Shocktober Revisited: Spider Baby

Jack Hill's Spider Baby, or The Maddest Story Ever Told is one of the more unusual films I think I've ever seen. That has to say something, as the Blogorium has seen its share of the strange and "off the beaten path" cinema. It's more coherent than Death Bead: The Bed That Eats, and less hyperbolic than Blood Car, to be sure, but there's something about the tone of Spider Baby that resonates well after the film ends. Lurid? Yes. Graphically violent? At times. It meets most of the check-marks for "low budget shocker" from the 1960s, but Spider Baby is nothing like the two most famous titles from that era: Night of the Living Dead and Carnival of Souls. It's so weird that the film often makes Freaks look tame by comparison, if only in how nonchalant everyone seems to be about the Merrye family.

 Somewhere in the hills of California (?) is what remains of the Merrye Mansion, a place nobody wants to go anymore. Its only inhabitants are Elizabeth (Beverly Washburn), her younger sister Virginia (Jill Banner), and their older brother Ralphie (Sid Haig), under the care of the family chauffeur, Bruno (Lon Chaney Jr.). Well, there might be a few odd uncles and aunts in the basement, but that's Bruno's business. The Merrye's have a unique affliction: a genetic disorder that causes them to "regress" as they grow older, mentally at first but eventually physically as well. Virginia believes that she's a spider, and eats bugs, along with anything (or anyone) she catches in her "web." Elizabeth dresses and behaves like a child and wants nothing more than for Bruno to hate her sister, to the point that she allows Virginia to kill the mailman (Mantan Moreland) early in the film. Ralphie? Well, it might be better to think of him less as a person and more like a dog - he's in the late stages of "Merrye Syndrome" and is basically feral.

 To Bruno's great dismay, the mailman (who was dead when he got home, to be fair) is delivering notice from the niece and nephew of "The Master" of the Merrye Estate, Emily (Carol Ohmart) and Peter (Quinn Redeker) Howe, who have come to take control of the manor and assume custody of the children. Emily brings along her lawyer, Mr. Schlocker (Karl Schanzer) and his assistant, Ann Morris (Merry Mitchell), with hopes of cashing in on the estate, but what they find is a very different matter indeed. The children trust Bruno and they do their best to appear "normal" for their extended family, but it's only so long before their natural tendencies surface...

 Originally titled Cannibal Orgy, the film begins with a kooky animated credits sequence, accompanied by a song about the story to come, sung by Chaney. If you didn't know what you were getting into, this sets the tone right away, and Mantan Moreland's jittery mailman give a clear sense that Spider Baby teeters on the brink of "camp" territory. Not intentionally, mind you, but the bizarre display of "Merrye Syndrome," and Elizabeth and Virginia in particular are a template for the sorts of characters who populated John Waters films in the 1970s. They just don't know any better - it's how they've always lived, with Bruno keeping a close eye on them and the rest of the world shut out.

 For the Merrye family, it's perfectly normal that Ralphie uses a dumbwaiter between floors of the house, and while Emily is appalled at their lack of "manners," Peter takes it all in stride. He accepts them as they are, a choice that makes Spider Baby all the more unusual; the film doesn't revel in how bizarre the Merrye's are (and they certainly are), but takes them at face value and presents the intruders as the "strange" ones. At no point in the film is the audience ever sympathetic towards Schlocker or Emily, and the emerging romance between Peter and Ann seems to exist so that Virginia's affections toward him go unrequited. That they're family only seems to go noticed by Peter, but he's so accommodating of the girls that in more lurid hands, who knows where the story may have headed...

 I'm almost positive that Spider Baby is a direct influence on Rob Zombies' House of 1000 Corpses, particularly on how the presentation of the Merrye's mirrors the behavior of the Firefly clan. It's not just that Sid Haig is in both films, although that certainly doesn't hurt the case that Zombie has seen Spider Baby and borrows from it (in particular, watch the dinner scene and compare Baby on the couch in Corpses with Virginia and Peter in the "web" scene). The difference that makes a difference between Spider Baby and House of 1000 Corpses is that the former was intentionally designed to be a comedy and the latter resembles a grab-bag of "grindhouse" tropes in the guise of a horror movie. (In the interest of full disclosure, the Cap'n is not a fan of House of 1000 Corpses).

 We're meant to laugh at the arch behavior and the unexpected resolution to the Ralphie / Emily "romance" - if you want to call it that - in the same way that Bruno's admission the family is "vegetarian" at the dinner table. The concession to this rule is that Virginia eats bugs and Ralphie is allowed to eat whatever he "catches," which includes the cooked cat on the table. Only Peter seems interested in partaking, mostly because he assumes it's a fox or something of that nature.

 The distinction that Spider Baby is a comedy - a very, very black comedy at that - is often missed by people who discover the film. Hill, who made his feature debut with Spider Baby, lost the film in a series of tangled rights issues following the producers going bankrupt, delaying its release for the better part of the 1960s. When Cannibal Orgy finally made its way to theaters, it was unusually paired with biker films (Hells Chosen Few) or horror anthologies (Dr. Terror's House of Horrors). Given that sort of pairing, it's understandable that Spider Baby remains largely unknown to this day. I had heard of it, but had never seen a copy of the U.S. DVD, and ultimately came to the film through the Arrow Video Blu-Ray release, which does look fantastic for a 50 year old film that only made it to drive-ins. It existed on the margins of cult cinema for so long that even Jack Hill is surprised by the affinity its fans have for the film. He seems puzzled to be remembered for this over Switchblade Sisters or Foxy Brown, but for a young filmmaker working on a low budget, it's a very assured debut.

 Part of the appeal was seeing a younger Sid Haig, and also Ohlmart (memorable as Vincent Price's venomous wife in House on Haunted Hill), but chiefly I wanted to see Lon Chaney, Jr. in one of his better later roles. Unlike Alligator People or Hillbillys in a Haunted House, Chaney wasn't consigned to the "drunken caretaker" role, and is instead the surrogate parent for the Merrye children. He has quite a few tender moments with the girls, particularly when Virginia does something unforgivable and Elizabeth desperately wants him to shun her for it. He tells them that he could never hate them, and does his best to manage an untenable situation when Emily and Peter arrive. His sense of resignation about the real world colliding with the fantasy world of the Merrye "children" keeps Spider Baby from simply being a freak show. Tonally speaking, Chaney is what makes Spider Baby such a strange film, in that he simply refuses (as a character and, presumably, as an actor) to treat this madness as anything other than "par the course."

 The big surprise, at least for me, was Jill Banner as Virginia. I knew almost nothing about her going into the film, and only found out after the fact that she had been developing scripts with Marlon Brando prior to her untimely death (car accident). While Beverly Washburn has the more "camp" performance, Banner is mesmerizing as the titular character, who seems totally disconnected to reality in any form. Her fascination with "Uncle Peter" is both creepy and sweet, although her intentions always lead back to playing "spider" with a pair of kitchen knives for fangs. It's a shame there isn't more of Banner to see on-screen, but as first impressions go, she makes the most of hers.

 (SPOILERS AHEAD) I do have one minor point of contention for the film - the original title, Cannibal Orgy, doesn't actually make much sense until the very end of the movie, when the completely devolved "relatives" in the basement are revealed. To that point, we're only aware that Bruno and the girls put the bodies of the mailman and Schlocker in the dumbwaiter and send them to the basement, but it's not clear that the "uncles" and "aunts" are eating them. Furthermore, it's hard to tell exactly what Elizabeth eats other than moss and mushrooms, and Virginia only eats bugs and cuts up people - she keeps the mailman's ear in a box, but never makes any overtures that she'd eat it. Ralphie eats other animals, and Bruno doesn't appear to have any cannibalistic tendencies. I understand that the title is lurid and grabs your attention, but in this instance Spider Baby may, in fact, be the better choice, even if the opening song specifically references cannibalism.

 It's a minor quibble, I admit: Spider Baby is a film that deserves to be better known than it is, but if you like hunting out on the edges of cult classics, I think you'll find it is every bit as deserving of your attention as Carnival of Souls or Night of the Living Dead. Possibly as influential, albeit to a different group of filmmakers. And don't worry too much about the goofy prologue with Peter that sets up "Merrye Syndrome" - the closing bookend wraps it up well (or does it???).  Spider Baby is the sort of low budget exploitation that sneaks up on you, and continually surprises, confuses, and amuses you. I wish I'd have seen it sooner, but even a Cap'n can be late to the party some times. Come over some time and I'll be happy to show it to you, but do watch out for my web. I get to eat what I catch, you see...

Blogorium Review: Spider Baby

 Jack Hill's Spider Baby, or The Maddest Story Ever Told is one of the more unusual films I think I've ever seen. That has to say something, as the Blogorium has seen its share of the strange and "off the beaten path" cinema. It's more coherent than Death Bead: The Bed That Eats, and less hyperbolic than Blood Car, to be sure, but there's something about the tone of Spider Baby that resonates well after the film ends. Lurid? Yes. Graphically violent? At times. It meets most of the check-marks for "low budget shocker" from the 1960s, but Spider Baby is nothing like the two most famous titles from that era: Night of the Living Dead and Carnival of Souls. It's so weird that the film often makes Freaks look tame by comparison, if only in how nonchalant everyone seems to be about the Merrye family.

