I Saw Sick Saw Six

Theres's two opposing forces at work in the movies of the Saw franchise...and they're both present in this years Saw VI.

On the plus side there's the glorious torture porn; the poor buggers that have been enslaved into the Jigsaw killer's game. That means hard decisions, permanent bodily harm or, most often, death. Saw VI delivers on this convention with a series of horrifically witty puzzles, my personal favorite being the playground roundabout game.

However, you also have to slog through the increasingly contrived backstory of Jigsaw and those that assist him. Each movie it gets increasingly harder to remember who did what to whom and why. After easing up on the backstory in last years Saw V, the migrane inducing flashbacks are back with a bang. At least is DOES all make sense come the movie's resolution, but it's getting more like a serialised TV show rather than individual movies, requiring an annual recap of previous instalments on DVD before watching the latest film. It's getting hard telling them apart too.

The movie's surprise ace in the hole is the blunt and topical subtext about greed in our society. There's a wonderfully vicious swipe at greedy, selfish bankers in the pre-title gore-fest, while the rest of the movie delivers a intelligent damning of America's immoral health care system. Just when you thought the Saw franchise had run out of imagination, it stuns the gornography community with a shocking development; Saw has a brain!

Talentless Spawn Tarnishes Family Name!

The next generation in horror, they said. From the 'greatest' name in horror, they said. Romero is that name. But...and it's a big but...Staunton Hill is directed by one Cameron Romero, talentless offspring of Zombie legend George A Romero.

Staunton Hill is awful. Really bad. Cheap. Wooden acting. An unoriginal idea told by an uninspired hack. Shitty, boring dialoge, leaden pacing and laughable logic. One minute the abandonded truck that will lead our heroes to safety is immobile due to no starter motor...the next it's pissing, full pelt, after the only surviving hippie.
The happless teens get bested by a retard, a fat woman and a grannie in a wheelchair. With survival skills like that, the dumb gits deserve to be massacred.

There's only two respectful things I can say about this turkey. The narrative is comprehensible (hey, I'm scraping the barrel here) and the gory effects, when they do arrive, are realistic and unsettling.

It's obvious that the Romero name suffers from 'Jason Connery Syndrome' too. Just like the mighty Bond actor Sean, who had a talentless offspring in the same industry, so must George A suffer the embarressment of an over-eager spawn with no off-switch. Pity Romero Snr. Pity him now.

Zombie Kill Of The Week Goes To...

Zombieland is an offbeat comedy horror in which Jesse Eisenberg's character shares his wisdom in surviving a zombie apocalypse. Eisenberg is a geeky loner and his advice comes in a series of amusing, but scarily believable, rules that need to be obeyed if staying alive is to be achieved. These rules are highlighted by 'Fringesque' captions which appear to remind the audience (and for Zombies to surreally crash through)...mostly for comic effect.

This film is fantastic. Funny, irreverant, gory, well observed and occasionally touching. The script, better even the the mighty Drag Me To Hell, has an ensemble of memorable individuals (all named after where they're from, so as not to get too attached to each other), inventive set-pieces, sparky, pop culture laden dialogue and a realistic, down-to-earth quality to die for. It's all pulled off by director Ruban Fleisher with style as he uses CGI gore, post modern captions, ulta slow motion and stunning comic timing to deliver his rollercoater ride.

Michael Cera clone, Jesse Eisenberg is perfect as Columbus, our hero and narrator, Woody Harrelson, with his Twinkie obsession, hasn't been this good in anything for years and Emma Stone confirms her megastar-to-be status following on from a variety of great comic performances in The House Bunny and Superbad. Bill Murray's small participation demonstrates exactly how a star cameo can raise the quality of the whole movie.

Zomieland has everything; Three dimentional characters, a cleverness that raises the reputation of the comedy/horror genre single-handedly, a great soundtrack (any movie that starts with Metallica's For Whom The Bell Tolls is doing something right), an original zombie battleground location in the funfair and some of the best comedy moments of the year...aided by Eisenberg's droll delivery. Poor fat bastards, indeed.

