Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on September 14th, 2007
The current issue of Rue Morgue has a retrospective look at Dan O’Bannon’s Return of the Living Dead, just ahead of yet another DVD release (September 11). Over the course of the interview with O’Bannon, interviewer Dave Alexander asks the director how much he had to do with the new release. This is his response:
“None. It was a surprise, a shock, to me when I was informed they were putting out what they call a ‘director’s edition.’ It runs something like twenety minutes more than the version I shot. The film I shot and edited was 88 minutes. I hear they’re putting out a 117-minute version. Once this thing comes out, I’ll take a look at it [...] and if they have tampered with it in a way that in my opinion hurts the film, then I will publicly abrogate it.”
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 13th, 2007
The film that arguably more than any other put director Alfonso Cuarón and actor Gael García Bernal on the map, Y Tu Mamá También is a smart, funny, extremely erotic tale of two young friends travelling across Mexico in the company of an older, sexually experienced woman. It’s a great film. But this isn’t the DVD you should watch to appreciate it. In this day and age of a veritable deluge of discs boasting unrated versions of their theatrical release, what, pray tell, is the point of an R rated DVD butchering of a unrated theatrical release? Fully six minutes are missing. The 100 that remain are, of course, excellent, but what is here is not the director’s vision. There is terrible irony in box boasting a blurb that exults in how “unafraid of sexuality” the movie is, when the DVD is clearly terrified. As punishment, I’m cutting the film’s star rating in half, not to reflect on Cuarón’s work, but on what has been done to it. The unrated version is out there, released at the same time as this. Track it down instead.
Audio
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 11th, 2007
It’s good taste time once again, as we follow the unfortunate Amber (Grace Johnston) as she falls into the clutches of your usual gang of inbred hillbillies. These psychos have kidnapped a number of women. They then force them to fight to the death, with the idea that the winner will get to carry on the clan’s bloodline. Charming.
Lord knows the backwoods horror film is not, nor should it be expected to be, a bastion of quiet restraint, but we’ve got a pretty unequivocally misogynist premise here, and the execution does little to mitigate it, despite Johnston’s best efforts. The filmmaking is pedestrian, though not incompetent, but this is a cynical, exploitive work that is also derivative and dull.
Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on September 7th, 2007
A little while ago, I looked at a recent (and very strong) example of the Evil Kids movie. I mentioned some of the big names in the field (The Omen, the original Village of the Damned, The Bad Seed), but today, for your consideration, a half-forgotten effort from 1974 (smack in the midst of the golden era of grindhouse and drive-in sleaze): Devil Times Five.
Also known as People Toys and The Horrible House on the Hill, this cheap but satisfyingly unpleasant little movie sees a bus overturn, unleashing five homicidally demented children. They make their way through the snow to an isolated resort, whose only residents are the tycoon Papa Doc (Gene Evans, sporting a character name that is oh-so-tasteful), and his assorted squabbling relatives and associates. The children are taken in, and waste no time in bumping off the adults one by one by means mundane (hatchet to the head), creative (bizarre death swing contraption), and just plain wrong (one woman is drowned in the bathtub while pirana are dumped in with her).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 6th, 2007
Planning a high-profile charity football game that they must nonetheless be sure of winning, the powers that be of Yale attempt to invite the University of Texas, but instead accidentally invite Texas State University, a small college whose town population is a mere 700. Newly arrived coach Jack Haley and his formidable wife Patsy Kelly face the challenge of somehow whipping the football team into something that won’t be utterly destroyed on the day of the big game. The key to possible victory is bumpkin-but-natural-prodigy Stuart Erwin, but he’s a package deal, and comes along with little sister Judy Garland, here making her debut.
