Horror Film Reviews

Happy Halloween! I've updated my list of horror film reviews, which is my favorite genre of films, if you couldn't tell.

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Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat

How this movie escaped my attention for so long is kind of a mystery. Well, not really much of a mystery, as the film was never released in theaters and languished on VHS until September of 2008, that's when Netflix recommended it to me. What the mystery is, is how I didn't even know it's name. As a huge Bruce Campbell fan, how could I never have heard of an early horror-comedy of this caliber, with him in a prime role? I've been through his IMDb page countless times, trying to find a hidden gem, that I haven't yet seen, but I don't ever remember seeing this title. It sits unassumingly at #77 between Maniac Cop 2 and The Dead Next Door. Now that's not to say that Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat, is some kind of hidden classic, but it's a very worthy addition to Campbell's resume, and is probably better than 90% of his other films, which admittedly isn't saying much. But as a Bruce Campbell fan it's a must see.

Bruce doesn't show up until about 20 minutes into the film, but the film is full of cult actors, most notably David Carradine as the head vampire Count Mardulak. The film also features Morgan Brittany, Maxwell Caulfield, Deborah Foreman, John Ireland, but it's M. Emmet Walsh that gets the first big laugh. He and his vampire brothers sit on a swing, wearing sunglasses and bonnets, watching a Jeep approach their gas station. Walsh takes his sweet time, applying a handful of sunscreen, before making his way out to pump gas. When the Jeep's owner gets impatient with this ridiculous looking old man, he gets his head knocked clean off. It's a cheesy gag, but it works for a joke.

A whole group of new-age vampires have moved out west to the tiny desert town of Purgatory, where they've taken over and want to live a quiet life. And thanks to the miracle of sunscreen, vampires can venture outside during the day. They've also stopped feeding on the blood of living humans, instead they have a synthetic blood that a factory in town manufactures. For decency sake, the town's sheriff puts Walsh into jail for a few days to cool him down, although he could break out any second, due to his tremendous strength.

Salvation is on its way to town in the form of David Harrison and his very human family. His expertise is going to help streamline the factory's output of synthetic blood. They're in no real danger from the town-full of vampires, except for Ethan and his faction of outsiders, who want to go back to the way things were. Amongst the baddies is Sarah Harrison's ex-lover, the sleazy Shane, who wants nothing more than to convert Sarah, and live out an eternity of sinfulness. There's a hilarious scene right after the family arrives in town, where Shane flies into Sarah's room and attacks her vampire-bat style. The effects are pretty awful here, a badly done stop-animation bat, flying over a fuzzily matted Morgan Brittney flaying away. It looks worse than something Ray Harryhausen was creating twenty years before, but it adds to the cheesy charm of the film.

Bruce Campbell ambles into town around this time, stopping at a small diner, he immediately falls for the beautiful vampiress Sandy White, a name more fitting a 50's sitcom, but they're trying to be ironic. We soon learn that he's a descendant of Van Helsing, attempting to finish his great-grandfather's life work. His mission doesn't last long, before he's turned into a vampire himself, with an over-the-top comic performance that only Bruce Campbell could get away with. (See directly below.) Before long the family finds themselves in the middle of a vampire war. On one side is David Carradine teaming up with Bruce Campbell to fight for the good vampires, on the other side is Ethan, Shane and their henchmen full of character clichés throughout the ages, including pirates, cowboys and punk-rockers.



This battle takes up the last 30 minutes of the film and it really grows tiresome. Since they live in a desert in the west, they have to fight it out Western style, wood bullets providing the kills. It's entertaining at first, but by the time they show the 1000th smoky shot fired, with a stunt-man falling cinematically to the ground, it brings this otherwise fun film to a screeching halt. The cheesy dialog, performed by charismatic B-actors has ended, the goofy special effects are gone, vampires pretending to be something they're not, over; in its place is the entire cast lined up, firing blanks at one another.

