Halloween 2 (2009) Review

"I know he's not gonna come back just because of some stupid holiday."



Cast:
Scout Taylor-Compton as Laurie Strode
Tyler Mane as Michael Myers
Brad Dourif as Sheriff Brackett
Danielle Harris as Annie Brackett

Directed by Rob Zombie

Review:
Ok, I've spent the last few years trying to defend Rob Zombie's filmmaking style. Many critics, casual or horror critics, constantly bash him for his 'unique' vision. I for one thought House of 1,000 Corpses, although far from perfect, was a watchable movie. Whereas I highly enjoyed it's far superior sequel, The Devil's Rejects, I was highly excited when I first heard Mr. Zombie would be remaking one of my favorite horror movies. After seeing his version, I accepted the fact that it was his own version and was very different from John Carpenter's original. I found myself liking it more and more I saw it. I thought it was an adequate remake. But, for it's sequel it's a whole other story.

The film starts where the first left off. Laurie (Scout Compton) is in a form of shock, still clutching the gun she shot Michael with, she slowly strolls through Haddonfield untill Sherif Brackett finds her and rushes her to a hospital. From here we're shown an excellent sequence where Michael stalks Laurie around said hospital, killing every nurse and orderly in sight. The scenes that follow are remarkable, Laurie limps down stairs and through a downpour to escape her psychotic brother. To me, these were the best moments of the film, but unfortunately it all turns out to be an elaborate dream sequence. It surely sets the tone of the film, but unfortunately it all goes downhill from here on out.


Back to reality. Laurie is a complete mess, now living with Annie (Danniel Harris) and her father. As Michael Myers' body vanished from custody, speculation is high that the big guy is preparing to stage a comeback. But Loomis is having none of that talk. As opposed to Donald Pleasence's version of Loomis, who never tired of the hunt, McDowell's Loomis has no thoughts of staying vigilant against a possible return of Michael Myers. He insists that Michael is dead ("D-E-A-D!") at any given opportunity. While McDowell's Loomis had been allowed a modicum of compassion and professional acumen in the first film, in this second appearance he's become a full-fledged asshole ? a vain jerk with no higher aspirations other than turning a quick buck. While it's certainly Zombie's right to take this character in this direction, I question the value of making Loomis so unlikable.


"Nightmares are chewing at my head again... they just seem to be getting worse."

What viewers may find most distracting are the hallucinations that both Laurie and Michael share throughout the film. Disturbing images of rotted pumpkin creatures and the re-appearing ghostly visions of Mrs. Myers (Sheri Moon), her white horse, and young Michael, who's now played by an annoying little skater looking kid because apparently Daeg Fearch had a growth spurt and seemed to tall to reprise his role. These hallucinations are pretty much pointless and just complicate the seemingly simple plot. At first, you understand Michael is psychotic, and Laurie is turning right down the same road, but constantly having them appear after every kill, and showing them in a Mrs. Voorhees fashion urging Michael to "Have some fun" gets tiring.

The only good thing H2 had going for it were Michael's brutal kills. They were of the most intense and goriest in Michael's long carer. He smashes faces in, stomps in heads, slashes limbs apart and decapitates everybody that gets in his way, who 90% of the movie where just randomly placed people who have nothing to do with the central characters, or the entire story for the matter. These brutal slayings are one of the only things you'd need to see this film for. Some would regard it as your average exploitation flick, but I find it to be just another violent slasher. And honestly, what else would you expect from it?

Grace (2009) Review - The Beast Within Retro-Review

Review:
"Fear of the Archaic Mother turns out to be essentially fear of her generative power," wrote Julia Kristeva in her seminal 1982 book Powers of Horror. Horror movies have featured monstrous mothers (and their demonic spawn) virtually since the genre's inception. Movies such as The Brood, Polanski's Rosemary's Baby and Larry Cohen's It's Alive! turned notions of maternity on it's collective head, depicting mothers whose bodies spat out grotesque fetuses, those who cared for their demonic offspring no matter what the consequences - blind to the evil which they had given life.


