10 Horror Eyes for February!

You know the drill...

Victim? Eyes (Sutures)
Babydoll Eyes (Sucker Punch)
Gangster Vamp Eye (Dead Cert)
She Likes it Rough Eyes (A Serbian Film)
Gone Horribly Wrong Eyes (The Experiment)
A Vengeful Eye (I Spit on Your Grave)
Hell's Fugitive Eyes (Drive Angry 3D)
Wurdulak Eyes (Black Sabbath)
Traumatized Eye (Hora)
Killer's Spawn Eye (My Soul to Take)

I Spit on Your Grave (2011)

"The poster blurb really does say it best... If you can handle it, see it. Indeed."

I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE
Sub-Genre- Revenge
DVD PREMIERE- Feb 8th, 2011

Cast Members of Note- Sarah Butler, Jeff Branson, Andrew Howard, Daniel Franzese and Chad Lindberg.

What's it About?- Jennifer is a sexy little writer who decides to rent a cabin in the woods to work on her newest book... right there you know she's destined to get raped, killed and/or terrorized in some way, right? It's so obvious. Hot chicks can not go into any back woods locale alone, and hope to find any sort of comfort or solace. I think that's a law in most states. Especially in the South.

Yes, you should have known better. Now stop pouting.
Anywho, after spilling water on the rube at the gas n' go, and making out with the town retard, Jennifer decides to drink a few bottles of wine, smoke some marijuana cigarettes, and walk around her cabin half naked. With all of those elements aligned, it takes about 4 seconds for jethro and his dim wit crew of yokels to show up, and put a good rapin' on the city whore's ass.

"I should go look in there..."
Left for dead, Jennifer gets herself cleaned up, builds some crazy traps, and sets off on a mission to make the rape gang from petticoat junction wish they taint never done seen her pretty city titties... It really is your standard rape revenge story, but I feel it appropriate to say that Jennifer doesn't play around, and she gets quite nastay in here revenge tactics. This is exactly why I don't rape people. Well, that and I'm not to that level of creepy.

I think at this point, I'd stop calling her a whore if I were you...
The Good- Well made and superbly acted by everyone involved, ISOYG 2010 is a nasty, unflinching little remake that should please most jaded horror fans. If you've seen the original, then not much here will come as a surprise to you other than the fact that the remake is a far better film than it's 1978 namesake.

Rape/revenge movies are an acquired taste. They're usually stark and brutal, and on most levels, they're profoundly disturbing. Sure, the revenge aspect of things seems to make it all right in the end, but the slow and brutal build up that comes before is a tough thing to sit through for most folk. There's a reason that these movies were big in the 70's for a while and then disappeared for the most part... there's not a lot of fun involved for the audience.

That being said, these types of movies do have a strong and necessary message in them that begs to be heard, and it's basically "do unto others..." Sadly, in real life, these types of crimes go mostly unpunished for the most part, if they're even reported in the first place, and therein lies the beauty of a movie like this... the sick fucks of the world whom prey upon the innocent and chaste get what they deserve and more, even if it's only on film. It's almost like our own personal revenge, and damn if it doesn't feel good to see, even if it's incredibly tough to watch.

He got punched so hard his eyes are red!
Sarah Butler will make you like her, feel for her, feel her pain, and cheer her on through all of the unspeakable acts she partakes in, because she deserves her revenge. She's also a cutie, which never hurts. Conversely, the villains of the film will make you seethe with anger, and especially Johnny and The Sheriff; they're played to evil perfection by Jeff Branson and Andrew Howard. You will hate them. I'm talking an extra special hate. The bottom line is that the cast did their jobs admirably, and pulled exactly what they were supposed to out of us.

The Bad- One criticism I have of this flick is this: how does a sweet, innocent type like Jennifer turn into a viscous, death dealing angel of no-mercy so quickly? I get it, but I mean she concocts some pretty elaborate "traps" if you will, and dishes out some really rough, slow torture to her victims. It felt a tiny bit odd to me. It really is a small issue, as the movie worked well overall, but I felt it worth a mention.

The Downright Horrendous- When are city folk going to learn that you do not head off for an idyllic weekend in the country, unless you're armed for bear and willing to kill? You're just asking for trouble if you think otherwise.

The Gory- Rape, torture, rape, anal shotgun violence, rape, eye torture, rape, hedge clipper to the groin, rape, face melting and rape. There's so much rape in this movie, that even one of the bad guys get raped... albeit by a shotgun, but it still counts. This is a visually tough one to sit through, and will most likely make you flinch and squirm throughout.

Personally, I'll take the fishhooks in the eyes, if I get a choice.
The Naked- We do get to see the nice little body of Sarah Butler in various stages of undress, but considering the subject matter, it's not very enjoyable. She's very nice too look at before the nastiness starts though.

What did we learn?- If you're going to rape someone, you should really be prepared to have your dick cut off. I mean, you pretty much have it coming.

The Master Says- A As remakes go, this one managed to improve on the original in most ways, and add enough flair of its own to make it more than just a simple retelling. You have to like the whole rape revenge/female empowerment sub-genre to truly appreciate this one, because its a tough watch, but don't discount it as simple or no more than exploitative. This flick delivers the uncomfortable, messy goods.

Final Thoughts- Sarah Butler is destined to be a genre great, if she's so inclined. First though, she's intent on finishing this puzzle...

I know where one piece fits...

January in Review

So what exactly did the first month of the new year give to we, the horror faithful?

Well, Theatrically we got a Nicholas Cage clunker about some knights and a witch, with Season of the Witch. Not a great way to start the year off. We also got a pretty good possession flick in The Rite, though it had some issues and could have been perfect had they gone a different way with it.

The annual After Dark Horror Festival only went theatrical in 10 theaters this year, so it looks like most will have to wait for DVD if they want to catch them. That's probably not the worst decision that After Dark has ever made...

On the DVD front, we got a mixed bag...

We got some good ones- The Last Exorcism *, Machete *, Pirhanha 3-D *, Buried *
Some average ones-Bitter Feast, Case 39 *, Dark Skies: The Complete Series, Death Race 2, The Traveler *
And some just plain bad ones- Saw 3D: The Final Chapter **, Let Me Die Quietly, The Shadows, Wolvesbayne, Halloween Night, Psychosis.


So overall, it looks like a slow, uneventful month for the most part. February already looks more promising, so let's keep our fingers crossed, shall we?

January was a C, at best.

