Swamphead (2011) d. Drover, Dustin / Propp, Justin (USA)

From the wild woods of Wisconsin comes this four-years-in-the-making DIY feature that could ostensibly be called a slasher save for the fact that no edged implements are responsible for the bodily damage. Instead, it is the carnivorous, self-ambulating noggin of a murdered Norse warrior (in Cheeseland?) splattering happy campers all over the joint, an outlandish premise that sets the flick’s lowbrow, low-brainer comedy/horror tone for its 75-minute running time.

From a critical standpoint, these kinds of films are almost review-proof. It’s clear from the outset that co-writer/directors Drover and Propp don’t expect their little jaunt to be taken seriously – this is an exercise in homegrown splatter with a neverending barrage of poop-butt-dick jokes (hereafter known as PBDJ) intended to keep the sniggerers sniggering. That said, the ambition on display deserves applause – no doubt this was a challenging shoot, albeit one with a lot of laughter between takes. There are any number of impressive traveling camera shots, stunts and gore effects, so much so that one wishes that the boys hadn’t given over to the lowest common denominator as often as they do.

The humor – which will prove the most divisive viewer element – is juvenile and offensive in the extreme, ranging from unabashed “retard” characters reveling in their own fecal output to repellent white trash hot tub parties to the shirtless sight gag of a character sporting the ripest, fullest man boobs I’ve ever seen onscreen. None of the characters resemble real human beings, and as a result not much resonates beyond the superficial diaper overload or innard-blasting gore shots. Not that there isn’t pleasure to be derived on this level for those so inclined – I found myself often laughing long and hard at the outrageous politically incorrect and scatological buffet spread.

With its loosey-goosey feel of a passion project shot on weekends with family and friends, the challenging cinematography and downright impressive special effects come off as genuinely pleasant surprises. Among a group of like-minded fiends, I imagine this will be a sure-fire crowd-pleaser. But by wallowing in the cheapest of laughs, Drover and Propp may have denied themselves the wider audience their dedication and talent deserves.

Swamphead has been picked up for distribution by Briarwood Entertainment and is scheduled for a mid-summer 2013 release.

JUNE 18, 2013

GENRE: MOCKUMENTARY, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (FESTIVAL SCREENING)

I may be burned out on the "found footage" concept in general, but that's only because so many movies have done it wrong, and thus giving me a slight knee-jerk reaction to any such title that I stumble upon as of late. But IF they're done right, I can be won over, and thankfully Delivery (which premiered tonight at the LA Film Festival) mostly nails the approach, allowing me to forgive some of its missteps. Hell even if they got it totally wrong, the fact that it's not about a team of paranormal investigators automatically makes me like it more than the last 5-6 that I've suffered through.

To be clear, it's not a traditional found footage movie - our heroes Kyle and Rachel are actually starring in a reality show that depicts the ups and downs of their first pregnancy. To sell this idea, after a prologue that tells us that the mother is now dead and that this is something that happened in 2009, we are treated the the pilot episode of "Delivery", and director Brian Netto totally nails the tone/editing/style of a terrible TLC reality show. The constant establishing shots, the fly on the wall "personal moments" that are bookended by talking head interviews, cheesy music... it's all there, and you could easily strip out the occasional interruption of the horror angle and put it on one of those channels without anyone being aware that it was staged (well, more staged than an actual reality show, I mean).

Towards the end of the "pilot", Rachel suffers what seems like a miscarriage; she's bleeding and the doctors are unable to find a heartbeat. Faced with the choice of letting the miscarriage "run its course" or undergoing a procedure to remove it, they opt for the former - only for the fetus to suddenly come back to life the following morning. Everything points to it being a miracle, but then strange things begin to occur - the dog begins growling in Rachel's presence, and the cameras that are capturing their every move suddenly experience glitches whenever she is in their view. These audio/video glitches get mighty annoying as the film goes on and they occur more frequently - toward the end of her pregnancy I swear we hear the ZZZT! of a distorted audio track between every cut. Netta would have been wise to restrain himself with these things - at first they're actually good for a cheap scare, but they just get obnoxious and mildly headache inducing as the movie goes on, which is a big problem.

See, after the "pilot" ends, there's a lot of filler as we get to the night of the baby's birth (the obvious conclusion), and the attempts to mix things up a bit (like when a priest is brought in to bless the house) will mostly just remind viewers of Paranormal Activity. As it is, the couple is very similar to Katie and Micah, so anything else that might trigger some deja vu is unfortunate, and thus adding in a recurring irritant hurts the movie some - you might start wanting the movie to just get on with it. Some might also balk (spoiler!) that the supernatural element is never really explained - I personally didn't mind (better no explanation that a potentially stupid one that the movie can't recover from), but it's strange that they almost seem to be trying to suggest Rachel is just experiencing something psychological the whole time, but with the glitches and a few other "demonic" moments there's no question that it's something actually wrong with her pregnancy.

