WARNING! Avoid "Spirits of the Fall" Like it Was a Rabid Porcupine Telemarketer

Writing a negative review of a zero budget horror flick is kind of like punching a little kid. Sure it's easy and fun, but eventually your arm gets tired. Back when I was writing Killer B's on DVD over at Cinematical.com, I reviewed some fun low budget flicks as well as some that were flat out excruciating. On a certain level you have to respect these auteurs for completing and distributing a film with next to no cash, so even with the worst of them I would strive to find something positive to say, even if I was panning the film.

I just finished reviewing Spirits of the Fall for The Phantom of the Movies Videoscope magazine, and the movie has stuck with me like a particularly tenacious intestinal parasite. Any sympathy for the small time film maker has evaporated. The film has zero interest in entertaining and consistently fails on every level both creative and technical. I won't review the movie again here, but I'm putting this out there as a warning: this movie does not deserve to exist. Please avoid at all costs.

BLOGS THAT ROCK - Temple of Schlock

I can't believe it took me this long to realize Temple of Schlock has a blog. The Temple was the first film fanzine I remember ever seeing back in the late 80s and I discussed my fond memories of it and zines in general a few years ago. Temple of Schlock was born in Syracuse, NY in July of 1987 and was a cut and paste xeroxed affair, examining the best grindhouse swill of the period.

The blog version carries on that fine tradition with features like "Lost and Not Found" which covers exploitation flicks that have fallen off the map and "This Week on 42nd Street" gives a glimpse at what movies were playing on The Deuce thirty or so years ago. I particularly liked the piece on Twisted Nightmare, a slasher movie from 1988. Chris Pogialli reprints his original review and follows it with several paragraphs on the actual experience of going to see the film at The Harris in New York City. Great stuff.

The Return of Cryptique!

Yes, the lovely Miko Macabre (who I first discussed here) and her acerbic but hilarious take on trashy horror films is back with a new episode of her show Cryptique. She's got a new look, better lighting and improved audio, though I have to say the editing still needs some tightening. Still, the show is a lot of fun and this time Miko skewers the Frank Henenlotter classic Basket Case. You can link directly to the Cryptique sight here, and check out the new episode below.

QUARANTINE: Movie Review

Quarantine has taken a lot of crap, being slammed as an unnecessary remake of the Spanish film [REC], but I think such statements are short-sighted. I would love to have seen [REC] on the big screen, but a subtitled film's chance of getting a wide theatrical release in the States are about as good as a guy in a red shirt making it back to the Enterprise in one piece. No, this doesn't say much for the attention span of the American film-going audience, but [REC] had no chance of getting big theatrical play here. Let's move past it, people.

So that leaves us with Quarantine, a film which does pretty damn well on its own. Jennifer Carpenter of the way cool Showtime series Dexter plays Angela Vidal, a TV news reporter shadowing a group of Los Angeles firefighters on the overnight shift. The entire film is seen through the eye of her camera operated by Scott Percival (Steve Harris). The evening gets off to a slow start so we see Angela sliding down the fire pole, flirting with a firefighter named Jake (Hostel's Jay Hernandez) and lamenting that the whole night might be a washout. Finally a call comes in and the paramedics are called to an apartment building to aid an elderly woman who is infected with something that is contagious via contact with bodily fluids. To borrow a phrase from Shaun of the Dead, the old girl is a bit bitey and her violent and murderous nature quickly spreads among the tenants. Before Angela and the others can flee the building has been surrounded by operatives of the Center for Disease Control, and the space suits they're wearing and their readiness to shoot anyone that tries to leave doesn't bode well for our heroes.

Like 28 Days Later this is a zombie film without zombies. No one is coming back from the dead, but victims of this infection quickly degenerate into slobbering lunatics, not unlike what you see in Walmart on the day after Thanksgiving. After a beginning that is intentionally slow to build suspense, things ramp up with the film balancing action and exposition nicely. As with any of these pseudo documentary films like The Blair Witch Project or Cloverfield the question of why are these people still filming while they're running for their lives is a valid one. Director John Erick Dowdle (who also helmed The Poughkeepsie Tapes) does a respectable job of keeping the gimmick believable. Occasional bits are inserted to provide a reason for the fact that Scott is still shooting, but it isn't overdone as it was in Diary of the Dead, in which George Romero's frequent references to the fact were just distracting. Dowdle might have further aided the illusion by casting unknowns, but recognizable faces are presumably a necessity in getting financing, even if we're not talking about huge stars.