Blood And Lace (1971)

JANUARY 31, 2011

GENRE: SLASHER

SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT VIEW)

The weirdest thing about Netflix Instant is how many movies they have that aren’t even available on DVD. So if I was a disc purist, I couldn’t even watch Blood And Lace, which was apparently never even released properly on VHS, let alone DVD. Yet Netflix has a pristine, OAR copy? How does that work? There’s an MGM logo at the very end, so I guess they must have some deal with them (I noticed a few other non-DVD streaming titles were also MGM). Glad MGM has its priorities in order. Release Cabin in the Woods? No, it’s all about getting Blood And Lace onto Netflix Instant!

Anyway, it’s kind of like an “early demo” of a slasher film. You know when a band releases demos of songs that already exist, and they sort of sound bad and have different lyrics that you don’t like as much, but it's still worth a listen for comparison's sake or just plain curiosity? That’s what this movie is. A die hard slasher fan (as I am) will enjoy seeing early versions of the POV opening murder (not unlike Halloween and Friday the 13th), and a killer in a mask chasing our heroine around the woods, but it also lacks suspense and the body count is too low (lower than Halloween’s even), rendering it hard to recommend to casual slasher fans who just want the boobs and blood.

Hell even I got annoyed at the lack of nudity at one point (the movie was originally rated PG!). One of the girls is the insanely cute Terri Messina, and there was a scene where it became clear she was going to get it on with a guy. But when they get to the scene, she’s always obscured or covered up in some way! What the hell! According to the IMDb, she was 24 during filming, so even though she was playing a 16 year old, there’s no need to hide it. Especially in a movie that’s as occasionally sleazy as this one – there’s an attempted rape, a lot of talk about the heroine’s mother being a prostitute, and a final twist that gives the girl an option of either going to jail or marrying her father.

But despite the lack of “action” (any kind), I still dug the flick. It reminded me of other offbeat slashers like Silent Scream and Pigs (aka Love Exorcist), and the villains’ plot was both realistic and fairly chilling. Basically, they got 150 bucks a month for each kid in their orphanage, but since they were so tyrannical, the kids would often try running away. If they ran away they wouldn’t get the dough, so they would chain them up (or kill them) to prevent them from running off, and would make excuses if someone came snooping around. Like when a cop comes by, they tell him that three of the kids are sick and are in the infirmary, and talk up the risk of contagion, so he opts not to actually look in the room. It’s the type of plot that could never work today, and that’s sort of what I liked about it – it’s somewhat ripoff/homage/remake proof. Part of why the 70s and 80s were the best decades for horror was because they were nestled in between the period where they couldn’t show much due to limitations of FX (or the Code), and the period where communication options rendered a lot of plots invalid. Take Halloween 4, for example – Loomis has to drive out to Haddonfield to warn them in person about Myers because a phone line was down, which of course was too late. Now it would be a cell call or email away. OR, they have to go through the generic motions of explaining why no one can call. So it’s always nice to go back to when the isolation and lack of communication was just a face of life, not a contrivance.

Back on track, this movie has one of the weirdest kills I’ve ever seen in a horror film, possibly any genre. There’s a runaway being chased by one of the asshole orphanage owners (Uncle Leo from Seinfeld!), and the kid’s suitcase falls apart. Rather than be like “screw my ugly clothes”, the kid stops to pick them up, and when he realizes that he’s allowing the guy to gain too much ground on him, he stands back up and... hugs a tree? I don’t know how else to explain it – it’s almost like he’s trying to hide behind it (which makes sense) but he wraps his arms around it (which doesn’t), thus providing the killer with a clear target. But it’s the only kill in the movie in between the first and last 5 minutes, so I won’t complain.

Anyway, if you liked those other movies I mentioned, you’ll probably enjoy this one, but otherwise I’d steer clear. It’s different, and of better quality than I expected (the lady that runs the orphanage is an Oscar winner!), but the strange approach of exploring exploitative/Grindhouse plot elements with a PG attitude keeps it from being a true lost classic.

What say you?

Getting acquainted

Remember when I used to have a feature where I'd watch old movies, three per month according to a certain theme, to broaden the number of films I've seen from other decades?

You should -- I did it as recently as December.

Actually, from July through December, I watched three movies per month from a different decade, choosing randomly between the decades from the 1920s through the 1970s until I'd hit each one. It was a good system to force me to expand beyond the new release section at the video store. Not that I'm otherwise disinclined to watch older movies, it's just it's easy to procrastinate in favor of a comedy that was in theaters in the past six months.

And though I enjoyed the Decades series, there was something a bit too broad about it. Any film from the decade? Ten years is a long time in the ever-changing world of cinema. A movie released in 1930 would not look very much like a movie released in 1939. In 1930, we were barely into the talkie era, but by 1939, films were being released in color. That's a rather extreme example, but you get what I'm talking about.

So after Decades ended, I wanted to continue the project in a slightly more focused way -- a way that would better allow me to relate the three movies I see each month to each other. Having taken January off to concentrate on 2010 films, I'm now refreshed and ready to do that.

At first I thought of taking the essential idea of Decades and turning it into Years. Like, each month I'd choose a year -- say, 1967 -- and watch three movies I hadn't previously seen from that year. I might even tell you what was going on in the U.S., or in the world, during that time, and see how the films either reflected the times or served as counter-programming to what was occupying us on a larger scale.

But there was something about having no endgame for the project that kind of bothered me. There would be no way to complete it, like I'd done with Decades. Or at least, if I did complete it, it could take the better part of an actual decade, depending on the parameters I set for myself -- depending on what years made up the range of years eligible to be selected. And since I'd already decided that I could venture into the 1980s or even the 1990s with this project, it really would be the better part of a decade. Who knows if we'll even be writing blogs in 2021?

So I've chosen a different way to focus things, one that will not have a clear endgame either -- but at least will be open-ended enough that it won't seem to demand a particular endgame.

I've decided that I'm going to choose a personality in cinema -- be it an actor, a director, perhaps even a screenwriter or producer -- that I'm not familiar with, or not as familiar with as I'd like to be. That personality will drive what movies I see, will appear either in front of or behind the camera of all three movies I see that month.

This will be a more systematic way to govern my viewing, one that will not be so subject to randomness. Whereas before, the only criterion was "Did this movie come out sometime in the years 1950 to 1959?", now I will be making specific choices for specific reasons. And when I write a piece at the end of each month to summarize what I've observed, it'll have a certain internal integrity, and may be a much more interesting read. I'll call this series Getting Acquainted, and each month's post will be titled something like "Getting acquainted with ... Carrot Top." Only, it'll probably be someone with a bit more of a reputation and body of work than Mr. Top.

