CHROMESKULL: LAID TO REST 2 -- DVD review by porfle

(NOTE: This review is based on the unrated director's cut. Originally posted on 9/11/11.)


The tall, skinny, bald guy with the chrome skull-mask, the wicked knife, and the video camera perched on his shoulder like a parrot is back in CHROMESKULL: LAID TO REST 2 (2011) and this time, he's got back-up. 

The last we saw of Ol' Chrome-Dome (Nick Principe) back in the first LAID TO REST (2009), he was lying on the floor of a rural convenience store with his face ripped off and his skull smashed in.  Well, you can't keep a good monster down, so when this sequel picks up right where the last one left off, we see his crew sweep in, dispatch the investigating police, clean up the crime scene, and whisk their boss to an operating room where surgeons labor to save his life and what's left of his face.

It turns out that he's one of those multi-millionaires who can afford to do whatever the heck he pleases and pay people to willingly help him do it, even if that includes setting up an elaborate torture chamber for him (in his chrome-plating factory, naturally) and stocking it with kidnapped young girls.  His right-hand woman, Spann (the ever-popular Danielle Harris) even seems to enjoy her job, as does his main fixer, Preston, who is very well played by Brian Austin Greene. 



Green seems to revel in the Preston role, portraying a borderline psycho who wants to follow in his boss' footsteps by adopting the chromeskull mask and performing his first kills with an almost sexual ardor.  Not only do we get a shocking pre-titles sequence that harkens back to FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2, but we get a little of PART 5 as well with an imitator going around making like the main man.  This not only gives Green a chance to stretch his acting muscles but also gives gore fans a double dose of carnage.

Like a cross between Jason Voorhees and Mason Verger of HANNIBAL, Chromeskull, now sporting a hideous patchwork face, spends his recovery time stalking a new girl to obsess on now that Princess, his previous object of interest, is out of the picture.  Her replacement is Jess (Mimi Michaels), who has an eye disease that's slowly making her go blind.  In one of the film's first startling kill scenes, Jess' best friend is dispatched in imaginatively gruesome fashion and Jess is abucted, waking up in a casket while being taunted by Preston.  Mimi Michaels plays the role to the hilt, screaming very convincingly and emoting her buns off.

Thomas Dekker returns as Tommy (last seen driving away with Princess in the last film) and gets caught up in the whole mess again, this time coming to the aid of Jess.  They both end up in Chromeskull's factory where they witness some of the film's more elaborate kills, including a virtuoso decapitation and a thing with a spring-loaded blade cluster (a chrome-plated custom job designed by Preston) giving another character a really big smile. 

Other death scenes of interest include a nasty disembowelment (with the victim being portrayed by twins in order to achieve a tricky single take), a head sliced vertically in half like a cantelope, the impromptu chrome-plating of somebody else's head, and another impressive single take in which Chromeskull wipes out a number of cops one after the other in gruesome ways.  The gore effects are achieved, as in the previous film, by combining excellent practical effects with some subtle CGI enhancements. 



Speaking of cops, they're a pretty ineffectual bunch here.  Owain Yeoman plays Detective King, who looks a little young to be heading the precinct, and Christopher Allen Nelson (Beatrix' almost-husband Tommy in KILL BILL) is Max, his best detective.  "Best" being a relative term, since the whole squad amounts to little more than kill fodder for Chromeskull.  When they bust into the chrome-plating factory to rescue Jess and Detective King yells, "You're safe now!", I thought, "Yeah, right."  Hot female detective Holland (Angelina Armani) fares no better.

Gail O'Grady appears as Jess' mother and a grown-up Eric Lloyd (of the SANTA CLAUSE series) is billed as "Geeky Lackey."  The actress who played Princess in the first LAID TO REST, Bobbi Sue Luther, is neither seen here (her flashback scenes were reshot with Allison Kyler replacing her) nor mentioned by name (unless I missed it).  

The DVD from Image Entertainment is in 1.78:1 widescreen with Dolby 5.1 surround sound.  Subtitles are in English and Spanish.  Extras include a commentary with director Robert Hall, co-writer Kevin Bocarde, and actor Brian Austin Green, along with a making-of featurette, deleted scenes, bloopers, and a trailer.  There's also a feature which allows viewers to jump to any one of the various kill scenes.  (Stick around through the closing credits for a two-minute epilogue.)

While the film is pretty fast-paced and the additions to the Chromeskull mythology fairly interesting, I prefer the first film with its creepier settings, more enigmatic killer, more likable characters, and more involving story.  This one has none of its dry humor (Sean Whalen and Kevin Gage are especially missed) and the main girl, Jess, is winsome but not really all that interesting.  Still, CHROMESKULL: LAID TO REST 2 is head and shoulders above most of the cheap slasher flicks being churned out lately, continuing the first film's "cavalcade of cool kills" approach with a little style and a lot of enthusiasm.  And Chromeskull is definitely one of the major movie monsters of the last few decades.

CHROMESKULL: LAID TO REST 2 -- DVD review by porfle

LAID TO REST -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted in 2009

"A guy in a mask chasing a girl...that usually works," thought writer/director Robert Hall while thinking up ideas for a follow-up to his '04 debut feature, LIGHTNING BUG. And what a mask--a grinning chrome skull, which fits over the face of tall, lanky, cueball-bald actor Nick Principe. With his imposing stature and graceful, deliberate movements, in addition to being nattily-dressed in a tastefully tailored black outfit, Chrome Skull is one of the most interesting slasher anti-heroes since the 80s. And LAID TO REST (2009) is a glossy, blood-drenched, pedal-to-the-metal throwback to that era.

The chilling titles sequence gives us jagged glimpses of Chrome Skull nastily doing away with several young women. Then we meet our heroine, The Girl (Hall's wife Bobbi Sue Luther in a lively performance), as she wakes up in a closed casket in a funeral home, with no memory of who she is or how she got there. After witnessing the gruesome death of an old mortician (the venerable Richard Lynch) at the hands of Chrome Skull, she flees down the highway until she's picked up by a kindly redneck named Tucker (Kevin Gage, best-known by me as the vile "Waingro" in Michael Mann's HEAT), who takes her home. Tucker's wife Cindy (Lena Headey, "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles", 300) isn't too pleased at first, but soon warms up to the poor frightened woman. Then Chrome Skull shows up and pins Cindy's head to a wall with his knife.

We should probably talk about Chrome Skull's knife for a minute. It's a real doozy--in fact, it makes those things carried by guys like Jim Bowie and Crocodile Dundee look like toothpicks. Razor-sharp on one side, with jagged spikes on the other, the massive chrome blade is perfect not only for slicing and jabbing but also for sawing people's heads off. Which seems to be one of the many hobbies that keep Chrome Skull occupied. We never learn much about what happened to screw this guy up, but with a phallic extension like this, he definitely has a sexual hang-up or two rattling around in his shiny skull.

Anyway, Tucker is now on the run with Princess (his nickname for the mysterious girl) and along the way they pick up a geeky nerd named Stephen, who's played by the very familiar and funny Sean Whalen (THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS, TWISTER). They take refuge in the funeral home, which is troublesome for Stephen since his mother just died, and even more troublesome when he sees her head floating toward him in the dark. After a lot of running around from place to place, and a lot of doing stupid stuff that people in slasher movies always do, the three finally end up barricaded in a small grocery store with a couple of rave-bound party boys named Tommy and Johnny (Thomas Dekker, Johnathon Schaech). But they can't keep Chrome Skull out for long, and before you know it he's in there making mincemeat out of anything with a heartbeat.

