The Last Man on Earth

Remakes Make Me Crazy

2012-01-13T10:38:00.000-05:00

The Crazies (2010)

You'd be hard-pressed to find a serious horror fan who doesn't have a soft spot for George Romero. Say what you like about production value (and occasionally amateurish acting), but since 1968's Night of the Living Dead, Romero has often made thought-provoking and boundary-pushing horror (although the last few Living Dead films seem to be by rote). His surprisingly socially-conscious films tend to be stripped-down, gritty and personal accounts of ordinary individuals attempting to communicate and survive in extraordinary situations when the whole world has gone to hell.

Romero's films still stand up, and are simply not in need of a remake. That said, 1973's The Crazies could have done with a bit more money and a more experienced cast, so I was interested to see what director Ray Wright and remake specialist Scott Kosar would do with it. The verdict: a fun flick, good cast, some good suspense and a few worthy scares, but it just doesn't live up to the charm of its predecessor. The social commentary (subtle and backhanded though it may be) has been stripped away and replaced with action movie cliches, like Schwarzenegger-style badass lines and last-minute rescues so unlikely as to make you wonder if the protagonists are psychic...or can see through walls.

That's not to say that there is no saving grace, here. Timothy Olyphant is a likeable enough hero, and his cohorts are entertaining enough, as well. While the Hollywood blockbuster machine has had its way with the dialogue and some of the action scenes, it is refreshing to see actors who don't look like they just came out of the makeup trailer. Early on, I was pleased to see that the movie hadn't forgotten its roots, as Lynn Lowry, queen of the 1973 Crazies, showed up in a nod to her loopy character in the original.

However, once the movie gets rolling, some other defining elements are conspicuously absent. One of the questions Romero appears to pose in the original is, "how crazy is crazy?" There are times (at least, in the beginning) that it's difficult to tell the difference between the infected and the merely eccentric. Even later, one gets the impression that these people didn't have to be pushed all that far to reach unconscionable depths of violence and depravity. This new version presents the infected as merely sentient zombies, obviously so changed that they can barely be thought of as the people they once were; the original shows us their slow and frighteningly easy slide into madness that was closer at hand than anyone had realized.

Romero's gritty vision, too, is eliminated and replaced with mere action-movie violence. Anyone familiar with the original will grimace and squirm at the thought of Lynn Lowry's creepy scene with her father - suffice it to say, although it's not gory, it's still not something you'll see in many mainstream Hollywood scare flicks.

The anti-authoritarian stance that runs through most of Romero's films survives here, but only in a superficial way. Where this story shows the government and its military as a blunt instrument - a brutal, faceless, iron fist - the original makes us wonder which ones are the true crazies: the infected or the authorities.

Of course, a horror flick needn't be thought-provoking, but it is a shame to see a relatively thoughtful film dumbed-down for a remake. The Crazies is fun and worth watching - just make sure you go in expecting more Michael Bay and less George Romero.

VP

Barker & DiBlasi's Dread

2010-02-20T22:17:00.005-05:00

It sounds like an eye-rollingly clichéd premise: a group of students doing a “fear study”, identifying the sources of dread in the lives of everyday people. Dread does hold some pleasant surprises, however, and turns out to be well worth watching.

The screenplay is based on the Clive Barker short story of the same name. Sounds like a good pedigree, but horror freaks will know that this is neither here nor there: movie versions of Barker’s work have been uneven, ranging from (albeit campy) classics like Hellraiser and Candyman to the goofy and disappointing Nightbreed. Even the more recent (and quite enjoyable) Midnight Meat Train, probably the most stylish and vicious Barker movie to date, suffered from stilted dialogue and stiff performances. However, first-time feature director Anthony DiBlasi manages to do a pretty good job of capturing Barker’s signature tropes of body horror and sexual obsession, and goes full-bore at key moments when most Hollywood directors would be likely to take their foot off the gas.

Shaun Evans chews up the scenery as Quaid, the troubled (to put it mildly) force behind the fear study. Traumatized as a toddler by the murder of his parents, he attempts to exorcise his demons by taunting his test subjects with their own. Along for the ride are Stephen (the Twilight saga’s Jackson Rathbone, apparently doing his best Jonathan Tucker impression) and Cheryl (Hanne Steen) as Quaid’s study partners who are initially unaware of the extent of his...issues.

