Final Destination (2000)

Director: James Wong

Writer(s): Wong, Glen Morgan and Jeffrey Reddick

Starring: Devon Sawa, Ali Larter, Kerr Smith and Kristen Cloke

Aaaah, Final Destination: One of those “classic” teen horror films, and arguably the first one of the new millennium. Even as a teen myself during those years, I was never interested in the mainstream (I’m still not), and so - despite the popularity and being a part of its target demographic - I had no problems ignoring it until the buzz died down.

However, there is one person that’s capable of melting my cinematic snobbery: my wife. So when she revealed that it was one of her favorite horror movies (she was a whopping 11 years old when it came out, although I think she watched it one or two years later), I set aside my superiority complex, and decided to lower my expectations to that of the commoners (this is all in jest, in case that part's not coming through).

I’m late to the party, so describing the plot seems unnecessary at this point; I’ll just deliver a truncated version: Devon Sawa sees strange visions of people dying, and attempts to save his friends from meeting their ultimate fate. It all starts on a plane, when he has a rather lucid “dream” that the plane will go down, and that there will be no survivors. He creates a scene, gets off the plane, and gets a few other students kicked off with him. Sure enough, moments after takeoff, the plane explodes, killing all 280-something on board. 

His uncanny accuracy catches the attention of the FBI who, naturally, see him as a person of interest. Their interest in him only grows, as he starts to piece things together: since the students who exited the plane cheated death, death comes after them, one by one, in the order they were sitting on the plane. And when he appears at every crime scene - only trying to help the victims - their mounting case seems to be more and more foolproof. 

Can Devon (obviously not his name in the movie) save them all before it’s too late? Or will death have the last laugh? I think we all know the answer to that one.

Really, this is one of those ideas that is brilliant and ludicrous, both at the same time. I mean, as far as slashers go, having basically an unseen, supernatural force offing people is actually pretty refreshing, as there’s no cliched villain to hate; its characters are up against “fate”, a natural part of death’s design. But that’s also where it’s a little ridiculous, after after a modicum of thought: if it’s really time for these people to die, then why does death offer them enough clues to avoid it? 

Unsurprisingly, given the target demographic, the rest of the movie is bundled in cliches, and its structure only makes it easier to tell who’s going to live and die. But working in its favor is that it’s not always clear when or how: there is one death in particular that caught me completely off guard (even though I’m pretty sure it was in the marketing for it). 

Some of the characters are also interesting, namely the FBI agents tasked with keeping an eye on Devon. At first, they think he might be behind the killings, which would be natural given his propensity for being at virtually every crime scene. But gradually, and against all logic, they start believing him, much to their own chagrin. It’s a welcome change from the norm, where the police have to be hotheads who constantly hound the protagonist, only believing them when faced with clear evidence that exonerates them (and even then, usually reluctant to believe it).

Aside from a couple variations, it’s basically your typical exercise in teen horror, but the mostly likable cast and characters make it easy to root for them. The death scenes are also pretty well done, and while not all of them are bloody, they are gruesome (and drawn out) enough to appease most slasher fans.

It’s not a classic horror film, but it may very well be a classic of teen horror, that watered-down subgenre made to appeal to the masses. Sure, it carries an "R" rating, but there's really nothing here that's going to scar anyone for life, or that's going to make anyone but the most squeamish of people look away. I’m not sure I’m all that interested in experiencing the entire five-film series - I can't fathom how they would change things up enough to keep it fresh - but this is a worthy, above-average exercise in teen horror.

RATING: 6/10

NOTE: I would be remiss if I didn't mention the co-writers of this, Glen Morgan and James Wong, previously worked on the second season of "Millennium", the vastly underrated, criminally underseen television series helmed by Chris "X-Files" Carter. It's not available on any streaming services, and has seemingly dropped through the cracks, but any fan of bleak crime dramas should hunt it down. It's a series well ahead of its time.

TRAILER

Frequency (2000)

Director: Gregory Hoblit
Writer(s): Toby Emmerich
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Jim Caviezel, Shawn Doyle, and Elizabeth Mitchell

Gregory Hoblit’s Frequency is a ridiculously convoluted mess of a film that builds to an ending so neat and disgustingly sappy, that the Garth Brooks song that rolls over the end credits (the plainly titled "When You Come Back To Me Again") feels right at home. It’s sloppily written and narrowly-focused—every event altered seems to only directly effect the main characters, with no far-reaching implications beyond those that can’t be patched up by a simple action from one of its stars. It breaks off more than it can chew, and can’t decide if it wants to be a drama, science fiction, police procedural, or serial killer film, even though it spends a good amount of time dabbling in each of them. When it’s all said and done, it’s quite technically a terrible film.