If you're into forgotten films, if you're into B-films or cheesy horror-comedies with or without Bruce Campbell, Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat is fun enough to recommend. The first two acts of the film are quite entertaining. The filmmaking, except for the special effects, is quite good throughout. The film is nicely shot in widescreen to take advantage of the beautiful desert scenery. The film is full of great character actors, having a lot of fun playing sun-drenched vampires. But you can't call something a cult classic, when the whole final act of the film leaves you with the taste of boredom in your mouth. If they'd found another way to end it, I might have heard of it a lot sooner. - Grade: C+

An interview with Bruce Campbell about the making of Sundown:

Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer

Robert Englund, forever to be known as Freddy Krueger, spends a lot of time these days cameoing in low-budget horror films. (Two of which I've already reviewed: 2001 Maniacs and Hatchet) He was a obviously a huge influence on a lot of today's horror filmmakers, so they want to pay tribute by giving him a small part. The problem is, most of the time his role never equals much more than a, "hey, look it's Robert Englund... oh, he's dead." Here in Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer he finally gets a role to sink his teeth into, and the film is much better off for his ability to carry a horror film.

I probably would have eventually heard about this film, but I knew about it a few months ago thanks to a favorable review from one of my favorite blogs The Jaded Viewer. So I was looking forward to it when made its DVD premiere this month. Right away I was impressed by its production values. The film opens in jungle somewhere, with a huge cycloptic lizard man killing off a bunch of native villagers. The village and the people populating it looked completely unathentic, you could tell they'd set up this fake jungle somewhere completely un-jungle like. But the monster is what impressed me, in full daylight it looked very lifelike. We cut to Jack Brooks sitting in a hut, sharpening a machete, readying himself for battle.

The film then takes us back to Jack's childhood, where he's having a nice camping trip with his family, when suddenly some sort of hairy werewolf/sasquatch thing jumps out of the trees and eats his sister, mom and dad. Again the monster is well done and quite creepy. Young Jack runs off, the only survivor, a cool way to start the film. At this point I started to imagine this awesome movie that lay ahead. Jack Brooks, with a life long grudge against monsters, laying waste to all kinds of wicked looking monsters, brought effectively to life by these filmmmakers. Then I waited and waited and waited for something, anything cool to happen, and it took almost too long to remain a satisfying film.

We're introduced to Jack as an adult, and predictably he's a bit messed up, seeing how his family was slaughtered in front of him. Now he has a huge anger problem, the slightest thing will set him off and he'll end up knocking somebody out. A plumber by day, he attends night school, with his all-to-wrong-for-him girlfriend. That's where we meet Robert Englund, he's an eccentric science teacher. After class he invites Jack by to look at his pipes, where he accidentally un-buries a rotting-box of pure evil. Which eventually takes over Englund's body and changes him into a huge tentacled beast, who brain-fucks people into zombies. This doesn't happen until we're about an hour into the film, but the monster is such a deliciously nasty treat for the eyeballs, that it nearly makes up for the wait.

It takes far too long for this film to get going. Thankfully most of the acting is decent and the screenplay is fairly interesting and consistently funny, so it kept me going while I was waiting for the monsters to reappear. But this isn't what I was expecting from a film called Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer - I was expecting monsters and slaying, not an intimate portrayal of Jack Brooks' anger issues. A lesser film, I might have lost patience with and fast-forwarded to the end. It's a testament to first time feature director Jack Knautz that he keeps the film moving without a whole lot of monsters. He gets a great performance out of Englund and it's fun to watch him turn from the unassuming professor into a soul-sucking demon. They wring quite a few laughs out of him stumbling about, becoming increasingly grotesque and even eating his own dog.

Hopefully the film proves to be a money-maker. Because I'd love to see a sequel, provided it has the same director, where Jack Brooks really gets to lay into a whole variety of monsters. He's the closest thing we've seen to Ash from The Evil Dead in the twenty years since those film, and believe me, a whole horde of films have tried. Trevor Matthews plays Jack Brooks with a ton of energy, constantly tossing himself about with no concern for injury, he has a true knack for physical acting. He doesn't quite have the charisma of a young Bruce Campbell, the one-liners don't fly off his tongue with a golden touch, but he's not a slouch either. Give him a few more movies and he might prove himself a cult hero.

Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer is an almost film, it's almost awesomely cheesy, almost perfectly crafted. It's very nicely photographed and edited, most of the acting is good for a low-budget horror film, with the in-camera creature effects being a huge plus. If they'd spruced up the first 45 minutes with another monster or two, something for Brooks to warm up to the final baddie with, instead of him jumping right into it, while also making it more entertaining for the viewer, it would have been nearly a perfect horror-comedy. But as it is, it's a great try. I look forward to whatever Trevor Matthews and Jon Knautz get up to next. - Grade: B

Wildcats

If you've read this site before, you know I have a special place in my heart for 80's movies. Especially for the ones that I grew up with, those that I saw 50 times on HBO or burned out our family's first VCR watching over and over. Wildcats was one of those films. It had just about everything a prepubescent boy would want to see, crude sex jokes, farting, high school football, and a brief glimpse of Goldie Hawn naked. Like most films from this time in my childhood, there came a point where I stopped watching them. Discovering filmmakers like Scorsese or Kubrick, I wanted more sophisticated films. These were forgotten or regulated to guilty pleasures of the past.

Running across Wildcats in the discount bin, I had brief memories of Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes rapping about football, a kid bashing in lockers with his head, a fat guy blocking a big kick, and fancy stolen hubcaps on a VW bus. I didn't have much expectations for a well made comedy, I only wanted to walk down memory lane. Once I had it home, it didn't take long for me to pop it in. Instead of watching a copy of the classic On the Waterfront, I'd been holding on to for too long, I went with the high school jock movie I'd seen 20+ times in my past. I'll always go for the easy watch first.

The amazing thing was that Wildcats turned out to be nearly as good as I remembered. The childish sex jokes worked on a new level. The dramatic elements, about a woman wanting to coach high school football and having to do so in a bad part of town, seemed genuine. The verbal abuse, treated comically, she takes from her players, ex-husband and former boss ring true. Everything about the film is a cliché, but they're classic movie elements that work and are well executed. Goldie Hawn is at the top of her game here, she's bubbly cute, with perfect comedic timing. Her team is full of actors that went on to better roles; Woody Harrelson is the smart-ass QB, Wesley Snipes is the cocksure wide-receiver, and Mykelti Williamson is the ultimate talent, who'd rather spend his time being a criminal. The film also features great character actors, like M. Emmet Walsh as Goldie's attorney who only talks in football terms, James Keach as her manipulative ex-husband, Bruce McGill plays her sexist former boss and coach of her crosstown rivals, and Nipsey Russell cracked me up as the principle of her new school with his every utterance of the word "Riiiight."

It's most definitely an 80's movie, with awful fashions and hair styles, an incredibly cheesy music montage with the boys becoming a team, and a very young LL Cool J rapping about football. Except for the 80's setting, I think the film works better than most of today's comedies. It doesn't rely on easy pop-culture jokes and you actually become invested in the characters and their underdog story. The film has its flaws, but they're quickly forgotten as the movie moves effortlessly ahead with its solid screenplay and strong acting. The film is well directed by Michael Rithchie, who directed one of the greatest sports comedies ever The Bad News Bears, the scenes flow well and the football scenes actually make sense. If you watch a lot of sports movies as a sport fan, you'll notice a lot of over-the-top stuff that doesn't really happen on the field or even worse is when the games just aren't played right. If you're a fan of 80's and/or sports movies you could do much worse than Goldie Hawn and her Wildcats. - Grade: B (Seen on 10/10/08)

Them / ils

I didn't know anything about this film going into it, except that it was a French horror film that had received some good reviews. And that was the perfect way to see this film. I'll try to give away as little as possible, talk only about the filmmaking, and little about the plot. Not that there's a whole lot of plot to talk about. It's pretty much a young couple spending a night at home, when they're attacked for no reason. I haven't seen it yet, but it looks an awful lot like the recent American horror film The Strangers, which I haven't found any connection between the two.

