SUMMERFEST '22: Chucky, Next Gen (June 27-July 1)

Of course, there is more to the Chucky franchise than those first seven films I covered last week. We got an attempt at a remake a few years ago, which criminally excluded creator Don Mancini (and it shows). And then the series settled in where it feels like it really belongs — episodic television.

Child’s Play (2019)

Trailers: Friday the 13th (2009), Silent Night Deadly Night 5: The Toymaker

Oh, honey no. I can get behind the idea of tech commentary horror, as the original Child’s Play was itself a commentary on toy marketing. But this didn’t need to be a Child’s Play movie, and the attempts to create a new generation of Chucky (while still trying to make him too much like the *old* Chucky — the overalls, really?!) are super awkward. There’s also a ton of weird stuff that might have made sense in the writer’s room but make no sense in execution. Like, either he’s a defective doll who doesn’t have safety programming (why would a doll even be made with violent capabilities that need to be disabled in the manufacturing stage?!) … or he has his own personality (the remake eschews the voodoo possession concept and goes with the doll programmer equivalent of spitting in someone’s drink). Also, one little plot point was so unbelievably stupid (the “present” for Doreen) that I couldn’t stop thinking about it for the rest of the movie. But it’s gorier than most of the original Child’s Play movies, if that’s your jam and it’s enough for you, especially if you’ve never seen any of the other movies. Just don’t get me started on that imprinting song.

Chucky, Season 1 (2021, SyFy)

Trailers: All Child’s Play/Chucky movies, including reboot

This feels like the perfect stew made from all of the best parts of the whole franchise, almost as if everything had been leading to this point all along. Having multiple possessed dolls solves the problem of having to continually bring Chucky back in increasingly ridiculous ways. Despite loving little Andy as the protagonist in the first two movies, I like that the main characters here are a little older, with more complex lives and conflicts, which is way more fitting for TV. I don’t think I’ve ever turned around on a character so dramatically as I did with mean girl Lexy — there’s something about crossing that Rubicon and knowing the truth about Chucky that changes a person. It also gives me another verse of my FAVORITE SONG: "Enemies Working Together for a Common Cause." There’s a surprising depth of continuity with the films (there’s even a mention of Glen/Glenda, though not where they end up at the conclusion of Seed of Chucky). I do find it weird that, among our main trio, there ends up being literally one parent (and she’s the worst one -- yes, even including Jake's abusive dad). And I could do with never seeing Lexy’s Chucky-obsessed little sister ever again (a kewpie-doll version of Dudley Dursley, who screams whenever she doesn't get something she wants). But despite some characters I wanted to bludgeon with a hammer (not to mention Chucky's Jen Psaki hairstyle), this series starts great, and just gets better and better (I'd explain why, but I've already given too much away). I can’t wait to see more of this.

Final Girl Film Club - Hell Night

It's been a while since there's been a Final Girl Film Club pick, and I *almost* let this one slip by, but thank goodness I didn't because I enjoyed the heck out of this slice of horror from the Golden Year of 1981.



You know it's going to be good when the very first thing you see and hear is a delicious blood-curdling SCREEEEEAAAAM! Okay, that's kind of a fake-out, because we're actually at a wild and crazy frat party. Wet t-shirt contest! Five-gallon hats! Feathered hair! For sure, like, it's the 80s, man!

Once we get inside the frat house, we meet some of our major players. I give you...



Peter Purple-Cape! I'm not going to bother with most people's names, because my nicknames for them are way more awesome and easier to remember. Peter Purple-Cape is the president of the fraternity and the smarmiest guy you've ever seen. Here we see him putting the moves on some sorority chick who is quite free with her displays of boobage. PPC invites her to come upstairs and ... exchange phone numbers. That is not a euphemism, I'm sad to report. Peter is going to drag Boob Flash Girl all the way upstairs just so he can get her digits for future foolings around. For the president of a fraternity, Peter seems awfully misinformed about how these things work!

Next we have...



Final Girl Marti, who you may recognize as being played by The Exorcist's Linda Blair. I'll use Marti's actual name because she's the final girl and, well, she's Linda Blair. Peter Purple-Cape spots Marti across a crowded room and seems smitten. Maybe he will take her to a secluded place and ... find out her last name! *SCANDAL* A random girl in leopard skin (who we'll later discover is actually named May West - *rimshot*) explains that Peter "lives all year for Hell Night. This is when he really puts it to the pledges." (*insert "boing" sound*)

We also meet our other major players, who I'll call Robin Hood (right), Rich Dude In A Western (left),



and Flapper Girl.



PPC is asked by his frat brother, Pirate Boy, if it isn't about time to start the real festivities, Peter replies that it's still early, noting that Sickowski (yes, that's his name) hasn't barfed on the trophy case yet and none of the windows are broken. Cue the immediate breaking of the front window and the subsequent run-and-barf of the aptly named Sickowski. "Well, I guess it's time to get the show on the road!" Peter says with a laugh. Beedle-dee-bink-dee-bink - *cymbal crash* Oh, you crazy college kids!

So everyone at the party piles into cars for the pilgrimage to Garth House and once everyone arrives Peter walks them up to the house, explaining that the pledges have to spend the night in the old house, and he proceeds to tell everyone the Most Offensive Story of All Time. This is actually quite a well done walk-and-talk scene, containing the only few minutes in the first act that are actually creepy, but I'm afraid I was too busy boggling that people actually used to say words like "mongoloid" and "gork" to feel that scared. Oh, and that a woman could be described as a "hopeless simpleton" who was "only good for ... child-bearing." GAH. I also got stuck on the pregnancy that lasted "ten and a half months." I know there are records of longer pregnancies, but this was said as if it was no big deal.

Here's the short, less offensive version. Raymond Garth was the last in a long line of Garths who lived in Garth House, and twelve years ago (from 1981, making it 1969) he murdered his wife and three of his four children and hung himself, leaving his youngest ... let's say challenged son to witness it all. Police arrived on the scene and found only three corpses - the fourth body and the surviving son, Andrew, were never found. Andrew supposedly still lives in the house to this day - ooooooooh!

Peter Purple-Cape and the rest of the fraternity/sorority party-ers walk back to the gate and lock the four pledges in. It seems bizarre to me that there are only four pledges and that two of them are girls. I suppose they are pledges to a sister sorority, but we never hear it mentioned or named, only the fraternity. So here's our Death List:

- Rich Dude In A Western, who it turns out is an actual rich dude (so I'll call him Rich Dude for short);

- Marti, who is good with cars (she worked at her dad's auto shop in high school) and is regretting this whole Greek thing;

- Flapper Girl, who for some reason is British (she says "Hey, let's pah-tee!") and has brought Quaaludes and Jack Daniels for the pah-tee-ing, plus a cleavage radio; and

- Robin Hood, who is a surfer (you can tell because he keeps saying the word "radical") and wears the most adorkable Cupid boxers. No, seriously.



