Just added a review for a British film called Resurrecting the Street Walker. Really enjoyed it and would recommend anyone watch it.

Just added a review for an anthology movie from Thailand called Phobia.

This is released in the UK by Icon Home Entertainment on Monday 10 May. Click for more info

Anyways, here’s what I watched in sequential order. Orange means worth your time, Red means essential viewing.

Rashomon (1950) d. Akira Kurosawa: This movie is brilliant. I don’t even need to comment on it. If you haven’t seen it, then you’re not a fan of film yet.

4D Man (1959) d. Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr.: Yeaworth’s directorial follow up to the seminal The Blob, this one is far less interesting. A scientist figures out the key to penetrating the hardest steel…by entering the 4^th dimension and passing through it! This is a decent flick but not all that special. Long and bloated, but with the standard 50’s non explicit sexual tension standard in most sci-fi films of the time.

Mark of the Vampire (1935) d. Tod Browning: A sound remake of Browning’s own silent film, London After Midnight. This is a stagey drama castrated by the newly implemented Hayes Code.  Bela Lugosi returns as a vampire with his vampiress daughter Luna. The film has an ending that even Lugosi hated. Interesting historically, but not as an entertaining film.

The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932) d. Charles Brabin: Karloff wants to kill all white men and rape their women. Myrna Loy plays his sex crazed sadist of a daughter. It’s got torture, sex, and violence. Everything you’d come to expect in a pre-code film. Worth viewing.

Death Becomes Her (1992) d. Robert Zemeckis: I love this movie. It’s just a glorified Tales from the Crypt episode but Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, and Bruce Willis are great in it. About two women who take a potion that reverses the ageing process only to find themselves fighting over Willis. Oh, and I can’t get enough of Louise Brook’s style bobbed cut. Short hair is where it’s at, ladies.

Nightmare (1964) d. Freddie Francis: Excellent film about a rich heiress being driven insane after witnessing her mother kill her father. The black and white photography is stellar and Francis proves again that he is one of the great underrated horror directors (note: be sure to check out his previous film, Paranoiac, starring Oliver Reed, which is one of my all-time faves). Jimmy Sangster, writer of most of the great Hammer films, delivers another special script that totally switches gears half-way through. Excellent stuff.

The Phantom of the Opera (1962) d. Terence Fisher: I’m not a big fan of the PotO movies, but I really like this one. It’s quickly paced and the acting is terrific. Michael Gough (Alfred from Burton’s Batman films, for you kids) is brilliant as the asshole Lord Ambrose D’Arcy. I also like how the Phantom is not motivated by love but rather pure revenge and hatred for what D’Arcy did to him. Absolutely worth a look.

Child’s Play 3 (1991) d. Jack Bender: I’m not going to apologize for liking this movie. No movie should ever be described as a “guilty pleasure” (Because if it pleases you, why feel guilty?) and I’ll say it again, I like this film. Chucky goes to the most incompetent military school in the country to find Andy and proceeds to murder everyone he sees. Bizarrely, the finale takes place at a carnival, but I like carnivals so suck it.

Doctor X (1932) d. Michael Curtiz: Four words: Fay. Wray. In. Color. This film is about a group of professors attempting to figure out which one is the Moon Killer, a cannibal that is murdering and eating people throughout the city. The direction is stodgy and staged like the play the film is based upon (Curtiz would later go on to make Casablanca) but the pre-code elements and the color make it worth a look even if it is a bit stilted. Plus, Fay Wray gets a hand buzzer to the crotch at the end of the film, and she likes it.

Red-Headed Woman (1932) d. Jack Conway: You’ve probably figured out by now that I’m really interested in pre-code Hollywood cinema. This one’s about Jean Harlow sleeping her way around town in an attempt to gain social status. Of course, this was socially unacceptable at the time but that didn’t stop pre-code cinema from tackling such issues. There’s a famous scene here where Harlow gets smacked in the face by her lover only to come back and beg for more because she likes it. Worth a look.

Werewolf of London (1935) d. Stuart Walker:  Notable for being the first Hollywood werewolf flick. Jack Pierce’s first attempt at a werewolf makeup looks really good and properly beastlike. There is a magical scene where the camera tracks along with Hull as he transforms into the werewolf that is a must see. If you are a student of horror, then you sort of have to see this.

Waterloo Bridge (1931) d. James Whale: Whale made this right before Frankenstein. Mae Clarke stars as a prostitute who falls for a young military officer from a wealthy family. She refuses his advances because of her profession (which he doesn’t know about). The love story culminates in a climax on the Waterloo Bridge during an air raid by German zeppelins and a famous ending. Excellent movie.

