Catching Up On The Classics: The Changeling (1980)

Ugh. I really need my blogger mojo back. I always intended for this blog thing to be more than just a one or two post a week thing but seriously, lately I've lost my mojo. Hopefully I'll get it back over the next few days. The Changeling is a great movie so it's helped me get going again. Yea!

George C. Scott is John Russell, a professional composer who tries to get away from the grief caused by the death of his wife and daughter by renting a huge, isolated mansion in Seattle. The house hasn't been occupied in several years and John starts to figure out why as he experiences strange happenings in the house. Turns out it is haunted by the ghost of a young boy who died there and John works to find out the truth of what happened to him.

I sort of miss "adult" horror films like this, where actual adults are the protagonists and they are smart and capable of doing what needs to be done in the situation. Movies full of teens and twentysomethings chosen only for their looks seem to be the norm these days and most of them are just fine, but a different set of characters like this is a real breath of fresh air. Here we have a fantastic actor like George C. Scott in the lead role and he is both believable and sympathetic in his role as a broken man who is truly affected by the death of the boy in his new house.

The story, or the mystery, of this movie is what really drives it and makes it interesting. This is not just a ghost story where a person gets haunted, finds out who the dead person is, solves the mystery, and everything is hunky dory. This story is much different with the explanation of what "the changeling" means and how it relates to our ghost. It's a twisted story in that it is hard to tell who is really the bad guy and the person whom we're supposed to believe is the bad guy - the Senator - turns out to be the one with the real moral crisis at the end.

There are a few key scare moments in The Changeling which make it quite stand-out. The ghostly disturbances start out small - doors opening by themselves, loud banging noises at the same time every day - but that's the kind of thing I like about ghost movies (did I mention lately how much I love ghost stories?). It's those subtle, unnatural occurrences that make for a truly creepy atmosphere and is what scares me a helluva lot more than the common horror film villains and the things they do.

The best scene of the movie is probably the seance and the scene following it. The medium is creepy as crap, especially her voice. Her blank face with eyes unblinking and facing upward is enhanced by her monotone voice as it asks questions of the ghost in the house - asking it to identify itself and tell its story. "What is your name?" "Did you die in this house?" Automatic writing reveals the answers. Joseph is the name of the boy who died in the house and he wants to talk to John. Joseph attaches to John supposedly because he identifies with John's grief over his dead wife and child or believes that John will be more sympathetic to his story because of his love for his own child.

Perhaps more scary than the seance scene itself is the scene where John is playing back the tape made during the seance. We hear all the medium's same questions but as the tape is playing we hear something not heard during the seance - a child's voice whispering the answers and revealing cryptic clues about his death. Seriously, this part freaked me out! It was an unexpected turn of events and had me completely sucked into the story, wanting to find out more.

The Chessman House, or whatever it is known as in real life, was made to be in a movie like this. Lots of doors, lots of open spaces, but also lots of places for hiding and secret rooms. It is ornate and antique-y and immediately puts you in the "old haunted house" mood especially after the discovery of the secret room in the attic. This brings about probably the most famous part about the movie - Joseph's small wheelchair and how it later chases Claire Norman around the house and down the stairs. An empty wheelchair coming after you in a creepy old house? NOT COOL. But a very effective and amazing scene that also leads up to a stellar climax. With fire. Fire is always good.

The Changeling is a very awesome classic haunted house tale with superb actors and a unique story, not to mention some great specific scenes that are still inspirational to movies today.

Movie Review: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)

Alright, y'all, it's time to get down to brass tacks about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I am one of the biggest fans of the Buffy TV show EVER. Seen every episode so many GD times it's hard to count. I love Joss Whedon and his other TV shows (well except Dollhouse, I could never really get into that even though I have a mad girl-crush on Eliza Dushku). I also know that he and most of his fans have perhaps never been too pleased with the original film that the show is based on. Me... I've actually always loved the movie for what it turned out to be and see it as separate from the show.

Vamp plot: Buffy (Kristy Swanson) is a vapid L.A. girl whose life revolves around cheerleading and shopping. Her priorities are almost nil until she's visited one day by a strange man named Merrick (Donald Sutherland) who tells her that she is the next in a long line of girls chosen to hunt and kill vampires - the slayer. But she better be ready to accept her fate, because the vampire king Lothos (Rutger Hauer) is in town and he's coming after her.