There is the predictable pairing off, and Rich Dude and Marti banter about the class divide (classic college conversation), wherein Rich Dude takes a guess that Marti is majoring in Political Science "with an emphasis in terrorism." Huh. Some things never change, I guess. Cut to Robin Hood and Flapper Chick in another part of the house, and they have a rather cute scene where he tells her what it's like to surf. I mean, besides the fact that you get to say "radical" a lot.

Soon Peter Purple-Cape arrives back at the house with Pirate Boy and May West. As they separate to take their stations for whatever shenanigans they've got planned, Pirate Boy makes my favorite line delivery of the movie, laughing like a goofball as he says "Now the fun begins!" Suddenly, a SCREAM is heard in the house. Marti and Rich Dude think it's the other couple and vice versa. The scream is followed by other noises that could not be more obviously coming from a sound effects machine. Rich Dude finds the speaker and cuts the power. I must say, at this point, there's not a lot of scary here. Just pranks and a little Marx Brothers homage, courtesy of Peter Purple-Cape and Pirate Boy: "We should have kept her behind and left the rest of her." It's so corny, I have to love it.

And just when you're getting a little bored and May goes to the side of the house for her part of the scare - WHOA! THERE'S the scary! YES! Andrew (who HAS been living in the house this whole time) pulls May down a hole and chops her head off with a butcher knife. GOOD SHOW, MOVIE! NOW we're getting somewhere!



The gang inside, knowing nothing of May's untimely demise and thinking it's all still a bunch of pranks, hears more noises. Robin Hood and Rich Dude go to investigate, leaving Marti alone to be confronted by this guy.



Looks spooky enough, but due to later discoveries I'm thinking he's probably another trick. Everyone inside decides that the whole thing is just Purple-Cape and some other folks playing around and try to get some sleep. On the icky, dusty, musty beds in the house. I don't know about y'all, but I would not want to be sleeping on old, uncleaned beds that someone might have died in. If I were REALLY tired, I could maybe kip on top of the covers, but under the covers - no way. There are a couple more prank scares (including a snakes-in-a-can gag which TOTALLY got me!), but from here on out it's genuine horror show. (!!!)

Peter Purple-Cape finds Pirate Boy's dead body and bravely runs away. Screw those pledges in the house (and May, since he doesn't know she's dead) - IT'S ALL ABOUT ME, DAMMIT! He plays a little cat-and-mouse with Andrew until he meets the business end of a scythe. SEE YA! Now all the pranksters are dead. Joke's on them, hahahahaha!

Marti and Rich Dude share weird stories about seeing magical creatures - she's seen a witch, he's seen an elf (lol, whut) - before they have schmoopy almost-sex. Speaking of sex, Flapper Girl and Robin Hood are having some (more) upstairs, which weirdly plays out for us mostly in shadowplay. Well, I think we all know what this means - all four of these kids are DEAD MEAT, amirite? Sex = Death. It's Rule #1 of horror movies. Sure enough, while Robin Hood goes to the "john" - and has the MOST HILARIOUS EXCHANGE EVER with his reflection in the mirror ("Score another one for the good guys."), Flapper Girl is greeted by ... I think it's supposed to be Raymond Garth, because it's not the same guy who killed the pranksters. When Robin Hood finishes shooting finger-guns at himself and gets back, he finds May's head in the bed, Flapper Girl nowhere to be seen, and screams like a girly-man and runs for it.

At this point, I've got to give it to the endangered kids in this movie. Where other movies have all these ridiculously noble characters who stick around and look for their missing friends, making it easier for the killers to get to them, too, these guys (or a few of them, at least) are all about the self-preservation. Which is perhaps not that admirable, but is pretty darn believable. Robin Hood climbs the sharp, spiky front gate (in a moment of genuine tension, in my opinion) while Rich Dude and Marti do the stupid, noble thing and go back to the house to look for Flapper Girl.

I'm going to take a moment here and love on the synth score in this movie. There, that was great. Moving on.

Rich Dude finds Peter Purple-Cape's body and makes what may be the WORST decision in the history of horror movies. He grabs Peter's flashlight off the ground and LEAVES the keys to the gate, which are still in Peter's cold dead fingers. I mean, DID HE THINK HE HAD TO CHOOSE????? I guess maybe in his horror at seeing a corpse, he just didn't notice them, but JEEZ!

Robin Hood goes to the police, who have heard QUITE enough stories about "murders" up at Garth House tonight, thankyouverymuch, and rudely tell him to leave. But on his way out he spots some ammo just lying around where anyone can get to it and snags himself a rifle before escaping out the window. LOL those Garths don't stand a chance!

While Rich Dude and Marti wait for Robin Hood to return, this happens.


LOOK BEHIND YOU!

Luckily Marti heard me yelling and turns around in time, shrieking like a Mikita drill and prompting Rich Dude to pitchfork the be-rugged figure. He orders Marti to pull the rug back off the whatever-it-is, but it's gone, having escaped down a trap door. Oh, it is ON. Rich Dude has HAD IT with these muthaf***in' killers in this muthf***in' mansion. He goes down the trap door, closely followed by Marti, and they come upon a series of tunnels. They follow one that seems to lead to a lighted area and find THIS.


I couldn't get a good cap of it that also was a good shot of Flapper Girl, but that's a dinner table, with a bunch of dead bodies around it, including Flapper Girl, with rats crawling all over them. GRODY!

Meanwhile Robin Hood, who has gone rogue liek woah, commandeers a car and drives back to the house, throwing all that lovely self-preservation instinct to the wind. He manages to take out one of the killers (Andrew, I presume) before being killed himself by Raymond (who I'm guessing is a zombie, because I thought it was established he killed himself - ah, well).

And since only one can survive in these kinds of stories, Marti is soon the lone pledge left at the party when Raymond throws Rich Dude out a window. Marti finds Peter's body, and - WHAT A CONCEPT - takes the keys, though she has way more trouble with this than there should be in wresting something from a dead person. She hotwires the car (remember, she's a gearhead - hello, characterization!) and gets away, but SURPRISE, Raymond is on top of the car and reaches through the windshield for her. She turns around to give him a good old impaling on the knocked-down fence and provide the Greatest Shot in the Entire Movie.


(Sorry it's a bit blurred, but I tried it about a dozen times and that's the clearest version I could get.)

I really, really dug this movie. The fact that everyone is in a cheesy costume is a fun touch, and I enjoyed the twist of "LOL it's all a joke - WHOA, NO IT'S NOT." If there was anything that disappointed me a little it was Linda Blair - until the last few minutes, at least. She just seemed so helpless and passive until she absolutely had no choice and no one to make decisions for her. I understand she was nominated for a Razzie for this movie in 1981 (losing out, or perhaps it should be "winning out," to Bo Derek in Tarzan, the Ape Man AND Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest - NO! WIRE! HANGERS!). As I said, she wins me over in the end, but for most of the movie I was not a fan.

Fun Factoid: This movie was directed by Tom DeSimone, the filmmaker who also gave us Chatterbox, which is maybe (hopefully?) the only movie to feature a talking and singing vagina. I ... have no more thoughts on that.

