tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39030871512968552862024-03-13T06:38:01.245-04:00The Official Blog of Daniel S. Duvall-- horror film reviews every autumn --Daniel S. Duvallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18374034011752016390noreply@blogger.comBlogger104125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3903087151296855286.post-80586566838135069842015-10-05T16:09:00.000-04:002015-11-16T17:27:40.080-05:00Silver Bullet<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
SILVER BULLET</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="msonormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: small;">A wildly
entertaining film that Stephen King scripted (based on his novella
Cycle of the Werewolf), Silver Bullet follows a brother and sister
(young Marty and teenager Jane) who live in a small town where
someone authorities describe as “a maniac” has been picking off
residents during full moons. Dense with lycanthropy action (the
antagonist kills four people within the movie's first thirty minutes,
though one death occurs off-screen), the story features some
emotionally gut-wrenching beats (like when the father of a murdered
child confronts the sheriff in a bar). </span></div>
<div class="msonormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: small;"> </span>
</div>
<div class="msonormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The
tale's midpoint consists of a way cool dream sequence set in the
community's church.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="msonormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: small;">One night
Marty is out shooting off fireworks when the werewolf attacks him.
Marty hits the beast in one eye with a rocket and gets away. He
tells Jane what happened, and the next day she canvases the town
looking for someone with only one eye. Soon enough Marty and Jane
know the identity of the werewolf, and they set out (with the help of
their uncle) to kill the beast before it gets them. I won't spoil
the plot beyond this point.</span></div>
<div class="msonormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: small;"> </span>
</div>
<div class="msonormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: small;">In the
foreword to a book that includes the screenplay and the novella on
which it is based, Stephen King writes, “Is the picture any good?
Man, I just can't tell. I'm writing without benefit of hindsight and
from a deeply subjective point of view. You want that point of view?
Okay. I think it's either very good indeed or a complete bust...
After you've been through four drafts plus spot rewrites, the film
itself seems like a hallucination when you first see it.”</span></div>
<div class="msonormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="msonormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Silver
Bullet is a fantastic movie with richly-drawn characters, witty and
realistic dialogue, and a plot that spins along at just the right
pace with plenty of tense and horrifying scenes in which the werewolf
strikes. It ranks alongside Ginger Snaps as one of my favorite
werewolf films. </span></div>
<div class="msonormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: small;"> </span>
</div>
<div class="msonormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Not all
critics agree with me. A review in The Overlook Film Encyclopedia of
Horror states that the project “is half-hearted horror” and says,
“Set in a rural community populated by hysterical, intolerant,
booze-befuddled, trigger-happy rednecks, this displays King's
cynicism about the common people.” Roger Ebert wrote, “I know
that a case can be made for how bad Silver Bullet is. I agree. It's
bad. But it's not routinely bad. It is bad in its own awesomely
tasteless and bubble-brained way...”</span></div>
<div class="msonormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: small;"> </span>
</div>
<div class="msonormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I urge
you to check out Silver Bullet, for I perceive it as a superior
horror movie. It's an anomaly: an R-rated project with kids as the
central characters. That alone sets it apart from the pack. </span>
</div>
Daniel S. Duvallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18374034011752016390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3903087151296855286.post-36198127743798520692015-10-02T17:53:00.000-04:002015-10-02T17:53:41.147-04:00It Follows
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IT FOLLOWS</div>
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With a musical score and visual style
that evoke the vibe of the best aspects of John Carpenter's early
films, the 2015 project It Follows (written and directed by David
Robert Mitchell) tells the tale of Jay, a young woman who lives with
her mom and sister in a suburb. Jay sleeps with a guy who claims
his name is Hugh. The dude then presses a chloroform rag to Jay's
face and knocks her out. When Jay awakens, she's tied to a
wheelchair in a crumbling abandoned parking garage, and Hugh explains
that he has to show her something. He says that he's passed
something on to her, and soon a “thing” (that can look like
anyone) will be following her with the intent of killing her. He
encourages Jay to sleep with someone else to pass “it” to that
person, and he notes that whenever it kills someone it then goes
after the previous person in line; no one who has ever encountered it
is ever safe. The thing shows up in the form of a nude woman, and
Hugh wheels Jay to his car and speeds away. Hugh advises Jay that
the thing is “slow but not stupid.” Hugh dumps Jay in the street
outside her abode, where her allies (sister Kelly and friends Paul
and Yara) rush to help her. Thus begins Jay's ongoing waking
nightmare.</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
At first skeptical of Hugh's story, Jay
goes about her normal life until she spots an eerie old woman
relentlessly walking toward her. Jay flees and next encounters the
thing at her house, at which point she's utterly convinced of its
reality (though her friends and sister don't believe her). Neighbor
Greg drives the group to the abandoned house that Hugh had been
renting, and there (within the pages of a pornographic magazine) they
discover a photo print of “Hugh” with a classmate who sports a letterman jacket. Jay recognizes the school and in a yearbook
finds her assailant, whose real name is Jeff. Jay and her posse go
to his house, where (out in the yard) Jeff spouts more exposition and
advises Jay to buy some time by driving somewhere. Greg takes the
group to an isolated beachfront property where his dad used to take
him hunting. There Kelly, Paul, and Yara become convinced of the
thing's reality when it (invisible to all but the afflicted) attacks
Jay from behind; Paul breaks a chair over the entity, which shoves
him back with preternatural force. Greg (who had been off peeing and
missed the assault) remains the only skeptic after the group escapes.
Jay takes off in Greg's car, crashes, and winds up in the hospital
where she sleeps with Greg to pass along the curse. To describe the
plot from this point on would be to deprive a first-time viewer of
some of the story's best frightening moments.</div>
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<br />
</div>
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With an oddly-paced third act that's
laced with a large degree of ambiguity, It Follows is not a perfect
film, but it's an enthralling ride that pulls you through a
tension-filled journey that largely takes place in an environment
generally associated with safety and the American dream (the
suburbs). Jay and her friends are pleasant characters to spend time
with; there's a bit of business involving a fart early in the
narrative that reveals how comfortable these kids are around each
other, and it's a fine moment of levity to balance out the grim tone
of the prologue (which reveals what can happen when the thing catches
up to a victim). The soundtrack features synthesized rhythms that
are as driving and unrelenting as the antagonist. It Follows is a
singular project that filled me with dread the first time I watched
it (at the movie theater in the spring) as I rooted for Jay to find
some way, any way, to escape the seemingly unstoppable entity.
Having just revisited the story on Blu-ray, I can testify that It
Follows is even better the second time around, and I imagine it'll
hold up to repeat viewings over the years ahead. The “monster”
of It Follows is wholly unique and thought-provoking. I look forward
to whatever cinematic yarn David Robert Mitchell spins next, and I
hope he remains in the horror genre (his debut film, The Myth of the
American Sleepover, is a straight-up ensemble drama). It Follows:
utterly marvelous.
</div>
Daniel S. Duvallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18374034011752016390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3903087151296855286.post-28737970105232579802015-09-11T06:03:00.001-04:002015-09-11T06:05:45.122-04:00Invitation to Hell<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
INVITATION TO HELL</div>
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A charming but unintentionally silly
made-for-television movie that aired on ABC in May of 1984,
Invitation to Hell (directed by Wes Craven from a script by Richard
Rothstein) follows suburbanite Matthew Winslow's efforts to resist
constant pressure to become a member at Steaming Springs Country Club
in the community he's just moved to with his wife Pat and two young
children (Chrissy and Robbie). Quoted in Brian J. Robb's book
Screams & Nightmares, Craven described the project: “The
premise was that Susan Lucci was a woman who ran a country club that
was attracting all the executives from these high-tech agencies, but
she was really the Devil and the steam room was the entrance to hell,
if you can believe that.”</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
As the tale begins, everything's
looking up for the Winslows. In the first thirteen minutes, the
family moves into a pleasant new abode and enjoys a visit from Matt's
old fraternity buddy Tom Peterson, who works at Micro-Digitech (the
company where Matt's just been hired). Via a scene at Matt's
laboratory the next day, the viewer learns that Matt's working on
fine-tuning a spacesuit intended to be used for a mission to Venus
(the suit can withstand extreme temperatures, features built-in
weapons, and scans the surrounding environment for threats). Six
minutes later, Matt crosses paths with Jessica Jones (director of the
Steaming Springs Country Club) for the first time when their cars
nearly collide. A couple of minutes later, Jessica initiates Tom
Peterson and his family into the club by ushering them through a
doorway into a dense cloud of steam while saying, “Enter the spring
and taste its power.” Twenty-six minutes in, Matt finds himself
pressured by his boss (Harry) to join the club, and two minutes later
Jessica (who has inexplicably stopped by Matt's workplace) also
encourages Matt to join. The pressure to conform continues as
newly-initiated Tom (who has been promoted) invites Matt to explore
all the club has to offer. Four minutes later, Matt's wife Pat
(envious of the new car that Tom's wife drives) asks Matt to join the
club. Apparently sick of all the pressure, five minutes later Matt
takes Pat to the club, where Tom and Jessica take them around to see
the sights. Matt strays away and ventures into the foyer of the
steam room, but Jessica interrupts him before he discovers that Hell
lays beyond a locked door. Around the story's midpoint, Pat and her
kids join the club without Matt and (after agreeing that they
“forsake all for the club”) go through that door. The next day,
the Winslow's dog (Albert) growls at Pat and the kids. Matt notices
marked personality changes in his family, and near the one hour mark
Pat asks her husband to “just give us a little bit more of
yourself.” Seventy minutes in, Matt (now certain that there's a
connection between the club and his family's turn to the dark side)
returns to the steam room and measures the temperature beyond the
forbidden door: it's eight-hundred degrees fahrenheit. Matt returns
home (after apparently murdering a security guard who caught him at
the steam room) and finds Chrissy beating her plush toy bunny with a
crowbar. “You're not my daughter,” Matt realizes, and he locks
his kids in a closet and incapacitates his wife. Matt goes to his
lab, steals the experimental spacesuit, and heads to the club (where
conveniently there's a Halloween costume party in full swing). At
the eighty-one minute mark, Matt ventures into Hell. A ten-minute
sequence in the underworld sports some truly trippy imagery, and Matt
ultimately rescues his real family. Back home, Matt ventures outside
where neighbors chatter about a massive fire that has burned the club
down. The project runs just over ninety-three minutes
before the end credits.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I made TV movies to pay the bills
and keep the lights on in my office – they don't represent my body
of work,” Wes Craven once said (as quoted in the book Screams &
Nightmares).
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Invitation to Hell may have been
intended as a satire about materialism and conformity. Patricia
Winslow (who pines for new furniture, a piano, and a better car)
literally loses her soul until her husband brings her back from Hell.
Whatever the ambitions of the project's writer (Richard Rothstein),
the final product is worth a look if only to marvel at the
hairstyles and primitive computers of the eighties (and of course to
enjoy the ten-minute sequence set in Hell). The project has solid
production values largely courtesy of the director of photography
(Dean Cundey, most famous for his work on John Carpenter projects
including Halloween and The Fog).
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Invitation to Hell is neither
terrifying nor thought-provoking, but it is fun and entertaining.
