John’s Old School Horror Corner: The Other Hell (1981), another incomprehensible Italian horror that doesn’t even deliver the gore
MY CALL: This Italian horror fails to deliver the gore we’ve come to expect and is directed so poorly it’s about unwatchable. But I won’t lie, I was somewhat entertained by its level of bonkers nonsense. SIDEBAR: Also marketed as Guardian of Hell, this Italian film was originally titled L’altro inferno.
80s Italian horror has a way of catering to our inner perverted intoxicated teenager. It’s always so over-the-top. Not five minutes into this movie and we see a hot topless dead nun on an altar in some sort of alchemical laboratory. An overly sanctimonious nun mutilates the attractive body’s genitals while reciting zealous rantings about the Devil and the vagina being a gate to Hell. Normally this would serve as a reliable sign that this would be one of those so bad it’s good gory Italian sensations. Sadly, this submission falls short.
Nuns behaving badly.
“Bonkers” would best describe the storytelling style of this film. Nuns go crazy, randomly show up dead and kill people, a priest spontaneously combusts, house pets become evil, there are a few strangulations and stabbings, and there is hardly any sense of sound explanation or pacing. Put simply: weird shit happens, then we watch some filler scene that neither explains what happened nor establishes the events to come, then more weird shit happens…then just wash, rinse and repeat until you run out of running time, adding over-the-top acting, terrible writing and provocative imagery as necessary.
What’s with the large mannequin-esque dolls everywhere? What’s with the ninja-masked nun chick? WTF is going on in this movie!?!
After several inexplicable murders occur at a convent, the somewhat young Father Valerio (Carlo de Mejo; City of the Living Dead, The House by the Cemetery, Contamination, Manhattan Baby) is sent to investigate. His faith is tested with temptation and his sanity is tested by the chaotic script. I’d explain the plot more but…honestly, it was hard to keep track of what the Hell was going on.
Father Valerio and an evil nun.
Director Bruno Mattei (Hell of the Living Dead, Zombi 3) seems to try and fail to capture the off-the-cuff tangential stylings of Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci. Even though neither of them were terribly talented storytellers, their direction was slightly less erratic (most of the time, LOL). You practically could have randomly ordered the scenes of this movie without reducing the followability of this senseless plot. For all I know, that may be exactly what the editor did!
So…this guy is in the movie. I have no idea why. Really. No idea. And why he dies in a dog attack I also have no idea.
The effects are weak and the gore is minimal, especially for an installment in Italian horror. Not sure why. Maybe red paint and chicken livers weren’t on sale that week. Just to be clear, you all agree that 70s and 80s Italian horror appeared to simply use red paint and butcher’s trimmings as blood and guts, right? Super thick and bright red with a few random chunks. Normally crazy gore is what makes these Italian films fun and watchable. Perhaps that’s likewise why this film was so disappointing.
I enjoyed bits here and there and, I must admit, I was somewhat entertained. So while I’m not specifically going to recommend this to anyone, I won’t warn off any adventurous horror fans either.
Share this post:
John’s Horror Corner: C. H. U. D. (1984), cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers
MY CALL: This throwback is slow-paced (until the fun-filled third act), not at all scary, and doesn’t pack a particularly gory punch, but it is fun and cheesy nonetheless and should be on every horror fan’s list. MOVIES LIKE C. H. U. D.: Return of the Living Dead (1985) and Alligator (1980).
This “it came from the 80s” classic presented the notion that we have more to fear than the shallow gene pools of Wrong Turn hillbillies from generations of inbreeding and the nuclear fallout-malformed denizens of The Hills Have Eyes. Here, we explore the fear of man’s impact on the planet with toxic waste-mutated monsters.
Homeless people are disappearing from the streets of New York City…so what exactly seems to be the problem? This would typically go entirely unnoticed and uninvestigated as local politicians high-five this inexplicable victory. However, when a local soup kitchen owner (Daniel Stern; Leviathan) reports that his dining hall has been a few vagrants short the police seem to drop everything to investigate these missing homeless people. Seems legit.
