P.S. I love you guys  & gals.  Give mad props to the author of this on youtube if you dig it.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61RJGQcG_sM&feature=player_embedded

Suck Flintlock you Heathens.

The opening of the film quickly paints the portrait of the bloodthirsty mercenary Solomon Kane, a man who, unbeknownst to him, has apparently made a deal with the Devil for his soul, and in return has been granted quite impressive battling abilities and a rapid rise to the mantle of one of the worlds most deadly combatants and exceptional leaders of armed forces.  He is portrayed as something of a conquerer, but when confronted by the Devil himself,  he quickly changes his brazen ways and seeks asylum in a sleepy, snow-capped abbey, which shelters him from the satanic forces which have so boldly come knocking looking for their pound of flesh…or pound of soul in this case.  James Purefoy plays our unlikely hero, a man with substantial acting range and credentials (movie, TV, theater, etc) and does a more than admirable job conveying the inner conflict that dominates much of the second act in the film.  Director Michael Basset (whose two directing credits are Deathwatch and Wilderness, two horror films which are both held in fairly high regard in the horror community) shows equally great command of the lens as Purefoy does of evoking the emotional spread of Solomon throughout the film.  As what I see as the two major forces behind this venture (Purefoy as our main and Bassett as our director), the tandem make quick work of the two-fold metamorphosis of Kane, from reckless and unstoppable killing machine, to borderline coward and born again man of peaceful faith, and back to vengeful, albeit much more pure, dealer of righteous death.  The cast which surrounds Purefoy and acts as the vehicle for Bassetts script and directing arm are equally up to the task of delivering the words and emotions with more than enough gravity and vigor, which helps to make the genesis of Solomon all the more enjoyable and believable.  Bassett knows when to pull the metaphorical trigger on omon and unleash his fury, and when he does the film ramps up to 11 and never looks back.

The Devil has one pimping sword.

To go along with the admittedly surprising acting and directing is set, costume and effects designs that wouldn’t feel out-of-place in a much larger budget, nationwide theatrical release.  The cgi is kept to a minimum, and what is there is perfectly adequate and not cringe-inducing, as if often the case for films without massive studios and resources behind them.  The costume and sets/locations are all wonderful as well, with Solomon’s look feeling unique and well…badass enough to make him stand out without being too flashy and colourful as to make him look out-of-place.  Since Solomon has made the jump to modern-day comic books, I would be remiss without acknowledging the comic book to movie type treatment this film has, and I say that in the best of ways.  This flick comes off as a strong and competent origin story for Solomon, and I truly mean what I said earlier when I mentioned how desperately I want to see the team who brought us this movie get a crack at furthering their interpretation and following future adventures of Kane.  For those wondering, there is even a bit of gore which works hand in hand with the visceral nature of the combat.  The fight choreography is present, but there is still a rugged grittyness to the swashbuckling here, and while the blood and viscera doesn’t flow quite as liberally as in a proper horror or gore flick, there are moments where I sat a little slack-jawed and saying things to myself like “DAMN SON, SOLOMON JUST FUCKED HIS ASS UP!”  Good times, as the kids say.

This bad dude is wearing someone elses face on top of his face. That's how you know he is not to be fucked with.

When the credits rolled on this bad boy, I immediately told my mom check it out.  For those of you who might be new to Midnight Showing, my mother and I share a strong film bond, and we often will stop everything we’re doing to alert one another of cinematic gold we stumble upon.  For my mother and I, it’s one of the highest honors we can award a flick.  Everything about Solomon Kane reeked of awesome.  The music was outstanding, the production values were above and beyond what I thought was possible from a film that seemed more of a passion project than outright studio product, and the story held my attention and never let it go, not even for an instant.  Kudos to Bassett for continuing to hone his impressive skills, and likewise to anyone who was involved in this flick, as it certainly has skyrocketed to the top of my “best sleeper flicks of 2010″ list and I shall be recommending ad nauseum to anyone whose ear I can grab for a few moments.  Do yourself a favor and support this one if the opportunity arrises.  You won’t be disappointed.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Futuristic blood harvesting at its finest

Daybreakers is the latest movie to hit theaters that is looking to stake a claim in the vampire media frenzy that has taken over both the big and small screens.  From Twilight (I need an acid bath every time I so much as type that name) to True Blood, the bloodsucking freaks have been a big hit with audiences looking for dark, but ultimately romance driven narratives injected with some supernatural herbs and spices.  Out of this pit of shallow pandering to the adolescent and deeply delusional, Daybreakers has come forth to deliver a vampire movie with a fairly metallic set of testicles with some brains to boot.  Extracted from the minds of the The Spierig Brothers (who made one of the best and funniest zombie flicks of  the oo’s called UNDEAD, a film I should definitely review for y’all!  Or fuck it, grab it now and watch it, it’s worth it!), Daybreakers throws us into the year 2019 (inferred from that fact that in the film they refer to 2009 as being 10 years ago) where vampires have become to dominant species on planet Earth, and the few pockets of humans who are left are on the run from the vampires military who hunt them down for sustenance.  The humans aren’t the only ones who are fighting for survival however, as it is made clear early on that without blood or a blood substitute, vampires devolve into these hideous, almost zombie like bat humanoid creatures who will feast on anyone or anything that they come across.  This is where Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) comes into play, as he is a brilliant hematologist tasked creating a blood substitute that will eliminate the need for widespread human re-population.  Sprinkle into this mess some interesting, albeit subdued, statements about the Big Pharma culture that is currently present in the United States as well as our military industrial complex and you have a nice little self-contained flick that doesn’t require you to completely shut down your higher brain functions in order to enjoy it in full.  Not to mention, it has a pretty nifty cast too.  Did I mention Willem Dafoe is in it?

Holy shit, they are arming Willem Dafoe. GET THE FUCK DOWN, NOW!

And while I your attention squarely on Mr. Dafoe’s general creepiness (read: AWESOMENESS), let’s take a moment to expand on how the acting helps to make this ride a bit more pleasurable.  Dafoe doesn’t get nearly enough screen time for my liking (although if I had it my way, it would be a one man movie starring Willem Dafoe), but what he does with him time is captivating, especially when you come to realize he ISN’T the bad guy for once.  His character is a southern man, nicknamed Elvis, and I’ll leave it at that.  Trust me, he just about makes it worth the price of admission.  Ethan Hawk, as mentioned earlier, plays Edward Dalton, a man torn by his sympathies towards humans and his obligation to his company and boss to find a solution to the blood scarcity.  Sam Neill is Charles Bromley, the hot shit head cheese of a major corporation that service specific vampire needs.  He also happens to be Dalton’s boss and is quite the motherfucker.  The rest of the cast is relative nobodies, but I found all the performances to be pretty on target in finding a balance between playing it straight enough to make this universe believable, but not overselling it to the point where it gets melodramatic and overly weighty.  There are even moments where some fun is had, and it seems like the Spierig Brothers haven’t lost that goofy and sharp sense of humor that is so evident in UNDEAD.  One thing that seemed to compress the acting was that 93 minute length of the flick, which meant that once the film really got its proverbial engines revved and red-lined, the sprint to the finish felt a bit too fast, and some of the richness of the characters was lost in the mad dash towards the endgame.  This most likely falls into the lap of the producers, studio, and editor however, not the actors and the Spierig Brothers.

Stuff bleeds real good in this movie.

Inside that hour and a half however, the Spierigs flex the muscles only people who have seen UNDEAD know they have.  Not only do they write and direct their movies together, they are also seasoned special effects creators, both of the practical and computer generated disciplines.  Often times, they will combine prosthetic effects and CGI (like in the scene pictures above) to create fairly convincing visuals that don’t look like too phony in either direction.  That being said, this film isn’t quite the gore show that UNDEAD allowed itself to be, but let it be known that there are some downright nasty scenes in this one, and when the blood does flow, it flows liberally.  Shifting from effects to lenses, the Spierigs also craft themselves a nice looking film, complete with lots of sterile looking scenes which paint the vampires, at least initially, as a much more organized and civil spin-off of humanity.  There is a lot of white and blue lighting and tidy organization to the environments the vampires have erected and furnished for themselves over the years, as if being orderly and docile in appearance and demeanor can make up for their savagery and nearly cannibalistic impulses they need indulge in for mere survival.  The film is paced pretty well, with my major grievance being that the finale is just a bit too rapid for my liking.  Some clever camera angles and flashy shots help to round out what otherwise is a pretty straightforward and smartly captured film.  Kudos to the Spierig for finding a middle-ground between the unabashed fun they had with UNDEAD, and the undoubtedly more restrictive world of “Hollywood” film making.

And you thought cocaine was expensive.

When Daybreakers came to a close, I felt like I wanted to see more from that vision, and that is normally a good thing in my book.  The world the Spierigs have shaped for themselves in Daybreakers is a really interesting one which I wouldn’t hesitate to dive into for a second time.  Granted, the story ends in a way where enough safe assumptions could be made and the book could be shut on the plight of the vampires, but there is enough stuff going on behind the scenes that it made want to see how far the Brothers Spierig could stretch out this idea.  As it stand now though, it is a find piece of quality mainstream horror/action/thriller fare that is very deserving of having genre vets and indie hounds sink their teeth into.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Midnightshowing.com Presents Alex’s Top 10 (+1) movies of 2009 (In no particular order except for the top 2!) from Alex S on Vimeo.

Coal is the least of your worries

In keeping with the seasonal theme, here is Tales From the Crypt and the quite festive episode they produced in 1989, I believe.  Keep a close eye on the credits, as Fred Dekker (Night of the Creeps, Monster Squad) wrote this episode, and Robert Zemeckis (Cast Away, Beowulf, dozens of other big budget Hollywood movies) directed it, with a who’s who list supplying the producing like Joel Silver and Richard Donner.  Also Larry Drake, the bad guy from the Darkman movies, plays Santa! Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

On with the show, thanks to scary4you who put this on youtube!

(Chopped into three parts…)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHqyMUjOzLk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOgZk4ZH1LQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UeassKRlqE

The only screencap I could give without spoiling the surprise!

Sometimes the children aren’t the only ones who get what they want for Christmas…

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOqhqpBj5GE

Stacy: Attack of the Schoolgirl Zombies (2001)

Stacy: Attack of the Schoolgirl Zombies. Schoolgirl zombies, fantastic!

The plot (and I use the term loosely) is, as ever for these films, completely bonkers. Zombies by nature, are bizarre, but those wacky Japanese have to go and toss in a ‘white powder’ (make of that what you will) and NDH, Near Death Happiness. Oh, and the fact that the ‘zombification process’ (TM, Ronnie) only affects schoolgirls. To combat the threat of ‘Stacies’ (the films codeword for zombies) the Government has created the Romero Repeat Kill Squad (homage? You betcha) who ‘dispose’ of the Stacies.

The story starts nicely enough:

Damn Stacies... Romero Repeat Rekill Squad to the rescue!

Then starts to drag a bit. It seems like they tried to inject some romance and back story, but in a film like this, it’s pointless.

The gore is quite good though:

Take that, you spineless Stacy!

… which is always a bonus, and well done for a low budget afair.

There are several nods towards other movies, the obvious Romero mention and a nice nod to Evil Dead:

Ooh! A new edition of the Blues Campbell chainsaw!

Truth be told though… it’s not too great a film. Schoolgirl zombies is enough to make Japanese zombie fans cream their pants, but here, it just aint working.

Now, for the love of God, someone release Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl on DVD! PLEEEEAASE!!! I’m begging!

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

You just know someone will make a zombie themed amusement park now.

For those who may have missed the internet hype machine for this flick, Zombieland is a zombie comedy (a Zombedy if you will) that mixes in some elements of the romantic comedy genre while telling the tale of a pair of polar opposite men who are doing the best they can to stay alive despite almost everyone else being undead.  Thin as it may sound, Zombieland manages to hit a fair amount of crisp, clean chords throughout its lean 88 minute run time and balances its humor, softer moments, and balls to the wall action set pieces well enough that the transitions between each never seems jarring.  Throw in a dynamite performance from one of Hollywood’s best kept secrets, none other than Woody Harrelson, and some really neat gags and gimmicks that put new spins on old mechanics of zombie cinema, and you have a flick that will have even the most cynical and jaded of genre fans cracking a smile.

I would give up a testicle to be half as cool as that man.

Zombieland’s greatest strengths come from unlikely sources, especially considering that the trailers and marketing used to promote the flick seemed to have won everyone over on first impressions alone.  The acting was the first aspect to jump out at me, quickly followed by a plot that, while without a definitive end, still managed to feel like it had a solid three act arc that moved alone at just the right pace.  Woody Harrelson is obviously the man in Zombieland, even though it’s up for debate as to whether or not he is the leading man or not.  The comedy swings back and forth from above-average to downright hysterical, but thankfully it never slips down to “Apatow, Will Ferrel and the rest of the people who have ruined comedy for the last 10 years” level.  It is relatively smart with some quick wit thrown in for good measure and it all flows very nicely, which is the core X factor to any good comedy.  The directing (handled by Ruben Fleischer in his first big mainstream directing gig) is swift and to the point.  His eye is always in the right place to catch all the action, and he doesn’t press to many buttons on the camera or fiddle with his images in post beyond adding some blood or the clever little “Rule” banners that pop in he film and pretty much explain how to survive the Zombie Apocalypse.  Across the board, all of my major concerns were really unfounded, and I was pleasantly surprised with how pleasant, professional, and refreshingly fun the whole movie felt.

Good rule dude!

For all my hemming and hawing, Zombieland has turned out, for me at least, to be one of the most enjoyable films of 2009 from top to bottom.  From the comedy, highlighted by a great cameo that doesn’t outstay it’s welcome, to the action (which could have used a touch more gore, but I understand it was not needed with the more lighthearted nature of the picture overall), to the more touching moments where the films raises a few interesting questions about humanity when it is faced with what amounts to its own extinction.  Zombieland is proof positive that big budget movies can tap into that indy spirit that drives movies like Dance of the Dead and Shaun of the Dead to become some well received cult classics with a fairly wide and timeless appeal.  Zombieland may not be the biggest and best roller-coaster in the park, but it’s the one your going to want to go on at least a few times and tell all your friends about.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Get 'em Woody.

Didn't really help me out.

Satan’s little helper is a relatively new (2004 ) film that takes place on Halloween and looks to combine its own brand of irreverence and humor while working within the vague confines of a slasher picture.  The only problem is that it jumps around from idea to idea so much that the narrative becomes so muddled and disjointed the film is barely watchable a majority of the time.  Satan (who may actually be Satan or just a ruthless serial killer in disguise) is befriended by a young naive boy who is under the impression that his addictive video game, aptly titled Satan’s Little Helper, is something of a tutorial for how he should behave on Halloween.  Instead of going down the obvious path of a troubled and properly bullied young boy who uses his new monstrous friend to exact revenge, we get an hour and a half of scenes that all seem like they are ripped out of different movies with each of them just as out of place and incomprehensible as the last.  For all its tragic flaws, the spirit of the season and moments of pleasure do rise to the surface at times, but it feels more like an accident when this happens, instead of an intentional result.

If he was a pirate for Halloween, he wouldn't have this ninja problem.

Besides the plodding, meandering pace that drags everything about Satan’s Little Helper down, the acting is probably the number one culprit when pointing the finger of blame as to why this movie is, at times, completely insufferable.  Dougie, the little kid around which the story revolves is painfully annoying, and not in that charming, youthful way that countless other movies had gotten away with.  His big sister is also way to uneven and over the top and barely serves the basic of purpose of being the “attractive girl” in the movie.  The mother of those two children is just about the only one in the movie I didn’t want to see get run over by a truck, but that was more by default than anything.  Satan (see below) doesn’t speak at all, and his mime-like moves are novel at first, but quickly become just as awkward and played out as almost everything else the movie offers up by the 45 minute mark.  From a production standpoint, the film is more than serviceable with nice lighting and video quality, but that seems like a moot point when you factor in how little it does to elevate the watch-ability of this turdburger.  It is strange at times, and delightfully so, but just making a movie to be weird isn’t enough unless it has a traditional or time-tested narrative backbone to prop it up once the gimmicks wear off.  The villain is creepy enough, but seeing as how the highlights of any good slasher-esque film should be the eventual deaths, it is shocking to find that there are only something like 2 or 3 on screen deaths, and all of them are absolutely abysmal in quality, creativity, and execution.  I’m ok with some off screen and implied slayings, but when you do finally pull the trigger on showing us a murder, it should at least be mildly impressive, even if you have to copy the idea from another flick.

Satan has a sense of humor. Too bad this movie didn't.

It’s a shame that I decided to re-watch this film before I reviewed, because that is truly 95 minutes of my life I will never get back.  I have certainly seen worse films, and I reiterate the fact that there are moments where it all comes together for Satan’s Little helper and you see what could have been, but those moments are so few and far between that most won’t get to see them because they will be switching dvds to another, better film.  It doesn’t feel amateurish, or overly self-indulgent and self-important.  It just feels like a bad film that isn’t quite bad enough to be fun on a “this is so shitty it’s genius” level and it absolutely isn’t good enough to be recommendable to anyone but the bravest souls who want to say they have seen it all when it comes to Halloween framed pictures.  There just aren’t enough tricks up Satan’s sleeve to make this a treat, and there are times where I’d rather be biting into an apple with a razor blade in it instead of  sitting through the second and third acts.  You’ve been warned.

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

Oh, hey Jesus. Yeah I know, even you couldn't save this flick.

Ghostwatch