Hello all. Mark here.
If you’ve been reading MFF or listening to the podcast for some time you know we are big fans of Kurt Russell. The guy is an underrated badass who has a great filmography and wears sleeveless shirts like non-other.
I’ve decided to populate Tarantino’s new film The Hateful Eight with all Kurt Russell characters. I dug through his films and picked eight antiheroes, criminals, killers and lawmen. These eight men together will undoubtedly make for a weird movie but I think the world is ready for eight Kurt Russell characters reciting Tarantino dialogue.
Sidenote: I have no clue how they end up in the same place at the same time. My best guess is they found a Stargate.
Here is a synopsis for Hateful to give you some background.
In post-Civil War Wyoming, bounty hunters try to find shelter during a blizzard but get involved in a plot of betrayal and deception. Will they survive?
Who do you think would be the sole survivor of this dangerous Wyoming night?
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John Ruth – Hateful Eight
I haven’t watched the film yet but judging by Russell’s mustache it will win the award for “Greatest Film EVER!!!!!” From what I’ve read he plays a hangman that is a mean sonuvabitch. I’d love to see how he would deal with Russell’s dirty cop character from Dark Blue. Would he be jealous of Wyatt Earp’s mustache?
Stuntman Mike – Death Proof
The dude loves talking in bars, killing people via car crashes and already fits in the Tarantino world. He will blend in perfectly among the shifty Hateful Eight characters and is the evil version of Crunch Calhoun.
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Crunch Calhoun – The Art of the Steal
Crunch Calhoun is a stuntman who always hurts himself and comes back stronger. I want a moment in the Hateful Eight where Stuntman Mike and Crunch Calhoun engage in a snowy sled chase culminating in something incredibly bloody.
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Snake Plissken – Escape From New York
The guy is a seasoned criminal who mutters one-liners and always finds himself in bad situations. If anybody survives a cavalcade of violence it is Snake.
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Michael Zane – 3000 Miles to Graceland
I imagine he gets lost after a robbery and ends up in the haberdashery in full Elvis gear. I would lose my mind watching Elvis talk to Snake Plissken. What I like about Michael is people keep thinking he is dead but he always pops up again. He has perfected the art of wearing a bullet proof vest and it would be a fun gag to have him constantly coming back from the dead.
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Eldon Perry – Dark Blue
Eldon is a dirty cop who finds himself in a dirty bar. I’d love to see him play both sides and end up pulling off a fabled quadruple double cross.
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Wyatt Earp – Tombstone
The guy is an unstoppable killing machine who delivers justified justice. Now, imagine him in a vipers nest of terrible people. It will be fun watching him deal with a plethora of Kurt Russells while being slightly jealous of Ruth’s sweet stache.
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Gabriel Cash – Tango and Cash
The Hateful Eight has a dangerous lady in the mix. So, I decided to add an undercover Gabriel Cash in drag. The facade won’t last long but just imagine a world where this happens. Stuntman Mike talking to Cash would guarantee Hateful $700 million worldwide.
What Russell characters would you add?
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If you like action movies then this is for you. PERIOD. Do not wait to see this at home. See it on the biggest screen possible…it’s GORGEOUS and INTENSE.
With that said, there were a few things that really made this movie stand out–in addition to the size of the budget and explosions. Here are 5 things I noticed that contribute to making Mad Max: Fury Road the best thing ever.
Folks, let’s just start by stating the obvious. When in your life will you again have the chance to see a $150 million budgeted R-rated action movie? Probably never. So go see this in theaters while you still can.
1. BREEDERS. Immortan Joe lives in a post-apocalyptic future and he has a harem of enslaved “breeders” he uses to produce children. These young, fertile breeders comprise all of the women under Joe’s rule that do not appear malformed, scarred or ugly. Funny, since Joe is one of the ugliest and oldest people in his entire Citadel. Not only does he have a harem, but he protects their “you-know-whats” from other men with toothed chastity belts! Good luck cracking that safe unscathed…unless, of course, you brought bolt cutters on your date.
By the way, the fact that Joe has this harem basically provides the entire plot! No joke. Charlize Theron decides to try and free Joe’s imprisoned reproductive sex slaves, flees with them, Joe gets every minion and every war machine he has to chase them down…and Max just kind of ends up in the middle of it.
At one point the girls even gang up on Max and try to kick his butt.
