Dark Dungeons (2014)

Directed by: L. Gabriel Gonda
Run Time: 40 minutes

A disclaimer before the review. I backed the Kickstarter for this movie. Please keep this in mind while reading my review. With that out of the way let's move on to how the 80's satanic panic lead to the creation of this movie.

In 1983, Patricia Pulling founded Bothered About Dungeon & Dragons (B.A.D.D.) after her son tragically committed suicide a year earlier. She claimed that Dungeons & Dragons was the gateway game to the occult and Satan. A message that resinated with Jack Chick and his ministry. They make cartoon tracts that are meant to be left in random places in the hopes of saving people from evil and hell fire. These tracts are full of religious righteousness but lack logic, research, and real facts. So when Chick Publications made Dark Dungeons tract 1984 it was made in that same spirit. The tract claimed that D&D spell were real and could be used to corrupt and effect others, meetings with robed cult members at higher player character levels, and committing suicide if your character dies are just a few of the evil things about D&D.

Now the end of this story should be that the tract was a joke in role playing circles but J.R. Ralls had other ideas. After winning a thousand dollars in the lottery, Ralls wrote Jack Chick to buy the movie rights to Dark Dungeons and adapt the tract as close as possible into a movie. For some reason they said yes and then the magic of making a movie happened.

The story follows Debbie and Marcie. Two born again freshmen university students who are looking forward their time at school. After their orientation session, an older student Mike, warns the girls about the popular kids on campus and how getting involved with them will only lead to problems. At this university all the popular students play role playing games. Despite the warning the girls accept an invite from the role playing group to attend a party. It starts out like another normal party with loud music, alcohol, and photogenic people showing off how photogenic they are. With the party this exciting, everyone feels it's time to shut off the music and quietly watch a group of people describe what they are doing while rolling dice.

This starts Debbie and Marcie's corruption into Satanism and evil. Also, Debbie and Marcie's friendship starts to have problems as Debbie is selected to learn real magic and be one of the popular role players. Things get even worse when Marcie's character gets killed, kicked out of the role playing group, and ends up killing herself. Distraught over her friend's death, Debbie is at a loss as to what she should do next when Mike comes back into the picture. He has been praying and fasting for Debbie and he has a way to free her from this evil. She has to accept Jesus into her life and burn all her D&D stuff in a big bonfire.

Overall it is an okay movie. There is a lot of inside jokes in the movie that detracts from the overall enjoyment of the movie. Examples would be knowing about the insanity that are Chick tracts and various incidents that people have blamed on D&D. It's worth a watch but don't go out of your way to find this unless this sounds like your thing.


MVP: Possessing the balls to buy the rights for this thing and make just as insane as the original source material.



Make or Break: The unexplained references and inside gamer jokes did a lot to take me out of the film.

Score: 4.5 out of 10

Wolfcop (2014)

Directed by: Lowell Dean
Runtime: 79 minutes

This review is getting done a few months later than I had hoped. No time like now to correct this and talk about an awesome Canadian horror comedy film.

After a bizarre opening credits sequence the audience is introduce to Lou Garou. Lou is a deputy sheriff to the Woodhaven Sheriff's office and a burned out, alcoholic train wreck of a human being. The townspeople of Woodhaven have the same respect for Lou as he does for himself. Which is none at all. His job is just as bad as the people he serves. His boss the Chief is a hard ass and the other deputy sheriff Tina is better at her job than Lou is.

A call comes in from Willie, the town weirdo, about some odd things happening behind is gun shop. Lou goes over to investigate these claims and it looks a lot like bored teenagers making pentagrams to piss off their parents. Lou decides to be a professional and goes to the local cultural center for more information. Which consists of him sitting on his butt at the bar and drinking the rest of his shift away. This plan goes badly when the town's criminal element and the crusading mayoral candidate Terry Wallace both come into the bar to disrupt a quite day of drinking. Terry starts making a speech and the bar crowd yells at him and his supporters to leave.

