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Me and Lil’ Stevie: CREEPSHOW II (1987)

Posted in 2013, 80s Horror, Anthology Films, Ghosts!, Me and Lil' Stevie, Monsters, Peter Dudar Reviews, Sea Creatures, Stephen King Movies with tags 80s horror, Chief Wood'nhead, Creepshow 2, gore, Michael Gornick, scares, stephen king, The Hitchhiker, The Raft on March 27, 2013 by knifefighter

Me and Lil’ Stevie
Periodically Enjoy
CREEPSHOW II (1987)
By Peter Dudar

(Exterior-day: Establishing shot of quiet Maine town by morning. There is a little boy sitting on his bicycle just outside the local newsstand, waiting for a very special delivery. An old army-style canvas-covered delivery truck adorned with comic book graphics pulls up, and the little boy sits up tall on his bike. The truck parks, and then there is a figure rummaging around the back of the truck, sorting through bundles of magazines. The figure tosses a bundle out onto the curb, and the boy goes to reach for it. Suddenly, the boy stops and looks up at the figure in the back of the truck. The camera pans upward and we see that the figure is a man holding a ventriloquist dummy in the form of Master of Horror, Stephen King.)

Lil’ Stevie: I wouldn’t do that, son…I really wouldn’t.

Peter: Why not? Little Billy, here, just wants the very first copy.

Billy: Yeah! It’s all mine! I got here first!

Peter: Go ahead, Billy. Open it up. You’ve earned it.

(Billy opens up the package. Instead of being filled with comic books, the package is filled with autographed pictures of Justin Beiber.)

Billy: Nooooooo! (abandons his bicycle and runs away screaming).

Lil’ Stevie: Hyuk Hyuk Hyuk…they fall for it every time!

Peter: Welcome, Constant Viewer, to another fun-filled episode. Today, we’ll be discussing Michael Gornick’s 1987 film directorial debut, CREEPSHOW II. Gornick, like a lot of other directors that have cut their teeth on Stephen King projects, has a long history of working in the cinema, serving as a cinematographer, production manager, camera and sound engineer, actor, and producer. He is equally steeped in made-for-television projects as well. So, when George Romero (director of the original CREEPSHOW, 1982) passed on the project, Gornick stepped in (he was cinematographer on CREEPSHOW, and was familiar with the spirit of the project).

Lil’ Stevie: And the fans of CREEPSHOW rejoiced! Boo-ya!

Peter: Not exactly. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. As you already know, Constant Viewer, we examined the original CREEPSHOW back in episode 7, and we happen to consider it a favorite of ours, so we want to treat this entry as fairly and unbiased as possible.

Lil’ Stevie: Which means we sat our butts down and re-watched it, for old time’s sake.

Peter: The film begins pretty much as we’ve established with the delivery truck, turning Little Billy’s wraparound segment into an animated storyline featuring him and “The Creep” (Tom Savini, special effects maestro and character actor, FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, 1996).

Lil’ Stevie: You’re already getting it wrong. The Creep is played by Joe Silver (RABID, 1977).

Peter (sighing): Silver provided the voice. Now, quit interrupting. It bears mentioning that the original film was constructed with comic book panels and artwork interspersed with the live action sequences. It made the movie feel like a comic-book-come-to-life, which was an enormous part of the campy charm that made the original so cool (not to mention comic art veteran Bernie Wrightson’s stunning contributions). All of that is traded off for “The Creep’s” animated spookshow-host narration. I found this to be an annoyance more than an upgrade. At the time of this film’s theatrical release, HBO was already knocking ‘em dead with their “Crypt Keeper” in TALES FROM THE CRYPT. This feels like a bad rip-off.

Lil’ Stevie: Can we talk about my stories? My stories are what bring the movie to life!

(Peter reaches down and snatches up an autographed photo of Justin Beiber)

Peter: Here, this is for you. Aren’t you his “Number-one fan?”

(Lil’ Stevie turns aside and throws up).

Peter: Holy cow! How are you doing that? You’re a puppet. You can’t throw up!

Lil’ Stevie: (Dragging his sleeve across his mouth) Oh yeah? Well, you can’t write for beans!

Peter: (Shaking his head). You disgust me. Anyway, the REAL Stephen King provided three stories for the film; OLD CHIEF WOOD’NHEAD, THE RAFT, and THE HITCHHIKER (with THE RAFT being the only one of the three segments to appear as a published story. It was released in Gallery magazine in 1982, and then in the collection SKELETON CREW in 1985). The first story, OLD CHIEF WOODN’HEAD, concerns Ray and Martha Spruce (George Kennedy and Dorothy Lamour). The Spruces (a loving nod, perhaps, to Tabitha King’s family) are an elderly couple who own and operate the only general store in Dead River, Arizona. The town, it seems, has washed up and blown away, and its few remaining citizens (most of them being Native American) are in debt to the Spruces. Ray Spruce doesn’t seem all that concerned, though. He’s done very well over the years, and feels obligated to give back to the people that supported him.

Lil’ Stevie: The beginning of the story sees Ray outside his store, painting new war stripes on Chief Wood’nhead; the cigar store-style Indian statue that stands on the store’s front porch.

Peter: While he’s working, his neighbor, Benjamin Whitemoon (Frank Salsedo, MAGIC IN THE WATER, 1995) pays him a visit. Whitemoon brings a pouch of Native American jewelry that he has collected from his people as a kind of promissory note to pay off the debts his people have incurred. “I’ll guard it with my life,” Ray promises. He tries to convince Whitemoon that prosperity is in the air and that the town is going to come back, but he and Whitemoon already know this isn’t to be. The pouch is the only payment he is going to see for his kindness, and by taking it, he allows Whitemoon’s people to remain borrowers rather than beggars.

Lil’ Stevie: You NEVER promise to guard something with your life. You just don’t do it.

Peter: That’s right. Because Whitemoon’s nephew Sam (Holt McCallany, GANGSTER SQUAD, 2013) and his buddies want that wampum. They hold up the store, taking what little cash the Spruces have, but Sam has his eye set on the pouch of jewelry. The heist quickly turns into a killing spree, with Martha gunned down while her husband watches helpless, trying to talk Sam out of what he’s about to do. When Ray refuses to let go of the treasure he promised to guard with his life, he, too is murdered and the pouch is pried from his cold, dead hands. And then Sam and his buddies are racing off to leave Dead River for new digs in Hollywood.

Lil’ Stevie: Not if Old Chief Wood’nhead can help it…

Peter: Precisely. In E.C. Comics-style vengeance, the Chief (Dan Kamin, MARS ATTACKS, 1996) comes to life and goes on the warpath against the hooligans who killed the folks that took such good care of him. The siege doesn’t end until all three are dead, with Sam’s scalp (which he treasured) clutched in his hand as he finds rest at his original post outside the store. The Chief is the real star of this story, and the makeup effects for the statue come-to-life by Gregory Nicotero and company deserve mad props. This film is one of the last of its breed; the kind with guys in rubber suits and prosthetic appliances providing the scares rather than CGI. It pays off as you watch the Chief’s subtle facial movements and statuesque body motions.

Lil’ Stevie: …and the blood shots, squirting all over the walls as the Chief swings his tomahawk.

Peter: On kind of a funny off-note, I’d always believed that Rodney Grant played Sam Whitemoon. Grant is the Native American actor that portrayed Wind In His Hair in 1990’s DANCES WITH WOLVES. It turns out that Holt McCallany isn’t even Native American. Crazy, huh?

Lil’ Stevie: Hilarious. You’re an imbecile.

Peter: (pulls out a tomahawk and crunches it into Lil’ Stevie’s head.) Heh. That’s funny, too. The second story, THE RAFT, is about four college kids who race off to a lake after the summer season has ended to go for a swim in the lake’s secluded waters. A joint is passed around as Deke and Randy drag their best gals, Laverne and Rachel, to the lake in Deke’s bitchin’ Camaro. They arrive at the lake with the radio blasting terrible 80s music, and the boys race right into the lake and begin paddling toward The Raft. The girls follow reluctantly, and as they are swimming, the boys notice a weird, oily membrane floating on the water (the membrane eats a duck alive, to their horror). Once they are all up on the raft, the kids are held hostage by the membrane, which now seems to move and have a mind of its own. Rachel buys it first, gently prodding the membrane to see what it is, only to have the membrane snatch her off the raft and eat her up. Deke dies next, as the membrane slides effortlessly between the raft’s slits and begins chewing away his flesh.

Lil’ Stevie: Randy and Laverne manage to survive all night, but thanks to Randy’s randy hormones, Laverne falls prey to the membrane. As the gelatinous blob eats her alive, Randy decides to make a break for it and swim to the shore…but will he make it out alive?

Peter: This was my favorite segment of the film, and Gornick’s cinematography skills really shine in how this was shot. It’s beautifully done, the way the camera floats past the kids on the raft at eye-level. It’s great stuff. Again, all that’s missing is the neat comic book panels from the original film.

Lil’ Stevie: The acting was a tad weak in this one. None of these kids had star quality, and none of them had any meteoric rise to fame because of this movie.

Peter: Sad but true. The last segment, THE HITCHHIKER, stars Lois Chiles (MOONRAKER, 1979) as Annie Lansing, the wife of a successful attorney. Lois has been throwing her husband’s hard-earned money at her favorite gigolo for sex, but in spite of her infidelity, she’s terrified of being home one minute late from the affair as it will anger her husband severely. So, after an evening of wanton sex with her lover, she notices she’s late and will never be home on time. She floors the pedal of her BMW in her bid to get home, and in the process, she accidentally runs over some hapless hitchhiker (Tom Wright, BARBER SHOP, 2002) holding a sign reading DOVER.