</div>
Daniel S. Duvallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18374034011752016390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3903087151296855286.post-24275868988015466622015-09-10T06:26:00.000-04:002015-09-10T06:26:44.817-04:00Shocker
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SHOCKER</div>
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</div>
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Even if you overlook its myriad shoddy
special effects, the 1989 film Shocker (written and directed by Wes
Craven) falls apart the further along the plot goes, which is a shame
as the first act is rather gripping. The story follows a college
football player named Jonathan Parker who awakens from a dream in
which his foster mother and step-siblings are murdered by a
television repairman named Horace Pinker. Jonathan then receives a
phone call informing him that his family really is dead. He tells
his cop father about the dream, and eventually Pinker's captured (but
not before he brutally slaughters the protagonist's girlfriend
Alison). The movie's most gut-wrenching image appears nearly
twenty-seven minutes into the tale when Jonathan sees Alison's corpse
in a tub full of bloody water. At the forty-two minute mark,
Pinker's execution goes all wrong. Turns out that Pinker (a
practitioner of black magic) has found a way to transfer his spirit
from body to body, and he's hell-bent on taking revenge against
Jonathan (his biological son) for giving his identity away to the
police. Pinker leapfrogs from a doctor to a cop to a jogger to a
young child, and in the film's wittiest moment (about an hour in)
Pinker (in the kid's body) drops an F-bomb. Pinker keeps on hopping
bodies until he somehow develops the ability to travel through pure
electricity. The story spirals into abject silliness ninety-nine
minutes in when Jonathan and Pinker magically hop into a television
and travel from program to program (momentarily appearing in an
episode of Leave it to Beaver). My willing suspension of disbelief
totally snapped when the hero and the antagonist jump out of a
television into a random family's home, and the mother (instead of
being terrified and awestruck) comments, “I've heard of audience
participation shows, but this is ridiculous.” Jonathan somehow
vanquishes Pinker by having his friends sabotage the local power
plant. If you can sort out the logic of this film's third act, send
me an e-mail and let me know how all the pieces fit together.</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
A review in Variety aptly summarized
Shocker's flaws: “<span style="font-weight: normal;">At first glance
(or at least for the first forty minutes) Shocker seems a potential
winner, an almost unbearably suspenseful, stylish and blood-drenched
ride courtesy of writer-director Wes Craven’s flair for action and
sick humor. </span>As it continues, however, the camp aspects simply
give way to the ridiculous while failing to establish any rules to
govern the mayhem.” </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
On one of the Blu-ray's audio
commentary tracks, Craven acknowledges that the special effects are
rough around the edges but never addresses the story's problems. In
the book Shock Masters of the Cinema, interviewer Loris Curci quotes
Craven as saying “I like Shocker.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Upon further reflection, my biggest
problem with the story is that Pinker somehow eluded capture for
quite a long time even though he apparently openly parked his
business van (with “Pinker's Television Repair” plastered on the
side) outside the homes of his victims before he killed them. Surely
an eyewitness would've noticed this vehicle and remembered seeing it
near the crime scene at least once.</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Casual horror fans should steer clear
of Shocker, while Craven completists will be delighted with the
quality of the new Blu-ray (dense with special features and sporting
a fabulous transfer). I wanted to like Shocker given its intriguing
core concept, but its flaws are too numerous to overlook.
</div>
Daniel S. Duvallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18374034011752016390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3903087151296855286.post-65069016665494542522015-09-09T03:02:00.000-04:002015-09-09T03:02:56.330-04:00The Hills Have Eyes 2 (1985 version)
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THE HILLS HAVE EYES 2 (1985 version)</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“The boogeyman's dead,” a
psychiatrist assures Bobby Carter (one of the survivors from the
first Hills Have Eyes) seven minutes into the sequel. Bobby, still
traumatized from the ordeal he endured eight years earlier, has an
intense fear of the desert and opts to not accompany a team of
motorbike racers there even though they'll be testing out a new form
of fuel that he formulated. As the film opens on a closeup of Bobby,
I assumed that he would be the protagonist this time around, but his
role turns out to be little more than a cameo. Indeed, there is no
clear lead character in The Hills Have Eyes 2, and that's one of the
project's many flaws.
</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Whereas the first film was steeped in
realism, Hills 2 (written and directed by Wes Craven) requires
serious suspension of disbelief almost from the get-go. Early on,
the viewer learns that Bobby's wife is Ruby (from the first film's
family of savages), only now she calls herself Rachel and masquerades
as a civilized woman. By a massive coincidence, the racing team
that's going to test Bobby's fuel must attend an event in the desert
not far from where the original film took place. Ruby accompanies
the team on a bus and (twenty-one minutes into the story) agrees
without much protest when the group opts to veer off the paved road
on a shortcut that will lead right to her old stomping grounds. Beast
(one of the dogs from part one) goes on this trip too. The bus
traverses rough terrain, and jagged rocks puncture its fuel tank,
thereby stranding the group (conveniently close to a seemingly
abandoned property that Ruby and the bikers explore in search of
gasoline). Naturally, Pluto (Ruby's brother from part one) appears
and attacks his sister, then scampers off into the desert. At the
thirty-five minute mark, “Rachel” confesses to the others that
she is in fact Ruby from the legendary family of desert cannibals.
Nobody freaks out. Pluto steals one of the motorbikes, and two of
the guys (Harry and Roy) pursue him. The first death occurs fully
forty-two minutes in (nearly at the midpoint) when a large rock falls
and crushes Harry. Four minutes later, Roy (on his bike) ends up
ensnared in a net (Pluto and his ally this time around, a gigantic
fellow known as The Reaper, have developed a knack for constructing
elaborate traps). Cut to nightfall. In the second half of the film,
the deaths occur one after another swiftly. One fellow takes a
massive spear to the chest, and seven minutes later a dude named
Foster gets pulled under the bus and axed in the head. Four minutes
later, The Reaper crushes a girl named Jane in his arms. Within a
minute, he slits the throat of another gal (Sue). Four minutes
later, Pluto plummets to his death. Ruby's fate is unclear, for
around this time she hits her head on a rock and is never seen again.
The only memorable and singular character (a young blind woman named
Cass) fills the “final girl” role and (with the help of another
survivor) outwits The Reaper in a harrowing (if unbelievable)
denouement.
</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
In a 1985 interview with Kim Newman,
Wes Craven explained that the film that reached audiences did not
reflect his artistic vision: “It was not intended to be released as
it was. It was not completed, and I had an agreement that when we'd
finished the initial shoot the producers would cut it together and
we'd see what we needed. Then we'd go shoot for another five or six
days. That was agreed upon but... suddenly they were acting as if
that was the finished film... The whole thing is unfinished. I wasn't
satisfied with the whole ending. There were a couple of main
sequences in the center of the film that didn't quite work. And the
whole opening needed to be shortened drastically.”</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Craven articulates additional reasons
for the project's flaws in this quotation from Brian J. Robb's book
Screams & Nightmares: “It was a much better script, I think,
than the movie turned out to be... It was very underfunded. The
movie was originally budgeted on the first draft of the script, and
the producers said they thought it should be expanded, so I wrote a
much better and bigger script, but the budget stayed the same.”</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Critics have savaged the film. A
review in Variety states that Hills 2 is filled with “dull, formula
terror pic cliches, with one attractive teenager after another picked
off...” In his book about Craven, John Wooley opines that “the
biggest disappointment about Hills 2 is the sense of detachment from
what's happening on the screen, an air of unreality and not the good
kind of unreality.” The Overlook Film Encyclopedia of Horror
concludes, “This perfunctory sequel drops the thematic drive of
pitting two mirror-image families against each other and rehashes the
uninteresting Friday the 13<sup>th</sup> strategy of isolating a
group of teenagers in a rural locale and killing them one by one.”
The comparison to Friday the 13<sup>th</sup> is particularly apt
given that Harry Manfredini composed the scores for many of the films
in that franchise in addition to scoring Hills 2. Also, Kane Hodder
(who would go on to play Jason Voorhees in 1988's Friday the 13<sup>th</sup>
part 7) performed stunts in Hills 2.
</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
A serious missed opportunity to tell
another gripping tale of primal survival, The Hills Have Eyes 2 is a
curious footnote in Wes Craven's oeuvre – a critically-reviled
movie peppered with bits of clever dialogue (“It ain't natural to
be in a place without a disco,” says Foster when talking about
being in the desert). The only film in history in which a dog's
memory appears as a flashback scene (Beast recalls the time in part
one when he nearly killed Pluto by tearing the savage's throat out),
Hills 2 is as derivative as part one was innovative. This project
really does feel like a sub-par eighties slasher film, whereas part
one pushed the envelope and enthralled audiences upon its release in
1977. Unless you're a Craven completist, avoid The Hills Have Eyes
2.
</div>
Daniel S. Duvallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18374034011752016390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3903087151296855286.post-62911609340522452892015-09-08T03:41:00.000-04:002015-09-08T03:43:10.222-04:00The Hills Have Eyes (1977 version)THE HILLS HAVE EYES (1977
version)<br />
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
[A shorter version of this
review originally appeared here in September of 2011.]</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
An auteur film (written and
directed by Wes Craven) about the Carters (a family from Cleveland) whose car
(pulling a camping trailer) crashes in the middle of nowhere en route to Los
Angeles, the 1977 version of The Hills Have Eyes has a slow first half balanced
by a flurry of violent action in the final forty-five minutes. The Carters find
themselves under attack by a savage family that dwells in the hills near the
crash site. There are bloody casualties on both sides before the ordeal ends.
To go into much more detail would be to spoil some of the movie’s finer
surprises.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I set out to have the two
families in The Hills Have Eyes be mirror images of each other so I could
explore the different sides of the human personality – the two brothers being
the [antithesis] of each other within the bounds of popular entertainment,” Craven
once said (as quoted by Brian J. Robb in the book Screams & Nightmares).
The Overlook Film Encyclopedia of Horror suggests that Craven failed in this
goal: “The film is hobbled by its inability to confront the inference that the
depraved 'family' of marauders are a dark mirror image of the 'typical'
middle-American family they attack. As it is, the attackers are just garishly
repulsive, while their victims are neither likable enough to serve as
identification figures nor placed in any critical perspective.” </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
For extended discourse about
the families in this movie, see D.N. Rodowick's essay The Enemy Within: The
Economy of Violence in The Hills Have Eyes. You can find it in a book titled
Planks of Reason: Essays on the Horror Film (edited by Barry Keith Grant).</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
My main complaint about this
project is the abrupt ending that leaves the viewer in the dark about how the
survivors ultimately return to civilization (or if they do so at all). The
first half borders on being boring, but the pace really picks up after the
midpoint. Gritty and realistic, the original version of The Hills Have Eyes may
not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I enjoyed the journey to the finale even
though the members of the Carter family are somewhat bland and unmemorable. The
antagonists, on the other hand, are fascinating and terrifying (at one point,
they plan to devour a baby they’ve kidnapped from the Carters). One review
suggests that I may be wrong in dismissing the Carters as bland: a piece in
Variety asserts that the screenplay “takes more trouble over the stock
characters than it needs.” </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
In a featurette titled
'Looking Back at The Hills Have Eyes' on the Blu-ray, Wes Craven says, “As
bizarre as the premise of the film is, I've always struggled to make the people
in it seem real... that white-bread family from Cleveland... those were people
that I grew up with. That mother was like my mother.” </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
The original premise differs
from the final film. On the Blu-ray's audio commentary track, Craven reveals
that “the first version of this script... was written [in the] early seventies,
obviously, and was set in 1984 during the presidential primaries, and people
needed a passport to go from state to state because it was kind of like [an
Orwellian] 1984 type of society. [Producer Peter Locke] said, 'We don't need
all this. Let's get to the desert.' So this very elaborate script got pared
down.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
If you’re looking for a
decent chilling tale about primal survival against difficult odds, spend ninety
minutes with The Hills Have Eyes.</div>
Daniel S. Duvallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18374034011752016390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3903087151296855286.post-22033191428907716122015-09-07T03:02:00.000-04:002015-09-07T03:02:06.332-04:00Deadly Friend
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
DEADLY FRIEND</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
[A shorter draft of this review
appeared here in August of 2010.]</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />A dark and subversive take on the
“people with their own sentient robots” type of film (like Short
Circuit), 1986’s Deadly Friend (directed by Wes Craven) includes
some wildly entertaining moments. You just have to exert tremendous
effort to suspend your disbelief.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The story follows Paul Conway, a young
whiz kid who studies the human brain and has built an intelligent
robot named BB. Paul and his mom (with BB) move to a new
neighborhood, where Paul swiftly befriends the local paper boy (a
high school sophomore named Tom) and the cute girl next door (Sam,
who has an abusive and controlling father). One night Sam’s father
knocks Sam down a flight of stairs. She hits her head at the bottom
and goes brain-dead. Doctors intend to remove her from life support
after twenty-four hours pass. Paul goes all Frankenstein and concocts
a plan to insert a small computer (which he calls a pacemaker for the
head) that he salvaged from BB (who earlier took three shotgun blasts
from a paranoid neighbor) into her brain. With the help of Tom, he
actually executes this scheme – with dire consequences. Cyborg Sam
sets out to exact revenge on all those in the neighborhood who have
wronged her, including her father and the mean old lady across the
street (whose death scene, which involves a basketball, is one of the
greatest ever filmed). Paul’s efforts to control Sam mostly involve
locking her in different places (like her old bedroom and the attic).
Ultimately Paul’s mom and later the police come face-to-face with
the new Sam, and a cop’s bullet ends the cyborg’s deadly rampage.
A brief epilogue (added at the insistence of Mark Tapin, who at the
time was the Warner Bros. alpha male) makes no sense unless
interpreted as a nightmare.<br /><br />Screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin (who
also wrote Jacob’s Ladder) penned the screenplay for this project
(based on a Diana Henstell novel that I've never read). Rubin
originally set out to write “a deep and heartfelt movie” but
explains that the studio demanded additional violence after an early
cut of the film didn't go over well. “We showed the picture to a
bunch of Wes's fans, who hated it. All they wanted was guts, so the
studio told me to give them six more scenes, each bloodier than the
last,” said Rubin (as quoted by John Wooley in his book Wes Craven:
The Man and His Nightmares).
