Poltergeist (1982)

1982
Directed by Tobe Hooper
Starring Craig T. Nelson, "Smokin'" JoBeth Williams, Heather O'Rourke, Dominique Dunne, Oliver Robins and Zelda Rubinstein

Here's another one for the "can't believe I've never reviewed before" file.  I've had a DVD copy of Poltergeist sitting on my shelf for no less than seven years, dug it out for a few sporadic watches and discarded it without a second thought.  Time to exorcise this demon once and for all.

Maybe it's because I've just assumed that everyone else has already seen and formed their own opinion of this movie, because this is a flick that as undoubtedly huge in its day.  It was released in 1982, being one of many, many, many motion pictures at the time to have some Steven Spielberg connection.  Except, in this case, the term "connection" might be a bit too vague, because there is quite the debate to this day about just how large of a role he played in the production of Poltergeist.  Technically, he was the producer and cowriter, but according to some film theoreticians (and a few people on the set), he actually directed the movie.  Amazingly enough, the guy getting the director credit for this very large budget ghost flick is Tobe Hooper, the guy behind several "so cheap that I'll just film this snuff-style" epics including The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Eaten Alive.  Having seen how professional some of his later films without Steven frekin' Spielberg's name attached to it look (including TCM 2 and Lifeforce), I have to call bullshit on this theory.   

What else is there to share?  Well, not much.  The basic premise behind Poltergeist is your basic conventional haunted house film, except with a much bigger special effects budget and with some very, very big names attached to the production and screenwriting units.  Oh, and JoBeth Williams is all kinds of MILF-tastic.

PLOT:  Meet the Freelings, family just like yours who have just moved into a new house in suburban America.  There's dad and real estate agent Steven (Craig T. "Coach" Nelson), homemaker wife Diane (Williams) who also enjoys pot-smoking in her off time, teenage daughter/skank (seriously, there's like three different not-so-subtle jokes that poke fun at her promiscuity) Dana (Dominique Dunne, who tragically died shortly after filming this movie), Star Wars-obsessed son Robbie (Oliver Robins) and blonde little girl/"They're Here" sayer Carol Anne (Heather O'Rourke, who amazingly enough also met a premature death in 1988, adding to this film's legend as a "cursed movie").  They live in a house that looks just like all of their neighbors' residences, but it doesn't take long before it becomes apparent just how different the new Freeling home is.

The first act of this movie concludes with Carol Anne (who has been communicating with mysterious "TV people," who seem to be much more fascinating than my own TV people as a child who consisted of Gilbert Gottfried and Garfield) being abducted by shadowy ghosts living in the house.  The Freelings call in a troupe of parapsychology experts to deal with the abduction/weird shit going on, and it all builds to what is admittedly a pretty cool third act where Diane comes face-to-face with the very pissed-off evil ghost that lords over the house and wants to claim Carol Anne as its own.  There's nothing fresh here in terms of story, but it's all executed well-enough.  And it's got an occasionally daisy duke-wearing and underwear-clad JoBeth Williams to gawk at.
PLOT RATING: *** out of ****.

CHARACTERS AND ACTORS:  When I was watching this movie as a kid, I really identified with the character of Robbie.  Pointless background information: I was a massive scaredy cat as a child, to the point where I interpreted every suspect noise in my bedroom as a single-digit-age-person eating helldemon bent on wrecking my shit up with a vengeance.  Looking back on it, I still connect with Robbie the most in this movie, because while the actors give it their damndest...the Freelings are a pretty vanilla bunch, with the exception of the "'60s rebel, dude" cliches that the writers gave the parents.  Since Poltergeist is rated PG, we're also not getting any deaths here, but if we were, the group of psychic researchers who almost ransack the movie halfway through might as well have had "CANNON FODDER" written in block letters on their foreheads.  One of them, however, does have a pretty neat special effects sequence involving hallucinatory face melting.  So there is that.
CHARACTERS AND ACTORS RATING: ** out of ****.

COOL FACTOR:  Amazing information that even the most casual of movie fans already knows - Steven Spielberg is pretty much the man when it comes to making his movies feel like a big deal, and Poltergeist is no different.  The budget punched in with a final number of a little over $10 million, which was absolutely ginormous by 1982 horror movie standards, and it's safe to say that you can see every dollar of that money on the screen here.  At a time when most horror flicks were decidedly slashery, low-budget and bathed in fake blood (not that there's anything wrong with that), this movie was slick, well-produced and very professional.  There's plenty of great camerawork, nifty visuals and Industrial Light & Magic animation to be had here, although (as aforementioned) you won't get any cool deaths.
COOL FACTOR: *** out of ****.

