IHR induction #45: "A Tale of Two Sisters" (2003, Kim Ji-woon)

It may be hard to believe, but the guy typing these words has an everyday life. It may not be much of one, but it exists, I assure you. It's always a nonstop 24-hour cycle of booze, sex, and rock and roll...okay, that's a total lie. But in the time that I've spent on the midnight-eight factory shift, I've let it slip a few times just what my daily routine is AWAY from said midnight-eight factory shift. Namely, a few hours of computer cruising, followed by my daily ritual of falling asleep with horror movies on in the background. Pretty much everyone that I've ever told that to looks at me like I'm a goddamn serial killer...so judge away.

Anyway, while a lot of the movies in my moderate-sized horror collection have popped through the ol' DVD player at some point or another in my dalliances with the nocturnal lifestyle, there's a few that, for some reason or another, just don't lend themselves to early-afternoon-falling-asleep-whore digestion. Like this one right here. "A Tale of Two Sisters" is really a hard movie to watch, as well as review - not because it's especially violent or disgusting (it isn't), or not because it's a creepy, scary film (it is), but because it's a movie that's viewed best when given your full attention as opposed to fighting increasingly heavy eyelids.

First, a bit of background information. "A Tale of Two Sisters" is a Korean film, and a pretty damn important one historically speaking. For starters, it's based on a Korean folktale that's pretty well-known to pretty much everyone who saw the film in its original incarnation. As such, it was a highly publicized movie in Korea; it eventually became the highest-grossing horror movie in the country's cinematic history, and also became the first Korean horror film to be screened in American movie houses. As such, it - like a lot of awesome J and K-horror epics - was given the remake treatment. In 2009, to be exact, as "The Uninvited," starring the pretty ugly chick from "Grudge 2" and the upskirt machine from "Sucker Punch." And before anyone asks, no, I haven't seen the remake and have no plans on doing so.

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THE MOVIE!!

As already mentioned (I suppose one could say that it was AFOREMENTIONED), this is a flick that demands your full attention. Generally speaking, movies that exist outside the viewer's natural language require more attention anyway due to the effort of reading dialogue while also keeping track of action, but when you take into account that "A Tale of Two Sisters" is a multi-layered film with varying time frames, character iterations and plot shifts, you're in for a mental workout. In the good way, I assure you.

The film is a tragedy, of sorts, and our central characters are, of course, sisters: Su-mi (Im Soo Jung, in a dynamite performance), and her much more shy and reserved sibling Su-yeon (Moon Geun Young). It revolves around a situation that a great many people can relate to, and wastes little time framing the entire movie around this central premise - the sisters are being brought by their father (Kim Cap-su) to home to meet their new stepmother, Eun-joo (Yeom Jeong-ah, who is infinitely hatable in this role). As it so often happens with the situation, the close siblings aren't too fond of their new family member, and as the story progresses, it becomes clear that the feeling is mutual.

In between a few instances of story aspects that "creepy up" the proceedings (including a few nighttime scenes where Su-yeon sees a strange ghost-like figure standing on her bed), this is mostly a film about the inner workings of this family. The fairy tale aspect of the story is definitely apparent, as Eun-joo becomes every bit the "wicked stepmother" that we know and love from various Disney flicks. Her level of cruelty rivals many domestic villains from other movies; she is particularly nasty and abusive toward Su-yeon, verbally castigating her to no end and locking her in a closet. Throughout these early portions of the film, the struggle between Su-mi and Eun-joo is your central conflict, and we have no reason to believe that the movie is going to be anything other than a story about familial squabbles.

Then one revelation comes. Then another, and another, until "A Tale of Two Sisters" becomes a movie where not only is it made abundantly clear that everything is DEFINITELY not as it seems, but somehow, some way, it all unfolds in a logical manner with several very powerful moments where things become clear. Normally, movies made in this manner leave me inherently frustrated; this one, with its endlessly clever screenplay by director Ji-woon, is satisfying and emotional, with the various twists and turns serving as devices with the power to both shock the viewer and to tug on the heartstrings.

Reading this review, some of you may be wondering why "A Tale of Two Sisters" is considered a horror film. Throughout much of the flick's running time, we aren't given anything in the way of a villain, or killing, or any of the usual staples associated with the genre. It matters little. This is a movie entirely about darkness, tragedy and mood, and all three of those things come together with the skillful direction of Kim Ji-woon to form something that's quite unnerving to watch. Sure, there's the deliberate ways that movies attempt to scare audiences (a creepy musical score, for starters), but there are also plot developments that leave the audience empathizing with the two lead girls like few movies are able to, which makes some of the very real events that happen to them all the more horrific.

