Stir of Echoes (1999) [REVIEW]

September 29, 2010 1 Comment

 

The first time I watched this movie, it was on VHS right after it came out, and I had invited my mom to watch it with me. Well, she stopped watching shortly after the love scene where Kevin Bacon had visions of fingernails falling off and then going to the bathroom to pull his own teeth out. To be honest, I didn’t really remember much from the film, other than it involved “Paint it Black” by the Rolling Stones. Realizing I didn’t remember much of it, and after seeing that it was actually filmed in my neighborhood, I decided to give it another shot. Not only that, but I got that shit on BLU-RAY. So I was pretty excited.

 

Knowing Kevin Bacon, he’d probably still fuck her.

Kevin Bacon plays a (supposedly) typical Chicago utility worker who regrets where he ended up in life, who’s also quite close-minded. At a party one night, his sister-in-law hypnotizes him and leaves a subconscious suggestion to be more open. This results in visions of a young girl in his house, involving broken fingernails, the feeling of suffocation, an orange jacket, and a song he can’t quite put his finger on. Clearly there is something supernatural going on, and not only that, but his young son is the only person who claims to share these visions. By constantly fluctuating between the real world and these visions, his wife gets alienated and his job is at risk, yet he feels this is the most important thing he has done with his life. After receiving the vision of the words “DIG”, he begins tearing up his house, and eventually finds a body, covered in an orange jacket. After touching the body, he sees the rape and murder of the girl, which turns out to be committed by two boys in the neighborhood. Their parents were in on the cover-up, so they attempt to silence him, but one parent turns on the other parent. This family moves out of their house, and the film ends with the little boy still hearing visions wherever he goes.

 

Look at him tear into that lawn with the physique of Iggy Pop!

This viewing of the film was far more enjoyable, and slightly less awkward. It is based on a short story, and it shows. There are scenes that seem a little hokey and almost silly, that would work fine in a book, but on-screen doesn’t translate as well. Kevin Bacon did a pretty decent job walking the line of someone who is crazed because of the importance of what he is doing while not just being “crazy”. There were a few vague references to the premonitions that tied to the story in an enjoyable way, for example, the reason he kept hearing “Paint it Black” was because that was the song playing while she was being raped. And the fact that the son refused to go home during the final confrontation, claiming to be afraid of “the feathers”, only to have the gun of one of the parents fire through the child’s pillow and send feathers everywhere, right where his head would have been had he gone home. Although this film was quickly forgotten, it stands out against a lot of other films I’d just as soon forget.

 

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Hell Comes to Frogtown (1988) [REVIEW]

September 28, 2010 2 Comments

 

I have two memories with this movie, and both of them are related to Amherst, MA. The first one, which is less exciting, is that this movie was ALWAYS being sold at Newbury Comics in the used DVD section for $4. I always picked it up, thought, “WHAT THE FUCK?”, and put it back down. The next memory is going to my friend Conor’s apartment where he was sitting around with some other friends and watching it. I wanna say that I was eating fish and chips. I remember pointing out one character and saying, “Are you guys watching a documentary about Boss Nass?” and Conor laughing and no one else knowing what I was talking about. Boss Nass was made popular in Star Wars – Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Conor and I became quite famous for recreating certain scenes from this film, but no one else knew what the fuck we were talking about. I never finished watching that movie or figured out what was going on in it…UNTIL NOW!

 

To anyone wondering what a frog/human/stripper hybrid would look like, here you go!

There is some sort of nuclear holocaust that has turned frogs into some weird frog/human hybrid creature. There aren’t that many human men left, except “Rowdy” Roddy Piper. He doesn’t need a character name. Anyways, some lady doctors want all of his sperm, and who the fuck doesn’t, so they put some high-tech underwear on him to protect his sperm. There are scenes of women enticing him to use his sperm, and then other ladies get mad. For some reason Rowdy Roddy pretends to capture one lady doctor to infiltrate Frogtown, which is where most of these frog things live. I guess he gets arrested or something and the lady gets enslaved by the frog people, and she is forced to dance around and give the mayor of Frogtown frog boners. We actually see his frog pants get tented by his frog boner. YOU CAN’T LOCK UP ROWDY RODDY! He steals some strippers, along with the lady doctor, kills some frog things, and I guess at the end of the movie, lady doctor tells Rowdy Roddy he needs to fuck all those stripper non-frog ladies, and he looks at the camera like “OH FUCK YEAH!” and puts on a pair of mind-sunglasses. Did I mention his name in the movie is Sam Hell?

