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EVIL DEAD (2013)

Posted in 2013, Based on Classic Films, Chainsaws!, Cinema Knife Fights, Cult Movies, Demons, Evil Spirits, Gore!, Possessed By Demons, Remakes with tags , , , , , , , on April 7, 2013 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT: EVIL DEAD (2013)
By Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares

Evil Dead poster #2

(The Scene: A cabin in the woods. L.L. SOARES is sitting at a desk, reading an ancient book. MICHAEL ARRUDA looks over his shoulder)

MA: You know you shouldn’t be doing that. It always ends badly.

LS: I know. But I feel compelled to do it.

MA: Whatever you do, don’t read aloud from it.

LS: ATA HEMPTO KEEPAP

MA: I told you not to read from it.

(The leprechaun from LUCKY CHARMS cereal appears)

LUCKY: You’ll be after me lucky charms!

MA:  I beg your pardon?  I don’t think so!

LS: We summoned you by accident.

LUCKY: Accident? And me in the middle of me breakfast.

LS: Go play with Toucan Sam or something.

(LUCKY turns MA into a monkey and disappears)

LS: Well, that’s an improvement.

(Monkey MA starts screeching and running around the cabin)

LS: I might as well start this week’s review.

(Monkey morphs back into MA)

MA: Nice try.  What?  Is the leprechaun on your payroll?  Don’t answer that. Just get on with the review.

LS:  EVIL DEAD is a remake of Sam Raimi’s 1981 cult classic (the difference in titles is that the original had a “THE” in front of it).  That was the movie that put Raimi on the map—and just look how his career turned out? Now he’s directing stuff like OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL. But back then, Raimi was just some unknown kid trying to make it in the movie biz. Strangely, even though all this time has gone by, THE EVIL DEAD is still my favorite of Raimi’s movies.

MA:  Things work out that way sometimes.  Often the first thing an artist does—or at least the first hit—remains the best.

LS:  So when I heard they were giving it the remake treatment, I wasn’t surprised, but I wasn’t hopeful either. Raimi’s movie was low-budget, but incredibly resourceful. Despite the money limitations, the original EVIL DEAD introduced Raimi’s signature “stalking cam” where the camera shows the point of view of a creature running through the woods. Well, not exactly running. Sweeping through the woods at high speed is more the feel of it. And THE EVIL DEAD made a star of the very cool Bruce Campbell, who was Ash in the original and its sequels.

The trailer for the new version looked hopeful, and it started this ad campaign where it declared this to be “The most terrifying film you will ever experience!” Then the buzz started—a lot of it coming from the South By Southwest Film Festival earlier this year in Austin, Texas, where audiences loved this movie. So I started to get excited about it and really looked forward to seeing it.

Evil-Dead-Poster

But there was always the chance it could be a complete disappointment.

MA:  I don’t believe ad campaigns for one minute.  The most horrifying movie you will ever see? Yeah, right.  Anyway, like any ad, I didn’t give this one much credence, and I put it out of my mind since I didn’t want to have this movie hindered by too high expectations.

LS:  So let’s start off with the obvious question. Is this the most horrifying movie you will ever see? Nope. That’s a pretty big claim, and it’s just about guaranteed to fall short.

MA (laughing):  It sounds like an ad campaigns for a movie back in the 50s.  SEE the most terrifying monster ever to set foot on the earth!  An ungodly horror not meant for human eyes!  Too hideous!  Too horrifying!

Too much!

It’s a dumb add for a decent movie.

LS:  There was a lot of that kind of stuff in the 70s too. I remember MARK OF THE DEVIL (1970) had the ad campaign “Positively the most horrifying film ever made.” And I’m sure there were plenty of ads that copied that one.

But I’ll give the new EVIL DEAD this much credit: it sure tries hard to live up to that tag line.

MA:  It gets an A for effort.

(LS again reads from the ancient book.)

LS: OOGIE TOOFIE LOOFIE

(This time CAPTAIN CRUNCH appears.)

CAPTAIN CRUNCH:  Hey kids, how about helping your captain eat a healthy breakfast by—hey, wait a minute.  You two aren’t kids.

MA:  How observant you are.

CAPTAIN CRUNCH: Are there any kids around?

LS (rubs his stomach):  Not alive, anyway.

CAPTAIN CRUNCH:  In that case, how about helping this captain fill his flask, if you know what I mean?  (Holds out an empty flask).

LS (pointing):  The bar’s that way, in the next room. Fully stocked.

CAPTAIN CRUNCH:  Mrs. Crunch is going to have a good time tonight!  (Exits with a skip in his step.)

MA:  He always seemed so innocent on those TV commercials.

LS:  Maybe, but I never did trust that Crunchberry Beast.

Do you remember back when we were kids and Captain Crunch had an enemy in those cartoon commercials named Jean LaFoot?  There was this whole storyline going on. They just don’t make commercials like that anymore.

evil_dead_2013_by_myrmorko-d5jai2t

Anyway, back to the movie.  This one begins promisingly enough. A bunch of college-age kids meet at a cabin in the woods. In the original, it was more for a fun weekend. Here, it has a more serious motivation. Mia (Jane Levy, also the star of the current ABC comedy SUBURGATORY) is trying to get off drugs for the second time in her life, after a recent overdose that almost killed her (actually, we’re told, she did technically “die” for a moment during it). Her friends Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci), a cynical guy with long hair, and Olivia (the very stunning Jessica Lucas, who was also in CLOVERFIELD, 2008) are there, as well as the older brother Mia hasn’t seen in years, David (Shiloh Fernandez, who was also Peter in 2011’S RED RIDING HOOD) and his girlfriend Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore). They’re all there to give Mia support during her attempt to kick drugs via the “cold turkey” approach. They’re there in that cabin in the middle of nowhere to see her through the rough times, keep her there, and make sure this time the “cure” takes.

MA:  I liked this premise a lot.  It really worked for me and made things more interesting in that these folks actually had a real reason not only for being there, but for staying there, in that they wanted to see things through to the end and truly help Mia kick her habit.

LS: Exactly. In these kinds of movies, there’s always a point where you say “Why the hell do they stay there? Why not leave?” It happens in this movie too—it’s inevitable in these kinds of horror movies—but for a little while there, everyone staying put actually makes sense. And that’s unusual.

Right away, Mia and David have issues. Mia is happy to see him, but also resents him for taking off on her when she was a kid, leaving her alone with their crazy mother, who died in a mental hospital a few years before this reunion. David clearly didn’t come back because he was trying to save his own sanity, but he’s trying to make up for his choices now, by giving Mia the support she needs.

So they go in the cabin, intent on seeing this through to the end. The friends make a pact to stay strong and not give in when Mia wants to leave. They’re going to make sure it works this time.

But the cabin has other plans.

MA:  I’ll say.

LS:  First off, they find a roomful of dead cats hanging from the ceiling in a secret room below the cabin (the reason the cats are there is explained in the creepy opening sequence of the film, which takes place in the past). They also find a book wrapped in barbed wire, which of course ends up upstairs with them, and of course one of them, namely Eric, has to cut the wires and open the book, and even read from it.

MA:  Gee, that sounds familiar.  (points his thumb at LS).

LS: As soon as he does that, he sets the demons in motion.

From here, EVIL DEAD takes on a relentless pace, as each member of the group takes turns being possessed by demonic forces. It begins with Mia, who has the main demon “attached” to her soul in the middle of the woods (with a special appearance by the ghost of the book’s previous victim), after trying to flee the cabin. When she goes back, Mia attacks the others, and then the fireworks begin.

I loved the pacing of this one. It doesn’t let up for a moment after the horror begins, and I really enjoyed that. There’s plenty of violence and gore and self-mutilation which is what you would expect from an EVIL DEAD movie. I am so glad they didn’t go the PG-13 route with this one. In fact, there are a couple of scenes that are downright amazing, including Mia using a razor to cut her tongue in half, the messy results of a shotgun blast, several people cutting off offending limbs in horrible ways, and an amazing “chainsaw to the head” moment that paints the entire screen red. So, if you happen to be a gorehound, this one is definitely for you.

In a lot of ways, this movie is almost perfect. It has a more serious tone than the first one —Raimi was famous for injecting funny moments to relieve tension, but this one is simply grim and vicious—which is in no way a bad thing. It’s also fairly faithful to the original, especially the key horrific/gross-out moments. Director Fede Alvarez (this is his first feature film, his previous movies were all short films) does a stunning job bringing this one to the screen. But there are a couple of minor gripes.

First off, the movie completely pushes its R-rating to the line, and past it, as far as the gore goes. This is not a movie for the squeamish. And yet it seemed to have a puritanical streak a mile long. From a character taking a shower in her clothes early on, to other key moments that would have had a lot more impact if there was some nudity involved. And I’m not talking gratuitous nudity—I’m talking logical stuff (do YOU take a shower with your clothes on?) This odd repression didn’t ruin the movie, but it did feel like it was holding back, and EVIL DEAD should be the kind of movie that is no-holds-barred. It just continues to amaze me that violence and gore is becoming more and more mainstream, but sex and nudity are still taboos that are to be avoided at all costs.

MA:  This didn’t bother me.  The movie’s pacing is so intense I didn’t have time to think about the fact that there wasn’t any nudity.  But something else bothered me about this one.

I agree with you that it pushes the envelope in the gore department, and I’ll even go so far to say that it’s nearly perfect with its handling of these horrific moments, in that in spite of the fact that it was in your face most of the time, it somehow didn’t go overboard.  Now, all this being said, for some reason, and this is the problem I had with it, it wasn’t all that scary.  I’m not sure why, because there were certainly scenes of suspense, and while I was enjoying these scenes, they really weren’t getting to me.  I think it’s because there was just a familiarity about the whole thing, as a reimagining of an old movie, that it somehow lacked freshness.

Also, and I’m not sure I can properly explain this, but it didn’t really hit me in the gut.  I was more entertained by this one than disturbed, which surprised me, because it is such a bloodbath throughout.  Another possibility I have to consider is perhaps the characters weren’t as fleshed out as they could have been, and I didn’t care as much if they had their arms lopped off.  I don’t know.  I enjoyed this one, but it didn’t really have me on the edge of my seat.

LS: I think it’s a mix of two things. First, we’re jaded old guys who have seen this kind of thing a thousand times before. Extreme gore just doesn’t shock us anymore. Secondly, because this is a remake, we’re familiar with the story for the most part, so there aren’t a lot of surprises—although, Alvarez does diverge from the original story a few times. Between these two things, it’s going to be pretty hard to scare us. But for some kid who never saw the original, this might really rock their world.

MA:  I guess that explains why the rest of the theater audience was screaming, while I wasn’t.  At least I wasn’t laughing, which says a lot for how good this one was.

(LS looks down at the Book of the Dead)

I just can’t help myself.  (Again reads from the evil book.  Toucan Sam appears.)

TOUCAN SAM:  I follow my nose.  Wherever it goes.

LS (points):  The bar’s that way.  (TOUCAN SAM exits.)

MA: What’s with all the breakfast cereal characters?  What is that you’re reading from, anyway?  The Book of Dead Breakfast Cereal Icons?

LS (his mouth full of cereal):  That’s a mouthful.

(CAPTAIN CRUNCH sticks his head back into the room.)

CAPTAIN CRUNCH:  That’s what she said!  (He burps).

MA:  He’s bad.

LS:  He’s drunk.

CAPTAIN CRUNCH:  I dare say.  That’s a Peanut Butter Elephant standing by the bar!  (Hiccups and exits).

MA: This is weird.  Let’s get on with the review.

LS:  The acting is mostly good, especially Jane Levy as Mia and Lou Taylor Pucci as Eric.

MA:  I thought Jane Levy was excellent as Mia.  She nailed this role.  She made for a very strong lead, and I liked that she has to fight to overcome her drug addiction, a fight that strangely disappears at one point when she’s fighting the main demon face-to-face.  Could this be a case where she was—scared straight?