Bored with working on perfume commercial campaigns with his oft-half-naked model girlfriend, somehow a photographer (John Heard; Cat People) gets involved in investigating these hobo disappearances. Well that makes perfect sense. I can see how a successful, model-dating photographer would want to put his life on hold to go spelunking the feces-painted corridors of New York’s sewer system with a crusty bag lady.
It turns out that our missing hobos have come into contact with a toxic waste gas leak and subsequently mutated into cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers instead of the more fun Ninja Turtle alternative.
Why do their eyes glow?
Our cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers have glowing eyes and look like slimy, skinned Lord of the Rings orcs under Sauron’s command. The effects are decent for the time and will certainly bring about some chuckles. The mutants’ claws are clearly rubber monster gloves in lieu of more detail-oriented latex work. As campy as that may sound, this movie maintains a straight face and never verges on “deliberate” campiness. Doing so with no satirical allegory whatsoever, this movie pays more attention to the investigation and cover-up of the C. H. U. D. than it does on the monsters themselves. As such, you may notice that you see much less of the monsters than you’d prefer. It’s cheesiness is found in its poker face.
Speaking of campy, for no reason at all this CHUD’s neck elongates before our eyes as if in honor of the Evil Dead-possessed Henrietta.
The first hour of this movie is pretty slow. But in the third act we finally see regular doses of gore and CHUD screen time. Despite a slow start, I think this movie is worth it. It’s no founding father of horror tropes by any means, but today’s fans of horror should log it into their repertoire nonetheless.
Share this post:
MY CALL: Overall this movie failed at being interesting, scary or creepy, and it hardly maintained any sense of atmosphere or suspense at all. Another weak witch flick for young adults (despite the R-rating). MORE MOVIES LIKE The Woods: Want more movies about young witches? Try Beautiful Creatures (2013) or The Craft (1996), both of which were notably better than this.
“Set in 1965 New England, a troubled girl encounters mysterious happenings in the woods surrounding an isolated girls school that she was sent to by her estranged parents.” [–IMDB]
Heather Fasulo (Agnes Bruckner; The Pact, Venom, Blood and Chocolate) is delivered to an all-girls boarding school in the woods by her parents Alice (Emma Campbell; Feardotcom) and Joe Fasulo (Bruce Campbell; Oz the Great and Powerful, Evil Dead 2, Escape from L. A.), happy to be rid of her.
Don’t get excited about Bruce Campbell, he’s hardly in this movie. But, much to his confusion, he does vomit a twig.
The students of this school fear the surrounding woods because of a story about three witches who had taken over the school a century ago. This story is especially interesting because all of the school’s current teachers were once students.
The girl fights in this have got nothing on The Craft!
The leader of the local Mean Girls troupe Samantha (Rachel Nichols; The Amityville Horror, Conan the Barbarian, P2) readily makes her influence known to newbie Heather with some bully-style flexing. But Heather resists showing the other students there’s a new tough chick on campus. Both actresses do a fine job despite their ill-directed and poorly developed surroundings.
Headmistress Traverse (Patricia Clarkson; Shutter Island) takes a special interest in Heather, giving her tests with strange symbols and discussing some special scholarship. A quiet, troubled student Anna (Kathleen Mackey; Apartment 1303, Gothika) suggests that Heather, like Anna, might be “special.” What does it all mean? I guess the ending sort of explains it…poorly.
Anna disappears and soon the students and faculty start behaving strangely around Heather… basically some attempts are made to add substance to the movie. Not to be mean, but I feel this was written for the PG/PG-13 young adult crowd, which makes the drama and tension feel really weak to the more mature viewers who came to see this R-rated release. Not that everything can be written by J. K. Rowling, but Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001) felt far more credible, serious, tense and dramatic with its PG rating and this with its R, and that shouldn’t be.
