Hollywood Video Memories: Uncle Sam (1997)

One of the biggest things that influenced me when it came to choosing what horror movie I would watch next was the box covers. There were two movies in particular that had cover art that immediately grabbed my attention. Uncle Sam and Jack Frost were different than most because they were the only two horror movies that had holographic covers, more specifically I was drawn to Uncle Sam because it had a menacing face of a decaying dead Uncle Sam on the cover. To me, Jack Frost would be saved for another time. At the time, I was about 12 years old and I could hardly care less about what the plot of the movie was. All I cared about were the kills, how much it scared me and whether it lived up to its awesome VHS cover art and from what I remember… I was displeased. To me it was boring and the kills, aside from one, were pretty generic. I thought the mask the “killer” wore was silly looking and I didn’t understand what Kuwait was. The only thing memorable to me was the scene where somebody gets strapped to a wooden display and dies after erupted into a gorgeous array of red, white and blue fireworks. This was my impression of the film for years and until recently I came across it on Netflix and decided to give it another watch.

When I was younger, I always thought the film was about some kind of demonic force that takes the identity of Uncle Sam and I wasn’t that far from what the movie truly is about. Sam Harper, a decorated soldier and Purple Heart winner, was shot down in Kuwait from friendly fire. His young Nephew, Jody (yes, he’s a boy), becomes distraught over his uncle’s death. However, through some mysterious connection between nephew and uncle, Sam is brought back to life on the eve of July 4^th. Now, as the entire town celebrates the birth of America, Sam dawns the outfit of Uncle Sam and goes on a killing spree to those who dare disrespect the U.S. of A. But there is more to Sam’s past then just being soldier who enlisted purely for the fun of killing. The only real notable actor in the movie is Isaac Hayes who plays Sam’s former army buddy Jed Crowley and he gives a hammy performance as always. William Lustig, the brain behind Maniac and Maniac Cop, directs this wonderful gem of direct-to-video goodness.

As I already stated, the reason why I didn’t like this movie is because it was slow, boring and drawn out. I didn’t care for any of this “exposition” when I was younger but as I grew older I began to look at things through a different light. Uncle Sam is horror but half of the movie is a drama and the other half is a slasher so it felt lopsided and that’s what turned me away from it in the first place. The first half of the film is a young boy’s struggle to cope with his uncle’s death; an uncle who, in his eyes, set out to accomplish something and died for the good of our country. The second half has that very same uncle rise from his coffin and go on a murderous rampage of draft-dodgers and corrupt politicians. But as I look closer at the first half, it’s not that bad of a story and like myself, this half turned a lot of horror fans away from the movie but I’ve come to accept it. It’s actually a very ominous drama that keeps alluding to Sam’s horrible past but we never know it because we’re meant to see the story through Jody’s eyes.

The movie tackles some pretty interesting topics involving patriotism, what defines and hero and the quandary of war. One of the issues that are brought into the light is the dilemma soldiers have to face in war. Jody’s teacher, a draft-dodger, questioned the reason why we ever got into Vietnam and whether it was right to fight into a war they didn’t believe in. If the U.S. says you must fight for our country despite what you believe in, do you answer the call or do you avoid it? In a very unsettling scene, the movie also asks the question: in war, what defines a hero? Jeb (Isaac Hayes) believes there are no heroes in war, only people crazy enough to try something stupid and get lucky. He believes that those willing to take out an entire company with their bare hands are sick-minded but they’re decorated as heroes. Those willing to throw themselves on a bomb are crazy too but they’re viewed as heroes. For a movie that’s about a zombie soldier dressed like Uncle Sam and seeking his revenge from friendly fire, there are a lot of deep questions that it tries to provoke.

