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Sweeney Todd:
The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Directed by Tim Burton.
2007. Rated R, 117 minutes.
Cast:
Johnny Depp
Helena Bonham Carter
Timothy Spall
Alan Rickman
Sacha Baron Cohen
Jamie Bower Campbell
Jayne Wisener
Laura Michelle Kelly
Plot: When he returns home to London, Sweeney Todd (Depp) vows vengeance upon the judge who not only had him wrongfully imprisoned for 15 years but has apparently also caused the death of his wife and stolen his daughter.
The Good: This is probably the bloodiest and most morbid musical ever. Yes, sometimes I like my movies bloody and morbid. It also manages to be very darkly funny. The songs serve to add to its twisted sense of humor more than anything else. This makes it a musical for people who generally don’t like musicals, are a bit cynical and don’t mind a gore-fest. In short, it’s exactly what you think a live-action musical directed by Tim Burton would be. Remember, this is the same guy behind Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride. Of course, his direction is terrifically executed by the two actors he seems to trust most, Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. They continue to be perfect manifestations of his gothic vision.
The Bad: The actual singing is perfunctory at best. Let’s be honest, I don’t know if there’s one person in the cast who would get invited to Hollywood on "American Idol". If you’re looking for powerhouse ballads, show-stopping vocals or Broadway style numbers that light up the screen skip this and pop in Dreamgirls or Chicago.
The Ugly: What’s in the meat pies, both early and late in the movie.
Recommendation: If you fit the description I gave above: cynical, twisted sense of humor, likes gore, then this is the musical for you. Obviously, if you’re a fan of Tim Burton it’s right up your alley. Steer clear if you equate musicals to Julie Andrews, Beyonce, or Disney.
MY SCORE: 8.5/10Comment
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Great review. Bought Sweeney Todd as soon as it came out on DVD. I personally thought Johnny Depp was a rockstar in it though. His voice fit perfectly with the overall tone of the film.
And what's with the A Scanner Darkly hate?
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You should really review it.Comment
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Open Water
Directed by Chris Kentis.
2004. Rated R, 79 minutes.
Cast:
Blanchard Ryan
Daniel Travis
Michael E. Williamson
Saul Stein
Susan (Ryan) and Daniel (Travis) go on vacation to an exotic island and go on a deep sea dive in the middle of the ocean. As luck would have it, the company they paid to go on this little excursion goofs up the head count and takes off while our loving couple is well beneath the surface enjoying some aquatic wildlife. When they come up, they discover what we already know and try to come to grips with the situation. Obviously, they also attempt to hang on until someone grows a brain and comes back for them or someone else happens to sail by and pick them up.
Watching our two lovebirds try to cope and their relationship deteriorate while disruptive sea creatures swirl about and nibble at them is fascinating theater. The sense of abandonment and isolation creates tension and hopelessness which serve the film well. The lack of budget also works to its advantage. Instead of animatronics and CGI, we get creative shots and patient storytelling that gets better as it goes along.
It can be a bit tedious because the camera spends so much time trained on our stranded couple. Just as they find themselves hopelessly drifting, your attention may occasionally do the same. What’s happening back on land is thrown in every now and again. However, until we get near the end, it’s completely pointless so it doesn’t give us anything else to mull over. Thankfully, this is combated by a very short 79 minute runtime.
Full disclosure: I was so ready to hate this movie. Over the handful of years since it came out I’d heard so much about how great it was I’d automatically started to bristle at the notion that it could even be good. There’s just way too much hype surrounding it. I mean, how great could watching two people float around in the water be? As it turns out, it’s not bad. It’s not the greatest thing since Atari 2600, like some have claimed, but pretty good, nonetheless.
MY SCORE: 6.5/10Comment
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Liked Depp better in Crybaby than Sweeney Todd if we're talking musicals, but Sweeney Todd was an overall better movie..Comment
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A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
Directed by Samuel Bayer.
