THE RIG (2010) (a review)

THE RIG (2010) (a review)

A horror movie set on an oil rig. Okay, really it's ALIEN set on an oil rig. Except without all the good stuff...

The story: while trying to prepare an oil rig to face a coming hurricane, the crew is attacked by a strange underwater creature.

Was it good?

No.

And by "strange underwater creature" I mean a guy in a cheap Creature from the Black Lagoon outfit.

The idea itself is okay. An oil rig could be a cool, creepy location. But the first problem is the complete lack of cool, creepy atmosphere. The second is the monster, which is never really explained and never really shown and what we do see is pretty lame. I get the idea that what you don't see is more scary, but you need to see something. You need that one good shot of the monster, you need that one good explanation of what/why this is going on. In other words, you need some context.

See, it's all about questions and answers. The basic form of any story is to ask questions (or more precisely to get the audience to ask questions) and then to answer them. So in a movie like PIRAHNA, they ask "Who will they get next? How will they stop them?" And the movie then spends the next hour answering those questions. If the audience doesn't know what the monster is then they will ask "What is it? Why is it doing this?" and you then have to explain that, like in THE GRUDGE where SMG spends the movie trying to learn about the curse and how to lift it. But if you don't give the audience anything they just sit there wondering "What the hell is going on?" And that is a very bad question. That means that instead of being engaged with the story, they are distancing themselves from it. It's a question people ask when they are beginning to not care. And that is a very bad thing for a movie. Now some movies can make it work. CLOVERFIELD, for instance never answers any questions about the monster, but it does it by focusing even more on the characters -- setting up the story of these two people who love each other but are apart and the guy is leaving and getting us to ask "Will they be together? Will be tell her he loves her?"

Here there's just nothing. I just you could be asking if they will stop the thing that we don't know anything about, but it's tough to get too invested in something like that. And there's nothing going on with the people that's especially interesting. And we never learn anything about the creature so there's no real exploring of that mystery either.

Again, it doesn't matter what questions the audience is asking as long as you get them asking them and then answer them in compelling ways.

Which this movie fundamentally doesn't do in a massive, massive fail.

**** AVOID ****

KILL SPEED (2010) (a review)

KILL SPEED (2010) (a review)

This is one of the most unintentionally hilarious movies I have ever seen. And I know it's unintentional because there are plenty of times it tries to be funny that don't work. Or it could be that it's just one of the worst movies made with professional actors ever.

The story: a group of guys make money by flying drugs into the US in super fast planes. They get caught (sort of) and used to help free a fed who is captured by the drug cartels. Basically, they tried to do FAST AND THE FURIOUS with planes.

Was is good?

NNNNNooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This movie is so bad it should exist only as a drinking game.

In fact I can't really describe how bad it was. The concept (as I describe it) gives the movie WAY too much credit. Everything here is stupid. The scenes of these guys flying (and getting chased) are horrible. The dialog is lame. The plot twists (he falls for a girl who turns out to be a cop!) is stupid. If this were a film school project it would be bad, but since is has real actors (actors I like!) like Greg Gunwald, Shawnee Smith, and Robert Patrick, it makes this just plain painful.

The thing is that most of the stuff didn't have to be this bad. That idea of these kids smuggling drugs and then having to save a gov't agent isn't that horrible. They should have been able to get something decent out of it. But this is just bad on top of bad on top of bad.

Easily the worst film I've seen this year.

**** AVOID ****

MONSTERS (a review)

MONSTERS (a review)

This is the monster movie by Gareth Edwards that he shot for $15K that showed at Cannes. I believe it is available for Pay-per-View/Video on Demand and it's supposed to have a theatrical release as well. And it's worth watching!

The story: Six years after a NASA probe crashed in Mexico, Mexico and the US are struggling to contain strange, monsterous lifeforms that have begun to appear and have quarantined half of Mexico to try to contain them. Now a photo journalist is forced to escort his bosses daughter through the quarantine zone back to the US while avoiding these strange new monsters.

