Reviews

Just watched Gaia a couple nights back. Overall, I liked it. The film belongs to an important sub-genre that I hope more directors play with: environmental horror. Jaco Bouwer - the director of Gaia - is definitely talented. He delivers some pretty heavy statements about the abusive relationship between humanity and Nature, and the paradox of Nature appearing distinctly alive in the face of climate change. But he manages to do this in a fun and entertaining way, without talking over our heads or berating us with his ideas. Most importantly, he doesn't assign blame to any single party in the film. Everyone takes their turn as monster in a world where Nature and human society are inextricably intertwined. Pointing fingers is just a distraction from dealing with the problems at hand.

What are the problems? Overpopulation, pollution, rampant consumption of resources. In response to these issues, Nature develops a biophysical defense mechanism that infests humans and turns them into the Nature they are destroying. To better understand what is happening, the characters of the film take mushrooms to tap into the mind of Gaia, the 'global brain.' One character becomes obsessed with the technology of revelation (the mushroom) and starts worshipping it. His idolatry and addiction soon leads him to sacrifice his only living son so that he can continue being favored by the mushroom, and spared the fate of becoming the mushroom. If that sounds complicated, it's because it is. But don't worry - Gaia is fun to watch with some amazing creature design and effects. I recommend.

Peter Jackson's "Heavenly Creatures" is one of my favorite queer horror films. Based on true events, the movie concerns a murder carried out by two young girls (ages 15 and 16) who used a rock to crush the skull of one of their mothers. The girls served 5 years in prison before getting paroled - under the condition that they never meet again. The Parker Hulme Case is well known in New Zealand, occupying a prominent place in the nation's history of notorious crimes.

Jackson decided to dramatize the story because he felt it was gravely misunderstood. When the murder happened back in 1952, criminal psychology was still a primitive science in New Zealand. Lacking a rational explanation for the girls' actions, the media branded them as evil, lesbian psychopaths - a stigma that endured for decades. Jackson's film discredits that stigma, portraying the girls as two young outsiders, both highly intelligent with active imaginations, who lean on each other to cope with unhappy realities in their lives (clueless parents, tyrannical teachers, stifling social norms). The girls share a powerful bond, punctuated by long embraces and awkward kisses. Whether that bond is sexual or platonic in nature should be nobody's business. Unfortunately, it was a different time. Young women who engaged in socially unacceptable sexual activities - including lesbian practices - could be punished (e.g. Lesbians were sometimes sent to psych hospitals for frontal lobe surgery, which essentially turned them into vegetables and destroyed their lives). Disturbed by their closeness, the girls' parents decided to separate them for "their own good." Only then, when faced with the terrifying prospect of losing each other, did the girls plan and commit murder.

This movie really moved me. Perhaps because I see so much of myself in its lead characters. I was a loner and a dreamer, and I was bullied for being gay. Still, my situation wasn't so bad. I had a supportive family and small circle of friends. Plus, prevailing attitudes about homosexuality were much more accepting than what existed in the 50s. If I'd been born in a different time, and subjected to the right mix of circumstances, I'm sure what happened to these women could've happened to me.

Heavy doses of crass humor. A dash of C-grade gore-effects. One or two pairs of boobs. And a smattering of comic books references. That my friends is the recipe for Toxic Avenger.

Shot in New Jersey for a meager $500K by Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz, the Toxic Avenger series has earned millions for the founders of Troma since its premiere in 1984. All but ignored at first, the film slowly developed a cult following after an extended run of midnight showings at the Bleeker Street Theater in NYC. This, coupled with regular cable broadcasts and several home video releases, is how Toxic Avenger became the movie that introduced Troma to the world. Its profits have generated three sequels (really two since the first sequel was so long it got cut in half and released as two separate films), a children's Saturday morning cartoon (Toxic Crusaders, made possible by the success of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles which helped mutants go mainstream), a straight-to-video feature using edited content from the cartoon, two independent stage musicals as well as an off-Broadway adaptation (that won numerous awards from reputable critics), and a mountain of merchandise including comic books, action figures, books, and video games. And now there are rumblings of a reboot from Legendary, directed by Macon Blair (Blue Ruin, Green Room) and starring Peter Dinklage as our beloved paladin of putrescence. And it's all thanks to a campy little low-budget horror-comedy with ties to Marvel Comics.