As much as it seems like I’m praising this movie, I’m not because it’s not a great movie but rather an okay movie. It’s not a B-movie because there are a lot of great special effects, explosions and fireworks that invoke a very dark and cynical July 4^th. There are still problems the movie suffers, problems that I never really paid attention to when I was younger, problems that I just now noticed as an adult. Just to name a few: Sam’s motivations are quite clear in the beginning; he kills those who do not live by the perceived American ideals, therefore he kills people who defile or deface what America is all about. However, near the end of movie he simply kills just for the pleasure of killing (then again, that’s apparently what he did before he became a zombie). This unique motivation keeps flip-flopping back and forth. The kid in the wheelchair at the end of the movie literally comes out of nowhere and almost acts like a second main character. Who is he? Where did he come from? Why wasn’t he referenced before the very end and most importantly, why is he suddenly telepathic? I also think it’s funny that Jeb, a full grown adult, casually takes orders from him. There are also a lot of small things that are wrong with it but I won’t dive into those because I don’t want to nitpick.

Uncle Sam is a strange one out of the holiday-themed slasher movies because it’s part serial killer and part zombie flick but in the overall plot, it’s part drama and part horror. It’s certainly not an awful movie but it’s also not great… it’s just okay. I’ve gotten past some of the minor things and saw what appeared to be a movie trying real hard to be solemn and political. Part of me is still in 12-year-old mode where I just want to see somebody dressed as Uncle Sam fillet somebody on an American Flag staff. The way I see it, if somebody ever asks me about it (not like they would), I can give them an honest opinion instead of saying something like, “It’s a shitty movie with shitty acting and it’s too boring!” Now I can say, “It’s an okay movie with okay acting but it drags on in the first half.”

Side note: Every time I saw Robert Forster in a movie I would say, "Oh my god it's Max Cherry!" obviously from Jackie Brown. Now when I see him I'll probably laugh and say that I got to see him explode in a celebration of fireworks.

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:

Mental Caries: A Look Inside A Decaying Mind

As a horror fan, when you lay down on the seat to have a dentist drill your mouth for cavities or pick at your teeth for plaque, you probably think about that movie The Dentist. I know I did, though funnily enough I never was afraid of the dentist because of it. No, when I saw this movie (when I was about 11 or 12) all I could think about was how vulnerable my teeth and gums really where. The entire well being of my teeth lied within the hands of my dentist and if he wanted to, he could make me ware braces the rest of my life. I wasn’t scared of my dentist drilling my teeth to bits but rather scared of the idea that he could. Then again, my dentist was a divorcee who turned to the bottle and was suspended of his license when people complained about his alcoholism and shaky hands. Though, this isn’t nearly as bad as Dr. Alan Feinstone. See, the way I remembered The Dentist was that it was a movie with gratuitous teeth torture and a lot of chasing but what the film really is, is an underrated film that drills into the mind of a psychopath. I’d go further into saying that it has the possibility of ranking up there with Psycho and Silence of the Lambs.

The story centers around a very successful dentist named Alan Feinstone. He’s got it all: a beautiful loving wife, a thriving practice and a respectable reputation within the dentistry community. However, when he comes to suspect that his wife may be cheating on him with the pool boy, he discovers that behind every smile of bright white teeth there is decay hard at work. Now, as he slowly begins to loose his grip on sanity, Feinstone begins to try to reason things out but his mind won’t let him. It isn’t long until he decides to slip completely off the deep end and kill those who have done him wrong and those who lie within his path. But the plot goes deeper into Alan’s psyche because once we realize that he is insane, we begin to suspect that perhaps his wife isn’t having an affair but that it might be in his head. Thankfully, in the end of it all, it’s up to you to decide whether all of it was fake or in his head.