THIS movie, however, was pretty great. Thanks for another winner, Final Girl!

Quick thoughts on some recent releases

I've been so busy knocking horror classics off my to-watch list, I've been remiss (well, not completely, but more remiss than I'd like) with newer releases, particularly in writing about them. But here are some brief thoughts on some movies that are in theaters now.



The Ides of March - I love George Clooney as a director, but for me this movie falls short of Good Night and Good Luck and even Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. The second half works more than the first, where everyone seems to be working too hard to be their characters, especially Evan Rachel Wood, who's trying way too hard to be the sexy intern. Ryan Gosling is quite good, and so is Clooney himself, but only once they're both allowed to get to the dark side of their characters. The most impressive work, though, comes from Phillip Seymour Hoffman, as the head of the campaign. His final scene with Gosling is amazing, but it's not quite enough to overcome the first half. Again, for me. Your mileage may vary.


Take Shelter - I've been a fan of Michael Shannon's since his breakthrough performance in Revolutionary Road, so it's wonderful to see him take the lead here. His character is having visions and experiences that lead him to believe that an apocalyptic storm is coming. He's a modern day Noah, doing things that convince everyone else that he's crazy, but firmly believing that his actions are absolutely necessary. Jessica Chastain (in roughly her sixteenth movie role this year - I exaggerate, but she's been in a LOT this year) turns in another great performance as Shannon's long-suffering wife. Like Martha Marcy May Marlene below, I think I like the performances and the idea better than the film itself, but it's still pretty remarkable.


Footloose (2011) - Believe it or not, I had NEVER seen the original before a few weeks ago. I absolutely loved it, of course, and was really glad to see that John Lithgow's preacher character wasn't a caricature of religious fanatics. I really loved the relationship between him and Ariel, and that you could see that he was not in favor of all the morality measures. I was really struck by how much I loved the music (especially as I already knew all the songs). And I don't care if it's an unpopular opinion, I had a way bigger crush on Chris Penn in this movie than I did on Kevin Bacon. The remake is, in my opinion, REALLY good. One of the key changes that actually improves on the original is that they begin the film with the car wreck that we only hear about as backstory in the original. We see the pain it causes the community, and even though you know it's an overreaction, you can understand (especially in our 9/11 culture) why they put all the ridiculous laws in place. The tragedy hangs over the rest of the movie and gives it a bit more poignancy. I loved that they used so many of the original songs, albeit mostly new versions of them. The slowed down "Holding Out For A Hero" was a favorite of mine, and much more suited to the moment in which it was used than Bonnie Tyler's version was in the original. The one thing I thought was not quite as good as in the original movie was the relationship between Ariel and her father. It's still pretty good, but not as layered and not as warm. There were SO MANY nods to the original, though. The whole film begins with the original Kenny Loggins "Footloose," Ren drives the yellow bug, and he and Ariel even wear almost the exact same outfits to the dance that Kevin Bacon and Lori Singer wore in the original - the red jacket and the white ruffled dress!


The Woman - Even without the Sundance controversy (there's YouTube video of a guy sort of snapping at the screening there), I was interested in this because of its director, Lucky McKee. McKee's wonderful May played at my first BNAT and Sick Girl (his Masters of Horror entry) played BNAT 7. He's an interesting filmmaker and his films all seem to heavily revolve around women. This is kind of a revolting film, but not in a bad way. The plot centers around a man who finds a feral woman in the woods and brings her home, chains her up in the barn, and attempts to "domesticate" her. He recruits his family to help him, and the domestication inevitably involves him (as well as his son) taking sexual advantage of her. The climax is completely over the top and operatic, but fairly consistent with McKee's style. It's kind of a fable and not meant to be taken literally.


Martha Marcy May Marlene - I'd heard raves about this movie, but I'd say it's a good film (not a great one) with great performances, notably that of Elizabeth Olsen (younger sister to Mary Kate and Ashley), who plays the titular Martha (and Marcy May and, for one scene, Marlene). The film goes back and forth between Martha's refuge in her sister's home and her life in the commune from which she escaped. You're never quite sure why she joined the commune in the first place, nor at which precise point she decides that it's no longer somewhere she needs to be. That's probably by design, but it keeps the viewer at more of a distance than I like. Oscar nominee John Hawkes (I love typing that) is amazing as the commune/cult leader, and he's such a talented actor that he never comes off as creepy as characters like that often are, and you can totally see why Martha would have fallen under his spell. Sarah Paulson is the other great performance here, as Martha's sister, whose guilt and paranoia over her sister's circumstances slowly unravel her over the course of the movie.

It's the most spook-tastic time of the year!

As is my habit in October, I've been gorging myself on horror movies - more than usual, I mean. I'm making a concerted effort to fill in gaps in my genre knowledge, which means I've exposed myself to some real gems.


The Stuff - Oh, how I wish I could describe to you how amazing this little 80s nugget from Larry Cohen is, because a plot summary won't do it. "The Stuff" is an edible substance that becomes a huge craze all over the world, replacing ice cream as the dessert of choice. But the movie's tagline says it all - are you eating it or is it eating you? LOVED this movie. Michael Moriarty is genius. Larry Cohen even more so.


The Howling - I'm not sure why I'd never seen this before. This may be the best werewolf movie ever, and I'm pretty sure I like it more than American Werewolf in London (which I also love, but not as much as The Howling). Most notorious scene is obviously the moonlight wolfsex scene, but the transformations are really spectacular. There's an actor named Dennis Dugan in this, and I couldn't keep myself from remembering him from a trailer for another film - one of those "ain't those gays hilarious" comedies from the 1970s called Norman, Is That You? (starring Red Foxx). Dugan is also the man who's directed most of those horrible Adam Sandler comedies, including the forthcoming Jack and Jill. He's fine in The Howling, but I'm afraid his career prejudiced me against his character. :P Oh, and Dick Miller is in this, which makes this movie 100% cooler than anything not including Dick Miller.


Something Wicked This Way Comes - If you're looking for something not terribly scary and not too gross, this is an EXCELLENT Halloween flick for the family. Reminds me a lot of Stephen King stories, which is inevitable, I guess, as the novel was supposedly a huge influence on King's work. Jason Robards is great in this as the guilt-ridden father. Jonathan Pryce is wonderful, too, as the sinister and aptly named Mr. Dark.



Creepshow - Speaking of Stephen King, this was one I'd never seen in its entirety. It's an anthology film (or portmanteau, if you will), and features five stories, all written by King, with a bookend story featuring TOM ATKINS OMG. The fourth story, "The Crate," is probably my favorite, mostly because it has the awesome Adrienne Barbeau in it ("I know all the best stores."). The one with Leslie Nielson and Ted Danson is great, too. The one starring King himself is a bit weak, and "Father's Day" seems far too short (though it does have the most fantastic, incongruous dancing-around-the-house scene EVER). The standout, though, is the last segment, "They're Creeping Up On You," with E.G. Marshall as the germophobe whose pristine apartment is completely overrun by cockroaches.