And yet I love the hell out of it.

I can’t really explain why. Its flaws are evident even as the events play out on screen. It gets more and more unbelievable as it wears on, and let’s be honest, a movie about a guy talking to his dead father over a HAM radio doesn’t exactly resonate with plausibility. But even by the film’s loose standards, the twists become so disjointed and messy near the end that it becomes apparent we are simply being duped by the whim’s of the writer, instead of being put in a living, breathing world all its own.

But it’s such a completely interesting failure that I was absolutely transfixed by it, both times I have seen it. A lot of it has to do with the great performances by Dennis Quaid and Jim Caviezel, who play father and son, respectively. Quaid is Frank Sullivan, a firefighter who succumbs to a blaze in 1969, leaving behind his wife, Julia, and six-year-old son, John. Thirty years later, John, who has recently been dumped by his girlfriend and now lives alone in the same house he grew up in, finds his dad’s old radio buried in a closet, and tests it to see if it still works. Lo and behold, he does make contact with someone, and he slowly realizes it’s his dad, circa 1969!

The scenes where father and son rekindle after thirty years are emotional and heartfelt. Granted, most of these are simply by default, as we, as humans, are automatically wired to find comfort in these scenes. Even if you have never experienced loss on a personal level, can’t you imagine what it would be like to never be able to see someone you loved again? Still, they pack quite a wallop, and you may find yourself reaching for the nearest tissue box. But Frequency’s plot is only starting to take shape, because by this point we are only about at the half-hour mark.

Armed with his knowledge of the present, John decides he’s going to save his father from the blaze that took his life. Frank, at this point, is still leery of this whole situation, but heeds his future son’s advice and makes it out alive! However, it’s a small victory, because John learns that it has only altered the future: Instead of dying in a fire back in 1969, his dad will die in 1989, from cancer caused by his excessive smoking. But just when you think you’re finally getting settled into the story, you find out there’s still more: His mother becomes the target of a serial killer, who offs her a week after his dad survives the blaze, back in 1969 again!

So now the son must guide the father to prevent that from happening, then he goes one step further by having him try to prevent the murders of all of the serial killer’s victims. Then stuff happens on top of other stuff, and the whole story just descends into a chaotic mess of genre clichés, as if writer Toby Emmerich is desperately trying to pad his entire resume with just one movie. As if all this isn’t bogus enough, the dust settles, and we’re left with a gag-inducing happy ending that conveniently ties up every loose end into a pretty little bow.

This is the kind of movie I hate ninety nine times out of a hundred, but director Gregory Hoblit confidently navigates through the complex material, delivering a sure-handed final product that would have buried most other directors dumb enough to approach it. The dramatic scenes pack a punch, the twists and turns are at least fascinating, when they’re not utterly gripping, and even the serial killing aspect, which seem like they were cut and pasted in to an otherwise finished script, somehow works, at least as best it can within this general framework.

If you’re looking for me to explain myself, to defend every nuance and every contrived detail, to describe in explicit terms why I came to this conclusion, I will refer you to the Apple Jacks commercials of the mid ‘90s, in which children, who are notified of the cereal tasting nothing like apple, are asked why they like it. “I don’t know. We just do.” Couldn't have said it any better myself.

RECAP: It’s a convoluted, clichéd mess that weaves its way through three genres, some of them completely unnecessary, and yet, through a mix of great acting and often gripping (though increasingly implausible) twists and turns, manages to somehow not only be a competent movie, but often an excellent one. Even the ridiculously upbeat ending had me hook, line, and sinker, and I hate happy endings. Quite simply put, this is an underrated gem, and well worth a watch.

RATING: 8.5/10

TRAILER

The Convent (2000)

Director: Mike Mendez
Writer(s): Chaton Anderson, from his own story.
Starring: Joanna Canton, Richard Trapp, Dax Miller, and Adrienne Barbeau

I first saw Mike Mendez's The Convent back in the early 2000s: For whatever reason, this one caught my eye amidst the sea of new releases that month, and I ended up really taking to the mix of obvious humor and over-the-top violence. But when I went to rewatch it again, over a decade later, I was taken aback at just how impossible it is to track down for quick viewing—you know when a movie can't even be pirated, it has pretty much fallen through the cracks. Add to that some very average to bad reviews, and I was expecting a major disappointment the second time around.

