¡Qué horror! 2013

Candidate #7

JOHN DIES AT THE END

(January 2012)

It’s been awhile since Don Coscarelli’s Masters of Horror episode, “Incident On and Off a Mountain Road,” but he’s back now with the wildest and most gonzo ¡Qué horror!  2013 Candidate thus far: his adaptation of Jason Pargin’s John Dies at the End.

There’s a whole lotta crawesome weird shit here, yo! And any attempt on my part to give you a taste of this film’s strangeness would just be counter-productive.

Let’s just say if you love bizarro cinema, you should check this out.

Not to mention that the supporting cast ain’t nothin’ to sneeze at either: Paul Giamatti (who doubles down as Executive Producer), Clancy Brown (Best. Luthor. Voice. Ever.), The Tall Man himself, Angus Scrimm (as Father Shellnut!), and Doug Jones.

Oh, and Bark Lee, too!

Before this, I already loved Coscarelli for A) scaring the crap out of the 11-year old me with Phantasm, and then B) giving us the tough yet sensitive, animal-loving barbarian who is The Beastmaster.

And now, he’s given me John Dies at the End.

Brilliant!

Don’t forget: The Soy Sauce chooses you.

(John Dies at the End OS’ courtesy of impawards.com.)

FEAR ITSELF
Season 1 Episode 6
“New Year’s Day”
Story by Steve Niles; teleplay by Steve Niles and Ben Sokolowski
Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman

Written by Steve Niles (responsible for the 30 Days of Night comic upon which the film of the same title was based) and helmed by Darren Lynn Bousman (who brought the second through fourth installments of the Saw franchise to the screen), this episode follows Helen (Step Up 2: The Streets’ Briana Evigan, soon to be seen in S. Darko, the Richard Kelly-less sequel to Donnie Darko), who awakens early morning New Year’s Day, to the sounds of sirens and a disaster quickly unfolding outside her apartment.
What we then get is a zombie outbreak (no further explanation required), as the narrative switches back and forth between Helen’s predicament as she makes her way to the man she believes she loves, James (Kyle XY ’s Cory Monteith), and the New Year’s Eve party she was at the night before.


Now, while “Family Man” was a Fear Itself episode that we probably wouldn’t have seen on Masters of Horror, “New Year’s Day” is a FI installment that might very well have been more effective on MoH.
Network television just doesn’t support zombies very well, considering the gore and bloodshed will naturally be kept to a bare minimum. And nobody wants neutered zombies, do they?


Sadly, Bousman’s direction doesn’t really mine the material for all its inherent tension.
Admittedly, it doesn’t help that since the zombie film is the horror sub-genre du jour, there are examples aplenty of genuine white-knuckle, edge-of-your-seat deadhead thrill rides all over the place. (Not to mention that those examples will also undoubtedly sport fountains of fake blood and guts, which makes for a large portion of what we love about the sub-genre…)
And while Niles’ teleplay (co-written with Ben Sokolowski) does make a narrative attempt at something more than your average zombie movie, it’s a twist that you could see coming, thus blunting the over-all impact.
The zombies here aren’t terribly scary, either, so that’s another big con for the episode.


Ultimately, “New Year’s Day” doesn’t really amount to much, and if you’re jonesing for a good deadhead fix, you’d perhaps be better served taking in another viewing of Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead remake (if you don’t mind the running zombies), or Edgar Wright’s zom-rom-com Shaun of the Dead (if you don’t mind the comedy), or the 28 films (Danny Boyle’s Days Later and Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s Weeks Later; if you don’t mind the fact that, technically, they’re not actually zombies).
Or, you could go completely old school and dig up George Romero’s classic Dead trilogy—Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, and Day of the Dead. Land of the Dead is passable, but I’d steer clear of Diary of the Dead.
The Day of the Dead remake is also best avoided, though Tom Savini’s colour redux of Night of the Living Dead is a pretty good watch.


Parting shot: Reviews of a number of the zombie films I mention above are contained in the Archive.

(Images courtesy of nbc.com.)

FEAR ITSELF
Season 1 Episode 4
“In Sickness and In Health”
Written by Victor Salva
Directed by John Landis

The person you are marrying is a serial killer.


That’s what a typewritten note received by Samantha (Psych’s Maggie Lawson) reads, on her wedding day.
And though the premise does sound like some cheesy thriller by way of Lifetime, this was an episode brought to us by the tag team of Victor Salva (Jeepers Creepers) and John Landis (An American Werewolf In London).
With that sort of pedigree alone, this was high on my radar, and ultimately, I can appreciate the attempt, but am nonetheless disappointed with this particular union.


To begin with, though not as pronounced as it was in American Werewolf, that brand of Landis humour can still be detected in “In Sickness…”, and it’s an element that doesn’t quite benefit the episode’s set-up and action, much of which occurs in a dark, creaky church.
The thrills aren’t really there as well, and the overkill with the religious iconography—statuary and stained glass windows seem ubiquitous in this one—frankly gets annoying, as if Landis had nothing else to train his camera on. (Though they may perhaps be meant to foreshadow some gruesome climactic imagery, their repetitiveness just seems lazy and uninspired.)
The casting of Lawson’s co-star on Psych (and the USA Network show’s lead) James Roday as Samantha’s husband-to-be, Carlos, also serves to distract, as his portrayal of over-the-top fake psychic detective Shawn Spencer is a difficult shadow to shake; I don’t think I’d ever mentally equate the actor who plays Shawn Spencer with a groom and possible serial killer named “Carlos.”


