Dawn of the Dead

DAWN OF THE DEAD

(1978)

Dir - George A. Romero

Overall: GREAT

Many could view George A. Romero's enduring Night of the Living Dead follow-up Dawn of the Dead as a rare example of a sequel that surpasses its predecessor.  For a non-horror film, this is an impressive enough feat.  For an actual horror film, it is a bonafide impossibility.  A variety of factors play into such an otherwise impossibility where ten years after re-inventing the horror film via shocking drive-in movie-goers of the time and turning critic's heads to a new breed of independent genre filmmaking, Romero and another dedicated batch of collaborators made something that has once again stood the test of time.  Anyone labeling Dawn of the Dead as the quintessential zombie movie would be a difficult person to argue with.

After Night of the Living Dead was released, Romero tried for a few years to disassociate himself from the horror genre as to not seem like a one-trick pony.  His next film There's Always Vanilla was as far from horror as conceivable, being a straight-up romantic comedy instead.  Despite its title and certain elements of the premise, even the following Season of the Witch bares few similarities to conventional horror tropes.  The Crazies and Martin swing things much closer back though, with the former being zombie-esque as a viral outbreak movie while Martin remains one of the best psychological "vampire" films probably ever made.  Yet regardless of what thematic box any of these post-Night of the Living Dead movies can be placed into, none of them were commercially viable.  This is one of the prominent factors in his next project becoming an unequivocal return to not only horror, but to the the undead-munching-on-human-flesh-in-a-post-apocalyptic-landscape variety that proved ever so successful a decade prior.

 

Oddly he did not take the opportunity to make There's Always Vanilla about ice cream.

Before shooting could begin though, money had to be secured.  Which is where Dario Argento of all actually understandable people came on board.  An outspoken supporter of Romero's work as many other filmmakers where, (those who made horror movies or otherwise), Argento caught wind that both a Night of the Living Dead sequel was in the works and also that it was in need of financial backing.  He, his brother Claudio, and his producer Alfredo Como then reached out and offered to contribute funds in exchange for the European distribution rights, even going as far as to fly Romero out to Rome for a few weeks so that he could work on the screenplay.  By November of 1977, production was underway and shooting properly began.

As usual, the narrative inspiration for Dawn of the Dead came from yet another "It is who you know" scenario for Romero.  He just so happened to be old college friends with Mark Mason, whose company currently owned the Monroeville Mall in Pennsylvania, east of Pittsburgh.  While getting a behind the scenes tour of the place, Mason joked that one could hold up during a catastrophic event there, lighting the creative bulb in Romero's head as far as placing his protagonists in such a large, upscale shopping facility for his next zombie film.  Plus since he already had the personal connection, said mall became the actual shooting location as well.

Macy's and playplaces to the rescue!

With his cast and crew dedicating themselves to a vampire-esque schedule shooting between eleven PM to seven AM every day of the week during the mall's off-hours, they were given unprecedented free-reign of the place so long as everything was cleaned up and relatively undamaged once business resumed.  After taking a short break during the Christmas season as not to waste hours of time taking down and then putting back up holiday decorations, (a "break" in which they shot other location footage and Romero began editing what he already had), shooting resumed and was wrapped up by the end of February.

Much has been said about the premise of Dawn of the Dead and how, well, COOL it is.  It poses a question to the audience where if the world really was ending, what better place would you want to ride some of the apocalypse out than in an entire shopping mall, all to yourself?  Presenting such a vicariously stimulating prospect to the viewer is no accident.  The concept seems fun on paper and effortlessly draws the audience in to experience the more unpleasant, satirical aspects inherent in the story.  That is the deliberate, front and center commentary on mass consumerism and human depravity that clearly cohabitate within each of us.  Under the context of a zombie outbreak where society is no longer capable of functioning, the only thing left for us to do is to scream and argue at each other while finding temporary solace in superficial comforts.

 

Superficial comforts such as what carpet color to choose from when they are all on sale.

To further slam such unflinching cynicism home, there is a clear message present that human nature stays in respectful line only under the confines of unchallenged normalcy.  Dawn of the Dead is about how human beings are really only OK when things are OK.  Present us a situation where our jobs, our lifestyle, and our relationships no long fit into a functional society and the ever-present fear of death is relentlessly upon us, and people stop playing ball.  Furthermore, most people are shown to not have a clue how to actually play ball in the first place.

