Hellraiser (1987)

1987
Directed by Clive Barker
Starring Ashley Laurence, Andrew Robinson, Clare Higgins, Sean Robinson and Doug Bradley

Now here's a poster that everyone out there in Lick Ness Monster Land should be more than familiar with.  If the blood-red title didn't give it away, that is.  Hellraiser is a flick that is pretty damn close to being on the "have seen" list of even the most casual fan, but for whatever reason, I've never posted a review of it here on the blog.  I "inducted" the first sequel (which I consider to be ever-so-slightly better) back when I was still doing the "International Horror Registry" thing (and looking back, good God, could I have possibly picked a less appealing name?), but since it's about time to write something positive, this flick is getting the fun-size treatment this week.

Expedited background information that even the most casual horror fans should be more than aware of:  Hellraiser was the directorial debut of one Mr. Clive Barker, one of the two or three best horror writers of the latter-half of the 20th century.  It's hard to explain the style that the dude has; he isn't very big on leaving nasty details up to your imagination, that's for sure.  There's also this prevailing theme of sex and pain that runs throughout his work, and never was this more apparent than it is here - an adaptation of his novella "The Hellbound Heart" that brings a whole lotta blood, death and S&M gear onto the big screen with a vengeance.

PLOT:  While the sequels would much more heavily feature the dude in the theatrical poster, this first film is actually much more about two very decidedly HUMAN villains.  The first character we meet is Frank Cotton (Sean Chapman), a sort of adventurer on the trail of the ultimate in pleasure.  Most of the film takes place after he finds what he's looking for.  His brother Larry (Andrew Robinson) and his new wife Julia (Clare Higgins) have just moved into Frank's old duds.  Apparently the piles of garbage, maggots and gigantic blood stain in the attic aren't enough to dissuade them from moving in, because soon enough, Julia is getting flashbacks to her pre-marital (as in the events happened before her marriage to Larry) affair with Frank. 

As it turns out, Frank's spirit is alive and well in the attic, and after being revived by Larry's blood (yes, really), he is begging Julia to bring him some fresh meat to revive his skin.  But escaping death means escaping the things that did this to him in the first place...and these guys don't like to be conned.  At all.  If you're not intrigued by that plot, go ahead and blame me, because ol' Clive's artful camera and sharp details do a phenomenal job framing this dark story about all kinds of foridden things.  Ladies and gentlemen, my attempt at being poetic.
PLOT RATING: **** out of ****.

CHARACTERS AND ACTORS:  This is a flick with a lot of memorable characters, including an outstanding triumverate of main villains.  You've got Frank, wonderfully played by a very slimy Chapman, as a kind of evil seducer;  you've got Higgis' great turn as Julia, who turns into a full-blown serial killer in her quest to bring back her lover;  and then you've got the Cenobites, with their leader (Doug Bradley) being front and center as the guy that you don't want to mess with.  Bradley doesn't have many lines in this movie, but when he does, he makes them count.  The Cenobites (each of which have a VERY defining look that makes their credited names all the more identifiable) are without a doubt Clive Barker's most famous creation, eternal agents of Hell/Satan/Leviathan/whatever deity you're comfortable with who reside inside a tiny puzzle box called the "Lament Configuration" that serves as their pied piper to anyone who wants to see everything life has to offer the hard way. 

If there is one thing I can bitch about with this movie, it's that the babyfaces are nowhere near as fascinating as the heels.  Larry is a good guy, but Robinson is milquetoast as all hell in this role and does little to get us on his side.  He comes across more as a gigantic oblivious tool than anything else.  Eventually, we're left with Larry's daughter Kirsty as our "final girl" to wrap up the plot, and while she becomes a much better heroine in the second film, she's also pretty drab in this one. 
CHARACTERS AND ACTORS: *** 1/2 out of ****.

COOL FACTOR:  There's a lot of coolness abound in Hellraiser.  All manner of debauchery is present and on display in this flick, from brief snippets of nudity, plenty of really gruesome imagery, awesome makeup effects, and one of the best and most memorable scores that any horror movie has ever had.  Oh, and the Cenobites.  The only reason that I have to dock it slightly is because the scenes focused on the life and times of Kirsty Cotton make me instantly want to push the fast forward button.
COOL FACTOR: *** 1/2 out of ****.

OVERALL:  This movie is considered a classic, and it definitely deserves the distinction.  A genuinely fascinating and tense plot that is easy to get wrapped up in, more than its fair share of classic characters and a couple truly legendary murder set pieces amount to a pretty damn good time on the couch.  Also, if you're in the mood for a movie to have a good time in a small group setting, this movie along with Hellbound: Hellraiser II make a pretty Roman Reigns-esque Superman Punch-Spear combination.

OVERALL RATING: *** 1/2 out of ****.  If by some chance you haven't checked this one out, Joe Bob already has a contract out on your ass, so hop to it bitch.

Black Christmas (2006)

Here we are.  The only movie that I've seen in theaters that I walked out of before it was finished is about to get a second chance.

There's a great many things that make me feel old these days, and I'm feeling quite ancient knowing that it was already SEVEN YEARS AGO that I spent a lonely afternoon away from the crappy apartment I was living in at the time taking this incredibly dark and incredibly gruesome flick in at one of the local multiplexes.  Believe it or not, going in, I was pretty jacked.  On paper, this was a movie that had everything going for it.  It was directed by Glen Morgan, one of the gurus behind The X-Files and the creator of the Final Destination franchise.  It promised plenty of good, rollicking, old-school slasher action - fitting since it was a remake of what some people consider the original slasher flick (and one that I've reviewed already, by the way). 

And it featured this woman in a prominent role.

Yup, Lacey "oh so fetch" Chabert, whom I've been a loyal fan of since...pretty much puberty.  For reasons other than her hotness, I swear (although that certainly doesn't hurt).  In Lick Ness Monster Land (and that really needs to be a theme park), it's one of the world's great injustices that both Rachel McAdams and Amanda Seyfried, two of the other "mean girls," have gone on to have Nicholas freakin' Sparks adaptation vehicles but she hasn't.  She's not just a good actress; she is a FANTASTIC one, able to play either a detestable bitch or an endearing heroine with shocking ease.  If I ever become Steven Spielberg successful (or at least Quentin Tarantino famous), one of my plans will be to make it so that she can afford her own solid gold private island, or whatever her ideal little heart desires.

All that gushing aside, man, what is it about the Party of Five alumni that made them such great horror movie vixens?  You've got Lacey here and in a recent SyFy flick called Scarecrow, you've got Sidney Prescott herself in Neve Campbell, and Jennifer Love Hewitt...if she had chosen to do more horror films aside from the I Know What You Did Last Summer films, she could have given Jamie Lee Curtis a serious run for her money as far as "greatest horror heroine of all time" goes. She had it all - hot, likable, and a FANTASTIC screamer. 

Anyway, where was I?  Oh yeah, the Black Christmas remake.  Now that I've done my longest introduction since the "fun sizing" of these reviews, on with the show.

PLOT:  This movie has a pretty nifty little "multi-timeframe" setup, with one storyline effectively taking care of the Bruce Wayne-esque origin story and the other giving us a whole lot of happenin' sorority sister action.  Right before they all start getting butchered, of course.  Through some lengthy flashbacks, we are shown the tender, tragic backstory of one Billy Lenz.  If you want the short version, just picture a real-life version of That Yellow Bastard from Sin City.  Yup, little Billy is born to one of those amazing horror movie psycho mothers (and, for the record, they are very prevalent), his liver disease that causes the aforementioned urine skin hue the source of her endless strife.  So much that she murders her husband, locks the poor kid in an attic, and eventually conceives another child with him when her new husband can't keep it up long enough to give her the normal child she really wants.  Seriously, that's a plot point.

Meanwhile, there's all sorts of melodrama - that is unfortunately very poorly developed - involving the members of a sorority house doing their gift/wine/catty dialogue exchange.  Three guesses as to what house they currently reside in.  Anyway, the way that this movie is laid out is admittedly fairly original.  Color me old school, but I just prefer the tried-and-true slasher method, where we spend a lot of time getting to know the victim characters (even if they are as annoying as Shelly from Friday the 13th Part III, for Christ's sakes) and the villain's back story is only briefly touched upon.  The movie really suffers for this reason, because we unfortunately don't give much of a s**t about any of the girls when the shockingly brutal and shockingly brief massacre sequence begins.
PLOT RATING: * 1/2 out of ****.

CHARACTERS AND ACTORS:  When I first saw the film in 2006, I knew two of the actors quite well - Lacey and Michelle Trachtenburg, she of the unbelievable "bending over" sequence in Eurotrip.  Looking back, I was amazed at the unbelievable cast that this movie had.  In addition to those two, you've also got Katie Cassidy as the "final girl" Kelly, and while her character is as deep as a Petri dish, she does her damndest to do some excavating (dodges tomatoes).  I've seen Katie in other things now, and I appreciate the hell out of her, because she's the closest thing we've got to a modern day "scream queen," having also been the main heroine in When a Stranger Calls and the single most likable character in the otherwise forgettable-to-the-core Nightmare on Elm Street remake.  Okay, brief aside.  People tell me that Rooney Mara is better in other movies, and I'll take their word for it, but she took on that film with about as much energy as the remains of the cool ranch Doritos that are lying on my floor right now.  Katie, despite that film's uninspired script, did her absolute damndest to make her character resonate.  So three cheers for her.