So, how, exactly, does the film get inside the mind of Alan Feinstone? It’s very simple. Yuzna does a masterful job at utilizing filters and camera tricks to show Alan’s decent into madness. The entire movie has this ‘Pleasantville’ look; bright colors, luminescent profiles, heavenly whites and bright blue skies but every time we see Feinstone thinking about things… it’s distorted or showing him looking at himself in a mirror. It’s rather genius how they contrast the bright, glamorous lifestyle of a successful Beverly Hills dentist with the distorted, stylized camera angles. That would mean that this movie is visually satisfying and really adds to the distortion of Alan’s mind. It’s a pretty obvious technique to use image distortion and camera filters to show mental insanity but not many people utilize it. There is also the use of close-ups of grease stains, rotting teeth and mud. We are flung into Feinstone’s head as he watches, in disgust, as the pool boy sullies his wife’s clean face. The scary thing is, as the audience, we can’t help but feel disgusted as well, especially when we see brown rotting teeth. Considering Corbin’s performance is already strong, these camera effects only further Feinstone’s character.

Speaking of Feinstone’s character, what makes him such a great candidate for psychological profiling? As I mentioned before, I ranked this film up there with Psycho and Silence and for good reason. Both of those films have such a captivating yet charismatic character that can be analyzed for mental illness and Feinstone is no exception. In fact, I’d have to include Misery on that list as well. What is so captivating about Feinstone is that he is our anti-hero and we aren’t really given the opportunity to bond with the ‘final girl’ or any other character. We right away follow him from his grim discovery of his wife’s affair all the way till the end when he is sent to an institution. In that regard, I love how the film opens up with him addressing us on how everybody has a story. Going deeper into Feinstone’s head we right away understand that he is unstable because he flipped out over his wife for ironing the wrong shirt since his cufflinks didn’t match. Upon seeing his wife engaging in ‘first base’ activities with the pool boy we feel for Feinstone and we start to understand why he hates decay and he lies the metaphor for what Feinstone’s psyche is based on. His wife, dressed in clean white clothes, kisses the pool boy who rubs brown dirt all over her legs. It’s such a perfect metaphor for the act of dirtying perfection and causing decay and plaque. This drives Feinstone over the edge and at first he thinks about killing himself and he becomes sympathetic because he tries so hard to fight his hallucinations, and we watch as he helplessly descends into madness. He begins to think that everybody has dirty teeth, which may be a metaphor for how everybody has dirty secrets but wear masks of innocents. Perhaps he believes that it’s his job to clean up people’s immoral filth.

Throughout the film, Feinstone mumbles to himself on how dentists are underappreciated no matter how hard they work. He brings up a great quote that states how they have to clean people’s teeth and yet we, the patients, hate them for it. It’s very true because we all hate going to the dentist, especially at a young age but yet we don’t realize that the dentist is actually a great person to have around. Our teeth are one of the most important things in our bodies. When Feinstone finally decides to enact his homicidal revenge on his wife and the pool boy, it’s the defining moment and the point of no return. By this point, Alan becomes a full-fledged psychopath and believes that he has to rid plaque-infested human there is. It’s a rather grim but sad turn of events since we were with Feinstone all the way up until this point. It’s a rather tragic turn of events. This is where we get into the really grisly teeth torture where he drills people’s teeth apart, slices tongues and mutilates gums and lips. I couldn’t take these scenes because I have sensitive teeth and to see somebody’s gums ripped to shreds makes me queasy. By this point, Ken Foree says it best, “He’s a man driven over the edge.” All the pressure of taxes, a failing marriage and a reputation to hold up has put so much pressure on him that he finally snapped.

As far as comparing it to when I was a kid, it’s vastly different from what I remembered. Shockingly, I can’t believe that I didn’t have nightmares of teeth torture and dentistry. I was never afraid of my dentist but I hated going to him because of all the fluoride I had to keep in my mouth and the fact that I couldn’t eat for an hour after getting my teeth cleaned. I remember very fondly some of the dental torture and that beautifully shot scene where Feinstone was slashing the pool boy (pictured above). The rest of the film sort of escaped my head for some reason. Looking back on it, if you couldn’t tell, I love this movie but not because of dental horror but rather the characterization. At a young age it was obvious that I didn’t give two shits about Feinstone, I just wanted blood and action. Now, I think Feinstone, while he was thinking about plaque and decay are the best parts of the movie.

