The Blob (1988)

Director: Chuck Russell
Writer(s): Russell and Frank ("Shawshank Redemption") Darabont, from a story by Irvine H. Millgate
Starring: Shawnee Smith, Kevin Dillon, Donovan Leitch, Jr., and Jeffrey DeMunn

I’m going to start things off here by regaling you with a boring story, so get settled in:

As I’ve mentioned before in other reviews, I led a rather sheltered life.  We won’t get too personal here, but let’s just say that growing up, it was only my mom and I.  Even though we were pretty broke, the most difficult thing about my childhood was that I was completely forbidden to watch R-rated movies.  So while kids at school would be chatting about scenes from the latest action and horror films, I was stuck watching television shows like “Diagnosis, Murder” with my mother. 

Well one day, when I was around 12 years old, I was at the local library with my babysitter, and somehow talked her into borrowing two R-rated flicks for me: The Blob, and The Best of the Best 2, a no-doubt terribly derivative martial arts actioner.  Upon taking them home and showing my mother, she was appalled…but I finally managed to talk her into a compromise—I could pick one of the two to watch, and then that would be it for a long time.

Looking back on that moment, I sincerely wonder if I made a fateful decision that day:  What if I had chosen to watch Best of the Best 2 instead?  Would I have become a fan of martial arts movies, and completely shunned the horror genre?  Needless to say I chose The Blob, was thrust into a world of graphic special effects, and fell in love with it right then and there.

Another brief tie-in before I move on to discussing the actual movie:  When I was a kid, I was a huge fan of Michael Jackson.  So my parents taped for me a special of his that aired on national TV.  I watched that show until it wore thin, memorizing all the lyrics and all of his dance moves.  Well during one set of commercials, there was a brief trailer for The Blob that played…even when my interest in Michael Jackson started waning, a couple of years later, I still rewound that tape and would watch the trailer over and over again.  Weird, especially considering no other horror movie preview had that effect on me as a child, but true. 

Anyway, just borrowing The Blob from the library again, almost twenty years later, already gave me a certain sense of nostalgia, and that was even before popping it into the DVD player.

There’s really no sense wasting much time on the story, because it’s really nothing new: Meteorite hits Earth in the small town of Arborville, releases a bizarre mass of mobile, slimy goo, which then eats anything in its path.  As it gains victims, it grows even larger, and before anyone knows what’s going on, it’s wreaking havoc in the streets (and sewers) of that small town.

Just like in every such fright flick, there are people that we cheer for.  Also like in every such movie, they are made up of stereotypical, familiar characters:  We have Brian Flagg (Kevin Dillon), the high school tough guy who likes to pass time by riding around on his motorcycle while drinking and smoking; Exhibit B is Meg Penny (Shawnee Smith), the all-American cheerleader who is one of the most popular girls in the school.  The two of them must band together after Meg’s first date with a popular jock ends in tragedy.

Blah blah blah.  It goes without saying that the blob itself isn’t the only thing that Brian and Meg are up against…members of a government agency also come to town.  It seems that the slow-rolling mass of slime was created as a biological weapon for warfare, and it quickly becomes evident that the agents are putting the safety of the blob ahead of Arborville’s residents.

Who really cares?  The real selling point of this film are the stellar special effects, which pull no punches.  I saw the original version (starring Steve McQueen before he got famous, and made way back in 1958) before this, and was expecting something in the same vein, with just a couple violent scenes to justify the R rating.  In actuality, this is a complete 180-degree turn from the original, which focused on story and went out of its way to keep the violence offscreen—this one revels in showing us all the gooey details of what happens when the blob overtakes its victims.  Even today, a majority of the effects are impressive, though they do suffer a little bit (while also getting more complex) during the obligatory final showdown.

The writing (this remake was written by director Chuck Russell, and co-written by none other than Frank Darabont, who would go on to direct both The Shawshank Redemption, and The Green Mile) is solid when it focuses on the small town of Arborville, which is so wonderfully cheesy that it wouldn’t feel out of place in the original version.  But once the government agents are introduced, it simply degenerates into standard genre fare and all the creativity is replaced by a second-half written on autopilot.

Still, the whole idea of a slimy mass slowly rolling through a town while killing people to get larger has always been a stupid idea in the first place, and this Blob never takes itself too seriously.  It’s violent—sometimes shockingly so—but it also manages to be surprisingly fun and laid back, with enough creative deaths to hold the interest of gorehounds. 