OVERALL:  Over the years, I've come to have a deep appreciation when I see a classic three-act structure in a screenplay.  These days, this is practically a lost art, as it seems that almost every drama/thriler film I've seen in the past five years or so is obsessed with throwing in hackneyed twist after hackneyed twist while action movies have been busy Peter Jackson-ing themselves into oblivion (read: false climax after false climax).  Poltergeist has none of that.  It's an event movie with clear-cut beginning, middle and ending sections, it's got a few classic scenes (particularly Carol Anne's abduction and the ending chase with Diane and the Beast), and it's very well-made.  In this day and age of blockbuster movies that outright insult moviegoers' intelligence, this flick is a revelation.  It's got its flaws, but for a haunted house that managed to be a big deal fairly quick (much like Alberto Del Rio), there's plenty of entertainment value here.

OVERALL RATING: *** out of ****.  I wouldn't quite call it a "classic" like many critics have, but it's a fairly good fun time.  How's that for vague copout statements?

Shutter (2008)

2008
Directed by Masayuki Ochiai
Starring Joshua Jackson, Rachael Taylor and Megumi Okina

I've recounted the story on a few occasions that the 2006 remake of Black Christmas is the only movie that I've ever walked out of in theaters, but the movie in question today came close a little over a year later.  I don't know quite what it was about the stateside version of Shutter, whether it was the acting or the tone or the fact that there were two bastard kids thundering up and down the aisles throughout the duration of the flick's brisk 85-minute running time, but watching this movie was an incredibly taxing experience.  Much like last week with my Texas Chainsaw Massacre redux viewing, I decided to give this flick another shot.

Lo and behold, it's a little better than I remember, and certainly better than the reception that this movie got at the time of its release (myself included).  Folks, this movie got a 7% on Rotten Tomatoes.  7%.  That's the type of rating that should be reserved exclusively for the cinematic works of Friedburg and Seltzer, right there, not for a clear cash-grab remake that nonetheless is occasionally creepy and occasionally pretty tense.  It also probably helps that I've never seen the Thai original, and thus won't be making any annoying extended comparisons between the two versions like I did last week.  I will, however, point out that this movie was produced by Taka Ichise.  I'm a pretty big fan of Taka, all things considered, seeing as he produced Ringu, Ju-On, and their prospective American remakes.  Put him slightly ahead of Michinoku as far as coolest Japanese men named Taka.   

PLOT:  Ben Shaw (Joshua "I don't want to wait for our lives to be over" Jackson) and his wife Jane (the certifiably hot Rachael Taylor) have just moved to Tokyo, where Ben has an oh-so-convenient job as a photographer.  Upon arrival, their car hits a local woman wearing a dress in the middle of nowhere, only for the police to turn up no body, no blood, and no evidence of any vehicular manslaughter.  Not soon afterward, strange things start a-brewing within Ben's photos, not the least of which being several large, mysterious lights, and it isn't long before the "spirit photography" aspect of the movie begins.

As it turns out, the spirit in the photos is Megumi, ironically enough played by another Megumi.  Yes, folks, it's Megumi Okina, the star of the first theatrical Ju-On film (a.k.a. the greatest horror movie ever made).  The CHARACTER Megumi (confusing, I know) once dated Ben but eventually became obsessive and clingy after the death of her father.  The origin scenes of the ghost combined with what is admittedly a few very tense scenes after we learn what the f**k is going on is enough to make this a fairly interesting story, even if it occasionally treads into predictability and hokiness.  Not quite as hokey as the deer attack scene in The Ring Two, but close.
PLOT RATING: *** out of ****.

CHARACTERS AND ACTORS:  Rachael Taylor is really, really, really great to look at, but unfortunately that's about all I can say for her.  Her character is meant to be the center of the film, the new woman who has replaced Megumi in Josh's life and thus the source of much harassment and potential audience sympathy, but unfortunately, she isn't able to get it.  This is where the movie falls short, and it's a damn shame, because Jackson was all kinds of aces as the (eventually) douchey Ben, and Okina...you know, I saw the movie in theaters before I became borderline obsessed with the Ju-On/Grudge series, and I really looked at her character differently this time around with that additional knowledge.  She was without a doubt one of the five best horror heroines ever in Ju-On and loses none of her vulnerability or likability here despite the fact that she's supposed to be a quasi-villain.  There's a whole lot of other inconsequential characters (Ben's assistant and his college friends who help him in the heinous plot to ditch Megumi that shockingly goes awry after she enters her "clingy girlfriend" phase) who aren't worth wasting valuable typing energy on.
CHARACTERS AND ACTORS RATING: ** out of ****.