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
According to Brian J. Robb's book
Screams & Nightmares, Craven had the following to say about
Deadly Friend: “There were seven or eight producers, and they all
had their idea of what the film should be... the film became a
hodge-podge, then it was censored by the MPAA. They made us submit
the film thirteen times.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Though the material in the finished
film sometimes veers into silly territory, Craven successfully
constructed an engaging tale that evokes both chills and laughter
despite the studio's meddling. You know you’re watching a unique
story when at one point you realize that the protagonist has slipped
his mother a mickey so that he can sneak out of the house to perform
unauthorized experimental brain surgery on the gal from next door.
The tale is only ninety minutes long and absolutely worth sitting
through to get to that death-by-basketball scene. Deadly Friend isn’t
a realistic yarn, but it’s damn entertaining.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Some critics enjoyed the film at the
time of its release. In The New York Times, Caryn James described
the movie as “a witty ghoul story” and said, “Mr. Craven deftly
balances suspense and spoof.” Variety noted that Deadly Friend has
“the requisite number of shocks to keep most hearts pounding
through to the closing credits.” Other critics were less
impressed. Paul Attanasio wrote in The Washington Post that the
film “is a routine horror movie, poorly photographed (by old-time
cinematographer Philip Lathrop) and poorly performed...” Time Out
published this summary: “This may be Craven at his crummiest...”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
If you don't expect high art or a yarn
steeped in realism, check out Deadly Friend for a fabulous
ninety-minute dose of raw entertainment. I rather enjoy this unusual
over-the-top story.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
Daniel S. Duvallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18374034011752016390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3903087151296855286.post-76515843793741619442015-09-06T03:45:00.000-04:002015-09-06T19:18:21.795-04:00Chiller<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
CHILLER</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
A made-for-television movie that was broadcast in May of 1985, Chiller (directed by Wes Craven from a
script by J.D. Feigelson) has an intriguing core concept but isn't a
terribly well-made project. If you seek it out, be aware that all
extant home video versions at the time of this writing have extremely poor picture quality and seem to have been sourced from
fourth or fifth generation tapes.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“Chiller was about a man frozen
cryogenically ten years ago,” Wes Craven once said (as quoted by
Brian J. Robb in the book Screams & Nightmares). “He's now
brought back to life entirely restored, except he has no soul. It's
not horror in the sense of a maniac stalking people. Chiller was a
kind of interesting thing.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Chiller (which runs eighty-eight
minutes including the end credits) suffers from a poor structure and
the presence of a protagonist who is largely passive until her final
confrontation with the antagonist. The tale opens with an apparent
malfunction at a cryogenic storage facility that results in one
frozen human subject (Miles Creighton) being rushed to a hospital.
The protagonist (Marion Creighton, mother of Miles) waits around
until twenty minutes into the story when a doctor proclaims, “He's
alive.” Cut to six weeks later: Miles remains unresponsive on life
support. Marion refuses to allow the medical professionals to pull
the plug. At the twenty-seven minute mark, Miles finally opens his
eyes. Three minutes later, Miles (in a wheelchair) arrives at his
wealthy family's home (a sprawling estate) where his step-sister's
beloved dog seems afraid of him. Six minutes later, unobserved,
Miles snuffs out the pet's life – the first sign that Miles has not
returned quite right. Miles goes back to work as an alpha male at his
late father's corporation, where he berates the board of directors
for giving money away: “Charity does not increase sales. It's
non-profit.” Miles promptly fires his father's best friend
Clarence (who ran the company while Miles was frozen) and then,
emotionless, walks away from Clarence's corpse after the older man
drops dead in a stairwell. Miles meets a female employee for drinks
and engages in overt sexual harassment fifty-three minutes into the
tale when he implies that he'll promote her if she sleeps with him.
She inexplicably goes to his hotel room (later, we learn that he
blackened her eye there). At the one hour mark, Marion's trusted
ally (a Reverend named Felix) ponders, “When a man dies, what
happens to his soul?” Six minutes later, Felix and Miles have a
confrontation (in which Miles calls Felix a “meddling preacher”)
that ends with the implication that the antagonist runs over Felix
with his car. Felix survives and (in his hospital room) tells
Marion, “The body you revived is empty. He has no soul.” The
protagonist finally becomes active seventy-five minutes into the
story when she interrupts Miles as he attempts to rape his
step-sister. Four minutes later, Miles (with a gaffing hook in hand)
stalks his mother through the house, and she locks him in a walk-in
freezer. Police arrive and find Miles seemingly frozen to death, but
he revives and attacks a cop. Marion shoots and kills Miles. An
epilogue depicts a massive malfunction at the cryogenic facility,
implying that the area will soon crawl with soulless citizens.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Walter Goodman accurately reviewed
Chiller in The New York Times: “The show, written and produced by
J. D. Feigelson and directed by Wes Craven as though they were
following the commands of a computer, is a collection of scare
tactics that ought to be frozen, wrapped in aluminum foil and placed
in cryogenic chambers for at least a couple of generations. There
are the rustlings and shufflings in the shadows, the creepy music,
the free-floating mist, the camera moving ominously toward a victim,
the sudden close-up appearances of the bad guy. With all of this,
there's scarcely a chill in Chiller.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
One of the lesser projects in Craven's
oeuvre, Chiller (with its protracted boring scenes and lack of an
active hero) left me cold. Skip this one.
</div>
Daniel S. Duvallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18374034011752016390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3903087151296855286.post-30110066116650482162015-09-05T05:41:00.000-04:002015-09-05T05:41:03.377-04:00Deadly Blessing
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
DEADLY BLESSING</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Directed by Wes Craven and released
theatrically in the summer of 1981, Deadly Blessing follows a young
woman named Martha who lives on a farm next to land owned by “the
Hittites” (an Amish-like religious sect). Martha's husband Jim had
been a Hittite but opted to disobey his father and leave the flock,
thereby becoming shunned by his kin. Someone murders Jim fourteen
minutes into the tale. Two of Martha's old friends (Vicky and Lana)
arrive and stay with the widow to help her through her time of grief.
Other nefarious events occur (a Hittite gets killed, someone
unleashes a snake in Martha's bath, and Vicky's forbidden romance
with another Hittite ends with her burned to death in her car),
leaving the viewer to wonder who is behind this crime spree. “It's
almost a traditional whodunit,” says Wes Craven (quoted by Brian J.
Robb in the book Screams & Nightmares).
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“What we tried to do with Deadly
Blessing was to kind of do something a little bit different... in
that we were gonna combine a murder mystery with a horror film,”
says co-writer Matthew Barr in a featurette titled 'So It Was
Written' on the Blu-ray. Barr continues, “Deadly Blessing takes
basically a group we modeled on the Amish, but we made them of course
more extreme, and we called them the Hittites... and the idea was to
kind of set up a story with a repressive religious cult.” Barr
explains that the plot involves “a young man who had left the fold,
married an outsider, wanted to farm and live the modern way... he
gets killed... that's where the murder mystery came in.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
On the home video commentary track, Wes
Craven describes his input into the screenplay: “I did a pretty
thorough rewrite. The script was in need of a lot of work.”
Later, he adds, “It was an early script for the guys [Glenn M.
Benest & Matthew Barr], and it had a lot of problems, so there
was a lot of just making things more believable and trying to figure
out the logic of it. That went on throughout shooting, I think;
there was always constant rewrites and trying to make it make a
little bit more sense... Structurally, it had a lot of problems, so I
was just trying to straighten out motivations...”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Co-writer Matthew Barr (on a Blu-ray
featurette) notes that even before Craven became attached to the
project, he and Glenn M. Benest “had written the script about six
or seven times already. We made some versions that were more
violent, less violent, as we tried to kind of refine the story. And
ultimately Wes Craven was brought in, and then he wrote and rewrote
the script himself a couple of times...”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Glenn M. Benest recalls that Craven
“came up with one of the scariest moments in the whole film where
there's a snake in the bathtub. That is a frightening scene, and he
came up with that whole thing.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
In the book Screams & Nightmares,
Craven describes the origin of the snake scene: “I dreamed the
entire scene as it appears in the movie complete with fades, colors,
everything. I woke up and wrote it all down, and we shot that
version. It worked beautifully.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The screenplay originally ended with
protagonist Martha saying farewell to her friend Lana after the two
survive a harrowing night. Producers tacked on an epilogue in which
a demonic creature erupts out of the floor in Martha's home and pulls
the protagonist down (perhaps to hell). “The end was added on...
it was forced by the studio. That was shot back in Hollywood after
the film was all cut together. The producers, Jon Peters and Peter
Guber, decided it needed a big spectacular ending, and they had this
thing written,” says Wes Craven (as quoted by Brian J. Robb in the
book Screams & Nightmares).</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Co-writer Glenn M. Benest (in a video
interview within the So It Was Written featurette on the Blu-ray)
discusses the epilogue: “I'm pretty ambivalent about it because in
a way it goes against what the film is about because to me the film
is about that there isn't a devil or supernatural evil, that evil is
in people. It's not out of some supernatural force... evil is what
people do...”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Craven (on the home video's audio
commentary track) recalls that the film wasn't well-received upon its
release, but it did garner some praise. Carrie Rickey in The
Village Voice called Deadly Blessing “a minor miracle: a
consummately-crafted small genre movie with more ideas than most big
movies...” Janet Maslin (in The New York Times) wrote that the
project “is a better-than-average horror film, in large part
because it isn't about terrified coeds being stalked by an
ax-wielding loon. Its story is more original than that...”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
More than three decades after its
release, Deadly Blessing has become a cult classic. An odd film with
a denouement (pre-epilogue) that only partially makes sense after
repeat viewings, the project documents some beautiful landscapes and
features a couple of particularly chilling set pieces (the notorious
snake-in-the-bathtub bit and Lana's adventure while trapped in
Martha's barn). “It's a flawed film in many ways,” Wes Craven
laments toward the end of the Blu-ray's commentary track. I agree,
but I also assert that the story is wholly unlike any other horror
tale before or since, and for that alone Deadly Blessing is worthy of
appraisal by genre fans.
</div>
Daniel S. Duvallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18374034011752016390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3903087151296855286.post-91151107723357207022015-09-04T05:00:00.002-04:002015-09-04T05:00:34.705-04:00Red Eye
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
RED EYE</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“The interesting thing about Red Eye
is it's not just a thriller. It is almost like a little art film,”
opines director Wes Craven in a featurette titled A New Kind of
Thriller that's available as a DVD bonus feature. “The entire
second act is... basically two people on an airplane just talking...
[screenwriter] Carl [Ellsworth] made it work with the dialogue.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Indeed, this motion picture from 2005
(which was the first feature film credit for Ellsworth, who had
previously written for television shows including Buffy the Vampire
Slayer) demonstrates that tension and clever banter can elevate a
low-budget film to a quality worthy of acclaim. Critics sang the
praises of the project during its theatrical run. In The New Yorker,
David Denby called Red Eye “a dandy little thriller” that is
“made with classical technique and bravura skill.” Ethan Alter
(in Film Journal International) wrote that the movie “has a playful
wit and enough genuine tension to make it worth your time and money.”
Empire Magazine concludes that the film is “slick fun deftly
handled by Craven.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The director (in a video interview on
the DVD's bonus features) describes how he became attached to the
project. “Somebody called up and said, 'We have this script –
first-time writer, but it's really good. Check it out,' and I was
actually at the end of working a very long time on Cursed, the movie
I did before Red Eye, and I was pretty much exhausted and burnt out,
so, you know, 'I want to go to an island someplace and disappear for
a year, but okay, I'll read it.' And it was just like, 'Oh, oh, oh,
oh, juicy stuff.' And then it was like, 'Well, God I have to do
this. I'd be a fool not to.'”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The bare-bones plot follows a hotel
manager named Lisa who has booked a flight from Texas (where she
attended her grandmother's funeral) back to Florida. At the airport,
she meets a charming fellow who buys her a drink and chats her up.