Otherwise, it works pretty damn well, and I'm super relieved that I didn't bring my wife along. I'm more excited about having kids than she is as it is (can you blame her? Look at me. She'll have to carry around another one that'll look like me for the better part of a year), and this probably would have scared her right off for good. The miscarriage stuff (which is gut-wrenching; it's the rare reality/mockumentary horror where I actually cared about the characters) is brutal by itself, but then you add in the "oh and your baby might be a demon or something and it'll make you break mirrors and stab the family dog and such" element? The movie should have a warning label for pregnant women - the physical harm of a roller coaster wouldn't match the psychological harm of seeing this stuff play out when you got your own bun in the oven. Even a movie like Rosemary's Baby (a superior film, don't get me wrong) doesn't get into the nitty-gritty of a pregnancy (Mia had too many other things to worry about, really) like this does, and playing on those fears and worries helps the movie clear the hurdle of all horror movies of this type: the "nothing is happening" factor. Kyle gets increasingly frustrated with the camera crew and they start to bicker a lot, but apart from the occasional freak out moment, we know that the movie will be action-lite until the very end. So toss in some real world problems (and avoid too many Rosemary flashbacks by glossing over whatever devilish element might be in play) and viola! The rare found footage horror that rarely bores.

Being that this was the movie's premiere at a festival, I doubt anyone will be able to see it for a while (though if you're in LA - it's playing again on Friday!), but since I've slowed down maybe this review will still be on the front page by the time we hear about distribution. But if not I'll remind you when it does - it's not a perfect film, but it's a step in the right direction for the found footage sub-genre, and I want to champion the films that apply that aesthetic to something besides Paranormal Activity sequels or a bunch of assholes poking around an abandoned building.

What say you?

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JUNE 18, 2013

GENRE: WEREWOLF
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

Power of 35mm! I was mixed on The Howling the first (and until now, only) time I saw it in the early days of HMAD, but watching again on a beat up film print with a (surprisingly large) crowd of people at the HMAD screening last weekend, I recognized its power. I still think the 2nd act has some pacing issues (in fact the movie as a whole could benefit from tighter editing), but once Belinda Balaski's character really gets into her investigation, it works like gangbusters all the way until the glorious finale. And yes, this was a screening I myself was hosting, so you might ask why I'd host a movie I wasn't the biggest fan of, but in a way it's a perfect choice: doing HMAD as a whole was a way to reevaluate how I felt about the genre, so if I can't spread the gospel of Alone In The Dark or Of Unknown Origin (prints don't exist for either), why not pick movies that I myself could look at with a fresh(er) pair of eyes?

I also realized what may have been part of the trouble my first time around - it's not as funny as other Dante's other films. Gremlins (and its sequel), Innerspace, The Burbs... these are all pretty damn funny films, yet work in their respective other genres as well. But The Howling doesn't have as much comedy as those (or even its friendly rival, American Werewolf in London); there are a few funny lines here and there, plus some great in-jokes (the Corman cameo still cracks me up), but it's not a "horror comedy" by any stretch. So now that I know better, not only can I enjoy the horror (and drama) more, but those rare comedic bits land perfectly. Hell I didn't even REMEMBER the "Mazda" joke from my first viewing, and that's one of the funniest things to ever appear in one of Dante's pictures.

But as I mentioned, the editing can work against the movie at times; it's just over 90 minutes but 85 or so probably would have been the sweet spot. Even the transformation, as glorious as Rob Bottin's work is (and holds up under the microscope of a high-def transfer), could be trimmed some - it actually starts to lose some of its effect by going on so long (why doesn't she just leave?). It's almost hilarious; I'm sure part of the thinking was "This looks great, show everything we got!" and nowadays part of the reason you get these super quick-cut edits during FX scenes it's because they don't want anyone getting too good of a look at the sub-par CGI. No surprise that Jurassic Park remains the benchmark for monster movies of this generation - produced at a time when CGI was primitive enough that it couldn't be relied on entirely, but exciting enough for everyone to bust their ass and make it look amazing alongside its practical brethren. A shame to think that we'll probably never again be sitting there wondering "how did they DO that?", but its a testament to Bottin's genius that 30+ years later I'm still not sure how he was able to pull some of those FX off.