In the finale of Night of the Living Dead, we were briefly shown a twisted "survival of the fittest" mockery where the only people not only left standing but even seemingly enjoying themselves were large parties of good ole boys loaded up to their asses in firearms.  Out of the four main characters in Dawn of the Dead, only the two SWAT officers show themselves as being capable with weapons in the beginning.  Steve "Flyboy" Andrews and his pregnant girlfriend Fran Parker behave like either bumbling buffoons or deer in headlights when under siege from the undead.  Yet it does not take too long for such stereotypes to be broken.  Peter Washington spends the entire film trying to keep it together, coming within a split-second of permanently cracking by the end.  His well-trained partner Roger DeMarco snaps much earlier, recklessly yee-hawing his way towards getting bitten by two different zombies which ultimately seals his doom.

 

The lesson being, just because you tell yourself that you got this by the ass, that does not in fact mean that you have this by such an ass.

What Romero does here is present the inevitable downfall of those people who are similar to the gun-totting rednecks in the first film, (who make another appearance here in a montage to the tune of the Pretty Things "'Cause I'm A Man").  For some, the only way to hold-off insanity in such dire consequences is to not take the experience that seriously.  Yet by doing so, eventually our very fragile psyches will no longer be able to cope with the severity of what is truly going on and when that happens, accidents happen.  The conclusion of Dawn of the Dead features a reckless biker gang raiding the shopping mall while throwing pies and spraying water in the zombie's faces.  At the same time, Flyboy, (who has now learned to fend for himself with his own arsenal), becomes prideful and possessive of what he and his cohorts have fought and even died for.  By doing so, he fires at the motorcycle thugs, gives away their position, becomes a zombie himself, and forces the surviving Peter and Fran to flee their no longer fortified sanctuary.

Saying that George Romero is simply making a statement that all humans inventively suck under extreme, traumatized circumstances is obviously selling the man's vision and his film short.  If anything else, the 1970s were simultaneously a time of excess, a time of relying on modern conveniences, and a time of overall cynical distrust.  Both Vietnam and the Watergate scandal to name but a few instances had proven that our presumably noble politicians were leading us astray.  The late-60s counter-culture/free love movement had given way to rampant pre-AIDs sex and cocaine use, both of which were seemingly and incorrectly void of consequences.  Shopping malls just like the one in Monroeville were popping up everywhere to allow middle-class suburbanites enough comfort to ignore everything morally questionable around them.

Did someone say "Ignoring the things around them"?

With one independently-financed yet aggressively ambitious film shot in Pennsylvanian, George A Romero got to shine a bloody light on such things.  He also had the good sense to emphasize the right components to that film, namely the humor and the gore.  Whereas Night of the Living Dead had enough jokes to count on no hands, Dawn of the Dead makes its comedic elements hard to miss.  There are numerous scenes of either bug-eyed or comatose-looking zombies stumbling around a mall, falling into fountains, going down escalators the wrong way, getting trapped in cars, or ravaging department stores while jovial music plays around them.  Even our heroes get to let loose in a number of ways; robbing a bank, playing arcade games, ice skating, drinking olive juice, or doing practical things like learning to fly a helicopter and getting target practice on mannequins.

 

Just as funny are the practical yet occasionally over-the-top make-up effects from Tom Savini.  Now synonymous with such a trade, this stands as the first major work that would catapult his career, and rightfully so.  Whether it is cutting a zombie's head off with helicopter blades, blowing up another one's head in an apartment building, jabbing a screwdriver into another's skull by way of his ear, or having one guy get ripped out of a blood pressure machine while another gets his intestines forcibly gorged upon, the gross-out moments are both horrifically funny and memorable.

 

Even more amazing is how Tom Savini has managed to look exactly the same for several decades.

Romero is wisely aware that his entire concept here is somewhat ridiculous and he also knows that a bunch of blue/grey/green zombies spewing bright-red blood is going to produce more chuckles than frightened gasps from his audience.  Instead of pretending that such silly ingredients are not inherently there, they are embraced in total enhancement of the film's tone.  Dawn of the Dead is less horror and more of a tongue-in-cheek action movie that just so happens to have walking corpses munching on people.  The fact that these waking corpses are not actually the film's true villains is exactly the message that Romero intended to come through.  The zombies represent unavoidable, uncontrollable surrender to their natural existence.  They have no choice in their fate.  It is the people who have yet to turn over to the zombie side that are consistently their own worst enemies.  They are humbled, terrified, and stubborn all at once, and their own inability to cooperate and problem solve simply makes the flesh-eating ghoul catastrophe at hand seem helplessly perpetual.  Like much great art, Romero's film is timeless since it should be obvious today as much as any era how such naturally flawed human characteristics still run rampant among us.