 

Even the rowdiest of pipers find frog boners questionable.

IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW! I wish I had never mocked my friend for watching this movie, because it was clearly a film about the Reagan administration. In a very subtle way, I’ll have you know. No seriously, movies like this can ONLY get made in the 80′s. They just make far too little sense to have anyone ever greenlight a project like this without someone chiming in and saying, “So this is satire, right?”. Sure, you can make a movie like Piranha 3D and have everyone enjoy it because it’s a throwback to a different kind of film, but you don’t see any movies attempting this level of insanity in a serious way. Rather than Rowdy Roddy putting on mind-sunglasses while looking at the camera, it’s a character looking at the camera and winking, with a “SEE WHAT WE DID THERE?” expression on their face. It’s refreshing to see movies like this, that were made in a decade of “Let’s throw a bunch of shit at the wall and see what sticks.” In this case, what stuck to the wall was “Frogs…Nuclear Holocaust…Sperm…Hell…Lady Doctors…Rowdy Roddy Piper”. The rest pretty much wrote itself.

 

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I Spit On Your Grave (2010) [REVIEW]

September 23, 2010 1 Comment


HOLY MOTHERFUCKING CHRIST ON A SHIT COCKSUCKER. Excuse me, I just had to get that out of my system. I was lucky enough to catch an advance screening of this movie (thanks Ralph!) and it was certainly a romantic evening. For those who can’t remember, I have already reviewed the original (review here), and I wasn’t too impressed by it. So what on Earth could the remake possibly do to make me care about the storyline this time around? They didn’t really, but they certainly made this film a lot more fucked up. I’m sure there are quite a few of you out there that will be seeing this film no matter what I have to say about it, and I’m sure there are people out there who will never ever see this film, however a word of warning for both groups of people…SPOILER FUCKING ALERT. If you don’t want to know everything about this film, stop reading now, but to everyone else, hold on to your butts (for fear of it getting raped).

 

Maybe, had you taken better care of your hair, you wouldn’t have gotten raped. MAYBE.

It’s a tale as old as time: girl meets boy, boys rape girl, girl escapes, girl exacts revenge on her tormentors. I’m assuming you clicked the link for my review of the original, or are at least somewhat familiar with the storyline. Rather than repeat the whole storyline, I’ll just point out the differences. In the original, the girl was raped while sunbathing, then escapes, then is found and raped in the woods, then escapes, then makes it back home, only to get raped again and left for dead. She pulls herself together and uses her sexual prowess to corner the victims and kills them in a few different ways. In the remake, she is assaulted, but not actually raped, at her home, but escapes to the woods to find the town sheriff. He takes her to her cabin to get all the details, and then the men who assaulted her show up, and everyone, including the sheriff, gets in on the rapings. She runs into the woods, only to find the men again, and, get raped again. After this raping, she walks towards a bridge, and the sheriff pulls a gun on her, but before he can kill her, she jumps into the river and is presumed dead.

 

Oh, she’s just going to trim the hedges! That’s totally normal!

A month goes by and no one has seen or heard from the woman, yet the mentally disabled rapist never leaves the swamp where her body should have shown up, haunted by his guilt. In addition to this, another one of the rapists has the videotape that documented his crimes stolen from his home, and another rapist is taunted in the middle of the night with the flip-flops she left behind. This is about the time in the movie when, cue Hatebreed music, VENGEANCE IS BORN! LET THE BLOOD SPILL! Anyways, get comfortable, because you are about to get all the details of the discomfort of all rapists involved.

Nice friendly game of bathtub slam ball!

