RED SUN!!!!!

Posted on May 7, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Red Sun ~ 1971, Terence Young

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When a botched train robbery leaves a rascally gunfighter betrayed by his gang, he is forced to join forces with a mysterious Asian warrior on a secret mission in the American west. Though they are initially unable to see eye to eye, these two slowly form a mutual respect for one anther, and embark on a grand adventure set against the rugged backdrop of the American frontier, which climaxes in a dramatic, bullet riddled standoff in an old, Spanish style mission. Sound familiar? It damn should, because Shanghai Noon grossed over $99,000,000 worldwide, and that’s an exact description of that movie’s plot. The things is, though, I’m actually talking about Red Sun, the movie Shanghai Noon ripped off, and guess what? The plot is exactly the same in both films.

Some folks I’ve spoken to have claimed that Shanghai Noon was, in fact, an admitted remake of Red Sun, but after some research I have turned up no official acknowledged of the debt Shanghai Noon owes to this film, and therefore I think we can safely say this was probably not an official remake. If I’m correct, then a more accurate description of this phenomena would be ‘blatant plagiarism.’ Any argument that the concept isn’t identical is, frankly, silly, and even worse, the script for Red Sun must have served as a rough framework for Shanghai Noon, because the structure is completely identical in both films, aside from a few added subplots. There are even some gags and emotional beats from the 1971 original that you see repeated in the 2000 rip off, and it’s rare that any remake stays this close to it’s source material, even in the world of actual, and official remakes. You could convince me that my own mother was a sock puppet operated by sasquatch before you even had me considering the notion that the person who wrote Shanghai Noon had never seen Red Sun. No other claim could possibly be more unrealistic, without question, this was a calculated attempt to repackage something great, and distribute it as something original; Shanghai Noon is not homage, it’s theft.

Now, I’m not saying that I hate Shanghai Noon, far from it, in fact. Jackie Chan, who is basically the Mickey Mouse of martial arts, is a global treasure, and his cross demographic appeal doesn’t need to be defended. Similarly, that movie has Owen Wilson Owen Wilsoning harder than he ever has before or since, and all of our lives are richer for it. What I DO mean to say, however, is that if you liked Shanghai Noon the first time, then maybe you’d also like it the REAL first time; and Red Sun IS the REAL first time.

So, having established a little bit that these films are remarkably similar to one another, let’s quickly talk about the few things that make them different. First things first, Red Sun doesn’t have Jackie Chan, it has Toshiro Mifune.

red-sun-1971-001-toshino-mifune-medium-shot-looking-down_0 Awesome.

Mifune was actually born in China, but to Japanese parents, and is most readily identified as a Japanese actor, so in this version, our Asian delegates come not from China, but from Japan. This changes some superficial aspects of the movie, and gives us more swords, and less kung fu, but that it in no way hinders Red Sun’s ability to kick ass and be awesome. Jackie Chan and his hand-to-hand hijinks are fantastic, yes, but Mifune is a bad ass the likes of which we only see a few times per generation, and in this movie he brings the unreasonably cool art of samurai sword fighting to the American wild west with many a guttural bark and angular scowl, which is every bit as awesome in execution as it sounds on paper. Comparing Mifune to Chan is a real apples to oranges type situation, but I’d say the two are equally cool, regardless of how fundamentally different they are.

Similarly, where Shanghai Noon had Owen Wilson, here we have Charles Bronson, the impossibly easy-to-like murder enthusiast from the blood splattered Death Wish franchise.

RHSyHtX Charles Bronson’s natural habitat is pretty much anywhere, provided he’s pointing a gun at someone.

In Red Sun, Bronson totally kills it, literally, and figuratively. as an actor, Bronson always managed to balance sardonic, wry charm with gritty, violent menace in a way that made him equally intimidating and likable, and off the charts on both counts. He does that here as well as he ever has, making his character incalculably more bad ass than Wilson’s inept, gun-slinging charmer, but this feels entirely appropriate since Red Sun is a much rougher ride.

And it really is, Red Sun is darker, and much more violent than the good natured and outwardly comedic Shanghai Noon. Charles Bronson does tell a few jokes here and there, but his wisecracking never manages to outpace his body count, and Mifune only has two modes; scowl, and kill… Which is so, so awesome. Also, there’s some nudity in Red Sun, and the Lucy Liu/Princess Pei Pei character is absent entirely. Instead, our female lead is a prostitute played by Ursula Andress, who Charles Bronson kidnaps in order to piss off the bad guy. So, yeah. Murder and hookers. Maybe not a film to watch with the youngsters around, unless you want to train them to be awesome or something.

While Red Sun’s legacy is felt in every single moment of Shanghai Noon, the two films actually have differing thesis statements. Red Sun is basically a redemption story, with Charles Bronson playing the real central character, and Mifune teetering over into sidekick territory. In that film, Bronson and Mifune’s characters are roughly equal in their status as capable warriors, but Bronson has no moral compass and no sense of honor whatsoever. Through his meeting with Mifune, he witnesses firsthand the sturdy foreigner’s unwavering dedication to the samurai code, and Bronson slowly comes to understand the error in living life as a murderous, wise-cracking shit head. Thus, he decides to turn over a new leaf, a new, blood drenched, bullet riddled leaf, and maybe pay attention to morality every once-in-a-while. Shanghai Noon, on the other hand is more about Jackie Chan’s character, who, through his adventures with Owen Wilson, realizes that his centuries old beliefs and customs about honor and dedication to the Chinese Emperor are totally silly, and that instead he should just do whatever he wants, because China is really far away. Seriously, that’s the moral to that movie, go back and watch it. There are multiple scenes in the film where Chan says something about his oath to protect the princess, or what have you, and Wilson mocks him dismissively, saying that he’s in America now, the sun may rise in the east, but it sets in the West, so he shouldn’t feel shackled to the honor code he’s lived by for his entire life. This is basically an existential version of the “if they’re in a different area code, it’s not cheating” defense commonly used by douche bags and adulterers to justify the antics of their wayward genitals, and it’s also the exact opposite of the thesis statement seen in Red Sun. All things considered, I’m not wild about Shanghai Noon’s small minded and culturally reckless thesis statement. ‘Merca.

Anyway. This review has mostly been about how Shanghai Noon ripped off Red Sun, instead of actually reviewing Red Sun, so I guess did kind of a shitty job. Oh well. Sorry, folks! Let me quickly say this; Red Sun is awesome, and criminally under-appreciated. The Wilson/Chan dynamic you loved in 2000 actually worked even better in 1971 with Mifune and Bronson, and honest, the talent on screen here isn’t a step down from what you’ve already seen, it’s a step up. Plus, crazily enough, Red Sun is actually made MORE entertaining if you come into it having already seen Shanghai Noon like, a hundred times. It sort of makes the experience seem almost surreal, like you somehow found the “real” Shanghai Noon. It feels like some sort of secret movie that the world forgot, and that Wilson and Chan tried to bury. All in all, it’s a pretty great find, and oddly enough, I think that Red Sun is equally recommendable if you loved Shanghai Noon, OR if you hated it.

Well worth checking out.