Hours later Lou is just about to finish his hard day of drinking and protecting but another call comes in. Those kids are back behind Willie's place causing problems again. So Lou goes to investigate and stumbles on a coven of Satanists. Who promptly knock Lou out and make him part of their weird ritual that involves killing Terry. Lou wakes up in his own bed and thinks he just had a weird dream. Until he finds upside down pentagram craved into his chest. But that is not the only weird thing about him, he can get rid of his five o'clock shadow, his sense of smell has improved to the point of super human, and he kind of gives a damn about his job.

That same morning Terry is found killed by some sort of wild animal. This killing gets both Lou and Tina thinking about a similar event that happened over twenty years ago. Tina's father went missing and was never seen again and Lou's father went to find him only to be killed by some strange animal. Much later Lou goes somewhere he can think out things and sort things out. Yes he is in the bar getting drunk. However things are not right, the bar is closing early and Lou's alcohol tolerance has disappeared. Also some hired goons are in the process of kidnapping Lou. Unfortunately for the goons Lou is transforming into a werewolf with awesome practical effects.

The next morning Lou finds himself in a weird bed and handcuffed. Turns out he turned into a werewolf, killed most of the hired goons, and then was wandering the town in drunk blackout. Until Willie shot him with enough tranquiler darts to drop an elephant. Willie decides to study Lou's new condition and Lou volunteers to take the night shift so he can lock himself in one of the holding cells when the night comes. That night Lou again goes through an impressive practical werewolf transformation. This time around Lou is sober, a werewolf, and bored out of his mind. So when a call of an armed robbery comes into the station, Lou gets dressed, starts drinking, and starts enforcing the law.

A local gang that wears pig masks has been terrorizing the town in unstoppable crime spree. Tonight the piggy gang are robbing the local Booze and Donuts. So Lou and Willie show up and Lou either kills or scares the piggy gang out of existence. Fueled by a renewed love his job and alcohol inspires Lou to convert his squad car into the wolfmobile. Then to celebrate his new found love of murdering criminals and kind of enforcing the law, Lou and Willie go visit a meth lab. And Lou proceeds to kill most of the goons and leads to the destruction of the lab.

As the conclusion draws near more mysteries get explained and Lou has more fun being a werewolf and a cop. The end itself is entertaining and does not end in the predictable and cliche standard way cop comedies usually ends.

I have no problem recommending this movie. It is fun, weird, and has impressive practical werewolf transformation. At the time of this being posted there is only a UK blu-ray release of this movie that I am aware of and a North American release scheduled for March 2015.

MVT: Lou in the local library researching Woodhaven's odd history and standing up and shouting "Hey, do you have any books on satanism?"

Make or Break: What makes this movie for me is the use of practical effects and cgi is used when needed.

Score: 8.75 out of 10

The Gays (2014)

Bob Gay-Paris (Chris Tanner), the transsexual matriarch of the titular family (which includes dad Rod played by Frank Holliday and younger son Tommy played by Flip Jorgensen), rolls through an extensively demented monologue for her baby boy Alex (soon to be played by Mike Russnak, but here played by the camera).  She has grand plans for her son, from rivaling Jeff Stryker to “master[ing] the tambourine” and with a hell of a lot in between.  Forward to “present day” 1997, where Alex and Kevin (Nicholas Wilder) meet at a local bar and strike up a conversation.  While nursing their beers, Alex lets Kevin in on the philosophy his family practices as well as preaches.

The Gays is writer/director T.S. Slaughter’s second feature, and it’s certainly an interesting piece of work.  Its central conceit is that the scenes wherein the family interacts with one another are sending up traditional family sitcoms.  But I think it’s not so much concerned with the form of the sitcom and its tropes as it is with the content.  The filmmakers here eschew a typical sitcom three-camera setup, and while we get similar framing for various scenes set in the same rooms, this movie gravitates toward more cinematic shooting and editing, especially in the scenes set at home.  Here much of the camera work is handheld, and they’re not afraid to shoot from low angles.  The use of jump cuts during continuous action (I’m thinking here of a spectacularly overwrought fit that Bob throws) and the repetition of phrases in fast succession fracture time and emphasize mood in ways regular sitcoms would never do.  Surprisingly, I only counted two sequences where a laugh track was included.  Conversely, the scenes in the bar are those closest in approach to standard sitcom form.  These scenes are also the oases of sanity amidst the rest of the film’s action, and Kevin acts as the incredulous audience member trying to process what he and we are witnessing.  As counterpoint to the scenes with the Gays, it’s a pretty smart move. 

