Tokyo Shock: Psycho Gothic Lolita
By John Leavengood
MY CALL: All in all, this was a disappointing and shockless Tokyo Shocker. It falls short of the goretastic silliness of its predecessors. It’ll provoke a few ridiculous laughs, but you may not have the patience to watch the whole thing. WHAT TO WATCH INSTEAD: You should check out my Beginner’s Guide to Tokyo Shock Cinema for some good pointers on navigating this movie odd subgenre. A safe start would be Tokyo Gore Police. IF YOU LIKE THIS, WATCH: Alien vs Ninja. TRAILER: here it is.
Normally I’d say: Folks, brace yourselves. These Tokyo Shocklets tend to have all the subtlety of a Thai whorehouse. There are so many scenes in these movies where you put on a big smile and think “that makes absolutely no sense” and love it! This made me smile, but way less than most movies of such ilk.
This one opens with some manner of casino, fight club, BDSM den where our star has come to execute the dome-y den mother for her sins. Naturally, everyone in the club is armed, on the boss lady’s payroll, and will fight to the death to defend her. I don’t know why she needs protecting, though. I mean, she’s a master of two-bladed skull-sword-thingy style. Our “Lolita” starlet, Yuki, is armed with an umbrella-spear and wears some sexy Hot Topic leather boots.
Yuki’s father is a wheelchair-bound Catholic priest who helps her avenge her mother’s death. How? By ripping off Whistler from Blade. You see, Yuki is killing off members of a caped cadre of baddies that killed mom and crippled dad. The second baddie is apparently a perverted chemistry teacher. His fighting style: Telekinetic Seated Mop! After him, it’s a one-eyed schoolgirl-chic-ette with bladed pistols and a sunny disposition.
By now you’re probably wondering where the “Psycho” demon-hybrid chick from the DVD cover is going to show up. Bummer alert! Not ‘til the end.
For the subgenre, I quickly noticed that the martial arts in this are about as good as they get in this subgenre—which isn’t great. But the gore and villains are noticeably less innovating. Compared to Tokyo Gore Police this falls short by about 100 gallons of arterial spray and 100 pounds of rubber guts and disembodied limbs. There were also no goofy prosthetics until the final demon scene. All in all, this was a disappointing Tokyo Shocker.
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Horror Movie Remake Tournament of Doom-Part 5
Mark: House of Wax, When a Stranger Calls and Black Christmas put me to sleep.
John: If only they had remade WaxWorks. That could have been a lot of fun.
Mark: They say “don’t throw rocks in a house of glass.” I say “don’t put Paris Hilton in a House of Wax.”
Mark: The Hills Have Eyes was an extremely effective remake. The scene with the dude flipping the axe was badass.
John: Sounds like you liked The Hills Have Eyes a lot. So did I. I guess when they called the TKO in favor of The Wicker Man I was out of town and you were still asleep from watching Black Christmas.
Mark: The fight was a draw until they watched this clip:
Mark: The battle between The Hitcher and Fright Night was an easy one to decide. The Hitcher is not great. However, it features one cool scene where Sean Bean destroys six cars and a helicopter in 30 seconds. I remember being totally bored but that scene caught my attention. It is amazing how 30 seconds make a film worth watching.
John: Not a lot of talent here. I would have enjoyed a cat fight between Prom Night and Sorority Row, though. If the coach for Sorority Row had just started Carrie Fisher, she would have taken out Colin Farrell (Fright Night‘s best player)
Mark: Fright Night rocked like a category 2 hurricane. Too bad it had to battle Nic Cage going crazy. Nobody wins against Cage. Unless he is riding a bicycle through a bee hive.
Mark: Right now you wondering “Wicker Man?….Why?” Many will disagree but I love this film. It is a powder keg of Nic Cage craziness. Sure other remakes might be better but none of them feature Nic Cage in a bear suit.
John: If you ask me, the only reason that The Wicker Man should have been here would be to burn in effigy! I don’t care if the bear suit scene where he punches a chick in the head was awesome. The hour-plus leading up to that felt like I was strapped to a chair in Hostel. Funny Games should have owned it. Twisted, oddly but well-written, great actors who do a good job…TWISTED!!!!
