You know you’re in for a long night when the horror movie you’re watching reminds you of MY DINNER WITH ANDRE (1981).

If you’re unfamiliar, MY DINNER WITH ANDRE is two guys having dinner and talking. That’s it. No action and, if memory serves me right, they don’t even get up from the table. THE INNKEEPERS (2011) was like that, and not in a good way.

It’s the final days for The Yankee Peddler Inn, and the last two employees are spending the last days holed up in rooms at the hotel, pranking each other and not being helpful to the handful of guests. The first innkeeper is Claire (Sara Paxton), a twenty-something with no goals, no interests, no personality really. She works with Luke (Pat Healy), a web developer at heart who’s working on a website detailing the haunting of The Yankee Peddler. Decades ago, a woman was murdered there and supposedly haunts the halls to this day. With only a little while left before the hotel closes down, there are only a handful of guests: a crabby mother with a whiny son, a former TV star in town for a convention, and a mysterious old man who demands to stay in one specific room, although that entire floor had already been stripped. Out of boredom, the two innkeepers try and record the haunting (in between forgetting to stock towels).

When making a horror film, there are a couple different ways to approach it. One is to sprinkle it with scares, building to one giant climax. Except for a few fake-outs (including the use of an old internet meme of “now keep looking closely at this picture…keep looking…boo!”), there wasn’t even an attempt at a scare until more than forty minutes into the movie. And then you have to wait just about as long for the next one, which is the final climax. In and of itself, that’s fine because you can build tension by developing the characters, putting you at the edge of your seat with worry over the well-being of the heroes. THE INNKEEPERS aimed for the latter, relying on mood, characters and story to create suspense. In my opinion, it failed.

Director Ti West (who also gave us 2009’s HOUSE OF THE DEVIL) uses a lot of creepy music to create the tone. That can be a useful tool when it’s meant to underscore an eerie sense to the scene, or build up to a fright. But here, it’s ever-present, and by the time something scary did come about, I’d become immune to it. In fact, its use in almost every scene became more of an annoyance than anything. And the story itself isn’t nearly enough to rely on. Less than half the movie has anything to do with the haunting or the ghosts, but rather characterization. I understand the reasoning behind this—the more we know and care about the protagonists, the more their peril affects us. The problem is I didn’t care about the characters.

The movie rides on the shoulders of Claire. Almost every scene is about her, and she’s in almost every shot of the film. The actress did a decent job with the role and was perfectly believable. The problem was not with her, but how the character was written. Claire was supposed to represent the young everywoman: aimless, directionless, passionless. However, while most people aren’t overachievers, they tend to care about something. Even if it’s a nightly game of Sonic the Hedgehog, even the dullest among us has something they find interesting. She was completely unrelatable. The secondary characters didn’t fare very well, either. Her coworker, Luke, was your stereotypical computer geek with a laptop full of porn links. The mother and child served no purpose in the movie—they didn’t move the story forward (or even backward for that matter) and didn’t bring a thing to the movie. The wise old faded star (played by Kelly McGillis, in a role that will make anyone who saw TOP GUN in the theater back in 1986 feel old) was the most interesting character, but it still isn’t saying much. She just happened to know exactly what was needed at the right time, and surprisingly, had the exact skills the writers needed to move the plot along. Her character was just too convenient to be believable enough to keep me in the story. As for the old man, although he was integral to the ending, he barely appeared for fifteen minutes of time, just enough to perfectly play the Deus Ex Machina role.

Speaking of the ending, it was painfully awkward. In fact, it rendered about an hour and twenty minutes of the movie totally useless. Perhaps the ending would have worked if, even a little, I cared about Claire or what happened to her. The best part of the end was the fact that it was the end, and I could move on with my life.

THE INNKEEPERS seems to have garnered quite a bit of praise, hitting a surprising 78% on RottenTomatoes.com. Most of the reviews were along the lines of “Finally, a horror movie that doesn’t rely on gore” and “I’m glad it used tone rather than blood and guts.”  So much praise is coming from its genre, rather than itself as a movie. This goes to show just how hungry audiences are for quiet horror, that by simply being such it gains bonus points. THE INNKEEPERS had the quiet part down, but forgot about the horror. Looking at the praise this got, I can’t help but wonder what would happen if somebody made a halfway decent (let alone good) piece of quiet horror. For now, all we can do is wonder.

Out of five stars: a 30 watt light bulb.

© Copyright 2012 by Jenny Orosel

(Note: despite being made in 2011, THE INNKEEPERS is currently in limited theatrical release in selected cities, and is also availble on some cable OnDemand services)

Too bad THE INNKEEPERS isn't as good as this cool poster implies.

While I wanted to see this in Times Square (being it wasn’t in wide-release), a small theater in New Jersey actually featured it for one week only. I conned a couple of my buddies to join me on my quest for Tromaville,  and we headed to the Garden State hoping this would at least be half as good as the first TOXIC AVENGER.

Warren and his cute girlfriend, Chrissy, are among the few clean cut students at Tromaville High, which happens to be located right behind a nuclear power plant. The punk students (who look like rejects from a really bad ROAD WARRIOR rip-off) grow marijuana right outside the plant, and begin selling radiation-laced pot around the school. One early sequence of government officials checking the power plant for toxic leaks had the audience in stitches; some men fell to the ground stone-cold dead as others kept about their jobs, unaware of what was happening to their colleagues. It’s a nice bit of old-fashioned slapstick that worked among the coming gore, slime, and radioactive boobies.

Despite their nerdiness, Warren and Chrissy decide to partake of the toxic weed. As a result, Warren gains incredible strength, and Chrissy becomes incredibly horny…which leads to a wicked spin in the sack with her boyfriend…which leads to a pregnancy. Before long the entire school is having strange side effects, the best being Chrissy’s baby who turns out to be a ten-foot tall radioactive monster who eventually helps to wipe out the toxic punk drug dealers.

If you’ve never seen a Troma film before, CLASS OF NUKE ‘EM HIGH is a prime example of the style that gave them notoriety during the splatter-film craze of the 1980s. One sequence, where an enraged Warren goes after a punk who has messed with him one time too many, features a silly (yet effective) special effect where he rams his fist down the guy’s throat. The New Joisey crowd ate this scene up, cheers growing louder as Warren’s arm eventually goes down further than his elbow with puke-inducing sound effects.

You don’t go to see something called CLASS OF NUKE ‘EM HIGH for artistic value.

While THE TOXIC AVENGER had a better crafted (if familiar) story, CLASS OF NUKE ‘EM HIGH is basically pure chaos: the simple premise is set in motion when a nerdy student freaks out during the opening scene, oozes green slime from his ears, then jumps out the second-floor window. The atomic marijuana is then introduced, along with an endless array of whacky characters. The two directors (Lloyd Kaufman and Richard W. Haines)—for some reason it took two directors to create this!—then let everything go ballistic in a brain-dead, toxic high school gore/sci-fi romp that (at the time) was a pure blast for its intended teenage audience. I’ve seen the film a few times over the years on VHS and DVD, and while there are still some laughs to be had, much of it gets tedious and it doesn’t hold up half as well as THE TOXIC AVENGER or Troma’s other fluke of a hit, TROMA’S WAR (1988). But I’m betting younger exploitation fans will still get a real charge out of this high-octane trip to Tromaville.

NUKE ‘EM HIGH’s horrible soundtrack, trademark Troma bad acting, and high school students who look way too old to be high school students has a certain charm that many modern-day made-for-cable/DVD exploitation films just don’t have. So throw your biohazard suit on and check this out for a near-lethal dose of old school Troma-rificness. And remember the tagline: READIN’ WRITIN’ AND RADIATION!

You’ve been warned.

