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Before you die you see…The Cow

June 26, 2010 Hud 4 comments

PSYCHO

1998/15/100m

“Check in. Relax. Take a shower.”

Director: Gus Van Sant / Writers: Robert Bloch & Joseph Stefano / Cast: Vince Vaughn, Julianne Moore, Anne Heche, Viggo Mortensen, William H. Macy, Philip Baker Hall, Robert Forster, James Remar.

Body Count: 2

With all the horror community hoo-hah over the endless stream of remakes n’ such ruining our favourite classics, it’s easy to forget that the most classic of classics got refunked back at the arse end of the 90s.

Although calling Psycho ’98 a remake isn’t strictly true, it’s more like a cover version without any stamp of ownership. You know when Simon Cowell drones on about “you made that song your own” (even though they quite clearly bastardized it), Gus Van Sant’s strangely hollow project to simply re-shoot Psycho in colour with very few modifications of era is similarly perplexing. Cowell, of course, would’ve made it into a musical and cast Leona Lewis as Marion Crane so she can keep bleeding, keep, keep bleeding… OK, crap joke. I’ll slap myself in the face with a custard pie for that one.

And so it came to be… Various filmians moaned before the project even went into pre-production and now it’s all but forgotten and it’s easy to see why – it’s been asked a gazillion times but, Mr VS – what was the point?

Besides being in colour, and updating some dialogue and the amount of money Marion Crane makes off with, Psycho ’98 re-treads the boards down the composition of shots, angles, effects work (Arbogast’s backward tumble down the stairs) and characterisations. All I remember of the “new-ness” was that Norman Bates cracks one out watching Marion take a shower and Julianne Moore utters the batty line “hold on while I get my Walkman,” upon which the audience decided to start laughing.

Curiously, Van Sant adds a surreal little montage right before Marion is stabbed, which, I assume was supposed to represent life flashing before her eyes, which included a cow (or possibly a sheep?) in the road. Whassat about? Did she run it over? Was it a foreshadowing? Is it Psycow?

Norman’s moo-ther? Har-de-har-harrr

Otherwise, things otherwise clunk along in a Xerox of 38 years before but the dialogue now sounds out of place (Walkman line excepted) and the almighty cast of players is reduced to imitation rather than expression, making me wonder why any of them would’ve signed up to star in something where there’s so little ‘acting’ for them to do…

Vince Vaughn wasn’t the big star he now is (and possibly now was) back then and does okay with the role but is simply too hulking and broad to play a cross-dressing mama’s boy convincingly. While les hasbian Anne Heche (where’d shego?) is acceptable as Marion and the always lovely Moore is equally fine with being Lila, as is Macy as the detective. Herein lies the blandness of it all – they’re all just fine. Nobody’s gonna win anything for tracing a masterpiece and then painting by numbers.

That said, a ‘re-imagining’ would’ve only incited more wrath. I recently read an amusing analogy on the IMDb where somebody wrote: “If I put balls on Grandma, that doesn’t make her a ‘re-imagining’ of Grandpa!” I’m not sure what his point was but the carbon-copying does not make the story any less intriguing – it’s still a good yarn and therefore I award ye, strangely pointless remake, three stars.

Blurbs-of-interest: Heche played Missy in I Know What You Did Last Summer; Viggo Mortensen had been in Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III; Robert Forster was also in Uncle Sam and Maniac Cop 3; James Remar (Dexter’s dad!) was in coma-inducing med-stalker Exquisite Tenderness.

Reviews

Don’t dream it’s over

May 31, 2010 Hud One comment

WES CRAVEN’S NEW NIGHTMARE

1994/15/108m

“This time, staying awake won’t save you.”

A.k.a. A Nightmare on Elm Street 7

Director/Writer: Wes Craven / Cast: Robert Englund, Heather Langenkamp, Miko Hughes, Matt Winston, Rob LaBelle, David Newsom, John Saxon, Wes Craven, Tracy Middendorf, Fran Bennett, Robert Shaye.

Body Count: 5

Been a bit Elm Streety round here recently, hasn’t it? Well, after this I’ll give it a rest for a while. Promise. The remake just got me hankering for the originals.

