Films seen in October
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01. The Nanny (1965,
UK) Seth Holt -
a must see
According to Christopher Lee, Seth Holt was the
famed Hammer Studio’s finest director. This is a bold statement considering
he only made three films for them, the last of which (Blood From
the Mummy’s Tomb) he died before completing. Judging from
this work, one can certainly see that Holt brings a psychology to the screen
that rarely surfaces in Hammer productions. Bette Davis, ever the cinematic
basket case, adds a much needed presence to the film, and Holt’s keen
use of close-ups are reminiscent of Hitchcock at times. I’m looking forward
to checking out his purported masterpiece Taste of Fear,
due out on DVD later this month.
02. The Brain from Planet Arous
(1957, USA) Nathan Juran -
worth seeing
Your average B-movie sci-fi/horror movie from
the late 50’s, not as campy as many have claimed, but great fun nonetheless.
03. Home Sick (2007,
USA) Adam Wingard [2008 based on DVD premiere] -
worth seeing [C]
Lynchian humor, off the wall gore, and Tiffany
Shepis bathing half nude in her dead mother’s blood, these are the types
of things that can make me overlook the shortcomings of your no budget, poorly
dubbed movie. Herschell Gordon Lewis became a household name peddling this brand
of schlock, and while Wingard was obviously aiming higher than Lewis-style exploitation,
the results are certainly similar, if not equally enjoyable. That is of course
is up until the big finale, wherein Wingard’s lofty aspirations get the
better of him and his cinematic abilities. Still, call me curious to see what
he puts out next…
04. Death Note (2006,
Japan) Shusuke Kaneko -
a must see [B-]
Like great literature, great comics can be a
daunting task to adapt into film. It only a took a few books of the manga by
Ohba & Obata to know that I was reading a masterpiece, so you can say my
hopes were not high for this live-action work. Surprisingly, the clinical “24”
style approach to the story works, and while it is a long way from the source
manga, this obviously is something more than just milking the fanboys for money.
06.
Dead Fury (2008, USA) Frank Sudol
-
worth seeing [C]
Highly enjoyable computer animated gore-fest,
an homage to Raimi’s Evil Dead films, it loses
much of its appeal after the first few acts. Obviously a labor of love for its
creator, Sudol is no hack filmmaker and I’ll definitely be checking out
City of Rott now, but in this instance this is yet
another excellent short film that was mistakenly drawn out to feature length
07.
Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell
(1968, Japan) Hajime Sato -
worth
seeing
Not the classic is was cracked up to be, this
is most notable for taking the atomic age themes of Ishiro Honda’s films
and applying them to a Vietnam era critique. Love the colors though…
08. The Girlfriend
(2005, USA) Adam Wingard [short, 31 min.] - not recommended
Wow, apparently Wingard has seen Mulholland
Dr and Lost Highway!
09. 1000 Year Sleep
(2007, USA) Adam Wingard [short, 6 min.] - average
Does what Wingard failed to do in either of his
other works, and that is create a palpable sense of mood. Why he chooses to
shatter this in the last shot with a hokey punch line is beyond me, but I like
what I saw here.
10.
Race with the Devil (1975, USA)
Jack Starrett -
a must see
Fonda, Oates, car chases, Satanists, the 70’s…
With these elements in mind you should know right now whether you love this
or hate it.
12.
Hell of the Living Dead (1980,
Italy) Bruno Mattei
- 
has redeeming facet A hodgepodge of scenarios ripped straight from
Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, spliced with a lot
of stock footage, this is bottom of the barrel Italian filmmaking that holds
interest only because it is so far gone.
13.
Wicked Lake (2008, USA) Zach Passero
-
worthless [F]
You know you are a genre diehard when you’ve
sat through this…
14.
Dance of the Dead (2008, USA)
Gregg Bishop
- has
redeeming facet [D+]
Just about every single review written about
this film name drops Shaun of the Dead, but what very
few acknowledge is that horror comedy is perhaps the single toughest feat to
effectively pull off. Edgar Wright cut his teeth for two full seasons on the
television series Spaced, developing his skills at
producing comedy via his editing and mise en scene, and which by the end of
his TV career was perfected to the point that the script was for all intents
and purposes, superfluous. Simply put Gregg Bishop ∫ Edgar Wright. Dance
of the Dead probably looked great on paper, but on the screen
it is lifeless and stiff -- a zombie movie…literally.
15.
Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer (2007,
Canada) Jon Knautz [2008 based on DVD premiere] -
a must see [B]
Jack is a plumber with anger management problems
who finds his calling in life when monsters start some shit at the community
college night class he attends. What a blast this movie was… Old school
monster makeup with comic book characters and just the right amount of flashy
direction and over-the-top acting, I doubt a better straight to video horror
movie comes out this year. With films like Slither
and Hatchet, and now JB:MS,
it is nice to know that horror filmmakers are still capable of putting on some
monster make-up and daring to imagine a little.
16. Teen Massacre (2004,
Canada) Jon Knautz [short, 13 min.] - not recommended
Tip to up and coming filmmaker who just wow’d
this viewer with his first feature film: nobody wants to see your bad student
film.
17. Laura Panic (2008, USA) Adam Wingard
[short, 3 min.] - average
A tad too short, but there are some ideas floating
around in this one, that still has me curious to see more from the Wingard/Katz
camp.
