The Evictors (1979)

NOVEMBER 30, 2010

GENRE: THRILLER

SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT VIEW)

Not too long ago, I had the displeasure of watching Cold Creek Manor, a thoroughly terrible movie that I had rented under the impression that it was a haunted house film. It wasn’t, and now I discover that in apart from being terrible, it was sort of a ripoff of The Evictors, a less terrible film from 1979 that has essentially the exact same plot of a family moving into an isolated estate only to be boringly terrorized by the previous owners. But it’s at least shorter, and stars the always welcome Jessica Harper, so it’s not as much of an annoyance as the other film.

Still though, what a snoozefest. Due to the independent nature of his projects, Charles B. Pierce has never made an action-packed movie, but tension and atmosphere are pretty much free, no? And what can be scarier than a home invasion? Pierce botches all of this though; the film is basically a drama with an occasional chase scene.

The biggest problem is that hardly anything happens to the character we care about (Harper). Instead, she just hears stories (read: sepia toned flashbacks) about things that happened to previous owners, which is about as riveting as it sounds. I don’t know these people, and you’re basically telling me they are dead right from the start, so who cares? I could see if the house was haunted and it was filling in the mystery of the place, not unlike the opening of The Haunting, but there’s nothing supernatural about the film at all.

Strangely, Pierce seemingly tries to make you THINK there is, at least for a little bit, making it seem like the house drives people to murder, possibly due to the restless spirits of the original owners, who were gunned down in the opening flashback scene. And then we get a present day murder, in which we see an axe but not the person holding it. A ghost, right? Nope, despite the mysterious presentation of this scene, the very next one shows a very human (and identifiable) person driving the truck of the guy who just got killed. So we have an instant red herring, and a total lack of mystery for the rest of the film. Cool.

To be fair, there is a bit of a twist at the end involving Vic Morrow’s slimy real estate agent (yep, real estate horror strikes again!), but it’s completely ludicrous. As he prepares to sell the house to another couple, he pulls out a pair of broken glasses, which tells us that he’s the guy at the beginning of the film who tried to evict the original owners. First of all – huh? Second of all – how bad of a real estate agent are you that you can’t afford to buy a new pair of glasses almost 30 years later?

Also baffling – why does Michael Parks (as Harper’s husband) get billing over Harper when he’s barely in the damn thing? Almost immediately after they move into the house he takes off for some work, and appears a couple of times on the other end of a phone call. Then, when he finally comes home, he gets shot 4 seconds later and later dies (off-screen) in the hospital. Granted, Parks rules, but wouldn’t (actual star) Harper, coming off of Suspiria and Phantom of the Paradise, be a bigger draw, especially since they were selling this as a horror film? Parks was mostly known for TV work at the time.

Speaking of credit-based annoyances, it’s one of those movies where they freeze frame for each credit. So you see a guy like walk up to his car, then it freezes for an associate producer credit. 10 seconds later the credit goes away, the guy will get into the car, and then it’ll freeze again for the DP. And so on. This makes the opening scene take about twice as long as it should, and annoys me right off the bat. Also, it didn’t ANNOY me, per se, but the film looked stretched vertically even though it was presented in 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Everyone looked really thin and tall. Weird.

I hate to speak ill of the recently deceased (Pierce died last year), but did this guy ever make a good movie after Boggy Creek (which I haven’t even seen but I assume it’s good considering it had two sequels and gave him a career)? Boggy Creek II was atrocious, Town That Dreaded Sundown is pretty much the most uneven and schizophrenic movie ever made, and this is a dreadful bore. And those are his highest profile efforts post-Boggy. I mean, he’s not exactly Bill Rebane, but I sure as hell won’t be bothering to watch his other movies any time soon either.

What say you?

Welcome home, Children of Men

Children of Men, oh how I've missed you.

Nearly two years ago, I sent you out into the world to do good. It was a mission of charity, to spread the word of your greatness to the non-believers.

Yet you had a tough mission. You were saddled with two pretty big non-believers, a man and his fiancee, and your mission to convert them was not easy. In fact, you spent much of your mission enclosed in a box, unable to see the light of day, as your non-believers moved their non-believing activities from an apartment to a house, and took the better part of a year to fully unpack. In that darkness, how is there any way to succeed?

In fact, you failed. Your mission was not accomplished. Last Friday night, you returned back home, never having achieved what it was that you set out to achieve.

But it was not your fault. They just didn't understand the message you had to share. They may have picked you up a couple times and said "Nah, not tonight." You may think that in those moments, there might have been something more you could have done. You could have cried out to them and said "Yes tonight! Yes, watch me! I'm great! And if you just pop me in your DVD player, you'll find out just how great I truly am!"

But you don't have the ability to cry out. You can't alter your image in any way, to try to push a naysayer off the top of the fence. That naysayer has to learn to accept Children of Men in his/her heart, for him/herself. And sometimes naysayers just aren't ready to accept.

So you were returned by the potential converts, who had not been converted. They decided to release you from your obligation, so that you may spend your energies on more willing converts, who are more ready for your message.

And even though you had Run Lola Run, another great prophet, by your side, it was you that I really missed. It was you whose message I wanted to hear on multiple occasions, once when my sister and her boyfriend were visiting, once on another occasion that doesn't immediately jump to mind. But when I wanted you, you weren't there. You were off in a moving box somewhere, your voice silenced.

Well, I'm glad you are back. I'll hear your voice. I'll see the images you have to show me. And I'll appreciate you for all that you're worth.

And when the time is right, when you've licked your wounds long enough, I'll send you back out into the world, to spread the word of your greatness once again.

Sutures (2009)

NOVEMBER 29, 2010

GENRE: SURVIVAL

SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

Should I just add “Forced Organ Donor” as a sub-genre? How many goddamn times are horror movies going to go to this well? Sutures is a reasonably well made horror film, but I just sort of mentally checked out once I realized that once again our heroes were being tortured/killed for GOOD CAUSES. And that was a problem, because the last 10 minutes includes a lot of baffling and inane plot twists that I had trouble following. “What happened to my generic organ harvesting movie? What’s all this nonsense?” So I had to re-watch the last 20 minutes to try to “get” it, which I DO, now, but it’s still poorly written and clumsily revealed.

Like Captifs, our heroes are actually in the medical profession (who was first, I wonder?), and, again like Captifs, the filmmakers fail to really make any interesting ironic points about folks who have dedicated their lives to saving others being forced into this position, where they are more literally giving their lives to save others. But maybe that’s because these are young, pretty med students, not yet doctors like in Captifs, so they’re too busy flirting with one another and screwing around to bother doing anything original. There’s some minor difficulty in spotting who will be the first/last to die (apart from the obvious Final Girl), but otherwise they’re a pretty generic lot.

