Month: April 2020

Fantasy Island (2020)

/ billy peppers / Leave a comment
directed by jeff wadlow
columbia pictures/BLUMHOUSE productions

So I was doing my usual browsing for tripe when I came across this title, and thought to myself, “Well, that can’t possibly be – “

But it was, oh yes. An indefensible, uh, reimagining of the absurd escapist television drama of the late ’70s/early ’80s, which was right up there with its programming partner “The Love Boat” in terms of challenging intellectual fare. Of course, this rendition bears the Blumhouse stamp, as does the recent “Invisible Man,” which might provide a clue to the underpinnings of Jason Blum’s money-printing machine … he ain’t paying for new stories, that’s for sure. Especially here, a dumb idea that unfolds into a mishmash of stale, borrowed scenes – and let’s face it,  there couldn’t have been much hope for anything better given the source material.

Did I mention it’s a “prequel”? (!)

why did i watch this movie?

I had to make sure it wasn’t just a figment of my imagination, ironically enough.

should you watch this movie?

You know, The Hunt is yet another Blumhouse-spawned rewrite that had its debut this year. I expected a little more from a varsity letterman.

highlight and low point

I suppose the acme of this production must be how shameless it is, or perhaps the fact that the cast largely seem to be taking their jobs seriously. (The working vacation in Fiji presumably helped.) As this waste of time finally staggered to a close – it for some reason is 109 minutes long – my real-time observation was, “This is insanely idiotic.” Then, having untangled the ins and outs of just who was responsible for the whole stupid mess, the heartwarming tearjerker ending revealed the origin story of “Tattoo.”

If you don’t know what that could possibly mean, thank ye gods.

rating from outer space: F

 

Feral (2017)

/ billy peppers / Leave a comment
directed by mark h. young
rough cut productions

If you check out reviews of this undead-people-eaters-caused-by-a-virus flick, you’d be excused for thinking it’s the worst thing ever. It’s really not, though you may already have guessed that it falls exceedingly short in the “fresh new ideas” department. Unlike many pundits, though, I thought this picture did a pretty good job in sustaining tension – at least for roughly the first half of the picture – but I guess that’s because I found the slow pacing to be effective, rather than, say, boring. I also appear to be in the minority for thinking the relationships between the dwindling band of survivors contributed an emotional basis for the tenor of some of the ensuing action. Nobody else, however, seems to have noticed the least acceptable oversight in this film, that being the questionable endurance and inexcusable motives of the guy who just happens to have a cabin in the woods … with a portentous cellar.

why did i watch this movie?

The trailer made it seem a lot more interesting than it turned out to be. (I suspect I may have conflated it with another.)

should you watch this movie?

For roughly the first half of the picture, I would’ve been inclined to advise just that, but it’s all downhill from that point. Inconsistencies and improbabilities pile up and it embraces standard-issue fare.

highlight and low point

It’s nice to look at, I guess; the camerawork finely burnishes some impressive displays and notes more minor hints as well. The sense of despair could have been more palpable, and for a plot with so few characters it has a little too much trouble not misplacing some of them. The responsible affliction is either a cop-out or a ripoff – your call.

rating from outer space: C−

Contagion aka John Lechago’s Contagion aka Alien Contagion aka Bio Slime (2010)

/ billy peppers / Leave a comment
written and directed by john lechago
forward motion entertainment/lechago entertainment

A digital-video delight, the sort of very independent production whose cast largely doubles as its crew, and the fitfully heroic tale of a dissipated artist with some dissolute acquaintances, this particular “Contagion” likely ranks as the first SF horror epic in which humanity would appear to be saved by a meth-lab explosion. (Should you not be aware that the next sentence would read … OR IS IT, apply immediately for Remedial Thriller 101.) Dubious fun from start to finish, with most of the action occurring within a down-at-its-heels tenement populated by the aforementioned meth lab, the drunken artist’s “live-work space,” a pornographer, and various hangers-on and ne’er-do-wells, the story is set in motion by a mysterious criminal transaction and some poor decision-making skills, and mutates from there. A SHOCKING ending is included at no extra charge.

why did i watch this movie?