LS:  My one acting complaint, however, is Shiloh Fernandez as Mia’s brother David. He’s ostensibly the hero of this movie, and thus the equivalent of Bruce Campbell’s Ash in the original film. But let me tell you, David is no Ash. Not even close. Campbell may have given an over-the-top performance in the original, but it was riveting, and fun as hell. In comparison, Fernandez is kind of a dud. He’s kind of one-dimensional for most of the movie, and isn’t very interesting. He just reacts to everything that is thrown at him, but doesn’t have much of a personality of his own. I just thought his performance was a letdown for such a crucial role, and that someone with more charisma could have knocked this movie out of the park.

MA:  I thought he was okay.

LS: My point exactly. Bruce Campbell wasn’t just okay in the original movie. He kicked ass!

MA: You’re right.  He’s kind of low key, but he didn’t really bother me.  However, I do agree with you that the movie would have been better with someone more charismatic, although I’m not sure if that’s simply Fernandez’ fault or a lack of good writing. The way the story plays out, the character of David doesn’t turn out to be the most effective hero, and I didn’t really like this all that much.  I would have preferred a stronger hero.

LS: I also had a few issues with the ending. There’s a kind of loophole that provided a glimmer of hope toward the end of the film, that didn’t make complete sense to me. I don’t necessarily have a problem with glimmers of hope, but this one seemed forced, and that, again, goes against the whole “no-holds-barred” ethic of an EVIL DEAD movie.

Despite these complaints, I liked this movie a lot, and thought it was pretty amazing. It may not be the scariest movie ever made, but it was one of the best horror movies I have seen in a long time, and I completely recommend it to fans of the genre. You’re going to have a lot of fun with this one, even if the basic plot (guy reads book and summons demons) still seems a little silly (and, sadly, cliché, since so many people ripped Raimi off after the first EVIL DEAD).

I give it three and a half knives.

Also, if you stay until the very end (after the end credits), you’ll see a final “surprise” scene that is strictly for fans of the original film (kids with no knowledge of the original film may completely not get it). So stick around, hardcore fans.

MA:  I didn’t stick around to the end, so I missed the final surprise.  I liked this one a lot too, although not as much as you.  And while I thought it was a very good horror movie, I wouldn’t put it above other very good horror movies of recent years. For example, I thought last year’s CABIN IN THE WOODS (2012) was about the same in quality.

LS: CABIN IN THE WOODS had a completely different agenda, and Joss Whedon’s script had a lot of fun with the tropes and clichés of the genre. It was smart and funny. The new EVIL DEAD is trying to do something completely different.

MA: But in terms of quality I thought they were about the same.  Both very good horror movies.

LS: By the way, the script here was by director Fede Alvarez, as well as Diablo Cody (who, you may remember, won an Oscar for her screenplay for 2005’s JUNO, and also wrote JENNIFER’S BODY (2009) and 2011’s YOUNG ADULT, the last one being a movie I liked a lot), and Rado Sayagues.

MA: I liked the acting, the pacing, and the intensity of the in-your-face gore, but something about this one lacked freshness, perhaps because it was a reimagining.  I also didn’t find the characters all that exciting or even likeable, with the exception of Jane Levy as Mia.  Horror fans will love it. Non-horror fans won’t.

I give it three knives.

LS: Just three? You must be smoking wacky tobacky or somethin’.

(MA looks around the cabin) I guess we’re done here.  So, just what is the connection between the book you’re reading and the breakfast cereal characters?

LS:  I dunno.  I just started reading it and the characters showed up.

MA:  Well, what’s the name of the book?

LS (looks at cover and reads):  THE BOOK OF THE DEAD: A REIMAGINING. BROUGHT TO YOU BY KELLOGG’S.

MA:  A reimagining?

(The door bursts open and CAPTAIN CRUNCH, TOUCAN SAM, THE LUCKY CHARMS LEPRECHAUN, TONY THE TIGER and SNAP, CRACKLE AND POP, and a bunch of other cereal characters stand there bloodied and crazed, holding knives, chainsaws, and various other brutal instruments.)

TOUCAN SAM:  We’ll cut off your nose!  Wherever blood flows!

MA:  I think breakfast is over.  Let’s get out of here.

LS:  I’m sticking to corn flakes from now on.

(TONY THE TIGER roars, his face full of blood,”THEEEEY”RE GREAT!”)

(MA & LS flee while the demented cereal characters pursue them through the woods.)

—END—

© Copyright 2013 by Michael Arruda & L.L. Soares

Michael Arruda gives EVIL DEAD ~ three knives!

LL Soares gives EVIL DEAD ~three and a half knives.

1 Comment »

THE LAST EXORCISM PART II (2013)

Posted in 2013, Demonic Possession, Devil Movies, Exorcism Movies, Indie Horror, LL Soares Reviews, Occult, Sequels with tags , , , , , , , , on March 4, 2013 by knifefighter

THE LAST EXORCISM PART II
Movie Review by L.L. Soares

lastexorcism2

Before sitting down to review this one, I went back and read my Cinema Knife Fight review (with Nick Cato) of the first LAST EXORCISM movie from 2010, and it refreshed a lot of the back story for me. Back then, I gave the first movie three knives, and it was based mostly on the performance of Patrick Fabian as Reverend Cotton Marcus. The movie started out like a documentary of Marcus and his vocation as a preacher and exorcist. The way Fabian played him was likeable and charismatic, and I really enjoyed the movie until the final scene. The funny thing is, looking back at it now, I really don’t mind the ending at all, and it’s grown on me.

Which brings us to this new movie, THE LAST EXORCISM PART II. Based on the trailer, I thought this was just another cynical attempt to cash in on a movie that did pretty well at the box office (and cost a small amount to make) by producing a quickie sequel. But I have to admit, it wasn’t what I thought it was going to be.

In the second film, Cotton Marcus is nowhere to be seen, since he pretty much met his doom at the end of the first movie. This time around, the focus is on Nell Sweetzer (Ashley Bell), who was also a standout in the first film. She was the girl Marcus went to exorcize, and she was convincing as a poor, lost innocent undergoing a terrifying ordeal at the “hands” of a demon.

Things begin not long after the events of the first film. As PART II opens, a couple find Nell (again played by Bell) in their house late at night (she gets into bed with the husband and even scratches him, when the wife gets up to go to the bathroom). The scene where they track her down to the kitchen, huddled up on a counter and looking deranged, is actually quite effective. She ends up in a mental hospital, and it’s explained that her family died during the night that ended the first film, when her father’s house caught on fire. She is scared, confused and clearly traumatized by what she has gone through. We also see that everyone is treating her as the victim of a cult, which makes sense, but it doesn’t address the fact that she was truly possessed by a demon in the first film. Something the medical community would avoid.

Not long after being admitted to the hospital, Nell is determined to be pretty harmless to herself and to others, and is released to a halfway house in New Orleans. The place is overseen by Frank Merle (Muse Watson), and Nell makes some new friends, including her roommate Gwen (Julia Garner), who at times seems to have a cruel streak, along with Daphne (Erica Michelle) and Mo (Sharice Angelle Williams). Nell gets a job as a maid at a motel, and even finds herself attracted to a boy who works at the motel, named Chris (Spencer Treat Clark). She’s a little strange, but the others seem to accept her, and Nell starts to slowly adapt to a fairly normal life, which is amazing, considering the events of the first film.

But, as we know going into the theater, a normal life is not really in the cards for Nell. The demon that possessed her in the first film, Abalom, soon makes its presence known, and makes it clear it wants her back. The weirdness happens slowly, with the odd passerby on the street saying something cryptic to her. A street performer (who pretends to be a statue in the park) following her during some festivities. When she goes into a church for refuge, even there a preacher seems to have a link to Abalom and tells her it is useless to resist, as strange figures appear in the church’s windows. Nell flees in a panic.

There are also times when her father, Louis (Louis Herthum, who also played the role in the first film) appears to speak to her. Once, late at night, she sees him sitting in the chair across from her bed, and he tells her he is trying to protect her. Is he real or just a figment of her tortured imagination? Other strange things happen when she’s asleep, like the fact that one of her hands often caresses her when she’s unconscious, as if it no longer belongs to her, and she levitates and twists into painful-looking shapes, without ever being aware of it.

One particularly uncomfortable moment involves the other girls finding a video on Youtube of her being exorcized by Reverend Marcus in the first film. She is twisting violently into unnatural shapes, and speaking in voices, and the other girls are both fascinated and scared by what they see. Nell comes into the room, and when she finds out what they’re watching, she screams at them to shut it off.

Some of the people around her aren’t what they seem to be, but not all of them are in league with the devil. A woman named Cecile (Tarra Riggs) has made it her mission to save Nell from the forces that want her, and she sets up a meeting with some like-minded friends. Can they save her from the forces of darkness? Well, you’ll have to see THE LAST EXORCISM PART II to find out.

LastExorcism2

Right off the bat, I want to make it clear that not everyone is going to like this movie. First off, there are long stretches where nothing seems to happen. It’s almost more of a character study than a horror movie, as we watch Nell slowly adapt to her new life and become a part of normal society, something she was never allowed to do when she lived on her father’s farm. We want her to find happiness with her new friends and with Chris. But we know it’s only a matter of time before the satanic being that once shared her skin comes back. The movie is not fast-paced. It takes its time, and there are long gaps between scares. And anyone looking for a roller coaster ride isn’t going to find it here.

Strangely, I didn’t mind the pacing or the lack of scares at all. Nell is so interesting that I really wanted to see more of her life. I found her struggle for normalcy to be touching, and believable. And even if it comes off more as a drama at times, I didn’t see that as a bad thing. Ashley Bell gives a terrific performance here as a girl who has endured great horrors and struggles to transcend them. It’s really a showcase for her as an actress (just like the first LAST EXORCISM film was a showcase for actor Patrick Fabian) and in that sense, I enjoyed it. I also thought her looks worked very well in defining her character. She has an odd face that sometimes looks almost like an old woman’s and other times seems rather pretty. This odd quality gives physical presence to the confusion and turmoil going on inside her. I was really impressed with Bell, and thought she did a great job as the lead in this film. In fact, watching PART II, I actually found myself wanting to spend more time with this character, and I would actually look forward to a PART III if the same filmmakers were involved.

One thing I didn’t like was that, in trying to present things almost as a drama, the filmmakers felt the need to pop in some “false scares” to keep the audience awake. Stuff like dogs suddenly barking loudly in the dark, or images in Nell’s mind (visions or dreams) suddenly popping up on screen and screaming. I thought these things were unnecessary, but I’m sure that the people involved thought it was a legitimate choice, since the movie is pretty quiet for the most part, and it was their way of reminding us this is a horror movie, even if it is an unusual one. And not all audience members would be as patient without a few jolts added here and there. For the most part, LAST EXORCISM PART II is actually a good example of “quiet horror,” which means it’s not  really inhibited by its normally dreadful PG-13 rating.

Also, the ending this time around was a little predictable, and almost had a CARRIE feel to it, but it still worked for me. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I see similarities between Nell’s story and Carrie White’s.

I also thought it was interesting that PART II is filmed in a much different way than the first one. The first film was presented as a fake documentary, focused mostly on Reverend Marcus, and it worked very well in that way. You would think PART II would adopt the same gimmick, but it doesn’t. I thought it would hurt this movie to be filmed in a more traditional, straightforward way, but it actually works pretty well here. To film it as another “found footage” film would defy logic (who would be filming this fragile girl struggling to stay sane?) and the gimmick would get in the way of the storytelling in this one. So it was a good decision to leave the gimmicks behind in PART II.

By the end of the film, it is quite clear that this is a horror movie. But leading up to there, it could almost be the story of a girl dealing with mental illness, trying to get better after painful events. As I watched it, it made me think of how very different the original THE EXORCIST (1973) is from its first sequel, the quieter and more thoughtful EXORCIST II: THE HERETIC (1977). Both THE HERETIC and LAST EXORCISM PART II took risks by not being rehashes of the films that came before them, and I find that much more refreshing than seeing the same thing all over again.

