Movies, Films & Flix

John’s Horror Corner: Ghoulies (1985)

March 18, 2013

tags: black magic, Ghoulies, Mariska Hargitay, summoning demons, tongue strangling

MY CALL: Terrible special effects, but I just don’t care. I love this random, stupid movie. IF YOU LIKE THIS WATCH: Things like Puppet Master (1989) and Critters (1986).

Fun Fact: This was Mariska Hargitay’s first movie role.

Unlike most 80s horror, this movie wastes no time before revealing its slimy, latex monsters to us. What’s more is that this horror is somewhat kid-friendly (PG-13). We open with a devil-worshipping cult holding their quarterly white-hooded meet and greet. Like cute, slimy little mascots, the ghoulies look on as the sorcerous cult leader’s plans to sacrifice an infant are foiled.

Decades later that infant grows up into a man and inherits a creepy Hollywood mansion, complete with a pentacled grave site, black magic compendia and a weird groundskeeper (Jack Nance; Dune, The Blob). Jonathan Graves (Peter Liapis; Ghoulies IV, Wishmaster) and his girlfriend Rebecca (Lisa Pelikan; Lionheart) throw a housewarming party and Jonathan decides it would be a cool idea to perform a ritual and summon a spirit. When this apparently fails, he becomes obsessive of the dark arts and persists until he successfully summons the ghoulies in his back yard.

This movie is weird, neat, goofy, and doesn’t seem to have a clear direction. Later, Jonathan summons some two-foot tall dwarves. Then he somehow compels his friends–including Donna (Mariska Hargitay; Lake Placid) and Anastasia (Victoria Catlin; Howling V: The Rebirth, Maniac Cop)–to help him with another ritual after an awkward dinner party. This time he summons Malcolm (Michael de Barres; Waxwork II), the guy who tried to sacrifice him as an infant! Random. Oh, and Malcolm is his father. More random.

Sticking with the random theme, Malcolm strangles a guy to death with his super long tongue. Malcolm also reclaims control of his ghoulies and intends to steal the life energy from Jonathan. With this we got some black magic battles which are truly awful. The terribleness of this black magic bouts is punctuated by blue and red laser special effects.

The effects are weak, but quite entertaining. The ghoulies remind me of Boglins–those rubber puppet toys from the 90s that were an odd mix of cute and ugly. They’re slimy, ratty, ugly and hairy, and they each have their own unique appearance.

If you’re looking for a good rainy Sunday afternoon horror that will bring some smiles, then toss Ghoulies in your DVD player and enjoy.

John’s Horror Corner: Puppet Master II (1991)

March 17, 2013

tags: Leech Woman, Pinhead, Puppet Master II, stop-motion, Toulon

by John Leavengood

MY CALL: Not nearly as good, charming or fun as the original. But it’s still worth it if you loved the part one and even more so if you are hoping for something silly and weird. Just lower your expectations…okay, lower them a lot…with beer. IF YOU LIKE THIS WATCH: I trust you saw Puppet Master (1989), which was far better. SEQUEL SIDEBAR: This movie picks up right where Puppet Master (1989) leaves off.

A team of four paranormal investigators and older psychic Camille (Nita Talbot; Frightmare, Amityville 1992) venture to the very same hotel as in Puppet Master (1989) to learn just what Dr. Whitaker (part 1’s survivor) saw that drove him mad. [There’s a good way to reduce the budget of an already low budget horror: use the exact same set!]

Things get stupidly weird when the oddly wardrobed Eriquee Chanee, a thick accented man mummified in gauze, introduces himself as the hotel’s owner. We quickly learn that he is actually Toulon, reanimated by his faithful puppets. Listening to his over-hammed up alchemical lectures to his puppets in that awful accent is truly painful. Puppet Master was a fun, playful romp that didn’t take itself too seriously. This character turns the franchise in a farcical direction.