(This film also spawned two sequels: CLASS OF NUKE ‘EM HIGH PART 2: SUBHUMANOID MELTDOWN (1991) and CLASS OF NUKE ‘EM HIGH 3: THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE SUBHUMANOID (1994). While part 2 had its moments (especially a gigantic rodent named Tromie the Nuclear Squirrel), you’re not missing anything. Part 3 was one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. You’ve been warned again!).

© Copyright 2012 by  Nick Cato

The lovely Chrissy (Janelle Brady) realizes something is DEFINITELY wrong with her rapidly-growing radioactive baby…in THE CLASS OF NUKE 'EM HIGH!

(NOTE: There are some SPOILERS ahead. It’s difficult to convey the mysteries and conundrums of these shows without giving away some of the material covered in the pilots—be properly warned, ye be.)

Ah, it’s like Christmas morning here at the Outpost… Two new genre shows debuted recently and we all got our chores done early – herded in the banths, milked the vermithrax and harvested venom from all thirteen gorgons. Then, we microwaved Orville Redenbacher (I don’t mean the popcorn, laddie) and brewed some Irish coffee and huddled around the ol’ viewscreen.

The shows in question are ALCATRAZ from J.J. Abrams and (his production company) Bad Robot, and LOST GIRL, from Showcase—now on the SyFy Channel (A note of warning – if you have friends that have been watching LOST GIRL online, they are into season 2 or 3, and they are FULL of spoilers!)

To be honest, I was very excited about ALCATRAZ and was going to leave LOST GIRL in the dust. However, the Council of Elders at Cinema Knife Fight sent two hulking bruisers to my home to convince me of the error of my ways. If you think it’s easy typing with two black eyes and one unbroken finger (left pinkie), you are mistaken. Pardon me, I have to lie down as another blackout descends…

# #

I’m back. Like I said, ALCATRAZ is from J.J. Abrams (ALIAS 2001-2006, LOST 2004-2010, FRINGE, which is still on the air, and the most recent STAR TREK movie (2009)), and Bryan Burk (ALIAS, LOST, FRINGE and STAR TREK). These are, by any yardstick, heavy-duty creds. I came into LOST late into the game (Season 3) and had to do a massive marathon viewing to get up to speed. I love FRINGE and I loved LOST—even the finale so many hated, which I felt took some chances and, while maybe not entirely successful, did explain some mysteries and give us closure. So Bad Robot and company have a lot of credit with me.

The pilot starts beautifully in 1963. Coming in over the water is a major cliché these days, but here the water looked eerie, threatening. A detail bringing over more prisoners for “The Rock” finds the entire facility deserted. Prisoners, guards, civilians and families (guards lived on the island with their families) are gone. The younger guard, we come to find, is Emerson Hauser, and will grow up to be Sam Neill. Now, Sam Neill has tons of genre cred – his eyes are a’twinkle with mischief and/or malevolence. He was Damian all growed up in OMEN III: THE FINAL CONFLICT (1981), Merlin in MERLIN’S APPRENTICE (2006), Dr. Alan Grant in the JURASSIC PARK franchise (1993, 2001) and Lovecraftian protagonist John Trent in John Carpenter’s eerie IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS (1994).

Emerson is the brains behind the program to collect all the Alcatraz missing as they return. There’s lots he not telling his two cohorts, not the least of which is he has a giant, state-of-the-art prison hidden underground in the middle of the woods where he transfers captured escapees—living and dead. The doctors who attended staff and prisoners before the disappearance are either not aging or are time-traveling from 1963 to the present… And, as seen in the pilot, at least one inmate had money and fake ID’s waiting his return…

Joining Emerson is a plucky cop, Detective Rebecca Madsen, played by Sarah Jones. I thought Sarah looked familiar—she played the daughter of Adam Arkin’s American Nazi character on the FX series, SONS OF ANARCHY. Rebecca’s cases come into conflict with Emerson’s secret agenda. In fact, she had a grandfather who was a guard on Alcatraz… Rebecca soon learns that isn’t the truth, nor is the old man dead… Hell, he’s not even old. In addition, “Gramps” is often seen in the infirmary when other inmates visit, and seems to know a lot more than he should about a lot of things.

If Emerson is our brains, and Rebecca our courage, the last part of the OZ formula is supplied by Dr. Diego Soto, played by Jorge Garcia, who was so wonderful as Hurley on LOST. Dr. Soto is the world’s expert on Alcatraz, and he got his hands on lots of documents and personal effects no one else ever did. He’s also a comic book geek who owns his own store. He’s not very brave, yet is willing to risk life and limb for Rebecca or an innocent.

Sam Neill, Sarah Jones and Jorge Garcia are the stars of ALCATRAZ, the new show from JJ Abrams.

The trouble with ALCATRAZ is two-fold—its “hook” is to feature a different inmate’s return each week, and dribble in some more details on the mysteries it has laid out. While the mysteries are interesting, the criminals may not always be, and this formula may grow tired very quickly—I noticed that the second hour of the pilot seem to move much more slowly than the first. It’s early, but it hasn’t become a show I have to watch. Unlike LOST, it’s not one I feel compelled to discuss with friends. In addition, even if LOST didn’t always give us buckets of mystery every episode, the characters and their situation were compelling enough—Sawyer hogging supplies to barter with, Hurley trying to be the peace-maker, Locke and his “noble savage” abilities, etc. ALCATRAZ depends heavily on its three main characters, and so far they just haven’t been very interesting… However, I do have faith in J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot, and figure that things will heat up very quickly… My wife has given them 5 episodes… Sometimes I will stubbornly stick with a show I had faith in, wanting it to redeem itself or go down in flames (X-FILES [1993-2002] and SMALLVILLE [2001-2011] are two examples). Whether ALCATRAZ becomes “must viewing,” a guilty pleasure, or something I escape, we shall see.

# #

Apparently someone passed out a memo to television and movie execs a few months back and declared fairy tales the genre flavor of the moment. Why else have two Snow White movies, mash-ups of Red Riding Hood, Beauty and the Beast and shows like GRIMM (which I like), ONCE UPON A TIME (which I gave up on), and now LOST GIRL?

SyFy apparently read enough talkbacks to see they were becoming synonymous with cheap, laughable movies about tornados that dump alligators on galas presided over by C-list actors and has-been pop stars from the 80’s. Taking their cue from HBO and Showtime, SyFy is going for more adult programming, meaning that after 10pm one may get more mature content in the form of language, nudity and gore.

LOST GIRL is, I believe, the vanguard of this new face on the “Y” channel (really, does anyone prefer “SyFy” to “SciFi” that capitalized on the fact that the latter contains “if”?). Our heroine is Bo, played by Anna Silk. Bo is a beautiful woman with a terrible secret – she is capable of seducing anyone with a mere touch and feeds off their life-force. She is, in fact, a succubus, one of the many species of Fae, or Faerie Folk. The Fae live in our world and may even hold jobs as cops or teachers or that peculiar goat-footed balloon salesman in the park. Somehow Bo has escaped the notice of the Fae until now. Her undoing is helping Kenzi, a pickpocket and thief played by Ksenia Solo. Bo sees Kenzi has been “rufied” and can’t help getting her out of a jam –plus the would-be rapist is a tasty snack. Enter two cops to the crime scene who are actually Fae: Dyson, a sort of werewolf or shape-shifter and Detective Hale, whose singing can make one forget or do his bidding. Dyson is played by Kris Holden-Reid (UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING, 2012) and Hale by K.C. Collins. Dyson has taken an interest in Bo, and seems impervious to her succubus energy-sucking, so romantic possibilities are in the offing…

The cast of the Syfy Channel series, LOST GIRL.

