Will’s Reviews

Cigarette Burns (2005)

Starring Norman Reedus, Udo Kier, Gary Hetherington, Chris Britton, Zara Taylor, Chris Gauthier, Douglas Arthurs, Colin Foo, Gwynyth Walsh, Christopher Redman, Julius Chapple

Directed by John Carpenter

Expectations: Moderate. I’ll admit it, I am excited to see this. John Carpenter and me go way back.

John Carpenter is a special director to me. During my film snob period, John Carpenter was one of the few genre filmmakers able to cut through my bullshit. His confidence and grasp on storytelling was powerful enough to impress despite the issues a teenage film snob might have. Films like Assault on Precinct 13, Halloween, They Live, Big Trouble in Little China. Christ, the man knows how to get the job done and make it fun as hell. So going into this episode of Masters of Horror, I hoped that Carpenter would coming out firing on all cylinders.

Cigarette Burns is a film about films, one of the hardest types of films to pull off successfully. This is because as a self-aware film, it brings itself into our world and out of the realm of fantasy. Our touchstones are their touchstones. Carpenter is quick to establish that this is still fantasy though, when he reveals a pale-skinned, inhuman freak chained to a wall in the house of a billionaire. The rich man wants our hero (Norman Reedus) to hunt down a print of a rare film only ever shown once. When screened for the festival audience, the people went into a murderous frenzy, creating a cinematic myth for the ages. The man chained to the wall isn’t as key as you might think, but the early revelation about him changes the experience of watching Cigarette Burns and, at least for me, separates the film from our world. A parallel universe, perhaps.

The Mummy (1959)

Starring Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Yvonne Furneaux, Eddie Byrne, Felix Aylmer, Raymond Huntley, George Pastell, George Woodbridge, Harold Goodwin, Denis Shaw, Willoughby Gray, Michael Ripper

Directed by Terence Fisher

Expectations: High. The Mummy was my favorite Universal horror film as a kid.

For the final film of my four film Hammer series, I decided to go with the hallowed tale of The Mummy, a standby favorite monster of my childhood via the 1932 Universal film starring Boris Karloff. What was always interesting to me about that film was Karloff’s vulnerability and the fact that while he was killing people and generally doing wrong, he had a reason to do so that was understandable. He was a sympathetic monster and coupled with the copious Egyptian motifs, I was powerless to the power of the mummy.

So going into Hammer’s take on the tale, there was a pretty high hill to climb. Unfortunately, I can’t say what I’ve said in all the previous Hammer reviews, that “This one is even better than the Universal version!” I stand firmly by the original, and while I did greatly enjoy Hammer’s film, I thought it was slower than it needed to be. When your monster is a shambling corpse wrapped in ancient bandages and caked with thick swamp mud, you do get something of a pass, but I can’t excuse away all of the film’s crawling pace.

Kuroneko (1968)

Kuroneko [藪の中の黒猫, Yabu no Naka no Kuroneko] (1968)
AKA Black Cat

Starring Kichiemon Nakamura, Nobuko Otowa, Kiwako Taichi, Kei Sato, Taiji Tonoyama, Rokko Toura, Hideo Kanze, Eimei Esumi, Masashi Oki, Rika Mizuki

Directed by Kaneto Shindo

Expectations: High, Onibaba was awesome.

Kaneto Shindo achieved overseas artistic success with Onibaba, and Kuroneko sees him returning to the horror genre that propelled his career. In many ways, Kuroneko echoes the characters and themes of Onibaba, but it never seems cheap, instead coming off almost like a ghost story version of Onibaba. Where Onibaba was concerned with a mother and her daughter-in-law’s struggle for survival, Kuroneko focuses on a mother and daughter-in-law who are raped and killed within the opening scene of the film. Their spirits are reawakened by their black cat, and they vow to drink the blood of every living samurai to get revenge on the samurai that did them wrong. Their son/husband was off at war just like his counterpart in Onibaba, but in Kuroneko he returns home to find his home burned to the ground and his loved ones gone.

Castle Freak (1995)

Starring Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Jonathan Fuller, Jessica Dollarhide, Massimo Sarchielli, Elisabeth Kaza, Luca Zingaretti, Helen Stirling, Alessandro Sebastian Satta, Raffaella Offidani, Marco Stefanelli

Directed by Stuart Gordon

Expectations: Super high. I’ve loved every other Stuart Gordon film I’ve seen.

On the general scale:

On the B-Movie scale:

Well, it was inevitable. There was no way that Stuart Gordon could continually impress me without letting me down at some point. Unfortunately Castle Freak is that point, but make no mistake, it does have its merits. In fact, it has a lot of great things going for it, but where Gordon’s other Lovecraft adaptations have been characterized by inventive plot twists and tension-filled moments of dread, Castle Freak is fairly straight-forward and standard in the plot department.

