Archive for the ‘Horror’ Category

The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Thursday, October 5th, 2006

TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE NEXT GENERATION

Well in a serious bid to not hate the upcoming TEXAS CHAIN SAW remake prequel, I decided to mentally condition myself by rewatching the two bad sequels, parts 3-4. But I don’t know, maybe I’m getting soft in my old age, maybe the remake lowered the bar, maybe it’s some kind of Stockholm Syndrome deal, but this week I found out I really don’t hate these two movies like I used to. They’re not good sequels, no, but I was able to appreciate them a little more after all these years. The little fuckers are starting to grow on me.

I also realized the secret behind the failure of the sequels. Every one of them is basically a loose remake, but without all the elements that were in place to make the first one work. You can’t catch lightning in a bottle 4 times unless you’re really good with a bottle, and not even Tobe Hooper is that good with a bottle anymore. The sequels are all closer to the original than the actual remake is. They change the reason why the victims are in town, they have a different lineup for the family (and a different person playing Leatherface), and they add some new twists here and there. But they’re all basically some people come to town, get stuck at the house, they’re tormented in crazy ways, there’s the dinner scene, they escape, they battle, they get away. I think the reason part 2 is the only one that works is because it has more of the pieces in place: Tobe Hooper is still there so it has a more artistic execution than the others. Jim Siedow is still there as the cook and he’s better than all the other characters. Bill Moseley as Chop Top is new, but he’s a way better Hitchhiker substitue than all the characters in the other sequels. Leatherface doesn’t look as good as in the first one, but he looks much better than the other two (three including the remake). At the same time, part 2 has more drastic new twists than the other two: an underground amusement park instead of a house, Dennis Hopper as a protagonist as psychotic as the Sawyer family, a social satire/black comedy tone with ridiculously over-the-top gore that gives it its own feel entirely different from the original. The others don’t go as far to stand out. (more…)

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Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III

Tuesday, October 3rd, 2006

As you’ve probaly figured out by now, I love THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE. Hell, I’d go so far as to call it the DIE HARD of horror. The Mohammed Ali of horror. The Bruce Lee of horror. I also love part 2, not as fond of part three, hated part 4, fucking DESPISED the remake.

This week they got the prequel to the remake coming out. I’m sure I’ll probaly hate it, but who knows. In some ways it doesn’t sound as bad as the remake, and since it’s not a remake you can hold it to the lower standards of a sequel. And lucky for it, there have been two not so hot sequels already to lower the bar. So I came up with a plan. First, I devised a method by which I will see the prequel without Michael Bay getting any of my money. Then I rented parts 3 and 4 so I can have them fresh on my mind while watching the prequel. That way I will have the maximum possible open-mindedness when I see the new one and might be able to appreciate it. The only problem is I watched Part 3 here and it’s not as bad as I remembered.

LEATHERFACE (which is a dumb fucking title) is not really a disaster. More like a small accident, a minor fenderbender. Nothing to be proud of, but we’ll get it fixed. The beginning of the movie has Leatherface creating his mask, shot exactly like the opening of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET where Freddy constructs his glove. This is important because that’s the context this movie was made in. New Line Cinema had the rights to make a Texas Chainsaw sequel. They had just released A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 5: THE DREAM CHILD and it had done only okay. And they probaly knew that NINJA TURTLES shit couldn’t float forever, so they had to come up with a new Freddy. That’s why the title puts the emphasis on Leatherface. Leatherface is Freddy, the mask is his hat I guess, the saw is his glove. Give us money. (more…)

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AVP: Alien vs. Predator

Monday, September 25th, 2006

Judging by this title, we are dealing with a story about 1 (one) Alien facing off against 1 (one) Predator. Maybe the Alien dripped acid blood on the Predator’s invisibility machine, so they start getting up in each other’s face or something. It is hard to predict what would cause them to fight, but it is easy to predict the outcome. The Alien wins because the Alien is hands down cooler than the Predator. Sorry Predators, just tellin it like it is. Of course, the title could also mean the actual movie ALIEN is facing off against the movie PREDATOR. In that case ALIEN will be defeating PREDATOR for tension, atmosphere, originality, and artistic legitimacy, while being roundly defeated in the oneliner and gun size departments.

But the title ALIEN VS. PREDATOR is misleading. It is actually MODERN DAY HUMANS + SOME CGI ALIENS AND TEENAGE PREDATORS. It turns out that the ancient Predators built a pyramid in what is now Antarctica and it’s still there under the ice. Once every 100 years exactly, a Predator ship comes down, sets loose some Alien eggs and has their Predator boys fight the Aliens as a rite of passage. Maybe they are from the south of Predator planet and this is their equivalent of deer hunting. Or Texas football.

