A few weeks ago a couple of friends and myself sat down and watched on Blu-ray the remake of 90’s vampire flick, Fright Night.
I had seen the original film during its first run in 1985 and while I didn’t haste the film, nor did I love. My friends were more favorably inclined towards the original. Continue reading
Due to the holiday the Sunday Night Movie took place on Monday Night.
I picked up were upgrades to DVD already in my library, but on a whim I picked up Alive vs. Predator; Requiem .
Some months ago a friend of mine and I had stated watching the movie on blu-ray via Netflix, but the disc didn’t work properly and so we only ever saw half of the movie. Last night I watched the entire, unrated, version of the film.
Meh.
It wasn’t horribly stupid or offensive but as a co-worker and friend described it, “that movie’s a teen slasher movie, but with an alien instead of a slasher,’ and I’d say her analysis is fairly on target, Continue reading
I have always been a fan of the giant Monster movies. I can remember being bitterly disappointed when Godzilla vs The Smog Monster came out and I did not see the film in the theater. Given that background it is a little strange that I missed Cloverfield during its theatrical run. The truth of the matter is that life gets pretty busy these days and the film slipped past me. (It’s amazing just hwo fast a film disappears from the theaters now. I can remember E.T. and Raiders Of The Lost Ark both playing for more than a year at theaters in Sand Diego.) So Cloverfield is a film I have only seen on home video. However I think home video is the right medium for this movie.
Cloverfield is a ‘found footage’ film. The best know example of this style of film making is The Blair Witch Project, a film that is supposedly cut from the film shot by documentary filmmakers who had vanished in the woods and years later the footage is found. The most recent example of this is Apollo 18 which is supposedly made from stolen classified footage. (However it clearly impossible by the events of the film that this footage ever reached Earth and there the whole conceit is thrown into abject stupidity. Apollo 18 is a film to be avoided even on home video.) I have rarely fully enjoyed a found footage film because too often the ending does not work. It is very difficult to craft a satisfying one. Cloverfield is the exception to the rule.
I watched this back in 2009 on blu-ray via Netflix and throughly enjoyed the experience. The hand-held shaky camera worked very well on the small screen and may have been too much for me personally on the big screen.
The setting is simple. New York, May 2008, a Godzilla-class monster shows up and starts tearing death and destruction through the metropolis. Instead of an objective viewpoint, we see the entire night’s events from one hand-held camera that start the film documenting a going away party. Cloverfield isn’t really about the monster, but rather it is about love and loss and what are you willing to do for love.
The film did stir some controversy when it was released because the imagery of the destruction as such a vast scale to New York evoked for many the memories of September 11, 2001. That is understandable, but I would never call for film makers to censor themselves because of that. We remain free in our actions, our thoughts, and our arts — anything else is real capitulation.
The film is short, just 85 minutes, and moves very quickly. (Of those 85 minutes, 11 are credits as this is a very impressive piece of special-effects works, meaning 13% of the movie is credits, perhaps the high ratio of a major feature film.) Cloverfield is also a film where no one is ‘safe’ by benefits of being a major character. While not everyone dies, the loss rate if very high.
I now own a copy on blu-ray and would easily recommend this movie.
Sorry about the Sunday Night Movie feature, upon its return, being a day late. Last night I had a nasty migraine start up — reminds me I need ot log that — and while the treximet took care of the headache nicely, it was severe enough to pack me off to bed rather early. So, a day late, but not a dollar short because this is free, here is this week’s film.
Ringu is the Japanese Horror film that was adapted into the American film The Ring, starring Naomi Watts. Ringu is based upon a novel, also Japanese, titled Ringu or The Ring. I first saw the american film, but not in theaters as the premise seemed too silly for my tastes. A killer video tape? really? I was sorry I had missed it in the theaters as The Ring turned out to be a very good horror film. A fairly low body count, and very little violence, this was not a butcher’s bill of hormone addled teenagers being watched for their sins, not was this a torture-porn of pure sadism, this was a film about knowing your end is coming and having no options to avoid it. The horror evolved from the characters and the nature of their dilemma not from how gruesome the murders were.
Having enjoyed The Ring I was determined to hunt down the source material. I purchased a collection off Amazon of 4 Ringu films on DVD. The movie had been enough of a success in Japan to spawn a sequel, a prequel and then a revised prequel that retconned elements tha fan objected to in the previous prequel. (Ahh if only we could get Lucas to listen to us.) I also tracked down the original novel, albeit an English translation as I do not read Japanese.
Ringu is a throughly enjoyable horror film. If you have seen The Ring then you will recognized the major elements of sweep of Ringu, however there are differences that make each film throughly unique. In The Ring there is no explanation for why Rachel’s son, Aidan, is such an odd child. In Ringu there is an entire element, taken from the novel, dealing with ESP and psionic ability that explained why the main characters react the way they do and just what is at the heart of Sada’s curse. Also the Japanese film plays with a more explicit supernatural element than the American movie. Both versions abandon sub-plots from the novel, including the explanation for why the curse works in the manner it does. (it deals with if I remember correctly the polio virus and was never a satisfactory element for my tastes.)