Evans’ Denis Leary-ish performance is compelling, but marred by awkward dialogue. His speeches don’t evoke the image of a brilliant, maverick academic so much as a screenwriter trying to guess what a brilliant, maverick academic would sound like. He does, however, manage to bring a certain amount of pathos to a character who is, from the beginning, unlikeable in the extreme. Rathbone is competent, but his doe-eyed and clueless routine eventually wears thin, making him seem that much more deserving of the unpleasantness eventually visited upon him.

The best performances here belong to the women: Hanne Steen as Cheryl is initially underused, but comes into her own in the third act as she unwittingly makes the switch from scientist to subject. Laura Donnelly is the star here, though, in a compelling performance as Abby, the flawed beauty whose greatest fear is rejection and ridicule.

The film’s run-down, dirty look and brownish palette recall elements of Silent Hill and 2003’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but in a much more claustrophobic setting that increases the sense of...well...dread, which Quaid believes to be the purest, deepest expression of fear.

The idea of primal fear could have been explored more deeply here, however: except in the case of Quaid, the “deepest fears” of the characters seem more like insecurities and neuroses. To be fair, though, those neuroses are eventually turned into deep fears through Quaid’s intervention. As the film comes to a close, Barker’s influence becomes even clearer: the viewer’s dread begins to turn to hopelessness, and of course, it’s clear that there are no happy endings to be had, here. The final scene and its slap-in-the-face last line are a fitting close, and not one you’re likely to see in your average Hollywood horror flick.

In the end, Dread works. It manages to avoid falling completely into cliché and makes good use of Barker’s knack for keeping the audience off-balance and uncomfortable. The cast carries the plot reasonably well, and there’s no sugar-coating to dilute Barker’s squirm-inducing vision. Dread is one of the 8 Films to Die For at Horrorfest 4, and should make a name for itself among the bloodthirsty festival hordes. Dread will be released on DVD on March 23^rd, 2010.

Reboot

2010-02-20T22:07:00.001-05:00

Time to restart this blog with a broader focus: horror reviews and commentary of all stripes, starting with some good, solid horror flicks you may not have heard of...yet.

VP

Three Degrees

2008-09-11T21:35:00.004-04:00

I'm currently working on a new entry, but had to stop to include this: I just found The Oracle of Bacon, which traces links to the ubiquitous Kevin Bacon. Since I'm very close friends with an '80s megastar, I figured it wouldn't take many leaps to connect me to the Baconator. I was correct. I, your humble servant and b-horror maître d', am only three (3) degrees from Kevin Bacon. Observe.

Vincent Priceless
is close friends with
Tali Fischer, who appeared in

Visiting Hours (1982) with
Michael J. Reynolds, who appeared in

Where the Truth Lies with...
Kevin Bacon.

Consult the Oracle here. You can also find connections to other actors. I'm even more proud to know Tali, now that I've realized how connected I am to Hollywood Horror. Thanks to the Fischer, I am not only three degrees from Kevin Bacon, but just three degrees from Christopher Lee and Herschell Gordon Lewis, and four degrees from Bela Lugosi, Vincent Price, Elisha Cook, Jr., and Vampira.

I knew that chick was cool.

VP

The B-movie Mount Rushmore, Pt. 1

2008-05-19T23:18:00.008-04:00

If there were a b-movie Mount Rushmore, I would happily drive to some otherwise nondescript state to get my picture taken standing beside the sixty-foot visage of Herschell Gordon Lewis.

While Lewis appears to violate my b-movie rule about the creators trying to make a true work of art (he has been known to say that it was purely a business decision to pioneer the gore film), it's readily apparent to anyone watching that he really did take pride in these monstrosities and work hard to make them the best he could...which is not very. However, that is not to say that they're not entertaining. His are some of the most over-the-top, badly-acted, ridiculously plotted films ever to empty a drive-in, and I love them.

Lewis's most famous work is the "Blood Trilogy", consisting of Blood Feast, Two Thousand Maniacs!, and Color Me Blood Red. I've seen the first two, and Lewis's sheer audacity hooked me immediately. As far as I know, no film until 1963's Blood Feast had ever even considered portraying that level of gore on screen. Buckets of blood, severed limbs and spewing guts are all on prominent display. The censors in Boston must have fainted dead away.