The Spanish version will likely hit DVD around the same time or shortly after Quarantine does, and the publicity surrounding the remake will have a trickle down effect, bringing far more attention to the U.S. DVD release of [REC] than it would have gotten on its own.

BLOGS THAT ROCK - Monster Crazy

Pierre Fournier, the blogger behind Frankensteinia: The Frankenstein Blog which I discussed here is also the guy behind Monster Crazy, a blog that knows when to keep its mouth shut. Text is kept to a minimum, with all manner of classic horror imagery being the focus. Movie posters, stills, old horror mag interiors and covers, and random works of monstrous art. This is one cool ass blog.

DEATH NOTE - DVD REVIEW

I'm a bit of a latecomer to the whole Death Note phenomenon, but in the last few weeks I've read several volumes of the manga, caught a few episodes of the anime TV series and now, for the purposes of this review, I've had a chance to screen the 2006 live action film.

Melding the elements of both horror and detective stories, Death Note is the tale of Light Yagami (Tatsuya Fujiwara) a brilliant law student who has grown disillusioned with the legal system because of a widespread conspiracy concealing just how many criminals are going free. Light finds a notebook that says whoever's name is written in the book will die. On a lark, he jots down the name of a murderer who has escaped justice, and Light watches as the killer dies in exactly the way he described in the notebook. Light is soon visited by Ryuk, a shinigami or death god, a CGI construct that looks like a shaggy goth circus clown. Ryuk explains the notebook was originally his, but is now Light's to do with as he pleases. Whoever possesses the notebook can kill anyone by writing his or her name while picturing his or her face. If no cause of death is written the victim will die of a heart attack.

A human who uses the death note can enter neither heaven nor hell upon his death, but Light looks past that little glitch, planning to use the book to make the world a better place by eliminating violent criminals. As murderers, rapists and snotty convenience store clerks around the world start dropping dead in droves, people start to take notice. The media gives the name "Kira" to whoever is striking down these criminals and Light becomes a hero to many. To the National Police Association, however, Kira is the greatest serial killer of all time and a task force is formed to capture him under the direction the mysterious L (Ken'ichi Matsuyama). At first L only communicates with the task force via digitally scrambled audio, but he is finally revealed to be a young androgynous sugar junkie with a genius level talent for deduction. Light and L are cut from the same cloth, it seems, making for an interesting cat and mouse game.

In a bent sort of way the premise reminds me of Harry Potter. Both stories spring from an adolescent form of wish fulfillment. Harry is a put upon orphan who learns he is in fact something special — not just a wizard, but one of the greatest wizards of all time. Death Note rings of a darker adolescent desire in which the victimized youth starts keeping a list of peers who have done him wrong and deserve to die, representing the seamier fantasies of the post-Columbine generation.

Light is more humanized here, at least at the beginning of the film, which makes it difficult to account for some of his actions. In the comic Light starts out as a remorseless sociopath, so when he ends up using the Death Note to kill innocent people to prevent his own arrest it's not that big a stretch. In this version, the decision to murder innocents seems jarring, making me wonder if posession of the Death Note is supposed to have some side effect on human personalities.

With a few exceptions, the film is quite faithful to the manga. Director Shusuke Kaneko (the man behind the marvelously titled Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack) does a decent job of packing a lot of the comic's elements into just over two hours. The comics are quite detailed, giving every nuance of Light's reasoning and L's deduction process, so streamlining the story for film was a necessity. Unfortunately, just as we're getting into the thick of the L/Light sparring match, the movie comes to a somewhat abrupt and unsatisfying conclusion. The sequel Death Note: The Last Name was released in Japan in 2006 and was presumably shot back to back with the first film, so I imagine that one picks up where this one leaves off. Still, Death Note has an intriguing premise and some interesting characters. Definitely worth a look.

