Episode III: Revenge of the Crapapalooza

Okay so here I am with what I think is the last installment of 'Shit me and the missus watched over Easter'. Let's get down to it shall we?


Salem's Lot

Now we didn't watch all of this. We picked up from about where we left off when we started watching it 3-4 years ago, and also stopped at some half way point. Truth be told, we just wanted to watch the bit where the kid's floating outside his brother's bedroom window, all pale, yellow-eyed and vampiric. You know, the bit that they riffed on in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie. Yeah, that one.

I have mixed attitudes to Stephen King. I must confess that I've never read any of his books, but I have seen a few of his films. Salem's Lot has a couple of really nice moments in a yawning ocean of tedium, wherein you have to suffer through endless replayings of Stephen King's ideas on ordinary Americans. Clichés and stereotypes that (apparently) permeate much of his work.

This is probably why we only watch snippets of it every three years or so. James Mason though, is quite effective as the complete bastard minder of the Big Bad.

Is it any good? For the very patient vampire fan and for Stephen King fanatics, yeah. For everyone else, it's better than valium.

2 Stars



The Last Exorcism

Since I threw caution to the wind and adopted a more atheistic bent in my life, I generally find devil movies to be a little silly. There are exceptions, but generally those exceptions are very, very good films.

The Last Exorcism starts out with a neat hook, that few others do. Our hero, Cotton Marcus (a riff on infamous witch hunter Cotton Mather?), is a former evangelist fire and brimstone PREEE-CHUH MAAAN. He also used to do exorcisms. So, most of the early part of the movie is spent with Cotton explaining that his heart's no longer in being a professional liar and ratbag, and showing us some of the neat tricks that the holy frauds use to gull the irredeemably stupid.

Neat.

Cotton decides to do one last exorcism, so wends his way down to the deep south for a meeting with demon-plagued innocent teen Ashley Sweetzer.

Well, of course one thing leads to another, and before you know she's up to her eyeballs in the devil greeblies. Stuff happens, there's a foretelling of the cast's death, and they all seem to come true, with a big twist revelation saved up for the last ten minutes.

I guess the thing for me about modern films, especially demon/haunting films, is that they make almost no sense. They're rarely explained in any clear sense, but heavily rely on some kind of invisible infrastructure which I'm sure made sense to the screenwriter, director and cast, but makes sweet F.A. of sense to me.

No exorcism has ever turned up anything that could not be explained by psychosis or fraudulent behaviour. The FBI did an intensive investigation into the satanic incest/kidnapping cult phenomena of the late 80's/early 90's and found... nothing. Each case revealed the same level of psychosis or outright lying. American Christians seem to want to be possessed and are prepared to lose their minds or lie to get the attention.

Is this film REALLY any good? Yeah, it is. The film, right up to the last ten minutes is actually quite engaging and more than a little creepy. The shock twist ending is a bullshit deus ex machina that cheapens the interplay of Ashley's seemingly real possession and Cotton's confirmed scepticism.

3 Stars



Lost Boys 3: The Thirst

'Cryyyy litttle sister! Thou shalt not...' Oh shit sorry, didn't see you there, lost in some deep nostalgia for an age when both Coreys were alive and hadn't been introduced to old Uncle Charlie. 'Lost Boys 3: The Thirst' is, I hope obviously, the second sequel to the vampire hit of the 80's 'The Lost Boys'.

Picking up from the boldly atrocious 'Lost Boys 2: The Tribe', Edgar Frog is still living in a trailer, and still quite interested in comics. He also still hunts down the undead. We get a good look at what happened to poor old Alan Frog (he's now a vamp, but trying to be good), and Sam apparently bit the dust in a vamp hunt, making Edgar persona non grata with Sam's mother Lucy, his brother Michael and ex-vamps - now part of the one big, happy family - Star and Laddie (I think that's right...).

Anyway, some guys are taking some weird drug which is actually vampire blood, turning people into vamps, blah kidnap plot, blah Edgar to the rescue, blah reality TV douchebag, blah old original vampire, blah a rave, blah sexy pseudo-lesbian vampires, blah big fight, blah sequel-hook end twist. Yawn, yawn, yawn.

Is it any good? Well, it's stupid, almost self-referentially so. AND it's a damn sight better than the smoking turkey that was Lost Boys 2 (which was only saved from oblivion by Tom Savini's brief appearance). Look one night, get some stocks of the old grown-up grape juice in, pour some healthy glasses and fire up the Frog Saga in one sitting. I think the drunker you are, the more these films can be enjoyed.

2 Stars


Repo: The Genetic Opera

Okay, it's not really horror, I guess, or sci-fi really, or a standard opera, or...

Hell, I don't know just what in the f#ck Repo is, but I'm sneaking it in here for the gore and body horror links that would make Eli Roth throw his guts.

Repo: The Genetic Opera is an opera in film form, built to appeal to a modern sensibility. So, yeah no La Traviata or Marriage of Figaro here boys and girls, but rather RAWK! DRUGZ! BOOTZ! CORSETZ! GAW! GUTZ! and THAT GUY FROM BUFFY! I'm gonna go into a fair bit of detail on this one.

Repo is set in the near-ish future after a plague that caused organ failures to be pandemic. A company rises out of the carnage - GeneCo - headed up by the mean as a cut snake Rotti Largo. GeneCo can sell you organs, but can also repossess them if you fall behind in your payments. Enter the Repo Man, whose secret identity is Nathan Wallace, father of the main character, sickened teen Shiloh Wallace. Oh this is a twisted, sordid story indeed. To see how twisted and sordid, here's a bit of a character rundown;

• Shiloh Wallace: Played by Alexa Vega who was 20 at the time to Shiloh's 17. Shiloh's got a blood disease inherited from her mother who died giving birth to her. Her dad is Nathan Wallace. She hates her mother, feels stifled by her father, and is a big fan of Blind Mag.
  
• Rotti Largo: The evil pig head of GeneCo, and played by Paul Sorvino, actor and trained opera singer, who trained himself to overcome ASTHMA to sing. This guy must have stones of steel. May be known to some as the guy who played daddy Capulet in 'Romeo + Juliet'. Rotti has three kids - Luigi, Pavi and Amber - all human garbage in one form or another. He also poisoned Marni Wallace - Nathan's wife/Shiloh's mother - when she spurned him. What a bucket of crap this character is. Sorvino's got an awesome voice and big thumbs up for overcoming asthma.
• Nathan Wallace: Played by fangasm pin-up boy Anthony Head. Honestly, Repo Man, Frank N' Further, Rupert Giles, Headmaster Finch, Tony Head must be a total nerdgirl magnet. Jeez, he even turns my head! Anyway Nathan is secretly the Repo Man, collecting organs from live and unwilling customers for GeneCo. He is also victim to being overcome by a ruthless and cruel split personality he calls 'the monster'. He was made to think Marni's death was his fault, and was press-ganged into being a Repo Man by Rotti. Sucks to be him...
• Blind Mag: Played by light opera songstress Sarah Brightman. In her 50's, I must say that Brightman can still fill out a Goth corset quite pleasingly. Blind Mag was Marni's best friend. Rotti and GeneCo gave her new eyes, in return for a permanent contract as GeneCo's pet celebrity. You're seeing how this Rotti guy is a bit of a prick yeah? She's also Shiloh's godmother and was told by Nathan that Shiloh died when Marni did.
  
• Luigi, Pavi and Amber Sweet: Rotti's three grotesque, spoiled kids, played by (are you ready for this?) - Bill Moseley, Nivek Ogre and Paris Hilton. Yeah, I know right? Okay Bill Moseley, known for big roles and small in Texas Chainsaw Massacre II, House of 1,000 Corpses, The Devil's Rejects and SO much more. He's a horror veteran pendejo! Nivek Ogre, who's mainly known as a muso, having worked with a few little bands, maybe you've heard of them - Skinny Puppy, Ministry, Revolting Cocks and KMFDM. Then there's dear old Paris who read the script for Repo while she was IN JAIL!! Awesome. All three kids - murderous Luigi, face-stealing narcissistic Pavi and surgery addict/drug addict/ho Amber want to take over GeneCo when daddy kicks the bucket.
  

Look, one thing leads to another, the various plot strands lightly hooked together and narrated upon by co-creator Terrance Zdunich's Graverobber character. There's also a cameo by Joan-Freaking-Jett. It ends with blood, betrayal, and the neat tying up of all plot threads.

Is it any good? F#ck yeah! Have you not been listening to me? Why are you still reading this? Run out now and buy a copy.

4 Stars (when I rein in my enthusiasm)



Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Once More With Feeling

Is it horror? Well, it's definitely supernatural. It's got vampires and demons in it, so... shut up.

The missus and I tend to watch this episode when we've already had a few heavies under our belt. Why? Because it's a heap of fun and it's a perfect episode of the series in many ways - it ably continues the season's plot threads, it presents moments light, poignant and deeply dark and messed up, and it has one of the neatest gimmicks in a TV series EVAR. That's right, they sing. It's a musical episode. The singing is not just tacked on for no reason. Within the logic of the Buffyverse, it is worked in quite neatly - someone has summoned a demon that makes you sing and dance, revealing your deepest secrets, and you keep singing and dancing until you burn. The demon in question, Sweet, is still one of my favourite Buffyverse villains, only decisively beaten by Mayor Wilkins.

While not every cast member of BtVS is a song and dance professional, they all do their best. Tony Head (Giles) gets to show off his damned sexy singer-guy stuff, turning all the nerdgirls watching into a gooey mess (and probably a few of the nerdguys as well). Amber Benson (Tara) belts out a few good solid numbers, while series second bananas Nicholas Brendon (Xander), Emma Caulfield (Anya) and Michelle Trachtenberg (Dawn) all get to show up the strengths they have. Fan favourite characters and series heroes are a bit more of a mixed bag. Sarah Michelle Gellar does the best she can for Buffy, but it's a bit patchy. Alyson Hannigan/Denisof (Willow) does her best to hide that she can't sing, and the very idea terrifies her, while James Marsters (Spike) delivers a number that remains the subject of internet memes to this day.

After some numbers both perky and sombre, it all comes to a head and secrets are revealed, leaving the characters all feeling like they've been sucker-punched.

Is it any good? If I were to list my top ten favourite episodes of the series, 'Once More With Feeling' would always be in there, along with 'Restless', 'The Body' and 'Hush'.

4 Stars

Episode II: Attack of the Crapapalooza

And we're back y'all, for part 2 of 'What my lovely wife and I did on our Easter break'.

Let's get into the madness.


The Grudge

This is a remake of the original 'Ju-On'. I've never seen all of the original I must admit, but I have seen clips of the scarier bits. I may be committing an act of utmost Japanophile blasphemy here, but I prefer this version, the remake.

I don't own a lot of J-Horror, but the two I do possess - The Grudge and Ring - got an outing over Easter. The Grudge is really creepy, with a lot of moments designed to evacuate the old back door. Being a Sam Raimi produced remake, his bro Ted gets an outing. Being a bit steamed when we watched this, I did find I was referring to the characters by roles they were known for elsewhere. Except for Bill Pullman, because I can never remember any of his other roles by name, but Joxer the Mighty and Buffy sure got referred to a lot.

You may notice, I have not said much about the film itself. Well, no.

Look, just see it. It's good and it's creepy, and there's some nasty stuff in there. Turn the lights out and press play...

3 Stars

Paranormal Activity 2

The bookending prequel/sequel to the much-vaunted Paranormal Activity.

I have a confession to make. I think Paranormal Activity was pants. It took what could have been a nice ghost film, and made it into a $h!thouse devil movie. I could ask why a demon likes to just slam doors, why it has chicken feet, or why it sets ouija boards on fire, if demons apparently need them to talk to you (cue the American Christian Brigade: 'It's the DAAAAAYYYVIL'S AAAAAUUUURRAKULLL!!).

Paranormal Activity 2 takes the shortcomings of the first film and bravely tries to make them worse. Again, we have a cynical husband. Again, we have a wife that the mean husband just doesn't believe. However this time, we have a whiny teenager, a baby and a dog! Hooray!

PA2 tries to explain why PA1 happened, which I find irritating on two levels. First, I don't necessarily NEED to know why everything happens in a film, I'm prepared to trust that sometimes, demons are just bastards, or that a house is just haunted. The second reason the film irritated me was simply this: Once it's explained and all the ramifications are played out, you don't actually need to have seen the first film. PA2 cheapens PA1 and makes it irrelevant, which is like inviting everyone over for a swim, and then pissing in your own pool.

Is it any good? It's... okaaaaay. I would probably recommend seeing the first one and skipping this.

2 Stars


Ring

Ring was arguably the film that introduced J-Horror to us gaijin. It may not have been, but I vaguely remember it that way, so I'm saying it's true.

So, go on, ask me why you should see Ring and not The Ring, which is the US remake. Go on. Anyone? You at the back? Thank you.

You should see Ring because it is awesome, because it will f#ck your lily-livered $h!t up. I've seen a lot of scary movies in my time. Very few made me jump out of my seat, but Ring is one of those spring-loaded films.

Now, I'm aware that I said I preferred The Grudge to Ju-On. That's an exception, now here's the rule - the US is generally pretty crappy at remaking foreign films. Sure, there are exceptions, there always are, but not here. People who like The Ring over Ring are the same people who like Asti Spumante over Bollinger. Ring is the real deal people! The absolute, certified, brown undercarriage champion of Teh Skary.

Is it good? F#ck yeah.

4 Stars


The Thing

After basted turkeys like Lycanthropy, we wanted something truly creepy, so out came John Carpenter's masterpiece of terror, The Thing, a loose remake of the old 50's sci-fi cheese-fest 'Thing From Another World', but more closely based on the original story 'Who Goes There?'

I saw The Thing when I was but a wee item. So many of the gross and grislies of the film are images that have stayed with me forever. Many people give Carpenter $h!t, saying he's a hack and holding up Ghosts of Mars as Exhibit A. These people are liars, and are trying to lure you away from true moments of pure genius with their lying liar's lies.

The Thing is BRILL-I-ANT. A true gem in the horror genre, with a nice criss-cross to sci-fi, just to bring the neighbours over ('Hi Sci-Fi!' 'Hi Horror, how's it going?'). It is gory, creepy AND suspenseful. How many of your super-duper, sepia-tone, grainy-shot, torture porn yawn fests can say that huh? Exactly.

Is it any good? Yes, screw them liars and their lying lies. See it! Then go watch Halloween.

4 Stars



John Carpenter's Vampires

Okay, so I've just lauded John Carpenter to the heavens. Now here's a reason that the lying liars and their lying lies might have a point.

JC's Vampires is a ludicrously macho and misogynistic vehicle for James Woods to chew scenery, a style of acting that is his oeuvre. Seriously, the James Woods School of Grimacing and Biting Corners off Scenery would show this at their school.

The always hilarious Mark Boone Junior sadly dies off too early, leaving us stuck with the chubby Baldwin instead. Sheryl Lee has little to do but wiggle her buttocks as Hooker-Being-Turned-Into-Vampire-and-Occasional-Macho-Bitchslapping-Receiver, which is sad. I always thought that Sheryl Lee never got a real chance to develop as an actress.

As a Vampire film, it's... well, okay it IS interesting. It's rare you see vampire hunters presented so, well, realistically. The vampires are cyphers here, shadowy ghoulish threats. The Big Bad, ubervamp Valek is a floating evil ghoul of a vampire who, in one memorable scene, reminds us exactly why 20 hunters to one old vampire is almost equal. And he looks creepy.

Is it any good? You know, kinda. It improves with beer, I'll admit, but it's not VERY awful, just sorta awful.

2 Stars, 3 Stars with 3+ beers under your belt

Comics Interlude

An addendum to the brief retrospective of Buffy and Angel.

Buffy and Angel both managed to live on in comic format.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer was continued in 'Season 8', set 1 year after the end of Season 7, presumably to allow for fleeting references to Buffy that were made in the final season of Angel, which ran in the year after Buffy the TV series finished.

Buffy is in charge of a worldwide army of Slayers. Besides the occasional feud with local vampires and side-trips to Tokyo, Tibet and New York, the Big Bad of Season 8 is a masked superhuman called Twilight. Regular characters are present, with Buffy's enhanced gang of Scoobies represented by Dawn, Xander, Willow, Giles, Faith, Andrew and Kennedy. A lot happens in this series, and as it is still going I am reluctant to comment in too much detail on the events of the series. Where Buffy in comic format excels is in doing crazy, big-budget things: the far future, exotic locales, teleporting a sub, 3 gigantic goddesses, Dawn becoming a giant, a centaur and finally a porcelain doll, flying, super-speed, the madness is frequent and breathtaking. The character dramas haven't stopped either: Buffy's fling with one of her Slayers, a romance between Dawn and Xander, Willow's ongoing worries about her power levels, Giles going rogue on Buffy before being accepted back into the fold. A lot happens, and is still happening in this season, so much so that it feels like a 'season and a half'.

Angel: After The Fall takes place the second after the TV show finishes, in a back alley with our heroes confronted by wall to wall monsters, intent on killing the hell out of them. Things get much worse quite sharpish, with all of LA turned into Hell. Like Buffy's Season 8, After The Fall benefits from its limitless budget, with dragons in the sky, LA's skyline turned hellish, a floating telepathic fish, and a talking T-Rex demon. After The Fall feels a lot more balls-to-the-wall insane than Season 8. True to the Angelverse, few of the characters have really entered Hell-LA unscathed: Gunn's vampirised, Illyria/Fred's slowly losing her mind, Angel's human, Gwen's electrified again, Wesley's shackled by contract as a ghost to Wolfram & Hart.

Some of the crew are doing well for themselves: Lorne's running Silverlake as a Demon Lord, Connor and the Groosalugg are doing very well for themselves and Spike is accompanied by a scantily clad gang of kickass women.

After The Fall is accompanied by a series that explains every character's first night in Hell. When After The Fall wraps up, LA returns to normal, with the one exception that now Angel is a celebrity. The mock-official movie adaptation 'Last Angel In Hell', based on the in-universe film made by hack Hollywood scriptwriters in the wake of LA's return to normal, is absolutely hilarious. Its missed beats should be no surprise to anyone who's seen their favourite comic mangled by Hollywood. It makes me wonder whether the Angelverse Jon Peters produced 'Last Angel In Hell'.

Angel is also still continuing, and I'd say more but my wallet only allows me to catch up with so many trade paperbacks a month.

In tone and approach, both comic franchises continue their TV counterparts admirably, even upping the scales, with bigger effects and a bigger cast. If you've been pining since the cancellation of both TV shows, you could do worse than catch up with the comic series.

TV Interlude

So recently I finally finished watching all of the Angel TV series - the spin-off from Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Without going into episodes and really specific details, I thought I'd do a very quick comparison between Buffy and Angel.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer ran for 7 seasons. Its initial theme 'High School as Hell' produced some very intriguing episodes, using the vehicle of the supernatural backdrop to explore some very personal issues for the teenaged characters, and other kids at Sunnydale High School. As the characters grew older, finished high school, started college, got jobs, the various apocalypses, 'big bads' and monsters of the week all managed to provide a backdrop for the ongoing character dramas the characters were going through.

Buffy was very solidly structured. In addition to each episode's drama, and villain, each character had an ongoing season arc, and faced a series finale 'end boss', labelled the 'Big Bad' in Buffy parlance. New characters came and went, but the core of Buffy, Willow, Xander and Giles were (almost) always present. The lighter tone served to make more serious episodes, including 'The Body' - the episode that dealt with the death of Buffy's mother, Joyce - truly heartbreaking to watch.

Angel spun out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and ran for 5 seasons. Its tone was definitely darker, dealing as it did right out of the gate with adult characters, and their various dramas and problems. Angel's biggest differences with Buffy, apart from general tone, were a decentralised approach (no real Big Bad or overarching season plot), and a much more frequently revolving cast of characters. The core characters in Episode 1 are Angel, Cordelia and Doyle. The last episode of season 5 by contrast has Angel, Wesley, Spike, Lorne and Illyria with Gunn, Connor and Harmony in tow. Buffy in comparison starts with Buffy, Willow, Xander and Giles and finishes with those same characters, with Dawn, Faith, Robin Wood and Andrew in tow.

Angel also really upped the ante with shocks, betrayals and deaths among their heroes. Doyle is killed off in season 1. Wesley betrays the group and is abandoned before going a little mad and being killed in season 5. We are introduced to Gunn, who ends up making some very dodgy deals, and ends the series with an aparrently mortal injury. We are introduced to Fred, a much-loved geek-girl character, who is then hollowed out and possessed by the demon Illyria. Cordelia goes through an amazing character arc. Just as she has reached a high point, she dies, comes back inhabited by the evil Jasmine, dies again and ends up an invisible, remote Higher Being TM.

My wife gave up watching halfway through series 5, simply because she was tired of being "ass-punched by Joss Whedon".

Angel has a dedicated following and many people prefer it to Buffy. I'm not so sure. Angel feels confused, a little random, and seems to enjoy shock for shock's sake. Buffy feels like a more tightly plotted series, and its emotional highs and lows seem to work in the broader scope of the series much better.

Both have been continued officially in comics format - Buffy as 'Season 8' published by Dark Horse comics, and Angel: After The Fall published by IDW. A 'Season 9' for Buffy has been announced and Angel will be crossing over to Dark Horse, so both series can intertwine a little more closely.

Both series are always worth watching, but I lean towards Buffy as the better series.

An American Werewolf In London

1981 • Dir: John Landis • David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, Griffin Dunne, John Woodvine, small appearances from Frank Oz, Brian Glover and Rik Mayall

Premise: David Kessler and his friend Jack Goodman are hiking through wild and woolly rural England. Jack is set upon by what looks to be a wild wolf and killed, while David is merely scratched. Waking in hospital, David soon receives a visit from the ghost of his friend Jack, who tells him the horrible news - David has been injured but not killed by a werewolf and at the next full moon, he too will become become a werewolf and kill.

Analysis: This is John Landis in top form. Written and directed by him, this film is not only one of my favourite films, but also a classy werewolf flick, and one of the best examples of comedy horror around.

David's plight is a sublime mixture of black comedy and true fear for his sanity, and this is what makes this film a real joy - the perfect mixture of horror and comedy. While David's nightmares are horrible, while Jack's slowly rotting appearances are horrible, and the murders David commits while in Lupine form are bloody in the extreme, the moments of comedy are so deftly handled, and so seamlessly intertwined with the horror, that Landis hands you a perfect package.

Of course, David does not want to believe that Jack is really talking to him, or that he's going to sprout hair, run on all fours and eat people at the next full moon. He's much more interested in romancing his caring and considerate nurse (Alex Price, played by Agutter), who seems very archly English compared to the very American David. David's culture clash is bought hilariously to the fore when, after he has realised he HAS shapechanged and killed, he runs up to an English bobby and screams 'The Queen's a man', 'Prince Charles is a faggot!' in order to get arrested. Which, of course, fails.

While a little dated now, Rick Baker's effects are still solid and impressive. The nightmare Nazi demons, the rotten Jack Goodman, and the David/wolf itself are all brilliant pieces of SFX from an age where CGI simply wasn't used because it looked awful.

The customers of the English pub David and Jack visit just before Jack's death - The Slaughtered Lamb - are also a treat. Sullen rustics in almost a James Whale-ean bent. Brian Glover is especially sullen and local.

There's a lot in this film about Landis' obvious love for the Universal golden age of monster cinema, especially The Wolf Man, as the film frequently references The Wolf Man. Landis' frequent in-joke of 'See You Next Wednesday' also makes an appearance in the form of a slightly surreal English porn film, where David goes to meet Jack, and gets introduced to his other victims, who then launch into a plethora of suggestions on how to top himself.

SPOILER (in black type below-select to read)

Well if you haven't seen this film, and don't want the ending ruined, you have no excuse - it's been out since 1981! An American Werewolf In London shows Landis' love for The Wolf Man pretty clearly in the ending. David, having professed his love for Alex, is now in the porn cinema and begins to change. Discovered by a policeman in lupine form, having turned the rest of the cinema-goers into small piles of sticky gore, wolf-David escapes into the London streets, and is cornered down a dead end alleyway. Alex breaks through the police line, who are ready to shoot him dead the second they get a clean shot. She professes her love for David, and for a split second, you get the impression that even in bestial form, he understands, as the beast's expression softens. It is not to last however, and the wolf snarls, the police open fire and David dies, naked and bloody in a dirty London alleyway. Alex cries. The End.

The theme of this is of course, The Wolf Man's theme that only love can truly kill the werewolf. Alex's declaration of love for David foreshadows his death - suicide by cop perhaps? - by only a split second.

End Spoiler

An American Werewolf in London is a classic film, and if you haven't seen it by now, you should, before other people find out and mock you.

Stars: 4 out of 5

Alone In The Dark

1982 • Dir: Jack Sholder • St: Dwight Schultz, Donald Pleasance, Jack Palance, Martin Landau, cameo from NY punk band The Sick F*cks

Note: I had borrowed this recently, and this weekend I purchased a copy, so now it meets the criteria for me to review it (ie I own it and it sits on my horror movie shelf). This means it just manages to jump in before I get to An American Haunting.

Premise: Dr Dan Potter (Schultz) starts his new job at a mental asylum run by the eccentric Dr Leo Bain (Pleasance). He is introduced to the asylum's four maximum security patients - Frank Hawkes (Palance), 'Preacher' (Landau), 'Fatty' and 'The Bleeder'. A power blackout across the whole town frees the four lunatics, and sets them loose on their mission to kill the new doctor and his family.

Analysis: I really enjoyed this film when I borrowed it off a friend (a co-conspirator from the mad and deranged Cult of the Chainsaw), and when I saw it lurking on the shelf in one of my favourite haunts (nerd paradise Minotaur) I picked it up.

The plot revolves around the belief formed by the four loonies that Dr Potter has killed their previous head-shrinker, and now plans to kill them. When the power goes out in the town, the four loonies escape and stock up with guns, crossbows and garden tools to stalk, hunt and kill Dr Potter and his wife, sister and daughter.

There are such top shelf talents in this film - Donald Pleasance is wonderfully kooky as Dr Bain, Jack Palance his usual good self as the deeply insane Hawkes, and it was a treat seeing just what a deep level of crazy Martin Landau can achieve. I was truly spooked by him, which was a bit of a revelation, as I only had hazy memories of him from Space: 1999. Dwight Schultz, who usually plays the kooky, funny guy, played a sensitive, staid psych doctor quite well. It made me realise there may be depths to him I'd never recognised before.

The set up of the film is really quite simple, but is enriched by great performances from solid actors, and some nicely paced direction from Sholder (of homoerotic subtext Nightmare On Elm Street 2 fame).

After visiting a local punk band (cameo from NY band The Sick F*cks) at his sister's behest, Potter and his wife return home to find the plot to kill them underway. We know Hawkes, Preacher and Fatty are nearby, but The Bleeder (so named because he gets nosebleeds when he wants to kill) has split off from the group and disappeared. The loonies have already visited the house and killed the babysitter and her boyfriend in the archetypal 'they who screw first, die first' horror movie rule.

Meeting up with a stranger in prison, where Potter's wife and sister were taken after attending a protest, the family, the stranger and a cop concerned for their welfare all converge on the house. What follows is pretty standard fare, but no less engaging for that. Potter's sister, recovering from a bout of mental illness, starts to wig out, as the attack of the lunatics heats up.

SPOILER (in black type below-select to read)

Okay so I guessed this pretty early one, but the friendly stranger is in fact the Bleeder, whose face had been obscured through the film to date. He gets a nosebleed while holding Potter's sister which gives him away. There's a reasonable body count. The babysitter and her boyfriend are finally found dead, Preacher and Fatty both get done in, as does the cop and the Bleeder. Bain gets killed as well. Finally the power comes back on, and a TV new bulletin shows Hawkes' former doctor alive and well, taking the wind out of his sails.

Hawkes escapes to the punk club, where the power is back on as well. Watching The Sick F*cks sing 'Chop Up Your Mother' he beams and says how he feels right at home.

END SPOILER

This was a good film. It has some pretty run of the mill twists and turns, but all up it's a good solid effort.

To close, I will relate something from the interview with three of the leftover Sick F•cks which was a special feature on the disk. One of the band members ran into Jack Palance in New York some years after the film. He ran up to him "Jack! Hey, Jack! Remember me? We were in that film Alone In The Dark together. I was one of The Sick F*cks." And Jack replied in that characteristic voice of his "I think we were ALL sick fucks in that film." Classic.

Stars: 4 out of 5

Altered States

1980 • Dir: Ken Russell • St: William Hurt, Blair Brown, Charles Haid

Premise: Eddie Jessup begins experimenting with isolation tanks and hallucinogenics to see if there is some underlying common race memory of mankind that explains spiritual phenomena. Or something.

Analysis: I can't really call this film horror, but then again it's also called science fiction, which I don't think fits either. In the end, I keep it on the horror shelf because it scared the piss out of me when I saw it as a kid.

This is William Hurt's first feature film, and also quietly features the first film appearance of a wee Drew Barrymore. Adapted from Paddy Chayefsky's first, last and only novel (Chayefsky himself adapted the screen play) and directed by the renegade director Ken Russell, Altered States is one incredibly messed-up crazy movie.

The central plot of the film revolves around Prof Eddie Jessup's experiments in a sensory deprivation tank while knocking back shooters of a hallucinogen that may be intended to be ayahuasca.

Eddie's first trip is a cue for the usual gaudy visual madness of director Russell, including a trip to the Garden of Eden, and the occasional side trip into a flaming Hell. Not much of a one for drugs myself, I watch Altered States so I don't have to take peyote or acid. To my dying days I will probably imagine that acid trips must be like a Ken Russell film.

The film really does feel pulled in two directions - the intelligent dialogue, original John Lilly research, and search for purpose in man's evolutionary history is Chayefsky's, while the lurid, gaudy and religious overtones are undeniably Russell's. The two are said to have argued quite a bit during filming, causing Chayefsky to have his screenplay credited as 'Sidney Aaron'. To be honest, while Russell's satanic, crucified goat-head figure is what I mainly remember seeing from when I was a kid, it is Jessup's obsessive drive to find this shared genetic memory of humanity, and the idea of physical regression that I find most intriguing.

With an adult viewing, Ken Russell's Garden of Eden and devilish/hellish imagery look, well, a bit silly. One moment everyone's talking soberly about DNA, anthropology and evolution, and the next a snake/Edenic serpent is choking Jessup/Adam to death under an umbrella. You've got to give credit where credit's due - Ken Russell's an amazing lunatic.

The film still leaves me pondering: the notion of storing a genetic memory of the entirety of physical and mental evolution in all of us, is a heady idea. It makes even the humblest person feel like an incredible repository of the tragedies and successes of the human species. The idea of accessing this heritage is a staggering one. If Altered States teaches us anything it's how much more amazing it would have been if not helmed by the sexy nun/heaven and hell obsessed Russell.

Is it horror? Change, mutation, murder, fundamental questions about human existence, an underlying nothingness to existence that could swallow you whole - sounds sufficiently horrific to me.

Stars: 3.5 out of 5

The Abandoned

Note: When I file my DVD's away, I do that library thing where you skip the 'the', so The Abandoned is filed as Abandoned, The. That's why it's here, and not under T.

2006 • Dir: Nacho Cerda • St: Anastasia Hille, Karel Roden

Premise: A woman is told that she has inherited property from parents she never met in Russia. Going there to learn more about her mother and father, she is plunged into an inescapable fate.

Analysis: I'm coming right out and saying it: I love this film. It is a genuinely creepy offering from Spanish director Cerda.

In essence, this film is a claustrophobic loop, where the main characters Marie Jones (played by Hille) and her long-lost brother Nicolai (played by Roden) are pretty much doomed the moment they appear. In the old, rotten house where they were born Marie and Nicolai are constantly haunted by ghosts of the past and future. I especially like the two leads. Hille and Roden are convincing as very ordinary 40-somethings. They don't have the artificial polish that characters in a Hollywood film would have. Hille especially is refreshingly realistic as a 40-year old woman.

What is most scary in this film is the appearance of the doppelgangers of Marie and Nicolai. The film sets up their existence, and rationale relatively early, though that does not detract from their pure creepiness one iota.

I cannot discuss this film in too much detail. The events of the film, and its conclusion are so intimately bound, that to unveil too much in one place is to undo the film in another. I will say that it is a bleak and horrific film, but one that you will enjoy, if - like me - you're fond of a good ghost story. It also deals with a truly dysfunctional family dynamic, where possessiveness and resentment reach a point where obsessiveness is too small a word to describe just how screwed up it is.

This is well worth a play on a dark and stormy night, with the lights out. Just make sure you're wearing your adult nappies when you do.

Stars: 4 out of 5

30 Days of Night

2007 • Dir: David Slade • St: Josh Hartnett, Melissa George, Danny Huston

Premise: The tiny Alaskan town of Barrow goes through 30 days without sunshine every year. This year, a gang of vampires decides to take advantage of the 30 days and engages in an orgy of blood-drinking. Only the local Sheriff and his estranged wife can stop them.

Analysis: 30 Days of Night is based on the IDW graphic novel of the same name by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith. Steve Niles contributed to the screenplay as well.

The set up for this film is pretty straightforward and does not veer too far away from the graphic novel. Early on, seemingly random events conspire to make the already remote Barrow almost inaccessible - the town's mobile phones are stolen and destroyed, the sled dogs are brutally killed, and eventually the power is killed just after the final sunset for a month.

Josh Hartnett plays Sheriff Eben Oleson (Olemaun in the comic), and Melissa George plays his estranged wife Stella (both are happily married in the comic). While Eben is dealing with the strange, random events that will eventually isolate Barrow, Stella becomes stranded in Barrow when an accident causes her to miss the last flight to Anchorage for a month. Hartnett is quite convincing as the heartbroken but diligent Sheriff, and seems to carry a repressed weariness in all his early scenes.

I don't really need to cover the events of this film too closely - a community of 150-odd people stranded in a remote town with no sunshine for 30 days, plus a gang of hungry vampires led by Danny Huston's truly creepy vampire leader Marlow. Yep, it's pretty much what you think it's going to be - a savage and brutal war of attrition, with most of the attrition on the side of the helpless humans.

What I will touch on are some of the differences between film and graphic novel, as well as the portrayal of the vampires.

As noted above, there are some differences in the two leads between their comic and film incarnations. Usually film adaptations of comics make me want to pull my hair out. Some are note perfect, or thematically strong (Sin City and The Dark Knight leap to mind) while others miss the point in small or often catastrophic ways (Watchmen and A History of Violence leap to mind here). 30 days of Night the film does leave out one important subplot from the comic, namely the notion that not all vampires think slaughtering a whole town is really a good idea. In place of this sacrificed subplot is a much more detailed focus on the survivors in Barrow. The sacrifices they make, the grief they suffer, the fear that dominates them. 30 Days presents us with survivors who look, tired, dirty, hungry and mournful, rather than a group of pretty 20-somethings with designer dirt that other films like to give us *cough* *Michael Bay* *cough*.

The term 'survival horror' gets bandied about a lot these days, and while its origins and definition in console games are quite defined, its filmic parallels are not always so neatly identified. In fact survival horror in film has become almost synonymous with the zombie. I think 30 Days of Night presents an almost text book example of what defines survival horror - helpless people in helpless circumstances facing a horrific rate of casualties to the enemy, and an enemy that is implacable, relentless and bloodthirsty. Watching not only the deaths, but their knock-on effects - panic, helplessness, fractiousness, shame and disgust - unfold in 30 Days, leaves me convinced that Steve Niles not only translated his comic to film, but in some regards drastically improved it.

Which leads me to the fangers. The vampires of 30 Days are truly horrifying. No elegant European Counts, or whiny sparkly things here. No, the vamps of 30 Days are snarling, black-eyed, shark-toothed monsters. They move like agile predators. Their guttural vampire language sends shivers down your spine, and the tactics they have used to isolate Barrow engender a feeling of creeping unease long before you even see them. The blood splattered over their very pale skin, and all over their clothing only reinforces their savagery. They look, and act, like monsters. And not a moment too soon I say. 30 Days delivers what was sorely needed for vampires - an iteration that makes you remember why vamps are supposed to be scary. 30 Days' undead fangers are true monsters in every way, and restore vampires to their spot as the kings of the horror monster. The helplessness of the humans before these monsters is made truly stark when Huston's Marlow and his gang have captured one of the helpless Barrovians. Tearfully, she begs God to save her. Marlow angles his head quizzically 'God? No God.' he merely says before she is ruthlessly slaughtered. Marlow's statement leaves us in an almost Lovecraftian universe, a world that is godless as well as actively hostile to mankind. When his female off-sider is hideously burned with a UV lamp, he mutters 'What can be broken must be broken' before killing her - a truly shark-like ethos. The savage predation of these vamps extends even to their own kind.

Special mention must be made here of Ben Foster's character 'The Stranger', the henchman who paves the way for the vampires' arrival. His psychotic demeanour, almost English like teeth and peculiar accent make him a 'Renfield' above Renfields. Though his fate is the traditional fate of all loonies who choose to serve vampires, he still stands out as a truly unsettling henchman.

The violence is not tucked away quietly either. After some early scenes where the vampires hunt from the shadows, glimpsed briefly before vanishing again, the last half of the film does not shirk from splattering the old ketchup around, mainly from Eben's handy fire axe. Mark Boone Jr's character Beau Brower (the town recluse) also dishes out a spectacular action scene that slices and dices no small number of the interloping fangers.

Spoiler Alert: the Ending

Well actually, this time I'm not going to spoil it. The ending makes sense in a very selfless way, that I think fits in very neatly with the survival horror ethos.

So, is this film worth seeing? Hell yeah. If you're after a vampire flick, you could do far worse than this gem. The comic and the film make good companion pieces, rather than necessarily fuel for an argument as to which one got it 'right'.

Stars: 4 out of 5

28 Days Later

2003 • Dir: Danny Boyle • St: Cillian Murphy, Christopher Eccleston

Premise: Bicycle courier Jim wakes up to find that London is deserted, except for those infected by the Rage Virus, people who have been turned into mindless, brutal killers.

Analysis: 28 Days Later was, I think, the only film that had a valid use for the sort of rapid, jumpy, quickly cut camerawork that has turned up in other horror films, most notably the remake factories. This style is prevalent in the film and is an integral part of the 'Rage Zombies', whose jerky, twitching movements, and rapid speed let you feel like you're getting an infected's-eye view of the action.

The film starts with animal activists breaking into a facility where chimps have been wired up to watch looped feeds of human brutality - wars, riots, hangings and so on. A lone scientist (obviously stuck working graveyard shift because he's the newbie) tries to warn the activists that the chimps are infected with rage, hatred distilled down into a viral weapon. Activists being who they are in films, they don't listen and let a chimp free, which promptly savages the crap out of the activist who let it free.

I have some issues with the way scientists and activists are sometimes presented in film. The military are more likely to want to weaponise rage, and I fail to understand what the experiment was all in aid of anyway. The activists also become the scapegoats for the release of the rage virus, which is pretty standard for a world that likes to shoot the messenger a lot more often than the author of the message. I would still point out that someone was trying to turn emotions into viruses, which sounds like the sort of idiot plan a corporation or military organisation is more likely to come up with. Who signed the work order on that piece of nonsense, that's what I'd like to know.

It's then that we cut to Jim (Cillian Murphy), waking up in hospital. What follows is simply breathtaking, as we follow him through a deserted, hastily abandoned London. A silent, empty London is quite unnerving. I lived there for a year, and I have to say - London is NEVER silent. What is perhaps most heart-breaking is when Jim finds a wall of final messages - notes from the damned. There are cries for the whereabouts of loved ones, photos of those who have been lost to the virus, letters, declarations, testaments, confessions, drawings. The few glimpses you get of each letter or photo ram home the idea that these are not numbers. Every Londoner killed or lost to the virus was a person with hopes, dreams and fears. This is quite atypical for a 'zombie' movie.

This is when Jim enters a church. As he ascends a staircase, we see graffiti on the wall 'The end is extremely f@#king nigh'. The church is also where we see our first Rage Zombie. As Jim is calling out, he sees the floor of the church littered with hundreds of bodies. His shouting attracts the attention of 2 people who simply stare at him wide eyed, faces contorted. Jim is distracted by banging at a door, and a crazed infected priest bursts out and runs at him, before Jim beans him in the head with a shopping bag full of pepsi cans.

The thing I found interesting about all this is that the film is slowly destroying every institution known to man. Science is destroyed by being shown as immoral, activism is shown to be misguided and foolish, and then the church is shown to be a refuge which only allows people to destroy each other. Think about it, who killed all the people in the church except the church-goers themselves? One drop of infected blood in there and it turns into a massacre.

Running for his life from the church, Jim is eventually saved by Mark and Selena, two other survivors. Jim's protestations that there must be a government or military doing something are flatly rejected, adding to the theme that human civilisation has been completely destroyed. Mark and Selena give Jim (and the audience) a potted history of the rage virus and its effects.

During an abortive attempt to find Jim's parents, Mark gets infected blood in an open cut. Selena, without hesitation, hacks him to death with a machete. This scene hits you like a sucker punch. It is raw, relentless, and once you think about it, absolutely necessary within the bounds the film has established.

There are three kinds of survivor presented in the film, that fit into three key arcs in the film. Mark and Selena's scavenging, ruthless, no-hope method is presented first. We see that the weakness of it is that it is without purpose beyond survival. They play a war of attrition just to live day by day. It is fitting then, that soon after Mark's death, we are introduced to two more survivors - Frank and his daughter Hannah, and the middle arc of the film starts. Frank and Hannah are introduced when Jim and Selena enter a tower estate block, that they have seen lights coming from. Running a gauntlet up a staircase, pursued by infected, they are saved by Frank in full riot gear who fights off the infected. Inside, the scene is quite a domestic one. They get to sleep, eat, drink, and Jim has a scratchy attempt at shaving.

Frank introduces us to a broader idea of survival. The tower block has been rigged up like an impenetrable fortress. He has every receptacle you can imagine on the roof to collect rainwater, although it hasn't rained for 10 days. He then reveals a plan. There has been a recorded message playing on the radio directing survivors to an army base, just outside Manchester. He admits that they need Jim and Selena more than they need him and his daughter, but he urges them to join him in heading north. Hannah then says one of the sagest things she'll say in the film - that Jim and Selena need them more, that they all need each other.

Hannah is correct. In their occasionally hazardous escape up north in Frank's London cab, the four of them get to feel normal again. They find connections in each other. Cold and ruthless Selena finds a little sister in Hannah. Jim finds a father figure of sorts in Frank. They stop in the ruins of an old church, and see 4 wild horses running free. Frank comments that they're a family. The connection between the survivors and the horses is an obvious one. The four survivors have also become a family.

It is appropriate then, that just as they are at their most blissful, everything is about to go straight to $hit again. They find the roadblock/army base and it is completely abandoned. Frank cracks up, the let down too much for him to deal with. Before long, Frank is infected, a single drop of blood falls in his eye. Frank pushes Hannah away from him, knowing what is coming, Selena screams at Jim to kill him, and finally Frank is shot down as the army make their belated presence felt.

The family unit is shattered. The weakness of their kind of survival is shown to be optimism. Their happiness had distracted them from the harsh reality they live in.

As Jim, Selena and Hannah are driven to an old country estate, now occupied by the remnants of the army, we enter the final arc of the film and are introduced to a third kind of survivor in the form of Major Henry West (Eccleston) and his men. They seem to have rigged up their stately country mansion as an impenetrable fortress as well - what Frank did, but on a higher budget. It's not long before we get the feeling that something is deeply wrong. Despite the initial sense of camaraderie among the soldiers, we are told that one has attempted suicide and another, Sgt Farrell is shown to be particularly bleak and at odds with the other men. West also keeps one of his infected men chained up in a yard, as a ruthless, but practical experiment to see how long the infected live.

A few hints are dropped, but finally West baldly informs Jim of his plan. There is no cure, no hope of rescue, so he has promised his men women. Selena and Hannah are to become sex slaves of his men. Jim and the dissenting Sgt Farrell are to be taken away and shot. When they are taken out into the woods, the spot they are taken to is already littered with bodies. An understated message that West and his men have been kidnapping and abusing survivors for a little while now. Farrell is shot, and in the confusion Jim escapes.

SPOILER (in black type below-select to read)

We have seen a desperate and ruthless method of survival that had nothing worth fighting for. We have seen a co-operative, happy method of survival, that proved to be too optimistic for its own good. Finally Maj West has shown us a cruel and delusional method of survival, where the survivors are little better than the infected. Now we see the lessons that Jim has learned from all of these methods.

Jim attracts both infected and West's men to the abandoned roadblock by sounding the alarm there. With brutal efficiency and a kind of guerilla warfare, he kills off a couple of West's men, before heading back to their base. In the streaming rain, he not only frees the infected soldier, but kills any of West's men he can get his hands on. He is out-soldiering the soldiers. Selena and Hannah meanwhile have been dressed up in pretty dresses, as a prelude to what the audience can only presume will be a gang-rape by West's men. Hearing noises, Hannah tells the soldiers that they are going to die. As chaos breaks out in the house, they try to escape, but finally Selena is trapped in a room with one of West's soldiers, as Jim comes in and brutally bashes the soldier's head against a wall, before ruthlessly thumbing his eyes out. It is extremely brutal, and Selena is initially unsure if he is one of the infected, as is Hannah who beans him over the head while he and Selena are kissing.

In their escape, they leave West to the tender mercies of his infected men, and Jim gets shot. We then cut to many days later, where Jim wakes once again, echoing the start of the film. Selena, Hannah and Jim have survived and have made a sign out of bedsheets to attract the flyover of an American jet. They will be rescued, finally.

The escape from West's mansion is, for me, the ultimate point of the film. Jim shows ruthlessness, even a degree of sadism, and finally complete rage to rescue Selena and Hannah. He has united Selena's ruthlessness with West's sadism in the cause of Frank's compassion. His final weapon is rage, the rage he uses to kill a soldier with his bare hands. He uses the weapon of infection without being infected. Finally it tells us that the infection is really a ruse. We don't need to weaponise rage, we only need the right cause to let it loose. The use of this potent weapon enables Jim, Selena and Hannah to escape and become the family they need to be to truly survive.

END SPOILER

The English, I feel, have a better grasp on the true bleakness of horror. They can reveal a number of subtleties in horror, that many American film-makers would bludgeon with hammy fists. 28 Days Later is the best non-zombie zombie film you can treat yourself to.

4 out 5 Stars