2. THE CULT OF VALHALLA’S STEERING WHEEL. Our tyrant promises an afterlife in the paradise of Valhalla to convince his fanatical cultist-like tribal followers to become suicidal warriors. At one point he promises to carry one of his “war boys” into Valhalla with his own two hands–and his war boy minion goes nuts!
Fury Road is an intensely action-gasmic spectacle. The first 30 minutes bombarded the audience with an unmatched extreme action sequence (and an equally magnificent battle score) beginning with a post-apocalyptic high speed car chase, Max is captured by the tribal cultish goons and then escapes giving chase through a subterranean quasi-steampunk lair while still fettered and gagged while battling dozens of these minions while climbing and hanging from things and trudging through water, and then we get another tremendous mass vehicle chase/battle scene littered with explosions and speeding dilapidated car wrecking cartwheels and minions climbing all over these vehicles like ticks on mechanized apocalypse cattle…and then it all continues in a sandstorm with more bodies being flung from or even into the paths of raging war machines in the maelstrom. This extended action sequence demonstrates the fanaticism of Immortan Joe’s war boys.
Let’s try to explain this fanatical chaos, shall we? Look at what these war boys will do for their leader…
STEP #1: Get a crazy guy with a death wish to leap onto an enemy vehicle while holding spears with explosive heads.
Step #2: Land on target vehicle.
Step #3: Explode, along with target vehicle.
Step #4: “Wash, Rinse and Repeat” with an army of fanatics until all are dead or enemy is dispatched.
To prevent the war boys from valuing their lives too much, create a false idol–perhaps an altar made of steering wheels–and have them literally pray for a good death and a one-way ticket to Valhalla.
3. THE BANE FACTOR. Okay, try to stay with me here…just kidding, this is actually a really simple, quick observation. Tom Hardy played Bane in The Dark Knight Rises (2012). Back when that movie came out I was complaining that they didn’t get someone physically bigger to play Bane like the gigantic Nathan Jones (6’11” 390lbs; Troy). Rictus (Nathan Jones) is the son of Joe, who is basically wearing a Bane mask…making him the Bane Father of the Apocalypse. That’s a “triple bane.” On an unrelated note, there was a crippled dwarf in the Citadel by the telescope…was this (in combination with Rictus) an indirect hint at Master Blaster?
4. CHARLIZE THERON HAS A MECHANICAL ARM! Need I say more? SIDEBAR: Max is not the hero! As Max, Tom Hardy (Warrior, The Dark Knight Rises) is perhaps perfect, but his character is quite unexpectedly understated. His lines are few (think Kurt Russell from Soldier) and he isn’t really the hero of this story. Rather he is a reluctant sort-of nomad-turned-antihero who trusts no one and remains nameless through the majority of the film. The real hero is Imperator Furiosa (daringly performed by Charlize Theron; Prometheus, Snow White and the Huntsman), a once-loyal servant with a mechanical arm who is defying Immortan Joe by fleeing his citadel with his enslaved harem of “breeders” (a group of young attractive women Joe uses to produce children).
Whether you’re holding a gun or raising your arms in peace/surrender, doing so with a mechanical arm always looks cooler. And, by the way, it looks like a mechanical Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle hand!
5. THE CRAZY FLAMING GUITAR GUY. George Miller (Mad Max, Road Warrior, Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome) hasn’t done very much recently—really only making children’s movies like two Happy Feet films and Babe: Pig in the Big City in the last 20 years. But after making happy-go-lucky bright-eyed, bushy-tailed kids flicks he has returned to Mad Max with a most fierce yet equally welcome assault on the senses. We have not 2 minutes of calm as we meet Max, his two-headed gecko snack, and his dusty Ford Falcon XB GT. If that, along with $150 million in explosions wasn’t enough, he also gave us the Doof Warrior. Doof is a blind guitarist wearing a red onesie who plays the battle hymn of Joe’s war boy army of the Citadel…and his double-necked guitar occasionally shoots flames. Even better, his war machine has a stage made entirely out of speakers!!!! This is totally nuts amaze-balls-tastic.
We go from this [ABOVE]…
to this [BELOW]….nice transition in turning the level of insanity from an 8 to an 11. LMAO
I’m sure there’s an explanation out there for this guy with his flamethrowing guitar…I just haven’t a clue what it would be other than BECAUSE THAT WAS AWESOME!!!