The film is almost the perfect example of good suspense. Nearly the entire film is suspenseful. It starts with a young girl and her mom, broken-down on the side of the road, they hear some weird noises outside their mini-van, you're not quite sure what's going on outside of the van, but it sounds creepy. The photography, the editing and the sound design, draw you into this minimalist situation and it really bugs you out. Soon they're dead, and we're following Clementine, who we'll stay with for the rest of the film.

She goes home to her large country house, has a quiet dinner with her husband and they're off to bed. Not a lot is said between them, but their silence and body language leads us to believe that not everything is okay between them. Which quickly becomes an afterthought when, in the middle of the night, they're attacked by unknown persons. The rest of the film is spent with Clementine and her husband Lucas being chased around by an couple of thugs, who attack them with a variety of household weapons. They're chased through the house, through the attic, through the woods outside the house, then finally through a sewer system. We're never really given a reason why, it's simply happening, which makes it all that much more realistic and sickening to think about. The who is eventually revealed, and it's quite a surprising shock.

Them isn't a perfect horror film, there's not enough character development to make you truly care about Clementine and Lucas, maybe if they'd spent another 5 to 10 minutes letting us get to know them as people, it would helped us get more involved. But if you really just want to be creeped out by some nearly technically perfect suspense scenes; long stretches of silence, puncutated by something horrible, this is a wonderful film. The film has the best keyhole scene ever made, perfect in its execution. It has almost no score, relying on the sound of the attackers chasing these two. There's minimal dialog, once the chase begins, there's little more than screaming. And although the film was shot digitally, it has a gritty, 70's aesthetic to it. This isn't a horror film for those who want something typically Hollywood, this is a film for true horror fans, those that can appreciate something different. - Grade: B (Seen on 7/20/08)

Movies I've Re-watched Lately

I don't re-watch a lot of movies these days. I don't have a ton of time for it, I'd usually rather check out something I haven't seen before. But I do have a huge DVD collection for a reason, I usually buy anything that I think will be worth visiting again. I find that I can usually enjoy a movie more the 2nd time around, I'm not focused so much on story, I can take in the filmmaking more, appreciate the details. We finally invested in a widescreen TV, so I thought it'd be worth it to see some recent favorites again.

Black Sheep - This movie absolutely cracks me up. I still think it's the best horromedy since Shaun of the Dead. A friend of mine was visiting that hadn't yet experienced the magic.

Cashback - Same friend was over, we wanted something funny. Our significant others were off watching the Sex and the City movie, so I figured we could watch a dude movie and check out some fine naked women, while also enjoying a good film.

Into The Wild - The first movie we watched after getting the new TV. My wife hadn't seen it yet and wanted to watch something with beautiful photography, this fit the bill.

The Simpsons Movie - This was actually the 3rd time I'd seen this film, an extreme rarity outside of the movies my son watches over and over again. My wife hadn't seen it, we wanted something brainless before bed.

Juno - Both my wife and I saw this in the theater, but we felt like revisiting it. The over-the-top quirkiness didn't bother me as much this time around, I guess I've grown used to it, from seeing parts of it all over the place.

Recount

This was an extremely painful movie to watch, it reopened the wounds caused by the few weeks following the 2000 election. Made infinetly worse by the last 8 years and the destruction that George W. Bush and his cronies have caused this country. But if you want an entertaining, insider look at how it all went down, Recount, is the perfect film for that.

They do a pretty good job of keeping the film non-partisan, it leans slightly to the left, because they decide to focus more on the Democrats and their fight. But I came away with some respect for the Republican lawyers who won them this election. If anything it only further confirmed my belief that the Electoral College is the stupidest way possible to elect a President. That the whole thing came down to a few thousand votes in Florida, when Gore handily won the popular vote, is utter-bullshit.

