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Argento's Dracula (2012)
Remember what I said I would do if I met John Carpenter? Well, it looks like I'll have to have a second plate of tazing because I now want to verbal abuse Dario Argento. Though his earlier works of art are amazing, as seen on Day #1 with DEEP RED, his talents as a filmmaker rapidly dwindled once the 90's hit. He continued to plunge further and further past the bottom of the barrel, with this being his most recent and absolute worst film. Yet another loose adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel, ARGENTO'S DRACULA is nearly two hours of appalling creative decisions. For example, instead of transforming into just a bat and a wolf, Count Dracula here thinks its cooler to kill his prey as an owl, an annoying fruit fly, and a giant-sized praying mantis. I am not making any of that up. There's more crap to go through: Scenes set at night but shot on a very sunny day; shots of dogs that happy and heavily breathing, yet they are supposed to be evil wolves and supplied with a soundtrack of growls; dreadful acting all around, from Thomas Kretschmann and Asia Argento's incomprehensible mumbling to Unax Ugalde's wooden approach and bland dubbing; many side-stories that go absolutely nowhere and included solely for padding; CGI work ripped straight from a Playstation 1 video game; Claudio Simonetti's pathetic score that sounds like it belongs to a 50's sci-fi z-movie; Rugteur Hauer as the most senile and depressed Van Helsing ever, yet has the cheap power of one-hit-kill, etc. Argento churned out a film that even The Asylum would laugh at and reject upon its first frame. At least those guys aren't pretentious and know to throw some humor in when the budget and talent is less than zero.
FINAL REVIEW: 1 / 5
Witchfinder General (1968)
aka THE CONQUEROR WORM, which is the name Roger Corman's AIP studio gave it for America in order to further cash in on the popularity of their Poe pics, where Vincent Price was often the main star. This British horror film has nothing to do with the Poe poem, instead featuring a fictionalized story around real-life figure Matthew Hopkins, a 17th-century Parliament official who went from town to town in order to purge those of whom "practiced" witchcraft and "worshipped" Satan. Price naturally plays Hopkins, often sharing the screen with his sadism-happy enforcer Robert Russell, and like the professional actor that he is, he doesn't exhibit any of his usual camp behaviors and tics for this character. He's instead cold and calculating, playing a man that wholehearted believed his "righteous" ways in order to be paid in large sums of coin and to exploit the female flesh. Which leads us to the elephant in the room: this movie is extremely disturbing. The interrogation and trial scenes all relish the sight of crimson blood, torturous depravities, and closeups of smiling brutes. The first set of theses goes on for a great stretch of time, completely shutting down the rest of the plot in order for more rape and cruelty. Eventually, we do get back to our dashing soldier and his quest to save his girl and have his revenge, but that of course just leads to more violence and more sadism. Though I was shocked by how dark the film would often get, I was still enjoying the marvels and sheer audacity that director Michael Reeves would display, especially given the time of its release. But what really sealed the deal for me, however, to recommend this flick was its bold ending; the concluding catharsis is so disturbing, the remaining characters are either praying for God's forgiveness or screaming themselves into madness.
FINAL REVIEW: 3 / 5
Trick 'r Treat (2007)
TRICK 'R TREAT is not only one of the absolute best horror movies in recent years, it is a refreshing return to traditional horror movies set on Halloween to not involve a mask-wearing slasher. The film contains several different stories, all taking place in an unknown American suburb (which was naturally shot in Vancouver): a couple who wish to end the spooky festivities mid-celebration, a creepy school principal (Dylan Baker) who enjoys handing out more tricks than treats, a group of girlfriends trying to push their Red-Riding-Hood-wearing wallflower (Anna Paquin) into fulfilling her dream of "the first time", a ragtag gang of kids snatching up pumpkins in order to pay tribute to some lost souls, a black-masked vampire roaming through the streets, and a decrepit old man (Brian Cox) who's being terrorized by something throughout his house. Each of the stories intertwine with one another, making this a hyperlink movie, and a character in each of them come into contact with a costumed boy named Sam, who may or not be a demon. I'm stretching the truth a little bit with the plot because the stories led to some surprising twists. The movie is just flat-out amazing in all departments, delivering many great visuals and creepy imagery, a killer score, a lot of laughs, impressive visual effects, and fantastic performances from all of the actors. Pretty much the only problem I had while sitting down and watching it is that the DVD version doesn't have a commentary track, as I really wanted to see it again and listen to writer-director Michael Dougherty's thoughts. Now, you may ask yourself, how come you never heard about this sooner? It was completed and set for theatrical release in 2007, but it was instead blackballed and thrown back into the vaults by Warner Bros. Many say the reason was to punish the film's producer Bryan Singer over the lackluster reception to SUPERMAN RETURNS. Two years later, after a series of public screenings that generated much critical acclaim, the movie finally was released on video and has developed a strong cult following since. The hype was justifiable and this certainly lived up and exceeded my expectations.
