THE EYE
(Review)

First, a few words regarding my thoughts on the Pang Brothers’ original Khon Hen Phi.
Though it did have its moments, I have two main problems with it.
One: there were several stretches of the film where the tension was not quite at a level that could sustain the narrative and maintain my interest in the on-screen proceedings.
Two: that climax seemed rather jarring given all the largely low-key bits that had come before it. I always considered that sequence a little too Hollywood a capper for this otherwise very Asian horror film.
So it seemed rather appropriate that an English-language remake would spring into being. And though I was looking forward to it when Hideo Nakata’s name was floating around the property, it eventually fell into the laps of French directing duo, David Moreau and Xavier Palud. Now, their Ils (Them) grabbed enough of my attention to at the very least warrant my interest in their redux, so it was with, what I termed in my Ils review (located in the Archive), “a healthy sense of anticipation,” that I approached The Eye.
What I got was a mixed bag: though The Eye has, like its predecessor, some moments, and that Hollywood climax seems slightly more at home here, the problem of the narrative sustaining its own tension is, sadly, still evident.

Now, as I’d expected, both Alessandro Nivola (as Patrick Faulkner) and Parker Posey (as Helen Wells) carry their own weight here, though Posey flies in and out of the narrative pretty quickly. (Appropriately enough, she’s a stewardess.)
What came as a surprise is that Jessica Alba (as blind violinist Sydney Wells, whose cornea transplant suddenly gives her both normal, and second, sight) actually delivers a passably effective performance, probably the best I’ve seen from her.
Though she does miss a beat here and there, it’s still commendable that she’s clearly stretching here. So long as she steers clear of any future Fantastic Four malarkey, there could still be some hope for her.

It was, however, disappointing that Moreau and Palud couldn’t capture that same sense of tension they nailed in Ils.
I actually had the same reaction to Alexandre Aja’s follow-up to Haute Tension, his remake of The Hills Have Eyes, that it wasn’t as taut as his previous film. Of course, in both cases, the set-up for Ils and Haute Tension is such that the majority of the on-screen action—of the stalk and slay variety—occurs in a rather short amount of time.
Now, while in The Hills Have Eyes, the tension seemed to dissipate since it became spread out over a number of different characters, in The Eye, it ended up defused by the nature of the narrative itself.
There just doesn’t seem to be an adequate amount of atmosphere and suspense to tide the audience over and keep them on the edge, even during the slow bits.
I do however, give props to Patrick Lussier, whose editing, though not exactly brilliant, is quite effective in a number of spots.
Though having mentioned Lussier, I do have to mention something else.

There was talk that floated last year about re-shoots for The Eye that did not involve Moreau or Palud, and that in fact, Lussier was the man who came in to handle them.
It’s a distinct pain that this is becoming a frequent practice, particularly when the film is the first Hollywood project for a foreign director (it’s reportedly happened to the Pang Brothers’ The Messengers, Oliver Hirschbeigel’s The Invasion, and Xavier Gens’ Hitman, to name a few).
To be fair though, The Eye is certainly better than either The Messengers or Hitman. It’s also not as severely compromised as The Invasion. In point of fact, if the Frenchmen were indeed not involved with those re-shoots, then it isn’t plainly evident where those new bits are in the overall picture.
As far as the film’s stand-out moments go though, they don’t quite measure up to the original’s.

If it’s two things I took away from Khon Hen Phi, it was the long-tongued ghost licking obscenely at some meat (sadly gone in this version) and the floating elevator dude (present here, though I do recall finding the original’s take far creepier).
And though I did say the climax felt a little more at home here, this version of the sequence also went whole Hollywood hog with the idea, complete with incidental car chase. Also, as I recall, in Khon Hen Phi, there were some casualties. (Weren’t there? It has been awhile since I’ve seen it…)
Here, Sydney apparently gets everyone out alive.
Sure, this is post-9/11 America, but I suspect it’s really because of one thing: this is Hollywood, people, so the victories have to be grander, don’t they, the triumphs more complete and all-encompassing.
As it is, we’re lucky they still kept the “blessing in disguise” outcome, so the climactic victory still came at an apparent cost.

Ultimately, The Eye is an acceptable English-language remake, and though I can’t really say it’s significantly better than the original, neither is it particularly worse. All in all, a passable way to while away some time. On the heels of what Moreau and Palud achieved with Ils though, this is, admittedly, a bit of a let-down.

