Beatniks, Nazis, AND Long Island!

Some remember 1964’s The Flesh Eaters as the first in a long and most likely neverending line of ‘gore films.’ Netflix, however, prefers to shout this as its selling point:

“the only film of its type made entirely on Long Island.” 

As a proud Suffolk countarian, I felt my duty to support. 

Quick Plot: A young couple are carelessly sunbathing on the Long Island Sound, mixing things up with a skinny dip that turns deadly.

Cue mysterious underwater menace with instrumental score!

Moving on, a boozy big name actress and her sensible personal assistant hire a rogue private plane pilot to get them a few states north. Moody weather causes an emergency landing on an almost deserted island, occupied only by a slithery German marine biologist and the titular hungry sea monsters.

Also, terrifying skeletons!

The Flesh Eaters is a simple tale that, for whatever reason, works fairly perfectly for what it is. The small cast helps to keep it completely focused, especially since disgruntled de-licensed pilot played by Byron Sanders is a far more interesting lead than so many bland pretty boys of the era. The effects generally come off as ridiculous and antiquated, but also adorable and quite ambitious for the time period and black and white limitations. There’s even a hilarious beatnik named Omar tossed in just to spice things up, and much like The Wire, a little Omar makes everything better.

High Points

As the maybe genius, maybe evil doctor, Martin Kosleck is rather glorious, radiating charisma in his vocal chords and sneer

Low Points

I’m writing this review a few weeks after watching and taking my notes on this film, but I don’t remember NOT enjoying anything about it. Sure, the film is slightly limited to certain conventions based on its time period, but otherwise, it’s perfectly fine

Lessons Learned

In 1964, the price for a slightly used life was precisely three times a regular salary

Yes, a gun will not work without bullets, but when there are more bullets to LOAD the gun, one still must exert caution with a villain

Having your flesh eaten hurts. Also, it glows

Stray Observations

Maybe I was just in a randy mood when watching this film, but there were an awful lot of lines that felt...um...just tell me if I’m reading too much into the following:

“I can assure you we are in for a good pounding.”

“Those tailwinds are still too rough for my ship.”

“Bring me my suitcase. The one with all my *night* things”

The Winning Line

“You’re very practical. And very exciting.”

Fan yourself ladies! We’re agreed that this is the hottest pickup ever, correct?

Rent/Bury/Buy

As much as I enjoyed The Flesh Eaters, the film is definitely still a product of its pre-Night of the Living Dead time. Hence, those with no interest in pre-modern horror may not be as amused. For others--particularly those who enjoy documenting the genre’s evolution--The Flesh Eaters is a fun little slice of history that shows early steps towards gore.

Plus, Strong Island represent!

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.

A Special Kind of Nanny

If there’s a movie about an anatomically correct medical mannequin that somehow inspires family strife and murder, you can bet your bottom dollar it’s getting covered here at the Doll’s House. Hence, after sitting atop my queue through the change of the seasons, 1988’s cult classic Pin finally gets its chance.

Quick Plot: Ursula and Leon grow up under the questionable parenting skills of their haughty mom and doctor dad, a cold and clinical man who naturally earns a few raised eyebrows based primarily on the fact that he’s played by Terry O’Quinn. For the kids, the warmest relationship they seem to have is with Pin, the full-size medical dummy that  hangs out in dad’s office and occasionally offers advice, makes bets for clothing, has sex with the middle aged nurse and explains the birds and bees.

Naturally, Ursula and Leon don’t grow up to be Mr. and Ms. Well Adjusted. Ursula takes a few trips to the backseats of the football team, eventually leading to an abortion at 15 performed by...dad. Naturally. 

Leon, on the flip side, blossoms into the awkward David Hewlett (yes, the surly dude from Cube), a promising young man with little personal skills and a continued obsession with befriending Pin. When their parents die in a car accident, a frilly aunt attempts to move in but to Leon, the tragedy is the perfect chance to make Pin an official member of the family.

Pin is certainly an odd film, one that seems to scream ‘cult classic!’ in its very concept. Within the first few scenes, I felt a strong Flowers In the Attic vibe, something that made perfect sense once I learned it was based on a novel by future V.C. Andrews ghostwriter, Andrew Neiderman. Like those modern gothic tales or 1980’s Magic, Pin is far more about the dysfunction bred in cold families (particularly those upper class Caucasian ones) than the exploits of a killer doll.