The disabled rapist is the one who sees her first, and she punishes him by putting a noose around his neck and choking him (presumably) to death. Another rapist is placed horizontally over a bathtub full of water and lye, relying on his own strength to keep him from sinking in. Sadly, he doesn’t hold out long, and his head ends up a melted disfigured foaming slimeball. The fat rapist, who was the gay guy in Mean Girls (?), has his leg caught in a bear trap. He gets tied to a tree and has fishhooks used to keep his eyes open. Fish guts are shoved in his mouth and eyeballs, and birds come and peck his eyeballs out. The main rapist guy is tied up naked with some horse thing shoved in his mouth that breaks all of his teeth. His remaining teeth are pulled out by pliers, and then his dick is cut off with hedge shears, AND HIS OWN DICK IS SHOVED INTO HIS MOUTH. The sheriff gets captured and tied up, and has a shotgun shoved up his ass. She thrusts it up his butt over and over, and then reveals the final step in her plan: the gun is lined up to not only go up his butt, but to also face the mentally disabled rapist who is passed out in a chair in front of the sheriff, with a piece of twine connecting the trigger to the wrist of the passed out rapist. Wanna guess what happens? Yup, he wakes up, tries to help the sheriff, and the shotgun shoots out the face of the sheriff and into the torso of the disabled rapist, all while she sits outside, lightly smirking, and then the credits roll.

 

Things do not end well…for this man…

Sorry for all the grizzly details guys, but I didn’t want to leave anything out. Did this film need to be made? OF COURSE NOT. Did they adequately raise the stakes? I would say so. The original was about a woman being physically overpowered and using her sexuality and wit to exact her revenge on her assailants. In this film, not only was she physically overpowered, but was also forced to dance around, pretend to be a horse, and imitate oral sex on liquor bottles and gun barrels. Not to say that she wasn’t being physically overpowered, but this film also humiliated and dehumanized this woman. She had to live in a shack for a month rebuilding her physical self as well as devise a strategy for revenge. She admitted to eating rats and fish to stay alive. I think that’s why it made sense for her to choose such incredibly extreme punishments for these individuals. In the 70’s, it seemed as though a huge fear was just that of being physically overpowered, and just being a woman in that time period meant you were vulnerable to these things happening. I felt that now, in 2010, the scariest thing is not just physical vulnerability, but also the mental anguish that can never totally be healed. Granted, this was still a rape/revenge film, so it’s not going to be making people question their way of life, but these types of films seem to be more about the experience of watching them, rather than the underlying message you took home. The message I took home from this movie? Don’t rape people.

 

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Shadow of the Vampire (2000) [REVIEW]

September 21, 2010 Leave a comment

 

You’ll notice that this film was categorized under Horror Film as well as Non-Horror Film. Tricky, ain’t it? I remember how badly I wanted to see this film back when I saw trailers for it, then when I saw it was coming to video, then it was released, and, well as you can imagine, the desire dwindled for quite some time. I remember seeing the trailers and thinking it was a comedy, hence, Non-Horror Film. However, there wasn’t much funny stuff actually happening, and people were actually being killed in the movie, so, Horror Movie. It ended up being both a horror film and a mockumentary about one of the most famous horror movies of all time, Nosferatu.

 

“My eyes! The goggles do nothing!” or “Where we’re going, we don’t need roads”?

The year is 1922 and we are in Germany. Scared yet? You should be. F.W. Murnau, played by John Malkovich, is filming his newest masterpiece, but no one involved in the crew really knows what it is. Turns out, it is actually an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, and Dracula himself is being played by none other than Willem Dafoe. Well, not like a 1922 version, but, the actor playing the actor playing Dracula is Willem Dafoe. And technically, his name is Nosferatu. Confused? Good. The kicker is that this guy actually IS a vampire! Getting a vampire to play a vampire! Genius directing! Some of the crew finds out, some of the crew are killed, the movie gets made, and there really isn’t much more to the plot. I hate to underwhelm you, but, that’s really the gist of it.

 

Insert joke about how unattractive Willem Dafoe is.

