Fright Night

            First off, I’d like to admit that I have not finished watching the original.  I started it and was genuinely interested, but it was too late at night and I just couldn’t soldier on.  I hope to finish it someday so I can do a comparison of the two films.  I highly doubt there are more than a few scenes in common, but I’d like to see how they both stack up as horrors, action films and vampire movies.

            On to the review!

            FrightNight (2011 edition) is a perfectly capable vampire movie that doesn’t spend too long developing…well, much of anything, really.  Considering how absolutely beloved the original is, often cited as much for its charm and goofiness as for its take on vampire neighbors, the new movie seemed to want to distance itself and avoid direct comparison.  But by doing so, they made it easy to compare it to every other stalker horror movie made in the last decade.

            For good or for ill, this is all the new Fright Night is: a horror movie in which a family is terrorized by a crazed stalker.  Sure, the stalker is a vampire with super powers, but nothing else is particularly special.

Neighborhood kid Charley (Anton Yelchin) finally stopped being a nerd, leaving his best friend Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) behind in favor of ‘cool’ friends and a hot girlfriend in Amy (Imogen Poots).  He lives in a half-empty residential district outside Las Vegas with his divorced mother Jane (Toni Collette).  Basically, he’s your typical High School senior. 

            That is, until Ed tries to convince him that his neighbor Jerry (Colin Farrell) is a vampire.  Then things take a turn for the slightly more dangerous.  Charley is eventually convinced, but not until after Ed goes missing.  Once he starts to truly believe that Jerry is a creature of the night, Charley tries to enlist the help of ‘famed’ vampire expert and resident Vegas act Peter Vincent, played by an initially unrecognizable David Tennant.  Of course, Peter doesn’t take him seriously until it’s almost too late. 

            The last two paragraphs only describe first half of the movie.  The second half is almost entirely made up of fight and chase scenes.  Nothing…but…action.

            What’s strange about this new, updated Fright Night is that while everything individually is either satisfactory or downright impressive, the whole thing just doesn’t add up to awesome. 

            David Tennant and Anton Yelchin are great in their roles.  Toni Collette and Imogen Poots go above and beyond what is asked of them, becoming actual, fleshed-out female characters rather than simple damsels in distress.  Colin Farrell plays the creepy, rapey-vibe vampire perfectly.  The plot is fine, the special effects are seamless, and the action sequences are fun and inventive.  Yet, put it all together and the whole thing was just mostly okay.

            Maybe it’s because I was hoping for another super-awesome-cheese-fest like Deadand Breakfast? 

            I don’t know, but I can say that if you’re a fan of vampires and explosions, you’ll still enjoy the 2011 version of Fright Night.  It just may not blow your mind.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

            Because I know you’re going to see Brave no matter what I say, I’ll review this week’s other blockbuster release.  There’s nothing like a nice biopic about one of America’s greatest Presidents, and how he waged a secret battle for our nation’s soul.

            On to the review!

            AbrahamLincoln: Vampire Hunter (AL:VH) is not based on a true story, but it would have been pretty cool if it had been.  In fact, the moodiness and over-dramatization of the entire thing would have fit well inside the same universe as True Blood.  Maybe we can pretend they’re the same timeline.

            In AL:VH we follow Lincoln’s life from childhood until just after the Gettysburg Address.  We get to see a vindictive vampire kill his mother, thus setting him on the path to becoming a master vampire slayer.  Of course, movies like these always require awkward starts, so Lincoln (Benjamin Walker) fails epically in his quest for vengeance.  His life is saved only through the intervention of Henry Sturgess (Dominic Cooper), a man who has his own reasons for seeing vampires fall.

            Fortunately, we get the training montage out of the way early in the film so Lincoln can move to a ‘big city’ in Illinois and start his new career in earnest.  This is also where we get to meet a few Firefly alums, as Lincoln meets Mary Todd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and her fiancé Stephen Douglas (Alan Tudyk).  Of course, despite his master’s repeated urgings to make no friends and stay aloof, Lincoln falls hard for Mary Todd and they eventually wed.

            It is during this second act that we’re introduced to the real bad guys, as apparently vampires have been in the New World for centuries, and the south is basically their playground.  Thanks to slavery enabling them to feed at will, their terrors are mistaken for cruel slave masters.  The cruelest of all is Adam (Rufus Sewell), the most powerful vampire in America, and possibly the world.  Dun-dun-duuuun!

            It’s the third act where things get a bit slow, as they must show Lincoln’s ascension to the Presidency.  At this point the movie has to lay out the reasons for the Civil War, kill off a main character to give Lincoln his final motivation and blah blah blah fight on a train.