COOL FACTOR:  There's actual a couple cringe-inducing death scenes in this movie (and I'll leave it up to you, loyal reader, to figure out the identities of those two deaths from the "Character and Actors" section), and a few very good scenes as Megumi begins torturing Ben and Jane.  Overall, the character of Megumi is definitely not the standard bearer for coolness that Kayako Saeki is, but she has her moments.  In between, the movie has its fair share of tedium, but the ending that just might stick with you for a few days after watching it almost manages to make up for it.
COOL FACTOR: ** 1/2 out of ****.

OVERALL:  Shutter is a movie that I like to call a "half-asleep masterpiece."  Namely, if it's on TV, you're tired and don't feel like paying too much attention to what's onscreen, it'll do wonders to lull you into a further zombie state yet also, amazingly, not put you to sleep.  That's bound to happen when you've got a gang rape scene seemingly out of nowhere that occurs midway through your movie.  Spoiler alert.  I honestly can't remember if this movie came out before or after the American remake of One Missed Call, but this is a movie that actually gets a little bit better - and less generic - with repeat viewings.  That, and there is one scene (that I remembered from the theatrical viewing, by the way) that manages to be gut-wrenchingly tense without a single drop of blood being spilled.  Just remember what I told you about dark rooms and humming women.  Anyway, not a great film, but give it a shot.

OVERALL RATING: ** 1/2 out of ****.  Which means, ultimately, thumbs down.  But with the exception of Rachael Taylor, this is actually a pretty enjoyable little flick.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

2003
Directed by Marcus Nispel
Starring Jessica Biel, Jonathan Tucker, Erica Leerhsen, Mike Vogel, Eric Balfour and R. Lee Ermey

This fact is very surprising to yours truly, but the original, 1974 Tobe Hooper Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a very polarizing movie.  It's very much a "love or hate" thing, with members of one camp believing it to be some sort of depraved, debauched masterpiece of macabre film-making and the other just finding it lame as all get out.  Color me in with the former group.  Maybe it was the sneak viewing of it that I pulled in my parents' basement circa 1995 (when I was 12 years old, for those counting), but this is a movie that got under my skin immediately and still gives me a case of the skin-crawling willies when I dig it out for a biannual-ish watch.

More than anything else, the original TCM was a movie that, to me, just felt real.  For starters, it was a movie that was filmed on a budget that I can't even use my standard "filet-o-fish value meal" punchline for, and I had to believe that filming a straight-up snuff film where all of this stuff was actually happening was cheaper than doing whatever Hooper did to try to fake it.  And then there was Marilyn Burns.  For as much as Leatherface and his ilk disturbed me as a kid, it was Marilyn Burns and her constant soul-wrenching screaming toward the end that haunted my dreams for days on end in my fifth grade summer.

Which brings me to this movie.  Released in 2003 by Michael F**kin' Bay's Platinum Dunes production company, this is arguably the movie that ushered in the "let's remake every popular horror movie from the '70s and '80s" tilt that continued for years unabated and has only recently died down ever-so-slightly.  But that's another story.  You kow, they tried.  I can't fault Bay and his proto-manservant Marcus Nispel for not giving it their damndest with this flick (which is more than I can say for some of their other efforts, not the least of which being A Nightmare on Paint By Numbers Street), but the whole essence of the original TCM is something that can't be duplicated, no matter how much bronzer Nispel slathered on his camera lenses or how much dirt he threw on his cast of hot young actors. 

I suppose that's enough rambling.  Let's get down to business.

PLOT:  If you've seen the original film, you know the basics.  Group of 1973-era college kids find themselves taking a VERY wrong turn at Albuquerque and wind up at the residence of a group of cannibalistic meat salesman, the lead killer of which being a very beastly man wearing a mask made of human skin.  That much is kept intact in this version, and it's a perfectly good, classic setup.  Of course, that's based on the assumption that you're (a) into this stuff, and (b) have a pretty strong stomach.  It's where this movie differs from the original story-wise that it unfortunately falls very flat, mostly because for much of the movie's running time we're blessed with this guy as a sort of secondary villain.

