Reviews
Brigham City (2001)
Fascism in the name of Jesus is still fascism
It's difficult to watch Richard Dutcher's very capable and entertaining, `Brigham City,' without choking on the intended Mormon zeitgeist that permeates the story. Dutcher goes to considerable length to successfully portray Mormons as loving, decent, church-going friends and neighbors as justification for suspending constitutional rights and imposing a theocracy.
Dutcher plays Wes Clayton, Sheriff of a fictional small town in Utah called Brigham City. Clayton is also the `Bishop' for Mormons in that area, which makes him unquestionably the most influential man in town. A widower who lost his wife and only son in a traffic accident years ago, Clayton is permanently saddened by the loss. Dutcher portrays him with a kindly stoicism, a righteous man who takes both his sacred and secular responsibilities seriously.
When a young woman from California is found murdered in an old barn on the outskirts of town, Clayton calls in the FBI and washes his hands of the investigation, telling his enthusiastic young deputy that this has nothing to do with Brigham City, that it was a random act that could have happened on any number of freeway off ramps. It's something Clayton desperately wants to believe; that Brigham City is a paradise of the faithful and as a result enjoys a divine immunity from the evil `out there' in the world. His duty as both Sheriff and Bishop is to keep it that way. Unfortunately, a second body is discovered, and Clayton is forced to realize that his `Eden' has been invaded by the outside world, and his duty now requires him to get involved.
His ensuing investigation makes your skin crawl. Clayton's methodology is autocratic and fascist. His first suspicion is that the murderer must be an outsider or a `Jack Mormon;' consequently, he and his deputies hang out at the only bar in town, collecting beer bottles and glasses to dust for fingerprints, hoping for a match from the FBI database. When the town's convenience store clerk disappears, Clayton ratchets up the police state, using his authority as Bishop to order church members to go out two by two, as in their missionary days, and search every house in town, lack of a search warrant notwithstanding. When one of them objects by saying he has to be at work, Clayton responds that nothing is more important than the life of the missing girl. When one of the town members rightfully refuses to allow a search of her house, he forces his way in.
Despite deep faith, good intentions, and concern for another human life, fascism in the name of Jesus is still fascism. Clayton's heavy-handedness is precisely why the Bill of Rights exists. While `Brigham City' is a good movie in terms of characterization and story, it is also a very frightening parable about the dangers of religion, and remarkably parallels our nation's attitude and course of action in the aftermath of September 11th. Essentially, `Brigham City' is a microcosm of what the christian right ultimately envisions as America's future, and it's no place where I'd want to live.
Dagon (2001)
Catholics abandon faith and become Kevin Costner from Waterworld
'Dagon' is a nicely filmed, atmospheric, technically competent production by the guy who gave us 'Re-Animator.' It just isn't a very good movie. Two couples, Howard and Vicki, and Paul and Barbara, recently stinking rich (from what were never told), celebrate on a boat not far from a Spanish fishing village. When a preternatural storm blows the boat onto the rocks, seriously injuring Vicki, Barbara and Paul go ashore in a rubber raft seeking help. They find instead a town of very inhospitable people who are slowly metamorphosing into fish, sort of much nastier versions of Kevin Costner's Mariner from Waterworld. Some have webbed hands, some have gills, some don't talk as much as make guttural sounds strangely reminiscent of the sewer creatures from Lucas Arts', 'Dark Forces' video game, and one, High Priestess, Uxia, the gorgeous Macarena Gomez, has a human torso with octopus legs (bummer). The one thing they all share in common is hatred of outsiders. They like to skin them alive and wear their faces as masks (don't ask, they never really say why). A flashback reveals that they were all once good Catholics who rejected Christianity when their fishing nets started turning up empty in favor of Dagon (rhymes with pagan), a sea-god who gave them fish and lots of gold. Dagon, as we discover, demands worship and occasional sacrifices, preferably young, nubile, naked women, and Barbara certainly fills the bill. After she is taken to be prepped for sacrifice, we're unfortunately left with Paul, whom Ezra Godden plays with all the finesse of a community theater actor. With his horn-rimmed glasses and whiny, Woody Allen persona, why would Barbara be attracted to him? His strongest acting techniques are delivering his lines and mugging for the camera. It's too bad more time couldn't be spent finding a more capable lead - the production clearly had a budget - and patching up some the gaping plot holes and contrivances in the story.
Killer Instinct (2001)
Hey, nice box cover!
This steaming turd of a 'film,' scripted by a TV writer whose only other credit is 'The New Lassie,' and directed by truck driver-cum-director, Ken Barbet, with all the subtlety of. Well, a truck driver, gives soft-porn thrillers a bad name. A group of attractive young people - four boys and four nymphets - play a game of 'find the panties' in a deserted insane asylum. They take off their clothes, have sex, take showers, and - Horrors! - get picked off one by one. Turns out that they're all descendants of a mob that, years ago, lynched a man who escaped from or owned (I kept dozing off) the very same insane asylum. Dee Wallace and Corbin Bernsen slum in this absolute waste of time, presumably for a paycheck.
The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Amateurish Home Video
Grossly overhyped, The Blair Witch Project is an astoundingly lethal bore that spends much of its eighty minutes giving viewers motion sickness from its "cinematography." Most of the movie is video that's been transferred to film with occasional clips from a 16 mm B&W camera. Nothing is more painful than watching violently moving, blurred, extreme close ups of the ground. As for the story, three Gen-X "filmmakers" set out to document a local legend, get lost in the woods, scream obscenities at each other, and then die. I have two suggestions for Myrick and Sanchez's next project: a tripod and a subscription to Videomaker Magazine.
The Mummy (1999)
Raiders of the Lost City of the Dead
I thoroughly enjoyed watching this movie. Production values are first rate, and the computer generated images are extremely well done. The characters are fun to watch and Arnold Vosloo as Imhotep made a great villain. However, the scriptwriting was lazy at best, and incompetent at worst. If Imhotep was really that powerful and evil, why make it so easy for him to come back? It's like catching a serial killer, putting him in jail, and then leaving the keys to his cell within arm's reach. Some "mumbo jumbo" during the set up was needed to explain why they simply couldn't kill Imhotep and turn him into sausage. Go see the movie, just leave your brain at home.