You know when you don’t like a song that everybody else does but it’s “just not you” but you’re well aware it’s good, A). that happens to me loads and B). that’s kind of how I am with Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. It’s a stupendously good film, anyone can tell that but to me it’s merely a bit better than good.

Understandably peeved with the way Freddy Krueger went from frightening villain of your dreams to campy sell-out within a few short years, his creator Wes Craven decided to have the last word on the subject with this looking back into the box from the outside sorta deal.

There’s talk of making a new Freddy film around LA, which coincides with a series of localised earthquakes and actress Heather Langenkamp’s freaky dreams and those of her young son, Dylan, who watches old Elm Streets in zombielike trances and chants “one, two, Freddy’s coming for you…” She’s also getting prank calls from an obsessed fan and things get worse still when her special-FX department husband gets clawed driving home one night.

Car crash, everyone says with the exception of Heather, who things something else is afoot. She catches up with Robert Englund, Wes Craven, John Saxon and various New Line representatives who try to convince her it’s all in her mind. Dylan is taken to hospital for testing, where suspicion falls on Heather until there’s another murder witnessed by hospital staff.

Eventually, Heather and Dylan take on Freddy in a dream and put an end to him once and for all. Well, until Freddy vs. Jason nine years later anyway.

The self-referential aspect catapulted into the stratosphere by Scream two years later is what makes the film. It’s smartly written, with a context of Freddy existing beyond the constraint of his films and crossing over into the real world plus some chucklesome little nods to the old films (as well as cameos), including that fabulous “screw your pass!” moment, and the wounds of Krueger’s razor fingers cropping up all over the place.

What holds the film back – for me, at least – is the low body count (two of the murders are merely referenced to in a news report) in ratio to the nearly two hour running time and drawn out scenes about Heather’s fears of her own madness. It’s just lack that re-watchability that a 90 minute quality slasher flick has: I’ve watched it twice in about 12 years. But, if anything, New Nightmare reasserted Craven’s directorial prowess and was probably a massive contributing factor in him landing the Scream films.

Blurbs-of-interest: Englund was Freddy in all the other ventures until the 2010 remake and was also in Behind the Mask, Hatchet, Heartstopper, The Phantom of the Opera and Urban Legend; Langenkamp played Nancy in the first and third Elm Street movies; Rob LaBelle was in Jack Frost; Tracy Middendorf was later in Scream – The TV Series; Craven also directed Deadly Blessing and The Hills Have Eyes Part II.

Reviews

9, 10… Michael Bay’s done it again

May 8, 2010 Hud 7 comments

elmst2010 A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET

2010/18/93m

“Never sleep again.”

Director: Samuel Bayer / Writers: Wesley Strick & Eric Heisserer / Cast: Jackie Earle Haley, Kyle Gallner, Rooney Mara, Thomas Dekker, Katie Cassidy, Kellan Lutz, Connie Britton, Clancy Brown.

Body Count: 4

Dire-logue: “Why are you screaming? I haven’t even cut you yet.”

Remakes, re-imaginings, reboots, rehashes – they get everywhere like that STD you just can’t get rid of. Not that I’d know, of course.

You gotta feel for Wes Craven though, now three of his most famous horror flicks have been re-somethinged in the last five years! We never thought anyone would be so foolish as to touch Elm Street, but then after Halloween “happened”, all bets were off.

elmst2010-1 In fairness, Nightmare 2010 is no worse than Rob Zombie’s attempt to re-ignite interest in the Michael Myers saga, it’s actually a little better.

Unlike that film and Platinum Dunes’ re-thingy of Friday the 13th last year, Freddy’s re-birth sticks closer to the source material than it ought to: suburban kids are having a shared nightmare of a burned dude in a Fedora and the kind of stripy sweater you’d pick up in C&A before immediately putting it back again – and said dreams are deadly. This time, things unfold in a different way: the core group of teens witness the apparent self-throat slashing of their friend Dean at an all night diner. We, however, saw him fall asleep and get slashified by razor-gloved Fred K.

Things switch to focus on his girlfriend Kris (Cassidy), who ‘inherits’ the nightmares and soon becomes the next victim, passing the baton on to her ex, Jesse, and finally along to slightly more resourceful teens Quentin and Nancy. Yes, Nancy is back. Not Nancy Thompson, mind, Nancy Holbrook, played by Rooney Mara, whose sister Kate was the lead in Urban Legends: Bloody Mary.