And as far as Salva’s script goes, though I did note the narrative eventuality as soon as it was mentioned early on in the proceedings, I will nonetheless commend the script for the passably effective climactic twist.
The red herrings though, seem, in retrospect, to be desperate stabs at keeping the audience guessing.


There are some pluses, mind.
The stunt casting of Cancer Man himself, William B. Davis, as the hard-of-hearing Fr. Chris, is amusing, and the Hitchcock echo is also neatly slotted in.
And this is better than Landis’ earlier Masters of Horror entry, “Deer Woman,” so that’s something.
If however, you’re hard-pressed to see some truly worthwhile stuff from either Salva or Landis, you’d be better served by watching either Jeepers Creepers (just the first; you can skip the sequel) or An American Werewolf In London (not to be confused with the terrible sorta-sequel, Anthony Waller’s An American Werewolf In Paris).

(Images courtesy of nbc.com.)

FEAR ITSELF
Season 1 Episode 2
“Spooked”
Written by Matthew Venne
Directed by Brad Anderson

Ever since I came across Brad Anderson, courtesy of the psychological thriller, Session 9, I’ve been keeping tabs on his work, waiting for him to completely kick my a$$.
Session 9 didn’t quite do it, and neither did El Maquinista (The Machinist), and neither did his contribution to Season 2 of Masters of Horror, “Sounds Like.”
However, what all three did share was a strong visual style, that, as far as I was concerned, just needed an equally strong and solid script, to give Anderson the masterpiece I know is in him.
Sadly, though “Spooked” does have some strong psychological underpinnings (which has proven to be Anderson’s fascination), this proves to be the director’s blandest work, stylistically.
In fact, if I hadn’t seen the episode’s opening credits, I would not have immediately pegged “Spooked” as having been helmed by Anderson.


The episode follows Harry Seigal (Eric Roberts), a sleazy private eye with tons of bad karma from his past as a cop just waiting to bite him in the a$$.
Enter Meredith Kane (Cynthia Watros), who hires Harry to prove her husband is having an affair, a job that will open the floodgates to the multitude of sins in Harry’s past, and the traumatic event that lies at the very core of his tragic figure.


Now, as I alluded to above, Matthew Venne’s script takes pains in filling out Harry’s psyche, so much so that by episode’s end, we know exactly why Harry finds himself in the predicament he’s in. We can also fully appreciate the bitter irony of “Spooked”’s climax.
But, in focusing on the psychological aspect of the narrative, the supernatural element—which serves as the catalyst for Harry’s ordeal—is a tad glossed over. (And the set-up is rather transparent.)
Additionally, as I mentioned above, Anderson’s direction here is strangely a rather straight-forward affair, with none of the visual flair that made his past work engaging despite their shortcomings.


What does serve to make “Spooked” a nonetheless agreeable experience are the main performances. Roberts submits a flawed protagonist who manages to keep our attention, and, when it counts the most, elicit our sympathy. And while Watros has precious little screen time (three scenes, if I recall correctly), I still miss her over on Lost, so seeing her here was a neat little plus.

All in all, like “The Sacrifice” before it, “Spooked” has much more going for it in the pros column than it does in the cons.
It, however, is still not the hour that attests to Fear Itself being a television force to be reckoned with.

Parting shot: Reviews of El Maquinista and “Sounds Like” can be found in the Archive.

(Images courtesy of nbc.com.)

FEAR ITSELF
Season 1 Episode 1
“The Sacrifice”
Written by Mick Garris; based on the short story “The Lost Herd” by Del Howison
Directed by Breck Eisner

First off, the fact that it reads “Season 1” up there is a tad misleading.
Technically speaking, this series began its developmental life as the third season of Masters of Horror, before finding itself a new home away from Showtime.
With its move to NBC, the show has understandably had its gore quotient ratcheted down, and its nudity dispelled completely.
NBC has also proven to be more hands-on than Showtime ever was; as MoH—and thus, Fear Itself—creator Mick Garris, recounts, “… [NBC’s] notes weren’t always just suggestions, as ours were on Masters of Horror; they often were edicts.” (Though Garris is still credited as creator of Fear Itself, he is not actively involved in it.)
Given this baggage, I’ll do my best to review the show and its episodes on their own merits, though I imagine some comparisons to its former MoH incarnation may pop up every now and then.
And with that disclaimer out of the way, let’s get down to brass tacks…


Fear Itself opens with an installment whose script was written by Garris himself.
Based on the short story “The Lost Herd” by Del Howison (originally published in Strange Bedfellows, the twelfth entry in the erotic horror anthology series, Hot Blood), “The Sacrifice” follows four criminals—among them Friday Night Lights’ Jesse Plemons and The Nine‘s Jeffrey Pierce—who become stranded in a remote fort, where something sinister—and hungry—awaits.

The first thing that strikes me about “The Sacrifice” is that it actually looks like a slick television production, as opposed to the look MoH sported, which was invariably that of a low-budget horror feature.
The slicker look is, in this case, a potentially good thing. If the budgets on FI are about the same as those on MoH, it certainly doesn’t look that way.
But just because a show looks good, doesn’t mean it is, so let’s get deeper, shall we?