Bad Biology (2008) d. Frank Henenlotter: I had high hopes for this but they were all dashed upon viewing. About a girl with seven clits who finds a guy with a two foot donkey dick with a mind of its own. It’s not funny or sexy.

Pandorum (2009) d. Christian Alvart: This was marketed as a new Event Horizon. It’s not. A couple dudes come out of hyper sleep to find a spaceship nearly empty with the exception of the cannibalistic monsters running around. Boring, slightly confusing, and visually uninteresting. Pass.

The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) d. William A. Wellman: “Wild Bill” Wellman is my third favorite director of all-time and I was in the mood for a great western. This is a can’t miss film starring Henry Fonda; about a posse that comes across three men who they suspect in the killing of a respected town citizen. The men claim they are innocent but the evidence points to the contrary. Meanwhile, the law is nowhere to be found. A brutally honest movie about man’s obsession with revenge and the lengths he’ll go to satiate it. Currently on Netflix instant.

My Best Fiend: Klaus Kinski (1999) d. Werner Herzog: This doc is Herzog narrating his experiences with the famous crazy German actor Klaus Kinski. He interviews various cast members and included clips from their collaborations to support Kinski’s genius. I liked it, but be warned that the only parts in English are when Herzog is talking or interviewing. All of the clips with Kinski, including a long 5 minute rant that opens the film, have no subtitles. Lots of funny anecdotes, though, including how a tribal chief came to Herzog offering to kill Kinski during a shoot. And Herzog admitting that, at the time, he regretted not taking the chieftain up on his offer.

Tank Girl (1995) d. Rachel Talalay: Had never seen this but always heard Deejay and Brady talking about it. It was on HBO and thought I’d give it a chance. I hated everything about it.

Frankenstein Unbound (1990) d. Roger Corman: Corman’s final film as director (as of now, anyway), this is a weird mashup of science fiction and horror. The premise: a scientist has created a new super weapon that has the nasty side effect of creating time slips. He’s sent into the past and must stop Frankenstein from creating a bride for his monster. This is pretty shitty. The monster looks terrible, the characters go nowhere, and the message of the film is muddled. Raul Julia, John Hurt, Bridget Fonda, and Michael Hutchence.

Penny Dreadful (2006) d. Richard Brandes: Caught this on IFC. It’s terrible. Absolutely terrible.

The Public Enemy (1931) d. William A. Wellman: A brilliant film. Cagney gives one of the great screen performances of all-time.

Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) d. Mervyn LeRoy: Warren William is my favorite actor of all-time and he is on fire in this film about a group of chorus girls (including my crush, Joan Blondell) trying to put on a new show during the depression and the rich men they get involved with. Brilliant musical numbers and choreography by Busby Berkeley.

Altered States (1980) d. Ken Russell: Really enjoyed this. Full comments on Splattercast 169

The Incredible Hulk (2008) d. Louis Leterrier: Surprisingly fun sequel to Ang Lee’s 2003 misfire. Performances are better, the FX is better, and it’s just generally more exciting. Thought Abomination looked cool.

7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964) d. George Pal: A really fun film about a carnival, run by Dr. Lao, and his merry band of historical and mythological attractions as they try to intervene and persuade the local townspeople to save their town from a baron who wants to buy it for a profit without telling them that the railroad is coming through in a year. It’s not incredibly funny, but it’s got a lot of charm to it and Tony Randall is great in all of the roles. Plus, stop motion Loch Ness Monster. Aces.

Bedlam (1946) d. Mark Robson: Brilliant. I rewatched this to get the Pete Walker taste out of my  mouth. Lewton flick that deals with much of the same subject matter that Walker did, only from the opposite perspective. Karloff plays the sadistic head of an insane asylum. Required viewing.

Saboteur (1942) d. Alfred Hitchcock: Hitch’s famous flick about homegrown terrorism. It’s a film that makes conservatives moist. It also happens to be great. I’ll meet you in Soda City.

Stacy (2001) d. Naoyuki Tomomatsu: Another stupid zombie movie. Watched this because I was interested in other stuff by Tomomatsu.

Dead End Drive-In (1986) d. Brian Trenchard-Smith: Really fun Aussie flick about a group of people stuck in a drive-in which is really a government run prison for rebellious youth. You come to the drive-in to get laid or see a movie, but you can’t ever leave. Fun, fun film. Recommended.

The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) d. Anthony Mann: I don’t know what I was thinking, but I went on an Anthony Mann binge. The first of two back-to-back 3 hour sword and sandal epics. It takes a certain kind of person to sit through these kind of films. I’m one of them, and I still feel kicked in the balls after I’m through. Only recommended to S&S fiends, like myself.

