SHARKTOPUS -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 3/3/11

 

"Dumb" has a new name, and that name is SHARKTOPUS (2010).  This highly-rated SyFy Original Movie, produced by legendary filmmaker Roger Corman and his wife Julie, will either make you giddy with bad-movie excitement or leave you utterly stupified.  Maybe even both.

After the success of DINOSHARK, SyFy contacted Corman about doing this film as a follow-up.  As he relates in the commentary, he initially turned it down because, while "dinosharks" might conceivably have existed in prehistoric times, the idea of a half-shark, half-octopus just seemed a little too farfetched.  (Unlike, say, giant crab monsters.)  He eventually gave in, on the condition that the creature be a product of genetic engineering rather than a freak of nature. 

Thus, we have scientist Nathan Sands (Eric Roberts) and his daughter Nicole (Sara Malakul Lane), whom he affectionately refers to as "Pumpkin", creating the dreaded Sharktopus for the military.  Pumpkin naively hopes Sharktopus will be used for good, but her sneaky dad has designed it to be a ruthless killing machine, which it demonstrates when its electronic restraints are damaged during a test and it starts eating people all up and down the coast of scenic Puerto Vallarta.  With the Navy breathing down his back, Sands hires fun-loving aquatic mercenary Andy Flynn (Kerem Bursin) to reel the big fish in and bring it back alive.
 


With this set-up quickly established, the film now treats us to an endless series of Sharktopus attacks with lots of tourists getting snared by the creature's tentacles right there on the shore and dragged into its toothy maw.  Several of these kills begin with an establishing montage of festive beach images and ample footage of bikini-clad babes cavorting around like monster appetizers.  When Sharktopus suddenly appears, the various bit players must then hop around screaming as the SPFX guys wrap bad-CGI tentacles around them and make with the spewing digital blood. 

The big, cartoony shark head which pops out of the water to chow down on them is highly effective--at generating laughs.  Seeing the entire mismatched monstrosity perched on a guardrail or the roof of a bamboo hut in all its writhing, snarling glory, treating the fleeing humans like a sushi buffet, is a sight you won't soon forget.  Special mention goes to the bunjee-jumping scene, which Corman tells us got the biggest response from audiences and is one of the movie's few genuinely effective moments.  (Roger and Julie's daughter guest-stars as the bouncing bait.)



With few exceptions, the performances range from awful to not-really-trying.  Mostly the actors just seem anxious to knock off their scenes and get back to partying in Puerta Vallarta.  Blake Lindsey isn't bad as Pez, a fisherman who leads TV newswoman Stacy Everheart (Liv Boughn) and her dopey cameraman Bones (Héctor Jiménez, who played Lonnie Donaho in GENTLEMEN BRONCOS) to wherever Sharktopus is likely to appear next.  As a pirate radio DJ, Ralph Garman of "The Joe Schmo Show" seems to be having fun.  Bursin and Lane make a dull main couple as Flynn and Pumpkin and could probably use a few more acting lessons. 

As for Eric Roberts, he's one of my favorite actors and I'd watch him in anything, which is fitting since these days it looks like he'll show up in anything.   Going from THE DARK KNIGHT to this must've been like falling out of a yacht into a swamp.  (Look for Roger Corman himself in a cameo as a beach bum.)



On a technical level, SHARKTOPUS is slapdash at best.  Things like camerawork, editing, and scene transitions are a dizzying jumble of ineptitude, while the subpar direction makes it hard to believe Declan O'Brien is the same guy who did such a solid job with WRONG TURN 3: LEFT FOR DEAD. 

The script, which seems to have been written on a Big Chief tablet, obviously doesn't take itself very seriously, as when Flynn offers this warning to the patrons of an open-air restaurant by the beach: "Excuse me, everyone.  There's a killer shark-octopus hybrid headed this way.  Please leave the marina in a timely fashion."  The thing is, movies like this are funnier when they aren't trying to be, so the scenes that actually mean to shock or excite us invariably provoke the most giggles. 

The DVD from Anchor Bay is in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound and subtitles in English and Spanish.  Extras include a commentary with Roger and Julie Corman plus the film's trailer. 

Any movie containing Eric Roberts, bikini babes, extras doing the imaginary-tentacle-tango, the guy who played Lonnie Donaho in GENTLEMEN BRONCOS, and one of the dumbest monsters in film history can't be all bad.  And SHARKTOPUS doesn't let up for a minute--it keeps assaulting us with undiluted stupid during its entire running time.  That's a claim some of this year's Best Picture nominees can't even make.

SHARKTOPUS -- DVD Review by Porfle

DINOCROC VS. SUPERGATOR -- DVD Review by Porfle

 Originally posted on 6/25/11

 

Roger Corman strikes again with another mutant monster fest that's actually a cut above the rest.  The rest, that is, of these bizarro beast brawls that the venerable producer has been churning out for the SyFy Channel lately.  While DINOCROC VS. SUPERGATOR (2010) never strives to be more than the addlebrained B-picture that it is, it's still better than the likes of SHARKTOPUS.  And, for once, the CGI is pretty darn good.

In his final film appearance, David Carradine plays Jason Drake, a shady millionaire who commissions some scientists to develop techniques for growing oversized food, then orders them to apply the same science to living animals so he can sell the results to the military.  Two of the results, a dinocroc and a supergator, escape from the secluded lab and gobble up all the scientists they can eat before heading off to more populated areas.  This opening sequence is pretty cool and lets us know right away that the SPFX in this movie aren't going to be all that painful to look at.  In fact, they're rather impressive at times.

Not so impressive are the acting and dialogue, but in a movie called DINOCROC VS. SUPERGATOR I don't exactly expect to see Sir Lawrence Olivier doing "Hamlet."  Carradine, who does most of his scenes lounging in a chair by the pool, is there to grab a paycheck and soak up the Hawaiian scenery.  Rib Hillis is adequate as crossbow-slinging tough guy "The Cajun", whom Drake hires to kill the escaped monsters, and Amy Rasimas is suitably plucky and hot as Cassidy, who is some kind of game warden or something so she gets to wear a skimpy uniform.
 


Corey Landis plays the role of FBI investigator Paul Beaumont, assigned to collect evidence against Drake, with an enjoyably light touch.  (His hideous Hawaiian shirt is a nice running gag.) I especially liked Lisa Clapperton as Drake's bad-girl assistant Victoria, a heartless hitwoman who likes to kill people.  Former Penthouse Pet and softcore sex film star Delia Sheppard appears as a scientist who escapes the initial carnage and tries to warn the world of the impending lizard attack.

It's all very tongue-in-cheek, with director Jim Wynorski (as "Jay Andrews") giving it all a dynamic visual quality that includes some really nice camerawork and a fairly brisk pace despite some draggy spots.  Shot mostly on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, the scenery is often spectacular and there's no shortage of bikini girls running around serving themselves up as reptile treats.  Quite a few people get eaten, in fact, including some mercenaries sent in by Drake to kill the escaped animals and finish off the surviving scientists.  Two of them have a dialogue exchange I found amusing:

"Man, I don't think I could stomach shooting civilians like that."
"Don't think of it as civilians.  Think of it as dollar signs."
 


In most shots the creatures' movements are relatively fluid and natural, and they seem to have weight and substance.  A sequence with the supergator chasing a speeding jeep down a dirt road (a la JURASSIC PARK) features some outstanding CGI and is just one of many effects scenes that I found particularly well-done for a film of this kind.  The final battle between dinocroc and supergator is handled nicely as well, although this title altercation comes as a brief, one-sided letdown.

The DVD from Anchor Bay is in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound.  Subtitles are in English and Spanish.  Extras include a laidback commentary track with Roger Corman and Jim Wynorsky, and the film's trailer.

Unlike some of the other films in this oddball sub-genre, DINOCROC VS. SUPERGATOR actually feels sort of like a real movie that you can enjoy without lowering your expectation level to rock-bottom.  Still, it never takes itself seriously enough to try and be anything more than what it is--a competently-made and fairly enjoyable junk film.    