This is the kind of eye-popping, knuckle-baring slasher flick I was looking for back in the old days whenever I'd trudge to the latest FRIDAY THE 13TH crapfest or rent yet another piece of dreck like THE BURNING or THE PROWLER, ever hopeful that the next one would actually turn out to be worth watching. With LAID TO REST, Robert Hall has taken the old formula and done it up with all the bells and whistles--state-of-the-art gore effects from his own renowned makeup studio Almost Human, a sharp script that lovingly reprises all the old cliches while giving us a few new twists, a top-notch cast, and a cool monster who videotapes his kills with a shoulder-mounted camera (an element which will later provide clues to Princess' mysterious origins). Hall proves himself a very capable director, and the cinematography, done with a Panasonic HPX-3000 high-definition 1080p camera in the AVC Intra Mode (I don't know what any of that means, but it sounds awesome), makes this one of the best-looking indy slasher flicks you'll ever see. Hall's own band Deadbox contributes to the exciting heavy metal musical score.

Extras include an enthusiastic audio commentary from husband-wife team Hall and Luther and the half-hour "Postmortem: The Making of Laid to Rest", a very entertaining and well-produced documentary. There's also a look at "The SFX of Laid to Rest", a few deleted scenes, some funny bloopers, and a trailer.

This isn't "torture porn" as much as an homage to the classic stalker-slasher era with suspense sequences punctuated by sudden, flabbergasting death scenes. It's the kind of gore effects that you used to see featured in big full-color spreads in Fangoria magazine, but when you went to see the movie you'd find they'd all been snipped into almost subliminal split-second flashes to avoid an "X" rating. Not in this unrated director's cut, however--everything's as horribly graphic as the most avid gorehound could hope for. Almost Human studios specializes in realistic-looking dead bodies, which are abundant in the aftermath of Chrome Skull's homicidal activities, and they also give us some of the most shocking kill scenes ever created. These are done with good old-fashioned makeup FX (one death scene even uses bladders) which are augmented by CGI to create some pretty convincing carnage. The most jaw-dropping (literally!) effect comes fairly early as one guy gets Chrome Skull's blade right through his cheeks, which our whimsical hero removes by taking the top of the guy's head off. Yikes! If that sounds intriguing to you, then you really should check out LAID TO REST. If not, then I would advise you to stay as far away from this movie as possible.

LAID TO REST -- DVD Review by Porfle

B.T.K. -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 4/12/09

The same tall, imposing figure, dressed in coveralls, relentlessly stalking his next hapless victim--Kane Hodder remains as intimidating a screen presence now as he did as Jason Voorhees in the FRIDAY THE 13TH films. But there's no hockey mask here, only the face of a normal, everyday guy. Yet there's something about it that isn't quite right, something a little off...just enough to give you the creeps. Because this isn't the face of a mindless killing machine. It's the guy next door.

Which is one of the reasons B.T.K. (2008) is so effective. Hodder plays Dennis L. Rader, a devoted husband and father of two grown daughters, a man active in his church, a man with a fairly responsible position--he's what's called a "compliance officer", which means he gets to wear an official-looking uniform and drive around his sleepy Kansas town in a white van, looking for infractions of various city ordinances. Rader takes this job seriously, perhaps a bit too seriously, to the point of being anally obsessive and at times downright hostile toward people who let their poodles run loose or don't keep their lawns trimmed (he actually measures the grass). Not only does this feed his voracious ego and help bolster his feelings of inadequacy, but it also gives him an opportunity to scope out potential victims--the women who will be his next targets for home invasion and brutal murder.

B.T.K. isn't your usual colorfully-inane slasher flick for teenagers to hoot and throw popcorn at. It's closer to the somber, uncomfortably realistic feel of HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER, although Dennis isn't quite the remote, solitary cold fish that Henry was. He revels in his family life and his community and church activities, as long as he has brutal murder as a release valve for his pent-up rage and an outlet for his sexual frustrations. Hodder is great at portraying the two sides of Dennis--he's all smiles and banal cordiality until the little psycho-dial in his head inches into the red and he starts turning into a monster. And with his hulking physique, bull neck, and big, powerful hands, he's someone you wouldn't want coming after you.

Writer-director Michael Feifer doesn't go in for the flashy, elaborate kills that require the services of guys like Tom Savini or the inventiveness of Rube Goldberg. The real thing is scary enough when presented in a realistic way, as he does here. The performances in B.T.K. are generally good (Hodder himself is excellent) and natural enough that we feel for these everyday people whom Dennis strangles, stomps to death, smothers with plastic bags, or simply shoots in the head. The fear we all feel of having a vicious killer stalking us in our own homes is vividly portrayed. Feifer uses a hand-held camera to good effect and deftly stages the terror sequences so that they're both unnerving and emotionally disturbing. Direction and editing are above average throughout. Not every scene works, of course, and some of the later ones with Rader's family discovering the truth about him as police investigators move in are less than successful.

As the film goes on, we're taken deeper and deeper into Dennis' whacked-out mind while also getting disquieting glimpses from the victims' POV as well. One rather shocking scene shows him tracking down and getting revenge on a hooker who ran out on him earlier in the film--he decorates the wall with her husband's brains and begins to strangle her, which we see through her eyes as her vision dims, then returns, over and over again as Dennis sadistically brings her to the point of death several times before the kill. Then, he suddenly sees his own daughter in her place and freaks out. His mental state becomes even more unstable later on until ultimately we're just as unsure as he is of what's real and what isn't. Which leads to one of the film's most disturbing moments--a final twist that ends the story on a disorienting, dispiriting note.

Picture and sound quality are good--the DVD image is 16 x 9 widescreen with 5.1 surround audio. My screener contained no extras but the final release should boast a commentary track featuring director Feifer and Kane Hodder, a stills gallery, trailers, and Spanish subtitles.

B.T.K. (the title stands for "bind, torture, kill" after the infamous B.T.K. Killer, who inspired this fictional account) isn't a "fun" movie by any means. But it is often harrowing, disturbing, and effective. Mainly because the killer isn't a faceless automaton in a mask, or a grossly disfigured monster, but just some guy you might pass by on the street. Or glimpse out of the corner of your eye while sitting at home alone at night, right before he whips the plastic bag over your head.

B.T.K. -- DVD Review by Porfle

NIGHT STALKER -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 7/28/09

A specialist in serial killer films as of late, prolific director Ulli Lommel adds to his screen bios of Son of Sam, the D.C. Sniper, the B.T.K. Killer, the Zodiac Killer, and others with 2007's NIGHTSTALKER, which is being given a new DVD release on Sept. 8 by North American Motion Pictures (under the slightly different title NIGHT STALKER). This weak and ponderous effort makes the recent serial killer films of director Michael Feifer look like "Masterpiece Theater" by comparison.

After a brief flashback of Richard Ramirez as a child witnessing his crazy war-veteran uncle shooting his crabby aunt in the head, the film is virtually plotless. Just about the only other thing that doesn't involve Ramirez skulking around the streets of Los Angeles looking for his next victim is the part where he follows an attractive young woman to a party and is introduced to drugs and Satan worshipping. Her supposed influence on him is manifested by several flashbacks during the murder scenes, consisting of quick closeups of her eyes as she chants "Hail Satan!"

Ramirez hates women, we're told early on, and is intent on putting them in their place. Thus, several of his victims in the movie are bitchy women in the process of bawling out some mousey guy, which seems to set off his "stalker sense" and lead him straight to the scene where he starts blasting away. This is repeated several times ad nauseum during the movie--scenes of couples arguing intercut with shots of Ramirez shuffling down the sidewalk sucking on his ever-present Charms Blow Pop until he arrives on the scene. Bad acting ensues, squibs go off, and star Adolph Cortez is directed to play around with the fake blood that's all over the place while director Lommel fiddles with artsy camera angles and editing.

