Burnt Offerings, The Sentinel (1977), Mulberry Street

Burnt Offerings was directed by Dan Curtis from an adaptation of the Robert Murasco novel by William F. Nolan. It's about a family who rents a house for the summer and the price the house exacts on its tenants. It stars Oliver Reed and Karen Black with appearances by Burgess Meredith and Bette Davis.

I put this on my queue because one of my favourite actresses, Heather Langenkamp, lists it as one of her favourite horror flicks. I've not read the novel so I can't say how book accurate it is, but it felt like the beginning and the end were very strong while the middle sagged as they struggled to add things to pad out the runtime.

The performances were good enough. I don't really feel either way about Oliver Reed and I'm not a big fan of Karen Black, but I thought they were good. The son was annoying. I would have LOVED to see more of Meredith and Eileen Heckart, who played his sister. The chauffeur was creepy. They score was okay, the editing was okay, and there wasn't a lot in the way of effects.

Overall: pretty good.

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The Sentinel is a supernatural horror flick from 1977 directed by Michael Winner and adapted by Jeffrey Konvitz from his own novel about a suicidal fashion model who finds a strikingly nice NYC apartment for amazingly cheap and soon finds out that the building is a gateway to hell being guarded by an ancient, blind priest. Right up my alley.

This is one of those 70s flicks where the filmmakers jammed in as many names as they could of both at the time up-and-comers (Chris Sarandon, who seems to be really underrated, and Christopher Walken) and those who have been around a while (Burgess Meredith, Ava Gardner, Eli Wallach, Jose Ferrer, etc., etc.) and was seen by Universal as their answer to Warner Brothers' The Exorcist from four years previous. They even got the master, Dick Smith, to come in and do the effects. Sorry Universal, you lost this round...

If I hadn't already seen Lucio Fulci's masterful The Beyond, or even his own less masterful original version Gates of Hell, I would be all over this flick. It has everything I'm fascinated by and can't stop myself from writing about, but there's a lot of pointless, useless, stupid stuff that drags it down. Combine that with a script that really isn't very mysterious or scary and you have a recipe for yawn.

The performances were pretty good from everyone involved. Walken wasn't given much to do other than stand there looking like a made man chewing gum and Sarandon was just the supportive boyfriend and part time sleazy lawyer. Not a lot of depth was given to them. Cristina Raines (geez, there are a lot of Chrises in this flick...) was...okay. A little uneven in her performance, but she was trying.

Overall: A good try, but not quite there.

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Mulberry Street was one of the line-up in After Dark's first 8 Films to Die For film festival. It was directed by Jim Mickle from a script by Mickle and the film's star Nick Damici and is about a strange infection that turns people into rats.

I originally wasn't going to watch any of After Dark's 8 Films to Die For. I thought their handling of Captivity's marketing campaign was kind of shady and the flicks in the fest didn't look that good (please keep in mind that I am, surprisingly enough, very picky). I caught a section of this film on the Sci-Fi channel and thought, "Hey, this looks pretty good, but I thought it was about rats." It is, I just didn't watch enough of it on Sci-Fi.

99.9 percent of this film rocked my socks. The cinematography, the performances, the score...nearly everything about it was freakin' awesome. The one problem I had with it is the one thing it was built on: the freakin' rat people. Oh Lord, I hated that not because they were rats, but because they were turning into rats. And I get it, I get the symbolism, I just thought it was goofy. Everything else was absolutely spectacular, so much so that it was hard to reconcile the two.

Overall: I recommend it, but with reservations because of the rat thing...

The Halfway Point: Ed Brubaker's Angel of Death and Watchmen

Hey y'all, we're at the halfway point in the online series Angel of Death; five down, five to go. If you haven't started watching yet, now is a pretty good time to start: there are about 45 minutes currently up on the Crackle website and there's around 45 more minutes of mystery remaining. :D

The unfortunate thing is that the show isn't available outside the US. Why that is, I couldn't tell you, but you can send your tweets of frustration to Chad over @crackledotcom...just don't take it out on him, it's not his fault. He's just the poor guy who got stuck fielding the fans' ire.