El Cid (1961) d. Anthony Mann: Same thing. 3 hours of Charleton Heston. Only this time, instead of the interesting world of Rome, we have the totally uninteresting world of Spain. Mann makes the terrible mistake of casting Sophia Loren in both films. Let’s just say, she’s not known for her acting ability, yet she remains covered head to toe in each film. Maybe some cleavage would have livened things up. This film does have a spectacular ending, though. Getting there is a grind, however.

Sleepwalkers (1992) d. Mick Garris: No. Just, no.

Cat’s Eye (1985) d. Lewis Teague: Like this one a lot. A fun flick in the vein of EC Comics. Talked about Sleepwalkers and this on Splattercast #170

The Wolfman (2010) d. Joe Johnston (Theater): I’m a big supporter of this movie. It has character development problems, to be sure, but this delivered a really fun time with a really great movie monster. Apparently, I hate everything according to many of our listeners, but I don’t hate this movie. Go see it before it leaves the theaters. You’ll want to see it on a big screen.

Don’t Bother to Knock (1952) d. Roy Ward Baker: Marilyn Monroe stars as a batshit crazy babysitter. This was the film that was made to prove that she could “act”; that she was more than just a pair of great boobs with a bubbly personality. Does she succeed? Eh, she’s a little stiff in the role but she’s got moments of brilliance like the scene when she is about to push the little girl out of the window. She pulls off crazy very well. Roy Ward Baker should be known to all horror fans. He would go on to direct stuff like Quatermass and the Pit , The Vampire Lovers, and Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires.

The Crazies (1973) d. George Romero: An interesting failure. This is one of those films that has interesting concepts and ideas, but the execution is both flawed and it never lives up to its potential. It’s a film that could be done wonders with a good remake. Which is why I’m excited to see the new version.

Lo (2009) d. Travis Betz: Explodey Jo made me aware of this film a few months back with a post here on DL. It’s on Netflix Instant right now. It’s really good. About a dude who conjures a demon named Lo to find his girlfriend who has been dragged to hell by other demons. It has a unique presentation (for example, the “flashbacks” are done on a theater stage and acted very melodramatically). The main problem is that the twist is obvious from the very beginning, which makes all the talk of finding the girlfriend a bit anticlimactic. Still, worth a look for sure.

The Masque of the Red Death (1964) d. Roger Corman: This movie is, literally, perfect. The pinnacle of Corman’s Poe work. There is nothing I don’t like about this. Vincent Price gives, what I think, is his greatest performance. The final 20 minutes of this film are some of the finest you’ll ever see in the horror genre. If there is one film on this list that you have to see, it’s this one. I rewatch this at least three or four times a year. It’s that good.

Premature Burial (1962) d. Roger Corman: This is included on a great MGM Midnight Movie double bill DVD. Go buy it. This is not quite as good as Masque but is still rad as hell. Ray Milland plays a guy with a phobia of being buried alive. And he goes to great lengths to prevent that from happening. Great directing, great sets, and a bleak ending add up to an excellent experience.

The Maltese Falcon (1941) d. John Huston: Often cited as one of the greatest remakes of all-time. Bogart is such an electrifying screen presence. Obviously a must see for any film buff. I love noir.

Touch of Evil (1958) d. Orson Welles: As you can probably tell, I go through specific movie binges all the time. It happened to be noir during this phase of the month. This is a movie I just like to watch. It’s just so interestingly put together. The editing and lighting is so uniquely bizarre. I’m much less interested in the story aspect, which involves Welles framing an innocent man (and woman) and Heston’s drive to uncover the truth. If you like how movies are made, and that’s what interests you, you have to watch this.

I Wake Up Screaming (1941) d. H. Bruce Humberstone: I’d never seen this, but it happened to be on Netflix Instant and had a lot of things going for it. First, it was a noir. Second, it starred Vic Mature who is great. Thirdly, and totally coincidentally, the always wonderful Elisha Cook, Jr. has a main role (I didn’t plan this, but he seemed to appear in tons of movies I watched this month). Fourthly, Carole Landis. Yowza. As with most noirs, the plot is way too convoluted to try and explain, but I loved this flick.

House of Frankenstein (1944) d. Erle C. Kenton: An outstanding film is hampered by a totally unnecessary 20 minute sequence early on in the film involving Dracula. It feels totally forced (which it was by decree of Universal) and bogs down an otherwise quickly paced film. Karloff plays a mad scientist who enlists the services of The Wolfman to help him recreate and perfect the experiments of Dr. Frankenstein. Required viewing.

Starman (1984) d. John Carpenter: One of the greatest traits of John Carpenter is his ability to do great work in totally different genres. That’s a rare gift that I don’t think he gets enough credit for. This is a really good movie with a great performance by Jeff Bridges. And Karen Allen is cute as a button in this flick.