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL (/salesman voice) - there's also Mary Elizabeth Winstead doing her best Southern accent as yet another sorority sister, who you no doubt recognize as Kurt Russell without the facial hair in The Thing version 2011, Ramona in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and John McClane's daughter.  In other words, they've got some very talented people in this movie...so much like I said in the plot review, it's a shame that we don't get to know their characters on anything more than a cursory, catty level.  There was INFINITE potential here to create some good, likable characters that sadly goes unfulfilled in a sea of Rob Zombie-style vulgar female dialogue.
CHARACTERS AND ACTORS RATING:  ** out of ****.  An EASY **** for the actors but unfortunately a * for the characterization.

COOL FACTOR:  I went back and forth about how to rate this movie in this regard.  On one hand, there is a LOT of red stuff flying around in this movie, but it's not the kind of "gore movie" that makes horror fans want to stand up and cheer.  Or maybe my stomach has just grown a little bit queasier for this stuff as I've crossed over into my 30s.  I suppose that having so many hot, talented actors in one movie is admittedly cool, but as for the horror itself, there isn't any particular one thing about the kills in this movie that stands out as particularly memorable.  Except for the "cookie cutter" scene.  You know, one of my family's Christmas rituals (to this day) involves afternoon cookie making utilizing those damn things, and I think about that scene EVERY time I partake in this painful tradition.
COOL FACTOR: * 1/2 out of ****.

OVERALL:  Looking back at this movie, it's not quite as bad as I remembered it.  For starters, yes, I did make it through the whole thing this time, although I actually left the theater on that initial viewing with only five minutes remaining (I checked out when Billy and his accomplice - I'll leave it to you to brave this movie if you want that detail - show up at the hospital during the "all is well" false resolution).  Without a doubt, this was a movie with a TON of promise, and I won't even throw a dagger at Glen Morgan too hard.  It's clear from watching this movie that he had a huge boner for the 1974 original, much like Rob Zombie did for Carpenter's Halloween.  Couple that love up with this cast and this should have been a great, memorable slasher flick for modern audiences.  Unfortunately, much like ol' Robby Z's magnum opus, the absolute worst case scenario for it came true.

I just wish we could get a "Jon Lickness cut" of this movie, with much more smiles on the actresses' faces, a nice, long dinner scene between the characters where we find out their majors and their backgrounds, and a very brief (perhaps five minutes' worth) expository scene where the sorority mother tells us the legend of Billy Lenz before the slaughter starts.  This slaughter, by the way, would be in more typical slasher fashion, where none of the victims are even aware that anything is off until right before they are offed to prevent this movie's amazing-in-the-wrong-way development where the sisters, having just discovered a dead body, won't leave the house because "it's snowing outside."  In my humble opinion, these changes would make this movie very fetch indeed.

OVERALL RATING: * 1/2 out of ****.  It's good for a viewing around this time of year just for the atmosphere, but as a whole it's a slasher that's light on both scares and substance.

Oh, and MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, and to all a good fright!  See you all in 2014!

Trauma (1993)

Back to the ol' well for this week's review.  My boner for Dario Argento knows no bounds!

Well, actually, that's a bit of a BS statement.  Everyone's milage on the subject varies, but I think that there's a pretty clear and distinct line when it comes to the "quality/crap" ratio in the career of Italy's answer to Jack the Ripper.  That line begins and ends with Opera, the much-ballyhoed 1987 opus about a guy who stalks a beautiful soprano and forces her to watch murders by taping needles to her eyelids.  Tell me that doesn't sound like cheerful time at the amusement park.  I can take or leave the ending, but that movie is all kinds of badass...and, in my opinion, it pretty much marked the point where Dario took the big nosedive. 

Of course, there were blips on the radar here and there.  This 1993 flick (easily the most "mainstream" of Argento's movies, by the way) being one of them.

PLOT:  As big as my aforementioned boner for Argento is, you can take this statement to the bank:  if you've seen one of his giallo films, you've seen them all.  All of the same basic ingredients are here - a quirky and/or angsty female lead, this time played by Argento's own daughter Asia as Aura, a teenage anorexia sufferer whose parents are offed in relatively spectacular fashion in the flick's first act.  You've also got your arty and/or writer male lead in the form of David (Christopher Rydell), a friendly reporter who takes Aura in after finding her wandering the streets.  Soon enough, more bodies begin turning up, always beheaded using what is actually a pretty cool-looking "decapitation" device leading to my most-loved Argento convention - the (relatively) shocking conclusion involving LOTS of psychological exposition.  Yeah, there's no minty freshness to be found here, and that's both a blessing and a curse.  The former because it's familiar, the latter because, by this point in the Argento canon, you pretty much know what you're getting around every curve.
PLOT RATING: ** 1/2 out of ****.

CHARACTERS AND ACTORS:  Opinions are like assholes, but I've just never been that into Asia Argento.  The fact that she figures into a decent portion of Dario's later output no doubt skews what I think about his post-Opera work.  Rydell isn't much better, and the character of David - yeah, isn't he technically a pedophile in dumping his girlfriend for 16-year-old Aura?  Just sayin'.  On the plus side, we do get Piper "They're All Gonna Laugh At You" Laurie as Aura's mother in the early goings of the film as well as an appearance by Brad Dourif, a pretty well-known luminary to my fellow horror mutants out there.  It takes a very talented man to make both Critters 4 and Rob Zombie's Halloween II the slightest bit entertaining, but this dude managed to pull it off.
CHARACTERS AND ACTORS RATING: ** 1/2 out of ****.

COOL FACTOR:  This is the aspect of Trauma that boggles my mind the most.  You know, when this DVD arrived in the mail and I popped it in the slot, I was infinitely stoked when the "Makeup effects by Tom Savini" credit flashed across the screen.  Argento AND Savini?  This had the makings of a blood-soaked masterpiece.  Unfortunately, there isn't a whole lot in the way of badass villainy or creative murdering in this film; the homemade garroting contraption is cool, but we don't get to see it perform its dirty work, like, ever.  Please shoot me the next time I type like a mid-'90s teen movie character.  While I'm at it, Christopher Rydell is no David Hemmings when it comes to cool male leads.
COOL FACTOR: * 1/2 out of ****.

OVERALL:  This is a strange beast of a movie.  The teaming up of Argento and Savini sounds like the makings of a surefire instant classic, but instead what you get is a semi-forgettable giallo film that leaves most of the nasty details up to your imagination.  That's not a bad thing if you've got a lot of tension and scares to back it up, but Trauma is lacking in those areas as well.  That and the fact that this comes from the guy who got famous precisely BECAUSE he didn't leave anything up to your imagination is more than a little disappointing.

OVERALL RATING: ** out of ****.  Worth a rental, and maybe a cheap used purchase for Argento completionists.  Otherwise you'll be able to live a perfectly happy life without seeing it.

The Blood on Satan's Claw (1970)

Here's one from the "obscure and awesome" file.  Taking place in the extreme, extreme, EXTREME days of yore, Blood on Satan's Claw is a startlingly effective little chiller that's about fifteen times as good as a movie with this title warrants.  If you want a little bit more coercion, this is a movie that proudly features gory murders, more than its fair share of genuinely creepy and disturbing scenes, and a good helping of gratuitous nudity with some stunning British beauties gettin' em out for your viewing pleasure.  Sound good?  That's what I thought.

PLOT:  The movie takes place in 17th century England, beginning with a peasant farmer digging up the remains of a strange creature.  Not soon afterward, the children in the village begin acting strangely and mysterious deaths begin to creep up, including the ambiguous (in a good way, I promise) murder involving a young man being choked to death by a disembodied hand.  Not soon after, we are introduced to a group of schoolchildren who begin worshiping the demon remains and offering ritual sacrifices (one of which is one of the four or five most disturbing scenes I've seen in any horror movie).  While all of this is going on, the local judge begins investigating and tracking down the source of the chaos.  In many regards, this is a film with similarities to Dario Argento's masterpiece Suspiria, in that it isn't a movie about plot, but more just creating an oppressively suspenseful atmosphere.  And it's got that in spades.
PLOT RATING: *** 1/2 out of ****.

CHARACTERS AND ACTORS:  Patrick Wymark plays The Judge (his name in the credits), and does an admirable job as a guy who appears appropriately skeptical of the fantastic claims coming from the townsfolk in the early goings before turning all-out Rambo for the finale.  Almost every character, from the local Reverend to the schoolchildren, is played by an actor who is not satisfied to go through the motions.  I don't know what to credit this to, if it's British training or the fact that the movie was filmed before "horror" became a dirty word, but it is much appreciatd nonetheless. 
CHARACTERS AND ACTORS RATING: *** 1/2 out of ****.

