30 Days of Fright - 14: Black Christmas

There’s nothing quite as sad as a missed opportunity. Sit down and take a look at Black Christmas (2006) and you’ll see what I mean. The idea of the film is really really simple:

There’s this house, and it used to belong to this couple. The couple had a child who suffered from an unfortunate medical condition, a buggered up liver, so his skin was an off yellow. The mother was particularly upset by this so she abused him and locked him in the attic. The child grew up, the mother had another child, a girl this time who’s a little more normal. There are some murders.

Now the house belongs to a sorority full of spoilt women. The young lad has grown up and has escaped from a mental hospital and has returned home to kill some people. Oh yeah, it’s Christmas. Then at the end there’s a big twist.

Perky!

The missed opportunities are plentiful with this movie. Let’s be kind and start with the piss poor script that drags things out for ages and ages before you get to see any murder. Or the shocking casting decisions. Or the way you don’t care for anyone in the film. Or how, because the potential victims in the house don’t realise they are in danger, there’s no sense of dread or fear on their behalf.

Ah fuckit, let’s cut to the chase here: This is a film about a bunch of attractive college age girls in a house together on a cold winters night and THERE’S NO FUCKING NUDITY! There’s no girl on girl kissing, no running around in underwear – there’s barely any sideboob action. What the fuck was going on at the studio that authorised a film like this, with rakes of young girls and not a single reason for lads to watch it?

My indignation is real because I sat all the way through Black Christmas always expecting something to happen to relieve the boredom, but alas nothing did. This is one seriously dull film, even the attempts at gore towards the end fall terribly flat. Unlike the girls.

Two Thumbs Down For Black Christmas.

30 Days of Fright - 13: Thir13en Ghosts

As a fan of trivia I enjoy digging out neat little facts about things that I can then regurgitate at the most inappropriate moments. Fun facts about people waking up during operations just before a friend goes into surgery or telling nervous women about the local rat or spider population just before bed are always good for a giggle. The problem with trivia is that there are times when the fun facts around something, be it book, album, or film, are better than the material itself.

Take, for example, the movie Thir13en Ghosts (that’s not a typo by the way, that’s how they write the name of this flick) – the fun little fact about it is that it’s yet another fucking remake, this time, however, that makes this movie ever so slightly more interesting.

Thir13en Ghosts (2001) opens with a ghost hunt. An (I assume) eccentric (maybe just drunk) rich bloke, Cyrus, is out with a bunch of his mates hunting a ghost in a junk yard. Turns out that Cyrus collects ghosts for a particular purpose and he’s after a really mean one. In the process of catching the ghost a number of the hunters, including Cyrus, get bumped off.

We then flip over to the story of Arthur (Tony Shaloub (Monk, from the TV show of the same name)), the daddy of an all American family whom tragedy has seen fit to visit; a house fire has taken the life of his wife and Arthur is not faring out well as the grieving widower. Finally, a little good fortune comes along in the form of Cyrus’s lawyer who reveals that dear old uncle Cyrus has left his house to Arthur.

Arthur and his two kids (the eldest of which is played by Shannon Elizabeth) along with their comic-relief nanny go with the Lawyer that evening to see the house. Cyrus's place is a monument of glass and bare metal and, frankly, a really interesting space in the post-modernest style - in other words it's cool looking. The unusual house entertains the kids but worries Arthur. Waiting for the family is Matthew Lillard, badly disguised as a power company engineer who claims that problems with the local electricity are being caused by a fault in the house. Lillard is actually a psychic and one-time assistant to Cyrus and he's visiting the house for a bit of a nose. Lillard is shocked to discover that the basement is a type of prison for ghosts and where Cyrus kept his collection. Terrified by his discovery he rushes to tell the others, just as trouble breaks out...

Maybe it's a decomposing, rotten, creature of the undead, maybe it's Maybelline

Thirteen Ghosts (I got sick of typing it the other way) is not about scare, though an 18's rated movie it's more like a gory version of The Haunting in that it's all about the house and the dead relative's obsession. Now, I like The Haunting, though it's unlikely it'll ever end up on a 30 Days list, it's a fun movie. Thirteen Ghosts is very similar but with a newer house and more contrived backstory. This is where the interesting little fact comes in. Both Thirteen Ghosts and The Haunting are remakes of movies from the early 1960's. The similarities in these movies is no coincidence but instead an odd reflection of the moods of two different periods.