I've always considered Richard Ramirez to be one of the scariest and most menacing of the famous serial killers, but Cortez plays him like a weaselly high-school dropout looking to score some weed for the big Phish concert. He does a voiceover with a lot of talk about evil and "darkness" and all that stuff, and keeps telling us "God is dead", etc., but there's no real connection between these ominous words and the smirking Richard Grieco wannabe who skulks around endlessly sucking on Blow Pops. Cortez goes through so many bags of Blow Pops during the course of this movie that his stomach lining must have developed an impenetrable candy shell.

Unfortunately, this is just about the only unique trait the character has, so Cortez works those damn things like he was doing a softcore porn tease. Besides that, all the script gives him to do is one walking-around sequence after another topped by yet another splattery bang-bang. After awhile the film becomes mainly a showcase for some decent head-shot squib effects.

NIGHT STALKER has that shot-on-video look and a wildly-inappropriate synth score that often works against the desired effect. The DVD image is 16 x 9 anamorphic widescreen with 2.0 stereo sound. I watched a screener with no extras, but the DVD release is supposed to include a stills gallery and closed captioning.

The film rambles along until the boredom finally ends with Ramirez' capture, which is depicted in a cursory but somewhat accurate manner. Then we're shown the following actual quote: "You don't understand me. You are not expected to. You are not capable of it. I am beyond your experience. I am beyond good and evil." These words are more chilling than anything depicted in NIGHT STALKER. Painting a convincing portrait of Richard Ramirez and giving us an inkling of what it must have been like to live in Los Angeles during his reign of terror or to experience one of his attacks are beyond this film.

 

NIGHT STALKER -- DVD Review by Porfle

DRIFTER: HENRY LEE LUCAS -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted in 2009

Director Michael Feifer seems intent on chronicling the lives of every vile, lowlife bastard who comes to mind when you think of the term "serial killer." Now, in addition to "B.T.K.", "Boston Strangler: The Untold Story", "Bundy: A Legacy of Evil", "Chicago Massacre: Richard Speck", and "Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield", comes DRIFTER: HENRY LEE LUCAS (2009), a well-made and fairly engaging account of one of the most notorious killers who ever stalked the countryside.

Most of us know at least the basics of Lucas' story--abused physically and mentally by a sadistic mother, he grew up to be a prolific serial killer who traveled with his equally-demented buddy Ottis Toole and Toole's 12-year-old niece Becky, with whom Henry had a romantic affair. After his capture, he confessed to hundreds of murders but later recanted, making it unclear just how many he was actually guilty of.

The screenplay by Feifer and Wood Dickinson generally sticks pretty closely to the facts. The story of Henry's nightmarish childhood proves most affecting, with Ezra Averill as an 8-year-old Henry and Caia Coley giving a frightening performance as his prostitute mother Viola. In addition to making him watch as she has sex with strange men, the monstrous Viola beats Henry brutally, once putting him into a coma with a wooden board, and also abuses her legless husband. When a teenaged Henry (Nicolas Canel) finally kills Viola in what he claims was self-defense, it's pretty much a fist-in-the-air moment.

We see the adult Henry (Antonio Sabato Jr., "The Bold & The Beautiful") commit the first of his serial murders and his fateful meeting with fellow drifter Ottis Toole, played artlessly but with a lot of energy by "Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo"'s Kostas Sommer. (The fact that grungy, homely Lucas and Toole are portrayed by a couple of relatively hunky actors is a little disconcerting.) Kelly Curran is good in her debut role as Becky, whose eventual murder by Henry is shown near the beginning of the film and revisited later.

The very familiar John Diehl of such films as "Jurassic Park III" and "Pearl Harbor" plays Sheriff Larabie, a fictionalized version of the actual sheriff who was accused of using Lucas as a "confession machine" in order to clear up hundreds of unsolved murders. Farino, the skeptical D.A. is portrayed by John Burke, whom I know mainly as the co-host of "Personal FX: The Collectibles Show." While there really isn't much of an ending to Lucas' story, the final scenes with him being interviewed by Farino do tie things up rather well and bring the film to a satisfactory conclusion.

Despite several opportunites to do so, director Feifer refrains from filling the screen with excessive blood and gore. One of the more lurid death scenes has Henry forcing his way into a woman's kitchen, knifing her in the back, and then strangling her from behind as she crawls away. Another sequence features the strangulation of a hitchhiker and Henry's subsequent necrophilic violation of her body. A movie theater patron gets his throat cut for daring to "shush" Henry and Ottis, and there are several knifings.

For the most part, however, the violence is quick and Feifer doesn't linger over it, preferring to concentrate on the story. The only drawback to this is that the sheer horror of Lucas' crimes is rarely adequately conveyed by this matter-of-fact approach. Direction and photography are consistently good, displaying a fair amount of style and imagination that helps keep things interesting even though there's not really that much of a plot.

The film is presented in 16 x 9 anamorphic widescreen with 5.1 surround and 2.0 stereo audio. My screener contained no bonus features, but the DVD should include a commentary with Feifer and Sabato, stills gallery, and Spanish subtitles.

DRIFTER: HENRY LEE LUCAS does a pretty good job of showing us, in effect, "How to Make a Monster." The scenes of Lucas' childhood are harrowing and sad, yet Antonio Sabato Jr. manages to convey the idea that there's just something inherently evil about Henry (albeit an infinitely banal evil) regardless of his upbringing. While "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" and the lesser-known gem "Confessions of a Serial Killer" remain the last word on the subject as far as I'm concerned, Michael Feifer's version of the story is both visually interesting and perhaps somewhat closer to the real facts than its predecessors.

 

DRIFTER: HENRY LEE LUCAS -- DVD Review by Porfle

BUNDY: A LEGACY OF EVIL -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted in 2009

Back in 1990, Corin Nemec starred in a "Ferris Bueller"-inspired TV series called "Parker Lewis Can't Lose." Later, he went against type to play the repellent Harold Lauder in the ABC miniseries "The Stand", based on Stephen King's book. Now, with BUNDY: A LEGACY OF EVIL (2008), Nemec seems intent on exorcising all traces of his nice-guy image by portraying one of the most cold-blooded serial killers of all time, Ted Bundy.

It's hard to say how successful he is at this because at times I couldn't tell if I was supposed to think his Ted Bundy was scary or funny. This is especially true of the scene in which Ted, after murdering a young woman in some isolated location, gets down on all fours and starts howling like a coyote. Sometimes he seems to be still playing perennial loser Harold Lauder, striking out romantically while trying to pass himself off as a normal, dynamic guy. Nemec's theatrical portrayal is occasionally interesting, but rarely convincing.

Some effort is made by writer-director Michael Feifer to show some of the possible reasons for Bundy's warped personality. He had a troubled childhood during which he thought his grandparents were his parents and his mother was his sister (his father's identity being the subject of some dubious speculation). He grew up reading violent horror comics. And he was devastated when his college sweetheart dumped him after she realized that the socially-stunted young man would never grow up. Immediately after this, however, we're shown a montage of brutal abduction-murders with the now totally bonkers Ted having suddenly morphed into a savage, bloodthirsty animal. None of it really comes together to show the evolution of Bundy from troubled youth to psycho.

I read Wikipedia's page on Ted Bundy and found that much of the film's story is fairly accurate, although we still don't get an idea of the sheer number of victims he managed to do away with. The murder sequences themselves are disturbing mainly because the actresses are so convincing--their screams and pleas for mercy are heartrending. Nemec does his best to convey the unhinged monstrousness required, yet his emoting seems overly calculated. He's at his best in the quieter scenes, such as the ones between Bundy and the warden (Kane Hodder) who's about to lead him to the electric chair in the film's bookending segments, or the gripping courtroom sequence in which Bundy serves as his own defense lawyer and makes a mockery of the proceedings.