RECAP: This remake of the “classic” ‘50s horror film about a giant mass of slow-moving slime boasts mostly incredible special effects, which is the main reason you should tune in.  The first half features a majority of the graphic death sequences, and is by far the better part of the movie; the second half devolves into your basic “small town vs. monster vs. government agency”, and tosses its creativity—and its laid-back sense of fun—out the window.  Still worthy of your time if you’re a fan of this kind of “creature” feature.

SCORE: 7/10

TV SPOT (same one I watched over and over as a kid)

Grave Encounters (2011)

Director: The Vicious Brothers (Colin Minihan and Stuart Ortiz)
Writer(s): The Vicious Brothers
Starring: Ben Wilkinson, Sean Rogerson, and Ashleigh Gryzko

Take one part “House of Leaves”, add a large dose of The Blair Witch Project, top it off with a heavy blast of Session 9, and you might have the outline to a pretty good horror film.  Now, remove all the good parts of that concoction, and you have Grave Encounters, a movie so terminally boring that its gimmick should be giving audience members their money back if they can stay awake through the whole thing.

You know those terrible ghost-hunting reality shows featuring an incredibly douchy host that somehow actually exist on cable?  You know, the ones that have been going on for six seasons despite showing audiences no concrete evidence of anything besides post-production editing and sound effects?  If there is any one thing you can point to that proves the vapid mindset of America as a whole, the fact such empty entertainment can be even remotely successful is probably one of the largest, and most damning, bodies of evidence to support that theory.

Grave Encounters takes that approach, and ponders: what if something actually happened in those shows?  It’s an admirable idea, I suppose, but the film’s execution leaves a lot to be desired.  Like, a whole movie’s worth.  It stumbles through one tired trope after another, “borrowing” ideas from countless found-footage movies, until what we are left with is a movie that is 100% recycled content, with nothing to say for itself, and no mind of its own.

The title comes from the name of a television series hosted by incredibly douchy host Lance Preston (Sean Rogerson).  As the film opens, we are treated to a typically-forced introduction from the show’s executive producer, created to assure us that what we are seeing is completely real and “undoctored”.  After that, we are treated to the best scenes of the whole movie, as the cast is introduced in a way that actually authentically recalls the cheesy introductions of ghost-hunting reality shows.  Absorb and savor these scenes as slow as possible, because it’s all downhill from there.

The focus of this, the show’s sixth episode, is the abandoned Collingwood Psychiatric Hospital, located in Maryland, where 80,000 mentally disturbed residents once lived.  Lance talks to some local experts on the topic, receives a tour of the place, including a run down of notable events that occurred there, and then has themselves locked in, with the idea that they will be released after eight hours. 

As is required of movies in a similar vein, the attempted scares start off slow and infrequent, then gradually build in quantity until all the characters are required to do is run and scream for long periods of time.  Only, time doesn’t seem to exist here.  And the house seems to be morphing, with new doorways and tunnels appearing out of, and leading into, nowhere.  That’s when you’ve entered the second half, which borrows liberally from “House of Leaves”; let’s be honest here, that book is little more than an interesting experiment that wears thinner and thinner and thinner as it goes on and on and on.  But I respect and admire it for the simple fact that it is quite unlike any other novel ever written; it doesn’t aspire to cash in on a fad, or to get lost in a sea of like-minded imitators.  It’s its own thing, and seeing such a work—one that deliberately eschews mainstream ideas and structuring to tell a story the way that it wants to--succeeding on its own terms is always refreshing to me, no matter my personal opinion of the subject matter.

However, seeing these ideas get caught up in a film that strives to be as marketable and formulaic as possible, is truly disheartening, to say the least. 

About the only plus I can give it is that the ghost “designs” are actually kind of creepy, with the cheesy digital effects that darken and elongate their mouths somehow working in its favor.  Unfortunately, considering the ghosts are shown in both the trailer, as well as the front cover for the sequel, chances are pretty good that you will already know what they look like before you even pop the movie in, which definitely lessens the impact of seeing them on screen for the first time. 

Unless you are a die-hard found-footage horror fan, you’d be playing it smart by passing this one up.  And if you are a die-hard fan of the subgenre:  I’m sorry.

RECAP: An uninspired conglomeration of just about every found-footage horror film ever made, along with a little “House of Leaves” thrown in for good measure, Grave Encounters isn’t worth all the words and time I’ve poured into it already.  I must say the ghost effects are kind of creepy, in an amateurish kind of way, and are smartly used only sparsely.  Other than that, this movie totally blows.  Unless you’re a found-footage completist, take a complete pass on this.