The gore seems sufficient, I guess. The type, execution and amount may spark the interest of the inexperienced, but it didn’t do much for me. Mostly mist and aggressive plant life, the supernatural effects smack of Beautiful Creatures (2013) meets Evil Dead (2013). These vines, like the gore, are seen most in the finale and they’re done VERY WELL. In fact, the vines were the only creepy thing about the movie. I guess it’s trying to be scary, but I’m feeling none of it. Really…none. This is rated-R but it feels aimed at youth. The gore and the presentation of death must’ve pushed it to R, but I’m baffled nonetheless by the decision to present this story in this way to adults.
The ending was surprisingly pretty good and loaded with dark fantasy evil shrubbery effects and more gore. There were some other scenes that could’ve been cool, but they weren’t followed up or explained, just squandered.
Overall this failed at being interesting, scary or creepy and hardly maintained any sense of atmosphere or suspense at all.
Skip it.
Share this post:
Bad Movie Tuesday: The Lose/Lose Remake of Oldboy
There is a momentum changing moment in Oldboy when Brolin is released from captivity after twenty years. He emerges from a large box and chases down a mysterious woman. He stops her violently in front of some football players and it all goes wrong. The players react to the male/female violence and immediately get the living sh** kicked out of them. The scene is brutal, unnecessary and likely results in one persons death. The fight establishes the toughness of the title character but also proves how unnecessary the film is.
I won’t make this an original vs. remake write-up. However, in the original the recently released main character finds some street punks and gives them a good beating. The moment is funny, unexpected and you don’t mind that some hoods got their face punched. The moment worked because the film is so cartoonish and you didn’t feel like innocent bystanders got destroyed. The remake features total stereotypes receiving WAY too much punishment for trying to do something good. I think Spike Lee tried to do something good but ended up like the bloodied folk. He fought an uphill battle that was bound to disappoint due to directing choices and studio meddling. The A.V. Club’s A.A. Dowd sums it up well:
Park’s film was wildly irreverent, grinning manically in the face of torture, suicide, incest, and other taboos. Lee’s Oldboy is a more somber affair. That said, maybe straight-faced isn’t the right approach for such an over-the-top narrative, pulled from a Japanese manga and built around one of the most elaborate revenge schemes in recent movie history. Park knew he was making pulp, and directed accordingly.
Oldboy does not feel like a completed film. It is overly edited and doesn’t come close to the slow burn of the original. It starts off well enough as it expands the prison sentence to twenty years and gives us more time in the hotel room. However, once he is loose the movie plows forward and loses any creative nuance that was created. My biggest problem with the film is the director’s cut excuse used by Spike Lee. The film had many hurdles to clear (insane fanboys, incest, hammer fights) and that wasn’t helped by a mythical three-hour cut.
Both Spike Lee and Brolin commented on how the three-hour cut is much better than what was dumped into the cinemas. However, the remake shouldn’t have been three hours. Park Chan-Wook told the story in two hours and it was a beautifully insane cult classic. Thus, why make a longer remake of a two-hour movie? Did Spike really think audiences would sit through a 180 minute remake of an incredibly violent cult classic?
There was bound to be cuts and the film suffered. The original fight scene which was filmed in a single take is now chopped up and features bad guys who only want to get beat up. It is poorly set up, sped up and sacharine compared to the original. Lee wanted it to be bigger (three floors) and Brolin was pushed to his physical limit (five weeks of prep) but it was hindered by cheekily dressed villains, brutality and a studio edit.
Brutality is not a substitute for quality. Oldboy’s brutality felt organic to the story. However, the violence in the remake feels shoehorned in. It never feels right. The original set a cornball/bonkers atmosphere that felt like a parallel world which made the violence palatable. The remake feels grounded in realism with the occasional sped up action scene. There are moments when Brolin literally throws men on their heads and you wonder how he acquired such brutal techniques.
The other problem with the film is Sharlto Copley’s questionable villain.