Luckily, the killers themselves have some minor characterization, particularly the two main baddies, one of whom is played by Andrew Prine. I wasn’t even aware he was still acting (apart from Tarantino’s episode of CSI, where he played Nick’s dad, the most recent film of his that I have seen is Amityville II), so I was quite happy to see him here, making like Lance Henriksen or Ronny Cox as a well dressed but crazy silver haired villain who runs his “only in horror movies” operation like a business. I even admired some of his techniques – he’s actually trying to make med students (not OUR med students) into great doctors by having them work under incredible duress. For example, he has one of our heroes tied up on a wall, with another guy causing massive injuries that the would-be doctor has to patch up as quickly as possible. It’s a cool little sequence.

The other big bad guy is Alexander, played by screenwriter Carlos Lauchu. Sticking with the theme of “but their intentions are noble!”, he’s actually gathering victims to be guinea pigs for some experiment designed to find a cure for the rare disease his daughter has. Aw, so sweet – why do you need to tie up random mechanics and cut them up for this, exactly? That’s the problem I have with these organ movies for the most part – if they want the organs, fine – why torture everyone? There’s a throwaway line that the people who want the organs don’t want any outside chemicals in them, I guess that’s supposed to explain away this obvious plot hole. Doesn’t quite work.

Back to the rather muddled storytelling, the entire thing is actually a flashback, as our Final Girl (the lovely Allison Lange, who just last week I was saying “I want to see her in more stuff” after she made a brief appearance in Bright Falls, a webisode prequel thing to the game Alan Wake) is telling the story to a cop, played by one of the Londons (not the one who was kidnapped and forced to shoot heroin though). And her story doesn’t even go in order, it cuts back and forth between the group on their way to their doom with the account of how she first met them. Who the fuck cares? If I want to try to keep track of three separate timelines, I’ll watch The Event, which at least offers some occasional D.B. Sweeney.

So I wasn’t too surprised to learn on the extra features that this was a mechanically designed project, with the writers wanting to do a horror movie but feeling that their existing story was too similar to other movies, so they came up with the organ donor stuff (great irony there). And of course, the movie wastes no time in clearly revealing its half-assed design, by more or less opening at the goddamn Linda Vista Hospital, a location seemingly only used by low budget horror film productions that are designed with budgets and locations in mind instead of a story. To be fair, they also go to that weird castle in the desert that was used in Alive Or Dead – at least I’m not completely sick of that place yet. Anyway, the making of is otherwise fairly worthless, as it’s just about 50 minutes of fly on the wall behind the scenes footage, with most of the interview footage (none of which features the director, interestingly) is at the beginning of the piece. Unless you love watching people work without context, just fast forward through it until you see a talking head and do something more productive with the rest of your time.

So if you haven’t seen Turistas, Train, Captifs, Macabre... um, you should (well, not Train), because they’re better than this. Again, it’s a well made film, and there are some nice touches here and there (love the hand still trapped in the cuff when they chain one guy to a wall), and Prine is a hoot, but the generic motive seems like an afterthought, and the final scenes are riddled with needless twists and a general lack of excitement.

What say you?

One of those weird coincidences

Yesterday morning, I wrote my Sunday morning post over a cup of coffee, around 9:30 a.m. It was about winning a bunch of not-so-great movies in a poker game on Friday night, and I'd chosen Dracula: Dead and Loving It as the poster art to accompany the post. In other words, a movie in which Leslie Nielsen plays a vampire, a dead man who is loving life as a dead man.

Just a couple hours later, Leslie Nielsen was a dead man.

In fact, all I know is that one of Nielsen's relatives announced it on a Florida radio station at 5:30 p.m. local time. He could have been dying at any point in the hours preceding that, perhaps even as I was writing my post. He didn't die from a pair of sharp incisors to the neck, but from pneumonia. He was 84.

I'd like to think that the first event didn't have anything to do with the second.

But what a weird coincidence, right? Anyone who glanced at my blog last night would have thought a poster of one of Nielsen's lesser movies (I won't say "worst" because I haven't seen it yet, and because there would be many contenders for that dishonor) was what I'd chosen to eulogize him. They might have been confused by the title "Poker haul," but if they hadn't read any further, they would have assumed it was one of the many Nielsen remembrances that have been appearing on the film blogosphere. This piece being one of them, I guess.

Nope. Just a random decision to choose a 15-year-old movie in which Nielsen is dead -- probably the only movie where he's ever died or been dead, at least after Airplane! turned him into a full-time comedic actor -- as the art to accompany my post. I mean, it wasn't completely random -- the movie came up in the poker game, and that was really the random part, considering how soon he was going to die. But it was random for me to choose that poster out of the 11 movies I came home with that night. It was the first one that landed in the pot during poker, which is why I chose it, but I did think for a moment how American Pie Presents Band Camp or Killer Klowns from Out of Space would have been a more perfect example of the kitsch on display.

Well, it is indeed a sad morning, as Nielsen was one of our great deadpan comics. I'm not going to remember him in the form of listing his top five performances, because probably at least four of those were in Airplane! or Naked Gun movies. Actually, now that I look, he wasn't in Airplane II -- which could be one of the chief reasons we consider it inferior to the original. The truth is, Nielsen was a guy who appeared in a couple great parodies and then about 20 that ranged from mildly amusing to truly awful. He's considered one of our great comedic talents because he was so great in Airplane! and the original Naked Gun, not because he had a particularly brilliant comedy career in total. Most of the time, it was the scripts who let Nielsen down, not Nielsen who let us down.

So instead of writing some kind of cliched remembrance that you can read numerous other places, I'll instead commit to watching Dracula: Dead and Loving It as soon as I can. I'm sure it won't be great, but I'm sure it will make me smile a couple times.

After all, Leslie Nielsen was pretty damn good at making us smile.

The Haunted Palace (1963)

NOVEMBER 28, 2010

GENRE: POSSESSION, SUPERNATURAL

SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REVIVAL SCREENING)

I hated myself for watching Tales Of Terror on lowly Netflix a few weeks ago, because if I had just waited a bit longer I could have seen a beautiful 35mm print of it at the New Beverly. On the other hand, it kept me from having to “save” The Haunted Palace for another time (or worse, writing two reviews on a weekend!), so I just went for that, meeting my “quota” of going to the Bev every weekend (wasn’t interested in seeing Monster Squad, the midnight movie) and adding another Vincent Price movie to the HMAD canon.

As most fans probably know, the film has nothing to do with Poe’s tale “The Haunted Palace”, and is actually more based on HP Lovecraft’s “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward”, though it’s a pretty loose adaptation of that too. In fact, I was quite surprised to learn that “Ward” was the same story that The Resurrected was based on, because that film and this one couldn’t be less alike – I would have more easily believed that Wall-E and Deliverance were based on the same source material. Basically, all Corman and co. retained from the Lovecraft tale were the names and the basic concept of resurrection, and changed everything else.

