SICK NURSES -- Movie Review by Porfle

 

(This review has appeared online in 2007 and again in 2012.)


SICK NURSES (2007) is a mind-boggling horror flick from Thailand that plays around with all those Asian ghost-story cliches and offers some of the most flabbergasting, over-the-top death scenes I've seen in quite a while.  It's a wickedly fun tale of revenge, summed up pretty well by Michael Madsen's "Budd" in KILL BILL:  "That woman deserves her revenge...and we deserve to die."  But Budd got off easy in that movie, because if he'd been in this one, he would've ended up worse off than Paula Schultz.

Dr. Tar (Wichan Jarujinda) is a celebrated young doctor who's engaged to the lovely nurse Tahwaan (Chon Wachananon).  But when she catches him fooling around with another nurse--her own sister, Nook (Chidjan Rujiphun)--she goes ballistic and threatens to expose the dirty secret that he sells bodies on the side.  As the rest of the nurses hold Tahwaan down, one of them stabs her to death.  Exactly seven days later, right before midnight, the ghost of Tahwaan returns to the hospital to wreak bloody vengeance upon Dr. Tar and the other nurses. 

This is one weird, gory, surrealistic movie.  Tahwaan's ghost is jet-black with piercing eyes and long, long black hair, which she uses for all sorts of fun things like cocooning people or hanging them from the ceiling.  And that's just for starters.  She can also turn your arms and hands black and take control of them, causing you do commit grave and usually very ironic injury to yourself.  A bulemic nurse who spends most of her time binging and purging ends up stuffing herself with some extremely unhealthy items until her jaw-dropping demise, while a couple of cute twins who deeply admire one another's beauty are eventually compelled to lay into each other with hacksaws.  As for Nook, who is pregnant with Dr. Tar's child...well, you can imagine her ironic fate.

The setting is what must be the emptiest hospital since HALLOWEEN II--there isn't a patient in sight--and the nurses all seem to have their own private, girly bedrooms and don't ever actually do anything except scamper around in sexy uniforms.  It's more like a big giddy sorority house run by SCTV's Johnny LaRue than a hospital.  This doesn't matter, though, because once the terror begins, logic would just get in the way.

At first it seems as though there's barely any story at all, but little scraps of the narrative fall into place along the way, mostly in flashbacks, to make things interesting between bursts of bloody horror.  And there's an awesome twist ending which, I must admit, I didn't see coming at all.  It doesn't make total sense, but that's one of the endearing things about this movie--it's so freakishly entertaining that it doesn't have to.

The simple premise is similar to dozens of killer-on-the-loose borefests we've sat through over the years, but here, lots of visual style and a truly imaginative sense of the bizarre set it apart.  SICK NURSES benefits from an enthusiastic young cast (composed mainly of lovely young ladies), impressive gore effects with a minimum of bad CGI, and an attitude that's as gleefully sick as those titular nurses.

SICK NURSES -- Movie Review by Porfle

AWAKE -- DVD Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 2/27/08

 

Hayden Christensen's character, multi-millionaire business tycoon Clay Beresford, Jr., dies on the operating table in AWAKE (2007). That may sound like a greviously inconsiderate spoiler on my part, but it happens about a minute into the movie. After that, the story is told in flashback by his surgeon and best friend, Dr. Jack Harper (Terrence Howard, CRASH, HART'S WAR).

[digression] You wanna talk spoilers? I just watched the trailer that comes with the DVD, and it contains one of THE major surprises of the whole story. The damn thing should have one of those *SPOILER ALERT!* warnings that people post on forums before they spill the beans about something. It's almost as bad as seeing a trailer for THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK that has Darth Vader saying...well, you know. So whatever you do, don't watch the trailer before you see the movie! [/digression]

Anyway, Clay seems to have it all--millions of dollars, a wildly successful business that he inherited from his late father, and a lovely young fiancee' named Samantha (Jessica Alba) who's dying to marry him. Only two things keep him from achieving total bliss. One, his domineering, overprotective mother, Lilith (Lena Olin, ROMEO IS BLEEDING, "Alias") who suspects Samantha to be a golddigger and is vehemently against the wedding. Two, the fact that Clay has a bad ticker and is about to undergo a heart transplant.

Oh, and last but not least, three--Clay is that lucky one in 700 patients who experiences "anesthetic awareness", which means that he's wide awake during the surgery even though he can't move. This would have to be a pretty horrific ordeal for someone undergoing a heart transplant, and we suffer with him through every harrowing detail from the first incision to the application of the rib-spreader and beyond. Through it all, we hear Clay's agonized thoughts as he tries to separate himself from the pain and find solace in his memories of Samantha. But before it's over, something totally unexpected happens (I repeat...do NOT watch the trailer first!) which puts an entirely different, disturbingly sinister spin on the whole procedure and turns AWAKE into a corker of a psychological thriller.

