SEPTEMBER 8, 2013

GENRE: COMEDIC, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: ONLINE (ITUNES RENTAL)

As a fan of killer kid/baby movies, something is clearly right in the universe if we are blessed with not one but TWO such movies in a short period of time. Unlike Bad Milo, Hell Baby is more about the pregnancy than the birth, limiting the time we spend with a little demon puppet (once again practical, yay!), but folks are still likely to mix them up in conversation. After all, not only are they more comedy than horror, but they both feature The State alum (Ken Marino in Milo; several in this), comedian Kumail Nanjiani, and a beautiful blond wife (Gillian Jacobs there, Leslie Bibb here). Even if they weren't being released a few weeks apart, the similarities would be worth noting.

Luckily for audiences, they're pretty different when you dig down into it. For starters, in co-writer/co-director Thomas Lennon's own words, Hell Baby is "pointless", opting for more laughs and absurdity where Milo actually had a metaphor and a bit of a life lesson mixed in with its laughs. Thus, and opinions may vary, I found this to be the funnier of the two, because they were able to cut loose and do whatever the hell they wanted, without having to worry about keeping it grounded so that the point wasn't lost. I enjoyed Milo, but as I said in my review it felt like it needed a few more big laughs - this doesn't have that issue.

Interestingly, my good friend Ryan hated this one and found Milo to be much funnier, so your mileage may vary. There's definitely a tendency here to indulge in the sort of dragged out joke that's funny, unfunny, and funny again (think Sideshow Bob and the rake on Simpsons), so if you find that sort of thing never manages to get back to funny, you might have trouble with this. But you'd be missing out on a lot of other classic bits; Lennon and cohort Ben Garant also play a pair of chain-smoking exorcists, and their scenes (particularly the ones where they play off of Rob Huebel and Paul Scheer as a pair of cops) never stopped delighting. Honestly, I didn't even care much about Bibb and Rob Corddry as the expecting couple - I would gladly watch an entire movie of this quartet solving mysteries and eating PoBoys.

The rest of the cast is terrific too; Nanjiani plays a hapless cable guy who inadvertently gets roped into the movie's obligatory seance, and I'd kill for another scene with Lennon/Garant's exasperated boss, who finds their reports to be too detailed. But the real treasure is Keegan Michael Key (from Key & Peele; I believe he's Key) as the couple's neighbor who invites himself inside every few minutes, knowing nothing about personal space or boundaries. Every single thing out of his mouth at LEAST elicited a smile out of me, and he singlehandedly improved any scene with the hero couple.

Now, there's nothing wrong with either actor, and they get a few good lines as well, but as this is more of a comedy, the narrative of Bibb's possession is sloppy at best. She just turns quietly evil all of a sudden, and Corddry's attempts to find out what is going on are half-assed and generally uninteresting. Sometimes a horror comedy will actually make the effort to deliver a full mythology or backstory to what's going on, but this is just an excuse to rope in more hilarious supporting characters (i.e. the exorcists). So if you're not enjoying their brand of humor, there's no reason to stick with it - it's not going to satisfy your inner horror fan, either (except, again, for the practical puppet - and what looks to my eyes like all practical blood too). Save for a quick bit involving the couple's would-be doctor, there isn't any real violence or carnage until the last 10-15 minutes, when the demon baby is born and wreaks havoc (in a sequence that goes on a bit too long, admittedly) - the comedy takes precedent over the horror even more than in Milo.

My only other issue was that the dog was a red herring. They set up an evil dog, clearly inspired by The Omen, but then basically forget about it and shrug it off at the end when they're wrapping up other subplots. At first I was impressed that they did their homework (or at least remembered the trailer), but I was disappointed that it was a go nowhere issue. In a way it ties into the overall "who cares? LAUGH!" approach, but its wrapped up on a non-joke, which makes it stick out to me. The final gag is also drawn out and not particularly funny, featuring someone getting hit by a car after talking about how lucky he is, though the FIRST bit with the car driver (30 minutes before) is one of the best bits in the movie, so I can't blame them for trying to recreate that magic.