Despite the plot being lackluster, it doesn’t mean that watching the film isn’t entertaining. Although I categorized it as horror, I was never really scared. Even though “mockumentary” is a style that is generally considered satire, I viewed this as more of a “What if…” type of story. Malkovich was good as the director whose only focus was his film, no matter who was getting hurt because of it. Dafoe, surprisingly, was incredible as Nosferatu, and I’m not really even sure he wore any makeup. It was also mildly nostalgic watching this film, because it brought me back to when I took a course on avant-garde film, and we watched a shit ton of German expressionist films. Now THAT shit is scary. Nosferatu having been a German expressionist film, I think the filmmakers took great care into recreating the type of sets and makeup as closely as possible. To my “trained” eye, they were spot on with the filmmaking process. Makes me want to go back and watch Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and The Testament of Dr. Mebusa! FUCK YES TERRIFYING GERMANS!

 

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Zombie Honeymoon (2004) [REVIEW]

September 18, 2010 2 Comments

 

With a name like that, you kind of know what you’re getting yourself into. Take into consideration the name, and the fact that I have never heard anyone ever talk about this movie; I was setting my standards pretty low. I popped the DVD in and saw that it was distributed by Showtime. Taking all previous factors into account, and that the only company that would distribute this film was a cable television channel, I wasn’t enjoying where this DVD menu was going. Considering the last zombie movie I saw was Dance of the Dead, which I hated (review here), this Zombie Honeymoon just HAD to be better, didn’t it?! However, I watched this movie without very much volume, so it was hard to hear most of the dialogue. I got a feeling that dialogue wasn’t going to be the driving force behind things.

 

“Of course I would never eat you! Well, except for your…(snicker snicker).”

We see a church with two people running from it screaming. Did something terrifying happen? Yes! They got married! Danny and Denise, played by Graham Sibley and Tracy Coogan, got married! So they run screaming to their car. They go to a beach house, which was either a wedding gift or maybe they broke in. It was one of those instances where audio might have been helpful. We see the couple in love, doing each other in the backyard, not worrying about sticks and leaves in awkward places, or worried about pervy neighbors. They decide to spend time on the beach, when some guy comes walking out from the ocean, and pukes into Danny’s mouth. They rush to the hospital, only to have him pronounced dead. He mysteriously comes back to life a few minutes later, and that’s when the zombie honeymoon officially starts!

 

Ew! He’s making his mouth look like the Gulf of Mexico! Too soon?

Danny starts acting funny and, believe it or not, has a craving for flesh. He was a vegetarian before, but now he has been found eating a neighbor in the bathroom! What is his wife to do?! Well, they love each other too much, so they stick together. Danny doesn’t look like a zombie, just eats people. So it could be worse, right? Danny starts eating more and more people, and Denise keeps trying to protect him. They plan on flying away somewhere to start over, but the police and friends start taking notice. Eventually, the cops intervene, and Danny kills one. Denise makes a romantic dinner for the two of them, puts on her wedding dress, and kills him, then throws him in the pool. She goes to the beach, considers ending her life, but instead touches her stomach in an “I’M PREGNANT” sort of way, then looks back at the plane tickets, and the movie ends.

 

“Of course there are worse ways to find out you aren’t pregnant this month!”

Although it might sound kind of hard to believe based on that synopsis, I found this to be a pretty original zombie film, and I’ll tell you why. Typically, there are two types of zombie films. There are ones that are scary because of the concept that the entire world will be overrun, and then there are the type that scare you because of these “monsters” that simply cannot be stopped. The original Dawn of the Dead would be the first kind, whereas the remake would be the second kind. Zombie Honeymoon was neither. It was more closely related to the second type, because Danny was turning into a monster, but he wasn’t turning other people into zombies. It was one isolated incident and it was about two people, who clearly loved each other dearly, had to deal with one person turning into something. You get the same feeling of sympathy in this film as you do when you watch District 9 and see Vicas turning into an alien (spoiler alert). Despite its low-budget, this film seems to accomplish what it intended. They could have gotten higher production value, paid for better effects and distribution, but there really wasn’t all that much gore, and I thought the actors did an especially good job of portraying two characters in love, with the whole world ahead of them, only to have it snatched away from them. Not trying to say this movie needs to win any Oscars or anything, just ended up being better than my expectations.