Michael Feifer, who directed Hodder that same year in B.T.K. and has made a number of other fact-based serial killer films, gives this one the look of an above-average made-for-TV movie. Interestingly, he shoots the early 70s stuff in a way that makes it seem to actually have come from that era, right down to the film stock and cheesy soundtrack songs. This segment of the movie looks as though it could've come right out of a Joe Sarno flick. Artistically, that's the most noteworthy thing about BUNDY: A LEGACY OF EVIL--otherwise, it's capably done but relatively unremarkable.

Other details of Bundy's story are sketched in, including an impromptu jailbreak, a brush with political activism, a stint manning a suicide hotline (where the real Bundy would meet future true-crime author Ann Rule), and a reunion with his college flame Stephanie (the very cute Jen Nikolaisen) which, though fictionalized, results in one of the film's most effective moments. Bundy's infamous rampage through a girls' dormitory is documented in predictably bloody fashion. The final act, of course, consists of Bundy's execution in the electric chair. Feifer, I suspect, was trying for some of the impact of the last minutes of IN COLD BLOOD here. The results are much less effective, yet the sequence does come off pretty well.

How much of Bundy's behavior was simply a deliberate choice to do evil as opposed to the actions of someone incapable of controlling his warped impulses? In the film, a Ted Bundy still hoping for a reprieve puts much of the blame on pornography and other outside influences. Hodder's warden doesn't buy it: "You're not mental. You're not deranged. You're the most normal, intelligent man I've ever had on death row." I think Corin Nemec's performance would have been more effective if he'd played Bundy more like that instead of always trying to make it obvious to us that the guy's a total loon, because we already know that.

BUNDY: A LEGACY OF EVIL -- DVD Review by Porfle

THE FALL: SERIES 1 -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 9/17/13

 

Bleak, melancholy--borderline depressing, in fact--the Brit cop series THE FALL: SERIES 1 (2013)  has enough going for  it to supply hardy viewers with plenty of hard-edged adult drama and suspense.  Yet those holding out for some kind of closure at the end of series one's five episode run may find it ultimately unfulfilling.

Gillian Anderson ("The X-Files", BLEAK HOUSE) plays DS Stella Gibson,  who's been summoned by the Belfast police to head a departmental review into a stalled murder investigation.  When other, similar murders point to the work of  a serial killer, Gibson urges her superior and former lover Jim Burns (John Lynch) to put her in charge of the case.

Meanwhile, we follow the everyday life of Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan, "Once Upon a Time"), a devoted  husband and father who works as a grief counsellor.  He also happens to be the killer DS Gibson and her new task force are searching for.  When not helping care for his ultra-cute kids Olivia and Liam or guiding a young couple through the heartbreak of losing their son, he's stalking young professional  women as a prelude to murdering them in extremely ritualistic fashion.

While Dornan plays the character with a quiet, smoldering intensity,  Anderson's DS Gibson seems mostly sullen and cold.  This is partially accounted for by the fact that she has no life whatsoever outside of law enforcement, and treats the one sexual encounter that we see--after an abrupt come-on to handsome  young cop James Olson (Ben Peel) to whom she's just been introduced--with less warmth and intimacy than a handshake. 

When Olson is gunned down in connection with a related case, Burns' objection to Gibson's casual encounter with him becomes fodder for series creator and writer Allan Cubitt's desire to inject gender politics into the mix whenever possible.   The scripts often feed Gibson weak male characters to get the best of and sympathetic female colleagues to  bond with, although none of this is as effective or relevant as Helen Mirren's struggles against sexual discrimination in the classic series "Prime Suspect." 

It does, however, give Anderson the chance to play an imperfect heroine who isn't particularly likable and, in fact, comes off as rigid, humorless, and emotionally-repressed.  We learn practically nothing about her past and thus haven't a clue as to how she became this way.   One might even call her character underwritten,  giving Anderson the task of filling in the blanks with her own substantial presence, which she manages to do quite well.

As for Paul Spector, so much is made of his family and professional lives that we sometimes almost forget that he's the killer, except for the times in which his public and private personas threaten to collide.  Strangely, he's just about the only male character who seems to demonstrate consistently positive traits--faithful husband, devoted father, caring grief counsellor--and he's so matter-of-fact while going about his misdeeds that we get little sense of how truly evil and deranged he would have to be underneath his bland exterior.

A not-altogether-successful attempt is made, through crosscutting, to draw parallels between Spector and Gibson as we see them going about their lives.  Both are predators of a sort--she conquers her male prey through impersonal sex while he dominates and kills his victim.  He runs, she swims; she pores over her case notebook while he studies his trophy scrapbook; and so on.  In one curious scene,  a shot of a dead victim sprawled across a bed is juxtaposed with a similar view of Gibson in a matching reclining pose after sex.

The murder sequences,  of course, are repellent but not played to chill or thrill except when things go wrong and chaos ensues,  as in episode four's botched attack.  This bit of excitement comes none too soon, as it's around this point that the series starts to drag a bit despite some mildly shocking moments which, even so, might have been directed a bit more sharply.  Other subplots which don't seem all that relevant distract from the main drive of the story.

As Spector fights to keep himself together,  a punchy phone conversation with DS Gibson provides the series with some of its most scintillating moments.  However,  this is the closest we'll get to a climax in series one, as the final episode ends with a cliffhanger that promises to stretch things out even more next season.  I would've preferred a resolution,  but if the writers go in a different,  unexpected direction next time it should keep things interesting.

The 2-disc set from Acorn Media is in 16:9 widescreen with Dolby Digital sound and English subtitles.  The sole extra is a 12-minute behind-the-scenes featurette.

THE FALL: SERIES 1 is substantial, involving drama that's worth watching,  although somewhat of a disappointment compared to some of the better Brit cop shows I've watched.  In some ways it even comes off as a bit half-baked at times.  And while I'm keen to find out what happens next season,  I'm not exactly on pins and needles.

THE FALL: SERIES 1 -- DVD Review by Porfle

MURDERLUST (w/ PROJECT NIGHTMARE) -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 1/14/17

 

One of the joys of movie watching is discovering new (to me anyway) low-budget filmmakers with a knack for turning straw into gold.  Or at least making the straw look better.  1985's serial killer thriller MURDERLUST (like its Intervision DVD companion PROJECT NIGHTMARE) is very good straw. 

Here, two very independent filmmakers--writer/director Donald M. Jones and writer/producer James C. Lane--have joined their noteworthy talents together to concoct a viewing experience which, while not exactly something to write home about, is admirably well-rendered considering that the budget was around $30,000.  That includes shooting on 35mm film, which in the pre-digital days ate up budgets like Homer Simpson going through a box of donuts.

In their script, which was begun by Jones and completed by Lane, Eli Rich (THE JIGSAW MURDERS) plays Steve Belmont, whose activities at the local church (he teaches Sunday School and counsels troubled kids) mask the fact that he's a vicious serial killer in his spare time.

Steve actually leads a triple life, since in addition to these two sides of his personality there's a third--that of a surly working stiff whose real jobs are marred by extremely disrespectful and irresponsible behavior.  When he isn't planning his next kill or being Mr. Nice Guy at the church, he's telling off his boss, trying to cajole his landlord to extend his rent deadline, or soaking his straight-laced cousin Neil (Dennis Gannon) for loans and favors. 

Interestingly, it's the non-serial-killer stuff that MURDERLUST spends the most time on.  In fact, the film is more about how Steve struggles to maintain his everyday life and keep up his clean image at church than about his homicidal activities.  So those looking for blood and gore or a series of graphic, cinematic murders for their own sake will likely find much of this story rather slow going.  Maybe even boring.

But if you get caught up in Steve's story then that should be sufficiently involving.  His standing at church is threatened when a disturbed young girl accuses him of inappropriate touching (of which, surprisingly, he's innocent) and a chance encounter with a fellow member who professes her secret love for him (Rochelle Taylor as "Cheryl") has Steve thinking that maybe he has a chance for a normal life after all.