In some respects, the film is most interesting in retrospect, featuring as it does future Tin Man Haley in a film with the soon-to-be Dorothy. Also of note is Betty Grable as one of the students assisting Haley and Kelly. This was also a very early release by the newly formed 20th Century Fox studios. All of that history aside, this is still a perfectly pleasant musical, completely enthusiastic in its good cheer. There’s nothing earth-shattering about the comedy or the songs, but they make the 93 minutes pass by most pleasantly.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 5th, 2007
In hellish vision of a near future (?) LA, Marty Malt (Judd Nelson) is an incompetent garbage man who moonlights as an even worse comedian (his jokes aren’t funny, and he is half-crippled by stage fright). His only friend is the manipulative Gus (Bill Paxton). When Marty starts to grow a third arm out of his back, he loses his girlfriend (Lara Flynn Boyle) but attracts the attention of sleazy showbiz types Wayne Newton and Rob Lowe.
The film’s influences are pretty apparent. Imagine the love child of Repo Man and How to Get Ahead in Advertising, as midwifed by early John Waters and David Lynch. Heck, the bar where Marty performs, along with its patrons, seem to have been imported from Café Flesh. Such a mixture could well spell cult movie, and something of the kind seems to have happened with The Dark Backward, but the mixture is a little too forced for my liking, and the performances are all pitched at one note (Paxton’s note being almost off the scale). Interestingly bizarre and gross, but somehow too familiar despite its wild stabs at freakish originality.
Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on September 4th, 2007
It seems to me that it was around this time last year that I was lambasting the desperately misconceived remake of The Wicker Man. Here we are again, then, with another entry in the disastrous remake sweepstakes. Halloween may be a little more mainstream than is, strictly speaking, the concern of this space, but when has that ever bothered me before? While Rob Zombie’s atrocity is in the theatres, I feel it is my solemn duty to warn you off.
Not that a moment’s thought wouldn’t convince most sane individuals that remaking Halloween is a terrible idea in the first place. Sure, and we’ve been down this road before, there have been very good remakes, and what has distinguished these efforts is that they bring enough new to the table that they stand on their own merits as original works in themselves. Just bringing something new isn’t enough, of course. Plenty new was brought to The Wicker Man, and it was all rubbish, demonstrating a total lack of understanding as to what made the original work.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 26th, 2007
The third volume of classic Charlie Chan mysteries is a great package of treats, and of course gives us, once again, Warner Oland, the definitive Charlie Chan.
The Black Camel (1931) only one of the films in this set actually to take place in Honolulu, Chan’s home turf. A beautiful movie star is murdered, and among the suspects is none other than Bela Lugosi as a clairvoyant with murky motives. He and Oland have many scenes together, which is no small part of the pleasures of this entry.
Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on August 24th, 2007
Ils (“Them”) is another recent bit of cinematic nastiness from France, and worth a look from horror fans. Lucas and Clémentine are, respectively, a writer and a teacher who have recently moved to Romania. Their house is big and isolated, and one night, intruders close in, leading to a grueling night of terror. If that sounds like a pretty simple plot, it is, but the film is very tight (a mere 73 minutes long), essentially functioning as one long suspense set piece once the home invasion begins. The DVD boasts solid picture and sound, but has no subtitles, forcing non-French speakers to contend with the English dub. Fortunately, much of the film is devoid of dialogue, so this isn’t a deal breaker.
All right, I’ve been a little coy as to what this column is going to be about, and that’s deliberate. I’m going into some spoilers here, so if you haven’t seen the film, stop reading now, and come back some other time.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 22nd, 2007
Every so often, a remake comes along that does the original proud. David Cronenberg’s The Fly is one. Philip Kaufman’s reworking of Don Siegel’s 1955 classic is another. For the three people out there who aren’t familiar with the plot, pods from outer space are replacing people with soulless duplicates. Donald Sutherland is the health inspector whose friend (Brooke Adams) is one of the early people to believe that someone close to her is no longer who he appears to be. Before long, Sutherland, Adams, Jeff Goldblum and Veronica Cartwright are running for their lives.
The story of perfect paranoia is infinitely flexible, adapting itself perfectly to the tenor of the times (assuming, of course, the filmmakers are halfway competent). Kaufman’s film distinguishes itself from its predecessor by playing on our worst fears concerning big city anonymity and alienation, and by introducing the infamous pod scream, which leads to one of the most chilling final frames in film history.
