FrightFest - Part Two

Back to the matter at hand -- my annual weekend of horror (rather than my annual horrible weekend):

Joshua (2007):  I vaguely knew about this modern riff on the original "Bad Seed" story and expected rather more from the movie, with its high-level production values and known actors.  (Part of the trouble with so many recent entries to the horror genre is the lack of finance which all too often results in shoddy filming and the reliance on an enthusiastic, but often untalented, cast.)  However glossy film-making apart, this story of an evil and manipulating 9-year old wreaking havoc on his yuppie family after the birth of a sister brought little new to the oft-told story of a malevolent brat.  I didn't actively hate the film (as did my companion), but it was definitely a disappointment.

Storm Warning (2007):  I know, there are only a few basic horror plots and many recent efforts bring little new to the table.  This Australian entry had lots of the familiar elements; a young couple on a boating trip get caught in the shallows after a violent storm and take refuge in an apparently inhabited, but empty farmhouse.  The house's residents -- a deranged father and his two psychotic sons -- soon return and begin to terrorise the pair.  Is this beginning to sound familiar?  The gal is the stronger of the two (again) and I guess she must have seen "Teeth", because when she understands that rape is inevitable she fashions a metal ring with jagged prongs to insert you know where.  It was all beginning to seem like a bad case of deja vu.

Wrong Turn 2 (2007): I can barely remember the 2003 original movie when Eliza Dushku and her companions made a wrong turning and ended up being pursued by a family of mutant, cannibalistic retards.  This movie is not a sequel as such but a variation on the same premise.  Six contestants are taking part in a television survivalist contest in the dark West Virginia woods where the inbred killers still reside.  Cue each of them and their television crew being dispatched in increasingly nasty and bloody ways -- there was actually some novel invention on display with some of the gruesome deaths.  The pursued characters were fully rounded and it was a good game to guess which, if any of them, would  survive the splatter. I just might remember this gorefest movie in a few year's time.

Disturbia (2007):  This American film starring the improbably named Shia LeBeouf (again) did well at the U.S. box office, but it was really no great shakes, being a teenie variation of the classic "Rear Window".  Rather than a broken leg, it is house arrest with an ankle device that forces LeBeouf to seek his own entertainment by spying on his neighbours.  On the one hand he is infatuated with watching the new hottie who has moved in next door; on the other he begins to suspect that there is something sinister about David Morse's Mr. Turner across the way.  Getting no help from the police who are fed up with being called out on a fool's errand each time his ankle device goes off, he counts on his new girl-friend and ethnic sidekick to help him expose the wanted serial killer.  I guess the title refers to the black ripples under the apparent calm of suburbia, but this was far more frighteningly clear in the next film shown.

Jack Ketchum's the Girl Next Door (2007):  Talk about the banality of evil and what can underlie the surface of the suburban dream, this film was absolutely devastating.  A teen-aged girl and her crippled sister are sent to live with their aunt and her three sons after their parents are killed in a car crash.  David, the kid next door, likes to hang out with this family and quickly becomes infatuated with the older girl.  However the mother who plies the young boys with beer and who insists that everyone call her Auntie Ruth moves from treating the girls like skivvies to physically abusing them.  The elder is subjected to torture, mutilation and rape, while all the time Auntie Ruth lectures the kids about the evils of sluttty women and even David feels unable to intervene.  What makes this tale, which is apparently based on a true case, even more disturbing is that other neighbourhood kids -- including two young girls -- are invited in to witness the proceedings and they just stand and watch.  I kept hoping that the wicked aunt would get a splendid comeuppance and dispatch as befits such a horribly evil person, but the denouement was fittingly mundane as life so often is.

Still nine more films to come -- but not today...

 

Tags: FrightFest, horror, Joshua, Wrong Turn 2, Suburban evil

FrightFest - Part One

It's a day longer than intended but after digesting twenty (out of a possible 25) movies in just over four days, plus various shorts, trailers and previews, I didn't quite have my head together to begin the reviews.  As is, I can see that the only way I am going to cover this is to offer you very brief capsules covering both the high and low points of the weekend.  So here goes:

Black Sheep (2006):  This film from New Zealand was the kick-off movie and reminded me of early Peter Jackson funfests.  Played more for laughs than for gore (although there was plenty along the way) this is the story of a flock being infected by a mutant foetus and their bloodthirsty rampage with only a sheepaphobic farmer and a female urban warrior remaining unscathed.  Sheep may appear to be the most docile of creatures, but hordes of them descending with their bony snouts covered in blood is actually pretty scary.  If the film were not quite so funny, I would worry for the future of New Zealand tourism, but even most of the were-sheep victims ultimately survived their mutation.  Rather good fun for those with a taste for the bizarre.

