Only An Anthology Could Make Me Rap

Anthology horror films are my Target brand trail mix. I'll always buy it, but only parts inside will work. You know what to expect--saltiness, twist endings, karma, too many pretzels--but occasionally get nice surprises that are briefly extremely exciting--chocolate covered espresso beans, killer African tribal dolls, corn nuts, Richard Moll. While neither is ever The Greatest Creation Mankind Can Make, both are a tad more exciting than their rivals. I'd rather eat a mixed bag of Cajun peanuts and pumpkin seeds than a mere box of crackers in the same way I'm happier watching Creepshow 2 than I would be with The Prowler. 

It’s how I roll.

Hence, when my blogging brother Cortez the Killer of Planet of Terror gave me the heads up that Nite (sic) Tales, a two-part horrorshow hosted by Flavor Flav, was streaming, you could bet my own personal VH1 dating show that I'll give it a go.

Quick Plot: Flavor Flav says something about something, some of which may or may not rhyme. 

His enunciation is poor and I didn't really catch much, save for him welcoming me to "the new movie, Nite Tales." 

I like when I'm welcomed to movies, although generally that happens when an usher rips my ticket or an animated box of popcorn dances before telling me to turn off my cell phone. But who am I to judge? I worked at a concession stand for 4 months and never came up with the right quip for when I said "Enjoy your movie" and the customers said "You too...oh wait! YOU'RE not going to the movie" so ultimately, I am on par with Flavor Flav.

Story 1 is called Karma, because like 90% of anthology tales, it involves comeuppance. We meet a quartet of bank robbers with twitchy trigger fingers who find themselves at a Texas Chainsaw-like farmhouse inhabited by the other kinds of hoodies (satan worshippers--I think--not Klansmen). There's a lot of shouting in urban style, followed by shouting in white Southern style. Unlike most shorts, the tale doesn't have a twist per say, although it's sufficiently told in an underwhelming, but competent manner.

The second tale, on the other hand, is not. "Storm" follows a group of teenagers partying at home during the titular bad weather, playing around with pot and Bloody Mary (the ghost, not the drink). Just as the power goes out, Tony Todd shows up dressed like a grumpy clown, a one-earring wearing police offer swings by to put everyone off-ease, and some of the prettier stars get sliced up. 

Now all this sounds fine, especially for a quick 45 minute segment. Except Storm has no concept on how to pace itself and just...keeps...going. As I've said before and will inevitably say again, the biggest crime an anthology film can commit is the act of dragging. The whole POINT of a multi-segmented film is that you take a story that doesn’t warrant ninety minutes and pound us with a complete arc in less than forty. 

Perhaps the problem is that Storm tries to be too ambitious, using not one but two urban legends as its basis. There's the early establishment of Bloody Mary, but ten minutes later, we may have well forgotten that name was ever uttered as the mystery of a loose serial killer (is it the clown? the cop? the kid that keeps talking about pot?) takes center stage. Then falls off the stage. But gets back up. Or something.

It's frustrating, mostly because it means it's not fun. Tony Todd is never not great to watch, and he does what he can to keep our interest, while the young cast flops around in ill-defined roles that we never care about in the least. I don't know what director Deon (Chain Letter) Taylor was going for, and while there is potential in the story's complications, it's just too messily done in its brief running time.

High Points

There's some fun humor to be had in Nite Tales, most of which does not actually come from Flavor Flav's mugging. Coulrophobes should snicker at the way the characters in the second story react to Todd's circus reject "DUDE! You let a CLOWN in my house?"

Low Points

In addition to the already discussed pacing, can we address the fact that Nite Tales (note that I'm already being forgiving of its stupidly spelled title) breaks the SECOND rule of anthologies, i.e., Thou Shalt Always Include a Killer Doll Segment

Lessons Learned

If you love deals, your favorite show is Deal or No Deal

Avoid trusting police officers with questionable diamond earrings

Everything scares Clay Aiken

Working in a bank will blacken your blood, literally

Cuss Police

This is the first time I've ever seen this happen on Netflix Instant Watch: all the curses in Nite Tales are muted out. No, there's no VH1 Showgirls hilarity with dubbed alternates. Just silence whenever a character curses. Huh?

Michael J. Pagan Alert!