The Lawnmower Man

Posted on April 30, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

The Lawnmower Man ~ 1992, Brett Leonard, USA

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The Lawnmower Man is a far out early 90’s horror film which boldly jumps into the once exciting world of VIRTUAL REALITY.

Remember when people were excited by Virtual Reality, or VR, if you’re hip? You probably don’t, because holy shit, that was decades ago… but no matter, circa 1992, the people of Pre-Myspace Earth really thought that Virtual Reality was gonna be super awesome, and they also thought, hilariously enough, that the technology needed was practically within our grasp. Let me set the stage for you; at that time, The Super Nintendo was straight up blowing people’s minds. Trying to perfectly replicate an interactive universe inside a digital environment back in the early 90’s was sort of like trying to travel to the moon when mankind was just starting to figure out how boats work. Today, pretty much every bozo on the street carries in their pocket a device which would have left 1992’s most jaw dropping technology in the dust, and we routinely drop the damn things into the toilet. The certainty with which The Lawnmower Man addresses it’s techno-speculation really makes watching it feel like coming upon a photograph of something really embarrassing you did in high school, only this time, the embarrassment impacts Western Civilization as a whole. Man. We sure were stupid back then, huh? Yes, and we still are.

The Plot~ Pierce Brosnan plays Dr. Lawrence Angelo, a cool 90’s scientist who has a pierced ear. Angelo is really smart, and his work is super important. What is his work, you ask? Pretty much he just straps monkeys into those weird gyroscopic things you used to see at the county fair and makes them play Atari Jaguar on stupid Virtual Reality headsets all day. For some reason, he thinks that this will stimulate the growth of brain tissue, which would thereby prove that video games actually make you smarter. Hard sell, Angelo, I think that by simply logging into X-Box Live we can pretty much disprove that little theory once and for all, but regardless, that’s what he does, until his work hits a road block when his test monkey loses it’s shit and attacks some people, who in turn, blow its little monkey head right off. Seeing how distraught Angelo has become after this regrettable setback, his black-hearted employers decide to send him home on a paid sabbatical, so he can chill the hell out and avoid losing his marbles altogether. They were foolish, though, to think that the ever obsessive Dr. Angelo would ever halt his research simply because it was proven to drive his subjects into fits of mindless, violent fury. On the contrary, having just now seen how potentially dangerous these experiments really are, Angelo does the one thing a scientist worth his salt would ever do, and that is to move directly into human trials without the oversight of any regulatory agency whatsoever. He does this in his basement, using a mentally retarded and possibly sexually abused man who mows his lawn. What ethics?

Jobe, the titular lawnmower man, responds well to his time in virtual reality land, and his intelligence does begin to improve. Enthused by his success, Angelo brings his findings to his employers, who are delighted, and Angelo is again allowed to continue his work in their vastly superior facilities. However, without telling Angelo, they also alter the programming for Jobe’s VR sessions to include the same aggression based programming that had previously driven Dr. Angelo’s chimpanzee insane, because scientists just like to do that kind of stuff sometimes. As a result, the now genius level Jobe not only gains godlike super-powers, but also vengeful, homicidal tendencies. That, boys and girls, is how Pierce Brosnan turned Simple Jack into a god-like Super Murderer with powers that rival the mighty Sega Genesis. Quiver in fear!!

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No idea what this is supposed to be.

The Lawnmower Man’s strategy is pretty clear; it wants to wow you. This movie wants to throw so many awesome, pixelated, computer generated effects at you that your head’ll just be spinning with disbelief. Unfortunately, today we find the picture absolutely defanged, declawed, neutered, and humiliated by time. Bubsy 3D, anyone? I’m sure that what Lawnmower Man brought to the table may have spun a head or two back in the early ’90s, but for today’s viewers, every single aspect of the film’s main attraction comes across as primitive, and embarrassing. It’s actually somehow worse than what you see in the “Atom-Age’ B-movies of the 1950’s, because at least most of us haven’t actually dabbled in atomic fission firsthand, but we damn sure know about playing video games. That’s a fact. The Lawnmower Man NEEDS to be futuristic, it NEEDS to be impressive, and it NEEDS to convince you that your freaking Nintendo 3DS might be giving you super powers slowly. If it fails to achieve these goals, then what you have is a movie that burdens itself with an impossible obstacle, and therefore simply cannot be taken seriously. It is for that reason that The Lawnmower Man is probably the most dated film I have ever seen.

It’s also sort of sort of offensive, and isn’t directed all that well… BUT…. at the end of the day, none of what bothers me about The Lawnmower Man is going to be enough to detour it’s potential fan base completely. This is a film about a man who murders people with what basically amounts to “Computer Magic,” and there will always be people who want to see that. Hell, the general criteria for what makes a horror film passable to mainstream horror culture is pretty damn lenient, and The Lawnmower Man clears most of those hurdles just fine. From an academic perspective, what he have here is a turkey, straight up, but The Lawnmover Man is somehow enjoyable on some primitive level, and I guess that’s better than nothing.

C-

Skinned Deep

Posted on April 23, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Skinned Deep~ 2004, Gabe Bartalos

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In the bonus features on the Skinned Deep DVD, various cast and crew members speak of director Gabriel Bartalos as though he were some sort of mad genius… That’s a hard sell. I just don’t think if I can buy that, however, I will say this; there is a moment in Skinned Deep where the movie suddenly takes a hard right turn out of inept, and into insane. After this point, the rest of the film is cast an an entirely new light, it stops feeling like it deserves to be lopped in with other low budget, shot on video horror films of the era, like O-Zone/Street Zombies or Darkwalker, and more like it should be viewed as landing somewhere between Basket Case 2/3 and The Last House on Dead End Street. Having seen the whole film, it’s clear that Skinned Deep is a special case. That being said, I’m not sure how to feel about it.

The plot feels unimportant; it’s your typical “Girl get’s kidnapped by mutants and weirdos in the middle of nowhere” type scenario, a cross pollinated descendant of both The Hills Have Eyes and Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, but the experience feels more like House of 1000 Corpses by way of Fred Olen Ray. The frustrating thing about the movie is that while some areas of the film’s production appear feeble or dangerously malnourished, there are other areas where talent, effort, and forethought are incredibly evident. Again, I’m not one to jump on the “Bartalos is a genius” bandwagon, but I get the feeling that with a proper budget and a good producer to keep things on track, he might be able to achieve something really special. As it is, this film’s execution is incredibly uneven, and there are more than enough flaws to turn off any audience which isn’t accustomed to this sort of straight to video bullshit.

No review of Skinned Deep would be complete without addressing the film’s real claim to fame, however, and that is the fight scene between Shakes, and Plates. Let’s get into this:

In the movie, Veteran little person actor Warwick Davis plays a deranged mutant (I guess?) called Plates, a name he earned due to his lethal use of dinnerware as projectile weaponry. Yep, he wings dishes at people. Plates and his tribe of freaks come up against a motorcycle gang made up of senior citizens, and one of these over the hill roughians is Shakes, an old man, who shakes a lot. With the stage set, the confrontation between bikers and mutants blossoms in a Psychotronic treasure which is the full on, knock down, drag out, King Kong VS Godzilla style fist fight of the New Millennium; the battle between a shaky old man and a dwarf who throws dishes at people. The Shakes VS Plates scene is worth the cost of admission alone. O-Zone can’t compete with that shit.