Sword Bearer (2006):  This Russian fantasy was unexpectedly one of the high points, especially since there were other films from which I expected more.  Since an early age our hero Sasha has found a retractable blade periodically emerging from his hand, and when pissed-off, as the saying goes, he uses it for murderous ends -- quite amazing this since it can grow long enough and sharp enough to cut a forest of trees in half.  A chance meeting with Katya turns this into a doomed love story as the authorities attempt to close in.  Beautifully filmed in the former East Prussia, the gorgeous scenery becomes his killing field.

The Signal (2007):  This American movie was apparently a Sundance hit, but I thought it long, somewhat boring, and very amateurish.  There were three directors for each of the three sections, but any stylistic differences of approach were invisible.  The gist is that rogue television signals are turning everyone into murderous psychos and that civilization is doomed.  So what else is new?

1408 (2007):  This adaptation of a Stephen King short story was a big grosser Stateside and is about to open in Britain -- and pretty good it is too.  While there are other characters, it is largely a one-man show as ghost-busting writer John Cusack checks into the most haunted room at the Hotel Dolphin, when the very suave manager Samuel L. Jackson fails to dissuade him.  His inate skepticism is soon destroyed by inexplicable phenomena and an aura of menace.  Despite a false phony ending which feels a cop-out, the viewer is given a better second ending to make this more satisfying horror.

Teeth (2007): The next film was a "no-show" so this was a last-minute substitute.  Our heroine is one of those sworn virgin-until-I-marry sort when she discovers that she has some unusual teeth -- guess where?  I believe the technical term is vagina dentata and as she becomes more sexually experienced, she leaves a trail of severed willies in her wake -- to say nothing about her gynecologist's fingers!  Pretty silly and very graphic and of course her mean step-brother's severed one gets lapped up by his killer dog.  That got a big laugh from the not too discerning audience.

Cold Prey (2006):  This Norwegian movie is a variant on the standard slasher film as five snowboarding friends find refuge at a deserted hotel in the frozen hills when one of their number breaks a leg and they are too far off-piste to expect a rescue.  However, of course, they are not alone, as a masked giant figure picks off each in turn.  Unlike most such movies, the five young people are all pretty sensible and likeable and they are not being punished for sexual transgressions -- they are just being punished, along with dozens of previous skiers, for reasons that emerge in the back story.  And this was the first of several movies at the Fest where the strongest character turns out to be one of the women.  Of course we ladies know that we are superior to men in a crunch.  Ha-ha.

That's it for today.  More to come soon, since I've only just begun...

Tags: FrightFest, sheep, Russian fantasy, 1408, slashers

Marilyn Hotchkiss... (2005)

Or to give the film its full title "Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing and Charm School".  I've see a number of newish movies over the last few days, but this obscurity is the one that made the biggest impression.  The gist of the tale is that baker and recent widower Robert Carlyle comes across John Goodman trapped in the wreck of his auto and probably dying.  (Parenthetically here it has been worrying me for a while how overweight and unhealthy-looking Goodman has become.)  While they wait for an ambulance, Goodman tells him that he was on his way to keep an appointment made some 40 years ago and begs Carlyle to keep it for him.  It seems that as a child he was one of the kids in his hometown forced by their mothers to attend the aforementioned lessons where he learned to appreciate girls and where he promised his would-be sweetheart that whatever became of their lives that they would meet at the said school on the fifth day of the fifth month in the fifth year of the new millenium.

