What Big Hooker Boots You Have

Not since Zombie Death House have I sat down for a violent-prisoners-take-out-the-staff horror treat. Something tells me the hair won’t have nearly enough volume in 2010’s Medium Raw…

Quick Plot: Some years ago, a serial killer dubbed The Wolf killed a lot of little girls, including our hero Johnny Morgan’s kid sister. Now a surly young detective, Johnny (played by director Andrew Cymek) gets his second chance at catching the elusive killer when his mentor (John Rhys-Davies in non-dwarf form) discovers he has returned.

Meanwhile, Johnny’s new wife Jamie is a psychiatrist at a maximum security asylum for the criminally insane. It’s a darkly lit place with a bad reputation, as its former head doctor was a fan of torturous therapy. Now run by his son Dr. Robert Parker (William B. Davis), the hospital operates under the theory that insanity can be cured and treated with kindness. When that doesn’t work, all patients wear electric shock collars that send a mean jolt if they get too close to the staff.

You see where this is going, right?

After Johnny collars The Wolf (real name: Harold Grierson), justice takes a turn when lawyer Mercedes McNab (better known to Sunnydale citizens as Harmony) gets Grierson a softer sentence to, you guessed it, the same asylum Jamie (now separated from Johnny) does her rounds. Once a nurse’s granddaughter comes to visit wearing a red cloak on Christmas Eve, you can bet a steak dinner that the power will go out and the tables will turn.

Medium Raw is an unusual film in both good ways and bad. It’s hard to dislike any inmates-take-it-back film, simply because such a Marat/Sade premise will always yield something fun. In this case, we get a cheerfully mad nudist in a Santa hat, a brutal giant with a soft spot for Jamie’s singing and a hard spot for the color red, a god-loving psycho who talks like Macho Man, and a deceptively grandmotherly patient named Mabel who just so happens to be a cannibal with specific cooking techniques. All that stuff? Super.

Unfortunately, we also get their victims. Cymek looks the part of a young distressed detective, but he never really seems to be weighted by the horrors he’s experienced. Brigitte Kingsley (also the producer) is dreadfully miscast (and mis-styled) as a brilliant doctor who looks and acts more like a centerfold. Their scenes together lack any real chemistry, which wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t drawn out in the worst possible way.

I’m being very specific when I say “drawn out in the worst possible way” because it’s quite literal. At one point, Jamie is trapped in a James Bond-ish slow death drowning apparatus. She knows her time is short—like, really really really really short—and so she urges Johnny to go save someone else and get back to her if he can. Considering the fact that every second counts, you’d think he would make up his mind then launch into action and return with equal speed. Instead, Cymek uses this scene to show how sad he is by the whole thing, i.e., standing there looking torn, vowing not to leave, then deciding to leave but continuously turning around before trotting away. Take your time dude. No rush.

Except yes rush, because tick tock. You’d think Johnny would learn his lesson when he returns to find Jamie’s cage underwater. Rather than immediately SPRINTING towards it, he takes the moment to stop, shout “Jamie!,” and then run to her aide. I know it’s the kind of detail that works for dramatic effect, but when time being of the essence has been DRILLED into this subplot, it’s impossible for an audience member to ignore how stupid his actions seem.

I realize I’m harping on small things, but there are a lot of those kinds of poor choices that keeps Medium Raw from ever being as effective as it could be. We even have two assumedly ace detectives investigating an extremely violent criminal without calling backup, as if everything they learned about police work came from Danny Glover’s incompetence in Saw.

These things aside, Medium Raw does have plenty to enjoy. The oddly black humored impromptu cannibal cooking lesson is twisted fun, and a lot of the fairy tale imagery (when not obvious) creates an artistically unsettling tone. Of course, it would help if we could actually SEE the details, something Cymek seems loathe to do based on the pitch black lighting choices. I suppose it’s meant to heighten the mood or show us the darkness of the asylum but really, it just means I squinted a lot.

