What Big Hooker Boots You Have

Not since Zombie Death House have I sat down for a violent-prisoners-take-out-the-staff horror treat. Something tells me the hair won’t have nearly enough volume in 2010’s Medium Raw…

Quick Plot: Some years ago, a serial killer dubbed The Wolf killed a lot of little girls, including our hero Johnny Morgan’s kid sister. Now a surly young detective, Johnny (played by director Andrew Cymek) gets his second chance at catching the elusive killer when his mentor (John Rhys-Davies in non-dwarf form) discovers he has returned.

Meanwhile, Johnny’s new wife Jamie is a psychiatrist at a maximum security asylum for the criminally insane. It’s a darkly lit place with a bad reputation, as its former head doctor was a fan of torturous therapy. Now run by his son Dr. Robert Parker (William B. Davis), the hospital operates under the theory that insanity can be cured and treated with kindness. When that doesn’t work, all patients wear electric shock collars that send a mean jolt if they get too close to the staff.

You see where this is going, right?

After Johnny collars The Wolf (real name: Harold Grierson), justice takes a turn when lawyer Mercedes McNab (better known to Sunnydale citizens as Harmony) gets Grierson a softer sentence to, you guessed it, the same asylum Jamie (now separated from Johnny) does her rounds. Once a nurse’s granddaughter comes to visit wearing a red cloak on Christmas Eve, you can bet a steak dinner that the power will go out and the tables will turn.

Medium Raw is an unusual film in both good ways and bad. It’s hard to dislike any inmates-take-it-back film, simply because such a Marat/Sade premise will always yield something fun. In this case, we get a cheerfully mad nudist in a Santa hat, a brutal giant with a soft spot for Jamie’s singing and a hard spot for the color red, a god-loving psycho who talks like Macho Man, and a deceptively grandmotherly patient named Mabel who just so happens to be a cannibal with specific cooking techniques. All that stuff? Super.

Unfortunately, we also get their victims. Cymek looks the part of a young distressed detective, but he never really seems to be weighted by the horrors he’s experienced. Brigitte Kingsley (also the producer) is dreadfully miscast (and mis-styled) as a brilliant doctor who looks and acts more like a centerfold. Their scenes together lack any real chemistry, which wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t drawn out in the worst possible way.

I’m being very specific when I say “drawn out in the worst possible way” because it’s quite literal. At one point, Jamie is trapped in a James Bond-ish slow death drowning apparatus. She knows her time is short—like, really really really really short—and so she urges Johnny to go save someone else and get back to her if he can. Considering the fact that every second counts, you’d think he would make up his mind then launch into action and return with equal speed. Instead, Cymek uses this scene to show how sad he is by the whole thing, i.e., standing there looking torn, vowing not to leave, then deciding to leave but continuously turning around before trotting away. Take your time dude. No rush.

Except yes rush, because tick tock. You’d think Johnny would learn his lesson when he returns to find Jamie’s cage underwater. Rather than immediately SPRINTING towards it, he takes the moment to stop, shout “Jamie!,” and then run to her aide. I know it’s the kind of detail that works for dramatic effect, but when time being of the essence has been DRILLED into this subplot, it’s impossible for an audience member to ignore how stupid his actions seem.

I realize I’m harping on small things, but there are a lot of those kinds of poor choices that keeps Medium Raw from ever being as effective as it could be. We even have two assumedly ace detectives investigating an extremely violent criminal without calling backup, as if everything they learned about police work came from Danny Glover’s incompetence in Saw.

These things aside, Medium Raw does have plenty to enjoy. The oddly black humored impromptu cannibal cooking lesson is twisted fun, and a lot of the fairy tale imagery (when not obvious) creates an artistically unsettling tone. Of course, it would help if we could actually SEE the details, something Cymek seems loathe to do based on the pitch black lighting choices. I suppose it’s meant to heighten the mood or show us the darkness of the asylum but really, it just means I squinted a lot.

Not. Pleasant.