Parting words: You know, I don't think that a lot of you need to be told that a lot of the movies that have gained the IHR induction are technically not "good" movies. They may be memorable, or important, even revolting - but they're not "good." "A Tale of Two Sisters," by any criteria, is just a damn good film - the acting is top-notch, the direction and screenwriting by its creator is handled with plenty of reverence, and the endless series of surprises that it springs on the captive audience is always a sight to behold. If you're looking for a break from the usual assortment of American slasher films and ghost stories (not that there's anything wrong with those), give this movie a look-see. It's legitimately one of the all-time greats.

IHR induction #44: "Dressed to Kill" (1980, Brian De Palma)

Time for your humble host to share an opinion that's almost completely gutless, since there's plenty of people who feel the same way and even people who disagree almost universally pitch in that it's not far from being truth - I think that Alfred Hitchcock is the single greatest film director...ever. Sure, there's directors who have made it their prime directive to bring home as much Oscar hardware as possible (not looking at you at all, Darren Aronofsky), while Hitch doesn't have any statues in his cupboard ("Rebecca"'s Best Picture award went to the film's producer), his filmography reads like the history of Hollywood - over six decades, there's just very little that the guy did not do, churning out classic after classic and showing an unprecedented, influential flair for shooting his films along the way. More on that later.

It comes as no surprise, then, that there have been plenty of movies that paid direct and/or indirect tribute to Hitchcock. In fact, there are two gentlemen who owe pretty much their entire career on imitating him, both of whom came to prominence in the early '70s. There's Dario Argento, an Italian film-maker who took the mystery aspect of many of the Hitchcock plots and slathered on previously unseen levels of gore to popularize a style of horror movie known as the giallo thriller. And then there's Brian De Palma, the director of several very popular films in the '70s and '80s that feature camera work and themes which were not slightly underivative of the Master's work.

While films that predate it on his filmography (most notably "Sisters," "Carrie" and "The Fury") have some very familiar cinematography tricks, "Dressed to Kill" was De Palma's full-fledged ode to the man who inspired his career, emulating the visual style as well as plot elements and direct scene references from Hitchcock's films. As both an homage and an original work, it's a dynamite movie, unfortunately not as remembered today as it should be, but still held in high circles by horror fans and film scholars alike as a good scary film and a tribute piece.

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THE MOVIE!!

First things first, this movie has some cast. Angie Dickinson is the first person we see in this film. Or rather, Angie Dickinson's body double slathering her naked body up with soap, setting in motion the Psycho-like theme connecting sex with death that runs throughout the entire movie. Dickinson portrays a bored housewife who serves as this movie's Janet Leigh; she is given loads of screen time in the early goings of the movie, with the script giving us a lurid episode in her daily life. She visits her psychologist Robert Elliott (played by Michael Caine in one of the finest performances of his distinguished career), going into detail about her sexual frustration. The following scenes pay off the angle, as she is stalked by a man in an art gallery and later gropes him in the back seat of a taxi cab.

So how does the first act of the movie comes to a close? She sneaks out of random stranger's apartment in the dead of night, and is summarily slashed the f*** up in the apartment building's elevator. Oh yeah, spoiler alert.

This scene, by the way, is an absolute masterpiece. It's genuinely unexpected, it's graphic, and it's got that indefinable creepy factor added to as high-priced prostitute Liz (Nancy Allen, in a Golden Globe-nominated performance, and looking quite hot in her young days, I must say) finds herself unwittingly tied to the death. During the murder scene, there's this one particular shot that works very well, as Liz almost - again, I say, agonizingly, ALMOST - enters the elevator, while the killer, plastic face and all, stands above the dead body of Dickinson, perched behind the door, ready to strike at Liz. Awesome stuff, and still one of my favorite scenes in all of horrordom.

An important cog in the plot of "Dressed to Kill" arises in the form of Caine's Dr. Elliott, who earlier had received a threatening phone call from a former patient named "Bobbi" who desired a sex change operation. It seems that said patient is now mightily pissed at Elliot, as the good doctor refused to endorse the operation, resulting in a wannabe transgendered individual with a severe murderous streak for the women in Elliott's life, as well as Liz, the witness to his brutal crime in the elevator.

Up until this point, "Dressed to Kill" didn't have many likable characters, but from this point on, we get several. The movie becomes a very high stakes game of cat and mouse between the killer and a small group of people attempting to track him/her down. Liz becomes the star and the focal point of the character development, but the movie's true heart comes in the form of Peter (Keith Gordon), Dickinson's college-aged son who takes it upon himself to track down the murderer. Liz and Peter join forces due to the police predictably being none too believing of the various accusations that this smart-mouthed hooker is making regarding the murder case. Along the way, there's another meeting with the killer in a subway (and that scene, just like the elevator sequence, is absolutely riveting), and eventually, a big finale in Elliott's office where all becomes clear. A finale, I hasten to point out, that features this lovely image...

