Aja Verses Craven. Who Ya Got?

It was only natural for French wunderkid Alexandre Aja to want to try his hand at the Hollywood movie machine following his success with tense thriller Switchblade Romance and what better way to show the Yanks what he was capable of then a remake of Wes Craven's revered, if a little lame, The Hills Have Eyes. Aja assembles a strong cast from X2's Aaron Stanford, Kathleen Quinlan, the great Ted Levine, Lost's Emilie De Ravin, Vinessa Shaw, Robert Joy, Tom Bower and Billy Drago with which to ground his cast and situation. He then designs and photographs a dusty, gritty landscape filled with some gleefully twisted, radiation mutated cannibals and finally ramps the brutality up to eleven.

There isn't anything big or clever about this remake, just a talented directer reveling in generating tension, shocks, gore and violent bloody conflict. And they say the British don't like the French.

Hideous Insidious

Some films would be bloody brilliant if they only released half the movie. The second half of Transformers 3 is fantastic...it's just a shame that the first 90 minutes make you want to blow your brains out. And the middle section of Bruckheimer's King Arthur flick is stunning...it's just a pity that it's bookended by seen-it-all-before battles. Insidious falls into the same trap.

Just like Poltergeist, whose story Insidious mimics, it's divided into two halves. The first, as new family Rose Bryne, Patrick Wilson & kids move into their new house, plays out like a classic haunted house story; creepy noises, strange figures in the dark, jump scares and the like. And when it's revealed it's NOT the house that is haunted it just adds tons of tension to an already creepy, scary movie.

Where it falls down is the second half where, again like Poltergeist, some scientists and an eccentric spiritualist medium turn out to 'cleanse the house'. Out goes the old school scares and tension. Incomes some off-beat character humour worthy of a dumb teen comedy, wacky set-pieces (a seance with the crazy lady wearing a gas mask, WTF!) and an over reliance on CGI, daft monsters, and the daffy concept of astral projection, which if handled properly might be something unsettling to explore. But it's not.

Like Eddie Murphy said in his stand up routine Delirious, when the folks enter the haunted house and the terrifying spectral voice tell then to "GET OUT!!!", Patrick should have turned to Rose and said "Wonderful place honey. Too bad we can't stay". Therefore when watching Insidious, when Lin Shaye arrives at the front door, turn that fucker off.

Horror Hillbillies Vs Torturous Teens

When working in a certain genre, whether that’s western, crime thriller or rom com, the challenge for the film makers is balancing the need to stick to the conventions of the genre and also expanding its parameters, breaking its guidelines and subverting its rules. Tucker & Dale Vs Evil nicely subverts the horror sub-genre of Redneck Killer (for want of a better phrase) like Wrong Turn and Texas Chainsaw. So you’ve got your familiar bunch of obnoxious city dwelling teens who are camping out in the woods and then you’ve got your simple, sheltered-from-modern-life country rednecks, complete with creepy shack, chainsaws and machetes and the starts with your allegiances set to cheer for the teens, but it soon turns out both the kids, and us the audience, have got the wrong idea about the weird local folk.

Although in no way scary, it’s a fun, fairly amusing comedy horror with liberal amounts of gore and an appealing cast, especially the cute Katrina Bowden (from TV’s 30 Rock) and Alan Tudyk of Firefly fame.

Driving In Electric Dreams

The concept of genre continues to exist in art due to the balance of maintaining the familiar genre elements and pushing the boundaries of the genre in new and unusual ways. Bronson director Nicholas Winding Refn takes the western genre, puts it in a contemporary setting, and finally gives it an atmospherish 80's vibe in his latest Drive. Story wise, this is basically a reworking of the western classic Shane, with the man with no name, Ryan Gosling (credited as 'Driver' in the credits), coming to the rescue of his next door neighbour Carey Mulligan with whom he's grown close to.

It's definitely a case of 'it's not what you do but the way that you do it' with Drive. The plot is slow, it's nothing new and you know exactly where it's going to go. But it's fantastically crafted; the editing is steady and assured, Cliff Martinez's retro 80's synth score is edgy and stylish and the production design ageless in the way that Tarantino thrillers are. The performances are strong too. Gosling, a much hyped actor I've yet to be convinced of, impresses in a largely dialogue free turn as the strong-but-silent protagonist having a likable, strong-but-silent persona. Mulligan is as captivating as ever with the gifted actress delivering the majority of her performance through glances, facial expressions and body language and comedy actor/director/producer Albert Brooks is darn scary as the mobster who's out to get them.

