Review - Fright Night (2011)

I have always adored the original Fright Night because of how it combines traditional vampire elements with modern interpretations. I don’t consider it a childhood movie because when I saw it, I was about 13 and rented it in conjunction with Waxwork and Head of the Family. When I heard there was a remake, I couldn’t believe it because I knew they would make it flashy and action-packed so that modern audiences wouldn’t be bored by it. The trailer only reassured me of this. So, I went to see it and I wasn’t wowed by it but I didn’t think it was terrible either. The story, this time around, is different from the original storyline. When Charlie’s friend disappears, his other buddy Ed tries to convince him that his neighbor, who happens to be a vampire, killed him. Charlie, at first, doesn’t believe him but soon discovers that he is right and that he now must protect his girlfriend and his mother from a bloodsucking monster who has survived for 400 years. He can’t do it alone, so he enlists the help of a famed Las Vegas entertainer Peter Vincent, who claims to have encountered a vampire in his childhood. I partially enjoyed the remake because it kept in the small things that made the original so good but it ignored some of the fundamentals of what made the original Fright Night a “compromise” flick.

I’m going to dive right into the small things that I liked about this remake. I always liked that smirk that the original Jerry Dandrige gives Charlie when he realizes that he just embarrassed himself in front of Peter Vincent. Colin Farrell is the perfect modern day candidate to deliver that snarky smirk followed by him taking a big bite out of a green apple. I loved it. It was one of my favorite moments in the original Fright Night and they kept it. I’m glad they kept in the famous lines, “you’re so cool Brewster” and “Welcome to Fright Night,” and although I hated the delivery of the first line, I think Colin did a great job delivering the second line. Although it was partially ruined by CGI, just like the blood in this movie, I am still glad they gave Charlie’s girlfriend a crooked, harlequin like smile when she becomes a vampire. It was something I was dreading from the moment I saw the trailer. They improved on something that the original barely touched base with and that’s the notion that a vampire needs to be invited into your house. I loved it because it’s going back to the old school rules of vampire mythology, something that modern day vampire movies always seem to forget. There is even a small almost unrecognizable cameo from the original Jerry Dandrige that I enjoyed. I think I was the only person to have clapped when I saw him on the screen.

One of the major concerns I had about the remake was the casting decisions and surprisingly, none of them applied to Peter Vincent or Jerry but rather Charlie and Evil Ed. I liked Colin Farrell as Jerry because he has a sort of modern charisma and snarky looks that can really be creepy. I have never seen one Dr. Who episode let along the ones with David Tennant but outside of the Dr. Who franchise, I’m a big fan of his work. I think he was a great cast for Peter Vincent and although, at first, I hated what they did to Peter Vincent I slowly warmed up to him as this cocky stage performer. However, for the first half of the movie, he was annoying and I had flashbacks to Dr. Loomis in the remake of Halloween 2. When he finally got his shit together and assisted Charlie in trying to take down Jerry, that’s when I smiled and said, “This will be good.” Anton Yelchin was actually pretty good as the nerdy Charlie Brewster and had that nervous stutter the original actor had but some scenes were really showing Anton’s age. Not that it matters but you could tell he is definitely too old to be in high school. As for Christopher Mintz-Plasse as Evil Ed, like with Peter Vincent, he was really annoying and not sympathetic as the original character was. I was okay with the casting but it was the way they played Evil Ed off. When he becomes a vampire, he looks more like a werewolf than a vampire, which is good… I guess, but I don’t think it was their intention.

There were lots of fundamentals that they decided to skip out on and in return they enhanced the action to keep modern day audiences more attentive. The original Fright Night is a slow movie and I liked that, in this remake, they get right to the point and they pepper it with house explosions, car chases and a gun & stake fight in Peter Vincent’s apartment. One major fundamental that they got rid of was the uncanny resemblance the original Fright Night had with Rear Window in that there are several scenes where Charlie is spying on his neighbor with binoculars. It was a wonderful aspect that they hardly even touched base upon with this remake. Another fundamental was the romance. I’m all for the cold-emotionless vampires of today but I always prefer my vampire to be romantic, and the original had a very complicated romance between Jerry and Amy. In Jerry’s long past, he was a romancer helplessly in love with a girl but because of his curse, he ended up leaving her. In the climax, when Amy is held down by Charlie, Jerry, as he’s being burned alive, screams out, “AMY!” It was really sad because I believe Jerry really loved her as she reminded him of when he was younger and not cursed. None of this romance and forgotten love is even in the remake. I hated it. It was the perfect chance to infuse traditional vampire mythology with modern day vampire mythos.

Speaking of relationships, there is no relationship between Jerry Dandrige and Charlie Brewster aside from Charlie being frightened by him. The original had such a great confrontation in Charlie’s bedroom and that scene wasn’t even put in the remake. The way I see Jerry, he’s supposed to be sympathetic and not a cold heartless bastard that the remake makes him out to be. In the bedroom, Jerry gives Charlie “a choice,” which is something he never had. This idea of Jerry protecting Charlie was always something that I loved because maybe Jerry sees Charlie as a young him. Jerry is missing a father figure and Jerry, or even Peter Vincent, is that father figure protecting him from something he can’t fully understand. This fundamental is completely absent from the remake and it looses any emotional impact they were going with. Also, there is so confrontation between Peter Vincent and Evil Ed, which I really loved from the remake. The agonizing pain that Ed goes through as he transforms from wolf to teenager was something that not only made Peter Vincent cry but it made me sad as well. Instead, they try to differ it up with the remake and it doesn’t have the impact that the original had; partially because they didn’t use practical and sound effects to create a truly agonizing scene on par with American Werewolf in London.