2010. Rated R, 95 minutes.
Cast:
Jackie Earle Haley
Rooney Mara
Kyle Gallner
Katie Cassidy
Thomas Dekker
Clancy Brown
Connie Britton
The kids from Elm Street aren’t sleeping because of the horrifically realistic nightmares they’re having. Soon enough, they discover their bad dreams are all of the same man trying kill them. He even succeeds on a number of occasions. Unless you’ve been under a rock for the last quarter-century, you know that this guy is Freddy Krueger.
Yup, this is merely a remake of Wes Craven’s 1984 horror classic, with the master’s blessings, of course. It’s not a prequel or sequel or even a re-imagining, no matter what you’ve heard. Therein, lies the problem. A sequel attempts to extend a story we already know. A prequel tries to do the same, just in the other direction on the timeline, showing us what got characters we already know to the spot where we first met them. Even a re-imagining extends the story by fleshing out details its predecessor glossed over, or maybe not even mentioned. This is pure remake, doing none of those things. It tries to add in some stuff about Nancy being Freddy’s favorite and expands Freddy’s torching at the hands of an angry mob of parents. Still, we’re simply watching the same movie, with different people playing the roles and nothing of their own to add.
Like most such films, where loses to the original is in the intangibles. It’s tale is no longer fresh. In 1984, plenty of slasher flicks had already been made, but none quite like the original Nightmare. In 2010, many of us have seen all of the movies in the franchise and/or a countless number of movies by it. We’ve moved on to torture porn and 3D gore. We know what to expect. Any fears we may have had with regards to sleeping are checked at the door. While the original was a visual spectacle, psychological attack and a watershed moment for the genre, this is only a movie.
Since it is only a movie, the tension never feels quite high enough. The death scenes are mostly altered or updated versions of what happened in it’s predecessor, but neither better nor worse. Freddy isn’t quite menacing enough, either. Thankfully, he’s far from the standup comedian version of later Freddy movies, but not quite up to snuff with what the character is in the original. Jackie Earle Haley, who handles the role, is a fine actor. He’s had an excellent career, to this point. I still expect him to at least be nominated for a major award, someday. However, no matter how good he is, he’s simply playing Freddy Krueger. On the other hand, Robert Englund, never before or since better than a B-grade performer in B-grade horror movies, caught lightning in a bottle. He seemed to actually be Freddy Krueger.
To be quite honest, the remake is perfectly adequate in every way. It does enough of its own thing so that it’s not an abomination, like the shot-for-shot remake of Psycho. And if, by some chance, you haven’t seen its predecessor or are new to horror flicks, it might be an excellent thrill ride. There is just nothing here that should cause you to hate it, except for the fact that it isn’t the original.
MY SCORE: 6/10Comment
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Hey, another horror remake...
It’s Alive (2008)
Directed by Josef Rusnak.
2008. Rated R, 80 minutes.
Cast:
Bijou Phillips
James Murray
Raphaël Coleman
Owen Teale
Ty Glaser
Jack Ellis
Todd Jensen
Laura Giosh
Lenore (Phillips) is about to be a mom for the first time. Unfortunately, her little bundle of joy has some strange prenatal complications that force an emergency c-section. The doctors give momma some knockout gas, snatch junior from the womb and bada-boom, bada-bing, everyone in the delivery room ends up all sorts of dead, except for the new mom and her bouncing baby boy.
The police investigate and logically settle on Lenore as the prime suspect. Meanwhile, the rugrat is developing at an unprecedented rate. Within a day or so, he’s flipping over by himself, crawling shortly after that and devouring whatever small animals he can get his hands on. At his regular feeding time, he flat out abuses mom’s boobs. That pisses me off. What kind of godless creature would hurt a breast? Doesn’t he know we’re supposed to save the ta-tas? Oh…sorry for going off on that little tangent.
Anyhoo, small animals aren’t always enough to satisfy the little monster. This means when people show up at the house, they tend to end up victims of a gruesome homicide. Slowly, but surely mom becomes flat out hysterical about the whole thing. Oh yeah, I haven’t even mentioned dad yet, have I? He’s completely oblivious to what’s going on for most of the movie. Sure, he’s a doting father when he’s home, so proud that “something so beautiful came from us.” Those are his words, not mine. Then again, he’s not home much during the day when the little one is doing most of his terrorizing because hey, somebody’s gotta pay bills around there. And like any good housewife, the little lady makes sure to clean up and put away the corpses before her man gets home. Nope, he doesn’t notice the teeth marks all over his wife’s chest. C’mon, you know new dads don’t get any. Mom is too busy with the baby.
