Premonition (2007)

2007
Directed by Mennan Yapo
Starring Sandra Bullock, Julian McMahon, Nia Long, Kate Nelligan, Amber Valletta and Peter Stormare

Let's get in the time machine and take a trip to the not-so-distant past of 2007.  The spring of 2007 is something that I remember quite well, not because of any noteworthy life event or anything, more for the VIBE this time period has.  I was still living in my college town, but that nightmare was only a few months away from ending, and I knew it.  I was pretty much hardcore convalescing while waiting for a fresh start, working a couple low-end jobs and catching a whole bunch of movies at theaters in my spare time.  Hell, I saw just about EVERY mainstream Hollywood release that came out every week for the better part of six months.  This was when I saw Zodiac, a flick that timed up PERFECTLY with my interest in serial killers, and man, what an awesome movie that was.  But it's also when I saw Because I Said So, a movie so generic that it might as well have just been called "Romantic Comedy Movie"...and Premonition.  I really hated this movie when I first saw it, and while it's a BIT better after re-watching it for this review, I've still got to say that it's essentially teh sucksz.

It goes without saying that all actors have at least a few turkeys in them.  I mean...does Robert De Niro even READ scripts anymore?  If so, how do you explain Dirty Grandpa?  The same goes for Sandra Bullock.  First things first, I am a fan.  She's from the generation just before the current crop of actors who just all seem too slackerish/emo to be relatable, but between this and a few other films that I could mention (she has a Razzie and actually showed up to accept it, for f**k's sake), you definitely can't win 'em all.  I can only assume that she took this role because she really believed in it, because it only had a budget of $20 million.  That's probably her whole paycheck in an average movie.  As such, it's weird to see her in sleepwalking mode for 96 minutes, but I digress.  That should about do it for the bibble babble.  Time to delve into the impenetrable web of mystery (/trailer voice) that is this movie.

The basics: Bullock plays Linda Hanson, who has just been surprised with a new house by her husband Jim.  Along with their two daughters, they settle into said house and we get the "getting to know the family for emotional investment" phase of the movie.  It's analysis like this that you can't get at any other blog, folks.  While Bullock tackles this movie with about as much emotion as Daniel Craig on sedatives, Julian McMahon does not, for better or worse.  I say that because there's few guys who play a better douche than him, but it's not like it's hard to buy.  For starters, he has to have some kind of record when it comes to the hotness of his wives.  The dude went from Dannii Minogue to Brooke Burns.  That makes him a legend.  And since this is Julian McMahon playing Sandra Bullock's husband in a familial drama, we can pretty much assume that he's out there banging somebody else.

The plot: If you remember the commercials for this film, I can report that you've pretty much seen the movie already.  One day, Linda is surprised by a knock on the door from a police officer who informs her that Jim has just died in a car accident.  She goes through all of the requisite film stages of grief (read: pained expressions which may or may not include actors manufacturing some tears for the camera), then goes to bed...and Jim is alive and well.  WTF.  The movie's gimmick is that the days are jumbling around, and that Linda is the only one who seems to know about it.  Only since she knows her husband is dying...light bulb...she can try to stop it.  It's actually not too bad of an idea on paper, and could have been pulled off with different execution.  However, the execution here is pretty rough.

The horror scene in 2007 was a bit of a transition period.  The massive wave of remakes were just starting to get rolling, while the Saw series was dominating the box office.  J-horror-styled films were kind of in their last gasp.  That's what the film-makers were definitely going for with Premonition, because the pace in this movie is VERY slow.  A slow pace definitely isn't a bad thing in and of itself; it can be FANTASTIC when we care about the characters or if there is a genuine sense of unpredictablity to what's going on.  This flick has neither of those things. 

For an example of what we're dealing with here, there's this one endless sequence that takes place fairly late in the movie where Linda, after having already flashed to something like six different days in the final week of her husband's life and discovering that he is considering but hasn't quite committed adultery, slowly sits him down on their bed and places a shoe on his foot.  I'm sure that this looked really emotional and profound in the script.  On the screen, it actually made my theatrical audience laugh.  I remember that ten years later, kids.  Speaking of, Jesus, it's been TEN YEARS?  That makes me feel old.

The only other thing I'd like to share about this film's plot is that we get a Peter Stormare sighting.  At a certain point, Linda's actions worry the authorities (on what day this takes place isn't relevant - watch the movie if you want vital details like this) and a psychologist is required in the story.  Said psychologist is played by Stormare.  Even if you don't know his name, I can GUARANTEE that you've seen him from somewhere.  Character actor extraordinaire, this man is.  My personal favorites are the psychotic pancake-obsessed killer in Fargo and Slippery Pete from Seinfeld.  Hey, you owe me a quarter.  Unfortunately, here, he's just another charismaless character who spouts off the scripted lines in very robotic fashion.  Whatever it was about this movie that made everyone go on valium must have been magical.

So...Premonition.  Yeah, this one wasn't good.  Walking out of the theater, I remember hearing this exact conversation between a couple girls walking out at the same time I was: "Wow...I hated it."  "Yeah, you can't win 'em all."  My sentiments exactly, women that I don't know.  It's slow, it's boring, there's almost no tension, the characters aren't interesting, and all of the actors are on autopilot with the exception of McMahon.  But McMahon was basically playing himself, so I don't know if that was much of an accomplishment. 

* 1/2 out of ****.  That might be a bit too generous considering that the film barely managed to hold my attention, both then and now.  But any film that at least tries to have a J-horror tone gets a sympathy half-a-star from me.  Yet more quality film criticism, right there.