COOL FACTOR:  In my humble opinion, most "Gothic" horror films aren't terribly cool, but this is one that has coolness firmly in its corner.  The reason?  Linda Hayden and her coven of devil-worshiping teens.  If you're a fan of Hammer studios, you might recognize her as the very ample-busomed woman who assisted Christopher Lee in Taste the Blood of Dracula.  In this movie, she becomes a card-carrying Satanist seductress - and performs an unforgettable full-frontal scene.  Hayden and Co. make outstanding villains - they are characters that you both WANT to see on camera and genuinely want to see get their comeuppance, a rare thing these days when victim characters are so damned annoying that they leave me rooting for the bad guys by default.
COOL FACTOR: *** 1/2 out of ****.

OVERALL:  While I can't say that this flick is a masterpiece, Blood on Satan's Claw is a movie with an irrefutable power to give you the willies.  Throw in good acting, characters and a solid story and there's a real winner to be found here.  Keyword: FOUND, because this movie is rather hard to find on DVD - mine is a DVD-R purchased from a "guy on the corner" style online vendor, and the decided lack of subtitles pissed me off.  But it's worth it to pop this movie on after the sun goes down and feel the tension rising up in your throat. 
OVERALL RATING: *** 1/2 out of ****.  Check it out.

A Name for Evil (1973)

A NAME FOR EVIL
Directed by Bernard Girard
Starring Robert Culp, Samantha Eggar and Sheila Sullivan

If you're looking for a horror movie to have a good, rollicking, MST3K-style time with a group of friends, look no further than A Name for Evil.  Filmed in 1969 and sitting on studio shelves for four years under the idea that the fact that this was a movie that basically had no audience (a suspicion that turned out to be correct), this is a flick rife with funny editing moments, even funnier acting, and one of the most baffling narratives in the history of film.  It's also the only movie in the history of humanity to feature Robert Culp being whisked away to a hippie orgy on a white horse.  Spoiler alert.

PLOT:  Culp (in the midst of his I Spy groovy period) stars as John Blake, swingin' architecht who has grown disenfranchised with the humdrum of his everyday life.  Along with his semi-estranged wife (there's all sorts of issues between them that are never quite fleshed out), Blake takes off to the country to live in his grandfather's old house in the country.  Commence usual series of haunted house movie cliches, only with a whole lot more far-out subtext.  In some respects, this is actually a pretty deep film, and I've read my fair share of reviews online that delve into the hidden meanings and metaphors that a viewer can read into the plot.  Supposedly, the idea is that Culp's character is looking to leave his wife, and a lot of the weirdness and debauchery that take place in the haunted house are manifestations of this.  Or something.  What we can actually see is a whole lot of unscary tedium involving shadows moving and mysterious caretakers. 
PLOT RATING: * 1/2 out of ****.

CHARACTERS AND ACTORS:  In addition to Culp, the movie features Samantha Eggar of The Brood and Curtains relative fame as his wife Joanna.  This character is a bit of an annoying shrew, who views her husband as an overgrown man-child clinging to the hope that living in the country will reinvigorate their lives.  There's also Sheila Sullivan (Culp's real-life wife at the time) as a smoking-hot local whom John Blake enjoys an extramarital tryst with in the aforementioned funniest orgy scene ever filmed.  All three actors are actually pretty talented in their own right, but for whatever reason, they don't fit these characters in the least bit.  In addition to that, John Blake is a pretty dislikable lead protagonist, and in addition to making fun of his suspect wardrobe you'll likely get a lot of milage out of his pouty dimeanor.
CHARACTERS AND ACTORS RATING:  ** out of ****.

COOL FACTOR:  Yikes.  This isn't a very cool movie, and I'll just leave it at that.  Not much in the way of cool death sequences - from what I can tell, there is only one death in this movie, and according to who you listen to it might not even officially take place.  The less said about Culp's threads the better.
COOL FACTOR: 1/2 out of ****.

OVERALL:  The reason that I found this movie to be such a great comedic goldmine, today and when I first saw it on AMC some late night back in 2006, is that it's a movie that never quite figures out what it wants to be.  Sometimes, it's a middle-aged domestic drama.  Sometimes, it's a Robert Wise-style haunted house film.  And sometimes it's a pure 1969 anti-establishment credo.  At any rate, while this movie is not very good at all, I nonetheless recommend it for pure masochism purposes.  Take my word for it, the final 30 minutes or so of A Name for Evil has any latter day Adam Sandler film beat for pure laughs.

OVERALL RATING: * 1/2 out of ****, but if you've got a group of friends to watch and mock it with, bump that rating up significantly.

Carved (2007)

CARVED: THE SLIT-MOUTHED WOMAN
2007
Directed by Koji Shiraishi
Starring Eriko Sato, Haruhiko Kato, Chiharu Kawai and Rie Kuwana

Horror is a genre that seems to move at light speed.  Trends come and go quicker than the rotating members of Menudo, and this has resulted in a great many things that are only a few years old having a lot of quaint nostalgic value for yours truly.  One of those things is the great Japan-style thriller brigade here in the States in the 00's, beginning with The Ring and ending (arguably) with the awful remake of Takashi Miike's One Missed Call.  As evidenced by those two titles, the spectrum in quality with these flicks ranged from the heights of awesomeness to the absolute depths of crap.  In some roundabout way, these movies had a big impact on my life, because they made me seek out a lot of the movies that they were based on.

Which brings me to Carved.  It's one of the few Japanese ghost movies that hasn't gotten the remake treatment yet, and that's understandable.  While it is about a ghost, it's really much more of a slasher flick, with plenty of killing and other sorts of debauchery to go around.  That's not to say that it lacks for atmosphere, however.  Far from it.

PLOT:  From what I can gather on the great grand interwebz, one of the most prevalent Japanese folktales is that of "the slit-mouthed woman," an angry, vengeful female ghost who kills anyone unlucky enough to cross her path.  This movie is essentially a modern retelling.  It begins with an earthquake that awakens a corpse matching the traditional description of this ghost.  From here, the woman begins causing all sorts of havoc at a local school, curiously enough asking the question "am I pretty?" before the butchering begins.  While these scenes are sporadic, they are effective.  Much of Carved consists of a core group of characters attempting to get to the bottom of the ghost's identity, and while there are portions of the story that drag (and really, guys, dragging is something that Japanese horror films specialize in), the surprisingly creepy score and atmosphere are enough to keep you lulled in.
PLOT RATING: *** out of ****.

CHARACTERS AND ACTORS:  The most important character in the movie is Noboru, a student at the school who seems to know a bit more about the slit-mouthed woman that he initially lets on.  Slight spoiler alert, Noboru has a heavy emotional background that gets explored in detail during the movie's "reveal" scenes, and the emotional resonance kind of hinges on this actor (Haruhiko Kato, for anyone who cares) being able to pull it off.  And...he doesn't.  Really, in all honesty (and man do I hate that phrase), the victim characters aren't especially captivating.  Having said that, Miki Mizuno is aces as the slit-mouthed woman herself.  Much like Takako Fuji does with Kayako Saeki (Google it, kids, if you're not one of my legions of readers or know what the hell I'm talking about), she takes a role that is mostly silent and fills it with danger and menace.
CHARACTERS AND ACTORS RATING: ** out of ****. 

COOL FACTOR:  There are more than a few very well-staged murder sequences throughout this movie.  As far as body count goes, Carved has the vast majority of J-horror epics that I've seen beat, as its tone is much more in line with what we here in the States are used to when the word "horror" is mentioned than the typical Onryo ghost film.  In addition to having lots of good red stuff flying around, this is one of the few movies I can think of where the dark/gray color palette is used to great effect, casting a pretty damn foreboding mood on the entire proceedings.  Countless American action movie directors, take note.
COOL FACTOR: *** 1/2 out of ****.

OVERALL:  While not exactly a classic, Carved is a fun little flick.  The first time you watch it, you will likely be riveted by the first thirty minutes and spend the next thirty wondering when the characters will shut up so you can watch the thrilling conclusion...and I say this mainly because that's exactly what happened to me.  Yes, the middle third of the movie has an almot suicidal dry spell.  But if you stick out this bit of tedium, you won't be disappointed by this movie's amazing and suspenseful ending sequence.

OVERALL RATING: *** out of ****.  Worth a look for both J-horror AND slasher fans.  How many movies can you say that about?

C.H.U.D. II: Bud the Chud (1989)

There's been a few films in my moviegoing life that I walked away from feeling that they were infinitely better than they had any right to be, and the original C.H.U.D. is one of them.  I went in expecting a good early-'80s style body count flick with lots of corny characters and dialogue.  The last thing I expected was a genuinely well-written and acted flick that did an amazing job maximizing its budget.  I also loved the serious approach that it took to its amazingly craptacular material.  Making a movie about human flesh-eating subterranean humanoids and managing to make it decidedly NON-cringe-inducing might seem like a very tall order indeed, but the flick managed to pull it off.

The sequel, though?  Not so much, because C.H.U.D. II: Bud the Chud just ain't very good.  Gone are the actors who were able to milk every bit of emotion and resonance from their characters and the simple-yet-effective story.  In its place are a group of dopey kids and a whole lot of cheese.  And not the good kind. 