I'm still loving every second of it. The cinematography, the editing, the score (which gets stuck in my head now, yeah), the direction, action, and performances. Great stuff! If you have any interest in watching a hitwoman develop a conscience and seek some down, dirty, gritty vengeance, check it out!!

I'll post the final wrap up in five days.

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Watchmen was directed by Zach Snyder and comes from the venerable comic book by Alan Moore. Okay, okay. I hear the comic fans yelling at me already. It comes from the Graphic Novel by Alan Moore.

I should preface this by saying, I haven't read the Graphic Novel of the Watchmen. I went into this as blind as I did for 300 and V for Vendetta. I cannot comment on accuracy of detail or storyline, but I can say that I wasn't confused, I had no questions, and I went out the next day and got the collection so I could get the full effect.

While the running time packs a wallop at two and a three quarter hours (three with trailers), and you feel every bit of it, there's absolutely nothing that could have been cut. To lose any part of what's in there would have been to lose the story. While aficionados of Watchmen have told me that there were parts from the book that they really missed, they LOVED the movie, so I think that says something.

There was nothing in the movie that stood out to me as being terrible. The music was strange, though. Lots of sixties and seventies anti-war songs, two Leonard Cohen songs (one of them is "Hallelujah" which, I'm sorry, but Jeff Buckley sang it so much better and I normally hate covers), and several previously used Philip Glass tracks (one was from The Hours, if you can believe it.) I didn't hate the music, I just thought it was weird...

All of the performances rang true for me and it's always wonderful to see Matt Frewer so it's a score there. There was a rumour going around that Jackie Earle Haley, who played Rorschach, would be taking up the fedora and glove of Freddy Krueger so I paid extra special attention to him. If the rumour is true, based on his performance in this flick I think he can handle it. However, I heard that he just booked a pilot. If he's booked a pilot, there's little chance he's playing Freddy. Next rumour please...

I've never seen his music video work, but I have seen Zach Snyder's films (Dawn of the Dead, 300, and now Watchmen.) they're all beautiful, brutal, exhausting, intense, and well-directed. I think he did a great job under such daunting pressure from every sector of the business from the studios down to the people who would lay down their cash to watch the flick. I don't think the film, and his work on it, will disappoint anyone (except the critics, hahaha!)

Pumpkinhead and The Other Side

Pumpkinhead is a movie from 1988 directed by the late Stan Winston from a script by Mark Patrick Carducci. Of course, Winston's company handles the effects. It tells the story of a father (played by Lance Hendriksen) who invokes a powerful demon to get revenge on the people who ran over his son and left him to die...but, of course, the demon's services come with a hefty price.

Some spotty writing aside, it's a solid story with a really good cast, some great special effects, and some ace cinematography. This was the first time I saw it and while I knew it was an American flick, I couldn't help by draw parallels between this film and the Clive Barker story Rawhead Rex, which I also haven't seen yet. Doesn't look like Netflix has it either. Ah well.

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The Other Side was written, directed, and edited by Gregg Bishop and tells the story of a young man named Sam who comes back from hell to solve his murder and rescue his girlfriend. He's pressed for time, however, as three Reapers (Hellbound Headhunters) are after him and a large group of escapees including perpetually horny Mally and Oz, who is determined to not go back to Hell.

Plot issues and script inconsistencies aside (you won't hear me say that very often so you may want to read that again), this was a well made little flick. Everyone loved the material and that comes through in the performances and in the care taken with (some of) the effects. The acting was all pretty top notch and the cinematography, editing, and score were well done.

The cast and crew put a lot of heart into the movie and I feel that does make up for the writing issues...of which there were many. It's kind of convoluted and there are times where one's suspension of disbelief is tested pretty mightily, but it was well made and I think that definitely says something and makes something worth watching.