Alice, Sweet Alice (1976)

1976
Directed by Alfred Sole
Starring Linda Miller, Paula Sheppard, Lillian Roth, Brooke Shields, Niles McMaster and Jane Lowry

Ahhhh...giallo thrillers.  I've reviewed plenty of these pieces of Italian goodness on the blog, and they are truly a uique beast within the great, grand horror genre.  Kind of a gory mix between murder mystery and straight-up slasher flicks, for the uninitiated.  And when I say mystery, these films are genuinely a mindf**k.  For proof, I think my record of predicting killers in giallo films sits comfortably in the 0-171 neighborhood.  And that is some accomplishment, considering Roger Ebert's Law of Economy of Characters (read: take the character who has no other reason to be in the movie than to turn up at the end and be the villain) sits in my mind whenever I'm watching one.

Released in 1976 by director Alfred Sole, Alice, Sweet Alice was one of a wave of American giallo-styled films and it might actually be the first one that I saw.  For the record, it was sometime around 2005-ish on some Saturday afternoon local channel when I was in college, and I'd never seen anything like it in my life before.  At the time that it actually came out, the flick was all kinds of controversial for reasons that I won't bog anyone on here down with.  Me?  I just think that this movie, while it has its flaws, might have the honor of having the single CREEPIEST mask in the history of masked killers.  Just google this movie title, blow some of those babies up and be prepared.  Yeah.  Just...be prepared.

Like a lot of giallo films, this one is a bit of a slow starter.  It's something that I noticed when I first started to seriously get into the Dario Argento and Mario Bava films that launched this wave, and while I am all about the slow burn...some of these movies tread the line and are perhaps a little TOO slow of a burn.  Fortunately, this flick has other things going for it.

For the most part, the film is all about a small nuclear family.  There is a mother character, Catherine (Linda Miller), but for whatever reason I was never particularly into her.  The film's REAL stars are Catherine's two daughters - 9-year-old Karen, played by Brooke Shields in her first film role, and 12-year-old Alice (Paula Sheppard).  Karen is preparing for first Communion, and the elder Alice seems to resent the holy hell out of her younger sister.  She abducts her doll, dons the ungodly translucent mask that will soon be creeping up on you when walking through your halls at night, and then locks her in an abandoned warehouse in what is considered a pretty epic scene within film circles.  Slow build aside, what we've got here is some classic misdirection...and that's most certainly needed when Karen is brutally murdered by someone wearing the same kind of mask that Alice has.

I will admit that I found this movie a bit more emotional than I did upon that initial 2005 watch when I was half-asleep and waiting to go to work at my college town's mall.  Stuff in films that actually deal with family deaths always affect me on some level, and this one is no different.  Karen's murder scene also does a good job setting up various plot threads and multiple suspects.  Is it Alice?  Is it the nun who curiously found Karen at the right time?  Was it Father Tom (Rudolph Wilrich), who definitely had opportunity?  Or somebody else?  Again, I'm sure that plenty of modern audiences will guess who the killer is, but I certainly didn't.  Giallo films can fool me with a Roger Corman puff of smoke.

The movie's middle sections unfortunately meander quite a bit.  The biggest flaw that this movie throws at us is introducing too many supporting adult characters; we meet pathologists, police officers, Catherine's former lover, etc., and none of them are particularly enthralling characters.  Call it glandular, but Alice - and the awesome performance by Sheppard - are just way more interesting than any of these goons.  For an indication of what we're dealing with, there's a side plot where Catherine's long lost sister moves back in with her to help out after the murder and we get all of this subtext about how much the siblings hate each other for...reasons.  Every once in a while, however, Alfred Sole (who also wrote the screenplay) remembers that this is a horror film and delivers well-timed jump scares and close calls to keep us interested, including a couple more murder scenes that aren't quite as effective as Karen's death but nonetheless had to have been pretty jarring to the film audiences of 1976.

Speaking of Alfred Sole, the dude clearly know what he was doing when he was writing this movie.  He started things off with the two fascinating child characters, gave us that Hitchcockian misdirection that I spoke of, shocked us with a murder, and then gives us the good twist two-thirds of the way through that gives us all the answers we need immediately after reaching the government-minimum body count.  I'm not saying that he ripped Psycho off beat-for-beat, because this movie definitely ain't Psycho.  But if you're looking for a template to cull from, you can't ask for a better one.  And that is observation that you can't get from Wikipedia, kids.

I do have a BIT more criticism to level at this film: once the killer's identity becomes known, the suspense pretty much vanishes.  There are some good SHOCKS to be had in the third act, but I don't think you'll be truly frightened like you might have been when, say, Alice was creeping around a warehouse wearing a freaky-looking doll mask.  It's a problem that a lot of mysteries have, actually.  The build-up is fantastic, but it's VERY difficult to craft a story where the solution feels like it lives up to the build. 

I know that it might sound like I've complained a lot about this film, but I really did enjoy it.  One thing that I've barely touched on is this film's atmosphere.  Simply put, it's unreal.  Since most of the film takes place in or around a church, we get lots of candles, dark settings, religious imagery, you name it.  It all adds a kind of classy touch to everything that's happening.  More than anything else, though, this really was Paula Sheppard's movie.  Creepy kids in horror films are always a dicey prospect with me, but she was something else.  It's just a shame that she runs circles around virtually every adult in the film in the acting department.  Still, the execution that Sole put into his script has nothing if it doesn't have conviction.  When this movie is on...it's on, and I guarantee that you'll be on the edge of your seat for at least two scenes.