 Somewhere in the hills of California (?) is what remains of the Merrye Mansion, a place nobody wants to go anymore. Its only inhabitants are Elizabeth (Beverly Washburn), her younger sister Virginia (Jill Banner), and their older brother Ralphie (Sid Haig), under the care of the family chauffeur, Bruno (Lon Chaney Jr.). Well, there might be a few odd uncles and aunts in the basement, but that's Bruno's business. The Merrye's have a unique affliction: a genetic disorder that causes them to "regress" as they grow older, mentally at first but eventually physically as well. Virginia believes that she's a spider, and eats bugs, along with anything (or anyone) she catches in her "web." Elizabeth dresses and behaves like a child and wants nothing more than for Bruno to hate her sister, to the point that she allows Virginia to kill the mailman (Mantan Moreland) early in the film. Ralphie? Well, it might be better to think of him less as a person and more like a dog - he's in the late stages of "Merrye Syndrome" and is basically feral.

 To Bruno's great dismay, the mailman (who was dead when he got home, to be fair) is delivering notice from the niece and nephew of "The Master" of the Merrye Estate, Emily (Carol Ohmart) and Peter (Quinn Redeker) Howe, who have come to take control of the manor and assume custody of the children. Emily brings along her lawyer, Mr. Schlocker (Karl Schanzer) and his assistant, Ann Morris (Merry Mitchell), with hopes of cashing in on the estate, but what they find is a very different matter indeed. The children trust Bruno and they do their best to appear "normal" for their extended family, but it's only so long before their natural tendencies surface...

 Originally titled Cannibal Orgy, the film begins with a kooky animated credits sequence, accompanied by a song about the story to come, sung by Chaney. If you didn't know what you were getting into, this sets the tone right away, and Mantan Moreland's jittery mailman give a clear sense that Spider Baby teeters on the brink of "camp" territory. Not intentionally, mind you, but the bizarre display of "Merrye Syndrome," and Elizabeth and Virginia in particular are a template for the sorts of characters who populated John Waters films in the 1970s. They just don't know any better - it's how they've always lived, with Bruno keeping a close eye on them and the rest of the world shut out.

 For the Merrye family, it's perfectly normal that Ralphie uses a dumbwaiter between floors of the house, and while Emily is appalled at their lack of "manners," Peter takes it all in stride. He accepts them as they are, a choice that makes Spider Baby all the more unusual; the film doesn't revel in how bizarre the Merrye's are (and they certainly are), but takes them at face value and presents the intruders as the "strange" ones. At no point in the film is the audience ever sympathetic towards Schlocker or Emily, and the emerging romance between Peter and Ann seems to exist so that Virginia's affections toward him go unrequited. That they're family only seems to go noticed by Peter, but he's so accommodating of the girls that in more lurid hands, who knows where the story may have headed...

 I'm almost positive that Spider Baby is a direct influence on Rob Zombies' House of 1000 Corpses, particularly on how the presentation of the Merrye's mirrors the behavior of the Firefly clan. It's not just that Sid Haig is in both films, although that certainly doesn't hurt the case that Zombie has seen Spider Baby and borrows from it (in particular, watch the dinner scene and compare Baby on the couch in Corpses with Virginia and Peter in the "web" scene). The difference that makes a difference between Spider Baby and House of 1000 Corpses is that the former was intentionally designed to be a comedy and the latter resembles a grab-bag of "grindhouse" tropes in the guise of a horror movie. (In the interest of full disclosure, the Cap'n is not a fan of House of 1000 Corpses).

 We're meant to laugh at the arch behavior and the unexpected resolution to the Ralphie / Emily "romance" - if you want to call it that - in the same way that Bruno's admission the family is "vegetarian" at the dinner table. The concession to this rule is that Virginia eats bugs and Ralphie is allowed to eat whatever he "catches," which includes the cooked cat on the table. Only Peter seems interested in partaking, mostly because he assumes it's a fox or something of that nature.

 The distinction that Spider Baby is a comedy - a very, very black comedy at that - is often missed by people who discover the film. Hill, who made his feature debut with Spider Baby, lost the film in a series of tangled rights issues following the producers going bankrupt, delaying its release for the better part of the 1960s. When Cannibal Orgy finally made its way to theaters, it was unusually paired with biker films (Hells Chosen Few) or horror anthologies (Dr. Terror's House of Horrors). Given that sort of pairing, it's understandable that Spider Baby remains largely unknown to this day. I had heard of it, but had never seen a copy of the U.S. DVD, and ultimately came to the film through the Arrow Video Blu-Ray release, which does look fantastic for a 50 year old film that only made it to drive-ins. It existed on the margins of cult cinema for so long that even Jack Hill is surprised by the affinity its fans have for the film. He seems puzzled to be remembered for this over Switchblade Sisters or Foxy Brown, but for a young filmmaker working on a low budget, it's a very assured debut.

 Part of the appeal was seeing a younger Sid Haig, and also Ohlmart (memorable as Vincent Price's venomous wife in House on Haunted Hill), but chiefly I wanted to see Lon Chaney, Jr. in one of his better later roles. Unlike Alligator People or Hillbillys in a Haunted House, Chaney wasn't consigned to the "drunken caretaker" role, and is instead the surrogate parent for the Merrye children. He has quite a few tender moments with the girls, particularly when Virginia does something unforgivable and Elizabeth desperately wants him to shun her for it. He tells them that he could never hate them, and does his best to manage an untenable situation when Emily and Peter arrive. His sense of resignation about the real world colliding with the fantasy world of the Merrye "children" keeps Spider Baby from simply being a freak show. Tonally speaking, Chaney is what makes Spider Baby such a strange film, in that he simply refuses (as a character and, presumably, as an actor) to treat this madness as anything other than "par the course."

 The big surprise, at least for me, was Jill Banner as Virginia. I knew almost nothing about her going into the film, and only found out after the fact that she had been developing scripts with Marlon Brando prior to her untimely death (car accident). While Beverly Washburn has the more "camp" performance, Banner is mesmerizing as the titular character, who seems totally disconnected to reality in any form. Her fascination with "Uncle Peter" is both creepy and sweet, although her intentions always lead back to playing "spider" with a pair of kitchen knives for fangs. It's a shame there isn't more of Banner to see on-screen, but as first impressions go, she makes the most of hers.

 (SPOILERS AHEAD) I do have one minor point of contention for the film - the original title, Cannibal Orgy, doesn't actually make much sense until the very end of the movie, when the completely devolved "relatives" in the basement are revealed. To that point, we're only aware that Bruno and the girls put the bodies of the mailman and Schlocker in the dumbwaiter and send them to the basement, but it's not clear that the "uncles" and "aunts" are eating them. Furthermore, it's hard to tell exactly what Elizabeth eats other than moss and mushrooms, and Virginia only eats bugs and cuts up people - she keeps the mailman's ear in a box, but never makes any overtures that she'd eat it. Ralphie eats other animals, and Bruno doesn't appear to have any cannibalistic tendencies. I understand that the title is lurid and grabs your attention, but in this instance Spider Baby may, in fact, be the better choice, even if the opening song specifically references cannibalism.

 It's a minor quibble, I admit: Spider Baby is a film that deserves to be better known than it is, but if you like hunting out on the edges of cult classics, I think you'll find it is every bit as deserving of your attention as Carnival of Souls or Night of the Living Dead. Possibly as influential, albeit to a different group of filmmakers. And don't worry too much about the goofy prologue with Peter that sets up "Merrye Syndrome" - the closing bookend wraps it up well (or does it???).  Spider Baby is the sort of low budget exploitation that sneaks up on you, and continually surprises, confuses, and amuses you. I wish I'd have seen it sooner, but even a Cap'n can be late to the party some times. Come over some time and I'll be happy to show it to you, but do watch out for my web. I get to eat what I catch, you see...

Shocktober Revisited: Halloween H20 and Halloween Resurrection

 Originally, I had planned a Retro Review for Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, but  after doing some cursory research on the film I realized that I don't remember Halloween 6 at all. I saw it once, in the fall of 1995, and was surprised to discover Paul Rudd played Tommy Doyle in the film. Until I watch The Curse of Michael Myers again (or can locate the "Producer's Cut" mentioned online), there's really no point in revisiting a film I can't recall.

 Which brings me to Halloween: H20 and Halloween Resurrection, two movies I've barely seen again since the first time I watched them. They did, however, leave a greater impression on my mind than Donald Pleasance's final film appearance, and since I enjoy one of them more than anyone else seems to and really hate the other one, it's fitting to comment on the close of the pre-remake sequels to John Carpenter's Halloween. This one-two punch will leave the Cap'n with only Halloween 3, 5, and 6 to cover in the Blogorium*.

For those of you looking for a series recap, here's one in 60 words or less: Michael Myers kills his family, goes to a sanitarium under the care of Doctor Loomis, escapes, tries to kill Laurie Strode, fails, tries again, is replaced by an evil toy mask manufacturer, returns, tries to kill Laurie's niece Jamie, fails, tries again, fails, tries again, succeeds, but is then foiled by Loomis and a grown up Tommy Doyle**.

 Then there was a three year break, leading us to 1998, twenty years after the first Halloween. We move from Haddonfield, Illinois to somewhere in Northern California, where Keri Tate (Jamie Lee Curtis) is the dean of a private school with her son John (Josh Hartnett) and boyfriend Will (Adam Arkin). The funniest thing is that Keri Tate is a dead-ringer for Laurie Strode, and we discover that (SPOILER ALERT) she IS Laurie Strode. Laurie faked her death to keep Michael from chasing her (which is good, because Michael instead decided to wipe out the rest of her blood relations), and she'd been pretty successful avoiding (SPOILER ALERT AGAIN) her brother for the last twenty years. That is, until Doctor Loomis (the late Donald Pleasance, heard in narration) dies and Michael just happens to find his house and discover exactly where Laurie is. He also kills some kid (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) with an ice skate.

