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Devil Times Five (1974) Review

I love the LA times quote, I'm pretty sure it's for a different movie
Five extremely disturbed, sociopathic children escape from their psychiatric transport and are taken in unwittingly by a group of adult villagers on winter vacation. -imdb.com

The Devil Times Five or Peopletoys as it was originally called is a low budget, very indy horror film from 1974. It stars… no one. Is directed by… no one special… and has a legacy of… being a low budget indy horror film from 1974. And sucking. Ah yes, The Devil Times Five does indeed suck, mostly due to its amateur filmmaking. Now I’ve dealt with amateur film makers before, in my video review of The Legend of Sorrow Creek, but I wasn’t as fair to it as I should have been. It was the first directing and writing job of Michael Penning, so some tolerance should be given. I was planning on giving the same fairness to this film’s director, Sean MacGregor, but then I discovered that this was his third movie as a director, and that he had done both writing and acting for quite a few years before this. And yet he some how managed to make a movie that makes Chain Letter look like fucking Citizen Kane!

The technicals in this film are a nightmare, with too many visual and audio mistakes and continuity slip-ups to count. Just the very camerawork itself screams basic film school, with different takes noticeable to a snob like me. While the average viewer won’t notice that, what they will notice is the almost constant snow on the lens whenever they’re outside! The special effects are… nonexistent, with the exception of a rather good fire stunt. The rest of the kills are fairly bland, most of which being impossibly intelligent, but unique traps. To compensate for his $0 budget, MacGregor uses different camera “tricks” to little effect. Such as putting the footage in slow motion, in order to create a “surreal effect” that will somehow convince us that the beating the victim is getting is real. However, it clearly wasn’t shot for slow motion so we get a choppy mess for wayyyy too long as the kids spend minutes wailing on this guy, who’s identity is only properly explained after he’s dead. Another kill uses a freeze frame and slow motion to get away with an axe to the back of the head, almost making you think it’s the end of a 80s sitcom. The audio work is not terrible, but it’s quality overall is fairly low, leading to you having an even harder time understanding what’s going on.

The acting is, big shocker, a fucking nightmare. The adults either over or underact, all the while being generally unlikeable. Shoutout goes out to the actor who did a good job as Lenny from Of Mice and Men, I mean the housekeeper. The kids do an occasionally good job coming across as psychotic, but the majority of the time they are just obnoxious little shits. Speaking of the child actors… they do a lot of fairly traumatizing stuff for kids that these days a filmmaker might not be able to get away with. They see someone on fire, they swear, one of them cross dresses, they hold guns, the list goes on. I know it’s a weird, but if you are dumb enough to watch this film after reading this review, imagine doing that stuff as a kid and you’ll see what I mean.

The writing is probably the second worst part of this movie, because it wouldn’t be as bad as it was if the technicals could back it up. The pacing of this movie is all over the place, with scenes going incredibly slowly or just being completely superfluous. This is usually almost immediately compensated by a huge time skip, leaving us confused as to what just happened and it takes a good while to catch up. That’s something you’ll do a lot of with this movie, catch up. It’s hard to follow, as the nonsensical dialogue teams up with the aforementioned issues to confuse the crap out of you if you stop paying attention for a few seconds. The beginning was the worst example of this. I must have missed some dialogue in the first scene, because the lack of basic exposition on the characters and their relationships, coupled with the dialogue and awkward scene transitions, had me confused for a half an hour. Even if you do pay attention to the story, there’s not much to actually derive from it. It’s a fairly simple movie, perpetuated by genius children and outright stupid adults to keep the plot going. Actually, if this movie were any complex, odds are I wouldn’t have been able to follow it at all, so maybe simplicity is for the best.

The Devil Times Five is… a movie. It’s not that much fun to watch, even for its weird premise. It’s a dull movie at its best and a confusing movie at its worst. It may or may not be nunsploitation, but it definitely is childsploitation. The credits of this movie say it all. Instead of “The End” it says “The Beginning” displaying its stupid and cheesy nature and the extremely short crew list show how lacking this movie is, not just in budget, but in skillful filmmaking. If you really want to waste your time on a cheesy low budget 70s horror film, then do yourself a favor. Skip this waste of time and go see Death Bed: The Bed That Eats instead. You may or may not thank me later. You know, if you think Death Bed sounds like an interesting watch, or you’ve seen it, then you might as well give this a watch since you’re prolly the kinda person that would like this kind of movie and appreciate it’s offbeat crappy horror style.