 

The vision on display here is not obnoxiously nihilistic though.  After all, Fran and Peter do indeed live to fight another day and even manage to convey somewhat of a quasi-optimistic, "Well, we're still alive so fuck it, what's one more day gonna hurt?" attitude as they fly off into the sunrise.  The likelihood of them making it much longer may be understandably nil, but that is not the point.  The point is that we are all people and warts and all, we all want the same thing; to survive.  How we go about achieving such a thing and how we treat each other in doing so is what we need to work on.  As the film clearly demonstrates, we need to do this even more so when our chances of success are detrimentally compounded by the universe throwing us a cuvre-ball.  That universe in this case simply having "No more room in hell".

 

No more room in hell, yes.  Room to appear in lots of Rob Zombie's movies, also yes.

George A. Romero managed to make the entire thing knowingly entertaining from a pure popcorn horror standpoint for the era, be it an aggressively button-pushing and violent one.  His ever-present social commentary is as on-the-nose and sly as it was in Night of the Living Dead, but this is a remarkably different movie.  It does not so much as explore the exact same themes as it does expand upon them with a more dominant nod and a wink.  Zombies are still everywhere, humanity is still doomed, and audience members still had to be uncomfortable in their seats at the time of its initial release.  While delving deeper into such an apocalyptic scenario and witnessing how we are all seemingly programmed to continue to jack it up if we stick to our naturally ill-equipped methods though, it sure comes off as a lot more fun that it logically should.

 

As mentioned earlier, for a single director to accomplish such a thing once in a career is largely unheard of.  For it to happen twice?  Well, there is a reason Romero is considered not only the godfather of the modern zombie but also, (and far more admirably), one of the horror genres most cherished and outstanding filmmakers.  Night of the Living Dead changed the game, but Dawn of the Dead set the bar in that very game.  Zombie make-up and gore effects may have gotten more realistic, the zombies themselves may have gotten faster and more aggressively terrifying, we may as a cinematic culture be utterly burnt-out on them as a go-to movie monster, yet none of this diminishes the impact that George Romero's other masterpiece still very much has.

You sir nailed it.  Both times.

2020 Horror Part Seven

COME TRUE

Dir - Anthony Scott Burns

Overall: MEH

Narratively speaking, filmmaker Anthony Scott Burns' Come True is a misguided mess despite its stylistic integrity.  Prominently featuring a synth-pop score from Toronto-based duo Electric Youth and filmed in a deliberately intangible manner, visually it combines expressive cinematography with unnerving, black and gray dream representations of sleep paralysis shadow men or night hags in a traditional sense.  The ambitious, tranquil presentation matches the subject matter rather ideally, very gradually guiding the audience through a stream of increasingly confusing and disturbing set pieces.  This is both a good and bad thing.  Burns seems very much in control of the material in a visceral sense, but at the same time, whatever he is going for psychologically gets lost along the way.  Some of this can be "explained" with a twist-ending, but such a thing seems more of a throw-away than a convincingly thought-provoking tag to finish on.  Too many elements are glossed-over to excuse the unfocused plot, which is a shame in that everything else is rather flawlessly executed from a production standpoint.

VIOLATION

Dir - Madeleine Sims-Fewer/Dusty Mancinelli

Overall: GOOD

 

The full-length debut Violation from Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli takes a somewhat pretentious stab at the feminist revenge sub-genre though mostly in a successful way.  In addition to co-directing, co-writing, and co-producing with Mancinelli, Sims-Fewer stars as a deeply troubled and traumatized woman who seems to both invite and become victimized by dysfunction.  The script wisely refuses to paint her in one-dimensional colors, which plays psychologically on the audience.  Making a protagonist's horrific acts also sympathetic to varying degrees is always an ambitious trick and the very earnest presentation helps pull it off.  The film is also bold in its non-chronological narrative and frequent detours into artful, slow motion close-ups, plus a harrowing musical score conveys an appropriately uncomfortable amount of dread.  This is not to say that the movie relies exclusively on suggestion as it is bluntly explicit in its violence and nudity, neither of which is played for exploitative effect.  Some of the characterizations can afford to be less impenetrable, but despite its heavy-handed nature, it remains primarily thought-provoking and admirably fearless.

