Drive, Another Earth, and My Thoughts on the Indie Scene

In my time as a movie buff, I have taken some pretty interesting stances on certain celluloid issues, from my position that "Sucker Punch" is neither the god awfully piece of work its haters say it is, nor the masterpiece its defenders claim it to be, but simply an "ok" action flick; to the fact that I find "Dances with Wolves" to probably the most overrated piece of media in existence.  And today, I get to lay down yet another one, I have a particular dislike for the current independent film industry.  STOP!  Let me clarify!  I don't HATE it, but I really don't think it's some seminal area of film making, good things do come out of it, but like Hollywood, it has it's share of indefensible total crap.  Allow me to explain with two examples, both from last year, and both technically independent works i.e. they were done without the aide of the big Hollywood studios during production.
The first is the movie "Another Earth".  This movie embodies absolutely EVERYTHING I despise about the indie scene.  It's a movie that has a decent enough premise, in this case that a second version of Earth has appeared in the solar system and it appears to be a very similar version of our own.  Cool premise, right?  It's why I watched it.  But that's not what it's really about, no, it's about a girl that got drunk and killed a man's family in a car accident and how she deal with her crime and makes penance for it.  I can't tell you how awful I found this movie, it reeks of self indulgence that's just clawing for any reason to exist outside that fact.  This movie has a principle protagonist that is in EVERY scene, and this main actress (Brit Marling)was also the co-writer of the script, so there is no defending that point.  This was her trying to create a vehicle for herself to show off her "acting" and I can't describe how horribly she fails.  First of all, there are many many scenes where she's just sitting there doing nothing, well, not NOTHING per say, but they are clearly scenes there to "enhance" her character but, since she's kind of bland all over, they just end up being padding.  Added to all this, the script seems to try and  play her off as likable and sympathetic but given the actions she takes in the movie, I really don't want to sympathize with her, what she does gets down right cruel!
Not to mention that this movie is about as interestingly shot as a TV sitcom.  It's just a bunch of close ups and some coverage shots to mix it up between the pretentious shots of our oh so likable main character walking in front of an effect shot of the second Earth while talking heads drone about its existence's implications.  This brings us to the big flaw of the movie for me.  Yeah I know I said that the actor co-writing the script bugged me but that's just because it felt like she was trying to bite of more than she could chew, actors can write and act in things very well, Simon Pegg springs to mind here.  No, the big flaw I have with this movie is how it handles its main theme, Existentialism.
I don't really have time to go into too much detail on it, as it is a big philosophical principle, but I'm just going to say this:  If your movie is an existentialist work, it had damn well explore the implications of that well and that is no simple task.  This movie fails in it miserably as what it's trying to explore is with a poorly performed character that does some out right horrible stuff.  This is a common trap for lazy writers that deal with Existentialism, and I'm frankly sick of it.  But what really gets my teeth grinding about something like this is how the protagonist is usually played off, they are just depressed.  Now, this doesn't instantly bad, a character coming out of an existential depression can make for  a good story, hell it's basically a good part of the plot to "Clerks", a personal favorite of mine!  But here, like most others, the character just never evolves, never become all that interesting, and just basically spends the movie say "Oh life is awful and I'm terrible and poor pitiful me."  This is one of the things I despise most about the indie scene as a whole, it's a lot of people that are just making less stellar versions of things that have worked before, and maybe adding in things that they heard vaguely from their Philosophy 101 class to make it sound like their shallow movie is somehow deep and moving.  However, this isn't always the case.  One of the best films of last year was the art house crime thriller "Drive".
"Drive" gets everything right.  It's fantastically shot, amazingly well directed and perfectly acted.  In it Ryan Gosling plays a mechanic/part time stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway driver, and is actually never given an identity outside simply Driver.  He begins to form a bond with a female tenant of his apartment building and decides to help her fresh out of prison husband with one last job and then things go south fast.  Already that plot sounds like something that isn't even remotely original and yeah, it's not, but that's where the execution comes in.
This movie is less about the action, though it does go there in its own way, but it's all about mood.  It has a very hazy atmosphere and actually feels like a bit of a send up of Tony Scott's "True Romance" (yes, I know it was a Tarantino script, don't correct me, I'm meaning the director here, who had more say on shot design.)  This is helped by the amazing cast, from Gosling's almost emotionless, yet utterly human Driver.  To  Albert Brooks' absolutely jaw dropping turn as one of the gangsters (I'm not joking when I say he was totally snubbed by the Oscars.)  Plus, I'm seriously not exaggerating when I say this is one of the most amazing well shot and edited movies I've seen in a long time.  It's just that rare movie that you watch and it just washes over you with how good it is, and you have to keep reminding yourself that it's basically got the plot of a low budget movie that Canon might have released in the mid 80's.
It also proves my point, both movies do actually.  The independent film industry can produce truly amazing work like "Drive" that just proves even if you have an unoriginal story, you can always leave your own touch on it, while "Another Earth" just proves that even without the constraints of a major studio watering everything down, you can still produce a total turd.  And as a last little bit of food for thought, next time you want to bash Hollywood as soul less and all about the effects unlike Independent films, consider this:  The "Star Wars" prequels are technically independent films.

Final Scores:

Another Earth: 0 out of 5

Drive:  5 out of 5

Up coming schedule.

