Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 1st, 2011
Three children are born at the moment of a total solar eclipse. On the even of their tenth birthday party, we discover that these kids, for astrological reasons, are complete sociopaths, and are having a merry time offing anyone in the community who even vaguely annoys them. The only ones who even gradually suspect that something is going on are high school senior Joyce (Lori Lethen) and her little brother Timmy (K. C. Martel). They soon become the target of the psycho kids’ wrath.
As slasher films flooded the screens in the early eighties, every conceivable minor variation was tried, while the rigid narrative formula was religiously observed. So if the variation wasn’t in the date (Halloween, Friday the 13th, New Year’s Evil, My Bloody Valentine, etc., etc., etc.), the change-up was in the the killer. And so here we have kids, though the elements remain otherwise familiar: prologue opening, young couples get naked and die, the Good Girl is the Final Girl, and so on. Though there is a bit of a nasty little punch in having the kids be murderous, this was hardly new in 1981 (The Bad Seed anyone?). The world of the film is a very difficult one to buy: the rash of murders has very little effect on the community, the junkyard features gassed-up and fully functional cars, astrology is apparently a for-credit subject at the high school, and everyone is very, very, very stupid. And while there is a certain demented pleasure in seeing tiny, WTF turns by the likes of Jose Ferrer (on-screen for maybe 30 seconds) and Susan Strasberg, this is a film that, in the final analysis, is nowhere as sick as it should be, unable to follow through on its own premise, as demonstrated by the singularly anti-climactic finale. Had this been an Italian or Spanish movie from the same era, I venture to think things would be a bit different.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 30th, 2011
Ann Gentry (Anjanette Comer) is a social worker with a new case, one that she specifically sought. She has been assigned to the Wadsworth family. It consists of a terrifying matriarch (Ruth Roman), sexpot daughters Germaine (Marianna Hill) and Alba (Suzanne Zenor), and Baby (David Mooney, credited as David Manzy), a grown man with, apparently, the mental development of an infant. But Ann suspects Baby is capable of more, and that there is something fundamentally wrong going on at the Wadsworth residence. The Wadsworths, meanwhile, do not take kindly to Ann’s prying, and will stop at nothing to preserve their way of life.
Viewers lured by the promise of the film’s poster (Baby in crib, hatchet in hand) will no doubt be disappointed. This is not a body-count film, and there is very little that is overtly horrific for most of the movie. But make no mistake: this is a horror film. The horror is primarily conceptual, and the more we see of Baby’s life, the more we squirm. The performances are universally strong, and we buy into the characters, no matter how grotesque they are, and believe me, they are grotesque. The climax is exquisitely sick, as only the denouement of a movie made in 1972 can be, and is meticulously set up by everything that came before. This is a screwed-up movie, and I mean that as a term of extremely high praise. Absolutely not to be missed.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on July 29th, 2011
In 2007, writer-directors Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza created [REC], a truly frightening horror film. Considering their subject matter is so familiar to audiences it proved a major challenge not to fall into clichés. Somehow, against all odds, [REC] remained fresh by blending the elements so well… nasty contagion and fast zombies ala 28 Days Later captured in documentary-syle videography made famous by The Blair Witch Project. Add likable lead characters, natural dialog, horrific gore and scream-at-the-screen suspense; sprinkle in clues of a disturbing spiritual origin to the mysterious virus and you end up with one of the scariest and most effective additions to both the zombie and “found footage” horror sub-genres.
To appreciate the sequel, [REC]2, one should take the time to watch the first film, but if you haven’t, here is a brief spoiler filled synopsis of [REC]. A local Spanish TV journalist and her cameraman are embedded with a group of firefighters for the night as part of a human interest segment on their magazine news show. A routine call to an old apartment building on the outskirts of Madrid immediately leads to the team being sealed inside by a government quarantine trying to contain the origin of a ferocious viral pandemic. The news team chronicles the firefighters’ efforts to battle the frenzied, ravenous infected and escape the building, avoiding viral contamination or getting shot by government snipers.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 28th, 2011
The third BloodRayne film (and second with Nastassia Malthe in the title role) sees the titular dhampir slicing up Nazis, and so the chronology of the third film rejoins that of the first game. During a raid on a death camp train, Rayne accidentally infects a Commandant Michael Paré. Becoming a dhampir himself (a human/vampire hybrid), he and Mengele-figure Clint Howard (because who else are you going to cast as a Nazi scientist other than Clint Howard?) plan to use Rayne’s blood to grant Hitler immortality.