Lil’ Stevie: Stephen King cameo! King plays a truck driver, who happens to be the first on the scene after Annie Lansing disappears in her BMW.

Peter: The shaken adulterer speeds away, trying to convince herself that she can always turn herself in if she can’t live with the guilt, but the guilt has already begun to manifest itself. It seems the Hitchhiker isn’t really dead, and will haunt her ride home. The corpse seems to turn up over and over again, until Annie is literally running his body into trees, and then driving back and forth over the poor guy’s remains until he is the nastiest road kill you’ve ever seen.

Lil’ Stevie: We really ramped up the gore on this one. Like the first segment, this tale is all about revenge.

Peter: It’s really all about guilt. We don’t honestly know if the Hitchhiker is really haunting her, or if she’s injured her head in the accident and is hallucinating the whole thing. But Annie eventually makes it back home and parks her totaled car in the garage, where the Hitchhiker visits her one last time…

Lil’ Stevie: And her husband finds her dead body in a haze of carbon monoxide. Maybe she couldn’t live with the guilt after all.

Peter: A couple of things about this movie…Putting aside the lack of comic book panel framing, this film’s stories verge more on the serious side rather than the campy side that the original movie had. The first film’s characters were more like caricatures, more stereotypical than typical. This film opted to play it straight, leaving the comedy to the goofy animated “Creep” segments, and that detracts from the overall impact of the movie. It’s no wonder that so many King and Romero fans were disappointed with this film (and that’s taking into consideration that Romero wrote the screenplay based on King’s stories). The stories are very stripped down and one-dimensional, making them predictable in their outcomes. But they work. They are entertaining stories built on morality plays. What would you do if you accidentally ran someone over and killed them? What would you do if you and your friends were stuck on a raft with something trying to eat you?

Lil’ Stevie: I’d make sure you got eaten first!

Peter: Thanks. I can always count on you. I guess my final word on this one is that it falls under the category of “What could have been…” This could have been great if it stuck to the formula that made the first movie so great. It could have been great if they left out “The Creep” and stuck with the nifty comic book with its pages flapping in the breeze. It could have been great with a bit more campy humor. And it could have been great with one or two more stories. The three tales (and the wraparound story with Billy getting chased by the bullies) just don’t offer a satisfying meal for us to feast on. Two vengeance tales and a badly-acted hostage story fall short of a complete anthology film.

Lil’ Stevie: Unless you’re Mario Bava. BLACK SABBATH (1963) rocks!

Peter: In the meantime, we’ll keep hoping King and Romero get it together and put out a legitimate CREEPSHOW III, unlike the one that was released in 2006 that had nothing to do with either of them. Agreed?

Lil’ Stevie: Agreed. Well, boils and ghouls, we’ll be slaying ya…er, seeing ya next month! Bwahahahaha!

(Peter leans down and picks up Billy’s bicycle and climbs on, setting Lil’ Stevie on the handlebars.)

Peter: Thanks a lot, Billy…thanks for the ride! (Pedals away).

MAMA (2013)

Posted in 2013, Based on a Short Film, CGI, Cinema Knife Fights, Evil Spirits, Feral people, Ghosts!, Guillermo Del Toro, Haunted Houses, Horror, Indie Horror, Scares!, Supernatural with tags Andres Muschietti, Evil Spirits, Feral Children, ghosts, Guilllermo Del Toro, Jessica Chastain, Mama, scares on January 21, 2013 by knifefighter

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

(THE SCENE: A cabin in the woods. L.L. SOARES and MICHAEL ARRUDA arrive in the middle of the night. There’s no electricity, so they have to turn on flashlights)

LS: Remind me to come here when there’s daylight next time.

MA: That would be too easy, and smart. Unlike the characters in today’s movie MAMA, who continually show up at the mysterious cabin in the film at night, and when there’s no power. Dumb!

LS: It’s just bad writing. Why not just stay at a motel until daytime?

MA: So why don’t you save your flashlight batteries and start our review of MAMA?

LS (shuts off the flashlight): Okie doke. They’re promoting MAMA with a heavy reliance on Guillermo del Toro, but he didn’t direct it, he produced it. Andres Muschietti directed this one, based on his three-minute short film of the same name (if you’re curious, check out the short film here on Youtube) Del Toro has said that when he saw the short, he had to help Muschietti turn it into a feature, and rightly so. The short film is just one short scene where two young girls are visited by “Mama,” but it’s spooky enough so that you want to see more.

MA: Yes, in spite of the fact that we started this column poking fun at the stupidity of characters visiting places in the dark, MAMA is quite creepy and certainly satisfies in the spooky department.

LS: Let’s go outside. It’s too dark in here, and the moon is up.

MA: Okay.

(As they go outside, LS continues talking)

LS: The expanded movie delves into more weird stuff. First off, we see a guy named Jeffrey (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who also plays Jaime Lannister, one of my favorite characters on the HBO series GAME OF THRONES), who has just come home after going on a shooting spree at work (and we’re told he just killed his ex-wife as well). He grabs his two young daughters and hightails it out of town, but a car accident cuts his plans short. After crashing into a ditch, Jeffrey takes the girls into the woods, until they find a seemingly abandoned cabin. He brings them inside, intent on killing them and himself to put an end to the nightmare his life has become. But something intervenes and saves the girls from his madness.

MA: I really liked this opening scene, and it set the stage perfectly for the rest of the movie. Its sets up a relationship between Mama and the little girls that makes this one a more credible ghost story than most.

LS: We then jump ahead five years. Some private detectives (they look more like hillbillies) have been searching for Jeffrey and the girls and come across the cabin. How it took five years for anyone to find the crashed car or the cabin confounds me! You know that the police must have searched the area thoroughly when Jeffrey was originally on the run with the kids. So why did it take five years for someone to track them down?

MA: Agreed. While it’s incredibly difficult to locate a body in a vast expanse of woods, it makes less sense for a car to remain hidden for that long, especially when it’s in the open. You’d think a plane or a helicopter flying overhead would have spotted it at least.

LS: Didn’t you just get through saying this story was more credible than most?

MA: I was talking about the actual ghost’s story. Most of the time, I’m thinking, why does the ghost care about scaring these people? In MAMA, I understood Mama’s motives completely, and it made her actions all the more potent.

LS: Fair enough. So those hillbilly detectives find that the girls, Victoria (Megan Charpentier) and Lilly (Isabelle Nelisse), who have reverted to a feral state after being abandoned for so long. Victoria remembers basic skills she learned as a younger child (like she starts talking again fairly soon after their rescue), but Lilly is more feral than civilized and constantly hides behind her sister, afraid of the world.

MA: I thought these early scenes of the girls in this feral state were particularly creepy and unnerving.

LS: Yeah, they’re pretty great. I almost wish we could have seen more of them in this state.

(Two filthy, feral little girls in clean white dresses suddenly appear near them.)

MA: Uh-oh. I’m getting creeped out here.

LS: Don’t be a wuss. They’re just little kids.

LITTLE GIRL: Pa-pa.

MA: No, I think you’re supposed to say “Mama.”

LITTLE GIRL (kicks MA in the knee): Papa!

MA: Okay, okay! Papa it is. Ouch! That was some kick!

LS (laughing): I like this little kid.

Anyway, back to the movie.

The girls are taken in by their uncle Lucas (also Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) an artist, and his girlfriend Annabel (Jessica Chastain, who we also saw in everything from THE TREE OF LIFE, 2011, to THE HELP, 2011, to ZERO DARK THIRTY, 2012), who plays bass in a punk band. They’re not exactly the most orthodox couple to take in troubled kids, but it’s either that or they go to their Aunt Jean (Jane Moffat, who also does the voice of Mama!), and Lucas obviously feels guilty about what the girls have gone through and wants to make things right.

MA: I liked this part of the story as well, that Lucas and Annabel are such an unorthodox couple to care for a pair of kids. They’re not cut out to care for healthy and well balanced children, let alone these kids! In fact, in Annabel’s first scene, she’s taking a home pregnancy test and rejoices that she’s not pregnant.

This set-up was more original than most, and the movie is better for it.

LS: But it’s not going to be easy. Victoria and Lilly regressed to a very primal state while they were left to fend for themselves, and it’s going to be a long journey back to a normal life. On top of that, there’s Mama. A supernatural creature who took care of them all those years in the cabin and who visits them frequently in Lucas’s house. The thing is, Mama is incredibly dangerous to everyone but the two girls.

LITTLE GIRL: Pa-pa.

LS: You talking to me?

LITTLE GIRL: Pa-pa.

LS: No, I’m not your papa, kid. Scram, you’re starting to bother me!

(Little Girl kicks LS in knee.)

LS (howling in pain): If you weren’t a little kid, I’d take a hatchet and—.!

MA: Hey, kids, I think you’ll find some really yummy candy in that cabin over there. Why don’t you check it out?

(Little girls nod, join arms and skip towards cabin, but not before the second little girl kicks MA in his other knee.)

MA (grimacing): Son of a bitch!

(Little girls exit)

LS: Let’s finish this review and get out of here before those brats come back.

MA: Sounds good to me.

LS: When Lucas has an “accident” and falls down a flight of stairs , Annabel has to care for the girls by herself. Slowly, she bonds with them, but this incurs the ire of the very jealous Mama, who doesn’t want anyone else taking care of the girls.

Throughout the movie, there are various scenes where Annabel comes very close to “meeting” Mama, but the movie holds off their meeting for a while. In fact, in one chilling scene, Annabel knows there is something in the girls’ closet, but when Victoria warns her not to go in there, she actually closes the slightly open door and walks away (finally, someone in a horror movie who’s not an idiot).

MA (Applauds): Bravo!

LS: Trying to help discover the truth is Dr. Dreyfus (Daniel Kash) who is the one who arranges for Lucas and Annabel to get custody of the girls, so they’ll stay close by and he can continue to get access to monitoring them on a regular basis for his research.