Rounding out the cast are Zoie Palmer (DEVIL, 2010) as Lauren, a human doctor who knows about the Fae and how to treat them (and who is noticeably attracted to Bo) and Richard Howland as Trick, a gnome or little Fae (leprechaun?) who runs the only Fae bar in town—a place that is neutral ground for Dark and Light. Trick is the character who seems most familiar with whatever prophecy involves Bo.

In the pilot, Bo was introduced to the Fae and found out they are divided into Dark and Light. She was set against two nasty creatures as a test, then, once she survived, told she must choose between Dark or Light. Bo chose neither, wanting instead to stay a part of humanity. This did not go over well with any of the Elder Fae, but also seems in keeping with a prophecy of a very powerful Fae either uniting or wiping out the whole Fae race.

Bo and her plucky human sidekick have taken up residence together, and have formed a sort of Fae X-FILES—they investigate strange and weird crimes with the intent of helping people, and Bo hopes to learn more about her Fae parents, who apparently abandoned her when she was a baby.

Anna Silk plays Bo in the new series, LOST GIRL.

LOST GIRL is a bit of a cross between BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (1997-2003) and the aforementioned GRIMM, with plenty of wise-cracking and clever riffs on old tales and well-known characters from legend, folklore and fairy tales. It’s nice to have a female protagonist who is not only attractive but confident in her sexuality, and her flirting with Dyson is a nice spin on the old “beauty and the beast” trope. My wife loves this show, and several of our female friends love it, as well—both for the wisecracking Kenzi and the “dreamy” wolf Dyson. I’m more a fan of the Blut Bad (Big Bad Wolf) in GRIMM, but I was a big fan of BUFFY—it’s doubtful this will reach Joss Whedon inventiveness or greatness, but one can always hope…

# #

NEXT UP: Just started watching a terrific new miniseries from the BBC called THE FADES, and will be watching the premiere of THE RIVER, a new ABC series from Oren Peli (director of the 2007 hit movie, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY and AREA 51, now in post-production) and exec produced by Zack Estrin, who co-exec produced PRISON BREAK (2005-2009), another show I stayed with until the very end, long after it had left the twin cities of Rhyme and Reason far behind… But oh, those characters!

Well, gotta go—we’ve got mutants in the sand pit again, and no amount of D-Con or poisoned crackers keeps them at bay. They are hell on the lawn and my guests, leaving little tell-tale antennae sticking out the back of folks’ necks, and making them all cranky and anti-social and cannibalistic in the bargain.

See you next time. Outpost… out.

© Copyright 2012 by Mark Onspaugh

THE WOMAN IN BLACK (2011), directed by relative unknown (to the average moviegoer, at least), James Watkins (his only other directing effort was 2008′s EDEN LAKE), is a remake of a 1989 British TV-movie of the same name. I’ve never seen the original, but I’m very glad to have seen the remake, starring Daniel Radcliffe (Harry himself from the HARRY POTTER film series, 2001-2011) and Ciaran Hinds (THE RITE, 2011 and the HBO series ROME). It’s been a very long time since a movie has truly scared me, to the point where I was sometimes cringing in my seat. Yes, there were a few “Ahh!” moments of things popping out and making me jump, but THE WOMAN IN BLACK did most of its scares the “old-fashioned” way, with eerie settings, subtle music and long build-ups to many of the frights. It succeeded often enough that I developed a good respect for the film.

THE WOMAN IN BLACK is, in just about every way, an homage to the atmospheric Gothic films that have mostly faded into the woodwork with the advent of big budget effects and the popularity of slasher and torture films. That’s a fancy way of saying it takes time to build up steam. Radcliffe plays a late-nineteenth century apprentice in a law firm, Arthur Kipps, who is on thin ice with his employers since falling into a depression after losing his wife a few years earlier, in childbirth with their only son, Joseph (played with quiet sincerity by Misha Handley—it’s the boy’s his first film and, for trivia buffs, he is Radcliffe’s godson in real life).

As a way of redeeming himself to the firm, Kipps is assigned to go through the voluminous stack of papers left behind by an old widow to verify there are no more recent documents to contradict her will. He leaves his son in the care of a nanny and travels by train to a sleepy, remote hamlet, the location of many a Gothic tale. Adding to the seclusion, the widow’s home (where the paperwork is waiting) sits alone on an island cut off from the village by a tidal bog. Twice a day, the tide rolls in and cuts off access to the house completely. The home—a massive, sprawling estate reminiscent of Poe’s “House of Usher”—is reachable only at low tide via a narrow, winding road. The townspeople are less than welcoming to Kipps when he arrives at the only Inn in town, forcing him to stay in the attic room where, we learn in the film’s opening sequence, three children recently jumped to their deaths.

The town is dreary and wet, filled with tension as every townsperson glares menacingly at the young lawyer. The movie truly shines (in a manner of speaking) whenever Radliffe’s character crosses the moors and enters the old mansion. The sets here were amazing. Gorgeous, but not in a glamorous, shiny way. No, the home was dark, dusty and damp, but beneath the surface were signs (paintings on walls, decorative woodwork) that this was once a thriving, radiant place, stunning to behold. Not now. But that’s what makes this film so amazing to watch. How do I explain this…? Have you ever walked through an antique store and come across a few items, or more than a few, caked in dust or discarded on a shelf, but emanating a kind of old-life to them, as if once upon a time they were loved and cherished objects? If not, then skip ahead… that’s how every room, every carefully-chosen prop came across as the camera panned alongside Kipps as he moved about the house. Everything about the place looked real. (Maybe, as a side note, they were real—in other words, Radlciffe wasn’t walking through a green room where everything around him was added later —I honestly felt there was little to no CGI in this film, aside from a few moments with our resident spook, but even then I wonder, as I’ll explain in a moment). Simply gorgeous to behold and experience.

Now this, dear reader, is the canvas where the filmmakers painted the fear across the screen. I mentioned there were far less jump-out scares here than in a modern horror film (there were some, in moderation), but one joy in watching this film is how many subtle clues and scares had been inserted into a scene without any fanfare. These might appear on screen for a second at most (for example, as the young lawyer reaches the front door for the first time—Linda didn’t noticed what was on the door, but I did). If he’s walking through the house, pay attention to the background—the background is where many of the scares happen. When they do, with a few exceptions, you will not hear a Shayamalan-esque Ba-Doom! orchestral shock. Blink and you’ll miss it. And I like that.

A benefit of putting so many subtle cues and creeps in the background is in the overall effect they produce in this large, haunted house—one of dread, the most important ingredient of a Gothic horror story.

The story does pick up steam, more and more as the events unfold, though even this momentum is tempered by restraint. It never goes completely over the top, although the climactic nursery scene with Radcliffe and the woman in black is quite frightening. It scared me, at least.

Daniel Radcliffe has a good screen presence as a sad, beleaguered lawyer struggling with depression. Watching him face one supernatural event after another, however, I wanted more fear to show on his face. More terror to work its way across his countenance. Sorry, but if I was caught in some these situations I would have looked a hell of a lot more frightened. They could have at least showed a wet spot on his pants (maybe they did, I wouldn’t put it past the director to do so and not make a big deal of it). Closer to the end of the film, Radcliffe’s character looked more frightened, but his expression was too neutral in the earlier scenes.

Two of the best performances in the film are by Ciaran Hinds as the wealthiest resident in town, Mr. Daily, and Janet McTeer (TIDELAND, 2005, and more recently in ALBERT NOBBS, 2011) as his wife. Like Kipps, Mrs. Daily is dealing with the death of a loved one, her young son. So much, that she is convinced the boy is communicating with her from the dead. These two characters shine like the sun, which rarely comes out in the village. Mr. Daily does not believe in the superstition the townspeople are traumatized by: that if someone lays eyes on the infamous “Woman in Black,” one of the children in town dies. As these very things unfold during the film, even he is hard-pressed to deny what is happening, much less convince young Kipps, who has encountered the spirit first-hand.