The film is full of great actors, Kevin Spacey stars as Ron Klain, who was in charge of the Gore campaign, and was brought into a key position in this ugly fight for the Presidency. Dennis Leary, Ed Begley Jr. and John Hurt join in the Democrats battle. Laura Dern, Bob Balaban and Tom Wilkinson lead the charge for the Republicans. Jay Roach, who's known for directing two huge comedy series, Austin Powers and Meet the Parents, keeps the film moving along at a fast pace. The film is almost non-stop fast-talking, but they do a good job of making all this political talk sound good. It's edited fast a furious, constantly cutting between the two teams and real news footage of the events. If you're a Bush hater, and who isn't these days, see how this man came to run the country, learn something, and hopefully nothing like this will ever happen again. - Grade: B+

A great scene where Dennis Leary & Kevin Spacey talk about hanging chad(s) and how they may lose the Democrats the election:

Cannonball!

Through IMDb, I just discovered that Cannonball! was directed by Paul Bartel one year after Death Race 2000, which I was going to compare this film to, seeing as how they're both 70's carsploitation (I just made that word up.) flicks, starring David Carradine. It's been a few years since I've seen Death Race 2000, but I think it did everything right where Cannonball! did everything wrong. Race is funny, gory, sexy and endlessly entertaining; while Cannonball! is sloppy, boring and dull. Yeah, boring and dull are the same thing, but I couldn't come up with any more adjectives to describe this cinematic turd. There is no way I should be bored by an exploitation flick, it totally defeats the purpose.

David Carradine is Coy "Cannonball" Buckman, an ex-con and ex-professional race car driver, who wants to race his flame orange Firebird in in the illegal Cannonball Run across the country. Unwillingly along for the ride is his parole officer and girlfriend, one in the same. Since he's the favorite to win, he's got everybody gunning for him, including a gangster who's laid a big bet on another driver. It's a pretty basic set-up, that should provide for some fun, mindless entertainment. There's a couple of good scenes, which I'll post below, but that's about it. The rest of the film is incredibly dull, the racing scenes are mostly uninspired, the acting hovers between good and bad, so you can't get into the characters, but you can't laugh at the actors ineptitude. The score is an earful of awful, it sounds like it was ripped straight from a 70's porn movie that the composer was working on at the same time.

Don't bother in the least. Watch Death Race 2000 again, or one of the other 100 better 70's car-chase films, like Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry, The Vanishing Point, or Bullit. Or if you're in the mood for an 80's comedy version of the Cannonball Run, than check out the ultimate guilty-pleasure film, Cannonball Run, featuring Burt Reynolds in his charismatic prime. - Grade: D

In this scene David Carradine uses some of his Kung Fu skills to beat down a fake cop, sent to take him out of the race. I love the way Carradine pauses for a second before unleashing a fury of kicks.



Here Carradine's had enough of his main rival in the race, Cade Redman, and decides to dispatch him. He jumps an unfinished bridge 20 years before Speed. It's easily the best put together scene in the film, if all the chase scenes in this film had this kind of energy, it'd be a cult-classic.



This has got to be the most ridiculous car crash scene in the history of cinema. It just goes on and on, with cars crashing into each other long after everyone should have stopped. Each collision ending in a huge fireball. It's cheesily entertaining though, I'll admit.

The Ruins

I read the book a while back, and loved it to pieces. I'd still consider it the best book I've read in the last year, and it easily makes my top 5 horror novels of all time. I can't say anything of the like for the film adaptation, but I do think it's made well enough to be worthwhile for horror fans. The film gets most of the events right, in the right order, although some of them happen to alternate characters. But without being able to go into the characters minds, the film suffers. The mental anguish they go through in the book, is what makes it so terrific.

I don't think it's any secret who or what the villain in this story is now, it's right there on the poster, so I'll just go ahead and talk about it. I wasn't sure they would be able to make killer vines scary, it's a pretty ridiculous idea, even for a a book, but the filmmakers managed to pull it off. They do the smart thing and keep them in the dark for the first act, but this is the rare horror film that takes place mostly during the day. The thing that makes the vines so scary is that they have infinite time and patience. They wait until the victim is asleep or incapacitated to attack. The way they crawl right into the flesh, through the smallest of cuts, feeding on you from the inside out, is a wonderfully creepy idea.