The most recent reimagening of the monsterous mother theme comes in the form of writer/director Paul Solet's first feature, Grace. It tells the tail of a mother who's eight months pregnant. Her and her husband fall victim to a terrible car crash, instantly killing him and fatally wounding herself. Everyone , including the doctors and Madeline's mother in law, believe the baby is dead. But after delivering a presumably dead child, Madeline finds the the baby is still alive. Only problem, Grace is hungry... and the only thing that seems fit to nourish her is human blood.


Grace's premise is as cheesy as it sounds. It may disappoint some of the hardcore genre beings that it doesn't exactly fall under the horror category. It doesn't rely on over the top gore effects to achieve it's goals and further it's message, but an unrelenting pace that some may find too boring. The whole psychology of pregnancy, post-partem depression, and menopausal distress are excellent ingredients for a horror/thriller, but I felt like here it was only touched on, handled clumsily, and that the easy route out was taken at the end. The mother (Jordan Ladd) wasn't believable in the least, and the mother-in-law (Gabrielle Rose) just seemed to irk me till no end. It's not intended for genre fans, nor for your average critic - it pretty much falls in between. Some may find it pushes the envelope just a tad, and some may consider it downright disturbing. I myself did not, although I did find myself enjoying it, just waiting to find out what happens next but just to be unset by it's terrible premise.




Retro-Review:

The Beast Within isn't exactly among the greatest monster movies ever. It's a very strange movie, to say the least. It's obviously aiming to be some kind of creature feature, yet it plays out more or less like a slasher flick. But, in the end it's still just another corny early 80's B-movie, and while it does have it's moments, that's about all it should be know for - the cheesy monster movie that it is.


Tell me if you've ever heard this one before: The movie starts off with a young couple breaking down off the side of an abandoned highway in the middle of the night. For some stupid reason, the woman (played by Bibi Besch) wonders off into the wilderness and gets brutally raped by some sort of monster (we never really find out what the hell it is exactly). Forward 17 years, and the couple are in a doctor's office. Somethings wrong with their (17 year old) teenage son, but their not sure what (could it be?). He seems to be acting out a bit, going through some changes. The father (Ronny Cox) is coming to the conclusions that it's not his son after all. So the teen beast gets away with some half decent kills, but the movie doesn't seem to progress from there. What just seem as random victims turns out to be linked together in some way and have something to do with the young boy's transformations.


As it turns out, the Beast Within is actually some sort of giant cicada mutation the boy turns into. His skeletal frame bubbles into some sort of exoskeleton that's impervious to point blank shotgun blasts and makes him strong enough to burst through brick walls. This isn't the first 80's B-movie I'd recommend to someone, because to be honest it's not really worth watching besides a cool yet slightly drug out transformation sequence towards the end of the film (oh, and a hilarious decapitation through a wall).

Surveillance (2009) Review

Review:
A pair of masked killers are on a cross-country killing spree. A couple are riding cross-country with a newly acquired stash of drugs and beer. A family is headed for a weekend vacation. And finally, two drunk cops are tracking down people who are 'exceeding the speed limit', so to speak. The only thing they have in common from the get go is there all involved in a murder mystery. As the film starts, the only survivors of this ordeal is a little girl, whom just witnessed her family fall victim to a brutal murder, a doped up girl whose boyfriend died in said murder, and a cop whose partner also fell victim to this hit and run murder. Two FBI agents (Bill Pullman & Julia Omond) have these three under constant surveillance while questioning them about what knowledge they hold of the incident.