It took me until tonight to see Color Me, and I wish I'd seen it sooner. The lingering shots of nothing...the rampant overacting...the ridiculous portrayal of two crazy beatniks...and, topping it all off like a scarlet cherry on a rancid banana split, the eye-poppingly red fake blood that is the movie's centrepiece. This blood is in ample supply - you can apparently get loads of it just from a nicked finger - but that doesn't keep the killer from mutilating everyone he can get his hands on and literally wringing it out of them...or at least, parts of them. Taking its cue from A Bucket of Blood, Color Me Blood Red is based on the conceit that including humans (or parts of them) in your artwork is a shortcut to success. When an unsuccessful (or very successful...the characters can't seem to make up their minds) artist named Adam Sorg accidentally gets blood on a canvas, he begins using his own blood as paint...but as you can imagine, that supply is limited, and inconvenient to say the least. Stabbing his girlfriend in the temple provides a much more plentiful supply. Rubbing a corpse's head on your canvas looks like a lot of work, but Adam seems a very dedicated fellow.

Adam, of course, can't be allowed to get away with this, but along the way we're treated to a bombastic, canned '60s jazz soundtrack that seems to have little to do with the action; a body buried in sand which, when roughly unearthed by hand, is suddenly and strangely sand-free; blood which always remains scarlet and never seems to dry; terrible acting; horrible sound; and lines like, (upon discovering a corpse) "Holy Bananas!" and, "Dig that crazy driftwood!". As usual, the characters pause too long between lines, the camera lingers in places it has no business lingering (a canvas on the floor, for instance, to indicate time passing as a couple gets it on in the next room - hasn't Herschell ever heard of a clock?), and some lines are nothing but head-scratchers. It's a dog's breakfast from start to finish, and will leave you grinning while you shake your head in awe at its incredible ineptitude.

Even the trailer included on the DVD provides some inept taglines. For instance, "This is Adam. This is a story of Adam...and evil." Most egregious of all is the trailer's description: "A blood-spattered study in the macarb." Macarb, for Christ's sake!

Even the lovely EM, who asked why I was wasting my time with it, watched it through to the bitter end - she was hooked, as anyone would be: with movies like this, we're not flocking to the theatre (or video store) to gaze at a fine work of art - we're slowing down to look at a terrible celluloid accident, and a bloody one at that.

Attention: Anyone interested in funding a sculpture project involving the faces of Herschell Lewis, Roger Corman and Ed Wood being carved into the Niagara Escarpment, please contact me as soon as possible.

VP

If You Want a Date to the Prom, Axe Her Early

2008-05-19T22:41:00.007-04:00

I don't want to stray too far from this blog's original intent by talking about big-budget Hollywood films, however bad they may be. My objective here is to entertain you, not with posts about bad films, but gloriously bad films, and big-budget Hollywood productions almost never achieve that.

However, like Kevin McCarthy in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, I would run through oncoming traffic to warn you: do not see the former "#1 movie in Canada", Prom Night. I have watched it so you won't have to. Yes, I knew it would be bad. Yes, I knew it would be a teen movie. Yes, I knew it would probably not be scary...but little did I know, it would be the first ever non-violent slasher movie.

Let's step back to 1980 first, to a true b-movie classic, Prom Night, starring one of the all-time great screamers, Jamie Lee Curtis. This movie had everything. It was Canadian, to start with, and I'm told it was Canada's highest-grossing horror movie of 1980 (an admittedly limited field), but the list goes on: big lapels, a disco dancing scene, a truly fantastic decapitation scene, and Leslie Neilson, for god's sake. It was the obvious inspiration for I Know What You Did Last Summer, it spawned three (excreble) sequels and Hollywood seemed to think it was worth remaking.

They also seemed to think it was worth ruining. Consider first the change in the main characters - instead of a mishmash of horny, backbiting, pot-smoking punks and juvenile delinquents, these kids seem to have been hired straight off the set of High School Musical. They have little interest in misbehaving beyond the hint of a drink and a little fooling around in their hotel room. Once these little angels have you bored, you soon discover that a man can slaughter several innocent teens while hardly spilling a drop of blood. You heard me: no blood. The most we see is an arterial jet on the other side of a plastic sheet - which hurts continuity when we later see at least two more throats cut with little or no mess. Either this killer is a magician or he carries a huge supply of Bounty, the quicker picker-upper.