Thus it's a shame he doesn't appear on any of the new bonus features on Scream Factory's otherwise perfect special edition, only in the older ones you may have already seen. As is (I believe) always the case, they have ported over all the bonus features from the previous special edition, and they're all worth a look if you missed them on laserdisc or the 2003 DVD special edition from MGM. The commentary with Dante and three of the actors can be obnoxiously choppy (clear edits when other companies are discussed; MGM must not have had any balls back in the day), and Dee Wallace's constant cackling like a drunk aunt can be grating, but it's a fun track all the same. Dante's motormouth offers anecdotes and jokes in equal measure (has he ever had a lengthy talk with Martin Scorsese? That would be more entertaining than all of their movies put together, I think), and since the track was recorded for the laserdisc quite some time ago (I peg it around 1989 based on a few of their movie references, but it HAS to be before 1995, as that's when Christopher Stone sadly passed away), the memories are still fresh. The lengthy retrospective documentary "Unleashing The Beast" from 2003 is also highly recommended; nearly everyone of note that's still alive is on hand to discuss the cast, the makeup, the script, and the film's legacy - Dante's rundown of the various sequels alone is almost worth the price of admission ("That one had were-kangaroos, or something..."), and thankfully Shout! has edited all of the segments (originally broken up into 5 parts with a "Play All" function) into one piece, sparing us multiple views of its end credits sequence.

Then there's a shorter piece called "Making A Monster Movie" (directed by Mick Garris!) that was made back when the film was released, which is fun but not essential. All of the interviews are promotional, not reflective, and it's got that cheesy "news special" feel to it - plus some of the info (and footage) was used in the full doc, though Dante's haircut alone makes it worth a look (also, check out Bottin - anyone else think his look inspired Kurt Russell's in The Thing?). A collection of deleted scenes is also carried over, with optional Dante commentary on why they were cut (distributor wanted it shorter, pacing, etc - though he can't remember why he cut one scene that explains Stone's absence for a while). Plus some outtakes and other promotional material - this stuff is for the completists only, and while I personally have no use for anything beyond a trailer (which spoils the film's ending!), again, I love that Shout/Scream makes sure every little bit is carried over, making it easy to ditch your old copy to reclaim some shelf space. Anchor Bay almost never bothers to do this, which is why I have multiple copies of all their Halloween titles - they refuse to do "ultimate" editions that render the others worthless. They even brought back the awesome Easter Egg featuring Dick Miller! THAT'S fan service.

As for new stuff, Scream has recruited Red Shirt to provide their usual interviews with a few of the folks that weren't featured on the previous doc, making it well rounded without too much repeated info. Editor Mark Goldblatt and executive producer Steven A. Lane both offer their thoughts on the film, though in the latter's case he also gives some info on each of the sequels (he was around for all of them except New Moon Rising, which coincidentally is the only one I didn't catch during the "real" era of HMAD), which is pretty fun. He is basically OK with all of them except part 4; obviously I (and no other sane person, I assume) would agree with him but if you DO like one of those other entries you at least don't have to have your heart broken hearing the producer slam it. Goldblatt's interview is a bit overlong (irony!) but he's fun to listen to and pretty candid at times, so it's all good. They also tracked down Terence H. Winkless (the other screenwriter; John Sayles appears in the older doc) to get his thoughts on how he got involved and how they changed the original novel by Gary Brandner ("We threw out everything but the title!"). Brandner himself offers a new solo commentary, moderated by Mike Felsher, though those looking for much talk about The Howling (movie OR his novel) might be disappointed; they only directly refer to the screen ONCE in the entire thing, and only occasionally talk about the changes from the novel to the film. Instead, Felsher takes Brandner pretty much through his entire career, so if you're a fan of the author's work you'll find much to enjoy, but if you don't really care about his process behind the novel The Brain Eaters, you can probably skip it.

The transfer, unsurprisingly, is terrific, and I am happy to report that the audio problem that plagued a few earlier Scream releases (where the dialogue was hard to hear on the new 5.1 mixes) has been corrected - it sounded great, as did the 2.0 HD mix. As usual, they don't list their new features on the back for whatever reason, so I hope other reviewers follow my lead in stressing which are new, as if you're just looking at the back of the package you'd probably think it was just a straight port of the ten year old special edition. I'm sure they have their reasons since they do it almost every single time, but with more and more people opting for streaming versions, it baffles me that they wouldn't tout the things that can make these editions attractive not only to new buyers, but to those that already own a previous version. That said, this one does NOT have the additional DVD copy like many of their others; you can buy the DVD or the Blu, but there's no package with both.

So, in short - I'm glad I gave it a second chance. Even with quitting the daily version of HMAD, I still find myself with very limited free time, so I certainly have to be selective for which movies I revisit in the hopes of liking more than I did on my first viewing. The Howling, it seems, made for a fine choice.

What say you?

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JUNE 10, 2013

GENRE: ANIMATED, MAD SCIENTIST, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

If I was a guy who called the shots on anything, I'd have a weekly animated series based on The Amazing Adventures of the Living Corpse on the air ASAP. The concept is fun, I loved the animation style, and lord knows there needs to be more animated genre fare... but the movie ultimately disappoints, because it seems Justin Paul Ritter (whose name appears in the credits more times than I can count, so let's just sum up and say he's behind it all) tried to cram far too much material from the source comic into his 88 minute feature. With room to breathe and time to flesh out the world created by Ken Haeser and Buz Hasson in their comic, this could be kind of awesome.