Now, I'm not going to pretend this will be easy. I've got a busy life, and even with the relatively loose standards of the Decades series, there were still months when I was scrambling to make sure I got a movie that fit that month's theme before the end of the month. There'll be no more swinging by the library with the likely expectation that I'll come away with a title that suits my needs. It's going to take pretty tight management of my Netflix queue, possibly at the exclusion of other movies I want to see. And I've started it in the shortest month of the year, when there are only 28 days in which to watch these movies.

But I think I can do it. Or at least, I'm going to try my damnedest. Besides, my Netflix streaming should help. Even if I fail to manage my queue as well as I'd like, the artists I choose will be prominent enough that some of their stuff should be available on streaming. There'll just be no leaving it to the last minute -- no procrastinating in favor of a recent comedy. And we can probably agree that's a good thing.

To whet your appetite -- such as it is -- I thought I'd let you know the first guy who's up to bat. (Whether I'll reveal the upcoming month's artist at the end of each piece, I don't know -- let me think about it. It may help not to commit myself to a particular person, if it doesn't end up working out to see their stuff that month.)

So in February I am going to get acquainted with ... Mr. James Cagney. He's the perfect example for this project, and in fact is the actor who kind of inspired me to choose Getting Acquainted as my next recurring blog feature. See, Cagney has 69 titles listed on IMDB -- that includes TV, but I'm not going to parse the list to see how many are actual movies -- and I haven't seen a single thing in which he's appeared. Actually, that's not true -- he was an uncredited extra in Mutiny on the Bounty, which I saw during 1930s month of the Decades project. (And that's funny that he would have appeared as an extra, because he already had a busy career going by 1935.) But I haven't seen a single film in which Jimmy Cagney was actually credited, and I think that's something I need to correct.

Starting ... pretty damn soon. My first Cagney title is already on its way to me from Netflix.

See you here on the flip side of February to discuss.

Prowl (2010)

JANUARY 30, 2011

GENRE: BREAKDOWN, VAMPIRE

SOURCE: ONLINE SCREENER

Well, I knew it couldn’t last. After two above average After Dark entries (Husk and Seconds Apart), we have Prowl, a typically forgettable/somewhat bad offering that doesn’t add anything new to its sub-genre(s) and does a fairly lousy job with a lot of the basics. In short, it’s the type of movie that’s barely worth a rental, let alone showcasing theatrically. But on the other hand, if this is the worst of this year’s lot, then it’s been a pretty good year for the series.

The biggest problem with the film is its woeful script. The concept is fine, but everything about it is botched, as if they were going out of their way to ruin their story. For example, our heroine wants desperately to escape to “the big city” (she repeatedly says “the big city” even though it’s Chicago – why does she refer to her specific dream in such a generic way?), and this being a horror movie, she needs one friend’s car and four other friends to join for the ride. And again, it’s a horror movie, so of course the car breaks down, literally inches from the town line. The visual gag is fine, but the script beats us over the head with it – she actually says “It’s like the town won’t let me leave!” But their proximity also renders the rest of the movie idiotic, because rather than simply go back into town and see if they can find another car (or rent one, one kid is 21 even though he looks the youngest), they flag down a truck and hitch a ride. The script even tries to seem smart by having the kids take pictures of the truck and send them to other friends as “insurance”, but nothing comes of this plot point when they are inevitably kidnapped, so it doesn’t matter.

Another big blunder is that they kill off almost all of the kids at once, which means that the bulk of the action involves our Final Girls running away from vampires, hiding, getting found, running... lather, rinse, repeat. Once a rather silly twist is revealed, it gets mixed up a bit, but it’s still rather monotonous. Worse, the action is poorly shot/edited – it’s often too dark to really make out much of the image, and the editing would make Michael Bay sick. And you might be thinking “It’s a vampire movie, it has to be dark!”, but you’d be wrong. Well you’re right, Prowl is wrong. These vamps CAN go in the sun, so I’m actually kind of baffled why they didn’t just set the whole movie in the daytime, which would have been interesting.

But like I said, the concept is fine. It’s not often the breakdown and vampire genres are combined, and the idea of bringing junkies into a deserted warehouse to let vampires both feed AND train to be better hunters is pretty cool (anything that kills junkies is fine by me, actually). There’s also a decent 5-10 minutes in the middle when the kids are aware that they’re in deep shit, prior to any of them being killed – we stay in the truck, as unsure of what is going on as the characters are, and director Patrik Syversen quickly creates (and maintains) tension out of the situation. It’s like a different (better) creative team took over for a while, and it's almost worth watching the film just to enjoy this taut sequence.

Also making it somewhat worthwhile is Courtney Hope as the heroine. She got saddled with some inane dialogue, but that’s not her fault, and of far more importance to her future as a scream queen, she was just as good as the action heroics as she was at screaming and being a potential victim. Also: hot. Always a plus. The other kids are pretty bland, though they looked (and, assuming the IMDb is correct for the few birthdays I checked, ARE) roughly the age that they were playing, which is one of those “why do I have to consider this a plus” things, but ‘for what it’s worth’ and all that, I suppose.

And as I said early on, if this is the low point for this year’s fest, then this new direction was a worthy endeavor. It’s not a good movie, but it’s hardly a disaster on the level of Lake Dead, Unearthed, or The Graves. Sometimes I wish movies were more like TV series, where the pilot or first couple episodes are shaky but they find their footing and become really great shows after some minor tinkering or a change in focus (Supernatural and Community being two examples). Movies like Prowl don’t get that chance, which is kind of a shame - they were onto something here, but they didn’t quite make it work. Oh well.

What say you?

Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer still suck

As I learned from a movie by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer earlier this week, vampires suck.

But they don't suck as much as Friedberg and Seltzer do.

I watched Vampires Suck on my last day before the end of ranking my 2010 movies because it was short and I had a block of time to fill after getting home from work. Plus, as stated here, I had the masochistic desire to flesh out the bottom of my rankings.

However, if I had consciously known it was "a Friedberg-Seltzer joint" (Spike Lee, forgive me), I would have definitely avoided it.

But if it walks like a Friedberg-Seltzer movie, and it talks like a Friedberg-Seltzer movie, then it's probably a Friedberg-Seltzer movie.

If I'm losing you with these names, let me tell you about these two guys, who I loosely consider to be two of the worst people in Hollywood. But first, let's take a look at who we're dealing with.

Here are Jason and Aaron:


And oh look! Some kind soul on the internet has already done the work for me. Jason and Aaron do, in fact, suck.