Not. Pleasant.

High Notes

The actual design of The Wolf’s chainmail garb is wonderfully weird

The Juggernaut-ish big guy who hates red is wonderfully used as a sort of tool of the good and bad. We see from his interactions with Jamie that he’s psychologically unbalanced, not naturally evil. It’s an interesting touch that works well when Johnny enlists him as his own sort of weapon against The Woodcutter

Low Notes

Dear Lighting Department: It’s nice to see things now and then. Yours, Emily

Lessons Learned

Lawyers’ personal files always include a sexy headshot

All toes are important

  

Acceptable workwear for a psychiatrist in a home for the criminally insane includes skin-tight t-shirts, miniskirts, and knee-high leather boots with heels sharp enough to cut through arteries

When someone cooks your staff for dinner, that person is not your friend

Rent/Bury/Buy

When it comes to most of the newer genre films on Instant Watch, Medium Raw is something different. So long as you can get by the fact that everybody onscreen acts like an idiot (and that the lead two act rather terribly), it’s not an awful way to waste away 90 minutes. And hey, it gives us a double shot of holiday AND mental asylum horror. For that, I can be thankful with a mediocre product.

6 Reasons Why Mickey Rourke Makes Immortals Almost Worth Watching

Don’t let my enthusiasm deceive you: Immortals is not a good movie. Like Tarsem’s first big budget film The Cell, it’s very pretty. Visually groovy. High fashion fabulous and even an audio treat. 

But it’s also ridiculous.

Emily! You say. How can a blockbuster epic about Greek mythology not be great? There are gods! And they’re HOT!

There are Titans!

...who scurry like cave dwellers in The Descent and wear more body makeup than the cast of Apocalypto. They’ve been hanging out in a golden box buried deep inside a giant, but really easily penetrable wall. But you know what opens a golden box buried deep inside a giant, but really easily penetrable wall? A sparkling bow that shoots lustrous arrows, of course!

I KNOW! I also can’t wait to see how this subject matter gets tackled in XXX This Ain’t Immortals, coming soon to an online retailer near you. Hopefully it’s an urn-full sexier than the hilariously irresponsible and even more hilariously not sexy oracle seduction scene in the actual movie.

But why harp on the negative when we’ve got something awesome, something truly worthy of the gods’ golden showers? I am, of course referring to Mickey Rourke’s King Hyperion, the deliciously cruel and decadently dressed villain whose prime motivation is ‘the gods SUCK! Let’s unleash the titans!’

This is a great character motivation to have because it means we get to hear Mickey Rourke say ‘unleash the titans.’ A. Lot.

But that’s just the tip of Mt. Olympus. Here’s six more reasons why Rourke rocks:

1. Hat That

The man sports a bevy of headwear during his exploits, but most notably is this black helmet accented by claws (or teeth, or claw teeth) that frame Rourke’s unforgettable mug. Sure, it blocks most peripheral vision, but come on! It also looks like this:

2. Dude smokes folks in a cow

True, it’s not quite as grand as Gary Oldman’s elephant oven, but still...dude smokes folks in a cow.

3. Dieting is for eunuchs

Remember how Elaine was ALWAYS eating on Seinfeld? It was just a thing, and yet it worked. Hyperion has a lot of ‘things’--kickass hats, minions dressed like GWAR--so he didn’t even need another one, but you can’t throw a spear without catching the king feasting on something. I almost wonder if Rouke just refused to leave the craft service table until fresh pomegranates were flown in. Then Tarsem found a compromise, wherein Rourke would start filming, but once the pomegranates arrived, Tarsem HAD to hand them over ASAP. He didn’t have to STOP SHOOTING, just toss the fruit to Rour--er, Hyperion in the middle of a scene and that’s that. We’ll just make it a thing.

4. He’s a ball buster

Literally.