 

Traditionally, family sitcoms are concerned with teaching life lessons, and this film is no different.  Nonetheless, the lessons Rod and Bob impart to their sons, while they could definitely be considered life lessons, are more about raising Alex and Tommy to be gay sociopaths.  I’ll give you a few examples.  After Alex neglects taking sexual advantage of his friend Billy (Roberto Larancuent) during a sleepover, Rod makes Alex get into “the Sling” and then has Billy fuck him.  This is shot undercranked (or I guess we can just say sped up for stuff now shot on digital, couldn’t we?) and set to Gioachino Rossini’s William Tell Overture.  Alex’s straight friend Chris (Matthew Benjamin) is forced to fellate Rod as a thank you for dinner and also because Alex is always forced to watch football when they’re at Chris’ house.  The boys are taught all about the perineum (that space between a man’s scrotum and anus, also known as the “taint” [the pronunciation I’ve always known it as rather than “haint,” which seems more popular in some circles, but I digress…]).  This inbred insanity is reinforced particularly (for me) by off-kilter, extreme closeups of Bob cackling like The Cryptkeeper (okay, maybe not quite that shrill).  

The behavior of the Gays is presented as untethered, not only to the viewers watching the movie but also to Kevin, a member of the gay community.  He can barely believe what he’s hearing.  So, even to other gays the Gays are considered kind of abnormal, and I think this is a comment on the way homosexuality is often portrayed in popular culture.  Additionally, it’s a sensory smack to the back of the head for the ignorati who genuinely (no matter how inexplicably) believe that this is the sort of thing that gay people actually do at home.  By extension, then, it’s also a satirical retort to the people who think that gay marriage perverts and destroys “traditional family values.”  But in the same way that the work of John Waters revels in its trashiness, Slaughter and company embrace the absurdities they put forth.

Now, The Gays is far from a perfect film, and it is absolutely not for everyone.  It’s quite graphic, and makes no bones (pardon the pun) about being so.  There are glimmers of visual skill on display, but they’re also inconsistent.  While this is an expectation of movies shot with little to no budget, it doesn’t prevent such things from standing out.  Furthermore, the scenes which are the most fun to watch can also be the toughest to take.  And it’s not the ideas.  Many of the ideas here are great, including a Brady Bunch theme song parody titled “Each Other’s Lunch,” a board game mashup of Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit called Eat A Pussy Or Be A Pussy, and a Christmas scene which proves to be most instructive for the lads.  The problem for me is much the same as the problem that I have with a lot of Troma’s output.  All these antics tend to be a bit of an onslaught over time, and if that’s something you’re not predisposed to, it can be off-putting.  Thankfully, Slaughter never goes quite far enough to completely wear out his welcome, and the belly laughs his film generates are honestly earned.

 

MVT:  Slaughter shows off some nice filmmaking chops, and if nothing else, his work here is largely successful in its ambitiousness.  

Make or Break:  There is a riff on The Exorcist that is funny, revolting, and witty all at the same time.  You can feel here that the filmmakers have a fondness for the source material, and it doesn’t come off as cynical like a lot of these things tend to do.

Score:  6.25/10

For more info about The Gays, visit their website:  http://thegaysmovie.com/index.html

Midnite Ride #31: Alleluia and Nightcrawler

Time for another Midnite Ride!!!

Large William discusses Alleluia (2014) directed by Fabrice du Welz and Nightcrawler (2014) directed by Dan Gilroy.

Direct download: MidniteRideAllNight.mp3 

 

Emails to midnitecinema@gmail.com

Adios!!!

