and “Three-Finger” (Julian Richings; The Witch, Urban Legend, Cube) who looks like someone lit Dee Snyder on fire and then extinguished the flames by pushing him into a septic tank.
Our nerves are tested several times over by director Rob Schmidt (The Alphabet Killer)—when the victims tip-toe around the sleeping rednecks, when they hide under the table while their friend is carved for dinner, and the cat-and-mouse game played high in the trees.
I love how campy this movie is and that it doesn’t rely on any gratuitous nudity to be as such. The redneck family’s mania and their gory wake accomplish it perfectly. It’s not very jumpy. But it may find you on edge with a nervous smile and, despite its gory brutal nature, this West Virginian horror feels far more playful than its mean-spirited Texas counterpart. The movie ends on a humorous note that is more than a bit suggestive of a sequel. I would expect nothing less.
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Nerve: A Neat Techno Thriller That is A Lot of Fun
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Nerve is neat little film that felt like a breath of fresh air alongside other 2016 movies like Neon Demon, Don’t Breathe, The Shallows and Hell or High Water. I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to watch something that isn’t a sequel, prequel or remake. I love how this YA book adaption came out of nowhere and caught me off guard with its likable qualities and lack of dystopian moping. Directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman (Catfish, Paranormal Activity 3) have a history with social media gone wrong and I love how they made such a great looking film on a tight budget of $20 million.
Nerve tells the story of a night gone awry due to a dangerous social media app called Nerve. The game revolves around “players” and watchers” engaging in crazy antics that become more and more intense. If the “players” keep succeeding and completing the dares they get paid an increasing amount of money until they can’t complete one of the tasks. The dares innocently start with kissing a stranger and build to jumping across train tracks or hanging from massive cranes. The dares are controlled by the “watchers” and there are obvious parallels to online bullying and the insanity of the anonymous internet culture.
The hero of the story is the 18-year old Vee (Emma Roberts). Vee plays it safe and prefers to hide behind her camera where she can take great pictures and not engage with the world. She has been accepted into a prestigious art school but doesn’t have the money or strength to tell her mom she wants to the leave NYC and move to California. After a particularly egregious embarrassment at school she gets involved in Nerve and finds herself teamed up with bad boy Ian (Dave Franco). From there the two likable characters engage in a whole lot of shenanigans before it all becomes too real and dangerous.
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What I like about Nerve is that it simply wants to entertain and drop a quick message about online bullying. The characters all evolve and even the the biggest punks come around at the end and prove themselves to be three-dimensional. Also, the movie looks great and the cinematography by Michael Simmonds makes NYC look like a wonderland of blue lights and little trash. Nerve is a quality film that succeeds in creating a likable time capsule that I will gladly revisit.
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MFF Streaming Recommendations: 10 Films to Watch in November
Hello all. Mark here.
There are way too many options in the streaming world. Between movies, television shows and documentaries you could spend hours trying to pick the perfect film. In an effort to save you some time I searched through the streaming sites and picked out 10 films you can stream in November. The 10 are an eclectic bunch that all offer something awesome, iconic and weird. You can find films on HBO Now, Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime.
Insidious: Chapter 3 (HBO Now – 11/01)
Insidious: Chapter 3 is by no means a horror classic or future staple of the genre. However, it knows what it is and provides some big scares and truly memorable moments (crunchy leg walking!!!). I was skeptical at first because I didn’t know if the James Wan-less prequel would be any good, but my trepidation faded quickly as Elise, Tucker and Specs battled a truly menacing spirit. I love Elise and I think she is remarkable in a day and age of lithe heroes and young horror fodder. It makes me happy knowing that veteran actor Lin Shaye finally found a great character to build a franchise around.
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Matchstick Men (HBO Now – 11/01)
Nicolas Cage + Sam Rockwell + Alison Lohman + Ridley Scott = Awesome. If you need a reminder that Nicolas Cage is a great actor I totally recommend you check out this neat caper flick.
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Being There (HBO Now – 11/01)
Being There is one of the greatest comedies ever made and features a beautifully confusing and inspired ending shot. Peter Sellers performance as Chance the Gardener is perfectly calibrated and I love his ascent through Washington politics. If you are looking for a relevant, hilarious and original comedy it doesn’t get any better than Being There.