As far as Garris’ script goes, it’s serviceable, if not exactly distinguished. It utilizes a tried-and-tested horror convention, and attempts its own spin on it, resulting in a passably engaging hour.
Though not exactly riveting, I believe this is probably the best script Garris has written for the show, in either of its incarnations. (On MoH, Garris was responsible for writing and directing “Chocolate,” penning the worst Season 2 entry, “The V Word,” and for adapting Clive Barker in “Haeckel’s Tale” and “Valerie on the Stairs.”)
Considering his vacating of the premises, this isn’t too shabby a stamp to leave on his baby.
Like Garris’ script, Breck (Sahara) Eisner’s direction also does the job, though perhaps a tad unremarkably.
Eisner does, however, earn points for getting some good performances from Plemons, and Drive’s Mircea Monroe, who plays Chelsea, one of the fort’s inhabitants.


Having never read Howison’s original short story (I abandoned Hot Blood around its sixth volume, Stranger By Night, when the quality of the anthology had declined to an abysmal level),* I can’t really say if “The Lost Herd” was a stand-out Hot Blood entry.
As a Fear Itself/Masters of Horror installment though, “The Sacrifice” is a fairly effective piece, better than the more dreadful MoH entries (and there were a number of those; I’m lookin’ at you, “V Word”…), though with certainly a ways to go before reaching the laudable levels MoH achieved on a number of occasions.
Ultimately, as an opening salvo, it does its job, and I can only hope this show gets better as it goes along.

* Two excellent stories—Graham Masterton’s “The Jajouka Penis-Beetle” and Brian Hodge’s “Godflesh”—out of a field of 18 (most of the others being just plain terrible) blares “abysmal” in my book.

Parting shot: Reviews of “The V Word” and “Valerie on the Stairs” can be found in the Archive.

(Images courtesy of nbc.com.)

MASTERS OF HORROR
Season 1 Episode 1
“Incident On and Off A Mountain Road”
Teleplay by Don Coscarelli and Stephen Romano; based on the short story by Joe R. Lansdale
Directed by Don Coscarelli

If there was one ‘70’s horror film that scared the beejeezus out of me, it was Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm. More than The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, more than The Hills Have Eyes, this was the movie that made me scared to shut my eyes at night (as well as stand in front of a mirror).
I imagine it must have been because in Phantasm, all the terror was happening in bedrooms and houses and funeral parlors, not out in the far-flung wilderness or the boondocks.
There was that shiny metal ball of death, the freaky dwarves, and of course, there was The Tall Man. Angus Scrimm scared the frak outta me.
So when I found out that the maiden voyage of Masters of Horror would be brought to my TV by Coscarelli and The Tall Man (based on a Lansdale short, to boot!), well, I was pretty psyched.
And truth be told, Scrimm is just about the best thing in “Incident”…

On the surface, “Incident” is about Ellen (Bree Turner), who encounters a mad, monstrous lunatic (you know the sort) on the titular mountain road. But as soon as the chase begins, we realize Ellen isn’t your usual female in peril. And even as the narrative seeks to subvert the tired slash and stalk formula, it also switches back and forth between the peril-fraught present, and Ellen’s past, as we see, a) how she came to be so resourceful in a pinch, and b) how she came to be on that mountain road.
Now, to be fair, “Incident” isn’t a complete loss.
The performances are effective, particularly Scrimm’s (as crazy old coot Buddy) and Ethan Embry’s.
Embry sticks out in my film geek brain as dopey stoner Mark in Empire Records, and just-graduated Preston Meyers, who moons after Jennifer Love Hewitt’s Golden Globes (and professes his love for her to the strains of Yazoo’s “Only You”) in Can’t Hardly Wait.
Embry’s turn as Bruce, Ellen’s survivalist hubby, pretty much negates all the nice guy goodwill Embry earned from his past film work…

Where “Incident” falters though, is in its pacing, which, forced to labour under the script’s structure, isn’t as taut as it should be.
Honestly, it only really came alive for me when Scrimm makes his entrance.
And though I do appreciate the ultimate cost of survival (suitably weighty, given the extreme circumstances), things don’t fall into place as neatly as I’d hoped.

As the first episode out of the gate, I wasn’t that crazy about “Incident,” though in retrospect, after seeing some of the season’s subsequent episodes, it actually stands as one of the better installments.
Though all that McGyvering traps in the dark while being chased by the crazy did seem a tad incredulous…

(Incident On and Off A Mountain Road DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.com.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (35)
BOUNCING OFF THE SATELLITES 2007

The International Press Academy has just conducted the 12th annual Satellite Awards, which honours special achievements in film, television, DVDs and games.
There was a lot to get stoked about here, so without further ado… (Wins are in bold.)

300:
Motion Picture, Animated or Mixed Media (nominee)
Visual Effects
Sound (Mixing & Editing) (nominee)

Beowulf:
Motion Picture, Animated or Mixed Media (nominee)
Visual Effects (nominee)

Children of Men:
Best Overall DVD (nominee)

Eastern Promises:
Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama (Viggo Mortensen)
Motion Picture, Drama (nominee)
Director (David Cronenberg: nominee)
Screenplay, Original (Steven Knight: nominee)
Original Score (Howard Shore: nominee)
Film Editing (Ronald Sanders: nominee)

El Laberinto Del Fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth):
Best Overall DVD (nominee)

Little Children:
Best Overall DVD (nominee)

Once:
Original Song (“If You Want Me”/Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova: nominee)

The Prestige:
Best Overall DVD

The Silence of the Lambs:
DVD Extras (Collector’s Edition: nominee)

Zodiac:
Actor in a Supporting Role, Drama (Brian Cox: nominee)
Screenplay, Adapted (James Vanderbilt: nominee)
Cinematography (Harris Savides: nominee)

The next batch are from films I’ve yet to see, though have mentioned ‘round here at the Iguana.