 

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Case 39 (2009) [REVIEW]

September 17, 2010 2 Comments

 

I was hoping this film was going to be an adaptation of Howie Mandell’s “Deal or No Deal”, where mysteriously in case #39 there was a demon or something like that. Sadly, I was quite mistaken. However, all you Hollywood bigwigs that read my blog, feel free to take my idea and turn it into a film, because I can guarantee you at least one ticket sold. Instead, this film is some bullshit starring Renee Zellweger and one of those guys from The Hangover, who I will always remember as “one of those guys from Wet Hot American Summer”. No discredit to Bradley Cooper, of course, but Wet Hot American Summer was just so awesome.

 

DON’T TRUST THIS LITTLE BITCH! Whoa, I haven’t called a little girl a bitch since I got out of work this afternoon.

Renee Zellweger plays Emily, a child services employee who has 38 open cases. THIRTY EIGHT! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?! Well, she has one more case added to her agenda, which would make that case 39. And in case the name of the movie didn’t give it away, THIS IS ONE SPOOKY CASE! A little girl shows signs of neglect from her parents, so Emily investigates. Things just don’t seem to be going well, and Emily gets a late night call from the girl Lilly, played by Jodelle Ferland, and Emily intervenes just in time to stop the parents from cooking Lilly in the oven. In an attempt to take away all her sadness, fill her life with gladness, ease her troubles, that’s what she does. Oops, Rod Stewart break, sorry. I meant to say Emily takes Lilly home.

 

“So I’ll only ever be the father-you-never-had figure in your life? DAMMIT.”

Strange things then start happening, believe it or not. Other children in Emily’s cases murder their parents, strange phone calls, all the good stuff. Emily’s friend Doug, played by Bradley Cooper, tries to analyze Lilly, when she calls him out on being facile and having a fear of hornets, goes home all sad. That night he hallucinates that hornets are coming out of his ears and he apparently commits suicide, which is actually “death by invisible hornets”. After talking with Lilly’s biological parents, it is determined that Lilly is actually a demon (?) and must be killed. There’s scenes of Emily getting scared, the little girl acting all creepy, Emily setting her house on fire, and eventually kills Lilly, the little demon girl, by driving her car into a river and locking her in the trunk. Renee Zellweger – 1, Demon – a number that’s only slightly less than 1, because she did still kill a bunch of people.

 

Accidentally named this file “bardley cooper”. That’s way funnier than the blow job joke I was going to make.

I had some mixed feelings on this movie. A good portion of the movie, you just kind of assume something supernatural or paranormal is going on, and you totally buy it. Then it goes from “Something weird is going on” to “THIS BITCH IS A FUCKING DEMON AND NEEDS TO BE KILLED” and Renee Zellweger is all “OH COOL, I CAN DO THAT”. It’s similar to the movie “Mirrors”, where you take a basic concept of something spooky and supernatural, but then you come right out and explain the demons too late in the game, and it seems to lose all credibility. They also seemed to have taken an amalgam of different horror film concepts, threw them in a big blender, and hoped for the best. The idea of a weird orphan was a lot like Orphan, they somehow tied bad things happening with phone calls, which was reminiscent of The Ring, and a lot more subtle things that were harder to pinpoint the exact source. The hornet death scene took WAY too long, some of Renee Zellweger’s reactions were laughable, and the movie just took a turn in the wrong direction. I have to admit, it’s a pretty solid B-movie, but it is getting a theatrical release. Had this been a straight-to-video film, and the demon concept had been introduced a little earlier on, it could have been a lot more enjoyable.

 

“Thank God…it’s Volvo.”