First Man Into Space (1959) d. Robert Day: A hot shot flyboy disobeys orders and pilots his spacecraft into space. He comes back as a disfigured monster that feeds on human blood. Robert Day also did the great Corridors of Blood. This one is billed as sci-fi but is really more horror. The monster fx look really great. Reminded me of something that would have come out of Seth Brundle’s telepods. It’s a little slow in the middle, but once the monster finally appears, it’s highly entertaining. Criterion has released this.

Orphan (2009) d. Jaume Collet-Serra: Isabelle Fuhrman puts in a great performance. Other than that, no. Just couldn’t get past the fact that every character was completely unlikeable and that the husband was the most retarded person on planet earth. Oh, and this movie could have been ten minutes long if the equally retarded kids had just said “Hey, she threatened to kill me and cut off my hairless pecker!”. Avoid.

Invaders of the Lost Gold (1982) d. Alan Birkinshaw: I don’t know why. Stop looking at me like that. I know I shouldn’t have watched it. It just happens sometimes, you know?

Crash (1996) d. David Cronenberg: I don’t think this is one of Cronenberg’s great films, but it’s certainly interesting and weird and a tad uncomfortable. I’ve heard the book is a lot more graphic than this and in reality, the film isn’t very graphic at all. Of course it stars James Spader. I bet James Spader has the most mundane sex life of anybody on the planet. He’s always in these weird kinky sexual deviant sort of flicks. You gotta watch this if you’re a Cronenberg completist.

Vampires in Havana (1985) d. Juan Padron: Very interesting. It’s an animated film out of Cuba about a vampire doctor who has created “Vampisun”, a drug that allows vampires to walk around during the day. He wants to give it away to all vampires but that doesn’t sit well with the capitalist vamps from American and Europe who don’t believe in giving anything away for free when a profit could be made. Some raunchy stuff here, including cartoon boobies and sex. It’s strange and worth a look since it’s not often you see an animated horror comedy from Cuba.

Red Sands (2009) d. Alex Turner: Alex Turner did Dead Birds, which I really liked. 5 years later, he returns to directing only to fall flat on his face. Red Sands is a really stupid commentary on the war in Afghanistan. About a group of soldiers who start getting picked off by the lamest Djinn you’ve ever seen. The moral of this story is: Djinn’s don’t like America, therefore they will body hop in order to get on a plane to America so that they can destroy it for its imperialistic designs. Fuck this movie.

Overnight (2003) d. Tony Montana and Mark Brian Smith: This is the documentary about Troy Duffy and all the problems he had with making Boondock Saints (which is a barometer movie for me, if you like BS, then well…i better just stop before I get into trouble). This documentary makes Duffy look like the biggest douche in the world. I couldn’t believe some of the stuff he said to these important people who gave him millions of dollars to make his film. And it’s all coming from his own mouth, so it’s hard to use the “bias” argument. His sense of entitlement is crazy. Funny, if you like to revel in the misery of others.

The Searchers (1956) d. John Ford: One of the great things about the ever expanding Netflix Instant library is that I can immediately watch a film that I don’t own on DVD and haven’t seen in a long time. This is one of them. Beautiful color western about John Wayne on a search to save a young girl who has been kidnapped by Indians. I have issues with the ending. One of the great westerns. Required viewing.

Hellblock 13 (1999) d. Paul Talbot: Very surprising anthology. Debbie Rochon plays a death row inmate who tells Gunnar Hansen stories that she’s written and wants published. It’s a Troma flick, but they actually take the material seriously. It’s hampered by a really low budget and the stories themselves aren’t original or interesting, but I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. I can’t honestly recommend you run out and watch this, but if you really like anthologies, if that’s your thing, then maybe check this out some lazy Saturday afternoon.

Feast (2005) d. John Gulager: Re-watched this via IFC. Better than I remembered. It’s a fun monster flick. Disappointing that the sequels totally ruined what was potentially a really awesome property.

My Darling Clementine (1946) d. John Ford: Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda) and his brothers head to Tombstone where they find Doc Holliday (played by the fucking awesome Vic Mature) and their ultimate confrontation with the Clanton’s at the famous O.K. Coral. Just a fantastic film. What really sets this apart is that it really focuses more on Holliday and you get many of the events from his perspective. For my money, the best adaptation of the famous events and battle in Tombstone.

Ran (1985) d. Akira Kurosawa: Breathtakingly epic. You can’t die without seeing Ran. It’s filmmaking as art in every sense of the word.