Parting shot: Reviews of Ils, both Fantastic Four installments, The Messengers, Hitman, and The Invasion can be found in the Archive.

(The Eye OS, banner, and image courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com.)

reVIEW (35)
BLADE: TRINITY

And, on the heels of my Blade II review (to be found elsewhere in the Iguana’s Archive), here’s one of Blade: Trinity, back from the boneyard.

Okay. First, score card.

Based on the adventures of the Marvel comic book vampire hunter, Blade was written by David S. Goyer and directed—using the term very loosely here—by Steve Norrington. For my money, the only saving graces of the film were Udo Kier and Stephen Dorff.
Then Blade II came along, and Goyer wisely wrote a script that allowed Wesley Snipes to do what he does best: kick a$$.
What’s more, as film is, in the end, a director’s medium, Blade II was fortuitously blessed with the presence of Guillermo Del Toro—the man behind Cronos, El Espinazo Del Diablo (The Devil’s Backbone), and most recently, the Oscar-nominated El Laberinto Del Fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth)—who filled that canvas chair admirably, serving up a popcorn horror film smothered in butter, blood, and adrenaline.
And, along with a host of talented artisans, Del Toro had artist Tim Bradstreet—who worked on, among other things, a role-playing game called Vampire: The Masquerade—along for the ride as Vampire “Look” Consultant. With that much brilliance in its corner, Blade II pretty much hit the bull’s eye dead-on.

Then there was Blade: Trinity, with Goyer returning, not just as scriptwriter, but as director as well.

“In the movies, Dracula wears a cape, and some old English guy always manages to save the day at the last minute with crosses and holy water. But everybody knows the movies are full of sh!t.”
-- Hannibal King

That little bit of voice-over opens Blade: Trinity, and ironically enough, truer words were never spoken.
The plot (such as there is) involves a group of vampires led by Parker Posey’s Danica Talos, who have just discovered the progenitor vampire (TV’s John Doe, Dominic Purcell, currently on Prison Break), who has gone by many names in his long existence, including… Dracula.
They’ve woken him up from his self-induced slumber to, 1) hunt and kill Blade (the raison d’etre of the Bloodpack in Blade II), and 2) perhaps make them able to walk abroad in daylight as well (Deacon Frost’s motivation for hunting Blade in the original film).

Kick-starting their anti-Blade campaign by framing the vampire hunter for a crime he mistakenly commits, Posey and her Fang Gang manage to place Blade in a dangerous position, where even the government and local authorities are actively seeking him out as a menace to society.
This might have been an intriguing angle from which to approach the story, if it hadn’t turned out to be a mere plot device to introduce Hannibal King (Ryan Reynolds, from the TV series that began life as Two Guys, A Girl, and A Pizza Place) and his Nightstalkers, most of whom, predictably enough, turn out not to be characters at all, but rather, motivation for Abigail (Whistler’s daughter, played by Seventh Heaven’s Jessica Biel) to continue her vampire hunting.

Thus armed with a script that freely ransacks elements from his own closet of already-produced ideas, Goyer ends up giving us a film that serves generic, by-the-numbers action, when it should be knocking our proverbial socks off.
There is no sense of the frenetic movement Del Toro brought to Blade II here in Trinity, and even the action sequences, normally a trademark of a Blade film, seem half-hearted, as if they’re there precisely because they’re expected, and not because there’s anything particularly new or even worthwhile to put on display.

Additionally, any film of this sort needs a good, charismatic villain. We had that in Blade II’s Damaskinos (Thomas Kretschmann) and Nomak (Luke Goss), and as I mentioned earlier, Blade’s only good points were Kier and Dorff as baddies.
Trinity’s Drake hardly registers as a character, much less an antagonist to be fearfully respected, or the ages-old bloodthirsty creature he’s supposed to be. He’s simply there, and it’s not just the performance that’s lacking; the script really doesn’t give him any sort of presence.
As it is, Posey’s Danica is a far more amusing (and engaging) villain to watch, thus making Drake’s final confrontation with Blade obligatory, rather than something the audience looks forward to with relish. Even Wesley Snipes, who has always brought a raw physicality to the role of Blade, seems abstracted here, as if he’s not all there, as if his heart isn’t really in it this time out.