LastExorcism_1Sht_Wall_FM1Aside from Bell and Herthum, this new movie has a completely different team involved. Daniel Stamm, who directed the first film, has now been now replaced by Ed Gass-Donnelly, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Damien Chazelle. Gass-Donnelly’s previous work consists of several short films and two other features, THIS BEAUTIFUL CITY (2007) and SMALL TOWN MURDER SONGS (2010), which also sound like small, quirky films, and I might just seek them out.

Eli Roth is one of the producers of this film (he also produced the first one), and I still think his name is associated with product that is a little more interesting than the standard fare.

Most fans of horror films probably won’t like this film, and will wonder what I see in it. But the truth is, the fact that this movie is so different from the first one, and takes risks that would alienate some theater-goers, endears itself to me all the more. I’m a fan of movies that take chances and confound expectations. And in that sense, THE LAST EXORICSM PART II is a success. I give it three knives.

© Copyright 2013 by L.L. Soares

LL Soares gives THE LAST EXORCISM PART II ~three knives.

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PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 (2012)

Posted in 2012, Cinema Knife Fights, Demons, Evil Kids!, Faux Documentaries, Haunted Houses, Paranormal, Plot Twists, Sequels with tags , , , , , , , on October 22, 2012 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT: PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 (2012)
By Michael Arruda & L.L. Soares

(The Scene: A bedroom. MICHAEL ARRUDA lays in bed asleep.  For a long time.  The words, “3:13 AM.  Night 13” are superimposed on screen.  Still, nothing happens.  MA looks up at camera.

MA:  This is a long time for nothing to be happening.  Too long.

THE VOICE OF L.L. SOARES:  You said it.  If I were making this movie, I would have chopped your head off already.

MA:  Where are you?

(Bedroom door swings open, revealing the silhouette of a person.)

MA:  Well, that’s predictable.  Couldn’t you think of a more original place to hide?

LS:  Um, that’s not me…  I’m in here.  (Climbs out of a bureau drawer.)

MA:  That’s not so predictable.  How did you fit in there?

LS:  It’s not real.  It’s a prop.  Just like this carving knife (raises knife).  You would have been in for one helluva surprise reaching for your clothes this morning.

MA:  Lucky for me, I’m already dressed.  (Climbs out of bed, fully dressed.)

LS:  You’re an odd duck.

MA:  Quack.

(Silhouette in door steps forward, revealing that it’s a woman.  Suddenly, she stomps forward, her steps booming loud, and MA & LS scream.  She grabs LS by the head and twists it around full circle, then leaps at MA and does the same to him.)

LS (with head spinning):  Hey, this is cool!  Woo-hoo!

MA (head also spinning):  It gets the kinks out.

LS (to woman):  Thanks!  This feels great!

(WOMAN frowns, then Exits.  LS & MA’s heads stop spinning.)

MA:  That was different.  I think I’m ready to review today’s movie now.

LS:  Start us off, then.

MA:  Today we’re reviewing PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 (2012), the fourth film in the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY series, a series that admittedly has grown on me, so I was actually looking forward to seeing it.  But as movies go, this one’s about as deep as—(walks to the bed and pulls a feather out of a pillow) — as this feather.  In other words, it’s a lightweight movie if I ever saw one.

Since PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 was a prequel, this movie follows the events of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2, and at the end of that movie, Katie (Katie Featherston) kills her sister, her sister’s husband, and walks away with their little boy, Hunter.  That movie ended with the superimposed words on the screen stating that Katie’s and Hunter’s whereabouts remain unknown.

And that’s where the action picks up in this movie, as we meet a new family, specifically a 15-year-old girl, Alex (Kathryn Newton) who spends most of her time with her boyfriend, Ben (Matt Shively).  Alex lives with her parents and younger brother, and next door to them lives a creepy little boy named Robbie (Brady Allen) and his mom, who we assume, of course, are really Hunter and Katie.

LS: Which may or may not be the case.

MA: One night, the little boy’s mom is rushed to the hospital—supposedly, as this is what Alex’s mom says, and we don’t actually see this— and so the strange little boy temporarily moves in with Alex’s family, since he has no other family of his own.

LS: Well, we kind of do see this. We see an ambulance across the street at Robbie’s house with its siren flashing. And Alex’s mom says that she was asked to take Robbie in.  But no, we never actually see Robbie’s mother physically being carried to the ambulance.

MA: And of course, since he is a strange little boy, weird creepy things start happening in the middle of the night, including visits from the ghost or demon who’s been haunting the folks in all these movies, the spectral dude known as Toby.

You know, you’d think that Toby would pick a house without so many friggin cameras, so he could actually accomplish something without people watching him!

LS: Maybe he’s an attention hog!

MA: Of course, that’s the gimmick in the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY movies, that everything is filmed by the cameras of the characters in the movie, to give it a realistic feel. And for the most part, this gimmick works.  It’s why these movies are fun, because there are long moments of silent “in the middle of the night” footage which prompts audience members to yell out various comments, because they can’t stand the tension.

Of course, for story purposes, this gimmick made the most sense in the first movie.  I can believe some guy filming everything on his video camera.  In the second film, the family was concerned about burglars, and so they had security cameras installed, and that’s how we saw all the footage in that film.

In this one, Alex’s boyfriend Ben is a computer geek, and so he records everything with his computer camera, and so when the strange events start happening in Alex’s house, she has Ben fix all the computers in the house so they’ll be taking video footage 24/7.  Not that this is unbelievable, but like I said, what are the odds that every house Toby haunts has cameras on him all night?  I’m suspending disbelief here more than I want to.

Anyway, this is how in this movie we’re able to see all those PARANORMAL ACTIVITY scenes we’ve come to know and love, scenes of silent rooms in the middle of the night, just waiting for something scary to happen.

And of course the story in this one is about that strange little boy next door, who we assume is Hunter, and the eerie events his presence causes once he’s inside Alex’s house.  And that’s it folks.  There really isn’t much of a story here.  There is a twist, but I was unimpressed.

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 is easily the weakest film in the series.  I didn’t hate this movie by any means, but I was unsatisfied.  Big time.  I mean, all the signature “in the middle of the night scenes” are there, but they’re just not that scary this time around.

The ending, which is a bit scary, is quick and over WAY too fast.

I liked the main character Alex, which is a good thing, because she’s in almost every scene of the movie.  I thought Kathryn Newton did a great job, and if I’m allowed to say this about a 15 year-old, she’s stunningly beautiful in this movie.

LS: Well, maybe you should wait about three years to say that. (laughs). But you’re right, she’s quite pretty.

MA: Matt Shively is also likeable as her boyfriend Ben, so these two main characters aren’t the problem.

The problem is the story, or lack thereof.  The PARANORMAL ACTIVITY movies have never had strong stories, but they’ve been fun because they’ve been scary.  I didn’t find this one scary at all.  The scares just aren’t there, and in a gimmicky movie like this that doesn’t have much of a story, if you don’t have scares, what’s left?  The answer is, not much!  There just isn’t much to this movie.

Christopher Landon wrote the screenplay, and he also wrote the scripts for the second and third films in this series as well.  I think maybe he’s running out of ideas.  There are “middle of the night sequences” where nothing seems to happen, and this is the same problem I had with the previous films in the series, especially PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 (2010).  You’re waiting there, watching a silent empty room in the middle of the night, and the pay-off is a little boy walking around a room.  Come on!

Plus the little boy in this one just isn’t that creepy.  I thought the kid in LOOPER (2012) was much creepier!

(The door opens and the little boy from LOOPER enters the room.  The boy grimaces, his eyes widen, and he grows red in the face.)

MA:  Easy kid!  Don’t use your telekinetic powers on us!  I was actually complimenting you!

LS: Geez, kid. Give us a break.

BOY:  Where’s the bathroom?  I have to go.  Bad!

MA:  It’s down the hall on the left.

BOY:  Thanks.  (Exits, as he runs down the hall).

LS (calling after him):  Next time don’t wait so long!

MA:  I had some questions about the story as well.  I wanted to know what was actually going on in the house next door to Alex.  At one point, she sees a bunch of cars there, and when she goes to investigate in the middle of the night— of course—she finds people there, but she’s frightened and runs away, and so we never learn what’s going on.  Now, based upon the events of the prequel, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3, I have a pretty good idea of what’s going on, but this movie might have been scarier had we seen more of those people next door, since we all know they’re not about to win any good neighbor awards!  They’re evil!  Why would you not make your scary story more about them?

LS: At the same time, it makes sense that she’d get scared and run away. So it is in character.

Most 15-year-old girls wouldn’t challenge people at a neighbor’s house and demand to know more.

MA: Then there’s good old Toby, the friendly neighborhood PARANORMAL ACIVITY demon.  He’s not much of a factor in this one.  Maybe he’s finally getting camera shy.

LS: Yeah, Toby’s a bit of a letdown this time around.

MA: Alex’s parents aren’t so bright either.  In one scene, a knife falls from the ceiling, and her dad, although spooked, doesn’t do anything about it.  It’s not like a door swings open.  Sometimes a stray draft opens or closes doors.  We’re talking about a knife falling from the ceiling.  I’d want to know what the hell a knife is doing in the ceiling in the first place!

LS: I kept expecting that knife to drop down and imbed itself in someone’s head.

MA: In an earlier scene, the mom is cutting vegetables with a knife— the same one I assume—she walks away….

LS: Of course it’s the same one. Why do you have to “assume” it?

MA: …we hear the knife swiped up and away—she returns and of course is dumbfounded and wonders where she put the knife.  She then walks away and returns with another knife and continues cutting.  I don’t know about you, but I’ve never had a knife disappear into thin air from a kitchen counter on me.  I’d be somewhat freaked.  I wouldn’t continue cutting my vegetables like nothing had happened.

LS: So you wanted more time wasted with her just standing around, looking for the knife?

MA: No, I wanted her at the very least to ask someone in the house, “Hey, did anyone just take the knife I was using?”  Show some concern!  Jeesh!

I also have a complaint about Spooky Katie.  Does she always have to walk so slowly?  It’s like watching a store mannequin.  Someone light a firecracker under that woman!

(Outside there is an explosion and a flash of light, followed by a scream.)

I didn’t mean that literally!

VOICE OFF-CAMERA:  Sorry!

MA:  Also, the very creepy scene shown in the film’s trailer doesn’t appear in this movie.  This isn’t the first time this has happened in this series.  I remember a similar scary scene shown in the trailer for PARANORMAL ACTIVTY 2 which wasn’t in the film.

LS: This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, since way too many trailers give away the complete story of a movie before you see it.

MA:  I dunno.  It bugs me.

LS: At least these scenes in the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY movies that don’t appear in the movies are kind of like bonus scenes. But you’re right that this new movie could use all the scares it could get.

MA: This one was directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, the same folks who directed PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3.  Like their screenwriter Christopher Landon, I think they’re running out of ideas.

All in all, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 is weak horror movie, hardly worth your time.  I enjoyed last week’s SINISTER better, as that one disturbed me in a way that this movie doesn’t even come close to doing.  Again, I didn’t hate this film, but I sure was underwhelmed.
I give it one and a half knives.

LS: Y’know, we’re actually in complete agreement about this one. This is the Year the Sequels Died. When some of the franchises we’ve come to rely on have run out of steam. I felt the same way about RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION. That was a series I didn’t mind, although it was never rocket science, and I at least found each sequel entertaining. If you have to sit through these movies, you at least want to enjoy yourself a little bit. But the new RESIDENT EVIL movie was so cynical and such an empty example of greed, that it pissed me off. There was absolutely no reason for that sequel to get made except to cash in, and a series I had liked a little bit finally ran out of steam and lost all reason to keep going. (I should have known better when the previous one ended right in the middle of the story, demanding that it “Be Continued.”)

I don’t feel as angry and cheated by PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4.

MA:  I agree.  I’m not angry about it either.

LS:  There are some plot points that push things forward (although not all that many), and lead character Alex is very likeable and you care about her. But overall, Part 4 is pretty flimsy compared to the other movies. I liked this series a lot. They’re not amazing works of art, but they’re fun. And I’ve come to rely on that. But this one really felt like they were phoning it in. Like they were just making a new movie to keep the franchise going. And we really didn’t get enough answers by the end to satisfy us.

