VAN HELSING is a pretty cool idea for a horror-adventure type movie. The slayer of Dracula continues his saga, a supernatural expert who goes on to encounter other classic monsters like Mr. Hyde, the Wolf Man (or some werewolves, anyway), Frankenstein’s monster, and probly Blacula if they had made a part two. To make it extra fun he’s not just a doctor like in the book, now he’s a badass in a Solomon Kane hat, with an eccentric friar as his Q/Lucius Fox, building him preposterous weapons that fire stakes like bullets or have spinning saw blades or whatever. And this Van Helsing likes to swing around on ropes. And he gets bit by a werewolf so before he turns he has super hopping powers, like all wolves do. Wolves are known for their hopping.
Okay, admittedly some parts of the idea are not that cool. Also it turns out his name is Gabriel Van Helsing, not Abraham Van Helsing, and he actually has nothing to do with the character from the book. He did however apparently kill Dracula, but that was before Dracula was a vampire (I think), and Van Helsing (no relation) doesn’t remember it. Also he might be the angel Gabriel.
WRITER/DIRECTOR STEPHEN SOMMERS: Hey guys, I’ve had alot of fun doing these AMAZING The Mummy movies, but you know what I’ve always dreamed of is to make a movie about the character Van Helsing from Dracula, only the thing is it’s not about that character at all though, it’s about a different guy than that! Wouldn’t that be AWESOME?
UNIVERSAL PICTURES: My friend, you have yourself a god damn GREEN LIGHT!
From the time I heard about the book Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter until the second before I saw the trailer for the movie version, I had no interest in the concept. Yeah, I get it – history and horror cliches moosh-up. Wocka wocka wocka. But one second later I saw that trailer and I realized that I hadn’t gotten it at all. As far as you could tell from the trailer, this movie was gonna be treated dead serious. A historical drama that for some reason is also a horror action movie. It looked amazing. (read the rest of this shit…)
I didn’t expect to write a review of this movie, but I think I liked it more than everybody else, so I figured I should stick up for it. I mean, I don’t necessarily plan to watch it again in my life, but it has an odd tone that I enjoyed and shows signs of life in ol’ Tim Burton. (read the rest of this shit…)
I’m kind of interested in this Kurt Wimmer guy. My favorite movie by him is before he made it big, the first of his three directorial works so far, ONE TOUGH BASTARD a.k.a. ONE MAN’S JUSTICE (1996) starring Brian Bosworth and MC Hammer. And I just discovered that his first writing credit was DOUBLE TROUBLE starring the Barbarian Brothers. But since then he’s had some success in much bigger, studio-backed b-movies: he wrote LAW ABIDING CITIZEN, SALT and the remake of TOTAL RECALL. He also wrote the remake of THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR, which I liked.
But as a writer/director his best known movie is EQUILIBRIUM (2002), that sort of asinine dystopian one where Christian Bale rebels against A World Where Love Is Against The Law because they try to make him kill a puppy. ULTRAVIOLET (2006) is Wimmer’s only directing job since then, and his biggest budget one. I heard it was kind of dumb fun, so I rented it. (read the rest of this shit…)
Have you guys noticed that Paul Bettany looks like Peter Weller? I noticed that while watching this. Bettany plays an unnamed priest. This is a new one based on some Japanese comic book, it’s not that Miramax movie about the child molester. I don’t know if that’s a big problem in the world this takes place in, ’cause these priests probly don’t work with kids that much. See, an animated prologue (a much better one than in JONAH HEX) explains that humans have always been at war with vampires, not the Dracula kind but naked CGI monsters with no eyes that jump around on all fours. So the church created an order of “priests,” vampire hunters recognizable by the cross tattoos on their faces. (read the rest of this shit…)
DYLAN DOG: DEAD OF NIGHT is a semi-clever and watchable but also not all that great or original supernatural detective type deal. It’s like CONSTANTINE but not as well directed and with more jokes.
Brandon Routh plays the title character (well, the “Dylan Dog” part of the title; the “Dead of Night” part is played by various undead creatures). I’m not really clear if “Dog” is his last name or if it’s just a cool nick name. Nobody ever calls him “Dylan Doggy Dogg,” but it might be short for that. Anyway he’s a private eye who is in on the secret information that there are vampires, zombies and other monsters living among us. (read the rest of this shit…)
Ah shit, I hate it when this happens. I’m about to write a review for a sequel, or in this case a remake, and before I get started I figure I should go back and read what I wrote about the first one so I don’t repeat myself too much or forget something important. But it turns out I never wrote a review of the Swedish kid-befriends-vampire movie LET THE RIGHT ONE IN. And now I’m gonna review the American version of the Swedish movie everybody loves without reviewing the first one, and everybody’s gonna think I’m an asshole.
So please imagine I wrote a brilliant, in some ways moving and definitely mind-expanding and film criticism re-inventing review about how it was a very original and well made movie, I liked how the kids talked like kids and it didn’t really feel like any movie I’d seen before, pretty good, etc. Way to go, Swedes. (read the rest of this shit…)
Holy shit, all the sudden it’s October. And you know what that means, this is when I pretty much switch to an all horror programming lineup. I’m gonna be watching horror movies all month, and most likely failing to find a great ’70s or ’80s slasher movie I never saw before. (Don’t worry non-horror junkies, I still got some residual September viewing I haven’t written up yet, and I’ll do some new releases I’m sure.)
We’ll get into the good shit soon enough, but I remembered I had a review I was gonna send to Ain’t It Cool and hadn’t yet, might as well kick off the celebration with a not-very-anticipated DTV vampire sequel. I know in some cultures that’s considered bad luck, but to hell with it. I ain’t afraid of no curse. (read the rest of this shit…)
Man, DAYBREAKERS was not what I expected. I heard some good things (all of it from commenters here) and I had high hopes for a dumb-but-fun B movie. But I’d also seen pictures of Willem Dafoe with a crossbow so I thought maybe it had a pretty cool concept of a world populated by civilized vampires, but that it would then go into a familiar vampire hunting drill that hopefully wouldn’t pale too bad in comparison to BLADE and VAMPIRES.
But it’s not that type of movie at all. The crossbow is strictly for self defense. I was even wrong about who the main character in the movie would be. (read the rest of this shit…)
Man, you guys were right about VAMPIRE’S KISS. You really can’t judge a DVD by its cover. I always imagined it was a typical dumb ’80s comedy, but it’s something totally different. The year was 1988, Nic Cage was in his early 20s and hungry – so hungry he ate a live roach on camera. And appparently it wasn’t in the script, it was his idea. Planned in advance though – he didn’t improvise it. That would’ve been even more impressive. But even separate of this roach-eating what this is is a grade-A example of mega-acting. (read the rest of this shit…)
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Recent commentary and jibber-jabber
Kaplan on Lost River: “@Majestyk Oh, they’d be losing money, but they’re not in it for profit*. It’s all about the thrill. The rush…” May 4, 16:26
CJ Holden on Lost River: “Weird. I totally forgot that this existed. And then I thought it was a Refn flick. I’m sure I recorded…” May 4, 08:24
Mr. Majestyk on Lost River: “That seems like a lot of overhead for not a lot of payoff. It’s like those liquor store hold-ups you…” May 4, 04:16
VERN on Wedlock: “Oh man, even better. I want to sit in that beautiful theater and watch those three movies in a row.” May 3, 22:12
Kaplan on Lost River: “Someone should do a movie about a film crew making a fake movie in order to steal copper. Ocean’s 10…” May 3, 17:14
Dtroyt on Lost River: “I haven’t seen this, but as my screen name indicates it is something I’m interested in checking out. Always fun…” May 3, 16:30
jojo on Lost River: “I walked out of this movie having absolutely no idea what happened at the climax even though the “this is…” May 3, 16:08
Forrest Taft on Wedlock: “Just a little FYI regarding the cinema marquee in the screenshot: there’s a third movie listed, in smaller letters at…” May 3, 12:07
ron on Boy Kills World: “im kind of boggled by the response this has gotten. even action twitter is shitting all over it, the major…” May 3, 10:38
CJ Holden on The Inkwell: “Then I can only guess that whatever they pitched to Keanu for a part 3 so far didn’t make him…” May 3, 08:18
Mr. Majestyk on Serial Mom (+ intro to my new summer series): “I’d say it’s my least favorite Waters overall, except for maybe MONDO TRASHO, which barely even counts as a movie.…” May 3, 07:58
VERN’S “I RECOMMEND THE SHIT OUT OF THIS PRODUCT” CORNER:
a.k.a. TIM BURTON’S WHITE BLACULA
I’m kind of interested in this Kurt Wimmer guy. My favorite movie by him is before he made it big, the first of his three directorial works so far, 
Have you guys noticed that Paul Bettany looks like Peter Weller? I noticed that while watching this. Bettany plays an unnamed priest. This is a new one based on some Japanese comic book, it’s not that Miramax movie about the child molester. I don’t know if that’s a big problem in the world this takes place in, ’cause these priests probly don’t work with kids that much. See, an animated prologue (a much better one than in 
DYLAN DOG: DEAD OF NIGHT is a semi-clever and watchable but also not all that great or original supernatural detective type deal. It’s like CONSTANTINE but not as well directed and with more jokes.
Ah shit, I hate it when this happens. I’m about to write a review for a sequel, or in this case a remake, and before I get started I figure I should go back and read what I wrote about the first one so I don’t repeat myself too much or forget something important. But it turns out I never wrote a review of the Swedish kid-befriends-vampire movie LET THE RIGHT ONE IN. And now I’m gonna review the American version of the Swedish movie everybody loves without reviewing the first one, and everybody’s gonna think I’m an asshole.
Holy shit, all the sudden it’s October. And you know what that means, this is when I pretty much switch to an all horror programming lineup. I’m gonna be watching horror movies all month, and most likely failing to find a great ’70s or ’80s slasher movie I never saw before. (Don’t worry non-horror junkies, I still got some residual September viewing I haven’t written up yet, and I’ll do some new releases I’m sure.)
Man, DAYBREAKERS was not what I expected. I heard some good things (all of it from commenters here) and I had high hopes for a dumb-but-fun B movie. But I’d also seen pictures of Willem Dafoe with a crossbow so I thought maybe it had a pretty cool concept of a world populated by civilized vampires, but that it would then go into a familiar vampire hunting drill that hopefully wouldn’t pale too bad in comparison to 
Man, you guys were right about VAMPIRE’S KISS. You really can’t judge a DVD by its cover. I always imagined it was a typical dumb ’80s comedy, but it’s something totally different. The year was 1988, Nic Cage was in his early 20s and hungry – so hungry he ate a live roach on camera. And appparently it wasn’t in the script, it was his idea. Planned in advance though – he didn’t improvise it. That would’ve been even more impressive. But even separate of this roach-eating what this is is a grade-A example of mega-acting. 
