Wicked Little Things (2006)

2006
Directed by J.S. Cardone
Starring Lori Heuring, Scout Taylor-Compton, Chloe Grace Moretz, Geoffrey Lewis and Ben Cross

It looks like I've already reached the depths of Netflix.  Wicked Little Things was one of the much-ballyhooed "8 Films to Die For" in the original After Dark Horrorfest, which tells this guy several things.  Namely, it was either going to be a woefully underappreciated gem, or really, severely misguided.  95 minutes later, I'm going with Option #2. 

This is just a really STRANGE movie, and one that I'm not entirely sure how to explain.  It's kind of a zombie movie (I know - ugh), but it's one unlike any that I've ever seen.  They're also...ghosts, I guess, which makes this kind of in the same vein as some of Lucio Fulci's weird materializing zombie epics, only about .0000005% as good.  In addition to that, it's got Scout Taylor-Compton a year before she would be saddled with the task of playing Rob Zombie's version of Laurie Strode, getting to play Zombie's Laurie Strode under a different name.  In short, likability = nonexistant.  AND it has Chloe Moretz a few years before hitting it big as Hit Girl and a pair of very well-received horror remakes that will go unnamed, mostly due to the fact that I refuse to watch them out of principle.  Thus, while this isn't a very good flick, it's interesting, so let's get to it.

The flick opens up with one of those flashback sequences that horror film-makers seem to adore, giving us the "past evil" in "show don't tell" form as a cruel mine baron is employing and exploiting a large group of immigrant children in rural Carlton, Pennsylvania.  A horrific accident soon buries all of the children alive in what I'm sure is meant to be some sort of symbolism that I'm too dumb to pick up on. 

Warp forward 80 years, where the mine is long closed and that evil baron was acquitted for his crimes.  Meet the Tunny family - mother Karen (Lori Heuring), teenage daughter Sarah (Compton) and young-'un Emma (Moretz).  The trio have just dealt with a long illness and death of the father, and are moving into his family house in Carlton because reasons.  All of which immediately fitting into the pre-disposed horror movie family roles that should be familiar to anyone reading this.  The mother is protective and concerned, the teen is rebellious and all kinds of pissed off about living in Hicksville, the daughter is percocious and scared by all of the weird local rituals and goings-on.  For her part, Moretz really is the star here, no matter how milquetoast her role, and it isn't hard to figure out why she would eventually be a breakout star and why Compton would soon be doomed to Rob Zombie-land.

And...that's pretty much it.  From here, the family starts to hear sounds at night, Emma wanders off into the forest and finds the old mine, and the strange ritual that many of the townsfolk have involving painting blood on their doors is discussed a few times.  We meet an anciliary character named Hanks, played by Ben Cross in full scenery-chewing mode, who seems to be the guy looking out for the Turner family in between whatever it is he does for a living besides speaking in hushed tones about the ghoulies that go bump in the night.  All throughout, the presentation is just weird in a way that you can't take your eyes off of the train wreck.

The movie essentially has two subplots.  Unfortunately, one of them involves Compton's character, as she adjusts to the teenage life in Carlton.  Taking place in one 30-second scene, she rebukes the advances of the local douchebag while simultaneously becoming interested in his nice guy friend, leading to a few scenes where the group sits around in cars, listens to heavy metal, smokes doobies and partake in some make-out sessions.  It's just as captivating as it sounds.  The other is the rather haphazard way that we find out that, yes, the mountains of Carlton, Pennsylvania are occupied by honest-to-goodness zombie children who come out every night to feed, and that the blood on the doors is way of appeasing their hungry spirits. 

Oh, and both Hanks and the Turner family are related to the zombies, and thus can't be harmed by them.  Don't ask.