So, Bartalos has done lots of stuff, but he’s only directed one other film, which is a shame. I’d like to see more out of him. As it is, Skinned Deep is a curiosity, it doesn’t fit in with it’s peers, and is not so easily dismissed as other shot on video horror films of the past twenty years. I recommend it, because of the Shakes VS Plates scene, but I can’t honestly say that you will like it. More than anything else, this movie exists as a strange detour, and as evidence that Bartalos may be some sort of relatively undiscovered talent waiting for an opportunity.

Of course, who knows what we would get out of him if he had to play by studio rules.

BLOOD FREAK!!

Posted on April 16, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Blood Freak – 1972, Steve Sipek and Brad F. Grinter, USA

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Blood Freak is a seriously confused creature. Part pious minded morality play on the folly of living an unchristian life, part smutty ass gore film about drugs, sex and mutants, this thing is a two headed monster hauling ass in opposite directions. Needless to say, it doesn’t make it very far.

THE PLOT~ When Herschel, a lumbering, middle aged lummox cruises into town on his motorcycle, he encounters Angel, a nice, old-fashioned Christian girl, with whom he quickly hits it off. Immediately, Angel abandons Herschel at a drug party where he is skeezed upon by numerous ladies, including Angel’s noticeably more attractive sister Anne. Herschel isn’t into drugs or casual sex, so he turns Anne down when she makes a pass at him, and she does not like that shit, not one damn bit. Not about to let her sister’s new friend reject her hard-partyin’ life style in favor of morality or church, Anne kicks the peer pressure up a notch and soon gets her way. Within days, she’s sleeping with a newly drug-addicted Herschel, who will now never again live a normal life and can barely even function in society. Win?

In the meantime, Hershel also takes a job working at a poultry farm, where he is coerced into acting as a guinea pig by two scientists who are testing out some sort of weird, turkey chemicals. Hershel is apparently a serious push over. Anyway, he eats some genetically modified turkey, and shortly thereafter mutates into a horrible, turkey headed monster who is addicted to drugs and must drink the blood of other drug addicts to survive, as do so many of our young people today. Thus begins Turkey-Hershel’s gore laden rampage across central Florida, which claims many lives and is hilarious. In the end, he wakes up, no longer a monster, and we learn that this whole thing was a horrible dream brought on by the side effects of turkey chemicals and the drugs already in Hershel’s system. Apparently, Hershel was in ‘Nam, and since the war, he has self medicated a fair amount. So…. hastily tacked on anti-war message? Hard to say.

As I stated earlier, the most pronounced peculiarity here is just how divided this movie is at it’s very core. It really is fairly churchy, but it’s the “do as I say, not as I do” style churchiness you might see in outspoken community activists from the deep South, the type of person who attends church every Sunday without fail, but who also owns a lot of bondage gear and has a secret torture chamber in their basement. Blood Freak’s message is simple; “Woe to thee who strays from the righteous path of the lord, for he is our shepherd, and only through him can we know the divine kingdom of heaven, but also if you don’t a damn turkey monster will mutilate you and drink your blood, so now let’s watch some people smoke crack and fuck.” It’s a mixed message, for sure.

One also get the impression that this movie really wanted to present itself as some sort of shocking expose into the wild world America’s drug savvy youth culture, which was just tearing it up in the early 1970’s, but on this front Blood Freak is a clear failure, because it doesn’t look like they were able to get anyone under the age of 40 to even be in the movie. I guess Anne and Angel looked like they could be in their late twenties, but everyone else is firmly plopped into middle age. Herschel especially looks like he must have been cast in a pinch, this man is just old as hell. If someone had handed me a copy of the Blood Freak script in 1971, I imagine the only reason I would have not to throw it in the garbage was out of concern that it may end up being evidence in a murder trial in the very near future, but if I had read it and somehow managed to ignore how insane it was, I feel like I would have envisioned the lead role to be played by more of a James Dean type guy. Herschel looks more like a background extra who bumbled off the set of Hee Haw and into our movie. To make matters worse, Herschel is the worst biker name I have ever heard.

Fun fact; there is like, ONE sound effect for a woman’s scream in this entire movie; they use it over and over again, and it’s super, super recognizable. In one sequence, a woman screams like, thirty times, and it’s the same sound effect, used over and over again. It’s insane. Then in the next scene, a completely different woman screams a couple dozen times, and it’s that same effect again. Damn, Blood Freak. You crazy.

This is a clumsy production, make no bones about it. Blood Freak is marred by many nagging technical shortcomings, it’s full of actors who aren’t very good, and bogged down with outdated tropes that betray the film’s attempt at delivering a more visceral, Euro-style horror gore fest, but as I mentioned before, the greatest folly of Blood Freak is how maddeningly confused it is in it’s very bones. It really seems to think that it’s preaching from the side of spiritual piety, like it’s somehow going to please a super-devout Christian audience, and yet the vin diagram overlap for “goes to church” and “would watch Blood Freak” has gotta be just the teensiest sliver you could ever imagine. This renders Blood Freak more or less unwatchable to it’s target demographic, and that’s a pretty serious problem. For non-churchy audiences, it’s not at all a deal-breaker, but it makes it a lot harder to take Blood Freak seriously, and honestly, a movie about a turkey headed oaf who drinks junkie blood didn’t need another reason for you to not take it seriously. Today, surprisingly, this is why we remember Blood Freak, this mortal wound is now the film’s single most important redeeming quality. After all, in the realm of psychotronic cinema, “insane,” and “great” are synonymous, and Blood Freak is totally bonkers.

For the right audience, this movie is a good time waiting to happen, but it’s a little further down the path than say, Killer Klowns From Outer Space, or Dead Alive. Blood Freak might suck a little too hard for you if you’re not pretty well acclimated to this sort of celluloid nonsense, so you really just need to take a hard look at yourself before you decide if this is a movie you need to see. If, after some reflection, you decide that this is just a little too rich for your blood, don’t fret, they’ll probably remake it sooner or later.

RESIDENT EVIL!!

Posted on April 9, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

RESIDENT EVIL – 2002, Paul W.S. Anderson

In the late 90’s, the Resident Evil video games were totally the cat’s pajamas. Critics and gamers alike couldn’t get enough of the impressive graphics, spooky atmosphere, and innovate “survival Horror” play style, and absolutely nobody ever companied about the game’s lack of Milla Jovovich doing karate. It seemed inevitable that a movie based on the series would soon enter production, and lo and behold; this prophecy was fulfilled.

Initially, the studio went after beloved horror director and zombie O.G. George Romero to direct an adaptation, which, at the time, seemed like a slam dunk, but after a long courtship, these negotiations fizzled out, leaving producers to apparently just throw up their arms in frustration and ask, “What about that smarmy ballsack who directed Mortal Kombat?” And that, boys and girls, is how Paul W.S. Anderson, who is to film franchises what Jack the Ripper is to 19th Century British Prostitutes, destroyed any possibility of there ever being a good Resident Evil movie, ever.

