MARCH 18, 2013

GENRE: FRENCH, WEIRD
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX INSTANT)

The funny thing about The Iron Rose (French: La rose de fer) is that it's sort of like the horror movie version of one of those Before Sunrise/After Sunset/etc movies with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy - the movie has no real PLOT, it's just two folks wandering around, talking about their lives, and maybe exploring their future together. But it's in a cemetery, and while I haven't seen the newest installment of the series, I'm pretty sure Delpy never traps Hawke in a coffin and lets him suffocate, though I guess it's possible a random clown will come out of nowhere and put flowers down at some point. Richard Linklater's pretty unpredictable like that.

But actually they don't talk too much at length; they will walk in silence (save for incidental dialogue - "Come on" and such) for a while and then one of them will offer some sort of poetic observation, like noting the existence of a plant that takes 50 years to bloom and then dies. It's all very dreamlike and atmospheric (and romantic in a very odd way), but it's hardly a chatty movie, nor is there much of a plot beyond what I've already described. It's actually based on a poem, and Jean Rollin seemingly didn't add much to it in order to make a feature - the visuals and basic concept are pretty much all he's concerned with here, making it the most arty of his films that I've seen since the first (Rape of the Vampire).

Apparently, this was his first film without vampires in it, so kudos to him for going so far in another direction. There's no "monster" or even real supernatural element to the film; they get trapped in the cemetery but it's not specifically anything otherworldly keeping them there - maybe they just have a terrible sense of direction. But it definitely fits the horror bill; in addition to the generally spooky atmosphere (it's a pretty striking cemetery - they even talk about how overly exquisite the tombstones are, with one of them describing it as a waste of money) there are some scary bits scattered throughout, like stumbling across a bunch of tiny coffins filled with scattered bones, or falling into a grave. Rollin is clearly more interested in romance and ruminating on the life/death cycle than scares, but I could see a remake of this movie being made that also lacked a traditional villain and just had two people trapped in a cemetery and dealing with all of the inherently terrifying things that could happen in that situation.

He's also not very interested in traditional pacing or anything like that, as the movie's final 10 minutes mostly consist of The Girl (Françoise Pascal - the characters are not given names) dancing around the cemetery. It's not a very long movie, but it starts to drag a bit here, as the suspense regarding their "escape" from the cemetery is completely deflated, with The Boy not even in the picture at this point and her just having a grand old time. So like a few of his others, going in expecting a horror movie is a bit of a disservice; it's closer to a tragic romance than horror, really - it just USES horror staples (crypts! weird people watching you! clowns!) to tell that story (for lack of a better word).

I've liked others more, but of the ones I've seen this is the Rollin I'd most like to see on a 35mm print on a big screen, as opposed to a streaming version on my computer monitor (something's wrong with my Xbox adapter I think - I can never get full quality on there anymore). Again, the cemetery is just wonderful to look at, and the life a good 35mm print provides for a film SHOT on film (that a digital version never will be able to replicate, sorry, film haters - it's true. The best DCP in the world is still a simulated copy of the analog original - it's "Gus Van Sant Psycho"ing the film, in other words) would enrich that atmosphere and Rollin's usual striking visuals. Not to mention engulf you in the world he's created, something that's harder to do when you're watching a computer screen - your field of vision just includes too many other elements. It's fine for a story/plot driven film where the visuals are secondary, but for something like this, I'd recommend making the best effort to see it sans any possible distractions.

OK, what next? Horror-wise, apart from Lips Of Blood (which appears to be edited, though this one had a shorter runtime than reported on IMDb, too but I couldn't find anything about an edited version) all that's left on Instant are _________ Vampire movies: Requiem for, Shiver of, The Nude, and Two Orphan. Should I just go in order?

What say you?

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The 80 horror magic
The horror genre is as old as cinema itself horror movies have evolved over the years in your face Scary Monsters 1920 more cerebral fare in the 1960s, which saw some excellent films like The Exorcist and Psycho in the 70s. This was the time when ordinary horrors of its class B status shifted great.
The 80
The horror genre in 1980 and 1990 with classics like Nightmare on Elm Street, reached Friday the 13th and The Evil Dead. Computer saw the 80s generated special effects seep into horror movies. The trend probably started with Dawn of the Dead Alien in 1978 or a year later. But thanks to the foam liquid latex and animatronics, the filmmakers were able to stretch human figures strange shapes and distorted. The 1980s can be seen as a golden age for the horror movie, with several films cult status. Movies have such an effect on the public, that to this day, you are at least a Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers in Halloween to find a political party! Although the film was released in 1978 Halloween performed Michael epidemic in the 80's until today. Horror films of the 1980s introduced the bloodthirsty horror in a different light. With newer technology that had seeped into the film industry all monsters lurking in the shadows of the 1950s and 1960s highlighted in the light.