So yeah, it's been awhile, I've been taking time to try and figure out more that I want to do with this little project I give some time to.  Mostly what direction I want to take it, while commenting on current movies is one way to take this, it's becoming increasingly more difficult to find new things to say about them without having more means to get to the theater are a frequent basis, and since that isn't quite doable for me, I'm deciding to fully go into the you may not have seen it aspect about obscure movie.  After all, most of the time those are the kinds of movies I most enjoy tracking down, and if that's the case, I'll review them in full and speak my peace, good or bad and tell you where to find it if I'm recommending it.  However, I think some guidelines and the like are in order, as well as some comments on things that have been brought up that haven't had any follow up as yet.  First, last Halloween, I promised a top 10 of my favorite horror movies to end out the event, and I was planning on it.  However, in actually sitting down to write them, I kept wanting to go on and on about each film in turn to a point where I might as well have made a full review, as such that's my plan for this October, coupled with a list that would run with what I think should be a separate list for BEST Horror films, because to me, and many others, BEST and FAVORITE are two different things and I'm going to try and keep things on the lists totally separate.  Second, one thing I have been ask constantly as both a movie fan in general and someone that writes reviews, is what my favorite movie(s) is(are).  I"m going to answer that question, with a list of my personal Top 25, with one review at a fairly regular interval counting down from number 25 on down to number one, and like the Halloween horror countdowns, all will be full reviews.  Next, on my facebook page, I mentioned that I was planning on doing something related to the movie "Drive", and I am.  I'm working on it, part of why is that I'm using it and the movie "Another Earth" to share my thought on the current indie movie scene, and that will be posted Thursday (3/8/12) morning for sure.

Now for some guidelines about what will be reviewed on here, the obscure.  The perfect example of the type of thing that I'll end up reviewing on here is the previously reviewed "Guyver 2: Dark Heroes", an American movie, based on an animated show, based on a Japanese comic book.  But that doesn't mean I'll just do American films, anything Foreign, Cult, Indie, or just not often thought of anymore.  Basically, if the popular consciousness doesn't really know about it, it's fair game.  Occasionally, I'll review something current or mainstream Hollywood, but there are only so many ways I can say that Michael Bay sucks before it gets old, even for me.    I'm also letting it be known, that I'm more than open to recommendations, suggestions or, if you're so inclined challenges.  I have a pretty good bad movie tolerance I've built up so I'll gladly review whatever.  With one exception,  I won't review porn.  If that's something you want, take the suggestion else where or just do it yourself, but all I could really say in a review is best summed up like this:  "It's porn, it did/didn't do something for me, and if you're into this/that/the other thing, it'll probably work out all right for you.  Otherwise, if I can find it, I'll do it.

Another thing I'm going to start doing is post a rough schedule as to what particular movie I will be review that week.  So starting now, here is roughly my review schedule for the next six weeks following the above mentioned review:

- The Beyond
-A Better Tomorrow (possibly as another double with the recent remake)
-Delicatessen
-Cannibal the musical
-Malibu Express
-Miller's Crossing

The 10 worst horror movies I’ve seen

So, Halloween has come and gone, and already things are beginning to look a lot like Christmas again… So without further ado, and since I want Halloween to gain a little more steam, let’s keep talking about horror movies.  Now I’ve mentioned some good or at least enjoyable horror titles, but some people have always asked me which ones I like the least…  Ok, most of the time the just want to know what ones I hate the most and so here it is.  Some may be a little predicable, as I’ve probably talked about them before, but I’m laying it down on the line.  The rules are simple, one movie per franchise, only one remake, and I have to have actually sat through the whole movie at least once.  Now, with all that aside, lets start off with something that will probably piss people off.

10.    The Blair Witch Project.  Those that want to call me evil for adding this movie on here can frankly kiss my ass for all I care.  This is one of those movies where the hype and its clever viral marketing were I think WAY more interesting than the actual movie.  Though to give it credit, it was in interesting idea and in theory a good way to execute it.  What bugged me was that when I looked at the movie, I never really found it all that interesting.  I honestly found it to be really really dull.  None of the scares did anything for me and I just honestly didn’t see what the big deal was.  In the interest of fairness to all it did for the modern horror film AND the independent film industry it only barely makes the list, but being very very boring, and most importantly, NOT SCARY AT ALL… is a really disappointing thing for a horror film to be, and I just couldn’t not put this movie on the list.

9. The Happening.  Yeeeah.  This probably isn’t that much of a shock, if you are a living breathing human you know that this movie is terrible.  All you have to do is watch the trailer and you have all the worthwhile scenes of the movie.  Again it was, sort of an interesting idea, but the movie is just so laughably awful that it just mystifies you that the same guy behind something really good like “The Sixth Sense” would makes something this incompetent.  It’s just one dumb terrible idea after another and on top of all that, we have weak acting, just plain sloppy direction that makes this movie an utter joke.  And that’s the main reason it’s on the list, it’s just so insanely bad that it’s hilarious, only I don’t find it nearly as entertaining as say “Battlefield Earth”, but it comes awful close.  How can you possibly take something as stupid as Mark “Marky Mark” Wahlberg talking to a plastic plant at all seriously?