If you can't tell, I wasn't particularly into this movie.  I WILL give the movie some credit when it comes to the third act, as the local land developer baron (also conveniently related to the guy who was responsible for that mine accident all those years ago) finds himself locked up with Hanks, Karen and Sarah, leading up to a five-minute sequence that actually consists of some pretty nifty horror and a whole heap o' stage blood literally poured out on the cast.  It lulls the audience out of their stupor, but it's too little too late.  Ultimately, with me, it always comes down to characters, and this movie doesn't captivate you with them.  A fatal flaw in a genre that depends on emotional investment leading up to mortal danger, and it's the fatal strike here.

* 1/2 out of ****.  I suspect that the only reason Netflix coughed up the cash to have this one in their library is Moretz, and it shows, because everything else is an interesting-yet-forgettable mismash.  Skip this one.

The Dentist (1996)

1996
Directed by Brian Yuzna
Starring Corbin Bernsen, Linda Hoffman, Michael Stadvec, Ken Foree, Christa Sauls and Virginya Keehne

The Dentist is one of those horror movies that everyone should check out for an example that the axiom "it's not what a movie is about, it's HOW it goes about it" is almost always true.  The concept of the flick, to me, sounds mind-numbingly stupid.  Dentist discovers his wife cheating on him, goes on murderous rampage.  But the slow burn transformation that Corbin Bernsen goes through throughout the flick is actually very well done, to the point that the final bits actually do bear a little bit of weight.  So score five points for the axiom writers of the world.

Having said that...yes, some concepts are so bad that no amount of dressing up can save them.  Gigli, I'm looking at you.  One final word: I'm writing this review off two hours of sleep, so don't be surprised if it's brief.  The Fun Size Reviews might be making their return.

Bernsen plays Dr. Alan Feinstone, successful dentist who lives in a bigass house and has a hot wife.  Both of those things are about to be threatened, the latter of which when he discovers his spouse Brooke (Hoffman) cheating on him with the pool boy Matt (Stadvec).  The early goings of the movie have Feinstone tracing the movements of Brooke and Matt, getting into trouble by killing his wife's friend's dog, all kinds of fun stuff.  There's also this creepy bit when he begins operating on the teeth of beauty queen April Reign (Sauls - and while it's been several years since I've seen the movie, I remember her being smokin' hot), and then operating on some other stuff if you know what I mean.  It's a weird section - he hallucinates that April is his really his wife, or something, and then goes about fondling her and removing articles of clothing, followed by having a hell of a time explaining that to the woman's manager.  Fun stuff.

Moving right along, it's time to get revenge on the people responsible for his misery.  Without doubt, these are the movie's money sequences.  The "teeth-pulling" scene with Brooke is one of the most cringe-worthy things I've seen in any horror movie, followed by the quick stabbing murder of Matt that shocks us back to reality.  At this point, I would like to say a few words about the performance of Bernsen in this movie.  In short, it really is something.  This movie had a budget of $2.5 million, missed theaters and went straight to video, but it had some solid people behind it and they definitely had a dude in front of the camera who didn't half-ass it.  Bernsen INVESTS into Alan Feinstone, to the point where you don't condone the guys actions in the least bit but you can see the gears turning, slowly grinding to a hault and giving way to total insanity.  Even when he hits that last point, it's hard to laugh at him.  So another five points to the movie there.

In between all of this madness, there are the usual bits of police procedural stuff - this time represented by Ken Foree.  He has a made up name for his character, but I refuse to call him anything else.  Foree is a dude who is well-known to horror veterans as one of the stars of the original Dawn of the Dead and Texas Chain Saw Massacre III, and he's alright here.  Truthfully, though, these bits just kind of bog the movie down.  It's hard to focus your attention on other things when Bernsen is so damn good at being batshit insane, so call it flaccid penis syndrome by proxy.  Whoa, what?