On the plane, Lisa finds herself sitting next to him and learns that
his name is Jackson Rippner. Twenty minutes into the film (which
runs a mere seventy-six minutes total before the end credits roll),
the plane takes off. Just a few minutes into the second act, Rippner
reveals his sinister side as his dialogue with Lisa skews darker and
darker. Turns out he's part of a team hell-bent on assassinating a
Homeland Security bigwig who is hours away from checking in at the
hotel Lisa runs, and Rippner needs Lisa to phone her staff and move
the target to a particular room so that Rippner's allies will have a
clear shot at the suite with a surface-to-air missile. If Lisa does
not cooperate, another one of Rippner's pals will murder Lisa's
father.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I won't spoil much of the story except
to say that in the third act, Rippner shows up at the home of Lisa's
father, and a taut cat-and-mouse chase ensues. On the home video
commentary track, Craven observes that in this sequence Rippner “was
fighting her on her home territory for the first time. Suddenly he's
on the other person's turf. Originally it was written for the
father's house that he had moved into after a divorce that she had
not grown up in, and we made it the house where she had grown up as a
child, and so she knew every inch of it.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
My only complaint about Red Eye is that
Lisa's dad ultimately shoots and kills Rippner about three minutes
before the credits roll. I'd rather see the protagonist save herself
at the climactic moment. This is a minor quibble, though, and Red
Eye is otherwise an expertly-crafted yarn. Seek it out.</div>
Daniel S. Duvallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18374034011752016390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3903087151296855286.post-14358112161038213292015-09-03T04:11:00.001-04:002015-09-03T04:11:37.979-04:00Summer of Fear (originally titled Stranger in Our House)
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
SUMMER OF FEAR (also known as STRANGER
IN OUR HOUSE)</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Based on a Lois Duncan novel that I've
never read, the 1978 project Summer of Fear (directed by Wes Craven
and originally broadcast by NBC under the title Stranger in our
House) is a drama with supernatural elements rather than a horror
film in the traditional sense, though the plot touches on assorted
horrific notions: the death of loved ones via a car accident, the
loss of a beloved family pet, and the effects of a stroke on one's
ability to function.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
In his book Wes Craven: The Man and His
Nightmares, John Wooley quotes the director as saying that Summer of
Fear was “where I first shot in thirty-five millimeter. It was the
first time I ever used a dolly. I was working with things I never
realized even existed.”
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
With its decent production values, the
film showcases a teenaged Linda Blair as <span style="font-size: small;">a young adult
named Rachel who grows to suspect that her cousin Julia is a witch.
Julia moves in with Rachel and her family after Julia's parents and
housekeeper die in a car crash. Turns out that “Julia” is an
imposter named Sarah who practices black magic and was the real
housekeeper for Rachel's late aunt and uncle; the actual Julia also
perished in the car wreck. For some reason, Sarah is hell-bent on
making life uncomfortable for Rachel and her family. After Sarah
declares her intent to kill Rachel and her mother, Sarah pursues
Rachel and her ex-boyfriend in a car chase that ends in the witch's
apparent death (an epilogue reveals that she survived).</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I first watched Summer of
Fear on DVD in 2009 and at the time was not impressed: I wrote, “This
film is flat-out boring and riddled with flaws. Sarah's motive is
unclear, the characters are dull, and the plot plods along with
periodic incidents (Rachel gets a bad case of hives, for one) that
the protagonist attributes to her alleged cousin's use of witchcraft.
Don't waste your time.” Having just sat through the project two
more times (once while listening to the DVD's commentary track), I
now see the appeal of this tension-filled thriller. In addition to
being a time capsule that documents the hairstyles, wardrobes, bulky
telephones, and gas-guzzling automobiles of the late 1970s, the movie
plays to the universal fear of one's family life unraveling. On the
audio commentary, Wes Craven notes that “this is every teenager's
nightmare situation: you have everything worked out in your family
and with your boyfriend and everything else, and then somebody comes
in and starts gaining all the power away from you.”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
One of the film's more unsettling
aspects is its overtones of incestuous relationships. Rachel's older
brother seems attracted to his cousin. “Julia” gives her alleged
uncle a neck massage and later (eighty-five minutes into the tale)
invites him to “unzip me” as she changes clothes. Julia/Sarah
claims that Rachel's ex-boyfriend always saw Rachel as more of a
“sister” even when they were dating. These moments make me
squirm in the present day and must have been exponentially more
controversial back in 1978.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Though hardcore horror fans may not
enjoy this entry in Craven's oeuvre, Summer of Fear has its share of
entertaining moments and is worth at least one viewing for Wes Craven
completists. If you go in expecting straight horror action, you'll
be disappointed. The script (adapted from the Duncan novel by Max A.
Keller and Glenn M. Benest) is relatively tame given that it was
developed for network television, but it pushes the envelope in
places and sports one particularly gut-wrenching scene (in which
Rachel's beloved horse dies just before the midpoint). Summer of
Fear is an atypical Wes Craven project. If you have one hundred
minutes to spare and want a glimpse of a nuclear family's trials and
tribulations in late-seventies California, check it out. It's a
surprise-filled ride.</div>
Daniel S. Duvallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18374034011752016390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3903087151296855286.post-4649818696252426882015-09-02T04:36:00.000-04:002015-09-02T04:36:53.457-04:00Night Visions
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
NIGHT VISIONS</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
A 1990 made-for-TV movie that Wes
Craven directed and co-wrote, Night Visions follows a singular and
memorable protagonist (a young woman named Sally Powers who has a
history of mental illness, low-grade telepathy, and a fresh doctorate
in psychology). In Los Angeles, Powers partners with a hot-tempered
alcoholic cop (Tom Mackey) in an effort to solve a string of murders
attributed to a serial killer nicknamed The Eagle due to his
signature of leaving attractive female victims posed in spread-eagle
positions. Peppered with periodic provocative and sometimes horrific
imagery and sporting a well-staged tension-filled final ten minutes
(and featuring a trippy dream sequence twenty-seven minutes into the
story), Night Visions isn't nearly as unwatchable as most of the
scant online reviews of this obscure project suggest. It was never
destined to win any awards, but it's a perfectly serviceable thriller
marred only by the unbelievable sub-plot of Powers developing a
romantic relationship with a photographer named Martin (if Powers was
truly obsessed with solving the case, she would not take time away
from sifting evidence to go on leisurely dates) and by Mackey's habit
of contaminating crime scenes.</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Night Visions becomes increasingly
interesting when a stressed Powers manifests symptoms of multiple
personality disorder. Actress Loryn Locklin delivers nuanced
performances in scenes that depict Powers slipping in and out of
alternate personas. Other stars of note in this project include
James Remar as Mackey and Mitch Pileggi as a police captain.
</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Seventy-one minutes into the tale,
Powers articulates a thought-provoking profile of the killer that
(along with a bone-headed move by the bad guy) ultimately leads to
the discovery of his identity. I won't spoil the mystery. The Eagle
is a unique antagonist with a penchant for snuffing out lives at
carefully-selected geographic locations that form the points of a
star when mapped out.
</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Night Visions at the time of this
writing has not officially been issued on home video except long ago
on VHS in some non-USA countries (PAL format rather than NTSC).
Here's hoping the powers-that-be will sate Wes Craven's legion of
fans by giving this decent little film a proper modern-day commercial
release. I'd snap up a copy right away given the chance.</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Night Visions doesn't rise to the
quality of Craven's best work (it will never capture the popular
imagination the way A Nightmare on Elm Street did), but it's above
average for made-for-TV fare. Seek it out and let me know how you
perceive it in the comments here on the blog.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
Daniel S. Duvallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18374034011752016390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3903087151296855286.post-65014427635211417342015-09-01T03:02:00.000-04:002015-09-01T03:02:16.454-04:00My Soul to Take
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
MY SOUL TO TAKE</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Written and directed by Wes Craven, My
Soul to Take met with harsh reviews upon its theatrical release in
October of 2010. In Variety, Dennis Harvey called the film a “dumb,
derivative teen slasher movie” and “a pretty soporific affair
bogged down by awkward expository dialogue, one-dimensional
characters (or ones whose suggested hidden sides turn out to be mere
tease), bland atmospherics and unmemorable action.” Gary Goldstein
(in the L.A. Times) opined that the project is “a thrill-free
snooze” with an “overly complex story.” Marc Savlov wrote in
The Austin Chronicle that “this utterly mediocre forget-me-now
could've been crafted by any faceless serial director.” I beg to
differ with these three critics and all the others who dismissed My
Soul to Take, which I perceive as a flawed but thought-provoking
singular horror tale with ample scares and a core concept that
demands repeat viewings to fully appreciate.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The movie opens with a gripping
nine-minute prologue set sixteen years before the main story. In the
opening sequence, a family man named Abel (who suffers from multiple
personality disorder) finds a distinctive knife in his workshop and
recognizes the weapon from TV news reports as the blade of choice
used by a local serial killer (the Riverton Ripper). Fearing that
one of his heretofore unknown personalities might be responsible for
a string of murders, Abel phones his psychiatrist but then notices
that his pregnant wife has already been knifed. Authorities arrive
and shoot Abel as he's about to kill Leah (his three-year-old
daughter). Abel snatches a gun from one officer, shoots him, and
then offs his doctor before another cop takes him down. Wounded but
alive, Abel revives in an ambulance en route to the hospital (where
mysteriously seven premature births are happening) and causes a nasty
crash (the vehicle flips, rolls, and ultimately explodes alongside a
river). When help arrives, Abel's body is nowhere to be found.
</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Sixteen years later, the seven kids
born the night of the prologue ring in their sixteenth birthday with
a tradition known as “Ripper Night” alongside the river (by the
remains of the ambulance, now rusted out and covered in candle stubs)
during which one of the “Riverton Seven” must fend off a massive
puppet designed to look as Abel might appear had he survived and
lived in the wilderness all this time (ragged clothing, long hair,
and a scraggly beard). Protagonist Adam “Bug” Hellerman (a
sensitive fellow prone to migraines) is this year's “volunteer,”
and he's spooked by the sight of the puppet. Before the ritual goes
far, police arrive and order the teens to disperse. On his way home,
Jay (one of the Riverton Seven) notices someone following him as he
crosses an isolated bridge. Chased down by a long-haired bearded
fellow in ragged clothes, Jay dies around seventeen minutes into the
tale when his assailant slams his head against a metal post, knifes
him, and tosses him into the river.
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The next forty minutes of the film
happen during daylight as the teens (unaware that one of their peers
has been murdered) go about a typical day before, during, and after
school. A female student nicknamed Fang holds sway over many friends
and followers; she makes life hell for Bug and his best friend Alex,
ordering a bully (Brandon) to rough them up. Thirty-three minutes
into the film, Bug has a vision and sees (in a restroom mirror) Jay,
bloody, swimming underwater. Six minutes later, Craven begs the
viewer to wonder just what the hell is going on when Bug and Alex
(alone in a corridor) begin speaking in unison and moving as if they
are mirror images of one another for a minute or so. Just under ten
minutes later, the present-day Ripper claims another victim and slits
the throat of Penelope (a religious gal and one of the Riverton
Seven) alongside the school's pool. Within eleven minutes, two more
victims fall to the mysterious killer (who may or may not be Abel):
Brandon and the young woman he lusted after (Brittany).
</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Night falls again one hour into the
film, and the rest of the action plays out in and around Bug's home
that evening. Craven reveals that “Fang” is Bug's sister and is
in fact Leah (Abel's daughter), and the woman Bug thought was his
mother turns out to be his aunt (paramedics cut Bug out of his dead
mom's womb the night of the prologue). Eighty-one minutes into the
story, the protagonist finds himself confronted by a cop who thinks
that Bug's responsible for the four teens killed that day, and Bug
finds that his aunt has also been killed. The Ripper shows up, kills
the officer, and attacks Bug. I won't spoil the beat-by-beat moments
of the denouement, but I will reveal the twist that confused many
critics and may not be apparent until a second viewing: the night
Abel died in the prologue, his seven personalities (each a unique
soul) dispersed and reincarnated as the Riverton Seven, and one of
them is the present-day killer. I won't tell you which one, though
there are only three suspects left as the finale gets well and truly
underway.
</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
My only quibble with this film is that
Alex (ninety-one minutes into the story) tells Bug that Abel
developed “schizophrenia” at the age of sixteen. Schizophrenia
has nothing to do with multiple personalities (contrary to popular
opinion) and is a wholly different sort of mental illness.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“This was a script that got rewritten
while we were shooting,” Wes Craven notes on the Blu-ray's audio
commentary track. “It's a very complex story, and we kept figuring
out how to make it better.” While some critics see the plot's
complexity as a negative, I enjoyed watching a horror yarn in which
not everything's spelled out even by the time one reaches the very
end. My Soul to Take is a wrongly-maligned entry in Wes Craven's
oeuvre, and I predict that it shall be rediscovered and reevaluated
in due time. Thought-provoking, sometimes puzzling, but always
entertaining, My Soul to Take is a unique spin on the “teens in
jeopardy as a knife-wielding killer stalks them” sub-genre.