There is indeed something strange about Pin, but it’s clearly Leon who needs a little help. Ursula pieces it together from a part-time job at the library, where she spends some time working, some time flirting, and a fair amount of the rest researching schizophrenia. Leon is damaged and confused, primarily from being raised in such a detached manner coupled with his own possible leanings towards mental illness. The story of Pin could have been told without the presence of a creepy skinless mannequin, but director Sandor Stern and his strong cast work off it to create a unique and unsettling tale.

High Points

The characterization of Ursula and Leon works incredibly throughout the film, an impressive feat when we see them as innocent children, curious adolescents, daring teenagers and finally, sad adults

Low Points

There’s definitely a drag felt in the film’s latter half, where there’s not necessarily a drive at any conclusion

Lessons Learned

When working in a library, avoid the urge to hum

If you’re normal, you can look forward to eventually feeling ‘the need’

Counting down from 100 by 7s is hard at any age

Rent/Bury/Buy

Pin is oddly hard to find on DVD, but North American audiences should take advantage of it streaming on Netflix. The film is far from perfect, but it’s quietly creepy and truly unique, well worth 90 minutes out of your evening. Plus, this is probably your only chance to see John Locke perform ventriloquism and letting that pass you by is akin to not pushing that button in 108 minutes. Think on that, won’t you?

Only a Birdemic Could Cause True Shock and Awe--I Mean, Terror

Every now and then, a film comes around that is made with such ineptitude and yet released with expensive fanfare that the Internet has to pause and say “Did you SEE that?” 

We remember The Room. And now, we will never forget you, Birdemic: Shock and Terror. Writer/director/possible insane in a really happy way James Nguyen has done something...special.

Quick Plot: Superstar software salesman Rod catches sight of Natalie, an old high school crush turned fashion model--not just a fashion model, a BEAUTIFUL fashion model who assembles her portfolio out of shoots done at a One Hour Photo. 

After about 45 minutes worth of dating--complete with double dates to great movies like An Inconvenient Truth, a visit with Natalie’s real estate dreaming mom, bar dances to autotuned lip synching and a romantic evening in Victoria’s Secret cover girl Natalie’s Days Inn apartment, the pair awaken to discover the world is being ATTACKED BY EAGLES.

Don’t you hate it when that happens? One day, your company has just been bought out for millions and your proposal for solar energy has instantly earned another $10 million in funding. You’ve re-met the girl of your dreams (whom you took English with in high school and yet still ask where she’s from) and there’s a pumpkin festival to boot. Life is great.

And then there are Atari caliber birds pecking townspeople’s faces off.

So yes, at a certain point, Birdemic makes good on its Hitchcockian references to go all out birding. Natalie and Rod luckily team up with another couple, this one well-equipped with clothes hangers, machine guns, and a van ideal for grabbing fellow survivors. Soon to join the crew is a pair of horridly obnoxious and always hungry children who really just want some Happy Meals. The group grows and shrinks due to some hilariously failed rescue attempts, toxic bird poop, actors who quit filming halfway through and spectacular stranger encounters, including a random admitted tree hugger with the world’s greatest wig. He has to go though, because he hears a mountain lion. But it was nice meeting you!

Sigh. Birdemic is truly something special, something that, much like Unborn Sins, just doesn’t come around often and really, shouldn’t. The more Birdemics we get the less exciting they are, because when you think of it, ANYBODY can make a movie. It’s the scale at which that anybody fails--and ironically enough, succeeds at getting it distributed in such a way where it seems real--that makes something like Birdemic or The Room a treat. I’ve rented awful amateur films before, as have many daring horror fans, but Birdemic’s all-out enthusiasm and obliviousness makes it the kind of event you have to witness.

Take, for example, the extended opening credits sequence wherein a car drives ever so slowly down a long country road. Nothing overly offensive about it, save for the fact that a) the music has about six bars and loops over and over again for nearly 6 minutes b) that the non-lead actors are listed as “Supporting Casts,” as if there were multiple groupings and c) that the actual driver was actor Alan Bagh who, according to the commentary, was holding up traffic by following the Nguyen’s direction to take things slow. It’s just one example in 90 minutes of more that shows a certain brand of innocent and optimistic moviemaking at its wors--I mean, finest.

Lessons Learned

Contrary to Joan Crawford’s mantra, wire hangers do have a purpose

Bratty kids are always hungry and quite picky about it

You never know what can happen in life. You might start off as a software engineer and end up, a SALES MAN!