Surveillance is a mixed bag: in some ways it succeeds as a decent thriller, and in some as a exploitive horror/suspense-esque film. Expressed in the opening scenes, and several following towards the end, it relies on brutal violence to put it's point across. Sure, people are killed for no apparent reason. In some parts random people are killed, bodies are shown. And there's even some ariel blood sprayed in a gooey scene where a car smashes a guy up pretty badly, but I wouldn't go as far as calling this a flat out horror movie. It's more of a 'CSI' type movie, and even has a little twist toward the end. I'll admit, it succeeds at that. At being a fun little thriller, it hits the mark well. Bill Pullman plays a FBI agent pretty well, his job to sit behind a row of screens examining all the conversations of the three survivors, getting all the information about the case at hand. Like the murderer's plan, things flow smoothly for a good portion of the film (with an exceptional screenplay by Jennifer Lynch, daughter of David) until the end, where without spoiling too much, I think things start falling apart. It comes at you out of nowhere, if you (like I) weren't paying attention much you'd probably never see it coming. I'm not saying you will or won't be completely satisfied, I'm just saying I thought it could have been played out better than it did.


But, aside from the ending I found Surveillance to be a pretty enjoyable little film. A bit corny at times, but all together a well-written, well-shot corny movie. And, well can all find ourselves watching and enjoying something of tis nature every once in a while.

Inglorious Basterds (2009) Review

Cast:
Brad Pitt
Christoph Waltz
Eli Roth
Diane Kruger

Writer/Director: Quentin Tarantino

"They will find the evidence of our cruelty in the disemboweled, dismembered, disfigured bodies their brothers we leave behind us and the Germans will not be able to help themselves from imagining the cruelty their brothers endured at our hands, at our boot heels, and the edge of our knives. And the Germans will be sicken by us, the Germans will talk about us and the Germans will fear us."

Review:
Finally, a movie that exceed my expectations, which were generally high to begin with. And I'll count out the fact that Quentin Tarantino is one of my all-time favorite directors. Ok, so the plot revolves in the year 1944, in Nazi-Occupied France. Lt. Aldo Raine (Pitt) and his notorious squadron of ruthless Jewish soldiers (most interesting of the bunch are Til Schweiger as the Rambo-esque Nazi killer, Omar Doom as Pftc. Omar Ulmer, and my favorite, "The Jear Jew", played by Hostel writer/director Eli Roth) are dedicated to killing Nazi in the most brutal and violent of ways. Known otherwise as the Basterds, they must help the Allies try to wipe out the German High Command at a film premiere. The cinema, however, is owned by a vengeful Jewish survivor (Laurent) with plans of her own. The plot may seem a bit simple, but there's plenty of solid story telling packed in this 2 & 1/2 hr thrill ride. It may seem like a long run time, but goes by like a breeze due to Tarantino's expert screenplay and direction.

"The German will be sickened by us, the German will talk about us, and the German will fear us."

Like in all his films, Tarantino masterfully transfers control from character to character, using only his dialogue, filled with unspoken implications and threatening subtext. The results are almost unbearably tense and as suspenseful as anything he's done in his career. The cast, from Pitt on, are down right amazing, whether they're handling the one-liners or speeches in English, French, German or even Italian. There are performances that stand out above the rest, of course. Pitt, in a role that again defies expectations, is often hilarious, attacking some wonderful dialogue in a redneck Kentucky accent that is quite hilarious at times, yet well executed. Fassbender, stepping into the role of Hicox after Simon Pegg dropped out, seizes the opportunity gladly, injecting Hicox with the perfect blend of old-style movie-star charm (the character was based in part on George Sanders) and a tougher, rugged edge that deserves to make him the bigger star he deserves. But the film belongs to Christopher Waltz, who won the Best Actor award in Cannes, and who should be a shoo-in for a Best Supporting Actor nod at next year's Oscars.

