I'm a Dummy

Not literally, of course, because then I would be 1) made of wood 2) not having of opposable thumbs and 3) incredibly creepy. Since I don't fancy the idea of being scared of myself, let me just explain that I'm sometimes a tad daft.


Left my notes for this Friday's Pop Syndicate column on my quite cluttered work desk. Somewhere mixed in with badly translated refrigeration manuals and catalogues of washing machines, my Pulitzer-worthy essay on PG-13 and horror is hiding. And waiting patiently for this fine Friday evening. Check back tomorrow.

But you don't have to scream about it.

Never Mumble To Strangers

As film debuts and studio produced horror goes, Bryan Bertino's The Strangers is a fairly impressive little foray into the much overused home invasion genre. When compared to foreign cinema with similar setups, it's decent.


Quick Plot: A painfully unnecessary and dumbly ambiguous prologue recycled from TCM and The Blair Witch Project opens the film to inform us that a lot of brutal crimes happen in America. In case you can't handle not knowing what kind of film you're about to see, the kindly narrator lets us know that something really bad happened to two people we’re about to meet.

Get it? It's a horror movie. Clear? Let's move on:


Cut to a hauntingly bloody kitchen rotting in the morning sun before heading back to the events of the previous evening. A young couple returns to a lonely country house carrying more melancholy weight than Sarah McLaclahn at a mass puppy funeral. He proposed. She said no. That would spoil most people's nights, but it gets a whole lot worse when a trio of masked psychos decides to break in and spend the next few hours hunting the pretty leads with sharp knives, heavy axes, and a whole lot of stealth.

If all this sounds a bit familiar, then yes, you've seen it before in films like Vacancy, Straw Dogs, Funny Games, Inside, and almost directly, Ils. The Strangers never pretends to tread new territory, which is both its biggest strength and weakness. There are some excellent moments of creepy imagery, slightly unsettling actions, and perfectly timed jump scares early in the film before the masked maniacs are totally unleashed. Where I found that Ils (aka Them) took a little too much time establishing its tense atmosphere before finding its stride, The Strangers succeeds best at creating and building a haunting setup. Unfortunately, once the chase takes center stage, Bertino’s uniquely built tension slips more than Liv Tyler in an overgrown forrest of horror cliches. It's suspenseful enough, but eventually, Bertino runs out of ideas in staging stalking.


High Points
Excellent music choices played on a scratchy LP create an early mood of old-fashioned weirdness

Burlap sacks as masks are naturally scary. Any person willing to subject his or her cheeks to such itchiness must be a true badass


What probably separated The Strangers from a lot of direct-to-DVD horror was Liv Tyler's name, and while she's no Meryl Streep, her and Scott Speedman do make a sympathetic and realistically imperfect couple. The natural awkwardness of their failing romance gives The Strangers an extra layer of character that makes, at least the early scenes before the reveal of what's actually happening, a little more tense

Low Points
I guess James Earl Jones and John Laroquette were too expensive. Hence, the filmmaker grabbed someone with a clear speaking voice, handed him Macauly Culkin's Talkboy purchased on ebay from the set of Home Alone 2, then slowed the speed to create an unimpressively deep and artificial bass to voice the opening

While Tyler and Speedman do a fine job, I can’t imagine whose idea it was to cast two actors known primarily for their quiet and rather inaudible enunciating vocal performances


SPOILER
Like High Tension, I found the opening teaser scene to be unnecessary and unfair. I imagine the filmmaker wanted to compensate for the lack of early bloodshed by hinting at what’s to come, but it takes a lot away from a suspenseful 90 minute 2 character hunt to reveal the final result in the first two minutes


Lessons Learned
Cigarettes will indeed kill you


Wearing masks does little to lower the range of one’s peripheral vision

When proposing, always have a backup plan in the event your intended declines your ring. Otherwise, you not only risk spending a very awkward night drinking champagne for the wrong reasons; you may very well become the prey of mask-wearing quiet people


Rent/Bury/Buy
This is definitely worth one viewing with the lights off, but I don't see it gaining any sort of classic status. There's a lot to admire in Bertino's tense staging and depressingly dark atmosphere, but the effect starts to wear off as the chase scenes physically intensify. A quietly moved cell phone and unseen shadowy figure lurking behind our oblivious heroine is far scarier than the gory sendoff of a minor character. There's not a lot to say about The Strangers, but that's not necessarily a terrible thing. Sometimes, a tight, somewhat predictable but cleanly made little horror is all you really need to keep your DVD player warm and filmic appetite sated.

I Hear That Hell Is Suuuuuch a Drag

Let me start by offering an olive branch to any Gypsy I’ve ever wronged. I can’t imagine that the number is high, but like any imperfect human, I’ve cut off some drivers, taken a subway seat at the cost of an ambiguously aged stander, and given poor directions to strangers when in a rush.


In other words, I don’t have a lot of human sins chewing on my conscience. In other other words, if any of the victims of these seemingly minor crimes happen to have boiling Romani blood, please accept my deepest apologies in the form of your choice of home-baked muffin, cheesecake, or kitten.


As you may have guessed, I followed up Fangoria with a midnight trip to the cinema and while it doesn't revolutionize the genre, the gleeful little Drag Me To Hell is likely to make horror geeks happy and Gypsy rights’ activists offended. Sam Raimi’s critically celebrated (but so far audience-ignored) “return-to-his-roots” certainly kicks the CGI’d ass of Tobey Maguire and could teach Platinum Dunes a few lessons in how to make a horror movie. Storywise, on the other hand, it could probably learn a new trick.


Quick Plot: A young banker (Allison Lohman) is itching to climb the career ladder, but her lack of ruthlessness in loan foreclosures and skill at sandwich runs are holding her behind her oily rival. Naturally, the best way to impress the boss is to deny the mysteriously glassy eyed client Mrs. Ganush an extension, which would be fine if the old crone didn’t have that convenient ability to curse souls to an eternity of hell.

Despite being directed by a man responsible for one of the biggest blockbusters of recent years, Drag Me To Hell is a small movie, and a wise one at that. Lohman gets some help from Justin Long as her nice-guy boyfriend, but for the most part, this is a simple story about one woman crossing the wrong Gypsy. The small scope makes it a speedy and intense, if slightly forgettable 90 minutes. There are quite a few genuine scares and moments of yuck, plus some sharply humorous beats. The final product is like a Raimi brunch, a savory egg-white omelette seasoned with some R.L. Stine-ish flavor and served with a complimentary glass of embalming fluid juice (pulp content= high). The PG13 rating takes nothing away, and is almost something of a refreshment following the blatantly boob-heavy horror of recent months.


High Points
Lohman creates a vulnerable, conflicted, and overall sympathetic person as Christine...which is pretty vital, since she’s onscreen the entire film

While there have been plenty of parking garage suspense scenes, the car fight here is quite well done


Animal violence has never been so carefully, cleverly and non-offensively executed (offscreen)


Low Points
Was Lohman’s past as a “fat girl” there to flesh out (no pun intended) her character, or did Raimi cross the line in channelling Stephen King’s Thinner?

Upon first hearing, I loved the ring the title “Drag Me To Hell” had. But really, is this a command that makes any sense? Shouldn’t it be something like “Don’t Drag Me to Hell,” "I'm Going To Try Really Hard To Not Get Dragged To Hell," or, if the grammatical tense matters, “Drag Her To Hell?”


Maybe it’s just that every review or conversation I’ve heard regarding Drag Me To Hell mentions Raimi’s CGI mastery, but I wasn’t entirely sold on some of the colder computer effects

Lessons Learned
Coin collecting is dangerous. Entertain your children with some other hobby, like origami or the Sims


The best way to a WASPy mother’s heart is through harvest pie


Do I really need to say it? If Josh Whedon, Stephen King, the Wolf Man, and scores of other fiction haven’t already taught you this, do not, under any circumstance, give Gypsies a reason to hurt you. Duh.

Full Price/Sneak In/Stay Home
This is a film that deserves to be embraced, and you should consider paying for a matinee as a way to throw your figurative arms around it. By no means is this a classic on Evil Dead levels or a nightmare-inducing terrorfest like The Descent, but Drag Me to Hell is an enjoyable and genuinely jumpy horror movie that at least merits a bigger opening than a piece of camp mascot poop like Friday the 13th. If your budget is truly limited, then waiting for a DVD release won’t kill you (or damn your soul to what promises to be a very unpleasant afterlife). This is good clean (and oozing) fun that would probably make a great entry into harder-core horror for newbies (I imagine it would have gone over better at sleepovers than my 14 year old pick, Mother’s Day), yet still works as a hearty throwback for tried and true fans.

Fangoria Friday

Kane Hodder=Rock Star





The taller man is Jason VII-X's slightly larger brother, who seems equally awesome. Framed between is my lovely friend Erica, who wow'd the Bros. Voohrees with her eyes. I'm the squished little head on the right being lovingly squeezed by an arm that has once crunched through many a promiscuous teen.


Other events of note: buying too many movies (including, finally, the 2-disc Battle Royale (although the salesman didn't know if there was a question mark following the death of a certain female character, so I'm hoping I got the non-terribly subtitled version), a few movie posters (The Ewok Adventure II: The Battle For Endor--in Italian!!!), and some random gifts for those parts of the family that might appreciate them. I don't know if Fango is bigger in other locations, but the NYC Javitz Center was so large that it felt a tad empty. In a way, this made mingling a little easier, although I do feel for Guillermo Del Toro speaking to a quarter-filled room way too early on a Friday night. A few Last House on the Left cast members gave an enjoyable panel and Tom Savini did his usual moody Saviniscious convention kick (which involved playfully messing a little with Hodder's table then scooting away when a fan had to reload his camera).


I chatted a little with the lovely Robin Sherwood of Tourist Trap, the vocal George Kosana and John Russo, who both had their Night of the Living Dead trivia to impart (Kosana was quite insistent about taking credit for improvising Night's most famous line, "They're dead, they're all messed up"), and filmmaker David Gregory, whose new film Plague Town, will be reviewed here shortly.


The biggest tragedy of the weekend? I won't get to see Jack Ketchum's panel on Offspring due to other commitments. Should my cable guy come early on Sunday and not drag me to a drumstick feast at Medieval Times, I may flirt with the idea of a Sunday visit, but that's looking less and less likely (the Fangoria part; I'm still holding out for a Jim Carrey-esque adventure with Cablevision's installation crew). I do urge anyone in the area to check it out. Tickets are $20, and the floor was loose enough that you could wander and chat with a few notable names without feeling compelled to fork out another $20 for an autograph.


And if you do find your way to the way too clean basement on the West Side of Manhattan, tell Mr. & Mr. Hodder that the ladies with firm handshakes say hey. But do it in a sexy voice.

Horror Settings That Naturally Scare

Some places have such natural fear factor, all directors need to do is toss in a few actors, dim the lights, and mix a few unusual sound effects to create a simple and scary horror film. This week at Pop Syndicate, I take a look at a few locations made to inspire nightmares and the movies that made them real.


Take a read and add any films that I'm overlooking. I will confess, my mind is buzzing with the excitement as tonight is my field trip to Fangoria's Fest. I haven't been to a convention since 2004, when Ken Forree's gargantuan handshake almost crushed my stubby little fingers, Betsey Palmer smiled like a kindly grandmother at the fact that I attended with my mom, and I joined the club of fans who have caught major diva attitude from Tom Savini. Tonight, I'm keeping my expectations at a minimum...


mainly because I just rented a new apartment and it seriously needs some decorations. Toy booths and movie posters, here I come!

...Because Mannequins Make Everything More Freaky

The phrase “inspired by J.C. Penny’s” is enough to instill fear into any human; when said inspiration comes not from discount Arizona brand jeans, but from eerily expressive mannequins with violent telekinesis, fear becomes terror at a discount price.


Tourist Trap is a wonderfully fresh remnant of a time just before slashers staked their monopoly on the horror industry. Unfairly overlooked at its initial 1979release, director David Schmoeller puts an interesting spin on the early days of backwoods horror with a decent little cast, a wacky and well-thought out score, and oodles of mannequins that would make Chucky feel inadequate.


Quick Plot: A quintet of traveling pretty people (including an incredibly gorgeous Tanya Roberts) experience the usual road trouble and find themselves modestly skinny dipping in front of a tall widower off the beaten track. Mr. Slausen, the kindly, aw-shucksy samaritan who wields a smile and a shotgun, takes them inside his closed roadside museum to show off the impressive--and nightmarish--moving mannequins designed by his brother. Of course, no folksy lil rest stop is complete without a masked homicidal drag queen with less style than Leatherface and more craftiness than Norman Bates.

Many factors distinguish Tourist Trap from the typical low budget 70s horror. After a somewhat underwhelming opening kill that was probably more impressive thirty years ago, we slowly get immersed into the weirdly haunting atmosphere of Slausen’s Museum. Plastic heads drop their jaws to let out unearthly screams. Lifelike Davy Crockett’s aim toy rifles at our luckless young adults and objects fly across the room like nouns on the run from Carrie. There is certainly some overly heavy inspiration from other 70s cinema padding out the fairly brief runtime of Tourist Trap, but viewed today, the quirky atmosphere and almost artistic kills hold up as something fresh, while the kooky villain's mix of New Yawk and southern fried voice gives Orlaf a run for his accent. The twist is somewhat predictable, but the actual reveal is, like most of the film, so slightly off and oddly timed that it makes it all the more creepier.

High Points
The bizarre soundtrack is sometimes a little overbearing, but overall, its breathy pants and over dramatic musical cues weave together to make Tourist Trap the kind of film that stays in under your skin (or plastered face)

From the humans with mechanical movements to the jaw-dropping heads that do nothing but scream, the diverse collection of mannequins never stops being unsettling


The surrealism of the final death is enough for long term nightmares, while the closing shot just feels wrong and wonderful


Low Points
The actors and writing are good enough that they don’t require blatant stereotypish characteristics, so why is good girl Molly saddled with a white Holly Hobby getup?

For most of the deaths, the score beats insanely until the actual kill, where the filming slows down, gets quiet, and then climaxes in a rather bloodless kill. On first viewing, it lacks any real thrust, but at the same time, it's a different approach to the usual huntdown. I'm still mixed.


Lessons Learned
As someone with a strangulation phobia, I knew this in advance: never try on a scarf that has unclear origins


Telekinetic cupboards need to warm up before they can aim with any precision, sort of like Pedro Martinez


Most folks use highways because they figure it’s gonna get them to where they’re going faster

According to law students, paradise is a waterfall with brown water


Rent/Bury/Buy
If you’ve never seen Tourist Trap, its odd charm should work to give you a sufficient case of the creeps, while repeat viewers will probably find more to admire than they expected thirty years ago. This isn’t a great film by any means, but it’s worth adding to your collection for its intriguing approach to what’s become a tired genre. DVD extras include an illuminating interview with filmmaker Schmoeller, who explains how a PG rating basically killed its box office potential (oddly making a case for the much loathed PG13 so abused today). Also, a few ads for Full Moon products--including kickass Puppet Master toys I still have on my dresser--harbor back to an era of creativity in directo-to-video horror that I still find myself longing for. I guess like Mr. Slausen, I'm just too gosh darn nostalgic for kids today.

Hasta La Vista, Colon

As I’ve said before, Terminator Salvation seemed too good to be true. Angry Christian Bale kicking ass in the post-apocalypse? With homicidal, power-mad robots? That’s more than enough to earn my $12. But if I’ve learned anything from apartment hunting on Craig’s List, anything too good to be true usually is (too good, not true), and the fourth outing of John Connor & posse isn’t quite what it could be.

At the same time, based on some of the feedback I’d heard before I eventually made my way to a Sunday matinee, I was expecting Batman & Robin levels of badness. There’s a chance my expectations had been lowered so far down that McG would have had to put nipples on John Connor’s SWAT gear for me to really hate the movie (although the temptation of seeing Bale’s nipples wouldn’t necessarily deter me from anything), but I genuinely didn’t mind Terminator’s fourth installment. Is it flawed? Affirmative. It doesn’t and maybe can’t, in 95 minutes, capture the grand mythology that’s become so much more intriguing in the prematurely canceled Sarah Connor Chronicles, but...well, there’s killer robots. And shiny stuff. 

So. Because I seem to be unable to make what sounds like a coherent case for why I kinda sorta didn’t hate, maybe even enjoyed T4, I’d like to address some of the charges brought against it. Court is in session. Spoilers will follow:

Charge 1: A fantastic supporting cast is wasted

Verdict: Reduced Charge

With names like Michael Ironside, Jane Alexander, Helena Bonham Carter and Bryce Dallas Howard filling in key roles, Terminator Salvation certainly had a better cast than it did script. While most didn’t get that big scene you would expect, I personally found that their very presence added a certain weight that’s not always found in blockbuster fare. Compare Alexander’s grandmotherly hostage to Common’s terribly acted mourning soldier and you see how vital a few good talents are (and how detrimental a lack can be). Ironside is always welcome--particularly when playing a surly badass. I find Bryce Dallas Howard to be an interesting actress, so it was a tad disappointing to see her relegated to the pregnant wifey role. That being said, this wasn’t Kate Brewster-Connor’s story. Hell, it was barely John Connor’s story. While I wouldn’t be surprised if the DVD release is packed with deleted “character development” scenes, the theatrical release couldn’t really sustain longer dialogue. It wasn’t an epic, and it didn’t waste its energy trying to be one.

Charge 2: Sam Worthington ain’t Arnold

Verdict: Guilty...

..but I can be lenient. Worthington is solid enough, and sympathetic in a gravely heroic way. I don’t know that a franchise could ever be built around him, but learning that he’ll be wearing Harry Hamlin’s loincloth in the upcoming Clash of the Titans remake eases the torturous pain I’ve been in since I heard that classic film was being unnecessarily reshot. As Marcus, Worthington was stiff enough to be a robot while portraying confused torment with just the right touch of a human heart. There’s something there, even if it occasionally lapses into an Australian accent. 

Charge 3: A PG13 Rating is blasphemous

Verdict: Not Guilty

Normally, a PG13 slapped on what had previously been an R franchise hurts like a mosquito bite from The Mist (yippee kay eh, mommy dearest). Past Terminator films made great use of the R with intense violence and some nice shots of an infamous politician’s firm buns, but Salvation doesn’t get soft with its more teenager-friendly restrictions. While there were no real holy shit! effects moments so wonderfully present in T2, the action was high and for the most part, suspenseful. And hey: the three-year-old kid some irresponsible moviegoer next to me brought into the theatre still cried a lot, so that must mean something...maybe I’m starting to reach.

Charge 4: No good villain

Verdict: Not Guilty

This Terminator had no colon (a grammatical one, not the organ). This was a different movie from the Arnold-enhanced previous installments, finally set during the war with machines. Machines, not A machine. What has always made SKYnet so frightening was not the fact that its poster boy was a future Kindergarten Cop, but that it had no face, no soul, and no individuality. I’d hate to get all JC inspirational here, but it’s vital to point out the difference between humans and the machines that are trying to destroy them. The very fact that there is no one entity to call the enemy, at this point in the franchise, is completely appropriate. 

Charge 5: Moon Bloodgood is terrible

Verdict: Guilty

Linda Hamilton fans, join hands and nod. I miss her too. 

Charge 6: The little girl character is unnecessary

Verdict: Reduced Charge

Yeah, the adorable lil mute child Kyle Reese watches over has no purpose other than to look sad and touch stuff, but something I found compelling (if not fully developed) about The Sarah Connor Chronicles was learning about children that grew up post-Judgement Day. It gave a human face to the apocalypse, and young Jadagrace (who continues what  must have been an impossible-to-not-laugh-at role call in the names department on the set of Terminator Salvation) serves this purpose fair enough. Since she doesn’t talk, we don’t have to deal with the annoyingness so often present in kid actors and here and there, she’s quite useful. Most importantly, her presence helps to heroize Kyle Reese, not as a grand action star, but as a scared but brave human trying to protect what's still left in an empty world..

Charge 7: Christian Bale is one note

Verdict: Guilty

After two rounds of Batman + one John Connor, I’m starting to wish poor hearing on every Bale co-star, if only so that he no longer mouths his entire performance as a whisper and just starts speaking normally. I don’t know that it’s Bale or the script at fault here, but I will side with many a critic and concede that Wales’ best Method actor didn’t quite portray a messiah worth worshipping. It’s especially disappointing because I really hoped that after the blandness of Nick Stahl and the slowly improving pretty boyness of Thomas Dekker, Bale would finally incarnate the spunky and resourceful JC first hinted at by juvenile delinquent Edward Furlong. Sadly, I couldn’t muster enough belief in Bale’s performance. He just seemed really angry and kind of...well...dull. 

Charge: Unbelievable ending

Verdict: Really?

To nitpick the logic of a Terminator film is about as productive as explaining global warming to George Bush. The very foundation on which lies the Resistance--and, essentially, the future of mankind, is null: John exists because he sent Kyle Reese back in time to impregnate Sarah Connor. If time is linear--as is hinted at by the series--how can John ever exist in the first place? More importantly, if we’re applying common human logic, why can’t Skynet just send a terminator back to kill Sarah Connor’s mother? Or grandmother? Or grandfather? Surely there’s some weak link down the line. Considering the smartest, most powerful and advanced computers in the universe aren’t able to just blow one person up, I can forgive an outdoor open heart surgery with poor medical supplies. 

So ultimately, I’m not willing to praise McG’s messy little movie, but I will defend it as decent summer entertainment. Hurl your comments, hostages, and Bale-inspired fury my way below. Or you can, dare I say it, lend me some support? After all, doesn’t everybody deserve a second chance (or, in the case of the morally fuzzy Marcus, a fourth or fifth?)