S&Man (2006)

AUGUST 31, 2011

GENRE: DOCUMENTARY, SERIAL KILLER

SOURCE: BLU-RAY (ONLINE RENTAL)

I’ve been putting off S&Man (pronounced "Sandman", not "S&M Man") for a while now, because I knew it featured clips from movies directed by Bill Zebub and the Toe Tag guys, i.e. underground “extreme” nonsense that I'd sooner quit HMAD than ever sit through one in its entirety (a Toe Tag production remains the only film I ever shut off in the 4.5 year history of HMAD). Not only was I not too keen about looking at it, I knew it would feature the sort of thing that would upset my wife, so I had to watch when I had time to not only watch the movie but its two commentaries and other bonus material. So when she said she was going out to dinner tonight I figured I’d have enough time to watch the movie, and then tomorrow I work late so I’d have time to go through the extras in the AM after she had gone to work.

Given my distaste for those things, a lot of the movie left me sort of cold, as it was essentially a documentary about how far horror has come over the years; after a brief overview of the slasher film from Carol Clover (author of “Men, Woman, and Chainsaws”) we are introduced to Zebub and the others, as well as Eric Rost, a guy who makes the titular “Sandman” videos, a series of shorts in which he follows a girl for a while, uses voodoo to erase her existence, and then kills her. The first half of the film is largely a straight, traditional documentary, focusing on the makers of these underground horror films and how they are made as well as their role in the horror genre as a whole. But after a while it switches gears a bit, as director JT Petty (The Burrowers, Soft For Digging) takes a more involved role in the movie as he grows concerned that Eric might actually be a real killer.

Spoilers ahead!!!

Of course, Eric is an actor, and thus the movie sacrifices some of its documentary cred in favor of an intriguing “mockumentary”/found footage type deal, where scripted (or at least, plotted) events occur as they would in a documentary. The closest thing I’ve ever seen to something like it would be the excellent comi-drama doc The Hole Story, and I think it’s far more successful than the usual Blair Witch-inspired "Is this real or fake?" flick (as I write this, NASA has just issued a statement in which they want to make it abundantly clear that Dimension’s Apollo 18 is NOT a true story – gee, thanks guys).

I wish I was fooled longer; I don’t know if they wanted to make it fairly obvious that it was staged or not, but even before the ridiculous voodoo angle is introduced I was having doubts. For starters, we see Eric steal one of his victims’ keys after she leaves them and the rest of her purse on the table when she goes to order a coffee at a crowded diner. Come on, what sort of person is that stupid? Also, just the general idea plus time give it away; the movie was shot in 2005 – I think I would have heard about this guy by now if he was an actual killer (the movie was unfortunately shelved for a few years due to internal issues at the production company). The fact that Eric was the only one of the subjects I wasn’t familiar with also tipped me off, though that's minor - I’m guessing someone like my mom would probably just assume they were ALL fake before she’d single one out as being “off”. Nope, sorry mom – Bill Zebub is an actual guy making actual godawful shit.

On the other hand, I was impressed by how much work Petty (and the actor playing Eric) put into “seeding” this guy into reality, having him give out a complete episode of "S&Man" at a Chiller convention (one I’m pretty sure I attended! If I didn’t ignore everyone handing their junk out at these things, I might have gotten one!), even apparently getting Michael Rooker to plug the S&Man website (we see a lot of clips from Henry but not that footage, dammit). Also, as I just mentioned, they actually went ahead and created an entire 30 minute episode of "S&Man", which is on the Blu-ray and damned impressive. Not the actual piece, which is largely boring (and the feature shows all the highlights anyway), but the fact that they actually did this much legwork to put the idea of this guy into reality before even starting the documentary proper. It’d be like if they actually had Josh, Heather, and Mike make some sort of student film two years before Blair Witch came out.

But while this stuff is a lot of fun (I particularly enjoyed how Petty sort of played himself as an asshole), most of the movie is given to Zebub or Toe Tag maestro Fred Vogel rambling on and on while discussing their unwatchable dreck. And throughout the movie I couldn’t decide who I disliked more; Zebub admits his movies are shit and he makes them because people buy them to jerk off to (gah!), so does this make him better or worse than Vogel, who doesn’t seem to have that sort of honesty about what he does (which is the same sort of garbage). If you’re unfamiliar with their “films”, you’re lucky, but the movie gives you enough of an idea to know whether or not it’s your thing. Zebub has a penchant for girls being tied to crosses and raped (sometimes by Jesus himself), and Vogel’s films involve girls puking on each other, followed by sex and/or killing. We’re also exposed to Debbie D, a “scream queen” who stars in fetish films that are actually ordered by people. Like, one guy apparently gets off on navel violence, and thus she makes a movie specifically for him (but available to any customer) in which her belly button is shot or zapped with lasers or whatever. And you guys say The Hitcher remake is a waste of time? Then again, one man's trash...

But it’s kind of a shame, because there are a lot of good points being made (Vogel in particular actually has some valid things to say), especially from Clover as well as a pair of psychiatrists whose names escape me (one is Krieger). Hell even Eric has some thoughtful insight, but it’s mixed with this other junk. Don’t get me wrong – I understand the need to give context and a bit of background on these guys, and obviously they have their fans who will no doubt love the fact that there’s a documentary that delivers the same sort of perverse visuals that the movies themselves offer – but since I personally can’t stand this “underground” stuff it made the movie difficult to endure at times, especially since they couldn’t have too much stuff with Eric (which was far more interesting to me), lest the audience catch on too quickly.

Luckily the commentary tracks muted the dialogue of the participants in favor of a chat between Petty and Eric. Interestingly, one track has them talking normally about making the film, how they pulled off the “snuff” scenes, how the project came about, etc – it’s a terrific listen for anyone interested in this sort of stuff, and even includes a few acknowledgments of things that annoyed me. For example, when Clover talks about the slasher film, she skips over Black Christmas, something Petty regrets (whether she never mentioned it at all or it was edited, I am unsure). One of the few notes I took was “Black Christmas?”, so again – this is why listening to commentaries is important. I could have been going on and on about how they didn’t know what they were talking about since they skipped over such an important chapter in slasher history, and it would have been unnecessary.

The other track, however, finds the two men “in character”, and it starts off with Petty explaining that Eric sued him over his suggestion that he was actually killing people (they settled out of court). Then throughout the track they are impressively dismissive of one another; for 80 minutes they always sound like they’re about one remark away from coming to blows (or worse). It’s the sort of thing that a filmmaker would do in order to further try to convince an audience of his (fake) film’s legitimacy, but the fact that it’s paired with one that very much proves that it’s staged just makes it a wonderfully amusing “alternate” commentary. It gets a bit repetitive at times (Eric is convinced Petty has staged EVERYTHING in the movie, including the insight from the experts), but still, considering I had just watched the movie twice and was still being entertained with this third go-around should be enough to prove that it’s worth a listen.