Here’s the thing, it should not be hard to make a good Resident Evil movie, you guys. For reals, this one should have been in the bag. The problem is, though, that Resident Evil was a game about surviving, not fighting. Paul W.S. Anderson doesn’t care about that. That’s boring, in Paul’s book, he really only makes one type of movie; it’s gotta be an action film, it has to be really, really stupid, and if at all possible, his girlfriend Milla Jovovich has to be in it, so she can pretend to be a bad ass. Though this is an unconfirmed suspicion, most experts agree that the only way Anderson can retain that Leeloo Dallas Multipass to her downstairs Ukrainian bang-situation is by constantly crafting full length motion pictures wherein Jovovich get’s to pretend to be a bad ass and beat people up. Do the math, she’s a model and he’s a squirmy little turd. I’ve seen guys do more elaborate things to seal the deal, but seriously, bro, this is extreme. Just find somebody who likes you for you.

THE PLOT~ Deep underground in a genetic research facility, there is an outbreak of a deadly, biologically engineered virus which turns people into zombies. Immediately, the job is put to Milla Jovovich to be a bad ass and do karate.

Resident Evil is glorified Sci Fi channel tripe, it’s a cheesy, predictable action film full of stupid characters doing stupid things, start to finish. There actually are a few decent scenes here and there, shockingly enough, but the story is boring, and the zombies are seriously downplayed. We do have some zombie dogs that turn up, which are briefly almost neat, but Jovovich just karate kicks them to death in a sequence totally and utterly divorced from the spirit of the source material, so that scene and everything in it is therefore reduced to suckary of the lowest order.

As mentioned before, Zombies do not factor into this “zombie movie” nearly enough. Our most memorable sequence in the whole film involves someone being killed not by the undead, but instead, by….. an elevator. Alright…. It’s a good scene, but I kinda wonder why you’re not doing any zombie stuff in your zombie movie, Paul… Moving right along… The second most memorable sequence in the film… also, zero zombies. Instead, we have a bunch of people who get laser beamed to death in some kind of futuristic, laser-hallway. Again, kinda neat, but one would think that, when sitting down to write and direct a zombie movie, zombies would be something you would want to make sure got in there somewhere. I feel like that would be the very first item on the checklist, so it seems really weird how minimal they are in the grand scheme of this movie. I mean, if any of you out there really have a thing for laser-death, please, step up, this movie has a scene that you should totally see, but given that this was supposed to be a zombie film, it for sure comes across as being far too light in the zombie department.

And that’s not the only thing this movie skimps on, either. It really feels like there must have been a conscious effort to avoid including anything that made the games effective, and the only qualities that made the jump from the game to the film are the qualities that don’t really matter. The crumbling atmosphere, the claustrophobic, tension laden camera angles, the emphasis on survival over Matrix style karate shootouts like we ended up with, all of that is either minimized or just flat out missing altogether, and replaced with bland cinematography, slick action sequences, and childish, two dimensional characters who nobody ever asked for. This movie sucks, and it could have been really great.

Resident Evil is a massive failure in every way except for commercially, because when Paul W.S. Anderson is on board, you are guaranteed a fate worse than death. Not only do his movies totally suck, but they also make money, thereby guaranteeing a long, miserable line of sequels, each even suckier than the last. If you had any connection to the source material at all, your life just took a virtual belly flop into Hell’s lake of fire.

So, Devil’s advocate time: From a very zen, calm state of mind, one can look at Resident Evil and say, “okay… It’s not that terrible. It’s not the kind of movie we should have received, but as a cheesy, paper-thin sci-fi action flick, this certainly isn’t the worst movie out there.”

That’s true… but is that enough? I’m pretty tired of constantly trying to lessen the sting of how shitty everything is by telling myself that other things are even shittier. That’s a poor excuse, and if we keep on justifying things in this fashion, nothing is ever going to get better. We need to rethink that train of thought right here and right now, if you get stung by hornets, don’t just say “Hey, at least my entire family wasn’t murdered before my very eyes, because that would be worse than being stung by hornets.” That makes no sense, dude. I mean, I agree, the murder of your immediate family would be worse, but you’re allowed to be upset about getting stung by hornets. Too many people aren’t, though, and sadly, by this point we’ve tolerated and even rewarded shitty media for such a long time that now there’s almost nothing decent out there. Now we have people so desperate to actually enjoy something that they’re willing to convince themselves that being stung by hornets is just terrific. Its not!!! Hornet stings are freaking terrible!!! And so is this damn movie! Stop paying for hornet stings!!!

Followed by a spree of horrible sequels. In fact, there are now like, six of these things. Or maybe I’m dead and this is Hell, both seem probable.

Breakin’!!

Posted on April 2, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Breakin’ – 1984, Joel Silberg

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First of all, please- watch that trailer. Click this. Damn. That’s what we’re dealing with here.

Ever the bold pioneers, Golan-Globus, the same bonkers-ass production house that would later give us Over The Top, the Citizen Cane of competitive arm-wrestling movies, comes cinema’s first and most noteworthy foray into the dog-eat-dog world of street-rat dance-combat; BREAKIN’.

People hated this movie when it came out. I hypothesize that they just could not handle the funk. But let me tell you what, you son of a bitch- we can handle it now.

THE PLOT~ Kelly is a talented young woman with a bright future in the prestigious world of professional dancing, but when her strict-ass Dance instructor makes a pass at her, shes all like ‘No way, bro,” and then she promptly peaces out, at which point she falls in with two ragamuffin break-dancers from the streets named Turbo, and O-Zone. Equal parts inspired and excited by the passion and raw, senseless zazz of these dynamic and probably homeless performers, Kelly joins up with them in hopes of guiding the trio into a successful career in the surprisingly strict world of professional dancing- but is the world ready for poppings and lockings of this magnitude?! Also featuring Shooter McGavin, who is NOT a bad guy in this film! Imagine that!

So, immediately with this movie you’re having an amazing time. It’s visually engaging, the costumes are utterly bananas, and the soundtrack is sorta like what I imagine it would sound like to get locked in Rick James’ closet over the weekend. Some of the names in the credits alone are worth the trip- When you see “Adolfo Shabba-Doo Quinones” and “Michael Boogaloo Shrimp Chambers” in the credits, that’s basically a guarantee that shit’s gonna get cray-cray, and let me tell you, it does; more Moonwalking occurs during the opening credits of this movie than has happened on the surface of the actual moon. It’s intense. This thing is about dancing, first and foremost, and you can count on that being made very clear as the film progresses.

Now, time for absolute transparency; I am not a dancer. I know absolutely nothing about dancing, and I do NOT like dance movies… But I HAVE seen a few, be they your Step Ups, or your Stomp the Yards; and I feel confident when I say that Breakin’ is the best dance movie I have ever seen, and maybe the only one I have actually enjoyed. Credit where credit is due; this shit is full on impressive. Some of this dancing looks impossible, borderline Ray Harryhausen-esque, so maybe some of it has been jazzed up with special effects… I wouldn’t be surprised if there was at least frame rate manipulation, Jackie Chan Style, to help give it that visual pop, but one way or the other, it’s downright cool. Also, if this ISN’T fake, then these people are damn warlocks, and should be treated as superior to the race of Man. Actually, at one point in the film, Turbo DOES dance with an enchanted broom, but I’m totally willing to believe that he can just do that in real life at this point.