"Dressed to Kill" is a movie with outstanding directorial and acting work, but my favorite thing about it is the character arc that Nancy Allen's Liz goes through. Years before "Saw" and the like-styled movies made "forced attrition" a genre unto itself, "Dressed to Kill" featured a much more subtle version of the storyline. Throughout much of the movie, Liz is a very unrepentant character, and while we're never given a beat-you-over-the-head conversion scene, the audience leaves the film with a sense of satisfaction, knowing that the incidents - and the close friendship with Peter - have changed her for the better. And the ending scene? Horrific, powerful, and absolutely perfect.

Compared to other movies inducted into the IHR, I have a relatively short history with this particular film. A few years back, I was looking for nothing other than a good time waster on a Friday night while browsing the video store; a few hours later, I had a movie that comes damn close to being on my top ten horror films of all time list. The characters are well-defined and memorable (in addition to all the names mentioned above, there's Dennis Franz doing his trademark foul-mouthed cop role to perfection as the antagonistic investigator who refuses to believe our main characters), but it's the overall experience of viewing "Dressed to Kill" that rings the most true. Visually, it's an absolute feast, but is also disconcerting and disqueting to watch...just like the best Hitchcock movies.

IHR induction #43: "The Burning" (1981, Tony Maylam)

There are few childhood memories more precious than Channels 15 and 16. Back when the Horror Nerd was just a little nerd, those were the channels reserved for Cinemax and The Movie Channel in the Lickness (my evil alter-ego) household. Occasionally, when certain specifications were met (on the sixth day of every month during a lunar eclipse...or sometimes just when the wind was coming in from the north), the normally impenetrable fuzz of Channel 16 (this would be TMC) would start to bleed over and give tantalizing looks at the forbidden fruit of pay cable. On said occasions, my brother would SCREAM for yours truly to run down to the basement and see what good fortune had in store for us on that day.

Well, on some fateful summer day in 1989, "The Burning" was the movie in question that the cable TV gods saw fit to grace us with. Ordinarily, horror movies scared the s*** out of the six-year-old Horror Nerd; this movie was quite the opposite. It had its creepy moments, but there is such a fun, cheesy, tongue-in-cheek quality to this film that it's hard not to enjoy it as pure camp. My brother laughed his ass off, and I joined him. The movie is still one of my favorites, and while the Horror Nerd's brother is no longer with us, this is a movie that still brings a smile to my face every time I see it.

Oh boy, this is some movie. In a factoid that must embarrass the Weinsteins to no end, "The Burning" is the movie that put their fledgling company Miramax Studios on the map. The year was 1981, and slasher flicks ruled the landscape. As such, there is virtually nothing - AT ALL - original or groundbreaking about the movie. All of the elements (summer camp setting, virtuous and nonvirtuous teens, gratuitous nudity, a hideous freak of a killer, etc.) had obviously been done a thousand times before, and have been done a thousand times since. None of it matters, because this flick is just loads of fun to watch. It also doesn't hurt that it has some real actors, including George Costanza himself as the requisite "practical joker" camper and Holly Hunter in a few "blink and you miss her" appearances.

THE MOVIE!!

Like a lot of '80s slasher films, "The Burning" begins with a sort of "legend" story, a la Paul Holt telling the other camp counselors the story of Jason Voorhees in "Friday the 13th Part II." A group of young campers at some mythical movie summer camp are planning to play a nasty prank on Cropsy (Lou David, who projects tons of lecherous sliminess in the role), the nasty handyman at the camp who has wronged all of them in one way or another. In one of those "what could possibly go wrong here?" twists, the incident goes horribly awry, resulting in Cropsy being burned from head to toe and winding up in a burn ward for the next several years, where he slowly goes insane. All things added up, he gets out five years later with sweet revenge on his mind, promptly kills a prostitute, and makes his way to his old stomping grounds...

At this point, the movie sets us up with its "teenage" mini plots. There's a group of likable teens, where Jason Alexander shows up (with hair, no less) and immediately becomes the most awesome character in the entire movie. His friend Eddy (Ned Eisenburg) has the hots for Karen (Carolyn Houlihan), but she is reluctant to consummate the relationship due to Eddy's bad boy reputation. Meanwhile, unpopular camper Alfred (Brian Backer) struggles to fit in with Alexander and his wisecracking friends, all the while feuding with douchy jock Glazer (Larry Joshua, infinitely hateable in this role) and his would-be girlfriend Sally (Carrick Glenn). While all of this is going on, the two camp counselors (Brian Matthews and Leah Ahres) are your typical summer camp movie likable "adults-in-charge." Lots of fun, s***s and giggles to be had.

