Monday, November 12, 2007
Halloween: Resurrection
I know I’ve been spending a lot of times writing negative reviews, anyone would think I hated horror films, it’s just that I’ve not seen a genuinely good one for a while. I thought I’d give “Halloween: Resurrection” a go, big mistake! If you remember the end of part 73, or whatever they’re up to (even the film-makers have lost count so stopped putting numbers on the end), Jamie Lee Curtis decides to give Michael Myers head and body a premature divorce with an axe. Turns out Michael had swapped places with an ambulance driver and Laurie Strode has spent the last 2 years in a nuthouse having gone mad through guilt at killing an innocent man!
Of course she’s not mad, she’s just been biding her time (think Linda Hamilton in “Terminator 2”) and seeing out what was obviously a contracted appearance in a prologue that kills her off and renders the rest of the movie pointless. Wasn’t Michael’s motivation to kill Laurie? Anyway, in the meantime a TV company has plans to film a reality TV show in Michael’s old gaffe so he chooses that particular night to go home and becomes a reality TV star (I’m reliably informed he’ll have a single out by the end of the year that could be an outside bet for the Christmas number 1 spot!)
Believe me when I say that there’s not enough Polyfiller in the world to sort out all the holes in this plot. Right from the opening murder (off screen Michael kills a policeman and in the space of ten seconds manages to incorporate his head into the third spin cycle of an industrial washing machine, not to mention the bloke who discovers it trips over the rest of the body when walking backwards, despite the fact he would have had to have stepped over it to get there in the first place) to the final scene this is a master class in bollocks. Why has the Myers house, deserted for 30 years, not been torn down in an affluent residential area? Why does nobody notice one of the technicians getting butchered ON CAMERA? The place is in disrepair yet seems to be a fortress from which there’s no escape, when one of them finally gets out, why does she re-enter the house on the top floor, a worse position than she was in to start with? Why is Tyra Banks in it? Why is it even called “Resurrection” when he apparently never died in the first place? If her mobile Internet thingy works, how come the only person she tries to text is a nerdy kid and not get help? The list goes on…The film’s worst crime is leaving it open for another sequel, now that really is frightening. As long as Busta Rhymes isn’t in it (thankfully Tyra Banks gets gutted) I know I’ll end up watching that one as well. John Carpenter, what have you created…
"Beware the moon and stay on the path..."
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Zombie Flesh Eaters 2
We all know that Lucio Fulci (god rest his soul) wasn’t the best director in the world, but at least he knew how to bring the dead to life. At least I thought he did until this unholy mess found its way onto my TV screen courtesy of those fine folk at Zone Horror. Straying dangerously close to the Ed Wood school of ‘so bad it’s good’ film-making, it’s hard to explain just how crap this film is. That said, I can’t say I was bored.
The ‘plot’ concerns the theft of a deadly poison, imaginatively called “Death 1”, by the world’s most ineffectual terrorists (matched only by the SWAT team sent to stop him who couldn’t hit a cow’s arse with a Banjo, instead shooting open the case containing the aforementioned poison). For reason’s unknown the SWAT team, despite shooting him, manage to lose him and he walks a full two miles back to his hotel room, unopposed, where he proceeds to infect the rest of the building. The army find the terrorist’s body and burn it in a massive kiln, the ash infects the birds (!) that become zombified, attack everybody else and the undead virus spreads further. This film is blessed with the kind of dialogue that would make porn fans blush (“I’m feeling much better now but I’m thirsty…thirsty for your BLOOD!!!”), especially when the army captain dismisses scientist fears over the ash infecting the air as science fiction when they’ve just managed to re-animate the dead!
Couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo
Gore wise it’s not much to write home about, Zone Horror gave it a ‘15’ rating, but it does have a couple of good decapitations, face rippings, gougings and the obligatory flesh munching scene.
All in all I can only describe “Zombie Flesh Eaters 2” as utter bollocks and a bit of an insult to the master of zombie mayhem. Now where did I put “Zombie Flesh Eaters 3”?
"Beware the moon...and stay on the path"
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Ghostwatch
Now we’re talking REAL fear! This programme saw broadcast laws changed and caused a mass panic across the Uk, both public and in the press, including the ONLY case of post traumatic stress directly attributed to a TV programme. The broadcast was also blamed for a couple of teen suicides and even unrest reported in certain areas by religious nutcases who believed the entire country was being haunted. “Ghostwatch” is Britain’s answer to Orson Welles classic “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast in America. It worked on so many levels and still holds up to repeat viewings.