In keeping with the 1980’s style-guide for pop and genre movies, Breakin’s aesthetic and technical aspects are mercilessly shinny, which absolutely is appropriate, given the subject matter we’re dealing with. The movie actually looks pretty good for what was likely a pretty small budget, and that’s because Golan-Globus really knew how to get three dollars out of a quarter back in those days. They make it all count, and I think the time has come to emulate some of these magical 80’s tricks into the motion pictures of today…. Because our movies all look like shit now. Why so much steady cam?

However, before anyone thinks I’m submitting this film for admission to The damn Criterion Collection or something; I should point out that Breakin’ is also ridiculous as hell, and I totally acknowledge that. It’s pure 80’s nonsense, complete with training montages, a hillbilly fist fight, “you got served” style dance-off grudge-matches, and the tightest pants I have ever seen on a male in my life. They look like they’re damn painted on by the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue people or something. Honestly, it’s pornographic, these pants.

Casting Breakin’s three lead roles had to have been the single most crucial factor in the success or failure of the film, no question. It actually wouldn’t surprise me if Quinones and Chambers were discovered first, and the script was written with them specifically in mind, because writing a movie like this without talent in place would be risky at best and maddeningly negligent at worst. Finding human beings with screen charisma who could dance this well AND act well enough to carry an entire picture is a task which sounds full on Herculean in nature, so thank goodness for Shabba-Doo and Boogaloo Shrimp, the true saviors of Breakin’, and probably my life, if you get down to it. Lucinda Dickey is an asset to the film as well, but the truth is, she’s the weakest link out of the three. Also, Ice-T is in this movie, too…. Was he the worst rapper of all time, or is that just what rap sounded like in ’84? Rough.

Plot-wise, Breakin’ is silly, cheesy, predictable, and overly sentimental- all things a dance movie should be allowed to be, provided it’s also entertaining, which Breakin’ certainly is. Effectively, this is a feel-good, underdog story about challenging the stodgy old status quo, and the merit in being yourself. It’s a simple, dusty old message, but it’s surprisingly easy to feel good for these guys, because when things finally work out for them, they really do deserve it. For the most part, as long as you don’t go into this determined to have a bad time, Breakin’ is damn effective, and also for sure the greatest movie about challenging the status-quo with the power of dance to have been released in 1984. Oh, shit, Footloose also came out in ’84?!?

It’s more than a little ironic that a movie about being yourself and challenging the outdated status quo failed to succeed in doing so itself when the critics got their talons in it. In the same way that these characters had to struggle to win over their opposition, they’ll have to struggle to win you over, too- for me, it was surprisingly easy to temporary abandon my cynicism and condone such blatant acts of funky tomfoolery. Breakin’ gets my recommendation if you can manage to quiet your inner grump for an hour and a half, and if you happen to enjoy dance movies, holy shit, go watch this.

P.S. Avoid Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo like a pack if wild tigers infected with the black death. It’s such an irredeemable stinker that it will retroactively ruin Breakin’ for you. I’m serious.

A-

MAHAKAAL!!!!

Posted on March 26, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Mahakaal (AKA The Monster) – 1993, Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay

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Hey, did anybody out there enjoy Nightmare on Elm Street? Yes? Any chance that you might wanna see it again, only this time from India? No? Too bad, here it is, Mahakaal The Monster, which is, you guessed it, an Indian made rip-off the A Nightmare on Elm Street, produced by famed film-making super-siblings The Ramsay Brothers. Excited? No? Too bad!

Mahakaal the Monster is a poem written in mullets; there’s like, one man in this entire movie who doesn’t have AT LEAST one mullet, and his hair situation is even more suspicious.

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Tell me, oh, wise one, do the carpets match the drapes?

The Plot~ When a murderous bogeyman starts to haunt the dreams of local youths, it is discovered that Shakaal, a black magic practicing child murderer who had been slain twenty years ago by an irate parent, has returned from the dead for vengeance. So, so much other shit happens in this movie also, but none of that is worth talking about. You see, Bollywood films are often three hours or more in length, and that’s a feat made possible by the addition of hours worth of total nonsense. You’ll be watching, and you’ll think, “okay, I know where we are in the story, we probably have like, 15 minutes left at most.” Wrong, how about an hour and a half? Almost none of which serves the film’s actual story, because again, these movies are padded more than Justin Bieber’s crotch.

Anyway, in terms of the plot, yeah, it’s literally just A Nightmare on Elm Street but with Indian people. If you want proof, just take a look at our dream killer, who in this film is named Shakaal:

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Shakaal on the left, and- shit, sorry, wrong guy…

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There we go- Shakaal on the left, Freddy on the right.

Some deviations from the American original are worth mentioning; for instance; this time, the Indian version of Johnny Depp survives, and appears to have at least a basic understanding of Kung Fu (as do all male characters- get ready for some badly correographed fight scenes). Also, the final confrontation between our characters and Shakaal is overwhelmingly less creative than pulling him out of the dreamworld and battling him in your Home Alone style boobytrap house, which is what happens in the American version. In Mahakaal, they just go find Shakaal in his torture pad and kill him with his own dungeon equipment, which was already set up for them and everything.

There are also major differences between Freddy Kruger, star of the actual Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, and Shakaal, our Bollywood off-brand dream slasher. Freddy, for instance, sports that cool, molten flesh look because he was burned to death by the pissed off parents of Springwood, and that is not at all the case in Mahakaal. Shakaal is already horribly scarred BEFORE he is “killed,” though we’re never really told why, and he isn’t burned to death by a mob, either. In Mahakaal, when the one Indian parent ballsy enough to take the law into his own hands finally goes after Shakaal, he doesn’t kill him at all, he instead just chucks the guy into a big crate and then attempts to burry him alive. When I say “attempts to,” it’s because this crate is really big, probably four feet tall and six fit long, so, large enough for an adult man to fit comfortably inside. When our lone avenging parent tries to burry his now captured nemesis, the hole he digs is very obviously less than two feet deep.

crate 1 What do you think? Deep enough?

The crate doesn’t even come close to fitting. The worst part is that we even see him kick at it in utter futility, as if he could somehow rock the crate into place and get it to fall into a hole that he never dug. It’s embarrassing.

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Oh, Mahakaal. Come on.

Being a typical Bollywood film, Mahakaal is also ripe with exotic Indian flair, including the oft spoken of zest for Romance, for which the Indian people are well known.

romance Nice.

And there’s also music; plenty of it. Before you get too excited, no, Shakaal does not play guitar or host a rap battle, so you can forget about that dream becoming a reality right now. Our teens definitely get down, though; they launch awkwardly into several lengthy song and dance numbers, mostly about love and being happy; which might sound odd to you when you consider that you’re watching a fucking horror movie, but if you only learn one thing today, let it be this: Bollywood Films have NO problem with shifting tone constantly and artlessly, like a Hummingbird high on Cocaine. They will jump from frightening sequences of atmospheric, doom-laiden horror, to giddy, beach-party joy-overloads without hesitation or warning. They will do that over and over again, and that’s just the end of it.