The movie begins with opening title card, which simply states, 'Once Upon A Time, in Nazi-Occupied France." From the start off, with that one phrase, Tarantino makes it clear that Inglourious Basterds will not be taking the realistic, reverent approach of a film such as Schindler's List. It somewhat sets the tone of the film, stating that it's more of a "what if" story that takes place in a typically Tarantino 'movie-movie' universe. After all, let's not forget that Tarantino had Uma Thurman draw a box on the screen in Pulp Fiction, and Basterds is replete with those touches, from on-screen graphics to a wonderfully eclectic soundtrack that revels in anachronisms like Bowie?s Cat People (Putting Out Fire). Of course that song, along with practically every other song used in the film, can be heard in numerous other films. This is not unusual, since Tarantino is a movie expertise himself, and his movies have always been based in part by the tropes and styles of other movies - be it trashy exploitive films to kung-fu style cinema. Basterds, for example, is full of references to Italian cinema, particularly Spaghetti Westerns. This is a trait that constantly draws me to filmmakers such as Tarantino and the likes of fellow director Robert Rodrigez, implying that sometimes the best films are not always the most polished and well made (although the films in particular are well shot, being homages to lesser films' cinematography and direction).


Ultimately, Basterds inner meaning is the appeal and power of cinema to do good, perhaps even to shape history, to change things for the better as Tarantino pits the forces of good - in this case a film critic, a cinema owner, and movie star - against the vile Nazi propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, and his new protégé, Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl). And as events play themselves out, amidst scenes of fire, chaos, carnage and a haunting image of a laughing face projected onto roiling clouds of smoke, it's hard not to imagine Tarantino sighing contentedly as he introduces his final, most romantic notion, a director playing God...

"You probably heard we ain't in the prisoner-takin' business; we in the killin' Nazi business. And cousin, Business is a-boomin'."

Silence of the Lambs (1991) Review

Retrospective:
Silence of the Lambs perhaps benefits the most from stellar performances by Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster. The superbly crafted suspense thriller that director Jonathan Demme has made from Thomas Harris's taut best-selling novel The Silence of the Lambs slams you like a sudden blast of bone-chilling, pulse-pounding terror. Clarice Starling, played with heartfelt tenacity by Jodie Foster, is an FBI trainee on the trail of a serial killer. Her search ends in the suburban home of dressmaker Jame Gumb (Ted Levine). It is Gumb's cellar workshop (the place where he shoots and skins his tall, fleshy female victims) that Demme transforms into a harrowing vision of hell.

The confrontation scenes between Lecter and Starling are the heart of the picture, and Hopkins and Foster - who is flawless in a performance - play off each other with enormous skill. They are subjects to long, searching close-ups. With lesser actors, such scrutiny could wreck the film by exposing theatricality and cant. But Foster and Hopkins don't make a false move. Starling knows Lecter is testing her, trying to wear down her self-confidence.

Hannibal Lector: "A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti."

Demme and Ted Tally, the playwright (Terra Nova) turned screenwriter (White Palace), have set out to turn the exploitation genre on its empty head and fill it with ideas and purpose. There's none of the all-in-fun disfigurement and dismemberment that you get in the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th gorefests. The brutality in Silence leaves you shaken because it's meant to seem painful instead of playful, terrifying instead of titillating. Foster's Clarice Starling and Smith's Catherine Martin represent something unique in slasher movies: women who won't play victim. Gruesome subject mater such as women being kidnapped, starved, left for dead then skinned alive is what courses through Silence's context.

But, taken out of context, these scenes could provoke protest from such forums as the National Organization for Women, whose L.A. chapter recently threatened a boycott of the publisher of Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho because of the novel's graphic depictions of women being tortured. Few could question the rise in crimes against women or the rise of misogyny in movies. In the Hollywood of the Nineties, the next best thing to making a movie about Jack the Ripper is hiring someone like him to write or direct. But Silence of the Lambs does not merit censoring (free expression is still a constitutional right) or even censuring.

Starling is assigned to do a behavioral profile on Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), a former psychiatrist imprisoned in a Baltimore asylum for carving up nine people and cooking his favorite bits. Dr. Lecter, known as Hannibal the Cannibal, prides himself on having once eaten the liver of a census taker with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. A brilliant stage actor (Equus, Antony and Cleopatra), Hopkins can sometimes be too much on film - check out his shameless hamboning in Audrey Rose. But this time he calibrates every nuance for maximum effect. Lecter was figured in an earlier Thomas Harris novel, Red Dragon, filmed as Manhunter in 1986 with Brian Cox as the mad doctor. As chilling as Cox was, his role was merely a cameo. Hopkins goes deeper. The polished, elegant evil of his Lecter surpasses anything he's ever done on the screen. He's a fiend for the ages.