DINOCROC VS. SUPERGATOR -- DVD Review by Porfle

FROZEN -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 9/20/10

 

"Predicament" movies are weird.  If they're done badly, they're boring, but if they're done well, they can be torture to endure.  So the only way to judge a movie about stranded people struggling to survive the elements, or trying not to get devoured by man-eating sharks or giant crocodiles, is by how unpleasant it is to watch.  FROZEN (2010) is unpleasant all right, though perhaps not quite the ultimate ordeal the filmmakers were aiming for.

The set-up is about as simple as it gets--three college kids go skiing for the weekend, get stuck on the ski-lift as the lodge closes for the week, and must either figure out a way to get down or slowly freeze to death.  Dan (Kevin Zegers, IT'S A BOY GIRL THING, Zack Snyder's DAWN OF THE DEAD) and Lynch (Shawn Ashmore, "Iceman" in the X-MEN movies) are childhood buddies who have grudgingly invited Dan's girlfriend Parker (newcomer Emma Bell), a novice skier, along on what is usually a "guy" outing. 

Like your typical teen movie, FROZEN begins with the three friends frolicking on the slopes to jaunty rock music and engaging in insubstantial dialogue back at the lodge, with the hint of romantic complications cropping up amongst them.  It's only when the ski-lift suddenly stops as they head up the mountain for one last late-night run that the harsh reality of the "predicament" flick hits our now totally helpless trio with a sickening thud.  While at first it seems like the set-up for an episode of "Seinfeld", they gradually realize that they're in big trouble and the viewer settles in for the ordeal to come.


 

To the movie's credit, the formerly lighthearted tone turns dark pretty quick as the hopeless situation goes shockingly wrong.  We've only had a brief time to get to know the characters, who aren't all that deep to begin with, but we've been made to care about them just enough to cringe during their increasingly desperate attempts to save themselves.  Meanwhile, they're buffeted by icy cold sleet and stricken with frostbite, and--wouldn't you know it--the bolts holding their ski-lift chair in place are coming loose.

With only three characters, you know something bad's going to happen to somebody sooner or later.  It proves to be sooner when one of them decides to jump, hoping the snow will break the fall.  It doesn't.  At that point, the film offers its equivalent to those man-eating sharks and giant crocodiles when a pack of ravenous wolves emerges from the forest.  This leaves only one remaining course of action--climbing up to the razor-sharp cable overhead and dangling hand-over-hand to the nearest support tower, where a ladder awaits.  Again, the suspense is painfully nerve-wracking.


 

Performances by the leads are as good as they need to be, with Emma Bell ably supplying most of the histrionics (especially when she starts worrying about what will happen to her dog if she dies).  Writer-director Adam Green (HATCHET, GRACE) wrings a good deal of tension from his simple premise and uses the camera well, with most or all of the outdoor scenes shot on location to establish a realistic sense of windswept isolation.  The stuntwork is coordinated by Jason Voorhees himself, Kane Hodder, who plays a bit part in the film. 

The DVD from Anchor Bay is in 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen with English Dolby Surround 5.1 and Spanish Mono.  Subtitles are in English and Spanish.  Extras include a commentary track with director Green and the three lead actors, plus four "making of" featurettes, altered and deleted scenes, a trailer, and an Easter egg. 

Not quite as gruelingly suspenseful as BLACK WATER or some other films of its ilk, FROZEN is still one of the most nail-biting flicks I've seen in recent years.  I doubt if it will have much rewatch value for me, but it's just the thing to get the old adrenaline going. 

FROZEN -- DVD Review by Porfle

STAN HELSING -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 10/26/09

 

 

I don't want to say that I had low expectations for this movie, because actually, it would be more accurate to say that I had no expectations. Therefore, the fact that STAN HELSING (2009) turned out to be such a breezy, inventive, and consistently funny romp through some of our favorite horror film cliches of recent years (mainly the 80s and 90s) came as a delightful surprise.

Stan Helsing (Steve Howey in a likable performance) is a slacker and a stoner, but he isn't terminally out to lunch like such characters usually are. Basically he's a horny, fun-loving clod who happens to be shallow, conceited, and totally self-absorbed, but in a likable way. As the story begins, Stan has just gotten off work at Schlockbuster and is headed for what promises to be a fun Halloween party. 

 

Traveling there with his ex-girlfriend Nadine, his best friend Teddy, and Teddy's new girlfriend Mia, Stan announces that he has to drop off some DVDs for his boss' mom on the way. This takes them deep into the scary part of town (with street names such as Elm Street and Mockingbird Lane) where they promptly get lost and end up in a horrific gated community called Stormy Night Estates.

Stopping into a redneck bar, they're told by an incredibly ugly waitress (Leslie Nielsen as "Kay") that the community is cursed by monsters and that their only hope is the return of legendary monster hunter Van Helsing. Well, our non-hero Stan Helsing, it turns out, is actually Stan VAN Helsing, a descendant of the original monster hunter, which makes him and his friends the target of every monster, supernatural creature, and homicidal maniac within killing distance.

The gags fly fast and furious from start to finish, and most of them stick (or splat, as the case may be). Stan is ordered by his dweeby boss at Schlockbuster to go kill a cockroach that's been reported in the ladies' restroom. It turns out to be six feet tall and spewing some kind of disgusting goop from its nether regions. Stan also barges in on a couple of gorgeous lesbians, dressed as a cop and a French maid, who are making out in one of the stalls. Watching them flounce away after he bungles his chance to join in, he laments, "I cockblocked myself!" And that's just the first few minutes.

The road trip in search of Stan's boss' mom's house to deliver the DVDs (which turn out to be gay porn such as GRAZING RYAN'S PRIVATES and SOREST RUMP) is a mini-movie in itself as the group encounter a Charles Manson-like hitchhiker with a swastika carved on the end of his nose and a rage-stoked redneck who vows to kill them all after they run over his dog a la I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER. An innocent stopover at a gas station brings them into conflict with a scary shotgun-wielding hippie chick and a Native American pervert who videotapes them in the bathroom so he can sell DVDs of it to his customers. And we haven't even gotten to the actual monsters yet.

As for the monsters, you get Fweddy (last name Kwueger, I assume), the nightmare guy with the Swiss army knife glove; Michael Criers (Get it? It rhymes with "Myers" *cough, cough*); Pleatherface, a leafblower-wielding maniac whose face looks like a purse Mia bought in Tijuana; Needlehead ('nuff said); Mason, who now wears the entire hockey uniform; and a "Chucky" clone.

During their terror-filled night in Stormy Night Estates, our heroes also encounter the Brides of Dracula. This part's fun, because the fanged femmes are gorgeous and because Stan and Teddy have a shared fantasy sequence with the BOD (Brides of Dracula) as topless dancers. Yeah, baby! Later, they duck into a church and meet a cross-dressing altar boy (a funny Jeremy Crittenden) who gives them a super soaker filled with holy water, which, of course, Teddy drinks. The climactic karaoke contest between the good guys and the monsters is fun, especially when the monsters hit the stage as the Village People. The rest of the film is loaded with references to other horror flicks and it's fun picking them out.

With his ad-libs, funny expressions, expert delivery, and dumb-looking Superman costume, Kenan Thompson is a lot of fun to watch. The same and more can be said for Desi Lydic as the deliriously dizzy Mia. Not only is she cute as a button, but Desi's comedy sense is sharp as a bloody talon. Her exquisitely-delivered deadpan stupid-isms are often hilarious---she's probably the funniest thing about the whole movie. As Nadine, Diora Baird is not only an appealing actress but she's also gorgeous and has a great rack, which is prominently featured in every single shot that she's in and which you can also Google. Woo-hoo!

SCARY MOVIE executive producer Bo Zenga does a nice job directing and the film has a great look. Zenga provides a commentary track for the Anchor Bay DVD along with Desi Lydic and Kenan Thompson. Bonuses also include the featurette "Killer Parody: The Making of Stan Helsing", extended, alternate, and deleted scenes, outtakes, still gallery, storyboard gallery (yawn), and theatrical trailer. The film is presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby Surround 5.1 and English subtitles.

With its AIRPLANE!-type comedy style and kitchen-sink story, STAN HELSING is just as dumb as it sounds--but it's a good dumb. I don't know how it compares to the SCARY MOVIE series, since I stopped watching those after the first one. One thing's for sure...it beats the hell out of VAN HELSING.