JUST ONE MORE REASON…FAN THEORY: There is a fan theory out there that the Max of this film is in fact a grown up Feral Kid, 30 years later. This is absolutely not my idea. I found it on Nerdist: https://nerdist.com/mad-max-fan-theory-will-make-you-want-to-see-fury-road-again/. But some interesting points are made. The argument is far from bulletproof, but since even George Miller claims that each movie is a stand alone story that takes place in no particular order, it makes it slightly more plausible. The observations about his grunting, age and hesitation in revealing his own name are all at least a little convincing.
So who is this movie for? Anyone who likes action movies. Really, ANYONE who likes action movies.
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PULP REVIEW: noun//A review devoid of a thorough or complete synopsis, but including snarky snippets of ideas and overall opinions/recommendations.
Alt. def. A review of a movie that was not worth my time to write a full review.
If I’m writing a review this short, then I probably wouldn’t recommend it. That said, here are three movies I don’t recommend.
The Mirror (2014) started off with a bit of promise. In this found footage film we are quickly introduced to our young British protagonists and I found them to be instantly likable. They have bought an allegedly haunted mirror and set up cameras in hopes of capturing evidence of the paranormal so that they can win some contest. It’s clearly a very low budget film, but I’d blame this film’s eventual degeneration on poor writing. Once weird things start to happen, the likability of the characters is squandered, I stopped supporting them, and I found myself just waiting for something interesting to happen…but to no avail. The best part of this film was meeting the characters in Act 1. Act 2 simply set up some interest that never found a satisfying conclusion in the 3rd. Most disappointing was how components of the final act were blatant bastardized rip-offs of Oculus (2013)…not that this is surprising. I’m always glad to give any film a shot, but this turned out to be wholly dissatisfying. I’d recommend avoiding future projects by writer/director Edward Boase. I saw this with my girlfriend (also a general cinephile and horror fan) and she was even less impressed than I was, expressing that she didn’t even find the characters likable. We don’t recommend this.
Extracted (2012) features sci-fantasy fan favorite Sasha Roiz (Grimm, Warehouse 13, Caprica) as a scientist who has engineered a method of “seeing” people’s memories. He ends up in a dangerous situation after he is trapped in the mind of a felon–not unlike the concept behind The Cell (2000), but without all the cool stuff and suspense. Somehow the story remained interesting while the movie itself felt completely uninspired and unexciting. Sadly good premises are often lost in subpar movies, and this is sort of the case here. I was expecting something of a thriller mystery that would have me at the edge of my seat for a fun movie night with the girlfriend. What I got was a ho-hum mystery that I’d watch while laying on the couch alone and half-asleep with a cold on a Tuesday afternoon after calling in sick from work. My girlfriend summarized that this movie felt like Inception, Awake, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Ghost, Groundhog Day and Sublime…but clearly not in the best way, nor as effective as any of the aforementioned. This could have been an awesome film, instead it was merely a serviceable direct-to-DVD flick. It wasn’t bad per se, but I wouldn’t recommend it either.
Exorcismus (2010) was shockingly helmed by the director of The Returned (2013). I say “shockingly” because I thought The Returned was fantastic, yet this film felt stale. I’ll start by pointing out that I was drawn to this movie because of Doug Bradley (Pinhead of the first several Hellraiser movies). As it turns out, his role was very small. Not making up for that at all was the hardly passable “possession acting.” By this I refer to the lead role (a possessed teenage girl) when she is acting under the influence of an otherworldly force. They tried to spice things up with a clever twist to the story, but the only way I was moved was by the rolling of my eyes. Ultimately this may have been one of the least impressive possession movies I’ve seen. The Rite (2011), The Devil Inside (2012) and even The Possession (2012; which I had called the “the Diet Coke of Possession movies”) were all more effective–but likewise, I wouldn’t recommend any of them either. 
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MY CALL: If you like action movies then this is for you. PERIOD. Do not wait to see this at home. See it on the biggest screen possible…it’s GORGEOUS and INTENSE. MOVIES LIKE Mad Max: Fury Road: While the grandiose action is scaled way down, I think of Waterworld (1995) and The Postman (1997). Both feature a quiet, reluctant hero in a post-apocalyptic setting.