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Top Secret! (Amazon Prime – 11/01)
Top Secret! might be one of the most underappreciated comedies of all time (almost hyperbole). It is endlessly inventive, always funny and features a skeet surfing music video (amazing!). Directors Jim Abrahams and David Zucker (Naked Gun, Airplane!, Hot Shots!) are maniacs and between Airplane!, Top Secret! The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!, Hot Shots!, Hot Shots! Part Deux and Mafia! they loved exclamation marks.
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Ravenous (Netflix – 11/01)
Ravenous is an odd little film. Dismissed upon initial release in 1999 it has picked up a cult following that has made the recent Blu-ray release an event. The film is characterized by a quirky soundtrack, bonkers performances and the famous line “he was licking me!” It is clear to see why this film is so adored. Like most cult classics it has an off-kilter vibe that features performances with personality. I love how it subverts clichés and feels like a hybrid because of the sudden directorial shifts. Ravenous has a personality all its own and can stand alongside films like Evil Dead, The Warriors and Donnie Darko.
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Election (Hulu – 11/01)
Reese Witherspoon owns Election and her performance as the super driven Tracy Flick is a marvel to behold. Director Alexander Payne (Sideways, About Schmidt) knows how to get the best out his actors and I love how he was able to capitalize on Chris Klein’s inherent earnestness. Election is cinema at its best and you should check it out.
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Green Room (Amazon Prime – 11/05 – 11/15)
Green Room is the best thriller of 2016 (so far) and it proves that director Jeremy Saulnier (Blue Ruin) is an amazing director. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time and I love how Saulnier makes violence look so ugly and realistic. Nothing is glorified and you will find yourself incredibly nervous for the trapped punk band. Also, Patrick Stewart is awesome as the Neo-Nazi leader because he looks like your nice uncle but he would kill you without a thought.
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Creed (Amazon Prime/Hulu – 11/17 – 11/30)
Creed is an exciting film that gave Michael B. Jordan a showcase role and brilliantly extended the Rocky world. I love the idea of Rocky training Apollo Creed’s son because it just feels organic and natural. Creed isn’t forced and I can’t wait to see who Adonis fights next.
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Eddie the Eagle (HBO Now – 11/18 – 11/22)
Eddie the Eagle is a blast of pure joy that wears its heart on its sleeve and features some great ski jumping. I left the theater with a smile on my face and the feeling that the true story it was based on was done justice. If you want to see Hugh Jackman play someone other than Wolverine you can’t go wrong with Eddie the Eagle. My only gripe about the movie is that Jackman play the world’s most fit alcoholic. I understand that he couldn’t go method and they needed his star power, but I’d of loved to see someone like Thomas Haden Church play the coach.
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Boyhood (Netflix – 11/22)
Ethan Hawke called Boyhood “Timelapse photography of a human being.” This film directed by Richard Linklater was 12 years in the making and proves to be a beautiful experiment that combines the best of Linklater’s previous films. Boyhood is an incredible experience full of depth, intelligence and wonderful conversations.
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MY CALL: This gory B-movie callback to The Thing (1982) was far better than expected. More of a B+ movie, the creature effects were frequent, diverse, fun and satisfying—so I’d highly recommend this to fans of monster movies and old school practical effects. MORE MOVIES LIKE Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor: Blue Monkey (1987), The Nest (1988), The Deadly Spawn (1983)…The Thing (1981, 2011), Leviathan (1989), Blood Glacier (2013) and Harbinger Down (2015).
I rather enjoy it when B-movies just jump right into things. Not three minutes after the opening credits we are made aware of the presence of some mutant tentacle monster that’s already racking up a body count.
Written and directed by Glenn Takakjian (who never directed again), I was quite pleasantly surprised by this movie! It didn’t suck at all. I mean it’s bad, but it’s also sort of awesome.
A research facility has been experimenting with alien DNA—which means good news for us horror fans. We see glimpses of alien plants, strange reptilian creatures, and other mutant critters. Everything seems fine until one of the scientists accidentally hurts one of the creatures and is bitten by the frightened beast. Naturally, the researcher becomes infected…and it advances quickly.
