Well, it's a week before Hallowe'en, so I can't ignore it any longer. The Horror genre is not my favorite, but like anything, if something good comes along, no matter its origins, no matter its budget, it should be celebrated. We won't be doing that. We'll be looking at a bunch of horror movies from the past few years that I haven't been able to recycle into this blog—for whatever reason—but mostly for the fact that they aren't any good. They are horror films that merely accentuate the fact that I don't like the genre much, even though it has always inspired new techniques in film-making, rules-breaking in scope and subject matter, and been the moldy place from which some talented film-makers emerged...while others just fell back into the bog.
A night's damaging electrical storm produces a dawn mist that begins to seep down from the mountains. A trip into town for provisions traps a motley crew of citizens inside "The Food House" keeping the enveloping mist outside. Conspicuous consumption proceeds inside when a man bleeding from his head runs in screaming that "the mist" killed his companion, confirming that consumption is going on outside, as well. It becomes apparent that the lives of the people in the store amounts to a can of beans (in Aisle 5), with roughly the same position on the food chain.
At that point, to pass the time everyone starts playing "The Blame Game" falling in line between the scientific, the religious and the superstitious. But, whatever "it" is, "it's a problem of some magnitude"—several magnitudes, in fact, what with giant killer locusts (for the religious), flesh-eating pterodactyls (for the scientific) and big hairy spiders shooting acid webs (for the superstitious). Not to mention the towering Lovecraftian dromedaries (for the English majors). They all have nasty invasive ways to kill you and the rest of the movie boils down to whatever bone-headed motivation it takes to get people outside for the near-occasions of carnage that break out every fifteen minutes. Go down the checklist—hubris, zealotry, rationalization, drunkenness, or even "doing it for the kids." Then there are the defense measures that feel more like offense for the other side; how smart is it to douse a flying creature with gasoline in an enclosed space...lit by torches?
Darabont shoots things in a faux cinema-verite style, light on the hand-held, and does some quick cutting (but not too quick) to hop up the urgency (and discourages thinking too much—the store doesn't have a radio? Not even for muzak?). And tries to justify it all with a minute discussion of how folks are rational "as long as the machines are working and they can call 9-1-1." (Points for working sociology and political science into one sentence").
The execution is tried and true, but then there are a lot of sources to draw from: 50's atomic monster movies, The Fog, The Thing, Night of the Living Dead, as well as waves to 28 Days, Planet of the Apes, The Birds, Alien, Stargate, and King's own Maximum Overdrive, which is about folks trapped in a diner while outside is a raging...18 wheeler. The ending has drawn a lot of criticism in some parts from some who though it was a "mist" opportunity, but it's a satisfying/dissatisfying ending that also has cinematic precedence, whether you like it or not.
The lesson, once the smoke clears, seems to be: "Don't be so myopic, ye of little faith."
Either that, or always take more bullets.
* Starring is Thomas Jane, late of "The Punisher" films, and he proves to be a credible, believable leading man of the Harrison Ford School.
"Co-dependence Day" or "If a Cliche Goes Unused, the Aliens Will Win"
Amateur night, pure and simple-minded. A "nice, young couple" is awakened in a guest-room of a plush L.A. penthouse suite by an incandescent blue light that creeps through the louvre blinds. The guy goes out to investigate and staring into the high-wattage illumination source, his skin begins to burn from the inside, his eyes milking over, compelling him to move towards the light, where he will be sucked into the waiting maw of... What? We don't find out, as we're zapped back 15 hours to the start of this bucolic vacation where the "nice, young couple" (Eric Balfour, Scottie Thompson) are flying to L.A. to birthday par-tay with male half of NYC's old homey (Donald Faison), who works in the L.A. film industry. Male-half NYC is a visual effects maker and homey wants him to join up. Already you think that the scripters haven't strayed too far from what they know, the directors, the BrothersStrause, being FX techs, with only the egregious Aliens vs. Predators: Requiem, being their only previous feature.
