War of the worlds the true story

 

War of the worlds the true story has a fun concept that easily could have dragged it to the bottom of bad movie hell, staging the "true" story of the Martian invasion of Earth in the early 1900:s. Claiming to contain actual, previously classified footage along with newly shot reenactments, WOTWTTS has the aura of a History channel documentary and it actually works reasonably well. We've seen/read/listened to the story before and it is actually a fairly close adaption of the original novel as I remember it with the exception of adding a long interview segment with the last living witness of the events. Earth is pummeled by strange cylinder from Mars that open up and bring forth death in the shape of giant tripods with deadly heat-rays that incinerate everything living. Classic stuff indeed.

 

The mixing of newly shot footage along with a ton of archival stuff (they threw in everything and the kitchen sink, we get some pretty recognizable clips from movies) with added heatrays and destruction never actually gels that well, it is fairly obvious what scenes are new. The filmmakers tried their best on a limited budget but degrading digital video so that it is supposed to look a hundred years old is a really hard thing to accomplish and I would go so far as to say that this is a fail. But, and here comes the money shot, it never matters. WOTWTTS is edited like everyone is on cocaine, breakneck is the understatement of the year. The screen is constantly filled with mayhem, destruction and those scrumptious tripods...

I make no secret that I am a big fan of Steven Spielbergs 2005 version. It has a couple of significant flaws such as an overschmaltzy story and Dakota fucking Fanning - the most annoying character ever in a movie but in return we get the tripods that are truly some of the most awesome scifimoviecreations ever. WOTWTTS damn near equals that movie on a budget that probably wouldn't pay for Tom Cruises coffee. Seriously, Timothy Hines and his crew has achieved near perfection in these scenes using only models and it works wonders, I just kept grinning like a six year old watching Godzilla for the first time.

Not everything works of course. Like I mentioned earlier, the "new" footage isn't integrated that well and the whole movie is based around the interview footage which is supposed to be shot in the sixties but just looks like what it is, new digital footage with some pretty halfassed fake degrading. A lot of the actors (most of the smaller roles) aren't particulary good and the english accents are most of the time just awful. But none of this really matters. Those tripods win me over.

Not a perfect movie by any means, WOTWTTS is a triumph in execution. It just works that well and although the first ten-fifteen minutes of the movie might be a bit hokey, as soon as you see the first Martian crawling out of the cylinder and their tentacles picking up puny humans to destroy, you are hooked. Maybe the movie really is awful? I don't know. I just know that I love those tripods.

You can buy this little gem here.

Blood salvage (1990)

 

I have a very vague memory of seeing pictures from Tucker Johnstons quirky little movie in what I believe to be an issue of Fangoria, pictures that promised quite a bit of gore, and after watching the movie I feel kind of cheated as the premise is quite fun and could have been turned into a lurid little exploitation movie. Now, I don't really know if this is true, the memory lane is a hazy and vague place so correct me if I'm wrong. I might be confusing this with a totally different movie. Anyway, Blood salvage does not really suffer from this, it is still a fun little movie that just feels a bit too tame for being R-Rated.

The story is simple, we've seen it a LOT in the last twenty years. John Saxon and his family runs into a group of bibletoting rednecks that cause roadaccidents in order to harvest the organs of the victims and the patriarch of the salvaging rednecks decides that curing Saxons daughter of her paralysis is next on the agenda all while cutting open the rest of her family. Ray Walston even pops up in a nervous cameo as a shady guy buying all of these livers and kidneys and whatever.

Tucker Johnston really made a movie that could be considered somewhat of a minor cult "classic", the story is fun and servicably executed and it is a hoot to watch Daniel Nelson spout religious gargles as he removes stuff from living people. Most of the actors does tend to overact a bit, especially the two redneck brothers but it kinda fits the joke of it all. I just wish that it would have been a bit nastier, the scenes in the barn where the Pruitts have quite a large group of "patients" nailed to the walls, only barely alive so that they can be slowly cut to pieces, would have benefited from some grue and kept the movie in peoples minds for many years to come but I guess we can't have everything. A fun watch that might be hard to track down, it is not available on dvd and I sure as hell wouldn't mind a nice dvd/blu with cool extras.