High Noon (1952) d. Fred Zinneman: Highly entertaining western that is more about people than it is gunfights. Gary Cooper plays a recently retired sheriff who comes back when he finds out that a notorious criminal is coming to town at high noon to kill him. The townspeople abandon him for various reasons, mainly out of fear, so it is up to Cooper to take on four gunmen. Lon Chaney, Jr. and Lloyd Bridges appear in cool roles. Grace Kelley is the gorgeous love interest. I don’t particularly like Cooper as an actor, but I really enjoy this story and how the film sets up the climactic finale.

Man of a Thousand Faces (1957) d. Joseph Pevney: Biography of Lon Chaney, Sr. starring James Cagney in the title role. It’s okay. Cagney gives a good performance and you get to see recreations of Chaney’s life including his Hunchback and Phantom roles. Like most Hollywood biographies, Chaney comes out looking great, as a devoted husband and father, when there is a lot of evidence that he was actually a total asshole who didn’t really care about Creighton and fully reveled in the perks that came with being a famous Hollywood actor. Worth a look, though with caution.

Dead Snow (2009) d. Tommy Wirkola: Yet another stupid zombie movie.

Notorious (2009) d. George Tillman Jr.: Biggie Smalls was a great guy. His only real sin was the occasional adulterous dalliance. 2Pac was a total dickhead who deserved it. That’s what I got out of this biography. Solid on the filmmaking aspect and buoyed by actual recordings of 2pac and the Notorious B.I.G. It’s just way too kind in its portrayal of Christopher Wallace. You can tell the family had “final cut” so to speak. But that chick who plays Lil’ Kim? Hot!

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1994) d. Kim Henkel: I’d actually never seen this. It’s now in my top 10 of worst films ever made. This thing is just hideous. According to Vaughn at Motion Picture Massacre, there is an extended 10 minute cut that is the director’s preferred vision. 10 minutes of Scarlett Johansson having lesbian sex with Jessica Biel could not make this movie any better. An absolute travesty of a film.

January’s Watchlist

Fleshed out my forum post about José Mojica Marins’ Embodiment of Evil into an actual review.

I might be alone in thinking he was a bit sexy in At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul and This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse, but any sense of realism at wanton Brazilian youths lustfully begging him to impregnate them is completely lost nowadays.

Enjoy!

I recently watched and reviewed Jamie Blanks’ Long Weekend. If you haven’t seen it (or the original), you can check out my spoiler-free review here. But I also felt a need to delve a little into how it compares to its predecessor, directed by Colin Eggleston in 1978. This will contain spoilers for both movies. Here are just a few thoughts I had on them.

The remake is not completely shot for shot, but it might as well be. To be honest, as I mentioned in my review, had I watched these in the opposite order, I’d feel differently about each of them. But as it is, I saw the remake first, decided I liked it already, and really I think it’s quite hard to unlike something. But it did make my heart sink a little when something that impressed me in the remake turned out to have already been done in the original (in particular, the white foam of breaking waves silently turning red with blood). As you’d expect, the special effects look better in the remake, especially the very last scene, a glorious explosion of gore, which the rest of the movie held back on.

One difference between the two is that our central male character, Peter, is Australian in the original and American in the remake (played by Jim “Jesus Christ” Caviezel). Initially I thought the choice to have an American as the central character bore some significance to his attitude, and wondered what the filmmakers were trying to say about the United States’ position on the health of our planet. But it is not once mentioned, and I can find little mention of it online, so one can only assume it was a casting issue.

Another omission from the remake was a scene from the 1978 version in which Peter gets stoned. I didn’t find it all that queer that this was left out of the remake, but found a lot to speculate on as to why it was in the original in the first place. Was it a tool to enhance Peter’s paranoia towards the creatures around him? A sign of his secret appreciation for what nature has to offer? The manifestation of his inclination to use Mother Earth solely for his own gratification? Or merely a sign of the times?

Outside of the nature message, a main theme of the film is abortion. But you can see how these two issues become one and the same. The couple have gone through an abortion, either as a result of, or maybe resulting in, the breakdown of their marriage, and the wife (Marcia in 1978, Carla in 2008) is constantly reminded of this. There is a moment that we become momentarily sympathetic to Peter, where he witnesses his wife smashing an eagle’s egg against a tree, and declaring, “You didn’t have to kill it.” It’s not all that subtle, especially in the original, but I thought it added a nice extra layer. Another symbol displayed here is the dugong (Aussie seacow) crying out for its lost cub, a sound that haunts our characters throughout, right up to the last seconds of the movie. We take this to mean that Marcia/Carla is doing the same for her own lost child, or maybe she is disgusted with herself for not doing so.