There's one very important thing you should know about "The Burning" - the makeup effects are done by Tom Savini, and this may arguably be the finest job he has ever done. Not only is Cropsy a nasty-looking son of a bitch, but the movie's money scene - a lake raft massacre - is one of the most impressive set pieces I've seen in any '80s slasher movie. Some directors and makeup artists like to cut away from the moment of impact and leave the absolute worst of the worst stuff up to your imagination, but I'm a huge mark for the way Savini does it (along with director Tony Maylam), always lingering as the various slashy implements penetrate the skin. When Cropsy starts his inevitable revenge in this movie, it's a very visceral movie.

At times, "The Burning" is also a very funny movie. Even more amazingly, a good deal of the lines that make the audience laugh were actually MEANT to do so. Alexander's comic timing was already well on display here, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out if a lot of his lines were improvised. There have been some examples of GREAT casting in the pantheon of slasher movies (first and foremost has to be Crispin Glover in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter), and a young Jason Alexander as a summer camper with a penchant for shooting the camp douchebag in the ass with a pellet gun has to be ranked right up there with the best. Every time he's onscreen in "The Burning," it's a must-pay-attention scene. As for the unintentional comedy, there should be more than enough questionable lines in the screenplay (a college friend of mine was actually a member of a band called "Down with Glazer" to give you an example of the type of movie we're working with here) and welcome slasher cliches to sate any MST3K-style party you may want to throw with this flick as the main course.

Also, for all the guys out there, both of the movie's slutty teens show off their goods...and they're quite glorious. Both Carrick Glenn and Carolyn Houlihan have amazing assets, if I say so myself. If you're like me, seeing gratuitous nudity in horror movies is always an enjoyable experience for reasons other than eye candy, because it takes you back to the days when this was an essential ingredient in mainstream horror films, and when "neck-up-only" shower shots that wuss out weren't the norm. Not so in "The Burning"; all the good stuff is right out there for you to see.

Conclusion paragraph time...there is little that stands out about "The Burning," but it doesn't even matter. It's loads of fun to watch either by yourself or with a group, it's got some absolutely amazing gore effects work from Tom Savini, and it's got the bald guy from "Seinfeld" as an honest-to-christ cool teen. For fans of '80s slasher cinema, there are few flicks that satisfy the craving quite like this one.

IHR induction #42: "Puppet Master" (1989, David Schmoeller)

Well, this marks a first for the International (National) Horror Registry - a direct-to-video film. Remember the days of rampant, brick-and-mortar video stores, loyal reader? Remember countless classic VHS covers looking back at you, often with words like "Massacre" and "School" screaming back at you along with the bloody images? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

To be sure, "Puppet Master" is some kind of revolutionary film. Not in the way that anything it does is minty fresh - you've seen a thousand "killer doll" movies before this one, and probably a thousand after. But "Puppet Master" was the proof that not only COULD a movie that didn't have any sort of theatrical release do gangbusters business, but that it could hold water among some stiff competition in the horror community, and be kinda-sorta recognized as a modern classic in its own right. In addition to that, it put its film studio on the map. Full Moon Pictures, which has gone on to produce approximately 9,000 low-budget doll-related movies since (including about 1,000 sequels to this particular motion picture), was in its VERY early days when Blade, Tunneler, Leech Woman and the rest came along. After that, it became a veritable factory. This movie was very much the project designed to make a name for Full Moon, with studio head Charles Band even penning the script.

Since this IS a DTVHS film, however, you probably know what you're getting. The actors may be decidedly non-Shakesperian, the budget may be nineteen leagues below anything Michael Bay has ever even THOUGHT about attempting, and some of the writing may be a bit...suspect, but who cares? You've got killer dolls, a couple sex scenes, some admittedly awesome kill scenes, and an intereseting twist on the slasher subgenre, and you indeed do have a movie that deserves the "modern classic" tag.

THE MOVIE!!

The first scene in this movie introduces us to Andre Toulon (William Hickey), creator of several bizarre "living" marionette puppets brought back to life via some very shady Egyptian magic, is putting the finishing touches on his newest creation, Shredder Khan (who is summarily never seen again). The time period: 1939, pre-war America (California's Bodega Bay Inn to be exact). Almost as if on cue, two Nazi spies burst into the hotel with hostile intent, prompting Toulon to shoot himself in the mouth before the Nazis are able to capture his creations.