 Anyway, school's out for fall break(?) and Laurie's colleague Norma Watson (Janet Leigh, who is Jamie Lee Curtis' mother, which is technically a SPOILER for family tree detectives. I won't spoil that her father is Tony Curtis. Oh, crap) drives off in a car that looks a lot like Marion Crane (Janet Leigh)'s car from Psycho***. Michael begins stalking the campus, killing off students dumb enough to watch Scream 2 (gee, I wonder why? We'll get to that in a second...), and John and Molly (Michelle Williams) find the bodies and become "next" on the kill list. Unless Laurie, Will, and security guard Ronny (L.L. Cool J) can stop Michael.

 Why am I being so glib about H20? Well, the more I think about the film - based on a treatment by Scream co-creator Kevin Williamson - the stupider it seems. It's funny, because I guess I overlooked how stupid and obvious these references were when I was 19 (something the people who saw it with me did not), and the Cap'n instead focused on the Laurie Strode / Michael Myers story line. To be fair, that is the only thing H20 has going for it: the film decides to pretend that Halloween 4, 5, and 6 never happened****, which you can debate the relative merits of, I guess, in order to focus on the lethal sibling rivalry. The ending, where (SPOILER ALERT) Laurie decapitates an ambulance driver Michael's head is still a satisfying close to their story, one that the following film manages to ruin in the first five minutes.

 It's worth noting that even at the time we were impressed that L.L. Cool J took five or six rounds to the chest from a revolver and walked away at the end of the film. I don't remember if they said he was wearing a vest, but why would a prep school security officer need to?

Anyway, back to the way that Resurrection mangles everything, even making people who didn't like H20 say "well, at least that one didn't kill Laurie Strode." Oh, (SPOILER ALERT). Yeah, in addition to retrofitting H20 so that Michael somehow does a switcheroo with an ambulance driver before Laurie can lop his head off with an axe, they leap forward in time to an asylum where Laurie's been locked up, waiting for Michael to wander in unabated. Sure enough, they tangle, she tries to kill him (hanging? maybe?) but he stabs her or something and she falls from the roof of the asylum in what is the least effective death of a Final Girl since Jason Vorhees followed Alice Hardy back to town for some apartment complex murderin'.

But wait! That's the BEGINNING of Halloween: Resurrection, a movie that gets EVEN WORSE before Busta Rhymes drops some Kung Fu on Michael Myers. That does happen, by the way, and you don't need a SPOILER ALERT because we both know you don't have to watch this film.

So what, pray tell, could the plot of the 8th Halloween film be if the villain kills the Final Girl in the opening of the film? How about a webcam reality show about some stupid contestants wandering around the Myers house? Sound good? Freddie Harris (Busta Rhymes) and Nora Winston (Tyra Banks) sure thought so, and their web company, DangerTainment, is sponsoring this MTV's Fear knock-off. A group of college students (including Katee Sackhoff, Sean Patrick Thomas, and Thomas Ian Nichols) who "won" the chance to be on this show, wander around the house looking for clues about Michael Myers. Want to guess who has nowhere else to go after he killed his sister? Want to guess who isn't happy to find people in his childhood home? Want to place bets on whether a charred Michael Myers opens his eye for the final stinger in this turdstorm of a sequel?

The 19 year-old Cap'n may have been kind to H20, but the 23 year-old knew he hated Resurrection well before the halfway point. I remember not liking Halloween 6, but that's not as clear to me as the hatred for the last gasp of the Halloween franchise after Miramax squeezed everything left out in 2002. In retrospect, had I watched Resurrection again before Rob Zombie's Halloween, I might have been kinder, even with all of the idiotic "I'm gonna skullfuck you" dialogue. It's like the Weinstein brothers perceived a certain formula from H20 (a handful of "hot" young actors from better movies*****, a popular rapper, some referential dialogue, and whatever the newest fad was) and recycled it into a crappier version, a xerox of Kevin Williamson's already growing stale pop culture screenplays.

 Halloween: Resurrection is what people are complaining about when they talk about how awful sequels are, and devoid of the one consistent narrative thread between the first seven films (okay, six, since Halloween III isn't about Michael or his family tree), there's nothing worth investing your time in. I honestly can't say I've seen a moment of the film since we saw it on the big screen, and I know I've watched parts of H20 on cable. If one was on, the other one must have been at some point. After part 8, there was a five year layover, and then Zombie took over. At the time I write this, Patrick Lussier and Todd Farmer (My Bloody Valentine 3-D, Drive Angry) have pitched a Halloween 3D to the Weinsteins that they may eventually get to after rebooting Hellraiser (you read that right), but for now, at least I can say that Rob Zombie's Halloween 2, for as many detractors as it has, is a MUCH better movie than Halloween Resurrection, and it's probably better than H20. Now who would've thought I'd ever say that?



*For write-ups of Halloween (kind of), Halloween II, Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Myers, Halloween the Remake and Halloween 2 the Remake, follow the respective links.
** This much I gathered from IMDB's coverage of Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers.
*** SPOILER: It IS Marion Crane's car from Psycho.
**** In the interest of fairness, Williamson's original draft did include 4,5, and 6 as continuity, and writers Robert Zappia and Matt Greenberg wisely dropped the subplot.
**** And by that I mean American Pie and Save the Last Dance, and eventually Sackhoff would be in Battlestar Galactica but I'm not giving Bob and Harvey any credit for that one...

Shocktober Revisited: A Tale of Two Halloween II's (Part Two)

 Now, let's talk about Rob Zombie Presents Rob Zombie's Halloween II, not to be entirely mistaken with Halloween II but maybe for the first fifteen minutes if that's cool with everybody.

Allow me to point out that this is not a So You Won't Have To review, although I suspect many of you won't be checking out Rob Zombie's Halloween II. It's not a perfect film, to be sure, but I found the experience to be far more enjoyable than Halloween.

Many of you know that I was not, am not, and don't expect to be on board in the future with Zombie's remake. I just didn't like it. The familiar faces in supporting roles got to be absurd, the excessive profanity and sleaziness bordered on parodic, and I felt there were fundamental problems in the retelling that robbed Michael Myers and Laurie Strode's story. However, I had hoped that like The Devil's Rejects was to House of 1000 Corpses, so to would Halloween II be to Halloween. Rob Zombie did not disappoint.

From the get-go, Halloween II moves away from the limitations of a remake and forges onward in its own direction. Zombie, not feeling beholden to specific iconic imagery, moves at a different pace than the "slasher" portion of Halloween. In fact, Michael spends roughly half the film without a mask on. When Zombie does pay homage to the other Halloween 2 - a clever nod to the hospital siege - the end result is better than anything in the original sequel. I was more interested in the carnage Michael unleashed and Laurie's desperate attempts to get away than at any point during the original H2.

After the homage-turned-dream-sequence, we're reintroduced to Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton), Annie Brackett (Danielle Harris) and Sheriff Lee Brackett (Brad Dourif), living together in relative isolation. Laurie and Annie have severe psychological scarring (and Annie has some pretty serious physical scarring too), and Laurie's constantly teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown. She's been having strange dreams with young Michael (Chase Wright Vanek, filling in for Daeg Faerch) and Deborah Myers (Sherri Moon Zombie) in spectral form. Some are bizarre, and at least one involving a pumpkin feast, is outright disturbing.

Speaking of disturbing, the violence in Halloween II is pretty rough. Like, rougher than even the last film rough. Michael (Tyler Mane) carves a path of carnage on his quest to reunite the Myers family - he too has the visions of a spectral mother and white horse - and though I consider myself to have a pretty tough horror constitution, some of the kills early in the film are pretty nasty. Sawing through a guy's throat with broken glass is one thing, but the repeated stabbings, each with increased force, until the sound design resembles someone punching a bag of rotten meat, was more than I expected.

Back to the plot for a second: Halloween II picks up two years after Halloween, and two years after the supposedly dead Michael disappeared. When we see him again, Mane often appears without the mask and instead has a long beard and scraggly hair. You've probably heard folks refer to these sections as "Hobo Michael", but I didn't feel like much of his wandering was aimless. The explanation - that he's following his visions - creates an internally coherent reason for why Michael ends up where he ends up during the film. Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) is exploiting the tragedy once more with a new book, one that threatens to expose Laurie to the truth about her history.

The "guest star" casting (as Tarantino has come to put it in his films) actually works in Halloween II where it did not in Halloween. Perhaps the reason is that while the faces are recognizable from time to time, everybody looks different enough that you don't say "hey! Mickey Dolenz!" or "Look, it's Sid Haig or Clint Howard or Udo Kier!" Instead, Zombie calls on Daniel Roebuck (Lost, Bubba Ho-Tep), Margot Kidder, Mary Birdsong (Reno 911), Caroline Williams (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2), Richard Brake (Batman Begins), Richard Riehle (Office Space, Casino), Howard Hesseman (Shampoo, Silent Movie), Duane Whitaker (Pulp Fiction, Feast), and Mark Boone Junior (Memento, The Quick and the Dead).

Where Halloween II succeeds in the way Halloween didn't is that with most of the bit parts, you'd have to really know these actors to spot them immediately. I really didn't recognize Mary Birdsong or Margot Kidder at first, and Daniel Roebuck is almost unrecognizable. Instead of saying "hey look, another person I recognize in a tiny role!", the impression is more like "that person looks familiar, but I couldn't tell you why", which should be the intended effect. Even "Weird" Al Yankovic fits within the scene he's in, which is a talk show sequence designed to undermine Loomis' credibility (the host is Chris Hardwick, of House of 1000 Corpses).

