vengeance

Mandy (2018)

/ billy peppers / Leave a comment
directed by panos cosmatos
piccadilly pictures/spectrevision/umedia/xyz films/legion m/sqn capital/wallimage

Judging by the consensus opinion of this recycled action/revenge picture, people apparently were delighted that someone decided to combine the filmmaking styles of Rob Zombie and Quentin Tarantino, and to augment that daring celluloid fusion with Nicolas Cage in full-on latter-day Bill Murray mode, mainly staring blankly into the camera and conserving his energy as much as possible. Hmm, that sounds really negative … Sorry, I don’t mean to diminish completely the achievements of this occasionally entertaining waste of your precious dwindling time on this dying planet. It’s just that I didn’t think anything about this flick was especially original, or even terribly interesting. The religious cult cliché is uninspired enough, but once the focus shifts to Cage’s pursuit of his quarry, it literally is nothing you haven’t seen many times before. Overblown, overcooked, overhyped, and underwhelming.

This fabulous line runs later in the credits:

Supported by the Tax Shelter of the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF BELGIUM
and the Tax Shelter investors

why did i watch this movie?

Boy howdy, it sure got some good ink, didn’t it.

should you watch this movie?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
highlight and low point

It’s fun to look at, I guess, what with the liberal use of p*S*y*C*h*E*d*∃*l*Ι*c visual FX and intervals of animation and hallucinatory FREAKOUTS and so forth. I mean, like, whoo, trippy, man. Oh, and Cage does have one mostly laudable scene. Seriously, though, it’s just too imitative to appreciate and doesn’t have much of a tale to tell. I would’ve thought more people might’ve noticed, but that’s my problem, I suppose.

rating from outer space: D

Candyman (1992)

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directed by bernard rose
propaganda films/polygram filmed entertainment

I was metaphorically looking at my watch during the second half of this formulaic slasher flick, reproaching myself for its selection, then once it was over I decided to read some opinions of it and – wow, you must be joking, internet. Personally, I found this picture to be wildly unacceptable, and not just because it implausibly concerns a murderous supernatural ex-slave bogeyman haunting Chicago’s projects. Sure, that’s improbable, too, but nothing else about this feature is any more reasonable. The ridiculously contrived (and likely inadmissible) police and legal procedures, the intrepid graduate students’ daring thesis research, the architectural lessons, the unthinking racism, the trite dialogue – this one’s got it all and then some! By which I might mean a Philip Glass score that we hear the same snippet of way too often. Oh, and vacuous voiceovers that aim for grandiosity only to land on ostentation. Plus, also, too, it’s not very frightening.

why did i watch this movie?

I’ll admit, I’m beginning to suspect there’s a reason I haven’t seen some of these ’90s offerings.

should you watch this movie?

You’d be better off watching any of the 440-plus episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. You know, I’ve read one of Clive Barker’s “Books of Blood” collections. Yeah, one.

highlight and low point

Certainly, when Virginia Madsen busts out of the institution where she’s been detained for a month with the help of her paranormal hook-handed buddy, I completely lost any semblance of respect for this absurdity. But it just kept going, exhausting my patience. The ending at least made me laugh, partially because it was so predictable, but also because they dragged it out so much. Did I like anything about this movie, I’m wondering.

Nothing’s coming to mind, sorry.

rating from outer space: D+

Tumbbad (2018)

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directed by rahi anil barve with adesh prasad
sohum shah films/colour yellow productions/eros international/film i vÄst/filmgate films

This period piece spans the era when India transitioned into independence, presenting a kind of fable steeped in mythology and the dark underbelly – the womb, actually – of religion. As much a fantastical work as anything else, it’s surprising to find it took six years to complete, because it’s of a unified vision and weaves its story powerfully. I guess the best way to describe its genre would be “magical realism,” as its tale of several generations of one family’s struggle with and against a curse of sorts remains grounded in actuality while having at its core a bizarre relationship with the otherworldly. It’s engrossing throughout, captivating even, despite (or in spite of) its capricious and largely unlikable main character – a bit like There Will Be Blood, perhaps. At worst, it’s intriguing, and at its best it can be spectacular.

why did i watch this movie?