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Wake Wood (2010) Review


The parents of a girl who was killed by a savage dog are granted the opportunity to spend three days with their deceased daughter -imdb.com

Sometimes the biggest detractor from a movie is not its flaws, but its lack of strengths. Wake Wood falls victim to this in the biggest of ways. This is a clearly low-budget production and it’s well made considering that, however the lackluster nature of pretty much everything in this movie prevents it from rising above what people would normally expect from a low budget horror movie.

The acting is fair, even if we don’t care much for the characters. A stand out performance is Wormtail as the leader of the Wakewood cult as well as the little girl, who while stoic, is a good child actor. The movie manages to create enough atmosphere and use odd sets and angles to occasionally get you to feel a touch uncomfortable. The effects are okay, even if there’s not much there. Again, everything technical in this movie is, to an extent, fair.

Where this movie fails is its complete failure to do… anything… to make you interested or scared. The film’s borrowed plot from Pet Semetary is barely accentuated, just replacing an unexplained force with a cult using an unexplained force. The girl has a ticking clock to evil from the beginning, so when the movie’s transition into such isn’t subtle we know exactly what’s going on. There are so many caveats to the rules that defeating this zombie should be easy, so when it comes time to climax we’re faced with a solution we say from a mile away. There are lots of little inconsistencies that perforate this movie, leading me to give even less of a shit about what’s going on. The film does have, to its credit, a lot of strangeness. Little details and twists throughout this movie that do make it unique, but not enough to be special (if that makes any sense). The strange-ass ending should be noted as it’s a wonderful homage to the 70s british horror movies this film is trying to emulate.

Overall Wake Wood is worth your time if a) You’re a fan of 70s british horror b) You’re okay with low budget movies and c) You’ve never seen Pet Semetary. Other then that I’m afraid that this movie just doesn’t due enough to justify the time, even if it’s not an all out bad movie.

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Chain Letter (2010) Review


A maniac murders teens when they refuse to forward chain mail.-imdb.com

In an attempt to come up with a horror movie that would actually scare this generation, I stumbled across the concept of using our technology against us. The idea of being hounded or even abandoned by this crutch of life would, if played right, make for some good scares or at least a thought provoking story. Deon Taylor, director of Chain Letter, has taken this concept and twisted into an old man’s rant at teens for their “new-fangled technobizzy” then proceeded to shit all over it and smash it to a pulp not unlike how I want this film to look after I get my hands on it. Chain Letter is a poorly made, mean-spirited mess of a movie that fails to live up to its pretentious message.

Now for being a 2010 low budget horror film called Chain Letter one should not expect the acting to be good or the characters developed. And believe me, expectations are met, however one would expect that the teenagers would look less like they were fresh out of college and more like they are oh… I don’t know… high school students! The accentuated racks on these “girls” are only rivaled by those in High School of the Dead and the men have facial hair that should be in an Old Spice commercial. The characters are… big shocker… fucking obnoxious! It’s that annoying cliché that has continued to survive through this decade where we refuse to develop people we actually care about and rather have targets that we can enjoy seeing getting slaughtered. The writers and directors always seem to forget that we have to spend a whole movie with these people, and the best they can offer in compensation is someone so bland they leave no impression at all, rather then a bad one. The movie is adequately made, but its more artistic flairs are all annoying. The overuse of chains. The overly long title sequence. That’s used twice. Seizure inducing cutaways that in a TV show would signal a commercial break. Special effects that awkwardly alternate between goofy and grotesque. These continually failed attempts to be stylistic end up getting no more of a reaction then a raised eyebrow and a disgruntled sigh.