I try not to be nitpicky but these were fundamentals that I loved from the original. It’s so hard to compare the two films and the characters because the remake is so different from the original but because it bares the same name and basic plot, I feel as though I must compare the two. This is my entire argument, really. Things have been omitted, changed and flopped around to the point where if they changed a few more things, it could have been a great original story that pays tribute to Fright Night. Look at films like Disturbia. Disturbia, at it’s basic premise is exactly like Rear Window but they changed it up a bit, slapped another name on it and I loved it. Look at the movie Rat Race; same basic premise as It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World, but different execution and name. This movie didn’t need to be a remake but rather it’s own thing and I think if they did it that way, I would have loved it a lot more. Since it bares the name Fright Night, my mind will always be in conflict trying to compare an apple to an orange when it reality, they aren’t comparable. Fright Night, though I didn’t hate it, could have been something more original but instead they had to bank off of the name and make a remake. In the end, it makes me want to watch the original even more.

Review - Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2011)

I was never really excited for Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark but I was curious to see how they would be able to improve on an already cheesy 70’s TV show. When I saw the trailer for it, I thought it looked amazing but at the time I didn’t know it was a remake. As time passed I forgot about the movie until my friend watched the original TV show and said it was really cheesy. So, on the eve of its premiere, I was beginning to show a little excitement. This was a chance for the filmmaker and Guillermo (as the producer) to construct an homage to 70’s horror where the music and the mood are the scariest pieces. In the end, I walked out of the theater with a feeling of “eh.” It certainly isn’t bad but it wasn’t great either. It was okay. The film centers on a father, his young daughter and a stepmother who is NOT evil like any other horror movie. The young daughter, Sally, begin hearing voices coming from an old gated up hole in the basement. The voices say they want to be her friend but she quickly learns they want to attack her. Thinking that his daughter is crazy, the dad believes all the attacks are staged by Sally to get attention. Sally’s dislike for his new wife may have been the cause of that, however, the “no so evil” stepmother does a little sleuthing and finds out that little creatures that eat the teeth of young children inhabit the house.

One of the biggest problems that I had with the film, and it doesn’t tarnish the entire movie, was the willingness to show the creatures in extreme detail. Don’t get me wrong, I’m okay with a movie that feels like a demonic version of The Borrowers but I didn’t need to see all the details. By doing a Google search on Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, it seems as though the original did the same thing. The beginning of the movie has a man, named Blackwood, who chiseled his teeth and his maid’s teeth out and offered them to the creatures in exchange for his son. While in the process of sticking his head through that hole in the wall, something grabs him, we hear screams and then his entire body gets sucked into it. That was creepier than anything else in the movie. By showing your monster too much, you lessen the scare value and it reveals just how funny the creature or creatures are. I think if we saw small movement, or even a silhouette running in the shadows, it would have built up a better mood. If they had to show you what the creatures looked like, I think the best part to do so would be when Sally is lifting up her bed sheets and one of them pops out. It’s fast, it shows you it’s face and it’s a great teaser.

Perhaps Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark was marketed for horror fans that are within the R-rating. I can’t help but think of Insidious when I talk about it because they both seem to rely heavily on the same scare techniques of the 70’s, loud abrupt orchestral pieces and a very definitive mood. As a side note, I wonder why Insidious got a PG-13 and Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark got an R? There wasn’t any swearing any either of them from what I remember. However, in the case of Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, it wasn’t so much moody as it was loud noises. I’m fine with that because a lot of horror flicks use the loud noises to scare it’s audience but what made Insidious so good was the mood and it’s willingness to use silence as a means of scaring the audience. For younger horror fans, loud noises and foreboding music works and it’s a staple in the horror genre, I just wish they did something a little more different.

With all that said, and this goes for Insidious too, I love that Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark isn’t just your typical haunted house movie but rather something much more with a creature that is very reminiscent of old world demonology. The tooth-snagging creatures could be interpreted as teeth fairies seeing as how they steal your teeth and leave a piece of silver in it’s place. They almost seem like they drew inspiration from Medieval and Colonial takes on fairies where they were seen as monsters or demons that attacked children. I love that idea that there are things that live within the walls of my home, which is why that line, “Are you feeding that thing that lives in the wall again?” from People Under the Stairs freaked me out. I know this is a remake and I’m sure all this more appropriately applies to the original but I haven’t seen it yet, so I am basing all my assumption on the remake.

All in all, it wasn’t a near-flawless movie but it was still entertaining at times. I guess what separates me from a majority of the new horror fans is that I like it when the monster is left to your imagination. On the way back from the theater, my friend leaned over to me and told me that it would have been far creepier if they only revealed the creatures in the forms of the drawings. I couldn’t agree more. Otherwise, the acting is what you’d expect from a horror movie but the little girl was fantastic. It always seems to be the case. The mansion was creepy and I felt like it owned something to The Haunting remake. I also really enjoyed the bitter ending; I didn’t expect it and it was pretty cold. I won’t spoil it but it’s pretty sad. I wouldn’t rush out to see it but it’s a good movie to watch if you have surround sound and have nothing better to do on a dark stormy night.