To be perfectly honest, after having seen the not-too-thrilling Trinity trailer, my biggest motivation for actually watching it boiled down to Parker Posey. (What can I say? I love her.)
Even then, we hardly see enough of her in the film, as a significant portion of screen time is handed over to Biel’s Abigail, the oh-so-cool-I-listen-to-hip-music-on-my-iPod-while-vampire-slaying hunter whom Marvel is hoping will beget a spin-off, as Jennifer Garner’s Elektra did from another woeful Marvel production, Daredevil.

Having mentioned Posey, it’s interesting to note that it took two of indie film’s best and brightest, Posey and Natasha Lyonne—who plays blind Nightstalker Sommerfield—to offset one WWE superstar (Triple H, as vampire Jarko Grimwood, who follows in the footsteps of fellow wrestlers The Rock and Rob Van Damme, in making a bid for big screen stardom).
Two-to-one. Sad, but true.

Ultimately, Blade: Trinity joins two of my personal lists.
It settles snugly beside Scream 3 and Josie and the Pussycats, on my list of Films Where Parker Posey Is One Of The Few Saving Graces, and joins the ranks of Bad Comic Book Films, where I’ve relegated other Marvel movies like Daredevil and Ghost Rider.
To make matters worse, Trinity is also a stake in the heart for vampire movies as well. (Or maybe just a crapload of garlic.)
Sadly, it may take a while for me to wash the taste of stale blood from my mouth.

Parting shot: Reviews of Blade II, Ghost Rider, Elektra, and Guillermo Del Toro’s El Laberinto Del Fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth) can be found in the Archive.
Reviews of Hal Hartley’s Fay Grim, which stars Parker Posey, Mike Mendez's The Gravedancers, which stars Dominic Purcell, David S. Goyer’s recent film, The Invisible, and Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, for which Goyer wrote the screenplay, are also in there somewhere.

(Blade: Trinity OS’s courtesy of impawards.com.)

(The above is a slightly altered version of a review originally published under the title, “Stale Blood, Rusty Blade.”)

THE DIRECTOR’S CHAIR (3)
WES CRAVEN in
“MY CRAVEN 3 (SEVERAL HUNDRED MORE WORDS ABOUT WES CRAVEN)”

“Fortunately, somebody always comes along when it’s least expected and reinvents the (horror) genre. And that’s exciting to watch.”
-- Wes Craven (1990)

And that’s kind of what Craven did with Scream, which turned Hollywood back onto horror in a big way. (Even horror icons like George Romero credited Scream for making Hollywood execs start calling him again to see if he was up to anything new.)
Yes, there was some backlash from Scream (including the resurrection of the deservedly dead slasher flick, as well as the ungodly births of TV’s Dawson’s Creek, Wasteland, and the abominable Teaching Mrs. Tingle, whose only saving graces were Helen Mirren, and the Exorcist bit), but it otherwise put horror back on the bankable map, and made Craven a force to be reckoned with once again, over two decades after his unsettling and infamous debut, Last House on the Left (which has the distinction of being on Stanley Wiater’s Disturbo 13, a list of the most “balls-to-the-wall disturbing” horror films ever made).
Anyway, for what it’s worth (and this is, after all, what we’ve come here for), my Craven 3 (in no particular order)…

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984): welcome the razor-fingered Bastard Son of a Hundred Maniacs, as Freddy Krueger gives us our first walking (or should that be, running?) tour of Elm Street (Wes Craven’s New Nightmare—the 7th in the Elm Street franchise—was Craven’s first, badly botched attempt at postmodern horror, which Kevin Williamson showed him how to do correctly in the Scream films)

Deadly Blessing (1981): though Craven isn’t particularly fond of this one, I still think it’s a nice little horror tale that straddles the line, making the viewer wonder whether there’s a natural explanation for all the sh!t going down, or if it really is an incubus haunting the scenic Pennsylvania Dutch countryside (it’s also got Sharon Stone in it, long before she was “Sharon Stone”)

And, two for the price of one! Scream (1996) and Scream 2 (1997): postmodern horror cinema’s finest hour(s), these are horror films for horror film fans, and display Craven’s suspense at its tautest (please disregard Scream 3, with its limp screenplay by Ehren Krueger—who likewise degraded Ringu into its slick Hollywood doppelganger; the only memorable things in Scream 3 are the cameos, and indie queen Parker Posey)

Yeah, The Hills Have Eyes is a classic, but it’s also (like Last House) pretty bleak and hard to sit through. (It’s also pretty much Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chain Saw Massacre, with a social commentary. And this is, after all, the Craven 3. Or 4, if you want to be picky, so I had to make some tough choices.)