Just because there are swarms of killer birds flying in the sky is no reason to not enjoy the outdoors with extended picnics, games of catch, woodsy number twos or fishing expeditions

Sometimes an apostrophe can go wherever it wants, whether it belongs there or not. Hello, Dream Model’s!

In order to fight global warming, we should act as astronauts. Or something

Victoria’s Secret lingerie is so comfortable, you won’t ever want to take it off...even when sleeping

Rent/Bury/Buy

Had Birdemic been intentionally made as badly as it is, the film wouldn’t be worth your time. However, having now listened to director James Nguyen’s commentary (and following a painfully honest one with stars Bagh and the much brighter Whitney Moore), I’m pretty sure that this was a film made from the heart...and really misguided brain. It is terrible, and therefore, awesome. Lines don’t get better than “I’m really hungry. I’ve been under the car for a long time,” “Gotta get back to work. You know, sensual work” and “Hey! There are dead people on the side of the road, let’s see if there are any survivors.” The sound drops out more than boobs appear in Showgirls, the effects are less impressive than a kindergardener’s popsicle stick picture frame and the politics more earnest than Al Gore at an open mike poetry slam, and man, it’s all amazing. The DVD includes a bevy of special features, including the aforementioned honest commentary from the lead actors who do indeed point out just what kind of a film they discovered they were making following their auditions in a high school parking lot. It’s THAT kind of movie.

And it's spectacular.

Call Me

Having lived a year in the land of the morning calm, I can confidently say that the only people I trust to make a film about a killer phone are Koreans. When I was there in 2005--back when the iPhone was a mere fantasy of dystopian literature--phones were STILL equipped with what can only be described as magic (or aps before they were aps). All mine had was a spectacular ringtone, but friends’ LGs included horoscope updates and breathalyzers.

Naturally, I’d go east for a serial killing cell movie.

Quick Plot: Sassy reporter Ji-won starts receiving mysteriously menacing messages on her second-hand cell phone, perhaps as a result of her recently published controversial story on sex offenders. Her sister and brother-in-law invite Ji-won to stay at their isolated country home but once there, the calls continue while the couple’s perfectly adorable daughter, Yeong-ju, becomes a bad seed fueled by a sudden lust for daddy.

Also, there’s lots of sudden shots of long-haired Asian females staring maniacally. 

Like many a Korean horror film made in the 21st century, Phone is a) a tad derivative b) occasionally creepy c) well-acted d) hard to see and e) too long. That being said, it does have a few tricks that make it worthwhile, some of which stems from the very concept of evil embodied by a cell phone.

Far more interesting, however, is Yeong-ju’s descent into wacked out kindergartner. Had anybody told me Phone featured a horny, scratching and screeching 6 year old, I of course would have made a place for it in February’s Month of the Vertically Challenged Villains but alas, this film hedged its marketing in its cellular premise. Yeong-ju’s outbursts are actually quite fun, an odd shifting seesaw between genuinely creepy and hilariously over the top. It helps immensely that one of the first scenes of the film features an extended conversation about how Ji-won’s sister has The Most Perfect Family Ever. By ten minutes in, we WANT daddy to turn to Jack Torrence, daughter to pull an Orphan and mother to drink it all away with a soju growler.

High Points

Phone doesn’t shy away from its Electra complex, something that’s not necessarily easy to watch but ultimately entertaining enough to justify its inappropriateness

Low Points

At about 100 minutes, Phone isn’t overly lengthy but considering the repetitive K-ghost scares and empty red herrings, the running length does harm the ultimate throughline of the story

Lessons Learned

No one commits suicide in an elevator

In death, your hair will grow to appropriate J-horror ghostess lengths

Tolstoy may have claimed that all happy families are alike, but clearly he never flew to Seoul and met The Perfect Family and its Possessed And Horny Daughter

Rent/Bury/Buy

Phone is streaming on Netflix, which is about the amount of effort you should put into seeing it. Diehard Asian horror fans will find a nice balance of the conventional genre with a few surprises, but overall, Phone isn’t really worth, you know, phoning home about.

That was bad, let me try again: don’t waste peak time minutes on Phone.

Okay. I can do better: Phone will receive good reception if--

Oh hell I got nothing. Can’t we just go back to tin cans and call it a day? Better yet, how about I just transfer you to New Korean Cinema's Blogathon, a great resource with several more days filled with Internet writing on all things Korean cinema (and most likely, far fewer cell phone puns).