High Notes

The actual design of The Wolf’s chainmail garb is wonderfully weird

The Juggernaut-ish big guy who hates red is wonderfully used as a sort of tool of the good and bad. We see from his interactions with Jamie that he’s psychologically unbalanced, not naturally evil. It’s an interesting touch that works well when Johnny enlists him as his own sort of weapon against The Woodcutter

Low Notes

Dear Lighting Department: It’s nice to see things now and then. Yours, Emily

Lessons Learned

Lawyers’ personal files always include a sexy headshot

All toes are important

  

Acceptable workwear for a psychiatrist in a home for the criminally insane includes skin-tight t-shirts, miniskirts, and knee-high leather boots with heels sharp enough to cut through arteries

When someone cooks your staff for dinner, that person is not your friend

Rent/Bury/Buy

When it comes to most of the newer genre films on Instant Watch, Medium Raw is something different. So long as you can get by the fact that everybody onscreen acts like an idiot (and that the lead two act rather terribly), it’s not an awful way to waste away 90 minutes. And hey, it gives us a double shot of holiday AND mental asylum horror. For that, I can be thankful with a mediocre product.

Ms. Winters, May I Have Some More?

You know how some actors like Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin have an open invitation to host Saturday Night Live whenever they want, simply because they do it so well? The same kind of rule applies here at the Doll House for select talent. So if Dame Shelley Winters made a movie about cooking orphans, you can betcher bottom dollar that it has a place right here.

Quick Plot: Auntie Roo is a wealthy American widow who holds nightly seances in the hopes of contacting her long-lost daughter Katherine. Sometimes they’re successful, although that’s probably more due to Roo’s sadistic butler paying off the medium and maid to fiddle some voices and such. Seemingly, the only real enjoyment Roo finds in life is throwing an annual Christmas party extravaganza with presents and oversized candy canes for the town's ten best-behaved orphans.

On one hand, this is awesome. Wouldn’t you love to have that one night of gluttony in a mansion before returning to the dank depression of your Oliver-ish home, especially if it included a weird cabaret performance by Shelley Winters? Of course, the other 35 orphans get to stay in and eat slightly sweeter gruel for the holidays, something that the bratty young Christopher and his awful little sister Katy are mad as hell about and won’t take anymore. 

The pair stow away in the orphanage trunk and sneak into the party, much to the annoyance of their guardians but cheerful acceptance of the wonderfully wonderful Roo.  

What a dame. Here she is opening her massive home to a batch of poor and grimy orphans. She’s even kind to the party crashers and goes so far to develop a motherly bond with the Awful Katy, due in part to the Awful Katy’s resemblance to Roo’s dead--I mean, disappeared--daughter.

Did I mention Katy is Awful? For as much as I despised the little blond orphan in Santa With Muscles, Kathy makes her look like more appealing than a Li’l Love Carvel cake. 

That’s saying something.

Why is this kid so Awful, you ask? Pretend for a moment that you are a poor orphan struggling to find some kindness in a cold British facility. There’s this great party going on that you weren’t invited to, but your equally Awful older brother has convinced you to sneak in anyway. By the grace of good fortune, the wealthy widow in charge welcomes you, going so far as to give you special alone time and—get this—a brand new oversized (admittedly creepy) teddy bear. How do you repay her? With a polite thank you or a hug, maybe even an elementary art level but well-intentioned crayon portrait, right?

Nope. This little brat sees fit to snub her parentless nose at the generous gift and instead complain about how she really just wants the old oversized teddy bear Auntie Roo already had, you know, the one that belonged to her DEAD DAUGHTER. The adjective ‘ungrateful’ doesn’t begin to capture the utter Awfulness--yes, that capital A is necessary-- of this character.

And yet, I think that’s in part the point. Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? is a strange film, one that doesn’t want to give us any easy good guys. You would imagine a plucky pair of orphaned siblings would be prime and center to be the underdog heroes of this kind of story, but Christopher and Katy are actively horrid, going so far as to devise a fairly genius Night of the Hunter-like burglary. Auntie Roo herself is a bizarre nut to crack. We like her because a) she’s played by Shelley Winters b) she throws kickass parties c) she’s genuinely sad and more than a tad crazed over the untimely death of her daughter and d) she’s taken advantage of by virtually any child or adult that smells her bank account. There’s something fascinating in how she begins as a figure of sympathy, becomes one more for pity, then falls into the role of witch through the prodding of Christopher and Katy’s self-proclaimed Hansel & Gretel status.

Directed by Curtis Harrington, Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? holds a membership card in the Grand Dame Guignol subgenre popularized by one of my personal favorites, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? Harrington had previously worked with Winters on What’s the Matter With Helen?, a straighter (except not at all, if you catch my drift) middle-aged movie star thriller along the lines of Baby Jane with Winters playing house with Debbie Reynolds. In an age where so many film critics lament the lack of good roles for actresses over 45, it’s interesting to look at this period of cinema. The memory of it may feel as though these still beautiful, able-bodied 50somethings were being exploited, but Harrington’s films don’t fit that at all. Shelley Winters plays Roo as a woman a few steps over crazy, but her age never seems to add any laughs or be played as grotesque. The same can easily be said for Helen (which is on the flip side of this DVD release). I will defend Baby Jane until the day I feed my own elderly sister her pet bird, but there is something to the argument that it’s best remembered for its shock factor of seeing Bette Davis and Joan Crawford at their worst.

But I tell ya, even the sight of a cake-faced Bette Davis wearing a babydoll dress and killing her way through I've Written a Letter to Daddy is more appealing than the sight of the Awful Katy. Did I mention that I didn't like that kid? 

High Points

I love when a film is smart enough to build itself with interesting minor characters. Roo’s hateful butler Albie is a wonderfully villainous touch that doesn’t NEED to be in the film, but his presence and characterization simply makes everything a tad more sinister 

As The Woman In Black reminded us, there is simply no such thing as too many creepy dolls

Low Points

I don't know if the flashback to the REAL Katherine's fate was supposed to be funny or sad, but I found it hysterically sad to the point of being funny. Maybe that was a low point considering its intentions, but hey, it was certainly entertaining

Lessons Learned

You mustn’t disturb the cook when she’s making something delicious

If there wasn’t a séance, then it wasn’t a 1970s genre film

Never trust a British stair bannister

Rent/Bury/Buy

Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? is an easy recommendation because it’s just so strange. I can't think of another movie that includes Shelley Winters singing in black lace, orphans plotting a heist, mummified children, blackmail, fairy tale overtones, and oh yeah, creepy dolls, just 'cause. When paired with Harrington's What’s the Matter With Helen?, this two-sided disc makes a fine addition to any collection, even if the special features are sadly limited to (an admittedly awesome) trailer. 

Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide

A single mom brings home a doll for her lonely child’s birthday, only to then watch the babysitter and a few strangers die in suspicious accidents. Sound familiar?

Sometimes a cash-in on a popular horror franchise takes a few years. Such is the case for 1996’s Pinocchio’s Revenge, a Child’s Play wannabe with a surprising amount of mid-90s heart.

Quick Plot: Divorcee Jennifer is under a little stress, partially from being a public defender of death row inmates and more so from being mom to a bright, annoying, and possibly psychotic little girl named Zoe. Bitter about her father’s absence, Zoe raises the eyebrows of her child psychologist and gets into schoolyard brawls with some of the other second graders. The kid needs a friend.

Conveniently enough, Mom is just closing out a depressing appeal case where she unsuccessfully defended a man accused of murdering his son. Though he admitted his crime, Jennifer always suspected he was innocent and the only bit of evidence she has to go on is the titular wooden doll found with the deceased’s body. Through an assortment of chess moves, Pinocchio ends up home in bed with Zoe as her new brother/best friend that seems to cause an awful lot of accidents.

I will tell no lies here: I’ve been wanting to watch Pinocchio’s Revenge for a good 10+ years, ever since its VHS cover piqued my interest in the waning days of my rental habit. Now on Instant Watch, I’m one step closer to having completed everything I needed to in life and hence, one step closer to having my brains bashed in by a wooden marionette.

But on a lighter note, how’s the movie? Ridiculous, a tad slow, and somewhere in between, magnificent.

Directed by cult dude Kevin Tenney (Night of the Demons, Witchboard), Pinocchio’s Revenge seemed to have based itself on an IMDB bit of trivia on the Child’s Play page, a note that claimed writer Don Mancini’s original intention was to tease out the mystery of whether it was Chucky or his boy keeper Andy that was actually responsible for the killings. In Pinocchio’s Revenge, we’re never quite sure of the same question. It’s a good hour into the film before we hear the little fella speak, and some of the action afterwards still points towards Zoe’s own instability. 

For a straight to VHS killer doll film, it’s actually somewhat impressive. Granted Pinnochio himself ain’t no Talking Tina. Sure, his design is mildly unsettling (and his E.T.  waddle adorable), but Tenney seems to prefer fancy camera tricks to solid doll action, constantly following dramatic shots like closeups of sharp knives with CLOSEUPS OF BUTTER KNIVES SLICING BANANAS! Or a heavily music cued shot of a dead cricket (Pinocchio’s slaughtered conscience) immediately underscored by A SLOW MOTION SHOT OF A GLASS OF ORANGE JUICE SMASHING INTO PIECES! 

You get the point. There’s some genuine ambition at making a ‘psychological thriller’ out of what essentially boils down to a good old fashioned killer doll movie, which is interesting, if occasionally dull. Considering Pinocchio’s Revenge is already combating a low budget and mid-90s fashion crisis, the actual scares don’t really hold up (although I’ll concede the fact that the 6-year-old doll-o-phobe I once was would probably have been incredibly creeped out had this debuted during my youth). But still...look at this guy:

High Points

You have to admire the restraint of a movie called Pinocchio’s Revenge that refuses to give us any actual evil doll action until more than an hour into its running time

Though Brittany Alyse Smith is a tad annoying as Zoe, lead actress Rosalind Allen does manage to create a genuine person as the harried single mom

Low Points

There might be something neat in ending on a mystery, but having sat through Pinocchio’s Revenge, it also feels like we deserve to know exactly WHAT happened

Lessons Learned

Episcopalian=Catholic lite, and believing in evil is one of its job requirements

Always read up on whatever hospital you’re admitted to. It’d be a shame if you end up in one where no nurses ever stop by to check your life support system’s status

If your child is possibly demonstrating homicidal tendencies, it might be a good idea to warn the friendly Italian au pair when leaving the kid in her care

The Winning Line

"Spoon me!"

Hey, we all enjoy that, but not when our partners are so darn aggressive about it

Rent/Bury/Buy

Granted this is a film made for the type of viewer that I am, but I thoroughly enjoyed Pinoochio’s Revenge as a much smarter little horror film that it had any right to be. Coming off an age of Rumplestilstskin and Dolly Dearest, this easily could have gone the tiny killer route but for whatever reason, Pinocchio’s Revenge decided to try something new. You probably won’t be frightened and hey, there are definitely more entertaining evil little things films out there, but for a 90 minute surprise, you might be satisfied. 

If nothing else, it’s funner than A.I.! 

Over the River & Through the Tweens

Like many a commodity in the modern age of the economic long tail, pornography is now available for every possible palette. Clown sex? Easy. Grandmas dressed in drag? It’s on the shelf at my Bronx 7/11. Seinfeld parodies and Edward Penishands? C’mon, give Silicone Valley a challenge.

I bring this up to point out an easy one sentence review of Red Riding Hood: if you are a 13 year old girl, this film is your porn.

Dreamy boys with perfect cool guy haircuts fighting for your honor? Check. Pretty clothes and perfect eye makeup that never runs in the constant snow (that never melts)? Check. Those hidden family secrets you’ve always secretly hoped your family had to make your origins more interesting? It’s all there. Gary Oldman in purple velour? Raise your glass of mead!

Quick Plot: As a young girl, Valerie enjoys sneaking off with future lumberjack Peter for wacky rabbit-hunting hijinks. Hey, we were all seven once, am I right?

Flash forward ten years where Valerie has blossomed into the alien eye bulging Amanda Seyfried and Peter is now the sullen kid from Deadgirl sporting a Robert Pattinson gassy look of constant indigestion. Because this is a movie made for the Twilight audience, it’s necessary to have a tepid love triangle. Rounding out the corner is Jeremy Irons’ son as Henry, the wealthy(ish) blacksmith betrothed to Valerie because mom Miss Piggy--I mean, Virginia Madsen--wants her daughter to have a better life than she did with her own lumberjack husband (played by Twilight/Drive Angry alum Billy Burke).

Side note: to my knowledge, Billy Burke is unrelated to the Billie Burke who played Glinda in the second best film of all time, The Wizard of Oz. I find this kind of confusion quite distracting.

BillIE Burke, not

BillY Burke

Moving on, Red--I mean, Li’l Big Eyes--I mean, Valerie has bigger problems than arranged marriage when a werewolf starts terrorizing her village. Enter Gary Oldman in The Greatest Cinematic Entrance Of All Time, i.e., a parade caboosed by an iron elephant and two African armed guards. Oldman plays a witch & werewolf hunting holy man that belongs in every mediocre-to-awful movie ever made. Should director Catherine Hardwicke return to Twilight and digitally insert Gary Oldman’s Father Solomon pointing his sword and scratching the shapeshifting Jacob with his silver fingernails in every other frame, I would be contractually obligated to revise my original review as a now ten (out of four) star movie.

Anyway. Werewolf. Love triangle. Anachronistic and slightly sapphic dance-off followed by a CGI werewolf that talks. Yes, it’s slightly silly, slightly adorable, and naturally, has its yellow eyes on Valerie because dear 13 year old females watching, VALERIE IS YOU!

See, Red Riding Hood knows who’s watching and generally provides plenty of eye and emotional candy to make them happy. One example: Valerie has a sultry makeout session on a hay floor. If you’re 13 and have never had a makeout session, this sounds incredibly romantic. When you’re a wrinkled 29 year old, however, you know that no amount of sexy kissing can possibly be worth the itchiness and minor stabbings experienced when laying on a haystack.

But do we want our 13 year old girls to know such sad and disappointing life facts? Maybe not, and thusly, Red Riding Hood feels like it should gently join the club of Romeo + Juliet and other teenage wet dreamy films. Unlike the Twilight series, Red Riding Hood at least centers itself on a likable, somewhat strong-minded female character that isn’t trying to kill herself when her high school boyfriend leaves town to fix his hair (or something). And you know, everyone’s eye shadow looks great and despite the fact that every single character is at one point suspected of being a homicidal werewolf (save, of course, for the one character who actually IS a homicidal werewolf), the boys are about as threatening as Tostito’s mild salsa. So while I wouldn’t recommend Red Riding Hood to any modern-thinking adult, it certainly has its safe charms for a younger, fantasy happy audience.

High Points

This film features the absolute best, most subtle and unacknowledged act of familial cannibalism ever put onscreen. Also, there’s an iron elephant that burns witches and the most awkward offering-of-virginity scene I’ve witnessed in a PG13 mainstream movie ever. So that’s that

Low Points

A “Grandmother, what big teeth you have” is cheesy even in a film crafted from cheddar

Lessons Learned

Hair gel was all the rage in medieval North America (or whenever the hell this movie took place)

When traveling through small villages, always keep your astronomical diorama on hand. Sure, it’s cumbersome and could easily be substituted with an improvised demonstration involving a few fruits and rocks, but think of the looks of shock and awe those townspeople will display when they see its  Hellraiser-like opening trick

So long as the snow is falling in an elegant manner, there’s no need to ever put on a sweater

If wearing the color red is considered grounds of condemning a woman as a to-be-burned witch, perhaps you shouldn’t, you know, knit a scarlet cape for your granddaughter’s wedding 

See/Skip/Sneak In

Well, Red Riding Hood is a very pretty movie, with the kind of clothing closet a Renaissance Fair would sacrifice their finest goats and turkey legs for. While it’s not quite on the same below sea level as Twilight, it is an entertaining bundle of ridiculousness that you might find fairly chuckleworthy. Best with cheap beer and the comfort of your own economical and effortless home drinking game.

And on the 28th day, the little people were good

I know, I know. How can I end February’s Month of the Vertically Challenged Villains by NOT writing about a film in which vertically challenged characters are villains? I can, because it’s MY month of the vertically challenged and just like any tyrant with a smidgen of power, I can change the rules when I please.

Plus, Sven Unterwaldt Jr’s German children’s(????) film 7 Dwarfs is simply bizarre enough that it’d be a crime against dwarfdom to not give it its place.

Quick Plot: A long time ago in a fairyland far far away, the world was divided by a quaint little bridge between the bright and dark. All that really happens on the dark side, however, is that a bunch of ‘dwarfs’ (they’re much taller than you think) live without the company of women following personal tragedies fueled by estrogen (losing wives in childbirth, being kicked out of school plays, tossed out of hot air balloons, having a magic lamp stolen, the usual).

Enter a silly brunette to turn it all upside down. Young 17 year old Snow White must flee the light kingdom when the drag queenish (but not) queen learns from her sassy mirror that the young lass is considered far more attractive. Over the bridge she runs and into the grumbling, but eventually accommodating home of seven hyperactive, easily identifiable little people.

There's Bubi the doofus, Cooky the, yeah, cook, and a whole lot more silly named little(ish) people who pass the time by singing, riverdancing, and playing pun-ish ‘board’ games that involve hitting each other in the face with, yup, boards.

Also thrown into the mix are a court jester bearing a frightening likeness to Andy Dick and a hunter who's far prouder of the sticks his dog fetches than any actual slaughtered game. As you probably figured out, 7 Dwarfs is an incredibly odd film that somehow fits right at home here at the Doll's House (and not just because it’s short enough to pass under the bar). On one hand, it’s a simple children’s film that gives you everything your 8-year-old pigtails want from a Snow White yarn. On the other, there’s bizarre adult humor mixed in through clever language, including a prolonged diatribe on the excitement of wieners and being on top.

Um.

High Points

The idea of tickle torture has always seemed far more effective to me than waterboarding or the rack. 7 Dwarfs gets this

Low Points

Some of the slapstick humor feels, you know, silly and annoying (which isn’t necessarily a surprise, but when watching a children’s movie, one should be aware)

Lessons Learned

Why use a glass coffin to transport a princess when you have a perfectly good life-size tupperwear container?

Wieners don’t have to be boring, you know

It took one spunky brunette to show the world that it’s actually blonds who lack intelligence

Rent/Bury/Buy

I would never have thought to watch 7 Dwarves without the power of Instant Watch, and as long as it's streaming, it's certainly a unique 90 minutes. Even though it's rife with tongue-in-cheek innuendo, the film is actually quite innocent and would be the perfect watch-with-your-imaginative-children's film if it were in English. But hey, maybe your kids speak fluent German or don't mind reading rapid fire subtitles whilst enjoying visual gags. 

In other words, I have no idea who will enjoy this movie. It has a similar spirit to Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,with adult humor that's far too sly to raise the little eyebrows of kids under 10. At the same time, it shares that sometimes-annoying sense of making just about every moment a walking or shouting joke. You won't laugh at all of them, but that could generally be said about most comedies and this one has dwarfs.