Overall, you could argue that this was a movie that did not need to be remade, especially when you consider the fact that there were no “updates” to the story, aside from maps being replaced with GPS. But Jamie Blanks dedicated his movie to the late Colin Eggleston, so it’s easy to see why he wanted to make it but didn’t want to change anything. I feel that there were a few things done better in the remake (the last 5-10 minutes), but this of course can be just a few tweaks of the original material (couple with the fact that I watched it first). At least it was nice to see a remake that did not lose the message or impact of the original. I recommend both movies highly.

Long Weekend is released on 8 Feb 2010 by Showbox Home Entertainment

Netflix Instant has the 1st episode of the new Starz series Spartacus: Blood and Sand available for viewing. The show is getting some minor buzz on the internet, mostly because Lucy Lawless gets naked and has lots of Roman sex. Though my major was Film in college, I minored in classical history. I eat this stuff up and it’s hard for me to ever really hate anything that has to do with mythology, ancient Roman/Greece/Egypt, etc. So I was super psyched to watch this first episode.

I loved it. The acting is crap. The writing is melodramatic and hokey. The stylization is almost a complete and total ripoff of Zack Snyder’s 300. Imagine that movie with 1/16th the budget and a troupe of local theater actors and you’ll get an idea of what this series is like. But I don’t care. This is like a soap opera for men. It’s gory as hell (blood is super stylized so every axe swings paints the whole frame with blood) and is chock full of nudity. The story is simple, the Thracian Spartacus is betrayed by his Roman overlords and refuses to help them kick some Greek ass. They catch him, sell his wife into slavery, and force him to battle as a Gladiator where he wins the hearts of the people.

Like I said, this is cheesy, the obvious greenscreen backgrounds in almost every shot and the blatant theft of Snyder’s film (every fight scene goes from full speed to slow motion for the dramatic hits back to full speed, etc.) will turn off some people. Screw them. I am going to revel in this cheesy decadence.

Watch it.

The film, to its detriment, opens with the text “During the 1980′s over 70% of American adults believed in the existence of abusive Satanic Cults….another 30% rationalized the lack of evidence due to government cover-ups…The following is based on true unexplained events.” This opening text has nothing to do with the film whatsoever. First, it immediately gives away that the film is going to have a Satanic cult as its antagonist. The film might be called The House of the Devil, but since much of the film is a build up to figuring out just what the hell is going on, having such a major plot point told to you before the movie even starts is disappointing. It’s also unclear as to what Ti West is trying to say by giving those stats. Already unbelievable on the face of it, the film never again mentions satanic cults as a topic of conversation by any of the characters and there is no sort of government entity or cover up that is even implied even passingly. It has absolutely nothing to do with anything in the film. Because of those first two sentences, the following, standard “based on…” blurb that comes with too many horror movies these days feels immediately tacked on and serves only to harm the film it is supposed to be enhancing. West would do well to just excise the text from the beginning of the movie entirely. Ok, so the opening text is retarded, but what about the actual movie?

If you are unfamiliar with the story of The House of the Devil, the movie opens with a girl named Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) getting a new apartment from Dee Wallace. As we will soon see, Samantha’s roommate is a whore who lives in complete filth, so Samantha is itching to move out on her own. Unfortunately, even with a little help from Wallace, who waives the deposit, Sam still needs to come up with a few hundred dollars to pay the first months rent. Getting desperate, she inquires about a babysitting flyer she finds on a help wanted board. The man on the other end of the telephone says he needs her for a few hours that night. Sam and her friend drive out to a large house in the middle of nowhere and immediately are creeped out by the tenant (Tom Noonan) who admits that he doesn’t actually have a kid, but rather needs Sam to watch his mother for a few hours. Sam and her friend are obviously disturbed because Noonan is, literally, one creepy dude. But Sam decides to stay because he offers her $400 for a few hours work while her friend takes off, planning to pick Sam up around 12:30. In the meantime, the framing device is that there is a lunar eclipse occurring that night and slowly but surely, Sam begins wondering what exactly is going on inside this large house and what exactly the “mother” is doing upstairs…

I was completely and totally on board for most of The House of the Devil. The film has been criticized for being “too slow” and that  “nothing happens”, and in this day and age of instant horror gratification, those are not surprising criticisms. One of the most negative aspects of the fetishisization and worshipping of FX artists that began in the 70′s was a slow destruction of audiences accepting suspense driven horror. Most people generally label it the “MTVification” of film, but I firmly believe the root cause of an entire generation of horror fans seeming inability to tolerate a “slow” horror movie is directly correlated to what Savini, Bottin, Baker, et al. did in the 1980′s. I’m not saying that there is anything inherently wrong with those guys. Their work is the work of genius and the horror genre benefited immeasurably because of their creativity and uniqueness. All I’m saying is that a negative consequence of that “Let’s smack the audience over the head with FX!” mentality is that audiences gradually were weaned off of story driven, suspense horror. So much so that today, any filmmaker attempting that sort of film, is going to start off with two strikes against them. It’s hard to pull off something like The House of the Devil, and even ballsier to put it out into an environment that is inherently biased against it, either consciously or unconsciously. And because of that, there has been some bickering between West and the producers over cutting out “boring” scenes in order to make it more sell-able to a horror public that has ADD. For what it’s worth,  the version that is available on Time Warner On Demand seems to be West’s preferred vision. It includes all the scenes West mentions in the aforementioned link.