Where this film ultimately and truly fails is the writing, both in the plotting and its message. Taylor seems to be using the anti-technology motivations of the killer not to satirically promote technology or provide a cautionary tale, but rather as a scorning of the current generation for being so arrogant. This mean-spiritedness, whether it was intended or not, is interwoven throughout and as a member of that generation I was taken out of the movie by it. I don’t needed to be ranted at that I’ve lost so much privacy and that I’m trusting the internet too much and that I can be tracked with my phone and that every bit of personal data could be stolen by a hacker. I’m aware of the consequences of my actions on the internet and a good chunk of my generation are too. Don’t get me wrong there are still plenty of people who act like complete assholes on the internet or bully or what-have-you, but they at least know that hey, I could get hacked. The idiocy of all the characters that “abuse” technology and the outstanding cleverness of those who don’t (yet do since they use it to start the chain letter) is a marked indicator of this, but odds are I’m just reading too much into amateur writing.

I dislike my generation, but to see us represented by a director who has no idea how teenagers act is weirdly insulting. The concept of a video game lounge, studying at an arcade and two girls calling each other “slut” and “bitch” are all the exceptions, not the rule when it comes to any generation, not just ours. We’re not all spoiled rich kids, and for someone who “is up to date on the state of technology” you would think that he would notice that it’s actually the opposite with the state of the economy. If it weren’t for these grandiose claims about technology and generalizations that are made, I wouldn’t care about any of this stuff but, like plot holes, you notice these things when the movie can’t get you to be immersed in it. In fact the very premise of how the killer operates seems nonsensical, after all how is it that those who blindly follow technology and just forward chain mail are those worthy to live? And as for surviving the email, why wouldn’t you just forward the chain mail to people in a foreign country? The killer’s not there now is he? But nooooo that would be far too much logic for these idiotic characters and this idiotic movie.

Chain Letter is not worth your time, unless you feel like being condescended to by a toddler. The pretentiousness required by a filmmaker to put a Nietzsche quote before their low budget email slasher movie is ridiculous. The plot is inadequate, requiring complete stupidity from characters to push it along. Luckily there’s a large supply of that thanks to the either boring or obnoxious over-age cast. The message is convoluted, exploiting serious issues in today’s society just so it can shit all over them. Don’t watch this, and don’t let your friends watch this, it’s not even riffable and for a slasher film, that’s saying a lot.

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Christina’s House (1999) Review


Christina Tarling (Allison Lange) is a teenage girl who lives with her unstable father James (John Savage) and her younger brother Bobby (Lorne Stewart) in the family’s new home. While Christina is trying to sort out her feelings for both Eddie (Brendan Fehr), her boyfriend, and Howie (Brad Rowe), a handyman she’s become infatuated with, she soon discovers she has bigger fish to fry: there is a stranger in the house who begins leaving messages and gifts for Christina — and who isn’t averse to the idea of killing people in order to make an impression.-rottentomatoes.com

Christina’s House is a VHS I found at a second hand store for 40 cents. The back stated that its plot twists were shocking. Having been burned by Shyamalan and enraged by other shitty teen movies, I figured that this was ripe for the riffing. And ooooohhhh my it was. Christina’s House was delectably bad, with nonsensical story-telling, terrible acting, and… just plain weirdness. It’s not terrible like Dick Tracy where it enrages you because it’s terrible nature comes from how unfunny it is, but rather this film is fun for all from beginning to end because it’s bad moments hit all the right notes.

The movie centers around Christina (big shocker) who’s a whiny teenager with a dumbass younger brother, an horny asshole boyfriend, a creepy father, a ditzy best friend and a shy handyman. Weird things happen in Christina’s house, such as loud noises, random visits from her boyfriend and the inability of anybody to approach her without grabbing her from behind. The movie’s plot isn’t exactly the strongest, with those so called plot twists being just random events that Christina puzzles over while her boyfriend and dad fight over her. The appearance of a dead body means that shit gets real… sort of. The killer is revealed an hour later, but it’s really not a surprise and… well we stopped caring by that point. The movie really does just meander along, hiding so much from us that it doesn’t end up showing us anything and instead just lets us chill with the red herrings. If anything does happen, it’s because the characters acted even more stupid then they already are or the movie just said “fuck it” and screwed both continuity and logic. The killer’s reveal at the end makes no goddamn sense, with none of the kills or strangeness being explained by it.