Now… The music…It’s just terrible. In fact, it’s THIS terrible, but it IS still actual music, which makes it several rungs above American pop landscape on the long, gruesome ladder into the Hell’s lowest circle. This isn’t like when Nikki Minaj just Vanilla Iced Sir. Mixalot and then pretended like she wrote a song, no, these ARE real songs, however lame they might be. Mahakaal should be commended for that, but you are for sure going to hate every one of them. They’re annoying, lame, super loud, and badly produced… Getting through them is difficult.

And then we have the “comic relief….” In Mahakaal The Monster, we are constantly exposed to a character called Canteen, who is for sure, the movie’s real monster. Holy shit, dude, this guy is annoying. Like, “Steve Urkel during a writer’s strike” level annoying. The producers must have thought he’d be good for some real high-quality Hindi-Hillarity, cuz he’s in here goofin’ nonstop for hours upon hours, but I swear to you, he is the furthest thing from amusing. I really can’t stress this enough, I’d rather be water-boarded than watch this asshole clown around. If any of you were locked in a room with Canteen for over a minute, neither of you would come out alive. That’s where we’re at with him.

canteen 1 Stare into his face and know despair.

And it gets worse. At one point in the film, our gang experiences car trouble after a rousing beach party singalong, and are thus forced to stay the night in a nearby hotel. Sounds like a promising horror movie setup, right? Well, it’s far too horrifying for my tastes, because when they arrive and meet the hotel’s manager, it’s just fucking Canteen with a Hitler mustache. canteen number 2 Oh, shit, please, no…

Apparently this second Canteen is actually a long lost sibling, because, as Canteen #2 explains, when their father was a young buck he used to just rail and bail all over India, so now he’s got illegitimate children all over the freaking country. Let me tell you what, the apple could not have fallen farther from the tree, because Canteen will NEVER get laid, EVER. He signed up for a sex-ed class once, and it turned him down. Then, when he tried to get on the waiting list, it got a restraining order. Anyway, long story short, there are now TWO Canteens, meaning double the annoyance, which is a development so unspeakably dark that it would make Hellraiser’s Pinhead piss in his little gimp kilt.

I won’t harp on Canteen any further, because I think I’ve made my point, and anyway, there’s plenty of other things in this movie that are probably going to piss you off. From the painful musical numbers, to the alarmingly off-target attempts at humor, to the budgetary restrictions which remain evident start to finish, this film just isn’t an experience 99% of Americans are going to be able to sit through sober. The problem with that, though, is that you can’t judge Mahakaal as a movie by the reaction American have to it. Special considerations have to be made.

By the traditional, near globally-accepted academic criteria of how cinema works, Mahakaal, and indeed most Bollywood films, are staggeringly poor examples of the medium. These movies are as definable by their constant shortcomings as they are by their cultural origin, for reals. The problem with that way of thinking is that trying to assess a Bollywood film based upon traditional Hollywood standards is a fool’s errand to begin with, and could be compared to assessing the quality of a Motorcycle based on a criteria designed to judge pickup trucks. First question: Does it have four wheels? Answer: No. Verdict: This is a shitty pickup truck. Well, maybe, but it’s still an awesome motorcycle! Similarly, it’s not fair to dog on Bollywood because it doesn’t work like American movies do. What we have here is a product designed for a specific culture who want different things from their movie-going experience, and who are we to judge?

The truth is, it’s exactly the same flaws which Americans would see as glaringly wrong with the film that are, in fact, non-negotiable requirements for a Bollywood movie. They are, in no small way, demanded by the audience, who want long, rambling story structures which meander from one genre to the next, and which offer a bold mix of comedy, action, romance, and horror. Aside from the modest budget and excruciating exposure to Canteen, there are actually very few flaws here in Mahakaal which aren’t immediately nullified when one takes into account the honest fact that this is what India wants out of a movie. I believe the phrase often used these days is that “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.”

So, that explains the radically unorthodox structure found in Mahakaal, as well as the awkward blend of genres, but there are still many things about this film that I cannot explain. Behold:

There, on the right: What the hell is that? An Iron Maiden Polo/Sweater hybrid?!!? Why would that ever exist anywhere?!!

Also;

cheer leader bear4 What is this picture she’s hanging?! A cheerleader and a bear?! What the fuck?!

So, excusing all of it’s perceived “flaws” which are, in fact, required genre conventions, what can be said of Mahakaal’s individual merits? Well, it’s pretty damn fun, actually. How wild is it that a Bollywood rip off of A Nightmare on Elm Street even exists? That’s special! And also, it’s worth bringing up that although we’re excusing the fact that Mahakaal breaks many, many rules Western cinema has established as a protective mechanism to keep your movie from sucking, if we DIDN’T excuse those Bollywood traits, Mahakaal would STILL be better than many, many American movies which DO play by our rules. Compare this thing to…. say…. Horror of the Blood Monsters, or Sucker Punch, and Mahakaal comes out in the distant lead no matter what grading scale you use. The truth is, I wish India ripped off American movies more often. It’s kinda fun.

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B+

ZOMBIE!!!!

Posted on March 19, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

ZOMBIE~ Lucio Fulci, 1979 – Italy

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As of 2015, zombies are super, super boring. That well is dry, there’s nothing left to harvest, the market is flooded with garbage, and we really need to move on to something else. Let’s do werewolves for a while, or something, anything else. We can come back to zombies in like, fifteen years, because honestly, I cannot handle Zombieland 2, you guys. Please, don’t make me do it.

Actually, it’s worth pointing out that this has happened before, this is the third time that Western pop culture has been just gaga for friggin’ zombies. It’s super ironic, zombie movies rise up, become overwhelmingly numerous, die off, lay dormant for a few decades, only to rise and repeat the cycle again. I guess everything sorta does that… But anyway, this most recent cycle has been pretty lame overall, so if you count yourself as a zombie fan, it would be a good idea to go back and check out some of the classics from previous eras. Assuming you’ve seen the three original George Romero Dead films (Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, and Day of the Dead,) this one right here would be my recommend for the next zombie flick you need to see. For more, check out this list I published some time ago for a couple extra recommends.

Released initially as an unofficial sequel to Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (which was called Zombie, or ZOMBI in Europe), Zombie (AKA Zombi 2) is a damn masterpiece. This was a better time for horror film in general, especially in Europe, where Italy and Spain really seemed to have the market cornered on trashy splatter films for a few years, some of which didn’t even suck. Zombie is one such film, and it truly is enjoyably gruesome, so much so, in fact, that it wound up on the U.K. Video Nasites hit list back in the 1980’s. Never fear, however, nowadays the movie is widely unavailable in it’s raw, uncut glory, so grab yourself a copy and stick it to the Queen of England for trying to keep rad movies out of the hands of the peasantry.