I actually almost saw this at Comic Con; I was seated for a screening only to discover that an event (read: party with lots of free food/booze) that I thought was starting at 9 was actually starting at 8, and thus I had to leave so I wouldn't risk being too late to get in (some events there get crowded and then the fire marshal shuts down the entrance, even if people leave no one new can get in). And of course, the party a. didn't get too crowded and b. kind of sucked, so I should have just stayed. It's definitely a movie that would play well with a crowd, but in a way it's sort of a testament to its value that I found it pretty hilarious sitting by myself watching it on my computer. Thus, even though I usually champion seeing with a crowd on the big screen, the theatrical release appears to be a joke and thus there won't be a crowd anyway, so fire up your VOD service of choice and enjoy!

What say you?

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AUGUST 27, 2013

GENRE: COMEDIC, MONSTER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PRESS SCREENING)

Between the fact that it's about a monster that comes and goes out of a dude's butt and that it had Gillian Jacobs, Peter Stormare, and Ken Marino (I doubt I've laughed as hard all year as I did at his "Maybe he picked the locks" line in We're The Millers) in its cast, I'm a pretty easy sell for Bad Milo. Add in scene stealers like Patrick Warburton and Kumail Nanjiani and the fact that said monster is PRACTICAL and not a goddamn CGI effect? It starts to seem like a movie made to entertain me specifically - basically it's just missing a Meat Loaf song and maybe a shoutout to Fletch (actually, Marino DOES get a hand up his butt. Mooooooooooon riverrrrrrrrrr).

That said, I do wish the movie was a bit funnier. It's a horror comedy that leans heavily toward the latter genre; it's only at the very end that Milo's antics are played for suspense and scares (the fact that he purrs and whimpers like Gizmo when he's not killing folks makes him kind of lovable), and even the kill scenes are sort of played for laughs, like when Marino purposely lets Milo loose in order to kill someone who has been an annoyance in his life. There's a slight Little Shop of Horrors feel to the material, as Milo needs to be fed (and refuses traditional food), but the hook is that Marino can't simply walk away or even kill the damn thing, as it's a part of him. Any pain Milo feels, he does as well, and since it's the living embodiment of his emotions, if he killed Milo he'd turn into a vegetable.

So the concept is hilarious, but once you get used to it, the movie doesn't take the opportunity for as many big laughs as you'd expect given the plot and cast. I was chuckling a lot, but rarely did I laugh out loud - something that might be an issue if you can't even get past the admirably batshit idea behind it. The production value is painfully low at times (rarely have I seen a faker news station graphic than the ones shown here after every kill), but that wouldn't be an issue if they just kept us laughing more often. Jacobs in particular gets very little to do beyond being the wife, which is a shame as she was even able to shine during the 4th season of Community. The best bits are between Marino and Stormare (as his shrink), because Stormare can make anything funny and Marino's deadpan responses never stopped amusing, though I also quite loved the fertility doctor (he gets the best line in the movie, after performing what appears to be very good oral sex on a girl who asks if he learned how to do that at school, his reply is "Yeah, in a way.").

Otherwise, it's a delight. Stormare is tasked with giving much of the exposition, and sells it beautifully, without ever even suggesting that it's ridiculous. If anything I wouldn't have minded SOME disbelief from the characters - at the end Milo runs around a party and even then folks just sort of react as if it were nothing more than a rabid squirrel, and Jacobs barely even blinks when Marino asks her to help him put Milo back up his ass (the movie gets some mileage out of the fact that this seems to be impossible, as Milo is about as big as a pillow - we never actually SEE the process, just hear it). But it's admirable that they have the entire cast play it straight(ish) and not waste time on people saying things like "That's ridiculous!" - why bother, when we know it's already true? Plus, I liked that there was a minor psychological aspect to it, as Milo is "summoned" from stress, and thus of course Marino is having the worst week of his life: his job is in jeopardy, his wife wants a baby, his mother is dating a guy younger than he is, etc.

Another thing that impressed me was the puppetry for Milo. Again, he's a practical creature, so the interactions are superior than they would be with some lame CGI effect (the spooning scene as seen on the poster is a particular highlight), and the animation is quite good as well - considering how small he is relative a human, there's a surprising amount of detail in his facial expressions and mannerisms. It's a shame that the focus on that didn't apply to the blood - his first kill contains some of the lamest looking CGI splatter I've seen in quite some time - but if that meant more time/money spent on making sure the title character looked perfect, so be it. I want a toy!