Away From Her:
Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama (Julie Christie: nominee)
Motion Picture, Drama (nominee)
Director (Sarah Polley: nominee)
Screenplay, Adapted (Sarah Polley: nominee)

El Orfanato (The Orphanage):
Motion Picture, Foreign Film (Spain: nominee)

The Golden Compass:
Motion Picture, Animated or Mixed Media (nominee)
Original Song (“Lyra”/Kate Bush: nominee)
Cinematography (Henry Braham: nominee)
Visual Effects (nominee)
Sound (Mixing & Editing) (nominee)

Juno:
Actress in a Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical (Ellen Page)
Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical
Screenplay, Original (Diablo Cody)

Lars and the Real Girl:
Actor in a Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical (Ryan Gosling)
Motion Picture, Comedy or Musical (nominee)
Screenplay, Original (Nancy Oliver: nominee)

And these are from films whose reviews you’ll find in the Archive.

Sunshine:
Art Direction & Production Design (nominee)

Transformers:
Visual Effects (nominee)
Youth DVD (Two Disc Special Edition: nominee)

And now onto TV…

Chuck:
Television Series, Comedy or Musical (nominee)
Actor in a Series, Comedy or Musical (Zachary Levi: nominee)

Dexter:
Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made For Television (David Zayas)
Television Series, Drama
Actor in a Series, Drama (Michael C. Hall)
DVD Release of a TV Show (Season 1)

Heroes:
Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made For Television (Masi Oka: nominee)

Lost:
Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made For Television (Michael Emerson: nominee)
DVD Release of a TV Show (The Complete Third Season: nominee)

Masters of Horror:
DVD Extras (Season 1: tied for the win with Borat)

Nip/Tuck:
DVD Release of a TV Show (Season 4: nominee)

Pushing Daisies:
Television Series, Comedy or Musical
Actress in a Series, Comedy or Musical (Anna Friel: nominee)
Actor in a Series, Comedy or Musical (Lee Pace: nominee)

Twin Peaks:
DVD Release of a TV Show (Season 2: nominee)

And then there were the special awards, two of which were the Mary Pickford Award for Outstanding Artistic Contribution to the Entertainment Industry, which went to Kathy Bates, and the Tesla Award in Recognition of Visionary Achievement in Filmmaking Technology, which went to Dennis Muren.

To one and all, congratulations!
You can find the complete list of nominees and winners here.

Parting shot: Reviews of 300, Eastern Promises, El Laberinto Del Fauno, Sunshine, Transformers, and Zodiac, can be found in the Archive, where episodic recaps and reactions to Chuck, Dexter, Heroes, Lost, and Pushing Daisies also lurk.
And though the Satellite for DVD Extras went to Season 1, the reviews of the 13 episodes of Season 2 of Masters of Horror are just waiting to pounce from the darkness of the Archive as well.
There are also reviews of Beowulf and Once already written and raring to go, but at the time of this posting, have yet to be released into the wilds of the world wide web. (Though if you’re reading this way after I actually posted it, then those reviews should be in the Archive too.)

(Images courtesy of firstshowing.net [Eastern Promises]; amazon.com [The Prestige DVD cover art]; magneticmediafed.com [Dexter]; bloody-disgusting.com [Masters of Horror]; and pushing-daisies.com [Pushing Daisies].)

MASTERS OF HORROR

Season 2 Episode 3

"The V Word"

Written by Mick Garris; directed by Ernest Dickerson

The title pretty much telegraphs what the episode is about. What it doesn’t tell you—and what the admittedly rather sweet DVD cover art so skillfully masks—is that this is probably the worst that MoH’s second season has to offer.

We follow best friends Justin (Branden Nadon) and Kerry (Arjay Smith), as they enter a funeral home in the dead of night to see a corpse, up close and personal, only to discover some cadavers just don’t stay dead.

Now, I have very little patience for stories that begin with teen-agers getting into all sorts of trouble with the supernatural because they did something patently stupid on a dare, or for lack of anything better to do. I have even less patience for the characters themselves. It’s difficult to find any sympathy for people who basically asked to get screwed by acting like complete juveniles. (Yes, juveniles are exactly what teen-agers are, but that doesn’t mean they don’t use their God-given brains, right?)
So, when Justin and Kerry meet the undead Mr. Chaney (genre icon Michael Ironside; you’ll undoubtedly recognize him from Scanners, TV’s V, and Total Recall; he also voices Darkseid on the Superman and Justice League animated series), all I can think to myself is, Well, you asked for it. (The fact that Justin is such an indecisive wuss for the majority of the story makes me care even less for his welfare.)
And when the episode devolves into I Was A Teen-Age Vampire, things get even worse.

This is such a difficult episode to get through, with long stretches of tedium desperately masquerading as suspense. Then, throw in Jodelle Ferland (Christophe Gans’ Silent Hill, Terry Gilliam’s Tideland, and the Pang Brothers’ The Messengers) as Justin’s sister, Lisa, and reaching the end credits on this one gets even dicier. I’m just thankful Ferland‘s screen time is at a minimum here; though she does have her share of admirers, I’m not one of them at the moment.