Folks, let’s just start by stating the obvious. When in your life will you again have the chance to see a $150 million budgeted R-rated action movie? Probably never. So go see this in theaters while you still can.
Fury Road is an intensely action-gasmic spectacle. The first 30 minutes bombarded the audience with an unmatched extreme action sequence (and an equally magnificent battle score) beginning with a post-apocalyptic high speed car chase, Max is captured by tribal cultish goons and then escapes giving chase through a subterranean quasi-steampunk lair while still fettered and gagged while battling dozens of these minions while climbing and hanging from things and trudging through water, and then we get another tremendous mass vehicle chase/battle scene littered with explosions and speeding dilapidated car wrecking cartwheels and minions climbing all over these vehicles like ticks on mechanized apocalypse cattle…and then it all continues in a sandstorm with more bodies being flung from or even into the paths of raging war machines in the maelstrom.
Let’s try to explain this chaos, shall we?
STEP #1: Get a crazy guy with a death wish to leap onto an enemy vehicle while holding spears with explosive heads.
Step #2: Land on target vehicle.
Step #3: Explode, along with target vehicle.
Step #4: “Wash, Rinse and Repeat” with an army of fanatics until all are dead or enemy is dispatched.
There may be LOADS of CGI, but the budget shines as brightly as the rich orange explosions and the electric yellow sand. The cinematography bestows grandiose scale to our vastly empty wasteland populated by chaotically raging traffic. The action was truly flawless throughout, ever-tense and utterly thrilling, and often catches you off guard with the sheer brutality.
George Miller (Mad Max, Road Warrior, Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome) hasn’t done very much recently—really only making children’s movies like two Happy Feet films and Babe: Pig in the Big City in the last 20 years. But after making happy-go-lucky bright-eyed, bushy-tailed kids flicks he has returned to Mad Max with a most fierce yet equally welcome assault on the senses. We have not 2 minutes of calm as we meet Max, his two-headed gecko snack, and his dusty Ford Falcon XB GT. From that moment on we are graced with a score that matches the scale of the scenery, the explosions and the budget. It’s grandiose in the best of ways; I truly lost myself in it. By the way, the acting was also great!
Meet Max, his Ford Falcon, and his post-apocalyptic Hannibal Lector mask.
As Max, Tom Hardy (Warrior, The Dark Knight Rises) is perhaps perfect, but his character is quite unexpectedly understated. His lines are few and he isn’t really the hero of this story. Rather he is a reluctant sort-of nomad-turned-antihero who trusts no one and remains nameless through the majority of the film. The real hero is Imperator Furiosa (daringly performed by Charlize Theron; Prometheus, Snow White and the Huntsman), a once-loyal servant with a mechanical arm who is defying Immortan Joe by fleeing his citadel with his enslaved harem of “breeders” (a group of young attractive women Joe uses to produce children). They find unlikely help in a turned minion Nux (Nicholas Hoult; Warm Bodies, Jack the Giant Slayer) and a clan of strong, elderly warrior women deep in the desert.
Our antagonist is the tyrant Immortan Joe, played by the very same actor (Hugh Keays-Byrne) who played the villain “Toecutter” from Mad Max (1979). Joe rules by controlling the water supply and motivates his gullible and devoted minions called “war boys”—covered with almost tribal body modifications like body paint, piercings, ritual scarrings and brandings–with promises of an afterlife in the paradise of Valhalla, and as such they are ready (even excited) to die in battle serving their warlord.
It’s very cultish and fanatical. The war boys claim their steering wheels at an altar, pray to Valhalla, and spray paint their teeth silver to prepare for death.
Look for the guy playing the double-necked flamethrower guitar and the gigantic Nathan Jones (6’11” 390lbs; Troy) at Joe’s side as son Rictus who, along with an army of war boys and heavily modified vehicles, aid Joe in recovering his property (i.e., his breeders). That, in essence, is the plot. Max just ends up in the middle of it all. It may sound overly simple, but it works gloriously.
I’m sure there’s an explanation out there for this guy with his flamethrowing guitar…I just haven’t a clue what it would be other than BECAUSE THAT WAS AWESOME!!!
So who is this movie for? Anyone who likes action movies. Really, ANYONE who likes action movies. Also, anyone who appreciates strong female roles. Feminine strength and freedom is what drives this movie and the rather simple plot. Despite the fact that there isn’t much to the story, the film is overall AMAZING.