RATING: 2/10.

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Chernobyl Diaries (2012)

Director: Brad(ley) Parker
Writer(s): Oren Peli, Carey and Shane Van Dyke; from a story by Peli
Starring: Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, Dimitri Diatchenko, Olivia Taylor Dudley, and Jesse McCartney (!)

Chernobyl Diaries is the kind of movie where “I didn’t hate it” is just about the highest praise it can muster.  It’s the kind of movie made to blend in with the rest, rather than stand out; a movie made, like many Hollywood films, simply to earn money at the box office so everyone involved, from the studio on down to the specific personnel, can continue to churn out movies like this, ad infinitum, for their entire existences.  Take Oren Peli, for example, director of the (admittedly) fantastic Paranormal Activity, whose name is linked to this as a writer, and no doubt a big reason why this movie was made in the first place.  He’s pigeonholed now, and once he stops making these kinds of movies, chances are great that his Hollywood career will be over.

But you know what?  I didn’t hate this movie.  I didn’t really like it, either, but that’s a little beside the point.  The biggest disappointment, and one I can’t say for most of the dozens of horror movies that pass through multiplexes every year, is that no one involved thought to try anything new.  This is usually the case in Hollywood, where a by-the-numbers experience is what maximizes profits, but there's wasted opportunity here.  The saddest part of this whole affair isn’t necessarily what’s on the screen, but what could have been; there was a good movie in here somewhere, and with just a little tweaking, it really could have been something special.  Instead, it ends up being your typical exercise in jump scares over true fear.

Jesse McCartney (yes, THAT Jesse McCartney) plays Chris, an American who, along with his girlfriend Natalie, and single friend Amanda, visit Chris’s brother, Paul, in Ukraine.  The plan is for all of them to head to Moscow, where Chris reveals to his brother that he will propose to Natalie.  In true horror fashion, Paul casts his brother’s happiness aside and tosses out a proposal of his own:  That they meet up with an “extreme tour guide” and go to Chernobyl instead, the site of a terrible nuclear accident in the mid ‘80s.  Everyone, well mainly Chris, is skeptical at first.  But as Amanda warms up to the idea, so too does everyone else, and before you know it, they are meeting up with Uri (the extreme tour guide) in his office and planning a trip there.  In the office, they are joined by Zoe, and her boyfriend Michael, allowing the movie to off a couple more people.

To fast-forward to the good parts, they end up sneaking in (even though the main entrance is closely guarded, and their entrance is refused, as the site is “under maintenance”) with the idea to spend a couple hours there, then head out by nightfall.  But in true horror fashion, their van won’t start (someone, or something, has cut the van’s wires) and so they are stuck there overnight.  Uri and Chris decide to go for help, and are promptly attacked, at which point everyone realizes what anyone who has seen the trailer knew all along:  That they are not alone.  Conveniently, and true to horror fashion, they are out of radio signal, no one apparently brought their cell phones, and since Uri is an “extreme tour guide” (their words, not mine) who works alone, no one else knows they are out there.  Blah blah blah, you know the rest.

What Chernobyl Diaries almost manages to get right is the gradual reveal of their true protagonists:  At first, large packs of German Shepherds seem to be their main combatants, as Uri and Chris (who survives) show signs of being attacked by animals, and several of the other survivors see packs wandering through the site.  As they get deeper and deeper, we find out that the dogs are the least of their concerns.  By this time, we’re well past the midway point of the movie, and we have only glimpsed one inhuman mutant from a distance.  And as we all know, the most effective horror movies are the ones that leave most to the imagination of the viewer, and this is one that could have built up some tension by leaving them confined to the shadows.

Then it’s as if the filmmakers think they’re doing us a disservice by attempting to build suspense, and finally reveal one. Then another.  Then a whole slew of them.  And with that decision, also goes the movie; nothing is left to the imagination, and the potential for scares is completely thrown out the window.  Then the movie ends on a completely stupid note, in which characters ignore a Geiger counter that is warning them of increased radioactivity, and continue trekking in that direction anyway.  Clearly by now, it’s apparent the movie thinks we’re stupid enough to buy anything, and underestimating your audience is the worst thing a movie can do.