Amazingly enough, the stuff that I've talked about so far has pretty much led us directly to the climax.  Your setup: Paula (that would be neighbor lady who was also enjoying some pool time with Matt) and Sarah (a teenager played by Virginya Keehne in the office to get her braces taken out) both have encounters with Alan that have very different results.  If I remember correctly, this movie has an insanely long "Final Girl" sequence, something like 20 minutes, with Sarah running away from Alan in the office and looking great doing it.  Salacious statement time: women of the world, one look that needs to come back is the mid-'90s short skirt and thigh-high socks combo.  Lick Ness Monster approves.

Awkward summary time:  This is actually a pretty damn good movie, despite those boring cop bits and its admittedly out-there premise, because the execution is spot-on.  Solid direction, an awesome performance from Bernsen and some solid horror stuff raise this material to a level that it really had no right getting to.  Now, there IS a sequel to this movie, and I'm a little hesitant to check it out because this movie had the benefit of the plot device of Alan Feinstone actually GOING insane.  I just can't picture it being quite as resonant having him as a nutjob from the beginning, but that's just me.  Maybe it's really good.

*** out of ****.  Not gonna win any awards or anything, but for a lesson in low-budget film-making with plenty of heart and energy, this is one of those "101" lessons. 

Dead Silence (2007)

2007
Directed by James Wan
Starring Ryan Kwanten, Amber Valletta, Donnie Wahlberg and Michael Fairman

Another movie from the "I can't believe I haven't seen this until now" file, although I've gotta admit...I kinda wish it still was.  Dead silence isn't a terrible movie by any stretch, but it's not terribly GOOD, either.  I remember that it was released with a ton of buzz and publicity, as pretty much any flick with James Wan's name attached to it has been since the release of Saw.

Ah, James Wan.  Like him or hate him, I don't think it can be denied that this dude has been the single most influential guy in horror for the past decade.  With Saw and its never-ending series of sequels, in addition to the Insidious films, The Conjuring, Annabelle, Demonic, the list of big-time horror movies with his name attached to them is pretty impressive.  And now he's attached to the Fast and Furious movies, which are as downright terrifying as anything listed above in the fact that they continue to gross as much as the GDP of a small country despite being terrible.  I base that astute analysis on the one movie in the franchise that I've seen (2 Fast 2 Furious) and the bias that I can't stand Vin Diesel and I'm not a car guy.  What CAN'T be denied, however, is that Wan has a unique style that quickly got duped by endless imitators in the spate of "evil ghost" movies that followed in his wake. 

And in between Saw and evil ghosts...there was Dead Silence.  How's that for a segue?

Like pretty much any horror with a brisk 90-minute-or-so running time, this movie wastes absolutely no time getting going, introducing us to James Ashen (Kwanten) and his wife Lisa (Laura Regan).  This loving couple has just received a very curious gift in the mail - a puppet named "Billy" in an unmarked package.  When James leaves to get some take-out Chinese, Lisa begins hearing strange noises emanating from the puppet...and when James comes back, he finds his wife in the kind of severe mutilated state reserved only for the books of Clive Barker.  It's actually a pretty impressive set piece, so +1 to the movie in that regard.

At this point, the character that serves as the proverbial cock blocker of all fun shows up.  Played by Donnie Wahlberg, police detective Jim Lipton exists in this movie solely to be an annoyance to James and the audience, giving his best Keystone Cops-style routine whenever he's onscreen as he smarms it up trying to attach the death to James.  I also need to point out that Ryan Kwanten is just not very good as the lead guy here.  This role - a husband who has just lost his wife - calls for way more emotion than this guy was willing to dole out, so the good will that we got with the set piece is lost in short order.  Unfortunately, the movie only regains it in short bursts from here on out.

James heads back to his hometown of Ravens Fair after discovering that this is where the curious puppet arrived from, quickly meeting his estranged father (Bob Gunton) and his much younger wife Ella (Valletta).  The story of familial ties really is the backdrop to the rest of the story, however, as the movie begins to flip-flop between two alternate story lines.  First, there is James and the odyssey of the puppet, as he discovers that Billy belonged to legendary local puppeteer Mary Shaw - subject of a local nursery rhyme that isn't quite "1, 2, Freddy's coming for you" on the horror movie coolness scale.  Needless to say, the ol' bat REALLY liked puppets.  Story line number two involves Wahlberg sporadically showing up to harass James, believing his trek back to Ravens Fair to be an attempt to bury evidence of his wife's murder.