And, just to take a peek at the cruddy end of the spectrum, Craven’s also had a bunch of clunkers, the worst quite possibly being Deadly Friend (which was such a crapfest because of studio interference). Sad, since the script was adapted from a novel by Bruce Joel Rubin, who wrote the screenplay for the brilliant Jacob’s Ladder. (Though he also wrote… ulp… Ghost.)
Cursed is also a stinker, but you can read about that in the Archive.

“[Wes Craven] may need a good screenwriting collaborator, the way Billy Wilder needed collaborators I.A.L. Diamond and Charles Brackett to produce his best films.
“Craven’s masterpiece awaits; and I for one am eager to see it.”
-- Ed Gorman
“Several Hundred Words About Wes Craven” (1992)

(I think that masterpiece was Scream/Scream 2, that “good screenwriting collaborator,” Kevin Williamson, but then again, that’s just me.)

Parting shot: In recent years, Craven has been involved with The Hills Have Eyes remake and its sequel, as well as acting as one of the producers of Feast. He also co-wrote the script for the English-language remake of Pulse and contributed a great short to Paris Je T’aime.
He’s now reportedly at work on a sequel to The People Under The Stairs (as producer) and a remake of his own Shocker, which he is slated to direct.
(Reviews of A Nightmare On Elm Street, Cursed, The Hills Have Eyes II, Feast, and Paris Je T’aime can be found in the Archive.)

(Wes Craven image courtesy of webwombat.com.au; A Nightmare On Elm Street, Deadly Blessing, Scream, Scream 2 OS’s courtesy of impawards.com.)

(The above is an altered version of an identically-titled article.)

ILS (THEM)
(Review)

Like Open Water and Wolf Creek before it, Ils (Them) is a short, savage little number based on a true story.
In it, a French couple, Clementine Sauveur (Olivia Bonamy) and Lucas Medev (Michael Cohen), recently relocated to Snagov, Romania, are terrorized in their home by unknown assailants.

For anyone who’s read my review of Open Water (reVIEW 23; see Archive: September 2007), you may very well come to the conclusion that these sort of films don’t particularly float my boat. These are the sort of films that, even as the end credits begin to roll, I nearly always find myself asking, Well, what was the point of it all?
Here, the assailants are portrayed decidedly as Other, since the narrative’s focus is locked onto Clementine and Lucas. And since the film covers only the event itself—the aftermath limited to short blocks of text before the end credits—we don’t really get to delve into the motivations, the “why” of it.
So the film’s end-all, be-all is the tension engendered by the action onscreen. This is, perhaps, its point: to make our pulses quicken and keep us on the edge of our seats. (And on occasion, get us to jump out of those aforementioned seats.)
And if this is Ils’ point, it’s raison d’etre, then its existence is justified.

The film itself is a tense little bugger, and the credit for that achievement should go to co-directors David Moreau and Xavier Palud. It’s because of this skilled handling of the narrative’s suspense that I found this a better cinematic experience than either Open Water or Wolf Creek.
In addition, the fact that the next project of Moreau and Palud is the upcoming English-language remake of Khon Hen Phi (The Eye), gives me a healthy sense of anticipation for it. And yes, I am aware that Jessica Alba headlines the redux, so for me to actually say I have “a healthy sense of anticipation” for The Eye should say volumes about just how impressed I was by Moreau and Palud’s achievement on Ils. (I’m also extremely grateful that Parker Posey and Alessandro Nivola are in The Eye, so I can at least be assured I’ll be seeing some good acting.)
With The Eye, Moreau and Palud will have more of an actual plot at their disposal, and I’m curious to see how they handle a story (as opposed to the situation presented in Ils).

In the meantime though, what we ultimately have in Ils is a sobering and unnerving thrillride. After all, as with Open Water and Wolf Creek, this is the dramatized version of an actual event, with the fates of real people up on the screen for us to see.
As I said in my Open Water review, this sort of material isn’t “entertainment” in my books. To witness actual persons in this sort of context seems somehow wrong for me.
If, however, you’re up for this sort of horror, then Ils is definitely your ticket.

(Ils DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.com; Them OS courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com.)