Buffy was different from other vampire movies. No longer was the girl the victim, helpless against the blood-suckers. She was the fighter, the one protecting the men, the one person in the world who had the strength and skill to kill vampires. This slayer in particular, Buffy, has her own life and her own way of doing things. She has the confidence and the cajones to be herself and live up to her birthright which in a weird way makes her a good role model. Van Helsing this girl is NOT.

This movie has an amazing cast, if only because of the careers these people would have or had, with maybe the exception of Kristy Swanson, whose other roles I can't immediately recall. I mean here we have Donald Sutherland, Rutger Hauer, Luke Perry, David Arquette, Hilary Swank, Paul Ruebens, Natasha Gregson Wagner, and even Ricki Lake and Ben Affleck in two small and uncredited roles.

As a teen comedy (maybe with a little romance thrown in there) the movie is successful. Quirky one-liners and pop culture references abound, all very quotable, of course. The comedy is perhaps dated - okay, it's A LOT dated ("Get out of my facial!" "What's the sitch?") but fans of Joss Whedon can probably still immediately recognize his signature wit and other crazy use of the English language.

There is nothing particularly genius or well done about the camera work or effects or anything. It's all what you would expect from a campy teen comedy with vampires, including the super-cheesy smoke/fog effect which I absolutely HATE. It doesn't look real, people, so please retire that ridiculous fog machine, it's really unnecessary.

The look of the vamps is straightforward: mostly human-looking save for the pointy teeth (which on some of them looks way too big for their mouths) and pointy ears. Rutger Hauer as Lothos perhaps acts a bit overly - I think Joss even called his performance ridiculous and goofy - but I found the fight sequences one of the biggest disappointments. Buffy is not nearly as strong as she should be and the choreography is sloppy.

Kristy Swanson pulls off the title role well, both as a vacuous Valley girl and as a young woman with new, enormous responsibilities. She has spunk and vulnerability at the same time. Luke Perry is okay, nothing different than what you remember from 90210, probably. Donald Sutherland is, well... he's Donald Sutherland. And he's got some great moments of comedy and suave in this movie. The best part is when he's talking to Buffy in the locker room right before he throws the knife at her and he does this weird move where he flicks up the ends of his mustache with his fingertips. I kinda loved that. Paul Ruebens as Lothos's sidekick Amilyn is the next biggest highlight, for while he's quite creepy looking as a vampire, he is also amazingly hilarious.

So I'm sorry, Joss Whedon, I love you and all but you can be a real prick when you talk about how much you hate this movie. From the ideas that were eventually explored on the TV show, I can see what you really had in mind for this movie to mean and it just didn't get there. I see that, I really do. But hindsight is 20-20, darling, and the Buffy the Vampire Slayer actually turned out to be a great jumping off point for the art you really wanted to make so why can't you accept the film for what it is and how it represents the time? It started a great tradition and a fantastic TV show, so seriously, quit your bitching. The movie is hilarious and PeeWee Herman is a one-armed vampire with hair like the dudes from Poison. I like it, and gosh darn it, I'm going to keep liking it for the rest of my life probably.

Movie Review: Dead End (2003)

I always put these random movies in my queue after reading the description once and thinking, "Meh, this sounds interesting. I'll save it and watch it later." Then I keep skipping it over when I'm looking for a movie to watch because I'm so sure that it's not going to be as good as I hope. Well, today I finally decided to give Dead End a chance. And holy guacamole, it seriously wasn't that bad. I really liked it.

The plot maze: A family driving to grandmother's house for Christmas encounter a strange woman on an isolated road when dad decides to take a shortcut. But that's just the beginning of their problems as the road they are on seemingly goes on forever and a doomsday black car starts to mean death for all of them.

There are many things about this movie that make it similar to other movies you've probably already seen, but then there are a few things that really set it apart from those other movies at the same time. The actors are quite fantastic in their roles and there are episodes of dark humor that make parts of this movie more enjoyable than they probably should be.