And I'm glad they find themselves so funny, because no one else does. Or no one else should -- but apparently, some people do, which is why Friedberg-Seltzer movies still make money, which is why they get to keep on making them.

After being not-totally-terrible in Scary Movie, where they shared the writing credit with four others, here's what they've gone on to unleash on the world:

Date Movie (2006)
Epic Movie (2007)
Meet the Spartans (2008)
Disaster Movie (2008)

Each of these films has been given one star by the website I write for. And even that might be too generous, except that the website refuses to cut a single star in half. One is as low as they go. That's got to be the lowest number of stars for any four movies in the careers of any writer, director, writer-director or team of writer-directors.

Vampires Suck was given one-and-a-half stars, although no review exists -- in fact, I may be the one who reviews it. Vampires Suck, in fact, is one half start better than the two other Friedberg-Seltzer movies I've seen, Date Movie and Epic Movie. It's nice to know that over the course of almost exactly four years since I last checked in with them (I went to Epic Movie in January 2007, in the theater, because I was desperate to start my new yearly rankings), they've managed to raise their overall aesthetic from an F grade to an F+.

So they still suck -- they still suck big time. They just suck marginally less than they did before.

Why is Vampires Suck "better" than the other Friedberg-Seltzer parodies? For one, at least it manages to stick pretty much to a central plot. The first two Twilight movies are the unambiguous target of this film. Fuckwad #1 and Fuckwad #2 use that architecture to keep the plot, even the jokes, relatively streamlined. Whereas in their other two movies I saw, Date Movie blended the plots of Hitch, Meet the Fockers, My Big Fat Greek Wedding and others, and Epic Movie was so confused, I don't even remember what its plot was (but did you know that Snakes on a Plane and Nacho Libre count as an "epic movies"?).

And that's really the "big secret" about these two -- no matter what goes in the ______ of _____ Movie, all they really want is an excuse to lampoon up-to-the-moment cultural trends. And that's what was my true tip-off that Friedberg and Seltzer were the ones who shat out Vampires Suck. It wasn't the fact that it was a parody -- others have dabbled in parodies during Friedberg and Seltzer's dubious reign, including the Wayans brothers and the Abrahams-Zucker team. It was the moment when a character throws a cell phone and it hits Alice in Wonderland in the head. It was when there was an inexplicable riff on Dear John that lasts about 15 seconds. It was when Lady Gaga makes an appearance. It couldn't have been a Seltzer-Friedberg movie released in 2010 without the requisite cameo by Lady Gaga. (Not the actual Lady Gaga, of course, but a person playing her.)

I've said it before, I'm saying it now, and I'll probably still be saying it in 2017, after they've inevitably made five more movies:

Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer suck.

Unfortunately, I'm not done with them yet. I'll be seeing Meet the Spartans sometime soon. I've already been approved to review it.

I suck.

Seconds Apart (2011)

JANUARY 29, 2011

GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL, SUPERNATURAL

SOURCE: ONLINE SCREENER

I’m surprised there aren’t more twin horror movies. The basic facts about twins are kind of creepy (to me anyway) – their oft-reported seeming telepathy (one twin is hurt, and the other can sense it hundreds of miles away), the fact that they dress/groom alike, etc. So basically, it doesn’t take too much exaggeration to turn their story into a horror film like Seconds Apart, which focuses on a pair of teenaged twins who possess the ability to cloud/warp/control the minds of those around them. And this being a horror movie and not a porno, they don’t use this to get laid. Fools!

No instead they kill folks, usually for some sort of petty revenge, such as four jock douchebags that they kill in the opening scene by “convincing” them to play Russian Roulette with a fully loaded gun. A lesser film would make it more of a mystery, with the hero/the audience thinking only one twin was responsible and spending the movie trying to figure out which (or worse, springing the twin as a “surprise” in the 3rd act), so I liked that the movie tells us right off the bat that both of these kids are evil. However, a girl comes along, and their relationship starts to crumble, which leads to a weakening of their power and thus unveils some secrets about their nature.

I must admit, there’s a great twist in the film that I never even considered for a second, and made me want to go back and watch the film again (I still might, if time allows). I always love being fooled, especially when it’s not an out of nowhere but still clichéd “twist” (i.e. he was dead the whole time, it was all a dream, etc). I just wish the film was grabbing my attention as well throughout more of its running time. The stuff with the girl is fine, but it slows the film down some, and takes a bit long to get to the point where the boys begin turning on each other, which is something you KNOW will happen even before the girl enters the picture. It sort of feels like the first act takes up more than half the movie, with the 2nd and 3rd acts somewhat squished together. Given the fact that the film has a more complex plot and deeper characters than the other films in this year’s crop, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a longer cut of the film on an AVID somewhere (as it runs the same 80-odd minutes that the other, less complicated films in the series do).

Another nice surprise was Orlando Jones’ turn as the cop who is investigating the initial murders and quickly zeroes in on the twins. He is known mainly for comedic roles (or as the friggin 7UP pitchman), so I was a bit puzzled by his casting at first, but he really did some great dramatic work with minimal humor (his fondness for Bazooka Joe comics is pretty much the extent of his levity). His character has a past tragedy, and he sells the obligatory flashbacks to this event as well as any traditional choice for this sort of thing, even when saddled with some rather silly hallucination/dream sequences, such as when he has visions of being trapped in a snow globe.

I was also impressed with the acting ability of Gary and Edmund Entin as the twins (actual twins - take that, Fincher!). At the start of the film, it’s impossible to tell them apart, but as the divide between them deepens, so does their demeanor, and thus it becomes a bit easier to tell which is which (even when one impersonates the other!). Eventually one changes his appearance, which serves both as a good plot point as well as an easier way to follow the action during their climactic battle, but before that point it was rarely an issue for me (after they start drifting apart I mean). Nice work, fellas.

See, this is the type of film I would love to see After Dark championing more often. It’s not perfect (again, the pacing is a bit wonky, and some of the explanation for their “powers” is a bit muddled), but it’s far from generic cookie cutter crap. Even Husk, which I liked a bit more, is basically another teen slasher/killer scarecrow movie, one that could have gotten a release on its own if it had a few names in it (hell, if 2005’s Venom could get a theatrical release...). But this is a bit smarter, and a bit harder to market, and thus wouldn’t have much of a chance (high school students killing jocks is hardly the most enticing prospect) of a decent release, and would be passed over on store shelves in favor of whatever Twilight wannabe was next to it. As with Dread or even going back to the first year’s The Hamiltons (which I didn't exactly love, but was at least not "typical" of anything) it’s the type of offbeat horror film with strong dramatic elements that I’d like to see more often, and kudos to ADF for putting it through production over what I’m sure were more commercially attractive options.