You learn alot of new things about the Predator culture from this movie. Number one, they have a pyramid. Number two, they look fat when they have all their armor on. These teenage Predators would make pretty good bouncers, but not the greatest movie monsters.

The movie stars Sanaa Lathan (Blade’s mom), Ewen Bremner (JULIEN DONKEY BOY) and unfortunately Lance Henriksen (everything). As always, Mr. Henriksen does a good job and adds depth to the movie (taking it from negative depth to just about sea level). But I say “unfortunately” because it’s a crying shame he has to say yes to a project like this and, worse, that this is probaly one of the better movies he’s gotten to do in recent years. (Not including ABOMINABLE.) It’s a crime that a guy with as much talent and unique presence as Lance Henriksen is stuck being what I call a Paypal actor, meaning it seems like you can just go onto his websight and order him using Paypal and then he has no choice but to show up on your set and do your movie. (more…)

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Black Christmas

Monday, September 25th, 2006

You probaly know director Bob Clark as the guy who did PORKY’S and A CHRISTMAS STORY. More recently he did the two BABY GENIUSES movies and something called KARATE DOG which, judging by the cover, is not a metaphorical title. But back in the day he was a pretty good director of horror movies. One of the ones he did was DEATHDREAM, a really eerie movie about a guy coming back undead from Vietnam and everybody is sort of in denial that he’s different. I liked that one a hell of alot better than HOMECOMING, Joe Dante’s sort of similar anti-war zombie thing from the Masters of Horror show.

But right after DEATHDREAM Clark did his most famous horror movie, BLACK CHRISTMAS, and it’s a pretty good one.

There are no killer Santas, not even maniac elves or savage, carnivorous reindeer. In fact there’s not too much of a Christmas ambience in the thing. But it does take place over Christmas break. This sorority house has been getting weird phone calls from some anonymous pervert. In the opening, one of the girls is attacked and suffocated in her room and taken up to the attic. The rest of the characters spend the whole movie trying to find her.

The next day, the girl’s dad shows up on campus to pick her up. After waiting forever he starts asking around for help and ends up meeting people who know his daughter, and together they look for her. Luckily her boyfriend has an in with the John Saxon at the police department so they are miraculously able to put together a search party when she hasn’t even been gone a day. (It’s refreshing to see a movie with a missing person where they don’t mention that “she has to be gone for 24 hours before she can be considered missing” thing.) (more…)

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The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

Monday, September 25th, 2006

Well friends, we all agree that THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE is one of the greatest films in the history of American independent cinema, etc. etc.

[imagine 30,000 words here about why I love this movie. And believe me, I could do it.]

[Okay, maybe I'd have to pad it out by going off on a tangent about how underrated part 2 is, and why I hate the remake, and I'd have to spell "alot" as two words, but I could still make it to 30,000.]

[Seriously, you piss me off and I WILL do it. I'm ITCHING to do it. Don't test me.]

But why in God’s name do we need another DVD release of it is the question. Anchor Bay hasn’t got their paws on it so it’s not to an ARMY OF DARKNESS crisis level yet, but I would’ve figured you couldn’t have a more definitive, a more special, or a more ULTIMATE edition than my treasured ‘Pioneer Special Edition’. I never did pick up the penultimate ‘If We Change The Cover It Counts As A New Edition Edition’ from 2003 (the one with the picture of meat on the back). So I’m not always a mark for these sloppy seconds or whatever you call it. But for this one I bit.

So what, you’re asking, is supposed to be so god damn ULTIMATE about this edition? First of all, they spelled the name right. CHAIN SAW, two words, not one. You gotta get it right because there’s another movie out there with a similar title http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=16307 that you might get it confused with. CHAINSAW is some shitty movie from 2003 about an evil musclehead who chases glisteningly spray-on sweaty attractive people through spooky, foggy slaugherhouse sets because the other kids picked on him when he was little. Also he cut off Harry’s head I believe. That one’s CHAINSAW one word. CHAIN SAW two words is the raw, authentically sweaty American classic, so I’m glad they got that right finally. (more…)

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Toolbox Murders (2003)

Thursday, September 21st, 2006

The original TOOLBOX MURDERS was made because of TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE. You can’t really say it’s a ripoff, because the movies don’t have much in common. But on the DVD, the producer explains that he read in Variety or somewhere about the amount of money TEXAS CHAIN SAW had made so he rented a print of it and hired a screenwriter to watch the movie and make something like that.