Midnite Ride #30: The Guest

Welcome to another Midnite Ride!!!

This week Large William is joined by an all-star stable of Gents for a chat about Adam Wingard's The Guest (2014).

Direct download: TheGuestMR.mp3 

 

Emails to midnitecinema@gmail.com

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Midnite Ride #29: The Keeping Room and Pasolini

Welcome to the Modnite Ride at TIFF!!!

Large William discusses The Keeping Room (2014) directed by Daniel Barber and Pasolini (2014) directed by Abel Ferrara!!!

Direct download: MidniteRide_29_The_Keeping_Room_and_Pasolini.mp3 

 

Emails to midnitecinema@gmail.com

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GGtMC at TIFF: '71

The GGtMC brings you a review of '71 (2014) directed by Yann Demange.

Direct download: tiff71.mp3 

 

Emails to midnitecinema@gmail.com

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GGtMC at TIFF: Black Souls

The GGtMc talks about Black Souls (2014) directed by Francesco Munzi.

Direct download: tiffBlackSouls.mp3 

 

Emails to midnitecinema@gmail.com

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GGtMC At TIFF 2014: The World of Kanako

Welcome to film coverage of the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival with the GGtMC!!!

Large William and Scott from Married with Clickers bring you coverage of The World of Kanako (2014) directed by Tetsuya Nakashima.

Direct download: GGtMCattiff2014-Kanako.mp3

Emails to midnitecinema@gmail.com

Adios!!!

Episode #301: Scanner Raid

Welcome back!!!

This week we are sponsored by diabolikdvd.com and it was Large William's turn to program the big show. Films covered this week are Scanners (1981) directed by david Cronenberg and The Raid 2: Berandal (2014) directed by Gareth Evans!!!

Direct download: ggtmc_301.mp3 

 

Emails to midnitecinema@gmail.com

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The Lock In (2014)

Directed by: no one was listed at time of writing.

Produced by: Holy Moly Pictures 

Runtime: 98 minutes

I learned about this movie from an online news site that likes to report on the more offbeat things. The headline for this movie compared this movie to The Room. Being an idiot I went out and bought this movie expecting a train wreck just like The Room.

This is The Room. It is an amazing train wreck of a movie. It is incompetently edited, has insane direction and things happen without rhyme or reason. It also has lots of passion and charm that makes it a memorable train wreck.

This is The Lock In. Or rather this is me holding an empty bourbon bottle because The Lock In is streaming on demand and does not have a dvd release. This is a competently made film that understand the horror genre, and understands how to make a believable found footage film. Yes The Lock In has a different message but it conveys this message better than The Room could ever hope to do. Well I bought the ticket so let me take you on the ride that is The Lock In.

Since this movie is not twenty years old, I usually try to write a spoiler free review. However, four minutes in to the movie it spoils itself. So just to let you know the rest of this review is full of spoilers.

The movie opens with former youth pastor Chris explaining that the footage the viewer is about to see is disturbing. So disturbing that he quit being a youth pastor and took up selling insurance. Then he says the most horrifying thing in the whole movie, all the kids involved in the footage live.

This leads into the movie's title card and introduces the main characters. Due to not really caring and the rushed pace the movie introduced the main characters I did not really get the characters names. So I will just use the nicknames I gave them from my notes. The movie rapidly introduces Born Loser, Camera Guy and Mr. Mugging. Born Loser get lectured a lot for things he either didn't do or for things that are not as big an issue. Camera Guy is behind the camera eighty percent of the film and then there is Mr. Mugging. Every time the camera goes near Mr. Mugging this tool is trying his best to be annoying and is a great success at this. Most of my notes about this movie involve wanting this character to die horribly in this film.

The trio are going to a church lock in. A lock in is where a bunch of kids get locked in a church overnight and play games and do youth related stuff. Mr. Mugging thinks that this night will be epic and wants the events filmed. So Camera Guy and Mr. Mugging go pick up Born Loser and Mr. Mugging proceeds to cause problems for Born Loser. Mr. Mugging nearly shouts about how Born Loser had pizza and studied with a girl. This leads to Born Loser's parents taking him aside and giving him a lecture about the evils of premarital sex.

