I Vote This Movie Off the Island

are currently two films perched atop my Netflix Instant Watch queue with near identical premises involving a reality TV competition gone awry. I watched this one, and that is that.

Quick Plot: One year after the filming of "Castaway Island," the cast reunites for a weekend special. Among the mostly white people in their early 30s is Nigel, the newly crowned millionaire winner, Jen, the level-headed blond (played by Cut's Jessica Napier or as some might call her, the poor man's Naomi Watts), Lisa and Matt, a couple who fell in love despite Matt's off-shore marriage, a tall dude, and a bitchy brunette. I'd offer more character details but the plot doesn't, so we'll move on.

The mildly attractive people drive the show's yacht to an empty island where they expect to reignite old declarations of not coming there to make friends. Instead, they're greeted by an empty hut with a threatening blood-written note, plus a bunch of dead rats--6 dead rats, to be precise and foreshadowish. It doesn't take long--actually, it reallllllllly does--for the cast to remind each other and tell the audience about the seventh contestant on Castaway Island, a loose screw named Warren who was voted off after swinging a machete a little too close for primetime comfort.

All of this sounds promising and fine, right? Dead Set did great things with Big Brother, and the The Running Man made us all long for a future rich in jumpsuits and overabundant puns. Brian Keene's novel Castaways mixed monsters with human sociopaths to good enough success, and the tragically underrated ahead-of-its-time Series 7: The Contenders summed up reality TV with brilliant black comedy. It's a subgenre of horror that's still quite fertile for the picking.

Except Safety In Numbers is a fairly dreadful film, mostly because despite being a slasher set on a tropical island, it's incredibly dull.The people are dull. The dialogue is dull. The kills, when onscreen, are dull. The nine endings are dull. And there are nine of them. Or maybe fifteen or three, I really have no idea. They're all equally dull.

See just when you THINK the 85 minute Safety In Numbers is over, the screen fades...into the next scene. Until it fades...into another scene...and another...then it's really ov--oh no, another...and then credits. Which can be confusing, since it ends on an incredibly bizarre note that has no explanation whatsoever. Here's my theory:

The movie was made and came back from the editing booth at just over one hour long. That's a problem, since most films at that length won't get any form of release. So the screenwriter decided to add a mild twist, filmed it, then realized he had a 67 minute movie. Still too short. So he shrugged and added another twist. 70 minutes. Hmm. So he added a "the killer isn't really dead!" chase but realized with limited means and talent, there wasn't that much to show. So at 75 minutes, he decided to bring in a coda. He started to get excited at such an idea, for suddenly, it seemed like there were more possibilities to explore something he'd totally forgotten about for the entire filming process. Perhaps it was a subplot that seemed so perfect once presented. Yes, Safety In Numbers, you FOUND it.

Except then director David Douglas remembered that there needs to be credits, which run a good two minutes, and he now had an honest 85 minute film. So he shrugged again (I imagine Mr. Douglas does a lot of shrugging) and figured, much like James Caan did with children's literature in Elf before he was redeemed by the love of his Elf son Buddy, that nobody would *really* care whether they knew how his movie ended.

And you know what? He might have been right.

High Points

There's a great moment of tension that involves a snake, but that may have just excited me because it reminded me how much better a world it is we live in due to the mere existence of Snake Island

Low Points

Aside from being a slow and ill-paced film, Safety In Numbers commits one of those cinematic crimes that inflames the female inside me. I understand it was directed by a man and costumed by one Robert "Doll" Smith (really), but really: no woman would ever JUST sleep in her bra and pajama pants. Sure, a token shot of a cute actress in her whities is in demand, but a) the bra was the least sexy bit of lingerie I've ever seen, unless Playtex's 18-Hour Bras turn you on and b) SHE WOULDN'T SLEEP IN THAT!

The Winning Line

"Where the HELL is my YACHT!?"

Mostly because it's delivered with such pompous Britishicity that I had to laugh

Fun Fact/Lawsuit Alert

Apparently, Survivor did not copyright the term "voted off the island," which surprises me. Unless they did and Safety In Numbers will be sued by Jeff Probst

Rent/Bury/Buy

I pretty much hated this movie, and as anyone who's read my reviews of Blood Gnome knows, that's a harsh statement to make. On one hand. Safety In Numbers is certainly more competent than something like Unborn Sins, but there's just no spark of life lurking anywhere in its draggy 85 minutes. It's as if someone started with a potent idea for a slasher--reality stars stranded on an island--and forgot that an idea alone isn't what writes a screenplay. Unless you're simply a gigantic fan of Survivor and crave any form of ripoff, I just can't recommend Safety In Numbers, even as an instant stream. It's not that it's bad--I've recommended worse--it's more that this movie just doesn't care. So why should we?