8. Friday the 13^th Part 8: Jason Take Manhattan.  THE TITLE!  SHE LIES!!!  In case you don’t want to take my word for it, this movie’s the lowest grossing of all the films in the series AND it was the last straw for Paramount studios as they unloaded the franchise off to New Line because of it.  So what makes this one the worst of Jason’s hacky- slashy- kill- the- pretty- young people outings?  One, it’s really dumb.  I mean the other movies were never masterpieces, but they were at least enjoyable or at the very least not instantly making you roll your eyes, but the moment the movie hits about the five minute mark, you know exactly two things are certain, one, this movie was seriously trimmed down to get an R rating, leading, plot holes and lots of deaths off camera.  But most importantly, you realize that the title, implying that Jason Voorhees is going to go on a massive rampage through New York city, was a cheat.  Yes, the last 15 minutes or so have Jason in NYC but he barely does anything once he’s there.  Also, this is the longest film in the franchise, clocking in at about an hour and 40 minutes, leaving us with about an hour and a half of nothing but a bunch of dumb teenagers on a boat.  Otherwise, it’s just a really bad slasher.  It’s totally generic and never reaches the heights of camp or make up effects the previous movies had.  I honestly think the only curiosity about this movie is that it’s Kelly Hu’s first major movie, and she’s not in it that much.  It’s just a stupid, misleading snooze-fest from start to finish.  Some fans really dislike “Jason Goes To Hell” for a lot of reasons, most of which I can understand if I don’t wholly agree with, but seriously, following this movie, you have to admit they at least tried something interesting.

7. Breeders.  This is just porn.  It’s porn trying to pretend that it’s an actual horror movie.  That’s it.  The premise is that there are a bunch of rapes that happen involving pretty women being attack by a guy in a bad rubber suit… I mean an alien.  That’s really all there is to this movies, there’s supposed to be this on going investigation thing to tie it all together, but the actual point of the movie is to get attractive women naked for no real reason, that’s it.  The box actually tries to sell the movie as a serious horror film, and that’s actually the reason I picked it up.  I figured if nothing else it’d be cheesy, but I actually felt pretty dirty after watching it.  It just likes to always take things that one extra step too far into just too uncomfortable to be sexy, but not intelligent or even just tasteful enough to be anything other than just total smut.  I have nothing against smutty movies for the sake of smutty movies, but this just wanted in vain to sell itself as something more.  But it’s just smut.  It’s not sexy, it’s just icky and stupid.

6. Devil.  Oh god this movie was torture to sit through!  There are bad horror movies, and then there are bad horror movies that like to slap you in the face with how much they suck every five minutes.  The premise of this movie makes no sense at all!  The idea that the DEVIL is going to show he is there to punish the wicked, by choosing to out right murder a bunch of people in an elevator, is about as clichéd as you get.  Then “Devil” decides to go that extra step with terrible and predictable dialogue, and the fact that about half way through, you realize that THE DEVIL(!) probably has much better targets.  Think about it, if the whole point of Satan offing all these people, is to prove to an unbelieving population he exists, wouldn’t it be better to say, kill a genocidal dictator?  Or a serial killer?  A cult leader praising a false idol?  I know the barest minimum of Christian theology and I was calling BS on this entire plot.  It’s like a bad “Twilight Zone” episode from that last attempt of resurrecting the series.  Again, I’d heard this was laughably bad ala “The Happening”, but God!  This was just insulting to all of our intelligence and I’m frankly glad it only had luke warm box office returns.

5. Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) *SIGH* yeah I don’t think this surprise anyone.  I really don’t have much else to add to what I’ve already said.  Basically I tried to separate my opinion about how it would size up on it’s own merits, and it still failed miserably as a horror movie, with all the call backs to the original movie just making me wish I was watching that instead.  I honestly hated this movie so much that even seeing clips in other reviews just makes me cringe.  I cannot stress how much I would love my $10 back from sitting through this movie.  As I have said many many many times, the only good thing about this movie, is that Jackie Earl Haley looks like he could be a good replacement for Robert Englund as Freddy Kruger, if only they could give him a script that was actually worth a damn.

4. Through the Eyes of a Stranger.  I got this movie in a boxed set with a bunch of horror films used for about $10.  It was one of those things that I just decided to watch on a lark one night and now it’s number four here.  This is an entire movie that works on its main character being a hypocritical idiot.  There’s a serial killer on the loose, she’s a reporter that’s made it quite clear to everyone that they should report ANY suspicious activity to the police, and all she does is play detective.  Hypocrisy on the character aside, this movie is just dull.  Its suspense is nonexistent and it may as well be telegraphing its climax with big flashy neon lights from the start.  It’s just a pointless, idiotic waste of an hour and a half.

3. Dario Argento’s Phantom of the Opera.  This is a two-for of disappointing.  It’s a director I really enjoy doing a terrible version of one of my favorite books.  I’m fairly forgiving when it comes to adaptations of novels, but when you take liberties that totally miss the point of the story that’s another thing entirely.  I was thinking someone that’s as much as of a visuals oriented director as him could really make something of this movie, but the set’s looked cheap, the phantom was just all wrong, and it just didn’t have any of the heart of the original story.  I cannot adequately describe the utter painfulness sitting through this load of crap.  It’s only an hour and a half of pure what the hell, and it’s not nearly as style as his other works like “Opera” or “Deep Red”.  This was just pointless, Julien Sands was actually not that bad in it though, again a better script would have been appreciated.