So how was it?

Awesome...and not so awesome.

This is a movie that definitely helps if you go in knowing it was shot for $15K. For that money, this thing is amazing. This is not a movie that looks cheap at all. The F/X and locations and monsters and cinematography are all fantastic. The actors, too are all solid. The visuals are constantly engaging and the mosters have a cool octopus/Lovecraftian feel to them different from anything I've really seen before. Unfortunately, where the movie is lacking is story.

In terms of story, this thing feels like CLOVERFIELD-lite. That's because while both movies feature big scary monsters, they really spend more time focused on the people than on the monsters. C- however, had a much stronger story for the characters -- a guy loves a girl, but things have gotten screwed up between them and right before he is going to rush out to tell her he loves her a Godzilla-like monster attacks the city, and now this guy has to rush threw a war zone-like Manhatten to try to save her before the army firebombs the entire city to destroy this monster.

Holy crap! Now that's a movie!

MONSTERS doesn't have a story anywhere close to that powerful. Here you have two people, a guy who is kind of a horn-dog and has a kid he doesn't see and a girl who is about to get married but doesn't really seem that into it. She is in Mexico near or in the infected zone (for some reason, i don't think they ever say), and now the guy has to get her to the US. Things go wrong, so instead of taking the ferry (safe) they have to venture through the infected zone. During this they seem to bond a bit, but there just isn't anything particularly powerful going on with them on an emotional level. He wants to take a great photo, but never really does anything about it and she doesn't seem that into her impending marriage, but again she isn't really against it either. I've heard a comparison to LOST IN TRANSLATION, where you have these two people who are lost in their own lives and lost in a strange city come together...except L-i-T really explored how isolated and alone those people felt and I just didn't get anywhere near that depth of feeling here.

It's a shame because this lack of character depth/emotion is the only thing keeping this movie from being a tour-de-force, just an out of the park home run. And, ironically considering how much is made for the cost of making the movie, that's a part that would have been free. It just meant coming up with a stronger, more emotion-packed story for the characters.

And it makes it interesting to compare this movie to PARANORMAL EXPERIENCE, another low budget, made out of HWood movie that became a sensation. The difference is that MONSTERS had to be made by someone with a strong background in visual F/X and that is the strength of the movie. P-E lacked that (on a technical side it could have been made by anyone), but it has a much stronger story in dealing with the characters and because of it, for me, it's a stronger film.


There are a lot of other things that didn't make sense to me, although honestly while I was watching the film it kept my interest enough that I didn't think about them.

The movie itself is an interesting contrast to PARANORMAL EXPERIENCE. That was a movie that anyone could make. There wasn't any special technical skill to the shots or F/X -- the story, concept and characters are what made it compelling. MONSTERS is visually fantastic and will definitely find a certain audience, but you'd need advanced skill behind the camera and with visual F/X to pull it off and ultimately the weakness of the story and character arc's make it hard to imagine it would find the mass appeal that either CLOVERFIELD or PARANORMAL EXPERIENCE did.


But my hat's off to the guy for getting the film made. And while for me it's not on the same level as C- or PE, it is definitely a movie worth watching.



The site Slashfilm also has a video on the making of the movie, which I haven't watched but will after I type this up. LINK

*** RECOMMEND ***

RED (a review)

RED (a review)

A silly action movie about retired CIA-types who become targeted for termination and then have to find out who is behind it (hint -- its a political figure). The main twist -- they are old. Stars: Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovitch, Helen Mirren and . Based on a graphic novel by Warren Ellis.

The story: Moses (Willis) is a retured CIA-type who finds the current CIA has targeted him and others he knew for termination. He flirts with a girl on the phone about his pension checks (Parker), so of course he assumes they are after her too, and then he checks in with some other retired people so they can figure out what is going on and stop it.