How scary is the otherworldly star of the film, the woman in black? Scary as anything I’ve seen in a long time. Mostly because they are very careful to show her from a distance, or in brief glimpses. There might have been times when the ghost was CGI, but like I mentioned earlier, I do not think there were many instances of this. I think there was an actress in scary makeup standing in the shadow of the doorway, moving down the hall, hiding in the dark. Our brains recognize real from computer-generated in films, and she is much scarier for it.

I’ve been careful to not reveal too much of the overall plot or subplots of the film, since I think you’ll enjoy the movie more if you discover the secrets along with Mr. Kipps. Overall, THE WOMAN IN BLACK is a smart, clever horror movie, original and frightening among so many predictable, unfrightening others. It’s a film that’s also a joy to watch—sets as lavish as Dickens’ description of Miss Havisham’s parlor and an atmosphere as dread-inducing as that in BURNT OFFERINGS (1976). Now, the word “subtle” is prevalent in this review, because of the nature of this kind of film. THE WOMAN IN BLACK is a smart movie, dark in mood, and doesn’t force you to notice everything about it that is scary. You need to pay attention, and be patient as the mood builds. Because of this, those who like their horror films fast-paced like a roller coaster might be bored in parts, especially in the beginning, when Kipps first arrives in town. But that’s how most Gothics play out, and in this case, the pay-off is so, so creepy.

I give this film 4 Shaking Candlesticks out of 5, because I was so pleased to be so creeped out sitting in the movies again.

© Copyright 2012 by Daniel G. Keohane

(Dan Keohane’s new horror novel, Destroyer of Worlds, has just been released. You can find it here.)

(THE SCENE: L.L. SOARES and MICHAEL ARRUDA are driving along a rural road, LS behind the wheel and MA in the passenger seat. A four-wheel-drive 4X4 is close on their tail, honking at them.)

MA:  What is that guy’s problem?

LS:  Maybe he’s reacting to our bumper sticker.

MA:  What?  “Honk three times for Cinema Knife Fight?”

LS:  No. The other one.

MA:  “If you’re close enough to read this you’re a horse’s ass”?

LS:  That’s the one.

MA:  Yeah, that might be it.

LS:  I’ll fix him.

MA:  You’re not going to do that waving-the-arms telekinesis bit you used during our Coming Attractions column last week, are you?

LS:  That’s so passé. Keep up with the times. (Rolls down window, sticks his head out, and makes a face at the driver. The driver shrieks and loses control of his vehicle, which crashes off the side of the road.)

MA:  Sometimes I forget just how scary you can be.

LS:  Well, one of us has to be scary around here, and it’s certainly not you!

MA:  Shouldn’t we go back and see if that guy needs help?

LS:  Nah!  We’ve got a movie to review. Speaking of which, why don’t you start since I’m driving?

MA: Wait a minute. Do you even have a license?

(LS grunts)

MA: Er…okay. Well, welcome, folks, to another edition of Cinema Knife Fight. This week we’re reviewing CHRONICLE (2012) the new movie that examines what happens when three high schoolers suddenly find themselves with telekinetic super powers.

That’s right. One night at a party, three high school friends, Andrew (Dane DeHaan), Matt (Alex Russell) and Steve (Michael B. Jordan, who some people might recognize from the show FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS) discover a mysterious tunnel out in the woods, which they decide to check out just for kicks. Inside this tunnel they come across a strange object— is it alien?  a secret government project? —who knows? The movie doesn’t make this clear, and that’s okay. All we need to know is the day after coming into contact with this weird phenomenon, the three teens discover they have telekinetic abilities, which means they can move objects just by using their minds. Later, they attempt to return to the tunnel in search of answers, but find it has conveniently been filled up.

LS: Actually they’re not really friends when the movie begins. Steve and Matt are friends. Andrew is one of those shy loners that everyone else picks on. Matt is his only friend, that’s mostly because they’re cousins. Steve wouldn’t even normally notice Andrew is even alive—he’s an athlete and a popular kid running for class president – but he needs Andrew and his camera to film the weird tunnel as evidence. Of course, after the three of them discover their powers and bond through this, they become real friends, and Andrew starts to come out of his shell.

As for what’s inside the tunnel—yeah, we never really know. The smoothness of the walls makes it appear that the tunnel was “carved out” through the use of some kind of technology. And the strange object – it involves a lot of weird, bright lights. But you’re right – it’s good this is never explained. It adds to the mystery of it all.

MA: At first, they use their new powers for fun, which is what most high schoolers would do. They make girl’s skirts go up; they go into a store and make Teddy bears float scaring a little girl; and they move a parked car in a parking lot. But when Andrew angrily uses his power to force a tailgating vehicle off the road, nearly killing its driver, they come up with some rules, including not using their powers on people, not using them in public, and most importantly, not using them when they’re angry.

But Andrew is a very troubled youth, and rightly so. His mom is bedridden, sick and dying, and his drunken dad, a former firefighter who’s now out of work collecting meager disability checks, is constantly hounding Andrew and worse yet beating him. Andrew is also regularly bullied at school. Eventually, he snaps, and when he does, look out world.

CHRONICLE was one of those movies I feared would cross over into “mediocre land” becoming another variation of last year’s I AM NUMBER FOUR (2010), but I’m happy to say this wasn’t the case. CHRONICLE played above my expectations, and as a result, I liked it a lot. I found it watchable throughout, a very entertaining and well-written movie, well-paced, and after a fun ride, it becomes insane for its final 10 minutes. I have to say, I really liked the ending.

Why was this one so good?  Well, like most good movies, it starts with the script. Max Landis wrote the screenplay. Landis is the son of John Landis, and I think he’s inherited some of his father’s humor. A lot of the humor in this movie reminded me of the work of John Landis, in such films as ANIMAL HOUSE (1978) and AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981).

The scenes where Andrew, Matt, and Steve “play” with their powers are laugh-out-loud funny. I had seen most of these scenes in the film’s trailer, yet they were still comical. Part of the reason the humor works is it all seemed so real. If I had their powers at their age, I’d probably be doing the same things and laughing at it the same way.

LS: Hell, I’d be doing the same things now, if I suddenly got super powers. It looked like they were having fun. I almost wish this part had lasted longer.

MA: It also looks real. The special effects are great.

In CHRONICLE, Landis creates likeable characters who deal with their new abilities in realistic ways. The majority of the movie is light and amusing, and it’s a lot of fun to watch.

But the undercurrent of darkness is always there because the central character of the story is Andrew, and his life is rough. His dad never leaves him alone, his mom’s dying, and he’s bullied regularly at school. The fact that he develops a close relationship with his camera (it’s the one thing he connects to) makes perfect sense and sets the stage for the documentary style of this movie, since Andrew films everything. More on that style in a moment.

One of the things I liked about CHRONICLE was I wasn’t sure which direction the story would take. While it was all fun and games for a while, I knew things wouldn’t stay this way. Would this become more of a “superhero” story where these teens would use their powers for good, like Superman’s story in SMALLVILLE?  Would they be hunted down by aliens jealous that they had stolen this power, similar to I AM NUMBER FOUR?  Or would the story take a more sinister turn?

(SUPERMAN flies overhead).
SUPERMAN:  Will it be a movie about folks like me?

(A teen with a “Number 4” Jersey sprints along next to them.)

NUMBER 4:  Or about teens like me?

LS:  Neither!  Now beat it, you jerks!

(They flee.)

MA:  You didn’t even have to show your face this time.

LS:  Sometimes reputation alone is good enough.

MA:  Still, that’s pretty impressive scaring away Superman!

LS: Well— the Kryptonite I keep in the trunk might have helped.