Described as a story about a goddess who created the universe and the problems that arose when people unwisely began to worship her firstborn son, who is effectively exiled and imprisoned, it sounded like a unique experience … and it is, even as at least part of that description isn’t altogether accurate.

should you watch this movie?

You’ll need to set aside some time, as it’s an immersive experience.

highlight and low point

I didn’t particularly care for the ending, as it doesn’t seem to hew closely enough to the depiction of the essential powers at play throughout the rest of the picture – and I like it even less now that I have learned that a sequel is planned. (Sigh.) The film looks great overall, I mean it’s visually arresting, and it carries various of its conceits to their full extent.

rating from outer space: B+

 

 

미확인 동영상: 절대클릭금지 aka Mihwakin Donghyeongsang aka Don’t Click (2012)

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directed by kim tae-kyung
ad406 pictures

Some Korean schoolgirls are obsessed with web videos … which can be deadly, would you believe. Well, one might be, anyway. Or is it only one? And what kind of recording IS it, anyway? (Answer: it’s an “incantation.”) Basically a no-bullying PSA in the form of a horror flick, this production succeeds for two reasons: One, its viral element spreads to a plainly alarming degree via conduits that you wouldn’t have suspected, and two, I watched it after viewing a couple of really bad pictures. Yes, it does have its own merits, and I also enjoyed the somewhat peculiar English translations in the subtitles on more than one version of this film, but it’s not terribly different in tone, effect or affect from some of the other flicks that have probably come to mind via this synopsis. Kang Byul does make for one hell of a scream queen playing Jung-Mi, who’s more or less the cause of all the trouble.

why did i watch this movie?

Looking for some other pic led me to this one, but I cannot recall the exact pathway.

should you watch this movie?

It’s nothing too special, ultimately, nor particularly memorable. I guess one could highlight its quirkiness as a selling point.

highlight and low point

The complexity of the layers of guilt and levels of involvement among the major players in this drama are a bit of a curveball, and elements of subtle humor plus a degree of edginess are also a bit uncommon – or at least were unexpected by this reviewer. A few of the story’s supporting aspects are underdeveloped, though, almost as if to acknowledge that while necessary to provide a foundation for the happenings, they weren’t a primary concern of the creative staff.

rating from outer space: C

The Mutations aka The Freakmaker aka Dr. of Evil (1974)

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directed by jack cardiff
getty picture corporation/cyclone productions

Roger Corman’s name somehow is not attached to this tale of a mad scientist creating hybrid creatures by meshing flora and fauna. “My theory of Total Genetics is all-embracing,” intones the dependably taciturn Donald Pleasence, playing the nutter professor with his hair and beard varying its balance of black and white from scene to scene. Presumably this movie has played countless times on the types of late-night programs that specialize in daffy, misbegotten, or just plain awful cinema. Not merely horror, this flick is equally science-fiction-flavored, all the better for those sorts of showcases. Contents: Plant/human hybrids, plant/animal hybrids, fake deformities, actual sideshow freaks, and a whole lotta stock footage of vegetation. The real star is either the ludicrous monster costume that looks like a deconstructionist Creature from the Black Lagoon (or Swamp Thing, I guess) or the hilarious props in the lab of Dr. Pleasence, a cross between the Little Shop of Horrors and the workplace of Bunsen Honeydew.

why did i watch this movie?

I don’t remember, but probably because it sounded completely ridiculous. And Donald Pleasence.

should you watch this movie?