The killer (who I won’t spoil out of courtesy) is brilliantly acted, not because it’s good, but because it’s sooooo weird. It makes no sense, but the killer’s ramblings and inconsistent behavior are a ball to watch. The rest of the acting is, of course, shit, but also shitty to a degree that made me wonder why they didn’t do another take. It makes me cringe to think those were the best. That being said, all of the performances stand out for being, again, so weird. The dad in particular is so borderline incestual, so much so that your brain is yelling “Bad Touch!!” whenever he starts to pet her. The boyfriend is a complete asshole and throughout the whole movie is fighting Christina on having sex. It makes you wonder why there a couple in the first place if they disagree on such a key issue and have nothing else in common. Sure the actors aren’t good, but the director clearly didn’t know what he was doing, as even the experienced actors can’t get their shit together.

The movie takes itself way too seriously, trying to pass little noises as huge events and characters freaking out over little things and doing random shit as if it was… well logical. To be at least partially fair to the writing, there are some points where there are clear cuts to the movie, and if those scenes had been left in, maybe some of the nonsense could have been… slightly less nonsensical. Character interactions might have been a little clearer and plot holes might have been solved. That’s not to say you won’t be able to follow along, rather it just means you’ll have a couple things to raise an eyebrow at. Christina’s House suffers from the post-Scream syndrome, where horror movies stopped being horror and became thrillers, and this is a detriment to it. If it had more gore and a better designed slasher finale, then this movie could have become a cult favorite. Instead it relies on plot twists that make no sense and a mystery it gives no clues for and doesn’t give a shit about until the finale.

Christina’s House is nowhere close to a good movie; in fact some could call it a bad one. It comes down to the clearly amateur filmmaking, as I got the same vibe from this as I did Devour. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t watch it. If you’re tired of watching Final Destination 5 for all your horror movie giggles, then give this a viewing. It’s a film you should definitely watch with a few companions, because you will make jokes. Its just gonna happen. If you can find this movie then buy it, because it’s b-movie badness at its best.

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Dick Tracy (1990) Review


The comic strip detective finds his life vastly complicated when Breathless Mahoney makes advances towards him while he is trying to battle Big Boy Caprice’s united mob.-imdb

Dick Tracy is the comic-strip based action flick that attempts to throw a goofy flair to itself. The comic strip style is translated directly to this film through many technical marvels that make this film a unique piece to look at, but not necessarily one to watch. It’s all-star cast, over the top visuals and campy yet serious writing all give off the vibe of a similar adaptation: Batman and Robin. Yes it’s eerie how similar the flaws in these two movies line up, the first and foremost being the convoluted tone.

Dick Tracy takes the comic-strip origins literally… and at the same time comically. It makes fun of the cliches of the comic, or goes for over the top goofy, but then the next minute expects you to take it seriously with the visuals or even the story. They try their hardest to make the universe look real, using shots that are impossible to get without complex green screening or intricate models. The colors of the costumes, sets and lighting are all vibrant, and coupled with the Elfman music it’s quite epic. Prosthetics are applied to all the actors portraying bad guys in order to make them look like their strip counterparts, but instead of immersing you in the Tracy-verse, it instead instills disgust as they look utterly hideous. It takes a long time to get used to it, and even then you’re never comfortable with it. They must have known how ugly it looked, because otherwise Warren Beatty would have had a chiseled chin glued on to fit the role. The sets, the costumes, the colors, are all taken so literally, but they expect you to laugh at how the villains look, or laugh at how loony Dick Tracy’s hunches are? Now to be fair, this could have worked in a more Airplanesque way, where they play it straight all the time, but they don’t, instead pointing out what you should laugh at. I could go on with contrast after contrast, but I think only one more example needs to be given. Warren Beatty as Dick Tracy plays him straight. Not as an overly confident superhero or an overly gritty detective, but as an almost human version of Dick Tracy. I say almost because the only time he shows personality is when the plot (or rather subplots) demand it. This serious Tracy against rubber bad guys is… odd. Like a semi-serious Batman facing off against a pun-spewing austrian while wearing a rubber suit… oh wait.