His accent is odd, motivation wonky and scenes were cut down (thank you three-hour cut). He is not a threat and pales in comparison to Ji-Tae Yu who owned the screen as the twisted baddie of the original. His character was sleek, suave, petty and believably diabolical. A good hero needs a good villain and Lee Woo-jin was a great bad guy. Copley is nothing but facial hair, scars and a weak back story. The bad guy barely registers and that is terrible thing when the movie is all about a man getting revenge.
The Oldboy remake fought a losing battle. I’m sure the three-hour cut is better but I think Spike Lee should have focused more on character and plot instead of making things bigger and better. More can sometimes be less and that is evident in the Oldboy remake.
.
Share this post:
John’s Horror Corner: Chopping Mall (1986), a crazy melee of killer robots that shoot frickin’ laser beams from their eyes
MY CALL: There’s nothing iconic about this bad 80s sci-fi/horror and I’m not saying it should be on your “must see list.” But this has everything I miss about the 80s; it’s so awful and cheesy and cheap and campy, and that’s what makes it so sweet to the refined horror connoisseur. MORE MOVIES LIKE Chopping Mall: The Outing (1987), The Initiation (1984) and Dawn of the Dead (1978) deliver more “mall horror” in the classic style we know and love. SIDEBAR: This was originally titled Killbots. That title would have made more sense since the present title makes me think of a slasher movie.
“Eight teenagers are trapped after hours in a high tech shopping mall and pursued by three murderous security robots out of control.” –IMDB
The very first night that a mall breaks in its new security team of three robots, lightning strikes the control center and somehow short circuits them…into killer robots. That same night eight 20-somethings decide to have an overnight sex party in the mall…because that’s what kids did in the 80s, they had overnight sex parties. I struggle to envision that any teenagers or 20-somthings would have died in any 80s horror movies if there were no overnight sex parties.
Well after one of the security robots detonates one of their hotties’ heads with its laser vision, and thus ruins their overnight sex party, the men furiously hit the sporting goods store, load up on guns and propane tanks and fight back! What ensues is a lot of fun, bad nonsense. In fact, everything leading up to that was a lot of fun, bad nonsense, too.
Let’s talk about these robots for a second. They look like mini-Johnny-5’s complete with videogame laser gun vision and what are called “sleep darts.” I wonder how much these robots cost to make. If AI-robotic security sounds a little excessive for your average mall in Ohio, please note the obviously moderately priced time-locked Star Wars doors which are sealed shut over night. What’s with this mall? It’s like a military tech experiment!
The overnight party crew of 20-somethings include a lot of familiar faces: Allison (Kelli Maroney; Night of the Comet, Not of this Earth), Suzie (Barbara Crampton; You’re Next, Lords of Salem, The Re-Animator), Rick (Russell Todd; Friday the 13th Part 2), Linda (Karrie Emerson; Evils of the Night), Ferdy (Tony O’Dell; Evils of the Night), Leslie and Mike (John Terlesky; Deathstalker II). Also look for Mr. Bud the CHUD himself Gerrit Graham (Child’s Play 2, It’s Alive III, TerrorVision) and Gremlins‘ Dick Miller (Piranha, The Howling, The Twilight Zone: The Movie).
Dick Miller’s brief cameo getting electrocuted by a killbot.
To call the writing a bit stale would almost be a compliment. The poor attempts at humor in this movie succeed at little more than securing the bad name earned by 80s horror writers. Thankfully, we find our humor in some of the kills.
Following the most ancient horror axiom, if a woman in her panties runs, she WILL trip and fall.
Director Jim Wynorski used the success of this film to pole vault his career into the big leagues. He later went on to helm such bare breast-rich film as Deathstalker II (1987), Not of this Earth (1988), Return of Swamp Thing (1989), The Haunting of Morella (1990), 976-EVIL II (1992), Ghoulies IV (1994) and many more.
If you enjoy the 80s, the cheap, the campy, the cheesy and the awful, then you should enjoy this.
Share this post:
John’s Horror Corner: The Stuff (1985), a social commentary told by a mind-controlling dessert food
This movie cover reminds me of the scene when the parents come home in The Gate (1987)…but they’re not really the parents.