We'll Always Have Paris...Until She's Brutally Butchered

Things wrong with the House Of Wax remake:-
1/ It stars Paris Hilton.
2/ It's dumb. The House is built over a furnace used to make the wax dummies. The house itself is made of wax. You figure it out.
3/ The movie is unoriginal. Just another f##ked up rural American family killing teen travellers. At least there are no cannibals this time.
4/ It's wayyyy too long. A movie of this kind, with cardboard thin characters and over-familar narrative should be 75 minutes tops. At 113 minutes I was actively fighting off a coma.
5/ Stylelessly directed by Orphan helmer Jeane Collet-Serra.

Things right with House Of Wax (2005):-
1/ It stars Elisha Cuthbert. Mmmmm, Elisha.
2/ Paris Hilton dies with the most spectacular kill of the movie.

Like all Dark Castle productions; not recommended.

Ace Fingerling: Number Detective

In The Number 23, Jim Carrey is given a book with which he becomes obsessed. Not because of the magical number 23, but because he believes the nutter in the novel is based on his life. Since the title and the marketing is misleading, this is more of a who-wrote-it, rather than a supernatural mystery. It's not a great one either, as when the twist is revealed, the surprise just isn't that exciting.

Still, it does show that Batman & Robin director Joel Shulmacher is much better when directing thrillers. He's able to flex his creative muscles with the surreal dream sequences which dramatise the novel Carey is reading. Virginia Madsen, Danny Huston, Lynn Collins and Rhona Mitra are all fine in supporting roles while Carey, once again, proves he can convincingly carry a dramatic movie. It's still not a return to form for the director of A Time to Kill and Falling Down. Perhaps imminant vampire flick Town Creek will be it?

J'aime Pontypool!

Pontypool, the Canadian town...not the Welsh one, is a small scale, low budget variation on the zombie movie. Effectively a four man play, it depicts the workers of a local radio station who come to realise that the residents of their town are succumbing to a 'virus' which turns them into zombie-like madmen. Then the zombies attack the radio station.

The twist here is that the deadly virus is spread by language, not by air or touch. This allows for plenty of subtext into how language is dangerous, how it can be used to turn the innocent into killers, and how words meanings can be changed...for better or for worse...to achieve certain goals. It asks whether communication, to achieve peace, is in a governmments best intrests. It also questions the limits the media should have when reporting/sensationalising horrific real life events.

Stephen McHattie (Hollis Mason in Watchmen) is great as Grant, the prickly wannabe shock-jock who continues to report the disaster, as it happens. Lisa Houle and Georgina Reilly back him up. Be warned this isn't a full blown gore fest but a smart, talky meditation on the nature of langage, wrapped up as a supernatural siege movie.
I'd say spread the word abou this one...but I won't be held responsible for the consequences....

Rio Bravo On The Red Planet

Ghosts Of Mars, John Carpenters last movie on the silver screen, features most of the elements that distinguishes the director's work. It's a Western...as usual disguised as a science fiction or horror movie. Substitute the landscapes of Mars for Monument Valley and the possessed 'Ghosts' of the title with Apache warriors and you've got a pretty basic Western set up. Then add to that the siege narrative of Howard Hawks classic, Rio Bravo, where your no-nonsense Law Marshall is forced to team up with the notorious criminal...and you've got yourself a bonefide John Carpenter movie. There's the usual Carpenter elements too; the downbeat ending, bad guy as anti-hero, minimalist score and scary things jumping unexpectedly in to the frame. On this occasion the director tries to subvert the usual set-up by corrupting his heroine somewhat (she takes drugs and isn't adverse to a 'last shag before dying') as well as making 'civilization' a matriarcal society...messing with the male bonding convention that most Westerns have.

Both leads, Natasha Henstridge and Ice Cube, are bland and chemistry-free beyond words, especially when compared to Carpenter's Asualt on Precinct 13 where the superior Austin Stoker and Darwin Joston played the same roles. The supporting cast, including Jason Statham (wrestling with a crap mid-Atlantic accent), Clea Duvall, Pam Grier and Joanna Cassidy are much better.