5. Share That Style

Not only does Hyperion sport a range of facewear (including a glizty gold cover that screams Street Fighter’s Vega Goes to Vegas) but he’s so fashion savvy that he MAKES masks the official uniform of his ENTIRE ARMY. From a strategic point of view, it’s not overly smart (vision in battle, anyone?) but for us in the audience, it’s super that a character cares so much. About our entertainment, not his men’s chance of running into walls or surviving.

6. Best. Line. Ever.

“Let me enlighten you,” Hyperion tells a monk prisoner.

How does Mickey Rourke 'enlighten' a monk you ask? 

By setting said dude on fire. Fire ignited by holy water. 


Bad. Ass.

Mind you, I’m not recommending Immortals, and certainly not for the added surcharge of 3D (which is tragically lacking from someone as visually innovative as The Fall’s Tarsem). While the battle scenes offer plenty of head poppings, anything not involving bodies filleted by divine chains or Mickey Rourke’s scowling is duller than a bad history lesson. None of the young leads bring anything other than great abs or pretty hair to the table, and that more than includes the amusingly miscast Stephen Dorff. 

The only glimmer of quality comes from John Hurt, who seemed to have been cast as Burgess Meredith from Clash of the Titans, then everyone forgot he was actually in the movie and thought about just planting him near the craft service table to play with Rourke’s pomegranates and hats until a nearby best boy pointed out that John Hurt does some KILLER narration so why not have him, um, narrate a film that in no way needed narration? See, Immortals opens with an empty quote about the souls of righteous men, but that’s WRITTEN. So we had to actually READ it. Just in case the audience can’t, you know, read, why not have John Hurt read that importantly empty quote out loud at the end of the film?

You know, here I wanted to write a quickie post about Immortals and now I’ve reached the very moment of the film that made me care about what I didn’t see onscreen. The final image--not really a spoiler, as I won’t describe the plot and the trailer already showed it off--is surreal and wonderful. It takes us to a new level of visual imagination that demonstrates Tarsem’s eye is still sharply unique, something that should have been integrated with the story (a la The Fall) throughout the film to produce something we care about AND think is cool-looking. It's a shame the story--a mess of lazy mythology that isn't good enough to take itself as seriously as it does--just flounders, moving from one point to the next because the beats call for it (the deadfish romance is a prime example). Perhaps one day, Tarsem can find a script to match the extraordinary imagery he'll put onscreen.

Especially when it comes to hats.

I like my plague the way I like my coffee/men: black & Beany. Um...

Ever since I stayed up late four weeknights in the 6th grade to watch ABC’s adaptation of The Stand, I’ve had something you might call ‘a thing’ for plagues. Whether it’s a movie like Carriers or a novel like Blindness, the idea of infection sparing no one is just such a ripe and rich premise for any horror film.

Toss in the word bubonic--easily one of my favorites--and  you’ve got the ingredients for one kicking movie. Oh, and did I mention Christopher Triangle Smith is behind the camera?

Yes, you could easily say my expectations for Black Death was about as high as the body count of the actual Black Death.

Quick Plot: It’s 1348, a great time for rats, mead, and long hair but a crappy time for life expectancy. A deadly sickness is tearing through Europe leaving nothing but paranoid Christians and rotting corpses in its path. 

Enter Oswald, a young monk torn between his village love and his word to God. Fearing the worst, he sends his girlfriend home to the woods where she plans to wait for him every morning as he decides where his true heart lies. 

A sign comes in the form of the rarely shampooed Sean Bean playing Ulric, a knight leading a tribe of Christian mercenaries into the woods to capture a rumored necromancer. As they venture deeper into the wild, they encounter violent savages and eventually, Black Book’s lovely Carice van Houten’s Langiva, a mysterious beauty lording over a gang of pagans.

Christopher Smith has one of the most impressive resumes of any genre filmmaker working today, so the idea of putting one of my favorite film premises in his hands is beyond exciting. In a way, unless Black Death met Wizard of Oz standards, it was probably never going to truly be as good as I wanted it to be.