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The MFF Podcast #13: Planes, Trains and Chris Evans
Proudly sponsored by the audiobook company Audible, your new MFF podcast episode is here!
We hope you enjoyed our previous episode on What If scenarios including Kurt Russell movies, combining Forgetting Sarah Marshall and I Know What You Did Last Summer, and recasting Predator.
SUMMARY: This week the MFF crew analyzes the strange correlations between fire, ice and train wreck catastrophes across Chris Evans’ filmography and the chamber thriller Ex Machina is reviewed. As always, there will some be spoilers. You have been warned. 😉
We also answer such important questions as…
“What Martin Scorsese film would most benefit from recasting the lead role with Billy Zane?”
“How would Billy Zane fit into a Clive Barker novel?”
“What was the best/worst movie-turned-TV show?”
This week’s podcast is based on the following MFF reviews and articles:
Snowpiercer: Controlled Chaos at its Finest
Sunshine: An Underrated Science Fiction Classic
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Sit back, relax and learn about everything you missed.
If you haven’t seen some of these movies, be comforted that we will geekily inform you as to why you should watch them.
You can stream the pod at the Sharkdropper website, listen to us on with your mobile app OneCast, or download the podcast on Itunes.
If you get a chance please REVIEW, RATE and SHARE the pod!
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80s action movies were great for training montages! As a child, I was raised on this. This is what I pictured in my head when I started lifting weights as a teenager in the 90s. Van Damme doing jump spin kicks and splits, Stallone with the shiniest muscles ever seen on film, and Schwarzenegger pushing a big heavy thing that evidently developed all of his muscles in Conan. Admittedly Van Damme was my favorite. I wish all of his movies had training montages. But sadly there were none in Cyborg (1989), Hard Target (1993), The Quest (1996), Time Cop (1994) and many others. However, Van Damme training scenes remain embedded in my soul even to this day. Today I’ll share some of my favorite moments from Van Damme, Stallone and Team Korea.
Kickboxer (1989) was basically one giant training scene with a few fights mixed in there. Drunk dance fighting. Bamboo kicking. Coconut-dropping ab training. Grocery combat. Rope and Pulley stretching torture. Under water katas. Sunset katas.
Crappy quality, but good scene coverage.
Better quality, but slightly less scene coverage.
And, of course, THIS was critical to his training…drunk dance fighting.
What I love about the Kickboxer training scenes is that we see him go from beginner (but in damn good shape) to good to crazy. He never comes off as perfect, but humble and slow-gaining–even though in the movie his training comes along really quite fast. He ekes out his final match as a winner…but he earned it with some crazy eyes!
So in this movie we see JCVD develop from a pretty boy gym rat, drunk dancing with some nice Thai women in a bar…
To a hardened, trained fighter with broken glass on his cloth hand wraps…
To a bloodied, batshit crazy, blood-lusted warrior, blindly blocking Tong Po’s double ridgehand attack from behind.
Bloodsport (1988), a more classic, adult-version of the Karate Kid (1984) training montage complete with what I can only describe as Bondage Stretching Torture Training.
Training montage.
He gets his butt kicked a lot, he serves his shidoshi blind-folded, he meditates, there are breathing and conditioning scenes…old school shit like that. I dig it.
Again we see some major changes in JCVD’s demeanor. He starts out as this arrogant pretty boy who wins a girl from a goon with a sleight of hand coin trick…
Then we find him with shiny muscles, fighting dudes from around the world with basically no rules in the Kumite…
Again, we find him batshit crazy and now “really” blind because Chong Li threw some powdered drug in his eyes that somehow no one saw happen…
And finally he taunts a clearly already KO’d Chong Li into saying the equivalent of “mercy.” Poor Chong Li probably thought JCVD was gonna’ break his neck!
Rocky IV (1985), best montage ever complete with Russian ox-yoke work, support beam pull-ups (not sure why, but that seems tougher than regular pull-ups). Then there were the alternating scenes with Drago’s (Dolph Lundgren) training, in which he showed us that treadmill running on an incline can be super intense, but not as intense as the PSI levels of his punch!
Initially this looks horribly mismatched…there might be a 75 pound disparity between these fighters’ weights. Drago’s head looks like it’s the size of Rocky’s torso!