The rest of the stuff you can skip. The deleted scenes are forgettable (and hard to hear), and the trailer doesn’t even really seem to be trying to hide that it’s not 100% real, as it’s cut like a typical thriller. The trailers for the "S&Man" episodes are all the same (random footage, title card with the name of the victim, random footage, title card with the color of her hair, random footage, title card of how she died, quick shot of her death – end), and again, the full episode that is included isn’t really worth watching once you’ve seen the feature film – it’s a clever promotional tool, sure, but hardly something you’ll want to watch on its own especially once you know it’s all fake.

In terms of concept and even execution to a degree, the movie is nearly a home run. I wasn’t fooled for long, but I liked how much effort they put into setting it up in the real world, and the Eric scenes are just as suspenseful/exciting as any other “found footage” movie, if not more so since there’s no supernatural element to bog it down, like usual. And fake or not, the ending is impressively grim. But that’s only half of the movie, and the other half is spent on guys defending/discussing their worthless trash films. Maybe if a Zebub type was featured as part of a more diverse group (i.e. guys making normal horror movies, or maybe even a legit veteran filmmaker), maybe it would have been a bit more successful; a few familiar talking heads could have even helped sell the “is this real?” concept better. At any rate, it further proves that Petty is one of our more interesting new genre filmmakers, and I hope he continues to defy expectations and make movies that aren’t easy to pigeonhole. All of his films have been remarkably different from one another, something that is to be lauded. Nothing against Ti West, but all four of his features can be described the same way: "80 minutes of nothing happening and then a rushed climax". At least with Petty you don't know what you're going to get, though there's a damn good chance it'll be good.

What say you?

Choose (2011)

"Choose something else."

* On DVD/In Demand now.

Choose is the story of sexy Fiona; a sexy girl who is doing her sexy best to stay sexy while she gets her college degree... which will also be sexy once it belongs to her. Her dad is Kevin Pollak, who used to be a good actor but is now a sheriff in some sleepy college town. Sheriff Pollack's wife/Fiona's mother committed suicide a few months back, and they are still trying to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. Aaaw, such a compelling plot so far, no?



I'd love to help her pick up her pieces... Zing!

Their town is beset of late by a bizarre string of murders in which victims have to choose their fate; which one lives, your mom or your dad?; which can you live without, your eyes or your beauty?; which would you rather watch, a Channing Tatum movie or a video featuring an adorable puppy starving to death? We pick the puppy. And we LOVE puppies.



So detective dad is on the case to find Scar Lip (the killer's name, even though he's never called that in the movie) before he can force any other innocent victims to make a choice. Of course this all has to do with sexy Fiona in some way, and being a cops daughter she begins to dig into the mystery of Scar Lip and his choices, uncovering some shocking things about herself and her family, and everyone who is dying, and Scar Lip and other things too, I'm sure. You get the point.



Yes, the choices are timed.

For the most part, Choose is a run of the mill Torture Porn/Slasher flick. It's got some decent deaths and gory scenes sprinkled throughout, though none of it inspires any feelings of excitement or awe. Where it really loses ground though is in the lame script and the lackluster story. Some of the dialogue was so bad that they even stole the old "How do you like them apples" bit from Good Will Hunting... and it came off as laughable here.



At least Katheryn Winnick was nice to stare at for 90 minutes, give or take. She's got a great face (eyes especially) and some rockin' boobs (yes, I just said that.) She's a decent actress too. So, despite her character being a moron and doing some "It's in the script" type of things, she was the bright spot of the movie.



We likey.

The worst part of the whole affair was the ending(s): After the first ending, which I thought capped off a mediocre movie adequately enough, even though the twist was bland and we saw it coming from about 35-45 minutes away, we're treated to ending number 2; you know, the other twist ending that's supposed to make you gasp but really just makes you shake your head in disbelief? What was that? Totally out of left field and made no sense on a few different levels. *ENDING SPOILERS* After proving to be so tough, why was Fiona so terrified by the old man? I mean she just made short work of Funk Lip, so why the screaming fear? Also, what did the old man have to do with anything, and why did he show up so randomly and at exactly the right time? *END of END SPOILERS* Rubbish.



From what we understand, the director of Choose made a choice himself to have his name removed from the finished product, because he didn't like some of the tampering that was done to his movie. After seeing the pure shit that this movie ended with, we don't blame him.



At least some of the gore was interesting.

The Master Says- D Choose is a slightly below average slasher flick that tries to hard to be a new franchise, rather than trying hard to be a good movie. It's not truly awful; it would have garnered a middle of the road "C" grade had it not been for the awful mess at the end. Still, the fact remains that it's not very good and aside from some decent bloody moments and the sexy hotness of the Winnick girl, there's not much else going on here.



Final Thoughts- We adore Katheryn Winnick. Look at her... what's not to adore?

Children Of The Corn: Genesis (2011)

AUGUST 30, 2011

GENRE: BREAKDOWN, KILLER KID, SUPERNATURAL

SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

If you recall my review of Hellraiser: Revelations, I could have seen it as the second half of a double feature with Children of the Corn: Genesis, but my car knew that at this point in HMAD I shouldn’t be doubling up, and thus it refused to start and I missed the screening (good ol' Ryan Rotten picked me up for Hellraiser). But it had no problems getting me to Blockbuster today in order to rent the flick on street date, so thanks, car!

Anyway, it’s not too bad, as these things go. Like that horrid Hellraiser thing, it was shot quick/cheap by Dimension in a rush so that they could retain the rights to the series before their contract ran out, so don’t expect much in terms of production value or even a cast; there’s only like 10 people in the entire movie (five of whom are adults). But unlike Hellraiser, it actually uses its limitations in a creative way, focusing on the characters (and a story lifted from Twilight Zone) and delivering a decent thriller that may not satisfy fans of killer kid movies but at least doesn’t totally disgrace the franchise name like its “cousin”.

In fact it’s so unlike the others that if not for numerous references to Gatlin and “He Who Walks Behind The Rows”, I would suspect it was just some generic evil kid movie that was retitled for DVD. A kid is the villain, of course, but he has telekinesis and doesn’t even talk, a far cry from the usual babbling tykes like Isaac. We see a few of the other kids but they don’t do a lot; hell there’s barely even any sickle action. However, the film almost seems like a remake at first, as it concerns a young couple (Kelen Coleman and Tim Rock, both refreshingly easy to identify with and personable) seeking help in a strange town (well, basically just a house here) after some car trouble. At first I laughed at the obligatory “Based on a story by Stephen King” credit, but in actuality it’s the closest any of the sequels have been to his original story.

But instead of them wandering around and running from kids, its an almost real time account of them waiting around for the tow truck. The house is owned by Billy Drago, so you know that they’re in trouble, and thus it just becomes a question of WHEN they will be taken out by him and/or the kids. Since they probably didn’t have the dough to have a lot of kills (or kids, who can only work at certain times of the day), writer/director Joel Soisson opts for something a little closer to psychological thriller, with Drago telling each side of the couple something about the other (one a lie, the other we’re never given a straight answer) and playing them against each other, which causes tension and allows to pad the running time with cheap but effective personal drama.