All these musing lead me to believe that The Dentist isn’t a typical horror movie. There are no monsters, the killer doesn’t pop out of the closet and there isn’t a ghost haunting anybody. No, this is a hard-boiled film that follows one man’s descent into insanity. Of course there are is blood and the occasional jump scare but otherwise, this movie is horrifying in it’s own right. It’s horrifying because of how Feinstone’s mind works. He’s the perfect psychopath because he believes he is doing good and isn’t aware that he is actually butchering people, and that is the worst kind of monster. In turn, The Dentist is a smart movie that really puts the viewer into Feinstone’s head and offers no sympathy for when things go terribly wrong. It’s a highly underrated movie that has the potential of being one of the most disturbing horror movies out there. In the end, it makes you want to power rub your teeth with alcohol and sandpaper.

Hollywood Video Memories: Rumpelstiltskin (1995)

Ah yes, Rumpelstiltskin. This is a very obscure yet relevant “horror” movie from my childhood. Every time I walked into Blockbuster I would see this VHS box of a freaky looking man smiling and hiding behind a stone door. I kept avoiding for some reason and I guess that’s because I kept finding other movies I wanted to watch. Eventually I caved in and decided to rent it out and as I sat in my dad’s bedroom watching the ridiculously cheesy story unfold, I realized that this would be one of the first in a long line of favorite horror movies for me. At a young age I knew that a lot of fairy tales were dark in their original form and when I saw Snow White (the one with Same Neil and Sigourney Weaver) it further convinced me that perhaps this version of Rumpelstiltskin would be darker and scarier. To my surprise it was neither scary nor set in the appropriate time frame, at least not for the majority of the movie. In fact, I saw it as a fun movie with the occasional scare to it.

The beginning of the movie takes place in the 1400s as Rumpelstiltskin is making off with a baby who he kidnapped after feeling betrayed from spinning the golden yard. Nearly killing the baby, he is imprisoned into a small figurine by a witch for hundreds of years until somebody wishes upon it. Unfortunately, in present day Los Angeles, a grieving windowed mother wishes her husband returns (from the dead). Rumpel comes back, as the husband at first, only to attack the mother and try to steal the baby to make up for the last time he failed. Now, the mother is on the run from Rumpel but he’s not willing to give up. He followers her wherever she goes and destroys anybody that gets in his past that is unless the mother finds a way to destroy him before he gets to her baby.

I was pretty much fresh off the line from seeing Leprechaun so I was ready to watch something of similar ideas but darker. Rumpelstiltskin quenched my thirst for something campy. I always liked how ‘Uncle Rumpel’ reacted to the many modern inventions that were in present day (1995) Los Angeles. Case in point: calling a motorcycle a black steed or noting the amount of blacksmiths it took to create an 18-wheeler semi truck. More importantly, for a movie that was based on a fairy tale it was quite graphic. Rumpel claws somebody’s eyes out, gets a broom shoved down his throat, gets runned over, pulls his head off and gets sliced in half. For a little guy he sure endured and loved pain. I loved how his lingo was sort of some weird modern English/Medieval hybrid. He would say, “Fucketh me!” and I would grin in pleasure knowing what it meant and how they chose to hide the word beneath the lingo. As I grew older and started to explore newer movies, three scenes from the film always stuck out to me and remained in my memory until now. The first was seeing Rumpelstilltskin choke some big guy, in the beginning, and hoisting him off a cliff. The second was seeing Rumpelstiltskin driving a truck and the last scene was seeing somebody running and having their head blown off. Obviously this movie meant a lot to me.