And am I confusing this with another movie? Were there gory pictures from this in Fangoria or is my mind playing tricks on me?

The Frankenstein theory (2013)

 

Andrew Weiners Found footage/mockumentary might be dismissed by a lot of people as another movie coming late in a dying genre. Let's face it, there are quite a few really bad movies where the filmmakers have watched Blair witch project and constructed a lame story about morons running around in the woods. The Frankenstein theory on the other hand, while not breaking any new ground, actually has a lot of thing that speak in its favour.

First of all, the story is quite interesting, claiming that Mary Shelleys Frankenstein was a work of non-fiction, based on an event that actually took place. We follow Professor John Venkenheim who is the subject of a documentary while his academical and personal lives are falling apart. You see, he has quite an odd theory that he wants to prove, that Frankensteins monster was an actual creature - a triumph/catastrophic failure of very early genetics and that it is still out there roaming the wastes of the Arctic circle, killing to stay hidden from humanity. Haunted by the fact that it was his own family that spawned the creature he decides to find it, no matter the cost and takes the cameracrew in the the arctic wilds of Canada. Of course, things go wrong.

Another of the movie's strength is the fact that it does look like a real documentary, the camerawork is professional, the wobbling camera is kept to a minimum and all the characters (a lot less annoying than the usual assholes that run around in the woods chasing spooks) are played by decent actors. The snowy landscape is an excellent setting (I want more snowhorrors goddamnit!).

The Frankenstein theory is a decent enough Found footage film that isn't you run of the mill crapfest, if you like the genre you might possibly be enjoyed by this. It does have one quite substantial flaw (and this will get slightly SPOILERish) and that is the fact that is doesnt really go anywhere with its interesting story. They travel to the wilderness and encounter some strange going ons and while it is still entertaining and somewhat creepy, it ends up fairly cliched. Just another Boogeyman. It doesn't kill the movie, just makes you yearn for what could have been. (END SPOILERishness).

In the end The Frankenstein theory is an above average Found footage movie (Believe me, I have seen much worse) and I'd advise you to check it out. It won't rock your world but you will be reasonably entertained.

Stranded (2013)

 

I actually preordered this movie just from reading the plot, I am that much of a sucker for scifi/horrors. I mean, come on. Meteorite crashes on moonbase, bringing spores that infect a woman that goes instantly pregnant and within 24 hours gives birth to a humanoid thingie with a predator-ish mandible mouth. I did not go on Imdb to read reviews or look it up online, I had to have it. It was as simple as that. Roger Christian, the director, will always live in infamy because of him being responsible for Battlefield Earth but we have to remember that he also directed The Sender, a very underrated little chiller back in the early days of his career.

Stranded is quite a timeless movie, it doesn't have any clothes or technology that specifically places it in a particular time and it uses miniatures instead of CGI. It could easily have been set in the 80s or the 2000s. In fact, the only thing that actually tells us that we are watching a movie made in 2013 is the fact that Christian Slater is getting "older-ish" (That man has aged well, that's for sure). It feels like it could have been a Roger Corman production, released by either New World or Concorde. The story is straight out of a fifties scifi movie and gets in gear without any real character setup, the meteorites start smashing the half-decent models right after the credits and moves on at a good pace introducing the ways of the creature right up until the cliched ending. It doesn't try to break any new ground whatsoever and works fine just because of that. Sure, the actors are bland (mostly because of the weak characters) and the movie could have gone for a bit more of the ole' gross-factor but the important thing is that you never have the chance to be bored. It won't be remembered as a cult classic in the years to come but I sure as hell don't regret buying it. It's no Forbidden world but you could do much worse.