FINAL REVIEW: 5 / 5
Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated (2009)
Not to be confused with the similarly named NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: RE-ANIMATION, a false prequel to the zombie classic, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: REANIMATED is a fan-make of the zombie classic. The movie does retain a novel idea: animators from all around the world recreated scenes from the Romero movie in their own personal style, which would then be compiled together, synched up with the original movie's audio track, and be released on DVD. The final product, however, ended up being the absolute worst movie I had to sit through for this month; I gladly would watch ZOMBIE LAKE three times in a row than lay bare to witness this abysmal piece of shit. The biggest issue of the film is that it switches animation styles nearly every second. Not a set amount of time like the recent STAR WARS fan-makes, I literally mean every second. For example, the famous opening scene where Barbra is attacked by a creepy old man at the graveyard goes from comic book format, to painting, to machinima, to anime on a dime. How can any understand what's going on in the scene? Which then leads to the second problem: Anyone who hasn't seen and/or know the original film by heart will never be able to comprehend the story. Then, there's the actual quality of all of the animation, which admittedly looks college-level to below but is still an absolute mess. There's a ton of compression on most of the works, causing the shots to smear or tear themselves apart. Plus, most of the stuff isn't something you call animation: puppetry is not animation, physically moving Barbie dolls isn't animation, pan and scan isn't animation, and one or two individual paintings aren't animation, let alone an animatic. This is the kind of shit that may wow the losers at an art exhibit but for home or public viewing, it's a god damn abomination. Stay far, far, far away from this thing.
FINAL REVIEW: 1 / 5
Pieces (1982)
This exploitation "classic" knows how to kick off the proceedings: A mother is berating his son for possessing a nudie puzzle (?) and he responds by delivering a few axe whacks to her brain, sawing her head completely off, then framing it like somebody else did it! The movie follows this up with a 40-year jump in time, where an unnamed Boston university is being terrorized by a chainsaw-wielding, body-part-picking serial killer. Gee, I wonder if the prologue gives us a clue, informing us that the murderer is someone in his late-40's, early 50's and likes to be the one in power? Be warned, PIECES is an extremely sleazy slasher. Some of the kills fetishize the nude female body and there are some disgusting decisions, such as a closeup of a woman peeing her pants before being chainsawed in half. When it isn't being creepy, the film goes absolutely bonkers. A skateboarding female student crashes into a giant mirror and it's never expounded upon again, people keep tampering with evidence and nonchalantly apologize, a world-famous tennis champion is an undercover cop and at one point is attacked by a clone of Bruce Lee, and the film literally ends with a zombie viciously castrating the male Mary Sue! Who created this strange organism? Juan Piquer Simón, the same guy whose film POD PEOPLE was famously lampooned by Mystery Science Theater 3000 (this film also stars the "Idiot Control" guy!), and would later do the unintentionally hilarious "animals attack" movie SLUGS. Because of its sheer lunacy and memorable murders, I bumped my grade up a tiny bit for what is otherwise a sordid horror film.
FINAL REVIEW: 2 / 5
Leprechaun (1993)
Since I was planning on watching WWE Films' failed reboot of this infamous horror series later this month, I decided to re-watch the one that started it all. A leprechaun (Warwick Davis) busts out of the crate he was magically locked away in, still thirsting to reclaim the bag of gold that was "stolen" from it. Even though the culprit no longer lives in the house where he was imprisoned, the mythical creature instead takes his frustration out on the group of people that are currently there, including a pre-fame Jennifer Aniston and Pee-Wee/Teen Wolf-less Mark Holton. That's pretty much why this movie is still memorable to this date: The first major role for the future (overrated) A-list actress, who is frankly okay here as a Valley Girl temporarily residing in North Dakota. But what makes the movie shine is Davis, who expertly stands on the razor edge between campy and creepy as the titled villain. He's further helped by a memorable costume design and some good-for-B-movie-standards makeup. And that's all the positives I can really muster for what is a substandard fantasy horror movie. The creature's ever-expansive powers are barely explained, the body count is low (only 4 bodies present), the direction consistently moves from cribbing EVIL DEAD to straight-up Looney Tunes, there's a lot of padding, and the 90's fashion is pretty hideous/hilarious. Perfect to kill a afternoon or use as background noise. You better off having you mind blown with the later sequels, whether it is when Davis heads to space or hangs out with Ice-T in the hood.
FINAL REVIEW: 2 / 5
Stand-up comedian Donna Stern (Jenny Slate) flounders one night, largely thanks to the emotional baggage of a bad breakup, but later hits it off with a patron (Jake Lacy) over some drinks. Several weeks after the one night stand, she realizes that she's pregnant and begins to stew over both her decision for an abortion (on Valentine's Day, of course) and whether or not to tell the guy of her personal situation. At first, I was very hesitant with OBVIOUS CHILD, as it seemed to head done the usual path for all ultra-quirky indies. The stand-up comedy wasn't very funny, especially in later cutaways, and the kooky props and set-pieces such as a non-imperialistic bookstore had me irking. But once the plot officially kicks in and Donna makes some really dark jokes during her failed set, I was firmly onboard and enjoying the ride. The movie is a rom-com with a honest depiction of a semi-ordinary woman; I say semi-ordinary because I can't think of someone with a Jim Henson-like father (Richard Kind) and a professor mother (Polly Draper). See what I mean about the quirkiness? Anyway, what I mean to say is that OBVIOUS CHILD takes a more truthful look at a woman's right to choose while tangled up with a potential romantic partner than say JUNO; the scenes of Donna at Planned Parenthood are played straight and though Slate and Lacy have a growing chemistry with each other, they don't instantly hook up, not even towards the end. Even the political naysayers will have to agree that Slate delivers a magnificent performance, perfectly delivering laughs and heartbreaks with each passing scene. A refreshing indie and a great start for writer-director Gillian Robespierre.
FINAL REVIEW: 4 / 5
