Tag: horror

Bloodrayne

  By

★★½
“Don’t belief the hype: it’s not that bad.”

Director Boll has a rep as the worst filmmaker ever, making movies based on video games entirely for tax writeoff purposes. But have things got out of hand? I mean, Bloodrayne was in the IMDB All-time Bottom 50 before it opened. So cut him some slack – even though we may be the only folk on this planet who admit to liking bits of House of the Dead. Still, despite a fine cast [any film with Udo Kier is okay by us!], uniformly dire reviews meant we went in to this with low expectations – and made up most of the audience. Ouch. Yet, despite rumours of Madsen being drunk every day, Kingsley refusing to act with Madsen – something leftover from Species, I guess – and Rodriguez’ horrendous attempt at an English accent, this wasn’t entirely terrible.

Not great, sure; but as someone from Britain, I knew right off Rodriguez wasn’t even trying. I think all she did was limit her normal accent – wise for a Hispanic in a setting of Romania, circa 1700. Anyway, she and Madsen are hunting down Rayne (Loken), a human/vampire halfbreed seeking king of the vampires Kagan (Kingsley), who raped and killed her mother. Kagan, in turn, is after three artifacts to protect him from water, crosses and sunlight. Basically, imagine a period take on Blade with less actual imagination and more digital blood. There is certainly potential; Loken looks the part (dig her groovy swords!), as does the landscape.

However, the action borders on the incoherent, provoking little or no sense of awe or excitement. Gossip also states most of the stars signed on about two weeks’ notice, and that would certainly explain their apparent large unfamiliarity with pointy weapons. From the reviews, you’d think this was worse than Plan 9 From Outer Space, yet ignoring the anti-Boll hype, it’s largely only the poor staging of the fights which prevent this from being, at the very least, a credible rental. However, an action film with bad action is like a horror film with bad scares, rendering the other ingredients largely irrelevant.

Dir: Uwe Boll
Stars: Kristina Loken, Michael Madsen, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Rodriguez

Blood Angels

  By

★★★
“Charlie’s Angels take on The Vampire Lestat. At Coyote Ugly.”

I’ve recently seen movies involving vampires who run a strip-club (Vamps), and witches who run a strip-club (Witches’ Sabbath). Now, we have vampires who’re putting on a rave. It’s nice to see creatures of the night who keep themselves busy. Actually, here, they’re not fully-fledged vampires: indeed, the aim of the rave is a ritual to complete the job, give them shape-shifting powers, etc. – generally, upgrade from the shareware version of vampirism. Of course, one of the vamps has a sister (Baruc) turn up – she looks like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, which is fairly appropriate, as she’s definitely not in Kansas any more. And their creator, Mr. Jones (Lamas), from whom they escaped, is keen to reel them back in…

Oh, did I mention the bloodsuckers are all attractive women, and that for some reason, vampirism now includes kung-fu abilities? [Must be v2.0…] Okay, these rarely rise above “fairly crap”, but the attitude is cool, and it’s just another facet of an odd film that also includes: a Japanese guy who wants to be black, an unfunny transvestite, the Necronomicon, a Hunter S. Thompson lookalike and a final five minutes – before the final credits – which are a hip-hop music video. Bizarrely, it largely works, in a post-Buffy kind of way, with a few lines which made us laugh out loud, such as, “I’m sorry to interrupt this very special episode of Touched by a Vampire.” However, whenever the effects go above the basic level…if a script has snakes leap out of a vampire woman’s breasts and attack someone, or a world-threatening demon, your FX studio had better be able to step up to the plate, rather than fall apart.

While expecting copious nudity – “Lesbian Vampire Spank Inferno”, as Chris put it – there is surprisingly little: like the attacking breasts, perhaps a side effect of having a gay director? Looking back, there were more topless guys than gals, but at least it wasn’t an outright gayfest like David DeCoteau would’ve done. However, I imagine, say, Fred Olen Ray would have had a different vision! Co-writer Lisa Morton also basically disowned it, but while this may be light-years from her concept (the original title presumably went, because no-one had a clue what it meant), this is still more fun than anticipated.