However it still definitely feels Lovecraft-ian (more than it does Poe, anyway), with the gloomy New England town (Arkham), the odd creature trapped in a cellar, and the faceless townsfolk all feeling very much like something out of one of his stories, unlike Poe’s more insular, often fairly romantic tales. The only times I thought of Poe were when the film started feeling like some of the other Corman/Poe/Price productions like Pit And The Pendulum or House Of Usher (i.e. when Price was walking around a big scary castle). Hilariously, Price recites a random Poe quote at the very end of the film, as if to justify the connection with something besides the title. Interestingly, they spell his name right at the end with the quote – it’s spelled wrong at the top of the film when it says it’s based on his story.

Price is as delightful as ever, and it made for a good double feature with Tales (or WOULD have, in my case), since this one also found him playing two roles. One is the heroic Ward, who inherits the place and plans to sell it. The other is Joseph Curwen, a necromancer (and Ward’s great great grandfather) who wishes to be resurrected. So Curwen occasionally possesses Ward, but he can only do so for brief periods of time, allowing Price to switch back and forth quite a bit. And it’s to his credits that it never becomes confusing – he’s so good you can even tell when he’s playing Curwen pretending to be Ward!

However, while I don’t mind getting more Price for my buck, they go a bit overboard with the actors playing two roles, as at least 5 guys from the prologue play their own descendents 110 years later. As I’ve said before, I really don’t care for this sort of lazy casting approach – I barely resemble my grandfathers, let alone my great great ones. It’s sort of insulting to the (by my count) 29 other people whose DNA had been passed along to me, right? Plus, the movie is a period piece anyway – the difference in costumes and “old tymey” look from the 1875 versions of these folks is not particularly distinguishable from their 1765 ancestors. Thus, if you missed the title cards telling you it’s 110 years later, the movie would be very confusing indeed. It’s one thing for say, Back To The Future to use the same actors as each generation of McFly, because so much had been done to change their basic look and the look of the world around them. Here, not so much. Would have preferred they just used different actors – it’s not like these characters (save Price) were particularly defined or even interesting anyway.

And yet, Debra Paget only plays one role! I haven’t seen too much of her (and this was her last film – she “retired” after marrying rich shortly after this film’s production), but man, what a knockout. And she holds her own with Price – not an easy task. Why the hell couldn’t they have figured out a way to have HER in the prologue? At any rate, if I was born in the 30s or 40s, she would have been the Evangeline Lilly or Rachel McAdams of her day, to me.

One thing the prologue does offer is a mob scene, momentarily making me think that the reels were out of order or something. Price (as Curwen) has a girl tied up, some magic is about to go down, and there’s an angry mob with the torches and pitchforks – pretty much the exact thing that occurs at the END of most of these movies (including this one). Once I realized it was a prologue, I truly appreciated the unusual “action-packed” opening, though I was just as pleasantly surprised to discover that the film as a whole moved faster than usual. Price and Paget aren’t in town long before they encounter a bunch of those creepy faceless types, and he starts getting possessed by Curwen not too long after that.

Ultimately, the only thing that annoyed me were the movie’s fades, though it must have been an issue with this particular print. You can almost always tell in an old movie when there’s going to be a fade, because the image becomes a bit washed out or discolored a few seconds before. But in this film, the color temperature AND image changed – it would go from a nice looking print image to something that looked like it was recorded off an analog TV signal, plus overly yellow tinted. And this movie had a lot of fades. Plus, you know when a reel changes and there’s a little jump? It seemed like every cut in the movie had such a jump (possibly just due to the number of fades and the fact that it was an older movie and thus had a lot of long takes), which was a constant distraction. I wouldn’t go so far as to recommend not seeing the film in theaters (it being an early 60s Corman production, it’s quite lovely to look at), but I hope that there are better prints floating around.

Not sure how many Corman/Poe productions I have left... I know I haven’t seen The Premature Burial or The Raven, but I’m not sure about Masque of the Red Death – I thought I did but I can’t find a review (it would have been during my HMAD ‘reign’). I know I saw Usher prior to HMAD, and I’ve seen Tomb of Ligeia but didn’t like it so I didn’t bother writing a review (it was part of a double feature at the Bev; I forget what the other movie was but I reviewed that instead). And there are reviews for Pendulum and Tales Of Terror. That’s all of them, right? Good goal to try to meet before the year’s end!

What say you?

Poker haul

I was at a friend's house on Friday night for a poker game. He's been hosting Friday night poker games about once a month since the first one in July. For the purposes of this post, we'll call him "the host."

Even though it was Thanksgiving, the host decided to have a poker game this past Friday because another friend of ours, who used to live here, was in town from Seattle. Only one from the normal poker group had been out of town for Thanksgiving, and the rest were able to make it, plus two others, including the visitor. So we had seven, and it was a fun night. I won $8, but it would have been more like $25 if I'd quit at my peak.

But it's not my financial winnings I'm here to talk about today. In fact, it was at the point that the host started throwing a DVD on the pot at the beginning of each new hand that things really got interesting.

And funny as hell. See, these were not DVDs anyone really wanted. We wanted to win them, because it would be funny later on to tell someone you won _________ in a poker game. But actually wanting to watch them? That was a different story.

The fun started when the host appeared with a perfectly random example of the type of perfectly awful movie someone would throw onto the pot to increase its value by exactly nothing: Mel Brooks' Dracula: Dead and Loving It. Can't remember how the host said he came to own Dracula: Dead and Loving It, but it was still in its packaging. I haven't seen the movie, but it came up recently in conversation and I knew it was something I was probably going to see eventually. Plus, it had a perfect kind of kitschiness to it. So I angled hard for it, but I just didn't have the cards.

Next up was Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. This I've seen, and I actually have limited affection for it. It too had just the right tawdry kitschiness to show up in this environment, as an extension of the host's sense of humor. It too went to someone else.

Then it was time for what seemed like the ironic prize of the evening, at least so far: American Pie Presents Band Camp. Much laughter was had by all, and the deliciously ridiculous synopsis was read off the back of the DVD package. I think this was before there started to be one American Pie straight-to-DVD sequel per year, and I thought it would be funny as hell to win it. But I didn't.

When the fourth movie came up, I finally had the cards. I don't remember what my winning hand was, but I do remember the movie, in all its schlocky glory: Michael Bay's Bad Boys II. I've seen Bad Boys II -- it's one of a handful of sequels I've seen without having seen the original. (I don't think I was confused, ha ha.) But as I was holding it in my hand, still dizzy from the thrill of victory, I looked at the cover and thought "My God, I never want to see this movie again. In fact, I don't even want it as part of my collection." I tried to trade it for Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, but that guy was having none of it.