            At this point I’d like to say that AL:VH is at its best when it is deliciously, gloriously over-the-top.  A movie about the President being a secret monster slayer should never take itself seriously.  Unfortunately, this one does just that from time to time, especially during the third act.  Fortunately, when the action is unfolding it is a fun, wild ride.  There is a long fight scene between Lincoln and a vampire target that takes place in the middle of a wild horse stampede, and it’s amazing.  Later, the final act’s train sequence goes on forever (in a very good way.)  It’s when the characters stop to speak that the movie tends to drag, making this 105 minute film feel like it was nearly three hours long.

            A set of bonus points for AH:VH is its use of 3D technology.  It has been a long time since I felt I could recommend seeing a film in 3D, but this one actually utilizes it well.  They manage to bring us a film that isn’t dark, murky and bland.  Plus, several of the effects are brilliant. 

            On the down side, I’ve got to say something about matinee 3D movies.  Theaters, if you’re showing a 3D movie and the film does not auto-focus, I don’t care what time of day it is.  Please have someone watching over the projector at the start of the film to make sure the 3D is working properly.  This is the second time in a row that I’ve had to find someone to focus the film, and the second time that the first few minutes of the movie I paid $10 to see ruined.

            I’m also really sick of seeing the trailer for The Great Gatsby in eye-distorting out-of-focus 3D.  Though, even if I could figure out what was going on, I probably would be sick of seeing the trailer for The Great Gatsby.

            All told, AL:VH is better than I thought it would be but not as good as I had hoped for.  The acting is fine and the plot makes about as much sense as you would assume, but the dialog drags.  While the action scenes are fantastic and entertaining, everything that happens between axe swings and thrown punches runs the gamut from boring to painfully boring.

The Dunwich Horror

            What happens when you decide to make a movie based on an H.P. Lovecraft film but don’t have the budget or the technology to do it right?  Why, you make a masterpiece of cheese, my friend.  A cheesterpiece.

On to the review!

            TheDunwich Horror is based on the Lovecraft story of the same name, only the Lovecraft story is, well, scary.  The plot is similar but I’m not here to debate the differences between film and the written word.  I’m here to tell you about an awesomely corny horror movie released in 1970. 

            In the film, our main character is Wilbur Whateley (Dean Stockwell).  Thanks to his upbringing, he has a very unhealthy obsession with the occult.  Now an ‘adult’, he gets it into his head that he can resurrect the horrors of the Old Gods by sacrificing the innocence of virgin Nancy Wagner (Sandra Dee), with a little help from the Necronomicon of course.  Unfortunately for him, the Necronomicon is safe and sound at good ol’ Miskatonic University and is currently under the auspices of Dr. Henry Armitage (Ed Begley).

            As the plot unfolds, Wilbur is able to seduce/brainwash/magic Nancy into staying with him until such a time as he can use her for his evil scheme.  While this not-quite-human man advances his evil scheme, something not-nearly-humanoid begins rampaging across the countryside.

            It’s painfully obvious that this is a ‘60’s film.  Don’t let the 1970 release date fool you—that was just an effort to throw you off the trail.  Despite being a supernatural horror, this movie is colorful.  There are bright, happy colors everywhere.  The clothing is cheerful, nature is happy and the furniture….oh god the furniture.  Everything screams Technicolor, and the cheerful appearance certainly does not set a tone of wicked manipulation and dark dreams.

            Alas, it’s not really fair to pick on the special effects of a 42 year old film, but I can’t help myself.  In The Dunwich Horror’s defense, it actually does a fantastic job when it sticks to suggesting evil things afoot.  Things go downhill rather fast when it starts showing things to you.  Not showing things in this film is good for the same reason that it was good when you never really saw the alien in Ridley Scott’s Alien.  If you had seen too much, you would no longer have been scared.

            Speaking of seeing too much, I have to comment on the final battle.  Without giving anything away, it felt like they ran out of budget just before the climactic scene.  So instead of some sort of epic battle we get to watch Wilbur and Henry talk gibberish at each other.  We don’t even get a good payoff for the ridiculous faux-evil-sounding-kinda-racisty-Native-American.  Instead we are ‘treated’ to a terrible green-screen effect followed by the worst human/stunt dummy juxtaposition I’ve ever seen.  The scene involving the dummy is so poorly done even Ed Wood would scoff at how amateur the whole thing is.

            On the plus side, since it is a 60’s movie at heart, there is pointless nudity.  I guess it’s supposed to represent evil and temptation, but heck.  I’m a guy.  All I saw were boobs.

