REC 2 (2009)

If you haven’t read my review of [REC] (aka: REC 1, or Quarantine in the case of the US ‘remake’) then do so. It’s a cracking film.

[REC] 2 picks up the very second [REC] ended, I shant spoil the end of either film in this review, but [REC] 2 begins with a SWAT team heading toward the building we saw in [REC]. They’re briefed before entering the building that they must clear the building, but also escort the Doctor who will go in with them. One member of the team is the main camera man but each SWAT team member has their own helmet-mounted camera.

Quarter way in to the movie we’re given an explanation for the virus which started in [REC] and it’s really quite a novel idea. Obviously, I’m not going to give that away in this review as that’d screw everything up and you’d hate me. No, seriously, you would. In fact it might even make you not watch [REC] 2 and I can’t have that.

Around the half-way mark the SWAT team, and Doctor, realise that somehow some kids have gotten in to the building and must be found.

Now, rather than just have one camera for the whole film, the writers neatly overlap several different cameras. So, for example (again, without giving anything away) the SWAT team (via their camera man) spot the kids downstairs and race down to try and get them. Later on in the movie we switch to a camera of kids goofing around on a rooftop/balcony. They end up in the [REC] building and we see some SWAT team guys running down stairs to get them, the kids run and hide. So, that one scene is seen from two cameras and that neatly ties things together, and that happens several times. Nice!

The end of [REC] was quite unexpected, and a nice twist, [REC]2 is the same, a twist ending without being tacky.

The effects are more than adequate, plenty of head-shots (one with a decap no less!) and lots of blood on the infected folk. The story is excellent as, like I said above, it ties in several camera views to one story overlapping them and explaining the virus. Visually there’s the usual battery meters on screen, crackling pictures but this time we have the addition of picture-in-picture views from some of the SWAT team cameras never is the shaky-cam too much to bear.

Make no mistakes about it, [REC] 3 is confirmed for 2011. This could well be my favourite new movie franchise!

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

[REC]2 trailer:

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

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…)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHqyMUjOzLk

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOgZk4ZH1LQ

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

Majestic.

Tim Burton has had a rough decade.  He is under fire from both critics and fans alike for failing to hit a major cinematic home run since he gave birth to Big Fish which despite having Burton attached, still won over many as something of an “indie darling” motion picture.  Being a fan of Burton myself, I can’t quibble with those who have leveled their legitimate complaints since all of his films in the 00′s, including Big Fish, have failed to resonate with me on the level his work used to.  But to say that a handful of “meh” flicks have bludgeoned his legacy beyond recognition is more of a reflection of the poor memories of those decreeing it has.  Right before the turn on the century, and the turn of Burton’s luck, he cranked out what might be his most definitive and certainly most riveting and gimmick-less film to date.  Enter Sleepy Hollow.  A “remake” if you will of the 1921 picture bearing the same title, it is an onscreen adaptation of one of the most classic horror stories ever put to paper.  Burton’s penchant for Gothic romanticism and mature playfulness paired with his innate ability to both modernize and cherish his own unique brand of neo-classical Victorianism was, and still is, the perfect fit for such a grim and mystical tale.  With a cast that is as breathtakingly talented as it is ridiculously appropriate and a presentation that still has yet to be surpassed in it’s faithfulness to the period and atmosphere, Sleepy Hollow stands as one of best movies to indulge in around All Hollows Eve as well as one of the best examples of Burton not only as a clever niche director, but a phenomenal directing talent period.

Unmistakably Burton-esque.

The mere mention of Johnny Depp is more often enough acting cred to get most people interested in seeing a movie, but group him in with such widely recognized, and severely underrated in some circles, talent such as Christina Ricci, Miranda Richardson, Jeffrey Jones, Michael Gambon, Christopher Walken and Christopher Lee and you have a recipe for a movie with a lot of intrigue from the cast list alone.  Hell, even Casper Van Dien is in this and proves his role in Starship Troopers wasn’t a complete fluke.  To go into detail about how everyone on screen is magnificent would be almost unfair to their work and to me as one man trying to encapsulate such performances in a concise set of sentences.  Depp is however, if there was any doubt, masterful as Ichabod Crane, and Ricci is the standout lady, just by a hair, as Katrina Van Tassel.  Walken plays The Headless Horseman in scenes where they establish his back story as a Hessian and for those short moments when he is doing his thing, he is as intimidating and magical as he was in Pulp Fiction when he stole the show with one monologue.  Speaking too much about what other talent plays whom, and to what degree of great their performances are would bring me be dangerously close to spoiler territory, and since this revamped and slightly reworked version of Sleepy Hollow brings a mammoth amount of depth and conspiracy to an otherwise fairly straight forward yarn, I dare not ruin any of the twists and turns that await if this is indeed your first trip to The Hollow.

Fun Fact: Walken actually didn't need ANY make-up for his scenes.

Burton’s job directing Sleepy Hollow mus have been quite a pleasurable task by my estimation though.  Surrounded by some of the most professional and well-known actors and actresses in the business, both circa 1999 and in present day, Burton and his cohorts probably had an easy time focusing on getting the mood, tone, and atmosphere just right for a film that, at its very soul, is a period piece taking place in the autumn of 1799.  With longtime friend and brilliant musician and composer Danny Elfman at the helm of the soundscapes, Burton really managed to capture both the historical themes and architecture quite well, while still leaving room for putting his trademark style into every nook and cranny he could find without spoiling the richness and charm the period brings itself.  On a more intellectual level, there is even an undertone running through the film which presents some interesting viewpoints and debates about science vs. the supernatural.  For those who are uninterested or unimpressed with this kind of depth can take solace in knowing that it only pops up intermittently, but never the less impressively.  Getting back to what is on screen and not simply implied or inferred, the sets, lighting, the brisk and fun pace, and the score (which I believe is one of Elfman’s absolute best) all work in harmony to really bring the fusion of history and vivid imagination alive without becoming overbearingly childish or shallow.  Burton does use some of his classic tricks like angled shots and shadow/silhouette play, but he keeps his flashier side well restrained, and instead lets the locations, mood, and dynamite atmosphere do a bulk of the talking while he frames and observes it all without much visual interference.  Oh, and there is quite a copious amount of gore in this one as well, mainly be-headings with a few “surprise” kills I wouldn’t dare ruin.

How about a little steampunk with your Burton?

For those who have lost faith in Burton and possibly skipped out on his rendition of Sleepy Hollow due to his recent missteps or just never being overly thrilled with his late 80′s/early 90′s work (Batman, Beetlejuice, Nightmare before Christmas), you are seriously missing out on one of his most complete and well conceived pieces of work.  Burton and crew aren’t just sitting on their hands and relying on their laurels, reputation, and charm to win people over.  They have managed to fuse a strange sort of modernity and timely relevance to the yarn while still putting forth a picture that is phenomenally fun and can be enjoyed completely on the surface without missing out on major pieces of the puzzle.  Consider this a autumnal gem that isn’t strictly to be used around my favorite holiday, but at any time in which you feel the need for spooky tale that is handled by a crew that was, and hopefully will be again soon, utterly on top of their game.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

A Beetlejuice dress! YES!

Woman just got deadlier, if that's even possible.

Jake West is quickly becoming one of my favorite British” horrody” directors (that’s a word I made up for horror comedies, do you think it will stick?).  My love affair began when I saw Evil Aliens (review forthcoming) and has now been cemented by his latest offering Doghouse.  Where Evil Aliens was a splatterific sci-fi horror mash-up that simultaneously payed homage to and poked fun at a dozen or so movie conventions we all know, love, and loathe, Doghouse sees West moving in on profound territory, the same way that Shaun of the Dead saw Frost, Pegg, Wright mature in their ability to both stir up nostalgia and unbridled fun while coating their narrative with a unique sentiment about the nature of companionship, both friendly and romantic.  West takes a more controversial approach however, borrowing some notions about the bonds that are shared between a group of 20 something guys, while pitting them against a village mostly populated by women that have been the test site for a particularly sexist government experiment that turns women in rabid cannibal zombie-types who crave the flesh of men only.  Finally, a horror film without a “Final Girl.”

Sorry guys, she's married.

If you didn’t catch all that, allow to recap briefly the synopsis of our fair tale.  A group of guys, who are generally at odds and different stages with the opposite sex, plan a trip to a village out in the boonies to help a friend overcome his recent divorce.  When they arrive, the quiet village is all too quiet, and they soon realize that just about every man is dead, the military was recently present in the area, and all women have turned in fem-zombies who have a single item on their menu…men.  It is here where West takes his first stand by managing to avoid the obvious misogynist jokes and tendencies by giving our squad of males many quirks and shortcomings which make their battle with the mutated lady things all the more interesting, and more importantly, hilarious.  There’s a comic book store owner/nerd who sees this as an opportunity to live out an Evil Dead like fantasy about locking wits and weapons with the undead.  There is a chauvinist who truly believes he is the universe’s gift to women, while all indicators point to the opposite, and so on.  They are all introduced quickly in the opening montage, which shows in just a few seconds what type of guy they are.  Once the stage is set, and we are all properly introduced to the players, the real fun begins.  West not only has a wonderfully talented cast to direct (the acting is grade A, much much better than even I was expecting, and I already had high hopes for this one), but also a gauntlet of obstacles for them to overcome which lends itself nicely to some ingenuity as far as weapon choice and creation and some very intricate situational humor.  I won’t go into detail here about the ways they navigate through the village while avoiding detection and certain doom, but rest assured you will get a few chuckles at the very least.  The acting is prime, and the pacing is never dull, but if I have to level one legitimate complaint about Doghouse, it would be that the final few frames leave a little too much to the imagination of the viewer.  It doesn’t ruin the film, especially since Doghouse isn’t a horror movie that is fixated on the finish line, it is instead all about the ride their and how fun that is, but a greater sense of absolute closure or…non-closure wouldn’t have been out of place for such a definite, grounded film.  Still, that’s trying to find things to nitpick in an otherwise vast sea of general praise.

You're supposed to hang the clothes up to dry after the person takes them off. Silly zombie women.

Besides being a fan of the interplay of horror and comedy (and being one of the recent masters of the trade), Jake West is also a guru of gore.  Specifically, how to use gore as both a visceral intensifier of violence and slapstick style humor gags.  There are times in Doghouse where the weak-stomached might go “EWWW” at a scene, only to turn around and laugh hysterically at another kill that is played off more like a joke.  West really juggles this well, flip-flopping between the more light-hearted moments and the downbeat serious ones.  His eye for angles and camerawork never gets in the way either, and his flashiest moments are in the first 10 or so minutes, when he plays with filters and stop screens for a while, before settling into observer mode without much interference in the form of trying to being overly fancy or stylish.  The lightning, which looks mostly natural during the daytime and not overpowering at night helps to give the overall production value the sleek, slick, and professional look this film has from start to finish.  As far as audio, I didn’t pay much attention to the score, but when it popped to the foreground, it never felt out of place, which is always a plus.  Cars, decapitations, golf clubs and the like all pack an appropriate wallop and voices are crystal clear, which is a major benefit seeing as how almost all the humor is embedded deep within snappy conversations.  And finally, the gore is great while not being quite copious as I thought it was going to be.  When it hits though, it lands with KO force.

You know exactly where this is going, and yes it's fucking hilarious. TAKE THAT YOU OLD BITTY!

Jake West has crafted himself yet another winner, and the first real return to form for him since Evil Aliens.  The British setting and cadence helps to give this twisted yarn about the war of sexes some much-needed levity and class, something that would have been rather unobtainable on my side of the pond.  West is showing every sign of becoming a more dangerous director in the horror ranks, and Doghouse shows that he has incorporated more lofty ideals and concepts into his already exemplary understanding of the very core values and mechanics of our beloved genre.  He can make you laugh, squirm a bit, and now he is even showing that he can even make you think for a second or two.  Leave the lady friend out when you watch this one (who am I kidding, no one who writes for Midnight Showing or reads this drivel has a damn girlfriend).

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

The roaming gnome is a MURDERER.

Meet Sam.

The wait is finally over.  Trick ‘r Treat, hyped since early ’07 (and to my knowledge, even a bit before that) to the next big thing is seasonally anchored horror cinema, is an anthology horror film that takes viewers on a blissfully entertaining and brisk jaunt through Warren Valley, Ohio where Halloween is one of the busiest and most prepared for nights on the calender.  Intertwining 5 or so stories, all seen from different perspectives, Trick ‘r Treat is a mash up of some iconic horror creatures and staples, all while never breaking from its perfect pacing by having to give us narrator scenes that wrap up the last story and introduce the next.  The only indicator that a new tale has begun is if we get a EC comic book style overlay on an establishing shot that says “earlier…”  Director and writer Michael Dougherty has crafted himself a borderline masterpiece worthy of a place right next to John Carpenter’s Halloween, and Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow and A Nightmare Before Christmas as one the most atmospheric, jubilant, and synonymous-with-the-season movies I’ve ever had the privilege of laying my prying little eyes on.

Just think of the clean up on November 1st.

There is so much to like about Trick ‘R Treat, I find myself at a slight loss where to begin.  The flick gets off to a rollicking, with a classic, tension building stalk-and-maybe kill sequence that, in a short 5 minutes, sets the tone and pace for the 80 minutes of pure joy that follows.  The atmosphere, highlighted by wonderful work with fog, night-time lighting, and a creepy little score that shows influences, but not outright robbery, of some time tested winners like Psycho and Halloween.  Be mindful that while there are some absolutely terrific shit-your-pants jump scares, Trick ‘R Treat isn’t about, nor is it trying to be, the scariest film on the block.  Quite the contrary, it is trying and succeeds in being a celebration of the undertones and concepts that Halloween was founded on, and a exploration of how it has been bastardized today.  It is, at its core, a series of tales about respect, torwards one another and the dead and of rightful comeuppance, all coated in that notion that even though we get older, and stop believing in the spooky, supernatural, and things that go bump in the night, there is always a little flicker of doubt that lingers in the back of your brain like a piece of bubblegum stuck to your shoe.  You just never know if all those anecdotes are completely full of shit, or frighteningly based on fragments of truth that could, literally, come back to haunt you.  Dougherty and his lens are very rarely ever overly pompous or experimental, but you can truly feel as if the man is really in his element here, as if he was filming and photographing a long lost lover.  The colors just scream Halloween, with every pumpkin and shade of orange popping out at you while the sets and locations (the rock quarry in particular looks stunning) look as dreary and macabre as they allow themselves to be.  Tasteful and slick scene transitions and zero abuse of worthless establishing shots keep us hopping from story to story like a youth frolicking from house to house in search of their favorite candy.  Despite the stories overlapping in some spots or being left alone only to be wrapped up later on, Dougherty manages to keep his plot line juggling smooth and easy to understand.  There are red herrings everywhere, and some of the twists that Dougherty has come up with, both in accordance to the herrings and not, are nothing short of brilliant.  You will have at least one “I totally should of seen that coming and now I feel like a jackass” moment, if not 2 or 3.

The Michael Myers head tilt. Genius little nod to the past.

Brian Cox and Anna Paquin are the big name talent in here, and while I still am not very fond of Paquin, I have to say she does fine in her role,  but brings nothing to it a dozen other actress’s couldn’t have.  Brian Cox however, does everything in his power to steal the entire movie in his segment, and stands out as the cream of the crop in a movie full of actors who not only don’t annoy us (unless they are supposed, like that bitch Macy), but don’t disappoint either.  Besides some quality acting to help make us believe, a good fright flick also needs at least a grain of solid effect work, and without spoiling any of the surprises (any gore scenes or kills or…things I mention would be directly spoiling one of the stories, if not the whole film) the blood, creature work, and gore is all top notch and almost entirely practical.  No CGI garbage here folks, rejoice!  As you have probably guessed from the picture above, the film has thrown in some homages and references to past flicks, which include but are not limited to The Thing (the famous “You gotta be fucking kidding me” line is used to great effect), Evil Dead II (The “Hand” dilemma), and of course, the original Halloween (THE head tilt).  Rest assured though, Trick ‘R Treat doesn’t sit on its hands and hope that some nice blood, make-up, and nods to more famous films will get it through.  There is a fair amount of substance for something that is this short and moves this quickly.  To say anymore, would be to do grave injustice to those of you who haven’t seen it yet, and if you haven’t gotten the hint yet, any fan of anthology, horror, or just the holiday itself needs to see this, pronto.

One very busy child when the holiday rolls around.

After the 2+ year tease, Trick ‘R treat has finally arrived, and I hope it makes even half the impression on a larger audience that it made on me.  Obviously, movies like this have a smaller, more definitive window of when they can be sold effectively and watched, but that doesn’t make it any less of a great little flick.  It has independent blood running through its veins with an outer shell that just oozes passion-filled, high-end production values.  Iconic themes and ideas are revisited in interesting and new ways, and even some new rules and laws are implied which are sure to stick with anyone who loves having a film add a new layer of lore to the most grim of publicly celebrated holidays.  If you are looking for a more recent way to kick-off the season, you can do no better than Trick ‘R Treat.  Just don’t blow out your candles before midnight…traditions are not made to be broken.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Gotta love that turn of the century style horror box art.

Mike Mendez is one of my favorite film makers, which is a labor of love considering he has only directed 3 true horror films all by himself, and I have to keep checking back on his myspace and imdb waiting for him to pump out something new.  He was responsible for The Gravedancers, which was featured in the first “8 films to die for” horror festival that is still continuing on today.  He also directed Killers, which was a bit of an art house/experimental horror by way of tarantino-esque crime thriller.  While Gravedancers was quite a scary and tense little ghost film, and Killers was strange, surreal and interesting in its own right, his real winner, in my eyes, was a little independent horror film released in 2000 called The Convent.  Mix equal part Night of the Demons 1 and 2 (reviewed by yours truly here and here) with DEMONS, an Italian zombie and demon possession movie, and you have a good foundation for gaining appreciation for what The Convent is all about.  A rag tag bunch of college types go to a much hyped building that was once home to a all girl boarding school run by nun which was the stage for a mass murder by a former student via shotgun and fire, run into a bunch of goth kids looking to summon something from “below” in the same building, and we all benefit from watching the carnage that ensues.  I feel compelled to defend The Convent, since it is one of my all-time favorite “I could watch this at anytime, any day and enjoy it” type films.  It certainly falls into the ever fluctuating cinematic category of “so bad it’s good” or simply “bad-good” for short.  The whole movie has its tongue firmly planted in its cheek, but it is also a tribute to how enjoyable something that is extolling the virtues of a particular genre and time frame of films (teens dying thanks to supernatural happenings and the mid to late 80′s) while still having merit all of its own.  It survives on more than just its nostalgia.  There is almost…dare I say…an art to making a flick that should be (even by the own directors admission) buried and forgotten into a lower-than-cult-level gem that I, and many others on the internet who are scattered about randomly, just can’t get enough of.  That, or maybe I am just a really weird person.  I’ll let you pick which choice you like better.

Looks like someone did all the legwork for me already. Nice.

Besides saying that Convent is merely “fun” or “funny”, one of the best parts about it is how little time it wastes.  It’s like a song with a really good chorus, in fact a great chorus, that just decided to shorten up the verses to about…10-15 seconds in length.  It doesn’t make you “wait for it”, or try to build up suspense or intrigue where there is none to be had.  It is just 70 some-odd minutes (not including the credits)  of payoff after payoff which include nods to Lucio Fulci’s Zombie, and as I mentioned earlier, Night of the Demons and Umberto Bava’s DEMONS.  The humor is definitely subjective, and the impact of many of the lines will directly correlate to how many horror films you have seen and what your idea of good humor is, but even the mis-delivery of some of the more benign lines make me chuckle during every viewing.  The show stealer is certainly Megahn Perry, who gives one of the best “goth girls with all the knowledge of the spooky place the group shouldn’t be breaking into” performances in recent memory.  Closely behind her is Dickie-Boy and Saul, the fumbling, embarrassingly pathetic and pretentious summoners who, by pure accident, actually succeed in turning the abandoned boarding school into a maze of zombie demons and untimely death.  The wacky accents, mannerisms and behaviors they perform will make any outcast from high school watching this cringe with how close to home it hits, since we all either were or knew someone who was only a few good acting and improv classes away from being one of those two characters.  Often times, pointing out the weak link or links in a low-budget horror movie is about the easiest thing to do, but The Convent actually doesn’t have anyone in it who just makes you want to go grab a drink when he or she on screen.  They aren’t exactly the deepest or most empathetic cast of folks ever assembled as far as their characters go, but they don’t need to be.  It would be like watching a rap video and complaining because they are objectifying women.  They all serve there purpose admirably and more importantly fit the roles they are playing.  It’s a win-win.

Douchebags getting out of a jeep. I think we all know where this is headed.

Mendez stretches the minuscule budget to give us more bang for the buck than almost any of the major studios horror contributions this decade.  We get some great looking gore and fantastic kills, which flip-flop between homages to famous gore scenes (like the eye scene from Zombie) and original creations (like a the cheerleader face rip complete with zombie cheers and dance moves).  We also get some really throw back style glowing green eye contacts, black-light trickery, and flourescent blood that makes for great plasma splashes and squib explosions.  The directing is pretty much in observer mode, which is fine and dandy to me considering I like when a horror movie lets the action in front of us do a majority of the talking without to much in the way of distractions from flashy or overly stylish and pretentious camera work.  There are some “Evil Dead” style reverse shots, especially right when the malevolent spirits arrive for the first time, but it’s quick and all in good taste and doesn’t come off as a detriment.  The demons also have this crazy stutter step walk that they do, which can be played for laughs as well as creep factor, and works both ways depending on how you want to see it.  The soundtrack, featuring a cover of “Dreamweaver” and “You don’t own me” works well hand in hand with the intentionally cheesy and bombastic score that only strengthens the good time vibe that runs through the whole picture.  There’s a few exterior cgi scenes are laugh out loud bad, but seeing as how bad they are, I like to see them as jokes instead of budget restrictions.  The editing is quick, and almost ferocious at times, as the movie speeds by at its gloriously rapid pace.  I am a firm believer in the idea that only a handful of movies ever made should top a 90 minute run time, and The Convent has shown me that almost every horror film should run about 85 minutes, including the credits.  There’s a lot to like here, visually and aurally, if you’re a big fan of more modern takes on proven old school formulas.

Give me this over cgi any day of the week, twice on Sundays.

The Convent has drugs, stereotypes, demons, huge laughs (both intentional and unintentional), a likable cast of actors, Adrienne Barbeau (Swamp Thing, Escape from New York, The Fog), Bill Moseley (Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, House of 1000 corpses, The Devils Rejects), and ever a cameo from timeless rap artist COOLIO.  If that isn’t enough to entice you, then I am clearly out of touch with what passes for great, shameless, unabashed, old school throwback blood and guts movies.  As a sidenote, the dvd for this flick has not one, but two commentary tracks, both of which are hysterical as they basically rip their own film apart.  There is also a “gore on demand” feature which gives you a random kill scene for your viewing pleasure.  It’s like it was made just for me.  Get possessed today.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Hey Ronnie, our dates have arrived!

—————-
Now playing: Foo Fighters / Monkey Wrench
via FoxyTunes

More tricks than treats, I'm guessing.

Night of the Demons 2 is quite a handful to attempt to review.  I never would have expected to find the beginnings of the modern marriage between horror and comedy in a sequel to a movie that, while it is a cult classic, just doesn’t stand up to the test of time very well.  But as I watched it, I could clearly see moments where the writing and directing was more than just a bit ahead of it’s time.  Characters like the head nun at the Church school for troubled youths yearns for the old days when she could rap kids over the knuckles with her ruler are funny, if not easy targets.  She even goes as far to practice with her ruler in her personal quarters as if she was fencing with an invisible sparring partner.  Outside of the sometimes silly/ sometimes spot on stabs at those whose lives are solely based on their faith in the almighty sky cop, the gore gags and ever-so-slightly over the top persona’s of the aforementioned troubled youths are almost all played for laughs, with very realistic and timely underpinnings which speak volumes about what types of real-life people the characters in the film represent.  It may not be as heady as I am making it out to be to the layman (in fact, I’m sure this was all accidental…a happy accident though, as Bob Ross would say), but these small touches, which may be just as much a byproduct of the viewer as the film makers themselves, add a lot to a flick that isn’t TRYING to send a messages, but in the process of avoiding it, maybe be doing a better job than many horror films that claim to have some sort of social relevance or poignancy.  Of course, it’s got a plethora of tits (quality 90′s tits to boot, not the plastic looking things we get in horror nowadays), a deliberate but fun pace, and a final third that is filled with more practical effects than a carnival sideshow…and a lesbian demonic possession scene.

Woman of my dreams.

The tone and story of the films are set up rather quickly, and in impressively slick fashion I might add.  The first scene sees to business looking types walking up to the long fabled “Hull House” with briefcases in hand.  The initial thought for many watching will be “I wonder if someone actually owns this massive property, and these people are coming to claim it on their behalf or check the condition of the building.”  Turns out, they are door to door religious spokespeople.  Big fucking mistake coming to that house to preach your beliefs.  Angela, of course, opens the door without actually being at the door, and slides in behind them with her now-patented “glide without touching the floor” maneuver.  She offers them…wait for it…Devils’ food cake, and right as they begin to detect that something may be seriously awry in the house, she slashes them to pieces with the over sized knife she used to cut the cake, finishing it off by scraping some of the blood off the blade with her finger and licking it.  Bless her heart.  Amelia Kincade, who plays Angela just as she did in the first entry, is looking amazing in her role and appears to have even more command of her general menace that in the first volume.  I liken her in these movies to Robert Englund as Freddy in the fact that she really has become Angela for me, and does it extremely well.

And the movie has time to pay a little homage to Nosferatu? ACES!

We are then moved over to establishing our band of teenagers who will be the focus of our story, and their experiences inside the school for kids who apparently are either too good or too bad for public education.  The big “oh my no way!” casting moment is when you realize that Christine Taylor (married to Ben Stiller and featured in almost all of his recent movies in roles of various sizes) is in the movie.  She, as well as everyone else, really deserve a pat on the back for bringing their A-game to the show here.  The funny lines and comedy set-pieces are handled well above-par, and their are no performances that stand out as out of place or gut-wrenchingly bad.  If my eyes do not deceive me, there is a serious throwback 1950′s-60s vibe going on with all the characters and the way they act and are portrayed (and schoolgirl outfits and belief-centric schools are very 1950′s), so much to the point that they are picked up in a heavily modified, but obviously old-timey looking car when they are departing to Hull House for their secret “party.”  I was holding out hope that someone would say to one of the leading ladies that they had nice “gams” or say that the party sounded like a “boss” idea.  The showstopper is Jennifer Rhodes performance as “super-strict religious bitch turned demon killer extraordinaire.”  Many of you will know Jennifer Rhodes from being on just about every TV show in the last 30 years, from Charmed to Matlock, and also starring in Heathers and Slumber Party Massacre II.  Her performance is memorable in a flick already filled with some easily remembered and fun performances.  Good stuff.

Angela is pretty handy with those cutting implements.

Shifting focus away from those in front of the camera, the directing of Brian Trenchard-Smith plays out like an answer to all my issues with the original Night of the Demons (reviewed here).  The pace is amped up considerably, and the false starts that crippled my enjoyment of the first flick are kept to a bare minimum in this sequel.  The production value is much higher (a side-effect of the 6 or so years between films most likely), and the gore is not only more abundant than in the first, but of a higher grade.  Smith (who also directed some episodes of the 1980′s Missions Impossible TV show AND Leprechauns 3!) knows how to make the last 30-45 minutes of a horror film live up to the check written in the first hour or so.  We get some terrific kills, gore gags that are not only pretty gnarly to look at, but are also laugh out loud funny, and not one, but two full of fights with the “end of level boss” of this title, Angela, with the second seeing her adopt a snake-ish, Clash of the Titans Medusa like form which just about brought me to my knees in a fit of pure fan boy joy.  The music and score selections and creations are fine, but odds are nothing will bounce out at you and send you on a mp3 hunt online.  That being said, aurally, this film is anything but weak, as well as anything but a standout.  Cutting back to Smith though, his directorial style in Night of the Demons 2 can be described aptly as rewarding.  A red herring or two are carried over from the first film, which is nice for those who have watched it and remember it pretty well, and the build up, as entertaining as it is, is really demolished, in a GOOD way, by just how incredibly energetic, irreverent, and blisteringly delightful that third act is.  When was the last time a movie had…

1. An ample amount of top shelf racks sans implants and eating disorders.
2. A nun who practices fencing with her ruler as a substitute for actually being able to whack her students with it.
3. Exploding bodies, body melting, decapitations, breast that turns into arms and kill a man, lipstick capable of killing people, and other wild slayings.
4. Lesbian kissing as a method of demonic possession.
5. Water guns  and water balloons filled with holy water.
6. Disembodied demon-hand crotch-groping followed by a middle finger (see picture below).
7. Half-Snake, Half-Demoness evil lady person.
8. Door to door religious advocates being killed within 2 minutes of the movie starting.
9. Lesbian kiss…wait did I mention that already?  What about the boobs? Oh, I got both already.  Damn
10. Gore gags and blasphemy played for laughs.
11. A severed demon head in a toilet that talks and serves as a really creepy boo scare.

Yeah, I thought so.

Your moment of Zen.

Night of the Demons 2 is a gem among gems, a man among men, and everything that Night of the Demons 1 was ever so close to becoming, but for whatever reason, fell just short of.  From the word go, Smith and company do everything to make sure that the fun train doesn’t come to a halt, and just when you think the bag of tricks is running low, or the tricks themselves are getting stale, Smith propels the flick into the stars, unleashing a cavalcade of humor, violence, gore, and political incorrectness.  If it weren’t 4am when I finished watching this movie, I would have stood up and fucking applauded.  Color me satisfied.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Classy and absolutely pivotal to the plot. Don't judge me monkey.

AVON needs to call her.

I am so effin’ set.  A cool breeze is crawling through the daily air, I got one of my favorite Halloween themed desktop wallpapers up, and the hoodies and long sleeve undershirts are out of the storage room and in the dresser drawers.  What’s that?  It’s not even the middle of September?  Too bad jerk off (Die Hard reference anyone?), I’m starting early.  I figured to kick off the avalanche of reviews I am planning to do on movies that take place on or around my favorite holiday, I would start with something with a fairly decent reputation that I have not seen yet.  And maybe there was a reason I hadn’t seen it yet.  For many years, Night of the Demons is the movie I always told myself I needed to see one day, but always got interrupted before I ever got 10 minutes into it.  Now that I’ve seen, I can’t help but feel really underwhelmed.  Maybe my expectations were too high, or I have put it on a mental pedestal since it always eluded me whenever I tried to sit down and view it, but Night of the Demons lacked that… “juno se qua” that makes a horror movie really stand out and pop.

The plot is simple and serviceable enough.  A gaggle of stereotypical teenagers get invited by the weird goth chick from history class to “Hull House” for a party on Halloween night.  The house is an old funeral home, that isn’t only built on some historical sacred/crazy scary patch of land, but was also the venue for a grisly multiple homicide and suicide by its former residents AND located right next to a cemetery.  Talk about a bad place to put funeral home, shit.  I don’t think it takes a nuclear physicist to figure out what the rest of the night is going to be like for these raging sacks of hormones.

Apparently old abandoned creepy houses on the edge of town come complete with their own fog machines.

The first, and most crucial, complaint I have with Night of the Demons is the fact that it takes forever to get to where it’s going, and even then it never really ramps it up like its mid-to-late 80′s contemporaries did so well.  Kevin Tenney (director of the more recent zombie flick Brain Dead, which I reviewed here) revs the engine too many times without letting the brake go and just going full bore into the killing fields, and by the time he does, the engine has been taxed too much and can barely top 60 miles an hour.  It’s a classic example of “too little, too late” film making in horror where you have been braced for all hell to be unleashed so many times, that by the time it does, even if it is really kick ass, you just don’t care anymore.  I really hate being this negative, and coming down on a film like this, because it did genuinely have some original ideas, like dressing the female lead in an Alice costume from Alice in Wonderland and having her be put in situation that could be free-associated quite easily to parallel Wonderland, but as I said before, I felt like I was watching a nervous executioner trying to flip the switch on a serial killer.  Another silent killer was the fact the movie wallows in darkness for far too long.  Not in sense of mood or tone, but I mean actual absence of lighting.  I had to watch this with the lights off just to offset some of the scenes where all I could make out were hues of blue and windows.  It works for a while, and I understand that in the darkness, boo scares are much easier to pull off (and Night of the Demons had a few really good ones) but eventually you have to let us see what is going on.

There are two people in this snapshot. Can you tell? I couldn't.

On the brighter side of things, the soundtrack is a pretty cool combination of little bumps in the night and eerie sounds and noises organized quite well.  The opening number that plays over the really fun to watch animated credit sequence is the best example of this.  There are some decent boo scares, and there is a wraparound subplot that is told through two scenes (one in the beginning of the movie, and then finished in the last scene) that is absolutely genius.  Linnea Quiqley is downright scary as she switches back and forth from prissy attractive girl who is always applying makeup, to possessed hell beast, to hyper-sexual possessed hell beast, to playful little girl at the end of a hallway with a ballerina dress on, who is also a possessed hell beast.  Everyone else in the movie, with the exception the incredibly enjoyable grumpy old man from the first and last scenes, are just various shades of “meh.”  No one really bombs their roles entirely, but I think some of them may have been working more for exposure or to pay back weed debts to their college buddies who now happen to be casting directors and film makers.  There are a few good bits of weird gore that is worth a mention as well, and the facial make up on the demonized party-goers is pretty fantastic, when you can actually see it.  The best special effect would have to be Angela floating, instead of walking, through the hallways of the maze like funeral home.  I don’t know if it is just me, but whenever people get all evil and messed up, and then gain the ability to float an inch or so off the ground, that is really quite unnerving.

Even the demons have to cut back somehow is this recession.

So, my little party didn’t get off to quite the rollicking start I had hoped it would, but Night of the Demons is far from the worst possessed house/demon party movie I have seen.  It has moments where you can feel some genuine creativity and spark rumbling just beneath the surface, but for whatever reason, that just never erupted into a fully realized on-screen bloodbath or jolt-fest that would have elevated it quite a bit.  There are some funny lines, but the constant gear switches and late blooming of the proper stalk-and-kill second and third acta managed to bring Night of the Demons to a screeching halt a few times too many times to keep up any type of serious or comedic flow, momentum, and tension.  Not the worst choice for a movie to get you into the holiday spirit, but I can guarantee I will have finer examples of the season via cinema over the next 40 or so days.  The party at Hull House isn’t one I would recommend crashing to most, save for the dedicated few who need to see more of Linnea Quiqley naked, or just every horror film that takes place on All Hallows Eve.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars

Still a damn fine opening credit sequence though!

A Bigfoot hugging dynamite over a woman tied to a table and a headshot of George Kennedy. Why do I do this to myself?

Here’s how I imagine the pitching of Demonwarp went.

Pitcher- “So we wanna make this horror movie, because horror is hot right now and we can make money”

Studio person- “Oh really?  What’s it about?”

Pitcher- “Bigfoot…and aliens and zombies and a religious fanatic and titties.”

Studio- “Did I hear you say titties?”

Pitcher- “Yes sir.  We wrote down a basic synopsis on these cocktail napkins.  We figure instead of trying to have one great idea, we would just rip-off a ton of other ideas and come up with about 5 half-baked mediocre ones.”

Studio- “These all sound like different movies.”

Pticher- “That’s why I brought this air cannon with me.  We can just shove all the notes into the cannon, and fire it into the air everyday before we shoot.  We will then get one of the hooke…I mean actors to go pick some of them up randomly and then film what ever is on the napkin.”

Studio- “I stopped listening after Bigfoot and titties.  Here’s some money.  Oh, and George Kennedy owes me a favor, so I can get him to star in it so you have at least one credible star.”

And thus, Demonwarp was born.

Even Bigfoot was confused when he saw Demonwap.

Usually, I break down a movie in 3 important sections, and talk about them at reasonable length in order to give you a feel for the movie with spoiling it in the event you actually take my humble recommendation and see it.  Today, that plan is being thrown out the window.  Demonwarp, with all its rampant gearshifts and subplots, is fun of the highest order.  And by high I mean, you really should be 2 bong-loads deep before you even consider hitting play.  Those who prefer the booze may get a kick out of this, but I theorize that the patience, heightened tolerance, and ease of amusement that comes along with the more docile of recreational drugs would help greatly.  The movie starts out with some religious dude walking with a horse (why isn’t he RIDING the horse?) when a meteor hits quite close to him.  He, showing great rationalizing and logic skills, immediately feels compelled to dub this the Second Coming, and then we don’t see him again until the end.  Then George Kennedy gets his daughter abducted by Bigfoot right in front of him in a cabin, THEN some 20 somethings come up to the same Cabin in the middle of bumfuck nowhere and start getting killed.

Hey George. Proud of this one?

So by about 30 minutes in, a fair amount of the cast had been kidnapped or picked off, and we’re starting to wonder “Um, isn’t there like 2 acts still left in this film?”  Act 2 consists of Bigfoot going ape-shit, stalking nameless characters in the woods, and killing them in incredibly grisly ways, which is where a gorehound, such as myself, gets a few moments of pleasure from watching heads getting ripped off and bear trap arm removals.  So, this is all fine and dandy and then…a zombie walks by one of the characters.  Yup, a zombie.  Like they had just stumbled onto a different movie set.  I almost crapped my pants.  This is going beyond even some of the Italian “throw every cliche and niche concept at the wall and see what sticks” films.  So now we got Bigfoot, and aimless zombies who are uninterested in human flesh, but seem to be gravitating toward a cave.  What’s in the cave?  You don’t care?  Well goddamnit, I’m going to tell you, because I had to know, and now so will you.

Surprise! Alien Spacecraft!

SURPRISE, aliens are in the cave, and turning the humans they capture into Bigfoots to scavenge the woods for electronics to rebuild their ship.  Also, the leader Alien eats the fresh hearts of the recently captured, removed from live victims by the religious crazy from the first scene, before turning them into either zombies that will do its bidding, or Bigfoots to…do its bidding. kill people at random and steal car stereos.  You figure at some point, the movie would make an attempt at having someone…anyone explain the general plan of the Alien or why/how this is all happening, but no dice.  In the tradition firmly established by the earlier parts of this masterpiece, shit just happens, and I respect that.  So after blowing up the cave, a guy and a girl escape.  They then are in a bed together at the edge of space and time, evidenced by the fact the room is just an empty black hole except for the bed and the headboard. The guy wakes up gasping for air, and the woman comforts him, all while they are being closed in upon by a Bigfoot and some of the zombies from the cave.  Then he wakes up gasping for air AGAIN, and his girlfriend is a zombie.  You don’t think they would do it a third time do you?  Fuck yes they would.  He wakes up, gasping for air a third time, this time alone in the bed, and looks right into the camera and then…the credits roll.  How the Academy didn’t honor this, I will never know.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go convince my friends this is a great movie and make them watch it.

‘Till Next time.

Love,

Alex

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Just chillaxin' with my bros, bro.