The film is both character driven and plot driven, but while you're wrapping your head around the crazy plot, you're also enjoying the craziness of this family. First there's Frank, the father, who is not comfortable going to his wife's, Laura, mother's for Christmas and who gets stuck driving on this crappy road for most of the movie. The kids are Marion and Richard. Richard is a hard-rock-listening-to, pot-smoking teenager with a heart of gold. Marion is an aspiring psychiatrist or psychologist traveling with her possibly gay boyfriend, Brad. Brad's not really that popular with anybody so thank goodness he dies pretty quick.

Lin Shaye as Laura is perhaps the highlight of Dead End, for she is amazing in this piece. The timing of her humor, especially in the darkest moments, are hysterical to watch. Her shining moment is of course after the discovery of Richard's dead body. When Frank and Marion get back in the car, Laura is in the back seat, scarfing down a whole pie with her bare hands. She then makes a stick drawing for Marion of her boyfriend's dead body. Hi-larious.

As for the gore, there's really not much to talk about here at all. And for this movie, that works. Okay, I was a little disappointed at not being able to see the supposedly mutilated body of Brad, the first victim, but the reaction from the actors and Brad's bloody ear pretty much tell you all you need to know. There's also an interesting moment where the Lady in White bites off Richard's lip but nothing else aside from that.

Oh wait, no, I forgot! Let's just say that rubbing your own brain through a bullet wound is NOT COOL. And I leave it at that.

Can you even see this picture? It's really dark, yeah?

The setting is rightfully spooky, and the endless darkness of the night along with the seemingly endlessness of this road they are make for a great atmosphere. Strangely the film feels a little claustrophobic at times too. The filmmakers include several shots throughout the film of the single, straight, lonely road completely surrounded by dense forest and other than that, most of the movie takes place either inside the car or very close to it on the outside. As many times as they stop and as far as they go down the road, still nothing changes. The scenery is monotonous and closes our characters in on themselves.

Maybe viewers can catch on to the "twist" ending before it is revealed but there are a few theories to think about. A lot of the synopses I read about the movie make it seem more about the patriarch of the family, Frank, but by the end, I'm thinking maybe the movie is about Marion. Spoilers abound here, as usual, so brace yourself. So we find out that the whole family actually died in the car when the father falls asleep at the wheel and almost hits another car - all except Marion. Turns out they actually DID hit the car and the rest of the movie is a dream or a vision or some other kind of supernatural shit. I haven't actually seen Carnival of Souls yet (I KNOW, I KNOW, it's in my queue and I'll get to it soon) but I know the story and I'm thinking there are definite references or inspirations from that here.

But the rub against that theory is that Marion is not dead at the end. It still must have been some kind of dream of hers, though, because once they notice the sign indicating they are heading for Marcott, that becomes the real driving force behind their actions. Marcott ends up being the name of the doctor treating Marion at the hospital. So if Marion can get through this crazy ride or dream, losing her family along the way, yes, then she will finally get out of this and end up at Marcott, where she will maybe be safe. Does that make sense? I don't know. It makes sense in my head.

Dead End is a fantastic reminder of how a simple story and well paced story with fun characters can make for a most enjoyable horror movie. See it!

(Sort of) Holiday Horror: Graduation Day (1981)

After movies like Halloween and Friday the 13th were introduced to the world, it seemed like every holiday or otherwise special day (birthday, prom... you get it) was up for grabs to be made into a horror film. Some were pretty good, others boringly bad. Graduation Day is one of the bad ones.

The movie begins with several badly composed shots of high school kids competing in a track meet. This culminates in one girl, Laura, from our home team crossing the finish line first - and then dropping dead of a blood clot. Not too long later, it is almost graduation day for the rest of Laura's team and her sister Anne comes back into town for the ceremony. But before the big day, several team members are systematically hunted down and killed.

To put it straight to you, I didn't like this movie. At all. It's like super ultra low budget, has the typical cheesy acting like most of these movies have, and the kill quotient barely even registers on my enjoyability scale. Usually there's some element about these movies that makes it fun to watch but with this one I was just counting the minutes until it was over.

The wannabe-editor in me had huge problems with this movie. The first scene that plays with the credits, where Laura dies during the race, has more cuts and edits than any one film should have in its entire duration.

Almost worse than the short-attention-span editing is how some of the cuts make our characters like Superman. In one shot, somebody is behind a door in the locker room and in the next one, he is crouched by the bench IN the locker room. Dang, that was one mad dash. Later on, when Anne is running from the killer (whoops, gave it away, she's not the killer - oh well) and ends up at the high school track, they make it a point to have an aerial shot of the track, showing that nobody is even close to  Anne when she finally collapses on the steps. Then, a few seconds later, the killer is right there! Holy shit, he really is Superman!