Flash forward fifty years, where we meet our true primary characters in the movie. As opposed to having a group of teen/college students serving as fodder for the killer dolls, which would have been the wholly expected and wholly welcome thing, Puppet Master takes a truly bizarre turn and gives us a group of adult psychics as protagonists, or antagonists, depending on your point of view. I say antagonists because with the exception of Paul Le Mat's Alex character, every single one of these mentally gifted adults is a douchebag in some way or another.

Here's the The simple setup of "Puppet Master": the psychics are drawn to the Bodega Bay Inn because they all have disturbing dreams involving the place believed to have been sent from Neil Gallagher (Jimmie Skaggs, who is pretty slimy - as well as hammy - in this role). Little do they know that Andre Toulon's creations from half-a-century ago are still around, and are none too pleased about the master's home being invaded by these guys. As the script goes swimmingly along, the film takes on a very familiar "slasher movie" approach, as two of the characters - Alex and Megan (Robin Frates) - immediately stand out as the only two people in the movie that don't scream "kill me" within the first 30 minutes. Our big climax arrives after the puppets have disposed of all the secondary psychics, leading to a pretty predictable twist involving the Neil Gallagher character.

This flick's ace in the hole amidst all the tedium is the puppets themselves. In a movie with some pretty uninspired concepts and execution (even the direction by David Schmoeller looks drab), one would expect the puppets to be the same - but you would be very, very wrong. The little devils are designed well, the stop-motion photography is decidedly less than mock-worthy, and the ways that they dispose of their victims in the movie results in some pretty ingenious stuff, especially the death scene during the movie's climax. While I've significantly downgraded by stance on this movie over the years, one thing that hasn't fell off at all is my love for this one particular kill scene, which is still just as long, protracted and graphic even after 15 viewings. Awesome, awesome stuff.

The quick rundown on the cool killer dolls of "Puppet Master" for the uninitiated:
Blade - trenchcoat wearing master of stabbing weapons, with a knife for one hand and hook for another
Leech Woman - The group's only female, who vomits bloodsucking leeches onto her victims, which leads to another classic death scene
Pinhead - No, not Doug Bradley; this movie's Pinhead is the "brute strength" puppet of the bunch, ever-present in a lot of the movie's scarier moments.
Tunneler - Some of the movie's bloodiest moments are because of this guy, aptly named because he has a drill built into his head.
And, amazingly enough, there are several more, both in this movie and in the sequels.

Well, it's conclusion paragraph time. What more is there to know about "Puppet Master?" There's a pretty enjoyable performance by Paul Le Mat, some excellent special effects work from David Allen (with both the puppet and gore effects), and some pretty damn amazing kill scenes. In between, there's a whole heap o' tedium, but if you can get through this movie's more mundane moments, there's a pretty big reward to reap. For the record, if you want a "Puppet Master" movie that has a more satisfying story, go with the third entry, which focuses entirely on Andre Toulon during the days of World War II. That one doesn't just have some awesome new toys, but some genuinely GOOD actors to boot.

IHR induction #41: "Marebito" (2004, Takashi Shimizu)

This sort of thing doesn't happen often; usually, after seeing a movie for the first time, I'm able to make a snap judgment and stick to that judgment for the rest of my life. They're not supposed to haunt the viewer, to make them question various events that take place throughout the running time and pay close attention even on subsequent viewings for any and all small details. "Marebito" is just such a movie. Almost two years after watching it for the first time, I still don't know quite what to make of it, and while ordinarily this is a very frustrating plot aspect, it all somehow feels completely at home within this prime slice of J-horror goodness.

First things first, I'm a big mark for the guy behind the madness. Takashi Shimizu is somewhere on my figurative Mount Rushmore of horror directors, but Marebito was a HUGE departure for the guy. Up until this point, Shimizu had cut his teeth on the "Ju-On" series, both Stateside and in Japan, having cranked out five movies starring his meal ticket Kayako Saeki within short order. The "Ju-On" and "Grudge" films are, for better or worse (depending on your outlook) all the same - a certain croaking villain, a dark, mysterious atmosphere, and a decidedly non-gory tone. Within the first five minutes of "Marebito," the audience is treated to the sight of a man ramming a knife directly through his own eyeball. Amazingly enough, this is only the beginning of the insanity.