The Beauty of Hill House

The Haunting has always been a favorite movie of mine, but it’s not the original. It’s actually the Liam Neeson remake that I would watch over and over again on VHS. There were two main reasons why I loved the movie: The special effects for that time and for myself were incredible and looked real, and at the time I was going through an awkward stage in my life where I fell in love with architecture and Hill House had some of the best décor that I’ve ever seen. Around 2002 I found out that the interiors were not part of the actual mansion but rather a set that was built inside a giant warehouse. I wasn’t disappointed but rather awe-inspired at how crafty, precise and imaginative the production designers were. At the time, I could imagine myself being rich and wanting rooms like those in the movie to become a reality for me. I would sit at the table, have the tape paused, and sketch out the rooms onto paper. I would even go as far as to draw out plans of Hill House so I could model my own house after it. Even now, as I watch the movie today, it’s still extremely impressive at how beautiful the set pieces are.

In an Obscure Hollow inspired post, I want to create a visual memorial to how beautiful and inspiring Hill House is. I am aware that the house isn’t called Hill House but I’m still in movie mode.

Hollywood Video Memories: Carnival of Souls (1998)

I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I use to watch this movie back when I was a kid and I remember the day that I went into Hollywood Video and saw the box cover in all it’s frightening glory. This was yet another case where I based the movie solely on what I saw on the box cover: the creepy silhouette of a clown that was mostly in shadow save for his demonic eye makeup. The ghostly carnival behind him that seemed like hell and the colorful balloons that had images of twisted demons and people in pain. All of it was enough to make me grab the VHS as much as I could, but I always wondered why I was the only one who seemed to rent it out. At the time, I didn’t know it was a remake and I also thought that Wes Craven directed it since it said, “Wes Craven Presents,” so naturally I thought it would be a great movie. From a child’s standpoint, it’s scary… very scary but from a more mature standpoint… well we’ll get to that soon.

Taking out the fact that this is a remake, the movie follows a young bartender named Alex Grant who, as a little girl, saw her mother raped and murdered by Louis Seagram who works as a clown for the local carnival. Emotionally and mentally scarred by this incident, she tries to live a normal life in the town she grew up in but she is constantly reminded of the terrible afternoon when it all happened. As the movie progresses she keeps having apparitions of these deformed monsters harassing her, and soon she begins seeing Louis everywhere even when the police tell her that he’s dead. It all boils down to that fateful night when she first met him at the carnival. Perhaps the only way that she could save her sanity is by going back to the carnival and confronting her demons once and for all.

There were several scenes that scared me and several scenes that would later influence me into becoming a filmmaker. Specifically, the scene that always stood out to me, more than any of the others, was the car wash sequence. It was probably the best scene because it really put you in this nightmarish world and I remember fighting with my mom every time we would go into a car wash, mainly because I didn’t want demons jumping out at me. To describe the scene wouldn’t nearly be as effective if you see it but I’ll try and do my best: as the car enters the car wash we are immediately bombarded with streams and jets of water, that in its own right is pretty creepy, then bright flashes begin to appear all around you and you begin to hear thunder as though you are driving through a storm. People pop out of random to wash your car but they have these faces of anger and sadism in their eyes, soon, you begin hearing these screeches and before you could even find out where they’re coming from some demon with a twisted, mangled face lunges at you. It was frightening for me to see this and I begin to develop a slight fear of car washes.

While on the topic of creatures, I love the creature design in this movie. I remember getting so freaked out by the way they look and they way they jump out at you, that I wanted to know everything about them. I wanted to know how they looked, how they were made and what the name of the effect is where you speed up footage of somebody shaking their head. This would serve as a catalyst for me to inevitably get into the movie making business. My research led me to a movie called Jacob’s Ladder because somebody stated that Carnival of Souls was a rip-off of Jacob’s Ladder. So, I thought Jacob’s Ladder was the original movie that had the “shaky-head ghosts.” Little did I know that the person was talking about the storyline and not the creature effects. But, that scene where all the creatures were sitting around the table staring at you will forever be burned into my brain. I can’t tell you how many times I would pause the tape on that moment and stare at that image, just trying to absorb their image. Honestly, I can go on and on about all the different memories I have attached to this film but I figure you want to know what I think about the movie now.

It’s obvious that I loved this movie as a kid but how does it fare up to now? Honestly, it’s not bad but it’s far from good and that’s if I stretch it out. Let me elaborate on the good things about the film. First off, the production design, though small as it was, was really surreal and very dream like. I’m not just talking about the car wash scene but the scene when Alex is walking through the carnival; there are just subtle visuals that give the carnival this ghostly surreal feel. Take for example, when Alex is walking down the row of carnival games and everybody keeps looking at her as she walks buy, if you look closely their faces are all pale and dead. More specifically, the scene where Alex finally confronts Louis has that nightmarish carnival quality to it and I’m talking about the over-sized bed and the melting clown in the background. I have to hand it to the production for making a really well made movie and the acting isn’t too bad either. It’s certainly not Oscar worthy but it’s better than most horror remakes and the overall tone of the movie wasn’t “glossy,” for lack of a better term.

There is only one problem and that problem affects the entire the entire movie and makes it almost impossible to get through. The story keeps jumping around, first you are in the dream-world (nod to Nightmare on Elm Street), then you’re back into reality, but then reality becomes the dream, then you wake up into realty 2, but that also becomes a dream so you’re constantly trying to figure out where you are in the film. This one problem distracts me from the entire plot and makes it a chore to get through. This was a problem that Jacob’s Ladder and the original Carnival of Souls didn’t have. The original had a set mood, a creepy mood might I add, that didn’t bounce back and forth but rather showed you the progression of this woman’s insanity. Jacob’s Ladder bounced back and forth but because the entire movie was set in the reality, the “dreams” acted as hallucinations and you excepted that Jacob was descending to hell. The end of this remake leaves you left puzzled and angry because all the buildup and all the confusion didn’t pay off. That was a huge problem.