Four young friends are vacationing in Mexico, they befriend a young German man, whose brother has disappeared in the jungle, looking for some ruins with a girl. Hoping for a bit of adventure before heading back to school, the friends follow the German to the ruins. A group of locals try to scare them away from the site, but once one of the girls has touched the vines, they're forced to stay at gunpoint. Unable to leave and unable to find the others who came before them, they're forced to just wait it out, while they slowly discover why there are only bones left and why they can only wait around to die. Things get worse, when the German falls down a shaft, becoming paralyzed from the waste down. The scene where the two guys try to amputate his legs with a rock, is the best scene in the film, and one of the most gruesome scenes in recent memory.



The film has much better acting than your typical teen-horror film, they're really able to sell the pure terror of the situation. Jena Malone, who is one of the best young actresses around, I've been following her career since she played a young Jodie Foster in Contact, stars as Amy. Jonathon Tucker is good as Jeff, a pre-med student, who fancies himself as the only one who can get them out of this horrific situation. Laura Ramsey, who I don't remember in anything before this, gets the toughest role of Stacy, she goes through the most torture in the group. Shawn Ashmore, who I only just realized played Iceman in the X-Men, is fine as Eric, doesn't do anything special, but doesn't mess anything up either.

I think this is the only time I'll ever make the recommendation to read the book before seeing the film, so you can bring the character's thoughts to the actions that go on around them. I was able to enjoy the film on a whole other level, thinking about their internal tortures, while having their external ones visualized for me. Without reading the book, the movie lacks something, it's mainly violence for violence sake, but it's so well done that I can recommend it even without the full story. Film grade without reading the book: Grade C - With the book: Grade B (Seen on 7/13/08)

The Call of Cthulhu, The 4th Dimension & Man From Earth

I have a ton of respect for independent filmmakers. I'm talking about real indie-filmmakers, the ones that go out completely on their own, and spend their own money. It takes real balls to put yourself on the line for your art. I especially respect those that try something new, something a little ambitious, something that isn't a couple of dudes sitting around a coffee shop talking about their dicks. I saw three such movies pretty close together, each only similar in their budgets, their sci-fi themes and their lack of recognizable actors.

The Call of Cthulhu

My very first film eRATicate, was a B&W, silent film. So I was very interested when I heard that somebody had taken the famous H.P. Lovecraft story, and made an authentic silent film out of it. The filmmakers really went the extra mile to make it feel like an authentic early 1900's film. The actors over-emote, really trying to sell their feelings with just their facial expressions and eyes. The over-done make-up, the costumes and props are well done, with nothing jumping out as anachronistic. The only problem I had with the film on the technical side, was that they shot it on video; although I must admit it's pretty well lit. But it's obvious that it's been roughed up in post, and it still looks too sharp and not grainy enough. I would have appreciated the film much more if they'd shot it on actual film, expense be damned.

The Call of Cthulhu moves along a little slowly. Being used to dialog and all, it's tough to watch a film with nobody speaking, having the film come to a stop, and being forced to read dialog cards every minute or so. I think that alone will turn most viewers away. But once I got used to the old-timey style, I began to forget the style and fell into the story. It follows a man as he comes under the spell of Cthulhu; he travels the world, meeting many strange people, all in search of this elusive monster. By far the highlight of the film, is when he actually finds the beast, in all it's stop-motion glory. It climbs from the depths, as big as a building, with a face full of nasty tentacles, knocking poor sailors to their tiny deaths.