Upon the death of an elderly Duchess living in a massive castle, Jeffrey Combs inherits the estate and moves to Italy with his wife (Barbara Crampton) and their blind daughter. What they don’t know is that the Duchess held a dark secret in the depths of the castle’s dungeons, a deformed man chained to the wall! Even if you’ve never seen another horror film, I’m sure you can guess where this is headed. And for the most part, that’s where it goes. It’s a shame that Castle Freak should be so predictable, but perhaps with a fairly standard plot framework like this, it is to be expected.

Chocolate (2005)

Starring Henry Thomas, Matt Frewer, Stacy Grant, Jake D. Smith, Michael Curtola, Katharine Horsman, Paul Wu, Leah Graham, Lucie Laurier

Directed by Mick Garris

Expectations: Low. I’m not expecting anything from this series unless it’s a director I highly respect and I haven’t seen enough of Mick Garris’s films to really respect him.

Respectable and well made, Chocolate is a great entry into the Masters of Horror series. Director Mick Garris proves that he’s worth checking out, showing a great sense of suspense and careful plotting. Of his other films, I’ve only seen Sleepwalkers: a fun, if forgettable, early 90s horror romp. Garris loves Stephen King and has directed numerous adaptations of his work so I was surprised he didn’t go down the King path here as well. Chocolate is based on Garris’s original short story, adapted by Garris himself, making for one of the best written and filmed episodes of the series yet.

Starring Henry Thomas (Elliott from E.T.) as an artificial flavor chemist, the film follows him as he begins to have strange sensory losses. It all starts with the taste of bittersweet chocolate in his mouth as he wakes from sleep. As with any mysterious story, the unraveling is the fun, so I’ll leave the synopsis at this. The story does progress is ways you wouldn’t expect, culminating in a fitting finale. My only beef is that the ending itself is somewhat weak, garnering a “That’s it?” and a shrug. It’s not a big concern, as what happens after the fade to black is obvious, but it is a bit jarring. I respect Garris for not completely hand-holding the audience though, and allowing their intelligence to fill in the final blanks.

Jenifer (2005)

Starring Steven Weber, Carrie Anne Fleming, Brenda James, Harris Allan, Beau Starr, Laurie Brunetti

Directed by Dario Argento

Expectations: Low. I’m still interested in Argento, but he’s done me wrong more often than not.

Jenifer is an interesting Masters of Horror episode, and certainly a good one when compared to the usual quality of these, but what really holds it back is its ridiculously predictable storyline. Literally within the first few minutes I had already guessed (correctly) how the story would end. This makes the task of watching Jenifer a bit of a pointless endeavor, but at least it’s respectably well made, something I can’t say for every episode of the series. For obvious reasons, I’ll refrain from relating any of the plot, as knowing anything would spoil the whole thing.

Jenifer is arguably the best looking Masters of Horror episode yet, featuring none of the visual jank and cheap CG art that has cropped up in varying degrees in every previous episode. The cinematography is nice and the shots are mostly interesting. I also didn’t get the claustrophobic feel that most of the other episodes gave me. The only computer imagery I noticed was a fly bothering two men while eating in the opening moments. Everything else was realized in the real world by KNB FX in stunning, graphic detail. This episode probably has the most graphic gore I’ve seen in the series so far, with severed torsos, entrails and chopped up bodies showing up often. It all looks incredibly convincing and horrific, but because I didn’t care much for the characters, it wasn’t particularly effective in scaring or creeping me out. At the end of the day, gore is great, but I want some story to go with it. That being said, I welcome a fun gorefest with only a modicum of story. Key word being fun.

The Curse of the Werewolf (1961)

Starring Clifford Evans, Oliver Reed, Yvonne Romain, Catherine Feller, Anthony Dawson, Josephine Llewelyn, Richard Wordsworth, Hira Talfrey, John Gabriel, Warren Mitchell, Anne Blake

Directed by Terence Fisher

Expectations: High. Loving these Hammer movies, love the werewolf character.

Hammer continues to impress with this stunning rendition of an old, tired tale. Once again they choose to go in a completely opposite direction from the classic Universal film, delivering a film that is not only better, but incredibly so. How did they manage such a feat? By following their tried and true method of focusing on the characters. The Curse of the Werewolf is not quite epic in its scope, but it does seek to present a nuanced portrayal of a life in its entirety. This is the werewolf by way of Charles Dickens, and I loved it.

The first half hour or so is dedicated solely to setting up the origin of the werewolf in question. And not just his childhood, but the series of events leading to his conception! This is the first of many wonderful strokes of genius and is easily my favorite section of the film. A beggar seeks food and drink, but is turned away by the poor townspeople as all their food reserves have been given to the Marquis for his wedding day. One of the boisterous men jokingly suggests that the beggar should go to the party and seek his handouts there. The beggar, oblivious to the joke, decides it’s a better plan than any he’s had all day and sets out down the road. I don’t want to ruin anything so I’ll stop here, but suffice it to say this is one of the best half hours I’ve ever seen in classic horror cinema. Perhaps it’s just my intense love for revenge stories and the hard extremes presented here. I can’t say for sure, but I thought it was brilliant.