So here’s Eriquee Chanee (actually Toulon), a Germanish-accented dude with a French name. It looks like the invisible man started pimping to survive the down economy. He even has a cane and some thick chains to complement the robe.

And, look! Evidently Blade was designed to look just like Mssr. Chanee.

What’s worse is that this part two’s Toulon lacks the gentle, kind nature of part one’s Toulon. They also gave him that ridiculous accent and basically made him into an evil, over-the-top villain with uber-weird motives that rely on freshly squeezed human brain juice serving as the necro-biofuel of eternal undeath. In part one, he was just a normal sounding nice old guy who made breathed life into his puppets by whispering some ancient Egyptian incantations; it was much more graceful and in better taste.

Generally, the acting is more wooden than the puppets, which come with their own amusing flavors. Pinhead has man hands (as in a stop-motion puppet with live-action human hands), Leech Woman magically regurgitates leeches, Tunneler has a drill on his head, Blade has a hook for one hand and a blade for the other but somehow seems the nicest, Jester strikes me as pure evil, and newcomer Torch has a flame thrower. Sadly, the puppet kills pale in comparison to part one.

Bull’s eye, Tunneler!

Leech Woman

Newcomer: Torch, lightin’ it up!

This movie just gets weirder and weirder as it persists and this is largely the fault of this R-rated cartoonish Toulon character. The movie reaches its climactic ridiculousness when Toulon drinks some potion he makes from human brain juice, then slits his own throat above the open mouth of a dead victim he has fashioned into a man-sized female puppet so that the puppet-woman can drink it and assume the life of his wife who died by Nazi hands decades ago. There! Now did you really think I could say so many weird things in just one run-on sentence? I thought not!

We lost a lot of puppets out there. Good puppets! Tunneler, you will be missed.
Tunneler is not the only puppet casualty in this movie.

Toulon looks like he lost a few steps over the last few decades in the grave.

So he kills a paranormal investigator, fashions his body into this, and then moves his soul into this ugly thing to live out eternity looking like a cheap wax museum yuppie.

Watch this for a beer, boobs and blood night with the guys. The movie will provide ample doses of the latter two, so you just need to bring a six pack.

John’s Horror Corner: The Thing (2011)…that shouldn’t have been remade

March 16, 2013

tags: Joel Edgerton, MacCready, mary elizabeth winstead, The Thing, transformation scene

by John Leavengood

MY CALL: This was a solidly entertaining, effects-driven sci-fi thriller/action movie. I’ll certainly buy it on Blu-Ray. But don’t think for a moment that it compares to the original. When I try NOT to compare it to the 1982 original, I give it a B/B-. I won’t lie, though. While entertained, I was disappointed.

WARNING: Please do not dare watch this until you’ve seen the original first. FIRST! I don’t care if this is a prequel. The 1982 version still holds up strongly and Kurt Russell and the old gang deliver what NO ONE in this new installment can. Watching this prequel first may completely ruin a much better movie for you altogether. Don’t tell yourself that a 1982 movie couldn’t possibly entertain you as much as a 2011 movie. It may be hard to believe, but you’d be wrong.

We’ll start by ignoring the AMAZING quality of the 1982 predecessor…

So some scientists find a block of ice with some “thing” in it.

They thaw it out and…

Hey, wait a minute! Does this feel familiar?

Yes! Yes it does. This scene happened in 1982!

This new movie was very entertaining and I really enjoyed the effects. The Thing’s “thing” was reminiscent of a monster from the Resident Evil movies—in a good way. It was fast, anime-tendril-rich, polymorphic, voracious and disgusting, all delivered with a CGI report card of straight A’s. Fans of the macabre will adore the transformation scenes.

The big flaw was that I couldn’t have cared less about the characters. I mean, Warrior’s Joel Edgerton should be easy to root for, and the director clearly tried to make him a Kurt Russell MacReady clone, yet I didn’t even care if he lived. They added a chick scientist to the mix, too: Scream Queen Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter). But that didn’t imrove things for me either. I think the problem was that there was not enough nerve-wracking suspense and the dialogue was uncompelling. The suspense SHOULD make me wonder what will happen to you characters. The quality of your lines decides whether or not I CARE what happens to you.