One little strange thing that bugged me: there was a base-side scratch on the left hand side during a couple of shots (it was shot on Super16.) This film was made in 2005-6. Why was there still a scratch, especially on the wide DVD release?

Angel of Death and The Midnight Meat Train

Angel of Death is a web series written by Ed Brubaker and directed by Paul Etheredge. It's hosted on Crackle (http://www.crackle.com/c/Angel_Of_Death). Starring the phenomenal Zoe Bell (to actually see her in action else where, you need to see the documentary Double Dare and Death Proof because she's a stunt woman by trade - Xena and Kill Bill among others - and you're not supposed to see her), Angel of Death is about a hitwoman who suddenly, and unfortunately in her line of work, grows a conscience when she's stabbed in the head with a knife.

Episode one, "Edge," is currently up with a new episode coming once a day for the next ten days barring any sort of issues.

I don't know anything about comics. I think my friend Shawn can testify to that. You say Ed Brubaker and I think of the character in George A. Romero's Land of the Dead because of the last name. As such, I can't comment on this being within his style or any of that hullabaloo. I can say that if the remaining episodes are as strongly written as the first one, this is going to be one hell of a ride. I'm already saving up for the DVD! (Which comes out in June according to crackledotcom.) Of course, Zoe Bell kickin' ass is always ace in my book.

So far, I'm loving the comic book feel of the show, the cinematography is pretty ace, the editing flows really well, and the direction is spot on. Also, I love the score. It's bold, energetic, and attention grabbing, but not in an intrusive way.

Hoo-ray for the internets, and Crackle / Sony of course, for letting the show air without censoring Brubaker and company. I love that this isn't on teevee for that very reason; they're free to be creative and see where their creativity leads them. I'm looking forward to watching each episode as they unfold!

Anyway, I recommend it very highly.

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The Midnight Meat Train was adapted by relative newcomer Jeff Buhler from the short story written by Clive Barker and was directed by Ryuhei Kitamura (Versus.) The movie is about a young photographer with dreams of capturing the City as it truly is and winds up capturing much more than that. It stars Bradley Cooper as Kaufmann and Vinnie Jones as Mahogany with support from Peter Jacobson (Taub in House!), Roger Bart (most famously, he was Carmen Ghia in the musical of The Producers), and Leslie Bibb (she was the reporter in Iron Man.) Oh, and Brooke Shields had a very minor role as an important art dealer.

The best performances in the flick come from Vinnie Jones, Peter Jacobson, and Roger Bart and the last two play throw away characters who I found to be far more interesting than the on-screen Kaufmann and his annoying girlfriend (Bibb.)

The adaptation was uneven. If they'd cut out the girlfriend, I think it would have been a much stronger piece. She was there just to have sex with Kaufmann and be really annoying. It seemed like a few expository sections were cut in favour of gore for gore's sake. Other sections of the film were quite good and engaging, but the majority of sections added to make the film feature length were poorly written and didn't fit.

While quite a few of the effects are well done and amazing, there was a lot of unnecessary CGI blood. In fact, this movie was CG overkill...it got kind of tiresome. It seems to me that they added a bunch of gory close-ups to satisfy the perceived need for Saw and Hostel like viciousness. There was no reason for the close ups other than to "freak people out." They made me yawn and ask, "Why?"

Ryukei Kitamura's direction was solid and the cinematography was fantastic. The score and editing flowed well.

Overall, it's hard to recommend it and it's hard to damn it. This is one of my favourite Clive Barker stories and I can't say that I'm entirely disappointed. Vinnie Jones was perfect as Mahogany even if he is less Terminator-like in the story and most of the stuff where Kaufmann's girlfriend is absent is really strong, but there's so much CG and the girlfriend is so annoying that...well, it's just tough.