The pacing is also spot on, with Marino's doctor discovering Milo (he thinks it's a polyp) in the first few minutes and the little guy claiming his first kill by the end of the first reel (I'm saying that with irony - there are no "reels" anymore). There's some padding to get it up to (almost) 90 minutes, including the dreaded "Let's start at the end to give you a taste of the horror to come" gimmick, which I truly hate (and even more so here as they inexplicably try to make a "twist" out of it by editing a character out of the scene the first time we see it? I didn't get it at all), but it's forgivable, and never wears out its welcome. And, thankfully, there's not a lot of poop humor - I was worried there would be a surplus of jokes at the expense of his constant trips to the bathroom (or dumb sight gags, like taking "War & Peace" with him to read while he went), but there's actually almost none of that. Most of the humor stems from dealing with the reality of a completely gonzo situation, so while it doesn't always land, it's the most respectable approach to take, and thus it's fine by me.

But seriously, don't waste Gillian Jacobs on "the wife". She should be in starring roles by this point as it is. At least give her her own little subplot (or, even, identify what she does for a living or what those pills she takes before bed are for).

What say you?

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APRIL 12, 2013

GENRE: COMEDIC, HAUNTED HOUSE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

If you loved the gag in the Scary Movie 5 trailer where Charlie Sheen got his balls rammed into the door over and over, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is, that bit, along with a few others in the trailer, was excised from the final cut. The good news is there are about a dozen others just like it; Simon Rex in particular seems to take a hit to the groin, gut, or face every 30 seconds or so, and I'm pretty sure everyone in the movie would have been killed from physical trauma by the end (though, I don't think anyone actually dies in the entire thing except for Charlie - remember when these movies were rated R?). However, I myself hate that kind of humor and always have, so the movie was seriously trying my patience during the extended bits of Rex being hit in the face over and over, or an ape being hit in the face over and over, or Terry Crews being hit in the face over and over... you get the gist.

See, I love a good physical comedian - Chevy Chase was (OK, is) my hero and he certainly has made us laugh by falling down as Gerald Ford or knocking over priceless items (Foul Play, Caddyshack II, European Vacation... probably more). But there's a difference between that and getting hit in the face or balls - ANYONE can take (or deliver) said hit, but you need to actually have a gift to pull off the sort of physical humor I actually find funny. Molly Shannon is one such performer, and has a great bit where she is covered in casts and braces (after yet another "getting physically injured = funny" sight gag) and trying to get inside of a bathroom stall - THAT is funny to me (and to star Ashley Tisdale, apparently - the obligatory blooper reel has her cracking up several times at Shannon's exaggerated (and hilarious) movements as she tries to get inside the door). So it's a shame that for every one gag in that vein there's about 20 that involves nothing more than someone being hit in their groin and making a pained face.

In between all that intolerable shit (seriously, any scene with Simon Rex is just a black hole of comedy), there are a surprising number of good gags, and I'm shocked (saddened?) to admit I laughed at least 20 times, which is 20 more times than I did at its trailer - it's important to note that my expectations were very, very low. But if you're keeping score, that's still about 5x as many as laughs as A Haunted House, the last horror spoof deemed worthy of theatrical release (there were more that went DTV. I believe this is the 5th time I've seen a full length parody primarily based around Paranormal Activity). It's interesting to note the jump in quality; while neither of them are even worthy of being in the same section of the video store as Airplane or even Hot Shots Part Deux, the Scary Movie franchise DID begin with Marlon Wayans, who has long since abandoned it. So David Zucker and Pat Proft along with director Malcolm Lee have effectively beat him at his own game this year - not only spoofing the same movie he did, but doing a better job of it - and in the series he started! It's more interesting than anything on screen, at any rate.

Actually I take that back - I was pretty fascinated by the fact that Mama was parodied just as much as Paranormal Activity, given that it just came out less than three months ago and the jokes aren't just copied from whatever they might have learned from the trailer. No, some of them are actually really specific to the movie, like Tisdale (standing in for Jessica Chastain) playing her bass, or the fact that one of them needed glasses. Hell the entire finale is a shot for shot copy of the cliff sequence (and I had to chuckle, as this cheapo Halloween store witch looks scarier than that movie's abhorrent digital thing), so if you haven't seen Mama yet some of the gags might not land as well, which is unusual for a parody as they tend to stick with what people know from the trailers (i.e. when spoofing Ghost, you do the pottery wheel, not, I dunno, Sam kicking the sculpture to get it through the window). Likewise, there's a lengthy bit involving sentient pool cleaners that probably only works if you've seen Paranormal Activity 2.