MAMA has some legitimate scares, and I liked it. At times, it reminded me of the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY movies—the way you need to pay attention to things going on in the background, etc. It also reminded me a bit of THE WOMAN IN BLACK (2012), the way we’re constantly subjected to sudden scares by a creepy female ghost with issues about children. While I thought WOMAN IN BLACK was okay, it could have been better. And I think MAMA works a lot better.

MA: I’m glad you mentioned PARANORMAL ACTIVITY. I saw MAMA in a packed theater with a very enthusiastic audience. There was lots of loud screaming and plenty of nervous jokes, like the obvious “Why does everyone keep going to these places at night?” and “Wait till daylight, numb nuts!”, and so the experience reminded me a lot of watching a PARANORMAL ACTIVITY movie. Granted, a lot of what they were screaming at, I wasn’t, but it still made for a really fun time.

LS: My audience was similar, and it did add to the fun.

MA: I liked this one a lot too.

LS: My only issue is about the monster. As long as she’s in the background and the shadows, she’s really effective, but Mama looks a little hokey when we finally get a good look at her, up close. She’s a CGI creation (of course), and it’s funny, but she just seemed scarier to me in the “Mama” short film that preceded this one, even though the short obviously had a much smaller budget. She’s not awful in close-up in the movie– she’s still better than most CGI monsters – but I was hoping she’d be even creepier.

MA: Really? I liked the way Mama looked. Sure, she’s CGI, but I thought she looked more real than most CGI effects. I thought she resembled a rotting corpse come back to life. What I liked about it is I took her rotting self to be symbolic of the pain she felt over the loss of her child. There was a sadness to her appearance throughout that really worked for me. So, I can’t say that I was disappointed with Mama herself. I thought she was an effective and very haunting spirit.

LS: Like the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY films there were a lot of scenes where things (in this case Mama or the kids) suddenly pop up in the background or jump at us. While this works in the scare department (like we were saying, a lot of people in the audience I saw this with were shouting whenever a “scare” happened), it seems to be a cheap way to get scares after a while.

MA: Yep, that’s when my audience was screaming as well. I agree with you about it being a cheap way to get scares, but in this case, it seemed to work. One thing I did like about it was most of the time it wasn’t a “false” scare, like having someone other than the ghost bump into a character and spook them. I really hate those kinds of scares. Mama seemed to have exclusive rights scaring folks in this one, and she’s damn good at it!

Of course, the little girls did some of the frightening too, especially early on, but they were pretty darn creepy as well!

LS: I do think the acting is very good, though. Jessica Chastain is obviously meant to be the lead here, and she does a fine job as a woman out of her element (as Michael mentioned, when we first see her, she’s relieved that she isn’t pregnant, then, suddenly, two strange children are thrust upon her). I really like her as an actress, and it’s cool to see her in a horror movie. She’s just fine here.

MA: Yes, I liked Jessica Chastain a lot. Annabel is actually a pretty well-written character, and Chastain makes her believable as hell. I found it so refreshing in a movie like this that she wasn’t a “doting” mother type. She wanted nothing to do with these kids, so as the movie goes on and the bond between them grows, it really works.

LS: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is good as Lucas (and, briefly in the beginning, Jeffrey), even if he’s not given as much to do. Annabelle is clearly the more compelling character of the two, which is confirmed when Lucas is taken out of commission and she has to take care of the kids herself.

MA: Coster-Waldau was okay, although truth be told I had difficulty recognizing when he was in a coma and when he was out of one.

LS: Ouch! That’s harsh! But you’re right.

MA: He was all right, but the character of Uncle Lucas is nothing compared to Annabelle. He could have stayed in a coma and I wouldn’t have cared.

LS: Agreed. Daniel Kash is also very good as the not-so-trustworthy Dr. Drefus, who has his own agenda.

But the best acting actually comes from the kids.

MA: Agreed, although I enjoyed Jessica Chastain just as much as the two girls.

LS: You’re right, Chastain holds her own. But we already know she’s good. The kids are a revelation.

Megan Charpentier as Victoria seems wise beyond her years and is very mature and controlled as her character. I was very impressed with her performance. Isabelle Nelisse, who plays the younger Lilly, is actually very spooky in several scenes, and downright unnerving. I was even more impressed by her, even though she doesn’t say a lot and does most of her acting with her behavior and facial expressions.

MA: You got that right! And she’s such cute little kid, too! Yet she’s so creepy! I think director Andres Muschietti deserves credit for capturing this very dark side of her.

LS: Both girls do a remarkable job here and are way above the average kid actors we see in movies. I think they’re a big part of why MAMA works as well as it does.

The direction by Andres Muschietti is quite good, and the script by Muschietti and his sister Barbara (and Neil Cross) is pretty solid for this kind of thing. And it doesn’t completely fall apart at the end (it falters slightly, but doesn’t fall apart).

Usually January is when studios put out movies that they’re not so proud of, but there’s no reason why anyone should feel that way about MAMA. I liked this movie a lot and give it three and a half knives.

What did you think, Michael?

MA: I’m with you on this one. I liked MAMA a lot, and I was surprised that I liked it as much as I did.

To me, it starts with the script by Neil Cross, director Andres Muschietti, and Barbara Muschietti. Its story was more intelligent than most, and other than having people visit places in the dark when they could just as easily visit them in daylight, I didn’t find myself scratching my head at the proceedings all that much.

I liked the background story of Mama herself, felt sympathy for her, and understood where she was coming from when she was being so possessive of the little girls. I also really enjoyed the story of the little girls. Their lives begin so tragically I couldn’t help but feel for them as their story continued.

And Annabel and Lucas are such an unconventional couple for this kind of tale they were definitely refreshing. I enjoyed Jessica Chastain’s performance a lot as Annabel, and she along with the two little girls really drive this movie along.

But the most satisfying part of MAMA is that it succeeds in being scary, and I think director Andres Muschietti deserves a lot of credit for crafting such an effective horror movie.

The film contains your standard “someone-appears-out-of-nowhere” jolt scenes, along with some creepy little kid scenes, and best of all, some genuinely scary supernatural ghost scenes which I thought looked better than most CGI stuff I see.

I did think the film faltered a bit towards the end, which seemed rushed. How Annabel and Lucas end up together at the cabin in the woods (hmm, that has a nice ring to it!) is a bit of a stretch – I mean, he’s still in the hospital, and suddenly he just gets up and leaves, heads for the cabin, and just happens to be crossing the road just as Annabel approaches in her car.

Also, I wasn’t crazy about the look of the film near the end, as the woods take on a very cartoonish Tim Burton air.

However, I did like the very end of the movie, and I found it satisfying. It also stayed true to the rest of the story. There weren’t any “I’m an evil ghost so I’ll just kill everybody for no reason” or “The main characters have done right by me and so now my heart has just grown ten sizes bigger and now I’m going to give everyone a big hug” moments. Mama’s behavior remains consistent throughout.

Sure, there were a few flaws here and there, most notably towards the end, but I found myself liking MAMA a lot. I liked it just a tad less than you did, though.

I give it three knives.

LS: Well, that wraps things up for another edition of Cinema Knife Fight. We’ll see you next week with another review of—-.
MA: Uh-oh. They’re coming back. Look!

(The little girls return.)

OLDER GIRL: There wasn’t any candy in that cabin. You lied to us.

LITTLE GIRL: Pa-pa. (She points to behind MA & LS)

(MA and LS look behind them to see ghostly male figure standing behind them.)

PAPA (growls): Let’s go girls. It’s your weekend to be with Papa.

MA: Hmm. Even ghosts have custody issues. Who knew!

(Cabin door opens and MAMA steps out with her hands on her hips and begins scolding PAPA for being late.)

LS: Let’s get out of here before things get ugly.

MA: I hope this isn’t a set up for a sequel, PAPA.

LS: Quiet! Don’t give them any ideas!

—END—

Michael Arruda gives MAMA ~ three knives!

LL Soares gives MAMA ~three and a half knives.

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3

Posted in 2011, Cinema Knife Fights, Demons, Family Secrets, Faux Documentaries, Ghosts!, Gimmicks, Paranormal, Prequels, Scares!, Sequels with tags Ariel Schulman, Henry Joost, Katie Featherston, Paranormal Activity, scares, Sprague Greydon on October 24, 2011 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT: PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 (2011)
By Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares

(NIGHT #3. October 23, 2011. 2:33 AM)

(THE SCENE: A bedroom, night. A figure lies asleep in a bed, being recorded by a video camera. The bedroom door is ajar. It slams shut with a loud thud. MICHAEL ARRUDA jumps up from the bed with a start.)

MICHAEL ARRUDA: L.L., is that you?

(L.L. SOARES’s muffled voice): Me? What? What’s going on?

(LS appears from under the covers, and as soon as MA and LS realize they’re in the same bed, they both scream and leap to the floor.)

LS: What am I doing in your house?

MA: Don’t you remember, you were supposed to be playing the ghost at the door?

LS: I thought you were! I told you I wanted the napping role!

MA: Oh. I thought you said “nabbing” role.

LS: Who says “nabbing” role? What the hell does that mean?

MA: I don’t know. It’s what I heard. Anyway, if we’re both here, who slammed the door?

LS: I don’t know, and I don’t care. That stuff seems less scary all of a sudden.

MA (looks at bed): I know what you mean. Anyway, how about we start reviewing this week’s movie?

LS: You go first. I’m going to make myself some hot chocolate to settle myself down.

MA: Okie-dokie.

(LS leaves out of the door that previously slammed, leaving it ajar on his way out)

MA: That was weird.