2. The Fourth Kind.  This is basically if you took “Paranormal Activity” or, well, “The Blair Witch” project and failed at knowing at all how these kinds of movies actually work.  I honestly don’t think of this as one movie, it’s more like two half movies squished together that are kind of telling the same story.   One half is a truly hilariously awful found footage movie, and the other a bland lifeless Hollywood version with a truly terrible lead actress (though it is Milla Jovovich, I don’t think they cast her for her acting ability.)  This is just a horribly dull and lifeless movie, that tries and fails to use a gimmick that has become a hot idea in recent days, but on top of that it’s just stupid.  It’s a poorly made movie, plain and simple.  It scores so high on this list because anyone that has the faintest idea of how to make a movie at all wouldn’t do ANY of the things they do in this one.

1. Hostel 2.  I FUCKING HATE THE HOSTEL MOVIES!!!  I really do!  I may despise the great majority of the “Saw” movies, but at least they tried to be something more than start torture porn.  Good god these movies are just awful.  They’re just so in your face about absolutely everything, and yet all they do is hold nothing but contempt for the audience.  And the sequel especially is guilty of this.  I can’t tell you how angry this movie gets me.  It’s just dumb, exploitive movie, with horrendous acting and some of the most unlikable characters I’ve ever seen in anything.  IT’s not even that I’m angry that this movie was sick, it’s more that I just hate when a horror movie purely thinks gore is what makes something scary.  Slasher movies, while they would fail or get predictable sometimes, at least made some attempt to build suspense, and “Saw” at least tried to have a story.  “Hostel 2” is just a pure mean spirited middle finger to horror fans from Eli Roth, and I honestly can’t do justice to how much I hate this movie without just ranting endlessly about the whole thing, and I honestly don’t feel like giving it that much thought.  It’s that bad.

So there it is.  The horror movie I absolutely hate the most.  Next time let’s get a little more fun, I’ll list out my all time favorite horror movies.   Until then folks!

10 underrated horror movies. Part 2

5. Leviathan.  This is one of many many “Alien” knock off, but honestly, this one is pretty much my favorite.  It’s about a mining team on the body of the ocean, that’s being lead by Robocop.  (ok, it’s just Robocop actor Peter Weller, but that just sounds way more funny and awesome.)  They find a sunken Russia battleship and on board is an experiment in human genetics to make a race of fish people… Really.  All hell breaks loose and it’s up to Robocop, Winston from “Ghostbusters” and a cute British woman to bring down the evil fish man creature before it can make it to the surface.  Yeah it sounds silly, but the movie actually takes itself pretty seriously, and that’s always welcome.  Yeah, if you’re petty you’ll just thumb your nose and dismiss this movie as an “Alien” clone, and yeah, it pretty isn’t hiding that, but at the same time it’s a really good monster flick.  The main attraction here is some above par acting, and really really good special effects from the late great Stan Winston.  Seriously, this movie is available to stream on Netflix, and it is well worth the hour and a half, you will not be disappointed.

4. The Burning.  This to me is the best straight forward slasher movie.  It has a great set up, in the form of Cropsy, a man burned in a prank gone wrong.  It has very likable characters including a VERY young Jason Alexander of “Seinfeld” fame, great make up effects from the make up genius Tom Savini.  It does that one thing you almost never see in the typical slasher movie, it gives you very VERY likable characters.  These characters actually feel like real people, and seeing them get killed actually makes you feel so sorry for them.  It’s how I’d like them to always be done.  It’s well paced, fun, interesting and it has a great story idea.  As a slasher movie, it’s really hard to find anything wrong with it.  IT just working really well and you should give it a look.

3. Opera.  I’m am a HUGE HUGE fan of Dario Argento’s older work.  His newer stuff has been pretty hit or miss with me, but back in the day, he made some damn good ones.  Opera is one such movie, think of it as kind of a version of “Phantom of the Opera” where the psycho is stalking the young singer… and then forcing her to watch him kill people.  No, I’m not even kidding about the forcing part, one of the most horrific images ever, he tapes sewing needles to her eye lids, so she can’t look away.  Added to that the music is really impressive, and it does one of the better takes on the classic story.  If you’re looking for a something kind of weird, but still awesome, “Opera” is that movie.  Pick it up, it’ll make a great double feature with “The Abominable Dr. Phibes”.

2. The Exocist 3.  This movie is just great.  No, I’m not kidding.  This movie is simply amazing.  It’s a great character study, at the center of which is the always amazing George C. Scott.  Brad Doriff, plays an imprisoned mental patient.  The movie has a great mystery at the center of it.  And holy shit, I cannot stress how hauntingly beautiful this movie is.  Taking place after the original “The Exocist”, this installment has had a somewhat a checkered past.  IT was written and directed by original author William Peter Blatty, who based most of the plot off his novel “Legion”  (Yes, like that terrible Paul Bettany movie I’ve previously reviewed.  Don’t even go there.)  However, during production, the producers figured, ‘Hey, this is a sequel, but it doesn’t have an exorcism in it… WE NEED TO FIX THAT!’  And to whatever idiot thought that, you deserve whatever is waiting for you in the dumb ideas circle of hell.  That aside, and the fact that the exorcism at the end comes pretty much out of nowhere, this movie is still amazing.  People want an unheard of horror movie?  THIS ONE!  It’s just a freaking amazing.  The only thing keeping it from number one, is that, well, most critics put it as there number one.  Because it’s being more and more discovered thanks to that, I’m giving it the second spot.  I feel that if I’m making an underrated list, I should give number one to a movie that I keep hearing people haven’t even HEARD of.  So without further ado…