18.
Night of the Bloody Apes (1969,
Mexico) René Cardona -
worth seeing
Mexican madness about a doctor who transplants
the heart of a gorilla in his terminally ill son and winds up creating a blood
thirsty monster who likes to rip the clothes off of women and the scalps off
of passerby’s. I watched both versions of this -- The Mexican version
which plays like 1930’s Mad Doctor Hollywood, and the American export
version which contains additional footage of the female leads in the nude, and
a great deal of H.G. Lewis style gore -- guess which one was better?
19.
Faces of Death (1978, USA) John
Alan Schwartz
-
has redeeming facet I remember being a kid and if someone told you
they had seen Faces of Death, you were shocked and
viewed them differently, like someone who had been attacked by a shark and lived
to tell about it. After all, this was a movie that was nothing more than a series
of actual deaths and murders and it was banned in over 46 countries! Seen today,
wherein it is obvious that just about everything in the film is staged, one
can’t help but be bored and somewhat offended at the filmmakers nerve
to insert the occasional stock footage of actual death, while another part of
you grows a tad nostalgic for those days where you wanted to believe that everything
you saw on the screen was the god's honest truth.
21.
Lord of Illusions (1995, USA)
Clive Barker [dir. cut] -
worth
seeing
A private investigator gets caught up in a deadly
conspiracy of magic and cults, in this well executed if overblown work by Clive
Barker. Barker’s ego tends to precede him with everything he does, and
even though he is capable of great literature and even great films (I gave 4-stars
to Hellraiser), he tends to overdo it at times. Although
he may fancy himself the second coming of Lovecraft, Barker is truly at his
best when transposing his hideous drawings to the big screen (the guy is a visionary),
and when the story gets too big (as it does here), he tends to lose it. It’s
a shame though that he gets behind the camera so infrequently, as I think he
has the potential to be a great filmmaker.
22.
Criminally Insane (1975, USA)
Nick Millard
- has
redeeming facet A fat woman, fresh out of the mental hospital,
kills her mother and just about everyone else who gets in her way when the idea
of losing some weight is presented to her. This is sleazy, grindhouse style
horror, that has a reputation far outweighing anything presented on- screen.
A tasteless curiosity of a film, and nothing else.
23.
Alone (2007, Thailand) Banjong
Pisanthanakun & Parkpoom Wongpoom
-
worth seeing [C-]
A young woman separated from her conjoined twin
is haunted by the spirit of the now deceased sister in the Asian trademark style
of a pale skinned, long black haired specter. I cannot think of a film that
is any less original in story or execution, but the Thai team of Pisanthanakun
& Wongpoom seem to have “Jap-horror” formula down to science
and while this film will be out of mind entirely by next week, I’d be
lying if I said it didn’t scare the piss out of me on more than one occasion.
24.
Watcher in the Attic (1976, Japan)
Noboru Tanaka
-
worth seeing This was once considered pornography, but like
many late-70’s erotica, it is fairly tame by today’s standards.
A man hides out in the attic of a geisha house and views a wide array of depraved
behavior through holes in the ceiling, each of which are based on short stories
by the famous Edogawa Rampo (say it fast and you get Edgar Allen Poe). The film
comes across a bit segmented as too many ideas and narratives are shuffled together,
and although some of them are knockouts -- a chauffer hides inside
a chair while his Madame sits on it and is pleasured by another man -- most
of the stories are too brief to mean much. The horror, like most of Rampo’s
work, comes from the underlying suffering of a Post-WWI nation. As a film however,
this feels like the work of a director who is trying to cram a careers-worth
of ideas into a single work.
25.
The Last House in the Woods (2006,
Italy) Gabriele Albanesi
-
has redeeming facet [D]
Watch enough horror films and read enough comic
books and eventually you reach a point where the gore and grotesquerie becomes
a cherished art form. The physical manifestation of the nightmarish images that
the human brain dares to imagine has been an influential part of our culture
ever since Boris Karloff first opened his eyes in James Whale’s Frankenstein.
Fast forward several decades and introduce Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci, and the
whole of the Italian genre movement, which, fueled by a lax censorship code,
dared to push the limits of on-screen depravity. One could say that Art Direction
was the raison d’etre of these works, but that would be doing a disservice
to the great pulp yarns that many of the films spun. Sure these movies had naked
women and stylized death scenes, but they also told great stories. This is the
major downfall of works like The Last House in the Woods
and Argento’s latest shit-fest Mother of Tears;
these filmmakers have become so wrapped up in their gore that they have forgotten
to tell a story. In their desire to imagine, they have thrown their imaginations
out the window and we are left with nothing but a mindless spectacle.
26.
Red (2008, USA) Trygve Allister Diesen & Lucky
McKee -
Masterpiece [A]
27.
Frontière(s) (2007, France) Xavier Gens
-
2nd viewing [last viewing Sept. 07] no change in rating [C+]
28.
Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2007,
USA) Lloyd Kaufman -
worth seeing
[C+]
29.
Love from Mother Only
(2003, Brazil) Dennison Ramalho [short] -
2nd viewing
[last viewing Jul. 06] rating lowered from **** Excellent to *** must see
30.
Critters (1986, USA) Stephen Herek -
worth seeing
31.
Zombie Strippers! (2008, USA) Jay Lee -
has redeeming facet [D+]