Anyway, today we’re reviewing PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 (2011), the latest installment in the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY series, obviously. This one begins with video footage from 2005 and then 2006 in which we again see the sisters who were the main characters from the first two movies—Kristi Rey (Sprague Greydon) and Katie (Katie Featherston)— and in these scenes we witness the discovery of videotapes of the girls’ childhood from 1988 that were previously from their grandma’s basement. These tapes are stolen, but who stole them and how we end up watching them is left unclear.

But we do end up watching them, as they make up the main story of this movie, which takes us back to the sisters’ childhood, so we can see how all these freakish paranormal occurrences began to happen to them even while they were children. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 is pretty much a prequel, then, to the first two movies. Prequel? Didn’t we just do this last week with THE THING (2011)?

(Door slams)

MA: What the!

LS (returns with steaming mug of hot chocolate): Yep, we did. Actually, Part 2 was mostly a prequel to the first movie (with a little bit of a “sequel” at the end), so Part 3 is mostly a prequel to a prequel.

MA: I’m confused.

LS: No, no, you’re doing fine. Keep going.

MA: What the hell kind of hot chocolate is that? (Looking into mug) What are those? Eyeballs?

LS: Yeah! What do you put in your hot chocolate? Marshmallows?

MA: Well— yeah.

LS: What a wuss.

MA: Anyway— so, the action takes place in 1988, as we meet the girl’s mom Julie (Lauren Bittner) and her live-in boyfriend Dennis (Christopher Nicholas Smith). Dennis videotapes weddings for a living (if you can call it that, since his lack of income is a sore spot in their relationship) and so he’s rather obsessed with video cameras. He convinces Julie to let him tape them having sex, but before they can complete the act, there is an earthquake (they live in Carlsbad, California). During the quake, dust from the rattled walls and ceiling floats in the room, coating what looks to be a spectral figure in the corner, and this phenomenon is captured by Dennis’s camera.

And since they’ve also been hearing weird noises in the middle of the night, Dennis decides to set up some video cameras around the house, hoping to catch more glimpses of their “ghost.” What he captures is Julie’s youngest daughter getting up in the middle of the night talking to someone— someone she calls Toby— who everyone else knows better as her imaginary friend.

Dennis captures more weird things on his camera, and he also gets his buddy Randy (Dustin Ingram, who gets to appear in one of the scarier scenes of the movie) involved, when he shows these spooky things to him. Eventually, Dennis becomes convinced that Julie and her daughters are in danger, but Julie disagrees, dismissing her daughter’s behaviors as normal child behavior—kids do weird things, she says—and she grows increasingly irritated by her camera-toting boyfriend.

In this case, you shoulda listened to Dennis, Julie!

LS: I’ll say.

MA: PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 is exactly what I expected it to be: spooky scary stuff without much of a story to hold it together, and that’s the main reason I’m not a big fan of this series. To me, the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY series raises “cheap scares” to another level. We’re subjected to repeated scenes of silent homes at night while people sleep— for anyone who’s spent time alone in a quiet house, these things are naturally scary. It’s creepy when you hear a noise in the middle of the night. Spooky, yes, creative, no.

The PARANORMAL ACTIVITY movies just don’t have much of a story, and they suffer for it. Watching these movies is like watching a TV reality show with cameras filming weird things going on in people’s homes. Sure, it’s entertaining in a voyeuristic sort of way, but it just doesn’t do it for me the way other more traditional horror movies do.

(LS suddenly moves toward the camera and appears to be talking to someone. He looks upset. Then he moves back to where MA is)

MA: What was that all about?

LS: Nothin’

MA: Who were you talking to.

LS: Toby. But he told me not to tell anyone what he said.

MA: Tell Toby he’s being a pain in the ass.

LS: Sure, but do you really want me to tell him that?

MA: Like I’m supposed to believe he’s really over there.

LS: Hey, Toby. He just called you a pain in the ass. (To MA) You’ll be sorry.

MA (shrugs it off): Anyway, All this being sad, the films, this one included, are creepy, and they do provide some jolting scares, but they’re the kind of scares one gets while walking through a Halloween Haunted House attraction rather than watching a well-written horror movie. Still, being scared is fun, and I can’t deny that watching PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 was fun, because it was, especially in a crowded theater (I’m guessing this one’s going to enjoy a strong opening weekend), but there’s just not that much to it. I left the theater wanting more.

There were some neat touches and some scary scenes. I liked the camera on the fan oscillator bit, as that set the stage for some creepy material. I also loved the “Bloody Mary” scene, as it was probably my favorite scene of the whole movie, although it’s not the same one showed in the movie’s trailers.

Wanna play "Bloody Mary?"

LS: Yeah, I actually thought this bit of information was fascinating. We talk about trailers a lot here – about ones that give too much away, about ones that keep you wanting more and in this case we finally get someone who knows what the hell they are doing. There are scenes in the trailer for PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 that were filmed just for the trailer. We don’t see them in the movie. And they are not just throw-away scenes – they are memorable and even may provide clues to the actual film. Not only did they not ruin the movie for their prospective audience, they built up scares before you even saw the movie! Friggin brilliant! That’s what trailers should do!

MA: I guess. I would have liked to have seen those scenes in the movie.

I enjoyed Christopher Nicholas Smith a lot as Dennis, and thought he gave the best performance of the movie. He was a very likable main character, and he wasn’t stupid, so when the freaky stuff starts happening, his reactions seemed real and they made sense.

LS: Yeah, I guess he can be annoying, since he brings his video camera everywhere (luckily for us), but this seems to be how he assimilates the world around him. He uses a camera for a living, but he also is most comfortable using cameras to solve the mystery of this haunted house, and it makes perfect sense that he would use the tools he is comfortable with.

MA: I also really enjoyed Dustin Ingram as his buddy Randy. Randy gets to take part in the scary Bloody Mary scene.

LS: Yeah, Randy is great. I wanted more of him. More of that cute babysitter, too (why didn’t Dennis ever introduce the two of them, like Randy asked?).

MA: Because the movie’s only 85 minutes long. He didn’t have time!

LS: When he gets to experience the weirdness first hand, Randy rightly freaks out and realizes it’s not just sitting around watching creepy videos anymore. Something really is going on, and it hits home.

(LS moves toward the camera and appears to be talking to someone we can’t see again. He seems more agitated, and then steps back to where he was)

MA: Still talking to Toby?

LS (mutters): Someone’s going to be sooooorry.

MA: I wasn’t as enamored with Lauren Bittner as the girls’ mom Julie. She was OK, but I thought her character’s refusal to believe Dennis, in spite of the evidence, was a bit of a stretch, and I know later on she flat out refuses to watch the videos, and so she’s not seeing what Dennis is seeing, but still, with that weird stuff happening, wouldn’t she WANT to see what’s going on?

LS: I have to admit, I thought for once one of these PARANORMAL ACTIVITY movies was going to finally earn its R-rating and show us some skin during the “Let’s tape ourselves having sex” scene with Julie and Dennis. Like you said earlier, an earthquake interrupts them, so all Julie gets down to is her underwear. But seriously, I haven’t figured out how these movies don’t get a PG-13 rating. They’re not gory and there’s not much else to demand an R.

MA: I have to agree with you there, and even more ridiculous, the theater manager was at the ticket booth checking ID’s, even for people who obviously looked in their early 20s. Even better, they had a second employee by the theater entrance to check again!! I thought I was walking into an NC-17 movie or something!

LS: Hey, they were doing some extra carding at my theater, too. I bet it’s because they expect so many kids to sneak into this one. I don’t think it’s because of the movie’s content – it can’t be. But rather because theaters don’t want to lose money for all these kids who plan to sneak in!

MA: Maybe.

LS: Back to our review.

And don’t forget the kids in this movie. They’re terrific. There’s Chloe Csengery as the young Katie and Jessica Tyler Brown as young Kristi Rey. They’re both believable kids, and that’s crucial to a movie like this.

MA: Directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman do a fine job at the helm. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 is well-paced and it’s scary, even if the scares are cheap and sometimes false. Christopher B. Landon wrote the screenplay, and he wrote the screenplay to the second film in the series as well.

LS: Joost and Schulman previously made the faux documentary, CATFISH (2010), about a guy (Ariel Schulman’s brother, Nev) who decides to go and meet a woman he’s been having an online romance with on Facebook, with unexpected results. It was a clever little movie, and the perfect training ground for a PARANORMAL ACTIVITY sequel — I mean, prequel. It’s the same style of filmmaking, except this time for scares, and they do a fine job here. And the script is just as good as the other films in the series.

MA: It’s adequate, but I wanted to know more. For example, who stole the video tapes? How is it that we’re watching them? I really thought there would be some explanations at the end, and there weren’t.

Speaking of the end, I was disappointed with the ending to this movie. I thought it was abrupt and not very satisfying. It definitely left me with that “it can’t be ending here” feeling.

LS: Can you say PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4? This movie is so primed for another sequel, it’s not funny. The strange thing is, if you’ve been watching all the films, Part 3 does give us some answers to what the hell is going on. Some very definite answers. But, like you said, it offers up new questions as well, which is exactly what you want to do if you plan to keep making these movies. Who did steal the videotapes? Why? And why are they watching them? Come back next time and find out!

That said, I actually liked the ending of this one. It doesn’t answer the questions you asked, but it answers stuff from the previous movies, in a very spooky way.

MA: All in all, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 isn’t a bad movie, but I don’t think it’s a particularly very good movie either. Still, it’s Halloween, and if you want to be scared, it’ll do the trick. Just don’t expect much of a treat. I give it two knives.

LS: I don’t know, I definitely like this series a lot more than you do, and PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 is no exception. Sure, there are lots of cheap scares, but there are definitely some real ones, too. The acting is perfect, especially the kids, who could make or break a movie like this that strives for realism to dupe us into suspending disbelief. I thought the story and scares in this one were just fine.