 

THE WOLF OF SNOW HOLLOW

Dir - Jim Cummings

Overall: GOOD

For his second full-length behind the lens, actor/filmmaker Jim Cummings crafts a genuinely quirky horror comedy with The Wolf of Snow Hollow.  Also serving as the penultimate screen appearance of Robert Forster, the film has been described as the closest available to the Coen brothers making a genre film.  Set in rural, snow-covered Utah and centered around a father/son sheriff team in over their heads with a slew of grizzly murders and frustrated townsfolk, Cummings' dry, purposely dark humor is cleverly delivered due to the off-beat structure.  Various montages, anger-fueled outbursts, and frustrated bickering are played for comedic effect even as the narrative circumstances are predominantly bloody and disturbing.   The film could be accused of being overtly bitter in some instances if not for a genuine, heartfelt undercurrent which is greatly benefited by consistently good performances.  There are some cliched plot elements, a twist ending that is not entirely necessary, and for a werewolf movie, it is in fact rather short on lycanthropian escapades.  All that said though, the character-driven emphasis makes such shortcomings rather unimportant.

2020 Horror Part Six

THE RENTAL

Dir - Dave Franco

Overall: GOOD

 

Actor-turned-director Dave Franco crafted a somewhat textbook though expertly done semi-slasher with his debut The Rental.  Co-scripted in part by fellow actor Joe Swanberg, (The Sacrament, V/H/S, You're Next), the story certainly has its foreseeable beats, but it is also unusually tight.  The minimal cast does admirable work and the dysfunction between each of their characters is believably portrayed.  It is a testament to both the writing and performances that the film manages to stay engaging before things kick into inevitable cat-and-mouse gear, which does not happen until a good ways into the third act.  For his first time behind the lens, Franco maintains an admirably suspenseful tone.  Sinister activity is teased throughout, but never in a pandering way and once it does go full-tilt thriller, it frighteningly delivers that much more as so much time was previously spent authentically building up the circumstances.  A bit nihilistic for some tastes maybe, but there are few faults to be found in its effective execution.

BLOODTHIRSTY

Dir - Amelia Moses

Overall: MEH

 

For her second full-length Bloodthirsty, filmmaker Amelia Moses once again teams up with actor Lauren Beatty, this time in collaboration with fellow Canadian singer/songwriter Lowell Boland who co-wrote the script and provided a handful of songs.  The result is rather clunky in the plot and dialog department to say the least, but the premise itself has some unique details present to off-set its more familiar horror tropes.  Played devoid of apparent humor, the movie could honestly afford to lighten up a bit as things eventually get a bit too absurd to take as seriously as they are presented.  It does not quite work as a whole, but its production aspects are well in place with excellent performances, unassuming cinematography, Boland's convincing music, and a persistently sinister tone.  A tighter script is the missing ingredient to properly elevated it, but its bloody, heavy-handed heart is in the right place at least.

 

LUCKY

Dir - Natasha Kermani

Overall: MEH

Things go oddly awry in director Natasha Kermani and actor/screenwriter Brea Grant's Lucky.  On paper, it is a bold and challenging move to exclusively dwell in social commentary with one's feature, non-documentary film.  Here, the message of women feeling hopelessly threatened by men's most violent, passive aggressive, manipulative, and neglectful attributes manifests itself as a quasi-parody of slasher movies.  The intention to make such themes as persistent as possible is impossible to miss, yet the film becomes detrimentally frustrating in its awkward presentation.  Undeniably surreal, the dialog and performances, (including that of Grant who is perpetually on screen), are so annoyingly unnatural that the (very) unnatural chain of events taking place becomes impossible to come to terms with in a cinematic sense.  Again, this is most likely purposeful, but various moments appear to be going for disturbed laughs while the execution of it all seems so ridiculous at times that virtually no tone whatsoever is maintained.  It could be seen as both a dark satire of simplified feminist empowerment and a simplification of male chauvinism in general, yet it is neither funny nor particularly thought-provoking in its off-putting, borderline pretentious form. 