[REC] - This is another one of those "found footage" films, a la Cloverfield, and it was remade almost shot for shot a couple years after its release as a movie called Quarantine (directed by the Dowdle brothers, who also made the BNAT9 dud The Poughkeepsie Tapes). This was quite good, and I loved that the sickness was thought to be what people in older times believed was demon possession. (Not that I don't believe demon possession is a real thing, but it was an interesting detail.)


The Fly (1986) - Oh, WHY couldn't Cronenberg have done Breaking Dawn?! I know it's only a dream, but the horrible baby!Brundlefly birth is AMAZING. Jeff Goldblum is so great in this, but the star of the show is the special effects. This movie is a perfect example of why I will wave my flag for actual makeup effects and practical stuff over CGI any day. Also, this movie is SO GROSS EWWWW.


Candyman - Yes, I totally believed in the legend when I was growing up, and NO, I will not ever stare into a mirror and say it five times. Nope. This is a darn good horror movie, with a great "is this real or is the character crazy" dilemma. The ending is your typical horror movie gotcha, but after what happens with the character in question ... it's kind of satisfying, to be honest.

The '81 Slasher Triple Feature - All three of these were released in 1981, kind of the Golden Year for the subgenre. It's interesting to look at these and see how much they have in common, down to specific scenes and shots, in some cases.



The Burning - Classic campsite slasher with some notable "before they were stars" performances - Holly Hunter, Jason Alexander, Fisher Stevens (and Fisher Stevens' ass in the World's Most Unappealing Moon Shot). Half of this movie is Meatballs, but when the horror kicks in, it REALLY does. The most famous (and infamous) scene in the film is the Raft Scene of Death, where the killer abandons the traditional one-by-one stalk-and-slay and lays waste to half a dozen kids AT THE SAME TIME. Also unconventional in that, instead of a final girl, it's a final boy - a boy who is not even a terribly sympathetic character.

The Prowler - This is touted by horror fans as a fairly legendary early installment in the slasher genre. I didn't really see what was so special about it, other than OMG A GAZEBO DEATH in the first ten minutes. This has a lot in common with the original My Bloody Valentine, which also came out in 1981, notably its use of the party/event where something bad happened, leading to the town never having the party/event again (at least for several years), leading to the inevitable reestablishment of the party/event, which also inevitably leads to the something bad returning. The killer even wears a mask that looks a lot like Harry Warden's gas mask from MBV.

Friday the 13th Part 2 - The last F13 movie with any kind of respectability. Ginny (played by the incredible Amy Steel) is one of the great final girls in ... finalgirldom. Right up there with Chainsaw's Sally and Halloween's Laurie, as far as I'm concerned. The way she thinks through and outsmarts Jason - down to putting on the dead Mrs. Voorhees's smelly sweater and pretending to be her - is above and beyond the typical final girl badassery. Oh, and the opening murder of whatsername (the final girl from the first movie) is pretty dang awesome - Jason frikkin' TRACKED HER DOWN!

The "Peter Jackson Is Twisted!" Double Feature



Dead Alive - Possibly the most disgusting movie I've ever seen, but also really funny. You'd never guess, just going from the LOTR movies, that this kind of thing was lurking inside that sweet Kiwi man. There's a sequence where the hero is fighting an evil baby in the park that is one of the most hysterical things I've seen in a movie. The climax, though - where the hero experiences an all-too-literal Freudian rebirth - is seriously disturbing.

Bad Taste - This is one of Jackson's first films, and while Dead Alive (or Braindead, as it was originally called) put Jackson on the map, this film gave him a career. It is low budget genius, and Jackson actually plays a couple of roles in it. It's kind of awesome that this and Braindead were the kind of films he was known for when he got the Lord of the Rings gig.


The "Mannequins are EVIL" Double Feature



Tourist Trap - Classic stranded-in-the-middle-of-nowhere plot, but with CREEPY MANNEQUINS and TELEKINESIS! Normally, my big screen is the best way to see any film, but I should NOT have seen *this* film that way. First ten minutes kind of broke me. If you find mannequins creepy AT ALL, this movie will freak you out. Chuck Connors is awesome in this, though, and oh, that last shot is hilariously disturbing.

Maniac! - I had been so scared of seeing this, but coming right on the heels of Tourist Trap it was a breeze. This is a pretty great flick, though - one that gets slapped with the misogyny label pretty often (and wrongly, in my opinion). The gore is wonderful, Joe Spinell is fantastic, and it's a glimpse at that creepy, grimy, early 80s New York that a lot of grindhouse movies exploited so well. It also, like Creepshow, has a wonderfully incongruous musical moment, when the main character (Frank) goes to a photo shoot and we hear the wonderful "Showdown," which has the following classic lyrics:

Put on something nice
Just in case you die.
You'll leave a pretty corpse behind--
Yippee ... ki yo ... ki yaaaaay!

Asylum (NOTHING is more awesome than this image!)
I *LOVED* this movie! This 1972 anthology movie stars Peter "Van Helsing" Cushing, Herbert "Inspector Dreyfus" Lom, Frank "Clockwork Orange" Magee, Robert "Jesus of Nazareth" Powell, Charlotte Rampling, and Swedish siren Britt Ekland. There are a handful of stories, all told by patients in an insane asylum, and Robert Powell has to guess which one of them is the former head of the hospital - as a test to see if he gets the job as the former head's replacement. "Frozen Fear" is brilliant, especially when the chopped pieces of a dead body reanimate and get with the murdering. But the greatest of the stories is "Mannikins of Horror," in which Herbert Lom's character has built a little robot version of himself (with real human guts (!!!), which you see when the robot gets crushed). There is nothing more magical than the sight of that little robot sneaking around (very slowly) and hiding in shadows to escape detection.


The Sentinel - This is another great "crazy-ass 70s" movie, in which a model rents an unbelievably affordable apartment in New York, only to find out that the building is a portal to hell and that she's been chosen to be the new gatekeeper. There's lots of hilarious things in it, such as Burgess Meredith throwing a birthday party for his cat (which he forces to wear a little party hat). It was fairly controversial when it came out, too, as the director chose to cast deformed people as the demons for the climax (I recognized one of them as an actress from Mutations, which played BNAT 6). This is also another all-star cast - the aforementioned Meredith, Chris Sarandon, Ava Gardner, Beverly D'Angelo, Jeff Goldblum, Christopher Walken, a mustachioed Jerry Orbach, Sylvia Miles, and Eli Wallach, among others.