And you said earlier that these movies are fun, and that nails why they’re so popular. Unlike the recent remake of THE THING, where they followed the numbers and didn’t surprise us at all, and a formulaic Hollywood pic like REAL STEEL, where we knew the plot twists coming a mile away, the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY movies still find ways to surprise us. Sure, they follow their own “connect the dots” formula. You keep seeing a scene until something suddenly “goes wrong.” But it works. There are always scenes that you don’t expect. It’s a formula based on giving us some real scares, and it succeeds, and that’s why I continue to enjoy going to these movies.

And a BIG part of the fun is the audience. For some reason, audiences for the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY movies are animated, vocal and interactive in ways no other audiences are. I don’t know why this series actually seems to plug into kids and elicit reactions from them – but it does, and that’s a big part of “the experience.”

MA: I think it’s because they’re scared. Folks in the theater with me were blurting out zingers and one-liners with regularity, and it’s not like they’re making fun of the movie. I think they’re releasing nervous tension.

LS: I haven’t seen audiences this involved since the old midnight movies like THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW.

MA: Yep, the experience is a little like ROCKY HORROR.

LS: And the fact that these movies continue to scare audiences without fail is something to be applauded. There is no way you can replicate this in your living room, and if you’re watching these movies on DVD, you may have no clue what’s so great about them. In fact you might be thinking “What’s the big deal about these movies, anyway?”

Are the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY movies great works of art? No. They can’t hold a candle to classic horror films that actually are about something. But for what they are, they’re a good time. And for that reason, I give PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 ~ three and a half knives. It’s certainly better than a lot of the movies we saw over the summer, and so far this fall. And, especially if you’re a fan of the other films in the series, you need to go and see Part 3 on the big screen. With an audience. Preferably a packed house.

MA: See, I just can’t get into them as much as you do. For me, it’s the difference between watching a TV show like LOST vs. a reality TV show. The reality TV show is fun to watch, but I’m nowhere near as interested in watching it faithfully as I am a scripted show like LOST. That’s not to say the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY movies don’t have scripts, because they do, but their stories to me are secondary. It’s all about the camera. It’s a gimmick series.

LS: A gimmick that works.

(LS stops and then steps closer to the camera. He appears to be talking to an unseen person again. The discussion gets heated, and then LS steps back to where he was)

MA: What was that all about? Isn’t Toby still out to get me?

LS: Yep.

MA: So, what are you all worked up about? I would have thought you’d be happy about that development.

(There is a loud swoosh! sound, and MA is whisked off his feet by an unseen presence and dragged off camera.)

LS: I’m upset because he won’t let me join in on the fun.

MA (off camera): I heard that! You wait till next time!

LS: Have fun with Toby! (Off camera there are sounds of a powerful struggle). Okay folks, while those two duke it out, I’ll say so long—until next time!

—END—

Michael Arruda gives PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 ~ two knives!

LL Soares gives PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 ~three and a half knives.

Go see Paranormal Activity 3 - OR ELSE!

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PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2

Posted in 2010, Cinema Knife Fights, Demons, Haunted Houses, Paranormal, Prequels, Sequels with tags demons, Haunted Houses, Paranormal Activity 2, scares, Sequels on October 25, 2010 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT: PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2
by Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares

(SCENE 1: We see the outside of a house. The words “NIGHT # 1, October 23, 2010, 2:45am” appear on the screen)

(SCENE 2: Inside that same suburban house. All the lights are out, and MICHAEL ARRUDA and L.L. SOARES are sitting at the kitchen table, in the dark)

MA: Did I tell you the one about the priest, the rabbi, the minister, and the talking baby sitting at a bar?
LS: Shh! You’ll scare the ghosts away.

MA: I thought you said we were waiting for demons?

LS: Ghosts, demons. Same difference.

MA: Aah, not according to the movie we’re reviewing tonight, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2. It makes a distinction between ghosts and demons that I found interesting, that ghosts are the spirits of people, but demons are evil entities.

LS: The folks who made this film have obviously never met Hellboy!

(There is a huge BELCH, and both LS and MA jump. The light goes on and HELLBOY enters.)

HELLBOY: Pay no attention to me, boys. I’ll be out of here in a jiffy. (opens refrigerator and pulls out a couple of beers). Abe Sapien’s having a bad night. I’m cheering him up. And for the record, (addresses camera), I’m a demon, but I’m not evil. (Burps, and house shakes again.) Exits and shuts off light.

MA: I can’t see a damn thing. Ow! Who just hit me?

LS: I’ll give you three guesses, and the first two don’t count.

This week we’re reviewing the movie PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2, the sequel to the 2008 hit, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, which I reviewed on this very site not long after we launched it. PARANORMAL ACTIVITY was one of these small horror flicks that became a big success mostly due to word of mouth.

The first PARANORMAL ACTIVITY was about a couple, Katie (Katie Featherstone) and Micah (Micah Sloat), who move in together in a new home that appears to be haunted. Lots of very bizarre things start happening, so Micah gets a video camera to tape the goings-on. And things just get continually weirder and more dangerous from there. At one point, a medium comes to their house to communicate with the ghosts, but he leaves soon afterwards. He tells them what is haunting the place is not a ghost. It’s a demon.

MA: Which would be bad, since demons are evil.

(HELLBOY’S voice off-camera): I heard that!

LS: As the camera films them, especially in their bedroom while they think they’re sleeping, the scares get spookier and spookier, culminating in an effective shock ending.

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 confused me at first, because I thought it was a sequel. It really isn’t. It’s a prequel. It takes place 60 days before the first movie and focuses on Katie’s sister, Kristi Rey (Sprague Grayden), and her family. When Kristi and her husband Dan (Brian Boland) bring home their new baby boy, Hunter, things start getting very strange in the house. There are weird noises, frying pans move and crash to the floor, cabinets open by themselves. Unlike Katie in the first movie, Kristi doesn’t get an expert to diagnose the house, but Dan does have motion-sensitive cameras put in every room after they come home one day to find the house trashed (and assume there was a break-in), so we can observe what is going on.

Like the first movie, PA2 is totally told from the point of view of cameras, just like the movie that obviously inspired both of the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY films – THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999).

(SCENE 3: We see the outside of a house. The words “NIGHT # 2, October 23, 2010, 10:12pm” appear on the screen)

(SCENE 4: Inside the house and back in the kitchen)

LS: What the hell happened? I was right in the middle of talking and it suddenly skipped like 17 hours, according to my watch!

MA: It’s the way things work in this movie. Might as well go on with the review.

LS: Freaky….

Anyway, the way you know PA2 is a prequel is that early on, Katie and Micah from the first movie come over for a visit, and, as people who saw the first movie know, Micah is no longer among the living.

At first, Dan thinks Kristi is a little loopy when she starts telling him about weird happenings. And she’s not the only one. Their nanny, Martine, is constantly praying to herself and lighting incense to spread around the house (to ward off evil spirits), so Dan gets fed up and fires her.

It’s teenage Ali (Molly Efraim), Dan’s daughter from a previous marriage, who starts putting things together, by doing research on the Internet. Once Ali starts to believe her, Kristi doesn’t feel so nuts, but Dan still refuses to believe either of them, even when confronted with evidence (mostly filmed by the cameras in the house). He just continues to state that he doesn’t believe in this stuff, like that is going to protect him from the wrath of household demons.

Whatever the demon is, it seems to be very interested in young Hunter.

The interesting thing about the movie is that it actually does explain how the demons got from their house to Katie and Michah’s. The last part of the new movie also gives us a legitimate sequel to the first film – as it suddenly jumps to the day after the end of Part 1.

I really liked the first PARANORMAL ACTIVITY. Somehow, despite having no budget, no name stars, and just doing tricks with sounds and simple effects, the first film was very effective, and actually had some good scares. PA2 carries on in this tradition. Even though it’s a sequel, it’s a satisfying return to the territory of the first film, giving us some interesting answers along the way—before and after the events of the first one.

MA: I liked this one too, but not as much as you. I enjoyed the story, and I liked the characters. I thought the family members were likeable enough, especially the dad, as his sense of humor was pretty funny. He gets a little annoying later on in the movie, as he continues to refuse to believe in what’s going on, at one point making the ridiculous decision to leave his teenage daughter alone in the house with his infant son and “comatose” wife, (she won’t get out of bed)—the night after they’re all shaken up by the weird occurrence of their family dog being injured—because he has a meeting he can’t miss. Thanks, Dad!

I also enjoyed the teenage daughter a lot. She acted liked a teenager without being too angst-ridden, a trait we’ve seen a lot in recent years in characterizations of teenage daughters. She’s also in one of the funnier moments of the film, when she and her boyfriend play with a Ouija board. Even better, this very funny moment is quickly followed by a very creepy moment.

LS: The teenager daughter, Ali, is my favorite character in the film. She also seemed to be the smartest one (no surprise there). I liked her scenes the best. Plus she had great taste in music, with posters of The Misfits and The Ramones on her wall.

MA: Most of all I enjoyed being scared by this movie. The film does a good job making you feel uncomfortable. I was uncomfortable throughout most of this movie, and the audience I saw it with also seemed to enjoy being scared. There was lots of nervous laughter, and even a couple of screams. So, if you like being scared, for this reason alone, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 is worth your while.

LS: Considering how many recent horror films don’t have scares at all (MY SOUL TO TAKE comes instantly to mind), the fact that PA2 is so good at generating scares and thrills is a big deal. Especially since it had a fraction of the big Hollywood movies’ budgets.