With that, it's time for the Final Judgment (see what I did there?).  *** out of ****.  Great atmosphere, disturbing themes and the awesomeness of Paula Sheppard make up for a bunch of venial sins (man, I'm on a roll!).  Definitely check this one out if you're into giallo thrillers and/or like some mystery with your kills.

Creature (1985)

1985
Directed by William Malone
Starring Stan Ivar, Wendy Schaal, Lyman Ward, Robert Jaffe, Diane Salinger, Marie Laurin and Klaus Kinski

Creature is an interesting little beast of an '80s horror flick.  It's not good by any conventional definition, but in the realm of all the Alien ripoffs, I've got to hand it to this movie for no other reason other than that it actually does feel like a movie.  'Cus let me tell you something (brother), I've seen some crappy horror films set in space.  'Memba Star Crystal?  I 'memba.  In contrast to that film and many others, this film has actors that actually fit that descriptor and production values that, while they aren't Ridley Scott, are at least closer to that standard than any film with this plot has a right to have.  High praise from the Lick Ness Monster.

Right about now is where I tell you the personal background I have with the film in question.  With Creature, I didn't see the film as a kid or even in college.  I first read about it in college on one of my favorite blog sites, and had it on the back burner for several years before finally finding an old beat-up VHS tape online.  Yeah, I own a VHS copy of this film and that is how I re-watched it in preparation for this review.  Old-school all the way, baby.  When it comes to crappy sci-fi/horror films, this is actually the ONLY way to go, because the experience of watching it with the telltale grain and lines of being watched many times as a rental probably added a good half-star rating.  If I'd watched the Leprechaun films this way, who knows, maybe I wouldn't have quit doing this blog for almost a full calendar year.  So I guess the point of this meandering paragraph is that VHS rules.  Now that all of that introductory drivel designed to make myself sound like I plan these things out in a manner other than scribbled notes during my down time at work is out of the way, let's get to the film.

Stop me if you've heard this one before.  One spaceship/space station is invaded by an unseen evil force, and another one is sent to salvage the operation.  Said salvage ship then encounters whatever it was that caused the catastrophe in the first place.  It's the plot of something like 12,738 sci/horror films.  Spoiler alert - it's also what we get here.  The specifics are that it's a space station that gets decimated on Saturn's Titan moon, and that the crew was largely German which helps us out later with the casting of the one survivor.  The sequence is actually fairly well-done from an execution and special effects standpoint, with the crew finding this weird-looking egg that promptly hatches.  Whatever is inside kills the dick out of everyone on the station, and the thing does its job well.  Time for the rescuers to arrive. 

Something that I love about all of the lower-budgeted variations of this plot is how the crew of the salvage ship almost always universally are a bunch of people who don't get along.  You'd think that the crews of these ships would be a pretty tight-knit unit, but nope, it's primarily bitchy douchebags.  This includes Lyman Ward, a.k.a. the guy who played Ferris Bueller's dad, and a few other jokers.  The main characters are Captain Davison (Stan Ivar, who I recognize from exactly zero other films) and the aforementioned Lyman Ward as his assistant David Perkins.  Ward was really good as Ferris' father, but he's unfortunately a big block of cardboard here.  There's also the ship's doctor (who isn't worth mentioning by name), security officer Melanie Bryce (Diane Salinger), Beth Sladen (Wendy Schaal), and the ship's romantic couple, Jon (Robert Jaffe) and Susan (former Penthouse pet Marie Laurin).  I don't think it's spoiler-ific to anyone who might sit down to watch this film that as you watch it Davison and Melanie are the only ones who don't immediately stand out as future victims.  Everyone else is either annoying or entirely disposable, and this method of writing was the first big mistake in the epic script of Creature.

It doesn't take long for the creature to make its presence known.  The first victim?  Surprisingly, slutty Susan.  Most movies like this at least keep this character around to make her especially dislikable for a big crowd-pleasing death later on, but nope.  First one.  I can't say that I blame the director; the quotient of Marie Laurin's scorching hotness is inversely related to her acting ability.  At least we got to see her naked first, and it's an undisputed masterpiece.  The crew finds all of the old bunch's dead bodies inside the space station, and this is where we get a hint of this movie's slightly larger-than-normal budget.  The station...actually looks like a station, and while the music is pretty much awful, the atmosphere ain't half-bad.  It's at least good enough to distract us from the surviving characters.

Hey, kids, it's Klaus Kinski!  You might remember him from movies such as the 1978 remake of Nosferatu...and several other films to be stated later.  Actually, I have seen him in a few things, and he's almost always good.  He's easily the best thing about this film.  He's the surviving crew member from the last ship, and his job is to essentially provide exposition to the new guys and then croak as soon as it becomes convenient.  It might not sound like much...but it's a key role, trust me.

So a few words about how this is a horror film.  The creature in this film is kind of a mix between John Carpenter's The Thing and just a straight-up zombie film.  The thing likes to attach itself to victims with a "parasite" version (Alien much?) and then it transforms into a new host, but kind of a zombified version of its new host.  For an indication of what we're dealing with, Marie shows up after she dies and stripes naked to entice a heartbroken Jon to venture outside onto the moon's surface, where she immediately removes his helmet to let him asphyxiate.  This kind of stuff is Shakesperian.  Sarcasm aside, it's a good way to save money on the budget by having the "jumping from body to body" trope, but the creature itself does show up in the final trimester to sabotage the ship and do other fascinating stuff.  Once it DOES show up in its full form, the design is actually pretty impressive all things considered.  Not Queen Alien quality, but decent.