I expected this movie to be awful. I expected to turn it off within the first 10 minutes but I was pleasantly surprised that visually the film is nice but as far as writing goes… that’s another story. It’s not the amazing movie I grew up with and I’ll probably never see it again (at least not for a long time) but I enjoyed watching it for nostalgic reasons. It brought back memories of me anxiously waiting to get home to pop this sucker into the VHS player and watch it all night. It reminded me of being a kid again and even though, to most people, the film is absolute shit it made me smile at times. I don’t think many people are aware that there is a remake of Carnival of Souls, let alone knowing that a movie called Carnival of Souls existed back in the 60’s but perhaps it’s better that way. Perhaps its obscurity would give it cult movie status and maybe that’s the only way people would like it. As for me, I’m just glad I got to revisit the demons of my childhood and I feel as though I should follow this up with Jacob’s Ladder since that was also a childhood favorite. So until then, here’s to you my “shaky headed demons” from the deepest pit of my childhood:

The Crazies Gave Me The Creeps

The Crazies: it’s a remake that has shown us, or me at least, that remakes can be scary and not just campy fun. Many remakes use tired old scares to make the audience jump and those remakes that nix these conventions try to get you with 3D. The Crazies has no 3D and clichés… but not many. No, I think what makes The Crazies so different is that it there is a certain disturbance to the movie; sort of as if everybody turned into a Bundy or Dahmer, hence being called crazies. There are many memorable scenes throughout the movie where we are given a look into the blank, emotionless actions of these crazies but three really stick out to me. Not only are they creepy but two of them are done so nonchalantly as if nothing was wrong.

One of the big reasons why I love this movie is because of the set pieces; they are so generic and reflect the Norman Rockwell age of small towns, the innocents, the playful nature of kids and warmth of a good education. That’s why I think it’s especially creepy that, situated in a classroom, government spies have gurnies of sick people tied and restrained. What made matters more creepy was when an infected scientist comes in, dragging a pitchfork, and begins using it to impale the restrained people. It’s so creepy and so uncomfortable because when you look at the scientist, just by his eyes, you can tell there isn’t any emotion or regard for life. It’s such a random act of homicide that it typifies what being ‘crazy’ is all about. I guess it’s also because the film doesn’t hold any boundaries back when letting you hear the pitchfork going through somebody’s chest cavity. Now every time I see a classroom I’ll think of a gurney rather than a desk.

Speaking of making Norman Rockwell flip out, there is a particularly disturbing scene that takes place in a baby’s room. It’s another one of those places that are meant for something good like raising a child that has been tainted because of a government weapon. Here, a mother and her son tie up the sheriff’s wife and threaten to shoot her dead after he shot her husband. I guess what makes it creepy is that it’s a mother and son pair, and the way the son looks at his mother makes it seem like he is under her control and is willing to do what she says. That twisted sense of obedience made me shiver every time I watch this. The mother kept alluding to the fact that her husband was wrongfully killed when in actuality it was because of self-defense the way her son agrees with her suggests that even if he wasn’t infected, he’d still follow her twisted revenge plan. I think it’s even more ironic that the room was meant to raise a child and yet the situation displays an example of how not to raise a child.

However, the one sequence that was scary and made me jump a few times was when the group of heroes hide in a car wash from a helicopter but unwillingly stumbled into place for dozens of crazy people to hide. I have always been freaked out by car washes because the shadows, the water and the brushes always looked like monsters trying to get in… and this sequence brought my childhood nightmare to life. The crazy people not only hide and use the brushes to their advantages but they make it so that it’s impossible to pin point them in one place, as if they were fighting gorilla style. I’ll never forget seeing one the infected people wrap a hose around one of the character’s neck, then hanging her. It was so swift and so clean that it was frightening to see the accuracy. As if they planned it.

You’ll notice there is a similarity these scenes share and it’s another reason why I love the movie. The set design not only felt like it was in a small town but it also felt like a dying town. It was stale, retro and almost ghostly. Aside from the fact that some of the creepiest moments I’ve seen in a horror movie took place there, the sets themselves were just as haunting. I’m sure as the age of remakes and sequels progresses into the new decade, the pitchfork scene will become a staple sequence in modern horror movies and for good reason. As of now it may give me the creeps but later on it will be an example of brutality at its finest. By then I will look back on it and say, “I remember when I aw that in theaters and I literally flinched my head away from the screen.”

My Bloody Good Valentine

In the age of remakes, sequels and 3D conversion it’s hard to find a movie that fits into both of these categories. 3D sequels always seem to suck. 3D remakes always seem to be worse than 3D sequels but is it possible for a champion to rise out from the ashes? I’m willing to admit that I am very hard on remakes, sequels and 3D movies but even I… while in the beginning of this trend, managed to find a movie that is not only 3D but also a remake that I enjoyed. It wasn’t intelligently written or packed with mind-blowing performances but rather a fun movie to watch. That movie is the remake of 1981’s My Bloody Valentine. The original couldn’t have been done better but I was so skeptical about the remake that I walked in knowing that it would suck. I walked out with a big grin on my face. Even after watching the original and remake side-by-side, trying to force myself to hate the remake, I still managed to like but why? I underwent an experiment to try to dissect why I love this remake so much and why it’s a step up above ‘popcorn’ status.