It's been frequentely documented that Carpenter's talent has faded since his late '70's and early '80's peak...and that's obvious here. The direction is weak and the photography flat. There's a irritating editing technique where footage is repeated and overlaps which is completely unnecesary. The script is structured in a pointless flashback within a flashback structure that does nothing to add greater tension or character insight. The film does occasionally come alive when Carpenters talent re-emerges; the dialogiue is reduced, the primal, minimalist score is brought to the fore in the sound mix....and hey presto, the movie's atmospheric!

The action which dominates the last half hour has a non-realistic, bullshit quality that is enhanced bt the contribution by thrash band Anthrax to the score. Still, even if this is Carpenter light, it's still competantly made, is (mostly) fun to watch, and looks and feels like no other movie out there. The trademark downer ending also has the double whammy of seeing Henstridge in her undies and having Cube break the forth wall and look directly into camera. Now that is cool.

Danny's Out Of The Doghouse

Doghouse is the latest Action Zomady from Brit director Jake West, which follows a bunch of lads on a boozey weekend, which goes horribly wrong.

It's similar to what was attempted earlier in the year with the dire Lesbian Vampire Killers, except this has a better script and an infintely more talented cast. Legend Danny "F*****g" Dyer is always an engaging, politically incorrect leading man and he's ably backed up by Noel Clarke and Stephen Graham (perhaps taking things a bit too seriously). As a comedy Doghouse isn't that funny, working better as an action movie with a scattering of goofy comic set pieces.

Doghouse does commit one cardinal sin. Although it features Hex actress Christina Cole, one of the downright sexiest Brit actresses to grace these Isles in many a year, director West makes her perform with a cockney accent (robbing her of her mindwarpingly attractive posh, plummy dialect) And then, in the latter half of the movie, she's performing with Zombie prostetics!!! If the film-makers had wanted the male demographic, this movie's aimed at, out to spread positive word of mouth, then this decision was a big no no. No one messes with The Cole.

Hack Slash, Smash Crash, Monster Mash

Tobe Hooper's original Texas Chainsaw is widely regarded as one of the greatest American horror movies. Why then, do contemorary American horror directors fail to capture the gritty nastiness of this modern masterpiece?

Fortunately, Rob Zombie is the US helmer who's keeping the tradition alive with Halloween II, the sequel to his 2007 slasher remake. The sequel is a marked improvement on the original, jetisoning most connections to the Carpenter classic (which were the least successful things about the remake) and bringing the Zombie-esque aspects to the fore; the grainy, raw footage, the retro 60's/70's music, the natural pop-culture banter and the unrelenting, unforgiving violence.

As always with Mr Zombie, he's more interested in the psychos than the victims so the narrative follows three nutters; Michael Myers, his sister Laurie Strode and Doctor Loomis. In waking dream sequences we see the visions that drive Michael unstoppably towards his ultimate prey. With Laurie, we see her gradual descent into madness; the family connection all too complete, come the conclusion. And more subtlety, in Loomis, we get a monster who hurts his victims with his egotistical greed and arrogance, rather than a knife or axe.

In a world of weak, derivative slasher pics (My Bloody Valentine/Prom Night) this is a kick to the kugal sack in terms of risky choices. There's a lot of surrealism, especially in the dream sequences, that may be off-putting to less perceptive audience members. Plus, this is a really, really, really, nasty, mean spirited movie. Michal Myers doesn't just take out his victims with a surgical slice to the throat. He stamps on their heads repeatedly. When he stabs he does so with a primal ferocity, putting his full weight into each thrust, grunting like an animal as he does so. Not pleasent in any sense.

But this is a strong distinctive horror sequel and it's great to see Rob Zombie's distinctive visual stamp on the material. The sets have a messy, cluttered look while the party sequence is designed with the gholish halloween holiday sensibility of his old White Zombie music videos. On the strength of this, I can't wait to see what Mr Zombie will direct next...but I also fear what will become of the renewed Halloween franchise when the director of My Bloody Valentine/Dracula 2000 gets hold of it. Now that's scary.