This film is kind of an odd one with me.  Before watching it, I knew it would be right up my alley, and it was.  But not in the way that I ever wanted to watch it again until two weeks ago.  A lot of horror films that I don't like as much seem to start off with a good concept (I love horror movies, and they rope me in easily!) and then fall apart once they start offing people.  This one is different.  It starts off terminally slow and boring, but gradually gets better as it goes along.  The final trimester or so once the script goes full "s**t hits the fan" on us is pretty fun.  You won't be pissing yourself in terror or anything, but it's fun.  Unfortunately, though, some people had to survive this movie, and that we go to epic fail mode.  If you're looking for a horror flick that will get you emotionally invested, you're not gonna find it here.

Time to dispense some James Cameron-esque judgment.  Creature gets ** out of ****.  It's definitely worth a watch if you like cheesy sci-fi/horror films, but if you don't, you're not going to find much to convert you.  Just stick with Alien.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)

1994
Directed by Kenneth Branagh
Starring Robert De Niro, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Hulce, Helena Bonham Carter, Aidan Quinn, Ian Holm and John Cleese

My many, many loyal fans no doubt read last week's review of Bram Stoker's Dracula, a slick, big-budget adaptation of the classic novel that aimed to be a more faithful adaptation of the book than ever before with the benefit of a truly awesome cast.  The formula was successful enough that a mere two years later we were graced with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, a film in the same vein with a similar budget and a cast that ranked slightly behind Coppola's movie on the hoity-toity factor.  Another big bonus?  We get to see Robert De Niro with a layer cake of makeup cutting promos about the meaning of his life.  And that's it for this review.  I kid, I kid.  The end of the story is that this film wasn't QUITE as successful as Bram Stoker's Dracula, but it still made a nice return.  Hell, it even got its own Super Nintendo game.

The movie was largely the brainchild of Kenneth Branagh, the guy who sat behind the director's chair and the primary dude in front of it despite De Niro's spot above him on the marquee.  It also had a script co-written by Frank Darabont, a dude who is well-known to horror fans as perhaps the most beloved adapter (?) of Stephen King novels ever.  The result is a movie that definitely shows how much talent it employed.  It has atmosphere, practical visual effects, really convincing and awesome exteriors and interiors...you name it.  In 1994, De Niro also wasn't quite as big of a deal as he was today.  He was definitely RESPECTED as all get out, but he was still a LONG way off from the parody of himself that he is now.  The dude gave it his all as Frankenstein's Monster in the flick.  To say nothing of anybody else who is in this movie (and look at that list above), he definitely steals it.  Enough chit-chat.  Time for this dog and pony show to start.

It has a framing device VERY similar to the novel, as a sea captain played by the woefully underrated Aidan Quinn on his way to the North Pole is stuck in the ice and spots a man foraging around outside.  The man, of course, is Dr. Victor Frankenstein, and he has a story to tell.  In flashback form, we're given the people in his life who provide him all the motivation that he needs.  There's his adopted sister Elizabeth, who grows up to be played by 1994 Helena Bonham Carter.  This means that she is smokin' hot and it is thus totally understandable that she is the love of Frankenstein's life.  Things were different in the late 1700s, so what are you gonna do.  As the flashback stuff ends, Frankenstein's mother dies, prompting the good future doctor's obsession with conquering death.

Let's talk about Kenneth Branagh in this movie, kids.  Again, the character is very faithful to the novel.  He's definitely not a hero.  He's also definitely not a villain.  Antihero?  Also, not quite.  Doctor Frankenstein in this go-round is complex, a guy who is driven by his need to bring someone back from the dead and does some very strange things because of it.  With the way he's written, playing him was definitely no small feat, but Branagh was more than game for it.  Since I'm starting to sound like a snooty English major, it might be time to move on from this subject. 

By this point, we've met several of the supporting characters.  Frankenstein is deep into his relationship with Elizabeth, close friends with Henry Cleval (Tom Hulce) and the student of Professor Waldman (John Cleese).  The murder of the latter sets the plot in motion, as Frankenstein finally believes that he has the means to cheat death.  Stealing the body of Waldman's murderer and the brain from Waldman himself, he goes about creating his new body, promptly bringing it back to life and recoiling in horror at what he has done.

Yeah, it's a story that you're more than familiar with if you've even a cursory fan of horror stuff.  But I can guarantee you that what you're NOT used to is how this plays out from this point on.  For starters, this Monster isn't quite Monsterly.  The biggest manifestation of this?  He actually TALKS.  Not so much at first, but he turns into a regular poet laureate as this thing progresses.  We get to see what he does pretty in depth after escaping Frankenstein's lab, taking up residence in a poor family's barn and learning English from an elderly blind man.  It might sound silly, but it's a strangely moving sequence.  Eventually, the Monster learns how to read.  And when he reads Frankenstein's own journal, he goes for revenge.  I know I've said this already, but it bears regurgitating - De Niro is awesome in this movie.  I would even put it up there with his best performances, just a shade below Travis Bickle and miles ahead of anything he's done since, oh, 1998.  Isn't that right, Focker?