MY CALL: Unintentionally hilarious and lush with social commentary, this story about a delicious mind-controlling ooze is sure to entertain despite tragic writing and direction. MORE MOVIES LIKE The Stuff: More amorphous enmities may be found in The Blob (1988), The Raft (segment from Creepshow 2; 1987) and Street Trash (1987). The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), The Live (1988) and The Thing (1982, 2011) all provide stories in which trust and conspiracy are tested during surreptitious alien takeovers. SIDEBAR: The DVD includes commentary from writer/director Larry Cohen. It’s pretty great.
A man stumbles across a delicious, pulsating gooey substance bubbling out of the ground at an industrial mining site, which he immediately touches, sniffs and tastes. WHAT!?! Now I’m no geologist, but when I encounter mysterious STD-like, sticky, gobbledy-gook discharges oozing from Mother Earth’s orifices I tend to keep a safe distance. I mean, why was it bubbling? Was something alive under the surface? Was it super hot? Is it loaded with some dangerous bacteria or fungus or virus? I doubt I’d touch it…let alone taste it! Did this guy not see The Blob (1958, 1988)? If he had seen The Blob I bet he’d of thought twice.
But low and behold it turns out to be a sweet, tasty treat which is readily–basically overnight–mass manufactured as a domestic dessert staple. This film is cleverly complete with television commercials for “The Stuff,” marketing it as an adult snack with the tagline “enough is never enough.” This tongue-in-cheek propagandist approach reminds me of They Live (1988) as we observe so much social commentary on the American practices of consumerism, advertising, and corporate and FDA ethics.
Like in so many other stories, a young boy (Jason) discovers something just isn’t right when he sees The Stuff crawling around in his refrigerator. Jason won’t eat The Stuff after seeing it meandering around the some Tupperwared leftovers, but his parents do and they’ve been acting weird. Like buying a year’s supply of The Stuff and throwing away all of their other food in the trash weird.
Luckily, an investigator (Mo) for a competing snack food company is also going around trying to figure out what The Stuff is made out of–and he’s not getting answers. It seems that all of the FDA folks who so suspiciously and swiftly approved the product have all left the country. Hmmmm…nothing strange going on here. Just regular everyday FDA stuff, right?
A theme song plays “one lick is never enough of The Stuff” and Models lasciviously lick spoonfuls of this homicidal yogurt; Jason’s mother testifies that she lost 5 pounds on a Stuff-only diet; and Jason’s father attests that it “kills all the bad stuff inside us”… just drink the Kool-Aid and the allegory cranks on. The satire is so blatant that it’s never obscured by the clumsy storytelling, which make the movie all the more entertaining.
The Stuff functions like The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978). You come into contact with it (via ingestion), and it gradually “replaces” you with a Stuff-replicant that’s like you, but not quite right. Once infected, the goal simply becomes to get everyone else infected…but not by force. When Jason refuses to eat The Stuff his parents angrily ground him, sending him to his room until he conforms. When Jason “fakes” eating it, his family is pleased.
Just try it, they said. What could go wrong, they said.
The effects include evil stop-motion marshmallow fluff and the gore and facial prosthetics are pretty good for the 80s and remain most entertaining today. At times, The Stuff oozes around like The Blob. But I was quite impressed with the pacing, however schizophrenically haphazard (LOL). Much of the movie (most of the middle) was without interesting effects, yet the utterly brash satire and senselessly incohesive scene transitions of it all keep me laughing.
Here’s something that’s never explained. At times The Stuff expels itself from its host, killing them. This never seems to serve any purpose.
Characters seem to come out of nowhere without ever having been established, then they may never be seen again regardless of the rapport they may have built. The randomness is major! For example, a conspiracy-theory-toting general leading a resistance to The Stuff happens to own two radio stations to spread his message. Oh, and his “army” takes taxi cabs when travelling in military convoys. WTF!?! Oh, and an infected guy just strolls past this army security by making a scene. Oh, and a cookie industry mogul has some ancient kung fu fists of steel. Oh, and this one Stuff-infected dog was his Stuff-infected owner’s boss. Huh? Just bonkers!
