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
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!”
October Horrorshow: Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers
Halloween III was a big bust. A successful horror franchise ditched its most marketable characters because series creators John Carpenter and Debra Hill were tired of the idea. I suppose it was a laudable decision from a creative standpoint, but if you’re going to ditch Michael Myers and Laurie Strode, perhaps the greatest on screen villain/scream queen pairing in Hollywood history, it’s probably a bad idea to name your new film like it’s a sequel. Carpenter and Hill learned the hard way that the Halloween brand was in its characters, not its name. Halloween III is not a bad movie. It’s just not a Halloween film. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers”
October Horrorshow: Chernobyl Diaries
Oren Peli, he of the found footage Paranormal Activity horror franchise, wisely decided to expand his horizons...somewhat. With shared producer and screenwriting credits, Chernobyl Diaries, from earlier this year, can be considered part of Peli’s oeuvre. Co-producer Bradley Parker served as the film’s director, in his first effort helming a film after a career in visual effects and some second unit work. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Chernobyl Diaries”
October Horrorshow: Grave Encounters
Zombie flicks are my favorite horror film. Not only are they a subgenre of horror, they are a subgenre of post-apocalyptic fiction, which is a subgenre of sci-fi. That’s a lot of genre-ing going on. I like the post-apocalyptic stuff. Civilization on the brink or going down in a ring of fire. It’s fascinating. It gets the gears turning, but it’s not all that scary. That is, seeing society break down and enter a new dark age, no matter the cause (zombie horde, plague, nuclear war, etc.), is unsettling, but when I think of something being frightening in film, I’m not just talking existentially. I’m thinking of actually being scared of looking at the screen. For that, there’s nothing better than the first half of a ghost film. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Grave Encounters”
October Horrorshow: The House of the Devil
The House of the Devil is a neat little lo-fi film from writer/director Ti West. An homage to low-budget horror from the 1970s and 80s, The House of the Devil is a faithful recreation of styles and techniques from that era. The film takes place in the early 80s, and West does a great job taking the viewer back. But the film is not about the 80s. That’s a distinction worth pointing out. It means the film doesn’t crash the viewer with reminders of the time around every corner, nor does it rely on nostalgia. It just is. The very low budget meant that West didn’t have absolute control over the dressing of locations, inadvertently creating a fun game of spot the anachronism. It doesn’t necessarily distract from the film, but I did find myself hunting for objects that had no business being in the 1980s.
The film follows college sophomore Samantha (Jocelin Donahue). She lives in a dorm, but can’t stand her roommate. In order to get some money to rent an apartment, she answers a flier for a babysitter posted on campus. Her friend Megan (Greta Gerwig) gives her a ride out to the place, down a lonely country road, and we finally make it to the house of the title. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The House of the Devil”
October Horrorshow: Psycho III
...And then there was Psycho III. Part of the appeal of the first two films in the franchise was that there was a fair amount of ambiguity to events. There were murders, but it wasn’t at all clear until the end who had been committing them (of course, a person would have to be living under a rock to not have picked up on Psycho’s twist at some point in their lives). Not so in Psycho III. Norman Bates is doubtlessly the bad guy in this one, so it just remains to be seen how he will get his comeuppance.
Directed by Norman Bates himself, Anthony Perkins, Psycho III takes place shortly after the preceding film. Norman is back to living alone and preparing to reopen the motel. Not far away, a nun who has lost her faith and left the convent, Maureen (Diana Scarwid), meets up with Duke (Jeff Fahey), a young drifter on his way to California. I hate Duke. Have I mentioned in any other reviews how there is no other character in film I despise more than the creepy sexual predator? Not those that are played realistically, mind you, but the sneering, smarmy douchebag that shows up in many bad movies, mostly horror. I hate these characters because they have no redeeming qualities, and they are lazy. It takes no effort from writer, director, or actor to put a one-dimensional ass-hat like Duke to film. Want a quick way to show an audience a character is a bad guy? Have him try to rape a nun in a parked car, then toss her to the curb. That’s Duke. And we as an audience get to spend a significant amount of time with this character. Why? In what way does it make a film, here or in any other, any better to have a supporting character with such despicable traits that have little to nothing to do with the plot? Answer: it doesn’t. Not here, not in Doom, not in Leviathan, not in Rob Zombie’s Halloween II, not in Freddy vs. Jason, nor in any other bad movie I have ever seen. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Psycho III”
October Horrorshow: Psycho II
I like Psycho II better than Psycho.
— Quentin Tarantino
Slow your roll, Quentin.
I’m taking that quote out of context. It is possible to like one film more versus another, while recognizing that film A is not as good as film B. For example, I have a short list in my head of my favorite movies. Star Trek II is on that list. I can watch that film at anytime. I love it because it’s a wonderful sci-fi flick, with lots of action and a comprehensible story. I also love it because if there had never been any other Star Trek film made, if there had never been any of the television series, it could stand on its own with none of the decades-long backstory. But I will never, ever, say that it is a better film than, say, A Prophet, or Jiro Dreams of Sushi, to name two better films I saw this year. Those two films are better, but they will never come close to attaining the same level of appreciation I have for Star Trek II. It just cannot happen. So I understand how Quentin Tarantino, who has a much more thorough understanding of cinematic history than I, could like Psycho II more than Alfred Hitchcock’s original classic. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Psycho II”