Winding Refn is certainly a director to watch. All three movies I've seen (Bronson, Valhalla Rising and this) are distinctly different from one another and you'd be hard pressed to link the three films together if you weren't told they'd been helmed by the same guy. What they do have in common is a willingness to experiment and to try something new. That won't please everybody (I hated Valhalla) but the results are far more electrifying when they do connect. Excellent.

Horrible Bosses Get Fired

Another week, another R-Rated Hollywood comedy which fails to exploit it's cast, it's premise or it's licence to shock certificate. This time it's Horrible Bosses where Jason Bateman, Charlie Day and Jason Sudeikis hate their bosses Kevin Spacey, Colin Farrell and Jennifer Aniston, and conspire with criminal Jamie Foxx to kill them. Theoretically hilarity should ensure but a lackluster script and an unwillingness to push this broad comedy into blacker humoured waters means the film never rises above the level of 'average'.

The cast are all fine, especially Spacey, Aniston and Farrall who get to deliver broad characatures, but it's not consistant or strong enough to impress to any great degree.

Cripes, Bigger Better Snipes!

It's always a bit dodgy when a different director takes over a movie franchise, especially when your first installment was handled with the style and flair that Stephen Norrington provided Blade with. Thankfully for Wesley Snipes, the studio New Line hired monster man Guillermo Del Toro to helm the sequel Blade II.

Despite being set in the same universe as Norrington's original, Del Toro makes the sequel his own, not only in look and tone but in mythology too. It's certainly bigger in scale, dealing with a group of military types rather than the lone warrior of the original, making it feel like Aliens was to Alien. The cast is great, especially Ron Perlman's moody badass, Danny John-Jules, the returning Kris Kristofferson and the slinky Leonor Valrela. Luke Goss also impresses as the mutant vampire hybrid who drives the plot which, like Del Toro's Hellboy 2, is about an outcast prince returning to reclaim his empire.

Great action, great humour, great monsters all held together with the ultra-cool of Wesley Snipes at his best. It's a pity writer director had to spoil it for everybody with the follow-up, the mundane Blade Trinity.

Come & Have Have A Go If You Think You're Hard Enough

Ho. Le. Shit! Perhaps because I was bored to death by director Nicholas Winding Refn's Viking drama Valhalla Rising I never got around to watching his earlier drama Bronson. Also, I've never been a great Tom Hardy fan due to his lackluster villain role in Star Trek Nemesis, but he's recently put that behind him following standout roles in Rocknrolla, Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy and Inception have solidified his reputation as a versatile character actor. Shame on me for avoiding Bronson is a flat out classic from Hardy and Winding Refn.

It the autobiographical account of Michael Peterson, aka Charles Bronson, and his life as the 'most violent criminal' in British Prison history. What sets this story apart is the surreal, theatrical nature of the script and direction which has Hardy telling his life story to an enraptured theatre audience or directly into camera, to us the cinema audience. It's larger than life, it's playful, it's dark, twisted and comedic in the blackest sense, and unlike any movie biography I've ever seen.

Some may object to its surreal nature. Others may object to it seemingly glorifying this unrelentingly violent individual. But its a life story as seen through the eyes of the person himself (who utterly revels in his infamy) told in a way that shames the majority of film makers with it's bold deviations from the conventions of mainstream cinema.

And it'll take something earth shattering for Hardy to deliver a performance as daring and unrestrained as he does here. Brilliant.

Always The Bridesmaids, Never The Brides

It seems, no matter the acclaim, recent mainstream Hollywood comedies fail to blow me away. Whether it's The Hangover, Get Him To The Greek, or new release Bridesmaids, I just can't get a reaction bigger than a snigger or chuckle. Where once we had the sillier prospects of Tropic Thunder, Team America, Dodgeball or Borat... it seems that Hollywood has gone all Judd Apatow on us. That means more realism and less surreal nuttiness.