Get Down With the (Bone) Sickness

It seems like just yesterday that T.L.Bug and I were trading movies over pizza and bottled beer, but that’s just because I received photographic evidence of said exchange just...this morning.

That’s right, it’s our monthly movie swap, this time done LIVE. Well, not really, but kinda in the closest way we could get! Surrounded by podcasters, bloggers, circus folk and friendly waitresses, Bugg and I traded our own physical copies of movies (yes, they still make those) for review. 

Photographic evidence!!!

Fly over to The Lightning Bug's Lair today for his review of Cut, a Scream-y slasher starring Molly Ringwald at her bitchiest (i.e., best).

But first, here’s a little something something given to me:

Quick Plot: Kristen is trying to take care of her bone sick husband Alex, but life is tough when your only real healthcare system equals your best friend digging up dead bodies and grinding them into a delicate paste that goes okay with granola and milk. 

Clearly, this was made during the Bush administration.

And probably right around the time the economy started being a jerk.

See, Bone Sickness is a low budget movie, a fact one will know as soon as the very first shot-on-video scene rolls before our eyes. Sure, there was enough cash for a fog machine and some form of bribery to get every single female actress to take off her blouse, but whatever meager leftover funds remained were clearly pinched at every corner the filmmakers could find.

For that, Bone Sickness really isn’t that bad. Writer/director Brian Paulin is clearly a splatter fan, and he doesn’t shy away from delivering some occasionally Halloween-y, occasionally believable (from a butcher shop) gore, baby maggots and all. Although the effects are hit and miss, some are quite impressive in an ‘80s Italian zombie kind of way. It doesn’t quite make up for the barely-there character conversations that seem to overpower the first half as the foggy plot dies off for a somewhat unrelated third act, but hey: we get a quick shot of skeleton zombies having sex.

I think. They may have just been doing pushups. It was dark.

High Points

Though some of the casting makes it hard to fully buy the never really defined love triangle, I did like the basic setup of Kristen trying her most earnest to save her dying husband. I just kind of wish the actor who played her husband never spoke

Low Points

Just because your camera has these fun buttons like ‘night vision’ and ‘filter’ does not necessarily mean you have to use them

Talking zombies--especially when covered in gooey makeup that limits some mouth muscles--really shouldn’t be given monologues during your film’s climax

Lessons Learned

Nothing says classy digs like dinner on paper plates, leopard curtains with matching towels, and a framed portrait of a wolf

If storing human meat in your fridge, it’s probably best to label the contents or get used to the taste

Feathered bangs are no man's friend

The dead don’t enunciate

Rent/Bury/Buy

Bone Sickness is by no means a good film, but it’s a strong enough entry into the under-$5000 budget genre of DIY movie-making to not warrant any hatred from me. Splatter zombie fans might enjoy the effects, which include an extended (and kind of out of nowhere) finale that involves what I imagine were every individual that ever owed the filmmakers a favor getting eaten. If cheap and dirty horror ain’t your thing, stay away. Unless you like boobs, which you get to see quite often. Which reminds me of a high point I almost neglected:

Thank you, Mr. Paulin (pictured above), for only asking the ladies to disrobe. It doesn’t do anything for me personally, but as more clothes started to fall off, I became more and more worried I’d have to sit through gratuitous nudity involving some men who are, to be kind, just not my taste. Your restraint is appreciated.

Killing 9 To 5

It’s been seven months since I last watched Severance and nearly one year since I began my first actual office job. Having now suffered through dry meetings scored to the buzz of overhead lighting and office scandals regarding lunch orders, I’m truly shocked by the lack of horror films that utilize a corporate setting. Where’s the weapon arsenal sponsored by Staples and uncomfortably ill-defined relationship barriers riddled with career-climbing ulterior motives? 

Hence, when the 1997 issue of Fangoria I recently bought at a yard sale featured an article about Office Killer, I rearranged my Netflix queue faster than you can say coffee break. Directed by famed photographer Cindy Sherman and starring an impressivey miscellaneous cast, Netflix defined it as “a thriller with surprising hilarity,” which should have quickly warned me that a genre film I had never heard of was buried in time for a reason.