"Normal", however, just isn't in Steve's makeup, and he keeps returning to what he does best, which is luring women into his apartment or his "creep" van, dispatching them, and then driving them out to the desert to dump the bodies.  (He'll eventually be known by the press as the "Mohave Murderer.")

Jones stages the murder scenes pretty matter-of-factly, without lingering over any of the details or indulging in anything gratuitous.  It's the drama and suspense that occur between these scenes in this leisurely-paced character study that he and co-writer Lane are concerned with.  That, and delivering as good-looking a film as they can for their meager budget.

This is where Jones' knack for solid, economical staging comes to the fore, with the help of a highly capable cast led by the talented Rich as our anti-hero Steve.  Producer Lane also adds his valuable expertise in various technical aspects (camerawork, lighting, sets, etc.) as well as pulling off some beautiful helicopter shots in the desert which he describes in detail in his informative commentary track.

As you can probably guess, Steve's veneer of normalcy comes crashing down around him in the film's climax, as his true nature is revealed to a horrified Cheryl.  Even here, though, the main goal of MURDERLUST is to draw us into its story rather than shock us.

I found MURDERLUST to be involving, if perhaps a bit overly low-key, and was interested to see how it had been put together with such limited resources.  (Watching it along with Lane's detailed commentary is especially enlightening.)  Stalker-slasher fans in the mood to be thrilled and horrified, however, will likely deem it a yawner.



The second film on the disc is Jones and Lane's first feature effort, PROJECT NIGHTMARE, which finally found distribution in 1987 after some of their subsequent films had already been released.

With an even lower budget and a soundtrack in which all the dialogue was looped, the film manages to look better and, in my opinion, present a much more intriguing "Twilight Zone"-esque story.

The brash, outgoing Jon (Seth Foster) and the quiet, introspective Gus (Charles Miller) are two old friends whose camping trip in the mountains is interrupted when a strange, unknown force begins to chase them through the woods.

Seeking shelter in a secluded cabin, they meet Marcie (Elly Koslo), a strangely accomodating woman who not only trusts them implicitly on sight but quickly falls for Gus, whose feelings are guarded but mutual.

After a series of vain attempts to return to civilization, all three eventually find themselves fleeing the mysterious force and end up stranded in the desert.  Several events bordering on the supernatural occur, but after Gus finds his way down into an underground bunker, he discovers the true origin of all the strange occurrences that have been plaguing them.

Up to this point PROJECT NIGHTMARE has been having a ball leading us through a maze of inexplicable twists and turns which it must now labor to explain.  Thankfully, the ending isn't one of those copouts that leaves us hanging, and the resolution to all the mysteries consists of some pretty interesting science fiction for us to wrap our heads around.

Technically, the film is thoughtfully directed by Jones and is rife with great outdoor locations that are well-photographed in 35mm. The underground facility betrays its low budget at times but not really to the film's detriment.

A nightmare sequence early on is quite expertly conceived and edited, ending dramatically with a series of still shots timed to a pounding heartbeat.

With a combination of "Twilight Zone", "The Outer Limits", and, according to Lane in his commentary track, FORBIDDEN PLANET, the story manages to maintain our interest throughout.  This is helped in no small measure by a very capable cast.

Despite playing second fiddle to MURDERLUST on this Intervision double-feature disc (whose bonus features consist of the two James Lane commentary tracks and a MURDERLUST trailer), I consider PROJECT NIGHTMARE the more interesting and rewarding of the two features.  Together, they make for one very worthwhile DVD which I found richly entertaining.

MURDERLUST (w/ PROJECT NIGHTMARE) -- DVD Review by Porfle

THE BABY -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 6/21/14

 

As if 1973's THE BABY weren't already mind-bending enough--not to mention disturbing, perverse, subversive, borderline repulsive, and just plain coo-coo--Severin Films has made the whole horrifying experience even more vivid by releasing a spanking new version ("restored from the original film negative") on Blu-ray.

Now we get an even clearer and more high-definition view of some of the most cheerfully repellent images of all time as a full-grown man (known only as "Baby") is spoon-fed, nursed, diapered, cattle-prodded, and even sexually molested by his also-grown sisters while their overbearing psycho-mom, played by the incomparable Ruth Roman, presides over the whole sordid scenario.

What happens when this idyllic situation is encroached upon by a nosey, bleeding-heart social worker (70s TV-movie icon Anjanette Comer as "Ann") intent upon taking Baby away from them has to be seen to be believed. When Ruth and Anjanette finally clash in the movie's heated climax, it's a confrontation that must've had jaws dropping in drive-ins across America.



The Severin Films Blu-ray disc is in 1080p full HD resolution widescreen with Dolby Digital English mono sound. No subtitles.

As with Severin's 2011 DVD release of this title, extras consist of telephone interviews with director Ted Post and star David Manzy, and a trailer.

Here's our original in-depth DVD review:

If you remember "The ABC Movie of the Week" or have seen some of the low-key but weird thrillers that showed up on it during the 70s (BAD RONALD, DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK), you should recognize the dingy, suburban gothic style of THE BABY (1973). Right down to the bland opening titles, mawkish musical score by Gerald Fried, and television-level production values, this looks like the typical made-for-TV chiller from that era.

Surprising, then, that not only is this a theatrical film directed by Ted Post (MAGNUM FORCE, BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES), but it contains language, sexual situations, violence, and an overall air of perversion that would've had the TV censors working overtime with their scissors.

Ruth Roman does her patented "tough gal" act as swaggering single mom Mrs. Wadsworth, who, along with her grown daughters Germaine (Marianna Hill) and Alba (Suzanne Zenor), must care for her son Baby, a twenty-one-year-old with the mind of an infant. Their new social worker, the recently-widowed Ann (Anjanette Comer, a familiar TV face at the time), expresses great interest in Baby, which raises the jealous Mrs. Wadsworth's suspicions. When it appears as though Ann may be scheming to take Baby away from her, she and her deranged daughters take deadly action.

The plot of this languidly-paced tale unfolds slowly but is dotted with enough bizarre incidents to keep things interesting. The first one occurs when a babysitter (Erin O'Reilly) is caught breastfeeding Baby and is soundly thrashed by Mrs. Wadsworth and the girls. Just hearing Ruth Roman say lines like "Nothing happened? With your damn tit in his mouth and nothing happened?" is weird enough. Seeing the babysitter begin to change Baby's diaper as he's stretched out in his giant crib conjures up disturbing images of diaper service men in hazmat suits.

The attitudes of Baby's sisters toward their developmentally-challenged brother are also less than wholesome. Flaky blonde Alba, bless her, takes after him with a cattle prod when he displays too much progress (such as saying "Ma-ma") in one of my favorite scenes. "Baby doesn't walk! Baby doesn't talk!" she shrieks between zaps. The horny Germaine, meanwhile, has even more perverse uses for her "baby" brother. Nothing's explicitly shown, but it's still enough to make you go "Yuck!"

But perhaps the most off-putting thing about THE BABY is David Manzy's insipid antics in the title role. He reminds me of a porn actor who's been asked to perform beyond his range. Whether Baby's sucking on a bottle, frolicking around on the floor, or bawling and making pouty faces in his crib (with real baby noises dubbed in as he mugs it up), I just want to throttle the goofy bastard.

(On the other hand, though--how, exactly, would a better actor approach such a role? It would be interesting to see somebody like Sean Penn strap on the giant diaper and go for an Oscar.)

One of the film's key sequences is a birthday party for Baby, during which Mrs. Wadsworth and the girls make their move against Ann. This dreary, dreadfully unhip bash, with middle-aged losers in mod attire dancing to quacky "rock" music, is somebody's idea of what a wild party looked like in the 70s, and it's cheesier than a platter of movie-theater nachos.