STAN HELSING -- DVD Review by Porfle

NOTHING LIKE THE HOLIDAYS -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 11/4/09

 

 

Less a warm family holiday film and more of a "mi familia loca" soap opera, NOTHING LIKE THE HOLIDAYS (2008) takes its time finally gathering up all the strings of its plot and weaving them into a mildly interesting variation of a familiar story, this time involving a Puerto Rican brood in Chicago. 

 

The dysfunctional Rodriguez family contains enough drama for at least a whole season of primetime TV (including a Christmas special). Freddy Rodriguez ("El Wray" of PLANET TERROR) is returning Iraq war vet Jesse, haunted by guilt because he survived an explosion that killed his friend and unwilling to take over the family business as expected. 

 

Another GRINDHOUSE alumnus, Vanessa Ferlito (DEATH PROOF), is his actress sister Roxanna who hides the fact that she isn't the big star everyone thinks she is. With his usual manic energy, John Leguizamo plays Mo, the white-collar businessman brother whose Caucasian wife, Sarah (Debra Messing), also a biz whiz, is happy to let her biological clock tick away as her in-laws pray for grandchildren. 

 

Of course, various romantic dramas are explored--Jesse yearns to get back with his ex-girlfriend Marissa (Melonie Diaz), who's involved with someone else, while Roxanna considers getting serious with family friend Ozzy (Jay Hernandez) but worries about his murderous vendetta against the neighborhood guy (Manny Perez) who killed his brother. 

 

All of this, however, takes a back seat to the bombshell that gets dropped on all of their heads during a big family dinner--namely, the sudden announcement by mother Anna (Elizabeth Peña) that she's divorcing their father Edy (Alfred Molina) after 36 years of marriage because she suspects him of cheating on her. 

 

 

Until that moment, I kept wondering what direction NOTHING LIKE THE HOLIDAYS was going to take. It wasn't funny enough to be a comedy, although it does manage to be fairly amusing at times. I like this exchange between father Edy and war veteran son Jesse: 

 

"We know you've been through a lot. Your mother and me, we rented 'Coming Home.'"

"I'm surprised you didn't rent 'Taxi Driver.'"

"Yeah, we rented that, too."

 

Luis Guzmán certainly does his obnoxious best to comedy things up as nephew Johnny, and it's fun seeing Leguizamo play a more conservative and vaguely nerdy character. The various dramatic elements also aren't all that engaging at first, and need time to percolate before yielding much interest. As a warm and fuzzy family Christmas story, it's barely there. 

 

But Mama Rodriguez' divorce decree throws the switch on what makes the rest of it work--now everyone's worried about not only their present concerns, but the fact that this will likely be their last Christmas together as a family. 

 

There's a good running gag about the menfolk trying in vain to cut down a big, gnarly tree in the front yard which refuses to budge, which is probably symbolic of something if you think about it long enough. Rodríguez, Ferlito, and Leguizamo get some nice chemistry going in some of their scenes together. 

 

I could do without the pandering "white people" cracks, and it's troubling to see members of the family openly insult Sarah to her face in Spanish or refer to her as "Barbie Doll", especially when she's making an awkward effort to fit in. Her character, however, gains unexpected depth when she later becomes an ally to Edy after he reveals a crucial secret to her. 

 

 

The film is at its best when Molina and Peña are on the screen. Alfred Molina can convey great warmth, as is evident even in his early scenes in SPIDERMAN 2, and his performance here is the emotional heart of the whole story. Elizabeth Peña, likewise, lends a realism and maturity to her role with seemingly little effort. Among the rest of the cast, the standout for me is Freddy Rodríguez in a sensitive and soulful performance that provides interesting counterpoint to his bombastic hero "El Wray" in PLANET TERROR. 

 

The Anchor Bay DVD is in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby Surround 5.1 and Spanish mono. English and Spanish subtitles are available. Extras include a commentary with director Alfredo De Villa, producer Robert Teitel, and Freddy Rodríguez, about fifteen minutes of bloopers, a trailer, and a cast reunion featurette (minus Molina and Leguizamo). 

 

As a comedy-drama about the importance of family, friends, and lovers, and a celebration of Puerto Rican culture, NOTHING LIKE THE HOLIDAYS comes together in its second half with a pretty satisfying payoff. Not looking for it to become a Christmas tradition, though.

 

 

NOTHING LIKE THE HOLIDAYS -- DVD Review by Porfle

COOPERS' CHRISTMAS -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 11/14/10

 

This movie used to be called COOPERS' CAMERA until somebody realized that it's kind of dumb to make a Christmas movie with absolutely no reference to Christmas in the title.  So they renamed it COOPERS' CHRISTMAS (2008) and stressed the fact that it stars Jason Jones and Samantha Bee of "The Daily Show", which I've never watched.  At first, I was wishing I didn't have to watch this movie, either, but little by little the darn thing just grew on me.  Like a fungus.

To say that COOPERS' CHRISTMAS is low-class would be a gross understatement.  If you're expecting that odd mixture of warmth and irreverence that makes NATIONAL LAMPOON'S CHRISTMAS VACATION a perennial family favorite, think again--this movie isn't aiming for that at all.  Instead, it dispenses with any attempts at "warmth" and zeroes in on the awkward, uncomfortable, increasingly grotesque, and ultimately nightmarish experience of being in claustrophobic quarters with a family so dysfunctional it's amazing they can stand to be in the same house with each other. 

The idea here is that back in 1985, the Cooper family patriarch, Gord (Jones) has obtained a newfangled video camera from their sex-maniac neighbor, Bill Davidson (Dave Foley), in lieu of the $2,000 Bill owes him--money which Gord's pregnant wife, Nancy (Bee) was counting on for their big vacation at Orlando's Disney World.  As the festive occasion steadily deteriorates into an ordeal of disillusionment and chaos, youngest son Teddy (Nick McKinlay) uses the new video camera to record every ugly development.
 

 

Jayne Eastwood is hideously funny as Nancy's chain-smoking mother Nana, who insists that everyone eat mushrooms on toast for breakfast because it's an "old country" tradition.  Older son Marcus (Dylan Everett) is the ultimate nerd, throwing a fit because Dad has given him cheap imitations of the Star Wars toys he wanted for Christmas (such as a crappy Mr. Potato Head plush doll that's supposed to be Jabba the Hut) in addition to a new snow shovel and a stocking full of rock salt.  "Marcus, you're 17 years old," Gord reasons with him later.  "I think it's time you learned the truth about Santa.  He don't always bring you what you want."

Things get worse as the house fills up with relatives.  Gord's brother-in-law Nick (Mike Beaver, who co-wrote the script with Jones) is the ultimate booze-guzzling, un-PC-joke spewing, crude-as-hell middle-aged frat rat, whose idea of humor is to hump everything.  When Nancy's sisters show up, Aunt Bev's juvenile delinquent son Wayne steals Gord's car and Aunt Joan's gleefully insufferable little brat Dougie roundhouse-punches Gord right in the balls, eliciting my second genuine belly laugh of the movie.  Poppy, Nana's feeble, estranged husband, also gets groin-punched by Dougie as he sits in his wheelchair, prompting a frantic trip to the hospital.

The worst is yet to come, however, with the appearance of Gord's brother Tim, whom he hasn't spoken to in 17 years since Tim got overly "familiar" with Nancy on their wedding night while Gord lay passed out.  Worldly travel agent Tim is a real smoothie who wins over all the ladies with his charm and immediately starts putting the moves on Nancy again, eventually wearing down the frustrated housewife's defenses.  This leads to a showdown between the brothers that grows to outlandish proportions.

Personal revelations begin to emerge--Gord's sons learn disturbing new things about their parentage, the already-insecure Marcus discovers that he might not even be 100% male, and Gord reveals a sexual hang-up that even prompts Nick to flee in disgust.  At one point, Gord gets to have a tearfully heartfelt reconciliation scene with Nancy that's so mock-maudlin that I was impressed by the film's unapologetic emotional insincerity.


 

Unlike Chevy Chase's likable, well-meaning Clark Griswold, Gord is a crude, childish, insensitive jerk who makes Homer Simpson look like Cary Grant.  Gord and Nick are all over this movie like two Neanderthals in heat as they inhale increasing quantities of "Christmas cheer" and act out their most childish impulses while Gord's family situation falls to pieces around him.  Before it's all over, Gord will lock everyone out of the house in the freezing cold and drunkenly lay waste to Christmas dinner, thoughtfully shoving some turkey under Nana's door for when she wakes up.

Director Warren P. Sonoda pulls off the idea of having everything occur through the lens of a video camera pretty well, even though the performances aren't always strictly "real-life" convincing.  The script never slows down, constantly moving from one lowbrow gag to the next and throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. 

The period humor is fun--Teddy remarks about how small the bulky video camera is, and while discussing Gord's impotence Nick jokes that someday doctors might invent some kind of "penis pill" to enhance virility. Even when it isn't funny, COOPERS' CHRISTMAS is trainwreck-interesting to watch once you become accustomed to where it's coming from.  And every five minutes or so something happens that is genuinely laugh-out-loud funny.

The DVD from Anchor Bay is in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, with English subtitles.  Extras include a director and producer commentary, a behind-the-scenes featurette, and a trailer.

COOPERS' CHRISTMAS just might become a holiday tradition for those who find the adventures of Clark Griswold and his family too highbrow and sophisticated.  I don't think it'll ever replace A CHRISTMAS STORY as the popular family favorite, though, unless your idea of family entertainment is seeing Dave Foley's cottage-cheese buttcheeks or watching Jason Jones pound one out on the john. 
 

COOPERS' CHRISTMAS -- DVD Review by Porfle

GHOST IN THE SHELL 25TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 9/27/14

 

Visually stunning and thematically complex, 1995's intensely cinematic GHOST IN THE SHELL (Anchor Bay, 25th Anniversary Edition) is the kind of dazzling, "hard" sci-fi that doesn't hit the screen very often, and when it does it's often in the form of anime.

While obviously influenced by such films as BLADE RUNNER and that other anime classic AKIRA, GHOST has its own style and ambience that are often mesmerizing. After a pre-titles action sequence that's like something out of a futuristic Bond movie, the main titles show our young heroine, Major Motoko Kusanagi, during the laboratory creation of her cybernetic body in a womblike pool of chemicals.

She then rises naked from it as a sort of placental crust cracks off her body, while Kenji Kawai's ethereal musical score begins to weave its web. And thus we're given a preview of the mind-expanding artistic potential the film will go on to almost effortlessly fulfill.

As with a lot of serious anime, the overly-complicated and sometimes hard to follow plot is mainly a springboard for wildly imaginative, often impressionistic flights of artistic fancy along with some thought-provoking ideas. Set in 2029, the story concerns two secret government agencies whose conflicting agendas will clash in potentially devastating ways.

Major Kusanagi of the Internal Bureau of Investigations is tasked to track down a mysterious villain known as the Puppet Master, a kind of sentient computer virus who can infiltrate the mind of any human whose cyber-enhanced brain is hooked into the system, taking over their will and giving them false memories.

Major Kusanagi is aided in her mission by a hulking, gray-haired mentor named Batou and brawny but easygoing Togusa, who all take part in a frentic chase scene early on which explores just how imaginatively this medium can be used in depicting bullet-riddled vehicular mayhem with the power to thrill in ways that live-action films rarely can. (THE MATRIX and THE FIFTH ELEMENT, on which this film is a distinct influence, come close.)

As the secrets behind the Puppet Master unfold (which I can't reveal without spoiling some of the film's most compelling surprises), GHOST IN THE SHELL offers a seemingly endless procession of eye-pleasing and mind-expanding sci-fi sights, sounds, and concepts. Every once in a while, there's a montage of images that the viewer gets lost in, or a deep, intimate conversation about mortality that can only be engaged in by a couple of cyborgs whose consciousness resides within cybernetic brains.

Kusanagi is particularly contemplative regarding identity since both her body and brain are almost entirely synthetic. Is she even human at all anymore? And since she's connected to the 'net like any other computer, her mind is vulnerable to being hacked by the Puppet Master at any time--if it hasn't been already.

How does she know her memories are real, or that what's she is experiencing at present is really happening? Her potential invasion and subjugation by an unseen force is one of the film's major dramatic concerns, which will eventually lead to an ending which, while somewhat unexpectedly low-key, is intellectually stimulating to say the least.

Directed by Mamoru Oshii (AVALON, ASSAULT GIRLS), the visuals are the work of animators from Production I.G. (BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE, KAIDOHMARU, KILL BILL). The story is based upon Masamune Shirow's original manga. While I usually prefer straight cel animation to a cel-CGI mixture, the digital stuff is used sparingly--mainly for computer readouts and such--and the overall effect is just so eye-pleasing and finely-rendered that it's visually irresistible.

The Blu-ray disc from Anchor Bay and Starz is in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby 5.1 English and 2.0 Japanese audio and English subtitles. The disc is barebones with no bonus features. The disc case contains an illustrated booklet with a Mamoru Oshii interview and two essays, "The World of Ghost in the Shell" and "The Impact of Ghost in the Shell."

Not a children's "cartoon" by any means (it, as they say, "contains violence, nudity, and adult themes"), GHOST IN THE SHELL lavishes the viewer with moments of beauty and contemplation which explore the emotional limits of animation while also generating explosive, edge-of-your-seat action. Like all really good science-fiction, it's both visceral and sublime.

GHOST IN THE SHELL 25TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

CARJACKED -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 11/10/11

 

Having just watched CARJACKED (2011), I must admit feeling a little confused.  I can't decide if the filmmakers were actually trying to make a serious thriller, or if they were aware that they were making one of the dumbest movies I've seen in quite a while.  Either way, it isn't much fun until it decides to go full-out goofy in the second half.

The story opens with divorced mom Lorraine (Maria Bello, THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR, PAYBACK) attending a touchy-feely women's group therapy session.  Dumped by her husband Gary and facing a losing custody battle over their son Chad, Lorraine is too much of a simpy doormat to fight back or get angry about it as her brassy session mate Betty (Joanna Cassidy in an ultra-brief role) urges her to do.  When she relates how she earned the nickname "Klutzy" by accidentally shooting her dad's friend in the ass at the gun range, her counselor asks, "How did that make you feel?"  Yikes.

Already an emotional wreck, all she needs is for her and Chad to be carjacked by an escaped bank robber named Roy (Steven Dorff, BLADE, PUBLIC ENEMIES) on their way home, which of course is what happens.  Forced to drive Roy to a rendezvous 350 miles away, Lorraine somehow makes a connection with the chatty criminal and shares her feelings with him instead of being totally terrified like a normal person would.  Thus, we're not really all that scared for her and apart from a couple of halfhearted escape attempts, little suspense is generated by her ordeal.  At one point she even seems to consider running off to Mexico with Roy and his money.



Maria Bello, whom I've always considered a pretty good actress, is pretty awful as Lorraine.  Never convincing as a kidnap victim, she plays the role with a series of weird expressions and nervous tics, occasionally getting a comically peeved look when Roy says something threatening or offensive.  We expect Lorraine to eventually turn the tables on Roy, which will be just the thing to boost her confidence and assertiveness, but she's remarkably stupid--during an attempt to call 911 on her cellphone while in the bathroom, she gets 411 instead and can't understand why the operator keeps asking, "What city, please?" 

At first, Dorff plays Roy as the most patient and non-threatening carjacker in movie history, reducing his character's menace during the film's first half and even coming off as sympathetic while talking with Lorraine--for awhile there, it seemed this was going to turn into a road trip movie.  It's only later that we find he enjoys lulling his victims into a false sense of security before doing something horrible to them, as Lorraine discovers when they finally reach the rendezvous. 

At that point, it looked as though CARJACKED was finally going to turn into a tense thriller, but instead it seems to morph into a black comedy designed to have us thinking "WTF?"  In addition to some comical rednecks at a truckstop (the kind played by actors who have never actually seen a real one), we get a car chase that looks like something out of a Hal Needham movie followed by some highly improbable hijinks in a deserted warehouse.  With believability well and truly thrown out the window, all that remains is for the film to end with a wrap-up scene that seems to have been written under the influence of laughing gas.



John Bonito's direction is okay if somewhat self-indulgent at times, although that thing where the camera does those little zoopy zoom-ins on a character's face while they're driving doesn't even look good when Michael Bay and Paul W.S. Anderson do it.  Acting-wise, Dorff is okay while Cassidy isn't in the film long enough to make an impression.  Bello is hard to figure out--she seems aware that the film is going to turn into a semi-comedy in the second half, but since we don't know that, her performance seems curiously flaky throughout.  I kept thinking, "I hope she's in better form taking over Helen Mirren's role in PRIME SUSPECT."

The DVD from Anchor Bay is in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen with English 5.1 and Spanish mono sound.  Subtitles are in English and Spanish.  The sole extra is a very brief behind-the-scenes short.

After a so-so start, the last twenty minutes or so of CARJACKED are so unexpectedly nutty that I actually began to enjoy it on that level.  But I still can't figure out if the filmmakers were trying to make a serious thriller and failed, or if they were just messing with my head the whole time.

CARJACKED -- DVD Review by Porfle

OPERATION: ENDGAME -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 7/21/10

 

A fast-moving cloak-and-dagger action flick that's smart and funny, OPERATION: ENDGAME is adrenaline-fueled fun from start to finish.

The whole thing takes place in the secret subterranean headquarters of a hush-hush black ops group known as The Factory, where two teams, Alpha and Omega, keep each other tenuously in check while performing dirty deeds for the government.  Each member is code-named for a tarot card, and it's The Fool's (Joe Anderson, THE CRAZIES) first day on the job.  The nervous new guy is given a tour of the facility by a drunken, foulmouthed burnout named Chariot (Rob Corddry, BLADES OF GLORY) and the hot but deadly High Priestess (Maggie Q, LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD), finding it to be like a cross between "Get Smart" and "Office Space."

But The Fool soon discovers that his first day will be anything but typical when their mentally-unbalanced, suicidal leader, The Devil (Jeffrey Tambor), unexpectedly sets "Operation: Endgame" into motion.  This means that the complex is sealed off and will explode in about two hours, and that the two teams will now try to kill each other while searching for a hidden exit known only by their late boss and a spooky lone agent named The Hermit (Zach Galifianakis).  Things become even more complicated when The Fool encounters an opposing team member named Temperance (Odette Yustman) who happens to be an old girlfriend.

What follows is an exciting, often amusing series of surprisingly bloody death matches between various agents.  We never know who's going to be paired off against each other next since there are so many unknown agendas involved in "Operation: Endgame" and some of the more psychotic participants, such as sweet-looking Bible thumper Heirophant (Emilie de Ravin), have a survival instinct that is matched only by their bloodlust.  (When we first see Heirophant, she's sitting in her cubicle scribbling "I love killing" repeatedly on a notepad.) 

Some of the fight scenes are reminscent of the Bond vs. Grant train sequence in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE while others are just a bloody mess with the unarmed agents flailing away with whatever office supplies or other sundry items they can creatively use as weapons.  Meanwhile, Michael Hitchcock and Tim Bagley play Neal and Carl, two mild-mannered, befuddled office drones who man the surveillance center and watch what's happening as though it were a reality TV show. 

One-liners and droll character gags abound--Jeffrey Tambor ("Arrested Development", "The Larry Sanders Show") is especially good as he wearily trades snide insults with his uppity underlings.  As the sardonic "Empress", Ellen Barkin continues in the "Rosa Klebb" mode she displayed in BROOKLYN'S FINEST but with more sex appeal and a wicked sadistic streak.  Clearly having fun without straining himself too much, Ving Rhames plays "Judgement", a bomb expert who never passes up a pun on his codename ("It's judgement time, baby").  The rest of the cast is fine, with Bob Odenkirk ("Mr. Show") his usual wonderful self as "Emperor" and Joe Anderson's semi-heroic rookie agent convincingly clueless about the whole thing.
 

Exposition flies by early on so you might want to keep your finger on the rewind button until you get all the details straight, although they don't really matter that much.  It all has something to do with the transition of power from Bush to Obama, with the evil Bushies scrambling to cover up their covert misdeeds before the honest and open Obama administration sheds its heavenly light upon them and cleans up Washington.  (As Michael Corleone once said:  "Now who's being naive?")  Anyway, the "Bush bad, Obama good" campaign-commercial vibe gets old pretty quick, but unless this appeals to you, just ignore it and you should be okay.

The DVD from Anchor Bay is in 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen and Dolby Digital 5.1 with English and Spanish subtitles.  Extras include a behind-the-scenes featurette plus alternate opening and ending scenes.

OPERATION: ENDGAME is an imaginative blend of laughs and thrills that takes itself just seriously enough to maintain genuine suspense. Watching this colorful array of deadly eccentrics going at each other tooth and nail as the countdown to obliteration ticks away makes for a pretty entertaining action-comedy flick.  

OPERATION: ENDGAME -- DVD Review by Porfle

SUNSHINE CLEANING -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 8/9/09

 

From the looks of it, I thought this was going to be some sappy lightweight comedy or something, but it turned out to be right up my alley. Why? Because I'm a little twisted, and so is SUNSHINE CLEANING (2008), a cockeyed but wonderfully emotional comedy-drama about two sisters who find themselves in the business of cleaning up blood-splattered death scenes.

Amy Adams is dazzling as Rose Lorkowski, a former head cheerleader and prom queen who now runs a cleaning service while trying to cope with her intelligent but difficult son, Oliver (Jason Spevack), and flighty, irresponsible little sister Norah (Emily Blunt), whom she had to help raise after their mother's death. Rose is still "dating" former high school quarterback Mac (Steve Zahn), now a cop, even though he's married and has a second child on the way. When Oliver is expelled from school for "licking", Rose must think of a way to earn enough to afford to send him to a private school. Mac suggests, during one of their illicit motel room trysts, that she try the lucrative world of crime and trauma scene cleanup.

The funniest scenes occur as novices Rose and Norah bumble their way through their first jobs in this bloody and often downright disgusting profession. They scrape gore off the walls with toothbrushes and kitchen cleaner, toss bio-hazardous materials into dumpsters, and more often than not have to clean up their own barf along with everything else. Gradually, though, with the friendly guidance of Winston (Clifton Collins Jr., TRAFFIC), a one-armed model builder who runs the store where they buy their supplies, they start to get a tad more professional.

They also begin, inadvertently, to get more personally involved with the survivors. Rose sits with a suddenly-widowed elderly woman outside her home and comforts her until someone comes to pick her up. Norah, discovering a ribbon-bound stack of old photographs at the scene of a woman's suicide, tracks down her daughter Lynn (Mary Lynn Rajskub, "Mr. Show") who works at a blood bank. This leads to a tentative lesbian relationship as the two troubled women reach out to one another, discovering an emotional common ground that draws them together.

Of course, just when the sisters think they've found the magic key to post-mortem success, things start to go wrong. Rose finally makes the amazing deduction that her relationship with Mac is a dead-end and that she may very well officially be a failure in life. Norah finally gives Lynn those photographs and reveals the reason for their first meeting, and Lynn doesn't take it well. Worst of all, something disastrous happens on the job (it's Norah's fault, of course) which threatens to ruin them both on a financial and personal level. But while all of this stuff is going wrong, other things are starting to go right in ways that aren't as immediately evident.

Director Christine Jeffs makes the most of Megan Holley's well-written screenplay with a lean style and a crackling pace that doesn't let up. The film's tone remains consistent throughout, even when the comedy gives way to some pretty dramatic and emotional scenes. Jeffs has a light, naturalistic touch that keeps the heavier stuff from getting as maudlin as it might have been in other hands--both the small tragedies and the life-affirming triumphs are just parts of the story's texture as they would be in real life.

The cast is so good that their characters come alive. Jason Spevack as the inquisitive, introspective Oscar is one of those spooky-good child actors who can hold his own with an old veteran like the great Alan Arkin, who plays Rose and Norah's enterprising dad, or Clifton Collins Jr. as the likable and dependable Winston. Steve Zahn plays Mac with an air of detachment suitable to his character, who will never commit to Rose. Making brief appearances are the wonderful Paul Dooley as a used car salesman and Robert Redford's daughter Amy as Mac's pregnant wife. As Lynn, Mary Lynn Rajskub has that same quirky, hesitant quality that she always brought to her comedy roles and it works well here. Amy Adams does a brilliant job of fully inhabiting the character of Rose and it's fascinating just to watch her use that expressive face so well. Emily Blunt is equally good as Norah, gradually revealing the scared little lost girl beneath the gangly, clumsy exterior.

The DVD image and Dolby 5.1 surround sound are good. The movie can be watched in either 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen or full frame. Bonus features include a commentary track with writer Megan Holley and producer Glenn Williamson, a cool featurette called "A Fresh Look at a Dirty Business"--in which two women who actually do this for a living talk about their profession and how well the film portrays it--and a theatrical trailer.

I judged this DVD by its cover and thought it was going to be just another chick-and-wimp flick. But when it opened with a gory shotgun suicide in a sporting goods store, I was forced to readjust my expectations. And when it took the interesting turn of exploring who has to clean up after such an event and what the job must be like for them, I was hooked. I would recommend SUNSHINE CLEANING to anyone, because it isn't just a silly comedy, a sappy melodrama, or a life-affirming feelgood fix. Well, it is life-affirming, but, in a weird way, it's also death-affirming. Does that make sense?

SUNSHINE CLEANING -- DVD Review by Porfle

DIRTY GIRL -- DVD Review by Porfle

 Originally posted on 1/5/12

 

 

Partway into DIRTY GIRL (2010), the movie suddenly turns from what appears to be a teen sex comedy into a weird mishmash of campy cutesiness and mawkish melodrama.  Writer-director Abe Sylvia calls this a "bait-and-switch", but why would he want to bait the wrong audience into watching the movie while the right audience avoids it?

Anyway, it's smalltown Oklahoma in 1987, and behavioral problems get school slut Danielle (Juno Temple) stuck into the "slow" class where she's partnered with overweight gay outcast Clarke (Jeremy Dozier, who resembles a pudgy young James Hampton) in a parenting exercise that requires them to treat a sack of flour as their baby.  Since they're both outsiders with unhappy home lives, we know they'll bond sooner or later, although just how sappily they do so comes as a bit of a surprise.

Mary Steenburgen and Dwight Yoakam play Clarke's parents, and since all three actors are from the South we at least get some regional authenticity.  Dwight gets to be Doyle Hargraves from SLING BLADE again only this time with an official family, whom he intimidates with the standard macho bluster while Mom cowers and secretly supports her 65% gay son (in one of the film's funnier lines, Clarke tells Danielle: "My therapist showed me this chart that says I'm 35 percent hetero.  And if I can get that up to 60 percent, my parents won't send me to military school.")  We know Clarke's mom sympathizes with him because she bobs her head when he plays "I Want Candy" in his bedroom.

 

Meanwhile, Danielle's struggling single mom Sue-Ann (Milla Jovovitch), whom we know is a faded rose because "Delta Dawn" pops onto the film's jukebox when she's first shown, has hooked up with widower Ray (the great William H. Macy).  The prospect of a blended family with this straitlaced Mormon and his two creepy kids horrifies Danielle to the point of fleeing her home in search of her real father who disappeared before she was born.  Since the now openly-gay Clarke is avoiding his increasingly hostile dad, the two of them set off in Dwight's prized car for California, suddenly turning DIRTY GIRL into a road-trip movie. 

So far, the movie has abandoned its teen sex comedy premise (the closest we get to seeing Danielle being an actual "dirty girl" is when her car shakes in the parking lot and then she emerges post-coital from it, immaculate and sassy) along with any comedic developments we might've looked forward to regarding Danielle and Clarke's school situation and Danielle's prickly relationship with Macy and his family (Macy, in fact, disappears from the film at this point).  What we get is that coming-of-age bonding between the two runaways and their flour-sack baby, Joan, who ups the film's cuteness factor by acquiring the ability to change her drawn-on expressions in reaction to the moods of her adoptive "parents." 

We're also treated to an increasing number of by-the-numbers emotional moments that are inserted here and there with the appropriate soundtrack songs sparing the script the effort of letting us know how we're supposed to feel.  In fact, all of the film's emotional cues are delivered with songs, to the point where it seems there's a DJ somewhere spinning a different platter for each scene for our emotions to dance to.  Naturally, this includes the obligatory scenes of Danielle and Clarke bopping to uptempo tunes as they cruise down the highway, or crying while Melissa Manchester's lyrics tell us what they're feeling.

 

Drive-by romance enters the picture in the form of a handsome hitchhiker named Joel (Nicholas D'Agosto) who sets Clarke's heart aflutter, while the comedy takes a creepier turn when Clarke enters a striptease contest in a gay bar to earn some cash.  By the time he and Danielle reach California, however, the film has gone full-out maudlin, with enough precious and totally unrealistic emotional moments (each fueled by that relentless succession of treacly songs) to make the whole thing feel like an R-rated Afterschool Special. 

The DVD from Anchor Bay and the Weinsteins is in 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby 5.1 sound and subtitles in English and Spanish.  Bonuses consist of a director's commentary and some deleted and extended scenes.

The final "Partridge Family" ending left me almost literally agog, amazed that director Sylvia actually intended for it to be taken seriously rather than as some kind of deadpan homage to John Waters.  In a way, it's screamingly funny, or at least so cringeworthy that you can't help but laugh with discomfort.  Maybe, because of this, DIRTY GIRL will eventually become some kind of perverse cult film, but taken at face value it's just a really odd sort of artifact.

DIRTY GIRL -- DVD Review by Porfle

TENEBRE -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

 Originally posted on 5/8/08

 

I'm a Dario Argento fan but have yet to see all of his films. So it was a real treat to get the chance to watch TENEBRE (aka TENEBRAE), the Italian director's 1982 return to the giallo style after a detour into the supernatural (SUSPIRIA, his masterpiece, and its follow-up INFERNO). According to Wikipedia, "giallo" films are typically slasher-style whodunits characterized by "extended murder sequences featuring excessive bloodletting, stylish camerawork and unusual musical arrangements", which would make this a prime example of the genre.

Tony Franciosa plays Peter Neal, a murder mystery writer who's just arrived in Rome to promote his latest book, "Tenebrae", only to find that a serial-killing stalker is using his new novel as a template for ridding the world of sexual deviates and other undesirables. With the help of his secretary and budding love interest Anne (Argento collaborator and former spouse Daria Nicolodi) and eager young assistant Gianni (Christian Borromeo), Neal hopes to add a feather to his literary cap by solving the real-life murder mystery himself as bodies begin to pile up. The arrival in Rome of his spurned ex-lover Jane (Veronica Lario) and the presence of a television journalist named Berti (John Steiner) who appears to be a little too obsessed with Neal and his writings are just two of the many pieces in Argento's jumbled jigsaw puzzle.

One of the first things I noticed about TENEBRE is how bright it is. Much of it takes place in broad daylight, while the night scenes are often overly-lit. Argento has stated that he wanted the film to look hyper-realistic, with no shadows for either the victims or the killer to hide in. It's an interesting stylistic choice that Argento uses effectively. The often light-bleached visuals and pallid settings also allow him to emphasize certain elements such as a woman's fire-engine red pumps or the gouts of blood that liberally decorate several moments of terror.

Some of my favorite Argento touches are well-represented here, including: a haunting flashback, the details of which are only gradually revealed to us (not unlike Harmonica's recurring childhood memory in ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, which Argento co-wrote); characters not picking up on an important visual or aural clue until it suddenly occurs to them after much reflection, as in the "three irises" scene from SUSPIRIA or the mysterious painting in DEEP RED; and several POV shots that disconcertingly put us in the killer's shoes as he (or she) is on the prowl.

As usual, Argento uses sound very effectively. In particular, he shares something in common with singer Nick Lowe--he loves the sound of breaking glass--so if you see a plate glass window in this movie, chances are it's going to shatter when you least expect it. Argento uses such devices to make his murder sequences even more nerve-wracking than they already are, usually after some very careful buildup and a few fake-outs to keep us off guard. And when the killer strikes, it's disturbingly violent. But unlike the standard slasher bore such as FRIDAY THE 13TH, Argento is more interested in the imaginative cinematic depiction of violence rather than simply racking up outlandish yet by-the-numbers body counts. When he does go for the gore, it shocks us, and it happens to characters that we care about and for reasons that keep the story moving.

Oh, and speaking of nerve-wracking, Argento managed to reunite three members of the disbanded rock group Goblin (Claudio Simonetti, Fabio Pignatelli, and Massimo Morante) to supply the original score. Unlike their music for SUSPIRIA, this has a synth-heavy, somewhat cheesy 80s sound that seems to be influenced at times by Giorgio Moroder's drum-machine disco rhythms. Other passages resemble their music for George Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD. But it has that unmistakable Goblin sound, which somehow manages to compliment Argento's style even as it's turning your eardrums to mush.

Tony Franciosa is an old pro who did a lot of television while I was growing up, in addition to appearing in scores of fun films (a year after this, he got to do a steamy love scene with my favorite actress, Isabelle Mejias--the lucky dog--in the lively Canadian thriller JULIE DARLING). John Saxon, who plays Peter's literary agent, is, of course, always a welcome presence, and Veronica Lario is very effectively creepy as Jane. The rest of the cast is good, too--I especially liked Giuliano Gemma and Carola Stagnaro as a pair of homicide detectives--although in most cases the dubbing makes it hard to fully appreciate their performances. Daria Nicolodi does her usual fine job as well.

There are some really nice-looking women in lesser roles, adding considerably more sex appeal than you usually find in an Argento film. Ania Pieroni appears briefly as a lovely kleptomaniac who uses sex to beat a shoplifting rap but can't escape the fate awaiting her when she gets home. Lara Wendel plays a lesbian magazine writer whose promiscuous, half-naked housemate is the heart-stoppingly gorgeous Italian model Mirella Banti, in a sequence that allows Argento to indulge his stylistic impulses to their fullest.

Most interesting of all, perhaps, is the casting of Eva Robins as a woman who appears in several strange flashbacks to a traumatic event in the killer's youth. Born a male, Robins reportedly began to develop breasts and other female characteristics during puberty, to an extent that convinced her that nature intended her to live as a woman. At any rate, she's convincing enough as the "girl on the beach" in some of the film's strangest scenes.

The new DVD from Anchor Bay features an uncut, remastered widescreen (1:85:1) transfer enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Aside from the trailer and an Argento biography, there's a commentary track featuring the director along with composer Claudio Simonetti and journalist Loris Curci, which is as informative as you might expect although much time is spent waiting for Argento to figure out how to say everything in English--I kinda wished it could have been in Italian with English subtitles. "Voices of the Unsane" is a nifty 17-minute featurette with Argento, Nicolodi, Simonetti, and other principals discussing the making of the film. (UNSANE was the retitled, badly-edited version first shown in the US.) Other brief featurettes explore the creation of TENEBRE's sound effects and the filming of an intricate extended shot featured in one of the murder sequences. All in all, not a bad array of extras.

It's interesting to see Argento eschew the sumptuous, fairytale look of SUSPIRIA for a more stark and austere style here. Without the dark shadows and saturated colors, TENEBRE is like a blank canvas splattered with bright red, with a realism that's as brittle and sharp as all that broken glass. Only when the killer's identity is revealed at last in an axe and straight razor-slashed finale do we get a really dark, lightning-streaked scene, and it's horrifying enough to warrant the seemingly never-ending screams of the last person standing as TENEBRE fades out into its closing credits. And if you're a Dario Argento fan, you'll definitely want to be there when it happens.

TENEBRE -- DVD Review by Porfle

PHENOMENA -- DVD Review by Porfle

 Originally posted on 5/9/08

 

Italian horror master Dario Argento draws us into the supernatural again with PHENOMENA (1985), a dark, richly-atmospheric return to SUSPIRIA territory as opposed to the stark and brightly-lit realism of his previous film, TENEBRE.

Once again, a young American girl (Jennifer Connelly) finds herself attending a remote, Gothic-looking European girls' school with a stern headmistress, an ill-fated best friend among a bunch of bratty schoolgirls, and a maniacal killer on the loose.

This time, though, there aren't any witches or diabolical forces at work--the supernatural aspect comes from Jennifer's telepathic connection to insects and her ability to control their behavior. She makes friends with Prof. McGregor (a wonderfully restrained Donald Pleasance), a wheelchair-bound forensic scientist who specializes in discerning time of death by the rate of maggot growth on a corpse, who suggests that Jennifer use her special abilities to try and track down the murderer. This, of course, puts her in grave danger, and before long she finds herself face-to-face with the killer in a nightmare of grotesque horror.

From the very beginning, the Swiss locations with their overcast skies and trees writhing in the constantly blowing wind create an eerie, forboding atmosphere. When a young schoolgirl (Argento's daughter, Fiore) misses her bus and is left behind on a deserted mountain road, she makes her way to an isolated cottage for help, then finds herself being pursued by an unseen maniac until she's cornered in a glass-enclosed observation point over a raging waterfall.

There's a super-slow motion shot of her head crashing through the glass (a familiar Argento motif that will occur yet again later on), and then we see the same head falling into the swirling water below. It's a terrifically strange and moody sequence that gets the movie off to a great start.

The scenes at the girls' academy are perhaps closer to what Argento had in mind originally for SUSPIRIA, since that film was meant to feature younger characters such as these. There's a Grimm's fairytale quality as Jennifer feels imprisoned in this dark, oppressive place and soon finds herself sleepwalking through its shadowy corridors, her mind wracked by nightmares, until another gruesome killing occurs right before her eyes.

Argento indulges himself stylistically during these dazzling sequences, and the beautiful Jennifer Connelly is a terrific young actress who perfectly embodies the type of heroine Argento has in mind. Throughout the film, her skillful performance is fascinating to watch and entirely convincing, helping Argento to sell some incredibly over-the-top situations.

The last twenty minutes or so are just plain nuts. (Look for Mario Donatone, who played Mosca, the Sicilian hitman in THE GODFATHER PART III, in a brief role.) I don't want to give too much away, so I'll just say that long-time Argento collaborator Daria Nicolodi shines as Frau Brückner, one of the teachers from the school, who hides a really dark secret that comes into play in a big way.

Jennifer finds herself in the middle of some of the most grotesque situations imaginable before the fiery, bug-infested finale which features some great underwater scenes. There are about three successive endings, but each one is more startling than the last. And I haven't even mentioned the chimp with the straight-razor.

Anchor Bay's new DVD release features a new remastered widescreen (1:66:1) transfer, enhanced for 16x9 televisions. There's a commentary track featuring Argento along with makeup effects artist Sergio Stivaletti, composer Claudio Simonetti, and journalist Loris Curci. "A Dark Fairy Tale" is an interesting 17-minute behind-the-scenes featurette. Goblin member Simonetti's music video "Jennifer", featuring himself along with Jennifer Connelly, is a fun example of 80s-style cheese, as is Bill Wyman's video for "Valley" (both excellent instrumentals feature prominently in the film, and to much better effect than the heavy metal songs that are also included). There's a trailer, an Argento biography, and, last but not least, Dario Argento's appearance on the legendary "Joe Franklin Show", which is a real treat.

My first experience with this film was a long-ago viewing of the drastically-cut version, retitled CREEPERS, which was released in the U.S. in the 80s, so it's a pleasure to finally be able to enjoy PHENOMENA in its original form and give it a long-overdue reappraisal. Argento himself rates it his most personal and perhaps best of all his films. I don't quite agree with the latter, but I do have a whole new opinion of this movie now. It's an exhilarating, bizarre, often mind-boggling excursion into Gothic horror, and a delightfully undiluted manifestation of Dario Argento's wildest imaginings.

PHENOMENA -- DVD Review by Porfle

I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (2010) -- DVD Review by Porfle

 Originally posted on 1/30/2011

 

As with Meir Zarchi's 1978 original, the 2010 remake of I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE tells the simple story of a woman named Jennifer Hills who gets savagely gang-raped at her summer home in the country and then goes on a brutal revenge spree against her attackers.  I found the new version somewhat less satisfying as a film, but as an eyeballs-deep wallow in utter, sadistic depravity, it takes the bloody brass ring.

Judging from the "Dukes of Hazzard" accents, the location seems to have been switched from Yankie Land to somewhere way down South, where most of the demented yokels of moviedom seem to live these days.  (Naturally, one of them wears a Confederate flag bandana on his head.)  Another big difference is that Zarchi's film took the time to establish a deceptively tranquil mood before shattering it, with Jennifer's sense of security and well-being robbed along with everything else. 

Here, the music sets an ominous tone right off the bat, and Jennifer (Sarah Butler) is edgy and uncomfortable with her surroundings as soon as she arrives in the remote community.  Johnny the gas pump jockey (Jeff Branson) reveals his crudeness immediately rather than deceiving her with a folksy fascade (which this version of the character would be incapable of doing anyway) and the two start off on bad terms.


In addition to the interchangeable Stanley and Andy characters, the slow-witted Matthew (Chad Lindberg) returns as a plumber who fixes Jennifer's toilet and goes ga-ga when she gives him a friendly peck.  Johnny and company find such provocative behavior intolerable and, as they drool over Stanley's peeping-Tom videos of her, resolve to teach the uppity city gal a lesson while helping their mentally-challenged mascot lose his virginity.

What follows is the nocturnal home invasion which becomes the basis for Jennifer's inevitable revenge, with writer Stuart Morse pulling out all the stops to make these guys as unforgivably reprehensible as possible.  As with Zarchi's film, the sequence is designed to justify the filmmakers' indulgence in extreme violence against the rapists later on.  Still, it lacks the lingering impact and immediacy of the original (not to mention Camille Keaton's searingly realistic performance) and seems almost by-the-numbers, as though the film can't wait to get it over with and fast-forward to the juicy revenge stuff. 

At this point, the remake starts to throw in some new wrinkles, such as the introduction of a not-so-helpful sheriff (Andrew Howard), which makes it easier to judge on its own terms.  In fact, once Jennifer disappears from the film for what turns out to be quite a spell (which, unfortunately, means that we're not nearly as engaged with her character this time around), it's almost a completely different story.  When she finally returns, she has become a hardcore killing machine who stalks and dispatches her prey like a cross between Jason Voorhees and Rube Goldberg.

 
The second half of the original movie is positively sedate compared to this one, which is pretty much a torture porn free-for-all.  The filmmakers go all out to surpass the 1978 version by taking it to a new level that's beyond gratuitous.  "What are the most ghastly things you could do to a guy?" they seem to be thinking.  "Whatever they are, we get to show them, hee-hee, because by gum, these scumbags raped Jennifer!"  As such, the execution scenes are diabolically elaborate and profoundly depraved--so much so, in fact, that you might even start feeling sorry for these guys after awhile.

The DVD from Anchor Bay is in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound.  Subtitles are in English and Spanish.  Extras include a director-producer commentary, a "making of" featurette, deleted scenes, trailers, and a radio spot.

Whether you're rooting for Jennifer or just turned on by this kind of stuff, the cumulative payoff is pretty intense.  If you fit into neither category, then you're probably watching the way wrong movie.  Hard to believe that anything could make the 1978 I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE look like a model of restraint in comparison, but the no-holds-barred (and, let's face it, repulsive) remake manages to do so.  While it fails to surpass the original in some ways, fans of brutal cinematic sadism and extreme gore definitely won't be disappointed.  

I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (2010) -- DVD Review by Porfle

I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978) -- DVD Review by Porfle

 Originally posted 1/28/11

 

No doubt about it--rape has always been a prime motivator for the revenge movie.  Whether by the victim herself or a husband, lover, or relative, audiences tend to excuse whatever horrendous acts they commit in the name of vigilante justice, and even cheer them on.  Open with a rape scene, and the filmmakers are free to make with the bloody violence.

Such is the case with the infamous I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, aka "Day of the Woman" (1978), one of the most extreme examples of this unsettling subgenre.  (One of its alternate titles is the built-in spoiler "The Rape and Revenge of Jennifer Hill.")  To me, the debates about the "deeper meaning" that this film has stirred up since its release are all a bunch of hogwash--depending on who you ask, it's either virulently misogynistic or "the ultimate feminist movie."  I think it's really just a case of cooking up a scenario in which the bad guys are so irredeemably vile that the filmmakers are free to depict the most violent and gruesome revenge sequences their hearts desire, and if people read more into it then so much the better.



Although writer-director Meir Zarchi's inspiration for the script was a real incident in which he gave aid to a woman who'd been raped in the park, the film is hardly a "Lifetime" special.  What it does, though, and quite effectively, is to present one of the screen's most convincing depictions of the physical and emotional devastation endured by a victim of violent rape.  The film is no less exploitative for this, yet the fact that Zarchi treats this aspect of it so seriously prevents it from being anywhere near the irredeemable trash it might have been.

Big city girl Jennifer Hills (Camille Keaton) sets things into motion when she drives to a rented summer home in the country to commune with nature and work on her novel.  The attractive stranger draws the attention of four unsavory locals, led by pump jockey Johnny (Eron Tabor).  Turned on by her looks but resentful of what they imagine to be a teasing and superior attitude, they begin to harrass Jennifer and then brutally rape her in a marathon ordeal, setting the stage for her bloody revenge.

These guys are the most cartoonishly sexist pigs that Zarchi could cook up--they're even vile and offensive when they're fishing.  Jennifer, on the other hand, is as sweet and innocent as the heroine in a dark fairytale, which this somewhat resembles.  We see enough of her friendly and open demeanor in the early scenes to sense it being destroyed during her dehumanizing assault.

The early part of the film is very slow, almost tranquil, as Jennifer is lulled into a false sense of security in her hammock under the trees or floating on sun-dappled water in a canoe.  Twenty minutes in, the assault begins and doesn't end until over half an hour later.  The utter simplicity of the story gives Zarchi time to dwell on the key events and explore them fully enough to make us feel as though we're experiencing them too--not as one of the rapists, as some contend, but through Jennifer's eyes.  The fact that almost the entire story is told from her point of view, and never encourages us to identify with her tormentors, is what makes it tolerable.



The almost cinema verite feeling of the film is largely due to the complete lack of music (ambient sounds and silence establish the mood) and the director's matter-of-fact, near documentary style.  This gives the harsher events an inexorable quality and a sense of immediacy.  There's so little film artifice to hide behind that viewers can't distance themselves from the terrible things that are happening, and there are no timely cutaways to relieve the tension.  When the final and worst attack occurs in Jennifer's own house, it's as though we're in the same room.  This is probably one of the things that bothers some people so much about this movie.

After the halfway mark, Jennifer's long, contemplative healing process gives way to her resolve to get revenge herself rather than go to the police.  At this point the film shifts noticeably from realism to improbable fantasy, with Jennifer becoming a fearless, seductive femme fatale with almost supernatural cunning and luck.  Those looking for the charnel-house massacre promised by the film's famous tagline may be disappointed--while Jennifer's killings display showmanship, only the cringe-inducing bathtub scene is truly shocking.  These scenes do, however, provide the necessary cathartic resolution to all that has gone before.  

Keaton (who later married director Zarchi) is a good enough actress for the most part, but during the rape scenes she becomes harrowingly convincing.  At times it's as though she isn't even an actress performing for the camera but someone who's being caught on film during an actual event.  The actors playing Johnny's friends give broad performances, especially Richard Pace as the semi-retarded Matthew, which serve the story while distancing us from them as human beings.  Eron Tabor as Johnny is a better actor and his character is fleshed out more--he has a family and talks fondly about his kids--giving an added dimension to the film's notorious latter-half setpiece.



The Director's Cut DVD from Anchor Bay is in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, and is definitely a step up from the Wizard Video VHS edition I bought back in the 80s.  Extras include a half-hour interview with Meir Zarchi, a poster and stills gallery, trailers, TV and radio spots, a clip of the alternate main title "Day of the Woman", and two commentary tracks.  Zarchi's is informative while the one with drive-in movie critic Joe Bob Briggs is delightfully entertaining.

Despite the horrified misgivings of a number of critics, including an aghast Roger Ebert, I can't imagine very many people besides the truly twisted few who would identify with the rapists in this story and vicariously enjoy their actions.  As for myself, I find I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE to be a meticulously well-made film that's too sympathetic to its female protagonist to be as reprehensible as it's often made out to be.  An interesting thing to consider is that, after the more realistic events of the first half, what happens in the rest of the movie is so wildly improbable that it might simply be Jennifer's own revenge fantasy. 


Read our review of the 2010 remake here

I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE (1978) -- DVD Review by Porfle