It’s the kind of presentation you enjoy while wondering how in the world any of the people involved possibly could have been taking their jobs seriously. It’s … definitely amusing.

highlight and low point

Once “Tony” escapes the lab in his hybridized form, the proceedings shift into another realm entirely. It’s almost must-see stuff, almost enough to justify sitting through the rest of it … such as the blatant exploitation of Freaks, for instance. Basically, the plot of Dr. Freakmaker (hmm … ) is grafted onto a rehashing of certain themes of that infamous pic, including an approximation of the “One of us!” scene and an abridged version of the revenge piece.

rating from outer space: C+

that’s not subtle

Martyrs (2008)

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written and directed by pascal laugier
eskwad/wild bunch/tcb film/canal+/cinÉcinÉma

After this film finally ended, I started writing a polemic on what I condemned as its senseless brutality, its transgressive excesses flaunted purely for their own sake, its purposeless exhibition of sickening abuse, its obscenity.

Morning found me still pondering what I’d seen, contemplating the motive behind the disturbing displays, so I read a lot about it, including an enlightening interview with the director. Along the way, I realized a positive critical appraisal of “New French Extremity” films, several of which I’d enjoyed, had suckered me into seeing a picture I’d scrupulously avoided for a decade,

Martyrs is a vile movie, full of sadistic horrors and irredeemable suffering and graphically unsettling trauma and grievous bodily harm inflicted upon a guileless young woman. The first half is only intermittently assaultive – nothing too out of the ordinary – but as the second half began, I had a sinking feeling, which proved prescient. It definitely goes too far, and it’s hard to find justification for what occurs. What reason could there be for grotesquely prolonged images of torture of an innocent, you might wonder.

The Laugier interview helped. Some things are indelible, though.

why did i watch this movie?

Mea culpa. I tend to favor productions that feature people doing horrible things to others. This selection has me questioning myself.

should you watch this movie?

Look, this picture’s culminating moment is a woman being flayed alive … but by that point the savagery inflicted upon her has been so objectionable it may barely register. You have been warned.

highlight and low point

It’s provocative, I’ll give it that. As to my charge of “obscenity,” French film commissars originally concurred, rating it 18+, though it was lowered to 16+ after intervention from a filmmakers society, a journalists’ union and the Minister of Culture.

rating from outer space: B

Haunted aka The Haunted (1977)

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written and directed by michael de gaetano
northaire communications, inc.

Wow, I might owe an apology to a few of the other terrible movies I’ve lambasted, because compared to this abysmal folly, some of them look much better. While nothing could make films like Home Sweet Home and Monster look “good,” compared to this debacle, a relative respectability may be easier to obtain. It’s hard for me to precisely describe this fiasco, because the script is a disaster, the acting atrocious, the concept absurd, and the pacing and editing undisciplined and unstructured. You probably couldn’t write dialogue this poorly if you tried, and its recital is akin to unlettered folks reading cue cards with missing words and disorderly syntax. It’s astonishing. Unbelievably, the filmmaker claimed that budgetary constraints robbed his flick of its brilliant philosophical insights, but with what’s in evidence, that very idea strikes one as utterly asinine.

why did i watch this movie?

This intro doesn’t mention a “phone booth,” but the poster does. Details below!

should you watch this movie?

The fact that is even a possibility says too much about this modern world.

highlight and low point

A “phone booth” was a “box-like kiosk containing a public payphone.” A “public payphone” was – I am not making this up – a coin-operated telephone that stood alone in public spaces, so people could use them to make calls.

In this movie, a “phone booth” is erected in a cemetery for some damn fool reason, and it is claimed that this device allows Abanaki’s Indian spirit to inhabit a terrible English actress, but she never uses the structure until far too late for this to have occurred.

Any claim that reincarnation is involved in this picture is spurious at best.

rating from outer space: F

Zhǒng guǐ aka Seeding of a Ghost aka 种鬼 (1983)

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directed by Yang chuan
shaw brothers

I think this flick must have been intended to be a horror-comedy, but as it’s a Hong Kong production I couldn’t honestly say. If Shaw Brothers didn’t intend for it to be humorous, then something was definitely lost in the translation, whether linguistic or cultural. Granted, one wouldn’t presume that a film with a rape as its central action was meant to be funny, but certainly some elements of even that particular scene don’t seem to be played completely straight. Plus, I mean, a mouldering reanimated corpse copulates with a wraith while levitating during part of the black magic ritual that adds the “revenge” component to this business, and the company that brought the DVD to the U.S. market bills it as the “mind-melting Asian answer to The Evil Dead.” The picture also features a kung fu fight scene, an exploding pregnancy, and some kind of evil spawn that looks something like Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors, only as a crawling, tentacled Lovecraftian nightmare. So you tell me.


why did i watch this movie?