The great Michael Pataki appears here to wincingly comic effect as a bushy-haired horndog. With the film's furious finale, THE BABY at last serves up a helping of Grand Guignol horror as Roman and Comer huff and puff their way through a hokey but bloody clash that leads to a nice little head-scratching surprise ending.

Ted Post's no-frills direction gets the job done and his two leading ladies deliver the goods. Anjanette Comer was never all that forceful as an actress, so she gives her character a suitably vulnerable quality. Hollywood veteran Ruth Roman, on the other hand, is the epitome of the brassy broad and her hot-blooded histronics are the most fun part of the whole movie. Marianna Hill (Fredo Corleone's wife in THE GODFATHER PART II) and Suzanne Zenor, who played the "Chrissy" role in the first pilot for "Three's Company", hold up their end of the film's oddball quotient.

Those seeking the balls-out bizarro shock-horror flick promised by the posters will be disappointed, since it comes off more as one of those early TV-movies with forbidden exploitation elements tacked on. But this is what makes THE BABY such a strangely interesting little curio. If you're in the mood for something unabashedly off-the-wall, then it should be worth your while to check it out.

THE BABY -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

THE BOYS NEXT DOOR -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 11/19/19

 

Penelope Spheeris may be best known for her comedies, but she gave us one of the hairiest, scariest thrill-killer flicks of the 80s when she directed THE BOYS NEXT DOOR (Severin Films, 1985).

Maxwell Caulfield (GREASE 2, "Dynasty") and Charlie Sheen (YOUNG GUNS, HOT SHOTS!) play high school misfits Roy and Bo, just graduated but faced with the dull prospect of going to work in a local factory for the rest of their lives.

These kids are filled with aggression and frustration and are just itching to take it out on the world, starting with their classmates whom they terrorize at one of those graduation parties held by someone whose well-to-do parents are out of town.

But that's not enough to quell the fire in their bellies, so they head for Los Angeles, where cruising Sunset Strip is just the beginning of a weekend of wild abandon that will quickly escalate into violent crime and, eventually, murder.

THE BOYS NEXT DOOR makes a halfhearted effort to "say something" about violence in society, serial killers, etc., but it pretty much boils down to total exploitation with some slasher-horror elements. (Which, of course, is a good thing.)

It's actually not all that scary--it never gets as intense, horrific, or graphic as, say, HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER. It's more like an edgy adrenaline rush that gets the blood going while leaving a sour taste in your mouth.

Caulfield is so much better here than in his pretty-boy, nighttime soap opera-type roles, never overplaying but giving us just enough "crazy" bubbling up beneath the sweaty surface.

His sociopathic young "monster-in-progress" character is always wire-taut and on the lookout for people he can violently take out his impotent frustrations on, channeling his pent-up sexual aggression into narcissistic rage.

While his friend Bo is constantly on the prowl for girls, especially ones that remind him of his unobtainable blond heartthrob from school, Roy seems so sexually paralyzed as to be violently asexual.

We wonder if his biggest problem is impotence with girls or a fear that he's actually gay, one which he acts out by attacking an innocent homosexual who invites them back to his apartment after meeting them in a gay bar.

Sheen gives an equally strong performance as an impressionable, easily-led type who tries to maintain a cool fascade while his own deep-seated emotional problems are coaxed into action by the stronger personality. 

We wonder if he would be capable of such antisocial behavior on his own, and, like so many serial killer duos, the two disturbed youths combine into one very dangerously psychotic entity that thrives on acts of swift, senseless violence and murder.

Iconic 70s-80s actress Patti D'Arbanville (BILITIS) plays Angie, a sophisticated Hollywood girl who unwisely lets herself be picked up by these two very bad eggs.

The film  also follows the progress of two dogged, world-weary police detectives (familiar faces Christopher McDonald and Hank Garrett) who are on the killers' trail.

Each murder sequence builds inexorably as the unsuspecting victims are dispatched in quick, jarring bursts of rage that come seemingly from out of nowhere, mostly at the hands of the ever-unstable Roy as Bo either looks on in shock or is compelled to join in.

Spheeris (WAYNE'S WORLD, BLACK SHEEP) directs it all in taut, crisp fashion, giving us plenty of action (including a couple of exciting chase scenes) as Roy and Bo head nonstop for the inevitable bad ending. 

The Blu-ray from Severin Films looks and sounds great, and comes with a well-stocked bonus menu which includes a commentary track with Spheeris and Caulfield, several interviews and featurettes, alternate titles and extended scenes, and the film's trailer.

Watching THE BOYS NEXT DOOR is like watching a driver speed down the wrong way on a freeway and knowing he's eventually going to crash, taking out a number of innocent people along with him and doing it just for sick, suicidal thrills. 


Buy it at Severin Films

Special Features:
    Audio Commentary with Director Penelope Spheeris and Actor Maxwell Caulfield
    Blind Rage: Interview with Stephen Thrower, Author of Nightmare USA
    Both Sides of the Law: Interview with Actors Maxwell Caulfield and Christopher McDonald
    Give Us Your Money: Interviews with Street Band Performers Texacala Jones and Tequila Mockingbird
    Caveman Day: Cinemaniacs Interview with Director Penelope Spheeris and Actor Maxwell Caulfield
    Tales from the End Zone: Interview with Actor Kenneth Cortland
    The Psychotronic Tourist – The Boys Next Door
    Alternate Opening Title Sequence & Extended Scenes (Silent)
    Trailer

THE BOYS NEXT DOOR -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

Bela Lugosi At His Nicest! ("Invisible Ghost", 1941)(video)

Bela Lugosi At His Nicest!

Bela shows what a really, really sweet guy he could be in this one.

"APPLE pie? My, dat VILL be a treat!"


I neither own nor claim any rights to this material.  Just having some fun with it.  Thanks for watching!

Bela Lugosi At His Nicest! ("Invisible Ghost", 1941)(video)

WTF! -- Movie Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 7/22/17

 

It isn't often that your run-of-the-mill teen slasher pic actually defies and/or exceeds expectations, but WTF! (2017) lives up to its title by doing just that.

Not that it reinvents the wheel or anything.  It's just that debut director and co-writer Peter Herro has managed to toss in all the familiar ingredients and whip up something that doesn't taste like the same old microwaved mess.

Perez Hilton's cameo is, thankfully, brief, as he yells "F***ing spring break, pussies!" at a pool party (perfectly setting the film's early tone) and tries to be Steve-O for five minutes before disappearing.  (Yay!)

Then, it's off to a secluded cabin in the woods for our cast of bratty young party-hearty-ers and a fun-filled weekend of alcohol, weed, sex, skinny-dipping, and death.

(Oh, and just to get a couple of things out of the way to begin with -- there's no Wi-Fi and no cell phone service.)

All the stereotypes are here and then some, along with many of the familiar tropes (including the gas-station hick who warns the kids to "stay away from that place") which, by now, are so comforting that we sort of welcome them.

In fact, this movie wants to be predictable so that it can play around with, and sometimes bend, all our expectations.  Not to mention the fact that letting go and indulging in all the foolishness this genre has to offer, if done right and with tongue firmly in cheek, can be fun.

WTF! does just that by being a nicely-filmed self-parody pretending to be a serious horror flick.  The kids inhabit their roles to the hilt--the spoiled rich girls, the horny frat boys, the various loners (final girl, sensitive boy, etc.)--and actually play them with conviction.

This is especially true once it finally dawns on them that party time is over and the gore has hit the fan.  It's rare, but in this case the ensemble acting actually improves once the cast are expected to emote their heads off.  They're terrific, in fact, as is Herro's direction. 

Not only that, but after some pretty brutal kills, there's a nifty twist that I didn't see coming.  Or rather, I sorta saw it coming but not quite from that direction.  "WTF!", indeed. 