To the uninitiated, “Ghostwatch” had very little pre-publicity, billing itself as an investigation into a poltergeist incident at a council estate where a little girl was the centre of a series of bizarre, even violent episodes. Its first masterstroke was casting 
Michael Parkinson as the host, a trusted face of realism and respected broadcaster for years, he added an authenticity nobody else could. It also cast Sarah Green, a wanabee reporter known by millions as the face of Saturday kids TV show “Going Live”, at the scene of the haunting and her husband Mike Smith, also a well known face, in the studio to give an emotional attachment to proceedings as they descend into chaos. The finest piece of casting though was Craig Charles, Dave Lister from comedy show “Red Dwarf”, as the comic relief, the joker, the light entertainment who’s clever asides to the ridiculousness of what was happening whilst he thought he was off-air, added more credence to the show.
The show was perfectly paced, the first half of it was dull, a few calls about shapes that weren’t there, some red herring ‘strange noises’, crank calls and Craig Charles jumping out of the kitchen cupboard (right), all adding to the realism once more. It was just what you’d expect to happen if it was real, not much! There was even an attempt by the girl to fake an incident that gave the resident sceptic the chance for a smug ‘I told you so’ to the parapsychologist. It wasn’t until the second half when the scary stuff began, but why did it work when it became so ridiculous towards the end?
Firstly the BBC scheduled it to start five minutes before ITV’s “Blind Date”, Saturday’s top performing show, finished so the “this isn’t real” message was missed by a good chunk of the audience. Secondly, it was screened on Halloween night that happened to fall on a Saturday night, before many people had bought the TV listings that revealed a cast list. Thirdly, half way through there was a “People who’ve tuned in to watch ?, we’re sorry but we’re going to stick with events here”, making it feel even more like a live show and fourth, nothing like this had EVER been done before. This was years before “Most Haunted”, “Big Brother” and the rest of the reality TV shows that now use the same techniques employed here (infra red, multi-camera views, mundane chatter, lengthy passages of time with little going on, phone lines, etc…) had even been conceived. It also had a believable and increasingly disturbing storyline.
As the show gathers pace we find out pregnant dogs had been killed and their unborn killed, children had gone missing and the house had a mysterious past that involved a psychologically disturbed man being sub-let a room at the time of a series of the aforementioned disappearances. None of this came up in the shows ‘research’ because none of it was officially reported, it all added to the panic and sense that something was happening. It was too much for some people who believed it was real and switched it off before the overcooked ending that saw TV cameras explode and Michael Parkinson possessed reciting a children’s nursery rhyme.
What most people don’t know is what was left out of the show. The makers wanted to add a high pitched sound that would make dogs bark and cats hiss, they wanted a line included that would have given the impression the ghost was using the show as a nationwide séance to enter people’s homes, it was also meant to be the culmination of a six part documentary that would have told the back story as if documenting real events. The reaction was one of terror, it was meant to be a whole lot more about audience participation.We’re unlikely ever to see anything like this again, we’re too self-aware now and TV guides blow all the plots and secrets before we see the programmes. I’m just pleased I was of the right age, state of mind and gullibility to appreciate this finely crafted show as it was meant to be experienced.
"Beware the moon and stay on the path..."
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Class of 1999
Now, and I’m sure my old mate Simon Wigg (see link opposite) will agree with me on this one, here is a real hidden gem of a movie. Very low budget but an incredibly well paced, directed and executed movie that really should have been a bigger hit than it was. The basic plot is that society has become so violent, controlled by gangs, that the only way to contain them is to give them a free range to do what they want in areas called Free Fire Zones. The police will not enter
Free Fire Zones but the real problem is the violence in schools, so much so that a multi-million dollar company has re-programmed military droids with a basic teaching ability as part of a disciplinarian pilot scheme to keep the little shites in line. Of course the droids revert to their original programming and wage war with the pupils (“Kill the enemy!”), eventually forcing the two rival gangs to join forces if they want to live.What’s right with this movie is that it is ALL action. From the opening board meeting outlining the proposals, intercut with our hero Cody Culp) being released from prison, the explosions, fights, car chases and gun battles do not let up for one second. They are also surprisingly well handled (Director Mark L Lester has previous, he also directed Schwarzenegger in the similarly violent and entertaining “Commando”), particularly a pitched battle between both gangs that is infiltrated by the teachers without the hoodlums even knowing they’re there.