For those of you who haven't seen it (and what are you waiting for???), The Toxic Avenger is about an unsympathetic spaz named Melvin Junko (aka Melvin Ferd) who mops up after elitist, sadomasochistic jocks at a health club in Tromaville aka the "toxic waste dumping capital of the world" aka New Jersey. After Melvin accidentally dumps some slop water on the jocks, they get revenge by playing a prank (involving a tutu and a sheep) that goes awry and sends Melvin tumbling into a vat of radioactive sludge. After much melting and burning, Melvin develops super-human strength and becomes a local hero and protector of the downtrodden and victimized.

Finally watched "Fire In The Sky" - the 1993 film about the alleged alien abduction of Travis Walton. On 11-5-1975, Walton was working on a 7-man logging crew in Arizona. At dusk, the men were leaving the forest in a pickup when they encountered a "mind-blowing" golden glow emanating from a disc-shaped UFO hovering over a clearing. Walton left the truck and approached the object, which made a high-pitched buzzing sound. After ducking behind a log to watch the object from a distance, Walton was struck by an energy discharge that sent him reeling and left him unconscious. His coworkers fled the scene. When they returned for him later, Walton was gone. The men reported the incident to the police who initially suspected them of murder. The cops soon decided the whole thing was a hoax, assuming Walton would show up in a few days.

Walton claims he woke up in a strange ship on a table surrounded by aliens. They were hairless, bug-eyed, expressionless, and mute. Walton panicked & started attacking them, punching and throwing beakers to keep them at bay. The aliens retreated, and a strong, long-haired humanoid male approached. He moved Walton to a different structure, plopping him on another table where a female humanoid placed a mask over his face that knocked him out. When Walton woke up on November 11, he was in the woods 30 miles from his abduction site. He walked to a phone booth and called his sister. Although his experience was harrowing, Walton doesn't think the aliens were malicious.

"Fire In The Sky" sticks to Walton's story for the most part. The omission of humanoids was demanded by anxious execs who felt aliens-in-human-suits was a hackneyed concept. We love the changes. They make the abduction as disturbing & shocking as possible. But you've gotta be patient to get to it. Walton's story is pretty sparse so the filmmakers pad it out with small-town melodrama that happens in his absence. The bulk of the movie focuses on Walton's coworkers who stick to their story in the face of widespread disbelief. It's not great, but not bad either. And the payoff is worth it. The abduction scene is phenomenal w/ jaw-dropping practical effects by ILM.

"Return to Horror High" is a low-budget 80s whodunit meta-slasher about the production of a low-budget whodunit slasher. While this flick has issues (like a non-linear narrative that can be downright difficult to follow), we appreciate that it tries to be different by poking fun at the clichés of the slasher genre (gratuitous nudity, using buckets of blood to compensate for a lack of decent effects, actors leaving for bigger parts, actors playing multiple parts, using celebrities in bit parts and giving them top billing). Many people regard 'Return' as a touchstone of self-referential horror that paved the way for films like 'Behind the Mask,' 'Cabin in the Woods,' and 'Scream.' It's not great, but it's a decent bit of campy, goofy 80s-tastic horror. One of the kill scenes involves a Rube Goldberg death-machine (always a bonus in my eyes). And it gave us one of the most iconic horror posters of all time. I'm pretty sure everyone who was alive in the 80s remembers the skeleton cheerleader on the cover of this VHS box.

Oh, and you get to see George Clooney in his feature debut! He's an actor playing a cop in the movie-within-a-movie who leaves the production after getting hired for a bigger, better project. Sadly, his dreams of Hollywood stardom never come to fruition because he gets killed with a mop bucket.