Friday the 13th Take Two (this one's verbose)

Full disclosure: For all of my love of horror, I'm not a big fan of the slasher subgenre in general. I find them to be puerile and unimaginative, again, generally. That said, I do like the original Friday the 13th and a couple of the sequels that follow, but my heart belongs to A Nightmare on Elm Street which is actually a huge reason why I decided to go ahead and watch the Friday the 13th remake. Platinum Dunes and Warner Bros / New Line, the people behind this flick, will be tackling one of the main reasons I write and direct horror. They already remade The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which I rather liked in spite of quite a few issues with their plot additions. Marcus Nispel, the director of both of the TCM and F13 remakes, will not be directing the Nightmare redux; music video director Samuel Bayer will be making his feature directing debut with ANoES...and if you think I'm rough on the Friday the 13th redux, you haven't seen anything yet.

Also, while I have strong opinions about these movies, I'm not a "Freddy's better than Jason!" type person. It's all about personal preference. I prefer the Nightmare series to Friday the 13th, but I do like a couple of the F13 movies.

Friday the 13th was helmed by Marcus Nispel, director of other such fare as Pathfinder, the teevee movie Frankenstein, and lots of music videos. That might sound dismissive, but while I haven't seen Pathfinder (and I strain to admit to the "yet") or his Franenstein, he's really quite good in the action and tension departments which is good for a horror flick.

In this pre-sequel, no one's trying to reopen Camp Blood; all of the victims are just out looking for a good time and all that sex and all those drugs make Jason a sad boy. He goes from the burlap sack of Part 2 right into a well-aged hockey mask whilst wielding the family heirloom, a machete. While I know that the machete is inextricably linked to Jason as His Weapon, from what I remember of the sequels (and it's been a while since I saw them), he rarely used one. He's the type of slasher who'll use whatever's at hand, and he does so here, but the first group of horny teens specifically point out the machete in a painful bit of exposition telling exactly what the viewer saw not even ten minutes previous.

This film was written by the guys who wrote the mostly abysmal Freddy vs. Jason, Damian Shannon and Mark Swift. That, right there, explains everything that's wrong with the Friday redux. It's obvious that these guys are fanboys. It's also obvious that they barely have an original bone in their bodies. They stole at least three plot devices / kills / sequences from Friday sequels, stole the ending of the original film for the initial hook and the final scare and stole the ending of another sequel for the initial part of the ending. The worst part is that what was original in the script was painfully predictable. Not to mention all of the predictable jump scares.

In another irritating script issue, there was an awful lot of talking in this flick and I mean useless, wasted dialogue. Sheep separated from the flock talking to themselves about what they were doing or were going to do and a lot of repetitious exposition as previously mentioned.

The score. Oh dear God, the score. Not good. Jarring, brought me right out of the flick several times.

Most of the actors were really there to be pretty and die in "inventive" ways which is typical of slasher flicks. Some of them could have been good if the writers had maybe pulled back on the tropes a little. However, high marks have to be given to leads Jared Padalecki and Danielle Panabaker. They were much better than the majority of their co-stars, and were believable in every way that counts, a breath of fresh air in the flick.

Other highlights include the cinematography and lighting (although, I'm not aware of a light bulb that can continue to burn when broken; the filament burns itself out once the glass is breached and CFLs are just gas-filled glass tubes) and the editing was ace. When I have to pick something I normally don't notice unless it's bad in order to say something positive about a flick, you know that I was pretty annoyed.

But, let's look at it another way. As I wrote in the booth log that I'd previewed it, I asked myself, "If I were a Jason fan, would I be satisfied?" and "If I were just looking for a rollicking good time at the horror show, would I be satisfied?" The short answer is yes. Generally, Jason fans aren't watching for the story, they want to see pretty people get killed for having premarital sex and smoking pot then the villain get his or her comeuppance. The first film, at least, had a semblance of a plot.