PLOT:  Some indeterminate amount of time after the events of the original film, the military have taken control of the government's C.H.U.D. project and are looking - and failing - to mine the CHUDS as biological weapons.  The final remaining CHUD (named "Bud", hence the title) is stolen from the facility by cool teen Steve and his nerdy friend Kevin after they lose their soon-to-be-dissected cadaver for their biology class and need a replacement.  Of course, Bud soon springs to life and begins causing havoc, creating more CHUDS in the process while also acting out a whole bunch of nonsensical comedy scenes.  Most of the movie concerns itself with Steve, Kevin and their cute chick friend Katie tracking down Bud after he pulls his best Logan's Run routine, as well as the military guys trying to clean up their own mess.  All in all, not the most captivating stuff.
PLOT RATING: * 1/2 out of ****.

CHARACTERS AND ACTORS:  This was by far the saving grace of the first movie, as John Heard, Daniel Stern etc. put a whole lot of energy and honesty into their characters and managed to squeeze a lot of genuine emotion out of the proceedings.  While I can't necessarily fault the actors in this flick, the characters are all paper-thin stereotypes.  The kids are just as one-note as I described above, and the military douchebags...yeah.  That's all I'm going to say.  I will throw this tidbit out there, however: Steve is played by Brian Robbins, a guy who went on to direct movies like Good Burger, Varsity Blues, Hardball and....Ready to Rumble.  All hail the king!  Finally, Tricia Leigh Fisher (Carrie Fisher's real-life half sister), who plays Katie, looks pretty damn good in a swimsuit, so there's that.
CHARACTERS AND ACTORS RATING: * out of ****.

COOL FACTOR:  There's not much redeeming factor to the film in this regard, either.  It IS possible to have a movie that is "so bad it's good," where a film's cheesiness actually lends itself to group viewings and MST3K-style quips.  This movie, though, doesn't work in a crowd setting.  There just isn't enough in the way of over-the-top violence or cheesy sex scenes, and since the movie itself seems to be a self-parody, it's not really possible to mine it for more comedy with whatever friends (read: victims) you can con into watching this thing with you.
COOL FACTOR: * out of ****.

OVERALL:  Ouch.  At only 84 minutes long, this movie was a damn chore to sit through.  Tepid characters, bad scripting, and bad comedy would have been bad enough, but it's made all the worse by just how different the tone of this movie is from its far superior original.  As such, C.H.U.D. II didn't make much of a wave with the horror-going audience, hitting video store shelves (no theatrical release this time) in 1989 and vanishing from the public consciousness in short order.  Having said that, it was still better than, say, Leprechaun. 

OVERALL RATING: * out of ****.  It's times like this that I'm REALLY happy I don't do the mega-sized reviews anymore, because doing a total blow-by-blow of this film would have been torture.

Daybreakers (2009)

2009
Directed by Michael and Peter Spierig
Starring Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Isabel Lucas, Claudia Karvan and Sam Muthafuckin' Neill

God, it's almost been four years since this movie came out already?

I remember seeing the advance ads for Daybreakers and being very jacked about its prospects.  After all, it was released during the absolute height of Twilight-mania, when it seemed like every goddamn vampire in the entertainment world looked like they belonged on the cover of GQ and not, you know, in dark and dank places doing things like scaring you and sucking your blood.  A movie featuring vampires so starved for blood that they are attempting to craft an honest-to-goodness BLOOD SUBSTITUTE seemed like a very welcome proposition.  Throw in good production values and solid advance reviews and it sounded very intriguing indeed. 

For whatever reason, I didn't catch it in theaters, but I took the advice of a good friend and waited until procuring a Blu-Ray copy to check it out.  Needless to say, it was worth the wait, as this is one movie that looks freakin' glorious in 1080p resolution.  As I said a couple weeks back, directors of the world, take note.  THIS is how you take a film of somewhat limited budget and make it look epic and captivating.

PLOT:  A vampire plague hits humanity at some point in the future, and the creatures now rule the world.  This obviously presents many problems, the largest of which being a dwindling blood supply, as the vampires utilize their Army to capture the few scattere remaining humans in order to harvest them for blood.  The movie does a pretty damn admirable job painting this fictional world as well as the rules that it entails, as these vampires typically adhere to all of the usual literary rules - they burn like roman candles in the sun, they die by staking and beheading, they are scientifically undead, etc.  It's also got a pretty damn clever hook as far as its conflict, as a prominent hematologist finds himself kinda-sorta kidnapped by a band of surviving humans in order to find a cure for vampirism.  Having said all that...there is a fair stretch of Daybreakers that drags in the middle, as this is where a good portion of the "outside the mainstream vampire world" story takes place.  There's a fair bit of scientific lingo being thrown around here as blood testing becomes a focal point of the story.  However, sandwiched in between the fascinating first and action-packed third acts, it's forgivable.
PLOT RATING: *** 1/2 out of ****.

CHARACTERS AND ACTORS:  Ethan Hawke plays Ed Dalton, the hematologist for Bromley Marks pharmaceuticals and the man most directly responsible (not unlike Miles Bennett Dyson) for attempting to manufacture a "blood substitute" for the masses (and that early testing scene, by the way, is a doozy of unexpected gore).  He's also sympathetic to humans, and as your strong center of the film, Ed is someone who is easy to attach to.  But the real glory of this flick lies in the supporting characters, with Willem "Captain Manic" Dafoe playing the leader of the human resistance, Claudia Karvan as his loyal assistant...and then there's this guy.

Now, there are actors in the horror genre that I'm a fan of, but as far as I'm concerned, Sam Neill is the equivalent of the gold seal of approval.  He's done plenty of flicks of other types, but the sheer ability to vanish within dark characters is second to none, as evidenced by The Final Conflict, In the Mouth of Madness and Event Horizon.  In this film, he plays Bromley Marks himself, the business tycoon who virtually rules over this fictional world with an iron fist and serves as your star villain.  It's a role that suits Neill like a glove, and while he is only onscreen for perhaps fifteen minutes of Daybreakers, he owns it.
CHARACTERS AND ACTORS RATING: **** out of ****.

COOL FACTOR:  As previously mentioned (I won't say it this time), the Spierig Brothers are masters at getting the most out of their budget.  The dank world, while not quite a dystopia for most of the run time, has its own distinct look very different from the countless "steam punk" landscapes that seem to be all the rage with the kids these days.  There are multiple over-the-top gore set pieces in this film, the best of which occurring at the beginning and end of the film (and I think you'll know what I'm talking about when the scenes hit).  In addition to that, Dafoe's character is your classic "vampire hunting" action hero, a former vamp himself who has taken the name "Elvis" as his moniker.  While not quite as bitchin' as the King himself, I've got to say, he looks damn cool holding a crossbow.
COOL FACTOR: **** out of ****.

OVERALL: In the 3.75 years since Daybreakers was released, the "monster of the moment" has changed considerably in Hollywood.  Vampires are out, zombies are in.  This movie is nothing short of a wonderful return to form for the former, bringing them out of the "cool teen" dark ages and bringing the welcome tropes back with a vengeance along with a cool story involving plenty of tension and non-Michael Bay-ADD action.  I can only hope that, sooner or later, we get something different from the zombie genre, which has effectively been stuck in "rinse, lather, repeat" mode for what seems like eons now.  Here's the template to follow.  This is a flick that fires on all cylinders, and it comes with my highest recommendation.
OVERALL RATING: Bah Gawd, King, **** out of ****.  I'm trying to be a tougher judge now, and the four-star rating does not come lightly.

C.H.U.D. (1984)

You know, when I popped a movie whose title is an acronym for "Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers" into the ol' DVD player, the last thing I expected was a fairly well-shot, decently written, and well-acted flick that - gasp - might actually qualify as a legitimately good flick.  Lo and behold, that's just what I got, and after absorbing the 96-minute director's cut I can report that C.H.U.D. is one movie that deserves its "cult classic" status. 

Since this was my first time watching the film, there's also some additional good news: no long-winded boring story involving my long childhood history with the movie in question.  With that out of the way...

PLOT: Shot entirely within New York City, the movie's plot is basically a modernization of the fascinating "terror in the sewers" urban legends.  A substantial number of the homeless population living in the subterranean bowels of the city have disappeared, and a massive government cover-up as to the "why" of the situation is going on.  A large portion of the movie involves various characters attempting to get to the bottom of this conspiracy, which involves the transportation of nuclear materials and a few weasely figures in power who summarily make every wrong decision along the way, as is customary with movies of this nature.  Oh yeah, and large monsters with big eyes and really sharp claws who sporadically attack people.  It might not be The Shining in terms of material, but it's all executed well, with plenty of slow burn and attention to the characters.
PLOT RATING: *** out of ****.

CHARACTERS AND ACTORS: This is where the movie really roped me in.  The movie introduces us to several people connected to the conspiracy and the monsters.  There's George Cooper (John Heard), a sarcastic fashion photographer who lives with his pregnant girlfriend (Kim Greist).  There's Captain Bosch (Chris Curry), the officer in charge of the precinct where the majority of the disappearances have taken place - and one of those disappearances is his wife.  And then there's A.J. Shepherd (Daniel Stern), the guy who runs the local soup kitchen, has seen firsthand the dropoff in the number of his customers, and knows something big is amiss.  All of these protagonists are fleshed out very well, extremely likable, and portrayed with tons of energy by legit talented actors.  The human villains (largely bureaucratic government types) are a little one-note and predictable, however.
CHARACTERS AND ACTORS RATING: *** 1/2 out of ****.