Some textbooks are just really, really emotional

Nancy and Quentin’s detective work exposes a secret kept by their parents, but it’s got a few subtle differences to Craven’s original, concerning the pre-school all the kids went to but none can remember. Why? It’s never revealed. They just seemed to have completely forgotten. It seems that their entire pre-school class is being eliminated one by one in their sleep after their folks did the olde pitchforks and torches routine on the school’s caretaker, who was allegedly abusing the kids. Key word: allegedly.

This is one huge question mark hanging over proceedings: was Freddy guilty or not? There were no murders, no Springwood Slasher, just unfounded accusations that may or may not mean anything and we have a strange dream flashback of what happened to Freddy – yes, it’s time to spoon-feed the audience so they needn’t bother being smart enough to figure out anything on their own. Oddly, the sequence is witnessed by Gallner in nothing but Speedos.

Much is made out of the don’t-go-to-sleep premise and the babble about ‘micro-naps’ allows for some interesting moments where characters continually slip in and out of their dreams over short periods as they struggle with their fatigue – but do we really care? Freddy is at the centre stage and the teens are just there to be slashed at. The first few to go have little to do beyond act scared and the pairing of Nancy and Quentin doesn’t have a fraction of the appeal Heather Langenkamp did. elmst2010-2

Nancy herself is played capably by Mara and as an emo-misfit rather than the girl-next-door she was before – she’s not even terrified the first time she encounters Freddy – so why should I be? Her dad is entirely absent and so the police play no part and mom is marginalised into a 2D parent figure, serving only to admit to a couple of things and be there to collect her daughter when required. Cassidy, as Kris, simply looks too old to still be in high school. Haley makes for an acceptable Krueger, maintaining enough menace so’s not to crap all over Robert Englund’s original performance.

Dunes’ take on Friday the 13th was smart enough not to re-tell the same story, playing instead like another sequel with naive storytelling and there is less lore to upset in a Jason film: teens, woods, machete – you’re done. Elm Street could have been a decent ‘side-quel’ or whatever they call ’em, a follow up to the original, allowing them to basically re-use most of the plot elements without having to undo 26 years of material: as it happens, the bath scene is half-revisited and Freddy’s uber-scary wall-stretching moment becomes a truly godawful CG-fest. What is this? Craven managed ten times as much on 10% of the budget!?

It’s easy to mock remakes of films that were just fine in their original forms: there’s simply nothing to be gained creatively. It exposes the Hollywood fixation with bums-on-seats trumping quality output, accentuated here by the use of music video director Bayer in the hotseat. His visuals may be competent but depth and auteurism are entirely non-existent, dripping in a sort of muted tone that’s haunted too many films of the last decade or so. But it’s here and there’s nothing we can do about it. Even I’d rather there be remakes of horror films over no horror films at all.

From Elm Street to Emo Street, self-harming included

Nightmare 2010 is basically an okay film in its own right that plays a little better on DVD than the big screen. The story is no longer fantastically inventive enough to wow anybody and the non-Freddy characters are too bland to evoke much empathy for their shared plight. Any sense of desperation is long gone, replaced by a sort of teenage nonchalance to it all. Nobody seems to care that much about any of it, so why should the audience?

You have to wonder, with the phobia of horror sequels that Hollywood appears to have, after we get A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 in 2013, will they reboot again? Surely you can’t number something ‘Part 4’ anymore? I bet Craven is awaiting the call that tells him Scream is now old enough to warrant a remake…

Blurbs-of-interest: Haley was in Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence; Gallner was in Scream (2022); Katie Cassidy was in Harper’s Island and remakes of Black Christmas and When a Stranger Calls; Thomas Dekker was in Laid to Rest and its sequel. Aaron Yoo from the 13th remake played the video blogger.

Reviews

It’s my party and you’ll die if I want you to

March 6, 2010 Hud One comment

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

1981/15/106m

“Six of the most bizarre murders you’ll ever see.”

Director: J. Lee Thompson / Writers: John Beaird, Timothy Bond, Peter Jobin & John C.W. Saxton / Cast: Melissa Sue Anderson, Glenn Ford, Lawrence Dane, Sharon Acker, Frances Hyland, Tracy Bregman, Lisa Langlois, Jack Blum, Matt Craven, Lenore Zann, David Eisner, Richard Rebiere, Lesleh Donaldson, Michel Rene LaBelle.