Ernest Dickerson was the frequent cinematographer for Spike Lee, before getting a director’s chair of his own, helming films like the Tales From The Crypt feature Demon Knight and the failed TV pilot Futuresport (with Dean Cain and Wesley Snipes). More recently, he directed the Heroes episode “Collision.” What he does on “The V Word” is anyone’s guess. This one is so boring, it’s almost as if Dickerson slept through the proceedings, as the audience is sorely tempted to throughout the one-hour-running-time-which-seems-like-an-eternity.

As much as I try to find even the smallest of redeeming qualities in even the sorriest pile of cinematic poop, scrambling to find something nice to say about “The V Word” is a tall order. The only bright light in this mess was the thought that the remaining 10 episodes of the season couldn’t get any lower than this.

(The V Word DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.com.)

(The above is a slightly altered version of a review originally posted 032607.)

THE FERRYMAN
(Review)

Big Dave (Tamer Hassan; Louis Leterrier’s Danny the Dog and David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises) and Suze (Kerry Fox; Danny Boyle’s Shallow Grave and Po-Chih Leong‘s The Wisdom of Crocodiles) are taking two couples on their yacht Dionysus for a six day cruise to Fiji. But when a distress signal is intercepted, they must enter a strange, massive fogbank to see if they can be of assistance. What they find there will turn their holiday into a violent and bloody nightmare.

A New Zealand/UK co-production, The Ferryman is a nasty little number that capitalizes on the terror on the high seas scenario of films like Dead Calm and Knife in the Water, with an added supernatural twist to make things more interesting.
Directed by Chris Graham, The Ferryman takes just enough time to establish character (Tate, played by Sally Stockwell, is the spoiled, shallow, and screwed-up American; Julian—dude, it’s Apoc from The Matrix!—Arahanga’s Zane, the capable and confident Kiwi) before the proceedings quickly go to Hell in a handbasket with the introduction of the Greek (genre heavyweight John Rhys Davies) into the closed ecosystem of the Dionysus.

Once that takes place, the narrative takes a definite turn towards some very dark territories, the tension and anxiety magnified by the claustrophobic setting. What was so bungled in Masters of Horror’s “Dream Cruise” fires on most of its cylinders here, and with a grim, blackly disturbing end, The Ferryman is definitely worth a look-see.
Granted, some performances are better than others, but over-all, this is a cruise horror geeks will probably enjoy.
Unless you’ve already got a thing against traveling by sea, in which case, you should avoid this one like the plague.

Notable Musical Track: Split Enz’s “Dirty Creature”; a welcome blast from the past…

Parting shot: Reviews of Danny The Dog and Masters of Horror’s “Dream Cruise” can be found in the Archive.

(The Ferryman OS courtesy of impawards.com; DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.com.)

MASTERS OF HORROR
Season 2 Episode 13
“Dream Cruise”
Teleplay by Naoya Takayama and Norio Tsuruta; based on the short story by Koji Suzuki; directed by Norio Tsuruta

As with Season 1, which had the Japanese contribution as its 13th episode (Takashi Miike’s “Imprint”), this season culminates in Norio Tsuruta’s “Dream Cruise,” based on Koji Suzuki’s short story.
Contained in the Dark Water collection (where the basis for Hideo Nakata’s Honogurai mizu no soko kara, “Floating Water,” can likewise be found), “Dream Cruise” has water as its central image. Not only that, but the story is actually set on the high seas.

Utilizing the set up of films like Philip Noyce’s Dead Calm and Roman Polanski’s Knife in the Water (both of which Tsuruta studied before filming began), “Dream Cruise” also follows the often-seen premise of many an entry in past horror anthologies, the cuckolded husband (Ryo Ishibashi, from Miike’s Odishon and the English-language Grudge films) exacting his revenge on his cheating wife (Yoshino Kimura) and her lover (Daniel Gillies).
Sadly though, “Dream Cruise” is nowhere near as effective as MoH’s previous Japanese entry, Miike’s “Imprint,” nor Nakata’s adaptations of Suzuki source material.
Most of the fault, I feel, lies in Tsuruta’s hands.

I’ve never really warmed to Tsuruta, who directed the Ringu prequel, Ringu 0: Basudei, and whose Kakashi left me feeling dissatisfied. In “Dream Cruise,” Tsuruta doesn’t show us anything we haven’t seen before in any number of Asian horror films of the past, and he isn’t helped any by performances that range from mediocre to poor.
The threadbare budget is also painfully obvious, and there is much here that is either dreadfully wince-worthy, or downright laughable.
And perhaps most telling of all is the fact that the claustrophobia of the situation—trapped on a boat in the middle of the ocean—never really registers in any tangible manner. Tsuruta and his actors never seem to be able to mine the material for all its potential, apparently unable to convey the tension and suspense that by all rights should be there, given the premise. One would perhaps be better served by watching Dead Calm again. (I myself haven’t seen it in a long time, but I do recall thinking it a tense and effective thriller, with Nicole Kidman bringing to mind a young Sigourney Weaver.)

All in all, “Dream Cruise” is a sad—and ultimately predictable—note on which to end the second (and final) season of Showtime’s Masters of Horror.

Parting shot: It’s interesting to note though that there were plans to release an extended cut of “Dream Cruise” as a feature film in Japan, a move also done with Fruit Chan’s “Dumplings,” from Three… Extremes. (I’ve lost track of that bit of news though, so I’m unaware at the moment what came of that curious decision.)