Dir: Ron Oliver
Star: Siri Baruc, Leah Cairns, Lorenzo Lamas, Shawn Roberts

Resident Evil: Apocalypse

  By

★★★★
“Apocalypse NOW…”

The history of cinema has provoked many furious arguments as to which is better. Dracula or Frankenstein? Moore or Connery? Alien or Predator? And now we can add another to the list: tank-top or bustier? For we have not one, but two action heroines here, both finely-honed killing machines, with slightly different though similarly-slutty tastes in clothing. That really tells you all you need to know about this sequel, which never lets practical issues like plot – or costume – get in the way of the gratuitous violence.

Numerous reviews have complained about the lacklustre scripting, poor characterisation, etc to be found here. Hello! It’s based on a computer game! And a proper one, about shooting zombies, not wussy nonsense like finding jobs or raising children, fans of The Sims please note. Plus, it’s a sequel to boot, and if you expect sensitive drama from any film whose title contains the words “Evil” and “Apocalypse”, you simply need to get out more. It’s called expectation management, people.

The tactic here was simple and clear. Keep all the good stuff from the original, e.g. Milla Jovovich, zombie dobermans, and throw a few new elements in, this time including some stuff which, unlike Jovovich’s character, Alice, actually has a significant connection to the game. Hence, you get Jill Valentine (Guillory), a special forces chick who, in most other movies, would be the heroine, but is here largely to show you how Alice v2.0 has been improved beyond human. It’s reminiscent of how Ripley, by Alien Resurrection, had partly been transformed into what she was fighting, and Alice is now faster, stronger and cooler than she was last time – which is something of an achievement in itself.

The story more or less picks up immediately after the events of the original, with the zombiefying T-virus now loose in Raccoon City – hence an almost infinite supply of the undead. The Umbrella Corporation quarantine the place, but the daughter of their top scientist is still inside. He tracks down the human survivors inside and tells them if they rescue his offspring, he’ll get them all out of the city before it’s turned into a mushroom cloud. But just to spice things up, the top Umbrella creation, Nemesis, is now also loose in the city, using it as a testing ground.

There are, I will admit, absolutely no surprises in the plot at all. When someone comes up to “rescue” a small child who is facing resolutely away from the camera, you know that little girl will inevitably turn out to be a zombie. But guess what? I really wouldn’t have it any other way. Much like Shakespeare(!), this kind of film isn’t about unexpected twists in the plot, it’s about the execution, and that’s where this film delivers solidly.

Or at least, mostly solidly – let’s get the criticism out of the way first. Witt wants to stick the camera right in there, when what we want to do is fully appreciate the grace and athleticism of the heroines, not suffer from motion sickness. Also: hello, “R”-rating? Presumably this was for the language, topless undead hookers, and Milla’s scarily-large nipples (Chris pointed out they’re almost larger than her breasts), because it certainly wasn’t for the gore. These monsters were almost bloodless, even when shot through the head or exploded by hand-grenade – the latter would seem dangerous when you’re dealing with a highly-infectious, fluid-borne disease, but I’m quibbling here.

 Otherwise, the film takes the right pieces and puts them together in the right order, which is a good deal more than we’ve come to expect from any big-budget Hollywood action movie [Yes, I’m talking to you, Van Helsing and LXG]. The Nemesis monster is one creepy-looking dude, and Alice’s encounters with him are the stuff of nightmares. Another highlight is the return of the lickers, in a church through whose stained-glass windows Alice comes crashing on a motorbike, at the start of one very cool sequence. [Incidentally, to answer the “Why did she do that?” question raised by many reviewers, I assume she was attracted to the scene by the gunshots.]