The acting is average, though the appearance of Jesse McCartney is hilarious.  My first memory of him was visiting a Sbarro’s pizza chain in my local mall (in my defense, I was a teenager at the time), and receiving a CD with his breakout hit “Beautiful Soul” on the lid of my soda (literally...there were a series of CDs they handed out of different artists in this way, under the moniker “LidRock”).   I might have listened to it once before throwing it away, but the awkward promotional attempt has always stuck with me; seeing him in this movie was a sobering reminder of just how far people can fall in a relatively short amount of time.  And so I’ll admit that my wife and I spent a good chunk of the film’s relatively boring first act ad-libbing lines of dialogue from his own personal perspective (i.e. “Don’t you guys recognize me?  I’m Jesse McCartney!”)  It at least kept us entertained; as it turned out, it would be the peak of our excitement.

Another depressing fall on display here is how someone can go from creating a minor masterpiece like Paranormal Activity (which I will review at some point; I saw it WELL before all the hype destroyed it, going into the screening knowing very little) to one so devoid of any creativity whatsoever.  I guess I shouldn’t be so shocked—the Hollywood machine has a long history of dumbing down creativity—but to see Peli’s name on this was another, albeit totally different kind of, sobering reminder of just how far people can fall in a very short amount of time.

RECAP: A typical horror movie, but one that with a couple of tweaks, actually could have been something special.  Several people take a tour of Chernobyl, and things do not go as planned.  Yawn.  Not nearly as bad as it could have been, but also not good.

SCORE: 4.5/10

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Bone Tomahawk (2015)

Director: S. Craig Zahler
Writer(s): Zahler
Starring: Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson, Matthew Fox, and David Arquette

Horror/comedies can be a tricky thing already; that’s double the case when the brunt of your material tackles serious themes.  Most horror/comedies utilize ridiculous premises that naturally allow the silliness to thrive, but Bone Tomahawk goes the opposite direction, throwing attempted laughs in a movie that should not be funny.  And that’s the problem: it isn’t funny.  Most horror writers aren’t comedy writers, which is evident from the ill-timed jokes here.  I’m a little confused as to what purpose the humor serves—is it supposed to take some of the sharpness off the graphic kill scenes and intense atmosphere?  Or is it thrown in there simply to murder all forms of momentum the film was hoping to achieve?  It does both.  Because of this, Bone Tomahawk is merely an average movie that could have been a great one.

For a little over the first half of its bloated run-time, Bone Tomahawk plays like a straight western: As the film opens, two thieves murder several men at a campsite, then steal their possessions.  When one of them is suddenly slaughtered, the remaining survivor, Purvis (a sleazy and well-played David Arquette) escapes to the nearby town of Bright Hope, where Sheriff Franklin Hunt (Russell) presides.  Hunt’s old, but trusty deputy Chicory (Richard Jenkins) notices Purvis drinking himself into a stupor in a local bar, and senses something is wrong with him, so he notifies Hunt.  A few moments later, and Chicory’s senses are confirmed, leading Hunt to shoot Purvis in the leg, then haul him off to jail.

They then call the town doctor, Samantha (played by a beautiful Lili Simmons) over to take care of his wound.  But things take a turn for the worse when Samantha, Purvis, and Nick, another deputy, all wind up missing, an arrow stuck in a wall the only shred of evidence as to what happened to them.  Hunt consults with a local Native American, who informs him that only one clan hunts with arrows like that—a primitive tribe of cave dwelling Indians known as “Troglodytes”.  The Native American refuses to guide them on their journey, and warns that going after them is suicide.  But Hunt and Chicory are joined by Arther O’Dwyer, Samantha’s husband, and John Brooder, a man who boasts killing “more Indians than all of you combined.”  Oh, and he also has a thing for Samantha.

So the four of them set out for the caves; according to Hunt, they are making a five-day trek in three days, and it starts to feel like real-time after a while.  It doesn’t help that all the key parts of the journey, are pretty much all tired Western clichés: the random attacks from outlaws, injuries requiring brutal surgery, the stolen horses resulting in forced travel on foot, the obligatory (simulated and off-screen) animal cruelty…it’s all here, and it all feels very, very familiar. 

Then comes the ending, which features a much talked-about kill sequence that was picked as the #1 kill scene of 2015 by none other than Fangoria magazine.  As graphic as it is (and as impressive as the practical effects work is—there is no CGI used at all in this movie), its effectiveness is lost in a movie that tosses out jokes like candy, and features characters that are too cool to be bothered with petty little things like emotions (seriously, three characters watch a person get brutally slaughtered, and none of them ever scream, or cry, or even talk about it afterwards). For some, this "coolness" is the reason this film is praised, but for me, it just rang with a hollow emptiness.