Dr. Viallini (Marcus Powell; Rejuvenatrix, Time Bandits) and Dr. Stein (Allen Lewis Rickman; Flesh Eating Mothers, Slime City) decide to keep the infected scientist on site—obviously a mistake. As their patient transforms I’m reminded of From Beyond (1986) and Aliens (1986), as he becomes more amorphous and his blood becomes acidic. His now inhuman form has sealed shut his mouth and eyes, but opened entirely new orifices from which it “shoots” clawed harpoon-like tentacles and strange toothed parasites (a lot like in Without Warning).
After their father doesn’t come home from his night security job at the lab, sisters Sherry (Tara Leigh; Sabbath, Galidor: Defenders of the Outer Dimension) and Kim (Dianna Flaherty; Class of Nuke ’em High, The Toxic Avenger) go to facility to investigate. Viallini only tries to cover things up and he makes an excellent villain, his very speech patterns sounding like he is perpetually conniving.
The budget is surprisingly not so low (considering I had never heard of this), and significant efforts were made on the gore by the effects team. The gore and effects are frequent and care was taken in their presentation. I didn’t mind at all when a scene from The Thing (1982) was emulated as our patient’s head was tearing away from its body and small tentacles thrashed from its chest cavity. We also find an inside-out dog reminiscent of The Fly II (1989), which also dealt with genetic mutations, transformations, and monsters running amok in shady private research company buildings.
Eventually an all new monster somewhat “emerges” from within the infected transforming patient and it resembles the “husky ball” from The Thing (1982). As if that wasn’t already pretty spiffy, we’ll even enjoy a fair bit of cool Claymation to complement the animatronics. Another funny observation is that with the monster’s final form, its tentacles and its projectile infectious parasites, it seems that the alien monster from The Faculty (1998) might have been modeled after this!
The creature effects were frequent, diverse, fun and satisfying! The monsters got loads of screen time, and they are consistently slimy, gross, tentacular, gooey—just all that good stuff. So I highly recommend this to any fans of monster movies or practical effects fanatics.
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John’s Horror Corner: Hellraiser VII: Deader (2005), a trippy, cult-driven mystery of resurrection.
MY CALL: It might be fair to say that the Hellraiser sequels continue to drop in quality with each subsequent release. However, they remain quite watchable and enjoyable, even if not “good” Hellraiser movies at this point. This, like parts V and VI, is a standalone movie with a horror-mystery edge. I think it’s worthwhile for the adventurous or Hellraiser completists. MORE MOVIES LIKE Deader: Be sure to see Hellraiser (1987) and Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988) first, of course. Then maybe Hellraiser 3: Hell on Earth (1992) and Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996). Hellraiser: Inferno (2000) and Hellseeker (2002) are more standalone films, along with this part VII.
*************How it fits in the franchise (minor franchise spoilers)*************
Directed by Rick Bota (Haven, Hellraiser VI-VIII), this seventh installment to the Hellraiser franchise follows Inferno (2000) and Hellseeker (2002) by presenting another stand-alone story. Hellraiser was a dark chamber thriller fueled by lustful desire, Hellbound more of a curious exploration of Clive Barker’s Hell-ish Labyrinth and his Cenobites, Hell on Earth was a troped-up action/horror movie chronicling Pinhead’s own escape from Hell, Bloodline an anthology story illustrating the creation and lineage of the Puzzle Box, Inferno a crime thriller neatly packaged in the dark trappings of the Puzzle Box, Hellseeker yet another murder-mystery crime thriller, and now we follow in the steps of parts V and VI (Inferno and Hellseeker) with crime, cults, mystery and mysticism. From its very start we expected Hellseeker to be playing out the flashbacked fantasies of someone already condemned to Hell and, like Hellseeker, Deader isn’t overly predictable.