2020 Horror Part Five

MEANDER

Dir - Mathieu Turi

Overall: MEH

 

The ambitious, quasi-Cube re-working Meander, (Méandre), by writer/director Mathieu Turi has some clear detriments though it manages to remain predominantly nerve-wracking at least.  Carrying virtually the entire film on her lonesome, Gaia Weiss is excellent as a terrified yet determined woman trapped in a brutally unforgiving maze.  The production design is quite effective as well, creating a chilling, otherworldly environment.  Turi maintains a relentlessly tense atmosphere with set pieces that rear close to torture porn territory without succumbing fully to unwatchable miserableness.  While the movie assuredly succeeds in the suspense category, (with plenty of gross out moments for horror genre purists as well), the story is quite hackneyed.  The premise easily recalls the aforementioned Cube series as well as Shinya Tsukamoto's short film Haze, but the emotional link of Weiss' character overcoming the traumatic loss of her daughter is quite pedestrian and undercooked.  It is a shame that the film's overly-simplified narrative and somewhat derivative concept undermine the elements that do indeed work, yet for those simply in the mood for a deliciously claustrophobic, nintey-minute nightmare, this one will easily suffice.

THE STYLIST

Dir - Jill Gevargizian

Overall: MEH

 

With several short films under her belt, (including the one for which this is expanded and based upon), Jill Gevargizian unleashed the tensely odd full-length The Stylist.  Centered around a severely unhinged introvert, the film is disturbing in its very nature even as it never bothers to delve very deep into the origins of Najarra Townsend's alarming behavior.  She is attractive, well-dressed, lives in a large house by herself, has a hip job, appears quiet yet friendly enough in social encounters, yet her devastating struggles in keeping such upward appearances seem arbitrarily in place.  The same goes for her obsession with one of her long-term clients, which more or less springs up out of nowhere. This narrative aloofness keeps the movie from being as engaging as it otherwise would be since the focus is on a character so impenetrably off that it is more of a voyeuristic experience for the viewer and one that borders on frustration.  Still, Gervargizian's vision is remarkably stunning as the movie is wonderfully shot and as a thriller, she pulls off a number of nail-biting moments that are worth taking note of.  The pay-off may be a bit standoffish, but then again, this may be intended as that seems to be a primary theme here in general.

MY HEART CAN'T BEAT UNLESS YOU TELL IT TO

Dir - Johnathan Cuartas

Overall: MEH

 

For his first full-length, writer/director Johnathan Cuartas takes a sobering and dour look at one of the horror films most abundantly used "monsters" and a handful of its tropes.  Shot with virtually zero flash and utilizing a screenplay with virtually zero humor, My Heart Can't Beat Unless You Tell It To has a deliberately stark quality to it.  The characters dwelling here exist in a perpetual state where their humanity continues to be drained away.  What joy they do experience is found purely out of desperation, (a pawn shop karaoke machine, the by-the-hour attention of a prostitute, celebrating Christmas multiple times a year, etc), yet such sanity-maintaining measures have all but completely failed them by the time they are introduced to us.  The movie is relentlessly depressing because of this and very often difficult to sit through.  The minuscule cast does admirable work with such heavy material and there are no stylistic genre cliches anywhere to be found, both of which are good things on paper.  What mild comforts it may offer are persistently dampened though and it all comes with an overbearing aura of life being brutally unforgiving and hopeless.  It is as far from a feel-good movie as you can get then and such a warning should probably be given to those who wish to venture here.

2019 Horror Part Ten

VFW

Dir - Joe Begos
Overall: GOOD

Boasting an ideal premise for veteran tough guy actors, (plus George Wendt), VFW delightfully fuses "back in my day" boomer posturing with gore-ridden mayhem.  Director Joe Begos was approached by producer Dallas Sonnier with a script from Max Brallier and Matthew McArdle that pays respect to the American veteran's code while giving them a justifiable enemy in for the form of an opioid crisis that has ravished their community with gang violence while simultaneously reducing its addicts to the equivalent of rage-fueled zombies.  Stephan Lang heads a cast of macho thespians from yesteryear including William Sadler, Fred "the Hammer" Williamson, Martin Kove, and David Patrick Kelly, all playing aged-out military men who instinctively jump right back into action when both their safe haven bar and a millennial with a valid vendetta are threatened by doped-out hordes and drug-dealing scumbags.  Isolated to a single, red and purple-tinged location and following a standard structure where one character gets picked off at a time as the stakes grow that much more dire, it becomes monotonous after awhile, but Begos handles the heady subject matter admirably while still keeping a deliberately campy and ultra-violent tone.

