Bonus Horrorshow! Two in one day! Because I can’t stop watching horror flicks in October, even when I have all my reviews written in advance, I bring my Loyal Seven readers another entry in the October Horrorshow. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Rig”
Author: capcom
October Horrorshow: Mama
The last horror flick I saw with Guillermo del Toro serving as executive producer was The Orphanage, from 2007. I reviewed it in last year’s Horrorshow, and while I did like it, I lambasted it for its derivative nature. This time around, the film del Toro chose to attach his name to is Mama, from writer/director Andres Muschietti. It’s also a fairly derivative horror flick, in that there’s not much happening on screen that will be all that unfamiliar to horror fans, but unlike The Orphanage, I couldn’t find any quotes online where the director is being a pretentious ass, so there’s that.
Mama tells the story of two lost little girls and the ghost that loves them. Beginning during the financial crisis in 2008, a businessman played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau goes on a murderous killing spree (thankfully off camera). He kidnaps his two young daughters and flees the city for the countryside. After a car accident, the trio are lucky to survive, and they seek shelter in an abandoned cabin in the woods. There, Nikolaj is about to finish off his bad day by killing his daughters, but a spectral apparition inhabiting the cabin gets to him first, saving the girls’ lives. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Mama”
October Horrorshow: Graveyard Shift
Here are a few indications that the movie a person is about to watch isn’t any good. One, I reviewed it (heyooooo!!). Two, the Wikipedia page for the movie barely breaks 300 words. Three, there is one item in the trivia section of the movie’s IMDb page. Four, I didn’t bother to use anything other than Wikipedia and IMDb when I researched said movie. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Graveyard Shift”
October Horrorshow: Citadel
Location, location, location — that old basic truism about the three rules for running a successful restaurant. Filmmaking can’t be boiled down to something so simple, but sometimes filmmakers seem to try their best. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Citadel”
October Horrorshow: Christine
A general rule: films that are adaptations of books are not as good as the book. Why should they be? A film removes all the grace of prose, and by necessity compresses the story. Sometimes, though, films are better than their source material, and the rule is reversed. Jaws, Wolfen, Die Hard (aka Nothing Lasts Forever), Full Metal Jacket (aka The Short-Timers)...a list like this could go on and on. It’s strangely satisfying to watch a film that’s better than the book. But also confusing. All those films I cited above come from mediocre books. Yet the mind of a filmmaker was able to read them and think, “Yeah, this would make a good movie.” Okay. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Christine”
October Horrorshow: Carrie
How times have changed. Within two minutes of Brian De Palma’s Carrie, an adaptation of Stephen King’s first novel, there’s a scene in a girls’ high school locker room after gym class with no less than half a dozen full frontal nude shots. High school girls (all played by adults) are bouncing around and giggling after showering, showing off their gloriously naked bodies. I can’t imagine there would ever be a film made today that featured nude teenagers so prominently, much less with such sappy eloquence and, yes, sexuality. It’s not long before the camera pans and settles on the film’s main character, Carrie White (Sissy Spacek), as she showers and caresses her body, culminating in a horrific display of bullying after the onset of her first menstrual cycle. That’s how viewers are introduced to the confused, introverted, oppressed, overgrown adolescent of the title: as she is brutalized by her peers. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Carrie”
October Horrorshow: Poltergeist
So, who really directed Poltergeist? Part of the Hollywood mythos the last few decades treats this as an open question. Was it Tobe Hooper, the man at the top of the credits? Or was it producer Steven Spielberg? It was such a serious concern among the Directors Guild that they launched an investigation into whether or not Spielberg had tried to snatch credit away from Hooper. Honestly, no one involved is saying definitively one way or the other, but Hooper is a competent storyteller with fine directorial vision, and I can’t see him having a film taken away from him. That being said, it’s also hard to picture Spielberg letting a director that was not him have total creative control over a flick he was very much involved in as producer. So did Spielberg direct Poltergeist? Who knows, and who cares? Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Poltergeist”
October Horrorshow: Resident Evil: Retribution, or, Story? We Don’t Need No Stinking Story!
October is here. Rejoice! For this is the best month in which to watch horror films. Summer has just died and the month ends with Halloween. The chill that has suddenly arisen in the air portends the coming cold slumber of winter...or the passing whisper of a phantom. To celebrate, Missile Test once again dedicates the month to reviewing horror films. The good, the bad, or the putrid. It doesn’t matter. If there’s blood, it gets a watch. Welcome to the fifth annual October Horrorshow. First up is a real winner. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Resident Evil: Retribution, or, Story? We Don’t Need No Stinking Story!”
The Potomac Vortex
Politics is disheartening to follow, and spiritually draining to care about, because it never ends. Like professional wrestling, no conflict ever has resolution, because the lifeblood of the activity is keeping viewers engaged. In the case of politics, it’s the voters. American voters are the American public, and decades of the entertainment industry have taught politicians (and the news media that exist in a symbiotic relationship with politics) how to raise hackles among the electorate, thus today’s politics is wrought with drama. Continue reading “The Potomac Vortex”
I’m Glad It’s Not My Decision
Ten years ago, the United States started a war against Iraq on false pretenses. The Bush administration lied about and manipulated intelligence to convince the American public that Saddam Hussein’s regime had weapons of mass destruction (chemical weapons), and was actively trying to attain others (nuclear weapons). What boggles the mind is that, in the runup to that war in 2002-2003, it was transparently obvious to anyone paying attention (or not blinded by the cult of Neoconservatism) that the Bush administration was manufacturing its justifications for war. The result we’ve become all-too familiar with: a protracted war which we did not win, drained the Treasury, and cost the lives of over a hundred thousand people. Continue reading “I’m Glad It’s Not My Decision”