That doesn’t mean I didn’t like Black Death. It had body boils, angry mobs, David Warner, a bleak ending and Sean Bean snarling. Of COURSE I enjoyed the movie. But coming from the man who made a beautiful day of sailing into a time warping horror complete with a baghead killer, Black Death fell a tad short of being the bubonic bonanza I was hoping for. 

High Points

One of the interesting aspects of any film set pre-1700 is the necessary lack of firearms. Black Death gives us a great moment of dialogue where the young monk learns from a grizzled knight about the mercy knife and how a carefully placed stab wound serves as the medieval headshot for merciful killings

SPOILERS

I drifted off a bit from Black Death during its somewhat disappointing third act, but I found the epilogue to be absolutely great. Having Oswald, our young and lovelorn hero, 

transform into a dark witch-hunting murderer (with Episode 2 Anakin Skywalker hair to boot) was devastatingly brilliant, making it a spiritual prequel to films like Mark of the Devil and Witchfinder General

The only good thing I was ever able to say about the awful Hitcher remake was that hey, at least the truck stretch out was cool. So it’s kind of neat that Black Death, another Sean Bean vehicle, gets to do the limb pulling, period style


THUS ENDETH SPOILERS

Low Points

While some of the sound design is haunting (ew death gurgles!) I find it hard to believe that every time sword moves it makes that slicey sound

There’s a fantastic shot when one of Ullric’s men is crucified by the pagans, as Smith’s camera follows him face-on in a frenetic Wicker Man-like final prayer. The problem is that this type of moment is far too rare. With a hauntingly fogged landscape and some set pieces that speak for themselves (hooded executioners marching on, corpses a’plenty) it’s kind of a shame that Black Death doesn’t feel truly immersed in the natural madness like, say, Vinyan or Aguire: The Wrath of God.

Lessons Learned

Christians appreciate the concept of betrayal

The longbow is quicker to load AND farther in flight. Take THAT buck of tar!

It’s indeed possible to smell a lie on a man

As Red Riding Hood taught us well, eye makeup was never more lovely than during pre-Industrial Revolution times

The Winning Line

“I look forward to shagging your mother’s ass in hell”

Who knew medieval times were filled with such great trash mama talk!

Rent/Bury/Buy

Black Death is certainly worth a lights-off watch, particularly since it’s currently streaming on Instant Watch. My slight disappointment probably stems more from the fact that I just watched Werner Herzog’s drop dead gorgeous Nosferatu (review coming soon) and was slightly spoiled by his masterful use of medieval times, plagues, and European forestry. So Black Death ain’t Nosferatu, but it’s still an engrossing period horror refreshing for our age.

Over the River & Through the Tweens

Like many a commodity in the modern age of the economic long tail, pornography is now available for every possible palette. Clown sex? Easy. Grandmas dressed in drag? It’s on the shelf at my Bronx 7/11. Seinfeld parodies and Edward Penishands? C’mon, give Silicone Valley a challenge.

I bring this up to point out an easy one sentence review of Red Riding Hood: if you are a 13 year old girl, this film is your porn.

Dreamy boys with perfect cool guy haircuts fighting for your honor? Check. Pretty clothes and perfect eye makeup that never runs in the constant snow (that never melts)? Check. Those hidden family secrets you’ve always secretly hoped your family had to make your origins more interesting? It’s all there. Gary Oldman in purple velour? Raise your glass of mead!

Quick Plot: As a young girl, Valerie enjoys sneaking off with future lumberjack Peter for wacky rabbit-hunting hijinks. Hey, we were all seven once, am I right?

Flash forward ten years where Valerie has blossomed into the alien eye bulging Amanda Seyfried and Peter is now the sullen kid from Deadgirl sporting a Robert Pattinson gassy look of constant indigestion. Because this is a movie made for the Twilight audience, it’s necessary to have a tepid love triangle. Rounding out the corner is Jeremy Irons’ son as Henry, the wealthy(ish) blacksmith betrothed to Valerie because mom Miss Piggy--I mean, Virginia Madsen--wants her daughter to have a better life than she did with her own lumberjack husband (played by Twilight/Drive Angry alum Billy Burke).