As with Scary Movie 4 (I can't recall a damn thing about 3 anymore), it's not just horror that gets mocked, though it's not as bad as that one's parodies of Brokeback Mountain and Fahrenheit 9/11. The excursions are at least in the sci-fi/fantasy genre (Inception, Rise of the Planet of the Apes), and they stick to Paranormal, Mama, and Black Swan for the most part. There's also a lengthy Evil Dead gag, which has to be a first for a parody - you can go next door and see the WEEK-OLD movie they're spoofing! Curiously, that and (again) the Mama gags are fleshed out and seem to prove that the screenwriters actually saw those films, whereas the Sinister and Insidious spoofs - films that are months/years old - are quick and wholly extraneous, as if they were thrown in at the last minute to keep the film fresh. Even for this woefully flimsy narrative, the Sinister one in particular just doesn't make a lick of sense, and comes/goes out of nowhere, like it was something they shot just for the trailer and accidentally edited it into the film. Why are the newer films more fleshed out than the ones that have been around for a while?

But hey, I can't just list the things that made me laugh like last time, so that's a good thing. I particularly loved the extended sight gag where Darren Aronofsky's penchant of filming someone walking down a street with lots of jerky camera movements is spoofed to a ridiculous degree - it will probably go completely over the heads of the target audience, but I appreciated the effort, same as I did for adding "Gort" back into the obligatory "Klaatu barada nikto" for the Evil Dead parody. And even if the joke was swiped from Spice World (!) the bit where a toy car is shown driving to a locale when they couldn't afford to show it for real was pretty cute. I also found myself laughing more often than not at the fake Morgan Freeman voice that narrated the movie (he even made a fart joke land, that's impressive), and while Tisdale is certainly no Anna Faris, she at least puts the effort in and can make some of the gags work, which is more than I expected from a High School Musical alumni. I couldn't help but wonder if she was supposed to be Cindy, however - especially when she finds herself saddled with a sassy black friend not unlike (read: exactly like) the Brenda character played by Regina Hall in the previous entries.

On that note, they seem to be going out of their way to toss out any existing "continuity" from the older entries - while I understood Charlie Sheen was playing himself and not his character from the others, I was baffled that Rex ALSO seemed to be playing a different guy - yet he's still the brother to Sheen's character, rendering it needlessly confusing for anyone who would give a shit (hopefully not many). But why cast Rex, who can't land a single joke in the movie, if he's not even playing the same guy? Literally any other actor in the world would have made more sense, including Sheen again since it's a Mama spoof (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau played both brothers in that one). With Haunted House so recently spoofing the same thing (it's amazing how many jokes are the same - including a noise from a closet that turns out to be someone in a very tiny bathroom), I can't see anyone but die hard Scary Movie fans (I'm sure some exist; the average gross for a Scary Movie is more than most of the stuff its parodying) turning out for this thing, and even they are likely to be scared away by Dimension's awesome new tactic of hiding the movie from the now-traditional Thursday late shows. Advanced press screenings were out of the question, but when they won't even let the possibility of real critic reviews (meaning: not guys like me) show up until Friday afternoon, they're obviously embarrassed and/or worried. Sadly, it seems they didn't have to be - it's just as "eh, fine" as the others, despite the lack of Faris (who can make anything watchable), which alone is something of a victory.

And if you DO see it, make sure its at a matinee to get your money's worth. The end credits run for a whopping 14+ of its 85 minutes - meaning just under 20% of the movie is not the actual movie, though each full-screen credit is interrupted by a (usually unfunny) blooper, some of which center around gags that were cut, softening the blow some. If you make it all the way to the end you can see an extra scene that (spoiler, but seriously?) reveals the entire movie was a dream Sheen had, which I like to think is their way of leaving the potential for Faris and the others to come back and just writing this one out entirely. As if it would matter.

What say you?