Rocky Balboa (2006), if I had only two words to say about this movie to try to get you psyched to see it: TRAINING SPEECH…or perhaps “HURTIN’ BOMBS.” That trainer knew his shit and gave an aging Rocky the brass tacks–that’s he’s strong as an ox but has the joints of a crumbling ancient Greek temple of Ares. We go most of the movie with no idea what kind of shape Sly was in for this movie. So when he took off his robe before the fight I was like HOLY SHIT, Sly is huger than ever! I guess the speech worked. LOL
31 years later Rocky got the same trainer–actually it’s the same guy from all the Rocky films. Listen to this guy give a brutally realistic pre-training speech and “let’s start buildin’ some hurtin’ bombs!”
Meet Rocky. He’s in his 60s now.
Best of the Best (1989), Team Korea’s national Tae Kwon Do team karate-chopping tree trunks while shirtless in the snow! Team Korea (and their team champion Dae Han) serves as “Team Villain” in this movie, and this training scene serves to make them seem quite formidable. Not just that, but after Team America (including Eric Roberts before he became type-cast the perpetual bad guy) saw their brick-breaking training video, they knew shit just got real.
Watch how Team Korea gets ready for the big fight.
Just doing some jumping incline push-ups down some stairs. Standard stuff, right?
Just chopping trees with our bare hands, shirtless in the snow. No biggie. Just a standard drill.
These Koreans are NUTS!
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Interior tells the story of one man, several ghosts and a whole lot of scares. This microbudget indie is a showcase for director Zach Beckler and his bevy of jump scares. It has been ages since the hair raised up on my arms and it was a thrill to watch as my long time friend delivered a confident directorial debut. In a day and age of recycled horror I love that there are people out there telling original stories on tiny budgets. The fantastic fright flick is perfect for late night viewings and I guarantee it will freak you out. Watch the trailer and you will know what I mean.
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I worked with Zach at a Florida movie theater and we bonded over horror films. He introduced me to many obscure movies and I will always remember watching The Descent with him. Years later he is branching out as a filmmaker and I loved his directorial debut. The film is currently hitting the film circuits and I wanted to get some advance buzz out there for it. You will jump, scream and love every second of the carefully edited Interior.
Interior takes place in a single location and features an out of work filmmaker helping out his ex-girlfriend. She believes her house is haunted and he agrees to help her get proof. He starts off skeptical but eventually gets harassed to the point where he says the great line “you gotta be f*cking kidding me.” So many horror films have forgotten the art of the jump scare. Interior looks to remind us why we love the experience of being afraid. The jump scares reminded me a lot of the amazing scares of Insidious or Exorcist III.
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What makes this film believable are the motives of the character. The guy needs money and is all around skeptical about the haunted accusations. He sets up cameras around the house and it all gets weird. Beckler works around his budget and fills Interior with scenes that set up the scares perfectly. As Interior unfolds it feels like your arm hairs will never go down. I watched the film on my computer and loved the surround sound. The 3D sound works perfectly as the scares come from everywhere. I literally paused it once to check my garage door because I swore I heard something.
Interior feels like several films at once while creating a voice of its own. In a day and age of recycled horror you need to appreciate when a director does something new with familiar tropes. Many films with 200 times the budget can’t create the scares of the $12,000 Interior. It is a love letter and a calling card.
Interior is a showcase for a first time director and I can’t wait to see what he does next. I’d love to see him give the film the Evil Dead treatment with a larger budget and amps that turns up to 11.
If Interior is playing near you please check it out! Stop by the website to see where it is playing.
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What We Do in the Shadows is a glorious comedy/horror mockumentary that centers around four vampires who live in New Zealand. The horror hybrid blends comedy with lots of gore and features some of funniest characters of the last several years. It is a creative blast of niceness and violence that will most certainly become a cult classic. The 85 minute film is so full of one-liners, sight gags and hilarious characters you need to watch it more than once.
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The movie revolves around a film crew following around a quartet of vampires. They are a ragtag group whose ages range from 183 to 8,000. Their personalities collide as they struggle with washing dishes, getting into night clubs and dealing with an 8,000 year old vampire named Petyr who looks a lot like Nosferatu. They live in a dilapidated mansion on the outskirts of town and entertain themselves via torture, dancing and developing household chore flow charts. I love how Viago (Taika Waititi), Vladislav (Jemaine Clement) and Deacon (Jonathan Brugh) all differ yet seem to have a genuine appreciation of each other. They look out for each other and have a familial relationship built from decades of living together.