COOL FACTOR: So now we get into the "horror" aspect of the movie.  The general premise when it comes to the C.H.U.D.'s is that they have run out of available food (read: the subterranean homeless population) and now have to come to the surface for their meals.  The attack scenes are sparse in the movie, and truthfully are not particularly scary.  When we do get to see the creatures, the makeup effects seem to be fairly well done.
COOL FACTOR: ** out of ****.

OVERALL: Go figure.  I watch a movie with the express purpose of shuffling a negative review amongst my usual moronic bits of positivity, and the movie surprises me by actually being good.  From what I could gather on Wikipedia, Daniel Stern and Chris Curry rewrote more than half of the original screenplay, and their passion for the project comes through in their performances, as their characters really are the strong center that holds the film's admittedly preposterous plot together.  If you're looking for a horror movie with a VERY heavy emphasis on story over scares, you could definitely do worse than C.H.U.D.
OVERALL RATING: *** out of ****.  Worth a buy at a decent used price.

Chopping Mall (1986)

We're taking a trip firmly back to my youth today with Chopping Mall, a movie that used to get played A TON on one of my local channels circa 1991-92.  As such, it's got a lot of nostalgic value for me.  Back then, I thought it was cool to see robots roaming around killing people (including Murray Fudderman, no less).  Today, while it's not QUITE the classic that I remember, I still think it's a relatively fun way to waste 75 minutes. 

Useless background info: This flick was directed by Jim Wynorski, a guy who has a pretty decent cult following and a well-deserved reputation as a man who slathers on his cheese as thick as it can go.  Not to say that that's necessarily bad, but it's best to know what you're getting into when you see this dude's name in the credits.  It was also produced by Roger Corman, which acounts for the AFOREMENTIONED Murray Fudderman, a.k.a. Dick Miller, making one of his many appearances as a character named Walter Paisley. 

PLOT: You know how Dawn of the Dead was set in a shopping mall?  Well, so is Chopping Mall.  Clever, huh?  But instead of zombies, the villains in this film are three havoc-causing security robots, accidentally activated by an electrical storm and hellbent on eradicating a group of partying teens from the premises.  Yeah, it's not the deepest thing in the world, and the execution occasionally wanders into dopey territory.  But if you're watching a Jim Wynorski movie for Shakespeare, you're looking in the wrong place. 
PLOT RATING: ** out of ****.

CHARACTERS AND ACTORS: Other than Miller, there's one name that I recognize - Russell Todd, best known to me as the would-be camp counselor attempting to get into Kirsten Baker's pants in Friday the 13th Part II.  I'm actually kinda surprised that this guy didn't make it bigger during the '80s, as he was both talented and handsome enough to rise way higher than the B-level shitfests he's primarily known for.  The characters themselves are your typical horror movie mixed bag, with nerds, jocks, pretty people and shy girls all represented, and none of them made me want to throw my remote at the screen, although none of them were particularly memorable.  Well, except for Suzee Slater, who (a) has gigantic breasts and (b) is the recipient of this death scene.
CHARACTERS AND ACTORS RATING: ** 1/2 out of ****.

COOL FACTOR: A movie with a 77-minute running time has precious little time to waste, and this film wastes absolutely no time getting right to the meat portion of its story, as the characters play cat-and-mouse with the ultra mean battlebots.  The robots themselves are designed very well, rolling around on tank treads and talking in the requisite deep, scary voice, and are able to shoot tranquilizer darts, electrodes, and laserblasts at their quary.  It amounts to a couple admittedly coolly staged deaths and some sporadically tense chase sequences inside the mall.
COOL FACTOR: *** out of ****.

OVERALL: This is one of those movies that were a dime-a-dozen during the '80s.  Come up with a basic premise, throw a relatively attractive cast together, commence series of deaths, go.  Some of them were better than others, and Chopping Mall has managed to rise above the pack over the years and get a cult fanbase with its quirkiness and sense of humor.  It may not be quite as good as I remembered during my childhood, but it's still worth a watch if you've got a couple bucks and slightly over an hour to spare. 
OVERALL RATING: ** 1/2 out of ****.

Restoring Mount Rushmore

Ordinarily, this is where I post some long-winded introduction and give some background information on the movie that I'm about to review.  That's not the case this week, as, much like Chuck D, I got so much trouble on my mind.  Last Saturday, I rewatched the remakes of Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street on AMC Fearfest.  It was my first viewing of both since seeing them in theaters, and the thing that struck me like a lightning bolt was that I had never ONCE felt the urge to revisit either movie since that day. 

It doesn't stop there.  Going to all of the latest horror releases at the multiplex used to be practically a requirement for yours truly.  No matter the genre - ghost stories, found footage films, modern-day slashers, remakes - I would eat them up.  September and October, in particular, were circled on the calendar months in advance as the time when Hollywood unrolled its latest batch of big-time horror offerings to placate all of us Halloween-induced fanatics.  And it didn't feel like a job.  This is very noteworthy considering that Friday night is my designated "movie night," a move that resulted in a "20 hours without sleep" me struggling - and actually managing - to stay awake in a movie theater.

It's been a long, slow process, but I'm not the horror guru I used to be.  There was a time when I would regularly check out websites like Dread Central and Bloody Disgusting for the latest release dates, trailers, rumors etc., all with the express goal of getting the good, nasty details on upcoming horror movies with the end goal of being an informed theater viewer.  Those days, it seems, are long gone, and when I think about the timeframe that this attitudanal switch took place, I can pinpoint pretty accurately what it was.  So allow me to come back full circle from that first paragraph and say that I really miss the Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger of my youth.

Horror is a very vast genre consisting of many varied and defined subgenres.  If you like to be scared and you've got a decent stomach, odds are that pretty much ANYONE can find something in the horror genre that they will enjoy, from over-the-top splatterfests to realistic films about serial killers.  I don't think that many people would disagree, however, with the statement that the horror movie really has an unholy trinity of modern villains as its singular God.  There's the father (Michael), the son (Jason) and the unholy ghost (Freddy).  These three have come to define the scary flick for myself and two generations of horror fans, much like Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolf Man defined it for past generations, and the fact that it has been more than three years since any of these three legendary characters have graced our theater screens is very troubling to me.

A very good online friend of mine once put what has happened to these horror icons in professional wrestling terminology.  If he's reading this, hopefully he doesn't mind me outright stealing his point - suffice to say, it's perfect.  All three of the AFOREMENTIONED characters have been recreated and reimagined in the past decade in remake form, and all three reimaginings (while varying in quality) have one similar characteristic.  Instead of simply updating the familiar story for today with modern characters but similar styles and execution, these films have devalued their aces in the hole with stylistic shifts, changes just for the sake of change, and some truly head-scratching creative decisions.  Here's where the wrestling metaphor comes in.  Watching these films is like watching a wrestling company take its main event stars and continually job them out and/or put them in wacky, contradictory storylines, effectively killing off the drawing power of the chief reason why the fans pay their money to see the product in the first place. 

Your opinion might vary, but the fact that only the redone Halloween universe made it to a second film (and depending on who you believe, the only reason that The Sequel That Shall Not Be Named even came to fruition was because Rob Zombie felt like making a 97-minute "fuck you" to critics of his first film) is very telling.  If there was demand for more of them, Michael Bay and his goons would see to it that they would exist, believe me.  My online buddy was right.  42 months after the release of the last film featuring any of these characters (the 2010 Platinum Dunes Nightmare remake), nobody is talking about them.  And that makes the Lick Ness Monster a very sad panda.

But fear not, citizens.  Nothing is beyond saving.  Since this is October and we're trying to keep it positive, here's a guide for how we can bring these horror luminaries back to the forefront where they belong.  Consider it "horror booking for dummies."

1.  JASON VOORHEES
First things first - I don't think the 2009 F13 reboot is terrible.  Having said that, it's not that good, either.  For me, the true staples of the Friday the 13th series are fun, quirky victim characters and cool kills, and I think this movie failed to deliver in a big way in both of these departments.  Instead of yet another reboot, what Jason Voorhees needs at this point is the one thing that the series has always prided itself on - reinvention while also being comforting and familiar.  The movies started off being serious and scary and later morphed into being completely batshit "so bad it's good" entertaining, and I think it would be loads of fun to see a movie that goes back to basics and tries to be both.  My answer?  Jason Takes Christmas, with a group of teens spending the holiday at a cabin near Camp Crystal Lake only to run into the most uncheerful holiday spirit anyone has ever seen.  It sets the action back in the familiar confines of the series instead of, you know, outer space, yet the very simple aesthetic shift of different weather conditions and the Christmas setting adds an entirely new dynamic to the story.  Not to mention weapons (think pick axes, ice skate blades and tree toppers).  One of my real-life friends once complained that this would mean losing the series' much-loved gratuitous nudity dynamic, but I respectfully disagree.  How hard would it be for a couple of the more amorous teens to find a hot tub?