The source material for the films comes from a time when horror was about haunted houses and ghosts, maybe the occassional vampire, but on the whole very traditional ideas about scary movies.The original Thirteen Ghosts hit cinemas in 1960 while The Haunting followed a few years later, getting released in 1963;  the modern Thirteen Ghosts is a 2001 film while The Haunting got its remake in 1999. The original movies relect the attitudes of the early 60's, along with the then current approach to film making. Thirteen Ghosts used blatent gimmicks to get bums on seats, including 3D style glasses to see (or not see) the ghosts, while The Haunting was filmed in a way that highlighted the atmospherics of the house and built up a feeling of dread. The remakes both used special effects and recognisable names to cover an utter lack of ability on behalf of the director.

Despite the gore and blood, the remade Thirteen Ghosts feels like a kids film, even more than The Haunting which actually IS a kids film. This is possibly due to the original movie being aimed at younger audiences but is more likely down to the fact that the director, Steve Beck, lost the run of himself in trying to please the fickle audience with a hollow script while at the same time never really asking for anything from the actors.

In terms of performances, Shannon Elizabeth is functional as the daughter, in fact all the actors are functional, but with Shannon it's more of a disappointment for some reason; it's like she was shaping up to be good and then just didn't bother. The scene with her in front of the mirror with the ghost behind her demonstrates what I mean, like she's really not trying, and the bit where she's attacked and her clothes are ripped is a severe let down on so many levels! Tony Shaloub is an odd choice for a film of this nature and his casting as the father is just another of the odd decisions the film makers made. Matthew Lillard is playing the same role he played in Scream and Hackers, and like in Scream, he tends to spit a lot, though his character is one of the more interesting ones in the film.

The overall star of the piece is the set design which is amazing - the house is brilliant, made up of glass etched with latin inscriptions and with large mechanical things everywhere. The biggest let down though has to be the Ghosts themselves as they're all rubbish, made up in more of a super-villain style then in a genuine attempt to scare.

Two Thumbs Down for Thirteen Ghosts (and Two Thumbs Firmly Down for the scene where you think you're going to see Shannon Elizabeth's boobies and then don't!)

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245674/

Official Site: http://13ghosts.warnerbros.com/

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteen_Ghosts_(2001_film)

30 Days of Fright – 12: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

What the hell is wrong with Jessica Biel's mouth? Here's a girl with an attractive figure (which is the diplomatic way an engaged man like myself says "she's a fit bitch") but a face that looks like something a mutant would go "yuk" at. Holy Christ, the makers of the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre managed to get this girl from all the wrong angles close up.


I mean, look at this,

Here we see young Miss Biel in a normal enough shot, looking reasonable:

Even in this shot she looks alright, I suppose:

But what's going on here? What's with the catfishmouth thing?

 Or here? Dear Lord the wheels came off the wagon....

So anyway, after sitting all the way through the 2003 edition of Chainsaw the state of Jessica Biel is really and truly the most interesting thing to talk about, due in no small part to this being another run through an already shite script.


Set in 1973 and like the original, Chainsaw 03 tells of a bunch of college types travelling through Texas, this time on their way from Mexico to a concert in Dallas. They'd been south of the border for a little R&R and to purchase drugs with intent to sell. The kids are all roughly the same as in the '74 movie only this time they're all able bodied, no room for wheelchairs in this version. They pick up a hitch-hiker (a girl this time) who kills herself (instead of attacking the kids in the van). It goes on and on like this, it's the same as the original but just a little different – just enough as to stand on its own.


The kids stop and look for help. They meet the wrong sorts who direct them to their deaths, all except perky Jessica Biel, who after a bit of chase gets away pretty much without a scratch and quite hoarse from all the screaming. The End. Again.

With oil prices returning to normal, the chainsaw is once again the weapon of choice for deranged psycho killers!

This is a film chock full of conveniences. Some of them are OK, like the leaking water pipes in the house built in one of the hottest states in America – the pipes are leaking just so that there's water in the basement for Jessica Biel to fall into, thus soaking her T-Shirt, making it nice and see-through; or the water in the meat factory that's there for young Jessica to fall into in order to re-soak that T-Shirt of hers; or that sudden change in the weather towards the end where it starts pissing rain in one of the hottest states in America just as Ms. Biel's shirt was drying out. Like I said, these conveniences are OK. But the most evil family in America living in apparent isolation, miles from anywhere though also on the main road from the Mexican border to Dallas – I don't buy that.


Or one of the evil family getting elected Sheriff? Or these five morons trafficking quantities of drugs across the border? Nope, not going for that either, though the lads must of had something going for them – why else were they galavanting around Mexico and Texas instead of off fighting in Vietnam?


Two Thumbs Down for the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Two Thumbs Up for Jessica Biel's Arse.