So it’s weird that 24 years later poor Tobe Hooper, director of TEXAS CHAIN SAW, wound up doing a remake of TOOLBOX MURDERS. But just like before, his movie doesn’t have much connection with the movie that inspired it. There’s a guy in a ski mask killing people with tools in an apartment building, but everything else is different.

And honestly that’s for the best. The original has an amazing opening. Basically, some maniac in a black ski mask is massacring people in an apartment building with drills and hammers and shit. The camera goes through and shows you these people going through the routines of their daily lives as the guy comes through and butchers them. You just catch a little bit of a conversation or you hear their radio playing or something, you don’t get some phony movie explanation of what their character is about, so it has a horrible voyeuristic feel to it like you’re sneaking around right behind this nutbag.

This goes on for a while but eventually it has to come to an end and the plot has to begin, and that’s when the movie falls apart and it just kind of feels like some TV movie mystery. I think Cameron Mitchell turned out to be the murderer but I don’t remember why. He had some reason.

Hooper catches a little bit of that voyeuristic feel in his opening, showing the regular after work activities of somebody who seems like she’ll be the main character but who is actually the first victim. The real main character is Angela Bettis from the movie MAY, who is just moving into the building today with her husband. He’ll be out of the picture most of the movie because he’s a doctor and has to work all the time. (more…)

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The Covenant

Friday, September 8th, 2006

Okay, I know you boys already ran a negative review of Renny Harlin’s THE COVENANT earlier today, so me writing the second review of a movie like this is as pointless as, you know, writing the first one. But since I actually sat through the thing I feel I have earned the right to say my piece. Besides, it’s not about the movie. It’s about the journey.

Obviously I can’t agree with the earlier reviewer Gandhiboy about Harlin’s DIE HARD 2 being “as good as the original,” but it is a damn good sequel to a perfect movie that you would think nobody could make a decent sequel to. I believe that the pressure of that feat damaged Renny’s mind forever, turning him into the other Renny Harlin who we love today for different reasons. After DEEP BLUE SEA and to a lesser extent MINDHUNTERS I expect some good old fashioned retarded nonsense from the crazy old Finn. He makes dumb movies smarter than most people. I don’t know how much of it is on accident or how much is on purpose but I think some of you would agree with me that DEEP BLUE SEA is a work of equal parts genius and idiocy. Most of you probaly didn’t see MINDHUNTERS so let me just inform you that there is a scene where Christian Slater knocks over a trail of dominos and it sets off a fancy Rube Goldberg device that freezes his leg with liquid nitrogen, then his leg breaks off and he falls over and shatters. What I’m saying is my man Renny makes crazy, stupid movies like nobody else so when he makes a movie about rich private school witches with the the mystical powers to control cars, I’m there.

Many movies these days are about True Evil, but this one, according to the poster, is about Untold Power. We learn from some text at the beginning that while we always thought the Salem Witch Trials were just superstitious zealots oppressing women, they were actually on the right track because there were five families of super hero witches possessing Untold Power. Four of these families now have young, hunky, muscular sons of varying hair lengths and sub-Anakin acting skills who hang out together at a rich boy private college in a spooky, foggy, spider-and-rat-infested town in Massachusetts. Everybody calls them “the sons of Ipswich” (you’d think they’d call them “Reid, Tyler, the guy who looks like Josh Hartnett, and the other dude”) and nobody knows they have super powers, although they make almost no effort to hide it. (more…)

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Predator 2

Wednesday, September 6th, 2006

After watching PREDATOR for the first time since the ’80s and realizing that it’s actually a good movie, I decided to watch PREDATOR 2. I never seen this one before and I knew the reputation wasn’t too good. More ominous, instead of John McDIEHARDTiernan the director is Stephen LOST IN SPACE Hopkins. Not lookin good.

But damn if the opening isn’t a scorcher. It starts out with the familiar Predator POV heat vision in the jungle… but as it pans across you realize it’s not the jungle – it’s the outskirts of Los Angeles. THE URBAN JUNGLE! In the futuristic year of 1997. (Think about it: a Predator is loose in Los Angeles at the same time Snake Plissken is looking for the president in New York. Meanwhile, the Spice Girls are topping the charts and TITANIC is breaking box office records.)

