DOGGONIT I LIKE TWILIGHT!

I like Twilight. I do not go gaga over the film but I have seen it more than once and enjoy it.  I have not read the books and to be honest I have never read a horror book other than Edgar Allen Poe and H.P. Lovecraft stuff. I remember trying to read some Stephen King back in the early 90’s when everyone I knew was reading his stuff. The book was The Stand. And I made it through about twenty pages and gave up. It just was not for me. I did not feel it was a bad book and I have never looked down on King or the people who eat up his work. I just was not into it. The same thing can be said for film. I have two horror blog, Necrotic Cinema and The Uranium Café. This site focuses on newer films made after 1990 or so and the Café tries to bring to the attention a needy world less known horror or cult type films that include drama and westerns as well. I like mainstream films and even romances at times. I prefer romances in the style of lets say Woody Allen’s tragic comedies to something like The Titanic. And to be honest I never cared much for The Titanic, at the least the part before the ship hit the iceberg. I t was not my cup of tea and yet I never became passionately adverse to it either.

The reason I bring this stuff up is because I have seldom seen a film  (or book series) generate as much loathing as the basically innocuous vampire romance Twilight. This is not really a review of the film but if I did review it here at this site where I give films a rating (I do not  rate films at The Uranium Café) I would give it four or maybe even four and a half skulls. Maybe I just lost what little credibility I had as a movie blogger with that statement but I simply like the film and am confused as to why it generates some vitriol. I cannot understand people do not like movies sometimes and even can hate them. But there are websites dedicated to doing nothing but bashing this film and I seem to be missing something. As a movie it is well made and well acted the script is tight and the editing was fine. The soundtrack even seems to be a focal point for venom and it is not a bad soundtrack really. Is it a great soundtrack? No, of course not. Is the film a great movie? I don’t know. Maybe it is. I do not like The titanic but I cannot deny that lots of people did and it won an Oscar. I liked Di Caprio’s grittier roles like Basketball Diaries and This Boy’s Life, but the role of Jack seems to be the one he will be remembered for. My negative opinion of the film does not change the fact that it popular and successful. Popularity and success does not equate to bad. Twilight’s very popularity and success seems to be part of the reason some people hate it so much. And another seems to be the fact that it largest fan-base is made up of high school girls. 

I am way past being a high school student but I connected with the film and story. II probably culd not do the same with letes say High Musical. I am college English  teacher in China and it is, of course, one of my most popular films to show on movie days (of which I have a lot of, more than I am supposed to actually, but they give me a computer with a big screen and video projector so what can I do? I can resist anything but temptation). Is it a terrible thing that the girls in my class sigh when Edward Cullen walks into the lunch room for the first time and Bella sees him and is smitten? Maybe it can be seen as super corny but it is a well done scene and effective. Is the whole movie a flop because it is romance first and then a vampire/werewolf tale? Aren’t most vampire films and stories tragic love stories essentially? The ones I have watched are anyway.  Twilight as a sort of optimism about it and I think that attract young viewers and even some old cones like myself as well. There are pretty of brooding and nihilistic vampire romances out there. I enjoyed Twilight more than, lets say, the vampire/werewolf story in Underworld. A film does not always need gun battles and larger than life scowling femme fatales to convey a story. I did not hate Underworld but I would have to say I liked Twilight more is all. My wife read the books (in Chinese and English) and she likes the film and story and I enjoyed watching the movie with her and look forward to seeing the sequel with her. I have heard that Twilight will actually finally play here in China and then later the New Moon sequel. I plan on seeing them at the cinema here if possible. In the afternoon when everyone is working or in school since a packed Chinese cinema audience is way too loud for me to enjoy a film. It is bad enough to send text messages during a film but to take a call and bellow into the phone in a way only people in China can do is too much for me.

Well, I guess when it comes down to it some people like cheese burgers and some do not and there is no logical explanation as to why. I guess my consternation is not that people dislike the film and give a bad review. No problem. I like lots of stuff that is simply trash and some sites have ripped those films apart and given potential viewers fair warning. But even Astro-Zombies and Horror of the Blood Monsters have not received the vitriolic aspersions that Twilight has. As Queen Gertrude said in Hamlet “The lady doth protest too much, methinks”. Extreme film bashing like this is a little adolescent in my opinion and if I really hated a film I would hardly waste time by joining a ‘club’ that spent all its time lambasting it. In my last post I gave three films no skull each and I am going to move on from them and let them rot away in obscurity. However, some people may like them and check them out and if you find something in them I missed more power to you. That some folks out there feel Twilight is somehow as horrible as those types of indie-horror films is boggles the mind but that is case. Type in ‘I hate Twilight’ into Google and see what pops up. Maybe I older and I live in China where the film is not in your face very day. I have heard that McDonalds has little Twilight merchandise. Maybe that is chessy and corny. They do not have any product merchandising at McDonald’s in China. They don’t do it at all really. And yea, a little toy Edward, Bella or Jacob seems pretty silly, but if anyone ever wants to send my wife and I a set I will try to cover the postage for you if I can. Its not a bad film in any sense of the word. And you can trust your uncle Uranium Willy on this. 