WTF! -- Movie Review by Porfle

COLD PREY -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 1/18/09

 

Another throwback to the old stalker-slasher tradition, the Norwegian thriller COLD PREY, aka FRITT VILT (2006) concentrates less on graphic violence and gore than simply trying to keep us on the edge of our seats. It's familiar stuff, and quite predictable, yet it still manages to be a fun and entertaining spookhouse ride.

The gang of young victims-to-be follows the same template as, among other films, both versions of THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE. There's the hero couple, Jannicke and Eirik, who are responsible and level-headed; the make-out couple, consisting of cute, immature dude Mikal and dumb-blonde babe Ingunn; and finally, the fifth-wheel loner Morten, who playfully admits to having an intense love affair with his own hand.

While everyone else is crowding into packed ski resorts, Eirik whisks the gang off to a remote mountain location for some snowboarding, despite recent news reports of a rash of skier disappearances in the area (like, around 110). It only takes Morten about a minute to break his leg, and, wouldn't you know it, nobody can get a signal on their cell phones. Jannicke, quickly asserting herself as the most useful member of the group, sets the broken bone herself and then spies an abandoned hotel in the distance where they can hole up for the night. All of this occurs within the first fifteen minutes, so it's clear that this movie is wasting no time moving things right along.

The secluded hotel itself is an awesome actual location that helps to give this familiar story its own unique feel. Made to look old and disused, it has plenty of long, dark hallways, creepy basements, and other cobwebby nooks and crannies that are just right for a mysterious killer to lurk around in. Director Roar Uthaug keeps the tension taut as one by one his hapless characters find themselves alone in various parts of the building, gradually realizing that they're being stalked. When all hell finally breaks loose, an exhilarating level of suspense is maintained to the very end, punctuated by some pretty effective jump scares. And since we don't really care all that much about most of these characters, it's generally a fun experience rather than a dark and disturbing one.

This good-looking film is slickly directed and photographed and has plenty of chilly, gloomy atmosphere but surprisingly little gore. The cast is capable, especially Ingrid Bolsø Berdal as Jannicke, whom I'd definitely want to have along if I were in a similar predicament. Her character is brave and resourceful--she coolly Super-Glues the gaping wound on Morten's leg shut--while at one point allowing herself a rather stunning act of cowardice that somehow makes her a bit more believable. As Ingunn, Viktoria Winge lends the film what little sex appeal it has as she runs around in her skimpies while avoiding the killer's pickaxe. Among the male leads, Rolf Kristian Larsen is the most noteworthy as Morten. The killer himself is pretty generic, and is most effective when off-camera.

The DVD image is 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, with Dolby Surround 5.1 for the Norwegian soundtrack and 2.0 for the English one. You'll probably want to listen to the Norwegian soundtrack with subtitles after getting a load of the bad English dubbing, which sounds kind of like the Disney version of a Miyazaki cartoon. Somehow I don't think Norwegian translates very well to English, or at least not in this case.

A generous helping of extras includes: an alternate ending with shots from the movie augmented by storyboards; a making-of featurette; brief looks at the visual FX, sound design, and other aspects of the production; the evolution of the opening car scene, from rehearsal to final editing; eight minutes of bloopers (some of which lose a little in translation); two short films; a music video; and trailers and TV spots.

COLD PREY doesn't really offer anything new to those of us who have seen our share of slasher movies, and, lacking any real emotional depth or memorable moments, is soon forgotten after the fadeout. But with its atmospheric setting, likable characters, and frantic pace, it holds up well as a crisply-executed and chillingly suspenseful thriller.

 

COLD PREY -- DVD Review by Porfle

DEAR MR. GACY -- DVD Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 12/14/10

 

I've seen several of those direct-to-video serial killer bios that have come out in the last few years, so I kind of expected DEAR MR. GACY (2010) to be cut from the same exploitative cloth--basically a lurid slasher flick marginally legitimized by the fact that it's more or less based on true events.  But this above-average account of college student Jason Moss' ill-advised attempt to get into the mind of John Wayne Gacy, who was then awaiting execution for the gruesome murder of 33 young men and boys, eschews gory sensationalism and takes us on a dark psychological spook ride into genuine fear.

When we first meet Jason, he's an aimless college student whose only real passion seems to be criminology.  The impending execution of Gacy gives him an idea--if he could find a way to contact the convicted serial killer, earn his trust and friendship, and persuade him to open up and perhaps even confess, it would make for a kickass term paper.  Inspired to an increasingly unhealthy degree by the prospect, Jason contacts Gacy by mail and even sends him some provocative shirtless photos to whet his interest.  After a little research, Jason is also able to say things in his letters which are designed to establish a sympathetic, trusting rapport with the killer.

The plan succeeds beyond Jason's wildest expectations, with Gacy becoming his ardent pen pal and even phoning him repeatedly from prison for long emotional chats.  But as the naive, overconfident Jason thinks he's getting one over on Gacy, he's being played like a cheap violin by a master manipulator.  The relationship begins to insinuate itself into every aspect of Jason's life until it finally becomes volatile and threatening. 


DEAR MR. GACY takes its time building up a sense of dread as we watch Jason stupidly get in deeper and deeper, stoked by both morbid curiosity and ego.  He's so naive that the smooth-talking Gacy has him dangling on a string before he even realizes it.  Jason doesn't even hear warning bells when Gacy creepily starts inquiring about his little brother, so sure is he that his "plan" to trick the wily convict into exposing himself is working. 

It's almost funny the way he thinks he's putting one over on Gacy when he hasn't the slightest clue of the massive mind game being played on him for the killer's twisted amusement.  This is especially evident when Gacy coaches him on how to read people and assess their traits and weaknesses in order to assert control over them.  Jason absorbs the information with interest and even tries it out on an attractive girl on campus (failing miserably, of course), oblivious to the fact that the sly Gacy is describing exactly what he's doing to the unwary Jason himself.

Director Svetozar Ristovski takes his time building a slowly-mounting sense of dread, keeping things low-key and realistic without trying to make the film overly "spooky."  We fear the seemingly inevitable outcome of Jason's downward slide (which is portrayed perhaps a bit too rapidly) as he alienates his family and his girlfriend while plunging into the depths of paranoia.  A somber cello-based score by Terry Frewer augments the film's downbeat tone throughout.


Veteran character actor William Forsythe (RAISING ARIZONA, THE ROCK) doesn't try to come off as a standard boogeyman.  He plays the character of John Wayne Gacy with seductive yet seething restraint, like a spider weaving its web for the unwary fly, until finally he gets Jason right where he wants him during the face-to-face meeting which the film has been leading up to all along.  This is where Forsythe lets loose and morphs into the terrifying monster we knew was lurking behind that fascade--it's almost like seeing Brian Cox's "Hannibal Lekter" from MANHUNTER unleashed.  The sequence inside the prison visitation room doesn't quite pack the wallop it might have, but it's still pretty unsettling.

Jesse Moss (FINAL DESTINATION 3) is well-cast as Jason and convincingly progresses from an almost groupie-like fascination with Gacy, to his growing addiction to the perverse thrill of Gacy's friendship and confidence, and finally his revulsion and terror as the relationship turns into an inescapable nightmare.  The rest of the cast is good, including Emma Lahana (ALIEN AGENT) as Jason's concerned girlfriend Alyssa and Andrew Airlie ("Defying Gravity") as his dubious criminology professor. 

The DVD from Anchor Bay is in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen and Dolby Digital 5.1, with English and Spanish subtitles.  Also included is a featurette, "The Gacy Files: Portrait of a Serial Killer", in which Forsythe talks with people who knew the man or were involved with his case.

There's no way to know how much of DEAR MR. GACY is strictly true--there's even an end-of-movie disclaimer reminding us that not all of Jason Moss' account, as related in his memoir "The Final Victim", can be verified.  But the story makes for a compelling and disturbing film, made even more so by a sad postscript which reveals that Gacy's malevolent influence may not have ended with his execution. 