I found this picture under the title “Bio Slime,” and naturally thought I needed to take a gander at it – a wise choice.

should you watch this movie?

Why the hell not?

highlight and low point

Honestly, Vinnie Bilancio’s depiction of the dipsomaniac struck a chord, thanks to my extensive personal research on the condition. I particularly enjoyed it when he decided to go ahead and start drinking the denatured alcohol he kept around to clean his brushes or remove paint or whatever. That’s some quality realism there. The FX are a mixed bag, mainly consisting of a lot of latex and some lights and hoses, but the deft characterizations of the different personalities and the mysterious nature and affiliation of the “specimen” from the “Teratology Division” are spot-on. The film also brandishes just the right amount of excessive taboo sleaze and black (bleak?) humor.

rating from outer space: A−

The Coroner (1999)

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directed by juan a. mas
califilm

An aggressively dreadful straight-to-video experience, this dross somehow didn’t make me start laughing out loud until the 49-minute mark … which was shortly after I began to wonder if maybe I was just imagining what I was seeing, mainly due to an assemblage of such oddly juxtaposed scenes and camera shots and visual styles that I actually voiced the question, “What is going ON?” The very next scene was when the main character revealed herself dressed in cat burglar getup, creeping down the side of THE CORONER’s house to plant some plastic explosives. I shoulda mentioned, she’s a lawyer. Well, by this point she’s presumably a former lawyer, but some vital exposition goes lacking. By the ensuing scene I noticed there was somehow still a half-hour to go.

why did i watch this movie?

It promised to be ridiculously bad. I win?

should you watch this movie?

Once the unintentional comedy really sets in, it’s a hoot, but it requires major tolerance. You could watch it to glimpse the kernel of a powerful concept underneath the incompetence and use that revelation for your own purposes, I suppose.

highlight and low point

How I imagine directors talk actresses into nude scenes for productions like this one: “Hey, we’re making one of the most unrealistic horror thrillers any of the few who’re actually gonna see it will ever witness, and it unnecessarily opens in a strip club, and we’ll need some egregiously pointless sex scenes. You in?” Sadly, this was a tremendous opportunity to make a really disturbing and upsetting statement on multiple levels – if merely by inspiring debate over the main character’s true motives and/or culpability – but instead it’s a rape revenge picture with a flimsy ending given away long beforehand.

Rating from outer space: D−

Slaughterhouse (1987)

/ billy peppers / Leave a comment
written and directed by rick roessler
american artists

From the very beginning of this picture, I was pleasantly surprised. Well, scratch that – the very beginning of this picture is actual footage of a pork-processing plant, complete with pig massacre, and your faithful correspondent is a vegan animal lover – but once the movie proper began, it outdid my expectations. It hadn’t sounded promising, from the overly obvious title to the mentally challenged hillbilly character to the billing as a “horror comedy,” but it’s a fairly well-made slasher pic. As it turns out, the deranged Bacon scion (uh-huh, I know) is effectively unsettling, the humor is … well, “subtle” isn’t the right word, but there’s no mugging or slapstick and no awful punmanship, either. The kids are just regular kids, it doesn’t quite follow the usual trite template, and even the gore is reasonably presented, and fairly minimal. Color me impressed.

why did i watch this movie?

This one’s been in the queue for so long I have no idea. I saw a reference to it somewhere and thought, that sounds as though it could be terrible, I should watch it.

should you watch this movie?

With the acknowledgment that it wasn’t ever gonna win too many awards for originality, you could make much worse choices for overlooked ’80s numbers.

highlight and low point

That this picture could have degenerated into a cartoonish farce but didn’t ranks as among its best features. It does include the widely lampooned “let the villain talk long enough for help to arrive” shtick, though, along with the timeworn device of a freeze-frame ending – which here proved doubly pointless, as a sequel never materialized because this production failed to attract a lucrative distribution offer. The delightfully generic synthpop tunes contribute sporadic bonus contemporizing.

rating from outer space: B