Quick Plot: The always intriguing Carol Kane plays Dorine, an efficient copy editor (and if my boss is reading, allow me to assure the world that ALL copy editors are efficient) who lives a lonely existence with her invalid mother and chubby cat. At work, supervisor Jeanne Tripplehorn (who may have been in 65% of films released in the mid-late 90s) hands out downsizing slips instructing employees that they’ll now have to work part-time from home, much to the horror of the workaholic Dori. Meanwhile, surprisingly non Jersey accented Michael Imperioli (yes, Christophuh himself) puts in some IT hours installing this revolutionary new office tool called "email" on the employees' home computers. The world is a changing place.  

While working late to meet a deadline, Dori’s verbally abusive and hair abusing boss electrocutes himself while trying to fix an internet connection. Instead of calling 911, Dori decides to break the all sorts of rules by stealing the ultimate office supply--the corpse of her supervisor.  


A few days later, Dori once again finds herself alone with a rude and authority drunk superior, this one an asthmatic chain smoker with a dangerous comfort level in pleather evening wear. Spike an inhaler with a little butane and Dori is on a killing roll, always in less than expected manner and with a slight comic edge. Corpses pile up in her basement to be posed, dismembered, and Febrezed. Only Molly Ringwald as a cynical secretary with poor fashion sense suspects the suddenly confident grammar expert of being less than a model employee.  

Everything I’d read about Office Killer made it seem like a film I would love. Unfortunately, nearly everything about it just doesn’t work. Sherman has a definitive visual stle, casting the entire film in a sad and stale orangey brown that makes everything inside look rusted. By today’s standards, such a choice feels stuffily uncomfortable but also, oddly outdated a mere 12 years later. Instead of the icy uniformity done so well in films like Office Space, Office Killer’s title setting just feels messy. Even a low level publisher heading into the red wouldn't feel as if a retirement home was converted into magazine headquarters.  


More troubling is the tone, or lack thereof. Most of the characters are flat stereotypes which could certainly have worked had the film known what to do with them. Instead of forging ahead into campy wickedness, Office Killer sits on its unpleasant cast without any intrigue. Sometimes it seems as though Tripplehorn is our heroine, while Kane’s manic Dori bounces back and forth between sympathetic shut-in and psychopathic murderess. It’s fun to watch her chide the corpses of Girl Scouts, but when we have no idea why she killed these little girls in the first place, why should we care? Fuzzy narration and a few flashbacks hint at sexual abuse (and hey, if said sexual abuser was Eric Bogosian, I too would probably grow up with more than a few issues) but nothing’s really done with that thread. Ultimately, it feels as though the script presented a premise that called for sharp black comedy, while the director treated it straightforwardly with a static eye. It’s hard to laugh at jokes that feel flatter than the page they were typed on and even harder to fear for characters that lack the slightest hint of depth.  


High Points 
While she seems to have no idea what to do with her poorly drawn character, Kane is still an intriguing presence in just about any film she's in

Following her divaliscious turn in the Aussie slasher Cut , Ringwald has convinced me that she should henceforth only accept roles that call for serious bitchery 


Low Points 
What’s the point of featuring a motorized Gremlins stair chair if you’re not going to use it?

Um, the rest of the movie?  

Lessons Learned 
The Internet might occasionally kill you, but it’s pretty easy to hack


Masking tape is great in a pinch, especially if said pinch involved holding in a corpse's intestines

Never feel up your daughter while driving

Like mace, a silk headscarf with an elaborate and too colorful print can indeed be used against you


When in doubt, always say no to pleather


Rent/Bury/Buy 
The female factor of Office Killer makes it interesting in concept, but this is sadly one of duller 90+ minutes I’ve recently endured. I have the slight feeling that it may, like many dark comedies, improve a bit on repeat viewings but I have absolutely no desire to revisit this film and unless you’re nursing a Carol Kane crush, I’d skip it. The DVD contains no special features, so despite the fact that this film feels deliberately cultish, it seems nobody involved in its production cared enough to come back.  

I know how they feel.

Pretty In Blood

For better and worse, Wes Craven’s Scream was a landmark film for horror cinema. The 1996 sleeper renewed a mainstream interest in slashers, a tepid love affair that had basically laid dormant (in spirit) since Freddy pondered fatherhood and Jason tasted New York bagels. Well-versed genre fans chuckled at Kevin Williamson’s cracking self-aware dialogue and classic references while a new generation of Noxema-using young people hit the mall in search of similar fare. (As for me? As my 14 year old friends got lost in Skeet Ulrich’s big browns and snidely mocked Neve Campbell’s Kmart wardrobe, I ceased upon the opportunity to show “scary” movies at previously dull slumber parties; sadly my fellow eighth graders did not appreciate Mothers Day as quite the tongue-in-cheek comedy it was).


