2017 Horror Part Nineteen

THE LODGERS

Dir - Brian O'Malley

Overall: MEH

 

Bog-standard Gothic horror from Irish filmmaker Brian O'Malley, The Lodgers blatantly conjures the spirit of Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, but its genre pandering is as uninspired as its dialog is vapid.  Set in 1920 right smack in the middle of the Irish War of Independence, we have an unwelcome soldier returned home with a missing appendage, some asshole townsfolk, David Bradley doing his usual crotchety shtick, and two Debbie Downer siblings who are right out of Poe's aforementioned short story.  They speak in annoying, juvenile riddles about how they are doomed and how the ghosts of their ancestors own the night and will not let them leave, but the whole ordeal never picks up momentum.  When it comes to the supernatural rules, screenwriter David Turpin has concocted a few interesting ideas to spice up the stock narrative, but the backstory is flimsy and the whole thing has a perpetually gloomy atmosphere for its miserable characters to wallow in.  This is likely intentional to maintain tone, but the film offers zero scares and merely long-winded moments of thinly-drawn characters simply going about their redundant business until we get a nifty underwater spook show finale that comes too little, too late.

 

DOUBLE DATE

Dir - Benjamin Barfoot

Overall: MEH

 

The full-length debut from director Benjamin Barfoot and actor/screenwriter Danny Morgan, Double Date relishes in violent and awkward set pieces, and though it may not deliver any laugh-out-loud gags, it stays in its lane as far as horror comedies go.  Morgan plays the lead character; a pudgy, shy, red-headed adult virgin who is the type of bumbling buffoon in front of women that only exist in the movies.  His best friend is a douche-bro "ladies man", and eventually they meet up with two sultry sisters in a scenario that is of course too good to be true because murder and occult ritual things happen.  This is not a spoiler since the opening scene spells out exactly what the two "maneater" siblings are both up to and capable of, so the entirely of the first and second acts is then just waiting for our lovable and schulbby protagonist to find his way into their clutches.  In the meantime, many attempts at chuckles are made and none of them land, particularly due to the predictability of the plot, as well as the hackneyed way in which the characters are portrayed.  It never becomes clever enough to successfully make fun of the movies that it is blatantly recalling, (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Lesbian Vampire Killers, etc), but Morgan and co-star/love interest Georgia Groome have moments of adorable likeability together so it at least suffices as a dopey rom-com, be it one with gratuitous gore and ritual resurrection.

THE MONSTER PROJECT

Dir - Victor Mathieu

Overall: WOOF

 

A horrendous found footage excursion whose sole purpose seems to be in adhering to as many hack cliches as possible within its ninety-eight minute running time, The Monster Project is the type of contemporary horror movie that should be illegal to make.  It would be exhausting to list every groan-worthy and predictable beat that it pummels the audience with, but the most frequent and egregious are a small crop of awful, awful characters, (including the sassy comic relief black guy, good lord), cartoon CGI monster faces, scary music utilized in a found footage framework, a spastic and of course unsuccessful exorcism, and all of the jump scares, just...all of them.  This is a frame one to frame last trainwreck; loud and in your face with each act serving up more insulting nonsense that eventually compound on each other.  If anyone watching is immediately turned off by how not funny or interesting anyone on screen is with their juvenile backstories in tow, rest assured, once the monsters that are promised in the title show up, it gets much worse.  Whether it is a smirking tattooed vampire babe, a Native American skinwalker with a distorted voice, a skittish woman with a demon inside of her, said demon possessing another woman so she can scream at the camera, and even a guy in a fucking goat mask, it is all equally moronic and pathetic in how little anyone is trying here to do anything even remotely unique with such tired ingredients.

2017 Horror Part Eighteen

DIANE

Dir - Michael Mongillo

Overall: MEH

 

An indie psychological thriller with some ghostly activity thrown in, Diane has more ambition than it does the budgetary means to achieve that ambition.  The movie hinges on Jason Alan Smith's performance; an actor that is probably too good looking to make a convincing recluse of an army veteran, (think your average CW heartthrob except with no social life, no love life, and just a five o'clock shadow and a vague limp to make him somehow less fetching).  That said, he does a fine job with the material that pits him against his own tormented psyche that is reeling after a lovely lounge singer is found dead in his backyard.  Filmmaker Michael Mongillo goes for a combination of bog-standard supernatural flourishes, a soundtrack that has Carlee Avers singing what sounds like a smooth jazz standard as well as some indie folk tunes, and some trippy hallucinations.  Sometimes the style forgives the meager budget, but other times it is jarring and wears its amateurish constraints on its sleeves.  The dialog is also a mixed bag of clever and unconvincing, plus the whole thing comes off more like an mid-range television episode than a memorable work of an auteur, but this is hardly a detrimental thing.

KILLING GOD

Dir - Caye Casas/Albert Pintó

Overall: MEH

For their first collaboration together in the apply-titled Killing God, (Matar a Dios), filmmakers Caye Casas and Albert Pintó take on some heady themes in the guise of an abrupt apocalyptic scenario where a family full of schlubs come face to face with their creator.  The situation is both ridiculous and funny enough, bringing into question just how logical it is for the human race to carry on existing when it is made up of such flawed individuals.  It is a wise move then that writer/directors Pintó and Casas make their small crop of characters relatable.  Two are in a long and loveless marriage that has hit a stalemate due to one being a sexist curmudgeon and the other succumbing to another man's sexual advances, one is recklessly living it up in his elder years, and the other is a suicidal cuckold whose own marriage has fallen apart.  None of these people are fully likeable, but none of them are fully unlikable either as they merely represent various human foibles that any of us on any given bad day can fall victim to.  Emilio Gavira's portrayal as the all powerful foul-mouthed, dwarf-sized, and wine-chugging creator is a hoot, but everyone gives solid performances to the point where the impossibility of their situation becomes emotionally palpable.  On that note though, the film writes itself into an ending that is bound to disappoint on some level and the structure is too repetitive to stay on track.