To be fair, not everything about Halloween II works. While Annie's dialogue is a lot better (reflecting a certain maturity in her post-traumatic experience), Laurie can periodically be shrill and annoying. I'm not saddling it all on Taylor-Compton, because the rest of the dialogue for her new friends (Brea Grant and Angela Trimbur) is occasionally cringe inducing. McDowell's Loomis is so glib and shitty that I do wonder if he'd really bother showing up at the very end of the film.

I also have questions about why Laurie, who seems to be frequently terrorized by dreams of being murdered by Michael, would so idolize Charles Manson. She has not only a huge poster of Manson above her bed, but also some hand painted slogan about what would Charley (sic) do or something to that effect. That was the only moment in set design that really did ring false. Also, the "when Michael puts his mask on vs when he doesn't" motif doesn't really have any rhyme or reason. He kills just as brutally without it outside of the strip club.

What most people are objecting to, however, is the kinda-far-out-there choice by Zombie to bring back Sheri Moon Zombie as ghost mom. Now, I will say that it can get kinda goofy, especially when she lapses into a Vampira-esque staredown with the camera, but I didn't find it to be as horrible as the audiences who vocally assaulted the film in theatres. It's an out there choice, but this is no longer the Halloween we expect; this is Rob Zombie's take on the story, going off in its own direction.

Speaking of which, I have to say that while I did see the Unrated Director's Cut, I have seen the theatrical ending (it was *ahem* online somewhere...) and I much prefer Zombie's cut. For one thing (potential spoilers here) killing Laurie earns the "white horse" coda in a better way than having her put on Michael's mask and go catatonic. I'm also of the mind that Laurie doesn't necessarily need to kill Michael for the story to work, so Michael killing Loomis and dying in a hail of gunfire was plenty appropriate. It's similar to the way that they don't show what Michael does to Annie, just its aftermath. True, it would be a cool kill, but the story doesn't need you to see it happen, just like the ending.

Ultimately, while people seem to really hate Halloween II, the Cap'n liked it. I thought that, even with its flaws, this is a sequel that bests its predecessor and works on its own merits. If you can accept that this is a very different kind of movie than any of the original Halloween films, but one with its own internal logic, you might indeed find it worth checking out.

Total Side Note: The Blu-Ray for Halloween II looks nice, but the picture is awash with grain. This was no doubt an aesthetic decision by Rob Zombie, so I'm not bagging the image quality, but I'm betting that if you find the DVD instead the picture won't be radically different.

Spoiler of the Day: Halloween II (2009)

 Okay, follow me if you can - Michael has been seeing visions of his mother and younger version of himself, who lead him to kidnap Laurie. He takes his sister to a barn, and Sheriff Brackett and officers surround the area. Dr. Loomis arrives and against Brackett's wishes, he goes into the barn to try to reason with Michael. Then we have two different endings:

 Theatrical Version - Michael kills Loomis in the barn, and is gunned down. Laurie puts on Michael's mask and walks outside. She takes her mask off, and the film dissolves to Laurie in a mental institution.

 Director's Cut: Michael shoves Loomis through the barn, and kills him in front of the police, who gun him down. Laurie walks out, picks up Michael's knife, and despite Brackett's pleas otherwise, one of the officers shoots Laurie, killing her. We then dissolve to Laurie in the asylum, where Michael's / her mother is coming down the hallway with a white horse. She smiles.

 Tomorrow's Spoiler of the Day: Friday the 13th

Spoiler of the Day: Halloween (2007)

 After Michael appears to kill Loomis (more on that tomorrow), Laurie shoots Michael point blank in the face with a revolver. That should pretty much wrap up this story, right?


Tomorrow's Spoiler of the Day: Halloween II (2009)

Let the Blogorium Speak for Itself...?

 Hrm. The Cap'n doesn't really have a review today. I thought I might, but over the last two days I watched Halloween II with Rob Zombie's commentary track and the group commentary for Trick 'R Treat. I've toyed with the idea of doing write-ups of commentary tracks, as they seem to be the least accessed feature on nearly every DVD and Blu-Ray release. For some reason, it never seems as interesting to write about them as it does to listen to them. Appropriately, many directors, writers, producers, and actors feel like it's not as interesting to listen to them talk about a film when you can let the film speak for itself. Steven Spielberg doesn't record commentary tracks for just that reason, along with David Lynch and the Coen brothers*.

  Part of the appeal of a "Rogue Commentary Track" is that it would allow people who have a marginal history with the film, but who appreciate something about the film, to speak at length about what they take away from it without forcing people to pay anything. If it ever happens, that is. I certainly don't have the equipment to make that happen, but I do know a number of well versed cinephiles who could sit down and provide insightful and entertaining tracks for films that go underrepresented. It's the technical end that's hanging that idea up, and the scheduling; there's rarely time that everyone could get together.

 Well, let's try to make something out of this commentary-centric Saturday. Trick 'R Treat was fun to watch (virtually) with the director, editor, composer, producer, and storyboard artist, and I picked up a few more connective tidbits that I hadn't caught yet. The film really does reward multiple viewings, because it is packed with overlapping character moments. I honestly had no idea that Brian Cox wanted Mr. Kreeg to look like John Carpenter, but it's actually a clever nod that I can see during his segment.

 After listening to the Halloween II "Unrated Director's Cut" commentary, it's clear that two things dominated the making of the film: the decreasing budget / schedule and the editing. Zombie is clearly frustrated that a number of sequences were hampered by schedule cuts, including the Phantom Jam (which was supposed to take four days to shoot but was shortened to one night), and while he feels the film suffers from the shortcuts they had to take, he's reasonably satisfied with the director's cut.

 I'm happy that I found a copy of the Theatrical Cut (available in Canada, but I'm not sure if it is here in the US), because based on Zombie's description of what was cut, alterations made to existing footage, and his feelings about the changes, that unlike many "director's cuts," this is a radically different version of the film. Tonally the films sound quite different: the relationship between Laurie and Annie is less antagonistic, Michael's visions are more ambiguous, and the ending heads in a different direction. Zombie is happier with his cut of the film (available on Blu-Ray), but I think being able to watch both will be a valuable point of comparison. There's also a commentary on that DVD, and I wonder if it's also distinct from the director's cut, as it would be difficult to simply cut out many of the descriptions of what differs.

 All of this may seem irrelevant to many of you, as I understand that people really seem to hate Halloween II. As someone who really hated Halloween, I find it odd that people were less interested in seeing Zombie go off in his own direction with the sequel, and it makes me wonder what exactly it was that you all liked about the 2007 remake. Aside from the hospital dream sequence, Zombie makes no effort to stick to remake "rules," and while it may have problems, I think that Halloween II works as a sequel, and considering that the original Halloween II is a mess of sloppy plot points, needless coincidences, and stupid characters, I'm going to give the edge to Rob.

 Oh well. That seemed more interesting to write than it probably was to read for you. I'll see what I can do to rectify that in the coming days. I have found more than a dozen horror films from the 1980s that I've never heard of before that seem like they'll be fun to review. Until then...



* With the notable exception of The Man Who Wasn't There, which is a low-key affair featuring Joel, Ethan, and Billy Bob Thornton, where they impart a number of interesting details along with what may or may not be a whole bunch of trickery about the film. It depends on whether you trust the mercurial Coens or academics, who claim to have "figured them out" without actually knowing them.

Retro Review: Halloween: H20 and Resurrection

 Originally, I had planned a Retro Review for Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, but  after doing some cursory research on the film I realized that I don't remember Halloween 6 at all. I saw it once, in the fall of 1995, and was surprised to discover Paul Rudd played Tommy Doyle in the film. Until I watch The Curse of Michael Myers again (or can locate the "Producer's Cut" mentioned online), there's really no point in revisiting a film I can't recall.

 Which brings me to Halloween: H20 and Halloween Resurrection, two movies I've barely seen again since the first time I watched them. They did, however, leave a greater impression on my mind than Donald Pleasance's final film appearance, and since I enjoy one of them more than anyone else seems to and really hate the other one, it's fitting to comment on the close of the pre-remake sequels to John Carpenter's Halloween. This one-two punch will leave the Cap'n with only Halloween 3, 5, and 6 to cover in the Blogorium*.

For those of you looking for a series recap, here's one in 60 words or less: Michael Myers kills his family, goes to a sanitarium under the care of Doctor Loomis, escapes, tries to kill Laurie Strode, fails, tries again, is replaced by an evil toy mask manufacturer, returns, tries to kill Laurie's niece Jamie, fails, tries again, fails, tries again, succeeds, but is then foiled by Loomis and a grown up Tommy Doyle**.

 Then there was a three year break, leading us to 1998, twenty years after the first Halloween. We move from Haddonfield, Illinois to somewhere in Northern California, where Keri Tate (Jamie Lee Curtis) is the dean of a private school with her son John (Josh Hartnett) and boyfriend Will (Adam Arkin). The funniest thing is that Keri Tate is a dead-ringer for Laurie Strode, and we discover that (SPOILER ALERT) she IS Laurie Strode. Laurie faked her death to keep Michael from chasing her (which is good, because Michael instead decided to wipe out the rest of her blood relations), and she'd been pretty successful avoiding (SPOILER ALERT AGAIN) her brother for the last twenty years. That is, until Doctor Loomis (the late Donald Pleasance, heard in narration) dies and Michael just happens to find his house and discover exactly where Laurie is. He also kills some kid (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) with an ice skate.