Disagree? Leave some comments here on the blog.
</div>
Daniel S. Duvallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18374034011752016390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3903087151296855286.post-1943996841706661672014-10-20T20:03:00.001-04:002014-10-20T20:03:29.910-04:00Frankenstein (2004 made-for-TV miniseries)
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
FRANKENSTEIN (2004
made-for-TV miniseries)</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I haven't read Mary
Shelley's novel Frankenstein in over two decades, so I cannot discuss
how Hallmark's miniseries (which runs two hours and fifty-minutes
without commercials) fares in terms of being a faithful adaptation of
the book (though many reviews on IMDB praise this version's
faithfulness to the source material). The tale opens with the crew
of the Prometheus (a ship caught in ice) rescuing Viktor Frankenstein
(who had been pursuing his bipedal creation on a dog sled) from
freezing to death. Viktor tells his life story to the ship's
captain, so the bulk of the story is a flashback to the events
described by Frankenstein (the narrative returns to the captain and
Viktor on the ship several times). The plot moves from Viktor's
childhood (when his parents adopted an orphan named Elizabeth) to his
time at a university where he immerses himself in absorbing all he
can learn about chemistry, physics, and science in general. Viktor
develops a hypothesis about how to bring the dead back to life, and
he tests his ideas on a dead dog that he manages to momentarily
resurrect. Not content to experiment on animals, Viktor assembles a
human out of various corpse parts scavenged from the local graveyard.
One stormy night, Viktor brings his creature to life. It escapes
into the community and takes a coat with Viktor's journal in one
pocket. The monster (which is more articulate and intelligent than
in most filmed versions of this story) reads the journal and realizes
that it is the creation of Viktor Frankenstein. It somehow finds its
way to the Frankenstein estate in search of its creator, accidentally
kills Viktor's young brother, and frames a servant girl named Justine
for the killing. Viktor manages to locate and confront the creature,
and it demands that Viktor create a female mate with the promise that
the two monsters will exist peacefully outside of civilization if
Frankenstein complies. Viktor agrees, but his friend Henry (upon
learning of the dreadful experiments) convinces him not to proceed.
In the presence of the monster, Viktor burns the not-yet-reanimated
body of the mate. The creature vows that it will find Viktor on his
wedding night. Viktor inexplicably does not tell his bride-to-be
(creepily enough, his stepsister Elizabeth) about the danger they're
in. The creature kills Henry, and a grief-stricken Viktor gets on
with his life and marries Elizabeth. Viktor's creation does indeed
track down the happy couple in their honeymoon suite and kills
Elizabeth. Viktor pursues the monster (it leaves a series of cryptic
notes for Viktor to find) and ends up on the dog sled from the
prologue chasing the creature across an icy landscape. Viktor dies
aboard the Prometheus after finishing his tale, and the ship's
captain watches as the creature carries its dead maker off into the
blizzard.</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
My main problem with this
version of Frankenstein is that the story is supposed to be the
events Viktor describes to the captain of the Prometheus, yet there
are numerous scenes in which Viktor is not present. How did he know
what the monster was up to when it was off on its own? This quibble
aside, the Hallmark version of Frankenstein is quite watchable and
boasts marvelous production values for a made-for-TV endeavor.
Nothing jolted me out of the “reality” of the tale – I noticed
no anachronisms in terms of the environments or dialogue, but then
I've never been to modern day Europe and certainly have no idea what
it was like during the time period in which this yarn takes place, so
how would I know if something was dreadfully off-key? With a cast
that includes Donald Sutherland (as the Prometheus captain), William
Hurt (as Viktor's college mentor), Julie Delpy (Viktor's mother), and
Luke Goss (the creature), the 2004 made-for-TV miniseries version of
Frankenstein is not wanting for talent. It's not a project that
warrants or demands repeat viewings, but it's worthy of a look
(especially for fans of the Shelley novel).
</div>
Daniel S. Duvallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18374034011752016390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3903087151296855286.post-71250835815793708462014-10-12T17:08:00.001-04:002014-10-12T17:08:39.541-04:00The Curse of Frankenstein
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
A 1957 project that launched
the Hammer Film series of Frankenstein movies, The Curse of
Frankenstein opens and closes with scenes of a disheveled Baron
Victor Frankenstein imprisoned in a cell where he implores a priest
to believe his tale of bringing to life a humanoid creature cobbled
together from various corpses. After the prologue, the main plot
picks up with Victor as a wealthy child (he's just inherited his
family's fortune) hiring a tutor (Paul) to educate him. When Victor
has grown into a man, he and Paul remain friends and test their
unorthodox scientific theories by bringing a dog back to life.
Victor proposes that they next create and reanimate an ideal human
specimen, but Paul balks. Victor pushes forward alone and assembles
a creature from the parts of assorted dead bodies. Obsessed by his
research, Victor spends little time with his fiance (his cousin
Elizabeth) or his mistress (a servant woman who works for him).
Nearly fifty minutes into the film (which runs eighty-three minutes
total), Victor brings his creation to life as lightning flashes
through the windows of his laboratory. The monster promptly attempts
to strangle its maker to death, but Paul intervenes and saves
Victor's life. The men strap the creature down, but it escapes the
next day. Out in the countryside, Paul and Victor hunt the
abomination with rifles. Paul shoots and kills it, but not before
the creature encounters a blind man and a small child (both
presumably meet horrible fates, though whatever occurs to them
happens off camera). Victor and Paul bury the monster, but Victor
secretly reanimates it. The mistress, meanwhile, threatens to expose
Victor's secrets and research if he does not marry her. Victor traps
her in the lab with the creature, thereby solving that problem. The
night before Victor is to marry Elizabeth, the monster gets loose
again and ventures up to the roof. Elizabeth (who has been pressing
Victor for details about the nature of his research throughout the
tale) explores the laboratory and deduces that someone is up on the
roof. She heads up there. Paul and Victor, outside, spot the
creature atop the abode. Victor races to the roof just as his
creation approaches Elizabeth. Victor fires a couple of shots from a
pistol and accidentally hits Elizabeth in the shoulder. Victor
throws an oil lantern at the monster, which burns and falls through
an angled rooftop window into the lab below, where it lands in a vat
of acid. An epilogue back in Victor's cell implies that nobody
believes Victor's tale (Paul and Elizabeth refuse to corroborate his
story). Guards lead Victor out of his cell, and the viewer spots a
guillotine through a window.</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
For its first fifty minutes,
The Curse of Frankenstein is slow-paced by modern standards with lots
of lengthy shots of characters gushing exposition through dialogue on
lavish sets. Once the creature rips the bandages off its face and
reveals its gruesome visage, the tale gains momentum and remains
engrossing right up to the end when guards escort Victor (presumably
to his execution) from his cell. Peter Cushing vanishes into the
role of Baron Victor Frankenstein and gives a fine nuanced
performance as the obsessed mad scientist. He chews up the scenery,
particularly on the set of the way cool laboratory in which chemicals
bubble in beakers and strange equipment glows and hums.
</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The Encyclopedia of Novels
Into Films notes that The Curse of Frankenstein “devotes
considerable screen time to the actual construction of the monster
(an event that [Mary] Shelley's novel glosses over).” This
observation keys into my main complaint about this film – the
creature only shows up for the last half hour and even then has
little screen time. The filmmakers (director Terence Fisher and
screenwriter Jimmy Sangster) made a bold choice in crafting a project
that focuses more on Victor than his creation. If you're willing to
sit through a slow first fifty minutes, you'll enjoy an enthralling
denouement with a horrific animated corpse lurching around.
</div>
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<br />
</div>
Daniel S. Duvallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18374034011752016390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3903087151296855286.post-31750087829467626112014-10-01T15:28:00.000-04:002014-10-01T15:28:29.867-04:00Friday the 13th Parts 3 & 4
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<sup>FRIDAY THE 13th PART 3</sup>
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Much more flawed than the
first two films in the series but featuring a chilling second half,
Friday the 13<sup>th</sup> Part 3 opens with a five-minute prologue
that recaps the end of Part 2 and then sows further confusion about
just how the previous film ended by depicting Jason on the floor of
his shack with the machete no longer embedded in his body. Was the
“Jason jumps through the window” moment just a nightmare?
Apparently, which leaves the question of what happened to Paul at the
end of Part 2 (unless the bit where Ginny's loaded into an ambulance
is also part of a dream).
</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Friday the 13<sup>th</sup>
Part 2 paints Jason as a territorial recluse who only goes after
people who enter his turf. Here in Part 3, he's more proactive in
terms of seeking out victims. He first goes after a general store
owner named Harold and his wife, apparently drawn to their laundry
that hangs outside so he can get a change of clothes. Harold's wife
watches a newscast that establishes “Crystal Lake” as the name of
a community, not just a camp and a lake. Harold snacks on the food
in his shop and swills Jack Daniels as he sits on a toilet,
continuing the Friday the 13<sup>th</sup> tradition of painting many
of the locals (like Crazy Ralph) as colorful eccentrics. Jason
dispatches Harold by lodging a cleaver in his chest, then kills the
missus by jabbing a knitting needle through the back of her neck.
The sequence in and around Harold's store runs about eleven minutes,
so once again the viewer must wait an inordinate amount of time
before meeting the protagonist.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Chris Higgins (a young
woman) and a small group of her friends (inexplicably including a
marijuana-loving couple who look about ten years older than the
others) travel via van to a place called Higgins Haven (a bit of land
on which a barn and a two-story house sit near the lake). En route,
they encounter a strange older fellow sleeping in the middle of the
road. The young adults get out of the van and listen to the man
ramble on in a manner that makes it clear he's meant to be the
equivalent of “Crazy Ralph” for this film. He shows them a human
eyeball, which sends them fleeing back to the van. As they drive
away, the eye-toting fellow bellows “I've warned thee!”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Upon arrival at Higgins
Haven, Chris goes into the house where her love interest (a guy named
Rick) practically assaults her on sight, lunging forward and
surprising her with a hug and a kiss. She rightly rebuffs him.
Chris looks out a window and notices the barn door moving. She and
Rick head outside and shortly thereafter hear a scream from the
house. They rush in and find a fellow named Shelly with a small axe
apparently embedded in his head, but it's not real; Shelly is the
prankster of the group, and he pulls such stunts for attention. He
sits up and laughs at his own cleverness, oblivious to how much the
others dislike his brand of humor.
</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Shelly and another one of
Chris's friends (Vera) go on a supply run in town, where they get on
the wrong side of three bikers (two guys and a woman). The gang
shows up at Higgins Haven looking for revenge (Shelly ran over their
motorcycles with a car). They siphon gasoline from the van with the
intent of using it to burn down the barn. Unfortunately for them,
Jason lurks in the barn and picks them all off in quick succession.
</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Chris and Rick have a
heart-to-heart discussion in which Chris reveals her backstory of
having been attacked in the nearby woods by a hideous man a couple of
years earlier. She's returned to Higgins Haven to conquer her fears.
The Jason of Part 2 would never have left her alive, so once again
the narrative of Part 3 alters the nature of the antagonist.</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The male stoner goes to an
outhouse at night, hears something outside, and finds his girlfriend
lurking out there.
</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Vera sits at the end of a
dock at the lake, and Shelly (clad in a wetsuit and wearing a hockey
mask) grabs her leg and leaps out of the water to scare her. He
holds a spear gun. Shelly heads for the barn, and shortly thereafter
Jason emerges with the hockey mask hiding his face: the first time
the killer sports his iconic look. Jason uses the spear gun to shoot
Vera in the eye, killing her.</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Two other members of the
group (Andy and Debbie) have sex. Debbie then goes to take a shower.
Andy walks down the hall on his hands, and Jason (apparently tired
of hanging out in and around the barn) appears and slices him in
half. Debbie returns to her hammock following her shower, and Jason
(hiding below) thrusts a blade up through her back and out the front
of her chest.
</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The male stoner goes to
check the fuse box. Meanwhile, Shelly (with his throat slit)
stumbles into the kitchen and startles the female stoner, who thinks
that he's pulling another prank.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Jason throws the male stoner
into the fuse box, electrocuting him.</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The female stoner realizes
that Shelly's throat actually has been slit, and she panics and races
through the house until Jason stabs her in the belly with a hot
fireplace poker.</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Rick and Chris (who had been
out hiking) return to the property and find popcorn burning in the
kitchen. They split up and explore in search of the others. After a
bit, Chris goes outside and calls for Rick, unable to see that
Jason's right around the corner of the house with a hand clamped over
Rick's mouth. Jason crushes Rick's head.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Chris finds blood and
clothing in the bathtub and realizes something's seriously amiss.
