Editor’s Note: The film was completed in 2010 and shown at various events, but was never able to secure distribution. It received a theatrical release in the UK in 2011, before finally being released in the states on May 4, 2o12 (in limited theatrical markets) and May 8, 2012 (on DVD/Blu-Ray). IMDB lists it as a 2010 film, but I went with the official US release date of 2012.
Starring Rebecca De Mornay, Jaime King, Patrick John Flueger, Warren Kole, Deborah Ann Woll, Briana Evigan, Shawn Ashmore, Frank Grillo, Lisa Marcos, Matt O’Leary, Lyriq Bent, Tony Nappo, Kandyse McClure, Jessie Rusu, Jason Wishnowski
Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman
Expectations: None. I hate remakes, but this one might be interesting.
I never expected this Mother’s Day to be as good as the original. I also never expected this Mother’s Day to completely dispose of the original’s plot. This film is the definition of a loose remake, using only a few characters and situations from the original and then going hog-wild with home invasion tension and torture from there. Really wasn’t expecting that. It actually works out for me, because watching two versions of the same movie back-to-back could get a bit draining. But expectations and comparisons to the original aside, I can’t say that this film is anything I’d classify as quality entertainment, or quality horror, in that it follows the modern path of the Saw films by making the horror come from what you might be forced to do to survive. It should then come as no surprise to find out that the director of this remake is Darren Lynn Bousman, previously responsible for directing Saw II–IV.
As I hinted at, the story here is a very simple, home invasion hostage situational with dashes of Saw sprinkled in here and there. Two girls interrupt the villains at the ATM? They’re given a knife and thirty seconds to decide who will kill the other to survive. Similar situations happen several times throughout the movie, and while they are never as premeditated and wild as the ones in Saw, they are awfully contrived, especially if you’re aware of the director’s earlier work going into the film (like I was). Apparently this is what passes for horror nowadays, although I refuse to accept it. These types of films and situations come directly out of the reality show obsessed culture, where each week millions watch as friend becomes enemy. In the 80s we were scared of the dark. Now we’re scared of what my friend will do to me if given the chance. Is it just me, or is American culture getting too goddamned paranoid?
Starring Brit Marling, Matthew-Lee Erlbach, DJ Flava, William Mapother, Meggan Lennon, AJ Diana, Bruce Colbert, Paul Mezey, Ana Valle, Jeffrey Goldenberg, Joseph A. Bove
Directed by Mike Cahill
Expectations: Moderate. The sci-fi angle might be cool… I’m cautious though.
I love science fiction, and sometimes it leads me down paths that I’d rather have avoided. Another Earth is one of those experiences, and I am hard pressed to find any worthwhile point of the film to validate its existence, let alone its place on some lists as one of the year’s best. Everyone has their own viewpoint so I can’t begin to theorize as to why this film resonates with some people, but it definitely left me cold and bored.
Another Earth tells the story of Rhoda, a promising high school student recently accepted to MIT. Around the same time, a heretofore unknown planet has appeared in the sky and while driving at night, a radio DJ informs his audience that they can make it out as a small blue dot, near the North star. Rhoda, preoccupied with her thoughts of the planet, cranes her head out of the car’s window to see it… and promptly smashes into a car holding a family waiting at a stop sign. Four years pass and Rhoda is a mere shell of the girl she could have been. Earth 2 (as it’s now known, and no, it’s not this Earth 2) has gotten a bit closer and Rhoda still wonders if there’s life on this habitable planet.
It’s important not to get excited for any of those sci-fi elements to pay off in any meaningful way, because they don’t. Another Earth is only a science fiction movie because without that added element, it’d be just another in a long string of tortured love stories where the perp and the victim become entangled in each other’s lives without the victim knowing it. It’s remarkably similar to Melancholia in using a science fiction backdrop for a character study, and both films feature a new planet springing up out of nowhere, but where Melancholia is about the end of the world and handling depression, Another Earth is about consequences. It’s not compelling though, and it’s painfully slow.
It’s not all that well-shot either. It takes on something of a Lars Von Trier vibe in the camerawork, as it’s all shot on video and lots of it is handheld with zoom adjustments mid-shot. This is director Mike Cahill’s first feature though, so many of the visual choices feel like he’s trying hard to be artful and meaningful, but for me they nearly all fell flat. I will say that I see a lot of potential here, and Cahill could easily deliver a quality film later on down the road. I don’t know that I’d jump at the chance to see it based on this disappointment, but I’ll try to keep my mind open.
The quick version: It’s slow, it’s boring, it’s not worth your time.
Starring Corbin Allred, Jennifer Burns, Derek Webster, Barrie Ingham, Sharon Lee Jones, Buck Kartalian, J.P. Hubbell, Lucian Cojocaru, Florin Chiriac, Bogdan Voda
Directed by Frank Arnold
Expectations: Low.