There may be an admittedly significant drop in quality in the third and fourth films from the original two, and yet another such drop for the fifth, sixth and this seventh direct-to-video installment, but it remains comforting that we never seem to find the same story simply recycled and retold with different victims. And more importantly, despite the drop in quality, I still enjoy them a lot! A major fault of Hell on Earth and Bloodline was the nuisance of over-exposition. I didn’t find that to be a problem in Deader (at least not until the third act) nor in parts V-VI.
The franchise continues to expand the Hellraiser mythology, although with less impact here than before. Whereas parts I-IV revolve around the Box or Pinhead (Doug Bradley), parts V-VI and this chapter are illustrative of what experiences befall those damned souls who open the Box. Thus, we see much less of Pinhead and focus more on our curious and potentially damned souls—as it probably should be. Now with part VII, Amy’s journey begins as a rational investigation of something potentially supernatural, shifts to supernatural experiences of her own, and ultimately steers us into what feels like a surreal dreamscape of her life.
***************How it fits in the franchise ***************
Meet Amy (Kari Wuhrer; Eight-Legged Freaks, Sharknado 2), a top-notch undercover investigative reporter. She does whatever it takes to nail the major scoops and now she’s been recruited to investigate the “deaders,” a group of Romanian cultists who appear to be able to resurrect the recently deceased following ritual suicide.
Upon arrival in Bucharest everything seems…well, appropriately wrong given this is a Hellraiser movie. A lead’s apartment wreaks of rotting flesh and flies, and houses a dead body clutching the Puzzle Box artifact after an apparent suicide. A video from the suicide victim admonishes us not to “open” the box. Which, of course, cues Amy’s interest to do exactly that.
From the moment the Puzzle Box is opened we are struck with the hooked-chain urgency of the old days. Well, perhaps it’s a bit weakened by the CGI. But whatever, they’re trying. An unfortunate trend in this franchise is that the effects go from “Holy Shit Awesome” (for their time and even today) in parts I-II, to pretty good in III-IV, to typical direct-to-DVD in V-VI. But fret not, it’s all still quite entertaining and Pinhead’s tissue-rending hooked chains get their pound of flesh. Some sloppy gory scenes are present, but it’s just not exactly in the dire theme to which we’re accustomed.
If anything about this film specifically bothered me, it would be that the new Cenobites don’t even seem to matter. Chatterbox is here… and some others. But they’re really just “there,” offering no substance. These Cenobites are more akin to Christmas tree ornaments. You may stop and enjoy noticing one here or there for a fleeting moment, but it’s the tree (i.e., Amy’s relationship with the Box) that we truly “see.” Even Pinhead is quite downplayed.
At times this movie tries to be a bit too neo-contemporary and, for all its effort to appear in-touch, this makes it feel momentarily out-of-touch…like it’s trying too hard to impress us with its self-awareness and social sub-cultured edginess. Much as Hell on Earth tried and failed to capture the big city club scene, so does Deader fail to capture whatever “this” all is… whether it be afterlife-challenging cultists or trippy underground punks. Speaking of whom, the Romanian underground subway seems to be a nihilistic Satanic sex trade loaded with disconcerting imagery.
Of course, Amy locates the cult, ends up in over her head, and this is the point at which the film sadly turns to heavy exposition to tell its story.
The final act is weird, bloody, weird, trippy, weird, culty and more weird. The film ends on a dark cyclical note after a finale offering honestly no satisfaction other than a gory rending, but that’s perfectly fine with me. I enjoyed most of the movie, so I won’t let the last five minutes ruin the experience. Although I was a bit bothered by how the ending seemed to violate our understanding of Pinhead’s influence and control regarding soul ownership and Box openers.
Parts I-III of this franchise should be watched in order. After seeing them, there seems to be no consequence to seeing part V, VI or VII before part IV outside of the fact that Bloodline is much better. This film is nothing special, nor is it even a “good” Hellraiser story—yet it’s not bad either. I take it for what it is and appreciate of it what I can. I didn’t regret watching it, and—while I wouldn’t necessarily “highly” recommend it to viewers—I have, in fact, seen it about four times now. It’s pretty neat.
Overall, I was pleased with this as a direct-to-DVD horror film, but disappointed as a major Hellraiser fan. In either case, I’d still recommend it (to a choice few of you). But only AFTER seeing parts I-IV.
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