Instead, it's just something I'd throw on in the background for a Halloween party; it's frenetic and colorful enough to draw the eye, but never engaging enough to actually distract someone away from conversation (though if they were talking to me, I'd probably just be talking about underwhelming horror movies I saw, natch). The jumps in the narrative are incredibly jarring - at one point (the end of the second act, basically) they just skip ahead 15 years as if it was only an hour or so, and even individual sequences suffer from the same "and now we're over here!" issue. Our hero zombie and villain are seemingly trapped in a lab, but suddenly they're in what appears to be a church. A seemingly important character named Asteroth disappears for the last 20 minutes or so, and even the end is obnoxiously abrupt, as if they were supposed to put in an epilogue but forgot. Having not read the comic, I can only assume that they were trying to adapt an arc that lasted several issues and highlighted their favorite parts?

Another way to look at it would be the cut-scenes from a video game strung together without the gameplay (and "codex" style entries) that would actually give it some context and structure. It's hard not to think about games - some of Ritter's angles seem to be specifically recalling the over the shoulder approach of your Mass Effects and Dead Spaces, while more than once there's a long zoom into a character's back that reminded me of any big open world type game where the first big cutscene transitions to gameplay. The music frequently has that repetitive "boss battle" looping feel to it, and even some of the plot and art style was reminiscent of the Splatterhouse reboot from a few years back. I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad approach - I certainly love games and, as with the animated format, feel that there aren't enough of them that appeal to horror fans - but with the disjointed approach to the narrative, it doesn't work as well as it could.

Which is a shame, because again, the animation style is kind of awesome. No one will mistake the CGI for Pixar or whatever, but the character designs strike a great blend between being appropriately horrific and also "heroic" (it's the sort of thing where most of the good guys are monster and the bad guys are human), and even in the human world there's an appropriately colorful but dark look to everything that I quite liked - sort of Paranorman meets the art of Clayton Crain, I guess. The backgrounds can be sparse, but that's fine - this was an independently made production and quite an impressive one for the most part, so things like that are not unexpected. I was a little more disappointed with the vocal work; not sure if the mix wasn't great or what, but it felt very disconnected, and I had trouble distinguishing voices when I couldn't actually see who was talking.

And it got me interested in reading the comic, so on that level it's a success. The story involves a man who becomes a zombie and turns good when recognizing his son as a would-be victim (his wife and daughter - too late!), and how he lives with the curse (still needs to eat folks to live!) while hoping to protect his son from bullies and mad scientists alike. Not quite sure what the mad scientist villain was up to since it involves a bunch of gobbledygook, but I DO know that in the 3rd act he has an exposed brain in a glass bowl like Bill Moseley in Silent Night, Deadly Night 3, so there's something. Again, the story jumps around a lot, so I had trouble following it on more than one occasion, but assuming the comics make sense, it seems like a fun "good vs. evil" yarn where the sides are swapped - I mean, the movie's most endearing character is a little troll demon named Worthless Merk. I'd totally read an issue about him.

The Blu doesn't have a single goddamn bonus feature, which surprised me - they had a premiere at Comic Con, it's an indie production, and it's based on a comic book - surely there is a wealth of "built-in" supplements, and they don't even give us a trailer? What gives, Anchor Bay? They could at least show us some art from the comic and how it compares with the 3D animated version, or some animatics or whatever. So that plus the underwhelming narrative makes this a tough sell, but they have the elements - let's see about doing a web series or something! I'd even toss in a couple bucks on Kickstarter.

What say you?

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Hound of the Baskervilles, The (1959) d. Fisher, Terence (UK)

Riding the success of their remakes of Frankenstein and Dracula, Hammer Studios seized upon another opportunity to breathe Technicolor life into a cinematic/literary icon: Sherlock Holmes. Peter Cushing dons the deerstalker with the same intelligent, dedicated authority of his Baron and Van Helsing characters, with Andre Morell’s Watson a decidedly less buffoonish take than Nigel Bruce’s incarnation in the 1930s-40s Basil Rathbone series.

Christopher Lee is perfectly cast as the arrogant yet vulnerable Henry Baskerville and is ably supported by Francis De Wolff, Ewen Solon and Marla Landi as the fiery Cecile.

Of particular note is Miles Malleson’s comic work as the bumbling, sherry-sipping Bishop – the interplay between he and “Props Peter” during the telescope scene is a beaut.

While not 100% faithful to Conan Doyle’s source material, the superlative mystery/adventure yarn was well received by critics and audiences alike – one can only wonder why Hammer did not pursue further Holmes installments.