This is the face of frustration I had when trying to make sense of the plot.
Curiously, we never really find out where the stuff came from. Did it well up from deep beneath the Earth’s surface, did it crash land on a meteor like The Blob (1988), or did it come in a spaceship like The Thing (1982, 2011)? We also never learn its purpose. It’s clearly smarter than the mindless consuming machine of The Blob. But was it “trying” to take over the world like in The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) or peaceful domination like in The Live (1988)? No motive is ever revealed.
The Stuff attacks in various ways.
This movie (or, AHEM, it’s writer/director) may have exhibited all of the smooth storytelling of an over-excited 5-year old trying to explain something he didn’t really understand in the first place. But like a child fumbling over his thoughts in a word-salad of excitement, The Stuff is not without its own special brand of charm. This movie and its franticly forced social commentary are hilarious and it is well worth a watch.
Share this post:
John’s Horror Corner: Grabbers (2012), evil blood-chugging space tentacles with a sense of humor like Shaun of the Dead
MY CALL: More fun than a drunk panty raid full of tentacles…okay, that probably didn’t make any sense. It has evil blood-chugging space tentacles and a sense of humor like Shaun of the Dead. So just watch this and enjoy. MORE MOVIES LIKE Grabbers: Shaun of the Dead (2004), Trollhunter (2010).
In this unexpectedly charming movie, a likable alcoholic is challenged with saving an Irish community of fishermen from a blood-sucking alien invasion through reckless inebriation. Now I understand that this plot may leave you pondering “just how good could this movie really be?” Just take my word for it and give this film a chance. Think Shaun of the Dead.
Our unlikely hero is local drunkard Ciarán O’Shea (Richard Coyle; BBC’s Coupling) and, of course, he of all people makes the discovery that the tentacular aliens are allergic (even deadly so) to the local lushes’ high blood-alcohol content. Nice choice to begin your invasion, aliens. You’re deathly allergic to alcohol and you crash-landed off the coast of Ireland. Smart choice!
Good call on the rolled up magazine. Definitely my weapon of choice.
Grabbers come in different sizes.
Because we can’t have a proper hero without some romantic tension, the local bar wench exerts some uncomfortable yet cute pressure in coupling Lisa (Ruth Bradley; Beauty and the Beast, Primeval) with O’Shea. Ruth Bradley and Richard Coyle fair splendidly as a dainty prude who is drunk for the first time (in order to survive) flirting with a drunk who is trying to sober up to impress her. The warm fuzzy levity is abundant and their flirtatious relationship comes off as shockingly convincing. And by the way, Ruth Bradley really rises to the challenge of acting drunk.
They had some fun with the gore effects. This movie isn’t exactly “gory” but it still has its fun with rolling severed heads. The CGI alien monsters look a lot like the giant facehugger that brings down the engineer towards the end of Prometheus (2012). In fact, you’ll delight in the cephalopodic mayhem when it actually “facehugs” a victim. They look great! Oh, and the hatchling grabbers make adorable squeaky sounds like a Pomeranian chew toy–they’re so cute…until they attack.
The dialogue is nothing short of charming and excellent throughout the movie. Almost any time I wasn’t laughing out loud, I was grinning at the marriage of the silliness of these scenes coupled with oft-alcohol-induced dialogue. The characters all play off of each other splendidly and the chemistry between O’Shea and his flirtatious rookie drinker Lisa is a much slurred splendor.
Share this post:
MY CALL: 20 great gory good-versus-evil minutes numbed by a stagnant 75 minute middle. See this flick, but exercise your fast forward function. MORE MOVIES LIKE The Unholy: Want to see the unholy done well? Then I’d instead turn you to Stigmata (1999), Angel Heart (1987), Constantine (2005), The Seventh Sign (1988), The Prophecy (1995) or The Last Exorcism (2010).