To read more (as opposed to watching this film) check out:
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0324216/
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Texas_Chainsaw_Massacre_(film)

30 Days of Fright - 11: Shrooms

Why aren't there more horror movies set in Ireland? With the scenery and historic locations and wealth of folklore it seems odd that the nearest thing to an Irish horror movie is Tom Cruise's "Far and Away". That said, there's no decent Irish Sci-Fi either, or homegrown television come to think of it, so it's basically a miracle that every few years an absolute gem of an Irish movie comes along. Alas, as for last nights film...

Shrooms (2007) tells of a group of five american teens who travel to Ireland to meet a college friend. The friend, Jake, takes them out into the woods in order to score some magic mushrooms. Jake's a bit of a storyteller and first tells a tale of dogging - people having sex in cars and inviting strangers to join in.

The next story he tells is about the dreaded Deathcap mushroom, that only comes into season every now and then and is (coincidentally) in season now. He explains that the Deathcap gives anyone who consumes it the gift of premonition, if you survive the eating of the mushroom in the first place, in most cases it's leathal. One of the gang, a young, blond, and attractive girl called Tara, eats of the evil little fungi and is just snatched from the jaws of death by Jake.

Later that night, around the campfire, Jake tells another story of a mad monk who ran a home for wayward boys and who used to torture and even kill the children in the home, until, after having killed one of a set of twins, the other decided to poison the monk with a stash of Deathcap mushrooms. The plan, in the story, backfired as the mushrooms unleashed all the violence the monk was capable of and set him off on a major killing spree. Now, the monk and the only other survivor from the home, a feral child, haunt the woods.

One of the group takes a big pile of mushrooms and then heads out into the woods, well and truly out of his bin. The next day, and in various states of conciousness as a result of drinking mushroom tea, the rest of the group head out into the woods in search of their missing friend and promptly get lost and picked off by some unseen murdering force, all the while Tara, as a result of her brush with the Deathcap mushroom is seeing premonitions of their demises and ultimately sees more than she ever could have imagined in even her worst drug induced nightmares.

Monks on Shrooms - adds a whole new dimension to "High Clergy"

So let's dispense with the obvious. Shrooms is about teenage drug abuse and the users of the mushrooms come to sticky ends, but the movie is not about moralising over drug use. Instead, the mushrooms initially add an angle to the film that is not unlike A Nightmare On Elm Street, in that after taking the mushrooms and tripping, no one is able to tell what's real and what's not. This is disconcerting at first, but the trippy visuals soon become tiring and once you see the background shimmer in a certain way you know somethings going to happen, it's just another cue, like when the music gets quiet right before the baddie shows up.

Unfortunately, the point about the trippy visuals just about sums up Shrooms. It's a pedestrian horror movie with a few jumpy moments but nothing to recommend it after the first half hour of American kids running around stoned off their gimp in the woods up in Monaghan. Like too many recent movies the makers of Shrooms seemd to think that quantity was more important than quality and threw in too many possible villians as well as 'overdosing' on the same visual tricks over and over again.

That said, it was nice to see a movie set and filmed in Ireland on the list, even if most of the people in it were American.

One Thumb Up and One Thumb Down for Shrooms.



Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrooms_%28film%29
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0492486/
For an insight into the world of bad ass mushrooms: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=seven-deadly-shrooms

30 Days of Fright - 10: Dog Soldiers

Holloywood disappoints. I've mentioned this before. In order to find decent cinema it's often necessary to look to the independent film sector. Good independent movies are not exactly common, but it's easier to forgive the indie crowd when they produce a pile of dirt because they make their movies from the heart and are prepared to ignore the populist choices while making their films. On the other hand, when a good independent film comes along it can blow you away!

Dog Soldiers (2001) follows a squad of British soldiers on a training exercise in the remote Scottish highlands. Their training scenario has them behind enemy lines and they have to get back to their side. They select a route and set off. The squad are up against special forces types but aren't phased by their opponents as they're dripping with testosterone and bravado.

Along the way they encounter the remains of the special forces squad who appear to have been attacked. There's one survivor, a Captain Ryan. He's been injured and has a bad chest wound that looks like an animal attack. The soldiers try to get out of the area by calling for a helicopter but discover that their radio gear is no longer working. A closer inspection reveals a bug has been planted in the radio. Deciding that they need to get out of the area they start to hike out, concerned that whatever attacked the special forces team is coming back.

As they move out they are indeed attacked and take casualities. As they leg it they run into a girl in a jeep who takes them to a house where they make a temporary base and try to survive the night, a night with a full moon. Realising that the squad are being hunted by werewolves they try to fight off their attackers but soon discover that they're not just fighting the creatures outside the house...