 

THE NIGHT WATCHMEN

(2017)

Dir - Mitchell Altieri

Overall: WOOF

Lazy, obnoxious, and worst of all not funny, The Night Watchmen comes from Mitchell Altieri, (half of the Butcher Brothers filmmaking team), though he works from a script by Ken Arnold, Dan De Luca, and Jamie Nash, all three of whom fuck up the idiot-proof premise of killer vampire clown zombies run amok at a newspaper office.  Both Arnold and De Luca also appear on screen, and they at least seem to be enjoying themselves, but such enthusiasm does not translate to the audience unless one is incessantly forgiving of "jokes" that seem like they were the result of a rushed first draft writing session done seconds before shooting started.  The characters are wise-cracking idiots who all have arbitrary quirks no matter how much horrific bloodshed is happening all around them, and combined with something as hackneyed as creepy clowns, screaming monster faces, and gratuitous gore, it fails as an inventive genre hybrid from top to bottom.  In one of many horrendously painful scenes, our heroes want to prove that a guy is not a member of the undead, so they make him dance, he does an embarrassing sexy one, they insist he does another, that one is also not convincing enough, then the token black guy starts beat-boxing and the dancing guy gets killed anyway and farts postmortem, as do other dead bodies along the way.  Every horror comedy does not have to be wheel-inventing high-brow art but for fuck's sake, can we try a little harder than this?

2015 Horror Part Seventeen

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEB

Dir - Kyle Rankin

Overall: MEH

 

Though there are more egregious examples out there, (hello, Werewolves Within), the zombie comedy Night of the Living Deb still manages to suffer from a never-ending slew of quirky characters whose behavior remains grating throughout the film's entirety.  Director Kyle Rankin and producer Michael Cassidy Kickstarted their "Zombie-Rom-Com" and shot it in the former's hometown of Portland, Maine, which proves agreeable for the small town trajectory where a shady governor inexplicably pollutes the water supply and anyone who drank the local fluids turns flesh-muncher on the morning of the Fourth of July.  Problems arise right away with Maria Thayer's peppy and obnoxious title character who does arbitrarily things like quoting Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, not being able to take a hint to save her life, playfully running over zombies with zero remorse mere moments after the outbreak begins, telling non-dramatic anecdotes, and exhibiting the type of sarcasm that explains why she has no friends.  Cassidy plays her love interest and does not come off much better, (he is a Debbie Downer environmentalist trying to overcompensate for his lack of machismo, fueled by white privilege), and the two make the type of "opposites attract" couple that only exists in the most hackneyed of movies.  Ray Wise also shows up to be a goofball, providing some much needed likeability.

SAVAGELAND

Dir - Phil Guidry/Simon Herbert/David Whelan

Overall: MEH

 

The sole directorial effort from writer/producers Phil Guidry, Simon Herbert, and David Whelan, Savageland suffers from plausibility blunders, which undermine its admirable attempt to explore a type of U.S. border paranoia that is even more topical today than when the film was released.  A mockumentary, it explores the aftermath of nearly an entire town getting brutally butchered, many to the point of nonrecognition.  The lone suspect is also the only survivor; a quiet and eccentric illegal immigrant who is raving and found covered with blood, only to verbally and emotionally shut down once in custody.  Taking place in the fictional borderland of Sangre De Cristo, Arizona, it provides ample opportunity for right wing bigots to condemn the accused sight on scene, and through a series of interviews, we encounter many such blatantly racist citizens, as well as those who point out the many things that do not add up in the authority's story.  Some of the movie's issues stem from these glaring omissions, including photographic evidence taken by the accused of people being murdered by other assailants, said photographs and a taped interview the accused never being presented in two different trials, the accused having bite marks on him that match the victims, and the logistical aspect of how a single person was able to massacre groups of people to smithereens out in the open.  Elsewhere though, the dialog, (spoken by talking heads in standard documentary fashion), is dreadful and full of hyperbolic proclamations made for dramatic effect, which is not helped by a handful of over-the-top performances.

 

CIRCLE

Dir - Aaron Hann/Mario Miscione

Overall: MEH

After wrapping up their similarly Twilight Zone-esque series The Vault, writer/producer/directors Aaron Hann and Mario Miscione delivered their first full-length with the 12 Angry Men sci-fi variant Circle.  While Sidney Lumet's famed adaptation of Reginald Rose's teleplay serves as the deliberate inspiration, the story is not a direct rewrite, and it also bares a resemblance to Vincenzo Natali's Cube series.  Here we have another crop of strangers who wake up in a dark, foreboding, and possibly alien environment where they have to figure out the deadly rules that are picking all of them off, all while fighting their own intolerance and paranoia.  This leads to eighty-seven straight minutes played out in real time in a single location where everyone takes turns pointing fingers and justifying why minorities, criminals, lesbians, and every other diverse and unwilling participate deserves to either live or die.  The good part is that most of the raving assholes meet a quick demise, the bad part is that the entire film is made up of nothing but these assholes all taking a turn grabbing the spotlight in their desperate and judgemental plight.  Once the premise is established, there is simply nowhere else for the narrative to go other than exploring tired themes of scared people unloading their prejudices upon each other.  With an exciting payoff and/or some likeable Henry Fonda types to be the level-headed voice of reason, it could have steered clear of being merely an exhausting and cynical viewing experience. 

2015 Horror Part Sixteen

THE PRIESTS

Dir - Jang Jae-hyun

Overall: GOOD

The full-length debut The Priests, (Geomeun Sajedeul), from writer/director Jang Jae-hyun arrived the same year as his short film 12th Assistant Deacon from which it expands upon.  Bringing schlocky exorcism motifs into South Korea has a novelty to it all on its own, but thankfully Jang weaves his familiar materials into something compelling, funny, and agreeably paced.  It brings to mind the usual demonic possession movies that have endlessly spawned in The Exorcist's wake, with a little of Francis Lawrence's A-budgeted Constantine thrown in that focuses on some of the inner politics of Eastern Catholicism and the fun pairing of a rogue Father and a naive Deacon who through personal trauma, find a way to lock horns in squaring off against an ancient demon that of course has ensnared itself in a teenage girl.  The first act dishes in the most humor where Gang Dong-won's bumbling religious student gets tasked with the job; a job that he takes seriously and proves more adept at as his research deepens.  Kim Yoon-seok is equally interesting and amusing as the no-nonsense veteran who has the power of occult knowledge and unwavering faith at his disposal, all of which culminates in a lengthy final act that finally gets to the blasphemy-spewing eviction of the unwanted spirit.  It goes big at this point, but the suspense and emotional turmoil are effectively kept in check.