THE PLOT~ When a seemingly abandoned yacht drifts into The New York City Harbor, police make a grisly discovery which kicks off an island hopping adventure for a Newspaper reporter (played by Ian McCulloch) and the daughter of a missing scientist (played by Tisa Farrow.) Along the way, they’ll face many challenges, including an endless legion mindless, man-eating corpses, possessed of an unstoppable urge to kill, as well as the formidable winds of the open sea, which threaten to undermine the complex infrastructure of Ian McCulloch’s elaborate comb-over hair-do.

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Looks good, bro.

The movie is awesome start to finish, but it does have several especially well known sequences in it, two of which I think are worth mentioning here. Firstly, this movie features Fulci’s most infamous eye gouging scene ever, which, believe it or not, is a pretty prestigious accolade, because Fulci really liked to fuck people’s eyeballs up in his movies. He seemed to understand that folks really got super freaked out by that sort of thing, so anytime he wanted to make an audience to squirm even more than usual, eyeball destruction was one of his favorite go-to resources. Awesome. This one is pretty gnarly, and the British censors really didn’t like it. It’s a true highlight.

That scene is pretty great, but the second sequence I want to mention is more than great, it’s the stuff of legend. I’m going to break it down for you:

So, to start with, it takes place on a boat, far out in the ocean. We have not yet found our mysterious island, so there’s some tension built into the sequence from the beginning; Will we locate our destination? Will we not? Then, for reasons I do not remember and which are not at all important, it is decided that one of our female characters is going to go for a dive, and she’s going to do this wearing almost no clothing whatsoever. I take great care not to appear sexists in my writing, but if we are being candid, a huge cross section of Zombie’s audience is going to respond to that in a pretty favorable way, so it’s for sure worth a mention. Anyway, so we’ve got our mostly naked lady swimming around in this cool tropical, ocean setting, and then holy shit, suddenly there’s a big ol’ shark zooming up on her! She’s super scared, one minute she’s just swimming around, minding her own business, and the next, a freakin’ shark shows up. So far so good, right? Well, friends, it ain’t over yet. While hiding amongst a rad reef, hoping to escape the hungry snout of her menacing aquatic adversary, our frightened scuba-diving nudist happens upon another terrifying denizen of the deep; a mother fucking underwater zombie!!! We don’t know how this guy got down here, or how many other aqua zombies might be lurking about, but we do know one thing; Zombie is a film in which there is a sequence that features all of the following elements simultaneously:

A) An attractive, topless woman
B) A fucking shark
AND
C) A damn zombie, who is underwater for some reason.

And it’s a real shark! It might even be a real zombie, honestly, I wouldn’t put it past them. And they fight! You should all be ordering Zombie Blu Rays off of Amazon.com right now, even if you already own Zombie on Blu Ray. If you’re not, it’s safe to say that you and I will never truly be able to understand one another, though I am willing to try. This is, almost definitely, the single best use of the motion picture medium ever in human history, and if you cry a little bit the first time you watch it, please, don’t be embarrassed, that’s a perfectly natural reaction.

Plus, the rest of the movie is also super, super awesome. Zombie is a high water mark from the “Yes I’m grumpy, but I still give a shit” phase of Fulci’s career, so the production is quite competent, and even artfully executed at times. It features excellent photography, impressive special effects (for the late 70’s), a boss-ass theme song, and more than enough graphic, zombie related violence to please any seasoned horror fan who hasn’t already seen this movie two thousand times (assuming that someone like that even exists.)

Really, the only thing about this full blown super-classic that I can say which isn’t straight-up, glowing praise is that I have shown the film to lots of people before, and I am sometimes surprised when it fails to hold their interest. For many mainstream, American cinema-goers, the pacing and trappings of Euro-cinema can often prove challenging in unexpected ways. If you’re not used to this style of film, you may find yourself getting bored, though I cannot fathom how. For fans of Euro-sleaze, however, Zombie carries my highest recommendation, and I even encourage less seasoned zombie enthusiasts to give it a try. Truthfully, if you think you like zombies, you should WANT to see this.

A+

Attack of the Beast Creatures!!!

Posted on March 12, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Attack of the Beast Creatures ~ 1985, Michael Stanley

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Attack of the Beast Creatures is:

A) Not very much fun to re-watch
B) Not very much fun to write about
And
C) Notorious.

That’s a bad combo, from my perspective, but I’m gonna try and power through this one anyway, since I’m essentially obligated to by the Film Nerd’s Code. Which is all secret, so don’t ask about it.

The truth of the matter is that not a hell of a lot happens in this movie. It’s ridiculous, and I guess sorta fun to watch, but Attack of the Beast Creatures is also nothing more than a straight forward, A-to-B monster flick with essentially no subtext to analyze whatsoever. The plot concerns a life-boat full of well-to-do Americans who wind up shipwrecked on a mysterious Island somewhere in the North Atlantic. Upon reaching these grim and foreboding shores, there is immediately dischord amongst the castaways, most of which is generated by a single grumpy old bitch named Mr. Morgan. Morgan later becomes the group’s resident liability when he suffers a debilitating leg injury, and is also a total sack of assholes.

Shaken by their time at sea but still hoping to be rescued, the group establishes a sort of base-camp on the beach and splits up to look for food, shelter, and water. One of our thirsty explorers heads off into the forest on just such a mission and quickly stumbles upon what looks to be a standing body of fresh water, which is good, since, you know, humans drink water and stuff. BOOM, guess what, doofus, that ain’t water, it’s flesh melting acid that looks exactly like water! Now you’re melting to death! Yeah, apparently Beast Creatures Island has little acid lagoons and ponds all over it, so locating drinkable water that doesn’t go all Hennesy Viper on you when you drink it is instantly bumped up to priority one. At least, until the damn Beast Creatures show up.

The Beast Creatures are, no surprise, the film’s real claim to fame- these little guys are famous for being some of the most feebly attempted movie monsters of the entire 1980’s. They look like cannibal themed treasure trolls which were probably purchased in bulk from a dollar store, and they can barely even move. They scurry around and gobble up people like terrestrial, humanoid pirahna, and are also apparently intelligent enough to practice some form of idol worship, but their most noteworthy contribution to the human experience is just that they looks fucking ridiculous. Without question, seeing a large group of adults clutching these toy figurines to their bodies and pretending that they’re being eaten alive is nothing short of hilarious, and realistically that’s the highlight of the movie. Thank you, Beast Creatures, the ways in which you have chosen to suck has brought much laughter and mirth to a world burdened with harsh, cruel realities, and we appreciate the much needed distraction you have provided.

CEb-U4CGkKGrHqEOKnEzw9fVWQBNR3WVG5Zw0_3 What’s actually more shocking about Attack of the Beast Creatures is the various ways in which this movie doesn’t suck. The script is short on subtext, yes, but certainly much more coherent than what you might see in comparable, more respected films (like Pieces, or anything by Jess Franco, for instance), and a lot of the dialogue is well written and surprisingly naturalistic. Even some of the acting and photography is decent or better, so Attack of the Beast Creatures kinda feels like a full length version of a first-term film-school assignment, where the over-achievers are randomly grouped together with future drop outs to create a project, with radically unbalanced results. Some people here did a good job…. Others certainly didn’t. The end result is a strange beast indeed.