2.  FREDDY KRUEGER
The Platinum Dunes Nightmare film did many things wrong, chief among them the harebrained move of making it seem for the majority of the film as though Freddy was FRAMED for the horrific crimes that got him summarily torched and turned into a dream demon.  It also didn't help that the victim characters (and Rooney Mara in particular) showed about as much raw charisma as Jessica Alba on sedatives.  This series was at its best when Freddy Krueger struck a good balance between schlock and slasher, exemplified best by Dream Warriors, the insanely popular third film.  The template is there.  Why not use it?  Thus, this would be a different take on the Nightmare on Elm Street origin, starting the next film in the midst of a brutal string of mysterious suicides instead of the usual Freddy-Nancy story.  Of course, these deaths would be the handiwork of the familiar guy in the red-and-black striped sweater.  It would be a good idea to amp up both his manicness (but not to an over-the-top degree) and his power in this film, as he has two very determined and very charismatic final girls to contend with who make it their mission to rally the remaining teens to victory - Kristen Parker and Alice Johnson.  Throw in a few interesting quirks for the remaining teens, some hard-hitting deaths, and this guy as Freddy and you've got a real winner with some solid sequel potential.

3.  MICHAEL MYERS
This is perhaps the tallest order of all.  Folks, the damage done to the character of Michael Myers in Rob Zombie's films is just simply mind-boggling, as the dreadlocked rocker took a character who was "the shape of evil" and humanized him.  We spend almost 45 minutes with the unmasked, talking child version of Michael in the first movie, a move that takes away every bit of mystique and sense of danger that the guy in the Shatner mask possessed in the Carpenter-helmed originals.  Still, it could be done.  In this case, I don't think it could be anything less than yet another complete reboot, as the latter movies in the original series are also decidedly character-killing in their own regard.  The best way to accomplish this would be to set the entire film in modern-day Haddonfield, Illinois, starting with Laurie Strode (who in this version is NOT introduced with a ridiculous series of vulgar jokes) going about her daily routine and eventually arriving at young Tommy's house to babysit.  Commence series of killings, and introduce Sam Loomis midway through the movie.  This way, Michael's past survives only in legend and in second-hand retelling by Loomis, restoring the mystique of Myers while also presenting the material in a slightly different manner.  Another wise move would be to make Laurie's friends something other than completely detestable, F-bomb-spewing catty bitches who we actually, you know, DON'T want to see wind up chopped into bitty bits.

Ordinarily, this is where I would throw a summary paragraph in to wrap this little diatribe into a bow, but that's not the case this time, as much like New Beginning Tommy Jarvis I've got nothing to say.  The above are my ideas to give these horror movie main eventers the push they deserve, and if anyone in Hollywood wants to use them they are welcome to do so free of charge.

Dark Water (2002)

Anyone who has followed my reviews for any amount of time knows that I'm a big J-horror mark.  It was the first subgenre that I actively sought out once slasher movies started to wear a little thin, and the VAST (and that word is capitalized for a reason - it can't be overstated enough) difference in setup, pacing and character development from what I was used to popped and resonated with me in a big way. 

Going through some of my archives, I can't believe that I haven't reviewed Dark Water yet.  It was directed by Hideo Nakata, a guy that is held in a pretty high regard in Lick Ness Monster land, considering that he is also the guy behind the certified modern classics Ringu (for my money, one of the ten best horror movies of all time) and Kaidan, as well as the unintentionally hilarious Ring Two here in the States.  Gotta love that deer attack.  In this flick, he's fully in his element, slathering on the foreboding atmosphere like some sort of Little Dooey's style baste.  Award for worst metaphor ever accepted.

One more thing - do not confuse this with the Jennifer Connelly remake.  Not that it's terrible or anything, but it's forgettable as all get out.

2002
Director: Hideo Nakata
Starring Hitomi Kuroki, Rio Kanno, Mirei Oguchi and Fumiyo Kohinata.

PLOT: Let's see if you've heard this one before - a recently divorced mother and her six-year-old daughter move into a new apartment.  Said apartment has slightly creepy but definitely very annoying problem in that it keeps randomly filling with water from the dripping ceiling.  In a surprise that does not come as much of a surprise to the audience, this is connected to some sort of ghostly shenanigans connected to the apartment building.  In other words, you won't remember Dark Water for its minty freshness if you have seen any other number of J-horror epics.  While it has a lot of familiar tropes, however, the specifics make for some great story, as the subplot that runs throughout the entire movie involving motherless daughters elicits a ton of emotional investment.  Oh, and water girl makes one badass villain.
PLOT RATING: *** 1/2 out of ****

CHARACTERS AND ACTING: This is the movie's true ace in the hole, but then again, that's the way it goes for many Japanese horror films.  The vast majority of American horror films I've seen in the 21st century feature a main stable of either hopelessly bland or dislikable characters.  Not so here.  The main characters Yoshimi and Ikuko Matsubara, the AFOREMENTIONED mother and daughter combination finding themselves occupying living space with a vengeful spirit.  Hitomi Kuroki plays the former, and while she is not quite as engaging as Nanako Matsushima in Ringu, she does a fantastic job as someone who is truly desperate on several fronts.  Rio Kanno is Ikuko, turning in one of the better child performances in any horror movie I've seen.  Right up there with the kid from House by the Cemetery, even.  I kid, I kid.  She's way less shrill than that. 
CHARACTERS AND ACTORS: **** out of ****.  Great stuff here.

COOL FACTOR: Much like the slasher subgenre, there is definitely no shortage of cool villains in the J-horror ghost pantheon.  My personal favorite horror villain of all time fits this mold - Kayako Saeki of Ju-On/Grudge fame, the modern day equivalent of the traditional Onryo folktale.  Hideo Nakata operates on an entirely different level from Takashi Shimizu - his horror is in what you DON'T see.  Few guys on the planet are better at keeping a massive slow burn going leading up to a big reveal, and that aspect of Dark Water does not disappoint.  For the vast majority of Stateside viewers, this movie might come off as a little slow, and you won't get much (as in, any) in the way of cool, imaginative Kayako-style deaths.  I will say, however, that this movie has one of the best sustained, gut-wrenching sequences of silence in cinematic history during its finale, and that there are a LOT of directors obsessed with "LOUD NOISES" scares who could learn a thing or two from this scene.
COOL FACTOR: ** 1/2 out of ****.

SUMMARY: If you're a fan of J-horror, it's hard to go wrong with anything Hideo Nakata.  One of this guy's better-known quotes is that a good director can make nothing other than a ghost standing near someone and looking at them scary.  Nakata can accomplish this in his sleep.  Even if you're not a J-horror freak like myself, you can find much to like in Dark Water, as it has an engaging story, a very leisurely pace, likable characters and a truly awesome final five minutes or so consisting of soul-splitting tension without a single drop of blood being spilled.

OVERALL RATING: *** 1/2 out of ****.  Check it out.

"Waxwork" (1988)

Alright, kids, we're going to be trying something different from now on.  In case you haven't noticed, it's been a long time since I've done these reviews with any regularity.  I'd like to give my legions of (four) fans some hare-brained excuse as to why this is, but, really, there isn't any, other than being really, really tired of doing the reviews the way that they had gotten to be.  Namely, gigantic.  Hopefully, this is the beginning of semi-regular updates for the immediate and not-so-immediate future, and after some deep soul-searching that lasted all of five minutes, I decided that the best way to accomplish this was to preserve my own sanity.

Thus, consider this the fun-sizing of the Lick Ness Monster reviews.  Instead of detailing every last nuance of these films, I'll be hitting the high spots as far as what I look for in horror movies - plot, characters and acting, and cool factor, along with a few (but much less) visual aids along the way.

See?  That introduction was only two paragraphs.  I'm already making progress.

YEAR: 1988
DIRECTOR: Anthony Hickox
STARRING: Zach Galligan, Deborah Foreman, Michelle Johnson, Dana Ashbrook, Patrick Macnee and David Warner

THE PLOT: This movie is one of the best examples of "let's get going already right now" I've seen.  It wastes precious little time with anything resembling exposition, instead jumping right into its constant barrage of weirdness and movie/folklore references.  In a nutshell, the movie is about a nutball (unintentional repeated use of a word, I swear) wax museum curator who convinces a group of suburban college students to go for a little night perusing on his property.  The museum itself is basically alive, with different famous horror characters (the werewolf, Dracula, the Mummy, etc.) being represented as well as a few historical figures (the Marquis De Sade, Jack the Ripper).  In the early stages of the movie, we witness a few of these characters wandering onto the wax displays, being transported to the world of the character, and summarily being murdered in some exquisitely gruesome ways.  As the flick enters its second half, we're clued in to the plan of one Mr. David Lincoln (that would be the AFOREMENTIONED museum curator), who is some sort of occultist who needs to sacrifice victims to all of his waxworks in order to take over the world.  Or something.  It comes off a lot better on film than in this description, believe me.
PLOT RATING: *** out of ****.

CHARACTERS AND ACTING: Of course, I should have mentioned that David Warner plays David Lincoln.  Warner is a really, really awesome actor with a pretty long horror pedigree.  If you don't trust me, google him.  Zach Galligan is basically your star as the most prominent of the college kids who find themselves wrapped up in the museum's weird goings-on, and he's not quite Billy Peltzer-likable but far from throw-your-remote at the TV grating.  The rest of the kids, however, are just as disposable as one would expect.
CHARACTERS AND ACTORS: ** 1/2 out of ****.