FAY GRIM (Review)

I’ve only ever really watched one Hal Hartley film before now: No Such Thing, with Sarah Polley and Helen Mirren, and I largely came into that movie because of those two brilliant actresses. I loved the film though, and thought Hartley’s take on the monster movie was insightful and one of those rare gems that any diehard film fan should be thankful even got made.
So, even though I’d never gotten to see Henry Fool, when Fay Grim came around the corner, and I understood that it was a sequel to Hartley’s well-regarded film, I thought to myself, Well, I’m still gonna try and see this one. After all, it had Parker Posey in it. (Like Polley and Mirren, an actress who’s tops in my books.)
Now, I really wanna see Henry Fool…

Fay Grim takes place years after Henry’s flight from justice (apparently, he killed a man in the first film), and Fay (Posey) is a frazzled single mother in Queens struggling to keep her son Ned (Liam Aiken, from Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events) out of trouble. Meanwhile, her brother Simon (James Urbaniak, who played Robert Crumb in American Splendor and can be seen in the upcoming The Nanny Diaries and the troubled Across The Universe), noted “garbage man-poet” of Queens, is serving a prison term for aiding and abetting Fool in his escape.
Enter CIA man Agent Fulbright (Jeff Goldblum) and his partner Agent Fogg (Leo Fitzpatrick, who played Telly in Larry Clark’s Kids), who claim that Henry may have been involved in terrorism and who need Fay to help them retrieve a number of Henry’s journals—purportedly containing sensitive information about the U.S. government—and Fay’s life is overturned and upset, all for a man she claims she never wants to see again.

On the surface, Fay Grim is Hartley’s spin on the Hollywood spy thriller, as a single mother nearly at her wit’s end, is suddenly thrust into the labyrinthine world of spies and double agents, and if it were merely that, it would already have been a triumph.
But Hartley does a lot more in this film, taking us on a journey with Fay, as she travels the world while she finally comes to terms with her real feelings about Henry, a man whose secrets were apparently laid down before everyone to see, secrets that everyone (including his own wife) thought were a whole load of bullsh!t.
In all probability, if I had seen Henry Fool, the conceit of Fay Grim would have astounding resonance, as this is essentially a plot flip, turning everything we thought we knew about Henry from the first film, on its head; all the stories we thought were tall tales, were actually the truth.
As it is though, to a newbie, Fay Grim is still an exceedingly effective film, that is moving and heartfelt (as any good drama is), involving and intriguing (as any good spy thriller is), and funny and witty (as any good comedy is).
Like No Such Thing, it maps an intricate structure over the template of a familiar film genre, and through its characters, imparts subtle truths about relationships, yearning, and human nature.

Posey, being one of the few actresses I know who is able to find honest and genuine emotion in humor, is brilliant in Fay Grim. She’s always been good at portraying a real person amidst the laughter and the witty banter, and she’s in fine form here. And the chemistry she displays with Goldblum (who’s got some pretty tricky lines in this one) is the sort of palpable character interplay that needs to be bottled, mass-produced, and sold off to lesser films with less talented thespians.
Actually, across the board, Hartley’s ensemble acquits itself admirably, and the film, shot in HD with lots of Dutch angles, is all the stronger because of these performances.
Even when the more colorful characters (Elina Lowensohn’s stewardess/topless dancer Bebe and Anatole Taubman’s terrorist Jallal) come into the tale, there is still the underlying sense that we are seeing people here, real characters with real emotions and real lives and real relationships with each other.
Again, as with No Such Thing, no matter how extraordinary things get, we never lose sight of the fact that these are identifiable, sympathetic characters, and Hartley makes this gift to absorb the audience into his world look effortless.

From the sampling of two I have seen of Hartley’s work, I get the impression when someone says “It’s a Hal Hartley film,” it’s kind of like saying “It’s a David Lynch film,” or “It’s a Wes Anderson film,” in that one immediately knows the general characteristics of the film, its shape and the manner in which it treats its characters and the world they move around in, the sort of film where one can see the director’s signature on the frame, can hear his singular voice in the rhythms and nuances of speech.
The sort of film that could never have been directed by anyone else. The sort of film that is the anti-thesis of the work of the new breed of Hollywood director, slick and splashy monstrosities that are ultimately interchangeable with each other, where one is hard-pressed to note just exactly who the director is, and what unique point of view and mindset he brought to the film.
Watching Fay Grim, I could safely say, “Yes, this is by the man who directed No Such Thing.” And when you can make distinctions like that, can spot the qualities and the idiosyncracies, can identify the voice, then you know you’re in the hands of a capable storyteller, and not some hack.
You may not like the story in the end, but at the very least, it’s a story you won’t hear anywhere else.