It may have been a prequel, but it masquerades as a remake. The characters have different names, but many of them look stunningly similar to their doppelganger-counterparts in the 1982 original and even find themselves in scenes that are obviously modeled, honestly more blatantly remade, from the original.

Like Kurt Russell, a red-bearded fellow and another ginger scientist in 1982; Joel Edgerton with his red-bearded Norseman and ginger scientist in 2011.

Russell’s MacCready and close ally in 1982.
MacCready look-alike Edgerton and his bestie in 2011.

I don’t mean to go all Jekyll and Hyde on you, but now let’s shift gears and bask in our beautiful memories of the 1982 original. It didn’t rely on action. It was suspense-driven. When action did show its face the monstrous transformations were slow and horrific; difficult to watch for some, much like the transformations in An American Werewolf in London and In the Company of Wolves.

This movie attempted to ruin breasts for me.

I can’t help but to wonder if the simplicity of CGI monster-action led to the director simply drop the ball on the suspense and terror in the 2011 installment. I really never had that classic The Thing mood during this new one. Even the scene where they try to “test” who’s infected lacks intensity. When I watch the original, I FEEL it!

Not feelin’ it, 2011.
Totally feelin’ it, 1982!

Remakes and prequels don’t have to match the style of the original, but they should bring something to the table to make it its own—like the switch from the suspense-driven Alien to the action-driven Aliens, very different, but they nailed it with each respective style. This prequel didn’t nail it. The effects were fun and Fangoria probably got a good article out of it, but don’t see this movie because you loved the 1982 original. See it because you want to see the latest CGI-action sci-fi flick.

The most unfortunate thing about 2011’s The Thing was that this movie, as a prequel, ruins the 1982 sequel for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet. So many of the scenes use 1982’s playbook that you may immediately recognize them. These two movies are meant to show us what happened at two different sites with two different sets of characters. Yet, were it not for the last scene of the prequel and the first scene of the original/sequel, you’d never know this wasn’t just a modern reimagining.

I realize this sounds like a muck-raking convention. It’s just hard to say anything positive other than “the effects were great and the gore was a lot of fun”. I enjoyed it. I REALLY did. I’ll even buy it…but I’ll always call it the red-headed stepchild of the 1982 sequel, which oozed eerie mood and intensity.

One final note: I would advise that no one ever see the “true” original The Thing from Another World (1951). It would only disappoint.

John’s Old School Horror Corner: Puppet Master (1989)

March 15, 2013

tags: Leech Woman, Pinhead, Puppet Master, stop-motion, Toulon

by John Leavengood

MY CALL: One of the best direct-to-video horror movies ever made. This is fun, even cute at times while off-putting at others. IF YOU LIKE THIS WATCH: Ghoulies (1985) and sequels.

Andre Toulon (William Hickey; Tales from the Darkside: The Movie; The Sentinel), a seemingly good-natured man who crafted and breathed life into his puppet creations, commits suicide to avoid his capture by Nazi officers during World War II. But, before ending his life, he safely hid his precious creations away so that they me be found present day.

Andre Toulon giving life to Jester.

Seeking Toulon’s creations, a team of psychics are guided by their visions to a large hotel on the coast. Unlike carnival crazies and ghost hunters, these are all apparently upper-middle class academics of high society. They waste no time pretentiously using their psychic gifts to find them. Except, in the case, the puppets seem to be doing all the hunting.

Blade and Pinhead.

Generally, the acting is more wooden than the puppets. But the tone of this unique horror film more than makes up for the D-list performances. POV shots simulating scrambling puppets’-eye-views are playfully filmed. When we see these animated puppets, the stop-motion is imperfect, but delivers a sort of youthful charm…but it can also be quite off-putting at times.