Why is this happening? There’s actually a very clever reason which I won’t spoil. So clever is it, an argument can be made that it is either pro-life or pro-choice. There’s also an interesting ending.
It’s Alive is an interesting flick. It works best when you can barely see the baby, if at all. It’s like the Star Wars series with regards to Yoda fighting. The thought of it was awesome, but when we actually saw it, it was rather silly. The same applies here, except for the one close-up we get of the baby near the end, a very nice jump-scare. It plays like a dumbed down sequel to Rosemary’s Baby. It’s actually a remake of the 1974 cult classic, also named It’s Alive. And finally, it’s so bad, it’s awesome!
MY SCORE: -10/10Comment
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Dracula
Directed by Tod Browning.
1931. Not Rated, 75 minutes.
Cast:
Bela Lugosi
Helen Chandler
Dwight Frye
David Manners
Edward Van Sloan
Herbert Bunston
Frances Dade
Count Dracula (Lugosi) arranges a trip from his native Transylvania to London and quickly sets his sights on young Mina (Chandler). Oh yeah, the Count is a vampire, but you already knew that.
As the mysterious Dracula, Bela Lugosi gives us the performance that defines a genre. Nearly every vampire since either uses some updated version of Lugosi or makes a conscious effort not to. For instance, the head vampire in 30 Days of Night looks like a modern Lugosi while Edward in the Twilight looks like a model for Ambercrombie & Fitch because the classic look is no longer cool.
What this movie has fiven us is far greater than the film itself. Along with its predecessor, 1922’s Nosferatu, its given us many of the cues vampire movies have continued to take in the decades since. In the nearly 80 years since its debut, the movie has lost much of its bite. The dialogue feels wooden, Drac feels more like a creepy stalker than the evil master of the undead and even though it’s only 75 minutes long, it drags. It pales in comparison to its contemporaries, Frankenstein (1931) and The Wolf Man (1941). It probably doesn’t help that there have been far more vampire movies than versions of those others, with a seemingly endless stream of updates and additions to the lore. With all that said, it’s a movie that needs to be seen by all vampire fans, especially those curious about the genre’s humble beginnings.
MY SCORE: 7.5/10Comment
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Dread
Directed by Anthony DiBlasi.
2009. Rated R, 90 minutes.
Cast:
Jackson Rathbone
Shaun Evans
Hanne Steen
Laura Donnelly
Jonathan Readwin
Stephen (Rathbone) is a film school student who needs a topic for his thesis. He’s also just met and hit it off with Quaid (Evans), a bit of a creepy sort who keeps asking him about his deepest fears and constantly telling him to “face the beast”. This isn’t the type of guy most of would hang around, but just go with it. Within a day or so, Quaid suggests they should do a fear study that Stephen can film as a documentary and use for said thesis. Stephen agrees and Quaid descending further into nuttiness ensues.
The basic idea is for these guys plus Cheryl (Steen), whom Stephen recruited to be their editor, to interview volunteers about what they dread most, hence the title. Whenever he doesn’t get the type of answers he’s searching for, Quaid flies off the handle. This is because Quaid himself is hiding a deep, dark secret that has caused him to be put on crazy people pills for the rest of his life. Well, he should be, but of course he’s decided to go off his meds. Not surprisingly, the interviews are soon not enough as he yearns to, eventually does, take the study to the next level.
Dread is a surprisingly well done, even well acted, psychological horror film. If you’re looking for some boogeyman hunting down hordes of teenagers, or for a creeky haunted house, don’t bother. There are some pretty nasty images but this isn’t a gore-fest, either. This is just twisted stuff.
There are flaws and a couple lulls that almost lose us. Once things get taken to “the next level”, it’s a smooth gearshift. We suddenly find ourselves with mouths agape and behinds scooched forward so they barely have enough seat beneath them to not have fallen to the floor.