1. Dog Soldiers.  This is a great horror movie.  It’s about a group of British soldiers that get ambushed by werewolves and have to hold up in an isolated cottage.  This movie has everything.  It’s that rare movie that is self aware, but in a good way.  Everytime the guys come up with an idea that might save them, something come up that keeps it from happening.  This movie is just amazing.  It has awesome effects, a fun story, and some seriously, SERIOUSLY good acting.  It’s just perfect.  It’s fun, it can be scary when it needs to be, and it just leaves you feeling so good after seeing it.  Seriously, if you can’t have fun seeing a movie that has a hard core commando guy getting into a fist fight with a werewolf, I don’t ever want to know you.  This should be the top of your list if you haven’t seen it yet.  It’s just awesome.

So that's my list, and it was hard to simply narrow it down.  Maybe next year I"ll do more movies next year.  Next time though, the bad news.  I count down the 10 worst horror movies I've ever seen.  Stay tuned!

10 underrated horror movies. Part 1.

And here we go, leaving the cheese behind us and moving on to the more substantial for those looking for genuinely interesting and yet no over played to the point of meaninglessness on TV.  So with that in mind here are the rules of this list.  1.  It has to be a horror movie that either no one has heard of, or that very few people seemed to have seen, at least in the regard of general public horror movie knowledge.  And 2, most importantly, it has to actually be good, as in you watch it feeling like you’ve seen a good movie, not just a good HORROR movie.  I’m also going to go out of my way not to name things I’ve either already mentioned as something to track down or reviewed as such, so allow me to again throw out my recommendations for:  “Ginger Snaps 1&2”, “Daybreakers”, “Martin” and “The Company of Wolves”.  Ok, now that that’s out of the way, the actual list.  Since I’m working hard on this, and that requires not only re-watching these movies, but also ranking and giving micro reviews, I’m going to do this in two parts.  So here’s part one.   Part two will follow later this week.

10.    The Japanese version of “One Missed Call”.  Thanks to the success of “The Ring”, a sad part of the remake trend going on in Hollywood is the idea of just taking a Japanese horror movie and doing it again without adding much, except maybe sucking.  This was one such movie, no, I haven’t seen the remake, that being said if you haven’t either, do yourself a favor and pick THIS movie up.  The premise is simple, a bunch of unexplained deaths are connected by a foreshadowing phone message received by the victims.  This movie is damn well shot, has some effectively disturbing imagery and a solid pace.  However, what I think really sets it apart is that where most horror movies would have the phenomenon dismissed by the general public, this movie chooses to go the opposite route and have everyone actually believe it.  It actually gives more suspense because it causes a great panic that just makes you even more interested in what’s happening.  The pay off is good, the story is  well played, and the movie just goes on to be a good idea well told.

9. “Audition”.  Yes, it’s another Japanese movie, but I promise it’s the last one.  Basically I like to describe this movie as “Fatal Attraction” if you put it on steroids, and then had it OD on meth.  A widower has finally decided that he should seek a new wife, at the advice of his friend he has a fake movie audition to pick the one he wants.  He chooses a quiet, meek and unassuming type of woman and begins to court her… Then things get weird.  How weird?  I’m not telling, you need to track this movie down as I feel it has one of the greatest build ups in modern horror and yet the movie is so dense and well made that it’s open to several kinds of interpretations over multiple viewings.  It share it’s director with the previous entry, Takashi Miike, and you really get the sense that this guy really knows his craft and that he’s just a superb film maker.  Not to mention this is one of my favorite movies of all time.  It’s just a weird and interestingly wild ride from start to finish.

8. “Near Dark”.  It’s a vampire movie with half the cast of “Aliens”.  That should be enough to get you to watch it, but if I needed to share more I’d say that it to me is one of the better done vampire movies.  Being one of those rare movies that tries to mix genres and ACTUALLY succeeds, it’s got great intense scary moments, balanced by well directed action sequences.  Those fans of director Katherine Bigelow’s Oscar winning “The Hurt Locker” should probably get off your ass and pick this one up, as it showcases her talents were evident from the very beginning as this was her first outing as a solo director.  It has a good grasp on how to incorporate the vampire mythos and it has some absolutely gorgeous photography.  Those dreading the fact that “Twilight” has basically ruined the vampire genre oh yourself this movie.  It’s just a damn solid vampire story.

7. “The Abominable Doctor Phibes”.  While I’ve made it no secret that I absolutely HATE the “Saw” movies, I can at least acknowledge some of the appeal.  The idea of a killer that comes up with elaborate traps to kill people is interesting, and it’s an unfortunate extension of the slasher genre’s appeal.  Some like to think of it as the whole morbid fascination with death thing and blah blah blah.  I sadly have to just agree with the idea that it’s nothing but a different kind of porn.  Now, if you want to see how you take the concept of a killer that does elaborate traps to kill people and see how it’s actually done well, you need look no further than “The Abominable Doctor Phibes”.  Starring the always awesome Vincent Price in the title role, the film chronicles the tale of a man bent on taking out all the doctors he blames for the death of his wife.  To express the biblical nature of his rage, he takes them out using various interpretations of the 10 plagues of Egypt.  All the actors turn in good performances and while the film seems to want to dance into the realm of camp/cheese now and then, it’s still got a cast that takes the material like it’s actual scripture and really sell this impossible idea as some what plausible.  It’s a really interesting flick and I feel one of Price’s best performances.  It has a sequel, “Doctor Phibes Rises Again” which is most certainly higher on the camp scale, though still I feel is enjoyable.  Both films are worth a look this Halloween, I promise you will not be disappointed.