One of the biggest changes from both the original and standard remake conventions is the fact that the characters are not a bunch of sex-driven, idiotic teenagers. In the original the characters seemed to be young adults who are just having a good time, which was fine because it felt like a teen drama rather than a slasher. It went against what slashers were about but nowadays remakes take that formula and crank the knob on it. Now, all slashers involve teens that have sex, take drugs or drink alcohol. In fact, as many horror community members have pointed out, we want to see them get killed because they are annoying and have ‘false Hollywood’ morals. My Bloody Valentine 3D passes all of this up by making the characters more mature. They aren’t just teens drinking and having sex but rather adults that have families and inheritance to look after. It’s something that I never saw in a remake before. Tom Hanniger is about to sell of his dad’s mine and is tasked with deciding whether or not he’s right or wrong. Axel Palmer is having an affair with his wife, whom he had a child with. All these situations are adult-themed and go against the typical “my boyfriend was caught cheating with the school slut” theme.

Speaking of adults and adult situations, there is another reason why I felt this was a superior remake than most. Consider the ‘final girl.’ Why do I feel more remorse for her than any other teen girl in any given slasher movie? Well, she isn’t an idiot, she doesn’t stand there and scream all the time, she has morals, she doesn’t smoke or drink and she isn’t ‘fake.’ In fact, she has something to live for. She has a family, a husband, a child and life that she is defending from a maniac and that’s why I feel more endeared towards her. If we look at the girl that Palmer is cheating on, SHE is the typical ‘final girl’ that you’d find in most remakes and look what happens… she gets killed halfway into the movie. Perhaps the creators were trying to say something about how they feel about modern day heroines. It’s these things; these situations that the characters unwillingly get themselves into that make me feel sorry for them. It’s not their fault

The one thing that I hate about slasher remakes is that they are always flashy and what I mean by that is this: the quality of the picture looks as if the editors brought up all the reds, yellows and whites but also made the movie with glossy, goo-goo gaga, teen hotties. In the remake to Sorority Row all the girls were attractive eye candy who didn’t have brains. The picture also seemed like it was heavily color corrected to look like a damn Maxim photo. In My Bloody Valentine 3D they color corrected it to look dark, grim and gloomy. They made the tone of the picture match the atmosphere of the film and it was shocking. The grays, the blacks and the staleness fit with the ideology of a dying American Icon known as Main Street USA. I’m sure for most guys and girls the characters were attractive and I guess they would have to be but neither of them were dolled up and if they were… THEY HAD BRAINS! I was so relieved to find this movie clean of any flash. There wasn’t even a smudge of gloss.

One of my main standpoints on why remakes are terrible is because they don’t seem to try anything different and when they do they change it to the point where it’s not even the same movie. They just want to bank off the name. Nightmare on Elm Street was exactly the same as the original; nothing was that different or that special about it. Texas Chainsaw Massacre was different but too different, they could have made it into a different movie with a different title. King Kong was different but it kept to the original and expanded on the love between Kong and the actress. My Bloody Valentine is way different from the original because the stories are swapped and jumbled up into something new and fresh. However, they still have tributes to the original such as the drying machine kill or the dozens of minor outfits falling from the hangers in the warehouse. By doing this, you are literally doing what a REMAKE is; you’re using the same concept, story and idea of the original but molding it into something different. Look at some of the other great remake and compare them to the original. Vastly different but refreshing at the same time.

But perhaps the most refreshing thing about this movie, and this is something that earns it brownie points, was the casting of veteran actors Tom Atkins and Kevin Tighe. It doesn’t really matter because even remakes have great actors but to have Tom Atkins play an aging tough guy was a great treat to horror fans. You can’t have a good cult classic without Atkins and he went out the way we would want him… having his jaw ripped off from his skull. Kevin Tighe, however, was to please us obscure horror fans that would probably only know him for his roles in Rose Red or on an episode of Tales from the Crypt. These roles gave us something to admire because it’s been so long since we’ve seen either of them in something that was wide-release. If we take remakes like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Piranha, Nightmare on Elm, Halloween or Friday the 13^th… they have ‘veteran’ actors but they’re still around. Other than My Bloody Valentine, what was the last horror movie Tighe or Atkins was in?

Another brownie point that this film has because I could have cared less whether or not they chose to do so or not was the addition of 3D. Every movie is coming out in 3D and My Bloody Valentine was one of the first, in many, movies that was unnecessarily transferred to 3D. Back then, and even now, every movie I watch in 3D hurts my eyes and I was anticipating this movie to do the same. Not only did I walk out with a big grin but also I wasn’t rubbing my eyes or head. Somehow, this movie managed to make my eyes not bleed. It’s one of two movies that did this the other was Beowulf.

Sure My Bloody Valentine won’t become as great as some of the other remakes but it became, at least to me, a symbol that there are people out there that know how to make good remakes. I’m still cynical and bitter because the chances of another MBV are slim (look at Piranha 3D) but it can happen. I was pleasantly shocked to the point where it’s hard for me to choose which movie is better because they both stand for something. The original addressed the issue of a fading Small Town USA but the remake took that issue and put it into a modern perspective about a collapsing economy where people are being fired left and right. It’s a gamble that I am not willing to take on seeing another MBV 3D but till another one surfaces, I’ll be just find with the two that I own.

Inside The House on Haunted Hill

When I first saw the remake of House on Haunted Hill I loved it and even now, despite its flashy and glossy look, it’s still a great throwback to classic haunted house films as well as detective flicks. However, there was something that always attracted me to the film and that has to be it’s set design. At a young age I would always draw out, exactly how I saw them on screen, the different rooms and hallways that were shown. I had the biggest fascination with gothic architecture as well as art deco (as I already expressed here) and in fact I wanted to be an architect when I grew up. I was so infatuated by this movie’s set design that I actually began drawing up blueprints for the asylum on some graphing paper that I found. Yes, I drew up the floorplans for he foyer, the bedrooms, and the 1^st and 2^nd floors to the basement of the asylum. Now, I don’t know where these drawings are today but I am sure they are somewhere but in the meantime… I want to share with you some of my favorite rooms of the Vannicutt Institute for the Criminally Insane. Mind you, they are beautifully constructed.