What say you?

Retro DVD trailers

As I mentioned previously, Buried was the last film I watched before I closed the rankings on my 2010 movie list.

But when I first put it in the DVD player, you might have thought I was working on my 2003 movie list or my 2006 movie list, rather than 2010.

In fact, I was quite sure I did not have Buried at all, but some impostor wearing the Buried DVD artwork.

See, the first trailer that came on was for Open Water. Not Open Water 2: Adrift, which would have been a slightly more recent movie to be pimping. Even if Open Water 2 came out in 2006, that would have been better than the 2003 release date of the original.

An anomaly? No. Because the next trailer that came on was for An American Haunting, which came out in 2006. It took until the third trailer to get something from 2010, at which point I breathed a sigh of relief.

Can you ever remember seeing DVD trailers for movies that were this old? Usually you can be pretty sure that the movies advertised have only just hit DVD, or, more likely, aren't even on DVD yet. In fact, sometimes they aren't even in the theater yet. You can so take this to the bank, that it can be fun to watch older DVDs just so you can be reminded of the time when this film and these other four films were all current releases. It's like a snapshot of a bygone era, a little time capsule.

The sudden inexplicable hawking of these older movies could only be explained by one thing: that Lionsgate, which released Buried, was attempting to clear out its old catalogue. But only Open Water was also released by Lionsgate; An American Haunting was not. Even if they'd both been from Lionsgate, why these movies? Why now? Did they have 10,000 copies of An American Haunting just sitting around in a warehouse somewhere, because the movie is total crap?

You could also posit a thematic relationship between the movie I came to see and Open Water, at the very least. Being trapped in a coffin is an equivalent impossible situation to being stranded at sea in shark-infested waters. But that just gives An American Haunting a second reason to be an illogical choice for this particular DVD. Or third, if you're counting its lack of a contemporaneous release date, its origins at a different studio and its failure to have anything to do with Buried.

I guess I will just scratch my head and move on.

The Rite (2011)

JANUARY 28, 2011

GENRE: POSSESSION, RELIGIOUS

SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

I'm not sure if the trailer for The Rite is spoiling too much or doing a good job of preparing you for the film's biggest weakness. If you haven't seen the trailer yet, you'll probably kind of hate the 3rd act, because it starts very abruptly and isn't nearly as interesting as the film that came before it. But in my case, once I figured out that the trailer was selling that 3rd act and not the actual movie, I was able to accept its flaws a bit easier, using the goodwill that the better-than-expected first hour or so of the film to ease the disappointment.

(This review assumes you've also seen the trailer. If not, I'll just say that it's a good drama that unfortunately bows to horror movie trappings and advise you to stop reading.)

Of course all exorcism films post 1973 will get compared to The Exorcist - it's inescapable. While some slashers can escape the shadow of Halloween and succeed on their own terms, William Friedkin's film is just too big of a landmark (I recently learned that when inflation is factored in, it's actually one of the top 20 highest grossing films of all time). The reason being, there hasn't really been another classic exorcism movie to share some of the glory, the way slashers like Scream and Nightmare On Elm Street have helped ease Halloween of its "burden". Luckily, The Rite actually spends most of its time with its exorcists, instead of focusing on the possessed girl.

And thus while there are some unfortunate similarities - our guy also boxes, deals with the recent death of a parent, and, of course, is having a crisis of faith - it definitely doesn't feel like an Exorcist retread for its first hour or so. You know when Karras and Merrin take a break and discuss faith? That sort of conflict forms the basis of the whole movie for a while. Our young Father Kovak (Colin O'Donoghue, who looks like Eddie Cahill and Jake Gylenhaal combined into one dude. Enjoy being one of People's 50 Most Beautiful next year, sir) is the one with a crisis of faith, but it's not like he lost it - he never really had a strong one, having used the priesthood as a means of escape from his father, a mortician.

Of course, that means Hopkins is in the Merrin role, and until that third act, he's the best he's been in years. He plays the role as sort of playful but also world-weary, giving one of his liveliest performances since... Christ, I can't even remember. At any rate, he makes convincing arguments to Kovak without ever talking down to him or getting preachy, even when his own beliefs get challenged. Their scenes together are often quite engrossing, and I liked that the obligatory possessed girl was just a tool to propel Kovak's development along - her story is never really the focus. So apart from the occasional creepy soundtrack choice and her brief outbursts, the movie is more like a drama for a while, and a good one at that.

But then, the third act. As the trailer suggests, Hopkins becomes possessed and it's up to the "new guy" to save him. It's not a complete misfire - Hopkins chews some scenery, the FX are still kept to a minimum, and Mikael Håfström retains his refreshingly old-school approach to the direction - no shaki-cams or rapid editing or any of that crap. But it's just the same old type of exorcism scene we've seen a bunch of times - Hopkins uses different voices, taunts Kovak with personal knowledge he shouldn't have been privy to, etc. It's only the lack of not knowing the outcome (which did somewhat surprise me) and the aforementioned lack of bullshit that keeps it afloat - if Håfström had tossed in a CGI swirl of black matter to represent the demon or devil, the movie would have lost me completely here. It's like having a really great and unique meal and then they bring you Oreos for dessert.

The movie also abandons a lot of its terrific supporting cast, particularly Ciarán Hinds, who is supposedly an old friend of Hopkins' character but the two never share a scene. And on the other side of the coin, there are too many scenes with Alice Braga, a journalist who Kovak is interested in but of course, he's a priest and she's not an altar b- OK I won't go there but you know what I mean - there's no chance of them hooking up, and she doesn't really add much to the proceedings beyond keeping it from being a sausage fest. Had they written her character out and given more time to Hinds (or even Toby Jones as the priest who sends Kovak to Rome to meet Hinds, who sends him to meet Hopkins... lot of "I want you to see an old friend of mine..." in this movie). I think the movie would be even stronger.

I was surprised to learn that the film was written by Michael Petroni, who was responsible for the silly Sarah Michelle Gellar movie Possession, which also dealt with believing in something without proof, albeit in matters of the heart instead of religion. He also adapted Queen of the Damned, which is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. But to be fair, he was also the creator of Miracles, a short-lived drama with Skeet Ulrich that I quite enjoyed, sort of a religious-tinged X-Files type show. Dude has the very definition of a checkered resume. His script has some great lines (loved Hopkins' "translation" of Kovak's first line of dialogue to the possessed girl), and he draws his characters well - he did good work here. But I'm curious if the Hinds/Jones characters had more to do in the script (Jones is in the States so his absence makes sense, but Hinds literally just sort of exits the movie at one point). Also, it's based on a book by Matt Baglio; if I had time to read I'd go pick it up tomorrow (and I still might, but I know it will sit unread forever).