MA: The problem I have with PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 is that its scares work because they prey on our universal fear of being alone at night in a house. As anyone who has spent time in a house (which means pretty much all of us, folks!) knows, being alone at night can be daunting. Houses make noise, lots of noise. Floors creak, furnaces and hot water heaters go on and off, windows rattle, wood beams shift, you name it. It’s very easy to let your imagination run wild. Throw in a family dog, which has far better hearing than you do, and which may start barking or whining in the middle of the night, and that’s creepy, too. And having to walk through your dark house at 3:00 in the morning to attend to your crying baby, which those of us who have kids have all had to do, that’s scary, too.

(Tiny footsteps are heard padding through the kitchen. The refrigerator door opens, and the light of the fridge reveals a BABY standing there in pajamas looking inside. He turns to MA and LS.)

BABY: Don’t mind me, guys. I can help myself. I can’t sleep. My laptop’s charging up, so I figured I’d come down here for a cold one. (Pulls out a baby bottle.)

MA: What the hell are you?

BABY: What does it look like? I’m a friggin baby! Can’t you see that?

LS: We know that, but—you’re talking!

MA: And walking!

BABY: So? In my family we walk and talk right out of the womb. Haven’t you ever seen those E-trade commercials? That’s my big brother.

Sheesh! What a couple of dopes. (EXITS).

MA: That was weird.

Anyway, my point is that PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 takes full advantage of these fears, and so its scares are based on these common experiences, rather than simply by what’s going on in the movie. These things are scary in and of themselves. They don’t need a supernatural element to make them frightening. So, I’m not sure the film succeeds in scaring me at that level. Sure, it was scary because a demon might be involved, but for the majority of this movie, we don’t see any demon, and we’re frightened because we’re in the silent dark with these characters waiting for that unexpected loud noise to scare us, which it does.

And for a movie that had lots of slight scares throughout, it really is lacking that one major jolt to put it over the top.

I also thought that early on, a lot of the nighttime shots labeled “Night #2,” “Night #3,” etc. grew repetitive, as not much happens during these scenes. Frankly, I was sick of seeing the same shots of the swimming pool and the front door over and over again.

(SCENE 5: Outside of the house. The words “NIGHT # 3, October 24, 2010, 11:22pm” appear on the screen)

(SCENE 6: Back in the kitchen)

LS: What the ….

MA: Time jump again. This is getting tiresome.

LS: You’re telling me. I want to finish this review before I get too old. Get back to what you were saying.

MA: I wasn’t entirely satisfied by the film’s resolution, either, because I didn’t necessarily buy the supernatural explanation. Without giving the story away, a person doesn’t have to be possessed to do crazy things. I wasn’t convinced by the events in this movie that a demon was responsible.

I also wanted some outside perspective. For instance, did anyone else ever watch the video footage of the mother being dragged through the house by an invisible person? If so, this would go a long way in convincing me that bad old Mr. Demon was responsible

LS: Would it be “outside perspective” if someone else in the family saw it? And anyone outside the family wouldn’t have access – except for us. And WE SAW THE FOOTAGE.

MA: The police would have access. I just wanted a scene where someone else saw that scene, to verify what we saw.

The fact that we saw the “footage” means nothing to me. What are we supposed to be watching anyway? Discovered footage of the family’s security tapes? A documentary of these events made by a filmmaker? I don’t think so, because any filmmaker is conspicuously absent. The film doesn’t do a good job giving us perspective outside the family’s cameras, and as a result, doesn’t really deliver a well-rounded story.

LS: I don’t know. It worked just fine for me.

MA: Another problem I had is when bad scary stuff starts happening—would you grab a camera and start filming? That would be the last thing on my mind. I buy using the night vision so you could see in the pitch black darkness, but in one scene the daughter hears a noise in the house at night, and she grabs her camera to record it. I wouldn’t want to be walking through darkened hallways after hearing loud noises in my house holding a camera in front of my face.

LS: Most of the movie is captured on cameras installed in the house that have motion sensors. So that makes sense (I guess). As for Ali going through the house with a video camera in that scene—hell, I just thought she was a brave kid.

MA: I guess. She’s braver than I would have been!

LS: One thing I was wondering is why was this movie rated R? There’s no gore, no nudity, and what violence there is doesn’t seem that excessive. The first movie got a PG-13. Why didn’t this one? And the theater I went to was actually enforcing it for once – making sure no one under 17 got in. And there was no reason to. We’re not talking CALIGULA here.

MA: I agree. It wasn’t excessive at all.

LS: In some scenes, very simple things happen, like pots and pans suddenly moving, cabinet doors opening, doors opening and closing, and yet they generate real scares and had the audience on edge (every once in awhile, you’d hear someone scream).

MA: Yep. And I liked this, as it was creepy, scary, and fun, but again, I thought the next step was clearly missing, that being the jump from simple scares to a big-time, memorable fright.

LS: I suppose I agree. Some people in the audience reacted to the ending pretty strongly, but I didn’t find it all that scary. There was no big, powerful “GOTCHA” scene here. But there were enough smaller ones that really worked—and a consistent sense of tension throughout —so I think people felt satisfied.

MA: I think a really big fright would have made this a better movie, especially towards the end. I mean, there’s a lot of build up, but no major pay-off.

LS: There is a scene in the commercial for PA2 that takes place in Hunter’s room. Their dog, Abbie, is barking at the bathroom door, and suddenly we see a woman standing there. It’s an effective scene, but it is not in the final film.

MA: I would have to say, this was my biggest disappointment with this film, because I liked that scene, and I was looking forward to it in the movie. Shame on you, moviemakers! I hate it when scenes appear in trailers and then they’re nowhere to be found in the final film. Rip-off!

But taken as a whole, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 is not a rip-off. It’s actually a very scary way to spend 90 minutes. Just don’t expect anything classic or riveting to the point where you’ll be telling all your friends about it. It might make you leave a light on before you go to bed the night after seeing it, but don’t expect any lifelong nightmares.

LS: Oh, I totally disagree about the “telling your friends” part. The first movie became a hit because of word of mouth – and a very effective viral marketing campaign. I think the second movie is just as strong, and works on the same level. You and I might not have found it as scary as it could have been – but most of the people in the audience seemed genuinely scared by the goings on. And believe me, they’ll tell their friends. This one will be as big a hit as the first one.

MA: Perhaps. And if people want to tell their friends to go see this movie because it’s scary, all the power to them, but I don’t think there’s that much to talk about.

LS: And yeah, I don’t see any nightmares in my future. And I won’t be leaving any lights on. It was effective while I was watching it, but I don’t think it will really stay with me on any level.

But I have to admit, I really liked this one for what it was. I give it three knives. How about you, Michael?

MA: I liked it, too, but just a little less than you. I give it two and a half knives.

(The lights suddenly come on, to show an attractive woman standing in the doorway of the kitchen. She’s dressed only in a sheer nightgown and appears to be in a trance, and is growling)

LS: Sweet! Talk about hospitality!

MA: I don’t think she’s here to make us feel at home. She looks possessed.

LS: Sorry we drank all your beer, lady.

(The woman lunges at them and the lights go out, followed by screaming)

-END-

Micheal Arruda gives PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 - Two and a half knives!

L.L. Soares gives PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 – Three knives!

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Suburban Grindhouse Memories: HELL NIGHT

Posted in 2010, Grindhouse, Slasher Movies, Suburban Grindhouse Memories with tags 1980s Horror, Hell Night, horror, Linda Blair, scares, slasher film, suburban grindhouse memories, Vincent Van Patten on October 14, 2010 by knifefighter

SUBURBAN GRINDHOUSE MEMORIES No. 15:
The Little SCARE That Could
by Nick Cato

On an unusually hot August afternoon in 1981, my 7^th grade buddies and I managed to get into HELL NIGHT, a new R-rated horror film starring Linda Blair (oh how we LOVED the Amboy Twin Theater). Now, Linda Blair (y’know, the star of two previous possession films you might have seen), anyone can see being the star of a horror film. But Vincent Van Patten, the son of EIGHT IS ENOUGH star Dick Van Patten, too? I had my doubts about this one going in: What kind of a horror film would cast the son of Dick Van Patten? (Then again, he did have a role in ROCK N ROLL HIGH SCHOOL (1979) and a few years later starred in the seldom-seen ROOSTER: SPURS OF DEATH from 1983).

Needless to say, HELL NIGHT works big time.

The story’s nothing fancy. Four fraternity pledges must spend the night in Garth Manor, a place where the owner had murdered his wife and three deformed kids a dozen years earlier. Of course, rumor has it that a member of the family survived, and still haunts the joint.

I must admit I rolled me eyes as soon as this plot was set up early on during pledge night. Even in 1981, this basic premise was getting played out. But then something amazing—and rare—began to happen–

People in the audience began to scream. Remember, in 1981, most people were beginning to look for gruesome gore scenes (myself being a major culprit). Imagine my surprise when I began to sweat a little, both out of tension and happiness that a horror film was ACTUALLY SCARY for a change. While there are a couple of gruesome kills, the gore is shown quickly, as not to distract from what really makes the film work: its fantastic atmosphere, as well as a few college kids you actually care about (that in itself is a minor celluloid miracle).

What also works here are the killers (OOPS—spoiler alert!). Two of the three deformed sons Mr. Garth allegedly murdered have survived, and are now protecting their turf from the partying pledges. They both look quite creepy, even though we don’t get a good look at them until the ending (and one very brief earlier shot). It’s also not clear until late in the film that there are two killers, which caused one of several audible gasps from the crowd when revealed.

While Linda Blair’s acting in this one is nothing to brag about, she does a decent job considering the mundane plot, and the way she manages to deep-six one of the killers is fantastic.