MA:  Why would you keep—?  Never mind. Getting back to CHRONICLE, as we learn more about Andrew, we realize that this kid isn’t escaping from his demons, and so, the direction the story ultimately takes is natural and satisfying.

Getting back to the film’s documentary style:  yes, CHRONICLE is another of those documentary style movies where everything we see is the result of “found footage” from cameras in the movie. We’ve seen this in movies like CLOVERFIELD (2008), THE LAST EXORCISM (2010) and APOLLO 18 (2011).

LS: And don’t forget THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999), the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY movies (2007 – 2011), and this year’s THE DEVIL INSIDE.

MA:  Here, director Josh Trank throws in the additional gimmick of not using just one camera. Sure, most of the movie is filmed with Andrew’s camera, since he’s obsessed with filming everything that happens in his life, but in this movie, any time there’s a camera around, we see the action through the eyes of that camera. This includes the camera owned by Casey (Ashley Hinshaw), who eventually becomes Matt’s girlfriend, and who’s constantly filming for her blog, as well as security cameras in stores, at traffic lights, bystanders – pretty much anywhere there’s a camera, and in this day and age, it’s hard to be somewhere there’s NOT a camera. For the most part, this gimmick works.

LS: Yeah, I was riveted throughout.

MA: The cast is fine. Nobody’s going to win an Oscar here, but they made me like their characters. Dane DeHaan is very good as Andrew. I didn’t want to see him go down the road he eventually takes, but the cards are so stacked against him it’s almost inevitable. DeHaan succeeded in making me feel bad for his character while still liking him, and later, when his life goes down the toilet, he made me believe his darker side was genuine.

Alex Russell was also likeable as Matt, the friend who becomes more responsible as the movie goes on. At first, it seemed as if Matt might be a jerk, but he isn’t and grows more likeable as the story plays out.

Michael B. Jordan is also very good as Steve, the most popular of the trio, and his character is the most fun of the three to watch. Ashley Hinshaw as Matt’s love interest Casey, is cute and adorable in her brief screen time.

LS: Yeah, the three lead characters were great. Andrew is easily the most dramatic role, but Matt and Steve were solid characters, too. I actually wish the movie had given us more of Matt and Steve’s personal lives, but I guess that wouldn’t make sense, since Andrew has the camera.

MA: And, as Andrew’s dad Richard, Michael Kelly does a nice job playing a jerk, and he doesn’t evoke any sympathy, even though he’s a former firefighter now out of a job due to injury. He plays the role as a complete monster, and you’re not sorry when he gets what’s coming to him.

LS: I also really liked the big battle toward the end, where super-powered guys duked it out, destroying buildings and cars in the process. It looked like the way a super-powered battle would look. MESSY! And very destructive. Without all the glamorous costumes and fancy banter you usually see in superhero movies.

Too bad WE can’t have a big telekinetic battle in the middle of the city.

MA: Don’t get any ideas.

I found CHRONICLE to be a most pleasant surprise. Light and funny throughout, this one builds to a dark second half and a thrilling conclusion that is as satisfying as they get. Go out and see this one!  I give CHRONICLE three and a half knives.

LS: I liked it a lot, too. I thought the movies that came out early in the year were supposed to be stinkers, but both this one and last week’s THE GREY were pretty solid. I give this one three and a half knives, too.

My only gripe with the movie is its title. CHRONICLE is a horrible name for a movie about three kids with telekinetic super powers. It’s bland and tell us nothing about the movie. I really didn’t like it. But the movie itself was really good.

MA:  I agree.  I thought the title was lame.  It sounds like a news magazine. So, now that we’re done with the review, how about we take the next exit and pick up a pizza?

LS:  Why not bring the pizza to us?

MA:  Huh?

(LS lets go of the steering wheel and waves his arms about.  Several pizza boxes fly through the air towards them.  MA rolls down the window, and the boxes land gently in his arms.)

LS:  Now that’s the way to use telekinesis.  Hand me a slice.

(MA opens box, and suddenly pizza flies up into his face, slapping him.)

LS (laughing):  And that’s another way!

(MA fires a slice that hits LS in the face.  Blinded, LS loses control of the car and they veer off the road towards a tree.  Screaming, both LS & MA frantically wave their arms, and at the last second, the car flies above the tree.)

LS:  Way to go, blinding the driver, you goober!

MA:  Hey, we’re alive aren’t we, so be quiet!  Let’s land this flying car and eat some pizza.  Okay, folks, while we’re looking for a place to land, we’ll say so long, and we’ll see you next week with a review of another new movie.

—END—

© Copyright 2012 by Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares

Michael Arruda gives CHRONICLE ~ THREE AND A HALF knives!

LL Soares gives CHRONICLE ~ THREE AND A HALF knives.

THE BASEMENT came out in 2011, in an odd box-set that included the movie in both DVD and VHS versions, along with several other movies on disk, in a box that looked like the old-time boxes VHS tapes used to come in. Why the strange packaging? Well, THE BASEMENT was made in 1989 and seemingly dropped off the face of the earth before it could be seen by audiences. It is something of a “lost” film, and the packaging is an attempt to recapture what its original release in the 80s should have been. It’s also a clever attempt at retro-packaging.

Unseen since its making, THE BASEMENT is finally available. And it’s kind of a treat.

An anthology film in the spirit of movies like CREEPSHOW (1982) or the Amicus films TALES FROM THE CRYPT (1972) and THE VAULT OF HORROR (1973), it begins with four people wandering around a filthy basement (we’re not sure how they got there), when they come across a strange door, which opens to reveal a monstrous creature in a hooded robe who says he is “The Sentinel.” He then goes to tell each of them what will happen in the future—and how they will die. Each story is a separate mini-movie within the whole.

The first story (“Swimming Pool“) is about an unhappy middle-aged woman named Victoria (Kathleen Heidinger) who is having an affair with a much younger “pool boy.” When her husband, whom she despises, goes for a dip in the pool one day, he is drowned by some kind of monster with tentacles, that churns up the water in a bloody froth. She’s able to dispose of some pesky neighbors in the same way, and seems both horrified and happy with the results. What kind of monster did her young paramour put in the pool? When she finds out herself, she doesn’t exactly like the answer.

The second story(“Trick or Treat“)  is the most entertaining and involves a mean old school teacher named Charles Huff (Dennis Driscoll) whose wife died the previous year around Halloween. Despite the fact that he is a teacher and is around kids all the time, he despises children and hates Halloween most of all. One day during class, he fantasizes about walking around his classroom with a knife and a gun, killing all his students.

Later that night, his dead wife comes to pay him a visit and tells him he has to change his ways, and that he will have a special visitor the following night on Halloween. Considering it to be just a dream, the man ignores her warning and continues with his child-hating ways.

On Halloween night, he shouts at children to go away when they come asking for candy (in a special bit of 80s nostalgia – one of the children is dressed like one of the California Raisins that were popular in Claymation commercials at the time!), and he eggs other kids who are in his yard, preparing to toilet paper his house. His anger is actually pretty funny. But then he starts seeing those “visitors” his wife warned him about. Demons and witches and mummies who want to scare the hell out of him. If this story sounds a little familiar, it’s because it’s kind of a Halloween variation on A CHRISTMAS CAROL, where a mean old man is scared into changing his ways by monsters in the night. I really enjoyed this one, and it’s my favorite of the bunch.

The third story (“Zombie Movie“)  involves a bad horror movie director named Mr. Adelman (David Webber) who attempts to make a zombie movie in a real graveyard. When his production assistant (a movie nerd who loves George Romero and reads Fangoria magazine, played by low-budget director J.R. Bookwalter!), tells him that the zombies are lame and he’s doing it all wrong, and that horror fans will hate his movie, the director threatens to fire the kid. But later that night, real zombies come up out of the earth to teach him a lesson.