Trick or Treat - Not to be confused with 2007's Trick 'R Treat. This is ... not a great movie, horror or otherwise. It's a slice of 1980s cheese, starring (STARRING!) the kid who played "Skippy" on Family Ties. There are some cool cameos from Gene Simmons and Ozzy Osbourne and some rockin' (if still pretty bad) 80s hair metal music, but it's not great and its relationship to Halloween (as you'd think would be substantial, given the title) is tenuous. The thing that I will remember it for, though, is where I saw it. There's a little theater in Williamsburg (Brooklyn) called The Nitehawk, and until the Alamo Drafthouse decides to open a theater here, this is the closest thing we've got to it. They've got the "dinner and a movie" gimmick, and you can tell that they've got a similar love for movies that the Drafthouse does, but they're just now kind of building their programming cred, which is what makes the Drafthouse stand out. This month was, I think, their first attempt to actually do non-first-run movies, and they're off to a good start, but there's a long way to go. My favorite part of the screening was the series of grindhouse trailers that made up the pre-show - there must have been about twenty, and almost all of them were spectacular and very reminiscent of my fondest memories at the Alamo. The trailers didn't belong to the theater, though, and it makes me sad that that won't be a regular feature of screenings. I understand they do have clips and things playing before all the movies, but ... I'm so spoiled on the Drafthouse that I fear it will pale in comparison.

Tucker and Dale vs Evil

Man, I'm behind on movie reviews! I saw Tucker and Dale vs Evil nearly a week ago, and I've GOT to get something down about it before this weekend's crop of releases! Oh, fall movie season, you wear me out!

This movie is going to be available on DVD and for download soon, I think before the month is out, and if you can stand gore and like something a little different in your horror now and again (plus ALAN TUDYK OMG), I cannot say enough good things about it. I will, however, say a few good things here for posterity.



Tucker and Dale vs Evil is not a conventional horror film by any means. It's a spoof, but it's not even a conventional spoof. What it's specifically spoofing is the "hillbilly horror" subgenre, occasionally (depending on the film) known as "Hicksploitation." But if you think this movie is another case of dumb kids go out into the sticks and have bad things happen to them at the hands of scary inbred rednecks ... well, you'd only be partially right. Because what this is, and what makes it so dang clever, is a truly brilliant twist on that whole setup.

A bunch of college kids (I can't even remember how many now, six or seven?) go to the woods for some camping. At the same time, country bumpkin BFFs Tucker and Dale are on their way to their new vacation home, which looks like the setting for chainsaw murder and mayhem (complete with ominous news clippings about missing persons and found bodies), but which Tucker and Dale see as paradise. On their way there, they stop for gasoline and supplies and see our young "heroes." Dale is immediately taken with Allison, but his inept attempts to flirt with her (and his bucolic appearance, of course) convince the group that he and Tucker are crazy murdering hicks. This prejudice is helped along by the "leader" of the group, Chad (who reminded me forcibly of a young Tom Cruise, only with 100% more douchebaggery), who is especially prejudiced against rural folks since his biological parents were the victims of killer hillbillies (I think his story is the event that's in all the clippings at Tucker and Dale's cabin).

It couldn't be more clear, meanwhile, that Tucker and Dale are as sweet as can be. They get to their cabin and they're all excited about how they're going to fix it up. That evening, they go fishing, and they happen to be near where the kids are going skinny dipping. Allison sees them and, startled, falls into the water, hitting her head on the way down. Dale jumps in and saves her, pulling her into his and Tucker's boat, but what the kids see is their friend, in her underwear, being dragged off by the scary hillbillies.

Dale takes care of Allison at the cabin while Tucker does some man-chores outside the house, and though Allison is scared at first when she wakes up, she immediately realizes that she's safe and starts to bond with Dale (having been raised on a farm herself and hence an appreciator of rural life). She also reveals that she's majoring in psychology, specializing in communication, because she believes that most problems are caused by people not listening to each other and jumping to conclusions - an idea that sadly bears fruit in the fate of her friends.

Oh yes, her friends. Because while she's chilling with Dale in the cabin, the rest of the group have become convinced that they are characters in a hillbilly horror movie. Misunderstanding after misunderstanding ensues, and the kids end up accidentally killing themselves all around Tucker and Dale's cabin. The men are seriously befuddled by the chain of events and can only conclude that these kids are part of some suicide cult. They try to explain and make things right, but the more they try, the more accidental carnage piles up due to the kids persistently misinterpreting Tucker and Dale's motives.

What kills me about the whole story is that I've seen countless horror movies with dumb kids in them - kids who take unnecessary risks, kids who have positively life-threatening curiosity about strange noises and the like, and kids who recklessly poke a situation they don't understand until you're almost gleeful to see it bite them in the ass. I read a comment from a critic who said something I very much agree with - that a movie about people so annoying and horrible that you can't wait to see them chopped up is not horror. I'd say it's more like gladiator-style bloodlust. This movie seems to agree, and it doesn't feel the least bit bad for throwing dumb, prejudiced teens into woodchippers and practically shrugging its shoulders and saying "Hey, hate destroys, man."

The teen actors in this (or actors pretending to be college-age, to be more accurate) are about what you'd expect, though Katrina Bowden who plays Allie turns out to be better than most "pretty-face" heroines. But Alan Tudyk (Tucker) and especially Tyler Labine (Dale) own this movie, as well they should. I heard someone on my way out of the theater explaining to a friend that Labine was "like Larry the Cable Guy, only a good actor." That sums it up rather nicely. (No offense to Larry - he's a comedian, though, not an actor. I'm sure he'd agree.)

I won't spoil any more of it, but this is an absolute gem of horror comedy and closes on a comic rather than a horrific note. It is ridiculously gory, so if that's absolutely not your thing, you might want to stay away. For my part, I love it to pieces and can't wait to own it. Thankfully, I won't have to wait too much longer.

Red State

I'd been hearing about Kevin Smith's Red State for a few years, I guess ever since word got out that he was trying to get it made. I enjoy Smith's films, for the most part, and the idea of his doing something different than the talky relationshippy stuff he's best known for was intriguing to me. Then of course Sundance happened and everyone was up in arms over the circus and presentation of Smith's fake bidding war over selling the film that ended in him buying it himself for $20 and announcing he was "four-walling" it (i.e., taking it on the road for one-night engagements instead of releasing it in a bunch of theaters at once). I thought very seriously about going to the NYC date back in March, but ultimately decided I could wait until it got its wider release in October. I'm very glad I kept an eye out for the release, because as it turns out the regular theater release was a one-night-only event in a hand full of theaters, to be followed by a Q&A with Smith beamed to all the theaters from the New Beverly in LA. And even though I'd been anxious to see this film for several months, I *almost* didn't go and even paused to rethink once I got to the theater and found out that tickets were a good deal more than usual. After all, it's going to be on VOD and DVD in just a few weeks. But I'm really glad I decided to see it with an audience.

Because it's quite good.


Red State

This movie employs a rather brilliant take on the classic three-act structure. Each act could be its own unique movie. We start with a tried-and-true teen horror movie set-up. Three teenage boys (led by Kyle Gallner, who many of you might know as Cassidy or "Beaver" from Veronica Mars) find this prostitution website, where women (and probably men, too) post naked pictures of themselves (with the face obscured) and name their price for some you-know-what. The boys can't really take a trip to New York or Los Angeles, where most of these girls are from, but there's one woman from a small town nearby. One of the boys has been emailing with her and she's agreed to "do" them all at once. The kids have some thoughts about the fact that she's 38, but they decide to go for it. They get to the woman's home (a trailer) and drink some warm-up beers, but they've clearly been drugged and before they can get their clothes off, they're unconscious.