6. Trick-r-Treat.  So, there is a sub-genre in horror that I think needs more attention.  A sub-genre that I feel can truly showcase a director’s horror chops, or in some cases, allow several directors to collaborate on the same goal.  It’s the anthology movie, a film that is made up of more than one self contained story that are all tied into one another by one unifying theme.  I had oh so many movies I wanted to put in here, the first two “Creepshow” movies, the original “Tales from the Crypt” and it’s sequel “The Vault of Horror”, but I decided on this movie as a place holder for all of them for a couple reasons, firstly, it’s the most recent example of this kind of movie.  But mostly I picked it because it was one of those movies that’s underrated because it never really took off.  It was produced by Bryan “X-men 1 & 2” Singer’s Bad Hat Harry production company, and seemed to be getting a release with advertisement on the DVD release of “300”, but sadly that never happened and after touring the festival circuit for a spell the movie landed on DVD.  It’s a shame because the movie has a great cast and all the stories work really well, being tied together by happening on the same night and being seen by the same odd figure.  Honestly if you want a really good Halloween movie that takes place on the actual night that ISN’T John Carpenter’s classic, it’s this one.

Lunatic’s Top 10 cheesy horror movies

Happy October readers!  The lunatic is back and like numerous critics I’m here to give you a bit of a skinny on horror movies.  Since I’d rather not bog you down with too many details, or spoil things greatly, I’m going to do a series of top ten lists that will hopefully give you some ideas of things to track down on Netflix, or torrent, on and god bless you if this is the case, go to a video store and rent.  That stated let’s get into the first, and honestly my favorite, of the lists:  MY top 10 cheesy horror movies.  Now I feel that maybe I should lay down a little definition here, namely of what a cheesy horror movie is.  In terms of horror movies, Cheese seems to have many many synonyms;  Schlocky, campy, kooky, etc.  For me, it’s definition is pretty straight forward, it’s pretty much a silly, or stupid idea for a movie that has no right to be any good, and most times usually isn’t, but because of any number of reasons it’s just really really entertaining.  Things like old black white 50’s sci fi movies fall neatly into this category, and so naturally with the horror having the restraint of a five year old on a sugar high when it comes to bad ideas, a lot of it’s content does as well, and so since Halloween’s meant to be fun and is best spent with friends, here are what I feel are some of the 10 best movies to watch during this movie that celebrates the lavishly macabre.

10.    Piranha:  No, not the movie that came out last summer, I mean the one from 1978 that was produce by one of the masters of cheese Roger Corman.  I went over his deal back in my list of guilty pleasures so I won’t tan that gent today and instead talk about the film itself.  Basically “Piranha” is one of the literally hundreds of movies that have come into existence thanks to the massive success of “Jaws”.  Admittedly, most of these movies are really really bad, though I always find some amusement in them, “Piranha” however, is actually pretty descent.  The premise is that of two people that are looking for missing persons in an area and in the process they unleash a giant school of piranha into a river and it proceed to wreak havoc and it’s up to our two heroes to stop them.  The movie actually has some pretty good effect for the time and most especially on the budget that is clearly limiting.  It has some memorable performances from B movie icons like Kevin McCarthy (Invasion of the Body Snatchers) and Dick Miller (Gremlins 1 & 2, Bucket of Blood, The Howling, the guy gets around.)  It’s also well directed by Joe Dante who later went on to make things like “Gremlins” and several other projects that were actually pretty good, though not well known.  The movie was a pretty good hit for what it was and spawned a sequel “Piranha 2: The Spawning” (James ‘Aliens, Terminator’ Cameron’s first movie as a director.  Seriously.)  which isn’t that good, but still fun to watch, as well as two remakes.  As far as “Jaws” knock offs go this one pretty much stands out as the best, and I highly recommend it for those looking for a fun time.

9. The Blob.  This entry is a two for as I think both versions of  “The Blob” are very good.  The plot is basically the same in both movies, a mound of alien slime comes down in a meteor and starts to devour the people of a small town, getting bigger and bigger the more it consumes.  The only people that know it at first are a group of teenagers that no one believes until it’s too late.  Both movies have really good casts, the remake notably having one of the first roles of Shawnee Smith, better known as Amanda from the “Saw” movies. (I still can’t decide if that was a step up or down for her career after this.)  The original was also one of Steve McQueen’s earliest roles and it actually showcases the kind of charisma that he was known for in his later roles, which if you’re a film buff like me this is just fascinating.  But we’re talking about cheesiness and each of these movies has their own version of it.  The original’s charm really comes from the primitive effects and how they can be simultaneously impressive and yet laughable as it seriously looks like the actors are being chased by a giant mass of jell-o most of the movie, and the remakes comes from the fact that it is extremely over the top with the violence and gore.  I personally prefer the original version for it’s more interesting character and fun, dated dialogue, but the remake is worth a look too.  Take your pick, or even better, double feature!  It’s Halloween dammit!  Live a little!

