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Aug 16, 2011

The Strangers – Review

reviewed by hallo
directed by Bryan Bertino, 2008
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The Strangers is a 2008 “home invasion” movie starring Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman. After turning down a marriage proposal, Kristen (Tyler) accompanies a distressed James (Speedman) back to an isolated house where he had earlier decorated with an abundance of rose petals anticipating a “yes” to the big question. Why they thought it would be a good idea to follow through with a plan to spend a weekend in the middle of nowhere together after such an alarming denial to marriage is beyond me. But, they finally arrive at the house. When James heads back out to pick Kristen up some cigarettes at 4 in the morning (really?), she is visited by three weird strangers and the terror begins. They torment her, toy with her, and give up endless opportunities to kill just to keep up the fun. James returns from the store and the rest of the movie is them trying to keep their sanity and their lives. The movie ends with the couple finally being tied up in a couple of chairs, stabbed a few times, and then killed.

If my above summary of the film lacked any kind of gusto, it is because I found the movie to be dull, slow, and pointless. The strangers just draw out their torment of the couple for way too long. About 15 times throughout the film, there will be a “stranger” behind Kristen, easily ready to kill her, tie her up, slap her, poke her in the eye, or anything, but instead they decide to run away, disappear, and then reappear for a similar “scare.” It just gets repetitive really fast. The direction was good, but the couple just does too many silly things. For example, they receive perfect cell phone service in the house (which was refreshing, the writers didn’t opt for the “no service” angle), but their cell phone dies. Not to worry, Kristen has a charger! But for some inexplicable reason, when she plugs the charger into the phone and into an outlet, she doesn’t turn it on to make the call! It is as if she doesn’t realize that cell phones operate just fine while they are plugged in and charging. Little thing like that add up to a fairly high annoyance level. The pay off isn’t a pay off at all and the ending leaves us scratching our heads – did we really just watch 1 hour of senseless “teasing” for a lifeless, emotionless finish? Yes. Yes we did.

Unless you are just a die-hard home invasion freak, this one is very much avoidable. Not terrible, but not good.

Jul 6, 2011

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Body Count Podcast #1109

Hallo and Skot discuss how faith and cultural arts work together. Also, should we consider Scream 4 to be a box office failure?

Body Count #1109 [55:44m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Jul 1, 2011

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Pro-Life – Review

reviewed by hallo
directed by John Carpenter, 2006
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Pro-Life is the second effort from famed horror director John Carpenter for the incredibly wonderful Master’s of Horror television series created by Showtime. The story depicts an ultra-conservative father named Dwayne Burcell (Ron Perlman) who becomes irate when he learns his pregnant, underage daughter is being treated inside an abortion clinic against his wishes. Come to find out, this clinic already has a restraining order against Burcell for previous threatening behavior, but the stakes are much higher now that his daughter is inside. All we know about the daughter, Angelique, is that she was running from someone or something at the beginning of the film and was picked up along the road by two doctors – two doctors who just so happened to work at the aforementioned clinic. Thinking he heard a voice directly from God to “protect the baby”, Dwayne and his three sons storm the clinic, killing anyone who gets in their way.

As we learn more about Burcell and his determination to “free” his daughter, we also learn more about how she become pregnant. She tells the shocking story of how a demon dragged her below the surface of the earth and raped her. She is convinced that the baby inside her is of the devil and wants it destroyed immediately. Unfortunately, demon babies apparently develop much faster than human babies, because instead of the normal 9 months for gestation, this demon baby caused Angelique to go into labor in a matter of days. When she arrived at the clinic, she looked only a couple of months pregnant. A few hours later, she was delivering. Meanwhile, Burcell is busy giving the head doctor of the clinic a dose of his own medicine. In a disturbing scene, Burcell and his son use a suction device on the lead doctor to show him what “sucking the life” out of a human is all about. Pretty rough.

Finally, Angelique delivers the baby and sure enough, it is a whacked out demon looking creature not unlike the creature we see burst from Norris’ chest in Carpenter’s classic 1982 film The Thing. At this point, the film adds another ingredient to the mix. The demon father, who looks exactly like what you figure a demon might look like, shows up at the hospital to claim his baby. Before the demon makes his way to the delivery room, he comes face to face with Burcell. The climatic point of the movie occurs at this moment when the demon speaks to Burcell and says, “protect the baby.” Yep, it was the voice of a demon, not God, that Burcell was hearing the entire time, making his rampage a demonic act rather than a holy one. Sensing that she only has a few more minutes, Angelique takes a gun and shoots the baby in the head just as the demon father comes in the room. Grieving over the death of his baby, the demon picks up his child, ignoring Angelique, and carries him sadly back to hell. The film ends.