She runs outside and approaches the barn and finds a biker's corpse.
Chris retreats to the house and locks the doors, but Jason hurtles
Rick's corpse through a window to create his own entrance. Chris
runs upstairs, hides in a closet, finds Debbie's body, and gives away
her location by screaming. Chris pulls the knife out of Debbie and
goes on the offensive as Jason chops down the door with an axe.
Debbie stabs Jason's hand and leg, and thus the third act begins
seventy-seven minutes into the film.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The remaining fifteen
minutes of the story are best experienced firsthand, so track down
the Blu-ray (which unfortunately does not include the commentary
track one can find in the “From Crystal Lake to Manhattan” DVD
box set) and enjoy Jason versus Chris in high definition. I won't
spoil the final twists and turns of the plot, but I will say that
it's a harrowing ride that ends with Jason seemingly dead with an axe
stuck in his head on the floor of the barn.</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Friday the 13<sup>th</sup>
Part 3 expands the Crystal Lake mythos but creates some paradoxes and
questions. If Chris and her family have inhabited Higgins Haven for
some time, why did Jason never slaughter them given that the property
seems to be in his territory? Why did Jason leave Chris alive when
he attacked her in the woods a couple of years earlier?
</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Not as focused or as
chilling as the first two films in the series, Part 3 nonetheless
delivers an entertaining and tense second half saturated with
innovative kill scenes. It's the weakest of the first four tales in
this franchise, but it's nowhere near as vile and unwatchable as,
say, Part 5. A new spin on the Jason Voorhees legend, Friday the
13<sup>th</sup> Part 3 delivers the goods that fans of quality
slasher films expect. It could've been better, but it ain't bad.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
FRIDAY THE 13<sup>th</sup>:
THE FINAL CHAPTER</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The fourth film in the
series picks up the night after the end of Part 3 as law enforcement
officials and ambulances swarm Higgins Haven and cart away the
deceased. Jason (still seemingly dead) heads to a morgue, where
fourteen minutes into the tale he stops playing possum and kills a
morgue attendant and a nurse.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The next day, a woman known
as Mrs. Jarvis jogs through the woods with her daughter Trish. They
return home (a house near Crystal Lake) and find Trish's younger
brother Tommy playing a video game as he wears a monster mask. The
Jarvis family discusses the fact that six young adults have rented
the property next door.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The six renters (four guys
and two girls) drive toward the property and pass a cemetery in which
a prominent headstone marks the resting place of Pamela Voorhees.
This is the first time fans of the series learn the first name of
Jason's mother. This gravestone is also the source of some
controversy among fans, for it lists Pamela's year of death as 1979.
Until the release of The Final Chapter, everyone assumed that Part 1
took place in 1980 (its year of release). I stand by the 1980
continuity, for June 13 in 1979 was not a Friday. Perhaps the
tombstone engraver made a mistake.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
That night, Tommy and Trish
greet the six renters as they arrive next door to the Jarvis place.
The new neighbors include two single fellows (Jimmy and Ted) and two
couples: Sara & Doug and Samantha & Paul.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The next day, the renters go
on a hike and cross paths with twins (Terri and Tina). The twins go
skinny-dipping with the group (aside from Sara, who heads back to the
house).
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Tommy and Trish have car
trouble on their way home. As Tommy attempts to fix the engine, a
fellow named Rob shows up and offers to help. He gets the car
running, and Trish offers a ride to Rob (who claims he is hunting
bear).
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
That night, Trish advises
Rob to stick to the trails that wend all around the lake.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Next door, the renters party
with the twins.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Near the midpoint, Samantha
goes for a nude swim alone and climbs into a rubber raft. Jason (who
can apparently hold his breath a really long time) leaps out of the
water and stabs her from below.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Back at the rented house,
Ted smokes a joint while Jimmy goes upstairs with one of the twins.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Paul looks for Samantha and
swims out to the rubber raft, where he finds her corpse. Panicked,
he heads back to the dock where Jason stabs him in the crotch.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Rob (at his campsite) hears
Paul's screams and heads into the woods with a machete.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Back at the party house,
Jimmy and Tina get intimate. Their bed breaks.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Ted finds and watches some
old nudie films as he smokes dope.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Fifty-one minutes into the
plot, a thunderstorm commences. Terri goes to leave without her
sister but bumps into Jason outside. She's killed.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Mrs. Jarvis returns to her
home to find that the power is out and her kids are not home. She
goes outside and is presumably killed (an off-camera death).</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Trish and Tommy return home
and cannot locate their mother. Trish goes to search the trails
outside only to locate Rob.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Jimmy goes downstairs for
some post-coital wine. Jason drives the corkscrew through his hand
and embeds a cleaver in his face. Jason next appears outside a
second-floor window, where he pulls Tina through the glass and sends
her toppling to her death.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Out in the woods, Rob
explains to Trish that he's actually hunting Jason, not bear, because
Jason killed his sister Sandra (see Part 2).
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Sara and Doug enjoy each
other in the shower while downstairs Jason kills Ted by shoving a
knife through the back of his head.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Sara heads back to the
bedroom while Doug remains in the shower. Jason kills Doug.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Sara returns to the
bathroom, finds Doug's corpse, and runs downstairs. An axe comes
through the front door and kills her.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
At the Jarvis house, Tommy
heads downstairs as Rob and Trish arrive. Jason disables the phone
line. Rob and Trish go next door and realize Jason has been there.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The final eighteen minutes
of the tale depict the efforts of Rob, Trish, and Tommy to survive as
Jason stalks them. This film boasts one hell of a denouement, and I
won't spoil the ending here: watch it yourself (ideally on Blu-ray)
and enjoy the jolts and scares that lead up to Jason's final moments
as a living breathing human being.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Friday the 13<sup>th</sup>:
The Final Chapter (like Part 3 before it) begs certain questions: how
has the Jarvis family existed in Jason's territory for so long
without having been stalked and killed before? Why would the Jarvis
family stick around after hearing news about the slaughter at Higgins
Haven (presumably elsewhere on Crystal Lake) when they're aware (via
a newspaper that Mrs. Jarvis has) that the killer's “body” is
missing?
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
These flaws aside, The Final
Chapter remains one of the strongest entries in the franchise and is
on par with the first two films in terms of sheer entertainment
value. A major step up in quality from the third film, Part 4 boasts
stunning practical special effects and some truly chilling imagery.
I recommend the first four Friday the 13<sup>th</sup> tales if you're
in the mood for a bloody good time this October.
</div>
Daniel S. Duvallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18374034011752016390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3903087151296855286.post-21563202520355938022014-09-25T20:25:00.000-04:002014-09-25T20:25:24.999-04:00Friday the 13th Part 2
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
FRIDAY THE 13<sup>th</sup>
PART 2</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Released in 1981 (but set
five years after the events of the first movie aside from a
twelve-minute prologue that occurs two months after Alice Hardy
decapitated Mrs. Voorhees), Friday the 13<sup>th</sup> Part 2 does
not (as a review in Variety claimed) “employ too many of the same
twists and turns used in the original.” The sequel is a unique
tale with a new killer and a distinct set of victims. While the
setting is similar (the bulk of the movie occurs at a training facility
for camp counselors along Crystal Lake near the camp from the first
film), the plot unfolds in a wholly different way from the yarn told
in part 1. In the lengthy prologue this time around, Alice (the
survivor from the original film) has a nightmare about her encounter
with Mrs. Voorhees. She awakens, takes a phone call from her mom,
and showers. As Alice heats water in a tea pot, a cat startles her
by jumping through the window. Alice goes to her fridge to fetch
some food for the kitty and therein discovers the severed head of
Mrs. Voorhees moments before an unseen assailant drives an ice pick
through her temple.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
In the twenty minutes that
pass before the next kill scene, the audience eventually meets the
protagonist (a graduate student named Ginny who studies child
psychology). First, the narrative introduces an array of young
adults: Sandra and Jeff (a couple) who encounter Crazy Ralph in the
town near Crystal Lake, their old friend Ted, a wheelchair-bound
counselor-in-training named Mark, and two ladies (Terry and Vickie).
All of these doomed individuals gather outside Packanack Lodge to
hear an orientation speech from a dude named Paul (the protagonist's
love interest) as they gear up for counselor training. Our heroine
(Ginny) arrives late in a sputtering unreliable car twenty-one
minutes into the story (an awfully late introduction for a main
character). That night, the group sits around a campfire as Paul
recounts the legend of Jason Voorhees, who allegedly drowned in
Crystal Lake back in 1958 but whose body was never recovered. Paul
says that certain old-timers in town claim to have seen Jason, who
some believe survived and grew up living off the land in the dense
local woods. Paul speculates that Jason may have seen his mother
decapitated that fateful night in June of 1980 and that he might even
now lurk in the forest waiting to exact revenge on any who dare enter
his territory. Because there would be no movie otherwise, this
legend is totally true (though Paul doesn't believe it).</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Later that night, Ginny and
Paul kiss in Ginny's cabin while Crazy Ralph lurks outside and spies
on them. Jason (still mostly unseen) shows up and quietly murders
Ralph. The next day, Jeff and Sandra set off to visit the off-limits
grounds of neighboring Camp Crystal Lake. They stumble upon the
mangled corpse of a dog moments before a cop busts them for
trespassing. After the cop takes the curious couple back to
Packanack Lodge, he glimpses Jason vanishing into the woods and sets
off in pursuit. The policeman stumbles upon a weathered shack of
sorts deep in the forest and explores its interior until Jason sneaks
up behind him and embeds the claw of a hammer in the back of his
head.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
That night, Ginny, Paul,
Ted, and many of the background extras (additional trainees who are
not named or given much to do in the story) head to a bar in town,
thereby leaving a small group of young adults to be picked off at the
training facility. A guy named Scott steps into a rope trap that
hauls him up by his feet so that he dangles upside down, and Jason
shows up to slit his throat with a machete. Terry arrives to cut
down Scott, sees that he's dead, and whirls to (presumably) face
Jason (her death occurs off-camera). Mark and Vickie flirt in a
couple of scenes dense with clever subtext, and Vickie heads off to
her cabin to freshen up. In her absence, Jason embeds a machete in
Mark's face. Less than two minutes later, Jason drives a spear
through the back of Jeff as he sleeps with Sandra, and the spear goes
through her as well. Three minutes later, Jason knifes Vickie.
Ginny and Paul then arrive back at camp so that the third act can
commence.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
As Ginny and Paul explore
the lodge in search of the people they expect to find there, Ginny
senses something amiss and bellows, “Paul, there's someone in this
fucking room!” Jason leaps out of the shadows and attacks Paul.
Ginny wisely arms herself with a knife. Jason chases her outside,
and she kicks him in the crotch. Three minutes later, Ginny goes on
the offensive again and attacks Jason with a chainsaw (wounding him
but inexplicably opting to not finish him off). Ginny races into the
woods and stumbles upon Jason's shack. Therein, she finds a shrine
of candles surrounding the severed head of Mrs. Voorhees (whose gray
sweater also sits nearby). As Jason pounds on the door, Ginny puts
her child psychology skills to good use and dons the sweater. When
Jason bursts through the door, Ginny addresses him by name and
identifies herself as “mommy.” She talks a confused Jason into
kneeling before her and is about to decapitate him with a machete
when he spots the head of his real mother behind Ginny and raises a
pickaxe to ward off the death blow. Paul shows up (in a deux ex
machina moment) and grabs Jason from behind, enabling Ginny to slice
the machete deep into Jason's shoulder and neck area. Jason drops,
and Paul carries Ginny back to Packanack Lodge.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
After a false scare in which
Terry's missing dog appears at the door, Jason leaps through a window
and grabs Ginny from behind. This is an infamous “money shot”
moment in which the viewer gets a good long look at the deformed face
of Jason, who had worn a sack over his head throughout the rest of
the film. (The iconic hockey mask does not appear until the third
film in the series.)
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
In a brief epilogue,
paramedics load Ginny into an ambulance as she calls out for Paul –
a slightly confusing ending.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
An entertaining and
frightening tale from a bygone age (before the existence of cell
phones and rectangular television sets), Friday the 13<sup>th</sup>
Part 2 contains ample spooky imagery (one can never un-see the
severed head of Mrs. Voorhees surrounded by candles in Jason's shack
after one gazes upon it) to sate hardcore slasher film fans and is
laced with humor to balance out the jolts and gore. There's a fair
amount of gratuitous nudity and women-in-panties moments also. Ginny
is a more dimensional protagonist than most heroines of this horror
sub-genre, and (before she actually encounters the killer and
realizes that he's more than just a legend) she cooks up a fine
psychological profile of what Jason would be like if he existed: “a
child trapped in a man's body.”
