Posts Tagged ‘vampires’

Underworld Evolution

Saturday, July 15th, 2006

This is part 2 of the Underworld saga and unfortunately I’m less sold on this Len Wiseman individual after part 2. I gotta admit, I had hopes for this one. From the trailers it looked more exciting than the first one. I thought maybe after a little practice and with a bigger budget this guy was gonna make a movie that was more fun. Now I’m not gonna say that Len Wiseman has destroyed my faith in the human spirit and man’s knack for overcoming obstacles with innovation and hardwork, but the guy was definitely trying to. We, as a people, can do better than this.

This is one of those rare part 2s where if you haven’t seen the first one, you will have no clue what in fuck’s name is going on. Also, if you have seen the first one, even if you have seen it recently, and if you are me, you also will have no clue what in fuck’s name is going on. The movie starts with a long flashback to 1602 or something, where you find out all this new information about how there were two twin brothers who were the first vampire and first werewolf and the werewolves were attacking villages so the vampires were trying to kill the first werewolf and then they caught him and his brother didn’t want to kill him on account of them being brothers but the vampires were assholes and got mad so they locked the werewolf brother away forever.

Then it goes into a montage of clips from part 1 and Kate Beckinsale’s character Selene has some narration explaining to you everything that happened in that one. At the time, when I watched it, I felt like I understood what happened, but now that I have seen this montage I’m pretty sure I got no clue what this is all about. Something about vampires, werewolves, a guy named Viktor, an ancient war, some fire maybe, possibly magical crystals or dragons, the hybrid species of vampire and werewolf, maybe swords, who knows.

So the movie hasn’t even started, I’m already lost, and then it seems like virtually the entire god damn running time of the movie is devoted to people standing around talking about yet more backstory. They spend so much time talking about the backstory that there’s not much time for actual story. “Ah, you THOUGHT this is what happened hundreds of years ago, but actually THIS is what happened hundreds of years ago. Here is an engraving of it. And wait until you hear about THIS thing that happened which is equally monumental. And THIS!” (more…)

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Underworld

Saturday, June 3rd, 2006

Some of you may be wondering why the Bruce icon would adorn a review for some corny movie about an ancient war between leather clad vampires and werewolves, especially since Bruce does not appear in the film and probaly hasn’t even seen it, unless maybe on a plane. But some of you know what I’m getting at. According to recent reports, Mr. Len Wiseman – whose sole accomplishments in Hollywood so far are directing the two Underworld pictures and marrying Kate Beckinsale – will be directing “Die Hard 4.0.”

Now, I got a history with this movie, sort of. A while back, an Ain’t It Cool talkbacker named IAmLegolas begged me to review Underworld Evolution. I said I couldn’t because I hadn’t seen the first one and considering how boring I’d heard that was it might be more research than I was willing to do. As soon as I read this Die Hard news though I realized that Legolas had been ahead of his time and that the research would have to be done. And he was sure to point this out to me too. Good job YouAreLegolas, hats off to you.

I was already skeptical of this Len Wiseman individual due to a lawsuit that was filed over UNDERWORLD. Some company accused the movie of copying all its ideas from their vampire and werewolf role playing dungeon and dragon playtime games that they have. Now, I’m not gonna be judgmental about copyright infringement, and I’m gonna assume they’re innocent until proven guilty because the case never went to trial and this is America. But buddy, when your ideas can be confused with a fuckin role playing game about werewolves, you got a problem. That is the type of smear on your record that, back when we had accountability in America, would’ve kept you from even saying “John McClane” 5 times into a mirror, let alone directing the new DIE HARD. I hope you know you got a whole fuckin lot to prove to us, Wiseman. Don’t fuckin blow it. (more…)

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Vampires: The Turning

Thursday, February 24th, 2005

ATT.: HARRY DEPT.

RE: VAMPIRES: THE TURNING

Warning: this is a long and overly detailed review of a straight to video sequel to VAMPIRES. Do not read.

It all started in 1998, in the Mexican desert. A Vatican sanctioned SWAT team of ultra-macho, leather jacket wearing vampire slayers faced down a Euro-trash “master vampire,” wiped out his nest and shut down a prophecy. Much shit was talked, at least one innocent naked woman was degraded, many many heads were cut off, and quite a few vampires were dragged screaming by tow cables into the desert sun. JOHN CARPENTER’S VAMPIRES is a sleazy, amoral good time, maybe his most underrated, and definitely his most successful mix of western and horror. And gorey. I remember one scene, the master vampire crashed a hotel party full of drunken vampire slayers and jiggling whores, walked right up to Mark Boone Junior and tore him in half using one hand. Much fun was had by all.