SECRETS OF A PSYCHOPATH

Dir - Bert I. Gordon

Overall: WOOF

At ninety-three years old, Bert I. Gordon inexplicably returned to the director's chair with Secrets of a Psychopath, though any B-movie fans who may rejoice at such news will quickly be disappointed.  That is because this digitally-shot, minuscule-budgeted sleaze-fest exist in a universe where people behave like people who do not exist in any plausible universe.  Considering that Gordon penned the screenplay as well, it is sadly a case of a noticeably out-of-touch filmmaker who has not seen a contemporary movie in decades, or maybe has not even left his house to interact with anyone younger than him in as many decades.  Mark Famiglietti looks like a typical, boyish CW hunk, playing a character who is impotent, traumatized, and in an incestuous relationship with his sister, (skin queen Kari Wuher), who just so happens to be twelve years his senior.  Every plot point is hilariously "Huh?", from overtly attractive people hooking up, (and even marrying each other), with no safety net on a dating site, the cops having no idea how to follow-up on such obvious leads, Famiglietti burying a guy in his suburban backyard in broad daylight, Famiglietti getting aggressively picked up at a movie theater by an equally good looking lady who finds his childish cackles at race cars irresistible, and every character saying words that are so ridiculous and behaving in such cartoonishly illogical ways that the script would barely have to be tweaked to work in a Larry Blamire production.  If not the worst movie ever made about a guy who bangs his sister and murders people, it is easily the most embarrassing.

 

KILL ME PLEASE

Dir - Anita Rocha de Silveira

Overall: MEH

Brazilian filmmaker Anita Rocha de Silveira attempts her own aimless answer to David Robert Mitchell's also aimless It Follows with Kill Me Please, (Mate-Me Por Favor).  Set in upper class Rio de Janerio, it follows, (nyuck nyuck), a similar shtick of adolescents existing in a hazy world where hardly any adults enter into frame, all while a serial killer or a slew of them are picking off young women around their own age.  This captivates an entire school but not in any palpable way.  Instead, these young women are drawn to the crimes either by unexcitingly gossiping, making Secret Hitler-styled games out of it, or in the case of the particularly aloof Valentina Herszage, letting them morph her persona into someone who would probably fall in line with the group of zombied-out car crash fetishists in David Cronenberg's Crash.  Sadly though, there is no rhyme or reason to what transpires here, either aesthetically or narratively.  Scenes linger on for ages and many of them could be argued as being pointless, but de Silveira's screenplay seems to thrive on such an agenda where only vaguely interesting and disturbing things are happening to young people that are going about their lives unchecked while danger is all but surrounding them.  It is a difficult movie to crack yet unlike some of the surrealist cinema that it clearly channels, there is no oddball humor or emotional connection to be found.

2010 Horror Part Ten

YELLOWBRICKROAD

Dir - Andy Mitten/Jesse Holland

Overall: MEH

 

Though clunky in execution, the debut YellowBrickRoad from the writer/director duo of Andy Mitten and Jesse Holland boasts a bizarre premise that breathes some singular life into the ole "lost in the woods" style horror film.  In 1940, an entire town full of people randomly head into the wilderness after watching a local screening of The Wizard of Oz, most never to be heard from again.  Decades later, a group of curious journalists, a film crew, and some scouts decide to venture the same newly discovered route as the doomed townsfolk did, inevitably running into some nasty psychological torment.  Besides retro music and piercing feedback that seems to be blaring from loudspeakers that no one can see, the characters do not run into much that is unwholesome.  Instead, they begin to fail their own self-imposed mental checkpoints one by one, splintering apart from one another while exhibiting different kinds of wackadoo behavior.  Mitten and Holland's script has the right jumping off point and a disturbing outcome, but there is no overarching theme besides that the woods are dangerous and never trust your hand-written coordinates when you are clearly in the Twilight Zone.  Also, the characters are underwritten despite consistently decent performances, which makes the whole thing difficult to invest in.

 

UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES

Dir - Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Overall: GREAT

Taking inspiration from the 1983 book A Man Who Can Recall His Past Lives by Buddhist abbot Phra Sripariyattiweti, (who apparently met and interviewed a man that claimed such a thing), Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, (Lung Bunmi Raluek Chat), is a contemplative experience, taking low-key filmmaking to a place where spirits, perceptions, and the subconscious all co-exist.  Though it deliberately bounces around, the main narrative is set in modern times and focuses on the last days of its title character; an unassuming farmer who is dying of kidney failure and reflects on both his earlier years and what can happen next as he is visited by a small crop of loved ones.  The fact that some of these family members are either ghosts or ape-like woodland creatures with red eyes is treated matter-of-factly, which goes hand-in-hand with an ethereal and folkloric mood, as well as references to such real world events such as a 1965 communist crackdown.  There is a permeating theme of everything, (either otherworldly or not), sharing real estate with each other, and writer/director Apichatpong Weerasethakul offers up no spoon-feeding for his audience.  Instead, the film plays out slowly and by its own terms, lingering on moments that are both simple and ridiculously strange, yet it all seems warm and inviting instead of challenging, which in and of itself is a rarity for art house cinema.