He is to the Doll's House what Cameron Mitchell is to a Mill Creek pack. In 2011, I've reviewed a total of four films (and counting) starring this young actor, including one that he co-wrote. Yes, it was Chain Letter (the others being House of Fears and See No Evil) and yes, I'm convinced that we're destined to either marry or destroy one another. 

Rent/Bury/Buy

This is the second film I've reviewed by Code Black Entertainment (the first being April Fools) and while it's certainly an improvement, Nite Tales is still sorely lacking. The first story is passable, if a tad predictable, while the second is built on a strong idea but executed with the sluggish confusion of a dyslexic slug. Anthology fetishists may still enjoy the film and it certainly offers something mildly different in that regard, especially in following black thugs in Karma. I guess it's a must for Flavor Flav fans, although I also hope those don't actually exist so I suppose that means it's not a must for anyone in particular. If that makes sense, like a sixpence, but yo yo friend, I don't know what that mends, cause that's how I rhyme, I just say things that kind of sound fine, so go behave, I'm Flavor Flav.

I think I just rewrote the opening to this film.

See No Eye Scream

Much like office settings or Halloween, it often shocks me to realize how little the seemingly natural marriage of professional wrestling and horror cinema occurs. There's a built-in fan-base eager for the crossover, big burly men that make perfect villains or believable foes, merchandising opportunities from restaurants to Barbie's boyfriends, and the added convenience of getting actors/stunt men/fight choreographers at one relatively low price.

For these reasons, I’m sure today’s Doll’s House special was heralded as a brilliant idea back in 2006. Take a successful human franchise (in this case, WWE star Kane), give him a dark backstory and killing gimmick (eyeball plucking), toss in some pretty and/or annoying victims (all with vaguely disguised Australian accents) dirty up a pristine warehouse, turn on your computer, insert CGI effects and metal music, and BAM! Movie!

Kinda.

Quick Plot: A pair of beat cops enter a dingy home to discover an eyeless woman screaming for help. Because "there's NO TIME!" to call for backup, one of them gets axed, while the other gets his arm axed but also manages to blow a hole in the axist's head. I call that an even trade.

Flash forward four years, where the one-armed axee is now peeing in a toilet bowl (the movie thinks this is important, so I'm passing it on) and working as a mentor to troubled youths. On this sunny weekend during which the film takes place, mentoring troubled youths means busing a batch of attractive juvenile delinquents to an abandoned hotel, where they're assigned to clean the place up in order to transform it into a homeless shelter. On hand to help is a creepy old lady whose creepiness means nothing at all, right?

Eh, who needs to suspect anything about the creepy old lady when it's coed juvenile delinquent party time! You think I'm kidding, don't you? 

Nah-uhhhhh. When you’ve got a “tofu-munching ass” lab dog liberator, a blond brat just asking to have her own cell phone stuffed down her throat, a money obsessed fast-talker with his Seventh Deadly Sin practically tattooed on his dollar bill eyeballs, you know a creative killer will have fun. All the youngins--these plus a few bland more who barely register, except when dead--are introduced, in true lazy filmmaking form, with some superimposed text to explain their rap sheet. It’d be nice if these crimes--which range from assault to possession--actually built these kids as a force to be reckoned with. Sadly, much like the mark-missing Battle Royale II, the idea of teenage rebels never progresses beyond them giving dirty looks to authority figures. Really, they’re just a bunch of pretty twentysomethings playing mildly troubled high schoolers who deserve to have their eyes plucked out, if only for being dull.

And pluck they do! See, See No Evil--originally titled the much more hilarious Eye Scream Man--is about not seeing evil, and the best way to do that is pop out eyeballs. As a young boy, Kane--Jacob Goonight, but let’s just call him Kane, since the movie never says Jacob and the name ‘Jacob Goodnight’ is almost as stupid as the Eye Scream Man--was raised by a crazy Christian mom who would abuse him for doing such evil things as masturbating. Yes, we get to see that, though (sorry boys) no female nudity despite the fact this was directed by Gregory The Devil In Miss Jones Parts 3 to 5 Dark. As a result, Kane naturally grows up to pluck out people’s eyeballs. Unless they have religious tattoos. Then they’re cool. And worth masturbating to.

Because if there's one thing a film starring a WWE actor with a huge fanbase needs, it's an awkward masturbation scene. I think we can safely assume the lack of this explains why No Holds Barred was not the biggest blockbuster of 1989.

Or maybe not.

Debuting in 2006, See No Evil is a clear Lions Gate leftover born in the heyday of Saw, when seemingly all one needed to make a financially successful horror film was an artificially dingy house, fast editing, loud metal music, and a few gross-out scenes showing the after-violence carnage. Now I've spent many a day defending the Saw franchise as being a little more intelligent than most filmgoers estimate, but its ripoffs (I see you, Nine Dead and Are You Scared) are generally less justifiable. With See No Evil, it's quite clear that you had a studio crafting a project around a hopeful horror star but never stepping back to think about exactly what it was doing. Kane can obviously be a scary dude, but saddle him with a Leatherface-lite backstory whose biggest threat is a one-armed middle aged retired beat cop and it's hard to take him seriously. 

Then again, this is a professional wrestler who previously entered the ring as a Christmas tree and disgruntled dentist, so things could definitely have been worse.

High Points

The DVD for See No Evil is loaded with special features, but most importantly, it opens with a trailer for William Friedken’s incredibly disturbing and painfully underrated Bug. So that’s a good thing

I won’t spoil it here, but one of the first major death scenes offers a nice surprise

Low Points

I had absolutely no idea that Kane was anywhere near 7' tall while watching See No Evil. This in itself should tell you how skillful the film is at making a ready-made force of intimidation not scary in the least. 

SPOILER!

Three survivors? THREE SURVIVORS? What is this, Resident Evil 2?

Lessons Learned

It’s perfectly acceptable for violent juvenile delinquents to carry razors and apparently, very expensive shampoo. On the other hand, it’s not acceptable at all for juvies to carry condoms because--wait, don’t we want our teenagers to know about and possibly carry condoms? I’m confused

When describing a killer to a cop, be sure to list his size, whether he has a chain, and if there's a hole inside of his head. Most law enforcement employees will nail that one on the first try

Accepting a marriage proposal is the first step towards having your eyeballs ripped out in an elevator

Kane’s Laws

Taser me once, shame on me. Taser me twice and I’ll crush you with a safe

IMDB Con of the Day

According to everyone’s most informative (but worst commented on) website, actor Steve Vidler was on 19 episodes of Jeopardy. Initially, I was impressed as I naturally would be with anyone who won 18 episodes of my favorite gameshow. Turns out Jeopardy without an exclamation point is just some British TV show called Jeopardy. What a bummer

Credits Curiosity

Following the incredible post-credits-tag (wherein a stray dog stops by to pee inside Kane's empty eye socket, and no, I didn't make that up), there was no way I was going to stop See No Evil until the final best boy had been acknowledged, just in case there was ANYTHING else to miss. As a result, I had the occasionally entertaining opportunity to observe some of the other people involved in making the film, including Art Department: Tim Allen. Now I’m sure—mostly—this had nothing to do with Tim the Tool Man Taylor, but don’t you dream that it did?

Award of Ubiquity

Also known as the 2009 Jude Law Jam or 2011 Jessica Chastain Takeover, this honor goes to actor Michael J. Pagan for appearing as "The Black Guy" in no less than three--this, Chain Letter, and House of Fears--films reviewed this fall here at the Doll's House. I'm not sure who in our relationship is stalking whom, but I'm pointing it out first, making me the not-creepy one

Rent/Bodyslam/Buy

See No Evil is not a good or scary or so bad it's scarily good movie, but it's also not quite as atrocious as I was hoping expecting. Fans of mid-aught horror (there aren't many I know of) will find it perfectly passable, while trash connoisseurs will enjoy the scraps of camp (including the best credit capper ever). The DVD is almost embarrassingly loaded with extras, including two commentary tracks and a batch of mini-making of featurettes. Kane’s commentary (along with a producer) is oozing with manically enthusiastic tidbits, including compliments on some of the younger actors’ chokehold skills and a far less excitable comment about how they invited him out for beers but “That never happened...” This doesn’t come off as creepy or menacing--despite ANOTHER featurette where the younger actors were clearly instructed to pretend Kane was actually scary on set--but more awkward than anything else, like they gave him the wrong meetup address and then didn’t feel that bad about it the next day.

Oh well. At least the stray dog didn't chew off his testicles before peeing in his empty eye socket, as the script originally had planned. I'm sure Kane is thankful for that.