Was it good?

Well...it was stupid. Kind of fun stupid, but still stupid. It's fun just seeing a lot of these people on the screen even if nothing that interesting is going on. The story is very by-the-numbers. There's nothing that is especially different or cool, except seeing Helen Mirren fire an automatic.

Honestly, while I don't mind these sorts of movies, they feel so empty that I wonder why the people bothered. I mean, sure for the actors it was probably fun, but for all the work that goes into making a movie, wouldn't you want something different, something cool, something memorable in it? None of the set pieces are memorable, none of the humor is anything special...to be honest by the end of the movie I had already forgotten most of the first half.

Still, it has a lot of comedy and doesn't do anything horribly wrong. I just can't see spending real money on it.

*** RENT (for a silly action popcorn flick) ***

NIGHT OF THE DEMONS (2010) (a review)

NIGHT OF THE DEMONS (2010) (a review)

This is a remake. Seriously. What, you never heard of the original movie, made in the 80's that went straight to dvd? Yes, they are now making remakes of straight to dvd horror films. (* correction it did have a small theatrical release that even I, who loe horror films, had never heard of.)

I have to ask why? I know it's wiki page says the original is now a "cult classic" but who the hell are those people. I know a lot of horror fans and, sure, the original is liked as a fun little movie with scream queen Linnea Quigley, but you could point to any of her (or Michelle Bauer or Brinke Stevens) movies and call them "classics" just as easily. What's next, a remake of EVIL TOONS? BLOOD DINER? Because really if you are going to remake this movie you might as well just walk down the aisle at the local video store (wait, do video stores still exists?) and remake them all.

And I'm not against remakes. I understand pre-branding and better audience recognition and I'm fine with it. But usually there is a clear reason to do the remake -- either the original was cool and you have a way to do an interesting update of it (THE FLY) or you just want to cash in on the original (anything by Lionsgate). But a remake of a barely-more-than-straight to dvd horror film? Really?

The story: kids to a party Halloween night at a creepy house where a bunch of people died thrown by this girl Angela. The police bust the party but some kids become trapped and then Angela becomes a demon and starts infecting people and they have to try to survive until sunrise when the demons will vanish.

Was it good?

No. and it's a shame because the original was a fun-but-cheesey little horror film.

(poster for the original movie)

However, this movie just doesn't get it right. The original was made in the hey-day of fun sex-and-death horror movies. That's what the 80's scream queen films were all about. It was silly, it was sexy, it was let's get drunk and screw our brains out and --whoops!-- there are demons and now we're going to die in a very over-the-top way. This movie has a lot of the elements -- good looking girls, spin-the-bottle, demons who do weird things to people...but it never really finds the fun. It's kind of a downer to be honest. I'm not sure I can explain it. There are beautiful girls in the movie, but it's like the filmmakers didn't enjoy having beautiful women in the film, the camera doesn't linger the way it should to enjoy and show off how beautiful they are. There's making out and a sex scene, but again there isn't quite that voyeuristic enjoyment of those scenes. And there's some kinky violence, but the film makers never seem to quite embrace it. It's like they want to minimize all the things that made the original a fun horror film and they put them there because they had too...but then what is it that they wanted, what was that cool, fun things they wanted to make instead? I couldn't tell you. There's nothing really with the characters or the camera or demons or anything to really get a sense of what it was the filmmakers thought would be fun instead of the stuff that was fun in the original.

It makes the whole film feel...soulless.

It's a shame. The girls are beautiful. Some of the effects are good. The house looked good. There's no reason why they couldn't make a fun little screamer...

...but they didn't.