The final story (“Home Sweet Home“) involves a guy named Scott Caplan (Scott Corizzi)who moves into a house that was previously owned by a murderer. He begins to see horrific things as the house’s victims appear to him and threaten the lives of his best friend and girlfriend, who come to visit. How will Scott confront the curse of the house?

We then go back to the confused foursome who demand to know how the “sentinel” knows these things and when these future events will happen to them. At which point we get a “twist” ending meant to jolt us.

THE BASEMENT box set consists of both VHS and DVD versions of the movie, THE BASEMENT, as well as four other films on disk.

I didn’t have high hopes for this one, since it was directed by Timothy O’Rawe who gave us the low-budget horror comedy, GHOUL SCHOOL (his only other directing credit, from 1990), a movie I didn’t particularly care for. However, THE BASEMENT is a much better movie (even though it was made a year earlier than GHOUL SCHOOL), despite limitations such as bad acting, bad writing, and the usual setbacks of ultra-low-budget cinema. The monsters, however, look kind of cool, despite the shoestring budget, and everyone here at least attempts to play things straight.

I enjoyed this movie, and it’s sad that it took almost 30 years for it to finally get released. But at least it was found and finally made available. Definitely worth a rental if you’re a fan of low-budget horror flicks, especially the kind you used to find in Mom and Pop video stores in the 1980s.

© Copyright 2012 by L.L. Soares

THE BOX SET INCLUDES:

Both VHS and DVD versions of the lost 80s horror film, THE BASEMENT
CAPTIVES (1987)
VIDEO VIOLENCE (1987)
VIDEO VIOLENCE 2 (1988)
CANNIBAL CAMP-OUT (1988)

It’s been a while since John Carpenter directed a feature movie— not since GHOSTS OF MARS in 2001.  So when I saw he had directed THE WARD (2010), and that it was now available on streaming video, I jumped at the chance to see it.  (It’s also available on DVD and Blu-Ray.)

John Carpenter, of course, is the legendary director who made his mark directing the classic HALLOWEEN (1978), and who went on to direct such other notable classics as ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981) and THE THING (1982).  As you can see by the years these movies were made, it’s been a while since Carpenter made a memorable movie.  He’s certainly made movies over the years that I’ve liked—IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS (1995), for example—but it’s not like he’s made a notable horror movie every couple of years.  He has not.

But fond memories of his classic films remain, and as such, whenever I see his name associated with a movie, I want to see it, which brings me back to my original point, of how I chose to watch THE WARD.  It certainly wasn’t because of its plot description.

In THE WARD, it’s 1966 in North Bend, Oregon, and Kristen (Amber Heard) is committed to a mental institution for burning down a barn, a crime she has no memory of committing.  She is placed in the care of Dr. Stringer (Jared Harris), who is not above using shock therapy on his patients, when his treatments on them don’t go as well as he expected.

Inside the ward, Kristen lives with several other women, all of whom have their own problems and oddities.  This is a mental institution, after all.  This in itself would be tough enough for Kristen, but this is a horror movie, after all, and so there’s more going on here than just irritating ward-mates.  Kristen begins seeing a strange woman walking the halls at night, and eventually this woman, who Kristen comes to believe is a ghost, attacks her in the shower.

When the women in the ward begin to disappear one by one, Kristen fears the ghost is murdering them, and so she decides to investigate, searching for both the identity of the ghost and the reason why it wants to kill them.  What she finds ultimately leads to the obligatory twist ending, which is both unnecessary and unexciting.  It’s nothing we haven’t seen before.

I can’t say that I liked THE WARD, and there are several reasons why.  First and foremost, the story is a bore.  It’s simply not hard-hitting enough to work either on a dramatic level—showing the horrors of institutional living, for example— or on the level of a decent horror movie.  Nothing Kristen goes through is all that grueling.  Her ward-mates have their issues, but Kristen more than holds her own against them.  In fact, she even emerges as their leader.

The ghost isn’t scary, which is another huge drawback.  Make a horror movie about a murderous ghost, you want that ghost to be terrifying.  This one is not.  Sure, she commits murder, but the murder scenes are brief and not very frightening.  Neither is much else about the movie.  Kristen does have to endure shock therapy at the hands of Dr. Stringer, but even this sequence isn’t all that…..shocking.  (heh, heh!).

The ending to THE WARD falls flat, and the plot twist doesn’t help.  The movie would have been better off without it.  It doesn’t ruin the movie by any means (No M. Night Shyamalan disasters here) but it doesn’t add anything either, other than a lament and a sigh that screenwriters Michael Rasmussen and Shawn Rasmussen decided to go this route.

THE WARD is all rather mediocre and mild, not at all what you would expect, considering this story takes place inside a mental institution.

Still, there are a few creepy moments here and there, scenes where John Carpenter’s considerable talents are on display.  Carpenter can still create suspenseful scenes.  There’s just not enough of them in this movie.  And most of these occur early on in the movie, when the ghost creeps about the darkened institution.  There’s a particularly creepy thunderstorm sequence when the power goes out momentarily.  But towards the end of the movie, when the suspense should be cranked up several notches, it isn’t.

The cast isn’t bad either.  Amber Heard acquits herself well as Kristen.  Heard, as you might remember, starred opposite Nicholas Cage in DRIVE ANGRY 3D (2011), and she was also in ZOMBIELAND (2009).  While she’s fine here, she was certainly more memorable in DRIVE ANGRY 3D.  It doesn’t hurt that she’s beautiful.

Jared Harris is also very good as Dr. Stringer, giving the good doctor some depth, and preventing him from being a cliché.  We just saw Harris as Professor Moriarty in the Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes sequel SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS (2011).  I liked Harris better as Moriarty, but he’s certainly good in THE WARD as well.

The cast also includes Danielle Panabaker, as Sarah, one of Kristen’s ward-mates .  Panabaker starred in THE CRAZIES (2010), and Lyndsy Fonseca as Iris, another ward-mate, who we saw as Kick-Ass’s  girlfriend in KICK-ASS (2010).

And no, Carpenter didn’t write the music for this one.  That honor went to Mark Kilian.  Too bad.  A John Carpenter film score would have added some oomph.

THE WARD is a minor film directed by a master of the genre.  I love John Carpenter’s early work and a handful of his later movies, but THE WARD isn’t one of them.

For a movie about a murderous ghost inside a mental institution, THE WARD is painfully sane and sanitary.  No need to check yourself in.

—END—

© Copyright 2012 by Michael Arruda

(The Scene: A toy store. A little girl screams when a Teddy Bear floats off the shelf and starts to chase her. MICHAEL ARRUDA & L.L. SOARES enter scene.)

MA: That’s a new low for you. Picking on little kids.

LS: Don’t look at me. I didn’t do that. Who do you think I am, Yoda? Besides, if I could do that sort of thing, I wouldn’t waste it on kids. I’d pick on adults. Like this.

(LS waves his arms and a stack of game boxes falls off a shelf and crashes on top of a man’s head. The man screams and his girlfriend rushes to his aid.)

MA (dressed as Darth Vader): Impressive. Very impressive.

LS: Thanks.

MA: So, how exactly did you do that, Yoda?

LS: Don’t call me Yoda. If I’m any character from STAR WARS it’d better be Darth Vader….or Chewy!

MA: You could be the Emperor.

LS: That shriveled up old dude? No way— what’s with all this STAR WARS talk anyway?

MA: Well, two reasons. The main reason is the first movie we’re reviewing this month, CHRONICLE, is about a group of young men with some super powers that look strangely familiar. They can move objects without touching them, and my thirteen year-old son commented that it looks like they’re using The Force.

LS (groans): Actually, it’s called telekinesis, and it’s been around in literature and movies a lot longer than The Force.