8. Killer Klowns from Outer Space.  This movie really shouldn’t need much explanation; it’s about killer aliens that resemble demonic clowns coming to earth to feed on humans.  That’s really it, they use all different kinds of over the top weapons and methods and it’s just a silly good time.  Yeah the movie is stupid, but honestly, are you really expecting much from something called “Killer Klowns from Outer Space”?  Honestly if this movie wasn’t over the top and silly I would have been more disappointed.  Bottom line, this is pure unadulterated fun and I can’t recommend it enough especially if beer and a good sense of humor is involved in your movie nights.

7. Return to Horror High.  No, this is not a sequel to anything, I thought the same thing when I first stumbled across this one in the used DVD section of my local record store and I figured with a cast that includes an early George Clooney and a post Brady Bunch Maureen McCormick, how could this not be cheesy awesome fun?  And it is, oh god it is.  This movie knows exactly what it is and loves to play with the fact that it’s a movie, by having the plot being a movie about making the movie while making a bunch of not entirely unwarranted jabs at the then prominent slasher genre.  (oh for the days where something that was cheesy fun wasn’t buried by shit like “Hostel” and “Saw”.)  It’s kind of like the little movie that could.  It knows what it is and it lets loose, all the jokes work and when it lets in the horror elements they work for the most part too, making the humor that much funnier.  I paid about $5 used for this and it was worth every penny, and it makes me wonder if Clooney remembers this.  Funny how a lot of well known actors start out in horror movies isn’t it?

6. Jason Goes To Hell.  Yeah, it was kind of inevitable that a Friday the 13^th movie would end up on here, I mean they live off of the cheese factor they have, and I really feel that this one is the funniest.  Jason gets blown up by special forces in the opening and most of the plot centers around him going around possessing people in the hopes of finding a host that can fully resurrect him.  All the while he is being chased by a some what insane bounty hunter, who for the record, is the most awesome character ever in the franchise.  It’s got a lot of hysterical lines and some fun over the top acting and when I feel like seeing Jason hack his way through teenagers, I grab this movie.  Hell it one of the earlier movies that my favorite effects house, KNB, worked on and they did some very nice work here.  If you must see on of the Jason movies, I highly recommend this one, it’s one of the more interesting and entertaining ones.

5. Dr. Giggles.  Now, if you just want a straight forward one off slasher, “Dr. Giggles” is your movie.  It has an over the top killer played by the awesome Larry Drake (remember him from “Darkman”?) and it has some very creative kills and a lot of clichés played for laugh in what amounts to the perfect tongue and cheek style slasher.  There really isn’t much more to say, this is one of the better slasher and if you don’t take it too seriously it’s a lot of fun, check it out.

4. Motel Hell.  The movie that had the desire to try and be what essentially amounts to a spoof of the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and damned if this movie isn’t funny!  It’s a really dark kind of humor, but it all works.  The plot is basically a girl is in a car crash and is saved but slowly starts to learn that her saviors aren’t exactly all there upstairs, especially in there obsession with their home made Bar-B-Que and it’s “secret” ingredient.  This is probably one of the most quotable movies on the list, most especially the line that became the film’s tagline:  “Takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent’s Fritters!”  I love this movie and the DVD comes packaged with a really good psychological thriller called “Deranged” and I highly recommend snagging it up, you won’t be disappointed.

3. The Night Stalker/The Night Strangler.  Another double movie DVD and what basically amounts to a two movie pilot for one of my favorite TV Shows of all time;  “Kolchak: The Night Stalker.” In which, Darren “dad from ‘A Christmas Story’” McGavin plays Carl Kolchak, an investigative journalist that has a knack for always ending up stumbling onto stories involving the supernatural.  These movies, and later the show, have been acknowledged as one of the biggest influences “X Files” creator Chris Carter had when planning out that show and you can see it’s influence watching it now.  Also, aside from being just a hoot and a well executed, if slightly tired premise, the night stalker movies make for a fun watch as Kolchak gets in way over his head again and again and must rely on his cunning and dumb luck to make it out alive.  The movies have a notably darker tone than the TV shows, mostly because they were originally meant as one off movies and only spawned the show because the movies were giant ratings generators.  “The Night Stalker” follows Carl as he tracks down a vampire in Las Vegas, and “The Night Strangler” was basically the same movie except with an alchemist in Seattle.  Both were written by the awesome Richard Matheson and McGavin just owns the role of Kolchak.  Well worth the watch, and a lot of fun around this time of year.

2. The Stuff.  This movie is about sentient killer ice cream trying to take over the world.  I’m serious, that’s the plot.  Would you believe me if I said that the movie is actually really good?  I know, I wouldn’t believe me either but seriously, this movie is just great.  It’s basically a weird hybrid of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” and the previously mentioned “The Blob”.  It has a solid cast and relishes in good social satire about marketing and American commercialism in the 80’s.  I mean where else do you get to see Paulie from “Goodfellas” take flamethrowers to a giant glob of Hagaan Dais ice cream?  That’s just too awesome to miss.