Mark: The Wicker Man is like the Christmas where you finally got the Red Rider BB gun. You anticipate it, you dream of it and finally on Christmas morning you tear off the wrapping and you see the new BB gun. I sat down watching Mr. Wicker with high hopes and it delivered.
Check out Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4.
The exciting conclusion will be coming soon!
Comment, Comment, Comment!
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Horror Movie Remake Tournament of Doom-Part 4
John: Whoa! Look at that. It’s like they put Roger Federer right at the top of the bracket against a bunch of high schoolers. Look at how Evil Dead 2 just cascades down, cresting that business, like someone called “waterfall” in a frat house game of Asshole. Just owning it! I want Bruce Campbell tested for steroids.
Mark: Is there a steroid called “groovy?”
Mark: Has there ever been a worse remake than The Fog? I remember watching this movie but I remember nothing that happened. Are there ghosts in the fog? what if you have an industrial strength fan?
John: Are there ghosts in The Fog? Not sure. What about telephone lines and radio waves? None that matter.
John: Oh no. I guess Pulse couldn’t hold its own against Jason Voorhees with its electrical tape.
Mark: I’ve watched both of those films as well yet I couldn’t tell you a single thing about the plots. They need to make The Pulse vs. Jason Voorhees. The movie would consist of the pulse thingies trying to put a blu-tooth on Jason’s ear so they can pulse him via phone.
John: Man. The Blob, even the remake, is a solid classic. And the new Dawn of the Dead beats it? Really? Oh–Hell, who am I to judge? I guess it’s hard to inspire people to root for some amorphous, acidic, mindless, pink mess that just wants to absorb them.
Mark: I was hoping The Blob had more of a charcter arc for the blob. It changes it’s evil amorphous ways and begins to let kids bounce on it. It absorbs bullies and old people who try to sneak a bounce though.
Mark: I wish The Crazies would have moved further. It was a decent little flick and you can’t deny the Olyphant. The Romero remakes on this list are super solid. I’m thinking Romero remakes are better than Romero’s recent stinkers. Diary of the Dead put my soul in a headlock.
John: I realize that when two losers face off, one of them gets to be a winner. But I’m still upset that Willard won “anything,” even if it was against Shutter. We need more zombie remakes to fill some of these deplorable gaps in talent.
Mark: A battle of the deads! I know Evil Dead 2 is a sequel/remake/hybrid but I had to include it on the list. The new Dawn of the Dead is a solid remake as well. I love the opening with Johnny Cash and the shooting of zombies who look like celebrities was funny. Dawn is nothing like its predecessor yet still brings the thrills However, it wasn’t much of a challenge. Nothing can defeat Bruce “the chin” Campbell.
We hope you haven’t missed anything yet. So be sure to check out the last two brackets (click here and here) and the initial tournament breakdown. And don’t forget you can use this cinematic kumite to mediate arguments on which movie to rent on Halloween. Just consult the brackets, assess the strength of schedule, and then bitch that there’s no play-off system–just like NCAA Division-I football!
Mark: Check out the Horror Movie Football Team.
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The Thing (2)
A day after watching this I can say that I don’t have any ill will towards the film. The Thing (2011) in no way matches the The Thing (1982). However, you like the main characters Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Joel Edgerton and the movie moves along at a nice Norwegian pace.
The biggest problem I have with the film is that it is too clean. The movie looks like it was shot on a set. The wardrobes are too J-Crew and the CGI takes away from the grime of the original. The Thing (1982) made you feel cold, isolated and tense. This film makes you realize how great the original is.
Also, according to this film Antarctica is not that cold and snow looks like styrofoam. There is a scene in the film where Winstead runs out into the cold without a jacket yet seems perfectly fine. I know this is a minor point but wouldn’t the filmmakers have thought about this. It would have made the scene more tense if she risked her life to warn others. The scene could have been entertaining. However, it made me shrug.
Watch this film, enjoy the Norwegians, do not compare it to the original.
Check out Johns review of The Thing here.
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Horror Movie Remake Tournament of Doom-Part 3
Mark: Is is just me or is Dark Water the lamest title ever? I’m hoping this was the tagline
Dark Water: Don’t drink it, don’t water your plants with it, don’t do cannonballs into it.