Throughout the film they deal with werewolves (not swearwolves), new vampires and exploding blood geysers due to jugular punctures. Their routine gets disrupted when one of their kills escape and is turned into a vampire by the 8,000 year old Petyr. The new vampire named Nick opens up a new world to them. Bouncers start letting them into clubs and Nick starts bringing them unwanted attention as he tells everyone in town he is a vampire. The unwanted attention brings forth vampire hunters, stolen wardrobes and blood vomiting due to chip consumption.
What We Do in the Shadows is a bloody little film that does a lot of things I didn’t expect. For instance, Viago goes out of his way to make sure his victims have a good time before he kills them. He listens to their stories, feeds them wine and engages in small talk before the inevitable blood sucking.
Always make sure to lay newspaper down before you drink blood. Saves the carpet.
My favorite aspect of the film is the relationship between the vampires. They form a neat little musical band and watch intently as Deacon shows off his new erotic dances. I love their interactions with Nick’s best mate Stu. Stu is a nondescript human who becomes ingrained in the group. He teaches them about selfies, Skype and martial arts. He is a really nice person who everyone seems to love.
I love movies like this because they explode with creativity and give the world fantastic new characters. They flip a familiar genre on its head and somehow maintain a feature films worth of gags. If you are a fan of Flight of the Conchords and Christopher Guest (Spinal Tap) mockumentaries you need to watch this film.
Watch What We Do in the Shadows. Appreciate the vampire shenanigans. Check out Flight of the Conchords.
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MY CALL: An excellent anthology that focuses more on storytelling than shock value—but it still has its moments. These fun short stories span serious to silly and original to trope-rich. Well worth a watch! OTHER HORROR ANTHOLOGIES: Some other fun, decent and/or clever anthologies include (in order of release date): Black Sabbath (1963), Tales from the Crypt (1972), The Vault of Horror (1973), The Uncanny (1977), Creepshow (1982), Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye (1985), Creepshow 2 (1987), Necronomicon: Book of the Dead (1993), Campfire Tales (1997), 3 Extremes (2004), Trick ‘r Treat (2007), Chillerama (2011), Little Deaths (2011), V/H/S (2012), The Theater Bizarre (2012), The ABCs of Death (2013), V/H/S 2 (2013), The Profane Exhibit (2013) and The ABCs of Death 2 (2014).
Having directed several episodes of TV’s Tales from the Crypt and Tales from the Darkside, John Harrison had the right experience to bring these stories to life. The wraparound story is rather Hansel and Gretel-ish, featuring a young Matthew Lawrence (Boy Meets World, Creature of Darkness) incarcerated in a kitchen-side cell being fattened with cookies. The young boy distracts his captor (Deborah Harry; Videodrome), who plans on preparing and serving him for a hoity-toity dinner party, by reading twisted stories from a book aptly title “Tales from the Darkside.” The three stories are not linked themselves, but still find a good synthesis with the wraparound story.
Our first story “Lot 249” features a group of graduate students played by a young Christian Slater (Stranded, El Gringo), Julianne Moore (Carrie, Psycho) and Steve Buscemi (Con Air, Escape from LA)…that alone gives good reason for any movie fan to see this. Young Buscemi is an archaeological power geek who acquires (somehow) a sarcophagus with a mummy in it. How he pulled this off without eBay and bypassing customs inspections is beyond me. So what do you do with a mummy other than maybe sell it to turn a profit? Well, have no fear of indecision because the mummy comes with instructions—in the form of a scroll in hieroglyphics. Of course he reads this scroll, after all horror cannot transpire otherwise, and the mummy goes about killing people. The execution of the story is weak, but it’s cheeky tone makes up for that.
Next is “Cat from Hell,” a new take on Edgar Allan Poe’s The Black Cat. A wealthy geriatric recluse (William Hickey; Puppetmaster) hires a hit man (David Johansen; Campfire Stories, Freejack) to kill his cat for $100,000! Sound funny? Well not to our recluse, who explains how the cat had already killed three members of his household. Of course, our hit man takes the job and it turns out to be considerably harder than he expected. Enjoy. This one is zany but told with a straight face. You’ll giggle, but you’ll also wince.