Yup, that's R. Lee "Private Pyle, whatever you do, don't fall down" Ermey himself, playing Sherriff Hoyt.  This was the aspect of the movie that stuck out in my mind the most from that theater viewing many moons ago...and it's still the movie's defining characteristic, for better or much worse.  Hoyt is the man called to the scene when a hitch-hiker picked up by the college kids offs herself in the back of their van.  I remember being very uncomfortable watching the scenes with Ermey in the theater, as the audience laughed at this dude's lecherous overtures and the eventually completely unsurprising surprising twist when this guy turns out to be one of the Hewitt family members (renamed from the original films' Sawyer clan).  If Ermey had scaled back the skeeviness by 15%, this might have been a significantly better movie.  Alas, he plays Sherriff Hoyt in full-on Vince Vaughn Norman Bates mode, and it derails the movie the second he shows up.
PLOT RATING: * 1/2 out of ****.

CHARACTERS AND ACTORS:  So far, we've only mentioned Ermey's Sheriff Hoyt by name, and a lot of the others in this movie don't need mentioning.  Unfortunately, that's my job, so what do we got?  Well, there's Jessica Biel, who was at the peak of her post- (I think) 7th Heaven young hottie phase as one of the young college partyers whose name I can't be bothered to look up.  She's the only member of the caravan that we can't immediately single out as future Leatherface fodder, and that's pretty much all you need to know.  The only other cast member I recognized was Erica Leehrsen, the star of the godawful Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (how bad? it's worse than her other horror credit - the masterpiece that was Wrong Turn 2).  The characters, by and large, are annoying and unsympathetic, and while that can be a good thing if you've got a likable final girl, that's not the case here.
CHARACTERS AND ACTORS RATING: * 1/2 out of ****.

COOL FACTOR:  I remember reading a report before this movie's release that Nispel was going to be shooting for a "more suspenseful, less shocking" approach with this movie, or something else with equally flowery dialogue.  I think it's safe to say that he failed big time in that regard.  For a movie called The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the original film was actually pretty damn bloodless.  Compare that to this movie, which featured gore and grue by the bucketload, including one wholly unnecessary scene near the end where Biel helps one of her fallen compatriots, alive and impaled on a meat hook, commit suicide.  The scene is admittedly uncomfortable, but not in the good way - it's more like watching a Ryback match where he botches move after move and damn near kills the dude in the ring with him.

Finally, I have to do some commenting on the big guy himself.  The character of Leatherface, overgrown man-child villain who wears the skins of his victims, isn't a horror villain that lends itself to gaining rooting interest (Jason) or cracking jokes (take a guess).  He's always been more about unnerving viewers.  I can't fault Andrew Bryniarski for his aplomb in taking on the 'Face, as he was more than game for what it entailed.  But he is onscreen MUCH more than Gunner Hansen's legendary version in Hooper's movie and doing much more murdering.  Time to bring back one of my annoying personality traits and say "less is more," because he's just not a particularly scary or memorable villain in this go-round.  Mystique goes a long way, people.
COOL FACTOR: * 1/2 out of ****.

OVERALL:  I remember acutally being very stoked to see this movie in theaters back in Halloween season of 2003.  It seemed like the dawning of a new age - a movie that I grew up loving that most sensible adults told me was dumb and/or depraved was getting a slick modernization seemed like a justification for my own geekiness.  Instead, what we get with TCM 2003 is everything that I've outlined above - a professionally made, polished horror film, no doubt, but one that ultimately does away with damn near everything that made the original film stand out from the pack (and this is a trend that Bay and his goons Andrew Form and Brad Fuller would continue as they worked their way through slasher icons like a cheap hooker and left their own special brand of VD on each one).  There's no gritty, drawn-out "dinner" scene, no skull-bashing, no creepy "family member" hitch-hiker.  Instead, we've got R. Lee Ermey and a really dumb ending where wispy, model thin actress Jessica Biel managed to hack off Leatherface's arm with a meat cleaver, thus making any direct sequels pretty much null and void in the process.  Oh yeah, spoiler alert.

OVERALL RATING: * 1/2 out of ****.  I was hoping that another viewing of this movie would be a little bit more enjoyable than that rather drab, weird experience in theaters more than ten years ago, but alas, it's just as excessive and disappointing now as it was then. 