People new to what Frankenstein is all about need to know this:  with a few notable exceptions, the movie adaptations all follow the tried-and-true formula that it's kind of a cat-and-mouse game between the doctor and his creation.  In this one, we even get a few emotional scenes as the Monster tracks Frankenstein down and asks him why he has been created in a scene that actually came close to eliciting tears from yours truly.  But don't tell anybody that.  But...it's not like anyone reads this, so what difference does it make?  Really, the whole way that this story unfolds is unsatisfying, particularly when it the Monster learns the best way to hurt Frankenstein.

The first person that I either blame or give credit to depending on my stance on a movie is the screenwriter, and I've got to hand it to both Darabont and his co-writer Steph Lady on this one.  Yeah, it's book faithful.  But it's faithful in a way that's WAY better than you'd ever expect, because let me tell you something (brother) - I did not like that book.  Like, at all.  I said last week that I really loved Bram Stoker's actual "Dracula" book as a kid, but this one was torture.  It's full of long diatribes that go nowhere and words like "thee" and "thine" all over the place, and I don't have the patience for that stuff.  This script modernizes the language while also being pretty damn convincing for its time period.  The characters are also ALL handled deftly, from the main eventers (Frankenstein, the Monster and Elizabeth) to the midcarders (Cleval, Waldman, Captain Walton, and a really great side performance from Richard Briers as the blind grandfather who befriends the Monster at hte farm).  In short, it's all done in a way to make the conclusion emotionally satisfying, and it WORKS, dammit!

I think that's the big reason why I enjoy this film more than Bram Stoker's Dracula.  Yeah, that one had the more famous director, all kinds of Tim Burton-esque dark atmosphere and tons of arty blood and tits being thrown at you.  And while it was definitely an awesome movie to look at, it ultimately wasn't very emotional.  This movie isn't quite as pretty, but it's also more powerful.  And that, folks, is about the highest praise that I can level at a movie these days.  It's not perfect by any means; there's a bit of a stretch in the middle involving Frankenstein preparing for his wedding.  But when this movie throws its emotional wallops at you, believe me, they deliver - especially the final 20 minutes or so that rank right up there with some of the most eerie and disturbing stuff you'll ever see. 

*** 1/2 out of ****.  My FAVORITE Frankenstein movie of all time is still the 1931 James Whale-Boris Karloff masterpiece.  However, if you're looking for pure emotional power with some awesome performances, go with this one.

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

1992
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Starring Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins and Keanu Reeves

Yeah.  A Dracula flick.  See that marquee up above?  It's not just for decoration, people.  I'm pretty much a slasher movie fan first and foremost, but I dig almost all types of horror.  In the past few years, old-school Gothic horror has become something that I've gone from total apathy towards to a genuine affection for, but forget all that stuff that was designed to make me sound smart.  Dracula rocks, and the movies featuring this character tend to be 100% sliced awesome.  Amazingly enough, I am one of the few people on Earth who actually read the book before seeing ANY film adaptations, which has to be some kind of beautiful disaster miracle.  I've said in the past that The Shining was the first truly adult novel that I ever read, and Dracula followed suit.  The first film that I saw?  The movie in question today, but I can't say that I wasn't damn intrigued about this one well before taping it off HBO ('memba that?).

A few years before reading that book, this movie was unleashed on the world.  And I do mean unleashed.  I was in third grade when this bomb dropped, and I was very intrigued by everything that I saw regarding this movie.  Everything about it from the marketing to the buzz to the cast indicated that this flick was a big deal.  And it was.  This was Francis Ford Coppola's first movie after The Godfather Part III, and this is an example of the rare horror film with backing.  A big budget, the most talented set and costume designers, a popular cast, you name it, this movie had the benefits.  And it paid off.  The flick was a HUGE international hit, grossing some $215 million dollars.  It was also nominated for a few Oscars.  And it featured the guy who played Hannibal Lecter ripping vampire girls' heads off.  25 years later, does it hold up?  Well, allow me to be your ever-loyal reporter.

Now, this statement isn't absolute by any stretch, but out of all the Dracula films I've seen, the first thing you need to know about Bram Stoker's Dracula is that the title is accurate.  It's VERY faithful to the book.  It's not exactly a 100% translation, but it's closer than anything that came before.  In short, you're not going to see Renfield laughing like an old Ford pickup in this one.  The book was cool in that it was told in tons of different points of view, and almost always not from a straight narrative.  It was journals and tapes and phonograph recordings that we were reading, and it lent the whole thing this almost documentary-like feel.  The script here by James Hart tries to do the same thing, and it's mostly successful.  It's in the specifics where this movie busts out its memorable stuff, some good, and a few of them not so good.

Just like the book, the movie begins with Jonathan Harker, a lawyer called to the castle of Count Dracula to preside over his purchase of a new home in London.  If you've never read a review of this movie before, Harker is played by Keanu Reeves and...he's pretty bad.  I actually like Keanu a lot as an actor, but he was so far out of his depth here trying to seem sophisticated and speak with a British accent.  Fortunately, everything else about this movie is here to distract us here as we go into the castle.  Still to this day, the set design in this flick is INCREDIBLE and the castle is the early star.  Of course, it also has Gary Oldman...or rather, Gary Oldman in pure white makeup and a fright wig.

Yes, folks, Gary Oldman plays the Count in this film.  He's an amazing actor, and he establishes this from his first scene on camera with Keanu "Dude"-ing his way through the Harker lines.  The opening segments of the film detail Harker's incarceration in the castle, his meeting with Dracula's brides (and what a scene that is - it's a Patrick Bateman-esque undisputed masterpiece featuring certified ten-star hottie Monica Bellucci), and his various attempts at escape.  There's also the connection that he has waiting for him back in London - namely, his fiance, Mina Murray.