EMPUSA

Dir - Paul Naschy

Overall: WOOF

The final directorial effort Empusa from Paul Naschy is a nobble yet ultimately embarrassing attempt at rekindling his exploitation glory days on as shoestring of a budget as ever.  Shot in 2007 yet finished by its producer Angel Mora a year after Nashy's death, the Spanish horror icon that loves his monsters as much as he cannot resist putting female characters in his movies that find him irresistible seems to at least be poking fun at himself here.  Nashy was seventy-three when this was filmed, playing a foul-mouth occult writer in a ridiculous jet-black wig and durag who still has the sexual prowess to impress naked flirting females that are young enough to be his granddaughters.  Yet he also jokes about his withered age and throws several deliberately funny lines into the mix, plus someone had the horrendous idea to fill almost every second of screen time with goofy keyboard music.  While the idea of an elderly ladies man squaring off against Ancient Greek vampire babes while wise-cracking with his rotting corpse best friend should be enough to carry things through, the cheap production aspects leave little room for exciting set pieces or flashy cinematography.  Instead, this is painfully boring stuff, only coming alive at irregular intervals and primary being nothing more than actors sitting down and talking to each other, followed by another scene where actors sit down and talk to each other.

2013 Horror Part Fourteen

THE STRANGE COLOUR OF YOUR BODY'S TEARS

Dir - Hélène Cattet/Bruno Forzani

Overall: MEH

Same shit, different avant-garde giallo.  For their follow-up to their identically structured and maddening debut Amer, experimental Belgium filmmakers/style-over-any-substance-enthusiasts Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani deliver an equally nebulous excess of throwback Italian nightmare fuel.  Set entirely in a Eugène Viollet-le-Duc-styled apartment complex, it is a visual cacophony of extreme close-ups, (some obscured and some startlingly detailed), flashy editing, (including black and white sequences done while quick-cutting between photographs), wild color schemes, sex, blood, the giallo killer in noisy black leather, Freudian vagina symbolism everywhere, and too much else to mention.  The phrase "too much" is one that will become fixated on the minds of anyone watching and/or enduring all one-hundred and two minutes of this indecipherable experience.  That is the only problem with the film in that it pushes so hard in its experimental direction that it depletes the viewer of their senses instead of enhancing them.  It feels like an act of mercy once the title splashes across the screen in bold letters, signifying that the ordeal is over and we can snap out of the spell that has been cast upon us.  That spell is beautiful, but it is also sadly exhausting.

MR. JONES

Dir - Karl Mueller

Overall: MEH

 

By mixing found footage mockumentaries with some semblance of "conventional" trippiness, screenwriter Karl Mueller's directorial debut Mr. Jones creates a clumsy final product to say the least.  The minuscule production scored some wonderful locations in Santa Clarita, California, using an abandoned mineshaft and rundown houses in the woods to set up its couple who move out there for flimsy reasons, filming their ordeal for even more flimsy reasons, and then eventually stumbling upon some cartoonishly creepy scarecrows that lead them to trespass on an even more cartoonishly creepy house because people in horror movies are always complete morons.  They justify their actions by trying to make a documentary or coffee table book or whatever about the title character; a mysterious fellow who is either one of the world's most illusive and eccentric sculptures, some kind of unholy shaman, or a protector of evil nightmare realms.  Mueller never makes up its mind as to such specifics, (which is a fine route to take in creating ambiguous dread), but he also fails to make up his mind everywhere else.  The lead performances by Jon Foster and Sarah Jones seem forced, which is not helped by how underwritten and unlikable they are.  Also, the hand held camera work is appalling, and one is hard pressed to make out any of the unsettling images that they are presented with.  Also also, it tries to excuse its persistent "Who is filming and editing this?" problems by morphing from just two people turning their cameras on for no reason, to interview footage, to a gloves-off bombardment of bargain bin surrealism.  It seems like a genuine attempt was made to offer up something creepy, but the whole ordeal just falls down the stairs.

 

WARM BODIES

Dir - Johnathan Levine

Overall: MEH

Comedy writer/director Johnathan Levine takes on zombies in Warm Bodies; a cutesy and harmless romance where two attractive people, (one alive, one not), find love during an undead apocalypse.  The premise is both elementary and silly, which makes for an effortless stream of genre gags to accompany a slew of familiar rock, pop, and indie songs on the soundtrack.  Clearly ninety percent of the budget went to procuring the rights to said songs and not to the special effects, since the CGI skeleton monsters look pathetic and terrible.  They are also about as threatening as Nicholas Hoult's doe-eyed flesh-muncher, who looks like he was plucked right out of a Teen Beat magazine and just needed a few scars and pale makeup to sell the whole zombie shtick.  Such grievances are fine though, considering that the movie is light in tone and is not here to reinvent any wheels, let alone scare anyone.  In this universe, the more that walking corpses interact with humans on a playful level, the less ghoulish they become, eventually having dreams, gaining pigment in their skin, and speaking in full sentences with minimal effort.  This leads to a heartfelt finale where even John Malkovich's militant leader finally fesses up to the fact that these good zombies are on his side, but despite everyone's likeability on screen, the film never delivers any surprising chuckles and just "aw-shucks" itself through its moments.

The Blade Trilogy

BLADE

(1998)

Dir - Stephen Norrington

Overall: GOOD

 

Notable as the first not terrible Marvel movie, Blade was an unlikely candidate for such an honor as it was based on the Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan creation from Tomb of Dracula and not one of the flagship characters co-authored by Stan Lee.  Those movies would of course come shortly thereafter and kick the MCU into proper gear, but director Stephen Norrington and screenwriter David Goyer's reinterpretation of the character here is delivered with the right amount of B-movie gusto as to not be insulting.  We do have embarrassing digital effects, a few quips that generate a "Huh?" instead of a chuckle, glossed-over plot maneuvers, and hackneyed conveniences that are in place to move things along, but all parties involved maintain the correct schlocky tone that remembers to include humor, style, and bad-assery in equal measures.  The performances go a long way in selling such silliness, with Stephen Dorf making a charismatic smart-ass villain, N'Bushe Wright holding her own as a victim-turned-vampire-hunting-assistant, Kris Kristofferson as a cross between a Hell's Angel and Batman's Alfred, Donal Logue hamming it up as a surfer bro undead, and of course Wesley Snipes relishing in his most celebrated role as the brooding, leather-clad, silver-wielding, martial arts expert, "daywalker" title character.