Psycho Dwarf Broke My Fall

A few reviews back I whinged about the predictability of the slasher genre...especially if the writers and directors are too lazy or talentless to inject something new into the mix. It's the same with the supernatural thriller...a horror sub-genre that's got a bit too predictable in recent years. For some reason it's a movie type that asian cinema does very well...it's just that when the style is translated into American movies, either in direct remakes (The Eye or Dark Water) or new stories (Mirrors, A Haunting In Conniticut) they're way too obvious as you can see the narrative cogs grinding away.

Such is the case with Orphan, a decently made, acted, and directed horror thriller which follows the same old pattern:-

1/ A wholesome American family.
2/ The family, or family member, has undergone, or is undergoing a traumatic experience (loss of a child, alcholism).
3/ A change in circumstances impacts the family (they adopt a young girl).
4/ Initially the change goes well, then strange things start to happen, which only the lead character will notice.
5/ The difference in opinion, regarding the strange occurances, will cause a rift in the family and call in to question the lead character's mental health.
6/ The lead character will investigate thier suspicions...first by microfiche (pre-1990's) or computer and then by travelling to see an 'expert' in their problem (a nun at the Orphanage/a Doctor at a mental insitution).
7/ Armed with their new knowledge, the hero will return to the family to battle the evil. If the 'expert' returns with them, they may likely not survive, unless a sequel looks promising.
8/ The family will again resist the lead character's attemps to convince them of the evil threat. However, once the hero has been delayed/incapacitated and the 'evil' finally fully revealed to them, they fight back too.
9/ Once the evil has been apparately vanquished, the evil will make a 'surprise' reappearance where the hero will have to make a near-sacraficial, and morally questionable, attempt to kill the evil once and for all.

That is Orphan. And many many others. The twist is cool, the tone mature, the direction solid and the cast capable. But a little extra something is required to make it stand apart from the crowd. The plain cheese and tomato pizza of supernatural-thrillers...if you will.

Wisely Follow Ray To A Dead End

In Dead End, a disfuntional family are taking a shortcut to 'grandmas' when strange happenings cause them to die, one by one, while the deserted forest road on which they're travelling sees no sign of ending.

This could have been a disaster waiting to happen. After all there's only so many things that could happen on a straight road to seemingly nowhere. There's a mysterious woman and a scary hearse the appear from time to time...but for the most part its just Mom, Dad, Brother, Sister and Sister's boyfriend. Driving. Stopping. Driving. Stopping. Dying. Then driving some more. But the script is witty as hell, the cast perfect, from the slowly deteriorating Ray Wise to Lin Shaye's mumsy matriarch. It crackles with fun banter as the family under siege try to endure their predicament.

The ending is obvious from the events in the first 10 minutes. But the fun of Dead End is in the journey, not the destination.

Kidnapped Green Chick vs Nicholson's Eyebrows

P2 refers to 'underground parking level two' in a New York office block. Poor Rachel Nichols (the green chick from Star Trek) leaves work late on Christmas eve and gets kidnapped by car park security guard/nutter Mad Wes Bentley. Cat and mouse antics follow with a little bloodshed to keep us amused.

This one works quite nicely but never really soars like you feel it should. It's produced and co-written by French horror-meister Alexandre Aja and so explores the horror concept, the environment in which Ms Nichols is trapped, and the lead characters to the extent you'd expect from such a talent. The direction is solid too (from Franck Khalfoun), with a style bordering on the Euro-confidence we'd expect from Aja...but not quite.

Nichols aquits herself well, while Wes comes across as a bit of a twat. Take the voice of Joshua Jackson and the face of Tobey Maguire...with the transplanted eyebrows of Jack Nicholson and you have Mr Bentley. Yes he's as sleezy, irritating and disturbed as you'd expect from a stalker loony...but he never really convinces (or scares) as an unhinged wacko. Worth a look.