What you do with a franchise like this is inject some new blood once in a while. The people who started the movies do not need to keep working on each one. Like Michael said, it’s obvious that these people run out of ideas and start repeating themselves.

If you bring in fresh people and maybe let a franchise go in a new direction, then there’s more of a chance that the audiences might actually feel surprised.  It’s a risk, but it’s better than wasting our time.

With PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4, I just think the filmmakers are admitting defeat. Either let someone new take a turn, and take a chance on actually improving on the concept and the series, or just end it here.

Because otherwise you’re just jerking us around and taking our money.

I really wanted to like this one, but I give PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 a rating of one and a half out of five knives, too.

MA: Wow, we agree on something.

LS: That’s a surprise in itself.

MA:  And I don’t think we’re alone in not liking this one.  I don’t know about the audience you saw the movie with, but the theater I was in, the audience was rather subdued.  There weren’t many comments until the last 10 minutes or so.

And when it did end, the woman in the row in front of me said, “That’s it?”  My sentiments exactly!

(Suddenly, a big glass chandelier above them crashes down on the floor, just missing them by inches)

MA: Yahh! I’m out of here.

LS: I think Toby is angry with the bad review.

(They run out of the house)

-END-

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

Michael Arruda gives PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 ~ one and a half knives!

L.L. Soares also gives PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 ~ one and a half knives!

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V/H/S (2012)

Posted in 2012, Anthology Films, Demons, Evil Kids!, Exorcism Movies, Ghosts!, Haunted Houses, Horror, Indie Horror, Killers, LL Soares Reviews, Paranormal, Secrets, Thrillers, Twist Endings, VIOLENCE! with tags , , , , , , , , , on September 25, 2012 by knifefighter

V/H/S (2012)
Movie Review by L.L. Soares

V/H/S is a new anthology horror movie made up of five shorts and a wraparound story. There seem to be a lot of these kinds of movies around lately. The other ones that come to mind are CHILLERAMA (2011) and THE THEATRE BIZARRE (also 2011). Both were mixed bags. But the good thing about anthology movies is that if you don’t like one of the stories, there are more to come, if you just wait. Overall, I tend to enjoy these kinds of movies a lot.

V/H/S is above-average in this regard. For the most part, all of the stories are pretty good. Sure, some are better than others, but I didn’t feel there were any clunkers this time around.

The film starts off with the wraparound story, called “Tape 56.” This ongoing segment is directed by Adam Wingard, who also made POP SKULL (2007), A HORRIBLE WAY TO DIE (2010) and YOU’RE NEXT (2011). Just a word of warning, if you start watching the movie, you might not care a lot for this one. But give it a chance. It just sets up the premise. But the characters involved are kind of despicable.

We are introduced to a bunch of guys led by Gary (Calvin Reeder) who are going around doing awful things and filming it for money. One of the things they do is follow couples and then attack them. The boyfriend is pulled aside and restrained, while the girlfriend is grabbed and her breasts are exposed for the camera. Gary says he gets $50 for each one of these he tapes, and he says he’s done about 25 of them so far. Needless to say, the characters who are supposed to be our point of view for this story start out being unlikable, which may put you off from the get-go.

The set-up is this: these guys are hired to go a house in the middle of the night and get a videotape. It has something to do with blackmail, and the guys say they plan to make copies of the tape, so they can make more money. What exactly is on the tape, we’ll never know. They don’t say (although one character does elude that it might be “a senator having sex on film”), but the job does pay big money—much more than they’re used to. So of course they jump at the chance.

They go to the designated house at the middle of the night, and we’re told there may be someone there, but it’s an old man and he won’t be any trouble. The guys get in, and search the place. They find two things. First of all, they find the old man, and he appears to be dead in a chair, in front of a wall full of television screens. There’s a VCR and a tape in it.

The second thing is that there are lots of videotapes in the house, and the guys aren’t really sure which one they’re supposed to retrieve. So they start looking through them, playing them one after another. And that is the theme of the movie.

The first short film we see is called “Amateur Night.” It is directed by David Bruckner, who also made THE SIGNAL (2007). And right off the bat, it might be my favorite of the bunch. It features more creeps. This time it’s three guys who plan to go to a bar, pick up some girls, and film themselves having sex with them. They’re Shane (Mike Donlan) Patrick (Joe Sykes) and Clint (Drew Sawyer). Clearly there’s a market for this kind of thing. Clint, a nerdy looking guy, wears a pair of glasses that have a camera and microphone built-in. They go to a bar and get sloshed, and find one girl who is willing to go back with them, named Lisa (Jas Sams). At the same time, a spooky girl with big eyes named Lily (Hannah Fierman) is sitting by herself, and Clint starts filming her. She gravitates toward him and keeps saying “I like you.” When they all go back to the hotel room (Lisa and Lily go back with the guys), things get decidedly weird. I have to admit, I wasn’t really surprised by what happened—I kind of saw it coming—but it was so well done, that I didn’t care. I really enjoyed this one. Featuring a great performance by Fierman.

A scary moment from V/H/S.

The second movie is “Second Honeymoon” by Ti West, who gave us HOUSE OF THE DEVIL (2009) and THE INNKEEPERS (2011). It’s about a couple on a road trip—Stephanie (Sophia Takal) and Sam (Joe Swanberg), who are filming it as they go—who stop at a motel. Sometime during the night, someone is in the room with them, watching them sleep, and it goes from there. Not the best of the stories, but a solid little piece from West, who I have to admit, I’m not a big fan of. I actually think he’s feature films are overrated. This one was kind of predictable, but decent, and I liked it better than his feature films that I’ve seen.

“Tuesday the 17th “ by Glenn McQuaid (who also directed 2008’s I SELL THE DEAD) is another one that seems by-the-numbers… at first. Four kids go out to the woods to spend some time in a secluded cabin. But once they get there, things go a little differently than expected. Once again, not something that will blow you away, but a solid little film.

The third one, “The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She was Younger,” (great title, by the way!), was directed by “mumblecore” indie director Joe Swanberg (who also acted in Ti West’s installment), and it’s another of my favorites. It features two people talking on Skype. One is a girl named Emily (Helen Rogers) who lives in a haunted apartment. The other is her boyfriend, calling from medical school, where he’s studying. Whenever something weird happens, she calls him so he can be a witness, and at one point we see some ghosts. This is another one, however, where things go much differently than we expect. I liked the weird twist ending a lot.

Finally, we have “10/31/98”, by four guys who go by the name Radio Silence (they are directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, Justin Martinez and Chad Villella), three of the guys previously made a series of “interactive adventures” under the name Chad, Matt and Rob. This one is a really good one, too. Four guys jump in a car and go to a house for a Halloween party. They have a friend who always rents a house each Halloween and throws a lavish haunted house party. One guy is dressed as a nanny cam (a teddy bear with a camera), so he’s filming this one. They get there, to find the house empty. When they go exploring, they go up to the attic where they find a weird ceremony going on. They think it’s part of the fun, but it’s not. It’s a real exorcism. And things get scary from there.

The wraparound story pops in between the movies and at the end, as the guys in the house search for more tapes, the dead guy in the chair leaves at various points (we see this, but the guys don’t notice) and there’s a big, scary ending.

Another scary moment from V/H/S.

All in all, a great flick, and while there were three that really blew me away, the other two are pretty good, too. So no bad ones. I actually think V/H/S is pretty satisfying and the best of the new anthology horror films I’ve seen lately. It is currently on cable OnDemand in some areas and will get a limited theatrical release in early October.

This one is definitely worth checking out. I give it four knives.

© Copyright 2012 by L.L. Soares

LL Soares gives V/H/S ~ four knives.

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Remote Outpost: SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK (1991)

Posted in 1990s Horror, 2012, Demons, Gangs, Ghosts!, Mark Onspaugh Columns, Remote Outpost, Stephen King Movies, TV-Movies with tags , , , , , , , , , on September 19, 2012 by knifefighter

You find yourself on a barren and desolate world, light years from anything or anyone you know… Without much food or water, your oxygen running low, you strike out for the distant hills… After days of torturous climbing, you see an oasis below. An installation of quonset huts bedecked with hundreds of television antennae. Congratulations, Traveler, you’ve reached… THE REMOTE OUTPOST.

 # #

Direct from THE REMOTE OUTPOST:
SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK (1991)
TV-Movie Review by Mark Onspaugh

We all know the problem with sequels.  Sometimes a movie is great and can stand just fine on its own, then greedy producers want to go to that well again and again.  Usually, what results is a series of films that steadily decline in budget and quality.  Films like the original version of THE PLANET OF THE APES (1969).  The first is a masterpiece, the second is quite good, the third is okay… By number four (CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, 1974), the miniscule budget forced the production to film in Century City, and many of the ape makeups were crude masks.  If it wasn’t for Roddy McDowell’s brilliant turn as Caesar, the film would probably have been forgotten and the fifth film would never have happened.

Titling sequels is also an issue.  Do you go with numbering (LETHAL WEAPON XXVIII) or new titles? Do you do both, hoping to show creativity but still cash in on that brand? (GREMLINS II: THE NEW BATCH, 1990).

SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK (1991) is a good movie, and needs no sequel.  It almost seems as if producers were kicking around joke titles and decided to greenlight the merriment.  Thus, we would eventually be enjoying the demonic hijinks of SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK… AGAIN (1996) and SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK… FOR MORE (1998).

This leads me to believe we will eventually see other installments, like, SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK… BECAUSE THEY FORGOT SOMETHING; SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK… FOR THE FOOD, BUT STAY FOR THE PIE;  and SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK… BECAUSE THEY MISSED THEIR FLIGHT AND HAD TO RETURN AND YOU JUST GOT THE GUEST ROOM CLEANED AND NOW THESE ANNOYING DEMONS ARE BACK AGAIN – DAMN.

(Warning: SPOILERS abound below! It’s a SPOILER Wonderland!)

The first movie in the series is based directly on a Stephen King story of the same name, first published in Cavalier Magazine in March 1974 and then later collected in 1978’s Night Shift.  Jim Norman is a teacher who’s had a sketchy history (wife injured in a hit-and-run, a mental breakdown) and is finally back teaching in his old home town.  His last class of the day is an easy class largely in place to give jocks something they can pass so they can play sports.

But Jim has another secret—his older brother was murdered when the two were just kids.  The Norman brothers were assaulted by teenaged toughs near a railroad tunnel.  Jim escaped, but his brother was brutally stabbed.  Years later, he still has nightmares about the four toughs who took away his brother Wayne.  As Norman works through the school year, students begin to disappear. Each time one does, a transfer from “Millford” shows up, and it’s one of the thugs from his past, now dressed in contemporary style but still seventeen.  They tell Jim he is unfinished business, and that they mean to finish him.

In investigating these delinquents, Jim finds out “Millford” is not a school, but a cemetery (nice touch, that).  All the toughs (but one) were killed six months after his brother.  Once Jim’s wife is killed, he makes a deal with some dark entity in an occult ritual where he sacrifices both his index fingers.  The toughs show up, but are done in by a demonic version of Jim’s older brother.  At the end, Jim knows this dark thing he has invited into his life will also… come back.

The story is a good one, and King does not compromise or cop out with a happy ending.  In King’s world, dealing with dark forces often means a sacrifice, usually a big one.

Not so the film version.  SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK was originally going to be an installment of CAT’S EYE, the 1985 anthology film that would also feature adaptations of the Night Shift stories “The Ledge” and “Quitters, Inc.” The producers decided SOMETIMES would be better as a stand-alone story, and substituted “General,” a story original to the film where a cat protects a little girl (Drew Barrymore) from a murderous troll.