Another message to the Hollywood bigwigs, DON’T CAST RENEE ZELLWEGER IN ANOTHER HORROR MOVIE EVER AGAIN. Not saying she is a bad actress, but she seems to be just a bit too vulnerable for horror. I thought she was going to start crying in the first five minutes, and nothing scary had even happened. Bradley Cooper was enjoyable, or at least it was enjoyable to see him playing something other than a smooth talking wiseass. And Jodelle was pretty good as the little girl, but not quite as good as Isabelle Fuhrman who played Esther in Orphan. One actor who was completely used incorrectly was Ian McShane. Don’t get me wrong, Ian McShane is FUCKING AWESOME. He played a cop, and he kicked the shit out of one guy, and punched a woman, but his role was weird. Somehow, he was best friends with Emily, but he is WAY older than her. I kept expecting them to reveal that they were related, or maybe there was an affair, because why the fuck would IAN GODDAMNED MCSHANE be friends with such a whiney baby? He kept doing all these favors for her, and was willing to offer assistance when it came down to killing Lilly. Emily was all “I think this girl’s a demon and I need to kill her” and Ian McShane was all “OK COOL NO PROBLEM I HAVE A SHOTGUN”.

 

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Dagon (2001) [REVIEW]

September 13, 2010 2 Comments

 

There’s really nothing I would consider myself an “expert” on, and included with that, I am certainly no expert on H.P. Lovecraft. I’ve read a few of his stories and have been quite entertained by them, but his style of writing and sense of fear generally doesn’t translate well on film. Granted, Re-Animator was awesome, which was based on his short story, but most other adaptations fall somewhat flat. His style is typically more surreal, and fear is derived from the existence of concepts in the context of his stories, rather than the concepts themselves. Whether you can make sense of that or not, I don’t really care.

 

You know it’s a movie, because this lady gave that dork a blow job. Only in Hollywood!

Dagon is about a Paul and Barbara, played by Ezra Godden and Raquel Meroño on vacation who get into trouble on their boat and attempt to find refuge on a nearby island. This island appears empty, yet when contact is finally made with its residents, strange things start happening. It appears the residents of this island-town have webbed fingers as well as gills on their necks, and they all typically move strangely. Well, it turns out that all the residents of this town have rejected Christianity and accepted a new lord and savior, Dagon, who is some weird fish monster thing that has helped their fishing community. The only drawback? They are all turning into weird fish creatures. Paul runs and punches things, Barbara gets naked and sacrificed to Dagon, and some of the residents get killed. The film ends with Paul trying to kill himself, only to realize he is somehow related to Dagon and can also breathe underwater, and we see a quote from the short story this film is based on.

Are you willing to look past the tentacles for some nice romantic smooching? Yup, me too!

The plot of this film is actually based on the H.P. Lovecraft story “The Shadow Over Innsmouth“, rather than his story “Dagon”. The hard part with Lovecraft stories is that even when they are well executed, they are still kind of weird. It’s tough to determine whether it’s weird because they were faithful to the source material, or if it’s weird because they strayed away from the source material at moments. For what this film was, it was pretty well done. I wouldn’t say this movie was scary, but it did have some of that surreal vibe to it. For example, early on you see a character with webbed hands, and in most films, you would expect the character to say, “WHOA DUDE WHAT THE FUCK IS WITH YOUR HANDS”, yet in this film, it is quickly glossed over. I feel that that’s the key with Lovecraft, which is to downplay the strangeness of the universe so it is more easily acceptable before you try to convince the audience how much weirder things can get. I also wouldn’t go ahead and say this movie was all that good, but it was a pretty good adaptation compared to other Lovecraft incarnations. Also reminded me a lot of Lair of the White Worm (review here, which was also based on an early 20th century novel. But why the hell are you listening to me, I already told you I wasn’t some damned expert!

 

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The Omen (1976) [REVIEW]

September 10, 2010 Leave a comment

The first time I ever watched this movie was with a group of friends in high school. I believe I had made them watch Sleepaway Camp shortly before this, so they were clearly all in my debt. I was allowed to pick out the next “horror” movie to watch, and needless to say, we were all bored to tears. I think most of us got distracted and played with cool things in my room, randomly checking in to see if there were boobs or blood showing up on-screen, and we were continually let down.  My first viewing was clearly just an example of watching a film at the wrong place, at the wrong time. It was years before I watched it again, only to realize how good it was, and even then, I don’t think I quite enjoyed it as much as the most recent viewing. Rampaige had never seen it before, but she loves demons and devils, so we gave it a shot…with the assistance of Netflix Instant Watch, of course!