Eye, Eye, Captain!

I saw Dog Soldiers in the cinema and hated it. At the time there was a spate of British horror movies that got cinema releases that most of them didn't deserve. Having watched Dog soldiers again I have to say that it was one of those films that didn't deserve its time in the picture house. This does not mean that it's bad. In fact, Dog Soldiers is fucking excellent!

Dog Soldiers tells a simple story set over the course of only a couple of nights but it is jammed packed with good characters, great scenes, and a developed sense of humour that works brilliantly. There are some funny moments that honestly made me laugh out loud and there are some great horror moments too, filled with situational terror and copious amounts of blood and intestines.

The two principle actors, Sean Pertwee and Kevin McKidd gave cracking performances and their portrayal of army life is one of the best recruitment pieces I've seen since Black Hawk Down. Then, it was explained to me what's off with Dog Soldiers. It's a really bad movie for the cinema but excellent on DVD; it's kinda like a made for TV movie in that it works so well on the small screen, partly due to the actors being people you associate with their TV appearances.

So, Two Thumbs Up for Dog Soldiers (on DVD).

30 Days of Fright - 09: The Covenant

There are few tales from history that can invoke chills in the same way a horror film can. One such tale is of the events in the early 1690's that took place in Salem, Massachusetts. During that dark period of American history nineteen people were hanged as witches and at least one other died under torture. The colonies in the 1690's were full of superstition and fear and it's unlikely that everyone involved in the process of those trials really believed in witchcraft to the extent that was claimed. Like many modern legal wrangles, the business in Salem was really about land and grudges between neighbours.

The reality of the witch trails doesn't reduce the power of the story and how it can still send a shiver down the spine. When I first started really reading up on Salem I found myself wanting there to be a deeper, supernatural element to the tale, and I suspect that I'm not alone in that desire. Salem has been the source material for many fine works, just look at The Crucible (play or film) and you'll see what I mean. It's surprising that there haven't been more films based on the witch trials. Having sat through "The Covenant" I can only hope there is never another attempt at such a film.

The Covenant (2006) begins with a little backstory about the "Ipswich Colony" that was home to five magical families that formed a covenant of silence in order to escape the persecution that was going on at the time. These families passed a magical power (named, with stunning originality, "The Power") down along the male bloodline to the first born son. The Power manifests itself at age 13 and there's a period of adjustment up until the age of 18 when The Power gets turned all the way up to it's highest setting. The Power lets you do all sorts of cool stuff, like fly a bit and move stuff around and look all windswept and interesting or dark and brooding depending on the occasion.

One of the families got a little Power mad and were booted out of the club and their bloodline seems to have died out. Can you guess at this point what happens? Are you thinking that maybe that bloodline didn't really die out? Hold that thought.

Skip forward about three hundred and twenty odd years up to the present day and we find four lads who are all chums, suitably dark and brooding, come from families that date back to colonial times (and are therefore for some reason all stinking rich) and have The Power. They're 17 years old and one of the gang, Caleb, is nearly 18 and about to get his full dose of Power. The boys all attend a really really good boarding school that only admits good looking kids. A couple of new kids have just transferred in to the school and one of them, a windswept and interesting looking type called Chase, gets on with the boys quite well.

Remember the thought you were holding? Yep, Chase is the descendant of the fifth family and he has a whopping dose of The Power. You see, The Power isn't all it's cracked up to be. Every time you use The Power you get your life shortened a little as the human body can't handle the strain. And using The Power is addictive. Young Chase is in town looking for the boys so that he can get more Power for himself, so he's keeping up the family tradition, which is nice.

I love you man!

  No I love YOU man!

The Covenant snuck onto the list of 30 Days movies due to its Salem credentials. However, despite all the references to Books of Damnation and witchcraft it is not a horror film. Calling it a supernatural thriller is a stretch. The Covenant is more like a super hero movie as it's all about wielding The Power and product placement for Mustang and Ducati.

There really isn't all that much to say about this film beyond it's just rubbish. To be fair I think you'd love it if you were fourteen as it has teenage girls in their underwear (nothing wrong with that of course) and cool cars and bikes (again, nowt wrong with that) and bugger all in the way of substance. The story is decent and I have to complement Sebastian Stan, the dude who played Chase, as his performance was genuinely excellent, but after twenty minutes of processed, alternative but commercially acceptable rock music, and overly slick visuals, you want more. All the actors in the film, with the obvious exception of the two or three adults, look like they should either be dancing about in a Coke ad or serving Coke in the lobby of the cinema.