The movie of SOMETIMES was produced for television by Dino De Laurentis (at one point in the film, Jim Norman and his family watch Dino’s KING KONG from 1976 on the old VCR).  Jim Norman was played by Tim Matheson, who has been acting since he was five, and may be best remembered as the ultra-cool ladies man Otter in ANIMAL HOUSE (1978).  Matheson commits fully to the role of a troubled teacher haunted by demons from his past.  In fact, he saves one of the film’s more maudlin moments from sinking into a vat of treacle.

Tim Matheson and Brooke Adams in SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK.

SOMETIMES takes its time developing Jim’s character and that of his family, as well as his normal (if somewhat troubled) world. This is fairly standard in King’s writing; he makes sure we are fully grounded before bringing in the more fantastic elements of his story.  The TV-movie, unsure if people will have read the story, hedges its bets by having Tim Matheson doing a voice-over that mentions his brother’s murder and his subsequent troubles, and concludes with, “If I had known the horror we were facing, I’d have taken Sally and Scotty in my arms like my parents took me, and run from this town forever.”

Although the story is fairly close to King’s, there are some important differences.  In the film version, the hoods block the two brothers as they are going through the tunnel, parking their car on the tracks.  Instead of deliberately stabbing Wayne in the stomach and crotch (ouch), Wayne is jostled by one thug and runs into the switchblade of another.  When the train comes, Jimmy grabs up the car keys from the ground as the thugs pile in. One escapes, but the thugs and Jimmy’s brother are consumed in a train-meets-car fireball.

The phantom car.

Present day, Jim is married to Brooke Adams (INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, 1978 and THE DEAD ZONE, 1983) and also has a young son.  (NOTE: I always wished they had cast Adams in SUPERMAN, 1978,  because I thought she would have made a much sexier Lois Lane than Margot Kidder.)

As with Jack Torrance of The Shining, Jim Norman has had troubles because of his temper.  In the movie we see each student who is killed off as they are murdered, and, in the first instance, the student is run off the road by a phantom car that only Jim and the student can see.  Jim snaps at the thugs as they begin to take over his classroom, and also has a clairvoyant dream where he sees a bright female student being murdered.  Jim leads the police to her hanging body, which casts suspicions on him for the murder.

A great bit in both prose and film versions is class jock and bully, Chip, confiding in Mr. Norman that these new students scare him, and mean the teacher real harm.  In the story, Chip runs off (and is presumably killed), but in the movie he is taken for a ride in the phantom car and shown just what his new friends really look like—with burned corpse makeups right out of EC Comics… Cool, Daddy-O!

SOMETIMES THEY COMES BACK and burn!

Another nice bit is that Jim periodically hears the train whistle, although the train stopped running years ago.

In the movie, Jim tracks down the only member of the gang to survive, Mueller, who is played by the great William Sanderson (BLADERUNNER, 1982 and TRUE BLOOD, 2008).  Mueller is also “unfinished business” for the hoods.

In the end, everyone gathers at the railroad tunnel for a nice reunion from Hell, and the thugs plan to kill Jim and his wife and kid.  Mueller valiantly takes a knife for Jim and his family, saying, “When someone dies… (urk, ack… expire)”

Out of a shimmering white hole emerges Wayne Norman, still looking twelve years old. He and Jim fend off the thugs until the Phantom Train from Hell arrives, right on time.  It takes the thugs and their ghost roadster to the Abyss.

Wayne is confused, and thinks Jim’s son is Jimmy.  Once he realizes he’s dead, Wayne wants Jimmy to come with him, and Jim tearfully explains his family needs him.  It is a very corny moment, but Matheson manages to elevate it into something poignant and real. Wayne goes back to Limbo, knowing now he will be able to pass on to something better, and Jim will see him again someday.

Robert Rusler as the leader of the thugs who COME BACK.

Obviously, the movie ends happily, and there is no hint of dark magic, sacrifices or Jim unleashing something hellish.  While King’s story is more satisfying in that regard, I found the movie to be entertaining, well written, directed and acted.  The film was directed by Tom McLoughlin, who wrote and directed JASON LIVES: FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI (1986) and was a writer and director of a whole lot of TV.  The movie was written by Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal, who also wrote such fine films as SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE (1987), STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY (1991), the remake of PLANET OF THE APES (2001) and everyone’s favorite Nic Cage sorcery film THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE (2010) —or was that SEASON OF THE WITCH (2011)?  Which one has Cage screaming, “The bees! The bees!” with a beehive on his head?  Oh, right, THE WICKER MAN (2006) —but I digress.  Acting-wise, besides Matheson and Adams, the thugs were all good, especially the leader, played by Robert Rusler, who was also in NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, PART 2: FREDDY’S REVENGE (1982) and VAMP (1986). In fact, the only bad actor in the entire ensemble was the fellow that played Jim as a kid.  He had an unfortunate resemblance to Jerry Mathers (TV’s LEAVE IT TO BEAVER, 1957-1963) and he always looked constipated when he cried, which was a lot.  I checked his credits, and he only did one voice-over job after this effort…

Sometimes it’s good they don’t come back.

© Copyright 2012 by Mark Onspaugh

And There’s More to Come! A public service from your friends at THE REMOTE OUTPOST.  Not only will we review the two sequels to SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK, we will give you a fairly detailed synopsis – that way, you need never watch either, or you’ll know how far to fast-forward if you just want to see Hilary Swank in tentacle porn.

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Meals for Monsters: DEATH BED: THE BED THAT EATS (1977)

Posted in "So Bad They're Good" Movies, 2012, 70s Horror, Demons, Evil Furniture, Jenny Orosel Columns, Meals for Monsters with tags , , , , on July 25, 2012 by knifefighter

MEALS FOR MONSTERS: DEATH BED: THE BED THAT EATS (1977)
Review and Recipes by Jenny Orosel

Some ideas are so brilliant you wonder why no one ever thought of them before, like Tivo and deep fried bacon.  Other ideas are so completely bizarre that you can’t imagine how somebody ever thought of it.  DEATH BED: THE BED THAT EATS (1977) is in the latter category.

There is nothing subtle or ironic about the title of DEATH BED.  It’s about a possessed bed that eats people.  Over a century ago, this above said bed was created by a demon to seduce the woman he loved. It worked, but his being a demon was too much for her to handle, and she died during the deed.  Now this bed can and will dissolve anyone (or anything) laying on it.  And the story is narrated by the ghost of an artist trapped in the walls of the house.

As long as you can keep yourself from thinking too hard about the subject matter, DEATH BED is a pretty decent movie.  It was beautifully shot, the performances are workable, and the pacing doesn’t leave a boring moment.  But, just as you get sucked into the movie, you realize you’re watching a movie about a bed that eats people.  It’s hard to take it seriously if you are constantly aware of the absurdity of the premise.

And, for that reason, I don’t have a specific drink recipe for this column.  Instead, I recommend shots of Everclear.  Perhaps some Bacardi 151.  Hell, any high-proof alcohol will do the trick.  Drink until you are intoxicated enough that a people-eating bed makes perfect sense.

Instead, for the first round you have a salad.  In the film, one of the women is fed a bug-laden salad.  Don’t worry—the “bugs” for your salad will be much more delicious.

SPINACH SALAD WITH BACON ‘WORMS’ AND BALSAMIC VINEGRETTE

INGREDIENTS
1 bag baby spinach leaves
6 slices bacon
1 shot balsamic vinegar
2 shots olive oil
1 stem fresh rosemary
Pinch of salt and pepper

DIRECTIONS
Cut the bacon in half crosswise, then lengthwise so each piece is cut into four strips.  Cook until crispy, put on paper towels, and set aside.  Meanwhile, pull the leaves off the rosemary stem.  Chop them finely, then whisk together with vinegar and oil.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Serve the spinach with bacon on top, and drizzle with the amount of dressing you so desire.

One of the first sequences involves a young couple on a date, and the bed eats their picnic lunch.  The lunch consists of fried chicken, apples and a bottle of red wine.  To be honest, I’ve done a lot of fried foods in this column.  Instead, I’ve taken those ingredients and make a different main dish altogether.

CHICKEN WITH APPLES IN A RED WINE-RASPBERRY SAUCE

INGREDIENTS
Olive oil
2 small chicken breasts, pounded flat OR one large chicken breast, halved long-ways.
½ apple, Granny Smith preferably, sliced
¼ onion, sliced in strips
2 stems rosemary
Salt and pepper
4 cloves garlic, minced
¾ cup red wine
1 pint raspberries, minus twelve (set aside for the dessert)

DIRECTIONS
Place 2-3 slices of apple, 2-3 onion slices, and a stem of rosemary in the center of the chicken breast.  Roll up, and secure with toothpicks.  Salt and pepper the outside.  Sear in a frying pan with olive oil until browned on all sides.  Add the garlic and cook about a minute.  Smash the raspberries until completely decimated.  Add them and the wine to the pan, and reduce to medium.  Cook for about a half hour, turning the chicken occasionally.  Serve over potatoes or hot cooked rice, topped with the pan sauce. NOTE—either remove the rosemary before serving, or instruct who you’re feeding to do so.  They are not very tasty eaten whole, but flavor the dish nicely.

Dessert had its own problems.  There weren’t any sweets eaten during the flick, so I had to think: if I were a demon trying to seduce someone, what would I use?  Chocolate, of course!  And raspberries.  Raspberries are sexy.   And it’s an easy thing to prepare, so you can get to another shot in no time.

BED DEMON’S BERRY DISCS

INGREDIENTS
½ bag chocolate chips (semi-sweet or bittersweet, depending on your preference)
12 raspberries

DIRECTIONS
Get twelve mini-muffin liners ready.  Put the chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl and, in 30 second increments, heat the chips at full power, then stir.  It will take a few times to get the chocolate completely melted (2 minutes worth in my case).  Drop a spoonful in each of the paper liners.  While the chocolate is still liquid, press a berry into the center.  Set somewhere cool to harden.

DEATH BED was director George Barry’s first film.  It was also his only.  I completely understand it.  There is really no way to top the story of a bed that eats people.   If he went on to do a mundane, straightforward movie, then people would want to know why he abandoned his surrealistic sense of style.  And if he were to continue making evil inanimate object movies, it would become a kitschy gimmick instead of the fascinating oddity that is DEATH BED.  All I know is that I’m glad he made this one, because it certainly is fun to watch.  And, hopefully, something fun to eat during, too.

© Copyright 2012 by Jenny Orosel

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THE DEVIL INSIDE (2012)

Posted in 2012, Cinema Knife Fights, Demonic Possession, Demons, Exorcism Movies, LL Soares Reviews, Nick Cato Reviews, Paranormal, Possessed By Demons with tags , , , , , , on January 9, 2012 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT: THE DEVIL INSIDE
By L.L. Soares and Nick Cato

(THE SCENE: After a delayed flight, L.L. SOARES and NICK CATO arrive in Rome, Italy, where they grab a taxi to the Centrino Mental Hospital, where much of this week’s film was shot.  They’re both slightly jet-lagged when they enter the lobby of the large, isolated facility).

LS: I don’t get it…you’re afraid of flying but you drag me all the way to Italy to review a movie? What the hell, man.

NC: I figured if we’re THIS CLOSE to where they filmed that great exorcism sequence, we’d be re-inspired to give this one a solid review.

LS: (Rolling his eyes).  Well, at least you paid for the plane tickets, and don’t forget you promised to treat me to some REAL Italian food while we’re here. And some good wine, too.

NC: My cousin Antonio is expecting us in two hours…everything has been taken care of, buddy!

(A security guard asks them who they’re here to see.  When Nick reveals they just want to use the lobby to write a film review, the burly guard chases them out.  Amazingly, our American horror freaks manage to sneak into the back yard of the facility, where they squat behind a row of hedges, listening to some of the patients babble and sing strange songs).

NC: We’d better get started before that goon realizes we made it back in.

LS: Good idea. You begin this one.

NC: This week we have the latest entry into the “found footage/mock documentary” horror subgenre titled THE DEVIL INSIDE, which is basically an EXORCIST (1973) version of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999).   I’m a sucker for exorcism films, and have seen almost every EXORCIST rip-off that’s come down the pike since the early 70s.  While most are unwatchably bad, 2010’s THE LAST EXORCISM was a rare treat (and told things from a Protestant viewpoint, for a change), and for the most part, I’ve been enjoying this recent spout of exorcism films.