The structure of the movie cuts between Goodman telling his story, backflashes to his youth, Carlyle at his grief therapy sessions, and the present with Carlyle at the dance class -- now run by the daughter of the original martinet -- with its assortment of not-so-young lonelyhearts. The movie is based on a short film of the same title made by the director, Randall Miller, some fifteen years ago with clips from the earlier film meshed into the new one -- this creates the surreal situation where we have one actor (Elden Henson) playing both Goodman as a child and a totally different adult character.  However most of the fun of this film for a buff like me was playing "spot the actor" since the huge cast included Marisa Tomei, Donnie Wahlberg, Mary Steenburgen, Sean Astin, Danny DeVito, and more; I kept saying, "Oh look, there's Sonia Braga and Ernie Hudson and David Paymer and Adam Arkin..."  Yes, I'm a nutcase!

Anyhow despite the choppy structure and occasional longeurs, the movie very definitely had its moments, both tear-jerking and big-smile-making.  I don't need much more from a film.

Since time seems to disappear with frightening speed, starting tomorrow I shall be spending hours on end at the annual FrightFest, so there will be no new reviews until next Tuesday at the earliest when I shall share with you my reactions to this year's horrors. 

Tags: Marilyn Hotchkiss, John Goodman, Robert Carlyle

A Face in the Crowd (1957)

Despite becoming deeply unpopular in certain Hollywood circles by being amongst the first to "name names" at the McCarthy hearings in the early '50s, director Elia Kazan made an amazing roster of classic films both before and after.  These include "Boomerang", "A Gentleman's Agreement", "A Streetcar Named Desire", "On the Waterfront", and "East of Eden".  He was famed as an actors' director and numerous award nominations followed for his casts.  However one of his very best pictures and one that received no awards is this one.  Written by Budd Schulberg (also a Hollywood legend) it tells how the niece (Patricia Neal) of a local radio station owner in Arkansas finds a drunken itinerant in the town jail where she has gone to do her morning broadcast.  Played by Andy Griffith, he is soon christened "Lonesome" Rhodes and becomes an immediate hit for his homespun philosophy and impromptu folk songs.  What doesn't emerge immediately, although there are early hints, is the beast that exists beneath the ingratiating exterior.

As his popularity grows he is wooed by radio stations and then television networks further afield and Neal travels with him to manage his career; however she is only able to maintain short-term control by giving herself, albeit willingly, sexually to a man with a lusty appetite.  Along the way they meet up with network writer Walter Matthau in an early and engagingly caustic role and jumped-up office boy Anthony Francioso who pushes Rhodes to even greater heights through a combination of cunning and lies.  As Rhodes gains millions of fans, the demagogue within soon realises the effect he can have on politics and is en route to sitting in the pocket of the next President-to-be.  However when  on a sex-driven whim he marries a nubile teenaged twirler (Lee Remick in her first movie role), Neal finally snaps and the wheels of Rhodes' eventual fall are set in motion.

This film may not be as garlanded as other Kazan productions, but perhaps it was before its time with its tale of media manipulation.  If nothing else, Griffith's creation of a memorable monster was truly remarkable and should have been recognized.   The movie deserves to be rediscovered and to take its place amongst the great Hollywood pictures. 

Tags: A Face in the Crowd, Elia Kazan, Patricia Neal, Andy Griffith, Walter Matthau

Take the Lead (2006)

Now here's another flick that I was not expecting to be anything special, but which turned out to be a feel-good surprise.  The film is inspired by the life of Pierre Dulaine, played by Antonio Banderas, who was an ex-ballroom dancing champion and the proprietor of an upmarket dance studio in New York.  I'm glad that the word was "inspired", since the fictionalization of his achievement quite probably bears little relationship to reality.  The film tells us that by chance he found himself at an inner city school to follow up a street crime that he witnessed and offers to watch over the very worst i.e. troubleseome students in "detention" after school, since none of the teachers can be bothered to do so.

I always thought that detention was an extra silent study period, but these kids --- a couple of fatties, black, hispanic, oriental, and even one or two whites -- treat it as a hip-hop dance session.  So Banderas determines to teach them ballroom dancing as a metaphor for courtesy and self-belief.  The principal of the school is Alfre Woodard who has photos of former students on the wall of her office -- not those who had achieved any kind of academic honour, but those who were killed during her tenure.  Of course she and her staff believe that Banderas is bound to fail, even if they are struck by his politeness and charming ways, and of course they are all wrong -- or there would be no story.  And having seen the documentary "Mad Hot Ballroom", one now knows that Dulaine's philosophy has spread wide in New York and beyond.