One forgettable straight to video sequel starring Jon Bon Jovi later, we find ourselves in Thailand, where vampires ride around on motorcycles at night wearing funny clothes and goggles, and when they confront our hero (a whiny, uncharismatic American tourist) there isn’t head cutting, there is kickboxing. You know, in case BLADE 1-3 and however many seasons of BUFFY THE VAMPIRES SLAYER tv show didn’t cover that area enough. At some point in the last decade vampires stopped being pouty self-loathing poets and became ninja henchmen. Hard to say which is better, I guess. (more…)

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Habit

Saturday, January 1st, 2005

I like the horror pictures. I used to just review them because I saw them, and what else am I supposed to do, you know? I already saw it, might as well Write the fuckin review you know.

But after a while I started to really like this stuff. I mean everybody likes monsters and shit. I started to watch all the Dracula pictures, all the Chucky pictures, everything. I started to seek them out.

I heard alot about this director, Larry Fessenden, who is some new york independent filmatist who has made a trilogy of pretentious horror movies – NO TELLING, HABIT, and WENDIGO which got some good reviews when it played at a film festival here but I haven’t seen it.

First I checked out NO TELLING which is supposedly an “eco-horror” film and is about some dude doing weird experiments on animals. I was impressed when I heard that he never graduates to experimenting on humans – that made it sound more realistic than most horror movies and that could be creepy. Unfortunately I only made it about 8 minutes into the movie before the community theater style acting made me throw in the towel. As far as I saw, the movie was just about couples standing around in a field talking about relationships.

So I gave up on Larry Fessenden, but I forgot he directed HABIT and ended up taking it home by accident. This time I got all the way to the end. (That’s nothin to brag about though, I just watched EARTH VS. THE SPIDER starring Dan Ayckroyd.) (more…)

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Cube 2: Hypercube and Dracula II: Ascension

Monday, February 17th, 2003

Boys -

It’s me Vern. Remember me, I write articles, win awards, etc. Today I am returning to my old shtick of reviewing straight to video sequels nobody asked for. Enjoy!

Actually the first picture I’m gonna deal with here is not completely un-asked for. The first movie CUBE was one of those small time cult movies that nobody is really rabid about but everybody kind of likes. The premise is that a group of strangers find themselves inside strange, symmetrical rooms with vault doors on each side. When they go through a door, they find themselves in a room exactly like the last one. And when they go through one of the doors in there, it’s another room exactly like that one. And when they go through one of the doors in there, it’s another room exactly like that one. And I could go on man. There’s nowhere to go. So of course they get into a George A. Romero type deal where they each have a different background and they argue and what not by they try to put aside their differences to solve the puzzle of “what in fuck’s name is going on here.” There is math, etc.

The acting is not all that great and none of the actors really have the kind of screen presence you want them to have. And the dialogue isn’t exactly on Romero’s level. But it’s such a good premise that you can’t help but enjoy it.

Well CUBE 2: HYPERCUBE is almost the same level of quality as the first one, its main downfall being that we’ve already seen this before. They do shake up the premise a little by introducing this idea of the “hypercube.” I don’t know if they made this up or if this is some actual thing that weirdo math guys are into, but the idea is that it is a 4 dimensional cube. There is length, width, depth, and the mysterious fourth dimension. Maybe time, maybe smell, who knows what it is. Only some math whiz guy I guess. Not me, I am a Writer. (more…)

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Vampires: Los Muertos

Monday, July 15th, 2002

Well boys there’s nothin like a mediocre straight to video sequel to start off your day. I didn’t even know they were makin a sequel to this one until I got ahold of the screener tape. I guess alot of people would ask “Who the fuck cares about VAMPIRES?” and laugh it off. It’s always weird when out of the blue they got a sequel to some movie you never knew anybody really thought about anymore, like URBAN LEGEND or MIMIC or MEN IN BLACK.

But I like most of Mr. Carpenter’s works and I think VAMPIRES is one of the good ones. James Woods is great throwin on the leather jacket to put his skinny old man frame in the Kurt Russell/Roddy Piper role. I guess he made up alot of his lines and maybe that’s why they work (Roddy Piper did the same in THEY LIVE. I bet poor Ice Cube stuck to the script in JOHN CARPENTER’S DISAPPOINTING GHOSTS OF MARS. I still can’t believe his name was “Desolation Williams.”)