The tone for this classy flick is set in the opening scene as a redhead in a completely transparent negligee seduces a Catholic priest mid-prayer. This had me very worried that I was in for a smutty horror movie. Thankfully, after a quick kiss (probably denoting the priest succumbing to temptation), she slashes his throat and leaves a gore-slathered gash that made the horrorhound in me gleefully “SQUEEEE” with joy.
So, to clarify, that’s both babes and blood’n guts in the first five minutes. This should be good! I’ll repeat a key word here…should be good.
Recently and unexpectedly appointed, Father Michael (Ben Cross; Exorcist: The Beginning, Star Trek) joins and re-opens Saint Agnes Church after he miraculously survives a fall from a building without injury. Saint Agnes was closed after its two former priests died at the hand of a demon referred to as “The Unholy.” Okay, could be cool, right? Right…?
Unfortunately it seems to take this movie forever to get back to the fun. We had boobs and blood in the first few minutes, then nothing but boredom for the next 75–during which the most Satanic thing we see is a possessed stirring rod, a windy bedroom and a crotch full of snakes. I get that a crotch full of snakes sounds awesome, but they found a way to make it lame just for this movie. Unlike so much other 80s horror, this film takes itself 100% seriously. There are no tongue-in-cheek lines or deliberately ironic death scenes.
No, instead of filling screen time with fun, this film attempts to spin a thick web of drama…and fails! This movie even managed to make call girls, insane asylums and Satanic cults come off as boring. Now, I must admit I laughed during a stupid scene when Father Michael’s dead predecessor calls him on the phone from Hell. But overall this is numbingly dull.
So after a good five-minute opener followed by an unwarrantedly boring 75 minutes, our movie is finally reignited by a good old-fashioned gory disembowelment, some burning corpses, a dude vomiting a couple gallons of blood…oh, and the seductress from the opening scene is back. You now have my attention!
It turns out our naked seductress is the demon Desidarius and, with the help of a fog machine, she transforms into a monstrous infernal quadruped assisted by some little toddler demons. The finale is loaded with fun, weird, gory, sexual and disturbing imagery, and we get to see a lot of our demon monster.
How about a kiss?
These little guys remind me of when Craig T. Nelson vomits a whole dude in Poltergeist II.
Wait a minute! Is that little guy dancing?
My best advice to you would be to watch this movie for 5 minutes, then fast forward through the next 75 to the closing sequence. That will turn a largely boring movie into a way-fun 20 minute gore romp.
Share this post:
Hours: Paul Walker’s Finest Moment
Kurt Russell recently did an interview with Collider where he had this to say about Paul Walker:
I sensed that this was a guy who enjoyed many things in his life and was very appreciative, but was also getting to a point where he wanted to begin to seriously, in an artistic sense, explore what would excite him and find out where he might go. He was literally just turning that page and just saying that he wanted to peak onto the other side, and then he was out.
Hours is Paul Walker wanting to see where he could go. There are no fast cars, sharks, or scantily clad women to distract from his acting. In Hours he can’t fade into the background because the camera is always in front of him. Because of this he gives his best performance since Running Scared and is able to hold the camera for 90 minutes. Most importantly, the film builds to a powerful climax that may be Walker’s finest moment on screen.
Hours is the story of a man trying to keep his baby alive during Hurricane Katrina. His wife died delivering the premature baby and due to underdeveloped lungs the infant is forced to stay on a ventilator for 48 hours. The problem is the hurricane wipes out the power and leaves Walker alone in the hospital with a hand-cranked generator that only keeps a three minute charge.
The three minute charge doesn’t allow Walker to sleep and forces him to stay close to the baby while waiting out the storm. The set up is inventive and I like how Katrina isn’t used gratuitously. Many of the people who worked on the film suffered through Katrina and because of this Walker felt he had to bring his best. I like knowing that he wanted more and put himself in situations where he had to act and get out of his comfort zone.