(Fay Grim OS courtesy of empiremovies.com.)

THE

MESSENGERS

(Review)

I’ve never been the biggest fan of Gin Gwai (The Eye). Though it does have its share of stand-out creepy moments, as a whole I felt it didn’t quite reach the high mark of the best horror films out there, Asian or otherwise.
I did however think the Pang brothers were directors to watch out for. But when I saw Sei Mong Se Jun (Ab-Normal Beauty, directed by Oxide), I thought it was clumsy and terribly derivative of Alejandro Amenabar’s Tesis. So, strike two. Not very promising.
And yet, when I first heard of their English-language debut, The Messengers, under Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures, I couldn’t help but feel a rush of anticipation. (I have really cut these guys some slack, haven’t I?)

Roy (The Practice’s Dylan McDermott) and Denise Solomon (The Relic’s Penelope Ann Miller) move out to North Dakota, leaving Chicago behind for a fresh start on what will hopefully be a successful sunflower farm. In tow are their troubled teen-aged daughter Jess (Panic Room’s Kristen Stewart) and Ben (played by Evan and Theodore Turner), who hasn’t spoken for six months due to an accident involving Jess.
Naturally, as is wont to happen in this sort of film, strange happenings soon begin to occur, and it quickly becomes clear (to the audience, if not his parents) that Ben can see things the adults can’t. Unable (or unwilling) to speak though, all Ben can do is point, giggle, and crane his neck and look up at the ceiling.
One offer to buy the farm (made by none other than The X-Files’ Cigarette Smoking Man, William B. Davis) and one farmhand (Northern Exposure’s John Corbett) later, the farm’s troubled spirits make themselves known to Jess as well (in a violent overture which occurs while the adults are absent).
But her parents don’t believe her, so it’s up to Jess to get to the bottom of their new home’s mystery.

Certainly not a new premise; we’ve all seen the family moving in to the new, but ultimately haunted house before. But the Pangs line up the scares well, and are working with a script that does its best to give us a real family, with real problems. When the fit hits the shan in horror movies of this sort, I’m immediately hollering, “Well, get the ef outta there! Screw the house!”
But the Solomons really just can’t up and leave. For one thing, they don’t believe Jess (who they may still subconsciously blame for Ben’s condition). Then there’s the fact that they’re basically broke (since Roy was out of work for a pretty long time, and then there were all Ben’s hospital bills).
The Messengers actually has characters, as opposed to the ciphers that normally populate horror films. They may not be awfully complex, but they’re certainly not one-dimensional. It’s apparent that the parents are trying to get through to their daughter, just as she eventually comes around to doing, only to have those pesky ghosts ruin everything.

Where The Messengers fails though, is in its third act.
When the other shoe drops, and the secret reveals itself, it’s a “secret” that any savvy horror film fan would have clocked the second it came onscreen. To make matters worse, the script contrives to have one family member absent when said shoe drops, sadly compromising that character’s contributions to the proceedings.
And if this was the shoe to begin with, you’d think the ghosts would have been just a little more active than they actually were.
You also know that Ben’s gonna start spouting off before this movie ends. Personally, I just expected it to be during some pivotal scene where his speaking would actually have had dramatic weight. But no.

There are any number of reasons why this film didn’t work, among them, the possibility that there were individuals other than the Pangs who ended up muddying the cinematic waters.
In an interview, McDermott mentions, “… they brought in writer after writer to polish it up and make it better.” Re-shoots were then done (not by the Pangs, but by Eduardo Rodriguez, who directed Curandero, from a Robert Rodriguez script). Raimi was then active in postproduction, apparently in the editing room.
At this point, I’ve probably already crossed over into the Never-Never Land of Speculation, so I’ll just leave it at that.
What remains though is a film that, like Gin Gwai, just doesn’t work in the end. Granted, it has its moments, and it’s a lot better than a lot of the horror coming out of Hollywood’s posterior these days, but it’s far from a classic.
Now perhaps if Raimi ponies up the money to finance a script written by the Pangs themselves, then leaves them to their devices, then we might get cooking.

Parting shot: I am saddened to report to all those still unaware, that the English language remake of Gin Gwai currently filming has Jessica Alba in the lead role. At least Parker Posey’s in there, so I’m happy.

(The Messengers OS courtesy of wildaboutmovies.com.)

(Originally posted 021707)