Vampires and Nazis notwithstanding, the important thing here is that this is yet another Uwe Boll film. So what exactly does that mean for you, the discriminating viewer? As regular visitors to this site might know, I have, in the past, actually praised some of Boll’s more recent efforts. I may well have destroyed whatever critical credibility I could lay claim to by being so impressed by Tunnel Rats, but damn it, it was good. Here, though, is yet more evidence that the Indefatigable One is not at his best when dealing with video game material. Also World War II. Opening an action movie about vampires with shots of Auschwitz-bound prisoners is not, methinks, in the best of taste. Furthermore, Boll’s decision to go with a washed-out, gritty feel does a disservice to his heroine. The world of the BloodRayne video games is a fantastic, exaggerated one, Gothic in every sense. It is a world of decadent costume balls, and villains headquartered in castles, and it is the cartoonish, occult-obsessed, iconographically berserk side of the Nazis that lends itself to the kind of stories we fine in the games, not to mention the look of the character. Rayne’s revealing costume, hardly practical, looks even sillier when placed in a context of grime, washed-out colours and snow.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 27th, 2011
I’ve seen some dysfunctional families on television over the years. Haven’t we all? It’s fun to laugh at someone else’s flaws. Along comes Showtime, and it’s rather hard to classify the series The United States Of Tara. This one takes dysfunction to a whole new level. Tara (Collette) suffers from multiple-personality disorder. Laughing yet? She has managed to control the problem by using medications and attending frequent therapy sessions. But the medication is sapping her creative ability. You see, Tara was once a gifted artist. She painted murals and was somewhat critically acclaimed. The meds put an end to all of that. With the blessings of her family, Tara goes off the meds, and the family grows by the multitude. Yes, there are multiple “alters” as she calls them inside of Tara’s body. Now they are all coming out to play.
The first thing you have to understand about this show is who the alters happen to be. We learn over time that they were constructed by Tara’s mind to protect her from a traumatic moment in her life. Tara can’t remember the event, but from time to time, the alters offer up little clues to what might have taken place. She is totally aware of the alters and their personalities. The family has developed some protection techniques of their own. Husband Max (Corbett) is not allowed to have sex with the alters. They’ve decided that would be cheating. How about just f***ed up? The kids are to treat the alters as they are, not as Mom. I’ll introduce you to the “real” people later. Here are Tara’s alters:
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 26th, 2011
Renée Zellweger is Jane, a former country singer who has lost the will to live since an accident left her in a wheelchair. Forest Whitaker is Joey, who can talk to angels and ghosts since he witnessed the death by fire of his family. These two wounded souls bond and bicker, and when Joey finds a letter from Jane’s son, whom she gave up for adoption years ago, he decides that she must see him. Fortunately, there’s a talk being given in New Orleans by a man who is apparently an expert on communication with angels, so that gives Joey a reason-slash-pretext to drag Jane on a cross-country trip she wouldn’t agree to otherwise.
And so off we go, on yet another road trip discovery of America, this time filtered through the eyes of French writer/director Olivier Dahan (La Vie en Rose). As expected, it’s all very picaresque, with plenty of strange and quirky encounters along the way – Elias Koteas working the sleaze as the man who sells our protagonists an exploding car (and who is emotionally crippled, by his own admission – Symbolism!), Nick Nolte hamming it up as a musical hermit who trots out the old Robert-Johnson-sold-his-soul-for-music chestnut one more time, and so on. Zelwegger’s performance is serious of purpose, but she is done no favours by the voice-over she is saddled with, which babbles poetically on about this and that and is just as pretentious and annoying as Terrence Malick’s excesses in this department. Whitaker, meanwhile, takes his patented sensitive-with-tics shtick to some pretty zany heights. Despite some striking visuals (and sometimes because of the same), this is a pretty silly effort that occasionally rises to entertaining levels of camp, but more often just sets the eyes rolling.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on July 23rd, 2011
I have never been a huge fan of Tyler Perry's creations. Particularly, House of Payne is something I really don't care for. Mostly this is due to the fact that the original story that made the household dynamic of mixed family members what it is throughout the series came from a story about a woman who was a crack addict and arsoned her own house. After seeing this story, and the completely insensitive way it handled drug addiction struck me as so foul that I have yet to find forgiveness. So here I stand, weighing my possible bias' versus my standard issue journalistic neutrality as a reviewer, and hoping my opinion remains respectable.