 

Not a big shocker that she quit. Word on the street was that her job was already…hanging by a thread…

On the 6th hour of the 6th day of the 6th month, the child of Robert and Katherine Thorn (played by Gregory Peck and Lee Remick, respectively) dies during childbirth. Before Katherine is notified, a priest tells Robert of a child who was born in the very same hospital, whose mother died during childbirth. He is offered to take this child home and care for it as his own, and the priest recommends never informing Katherine of the switch. Robert accepts the child as his own, and the next five years is a blur. Damien Thorn, played by Harvey Stephens, seems to be a perfectly normal boy. Strange events start to unfold following his birthday, which was interrupted by his nanny hanging herself outside of the house, an event witnessed by everyone at the party. A different priest starts alluding to Robert that he knows about the switch, and that his family is in danger. After agreeing to meet the priest and being given mysterious details about the apocalypse, and that Damien will be the one bringing it about, the priest is killed by a metal rod that falls from a church.

 

“The mystery! I’ve solved it! I’M…HOLDING…A…PHOTOGRAPH! I thought it was just a tiny, two dimensional person this whole time!”

Robert refuses to accept what is going on, until he finds out that Katherine is once again pregnant. The priest had predicted this, and also predicted that Damien would complicate the pregnancy. Robert starts to believe when he has to go to the hospital after Damien rides his tricycle too close to Katherine, causing her to fall two stories, and having the pregnancy terminated due to the injuries. A photographer contacts Robert and shows him photos that seemed to have predicted the deaths of the nanny, as well as the priest. Trying to investigate anyone who knows where Damien came from, Robert and the photographer find that Robert’s actual child was murdered in an attempt to get Damien into a different family. Robert is finally able to contact people who he believes know how to be rid of Damien, the supposed son of the Devil, once and for all, and is left with no other options. While attempting to kill Damien, he is gunned down by the police, and Damien survives, attends his fathers funeral, looks at the camera, and smiles.

 

Priest kabob’d.

I would put this film in the “Unholy Trinity” category, along with The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby. These three films all involve the Devil and possession, just slightly different stages. This film specifically might as well have been a sequel to Rosemary’s Baby, because we now see the son of Satan slightly older. The power behind these three films is the fact that they show so little, yet cause so much fear. This film had four deaths, with really only one (a be-heading due to glass) being exceptionally graphic. The film scares you because of what it is alluding to, rather than just showing you. It makes you feel as though it’s a relatively coincidental chain of events that show us that yes, the Devil is real, and yes, his son has made it to Earth.

 

There’s nothing wrong with two men holding each other in a graveyard. I do it nightly, in my bed, with multiple men.

Another reason why any of these films work well, is because they are shot/acted/directed/scored like any other dramatic movie is, it just so happens that the subject matter is a little more supernatural. Most movies made within the past decade or two rely too much on letting you know it’s a scary movie, with jump cuts and building up tension with music, because they want you to jump more than they want you to actually be scared. Horror movies these days are viewed as a ride, an experience that last 90 minutes. That isn’t to say that these movies “ride” movies can’t be done well, it’s just nothing like some of these older films. The most recent film that comes to mind that terrified you without ever making you jump would probably be Se7en. Granted, I probably can’t remember another movie that would also be a good example, but that movie was brilliantly cast/directed/shot/edited the way any dramatic movie would be, but the subject matter was far more gruesome. Sure, there was some gore, but there was what, one on-screen death? Everything else was just after the fact. I wish more people could successfully make films like those, because those are the ones that stand the test of time, whereas there will always be a film that can make you jump a little bit more often or a little bit higher than whatever came before it.

 

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Filed under 5 Stars, Horror Film Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Saint Ange (House of Voices) (2004) [REVIEW]

September 8, 2010 Leave a comment

 

Do you know how hard it is finding horror movies about ghosts that have been made in the past 10 years? Maybe I should say it’s hard finding good supernatural horror movies that have been made in the past 10 years. Since Rampaige puts up with a lot of my bullshit movie choices, and I mean, a LOT, I figured I should try to get some more supernatural horror movies, since those are what she likes. And I agree, most of the horror films I have watched lately have been more about killers than about anything paranormal. If you Google anything along the lines of “Best Supernatural Horror”, you typically get the same list of films, most of which I have already seen, and most are a couple of decades old. This film, however, was showing up on quite a few lists, at least more contemporary lists, and was surprised to have never heard of it. It also goes by the name “House of Voices“, according to Netflix, but that’s kind of confusing because it must be considered one big-ass house.