Creepers aka Contamination point 7 aka The Crawlers aka Troll 3 (1993)

 

Creepers aka Contamination Point 7 aka The Crawlers aka Troll 3 (which from now on will be mentioned as Creepers, the title I saw it with) is the type of movie that goes into your brain, hunts down your braincells, lines them up against a wall and executes them all, without mercy. On paper it might look like a real movie if you catch a quick glance with something that resembles a genuine plot and camerawork that looks like someone actually used a real camera but other than that Creepers is a real travesty, the ancient mother of the god we all call Boredom. All hail the mighty Creepers, supreme creator of diabolical dreariness beyond comprehension.

It starts comfortingly promising with the Filmirage logo. They've given us a lot of enjoyable movies like Michele Soavis Stagefright and Joe D'Amatos Anthropophagus and Endgame and even though Creepers has a 1.9 Imdb average I still had some hope for the movie. To put it simply everything goes downhill very quickly after that as we are ushered into the story of a small town girl returning home from the big city to rekindle her love for her old boyfriend at the same time as a nuclear company tries to conceal the fact that the radioactive waste they have been dumping has caused the tree roots in the forest to become carnivorous. I cannot really single out anything in particular that is flawed, the entire damn movie is so pedestrian and incompetent beyond belief. It's like the filmmakers had no interest in making a movie at all. The actors are all awful, hough mention has to be made of the sheriff that stumbles on dialogue like he just went through trepanation and of course, the owner of the nuclear plant that seems to parody a villain straight out of Scooby Doo. His final euology has to be seen to be believed. Also, it seems like there only was one take on every single scene, there is quite a lot of stumbling of dialogue on a level that I haven't seen since really early Dr Who. Everything about this movie screams boredom. Boredom from the point of view of the filmmakers as there is not an ounce of anything resembling love for the craft and boredom for the viewer who wonders how the hell this thing was even made (even more perplexing is the fact that Creepers was supposed be shown at cinemas. That could quite possibly have caused an epidemic of mass suicides).

Too put it simply: There is nothing fun here. The movie has no nudity, no gore (apart from a quick scene where a character gets a root into his mouth and having it exit through his eye but it is so poorly made that it doesn't really matter), no exploitative materials at all. It is just... Dull. I can't even see it working when watching it with friends over a case of beer. It is that bad. A major avoid.

And the worst part about all of this? At the time of writing it is not officially available on dvd/blu ray but there is a blurb on Wikipedia that Scream factory are going to release this in the future. And I would probably buy it. That scares me the most. All hail the ungodly cancer that is Creepers! DEATH BY BOREDOM TO US ALL!

Macabre (2009)



 

Macabre is quite an oddity since it is a very violent and gruesome movie, coming out of a country that is predominately Islam, something you rarely see in cinema today. It seems to base it's reasons of horror firmly in the legacy of the Dutch colonialism of three and a half centuries which is actually quite refreshing, although it actually only hints of this.

Plotwise this is nothing new, on the contrary. We follow a group of youths travelling by minibus through the countryside as they almost run over a young woman in the middle of nowhere. They take her to her house, an old mansion, meet her slightly odd family and reluctantly accept an offer of dinner. The family of four, three grown children and the matriarch that oddly looks a bit too young for her age, soon show their true colors. They want the youths to die. Horribly.

The story is really old, we have seen it hundreds of times. The good thing about Macabre is the way the filmmakers treat it, infusing an extra creepiness in the villains that are more uncomfortable than the usual gimmicky buffoons that we mostly get to see in this type of movie. I won't go into discussing the vague reasons behind all of this but believe me when I say that they are truly horrifying in their ambiguity. The matriarch herself (Shareefa Daanish chewing her way through the scenery with great fun) is a marvel of death and torture and her children aren't far behind in maliciousness. The violence is bloody and hardhitting, just like we want it and combined with fluent direction we get a movie that rises way above its kind. Damn I want a sequel now!