The title alone of this film along with above synopsis would lead one to believe that Carpenter is attempting to make a huge social and political statement. Amazingly, it just isn’t the case. I have given Pro-Life a good deal of thought in the last couple of days since viewing it and I am convinced that Carpenter used a hot-bed issue not to provide social commentary of his own, but simply as a way to create a powerful backdrop to the story he really wanted to tell – parents and their relationship with children. In some ways, Carpenter paints a very sympathetic picture of Burcell. It is a man who, misguided he may be by his solution, is convinced that abortion is murder and does not want his daughter engaging in that kind of activity. Add to that the pious, religious angle and I suppose some would write off Burcell as just a fundamental religious zealot with no intellect or sense of right and wrong. I don’t see that here. Yes, he is out of control and heavily misinterpreting the messages he receives, but the love of family is what drives him more than anything else. The same is true for the demon. Both Burcell and the demon are trying to save their own flesh and blood and Carpenter reminds us of the strong bind between parent and child, a bond that creates the ultimate kind of pain when a child is taken away.

Pro-Life is not a great film, but it has redeeming moments and from frame one is an exciting, non-stop action horror movie. Due to the 60 minute time constraint, character development is difficult to achieve, but this is off-set by the incredible performance from Ron Perlman who has made a career of dominating every scene he is in. Some of the demon scenes come across a bit cheesy, but they quickly give way to the serious undertones of the film and do provide a few genuine scares. John Carpenter is a legendary director who has had a poor run the last several years with his box-office attempts. It is nice to see that he still “has it.” This movie is not as effective as Carpenter’s other Masters of Horror attempt Cigarette Burns, but it is still worth the hour of your life to watch it.

Click Here to purchase Pro-Life

Jun 26, 2011

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The Monster Squad – Review

reviewed by hallo
directed by Fred Dekker, 1987
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Although not financially successful, Fred Dekker managed to direct two of the more memorable and long-lasting cult horror films of the 1980’s – Night of the Creeps and The Monster Squad. I recently sat down for a re-visiting of the latter; I was all smiles throughout.

The Monster Squad follows a “club” of children led by Sean (Andre Gower) who gather in a super cool tree house to discuss monsters and mayhem but really have nothing much to do. Sean sports a “Stephen King Rules” t-shirt most days and entrance into the club is mandated by the passing of a horror movie quiz. Things begin to heat up for the squad when Sean is given the ancient diary of Van Helsing, the famed vampire killer. After utilizing the services of the local “Scary German Dude” in order to read the German text of the diary, they realize that a special amulet which maintains the balance between good and evil becomes vulnerable to destruction once every century – and that time is now! Sean begins piecing local disturbances together and realizes that Dracula has invaded their city in search for the amulet.

In order to assist Dracula in his search for the amulet, he enlists the services of the Wolf-Man, Gill-Man, the Mummy, and Frankenstein. The race is on between the monsters and the Monster Squad to find the amulet and use it for their own advantage. Frankenstein is eventually befriended by the young 5 year old Phoebe and turns against Dracula in the search. The movie works its way to a climatic finish where a portal into another dimension is opened and the monsters are ultimately cast away for another century of peace.

The Monster Squad has several elements working in its favor that help make this a great movie for all ages. First, the monsters look incredible. Legendary monster maker Stan Winston (Aliens, The Thing, Terminator 2) had a bit of a challenge when creating the look for the monsters in the film. Universal Studios owned the copyright to their “look” of the classic monsters. Thus, Winston had to create a version of Dracula, Frankenstein, and all the rest that both differed enough from Universal’s monsters to keep them out of court but also make it very clear who these monsters were. He did a superb job. The classic monsters are some of the best looking creatures in any horror film and they are fun to watch throughout.

Second, the casting for the film, especially the monsters, was excellent. Tom Noonan as Frankenstein and Duncan Regehr as Dracula provided powerful, near epic performances for these famed characters of legend. The children are believable and incredibly funny. The movie provides some classic one-liners, the most famous being Horace’s proclamation that “Wolfman’s got nards!” As with many movies of this genre type, the group of children are just a blast to watch and provide a reminder throughout that we should not take this too seriously.

Having said that, the film does go into some fairly dark directions on occasion. After visiting the “scary Germad dude” for help with the text of Van Helsing’s diary, Dekker takes just enough time to zoom in on the German’s arm as he closes the door – on it is a Nazi concentration camp tattoo, a subtle reminder that not all monsters live in the world of the undead. Also, at the end of the film, young 5 year old Phoebe is picked up by Dracula. Dekker does not hold back one iota as Dracula screams into her face, “Give me the amulet you BIT**.” Pretty dark stuff for this type of film.

All in all, The Monster Squad is memorable, very re-watchable, and worth your time. Sadly, the box office failure of the film, despite the cult following it enjoys today, added to the disappearing of Fred Dekker’s career.

Click Here to purchase The Monster Squad

Jun 25, 2011

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