Mocking Halloween: House on Haunted Hill (1999)

This was one of the first R-rated horror movies I saw on television and I was about 10 or 11 years old. I was so thrilled to see it, since my parents wouldn’t take me to the theaters, that I stayed up half the night to wait for it. When I got a little older I bought the DVD so that I can treasure that memory forever. Watching it now, on the big screen with a good sound system really puts the movie in perspective. My God Malone, that was one of the cheesiest, tackiest cornball of a movie I have seen since 2001 Maniacs. It’s obvious that this movie is heavily riddled with typical over-the-top Hollywood gimmicks and styles but this movie goes overboard with it at times.

As I sat in my chair I couldn’t help but notice how flashy and corny some of the scare tactics were in this film. Case in point: When Miss Marr is attacked by a ghost the film goes into this bombardment of obscure and surreal images that make no sense and contribute nothing to the film. It’s only there to leave the audience wondering the fuck is going on. The camera sways back and forth around the characters creating the old horror movie cliché of being surrounded by some force. There is flashy lighting, crazy camera filters, weird ghostly sounds that are struddled all over and the overused technique of the shaky headed ghosts. Even more so, the film uses a slew of one-liners and very scripted dialogue. Actually, I even remember a Scooby-Doo style montage of all the characters investigating the house.

House on Haunted Hill was made to scare modern audiences and you can tell that right off the bat with it’s flashy aspects. It doesn’t have the subtly and the charm of the original and it had Generation X written all over it. It proves that aesthetics and gloss don’t always make a good horror movie.

Art Deco & A Town Called Ambrose

Not many people know this, but when I was younger I wanted to be an architect and most of my influence came from either traditional Mexican looking architecture (popularized by the California Missions) or Art Deco, which was very popular back in the 20s and 30s. After watching the remake of House of Wax I realized one reason why I enjoyed it so much and that was because of the set pieces. They were beautiful and they were all in the vain of Art Deco. This of course wasn’t the first horror movie to use this creepily styled architecture, but the first movie to really utilized the creepiness that I personally remember is House on Haunted Hill (1999). With that said, I want to briefly touch base on why I love looking at Art Deco and why it can be creepy if used right… so with that, I welcome you to the world of Ambrose, LA.

Right off the bat, Ambrose is the type of town that seemed to have been lost in time and probably couldn’t keep up with recent changes, much like a lot of town. It began to decay and fall apart and soon… the people there just left or died. A sad ending to what could have been a great town. The buildings still stand but only to rot and fall apart from the weathering, but they are reminders of what once was. The architecture of the buildings gives us a glimpse of a thriving town during a period where times were innocent and things were simpler. However, the aspect of a rotting town is quite scary because Ambrose isn’t just a ghost town but rather a grim look in time.

This is why I think Art Deco can be used to really build at creepy and almost surrealistic atmosphere to a film. This was an architectural style that was really big in the 20s and 30s, mainly the 20s, and this was also a time in which America was at its peak coining the term The Roaring 20s. Art Deco began to decline once the Great Depression hit. Art Deco’s influence was mostly based on geometric shapes and a modernized view of classic Greco-Roman styles. However, as the style progressed it drew more and more from artistic movements known as Futurism, Cubism and Retro-Futurism. Considering this was a small town, I’m willing to assume that everybody knew everybody and the people who lived in Ambrose were happy, at least on the outside. The core of the town had a really dark secret, as small towns often do. What a perfect architecture to fit a perfect town. Art Deco shows us the progress and booming economy of our Nation, only to mask over the fact that the economy was quickly turning to pot.

Throughout House of Wax, the viewer will see a vast variety of building that have the Art Deco theme to them. The key buildings that bare this heavy influence are the House of Wax and the chapel. Other buildings such as the gas station and the theater have the Art Deco influence but not as heavily. Below, I will take you on a brief pictorial tour of Ambrose, LA.

If the notion of using Art Deco to show a dead town’s secret isn’t scary enough, I’ll revert to talking about House on Haunted Hill. Again, the architecture is used to create a haunting and nightmarish quality to the film. In this movie, the Vannicutt Institute is shown as this monolithic, God-like kingdom to house the criminally insane only again… it has a very dark secret. On the outside it may look imposing and awe-inspiring but it’s secret is very threatening. This film uses the architecture as a gateway into another world. Here, the building is presented to us as a ghostly, foreboding building; almost as thought it was a ghost of the time it was made in. You really can’t get any more retro than that, since most people immediately think of Art Deco when you mention the term retro. Hell, a lot of people don’t know the name per say but they recognize the style as being ‘retro.’

Art Deco can be a very beautiful thing with its curvaceous styling, futuristic appeal and overall beautiful design but it can also represent the ghost of the past. It can be seen as a haunting, eerie window into another world or it can be seen as an angel of beauty that hides a dark secret. Everything depends on the way it’s portrayed in the film and I’m shocked that not many horror movies take advantage of this design. House of Wax really brought the creepiness to the design but I think House on Haunted Hill really popularized it for modern audiences. As someone who is still interested in architecture as a hobby, I still love and respect Art Deco for how it impacted our society.

Review - Piranha 3D (2010)

As soon as I saw the previews for Piranha 3D I said that it would be the My Bloody Valentine 3D of the summer, a horror movie that is cheesy fun, gory but fairly entertaining. However, to my dismay it wasn’t. I was not entertained and I felt bored at times while I watched the carnage take place. The story is about a small town called Lake Victoria that is busy handling all the spring break tourism and ignorant college teens. Little do they know, an underwater earthquake occurred that released thousands of prehistoric piranha into the lake. Now, it’s up the sheriff (played by Elizabeth Shue) to try to get a grip of the town and help her son who is stranded on a sinking boat. It sounds like it could be fun, and I wanted to enjoy it but I ended up feeling cold-blooded afterwards.

I’ll probably keep referring to My Bloody Valentine because I saw Piranha 3D as a fun summer movie but had some substance to it. In MBV, the deaths were corny and tacky because it was in 3D and the whole severed heart in a box of chocolates was way over the top but still enjoyable. They gave the movie depth by twisted the original plot around and I was hoping for the same with Piranha 3D. The level of campiness in this film was too much and it made me bored and it was off-putting. Some of the lines delivered in the movie are so tacky that it was horrendous and I’m all for tacky lines but when you over do it, it becomes stupid and not entertaining. I think there is only so much camp that should be allowed in the movie to make it fun and this film overdid it. It would have been different it was unintentional but I feel that they wanted to do it this way… and it failed.

One of the biggest problems that I had with it was the characters and I know it’s supposed to be a campy movie and you’re not supposed to care about the characters but take MBV again; the characters are likeable and I sort of felt for them. They are tragic. In Piranha 3D, Deputy Fallon (played by Ving Rhames) is a policeman who is getting too old for his job so right there could have been something to play around with. Instead, he goes out in the snap of a finger and not in a blaze of glory. It was anticlimactic for a character that could have had a lot of potential. I wanted to see more of Mr. Goodman (ham-handedly but brilliantly played by Christopher Lloyd) who was only in two scenes but could have had more potential. I wanted to see more.

That’s another thing that was strange about this film. It lists an ‘all-star’ cast but if you think about it, most of the actors we care about are only in the movie as quick cameos. Richard Dreyfuss is only in the movie for 5 minutes but I found it funny that he was in it to begin with since the original Piranha was sort of a knock-off to Jaws. Christopher Lloyd was in the movie for two scenes that equal to about 6 or 7 minutes. As I said with Ving Rhames, he was in a couple scenes but didn’t play the badass I wanted to see.

The 3D was awful. Again, going back to MBV, I expect them to use 3D to their pleasing and they did and I had a jaw thrown at me, and a pickaxe right in my face. I wanted to see some clever 3D usage but instead, I got stupid shit like having a hand reach out in front of me, or sign waving in the wind. The only thing that was noteworthy was having a severed dick float right in my face followed by a piranha gobbling it up. It was just stupid. On top of that, the 3D rendition was dreadful. Every time something was in a depth of field my eyes would straddle trying to look at the object/character that is in front but also trying to look at the background. This caused strain on my eyes and I had to take my glasses off several times to get them to adjust right. Bottom line, this didn’t need to be in 3D.

The other major problem that I had with this movie was that 70% of it was pretty much a Girls Gone Wild video in 3D. Now, I’m not saying that seeing T&A in 3D is bad but when it’s overused I feel as though I’m not watching a horror movie but rather a stupid softcore porno. It’s too much of a jump in terms of genre. I get that that’s what spring break is all about but goddamn, I came here to see piranha eat up tourists and not an overwhelming flood of boobs and asses. Again, with MBV, I didn’t remember any nudity but if they did have it… it was minimal because the movie could carry on without it. I felt as though they only had all this nudity was to keep the viewer interested, which is really bad.

Hands down, the best only good part of the movie was the scenes that showed the piranha viciously attack all the tourists during the wet t-shirt contest. It was so satisfying to see all those ignorant teens get maimed and mauled by piranha, run over by boats, electrocuted, sliced in half by cable, diced up by boat propellers and decapitated by speedboats. Some of the scenes actually too me back like when this kid was deliberately running people over with his boat to try to get away from the mayhem. Or when this girl gets her hair caught in the propeller and it rips her entire scalp and face off. Honestly, this movie had some great special effects and gore. The kills get an A+ in my grade book but too bad for the rest of the film.

Again, I expected it to be bad but amusing. I wanted it to be corny but fun. I wanted it to be gimmicky but with some sort of substance. I liked the CGI piranha and the CGI blood because that adds to its corniness. However, I think it’s main problem stems from that either it was rushed out too quickly or there was too much studio control. It’s a shame because I love Aja’s work. His Hills Have Eyes remake was amazing and very well photographed. Here, it was dry and stale and his cinematography was lacking. There is still so much to talk about but I need to cut this review off. If you must see it in theaters, go ahead. I would recommend that you should wait until it ends up on DVD and see in then. All in all, it makes me want to relive the experience I had when I saw My Bloody Valentine in 3D.

The Good, The Bad and the Freddy

With my Twitter name being FreddysFingers and my extreme geek pride in my Robert Englund photo, one can assume that I am a huge Nightmare on Elm Street fan and if you are one of those people… you assumed correct. Elm Street is my #3 favorite horror movie of all time so naturally I would think the remake would be good or at least fun. I was wrong. It was bad, really, really bad. I have good things to say about it but not nearly as many as compared to the bad things that I found.

What I liked:
➢ I loved what Steve Jablonsky did with the score. He took the original synth score of Charles Bernstein and made it darker, grittier and little more heavy-handed. I kept with the original tune right down to the nursery rhyme.

➢ The set pieces in the film, especially in the dreamworld, were pretty damn good. The restaurant was dark and almost surreal with the color and the boiler room was actually a pretty frightening place. They managed to keep the set looking like it was straight out of a nightmare… a great aesthetic part of the film.