 

BLADE II

(2002)

Dir - Guillermo del Toro

Overall: GOOD

 

For their second go-round with Blade II, screenwriter David Goyer, producer Peter Frankfurt, and star Wesley Snipes follow the standard sequel trajectory, maintaining the same R-rated popcorn-munching tone of the predecessor while simultaneously going bigger in its trajectory.  The death of Kris Kristofferson's Abraham Whistler is lazily retconed, but this is forgivable since he and Snipes' chemistry together still provides a touching bedrock for otherwise schlocky undead fun.  New bad guys emerge in the form of veiny, vagina-mouthed nosferatu types who are trickier to kill than the more conventionally vulnerable blood-suckers, and the plot unfolds with another secret society, an unlikely allegiance, some good ole foreseeable backstabbing, and plenty of smash-em up kung fu fights where Blade manages to keep his sunglasses on without breaking them.  Joining the fun is another international cast, including a pre-The Walking Dead Norman Reedus and director Guillermo del Toro's favorite Caucasian collaborator Ron Perlman who gets to try and out-bad-ass Snipes, with futile results of course.  The digital effects are as bad as any from the early 2000s, but the practical makeup ones are expertly realized, making the "reaper" mutants a memorable new edition.

 

BLADE: TRINITY

(2004)

Dir - David S. Goyer

Overall: MEH

The initial Blade trilogy wrapped up with Blade: Trinity, the dopiest and weakest in the series.  Production issues stemmed from Wesley Snipes being unhappy with everything from the script, to Ryan Reynolds being Ryan Reynolds, to the initial director choice, to the eventual director choice in continual screenwriter David S. Goyer.  On set tensions were infamous, with Snipes failing to corporate and even resulting to fisticuffs with Goyer, yet all of the heavy drama oddly resulted a goofier end result than either of the two movies that came before it.  Snipes quips more and actually smiles, Reynolds could not take such material seriously if a loaded gun was to his head, Patton Oswalt can also not take such material seriously if a gun was to his head, and various scenes are played to tongue-in-cheek chuckles as the schlock is leaned into tenfold.  Sadly, most of these moments are groan-worthy instead of wicked awesome.  It is difficult to buy into Parker Posey of all people smirking like a bad ass while she sways in slow motion towards the camera, and the same can be said about a muscle-bound Dracula, (doubling as the lamest in cinema history), also strutting to hip hop music as he waltzes into a Goth boutique store to frown at boxes of Count Chocula.  Then Snipes takes a backseat to his own starring vehicle from the second act on, leaving plenty of room for hackneyed exposition and cartoonish digital effects action sequences that bombard the screen with no sense of compelling agency.

The Underworld Series

UNDERWORLD

(2003)

Dir - Len Wiseman

Overall: MEH

 

For anyone who has pondered what Charles Band would have done if he ever had more than mere pocket change to work with, the initial Underworld and its subsequent series should provide an answer.  A dark, leathery, wet, and Gothy schlock-fest with embarrassing CGI, hardly any visible colors besides muted blues and grays, Matrix-styled set pieces, pretentious and mugging performances for days, hard rock and metal music cues, plus no intentional humor within miles of the proceedings, this is aggressively juvenile nonsense.  Every character is interchangeable both physically and personality wise, and they are portrayed by actors who have zero chemistry with each other and lean into the same pompous accents, with Kate Beckinsale in the lead being the only one that steers clear of egregious scenery-chewing.  This is B-movie silliness through and through and to be fair, the creative personnel behind it know what they are delivering.  The mythos-heavy plot is only there to service "badass" monster battles, vapid dialog about regular vampires and werewolves not getting along and adhering to their ancient codes, and special effects sequences that are always dumb and never interesting.

 

UNDERWORLD: EVOLUTION

(2006)

Dir - Len Wiseman

Overall: WOOF

 

Director Len Wiseman and screenwriter Danny McBride continue their numbing collaboration with Underworld: Evolution.  Affording us a recap and picking up where the 2003 initial effort left off, this one is even more lifelessly blue-filtered, even more action packed, even more humorless, and even more aggressively dull.  To add insult to injury, the plot line is convoluted in its grasping-at-straws attempt to deepen its mythology.  It even throws a twin brother into the mix, showing that for only round two, they were already relying on the laziest of narrative tricks.  Whereas the first film was hare-brained enough that even a child could follow it, this one bounces all over the place, introducing more interchangeable characters leaning into their exaggerated British thespian annunciations while being perpetually wet, bloody, and leathery.  Not that you can decipher much crimson in the relentlessly ugly non-color pallet, which only breaks from its soulless blue when Kate Beckinsale and Scott Speedman get all hot and bothered with each other, and in the end when the sun comes out to usher in a new beginning or who gives a shit.  Essentially then, this sequel just exemplifies everything that was forgettable about its predecessor.  It really is just a hundred and six more minutes of special effects sequences wrapped around the most bland characters looking miserable.  Maybe it would help if they were not so "blue" all the time.

 

UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS

(2009)

Dir - Patrick Tatopoulos

Overall: MEH

 

As anyone can tell ya, the best way to milk a franchise is to dip into the prequel pool at some point, and the Underworld series does just that with their third installment Underworld: Rise of the Lycans.  Len Wiseman steps away from the director's chair here, not that you would notice since new guy Patric Tatopoulos maintains the exact same lifeless tone and one-note visual ugliness as his predecessor.  Complaining about these movies being exclusively blue-filtered is like complaining about Mexican food being Mexican, but they really do create a hopelessly unengaging aesthetic that never helps such a Ravenloft-esque story go anywhere interesting or fun.  Several of the actors reprise their roles here, (sans Kate Beckinsale who took the night off, good for her), and they mug and pontificate just as much as ever in the period setting which explores how the werewolf folk rose up against their blood-sucking oppressors.  The CGI still sucks, but the monster suits come off acceptable and the overall scale is impressive, even if you cannot decipher much of it with such dark, unappealing, and dizzying cinematography.  On that note, it is difficult also difficult to grasp what any fans of this franchise enjoy about it, but unless it is the fast cars and Matrix outfits, it is all still here centuries earlier in all of its miserable mayhem glory.