But as it turns out, I was right the first time. As much as I hate to say it for a myriad of reasons, this can best be summed up as “Evil Dead for the millennial generation”, with its boundless energy and inventive bloodshed frequently overshadowing its obvious low budget. Granted, many of the film's more “unique” ideas are lifted pretty much directly from other movies (the flashlight through the head strongly reminiscent of the lightbulb through the head in Peter Jackson's Dead Alive, the frantic POV shots resembling those from Evil Dead, the demon's look apparently modeled after Argento's Demons, the plot “inspired by” Night of the Demons), and I'm not suggesting it deserves to be revered in such a way that the Evil Dead series is, but it's done with such panache that it's still an enthralling ride.

Forty years in the past, a young woman marches right into a convent, lights everyone inside on fire, and then blasts them away with a shotgun to ensure none of them make it out alive. According to urban legend, this murder was carried out for no reason by a young girl named Christine; because of this, the abandoned location has become a stomping ground for junkies and other ne'er-do-wells who break into it to throw parties, or just to desecrate the memory of the dead in general.

Of course, we meet up with a group of people planning on doing the exact same thing, made up of complete self-aware stereotypes: There's the quarterback and the cheerleader (who wears her cheerleading outfit in a rather tired, but still kinda funny, joke), the misogynistic ladies man, the goth girl, the straight-A student, the frat boys, and the pledge (who is also the “straight-A student's” brother). All of them break into the building with the hopes of having a good time, but are forced to call it a night early when two cops (lead by a hilarious Coolio) break up the fun and send them all home.

Well, all of them except one: the goth girl, who is on probation and doesn't want a run-in with the cops to lead to an arrest. She hides out, leading the others to come back looking for her. What they find, is pure horror: A couple of wannabe Satanists (one of whom works at Dairy Queen) kill her as a sacrifice to Satan, thus infecting her with an evil spirit. As she kills the surviving members, they also turn into demons, forcing the dwindling number of humans to somehow stay alive. Until “straight-A student” has a plan...a plan that involves bringing Christine back to finish what she started 40 years prior...

It's all been done before, and better to boot, but there's no denying Mendez's skill or creativity. The monsters and blood, for example, are shot under blacklight, giving them a neon glow, while adding to the “rave”-like atmosphere. The demon transformations are sped-up, lending them a hyperkinetic feel that adds energy to the proceedings. This is a B-movie shot on a C-movie budget (or lower...can't find exact budget details anywhere, but it was clearly made on the cheap), yet it's to the credit of Mendez (and his crew) that it never feels cheap, a trap that's very easy to fall into as far as low budget horror is concerned.

I'm honestly baffled as to the poor reviews this film has received. Sure, it's no classic, and it does have a lot of flaws (threadbare plot, wildly uneven writing), but it's a lot of fun. And at a mere 79 minutes, it doesn't overstay its welcome. If you like movies in the same vein as Evil Dead, ones where you can just shut off your brain and take everything at face value, then this underrated, hard-to-find gem should be in your wheelhouse.

NOTE: Special thanks to streaming horror service Shudder for adding this title to their ever-growing library, making a film that was once tough to track down, much easier to find.

RATING: 6.5/10

TRAILER

Junk (2000)

Director: Atsushi Muroga
Writer(s): Muroga
Starring: Nobuyuki Asano, Shû Ehara, Tate Gouta, and Anthony Grow

Back before the popularity of the internet exploded, the easiest way for me to see horror movies I wanted to see was simply to buy them.  This, unfortunately, led to me owning quite a few turds, as I had no idea if I would even like them before I purchased them.  Now, these were simpler times—I lived with my parents, had a full-time job, and no debts whatsoever—so the financial hit wasn’t a big deal back then, but thank goodness technology has evolved since those days. 

One such purchase was “Junk”, a low-budget Japanese zombie flick I bought at the height of my zombie craze (which predated Hollywood’s, and just about everyone else’s, by at least six years).  After getting my fill of gore from zombie epics like Lucio Fulci’s “Zombie”, and Peter Jackson’s “Dead/Alive”, I was always looking for more extreme movies to sate my massive appetite for zombie horror, and seeing as how the Japanese have a penchant for extreme cinema, I was hoping “Junk” would deliver.