THE STRANGERS - Review

I'm imagining some ill-informed pseudo-intellectual heading on down to the multiplex thinking he's about to see an adaptation of Albert Camus' The Stranger. I'm imagining sitting behind this person and shrieking "I've got your existentialism right here!" right before one character gets his face shotgunned into a substance resembling a hearty chili con carné. Yes, I need to get out more.

No, think Wes Craven rather than Camus. Specifically, The Strangers reminded me of Last House on the Left, with it's brutal victimization of two people, and its pervasive sense of dread and nihilism. The movie definitely earns its R-rating, but this isn't from the gore for gore's sake school of movie making. There are several examples of the classic Hitchcock definition of suspense in which the audience is shown the danger but the characters are not, and despite a few missteps The Strangers proves to be a white knuckle ride worthy of the best that Six Flags has to offer.

James Hoyt (Scott Speedman) and Kristen McKay (Liv Tyler) arrive at James's family's secluded vacation home in the wee hours of the morning following a friend's wedding reception. The evening has not gone well. James's proposal to Kristen having been met with rejection, we watch the two struggle through an awkward civility, and we get the distinct impression that this is a deal-breaker for the relationship. A knock comes on the door during what may well prove to be a round of break up sex. Concealed in the shadows, a young woman asks the couple if Tamara is home.

James and Kristen tell the girl she has the wrong house and send her on her way. She doesn't go far, though, and she's not alone. The girl and her two companions, a man and another woman, mount an increasingly tense series of assaults upon the couple. The assailants faces are covered by eerily simplistic yet horrifying masks and they want only to do very bad things.

Sometimes horror works best when it functions as a nightmare. No reason is given for the terror, it just is. I had been wondering if The Strangers could sustain those scares from the trailer that I'm not ashamed to classify as the "oh God I just peed a little" kind. I applaud writer/director Bryan Bertino's decision to leave certain things unexplained and to give the the film a less than upbeat ending. The Strangers is pretty dark, so dark that when you leave the theater you'll want to go home, find someone you love and hug them. Just make sure they're not carrying a big freakin' knife.

As for the "inspired by true events" claim, I call shenanigans on whoever decided to make that claim. I suspect it may be another intentional homage to 70s horror, and that this film's relationship to true events is about as accurate as that of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which is to say "not very."

Whatever happened to Dark Floors?

I got to wondering tonight what happened to Dark Floors. I do the weekly Trailer Park column over at Cinematical.com and I did a write up on the Dark Floors preview back in December. The film got its world premiere in its native Finland on February 6, and has since been released in Iceland and Estonia (I'm embarrassed to say I don't even know where that is) but I haven't heard any news of a U.S. release. Well, the Internet is a pretty awesome thing and I quickly learned (thanks to an article over at Bloody-disgusting.com) that the film has been picked up by Ghost House Underground, a new direct-to-video branch of Sam Raimi's Ghost House Pictures that will be releasing the film in October.

Dark Floors stars the band Lordi, a Finnish rock group who wear some very cool and downright horrific monster costumes as part of their act. When a man removes hist autistic daughter from her doctor's care and attempts to the leave the hospital, they and a handful of others step off the elevator onto a floor that shouldn't exist. The place is strewn with corpses, and they find themselves stalked by monstrous demons, played by the members of Lordi. This looks awesome enough for me to ignore the slight resemblance to Silent Hill. I checked out the movie's official site which is a pretty cool Flash driven affair. Take a look at the trailer below, and beneath that you'll find a Lordi video that proves they've seen The Evil Dead in Finland.

Six Mistakes the New Captain America Movie Should Avoid

Yes, box offices across the world are growing fat with Iron Man cash. Ol' Shell Head was the number one movie for two weeks in a row, and I bet the folks over at Marvel are pretty darn proud of themselves. Of course this means that we'll be seeing more super hero movies in the not too distant future, and I say bring it on. One such film currently in the early stages is The First Avenger: Captain America, featuring one of Marvel's oldest creations. I've enjoyed the character in the comics, particularly John Byrne's run on the book, and The Invaders series which told of the wartime adventures of Cap, his sidekick Bucky, The Submariner, The Human Torch and Toro.

For the sake of perspective, though, I'd like to remind everyone that Marvel has been associated with some seriously crappy films in the past, and four of those crappy films have starred Marvel's super soldier Captain America. I'm not saying this new film version is cursed, but it certainly has a lot to live down.