Sidenote: I'm not believing that Anne could get so winded when she wasn't running for that long. She's in the military. Shouldn't those people be able to run for days or something without even breaking a sweat?

Despite the crazy editing, the film feels unbelievably boring and drawn out. Just about the time I felt like this crap had gone on long enough, I checked how much longer I had to put up with it and found out that there were still 34 minutes left. Oi.

The kills are lackluster. You've seen it before, you'll see it again. A couple stabbings and impalings, all with hardly a drop of blood or any kind of scare moment before the killer strikes. The only good kill was on the guy who was practicing pole vaulting and landed on a crash pad full of spikes. That one was nice. What also kind of irked me about the death scenes was the fact that all the actors playing dead bodies really sucked. They were all BREATHING! You can't hold your breath for five seconds while they get the dang shot?!

The music in this movie - along with being performed by people who were probably tone deaf - was oftentimes far too loud. Having to turn the volume down for those scenes and then back up for the next scenes where people were actually talking was very annoying. This problem is the worst in the chase scene that is interspersed with shots of people rollerskating and some really whacked out band performing. Nothing can be heard from the actors in the chase part and I get the intent with this editing choice - juxtaposition and all that jazz - but I've rarely seen the technique executed so badly. Shame.

Sorry to any die-hard Graduation Day lovers out there, but there was nothing about this movie that I found even the least bit enjoyable.

Holiday Horror: Santa's Slay (2005)

Whoa. What in the HELL did I just watch? Santa's Slay is a Canadian horror comedy that is full of "yuletide fear" as Santa Claus wreaks havoc in a place called Hell Township. Oh, dear goodness, what have we gotten ourselves into with this movie?

So Santa is not the lovable character we all know and love. Apparently, Santa was the result of another virgin birth in history - that of a young woman and Satan. Yes, SATAN = SANTA, get it? But 1,000 years this day on Christmas Eve, Santa lost a bet with an angel (decided by a curling match) and so he had to be nice guy for 1,000 years and give people presents and shit. Now he's back to kill everyone that's been naughty OR nice.

If you're still with the movie past the first scene, then you've made it pretty far. Actually this scene is kind of great only because of the actors that make an appearance. Here we have Chris Kattan from Saturday Night Live, Fran Drescher, Rebecca Gayheart, and... wait for this... JAMES CAAN. Santa (played by a celebrity as well - former pro wrestler Bill Goldberg) busts through the chimney and massacres the crap out of this family. All this introduces the insanely cheesy comedy and little bit too well choreographed fight scenes found in the rest of the movie.

I'm not sure if I can truly recommend this film at this point or not. I certainly had a good time watching it, in that "Oh my gosh, this is so ridiculous but at the same time kind of awesome" way, but the comedy element was almost too much. There is that fine line as we all know between comedy and horror and this movie was all comedy with only the slightest touch of the horror element.

The story centers around teenager Nicholas Yuleson (how many puns can we get into one name?) and his crazy grandfather who knows the truth about Santa Claus but no one believes him. Also along for the ride is young Mary "Mack" Mackenzie, Nicholas's friend and love interest. Nicholas gets stuck in middle of Santa's reign of terror and uses his knowledge from his grandfather to try to bring him down.

Of course, this movie has to have Santa killing people with all kinds of Christmas related objects. A man is strangled with wreath; a kid trying to rob Santa is stabbed in the eye with a candy cane; a woman is killed by a Christmas tree topper thrown like a ninja throwing star; a woman is drowned in egg nog; and Santa throws exploding presents out of his sleigh. A Jewish store owner is also stabbed in the neck with a menorah. One of the funniest moments I thought, though, was when Santa goes to a strip club to kill a whole mess of people, and actually sprays and wipes down the stripper pole before ripping it out and using it to kill a guy.

There are a lot of kills in a lot of inventive ways but no gore and almost no blood. Kind of a disappointment. But like I said, Santa's Slay is not so much about the horror but the comedy.