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MARCH 22, 2013

GENRE: COMEDIC, MAD SCIENTIST
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX INSTANT)

If you notice, "Zombie" is not one of the genre taggings for Zombie High, and yet that's not even the only thing wrong with the two word title. It's also set on a college campus, so they're even more off than they were with "Zombie". I mean, I guess it could be an advanced prep school, but with the average age of the actors being around 24, I'd rather accuse the title of being wrong since they already proved they weren't very good at their job. Hell at one point when everything is being explained and thus they have a perfect opportunity to say "Zombie", Virginia Madsen's character refers to their antagonists as "Vampires". I guess "Vampire Prep School" just didn't have the same ring to it.

If it had just a little more actual horror in it, it'd probably be a pretty decent little 80s movie, especially when you consider that it's a glorified student film. The producer/writer was a guy named Aziz Ghazal who ran USC's camera department and was by all accounts a pain in the ass who ran the place like a drill sergeant, and would have students work on his films for course credit (though the director was 47 years old and never made anything of note before or since, and passed away in 1999). Ghazal would go on to kill his wife and daughter, and then himself, after bungling his attempts to get the book "The Brave" turned into a movie (something Johnny Depp eventually did), a story you can read about here - it's far more terrifying and upsetting than anything in this movie, I assure you.

But I'm pretty sure this was supposed to be a comedy. If not for the fact that Ghazal produced and was involved throughout (the IMDb has a post from the guy who wrote the ridiculous Beastie Boys ripoff song that accompanies the end credits, claiming the lyrics of the song are actually a "fuck you" to Ghazal), I'd suspect it was one of those deals where a comedy was written and the director shot it straight, or vice versa. It SEEMS like a parody of Stepford Wives (with more than a touch of Strange Behavior), and one could see it as a satire of how college fraternities tend to strip members of their individuality, but it's never actually funny or even that amusing. Only the overly 80s feel of it (neon clocks! awful hair! Pin Pressions!) provides the laughter, and that wouldn't have been the case in 1987 when the film was released.

So let's just chalk it up to no one really knowing what they were doing, hence the not-shockingly thin resumes of the bulk of the primary crew members (only co-writer Tim Doyle and a couple of the producers seem to have done all right for themselves). However the cast has kept busy - obviously star Virginia Madsen has gone on to bigger and better things (and also Firewall), but her roommate is none other than a young Sherilyn Fenn, and even odder - the casting person was Fenn's Twin Peaks co-star Eric "Leo" DaRe. But the real shocker is the guy playing Madsen's annoying platonic buddy Emerson - future Freaks & Geeks creator/Bridesmaids director Paul Feig! I thought it was actually a different one when I saw his name in the credits, but sure enough it's him, playing a guy that reminded me a lot of Spitz from Halloween 5. He's just as clueless as Madsen when it comes to noticing that something is not right at their school, but it's not until he too disappears and becomes one of the brainwashed students that she springs into action and something actually HAPPENS in the movie, so thank you for your sacrifice, Mr. Feig.

Another problem is that it takes too long to really bring in the villains of the movie, a sort of Mason-like group of old dudes who are the ones benefiting from the students' brainwashing. If I'm understanding correctly, they remove part of the brain and replace it with a crystal that puts them in their drone-like state, with the excised part of the brain being used to helping them stave off the aging process. The main guy (who sounds like Christopher Lloyd when he's agitated) appears quite a bit, but the others are just anonymous schmoes we only really see in the 3rd act, where the "zombies" aren't posing much of a threat. More often than not, when we see them they're just acting like robots; there's a funny bit where they all dance in slow unison at a school dance, and a long tracking shot of them mindlessly pulling books off the shelf at the library - our villains! So it's a clunkily paced plot with a near total lack of tension - the only thing that really provides any excitement is the arc of a teacher who is part of the group (he looks 30 but he's 102) and is starting to regret it. Will he help Madsen? (Yes) Will he pay for his crimes? (Also yes).

It also seemed like Ghazal watched Re-Animator; the main old guy is similar to Dr. Hill, and the locations are pretty much the same - nondescript college basements and off-campus housing. And both films are called zombie movies but are really about mad scientists trying to beat death in some way or other, with disastrous consequences. But I doubt there will be a Zombie High stage musical anytime soon. We DO have Disturbing Behavior, which also had this sort of idea (though closer to Strange Behavior) and did it better AND gave us "Flagpole Sitta".

What say you?

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