MA:  I’m not so sure about that.  After all, when talking about The Force, we’re talking about events that happened “a long time ago, in a galaxy, far, far away.”

LS:  Hey, I was actually looking forward to CHRONICLE. Why did you have to go and bring up STARS WARS for?

MA: Well, the other reason is THE PHANTOM MENACE is being re-released in 3D in February.

LS (grins): The one with Jar Jar! Hey – you didn’t say the full title. It’s really STAR WARS EPISODE 1: THE PHANTOM MENACE (1999). Don’t tell me we’re reviewing that one, too?

MA: Nope. We’ve seen THE PHANTOM MENACE. No reason to see it in 3D.

LS: Whew!

(Samuel Jackson strolls by wearing a Jedi robe.)

JACKSON: Take a seat, you two! And put on a pair of 3D glasses!

MA: Uh, not this time. Go seek out some fans who don’t care that they’re seeing the same movie YET AGAIN! It’d be nice if George Lucas would come up with something original.

(JACKSON ignites a light saber. LS waves his arms, and JACKSON disappears.)

LS: Take that! You foolish Jedi! (to MA) I never was all that impressed with Sam Jackson as a Jedi. He’s actually a lot scarier in PULP FICTION (1994).

MA: Neat trick. How did you—?

LS: A magician never reveals his secrets.

MA: Tell that to Penn and Teller. Anyway, getting back to the movies we’re reviewing….

CHRONICLE actually looks pretty cool. It has an interesting trailer, and it looks like it has potential. On the other hand, it also has the potential to be pretty stupid. We’ll have to see.

LS: This is another new movie to use the popular “fake documentary” style. It looks like someone is videotaping it while it happens. We just saw this applied to exorcism movies in THE DEVIL INSIDE, and it should be cool to see it used in a story about three guys with telekinetic powers. I’m looking forward to this one.

MA: On February 10, we’ll be reviewing SAFE HOUSE starring Ryan Reynolds and Denzel Washington. I’m looking forward to this one. I always enjoy Washington, as he’s one of my favorite actors working today.

On the other hand, I’m not a big fan of Reynolds. I didn’t enjoy him all that much in GREEN LANTERN (2011).

LS: I’m with you. I like Washington, but I’m still on the fence about Reynolds. I’ve liked him in some things, but GREEN LANTERN wasn’t one of them.

MA: The story itself, about a CIA agent, played by Reynolds, taking on a fugitive, played by Washington, looks OK, but certainly doesn’t wow me. This one could go either way, but I do like Washington a lot, so I’m guessing I’ll like this one.

LS:  I’m willing to give it a chance, but I’m not really too psyched to see this one. Maybe it will surprise me.

On February 17, we’ll be reviewing GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE (2012), the sequel to GHOSE RIDER (2007), a movie that I had mixed feelings about. I still say that Nicholas Cage is a lot of fun as an action star, but I’m also a big fan of the comic book character, Ghost Rider is pretty cool, and the first movie had a lot of scenes that made me wince. That said, this one looks like it could be potentially better than the first one. I sure hope so. Even if it’s bad, I’m sure there will be some great Nick Cage moments to keep it from being totally awful.

MA: It’s hard for me to get excited about GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE. I’m not a big Nicholas Cage fan, and this is a sequel, and so my expectations aren’t high. Although it does have Idris Elba in it, and I usually enjoy his work.

LS: I like Idris Elba, too. As for Cage, his last two movies, SEASON OF THE WITCH and DRIVE ANGRY (both 2011), were both a lot of fun. So, we’ll see what happens. It could go either way.

MA: We finish the month with GONE (2012), a thriller starring Amanda Seyfried. I like Seyfried a lot, as every movie I’ve seen her in I’ve found her completely captivating to watch. So, I’m looking forward to GONE.

LS: I like Seyfried, too, but I’m not always happy with her movie choices. While I thought she was the best thing in JENNIFER’S BODY (2009) acting-wise, it wasn’t that great a movie.  But I did think she was great in CHLOE (also 2009). And you liked her a lot in RED RIDING HOOD (2011). But then I think that she was also in MAMA MIA (2008) and the DEAR JOHN (2010)…..Ugh.

I never know when a new movie starring Seyfried is going to be good or dismal.

MA: I didn’t see JENNIFER’S BODY, and although MAMA MIA was goofy, Seyfried was great.

The trailer for GONE makes it sound like a pretty ordinary tale. Seyfried plays someone who believes her sister was abducted, but the police think otherwise. The question will be, is Seyfried’s character telling the truth or is she crazy?

LS: I find it hard to care. The trailer for this one looks pretty bland.

MA: I’ll be interested to see how this one plays out. It’s written by Allison Burnett, one of the screewriters for UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING (2012), which is NOT a good sign. However, keeping an open mind, maybe her work here will be better.

LS: Yep, always gotta keep an open mind. I always want her to be in a good movie. This one looks like your standard woman-in-jeopardy thriller, like the Ashley Judd movie KISS THE GIRLS (1997). Similar kind of vibe. For some reason, I’m not really all that excited about it.

MA: Well, that’s it for this month’s Coming Attractions column. So, now that we’re finished, are you going to tell me how you moved those boxes?

LS: That’s easy. I did it like this. (Waves his arms again, and this time stacks of toys fall from the shelves and crash onto MA’s head) See?

MA (seeing stars circling his head): That’s not exactly what I meant—.

—END—

By William D. Carl

This Week’s Feature Presentation:

BLACK EYE (1974)

Welcome to Bill’s Bizarre Bijou, where you’ll discover the strangest films ever made. If there are alien women with too much eye-shadow and miniskirts, if papier-mâché monsters are involved, if your local drive-in insisted this be the last show in their dusk-till-dawn extravaganza, or if it’s just plain unclassifiable—then I’ve seen it and probably loved it. Now, I’m here to share these little gems with you, so you too can stare in disbelief at your television with your mouth dangling open. Trust me, with these flicks, you won’t believe your eyes!

Fred Williamson was a famous football star, playing for both the Oakland Raiders and the Kansas City Chiefs.  He was also one of the first black action heroes, a muscular, lithe, handsome presence onscreen and off.  He was a hit with the ladies, but he didn’t degrade them in his pictures.  Nicknamed ‘The Hammer’ in his gridiron days, he could fist fight with the best of them, and even better, the cat could act.   The Hammer was nobody’s whipping boy.  Instead, he built a long career by playing smart guys, detectives and cowboys and gangsters with real soul.  Williamson was first noticed in the TV show JULIA, co-starring with the lovely Diahann Carroll.  This was followed by a string of classic blaxploitation films, including HAMMER (1972), BLACK CAESAR (1974), HELL UP IN HARLEM (1973), THAT MAN BOLT (1973), and THREE THE HARD WAY (1974), where he shared billing with two other hot African Americans, Jim Brown and Jim Kelly.  A textbook classic of its kind, THREE THE HARD WAY is a wild ride, but it’s been seen by everyone and is readily available.  You all know I would find something else to discuss here, right?  You bet your sweet…Shut your mouth!

BLACK EYE (1974) is like a Sam Spade plot gone horribly left of center.  In it, Williamson plays Shepherd Stone (natch), a down-on-his-luck private detective with little money in his pocket and an office in the back of a local pub.  He’s been thrown off the force, see, because he kept beating up pushers.  His beautiful girlfriend who lives downstairs (played by the luscious Teresa Graves—a regular on LAUGH IN, she later starred in the TV drama GET CHRISTIE LOVE and the movie OLD DRACULA-1975), is a bisexual who’s started dating an older white woman who owns a modeling agency, played by the great Rosemary Forsyth (SHENANDOAH-1965, WHATEVER HAPPENED TO AUNT ALICE?-1969  and 2001’s GHOSTS OF MARS).  After interrupting the girls in flagrante, he shamefully returns to his run-down apartment.  But first, he hears a noise in the flat of his neighbor, a hooker who has several side businesses going.  When he investigates, he finds her dead, and an Aryan/Nordic type of man attacks him with a gold-tipped walking stick,  the top of which is sculpted into a dog’s head.  The blond man gets away, and our hero calls the cops, who promptly ask him to help them on this case.  You know, since he’s already involved and all.