I was reading somewhere about how over-the-top Hong Kong cinema can be, and then elsewhere saw similar references to a variety of its horror films. This was one of them.

should you watch this movie?

The next time you’re in the mood for something outrageously ridiculous, Ghost will fit the bill nicely.

highlight and low point

Almost every character reacts with incredulity to something or another at some point or another in the course of this movie, which neatly aligns with the viewing experience. I suppose any number of questionable sequences or developments could be assessed unfavorably, but let’s be realistic here: this is exploitation-level trash, the foreign equivalent of a Troma venture.

rating from outer space: c+

 

Death Dorm aka The Dorm That Dripped Blood aka Pranks (1982)

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directed by jeffrey obrow and stephen carpenter
jeff obrow productions

Sloppy and unfocused, this run-of-the-mill affair struggled to hold my attention. The debut offering from Obrow and Carpenter, made a few years before their much more accomplished The Power, it reminded me why I find The Evil Dead so interesting as a filmmaker’s initial effort – its conceptualization. Here, all we have is a rather standard story about a small group of people being picked off one by one, with the usual false clues and misplaced suspicions. Many hallmarks of an essentially amateur production are also present, such as ragged editing and poorly paced and redundant scenes. I’m not saying I could do better; for a prospective script written by film students and shot on-campus during break, it’s more than good enough. Impressively, the ending contains an unexpected wrinkle.

why did i watch this movie?

As is often the case, as I was writing my review of The Power, I decided I should probably give this one a look.

should you watch this movie?

Aside from a cast of actors you’ll largely never see again, there’s nothing too interesting here aside from the opportunity to muse about the instincts of those who produce horror features. So very often the writers opt for set pieces and pat themes that conform to genre conventions. I suppose if you’re trying to sell investors and backers on your first attempt, this approach is reasonable, but it often just seems to be business as usual in this arena.

highlight and low point

Though it’s fairly easy at times to observe that these people had never made a movie before, they did a pretty convincing job with at least one of the death scenes.

Rating from outer space: c−

boy, that looks official

 

Christmas Evil aka You Better Watch Out (1980)

/ billy peppers / Leave a comment
written and Directed by lewis jackson
edward r. pressman productions

One thing I hadn’t expected from this movie (or, to be fair, any movie) was to see Santa Claus being chased by an angry mob bearing torches. As for that horde, it was as though the townspeople were suspiciously well prepared for such a situation. An opportunistic rabble, however, is just one small oddity in a film chock-full of strange events and ideas. Befitting the Yuletide theme, the picture plays out like some sort of twisted fable. A repressed middle-aged man identifies a little too much with Saint Nicholas, his obsession seemingly brought about by a desire for Santa to be real. Of course, he works in a toy factory. He also spies on the neighborhood kids, and his brother’s family, but this may be expected since his pathology was borne of a bit of childhood voyeurism. His Claus then becomes a sort of Robin Hood, sabotaging the company at which he’s become middle management and killing a couple people in the process. The saga ends with an impossible scene paralleled four years later in Repo Man, would you believe:

why did i watch this movie?

It was Christmas Eve, and I’d just watched the Silent Night flicks the preceding two evenings.

should you watch this movie?

It perverts the iconography a bit, sure, but it essentially reinforces classic holiday-movie themes. Get the whole family together!

highlight and low point

A scene where our protagonist gets pulled into a neighborhood Christmas party and dances with the attendees is pretty interesting, particularly as at this point, he should be on the lam. Luckily for him, it appears to be surprisingly hard to follow the trail of a guy dressed as Santa Claus driving around in a big white van with a garish sleigh painted on both sides.

rating from outer space: B+