The fifth and final movie thrown into the pot was perhaps the campiest of all: Killer Klowns from Outer Space. I have not seen it and I did not win it.

But I did come home with it. Because as the game finished up, it became clear that almost no one wanted the booby prizes they'd won over the course of the evening. And so it was that Dracula: Dead and Loving It, American Pie Presents Band Camp and Killer Klowns from Outer Space found their way over to my collection of DVDs, now a pile alongside my piles of chips. The guy who'd won Charlie's Angels wanted to hold onto it I guess.

But that was just the start of my pile. Because then the host came in with another armful of DVDs, this one mostly screeners he'd gotten and watched, or gotten and decided he was never going to watch. Looking for a good opportunity to pare down his excess collection, I guess. And as he started going through them, there was almost nothing I wouldn't take. I say "almost nothing" -- I did reject a few of them. But here are the ones I didn't reject:

Antwone Fisher - Haven't seen it, but liked the other movie Denzel Washington directed, The Great Debaters.

Little Miss Sunshine - Like it but don't love it, and will probably watch it again eventually.

In Good Company - Again, like it but don't love it. Funny, I actually watched this same screener with the host a couple years ago -- it's how I saw the movie the first time.

Seabiscuit - Really liked it at the time, worth an additional viewing I'm sure.

Once Upon a Time in Mexico - Have not seen it, heard it's not very good.

The Manchurian Candidate - Jonathan Demme's remake. Actually liked it pretty well and will probably watch it again, now that I own it.

Notes on a Scandal - Liked it a lot, probably wouldn't have felt the desire to watch it again, but probably will now.

And so it was that my DVD collection increased by 11 movies on Friday night ... maybe three of which I'm actually proud of owning.

But I missed out on some of the best DVDs of the evening, precisely because I was taking all the crap. The guy who held onto his copy of Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (I'm saying that as though he's a bad person) got the copy of Minority Report -- having just taken about six DVDs in a row, I didn't think I had the right to assert my interest in it. There was another one that fell into this category, but I don't remember what it was. Then after we'd already moved to the other room, the host came out with Inception, which he'd already received as an early screener this year, though it was vacuum-sealed just like a store-bought copy. Another guy got this one, but almost felt guilty about it, and when I teased him by asking if I could take it, he almost gave it to me. I do actually want to see Inception again, but I wasn't going to deny this guy his one piddly DVD, especially since he hadn't won a single hand of poker all evening.

The biggest prize of the evening, however, is something I'll have to wait for. The host has also already received his screener copy of Sofia Coppola's Somewhere, which doesn't hit theaters until just before Christmas. My eyes really grew big when I saw that one -- it's a movie I'm definitely planning to see in the theater. But his fiancee and he haven't watched it yet, so we will have to bide our time. I love Sofia Coppola's work, so maybe I owe her a theatrical viewing anyway. But it would be fun for my wife and I to watch this together, so the ease of borrowing the screener may win out.

And until I get my hands on it, I've got Dracula, Killer Klowns and horny teenage campers to tide me over.

The Last Exorcism (2010)

"Um... don't read this if you want a decisive judgment about this movie, because we have no idea what we think of it..."

THE LAST EXORCISM (aka COTTON)
Sub-Genre- Supernatural

Cast Members of Note- Patrick Fabian, Ashley Bell, Iris Bahr, and Caleb Landry JonesLouis Hertham.

What's it About?- Cotton Marcus is a preacher whom doesn't believe in god, gives sermons about banana bread, and has one of the worst first names ever. He also lies and swindles people out of their money, in the name of the Holy Father, which is kinda underhanded. He is very charismatic though, so I guess I trust him.

Come on, he looks trustworthy!
After receiving a plea for help, Cotton and his film crew head to Asscrack, Arkansas or some place like that, to "exorcise" a "possessed" teen girl. This is why you don't mess around with the simple folk of the south; they're God fearin', gun totin', and they don't like you. They're all very well mannered and polite, but if you weren't born in the holler, you taint welcome. Cotton is definitely the kind of guy that overstays his welcome too...

"Go home, Yankee!
After he performs an exorcism, which he fakes like most women fake the "big o", things get odd and creepy. He begins to wonder if Nell is really possessed or if her dad is just crazy and wants to hurt her, or maybe even make sweet love to her. He also wonders if her brother is going to kill him or not. Also, he also wonders if human bodies were meant to contort in such as fashion as Nell wills hers to do also. I like the word also... it adds emphasis.

"The orgy hasn't even started yet, how can you be done already!"
Is Nell really possessed, or just bat-shit crazy? Will Cotton use the power of Jeebus to save her sweet little soul? Does she have daddy's bun in the oven? Does Cotton know how to take a hint and git while the gittin's good? I won't spoil what happens here, but suffice it to say that this picture says it all:

Yeah, so every one is pretty much fucked.
The Good- As the hand held/found footage genre goes, this one was alright. It's hard to say if we liked it or not, because we think we did, but we're pretty sure we didn't. Confused? Us too.

Cotton being a charlatan was a great plot move, and Patrick Fabian played his swindling role well; we liked him for the fact that he had his own set of beliefs, and mostly did what he did for the betterment of the people in his flock. Still, you can't help but totally like him, snake oil salesman that he is, which might be why he was so interesting.

The movie got better as it went along, though it never really kicked into gear as far as scares go. Some of it was creepy, and there were moments of trepidation and hel breath on our part, but it came late and didn't really mess with out minds as we thought it might have. Had Nell spouted some demonic voice or something, it would have been better. We do understand why she didn't though.

That's a brave kid being gay in the South. Kudos to him.
The Bad- The barn scene from Emily Rose, the ending camera work from Blair Witch, the main characters name stolen from the Scream series... this movie is one big thief! Maybe not, but the borrowed elements were pretty glaring.

The Downright Horrendous- The last 8 minutes or so of this movie have caused quite the backlash amongst moviegoers. I won't spoil it, because people who spoil twists are a-holes, but I do have to say that it was a decent idea, but came and went like a flash. The whole movie took it's sweet time doing much of anything, builds a little, pretty much resolves itself, and then BAM! CRAZY TWIST ENDING! It did make me look back and appreciate some of the story elements differently, but they really needed to let it breathe a bit more. It felt forced.

The Gory- There's some blood here and there throughout the movie, but most of it comes in the form of Sanskrit ramblings on walls and cave drawings, also on walls. Cotton does get a pretty nasty cut though, and one person gets beheaded. You don't really get to see that though.

The Naked- Nope. This movie was shot in a dry (as in sex dry) county... although creepy little Nell did try to seduce the camera chick. She wanted it!

What did we learn?- Preachers lie! Also, don't ever butt into people's family business, especially in the deep south. those people don't cotton to outsiders. Heh.