The film has some very impressive gore scenes as well, including one teenager being pulled through a wall by the waist, another gets a drill through the forehead, one man has his heart ripped out and another has his throat ripped open. All this violence and mayhem, though, is permeated with some of the cheesiest action one-liners to add a comic touch to proceedings. After destroying one of the teachers in a Chemistry explosion, Cody utters “I guess I blew that course”, one of the teachers exclaims how he “loves to mould young minds” as he thrusts a drill through his head and when Cody tries to convince his gangmates the teachers killed his brother, one of them quirks up “why, because he didn’t do his homework?” All great fun.So, what’s wrong with it? Well, the effects could be better. The robotics and matte work are awful, although it does lend itself to work well with the overall comic feel. The plot is thin, it is an excuse for a series of all action set pieces so anyone looking for a film with meaning will be let down, despite it’s grim outlook on American society and school violence. Also, some of the script and acting is weak, the way they finally come round to the idea it’s the teachers killing everybody is ridiculous (After their rival gang leader calls them out to the school, one of them says “Jeez, don’t we spend enough time there as it is”, another replies “That’s it, it’s the teachers, why would Hector be at school if he didn’t have to”), but these are minor quibbles that, for me, add to the enjoyment of the film as a whole because it’s so ridiculously enjoyable.
Throw Pam Grier and Malcolm McDowell into the mix and you’ve got all the makings of a cult classic. I don’t for one minute believe it’ll ever go down in history as anything approaching that accolade but there’ll always be a special place for it in my heart, even if there’s also usually a place for it in the bargain bin at Blockbuster. If you do chance upon it though, buy it! You will NOT be disappointed. "Beware the moon and stay on the path..."
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Nightmare Concert Pt 2
Well I’m not quite sure how I can describe this film, further to what I already put in a previous post. It is, quite simply, one of the goriest films I have ever seen but was quite, quite crap. I would liken it to watching your washing machine on the final spin, you know nothing of any meaning will happen but you still watch it go round and round. The strange thing is that you can’t describe this film as uneventful.
One amazing chain of events sees Mr Fulci look out of his window and see a woman opening the curtains, his hallucinations see a different story of the lady in question performing a strange sexual act. He then looks at another window where two men are doing DIY, except Fulci sees a brutal and graphic stabbing. He then puts his dinner in a microwave, only to be confronted by the sight of a severed head slowly melting in the radiation container. He THEN knocks a bottle of liquor that smashes on the floor, looking down to (inexplicably) see a corpse slowly decomposing from the outside as though it’s being dissolved by acid. About 10 minutes with no dialogue, just a succession of gruesome, highly graphic images, with no connection to the plot other than to tell us what we already know – Fulci is mad.
The gore doesn’t stop there. We see a man continuously run over by a car until his head resembles a pork chop and his chest is
caved in, we see a boy riding his bike get his head cut off with a chainsaw, we see a women decapitated with a chest of drawers (!), another has her head half chopped off during a strangulation via piano wire, there are hands chopped off, legs cut off, stabbings through the neck, a multiple stabbing in the shower, a woman is beaten to death with a baseball bat – it’s quite simply horrendous because there is no plot.
It’s also unintentionally hilarious. The doctor (left) committing most of these “real” murders has a couple of ‘mad scientist’ monologues where he ends of cackling maniacally and the ending is truly awful. Not wishing to spoil things in any way (the ending is hardly the reason for watching this film) Fulci sails off into the sunset after waving goodbye to the film crew who have been filming “Nightmare Concert”…IT WAS ALL A FILM YOU SEE!!!! THE JOKE’S ON US!!!! Basically you should watch this movie as a curiosity only, Fulci has made much better films with much less violence and far better plot. I wouldn’t recommend anybody actually goes out and buys this, but keep an eye out on ‘Zone Horror’ because I guarantee you won’t have seen a film quite like it."Beware the moon and stay on the path..."
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Murder in the Outback
Following on from my poor review of “The Hills Have Eyes” I’m going for a bit of a departure from what I normally put on this page. On Sunday night I watched an ITV drama that held my interest for a full two hours, more than I thought it, and it turned out to be a most compelling viewing. “Murder in the Outback” told the true story of the murder of British backpacker Peter Falconio and the recollections of survivor Joanne Lees. The reason I’ve put it on this page is because it mirrors so many horror stories, especially “Wolf Creek” and to some extent “Hostel”. 
The programme opened with the purchase of the van and pretty much straight away took us into the outback where the pair were seemingly targeted for termination by a passer by who told them sparks were flying out of their exhaust. This must have been an absolutely terrifying experience and Joanne Froggat played the part of Lees extremely well in these opening scenes. We really felt the fear and sense of being trapped with no clue as to what had, was or might have happened to her and Falconio. I must admit though, I wouldn’t have so readily flagged down a giant truck after what had happened to her.