What makes this movie so enjoyable is the growing happiness and acceptance of others amongst these potential misfits and one truly believes that a better future can await them. There is also a wonderful bit of business concerning an insecure deb from the dance school who finds her confidence with the biggest and blackest kid of the lot; when he turns up at her cotillion to lead her in the first waltz, one can't help but smile broadly, especially since one knows that this probably never happened.

Tags: Take the Lead, Antonio Banderas

Knocked Up (2006)

Had I not had tickets for a preview of this movie, I very much doubt that I would have been in any rush to see a flick about a sexy gal who meets a dorky guy at a club, drinks too much, and ends up pregnant after the one-night stand.  Would you?  I understand that this has been a smash hit Stateside, but I am obviously so far outside the zeitgeist that I do not understand what the fuss is about.  In its way it's a pleasant enough film with some occasional good jokes and situations, but it is so over-padded with unnecessary business that its two-hour plus running time is ridiculous for what would have been fine in 90 minutes.

Then again I didn't think that the writer/director Judd Apatow's first big-screen success "The 40-year Old Virgin" was as wonderful as it was cracked up to be.  The couple here are played by busty blonde Katherine Heigl as an up-and-coming TV presenter and by rotund slacker Seth Rogen (not really known to me) who lives with his equally unsavory mates planning a semi-porn website.  When she discovers that she is in the club, I honestly thought that she might seek an abortion rather than involve the obviously unsuitable father-to-be in every stage of her pregnancy.  There was, it is true, a certain sweetness to Rogen's character and one could foresee the eventual happy ending to come, even if it did strain one's credulity.  Heigl lives with her married sister Leslie Mann (the director's wife) and her brother-in-law Paul Ruud and much of the film focuses on the difficulties of their relationship as well.  All four actors had good comic timing and kept things moving, albeit somewhat sluggishly at times.  However I very much doubt that any viewer needed the rather phony-looking explicit shots during the eventual birth scene and I'll be damned if I know why they were included.

Tags: Knocked Up, Judd Apatow

Hollywoodland (2006)

I'm something of a sucker for films that recreate the old days in Hollywood and this movie about the death of a minor actor has much to commend it.  Ben Affleck literally becomes actor George Reeves in this movie -- an actor whose first role was a minor one in "Gone with the Wind" but who then was forced into accepting lesser and lesser parts until his breakthrough as Superman on 50's TV; he became an idol of the children, but so typecast that his original casting in the Monty Cliff role in "From Here to Eternity" was laughed off the screen by preview audiences.  I had always thought that his death was a suicide of despair, but this intriguing movie presents other possibilities.

Affleck does his best work ever here to present the rounded Reeves character and has done his research well, but the role of an actor down on his luck might well have had some resonance for him.  For a man with big dreams, success as the kiddies' hero had to be a let-down, but it was his long affair with the aging wife (Diane Lane) of the MGM studio enforcer (Bob Hoskins) which may have led to his death.  In the course of the movie we are presented with various scenarios, including suicide, as cheapy private eye Louis Simo, played by Adrien Brody, investigates the death, looking for his own 15 minutes in the limelight.  The film cuts between Brody's investigation and the facts of Reeves' life not quite as smoothly as I would have wished, and for my money there was too much Brody altogether.  The true facts of the case remain unknown and this is a far more interesting story -- with excellent period detail -- than the sordid insight into the fictional Simo's own redemption.

Despite this reservation, all four lead actors were fine, and although Affleck's turn was a highpoint of his somewhat wooden career, Lane's was the true standout performance.  She was playing older than her real age and had no vanity at letting us see her character's growing desperation.

Tags: Hollywoodland, Ben Affleck, Diane Lane

Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix (2007)

Of course it is well nigh impossible to take an 870 page book and turn it into one of the shortest films of the series without leaving something out.  No doubt there are a raft of critics ready to moan that their favourite bits are missing, but since no one is going to sit through a completely faithful ten-hour plus version, the viewer must be grateful for this thoroughly successful movie which gives the feeling of the source material without overstretching our tolerance.