Speaking of the book, I had to laugh at the nearly back to back conflicting statements in the end credits - first it tells us what the surviving characters are currently doing, and then after the cast crawl, the "this is fiction and any similarity to real persons..." disclaimer pops up. Usually this is at the very end of a title sequence (that way if there's a typo, no one catches it), so the fact that they moved it up practically to the BEGINNING is a pretty good indicator that none of this nonsense is real. I did like, however, that they tied in the Icelandic volcano eruption that killed the travel industry for a while, setting the film in a very recent reality that the other modern touches (Kovak's roommates play Gears of War at one point) didn't really provide.

In a way it's sort of a shame that the film is rated PG-13 instead of R. Not because it lacks violence or any true vulgarities when the demon is being "vulgar", but because it will attract a teen audience that likely won't appreciate the more character-based approach that the film takes (indeed, my screening had some walkouts), and worse, possibly keep adults away because they might THINK it's a movie for teens. Rest assured, it's not as hokey and cliched as the trailer suggests, and while not perfect, is laudable for being the first major horror release in some time that had a touch of class and maturity. It might not be a home run like Warner's other recent big-screen horror films (Orphan, Splice, and the "should have been big-screen" Trick R Treat), but it's a solid triple. Hope some of you folks enjoy it.

What say you?

The Wrong

Vanishing on 7th Street (2011)

Here's what amazes me: Some of the "Big" horror sites, which considered 2010's A Nightmare on Elm Street an abomination of epic proportions beyond any and all comprehension, oddly found some way to gush over this movie, which was honestly a mess from the get go. Why is that? I'm not looking to start a debate here, but it makes me wonder about a lot of things that they print.

Let me back up for a second here.

I'm a Metro Detroiter. Go ahead and make your Detroit Jokes, I get it. I can't argue with most of them. The city itself, is pretty much a joke. Still, being born there, and living in its suburbs, I have a sense of pride about the place, kinda, and it tickles me to no end to see how many movies are being made here in the area of late. SE Lower Michigan has some great locales, great culture, and a ton of untapped potential. Plus I'm here, so it's obviously an awesome place.

Add to that the fact that I love Brad Anderson's work -from The Machinist and Session 9, to most of his great TV series work- and this movie had me all sorts of giddy when I first became aware of it. Brad Anderson shooting a horror flick in my own backyard.. hells yes! No, make that fucks yes! Awesome Stuff, right?

Well, after seeing the movie, I have to say not so awesome.

While not an abomination, this movie certainly makes its fair share of missteps, and feels haphazard. Lazy even.

Basically, the story starts with Hayden Christensesn waking up to find that pretty much everyone in the city has vanished, leaving piles of clothing behind as the only sign that they had been there at all. He's safe when it's light out but once it get's dark and the light fades, shadow creatures pop up out of nowhere and turn you into another pile of clothes. Fine. Interesting premise.

John Leguizamo, Thandie Newton, and some cute little black kid pretty much round out the cast as the other survivors. They all meet up, freak out together, and fight like hell to keep a light on while they figure out what's happening. Still interesting, a ton of possibility...

We then get some flashbacks of the characters before everything "went dark." We get plenty of moments showing the light juuuust about to wink out with the shadow people closing in to make the kill, only to be foiled by a last minute light display of some sort. We get some cheesy, cliche' moments involving both dialogue, and poor decisions that seem to be there only to give the movie another chance to scare us. And we for sure get a shitty ending that resolves nothing save for the fact that we should have seen another movie.

What we don't get is any sort of resolution, strong hints towards whats going on, what caused it, what the shadow people are, why our main characters didn't die immediately like everyone else seemed to... Croatoan you say? I guess so, though it still explains nothing.

And no, I don't need to be spoon fed, and actually prefer ambiguity in movies like these, but there's so little here to chew on and digest, that drawing my own conclusion just seemed pointless. It had its moments, don't get me wrong, but there were just not enough of them.

Also, there's no 7th Street in Detroit. That's downriver a bit in Ecorse. I'm just sayin'.

Night of the Comet meets Pulse, but far less satisfying. that's pretty much the story here.

C- Not the Brad Anderson movie I'd have someone unfamiliar with the man's work start with, Vanishing on 7th Street needed to be tighter and a little bit more substantial. I'm not saying don't watch it, I'm just saying don't expect anything remotely close to the quality of Session 9 if you do.

Oh, and back to the point I opened with... politics. I blame politics.

The Legend Of Hell House (1973)

JANUARY 27, 2011

GENRE: HAUNTED HOUSE

SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT)

Most haunted house movies are rated PG or PG-13 (hell The Haunting is G!), so I didn’t think much of it when I saw that The Legend Of Hell House was an all ages affair. HH movies tend to be less violent, and folks are usually too scared (or snooty) to get it on, so as long as they speak with civilized tongues, a non-R rating doesn’t really matter. However, Hell House’s evil is partially based around insane orgies and the sort of debauchery Alistair Crowley might blush at, so maybe they should have just gone in that direction.

I mean, it’s fine to just talk about such things in theory, but Hell House was in dire need of elements that could help distinguish itself from The Haunting. I mean, four folks, one of whom is an unbalanced woman, are staying in a legendarily haunted house trying to uncover its secrets and rid it of its power, and its signature scary action involves pounding on doors. And it’s British. Sound familiar? At least with a bunch of crazy orgies and rituals on display, you could easily tell them apart.

As a result, we’re constantly being told everything instead of being shown it. The “villain” is a guy named Emeric Belasco (played by Michael Gough in an unbilled role), and we’re not only told about his various “pleasures”, but also that he liked to appear imposing, and thus had his own legs amputated and replaced with longer prosthetic ones. Awesome, right? Wouldn’t it be a lot more exciting to watch scenes with HIM instead of ones with the investigators just talking about it in between getting spooked by doors that open by themselves and what not? I’m all for the “what we DON’T see is scarier” approach, but not when we already have a superior film doing the exact same thing. Hell, there’s even a subplot about the main researcher’s wife getting taken over by the house’s power and throwing herself at Roddy McDowall’s character – but sadly nothing comes of it (she even apologizes to her husband – I’m like FOR WHAT?).