The treatment of Lees by the media was portrayed interestingly and the programme really got across what my perceptions of her were throughout the immediate aftermath and trial. I always thought she came across as cold and the film did not shirk away from that, not showing her in a positive light at all, despite what she’d been through. It brought up her affair and showed her dismiss the person who’d rescued her, despite the fact he’d since been in an accident that put him in a wheelchair. I recall having doubts about her story because of her manner and this was conveyed in the film.I also remember the Martin Bashir special with her. According to the film he wanted her take on the Australian Police’s handling of the investigation, something Lees had strong views about, but the finished piece was more like a character assassination and that led to her distrust (she already had doubts about them) of the media. She also had reservations about her own legal team, the film conveyed a feeling of Lees against the world (from her point of view at least) whilst making it clear that most people just wanted to help.
The trial was also dealt with well, it really did hang in the balance, and even managed to create a semblance of tension in the result despite the fact we all know what it was. Issues such as Lees e-mailing the bloke she had an affair with, a headband of hers taken by the suspect, whether or not she could move her bound arms from behind her to the front were all covered. All in all it was a good piece of TV that conveyed how I felt about her throughout.What set it apart from similar true accounts is that it didn’t portray the victim as whiter than white, a fact that led many to believe she could have killed her own boyfriend. It raised the doubts over her story, inaccuracies, discrepancies and ambiguities that dogged her account to police (not portrayed in the best of ways – they didn’t arrive at the scene until 8 hours after the incident, 3 hours after it was reported). Compelling TV and possibly a worthy entry into the road horror genre?
"Beware the moon and stay on the path..."
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
The Hills Have Eyes
Now first of all, don’t get me wrong. I’m glad horror movies are moving away from the “If this was a horror movie I’d be the first to be killed” kind of irritating, self-knowing bollocks. It was good for a while but has now run its course and it’s nice to see the movie industry acknowledge this. However, I’m getting increasingly pissed off with the number of pointless remakes. I know I gave a glowing review of the “Dawn” remake but this is the exception rather than the rule. “Hills” is a slightly different kettle of fish.
There have been a great many ‘broken down in the middle of nowhere to be attacked by cannibalistic mutants’ movies recently, most notably “Wrong Turn” which, for me, is the best in the sub-genre for a long time, presumably largely ignored because it wasn’t a remake. With this in mind, what is the point in remaking Wes Craven’s classic. They’ve not even had the courtesy to alter the plot in any way (at least “Chainsaw” tried), the family (including two dogs called ‘Beauty’ and ‘Beast’) break down and are attacked by cannibals, including one scene where a man bites off the head of the budgie. Even the nuclear sub-plot remains, the area used to be a test centre for the military.
There’s no doubt this movie is more shocking than the original 70’s movie, quite simply you can get away with more now. The first taste of the original I ever had was a creepy trailer that just zeroed in on the film poster with sound effects in the background, it made me think the film was too shocking to even see any of it in the teaser. In fact the movie is quite restrained, the complete opposite to the sledgehammer remake. We see pick-axes in the head, skewers through the neck, a face blown clean off with a shotgun. It goes on but none of those moments match the basic horror of the original where a man is force-fed oil and then burnt alive. You become de-sensitised to the violence, including a viscious sexual attack, that by the end of the film, there is a real feeling of anti-climax. There’s little or no tension and I’ve not even mentioned the plot holes that are bigger than the craters left by the nuclear detonations. How come it takes the father an entire day to get back to the garage, but within a few minutes of being attacked, the cannibals (are we to assume they can drive) not only get him back to his family, but tie him up and rig him up to explosives. How can one cannibal take a body from a car without two people, looking around them at all times, even hearing him (he even drags the body about a quarter of a mile and is feasting within seconds). If we’re to believe the newspaper headlines about mysterious disappearances and the police being baffled, how did they not stumble upon the test village populated by cannibals, or the massive car park graveyard in one of the craters? At least make it believable fellas!
In short, though I can’t say I hated this film, there are far better films out there made years ago for less money that deserve more attention. It’s all part of people’s obsession with re-makes (myself included, I always like to see how they plan to mess up another of my favourite horror films). I hate to bring this up but we’re expecting remakes of “The Evil Dead” and (I can barely bring myself to write this) “Suspiria” in the near future. Message to Hollywood, LEAVE US ALONE!!!
The Lucky ones get remade last!!!
"Beware the moon and stay on the path..."