COOL FACTOR:  My definition of 'cool factor' is just as varied as all the reasons why people enjoy horror movies.  Sometimes, it can mean good gore effects, and that's one thing that [i]Waxwork[/i] has in abundance.  Special FX guru Bob Keen is your makeup maestro for this one, and does a great job creating several truly over-the-top, splatterful set pieces (see above).  Having David Warner around also ups the coolness for pretty much any movie where this statement is true.  If you're in the mood for some decent self-referential (read: non-annoying) humor, look no further than this movie, as seeing all of the various characters together in one movie is a real treat.
COOL FACTOR: *** 1/2 out of ****.

SUMMARY: Waxwork is a very enjoyable, very underrated little gem from the late '80s that somehow flies under the radar of even some hardcore horror fans.  Anthony Hickox, who also directed Hellraiser III as well as the sequel to this film brings a genuine love for the horror genre that shines through in almost every frame.  The finale might get a little Hal Needham-ish, as an army of characters connected to Galligan's grandfather (don't ask) duke it out with Warner's troupe of monsters, but it only dampens the experience slightly from a movie that comes very close to being a bit of a small classic. 
OVERALL RATING: *** out of ****.  Recommended.

"The Shining" - a pure, unadulturated creep the f**k out of you movie

The list of movies that I won't pop in the DVD player while trying to get to sleep is a very short one.  There's Blood on Satan's Claw, a criminally underrated British opus about a village that falls prey to a demonic pile of bones.  There's Kill Baby Kill, Mario Bava's pre J-horror ghost story where an eerie little girl stares people to death.  Believe me, it's way more creepy than it sounds.  And then there is The Shining, Stanley Kubrick's mammoth-sized tripfest from 1980 that still has more sheer willy-inducing power than pretty much any other movie I've seen. 

First, a bit of background information.  I saw The Shining before I read the novel.  Every other review out there blathers on about the differences between the book and this movie, so allow me to throw my two cents into this very redundant piggy bank and add that, yeah, the two are vastly different.  The book is much more character-driven, for the most part, with far more sympathy being lended to the Jack Torrance character while also focusing on what Stephen King himself dubs the "sheer inhuman evil" of the hotel that these characters find themselves trapped by.  For my money, Stanley Kubrick and Diane Johnson took the framework of the story and used creative license to make it as flat-out weird and disturbing as they could possibly muster, and the result is something almost completely unlike anything you've seen in the genre.  In a good way, I promise.  Yeah, it's hard to connect with the characters.  Yeah, we don't get that maudelin little bit of redemption for Torrance at the end.  But, at the end of the day, what is more memorable - haunted holes in the ground or freaky-deaky transforming nude women?  I rest my case.  Besides, the officially-sanctioned Stephen King-endorsed film version is the 1997 TV movie, proving  yet again that "closer to the book" does not necessarily always equal "better."

But enough about that.  My goal with this review isn't to delve into all of the usual English major trappings or the drama and personal strife that this production went through.  There are literally THOUSANDS of reviews and dissertations about The Shining on the great, grand ol' interwebz that do that very thing much better than this guy could, and if you want the Cliff's notes version, even the Wikipedia page does a pretty damn admirable job expounding on all of the hidden meanings and ambiguities as well as all the ways that Kubrick was a prick on the set.  No, sir, what I'm going to attempt to do is give people who HAVEN'T seen this movie some semblance of just what it's like to watch it.  Hopefully I'll be successful enough to persuade a few of those unfortunate souls to invest twenty bucks in a Blu-Ray copy, because let me tell you something (brother), this is one gorgeous-looking movie that REALLY pops in HD.  During the daylight hours, of course.

Don't believe me?  Here's the movie's original theatrical trailer.

To this day, that has to be the most effective, creepy trailer of all time.  A truly classic example of "less is more" played out to perfection.

Meet Jack Torrance, played by Jack Nicholson circa 1980 during his "I'm the biggest superstar in the world" period.  Like many Stephen King protagonists, Torrance is a full-time English teacher and part-time writer interviewing for the caretaker's job at the Overlook Hotel.  The hotel itself is one of the main characters of The Shining, a huge, sprawling and infinitely luxurious hilltop resort that closes every winter due to the cost associated with keeping the surrounding roads cleared of snow.  The caretaker's job is to make the winter less of a financial money pit, although hotel manager Stuart Ulman (Barry Nelson) makes it a point to reiterate the dangers of cabin fever while also giving the grisly details of the hotel's past involving one of the previous caretakers killing his entire family during one of those long winters cooped up together. 

Throughout this opening expository scene, Torrance says all the right things and seems appropriately jazzed about the prospect of gaining this high-paying job and spending the winter in this veritable mansion with his wife and son, but while he is smiling externally, something about him just seems...off.  It goes without saying that Nicholson is a truly awesome actor, and you would be hard-pressed to find people to dispute that, but this might very well be the best acting performance of his career.  141 minutes later, you won't be able to get him out of your head, for better or worse.

From here, we are introduced to Jack's family where we get more back story.  His son Danny (Danny Lloyd) has an episode involving a strange hallucination.  It should also be mentioned that he talks to his finger and returns fire in a low, croaky voice.  As it turns out, said finger is actually the speaking mechanism of "the little boy who lives in his mouth" named Tony, an imaginary friend who serves as Danny's only real social outlet.  We learn this from Wendy (Shelley Duvall), Jack's wife and Danny's mother, who informs us while talking to a child psychologist.  When the psychologist asks about Danny's medical history, Wendy is forced to tell her that Jack once accidentally broke his arm while drunk but that he has been "sober for six months."  Foreshadowing.

Since the movie could not launch forward if it didn't happen, Jack gets the job.  A long sequence consisting of the hotel's closing day commences where Kubrick's camera work really begins to make its presence known.  More than any story differences, this stuff - the technical aspects, the sheer creepiness that Stanley Kubrick lends to the Overlook Hotel - is where it shines head and shoulders above Mick Garris' 1997 TV movie.  You know, they tried.  I can't say that Garris and King himself (who wrote the screenplay for that particular adaptation) DIDN'T give it their damndest to bring the absolute best literary version of The Shining to the masses, but there was just no way that they could match the atmosphere that an artist like Kubrick was able to lend to this material.

The evidence?  The creepy twins.  Danny sneaks off into the hotel's game room and sees these two little demons in blue.  They do nothing in the scene other than slowly turn around and walk away, all while Wendy Carlos' soul-destroying score sends an ice pick into your soul, but their mere presence has this uncanny ability to unnerve.  We get a bit more unraveling here, as Dick Hallorann (Scatman Crothers), the chief cook of the hotel, has a long conversation with Danny where we learn that the young boy has the ability to "shine" - Hallorann's word to describe telepathic ability to not only communicate but to see both past and future events.  Combined with just how synthy and abrasive the music in this movie is, we can deduce that this does not bode well for this family's future in the long winter to come.

Flash forward a month, and the real "meat" portion of the movie begins.  Jack is using his newfound free time to begin a writing project that seems to be going nowhere.  We are shown a series of events in quick succession indicating the day-to-day life that this nuclear family enacts inside the hotel, as Wendy and Danny navigate the outdoor hedge maze, Jack types away (getting more and more frustrated as he does so), and Danny rides his big wheel around the huge expanse of wood and carpeted floors.  The tension builds masterfully in this section of the movie, as Jack snaps at Wendy after being interrupted from his writing while Danny has a terrifying hallucination where the creepy twins (which the audience can infer are the two daughters of Charles Grady, the caretaker in the AFOREMENTIONED slicing-and-dicing incident) invite him to play with them forever.  And ever.  And ever. 


The snow piles up outside the hotel, and the event that really kicks this movie's horror aspect into overdrive is the incicdent in Room 237.  During Danny's conversation with Hallorann earlier in the movie, the young boy asked his older friend what happened in Room 237.  Hallorann's response?  "Nothing.  There ain't nothing in Room 237.  So stay out, you hear me?  STAY OUT!!"  You know how the psychology of young children works.  We are told that something is forbidden and thus become more and more curious about just WHAT lurks behind the secret door, so it isn't long until Danny finds himself inside that room after the hotel seems to virtually invite him inside.  He shows up a short time later in the lobby that Jack has converted into his study, sucking his thumb and bruises around his neck, which Wendy immediately interprets as child abuse from Jack to Danny.

This sets Jack off, who heads to the ballroom and acts out one of the many classic sequences in this movie.  A bartender, who either may or may not be in Jack's imagination, serves him drink after drink while we are clued in as to the deeper issues in the Jack-Wendy marriage.  His buried resentment of her, about how she "will never let me forget what happened" comes through in shining (pun intended) colors, the desperation and venom in Nicholson's voice getting more and more pronounced with each mythical alcoholic beverage.  Just like that, the scene ends, as Wendy shows up to inform her husband that Danny has come out of his zombie state and said that a woman in Room 237 tried to strangle him.

Now comes the scene that REALLY did a number on me during my childhood, and it still leaves me mighty unsettled today.  Jack heads to the room to investigate, and with the low, sinister rumbling of a heartbeat reverberating underneath the music, he enters the bathroom.  The shower curtain is slowly pulled back, revealing a beautiful woman soaking in the water.  She stands up and walks to Jack, who looks mightily intrigued at this prospect.  He begins to kiss her, and the camera closes in close to their faces.  We, the audience, can tell that something is now subtly different, but it isn't until Kubrick cuts back to the full shot that all is revealed.  The beautiful woman has been replaced by a disgusting, crusty hag who begins laughing maniacally, the music roaring to a crescendo, the shot juxtaposing between the laughing woman and her prone body in the bathtub as Jack runs away.  Good God.