This film was made on a relative shoe-string—production costs being half a mil' and the post-production making up 9.5 of the $10 million budget, but the ledger sheet is the bottom-line of what's wrong with this picture:Skylineboasts sophisticated special effects...and that's about it. Kudos to the film-makers for their cost-cutting measures—they filmed around one of the directors' own penthouse and building complex (and you never get beyond the no-doubt locked security gate around the place), with the result of an audience disconnect—it's hard to feel sympathy for your protagonist when he lives better than you do. Plus, there's a self-congratulatory tone that feels a bit like "Mars Attacks MTV Cribs."*
Would that the Brothers had spent a bit more money developing a script, polishing the dialog (which is all of the "What is it?" "I dunno. We should check it out" variety**), or even figuring out what their movie is about besides lighting, burning and floating, and Geiger-esque spacecraft, and gooey brain-sucking "Id-monster" aliens.
Cynically, I think the Brothers Strause***saw the success of Paranormal Activity (low budget movie+minimal crew+no stars=low-threshold boffo box office) and decided to make an alien invasion version, rather than a possessed household one. But, where Oren Peli's film truly was low-budget—not only did he utilize his own house, but, given the nature of the film, the actors were the cinematographers, ultimately costing $15,000****—and largely improvised, as well, it also had the germ of an idea of how to use it's limited budget to maximum advantage.
In other words, Oren Peli is a gifted film-maker; The Brothers Strause make films.
Skyline is a film that directors cut up so they can put it on their "reel," strictly for demonstration purposes only. It is a shallow, inept, nihilistic crap-fest that dares to not even come to a conclusion in the hopes that some poor slob will clamor for a sequel.
Doubtful that will happen. There was enough brain-sucking in this movie.
* Maybe it's all a bitter resentment statement by the film-makers attacking slothful materialism and greed in our society and in the L.A. film industry in particular, but I think it's more like "let's use my place, so I can fix it up real cool, charge it to the studio and use it as a tax dodge." ** "I dunno. We should check it out?" "What do you think those things are?" "It doesn't matter." "Is that what I think it is?" "They took Walt." "What do you mean, they took Walt?" For all the valuable information that is being disseminated in the dialog—there are no convenient scientists in lab-coats living in the high-end condo complex to explain everything, I guess—this could easily have been a silent movie. The gist is that these people don't know what's going on, are confused, and making it up as they go along. But, there is so much false drama being milked out of the situation that you start to wish that everybody in the cast gets taken, just to shut them up. And the film-makers are such "bad-ass-street-cred-bad-boys" that they are only too willing to accomodate. *** If you follow this link to the Brothers Strause official web-site, you will find that it doesn't work at the time of the writing. Some bad HTML code. **** And it made Paramount/Dreamworks $194,000,000.00. Nice return on investment!
Now, we get (simply) The Invasion and it has a slightly different spin. Post-Iraq occupation, the feeling of paranoia and subsequent running through the city streets are accompanied by the intermittent soundtrack of world tragedy that tallies just how much of a mess we've made of it. These particular "pod-people" (humans are not replaced,cloned, or supplanted, but spores infect their DNA, affecting their "genetic expression,"** putting the human host to sleep, and allowing the alien spores to live through the host, unemotionally, except for an aggressive tendency to regurgitate in order to multiply their numbers, indoctrinate, coming to your door, using the police to forcibly take people to clinics to be converted. One can make comparisons to Iraq, but also terrorist sleeper-cells "in our midst."
But, just so you know which side the film-makers are coming down on, one of the converted makes an un-impassioned speech to Dr. Bennell (Nicole Kidman) about embedded pod-ification being a better life—a more tranquil life...except, of course, for all the chasing around, the deliberate traffic accidents and projectile vomiting, the kind of which culminates in an extremely loopy sequence where Benell and her child have hijacked a car and go tearing around the streets with pod-people clinging to it while its hood is on fire. Pretty hard to make an intellectual case for "Better World" stick with that evidence.
Except for the emphasis on strong women protecting their brood this time around, the changes are mostly cosmetic. Instead of pods, which would imply cloning or replacement (so last century!), these spores infect you, then while you sleep encase you in a caul-like casing (evidently of the junk you take out of your eye in the morning, supplying the necessary "Ewww" factor).