The Call of Cthulhu is only 45 minutes long, so what starts out as a sort of slow moving film, ends up being well worth seeing, with the monster taking up the last 10 minutes of the film. Watching the making-of, I was truly impressed by how this film came together. The film is completely homemade, put together by a couple of friends and fellow Lovecraft nuts. They built all the sets themselves, came up with cheap, creative ways to do the ambitious effects, got their friends to star, and other friends to lend a hand behind the scenes. The film is admittedly not for most, but for those who dig something different, it's well worth checking out. - Grade: B+ (Seen on 7/9/08)


The 4th Dimension

I kept running across this was a film on Myspace, and it looked fairly intriguing. I knew it was a low-budget affair, with minimal professional marketing, since I was doing the same thing with my film The Turning Point. (Blatant self promotion.) When I saw that the DVD was available on Netflix, I was curious to see it for myself. I didn't know anything about it, except that it was filmed in B&W, supposedly trippy, and it was about The 4th Dimension. Unlike Cthulhu, the makers of 4th, went the extra mile to shoot on film, although esthetically, I didn't think it was as important with this film. But it sure looks good, the film is absolutely gorgeous to watch, with great compositions and lighting throughout the film.

Unfortunately the film moves forward like molasses. It seems weird only for weird's sake, never really going anywhere until the last few minutes. It's a nearly silent film, with hardly any dialog. (Although you wouldn't guess that from the trailer below, I swear they use every line in the film.) With most of the dialog being throwaway lines, not really moving the plot forward. Early on I made a guess as too what was happening, which turned to be correct in the end. The film wraps up far too neatly for such an abstract film. It goes weird scene, strange scene, boring scene, trippy scene, weird scene, now let's wrap it all up scene.

But I applaud the filmmakers for making the film at all. The photography is pure beauty. They found great locations, most notably the last one, which I won't say, as it gives away the ending. The set design is really well done, you can tell they put a lot of thought and time into what's going on around the characters. Louis Morabito, who plays the lead role of Jack, is a great find, he has a unique look and an intense screen presence. It's too bad the story doesn't live up to the rest of the film. If they'd had a great script, with more depth and development, the film could have been pure magic. Unfortunately it puts a damper on most of the work that went into it. - Grade: C+ (Seen on 8/7/08)





The Man From Earth

Being fairly disappointed by The 4th Dimension, when Netflix got my DVD back, they suggested another movie that I wasn't familiar with. I read through some of the customer reviews, and it sounded like a well made head-trip of a film. It turned out to be the least ambitious of the three, at least scale wise, with 97% of the film taking place in one room, the other 3%, just outside that room. But it had the most recognizable actors, including Tony (Candyman) Todd, William Katt, David Lee Smith, John Billingsley, & Ellen Crawford - All veteran character actors. Their acting is decent, it doesn't take anything away from the film, but it isn't really that impressive either. The whole thing feels like a three-camera version of an off-Broadway production of a Twilight Zone episode. Written by Twilight Zone and Star Trek writer Jerome Bixby, that's pretty much what it boils down too.

The film concerns a man named John Oldman, a college professor who's moving; he invites his friends, all fellow professors, over for a going-away party. Talking with them over take-out, amongst a roomful of packed boxes, he decides to drop a serious mind-bender, telling them he's 14,000 years old, born a caveman, living through most of human history until today. At first they all think he's joking, putting on an elaborate show of his knowledge. But as they dig deeper and deeper into his story, it starts to make some sense.

The entire film is this group sitting around an talking about whether John's story is true or not. He goes through most of history, talking about all the famous people he befriended or influenced. Even getting a bit controversial, when he claims to be one of Christianity's most influential figures. He's so convincing that they start to believe him. In the end, the film doesn't really leave you much choice, it spells it all out, but it does the story justice. As a film, it's not that exciting, it's shot and edited like a TV movie, with no real style. But if you appreciate a good sci-fi story, something to wrap your brain around, The Man From Earth has a lot of wonderful ideas to ponder. - Grade: B (Seen on 8/12/08)

The Faculty

The Invasion of the Body Snatchers is one of my favorite sci-fi plot devices. The idea of aliens taking over earth, by appearing to be our loved ones, is a wonderfully creepy idea. In 1998 I couldn't have been a much bigger Robert Rodriguez fan, after the great start to his career with El Mariachi, Desperado and From Dusk Till Dawn, I thought the guy could do no wrong behind the camera. Kevin Williamson, who'd burst onto the scene with the brilliant Scream, wrote the script. Bringing these elements together for The Faculty, was an almost ideal situation for me at the time. I remember excitedly trekking to the theater, only to be very let down by an extremely average sci-fi/horror film.