With Harker stuck in the castle, the script launches (literally) to London where we meet all of the supporting characters in rapid-fire succession.  With the exception of Winona Ryder, the casting is absolutely spot-on with all of these people.  Sadie Frost as Lucy and especially Richard E. Grant as Dr. Seward are minor revelations here, but if you can name a character from the book, they're represented here and represented well.  Cary Elwes is Arthur Holmwood, Billy Campbell is Quincey Morris, Tom Waits is Renfield, and then the guy that the whole movie was designed to put over like Roman Reigns, Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Van Helsing.

Amazingly, Hopkins' role in this film was supposed to lead to some kind of franchise featuring Van Helsing hunting monsters.  It was also supposed to happen fairly quickly after the November, 1992 [i]Bram Stoker's Dracula[/i] release date.  But this project was put on the back burner.  Like, hard.  For over a decade, it sat in development hell, to the point where we eventually got Van Helsing over a decade later with no connection to this film and with the goddamned Wolverine as the main character.  Just like Oldman, Hopkins is simply awesome and he commits here with everything he has in him.  Still...I'll take Peter Cushing over him.  Call it glandular.

The middle sections of this film lose some momentum, ironically due to the thing that it deviates from the book in the most severe way.  More than any other adaptation of Dracula, this film really was a dark, erotically-charged romance, all built around the idea that Mina is Dracula's former bride reincarnated.  It's an interesting take on the story, I must say, but a lot of it is built on Mina being a compelling character.  Ryder tries, but much like Keanu, she's no Gary Oldman, and a lot of their scenes together kind of fall flat.

Another thing worth commenting on here is all of the LOOKS that Dracula has in this film.  Within the film's running time (and it's a long one - it goes on 2 1/2 hours, which is a very risky proposition for a horror film, but it just BARELY manages to feel justified for making us sit and watch a scary movie for that long), we see the gimpy old man from the opening sections, the handsome man that Oldman himself was at the time this movie was filmed, a bizarre "wolf man" creature, and whatever the hell he's supposed to be at the end as everyone comes hunting for him.  Maybe it wouldn't be so jarring if all of it wasn't done SO WELL; while a couple of these visages are kind of misses in concept, they're major successes in execution.  Coppola will forever get brownie points with me for one thing here, as he refused to use any CGI and did everything practically because he felt this would be much more authentic with the time period that the film was set in.  The result?  It's still a gorgeous movie to look at, while the 2004 Van Helsing looked outdated roughly three years after it came out.  You can't beat practical effects, kids.

Now comes the segment of this review where I have to tell you what I liked and disliked in a bit more detail.  It's kind of a difficult task.  I will never NOT like a horror movie with such obvious love for its source material and attention to detail in this one.  I enjoy the hell out of Bram Stoker's Dracula for how it looks and feels.  Watching it a few days ago actually made me a little sad, because this was a magical time period when film-makers actually KNEW how to make an atmosphere and transport you to a different world.  Within 18 months, we had this, Batman Returns and Jurassic Park.  Shortly after this, CGI would take over, and while movies became much easier to make, they just lost that sense of wonderment that was present here.  So ten stars to this flick for its ability to seem like an experience.

Where it doesn't hold up so well is in its actual story.  It's SO rapid-fire and in-your-face that the whole thing doesn't exactly unfold.  Following the story is really kind of jarring.  And as I've already mentioned, the whole love story THING between Dracula and Mina just really isn't there.  I get the impression that what screenwriter Hart was going for here was a big, powerful tear-jerker ending as the Count bites it (/horrible pun), but instead, it's just kind of there.  Thus, while this movie does have the boast of being really faithful to the novel, from a storytelling standpoint, I'll take the first Hammer adaptation Horror of Dracula any day of the week over this one.  And that film was pretty damn technically impressive for its time, too.

So...does this movie hold up?  The answer is yes, and I give Bram Stoker's Dracula *** out of ****.  Yeah, it's got its faults (dude), but Oldman, Hopkins, and Richard E. Grant at the top of their game AND ungodly sets and costumes?  This one is still more than worth checking out.

Zombie Nightmare (1986)

1986
Directed by Jack Bravman
Starring Adam West, Tia Carrere, Shawn Levy and Jon Mikl Thor

I'm sure that I've proclaimed my love for Mystery Science Theater 3000 on this blog before, so I'll spare everyone the re-re-re-iteration of how awesome that show is.  I owe my love of bad B-movies, micro-budget sci-fi, and even partly horror flicks to it, and it's a debt that I'll never be able to repay.  These days, it even seems to be making quite the comeback.  A new season is on the horizon after a massively successful Kickstarter campaign, and to build up the hype, Netflix has just released a 20-episode "Best-of" collection for everyone to freely peruse.  The movie in question today is one of those episodes, and it's also one of the few movies featured on the show that I've actually seen in its un-MSTed form.