On the general scale:
On the B-Movie scale:
Oh man, are you ready to talk about an awful film? Then get ready for Josh Kirby… Time Warrior: Chapter 3, Trapped on Toyworld! Just based on the short trailer at the end of Part 2, I knew I was in for one hell of a bumpy ride. Josh Kirby Part 3 is a seemingly never-ending barrage of bad scenes on top of bad scenes, with ever so subtle bits of goodness along the way. Thankfully, the way the series is structured you could easily skip over this worthless film and not really miss a thing. OK, you’d miss the revelatory moment when Josh realizes he’s a bona fide Time Warrior and can bend the powers of time to his will, but now that you know that, feel free to skip directly to Part 4. Or continue reading for the toy-induced nightmare of a lifetime!
Starring Jack Maturin, Debra Mayer, William Paul Burns, Warren Draper, Nicholas Worth, Jodie Fisher, Phil Fondacaro, Naomi McClure
Directed by Charles Band
Expectations: Moderate, it sounds fun and it has Phil Fondacaro.
Where do I start with this fucking movie? Blood Dolls goes the trashy route and does its best to shock and awe the viewer into liking it. It’s truly a movie that will only appeal to the most demented group of people in the audience, which realistically is probably a large subset of the people who even give a shit about Full Moon movies. I unfortunately am not so keen on this particular brand of demented film, the “demented for the sake of being demented” variety. So far I’ve seen four Full Moon films from 1999, and with the exception of Mysterious Museum, they’ve all been of a similar poor quality which makes me wonder if this was the turning point year for their quality films. I do have to give Blood Dolls a lot of credit for trying, as the story is a bit more thought out than your general Charles Band affair, it has nice widescreen cinematography and it does feature actors you may know, such as Phil Fondacaro or that bald guy from Darkman (Nicholas Worth).
The story is fairly simple but a synopsis won’t do justice to the absurd nature of the goings-on. Basically there’s an eccentric millionaire Travis that has lost his fortune to a trio of conniving bastards who banded together and fucked him over. Being the eccentric, evil genius type though, he refuses to lie down and take it, instead creating a machine to transform people into subservient killer dolls. Why? Because this is a Charles Band movie and Band really has a hard-on for small things killing people. Also at his command is a butler/henchman dude that perpetually wears clown makeup (played by William Paul Burns, genuinely the best actor in the film), an eyepatch-sportin’ midget played by Phil Fondacaro and a girl rock band in a cage in the back of his office.
Starring LeeAnne Baker, Michael Conte, Jacquie Fitz, Andrew Bausili, George Anthony-Rayza, William K. Reed, Paul Ruben, Gy Mirano, Letnam Yekim, Anthony Giola, Jett Julian
Directed by Bruce Hickey
Expectations: Super low, this one looks bad despite a promising poster.
For most people, Necropolis would be one of the worst movies they’ve ever seen. They’re not wrong, this shit is bad, but for anyone well-versed in low-budget trash cinema, Necropolis is far from the bottom of the barrel. What makes Necropolis marginally worth watching is some great lines of unintentionally hilarious dialogue, some serious WTF moments, and one scene that defies them all and will stick with you for all-time. What image could possibly have this power on the human mind? If you said a woman who spontaneously sprouts four extra breasts (for a grand total of six!) and then breast feeds her brood of black-hooded, Satan-worshiping zombies, you win a prize! Suck on that Total Recall!
Necropolis opens in the 1600s as a young couple walks down the aisle on their way to a happy marriage while a Satan-loving, lace-wearing witch performs a dark ritual in the woods, infusing energy into an effigy of the bride-to-be by doing your basic seductive striptease in front of a giant pentagram on the wall of the cave. It’s a pretty strong B-Movie start for sure, and when the film quickly transitions to the 1980s by fading from the witch pulling a cross from her midsection and intimidating the witchhunters with its bloody form to a shot of the witch (now with short 80s hair) on a fire engine red motorcycle, you might be lulled into a false sense of film security. Don’t drop your guard though, as some dangerous waters are afoot!
Will, on May 14, 2012, 5:20 am
Editor’s Note: The film was completed in 2010 and shown at various events, but was never able to secure distribution. It received a theatrical release in the UK in 2011, before finally being released in the states on May 4, 2o12 (in limited theatrical markets) and May 8, 2012 (on DVD/Blu-Ray). IMDB lists it as a 2010 film, but I went with the official US release date of 2012.
Starring Brit Marling, Matthew-Lee Erlbach, DJ Flava, William Mapother, Meggan Lennon, AJ Diana, Bruce Colbert, Paul Mezey, Ana Valle, Jeffrey Goldenberg, Joseph A. Bove
Starring Corbin Allred, Jennifer Burns, Derek Webster, Barrie Ingham, Sharon Lee Jones, Buck Kartalian, J.P. Hubbell, Lucian Cojocaru, Florin Chiriac, Bogdan Voda
Starring LeeAnne Baker, Michael Conte, Jacquie Fitz, Andrew Bausili, George Anthony-Rayza, William K. Reed, Paul Ruben, Gy Mirano, Letnam Yekim, Anthony Giola, Jett Julian
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