It does virtually no good to explain the plot of this film. If you really want the complete blow-by-blow, look it up on Wikipedia. The bare bones version is this: extremely morbid photojournalist Masuoka (Shinya Tsukamoto) is in search of the ultimate in fear, and with the AFOREMENTIONED knife-ramming incident as his impetus (which he caught on tape, conveniently enough), descends into the Tokyo underworld to find it. From here ensues one of the most baffling narratives in the history of film, comprising flashback, hallucination, things which may or may not be, and ultimately winding up leaving the viewer completely shell-shocked as to what they've just seen. And this isn't just the words of some J-horror obsessed loser; essentially, damn near everyone that I've talked to about this flick has the same experience. Namely, "the hell?"

There have been other horror movies that are less about their A-Z plot development than their hallucinogenic flavoring, and "Marebito" is the "Citizen Kane" of this type of movie. Every major and minor event in the movie is off-the-charts weird, starting with what the movie is really all about - Masuoka's discovery of a restrained, nude mute girl (played by Tomomi Miyashita in an ungodly performance). Taking her back to his apartment and naming her "F," the relationship (which is completely non-sexual) unspools, as Masuoka finds out that this girl is barely a step up from feral. Oh yeah, there's also the catch that the only thing she will eat or drink is human blood...

The other central theme of this movie is the nature of urban legends. Of course, the "city within a city" myth has always been a popular topic of discussion in the "unexplained phenomena" community via the hollow earth theory and the works of Richard Sharpe Shaver. Shaver himself is actually name-dropped within the movie several times, and for the uninitiated, he claimed to know the reason for virtually every problem on Earth - detrimental robots, or "deros," demonic, sadistic beings left behind by alien visitors centuries ago, engage in every practice from abducting women to causing natural disasters. Yup. That's what Shaver wrote. In addition to the Deros (who look extremely creepy in the fleeting glimpses we get of them in this film), "Marebito" features Men in Black, Shangri-la, and, of course, hot feral chicks who lap up blood directly from freshly cut-open fingers.

As mentioned already (I've already got one AFOREMENTIONED in this induction and don't need another one, dammit!), this movie is far gorier than any movie that Shimizu had done before, or since. The "vampire" aspect of "F" is played up to full hilt and given to the audience to absorb in its entirety. In some of the more disturbing scenes, the character of Masuoka becomes a kind of murderous father to "F," killing innocent victims and bringing them back to his charge. Sick, sick stuff, and while there is the implication within the film that everything we are seeing is hallucination, these scenes have both symbolic and literal power.

By this point, you've probably decided whether or not "Marebito" is for you. Most assuredly, it's not for everyone. If you're expecting to walk away from a movie completely satisfied and with a clear understanding of the meaning of what you just saw, you're not going to get it with this film. If the more frustrating aspects of this kind of film don't bother you, however, there is much reward. While the movie is shot on digital video, Shimizu shows his deft hand with both camera tricks and coaxing phenomenal performances out of actors, as both Tsukamoto and Miyashita join the pantheon of great horror film performances (especially Miyashita).

Of course, the purpose of any horror movie is to scare the audience, and this is one of the very few movies that I've seen in the past five years that scared the bejesus out of me. In particular, Masuoka meeting a ghost underneath Tokyo and the game of cat-and-mouse with strange agents looking to reclaim "F" did quite the number on me. My most ringing endorsement? I began to watch this movie on a Friday night, as usual having not slept for almost 24 hours and fully ready to get lulled to sleep with a movie in the background. This movie, however, not only kept me awake, but absolutely ran me over, and continues to do so.

IHR induction #40: "The Wisdom of Crocodiles" (1998, Po-Chih Leong)

I don't know why, but I've been on a real vampire movie kick lately. It seems to be my latest OCD-ish horror buying obsession; way back in my infant-like beginning stages of Horror Nerd-ness, slasher flicks were my thing. After getting tossed aside like a $20 whore, J- and K-horror were my next conquest. Then Dario Argento. And now, after a long period of just buying whatever the hell I felt like, I'm all about Hammer Studios and a certain Gothic vampire played by Christopher "Never Seems to Age" Lee. Nevertheless, all this blood feasting jogged my memory, and made me search out one of my old favorites from the Horror Nerd library.

Ahhh..."The Wisdom of Crocodiles." Sure, it may say Immortality on the United States DVD cover, but it's still real (and European) to me, dammit! THIS particular motion picture was purchased by yours truly during a different, non-horror binge - that being a buying session devoted to my favorite actor of all time, Jude "The Pimp" Law. In the past, I've annoyed pretty much anyone who will listen yammering about the greatness of all things Jude, so the short, short version - there's actors who take easy roles and then do something slightly out of their element, netting instant Oscar gold, and then there's the ACTOR'S actors, who seek out challenges at every turn. That's Jude Law; he pulls off a seamless disappearing act in his movies...but wait, I'm yammering. Yeah, he's awesome, and it's not a man crush, I swear.