Shepherd Stone is also asked to look into the disappearance of a young girl by her father, played by Richard Anderson (FORBIDDEN PLANET-1956 and he was Oscar Goldman on THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN).  These two cases lead Stone to a sordid porno studio, sordid parties of the very rich, sordid broken-down carnivals, and the local church where the girl was last seen.  The church is run by a slimy preacher who may or may not be running a cult, but is certainly running some kind of scam.  Meanwhile, everyone wants the gold dog cane that the blond killer had in the hooker’s apartment.  Once owned by a famous silent film star (BLACK EYE opens with cool silent black and white footage of this actor, making me wonder if I was watching THE ARTIST (2011) again), this cane has been used to smuggle pure heroin into the country.  But by whom?  And who’s willing to kill for it?  The crooked preacher?  The porno producer?  The old gay man who collects movie memorabilia?  Soon, bodies are piling up everywhere Stone turns, the cane gets stolen twice, and everyone beats up everyone in several nifty bare knuckle brawls.  Complete the picture with a decent, bouncy car chase through a bodega slum, lots of sexual innuendo (“You’re a woman.”  “I’m a whole lotta woman!”), a mass baptism scene complete with a hundred hippie Jesus freaks, and a few good twists to the plot by the end.

Fred "The Hammer" Williamson in BLACK EYE.

BLACK EYE (he’s black and a private eye, get it?) was directed by Jack Arnold.  Yes, that Jack Arnold – the director of such classics as THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (1954), IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE (1953), THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN (1957), and TARANTULA (1955).  Arnold’s career went south after the 1950s, and he was relegated to directing television shows like PETER GUNN, RAWHIDE, and (say it ain’t so) GILLIGAN’S ISLAND.  In the 1970s, he directed several blaxploitation features, including BLACK EYE.  It’s a long strange journey, but he still keeps the pacing fast, the dialogue snappy, and the people beautiful, baby.

Our feature was written by Mark Haggard (director of THE FIRST NUDIE MUSICAL-1976) and Jim Martin.  It’s not Shakespeare, or even Hammett, but it’s a fun little flick that plays a little dirty while still maintaining a PG rating.  If the plot seems overcomplicated, that’s because it is.  I’m still not sure how one woman fits into the whole bizarre plot, but it doesn’t take away any enjoyment from the movie.  In fact, the whole convoluted thing goes down easy with the popcorn and beer.  Dashiell Hammett himself once claimed he never knew who killed one character in THE MALTESE FALCON (1941).

And this isn’t a writer’s picture, or even a director’s.  This one belongs to the walking charisma that is Fred “The Hammer” Williamson.  With those hangdog eyes, those long sideburns, and that just-eaten-the-canary grin, he is a hero for the time.  He doesn’t use a lot of slang, and he only fights when he must (or when he catches a dope pusher in an arcade), and he’s entirely on the side of the cops, so he doesn’t really fit into the blaxploitation hero paradigm of the early 70s.  He isn’t a pimp or a crook or a gangster.  He’s just a regular Joe, fighting the man to get an honest day’s pay and fighting a predatory lesbian for his woman.  In fact, the whole matter-of-fact handling of the bisexual and lesbian characters in the movie is very evenly handled, surprisingly advanced for its time.  BLACK EYE doesn’t judge.  It’s just the facts, ma’am.  But The Hammer rises above it all and makes it much more enjoyable than it ever should be.  Williamson’s still acting.  In fact, he has four movies scheduled to open next year, including a remake of the brutal 1982 movie, FIGHTING BACK.  Long may the King reign!

BLACK EYE is available in a nice print from Warner Archive on DVD.

I give BLACK EYE three sordid porn studios out of four.

© Copyright 2012 by William D. Carl

Fred Williamson hangs out with some hippies in BLACK EYE

I have to preface this by saying just how much I love Alejandro Jodorowsky.  The man is insane.  Beautifully, wonderfully insane, and it’s reflected in his movies.  Watching one of his movies is like going to a four star restaurant in a foreign country—you may not understand all of what you’re consuming, but my God, it might be one of the best things you’ve ever consumed.  That’s how I feel about his movies.  And it thrills me to come up with a delicious meal for SANTA SANGRE (1989).

SANTA SANGRE was the last movie Jodorowsky directed (well, there was one work-for-hire the year after, but he refuses to acknowledge it, so I shall not) before moving into the realm of comics.  Our hero, the young Fenix, grew up in a circus but has been in a mental institution since, years earlier as a child, he saw his father cut off his mother’s arms before killing himself.  He stayed there in willing silence until his armless mother helps him escape.  They make a good living doing a mime act, but Mom’s got a grudge and, since she doesn’t have the hands to do it herself, forces the sad Fenix to murder beautiful women for her.  It sounds like a simple slasher flick.  However, this is nothing like any splatterpunk you’ve seen before.  There’s enough blatant symbolism to make Freud weep.  Temptation is a running theme (the family mime act is about the Garden of Eden), poor Fenix has strange hallucinations of white doves and giant snakes growing from his crotch.  And the ever-present holiness of blood.

It makes sense that, for a cocktail, to mix up a few Santa Sangrias:

SANTA SANGRIA

Ingredients:
Chopped fruit
Seltzer water
Cheap red wine.

Directions:

Drop a handful of the chopped fruit into the glass.  Fill half with red wine and half with seltzer water.  Enjoy.

The opening scene of Fenix in the institution shows them trying to get him to eat a meal like a normal person.  When that fails, they offer him a whole fish, which he devours.  While I’m not going to have you serve up anything with a face or eyes, I think fish would be an appropriate main course:

BLOOD ORANGE BAKED COD (serves four)

Ingredients:
4 pieces cod
2 blood oranges
1 stick butter
Salt, pepper & dried parsley to taste

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Melt the butter.  Juice one of the blood oranges and mix with the butter.  Dip each piece of cod in the mixture, coating it, and place in baking pan.  Drizzle some of the excess onto the fish.  Salt, pepper and parsley to taste.  Slice remaining blood orange and place one slice on each piece of fish.  Bake for 30 minutes.  Serve with rice, potatoes or toast.

With all the temptation symbolism, it should come as no surprise that apples are in a number of scenes.  Why not, for dessert, have some apple dumplings?

GARDEN OF EDEN APPLE DUMPLINGS: (serves four)

Ingredients:
4 apples
2 sheets puff pastry, thawed if frozen
¼ cup brown sugar
2 tbs cinnamon
1 beaten egg with a splash of water

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.  Peel and core the apples.  Cut each sheet of puff pastry in half.  Mix the brown sugar and cinnamon.  Place the apple in the center of the pastry, fill the core hole with the sugar/cinnamon mix, and sprinkle a little extra on top.  Bring the corners up, pinch them closed and seal up the sides.  Place on greased baking sheet.  Brush the egg over the dumpling and bake at 425 for ten minutes.  Lower the temperature to 375 and bake an additional 20 minutes.  Serve warm.

If you’ve heard of Alejandro Jodorowsky but never seen any of his movies, this is a great one to start with.  It has all his signature style and weirdness, but the plot is the most linear of any of his movies (minus that one film-that-shall-not-be-named).  If you’re willing to sit through a little weirdness, you won’t be disappointed.  Or, at least, you’ll have a yummy meal to get you through the night.

© Copyright 2012 by Jenny Orosel