Also, the “Why don’t they just leave?” question has a pretty great answer – the kid is using his power to keep them there. But it’s not some stupid “they drive for 20 minutes and somehow end up in the same place” scenario, instead he just sort of beats the shit out of the guy as he tries to leave. Objects knock him over, makeshift battering rams are forcibly removed from his hands, etc. Soisson really hammers the idea home too; the guy is almost laughably stubborn in his repeated attempts to get away despite the obvious fact that someone/something is working overtime to stop him from doing so. Plus Drago actually has a real role to play, unlike the names that have popped up in previous entries for 5 minutes tops, and he’s always fun to watch.

The ending sucks though. Without spoiling much, there’s a big out of nowhere action sequence (using stock footage from Bad Boys II, of all things), followed by a final scene that’s a confusing mix of tragedy and spirituality. Maybe it made more sense on paper and things had to be cut for budget/time, or Soisson has just spent too much time with Wes Craven (master of potentially interesting ideas that don’t necessarily translate to screen), but either way it doesn’t work and kills some of the movie’s already minor goodwill. Basically, it’s the sort of OK movie that can be elevated to “Good” with a knockout ending, but instead it just sort of trails off (though there’s a pretty hilarious epilogue after the first few credits).

Also, longtime fans (why?) might balk at the change to the mythology established in the previous movies. In addition to changing the timeline (Gatlin is seen being overrun in the early 70s, whereas the original took place in the present day which would make this event in the early 80s instead), we’re also told that He Who Walks is a sort of virus and needs a host, or something (word of advice to filmmakers – never leave it to Billy Drago to explain your plot). At any rate, he’s not a giant monster that lives under the ground, like he was in the other movies. I actually think this sounds more interesting, and a kid with telekinesis is scarier than a kid with a sickle, but with a series as long-running and fractured as this (some folks assumed this was a followup to the remake – but that one wasn’t Dimension, so this is part of the original series), it’s a bit odd to be completely changing the nature of the only thing that ties them together.

The disc’s only extra is an interview with Soisson, in which he explains that the movie only had two weeks to shoot and also talks about the stock footage (doesn’t name the movie though), explaining that he wrote the scene around the footage that he found in order to add some production value/action to a movie that couldn’t afford any. Very Ed Wood of him! But I kid Soisson; I’ve actually come to like the guy after listening to him on a bunch of these DTV movies, and he clearly has a good sense of humor about what he does for a living. I don’t know if he could ever make it as a big screen director, but I defy anyone to stack his film up against the Hellraiser one and claim that HE’S the lazy hack. Hell he even shot the movie 2.35:1 (or at least cropped it down in post production), giving the movie just that much extra bit of professionalism, whereas in Hellraiser 9 I’m almost surprised that they remembered to turn the camera on.

In short: Best Children of the Corn sequel in years!

What say you?

Best of the one-timers

You could argue that a good indication of how much you like a movie is how many times you've seen it.



Sure, people have many different criteria for why they like a movie, and most of us tend to rewatch guilty pleasures more regularly than we rewatch imposing epics or lacerating dramas. It doesn't mean we like the guilty pleasures more, it just means they're easier to consume.



Still, I come back to the idea that whatever your criteria for liking a movie, it gave you a certain feeling that means a lot to you. Even if it was difficult to watch, it stands to reason that you'd want to experience that feeling again, for the same reason you got so much out of it the first time.



So today on Flickchart Tuesdays, I'm going to look at my favorite movies I've seen only once, and try to figure out why I haven't gone back for a second viewing. In case you are new to Flickchart Tuesdays, I use the website www.flickchart.com to examine what movies have risen to the top of an endless series of duels I've performed in my time using the site. Flickchart gives you two movies, you choose which one you like better, and then it gives you another pair. Over many weeks and months you build up a huge list of favorite movies, and if you've fine-tuned it like I have, it yields a pretty accurate distillation of your feelings toward cinema in general.



I like this topic also because it should give me a good hit list of movies I need to get better acquainted with. I already love them -- the next step is watching them again.



So which movies I've seen only once do I like best? Let's jump right in.



1. The Bicycle Thief (1948, Vittorio di Sica). Why I've seen it only once: A bias against classic foreign films? I guess this is one of those cases of perceived difficulty. Although it contains a very moving depiction of the desperate lives of poverty-stricken Italians, and there's a lot of satisfying emotional material (especially between the central father and son, a theme that will gradually be more personal to me as my one-year-old son grows older), the film's very neorealist style probably makes it seem less "fun" to me. There's no denying that the perception of fun is an important factor in the decision to rewatch a movie -- at least for me. Flickchart: #26



2. Rear Window (1954, Alfred Hitchcock). Why I've seen it only once: My goodness, I don't know. And may not have consciously realized I've only seen it once until now. I always discover things about myself when I analyze my Flickchart rankings in this way, and here's something I'm discovering even though I hate to admit it: I don't think I've seen any of Hitchcock's films more than once, so expect to see more of them here. I guess I must attribute this to a certain laziness about revisiting films of a certain vintage. Of all the Hitchcock films I haven't seen again, clearly this is the one I most need to -- at least according to my own valuation of his films. Flickchart: #48



3. Schindler's List (1993, Steven Spielberg). Why I've seen it only once: Length, length, length. And this may be a common theme as we go forward. When I thought of great films I'd seen only once, this is the first one that came to mind. You can't just pop it in on a Saturday afternoon ... although starting it in the afternoon would give you a lot better chance of actually finishing it than starting it at night. I'm worried that we're going to start seeing a lot of overlap with my last Flickchart Tuesdays, which focused on movies over three hours in length. I think there were only two movies on that list I'd seen more than once, so expect more of those titles to start cropping up here. Flickchart: #51



4. All About Eve (1950, Joseph L. Mankiewicz). Why I've seen it only once: And the bias against older movies rears its head again. At least with Eve I've had the definite intention of a second viewing. I seem to always encounter this movie at the library, and often have it among a handful of choices that I eventually pare down to the three I'm allowed to check out at once. This one never makes the cut, because I'm realistic about the actual likelihood of watching it. Such a shame ... revealing myself to be a philistine with a strong preference for movies made in my lifetime. At least I liked it enough to rank it as Flickchart: #63



5. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2008, Cristian Mungiu). Why I've seen it only once: Three words: Romanian abortion drama. Heavy stuff. Brilliant, but heavy. Also, my first viewing was only a couple years ago, so it may not have started scratching its way to the surface and demanding a second viewing yet, anyway. And since the topic is especially difficult to watch while you are expecting or in the first year of your child's life, it wasn't like I was going out of my way to offer it as a joint viewing experience with my wife. Flickchart: #65



6. 127 Hours (2010, Danny Boyle). Why I've seen it only once: It hasn't been a year yet since I first saw it. 127 Hours was my favorite film of 2010, so it's possible I'd have already been clambering for a second viewing. But there are only four movies that came out in 2010 that I have already seen twice. This just doesn't happen to be one of them. Flickchart: #77