1. Night of the Creeps.  I’m not going to beat around the bush, this movie is amazing.  It’s one of those movies that you can tell everyone involved took the ludicrous material 100% seriously, not only that had fun making the actual movie and it just one of those things that really really shouldn’t work but in a strange way does.  The premise is that in the 1950’s, an alien parasite gets released on Earth (really.)  and infects a young frat boy who is then put into cryogenic storage until the 80’s when a couple of frat pledges inadvertently let him out and release the parasite out to the campus.  (really.)  It’s up to a hard edged detective, a co-ed, and her dorky love interest to kill the alien menace and save the world as we know it.  I have no words folks, this is B movie awesomeness at its finest.  It’s just a really impressive well made movie and has basically served as inspiration for a lot of other movies down the line, most notably the equally fun 2006 film “Slither” (Nathan Fillion versus a giant carnivorous slug monster, enough said.)  This is just one of those movies that’s sadly become a forgotten classic and I just can’t recommend it enough.  It’s well written, well directed and just a ton of fun.  Find it!  The DVD is loaded with extras and isn’t that expensive, it’s just an all around fun time.

This concludes this list, but fear not!  I shall return with a list of the top 10 horror movie I feel don’t get quite the attention they should next time.  Until then, this is the cinema lunatic saying Happy Halloween!

Darkman

You know, back in 2001 when the hype behind the first “Spider Man” movie was hitting full force, I was hit with my first moment of movie geek self awareness.  A group of my friends and I were sitting down to lunch, chatting up coming movies as my more movie inclined friends were want to do, and the subject of the upcoming super hero movie came up.  One of my friends mentioned this:  “I can’t see why they gave it to Sam Raimi, I mean, why give it to the guy that’s only really known for ‘Evil Dead’?”  That’s when I piped in, “Because he did ‘Darkman’.”  I was the only one that knew about this movie apparently and that was just a moment of personal pride for me.

I digress, “Darkman” was a 1990 mid-low budget action movie directed and co-written by Sam Raimi.  The story behind this lost gem of the masked hero genre, is that Raimi wanted to make a movie version of the pulp radio drama “The Shadow” but was unable to get the rights, so he just threw his hands up and said “Screw it, I’ll make my own dark, pulp style super hero!” (not actual quote).  This film was the result, basically taking influences from things like The Shadow, but also the old universal horror movies most especially “Phantom of the Opera” and in fact I’ve summed this movie up as a super hero version of Phantom more than once.  The premise is that a scientist, played by Liam Neeson, is developing a new form of prosthetic that basically acts as a skin substitute for people to far gone for traditional skin grafts, the only problem is that the material is sensitive to UV light and only lasts 99 minutes before it melts.  Tragically, due to circumstances beyond his control, his lab is blown up by gangsters with him inside and he ends up with burns covering almost half of his body.  He then ends up as a John Doe and is subjected to a new medical treatment that involves serving the pain receptors to his brain and due to lots of other medical techno-babble, he basically doesn’t stop producing adrenaline giving him enhanced strength and endurance.  Armed with this and his ability to replicate other people’s faces, he goes onto to seek revenge against his attackers and tries to re-establish his connection with his girl friend.

This movie is really damn good, it’s not perfect, but it’s extremely well done.  The movie moves at a good pace and has plenty of well built up and executed action beats peaking with a crazy chase towards the conclusion involving Darkman hanging off a helicopter.  A lot of this goes back to the two things, the cast and the director.  Most of the time in late 80’s/early 90’s the things that, depending on your opinion, kills the movie is that the actors tend to either be really really bad or not taking the movie seriously enough.  I personally feel that even if you want to make fun of bad or over the top acting, it’s better when the people involved take their work seriously, part of why I like watching “Battlefield: Earth” so much is that even though his performance is insanely stupid and bad, John Travolta is taking himself so seriously that he makes it real entertaining.  The same kind of thing can be applied here, only here it’s a movie that’s kind of silly, but the actors take it at face value and honestly try and make it work seriously.  Liam Neeson in particular is praise worthy playing the title role, a part that was actually written for Bruce Campbell, and you can really tell this from how the character plays out.  But Neeson is able to pull off the over the top moments and add a tragic depth to them that, while I love Bruce Campbell, I don’t think Campbell could have pulled off as good and Neeson just has such great chemistry with the awesome Frances McDormand.  Likewise Larry Drake really goes whole hog on the villain Durant, he’s just a slimy, evil for the sake of evil gangster character that makes you feel that while Darkman is somewhat an anti-hero, these bad guys really really have it coming.

All these performances are well used by Raimi who I seriously think does some of his best work here, the man clearly had a low budget, but you got every penny of that money on the screen and it was really entertaining.  His kinetic style really makes you laugh and glue yourself to the screen because it’s just super entertaining.  This energy is kept up by what I think it one of Danny Elfman’s better scores where he comes up with themes and atmosphere that’s just awesome to listen to.

I really don’t think I could say this any more loudly folks, “Darkman” is just awesome.  It’s fun, dark, entertain and a great little super hero action flick.  Check it out.

4.5 duplicated bad guys out of 5.

Since it’s October now, I have a lot of people that ask me about horror films to see and which to ignore, so coming up is going to be a bunch of top 10 lists, starting later this week/sometime next week with the top cheesy horror movies, followed by a list of the top 10 underrated horror movies, the 10 worst I’ve ever seen and finishing off with my own top 10 favorites.  Get ready for it!