But, there's an added creepiness to this movie and it belongs to star, Nicole Kidman, who seems decidely plasticene—almost "Barbie-like" in this film. I'm not talking about that huge shiny forehead that she wears during awards show. Here's she's rail thin, and her costumer has fitted her with extremely tight ensembles—so tight, in fact, that (how do I put this delicately?) no part of her anatomy moves when she's in motion, if you get my drift. One begins to suspect that she has already been taken over, or she's the same character who escaped from The Stepford Wives. Whatever the reason, it's a bit creepy.
* Just to be clear what we're talking about here: "The Body Snatchers" was a 1955 sci-fi novel by the extraordinary Jack Finney (read his "Time and Again" sometime), who, although, he usually fudged the science bit, managed to use the genre for great allegorical points. "The Body Snatchers" was about an invasion of "space-pods" that infected a California town and would replace human beings with emotionless drones. The time might be right for a new version where the pods come already accessorized with cell-phones. ** The poor guy saddled with the "Basil Exposition" gobbledy-gook dialogue is the brilliant Jeffrey Wright, who does a yeoman's job of making it seem like he's actually thinking of all this tech-speak off the top of his head, although he looks a tad uncomfortable doing it.
Well, it's a week before Hallowe'en, so I can't ignore it any longer. The Horror genre is not my favorite, but like anything, if something good comes along, no matter its origins, no matter its budget, it should be celebrated.
We won't be doing that.
We'll be looking at a bunch of horror movies from the past few years that I haven't been able to recycle into this blog—for whatever reason—but mostly for the fact that they aren't any good. They are horror films that merely accentuate the fact that I don't like the genre much, even though it has always inspired new techniques in film-making, rules-breaking in scope and subject matter, and been the moldy place from which some talented film-makers emerged...while others just fell back into the bog. This was part of a series of reviews of the ASUW Film series back in the '70's. Except for some punctuation, I haven't changed anything from the way it was presented, giving the kid I was back in the '70's a bit of a break. Any stray thoughts and updates I've included with the inevitable asterisked post-scripts.
Private Parts(Paul Bartel, 1972)*You thought Rocky Horror was tacky? Leave before Private Parts.**Not that it's bad. It's just...trashy. Rather well-made trash at that. It was directed by Paul Bartel, before he went on to make Death Race 2000, which was also trash. Bartel has talent, he really does. His shots are well-composed, the color composition is great--right now it's a little hard to tell whether he'll go legit and become another Brian DePalma, or will continue with filming lousy stories well and become another Russ Meyer.
Private Parts has a badly-acted beginning and a cruddy ending (complete with a Tennessee Williams-style capper). But in between those you keep watching this film (so help me) just to see what the hell will come up next. What trashy, weird, kinky thing will come up next.
Sweet young thing Cheryl (Ayn Ruyman), kicked out of her apartment, takes up with her weird (not that "weird") Aunt Martha (Lucille Benson) at the King Edward Hotel, which seems to have a monopoly on odd tennants. There's this weird (note that "weird") photographer named George (John Ventantonio) who, believe it or not, is even sleazier than Oliver Reed is. Cheryl is into poking into other people's business. George is into all sorts of fetishes and things, and, let's face it, they're made for each other. Just like the sweet young couple in "Rocky Horror...," Cheryl is forever changed by the King Edward.
This movie may not be your cup of tea. It's kind of strong, content-wise, and there are a couple of acts of ultra-violence in which Bartel rubs our collective noses.
But one thing: See it, so that when you see Brian DePalma's weird but intelligently made Sisters, you may look upon it as Citizen Kane compared to Private Parts.
You know? I don't remember a single FRAME from this film. Must have purged it from my memory banks. That happens ("Seen any movies? What's a good one you've seen lately?" "..........uhhh...."). I was surprised that Amazon streams it, and that there was enough of a presence on the Internet (even discounting Howard Stern) that I could put up pictures. And I seem to remember the lead actress, Ayn Ruymen, but the memory is of seeing her in commercials. Oh, well. Also, strange to see I had such a fixation on Brian DePalma in those days (this was years before The Bonfire of the Vanities.)