The ringleader wakes up in a cage to find that he's part of an "object lesson" in a church service and now we're in a "captured by lunatics" horror movie (such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre). Behind the pulpit is Reverend Abin Cooper (played by the amazing Michael Parks, whose praises I have sung before), and we're treated to a roughly fifteen-minute real-time sermon about how godless the world is and how all the sinners are going to hell, especially the gays, who are the agents of the devil himself here on earth, says Cooper. It should be noted that we've heard this man's name and seen his face before this scene. He and his family are seen protesting outside the funeral of a murdered gay man (a la Westboro and the Phelps family), and he's the topic of a brief conversation in our doomed trio's history class. Apparently, Cooper and his family are so bonkers that even a neo-Nazi group has distanced themselves from them. We also hear later on that he and his "Five Points" church are worse than the Westboro lot, who are admittedly annoying but at least don't carry guns like the Cooper clan. The Five Points congregation consists entirely of family - around twenty-five people in all, including some small children - and that for this reason it has been impossible for the FBI to do any undercover infiltration.

I wondered how the people around me felt about sitting through the sermon. Fifteen minutes is about right (maybe a bit shorter) time frame for most of the sermons I've heard in my lifetime, having gone to church regularly for most of that time. Smith, having been raised Catholic, is probably drawing from similar experience. I'd say a congregation like this is used to much longer sermons, but you can only spend so much time with this kind of thing in a movie, especially when the content is so abhorrent. It was frankly chilling for me to watch the congregation in a scene - again, content MOST CERTAINLY aside - that I have experienced many, many times in my life. All the nodding and "amen"s and things that I have always felt were (or at least could be) meaningful expressions of real worship ... to see them distorted like this and used as an earnest response to what is such a blatant perversion of God's word was, to me, the most frightening part of the film. And then, of course, a woman takes the kiddoes out to have their lessons because, as Cooper says, "it's about to get grown-up in here." I just love it when people use that word and "adult" to describe things that really, really aren't.

The first "grown-up" object lesson involves a gay man who has been plastic-wrapped to a big cross and gagged (whaddup, blasphemy!) before being shot in the top of the head with a tricked-out handgun. The ringleader's two buddies, meanwhile, manage to cut themselves free and try to escape. Emphasis on the word "try." It is here that the film morphs into its third incarnation - a hostage scenario and feds-to-the-rescue climax. What was supposed to be a simple in-and-out mission for a handful of BATF agents has become the Waco Siege of 1993, with Cooper and his crew completely unconcerned about dying, because dying just means they get to go to heaven (um, don't count your chickens, dudes). The conflict ends more peaceably than it should, mostly thanks to a mysterious loud noise that the Coopers think is the Trumpet of the Lord announcing the return of Christ. The agent in charge (played by John Goodman) brings the remaining family members in and explains the rest of the story, including his decision to disobey direct orders, to his superiors.

I don't know what this film's detractors were expecting, or if they were just so disgusted at the Sundance media circus that they were prejudiced against the film itself, but I think it's a dang fine movie. Something you absolutely would not expect from Kevin Smith, but which just as absolutely fits his style, especially with regard to writing. Acting, across the board, is great, even from the guys playing the teenage victims (the kinds of characters that sadly do not get parts as good as these written for them - I don't mean they're all DeNiro in Taxi Driver, but for horror movie victims, they're surprisingly layered). Goodman is wonderful in his role, but the real standouts are Michael Parks and (Oscar-winner) Melissa Leo. Leo's character is the one who lures the boys in the first place, and it's horrifying to see her calmly sitting next to her husband in church, like she was just doing God's will by drugging those kids and tying them up. Parks, though, is an absolute revelation (*rimshot*) as the patriarch and preacher. I've been a fan of his since for several years now, and he's a great "character actor" who doesn't often get a lot to do in the films he's in. It's great to see him step up and be the lead here.

There's a part of me that's sad that here's yet another movie where religious people (the only religious people in the story, in fact) are crazy murdering lunatics. On the other hand, it makes me even sadder that people like this really do exist. There's not much in the world that's more disgusting than a group of so-called Christians standing outside a funeral and basically saying "nah-nah-nee-boo-boo" to a dead person that they clearly couldn't have cared less about trying to reach.

Final Girl Film Club - Blood and Roses

This month's Final Girl Film Club pick is Roger Vadim's vastly under-appreciated Blood and Roses. If you remember the series I did a couple of years ago on vampire movies, you might remember the well-established trope of the lesbian vampire, originating from Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's short novel Carmilla. Carmilla the novel actually pre-dates Stoker's Dracula by about 25 years and there have been several interpretations of it, either literal retellings of the story or other tales that follow the female vampire trope with varying degrees of lesbian subtext (and often plain text). Perhaps the best known and most faithful adaptation is The Vampire Lovers (1970), part of Hammer Horror's Karnstein Trilogy. I'm quite fond of that one, but I do believe I like Blood and Roses even more.


Blood and Roses (1960)

The story begins on an airplane - a setting far removed from the 18th century trappings of the original novel. We hear some vague drivel in voice over about the spirit world, and there's no explanation as yet for why a vampire who has been alive for hundreds of years is flying the friendly skies. We travel to Italy, to a branch of the Karnstein estate. A count, Leopoldo, is about to be married and he's consulting a pyrotechnics expert to design a fireworks show for his engagement party. The fireworks expert has found the perfect spot for the spectacle - the abbey on the estate. This causes some concerned looks from several people in the room, because this is where the old Karnstein cemetery used to be. Thankfully, all the tombs have been empty for a couple of centuries, but this leads to some half-amused/half-serious discussion of the old Karnstein vampire legend.

Leopoldo's cousin, Carmilla, tells the story of her ancestor Millarca (anagrams yay!), who died the night before her wedding in the arms of her lover Ludwig, who swore eternal faithfulness. There is a clear parallel between Carmilla and Millarca and, in turn, between Leopoldo and Ludwig. Leopoldo is marrying a young woman named Georgia, though, and it's clear from the start that Carmilla is jealous. At the engagement party, Carmilla sulks and drinks in her room but eventually joins the party at Leopoldo's infuriated insistence. After a few moments at the party, however, she wanders off again, toward the cemetery. Some unexpected explosions from the fireworks display open Millarca's tomb, and voila - Carmilla is dead, her spirit replaced by that of the sleeping vampiress.

I'd only ever seen one other of Vadim's films, Pretty Maids All in a Row, but I knew enough about Vadim as a filmmaker to be aware of his reputation for sensuality. This seems more restrained than I'd have expected from him, but it still manages to have definite erotic undertones with little winks of partial nudity and, of course, the lesbian subtext which is not as overt as in The Vampire Lovers but is certainly still there. In particular, I have to love Leopoldo's strangely gleeful expression as his fiancee undresses the unconscious Carmilla. See something you like there, dude?