THREE INDIE-HORROR FILMS EACH GET A NO SKULL RATING: SATANIC PANIC-MIDNIGHT MOVIE-LATE FEE

I have been away from Necrotic Cinema for a while due to technical issues and am but for the time being and need to make up for lost time. I have quite a few films I have I seen that needs commenting on and in particular the hillbilly-mutant family trilogy Wrong Turn and Jennifer’s Body. But before getting into those films I want to comment quickly on three films I recently downloaded from some of my sites. I have read lots of negative stuff above the above mentioned films, all of which I enjoyed, and I have to wonder what people expect from horror films any more. I have friends (no really, I do) who are not horror movie enthusiasts and they tend to dismiss horror as a whole and I can respect that. For me horror and related fare is simply escapism. I want a roller coaster ride from my DVD player. But sometimes what comes from the horror genre is simply some of the worst crap ever put to film (or to tape as in the case of the three indie-bombs I am abut to say something about). Seems like horror attracts the aspiring fanboy-auteur in a way that no other genre would even allow. And that is one reason I like horror. I love a film field that allows the likes of Ed wood Jr. or Ted V. Mikels or Al Adamson to maybe make (or more likely lose) a few bucks on something they are passionate about. But what I am seeing more and more is lack of real passion or skill combined with ownership of a video recorder and connections with some straight to video/DVD operation that dupes me over and over into downloading this crud and filling up my hard-drive. Okay, I admit it, I did not pay for any of these films so why complain, right? Look malaria and dengue fever are free too if you think about it.

All of these indie-turds get my first ever ‘no-skull’ ratings. Maybe I am too harsh. I have read people commenting on these things and they seemed to enjoy them. I cannot speak for all the people out there who have slipped off their anti-psychotic medications for a night or two, but anyone with even vestigial remnants of taste will see that this stuff is almost worse (almost) than the stuff Troma puts out. Troma is worse because there is actually some sort of budget and marketing involved and the company will simply not go away. The stuff winds up on DVD shelves even here in China sometimes. I wish they would stick with restoring old classics and stop making real toxic waste like Poultrygeist. I will be brief in my comments since the anguish of revisiting these films must be like a war veteran revisiting a battle ground where all his buddies died.

The first film is called Satanic Panic and was made by indie-filmmaker Marc Selz and distributed by Celebrity Video. This is actually Selz’s third release and the story is supposed to be inspired by events that were being reported about in the late 80’s and early 90’s. The whole ‘satanic panic’ craze has essentially been debunked and the term ‘false memory panic’ would probably be more accurate. The movie has a long introductive narrative that typically is the foundation for a crappy movie that is trying to establish a modicum of credibility before it gets going. The film starts off in a documentary style but it is lousy and not soon enough shifts gears to the story of a brother and sister who suffered some satanic ritual abuse. We know they are brother and sister because they each wear one of those little necklaces that lock together. Suddenly the scene changes to an older woman waking up from a nightmare and we know she is the little girl from earlier because the camera does a lingering close-up of the little necklace. And guess what happens next? I don’t know. And I don’t ever want to know. I ejected the movie and got pissed that it took up 700 mg of space as a data file on my DVD disk and decided the real threat to people is not the dubious urban legend of satanic cults sacrificing new born babies from unwilling brood mares but the very existence of movies like this that people may spend $2 on one night in rental fees. The production is shoddy and, like the next two films, the cast is made up, most likely, of friends of the director and writer who will all sit around and kick a big kick out of watching together over some beer and pot one night. And you know, that is cool. But what about the rest of humanity? This movie stole about twelve minutes of my life and I want it back! 

The next film I almost finished and it was not the quality of the movie but problems with the burned file that kept me from finishing Midnight Movie. My computer sometimes runs low on memory and when Nero finishes burning films to disk sometimes they jump or freeze and I ave to reburn the files before deleting them. This was deleted without the need to reburn and finish the story.This is directed and written by Jack Messit and again seems to have a following of sorts. Even the Huffington Post calls it one of the ten best direct to DVD movies ever made. I think that is called The Tallest Midget in the Circus award. Gorezone magazine gives it 5 out of 5 stars. Well Uranium Willy of Necrotic Cinema and The Uranium Cafe gives it zero out of five skulls. Of these three films this one might be the best but that is still not saying too much. I thought maybe it was going to like the Lamberto Bava/Dario Argento film Demons where a demonic film possesses viewers at a showing and causes havoc in the theater. That’s is not a great film either but it is fun actually. This simply not fun to watch. It is a film in a film movie and a handful of viewers at a midnight movie are soon stalked and killed by the masked antagonist in the movie. The movie was made by a madman who has recently escaped from an insane asylum or something and, because of his obsession with the film, is suspected to show up at the showing of the movie, The first showing since it original release, or something like that. I am a fan of masked, supernatural killers. The killer here is sort of like Jason and uses some weird tool to pull hearts out of his victims. I feel I could be more easygoing on this one and maybe it deserves half a skull at least. I am wrestling with this as I type now but the fact I have to wrestle with the impulse only shows I am trying to be merciful and where does that get you most of the time in life? Usually hacked to death by a slasher-killer that had we simply chopped his head off while he was unconscious.  It is shot on tape like all of these movies are and if it was not it looks like it was. The acting is consistently bad and I can find one reason to recommend this bomb. Not one. And who the hell reads the Huffington Post of indie-horror movie reviews anyway?

The last film here, Late Fee, is a project by John Carchietta and CarlMorano and it is the only one of the three I actually finished (with the help of the fast forward button). Like Midnight Movie it is a film in a film movie, or actually two films in a film. A couple show up at the local video/DVD store as it is closing to rent a couple scary film for Halloween night and are let in by the owner who is wearing a Satan costume for the party being held inside the store. They get a couple films that the owner warns them are very rare and strange. He lets them take the films on the condition they return the DVDs by midnight or suffer the severe late fee penalties. They go back and watch the films and unfortunately so do we. The two vignettes are tastlessly lowbrow and not even worth talking much about at all. The second feature, I forget what was called and who the hell cares, features a mutant woman pulling a fetus out a woman and eating it. Wow. So shocking. Not shocking, stupid and ridiculous. Of course they do not return the DVDs by midnight and the owner and the party goers show up and kill the pair. How many businesses could survive if it killed off it paying customers?  Look that is a question too deep and profound for these rubbish heap of film. If you want to see them do so at your own risk. Maybe watch it with someone from Gorezone magazine or the Huffington Post. They seem to know more than I do. I have seen plenty of decent indie-horror films, but this stuff is simply amateurish and boring.