So while the writers and directors can’t seem to decide on a tone, it seems they also can’t seem to decide on a plot. The film has so many different subplots and such an unfocused main plot that when you look back at what’s happened you ask “why?” Entire scenes just seem pointless, and if they were removed it would make about as much sense as the rest of this movie since there are so many plot holes and leaps of logic that one more won’t harm it.There seems to be so much going on in the main plot that needs to be fleshed out, but if it was it would be a trilogy of movies. It almost feels like several tv episodes smashed together, but despite this the film still on occasion will careen to a stop to focus on one of the ridiculously predictable subplots and then compensate the actual plot’s screentime with a shitty montage that is never put to the right music, even ironically. It should be noted that the events of one of these montages could take up half a Burton or Scorsese film, but Beaty needs to keep trucking along. After some researching I found this movie was in development for 15 years, and then once it got into filming it had it’s shooting script combined with the novelization to fix the plot holes. Imagine what the script was like beforehand.

Even if you actually bother to pay attention to the convoluted shit on screen, there’s no way you can care about it. The actors never pull off a portrayal that can convince you to actually care about them because the material is just not there. Even one of the more tragic characters, played by Madonna, comes off as just stoic for half of the film and then overly dramatic for the last half. It’s either overacting or underacting, there is no middle ground for anyone, with the exception of the diner guy. He was cool. The dialogue is not convincing, interesting, or even seem to have a point to it. They repeat things too much and some characters NEVER SHUT UP. They go on and on and on and you want to pull your ears off. Most of the characters have little motivation or just pull 180 flips when needed. The kid goes from being an obnoxious little shit to being the bestest sidekick ever. Madonna loves Tracy because…??? Tess loves Tracy because…??? If they were attempting to portray the rather stilted strip dialogue or rushed character interactions, then they fail to understand that film and comic strips are not the same medium. A straight adaptation of Dick Tracy doesn’t work the same way a straight adaptation of The Great Gatsby, The Hobbit and The Shining wouldn’t and doesn’t work.

Dick Tracy provides you with enough action and visual appeal to get you through it IF you can get past the dialogue, the characters, and the looooonnnnng ass plot that either moves too fast or too slow. But the odds of that are pretty slim. My recommendation is to instead go to your local library and check out The Complete Dick Tracy volumes. They feature both the weekly and sunday strips and can actually be quite entertaining. As for this movie, it can sit next to Batman and Robin as it’s more obnoxious, but definitely more beautiful cousin.

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The Breakfast Club (1985) review

John Hughes follow-up to Sixteen Candles is my favorite film of his, The Breakfast Club. Breakfast Club stands out above the rest of the Brat-Pack movies and amongst 80s comedies in general as being, above all else, a character study. Over the course of the movie we grow attached to these five kids, because we can all identify at some level with them and their issues.

Breakfast Club on a technical level is nothing spectacular. It’s not terrible, but don’t expect anything flashy. Then again, there really doesn’t need to be anything flashy. The atmosphere is well created and suits the movies more toned down story, even if there a few Hughes style goofy moments. The soundtrack and score are notable for the songs selected and their placement. Dramatic music is used when it should to, ironicly, add realism and fun ‘80s songs are used when they should. The theme “Don’t You (Forget about Me)” is especially appropriate to the themes and concepts in the movie and besides that, it’s just a flat out good song. These kids don’t want to be forgotten, not by the people around them, but by themselves as they enter life and that’s a very powerful and pertinent message.

Our five stars are all stereotypes, seemingly, and they are as such. Molly Ringwald is Claire, the popular Prom Queen. Anthony Michael Hall is Brian, a (big shocker) total nerd. Emilio Estevez is the wrestling jock Andrew. Judd Nelson is the roustabout Bender and Ally Sheedy plays the quiet outcast Allison. These stereotypes are gathered together in detention and as it very slowly passes for them and for the audience (props to Hughes for that pacing) we discover things about them that reveal that they are more then just clichés and have more in common then they think. The playful antics and revealing dialogue are mostly set in motion by Bender, whose chaotic rebellion against all around asshole Mr. Vernon is actually almost tragic to watch. Bender’s desperation to fight against a world that has treated him like shit forces him into uncomfortable situations with Mr. Vernon, who has the power of being an adult and isn’t afraid to use it. Mr. Vernon is like the worst case scenario for how to grow up, in complete disillusionment about his past and has a one-track mind on his goals and his future alone. Thanks to this, the other kids end up having little resistance to Bender’s games, especially when they start to trust each other more. And trust each other they do, having heart to heart talks about parents, social standing, and even economic class.