Parting shot 2: Apparently, Masters of Horror is kaput, though will be resurrected next year by NBC as Fear Itself. The MoH crew is pretty much intact, and team up with Lionsgate on Fear Itself.
Now, how being on a regular network (as opposed to cable) will affect Fear Itself remains to be seen. How de-fanged and de-clawed will it get?
As early as now, an announcement has already been made that the eventual DVD releases of Fear Itself episodes will basically be extended, unrated versions of the broadcasts, presumably with all the gore that network television will be hesitant to air.

(Dream Cruise DVD cover art courtesy of cduniverse.com.)

MASTERS OF HORROR
Season 2 Episode 4
“Sounds Like”
Teleplay by Brad Anderson; based on the short story by Mike O’Driscoll; directed by Brad Anderson

On the heels of season 2’s worst (Ernest Dickerson’s “The V Word”), we move on to its most disturbing, an unnerving exploration of how the loss of a child can damage a parent’s psyche.

Larry Pearce (Chris Bauer, who’s in Clint Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers) is the supervisor at a software company’s tech support call center. Pearce is a husband and father quietly grieving for his dead son. He’s also apparently got hypersensitive hearing, hearing which at first seems to be beneficial to his job, until things begin to spiral out of control.

Having also directed Session 9 and El Maquinista (The Machinist; best known as the film Christian Bale lost 2/3 of his body weight for), it’s apparent that Anderson is fascinated by the psychological effects guilt can have on a person’s mental health. In Pearce’s case, his hearing intensifies to the point where the jerky movements of a fly become deafening noise to his ears.

Among other things, “Sounds Like” is an interesting variation of The Tell-Tale Heart. And though its gore quotient is pretty low compared to some other MoH episodes, Anderson still crafts an unsettling little tale where the scariest thing is how guilt and loss can transform any of us into monsters.

Parting shot: Anderson’s next feature, Transsiberian, is nearly upon us… While we're waiting for it to pull into the station though, you can check out a review of El Maquinista in the Archive.

(Sounds Like DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.com.)

(Originally posted 032607.)

MASTERS OF HORROR
Season 2 Episode 1
“The Damned Thing”
Teleplay by Richard Christian Matheson; based on the short story by Ambrose Bierce; directed by Tobe Hooper

Sheriff Kevin Reddle (Powder’s Sean Patrick Flanery, though perhaps more widely seen as TV’s Young Indiana Jones) is the law in the small town of Cloverdale, suddenly faced with the recurrence of a terror that struck 24 years ago, turning his loving father into a homicidal maniac and leaving him an orphan.
As it turns out, the titular “damned thing” is intimately connected to the Reddle family, unleashed by the Sheriff’s grandfather, a primordial entity whose coming is accompanied by flurries of violence and mayhem, perpetrated by otherwise normal everyday people.

Though “The Damned Thing” is by no means a terrible film, it still doesn’t get far beyond stretches of quiet character moments, punctuated by instances of explosive gore and bloodletting. And though director Hooper takes his time with the characters—as he did on Poltergeist—what we do see of them doesn’t make us sympathize with them enough to really care about the outcome of the story. (It is a kick though to see Sam’s brother, Ted Raimi, as Father Tulli.)
And not only is the big CGI reveal of “the damned thing” a bit of a letdown, the story’s ending also serves as a big “So what?” to cap off this season’s not-so-grand opening.

(The Damned Thing DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.com.)

(Originally posted 031107.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (16)

The nominees for this year’s Scream Awards have been announced, and some of the nominations I’m jazzed about are:

28 Weeks Later
The Ultimate Scream;
Best Horror Movie;
Best Sequel;
“Jump-From-Your-Seat” Scene of the Year (Zombie Attacks Glass Window)

All-Star Superman
Best Comic Book

Battlestar Galactica
The Ultimate Scream;
Best TV Show;
Sci-Fi Siren (Katee Sackhoff)

Children of Men
Best Science Fiction Movie;
Sci-Fi Siren (Clare-Hope Ashitey);
Sci-Fi Star (Clive Owen);
Best Director (Alfonso Cuaron);
Best Scream-Play (Alfonso Cuaron, Timothy J. Sexton, David Arata, Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby)

The Descent
The Ultimate Scream;
Best Horror Movie;
Breakout Performance (Shauna MacDonald);
Best Director (Neil Marshall);
Best Scream-Play (Neil Marshall)

El Laberinto Del Fauno
The Ultimate Scream;
Best Fantasy Movie;
Most Vile Villain (Sergi Lopez as Captain Vidal);
Most Memorable Mutilation (Mouth Sliced Open and Sewn Back Together);
Best Director (Guillermo Del Toro);
Best Scream-Play (Guillermo Del Toro);
Best Foreign Movie (Spain)

The Fountain
Best Science Fiction Movie;
Sci-Fi Siren (Rachel Weisz);
Sci-Fi Star (Hugh Jackman)

Grindhouse (Death Proof)
Scream Queen (Rosario Dawson);
Best Cameo (Quentin Tarantino);
Breakout Performance (Zoe Bell);
Most Vile Villain (Kurt Russell as Stuntman Mike);
Most Memorable Mutilation (Dismembered in Car Crash);
Best Director (Quentin Tarantino);
Best Scream-Play (Quentin Tarantino)

Gwoemul
Best Horror Movie;
Best Foreign Movie (South Korea)

