Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on November 7th, 2008
A few weeks ago, I sung the praises of Forrest J. Ackerman and the childhood joys his Famous Monsters of Filmland gave me. Now comes sad word, already up on numerous websites, that he is ailing, and the end is very soon. (I have seen some statements that, in fact, he passed on yesterday, but nothing, fortunately, that strikes me as authoritative, as of yet.)
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 4th, 2008
A combination of controversial subject matter and the physical transformation of Jared Leto garnered this film considerable attention (positive and negative). Leto here morphs into an uncannily accurate physical recreation of Mark David Chapman. The film follows Chapman on his fateful trip to New York City. Over the course of three days, he hangs around outside John Lennon's home, becomes friendly with fellow fan Lindsay Lohan, and endlessly ruminates about how the events in his life are paralleling The Catcher in the Rye, and (rather less explicitly) why he's going to kill Lennon.
Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on November 1st, 2008
Consider this column a companion piece to my review of Last House on the Beach. I mention therein that the finale of the film obviously inspired (to put it politely) that of Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof. I shouldn’t really use this opportunity to beat up on Death Proof all over again. But what struck me even more than the similarities between the two scenes was their instructive differences.
So, if you haven’t seen either of the films yet, consider this entire column a spoiler and leave now. Thank you.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 1st, 2008
After a violent bank robbery, a trio of criminals descend upon the beach house retreat of a nun and her students. The bad guys take the women hostage, and make themselves at home, tormenting, raping and abusing to their hearts’ content, pushing their victims ever further over the edge.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on October 25th, 2008
Two inept thieves and their prostitute girlfriend decide to hit the big time, crime-wise, by kidnapping the little girl (clearly and disturbingly dubbed by an adult) of an automobile tycoon. When their contact manages to get himself run over by a car while crossing the street, they have to hightail it out of town until the heat cools (or something like that – don't press me too hard for clear logic in this film). So off they head to what I suppose is the South American jungle, by my goodness there seem to be a lot of pine trees in the jungle. There they hole up at the home of a friend-of-a-friend, a middle-aged man who has the role Jess Franco would be playing if this were a Jess Franco film. He has a beautiful wife, and one of the thieves takes it in his head to rape her. So their host now has vengeance on his mind, and there are cannibals (you were wondering when I was going to get to them, weren't you?) lurking in the woods.
Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on October 25th, 2008
Oh God, here we go again with another When I Was A Wee Lad memory. Sorry. But When I Was A Wee Lad, two of my favorite books were The Hammer Horror Film Omnibus, and The Second Hammer Horror Film Omnibus. Written by John Burke, each volume contained four novelizations of Hammer films, and for many a year, this was the only way I could experience the stories. It would be a long time before I saw the films in question. Still, most of those films I got under my belt some time ago, but one remained stubbornly out of reach, seen once on TV and then never again, VHS and then DVD releases apparently never on the horizon. That film was Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb (1964), and the wait is finally over. It appears as one of four films on the Icons of Horror: Hammer Films 2-disc set. Accompanying it are The Gorgon (also novelized by Burke, and more about it another time), The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll, and Scream of Fear.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on October 23rd, 2008
Hagar Shipley (Ellen Burstyn) is in her twilight years, and her son (Dylan Baker) is trying to get her into a home. Fiercely independent, possessed of a will that has been both a strength and a weakness (making life miserable for herself and all around her), Hagar fights back. She also looks back on her life, and in the flashbacks (where the young Hagar is played by Christine Horne) we see the tragic relationships that have brought us to the fractious family we see now.
Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on October 18th, 2008
Just the other week, I was singing the praises of [REC]. Today, I come to bury its American remake, Quarantine. At first glance, Quarantine is a virtual photocopy of its model. Scene follows scene in the same order, to the same (intended effect), to the same final shot. And yet somehow, the whole thing falls flat. How can this be? If the movies are identical, why aren’t they identically effective?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on October 17th, 2008
Very much in the tradition of such other overheated Mexican emotional dramas as Amores Perros and Y Tu Mamá También, Drama/Mex gives us two intertwining plot strands, each dealing with relationships as tormented as they are sexual. In one, upper-class Fernanda’s bad boy ex-lover Chino resurfaces, takes her violently, but she doesn’t exactly hate it, and this has, as one might imagine, some awkward consequences for her relationship with current boyfriend Gonzalo. Meanwhile, a middle-aged man, guilt-ridden over what he has done to his daughter (take a guess), is contemplating suicide when he runs into a precocious teenage hustler. In other words, basically enough material to give Sarah Palin a fatal coronary.
Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on October 12th, 2008
The other day, I was watching Pathology, a release from Fox that is terminally mediocre, but is surprisingly gory for what is, minor-to-nil theatrical release aside, essentially a mainstream release. I won’t rehash its silly, empty-headed plot here, other to suggest that you look to spend your entertainment dollar elsewhere. What interests me about the film is that gore. As our characters about their titular activities, corpses are opened up and messed around with in a manner that, not too long ago, would have been unthinkable outside the realm of the more extreme exploitation flicks. For quite a while, since the horror film was revived at the end of the 90s, much of the chatter about violence in the films conveniently forgot just how graphic the situation was in the 70s and 80s, but over the last few years, the gap has been bridged. But that’s not what I want to talk about here. It isn’t the quantity of gore or its explicit nature that I’m ruminating about. Rather, is it still possible to distinguish the genuine, wholesome sleaze from its production-line counterpart emerging from the major studios.