Jester’s sad face.

Blade looking pleased with himself.

The puppets come with their own amusing flavors. Pinhead has man hands (as in a stop-motion puppet with live-action human hands), Leech Woman magically regurgitates leeches, Tunneler has a drill on his head, Blade has a hook for one hand and a blade for the other but somehow seems the nicest, and Jester strikes me as pure evil. Leech Girl is totally gross and Pinhead is the most off-putting with his human hands. Each puppet gets its chance to shine.

Leech Woman interrupting a sex scene.

Not exactly the Barbie your kid sister used to play with, right?

As a nice change of pace, this horror movie uses adults as its victims (not college kids or high schoolers), it’s generally well lit (almost like a daytime setting) and it’s playful. This is also one of few movies in which I really don’t care that we don’t see the kills. The gore is okay at first and improves in quality and quantity towards the end of the film.

If you love any of the horror franchises of the 80s, then you must at least see part one of this series!

Damsels in Distress

March 14, 2013

tags: Adam Brody, Analeigh Tipton, Damsels in Distress, Greta Gerwig, Sambola

by mhofmeyer

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Damsels in Distress is a bonkers film that takes you into a world of tap dancing, dance crazes and second floor suicide attempts. It features four young women with personalities unlike anything you’ve ever seen. Together, they navigate through college life and all it’s travails. They talk smart but are close and far away from intelligence. For instance, while defending her attempt to start a new dance craze Greta Gerwig argues (falsely yet confidently) that the Charleston was named after a man and not the city. She is incorrect but she sounds like she knows what she is talking about. Thus, you wonder if everything you’ve heard so far is false. Also, there is the woman born in America who spent six weeks in England and now only speaks with a British accent. This is not fluffy stuff. It is for smart, detached, ironic or cinema-goers who watched Whit Stillman’s prior films. Also, be wary that this film is fun but feels much longer then it’s two hour running time due to randomness and general lack of a traditional narrative (not a bad thing).

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It walks a tight rope between irony, peculiarity and self consciousness. For instance, this picture below features an excited young man named Thor who finally learned his colors and is celebrating by naming all of the colors of the rainbow.

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I could talk about this film ad nauseum and still forget about several of the weird yet fantastic moments. There is no way to fully explain the plot so I’ve decided to describe some of the more memorable scenes. In an attempt to cure depression and make dorm students smell better the four women stuff square envelopes with soap and send it to the stinky dorms. The dimwits at the dorm use these squares as throwing discs until soap falls out and two of them randomly clean themselves. Or, the French guy (I think) who convinces Analeigh Tipton (Warm Bodies) that his religion only allows them to have sex in an uncomfortable place (Not in the back of a VW). I also have to mention the Sambola which is the dance craze Gerwig invents.

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The story revolves around students at a fictional university where the fraternities use Roman letters and most people living in dorms smell badly. No synopsis could do this justice and I pity the fool who thinks this is another House Bunny or Man of the House. The four main characters work at a suicide prevention center where they teach depressed students how to dance. At the center they come across students named Mad Marge, Depressed Debbie, Freak and Positive Polly. They only dole out doughnuts and coffee to clinically depressed people who are actually diagnosed. There is a scene where Greta is asking for a doughnut and Aubrey Plaza (Debbie Downer) complains that Greta is only on a downward spiral and not actually clinically depressed. Thus, no doughnut. It is an odd scene.

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I got into the flow of this film and never looked back. In order to enjoy Damsels in Distress you have to listen and appreciate the insanity unfolding in front of your eyes. I’ve never watched something like this before and not sure there will be another like it. You will most certainly be a launching pad for Greta Gerwig and her unique style. I’m glad she survived Arthur and is back in Greenberg mode.

Watch Damsels in Distress. Dig the world. Appreciate the weirdness. Ignore the self-consciousness.