This is the crux of what make John Hughes movies special. They deal with issues we have all dealt with as teenagers. Whether you were one in the 80s, 90s, 00s, or now you can identify with at least one of the characters and all of the issues. We’ve all felt that rebellion against our parents, we’ve all seen or been part of that segregation in schools into clichés. Even economic class is something we’ve felt when somebody else gets that new tech and we don’t get to have it, or vice versa. As the characters in Breakfast Club discover these things about each other, so do we about ourselves. And it really makes you think. Think about what you’re parents were like as teens. Think about that jock that bullies you, that punk that you avoid, that weirdo you ignore. It’s universal to every generation and to a teenager of this and any time, these problems are equivalent to any issues an adult has. These things are our world and for an hour and a half, we have the equivalent of group therapy with these characters. While the other Hughes films touch on these issues, it’s this film that stops and dwells on them and that’s why I believe that The Breakfast Club will carry on for years as not just a snapshot of one generation, but a reflection of them all. It’s thanks to the excellent writing and the honest portrayal of the actors, bringing in what I’m sure are their own insecurities to their characters, that Hughes pulls it off.

However, not all of the film is somber reflection. The comedy works well when it’s on screen, particularly the witty dialogue that I commented on in Sixteen Candles. There are also almost set pieces of comedy that all serve to help the characters do what teens do best, let loose and forget their issues. It’s a funny movie, but it’s not as humorous as some of the other films, so don’t expect big laughs.

The Breakfast Club, while the pinnacle of Hughes work quality-wise, is not necessarily his most popular one, but it definitely deserves a watch if you haven’t. As stated perhaps too much before, it’s really a film that can be and should be seen by people over the age of 15. Its appealing characters and bits of comedy will draw in most, and even provide nostalgia for some. All in all, this is a film that makes me wish there was teen comedy character study for my generation, but alas when was the last time there was a teen comedy that was even close to good? (Mean Girls doesn’t count!)

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The Tall Man (2012) review

When her child goes missing, a mother looks to unravel the legend of the Tall Man, an entity who allegedly abducts children. -imdb.com

Any fan of the Slender Man web series will have heard of The Tall Man as being a Hollywood attempt to capitalize on this phenomenon. The people who think that haven’t seen the movie. No, the promise the movie makes in its hype, its poster, and its first 20 minutes are soon dashed by convoluted storytelling and a piss poor reveal.

The movie is well made, and on a technical level it does everything to par, but doesn’t shine too bright. It feels like X-files meets Supernatural meets Mothman Prophecies, and that’s a comfortable feeling for me. After all, this should be a more script driven movie, not an acting, directing, special effects or production design driven movie. And that’s too bad in this case since the script fails to deliver. It’s not scary, it’s not thrilling, and it’s very convoluted.

The movie tries to juggle too many character relationships in the beginning, leaving you lost as to what’s going on. By the time you catch up new characters are introduced and the process starts all over again. Jessica Biel does a fine job as the lead nurse Julia, but she becomes victim to a script that takes her character in confusing directions. She’s not the only victim, with many of the characters acting very stupid or very strange. The side characters are competently acted with many of the actors being TV faces, but there’s not enough to keep you interested when the movie goes off the rails. Speaking of going off the rails, about halfway through the movie takes a twist, leaving you not surprised, but confused. You’re forced to think through what you just figured out and reevaluate it. In the process we are left with no protagonist and nobody to particularly care about. Even the young mute girl Jenny has confusing motivations and actions and we just aren’t sure what to think of her. The action on screen is vaguely intriguing, not because the plots good or the characters are interesting, but because of the mystery of The Tall Man. The movie does a good job of setting up the mystery and leaving it vague as to its true nature. We want to know who The Tall Man is and for 40 minutes after the main twist we just sit and wait for an answer. This is where the film falls apart. If what’s going on doesn’t directly help solve the mystery, then we just plain don’t care. Filler isn’t a perfect word to describe these scenes since they do help explain some character motivations (better late then never), but they don’t service the plot as much as the movie would have you think.