Anyway the scorchin part is when the Predatorcam flies across the city and finds some TFM (total fuckin mayhem) goin down on a city block. It’s a shootout between cops and a gang of maniac Colombian drug dealers, but it’s a bigger war zone than the one that Dutch and his special ops team went into early in PREDATOR. You got flaming cop cars, wounded cops and motorcycles laying all over the street, cars blowin up and flippin through the air, machine guns firing every which way, cops running around with metal shields, and reporters (including Morton Downey Jr., remember him?) frantically trying to broadcast the play-by-play. When our hero Danny Glover shows up his colleagues tell him that they don’t have all their guys there because some of them are in the other shootout going on somewhere else in town. This is not a great movie, but it’s a truly great opening, picking you up by the hair and dropping you right into the thick of things.

So you quickly get the idea that maybe 1997 L.A. is not the best place to be a non-Predator. One might even consider it to be a total fuckin hellhole. And there’s alot of details to show that throughout the movie, like the way everybody always has sweatstains on their armpits and their chests. (I guess there’s a heatwave, which fits with what was said in the first movie about Predator tourists choosing to vacation in hot places.) (more…)

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I Spit On Your Grave

Sunday, September 3rd, 2006

I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE is one of the most notorious of the revenge pictures. Why? I bet it’s mostly because the title is so good. LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT is a great title too, because it sounds cool but it doesn’t actually mean anything. It’s enigmatic. I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE is the opposite approach, it’s blunt and harsh and to the point. Whoever this is that’s speaking the title, he or she DOES NOT like you. That much is clear.

Until my recent run-in with CHAOS and David “The Demon” DeFalco I never thought too much about watching this one. Why should I watch a movie that tells me it spits on my grave? But with all the ensuing discussion of LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT a couple people recommended this one to me and I thought, ah, what the hell.

Coincidentally, I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE’s bad rep comes from the same place as CHAOS’s: Chicago, and Roger Ebert. Ebert, representing a ruthless group known as the Chicago-Sun Times, and his crosstown rival Gene Siskel, overseeing Chicago’s “movie beat” from his throne atop the Tribune Tower, both treated the movie with the sort of respect and sensitivity that the characters treat each other with in the movie. Ebert called it “a vile bag of garbage” and “an expression of the most diseased and perverted darker human natures.” Siskel called it “easily the most offensive film” he had seen in his career. Both talk in their reviews about being disturbed by weirdos at the screenings cheering on the rapes or bringing their kids to see it. I can understand why that would sort of ruin the experience, but luckily I didn’t have either of those problems watching the movie on DVD at my apartment. I keep a tight lid on those types of things.

Ebert did like LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT and more recently DEVIL’S REJECTS so he’s not a total prude. But I don’t really agree with him on this one. Yes, it’s raw and exploitative and hard to watch, but I think it has more to it than he was willing to notice back then. I don’t think it’s misogynistic. I think it’s genuine in its anti-rape stance and it’s actually very anti-male. But I can take it, men deserve it sometimes. For example those weirdos at his screening who were seriously misinterpreting the movie. They fucked it up for poor Roger. (more…)

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Chaos

Sunday, August 27th, 2006

Well boys, there’s this horror movie called CHAOS that comes out on DVD at the end of September. I thought it would be good to review it now so that you will have forgotten about it by then. I wouldn’t recommend watching the movie – in fact, if possible, I recommend not ever hearing of it. Just stop reading now, unread the first part of this paragraph, and don’t think about it again. We’re only encouraging them. By reviewing this movie I’m just giving the dipshits who made it the attention they’re waving their dicks around begging for, but I want to review it for two reasons:

  1. I’m always up for another round of that stupid “torture porn” debate
  2. For masochistic horror fans I might recommend borrowing or stealing (but not buying) the DVD just because the extras are so hilariously insane and retarded

CHAOS is a low budget, no imagination, blatant ripoff of LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT directed by a former pro-wrestler named David “The Demon” DeFalco. Its one and only claim to fame is that they managed to get a no-star review from Roger Ebert and then they wrote him a letter that lured him into an ongoing debate about violence in movies, as if their movie deserved to be a part of that discussion.

During the opening scene I actually thought I might like the movie. A Honeybunny-from-Pulp-Fiction type is hitchhiking when some rednecks pull over and imply that they will give her a ride in exchange for sexual favors. She refuses their offer, they grab her like they’re gonna rape her. But these rednecks aren’t the ones you gotta worry about. The girl’s friends, one of them a big, bald Stone Cold Steve Austin type, come out of the trees, beat the shit out of the guys, and destroy their car with a baseball bat. The way it cuts right in the middle of the car-smashing just tosses you into the movie like a rock through a window. (more…)

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