Heroes
The Ultimate Scream;
Best TV Show;
Best Superhero (Masi Oka as Hiro Nakamura; Milo Ventimiglia as Peter Petrelli);
Sexiest Superhero (Ali Larter as Niki/Jessica; Hayden Panettiere as Claire Bennet);
Breakout Performance (Hayden Panettiere);
Most Vile Villain (Zachary Quinto as Sylar/Gabriel Gray)

Lost
Best TV Show;
Fantasy Fox (Evangeline Lilly);
Fantasy Hero (Matthew Fox)

Masters of Horror
Best TV Show

The Prestige
Best Science Fiction Movie;
Sci-Fi Siren (Scarlett Johansson);
Sci-Fi Star (Christian Bale);
Best Cameo (David Bowie)

The following films (all reviewed here: see Archive) were also nominated in a number of categories: 300; Transformers; 1408; Spider-Man 3; Sunshine; Vacancy; Disturbia; Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer; Black Christmas; and Ghost Rider.
The following films, which I have yet to see, were also nominated: Grindhouse (still haven’t seen Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror); Hostel: Part II; and Stardust.

Congratulations, one and all, and best of luck.
You can vote for your favorites here until October 19. Spike TV’s Scream Awards airs Tuesday, October 23.

Parting shot: Last year’s winners included Brandon Routh (Best Superhero: Superman in Superman Returns); Battlestar Galactica (Best TV Show); Haute Tension (Best Foreign Movie); Evangeline Lilly (Fantasy Fox); and Hostel (The Eye Removal scene won for Most Memorable Mutilation and The Holy Sh%T! Award).

(Images from last year’s Scream Awards courtesy of comicbookresources.com.)

THE TRIPPER
(Review)

“A hippie is someone who looks like Tarzan, walks like Jane and smells like Cheetah.”
-- Ronald Reagan

After a brief prologue set in 1967, in the Northern California lumbertown of Carlisle, we flash forward to the present, where Carlisle is set to host the Free Love Festival, a weekend bacchanalia of sex, drugs, and rock and roll organized by one Frank Baker (ol’ Pee-wee Herman himself, Paul Reubens).
Throw in a bunch of modern day hippies (among them Jay himself, Jason Mewes), Carlisle’s “de facto peacekeeper,” Officer Buzz Hall (the Punisher himself, Thomas Jane), and a mad Ronald Reagan mask-wearing killer, and you’ve got The Tripper, co-written and directed by Deputy Dewey himself, David Arquette.

Given that this is a film that kicks off while the fires of the Vietnam war rage, set during a time when the war in Iraq continues to drag on with no apparent end in sight, and featuring a killer who dons the visage of a President who reigned over an America characterized by excess and conspicuous consumption, it’s obvious that Arquette is attempting to use the slasher film as a stage for some biting socio-political commentary.
Anyone who’s visited the Iguana before knows I love me a good horror film that actually says something, and though what The Tripper is saying is not necessarily anything new, my main problems with it are its ill-paced script, and the fact that a majority of the narrative’s characters are dope fiends who don’t really seem to deserve any audience sympathy.

Thus, not only does the film meander badly (I’d love to have used the adverb “trippily,” if the experience had been entertaining, which it ultimately wasn’t), but the gorehound in me found himself blasted back to the bad old days of the slasher film, when all I ended up doing was wait impatiently for the next victim to wind up dead. These are characters who are in a perpetually fraked-up state, and sympathy for these sorts is pretty hard to come by.
It’s always a challenge to get an audience to take a ride with characters like this, and when the film is a Trainspotting, or a Spun, or a Requiem for a Dream, you know all involved did their jobs splendidly. In films like these, you end up caring for and sympathizing with individuals you probably wouldn’t want to be seen in the same room with in real life.
Now, the average slasher film does have sex, drugs, alcohol, and wayward youth as some of its conventions. Not only does The Tripper up those particular antes exponentially, but Arquette asks us to spend most of our time with this host of druggies who seem to display no redeeming qualities at all. In the end, I don’t see why I should care for these people in the slightest.
And yes, we do have Samantha (Jaime King; from Sin City and TV’s Kitchen Confidential and The Class), who is currently abstaining from drugs because of a recent Bad Experience, and who is clearly the Last Girl-in-waiting, but she’s one out of six, and not a particularly compelling, charismatic screen presence. (Hey, if you’re gonna be the Last Girl, you better have some chops to deserve that honour.)

It’s also sad that some interesting actors (Balthazar Getty and Lukas Haas) are in this but aren’t really afforded anything meaty to chew on. Jane’s is perhaps the most noteworthy performance as the sane voice of authority, but of course, it’s a voice that’s drowned out by all the chemical hi-jinx going on.

One of the things The Tripper seems to be saying—an idea reinforced by the film’s end credits roll—is that while the American Powers-That-Be are evil, ineffectual passive resistance to that towering monolith is not really any better either.
Where The Tripper fails, I feel, is in not really presenting us with an alternative; in what is perhaps a gross oversimplification, the narrative doesn’t really put forward a stance between the ultra-left and the ultra-right which would make any sort of sense in this day and age.
I realize this may not really have been Arquette’s ultimate intent in the first place (this is, after all, a slasher film and not a Michael Moore documentary), but if you’re gonna get into this particular sandbox, you should at least play the game, right?