The music is an oddity too, it sucks for reals, yet contributes to the film’s atmosphere in a way that is more successful than almost any other single factor in play. It sort of sounds like the Magnum Opus of some dude who auditioned for Gary Numan’s backing band but couldn’t make the cut. It’s almost good, what we have here is a lush, haunting synth oddyssey that runs more or less the entire length of the picture, and feels appropriate for the spooky, erie vibe the movie is going for. I think it works, it almost feels like an ultra dumbed-down version of the score for Werner Herzog’s Aguirre: der Zorn Gottes, which is, admittedly, a really bizarre comparion to make, but here we are. I kinda want it on my iPod, and it feels like what Nicolas Winding Refn was probably jamming to in ’85. tumblr_m1w49dG27w1qi7zhio1_500

This movie has a reputation which is too deeply ingrained and widely dispersed to be in anyway effected by what I say here, and if you were ever going to watch this film, your opinion wasn’t going to be influenced by my review one way or the other. You know the drill, this movie took a running jump at “scary” and landed in “hilarious,” but it’s plenty fun all the same if you’re into that kind of thing. Worth watching if you and your friends dig the DIY MST3K experience, but if you’re a more centered cinema enthusiast, Attack of the Beast Creatures would probably just fuck up your night.

RECOMENDED DOUBLE FEATURE: Attack of the Beast Creatures and Piñata Survival Island.

B-

Godzilla (2014)!!!!

Posted on March 5, 2015 by Kristoph Johannes

Godzilla – 2014, Gareth Edwards – USA

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It’s been ten years since Godzilla has been in a movie, and sixteen years since he’s been in an American one. It’s weird, clearly America and Japan have a big time love affair with one another’s pop culture, but throughout history, anytime one of these two Nations attempts to remake the opposite’s intellectual property in their own image it has been a complete disaster, with the aforementioned Godzilla film from ’98 being an excellent example. We took something beautiful, and we gave the world shit. That crime can never be lived down… But, as always, no matter how heinous the sin, when there is money to be had, somebody will make a grab for it, and so with an insatiable desire for cash in their hearts, Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures went ahead with yet another major American studio adaptation of one of Japan’s proudest cultural icons- Godzilla. The most memorable thing thing that came out of this was that we got to hear Japanese people fat shame Godzilla. It’s true, he had put on a few pounds.

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To be fair- he’s been asleep for a decade.

Frankly, this movie is not a masterpiece. I don’t think it was ever going to be, American mainstream movie-goers don’t have a lot in common with fans of Kaiju cinema, and any attempt to please both parties was always going to fail. Additionally, I can’t help but wonder if director Gareth Edwards was indeed the right man to helm this project. I’m not saying I don’t think he’s great, I loved Monsters, but I imagine that the real reason he was offered the job was because he had made a film “about giant monsters.” Honestly, to say that having directed Monsters makes you a logical choice to direct a Godzilla film is a dramatic oversimplification of both properties. But whatever, let’s jump into this.

First of all, movie goers were pretty much sold on this movie with the notion that Brian Cranston was gonna be the star. Naturally, this seemed like a good idea, Breaking Bad had been extremely popular, so people were for sure gonna want to see as much of that hot Cranston action as possible. I know I did! That’s exactly why it was pretty disappointing to actually watch the movie, because the moment the second act came around Cranston was freaking toes up, and it’s like Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty all over again. After that, we get conned off on our real central character, Ford, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who is the son of the Cranston character. While Poppa Cranston was a scientist; Lil’ Ford is a solider, which is a problem. He’s not a solider like past characters in the Godzilla cannon have been soldiers, he doesn’t pilot Mechagodzilla or represent some anti-monster task force, instead Ford feels like his profession was chosen simply to make him the one constant in a long string of soulless action sequences, which are a non-negotiable pre-requisute for big budget American cinema. The best thing his solider status does for the film is that it gives us a character who is estranged from every person in his life, either emotionally, or simply because he jobs demands that he be far away from his family. This jaded, American veteran perspective is extremely valid, and it does represent a growing cross section of the country, but it’s not universal, and in the end, Ford is impossible for us to identify with in any realistic way because of how unfazed he is by everything that happens to him. There’s just not enough to the character, he has no depth, he’s just a cypher who hops from action scene to action scene without any substance to back up the explosions. Cranston, or even Ford’s wife (played by Elizabeth Olsen) would have been much better central characters.

Also, anyone who compained that Gamera the Brave didn’t have enough monster content in it better never say a word in defense of this iteration of Godzilla; because guess who isn’t in this movie enough?

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This guy!

We spend way more time with the Mutos, Godzilla’s weird, common-law married monster opposition. I’m really not crazy about these monstersr, to me they really don’t feel at home in Godzilla’s universe. They look too… American? They look like the monster from Cloverfield, or maybe even something from Pacific Rim. They’re lacking some vague, indefinable quality that gave the old Godzilla gang it’s appeal, and I’m just not very taken with them. I also hate Godzilla’s portly, stub nosed redesign, but whatever, I guess.

The technical work done on Godzilla is predictably excellent, but only if what you’re looking for is a super slick, digital Hollywood production. This is the first and only Godzilla movie ever made with CG that doesn’t look like complete shit, so I guess that does count for something, but I was always more fond of the big, clunky suits and practical effects anyway. I would have been infinitley more excited if the Jim Henson Company had been brought on to make this the Citizen Kane of puppet and suitimation films, but that’s a personal thing, so you may not have similar reservations. This Godzilla is well shot, well edited, and all the acting is great, so I’d say that if we’re being objective, there really isn’t much in regards to the film’s technical execution that I would wag my eternally disaproving finger at.

I think that the only real way to look at this film objectively would require you to just ignore the sixty years of baggage attached to the Godzilla name completely, because truthfully, this is something new that just can’t be lumped in with what we’ve seen before. That’s good and bad, though; throwing out all that continuity might seem like it would take the pressure off, but in doing so we also get rid of every reason we have to love Godzilla, and that’s a crippling blow. The fact is, I really don’t think this movie could exist if it was a stand alone film, and if this thing wasn’t piggybacking on the nototriety of Godzilla’s proud past, we for sure wouldn’t have a sequel on the way like we do right now. I just don’t think it brings enough to the table, it isn’t the non-stop thrill ride America wants it to be, nor the introspective, character driven journey Edwards probably wanted to make, nor even the wall to wall Japanese monster extravaganza longtime kaiju fans want. If we’re being honest, I think Godzilla is smack dab in the middle of all of these ever so distant points, and unfortunately, in this game, sometimes when you only achieve 50% of A,B, and C, it sorta feels more like you didn’t achieve anything at all.

But it’s fine. Hell, Toho just announced that they’re working on a new Japanese made Godzilla franchise which will be entirely independent from what is going on in the Legendary series, so these American movies don’t really help or hurt Godzilla in any way. Besides, if Big Green survived what happened to him in ’98, he really is invincible.

C+

Fantastic Crap Comics

by Christopher Ochs