However I must consider that I’m not a big haunted house movie fan, and so otherwise, I suppose it’s an entertaining film that HH devotees will probably really dig. The buildup to the house is done quite well – they don’t waste too much time getting there but they DO withhold the opening titles until we see the house – unusual for the period, which rarely had any sort of “prologue”. John Hough’s direction is also somewhat atypical, favoring unusual close-ups and low angled shots. The house’s interior isn’t anything special, looking like pretty much every other British horror movies of the 70s, but the direction makes up for it.

And you gotta love McDowall, who appears as a medium who doesn’t seem interested in doing any medium-ing, but is rather just there to collect the money. Seems he was the only survivor of a previous investigation and thus has a “psychic shield” of sorts keeping the evil of the house from getting to him. His big showdown with the “ghost” is amazing, with Roddy shouting rather weak insults at it and getting tossed around by occasionally visible wires. He’s also got these horrible/awesome fishbowl eyeglasses that just make him even more amusing to watch. Bless that dude.

In fact, aside from the possible backlash of recasting his role (for obvious reasons), I would welcome a prequel to the story that showed what happened to his character during that previous investigation, one that could theoretically showcase in detail the stuff that Belasco was up to back when he was alive. Guess it’s kind of late for that, but writer Richard Matheson is still alive/working, so if he was game I’m sure it would be an interesting endeavor. I’m also baffled why this hasn’t been remade when every other classic haunted house movie (House on Haunted Hill, The Haunting, etc) HAS. This is the one that’s flawed! Silly Hollywood.

Final note – if I ever write the HMAD movie, it will be a haunted house tale and be titled “The Haunting Legend of Hell House Of Wax On Haunted Hill”. So don’t steal it. PATENT PENDING.

What say you?

Banksy's best joke may be on the Academy

There's almost universal agreement, among people who've seen Exit Through the Gift Shop, that it's a terrific film.

Where people don't generally agree is the following: whether it's a genuine documentary or an elaborate hoax.

Which makes it all the more strange that the Academy has bestowed it a nomination for best documentary feature.

Every year you hear about one, or two, or three great documentaries that are not deemed eligible to compete in the documentary feature category at the Oscars. The reasons have ranged from Michael Moore's (overrated) Fahrenheit 9/11 running on TV once prior to playing in theaters, to Grizzly Man being constructed almost exclusively of archival footage (which it wasn't, actually).

But even when meeting the eligibility requirements, you always hear about famous snubs, such as probably the most talked about documentary of this year (Waiting for "Superman") getting left off the short list at the expense of two other films I'd never heard of (Waste Land and Gasland). (I'm actually lying about Waste Land -- it was the other 2010 documentary directed by Lucy Walker, who directed Countdown to Zero, which I wrote about here, while also briefly mentioning the existence of the movie Waste Land. But outside of that little bit of research I had never heard of it.)

Back in the old days, even a goofy voting system led to what is now widely considered the greatest documentary of all time (1994's Hoop Dreams) failing to secure a nomination. According to wikipedia, members of the nominating committee had a system where they would wave their flashlight at the screen to indicate that they no longer considered the film in question to be in contention. Apparently, they gave up on Hoop Dreams before it even reached 20 minutes. The system makes a certain amount of sense on some level -- if a film doesn't grab you in the first 20 minutes, it's done something wrong. My wife uses a similar system when forced to wade through hundreds of entries in screenplay competitions -- she simply doesn't have the time to read each one through to completion, if it hasn't done something interesting in the first 15 pages. I don't remember the first 20 minutes of Hoop Dreams and whether they were good or boring, but clearly that film revealed the flaws in their system.

So considering all this, it's truly amazing that Exit Through the Gift Shop found its spot, because it may not even be a documentary at all. Sure, it wears the clothes of a documentary and calls itself a documentary -- but so did I'm Still Here, which Joaquin Phoenix has admitted was a hoax.

If you've made it this far (the equivalent of the 20-minute rule???) and don't know what Exit Through the Gift Shop is, I think it's time for me to throw you a bone.

Exit Through the Gift Shop is a "documentary" by a mysterious British graffiti artist named Banksy, whose true identity and appearance are not known. Over the course of two decades, he's managed to paint graffiti (it's actually more beautiful than "mere" graffiti) in some of the strangest places, including on the wall of the Israeli West Bank barrier -- that particular image included two children digging a hole through the wall, with some kind of tropical paradise visible on the other side. He's known for the high degree of difficulty of his stunts, and the fact that he's never gotten caught. He's a true mystery.

Only, he's not even the original "filmmaker" in this film.

Much of the footage in Exit Through the Gift Shop was shot by a mustachioed man named Thierry Guetta, a French national living in Los Angeles, a man with a passion for video cameras. Guetta originally filmed almost everything in his day-to-day life, from his kids brushing their teeth to whatever he was watching on TV, before eventually latching on to the underground street artist movement, and starting to film the feats of both anonymous artists making basic tags, and near household names such as Shepard Fairey (who designed the iconic images of Obama used in his presidential campaign). This is the most level of access any one outsider has ever gotten to the street art scene, and the moving images he collects are astounding for their sheer lack of precedent.

Except, Thierry Guetta may not actually exist.

Oh yeah, there's a guy who's playing the role. But his name may not actually be Thierry Guetta, and he may not have actually done any of the other things the film claims he's responsible for, of which there are many -- I really should not reveal them here. In fact, Thierry Guetta could be a total fabrication by the great practical joker Banksy. Banksy wants us to believe that Guetta started to make a film about him, but Banksy turned the tables on Guetta and made Guetta the subject of Banksy's own film. And that's all I really want to say about it, because the film's surprises are some of its most exquisite joys.

Exit Through the Gift Shop, if actually an elaborate hoax as theorized, hoodwinks not only numerous real people (famous people) within its own narrative, but may now also be hoodwinking a group as traditionally stringent and stuffy as the Academy.

But will it win? That would be Banksy's greatest victory, wouldn't it? He'd have the last laugh and then some. Heck, he also had the first laugh, so he'd get both the first laugh and the last laugh. You might say he'd "exit" laughing.

But a win is doubtful. It seems much more likely that either Restrepo (a film documenting another kind of unprecedented access -- to military engagement with insurgents in Afghanistan) or Inside Job (Charles H. Ferguon's timely look into the financial crisis) will take home the statue. Exit may be better than both of those films -- I haven't seen Inside Job so I can't say for sure -- but my guess is that the Academy has already gone way out on a limb by nominating it in the first place. Hopefully that will be victory enough for Banksy.