This is the book in which the boffins at the Ministry of Magic are doing their utmost to undermine the warnings of Harry and Dumbledore, going so far as to attempt to expel Harry from Hogwarts (unsuccessful) and gradually getting the headmaster replaced by a hideous vision in pink, Imelda Staunton as the horrible Dolores Umbridge.  She not only undermines any sense of fun amongst the students but also eschews any practical training in defending oneself against the dark arts.  It is therefore up to Harry and his closest friends to train secretly and to form the so-called "Dumbledore's Army" before Umbridge discovers what they are doing.  Hers is an enjoyably hateful embodiment of one of the book's most important new characters.

Against this some of the old faithfuls have little to do here, largely because of time restraints, although Gary Oldman as the doomed Sirius Black is impressive.  Of the new characters, I was not overly taken with the mumbling Luna Lovegood, but could see that Helena Bonham Carter was having a whale of a time as the OTT Bellatrix LeStrange of whom there is more to come.  As for the youngsters, I still feel that Daniel Radcliffe is a little stretched as Harry, especially now that things are coming to a serious crunch, but he tries hard, as do his best mates.  Amongst the preparation for this film's showdown with Lord Voldemart we are given some wizard (pardon the pun) special effects which keep the film moving forward.  In many ways this movie is probably one of the best of the series, but far blacker and less joyful and the earlier films. 

Tags: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Imelda Staunton

Viva Villa! (1934)

Nearly twenty years before Marlon Brando gave us Zapata, there was this alternate view of the hero behind the Mexican revolution, Pancho Villa -- an outlaw who took to the hills as a child after murdering the soldier who whipped his father to death.  It's a highly fictionalised version of Mexican history, but pretty enjoyable nevertheless, and Wallace Beery has one of his best roles as the brawny but slightly dim Villa.  Most of the characters Beery played throughout his long and occasionally puzzlingly illustrious career were something of a brute and Villa is no different in conception; yet we have some sympathy for his simple approach to complex problems.  Having helped to establish the presidency for Francisco Manero (in fact it was Villa in the north and Zapata in the south), he is exiled for his banditry.  When Manero is murdered by a turncoat general for attempting to return the land to the peons, Villa takes up arms again and briefly becomes a singularly inept President.  For example his answer to the budgetary crisis is to order millions of worthless notes to be printed without even having the hard currency to pay the printers.

Beery apart, it is a fairly minor cast with only Leo Carillo as his equally stupid and murderous sidekick, Fay Wray (again) as a disappointed aristo, and Joseph Schildkraut as the traitorous general making much of an impression.  An important character is the American reporter that befriends Villa, played not terribly well by Stuart Erwin, who provides the dying Villa with some would-be famous last words; when he says that he will report that the hero did what he did for love of his country and that he should be forgiven his sins, with his last breath Villa asks what he did wrong -- single-minded yet somewhat unaware to the end.

The reporter was originally played by Lee Tracy (apparently a notorious drunk) and the film begun by director Howard Hawks, but after an incident when Tracy purportedly urinated on Mexican soldiers from his hotel balcony, he had to be smuggled back to the States.  Hawks stood by the actor and was also replaced mid-movie by Jack Conway and the change in shooting style is evident.  This was but one of several incidents that dogged the production, but we are still left with an interesting oddity which somehow got Oscar nods as best picture and best script.

Tags: Wallace Beery, Viva Villa!

Dolls (1987)

This film is not to be confused with Takeshi Kitano's wonderful movie of the same name from 2002 which I love, but I also have a soft spot for this cheapy, imaginative film.  The producer Charles Band made an incredible number of low-cost genre films from the 80s onward under his Full Moon production company as producer and occasional director and writer, originally shooting in Italy and later in Romania -- anything to keep the budgets low.  Most of his output is thankfully forgotten, but others like this one do pass the test of time.  Mind you Band had a good trio going here with director Stuart Gordon at the helm and co-producer Brian Yuzna (himself an interesting director before he took himself off to Spain and some pretty awful horrors).

To me there are two things that represent a hidden menace in movies: clowns (scary, scary) and dolls.  What we have here are a recently remarried father reluctantly taking his visiting daugher with him and his new rich and bitchy wife on their summer hols.  When bad weather forces them to ditch their car, they take refuge in a nearby mansion where they encounter their elderly and seemingly kindly hosts, Guy Rolfe and Hilary Mason -- two actors who have a mini-history of horror between them  He was the original Mr. Sardonicus and latter the puppet master and her most memorable role was as the blind psychic in "Don't Look Now".  Another carload joins them in their refuge, a strangely child-like bear of a young man who has given a lift to two punkettes who look like something out of early Madonna material girl and who plan to rob the household.