Now, before you point out the shortcomings of the Nightmare series, let me say that I know them. I know them very, very well. Part 2 sucked, I never watch it (though I have to say that the effects and the score were excellent), and while it's dramatic, Nancy should never have been killed in part 3. From there, it's all downhill, but at least they had really great actors throughout from Heather Langenkamp on down. Wise-cracking Freddy, while funny, isn't scary in the least. I often wonder if Freddy fans have forgotten that their "hero" is a paedophiliac child murderer who wouldn't care that they thought he was awesome. See? This is part of the reason why I'm so dubious about the Nightmare remake...

In summary: This remake feels just like any other sequel in the F13 pantheon offering nothing new or unique to the series. If you don't mind that, you'll like it. If you're me and would like to see something more in a horror flick, even a remake, you're going to be disappointed, or indifferent at the very least. I can't be too disappointed, though. I knew what I was watching when I decided to preview it.

"Donuts don't wear alligator shoes..."

Every once in a while, as a public service, I will post trailers for some upcoming movies that seem to be made of awesome, things that the general public may miss because they're too cool for colour teevee. This is one of those posts. These trailers are generally not safe for work mostly because the awesome may in fact singe your eyebrows and possibly set off the fire alarm.

First up is Black Dynamite:


Next is a trailer for which there are no words except Chocolate:


Finally, Bitch Slap:

Sukiyaki Western Django among other things...

Okay, so the movie's done and will be sent out to cast and festivals starting tomorrow. I finished a day after the last deadline for the Sarasota Film Festival. Ah well. There's always next year depending on how well this year goes. The sound mix went well. Basically, my brother and I realized that whatever he would do to make the songs flow together, I'd already done so we decided to just keep the music edits I did. :D So, out it goes and where it stops I'll post here.

Anyway, as today is sort of a day off, I've decided to watch movies. The other day, I picked up a newer film from one of my favourite directors, Takashi Miike; he was behind such intense, amazing, bizarre fare as Audition, Ichi the Killer, The Happiness of the Katakuris, and Visitor Q (the only one of his flicks thus far that I haven't liked.)

The flick I picked up was Sukiyaki Western Django and it is the best Japanese Western ever made. Unfortunately, the American DVD had something like twenty minutes cut from the original film. Normally, I don't buy cut versions, and there is one part in particular where you feel it, but apparently the Malaysian subtitles for the looped track (the film was made with Japanese actors speaking English) are terrible. Since it was never released here theatrically, I really wonder why First Look cut it up, but whatever.

The flick is awesome...so long as you don't mind that it's really weird and sometimes a little hard to understand; I had to turn on the subtitles a couple of times. Since I don't mind that in the least, I freaking loved it.

I hate Westerns, but lately I find myself drawn to a few modern interpretations of the classic tropes in the genre: Stephen King's Gunslinger, Joss Whedon's Firefly, and now this. It was beautifully shot, the music was awesome, the performances were fantastic, and the direction superb. I LOVED it, but it's definitely not for everyone.

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I hate doing the review dumps so here's a quick round-up of the flick's I've watched during post:

I saw My Bloody Valentine 3D and hated it, though the 3D was great. I saw Coraline and loved it. Last Chance Harvey was wonderful; I love Emma Thompson so so so much. The Life Before Her Eyes was good, but the ending was a little "eh."

Repo! The Genetic Opera -- I hated the lyrics and Paris Hilton makes me vomit a little, but all else was awesome. Too bad the lyrics are EVERYTHING in a rock opera. I think I'm the only Goth who doesn't think this flick is the Bee's Knees.

Ghost Town -- Much better than I thought it was going to be.

I Vampiri -- Cinematography by Mario Bava. Beautifully shot, pretty good story having very little to do with vampires.

Superstar in a Housedress -- A documentary about Jackie Curtis, one of Andy Warhol's entourage. It was good. I had no idea who Jackie Curtis was before I saw this. Never heard the name before, haven't heard the name since. You learn something new every day.

I think that's everything. I'm slowly trying to break out of my production cocoon, too... :D I've had enough of sitting in front of this computer for one night, I'mo go watch a movie.