7. Dances With Wolves (1990, Kevin Costner). Why I've seen it only once: See Schindler's List. Flickchart: #84



8. A Clockwork Orange (1971, Stanley Kubrick). Why I've seen it only once: The extreme brutality? Maybe. Actually, I've only seen one Kubrick film multiple times, and that would be 2001: A Space Odyssey. Although, I do have a second viewing of Full Metal Jacket on the docket for sometime in the near future. I think Kubrick is one of those ponderous filmmakers whose films leaving you staggering -- but not necessarily wanting more, or at least not right away. In fact, I only saw 2001 a second time because it was on the schedule of the Roger Ebert Overlooked Film Festival, which I attended -- you guessed it -- in 2001. My first viewing of Clockwork was relatively recently (within the last ten years), but I've been thinking recently about how I need another helping. Flickchart: #85



9. Apocalypse Now (1979, Francis Ford Coppola). Why I've seen it only once: Another movie that staggers you but does not necessarily leave you wanting more -- at least not right away. Still, when I think about the fact that I've seen this only once, I have only one thing to say to myself: "The horror. The horror." Flickchart: #89



10. Before Sunrise (1995, Richard Linklater). Why I've seen it only once: And at #10, we finally get a movie I haven't failed to rewatch because it was old, because it was too long, or because the subject matter was too depressing. By rights, I should have seen Linklater's masterpiece a second time. I'm sure I would have if I'd seen it when it first came out. But I believe my first screening was around ten years ago -- which still doesn't excuse it. I'm especially likely to want to revisit a movie in which interesting, intelligent characters are involved in a brief romantic whirlwind with an uncertain future. Better get on this. Flickchart: #93



And now, 11 through 20:



11. The Graduate (1968, Mike Nichols). Flickchart: #100

12. Rain Man (1988, Barry Levinson). Flickchart: #102

13. Bonnie and Clyde (1967, Arthur Penn). Flickchart: #103

14. Waltz With Bashir (2008, Ari Folman). Flickchart: #108

15. All the President's Men (1976, Alan J. Pakula). Flickchart: #110

16. North by Northwest (1959, Alfred Hitchcock). Flickchart: #111

17. Beauty and the Beast (1991, Gary Trousdale). Flickchart: #117

18. Rabbit Hole (2010, John Cameron Mitchell). Flickchart: #119

19. The Crucible (1996, Nicholas Hytner). Flickchart: #125

20. Field of Dreams (1989, Phil Alden Robinson). Flickchart: #126



So it's interesting to note that each of my top 25 and 89 of my top 100 are films I've seen more than once. That's a pretty high percentage, which supports the theory that you do find your way back to movies you really love, regardless of the length, age and subject matter.



Or, maybe I just love a lot of movies that are short, new and easy. One thing this doesn't tell you is the 106 of my top 126 movies that I have rewatched. But then this post would really be getting long.



Another good question you could ask: Have I watched these films many times because they are my favorite movies, or are they my favorite movies because I've watched them many times? Ah, the old chicken-and-egg debate. I know that there was a rotation of about 12 films that I regularly watched on VHS when I was younger, because my mom had taped them off cable. I'm not saying all these movies are in my top 100, but I am saying that some of them are much higher ranked than they would be if I'd seen them only once. (The Pirate Movie at #825, anyone? Out of nearly 3,300 films I have ranked?)



Let's see if next time I can refine my topic to get us really deep into the rankings, instead of seeing these same titles coming up again and again.

100 Tears (2007)

AUGUST 29, 2011

GENRE: SLASHER, SPLATTER

SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX INSTANT)

While I try to avoid seeing an HMAD entry in any sort of “party” setting, every now and then I like to bring my good friend Matt (aka Masked Slasher from Dread Central) along for the ride, utilizing Xbox/Netflix’s fun “party view” to watch the movie together even though we live on opposite sides of the country. And 100 Tears made the perfect movie to watch this way, as it contained enough kills to keep us entertained and a non complicated plot that allowed for occasional chatter without getting lost. Not a good movie by a conventional measure, but a great one in the “this is delicious trash” sense, offering up the sort of batshit, go for broke fun I usually have to watch Italian movies from the early 80s to find (yesterday’s Italian zombie movie being such a dull bore may have been a factor).

The great thing about the movie is that it wastes no time in killing off a whole bunch of people, with our killer clown offing the entire population of a halfway house in the first ten minutes. And this isn’t some off-screen massacre – we see every one of the kills in their splatter-y glory, with numerous beheadings and eviscerations to applaud. It’s a perfect way to start off this sort of movie, but what makes it admirable is that it hasn’t blown its wad – there are still about twice as many on-screen kills to go!

And for a while it feels like they might not have really thought things through, as we get a few out of nowhere kills with no setup whatsoever, plus a brief detour into torture land, but luckily it gets back on track once we get the back-story of Gurdy and meet his (spoiler) daughter, a troubled girl who is all too eager to help her father with his murderous exploits. It’s actually sort of ridiculous how quickly she turns into an ace slasher, but it’s also part of the fun and thus forgivable. The regained focus also means fewer anonymous victims, but the pace keeps up – basically, pretty much everyone dies regardless of whether or not they should be “safe” given their character type.

Plus the FX (by director Marcus Koch) are pretty good and seemingly all practical, something that’s sadly rare in any horror film let alone an independent one. Maybe nothing as impressive as the Hatchets or Laid To Rest in terms of creativity (everyone is dismembered or disemboweled via Gurdy’s comically oversized meat cleaver), but again, there’s not a lot of chicken shit off-screen stuff. Every five minutes or so we’re seeing another arm get chopped off or another pile of guts spilling onto the floor (plus what has to be a record for most blood sprayed onto walls and such), giving the film an almost Troma or HGL feel at times but always keeping firmly with slasher tradition.

Not that the film is without (intentional) humor, as our heroes, Mark and Jen, are a pair of laid-back tabloid journalists with foul mouths. Neither of them are particularly great actors (lot of fumbled lines), and it certainly didn’t surprise me to discover that the guy playing Mark was also the screenwriter since he got all the best lines, but they’re certainly unconventional as heroes which gives the movie some added charm. At one point Jennifer maps out a plan to investigate the circus, and then concludes her scene with “In the meantime, I’m going to go take a dump.” You don’t hear Sidney Prescott offering up that sort of bon mot. I was also delighted by the fact that Mark was seemingly more competent than the police officers who were (sort of) investigating the murders. In a movie like this it’s hard to tell if off kilter acting and even story-telling decisions are intentional or the result of amateur actors and/or under-funded productions, but either way it adds to the movie’s gonzo charms.

It also has some Youtube worthy highlights that kept Matt and I roaring throughout. At one point a security guard finds a body and he just goes “aw, fuck”, as if he just discovered that his favorite team broke their win streak the night before or something. Plus, the opening massacre delivers one of the best things I’ve ever seen in a slasher: the clown approaches a guy who has his own weapon, and as they swing at each other the weapons connect and fall to the floor. But rather than pick them up, they just start whaling on each other, tossing punches like they were in a ring. It’s great because it comes out of nowhere, it’s not something like Hatchet II where they make a big moment out of Crowley taking on Trent in hand to hand combat as part of the finale. Again, at this point I wasn’t expecting more than 1-2 kills anyway, so to have this sort of treat so early on was just pure bliss. And Mark also demonstrates a lot of what I dubbed “Fat Man’s Parkour”, as he sort of clumsily jumped around and bounced off wooden palettes and such during the climax. Also, while I don’t get the fascination with little people being used as the butt of jokes, even I had to chuckle at the scene where Mark unsuccessfully chases a dwarf around for what seems like five full minutes, somehow unable to catch up to him.

The only thing that annoyed me (besides the poor sound mix, not sure if that was Netflix or the movie) was the editing. As I mentioned, some of the kills came out of nowhere, but even the story scenes lacked any sort of connective tissue. For example, at one point the two reporters make a big deal about coming home from the carnival area (which seems to be far off) and going to bed, and then in the next scene they’re back at the carnival again. It was also frequently impossible to get any sense of geography between the characters, particularly in the climax where they were seemingly all being chased separately by Gurdy at the same time. At this point of the film it’s more about the chasing instead of killing, so the fact that the chase was sort of hard to follow in a logical sense was a bit of a bummer. Luckily, the film’s final moments get things back on track, leaving me cheering (a Voltaire track over the credits didn’t hurt).

Speaking of the credits – you guys should call me next time (a sequel is promised at the end in possibly the best manner I’ve seen since Raw Force 2 was threatened at the end of the original), as I caught a lot of typos and weird formatting issues. If the sequel is even half as enjoyably nutty as this one, I’ll gladly do them for free.

What say you?

You know you're late on a movie when ...

... two of the six trailers are for movies coming out in the next two weeks (Shark Night 3D and Contagion) and one is for a movie already in theaters (Conan the Barbarian).



Such was the case when I finally caught Rise of the Planet of the Apes yesterday afternoon, three weeks and two days into its theatrical run.



After emerging from the theater, I decided I could have waited a little while longer -- say, until video.



I opted for ROTPOTA over a couple movies that freshly interested me (such as Higher Ground or Circumstance) because I believed I'd be in awe of the visuals, and they demanded to be seen on the big screen. Plus, I'd made several false starts in my previous attempts to see it, the most recent being having to cancel on a friend on the first of eight nights of a persistent sore throat (which has only just really diminished in the last two days). So I was determined not to miss it.



**Major spoilers from here on out**



Well, I really liked everything that had to do with apes. Well, almost everything -- never for a moment did I believe, even as intelligent as he was, that Caesar would be able to figure out how to get back to his house from the ape enclosure he escapes. Then again, I guess he did ride in the car a lot. Nonetheless, I did have a momentary flash back to 28 Weeks Later -- "Oh come on, a zombie couldn't stalk his own children" -- even if the subject matter was entirely different. And 28 Weeks Later flashbacks are not usually a good thing.



But I thought the CGI was generally impressive, and the brilliant Andy Serkis was as brilliant as ever. Beyond Serkis' inimitable contributions, there was good screen time to devoted to meeting some of the other apes and developing a social dynamic among them.



That same time was not devoted to making the human characters seem human.



Let's start with the wooden James Franco. It's funny, I try not to read reviews of most movies before I see them, a) because I'm worried that parts of the movie will be spoiled, and b) because I don't want the critic to raise or lower my expectations. I didn't read any critical assessments of ROTPOTA, but I did read Franco's assessment of it, which was basically that it wasn't challenging and that he was an "actor for hire." With Franco's words in my head, it was all the easier to see that he didn't want to be there and that he was just going through the motions. "Passionless," my wife described it. Now that we've learned that Franco felt the same about the material he was given as an Oscar host, it's clear he has an off switch, and he likes to make liberal use of it. I'm guessing I would have noticed this anyway, but it was clear as daylight once I knew Franco didn't give it his all.



Then let's look at the sheer number of other characters who have a downright loathsome attitude toward the chimps. First there's Jacobs (David Oyelowo), the bottom-line corporate guy who just wants to make a buck. His second favorite thing is to hate on apes. Not only does he have a dozen lines that can be re-worded as "they're just apes," but he orders the euthanizing of a dozen animals based on an incident whose causes were not properly investigated, and then seems to relish in their imminent destruction at the end. ("I'm going to shoot them," says the guy with the gun in the helicopter. "Good," says Jacobs.)



Then there's the two monsters at the ape enclosure, one of whom the filmmakers wanted to be so evil, they hired Draco Malfoy to play the role. That's right, Tom Felton of the Harry Potter franchise is the sadistic son of the guy who runs the enclosure (Brian Cox). Every movie involving animal cruelty has to have a character who seems to get his kicks from it, but Felton is perhaps the worst such offender I've ever seen. And it's not just the physical violence against apes, of which there is plenty -- he sneers at them and laughs at them and thinks it's a riot that they are intellectually inferior to him. (Or so he thinks.) Of course, this is all done so that you're good and ready for him to die when that point in the narrative inevitably arrives, but is it too much to ask for a little subtlety? Cox is definitely subtle by comparison, and therefore suffers less of a gruesome fate. But at the very least Cox' character tolerates his son's behavior, if not downright endorsing it. (The scene in which Malfoy brings a six pack of beer and three friends into the cages to laugh at the monkeys is perhaps the silliest in the whole movie.)



As for Freida Pinto ... well, her involvement in the film clearly meant it would do good business in India (I've chosen above the poster from the Indian market), but the Indians who saw it couldn't have been very satisfied with her performance. She's an incredibly passive character who basically has one small moment where she tries to help -- she distracts a couple police officers for five seconds so Franco can run past them. You go, girl!



ROTPOTA just had the feel of being clumsily made. It was poorly written and badly directed by a guy who gave me pretty high hopes (Rupert Wyatt, who directly the twisty little prison escape thriller The Escapist). Wyatt's involvement in this particular film made me wonder, not for the first time, how directors get tapped for the projects they direct. Here's this guy who made one quiet little British prison movie (also featuring Cox), and it was somehow decided that his skill set was the appropriate one for the next Planet of the Apes movie. Well, more power to him, but I hope they get someone else to direct the inevitable next movie in the series.



And about that ... for some reason, I thought this movie was going to be about the way the apes rose up and overthrew humanity. That made me expect it to be really bad-ass. I mean, they've got to wipe the Earth clean of humans in order to take power, don't they?



Not exactly. It's up to a virus to do that. And the apes themselves are essentially pacifists -- led by Caesar's mandate to neutralize humans that are threatening them, but not kill them. All the humans they do kill are killed essentially by accident -- even Malfoy's death is the result of a sort-of accident. The only human killed for sport is Jacobs, and the overhead shot of his helicopter falling off the Golden Gate Bridge was my favorite in the movie.



But yeah, it does look like there could be a more bad-ass movie ahead, where we see all human beings dying of the virus, and apes multiplying, and eventually leading toward the mythology we know from the original Planet of the Apes (and, I suppose, its remake).



Or it could be another mild disappointment, like this movie.



It's funny, if you ask me if I liked ROTPOTA or I didn't like it, I'd say I liked it. There was enough good stuff with the apes that it made me highly interested for those sections of the movie. But clearly, my strongest impulse upon leaving the theater was to complain about the things I found to be bogus or underdeveloped.



It makes me wonder how individuals set the bar for whether they liked a movie or didn't like it. How much of a movie do you have to like to say you liked it?



But that's a discussion for another day ...

Closed For the Season (2011)

"Closed for good reason..."

*Available on DVD now.

It's amazing to me how some of these low budget movies try so hard to be unique and different, and end up over complicating things to the point of unwatchability. Here's the rule: If you have $50 to make a movie, don't over complicate things. Keep it simple and make it interesting, and the lack of budget wont matter as much. Clocking in at just under 2 very long hours, Closed for the Season is one of those flicks that thinks way too much.



Closed for the Season is the tale of Kristy; a hot chick who got scared at an amusement park when she was a kid, which traumatized her so much that she decides to go back there in her 20's. As luck would have it, she finds herself trapped in the creepy park and unable to leave, along with some guy named James, who is very mysterious and... mysterious is good enough.



It seems as though they are both trapped in wonderland, which makes for 2 times the tedium. Together they run around the park fending off evil carny's, fighting with a costumed monster, and walking through a lot of fog. I think there was fog. Isn't there always fog?



The movie attempts to be a psychological thriller, with our main characters "trapped" in their childhood memories by an old amusement park. Yes, it's a haunted park, and it really goes to great lengths to con people into never leaving... It's not a bad premise at all, and in fact, it could be one hell of a good ride if done right, but it's far too uneventful and boring to get much of a rise even out of the most casual horror fan.



The actors even fell asleep during their scenes!

The characters are wooden and uninspiring, as is the script that they're forced to tread through. Aimee Brooks is nice to watch though, as she spends most of the movie sweating in a tight tank top, which was absolutely the film's highlight. We liked her. We also have to admit that the movie looked pretty good in most places, and was shot competently.



As for the horror elements present in the movie... well, there weren't really any. Some of the CGI was bad, and even down right laughable in some places. The clown wasn't creepy. The lake monster made me do a double take and question if this was supposed to be a comedy or not. And the atmosphere the director was going for never really came to fruition, which is the real shame of it all; the old abandoned amusement park they used for the shoot was perfect and creepy, and could have been put to far better use.



Seriously, what is that? LOL!

If the 70's taught us anything, it's that great horror movies with effective settings/atmosphere can be made with an almost non-existent budget. The 80's added to that lesson by showing us that as long as there were tits and blood in abundance, shitty horror movies could be endured. These days, so many low budget horror flicks fail to deliver on any of those things, and it's bewildering. Too much high concept, inept dialogue, and a favoring of the artistic over the exploitative tend to ruin most cheapo flicks in this modern age of horror. The great horror movie makers of yesteryear became great because they made something out of virtually nothing; these days, horror filmmakers tend to think themselves great right out of the gate, and their movies end up suffering for it.



The Master Says- If you like gorked out, psychedelic mind trips that lull you into a comforting and untroubled sleep, then by all means, grab a copy of this movie on DVD. If you like good movies that make sense and make you feel something, anything, aside from the overwhelming desire to hit STOP on your DVD remote, then skip this one. It's definitely a DO NOT WANT for us.





Final Thoughts- We do, however, want more of Aimee Brooks. Please.



*FYI- These pics of Aimee Brooks are from Monster Man, not Closed for the Season, so if you are looking to see her all scantily clad, look there, not here.

Black Demons (1991)

AUGUST 28, 2011

GENRE: ITALIAN, ZOMBIE

SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

The last thing you can usually accuse an Italian zombie movie of is being boring. Add insane director Umberto Lenzi to the mix, and Black Demons (one of the many films sometimes known as Demons 3) should have been a pretty great time, intentionally or not. But no, it’s a major snoozer, as they opt for a Fog style “They need x amount of victims to finish their curse” plot that limits the action, which makes it feel more like one of the Blind Dead films, but without the atmosphere or cool ass knight costumes.

Right off the bat I knew it would be trouble (actually even earlier, my friend Matt all but told me not to watch it and he has a stronger affinity for this area of horror than I do), as we meet a guy who is obsessed with voodoo and blacks out while watching a bunch of voodoo types do their thing (drum circles, chanting, fire-dances, etc). Not that I don’t like voodoo based zombies (I prefer the Romero style, however), but in order for one of those to work well you need a strong director with a keen eye for atmosphere, and Lenzi does not fit that description. Indeed, he can’t even get basic action sequences right – when the heroes’ car needs to break down he just has one of them randomly swerve into a ditch, without placing as much as a squirrel in the road to provide the cause for the erratic action. So yeah, good luck with the slow-moving zombies who have a purpose.

And that purpose is claiming the lives of six white people in order to satisfy their revenge for how they died in the first place (the title isn’t just casually racist, their race actually plays a role in the plot). Again, this is the type of plot where a strong sense of atmosphere is required, or at least a very big selection for the zombies to choose from. But this is the most under-populated zombie movie in history, offering us only six real characters and almost no supporting cast at all. And there are only a few zombies, so there’s no swarm or big attack scenes, nor do they turn anyone when they kill them in order to change the balance. Worse, they all use weapons! It’s fine if one random zombie kills one guy in the middle of a zombie movie with a weapon, to give it a little dose of humor, but they all brandish garden hoes and axes throughout the film (no biting!). They even kill most of their victims the same way, gouging an eye out with one of the garden tools. Come on guys, if nothing else at least come up with some cool deaths.

It also commits the cardinal sin of zombie movies – stretching out the time period. I could almost forgive the boring first half if they kept up the pace from the moment that the zombies first began rising from their graves (which occurs at the halfway mark of the movie), but no! The zombies rise, kill one or two, and then it’s morning and we have to be bored again for a while before they start doing anything again. Almost the entire movie is set inside the one house (a big, crumbling estate – actually a plantation and thus not a bad place to set a horror movie in theory), which just brings Night of the Living Dead to mind anyway – it’s totally unacceptable to manage to have a slower pace and less action than a movie made for 40 grand or whatever it was nearly 25 years earlier. And there are no notable setpieces either. Fulci’s Zombie is kind of slow too, but at least there’s Zombie vs. Shark, the New York/boat sequence, etc. This has... uh... six shackled zombies wandering around every now and then.

Hell it barely even has any unintentionally funny moments; this wouldn’t even work as the B feature on Grindhouse night at the New Bev. Besides the aforementioned “accident”, the only time I felt compelled to laugh and yell WHAT? at the TV is when two of our heroes know that one of their friends is dead because they find two pairs of her shoes and “She only has two pairs”. And even that wouldn’t work at the Grindhouse because we’d all be drunk or half-asleep and thus not have the brain power to work out that there is no such thing as a woman who only owns two pairs of shoes.

Perhaps out of spite, Shriek Show has included a few extras, including the trailer. Oddly enough, it’s a fairly accurate trailer – instead of loading up on the movie’s few money shots and thus making it look exciting, it’s just as dull as the movie itself, and also barely makes sense unless you’ve seen the movie as half of it is comprised of shots from the back-story sans the context that would explain what you were looking at (no dialogue whatsoever in the trailer). It also spoils one character’s fate and another’s hidden agenda in one shot, so it’s perhaps the one trailer in the world that is only recommended for those who have seen the movie.

Then we get the trailers for all four Zombi “sequels” (including Killing Birds, which is sometimes known as Zombi 5), starting with Fulci’s (a “sequel” to Dawn of the Dead which was retitled Zombi in Italy, remember), for some reason – wouldn’t the Demons movie trailers make more sense? Killing Birds is the only one I haven’t seen yet, gotta get on that (I didn’t watch the trailer just in case it was as spoiler-y as the others). Finally, the only relevant extra are a pair of interviews with Lenzi and co-writer Olga Pehar (joined by Lenzi). That one is so brief I wondered why they didn’t just lump it in with the solo Lenzi one, but his is definitely worth watching as it’s the only truly entertaining part of the disc. As with many of his peers, Lenzi doesn’t bother to sugar-coat his thoughts on the film or his actors, so even when the discussion turns to something a little less exciting (such as why he never made any other full blown zombie movies) he turns it into a rant about one of the actors. Hell he even goes above and beyond the necessary “ouch” point; after explaining that the lead actress was a last minute replacement that he didn’t care for, he adds in that she was “short and not very attractive”, but in a manner of fact tone that doesn’t seem petty or mean, he’s just saying it like it is, the way absolutely no one in Hollywood ever does. He also dismisses the guy playing the lead (he has to look at the VHS box in order to recall his name) and scoffs at the Demons connection, claiming he hadn’t even seen Bava’s films. Well, he should, they’re a lot better than this thing.

What say you?

P.S. I have a note that says “F.F.” I don’t know if this is supposed to be for “The only way to watch this movie is to Fast Forward through the whole thing”, or “Hopefully I don’t see anything this bad at Fantastic Fest”, which I will be attending for my first time this coming September. Austin readers – welcome me with open arms and/or a beer!

Ghost Of Mae Nak (2005)

AUGUST 27, 2011

GENRE: ASIAN, GHOST, REVENGE

SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

While trading in some DVDs at Second Spin I noticed that they were having a Buy 2 Get 1 free on used stuff, and as usually is the case I found two movies that I wanted and then couldn’t find the third I’ve been wanting to get (in this case, My Soul To Take). So I looked around for a while and found Ghost Of Mae Nak, a Thai flick from the now defunct US Tartan Extreme label. Now that they are gone I won’t have access to as many Asian horror flicks, as they were a primary source for me – but it’s also rare that any of them are really memorable.

And for the most part Mae Nak fits the bill, as it has a lot of traditional elements you see in these movies: the ghost is female, of course, and seeks revenge. There’s a body that needs to be put to rest properly, a few nightmare scenes, etc. Hell even their house looks like the one from the Ju-On movies. But there are a couple of things that, while not necessarily making the movie better than some of the others, will at least help me remember a little more about it 2-3 years from now when someone leaves a comment on the review asking about some particular plot point.

For starters, it’s actually kind of gory, which is rare for this type of film. It’s like, the scares themselves are pretty typical (the ghost loves to appear and open her mouth really wide to scare people), but the actual deaths are sort of miniature Final Destination sequences. There’s a great decapitation early on, and one guy manages to get himself burned with oil and then immolated on a rotisserie fire! But the best is this one asshole who steals something from our heroine and then runs through the city trying to avoid her. Everything is telegraphed; we see two guys hoisting some big plates of glass up the side of a building, a dog, a garbage truck... and then everything comes together, resulting in the guy being sliced in half by the glass (and that’s vertically sliced; like Wrong Turn 2 but this movie’s actually older), and then the dog eats his sliced off hand. Awesome.

Also: the people who die all pretty much deserve it. In the Grudge or Ring movies, a lot of the victims are just innocent folks who happened to live in the wrong house or watch the wrong movie, but here, all of our victims (and thus an inordinate number of characters) are scumbags. Their real estate agent is planning to screw them over, a couple of thieves steal all of their wedding gifts, the guy that gets sliced scams the bride out of 200 bucks... it’s like a Rob Zombie world where everyone is a degenerate. Oddly, there’s a creepy ex boyfriend who begs her not to get married and go back to him instead, but he survives I think. That dude shoulda gotten dumped into sewage or something.

But it’s not particularly suspenseful, let alone scary. Part of the problem is the back-story; our ghost is a woman who died while her husband, Mak, was off fighting in the war, and when he came back he didn’t realize she was a ghost. So she killed anyone who tried to reveal her true nature to him, because all she wanted was to keep their marriage “alive”. It’s not a bad story (in fact it’s a true one; Mae Nak is a well known Thai story and this is supposedly the 20th film based in whole or part on the legend), but there’s no mystery to it – we learn the entire thing before the halfway point in one long flashback. So now that we know Mae Nak doesn’t seek to harm either of our heroes, there isn’t much to invest us into the story. Something like Shutter (also a revenge story) at least had the good sense to spread the information out over the bulk of the movie, but here it’s too straightforward – Mae Nak is just out to get anyone who might threaten the new marriage of our heroes (also named Nak and Mak, for some weird reason).

To counter this, the script has Mak spend most of the movie in a coma, which isn’t a very successful workaround. On the plus side, this plot point spares us any further cutesy dialogue between the very much in love newlyweds, but it also robs the movie of potential scares. Every now and then they try to build suspense out of his failing medical condition, but we see Mae Nak save him from doctors who were inadvertently about to cause him further harm, so we know she’s looking out for him too and thus he will probably survive. It’s like the movie has some cool/fresh ideas but refuses to apply them in a way that can actually make the movie a little more suspenseful, which is a problem for a horror movie.

Especially one as long as this. Nearly all Asian horror flicks run longer than necessary, but here it’s especially obnoxious since we get all of the answers before the one hour mark (worse, the DVD case says the movie is 103 minutes, it’s actually around 108). The ex boyfriend character is pointless and could have been excised, and we spend so much time with the robbers that I began to wonder if the parts of the movie before they showed up were some Simpsons-esque tangent that only existed to get us to the “real” plot of their story. And the ending! On the commentary, writer/director/DP Mark Duffield says that it originally ended on a particular scene (which is where it should have ended), but he added this extra little epilogue. Well, he shouldn’t have, as it just drags things out even longer and doesn’t add anything of note to the story since all it turns out to be a damn dream anyway. My advice, if you watch the film, shut it off once they are told what will happen at the crematorium.

Back to the commentary, I was surprised that it even existed, since they don’t mention it on the box. Leave it to me to pick the one Asian horror flick directed by an English speaking director who wanted to talk about the film (if you’re new to the site, or just forgot – my OCD keeps me from writing a review until I watch all of the available extras), not to mention one that was even longer than expected. It’s a very dry track; as he was also the DP he talks about lighting certain scenes and other techy stuff that will only interest folks who are strongly interested in that field, as opposed to things that might appeal to everyone, i.e. the development of the story, mishaps on the set, and who was banging who. There are a few good tidbits here and there, but overall I’d only recommend it to die hard fans of the film. Same goes for the making of, which runs 65 minutes or so but contains no direct interviews. Instead it’s just a bunch of random production footage, occasionally given context via on-screen text (I particularly liked that the monk extras “supplied their own shaved heads” – as opposed to providing someone else’s shaved head?), but largely just dull behind the scenes. The best it gets is near the very end when they show how many takes it took to get the dog to eat the dummy hand. Poor pooch.

So it’s got some “outside the box” ideas to separate it from the other Ring wannabes, but it lacks a good mystery or feeling of dread for our heroine, and thus the good is canceled out by the bad, resulting in another average Asian ghost movie. If you love these type of movies it will probably entertain you, but if you’re a newcomer this wouldn’t be an ideal place to start.

What say you?

Sledgehammer (1983)

AUGUST 26, 2011

GENRE: INDEPENDENT, SLASHER

SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

While not as off the wall batshit as Things, Sledgehammer (released via the same Innervision label) should appeal to the same sort of folks, and they even share some minor similarities. In addition to being shot on video, they both involve some friends going to a very bland house to party (read: sit around and drink while endlessly goofing off), and both feature the severe mistreatment of an innocent sandwich.

But whereas Things was a minor monster movie with Evil Dead style splatter, this is a straight up 80s slasher, with some vague supernatural elements tossed in for good measure (the killer appears to be a ghost and can also teleport his victims around, for some reason). Our seven obnoxious heroes show up at the house, dying one by one (or in a pair during sex - a slasher tradition that the film upholds), until only our obvious heroes remain. The killer is seemingly dispatched, our survivors walk away, and then a sequel is promised. So, same old shit, right?

On the contrary. Maybe on paper this didn't seem too "off", but the movie itself is a treasure trove of filmmaking decisions that are seemingly designed to make the audience either laugh unintentionally or just yell "WHAT?". For starters, it runs 87 minutes, but if you played everything at normal speed I think it would be well short of an hour. It's fine/normal to toss in a slo-mo shot or two during a kill scene, but director David Prior (long before Zombie Wars) has no concept of restraint or "everything in moderation", so we get slow motion versions of EVERYTHING. Kills, sex, food fights, walks through a field, luggage and sleeping bags being tossed in a pile, someone plugging in an electric appliance... you name it, it gets slowed down. On the commentary Prior admits the film came up a bit short and necessitated some of this, but unless they were contracted to deliver an 87 minute movie I think they could have eased off a bit. There are also a number of extended shots that make you wonder if the DVD is broken, particularly the opening establishing shot of the house that seems to run for a full minute before anything happens. Granted, it just adds to the charm, but in turn it's also a movie I'd never watch by myself again, not without the fast forward button handy.

Our heroes are also a wonderfully inept group of actors, none of whom have managed to go on to successful acting careers (the heroine's only other credit is "Girl on Table" in a softcore flick, for example). The only exception is hero Ted Prior, David's brother who appears in pretty much all of David's movies. He's not really much better than any of the others, but I guess maybe with more experience he could have improved. But he's not even the most memorable character here - that would be his buddy Jimmy (or Johnny, or Joey, I couldn't tell their names apart), who resembles John Oates and Geraldo Rivera. His amazing mustache and slow-motion love scene where he inexplicably covers his own ass are two of the film's highlights, as are his strange relationship issues with his girlfriend. It's very vague, but they either broke up or had a fight some point prior to the movie's beginning, and he spends most of the movie dodging her before they finally get down and do it (and then die).

Then there's the killer, who is named Killer (but he's got a mask, so he's still more distinct than the Final Exam guy). His motive is just as vague, in the prologue (and a recap 25 minutes later, in case we forgot) we see that his mother was cheating on her husband/his dad, which set him off, killing them both in the act. So now I guess he just sort of hangs out waiting for other folks to come around to the house, even though he apparently has supernatural powers which you'd think he'd want to exploit a little. As one of the guys from Bleeding Skull points out, his costume just sort of makes him look like someone's dad when you can't see the mask, as it's just a pair of jeans and an ugly plaid shirt. But the mask is fairly creepy; it's one of those clear plastic ones like in Alice, Sweet Alice. And he lives up to the title, in that he does have a sledgehammer that he frequently carries around with him, though curiously most of the film's kills are committed via knife. Someone needs to make a movie called Knife where everyone dies by sledgehammer so we can even this thing out.

If I had one legitimate complaint about the movie (keep in mind, it's bad, but the good kind of bad), it would be that they never go outside for a kill. There's a better than usual reason to keep them stranded there (they were dropped off and it's the middle of nowhere, as opposed to the usual "the car won't start" nonsense), but unless I missed it, I don't see why they couldn't have had 1-2 of them go for a stroll outside and get killed out there. It's not a particularly big house, so it would have also helped the film's logic a bit - why doesn't anyone hear the kills and/or wonder why someone could be gone for so long? Plus it's a slasher tradition to go outside for a kill or two, and they clearly had the ability to shoot outside given the "first getting to the house" scenes and the final shot, so this sort of baffles me.

Mondo has put together a pretty good package here, with the extras far less obnoxious than the bulk of the ones on Things. The Bleeding Skull commentary is a must listen; the two participants are a lot of fun to listen to as they critique/lovingly mock the movie, offer a few unrelated anecdotes (including a very funny one about Pigs aka Daddy's Deadly Darling), discuss how they got into this unique sub-genre of horror films, as well as often defending VHS. I personally don't get the VHS fetishists; other than the fact that yes, many movies are not available on DVD, there's absolutely nothing good about the format. Tapes wear out, rewinding an SP tape can take 5 minutes, they LOOK like ass, 99% of them are cropped... what exactly is the appeal? Hell they even take up twice as much space as DVDs. Do they still prefer to listen to music on cassette tape over CD, too? But whatever, if the appreciation leads to people discovering things like this, I got no complaints. The commentary with director Prior (moderated by a guy who seems to think that the film is legitimately great, or he's the most elusively sarcastic speaker of all time) has some fun trivia here and there but is also loaded with a lot of go nowhere questions (since Prior can't recall much) and the moderator's ridiculous over-praise (plus a few non-words like "improvision" instead of improvisation).

The rest of the stuff isn't substantial, but it's worth a look all the same; interviews with Zack Carlson and the guys from the Cinefamily, as well as an interview with Prior where he almost looks confused as to why he's talking about this thing almost 30 years later. Sadly none of the actors participated, I would have loved to see them reflect fondly on having entire bottles of mustard dumped on their head or how they all crammed into the van at the beginning (I seriously began to wonder if it was an actual clown car as people just kept jumping out of the van's side door). Then there are a couple trailers for other Innervision titles, including Things. Oh, and the movie has a little text card at the very top of the film asking you to increase your speakers' bass levels for maximum enjoyment, probably because the movie doesn't seem to have any bass to it at all.

So while it's not as gonzo as the Things or Pieces of the world, it shares that je ne sais quoi that I find quite charming, and again reaffirms my belief that doing Horror Movie A Day is worth it. No way in hell I'd ever have watched this movie unless I was doing this, and then I'd forever be denied the chance to see a guy do the lamest Bill Murray impression of all time.

What say you?

P.S. This is not a trailer (couldn't find one), but a montage of whoever made it's favorite moments.