You could only imagine how surprised and pleased I was when I found it available for Netflix Instant. I couldn’t believe that another childhood classic was within a click away from my viewing. This movie is a perfect example of how my film taste has progressed throughout the years. Yes, this movie is awful but not unwatchable. I found myself cringing over the lines I once found humorous and cool. I shook my head over scenes that would put a sparkle in my eyes and I shrilled at the ‘gore’ when I realized that it wasn’t that gory at all. I didn’t expect much from a straight-to-VHS movie and to be honest… I went in thinking that I would find it mediocre. I came out of the movie thinking that it was slightly below mediocrity. I’m convinced that this movie, unlike the last two childhood movies I watched, knew how bad it was so it decided to have fun. The problem is that it’s fun only to the person having it. In other words, you might find banging your head into a wall fun but to the rest of the world… it looks stupid. To show you just how ridiculous this movie is, here some scenes that I couldn’t believe.

Here is Rumpelstiltskin driving a motorcycle and laughing for no reason on it.

Here is Rumpelstiltskin driving a truck while smoking on a cigar. Stating, “Just what I need. Another bad habit,” before taking a big puff.

Here is Rumpelstiltskin employing the age-old cliché of guiding your headless body to your severed head.

As a kid it’s obvious that I was no student of film, however after taking film classes it sort of skewed view of watching movies. Back then I didn’t really care for the technicalities of this film, I just liked the special effects and action. As I watched it now, I couldn’t help but notice just how bad some of the voice replacement and dubbing were. Sure, this is an indie film and I am nit picking but it sort of took me out of the story. An example would be when Rumpelstiltskin is chasing Max, who’s in a go-kart, Max is constantly yelling and saying things like, “Oh jeeze! Oh jeeze! Hey Rumpel, can we talk this over? Huh? Oooohhhh! Arrgghhh! Rocks!” Not only is it just plain annoying but also the voice has no sense of location. Additionally, some shot choices and editing decisions didn’t make sense and the acting was piss poor. The entire film was littered with songs that came from the 80s, everybody seemed to dress like they were puked up from 1987 and the coloring seemed really saturated at times. All this made me question whether the film was truly made in the 90’s or whether it was filmed in the 80s and released in the 90’s. I never had to ask myself that question before.

Though there is a light at the end of this tunnel. As cheap as they may seem, I still dug the special effects. The makeup they applied to the actor who played Stiltskin was pretty damn good considering they were on a budget. Aside from a few minor times, I felt like his skin was actually that dented, scarred and potholed. When Rumpel is split in half he begins to crawl towards the baby and you get to see the slimy, wet intestines falling out of his body and I really enjoyed that. Sure you could tell that everything was pretty much KY jelly and latex but you have to admire the FX guy’s confidence in trying to make something as good as possible. I will say this; a select few effects look better than any modern CGI dismemberment scenes you’d fine today. If a movie like this looks more real than a modern blockbuster, I think it’s time to rethink your strategy.

I sort of expected this movie to be bad so I wasn’t too disappointed but I wish I had the mentality of a kid sometimes. I guess it’s the only way that I would enjoy this. I’ve heard some people say that you should leave your childhood movies alone, especially the ones that scare you to preserve your childhood ignorance. I think I should have probably done so in this case because now that I know how cheesy this movie is, I don’t think I could ever have the view of it that I once had as a kid. Perhaps it was curiosity, then again… curiosity killed the cat.

Hollywood Video Memories: Milo (1998)

Another great obscure horror movie I use to watch when I was younger was an indie horror movie called Milo; you know the one with the killer kid in a yellow raincoat? It’s a very obscure movie and it was marketed to include, “from the creators of Anaconda.” Well, I remember seeing the trailer on some old VHS’ from our local library (specifically on the VHS for ShadowBuilder and The Dentist) so when I found it at the bottom shelf of the horror section at Hollywood Video, I just had rent it out. There was just something about the trailer that caught my eye and maybe it was because of how it was edited. I’ll always remember that image of him standing in the middle of the road with his bike and the awkward yet tacky way those girls swung on the swing set. I guess it’s because it was one of the first trailers that I watched and went, “oh c’mon, it’s probably not even that good.”