Well, "The Wisdom of Crocodiles" was a little independent horror movie released in the U.K. way back in 1998. It came out before Law's arrival Stateside via The Talented Mr. Ripley and the Oscar nomination put him on the A-list map and set him on the fast track to having enough money to afford a solid gold island. As such, what you get with this movie is the best of many different worlds; a screenplay that ignores the conventions of mainstream horror flicks (jump scares, easily digestible plots, emo teenage victim characters, etc.), and a young, hungry actor at the top of his game, eager to cut his teeth and prove his worth. Or something.

Long-winded introductory soliloquy is over. With that...

THE MOVIE!!
Most horror films wish they could be as good as the first twenty minutes of "The Wisdom of Crocodiles." We are introduced to Steven Grlscz (pronounced "Grillsh," and played by Law), a charming, likable man who saves a depressed woman from killing herself in London's subway. He takes her home to his apartment, impresses her with a few parlor tricks, guides her to his bedroom, begins making love to her, then bites her right in the freakin' neck and murders her. The screenplay isn't lazy with the implications of the act, either, as this part of the story lingers and lingers. Much like Norman Bates cleaning up after his mother during the middle sections of "Psycho," we see every aspect of Steven's body disposal, as he dumps the spent corpse in a remote swamp.

To state the obvious, Steven Grlscz is indeed a vampire, although the "V" word is never once even mentioned in the movie. The rules of vampirism in the world of "The Wisdom of Crocodiles" are completely unlike anything I've ever seen in a movie before. He is able to walk about freely in the daylight and he doesn't have overly theatrical fangs, for starters. As for the quirks that this story introduces, Grlscz has many. His victim choice is limited exclusively to women, and there seems to be a stipulation that the women must have some degree of love for him, hence the seduction aspect. He also seems to have next to no control over his bodily functions, requiring some sort of mechanical contraption to breathe while he sleeps. This is some weird movie.

As the movie's second act begins, Grlscz (who works by day as a sketch artist) meets Anne Levels (Elina Lowensohn, who is very likable and engaging in the role), a beautiful factory foreman who also suffers from debilitating asthma. I don't know how many beautiful female factory foreman exist in the world (since I work in a factory, and all of my bosses are Christian Bale-grizzled dudes), but I swear, it comes across as much more realistic than it sounds. There's your main plot cog, people - Grlscz sets his sights on Anne as his next victim to add her to his collection of trophies, with the wholly expected twist being that his love for kind-hearted Anne will eventually save him.

In this regard, there's nothing minty-fresh about this film. In its other touches, however, this is truly a one-of-a-kind vampire movie. For starters, it actually deals with the logistics of how a modern-day vampire would go about his business, and makes the movie-opening serial killer montage carry some weight as the body of Grlscz's initial victim is found. Rather than attempt to cover up and lie his way out of it, Grlscz takes an interesting approach to foiling the law - he becomes an active participant in the investigation, even becoming semi-friends Inspector Healey (Timothy Spall), the lead investigator in charge of the case. Instead of being an antagonistic relationship, the two characters become genuine friends, especially after Grlscz assists Healey recover his wedding ring from a gang of street punks.

Of course, it's the sordid details that really stick with you, and there's plenty to be had here. The opening murder scene, the strange collection of "emotions" that Grlscz has harvested from his victims (it seems that he somehow "absorbs" whatever each of his females feels about him at the moment of their death), and the scene where Anne has to deal with a dying co-worker after suffering a horrible on-the-job accident are all gritty aspects of the story that do tons to endear the story and make it stick out in your mind.

In the end, that's what makes this movie something special. "The Wisdom of Crocodiles" is just an inherently unique vampire film; the characters are well-crafted (even Inspector Healey is portrayed as sympathetic), the writing seems as logical as possible for a movie about a love-feeding vampire roaming about in modern-day London, and the acting is quite simply fantastic. You'd be hard-pressed to find five vampire films that feel as realistic as this one, but you'd also be hard-pressed to find five that are as emotional. Twi-tards, check this movie out - this, along with "Let the Right One In," represents the "vampire love story" done without absolutely neutering the subject matter.