Released in 1986, this movie had to be some kind of labor of love for everyone involved.  It was written by a dude named John Fasano, and he also has a cameo in the movie as the first guy who gets killed.  Oh yeah, spoiler alert (overused phrase #3).  One of the main stars is John Mikl Thor, he of the amazingly named heavy metal band Thorkestra, and the dude also performs most of the background music in the film.  It's also got a fairly recognizable cast, all things considered, but we'll get to them in due time.  Finally, I've got to comment on the atmosphere.  This movie was made in Canada, and it's something that I can't quite explain, but low-budget movies from our friends up North just seem to have this certain...quality.  It's kind of a calmness, very different from the hectic feel of so many movies produced here in the States.  When I'm watching a Canadian horror film, time just seems to slow to a crawl and I enter a dreamlike trance state, it's weird.  And while this movie is pretty bad, it definitely fits that bill.  Enough jibber jabber.  Let's get to the flick.

One of the glories of the horror genre is the unapologetic simplicity of their stories.  Zombie Nightmare takes a different approach, at least with its setup.  In fact, it has an unnecessarily complicated intro switch, as we first get the suburban murder of a father who's in the midst of walking his wife and son back from a baseball game.  Yes, folks, I'm serious.  From here, we warp forward some 10 years to the kid from the intro now grown up as John Mikl Thor, complete with an amazing mane of '80s rock and roll hair and the most amazing tank top you've ever seen.  You'll never forget it, that's for sure.  The script establishes that said son (named Tony Washington, for all two people who might be interested) is a nice guy as we watch him beat up a couple shoplifters.  And while the shopkeeper is grateful to Tony, the local group of trouble-making hooligans are decidedly more hostile as they promptly run their party wagon over Tony as he crosses the street.

This would be our requisite group of teenage victim characters, but amazingly, we're not done setting up the premise yet.  Tony's mother takes his body to a voodoo priestess who resurrects his body with the promise of exacting vengeance on his killers, and he goes about doing just that.  Think John Mikl Thor with green ghoul makeup running around with a baseball bat and you've got your villain.  But these characters...yikes.  It's easy to see why this flick was featured in such a popular MST3K episode, because these characters were something else, ranging from cartoon characters to outright nonentities. 

The former is taken care of by Jim, the leader of the group who was actually driving the car that ran Tony over.  He's one bad dude.  For starters, he likes the fact that he killed somebody due to the thrill it provided.  He also repeatedly attempts to charm/creepily stalks a local waitress.  Jim is also played by Shawn Levy, and he's without a doubt the most successful person connected to this movie.  He's directed a whole bunch of movies you've actually heard of, and he's currently an executive producer on Stranger Things, a show that I haven't seen due to the fact that it sounds like yet another ham-fisted attempt at trying to hook '80s horror fans like myself by paying fan service while capturing none of the dirty atmosphere.  Or am I wrong on that one?  At any rate, it's easy to see why Levy made it big, because he did a damn good job acting like he actually cared about Zombie Nightmare.  He chews scenery every chance he gets and really stands out as a dislikable prick, so it's too bad he's not the last one to die.

What else am I missing?  Well, Tia Carrere is in this movie, as one of the partying teens.  She's also pretty damn good in her role for what it is, and, again, it's easy to see why she was destined for bigger and better things including Wayne's World and starring in some of my late-night dreams.  This movie is different from a lot of horror movies in one big regard.  Most slashers focus on a killer who kills indiscriminately, but there's a smaller group of films that are focused on a specific revenge against specific characters.  That can work really well if we care about the characters, but here...not so much.  Especially when our backup group of characters are a group of police officers who aren't connected at all to the main plot, and when one of them is played by Adam West in "clearly not giving a shit" mode. 

I can't help but think that this movie would have been a LOT better with one simple switch: imagine this same story with minimal involvement from the cops (seriously, they take up like 30 minutes of the movie that I'm not going to bother recapping), the three lesser kids biting it first just like they do here, and the final two being Levy and Carrere.  One of the characters is bad, one is good, and we would get a better catharsis when Thor starts chasing them around.  We get one final "crowd pleaser" kill with Levy, and Carrere could have played an awesome final girl.  I don't know, at least this would have worked for me.  Don't say I never offer constructive criticism.

So what we're left with is a prime slice of '80s horror movie cheese.  It's not scary in the least bit, the characters are laughable to the max (particularly that forensics guy with the ridiculous voice), and it was made for almost zero dollars and clearly shows it.  And while the movie definitely isn't GOOD by any conventional standards, it's a fun enough watch for that reason alone.  It's also got an awesome soundtrack of heavy metal starting with Motorhead's "Ace of Spades" over the opening credits, so if you've in the mood for some prime butt rock, look no further.

Rating time.  Zombie Nightmare gets * 1/2 out of ****.  If you buy horror movies strictly expecting quality, you're barking up the wrong tree on this one.  But the "hilariously bad" label definitely applies here, which means that it was GREAT fodder for Mike and the 'Bots.

I Spit On Your Grave (1978)

1978
Directed by Meir Zarchi
Starring Camille Keaton, Eron Tabor, Richard Pace, Anthony Nichols and Gunter Kleemann

Stop me if I've told this one before.  I've always been obsessed with movies dating back to the days when Han Solo and Indiana Jones were my heroes, but the thing that REALLY put me over the top to the nerdy level that I'm at today was one trip to the library when I was in sixth grade.  That particular trip led me to the until-then forbidden ADULT section and away from the kids' ghost story books that dotted my bookshelf back then, and that trip led me to the arts & entertainment section...and the giant book with Roger Ebert on the cover. 