As you can tell by this point, I wasn't particularly enthralled by the story of this movie.  After countless other James Wan movies, this really did feel like more of the same.  A bit unfair, since this movie preceded the meat of his "ghost movie" output, but what can you do.  That would all be a moot point, however, if I thought the movie worked as a thriller.  It does, but only in short spurts.

See, this is one of those movies that is pretty heavy on back story.  Mary Shaw is your star villain in this movie, with the puppets - Billy and otherwise (spoiler alert) - serving as her revenge against James' family line after she was blamed for the murder of their ancestor Michael, who heckled her during a performance many years ago.  Freddy Krueger-style-mob justice scene later, and Mary is a vengeful ghost.  There are moments when we're supposed to be creeped out by Billy himself, and this effective...sometimes.  Then, there are moments where the ghost of Mary Shaw appears to James, and this is effective...sometimes.  But not really.  In essence, what we get here are a bunch of startling "LOUD NOISES" scares that have become very prevalent in recent years, and it's not any more effective of a tactic here than it is in anything else. 

This is also a movie that likes to pile on the twists and exposition, especially in the final trimester.  By that point, I was tired of story.  Note that I haven't even touched on the subplot involving the elderly couple who were around when Mary Shaw was alive.  You can Paypal me fifty bucks if you really want the dirty details on that - or look it up on Wikipedia, whichever you prefer.

There really isn't much more to share about Dead Silence.  Having seen a couple of Wan's later flicks, he would definitely perfect the formula that he started here in his subsequent efforts.  This movie is a little too scatterbrained for its own good, with too many characters and subplots crammed into its lean running time.  Coupled up with a cast that isn't terribly interesting, and you've got an only intermittently scary movie that's hard to get into.

** out of ****.  Admittedly, the puppets and Shaw are pretty effective villains.  However, everything else lets that premise down.  Avoid this one.

Dawn of the Dead (1978)

1978
Directed by George A. Romero
Starring David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott Reiniger and Gaylen Ross

Yes, folks, I'm reviewing a zombie movie.  For my legion of (four) fans...I'm not happy about it either, but here goes.

The original 1978 Dawn of the Dead is one of those movies that critics the world over lose their contents for.  Hell, Roger Ebert gave it four stars, and he hated horror movies.  I'm going to try to curb my snark as much as possible for this review, so the short version is this: I agree with the critics...to an extent.  That other extent is hyperbole for reasons that I won't get into.  Nonetheless, this is DEFINITELY the second-best movie in Romero's trilogy that now consists of no less than six movies that I'm aware of.  Whoops, snark alert.  #1 on that list, by the way, would be that black-and-white original, the only flick in the series that I actually feel the urge to re-watch every now and then.

The raw numbers speak for themselves, though: $1.5 million budget, $55 million gross.  Modern-day film producers, take note - you can spend less than the GDP of a small country and make your film seem big, grand and epic.  Even more amazingly, it can be accomplished without CGI.  Just Tom Savini and a whole heap o' fake blood and makeup.  That's good stuff there, kids.

With that, let's get to the show.  If you'll recall, the first movie (which was inducted into my Registry of horror movies back when I had that dealio going on) was all about confinement.  Small group of survivors at a farmhouse, hordes of attacking zombies, dead girl in the basement...family fun all around.  This one takes that concept to a much grander scale.  The unknown epidemic causing the recently deceased to rise from their graves and spread their disease via Komodo Dragon-esque mouth bites has hit the country, and the zombies have begun to overtake the cities.  You know, one thing I have NEVER understood about Romero's movies is how the zombie side seems to be WINNING.  I mean, we see survivors mow down these undead denizens with machine guns with plenty of aplomb, and yet, we're constantly told that we're at Skynet-esque extinction's door.  But I digress.