As mentioned, the undead attack canines are also back, and just as bad as before; this time, it’s mostly Valentine who has to deal with them, at least until the end, when Alice effortlessly one-ups her rival yet again. We briefly muttered “catfight!” under our breath, and it’d certainly have been fun to see Jill and Alice go toe-to-toe, but the outcome of that would be so predictable – Alice would win, without even breaking sweat – that its omission is understandable. The supporting characters do their job adequately; Mike Epps is the comic relief, something not really present in the first film, and manages the tricky task of doing the job without becoming annoying. Oded Fehr is somewhat irrelevant as a soldier also after the scientist’s daughter, while Sandrine Holt, playing journalist Terri Morales, is understandably overshadowed by Jill and Alice. On the Umbrella side…blah evil corporate drone, blah misunderstood scientist blah, blah. We don’t care – and nor should we.

Looking around, there seemed to be two kinds of reviews for this: those who ‘get’ what’s intended here, and those who clearly don’t – partly, no doubt, powered by the fact that this wasn’t screened in advance for critics. Hell hath no fury like Roger Ebert forced to pay for his supersized bag of candy…  How you react to the film will likely be similarly split; given you’re on this site, I suspect the odds are in favour of Apocalypse, for its strong intuitive grasp of the ingredients necessary in a good action heroine, and its delivery thereof. Sure, the plot is some way short of perfect, and more/better-filmed fights would have been welcome, but the makers do a sound job of distracting you from the flaws, and there’s enough worthwhile stuff that will stick in your mind, to put it in the top quarter of this summer’s popcorn flicks.

Dir: Alexander Witt
Star: Milla Jovovich, Sienna Guillory, Oded Fehr, Mike Epps

"Enough worthwhile stuff that will stick in your mind to put it in the top quarter of this summer’s popcorn flicks."

Blood Gnome

  By

★★
“BDSM, invisible monsters and Julie Strain. Who could ask for more? Well, actually…”

If you’ve been thinking, “What I want is a cheap monster movie set in the fetish community,” this one’s for you. Crime scene photographer Daniel (Bilancio) discovers his video camera can see ugly little creatures, which have been slaughtering S+M fans as they engage in their games. Turns out they belong to Darlinda (Walton), an evil dominatrix who keeps a tentacled monster in a box; it gives birth to the little critters, and she uses the placentas to make a drug. Can he convince others of their existence before his girlfriend (and nice dominatrix, contradiction in terms though that may seem) Divinity (Pursley) gets eaten at the big S+M party? Which, despite a sleeve to the contrary, is actually the only scene in which Strain and the Porcelain Twinz appear.

Trying to get others to take a threat they can’t see seriously, rather than thinking you’re mad, is a neat concept. Unfortunately, it’s only used in a couple of scenes, and instead we get any number of bondage sequences which, unless you’re into that kind of thing, will likely prove extremely tedious. Darlinda does kick butt to a surprising degree (which is why it’s included here) – according to the making-of documentary, Walton is a stuntwoman, though her other IMDB credits appear to be zero. The creators cheerfully admit to its “microbudget”, and I suspect the DVD commentary is probably more interesting than the film itself. Certainly, the lack of explanation offered for almost anything is disappointing, though the gore, toothed monster vagina, and copious breasts do fully justify the movie’s R-rating.

I love cheap films that make up for in imagination and with what they lack in budget – after all, that quality costs nothing. As its inspired title shows, Blood Gnome is not totally bereft in these departments, but the over-riding interest in leveraging events into an S+M setting, for no visible reason, hampers and damages the result considerably. Change that, put some more thought into the script, and the fun B-movie trapped here might just have clawed its way out.

Dir: John Lechago
Star: Vincent Bilancio, Melissa Pursley, Ri Walton, and Julie Strain (but only just…)

Exorsister

  By

★★
“Not so much ass-kicking, as ass-licking…”

exorsisterDo not, under any circumstances, confuse with the similarly-titled episode of The Simpsons where Lisa gets possessed by the spirit of Madonna. Because this is basically a live-action version of infamous tentacle-porn series, Legend of the Overfiend. Just what the world needs, you’re probably thinking, but compared to most of the genre, Overfiend had an epic sprawl to go along its obscene imagination, and with modern FX, there’s no reason it couldn’t be done. [Shouldn’t, perhaps…] They could make the heroine as cool as the one here: a motorbike-riding, cigarillo-smoking huntress with a wide-brimmed hat and a switchblade crucifix, taking on demons whose means of entry to Earth involves schoolgirls and sex.