Then, there are the idiot cops (caution, please, as there are a few spoilers below). Not only does the killer (whose identity we know from the get-go, with no mystery whatsoever) have three days on the lam from the crazy house before any cops notify his hometown police, he is allowed to walk right into the hotel where the prom is being held, while the local fuzz tell his target's parents not to worry - they'll go have a look around. No, no...of course they shouldn't bring her home just because her maniacal stalker has had three days to watch her every move and follow her to the prom. With a total of about four cops for backup, they eventually pull the fire alarm to evacuate the building...and don't control the crowd. They figure they'll just have a casual look at people's faces as they exit, and get him that way. Shockingly, he manages to slip by. When, after several bodies are found, they put the girl (and her perfect boyfriend) in protective custody, they don't take her to the police station for safety - that's just what the killer would expect. They make the brilliant decision to take her back to her house. But don't worry - they put guards around the place - one for the front, and one for the back. That's right...two whole cops. How could that go wrong? Then, after another bloodless throat-cutting, the killer is mercifully dispatched...and doesn't even have the decency to get up for a final scare. Bang. The end.

I tell you this not only to keep you from wasting your time watching this dreck, but also to give you an example of the sort of thing I mentioned in the first post: this is not a b-movie with good intentions, entertaining in its ineptitude. This is a big-budget money grab by a studio that doesn't even have the decency to try. This is not ineptitude so much as laziness. I can imagine the meeting, pre-production: Pretty teens? Check. Killer to menace them? Check. Fakeout scare? Check. Good, now throw in a couple of cops, no nudity and keep the blood to a minimum. We need that PG-13.

While Herschell Gordon Lewis tried to make great movies and failed in entertaining fashion, these people quite obviously made a piece of junk with little effort and succeeded in yawn-inducing ways. Watch the original Prom Night and you'll see what I mean. "Amos," you'll say, "I finally see the light, and I'm starting my b-movie collection immediately."

You'll also say, "Holy s%*#, is that David Copperfield?"

edit: The lovely EM gets full points for being the first to notice that David Copperfield was in Terror Train with Jamie Lee Curtis, not Prom Night. Well played. Prize to be determined.

R.I.P. Hazel Court

2008-04-17T21:51:00.003-04:00

The Last Man On Earth would like to pay his respects to the lovely and talented Hazel Court, a jewel in the crown of both Hammer Horror films and American International Pictures - which is to say, she was the cream of the crop of beautiful b-horror scream queens. Redheaded, green eyed and able to scream with the best of them, she had a varied career, appearing alongside everyone from Peter Cushing to Jack Nicholson, and gracing classic TV shows like The Twilight Zone, The Wild Wild West, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. While she may have preferred to be remembered for her less bloody (and less cleavage-y) roles, she will forever grace b-horror's firmament as one of its brightest stars. R.I.P., Ms. Court, and we sincerely hope that it's not a Premature Burial.

The Film That Shouldn't Be

2008-02-03T16:35:00.001-05:00

Now, on to the flicks. Let's begin with a (by no means comprehensive) list of some very important b-movie ingredients:

A mad scientist
A disfigured assistant
The pursuit of forbidden knowledge
A horror locked in a basement room
A Thing That Should Not Be
A virtuous fianceé
Bad girls, scantily clad
Attractive lesbians
Bloody murders
The undead
Murder via psychic remote control

and, most importantly:

A talking head in a dish

Now, what if I told you that I have in my possession a film that contains not one, not some, but all of the above elements? In 1962, in a flash of inspiration seldom to be matched, Joseph Green wrote and directed The Brain that Wouldn't Die, a film that could easily induce a b-movie overdose for those who haven't built up a tolerance. It's the story of a surgeon who bristles at the constraints of modern science, which don't allow him leeway in his experiments on transplantation. Therefore, he does what any decent mad genius would do, and sets up a lab in the country where he can take pilfered body parts and attach them to things as he pleases. Hard to imagine how this scenario could go wrong, but in fact, it does. When the young doctor's fianceé is hideously beheaded in a car crash, he knows that he can help her. Wrapping up the head and carrying it like he's running for a touchdown, he rushes to his country lab and sets her up in her new, temporary digs: a dish on his lab bench.