 Anyway, school's out for fall break(?) and Laurie's colleague Norma Watson (Janet Leigh, who is Jamie Lee Curtis' mother, which is technically a SPOILER for family tree detectives. I won't spoil that her father is Tony Curtis. Oh, crap) drives off in a car that looks a lot like Marion Crane (Janet Leigh)'s car from Psycho***. Michael begins stalking the campus, killing off students dumb enough to watch Scream 2 (gee, I wonder why? We'll get to that in a second...), and John and Molly (Michelle Williams) find the bodies and become "next" on the kill list. Unless Laurie, Will, and security guard Ronny (L.L. Cool J) can stop Michael.

 Why am I being so glib about H20? Well, the more I think about the film - based on a treatment by Scream co-creator Kevin Williamson - the stupider it seems. It's funny, because I guess I overlooked how stupid and obvious these references were when I was 19 (something the people who saw it with me did not), and the Cap'n instead focused on the Laurie Strode / Michael Myers story line. To be fair, that is the only thing H20 has going for it: the film decides to pretend that Halloween 4, 5, and 6 never happened****, which you can debate the relative merits of, I guess, in order to focus on the lethal sibling rivalry. The ending, where (SPOILER ALERT) Laurie decapitates an ambulance driver Michael's head is still a satisfying close to their story, one that the following film manages to ruin in the first five minutes.

 It's worth noting that even at the time we were impressed that L.L. Cool J took five or six rounds to the chest from a revolver and walked away at the end of the film. I don't remember if they said he was wearing a vest, but why would a prep school security officer need to?

Anyway, back to the way that Resurrection mangles everything, even making people who didn't like H20 say "well, at least that one didn't kill Laurie Strode." Oh, (SPOILER ALERT). Yeah, in addition to retrofitting H20 so that Michael somehow does a switcheroo with an ambulance driver before Laurie can lop his head off with an axe, they leap forward in time to an asylum where Laurie's been locked up, waiting for Michael to wander in unabated. Sure enough, they tangle, she tries to kill him (hanging? maybe?) but he stabs her or something and she falls from the roof of the asylum in what is the least effective death of a Final Girl since Jason Vorhees followed Alice Hardy back to town for some apartment complex murderin'.

But wait! That's the BEGINNING of Halloween: Resurrection, a movie that gets EVEN WORSE before Busta Rhymes drops some Kung Fu on Michael Myers. That does happen, by the way, and you don't need a SPOILER ALERT because we both know you don't have to watch this film.

So what, pray tell, could the plot of the 8th Halloween film be if the villain kills the Final Girl in the opening of the film? How about a webcam reality show about some stupid contestants wandering around the Myers house? Sound good? Freddie Harris (Busta Rhymes) and Nora Winston (Tyra Banks) sure thought so, and their web company, DangerTainment, is sponsoring this MTV's Fear knock-off. A group of college students (including Katee Sackhoff, Sean Patrick Thomas, and Thomas Ian Nichols) who "won" the chance to be on this show, wander around the house looking for clues about Michael Myers. Want to guess who has nowhere else to go after he killed his sister? Want to guess who isn't happy to find people in his childhood home? Want to place bets on whether a charred Michael Myers opens his eye for the final stinger in this turdstorm of a sequel?

The 19 year-old Cap'n may have been kind to H20, but the 23 year-old knew he hated Resurrection well before the halfway point. I remember not liking Halloween 6, but that's not as clear to me as the hatred for the last gasp of the Halloween franchise after Miramax squeezed everything left out in 2002. In retrospect, had I watched Resurrection again before Rob Zombie's Halloween, I might have been kinder, even with all of the idiotic "I'm gonna skullfuck you" dialogue. It's like the Weinstein brothers perceived a certain formula from H20 (a handful of "hot" young actors from better movies*****, a popular rapper, some referential dialogue, and whatever the newest fad was) and recycled it into a crappier version, a xerox of Kevin Williamson's already growing stale pop culture screenplays.

 Halloween: Resurrection is what people are complaining about when they talk about how awful sequels are, and devoid of the one consistent narrative thread between the first seven films (okay, six, since Halloween III isn't about Michael or his family tree), there's nothing worth investing your time in. I honestly can't say I've seen a moment of the film since we saw it on the big screen, and I know I've watched parts of H20 on cable. If one was on, the other one must have been at some point. After part 8, there was a five year layover, and then Zombie took over. At the time I write this, Patrick Lussier and Todd Farmer (My Bloody Valentine 3-D, Drive Angry) have pitched a Halloween 3D to the Weinsteins that they may eventually get to after rebooting Hellraiser (you read that right), but for now, at least I can say that Rob Zombie's Halloween 2, for as many detractors as it has, is a MUCH better movie than Halloween Resurrection, and it's probably better than H20. Now who would've thought I'd ever say that?



*For write-ups of Halloween (kind of), Halloween II, Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Myers, Halloween the Remake and Halloween 2 the Remake, follow the respective links.
** This much I gathered from IMDB's coverage of Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers.
*** SPOILER: It IS Marion Crane's car from Psycho.
**** In the interest of fairness, Williamson's original draft did include 4,5, and 6 as continuity, and writers Robert Zappia and Matt Greenberg wisely dropped the subplot.
**** And by that I mean American Pie and Save the Last Dance, and eventually Sackhoff would be in Battlestar Galactica but I'm not giving Bob and Harvey any credit for that one...

Blogorium Review: Super

In many ways, Super feels like James Gunn's response to Matthew Vaughn's Kick-Ass; Gunn (Slither, The Specials), who wrote and directed the film, seems to be taking the concept of a normal schlub turned masked vigilante in the "real" world and letting it play out without Hit Girl's and jetpacks with Gatling guns attached. The end result is vulgar, graphically violent, and at times bizarre. More importantly, it's funny, as long as your sense of humor is deeply twisted.

Frank D'Arbo (Rainn Wilson) is a nobody cook at a diner married to recovering junkie Sarah (Liv Tyler), until she leaves him for strip club owner / drug dealer Jacques (Kevin Bacon). When Frank tries to win her back, he pushes the rather reasonable Jacques to the point of unleashing his goons, Abe (Michael Rooker), Toby (Sean Gunn) and Quill (Stephen Blackheart), and a beating ensues. Unable to talk a police Detective (Gregg Henry) into helping him, Frank finds inspiration from Holy Avenger (Nathan Fillion), a TV Superhero that seems to be sending him messages directly through the show. After consulting comic book shop employee Libby (Ellen Page), Frank decides to become The Crimson Bolt, a masked vigilante who fights crime. His wave of righteous, if brutal, crime-fighting inspires Libby to join him as Boltie, The Crimson Bolt's sidekick, and together they storm Jacques' mansion(?) compound to save Sarah.

Off the bat, I have to tell you that Super is not for most people. Most of you will bristle at the violence, at the casual brutality visited on nearly every character, and the cavalier attitude towards bad taste. The tone is going to rub many audiences the wrong way - it's a little weird, a little sentimental, and a lot cruel. That said, if you loved Slither, or have a soft spot for Troma Team releases (not coincidentally where Gunn cut his teeth), you're going to love this film. We're talking about a movie that opens with an animated version of Frank's life, with a combination of melting bodies, bunny rabbits, and song-and-dance choreography, and features Rob Zombie as the voice of God*.

I understand that people really like Kick-Ass, and I don't. I hate Kick-Ass, if for nothing else than it gives up on its premise halfway through the film in order to appeal to geeks looking for something "bad ass." At a certain point, the experiment of "comic book hero in the real world" simply becomes "how many people can hit girl kill / call 'cunts'"? Instead of commenting on comic book violence, Kick-Ass settles to up the quotient and hope you forgot the premise.

Super doesn't stray into the realm of "unbelievable," aside from one of the strangest instances of "divine inspiration" you're likely to ever see. The film itself may be weird (and that's the best way to put it), but in terms of its premise, it keeps the rules clear. The Crimson Bolt loses his first fight, decides to research what non-super-powered heroes use, and settles on a wrench. Imagine a vigilante that runs up to criminals and smashes their head in with a wrench, and you have some idea of what kind of movie you're in for. The wrench hits are, shall we say, visceral, although it's far from as graphic as some violence gets later in the film.

It wasn't until after I finished Super that I realized the news coverage about The Crimson Bolt followed the same direction that The Toxic Avenger did, almost directly - the "victims" of The Crimson Bolt (and later, Boltie) are eventually revealed to be the pedophiles, drug dealers, and thieves Frank already knew they were, and somehow the public tide turns in his direction, just like Toxie. That this follows an expletive-laden "announcement" from Bolty about the dynamic duo makes it all the more amusing. Really, if the movie hasn't won you over by that point, Ellen Page's shift from Libby to Boltie will tip the scales in a big way.

Rainn Wilson's Frank D'Arbo** is a believable schlub; Wilson plays the loser as a basically nice guy who has been trod his entire life and just wants a break. For the brutality he dishes out, Frank is surprisingly old fashioned in his morals - when Libby becomes, shall we say, increasingly randy, and tries to seduce Frank, he freaks out and reminds her he IS married and that he takes that very seriously. That said, it doesn't really work; I don't want to spoil too much, but it is one of the more twisted and hilarious sex scenes you'll see this year.

Ellen Page wasn't doing much for me as Libby, a character that's mostly trying too hard to be appealing in an otherwise unappealing world, but that shift to Boltie changes everything. When she puts the costume on and feels free to go crazy, not only does a wanton cruelty emerge, but Boltie can't seem to stop calling The Crimson Bolt "Frank" in front of everyone, and her enthusiasm lifts the film at a much needed juncture.

Kevin Bacon is probably the biggest surprise in the film; he plays Jacques as a sleazeball that's really trying not to be. When Frank charges up to him outside of his club (Bare Assets), Jacques tries to be the bigger man in the situation, even after D'Arbo starts hitting his car and screaming at him. I think you're supposed to hate him, but until the end I kind of liked Jacques, because Kevin Bacon is so reasonable and Frank seems so unreasonable.