Body Count: 9

Dire-logue: “Murder…then suicide. Now they’ll all know just crazy little [SPOILER] really was!”

One of the first genre films I saw on the back of reading Vera Dika’s Games of Terror book, which provided a deep formula analysis of nine early slasher films. This Canadian entry into the burgeoning trend is a comparatively lush entry for its time. Using experienced director J. Lee Thompson and starring Glenn Ford, Happy Birthday to Me used these advantages as wisely as possible.

The result of these impressive involvements is a mixed bag. On the one hand, this is one handsome devil of a horror film, with well crafted photography and characters drawn beyond the airhead regulars associated with sharp-object wielding killers. The Yin to this Yang is that it thinks above its station to some degree, attempting to spread its wings beyond the boundaries of what the audience most probably expected back in the day.

Melissa Sue Anderson, breaking free of her Little House on the Prairie character with veritable gusto, is Virginia Wainwright, member of the preppy Crawford Academy’s ‘Top Ten’, the creme of the crop in terms of popularity, although why some of these twats are held in such high esteem is a mystery the film chooses not to deal with.

Virginia is new to the school and has some issues regarding amnesia and the death of her mother in recent history, one of the plot elements that is gradually unfurled throughout events, which follow the unidentified killer doing away with members of the Crawford Top Ten in black-gloved giallo style. To Virginia and pals, they’ve just taken off for reasons unknown…

Ford is her shrink, trying to help her recall the deep-rooted trauma that plagues her and suss out the connection with the disappearances. Suffice to say, it’s all tied up together for the Scooby Doo reveal at the end.

There’s a lot of good stuff going on inbetween the more unfitting moments of the film; the killer – who appears for the first few murders dressed in a sinister black costume – executes the spoilt teens in some inventive ways, including death by motorcycle wheel, barbell weights and shish-kebab. Midway through proceedings we’re shown the killer’s face, which is a pretty damning indictment – but you just know that there are further tricks up the sleeves of this one…

Interplay between the teenage characters also provides an interesting distraction from the trivial prank and sex-centric shenanigans that occur in your basic Friday the 13th wannabe. The Crawford kids have got rich parents and therefore their attitudes to the welfare of their missing buddies is intoxicated with a competitive venom: they swap lovers and stab each other in the back (not literally, quite yet) and evoke little sympathy from the viewer. Even Virginia is a flawed heroine, almost as unlikeable as the others from time to time. Alas, not all of them appear to be in danger… Hmmm.

Okay, so Dika’s book gave away the identity of the killer before I’d seen the film so the twist wasn’t a shock to me. On the road to the finale, which is fated to occur on Virginia’s birthday, we learn about the death of her mother, which evidently plays a large part in why the killer is doing what he or she is. Flashback scenes thus far have shown us a grisly close-up of Virginia’s post-accident brain surgery (including an icky brain-swell) but now we find out why. The scene is a sad one as Virginia is alone at her own birthday party, social death for any child, for sure! This results in a we’ll-show-them reaction from her jar-tapping mother and, well, you’ll see for yourself…

The ending to it all is a great scene: Virginia gets her party and those who snubbed her before will definitely show up this time. Confusion follows before the naff reveal, which is laughably realised but credited with a nice little exposition from the killer before the final twist is played out. The motive will be familiar to those of us who saw a certain genre revival flick some 15 years later, where it was slightly more credibly realised, though not as much fun.

In spite of its high(er) budget, there are some curious oversights in Happy Birthday to Me‘s continuity: the car that falls into the river, the body found in the bath – clear one second, bloody the next, the extensive damage sustained by Greg’s car that miraculously disappears five seconds later… Whether any of this stuff is supposedly attributable to Virginia’s damaged memory is unclear.

Nothing good can come of this scenario…

The DVD release for this film has garnered much complaint for switching the gorgeous score for a cheesy disco number at the start. The Region 2 disc has the original soundtrack on the German audio selection but Syreeta’s haunting end credits song is intact on both versions.