*Not the Howard Stern Private Parts, but Paul Bartel's (Eating Raoul, Death Race 2000) first film. ** That's The Rocky Horror Picture Show—the format of these movie evenings in college was an ancient tradition in movies called "The Double Bill." (Look it up, kids). "The Double Bill" was a tradition where, to make less money apparently, the theater would show two movies in an evening—first, a lesser-known film, then the main attraction, and then, finally, the lesser known film for those missed the earlier showing. These University showings were of old films—certainly not first run—with a pair of films that might have similar themes, be of a similar genre—whatever, they were similar in some way. You won't see The Rocky Horror Picture Show in this collection of 2017 Hallowe'en reviews, because...well, I liked it...thought it was kind of clever. I don't SEE it every Friday night like a lunatic, but I liked it.
Well, it's a week before Hallowe'en, so I can't ignore it any longer. The Horror genre is not my favorite, but like anything, if something good comes along, no matter its origins, no matter its budget, it should be celebrated. We won't be doing that. We'll be looking at a bunch of horror movies from the past few years that I haven't been able to recycle into this blog—for whatever reason—but mostly for the fact that they aren't any good. They are horror films that merely accentuate the fact that I don't like the genre much,
even though it has always inspired new techniques in film-making, rules-breaking in scope and subject matter, and been the moldy place from which some talented film-makers emerged...while others just fell back into the bog. "Planet Terror"(Robert Rodriguez, 2007) I believe in the Jeffersonian ideal of self-improvement. I believe in those tenets born from the Enlightenment, that man, left to his own devices, will grow, fend for himself, and improve himself to make his life, and those of others, richer and more full. And then, I see a movie like Planet Terror and I want to burn every H-D camera in the world. There are a lot of critics--many of whom I respect--who sang the praises of Grindhouse, when it briefly slunk, shambling, into the multi-plexes in the Summer of 2007.*All I can say is that if Planet Terror is any indication (and I haven't seen Tarantino's Death-Proof half of the film**), they are seriously wrong-headed.
A critic has an odd job: if they're doing it right, it's a bit like trying to find a pony in a pile of manure. You can find artistry in the unlikeliest places: Spaghetti westerns displayed the amazing eye and burning dramatic sense of Sergio Leone (who influences Tarantino and Rodriguez***); cheap "B"-movies formed the twisted spine of the film noir genre. Artistry can come from anywhere. And it's a critic's job to be on the look-out for it, even in genres considered "low," and by film-makers who one might have a prejudice towards. But that's on a good day.
Example: I've never enjoyed the films of Ed Wood, outed by Michael Medved back in the day when his "Golden Turkey Award" books spawned his dubious movie/social critic career. You'd think that from his descriptions that Wood's films would be a laugh-riot, full of boners and prat-falls. They're not. They're exercises in incompetence that are pathetic and pitiable. Rather than taking any cruel joy out of his films, I experienced a kind of bored disgust, I don't have fun watching incompetence. Tim Burton got it right about Ed Wood; he didn't know quality from a rubber octopus-and loved his own work with a romantic's blindness. He still made movies that suck.