I really, really dug this film. The look is very dreamlike, and a lot of credit must go to Annette Vadim (who plays Carmilla/Millarca) for giving the film its melancholy soul. The highlight of the film, though, is a surreal sequence where Millarca seduces Georgia and enters her subconscious. Wonderfully bizarre stuff and quite ahead of its time. And man, I love the ending.

Great movie. Thanks to Final Girl for picking it.

With March upon us, the winter "take out the trash" season is mostly in the past and it's time to get back into the groove. I saw three new movies this weekend, all of which are worth talking about.


Rango

Our story begins with a four-bird mariachi band (!!!!) and their hilariously on-the-nose lyrics which give us a series of signposts through the story. Johnny Depp gives voice to a lizard who's spent his whole life in a dry aquarium, his only friends a plastic fish and a naked Barbie doll with no head or legs. He keeps himself amused by staging theatricals, but he seems completely unaware that his tank is in the back of a pickup truck and that said truck is moving him and the rest of his owner's belongings to presumably a new home. One severe bump in the road, however, and the tank goes flying. Soon our not-yet-Rango is taking advice from a run-over armadillo and heading out across the desert to a town called Dirt, where he is told he can find water.

What follows reminded me quite a bit of The Three Amigos, actually. Rango is a character whose entire life has revolved around making things up to keep himself amused. He's an excellent improvisor, which comes in handy in the beginning, but he hasn't had the opportunity for real life lessons, and he certainly has never been put to any kind of test as far as his bravery or moral code might be concerned.

This movie is an utter delight, with some really unique-looking and photo-real animation. It's probably not what you're expecting, and that's a very good thing. It's a western, plain and simple, and the look is very much The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly (especially the creatures who are all pretty salty characters). It isn't the least bit cutesy, as you could probably tell from the ads, but what you might not know is that there's a sauciness that will sail over kids' heads and hit adults in their giggle spots. Just to give you an idea of the kind of thing the movie gets away with, in the first scene of the film, our hero makes a breast implant joke. Oh yes. This has the audacity and nudge-nudge-wink-wink that the original Shrek had, only it goes a bit farther.

Voice talent is really exceptional here, and the best part is that, except for Johnny Depp and Bill Nighy, whose voices you could not mistake if you tried, you can't really tell who's who. These aren't characters built on a particular actor's gifts, these are original characters played by actors who don't want you to know who's behind the microphone. One of the most impressive moments for me was the appearance of The Spirit of the West, which you would swear up and down is the voice of exactly who it looks like on screen but is in actuality Justified's Timothy Olyphant.

I really loved this, and I think it would appeal to most moviegoers, but especially those of you who like westerns.



The Adjustment Bureau

This was much better than I expected, mostly because of how great Matt Damon and Emily Blunt are. The concept is interesting and very sci-fi - what if our lives were designed to follow a certain plan and there were people whose job it was to make sure we stayed on that plan? Damon Lindelof (formerly of LOST fame) recently compared it to the Desmond/Penny storyline on LOST, and that's pretty accurate. I don't want to give too much away. If you've seen the trailer and the ads you know enough about the premise.

It seems weird to talk about this as if it's something revolutionary, but it was refreshing to see a movie with some actual characterization, with people in it that you care about. This is not a movie that expects us to root for people just because they're played by pretty actors and, well, we're just supposed to care. David and Elise feel like real people with real issues, and I loved that. I also loved that there was some thought behind not just *why* everyone in the "bureau" was so desperate to keep them apart, but what it was about each of them that, when put together, was bad for the other person (in the eyes of the Plan).

Some of the philosophizing was a bit ponderous at times, such as the whole speech about what happened on the two occasions that the organization stepped back and let people make their own decisions, without any adjustments. (Not to mention the fact that the premise starts to fall apart if you think about it too much.) Actor-wise, I was also disappointed by Anthony Mackie, whose heart didn't seem to be in this movie. I hope all this doesn't sound like I hated the movie, because I definitely didn't. It works very well as a romance and mostly well as a sci-fi story. Above all, it's an engaging and entertaining movie, anchored by two good performances. I was also glad to discover that there was a reason for Matt Damon to be wearing that hat in all the trailers. :P

On a more trivial note, there are loads of cameos in this from political/news figures, like Jon Stewart and Mayor Bloomberg.



I Saw the Devil

Expectations were pretty high going into this, after hearing one critic compare it to The Silence of the Lambs. Disappointment, therefore, was inevitable. This is straight up horror, and certainly not the kind most of you reading this would be into. It's even a bit too much for me, but there were elements that I did like.

Basic story. A young woman is waiting for a tow truck when she is beaten nearly to death, kidnapped, then brutally murdered by a maniac who proceeds to chop her into pieces, despite her pleas for her life and the life of her unborn child. And that's just the first ten minutes. Bad luck for our murderer that his latest victim was the daughter of a retired and venerated police chief and the fiancee of a secret agent (though not that secret, since several people in the film seem to know what he does). Secret Agent Man vows revenge, but can't bring himself to strike a fatal blow. So he catches up to the killer repeatedly, inflicts painful wounds, and repeatedly lets the killer go, swearing that he's going to keep coming and that the attacks are going to get worse.

Over the course of the story, we're supposed to be getting the impression that Secret Agent Man is becoming a monster just like the man he's hunting. But I'm afraid I just could not get behind that idea. The killer is so disgusting and abominable that I was cheering for Secret Agent Man throughout. There are some interesting notions, I suppose, about how useful revenge is and who really comes out the winner in this scenario. There's also something to be said here about the illogical nature of engaging oneself in a battle of wills with a soulless maniac who can hurt you far more effectively than you can hurt him. But the movie doesn't lean on either of those ideas as much as it does the "who's the real monster" thing. And the movie's biggest problem for me is that this question is not nearly as ambiguous as the movie would like it to be. Spoiler Alert - the serial killer is the monster. There is no doubt in my mind about that.

This movie sort of piggybacks on Chan-Wook Park's vengeance trilogy (the killer is even played by the star of Park's Oldboy), but doesn't explore the idea of revenge quite as thoughtfully, in my opinion. And while the camera work, music, and acting are all top notch, there are some things I found incredibly difficult to watch, and not in a good way. There's a "dinner" scene in particular that exploits the horror of cannibalism beyond the bounds of decency, even for shock cinema. I never thought I'd find myself longing for the delicate sensibilities of Serbian cinema.

Next week brings us another good cinematic haul - notably Jane Eyre (!), Battle: Los Angeles, and Red Riding Hood.

Final Girl Film Club - Frozen

February's Final Girl Film Club is the ski lift chiller (*rimshot*) Frozen.


BRRRRRRRRR!

I'm tweaking a previous review here, but giving it a bit more context. I was fortunate enough to see this at Butt-Numb-A-Thon (BNAT) in Austin (held at the Alamo Drafthouse) in December 2009, about a month before it made a more official bow at Sundance. This film played roughly 2/3 of the way through our 24-hour cinematic journey (roughly 2am) - the 8th film out of a total 12 - and was sandwiched between Jean-Pierre Jeunet's then-new film Micmacs and the banned Shaw Brothers flick Centipede Horror. (NOTE: Centipede Horror is not to be confused with Tom Six's The Human Centipede; Centipede Horror has REAL centipedes, not to mention flaming zombie chickens.) We'd had a couple of mild forays into semi-horror already that evening, with Shutter Island and The Lovely Bones, and everyone expected great things from Adam Green, the guy who made Hatchet and who showed up and braved a probably very ripe-smelling and farty room to personally introduce the film to us.

As with most of the films over the 24 hours, this one was preceded by some appropriate vintage trailers.


The Ski Bum

and


Hot Dog: The Movie

I love the Alamo Drafthouse.

So anyway ... FROZEN.



This movie is about three young people - a guy, his girlfriend, and his best friend - who go for a short ski trip. They spend most of the day on the bunny slopes, because the girlfriend is not an experienced skier, and the guys decide to go up again that evening by themselves to do some real skiing. After some arguments and hurt feelings, however, the girlfriend ends up going with them, and they get stuck on the chair lift while the place shuts down for the week.



Okay, so let's get the implausibilities out of the way, because they are many and pretty egregious. These kids must have driven a car to this place (though it's possible they took a shuttle). If they drove, someone would have noticed an extra car and asked whose it was, realizing that someone could still be on the mountains, possibly even trying to get a free night's stay or extra skiing they didn't pay for. Second, no skiing establishment is that lackadaisical about people being on the chair lift or on the mountain. You wouldn't be able to bamboozle someone into letting you on the chair lift without paying in the first place, and you certainly wouldn't have one solitary chair lift operator be the final word in whether everyone was down from the lift and the mountain. There are way too many precautions in place at ski resorts for what happens in this movie to happen. Third, wolves don't hang out where there are loads of people skiing.

HOWEVER. Forget about all that for a minute. What if you DID get stuck on a chair lift and there was no way down and no one would find you for several days? If you take it from there, this is a pretty fantastic scary movie about the series of bad decisions you might make in the huge effort to get out alive. Decisions that are bound to be further hampered by the extreme cold weather and its effect on your brain.



The first huge mistake is made when the boyfriend decides to try and jump down, however much it might injure him. Well, it injures him a hell of a lot. Both his legs snap (there were some excellent sound effects in this film, by the way), and when he tries to move himself, he just injures himself exponentially more and more. A wolf finds him and eventually leaves after a stare-down, but this is not a victory for our poor broken-legged hero. Oh no. The wolf went and got a few friends and they proceed to eat him alive while his girlfriend and best friend can only listen to his screams and do their best not to watch from above. This was fairly affecting to me, actually, as the guy screams to his best friend not to dare let the girlfriend look. Story issues aside, there was still some pretty great acting in this, I have to say.

The rest of the movie alternates between the girlfriend and best friend blaming each other, consoling each other, and making fresh attempts to get out of this situation. Strangely, they make little attempt to huddle together and actually keep each other warm, which might have been helpful. And I can't figure out why the girl, after losing one of her gloves, didn't pull her coat sleeve over her bare hand. That would have saved a lot of pain, especially when she wakes up with her bare hand frozen to the safety bar.


OWWWWWWWW!

The movie manages to be very effective, though, despite it's implausibility issues, and was one of the better examples of audience reaction of the evening. A woman in our audience actually FAINTED during this movie (she was alright, by the way, just overcome by the movie, it seems). This was probably the most talked about film at the post-BNAT dinner and party. Several in our crowd were from Minnesota and had HUGE issues with its plausibility. But there was no doubt that it made an impact.

Regardless, though, if you can let go of the need for accuracy and credibility, it's a pretty dang good scary movie.

Final Girl Film Club - Sugar Hill

Time for another round of Final Girl Film Club! This month's selection is the blaxploitation zombie flick Sugar Hill. Indicentally, the neighborhood in Harlem where I live is called Sugar Hill, so I felt a connection to this movie right off the bat. Also, this is a Samuel Z. Arkoff and AIP production (that's American International Pictures, not Amazingly Idiotic Productions), and if that name means anything to you, a) you probably watch too much MST3K, and b) this movie probably just jumped up several points on your AwesomeMeter.



The film begins with what appears to be a voodoo ritual - drums, dancing, chicken blood, you probably know the drill. The natives are voodoo-ing to the particularly groovy strains of "Supernatural Voodoo Woman" by The Originals - a song that's a bit too slow for what's going on, until - wait a minute. It's not an actual voodoo ritual. The lights have come up now and what we've just been watching is the floor show at the popular Club Haiti.

We meet Diana Hill (aka "Sugar") and her man Langston, who owns the club. They are a loving pair, which is good because this is the only opportunity the movie is going to offer us to be invested in their relationship at all. Some thugs come around, talking trash, and Sugar begs Langston not to provoke them - "I just don't want anything to happen to mah man," she says. But lo, something does happen to her man, and the thugs, all white men except for the pimptastic Fabulous (yes, that is his name) beat Langston to death.

Sugar swears revenge and goes to visit Mama Maitresse (which may, in fact, just be a fancy name for "mattress") to order up some zombie-style retribution. Mama Maitresses (played by Zara Cully, aka Mother Jefferson) conjurs up this guy, Baron Samedi (played by the disturbingly cheerful Don Pedro Colley)...



...who commands a gang of zombies who, when they lived, were plantation slaves who died of fever. These dead-heads, it must be said, are fairly awesome zombies. Sugar is told "Put them to evil use; it's all they know or want." These are happy zombies, and you can tell because they SMILE. CREEPY! Perhaps even creepier - they have shiny ping-pong ball eyeballs that make them look like bugs.



So Sugar summons the zombies, who are much more like Inferi than traditional zombies in that they don't just shuffle and eat; they actually do someone's bidding. The zombies kill the guys who killed Langston, and that's pretty much the story. The script, when not dealing with the zombies, is pretty painfully bad, though the actors do what they can with it. What sets this apart are the aforementioned zombies and some rather unique kills. My favorite is when Sugar uses voodoo to make one of the guys stab himself. And once it's down to just the main bad guy, we pan around the group of zombies and his recently killed cronies are among their number! So not only has Sugar killed them, she now commands them to do her will!

There are so many things to love about this movie, but the greatest and strangest is Sugar's two separate identities, the purpose of which is never really addressed. All I know is that Sugar looks like this when she's not doing zombie things.



And like this when she's an ass-kicking zombie queen.



There may be something metaphorical there, but that's probably giving the filmmakers way too much credit.

There are definitely problems with this movie, but what works REALLY works. Sugar Hill is, in 70s parlance, DYNAMITE!