THE QUEEN OF BLACK MAGIC

Dir - Kimo Stamboel

Overall: GOOD

Indonesian director Kimo Stamboel's remake of the 1981 movie Ratu Ilmu Hitam, (The Queen of Black Magic), is a pretty nasty and effective updating, produced by the same exploitation-focused company that did the original, Rapi Films.  Largely focusing on a number of gruesome, self-mutilating set pieces such as a woman slicing her body fat off, a guy stapling his mouth shut, another woman puking up crawling insects, and numerous characters smashing their own heads open, the film plays such arbitrary, supernatural components quite seriously.  Such a schlock-less approach could otherwise be detrimental considering how borderline ridiculous much of this seems on paper, but Stamboel maintains an effectively dark, eerie tone that undermines any potential, unintended chuckles.  The script is not particularly tight nor chock-full of originality and the occasional CGI is pretty lousy, but the handful of narrative cliches never become particularly insulting.  Instead, they are knowingly unsettling and for what is essentially a ninety-nine minute excuse to gradually indulge in over-the-top, ghastly creepiness, it succeeds quite swimmingly.

LA LLORONA

Dir - Jayro Bustamante

Overall: GOOD

The third feature from Guatamalian filmmaker Jayro Bustamante La Llorona, (not to be confused with Michael Chaves' more genre-pandering and schlocky The Curse of La Llorona from the same year), takes a very sobering approach to the Latin American folklore from which it loosely draws upon.  The majority of the film adheres to virtually zero horror tropes of any kind and centers around the family of a disgraced, former General who has been tried and convicted of orchestrating the Guatemalan genocide of 1982-83.  Bustamante weaves the story's supernatural components into the proceedings both sparingly and solemnly.  Comprised largely of long, single takes, a very deliberate mood is created where both the dread and heartache suffered by the characters escalates at a barely decipherable degree.  Even with those unfamiliar with the mythology surrounding the "Weeping Woman", no real mysterious elements seem to be at play.  Instead, it is a meticulously slow pondering on those who are put in the position of remaining complacent towards the horrendous acts of their loved ones.  In the case here, such otherworldly vengeance seems both an inevitability and a relief and the heavy-handed tone is quire admirably appropriate.

1990s John Carpenter Part Two

IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS

(1994)

Overall: GOOD

For his third entry in the broadly described Apocalypse Trilogy, John Carpenter goes full Lovecraftian insanity with In the Mouth of Madness.  Studio executive/producer/screenwriter Michael De Luca provided Carpenter with his script several years prior, though the director only became interested and on board after two other filmmakers dropped out.  The end result easily remains the oddest work in his filmography, delivering one mind-melting set piece after the other as the plot goes deliberately off the rails.  Once again collaborating with composer Jim Lang whom he had done Body Bags with the previous year, the "Enter Sandman" inspired main theme goes along with Carpenter's usual synth music and helps set the loud, over-the-top tone appropriately.  The story of a man trapped in a surreal, film-within-a-film loop where the written word becomes horrified reality is all quite difficult to follow.  Considering though that this is the exact point and the numerous H.P. Lovecraft, (with a side of Stephen King), references are no accident, it comes about as close as a movie can to portraying the unspeakable, macabre lunacy that Lovecraft's works almost exclusively explored. 

ESCAPE FROM L.A.

(1996)

Overall: MEH

 

Well deserving of its lukewarm reputation, Escape from L.A. is essentially the same movie as Escape from New York except not good.  A quasi-vanity project for Kurt Russell, (who besides returning as Snake Plissken, also co-wrote and co-produced), he and John Carpenter make an attempt at striking lighting twice, an attempt that comes off more desperate than successful.  The plot follows the structure of the first film so closely that Carpenter could theoretically sue himself for plagiarism, except this time the set pieces are prominently more ludicrous than bad-ass.  Whether Russell is hang-gliding into action, surfing with Peter Fonda, or shooting basketball against the clock, it all comes off as a cringe-worthy parody of schlocky B-movies instead of a cool B-movie itself.  Speaking of cringe-worthy, this is a solid contender as having the worst digital effects in any theatrically released film and worse yet, there are quite a number of such effects.  Practically every character is easily bamboozled, least of all Plissken who looks like a buffoon more often than not.  The same can be said for all parties involved who may understandably be embarrassed by having such a crud rock on their resumes.