I know what they were going for in Grindhouse. They were trying to go back to the "C"-movie days of double-bill films that tried to eke out a profit by appealing to the lowest common denominator—the kids-and-cretins-circuit—something that Dimension Films—Grindhouse's distributor—routinely does, as well. Some of the greatest directors of movies—some of the brightest—honed their craft in the AIP's and worse. But once they got their chops, they stopped making crap. They aspired. They wanted more. Only someone of limited creativity (or a moron...or a deeply cynical artist) would knowingly aspire to garbage, and so reluctantly, I'm bestowing that label to Robert Rodriguez (the "deeply cynical artist" one, as he's very creative, and certainly not a moron). Left to his own devices, Rodriguez can do some entertaining work--the "El Mariachi" films, the "Spy Kids" films, and they're made with an economy that's something short of miraculous--but team him with his mentor, Quentin Tarantino and it all turns to shit (QT has a mercifully brief role in "Planet Terror," as an over-acting rapist, where he proves, once again, that he's the male equivalent of Pia Zadora). The guy's got the chops, no doubt about it. But he has one thing missing in his many talents—taste. They don't teach that at film school, and you can't get it at the video store. "Taste" is what you get when you aspire, and it can even be with the schlockiest material known to man (Touch of Evil, Psycho, The Godfather...I can go on and on about artists who reached to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear,****), but to revel in schlock, to aspire to it...and have the results be so...marginal, so...bad, and not even in a funny way, but pitiable, well, you start to wonder what it is you saw in these guys before. There is one "pony" moment in Planet Terror and that is the "old man" performance of Michael Parks, who appears to think he's in another movie. Wouldn't be the first time.
Sometimes, critics, in their zeal to be ahead of the curve, or to appear "hip," will go a bit too far and end up over a cliff, or in the ditch. But that's what happens when you start looking for ponies.
Planet Terror is such an artless mess, with poor performances by some actors who should have known better (Bruce Willis and Jeff Fahey), and a lot of actors who don't (principally Rose McGowan and Quentin Tarantino), goofy, squishy special effects of the fake vomit variety, and a pervasive air of nastiness that the one joke that works--a "Missing Reel" insert at the heart of a sleazy sex scene--reveals the emptiness of the thing, the cavalier disregard fr the audience, and the apparent "who gives a shit" attitude of the film-makers. The acting goes beyond camp into the realm of the absurdly arch and hammy. People were employed on this film and hopefully they got paid, though given the meager accomplishments of this film they might have been compensated with a credit for their resumes. Planet Terror is a waste of time, both mine and the people involved in making it, and that's the worst thing you can say about any movie.
* I also heard the gleeful anticipation of fan-boys (the kind who post at AICN) that it was going to be "SOO COOOOL!" ** Funny thing is: I HAVE seen it subsequently. And...I liked it. I thought it was one of Tarantino's strongest films and it worked BECAUSE of the director's eccentricities and short-comings as a film-maker. Funny old world, innit? ** For that, Leone is probably spinning--verrry sloooowly--in his grave, a place Tarentino seems to be spending a lot of time these days. *** Jerry Lewis tells the story of one night editing a film when Stanley Kubrick steps into the room, smoking, asking if he can hang out and watch what they do in the process, and Lewis and his editor try to work out a thorny continuity problem. Lewis finally decides to move on and says: "You can't polish a turd." There's a silence at the back of the room, and then Kubrick pipes up: "You can if you freeze it..."
The Set-Up: A week and a half before Halloween, so I suppose I should start paying attention to it, thus a tribute to those who work in the swamp, this one from Tim Burton's Ed Wood. Burton's film is a labor-of-love—a sort of left-handed tribute to Wood's kitchen-sink approach to making films (and reflecting the director's own love of cheesy special effects and "persistence of vision").
Not a lot to say here. The scene, like most of the film, is funny, poignant and pathetic, but has that Burton-esque love for "the underdog outsider" and the "foster family-team" aspect of movie-making. The film, and its Wood-Lugosi bonding is also reflective of the director's respect and devotion to his own horror movie hero, Vincent Price (who never resorted to pity or drugs, but took his work in the grave-trenches of the genre with humor and an air of incorruptible elegance), featured in his short Vincent and in Edward Scissorhands.
Horror is not the bottom of the food-chain in Hollywood (or wherever you can make films...like Pittsburgh), but it is six feet under the surface, with limited budgets and (hopefully) abundant ingenuity. You've got to be "a trooper" working in that realm, selling snake-oil as if it was love-potion...or bat's blood. Make the fantasy real...or as real as possible...and if you scare the rubes, you have their respect—and a limited amount of power over them.
And, if you're very good (or in Ed Wood's case, very bad), they'll never forget you and that is something like immortality. A fantasy made real.