Before long, our hero sets to work looking for the perfect gift for his beloved: a hot little bod to replace her old one. Selflessly, he begins frequenting strip joints and patronizing nude (and clearly lesbian) models to find just the right chassis for his increasingly agitated bride-to-be. Along for the ride are his assistant (with a withered arm the doctor has been helpless to cure - although he seems to think a head transplant isn't beyond his abilities) and the hideous monstrosity locked in the basement storage room: a hulking, howling mass of spare parts resulting from the doc's ungodly tinkering. Little does the mad genius know: the chemicals keeping his betrothed's head alive also imbue her with psychic powers - and man, is she pissed.

Along with this incredible roster of sci-fi and horror elements, Joe Green gave The Brain That Wouldn't Die one final, perfect flourish: he showed an almost pathological lack of attention to continuity. From shot to shot, sleeves shorten, gloves disappear, blood smears vanish...but that's nothing: during a horribly-acted argument between two burlesque girls, one decides to slap the other. In a mid-shot she winds up - cut to closeup - and a big, hairy arm enters the frame to deliver the slap. Cut back to mid-shot, and it's a slender, hair-free stripper's arm once again. Freeze frame it if you get the chance. It's worth it.

It's almost as if someone took every drive-in horror and sci-fi flick ever made, threw them in a pot and boiled them down to a rich, campy sludge more flavourful than the barbecue sandwiches on Wonder Bread at the drive-in snackbar. I virtually guarantee you will simultaneously laugh and shake your head at this movie's sheer audacity. And if any one of you can find me a movie that incorporates more elements of the classic b-flick, I will buy you lunch.

VP

Earnest Movies Made By Idiots

2008-01-15T22:33:00.001-05:00

My earliest b-movie memory has me sitting with my mom in a bright living room in Florida, watching the Channel 44 Creature Feature. It was Plan 9 From Outer Space - an Ed Wood film - and it was presented by a hokey guy in a vampire outfit with a giant eyeball on the table beside him. He interrupted periodically to make some terrible pun or other, and to cut to commercials for Schwinn bicycles, Charms Blo Pops and Super Elastic Bubble Plastic. I was enthralled by the sheer lack of skill presented in this movie - for the love of god, someone knocked over a cardboard tombstone and Wood kept the camera rolling. Even at five years old, I knew this might be the worst movie I would ever see...and yet, it was fantastic. There was something about this terrible, twisted, stillbirth of a movie that inspired not only pity, but a kind of perverse admiration.

Now, three decades later, I still seek out these movies. I know more about them than any reasonable person should. The lovely E, about whom you will hear much more, says, "It's like you just find them and bring them home...like injured animals." She also asked me, not long ago, what makes me love some terrible movies and not others. Why do I clap my hands with glee watching The Brain That Wouldn't Die, but cringe at Showgirls? Her theory was that b-movies have to age like a fine (read: putrid) wine before they can be fully appreciated. That may well be true, but I've thought long and hard about it lately, and I think I've figured out what differentiates a classic b-movie from an excruciating one. It all comes down to this, really:

A classic b-movie is an earnest movie made by idiots who assume their audiences are smart.

A bad b-movie is an insincere movie made by smart people who assume their audiences are idiots.

In other words, directors like Ed Wood don't underestimate their audiences. They overestimate themselves. They think they're intelligent filmmakers creating a work of art for a discerning audience, and it's this earnestness that saves the day. While Michael Bay makes a moronic shoot-em-up because he thinks films have to be brainless, Roger Corman makes a film starring a giant coathanger spider and thinks he's made an arthouse classic.

And so begins a new blog that will attempt to win you over to the beauty of the b-movie. Failing that, it will attempt to make you laugh. Failing that, it will attempt to make you laugh at me for my compulsive attraction to these wretched-but-loveable drive-in disasters. Share your favourites or badmouth mine as you see fit. I'm sure I'll be giving you plenty of ammunition.

VP