LS: Well, THE EXORCIST remains the gold standard for this kind of thing. I haven’t been too impressed with most exorcism movies since. I did like THE LAST EXORCISM, though. But, as for this “recent spout,” I can’t say every movie is worth seeing. I still think THE RITE (2011) was pretty lame.

I must admit, though, that I’m really digging the whole “found footage” style of filmmaking. I know it’s starting to become a cliché just as much as any other subgenre, but so far, I’m enjoying most of these movies, which is funny, because I didn’t care for BLAIR WITCH all that much – but I can’t deny how friggin influential that film was.

NC: So, as THE DEVIL INSIDE begins, Isabella Rossi is making a documentary about her mother, Maria, who in 1989 murdered three members of the clergy who tried to perform an exorcism on her.  Since then, she’s been shifted to a couple of mental hospitals.  When a jury found her innocent by reason of insanity in 1991, she was transferred overseas to Italy to the Centrino Mental Hospital, on whose grounds we now stand.  Spooky, huh?

LS: Not really. But go on.

(A guy dressed up in a WINNIE THE POOH costume comes over to them)

WINNIE: Hey fellas, what are you doing in the bushes?

LS: We’re reviewing a movie. Now go away kid, you bother me.

WINNIE: No you’re not! You’re looking for honey! I know it! I know it! Well, you better share it with me if you find some.

NC: Seriously, we’re not looking for honey. We’re reviewing a movie.

LS: Yeah, get lost you simpleton!

WINNIE: You guys sure are mean! I hate you both! (he runs away, crying)

NC: Now look what you did. He’s probably going to go tell one of the guards.

LS: Then you better go on with the review, right?

NC: Along with her cameraman, Isabella gets to visit her mother for the first time in over ten years.  The head doctor of the hospital shows Isabella footage of her mother’s violent rages (all captured on security camera from her room)…

LS: I have to admit, I laughed out loud during this scene. Possessed people are pretty funny.

NC: …and yet, for some reason still allows Isabella and her cameraman to enter the room, warning them not to mention anything about God or religion.  If THE DEVIL INSIDE has one major problem, it’s the too “easy access;” there are a few sequences where the audience is asked to accept a bit too much, but for now we’ll let that slide.

Suzan Crowley is simply fantastic as the possessed mother, Maria, and in this first meeting creates a real tension-filled scene.

Isabella goes to an exorcism class at a Vatican-run school, and is impressed at the variety of people in attendance.  She is befriended by two rogue Catholic priests, who eventually reveal they perform exorcisms without the church’s permission, in an attempt to help people; apparently THEY can tell when certain people are genuinely possessed regardless of what the church says.  Part of what made THE DEVIL INSIDE work for me are these two priests, Ben and David.  They’re both flawed, yet seem to want to do the right thing.  Ben’s more aggravated with the church than David is, but they both compliment one another’s work, Ben taking a strictly religious angle, while David (who is also a licensed physician) also uses scientific methods during their exorcisms.

LS: Yeah, I liked Ben and David, too. In fact, I thought all the cast were really good here. The trick in these kinds of movies is to seem as natural as possible. This is supposed to be documentary footage (even if it really isn’t). And everyone does a fine job convincing us of their sincerity. I also like Isabella and her mother a lot, too.

NC: My favorite sequence is when Fathers Ben and David take Isabella (and her cameraman) to witness a real exorcism.  Possessed girl Rosa (played with grueling detail by real life contortionist Bonnie Morgan) delivers an insane performance as our two priests attempt to deliver her from a demon.  As far as possession films go, this scene is worth the price of admission.

LS: Yeah, that was a good scene. I didn’t know she was a contortionist, but that makes the scene all the more impressive. Nice that it wasn’t all special effects for once.

(A short guy in a uniform comes over to them. He has one hand inside his coat and thinks he’s NAPOLEON)

NAPOLEON: What are you doing zere in ze bushes?

LS: Not another nut. Can’t we review a movie in peace?

NAPOLEON: How dare you, sir. Napoleon Bonaparte is not, how you say, a “nut.” And I know what you are doing. You are spies lurking in ze bushes, spying on Napoleon, trying to discover ze plans I have to take over Europe. I dare you to deny it!

LS: I deny it.

NC: Me, too.

NAPOLEON: Liars! You will get ze guillotine for this! I will go find ze guards.

LS: We better wrap this up.

NC: When our priests manage to convince the head of the Centrino Mental Hospital to let them have a couple of hours alone with Isabella and her mother, he reluctantly agrees and we’re set for yet another intense exorcism scene, this time even more violent and revealing.  BUT, this was one of the film’s hard-to-accept moments—the one rule the doctor imposes on Isabella is that Maria is not supposed to be reminded of God or religion—but two priests are allowed to spend time alone with her?

LS: And it’s not like they’re there just to visit her. They perform an exorcism. Even if Maria is really mentally ill, isn’t this going to make her incredibly hostile?

NC: If not for another great (attempted) exorcism scene here, this would have been unforgiveable (pun intended).  And I’m betting most horror fans just won’t go for this idea.

LS: I don’t know. I didn’t think it was logical either, but the scene is so good, I got sucked into it anyway.

NC: (POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT) Another scene that jades an otherwise intelligent possession film is when Father David almost commits murder during a baptism.  There is simply NO WAY he would ever have been able to leave the church, be it by the police or his fellow clergy holding him back.

LS: Not to mention angry family members.

NC: But he manages to return to his apartment as if nothing happened, and when Father Ben asks him why he did what he did, Isabella answers on his behalf with the goofiest piece of dialogue I’ve heard in years.  “Well, he’s been under a lot of stress lately.”  I will admit at this point that if this wasn’t about exorcism, I most likely would have been completely turned off to the rest of the film.  I don’t know how many others will be as forgiving (another pun!).

LS: Yeah, that was a pretty dumb thing for her to say. And enough with the puns!

(Another patient walks over to the hedges.  It’s a tall man wearing only a white bathrobe with sandals and black socks.  He says “Whooooo’s there?” like an owl then begins to jump up and down, singing the Tom Jones song, IT’S NOT UNUSUAL.)

NC: Looks like we’ve been spotted again.

LS: Damn, I hate these bushes. When you said we were going to Rome, I imagined seeing the Colliseum, not hiding in bushes.

NC: Well, despite all its flaws, I have to admit I was impressed with much of the early dialogue given in THE DEVIL INSIDE about exorcism, and I’m assuming this is part of what might turn off horror film fans who aren’t big on possession films; if this isn’t your thing, you’re not going to be interested, and hence will be less forgiving when the flaws come.

That said, THE DEVIL INSIDE has a fun time with its security footage, police file footage, and at-the-moment video footage, and does so in quite an entertaining manner.   Isabella (played by the very attractive Fernanda Andrade) delivers a fine performance, and while I’ve read some negative things about the priests, I thought they both did a fine job.

LS: I avoided any reviews of this, as I usually do, before I saw it. It helped that this one wasn’t screened for critics before it was released, so there weren’t a lot of reviews before the weekend.

NC: I never read reviews before seeing a film, either, but after the screening I attended I noticed the Internet was PACKED with negative reviews.

I must admit that I LOVED the ending.  I’ve heard most test audiences booed it, but to me, a horror film’s ending should be bleak and shocking.  The audience I saw this with was speechless.

****(Another SPOILER ALERT. However, it is impossible to discuss the main problem with this particular movie – and why audience members have been so angry – without discussing the ending)****

LS: I think you’re talking about the last scene, which I thought was fine. It is supposed to be “found footage,” after all. But the actual ending itself —if you really love how the movie ends—then we’re in complete disagreement. When I saw the movie, people were very pissed off with the ending, and I completely understood where they were coming from. I don’t usually discuss the ending of a film when reviewing it, but in this case, I’ll make an exception, mainly because THERE IS NO ENDING.

The movie has been doing a good job sucking you in. It was much better than I expected—especially since January is a notorious time to release the real stinkers that studios have in the vaults. This one was an exception to that rule. The audience was really getting into it and invested themselves in the story. And then the movie ends very abruptly at a key scene, and the URL for a website comes onscreen. We’re told this “found footage” was currently under investigation and to go to the website for more news. This ending elicits two reactions simultaneously:

On the one hand, if you’ve been enjoying the movie up to this point, the abrupt non-ending is going to leave you wanting more. This is presumably a good thing, especially if the filmmakers want to turn this movie into a franchise, like the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY films.

On the other hand, this kind of ending is pretty cynical. First off, it has “sequel” written all over it. It wants you to pay more money to see more in the next movie. The URL pretty much is a stand-in here for the words “TO BE CONTINUED,” and after sitting through this movie and giving it your time, this kind of ending seems like a complete slap in the face. At least give us an ending that satisfies us! That makes us feel like this whole journey hasn’t been a complete waste of time and a grab for our wallets!

When I saw the movie, the theater was packed. So obviously, people are going out to see this one. At the end, everyone was angry and cursing at the screen and felt cheated. Not exactly the best way to generate word of mouth buzz about a movie. In fact, even though I liked the movie, I found the ending insulting and it kind of ruined it for me.

NC: Well, to me the ENDING was the final IMAGE on the screen.  However, I’m a bit mixed on what happens AFTER the ending. That website is given (therossifiles.com) for viewers to go to to learn more about the continuing Rossi case.  One of the biggest questions in the film (which asks what happened between Father Ben and his late uncle, who was his exorcist mentor) is answered on the website in a video confession.  I believe this confession could have been intercut with the film’s last scenes, and would have left more viewers satisfied.  Personally, I would have been happy if this was NEVER explained, as it gives the film a sense of mystery that added to the tension.

LS: Personally, I didn’t think that was one of the biggest questions of the film—and I don’t care if that was explained or not either. But I’ll tell you, for some reason I have no desire to go to the website— I paid my money. Everything important should have been on the damn screen! I shouldn’t have to go searching for answers that should have been provided in the film itself.

NC: THE DEVIL INSIDE—with its post-Internet participation—becomes a gimmick film that wasn’t advertised as one.  Pretty cool IMO, although, again, I can see viewers not getting into it.

LS: Cool? The gimmick actually lowered the rating on this one, for me. I thought the ending sucked enough to ruin an otherwise solid exorcism film.

NC: As someone who has seen about twenty EXORCIST-rip offs and a dozen more possession films, I give THE DEVIL INSIDE~two and a half knives.  The screenwriters should have thought a bit more about the couple of easily-avoidable flaws in their script.  It’s easy to understand why many people will not be happy with this film.  But if you can let these issues slide, there’s plenty of spooky fun to be had.

LS: I had a hard time rating this one. On the one hand, I was going to give it three knives, up until the ending. I guess I liked it even more than you did. But after the rip-off at the end, I was angry enough to give it just two knives. If I’m fair and split the difference, I guess I end up giving it two and a half knives, as well. But seriously, screw the gimmick of making us go to a website to find out more. Show it on the damn screen.  I bet this gimmick angered enough people to generate some negative buzz—not good for future box office, or possible sequels. People just don’t like feeling cheated, especially these days when ticket prices are so damn high. But I enjoyed this movie a lot until that point. So my advice to our readers is this—wait and rent it. You won’t be as pissed off spending $5 to rent it on DVD or streaming video when the dumbass non-ending occurs, than you would if you and your date had spent $20 to go see it in a theater.

NC: (Answers his cell phone) “Yes Antonio…we’re just about done here.  We’ll be over in a few minutes.”  L.L….get ready for some old school, home-made pasta…hopefully without a pea soup appetizer!

(NAPOLEON comes running back, escorted by two hospital guards dressed in white)

NAPOLEON: Zere are ze spies I told you about. They want to know what Napoleon has planned next. Well, you will never know, you evil spies!

GUARD 1: Hey, what are you guys doing in the bushes?

GUARD 2: Yeah! Aren’t you guys I just tossed out of the lobby?

(LS and NC jump out of the bushes and run away, being pursued by the guards, Napoleon and the guy dressed as Winnie The Pooh, while fast “Benny Hill” exit music plays)

LS: See you next time on Cinema Knife Fight!

-END-

© Copyright 2011 by L.L. Soares and Nick Cato

L.L. Soares gives THE DEVIL INSIDE ~ two and a half knives!

Nick Cato gives THE DEVIL INSIDE~ two and a half knives

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Pickin’ the Carcass: THE AWAKENING (2010)

Posted in 2011, Demons, Just Plain Bad, Michael Arruda Reviews, Pickin' the Carcass, Possessed By Demons, Supernatural with tags , , , , , , , on November 30, 2011 by knifefighter

PICKIN’ THE CARCASS:  THE AWAKENING (2010)
By Michael Arruda

 

THE AWAKENING (2010) was excruciatingly painful to review.

It was so bad I feel guilty giving it press within the pages of this site, but since I decided to watch it, and since it is available on streaming video for others to see, I’d best get the word out that this one’s not worth one second of your time.

A guy named Roy (Kevin Lowe) gets invited to a rave by a beautiful hot blonde.  Roy invites a group of his friends to tag along, and they agree.  Trouble is, the rave is held way, way out in the middle of nowhere.  But, heck, it’s a rave, and there’s a beautiful blonde, so these guys don’t care that it’s happening in the middle of the woods.

Roy and his buddies end up getting lost—of course— and they find themselves in a small town where the locals warn them about “strange goings on” in the area and advise them to stay away.  I think I saw this in DRACULA (1931).  Like all good horror movie travelers, they ignore this advice.  They do meet up with a young graduate student, Katie (Nancy McCrumb), who’s researching an Aztec god, and she’s in the area looking for relics pertaining to this god.  She joins the group on their way to the rave.  Why the hell, not?

It turns out that this Aztec god is some sort of a demon, which wakes up—hence the title—just in time to crash the rave and ruin everyone’s good time.  Obviously, Roy and friends are the last survivors, and the second half of the movie is all about their attempts to escape from the murderous demon.  So, if you’re still awake for the second half, it does get a tad better, but a tad better than horrid isn’t saying much.  Trust me, you don’t need to watch any of this.

There is so much wrong with THE AWAKENING, I don’t know where to begin.  I guess I’ll start at the beginning.  The tone of the beginning is all wrong.  It’s supposed to be light and funny, and Roy and his friends are supposed to be fun and goofy, but the humor just doesn’t cut it.  There’s also a very upbeat soundtrack with plenty of songs—more songs than dialogue, frankly—that seems out of place in a horror movie.

The writing isn’t sharp.  Brian Schaefer wrote the screenplay, and I can’t say that I was impressed.  I didn’t like the characters, mostly because they weren’t memorable and I didn’t care for them, and I didn’t like the story.  This movie should have been titled WHERE’S THE RAVE?  because the characters spend the first half of the movie trying to get to the rave, and in the second half they’re fleeing a demon who’s an Aztec god, which I found less than compelling.

We don’t even get to see the demon because he hides inside the bodies of his victims a la THE THING, but unlike THE THING or even INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS there’s no paranoia over who’s the monster because as soon as the demon enters his victim’s body he turns into a murderous machine, so you pretty much know which buddy of yours is the monster. He’s the one with the shotgun shooting everybody.

One thing I did like was when the demon switched from one host body to another, (and he did this simply by touching the person he wanted to enter) the person he exited didn’t automatically die.  That person would regain consciousness just long enough to become the first victim of the demon’s new host.  These were the only moments of the movie that resonated on an emotional level.

The rest of the movie was horrible.  The acting was bad, although to be honest I’ve certainly seen worse acting, but the folks in this movie didn’t do anything to distinguish themselves.  There wasn’t one single character in this movie I cared for.

The special effects were the worst I’ve seen in a movie all year.  There’s one shot where a guy gets shot in the face, and the split-second sequence is so god-awful fake looking I thought I was watching a Claymation scene.  This is the level we’re talking about here.

Director Vince Rotonda also had a very strange directing style, filling the movie with lots of quick cuts and brief scenes.  It just didn’t work.  It certainly had the look and feel of a comedy, especially something you’d see on television.  Trouble is, it wasn’t funny, and the horror aspects of this movie were so lame they were almost amateurish.  The folks who made this movie need to practice a bit more before releasing something else.

And the fact that we never see the demon doesn’t help.  It continually switches from one human body to another, so the menace in this one is just people possessed by the demon.  Not that exciting.

THE AWAKENING couldn’t keep an insomniac awake.  You know, there’s a dreadful mummy movie called THE AWAKENING (1980), starring Charlton Heston.  That one, a complete dud, is a masterpiece compared to this mess.  I’ve seen scarier TV commercials.

A yawn fest from start to finish, THE AWAKENING is easily one of the worst movies I’ve seen all year.  Calling it THE SLEEPING would have been more apt.

—END—

© Copyright 2011 by Michael Arruda

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Meals for Monsters: UROTSUKIDOJI: LEGEND OF THE OVERFIEND

Posted in 2011, Animated Films, Anime, Demons, Jenny Orosel Columns, Meals for Monsters, Monsters with tags , , , , , on October 18, 2011 by knifefighter

Meals for Monsters: UROTSUKIDOJI: LEGEND OF THE OVERFIEND
By Jenny Orosel

If you’ve seen enough hentai, you’ll know where this is going….

UROTSUKIDOJI: LEGEND OF THE OVERFIEND (1989) is a Japanese animated flick based on the idea that Earth is made of three different realms: the human world, the demon world and the man-beast world.  Every 3000 years the Overfiend is born, and will either unite the three worlds or bring utter destruction.  This time around, the Overfiend was born as a completely oblivious and sexually frustrated high school boy.  He’d like to be able to hook up with the popular girl, but at inopportune moments he blacks out and becomes a hideous monster.  Meanwhile, creatures from both the demon and man-beast realms are trying to kill him.  What’s a kid to do?

UROTSUKIDOJI is famous for being one thing—it was the movie that popularized the “tentacle porn” subgenre of anime.  Yes, this being Japanese, portrayal of genitalia would be considered obscene and, thus, illegal.  So whenever the demons or the Overfiend himself rape a victim, it is with giant tentacles sprouting from their bodies.  Most victims explode into giant bursts of light upon the tentacled violations.  Women, men, no one is safe from the tentacle rape.  There’s even a scene where an entire hospital is raped with enormous tentacles.  Not the employees, but the actual building itself.

This being the kind of movie it is, I wouldn’t recommend it for a date movie.  If your love interest doesn’t run screaming from the house, it isn’t likely she’ll be in the mood for much.  No, UROTSUKIDOJI is best enjoyed as a party movie with a small crowd of people who are ready for some shocks and laughs.  And drinks.

Today’s drink is a Sake Bomb.  Not only is it at least somewhat Japanese, but it’s quick to make, quick to consume, and quick to refill.

SAKE BOMB:

1 glass Japanese beer

1 shot glass of sake

Drop shot glass into beer glass.  Consume.

Sake bomb

As far as food, you’ll want some easy party finger foods.  Chips and dip work, even a veggie plate.  But, for a movie so famous for its tentacles, calamari is a must.  The following recipe is good for about three people, so multiply it out by however many people are coming.

FRIED CALAMARI

Buttermilk

2/3 pound squid (Tubes and tentacles.  Go heavy on the tentacles if you have the option)

1/2 pound raw shrimp (for the people weirded out by eating squid)

Cooking oil (vegetable, canola, etc)

For the coating:

1 cup flour

1 cup cornmeal

4 tablespoons garlic powder

3 tablespoons paprika

1 tablespoon salt

Pinch of cayenne pepper

Line a cookie sheet with either paper towels or newspaper, and put a cooling rack on top of that.

If the squid isn’t already prepped for you, make sure there is no cartilage or eyeballs.  Slice the tubes into 1/2 inch rings, and if the tentacle bunches are large, cut in half.  Soak in buttermilk for a half hour.

Meanwhile, fill a large pot about halfway with the oil.  Heat to 375F.

In a large bowl, mix the ingredients for the coating.  When the oil is ready, take the squid and put it in the coating mixture.  Then put the shrimp into the buttermilk.  Make sure the squid is well coated with the mix.  CAREFULLY drop into the hot oil (you may need to work in batches, depending on how big the pot is).  Cook for a minute or two until light brown.  Drain on cookie sheet, sprinkling with salt.  Repeat with the shrimp (which, depending on the size, may take a little longer than the squid).

Serve with warmed marinara sauce, cocktail sauce, or an Asian dipping sauce made of 2 parts Ponzu sauce, 1 part Sirracha chili sauce and 1 part soy sauce.  Mix and serve either cold or at room temperature.

Calamari

To make this a well-rounded meal, sweets are a must.  For something that can be set out on a plate and enjoyed at partytime leisure, why not homemade gummy tentacles?  It’s a lot easier than it sounds.

GUMMY TENTACLES

1 small box lime flavored gelatin

4 envelopes unflavored gelatin

2/3 cup water

Mix all the ingredients together in a small saucepan and let sit for a half hour.  Line a cookie sheet with wax paper.  After the thirty minutes have passed the mixture will be a weirdly solid texture.  Heat over low heat until it’s completely melted.  Remove from heat for about two minutes.  Pour onto the cookie sheet in swirls and curves.  Depending on the humidity, it will take between 30 minutes to an hour to set.  Cut up in desired lengths.

Gummy Tentacles

One note about the movie—there are two versions of UROTSUKIDOJI: LEGEND OF THE OVERFIEND (not to mention four sequels).  One is noted as “Perfect Collection” and is the completely uncensored, 146 minute version.  The other has a lot of the more graphic scenes cut and logs in at 108 minutes.  Whichever version you think your guests will appreciate more is up to you.

© Copyright 2011 by Jenny Orosel

What a mouth-watering column!!

1 Comment »

INSIDIOUS

Posted in 2011, Cinema Knife Fights, Ghost Movies, Haunted Houses, Paranormal with tags , , , , , , , , , , on April 4, 2011 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT: INSIDIOUS
By Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares

L

(The Scene: The interior of a creepy old house. MICHAEL ARRUDA and L.L. SOARES are sitting around a table in the living room. The lights are off. An old MEDIUM sits between them, with her eyes closed. They are all holding hands).

MA: You know this is a complete waste of time.

LS: Shhh, I want to hear her talk mumbo-jumbo!

MEDIUM: Oh mumbo jumbo!

LS (chuckles): I love that!

MA: Oh, hi folks. We’re here in the middle of this séance, when we should be reviewing the new haunted house movie, INSIDIOUS because L.L. wants to— tell me again why we’re doing this?

LS: We’re here to contact the spirits and tell them we’re sick of haunted house movies!

MA: We’re sick of bad ones, anyway.

MEDIUM: Sorry guys, I’m getting a busy tone. We’ll have to try again later.

LS: We need a new service provider.

MA: Good. That means we have time to do our review.

LS (grimaces): Oh, goody!

MA: Do you want to start this one?

LS: Sure. INSIDIOUS is the new movie by James Wan, the guy who gave us the first SAW movie (2004), the evil dummy movie DEAD SILENCE (2007), which we’re bound to review here eventually, as well as DEATH SENTENCE (also 2007).

As this one starts out, I felt like I’d seen it before. And I did. Last time, it was called PARANORMAL ACTIVITY (2007). These kinds of movies have become a cliché already. We start out with a normal-looking family. Then weird things start to happen. Things get moved around. The characters hear noises and see strange things. And eventually, they decide to call for help.

MA: Even the interior of the house looks the same.  I thought I was watching PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 (2010) all over again, the houses looked so similar.

However, I have to say here that the scares worked better in INSIDIOUS than in PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 because stuff actually happens.  In PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2, there’d be a creepy set-up, but then nothing would happen, it’d be a false alarm or something, and we’d wait until the next night, when the process would repeat itself.  It was a process I grew tired of very quickly.  But here, in INSIDIOUS, we get faces in windows, strange voices, and spirits and demons.  There’s definitely more going on here, at least at the beginning of this one.