Well it turns out that I was right, to a point. I don’t remember ever getting scared by it but rather enjoyed it for being fun. I think I was spoiled by Child’s Play at the time, which was the only “killer kid” movie that I knew of and Chucky wasn’t even a kid. Since a majority of the film was sporadic scenes of shocking involving Milo and his victim, I would often use the movie as white noise for when I drew. I use to draw a lot when I watched movie and I would rent out Milo so that I could draw the VHS box cover, but I would need put Milo on so that I can have white noise to draw to. It’s a complicated cycle. It wouldn’t be till the end that I got really into it. It was the only time where I would actually stop what I was doing and get all excited, waiting for Milo to pop out of nowhere. Even then it wouldn’t be scary, just thrilling. Sort of like how you anticipate an explosion in an action movie.

So what is the movie about? Well, it’s quite simple. A young woman returns to her hometown and takes up a job as a teacher at the school she once went to. Unfortunately, her past involved her witnessing the murder of one of her friends by a deranged boy named Milo. Now, sixteen years later Milo came back… from the dead looking the same way he did years go to re-unite with his only love and kill her. It’s a very interesting story that I didn’t really understand as a kid so I naturally assumed that Milo was a zombie, but he’s more than just a zombie… he’s something entirely different.

Almost 11 years later I revisited this movie since I found it on Netflix Instant and I thought it was decent. It was nowhere near as entertaining as I hoped or remember but it gave me a great sense of nostalgia. I liked how it was more than just a serial killer movie because otherwise it would have been really stupid. I personally believe that if it were given to the right people, they could have really expanded on Milo as a character. There is just so much that could be played around with. I guess the only real part of the movie that I enjoyed (and wanted to hear more of) was Milo’s back-story. It’s so gritty and disturbing that they make Milo seem like he’s a monster or something. I wanted to hear more and since they keep showing the empty glass with his birthday on it, it would only make sense that they would build upon it. I know the tagline compared Milo to other great horror movie villains like Jason and Freddy Krueger (tagline: Jason and Freddy were kids once, too) and I think Milo had the potential of being a great horror villain, even if he was only in a straight to VHS movie.

There were only two real problems that I had with this movie and that’s maybe because I’ve learned so much about movie/video audio and editing that it sticks out like a sore thumb. In the first half of the movie, there are a couple of scenes where the character is talking from afar and you can’t hear them because their voice is echoing. It’s almost as though they didn’t have an extra and strong enough microphone so they decided to leave it in. it only happens about 2 or 3 times so it’s not a big deal. The other problem that I had was with Milo’s voice, considering I build this movie up in my head for years it was kind of anticlimactic to hear him sound like a 23 year old with a bad cold. That was my fault but now I’m being too critical. Should you watch the movie?

I think that all depends on what your taste in movies is. If you like really campy straight-to-video fare, than boy is this a treat for you. If you enjoy anything outside the camp or cornball subgenre, than I would stay away from this movie. I found it just a tad disappointing because I thought I would still love it like I do with Proteus. Although I am glad that I did manage to see it as soon as I did because it gave me a chance to see, first hand, how my feelings towards certain movies changed. I use to love the most stupid shit but I’m sure that can be said for anybody. But to demonstrate, I once had an obsession for Darkness Falls because I thought it was one of the best horror movies out there. Needless to say, I was wrong. Milo can take out the tooth fairy with a flick of his bicycle wheel.

Side note: I always found it creepy that Milo used a kid to screw around with the teacher's head. I think this movie made me afraid of kids in yellow raincoats for a while. Funnily enough, I had a yellow raincoat as a kid too. And no, that's not what Milo looks like. Although, I believe he was in the Little Rascals movie.

Hollywood Video Memories: Proteus (1997)

Back when I was younger, between the ages of 10 and 12, I would often tempt my dad into taking me to Hollywood Video, which was a huge privilege for me because it cost to rent movies from there. Well, they would always have a very obscure but better collection of horror movies than our local library and one VHS tape caught my eyes. That film was called Proteus and I guess what captured my attention was just the look of the VHS box cover; the way you see this horrible monster snarling at you while hatching out of an egg. Even the tagline, “In the middle of the ocean. A new form of horror is taking shape,” just begged me to pick up the box and check it out. I only saw this film about 2 or 3 times but it left such a huge impression on me.