The Master Says- C+ (6.5/10) This is a tough one for us, me in particular to grade. On one hand, it was enjoyable and added a little twist to the found footage genre. On the other, it felt a bit tame and never really went to the places that I feel it could have gone to had they pushed it... The ending seemed to piss people off too, though I didn't hate it other than the fact that it felt rushed. I don't know. It's a decent little movie with a bunch of flaws. Maybe I need to watch it again and see how it settles with me. You, however, may just like it.

Final Thoughts- You know, she cleans up pretty well.

Harpoon: Whale Watching Massacre (2009)

NOVEMBER 27, 2010

GENRE: SURVIVAL

SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

Every now and then Mr. Disgusting goes on vacation or something and has me write up some of the daily news stories for Bloody-Disgusting, which isn’t exactly my favorite part of the job. I can’t put two words together if I don’t care about the subject, so a bit of casting on some PG-13 remake or a release date for a movie I’ve never heard of just isn’t how I like to spend my free time. But a while back (2007!), one such story was the announcement of Harpoon: Whale Watching Massacre (retitled from Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre, and quite obviously so during the opening credits, which are otherwise stylish and well done), which was oddly described as a cross between Blair Witch Project, Evil Dead, and, obviously, Texas Chain Saw Massacre. I was intrigued, but a lot of movies get announced and never happen, so I forgot all about it.

Then it played at Screamfest last year, and I missed it (I forget why), but heard good things, so I was excited to check it out when I heard it was coming to DVD. And hurrah! I enjoyed it. But it’s a good thing I forgot about those ED/BWP comparisons, because I don’t have a damn clue where they came from. There’s nothing supernatural about it, it feels like a real production (as opposed to those films’ do-it-yourself charms), and, well, it’s about people getting killed on a boat. How do those woods-set low budget (and, not for nothing, superior) films even find their way into the conversation?

Anyway, it’s more like Mother’s Day mixed with Hatchet. Like the latter, we have a very large motley crew as opposed to the usual group of friends – many of the characters don’t even know anyone else, and they come in all ages – a couple of young folks, a dude that seems about 35 or so, some middle aged Asian tourists, a few old females (who are inexplicably Hollywood producers, apparently)... it’s a wonderfully diverse mix. And like Mother’s Day, our killers are a domineering mother and her sons, one of whom seems a bit mentally challenged.

And like both films, it’s got humor. Not as overt as either, but certainly funnier than Chain Saw or Hills Have Eyes (the two films it’s compared to on its own trailer – these filmmakers are hellbent on comparing their film to others!), giving the film an unexpected breezy tone. I particularly liked the obligatory cell phone moment, with the owner reacting to a wavy signal: “I got a signal! Wait, it’s gone. There it is! Nope...” It reminded me of Chevy Chase’s delivery in Fletch when he opens the Ed MacMahon envelope. “And... I lost, again. Sorry.” But Chevy didn’t get killed a few seconds later like this lady does (the guy seemingly just doing it to shut her up).

I also liked that they kept playing with our expectations. The seeming heroine who sleeps late and has to run through town and then jump on the boat to join the tour – you think she’d be a Ripley-esque asskicker, right? Nope, she becomes a depressed, mumbling loon over the course of the film (think Drusilla on Buffy). The pretty blond who takes a liking to the alpha male who may ALSO be our final girl turns out to be a royal, hateful bigot; the alpha male turns out to be gay, etc. The only exception is the French asshole guy, who remains an asshole throughout the film. Perhaps there is some Icelandic/French conflict I don’t know about.

These deeper-than-usual characterizations help make up for the film’s rather generic plot, which is basically just the usual survival stuff, albeit on a boat instead of a backwoods dungeon or isolated house. A few folks get it right away, some hide and run around, others escape only to find themselves “rescued” by someone who is in cahoots with the villains, etc. Since the characters weren’t generic, I was kind of expecting this stuff to have a little more variety to it as well, but alas, for the most part the kills and carnage are standard issue modern horror.

Except, of course, for the finale. It takes the whole movie for the “Whale” part of the plot to pay off, but it’s worth it. I won’t spoil it, but let’s just say that the film stays true to the survival horror tradition of having something besides the human killers to worry about. Also, the ending is kind of melancholy, with a sort of epilogue showing what happens to the survivor(s) and the abandoned cars of those who are dead, plus a final little “fuck you” moment for one of the killers that I quite liked. The music is also kind of sad here, it’s almost like the ending of some grim prison drama or something.

Apart from the rather bland chase n’kill elements, I also wasn’t a big fan of the film’s editing. Not only were there a lot of jump cuts, but certain scenes were needlessly confusing as a result of the editing. For example, at one point a “hero” seemingly sells out one of the others in order to aid his/her escape, but it takes a lot of mentally connecting the dots to figure out what happened, which is odd for what’s essentially a plot twist (in a movie called Whale Watching Massacre, no less). It’s not even clear how he/she managed to convey this idea to the killer in the first place, nor are we given any explanation or even a hint why he’d go along with it. And it’s not the only sort of awkward/vague moment in the film; hell, the sequence of events in which they get on the “bad” boat from their dead cruise boat is even a bit of a puzzler, like they forgot to film part of the sequence.

But Gunnar Hansen (who is actually from Iceland) might smack me for saying that, as he talks quite a bit in the making of (I think he’s the only one to be interviewed independent of the film’s production) about how prepared the director was and how unlike most low budget shoots, he shot a lot of coverage. So I dunno, maybe they just wanted to make these scenes confusing for some reason. Or Gunnar’s wrong (he’s only in the movie for like 5 minutes, after all). Or I’m just dumb. At any rate, it’s a decent enough behind the scenes look, though more insight from the director and writer would have been nice. Of interest – Hansen notes that this is only his 27th film, which is kind of impressive when you consider Chain Saw (his first) was about 35 years prior to this. Compare that to fellow Chainsaw vet Bill Moseley, who has over 30 film credits just in the past 5 years. The man is choosy! The only other extra is a trailer.

The transfer is fine, nothing that will blow your mind, but I didn’t notice any artifacting or washed out colors either. It DID seem a little soft, however, without any of the great detail I’m used to on Blu-ray. So assuming that the extras are the same, I don’t think you’d need to shell out the extra 5-10 bucks for the Blu-ray version (though on Amazon the Blu is actually cheaper, go figure). It’s also curiously lacking in the language department – there’s only the one audio track, and no subtitles of any kind. However, maybe I’m just spoiled by the Alien Blu-Ray, which I’ve been digging through over the past week – that thing has numerous language options for the subtitles for the COMMENTARY! I mean, DAMN. THAT is a complete package (also one of the most beautiful transfers I’ve ever seen).