Liv Tyler doesn't have much to do as the damsel-in-distress Sarah, but she's generally likable and you believe that she could fall for Frank. I honestly didn't know which of the goons was Gunn's brother and which one was Blackheart, but they were fine - the real star of that show is Rooker, whose Abe likes eating candy and listening to music when not hurting people. Nathan Fillion's stoic Holy Avenger is likely to give fans of The Hammer a great topic of discussion: which Fillion "superhero" is better (Cranpire also suggests his "supervillian" Preacher from Buffy the Vampire Slayer be part of the debate). There are a few other nice cameos I won't mention, although I question why of all of them Linda Cardellini's pet shop employee made it into the opening credits when she's barely in the movie.

I must reiterate that fans of The Office and Dwight Schrute are probably going to hate Super. Ellen Page fans from Juno and Whip It are more than likely going to hate Super. Fans of Kick-Ass are probably going to hate Super. People with an iota of good taste are certainly going to hate Super. Some critics already hate Super because of what happens to Boltie (and one of the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes flat out spoils it). This is not a film for everyone, even if the posters are quite clever and it puts The Crimson Bolt's catchphrase ("Shut up, crime!") to good use. I think people are expecting a more kitschy, indie comedy and are getting something much more demented.

Super is mostly going to appeal to a) people who were underwhelmed with Kick-Ass, and b) existing James Gunn fans. If you liked Slither and Tromeo and Juliet, or the off kilter tone of Scooby Doo, Dawn of the Dead (2005) or The Specials (which he wrote) , then this is going to be right up your alley. You can take James Gunn out of Troma, but you can't take the Troma out of James Gunn, and this is certainly a more polished version of a Troma superhero movie. If that sounds like something you'd want to see, I feel strongly you're going to really enjoy Super.


* I did not realize this until looking it up on IMDB, but considering the film, its wholly appropriate. *Which, by the way, is suspiciously similar in spelling to Frank D'Amico, Mark Strong's character in Kick-Ass.

Blogorium Essay: Home is Where the Monster Is.

Here's a break from the norm: the Cap'n was asked to write a short piece on the subject of "home." This is what came to me:

Home is where the Monster is.

I thought long and hard about the subject of “home,” and invariably my mind wandered to horror films, as it always does. Home means something to us in horror films, mostly because the most successful fright films deal with the invasion of home. We feel safe at home, and the violation of that safety scares us more than giant lizards or killer rabbits ever could. It’s more than a nuisance, it’s terrifying. But sometimes we don’t give the monsters a fair shake. Sometimes, we’re invading their home.

Take Jason Vorhees, for example. Okay, hulking monstrosity, hockey mask, machete, and all that. He’s scary, I get that. But he only ever follows one person home, at the very beginning of Friday the 13^th Part 2. The rest of the time, Vorhees tries to stay in and around Camp Crystal Lake. Summer camp is a home away from home for America’s youth, a proving group filled with absentee counselors and budding adolescence.

It’s also Jason Vorhees home. It’s the only home he knows, and every summer another gaggle of horny teenagers show up, making noise and smoking pot. Can you blame him for hacking them to pieces? Home is where the heart is, and if you’re a mongoloid without proper parents, maybe the more hearts, the merrier. Literally. The crazy old man in town did warn them, after all.

Consider also the Halloween series. Whether you’re on team Carpenter or team Zombie, Michael Myers invariably heads home after escaping the asylum. Maybe he just wants to relive old memories: Christmas mornings, playing in the back yard, or stabbing his sister to death while wearing a clown mask. Who can be sure? The important point is that even movie monsters have the same desires we do. We all want to go back home after being away for a while. The sting that home isn’t the same; that you have to make home where you find yourself, can be jarring. Thankfully, more people adapt than become homicidal maniacs.

On the other hand, there’s the curious case of Freddy Krueger. Despite what many years of sequels have wiped away, the iconic house so associated with the gloved killer isn’t actually his house. It was Nancy’s house, then Jesse’s house. Freddy didn’t just invade the dreams of Elm Street’s children – he decided to move in! This always troubled me, because Freddy has no attachment to the house. Nancy’s mother just kept his hat there, in a furnace in the basement. If that gives you “squatter’s rights,” then I need to start leaving articles of clothing everywhere I go.

Freddy is the ultimate “bad” roommate – the house was in great shape until he moved in, you can’t come home without finding something horrible around every corner, and every now and then he brings a girl home and turns her into a cockroach. Not cool, Freddy! It’s no wonder that nobody moves into 1428 Elm Street. For that matter, nobody wants to move into the Myers house either. I’ll chalk that up to a sense of cosmic propriety – we don’t want monsters stalking around our homes. It’s fair to assume they don’t want to come home and find us stalking around theirs either.

Food for thought: “home is where the monster is” can be read both ways. As the Twilight Zone taught us: sometimes we’re the monsters. Those homicidal maniacs? They just want a place to kick back and get away from the big bad world for a while. Then they’ll try to kill you.

The Blogorium: Home of Second Chances

Here at the Blogorium, the Cap'n has an inexplicable tendency to give movies another chance, especially ones I didn't like the first (or sometimes second) time around. Why I'm willing to give these movies (say, House of 1000 Corpses) another shot when I'm not willing to give others (say, Twilight) a shot at all remains one of the great mysteries of our time.

Friends have pointed out that this is attributable to some masochistic streak in the Cap'n: not only can't I just let a bad movie "go," I won't let it go, returning for more and more doses of disappointment, disgust or, worst of all, boredom. And it is true that in some cases I simply can't understand why it is something clicks with so many people yet is a dud to me, and I'll try to approach the offending feature from various perspectives. The aforementioned House of 1000 Corpses is such and example: to this day I can't figure out why anyone would give something so shoddy a pass, yet almost everyone I know does. Many of them really like it, which boggles my mind further, as I can't find anything to like in that train wreck disguising itself as "homage" horror.

Last summer I found myself yet again sitting through Shit Coffin (many of you might know it by the moniker Friday the 13th the Remake) with Professor Murder because the people who don't want to outright ignore it find the moniker "Shit Coffin" to be a sign of strong emotions, ergo something they should see (The reality is that "Shit Coffin" is a perfectly reasonable name for the film, an adequate descriptor of the content therein, even if explaining why is folly. It's just easier for you to see for yourself that the film is, in fact, a "Shit Coffin").

Anyway, so as not to risk pushing the Not Safe For Work boundaries any further, there I was once again watching Platinum Dunes vomit all over a horror franchise that I counted myself a fan of, still unclear on exactly what was appealing to the people who saw this: Friday the 13th fans had nothing to go for, people vaguely aware of the films might find some cheap thrills but if they thought even half a second about the massive plot holes they'd tune out, and stoners who would overlook all of the above don't go see movies. They can't smoke in the auditorium and the drive is too much for them. I will admit that Friday the 13th the Remake has its own stupid charms, stemming from the lazy way the film is constructed, and I hate it less than Platinum Dunes' A Nightmare on Elm Street the Remake (which if you're wondering, is in fact Shit Coffin 2).

In some instances, I find that second chances work out. While it didn't with Sin City for example, I was more forgiving of The Fifth Element, a film I hated in high school (for reasons I don't quite understand) but am now glad I came back to. If I had stuck with my "I hate Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," I wouldn't have given Chamber of Secrets a shot and would accordingly have missed out on films that improved as time went on. The same can be said of The Devil's Rejects, functionally a sequel to House of 1000 Corpses (a film I hate) that I found myself pleasantly surprised to enjoy as much as I did. Interestingly, the exact same dynamic is the case with Rob Zombie's Halloween remakes - I hate the first one, but really like the second, and have tried (with no success) to "understand" why people like the earlier remake.

All of this is my way of letting you know that I'm toying with watching Cabin Fever again for tomorrow's Retro Review: Eli Roth's debut is a movie that I kind-of liked when I first saw it, talked myself out of it shortly afterward, watched again on home video, didn't really enjoy for a few particular scenes I'll highlight tomorrow, but can't shake. It's usually the first DVD / Blu-Ray to go if I need to sell something, yet I've been known to pick it up with other used DVDs if the deal is good. I realize that makes no sense, so hopefully we can work through it together tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Special From the Vaults: To the Wayback Machine

Okay, wayback might be pushing a little bit, but this is (arguably) the oldest piece I could find that the Cap'n wrote about film. There may be some high school related ephemera, but as I've lost all of the "year end recaps" prior to 2003 to the vast wasteland of outdated email accounts, what I have left is a recap from nearly eight years ago.

To set things up: as it states in the first sentence, the Cap'n emailed my end of year roundups to friends, family, et al. For years, I didn't do much blogging, and what I did was limited to silly things like livejournal that are almost entirely gibberish*, so this is about as "readable" as they come.

That said, punctuation is still a mess, sentence fragments abound, and I had a very hard time capitalizing letters for some reason, often arbitrarily. I opted not to change anything, so what's below can be embarrassing, at least to me. Still, it's a valuable learning tool, or if nothing else an example of how far I have (or haven't) come. Enjoy.