 

VAMPIRES

(1998)

Overall: GOOD

After two duds and two more duds on the way before unofficially retiring, John Carpenter got to make the flawed though mostly fun and enduring Neo-western horror hybrid Vampires.  Based off of John Steakley's book Vampire$, the project was set to go into production with director Russell Mulcahy and Dolph Lundgren in the lead, both of whom would instead make Silent Trigger after disputes with Largo Entertainment fell through.  Carpenter's version cobbles together elements from two different scripts and he brought on James Woods who makes a more convincing, action hero bad-ass than one would expect.  Hardly any of the characters are oozing with likeable qualities and the film balances its quasi-grim, misogynistic tone with schlocky plot points, groan-worthy dialog, (Wood's incessant boner jokes become more grating as they go on), and some scenery-chewing performances, particularly from Thomas Ian Griffith as the head undead.  For what is essentially a loud, silly, conservatively budgeted B-movie, Carpenter shows off his well-honed skills within such a framework.  It is well-paced, has plenty of gruesome gore, and works as a popcorn action movie above all else.  Considering that it seems hell-bent on delivering such a thing, it can fairly be labeled a success.

1990s John Carpenter Part One

MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN

(1992)

Overall: GOOD

 

Returning after a four year break, (in which time a number of projects fell through), John Carpenter jumped on board the Chevy Chase-led vehicle Memoirs of an Invisible Man.  Based on H.F. Saint's novel of the same name, Ivan Reitman was originally set to direct, but Chase disapproved of original screenwriter William Goodman's more comedic script as he saw the film as a chance to step into more serious terrain.  The end result has noir-like narration and a predominantly serious tone, yet it still has plenty of humor scattered throughout as Chase cannot completely ditch his usual sly, smart-ass charm.  There is also some funny mileage gotten out of the invisible premise, including a visual ode to the classic, Claude Rains look.  While the cat and mouse chase plot is not necessarily remarkable, it does shy away from the more romanticized and narratively overused tropes with other similar movies.  This is to say it emphasizes the traumatic, day-to-day inconveniences and loneliness of no one being able to see you, including yourself.  An additional plus is that the prominently featured special effects have also aged quite adequately, yet a mere technical showcase it thankfully is not.

BODY BAGS
(1993)
Dir - John Carpenter/Tobe Hooper
Overall: GOOD

 

Originally devised as Showtime's answer to HBO's Tales from the Crypt, Body Bags was ultimately put out as a mere, standard anthology film instead.  Centered around John Carpenter's ghoulish Coroner, (clearly meant to be a Crypt Keeper stand-in), who introduces each segment from the macabre comfort of a morgue, Carpenter himself handles the first two "The Gas Station" and "Hair" with Tobe Hooper's "Eye" wrapping everything up.  Each story is loaded with familiar cameos and has everyone from Wes Craven, to David Naughton, Sam Raimi, Tom Arnold, and Roger Corman making an appearance, naming but a few.  "The Gas Station" is a pretty standard, predictable slasher entry, "Hair" is the most weird, "Eye" is generic yet effectively gruesome, and the linking segments with Carpenter provide a wonderful amount of campy glee.  While nothing here is overtly memorable per se, the tone stays pretty consistent and all parties involved seem to be in on the morbid fun.  This helps elevate it perhaps slightly above mediocre and if for anything else, seeing Carpenter drink formaldehyde and joke about mortuary cabinets being unable to accommodate women with breast implants is easily worth the price of admission.

VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED

(1995)

Overall: MEH

Besides the wretchedly disappointing The Ward and the tired Ghost of Mars, Village of the Damned probably stands as John Carpenter’s weakest link in his otherwise more-than-watchable to wholly fantastic filmography.  As an uninspired remake to a classic, (the 1960’s version of the same name), this has an uphill battle waiting for it right out of the gate.  At this point, Carpenter had been pumping out so many movies that it is understandable that they not only began slipping in quality, but also that he would resort to taking another stab at another well respected sci-fi/horror gem, with The Thing of course being his first crack at it.  This one hardly comes close to the superior re-imagining of said, aforementioned remake though.   There are some typical Carpenter-esque moments, generally the gory death scenes, (Kristy Alley on the table and that guy on the BBQ grill come to mind).  The entire “impregnating” scene is actually very well done as well.  Really though, once the sinister offspring come of age and start barking orders, things fall apart rather quickly in both the pacing and logic department.  Mark Hamill is also oddly cast as Rev. George, coming off unintentionally schlocky in all of his scenes.  This could be said about the entire movie really, one that simply does not offer up many exciting moments to warrant its existence.