Blurbs-of-interest: Lawrence Dane later appeared in Bride of Chucky; Lesleh Donaldson was also in fellow Canuck slashers Curtains and Funeral Home; both David Eisner and Lisa Langlois were in Phobia; Lenore Zann was in fellow Canuck slashers American Nightmare, Visiting Hours, and PrettyKill. Thompson directed 10 to Midnight two years after. I love the Canadian casting love-ins!

Reviews

Death is just a click away

March 4, 2010 Hud One comment

iMURDERS

2008/15/99m

“You don’t know who you’re talking to…”

Director: Robbie Bryan / Writers: Robbie Bryan & Kenneth Del Vecchio / Cast: Terri Colombino, Frank Grillo, William Forsythe, Gabrielle Anwar, Tony Todd, Joanne Baron, Charles Durning, Wilson Jermaine Heredia, Billy Dee Williams, Brooke Lewis, Miranda Kwok, Christie Botelho, Dan Grimaldi.

Body Count: 5

Dire-logue: “It’s difficult to put the milk back in the carton when you’ve already had the cereal.”

Look at that cast roster! Forsythe. Todd. Anwar. Durning. How could this film fail, you might ask? And yet…

iMurders is a strange one. It’s a film that borders several genres and has so many criss-crossed mystery plot threads that the writer’s of Lost would be envious. There’s a lot to resolve in just 99 minutes and things would likely work out better were this a mini-series like Harper’s Island.

Things begin usually enough with a woman returning home to find a blonde riding her husband’s lap. Faces are obscured and we flick to the exterior as voices are raised and a gunshot sounds.

Ten months later, Colombino’s pretty singleton, Sandra, moves into a new apartment and quickly connects back on to ‘FaceSpace’, the social networking site she’s obsessed with. FaceSpace. I think I hear you groaning!

A group of eight super-friends meet religiously for online chats, during which LA FX artist Mark sets them a contest, the winner of which will be rewarded with some movie memorabilia. However, during their chat, Mark cops a powerdrill in the back of his head, which the others, watching over cams, believe is just trickery in accord with his Halloween-themed task…

Sandra becomes romantically involved with brooding ex-cop neighbour Joe, whose sister is an FBI Agent looking into both the chatroom murders and Billy Dee Williams’ crooked lawyer, who sets up attacks on people and then sues for them. His latest client, Anwar (the trigger-happy Fi from TV’s excellent Burn Notice), is a model whose face has been permanently scarred after she was attacked by a knife-toting loon in a nightclub. Consequently, she spends the entire film with a giant square band-aid stuck to her cheek.

Elsewhere, Forsythe is a philandering college professor trying to hide his ways from his missus and discourage an amorous co-worker. Durning is a shrink with a bizarre young client who babbles incoherently about the number 666, the chatroom and her dead lesbian lover, which allows, yet again, for a sleazy girl-on-girl scene.

Another murder occurs and brooding cop’s FBI sis and Agent Tony Todd (!) – for once neither a hook-handed urban legend or a death savvy mortician – sweep in and arrest bad lawyer and 666-girl and discover another of the chatters slain. As the script steers us towards suspecting Sandra of the killings, we think twice and realise that the killer is most likely that other person who’s always there, loitering…

“I hear if you chant “iMurders” 5 times in front of your screen…absolutely nothing of interest happens…”

iMurders is a good looking production. I mean, if the director could get that cast, then he obviously knows how to call in favours. Its ambition is what uploads a virus into it; the top-heavy plot structure is simply way too much for the film to adequately cope with. In addition to this there are too many characters and the killer only manages to knock off a dismal three of the eight chatroom members. The token gay character is done away with first and the murders are too tame for a slasher flick and too brutal for a TV movie. CTRL+ALT+DEL out of this one.

Blurbs-of-interest: the music was composed by no other than Harry Manfredini, who scored nine of the Friday the 13th films; Anwar was also in Crazy Eights; Forsythe was in Hack! and the Halloween remake; Dan Grimaldi was in Don’t Go in the House; Todd was also in Final Destination‘s 1, 2 and 5, Hatchet (and its sequel), Jack the Reaper, Scarecrow Slayer, Candy Corn and Hell Fest; Charles Durning was in both of the When a Stranger Calls films plus Dark Night of the Scarecrow; Joanne Baron was in Halloween Ends.

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