I wanted to have fun with this one, but in the end, it just didn’t float my boat.
Maybe if it had been funnier, or gorier, or more thrilling, or if it had had something more substantial to say, then The Tripper might have been worth the time and the price of admission.
As it is, re-watching a double feature of the Masters of Horror episodes, “Homecoming” and “The Washingtonians” (review in Archive: September 2007)—both effective exercises in horror as socio-political commentary—would be a far better prospect.

Parting shot: For those interested, Arquette also appears in the film as the redneck Muff, while the missus produces and has a teeny cameo.
Another name of note on The Tripper is comic book writer Steve Niles, whose 30 Days of Night has been adapted for the big screen and is just about to be unleashed on all of horror geekdom.

(The Tripper OS courtesy of wildaboutmovies.com; DVD cover art courtesy of shocktillyoudrop.com.)

MASTERS OF HORROR
Season 2 Episode 12
“The Washingtonians”
Teleplay by Johnathon Schaech and Richard Chizmar; based on the short story by Bentley Little; directed by Peter Medak

Horror is at its best when it is used as a platform from which to say something, to make some statement regarding society or culture or the human condition; when it is more than just some stalking slasher chasing after nubile, photogenic co-eds, or some long-haired, contortionist ghost.
Based on the short story by Bentley Little, “The Washingtonians” posits that America’s founding father was in truth, a cannibal, and that there is a fringe society of fanatics who not only strive to keep that truth a secret, but also have a taste for human flesh.
As outrageous as its central premise sounds, “The Washingtonians” is nonetheless one of the most effective and telling tales of MoH’s second season.

Directed by Peter Medak (best known to horror geeks as the man who gave us The Changeling), from a teleplay co-written by Johnathon Schaech (The Doom Generation, The Forsaken; Schaech also plays the lead role of Mike Franks), “The Washingtonians” is a savage portrait of history-as-perpetrated myth and America-as-eater of its young, with a sly, comedic wink at its very end.
Despite the slight awkwardness of the protracted exposition during the climactic Washingtonian feast, this, alongside Joe Dante’s “The Screwfly Solution,” is the best of season 2.

(The Washingtonians DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.com.)

MASTERS OF HORROR
Season 2 Episode 11
“The Black Cat”
Teleplay by Dennis Paoli and Stuart Gordon; based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe; directed by Stuart Gordon

In this Stuart Gordon film, adapted from the Edgar Allan Poe tale, Poe (played by Re-Animator’s Jeffrey Combs) finds himself smack dab in the middle of one of his own macabre yarns.
With the help of a credible Combs (who shows us the tortured, boozed-out soul that was Poe), this turns out to be one of the more effective films of this season. What’s noteworthy here is that, aside from the blood and the grue, what also supplies the chills in “The Black Cat” is the horror of trying to create art in the pitiless face of poverty and true human suffering. We also become witness to the trap popularity can become and how any artist can be so easily pigeonholed by the demands of the market.

Though the ending (which does not really come as any huge surprise) does dampen the proceedings somewhat, “The Black Cat” is still a sight better than some of the other offerings of Season 2.
Members of PETA and PAWS should be advised though: this is one film you should probably steer clear of.

(The Black Cat DVD cover art courtesy of anchorbayentertainment.com.)

MASTERS OF HORROR
Season 2 Episode 10

“We All Scream For Ice Cream”
Teleplay by David J. Schow; based on “I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream For Ice Cream” by John Farris; directed by Tom Holland

Layne Bannister (Lee Tergesen, from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning and a handful of Desperate Housewives episodes) has just moved back to his old home town, in time to watch the members of his childhood gang, the “West End Bunch,” start dropping like flies (apparently getting turned into melting puddles of ice cream, as we see in the episode’s opening sequence).
Playing like an ultimately ineffective variation on Stephen King’s It, this one was a particular disappointment, given the heavy hitters behind it.

John Farris.
I may not have been able to read the original short story on which this episode is based, but I do think Farris’ All Heads Turn When The Hunt Goes By is an excellent horror novel that really should be read by any self-respecting horror hound. (I wasn’t too thrilled by his Son of the Endless Night, though.)

David J. Schow.
Not only did he write the screenplay for Alex Proyas’ The Crow, but Schow is another kick-a$$ horror writer as well. (Though he did write the scripts for Critters 3 and 4, so take that as you will. He also provided the story for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, where episode lead Tergesen appeared.)

And Tom Holland.
He may have been low-key recently, but he gave us Fright Night and Child’s Play, so he knows his horror films.

So we’ve got three proven names, and what do we get?
Another sub-par MoH hour that feels like an excruciating two.

To begin with, this feels too much like zombiefied Stephen King material: childhood friends as adults, with a secret from their youth that has returned to haunt them.
Not only have we seen this all before, but due to the story’s premise, we are treated to flashbacks, as we see the main characters in their youth, and the secret which plagues them all.
Nothing inherently wrong with that, granted, but when we are asked to endure patently bad performances by child actors (Samuel Patrick Chu, take note), then this constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. I kid you not, the flashbacks are agonizing.

And though as I pointed out above, I’m a firm believer in Schow, there are a bunch of lines of dialogue that may sound fine on paper, but rolling off the tongue, they just don’t make the grade. Or perhaps, the performances are again to blame. It gets difficult to tell in this one, particularly when you’re too busy rolling your eyes in incredulity.
All in all, this one gets chalked up as a loss, a particularly painful one, considering the talent behind it.

(We All Scream For Ice Cream DVD cover art courtesy of fangoria.com.)