Nothing about it jumped out at me. It felt like Rodriguez had been neutered, none of his style or panache was present in The Faculty, and I lost a lot of respect for him that day. I don't know how Rodriguez felt about the film, but he seemed to take it hard as well. I think the studio system got to him, they beat his creativity down and it took three years for him to make another film. By far the longest he's gone between films, he's released almost one a year since then, sometimes two. His next film was Spy Kids, and even though it was made for children, it felt like a Rodriguez film. And although he's made some stinkers since then, some films worse than The Faculty, all of them have that Rodriguez stamp to them.

It took me 10 years to revisit The Faculty, it played on HBO during one of their free weekends, and I figured, why not? And you know what, without all those expectations I really enjoyed it. I still think it lacks a lot of that fun Rodriguez filmmaking style, the camera-work and editing is extremely static compared to most of his other films. What I enjoyed about it most, was the freedom he gives his actors.

Robert Patrick is deliciously evil as the football coach and first faculty member to be turned into an alien. Bebe Neuwirth, a veteran character actress, seems to be having a blast in this B-movie. Jon Stewart has maybe his finest acting role, which isn't saying much, as the science teacher who is incredibly excited about the new species found by his students. Salma Hayek, unfortunately doesn't have a ton to do, but stand around in the background and look hot. Famke Janssen has maybe the best role in the film, as the quiet English teacher, who turns into a femme-fatale once the aliens take over her body.

Jon Stewart in The Faculty:

In the ten years since this film was released, the casting of the kids has proved to be incredibly smart. With nearly every one of them still working as very recognizable actors. Way before he was Frodo, Elijah Wood, is nearly perfect as the nerdy kid who gets picked on by the jocks, but in the end shows he has the biggest stones of them all. Josh Hartnett, rocking a very unfortunate 90's bed-head haircut, shows some of that early promise as a genius drug-dealer. (I truly believe he has a great movie in him.) Shawn Hatosy, seems oddly miscast as the school's star QB, he doesn't have the looks or the swagger, but he proves to be the right choice as his story develops. Clea DuVall does her usual outcast thing. Jordana Brester is pretty, in the pretty girl role. Usher's just there for the poster shot, he has about three very rehearsed lines in the film. The kid's oddball chemistry is really what makes the film work.

The screenplay is the weakest point of the film. Kevin Williamson proves that he wasn't much more than a one-hit-wonder, his banter sounds exactly the same way it did in the Scream films and I Know What You Did Last Summer. The kids are too all-knowing, too-hip. The things coming out of their mouth is pure movie talk. Included in this film is one of cinema's biggest "what the fuck" scenes of all time, when he has all the kids take Meth to prove their not aliens. (This certainly isn't Kurt Russell testing the blood in The Thing.)

But Rodriguez manages to have some fun with this mess. He ramps up the suspense pretty well in a few of the scenes; with the gore and creature effects also proving to be a highlight, it's not too disgusting, but it works well when he uses it. The final monster is completely ridiculous, but the film has a who-cares vibe to the whole thing, so by the end you'll buy just about anything.

The film certainly isn't a forgotten classic. It has too many scenes that don't work, but those that do are certainly fun. The actors don't behave anything like real people, but you can tell they're having fun with all the cheese, which makes the film entertaining. Plus it's fun to see all these actors who went on to bigger things as youngsters. They tried to sell this film with one of those stupid 90's teen-horror-film posters, where all the stars heads lined up, but I'd rank it above most of those films, and would probably only place it behind the original Scream in watchablilty. - Grade: C+

The cheesy, very 90's trailer: