The Ladies of the House (Review)

The Ladies of the House

Directed by John Stuart Wildman

I was a little hesitant when I saw the trailer for The Ladies of the House. Was that....Belladonna in the trailer? Err I mean not that I watch porn or anything but I do watch pornstars in horror movies. And from past experience, it usually turns out kinda eye gouging horribly bad.

But let's not judge a movie by its cover or even by its trailer. Hence watching Ladies was and odd horror-copia of 50s style, misogynistic men getting some comeuppance and an imagining of what would happen if the We Can Do It! woman in this wartime propaganda poster decided to become a sadistic, serial killing cannibal.

The Ladies of the House is a rockabilly feministic-horror movie that somehow injects some colorful cinema with an exploitation vibiness that I've never seen before. And when you can show me something I've never seen before, that's a damn win in my book. Though plot and pacing are classed in a whatever, it makes it up in gore and some Chainsaw Massacre cross gender switching. Say what? Keep reading then.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Wildman's directorial debut is full of Edward Scissorhands/Pleasantville rainbow colors that for an indie horror movie, you have to give it props. The gore and splatter are in the same boat. It's clearly expensed and the FX are old school proper.

Solid performances by the troupe of strippers turned cannibal marauders that stereotype a genre of female archetypes. Melody Sisk as Getty is ripped out of that propaganda poster while Lin, her lesbian lover is head of household. Brina Palencia as Crystal is Dexter wacko. Our male lambs are slightly forgettable so I really won't talk about them. What you have in terms of characters and plot become blurred in a weird way. A way that can confuse the typical horror fan.

Clearly we have evil on both sides as plot wise our bumbling male horn dogs do some dumb shit resulting in dumb shit that are now Leatherfacey femme vixens need to get revenge for. Everybody deserves to die if you think about it logically. LOTH somehow doesn't want to get bogged down in your rooting interest but instead wants to flip the cliches upside down. As I thought about it, it's like the equivalent of a jock wearing red cowboy boots. Does it work?

Sorta. A feministic horror movie seems like an oxymoron. Can you really make your killing femme fatales into revenge served cold slasher hunters? And with gratuitous nudity and lesbian strippers? Like I said, now that's something I've never seen before...and now I have.

The Ladies of the House is a clearly a new type of indie horror exploitation. It's clearly smart, gory and wicked. It's not your typical horror and that's what I liked about it. At a solid 90 min, there's clearly an hour of good shit in here. Some inter spliced foreshadowing seemed out of place in my opinion.

John Stuart Wildman seemingly has a whole new sub genre with The Ladies of the House. Horror fans need to inject something new into their diet. There is meat on the bones with The Ladies of the House and its damn tasty.

Nude-ipedia 

Shower boob
Lesbian boobs

Gore-ipedia 

Butchery blood and guts
Slice and dice

WTF moment 

Crystal's room

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

It was called Stripped the movie at one point. I like the the title now. Check out the trailer below and the Facebook page.

Rating: 2 and half spinkicks 

Categories: belladonna, exploitation, exploitation film, independent cinema, indie horror, pornstar, the ladies of the house

Spinkick These Trailers: Cut to Black

In the early days of this blog, I would every now and then get an e-mail about a trailer/screener for non horror movies. I would take a look at the trailer and see if it was worth a watch. I'm an avid supporter of indie cinema and when I saw Dan Eberle's The Local (full review here) I really dug an authentic NYC underbelly. The NYC grime and crime you can only get from independent cinema. Later, Eberle returned with Prayer to a Vengeful God (full review here) which was more experimental and raw. I gave both movies 3 spinkicks and realized NYC's indie scene is still powerful and refreshing than I ever imagined.

Eberle is back with a new movie called Cut to Black. Here be the plot.

Bill Ivers, a disgraced ex-cop, is hired by a wealthy former friend to rid his estranged daughter, Jessica, of a petty a stalker. Soon, Bill finds himself interceding in Jessica's increasingly complicated life: caught between the crushing debt of a dangerous loan shark, and the specter of her father's shadowy past. 

Cut to Black is a story of desperate people living in the wake of bad choices, trying to make the most of what's left of their time in this world. Nobody gets away clean in this tough story of love, loyalty, and the inevitable conclusion we're all headed for.

Color me excited except this film is in black and white it seems. I love Eberle's NYC, the characters he's created and the seemingly rawness of his stories. Looking forward to this one.

Check out the trailer.

    More info here's some linkage: IMDB Facebook Twitter

Categories: crime thriller, independent cinema, indie film, new york city, nyc movie

Excision (Review)

Excision

Excision (2012)

Directed by Richard Bates Jr.

See the poster on the right? That's actress AnnaLynne McCord. She is extremely hot and beautiful. See the upside down picture of her? That's also her. What you'll get with Excision is more upside down brunette AnnaLynne rather than blonde AnnaLynne. And you know what?

It's that brunette "ugly" AnnLynne that makes Excision one hell of a fuckin movie.

McCord's complete transformation from one of the hottest young stars in Hollywood to an outcasted, odd and completely crazy Pauline is one of the best performances of the year. In Excision, Richard Bates debut film based on his short, a coming of age story on a volcano of WTF. Delusional and dreamlike, Excision is suburban America macabre, weirdness with a smile and a bloody mouth. It feels American Mary-ish but less grown up. Which isn't really a bad thing. I would say it would be this years The Woman, where we see the suburban darkness in a Tim Burton like universe.

It's truly one of the oddest and jaw dropping films I've seen and makes a case for a spot on my 2012 list. Weird vivid imagery, characters that are all red blooded 'Murica! and a lead character that goes against all that is normal in our very normal world.

Whatever I thought would happen, didn't. And for that I applauded.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

A disturbed and delusional high school student with aspirations of a career in medicine goes to extremes to earn the approval of her controlling mother. 

Awesome Review-O-Matic

The movie starts off with delusions. Pauline's (AnnaLynne McCord) delusions can only mean she's a little more than fucked up. Bloody dreams full of corpses and unnecessary surgery are ones that can only mean one may be unhinged. She's a student with a overbearing mom (Traci Lords), a terminally ill sister and a sissy dad. Pauline is truly an ugly duckling....long uncombed hair, a few specks of acne and a wardrobe from the dollar store. Her personality is the very definition of "anti", questioning the authority of her teachers and priest. However, she is an independent woman, bent on making the people around her uncomfortable and making sure she gets what she wants.

The plot is more so a character study of Pauline. Her mom raises her in that pageant mom sorta way and as moms do make her do things she doesn't want. If there is a plot to Excision it's buried in the mundane tasks her mom wants Pauline to do. What you believe to be a movie where somehow an ugly duckling turns into a swan never goes into that territory and thank the horror gods for that. It never wavers in the fact that some people are comfortable in their own skin and no level of makeup, change in attire or weight loss will make one happy.

As we follow Pauline along, her main motivation is to survive the day, barely caring what people think of her but more so to become a surgeon to cure her sister. But how can one do that when you go against the current of all that is normal? This leads to an ending that is a reality to check to her and to all of us. A pure WTF moment at it's most raw.

McCord is downright unrecognizable as Pauline. If you Google her, you'll see an actress that barely resembles Pauline. I really do admire an actress who's willing to not rely on her looks, done some serious ugly prosthetics and give a performance that goes beyond what we think they can do. Here McCord is fantastic, her monologues against religion and than praying to God are superb. As you watch her performance, you only see Pauline a distraught teenager with some serious case of mental issues. It was amazing to see her stripped of beauty and act as this quirky know it all.

Lords also gives quite a performance as the toddler and tiara mom. Who knew an underage pornstar from the 80s could actually give a performance like this?

The seductive feeling of Excision is that you want to root for Pauline, as we the viewer usually root for the outsider. We tend to think we're all outsiders and not one of the Hollister and Amber and Crombie clone zombies. The fact she alienates everybody around her makes her more appealing. Though we all seem to think she'll eventually fit in by metamorphasizing into one of the clones, like one of those cheesy 80s teenage rom coms...she doesn't.

Bates seems to want you to be uncomfortable and like Pauline even though she does despicable things. She's "ugly", she's non compliant and she's independent. How can we like somebody like that? But somehow I did like her. I haven't seen a character like that since Lucky McKee's May. Many movies have tried this (and you'll see it in the Carrie remake for sure). It's a hard to make somebody care for somebody that crazy.

The film is not perfect though. We've seen some of that Excision "formula" of outcast vs The Cleavers before and it rehashes things in a few films I've seen before. The focus is a bit disjointed as Pauline clashes with her family, her school and her classmates. Nothing is really gained by these entanglements except getting to see how strange and fucked up Pauline is. And in a nutshell, like I said before, there really is no plot in this. There is nothing really significant that's happening to Pauline that is remotely interesting. Like I said, it's just a day in the life of....

With that said, can somebody who's everything society has taught us is not beautiful be somebody we can care about? That's where this movie will be a hit or miss with viewers. If you dig Pauline, you'll see that the American cookie cutter society is the source of the unhappy. If you don't, your more inclined for her to conform. It's a black comedy that makes you feel awkward because you may see YOU as the type of character onscreen. Pauline's witty comebacks and contradictions will make you laugh, but oddly make you think as well.

Excision is that little film that questions our American values and whether or not we can find happiness in who we are and whether or not we can do it while were a little bit crazy. Underneath the prototypical family is a world we don't necessarily see. Everybody is a bit crazy, has dreams that would make the most alpha male cringe but we hide those feelings and those thoughts deep into the trenches of our brain.

Some people let it all out and show the world who they really are. So who's really normal huh?

Nude-ipedia

Weird dreams by Pauline means naked women for us!

Gore-ipedia

Some blood that your tween brother can handle

WTF moment

The ending

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis


Excision is out on Blu Ray and DVD. Check out the official site and Facebook page. It's a soon to be cult classic, waiting to be discovered by some curious movie fan and hopefully embraced by the horror community. It's worth a look to see why Excision is curiously on some Best of 2012 lists.

Rating:



Check out the trailer.

Categories: 2012 horror movies, american mary, excision, gratuitous nudity, independent cinema, indepentent horror, indie film, indie horror, nudity, the woman

American Mary (Review)

American Mary

American Mary (2012)

Directed by Jen and Sylvia Soska

Before I begin this review, I think I have to let you know about how I got acquainted with the Soska Sisters. I found their trailer for Dead Hooker in a Trunk, thought it was cool and blogged about it.  Little did I know they'd write me back, send me a screener and an awesome personalized note to boot and then down the road to top it all off, they put my quote from my review in one of their trailers.

That sort of thing doesn't happen to me very often.

The coolness factor of that exchange aside, it's pretty awesome to have that sort of relationship with filmmakers. A simple tweet to a fan can make their day. Oddly enough after I finished watching the NYC premiere of American Mary at the Film Society at Lincoln Center, I'd get a special tweet.

American Mary is without a doubt one of the best movies of 2012. It is a dissection into the world of body modification that takes a wrong, dreadful turn for the worst. Full of long lasting scenes of female empowerment taken to the limits, it is by far the most powerful, stylized and slickest look into one woman's journey from hopeful optimism to a revenge served cold despotism. The Soska Sisters have created a horror film that is light years ahead of their previous effort. With American Mary, they give us a Joss Whedon like character study into Mary (Katharine Isabelle), who we will see grow up and find her place in the world after experiencing severe trauma.

Never have I seen a movie that delves into this subculture, treats it respectfully and slices in a perfect horror movie inside. I guarantee American Mary will etch it's way into cult status. It's perfect blend of sly black humor, absurd and eerie characters and torturous scenes of pain and agony that equal a milkshake of cult awesomeness.

Horror movies have just grown up in a big way thanks to American Mary.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

The story follows medical student, Mary Mason, as she becomes increasingly broke and disenchanted with the surgical world she once admired. The allure of easy money sends Mary into the world of underground surgeries which ends up leaving more marks on her than her so called 'freakish' clientele. 

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Mary (Katharine Isabelle) is a medical student studying to become a surgeon. Simple enough right? We tag along with Mary as she deals with everyday problems like how to pay your bills when your broke, taking shit from teachers and doing shady shit to make ends meet.  Soon our sweet Mary is forced to look for work through a faux Craiglist and in the seedy part of town. She meets strip club owner Billy (Antonio Cupo) who begins a weird subplot infatuation with her complete with Mary erotica dream sequences.

When her talents as a surgeon are used for some impromptu mob doctor-ish activities, the referrals start for her talents. She then meets Beatress (Tristan Risk), whose full on Betty Boop lookalike face and voice performance (complete with the cosmetic surgery) is by far a turn for the surreal. As she discovers the world of body modification subculture, aghast previously, it soon becomes very appetizing when a night out with the senior surgeons goes all Thriller A Cruel Picture, Mary goes into a very dark place and we see her go Darth Vader in a way that equals the best performance of the year.

Katharine Isabelle is super duper fantastic as Mary. Her transformation from super smart and caring student to a full blooded vixen is magnificent. Aside from being easy on the eyes, she can enhance a scene by her look which juxtaposes what the title infers. The American Mary is a modifier of the ideal of beauty through extreme means and it is definitely not uncommon in our plastic surgery, botox, drive thru website world. Isabelle's metamorphosis is slow and steady. From her clothing, to her makeup to her teetering morality, her performance clearly was so fuckin awesome to watch. She's been gathering awards through the many film festivals American Mary and it's well deserved.

Risk's performance is stunning to watch. The outstanding Boop makeup hides a beautiful actress and thus focuses us on seeing this live action cartoon character create a personality that is devilishly odd yet mesmerizing to watch. Cuno plays creepazoid Billy with some deep yearnings of something other than the life he leads and Twan Holliday as Lance, security bouncer extraordinaire somehow gives the film a bit of heart.

The Soska Twins cameo beautifully as some German modifiers and are equally delicious in bringing some just on the surface black humor. Whereas Dead Hooker was over the top and cartooney with its humor, the laughs come in the ridiculousness Mary has placed herself in. Mary's reactions are our reactions and we can't help but be sickened, slightly weirded out and out normalized by who and what she encounters. It's these light hearted scenes such as Mary sharing some late night dinner with Lance talking about the fucked up shit they've done that have shown how the Soska's have evolved into filmmakers who can craft scenes where the dialogue and mundane intertwine. It's almost Tarantino like.

One can't talk about American Mary without mentioning the NON-CGI effects they employed. Special effects guru Todd Masters uses stellar prosthetics and old school blood techniques to get us some ample splatter and gore. The Soska's seem adept at giving us cringe worthy scenes that have a Kubrick-esque element to them such as when Mary goes all Kill Bill on her "victims". With some clever camera work,  I have never seen such  pure torture scenes become still photos worthy of a place in the MOMA. The Soska's

The ending is clearly hinted at as Mary's transformation from poor medical student to famous body modification artist to the stars. You can see what's to come, see the evil that she's done but somehow still want her to win. It's a testament to the Soska's to create such a character that the audience wants to root for, a Dexter like ability is hard to pull off.

Weird subplots involving Billy's wet dreams and a cop on the trail of a murder creep there way in. This isn't Law and Order and take away from the characters we really want to know more about. The dialogue is filled with rough around the edges film noir 'logue, but can be forgiven if we are to succumb to the oddities in a bizarro world where Dick Tracy is the staple for all police models. I would have loved to have the Soska's add more scenes of Mary and Beatress and Ruby (Paula Lindberg) who's surgery Mary performs turns her into a real life Barbie. Body modification culture is mostly unheard of subject in film (especially in horror movies) and exploring this world with our Mary would have been infinite more rewarding than a cop investigation or sleazy Billy's bar drama.

With all that said, American Mary makes up for it scene after scene of pure melodramatic WTF (which to me is a good thing). It's in a weird in between world of The Human Centipede and Hostel. The Soska's are fans of Eli Roth and you can sense the torturous creations they've created are a wink to him. But what is all the Soska's is American Mary's twisted vision of revenge, a glimpse into a culture even the most hardcore horror fans may be freaked about and create a film with surgical precision that has all it's elements ticking like fuckin clockwork.

American Mary is 100 minutes of femme fatale awesomeness the indie horror circuit hasn't seen in a while. New, fresh and innovative are words that will be tossed around to describe it. But for me, American Mary can be described as passion. The Soska's embrace the twisted tales the horror genre can deliver to an audience. It's an evolution by filmmakers who are in the genre because they love horror, not because they want to make a quick buck.

We need more talented filmmakers like the Twisted Twins and we need more movies like American Mary. And we need horror fans to support both.

Nude-ipedia

Surgery and strip club boobies

Gore-ipedia

Serious body art modification
Torture meets torture scenes
Blood soaked splatter

WTF moment

First time we meet Lucy

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

Rarely does one get a super cool tweet from the Soska's right after I see their movie, but I did. American Mary is on the film festival circuit but was picked up Universal International for worldwide distribution. Also Anchor Bay will distribute in Canada. US distribution I'm sure is coming soon.

If you want to get started on Soska Sisters 101, pick up Dead Hoooker in a Trunk, read my review, watch one of their shorts, Like them on Facebook and follow their Twitter.

Then you'll be ready for what's to come in American Mary.

Rating:

Check out the trailer below.

Categories: 2012 horror movies, american mary, canada, canadian horror, dead hooker in a trunk, dead hooker in a trunk trailer, independent cinema, indie film, indie horror, soska sisters

I Am a Ghost (Review)

I Am a Ghost 

I Am a Ghost (2012)

Directed by H.P. Mendoza

You'll have noticed a lack of reviews of late. I've been focusing on that other blog I do. The other reason for the lack of reviews is I've just been picky in what I've been watching. The horror screeners I get are full of poor men's attempt at what Hollywood wants. That's not what indie horror is.

H.P. Mendoza's I Am a Ghost is what indie horror is.

I have to be thankful I am part of a horror blogger inner circle that makes sure I see films like this. Thanks to Cortez the Killer at Planet of Terror (see his review) I feel reinvigorated in writing reviews for The Jaded Viewer. This film was a breath of fresh air and my fellow inner circler Chris at All Things Horror agrees (see his review here). It's what we as horror bloggers live for. Seeing something different, something unique and something with tons of risk that pays off big time.

Mendoza's I Am a Ghost is a slow burn ghost story that channels all the suspense of Kubrick film and releases it's madness Ti West style. You have to admire a film that throwsback to a cinematic style of vintaginess and still delivers. Add the fact the entire movie is centrally focused on one character, Emily (Anna Ishida) and in one setting, an old Victorian house and it's a bit risky endeavor. But that's why indie horror is a frontier. You'll never know if it will work if you don't try right?

I Am a Ghost plays with the viewer, forcing a WTF in every brief but cryptic scene until it slowly lets you in on the secrets that plague our dear Emily. Like a non linear jigsaw puzzle, all the pieces begin to make sense as the picture progresses (the eggs!!!) and once you see the entirety of the film, it's quite a sight to behold. It's full of chilling moments, superb acting and a twizzer twist on the ghost genre.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

Emily, a troubled spirit, haunts her own house every day, wondering why she can't leave. With the help of Sylvia, a clairvoyant hired to rid the house of spirits, Emily is forced into a 'patient/therapist' relationship, uncovering disturbing mysteries about her past that may help her move on to 'the next place'.

Awesome Review-O-Matic 

I've slowly tried to give some leeway into the slow burn horror film. In both Ti West outings, I've been for and against it. It just depends on what's burning. In Mendoza's I Am a Ghost, the burn is full of dreamlike imagery of scenes of repetitiveness. Emily is a girl that seems oddly off. We see her repeat activities such as waking up, eating breakfast, getting groceries and cleaning. She's stuck in routine, but it seems her life in this Victorian house is not as it seems.The first quarter of  the film is a slow burn to get us use to what's been happening before were thrown into this story. Whereas you'd be bored by a slow walker, a creaky floor or a few jump scares or whatever, the snapshots of Emily in "her life" and its loopiness is a montage of foggy delight. You're put in WTF mode and it draws you in.

In her parent's room, she hears a disembodied voice of Sylvia a medium (hired by the homeowners) who is trying to help her "to the light". She cannot see Sylvia, and vice versa. In a farside twist where the ghost doesn't know she is a ghost, Emily is TOLD she is a ghost and believes it. Read that sentence again because it's important.

Sylvia's conversations with Emily revolve around the nature of "closing", her memories, her death and her routine. If she leaves her parent's room she forgets everything. The movie is a cinematic darling in it plays with a stylized Del Toro-ness. There is a bit of shabby humor between Sylvia and Emily that breaks all the spooky tension. It's like modernity meets a stubborn old man stuck in time. The conversations slowly give us a glimpse of Emily's situation as does the imprints she has left in each room.

As the film concludes, a reveal puts all the pieces together and Emily confronts what she has dreaded the most.

Anna Ishida's performance is stellarly fantastic. To act by yourself, with a voiceover as your only partner must have been challenging and she does a great job in pulling it off. There would be a point where you'd think she'd have to be overmelodramatic but her subtlety in her performance was without a doubt what made it great.

Mendoza's story could easily draw comparisons to The Sixth Sense, The Others and The Innkeepers but that would be a disservice. What this film does is create a sense of dread, hopelessness and mystery and reveals a young woman's disturbing secret has not been eliminated in death. It's a journey through a photographic album of a life that was full of hardship and pain, where our instinctive nature to see a happy ending won't be answered. The very nature of the ghost story is that it is suppose to scare you. But here we are in a comforting role though the scares do come in a frenetic ending.

H.P. Mendoza is a talented filmmaker who clearly has pulled the best the old guard and the new guard have created and made a film that resembles the best of both. You will not be disappointed to see a film that has a new story to tell, a style all it's own and an eerie take on the what goes bump in the night.

Make sure you see this film.

Gore-ipedia

A few scenes of the red stuff, nothing your grandma couldn't handle

WTF moment

The visual of Emily's secret...shivers

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

I Am a Ghost is playing the film festival circuit. Be sure to check out the official site, follow H.P. Mendoza on Vimeo and Twitter. He just wrote a film called Yes Were Open starring Parry Shen. I'm pretty psyched to see what other films Mr. Mendoza has in store, hopefully he continues to do a few more in this genre.

Rating:

Check out the trailer below.

I AM A GHOST (Reviews Trailer #1) from H.P. Mendoza on Vimeo.

Categories: 2012 horror movies, ghost stories, ghosts, independent cinema, indepentent horror, indie horror, ti west, Top Terrifying Supernatural Moments

How Do You Write A Joe Scherman Song? (Trailer)

I've been seeing a lot of promos and posters all over NYC for NBC's new show Smash. I'll admit, this is not my sort of bag, but when jaded viewer friend Christina Rose dropped me a line informed me that Gary King's indie musical How Do You Write A Joe Scherman Song? is soon to be released I had to take a quick glance at the trailer (which is below).

Here be the plot:

Joe (Joe Schermann) dreams of hitting it big on Broadway. After landing an opportunity to write for an Off-Broadway musical, he is forced to cast either the love of his life Evey (Christina Rose) or his newly discovered muse Summer (Debbie Williams). The realities of show business prove to Joe that writing is easy, living is hard.

Christina is a brilliant actress (she was brilliant in Death of the Dead (see review here and interview here) and I'm sure she's going to show off all her talents: her beauty, singing and acting in this little slice of NYC indie film.

Here's more info via the Press Release:

HOW DO YOU WRITE A JOE SCHERMANN SONG is an original feature film musical written and directed by Gary King; music and lyrics by Joe Schermann; and original score by Ken Lampl. It stars the singer/songwriter of the same name Joe Schermann, Christina Rose (of Broadway's GREASE, Deadheads, & previously worked with King on "Death of the Dead"), Mark DiConzo ("New York Lately"), Debbie Williams, Jenn Dees ("What's Up Lovely") and Darly Ray Carliles (Jaradoa Theater). The incredible dance sequences in the film were choreographed by Mark DiConzo and Christina Rose. The indie film was funded primarily through crowdfunding (Kickstarter) which has led to a global fan base long before the film's release. Marcus Wolf and Edward A. Bishop of Flicker Dreams Productions served as executive producers.

Film festival screening announcements coming soon.

Check out the trailer.

HOW DO YOU WRITE A JOE SCHERMANN SONG - Official Trailer from Gary King on Vimeo.

For more info check out these links:

• Official Site
• Facebook Page
• Christina Rose Official Site
• Christina Rose Twitter Page
  

Categories: broadway, christina rose, independent cinema, indie film, musical

The Best Elephants, DIY Indies and OMG! Movies of 2011

Before I post my top 10 horror movies (yes it's coming soon), I wanted to go over the other movies (yes I saw other non horror flicks) that I thought were super duper awesome this year. From the box office Hollywood juggernauts to the indie spectaculars, these stood out like no other (plus there the only ones I saw). There are also a few films you may have missed that will completely blow you away.

"Box Office Elephants"

1.) Rise of the Planet of the Apes: Best sci-fi/action flick of the year. Serkin made me care about ape-kind.

2.) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2: I'm a big Potter fan (shhhh) so I liked how it all ended.

3.) The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Rooney Mara gets all naked/grunty/scary in this remake of the Swedish bestseller. She drives a typical crime mystery into awesomeness.

"DIY Indie Spectaculars"

1.) Super: Not as good as Kick-Ass but fun nevertheless. Wilson and Page made an awesome crazy dynamic duo as normals become superheroes.

2.) Kaboom: Gregg Araki makes a comeback with a WTF film that will make you sexual uncomfortable as it will make you scratch your head...and your balls.

3.) Waldo the Dog: Best indie screener I received this year. Waldo the Dog will be unlike any other film you have ever seen. It's the equivalent of seeing a fancy car get wrecked, miraculously repaired and then totally wrecked again. As much as you'd like to look away you can't. It's just so mesmerizing to watch.

4.) A Foundling: A Foundling breaks the handcuffs of the conventional indie film. It's a serial Western with a twist and though follows such a simple story of 2 sisters reunited, it's even smart enough to comment on the world around them.

"The OMGs"

1.) Ninja Kids!!!: One of the best films of 2011 from Takashi Miike. Ninja Kids is like Spy Kids on acid. Think Harry Potter but with over the top ninjas and slapstick comedy. It's a cute Japanese family film with a Miike insanity mixed in. And it works from start to finish. It's super duper funny, has some dog poop humor and a ton of CGI madness that only Miike could think up. Based on a long running Japanese TV show called Rantaro the Ninja Boy, it's filled with humor that's international in the LOLs. It's got visual wackiness, self aware parodies and villains that are basically clowns with swords and ninja stars.

What you get is a family comedy that leaves you feeling freakin awesome after you leave the theater. Ninja Kids is heartwarming Japanese wackiness, the Miike way.

2.) BKO: Bangkok Knockout: BKO: Bangkok Knockout which is without a doubt, the best action movie of 2011. BKO is an orgy and ballet of violence set to a soundtrack. You won't know the names of the characters or care if the bad guys get their comeuppance. Seriously, it's not important.

As long as you were mesmerized by the punches, kicks, double kicks, double punches and the synchronized attacks, BKO has done it's job.

******************************************************

What non horror movies did you think were the best of 2011? Let me know!

Categories: bangkok, comics, hollywood remake, independent cinema, indie film, indie horror, ninja kids, nyaff 2011

Kidnapped (Review)

Kidnapped

Kidnapped aka Secuestrados (2011)

Directed by Miguel Ángel Vivas

I've always thought the home invasion film is one of the most terrifying genres in all of horror. I mean the reason why is pretty obvious. It realistically could happen. That's terrifying as shit right?

Lots of movies have been made about this and I've seen a lot of them. Them (aka Ils), The Strangers, Inside and Funny Games are all the notables. When I first saw Michael Haneke's Funny Games, I'll admit I was blown away. Vicious violence and Haneke's attempt to chide us and ask if we were desensitized to it all was revolutionary. Now we're given yet another home invasion film that's just as nihilistic and unrelenting as Funny Games and one has to ask why?

Vivas's Kidnapped is a Spanish import that puts the audience uncomfortably close to a home invasion playing in real time and let's us squirm as a family is robbed, tortured and terrorized. It's pure cinematic wickedness as Vivas employs only a few cuts/edits and instead hovers the camera around the action as it plays. It's a damn eerie and effective technique, one where audience has nowhere to escape but feel as terrorized as this family.

But the problem with Kidnapped lies not in it's dread or viciousness but in it's characters. Our family are ridiculously badly drawn: Dad is inept, Mom is too houswifey and daughter seems like a spoiled brat. The bad guy's don't fair either. I'm going to use a Miami Heat analogy that may or may not work to explain their dumb-ititude.

In the end Kidnapped will shock the shit out of you (that ending will stick in your mind like a splinter) but says nothing of why violence fascinates us. Kidnapped is awesome style, but little substance and stands on the lower ladder of the home invasion genre. It's also why I disliked The Strangers so much. I need more than "Because you were home".

Boring Plot-O-Matic

Three hooded Eastern-European criminals burst into a home in a Madrid gated community, holding the family hostage in its own home, and forcing the father to empty his credit cards.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Let's get that pesky plot out of the way. Innocent Spanish family has just moved into an awesome new home and they display all those qualities of rich families I despise. Dad is mega rich, Mom is all into house wife duties and the daughter wants to party. When 3 ski masked criminals invade their home, they are abused and fucked up. Dad is forced to get PINs for all his credit cards and driven out into the city and take out the max from ATMs. Meanwhile, mom and daughter are guarded into a sense of home invasion normalcy.

Later, unexpected visitors ring that damn doorbell and get caught in the mix. It's up to our fearless duo to make sure their master heist goes according to plan. The camera work here is utterly flawless. The shots hover like a guardian angel, we peek in from scene to scene with no cutting whatsoever. Violence becomes almost dreamlike. In one scene where our girls try to escape, the terror is amplified by a Vivas technique where he goes split screen and we see the action take place simultaneously. It's damn effective revealing the horror of both scenes. My eye wandered to the criminals as I knew I'd see mega fuckedupness on their end.

It's this style that is suspenseful and draws an eager viewer into this hellish world that's taking place. Kidnapped is paced so well that it's a testament to the actors and actresses to get all their dialogue, motions, etc all accomplished without any cuts. You really do admire this type of cinema as its exhilarating to watch.

Let me go into that Miami Heat analogy. When one goes into home invasion as a criminal activity you'd think the 3 of them would be on the same page. Let's break them down with their Heat counterparts.

Master Chief Criminal: Wade

We have a leader who is the one takes the dad around town maxing out his cards. You'd think this guy could be able to handle his crew but you'd be wrong. He's doesn't have the pulse of his team and seems to be a useless kind of leader. But you get the feeling he's gonna put a dagger through your heart and come up with a Wade like game winning bucket.

Petty Criminal Crazy Guy: LeBron

OK this guy is kinda nuts. He goes all crazy and almost goes all Lebron in the 4th quarter. The entire heist was in jeopardy because of his actions. He goes all murdery on a inspector and decides to "SVU" the daughter. He's totally the muscle of the crew but definitely a total choker...you know like Lebron.

Petty Criminal Morality Guy: Bosh

This guy has a total change of heart and feels bad that Lebron guy is totally fucking up everybody and is out of control. Like Bosh, he's the 3rd fiddle and he brings absolutely nothing to the game. If you're recruiting for a home invasion, you need soldiers willing to do anything to get the job done. They brought Morality Bosh Guy. And he's a fuckin pussy.

So there you have it. Your Big Three master criminals. The master plan is completely flawed. How much can one really max out from an ATM machine to get a big score? Not a helluva alot I would imagine. Home invasions are bash and dash. You get in, you loot and you get out. But these guys are having a fuckin sleepover. Plus their team isn't as solid as one might think with a bad captain, a crazy guy and a wuss.

If it wasn't for Wade guy saving the day, they'd have lost to the damn Cleveland Cavaliers family. In every home invasion movie, the family always tries to fight back or escape. And sure our family does here. I'd take the argument that summoning up courage is hard to do when you fear for your life. But one has to make sure when they are fighting back, you actually defeat your enemy. I like to think in a way that the family was only up by 2 pts and thought they had won the game. That's when Amazing happens.

Kidnapped's characters are just not at all interesting and the logic is a little off. The style as I said was spectacular but the substance of what this nihilistic journey was for is lacking. In Funny Games, Haneke broke the 4th wall and talked to the audience and asked us what WE WOULD DO. It seemed that Haneke wanted to provoke the audience and ask why we want to see the violence and when he REWINDS the action, we're even more thrilled. There is a message within Funny Games with its clean cut villains and the quagmire they give the family.

In Kidnapped, it's all glitz and glamour. Oh we see our big 3 wreak havoc, we see the dazzling dunks of gore and splatter and a game winning shot and I enjoyed seeing this mayhem. But it didn't really give me anything to talk about after seeing it. I didn't come away with something that might be thought provoking or worthwhile.

Kidnapped gives you a taste of home invasion genre, the life and death struggle but doesn't have a conceptual theme of what we just saw. It's nihilism for nihilism's sake and sometimes that's all you get.

Nude-ipedia

Daughter has serious cleavage issues

Gore-ipedia

Sliced throats
Gunplay
SVU action
If I told you more, the movie might be spoiled

WTF moment

The ending

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

I know Kidnapped is high on many Top 10 lists and it will get an honorable mention from me in mine. I expect more from my home invasion and I got what I expected. European imports usually have both style and substance. I'm kinda shocked Kidnapped didn't have the latter.

Rating:


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Categories: 2011 horror movies, funny games trailer, funny games us remake, home invasion movies, independent cinema, indepentent horror, indie horror, inside, spanish horror, the strangers, them, them ils

Rage (Review)

Rage

Rage (2011)

Directed by Christopher Witherspoon

Who knew 40 years ago, a TV movie by an unknown director named Steven Spielberg would still be influencing filmmakers today? With Duel, Spielberg made a statement about man's isolation against a force of nature or something like that.

That's where Rage draws it's inspiration from and because of this influence, director/producer/editor Chris Witherspoon even drew up a scene commenting on what the metaphor might be. One can make up comparisons but I'm pretty sure Generation Y and Z have never seen Duel. So Rage becomes it's own malevolent little indie that takes cat vs mouse to a whole new level. What Witherspoon has created is a tense, suspenseful and amped movie about a ordinary Oregonian with his share of secrets and thrown him into a deadly game vs a masked villain whose motivations are also hidden in secrecy.

Rage plays with it's audience so well, I even got duped by its overall simplicity (I'll explain in a bit). It's a mix of Hitchcockian slickness, Twilight Zone twistiness and Spielberg terror magic. Sure it's hindered by its low budget and some odd flashback placement but overall it's an entertaining movie that plays out like a long riddle of emotion.

Rage tricked me big time and it's why it was so much fun.


Boring Plot-O-Matic

A thirty something man who lives in a suburb just outside of Portland says goodbye to his beautiful and loving wife and heads into town. There he unintentionally provokes the wrath of a mysterious motorcyclist. The confrontation between the two, sets in motion a day long battle. Beginning in the form of harmless taunts then quickly escalating into something more serious and then into something unimaginable.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

So we get to hang out with Dennis Twist (Rick Crawford), a 30 something writer from Portland, OR who with his wife Crystal (Audrey Walker) live the American suburban life. But all is not well with the Dennis. He has a few secrets and on his day off, we're going to see all of them. As he drives off in his SUV we see him get into a scuffle with a black helmeted motorcyclist over a parking spot. Dismissed, he meets with his mistress who he breaks off an affair and also meets with a friend where they discuss his failed writing career.

Soon the stalking of Dennis begins and the motorcyclist is appearing at every angle. He is taunted at a red light, then his car gets keyed is only the beginning. Later his breaks are cut and a random beatdown at a bathroom get it all into the bit of ultra violence. Dennis plays mouse and our Darth Vader mute (he doesn't speak throughout the film) are gaming it up for all of us to see. It's not until Dennis gets home does all shit hit the fan. Uber gorehounds with rejoice in the splatterific scenes involving chainsaws, stab-o-palooza and an uncomfortable rape-ture. The end of Rage is pure madness and one final twist breaking down what the fuck just happened is the WTF of the entire movie.

Let me get what irked me out of the way. There is a bit of bad acting by all (Dennis's neighbors are cardboardy) and Rick Crawford who plays Dennis goes in and out of his Irish accent on more than one occasion. During highly emotional scenes, none of our actors can emote above a 5. But overall Crawford plays a mousey mouse well and shows a man littered with guilt and believes karma is out to get him.

Witherspoon also added a few B/W tinted flashbacks of scenes that only happened 5 minutes before. I have no idea why these were added. I'm pretty certain I was following along and didn't need a reminder. There were also a few odd camera angles that had me scratching my head ( a lunch scene in particular was a bit odd)

But these can be forgiven because Witherspoon for an indie does a nice job of getting SUV vs motorcycle shots all over Portland. Solid camera work for on the location shooting and I was impressed. It's a testament to Witherspoon's ability to make low level speeding into car chasing awesome.

Rage is clearly a guessing game. Witherspoon plays with the audience tossing in clues and red herrings to get us emotionally vested as well as riddling all of us. His mistress ex BF might be the man under the helmet but we savvy vets are ultimately going with the Twilight Zone route and expect somebody else. Everybody wants to know who this road rager is and why he might be doing it but it's not until the end do we get a clear explanation. At first, I thought I had been gypped, that all that had occurred was too far fetched for our stalker to go through to exact revenge.

But I remembered a scene Witherspoon inserted mid way in where cordial social parking protocol was followed and realized what I was watching. The movie wants you to believe our psychopathic biker is the embodiment of karma, what goes around comes around. Our man Dennis has to pay for his transgressions, for all the evil that he has done to his wife and to others. It's a brilliant play on the audience's preconceived notions of what we SHOULD expect. But the world is a much simpler place. People get angry for the stupidest and dumbest reasons and real ultra violence happens for far less. I mean people got beatdown for retro Air Jordans, wedding dresses and an Xbox during Black Friday madness.

All the clues lead to Rage. It's the damn title in the movie and the clues are littered throughout peaking at that scene I mentioned earlier. Witherspoon's Rage is so creatively smart that even the best cinema-phile might have been duped. It's one of the best movies I saw in 2011 and I'm going to keep my eyes on Witherspoon (he played the biker BTW). In a few years, we might be calling it Witherspoon terror magic instead.

Nude-ipedia

Nada

Gore-ipedia

Chainsaw trauma
Stabby stab stab stab

WTF moment

The reveal at the end

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

I get a lot of indie screeners sent to me and I toss them into a pile and figure I'll get to them eventually. But the horror blogosphere is getting this little indie the buzz it deserves and I decided to watch it based on the hype.

Rage has no release date but it has won tons of awards. Rage won top honors at the 2011 Horror Quest Film Festival in Atlanta, Georgia. Rage screened in festivals across America and all over the world including the Oldenburg International Film Festival in Oldenburg, Germany and the Cryptshow Film Festival in Barcelona, Spain.

Hopefully Witherspoon gets a distributor so the horror universe can see this awesome bad boy.

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Rating:


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Categories: 2011 horror movies, crime thriller, independent cinema, indie film, indie horror, thriller

Attack the Block (Review)

Attack the Block

Attack the Block (2011)

Directed by Joe Cornish

The first thing I noticed about Attack the Block is the dialogue. British ghetto younglings have a speech all their own and it's really mesmerizing to hear. Lots of "Get me?" and "love" and "Believe!". At times, I had no idea what the fuck they were saying. But that's the fascination right?

I know all the supposed "bad" neighborhoods in NYC. But I've been getting the feeling I should never set foot in Brixton in south London if I ever visit. Get these kids in a movie theater and shit gets loud (oh no he didn't go there!) Lots of ghetto kids go see a horror flick and will yell shit at the screen saying if faced in the same situation with the killah they'd "fuck that suckah up!" (they're words I cleaned up a bit) The beauty of Attack the Block is now we get to see these same tough thugs battle hairy, glowy teeth but blind alien monsters and see if they're all just talk.

Attack the Block is a mix of a thugged up Goonies meets Gremlins and it's all freakin awesome. Blending a mix of comedy, monster mayhem, action-palooza and some class warfare "MESSAGE!!" it's a slice of fun fun fun. The unlikely criminal tykes we bloody fuckin hate somehow grow up, learn a lesson and gain respect the hard way. Throw in some neato sci-fi monsters, a few splatter and gore and quick witted pop culture references rapid firing at a mile a minute and it's all the fun you'll have in 90 minutes.

Quick rehashed plot revolves around a thug of youths led by Moses who mug Sam a girl who lives in the projects (is that what they call em in London?). Soon our ragtag group of misfits (3 blacks, 1 white boy, Sam, pot smoker Brewis) are running and dodging these reject monsters from Star Wars. Aided by Nick Frost and also on the run from a kingpin drug dealer, the block is all in chaos in this one night.

The action scenes are well executed. The kids have bikes, scooters to aid in their escapes and they've got the weapons and use em. Samurai swords, knives and fireworks (the dangerous kind) all come into play and shit gets real fast for them. But these same kids, supposedly tough as nails get scared too. It's this balance in characters that makes them feel human and empathetic. The fact they know the choices they make have consequences is a theme throughout. Lots of good suspense and wicked kills are littered throughout ATB and director Joe Cornish paces it nicely.

He also puts in great scenes of funny jampacked with British references. They call the monsters gollums (LOTR) and Dobbies (HP) and it breaks the tension to have them be all kids in such an adult situation. Any reference to video games will give me a chuckle.

Sure it's a bit silly at times and the monsters aren't very memorable as they should be, but it's forgivable. Clearly we get racial overtones and "the feds" are willing to go all Rodney King on any black youth we see. I mean after seeing the shit that went down during the London riots (that video of the foreign exchange kid getting jumped comes to mind) you really want to hate these brothas from south London in real life and in this movie. But it's all about the choices they make and here they make the right ones.

Attack the Block is a sci-fi kid adventure and twisting the protagonists around makes it worthwhile. You'll rarely see a film that takes the outrageous cheesiness of furry alien monsters and blend it in with thug life. It's a one of a kind movie, one with charm and scares.

Believe.

Rating:


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Categories: 2011 horror movies, aliens, british comedy, british horror, gangsta movies, independent cinema, indie film, sci-fi, UK horror

The Innkeepers (Review)

The Innkeepers

The Innkeepers (2011)

Directed by Ti West

There is a king of the slow burn horror movie and his name is Ti West. West, who's filmography includes The Roost, Cabin Fever 2 and The House of Devil has made a name for himself in the methodically paced horror movie. I was not a fan of this in The House of the Devil writing:

"However, at the end of the day the movie is a wicked slow slow slow burn. It takes so long to get to the nitty gritty that no Red Bulls were helping to keep me awake."

However, in The Innkeepers the slow burn has hills and valleys and surprisingly has humor in it filled with cleverisms and pop culturisms that rescue it from being engulfed in eternal boredom. It dabbles in LOLs while fine tuning a ghost story as it's central premise. What you get is a fun, mish mash of amateur ghost hunter hipsters making contact with the ethereal plain which slowly evolves The Innkeepers into a non laughing matter.

The Innkeepers is smart enough to know it's audience and by doing so gives us an old fashioned spooky throwback ghost story that balances the line between being cute and scary. The characters are drones, the guests are odd and the ghosts are cliched visual jump scares. With all the said, I still had a few problems with West's lack of a firepower ending and his overabundance to drag the movie into zzzzzzzzzzz territory but some things can be overlooked when I'm having fun.

But I'm all for the nostalgia for my vintage Poltergeists for the new millennium. The Innkeepers could be Generation X's's answer to that 80s classic.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

After over one hundred years of service, The Yankee Pedlar Inn is shutting its doors for good. The last remaining employees - Claire (Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy)- are determined to uncover proof of what many believe to be one of New England's most haunted hotels. As the Inn’s final days draw near, odd guests check in as the pair of minimum wage “ghost hunters” begin to experience strange and alarming events that may ultimately cause them to be mere footnotes in the hotel’s long unexplained history.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

When you do a supernatural horror movie, you can possibly go one of two ways. You can go all LOLs or you could go deadly serious. It seems Ti West elected to do both. In The Innkeepers, Claire (Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy) are hotel worker drones who man the Yankee Pedlar Inn (in CT) for one last weekend before it goes out of business. There is a history of dread, as the hotel has a legend of Madeline O'Malley, whose death in a cellar has caused her to haunt this now defunct hotel.

The movie revolves around the dynamic of our hipster duo. Luke documents the history of his paranormal workplace on a website while Claire is in awe of a famous old timey actress (who she adores) that has checked into the hotel. Both are realistic drones who burn their boredom away with clever dialogue, actual job duties, beer and a search for scientific proof of the supernatural.

Staying at the hotel 24/7, they take shifts but at night, Claire goes all Fox Mulder and starts hearing the creeks and squeaks of something not right. It's here West goes all slow burn, hovering above Claire as she searches the remnants of a hotel (sometimes in full daylight) other times in the dead of night. Sara Paxton has a mesmerizing quality that made me buy into her performance. Claire is an asthmatic, everyday girl whose ambition has slowly died away. Paxton's performance is quirky stellar, similar to that of the cutout of a "hot gamer girl" but in this case "hot ghost hunter girl".

Pat Healy's Luke is goofball lovable. He's the horror geek, bad at web design, obsessed with the supernatural and possibly infatuated with his partner in crime. And his performance is not condescending to us horror hipsters at all. I could easily call these characters my friends.

But West wants to make sure that you get just enough haha's before he unleashes his House of the Devil style slow burn jump scares. And don't worry you get some eerie buildup of falsehoods and glimpses of either hallucinations, dreams or actual paranormal phenomenon. The fact that it's vague is part of the charm all the way to the end. It's almost a perfect film in how the atmosphere gets built up (a lost art in my opinion) and a perfect blueprint feature resembling those viral Internet videos with the "actual ghost footage" that leads to a growly scream of a "ghost" that usually scares the shit out of you.

My gripes, though few, are the things I originally said about House/Devil. I appreciate the false alarms but they take fuckin a Lord of the Rings trilogy to get there. Other characters such as Leanne Rease-Jones (played by Kelly McGillis) is the equivalent of the guy who always knows about the legend. Leanne plays a healer/medium who senses danger but elects to stay at the creepy hotel anyway. A few more guests make appearances but none add to the overall film.

Finally, I still don't think Ti West knows how to end a film. With such buildup, one demands an ending which can hold up the entire movie. Instead, West goes all conventional and I was a bit disappointed. I'm not looking for some M. Night Shalatwisters, but it still felt a little flat.

But as I said before The Innkeepers is damn fuckin smart. Characters react as I thought I would react, they get nervous, stammer and crack jokes like I would. Call me a horror hipster too. I'm not ashamed. The Innkeepers is a Generation X ode to the horror ghost story that younglings will like but keep us hardcore aged horror fanatics on our toes. I love my nostalgia not remade but repackaged in original creative tales. Ti West has finally made a movie I liked, nay loved. That's a first.

The slow burn horror king has built a kingdom with a unique style, flair and has a treasure room of all those very familiar cliches. Sometimes royalty shares the wealth with the people and Ti West does just that. Hopefully the 99% will see The Innkeepers for the gem that it is.

Nude-ipedia

Sara Paxton shows some leg (she's so damn cute!)

WTF moment

The first encounter with Madeline O'Malley

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

The Innkeepers will premiere on Video in Demand on December 30th, 2011. It'll be in theaters on February 3rd, 2012 courtesy of Magnet Releasing. The film is in conjunction with Dark Sky Films and Larry Fessenden's Glass Eye Pix.

The Innkeepers is definitely going to find a place on my Top 10 of 2011 list. If you're looking for a quality old fashioned spookster, this is the perfect film.

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Categories: 2011 horror movies, ghost stories, horror comedy, independent cinema, indepentent horror, indie film, indie horror, larry fesseden, the house of the devil