The scene that did it for me, or the scene that made me cover my eyes and scream was when the group of stranded people were eating in the mess hall when suddenly they all hear this crashing sound that’s getting closer. Then, the camera would turn into the POV of the monster speeding closer and closer to the hall. As the crashing got closer, so did the growling and you never see what was coming towards them but you can only imagine that it’s big and pissed off, whatever it was. That scene alone would terrify me and was one of the contributing factors as to why I love it when you never see what the monster fully looks like. Of course, as I see it today it doesn’t have the same effect but it’s still pretty frightening in a general sense.

Now that I have rambled about how I felt towards the movie a few years back, I think I should go ahead and elaborate on what it’s about. The movie is typical creature feature formula as it should be. A group of drug smugglers end up boarding a deserted oilrig after their yacht exploded during a piloting accident. While exploring the oilrig looking for people to help them out, they soon realize that the entire place is deserted and before long they come to discover that it was all a giant cover-up. See, the oilrig is a smokescreen for a secret project involving genetics but whatever that experiment was has become loose and now the stranded people must fight for their lives against the genetically created menace.

The name of the creature in this film is called Charlie and ever since I could remember, that name has stuck with me up until now. Every time I see a monster movie I feel compelled to name it Charlie. I feel as though I should also note that before I ever wanted to go into film, I wanted to be a geneticist because I had the misplaced idea that I could create horrible monsters like Charlie (yeah, I was a little twisted back then). In turn, horror movies that involved abandoned laboratories ore monster-run-amok stories always interested me. I loved hearing all the different imaginative scientific processes that went into creating the monster and I would use those explanations to sound smart when I went to school the following week. I can’t tell you how many times I told my friends that my uncle made Charlie to my classmates.

But enough about me, what about the movie? Is it worth seeing? Is it good? Well, it’s certainly not the greatest movie of all time; it was a straight-to-VHS movie that you’d probably find in the $5 at Wal-Mart. However, it’s not a bad movie either. It’s fun, it’s campy and it’s pretty graphic. I liked it and for being an indie movie made in the mid 90’s, it has some pretty outstanding creature effects. See, that’s what I miss about the old days… indie movie directors took their craft serious and wanted to make honest horror movies and not try to dull the genre down by creating shitty horror comedies. This movie set out to scare its audience and though they may not have succeeded, their effort was still valiant. Even now, as I watched it, I couldn’t help but feel that kids today might still be freaked out by it. Additionally, you’ll have to understand that it can be pretty cheesy and campy at times but I think that only adds to the fact that it should be a midnight movie.

I think it should also be known that this film bears a striking resemblance to my favorite horror movie of all time; you guessed it, The Thing. It’s a very uncanny resemblance because even some of the creature design looks and sounds the same. Consider this: Charlie hijacks his victims DNA and assumes the physical appearance of anything that it genetically molds with. So if he were to mold with a shark, he would take on the physical likeness of a shark and that would also go with people that he molds with. Now, The Thing does the exact same thing. It devours and replicates itself based on what it’s victim looks like only it does this on a cellular level rather than a genetic DNA based level. By the end of the movie, paranoia sweeps the remaining survivors and you are wondering who is who. I will probably elaborate on this when I begin my Thing Week this June.

C'mon, doesn't that remind you of that goopy pile of dog meat from The Thing?

Overall, Proteus may not be the best horror movie ever made but its heart is in the right place. It was a great time for me to watch a film that I used to watch as a kid and it took me back to those days. Of course I am bias but that should be understood. I might have looked at this movie differently if I saw it for the first time. So, if you want a good midnight movie or if you have a hankering for a cheesy 90’s creature feature, give this indie film a watch. Just be sure to not take it too seriously, doing so may result in permanent genetic disfigurement.