The Covenant was mis-sold as having something to do with horror and supernatural goings on, but is really more suitable for audiences suffering from either ADD or photo-sensitive epilepsy (both of which were probably brought on from having seen "Transformers" once too often).

Two Thumbs Down for The Covenant.


To read more (though why you'd want to is a mystery) check out:
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Covenant_%28film%29
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0475944/
For a decent account of the true events in Salem: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/salem.htm

30 Days of Fright - 08: 1408

Anyone who visits the cinema on a regualar basis understands that Hollywood dishes out disappointment all the time. There's nothing worse then going to see some flick you've been looking forward to for ages only to realise half way through that it's muck. Last night, Hollywood introduced me to a whole new level of crushing disappointment - the Director's cut of a film that makes it worse then the original release!

1408 follows John Cusak as author Michael Enslin who writes trashy books about haunted hotels, motels, cemetaries, castles, etc. After releasing another of these books he receives a postcard from a hotel in New York that bares the cryptic message "do not enter 1408". He contacts the hotel and is told that he cannot stay in that room. Enslin, believing this to be an elaborate publicity stunt, gets his publisher to lean on the hotel and book him into the room for the night.

Enslin travels to New York, which is where he used to live with his wife and daughter, before the little girl died of some unnamed illness. At the hotel he is greeted by the manager (Samuel L. "Snakes on a Muthafuckin' Plane" Jackson) who does his level best to dissuade Enslin from staying in the room, telling him about the large number of deaths that occurred there. Enslin, it turns out, is the biggest skeptic in the world ever, despite making his living off creepy travel guides, and doesn't believe there's anything to be afraid of.

Upon entering the room, a few odd occurrances make him reconsider his position on the supernatural, and over the course of an hour in the room he is subjected to a terrifying ordeal that not only makes him rethink the paranormal, but nearly costs him his sanity as he is subjected to an array of horrors, some of which are from his own past.

I hate getting a room in a hotel right above the Nite Club too!

1408 introduced me to a strange phenomenon. The first time I saw this movie, I saw the theatrical release that has one of the best horror endings to a movie I've ever seen. I won't go into details for fear of ruining it, but it was spectacular, especially as the first hour twenty of the film is lackluster at best, going through the motions of what passes for horror.

The directors cut, I thought, can only be better, maybe add in some atmospherics, or tidy up some of the cliché scenes that litter the forty five minutes of Cusak sat in a hotel room. But no! The durty bastards totally change the end! The last ten minutes of the movie are totally different and totally fucking shite!

Some research revealed that audiences in the US felt that the original ending was too much of a "downer" so it was re-shot - the big surprise is that they were right! The original ending is the one on the directors cut. The revised ending was the one I first saw and really really liked. Not so down, but far creepier! Sometimes, not often to be sure, but sometime test audiences are right!!!

As for the rest of the film, well it's kinda dull. Cusak is a decent actor and I've loved him in films like High Fidelity and Grosse Point Blank, but he can have difficulty picking scripts and tends to play the same type of cynical, introverted, understated character all the time, just like he does in 1408. Samuel L. (Snakes on a Muthafuckin' Death Star) Jackson is his usual functional self but he does give the game away a little when he comes into the movie - in fairness, if you turn up at some hotel and Samuel L. (Snakes on a Muthafuckin' Tarantino) Jackson is the manager, then you know you've got trouble coming! The acting highlights come from the girl playing Cusak's daughter who has a couple of great scenes and from Mary McCormack - not that she was anything special, I just like to see her get some work from time to time, the poor cow.

1408 is based on a Stephen King short story, thus explaining why it's not great. Why Hollywood likes Stephen King so much is a mystery - sure there have been a couple of huge hits off the back of his work, but for every win there are at least ten losses, everyone remembers The Shawshank Redemption but what about Needful Things? or The Mist? or Dreamcatcher? Stephen King's work tends only to frighten children anyway and the subplots and attempts at commentary on American life never hit the mark they way they should - it's time to let someone else take a crack at scary movies.

One last thing. What is Hollywood trying to say about families that only have one child? In 1408, the Enslin's only have their daughter and when she died it caused Mr and Mrs Enslin to split up. Fair enough, you might say, but isn't that roughly the same thing that happened in Minority Report (though it was a missing (likely dead) child in that case)? Is there some notion that only children are able to hold people together and once they're out of the equation then it's splitsville for mum and dad? For me, that's the real downer in 1408.

Two Thumbs Firmly Down for the Directors Cut of 1408.

To find out more (for the want of somthing better to do) check out:

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1408_(film)

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0450385/

Official Site: http://www.1408-themovie.com/