Overall I’d recommend the film to folks who enjoy the “other” elements of these sort of movies (the setting, the characters, the music) more than they do the kills and gore. If you just want to see a bunch of creative kills or a lot of splatter, stick with Hatchet or Laid To Rest, because Harpoon is lacking in these areas. But personally, this didn’t bother me, and I liked that it was sort of “off” from start to finish. A quirky, surprisingly fun flick, nothing more, nothing less.

What say you?

Documentaries are not entertaining

For years now I've been limited by the maximum three movies at a time you can rent from the library. It's not that I really think I need to watch more than three movies from this one source in the two days you're allowed to have them out, or three or four days if you time it out correctly over a weekend. It's that I have trouble making up my mind. In fact, I'll go through alphabetically, picking up movies as they catch my fancy, and will be struggling to hold them all by the time I start to pick up speed around R or S. In fact, every once in awhile a fellow patron will inform me that I can only take out three, and I'll explain that I pare it down to three after the initial dozen I've chosen as contenders.

Well, I just learned that three is not actually the limit. It's the limit for feature films, but not for documentaries.

Or, as the librarian put it, for "entertainment films" but not for documentaries.

Here's what happened on Tuesday night as I was stocking up to get me through to Saturday (the library being closed on both Thursday and Friday). I came up to the checkout counter with a sort of random selection: Donnie Brasco (which I'd already seen), Lost in Space (which I only vaguely sort of wanted to see, and picked up for the purposes of light escapism) and Angels and Demons (which I didn't want to see that much, but which I thought might interest my wife).

As the librarian was scanning the bar codes on my selections, I noticed the documentary Koyaanisqatsi sitting on the counter next to her, recently returned but not yet shelved. It had been on my radar and I'd been wanting to see it. "Can I take this out instead of one of these others?" I asked.

"You can take it out in addition to the others," she responded.

It was then I discovered that the library observes a distinction between fiction films and documentaries. But "fiction films" was not how she described them. She said I could take out up to three "entertainment films" and up to three documentaries.

It may not be worth making this the basis for an entire post, but I chuckled to myself over the implication that documentaries were not "entertainment" -- in fact, that they were diametrically opposed to being entertainment. Surely it was just a slip of the tongue and she really meant fiction films or feature films. Then again, those categories are kind of inexact as well. A "fiction film" can be about a non-fiction event, and a "feature film" can sometimes refer to documentaries -- a "documentary feature" (as opposed to a short subject).

Anyway.

So Koyaanisqatsi was pretty cool. If you're not familiar with it, it's the 1982 film that juxtaposes images of the purity of nature with images of the busy-ness of modern society and technology, and is actually sometimes known as Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance. New age musician Philip Glass composed the sometimes haunting, sometimes playful score. There's no narrative, per se, but it's certainly nice to look at, all the time-lapse photography utilized perfectly to make meandering clouds and busy freeways seem downright mesmerizing. And the message is not super in-your-face -- there's an implication that man's influence on the planet has been negative, but it's never spelled out in so many words. It was an interesting decision on my part to start watching it at nearly 1 a.m. last night, and it took a Monster energy drink, two candy bars and some ice cream to get me through. But at least I finished it at night -- it's one of those movies that's cooler if you see it in the middle of the night than the next morning, frantically before you have to return it to the library.

So I'll know in the future to throw in at least one doco every time I'm planning to rent some fiction films. If I'm lucky, I will even be entertained by it.

The Possession Of David O'Reilly (2010)

NOVEMBER 26, 2010

GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL (OR SUPERNATURAL)

SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

One problem I had with The Last Exorcism was that they sometimes did "too good" of a job filming it, and I'd forget it was supposed to be a documentary. The Possession Of David O'Reilly (formerly The Torment) actually suffers from the opposite problem - I kept forgetting it was a straight narrative, because for some goddamn reason they filmed half of the movie in jerky POV shots, even though no one seemed to be holding a video camera (despite the fact that a camera is even introduced!).

Worse, the POV will switch mid-scene, so until the other two characters were accounted for, it became confusing whose perspective we were seeing things from. This would be a problem for ANY movie, but the biggest red mark on this movie is its muddled, pace-challenged script, so even if the entire thing was shot from a single stationary camera in the corner of the room, it would be a bit of a mess.

Perspective is an issue right from the start, however, even before the camera POV problems become apparent. The film opens on a couple who have been having trouble with an intruder, so the male has set up a few security cameras around the apartment that will turn on when motion is detected. He wants to watch the tapes, his girlfriend wants to cuddle and watch a movie... eventually they do, and chat, and then there's a knock at the door.

So far, so good, right? We meet our heroes, develop them a bit, hint at the horror movie contained within, and provide a scare. Well, the guy at the door is just their friend David, who just broke up with his girlfriend after finding out she cheated on him. And for the next 20 minutes, we're seeing everything from his perspective, with the couple more or less reduced to bit players. It's a very awkward shift, and it proves to be fatal once the "Possession" stuff starts up, because with each passing minute, the couple becomes less and less important to us. By the time they return to the "intruder" issue, I had forgotten all about it, and it turns out to be just a plot contrivance to have video proof of something David may have done earlier in the day.

There's also an extended sequence where the monsters come after David and a girl who lives upstairs. Not a bad scene on its own, but its almost comically unrelated to the rest of the film, as she's basically never mentioned again. It also doesn't quite jive with the rest of the movie, which takes a "is it in his head or is it real?" approach. If you are going with the "it's all in his head" version, we're led to believe that he is causing the others to see things too, due to them being subject to his hysteria for an extended period of time. But he didn't spend any time with the neighbor, so how would she be "starting to believe" the monsters were real, when she never had the opportunity to do so?

But if they ARE real, then why can't they come out in the day time? Why are they so focused on just these specific people? It's one thing to leave a movie up to interpretation, but in order to do that successfully, you have to make sure all bases are covered, so that either answer is 100% plausible given the information we have. In this movie's case, neither really makes any sense.

There are some good moments sprinkled throughout, however, making it at least a decent enough time-killer. I particularly liked the "Makeshift Ouija" scene, where a glass moves around on a newspaper, spelling out words in a "more or less" fashion. So there are extra, or missing letters, but if you sound out the syllables that the glass focuses on, you get the word. It allows for the otherwise standard scene to hold a bit of suspense for once; I hate in real Ouija scenes where the thing is spelling out, like, SUSAN, and no one seemingly catches on until the final letter, like: "S...U...S...A...N! Oh no! Susan!"

I also liked the art that David drew (I assume), which reminded me of Clive Barker's pencil sketches. And while they never come out and say the name of the game, there's something charming about the couple playing Gears Of War together - I remember trying to play with my wife once, and deciding then and there that Lego Star Wars (or any of the other off-shoots) or Rock Band would be the alpha and omega of the co-op gaming part of our marriage from now on. Bonus points for using the real game soundtrack too - I notice in a lot of movies they will show a real game but toss in some generic sounds over it, or use the very distinct Donkey Kong sounds over some random made up game. It gave the film a bit of realism at an early point; too bad the writers totally botched it not too long afterward.

