Tell Tale

TITLE: Tell Tale

RELEASE DATE: 2009

SCORE: 2.5 out of 4

This is a fairly dull, lifeless effort by Director Michael Cuesta and Writer Dave Callaham. It amounts to little more than a textbook rendition of the old "transplanted organ takes over life of transplantee" trope. Basically a man is given a heart transplant, but the donor was killed by an elaborate conspiracy and the man with the heart now is compelled to seek them out and kill them.

Seems like good fodder for a horror film, right? Except there are like four dudes and there's a ton of screen time taken up by scenes between the guy, his lady friend and some kind of daughter surrogate girl character -- maybe his actual daughter, who knows -- very little was thoroughly explained and all the dialogue was muttered to give it that "gloomy" feeling.

I have to give it points because it was stylistically shot well and the editing and everything was very professional. There are a lot of hospital shots that are well done and add to the atmosphere very nicely. The dialogue and acting were well done as well. I suppose it wasn't torture to sit through, but I thought it was rather boring and played-out.

Quick Bites

Here are some movies I've seen in the past I didn't really bother to write full reviews up for:


Book of Blood (2008) - I thought this was very weak and really had terrible pacing. The editing was very odd and the overlong ending is ridiculous. I 'm giving it a: 1.5 out of 4 


Spider (2002) - This was like a half an hour of story dragged out to more than two. This is not Cronenberg's best by far. 2 out of 4.


For Sale By Owner (2009) - I'm not sure. I vacillated between not liking this movie and thinking it was fairly ok. It was enigmatic enough to probably deserve a second viewing. 2.5 out of 4.

More new film reviews coming up soon, I promise!

The Thaw

TITLE: The Thaw
RELEASE DATE: 2009
SCORE: 4 out of 4

My first perfect score goes to the best horror film I've seen all year and possibly longer. It is simultaneously bleak and inspiring, its level of suspense, squick, angersome blood is intense -- those with hypertension beware. The Earth is thawing out -- and some very old things are waking up.

If you are afraid of bugs and/or disease, this movie should do a fairly good job of completely scaring the shit out of you. My hats off to the Lewis Brothers for a fine production -- rarely a forced line or moment lacking realism, and the shock and awe tactic of barraging the audience with a digital-media channel surf (complete with buffering) is clearly a homage to Romero but is done so amazingly well I had the tendency to forget it was fake.

Once the movie gets full steam ahead it never lets up, and it doesn't disappoint. From egg sacs in flesh to thousands of bugs devouring a corpse in a gigantic frenzy -- the imagery will stick with you. I dare not give to much about the plot away save those tantalizing clues. The film revolves around the concept of unforeseen consequences, in many ways. Its not just industrialization that will sting you in the ass but unprotected sex, not following lab protocol to the letter, not being paranoid enough...

Secondarily it focuses on the validity of ecoterrorism and thus on a broader scale the use of political terror in general.

And on a subtler note - perhaps the explicit theme is reinforced by the level of care put into this movie to make you squirm and scream. Is terror the only cure for nihilism? While the ending monologue cares to differ; me - I'm not so sure.

If terror it must be, then long live the guillotine!

Dismal

TITLE: Dismal
RELEASE DATE: 2009
SCORE: 0 out of 4

Dismal is an apt title for this horrible waste of (digital) film. You would think that after 5 different Texas Chainsaw Massacres, 2 different Hills Have Eyes and 1 Deliverance, the makers of this here movie would realize that crazy hick cannibal/torturers is worn quite thin as a theme for a thriller.

Apparently director Gary King felt he could add something to the subgenre. Unfortunately, he was quite wrong - he's a terrible director and I have no idea why he has a career in film. If he wants to vomit forth worthless rehashings perhaps he should try and get a job as a bulimic at Denny's.

The surprise twist seen from a mile away, the completely god awful cg effects (Quadrahelix should close up shop doors as their "FX" are utter shit), the obnoxious characters I was glad to see killed, major plot holes (the cell phones don't get service, until suddenly they do!), and editing that equals the skill required to make a youtube poop -- these all chalk up to one thing: one worthless fucking film.

The first half of the movie appears to be a study in exactly how annoying you can make stock "to be killed" college kid characters, and the second half is a less-than-tepid deep-south gorefest that is about as thrilling as a long wait in the DMV line. If you've ever seen even one horror movie in your life you can predict exactly what will happen moment by moment. Actually, the DMV line is even more unpredictable than this film -- sometimes it moves faster than you ancticipated!

No, "dismal" is actually too nice of a term to describe this movie - something like "road apple" or "used condom" is a better descriptor of what to expect from this film.

The Dunwich Horror

Title: The Dunwich Horror
Release Date: August, 2009
Score: 2 out of 4

This is not a good film. This is a very poorly edited mess of footage, consisting mainly of either a very poorly executed flashback and/or apparition plotline and a contemporaneous present-day plotline, the main one we're supposed to be following, I guess -- they seem to merge -- or do they??? Wooouhouhhgh!

It follows the major plotline of the story by H.P. Lovecraft to more or less a fair bit, and the script is peppered with enough Cthulhuh mythos lore to keep avid Lovecraft fans fairly engaged.

That's really all I can say about it with any due diligence. The sets were atrocious, costuming, make-up -- the entire production seemed willfully careless towards any sense of verisimilitude. Almost all aspects of the film appeared as though a small high school drama team were required to furnish everything for a whole 90 minute film, yet the acting unfortunately did not aspire even to secondary education level heights.

The movie was heavily bogged down in a formulaic rhythm of terrible and garish melodrama, followed by staid academic potboiler, it seemed to go on for hours with little to no regard for standard or even any entertaining style of pacing.

The film is thoroughly lacking and yet it delivers too much of a bad thing: a cheapened and whorish docudrama-like rendering of the backstory of the tale, executed by z-grade actors in laughably bad performances.

I would give it a 1, but, unlike so many tangentially Lovecraft-related films of recent day, the screenplay is much more closely aligned with its source material, so it gets bonus points for not butchering a great story.

If you feel the need to suffer through every film someone makes based on a Lovecraft story, I suppose you'd better watch this. Otherwise, this is not a portal you need enter.

PS: I could not locate any poster art for this film.

Return to Sleepaway Camp

TITLE: Return to Sleepaway Camp
RELEASE DATE: 2008
SCORE: 2 out of 4

Daaamn! Issac Hayes is looking good these days. I mean, physically. His role in this movie isn't exactly a stretch: he plays "Charlie, the Chef" at a summer camp full of many types of kids: psychotic, deranged, evil, candy-assed, prepppy, homicidal... the usual range. Most of the supporting cast are really bad actors, however, and it leaves an artificial taste in the mouth. I think they even fucking overdubbed the live talking parrot.

Fortunately suspenseful deaths and mystery soon visits the otherwise obnoxious din of badly written teen dialogue. The death scenes are fairly clever and there are nice subtle touches to some shots. However the cinematography in general is lackluster and does little to conceal the constraints of the film's budget. The producers of this movie, as Hayes' character in this film would say, appear to be "tight-ass motherfuckas."

I like the obvious Satanist Teen in the popular clique. He really makes this movie for me. Although he should have been wearing an Ankh. Also weird lines like "Its weed, Shmeckel!" were interesting amusements. Schmeckel? WTF?!? No one who says things like "Lets fuckin' smoke weeeed" also uses words such as "Schmeckel," I'm pretty damned sure about that, mothafuckas.

However the film does posit a fundamental and essential question:
"How many joints can we smoke in one night?"

The world may never know...

This supposed sequel to Sleepaway Camp is hard to peg. It revolves around the camp having a major hate-on towards one, horrible wretch of a camper named Alan. Sure, it starts out with the horseplay, but soon enough -- things get serious. And that's when knives and blood make a prominent appearance into the film. I enjoyed it fairly well; time will show if it ages into cult status, but I doubt it. The lack of any actually humorous scenes generally precludes entry into the category. While most of the actors who played campers were vapid insipid cunts playing vapid insipid cunts, there were a few glimmers of real potential amongst the cast. Lindsey Hiltzi ("Toby") is especially good for a complete unknown.

Unfortunately this movie is more than just a bit lackluster. They should turn it into a franchise where Angela goes from summer camp to summer camp just knocking off bullies for a bit of the ol' revenge fantasy ultraviolence. Perhaps this film is the possible set up to that scenario...

As it stands, however, this movie feels way too long and the dialogue is just atrocious. And c'mon, the yget Issac Hayes to actually play a fucking chef and he gets like 3 minutes of screen time?! WTF?! Come back with Sleepaway camp that's not so sleepy!

The Haunting In Connecticut

Title: The Haunting in Connecticut
Release Date: 2009
Score: 2 out of 4

This film is blighted by Hollywood necessity, brought on by a distinct choice to develop the screenplay for this too closely to the statements of the family members describing the events.

The Hollywood neccessity is to provide tractable film space in which to cram about three different films and a multitude of themes, which of course left for shoddy development of the themes, and lengths of plot and action which seem to include either "yearning/struggling" scenes far too often and in a perversely extensive length or exposition given much less time than its relative importance seemed to dictate.

It also didn't help that it was a completely modern shoot that is ostensibly a mid-80's period piece. It seems like the costuming and set design departments pegged 2007 instead of 1987.

This film is a failure on many levels, but it does deliver haunted house frights, even though they are eventually overshadowed by a bunch of dumb shit that happens, and the transmutation of the film from a haunted house flick into what is basically a "special/magic/gifted child must fight an evil no one else can face" type of movie.

Let's face it, Hollywood has no idea how to make a scary movie anymore. If they had stuck to one concept they could have had a good shot. But no, this isn't just a movie about a haunted house full of creepy thrills and jumps. It has to be a discussion of religious experience, and of course a film about the suffering of a dysfunctional family -- which never really reaches any kind of frightening heights in tension or suspense. There is, in a way, a lack of "infernal piping" that drives the dynamics of the family into insanity -- they remain sub-acute, with minor ridiculous outbursts, which rather than crackle with uncomfortable waves of mania, merely the stretch credulity of viewer.

Oh yeah and its also about alienation, loneliness, honesty. Its also a historical true crime thriller. And did I mention a commentary on the obliteration of family due to overconsumption and an economy of debt? I guess that was a huge issue in the fucking mid-80's!

Anyway, this film really has no idea what is wants to be. It is mediocre and jumbled, yet also full of tiresomely slow-moving filler which apparently are supposed to contain "pathos." It has a few cheap scares and as a fairly mind-numbing supernatural mystery adventure it isn't actually terrible, but it is not what it purports to be -- A fucking Haunted House movie!

Its certainly no Amityville Horror (the 1979 film based on the book by Jane Anson, of course). Do yourself a favor and just rent that instead.