Anyhow it seems that the old man is a master doll-maker and he is somehow more than this -- as is his wife -- as the dolls come to life to punish any behaviour of which they and their masters disapprove.  They bare their teeth and roll their bloodshot eyes and attack with knives and power tools.  The seemingly bland faces of the dolls can morph with frightening menace and each dead body somehow becomes a new doll -- and there are hundreds in the house!  Only the young girl and the childish man survive, but as they leave another car has broken down outside the mansion with its family of four waiting to be tested.

Tags: Dolls, Charles Band

Corruption (1967)

I occasionally mention my "little list" which is not so little at all; as mentioned on the sidebar, this continues to grow when I read about some film which either I have never seen or just don't know.  I'm always particularly intrigued by movies that people put on their "top 10" lists (which the BFI produces once a decade) where the film in question falls into one of the these two categories.  Then there are the "career gap" films of well-known actors where the movie in question has totally disappeared from view for one reason or another, which includes the flick under consideration today.

Peter Cushing was always considered amongst the finest of British actors, even if his late career was nearly inseparable from some occasionally dubious horror efforts.  I had long wanted to see the above missing film which has only once been shown on British TV -- some 30 years ago -- but which was apparently wildly successful for its director Robert Hartford-Davis.   So when I found that the National Film Theatre had scheduled another one-off showing, I welcomed the opportunity.  Unfortunately it was an abysmal disappointment in every way and the only positive thing I can say is that there is now one less movie on my little list.

Set in the so-called Swinging London of the 60s, Cushing plays a eminent surgeon who is madly in love with photographer's model Sue Lloyd.  The fact that he was then an old-looking 54 to her 26 years doesn't add to the believability factor, especially when he gets into a fistfight with a with-it photographer played by Cheri Blair's dad.  In the course of this a cleeg light falls and burns Lloyd's not particularly gorgeous face and Cushing spends the balance of the film in growingly mad doctor mode as he searchs for the pituitary glands needed to restore her beauty.  It's an old standby horror theme and not particularly well done here; it's certainly no poetic "Eyes without a Face".   As each operation begins to fail, the two main characters become more and more manic and obsessed with finding more supplies, which means that Cushing has to kill and behead more young women.  I understand that more explicit versions exist of the scene where he kills his first prostitute, but I somehow doubt that nudity would be much of an improvement, given the duff nature of both the acting and the dialogue.

Towards the end of the movie the tenor changes when Cushing and Lloyd's holiday house is invaded by four weird punks (as we would call them today) and the film becomes something like "Penthouse", which is my least favourite British movie of all time.  Anyhow Cushing's laser gets switched on and out of control and virtually the entire cast lies dead at the end, which doesn't quite finish the movie as we are again given brief glimpses of the many not particularly wonderful scenes that have come before.  Yes, embarrassment is definitely the right word here.  

Tags: Peter Cushing, Corruption

Recent departures

Well they say these things come in threes, so who's next after the day on day news of the deaths of Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni?  I have occasionally mentioned the second of these directors in this journal, as I have been slower filling in my knowledge of his films than Bergman's.  A glance through the archives would probably underline the fact that I have never been much of a fan, although I've admired his artistry.  It's just that too many of his films struck me as long, heavy-going, and often, dare I say, pretentious.  Still it's a sad day when a great artist leaves us.

Against this there was a horribly annoying Thunderer column in the Times today claiming that Bergman was not only overrated but that the writer would be hard-pressed to find anyone who had actually seen a Bergman film.  How very stupid from a purportedly intelligent columnist.  The fact that I have seen nearly all of them doesn't make me a better person -- and no I don't love them all equally -- but I find it hard to credit that any even semi-serious cinephile would not have a passing acquaintance with Bergman's work which includes some real gems.   The writer then went on to tar Lars von Trier with the same "boring" brush and ended by claiming that Bergman's biggest failing was having an influence on Woody Allen which stopped his being "funny".  I despair, especially since I really don't think this column was meant to be humourous; maybe it was just meant to be contentious.

Tags: Ingmar Bergman, Michelangelo Antonioni