The only extra is a trailer, which is odd since IFC usually provides some decent extras and the director had done a lot of interviews for the film prior to release, so it's not like he's shy or that he doesn't WANT to talk about the film. Perhaps some explanation of the film's more muddled moments (or why they changed the title to something that makes it sound like it's just some Asylum knockoff) could have helped matters. However even if I totally understood the ending and other moments of the film, it would still be a misfire due to the completely unnecessary POV shots that dominate the second half, and the fact that the people who I thought were our main characters had the bulk of their development confined to the opening scenes.

What say you?

Jake Gyllenhaal finally does a romantic comedy

Jake Gyllenhaal has made exactly 20 feature films. It feels like more than that, doesn't it?

And because this is his 20th film, I thought it was appropriate that we pause to celebrate this milestone on The Audient. Okay, that's not what I thought -- it was just a happy accident that I wanted to write about his 20th movie today, and that it happened to be his 20th.

When I saw the trailers for Love & Other Drugs, something struck me as odd. It wasn't quite the Gyllenhaal I recognized. Whoever this guy was, he was being playful and flirty, maybe engaging in a pratfall or two. There was cheery music playing. The voiceover guy sounded like he'd just popped some happy medicine, speaking of drugs.

Was Jake Gyllenhaal doing a romantic comedy?

Yes, it appeared that he was. I mean, that he is.

At that moment it struck me just how incongruous this seemed. Up until now in his career, the man has gone from one serious role to the next. There are some movies in which he doesn't crack a single smile the whole time.

Yet I'm sure he's been offered a ton of romantic comedy scripts. He's got matinee idol looks. He's still young, only just ready to turn 30 next month. And from the few times we've seen him be playful, we know he can do it.

It's just that until now, he's been holding out, presumably for artistic reasons. It seems to me that Jake Gyllenhaal doesn't find much value in romantic comedies, at least in terms of him appearing in them.

I suppose if you compared him to some other guys his age, he doesn't seem so unique. For example, the guy he gets compared to most -- Tobey Maguire -- hasn't done a romantic comedy either, to my knowledge. But at least those Spiderman movies had their share of whimsy. Even Heath Ledger, Gyllenhaal's co-star in Brokeback Mountain, who was considered a deathly (bad choice of words) serious actor in his own right, had at least two films that could loosely be characterized as romantic comedies: 10 Things I Hate About You and Casanova.

Let's take a brief look at the roles Gyllenhaal has played, listed chronologically:

1) City Slickers (1991, Ron Underwood). Who knew? He played Billy Crystal's son -- will have to go back and watch that. But even if we could count that, it would be a buddy comedy, not a romantic comedy.

2) A Dangerous Woman (1993, Stephen Gyllenhaal). Presumably a drama in which Debra Winger plays a mentally slow woman accused of theft. Appeared as a kid again, this time alongside sister Maggie, directed by father Stephen. Yep, it was a family affair.

3) Josh and S.A.M. (1993, Billy Weber). Can't find very much information about this, but it seems to be a coming-of-age drama in which he plays a side character. He's still only 13 at this point, not yet at "leading man" status.

4) Homegrown (1998, Stephen Gyllenhaal). Jump forward five years and Gyllenhaal has a tiny role in a forgettable stoner comedy-thriller -- so tiny, in fact, that he does not even appear on the first cast page on IMDB. Father Stephen directs again.

5) October Sky (1999, Joe Johnston). Okay, now we're finally getting to his real career. This is an inspirational movie (though not a very good one) about a coal miner's kid who wants to be an astronaut. It's probably how most of us know Gyllenhaal. Not deathly serious but certainly not a comedy.

6) Bubble Boy (2001, Blair Hayes). The last time Gyllenhaal made anything resembling a comedy. I say "resembling" because even though I haven't seen it, I understand that it only "resembles" humor in a very distant way.

7) Donnie Darko (2001, Richard Kelly). Gyllenhaal plays a depressed teenager who hallucinates rabbits that instruct him to commit vandalism, and worse. One of my favorite films of all time.

8) Lovely & Amazing (2001, Nicole Holofcener). Okay, this is sort of a comedy, but again, Gyllenhaal's role is so small that he doesn't make the first page of credits on IMDB.

9) The Good Girl (2002, Miguel Arteta). If I remember correctly, he plays the teenager Jennifer Aniston is sleeping with. It's interesting that he's matched up with Aniston in one of her only movies that you wouldn't describe as a romantic comedy. Some would call this a black comedy. I would call it a misfire.

10) Highway (2002, James Cox). Another one I hadn't heard of. Involves drugs, mobsters, and a road trip to Seattle in the week before Kurt Cobain's suicide. Sounds like a laugh a minute.

11) Moonlight Mile (2002, Brad Silberling). Plays the grieving guy left behind after his fiancee is killed. I liked this movie pretty well -- I think the fact that they cut the trailer so effectively with Elton John's "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" is still part of the positive feeling I have about it. Ellen Pompeo was introduced to us in this film.

12) The Day After Tomorrow (2004, Roland Emmerich). All the laughter in this movie is unintentional.

13) Brokeback Mountain (2005, Ang Lee). A bromantic drama, not a romantic comedy.

14) Proof (2005, John Madden). Excellent adaptation of a play about a mathematical whiz (Anthony Hopkins) and his equally whizzy daughter (Gwyneth Paltrow). Gyllenhaal plays Paltrow's love interest. As she is going through her father's things after he dies, this is not a comedy.

15) Jarhead (2005, Sam Mendes). Deathly serious (there's that phrase again) war drama. One of those films that's executed well but does nothing for me.

16) Zodiac (2007, David Fincher). Plays an obsessed reporter trying to tie together the loose ends in the Zodiac killer case. Nothing romantic or comedic about this one.

17) Rendition (2007, Gavin Hood). Plays a CIA agent trying to get information from terror suspects. Haunted by lots of demons. Really like this movie.

18) Brothers (2009, Jim Sheridan). Melodramatic drama in which Gyllenhaal's character starts to fall for his brother's widow -- even though his brother was not actually killed in Iraq as assumed. Pretty over-the-top stuff here.

19) Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010, Mike Newell). This was a bit of a preview of Love and Other Drugs, in the sense that Gyllenhaal finally succumbed to another kind of Hollywood archetype -- the rakish hero who cracks wise. I haven't seen the movie but it seems like there's a fair amount of that going on. Also his first action movie, if you can believe it. Is Gyllenhaal getting soft in his "old age"?

Which brings us to Love & Other Drugs.