American Psycho (2000)

2000
Directed by Mary Harron
Starring Christian Bale, Willem Dafoe, Jared Leto, Josh Lucas, Samantha Mathis and Reese Witherspoon

Right before the dawn of the '10s, I made a list somewhere giving my completely fabricated top 10 horror movies of the 'ought decade.  This flick was on that list.  I'd like to say it was #5, but that whole time period is a little fuzzy.  The only other thing I remember about that list was that it was one of an astounding TWO American films to grace the top ten, the other being the criminally underrated Lucky McKee disturbo-fest May.  But that's another review for another day.

Anyway, American Psycho was essentially the movie that made Christian Bale a name actor.  He'd done a few things before, and it obviously wouldn't be until Batman came along that he became a legit superstar, but Patrick Bateman will forever be where this dude's bread is buttered.  What?  Not enough background information?  Well, it's also the film version of the Bret Easton Ellis novel of the same name, one of only two horror novels that I have ever been unable to finish after reading some of the debaucheries contained within.  Fortunately, this movie does not contain some of the more stomach-churning stuff from that tome.  Think female anatomy and rodents.  Yeah.  With that, on with the show.

PLOT:  Welcome to Manhattan in the late 1980s.  For much of the firt half of this movie's brisk running time, we get to know Patrick Bateman through a combination of looking-glass footage and what is admittedly very clever use of narration - normally a plot device that I'm not a fan of.  He's very concerned about appearance, male fashion, dining out, the music of Huey Lewis and the News and Genesis...we learn quite a bit about the guy.  Oh yeah, and he's very into serial murder.  Sometimes, he targets homeless vagrants.  Sometimes it's prostitutes.  And sometimes it's business associates who happen to have the misfortune of having a better business card than him.  The stakes effectively raise when Detective Donald Kimball (the always great Willem Dafoe) begins investigating Bateman in the disappearance of coworker Paul Allen ("HEY PAUL!"), beginning the slight-but-not-grating "police procedural" aspect of the film.  It's slightly comedic, it's slightly dramatic, but rest assurred, this is a horror movie, and the movie gives us something very wince-worthy every 15-20 minutes.
PLOT RATING: *** 1/2 out of ****.

CHARACTERS AND ACTORS:  People who follow my reviews very closely (and I'm fairly certain that this number rests comfortably at zero) might have noticed that I've dropped a few potshots at Christian Bale over the years.  No, I'm not a particularly big fan of the guy or his films.  You know, the one where he plays a dark, grizzled tough guy who is emotionally cut off from those around him.  Oh wait, that's damn near all of them.  This film, however, is a completely different story in my book (and this is my book, so suck it).  He fits the character of Bateman like a glove, and in this rare chance to show a manic, lecherous, over-the-top side, he nails it with aplomb.  You'll be repulsed by Bateman, but you also won't forget him.  This movie also has plenty of name actors in supporting roles (the aforementioend Defoe, Reese Witherspoon as Bateman's girlfriend, Chloe Sevigny as his secretary/would-be side love interest).  These midcarders are nowhere near as fascinating as the main eventer, but they do their job very nicely to move the plot along in the rare scenes where Bale isn't front and center.
CHARACTERS AND ACTORS RATING: *** 1/2 out of ****.

COOL FACTOR:  On one hand, you won't find many horror movies that are more quotable than this one.  I can still recite Bateman's rants about his favorite bands like the back of my hand as well as the entirety of the business card comparison scene.  On the other hand, this definitely isn't the fun, happy kind of horror movie, and there are more than a few scenes that drag in between some of the more memorable bits with Bateman.  I don't know if the addition of a perfectly mopped chainsaw can make up for occasional boredom.
COOL FACTOR: ** 1/2 out of ****.

OVERALL:  As this movie unspools, we pay witness to several of the atrocities that Patrick Bateman commits in his off-hours away from the exciting world of investment banking, and Bale was definitely up to the part of making this guy a completely detestable slimeball who deserves to get his comeuppance.  As such, this is a movie that has an absolutely dynamite beginning and middle chapter, but unfortunately, for me, it kind of flies off the rails in its final trimester.  Maybe not completely; consider it more of a hitched derailing.  Nonetheless, this is still a movie worth seeing more than once for the dialogue alone, because this stuff is just incendiary.

OVERALL RATING: *** out of ****.  Definitely one of the best original horror flicks of the '00s, and Bale's performance alone is worth the price of a cheap Amazon buy.