We begin with a theft inside a jewelry store, complete with many unnecessary shots of the characters walking in slow motion.  Once the thieves get their fill of jewels, and make their getaway, they place a call to a yakuza contact, who sets up a meeting in an old, abandoned military base.  Well that military base was the location of experiments involving reincarnating the dead (surprise!), and it doesn’t take long for the building to be crawling with zombies.

Here you would think the yakuza and petty thieves join forces in an attempt to get out alive.  But that’s where you would be wrong: The yakuza’s still want the jewels all to themselves, for free, and so rather than avoiding the zombies, they simply spend their time chasing down and trying to kill the thieves, something that nets them only mixed results.  At the same time, the military, who by now has learned of the zombie infestation in the warehouse, set up their own small SWAT team to try to handle it. 

It almost sounds like enough happens for two separate movies, but instead, all this is crammed into a rather scant 82 minutes.  Well, you certainly can’t fault writer/director Atsushi Moroga for a lack of ambition!

As for whether or not “Junk” “delivers”, I’ll give you an ambiguous statement:  It does, and it doesn’t.  I actually abhorred this movie upon my first viewing over a decade ago, to the point that it has just sat in my collection collecting dust ever since.  Watching it again, long after my zombie fascination has died down (anytime Hollywood latches onto something, it tends to beat it until it’s a dead horse), I can appreciate it for what it is: A very low-budget love letter to not just zombie flicks, but horror, and even action films, in general.

That’s not to say that everything works, or even that it’s necessarily a good film; even underneath all the homage lies a rather clichéd, fairly predictable story, the special effects range from good, to appalling, the acting is terrible, the bad guys fire thousands of shots and miss almost every single time, and a couple of the characters are incredibly annoying (one of whom happens to be a main character).  There’s also a Japanese man who speaks in such broken English that there should have been English subtitles during his speaking parts; much of his dialogue is unintelligible.

But “Junk” does have a certain streak of feminism that’s still missing from a lot of movies even today; while the cast is predominantly male, it’s the two females that are the strongest characters.  One is Saki, played by Kaori Shimamura.  As the getaway driver for the jewel-thieving males at the beginning of the film, she has the most level head, and also proves to be the most fearless out of her whole crew.  On the other end of the spectrum is Kyoto, aka “Zombie Queen”.  While she’s only a strong presence toward the end, she represents the “boss” of the movie; a relentless monster with a brain that just about refuses to die.  It’s sad that it’s 2015, and it’s still so refreshing to see female characters that don’t just sit in a corner, scream, and wait for a male character to save them, but in an age of constant sexism, it’s a breath of fresh air.

I can also appreciate the wildly inconsistent special effects, for one main reason:  I’ll take failed practical effects any day over even good CGI.  I can’t stand computer effects.  Even these days, when technological strides are making them more lifelike than ever, there is still an obvious fakeness to them; no matter how far along they come, I can’t see them replacing the look and feel of reality.  It sounds like a stupid comment to make, but filmmakers seem so hellbent in their reliance on computers that just about every blockbuster looks like a videogame.  Well, if I wanted a videogame, I would go play one, not go to a theater and spend $12 to watch something that I can’t even control.

Rant aside, I can’t unanimously recommend “Junk”, simply because its budget clearly gets in the way of (and ultimately sabotages) its ambition.  But as I insinuated earlier, for fans of movies in general, there is a lot here to appreciate:  The utterly slow-moving zombies are taken right out of Fulci’s films (in fact, the obligatory sequence when they rise from the dead strongly resembles a scene out of “Zombie”), a couple action sequences seem to take their cue from John Woo, and there are probably many other references that slipped by me, but that are fun to spot.  You probably won’t love it, but it should at least keep you entertained for most, if not all, of its short running time.

RECAP: Its budget sabotages its ambition, preventing it from being anything more than a curiosity piece, but “Junk” partially overcomes its wide range of weaknesses by being a gleeful homage to horror and action films in general.  Zombie fans may want to check it out, though there are loads of better options withinin that subgenre.  Quite a bit of gore, but most of it is just standard zombie grue, so if you’re looking for an extreme amount of violence, you will more than likely be disappointed.

SCORE: 6/10

TRAILER: