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Post by darkwingdork on Nov 18, 2009 8:49:28 GMT -5
Gonna start posting these reviews I wrote over here on this forum. Enjoy!
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Post by darkwingdork on Nov 18, 2009 8:51:23 GMT -5
The DarkWow, what a mind trip. Just watched this nearly forgotten horror flick from 1979, which features an alien serial killer on the loose in Los Angeles, blowing up people with its laser eye beams and causing all kinds of other ruckus. Where to begin. Okay, how about the beginning. We open with rolling exposition text which is simultaneously read aloud by a narrator, neither of which is normally a good sign in a movie. Okay, for starters, why do we need both? Did the filmmakers not trust the audience to be educated enough to read the words in front of their face? On second thought, given the intellect put into making this flick, I guess not. I mean, seriously, did Star Wars need someone to read that wall of text at the beginning of the movie? No, it didn't. Redundancy is often a pure sign of a bad movie, and this movie does not do much to challenge that cliche. Anyway, the story proper begins with a young woman, walking the streets as scary music plays in the background. All of a sudden, she's yanked in a dark allyway and assaulted by... something. The Dark! BTW, the soundtrack to this film features "scary" whispering of people saying stuff like "The DARRRKKKK!" over an over again. Get used to it. The young lady is played by Kathy Richards, and this remains her only feature film credit. It featured no dialogue and she was only on screen for a minute. Ouch. However, she went on to marry hotel heir Richard Hilton later that year, and eventually give birth to tabloid queen Paris Hilton. Who says bad movie roles don't pay off? Kathy's sister Kim is also an actress, and had a considerably more successful career as a child, best known for playing Tia in the Disney live-action Witch Mountain movies and also Kathy, the poor little girl who gets killed when asking for ice cream during the original Assault on Precinct 13. Okay, unfortunately we have to get back to... THE DARKKKK! (you'll be saying it with me soon enough). It turns out that the woman is the daughter of biker/horror novelist/former convict Roy Warner, played by William Devane. Devane gives a performance here that's, shall we say, mellow? I mean, the guy's daughter is killed pretty horribly (we're told she's been decapitated and the body mutilated) and he only ever seems to show a modicum of emotion in response to this. Don't get me wrong, he spends the remainder of the film looking for the killer, but he's like an iceman when it comes to reacting to this. Today's word is: mellowNow, hiding your emotions can be an effective acting technique. In fact, Devane had just previously played a withdrawn character in the classic drive-in revenge film Rolling Thunder. A film I highly recommend you watch. But here it's just bad filmmaking. Devane isn't the greatest actor in the world, but he's done better than this. Also investigating the murder is police detective Dave Mooney, played by character actor Richard Jaeckel. Mooney has history with Warner, supposedly the police officer who sent the faux biker up the river before and doesn't want him getting in his way. The animosity between the two is intended to create drama, but it just comes across as two jerks trading insults with each other. Surprisingly for a movie of this type, Mooney never seems to suspect Warner of being the killer. The film had already set up Warner as being an ex-con and also the author of books featuring grisly murders, but no one ever seems to think that Warner has gone off the deep end and started killing. I was actually pleased that the movie never wasted any running time with that angle. Just give me my check and get out of my way!There's also this TV reporter named Zoe Owens covering the murders, played by Cathy Lee Crosby. What can I say for Crosby's performance? Well, she seems able to memorize her lines. Plus she looks good naked. During the news broadcast, she takes a pretty cheap shot at Warner, saying it was ironic that her daughter died in a way similar to the characters in the stories he writes. Since she has breasts, she's not punched in the face when she meets up with Warner. It's a reporters job to be obnoxious on camera!Okay, more killings! First a black security officer, waiting for his sleeper to return, then a vigilante who had earlier bragged he was going to kill the murder with his .357 Magnum (doesn't even get a shot off, plus we get a neat shot his headless corpse falling to the ground after the monster decapitates him.) Finally, another woman in an airport garage. In all three cases, the victims are stalked while that scary "THE DARRRRRK!" whisper is spoken on the soundtrack. Detective Mooney gets chewed out by his boss for not producing results, and the police forensic examiner, played by Casey Kasem (!) begins to suspect the killer may not be human. Sadly, Kasem does not once say "Zoiks Scoob! Let's get out of here!" or "Here's the Top 5 Hits on the countdown!" During this time, some sort of romance buds between Warner and Owens. Groovy 1970s love-making is achieved, sure to produce another human being devoid of emotion and humanity. Warner eventually finds out who the killer's next victim will be, thanks to an encounter with a dippy psychic woman (don't bother to ask). He and the reporter follow the victim, an a**hole TV actor who drunkenly crashes his '66 Mustang and then stupidly stumbles into a dark scary place. I'm not sure if it's some sort of sewer or warehouse or whatever, but it's some big open indoor place with lots of rooms and hallways and such. Wouldn't you know it, The Dark is waiting in there for him. THE DARKKKK! Laser eye blast time, bee-yotch!The stupid actor tries to hide from his pursuers, but ends up snatched by the monster. To show that he means business, he tosses the guy through a wall then chases the main characters. At this time, the police surround the area and move in on the creature. Oh, did I forget to mention that Detective Mooney had been tailing Warner in case he stumbled on something? A lot of stuff just starts happening during the last 15 minutes. Okay, the police surround the creature, and an "epic" battle proceeds. In all fairness, it's a pretty well sustained fight as the police open fire on the creature with revolvers and shotguns while it desperately fights for its life with its eye lasers. Ahhhhh! Someone left my contact lenses in acid!The police continue to pummel the alien with gun fire while it retaliates by throwing cops around shooting them with its laser vision. Trust me, this looks as silly as it sounds. During the scuffle, Warner and Owens just sort of stand off to a corner watching the creature in action, until the monster finally grabs Owens. Warner picks up a piece of flaming wooden beam, set ablaze by the creature, and swings it madly at the monster, finally setting the beat on fire. The monster burns for a few seconds until it finally explodes(!). Don't know how or why, it just does. Detective Mooney is left sobbing over his dead partner, and we cut to some time later as Warner stands at a pool in his VERY 1970s bath robe while a naked Owens stares at him. We are left with this confusing, ponderous closing narration: "Of the millions of alien confrontations, man has had his first. An encounter for which he has no understanding or explanation (no sh*t). In the darkness of the universe, man is the alien (what the #@*U does that mean?) And from this day forward, only those who walk forever in darkness will have nothing to fear in the dark!" Okay, I have no idea what that's supposed to me. I guess it was supposed to pass for "heady" in the 1970s. Bleah. A reaction! An honest-to-goodness reaction! Thank you actor, your effort was appreciated!So, what to say? Okay, this movie is a mess. The monster looks bad and just seems to amble from place to place with no clear goals. You know how I called the creature an alien serial killer earlier in the review? That's really the only way I can describe it. But even then, they're no rhyme of reasons to his victims, only that simply being crimes of opportunity. Why these people? I don't know. The closest thing I can compare this movie to is Predator, which also concerned an alien who came to Earth to kill humans with lasers and its bare hands. But at least that movie gave the creature a reasonable MO, it didn't just drop him down in a city and have it lung out from alleyways and dark corners to rip people's heads off. So, in case you're wondering why this movie is so disjointed, there's sort of an explanation for that. Really, the background behind the movie is far more interesting then the movie itself. When the movie began shooting in late 1978, the filmmakers originally set out to make a Halloween-type film about a madmen who was raised his whole life in a basement and his eventual escape. When filming began, they decided to make the killer a zombie-like monster, based on the success of the then recent and groundbreaking zombie film Dawn of the Dead. However, when a rough cut was screened it was rejected by audiences, forcing the filmmakers to shoot new scenes. It was during this time that the movie Alien, which was about to be released, was being hyped all around the industry. So the creators behind The Dark decided to make the killer an extraterrestrial. They filmed the closing scene with the monster and the police based on this assumption, making it the only part of the film made intentionally with the monster's eye lasers as part of the script. This explains the creature's zombie-like, and NOT alien-like appearance. This also presented a problem for scenes earlier in the movie, where the creature kills people in decidedly NOT alien-ways. To combat this, they superimposed laser attacks from its eyes in earlier scenes, causing really cheesy looking laser effects (and explosions!) on scenes when people are supposed to be being crushed to death. It looks every bit as unconvincing as it sounds. So basically, we have a movie that went from ripping off Halloween to ripping off Dawn of the Dead to ripping off Alien, and doing none of these things right. So, all in all, how did it pan out? Not too great. The movie makers did an okay job an everything, so much that I'm surprised the movie is as watchable as it is, actually. Plus, the acting isn't too terrible, it's just wooden. Except for Jaeckel, no one ever seems to get excited in this film. It's just a very bland movie. For someone grieving over his dead daughter, we never feel Warner is all that emotionally attached to her. He seems to hunt the monster down out of obligation and not a fatherly demand for revenge. Final thoughts: Not recommended. It's okay if you want to kill an hour and a half, but it's just a lazy b-movie, made with no more love then the crap teenagers are forced to make in woodshop in high school. Oh, and one last thing.... THE DARKKKKKKK!
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Post by darkwingdork on Nov 18, 2009 8:54:01 GMT -5
The Being... or as it should have been subtitled, The Idaho Potato Massacre. Well kids, it's looks like someone decided to make a trashy early 80s horror movie set in the awesome state of Idaho. It seems a nasty mutant creature is on the loose, killing the residents of Pottsville in various nasty ways. You see, the monster lives in a toxic waste dump, and it pissed that people keep trespassing there. So you know what monsters want to do when they get pissed? Rip people's heads off, in graphic slow motion! So it's up to the limp arm of the law, Detective Mortimer Lutz, to piece together all the violent disappearances. But he's not alone. He's joined by government scientist Dr. Jones. Now, what slumming, down on his luck actor can we get to play this role. I know! Martin Landau! Best know for his stint on the original "Mission: Impossible" TV series, Landau was still more than 10 years away from his Academy Award-winning performance as Bela Legosi in Ed Wood. That he won an Oscar for playing a B-movie actor should be of no surprise to anyone... "Your mission, should you choose to accept it, star in a sh*tty b-movie, hope no one remembers it 30 years later..."Yes, future Oscar-winner Landau shows up as Jones, a government yes man who tries to cover up the creatures activities, at least at first. But when the monster starts killing people at the local drive-in (based on his first victims there, he apparently he isn't a Fleetwood Mac fan...) it's time to start kicking butt... well, sort of. You see, Lutz is... well, a putz. He doesn't seem to be able to do much right, and spends a good chunk of the movie running away impotently from the monster. However, in his defense the monster is a real tough guy. He can melt and then reconstitute himself, making trapping him almost impossible. Still, actor Bill Osco is really unmotivated. But he's the movie's producer, so I guess if he wasn't the main star, it wouldn't have been made. Anyone else who should be ashamed to have this on their resume? Oh yes, Jose Ferrer! Another Oscar-winner, he plays the mayor, another one of those "let's keep things quiet" guys that these movies thrive one. Playing his wife is veteran actress Ruth Buzzi, who some of you might know from her stint as Ruthie on "Sesame Street," or before that from the variety show "Laugh-In." Unfortunately, that's not Snuffleupagus wanting to give her a hug! One of these things, ain't like the other!So, the stage is set for a fairly routine finale in an abandoned factory, giving the hero room to run around an avoid the rubber monster quite effectively. Although, this may be less due to his guile and more due to the script, granting him the typical "hero's death exemption" in B-movies wherein a seemingly unstoppable monster, who was all about taking people out quickly earlier in the movie will now drag its feet and instead slap the hero around and toss him across the room instead of just ripping his head off. "Oh no, the property owner has returned! Now we have to shoot our movie elsewhere!"So the hero finally turns the tables and dispatches the beast with an ax. Which is really fortunate, because the monster seems to have forgotten that it could liquefy and just takes the whacks? Bad screenwriting? No no my friend, we obviously have the work of an auteur here. The monster was helpless against our hero because... because... Oh hell, I can't lie. This is just an inconsistent movie. The monster does whatever the hell the scene needs it to do. So, how does The Being hold up? It's fairly entertaining, but it's loaded with annoyances and all kinds of continuity errors. For instance, at one point where Lutz is being chased by the creature, it's pitch black. He races to run across a train track before the train passes, and once he crosses over, it's suddenly daylight. Wow! The monster is typical for the era. Take a look: Now, I wonder what movie the filmmakers saw before designing this critter...No CGI, so I guess that's good. Also, I'm surprised to see that Roger Corman didn't have a hand in this, because it seems like one of his kinds of movies. Cheesy monster, bad acting, blatant rip off of Alien, and yet there's not a single Corman name in the production. Odd. Can't quite give it the thumbs up here. Hey, if you want to see an Oscar-winning actor get decapitated by a slime monster, here's your chance! Otherwise, stay clear. The violence and direction are okay, it's just an unexceptional movie. There were hundreds of movies made like this in the 1980s, and this one does nothing to stand out. Special addendum I was surprised to find out that the role of Willis, one of the hapless victims of the monster, was played by none other than future Texas governor candidate Kinky Friedman! (I voted for Kinky in 2006). Wow!
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Post by darkwingdork on Nov 18, 2009 8:56:24 GMT -5
The producers decided to indemnify themselves by explaining how horrible the film is in its title.Ah, Roger Corman. Where would we be without you? Probably watching movies that dealt with serious issues and employed real special effects. But that wouldn't be nowhere near as fun! So, this leads us to The Terror Within. One of Corman's many, MANY Alien ripoffs. Although the original Alien film only hints at it, Corman seems to have taken the film's portrayal of a mutant rapist to heart, offering numerous movies where freaks chase nubile women to share their mutant seed. I enjoy long strolls in the desert, strapping men with crossbows, and world peace.So it's the near future, and, as the tagline says, "the time of man is over." Some sort of plague has wiped out the majority of mankind, with the few remaining humans stashed in underground bunkers. Think Day of the Dead, but with no one as cool as Capt. Rhodes around. Most people are dead, though mutants wander the land looking to nibble on people every now and then. Our crossbow-wielding hero David, played by Andrew Stevens, operates out of the Mojave Base, a CDC facility in the California desert, along with six other people. It used to be eight, which leads to him being sent out to find some missing soldiers from their compound. He discovers their mutilated corpses, plus the remains of a group of survivors who had been living in a cave. He comes across the lone survivor, a frightened woman in shock who he takes back to the lab. Unfortunately, some of the mutants, named Gargoyles, have followed David back, and start attacking the shed that hides the latch leading into the underground facility. George Kennedy, patron-saint of both disaster movies and cheesy B-movies, does his best here to make you forget that he once won an Academy Award (yes, for acting, quit laughing) as Hal, the leader of the facility who insists the woman be examined. Of course she is pregnant, which is a great surprise to those in the facility who were certain that the plague rendered people sterile. They kick around the idea of aborting it, thinking it might be a Gargoyle spawn. But they insist on looking into it further before making a final decision. But wouldn't you know it, that's not a normal fetus she's carrying. No sooner can you say "Kane" before the demon fetus rips out of the lady's stomach and makes a beeline for the air ventilation system. Actual footage of childbirth. Ladies, tell your biological clock to shut the f&*% up.So from this point, the crew of the facility decide they have to hunt down the creature. But they don't have any firearms, so they have to make their own weapons. One is a flamethrower rigged up with a welding torch, but it only has an effective range of four feet. Yikes. The other is made from medical lasers, but they suck up so much power they're only good for four blasts. Don't laugh. It's not like George can do a Naked Gun movie EVERY year...So, the creature has grown into a full size beastly. Obeying the Alien rules to the letter, they split up and search the different levels of facility, while the monster stalks them through the air vents. The funny thing is, there's no real reason why it should. I mean, the guy in the suit (er, I mean the monster) doesn't look like its designed for that type of crawling. Look, the Xenomorph was in here, so that means I have to be too. Roger gets so mad when we don't rip off better movies the right way.The monster manages to get its hands on David's girlfriend Sue, having his demon ways with her in a tasteless rape scene which involves clothes ripping and mutant humping. She is soon pregnant with its seed, and chooses to off herself rather than be mother to a killer puppet. So, the monster widdles its way through the cast, offing the black guy pretty quickly and making very short work of Hal, who suicidally charges the beast with nothing in hand. So, it's soon down to two, and David prepares to destroy the beast. He incinerates it, sprays mace in its eyes, and beats it something awful, but the beast respawns and gives chase. A face only Roger Corman can love.So this leads us to the conclusion. The monster pursues Linda (did I mention her before? She's a doctor and... oh, never mind) through the air ducts and up ladders and such while David, mangled from the last encounter, stumbles up to the control room to activate different devises to throttle the beast. An electrical shock merely stuns the beast, sending it down a ladder shaft on top of an industrial fan. While jumping up to snatch Linda, the monster bursts through the mesh netting below him just as David manages to switch on the fan, chopping the beast to bits. Nobly as he struggled, David was not able to switch off power to the movie's production in time.So after blowing up the shed to kill the remaining beasties outside, David and Linda (and the dog) begin their long trek to the Rocky Mountain Lab in Denver. Yes, you heard that right. They're going to walk from California to Colorado. Through mutant infested wastelands. Fade to black. Well, all in all, not a horrible Alien rip-off. Yeah, it's cheap, indifferently acted (not quite bad) and a labored rip-off, but it's never unwatchable, at least if you like B-movies. The movie moves along at a nice pace, it has some decent gory kills, and Stevens makes a decent enough hero. Still, it's a chore to tolerate, and you may give up on it fairly early in. Stevens seemed to at least enjoy it, as he came back to star in (and direct) a sequel the very next year. Darwinian rules of entertainment weigh in on the production. Director Thierry Notz hasn't directed a film in 10 years, and never anything better than this, sadly. George Kennedy is still acting, occasionally appearing in things that still get theatrical releases. Andrew Stevens began his career in B-movies, and never really progressed from beyond that. He's the son of former movie star/sex symbol Stella Stevens, and coasted into show business on her reputation. No one else in the cast went on to any major distinction, but some are still employed. Tommy Hinkley, who played one of the monster fodder characters got to star in a film with George Clooney this year. All in all, watch it, maybe, if you're bored. But you're best off avoiding it and watching The Thing instead.
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Post by darkwingdork on Nov 24, 2009 10:22:51 GMT -5
Mazes and MonstersIn this shameless cautionary tale from 1982, Tom Hanks learns the hard way the danger of playing Dungeons and Dragons-type role-playing games. Jay Jay's room, curtesy of his weirdo mom. The first of many WFT? moments in this movie.Based on the urban legend that RPGs can warp you into brainwashed Satanic murderers, Tom plays Robbie, a young college student with a fragile mind who stumbles onto a group of sad nerds (er, I mean, cheerful plucky heroes!) who play a game called "Mazes and Monsters." Robbie is himself a 9th level wizard named Pardue, but has recently stopped playing following the death of his brother. The three others in the group goad him into joining into the fun, and before you can say human sacrifice, the four of them all are in the college basement, surrounded by candles playing the horrific game. The only creature more hideous than Meg Ryan to share the screen with Tom HanksBut since this is a movie, a realistic portrayal of RPGs just won't do. You know, a bunch of kids sitting around a kitchen table in their normal clothes, rolling the dice and eating Doritos. So one kid, named Jay Jay (who has a weird eccentricity about wearing funny hats) decides that they should play a live-action version of the game in the nearby caverns. So they get in their bargain-basement "Final Fantasy" costumes and wander around the caves, saying inane sh*t about their power levels and the items they're carrying and such. Until... Robbie has a run-in with... the Gorvil! A cheap-looking dragon monster that only he can see (played by Kevin Peter Hall of Predator fame). After killing the beast, Robbie slowly begins to lose his sanity until... He's wandering around the street of New York stabbing muggers! Wow! What's up with this movie? So his friends are totally lost as to what happened to their friend, and what's worse, the police are now looking into what happened. The head detective on the case suspects foul play, and questions why kids would be playing such a dangerous game like "M&M" (snicker). He believes that there's a good chance that Robbie is already dead in the caverns (remember, he's only been missing for two days...) So they get a phone call from Robbie, lost and confused in New York and losing his mind. He was babbling something about two towers, which leads the plucky heroes to... the World Trade Center! (which was actually filmed on location, so kudos to the filmmakers.) The second scariest thing to hit the Twin Towers...They try to talk "Pardue" down, who's attempting to fly off the building, Jay Jay is forced to pull rank as "Maze Master" and declare that Robbie doesn't have enough experience points yet to do so. After the others explain that it's just a game, Robbie finally comes to his senses and breaks down sobbing, asking "Why can't I remember?" Can they take back Oscars?Three months later, the three friends are driving out to meet Robbie, who's recuperating at his parents' house. In a major moment of irony, the three actors in the car are claiming that one day they'll be famous. Hehe. In any case, they meet with Robbie, who they find is now completely delusional. He thinks he's staying with some friendly innkeepers and that there's monsters on the lose in the woods. His friends watch him ramble on with saddened looks, knowing they lost their friend forever to the evils of RPG. They go on with their lives, facing a future of guilt and bad hats that was the result of their sick fascination with rolling dice and calling each other "maze masters." Hoo-boy, what a head trip! This movie has everything a bad movie should, and then some. First off, like all cautionary tales, this movie is a warning aimed at parents (not the actually role players) about the dangers of RPGs. As such, every single game played in the movie has this sinister atmosphere to it, with scary sounding music in the background. Second, the playing of the game is made up to be this big deal. "Let's play Mazes and Monsters!" like these kids are snorting coke or something. From what I understand, most D+D players treated the game like it was just any other fad. You play it out of boredom, really. Third, this movie really is the last of a breed that dates back to Reefer Madness. That is, hilariously camp misrepresentations of a fad made by hucksters whose desires weren't to seriously inform parents, but rather to make a quick buck by profiting from their ignorance and fear of evil influences on their children. Lastly, from what I understand, when it was first released and still to this day, there's some lulz had at the expense of bargain bin hunters who come across this film. From the original VHS release: To the more recent DVD edition: ... the movie is marketed as though it is a real fantasy film, like a live-action version of the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon. I feel bad for people picking up a copy of this thinking that Tom Hanks and company actually are wandering through mazes and forests fighting monsters and casting spells as opposed to the truth, namely that it's a sh*tty movie-of-the-week television special that takes place on a college campus, a fake-looking cave and finally the streets of New York. I can't even recommend it for camp value, because the movie's so boring. Stay clear, ye be warned.
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Post by darkwingdork on Dec 4, 2009 18:59:34 GMT -5
Scarecrows I first heard about this movie in a movie guide I once bought. I remember the review of the film was positively glowing, saying what a truly frightening movie it is. Add to the fact that this film was unavailable on home video for 20 years just added to my desire to see it with my own eyes. From the stuff I read online, the film had become a cult hit, which really didn't surprise me all that much. Most any horror movie from the '70s or '80s that's relatively obscure becomes a cult film at some point or other. So when I heard that it was now available on DVD, I bought it on Amazon. Being an MGM release, it was just bare bones (ie no special features, not even a director's commentary) but it was the uncut version, which supposedly has never been released before. So, I pop the sucker in and await the magic... And, well, sigh, it was decent but not outstanding. Certainly not the great film I was imagining. The story begins at midnight with a small group of robbers aboard a plane they have hijacked. They have just pulled off a heist at Marine base Camp Pendleton and are making their getaway with $3 million in ill-gotten gain. However, one of the robbers, a cockney tight-ass named Bert, decides that $3 million splits better one way than five, and double-crosses his partners, dumping the money and then parachuting out after it. He lands in an abandoned cornfield, and begins his search for the money while his compatriots turn around and hunt after him. Of course, wouldn't you know that this happens to be the "wrong" cornfield to be in. Credit where credit is do. The movie gets some things right. Despite being low-budget (the scenes onboard the plane are obviously in a studio), it has a nice atmosphere to it. The killer scarecrows certainly look freaky, and it's refreshing to see a horror movie where all the victims are armed to the teeth with submachine guns. The badguys also have infrared goggles, so we get to see some scenes in starlight. Plus the guys at MGM and 20th Century Fox did a good job with the transfer -- based on images I've seen taken from the movie online from previous transfers, this is probably the clearest the movie has ever looked. And yet... it just didn't work for me. Despite some good things going for it, the movie just seemed overrated to me. Despite a more supernatural setting than most, this film is a slasher movie at heart . The victims are mostly stabbed to death with various gardening tools and the like. And if you're going to be a slasher movie, I need more victims than what I can count on one hand. Also, the movie is inconsistent in a bunch of ways. One character is curiously given a voiceover for his thoughts. Not only is this unnecessary (it rarely tells us anything we can figure out from his actions) but it stops being used once he's offed. Imagine if Aliens featured a voiceover from some semi-insignificant character, like lets say, Wierzbowksi, that merely said things "What's that thing? A cocooned human being? I wonder what's over here? That's Apone, he's our sergeant. What did we eat this morning?" It gets kind of annoying, right? Now, imagine after this character is killed, this voiceover is dropped. Confusing, right? Another thing is the pacing, especially toward the end. One killing should have taken place before the final chase climax, not after, especially since the twist is telegraphed so far in advance. I really have to question the editing there. Plus the fact that the characters behave very stupidly, even after they're aware of the fact they're being hunted. I'd say... 5 out of 10 stars. (6 if it's a good day). You may like it if you like '80s horror films, but sometimes movies are forgotten for a reason.
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Post by darkwingdork on Dec 28, 2009 15:32:31 GMT -5
Day of the Dead
The third film in George Romero's Living Dead trilogy (now a tetralogy, thanks to the recent Land of the Dead) has received mixed reactions from fans since it was first released. For the longest time it seemed this would be Romero's final say on the matter, and in many ways it seemed like a downer.
The movie was criticized for being inferior compared to its predecessor, Dawn of the Dead, and I'm in the camp that must sadly agree with this.
The story, so you know, deals with survivors of the zombie plague holding up in an underground bunker in South Florida. They are a very small group made up of soldiers and scientists, plus two civilians. And they all hate each other. I hope that you don't mind that point, because it will be stressed again and again throughout the movie's running time.
The scientists are either trying to find a cure or at least find a way to contain the problem, while the increasingly infuriated soldiers want to just eliminate the zombies. By this point, however, the undead are said to outnumber the living by 400,000 to 1, so the time to handle the problem through sheer firepower has long since passed.
This all sounds better than it actually is. In reality, the movie looks very cheap, and the sythetic soundtrack and cheap lighting don't help. This looks more like movie ripping off Romero than an authentic Living Dead film. Also, the acting is at times... well... bad. Even the people who sound competent still look like they're waiting for their cue to speak.
The story goes that Romero was originally offered $10 million in funding to shoot the movie, and had a much more ambitious story in mind. However, his producers argued that they wanted a more box-office friendly "R" rating as opposed to the unrated previous film. Romero stuck to his guns in demanding that he keep in the gore, so the producers slashed his budget to $1.5 million, almost 10% of the original budget.
Bad move, Romero.
Look, I love unnecessary gore as much as the next zombie movie fan, but the thing that made the first two films stand out was that they were interesting stories as well as being action-packed. The thing that allowed the first two films to be scary was that the horror took place in familiar settings: a house and a shopping mall, respectively. The bunker setting of this film, while claustrophobic, also makes it look like a cheap Roger Corman movie.
Now, the gore is really the only selling point of the film, and it only really happens at the end of the movie. So you're stuck with a film that's practically talk-talk-talk for 1 an hour and a half followed by fifteen minutes of action. Only a few of those moments are "good." Granted, it's some good special effects for the time, but it's over relatively quickly, and by that point there's only a small handful of characters left.
And did I mention these characters are all poorly drawn, annoying and stupid? Yes, stupid. Even the "sympathetic" scientists are selfish and arrogant. I rooted for the soldiers, personally, even though they were the villains. Especially Sgt. Steele, though he was a jerk.
The only good point to the film is that during the "talkative" middle part, there's some good discussion about what the point of recording down human history is when it's all bound to be wiped away, and the interesting parts dealing with the training of "Bub," a zombie that shows some signs his former humanity.
In the end, I can't recommend it. It's just boring and annoying. Really, I'll save you trouble:
Watch this clip right here.
If you don't mind the film being spoiled for you, it's the gory finale of the movie, really the only part worth watching. Land of the Dead was a much better film, but really, after this one how could it not be?
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Post by darkwingdork on Feb 5, 2010 18:29:35 GMT -5
Crimewave (1985) Sam Raimi's second film, Crimewave, which was co-written by the Coen Brothers, is a debacle in just about every way. But like all bad movies, there's a good story behind the production. Details of such will follow, but first, the plot. The movie takes place in Detroit and concerned Victor Ajax, a technician with a security company. His boss, Mr. Trend, discovers his partner is planning to sell the business, which prompts Trend to hire two very, very wacky exterminators who also moonlight as hitmen, to kill his partner. Meanwhile, Victor meets up with Nancy, a woman he takes a liking to, however its an unrequited love as Nancy is smitten by a heel named Renaldo (Bruce Campbell!!!!) who is the person planning to buy the security company. Okay, various levels of wackiness ensure. The hitmen kill their target, but have to go on a crazy spree to take out all the witnesses, including Louis Lasser, who is ironically the wife of the man who hired them. What proceeds is weird destructive chases, including a footrace through some kind of home decor factory or something, and an extended car chase through the streets of Detroit, featuring people jumping from car to car, fighting on the roofs, and... Bah, I can't do it. This whole thing is a mess. Basically, it's a plot about a guy who is chased by two whackos, fights them off and gets the girl. So, what's the big deal? Well, this movie isn't just bad, it's pretty much an abomination. And as I said before, there's a good story behind that. A perfect metaphor for sitting through this movie...Raimi, who had just come off of making the surprise low-budget horror film The Evil Dead, was a hot new prospect in Hollywood at the time. He was given a shot to direct a studio-produced film for his next movie, working for B-tier movie studio Embassy (which to be fair, had produced some enjoyable low-budget films). And that's where everything went wrong. If you've read Bruce Campbell's autobiography If Chins Could Kill, you'll know the entire film shoot was a nightmare. First off, the studio blocked most of Raimi's casting choices, including his desire to give Bruce Campbell the lead role. Instead, the studio insisted on Reed Birney, an actor whose career unsurprisingly went nowhere. No disrespect to Birney, I'm sure he's a nice guy and he is still employed in the industry, he just wasn't leading actor material. Campbell recounts how the studio micromanaged every aspect of the film's production, which was very stressful for the filmmakers who had just made a film with complete artistic freedom only a few years before. They studio complained about why Campbell, who was given the role of Renaldo as a consolation, had to be in so many scenes (they should be thankful, his role is one of the only saving graces in this movie) they complained about budgets and second-guessed Raimi on all of his decisions. Just waiting for the check to clear...Raimi was also unused to dealing with unions, which lead to him having to ask for more money from the studio since he didn't factor that aspect into the budget. Obviously, the studios were pissed. Filming itself was a headache, as a good chunk of the movie took place on the streets of Detroit at night. Residents complained about the filming, including one fellow from a nursing home who threw a bottle with message down at the crew that said the filmmakers were making him sick. Louise Lasser, who was the only *name* actor in the cast, was coked out for most of the shoot, insisting that she do her own makeup (and doing a scary job, only for the filmmakers to have to trick her into letting professional make-up artists do the real work). Brion James destroyed a hotel room, thinking it was possessed by ghosts. Two brothers who were practically con men who owned a hotel that was used for a scene in the movie tried to squeeze as much money out of the production as possible. The film was shot in the winter time, and everyone was cold and miserable. Then, once filming wrapped, the producers shut Raimi out of the editing process, hacking his film to pieces and replacing his choice for composer with one of their own. The result: a film that was barely released, and you can see why. It's a very badly made movie. The worst aspect is the acting on the two killers is incredibly over-the-top. Not fun over-the-top, like say Jack Nicholson, but annoying and grating. Brion James and Paul Smith both have annoying, ANNOYING voices and they constantly talk and laugh at their own jokes. It's really tedious to sit through. Just so you know, I have nothing against these actors. I liked James in Blade Runner and Smith in Popeye. I just loathed them in this film. Do you not like these two characters? Too bad, you'll be spending most of the movie with them.As I said, Birney is not leading man material. I kept wanting the movie to follow some other character. Another thing going against the movie was it was kind of hard to classify just what kind of movie it was. Knowing the Coen brothers later work, you can kind of see the influences that would pop up in their later films Raising Arizona, O Brother, Where Art Thou? and even No Country For Old Men. But back in 1985, there wasn't really a market for wacky crime films with a dark sense of humor. The studio literally did not know how to market the thing. The films' only saving graces are the few scenes Campbell is in, happily chewing the scenery as an egotistical jerk, and also the sequence where Smith chases Lasser through the whatever building. It achieves a sort of surreal, Tom and Jerry cartoonish atmosphere, suggesting how good this movie COULD have been if Raimi had the proper freedom to make it as he saw fit. Today, it's a virtually forgotten movie, and for good reason. Raimi has basically written off the film's production as the worst experience of his life, the Coens see it the final product as virtually unrecognizable from their original screenplay, and Campbell sees it as a learning experience. Sadly, this was the first of several instances where major studios blocked Campbell from getting starring roles in movies because they did not see him as being bankable (Liam Neeson swiped Darkman from him, and Billy Zane would do the same for The Phantom). Maybe that's part of Campbell's appeal: he's a permanent underdog. He only gets starring roles in B-movies and has to settle for supporting roles or cameos in big-budget blockbusters. Final verdict: Unless you're a Raimi and Coen brothers completest, you've missed nothing by skipping out on this movie.
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