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The first four films in the
Friday the 13<sup>th</sup> series are wildly entertaining. Check
back before October for reviews of parts 3 and 4.</div>
Daniel S. Duvallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18374034011752016390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3903087151296855286.post-28436331478033185362014-09-17T06:13:00.000-04:002014-09-17T06:13:39.027-04:00Friday the 13th (1980 version) [unrated edition]
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
FRIDAY THE 13<sup>th</sup>
(1980 version) [unrated edition]</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I'll be taking a look at the
first four films in the Friday the 13<sup>th</sup> franchise this
autumn. Spoilers abound, so don't read on if you've never seen these
slasher gems and want to discover them for yourself.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The original Friday the 13<sup>th</sup>
follows a young woman named Alice Hardy who is part of a small crew
fixing up an isolated summer camp along idyllic Crystal Lake in June
of 1980. Alice (an artist who “draw[s] very well” according to
her employer) toils alongside other young adults: a vegetarian named
Brenda, a prankster known as Ned, another dude called Bill, and a
couple (Jack and Marcie). The members of this group paint docks by
the lake, nail up sagging rain gutters, and fix up an archery range,
all totally unaware that the town's self-proclaimed “messenger of
God” (Crazy Ralph) is utterly correct when he intones “You're all
doomed.”
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
In the fifth season of the
sitcom Seinfeld, the protagonist's neighbor (an eccentric fellow
named Kramer) writes and sells a coffee table book about coffee
tables. Some fifteen years earlier, film producer Sean S. Cunningham
and screenwriter Victor Miller hatched the brilliant idea of creating
a movie set at a summer camp with a plot worthy of being told around
campfires. Indeed, the film's first sequel includes a literal
campfire scene.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
In his book Making Friday
the 13<sup>th</sup>: The Legend of Camp Blood, David Grove quotes
Victor Miller as saying, “I came up with the summer camp idea and
it seemed perfect except for the fact that there were lots of kids at
summer camp. Where's the terror in that? That's when I thought that
it was a summer camp that was just about to open... we had to have
these kids who are totally on their own with no one to help them.
Total isolation.”</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Sean S. Cunningham directed
the film from a Victor Miller script that included substantial
uncredited rewrites by Ron Kurz (who went on to have sole credit as
writer of the film's first sequel). The plot that unfolds in the
final product opens with a five-minute prologue set at Camp Crystal
Lake in 1958 (a place that a sign indicates was founded in 1935).
Two counselors sneak off to an isolated room to sate their carnal
needs, but before their romp progresses beyond making out, they're
interrupted by an off-camera assailant who kills them both. The
narrative then moves to June 13<sup>th</sup> in 1980. Nine minutes
pass before the protagonist (Alice Hardy) makes her first appearance.
Alice's boss (Steve Christy) vanishes from the proceedings for half
an hour; he heads into town eighteen minutes into the film and
doesn't reappear until the forty-eight minute mark. Thus, Alice and
her co-workers have ample time to get into unsupervised trouble.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Jack and Marcie wander
around the camp and are outdoors when a thunderstorm commences
thirty-six minutes into the tale. Just before the rain falls, Marcie
tells Jack about a recurring dream she's had in which “rain turns
to blood.” It's a quietly chilling moment and one that has stuck
in my craw. Some critics assert that the Friday the 13<sup>th</sup>
films are nothing more than one gory scene after another, but subtle
chills like this one permeate the first movie.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Jack and Marcie sneak into a
cabin to have sex during the storm, unaware that the corpse of Ned
(whose death scene is not depicted) lays in the upper bunk above
them. Meanwhile, Alice plays “strip Monopoly” with Brenda and
Bill. Alice smokes a joint and nearly removes her shirt (the game's
interrupted before she unbuttons too far), which contradicts the
viewpoint voiced by some critics that only goody-goody virginal girls
survive slasher films. Marcie leaves Jack alone in the cabin and
heads out for some post-coital use of the self-contained washroom
building, and in her absence someone hiding beneath Jack's bed shoves
an arrow up through the mattress and right on through Jack's throat.
Approximately four minutes later, the killer embeds an
axe in Marcie's face. Ten minutes later, Brenda dies off-camera at
the archery range. Seven minutes after that, boss Steve makes it
back to camp only to be knifed in the stomach. Bill is the next to
perish, albeit off-camera. Alice (who inexplicably takes a nap
shortly after she finds a bloody axe in Brenda's bed) awakens and
sets out to locate Bill. When she stumbles upon his corpse, she
realizes that she's in mortal peril and barricades herself in the
counselors' main headquarters. Headlights appear outside, and Alice
(who thinks that Steve has returned) runs outside to be greeted by a
woman who identifies herself as “Mrs. Voorhees... an old friend”
of the family that owns that camp. Alice attempts to explain that
her peers are all dead, but Mrs. Voorhees seems unfazed and heads
into the cabin where Alice had been barricaded. In there, she gushes
some exposition about how her son Jason drowned at the camp in 1957
while the counselors who were supposed to supervise him were off
“making love.” Mrs. Voorhees reveals herself to be the killer
when she explains that she could not let Camp Crystal Lake reopen
again. She pulls out a hunting knife and lunges at Alice, who fights
for her life. Eventually the two women end up on the shore of
Crystal Lake, where Alice decapitates Mrs. Voorhees with a machete.</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
In her book Games of Terror,
Vera Dika describes Friday the 13<sup>th</sup> as “a film where
elaborate characterization and motivation would only get in the way
of the rhythmic progression of shocks.” Indeed, most of the
characters are thinly-drawn; Brenda has a couple of lines that reveal
she is a vegetarian, and Ned goofs around more than Bill and Jack,
but the project will never be remembered as a character-centric
piece.
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Atmospheric and unsettling,
Friday the 13<sup>th</sup> remains a seminal and prototypical slasher
film nearly thirty-five years after its theatrical release. I hadn't
looked at any movies from this franchise for over a decade (I used to
see the first four films in heavy rotation on cable TV during the
mid-to-late 1980s) before I began revisiting them on Blu-ray as part
of my annual horror movie festival, and I'm pleasantly surprised to
report that the film that spawned the series still retains its crude
charm despite a rather slow first act (after the prologue, the viewer
spends a long set of scenes following Annie, a young woman who has
been hired to be the camp's cook, as she makes her way toward Crystal
Lake by hitchhiking). For first-time viewers, there are ample
red herrings in terms of suspects who could be the killer (certainly
Crazy Ralph and Steve Christy seem creepy and possibly dangerous).
For those who have seen the film numerous times before, there are
always new details to discover (I noticed a sign that indicates
there's a “Lake Tomahawk” thirteen miles beyond Crystal Lake).
Often dismissed as a silly gore-filled simple slasher movie, Friday
the 13<sup>th</sup> is a work of art worthy of serious examination in
the eyes of this reviewer. There's a reason the mythos of Camp
Crystal Lake resonated with viewers strongly enough to launch a
lucrative multi-film franchise. The third act in particular is dense
with a sense of dread and suspense. I'm glad I opted to re-examine
these stories in the autumn of 2014.</div>
Daniel S. Duvallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18374034011752016390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3903087151296855286.post-60179627005556881142013-10-02T03:00:00.003-04:002013-10-02T03:00:45.547-04:00Hellraiser: Hellseeker
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">HELLRAISER:
HELLSEEKER</span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The
worst of the Hellraiser sequels up to this point in the series,
Hellseeker follows a bland protagonist named Trevor (husband of
Kirsty) who is seemingly under investigation by the police for the
murder of his wife and some other women. Trevor suffers from
frequent intense headaches and loses the ability to distinguish
reality from hallucination. He spends time in his cubicle at work
(where he's supposed to crunch numbers but apparently never actually
gets anything done), riding on a bus, at his apartment, and receiving
acupuncture treatments. In the film's final scenes, the viewer
learns what's actually been going on via a twist ending that
transforms the Kirsty character from the likeable and sympathetic
young woman she was at the start of this series into a cold-blooded
killer. </span>
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
</div>
<span style="font-size: large;">
</span><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I've
got a single Blu-ray disc that includes Hellseeker along with three
other Hellraiser films, and the back of the case describes the plot
of this film as follows: “Pinhead and his legion return to unleash
Hell on Earth but standing in the way is Kirsty – the only person
who has defeated Pinhead in the past.” This is blatant false
advertising. Kirsty and Pinhead barely appear in Hellseeker, and
Kirsty certainly does not stand in Pinhead's way. Rather, she
strikes a bargain with him. Unless you're a Hellraiser completist,
don't waste 88 minutes sitting through this crap. </span>
</div>
Daniel S. Duvallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18374034011752016390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3903087151296855286.post-61070604708686239352013-09-29T21:54:00.000-04:002013-09-29T21:58:30.865-04:00Hellraiser: Inferno<div dir="ltr">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">HELLRAISER:
INFERNO</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The
fifth entry in this series follows an unethical police detective
named Joseph Thorne in Colorado who finds a Lament Configuration box
at a crime scene and (instead of cataloging it with the other
evidence) takes it with him. He stops home briefly to visit with his
wife and daughter, then heads to a motel to snort cocaine with a
prostitute (who he has sex with). The next morning, Thorne messes
with the puzzle box in the motel bathroom and has an experience in
which he seemingly walks into another space (a house) and encounters
Cenobites. He finds himself back in the motel bathroom and exits
while the prostitute sleeps in the bed. The bulk of the plot finds
him investigating assorted homicides with a child's severed finger
left at each scene. He grows to believe that a criminal mastermind
known as The Engineer is behind the murders. Throughout his
investigation, he periodically glimpses Cenobites. The boundary
between reality and visions/hallucinations blurs, and the viewer
learns how and why in the project's final moments. Pinhead appears
only briefly in this project.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Hellraiser:
Inferno begins quite well as a singular and memorable protagonist (a
coke-snorting cop who steals evidence and cheats on his wife) finds a
Lament Configuration box and the mangled bloody remains of someone
who likely encountered Cenobites (and their hooks) at a crime scene.