            As an exercise in how far the genre has come, The Dunwich Horror is an interesting time piece.  It’s not great at anything, but it does offer a tantalizing glimpse into what can be accomplished with a half-decent script (conveniently cribbed from a dead horror writer’s story), some competent actors and a willingness to avoid most special effects.  It doesn’t have the suspenseful build of Peeping Tom but it’s entertaining in its own special way.

That's My Boy

            Today is a special day.  In honor of Father’s Day, I decided to watch a film about father and son bonding.  However, I don’t have any children of my own, and even if I did, they’d be far too young to watch an R rated Adam Sandler flick.  So, I got off my ass and perfected my time machine.  Of course, as my first act of abusing the technology, I went back and found the 1999 version of me.  Then I grabbed the chubby little bastard and plopped him down into a movie theater.  That’s right, I made 18 year old me watch and review That’s My Boy. 

On to the review!

So, Adam Sandler looks a lot older, but man he still knows how to be hilarious.  Sure, Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore were better, but I’ll bet Sandler has never had a single flop!  The dude is just hilarious all the time. 

This time, he’s some washed-up 80’s child star that totally boned the crap out of his hot teacher and got her pregnant.  He never really grew up, so I guess his kid was raised pretty poorly and eventually ran away.  I guess I can’t blame him too much.  I would probably get pretty boring, being allowed to do anything you want whenever you want to do it.  Plus, I’d have a problem too if my dad drank Budweiser all the time and hung out at a strip club/breakfast bar.  The strippers I could deal with, but Budweiser?  Ewww.  He should be drinking Labatt Blue or maybe Smirnoff Ice.  That shit’s awesome.

Anyhow, his character Donny goes looking for his son Han Solo (Andy Samberg) who changed his name to Todd, because he was that ashamed of his family. Todd ran off and became kind of a douchey Wall Street guy and is now about to get married.  Donny, meanwhile, is going to go to jail if he doesn’t pay the IRS about $50,000 in back-taxes.  So he comes up with a scheme.  If he can get his son to go with him to see mom in jail, some Jerry Springer kinda guy will film it for his show and pay Donny just enough to stay out of prison.

So Donny finds out where Todd is thanks to some magazine cover, and crashes the party.  Todd and his fiancé Jamie (Leighton Meester) plan to get married in just a few days, and Donny has to pretend to be Todd’s best friend because Todd told everyone his parents died in an explosion.  This is only the first 30 minutes or so of the film.  Once all the plot stuff is out of the way, all the crazy stuff happens.  Like, Sandler makes stuff up all the time and acts like a drunken party animal.

There are strippers, drugs, booze, and lots of swearing.  At one point a stripper is upside-down on a pole and trying to drink orange juice.  It’s so dumb!  There are also lots of sex and masturbation jokes.  At one point, Jamie tastes something on her dress to find out if it’s sperm.  Later, Donny jacks off to the idea of someone’s grandmother, then he and Vanilla Ice (!!!) have a threesome with grandma. 

Oh yeah, Vanilla Ice is in this!  He’s Uncle Vinny, and they even get ‘respectable’ actors like James Caan and Susan Sarandon to do silly stuff, like beat up a dude or talk dirty.  It’s a pretty fun time, and there are lots of laughs.  But man, talk about pushing the envelope! They use statutory rape and incest as plot points!  How crazy is that?

Anyhow, it was pretty damn funny, and I’m glad future me brought me here for what is obviously the funniest movie of the summer.  It’s good to look into the future and know that Adam Sandler will always be funny.

Poltergeist

            When people talk about the great, ‘classic’ films that defy time there’s usually lots of agreement.  Most people will agree that The Godfather is somewhere on that list, along with films like Casablanca and Annie Hall.

            If there’s a list of classic horror films and Poltergeist is not on it, I will punch everything in the face.

            On to the review!

            What I like about Poltergeist is that it truly is a family film.  Yes, it would most likely get a PG-13 nowadays, but even then it would be a very mild PG-13.  Take out the middle finger and a suggestion of sex and it may even work itself back down to PG. 

That being said, it is the scariest damn family film in creation, even taking into account Don Bluth’s child-scarring movies.  I saw it when I was about 10 and barely spoke for two days.

For the three or four English speaking people who aren’t familiar with the plot, here’s the Cliff’s Notes version.  A family moves into a new housing development, but the house ends up being haunted; youngest child is sucked into an aether realm.  Team of investigators and a medium help the parents rescue the child.  House isn’t happy, things go crazy.

Our family is your standard early-80’s unit.  It’s made up of two parents: Steve and Diane Freeling (Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams) as well as three kids: Dana, Robbie, and Carol Anne (Dominique Dunn, Oliver Robins and Heather O’Rourke).  The youngest, of course, is the one who suffers the most attention from a haunted spirit. 

The casting is great, with every member of the family playing their role perfectly, convincing the viewer that this is a real family that gives real shits about each other and suffer from real family problems.  The three investigators and the medium also make excellent impressions without any one person overshadowing another. 

I think that’s what makes this movie stand out from so many horror films from before and after.  You actually care about everyone in the film.  Nobody seems one-dimensional, but nobody is so much more important than anyone else that you point to the screen and say “That there is our main character.”  While some people do get more screen time than others, every person you’re introduced to feels perfectly integrated into the movie.  This gives the impression that the entire plot requires everyone to be perfect. 

Fortunately, they are.

What about special effects?  How do they hold up 30 years later? 

Surprisingly well, actually.  Every ghost scene is just as amazingly creepy as it was ten or twenty years ago.  In fact, only one scene shows its age (as long as you discount the outfits, of course).

The only downside to the whole thing is the curse.  During and after filming, many actors died prematurely and strange things reportedly happened on set.  Then the curse seemed to follow the sequels and everything seemed to go downhill fast.  While I could watch Poltergeist every week and still find something new to love about it, Poltergeist II is really only noteable for super-creepy antagonist Kane.  The ending was very silly, and the less said about Poltergeist III, the better.

All told, Poltergeist is easily the best origin film I’ve reviewed so far, with the dubious distinction of having the fastest degeneration in quality from the sequels.

Next week:  I take a break from origin stories for a week to bring you a fan-request.  I’ll be checking out the original 1970 version of The Dunwich Horror.          

Prometheus

            It’s been 15 years since the last Alien film.  With Alien Resurrection, it looked like all the stories were told in that particular universe, however unsatisfactorily it may have been for some fans.  Then came the news of Ridley Scott making a prequel film and exploring the origins of the Space Jockey.  People were excited, to say the least. 

            Of course, dreams were meant to be shattered, and over the last year Scott has waffled on his claims, alternately claiming that the movie was going to be a direct prequel, then not a prequel so much as exploring the same universe, then nothing like the Alien films at all, then back to a universe exploration.  I stopped paying attention to the chatter about three months ago in an effort to keep my sanity.

            So what does Prometheus ultimately have to do with the same universe that saw Weyland Corp. tampering with alien life forms at Ripley’s expense?

            Everything.

            On to the review!

            The gist of the story is that a pair of archeologists developed a theory that we were created by an alien race.  They manage to convince Peter Weyland of Weyland industries to finance an exploratory mission.  Thanks to him, the ship Prometheus sets its sights on a distant planet.  Almost three years later, the crew comes out of cryo-sleep just in time for Christmas Day, 2093. 

            The crew is divided evenly into two groups.  The first group is made up entirely of redshirts.  These are the guys that were put here just to pad the death toll.  Some of them don’t even have speaking roles.

            The second group make up the meat and potatoes of our story.  The two archeologists are Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green).  They love the shit out of each other, and they’re the driving force behind the initial expedition on the alien planet.  These are our two protagonists.

            On the antagonist side are two fascinating characters.  Charlize Theron is Meredith Vickers, the Weyland Corporation’s expedition leader.  She is, of course, not happy about the entire thing and frequently attempts to put Charlie and Elizabeth in their place, convinced that she is the one in charge.  Yes, that’s right.  Charlize Theron is playing the bad guy in two hit movies simultaneously.  I won’t be surprised if Prometheus and Snow White and the Huntsman are the top two movies in America this weekend, both fueled by Theron’s amazing ability to play a total bitch.

Additionally, we have our legally-required android, David (Michael Fassbender).  He’s far more enigmatic and potentially deadly than Lance Henriksen’s Bishop.  He ends up driving the plot to increasingly deadly effect.  All the while, his creepy, emotionless-yet-slightly-smirking smile is perfect.  You’re never sure if he’s a psychopath or just poorly programmed.

The fleshed-out neutral characters include the captain, Janek (Iris Elba), who provides much of our comedic relief, a geologist, Fifield (Sean Harris), a biologist, Milburn (Rafe Spall), and a medic, Ford (Kate Dickie) who at no point breastfeeds a 12 year-old boy.  (Yes, that was a Game of Thrones joke.)  While the IMDB cast list has a few other main characters, I recommend you not check it out if you haven’t seen the movie, as the cast list is a spoiler in of itself.