Because it's set in an office building on Christmas eve you can't help but think that Bruce Willis, all barefeet and vest, will come running to the rescue at some point!

All The Boys Love Amber Heard (Including Me)

Perhaps because All The Boys Love Mandy Lane was trailered at the cinema for what seemed like year, I was bored with the images to such an extent that I was reluctant to watch this teen slasher pic. Sadly, if I'd have watched it earlier I'd have got to experience this intelligent horror movie a little sooner.

Mandy Lane is a beautiful, but aloof and distant high school girl who the other girlies get along with and all the boys want to be with. A year after falling out with her male best friend she gets invited to a country house for a weekend break with the cool kids. Then a nutter takes them out one by one. Script wise the plot is obvious...so obvious that the killer is wisely revealed quite early on leaving a later plot twist to wrap up the movie (which is itself something that hovers as an obvious route for the story to take).

What saves the movie from overwhelming predictability is the unforced, realistic performances from the cast, some indie favoured direction and a subtle layering of psychological subtext; that we all project a persona and who not who we appear to be. The film has split audiences and critics down the middle, mainly down to it's ambiguous ending. I must admit, I was a little confused as to what to make of Mandy Lane hersef, beguilingly played by Amber Heard....Why did she do the things she did? Why did she change her mind? What did she really think of this person?

And then, in the middle of the night, it occured to me. Mandy's friends never got the opportunity to understand her...and neither do we. Because we, the audience, have become a character in the movie, experiencing the same confusing relationship with her that her friends did too. Mandy'a allure and mystery remains intact, right to the end credits. Nice one Miss Lane.

My Bloody Headache

The modern slasher film checklist:-
1/ Your masked killer must have an iconic costume (see Michael Myers, Freddy Kruger, Ghostface, Jason Voorhees) like mining overalls, helmet and gas mask. A weapon of choice is needed too...like a pick-axe.
2/ Cast your movie leads with impossibly good looking twenty somethings that will be called upon to play school-age teenagers.
3/ Cast the remainder of your movie with familiar character actors. If possible hire ancient horror icons like Tom Atkins (Halloween 3, The Fog).
4/ Your movie must be set in small town America. The older townsfolk are curmodgenly redneck inbreds while the majority of youth are dumb, barbies or arrogant jocks (apart from your heroes).
6/ The sheriff of the small town MUST participate. Try and make him the father of your heroine. If not marry him to your heroine.
5/ The death scenes must appear regularly and be gory (if you can obtain that elusive R rating. Shooting in 3D will help lure unsuspecting moviegoers into watching the film in the theatre and make your movie appear better than it actually is.
6/ The masked killer must be linked to a tragedy in the towns past...as must the hero or heroine.
7/ A shock revelation must form part of the climax.
8/ A scene showing the masked killer has survived must be tacked on to the final moments of the film.

I'm sure there are many other rules but I can't be arsed to sit here and think them up. Patrick Lussier's My Bloody Valentine follows all these to the letter, with no added wit, intelligence, style, originality, inventiveness or creativity thrown into the mix. God help us, this is the man charged with delivering Halloween 3D.

Stalk n slash by the book. Please feel free to add a few more....

Treated To This Trick

Looking at the release schedule for October 2009, it appears there is a deluge of horror movies due to be released into movie theatres...providing me with the opportunity to see a horror movie on the big screen on a weekly (sometimes twice weekly) basis, should I so wish. With a backlog of horror movies to watch on DVD, many of which my friends have been urging me to see for a long time, I thought I might devote this month to the genre of scares, gore and political incorrectness.

First off, then, is Trick r Treat, a movie produced by Bryan Singer's production company and directed by Micael Dougherty (the Superman Returns co-writer). Having now seen this often delayed release I find it bizarre that distributers Warner Brothers sat on this excellent release for so long, as it does so many things, so very right.