And it occurred to me (in a conversation yesterday with Don -- in fact, I think it occurred to him and he shared it with me) that the Academy could actually be trying to pull one over on Banksy. In throwing his film a nomination, perhaps they are trying to lure him out of the shadows -- to appeal to some kind of vanity, which would make him unable to stay away from the Oscars. And then the mask would finally be removed, right?

Never happen. Banksy's much smarter than that. Regardless of whether the movie is real or fake, his ability to orchestrate these many different interpretations, not to mention make a film that is damn entertaining just at face value, all while remaining an enigma personally, proves how bottomless his smarts are.

If anything, he'd be at the Oscars in disguise. He'd get the job as a seat filler -- you know, the people who sit in your seat when you're in the bathroom, so it doesn't look like there are any empty seats. Or he'd be working the bar outside. Or he'd find some other co-conspirators who would allow him to show up as the 17th collaborator on their best animated short, when only 16 collaborators truly existed. He might be there, even if only he knew about it, even if only he got to laugh about it to himself.

And if Exit Through the Gift Shop actually does win, he'd have the option of rushing up on the stage and accepting the trophy in a maitre d's outfit. That probably wouldn't work -- security would stop him before he got within 20 feet of the stage. But it sure would be a glorious way to crown this achievement, wouldn't it?

Nah. Only by staying in the shadows will Banksy be able to keep thrilling and marveling us in the future.

Husk (2010)

JANUARY 26, 2011

GENRE: BREAKDOWN, SUPERNATURAL

SOURCE: ONLINE SCREENER

Well another year of the After Dark festival is upon us, and this year things are different. Instead of picking up a bunch of orphaned indie films and the occasional import, they actually produced all eight films themselves from what I understand, with ADF guru Courtney Solomon working to help develop the scripts and such. And if Husk is any indication, it’s a step in the right direction, because it’s one of the better films to bear the name.

Granted that is faint praise – most of the movies are either forgettable or downright terrible, with only 1-2 per year really qualifying as GOOD (last year’s Dread, for example). And I liked the concept behind the “festival”, which was to take eight films that would never get a big release and offer them some exposure, allowing a little gem like Mulberry St to get the recognition it likely wouldn’t have been able to have if it was just another DTV indie on the shelves at Blockbuster. But I can’t fault them for trying something new, and at any rate, Husk is an entertaining, largely old school horror flick, regardless of how it came to be part of the festival.

Now, I’ve seen so many bad killer scarecrow movies in my HMAD life, perhaps the movie succeeded for me simply by being better than those, but one cannot deny the facts. For starters, it’s got quite a fast pace – the teens are run off the road in the first two minutes, and one of them is dead shortly after that. Also, they’re not the usual hateful bunch – I actually liked all of them. The movie doesn’t spend a lot of time developing them, but at least they are free of the usual red flags – no one is cheating on their girlfriend/boyfriend, no one’s a jock douchebag, the nerdy guy isn’t endlessly berated by his supposed friends, etc.

I also dug how VICIOUS the scarecrows were. There’s a scene where one is trapped in a car with the ‘crow is trying to get in, and the thing just keeps pounding and smashing the glass and circling around trying to find a better point of access – it’s pretty relentless and awesome. Also, good luck trying to peg who dies first/last – it’s damn near impossible. They’re all introduced more or less on equal ground (no clear alpha male, and there’s only one female), and I didn’t recognize any of them either, so there’s no obvious pecking order. Plus, writer/director Brett Simmons is smart enough to understand that injuries can be just as scary as a death, so when someone encounters a scarecrow, it doesn’t mean they’re dead – I think everyone manages to get away or rescued in the nick of time. With such a compact cast, this could have been a real slow burn, but there’s actually quite a few scare scenes – it just doesn’t always end with someone dead.

The only thing that kind of disappointed me was the rather silly “rules” that one of the heroes figures out (using a chess metaphor) late in the film. You know in video games when the bad guy has some sort of Achilles heel that you have to use to your advantage (like in Resident Evil 5 when Wesker had to recharge or whatever) in order to gain the upper hand (i.e. run away and find ammo/health)? This movie actually has one of those, which keeps the scarecrows from attacking en masse and another factor that if I spelled out you’d probably be wondering why I was saying that the movie was pretty good. Suffice to say, it’s not silly enough to ruin the movie, but it’s close. The final scene is also maddeningly obtuse – there’s a survivor and a scarecrow, and a potential rescuer is running toward them both... and then it ends. I like ambiguity, but this is a bit too far in that direction.

I also could have done without the overly Texas Chain Saw-esque approach/investigation of the farmhouse, which like the Sawyer family’s is filthy, isolated, and stocked with macabre furniture and décor. The two guys walking up to it and calling “Hello?” even recalls Tobe Hooper’s film a bit too closely. Ironically, one thing they SHOULD have copied from that film is the length of the daylight section of the film – it gets dark way too quickly. One thing I love about Chain Saw is that it doesn’t really get dark for about a half hour or so, giving it an odd, lonely feel as the sun very slowly goes down. But here, the sun sets like it does in a Michael Bay movie – it’s light out when the characters set off to go somewhere fairly close (in this case the other side of the cornfield) and by the time they get there it’s somehow pitch black.

Especially considering how good the makeup is on the scarecrows. The masks are suitably creepy – they actually LOOK like scarecrows, not CGI’d monsters. And the nails through the fingers was a nice touch. There isn’t much gore (and Simmons has an odd fascination with showing blood dripping onto the various greenery), but what’s there is good and again, not CGI, at least as far as I can tell (Lionsgate’s online screener quality leaves much to be desired – made Hulu look like a Blu-ray). Much like having the characters not act like complete assholes and not following some sort of tradition when it came time to kill off the protagonists, it’s kind of depressing that a lot of my praise for the film is based on things that should ALWAYS be the case. Husk doesn’t have a good story or any really memorable characters, but it works because it’s the rare modern horror movie that isn’t bogged down with CGI or populated with people that I WANT to die.

The After Dark fest hits this weekend (January 28th) and the movies should be out for a week. Husk is the only one I’ve seen, but if it’s indicative of the quality of the other films, it should be a good year. And kudos to Mr. Simmons for making a lean, no-bullshit, entertaining killer scarecrow movie - the first one I’ve actually enjoyed since 1988’s Scarecrows, in fact.

What say you?

P.S. The name Husk kept making me think of the song “Tusk”, which kept making me think of the MST3k medley centered on “Tusk” from the Werewolf episode. I have embedded it below for your enjoyment, and I apologize if my enjoyment of this film was largely aided by my mental enjoyment of that song.