Film is Pwn

Perhaps the most astonishing factoid I can provide about Jaws 4: The Revenge is that it exists.

The original Jaws is an all-time classic; it was the original Summer blockbuster that made oodles of money, put director Steven Spielberg on the map, and made chubby kids like me who swim like lame seals afraid to go in the water for fear of giant Great White Sharks.  Perhaps the only downside to Jawsis they forgot to kill off the fearsome beast at the end so that studio executives could not green light lame sequels.  Oh wait, I forgot, star Roy Scheider DID kill off the shark, blowing up the doggone thing in rather convincing fashion so that what was once the terror of the oceans became but mere chum for passing minnows.

But there is no such thing as a conclusive, definitive death in film, not when money can be made, just ask Jason Vorhees, Freddy Kruger, Spock, and John Travolta’s career. (more…)

Rather than go to the theater and see Benecio Del Toro’s remake Wolf Man (that can wait for the DVD release), I checked out a recent AMC Channel airing of the 1941 original.

Because I’m so squeamish, modern horror films hold little appeal for me.  It’s not that I don’t like being scared from time to time, rather it is just that I hate seeing blood and guts on screen.  “Disgusting” is not the same as “frightening.”  It’s not to say that fright and disgust do not co-exist or are  mutually exclusive.

A man wanders in the woods at night, his path lit by torch, a pistol clutched in his hands as he scans the bushes for sign of Monster.  That’s scary.  The Monster burst out of the woods and pounces at the man, who, in panic, fires his gun too high.  That’s scary.  Five minutes of the Monster devouring victim with a knife and fork as the victim watches his organs used to create a shish kabob.  That’s disgusting. (more…)

The horror movie “The Gingerdead Man” can be found in the DVD section marked “Yes, this movie actually exists.”  Other films in this section include, but are not limited to, Mansquito, Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster, and Jonas Brothers in 3-D.

All these films had a screenwriter who took the time off from his job at Sbarro to pen a script.  Actors signed on to the project either out of desperation or out of a game of truth or dare gone horribly, horribly wrong.  A director agreed to participate after failing to land that lucrative Caveman sitcom gig.  And perhaps most galling, someone, perhaps a billionaire hopped up on ether, gave these souls money to make it happen.  How did the stars align for these feature films but my own screenplay, Smokey the Bear vs. Alexander the Great: To the Pain! remains in limbo?  Who knows, but this isn’t about me selling that screenplay (contact me at DanielRoos1978@hotmail.com if you know anyone interested!). (more…)

Monster Squad.  Monster Squad is a relic from the late 80s resuscitated in modern times due to nostalgia, prompting a 20th anniversary DVD release in 2007 with hoopla and fanfare for the grown up child stars and the director, whose most recognizable credit since Monster Squad is the towering achievement that is Robocop 3.  I was not one of the kids who grew up watching Monster Squad and getting a tattoo of the signature line like “Wolfman’s Got Nards!”  I had better things to do growing up in the 80s, like T-ball, playing with G.I. Joes, and repeatedly replaying every single Chevy Chase and/or John Candy movie ever made. (more…)

Growing up, I was not a big fan of zombies. As a monster, I felt that they were actually quite terrible. They have no personality, are mindless and they move so slowly that one could fight them off with an arquebus (A 15th century muzzle loaded firearm that requires and enormous amount of time between shots – I guess if I have to explain it, it isn’t a great reference). But the problem remained for the poor zombie. They were a lousy monster, and their place in films was limited to low budget drek. But oh how times have changed… zombie are now en vogue and some films have reinvented them as strong, agile creatures (See I Am Legend, but don’t read the book, they are vampires in the book). The trailer for Zombieland was great, and the film looked to be fast paced and exciting… (more…)

It’s the eve of Halloween, or “All Hallow’s Eve” if I wanted to be pretentious (and as a writer of a blog, I must be a little pretentious), a fact that’s pretty difficult to escape.  My officemates have filled cubicleworld with spooky decorations and there is a costume contest on Friday (I’m dressing as a human!); the multiplexes are overflowing with the latest batch of horror flicks that I’ll never see (this means you, Saw VI!); and every channel is broadcasting some manner of scary movie or television show this weekend, from the SyFy Channel to the Weather Channel.
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One of the many great things about Tivo is the wonderful descriptions of programming it provides.  Take this Tivo-nopsis of the 2005 horror movie Dead Serious: “Religious fanatics try to take over a gay bar which is – they are about to discover – owned by vampires”. How could I not click the record button… 

The film opened in the gay bar in question, which one could tell was a gay bar because the only decor was a rainbow flag hanging on the wall.  A patron argues with the bartender who tells him to talk to the manager, whose office is up top of a winding dim staircase.  After registering his complaint the manager (who was creepy enough to be a vampire, but not well dressed enough to be a homosexual) he is attacked, fangs flashing, blood spurting.  And then cut to the title screen.. fangs descending from up top.  Pure cheese I though, but somehow I was mesmerized.  Next a scene in a park where a seemingly nice guy is trying to enjoy a hamburger but the sweet love of his life won’t let him.  It’s wrong to eat animals, he’s killing himself with cholesterol, hey! some guys are smoking!  Oh the humanity… you know, there are vampires, and I want her to die, but somehow I doubt she will… maybe, if I believe hard enough… (more…)

There has been a LOT of buzz surrounding this film, and virtually all of has been word of mouth and through the internet a la The Blair Witch Project.  And there are valid comparisons. Both were shot on a shoestring as DIY amateur “reality” video and featured first time directors and unknown actors. They both used extremely creative marketing tools as well. (Thanks to all those that “Demanded the film come to Charlotte). But where The Blair Witch Project never reveals visually the terror that is stalking the people, Paranormal Activity reveals the faintest glimpse, and it makes it much more terrifying.

The basic premise here is a young engaged couple living in a house in San Diego named Katie and Micah. There have been subtle, but strange happenings in the house. so Micah buys a high end video camera which he sets up in the couple’s bedroom at night to record what happens when they are asleep.  When the video is replayed, you see the hour, minute and second timer in the bottom of the screen. At first, you see video speed up to fast forward through the mundane parts and then the timer slows to real time.  You learn very quickly that something is going to happen. As each night is shown, the tension grows thicker and a knot begins to form in your stomach. At first it only captures harmless occurrences like lights coming on by themselves and strange noises. But as the days and weeks progress, the occurrences become bigger and more terrifying and this is only intensified by the bickering of the couple during the day about what to do about it.  First time director Oren Peli does a wonderfully masterful job at building the tension to the point that even noises in the theater make the audience jump.

Very rarely does a film live up to the hype that surrounds it, and for horror it never happens. Until now. There were mainly young people in the theater, late teens and early 20s and I was afraid I would have to contend with chatter through the whole thing. But once it started, you could have heard a pin drop. I think that says more about the film than anything I could.

Scary movies are not my favorite genre.  It’s a matter of personal taste, of course. To me, fear isn’t an emotional response I want to plop down $10 at the theater in order to experience, especially when I can get it for free on the evening news.

I detest torture porn (the Saw franchise, Hostel, etc.) and I have no interest in slasher films (Halloween, Friday the 13th, etc.). The only kind of scary movie I actually get a kick out of is the spooky, Sixth Sensekind of movie, where the violence, if there is any, doesn’t exceed PG-13 caliber, and the terror is all in your mind as you wonder “What’s in the shadows?” (Yes, I know I’m a wuss, it’s something I’ve had to learn to live with ever since the “too scared to go on the Scooby Doo Rollercoaster” incident in my childhood.)
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We’re not just talking the Fog, we’re talking John Carpenter’s The Fog, people!  I assume having the auteur behind the original Halloween is supposed to be some kind of enticement, but it’s unclear why someone would want their name above this movie or attempt to entice someone to see it.  I came to it more or less on accident, as John Carpenter’s the Fog happened to air on HDNet Movies the very same night I was bored and looking to kill an hour and a half.  No matter what else I’ll say about it, the Fog did manage to kill that time, so I guess I do owe Mr. Carpenter some measure of thanks, but not much!

The Fog is a ghost story about lots and lots of mundane yet somehow spooky coincidences, which are only somewhat validated by the fact that there are some undead ghost pirate lepers that kill some local yokels.

The film opens with an actual ghost story where some old dude (John Houseman) straight off of posing for the Old Spice bottle covers, tells a bunch of kids the tale of an old pirate vessel that their town founders destroyed in order to found the very town they are living in.  And soon the entire town is besieged with a fiendish evil of inconceivable proportions as the uncanny, procrastinating pirates use their newfound supernatural prowess to exact extremely tardy reprisals on the inhabitants of the town 100 years after they were wronged.   Ooooooooh!  I will have my revenge on the inhabitants of Antonio Bay, in a century or so, we don’t want to rush anything — ooooooooh!
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This trailer has been getting a LOT of buzz on the inner tubes and it seems to have reached a fever pitch in the last week or so. And it was made on a bare bones, shoe string budget. I can’t wait to see it. I hope it comes to Charlotte.  Here’s the trailer:

And apparently it lives up to the hype. Via i09

Horror blogs generally support this movie’s overall spookiness. Last year I asked Uncle Creepy of Dread Central what the scariest movie he had ever seen was, and without hesitation he said Paranormal Activity. Bloody Disgusting says it’s one of the scariest movies of all time, and Fear Net supports it as well. It’s got a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but then again it had a very small opening.

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Being a half-grizzly/half-human hybrid movie blogger, naturally I’m bit of a sucker for a bear movie.  Please note that I don’t say, “I’m a sucker for a GOOD bear movie,” because if I were there would be precisely one entry on the list: Anthony Hopkins & Alec Baldwin in the Edge, written by the great David Mamet.  Because I am so open minded for bear films of any quality (I gave a glowing review to the Country Bears, for Pete’s sake!), I am hence a sucker for a bad movie prominently featuring a bear, and today’s entry Grizzly Park certainly falls into the “bad” movie category.

Man oh man Grizzly Park is some kind of terrible.  It’s filled past the breaking point with terrible acting, stupid characters doing and saying idiotic things, and corny horror gore. On the plus side, it does have some things going for it, well only three. There’s 1) plenty of Brody the Bear, the same bear who fought to a draw with Walker, Texas Ranger; 2) it stars Glenn Morshower a.k.a. Secret Service Agent Aaron from the TV show 24, a likable character actor whose last name “Morshower” translates from the Comanche word for “He who should take more showers”; and 3) a twist ending so absurd and implausible that I genuinely liked it.  (I’ll be giving away said plot twist later on, so be warned and get the popcorn, ’cause this is The Village quality.)
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