And there will be no sceen captures or trailers for these skulless wonders. I have already wasted valuable time that could have been spent reviwing Cat-Women of the Moon , a real classic, over at The Uranium Cafe. All thse movies get this: 

 

A DARIO ARGENTO FILM I LIKED: GIALLO

God knows I have tried to like Dario Argento. His name pops up everywhere in the horror world and yet I have to admit I have cared for very little he has ever done. His sycophantic supporters say that even if his newer work is weak we must acknowledge the genius of his ‘high period’ when he helped to usher in the great giallo films of the late 60’s and early 70’s as well as his unique brand of horror. And that may well be unarguable. Some of his films from the period, that I have seen, are Bird With the Crystal Plumage, Tenebre, Deep Red, Suspiria, and Phenomenon. While these are classics of some sort, I guess, I have to admit that  all of these films are some of the most confusing and haphazard movies I have ever sat down to watch. When the killer and her motives is finally revealed in Deep Red (some minor female character who had about two or three minutes of screen time earlier in the film) I was so disappointed. Not to say that that is a reason to pan a film and not see it but I seem to missing something that hordes of other people are getting and don’t know what it is. Why is Deep Red (Profundo Rosso) considered to be one of the great giallo films of the 70’s? It is a mediocre film at best. One defense I have read of Argento (and most Italian giallo and horror in general) is that one must not look for a linear story in the Hollywood fashion and instead you have to let yourself go along with the surreal quality of the film and receive its messages on an almost unconscious level.  One is to not watch and analyze the film as a whole but you have look for those special moments that cannot be found in any other genre. I am not sure about all that but as time has gone on I have to admit I have developed a liking for Italian horror and suspense films I did not have when I was younger. I liked Italian post war dramas and pepla and spaghetti westerns for some reason but was confused by Italian horror until I explored Mario Bava’s work. Then I read that Bava was an inspiration for Argento and the men even worked together on some projects at the end of Bava’s career. I decided there had to be something there my Cro-magnon mind could not fathom. Years later I finally concluded some of the stuff is okay after all though I can still be at a loss and typically cannot finish an Italian made horror or crime film in one setting.

Now what totally surprises me is how much I enjoyed Argento’s latest film Giallo. In fact when I bought the DVD I did not actually know it was an Argento film. Shows how out of touch I am I guess. I could tell by the title and cover art that it was going to be an homage film and I like both Adrien Brody and Emmanuelle Seigner so figured it had to be a decent enough film for an evening’s viewing. In fact I watched it after watching the really disappointing remake of The Taking of Pelham 123. I picked up the box and noticed for the first time it was a Dario Argento film and my heart sank. I had recently rewatched Suspiria (which I mostly enjoy) and had not seen anything recent by Argento since the TV movie Do You Like Hitchcock. In that case I expected an homage type film with lots of clever references to Hitchcock’s work but I was so disappointed that I went back into another long period of Argento loathing. I do not understand why I liked Giallo but I simply did. I have read scathing reviews of the film online and how the old master has lost his touch. I guess for me I never thought he had much of touch to begin with so I did not expect much. After seeing it I decided to find some other recent Aregento works, like Mother of Tears, I have dismissed in advance in a childish, judgmental fashion not appropriate to a purveyor of trash cinema. It is time I rethink this bias and deal with it and lay it to rest.

Giallo tells the story of a ugly, tormented and more than slightly demented man who suffers from jaundice, ergo the nickname ‘Yellow’ or giallo. The charcter of yellow is played by Byron Deidra. It is also the story of the eccentric and focused cop, Enzo Avolfi (Brody), who is obsessively on the bloody trail of Yellow. Avolfi does things his own way and is left alone by the department for the most part as he has a history of results. The name Byron Deidra happens to be a clever little anagram for Adrien Brody and both Avolfi and Yellow are played by Brody. Some sites have totally panned Brody’s performance but I feel it is pretty good. The lines he is given by writers Jim Agnew, Sean Keller and Argento are the most inspiring and he delivers them in a dead pan fashion that recalls troubles film noir detectives more than the classic giallo style detective who often lacked any dimension at all. Also coming into the mix is the American Linda (Emmanuelle Seigner aka Mrs. Roman Polanski) who is in Milan with her fashion model sister Celine (Brody’s real life fiancée Elsa Pataky) who suddenly vanished the night before. Seems Celine took the wrong taxi, driven by Yellow, and is now held captive in a creepy basement with what is left of Yellows last victim Keiko (Valentina Izumi). There the bitter Yellow engages in his hobby of torturing and disfiguring beautiful women before brutally killing them in various fashions, like pounding a hammer through their foreheads. Celine is a little more resistant than his last victims and eventually causes him a bit of trouble.

Linda seeks the help of the police and is sent to Avolfi’s isolated office in the police head quarter’s basement area. Of course Avolfi is rude and wants to be left alone but soon he drags her into the case and even starts showing her graphic crime scene photos and asking her for her opinions of them. Maybe not the choicest thing to do a woman whose kid sister is being held by the same killer that sort of thing happens a lot in mystery films. Of course a connection forms between Linda and Avolfi and at one point she invites him to spend the night at her place but in true lone wolf fashion he passes on the offer and sulks off into the night to brood over the case more. The violence in the film is pretty graphic,  as it is in most all of Argento’s work,  and there is a strange scene of Yellow choking his jaundiced chicken while looking at pictures on his laptop of his past victims. He is sucking on a baby pacifier at the same time and you can’t help but wonder what the hell Argento is really like as a gray haired man in his twilight years. There are of course inferences to past giallo flicks and while this film has it flaws I can’t help but hope it inspires a trend in this type of movie making for a while. The film score by Marco Werba is suitable and is an improvement in the type of scores that usually accompany Argento’s films, though I do like Goblin.

I am not saying that this is a great film and many of the criticisms are applicable. But if you go into with the idea that there will be some cheesy moments, perhaps intentionally cheesy for all I know, and that the leads are hamming it up here and there then I don’t think you will be all that disappointed. My wife watched it along with new The Taking of Pelham 123 and said she preferred Giallo of the two movies. I was happily surprised. I will probably give it another watch or two in the future and I feel Argento did well enough here. Definitely an improvement on things like The Phantom of the Opera and Do You Like Hitchcock.

GIALLO TRAILER

MUTANT HICKS IN: ALBINO FARM

A definite prerequisite before sitting through the low budget hick-horror film Albino Farm is a liking for inbred, mutant hillbilly killer movies. I personally like these kinds of films. There is nothing new in Albino Farm and the viewer should also have a tolerance for all things derivative as well. In reading some reviews of Albino Farm I just have to wonder how original horror movie fans want a film to be before they can at least say it was a watchable movie. I too can get a little fed up with the ‘car trouble in the boondocks’ formula but it is simply a workable method of putting unwitting victims (usually snobby city dwellers) into some sort of dangerous situation in an unfamiliar and threatening environment. It may be the castle of a vampire or a hotel managed by psychos or a bunch of hillbillies who have nothing better to do than chop up college kids but the victims need to be put in harms way as soon as possible and then need to start dying off in gruesome fashion quickly with some attempt at character development along the way so you can feel a little bad (or happy) when they get a pick-axe through the eye socket. It is what the film makers do with the formula, not the formula itself, that can become a problem for the viewer. Albino Farm explores no new ground and the familiar territory it does venture into leaves nothing for old horror movie fans like myself to get too excited about but I can give the movie a moderate recommendation. It is in no way as bad as many of the reviews make it out to be. It could have gotten three skulls instead of two and a half had it not been for the fact that most of the action occurs outside the Albino Farm, much of it in a poorly lit cavern with that crappy, shaky camera work I hate. When is that ‘arty trend’ going to end? If the last part of the film had happened in the actual Albino Farm and been the violence been much gorier this would have been a pretty fair horror film.

I do not go into a movie like this expecting miracles but I do at least expect the film to try and live up to its title. Other than a roadside revival albino preacher there are no albinos in the film. The title really evoked some image in my mind that the film never got close to. And if you’re interested the film is based on an actual urban legend of sorts. The real Albino Farm was a turn of the century house and grounds called Springlawn Farms near Springfield Missouri and was an institution for deformed and mentally retarded people. I don’t know if those are the politically correct terms but if you’re reading blogs like this and watching movies like Albino Farm in the first place why get hung up on little social improprieties like that? The residents of Springlawn Farms were fairly isolated and cut off form the communities around them and as one might expect some local tall tales and legends sprang up regarding the people there and what might have been going on beyond the walls. Seems there was possibly a cantankerous albino gardener or caretaker on the premises or maybe even a family of albinos that resided there, perhaps against their wills. The only real source of all these legends seems to be local folklore and school children's campfire stories.

In the film we have four college students traveling the back roads of rural America for some sort of school project on urban legends. The characters are all standard horror movie clichés. The good girl. The bad girl. The jerk. The nerd. Eventually they run into car trouble in the form of a blown tire and wind up at a desolate service station where the jerk Brian (Nick Richey) insults the hillbilly attendant to such a degree that we cannot wait until he gets the comeuppance we know smart ass city slickers like himself will get eventually. They get some information on the local legend called the Albino Farm but not directions. They are warned to stay away but why would they listen to any sound advice like that. They are soon in the small town of Shiloh insulting the locals to no end. They seem to have no luck getting anybody to want to talk about the Albino Farm but eventually Brian and bad girl Stacey (Tammin Sursok) figure out a nifty way to get some local redneck freaks, led by Levi (wrestler Chris Jericho), to give them a lift to the Albino Farm: Brian has Stacey flash her ample hooters at the inbred goof balls in exchange for a ride. Brilliant!  While all of this is going on nerdy nice-guy and ethnic Indian Sanjay (Sunkrish Bala) and good girl Melody (Alicia Lagano) visit a local church and find out how amiss things in this little town really are when they get a look at a mutant baby. They freak out and discover Brian and Stacey are gone get help from a mute boy in getting directions to the Albino Farm. There Brian and Stacey have been left stranded by the surprisingly rude local thugs. Don’t these hicks know how to treat asinine city kids who have been insulting you to your face from the word go? Which brings us to an important point; the deal with most all of these backwoods killer films, including as a good example the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise, is that in the end you just do not like the spoiled, arrogant city kids that much anyway (except for the virgin heroine) and when they start dying off one by one there is a feeling of relief. I mean, haven’t you ever felt yourself silently rooting for Leatherface? Well, I know I have.

The story finally shifts to the kids at the Albino where they begin to fall prey to the deformed inhabitants who prowl the grounds there, the victims of perhaps genetic experimentation or simply generations of inbreeding. Who knows. It is never explained. In what is considered to be the high point of the film Brian is held captive in some sort of shed and becomes the amorous target of them grotesque ‘Pig-Bitch’ (played by the super sexy looking in real life Bianca Barnett). Luckily for us he spurns her advances and is done in the way any city-boy should be who rejects any Dixie gal with the nickname Pig-Bitch. The others are hunted down by the Farm residents but the action does not occur inside the institution itself, which could have been a boost, but rather quickly shifts to a cave. This was the biggest let down for me in what might have been a great horror film story. We never see any albinos to speak of and we never even see the farm itself in order to get some sense about what has happened to these creatures. Maybe there will be a sequel and if there is I will check it out. The ending is left open as good girl melody staggers shaken and disoriented into the roadside revival tent and perhaps mutant salvation. We do not know for sure.

The direction by Joe Anderson and Sean McEwen is fairly tight overall but the script could have used a little more work. I would guess budget constraints dictated how the film finally looked and a cave with shaky camera work probably cost less than indoor shots of a decrepit old laboratory with a mounted camera and cameraman who was trained in how to do his job. Okay. I am a bit harsh there but overall I thought this could have been a great psycho-hick film if a little more effort had gone into it but I still say it is worth at least one viewing for fans of hillbilly horror. 

2008's DEAD GIRL: YOU'LL NEVER HAVE ANYTHING BETTER

Hope I am back to doing some regular posting here at Necrotic Cinema. Have figured out a method to keep the post updated using proxies and hopefully it will continue to work until Blogger is unblocked again here in China. I have a lot of material to draw on and lets hope and pray that my little method continues to work, as things can change. I had no problem with deciding which of many horror films to write about with this return to Necrotic Cinema. I was simply taken back by the R-rated, independent horror film DeadGirl. I am so tired of PG-13 horror and lost my passion for locating Sam Rami’s new return to horror movie Drag Me to Hell when I read it was PG-13. Of course I will see the film, I simply wanted something that would knock my socks off and usually PG-13 just cannot do that. Deadgirl did. Now I am not saying that this is some super great film. It is fine indie horror film with a cast of essentially unknown faces. I read some reviews that over analyze the film and call it a “sub-standard horror film”. Look the film is basically a horror film about necrophilia and you can criticize how effectively the filmmakers explored their characters motivations and reactions to what they do but in the end it is a film about raping, if not a corpse, a zombie of some sorts. There is gore, action and loads of teenage angst. So if you want to set back and over analyze the film’s intentions and symbolism you may find it wanting. If, on the other hand, you just want to see a couple of screwed up geek boy misfits, and even a couple jocks, have sex with a putrid zombie and get wants coming to them in the end then I can highly recommend this film from directors Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel and writer Trent Haaga. From I read the movie was not even shot or edited on film but rather employed the same digital technique David Fincher used on Zodiac. I had my doubts about the new digital movie making processes when I read about them a couple years ago but the movie looks like it was shot on real film.

The film on one level is a black comedy coming of age film. If coming of age is to be interpreted as having sex for the first time and leaving the innocence of childhood behind then Deadgirl could be seen a sick spoof of the Porkys, American Pie and Fast Times at Ridgemont High type films that seemed to send the message that all American teenage boys are so horny and pent up that they do anything for sex and especially to lose their virginity and become ‘real men’ finally. The two lead characters Rickie and J.T. (Shiloh Ferdandez and Noah Segan) play the brooding high school outsiders who have given hope of having a really great girlfriend since those types of girls (like good girl JoAnn played by Candice Accola) only date the popular jock types. J.T. admonishes Rickie’s lingering stares at JoAnn, a girl he has loved since she kissed him when he was five years old. Look, say what you want, the guy may harbor dreams of true love with a good girl but he is a little creepy and disillusioned as he gazes longlingly at JoAnn. J.T. is a little more grounded in reality when he reminds Rickie he has a snowball’s chance in Hell if having anything to do with JoAnn. To relieve the tension of their anguished teenage lives the lads decided to go chug some brewskies at an abandoned insane asylum and break a bunch of things. The boys go down into the basement area and are chased by a guard dog that lives in the basement (this would imply some human tends to the dog food needs and most likely occasionally patrols the area as well but this never seems to the case). The chase leads them to a locked door that they see as a possible way out but instead it leads to a dark room that contains what appears to be a dead girl wrapped in plastic. They inspect the strapped down girl (Jenny Spain) closer and find that she is not dead at all. Legitimate criticism could be made here regarding the boy’s decisions and Rickie’s blind loyalty to an asshole like J.T. who even punched Rickie in the face real good in order to prove whose opinion is right. We never find out who the girl is or why she is strapped or why she was left here when all other important supplies were removed when the asylum was closed down. Suspension of disbelief is required and we must accept a few loop holes in order for the story to move along and get to the necrophilia and mayhem we know is coming.

Rickie returns the next day with a gun toting J.T. who has discovered that the girl is not only not alive but cannot be killed off in her current state. To prove this he pumps a few slugs into her in front of a shocked Rickie. J.T. also used the girl as a punching bag. The next logical step after finding out you have a bound up zombie chick who cannot be killed and who is probably smelling ripe is what? Report it to the cops or a responsible adult? No, you have sex with her. J.T. is soon doing the dead girl and Rickie refuses to participate, earning J.T.’s scorn. After all, what would JoAnn thnk if she knew he was banging a corpse in the basemen of the deserted asylum. Soon another geeky stoner named Wheeler (Eric Podnar) is humping the pathetic dead girl (at $10 a pop going to J.T.). Rickie’s plans to free the girl with bolt cutters is put on hold and he simply is overwhelmed by all that is going on. In a later attempt he manages to cut one iron bracelet with the bolt cutters, with the girl showing kindness by caressing his finger slightly, but is interrupted by J.T. and hides. Later J.T. gets his face clawed by an angry dead girl who obviously has no kind feelings towards her captor and tormentor.

Ricthie is seen gawking secretly over JoAnn in the library by her jocko boyfriend Johnny (Andrew DiPalma) and his sidekick Dwyer (Nolan Gerard Funk) and they meet him and Wheeler and in parking lot and beat the hell out of them both. Dumb ass Wheeler can’t keep his mouth shut and tells the jocks they don’t a girl like JoAnn because they have the pussy (his words not mine) they could ever want. I guess this intrigues the jocks and soon they in the basement looking on the dead girl in amazed disgust as a pimpish looking J.T. eggs them on with challenges and dares. Soon Rickie is pushing the jocks on, betting they have never even had a blowjob before. Well after Dwyer decides to have some of the necro-action Johnny is getting his first ever hummer and his first ever ‘gnawjob’ as the dead girl takes a bite out his manhood. Rickie had a change of heart as he realized the impending danger, but it was a little too late I fear.

The next day in class Johnny ain’t looking or feeling to good and go to the john were he has the worst bowel movement of his short life and spills his guts (literally) in the can. J.T. is actually getting sort of disgusted with the oozing dead girl and devises some plan to create a new zombie lover. He and Wheeler foil their first attempt at kidnapping a female when she beats both their asses. As luck would have it though JoAnn shows up wanting an explanation for what happened to Johnny and soon she is tied up to a pole with the dead girl. A final confrontation in the basement leaves Wheeler with a hand or entrails and J.T. with a bitten face wanting to die rather than become like his victim. The dead girl shows Rickie mercy and escapes but JoAnn is infected from a wound received by the dead girl. There is a is a happy ending to all this when at the end a cheery looking Rickie returns to the basement to tend to a strapped up, and ‘dead’, JoAnn. We can only assume his intentions are honorable. There never seems to be any police investigation into the disappearance of all these high school kids but we can figure that happens later off camera. I am actually glad they did not write in any cop characters even though it would have added some reality to the story. The sex and violence is fairly graphic and is at times gratuitous and exploitive. That’s does not bother me but it might some people. And despite some flaws in the storyline (flaws any horror movie is going to have really) I found it to be a good horror film and hope the open ending here spawns a well done sequel though the film would be perfect if left alone as is.

JEEPERS CREEPERS II REVISTED

I will start this review off by saying I really liked writer/director Victor Salva’s Jeepers Creepers II as much, if not more, than the first film despite the flaws and storyline holes. One can always say that there is nothing new under the sun and certainly regarding the horror film genre everything has been done before and if by chance something original crops up it soon will be duplicated to death. Whenever I watch a horror film I am well aware that what I am about to see will no doubt be derived from tested formulas that have come before. In this regard that is why I enjoyed this sequel more than the first film, because of the clichés it wisely relied upon. The most apparent cliché would be having more teenagers to hunt down than the first film did ergo more dead bodies. The first film did great for the first part of the movie, with siblings Trisha and Darry being pursued through the back roads of Alabama by the satanic, supernatural serial killer dubbed the Creeper. The film though really starts to lag towards the end and the sequence in the police station was simply absurd filler. Jeepers Creepers II does not fall into this trap since we have a bus load of teenagers with personality issues to keep the Creeper busy.

Another well used, to a degree, horror film formula here is using the bus to create a sense of claustrophobia. Some of the best horror movies are the ones that exploit a closed in, trapped situation where the potential victims not have to contend with the evil outside but with other and themselves as well. Alien, The Thing, Dawn of Dead and any number of cheesy haunted mansions have employed this theme to effective or dreadful effect too many times to calculate with the unaided human mind. If you are not a fan of derivative horror (as though there were any other kind as I have tried to argue already) then this film will not do much for you. I am and I have enjoyed each time I have watched it. The film, as well as the first Jeepers Creepers, gets hit hard in reviews online even from some sites I usually align myself. I am not sure what all the hostility is about. Maybe the name of Francis Ford Copplola and his Zeotrope Studios makes everyone have extremely high expectations. Maybe director Victor Salva’s criminal record, that includes prison time, for sex crimes against a minor taint his work. These things can affect the way one sees a film and can cause them to read much more into the movie than may really be there. Some people just can’t watch a Woody Allen any more but I am still a devoted fan. I just would not have either Salva or Allen babysit for me is all.

Jeepers Creepers II takes up on the very next day where the last film left off. It is now day 23, the last day of the Creeper’s feeding cycle he performs every 23 years. Hardworking farmer Jack Taggart (Ray Wise) and his son Jack, Jr. are terrified and devastated when little Billy is swept away by one of the scarecrows. A strange knife like weapon is found in the area of the corn field where Billy vanished. Jack sits and bids his time by the police scanner. Far away on Kassel County’s Highway 9 a yellow school bus loaded with a group of victorious and pumped up basketball (maybe football, not sure) players are returning from a game. There is tension amongst the players that stem from both team rivalry and racism. The cheerleaders, coaches and crew are along for the trip as well. The bus gets a flat tire and the source is a strange, flesh decorated throwing star. A girl is soon having psychic dreams that connects her with the dead Darry (Justin Long) from the first film. She is jolted awake when the bus receives yet another flat tire from another demonic looking throwing star. The film accelerates for a time and all the adults are picked off quickly, leaving the competitive and hot headed teens to sort out the serious situation without recourse to grown up wisdom. They soon find themselves trapped inside the bus as the Creeper peers in through the window, sniffing for the types of fears that tell him whose body parts will serve as meals later. Of course we know by know that the Creeper eats selected body parts to replace his own and is probably immortal.

Jack Taggart finally arrives on the scene, after some carnage has eliminated a few kids, with a homemade harpoon mounted on the back of his truck and is soon impaling the Creeper who fights back much the way a marlin might struggle with a fisherman’s hook. In fact he is like Captain Ahab seeking Moby Dick in his maniacal obsession to destroy the Creeper and avenge Billy’s death. Despite negative reviews I feel the action at this point is decent and the Creeper is brought down in bits by the last part of the film. Of course the thing cannot really die and at the film’s conclusion he appears to go into some sort of dormant state and the ending, with Jack Taggart standing vigil over the now desiccated carcass of the Creeper, is a perfect set up for a Jeepers Creepers III, which I understand will be released way off in 2011. Jeepers Creepers III is supposed to focus on a fully grown and established Patricia (Darry’s sister in part 0ne) twenty three years later and her concerns that her son will become a target for the Creeper’s insatiable appetite. Like the first film there is certainly a need to suspend disbelief. And while we know what the Creepers behaviors and powers are we still have no idea who he is and where he comes from. Maybe this is not necessary really and if a story was contrived to explain all this it would have to be really good. Jonathan Breck reprises his role as the Creeper and over all the Creeper is still one of the scarier serial characters I have run across in a while. Definitely one for horror fans or even action fans who do not take these types of films too seriously. I regret that part three will not appear until eight years after two but I will certainly check it out when it is finally out.

BRUCE CAMPBELL SHINES AS ELVIS IN BUBBA HO-TEP

Director Don Coscarelli does not have many films under belt and only about half a dozen distance Bubba Ho-Tep from his 1979 horror classic Phastasm. Made in 2002 on a super small budget of only about half a million dollars and meager distribution (only 32 prints were released around the country) the film has nonetheless gone on to gain a level of cult devotion to rival Coscarelli’s Phantasm perhaps. The hard to label film succeeds on a couple levels really, not the least being that it overcame its small budget. In fact the budget was so small that while the central character in the film is an aging and decrepit Elvis Presley (played craftily by Bruce Campbell in one of his best roles ever) not one Elvis song was used in the film since licensing rights to use even one song, or film clip, would have consumed the bulk of the films money. The film also succeeds because it successfully gets outside the horror genre and is able to explore other issues such as aging in a culture that treasures youth and the abandonment of the elderly. It also explores, via Elvis’ introspective narrations, the real meaning of success and the value of family and the regrets of a man in waning years who now knows it is too late to say and do all the things he really wanted to do.


But fear not that this is some lugubrious, tear jerker or feel good movie because there is horror in the form of a soul sucking cowboy mummy (who prefers the rectum as the source of soul removal) and comedy from the team of Campbell as The King and Ossie Davis who believes he is John F. Kennedy. Also appearing in a small role is Reggie Bannister from Phantasm and Bob Ivy as the mummy. The story takes place in a quiet little nursing home in East Texas where the once King of Rock and Roll himself lies bed ridden with a crippled hip and revolting sore on his “pecker”. We are mercifully spared the actual site of said mysterious growth. Elvis spends his days in bed reflecting over his glory years and what might have been had he led his life differently and watching his friends pass away. His is known by the patronizing nursing home staff as Sabastian Haff, an Elvis impersonator. Becoming jaded and burned out with success and false friends the true Elvis switches places with the real impersonator Haff and the King spends his days pretending to be Sabastian Haff the Elvis Impersonator. Haff has an appetite for junk food and drugs to rival the King’s and is he who actually dies in 1977 and the real Elvis is left stranded after the contract he drew up with Haff is burned in a trailer parl BBQ accident and he then falls off a stage while “taking care of business” and breaks his hip.

His life seems to be seeping from him in much the manner as the infection from his manhood when he suddenly finds himself in the middle of a mystery and adventure with fellow patient Jack (Davis) who is convinced he is actually JFK and has had his skin dyed black by the CIA who also replaced parts of his missing brain matter with a back of sand. While he is outspoken on his disdain for LBJ, who feels is part of the conspiracy, all info on his affair with Marilyn Monroe is “top secret”. They soon discover the nursing home is the feeding grounds for a lesser mummy (like the brother of Tutankhanmun) lost while on a tour of the States and who is dubbed Bubba Ho-Tep by Elvis. The Mummy feeds on the weak but plentiful souls of the dying residents. The deaths would never arouse suspicion and Jack and Elvis are simply two crazy old men no one would ever believe and soon are forced to take matters into their own hands.

The mummy never dominates the film and the deaths are not gory or exploitive. The focus seems to stay on Elvis’ new found purpose for living and becoming the type of hero he played in his films in real life. The heroics are rather shallow in the big scheme of things and no one will ever even know that Jack and Elvis saved the nursing home from an evil soul sucking mummy. They both die off in the end but find some sense of redemption during their last moments. As Elvis passes in the next world, lying in the mud of a river bank in East Texas somewhere, he sees the assuring words All is Well appear in Egyptian hieroglyphics in the stars. Elvis feels his life on stage and in films was a sham and travesty and yet here in the middle of no where he gets to die a real hero with another man’s name.

The twangy guitar laden soundtrack by Brian Tyler suits the film perfectly as Elvis monologues in his life weary and yet funny as hell reflections. And to reiterate what most people have said Campbell is great as Elvis. His performance is comical but not insulting or demeaning. At times he is genuinely touching as Elvis wonders about how he could have been a better husband and father. The films never gets maudlin or morose and yet it never inane either. Campbell simply never insults the memory of Elvis at any time, even when the King is examining his bump and finding the will power to use the bathroom instead of his bedpan. It is a rare type of a film really and it too bad Coscarelli did not delve into this type of thing more, or maybe just do more period. The story is based on a short story by Joe R. Lansdale and for a while there were rumors of a follow up film but for now all that seems to be no go. And really there is no need. This film is fine just as it is and if a sequel or prequel were ever released I may just pass on it as it might spoil this curious and fun little film.

BETTER OFF TO FORGET THE FORGOTTEN ONES

Lately I have not been in a good mood when it comes to the net and blogging and I fear that that sour disposition is going to make my review of this really horrible movie all the more bitter. I have been dealing with hackers, bandwidth issues and host server crashes over at the Uranium Café and if all that is not enough Blogger is blocked in China and all my work here must be done on a gruelingly slow hit and miss process through a proxy. I have gotten way behind on my updates here because I hate dealing with the proxy issues but since my hosted site is in limbo all the time I decided I need to do something to keep the flame burning. For now there will be less graphics and almost no embedded media here at Necrotic Cinema. Publishing those things is really slow and unpredictable through proxies but I will do my best.

I think I have learned something way too late in life. What valuable lesson is that Uranium Willy?There are essentially two kinds of movies. Those movies that are great or pretty good movies and crappy movies that compare themselves to great or pretty good movies on the DVD covers in order to hook someone in to forking over some cold cash renting or buying the damned things. For example you have great war films like Apocalypse Now or Platoon. So when you pick up a film you have never heard of with a bunch of no name actors and on the DVD cover it says “In the tradition of Platoon and Apocalypse Now…” you can bet the film will steal scenes and ideas from those films but will in no way be in the same league. Of course when this desperate marketing ruse happens within the horror genre the result can be about the worst thing imaginable, and such is the case with 2009’s The Forgotten Ones, also known as The Tribe, which is made in the horror traditions of The Descent and Predator. Or so it states on the DVD cover. My despondent mood makes it a struggle to even want to give any sort of reasonable synopsis of this mess and yet I feel I have an obligation to do so. A mission of sorts, to warn my fellow horror movie enthusiasts to either avoid this one or go into it with the proper frame of mind: that you are gong to see a bad movie and make the most of it and have a little fun. My expectations were way too high going in, making the plummet all the more devastating later.

I will be brief here in my sketch of the film. A group of mismatched people head out on a luxury yacht for some relaxation. None of them seem to like one another and this seems to be the case with most modern horror films (or films in general) and I have to wonder what compelled half a dozen people with nothing in common with each other except mutual disdain to decide to travel across the Caribbean together and think they will enjoy life is beyond my limited reasoning ability. A storm hits and the boat snags a rock and sinks but they all survive and are washed up on the beach of a mysterious island in the French Antilles. On the first night one of the group, Peter (Justin Baldoni), is dragged off of the beach during the night by something. There is blood all over the place but later we find he received basically a bad but hardly massive blood squirting wound to his leg. His disappearance is a formula vehicle to create tension and conflict in the group, but none of it works. The acting and script is so bad that all the arguing about whether or not to search for him is annoying at best. Of course they search for him and while in the jungle become prey for the monsters of the title, which are indeed hybrids of the blind cave dwellers of The Descent and the tree top stalking super hunter from Predator. The difference is these monsters are simply nothing special at all. They are low budget obvious men in suit monsters that never excited me at all.

A deserted anthropologist camp is found and we are treated to corny flashbacks that are a useless attempt to explain the creatures. The long deserted camp hardly looks overgrown by jungle foliage. It rather seems to have to have been abandoned a year in the past at the most. The capture scenes are lame and we are to believe these things can design elaborate traps that snare the human’s by the foot and pull them high up into the trees. Lets just skip everything and get to the end. The closing action involves lead actress Jewel Staite (as Liz) in a cave with the blind beasts stalking her. The monsters seem more blind at times than others and seem to have no hieghtened sense of sound or hearing as they sniff her from inches away. Her final escape is one of the most drawn out and painful endings I have ever seen, where she just sits on the beach reflecting on who knows what for way too long. Look, I could go on more but I think you may get the idea. I could describe some of the other characters in more detail but I do not see why I should do that. This movie does not deserve my time and energy in the state of mind I am in. Before going I will give two reasons I came to literally loathe this film by the time it was all over.

One was the “making of” special feature with director Jorge Ihle and cast and crew talking about the film. They really took this thing seriously and at one point some one makes a comment about there being some stuff in the movie that has never been seen before on film. That is a paraphrase. But my reaction is amazement at the lunacy of the remark. This film is nothing but unoriginal ideas and production. They go on raving in the special feature about the monster make up and show the performers perfecting their monster gestures and grimaces. Jeesh. These things are not that great. Okay, better than The Creature from Boggy Creek, I’ll say that, but nothing special at all. And last I will give you a special reason I hate this film, and it may sound strange but I think this affected me more than the bad acting and bad dialog and bad lighting and camera angles. Some times in a film a certain scene comes along, nay, intrudes rudely and vulgarly upon my psyche, from which there is no return for me. After such a scene the film is lost and the closer to the beginning of the film such a scene happens the worse the experience for me since I either stop watching the film (as is often the case) or I continue on, as I did in this one.

What scene could I be talking about? What could so adversely affect a jaded horror movie watcher who has seen tons of cheap exploitation and graphic gore films without flinching? Well not long after the group has been on the beach Liz leaves her asshole boyfriend Peter to be alone and relieve herself. To tinkle. She goes off to a quiet stop and begins to pee and this in itself is no big deal though the scene is really pointless. However the real problem is that as she is peeing we are treated to the cheap sound of her farting. Yes. Farting. Farting as she pees! Was this added later as a joke? What does this add to anything? How does this help develop the character of the only semi-decent person in the film? Do we even need to witness her pissing in the first place since nothing else in the scene happens much less listen to her make a weird fart noise as she does it. It is a stupid and cheap shot and that is about the level this movie maintains from beginning to end. A total waste of time.