The most recent of these star-spangled atrocities is the steaming dog turd (the mushy kind with the swirly on top like soft-serve ice cream) that is the 1990 film Captain America which starred Matt Salinger. Reb Brown played Cap in two made for TV films in 1979 (Captain America and Captain America II: Death Too Soon) that thankfully never got picked up as a series. Fourthly, the Captain's first big screen appearance happened in 1944 when he was the subject of a 15 chapter serial (again titled Captain America but rereleased as The Return of Captain America), that took far more liberties with the character than should be allowed.

So what can the makers of this new Captain America flick learn from these previous versions?

1. Fake rubber ears are a bad idea. Seriously. Look closely. Captain America has traditionally been drawn with his ears poking out the side of his cowl. To replicate this look for the 1990 film, fake ears were applied to the outside of the mask, and they look pretty awful in closeup. Ironically, adding ears to the headpiece probably rendered actor Matt Salinger deaf as a post.
   
   
2. Try not to be embarrassed that your main character is wearing long johns. Cap disappears in the middle of the movie, and we only see his civilian guise of Steve Rogers for a long stretch. Salinger actually looked fairly convincing in the red, white, and blue tights, but the costume gets relatively little screen time. If you're embarrassed to have your main character running around in a super hero costume, maybe you should be making romantic comedies.
   
   
3. Just the teensiest bit of logic would be appreciated. As the missile to which Captain America is strapped is about to launch our hero grabs the villainous Red Skull and threatens to take him along for the ride. The Skull will have none of that and produces a large knife which he uses to cut off... HIS OWN HAND????? WTF?
   
   
4. Cap's shield was made by government scientists, not the R&D division of Wham-O. In short, it ain't a Frisbee, people. The shield Reb Brown carried in the two made-for-TV Captain America movies was made of transparent plastic. Unless he's fighting nazis at a beach party, this just doesn't work for me.
   
   
5. Shouldn't he at least LOOK like Captain America? No film adaptation is ever going to be 100% faithful to the source material, but the liberties taken with Captain America's costume for the first of the made-for-TV flicks made our hero look more like Eval Kneival than a super hero. For the second film Brown was sporting a more traditional version of the costume, but jeez, that helmet...
   
   
6. Shouldn't he at least to some degree BE Captain America? For the 1944 serial, the costume was more or less accurate, it's just every single other aspect of the character that was changed. Rather than being a G.I. named Steve Rogers, our hero is a crusading District Attorney named Grant Gardner (played by Dick Purcell, who died of a heart attack the same year this serial was released), he doesn't carry a shield but he does pack a gun. Essentially, this is a generic Saturday afternoon action serial using Captain America's name and likeness, but nothing else. Interestingly, I think the look of the recently rebooted Captain in the comics owes a debt to this take on the character.

Anybody else got any advice we can offer to the folks at Marvel Productions?

BLOGS THAT ROCK Frankensteinia: The Frankenstein Blog

Of all the classic monsters, Frankenstein's undying creature was always my favorite, whether it be the box-headed bolt-knecked beastie from the classic Universal series, the somewhat gorier creatures from the Hammer period, or the nose- up- between- the- eyes of Dick Briefer's pre-code comic book version. I've recently come across a blog that shares my affection for Mary Shelley's patchwork creation called Frankensteinia: The Frankenstein Blog which is the brainchild of blogger Pierre Fournier.

Recent posts have included a look at Frankenstein on postage stamps, a look back at the character Jonathan Brewster from the stage play and film Arsenic and Old Lace (a stitch-faced character, played many times by Boris Karloff), a discussion of the original lost pilot for The Munsters, and postings about Valerie Hobson and Hazel Court, two of the best remembered actresses to play the often doomed (depending on which version you're watching) Elizabeth Frankenstein. If you think the subject too limiting I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at the wealth of material Fournier and his guest bloggers have assembled.

The Shadmock

Wonder not why your hair stiffly bristles,
just abandon all hope when the shadmock whistles.