➢ The scene in which Kris was thrown around the room by Freddy and when she gets hurled on top of the ceiling was done quite well. It was brutal and an overall great adaptation of the original scene. Even the gore, when Freddy slashes her, was pretty well done.

➢ The scene in the pharmacy when Nancy experiences the ‘micro naps’ and Freddy attacks her was brilliantly lit, shot and edited. It was probably one of the more frightening scenes in the movie and it played out like a real waking nightmare. The cuts back and forth make you disoriented but at the same time you are forced into the mood.

➢ The other scene when Nancy sees Kris in the body bag was also pretty intense and I’ll admit it freaked me out. I guess it was just so bizarre and a great take on the original scene.

➢ I don’t want to say anything about the appearance because I will get to that but what Freddy does with his glove is actually pretty cool and intimidating. He flexes his fingers to make his blades scratch up against each other and I thin it’s a great taunting mechanism.

➢ Freddy himself had some good lines here and there but I think one of the best ones is, “How’s this for a wet dream?” I almost plays on his sadistic, pedophile nature.

That’s pretty much all there is good about this movie. Now, onto the laundry list of bad things.

What I disliked:
➢ I thought I would actually like the new design of Freddy but I didn’t. He looks so weird and alien. I couldn’t take him seriously because he had weird teeth and everything. I don’t want to be mean or anything but he looked like an ape at one point.

➢ They also made Freddy serious, which I get because they want a more realistic approach I guess but that’s not who Freddy is. Freddy is somebody who enjoys killing and who has a perverted sense of humor. They could have gone serious and still be a little goofy but I guess it would be too much like Joker from The Dark Knight.

➢ I hated Freddy’s back-story. They turned him into a groundskeeper and took away the haunted and fucked up childhood that Freddy had as a kid. Plus, to have the parents burn Freddy down in a warehouse made now sense because that’s really overreacting to alleged pedophilia.

➢ There was so much redundancy throughout the movie both spoken and action wise. Why does Nancy burn herself to say awake but then leaves the car a second later? Wouldn’t leaving the car wake you up? Also, my favorite exposition dialogue is this: Nancy: “I think this is where he lived.” Quentin: “This is his home.” Those are just a few to name.

➢ The transitions between the dreamworld and the real world were so awkward, they weren’t fluid or random just awkward. It felt like somebody took two different movies from two different genres and spliced them together.

➢ I didn’t really understand the purpose of the boiler room considering that the basement of the pre-school wasn’t that complex in its pipework nor did it have the look of the overly exaggerated boiler room they had in the dreamworld.

➢ Personally, I think they just threw the glove in there because they needed it. Freddy himself did not need the glove at all.

➢ Freddy was just Freddy throughout the whole movie and he didn’t make himself into anything. The original had him literally part of his dreamworld (ex: having his mouth become a part of the phone). Here, he just is and doesn’t take the form of anything. It was kind of a let down.

➢ The whole ‘Freddy popping out of the wall’ scene was terribly computerized.

➢ I really did not like the ripoff of The Faculty when Quentin breaks off the blade from the giant paper cutter.

➢ Nancy just right away jumps to conclusions thinking that her mom is hiding something when there is nothing to allude, before, to that. It just seemed rushed.

➢ I hated Nancy in this one. She is a quiet, whiny teenager who likes to draw a lot and nowhere near the commanding and quiet ballsy Nancy of the original. I didn’t feel sorry for her nor did I identify with her at all.

➢ The rest of the characters are also really unlikeable.

➢ When Quentin flips out at the pharmacy because he couldn’t get his prescription pills, why couldn’t he just buy caffeine pills?

➢ I hated that they kept flipping back and forth between Freddy’s innocents. First it hints that he was innocent since Freddy had a pretty convincing monologue, then picture reveal that he wasn’t, then a flashback contradicts that and then we realize that he wasn’t innocent. MAKE UP YOUR MIND!

➢ One of the biggest problems that I had was; how the hell did those kids block out what Freddy did to them? Even if you were five-years-old, you would remember having a creepy groundskeeper abuse you with knives! Either you would turn into a mute or you would have nightmares throughout your entire life and not have them sporadically turn up. It was a huge plot hole.

➢ Nothing ever really occurred on Elm Street aside from a few actual nightmares. The preschool was out of the neighborhood and most of the kills were too… Freddy never lived on Elm Street so the title, a Nightmare ON Elm Street, doesn’t serve as a double meaning. It just seems pointless.

All in all, it seems like I loathed this film and that’s not true. When I went into the screening, I went in with an open mind and I turned out hating it. I didn’t read any reviews or anything so I was completely untainted. The reason why I nitpick is because I hold the original one very close to my heart, in fact, I rank it as my #3 greatest horror movie of all time so I feel like Platinum Dunes could have done so much more with this but they just rushed it out and didn’t do Jack. Honestly, this isn’t the worst remake because I would rather watch this than Friday the 13th or Halloween 2.

My buddy and I were talking and I think that we were able to isolate one of the problems with this movie: The horror fans/movie fans who grew up in the 80s watching the original are about 30 or so years old and those of us who grew up in the 90s watching the original are about 20 years old; there is a generational gap where you have a lot of people who will always remember the first one for how scary it was and you don’t have a lot of younger kids who know that feeling. A majority of the moviegoers are within the ages of 18-35 years old and they all hold the original one in high regard because of the memories they have attached to it. So, the problem is this: they are dishing out the remakes way too early and way too rushed. The end result is an unsatisfactory remake.