Hotel Transylvania

March 13, 2013

tags: Adam Sandler, great animation, Hotel Transylvania, yeti, Zombies

by mhofmeyer

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Welcome to the Hotel Transylvania. You will be welcomed by bright colors, loud noises and the Sandman doing exactly what you think he is doing.

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The critics weren’t kind to the film and the synopsis from Rotten Tomatoes reads “buoyant, giddy and may please children, but it might be a little too loud and thinly scripted for older audiences.” Too loud?

I think in this renaissance of Pixar, Disney, Aardman, Fox and Laika churning out wonderful children’s films people have forgotten that cartoons are for kids. Hotel Transylvania understands this and supplies little buggers with a whole lot of fun. Who cares if older folk and cinema snobs complain? It is a movie made for kids and it doesn’t try to be anything else. Sophistication is not always necessary and sometimes the Sandman has to fart and houses need to fall on cheeky minion zombies. Hotel Transylvania may have all the trademarks of a Sandler film (thin plot, farts, vomit and easy conclusions) but it has a nice story behind it. I’ve always been able to forgive dumb and gross when the story behind it is genuine.

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Hotel Transylvania centers around Dracula protecting his daughter from the outside world. His wife was killed by humans and he can’t bear the thought of losing his lovely daughter. Thus, he builds a castle that is well hidden and it acts as a resort for monsters who are looking to avoid the real world while on vacation. As his daughter begins to age she craves visiting the outside world. Dracula realizes this so he arranges for her to visit a town (his zombie minions built) so she can have a disastrous first time experience amongst the humans. my favorite part of this film are the zombie minions running around. They are a bunch of cheeky little guys who are always getting smooshed and crunched while doing their jobs.

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As Dracula is fighting to keep her from the real world the real world comes to her. One day a human enters the premises and everything gets turned upside down. The free-spirited human voiced by Andy Samberg causes a stir as he tells tales of his travels and reintroduces fun into Dracula’s life. Along the way Quasimodo tries to eat him, monsters fear him and naturally the daughter falls in love with him.

Hotel Transylvania is nice in its lack of pretentiousness. It tells a family story and young kids will appreciate the monsters running a muck. The movie dates itself badly (a plethora of LMFAO songs) and pop culture references but it has a winning sense of creativity and charm. Take a look at these pictures and you will notice the abounding creativity and neat monsters. Another bonus is that the voice cast includes Steve Buscemi, Kevin James, Fran Drescher, Andy Samberg, Jon Lovitz, Molly Shannon, Ceelo, Rob Riggle, Rovert Smigel, Chris Parnell and Selena Gomez.

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Hotel Transylvania is a fun film. Is it good? Nope. Does it try to be Wall-E or Coraline? Nope. Is the ending too easy? Yep. Does a yeti clog a toilet? Yep. Does it tell a nice story about family and friends? Yep.

Rent this film. Embrace the loudness. Appreciate the zany world of Hotel Transylvania.

Bad Movie Tuesday: Dead Man Down

March 12, 2013

tags: Bad Movie Tuesday, colin farrell, Dead Man Down, dominic cooper, Noomi Rapaace

by mhofmeyer

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Dead Man Down feels like a direct to DVD action film that should be airing at 2:00 AM on some cable channel. The story centers around a broken man who lost his family and is now getting revenge on the gangsters who did it. Throw in a facially scarred woman who is blackmailing him and you have a jumbled mess mixed with lots of squinting. The movie has a European feel full of doom, dread and gloom but it doesn’t mix well with the hackneyed script. Characters pop in and out, you can’t understand anything that comes out of Armand Assante’s mouth and a beer can is used as a bomb which gives new meaning to “this buds for you.” I sat in the theater amazed at what I was watching. Every single one of these actors are fantastic yet the movie is so incomprehensible you are left confused, frustrated and checking your watch every other minute.

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The first inkling I had that Dead Man Down would be gracing Bad Movie Tuesday is when I found out the WWE helped produce this film. Every single WWE film has the same Modus operandi. Poorly written, oddly edited and well cast. WWE stormed out of the gate with the fantastic (for what it was) Rundown. That film was directed by Peter Berg and has all the right kinds of crazy. However, since then they’ve only had one decent sized hit. The Marine failed at the box office but BLEW up on DVD ($30 million in first two months) Since then See No Evil, Condemned, Marine 2, Marine 3, 12 Rounds, The Chaperone, Behind Enemy Lines 2 & 3 have all tanked like a Sherman. Recently, WWE is making an effort to make better cinema. However, their plan seems to be casting Oscar winners (Halle Berry, F. Murray Abraham) to star in poorly written movies like The Call. Have you watched this trailer? It makes you say “Uff da.”

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It is mind boggling that this film is from the same man who directed Noomi in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series. Those films were full of danger, suspense and wonderful performances. I wonder if the creators watched In Bruges, Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Hustle & Flow, Devils Double or Tamara Drewe then decided to throw out everything good about those performances. Colin Farrell, Noomi Rapace, Dominic Cooper and Terrence Howard are all fantastic actors who are given nothing to do. They squint, mope, glower and talk in silly accents. It is frustrating to watch when talent is underutilized because of a weak script and odd direction. I bet they had to shoot this film quick because of the actor’s salaries. So, luxuries such as set design, costuming and plot went out of the window. The key to tangled web movies involving double crosses, murder and betrayal is allowing it to unfold in a deliberate manner that is not sloppily edited. Everything about DMD is choppy so none of it works.

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For instance, you can tell the budgetary constraints with Dominic Cooper’s costuming and plot line. The film takes place over the course of a month (I think) and Cooper only wears three outfits. His role is of a thug with a heart of gold hunting Farrell’s trail. The problem is he is rarely on-screen so the whole thing seems forced to an unearned fruition. You don’t care about his relationship with Farrell because there is no time for it. A great example is in the heat of an action scene Cooper yells to Farrell “You are my son’s Godfather!” He says this line and I went “huh?” The creators mistook forced dialogue for earned plot and it came back to haunt them.

I know how the film went bad. A foreign director, a unreliable script, short shooting schedule and funding by World Wrestling Entertainment all combined to make a funky film. It is melodramatic where it should be understated.It tells when it should show. It features the weirdest subplot involving a drunk driver and facial scars ever shown on-screen…..

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Don’t watch Dead Man Down. Watch the original Dragon Tattoo or In Bruges instead. WWE will figure it out eventually but until it does stick to watching The Rundown or Walking Tall.

John’s Horror Corner: The Uncanny (1977), a horror anthology about cats.

March 11, 2013

tags: cat horror movie, evil cat, horror anthology, Peter Cushing, The Uncanny

by John Leavengood

MY CALL: Intensely stupid but delightfully fun horror anthology about cats. IF YOU LIKE THIS WATCH: 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), Creepshow (1982), Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983), Stephen King’s Cat’s Eye (1985), Creepshow 2 (1987), Tales from the Dark Side: The Movie (1990), 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) and The Profane Exhibit (2013).

This is an anthology of three intensely stupid but delightfully fun feline stories tied together by our storyteller, an eccentric writer who believes that cats are highly intelligent, evil beings pulling our strings from behind the curtain.

London, 1912, Death by a Thousand Scratches. An old wealthy, childless woman with far too many cats chooses her pets over blood (her nephew) when emending her will. That’s right. The cats get everything! This evidences the notion that those with the greatest (and, perhaps, unhealthiest) affection for cats are those who use them as emotional surrogates.

This woman’s housekeeper conspires with the disinherited nephew to steal the will. But the cats aren’t having it! Clips of cats running down stairs and jumping from landings simulate their assault of the villainous housekeeper, who is increasing scratched and bloodied between shots of rather calm looking cats. It’s really bad and completely unconvincing. It gets worse when the cats have her trapped in the pantry, as if waiting out her food supply until she must emerge to accept her clawed fate or starve to death. Anyway, she gets hers and we get some fun, brief gore.