Yes, folks, Roger Ebert's Video Companion.  'Memba them?  In the days before the internet, these things were THE resource for movie fans, phone book-sized and crammed with reviews and juicy one-liners courtesy of arguably the greatest film critic of all time.  That book was what led to me being able to recognize directors and paying special attention to the opening credits of every film I see to this day.  It's what introduced me to the phrase "I hated hated hated this movie" in response to North.  And then there was what I really came there for: the reviews of horror movies.  Weirdly enough, Roger Ebert didn't seem to like horror films very much, but that was what I was into, and I wanted to know what he thought about them.  Hell, he gave Halloween four stars, so I knew that movie was worth checking out a little over a year later on Halloween night.  But one review that REALLY stood out was the one for the film in question today.

Released in 1978 during the very beginning days of the slasher boom, I Spit On Your Grave might not be an out-and-out HORROR film, but it nonetheless horrified people when it came out.  It's far from the first rape-revenge flick, but it was easily the most controversial and even more easily the most successful.  Filmed on a filet-o-fish budget, it was also another one of those films that was more effective precisely because it was so cheap.  Folks, it probably would have been easier to film this stuff for real and just pass it off as a movie.  I saw this flick for the first time in high school, and I can report that this isn't an enjoyable film.  Not because it's going to make you doubt life or anything, but because it's just THERE, for what it is.  A woman gets raped, repeatedly, and cruelly.  Then she kills them all one by one.  That's pretty much it, and that's your running time.  But I thought it was nonetheless an effective little story, and one that I thought would be worth checking out again.  Does it hold up?  Let's find out.

Meet Jennifer Hills, played by Camille Keaton as the kind of girl circa 1978 that you just know you'd be hardcore crushing on.  She's a writer by trade, and she's on her way to a riverside cabin for some peace, quiet and listening to fingers hitting the keyboard.  Within the first ten minutes, we also meet the local gas station manager Johnny (Eron Tabor), as well as his two unemployed friends Stanley (Anthony Nichols) and Andy (Gunter Kleemann).  Also within that epic ten minute timeframe, Jennifer has her groceries delivered by Matthew (Matthew Lucas), a slightly mentally disabled man who pretty much sets the entire plot in motion just by mentioning that he saw Jennifer's breasts.  I swear on the church, this actually happens.

There isn't much in the way of tension in this movie.  For a VERY brief period, Stanley and Andy cruise by Jennifer's cabin at night, but it doesn't take long for the second phase of this movie to kick in.  And that second phase...it's something else.  And when I say "something else," it's not the kind of movie that you'd want to watch over and over, even in 2017.  Those four characters that Jennifer has passably met in the movie thus far?  They eventually invade her house and rape her.  And then they rape her again.  And then one more time for good measure. 

Brief aside.  You know that Roger Ebert review that I talked about in the introduction?  He gave this movie ZERO STARS, and he told a pretty funny story about the people that he saw this with in theaters, stating that they might have very well been serial killers and said things like "that was a good one" after each rape scene.  Complete with jokes about these guys' appearances.  Despite his general dislike of horror movies, Roger Ebert used to be so awesome.

A few words about the people committing all the raping and pillaging in this movie.  It's a subject that I certainly don't mean to make light of, and the movie doesn't, either.  Make no mistake.  This flick is damn near 40 years old, but by the end of it, you REALLY want these creeps to get what they have coming.  Of the four, the only two who are anything resembling multi-dimensional are Johnny and Matthew, Johnny due to actually has a family that he goes home to, and Matthew due to the "mentally disabled guy that the others are trying to get to lose his virginity" angle.  He eventually does, although he's the one that spares Jennifer's life in the movie's crucial moments.  And boy does he pay for that one, but I'm getting ahead of myself.  A few words about the ACTING by these four jokers: I actually think this flick is a better movie than Wes Craven's Last House on the Left, but the performances in that film from David Hess and Co. were infinitely better.  But there's no comic relief cops in this movie, so take that for what it's worth.

Left for dead, Jennifer is able to recover.  She makes her way to a church, and prays for forgiveness for what she is about to do.  And the final third of the movie is her tracking down each assailant and giving them their just desserts in ways that had to be completely unheard of in 1978.

No matter what your opinion is of horror movies or even movies like this, that are more true crime-based than out-and-out horror based, I don't think anyone could deny that this flick makes you FEEL something.  Camille Keaton doesn't exactly put in an Oscar-worthy performance here, but she's perfectly believable as an innocent victim in the opening chapters.  And when she's getting her revenge, she's one sexy mama.  How this is possible for someone cutting a dude's junk off I don't know, but it's there onscreen for everyone to witness.  Oh yeah, spoiler alert.  Amazingly enough, Keaton actually REPRISED this role in two sequels.  What say you, readers?  Are they worth seeing?

Now, a few words to you lazy millennials (/Vince McMahon) who might be reading this.  There is a remake of this movie.  THIS movie, probably, is going to make you laugh.  To be sure, it's cheesy.  It's old, and it doesn't look like Michael Bay's Transformers.  These things seem to be mortal sins with the kids these days.  I haven't seen the remake, but I can take a guess what it probably tries to do: "gritty" everything up to the nth degree, show the violence in a lot more graphic detail, and amp up the Jennifer character to superhero status in Act Three.  Sorry, but no thanks.  Stick with this one.  It's way more emotional with probably 1/20 of the budget.  And I base that on having never seen the movie that I'm comparing it to.  +2 points for film criticism.

Since you can't multiply zero, I can't say that this movie is any degrees BETTER than Roger Ebert says.  Nonetheless, I give this flick *** out of ****.  It's definitely worth checking out, but it's not the kind of thing you'll want to have on your DVD shelf to pull out at a moment's notice.  Maybe once every five years.  Maybe.