The ending is where all this build up, all these twists and turns should pay off… and of course it doesn’t. An amazing ending could have saved this movie, but instead of the supernatural mystery we’re promised, we end up with the blandest, most disappointing reveal I’ve seen since The Box. It’s not worth waiting an hour and forty minutes to see, but just in case there is some poor soul who wants to, I won’t spoil it. It does leave a bitter taste in my mouth and when you look back at the film you can come up with a dozen better twists and endings.

The Tall Man is not something I recommend to anybody. It’s not a film you should follow something else up with, but rather it’s a movie you follow up with other, better things. For those who liked the paranormal beginning I point you towards Marble Hornets, Mothman Prophecies, and The X-Files. For those who liked the more “Town is Evil, twists and turns” aspects of the movie I recommend the short lived series Happy Town, the anime Higurashi: When They Cry or once again The X-Files. All these are far more worth your time then The Tall Man, but then again so is watching funny videos of cats so that’s not saying much.

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Psycho (1998) review

A young female embezzeler arrives at the Bates Motel which has terrible secrets of its own

The 1960 Hitchcock film Psycho is renowned for being one of the best horror films of all time. It’s a truly unique entry into cinema that stands out especially when compared to the dull remakes we’re bombarded with these days. However, remakes of films often times get passed off as shit before they’re even given a chance, purely based on the loyalty of the audience to the original. The bigger the fanbase, the more the remake gets torn apart. Which means that 1998’s Psycho had no chance in hell of getting very many good reviews. Often times any changes or artistic liberties that the director takes in these movies are reprimanded by hundreds of screaming fanboys saying that he/she pissed all over the original. We don’t like things different, but isn’t that the point of a remake? To offer a new perspective or different version of a classic story and its characters. Luckily/Unluckily 1998’s Psycho takes very few liberties, mainly because it’s a shot for shot, line for line remake, but without the tension, power, or style of the original. It’s a fascinating example that serves as a martyr for directors who like to shake things up in remakes.

Psycho (1998) and Psycho (1960) share 90% of their shots, 90% of their writing and about 30% of their quality. To see why the copy and paste format doesn’t work, one merely needs to watch about 30 seconds past the identical opening credits. The film steals the Re-animator music, I mean reuses the old Psycho score and opens on a beautiful helicopter shot of Pheonix, Arizona. What’s not beautiful is the awkward feeling you get looking at 1990s Pheonix, and more specifically a 1990s movie, while listening to the overdramatic 60s score. The entire movie mashes together 60s and 90s filmmaking, but instead of creating a retro experience creates an awkward clusterfuck. You can’t use a 90s camera and use 60s cinematography. Sure it works fine a good chunk of the time, but Hitchcock’s more iconic and stylistic shots are so foreign in 90s cinema that it’s hard to look at. It’s not helped by the gaudy lighting, which is far too bright and glowy, not using shadows at all. There should be some forgiveness since this is filmed in color and even in the 90s lighting specialists who knew how to light Black and White style were rare, however this film doesn’t even try, instead going for an overly contrasted light scale that doesn’t end up creating dark shadows, but just creates bathrooms that look like the gateway to heaven.

Another of the major 60s/90s conflicts that dominate this movie involves the acting. The dialogue is almost entirely copied from the original, with only a few 90s twists to replace the 60s would-be-anachronisms. The actors struggle monumentally with this dialogue, often times delivering flat performances. It’s clear the director is trying to go for the 60s acting style, but none of these actors were trained that way and can’t pull it off. What we’re left with is a weird mix of hamming to the camera and bland performances. There is also a lot of miscasting in this movie, but the most blatant of them is Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates. Vince Vaughn is not the guy for this role. He’s a funny, outgoing guy and completely without any of the neuroses that Anthony Perkins had and brought to the role. He isn’t even physically built for the character, being far too bulky. When Norman showed up in the original he completely stole the movie and it wasn’t until he left the screen that the audience realized that the whole stealing plot was a thing. Vaughn has none of this power, instead leaving you bored and confused by what he’s trying to do. Instead of portraying Norman Bates he’s portraying Anthony Perkins portraying Norman Bates, but to be fair everyone in this movie copies their predecessor and all of them fail miserably.

There’s not much left to say about this film, mainly because it doesn’t have much to it. I’ve been harsher on this movie then others because it’s almost completely void of creativity. Sure it has its own moments, but everything it adds is superfluous garbage, failing to bring anything to the movie. The last thing I needed was to hear Vince Vaughn jerk off and I most certainly did not need to have random artistic images thrown at my face, especially if Hitchcock didn’t think it pertinent. It’s not worth anyone’s time. Anyone who has seen Psycho (1960) has already seen this movie and anyone who hasn’t would be a thousand times better off watching the original since this one can only taint your enjoyment of that.

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Pumpkinhead (1988) review


A man conjures up a gigantic vengeance demon called Pumpkinhead to destroy the teenagers who accidentally killed his son. -imdb.com

Pumpkinhead is the directorial debut of Stan Winston, special effects master, and it unfortunately shows. The movie has a strong premise: A demon brought against a group of city kids by a vengeful father whose son’s death they caused, however its execution is a disappointment even if some enjoyment can be derived.
The movie starts out with likeable characters in the father-son duo, making you think that they are the rare likeable protagonists in a horror movie. However, this is not the case with the son having the life span of a red-shirt, cut down in an unfortunate biking accident. The rest of the characters are stereotypes and 2D cutouts, with the acting having about as much inspiration, mostly due to the inexperience of the actors and director. However none of this really makes it a bad movie.

When watching it the stylized lighting and eerie soundtrack combine with the action on screen to create a tone that is rarely seen these days. It combines with the grit of the 90s technology and VHS quality to create a atmosphere that is indescribably horror. It’s that horror feel that we’ve all seen, be it on a random DVD rental, Netflix pick or late night TV viewing. It’s a tone that has been lost in the polished world of digital cinema that we live in now. It is actual shadow and grit, not artificially created shadow and grit.
Speaking of creating, the special effects are, as expected, amazing. Pumpkinhead looks alive, both in his movements and his appearance even if it’s fairly reminiscent of Alien. The practical effects put any CGI monster to shame, with the very presence of it giving the same effect as a Freddy or Jason has, and that’s something that’s hard to achieve with CG. CGI is best left for the fast moving monsters, because practical effects, by this example alone, have got everything else covered.

Alas, we must get back to why this film doesn’t work. As a director, Stan Winston has most of his technical bases covered, but he fails to create an essential aspect of horror films: Tension. It’s the bread and butter of Hitchcock, Craven, Carpenter, and any other director who has tried to instill fear. It’s what gets your blood flowing before the gory climaxes and what makes jump scares worth doing. It’s hard to explain exactly why it’s absent here, but in general it comes down to a combination of a few things. The stalking the creature does is not emphasized enough with the monster disappearing for large chunks of the movie. The killings aren’t powerful either, not that there needs to be more gore, but that they aren’t dramatized or made a big deal of. We should always feel the power of a death, even if we don’t care for the character being killed or doing the killing. Instead all we have are the character’s reactions, which aren’t strong due to the writing, acting or directing, but even if they were good it would most likely not be enough to convince us since we weren’t affected by the act itself. While not perfectly correlated, there is also a noticeable lack of dialogue. This is nice because we often hear characters whine and spit curses more then we should have to, but in this case it leads to having no idea what the characters are really thinking or feeling, since the acting just can’t support it.

Overall, Pumpkinhead is a nice atmospheric movie that while it delivers little scares can either provide some laughs for you and your chums, or some nostalgia, depending on what mindset you go into it with. It’s not a great movie, but if you’re a fan of horror or miss practical effects, you definitely should check this one out.