You may be one of those people with an uncanny knack for figuring out what happens next, but I didn't see this one coming at all. It's a doozy of a twist, and it won't be the last. For the rest of the movie, we see Clay's disembodied spirit (or astral projection, perhaps) roaming the halls of the hospital, trying to somehow communicate his dire predicament to anyone who might help. We also see him passing through various memories as a spectator and trying to glean information from them that might make sense of what's going on.

Scriptwriter and first-time director Joby Harold fills the early part of the movie with a succession of formal, almost Kubrick-like compositions--at times you can almost see the proscenium arch--that are obviously intended to represent Clay's ordered, structured world. I was pretty sure that this would be contrasted later on with a more free-flowing, off-kilter style as things began to spin out of control, which is exactly what Harold does to good effect. His direction is low-key but visually interesting, serving the story well without drawing attention to itself.

Harold has a fine cast to work with, including old pros like Lena Olin, Arliss "Tough Break For Hand Job" Howard (FULL METAL JACKET) as the much more experienced surgeon whom Clay's mother would prefer to perform the operation ("My hands have been inside presidents," he tells Clay at one point), and familiar face Christopher McDonald as the last-minute replacement gas-passer Dr. Lupin, who's a bit too tipsy to notice that crimp in the tube as he's administering the anesthetic injection. Jessica Alba acquits herself well as Samantha, and Hayden Christensen, unhampered here by George Lucas' awkward dialogue, is allowed to give a more natural performance than as the future Darth Vader. (Even a line as potentially sappy as "You think my new heart will love you as much as my old one?" comes off well.) Terrence Howard is, as always, a solid presence, as is another familiar face, co-producer Fisher Stevens, as Dr. Harper's somewhat hinky surgical assistant.

The DVD's bonus features include a director's commentary, the infamous "trailer that you shouldn't watch first", deleted scenes, a storyboard-to-film comparison that I skipped because I couldn't care less about storyboard-to-film comparisons, and a "making of" featurette. Presented in letterboxed widescreen format with Dolby Digital sound, the movie looks and sounds dandy to me.

The basic premise of a man remaining conscious during a heart transplant was intriguing enough to draw me into this story, and the doubletake-inducing plot twists that popped up unexpectedly along the way really had me going. It's a pretty original story idea that's fully explored and filled with drama and suspense all the way to the exciting conclusion. My typical-movie-reviewer assessment: (Joel Siegel voice) "You're sure to stay AWAKE during this operation!" Just don't watch that trailer first.

 

AWAKE -- DVD Review by Porfle

CHINA BEACH: THE COMPLETE SERIES -- DVD Review by Porfle

 Originally posted on 11/9/2019

 

I was never a fan of "China Beach", but after taking a long look at Time-Life's CHINA BEACH: THE COMPLETE SERIES (1988-1991), I can only conclude that those who are fans will have a field day with this lavish 19-disc collection of 62 episodes, including the original pilot movie and over five hours of bonus features.

The show's premise, of course, is the odyssey of U.S. Army Nurse Colleen McMurphy (Dana Delany, TOMBSTONE) serving a frantic tour of duty at a combination evac hospital and R&R facility set on a picturesque beach near Da Nang in Viet Nam.

Thus we observe the daily dramas of all the nurses, doctors, soldiers, Red Cross volunteers, and various civilian personnel, most of which are based on the real-life experiences of actual people.  (Not the least of these being former nurse Lynda Van Devanter, whose book "Home Before Morning" was the inspiration for the McMurphy character and her story.)

The show's setting is richly authentic, managing to give those of us with no such experience whatsoever an idea of what life was like there. McMurphy's days and nights are filled with the blood, horror, and tragedy of war, yet she must try to keep herself grounded by maintaining some semblance of normality in her personal life and dealings with friends and coworkers.

We also meet a widely-diverse cast of characters including Dr. Dick Richards (Robert Picardo, "Star Trek: Voyager"), whose playboy lifestyle helps him deal with a deteriorating marriage; SP4 Samuel Beckett (Michael Boatman), who processes dead bodies and thus has a unique perspective on mortality; and Red Cross volunteer Cherry White (Nan Woods), a painfully naive young woman searching for her MIA brother, Rick.

Local prostitute K.C (a stunning Marg Helgenberger, "CSI") is basically there to leech off the servicemen but eventually forms a meaningful relationship with Corporal "Boonie" Boonwell (Brian Wimmer), China Beach's lifeguard and recreation manager.  We also get to know enigmatic recon operative Sgt. Evan "Dodger" Winslow (Jeff Kober, THE BABY DOLL MURDERS), trying to hold onto his humanity after having served in the jungle for too long.