And now
In the mid-80s, horror movies, most are hokey and obvious. We went to a horror movie to root for the bad guy. Freddy, Jason and Michael had our heroes bazaar in a way. Fast forward to today. Horror movies today, or better yet, the last 10 or 15 years, are uncanny. Creepy girl walking in The Ring (2002) and the non-ghost scene in the Paranormal Activity series. We found the services, in fact, everything is said and done, we do not want them to think that we will get into bed at night. Although I did not particularly find the movie Paranormal Activity so great, I must admit, she held me glued to my seat until the early endings climate. Horror movies back what they lost in the 80s, the fear factor. Movies do not need large diameters

 

MARCH 17, 2013

GENRE: SLASHER, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REVIVAL SCREENING)
LAST SEEN: 2003 (DVD)

As I mentioned in my post about the screening itself, Final Destination 2 is the only one of the series I didn't get to see theatrically (because I was broke at the time), but I like how it progressed from my POV - I saw the first at a normal Friday night screening, the 3rd one at the premiere via a website giveaway (meaning: you get to attend the premiere but you have shit seats), and then parts 4 and 5 at press screenings. So now for 2 I got to host it myself, something that obviously wouldn't have been a possibility in 2003 when it was released. Go me!

There was a Q&A with the writers that I meant to rewatch the movie to prepare for, but never had the time, so I was nervous that it wasn't as good as I remembered. But it only took a few minutes to know I didn't have to worry - that opening car accident, if anything, is even better now than it was in 2003. With a ton of real stunts and a camera that's not jerking around and zoomed in like every fucking action scene we see today, it was just pure bliss to watch unfold, even as I sighed about how much the art of a good action sequence has degraded just over a mere 10 years. David Ellis establishes where the cars are in relation to each other, the cause and effect of each bit of damage that occurs once the first log drops, and blends CGI with the real stuff seamlessly - it's just a terrific sequence that would make the movie worth viewing even if the rest of it was total garbage.

Luckily, it wasn't. It's a BIT slower than I remembered, but that's because the sequels (well, parts 3 and 4 anyway) have ignored any attempts at mythology like this one does, and merely raced from death to death scene. This one actually had a big subplot I forgot all about, that each of the characters in this film had their lives changed because of the events of the original - one was on the bus that hit the Amanda Detmer character, hero cop (Michael Landes) was called to investigate the train accident that killed Stifler's character, etc. I'm not sure if it's a totally successful idea - I love the idea that there were repercussions to Death's plans that stretched beyond the 6-7 people that got off the plane, but that they all ended up on a freeway on-ramp at the same time a year later is stretching things even for a horror movie - if Death could engineer that, why couldn't he just kill them earlier? If the idea was introduced early on and had the people brought together later somehow, it might have worked better for me.

Otherwise, top notch fun, and perfect midnight movie viewing as you're never more than 10-15 minutes from another ridiculous, applause-worthy kill scene. I was quickly reminded of how much the PG-13 rating hindered Shark Night, as the late David Ellis seriously knew how to deliver gore in a satisfying way (writer Eric Bress told a story about how he wanted the car engine that hit Krista Allen in FD4 to still be running so that it would churn up her insides and make it more splattery!), and did a better job with the digital FX than many of his peers. Especially now that it would prove to be his final film, it's a shame that it was neutered - hopefully some R-rated elements remain and will surface someday.

Another thing I dug about this that was a bit lacking from the following sequels is a wider variety of characters. In all of the other films it's all teens/college kids with maybe one adult, but here there's a young kid, his middle aged mom, some 20 somethings, a 30ish cop, and Terence "TC" Carson, who was about 44 when they filmed it so let's assume he was supposed to be late 30s. Not only does it make it a bit more realistic, but it allows the script to mix up the possibilities, such as the amazing dentist scene. Usually going to the dentist is a solo activity, unless you happen to be a 15 year old (written younger, and it seems they never really changed the script much to accommodate an older actor) which means your mom comes along and thus Ellis can draw suspense from two locations - the kid on the dentist's chair and the mom in the waiting room. There are actually a couple of fun "who is actually the target" scenes here, which again elevates this above say, part 3, where Mary Winstead and the guy were just sort of driving from kill to kill, warning the person and failing to save them - it actually works as a suspenseful thriller! The gratuitous deaths are just the release.