 

I’m no doctor, but I don’t think pregnant women should be wandering the woods at night. But then again, I’m no doctor.

The movie starts with two little kids in a huge orphanage going to the bathroom together (yuck). The little boy starts investigating noises he hears through a mirror, then, WHOOPS, slips and cracks his head open and dies. Years later, a woman gets a job at this orphanage, in hopes of cleaning it up. But, as it turns out, there is only one orphan still living here, and it happens to be an older version of the little girl who witnessed the little boy’s death in the beginning of the movie. Nothing is quite as it seems at this orphanage, as the two characters hear voices and see things, and investigate what’s going on. Through their trials and tribulations, an underground hospital area is uncovered. It’s still unclear what took place here, and whether it was bad things, or good things. Maybe I wasn’t paying close enough attention, maybe I just didn’t care enough. Our main character dies, because she ends up giving birth while exploring, as she is found dead with her baby, umbilical cord still attached. The end?

 

I’m no doctor, but I don’t think pregnant women should let old ladies flop on top of them. But then again, I’m no doctor.

Okay, I get it now, this movie is French, so it doesn’t have to make sense. Just kidding, I won’t write this film off that easily. For the most part, it was actually a pretty moody and atmospheric film, similar to The Orphanage. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the creative team behind The Orphanage saw this film and got inspired with all the places Saint Ange could have gone, but didn’t. Honestly, I just kept thinking, “Oh man, this is going to get REALLY creepy in the next few minutes…”, but then it never really did. Especially considering that with the ending, you assumed you might find some horrible secret as far as what was going on in the basement of the building, and it was pretty unclear as to what was actually going on. I assume there were implications that bad stuff was happening, but it was still pretty vague. I could have enjoyed this movie a lot more had the filmmakers capitalized on the mood they spent the entire movie building upon, or had a slightly more concise story.

 

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Filed under 2 Stars, Horror Film Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Three Films I Could Not Finish

September 4, 2010 1 Comment

I realized that it is now Saturday, and I only reviewed one, yes ONE film this week, which sucks massive amounts of balls and dicks. I think I mentioned a long time ago wanting to add a review every other day, roughly three or four entires a week. Clearly, one is less than both three AND four, so I figured I would tell you guys I tried watching three different films over the week that I gave so little of a shit about, I just shut them off. One film was called “Evilenko” which starred Malcolm McDowell as a weird old killer who really “took care” of young boys and girls, if ya know what I mean. It was more of a crime drama than a horror film or thriller, and when the options were A) Finish watching a film that wasn’t bad, but did absolutely nothing for me, or B) Eat onion dip, watch The Office and do laundry, I went with B. Film number two was called “Dumpster Baby“, which I added to my queue probably four years ago due to, as they say, the “LOL” factor. It’s a Troma release, which I hate, and this film was no different. You don’t even see the baby, you just feel like you are watching a bunch of Juggalos that made a film. Everything is annoying, nothing makes sense, and you want everything to die. Film three was “Killer Klowns from Outer Space“. I know it’s a cult classic, but I had absolutely no interest. Rampaige and I needed something to watch, and when I came across it, she said “No! Don’t watch that, it’s scary. Please, don’t make me watch it.” I immediately hit the PLAY RIGHT FUCKING NOW BUTTON and then fell asleep. I’m not afraid of clowns, so this film did nothing for me, but I can see it being a nostalgic memory for people. That being said, I am STILL open to taking suggestions for films, whether they be left as a comment or emailed to me through a link that you will find under the “How to make sense of this site…” tab on top. In the meantime, feel free to look at movies I did finish and relive the glories of the past, and for all current updates, make sure to check www.twitter.com/wolfman_cometh.

Filed under Horror Film, Inane Bullshit, Non-Horror Film Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

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