Dougherty is either a talent to watch or there's a touch of 'Poltergeist' going on here as the direction is confident and assured...perhaps too assured as the economic framing and long dolly shots smack of Singer's influence...we'll see. Regardless, the result is a fun, event filled ride as the clever, tightly weaved script tells five interconnected stories that all take place in the same American town on Halloween night. All the tales are different enough to stand apart, but the script smartly overlaps the timelines, so events in one story are referenced in the others.

The best aspect is the tone of this movie; it's fun. It doesn't adopt the serious thriller vibe of most modern horror films or play the wacky, self-referential, post-modern card of From Dusk Til Dawn, Scream or Evil Dead 2 (non of which are bad things by the way). It has a refreshing, old-fashioned, 80's feel that kind of recalls an Amblin produced film or a Robert Zemekis movie...a film not skewed to one particular age, taste or sensibility...just committed to telling a really good story.
Which it is.

Oh, and the iconic Pumpkin masked kid that adorns the poster. Freaks me out.

A Restless Slumber On Elm Street

With the Platinum Dunes remake on the horizon, I fely compelled to revisit the original which I'm disturbed to see is now a quarter of a century old. While I have fond memories of Wes Craven's classic, I've never felt it was a "horror great" as Wes Craven simply isn't the most talented director on the block (my favorite Elm Street movie is still Dream Warriors, directed by Chuck Russell, the helmer of The Scorpion King!!).

So how does it stand up 25 year later? Pretty good actually. The core concept of a child molester killing teens in their dreams, causing them to die in real life is about as strong a story concept as you're gonna get. As with all good horr movies, antagonist Freddy Kruger stays in the shadows and is much nastier and disturbing than he appeared in the sequels. In Freddy, Craven creates a pop culture icon...both in the way he looks (the fedora, red striped jumper, and the razor glover is a genius master stroke) and in Robert Englands gleeful performance. The script explores and expands on the concept as it progresses, delivering a series of simple but memorable set-pieces.

On the downside, lead teen Heather Langenkamp is wooden as heroine Nancy. But you can see it runs in the family genes as her parents are played by the emodiment of corniness John Saxon and the 'carved from giant redwood' Ronnee Blakley...a woman so wooden, nothing on her face emotes when her lips flap. An impossibly young Johnny Depp is there to try and distract us...until he's dispatched, of course. Wes Craven goes through the horror motions trying to create atmosphere and generate scares...but it rarely suceeds. Craven is a hack, and scares have always been out of his grasp...but the film works out of the cleverness of the script, not due to the talent of the director. The score is hideously out-dated, although the main theme and child chanted 'Freddy nursery rhyme' still resonates.

So, despite the flaws, this is one horror that still works, as the pluses outweighs the negatives. The remake could be well placed to better this but they're gonna have to work hard to better Mr England and his freak-show of fellow cast members. A lot of them might be crap, but they sure make Elm Street 1984 one to remember.

Haunted By Zombie's El Superbeasto

This is a call out to the people of the world; to individual and collective nations... CAn anybody tell me what the hell was going on in Rob Zombie's animated feature The Haunted World Of El Superbeasto?

This, quite simply is bizarre, as if Zombie collected all the things he was interested in seeing on screen, and which he couldn't produce as a live action feature (bloody ultra-violence, boobies, satan, werewolf women of the SS) and combined them in a movie length format that reminds me of a kids Saturday morning cartoon. It follows the adventures of wrestling,sex-obssessed, mega-star El Superbeasto and his super-spy sister Suzi X. as they battle arch nemesis Dr Satan in his bid to do something...

It plays out like a twisted episode of Ren & Stimpy only with more swearing, animated gore and nudity. It's rarely funny..except in that 'I can't believe what I'm watching' kind of way. You can take that either way...but it's never boring, especially when surreal musical numbers punctate the score with songs like "Why'd You Have to Rip Off Carrie?" and "It's Okay to Jerk Off to Animation".

So, if anybody can let me know what the hell was going on in this trippy, f~~ked up freak show...I'd appreciate it. I'm still trying to process this one myself.