 

UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING

(2012)

Dir - Måns Mårlind/Björn Stein

Overall: MEH

 

A direct sequel to 2006's abysmal Underworld: Evolution, Underworld: Awakening brings things back to not only modern day but actually over a decade in the future where both werewolves and vampires have been discovered by normies, and secret government agencies and scientists are trying to harness their powers because they gotta do something.  This one was plagued by countless drafts of an inadequate script, as the production went underway while various kinks were still being worked out, including the creature design and even the film's ending.  We are mostly done with pontificating immortals mugging at the camera and taking themselves too seriously, instead bringing Kate Beckinsale back to kill a lot of people in skyscrapers, all in her quest to find her old lycan fling who she had no chemistry with and oh yeah, she has a daughter now.  Comparatively, this one leans into its B-grade schlock more deliberately, with a higher emphasis on gore and physics-defying action sequences, though the franchise was always one to put battles, chases, and one-on-one duels over anything else.  It still looks awful, (all digital blue filters and embarrassingly unconvincing CGI effects), but Beckinsale ALMOST comes off like she is ALMOST enjoying herself in her Catwoman costume, flipping around and slicing and dicing up fellow monsters and humans alike.  It would be nice if she got to do this in something that was not so sterile and boring, but eh, what can ya do?

 

UNDERWORLD: BLOOD WARS

(2016)

Dir - Anna Foerster

Overall: MEH

The Underworld series, (to date), mercifully wraps up with Underworld: Blood Wars, another interchangeably dull installment with no distinguishing elements whatsoever.  This was the debut from television director Anna Foerster, but putting a woman behind the lens for the first time and teaming her up with new screenwriters Kyle Ward and Cory Goodman makes not an ounce of difference.  The lycan/vampire war still rages, there is still no humor, not one actor has an ounce of charisma on screen, (save maybe Charles Dance for his few brief moments), the CGI effects are still appalling, and it is still a colorless and lifeless bore from front to back.  Kate Beckinsale gets to wear a white fur coat for a few seconds, but that is about it.  There have been many monster mash yarns over the years that drop the ball by various means, but none of them have gone on this long with such persistently anti-fun results.  By taking themselves so seriously, rushing through hackneyed and insipid exposition, and bombarding the screen with monochrome "spectacle", one is annoyed, disinterested, and exhausted before the obligatory opening narration even wraps up.  It has been almost a decade now since things were better left alone, so let us hope that there are no future filmmakers with any Underworld nostalgia out there who will resurrect such drivel.

2000's American Horror Part Thirty-Seven

WILLARD
(2003)
Dir - Glen Morgan
Overall: MEH

Remaking a lousy movie sounds like a good idea on paper since there is at least a chance that it can be done better, and in most respects, the 2003 reinterpretation of Willard is more agreeable than its oddball predecessor.  This is not to say that writer/director Glen Morgan's loose take on Stephen Gilbert's 1968 novel Ratman's Notebooks does not carve out its own brand of quirkiness, since any story about a neurotic Norman Bates type who talks to, befriends, controls, and ultimately runs afoul with a barrage of rodents must inherently play up its eccentricities.  On that note, Crispin Glover rises to the occasion in a role that he was born to play, giving the title character the type of crippling awkwardness that warrants his free fall into madness.  He is never intimidating or even that funny, but he is always pathetic and sad, plus Glover's tearful aloofness manages to get the audience on his side.  R. Lee Ermy is also ideally cast as the Ernest Borgnine odious boss from the original, but Laura Elena Harring's would-be love interest is wasted in an underwritten and ultimately useless role.  Elsewhere, the rats behave arbitrarily and sometimes they are rendered with unconvincing CGI, but these are minor grievances since the focus is rightfully on its doomed protagonist who is so pitiful, isolated, and lacking in confidence that he finds his only solace in creatures that everyone else instinctively attacks and "eeeks" at.  The movie is hardly necessary and has nothing in the way of clever or suspenseful set pieces, but Glover and Ermy still manage to nail the assignment.

 

BLOOD TEA AND RED STRING

(2006)

Dir - Christiane Cegavske
Overall: GOOD

Thirteen years in the making, Blood Tea and Red String emerged from stop-motion filmmaker Christiane Cegavske as a beautifully-realized fairy tale that examines humanity's inherently self-defeating nature via woodland critter.  Void of dialog, it pits the Creatures Who Dwell Under the Oak, (a combination of rodent and bird), against aristocratic mice and a spider with a humanoid face, all of whom seem compulsively drawn to a life-sized doll and resort to desperate measure in order to obtain it.  While certain parties are portrayed as more benevolent than others, they each forgo composure and moral duty in order to bogart their object of affection, which ultimately leaves all of them void of the prize.  Cegayske fills the simple fable with wonderful details, and the entire setting breathes persistent motion and life, helped by an ambient sound design as well as Mark Growden Renaissance-era music.  Much can be read into the story itself since the lack of words welcomes the viewer to interpret everything at their leisure, but the surreal journey remains fascinating, occasionally brutal, and lovingly portrayed by Cegayske as a testament to retro stop-motion animation and fantasy storytelling.

 

THE HOLE

(2009)

Dir - Joe Dante

Overall: MEH

Arriving a month before his interactive webseries Splatter and three years after his second Masters of Horror installment, Joe Dante returns to full-length horror with The Hole, doubling as his first 3D feature.  On paper at least, it is nice to see Dante back behind the lens, indulging himself in the genre that made him famous and bringing Bruce Dern along with him in a minor part, as well as an nonspeaking Dick Miller in an even more minor part.  The novelty of such familiar genre icons being back in the game wears off quickly though since the production here is anything but impressive.  Sticking to the cheap, TV aesthetic of his aforementioned Masters of Horror episodes, the film looks like a CW program with its attractive cast, cookie-cutter/small town setting, and a jaunty musical score that jives adorably with Dante's usual penchant for lighthearted comedic quips and grisly set pieces.  While this is tonally in keeping with the director's long-established shtick, the presentation is watered-down and generic, lacking the laugh-out-loud humor and innovative horror aspects of his best efforts.  Instead, it is just cutesy, dull, and hackneyed, with a story about a hole in a suburban house that unlocks peoples fears and ergo gives way to a creepy killer doll, a little girl with zombie make-up on, and a final set piece that looks like a D-rent variation of Dante's "It's a Good Life" segment from Twilight Zone: The Movie.