Jenny Neumann, Linda Blair (foreground) Vincent Van Patten, Jeff Reed (background), our four pledges about to spend a night at Garth Manor in HELL NIGHT (1981)

I saw HELL NIGHT for the second time a week after this initial screening, and the crowd (which was almost as crowded as opening weekend) jumped out of their seats and screamed a few times. Seriously…how many horror films—especially a generic one like this—managed to create genuine scares? The answer? NONE that I can think of. Likewise, there aren’t many films that work on a Grindhouse level with (practically) no nudity or extreme gore the way this little gem does.

HELL NIGHT is no masterpiece. But it does what a horror film’s supposed to do. It’ll give you the willies (and considering you won’t be seeing this in a theater anytime soon, make sure to watch the DVD by yourself, in an empty house, preferably at midnight for maximum effect).

I actually let this one play in the background each year on Halloween as I hand candy out to the kiddies…it’s a great flick to watch alongside holiday standards such as NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and HALLOWEEN. No, it’s not as scary as either, but it works in a way that still surprises me every time I see it.

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THE STRANGERS

Posted in 2008, Cinema Knife Fights with tags home invasion, liv tyler, masks, movie, murderers, scares, spooky on December 15, 2009 by knifefighter

Cinema Knife Fight: THE STRANGERS (2008)
by Michael Arruda and L. L. Soares

(The scene: A summer home exterior, in the woods. We are taken inside a rustic living room. MICHAEL ARRUDA stands in front of bloodstained walls with busted furniture and broken household items strewn about, indicating a struggle had occurred earlier.)

MA: What a mess! What is this, Lon Chaney’s vacation home? LS, you around? Anyway, today LS and I are here to review THE STRANGERS, the new thriller starring everyone’s favorite female elf from the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy, Liv Tyler.

(From behind MA, a figure in a mask appears and creeps up behind him. MA turns around. The masked figure is gone.)

MA (addressing camera): You know, if any of you find this sort of cat and mouse stuff scary, you’ll enjoy THE STRANGERS. Otherwise, you’ll be disappointed.

(There’s a loud pounding at the thick, wooden door. MA opens the door to find L. L. SOARES waiting to come inside).

MA (looking at LS): Now, that’s scary!

LS: I’ll give you scary (lifts an axe over his head, then stops as he notices the mess). What the hell went on here? I told you not to watch THE VILLAGE again.

MA: That movie still makes me so damn angry!

LS: So, what did you think of today’s movie?

MA: Glad you asked. Let’s get this review started.

THE STRANGERS tells the story of a young couple who spend the night in a secluded summer home, only to have their romantic evening interrupted by the titled “strangers.” These strangers are three people who knock on doors in the middle of the night, press their masked faces up against windows, and do other mysterious deeds before breaking in and terrorizing our frightened leads with the sole purpose of eventually killing them. It all sounds much scarier than it actually is.

The film begins well, in terms of storytelling. We meet the two leads, and we immediately find out that something is wrong, and that “something” is that James (Scott Speedman) has proposed to Kristen (Liv Tyler) earlier in the evening and she said no. Suddenly, here they are at a romantic hideaway planned by James, and it’s like “Oops! Kristen said no. How awkward!” I liked these characters, and I was ready to enjoy a movie about them.

Too bad the events that follow aren’t worthy of these characters.

At first, there is a sense of eeriness, as strange things happen, like loud knocks at the door at 4 a.m., banging on the windows, cell phones going missing. Then a trio of masked intruders starts terrorizing the couple, first individually then all at once. I’ve mentioned the leads, and I thought their performances were solid, but that’s it. Nobody else stands out. The masked killers spend too much time appearing and disappearing to be truly scary, and we don’t really learn anything about them.

And things unfold too slowly. I found myself looking at my watch thinking, when is something going to happen? When that something does happen, it’s a major disappointment. I expected a “blow me away” ending, but I thought it was flatter than old soda.

Who are these masked people? What are they doing there? What do they want? Why are they intent on terrorizing the young couple? The answer, explained in one brief line uttered by one of the masked intruders toward the end of the film, is supposed to be scary because of the complete sense of randomness it invokes. It’s not. It’s just lame.

(A tall man in an ALFRED E. NEUMAN mask steps in front of the camera and scratches his head.)

ALFRED: What, me worry?

LS: Get outta here! (pushes ALFRED down the cellar stairs). Y’know, I had kind of a mixed reaction to this movie. I was excited by the trailer, which showed some real potential for scares. I don’t think the movie lived up to it, but I didn’t hate it as much as you did.

I actually thought that it moved quickly, and I didn’t look at my watch once. I liked the leads and I found them sympathetic, but I wished we’d learned more about them beforehand. I also liked the brief performance by Glenn Howerton as Michael, a friend of Speedman’s, who comes by at one point. Some people might recognize Howerton as one of the goofballs from the FX show IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA, and it was interesting to see him in a dramatic role for a change, even if he’s not around long.

I also thought the constant popping up of masked figures, and then their disappearing, was effective at first, but then got tiresome as it went along. It was a case of too much sizzle and not enough steak. The movie does have a heightened sense of suspense at times, but the cat and mouse games do go on too long.

MA: They go on forever. They don’t stop til the end, and by then, it’s the end. It was like this movie forgot to have a middle. It has one very long beginning and then skips right to the end.

LS: And there were too many stupid moves.

MA: Way too many stupid moves!

LS: Like the way Speedman insisted on separating from Tyler and didn’t leave her a weapon to protect herself.

MA: The stupidest.

LS: I can understand how fear can create bad decisions, and I get that maybe he wanted to take these people out on his own like some action hero, but if you know dangerous people are around and can get in and out of the house with ease, why leave your girlfriend alone and vulnerable? Even if she did turn down your proposal of marriage!

MA: I agree.

LS: But, aside from way too much teasing, and some dumb moves on the part of the leads, overall I liked this movie. I liked the killers and I liked the way it ends, for the most part.

MA: The old saying “truth is stranger than fiction” is true. Things happen in real life that are completely random, horrible, and unfair. This film, for instance, according to the moviemakers, was inspired by true events.

LS: Every movie is “inspired by true events” these days, and I’ve heard that the true events this movie is” based” on include the Manson murders, which is pretty tenuous. “True events” usually spells “bullshit” in my book, and it’s just meant as a cheap scare for the audience, by saying “this could happen to you.”

(A woman wearing a BETTY BOOP mask creeps up behind them)

BOOP: Boop boop be doop!

MA: (Throws BOOP out of a window as he’s talking) However, there’s also an old rule in fiction writing that says you don’t want your stories to be random. Fiction is not real life and doesn’t play by the same rules. In fiction, to craft a compelling story, you need reasons, motives, things that go together. A sense of randomness, generally speaking, doesn’t work in fiction. It leaves the reader or viewer disappointed. It doesn’t work here, either. You’re left feeling- what was that all about?

LS: Hell, rules are made to be broken. I actually liked the nihilistic streak at the center of this movie. It differentiated it from assembly-line Hollywood horror flicks like the recent PROM NIGHT remake. I like when directors don’t play by the rules, and if I felt disappointed, it was more in the way the story unfolds rather than in its denouement. I don’t feel the need to have a story spoon-fed to me, and some of my favorite movies don’t explain every detail of what’s going on. And I actually liked the fact that we never see the real faces of the Strangers, even when they take their masks off toward the end.

MA: I thought the PROM NIGHT remake was better than this movie. That film took a stupid idea and crafted a compelling movie, even if its plot was lame.

LS: PROM NIGHT compelling? Yeah, right. (laughs). THE STRANGERS was way better!

MA: (sneers) THE STRANGERS took a compelling idea and fell asleep at the wheel with it. Still, there were things I did like about THE STRANGERS. I liked the masks, for instance. There’s a long line of memorable masks in the history of horror. You can go back to the PHANTOM OF THE OPERA movies, most notably the Lon Chaney (1925) and the later Claude Rains versions (1943); you’ve got John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN series with Michael Myers’ mask; the mask from the SCREAM franchise, and so on. I liked the masks in this movie, and they were scary.

LS: Yeah, people who know me know I have a thing for masks as well. I thought they were great.

MA: Speaking of John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN (1978), the scene where the masked killer appears silently behind Liv Tyler for the first time is directly inspired by a similar scene in HALLOWEEN.

(A kid in a HOWDY DOODY mask pops up from behind the sofa and laughs! LS kicks him in the head)

HOWDY: Ouch!

MA: Other than this, I was very disappointed. Like you, I enjoyed the trailer, so I had expected to like this movie.

LS: I didn’t think the movie was as good as the trailer made us think. But I didn’t completely hate this one.

MA: I also thought the filmmakers did a poor job at establishing a sense of place. The action takes place inside a summer home, but director Bentino never gives us an establishing shot. Are they in the middle of nowhere? Surrounded by deep woods? Are they on a mountain? By a lake? In a town with people in homes not too far away? Just where the hell they are is never clearly established, other than inside a summer home with woods outside the house.

LS: I thought Bentino gives us enough of a sense of place to let us know that this is a secluded house, far from neighbors, but there is some kind of community around (otherwise, how could the Mormon kids who discover the aftermath get there?). The fact that we weren’t always sure how far the boundaries of civilization and wilderness were added to the feel of the film.

MA: I was confused. I wasn’t so sure this was a secluded house. I mean, there’s a road out front that even in the dark didn’t look like some dirt path in the middle of nowhere. I thought it sloppy filmmaking. As a whole, I thought the direction by Bentino and the writing (he also wrote the screenplay) were flat, as was the music by tomandandy.

LS: I thought you loved the work of tomandandy!

MA: That’s Tom and Jerry. (Footsteps are heard coming from a back room).

(Speaking over his shoulder) Don’t even think about coming in here with Tom and Jerry masks! (A high-pitched mouse-like voice shouts an obscenity). You’d better run away!

Anyway, the whole thing was flat. THE STRANGERS is about as strange as an unexpected noise in the middle of the night, creepy at first, but easily forgotten. It’s a poor movie and not worth anyone’s time. And to give tomandandy credit, I did enjoy their score for THE HILLS HAVE EYES remake.