Like "M*A*S*H" before it, everyday moments of happiness or strife are often interrupted by either a sudden influx of wounded G.I.s or harrowing enemy attacks, the worst being an intense episode which occurs during the TET offensive. 

For me, these segments represent "China Beach" at its most compelling. I find it least interesting when it lapses into soap opera, concentrates too much on characters such as USO singer Laurette Barber (Chloe Webb), whom I found obnoxious, or borders on the morally ambiguous, as when McMurphy allows a Viet Cong patient who blew up several G.I.s in a bar to go free and perhaps kill again simply because she feels sorry for her.

The show also tends, in my opinion, to come off as rather sanctimonious, as though basking in its own nobility for being so lavishly well-intentioned. Other viewers, I happily concede, may not get this impression at all.

Indeed, being quite aware of the immense and generally well-deserved popularity of the show, I can heartily recommend CHINA BEACH: THE COMPLETE SERIES to those devoted fans who will fully appreciate having all 62 episodes (not to mention the wealth of featurettes, commentaries, interviews, and bonus booklets) in their DVD collection.

CHINA BEACH: THE COMPLETE SERIES -- DVD Review by Porfle

SHOCK TREATMENT -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 10/28/20

 

Hardly the exploitation thriller the title would suggest, SHOCK TREATMENT (Severin Films, 1972) is a sober, deliberately-paced foray into slowburn suspense and growing tension that gradually develops like a photograph until the disturbing final image is revealed.

This French production from director and co-writer Alain Jessua (THE KILLING GAME, LIFE UPSIDE DOWN) offers its own take on a now familiar premise: a patient at a secluded clinic/ wellness resort/ rejuvanation facility begins to see beyond the fascade of happy patients and benign doctors and suspects a more sinister agenda at work.

That patient is Hélène Masson (Annie Girardot, ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS, THE PIANO TEACHER), a woman in her late 30s who feels that age is catching up with her and yearns for something that will keep her a step ahead of it. 

 

 

  

 

That something, as suggested by her friend Gérôme (Robert Hirsch), is the seaside resort of one Dr. Devilers (Alain Delon, PURPLE NOON, LE SAMOURAÏ, AIRPORT '79: THE CONCORDE), whose experiments in youth restoration seem to yield amazing results.

As one might suspect (and Hélène indeed eventually does), not all is as it seems despite the regular customers basking in their newfound youthful glow and crowing about Dr. Devilers as they laze about in saunas draped in seaweed or cavort naked in the warm ocean waves.  (The scene in which Delon himself strips to the skin and joins them will definitely be of interest to his fans.)

The plot thickens when Hélène notices the Portuguese servants hired to work there, all healthy young men, begin to behave strangely as though drugged and/or somehow depleted, and when tragedy strikes her friend after he expresses his own fears about the place and wishes to leave, she takes it upon herself to investigate what's really going on there. This, of course, puts her in grave peril.

 

With the beautiful French seaside as his canvas, director Jessua has concocted an attractively mounted and technically adept visual page-turner that grows more absorbing with each unsettling revelation.

His most valuable asset is a solid performance by Annie Girardot, whose Hélène is a thoroughly likable and identifiable protagonist for whom we care quite a bit as death and deceit begin to close in on her.

Alain Delon's handsome but shady doctor is less of a stretch, although he acquits himself well. The rest of the cast capably portray their spoiled, idle-rich sycophants of Dr. Devilers who care about nothing but their own well-being and endless vanity. 

 

The film has been described as a political allegory, which seems apt enough, although it might apply to any scenario in which people blindly follow a charismatic leader who offers them promises and pipe dreams at a terrible price.

SHOCK TREATMENT has that look and feel of a "foreign film" (unless, of course, you happen to be French) in the best sense of the term, offering a refreshingly different sensibility that increases our own vicarious feeling of being in a strange, unfamiliar setting. While never resorting to gore or sensation for its own sake, it builds to a chilling climax that may leave you as dazed and disoriented as its hapless heroine.



Buy the standard Blu-ray edition (single disc)


Buy the 2-disc SE w/slipcover, reversible wrap, and CD soundtrack


Buy the DVD



Special Features:

    Alain Jessua – The Lone Deranger: Interview with Bernard Payen, Curator at The Cinémathèque Française
    Koering’s Scoring – Interview with Soundtrack Composer René Koering
    Director’s Disorder – Interview with Director Alain Jessua
    Drumrunning – René Koering Commentary on Three Sequences
    Trailer

Special Limited Edition also includes:

    Reversible Wrap
    Limited Edition Slipcover
    CD Soundtrack

Disc Specs:

    Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
    Audio: English mono with optional closed captions, French mono with English subtitles
    Region A

Special edition slipcover:

 

Special edition reversible cover:

SHOCK TREATMENT -- Blu-ray Review by Porfle