Most importantly, the echo of Scream inspired--well, that may be too artistic a word considering the result--studios to throw mid-ranged budgets at a slew of slashers starring fresh-faced WB stars (aw, a moment of silence please). Some, like the convoluted but not irredeemable I Know What You Did Last Summer, achieved decent success and birthed unfortunate Brandy-based and excessively wordy sequels, while others--like the dreadful Disturbing Behavior, starring a pre-Mrs. Cruise as a Goth girl--had shorter lifespans than a Tomogatchi pet in an emergency room full of Beanie Babies. Or something.


If I learned one thing this week, it’s that Scream’s effect was airborne and made its way across continents to the Land Down Under. Cut, a 2000 slasher with meta film intentions, is clearly surfing on the Ghostface-d wave. It utilizes a rubber-faced killer, cinema savvy victims, and lazy but affectionate film references ranging from to Shock Corridor to Jules and Jim.


Quick Plot:
Cammy from Street Fighter (aka pixie pop sensation Kylie Minogue) is a low level director trying to finish a mediocre horror film--a daunting cast when your lead is a divaliscious Molly Ringwald and your villain has the IQ of a pea. After insulting her male lead, Minogue meets her poorly edited end, leaving Ringwald to stave off the killer and rise to the minor stardom allowed to second string soap opera actresses.

Fast forward thirteen years to the Australian version of Scream 2’s film class. Budding director Raffi Carruthers and ambitious producing major Hester Ryan decide that the best way to ace their senior project while stepping into the public eye is to complete the infamously cursed slasher film, much to the brooding consternation of their mentor who has his own connection to Hot Blooded (the unfinished movie, sadly not the Foreigner song). They amass a blandly attractive crew, fly over former star Vanessa Turnbill (Princess Ringwald) in coach class, and roll the old reels to the original location of the ill-fated shoot. Will a superstrong but silent unidentified masked man pick off the snarky Aussies one by one, replacing prop garden shears with sharp weapons of decapitation? If you have to ask, you’re reading the wrong blog.

You won’t find humor up to Scream par, nor are the scares worthy of other on-set horror like John Carpenter’s Cigarette Burns. Cut, however, is not a total waste of time, particularly if you happened to have been raised on 80s slashers. I was reminded of films like Popcorn, which also had a dedicated spirit devoted to its own genre. The effects are passable enough, though the story could have used some sort of invigoration. One of the biggest barriers while watching a film like this is the responsibility you constantly feel to identify the killer before the plot does it for you. This isn’t necessarily Cut’s fault because (HELPFUL SPOILER) the villain is not among the introduced cast. Unfortunately, we don’t discover this until too late, so much of our own viewing time is wasted with unnecessary theorizing. Then again, that process may be what keeps films like this from boring us to our own bloody deaths.


High Points
Watching Ringwald channel her inner bitch truly is a joy

The decision to make the creative artists of the film female is a nice and refreshing touch, especially since it’s not overly pushed as being revolutionary


Low Points
While all the young actors are likable enough, none leave any sort of lingering impression or cause us to actually care about their fates


A minor character revelation is supposed to do something for the action, but once revealed, it’s never revisited and feels like a late attempt to give unneeded substance to a lite film


Lessons Learned
It’s hard to scream without a tongue


Stunt drivers are always expected, even when the only required driving is out of a driveway


Throwing garden shears is surprisingly easy


Today, hearing dialup onscreen is as quaint as watching the Amish churn butter


Rent/Bury/Buy
About a month ago, my brother texted me that he was in a discount store that had a bin of DVDs on sale for $2.50. I hadn’t heard of Cut, but a quick sneak on IMDB during work hours, along with the very presence of Ringwald at a rather unpredictable point in her career, was enough for me to approve the sale.


At that price, it’s hard to go wrong with any movie, much less a decent, occasionally clever slasher with an earnestly positive attitude about it. This is ultimately one of those unoffensive, but uneventful films that doesn’t really deserve your searching energy, but won’t hurt you when viewed in the background of a spring cleaning or miniature toy village assembly (I dunno, what DO you people do with your spare time?). Fans of 80s slashers will get a soft-toed kick out of its retro style and Rinwald devotees should revel in her diva performance. The effects are above par and the gore, though not extraordinary, doesn’t play chicken. For those horror lovers okay with the occasional imitation brand servings, give it a low expectation intentioned try. For the others, delve into the 80s and find something else.