It gets gory in a really fun way!
“Lover’s Vow” is the most clever story by far, it offers no laughs at all, and it steers clear of the tropes we find in the other two segments. In this story an artist (James Remar; Horns, The Unborn, The Warriors) sees something that he shouldn’t have and he swears a vow that he would never tell what he saw or describe his mysterious assailant, which is apparently a gargoyle. Later in the story he meets the love of his life (Rae Dawn Chong) and all the while he keeps from her this secret. There’s a cool ending. I never saw it coming, but my girlfriend managed to predict it.
The gargoyle is actually pretty cool.
I first saw this as a child, so this flick has a powerful nostalgia over me. But the stories are still entertaining to see unfold and I feel this should entertain today’s horror fans who haven’t yet seen it—especially viewers old enough (maybe over 30) to appreciate the practical effects and the before-the-were-stars cameos.
Enjoy.
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Hello all. Mark here.
Do you ever search Netflix for long periods of time and end up watching something really bad? It is a problem that many people have and I’m hoping these posts can eliminate the horror gambles. Time is precious and doesn’t need to be wasted upon a sequel to a direct to DVD found footage film.
There are hundreds of horror films on Netflix. Most are bad, some are decent and several of them are very good. I’ve searched the depths of the horror categories and discovered some gems and total soul crushers. The following suggestions represent horror films that cover all ends of the spectrum. If you watch these five films you will witness meta-horror, cockneys battling zombies, Swedish vampires and college kids killing themselves. I’ve made sure to incorporate some humor into the bleakness so you don’t get burnt out and questioning why you listened to my suggestions.
Wes Craven’s New Nightmare:
Freddy Krueger had become a joke. A once scary nightmare machine became a one-lining stand up comedian who couldn’t garner laughs or scares. However, somewhere out of left field Wes Craven came up with New Nightmare. It played with convention and brought scary back. The film was critically respected (77% RT) and I believe it led Craven to the groundbreaking Scream.
New Nightmare only made $18 million because the series was so deflated. However, it has accrued acult following and helped create the “meta-horror” dynamic. Wes Craven had found his footing and got his edge back (Sans Vampire in Brooklyn). Roger Ebert a notorious hater of horror liked the movie and eloquently wrote about it:
“Wes Craven’s New Nightmare” dances back and forth across the line separating fantasy from reality. This is the first horror movie that is actually about the question, “Don’t you people ever think about the effect your movies have on the people who watch them?”
Ebert’s question was answered several years later as young punks slashed and quipped their way to box office glory. New Nightmare refreshed Craven and this allowed him to give another generation a screaming new nightmare.
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Let the Right One In
This Swedish film is bleaker than bleak and beautifully made. It is an art house vampire film that captured lightning in a bottle. So many horror films are disposable and leave your memory as soon as you exit the theater. Let the Right One In will linger in your memory.
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Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
Funny, charming and gory. Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine are instantly likable bumpkins who think college kids are killing themselves all around them. Horror disliker Roger Ebert loved the film and I totally recommend watching it after you are done with Let the Right One In.
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Cockney’s vs. Zombies
Cockneys vs. Zombies tells the age old story of east Londoners vs. zombies. It is a relaxed breath of fresh air that allows the cast to crack wise while figuring out how to kill a zombie with a metal plate in its head. CvZ is a neat entry to the zombie canon that proves soccer hooligans will still fight when they are dead.
If you are in the mood for a midnight movie featuring a slow motion chase scene between an old man and a zombie this film is for you. The film is certified fresh (71% on RT) and captures a fun tone of cheeky, violent and more cheeky.
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Deep Blue Sea
Deepest Bluest my hat is like a shark fin! Deep Blue Sea is a miracle of awesomeness. We here at MFF love it and our readers are fans as well (It was voted Best Worst Movie Monster). Deep Blue has one of the best surprise deaths of all time and is endlessly fun. Director Renny Harlin intentionally made the shark one foot bigger than Jaws and apparently doesn’t care about CGI. While working at the movie theater I would sneak in for the finale and listen to the audience yell with delight. They formed a cohesive voice as they screamed for LL Cool J and Thomas Jane to kill the dastardly sharks. I love Deep Blue Sea and it has most certainly gained a massive following. Here are 17 cool facts about the film.
Movies, Films & Flix 