---

I send this out every year as an email, but there's no reason you shouldn't see it too, so here you go. comment freely.


i'd be remiss not to note that this year is by and large the YEAR OF SEQUELS. it was a good year for franchises (or a bad one, depending on your opinion) but at any rate we saw a lot of remakes, second and third chapters, and reruns of movies we thought had already come and gone.
as oscar season begins the grand ascension to top of all things media, i'll go out on a limb and offer what i think will end up doing the golden globe/oscar strut. Let's see... The Last Samurai, Mystic River, 21 Grams, Big Fish, Cold Mountain, The House of Sand and Fog, Mona Lisa Smile, and Return of the King. How many of these did i see? just one. (i don't anticipate seeing any of the other ones, except Big Fish. i am as curious as anyone else.)

now that we have oscar hogs out of the way ( i can not and will not vouch for the quality of any one i haven't seen, but expect to see some variation on them this spring, depending on advertising dollars) i'll quickly dispense of other movies i wanted to see but didn't get to: Lost in Translation, Max, Intolerable Cruelty, Dirty Pretty Things, Matchstick Men, and ... well, i'm sure there are more. it's always difficult to remember when you're in the midst of a list.

there are, of course, the movies i didn't want to see, but any raves/pans/etc would be appreciated: Underworld, Gothika, Charlie's Angels Full Throttle, Freaky Friday, 2 Fast 3 Furious, ahahaha yeah you got me, i don't really care if these movies were 5 Star brilliant! i don't plan on seeing them. ever. (try me, davis. try me)

normally i rank these fuckers, but to be honest, i just don't know how to put these above/below each other this year. i enjoyed/hated all of the following for various reasons, so i'm just going to list them and tell you what i thought. (to hell with organization!)

in no particular order:


The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King - with a few minor quibbles, i thought it was great. i anticipate the extended version will fix all of the little quirks i had, but nevertheless you have to hand it to Peter Jackson for setting out to make this epic and succeeding in a way George Lucas and The Wachowski Brothers could only dream of. Gollum/Smeagol looked even better this time around, and the arc of the movie kept my eyes on screen the whole time (this is rare) i can dig it. as an entire series, i expect the lord of the rings will be remembered down the line with all other "classics" and for that, hurrah. the cast was uniformly strong, but special kudos to Miranda Otto, Sean Astin, Andy Serkis, Ian McKellan, and Elijah Wood. and Shelob looked better than i thought she would.

Spider - This is the type of movie Cronenberg hasn't tried since Dead Ringers or The Dead Zone; a character study without the obvious horror manifesting. the slow unraveling of Spider Clegg's mind, the use of images and colour, editing choices designed to disorientate... Spider demands to be viewed repeatedly, there are no other options. Ralph Fiennes gets away from dreck like Maid To Order 2: JLo, and makes this fragile, twisted wreck of a man someone we want unravel the mess inside of his brain. kudos to Miranda Richardson for taking a triple role and not letting anything slide into parody. i don't want to spoil Spider for anyone, so go rent it.

The Rundown - Yes, THAT the Rundown. The one with the Rock. And Stiffler. And Christopher Walken (and Spud from Trainspotting, Ewan Bremmer) It sets itself up early to let the audience know this is nothing beyond a popcorn film, and by that criteria it succeeds admirably. Basically, it's just Midnight Run in the jungle, so if you liked Midnight Run, you'll love it. Dwayne Johnson has a steady career ahead of himself if he chooses the action-comedy genre. (he has an amiable, goofy charm, and a physique that lend him well. oh, and a passing of the torch from arnold. watch the beginning carefully) Stiffler is, well, Stiffler. If you like Seann William Scott in general, you'll have no complaints. Christopher Walken is just CHEWING scenery here, and it's worth watching just to see him imitate the "christopher walken" parody (and during a tooth fairy metaphor, no less) dumb fun.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - would be less polarizing if it had ANY other name. for one thing, it's just not fair to compare it to the original, because OF COURSE it doesn't stand up. as a gritty, high level hollywood thriller, it works pretty well. the camp value of the sequels is nowhere to be found, and leatherface is scary again, not just some guy in a dress. there's an attempt to tie this in to Ed Gein a little more, and to provide a back story to Leatherface, but honestly, who came to see that? TCM is a decent horror movie, and it will only disappoint those expecting the original or better. speaking of the original...

House of 1,000 Corpses - tries too hard to attain the same "shock value" of 70's horror movies (last house on the left, friday the 13th, tcm, etc) but somewhere along the line Rob Zombie forgot that a horror movie needs a story or at the very least someone you care about. House of 1,000 has neither (nor does it have the 1,000 corpses boasted). Instead, we have some hokum about "Dr. Satan", a family that, aside from being crazy, has nothing to do with him, and a gas station/museum/carnival ride owner who curses with intermittent dialogue. this movie is rife with bad choices, and i can't honestly believe that it has a cult audience. i could go on and on about the amateur acting, the miserable "plot twists", or the longest pull back for a death scene ever, but instead i'll just chuckle thinking about Agatha Crispies cereal.

Kill Bill Volume One - Quentin Tarantino's ode to grindhouse flicks of the seventies is a labour of love, and it shows. From his choices in casting to the music or costumes and editing, Quentin lays his inner film geek on the line here. Uma Thurman is a sight to behold in this movie. Cheers to her for coming back strong and shaking off Mia Wallace once and for all. If you haven't seen Kill Bill, know this: This is a VIOLENT movie. I won't say film. This isn't art, this is a loving tribute to a genre with a built in audience, and Tarantino knew it. He doesn't disappoint, and i expect Volume Two to be even better. As a film maker, he's stepping up his game, and Kill Bill is technically superior without being too gimmicky.

Cabin Fever - Eli Roth learned a thing or two from Evil Dead. That's crucial to understanding the marketing behind this low budget gem. Cabin Fever is atypical of horror movies, and that bugs a lot of horror fans, but this isn't quite a scare fest. It's a genre bender, pitting the cast of a Teen Sex Comedy in a Cabin in the Woods Horror Movie. While it has problems (the movie doesn't know where to end and stumbles a bit in the final act), it's nevertheless a nice first film to build a career of off, and they marketed the shit out of this movie (when i went to see it, great steps were made to replicate set pieces, "authentic" paraphenilia, etc.) plus it doesn't look as cheap as it was to make, and there are some wonderful nods to past cheapie thrillers.

The Animatrix, Matrix Reloaded, and Revolutions - First, let it be known i am NOT a matrix fan. when i saw the first movie, i hated it. It felt like someone had taken Dark City and put kung fu in place of acting chops. That being said, the Animatrix was a nice step towards not hating Reloaded as much. Providing some interesting context to the more interesting aspects of this series makes it head and shoulders better than the movies. Now, onto Reloaded. I was shocked how bad this movie was. The actors were half assing it (even Laurence Fishburne looked like he forgot how to emote), the dialogue was stilted and unecessarily complicated (i'm sorry, you can't try to talk over the audiences head to trick them into thinking that it's brilliant. it JUST DOESN'T WORK) and all the new characters were perfunctory and grating. Speaking of which, what the hell happened to the Twins in Revolutions? They just vanished! The Architect was SO unecessary, as was his scene with Neo. ugh. i could go on about the rave, blah blah shitty movie. BAD BAD MOVIE. the only bright spot was Hugo Weaving, who seemed to understand you can still have fun in these movies. Revolutions was better than Reloaded. i'll give it that. This doesn't mean i didn't have problems with it, but at least the sense of URGENCY was back in this one. people cared about their fate, and it seemed like something was actually at stake. BUT, this does not explain how someone with a pipe CLEARLY sticking out of their lungs can talk for seven minutes before dying. i enjoyed anything involving Agent Smith or the Siege on Zion in this one, but not much else. and the ending.... ugh!


Once Upon a Time in Mexico - seemed to disappoint a lot of people. I'm not sure why. Well, i suppose because they forgot this was the sequel to El Mariachi and Desperado, or they at the very least didn't bother to double check those movies. really. in the opening credits it clearly says
"A Robert Rodriguez FLICK". this is not high art, folks. this is his attempt to create the spaghetti western in mexico, and it adheres pretty closely. the ads were misleading, yes, playing up the epic nature of it, altering the role of Johnny Depp and leading people to believe Salma Hayek was in the movie more than she was (in reality, she was shooting Frida) but this is nevertheless the over the top wrap up to the El Mariachi Series. While Antonio Banderas, Danny Trejo, Willem Dafoe, Cheech Marin, Ruben Blades, and Mickey Rourke are having a ball, this movie belongs to Johnny Depp. He is utterly brilliant here, twisting a plot device character and giving him the type of quirks you can't help but admire. He steals the show out from everyone (again, but i'll get to that later...) Robert Rodriguez helms it all with a love for his craft and it feels like he's having a grand time with this film, just like..

Spy Kids 3-D - Yes, i freely admit to seeing the Spy Kids films and loving all three of them. Get past the stupid trailers; these are top rate kids films that adults can watch and enjoy too. the use of 3-D in this movie is more organic than i thought, and it boasts a higher rate cast than you'd imagine.. (don't believe me? check this out: Antonio Banderas, Carla Gugino, Ricardo Montalban,
Sylvester Stallone, Mike Judge, Salma Hayek, Steve Buscemi, Alan Cumming, George Clooney, Cheech Marin, Danny Trejo, Tony Shaloub, Bill Paxton, and Elijah Wood) yep, that's someone from every robert rodriguez movie represented. and finally, someone reminds us why people liked Sylvester Stallone! See these movies, i promise they're better than you'd think.

Freddy vs. Jason - If you liked the Friday the 13th series or the Nightmare on Elm Street series, you've already seen this. If you don't like them, don't bother. I mean, you aren't going to like it. If you love your horror tongue in cheek, you appreciate a film that balances both series with affectionate nods in both directions, then Freddy vs. Jason will not disappoint. The kills are better than even Jason X boasted, and despite the fact it's not Kane Hodder under the hockey mask, everything works. Can you pass up seeing Robert Englund as Freddy again?

Willard - Is not like the original. the original Willard was, to be fair, bad. It was cheap and not really scary (however it's not a bad as Ben, the unecessary sequel) This Willard is a very atmospheric black comedy, and you really just can't beat Crispin Glover and R. Lee Ermey on screen (Mulholland Dr fans, do note Laura Herring is in this movie too). Don't expect scares and i predict you'll find Willard is hilarious and evil. plus the dvd has the most informative commentary you will ever hear (for the music video of crispin glover's cover of "ben")

Final Destination 2 - I didn't really watch all of it, to be honest. Adam was drunk and just too entertaining. the death scenes were more gruesome (and inventive) than the first one...

Pirates of the Carribean: Curse of the Black Pearl - was as much fun as you can have at the movies and SOOOO much better than i could've guessed. Anythin based on a Disney Ride automatically breeds suspicion (and later you'll see my theory validated) Orlando Bloom, Kiera Knightley, Johnathan Pryce and Geoffery Rush all do wonderful jobs playing in the shadow of JOHNNY DEPP. just like Once Upon a Time in Mexico, he owns this film. how people forget him year after year baffles me, but the mere fact he's involved in the sequel guarantees i'll check it out. Gore Verbinski has settled himself into steady groove of successful genre films, and more power to him for it (yes, this is how you follow up The Mexican and The Ring, folks) entertaining all around. yarrrr.

Finding Nemo - It's Pixar, folks. Need I say more? The most consistent animated film company hits another one out of the park. Where does it sit with the others? for me, somewhere between Monsters, Inc. and A Bug's Life. Not quite Toy Story or Toy Story 2, but a damn sight better than any other american kid's animation.

The Haunted Mansion - Why? because it was the Haunted Mansion or Gothika, and Mission Valley was closer and cheaper. Yes, it's as bad as you suspect, save for two things: 1) if you like to mercilessly rip into Terrence Stamp (and oh boy, do we) or 2) you want to see a film that ends with a BRIDGE FROM LOUISIANA TO HAWAII. that's right. Terrence Stamp can't honestly believe he's on par with Richard Burton when he's in a film this bad. Eddie Murphy! Get back together with Steve Martin and Frank Oz! Make good comedies. Sheesh...

Bad Santa - Cannot be advertised. You need to understand that. Ads do not do this film justice. It's true, this is the most mean spirited Christmas movie you'll ever see. Bad Santa earns its R rating in the first two minutes of the film, and it's as funny as anything you'll see next year. i promise. Billy Bob Thornton is laugh out loud funny, and you get Samir from Office Space, the MOST pathetic kid in a christmas movie ever, plus Bernie Mac and Tony Cox. From Terry Zwigoff (Ghost World and Crumb) and The Coen Brothers. ok? get crack-a-lackin (ohhhh you idiot terrence stamp...)

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind - Which i believe came out at the tail end of 2002, but i saw this year and couldn't then, so there. George Clooney and Charlie Kaufman turn Chuck Barris's "unauthorized" autobiography into a whirlwind of a movie, and anchoring everything is Sam Rockwell is Barris. This movie sinks or swims on his shoulders, and he handles it so well i'm amazed he's not a bigger star by now. look for him to break out big time soon. Clooney is no slacker his first time behind the camera, either. avoiding digital effects, he uses in camera trickery to pull off the more surreal elements of the storyline. not perfect, but a fine effort.

X2 - aka x-men whatever. the movie i saw didn't have the words x-men united anywhere in it, so i'll just call it X2. an improvement in almost every way on x-men (hey, i said almost, but i'm getting ahead of myself) there are plenty of sly references toward the x-universe and hints of things to come (and judging by box office receipts there will be an x3 and 4, etc) alan cumming is spot on as nightcrawler, and it's always a joy seeing Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan on screen together. that being said, the fact that it's a chapter in a larger story means that characters are getting spotty at best screen time (whereas Storm suffered in the first film, Cyclops is pushed almost to a cameo in this film, whereas Logan is still the focus. Rogue doesn't do much but react to Iceman and Pyro, and aside from hinting at the Phoenix to come, Jean Grey isn't particularly important to this movie. the beginnings of the brotherhood of evil mutants was cool, plus a pre-fur Beast, Collosus, and indications of Omega Red and Gambit in the future) a solid, if not perfect, second entry. it won't be the weak link in the series i suspect.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines - Was so much better than it deserved to be. Ok, i'll admit i had ZERO expectations for this film (James Cameron, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong all drop successively out of this project, early word is terrible) it's true, i never saw U-571, so i didn't know if Johnathan Mostow could handle a Terminator film, but when it's not your franchise, how could you? Yes, this movie is alternately derivative and slyly nodding towards the other terminator films (the sunglasses motif was cute, and seeing dr. silberman again was fun) Nick Stahl and Claire Danes do the best they can with the script they've got, and Kristianna Loken one up's Robert Patrick as the T-X, plus the film boasts the bleakest ending of any summer "blockbuster" you're likely to see. it shouldn't have been fun, but it is.

Bad Boys 2 - Is too much of a guy/buddy cop action movie for its own good. two and a half hours of over the top violence, gay bashing, and car crashes is too much. really. if you like seeing endless shots up women's skirts, digging through corpses, bullets flying or repeated jokes about dating someone's sister, by all means, this is your movie. if you want to see joe pantoliano and peter stormare cash a paycheck, this is your movie. if you need to stop thinking and say "wow, that car flipped twice over the boat" or you love flagrant product placement, whooooa is this your film. it is not something i'll be watching again.

Looney Tunes: Back in Action - I didn't like the movie itself, but Joe Dante has a knack for detail and throwaway gags that is unrivaled. Seriously, just read the names of the Spy Movie Posters in Brendan Fraser's house (all starring Timothy Dalton) or the fact that a new Batman being filmed on the Warner lot has Roger Corman directing it. Or perhaps seeing Scooby and Shaggy berating Matthew Lilliard. Or Ron Pearlman. or the Area 52 scene (complete with monsters from Fiend without a Face, This Island Earth, The Day of the Triffids, Dr. Who, Forbidden Planet, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Them!, The Beast from Haunted Cave and the Man from Planet X) or a scene for scene parody of Psycho's most famous scene. if these things sound interesting to you, see Looney Tunes. otherwise, please don't

Secretary - I can't remember if i reviewed this last year or not. anyway, i'll put it this way for you: it's a more fucked up story about true love than Punch-Drunk Love. Maggie Gyllenhaal needs to stay away from things like Mona Lisa Smile (yes, i just checked imdb, and i came out in 2002, but i don't think i saw it until 2003)

and finally, how can i end this but with the only movie appropriate for such an occasion:


The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - This is a trainwreck of a movie. first, it's crucial to understand if you like the comic AT ALL, you should avoid this movie. or pretend you never read the comic. please, because the logic leaps made in this disaster will send any rational reader into head-scratching territory. let me begin with the premise of the comic, as it's BASICALLY the same as the movie.

Okay, it's the end of the Nineteenth Century. Imagine, if you will, the Mina Harker, Allan Quatermain, Dr. Henry Jekyll, Hawley Griffin (the invisible man), and Captain Nemo are in fact real and living in different parts of the world. MI-6 (yes, the one that James Bond will eventually work for) recruits them to locate a cavorite capable of defying gravity (from H.G. Wells's The First Men In the Moon) that was stolen by a crime lord. Sherlock Holmes is presumed dead but rumours abound he may still be alive. this is the premise of the first volume of the league of extraordinary gentlemen.

LXG (as the movie will be known from here out) differs in the following ways:

-Allan Quatermain is not an opium addict languishing away in Africa, but a retired legend.

-Mina Harker is a Vampire, rather than just a "scandalized" woman.

-Captain Nemo practices Kung Fu.

-Hawley Griffin is not the invisible man, but rather it's a thief who finds his serum.

-Tom Sawyer and Dorian Gray are added.

ok, some of this is curious (particularly Tom Sawyer, who in the 1890s would be in his 40's or 50's, not a twenty something working for the US Government [why? because the adventures of tom sawyer takes place before the civil war, putting it 30-40 years before the events of this story]) but ok, for the sake of a more "interesting" movie, we take these changes in stride. right? why then would you put Mina Harker in BROAD DAYLIGHT not once but twice?? Why is Dorian Gray suddenly unable to look at his portrait? i will forgive the city of venice for having waterways wide enough for the Nautilus to fit through and streets in which to have a CAR chase (not just a car, but a six cylinder 1930's style rolls royce rip off). Why betray the laws you set up? that's just lazy film making.

to be kind to LXG, there are some cute attempts to copy things from the comics (nods towards previous Leagues, etc) but ultimately the film fails because it can't get around the horrible logic holes it presents. (ok, one more, and that's it. but this one is a doozy. the villain of the film is James Moriarty, who supposedly died with Holmes. ok. same in the comic, except in LXG he's no older than mid-thirties! this is a man who by Doyle's accounts was older than Holmes himself. the movie even goes so far to insinuate it's Rasputin! [yeah, that Rasputin] before some Mission Impossible Pull Away tm makeup reveals the true identity) anyway, the cast seems to realize how rotten this is and hams it up accordingly. and if you're ever planning to use Hyde again, just go digital! please. the prosthetics looked terrible, and the transformation is laugh out loud bad.

anyway, don't see this movie. or do, but make sure you tear it a new one. it won't be hard, believe me.


that's it. i couldn't do any more if i wanted to. perhaps dvds in another one, but for now, you've got your hands full. feel free to respond, critique... oh you know the drill.




* What I could find in the way of "movie reviews" from 2001-2005 were laughable, incoherent, quasi-write ups.