John: Oh, that was a horror movie? I thought Dark Water was a kidney stone documentary by the Super Size Me guy.
Mark: Don’t give that guy any ideas. Morgan Spurlock passing a kidney stone would be much scarier than Jennifer Connelly being hunted by angry water.
Mark: This was probably the easiest bracket to find a winner. The Thing (1982) is an unstoppable juggernaut of awesomeness that does not age.
John: It’s a good thing we went classic with The Thing remake. The Thing (2011) would have gotten owned by Cape Fear OR Quarantine. The Fly had a good thing going with the Brundel-fly medicine cabinet museum of gross transformation history and perhaps the best arm-wrestling scene on the market, but my hat is always off to The Thing–it’s one of my all time favorites of any genre.
Mark: Quarantine made it pretty far…It was on a gravy train with biscuit wheels….It had meatball competition though.
Sidenote: I must be hungry with all this talk of food.
Mark: The toughest part for me was conceding to the defeat of The Wolfman. The Wolfman survived an early scare against I am Legend only to be defeated by The Fly. I know The Wolfman is not in The Fly’s league. However, I dug the atmosphere, look and effects the film created. Also, there is a scene where Anthony Hopkins randomly throws a chair and it makes me laugh.
John: I’m a little less shocked by the Fly‘s victory. It has Jeff Goldblum in it (who was also in our tournaments 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers which won Monday’s bracket), he eats a donut by chundering all over it and slurping it up (YIKES), he diddles Geena Davis, and he spew-melts off Geena’s ex-beau’s hand before getting his head turned into cerebral confetti. What did The Wolfman have? A daddy-issued Benicio who had to get water-tortured to forget that he wasn’t hugged enough? Out with that. It’s called tough love, Benicio. Deal with it!
Mark: Benicio has 99 problems but a fly ain’t one. However, that arm wrestling scene was epic.
Mark: In the end The Thing prevailed. I feel bad for Cape Fear though. Remember when DeNiro used to be the best?
If you missed anything, check out Monday’s Bracket and the initial tournament breakdown.
Stay tuned for the next bracket!
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Bad Movie Tuesday: The Ward
John Carpenter has made some of the great horror films of all time. The Thing, They Live, Halloween and Assault on Precinct 13.
The Ward is not a classic. It isn’t even so bad it is a classic. John Carpenter has not been doing himself any favors as of late. Ghost of Mars, Vampires, Village of the Dammed, Escape from LA and the Master’s of Horror stuff have been painfully bad.
The Ward keeps this impressive streak of bad films alive. The film centers around young ladies in an insane asylum being hunted down by an angry ghost. This ghost attacks at night and nobody seems to notice. Girls go missing, ghosts pop up behind you at the most inopportune times and women still corner themselves in tiny elevators..
This movie feels like an old boxer coming back into the ring for one last fight. He still has the skills, the jab is crisp. the hook is technically sound. However, he is old and the younger fighter has learned all of his tricks and found ways to update them to this day and age. The younger fighter will never be able to recreate the veterans fighters past accomplishments but the fight will still look like this.
Carpenter gave it his best shot he hasn’t adapted his skills to this day and age. He isn’t able to create any tension, jumps, scares or memorable characters. This is a man who has directed some of the best moments of horror history and now he can’t create thrills.
The funniest part of this film comes at the end. The ghost is chasing Amber Heard around and throwing her all around the hospital. No punches, chokes or hair pulling. The ghost grabs Amber and throws her into walls, carts, desks, glass and everything else in the hospital. I’ve always wondered why bad guys throw their victims far away from them. If I was beating somebody up I wouldn’t throw them thirty feet away so they can have time to grab an axe.
A ghost ceases to be scary when all she does is throw people around. It is not very intimidating. Some ghosts/demons make you puke pea soup or swear in creative ways. This ghost just wants to throw you around. I would love to see what the ghost could have done to DJ Jazzy Jeff on Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. He would have flown through that door.
There is a current trend in the horror movie community. The horror movies are not scary. I’m hoping this trend doesn’t stick. I’m thinking it will be like all the Speed, Clerks and Pulp Fiction knock offs that plagued the cinemas in the 90s. These films ran their course and I’m hoping this is the case.
