Movie Review: Scream 4 (2011)

Fresh from the theater, my mind is always a tangled web of thoughts and emotions. Therefore, my "review" for Scream 4 will consist of the random thoughts and impressions that have been popping into my head since I left. Yeah yeah, spoilers and all that. Don't I always have spoilers?

- Okay, first things first. The ending pissed me off. Do I even have to explain it? Lame killer reveal and even lamer killer motive. I know, I know. "New decade. New rules." But I was really expecting this movie  to actually be about the main characters/survivors from all the other Scream movies but this one was all over the place. The new characters definitely mimicked ones from the first film, I totally caught on to that, but it still felt weird.

- Most of the previous killers' motives have been really lame too. Or just stupid. Sidney's mom cheated with Billy's dad so Sidney had to pay? Not fair. The only killer with an actual good motive (not that there's really any good motive for mass murder) was Billy's mom. Revenge for the death of her son, caused by Sidney. Stu was a crazy idiot, Mickey was also a crazy idiot, and Roman was a pathetic whiner.

- Going to the beginning of the movie - loved that. For shizz y'all, it pulled me in. The double false start was pretty much a genius move. I think Kevin Williamson knew that everybody was expecting a scene similar to Drew Barrymore's in the first Scream for this movie's opening scene so he decided to totally fuck with our minds but in an awesome way. Thanks, Kevin.

- Hayden Pants-a-lot or whatever her name is wasn't that bad. Secretly, I got a kick out of when she started reeling off the names of horror remakes. I'm pretty sure I was the only one in the theater who has actually seen all of the ones she listed. Oh and by the way, to the giggling teenage girls behind me - FUCK YOU. Fuck you and your skinny jeans and braces and SHUT THE FUCK UP.

- The killer's taunts to the victims on the phone were often, well.... not that great. Something he said to Sidney about slicing up her eyelids got quite a big laugh from the audience I was with. Including me.

- Did I ever mention how much I love the killer's knife in these movies? Well, I love the knife. It's just cool looking, that's all. Shiny.

- Biggest laugh scene in the movie: Cop stabbed in the forehead. I don't know why everyone else was laughing at this scene, but I was laughing because it took him so long to die after getting STABBED IN THE FOREHEAD. If my biology knowledge is correct, your brain is kind of right behind your forehead. I just thought that getting stabbed in the brain would cause you to die almost instantly. Maybe I'm wrong.

- The "movie club" I joined in college was retarded. I needed friends like the ones in the Cinema Club in this movie. Well, you know, except for the one who was a killer.

- Neve Campbell and Courtney Cox-Arquette-minus-the-Arquette are actually way hotter than all the teenage girls in the movie. I know I'm not the only one thinking it.

- A lot of characters. A lot of red herrings. Then the red herrings start getting killed off and we're left with the least likely suspects.

- No, I never guessed who the killer(s) was (were). I tried to suspect everyone and Jill passed through my mind for about a second before I dismissed it as impossible. She's so little. I hope they don't expect us to believe that that skinny bitch was the big stuntman in the Ghostface costume. I'll just assume that the lackey Charlie did all the killing.

- Mmm, bloody aftermath of Olivia's death. Niiiice.

- Dewey's the sheriff now. Yea for him!

- Lots of scenes reminiscent of the first film. My favorite? The first aerial sweeping shot of Woodsboro High that is almost identical to the one in Scream and with similar music. But to reference the first film so much, does this mean that this is really the end? I've seen inklings around the net of more films to come, but seriously. The phrase "beating a dead horse" comes to mind.

- "There's something you forgot about remakes: Don't fuck with the original." Well said, Ms. Prescott. And how wittingly apropos of your current situation. I really liked that about Scream 4. It still kept up with what was "in" about the genre like the first film did. Back then we only knew about the dime a dozen slashers from the 80s and now the big thing is all about remakes. So the Scream franchise is still self-aware of its time and self-aware of the fact that it is self-aware. I'm still into all that. I love it.

- Does everyone in the world have a fucking iPhone besides me? You wanna know what my cell phone can do? It can make calls. And text. And take pictures and movies that I can't send to anyone because I don't pay for internet access. Now I have to have something that has a Ghostface voice app?

- Small word on the trailers I saw before Scream 4. On Priest, those vampires look a helluva lot like the Lickers in the Resident Evil games. On Apollo 18, are you fucking punking us with that shit??? Never thought I would see the day where we have a movie taking place on the moon. On the freaking moon, people.

- On second thought, if the iPhones actually had a Ghostface voice app, I would totally buy one just for that.

- No matter what I just said, I LOVED SCREAM 4.

Movie Review: Offspring (2009)

So after seeing the video of the guy freaking out at the screening of "The Woman" at Sundance and his six-minute tirade against it at some Sundance dude after getting kicked out, I REALLY WANT TO SEE "THE WOMAN." But that movie seems to have fallen into the strange, gaseous ether of movies that people hated at Sundance, and searching for a nationwide release date for it turns up bupkiss. Instead I turn my attention back to Offspring, the 2009 film version of Jack Ketchum's second novel about feral cannibal people living in the caves of Maine. I say I'm going back to it because I tried to watch it online once many months ago and it pooped out on me halfway through.