*** AVOID ***

MIRRORS 2 (a review)

MIRRORS 2 (a review)

This is the straight-to-dvd sequel to the horror movie MIRRORS that starred Kiefer Sutherland and Amy Smart. This one stars Nick Stahl, William Katt, Christy Carlson Romano (Even Stevens, Kim Possible) and Emmanuelle Vaugier (Two and a Half Men, CSI:NY)

The story: a man's wife is killed in a car accident, then to get him out of his depression his father hires him as a night watchman at his new store that is opening soon. However, one person has died and more begin to die and this man much find out what is happening -- why people are seeing visions in the mirrors and why it kills them.

Was it good?

Not especially, but it wasn't especially bad either.

But it wasn't horrible. It's almost an identicle movie to the first one just with a lamer plot, worse actors, and a lamers reveal at the end. People still see these twisted reflections that hurt themselves in the mirrors and it kills them in real life. There is a random scene with an actress who gets naked and then is killed where you wonder why she was in the movie at all (Amy Smart in the original, Christy Carlson Romano in this one, who apparently bought brand new boobs for it too). There is a lot of running around that feels pointless and random since the visions could come at any time, so why didn't they just kill everyone all at once?

Still, it isn't horrible. The basic idea of these twisted reflections that cause people to be killed it pretty cool and the rest of the movie doesn't do anything so bad that it would ruin it. It's kind of like the FINAL DESTINATION films -- the sequels aren't good, but the concept is good and they don't do anything that screws it up.

For a horror rental, but there are a lot of better horror movies out there.

*** RENTAL (but you could do better) ****

MACHETE (2010) (a review)

MACHETE (2010) (a review)

The latest movie by Robert Rodriguez, one of the indy directors who inspired me to go into film. This movie has a weird origin. It started as a mock trailer in the middle of GRINDHOUSE, an experiment to hark back to the drive-in double feature days with one film by Quintan Tarantino (Death Proof) and one movie by Rodriguez (Planet Terror). Between the two were a couple trailers for movies that didn't exist, but RR had so much fun with his that he decided to make it a feature length film starring Danny Trejo, Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Cheech Marin, Robert Deniro, Lindsay Lohan, Don Johnson, Jeff Fahey and a bunch more.

The story: Machete is an ex-Mexican policeman who was betrayed and now lives in Texas. Then a man enlists him to kill a senator who is vowing to crackdown on illegal immigrants, however just before he is supposed to kill the senator Machete finds an assassin ready to kill him. The senator is shot, but not killed, and now Machete is on the run trying to untangle the conspiracy while being pursued by the police and FBI.

Was it good? Not really. The story is okay and Rodriguez intentionally made it over-the-top with a lot of the excesses of classic exploitation films (ie violence and nudity). But the story feels very disjointed. On one hand, you have some classic action movie elements (the man betrayed, a backdrop of political conspiracies), but then you have a lot of ridiculous moments. Part of this might be what RR is going for -- he has said that the film is meant to be a fun, exploitation film and not a serious political story. The thing is that in those classic exploitation movies those filmmakers were trying to make the best film they could. Sure, a lot of them were bad for various reasons (like they didn't spend a huge amount of time on the script), but you always got the sense that whatever their flaws the people were trying to do their best. Here, a lot of the movie feels half-a**ed, like RR is just on set to have fun and not give a damn. The reason that classic 70's movies had the political messages though was because those filmmakers were hired to make cheap action/horror, but they wanted to say something and then worked their a## off to say it in the context of those movies. Here, the political stuff could have been pulled because RR just doesn't seem to care about it, which makes that whole part of the film feel fake.

It's disappointing. I'm a huge Rodriguez fan, and I think for his 10-minute film school segments on his dvd's alone he deserves awards, but more and more he seems less interested in actually being a storyteller than in just goofing around. It's what you would expect of a director who was just in it to get laid. And I could respect that. But Rodriguez is capable of doing more. Spielberg took his love of sci-fi and used it to tell powerful stories. There's no reason to think RR couldn't do the same with the exploitation movies. After all, that's what Tarantino has done.

*** SLIGHT WATCH (if you want a silly exploitation flick, otherwise AVOID)