LS: As far as the soundtrack goes, I also want to point out how effective the use of Joanna Newsom’s song “Sprout and the Bean” was. With her spooky, child-like voice and the refrain of “Should we go outside?”, I thought it added to the film’s eeriness.

I didn’t think THE STRANGERS was perfect, but I think it’s worth checking out. And there are parts I truly enjoyed. I didn’t think it was flat, I just think there was too much reliance on teasing and not enough real action.

MA: And that’s why I didn’t like it.

(A man in a V FOR VENDETTA Guy Fawkes mask, standing behind them and holding a large machete, laughs as he turns off the lights).

—END—

This review was first published on Fear Zone on 6/2/08

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30 DAYS OF NIGHT

Posted in 2007, Cinema Knife Fights, Vampire Movies with tags alaska, bloody snow, movie, scares, steve niles, Vampires on November 14, 2009 by knifefighter

Cinema Knife Fight: 30 DAYS OF NIGHT
by Michael Arruda & L.L. Soares

FADE IN:

(THE SCENE: Barrow, Alaska. The northernmost tip of the United States. MICHAEL ARRUDA and L.L. SOARES stand in the middle of a vast snow-covered terrain. They are looking down at something mysterious by their feet.)

It’s a mound of 30 DVDs, burned almost beyond recognition. However, some titles can still be read among the charred remains—SIGNS, THE VILLAGE and LADY IN THE WATER.

MA: Who would do such a thing?

LS: Someone with taste?

(MA falls into a daydream and imagines LS strapped to a chair, shrieking, his eyes forced open with metal clips, while the movie SIGNS plays over and over in a loop on a large screen in front of him.)

LS: Why are you grinning?

MA: No particular reason. Heh heh.

LS: So, are you going to start the review or what?

MA: Sure. Today we’re reviewing the new vampire thriller, 30 DAYS OF NIGHT, which is based upon the 2002 comic book miniseries of the same name by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith.

30 DAYS OF NIGHT begins with a winner of a premise, which is, the action takes place in the northern Alaskan town of Barrow, where the sun sets for 30 days every winter. What a perfect place for a vampire, or in this case, vampires! Folks, these aren’t your father’s vampires! Quick, violent, relentless, these things attack like zombies on speed. They are brutal and they are scary.

They are also efficient, killing most of the small town’s population in one swift swoop, but a small group survives, and it’s this group’s story that is told in 30 DAYS OF NIGHT. Led by the young sheriff Eben Oleson (Josh Hartnett) and his estranged wife Stella (Melissa George), who was in the process of leaving her husband just before the attack, the group of survivors tries to stay one step ahead of the vampires in order to stay alive until the sun returns. It’s a great premise, and it works throughout, as the film keeps you on the edge of your seat till the end.

I absolutely loved this movie. I thought it was scary, exciting, and most of all, extremely well-made. The writing, direction, the acting, to me, it was all way above the usual horror film fare. I was impressed. It reminded me of the kind of movie John Carpenter would have made in his heyday.

I particularly enjoyed the acting performances. I thought the two leads were terrific, and Danny Huston, as the main vampire, rocked. The rest of the cast was just as good.

I could nit-pick if I wanted to. For example, I thought the drama between the two leads, Eben and Stella, was unnecessary. Will they or won’t they get back together? I didn’t really care. They could have been happily married, and I still would have been scared for them. It played out more like a writing gimmick than a true need in the story. I also thought the ending was just OK, and too fast. I wanted more drama at the end.

But, as a whole, I thought it was terrific. It was good to see a vampire film that offered a new take on the genre- one that had a little BITE to it. What did you think?

LS: Director David Slade’s last movie was the controversial film HARD CANDY, about a teen-age girl who turns the tables on a predator she meets on the internet (this was the movie that brought Ellen Page to a lot of people’s attention before she became a star in Juno – LL). I thought that movie was ambitious, but overly talky and, by the end, incredibly annoying. I don’t think 30 DAYS OF NIGHT is quite as ambitious, but I did enjoy it a lot more.

By the way, in the comic, Eben and Stella are not estranged, and she is his deputy. Their relationship is close and it reminded me a bit of FARGO for some reason. I don’t think the new spin, of them being separated, added anything as far as drama goes. And yeah, I really didn’t care if they got together again or not, either.

Otherwise, the movie is fairly faithful to the comic. The visuals even strive to capture the feel of Ben Templesmith’s artwork from the comics, and do a good job at it.

The vampires themselves reminded me totally of the zombies in 28 DAYS LATER (ironically, another horror movie with a number of days in its title). They move fast, they’re vicious, and they tear into their victims in a frenzy. While I didn’t really care for 28 DAYS LATER (for reasons I won’t go into here), I think the vampires in this movie were pretty damn affective.

MA: They have great teeth. Their fangs were like shredders. (Show his teeth, mimicking a vampire’s hiss).

LS: Yours aren’t so hot.

MA: At least I’ve got some teeth.

LS (whips out power drill): Not for long!

MA: Don’t we usually wait until the end of the column before we do this sort of nonsense?

LS: Well…I do have more to say about the movie— (puts drill away). Where was I?

MA: The vampires.

LS: Yes, the vampires also screech to communicate, which reminded me a lot of the pod people from the 1978 version of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS.

Josh Hartnett is a limited actor, and when he first comes onscreen I thought he was totally miscast as Eben. In the comic, he’s older, more experienced, and almost paternal to the town he calls home. Hartnett is too young and too much of a blank slate. He just doesn’t have much charisma or presence. But as the movie went on, I didn’t mind him so much. His acting isn’t great, but it’s not annoying enough to ruin the experience.

MA: I never read the comic, so I didn’t have that problem with Hartnett’s performance. I thought he was just fine.

LS: You don’t have to have read the comic to notice that someone has the acting talent of a block of wood. Well, he’s a little better than a block of wood. But not much.

MA: I meant the miscasting part. The fact that he was younger didn’t bother me.

LS: Melissa George (who most people might remember as bad girl Lauren Reed in the TV show ALIAS) is fine as Stella. She’s strikingly attractive in a pale, interesting way that seems to work well in a movie about vampires.

MA: Yes, she is strikingly attractive, in a plain hot sort of way!

LS: Danny Huston is suitably creepy as the head vampire. Unfortunately, we see him early on. In the comics, his character arrives later in the story to take control of things, and he makes a much more dramatic entrance. To tell you the truth, I wasn’t aware that it was Huston at first (with the pale makeup and shark teeth, he was almost unrecognizable, though familiar). This is the same guy who did such a great job as the outlaw leader in THE PROPOSITION, and he does a fine job here of exuding menace.

There’s also a human emissary to the vampires who comes to Barrow to pave the way for their arrival. He steals and destroy all the town’s cell phones (wouldn’t anyone notice this?)—

MA: Yep, I wondered about that as well. I think if everyone in town discovered their cell phones were missing, there would have been some noise made before the vampires showed up.

LA: He also sabotages all ways out of the town, so that, when the darkness falls, the vampires won’t be disturbed when they enjoy their all-you-can-drink buffet of blood. He’s played by Ben Foster, who recently got a lot of critical attention for playing a bad guy in the recent remake of 3:10 TO YUMA. Foster plays a kind of Renfield character who’s clearly insane, and he’s good for some creepy moments as well. But I swear, every time they showed his face up close, I thought he looked an awful lot like Screech from SAVED BY THE BELL.

As the survivors move around (way too much, in my opinion), they are picked off one by one by the vicious vamps, until we reach a big showdown in a power plant.

I was pretty happy to see vampires getting an overdue makeover. These bloodsuckers are scary and animalistic, the way they should be, putting an end to the era of well-dressed, mannered vampires who took all of the scare out of the genre. I also liked the fact that religion wasn’t an issue. There were no crosses and stakes. Just violent creatures tearing into human flesh (although there sure is a lot of blood at the murder scenes, which seems like a complete waste if that’s the fluid you thrive on – I guess these vampires are just messy eaters).

MA: What are you drinking by the way?

LS: (Gulping from a large glass) A blood shake.

MA: You might want to wipe your mouth.

LS: Thanks. I thought the ending was satisfying enough, and the trip to get there is entertaining. This is probably the best vampire movie I’ve seen since Kathryn Bigelow’s underrated 1987 classic, NEAR DARK. Like I said, the acting isn’t top notch (except maybe for Huston), but it’s serviceable. And the movie smartly sticks to most of the details of the comic, which works to its advantage.

30 DAYS OF NIGHT is one of the better horror flicks I’ve seen in awhile. If you’ve been unhappy with the state of horror movies lately, and vampire movies in particular, you owe it to yourself to see this movie. It gets a lot of details right, and it’s a lot of fun.

MA: Well, we agree for the most part, though I feel the acting was topnotch. As far as putting an end to the era of well-dressed, mannered vampires, sorry, but Bela Lugosi will always be with us. He’s even mentioned in the film, so don’t bury his type yet!

LS: I actually didn’t mean Lugosi. I was thinking more of Lestat and friends. But hey, to each their own. Well, I think we’re done. What about you?

MA: Yep, that pretty much covers it.

LS: Good. (takes out power drill again). No Novocaine!

MA: Did you say “No Novocaine” or do you have a stutter? ‘Cause I can do that too: S—S—SIGNS. (Pulls out DVD).

(FADE TO BLACK, with the sounds of screaming)

—END—

(First published on Fear Zone on 10/22/07)

Archive for scares

Me and Lil’ Stevie: CREEPSHOW II (1987)

MAMA (2013)

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2

Suburban Grindhouse Memories: HELL NIGHT

THE STRANGERS

30 DAYS OF NIGHT

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