There are several problems with the film. The quiet moments are interrupted by underwritten bad guys who are cartoonishly villainous. I understand a hospital would be a prime target to pilfer during a natural disaster. However, introducing new people into the story hurt the flow and felt like manicured interruptions. You wish the director would have simply allowed Walker to do his thing. There is an earnestness to his performance that showcases his ability to relax and make his dialogue fresh. He is believable as he tells his baby daughter about her mom and how they first met (they stopped a bank robber).
I wanted it to be more like the fantastic 2013 film All is Lost. All is a harrowing story of survival that let Robert Redford own the screen while staying almost silent. He didn’t need to explain everything whilst talking to himself. You figured out his character by actions. I understand that out of sheer grief and delirium Walker would be talking to his baby. However, he didn’t have to say “I need batteries” as the charge is going down. I wish they would have let Walker perform silently as opposed to giving us a running narrative.
Hours is a neat little film that proves Walker was capable of more. His relaxed presence and the moving finale make this a film worth watching. If you are a Walker fan I totally recommend checking out Hours.
Share this post:
Bad Movie Tuesday: Pompeii and the Explosion of Dumb
Spoilers Abound!
Pompeii tells the age old story of love in the time of ash and lava. This sweeping love story from the director of Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil and Three Musketeers is as subtle as Vesuvius and as intelligent as the rocks spewing from it. Pompeii is a dumbed down Titanic that totally redeems itself via odd directing choices and accidental hilarity.
Pompeii is a quirky little thing that is loaded with unintentional laughs, wonky accents (British? Irish? Italian? I think Sutherland made up an accent) and the greatest bro-hug ever. Imagine if 2012, Gladiator, Bloodrayne, Titanic, Romeo & Juliet, Tristan & Isolde, Centurion, In the Name of the King and The Three Musketeers were mixed together then rewritten by Paul W.S. Anderson. Pompeii is an amalgamation of illogical weirdness and irrelevant fluff.
The plot is all happenstance and features a meet cute via horse neck snapping. The two lovers rarely spend time together and the only moment they are alone results in painful yet quick healing lashes. Eventually, things go boom, revenge is had, peasants get crunched and only Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje seems to know he is in a bad movie.
Take a look at the above poster. The two leads are having a smooching session amid chaos. I understand they are a tragic couple. However, I 100% believe they could’ve survived had they not sauntered so much. If they would have jogged away we could have enjoyed Pompeii 2: Why did we vacation near Mount St. Helens? Other characters in similar films survived by hightailing it to safety. In the photos for Dante’s Peak and Volcano the characters are running or looking concerned while walking away from the deadly fire.
Now, take another look at Pompeii’s couple as they look relaxed in the chaos.
These people survived by running!
These two weren’t lucky enough to have running in the script.
Paul W.S. Anderson has had a fruitful career in Hollywood by directing money making hokum (I’ve watched them all and keep coming back). His highest rated film on Rotten Tomatoes is the 43% Death Race. His other films The Three Musketeers, Resident Evil, Event Horizon, Mortal Kombat, Soldier, AVP and now Pompeii have all felt like other better films. There are moments of creative talent (Horizon hell scenes, Orlando Bloom’s hair in Musketeers, light grid scene in Resident) but for the most part Anderson has simultaneously annoyed and captured the nerd zeitgeist.
Sidenote: Gotta love Bloom’s hair.
Pompeii feels like a step in the wrong direction. Never before have Anderson’s films felt so unintelligible or unintentionally hilarious. It felt more like In the Name of the King (Never a good thing to be compared to a Uwe Boll film) then Tristan & Isolde. I am going out on a limb here but I’d wager Kit Harrington wins the hair battle between he and James Franco.
Pompeii is pure dumb that is punctuated by really bad decisions. It is an enjoyable romp that will make perfect FX foder for insomniacs and college students for years to come. It was never meant to be good. It was only meant to entertain. It may be a step back for Anderson but at least we now have the visual of peasants being clunked on the heads by tiny rocks in the canon of film.
Movies, Films & Flix 