The movie gets its introductory segment out of the way quickly.  Two SWAT officers in charge of fighting the zombie hordes are your resident badasses - Peter (Ken Foree, in probably my favorite performance in the entire series) and Roger (Scott Reiniger).  These guys provide the needed gunfire and combat skills that the plot will need later, but I've also gotta say that they're pretty likable people.  You know what, so are the movie's primary romantic couple.  TV staff member Stephen Andrews (David Emge) and his girlfriend Francine (Gaylen Ross) have a plot to survive the oncoming zombie apocalypse that threatens Philadelphia: steal a helicopter and make off for the suburbs.  After some initial zombie-shooting action, Peter and Roger find themselves stowing away.

The chosen landing site, and where the movie will house its action for the remainder of the running time, is the rooftop of a shopping mall.  This is where every critic just creams themselves, as there are supposedly all these allegorical themes that can be had from the chosen setting.  But you don't come to Lick Ness Monster's Horror Movie Mayhem for that sort of analysis, and besides, I could swear that I once read an interview with Romero that he only chose the setting because it made sense as a place for the survivors to have supplies anyway.  What can't be debated is that it IS a pretty nifty little setup.  With the zombies barricaded either outside or on the first floor, our four survivors make the upper levels of the mall their de facto apartments.  The script does a very admirable job making each character sympathetic in their own way, and the action sequences have the benefit of an amazing score by Goblin - the same band that did the music for several of Dario Argento's masterpieces.

We even get some pretty good dramatic developments.  During the course of the cleanup, Roger is bitten by one of the zombies and infected, while Francine reveals that she is pregnant.  In this regard, this flick is WAY more enjoyable than the original, where I wanted to choke the life out of every character with the exception of Ben.  Where it ISN'T as good is the suspense department.  We spend a LOT of time with these characters in the middle portions of the movie.  Francine takes flying lessons, Ben watches as his friend gradually succumbs to the zombie disease.  It's a weird conundrum.  Usually I'm all for more development, and the development we get here is good stuff but it kind of knocks the movie's momentum off in the middle when it comes to the scary factor.

And then the bikers show up.

The third trimester of this movie involves a fight between our camp of survivors and another, Cobra organization group of biker survivors who want the safety and comfort of the shopping mall all for themselves.  For me, this is where the momentum takes a bigger downturn.  The waning period of the movie is predictable, but not in the way that I usually like.  And yeah, that is a bullshit blanket statement and I fully admit to it, because I honestly don't know what I would have done differently were I writing the damn script.  So who knows, maybe I'm just a moron. 

Although I do VERY much enjoy the final minute or so, with Peter's overzealous rampage of doom.  The first time I saw this movie, that scene got rewound no less than ten times.  Hilarity to an Eddie Murphy level.

Anyway...time to tote everything up.  Folks, I DO like this movie, but not enough or in the way that I ever want to really watch it again.  It's not a particularly enjoyable movie, although that can be said for some of the best horror movies of all time.  Audition comes to mind off the top of my head as far as movies that fit this description.  And...yeah, my zombie movie bias is starting to creep in again, I can't deny it.  I very much enjoy the beginning and middle of Dawn of the Dead, as well as the characters and the setting that the movie quickly calls home.  But I do think that the flick flies off the rails a bit once the other characters show up.  Oh, and Savini...awesome stuff on the makeup FX side, but that's almost such a given that it borders on mind-numbingly redundant.

*** out of ****.  Every horror fan should check it out once during their lifetime.  Whether or not you want to peruse it more is probably up to your personal tastes.  And it's loads better than the 2004 Zack Snyder remake, where the director claims that he invented fast zombies, characters that are nowhere near as likable and that stupid pregnancy/zombie baby storyline.