Lately I've been reading and enjoying the hell out of The Mammoth Book of Monsters edited by Stephen Jones. It's roughly 500 pages of short horror stories from a variety of authors, with each tale containing some sort of monster. What's not to like? A nice little surprise was the inclusion of "The Shadmock" by late British horror writer R. Chetwynd-Hayes. I knew the story from its adaptation as part of The Monster Club, a 1980 horror flick noteworthy for containing Vincent Price's only portrayal of a vampire and being the last gasp of a cycle of horror anthology films that included the likes of Tales From the Crypt and The House That Dripped Blood.

Both the film and short story explain that years of interbreeding by various creatures of the night has resulted in some new variations, including shaddies mocks, and maddies, and if a mock and a maddy marry their offspring will be a shadmock. To summarize, vampires sup, werewolves hunt, ghouls tear, shaddies lick, maddies yawn, mocks blow, shadmocks only whistle.

Interestingly, other than featuring a shadmock and making the reader or viewer wonder exactly what sort of devastation might be wrought if this guy were to forget himself and start whistling "Smoke on the Water," the story and film adaptation have practically nothing in common. In the film our shadmock is a wealthy pigeon loving recluse named Raven, with a young couple named George and Angela attempting to swindle him out of his fortune. Angela attempts to woo Raven, but when she loses her temper and tells him how his corpse-like visage disgusts her, he lets loose with a whistle that essentially liquifies much of her skin.

In the original story, our shadmock is a servant rather than a millionaire. Sheridan and Caroline, a married couple have purchased an estate in a remote area of the English countryside. The mansion comes with a family of servants who have lived there all their lives, and they include an elderly shaddy, a mock, a maddy as well as the offspring of the last two, a handsome young shadmock named Marvin. Caroline takes a fancy to Marvin who also has eyes for Caroline despite the fact that once they've removed Sheridan's soul and made him a creature of the night like them, they plan to drain Caroline of her bodily fluids and use her remains to fertilize Marvin's garden. Even Marvin's own family is careful not to upset him, as shadmock's have a tendency to whistle when angered, but in an attempt to save Caroline he turns his ability on his own family with devastating results.

The story is a great read, written in a reserved British style, and has more substance than the filmed version, though the movie is still worth seeing as well. All three of the film's stories are based on the works of R. Chetwynd-Hayes, with the story that features a Humghoul (another product of monstrous interbreeding) being the high point. Have a look at the trailer:

YOU'RE SCARING THE CHILDRENStreaming Horror Film

You're Scaring the Children was distributed in the mid 1990s by its creator via what he was calling shareware video. I'm no longer certain where I first learned about the video, but it was either on the alt.horror Usenet newsgroup or a horror listserv mailing list I was subscribing to. The deal was this guy would send you a copy of this film just for the asking, and you had the right to copy and distribute it as you please. Now that I finally have the technological capacity to do so, I'm doing just that.

You're Scaring the Children grabbed me right away, and it's become one of those videos I watch once a year or so. It's not a film in the traditional sense, but more of a short horror story with video illustrations. The video work is barebones black and white with the narrator speaking directly to the camera, recounting the various bizarre occurrences that happened at Seacrist Elementary School.

I've never seen anything quite like it (and I've seen a LOT of horror movies) and I still find the video downright haunting. After a little Googling I was able to determine that the video was the work of an author who goes by the name of Soren Narnia. You can check out his website right here, and he's self-published several collections of his short stories that you can find on Amazon and other online retailers. I contacted him awhile ago just to make sure I still had his blessings to distribute his video online and he was good enough to give the thumbs up.

I've broken the video into four parts for ease of uploading, and you can link to all four parts below. I figure if I'm so fond of this video there's got to be someone else who will find it interesting. Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below.

You're Scaring the Children, Part 1


You're Scaring the Children, Part 2


You're Scaring the Children, Part 3


You're Scaring the Children, Part 4

Bava Book Almost Here

Tim and Donna Lucas of Video Watchdog magazine announced last Friday that they are at long last in possession of two advance copies of their book Mario Bava: All The Colors of the Dark. The book has been several years in the making, and about three years ago I had the pleasure of assisting with the digital restoration of some of the many images in the book. The book will, no doubt, become the last word on Italian film maestro Mario Bava. Tim and Donna have posted a video here of the two of them viewing the advance copies for the very first time, and they definitely have the air of proud parents about them. I can't wait to see the book myself.