The plot starts to move again as the trio make their way to the church lock in. However, Mr. Mugging hasn't been annoying in two minutes and guilts the other two into cleaning his car. So they pull up to the nearest dumpster and end up finding an adult magazine.Mr. Mugging thinks it is a brilliant idea to hide the magazine in Born Loser's stuff. This plan goes about as well as most barely thought out ideas, the magazine is found and the trio get in trouble. Though Mr. Mugging does make himself human and likable by admitting it was his stupid idea but youth pastor Chris is blaming all three of them for the magazine.

So youth pastor Chris and the three protagonists go outside and burn the magazine. Back inside the church, the trio are amazed that they only got a lecture instead of being sent home and ending the movie early. This amazement is brought to an end when the adult magazine returns unexpectedly in Camera Guy's stuff. So the trio run upstairs to throw away this new magazine when everything goes wrong. The trio throw the magazine in the first trash can they can find and the trash can starts moving. Scared the daylights out of them, the trio run down stairs to find all the doors locked and there is no one else in the church.

This starts the bulk of the movie were the protagonists running around the church with the demon appearing at random to scare the trio to another part of the church. I liked how you never get a clear look at the demon in this part of the movie but it would have been better if the demon hurt some of them. Like Mr. Mugging for example, he could have used several needless beatings.

My pettiness and blood lust have nothing to do with the plot so back to the plot. As the trio are trying to escape the church and the demon they run into the girl that Born Loser likes. There is more running and not a lot of Mr. Mugging being injured. At one point they hide in a kitchen and Token Female Interest reveals that her parents divorce was caused by the images pornography put in her father's head. After some pointless dialog and a short nap, Token Female Interest hears her friend at the door and foolishly opens the door and is pulled out of the scene and the rest of the movie.

The idiots three decide to go running around some more and end up in a office with video camera setup. Like all normal people trapped in a church with a demon they do the most logical thing and watch the footage on the camera. The camera is being used to record a counseling secession of some guy who is dealing with porn addiction. After a few minutes of the addict explaining his on going problems with porn addiction the pastor leaves the frame and then things get weird. The guy looks into the camera and starts talking to the trio by name with a demonic voice.

This leads to the best part of the whole movie, Mr Mugging gets so scared that he leaves the group. Sadly this act does not lead to his grisly destruction but I will take victory where I can. Camera Guy and Born Loser run away and take shelter in a broom closet. The camera is running low on power at this point so the light on the camera goes out and the two of them take a quick nap. When Camera guy gets the camera up and running he find that Born Loser is gone.

Now Camera Guy is on his own and goes wandering around to find a way out and other people. Instead he finds and confront the demon, none of this is shown. There is  lots of yelling and growling but nothing is shown. Somehow Camera Guy gets away and runs into the main part of the church where everyone is sitting looking sleep deprived. They are all puzzled as to why he is talking nonsense about everyone missing an demons. As far as they know, he was with the group of kids the entire night and just left to go to the bathroom only to come back ranting and raving crazy nonsense.

The final scene is of the trio talking in the not dead Mr. Mugging's car. Born Loser and Mr. Mugging don't doubt that Camera Guy what he had experienced but they don't remember any of the events he is talking about.  He gets dropped off at his house and films himself throwing out his collection of adult magazines that he collected by dumpster diving. Then the movie just abruptly ends without credits.

MVT: Underneath the message there is a horror film begging to be let out. The writer of this movie understands horror and with a rewrite or two and a budget this would be an amazing horror film.

Make or Break: What makes this movie for me is the technical competence. Cgi is used sparsely and only when there is no budget for practical effects. Character conversations are framed so that you can see who is talking to who. As for breaking, the purpose and tone is what broke this movie for me. This is a film aimed at teenagers and goes out of it's way to try to speak to teenagers. This makes watching for entertainment rather difficult especially if you are in your thirties.

Score: 1.4 out of 10