DEAR MR. GACY -- DVD Review by Porfle

HANNIBAL -- Movie Review by Porfle

Originally posted on 9/1/16

 

Not so well-received, unfortunately, as the 1991 horror classic THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS was the inevitable follow-up, HANNIBAL (2001). The unenviable task of trying to match the financial and artistic success of SILENCE fell to director Ridley Scott, whose ALIEN and BLADE RUNNER were already regarded by many as classics themselves.

Here, he is working not only with a lesser script but with a new leading lady, Julianne Moore, replacing the absent Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling.

With the Lecter character now free and unrestrained, Anthony Hopkins has a field day developing him into an even more sinister, sardonic, self-satisfied, and almost supernatural force of evil who savors every sensual nuance of his heinous actions.

Moore does what she can with the Starling role as her character suffers a major setback and is unjustly suspended from duty. Lecter, returning from a sabbatical in Rome in which he was forced to disembowel a detective (Giancarlo Giannini) who was on his trail, takes an active interest in the life of the only person on earth for whom he has any affection.



This puts them both at odds with a horribly-disfigured billionaire named Mason Verger (a fascinating Gary Oldman), a former victim of Lecter who has concocted a revenge scheme which involves man-eating pigs.

Ray Liotta, in full slimeball mode, plays rival FBI agent Paul Krendler, whose ill treatment of Clarice will put him on Lecter's bad side in a big way.

Lacking the new-car smell and scintillating story of SILENCE, Ridley Scott compensates by turning HANNIBAL into an elegant yet balls-out horror epic loaded with shock value and gore.

Scott pulls no punches with the graphic violence and boldly risks alienating audience members expecting more of the same but finding themselves in the middle of a big-budget H. G. Lewis flick.

There must've been a few walkouts by fans of the previous film when one character's entrails splashed onto the pavement or the ravenous pigs started feasting on screaming humans in loving closeup.

But (warning--the next two paragraphs contain spoilers) Scott saves the most memorably jaw-dropping image for the finale, as Lecter hosts a dinner party for Starling and Krendler in which the entree just happens to be Krendler's brain.

Our gracious and urbane anti-hero deftly slices around the top of the drugged Krendler's skull and pops it off, then begins to feed him sizzling morsels of his own sauteed gray matter hot off the wok as Starling, along with most of the audience, gapes in mortal revulsion.

A final encounter between Lecter and Starling defines their relationship unequivocably and ends the movie on a suitably morbid note.

While admittedly inferior to SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, I find HANNIBAL to be an outstanding horror film in its own right and above-average on every level. The Lecter character is taken farther than ever before and explored in lots of fun ways, yet still avoids the cartoonishness into which he finally sinks in RED DRAGON. For me, Ridley Scott's uncompromising foray into the horror genre is a memorable success.


Read our review of THE HANNIBAL LECTER COLLECTION

HANNIBAL -- Movie Review by Porfle

DAHMER VS. GACY -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 5/2/11

 

When I first saw the DVD cover for DAHMER VS. GACY (2011), it seemed as though watching a bloody FREDDY VS. JASON-type horror flick featuring the two notorious serial killers going at it would, at best, go beyond "guilty pleasure" into actual hate-myself guilt.  What I didn't suspect is that it would turn out to be an all-out screwball comedy, and that I'd end up wishing it actually was the relatively straight, though somewhat tongue-in-cheek horror flick I'd envisioned in the first place.

The main reason for this, to put it simply, is that the movie isn't all that funny.  Not that cinematic jack-of-all-trades Ford Austin isn't trying--not only does he play two of the lead roles, but he also directs with the manic hyperactivity of a deranged Tex Avery, wielding the screenplay like a blunt instrument and trying to beat the funny into our skulls.  Unfortunately, most of what passes for humor here consists of wacky caricatures endlessly screaming incredibly graphic profanity at each other and engaging in grotesque slapstick atrocities that would make John Waters reach for the Tums. 

Austin plays Jeffrey Dahmer, or actually his clone, created during a secret government project designed to bring the worst serial killers back from the dead as super soldiers for the military.  Naturally, Dahmer escapes along with John Wayne Gacy (Randal Malone, playing the role like a watered-down version of Divine) and the two maniacs start murdering their way across the country until they finally run into each other and battle it out for serial-killer supremacy.  Also getting into the act is a drunken redneck named Ringo (also played by Austin) who's haunted by the voice of God (Harland Williams) talking to him through his household appliances and ordering him to go after the killers himself.
 


Sight gags and random comedy sketches come flying at us like confetti out of a wind tunnel and some of them can't help but be amusing now and then, especially when a local news show interrupts the action with updates featuring gorgeous serial-killer groupies and zoned-out eyewitnesses (including SLEEPAWAY CAMP's Felissa Rose).  The film opens promisingly as an author being interviewed by the news anchor gets murdered on air while ridiculous entertainment-news items scroll along the bottom of the screen.  Familiar character actor Art LaFleur then makes a welcome but all-too-brief appearance as a scientist drafted into the ill-fated cloning project before it goes haywire.

Bonnie Aarons tries her best to dredge the funny out of her role as vulture-like, cigar-chomping General Arbogast, who coordinates the search for the killers.  As project leader Dr. Stravinski, Peter Zhmutski is a retake or two away from a decent performance.  Austin himself is hit-and-miss as Ringo, earning a few chuckles during his battle with some ninjas (don't ask) and a frantic phone call to a prayer hotline for advice (Colby Veil is funny as the laconic operator).  But aside from a few bright spots, this character gets tiresome pretty fast. 

Former Munchkin Jerry Maren turns up in a vignette in which Gacy, in full clown regalia, harasses a midget street mime before killing him.  Maren sets the general tone of the dialogue here by spewing extreme profanities meant to shock us into laughter.  Dahmer is then shown luring a shaggy-haired barfly into a basement with drugs, forcing him to perform fellatio on him, and then gleefully raping his corpse while drilling blood-spewing holes in his head with a power drill. 

This doesn't even sound funny in print, so it's hard to imagine who the heck thought it would translate into giggles and yucks onscreen.  As with an earlier scene in which a bum fishes a live rat out of a dumpster and chows down on it in extreme closeup, it's the cinematic equivalent of someone taking an unusual-looking dump and then summoning his friends into the bathroom to see it.



Things come to a head when Dahmer, Gacy, and Ringo end up in the same room and the film goes into cartoon-chaos overdrive with all the fast-motion, zippy editing, and violent slapstick buffoonery that director Austin can throw at us.  What it all amounts to mainly is a bunch of blood-splattered mugging and mindless action punctuated by moments of graphic gore as the titans of terror alternately wrestle (Gacy sits on Dahmer's face, Dahmer bites him in the ass) and threaten each other with insults that are outlandishly vile enough to get them tossed out of a Tourette's convention.  In the midst of all this, X-13, a super-super serial killer clone designed to defeat them (Ethan Phillips of "Star Trek: Voyager") shows up and throws his two cents into the mix.  With all this stuff going on, the best bit is when a gay neighbor shows up with some housewarming tarts.

The DVD from Virgil Films & Entertainment is in 16:9 widescreen with Dolby 5.1 and 2.0 sound.  There are no extras. 

While fleeting flashes of funny bubble up from this dense, desperate epileptic seizure of a film, most of DAHMER VS. GACY comes off like a bad improv comedy troup on speed performing an autopsy on a fat guy while screaming insults at his mom.  Even if you enjoyed the outrageous antics of Divine and her disgusting brood in John Waters' PINK FLAMINGOS, this may be enough to make you feel like hosing off your DVD player after watching it.  Then again, if it sounds like your kind of movie--go for it!

DAHMER VS. GACY -- DVD Review by Porfle