2000's American Horror Part Thirty-Six

THE CONVENT
(2000)
Dir - Mike Mendez
Overall: WOOF

An unwatchably obnoxious Night of the Demons knock-off, The Convent is the type of jacked-up horror comedy that goes so hard in slamming home a barrage of cliches that it forgets to make any of them anything but torturous.  For far too long now, anything in the slasher vein has to set up its unlikable characters so that we can cheer for their bloody demise, but director Mike Mendez and screenwriter Chaton Anderson take these wretched dipshits to a level that is unforgivable.  Horny frat bros, a bimbo in a cheerleader costume, a Goth chick, said Goth chick's ex-best friend who is now trying to fit in with the cool kids, a white drug dealer who talks like he is not white, a dork getting hazed, prissy Satanists, a slut Satanist, Bill Moseley and (mostly) Coolie randomly chewing the scenery as cops; everyone on screen is both a lazy stereotype and the worst human being you can imagine.  Adrienne Barbeau eventually collects an easy paycheck about fifty minutes in and is the only person on screen with any semblance of likeability, but the film has more problems than just how stupid, cheap, hackneyed, and annoying it is. Namely, it breaks the one rule of comedy, meaning that it is light years away from being funny, yet it tries way, way too hard with a grating sense of reckless abandon.

 

TRAPPED ASHES

(2006)

Dir - Sean S. Cunningham/Joe Dante/Monte Hellman/Ken Russell/John Gaeta

Overall: MEH

Similarly in line with Mick Garris' Masters of Horror series from Showtime, Trapped Ashes brings together a handful of directors, (some renowned, some not), into an anthology setting with cheap, sleazy, though occasionally fetching results.  The first full-length from screenwriter Dennis Bartok, he throws in an endless stream of familiar genre and cinephile references, and even offers up an alternative reality story about Stanley Kubrick pawning off a succubus vampire witch on his best friend.  Joe Dante doing the wrap-around segment, (and throwing in Henry Gibson as the Crypt Keeper stand-in, plus a non-speaking cameo from Dick Miller because of course), should be enough to get the attention of horror fans, but Ken Russell helming "The Girl with Golden Breasts" about blood-sucking fake tits and appearing as a transvestite doctor in it himself will be what most viewer's will remember/scratch their heads at.  Sean S. Cunningham's Japanese-set "Jibaku" is passable, Monte Hellman's "Stanley's Girlfriend" gives John Saxon a solid chance to stretch his chops, and special effects man John Gaeta gets his first crack behind the lens on the oddball ""My Twin, the Worm".  The overall production is B-grade at best, the special effects are caca, nudity is shoehorned into each entry, and they all vary in tone, but some of it is goofy enough to enjoy.

HOUSE OF THE WOLF MAN

(2009)

Dir - Eben McGarr

Overall: WOOF

It is always unfortunate to shit on a movie like Eben McGarr's House of the Wolf Man, something that was clearly made with love and took every available technical and budgetary care to deliver a proper homage for its nostalgia-craved target audience.  As should be obvious, this is a Universal monster-mash throwback that was shot in black and white and in full-frame, with accurate cinematography, music, and production values that at least give individual frames the proper old timey allusion.  Not every aspect is accurately conveyed to go full 1940s Hollywood B-picture though.  For one, the pacing is way off, with slowly delivered dialog that does not in any way recall the rapid-fire delivery system of cranked-out studio movies from the bygone era.  It takes over an hour for any monsters to show up, (another major strike), and the title Wolf Man and Frankenstein creature are more ferocious and gnarly than Universal ever allowed, which is fine except that it misses the mark on the retro execution.  By far the biggest issue besides the labored plot is the insufferable performances.  Everyone on screen awkwardly embarrasses themselves, no more than Lon Chaney's great-grandson Ron Chaney in the lead, who may be the worst actor that ever lived.  The whole affair is a damn shame since the things that it gets OK are dwarfed by its blunders.

2000's British Horror Part Eleven

THE FALL OF THE LOUSE OF USHER

(2002)

Dir - Ken Russell
Overall: MEH

The last solo full-length from Ken Russell, The Fall of the Louse of Usher is a bizarrely self-aware act of indulgence that was filmed on a digital camera in the director's own home with just a small handful of friends and James Johnston from Gallon Drunk helping out.  It is Russell's version of Stephen Sayadian's 1989 avant-garde head-scratcher Dr. Caligari, made for no money and with a random assortment of cheap costumes, props, and set design, except done with all of the laughably ridiculous gusto and over-acting that the filmmaker's more celebrated works are known for.  Russell himself plays Caligari with a German accent, meanwhile everyone else besides Johnston speaks like they are doing an impression of either a Southern belle or a pompous British madame.  The works of Edgar Allan Poe are referenced left and right, with a particularity hilarious moment occurring where Johnston is strapped down, given a concerning amount of Viagra, and then coerced into singing lest a pendulum slice his increasingly growing dong off.  Scenes like this make up the entire film which barely has a plot and is more a series of juvenile and nonsensical gags done in the most garishly cheap manner possible.  The songs are terrible, the acting worse, and the whole thing has a level of production that is one grade below a couple of six year olds running around with their dad's camcorder, but it is a good, (bad), amount of fun for those who are in the mood for Russell's eccentricities done on a Z-grade scale.