The scenes in which the main character encounters Cenobites are
visually striking and often chilling. I've read that Hellraiser
creator Clive Barker (who was not creatively involved with this
movie) loathes Inferno. I found it to be the best of the sequels
thus far, though it's not nearly on par with the engrossing original
film. Inferno's main flaw is in ignoring the Hellraiser conventions
and rules that are set up earlier in the series. Inferno turns the
Cenobites into moralistic judges of human sin, whereas in the
original movie they were more or less neutral bringers of pleasure
and pain. Inferno boasts the most cohesive plot of the Hellraiser
sequels and features a flawed and unlikeable protagonist who somehow
is sympathetic despite his unpleasant attributes. Of the Hellraiser
sequels I've seen thus far, this is the first one I'd consider
watching again. I imagine it's a different experience to sit through
this movie once you've seen the ending and have an idea of what's
“really” happening as the tale unfolds. Hellraiser: Inferno may
offend Barker purists, but I found it to be an interesting take on
the Cenobite mythos.</span></div>
Daniel S. Duvallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18374034011752016390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3903087151296855286.post-76814005499558713402013-09-25T14:28:00.000-04:002013-09-25T14:28:56.137-04:00Hellraiser: Bloodline<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">HELLRAISER: BLOODLINE</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The fourth film in the series takes place across
three different time periods: the years 2127 and 1996 plus sometime in the 1700s.<span> </span>At last addressing the question of how the
puzzle boxes at the center of the Hellraiser mythos originated, Bloodline shows
an 18<sup>th</sup> century toymaker who creates the first box on commission for
an occultist (who then conducts a dark ritual in which he sacrifices a woman
and brings her back as a demon).<span> </span>Somehow
this imbues the box with the power to open gateways to hell.<span> </span>The summoned demon (Angelique) still roams
Earth in 1996 and sets out to find a descendant of the original toymaker.<span> </span>The descendant (John Merchant) is a
successful architect in New York and apparently is the one who designed the
building glimpsed at the end of the third Hellraiser film.<span> </span>Angelique for no apparent reason lures a man
to the basement of the building and has him mess with a Lament Configuration
box, which leads to the fellow’s death and the arrival of Pinhead.<span> </span>The motivations of this pair of antagonists
(Angelique and Pinhead) are fuzzy at best, but Pinhead kidnaps Merchant’s son
and wife to use as “live bait.”<span> </span>Pinhead
for some reason needs Merchant to open the floodgates of hell. <span> </span>When Merchant discovers that his family’s
missing and his home is trashed, he immediately heads to his place of work
instead of, like, phoning the police.<span>
</span>There he and Pinhead face off, and Merchant ends up decapitated.<span> </span>On a space station in 2127, Dr. Paul Merchant
(who has been recounting his family history as depicted in the film thus far
even though he has no way of knowing in such detail just what transpired) wants
to complete his life’s work: slamming shut the gates of hell that his toymaker
ancestor unwittingly helped to open.<span>
</span>Pinhead and a couple of additional Cenobites wander around the space station,
unaware that Paul has lured them into a trap.<span>
</span>Will Paul’s ploy work?<span> </span>Watch the
movie to find out.</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Bloodline contradicts a rule that’s established in
the third film: Pinhead cannot take a puzzle box but must have one given to
him.<span> </span>Thirty-six minutes into Bloodline,
Pinhead walks to a box and picks it right up.<span>
</span>This is unfortunately the least of the project’s problems, though I do
acknowledge that Bloodline has the best production values out of the first four
films in the series.<span> </span>The use of three
different eras is an interesting departure from past installments, but
Bloodline (like parts two and three) suffers from unclear character
motivations.<span> </span>Also, with no single
protagonist to root for throughout the tale, the viewer might not be as
invested as he or she would be in a story with a sympathetic main
character.<span> </span>Though Bloodline runs less
than ninety minutes, it’s not worth your time.</span></div>
Daniel S. Duvallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18374034011752016390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3903087151296855286.post-37525879241431461532013-09-22T11:48:00.002-04:002013-10-07T01:30:10.166-04:00Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">HELLRAISER III: HELL ON EARTH</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The third film in the series opens with an
interesting premise: what if a television news reporter witnessed the aftermath
of what occurs when someone opens a Lament Configuration puzzle box and set out
to discover exactly what happened? A
protagonist digging into the lore of the Cenobites could have driven an
interesting story, but unfortunately Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth switches
narrative directions repeatedly in a way that muddles the plot with unanswered
questions and silly moments that don’t match the tone of the first film
(Cenobites quip one-liners like “that’s a wrap” and “this is better than sex”).</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The story more or less follows the reporter (a woman
named Joey) starting at a hospital where she’d been sent on an assignment from
her TV station. After her cameraman
departs, Joey witnesses the arrival of a patient who has chains hooked into his
flesh. She questions a girl (Terri) who
arrived at the hospital with the wounded guy and learns only that the fellow’s
injuries have to do with a box he acquired at a place called The Boiler
Room. Joey asks around at The Boiler
Room (a dark nightclub) in search of the girl she met at the hospital. Terri later phones Joey and offers to tell
her story if Joey will let her crash at her place. Meanwhile, the owner of the club (a guy named
J.P.) discovers that weirdness occurs when he accidentally gets blood on a
sculpture that decorates his pad. Just
as blood brought Frank back in the first film and Julia in the second, here the
blood begins to revive Pinhead (who somehow ended up trapped in this sculpture –
the story never addresses why he’s there).
J.P. observes as the sculpture skins and absorbs a girl he’d just slept
with, and Pinhead’s face comes to life in the sculpture. Further convoluting the plot are Joey’s
dreams in which she seeks to connect with her father (who died in the Vietnam
War). At some point, Joey’s motivation
becomes to lure Pinhead to her apartment because the window therein will
somehow act as a gateway to a limbo where the ghost of the man who was once
Pinhead resides. By this point, the plot
makes little sense, but apparently some fans of the series were entertained
merely by the visuals of Pinhead slaughtering a club full of young adults and (later)
Pinhead and a few Cenobites creating havoc and chaos on a city street. I prefer images on screen that coalesce into
a coherent and plausible narrative. The
film ends with Joey burying the puzzle box in wet cement at a construction
site. The viewer then sees the lobby of
the building that’s been built there, and its walls are decorated with
oversized versions of the trim that adorns the puzzle boxes. </span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s unfortunate that the first two Hellraiser
sequels fail to capture the atmosphere, suspense, tone, and creepiness of the
original. Perhaps each installment
should have centered on a different group of Cenobites interacting with people
in disparate situations who have summoned them.
Instead, part two centered on Kirsty from the first film, and she even
has a cameo shoehorned into part three.
Of the Hellraiser movies I’ve seen thus far, only the first is worth
your time.</span></div>
Daniel S. Duvallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18374034011752016390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3903087151296855286.post-23330897363183824942013-09-18T06:03:00.001-04:002013-09-18T06:03:37.495-04:00Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 (unrated version)<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER 2 (UNRATED VERSION)</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The second film in the Hellraiser series is flat-out
bad.<span> </span>The narrative is such a mess that
it’s hard to summarize the plot.<span> </span>The
tale begins with a prologue that quickly depicts the origin of Pinhead.<span> </span>In the present day, the viewer finds Kirsty
(shortly after the events of the first film) in a psychiatric hospital.<span> </span>By coincidence, the head shrink (Doctor
Channard) has an interest in (and collection of) the sort of puzzle boxes that
summon the Cenobites.<span> </span>As Kirsty attempts
to explain the ordeal she’s just been through, she uses the word “Cenobites”
when she refers to the demons.<span> </span>Did she
hear that word in the original movie? <span> </span>She speaks like someone who has seen the first
film, not like someone who lived through only part of the events depicted
therein.<span> </span>Channard acquires the
blood-stained mattress on which Julia died and (for no apparent reason) uses
the blood of his patients to bring her back (just as Julia helped Frank to
regenerate in the first film). </span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Channard takes a patient in a straightjacket out of
the hospital and to his home with the intent of allowing the fellow to
self-mutilate with a razor and bleed all over the mattress.<span> </span>Were there no witnesses to his comings and
goings at the hospital?<span> </span>A fellow named
Kyle (one of Channard’s co-workers) witnesses the return of Julia because he’d
broken into Channard’s house (again with no clear motivation).<span> </span>Kyle returns to the hospital and tells Kirsty
he believes her story given what he saw at Channard’s house (he observed a
collection of puzzle boxes too).<span> </span>Kirsty
wants to use one of the boxes to open a door to hell so that she can rescue her
dead father.<span> </span>She and Kyle go back to the
doctor’s house, where Kyle (upstairs) encounters an almost completely
regenerated Julia while Kirsty (downstairs) finds a photo of the man who became
Pinhead.<span> </span>She pockets the picture.<span> </span>Julia kills Kyle and knocks Kirsty out.<span> </span>Channard returns to the house with Tiffany (a
young patient from the hospital who has a savant-like ability to solve
puzzles).<span> </span>Channard gives Tiffany one of
the mystical puzzle boxes and observes with Julia from another room as Tiffany
summons the Cenobites.<span> </span>With the doors to
hell open, all the remaining main characters set off on assorted adventures in
the underworld.<span> </span>Kirsty searches for her
father, Tiffany wanders into a hellish carnival, and Julia leads Channard to a
place where he’s turned into a Cenobite.<span>
</span>From this point on, the plot spirals into incomprehensibility.<span> </span>If you must know what happens next, sit down
and watch the film.<span> </span>I discourage you
from doing so: believe me, there are better ways to spend 95 minutes or
so.<span> </span>In his 1988 review of Hellraiser 2,
Roger Ebert noted that the project “violates a basic convention of story
construction, which suggests that we should get at least a vague idea of where
the story began and where it might be headed.<span>
</span>This movie has no plot in a conventional sense.”<span> </span>The 1996 edition of The BFI Companion to
Horror notes that the sequel is “sicker and gorier” than the first movie, which
is accurate.<span> </span>It’s just a shame that the
disturbing visuals were not strung together in a way that tells a coherent
story.<span> </span>Avoid.</span></div>
Daniel S. Duvallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18374034011752016390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3903087151296855286.post-70397601621861474242013-09-15T05:12:00.000-04:002013-09-15T05:12:17.895-04:00Hellraiser<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">HELLRAISER</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Directed and scripted by Clive Barker (based on his
novella The Hellbound Heart), the 1987 film Hellraiser features a unique
structure: for the first two-thirds, a character named Julia (nefarious and
unsympathetic though she may be) appears to be the protagonist.<span> </span>For the final third, Julia’s stepdaughter
(Kirsty) takes over the role of being the most active central character.<span> </span>Also of note, Pinhead (who became the
franchise’s most iconic character) barely appears in the movie and mostly shows
up in the final third.</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The tale follows Julia and her husband (Larry) as
they move into a property that has been in the family for some time and has sat
vacant until Larry and his wife arrive.<span>
</span>What they don’t know is that Larry’s brother (Frank, who in the past had
a passionate affair with Julia) messed around with a mystical puzzle box in the
house’s uppermost room and summoned a group of unpleasant preternatural beings
(“demons to some, angels to others” in the words of Pinhead).<span> </span>These bipedal humanoids tortured and killed
Frank, then whisked away his soul.<span> </span>Larry
accidentally cuts his hand and spills quite a lot of blood on the upstairs
room’s floor.<span> </span>When the room’s
unoccupied, Frank begins to physically rematerialize in the room piecemeal
(little more than a partial skeleton and a brain at first).<span> </span>Julia encounters Frank when he’s further along
in his regeneration and able to speak.<span>
</span>He pleads with his former mistress to bring him more blood to enable him
to regenerate further.<span> </span>She agrees to do
so.<span> </span>While Larry’s at work and nobody
else is home (Larry’s biological daughter Kirsty, a young adult, lives in a
rented room elsewhere), Julia brings a succession of men she’s picked up
(allegedly for sex) to the house and lures them upstairs, where their blood
nourishes an ever-more-complete Frank.<span>
</span>To delve into the plot further would be to deprive you of the creepy
imagery and surprising story twists that are best enjoyed by actually watching
the film.</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I’ve never read Barker’s novella The Hellbound
Heart, so I can’t compare and contrast or discuss this project in terms of how
it fares as an adaptation.<span> </span>As a movie,
Hellraiser works marvelously.<span> </span>Characters
generally behave in psychologically-realistic ways (Kirsty is visibly
traumatized after an encounter with Frank), the backstory about Julia’s affair
with Frank gets revealed through a series of often steamy flashbacks in a way
that doesn’t detour too far away from the main narrative spine for very long,
and the core concept itself is original and unlike any horror films that came
before.<span> </span>The second edition of the
Overlook Film Encyclopedia of Horror (edited by Phil Hardy) states that “for
the most part, Hellraiser is a return to the cutting edge of horror…”<span> </span>Hellraiser in 1987 raised the bar for the
horror genre.<span> </span>The film that launched
this franchise holds up well in the present and retains its ability to engross,
unnerve, and chill viewers.<span> </span>Seek it out.</span></div>
Daniel S. Duvallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18374034011752016390noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3903087151296855286.post-47177694193474478562013-09-11T03:15:00.000-04:002013-09-11T03:15:28.747-04:00The Eye (2008 English language version)<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">THE EYE (2008 English language version)</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">An American remake of a 2002 Asian film title Gin
Gwai, The Eye follows a violinist named Sydney Wells who has been blind since
age five due to an accident with firecrackers.<span>
</span>Sydney undergoes an operation, receives new corneas, and gradually
reacquires the ability to see.<span> </span>Soon
she’s glimpsing strange shadowy figures and people who don’t seem to be
real.<span> </span>She eventually realizes that her
new corneas have somehow enabled her to see ghosts and the shades that
accompany the newly-dead into the afterlife.<span>
</span>Sydney grows determined to learn whose corneas she received and
ultimately learns that the donor was a young Mexican woman who committed
suicide.<span> </span>The donor (known as a “witch”
in her small community) was somewhat psychic insofar as she could see the same
shadowy grim reapers that Sydney perceives and predict some deaths.<span> </span>En route back to the United States from
Mexico (where she and her doctor visited the donor’s mother), Sydney realizes
that she’s meant to save many lives from an accident that’s about to occur.</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Eye is neither awful nor wonderful.<span> </span>It’s a competently-made project with some
chilling imagery (one scene in which Sydney’s stuck in an elevator with a ghost
got under my skin) and a somewhat passive protagonist (at a couple of key
points, Sydney’s doctor becomes the most active character).<span> </span>There are worse ways to spend ninety minutes
or so.<span> </span>I would’ve liked some
clarification on the rules of the spirits’ existences (some seem earthbound
while others get escorted away by the reapers and are never seen again).<span> </span>I’ll probably seek out the original Asian version
of this tale at some point and watch it with subtitles.<span> </span>If you’re in the mood to see Jessica Alba
play a musician who must deal with a newfound ability to glimpse ghosts, you
might enjoy The Eye.<span> </span>I recommend the
film with some reservations.</span></div>
Daniel S. Duvallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18374034011752016390noreply@blogger.com0