Interestingly all film versions replace the male protagonist with a female protagonist. I find it interesting that the switch occurred though I suspect the American and Korean (yes, there is a Korean version as well) well simply following the Japanese film more than the novel.
Ringu is well acted, directed, and photographed, playing for a subtle horror that ignore the temptation of special effects make=up in favor of strong performances and suspenseful scenes.
For anyone who enjoys horror and for whom subtitles are not a barrier to suspension of disbelief, Ringu is a film I heartily recommend.
I have been feeling unwell all weekend. IT started with a sore throat on on friday that felt really bad on Saturday and by Sunday left me congested and coughing. Given all of that I knew I would not have the endurance for a full two hours or more picture, so I opted for an older and shorter film to watch, Frankenstein.
The 1931 production of Frankenstein is a very short film, just 70 minuets from start to end and while it deviates wildly from the original text, what can you expect when they can’t get the original author’s credit correct, it is still one of the best productions based upon that classic novel.
Of course you would have had to lived your life in a very deep and dark cultural hole to not know the basics of the story of Frankenstein. Dr. Frankenstein, in this production named Henry instead of Victor, obsessed with life and death, pursues dangerous and forbidden experiments seeking to create life in a body that has never known life. Robbing execution yards, universities, and graveyards for his materials Frankenstein allows no law and no morality to sway or hinder his experimentation. Aided by his hunchbacked lab assistant Fritz, nope not Igor, Ygor as it is spelled in Son of Frankenstein, doesn’t show up for a couple of films yet, Henry’s fiance Elizabeth, concerned by the strange and incomprehensible letters she has received from her groom-to-be enlisted the assistance of their best friend, Victor, who in the novel was named Henry, and together the Dr, Frankenstein’s former college mentor, they barge in just as Henry is ready to revivify — or should we vivify — the target body. Continue reading
So here is an animated series that I think would have been quite popular, but sadly no network was willing to pick it up so all we have is this 4 minute demo reel.
So there I was last night playing around with the Netflix instant queue on my Xbox 360 when I saw this title pop up.
Hmm, this is a 50′s SF film I had never heard of and I was in the mood for something light and fairly mindless. A badly imagined trip to the planet Uranus just was the thing.
This film from 1962 is Danish. I wonder just how many danish SF films are there? T stars John Agar who made a career out fo B-Sf films though this particular movie is several grade lower than his standard fare.
It starts with voice-over narration to let us know that it is the year 2001 and mankind has made the earth a paradise. There are no nations and no wars and all of man energies have been harnessed for peaceful and exploratory goals. To quote the narration: ‘All the planets close to the sun, including Saturn, have been explored.’ The writers were clearly using values of ‘close’ that are unfamiliar to me.
Anyway the UN has noticed regular radiation pulses coming from the planet Uranus and has dispatched an international crew to investigate and see if there is life. There is little expectation for life as they suspect that the planet has a surface temperature of negative 400 degrees. As they enter orbit and a brief period of weightlessness an alien intelligence, vast, cool, and unsympathetic —wait that’s from a better story — the evil alien mind takes over theirs and probes it for their dreams and fears. (1962? I wonder if this film was a favorite of Gene Roddenberry?)
They land and the landscape around the ship changes from bleak and frozen to lush and rich woodland. Our intrepid crew don’t realize this ’cause apparently they have no external cameras. They plan to take hours testing the suddenly hospitable atmosphere before exiting the ship. The Evil Alien Presence — as impatient as an author awaiting a rejection slip — opens the door to their craft flooding it with rich breathable air.
Freaked beyond measure, the crew logically decided to leave and head for home. No they didn’t, they went ahead and walked outside, sans suits. I couldn’t PAY my players to be that stupid.
They quickly encounter old flames, childhood homes, and apple trees, all apparently equally loved by the repercussive crewmen. Let’s not consider where the apple-fetish might take us,
Further exploration indicates that a forcefield surrounds their landing site. A handy stick can be pushed through the field so they know it can be penetrated, but have no way to determine what the conditions are beyond. With due care and planning remote probes are sent through the barrier to ascertain the conditions. You don’t believe me do you? Well, you’re right. The German kid, on his first mission, sticks his arm through and finds out what it feels like to be a frozen TV dinner. Lucky for him the budget did not include one-arm effects and he is allowed to recover in a day with no ill effects.
The rest of the film is the crew exploring the frozen world in very thick non-pressure suits, encountering lovely ladies and accepting them as their long lost loves, fighting giant one-eyes bipedal rats, and fighting with a Cycloptic-brain that pulses radiation at 750 roentgens.
If you are into MST3K fare, but without Joel and the Bots then this might be for you.
The End times are here.Both H.P. Lovecraft and Harlan Ellison have come to ….Scooby doo.
When Chris MacNeil’ s daughter Regan begin behaving strangely, Chris does what any mother would do and takes Regan to the doctors. Despite advanced technology and level of medical examination that borders on medieval torture the doctors can find no cause for Regan’s increasing bizzare and violent acts.
When Chris’s director dies mysteriously after visiting Regan Chirs is pushed out of the light of reason and enlightenment and is forced to confront the growing possibility that Reagon is possessed.
With only the help of Father Karras a priest whose own faith has shattered, Chris must find the one person who can save Regan’s soul, The Exorcist.