The Story: Hollywood bottom-feeder Ed Wood (Johnny Depp) has secured funding for his horror opus Bride of the Monster, allowing him to cast friend and screen icon Bela Lugosi (Martin Landau) in a central role, but not enough to actually rent a prop octopus (which is obtained by breaking into a prop warehouse earlier in the day). They have to return the snatched cephalopod before the warehouse opens for business the next day. Night shoot! Annnnd...action!
IN A DUSTY PARKING LOT Bela sits inertly in the back of an open car. He weakly hails over Ed.
BELA Eddie, I'm so tired...
BELA I don't know if I can handle a night shoot...
ED Nonsense! You look great --
(suddenly he catches himself; he speaks more sincerely)
ED Look, uh, why don't you lie down and take a little nap? We'll film around you for a while.
BELAThanks, buddy... ED You're welcome. Ed smiles warmly, then walks off.
ED Alright!
Bela stares after him, then absent-mindedly searches through his pockets.
Finally, he finds what he's looking for -- a rubber tube.
Bela looks to make sure no one's around, then ties the tube around his upper arm...
AT THE SET - LATER
Crew members have dammed up the end of the river, and Bunny fills it with a hose. There is now a foot of water.
Ed stands at the shore, admiring it.
ED Hey. This is looking fantastic! (he turns to Paul) ED Paul, where's the octopus motor?
PAUL MARCOWhat octopus motor?
ED You know, to make the legs move --
PAUL MARCO(defensive) Hey, don't blame me! You didn't say anything about no motor when I was up on that ceiling!
PAUL MARCO What's he talking (about)? Ed and crew walk to the other side of the pool.
ED Paul lost the octopus motor!
Bela stumbles up, with a dazed smile.
BELA Alright! Let's shoot this fucker!
ED Great!
BELA Where do I go?
ED You'll be fighting with the octopus.
BELA Out there?! (he points at the water)
ED Yes.
BELA What happened to the stream?
ED This'll look a lot better. We have to match the stock footage of the octopus underwater.
BELA Oh, for Christ's sake. Bela rolls up his pants and wades out, into the water. He screams.
BELA Goddamn, it's cold!
EDOnce you're in it, it warms up.
BELA Fuck you! You come out here. (beat)
BELA Hey...
BELA Throw me that whiskey.
A crew member throws Bela a bottle of Jack Daniels.
Bela pops the cap and chugs half the bottle in one swig. He licks his lips, then climbs onto the octopus.
BELA Okay! How do we turn this thing on?
ED Well, somebody misplaced the motor. So when you wrestle the octopus...
ED ...shake the legs a bit, to make it look like it's killing you. Okay!
Bela stares, deadpan.
BELA Do you know I turned down "Frankenstein"?
ED What?
BELA After I did "Dracula," the studio offered me "Frankenstein"! But I turned it down...
BELA ...the part wasn't sexy enough.
BELA It was too degrading for a big star like me.
The crew glances at Ed.
ED Bela, I've got twenty-five scenes to shoot tonight.
BELA Oh. Sorry.Don't let me slow you down.
ED Okay!
ED Alright?
ED Alright.
ED Alright!Let's put it on film.
ED CAMERA! CAMERAMAN We're rolling!
ED SOUND! CAMERAMAN Ed, we don't have sound! ED Oh. Bela takes another swig of J.D., then throws it off-camera.
ED Aaaaand...ACTION!
Bela starts flailing around the octopus legs and SCREAMING in horror.
This image is truly ridiculous.
Ed is pleased. Some crew members nod: Pretty good.
ED And CUT!
ED That was brilliant! Everybody cheers. Then suddenly the dam walls BURST. WHOOSH! The water rushes from the lake and floods the park below.
The Mist (Frank Darabont, 2008) A horror pastiche bubbled up from many long-crusted cauldrons, The Mist wouldn't cross anyone's radar as a "must-see." But considering it's writer-director Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile) revisiting Stephen King territory (usually Maine) with top-tier actors like Andre Braugher, Marcia Gay Harden, and Toby Jones, it's worth a look*