LS: And no hand-held documentary-style camera this time. I thought that was a pleasant surprise. This one actually looks like a real movie!

Okay, so the family consists of John Lambert, (Patrick Wilson, who we last saw in WATCHMEN (2009) and THE A-TEAM (2010) ), his wife Renai (Rose Byrne from 28 WEEKS LATER (2007) and KNOWING (2009)) and their kids: two sons and a baby daughter. When the family moves into a new house, strange things start to happen, and Renai begins to believe the house is haunted. One of their sons, Dalton (Ty Simpkins) is playing in the attic when he falls and hurts himself. He doesn’t seem to be hurt very badly, but by the next day, he has fallen into what appears to be a coma. The doctors are completely baffled. When weird stuff continues to happen, including strange people somehow getting into the house, despite locked doors and home alarm systems, Renai finally convinces Josh it’s time to move.

They move to another house, but soon afterwards, strange things start happening again. They just can’t seem to catch a break!

In desperation, Renai calls first a priest and then Josh’s mother, Lorraine Lambert (Barbara Hershey, who we last saw as the controlling mother in last year’s BLACK SWAN), who completely believes her daughter-in-law, suggests they call in an old friend of hers, Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye, who was in everything from the original A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984) to SNAKES ON A PLANE (2006)). Elise is a professional medium and sends two of her investigators to check out the house first, Tucker (Angus Sampson) and Specs (Leigh Whannell, who also wrote the script), who confirm there really is something supernatural going on.

I felt that once Elise showed up, the movie finally started to get interesting.

MA (laughs):  I completely disagree.  I thought the movie got off to a terrific start but slowed dramatically once Elise and her friends entered the scene.

LS:  What do you know?  Up until Elise shows up, it was just your garden-variety haunted house movie.

MA:  Well, in terms of story, yeah.  It was nothing we haven’t seen before, but I thought the scares were really working here.  I haven’t had this much fun at a horror movie with the audience screaming in a long time as I did during the first half of INSIDIOUS.  People were shouting out, and the guy in front of me had cried out so much that half way through he yelled, “No more haunted houses me for me!  I can’t take it!”

LS:  I’m thinking the same thing.  But for a different reason.

But seriously, who are you seeing these movies with? A troop of girl scouts?

MA:  No, the row in front of me was a group of college-aged guys, and they were screaming like crazy, and there were a couple of women behind me who cried out every time a face appeared in a window.  The theater was packed, which was a good thing, and the crowd was really into it.

During some movies I’m thinking what the heck are these people screaming at?  But here I thought the scares really worked.  There was the strange whisper on the baby monitor in the middle of the night which suddenly became a loud shout.  I loved the faces in the window and the red faced demon I thought was really cool-looking, even if he did remind me a little bit of Darth Maul from STAR WARS: THE PHANTOM MENACE (1999).

LS: Exactly! I knew he reminded me of something.

MA: And I absolutely loved the scene where the mom wakes up and sees and hears the long haired fiend pacing on the balcony outside her window and suddenly without warning he’s inside the bedroom with her.

LS: He was a big, long-haired guy who reminded me totally of Peter Steele from the group Type O Negative. He died not too long ago, so he could have been the ghost!

And don’t forget the blood handprint on Dalton’s sheets!

MA: I liked that, too.

During the first half of this movie, the scares were frequent and they were real.  I loved the first half.  I thought director James Wan did a terrific job setting this one up, giving it legitimate scares and a very stylish look.

However, as is the case with so many movies these days, the film goes downhill during its second half, as soon as the paranormal investigators arrive on the scene.  The two men, Tucker and Specs, are silly geeks and they provide comic relief which, after such a strong frightening opening, seems way out of place here.  The humor is almost jarring.  It would have been like the classic HORROR OF DRACULA (1958), after Christopher Lee scares the crap out of everyone during the movie’s first half as Dracula, instead of having Peter Cushing arriving onto the scene as Van Helsing you get Jerry Lewis!

LS: Yeah, I don’t think they were all that necessary here. But I’m curious—is everything with you an old Hammer movie? How about a more current comparison. Some of our readers probably have no idea what you’re talking about!

MA: Which is exactly why I talk about the old movies, so people today don’t forget them.  When I was a kid watching horror movies in the 1970s, I loved reading about the older movies.

But, anyway, more recently, imagine in THE WOLFMAN (2010) having the Scotland Yard inspector who arrives late in the game to hunt the werewolf played by Steve Carrell.  It just doesn’t fit.  Same with the geeky guys in this one.

LS: That’s better.

MA: Lin Shaye is fine as the chief investigator Elise Rainier, but at this point the movie gets bogged down in a silly narrative that I didn’t buy for a second, ridiculous stuff about wandering spirits, humans with the ability to leave their bodies and travel to a place called the Further. At this point the dialogue gets really dumb.  It all starts to sound like a 1980s Steven Spielberg movie—the only thing missing is the sugary sweet John Williams music.

When INSIDIOUS was scaring the crap out of the audience during its first half, it was a rockin’ horror movie, but once it started to explain things, it became silly and contrived.  One of the reasons the first half was so scary was it was chock full of spirits and demons.  I wish as the movie had gone on, it could have remained focused on these spirits and demons and let them become a bigger part of the story.  Let the demons continue to scare!  It would have been a much scarier movie.

LS:  I liked the second half.

Elise finally starts giving us answers. Everything from the fact that whatever these spirits are, they aren’t haunting the house, but something else, and she also fills in the blanks about events in the past that led up to all this, including some revelations from Josh’s mom. We suddenly become privy to everything from astral projects to red-faced demons, to other planes of existence.

MA:  All of which comes off as contrived and forced. INSIDIOUS is a movie that would have been better without these elaborate explanations.

MEDIUM (in the background): Can you hear me now?

LS:  I liked Elise, but, no matter how good a character she was, she isn’t half as cool as the dwarf lady from POLTERGIEST (1982).

MA: Do you have to mention POLTERGIEST?  I hate that movie.  It’s one of those 1980s Spielberg produced movies I was just talking about.  Besides, I thought you hated it too?

LS: I do, but that creepy dwarf lady is the best thing in it. Hell, the ONLY good thing in it.

It was at this point that INSIDIOUS finally began to show some originality. Nothing ground-breaking, mind you. This movie isn’t quite exactly a breath of fresh air. But it at least takes us in some interesting directions.

MA:  Really?  A place called the Further is an interesting direction? I didn’t buy this direction at all.  I half-expected to see HELLBOY roaming through the kitchen in search of a beer.  It was just too much exposition at this point, and not enough raw scares, which we had in the first half.

(HELLBOY suddenly enters the room from the kitchen)

HELLBOY: You guys got any beer? I ran out of Tecate.

LS: Go away, we’re reviewing a movie here.

HELLBOY: I hate you guys! (leaves in a huff)

LS:  Despite some interesting twists toward the end, though, I can’t recommend INSIDIOUS very highly. I mean, the acting and direction are fine, I’m actually a fan of director James Wan, even if I don’t think he’s made a really great movie yet. But we’ve seen most of this before. And when things start to show a glimmer of creativity, it’s not enough to save it.

MA:  I completely disagree with your take on this one.  I loved the first half but not the second half.

I loved the job director James Wan did during the first half of this movie.  I’d give him an A+ for direction.  He was pushing all the right buttons. The movie looks fantastic, and during the first 45 minutes or so, it’s absolutely full of fun scares.  And within the confines of a PG-13 rating, he wasn’t going to be able to gross people out, which meant he’d have to be creative with his scares, and he was.  Even during the second half, Wan still was doing some neat things with the camera.

However, as much as I liked the direction, I didn’t like the screenplay by Leigh Whannell all that much.  He completely loses me in the second half with an unconvincing narrative and misplaced comic relief.  He had me in the first half.

Yet, even during the strong opening, there were some problems.  I thought the mom, Renai, was slow to freak out.  The night she hears the whispers on the baby monitor, the whispers actually become a clearly audible booming loud shout from an obviously demonic sounding voice, and yet the next day she calmly says to her husband, “Something strange happened last night.  I thought I heard someone in the baby’s room.”

Thought you heard? Lady, you need to get your ears checked!

LS: I dunno, the husband had a reasonable explanation – that it might have been interference or a crossed signal from another nearby house. Maybe someone was playing a joke on her.

MA: Some joke. Who’s their neighbor?  Satan?

Also, I don’t know what kind of a teacher the husband Josh is supposed to be, as it wasn’t made clear, but it looked like he was a school teacher, and they’re living in an extremely fancy house?  Not very realistic, especially in this day and age when funding for public schools is being cut left and right, and salaries are being frozen.

I thought the acting was fine.  Patrick Wilson was fine as the dad, even though he’s absent from most of the film’s scary first half, as he’s always working late.  I thought Rose Byrne was excellent as the mom, and I thought she gave the best performance in the film. Not that it was Oscar-worthy or anything, but she was very good.

I liked her character a lot, better than her husband, and I wish the movie had made her the central character involved in rescuing their son, rather than the dad.

MEDIUM (in the background): Can you hear me now?

MA: Towards the end, the scenes inside the Further were dark, foggy, and very atmospheric.

LS: Are you serious? It looks like someone just turned on a fog machine! It would have been nice if the Further actually looked like another world; if they’d only taken the time to really give us something fascinating and other-worldly.

MA: Well, there were a few scary things lurking inside that fog.

However, I though the ending of the movie was stupid and abrupt, and it did nothing for me.

All in all, my favorite part of INSIDIOUS was the work of director James Wan.  In fact, to me, if there’s a reason to see INSIDIOUS, that’s it:  Wan does a terrific job at the helm, and he gives the movie lots of scares during its first half before the film loses steam, getting bogged down in lots of contrived exposition.

But based on the strength of its first half, which I found a lot of fun and very scary, I’m giving it two and a half knives.

LS: Really? I give it one and a half knives.

MEDIUM: Are you two done blathering yet? I want to get back to contacting the spirits.

LS: Yeah, yeah. Keep your pants on.

One correction I have to make to Michael’s comments is that this movie isn’t very scary. A lot of the “scares” are downright silly. Including one scene where a young boy dressed in an outfit from the 1920s (oversized cap and coat) runs around the house and Renai chases him. There is nothing scary about this kid, and yet it’s all played out as if the director felt it was a very tense scene. Also, that demon with a bright red face and a forked tongue is meant to be scary, but it’s not. It looked kind of silly, even if there was a cool effect later on as it climbs walls.

MA:  I disagree completely.  Again, I’m giving credit to director Wan here.  He made these scenes scary.  It’s a very stylish first half.

LS: You really thought that scene with the little kid running around the house was scary? He didn’t even have a monster face or anything. He was just a kid playing hide and seek. I guess it doesn’t take much to scare you.

MA:  When he leaps out of the closet unexpectedly, yeah, that was scary.

LS (laughs):  Oh well. Will little Dalton ever wake up from his coma? Will the Lamberts ever be able to move to a house that isn’t haunted? For the answers to these questions and more, you’ve got to go see INSIDIOUS for yourself, although you may want to wait until you can rent it on Netflix.

MEDIUM:  Shh!  I hear a voice. It’s saying— it’s saying—.

LS:  Yes?  What’s it saying?

MEDIUM:  It’s saying “Where’s the beef?”

MA:  Where’s the beef?  You must have tapped into that old lady from the Wendy’s commercials from the 1980s.

MEDIUM:  There’s more!  I hear—John Williams music playing in the background.  I see a strange-looking dwarf lady and she’s saying something about the light.

MA:  Uh-oh.

LS:  Let’s get out of here!

MA:  Okay, folks, we’ll see you next week!

MEDIUM:  And there’s a red-faced demon.  He’s carrying a light saber—.

(MA & LS flee.)

—END—

© Copyright 2011 by Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares


Michael Arruda gives INSIDIOUS - two and a half knives!

L.L. Soares gives INSIDIOUS - one and a half knives!

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