Horror Nerd Cinema Bonus: "The Rite"

Firstly, it's been a long time since I've done one of these. If my calculations are correct (to channel Doc Brown for a moment), ironically enough, the last "night out at the cinema" style review was another exorcism flick, "The Last Exorcism." In many ways, that was a movie that just infuriated me; there were long stretches of it that were really great, which made the parts in it that sucked (most specifically the final 15 minutes or so) all the more frustrating. Thankfully, that's FAR from the case with Mikael Hafstrom's "The Rite," a movie that's about five times as good as I expected considering that there was a good probability earlier in the day that (a) I'd skip the movie based on the 15% rating it has on RottenTomatoes, or (b) fall asleep in the damn movie theater just like I do pretty much every other week. Even more thankfully, it avoids all of the faults of "The Last Exorcism," and is really one of the most satisfying films of any genre that I've seen in a public movie house in quite some time.

For starters, I have to make one thing abundantly clear - there's one aspect of this movie's promotional campaign that is VERY misleading. It's Anthony Hopkins' name emblazened in big, bold letters above the marquee, complete with the ever-so-handy "Academy Award Winner" tag that accompanies every recipient of those awards for the rest of their career. In truth, he's a secondary character; the movie's central story and character arc revolves around a character portrayed by an actor (Colin O'Donoghue) that I've never heard of, seconded by an actress that I know as Jude Law's love interest in "Repo Men" and the tough-as-nails chick from "Predators." It matters little; there's just enough Hopkins there to satisfy anyone who plunked down their hard-earned money to see Hannibal Lecter himself, and what you actually see is compelling enough to warrant the dollars spent.

The movie immediately introduces us to Michael Kovak (O'Donaghue), a young mortician's assistant going through the grisly motions of embalming a body. He performs it with a cool detachment, and in these opening scenes, he's shown to be very distant with his father (Rutger Hauer, who makes the most of his screen time). There's also a cameo by Chris Marquette, the guy who will forever be known to yours truly as Linderman from "Freddy vs. Jason," as Michael's friend in a bar scene that establishes the stipulations of Michael's life; everyone in his family turns out to be either a mortician or a Priest. Since hanging out with his father doesn't sound like fun, it's off to seminary for Michael.

Throughout the movie, we're shown various bits from Michael's childhood involving the fate of his mother; since my movie theater has terrible sound, I believe one of the bits of dialogue states that she committed suicide. The strained relationships with both parental units has obviously taken quite a toll on Michael, and The Rite wastes little time establishing the "crisis of faith" motif that rides throughout the flick's robust 127-minute running time. Moving right along, his instructor at seminary rejects a resignation letter, and instead sends him to Rome to take an exorcism class.

While there, he meets up with an attractive journalist named Angelina (Alice Braga, the aforementioned Repo Men and Predators hottie) taking the same class in order to both get a story and atone for the death of her brother, and (finally) Hopkins, who portrays Father Lucas, the grizzled, experienced Father Merrin of the film. It goes without saying for a guy with as long and storied of a pedigree as Hopkins has, but he's electric in the role, lending slight touches of comic relief along with his trademark charm and creepy vibe when called for. This being a movie about exorcism, it doesn't take long for Michael and Lucas to begin seeing some VERY troubled patients.

It's in these passages that "The Rite" has some very effective horror scenes. I won't go into extreme detail about the more fantastic aspects of this story (which was "suggested by" a book written by Matt Baglio, which is definitely a first for this reporter when it comes to crediting), but there's one possessed victim in particular - a pregnant 16-year-old who may or may not have been raped by her father - that comes across as both heartbreaking and stomach-churning. Awesome stuff, and while all of this is going on, the two wildly different Priests carry on a nice little debate about the events unfolding before their very eyes.

The biggest surprise that I had with "The Rite" was just how it chose to present its story. The journey that the character of Michael goes through - a doubter who frequently questions the existence of the very thing that he has spent years of his life studying - is the main conflict in the movie, and as all sorts of demonic happenings begin populating the movie, it comes as to little surprise as to just what the final exorcism in the movie entails. While trying my best not to spoil anything, I have to say that "The Rite" boasts two things that instantly put it ahead of many, many other recent thriller films - it doesn't have some wackamaroo twist ending, and it actually has a solid, A-B character arc that is played out in a logical manner. I'll leave it up to the viewer to see this unfold.

There's not really a whole lot more to say about this movie, other than the fact that I highly enjoyed it. The direction by Hafstrom is gritty and atmospheric, the jump scares are kept to a minimum (although there is one very literal "cat scare" that made me laugh in the theater), and all of the actors give it their damndest, particularly Hopkins and Braga. For reasons that I won't get into, I doubt there will be many other readers of this review who will enjoy the movie as much as I did, but without hyperbole, this is a movie that has one of the most emotional, resonant, and satisfying ending sequences I've seen from a major studio movie in years. *** 1/2 out of ****, and highly recommended.