The movie actually received a B+ from Entertainment Weekly, which means maybe it's not as generic as it seems. In Anne Hathaway, Gyllenhaal has a co-star who also usually does "smarter" work than romantic comedies -- in fact, this movie re-matches them from Brokeback Mountain, where they played ill-fated spouses (the dude was gay, after all, and then he died -- that could be the definition of an ill-fated relationship).

But because it's Gyllenhaal's first entry into a world that has sucked in so many of his contemporaries, Love & Other Drugs feels like a bit of a letdown. It doesn't feel like the organic progression of his career -- it feels like slouching toward a paycheck. Like "Okay, I've made enough movies that mean something -- now let's settle down into my schlock period." Coupled with Prince of Persia, the trend seems all the more discouraging.

But maybe it isn't. Gyllenhaal's 21st film seems to be David O. Russell's Nailed, which may or may not be in turnaround -- IMDB gives it a 2010 release date that will obviously not transpire (Russell's The Fighter is actually coming out in a couple weeks), and wikipedia doesn't have anything more to say about it. It's described as a "politically charged romantic comedy," but it also involves Russell, he of the brilliant trifecta of Spanking the Monkey, Flirting with Disaster and Three Kings -- and of the terrible disaster known as I Heart Huckabees, in which his reputation for being impossible to work with was magnified after a blowup with Lily Tomlin that developed a life of its own on the internet. Who knows what to expect from this movie, but it doesn't sound very "standard" -- Jessica Biel plays a woman who comes to Washington D.C. to lobby for better health coverage after she gets a nail lodged in her head, and Gyllenhaal plays the senator who ends up falling for her. Could be interesting.

And that's all I want from Gyllenhaal, who has indeed had an interesting career so far. He may not have incredible range, seeming always to play some variation on himself, but at least he's chosen roles in films that have challenged both him and us.

And if he feels the need to squeeze in a romantic comedy here and there, well, I guess we can live with that.

Happy 20th, Jake.

Before the review, a bit of win for us all...

Our review of The Last Exorcism is coming forthwith, but until then, please enjoy the hell out of this little piece of marketing genius, as we did.

This is great.


'The Last Exorcism' Chat Roulette Gives Fellas Blue Balls - Watch more horror

Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)

"Better than the first one, PA 2 will make you mess your pants!"

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2
Sub-Genre- Um... Paranormal?

Cast Members of Note- Katie Featherston, Sprague Grayden, Molly Ephraim, Brian Boland, Michah Sloat, and Abby the Dog.

What's it About?- Did you see the first one? Same thing. Well, it's a bit different, but for the most part it's about a mean ghost being mean to people, and creeping the shit out of me in the process. And I have news for you, it's way creepier than the first one. And better too. Still, it's mostly the same, except that it's roughly 60 days before the events of the first Paranormal Activity, and this time we get to see Katie's step sister and her family walk around their house filming every aspect of their lives too. They must be exhibitionists by nature, because seriously, who films shit that much around the house?


Then again, I'd tape every last second of these two jamming things in their mouths too if I could.
Anywho... after coming home to find their house trashed, they assume it was a break in of some sort, and have the house rigged with a bunch of security cameras. Their Mexican nanny-maid knows better though, and warns the family that "something isn't right" with their new abode, which of course, the gringo's ignore. Consuela tries to bless the house and chase away the evil spirits, which only serves to get her fired and departed. I hate white people.


This is an actual scene from the movie.
Creepy things start to happen to everyone in the house, including the dog! The baby knows something is up, but much like the maid and the constantly barking dog, no one listens to him either. So as things get worse, it becomes apparent that the thousands of dollars spent on the security gear and cameras was a waste of money, as mom and dad refuse to acknowledge what they see on the tapes.


WTF is going on with that kid and the mirror!?!
Will the family survive the spooky antics of the mean ghost? Will Consuela return and save the day? Will Katie show us her wonder puppies, or go in the completely opposite direction and just act creepy? No, kinda, and unfortunately, yes.


Mmm hmm. She sure likes kids...
The Good- Better than the first one, PA 2 nearly made me poop my pants. I don't get truly skeeved out very often, but this movie rattled me a few times, and literally made my pucker ring clench. I'm being serious. It clenched. Not fun.

The dynamic of an entire family being menaced opened things up in the sequel, and in my opinion gave the story more places to go, and allowed for more twists and turns to keep us on edge as an audience. Especially compelling are the scenes involving the baby; it doesn't get more helpless than a baby being moved around by an evil spirit, or wandering a house in the middle of the night by itself.

This movie has a serious creep factor going for it too, which I though was much more effective than it was in the first movie. If you thought seeing Katie Featherston being dragged down the hallway in the first movie was terrifying, you haven't seen anything yet. Oh, and there's a particular scare that happens in the kitchen, which I won't ruin, but it literally mad me jump, yell "Fuck" and pee myself a little bit.

The Bad- Poor Sprague Grayden. Not only was she one of the stars of a doomed TV show which I loved , Jericho, that died an untimely death, but she died a painful and untimely death on another great show which I love, Sons of Anarchy, and it still hurts me to watch that show without her. Add to that the fact that she's haunted and abused at every turn by an evil spirit, which you know won't end good... the poor girl just cant catch a break! Maybe throw her a romantic comedy or something, Hollywood. She's been through enough already, and deserves a nice break.


The Downright Horrendous- For the second time in as many movies, we the audience are robbed of the one simple thing that we want from these movies, but thus far have yet to receive: gratuitous topless-ness from Katie Featherston. Pervy or not, you need to be honest and admit that her breasteses are things on wonder, even if they are mostly hidden wonders. She's a fine actress, and she might even have a golden personality that would captivate me like cocaine captivates Lindsay Lohan, but make with the tits already, Katie. Stop being a prude!

The Gory- Not so much on the gore, which was fine really.

The Naked- Nope. We do get to see plenty of wonderful Katie cleavage, and Sprague Grayden in a bath tub though.


Football? In the Tub? Spot me the ball on your dirty goal line and I'm in!
What did we learn?- Don't screw over your step sister, as it will come back to bite you in the ass. Also, never dismiss the Mexican nanny-maid and her evil fighting abilities!

The Master Says- A (9.5/10) This was one hell of a sequel, and if you liked the first PA, you will most likely dig this one even more. Sure, the found footage genre seems a little passe' by now, but it can still be done effectively, and is done so here. Catch it if you haven't already in theaters, or wait for DVD which is really the best way to see a quiet, creepy flick like this one.

Final Thoughts- She really needs to do a nude scene. Something with her taking a long, slow motion shower, or involving sapphic love of some kind. Maybe she could be "The Breast Whisperer", where ever time danger is near, her nipples tingle and she has to take her shirt off and caress herself for answers. If not that, then porn.