And also, just as you'd expect, Santa - and in fact the whole cast - spouts off more Christmas related one-liners than I thought was humanly possibly. Pretty much every well-known Christmas phrase or lines from Christmas movies are used as puns or as a Freddy Krueger like one-liner said before someone is killed. Some of the jokes were kind of funny... others just something to scoff at and go, "REALLY? You're using THAT as a joke?"

So, I guess Santa's Slay is a fun movie that enjoys its own ridiculousness. Not the best movie ever, but I doubt you'd be able to say that about any movie that has Santa as a crazed, non-discriminatory killer. Well, maybe Silent Night, Deadly Night... but at least Santa wasn't played by a WWF guy in that movie.

Movie Review: Amusement (2008)

If anybody were to ever ask me (and I doubt anybody would, but let's just say for the purposes of this post) how you could ever like a film that has a lot of plot holes, I would tell them to go watch this film, Amusement. Because although I enjoyed most of the movie, stopping to think about some of the sequences will really blow your mind about how much it doesn't make sense.

So the plot description given on Netflix is incredibly misleading. Let me try to write one: Three young women are separately stalked and attacked by a crazed killer. One apparently survives and finds out that the man targeted all of them is pretty insane, and holds a deep childhood grudge against them all.

In a way, the film resembles an anthology for the first part - and a pretty damn good one, actually - but by the last third when the core of the movie is revealed, it goes off in a crazy direction.

The movie starts off very well with the story of the first girl, Shelby. She and her boyfriend are on a road trip to Cincinnati and on the road, they start a little convoy of their own with a trucker and another man traveling with his family. When they all stop at a gas station, Shelby notices a dirty and scared woman in the truck and things go downhill when the trucker leads them on a "shortcut" around the interstate.

It sounds like a story ripped from other films like The Hitcher or something, but this movie actually takes the story to a couple different places that even I didn't expect. There's a few really good twists that you can kinda guess as soon as the situation changes but they're still fun to watch. The visibly absent kids, the girl falling from the truck, trying to figure out which one of the guys is the creepy one - it's all woven together in a highly enjoyable way.

The next story is Tabitha. She arrives at a house where her little cousins or nephews, I can't remember, are supposedly being watched by a babysitter, but she has left early (OR HAS SHE???). So now we have the typical story of a young girl in house babysitting on a stormy night. A stranger shows up saying he's looking for the first babysitter, but his face is covered by a hood, which is not in the least bit suspect to Tabitha. Okay, so she's an idiot. The room she sleeps in is the scariest room in the world because it is covered wall-to-wall with clown dolls - including a life-sized doll that sits in a rocking chair.

See where this is going yet? Isn't there one of those urban legends where a babysitter says she covers up a scary life-size doll with a sheet but when the homeowners call and she mentions the doll they're all like, "We don't have a doll like that! Get out of the house!" because the doll is a killer? Yeah, that's what we have here. But again, as cliche as the general situation of this story is, it is still well executed in this film. The pacing is right on the money and milks every bit of creepiness it can from the situation. Clown dolls are always good for creepiness, and this is no exception.

Now Lisa's story is completely nuts. She's out with her roommate one night who goes home with a guy but the roommate isn't home the next day so Lisa and her boyfriend go to the hotel where they stayed the previous night and the hotel is old and creepy and the guy that answers the door is a nutjob and some really wacky shit ensues. Whew.

This part of the "anthology" wasn't my favorite. The man in the hotel (who is obviously the man from all the stories) had all these crazy contraptions in it and a pretty elaborate set up - very unbelievable when you find out just who the killer is. The set for the last part of the film is also a very elaborate labyrinth of huge hallways and rooms reminiscent of the Saw films. All of this happens to be UNDERNEATH the little wooden shack from the first story.

This is where the complete unbelievability of the entire story comes into play. There are not just plot holes in Amusement, there are giant chasms and canyons of plot holes. It's perhaps too much to explain in a review, but if you ever watch this movie, count the number of times you find yourself going, "Wait, how did he... Why didn't she... How is that... ?" At the same time however, Amusement is still actually a fairly good movie for what it is. Individual sequences are almost expertly executed and quite enjoyable. It is only when the whole movie is pulled back from you and everything comes together does it seem implausible and almost ridiculous. Would definitely recommend it, but would also recommend that the screenwriter spend a little bit more time and thought on his next project.