As I mentioned before, I was totally on board with HotD. I thought the performances were great, the atmosphere thick, and the suspense top notch.  I’ve seen a lot of criticism of the lead actress, but I thought she turned in one of the best performances I’d seen in a horror film this year. She feels very real in the role and, initially at least, is very believable in why she decides to ultimately stay and do the job. West does a stellar job, directorially, in crafting a film that is always amazing to look at. The shadow filled house is genuinely creepy and West wisely does not overdo the whole “grindhouse-aesthetic shtick”, instead picking his spots when using techniques such as zoom shots. In other words, this movie looks great and the performances are great. It has atmosphere to spare and really relishes in its slow burn build up.

There is one glaring aspect where The House of the Devil fails, for me, and that is in its lack of internal logic. Characters constantly do the most idiotic things possible. Whether it is stopping along the side of the road and accepting small talk from random creepy dudes or putting on a set of headphones and dancing around a house (very 80′s) when you’ve already established that A. It’s supposed to be scary as hell and B. The character has already been shown to be scared. I am totally on board with following the somewhat mundane actions of the lead character, up until they get to be so stupid that it makes the movie feel as if it’s just padding the running time. In the interview I linked above, West laments that the producers wanted to cut out a four minute sequence of Sam wandering around the house, exploring, complaining that it adds much needed character development. I’d certainly agree that it adds character development, but not in the way he wants. In one scene, Sam, bored, wanders upstairs, goes into somebody’s den, then sits down and starts going through the desk drawers. My girlfriend and I both sat there and were like “Yeah, ok. Nobody would do something like this.” That’s incorrect. I’m sure somebody would do something like that. Just not the character of Samantha as she has been established throughout the rest of the film. Anybody who has seen The Grand Horror and Outpost Doom knows that I am more than just a fan of characters wandering down dark corridors, I relish that stuff. I wasn’t put off by that at all in West’s film, but I was put off with what seemed to be stupid actions by Sam.  I really wanted Sam to be a smart strong willed woman, but too often she comes across as a dumb, naive girl. And that is a bit disappointing. I was taken out of the film and the character when I should have been sucked into the atmosphere of the house and fully invested in Sam’s character to the point where I wasn’t wondering whether or not she was smart enough to deal with the evil tenants within.

Which brings me to the much lauded final twenty minutes of the movie. I’m trying to think of the closest, recent parallel in terms of structure for The House of the Devil. Though they are very different films in terms of aesthetics and tone, Paranormal Activity is probably the most recent thing I can use to compare this movie against, but only in very general terms. PA was criticized by many as being very boring until the last ten minutes or so. Both of these films have been labeled slow-burns (and in some cases, “no-burns”) and both attempt to contrast the previous slowness of the film with dramatic and frenzied finales (though in the the case of PA, it is much less steep of a contrast owing to the films gradually increasing bedroom scenes). The finale of HotD is no different. Once it kicks into high gear, the film suddenly goes batshit crazy and becomes, tonally, a much different film. Samantha is attacked by the family of Satanists and must fight for her life before the lunar eclipse completes. This change of pace really works. Though again, they are very different films in terms of what they are trying to do, it’s sort of analogous with our recent discussion of From Dusk Till Dawn on the Splattercast in the sense that the film spends most of its time establishing one type of tone only to suddenly switch, almost out of the blue, to a totally different, sharper edged tone. West successfully pulls it off, though I must say that the villains of the film are much less interesting in attack mode than they are in creepy people mode. Still, it’s an exciting conclusion that hearkens back to the archetypal “Final Girl” theme. And of course, there is a final beat to the movie that sort of wraps up just what exactly the Satanists were trying to do in the event you couldn’t figure it out. Really, it’s the most obvious thing you could think of. What else would a Satanist be doing with a virginal girl on a rare lunar eclipse?