Side note: to my knowledge, Billy Burke is unrelated to the Billie Burke who played Glinda in the second best film of all time, The Wizard of Oz. I find this kind of confusion quite distracting.

BillIE Burke, not

BillY Burke

Moving on, Red--I mean, Li’l Big Eyes--I mean, Valerie has bigger problems than arranged marriage when a werewolf starts terrorizing her village. Enter Gary Oldman in The Greatest Cinematic Entrance Of All Time, i.e., a parade caboosed by an iron elephant and two African armed guards. Oldman plays a witch & werewolf hunting holy man that belongs in every mediocre-to-awful movie ever made. Should director Catherine Hardwicke return to Twilight and digitally insert Gary Oldman’s Father Solomon pointing his sword and scratching the shapeshifting Jacob with his silver fingernails in every other frame, I would be contractually obligated to revise my original review as a now ten (out of four) star movie.

Anyway. Werewolf. Love triangle. Anachronistic and slightly sapphic dance-off followed by a CGI werewolf that talks. Yes, it’s slightly silly, slightly adorable, and naturally, has its yellow eyes on Valerie because dear 13 year old females watching, VALERIE IS YOU!

See, Red Riding Hood knows who’s watching and generally provides plenty of eye and emotional candy to make them happy. One example: Valerie has a sultry makeout session on a hay floor. If you’re 13 and have never had a makeout session, this sounds incredibly romantic. When you’re a wrinkled 29 year old, however, you know that no amount of sexy kissing can possibly be worth the itchiness and minor stabbings experienced when laying on a haystack.

But do we want our 13 year old girls to know such sad and disappointing life facts? Maybe not, and thusly, Red Riding Hood feels like it should gently join the club of Romeo + Juliet and other teenage wet dreamy films. Unlike the Twilight series, Red Riding Hood at least centers itself on a likable, somewhat strong-minded female character that isn’t trying to kill herself when her high school boyfriend leaves town to fix his hair (or something). And you know, everyone’s eye shadow looks great and despite the fact that every single character is at one point suspected of being a homicidal werewolf (save, of course, for the one character who actually IS a homicidal werewolf), the boys are about as threatening as Tostito’s mild salsa. So while I wouldn’t recommend Red Riding Hood to any modern-thinking adult, it certainly has its safe charms for a younger, fantasy happy audience.

High Points

This film features the absolute best, most subtle and unacknowledged act of familial cannibalism ever put onscreen. Also, there’s an iron elephant that burns witches and the most awkward offering-of-virginity scene I’ve witnessed in a PG13 mainstream movie ever. So that’s that

Low Points

A “Grandmother, what big teeth you have” is cheesy even in a film crafted from cheddar

Lessons Learned

Hair gel was all the rage in medieval North America (or whenever the hell this movie took place)

When traveling through small villages, always keep your astronomical diorama on hand. Sure, it’s cumbersome and could easily be substituted with an improvised demonstration involving a few fruits and rocks, but think of the looks of shock and awe those townspeople will display when they see its  Hellraiser-like opening trick

So long as the snow is falling in an elegant manner, there’s no need to ever put on a sweater

If wearing the color red is considered grounds of condemning a woman as a to-be-burned witch, perhaps you shouldn’t, you know, knit a scarlet cape for your granddaughter’s wedding 

See/Skip/Sneak In

Well, Red Riding Hood is a very pretty movie, with the kind of clothing closet a Renaissance Fair would sacrifice their finest goats and turkey legs for. While it’s not quite on the same below sea level as Twilight, it is an entertaining bundle of ridiculousness that you might find fairly chuckleworthy. Best with cheap beer and the comfort of your own economical and effortless home drinking game.