The beautiful part of Prometheus is that it feels like a throwback film.  It’s not a 2012 blockbuster movie by any stretch of the imagination.  It’s pacing is slow and deliberate.  The movie builds upon itself over time, often content to let the camera linger over gorgeous scenery or amazing, expansive set pieces.  Yes, the film eventually becomes an action-packed extravaganza, but that’s the second half.  We do not get to that until after we’ve been enveloped by the universe that Ridley Scott created.

Yes, the Space Jockeys are explored and explained, at least a bit.  Yes, there are strange biological goings-on here, and yes it is very much an Alien prequel.

That being said, here is a word of warning.  Don’t go into the movie expecting fan service.  There are many dots to connect between this and the other films, but it’s not done in the same manner as, say, The Avengers, where there was a certain amount of fanboy catering.  These connections are often subtle.  Some are simply lost in the background.  It’s also much more similar to Alien than it is to Aliens, as the crew has no idea what’s going on, and the mystery is just as dangerous as the world itself.

I’m just glad that Ridley Scott’s universe is fictional, because every other life form in the universe is Goth as fuck.

Paranormal Activity

There’s one thing that people need to take into account before badmouthing some types of cinema.  Sure, Paranormal Activity was a polarizing film, but how many people disliked it for the wrong reasons?  If you hate movies that are filmed ‘amateur’ or ‘found-footage’ style, then you really shouldn’t even be watching them. 

            Plus, you absolutely cannot be completely and totally disbelieving in the supernatural.  You don’t have to believe in the paranormal world, but you can’t not believe and expect to be affected at all.

            On to the review!

            In 2007, Paranormal Activity made a killing at the box office.  Throw in the fact that it was filmed for a few measly thousand, and Hollywood was looking at insane profits.  It made absolutely perfect sense to franchise it.  (Whether or not the law of diminishing returns has hit this particular franchise already is not the point of this discussion.  I could fill up several pages on that alone.)

            For those of you who are not familiar with the film, it follows a happy couple as they try to get to the bottom of what’s wrong with one of them.  Micah (Micah Sloat) is worried about his girlfriend Katie (Katie Featherston) and has purchased a camera in the hopes that he can get to the bottom of it.  Of course, they get far more than they bargained for.

            Like any good horror film, the situation unfolds slowly.  Little occurs in the first half of the movie, and Micah’s personal disbelief in the entire situation often diffuses what little tension there is.  A few things go bump in the night, but the film is mostly content to let you get comfortable with the house and the people who reside in it.

            Of course, the second half is a bit crazier, but the best part of Paranormal Activity is the fact that it never fully explains why Katie is being haunted.  Even after the movie ends, there are quite a few questions that are never answered.  (Again, the other movies don’t count just yet.  The less said about the ending of 3, the better.)

            I feel that this film also does something else that’s very important to a horror franchise: the ability to suspend disbelief.  By making it an amateur film, nobody has to worry about anyone acting ‘out of character’ because the characters simply act like themselves, going so far as to use their own first names in the film.

            While I personally loved the chills that this film gave me, I’m never surprised when others find it to be dull or boring.  For all of you out there who don’t like this or any other ‘supernatural’ or ‘possession’ movie out there, here’s a suggestion.  Stop watching them.  There will never be an amazing film, since Poltergeist and The Exorcist got there first.  There will still be good ones that drip out of Hollywood once in a while, but they won’t be game-changers.

            Speaking of firsts, next week I get to watch Poltergeist!

Snow White and the Huntsman

            Here’s the down-and-dirty:  I just got back from playing a 2-day softball tournament 3 hours away.  I haven’t played softball in over a decade, so even though I’m in a great mood (oh yeah, we also won), I’m also sunburnt and tired as <CENSORED>.

            So here’s a placeholder review of Snow White and the Huntsman to tide you over until I get the full one up tomorrow.

            Snow White and the Huntsman attempts to be the gritty reboot that nobody ever wanted.  Although Charlize Theron is quite genuinely Oscar-worthy, and Chris Hemsworth delivers genuine depth to his character, Kirsten Stewart is not Snow White.  Also, while I like the big-name actors playing the dwarves, it’s silly and they’re largely wasted.

            Don’t go see it.  It’s not like Twilight (I suspect they cast Stewart for the role to try and lure that crowd).  It’s also not good or fun, and the only person worth rooting for clearly loses in the end.  Go rent Mirror, Mirror instead.


Addendum:  After a day of rest I came back and reread this post.  You know what?  I like it.  
           It's succinct and tells you everything I have to say about the movie.  It bored me.  I actually fell asleep during the second act.  But it made almost 60 million freaking dollars, so what do I know?  At least I can continue my streak of disagreeing with the majority.
See ya Wednesday!