The sequel starts off with a grisly murder of three people by the children of the cannibal clan, which sets the local police and one harried ex-cop whose dealt with their damage before off on a mission to find the family and stop them for good. Meanwhile, David and Amy Halbard (a young couple with an infant daughter) and their houseguests Claire and young Luke must fight against the bloodthirsty killers, while also dealing with Claire's psycho soon-to-be ex-husband.

Of the movie-izations of Ketchum's novels that I've seen so far - Red, The Girl Next Door, The Lost, and Offspring - I honestly haven't been that impressed, with the exception of The Girl Next Door. But even that one, though it had great actors in the main roles, fell a little flat in some respects. I just feel like Ketchum's work has not gotten the treatment it deserves by movie standards. Is his work too disturbing? Gore is all over the place in movies nowadays but the underlying subject matter is perhaps what people can't handle about him.

The unrelenting gore and depravity is what makes this series of books famous and we can perhaps be thankful in that regard that Offspring wasn't optioned for a big budget film version. The filmmakers go all out in most of the scenes - dead babies, bloody torsos, beheading and brain-eating, a girl pulling a guy's intestines out of his stomach with her teeth - it's all here. These cannibals really enjoying killing their prey in the most gruesome ways, depicted to us in all the bloody glory the filmmakers can muster.

I'm a little - but not totally - put off by the look of the cannibals. With their crazy afro hair and dress that makes them look like aboriginal headhunters or something, it's a bit too on the nose. Why don't they just wear the clothes of the people they kill? How do they even know how to make their fur bikinis and crop tops? Also they speak in their own cave-people language which is funny, but if they were the descendants of lighthouse people or whatever, wouldn't they have known English and passed it on to the rest of the clan? Just sayin'.

As much as the original novel was pretty much short and to the point - cannibals, blood, gross torture, cannibals die - so then is this movie. We only get the bare minimum of backstory and characterization for David, Amy, Claire, and everybody else before all the crazy shit starts. Ketchum's other novels more character-driven, but this one and Off Season before it are definitely more situation-driven. It doesn't really matter who the victims are because the story is sort of not really about them. Sorry, but it's not. It's about the blood.

The acting choices are interesting. Not a single recognizable face and in fact, if you click on some of their names on IMDb, Offspring is their only credit. That tells you something right there. The portrayals are mediocre, not terrible and not great. The people playing the cannibals are the best thing about the movie (besides the part where Stephen's gets his head half cut off and the main chick starts munching on his brain) is how these guys go all out and really get their cannibal freak on.

See it if you love Jack Ketchum but even then, don't be expecting the greatest depiction of his classic stories of cannibals.

Sidenote: Jack Ketchum is an awesome guy. If you go to his website (www.jackketchum.net) and check out the message board, you can leave a message for Jack himself and, wait for it, HE'LL REPLY BACK TO YOU. I wrote him something about how much I liked The Girl Next Door and he wrote a nice little appreciative message back. Very cool, Jack, very cool indeed. And watch for his cameo in this movie as the EMS guy Max at the first crime scene in the beginning.

Self-Indulgent Birthday Post

Oh, what a fantastic day this is - if only to myself - for on this day, 26 years ago, at exactly 3:43 a.m., I came into this world.

Looks like I'll be going to Red Lobster with my family (SHUT UP! I freaking love their crab alfredo pasta) and reading Facebook posts from people I haven't talked to in five years.

I was actually going to post something more substantial but I didn't have time last night. So I'll just leave it at this: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

Movie Review: Waxwork (1988)

Waxwork is yet another movie about a wax museum. Much different than House of Wax, obviously, but a fun story and a good time to watch.

Mmmm, plot: A group of college students are invited to the exclusive opening of the Waxwork museum by the strange magician proprietor. The wax displays all contain iconic monsters and gruesome death scenes, and also have the power to transport the viewer to the world that they portray. If you are killed in the display, you die in real life and become a part of the display forever. When his friends go missing inside the displays, one of the kids is determined to find out the truth about the man who runs the place.

Waxwork is not a perfect movie, but it is totally off the chain. A completely rad, tubular horror comedy that could only have come out of the 80s. Indeed, this is one of the reasons I love that time period so much - exploitative horror was kind of  gone but sophisticated horror was yet to come. In between, we got movies like this. Which is awesome. I only wish I had been a teenager or something in that time so I could have grown up with all these movies, instead of crazily trying to play catch-up now in my 20s.

I wasn't really expecting that much gore or any real excitement from this movie, but most of it was a pleasant surprise. Some of the kills toward the end happen mostly offscreen - disappointing, yes, but there are some earlier scenes that are worth checking out. When China enters the world of the vampire, she eats raw meat at a banquet, and then stumbles upon the body of the victim used for dinner. He's tied to a table with most of the flesh from his legs missing. Yum. There's also people being ripped apart - always nice - and a midget being fed to a huge Little Shop of Horrors plant. You gotta love that.

Everybody's favorite part is probably the Night of the Living Dead scene. The main guy gets thrown into the zombie display and he's transported to a a black and white filmed cemetery, being chased by rotting zombies reminiscent of the classic film. The camera work is even like NOTLD, with lots of low angles and such that identify it.

There are tons of references to other horror films here that I really don't need to repeat them. Classic monsters abound, and there is also a cute little homage to the hand with a mind of its own from Evil Dead II. I only wish that we had gotten a better look at all the displays because I know I probably missed some good stuff. Only a few of the monsters and their displays are really highlighted and that's a bummer. I really wanted to see what was going on with the one where the guy has a gas pump shoved down a girl's throat.

What I don't get about the movie is Lincoln's whole set-up and plan for his wax museum. So the whole complicated story is this: Lincoln took some kind of trinket from 18 of the most evil people in the world from all different times in history, used them in his displays, and then needed another 18 people to go into them get killed and complete the displays. Once this was accomplished all of the evil people would come to life again and create chaos or whatever, which I guess is what he wanted.

What doesn't really make sense here (at least to me) is that his displays contain some known figures from history, like the Marquis de Sade, but most of them are fictional monsters, like vampires and werewolves. Although there have been movies that mix the monsters, I've always been of the pure mind that these monsters have their own worlds with their own rules and mythos. Not a big deal, though. Kinda weird however that Lincoln would consider a mummy one of the most evil people ever and not like, you know, Hitler or something.

The climax is fun and hilarious. The two main people whose names I can't remember decide to finally burn down the Waxworks and hopefully stop Lincoln's plan. They don't succeed before Lincoln can find two more victims, and all holy hell breaks loose when the monsters come to life. Wheelchair guy and a huge group of people storm in and they all get into a knock-down-drag-out that is freaking gut-busting.

David Warner as Lincoln was the only really recognizable face to me, only because he's in one of my favorite movies of all time, The Omen. Michelle Johnson as China looks vaguely familiar but I can't place her and it's going to bug me all day. There is the occasional cheesily delivered line but it all adds to what is an almost perfect combination of horror and comedy. The scene where the nerdy girl is being whipped by de Sade - and apparently really enjoying it - is a bit awkward and goes on for a bit too long. The girl playing Sarah is very good in this scene however. Wouldn't be surprised if she went on to have a great porn career after this.

Again, not the greatest movie, but it's still rad.

Let's all learn our ABCs!

Okay, I'm passing around the meme that I saw on The Horror Digest and From Midnight, With Love. It looked like fun, and I'm bored. Name whatever movie you want for each letter of the alphabet. My precisely alphabetized movie collection on my bookcase will no doubt come in handy here. I'm throwing in a lot of non-horror here because there are so many other movies that I love.

A is for The Abyss.

Mmmm. Love you, Abyss, love you to death!

B is for Black Snake Moan.

Maybe it's the sexy-ass jazz and blues music, but this movie is seriously hot.

C is for Casino.

I can watch this a million times in a row. 

D is for Dead and Breakfast.

America's answer to Shaun of the Dead. It's not as great, but it's still pretty great.

E is for The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

Underrated gem. 

F is for Free Willy.

SHUT UP! This movie rules and you know it.

G is for Gossip. 

Such a fantastic little indie film that almost no one has heard about. See it now!

H is for Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II. 

Ah, such beautiful childhood memories here.

I is for Incident On and Off a Mountain Road.

My favorite of all the Masters of Horror episodes.

J is for Jawbreaker.

A teen film like no other, and yet way better than all the others. My friends and I used to walk the "Jawbreaker Line" in the hallways at school.

K is for Kill Bill.

Needs no explanation.

L is for Labyrinth.

Mm, David Bowie's package. And Jennifer Connelly will forever be known as "the girl from Labyrinth," I don't care what other shit she's done.

M is for The Mist.

One of the best King adaptations.

N is for Needful Things.

Not the best King adaptation, but it was the first book of his that I ever read.

O is for The Omen.

Couldn't help it. I so love this movie.

P is for I want to say Poltergeist but instead I'll say 

The Professional.

Otherwise known as Leon, this Luc Besson film with Natalie Portman and Jean Reno is phenomenal. PHE-nomenal.

Q is for Quarantine.

Yeah, it's all I got.

R is for Rope.

Favorite Hitchcock film and helped inspire my tattoo.

S is for Stranger than Fiction.

Oh, I am such a girl when I watch this movie. I laugh, I cry, I have heartfelt feelings. Great movie.

T is for Tremors.

What else???

U is for Unfaithful.

I'd so fuck Diane Lane in a stairwell, too. Just give me the chance.

V is for V for Vendetta.

Yes! It rules. It. Just. Rules.

W is for Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?.

Awesome classic. You must see.

X is for X-Men.

We all love superheroes.

Y is for Young Frankenstein.

Mel Brooks deliciousness. Everybody loves this movie.

Z is for Zombieland.

I liked this so much more than I thought I would.