 

SUNSHINE

(2007)

Dir - Danny Boyle

Overall: MEH

 

For their second collaboration following 28 Day Later, the writer/director team of Alex Garland and Danny Boyle switch to sci-fi and follow so many well-worn narrative tropes that one just wishes that the Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker team was on board to take the piss out of them.  Instead, Sunshine plays to the genre's formulaic weaknesses without any nods or winks, taking itself seriously as a high-octane outer space thriller that looks good, sounds good, is acted good, and is also instantly forgettable.  We have a lot of familiar faces here, (Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans, Michelle Yeoh, Hiroyuki Sanada, Rose Byrne, Cliff Curtis, and Benedict Wong), and they are all charismatic enough thespians to elevate yet another plot where rugged astronauts venture into the cosmos on a dangerous mission to save the Earth, while running out of oxygen and receiving a concerning distress signal.  Some other stuff happens that touches upon everything from Solaris, to Alien, to Event Horizon, and it eventually turns into a cat and mouse horror film of sorts, with action scenes that are edited to smithereens and ergo impossible to decipher.  Characters have emotional breakdowns, they argue with each other, they make sacrifices, and little of it is bound to leave anyone on the edge of their seat.  If it borrowed less from so many playbooks, explored less pedestrian ideas, and/or actually threw in some humor somewhere, then it could warrant its existence as something more than just a special effects Twinkie.

 

FLICK

(2008)

Dir - David Howard

Overall: MEH

The lone theatrical full-length from television director David Howard, Flick is an ultra-low-budget zombie revenge romp that is exclusively goofy while overcompensating with tacky digital effects and a flashy style that exceeds its meager means.  Cheapo movies that are not shot on film usually have an unmistakably cruddy aesthetic, and none of this is hidden by any of the bold filters, Dutch angles, swipes, comic book panel transitions, and inadequate CGI.  That said, Howard maintains a comedic tone and only a comedic tone, so its inherent tackiness is leaned into  This is fitting for a story about a dweebish 50s Teddy Boy with a bad stutter who went on a bloody rampage in his youth, only to come back to life decades later as a "fish out of water" revenant hellbent on vengeance.  Said lead antagonist is not only nicknamed "Flick", but he also uses a flick knife to kill his now senior citizen-aged victims, which is a convenient coincidence.  Faye Dunaway is inexplicably in this, and cynical viewers can proclaim "oh how the mighty have fallen" to their heart's content, but the once lauded actor does seem to be enjoying herself as a one-armed Southern police detective who is taking the silly material as seriously as it deserves, meaning not at all.  Despite Howard's noble ambitions, nothing actually funny happens, plus the pacing stagnates here or there with lengthy monologues.  Even if Dunaway is delivering those monologues with a panache that has not been depleted even in scale paycheck jobs like this, it is still a mediocre yuck-fest at best.

2000's Foreign Horror Part Eighteen

ANATOMY

(2000)

Dir - Stefan Ruzowitzky

Overall: WOOF

 

Austrian filmmaker Stefan Ruzowitzky does his own mostly embarrassing take on turn of the century horror films with Anatomy, (Anatomie).  We have attractive college-age adults doing attractive college-age adult things, some hip soundtrack choices, and groan-worthy and flirtations dialog to appease a post-Scream audience looking for fast-paced, quippy schlock with some torture porn additives.  Sadly there are plenty of other hackneyed tropes sprinkled around as well, like law enforcement officials not taking anyone seriously, our main protagonist Franka Potente trying to uncover a mystery that the audience is already privy to, and a slasher-esque third act that undermines the inherent creepiness of a clandestine and occult surgery butcher organization.  In other words, it throws in many elements that seem to be doing battle with each other in order to have something for everyone, becoming an inevitable mess in the process.  If Ruzowitzky went for a more subtle approach so that both the viewer and Potente were left in the dark, at least the trek to get to the silly finale would have been more atmospheric and unsettling.  Instead, this just comes off as a competently made and good-looking bit of stupidity.

 

EDEN LOG

(2007)

Dir - Franck Vestiel

Overall: MEH

 

An ambitious yet largely unwatchable debut from French filmmaker Franck Vestiel, Eden Log throws a guy into a pitch black cave and spends the next merciless one-hundred odd minutes watching him try to escape.  If this sounds like an interesting jumping-off point, it is, but things quickly settle into a sluggish endurance test for the audience once we realize that the horrendous and exclusively hand-held cinematography is going to render much of the visuals indecipherable.  This is a shame since some of those visuals are impressive, (solid and mucky monster makeup, sets that look more expansive than they are, some tar-like gore), but even though the movie is practically in black and white, oppressive atmosphere is sacrificed for grainy, shaky, and ugly shots after shots.  On top of that, we have a narrative with barely enough meat on its bones to carry a short film through, let alone one that is longer than an hour and a half.  It concerns some soft of dystopian future where an underground facility is trying to harvest tree sap that turns people into mutants or whatever, (plus some stuff about immigrant initiation and fascist authoritarianism), but Vestiel structures everything with a video game trajectory that probably only had a chance of being fun if it was played instead of tolerated.  On that note, the dialog is worse than what is commonly found in video games and all of it appears to be ADRed, but this is an ugly mess first and foremost with a story that is unwavering in its dour insignificance.

 

DAYBREAKERS

(2009)

Dir - Michael Spierig/Peter Spierig

Overall: MEH

The sibling filmmaking duo of Michael and Peter Spierig follow-up their goofy zombie action romp Undead with a different form of undead as subject matter, namely vampires in Daybreakers.  An American/Australian co-production that scored heavyweights Ethan Hawke, Sam Neill, and Willem Dafoe, it has a big budget sheen for such knowingly B-movie material, with oodles of terrible CGI effects, flat green filters used for the interiors and night scenes and earthy ones used for the outside country ones, plus some car chases, solid monster makeup, explosions, and artillery showcases.  Plot wise, every beat can be predicted from miles away as it follows the bog standard structure of ragtag underdogs up against an authoritarian regime with the help of one of the unwilling participants of such a regime.  On the plus side, the premise is a clever enough subversion where blood-suckers are the ones who have taken over the globe and the humans are the ones on the run to stop such a militant bureaucratic stranglehold.  It works as an allegory for mankind depleting their own resources, and the Spierig brothers maintain a surprisingly somber tone for such schlocky material, at least until the finale when the big guns literally come out and the one-note characterizations rear their dopey heads.