Do I think The House of the Devil is an instant classic worthy of its incredibly high critical ranking? No. Much like Drag Me to Hell, which had ungodly high critical praise, The House of the Devil is a good movie sustained by a great abundance of suspense and atmosphere, great performances, and a unique style that is too rarely attempted in today’s horror climate. Personally, I really dug this film. It is easy to complain about the dumb logic the characters use to keep the movie going forward, and certainly West could have made some more clever uses of his narrative than the choices he ultimately made, but I don’t want to see a girl sitting on a couch for 90 minutes while clutching a pillow while she’s frightened by noises and shadows. You have to suspend your disbelief as much as you can in a film like this. Yeah, we wouldn’t go wandering around a spooky house that we already have reservations about, but the alternative would be even more complaints about how “boring” this film is if the girl did the “logical” thing. For the most part, I enjoyed the ride and it was refreshing to see a film like this. Even with its flaws, it’s definitely one of my favorite horror films of the year and should be required viewing for horror fans like myself that revel in atmosphere, tension, ambiguity, and suspense.

7.75 / 10

Until you watch it.

Splatter is probably one of the worst things I’ve seen all year. Corey Feldman plays Jonny Splatter, a famous rock star who kills himself on camera. He has invited a bunch of his enemies (including his manager, his shrink, bandmembers, mistresses, etc.) to his mansion for a final goodbye, a reading of his will. Popping up on a television behind his casket, he tells each character either what they aren’t getting or where they should look to find whatever it is he is leaving them with. One by one, the greed of the characters leads them to find their gifts only to instead find a zombified Feldman cracking awful one-liners before he unimaginatively dispatches each rival in various ways.  I mean, it’s really cookie-cutter bullshit. For one death, he pulls out a groupies heart because she metaphorically “tore out” his. It doesn’t take long for Tony Todd to chop off some body parts and speak some mumbo jumbo and force Feldman into a resurrection of his career…albeit at a 5% commission. The end.

I know Corman is established as making low budget dreck. But the thing that made Corman great was not that he made low budget crap, it’s that he made low budget crap good. Here, there is no attempt whatsoever to hide the fact that there is no money involved. It’s cheap bad, not cheap good. Joe Dante, probably due to some loyalty debt to Corman, completely phones it in as a director. It looks ugly and he does absolutely nothing creatively. But the person who comes out of this worst of all is Richard Matheson. People tell me this guy is a genius but man, I can’t imagine even the most die hard of Matheson fans being able to defend some of the dialogue and story decisions here. It literally seems like he wrote this in about three minutes, presumably with a gun to his head. Yeesh.

This is under half an hour so if you’re really curious to see a train wreck, go ahead and view it here. Nobody comes out of this one unscathed and it’s only notable for being such an epic failure even though there is a lot of talent floating around. Or maybe “talent” is a word that doesn’t apply to anybody involved in this anymore. Dante, Matheson, Corman…none of them have really done anything that warrants horror fans purposely seeking out their material in a long time. It’s out of respect for the past and nostalgia for the great things they did that we watch their garbage now, more  than anything. It’s weird to think that there is an entire generation of horror fans that weren’t even alive when these guys were defining the genre. It’s unfortunate that this is the kind of introduction they are relegated to in the 21st century.

Just wanted to point out that we’ve got a few new reviews posted, including Grace, Deadgirl and Harper’s Island. With the Splattercast and the forums, we’re able to shoot out basic “liked it/didn’t like it” reviews very quickly but we also enjoy taking the time to write more in-depth reviews once in a while and we hope you guys enjoy reading them. Our most recent reviews are always displayed at the top of the home page.

With that in mind, I’m going to keep my eye out for subtitles that even Deejay can enjoy. For example, here are a couple from the recent Japanese film, Grotesque. I have not altered these subtitles in any way.

Speaking of Grotesque, I just watched it and you can read my review here. I wanted to take a look at the film after Explodey Jo mentioned that it had been (effectively) banned in Britain. No surer way to evoke interest in a film than to ban it. I found this link that contains some information on the banning.

The British Board of Film Classification said giving the film a rating would involve a “risk of harm” to those viewing it.

The BBFC rejects films only rarely, preferring to give advice on cuts to achieve the preferred certificate.

BBFC director David Cooke said: “Unlike other recent torture-themed horror works, such as the Saw and Hostel series, Grotesque features minimal narrative or character development and presents the audience with little more than an unrelenting and escalating scenario of humiliation, brutality and sadism.

“The chief pleasure on offer seems to be in the spectacle of sadism (including sexual sadism) for its own sake.

“Rejecting a work outright is a serious matter and the board considered whether the issue could be dealt with through cuts.

“However, given the unacceptable content featured throughout, cutting the work is not a viable option in this case and the work is therefore refused a classification.”

Honestly, I think the BBFC is working against themselves by giving an invaluable promotional boost to a movie that, as I describe in my review, really isn’t that remarkable.