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Horror Movie Remake Tournament of Doom-Part 2
Mark: There were some incredible stinkers on this list. Psycho, One Missed Call and Day of the Dead. Ouch, ouch and triple ouch.
John: Poor House on Haunted Hill. Geoffrey Rush, Taye Diggs, Famke Janssen, Peter Gallagher, Chris Kattan, Bridgette Wilson, and Ali Larter–even Jeffrey Combs and Lisa Loeb, what!?! They bought one Hell of a cast but they couldn’t bribe their way one past of Mark’s favorite movies: The Ring.
Mark: I know people will wonder why The Ring and The Grudge didn’t move further in the bracket. It is because I don’t like movies about evil little kids and depressed people. Audiences loved the movies and they were big hits. However, they annoyed me.
John: Guilty as charged. I love those evil demon-child movies. I think Mark’s just scared. After all, to quote The Ring, “they just kept talking about his face”…scariest face EVER!
Mark: Thirteen Ghosts had a good shot of taking out Piranha 3D until Mathew Lillard got his back snapped by that big angry ghost. That part really bummed me out. I also could never have envisioned a world where Piranha 3D moves further than Let Me In.
John: I’m not even sure which Frankenstein remake we’re talking about here. If it was the Luke Goss made-for-TV Frankenstein, then I’m happy it got knocked out in round one. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, however, would have crushed the new Elm Street! But Piranha 3D was sooooo fun, any Frankenstein would have lost.
Mark: The toughest part of the bracket was Let Me In vs. Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Two great films. However, I had to concede to the masses.
John: I beg to differ, Mark. You see, when the man who tended to that preteeny vamp fell asleep, the body snatchers got him. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) was such a good remake, that they made yet two more remakes of it in 1993 (The Body Snatchers) and 2007 (The Invasion) which failed to do it any justice! No four-foot tall, moody 12-year old can compete with that, especially if her movie was only remade because Americans are too lazy to read Norwegian subtitles.
Mark: Good Point John. The Ring still sucks though. The first round victory goes to the Body Snatchers! It wasn’t easy though. They had to get past moody vampires, angry piranhas and a plethora of little punk ghost kids.
Check out the entire bracket here.
The tournament continues Wednesday. Stay tuned.
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Paranormal Activity 3
By John Leavengood
MY CALL: Some people’s favorite and my least favorite of the franchise. In either case, I thought it was a lot of fun and recommend it to anyone who enjoyed either of its franchise’s predecessors. [B-] IF YOU LIKE THIS, WATCH: Well, hopefully you already saw Paranormal Activity and Paranormal Activity 2. Also, you’ll probably like White Noise.
First off, I should say that I LOVED parts one and two. The first two relied more heavily on very slow-building tension. These predecessors basically “taught” viewers how to watch these movies in the first 20-30 minutes by offering numerous subtle, relatively unimportant objects moving as if a spectral breeze had shifted them. This way when such production devices became important, the viewer had a trained eye—not unlike what was done with White Noise. These movies convey a style that is very unusual. So it came as no surprise to me that there was little middle ground in people’s opinions of them; they loved’em or hated’em. I love’em. Why? Because my senses are all on full power; I’m all in; I’m practically concentrating on the screen and listening to every creak trying to sleuth out the next clue that something fishy is going on in that house. Some people may call this “work”. I call it cool. [But people chatting during the movie are a much greater distraction than normal under the circumstances.]
This third installment was my least favorite, but I can totally understand why it may be others’ favorite. While it still employed subtle moving objects, it did it less, instead relying on more mainstream devices to provoke scared jumps from the audience. It also borrowed more heavily from the Poltergeist movies than the first two—not that I minded. The characters’ investigation into the strange goings-on was more methodical and plot-driven. The first two were more event- driven and investigated more out of fear and curiosity. The differences between 3 and 1 & 2 were subtle, but numerous, chief amongst them being that “the paranormal” functions as a character in this movie, rather than a mysterious “force” in the first two. As such, the actions of “the paranormal” were more blatant and felt more like “it” was doing something “to someone” whereas in 1 & 2 it was more like “something was happening” to someone in a haunted house.
The plot is simple. A family lives in a house. Weird things start happening. Step-dad starts putting cameras around the house. Things get weirder. And from there anything more would give too much away. But while the first two movies’ endings left us largely to wild speculation, I will say that this one ends with something of an explanation of the paranormal activity.
It doesn’t really matter in which order you watch these movies. However, each sequel (or in this case prequel) was designed to mold over the events of the previous installment. So watch them in order if it’s convenient. I also demand you watch these with the lights off. It makes it easier to avoid distractions while you’re concentrating on the screen.
By the way, remember this from the trailer? It didn’t happen in the movie!
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Arena
By John Leavengood
MY CALL: It’s not so bad that’s it’s good—and it’s clearly not good, yet not bad. Far from great yet quite entertaining, this death match, modern gladiatorial fight flick does the trick for a rainy evening when nothing’s on TV and Netflix isn’t turning you on. IF YOU LIKE THIS, WATCH: The Condemned, Spartacus: Blood and Sand and 300 all offer the best elements of this movie, but deliver them with excellence, compelling stories and solid acting. TRAILER: click here, and please ignore the low video quality. The movie is fine. I stumbled across this trailer when I saw Michael Jai White’s Never Back Down 2.
In a wardrobe that smacks of a Shaft-y pimp, Samuel L. Jackson holds meetings in his Pharaoh-chic throne room office and produces an online death show from what looks like an evil star ship Enterprise flight deck. What’s his show like? It’s a live, online death match. The viewership includes bored office drones and college kids who laugh and make bets as people beat each other into Sloppy Joe filling. Then, after the fight is over, the viewers vote on whether the loser lives or dies at the executing hand of the victor. This is not original by any means, but that doesn’t mean movies like this can’t still be fun.
Like a modern day Gladiator our star is kidnapped and enslaved. To “break him” he is regularly waterboarded, electrocuted, or suppressed by blaring noise. He has no choice but to fight, but to do so well could mean a glorious death—so says his leather-bound captor. Still hesitant to fight, he receives an incentive: win ten fights, win your freedom. He is renamed Death Dealer, which I hope is a polite nod to Frank Frazetta’s fantasy art, and he starts to get into it a bit.
The fights are pretty decent, mix the kumite death match-style movie with medieval to improvised construction site weapons, deliver some solid brutality and gore, and most importantly they are very fun to watch. In the opening fight, the filmmakers employed a harsh light/shadow contrast creating a somewhat Spartacus: Blood and Sand feel with a touch of 300. The combat takes place in a greenscreen room which the producers alter frequently, not unlike the backdrops in video games like Street Fighter and Soul Caliber or the movie King of Fighters, which change from fight to fight.
Production quality is good. Our lead actor does fine for a straight-to-DVD death match movie. During between-battle scenes his wounds are treated and it’s like a healing version of Hostel. He accumulates a lot of scars. Some of the fighters’ outfits are a bit funny. Oh, and a naked chick shoots a guy with a stun gun. That’s worth a star by itself.
Normally a fight without thoughtful combat choreography is ruined before it starts. This movie is among few which fall into that category, yet still I enjoyed it. Don’t rush off to buy this, but it’s worth a RedBox-remedied Sunday afternoon or a fun-filled Bad Movie Tuesday.
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Horror Movie Remake Tournament of Doom- Part 1
Hello all. Mark here.
In the spirit of Halloween we have drummed up something special for you.
We live in a world of remakes. A horror film is produced and then it is remade. If the remake is bad a third film is created.
The problem with remakes is that most of them never recreate the magic of the first film. The moviesfilmsandflix crew have put together a tournament of remakes. We are going to wade through the horror waste lands and find you a remake oasis of awesomeness.
This tournament is not based on reviews, box office or logic. We here at moviesfilmsandflix kept the brackets and our thought processes random.
Click on the link above to see a larger version of the brackets. Feel free to comment and let us know who you think should win. I’m hoping we can have a lot of reader feedback.
Over a series of posts we will give you the breakdown of one of the four bracket that each produce a semifinalist. Tune in on Monday for the first bracket’s outcome!
Movies, Films & Flix 