 

One of the reviews I found online (can't remember which one, sorry. Might change this text when I remember) summed this up fairly well: Think Frontieres in Indonesia, and this is a good description although I rate this much higher. It isn't really anything new but the treatment is still interesting enough to give this my highest recommendations, it really is that well made.

Thanks Fred over at Ex-Ninja for recommending this movie, NOW HOW ABOUT WATCHING LAKE MUNGO THAT I'VE TALKED ABOUT FOR YEARS?!

Evil dead (2013)

 

So, it is finally here. The Evil dead REMAKE. The internet have been as usual, a lot of people behaving like spoiled children, screaming that THEY CAN'T DO THIS! WE WANT BRUCE CAMPBELL! Personally, I am not that big a fan of remakes but ever since I was positively blown away by Zack Snyders Dawn of the dead I'm keeping an open mind.

You know the story, a group of youths are going out into the woods for the weekend, the difference being that in the original they were partygoers and now they are having a kind of intervention, helping a friend (Jane Levy) to kick a drughabit. It doesnt take long before they find a mysterious book in the basement, someone reads a passage out of it and demons are released. You dont need to know more, it is all there and very recognizably so. The variations from the original story aren't major but enough to make the story interesting. Some of it is good (the whole kicking the drug habit is somewhat fresh, it gives the movie just a bit more edge, as it just might all be in the head of Levys character) and some of it is not (the backstory about the demons, but more on that later on in the review). but there is enough of it to make the story feel somewhat fresh. We even get a bit of a twist towards the end that I did not expect and it is a fun one too.

So, let us start with the bad stuff. First of all, and this is a pet peeve of mine, why do we have to have an explanation of what is going on? Why do we need to know all these details about the demon? Does the screenwriter think that the normal moviegoer is stupid and needs to have things explained in detail in order to understand the intricate ways of a plot that mainly is about dismemberment? Ok, so I am exaggerating a bit here, Evil dead is nowhere near the worst offender of this crime (#1 on this list is the American remake of Ringu) but the original did it so much simpler and better. We don't need to know (with illustrations) that there are three ways to kill the possessed, we just want to see the characters trying to survive as ferociously as possible! I want my own mind to fill in the blanks, not to have them filled in by the screenwriter with a dull hammer (which could have been put to better use in the movie itself as a way of inflicting even more grue and gore). This is only a minor flaw of the movie though, I'm just pouring out some old hate towards Hollywood. The movie moves so fast that I never had the chance to be upset about this until after it was finished. I could also bitch about the fact that some of the characters are somewhat undeveloped, mainly the leads girlfriend who is a blonde chick who we never have a chance to get to know until *SPOILER* she is torn to pieces in a long, delightful sequence with several nods to the original movie. *END OF SPOILER*. But then again, she really is just there to be dismembered violently. (oops. Forgot the spoilertag).

So, the good bits? Most of the god damn movie. As i mentioned before, it moves like lightning and the brief scenes of setting up the scenario are over before you can say Bodily dismemberment and as soon as the words that are used to summon the demon are read, we are way in over our heads of blood and nastiness. There is a lot of violence and it sure as hell is really red and painful, most of it actually old school practical stuff (there is a scene of the remnants of a chopped off arm that looked suspiciously CGI but if it's not, kudos to the makeup artists). All of the actors are good even though some of the characters are thin and they serve the script well. Fede Alvarez does an excellent job setting up all of this and the cabin itself is a marvel to behold, surrounded by a dark and gnarly forest that works wonder with the atmosphere. To top it all off we get those cool last ten minutes that follow a slightly cheesy moment (the only one actually) and what we have is a solid piece of gore.

I realize I spent more time writing bad stuff than good, but don't let that deter you from watching Evil dead. As remakes go, it is up there as one of the better I have seen. It does not reinvent the wheel but it serves up its images with style and relish, giving us a nasty piece of horror that stands fairly well together with the original. It does keep its horror dark and serious which I personally like a lot. Good stuff indeed, and I really look forward to getting it on bluray (fingers crossed for even more gore!). Recommended.