Oh, and AJ Cook, sporting brown hair. I'm a brunette man, and she's usually blond, so this was wonderful. Also, post Battlestar Galactica it was fun to see Keegan Connor Tracy ("Jeanne", one of Gaius' followers from that silly religious cult subplot) and Aaron Douglas who played Chief Tyrol, one of my favorite characters. Otherwise I was kind of surprised at the lack of now-familiar faces; the only other one I recognized from later projects was Justina Machado, who I had just seen 12 hrs before in The Call (she played the killer's wife). Usually these sort of movies are treasure troves of future faces! Conversely, the soundtrack was thankfully free of dated music; there was an Incubus song in there somewhere but otherwise it was classics like "Highway to Hell" and "Rocky Mountain High" (plus the late Shirley Walker's usual top notch score).

It's a shame that the later sequels dropped any real attempts at a mythology; even though Cook and Landes survive, they're never mentioned again if memory serves, let alone brought back as Ali Larter was here. Someone will find evidence of "this happening before" in a newspaper or online article, but that's about it - there's no real connection anymore unless you count that one thing in the 5th film (which I won't spoil because I'm still convinced 99% of fans haven't seen it), and since that one didn't perform up to par at the box office we can assume that if a 6th film ever comes along it will be a more or less clean slate, save for perhaps Tony Todd. Speaking of Todd - the screenwriters assured me that the producers don't ever want him explained, so that's a relief. As I write this I just learned that there will be an Escape From New York reboot that includes an origin story for Snake, which to me sounds like the absolute worst idea of all time, so it's good to know that not every fan favorite character needs to have his mystique completely ruined by creativity-starved producers.

All in all, a top notch screening. The print was beautiful and it was great to be back in the New Bev after a long absence (they've been showing Django Unchained almost exclusively for nearly 3 months; this was my first screening there since October!), though the crowd was noticeably smaller than average - hopefully it's just because folks were out drinking for St. Patrick's Day a day early or sleeping in for the marathon - I figured this would have been a bigger draw since it's considered the best in the series by many and also a fitting midnight movie unlike some of my others (Monkey Shines, Faculty). We're working on something very awesome for next month though; if it works out I want that place PACKED! But to those who did come - much appreciated, and if you won a prize I hope you enjoyed it!

What say you?

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MARCH 17, 2013

GENRE: ITALIAN, MONSTER
SOURCE: DVD (PUBLIC SCREENING)

It's truly a shame that horror film productions in Italy are all but dead, because there truly is nothing like them and I doubt there ever will be again. I don't know if it was something in the drinking water or what, but the 80s produced so many Italian horror films that are so charmingly incoherent and shoddy, but innocently so - they're bad, but not ironic Asylum-level bad. Dan Harmon said it best on his podcast last week, when discussing the difference between a bad movie from the 80s and an intentionally bad movie like Sharkotopus or whatever: "Fuck you - try hard, so I can laugh at you." So I can only imagine he'd have fun with Rat Man (Italian: Quella villa in fondo al parco), a movie where I doubt anyone was actually TRYING to be so batshit and nonsensical.

If I'm understanding the hasty backstory correctly, the murderous title character was a scientific experiment gone awry who has gotten loose and wants revenge on his captors and, seemingly, every blond woman in the vicinity. Our heroes are a pair of Fulci vets: The Beyond's David Warbeck and Gates of Hell's Janet Agren, the latter of whom is summoned to the country to identify her sister, who is believed to be the Rat Man's first victim (as for what Warbeck was supposed to be doing there, your guess is as good as mine - he meets Agren when hitting on her outside the airport and never leaves her side for the rest of the film). Turns out the girl is NOT her sister, because the cops didn't bother to check her fingerprints, so the two of them spend the movie driving around looking for her.

The other half involves said sister, a model who keeps stumbling upon Rat Man's victims during photo shoots. I kept waiting for the two plots to connect, but they never really do - just when I started wondering if the Warbeck/Argen characters were added later, they FINALLY arrive at the house where the sister is, but she's already dead. And then they never really encounter the damned Rat Man! He hovers above Agren for a shot or two, then hides - Warbeck doesn't even get to share a shot with him. So you can pretty much remove the guy from the movie and it wouldn't matter in the slightest, except it would be far less hilarious - I never stopped being amused by the fact that he seemingly dropped his entire life to drive this girl around (and they never even really HINT at a romantic relationship after their "meet cute"). He also gets the brunt of the script supervisor's inverted approach to his job - his shirts and eyewear change from shot to shot during some sequences, and none of his clothing changes have any sort of explanation since his character is constantly on the go (I don't even think he has a hotel, though they do relax by a pool at one point). The photo shoot scenes are also holocausts of continuity; I honestly have no idea what is going on during the first big one where she finds a (very old looking) skull inside a rock formation.