Nothing about VAMPIRES seemed real radical but it had a feel of its own. How many vampire movies take place mostly in daylight in sunny, dusty Mexico, with that famous John Carpenter “it’s really a western” tone? And it just had a raunchiness that was much needed at the time, with the most macho dialogue of any John Carpenter movie, all the main characters being sadistic assholes, and lots of the ol’ latex-and-blood-packs gore effects. I don’t remember any god damn morphing in that picture. The master vampire tore Mark Boone Junior in half, and it was organic.

And if none of that impresses you you at least had to appreciate the first attack on a vampire nest, seeing the way these vampire hunters have methodically worked out their SWAT team tactics so they can hook vampires up to cables and drag them out into the sun. Fuckin vampires.

So I’m sure there are a few people out there like me who appreciated VAMPIRES, and a couple of them might even think hey, VAMPIRES was done on a low budget, it had a premise that could easily be continued with different characters, maybe I’ll check this one out. (more…)

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Blade II

Monday, March 25th, 2002

Earlier this week I saw a highly anticipated sequel, based on an old comic book character, a half man/half vampire who has become the best vampire killer there is. He travels the world, even during sunlight, cloaked in black, wielding a sword, slaying vampires. This time around he is after the same prey as a macho team of fighters who are both his rivals and reluctant allies. Their quest takes them to the seat of vampire royalty, and along the way – against his nature – he forms a tender friendship with a female on the rival team of fighters, and stays with her until the end.

That wasn’t Blade II though, it was some cartoon called Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. Actually that’s what it says on the box, but the title screen just calls it Vampire Hunter D. (Just like the ticket stub for Blade II called it Blade II: Bloodhunt, but the title screen just called it Blade II.) This movie has rightfully been praised for its cartoon drawing, which is very detailed and elegant. Much more interesting than that blue hair, big eye japanese stuff certain musty smelling individuals can’t get enough of. But what surprised me though, I thought the story was real good.

It’s got kind of a Hong Kong feel because none of the characters are really the good guys or the bad guys. At first you have to side with D, because he’s hired to save this girl who’s been kidnapped by a vampire. But later you learn that she’s actually in love with the vampire, and went willingly. D’s quest starts to become morally questionable, especially since he’s doing it for the money. At first he convinces himself that the girl doesn’t know what she’s doing, she’s been seduced, whatever. But the vampire really seems to like her – I mean, he walks into sunlight, his skin boiling, screaming in pain, just to embrace her. How many cartoons have art this good, characters this ambiguous, full of this much violence and monsters AND emotion? Definitely one of the best cartoons of last year, it pees all over those movies that were nominated for the cartoon oscar. Even the monsters one. (more…)

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11 movies I saw about Dracula

Monday, June 12th, 2000

Well I bet the one or two of you who actually care about me are wondering, what the fuck happened to Vern. Where is his column. Why is he late. Did that Jet Li movie really make him so sad. What a puss.

The truth is I have been doing alot of soul searching, alot of introspective type work, alot of thinking, and all that type of garbage. You might say I am on a journey to find myself, or I am on an exploration of my past, or I am depressed, however in my opinion all of those things sound kind of fruity.

Whatever you want to call it, watching My Father Is a Hero really made me sad, especially when I found out this is the same picture the motherfuckers at Dimension or whoever have released as The Enforcer. The picture on the front shows Jet kicking a dude and although his son, Little Vern, is mentioned on the back, they really make it sound like he’s not in it that much. And I’ll tell you what folks that made a motherfucker even sadder to see my fellow americans pulling this kind of garbage on Jet and Little Vern.

Plus, what in fuck’s name does The Enforcer mean? It doesn’t make any damn sense. And I am afraid in this case I’m gonna have to assume whoever is responsible is retards and not dadaists.

It just hasn’t been a good couple a weeks for ol’ Vern. For one thing I finally decided to take my stand and dump the reel.com banners. These fuckers have been jerkin my dick around for more than half a year now. I e-mailed them probaly ten times tellin them that not a single cent had shown up on the reports for their affiliate program. Every time they explained that they were gettin to the bottom of it. As a positive individual I was willing to give them a second, third, fourth and tenth chance. Then I finally gave up, took off the banners, and the next day heard that the fuckers are going out of business. So not only will I not get my money, not only will I not be able to take away business from them, I also will not be able to buy my dvds at affordable prices. Shit. Teach me to be passive. (more…)

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