There are two things that Bone Tomahawk does incredibly well: The first, is Kurt Russell.  He carries this picture on his back.  The other actors do admirable jobs, as well, but this is Russell’s picture, and he picks up right where he left off twenty years ago with Tombstone. Here, he plays the clichéd honest and hardworking sheriff that we’ve seen a million times, but Russell rises above the familiarity to deliver an excellent, if somewhat subdued, performance.

Secondly, director S. Craig Zahler (who is at fault for the tedious screenplay) proves that he’s at least adept at wringing tension from simple scenarios.  His Wild West feels like a menacing landscape where violence can erupt at any given time, especially as they get closer to the Troglodyte’s hideout.  This is the kind of atmosphere that many Westerns try to cultivate—after all, this is a time period known for its violence—but very few succeed as admirably as Zahler does here.  That at least helps to make up for some of his own downfalls.

In the end, this is a potentially great movie undone by an identity crisis; it blends often idiotic dialogue played for laughs, with sometimes shocking, graphic violence that’s meant to disturb.  It tries to have its cake and eat it, too, but the two extremes work in direct competition with each other, rather than in tandem, making Bone Tomahawk the perfect example of a film that tries to do too much, and in doing so, ends up doing not nearly enough.

RECAP: Director S. Craig Zahler gets massive mileage out of Kurt Russell’s amazing performance, and also wrings as much tension as possible out of the slow-burn story.  However, he’s compromised by his own screenplay, which frequently goes for laughs that contradict the otherwise intense atmosphere.  There’s also a very fine-line between a “slow-burn” story, and a boring one, and this one conveniently falls into the latter category.  Aside from the genre blendings, there's really nothing original on display here, either, with a rather familiar Western story giving way to a rather familiar horror tale in the finale.  Worth a look for Kurt Russell fans, or those that are into Westerns, but everyone else should approach with caution.

RATING: 5/10 

The Sentinel (1977)

Director: Michael Winner
Writer(s): Winner, from a novel by Jeffery Konvitz
Starring: Chris Sarandon, Christina Raines, Martin Balsam, and John Carradine

I purchased The Sentinel several years ago, and have never watched it; it’s one of only two movies that I can recall purchasing that I haven’t watched (the other being Nicolas Roeg’s Two Deaths).  I have no idea what made me decide I should own it, after having never watched it before, but I stumbled on it at a used store, and decided to buy it.

Over the years, I’ve come close to watching it twice, but for some reason, I got the intense premonition that this movie was boring each time, no matter what the blurb on the back of the DVD said (something about there being enough effects to stay interesting, which is certainly less than modest praise).  Then, when my wife and I had plans to watch it the other night, something came up, and she had to leave; I should have taken it as a sign.  Instead, I was an idiot and rescheduled the viewing.

The Sentinel is painfully, awfully boring; a Rosemary’s Baby knockoff but with tepid acting, and below-average writing.  In it, a model moves to a Brooklyn apartment building, complete with really strange neighbors.  But when she tells her realtor about how they’re preventing her from sleeping, we learn that no one else, save for a creepy priest, lives there in the building with her!  Oh no!  Things start to go downhill for the poor lady; only her boyfriend (terribly played by Chris Sarandon) believes her, and sets out to find the truth about the building, and its former inhabitants.  What he finds, will shock no one who’s ever watched more than three horror movies in their lifetime.

The movie’s more well-known for the bevy of familiar faces than it is the plot, and with good reason: You can find Jeff Goldblum, Beverly D’Angelo, and Christopher Walken, just to name a few.  This is also the first time in a long time I can remember giving props to the costume designer for their fashion choices:  All of the dresses Cristina Raines wears are beautiful, and are more attention-grabbing than anything else that happens in the movie (save for a couple gore sequences; neither of which are all that memorable). 

The Sentinel also gets some marks for at least being entertaining; between the poor acting, stodgy writing, and hilariously awkward poses and posturing from the actors at certain parts, it’s rife with unintentional humor.  That’s more than I can give some movies, so they’re just going to have to take it or leave it.

RECAP: A tepid, uninspired film (ironic, considering it was heavily inspired by Rosemary’s Baby) that is slightly fascinating out of the gates, and then very quickly loses steam.  The writing and acting range from bad, to terrible (Chris Sarandon, I’m looking at you), and the story is pretty much standard by-the-numbers stuff.  The only legitimate highlight: Cristina Raines wears some beautiful dresses; at least costume designer Peggy Farrell was on her game.  Other than that, there are moments of unintentional humor, as well as a couple of average gore effects, that at least will give you something to do besides be completely bored out of your skull, but not nearly enough to salvage this mess.

SCORE: 2.5/10

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