This might be the very least sophisticated British production ever made.

Quebec, 1975, The Cat Came Back. A young girl with a black cat and some books on witchcraft moves in with her aunt. Her cousin Angela (and new housemate) is jealous of the cat and becomes abusive, making for something of a wicked stepmother and stepsister resentment.

One day, much to her twisted daughter’s delight, the aunt takes the cat to be put to sleep. But, somehow, the cat “comes back.” Then, evidently under the cat’s advice, Lucy performs a ritual that turns Angela into–ummm….cat food.

Selfish 12-year old bitch gets hers!

Hollywood, 1936 . After covering up his wife’s murder as a prop accident while filming a movie, her cats avenge her. This was the least entertaining of the anthology’s short films.

“Cat got your tongue?”

The Master

March 10, 2013

tags: Amy Adams, Joaquin Phoenix, Paul thomas Anderson, Processing, The Master

by mhofmeyer

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The Master is beautiful to look at and acted to perfection. Anderson and crew have created a sweeping epic unlike anything you’ve ever seen. However, aside from the technical mastery and acting clinic the movie feels distant. I understood the film and loved several moments but as a whole will never achieve the heights that Punch Drunk Love, Boogie Nights, Magnolia and There Will Be Blood reached. The reason for this is The Master makes the viewer passive as they watch beautiful things unfold. The dolly shots, ocean cinematography and long takes will make any filmmaker jealous but the characters involved never click. You never become immersed because you are too busy appreciating the acting and technical aspects.

Did I get the film? Yes. Did I love seeing Rami Malek (Pacific) and Jesse Plemons (Friday Night Lights)in a Paul Thomas Anderson film? Yes. Did it feel over important? Yes. Did I want to start putting my hands on my side like Phoenix did? Yes!

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I dug the character study of two different men and the roles they played in each other’s lives. The scene where Hoffman processes Joaquin Phoenix should be shown to every acting class. Phoenix transforms himself into a feral animal who lives in the moment, loves sex and never avoids a fight. There is zero reason why Phoenix shouldn’t have won the Oscar this year. His thin frame, hunched shoulders and well-defined face carry many silent moments that exhibit PTA’s directing capability.

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Phillip Seymour Hoffman exudes confidence and anger as the Master. He is cool, calm and collected yet apt to profanity laced outbursts of insecurity and bottled up anger. You never know much about his mission but his following is always growing. Also, I am surprised that Amy Adams character wasn’t named “Stone Cold” on the IMDB page.

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The look and acting in the film are fantastic but the movie didn’t gell with me. I felt like I was looking at a piece of art that I appreciated but never clicked with. I remember There Will Be Blood blowing me away and walking out of Punch Drunk Love in awe. After I turned off The Master I didn’t know how to process the film. I wondered it I didn’t get the story or that it was incredibly simple. The fact that it has stayed in my mind a week after watching is impressive.

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If somebody asked me to explain The Master I don’t know where I would start. You’ve probably noticed I’ve said nothing about the plot because I feel like it took second place to everything else. The plot doesn’t matter because it seems like a movie of interconnected moments. The film comes together but it is tied together by a loose thread. It would be hard to recommend because I know a lot of people wouldn’t appreciate it. However, I know many who would love it. The film will divide the masses and that has to be appreciated. It is not an easy film and I like that. If you love technical mastery and acting clinics you should rent the Blu-Ray, turn off the lights and attempt to immerse yourself in the experience.

John’s Horror Corner INDEX: a list of all my horror reviews by movie release date

March 9, 2013

tags: 2000s horror, 70s horror, 80s horror, 90s horror, best horror movies of the year, horror movie list, john's horror corner

by John Leavengood

Hey, folks. This is just a nice, organized list of my horror movie reviews arranged by year of release (i.e., the earliest release date including film festivals). These are my horror movie reviews including links to our Podcast Discussions.