That's not to say that Bridesmaids is bad; far from it. The cast is superb led by a game Kristen Wiig (a major comedy talent to be sure), John(Mad Men)Hamm, Rose Byrne, Matt Lucas and SNL's Maya Rudolph. Stealing the show is Melissa McCarthy (much better in this that the TV series she won an Emmy for this month) as the rather mannish and ignorant member of the mis-matched group of girlies. It's script is well observed, the direction is restrained enough to let the skilled cast improve their socks off and it pushes the boundaries on a couple of occasions to produce a couple of classic scenes.

Good stuff to be sure, but no comedy classic.

A Lonely Place To Go "All Chrstian Bale"

God bless Melissa George. The poor lass seems stuck being this generation's premiere scream queen, but she keeps churning out corkers like The Amityville Horror, Triangle and 30 Days Of Night. You can add A Lonely Place To Die to that list as well as it's a buttock clenching chase movie through the mountains and wilderness of the Scottish Highlands.

It's nicely grounded in much the same way Neil Marshall films his stuff, the cast rise above the usual horror fodder, the locations and situations keep evolving to keep the audience riveted and it's tautly and efficiently told. George is her reliable self being both tough, resilient and vulnerable, Ed Speleers adds some great comic relief and Sean Harris as Mr Kidd has the same chilling intensity that Robert Carlyle once brought to his villains. If I have a gripe it's that the focus on George is lost in the final 10 minutes to wrap things up with the bad guys. Other than that it may not be as great as a Neil Marshall film, but pretty damn good all the same.

Hollywood, We Have A Problem

It seems that found footage movies are all the rage at the moment with hits like The Blair Witch Project, REC, Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity proving to be bloody well made, as well as bloody popular.

Unfortunately not all found footage films can be as good as that exclusive bunch as Apollo 18 proves. It's a great premise as it documents the final American moon mission (that was never made public) from film footage taken by the astronauts themselves, but the script is far too by-the-numbers and the execution too reserved to make any great impact. Also the cast, culled from chisel-jawed, leading man TV land are a bit flat and it's not helped by the fact that astronauts are far too reserved thanks to their extensive training to get that emotional.

A solid sci-fi horror movie that's just a little too formal and up-tight to be truly gripping.

Nocturnal Fright Takes Flight

I was never a great fan of the original Fright Night. Apart from a great 80's electronic score, the cute Amanda Bearse and the legend that is Roddy McDowell, the whole thing was too daft and too attached to the uninspiring tradition of Gothic vampire lore. Fortunately the new revised Fright Night trumps the original in virtually every way.

The cast are suburb from Anton Yelchin's likable everykid, the very lickable Imogen Poots as his girl, Christopher Mint-Plasse's nerdy best mate, Toni Collette's down to earth single Mom, Colin 'F**king' Farrell's shark like Vampire-next-door and David Tennant's arrogant, self obsessed magician.

The tone is far more grounded than the original, the setting (a modern housing estate like that of Poltergeist) far more relatable, the script far more wittier and the subtext (basically a coming of age tale) with hero Charlie choosing what he wants in life all far more compelling that the fluffy 80's version. It's just a shame they couldn't retain that stunning score.

Crimson God Botherers

It's great to see writer/director Kevin Smith try something different with his first foray into horror territory, Red State. It riffs on the cliche of promiscuous teens being lynched, tortured and murdered by unsociable backward rednecks in the deep south of America...the twist this time is that the hillbillies are members of an extremist Christian Church.

It's a very different piece of work for Smith who's better know for his cult rom-coms like Clerks, Zack & Miri and Chasing Amy. It's dark, gritty and very angry, exploring not only the very topical issues of extremist Christians (recalling the very real Westboro Baptist Church in Florida who hang around at dead service men's funerals sporting 'God Hates Fags' billboards) but of corruption, incompetence and apathy in US law enforcement and politics.

Unlike Smith's comedies, where the rambling, witty dialogue is something to savour, the more serious script is less involving and requires editing down. The director also tries to employ a more raw and experimental but like his last film Cop Out, doesn't completely grasp the intricacies of 'visual' cinema. Red State is brave in dealing it's controversial topic, but it's a shame the execution isn't quite as ambitious.