It's a shame that the movie doesn't maintain this level of charming ineptness throughout, because it can be kind of boring otherwise. Bizarrely, the director (Giuliano Carnimeo, who gave us the misogynist giallo masterpiece Case of the Bloody Iris) keeps Rat Man in shadows (or inside a travel bag!) for most of the runtime, which is what you do when you have a crummy puppet or animatronic monster. But Rat Man is played by Nelson de la Rosa, the late actor who is best known for playing Brando's... friend? in Island Of Dr. Moreau (he was also Pedro Martinez' good luck charm during the 2004 Red Sox season). If you're unfamiliar with either of those, de la Rosa was only 2 feet 4 inches tall, and he was also a hell of a dancer (i.e. he could move), so I'm not sure why they didn't have him front and center more often. It's not a particularly violent film; the body count is in the single digits and all of the death scenes involve Rat Man quickly emerging from a shadow and lunging at a character, followed by murky, over-edited shots of claws slashing and skin being torn up. One character doesn't even die from her injuries - she has a heart attack from being scared! It's odd that they had a perfect solution to the issues facing any pint-sized terror movie (i.e. on Child's Play, they had to build scaled up sets so that a dwarf actor could play Chucky in more complicated scenes), but didn't take advantage. The actor seems game in the few scenes where he gets to really cut loose, so it baffles me that they took the "less is more" approach. Way to try subtlety for the first time, 80s Italians.

But even if the stalk/kill scenes were better, there would still be a LOT of padding and "shoe leather" in the movie. Cars parking, planes landing... all of these things are shown in their endless entirety, helping get the movie to a mere 82 minute runtime. There's also a lengthy shower scene that makes the intentionally gratuitous one in Slumber Party Massacre look tasteful, two photo shoots, ANOTHER scene where the cops have Argen come to see a body that turns out to not be her sister, Warbeck buying a book which he then throws away 90 seconds later... I'd say only about 7-8 minutes of the movie are actually terror-based, unless you include the endless "chase" at the end where the sister wanders around the house for a while, getting scared (and drinking an uncapped soda from the fridge). It makes the chase in Friday the 13th Part 3 look choppy and rushed.

Still, it made for some terrific crowd viewing, with folks cheering at the nonsense and bellowing WHAT? when appropriate (the eruption for the end freeze-frame was probably the most glorious of its type since the first time I saw Raw Force's conclusion). And thankfully, the asshole sitting two seats away from me who had his phone out most of the time had left, leaving just the folks who want to be there to enjoy it. Seriously, at one point he was just scrolling through his Instagram feed. I despise it, but I can at least understand checking a text or email during a movie if you feel your phone buzz, but if you're just looking at photos of people's food, just fucking leave! You don't want to be there, and no one wants you there. I mean, he DID, but he should have done that long before he opted to distract everyone by scrolling through his timelines. Dingus.

The DVD is available in the US via Apprehensive Films, and the print was shockingly good (and uncut, as far as I know); I was a bit surprised as I never heard of the movie before and I've since learned that it doesn't have the best reputation, so it was endearing to know that even junk gets properly presented. Gives me hope for Cathy's Curse.

What say you?

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I'm curious to know the top ten best scary films of all time. A lot of scary movies made a definite success with viewers. To celebrate the month of Halloween Here are a few of the classical scary films and also a quick description, simply to remember their history.

1. Aliens(1986): directed by James Cameron, this film shows a colony within a distant planet that's having problems with threatening creatures

2. The Blair Witch project(1999): Students get lost in the forest and therefore are victims of invisible lunatic. This movie is shown as it was filmed by college students.

3. Jaws (1975): Every time a huge terrific white shark starts to menace the little island community of Amity, a police chief, a marine scientist and grizzled fisherman fixed out to stop it.

4. Pet Cemetery(1983): Close to their residence, local kids have come up with a cemetery for the dogs and cats murdered by the steady stream of transports on the busy highway.

5. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre(1974):Tobe Hooper movie that spawned the creation of numerous sequels and remakes. It is known for always been censored, also for his amazing achievements.

6. The Exorcist(1973): A possessed girl is struggling with the devils that make him do horrible things. The story in this movie is based upon real events.

7. Psycho(1960):Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Psycho is a scary and also a thriller shot in white and black, and also the very first thriller in motion picture history.