Unfortunately, this fails on two counts. Firstly, the minor, largely forgivable matter of budget; instead of tentacles, for example, we get what appear to be vacuum-cleaner hoses on strings. If you can’t afford to stage interdimensional battles…don’t. Secondly, the lengthy sequences of hardcore (even with the pixillation of genitals required in Japan), for this is, first and foremost, a porn flick, make no mistake about that; I should perhaps mention, the schoolgirls are all clearly in their 20’s. This is simply dull, bringing the film to a grinding halt for about half the running-time, which is a shame; there’s enough imagination to suggest the idea has potential.

I believe four episodes were made. The second is supposed to be the best, and it’s in our unwatched pile, though I think part one has already tried Chris’s patience sufficiently for this week! Nakano also went on to make Sumo Vixens, starring Kei (Weather Woman) Mizutani, which (unlike the Exorsister series) has received an official American release, and would appear to be exactly what it sounds like.

Dir: Takao Nakano
Star: Karin Tsuji, Kaoru Nishida, Kazuki Taniguchi

Adrenalin: Feel the Rush

  By

★★
“A more appropriate title – Valium: Feel the Pillow”

I’m still trying to work out what the title actually means; it certainly bears no relevance to the film. More generaly, the biggest point of interest is its similarity to Blade 2, which took the basic concept (hunt for the carrier of a virus that turns its victim into bald, psychotic bloodsuckers) and did a lot more with its Eastern European setting. Henstridge is Delon, a policewoman who has her partner dismembered while they search a house, and Lambert leads the backup team – they follow their target into some vents which connect to an old prison, and where they rapidly become the prey. All this is set just outside a post-apocalyptic (plague, specifically) Boston – though the cop cars have ‘POLICIA’ on them. There’s also a subplot about Delon’s son, and a black-market passport she bought for him, which is of no significance whatsoever, and is probably there only to get the running time up to feature length (and at 76 minutes, only barely!).

Shot in what looks like four rooms, it’s up to director Pyun to make the most of a higher-profile cast than he usually manages – unfortunately, he fails, though I liked the snap-zoom technique applied to bullet hits. This is straightforward ‘spam in a tunnel’ cinema, with little tension, character, or anything else that might elevate this above the mundane. Henstridge, bless her, does what she can, and comes over like a grubby version of Lara Croft; her undeniable action heroine potential has so far been wasted in stuff like this or the lame She Spies. Partly shot in the capital of Herzegovina, Mostar, the “just-bombed” look is likely genuine, from a conflict that only ended the previous year; it may be exploitative, but at least Pyun brought employment to the locals. I imagine he’s now scouting locations in Kabul and Baghdad.

Dir: Albert Pyun
Star: Natasha Henstridge, Christopher Lambert, Norbert Weisser, Elizabeth Barondes

Twins Effect

  By

★★★★
“Vampires using mobile phones, with TV screens in their coffins? What is the world coming to…”

For something crafted largely as a vehicle for its two female, pop-singing stars (the titular Twins), this is much better than you’d expect – compare, say, any Mary-Kate and Ashley film. Sure, it’s dumb. Sure, it’s loaded with cheesy romance and totally unnecessary celebrity cameos. But it also has more fun with the vampire genre than any movie since the original Buffy, and the action, directed by the hugely under-rated Donnie Yen, is far superior.

Vampire-hunter Reeve (Cheng) loses his partner (an impressive Josie Ho) to a newly-arrived evil Euro-vampire after a brutal battle in a railway station. Her replacement is Gypsy (Chung), who has idolized Reeve for years. But meanwhile sister Helen (Choi) meets and falls in love with Kazaf (Chen – yep, all four leads’ names begin with Ch. You can add a Jackie Chan cameo too), a good vampire who won’t suck blood from unwilling victims. The evil vamp need Kazaf’s essence in order to walk in daylight, and it’s up to…oh, everyone else, to stop him.

The action movies in fits and starts; a great opening battle, an amusing Gypsy/Helen spat over a teddy-bear early on, which shows where this movie’s tongue is; and an extended final duel with the pair as our last hope, and which gained the film our seal of approval. It’s clear neither girl is an experienced martial artist, but 95% of the time, you can easily overlook this; the ever-wonderful Anthony Wong, as Kazaf’s butler Prada, helps keep the film grounded and outweighs the fact that Helen is an immensely irritating character. To quote Lars Von Trier, “Take the good, with the evil”, and here the balance is firmly for the former.

Dir: Dante Lam
Star: Ekin Cheng, Charlene Choi, Gillian Chung, Edison Chen
a.k.a. The Vampire Effect

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (film)

  By

★★★
“If at first you don’t succeed…”

Buffy may be the only successful TV series based upon a failed film. A critical and commercial flop, creator Joss Whedon just wouldn’t let it lie, and finally got the mix of drama, horror, comedy and action he wanted in the show. The movie is a different matter, and has not aged well. The SoCal culture now seems incredibly dated, and Swanson takes too long to become the sympathetic heroine essential to the film. It also has no idea what to be: for a comedy, large chunks are not funny (despite classic lines involving coat-racks and clapping); if it’s a horror movie, it’s a lame one, with vampires largely as threatening as harvest-mice; and if you want social satire, you’re far better off with Clueless or Heathers.

The supporting cast help rescue the uneven material, with Sutherland as the guru whose near-impossible task is to convince Buffy of her mystical calling. Hauer plays a Euro-vampiric nemesis impeccably, but top plaudits go to Paul Reubens. About as far from Pee-Wee Herman as imaginable, he gets one of the finest death scenes in cinematic history. The cast also includes future Oscar winner Hilary Swank, Natasha Gregson Wagner, David Arquette and uncredited roles for Ben Affleck and Ricki Lake. Ironically, the part played by Seth Green, werewolf Oz in the TV show, ended up on the cutting-room floor.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect is comparing this incarnation to v2.0 from five years later. No Scooby Gang (bad), no Angel (good), no cool dustings when the vampires are staked (bad). On the whole, it’s about what you’d expect after an interesting concept from a rookie film writer has been chewed up and spat out by a corporate studio. Hard to say which is more miraculous: that Whedon got another chance, or that a corporate network didn’t do worse still.

Dir: Fran Rubel Kuzui
Star: Kirsty Swanson, Luke Perry, Rutger Hauer, Donald Sutherland

Hell’s Highway

  By

★★★½
“Hitch-hiking harlot from hell.”

Chris’s chicken parmigiana is legendary here for its narcotic effect: eat it, fall asleep, simple as that. It thus perhaps means more than it seems that Hell’s Highway kept me awake, post-parmigiana. Sure, it’s cheap (cost about $5K, shot on video); sure, it’s dumb – but to counter that chicken, a film must have something going for it. The setup is simple and effective: a carload of college teens, two male, two female, meet evil hitch-hiker Lucinda (Dollar). No matter what they do, she takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’, whether it’s wielding a firearm, chainsaw, or generally bad-ass attitude.

The gore is copiously energetic, if unconvincing; the main strength here is enthusiasm and self-awareness. For example, when debating whether to pick up Lucinda, one girl says that’s how horror movies start, but is over-ruled by a guy who points out it’s how porno movies start too – and lo, we get an amusing cameo by Ron Jeremy. Also check out the Chainsaw and Sergio Leone homages, though the latter is undermined by the producer not allowing a Morricone-esque score. Could do without the Blair Witch camcorder stuff, however.

Phoebe Dollar makes a fine impression as the unstoppable Lucinda, despite a final ‘explanation’ that should have been left on the beer-mat whence it came. The first scene after she gets in the car has a genuinely nasty edge – she fingers one of the girls at gunpoint – and it’s a shame this isn’t maintained. The rest of the cast is okay: these characters could get very annoying, yet only become moderately so. I correctly guessed their order of demise inside ten minutes, and was disappointed by their general longevity. But go in expecting as little as we did, and you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Dir: Jeff Leroy
Star: Phoebe Dollar, Kiren David, Hank Horner, Beverly Lynne

The Descent

  By

★★★★
“Six chicks with picks.”

Simplicity is under-rated, especially when it comes to genre films. The simplest horror movies often work the best, because they prey on widely-held fears: monsters (Jaws), getting lost (The Blair Witch Project) or claustrophobia (Below). And now, we get The Descent, which combines all three into one ball of nerves, pitting six female cave-explorers against things below ground. This will do for speleology, what Touching the Void did for mountaineering or Open Water for scuba-diving – and I don’t care if the cave, as one character here disparagingly says, “has handrails and a gift-shop”.

This is an interesting reversal by Marshall from his first film, Dog Soldiers, though both did have a group of people in a small location, facing an outside menace. Dog centered on a group of soldiers in an isolated farmhouse, facing a pack of werewolves – as you can imagine, testosterone levels were set to eleven on that one. Here, save one brief, opening character, all the roles are filled by women, which adds a different dynamic to things. Central are friends Sarah (Macdonald), Juno (Mendoza), and Beth (Reid), whom we first encounter white-water rafting, though it seems Juno and Sarah’s husband have their own leisure activity…

However, a year later, a car accident has changed Sarah’s life, and the trio re-assemble, with three other women, for a little light caving. Unfortunately, rather than the scheduled, well-known cave, Juno opts to take them into a newly-discovered one. This is unfortunate when a rock fall shuts off the entrance, and it becomes clear no-one outside knows where they are, so the women have to press on, into the depths. Sarah is convinced she sees someone nearby: initially, no-one believes her, but eventually it’s clear that there are inhabitants of the system, who are none too pleased to see them – except in a “nourishment” kind of way.

There’s no doubt, this is not exactly new – you’ll spot references to (if you’re feeling kind – “bits stolen from”, if you’re not) other films throughout, from The Thing through Aliens to Pitch Black. The first half is also, to be honest, a little sluggish. Marshall throws in some cheap “Boo!” moments to keep the audience awake, of varying effectiveness, but it’s only when the movie goes underground that this the edge of your seat becomes familiar territory. And once it does, the film barely pauses for breath until the final frame [The American version had a different, slightly-less bleak ending, from the UK version – having had it described to me, I’m curious to see it, though can’t say that I felt the US cut was significantly deficient].

The focus of the film is Juno and Sarah, with the rest of the cast largely reduced to cannon-fodder – though not badly-drawn cannon-fodder, I must admit. Juno is a near-Amazon, while Sarah has to become one, simply in order to survive, and that’s about the extent of the character development here. Demureness, beauty, the ability to bear babies, and all other typical “feminine” traits, are of absolutely no use whatsoever. The ability to drive your pick-axe, repeatedly, into the head of pissed-off Gollum wannabes, on the other hand… Yeah, that will help. But in another interesting contrast to Dog Soldiers, sisterly teamwork is notable by its absence. In the end, the women do almost as much damage on themselves, as the monsters.

The technical aspects are great, with set design and cinematography particularly worthy of praise. An uncomfortable feeling of being trapped in a dark, enclosed space has rarely been better captured; the only light present is what the explorers bring, and it gradually becomes less and less effective for their needs. It is occasionally chaotic, and a combination of limited illumination and the incidents that befall the characters often make it easy to lose track of who’s who. That aside, however, this is a seriously kick-ass film, and the prospect of The Descent 2 would be extremely welcome here (though particularly in the British cut, somewhat unlikely…). I’m thinking, in that one, our heroine could perhaps get talked into leading a team of marines back into the monsters’ lair… Stop me if you’ve heard that one before. :-)

Dir: Neil Marshall
Star: Shauna Macdonald, Natalie Mendoza, Alex Reid, Saskia Mulder