The novel does more to clue us in as to just who the hell this person was whose sole mission in the afterlife is to murder little kids and creep the holy hell out of middle-aged men.  If I remember correctly, she was a hotel guest who spent a week at the Overlook years before the Torrance family's arrival.  After a week-long orgy of booze and sex, she took one sleeping pill more than the recommended amount and accidentally drowned in the tub, maintaining this post as her vengeful command center in the afterlife.  That's all well and good, but I prefer the way this aspect of the story plays out in the movie.  It's always creepier when it's unexplained.  Add that to "less is more" in the Lick Ness Monster guide to kicking ass at work and play.

Jack heads back to his family's quarters, lying to Wendy that he saw nothing inside the room.  Meanwhile, Danny has completely shut down, and the concerned mother wants to cut their arrangement at the hotel short to get Danny some medical help.  Jack scoffs at the idea, rapidly becoming more and more unhinged with each passing moment before storming out of the room for Parts Unknown.

The movie then gives us the immortal sequence inside the ballroom, now curiously loud and crawling with maybe-and-maybe-not partygoers.  Jack begins downing some more bourbon before one of the party's butlers collides into him and inadvertently spills the alcohol.  Soon enough, Jack learns that the butler's name is Charles Grady, and he recognizes both the name and the face of the man who "hacked his family to death."  The conversation is the very definition of a slow burn, with Grady (masterfully played by Philip Stone) bouncing off these accusations before giving in to the dark side, playing the role of temptation on Jack as he convinces him that his wife and son need to be "corrected."  It seems that the hotel has a vested interest in seeing that Jack Torrance fulfills his destiny - that destiny being joining the large pantheon of lost souls confined within the walls within to murder the holy hell out of any surrounding loved ones.  It may not be said in so many words, but it's implied, believe me.

The following morning, Wendy gathers up her courage to confront Jack in his study.  Bat in hand, she makes her way to the typewriter that he has repeatedly hacked away at throughout the duration of the movie.  Much to her shock, the manuscript stacked next to the typewriter consists of page after page of one phrase formatted differently.  "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," indeed.  Turns out that insanity and art ARE very closely linked.  Jack surprises her from behind and cuts loose on Wendy in perhaps the best-acted scene of Jack Nicholson's career.  When most people yell, it comes across as overacting.  Here, it just feels absolutely appropriate, the craziness, violence and desperation radiating off the screen with savage intensity.  As he goes in for the kill, Wendy manages to smash him in the head with the bat and send him tumbling down a long flight of stairs, knocking him out.

He wakes up in the hotel's walk-in pantry, locked inside by Wendy.  She plans to make a break for civilization using the hotel's snowcat; earlier in the film, Jack sabotaged both the snowcat and the hotel's radio, cutting off the residents from the outside world completely.  Jack is later admonished by the voice of Grady who admonishes him for not being able to get the job done, playing on Jack's insecurity as he taunts the surrogate murderer.  In a deadly serious tone, Jack says that he is capable of finishing his task.  Moments later, we hear the audible "click" as Grady unlocks the door.

The finishing sequence of The Shining is classic in every way.  It is suspenseful, violent and even mystifying in all the right places, so play like Samuel L. Jackson and hold on to your butts. 

Danny writes "REDRUM" in red lipstick on the bathroom door, waking Wendy up by repeating the word over and over in his "Tony" voice (Danny no longer exists; Tony has taken over).  "REDRUM" is, of course, "MURDER" spelled backwards, a fact that any fan of TNA wrestling and "RELLIK" likely would be able to decipher.  Immediately after this revelation, the now axe-wielding Jack begins knocking his way into the family quarters.  Acting instinctively, Wendy cordons herself off in the bathroom, shoving Danny out the window who promptly makes his way back inside the main lobby of the hotel.  Meanwhile, Jack attempts to make his way into the bathroom where we get THIS immortal visage that everyone should be familiar with if you have ever strode down the horror aisle at the video store.

Before I finish this baby off, I have to make a few comments about Shelley Duvall's performance in this movie.  A majority of the reviews aren't very kind to Ms. Duvall, calling her "Olive Oyl"-lite, unconvincing, weak and so on and so forth.  I respectfully disagree with this assessment.  No doubt due to the constant pushing from her director, Duvall - with her shrill line delivery, bloodcurdling screams and incredibly pained facial expressions - comes across as absolutely terrified, desperate, the claustrophobia and panic of the situation clearly overwhelming her.  Through all of it, she bends but does not break.  Everyone's milage might vary, but I find myself firmly in the corner of Wendy Torrance in these final segments of the film, Olive Oyl be damned.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming.  Before Jack can finish Wendy off, he hears the front door of the hotel opening and shuffles off to investigate.  Throughout much of the film's third act, the action periodically shifted to Florida as Mr. Hallorann enjoys his off-season vacation.  As all of the creepiness at the OVerlook picks up, Hallorann seems to be seeing the events play out in his own mind and does his damndest to check up on the Torrance family.  This, of course, is made impossible by the fact that the battery for the hotel's radio has been...misplaced.  Wouldn't you know it, he has shown up at the front door after navigating the winding road leading up to the Overlook.  The camera follows him in a long, almost unbearably tense steadicam shot before Jack emerges from behind a pillar, killing him with an axe shot to the chest and flushing Danny (who saw the whole thing in his mind) out of his hiding place.

What follows is a sort of chase on two very different fronts.  Physically, Jack pursues Danny outside through the hedge maze, yelling threats at his son as he follows the footprints, inching closer and closer to completing his mission.  Metaphysically, Wendy searches for Danny inside the hotel and encounters all of the hotel's ghosts in the various locales, including a first-hand look at a furry homosexual incident from the past.  When popping in a copy of a film based on a Stephen King novel, a man dressed in a lion suit fellating a hotel guest is the last thing that you expect to see, but there it is.  It would be chuckle-inducing in any other movie besides this one.

Eventually, Danny is able to outsmart Jack, stepping backwards into his own footprints and covering them with snow before backtracking through the maze.  He navigates his way back to the entrance as Wendy exits the hotel.  The two of them quickly enter Hallorann's abandoned snowcat and begin driving away toward safety, leaving Jack - unable to find his way out of the hedge maze - to freeze to death, caterwauling "WENDY" at the top of his lungs all the while before collapsing into a heap.  The action immediately flashes forward to the dead body of Jack Torrance, snow and ice clung to his face before we get our final bit of ambiguity.  The camera switches back inside to the photo gallery on the Overlook walls, slowly zooming in to a group photo from July 4th, 1921, with Jack Torrance first and foremost among the large crowd celebrating the holiday.

 Roll end credits.

If you have not seen this movie, reading the above recap should make it pretty clear whether or not The Shining is for you.  The best way that I know how to put it is that this is not a fun, happy horror movie.  It's not the classic '80s Friday the 13th films, with their comforting cliches, goofy characters and cool kills.  It's not Halloween with its badass villain and catchy score.  Nope, what Stanley Kubrick set about to do with this VERY loose adaptation of a 1978 novel by Stephen King was to creep the holy fuck out of any unfortunate soul who found themselves subjected to it, and in that regard, he succeeded in spades.

From a technical standpoint, this is some movie, and still looks fantastic more than 30 years after its original release date (which, amazingly enough, was the same day as the first Friday the 13th film).  But by my estimation, it's the human touches and the atmosphere that make this movie immortal. 

First, the human aspect.  Nicholson's performance stands as perhaps the greatest sustained acting job in any horror movie.  Yes, Anthony Hopkins was quite great in The Silence of the Lambs, but he was only onscreen for something like 14 minutes.  Nicholson outdoes that in the ballroom and "I'm gonna bash your brains in!!" lobby scenes alone.  I can't really say that the guy is an out-and-out villain, because like the book, we are clued in that the hotel is manipulating him in some way.  When the end comes, however, we're scared of this guy, his buried rage now completely on the surface and ready to strike.  Duvall isn't that far behind, making an ideal horror heroine who almost quite literally goes to hell and back, emerging victorious after the horror that befalls her family.

Now for the atmosphere.  With a combination of steadicam shots, music and color scheme, Kubrick creates what is one of the two most oppressively suspenseful locales of any horror movie (the other being Dario Argento's Suspiria).  The hotel itself becomes a character in The Shining, the labyrinthine maze of corridors that Danny rides through before meeting the Grady twins, the pantry, the lobby and the ballroom becoming quirks on this very ominous figure lording over the other characters.  Put more simply, there is a tangible presence of danger on the screen in this movie, that there are things in this hotel with the power and will to hurt people.  By proxy, this power can influence human beings to stop restraining their own urge to do the same thing.  That, I think, is what scares people about The Shining - that there are people with a small amount of evil buried deeply within, and with enough prodding that evil can be unleashed.  That and murderous ghosts of elderly women.  Those are pretty creepy too.

**** out of ****.  In the realm of ghost story flicks, this is the Flair-Steamboat.