This bundle of 24 episodes continues the series' usual path of melding corny humour with major issues such as theft, drugs, racial topics and so forth. As much as it tries to be poignant, the setup and execution of each story is too unnatural to be ever be taken seriously. As well, there are just far too many negative black stereotypes being used for my own comfort level. I'm not asking it to be like the Boondocks and try to explode stereotypes while displaying them, but there certainly could be a lot more efforts made to not fall into such ugly situations or characters (none of which I shall honour by repeating here...if you are a masochist, investigate the show yourself).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 21st, 2011
The fourth season of The Virginian was a milestone year for the groundbreaking western. Four of the show's regular characters would be appearing in their final episodes. Lee J. Cobb was never completely happy doing the show, and while he always acted professionally, his castmates all knew he wanted to leave. Cobb finally left halfway through this season even though he would remain on the opening credits for the entire year. This would also be the first and last year for Diane Roter as Jennifer Sommers, the Judge's niece. She was a replacement for Roberta Shore's Betsy, who left the previous year but would return for one episode in year four to offer the character closure. Roter was a kind of Annette Funicello lookalike and only really appeared strongly in a handful of episodes. Finally, this was the last season for Randy Boone as Randy Benton. It's your last chance to hear a riff from the young character's guitar.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 21st, 2011
Mr. Skin and Panik House Entertainment have teamed up to provide us with what can only be described as a schlock-o-rama of 1980's exploitation cinema. After the run of blacksploitation and grindhouse films of the 1970's, we found ourselves in a cycle where the subject shifted to women behind bars. You could still find the same level of low-budget movie making here but with the added "bonus" of watching hot chicks, for the most part, used and abused while being usually unfairly incarcerated. This three-pack of movies includes the first uncut release of Chained Heat in North America. Now, I'm not really familiar enough with the movie to tell you what might have been added back into the mix, but I'll bet we can all guess, can't we?
Chained Heat (1983)
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 19th, 2011
This is a biopic about two very obscure people whose relationship has escaped the attention of all but a select few. All kidding aside, what we have here is a dramatization of how the heir to the British throne (Nico Evers-Swindell) meets Kate Middleton (Camilla Luddington), and how their romance gradually blossoms. He arrives at university, and every blue-blooded young woman has him in her sights, but it is, naturally, the down-to-earth girl who draws him, the turning point being when she shows that she’s sexy as well as smart during a student fashion show. But the course of true love is not an easy one, especially with the pressures of the fishbowl life of royalty make themselves known.
If you’re wondering what on earth is the point of making a movie about something the entire planet has already feasted on (and is still doing so), then let me clear things up: there is no point. This is as bland a romance as was ever committed to film, hitting every tired cliché imaginable. Friends who discover they want to be more? Check. Bitchy Aristocrat Who Threatens to Steal the Heroine’s Man? Check. Third act falling out? Check. Last minute confession of love that saves everything? Check. Snore. The only tiny points of interest are the bits of unintentional comedy. So poor Ben Cross, in grotesque makeup, is stuck playing a Charles who is obviously about two feet shorter than the real thing. And do skip ahead to the final shot, where, after a montage of stock footage of African wildlife, William proposes against a hilariously fake sunset so whose colours are so supersaturated, the shot seems (but can’t possibly, can it?) to be echoing Gone with the Wind.
![[Rec] 2 dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/rec-2-large.jpg)