Hannibal Lecter: Why do you think he removes their skins, Agent Starling?
Hannibal Lecter: Enthrall me with your acumen.
Clarice Starling: It excites him. Most serial killers keep some sort of trophies from their victims.
Hannibal Lecter: I didn't.
Clarice Starling: No. No, you ate yours.

Ted Levine is truly scary.You believe that he is truly twisted and perverse. Buffalo Bill is the combination of three real life serial killers: Ed Gein, who skinned his victims; Gary Heidnick, who kept women he kidnapped in a pit in his basement; and Ted Bundy, who used the cast on his hand as bait to lour unsuspecting women into his van. Gein, whom other recognizable horror icons Leatherface and Norman Bates from Psycho are also loosely based, was only positively linked to two murders and suspected of two hers. He gathered most of his materials not through murder, but grave-robbing. In the popular imagination, however, he remains a serial killer with uncounted victims.

Attention to this kind of detail is a Demme trademark. At his peak (Citizens Band, Melvin and Howard, Something Wild), Demme can intermingle comedy and drama because he builds on a solid foundation of character. Silence is a powerhouse that shows Demme at his best and boldest. Even the tacky flashbacks and a sequence lifted from Wait Until Dark can't blunt the film's wallop. Demme celebrates his female warriors. You can feel his pride in Starling for rallying against her male demons. For all the unbridled savagery on display, what is shrewd, significant and finally hopeful about Silence of the Lambs is the way it proves that a movie can be mercilessly scary and mercifully humane at the same time.

Hannibal Lector: "I do wish we could chat longer, but... I'm having an old friend for dinner. Bye"



Hannibal 'the Cannibal' Lector

Martyrs (2009) Review

Cast:
Morjana Alaoui as Anna
Mylène Jampanoï as Lucie
Catherine Bégin as Mademoiselle
Robert Toupin as Le père
Patricia Tulasne as La mère
Juliette Gosselin as Marie
Xavier Dolan-Tadros as Antoine
Isabelle Chasse as La Créature

Directed by Pascal Laugier

Review:

mar-tyr - noun 1 a person who undergoes severe or constant suffering; 2 a person who is put to death or endures great suffering on behalf of any belief, principle, or cause.

Well, I don't really know what to say about this film that hasn't been expressed in a previous review. Ok, I'll start by saying the one thing that makes being a horror fan so awesome is the hunt for the holy grail of gore. The one to top the last, to be truly worthy of being called terrifying. Every producer in Hollywood promises it, every director thinks they have achieved it and the fact of the matter is that there is only one - maybe two horror movies every year that transcend greatness and earns the right to use the word "horrific" in the same sentence as its title.

I think it's safe to say MARTYRS is this year's INSIDE, both films which are legendary and horrific in their own right. Although both films are insanely violent, both films will give you nightmares and both films are insanely brutal, it must be known that there is a major difference between the two films. Inside has it's scares, and is a film much like Halloween - fun to watch (through squinting eyes). But, Martyrs is plain and simple: it's brutal, disturbing, and very unsettling.

French directer (it seems all the good genre films are foreign these days) Pascal Laugier, who also wrote the screenplay, is heavily influenced by the works of Clive Barker (especially that of the Hellraiser series). This film is also very reminiscent of Eli Roth's Hostel films. But here you do not sit and await for the next punch to be thrown, you know it's coming and cringe when it does. The images shown here are terrible acts of torture taken out on women is not for the faint of heart.

This movie is horror. It's horrific, it's horrible, it's the definition of the term horror. If you don't understand what it stands for, this movie is not for you.

You've been warned.
Rating: B-