The ending is reminiscent of the Saw franchise. I’ll submit it ends with a slamming door. However, this is somehow more sinister and sadistic. To recap: see this if you want to see a solid, screw with your brain type of horror flick that is not and adaptation of a foreign film from the year before. By the way, this is adapted from Clive Barker’s short story of the same name. Skip it if you want see a flowing stream of brutal homicides.
MY SCORE: 7/10Comment
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The House of the Devil
Directed by Ti West.
2009. Rated R, 95 minutes.
Cast:
Jocelin Donahue
Greta Gerwig
Tom Noonan
Mary Woronov
AJ Bowen
Danielle Noe
Right at the beginning of “The House of the Devil” we’re told that in the 1980s, 70% of all Americans believed in the existence of abusive Satanic cults. Abusive? Is there any other kind? Anyhoo, we’re then told the other 30% believe the lack of evidence supporting the existence of these cults is due to a government cover up. Hmm. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds like they’re saying 100% of Americans believe in the extistence of Satanic cults. Maybe I’m overthinking. After all, this is just a horror flick. Let’s move on.
The very next scene introduces us to Samantha (Donahue). She’s a college student looking to move out of the dorm mostly because her roommate is a complete slob who sleeps all day, often with her boyfriend also inhaling much of Samantha’s portion of the oxygen supply. If you’ve been paying attention to the info we’ve been given and this first scene of her scouting a house to rent then you’ve already gathered that at some point she will come under siege by Satanic cultists some time during the 80s. It will likely happen in this house. Devil worshipping freaks terrorizing co-eds, I’m cool with that. My popcorn is ready.
Sam gets the house, but has to have a check for the first month’s rent to the landlady by Monday to seal the deal. Is the landlady our Satanic cultist? Nah, we never see her, or this house again.
Still, Samantha needs o come up with some cash quick. She doesn’t have a job, so no picking up extra hours there. Apparently, she doesn’t know the campus drug dealer, so no running packages over the weekend, either. She also seems to be unaware of the campus prostitution ring, or the nearby club where her friends strip to pay their tuitions, so using her body is out, also. I’m just speculating, none of this is actually in the movie. Sadly, I find myself with lots of thinking time while watching this. Hey, this artificial butter on my artificially popped popcorn is pretty good, has me licking my fingers.
Our heroine happens to stumble across a flyer soliciting a baby-sitter, calls the number and eventually gets the job. I say eventually because it takes FOREVER to get to this point. You see, during the first call, the guy on the phone sounds all in a rush and wants to meet her right away. Then he stands her up. After this, we spend an excruciating amount of time watching Samantha pal around with her bestest buddy Megan (Gerwig), engage in not so scintillating girl-talk and eat pizza. After an exceedingly long while the guy who needs a sitter calls her back hires her over the phone but the job is for tonight. I’ve got it! Whoever she’s baby sitting for are the cultists! Actually, I had this almost thirty minutes ago. I’m at that point where my bag of popcorn is half-empty and no longer hot. As a big fan of popcorn, particularly the kind created by the nuclear reactor in my kitchen most of you call a microwave, I soldier on.
Just as we think things are going to pick up, Sam and Megan have to actually drive to her new job. Oh yeah, Meg is going simply because Sam doesn’t have a car. At any rate, this place is about a million miles from campus and I think we ride along for every one of them. Is this some sort of sick joke? Did they film this thing in real time and not bother to tell us? It appears not, but I’m not so sure.
Finally, they arrive at the house only to find out there’s no baby to sit. Aiiight, here we go. It’s action time! Not really. The creepy old dude that’s played by Tom Noonan has to explain the situation, in depth. He needs the sitter for his presumably much older mom. Sam then decides she can’t do it and a lengthy negotiation takes place. Eventually, it concludes with Noonan forking over $400 and Meg leaving, all upset they had been lied to.Of course, she promises to come back and pick Sam up at the end of the night. You think she makes it?
Well, the creepy old dude and his even creepier wife, who just popped up out of nowhere, leave, letting her know about four times that they’ll be back in about four hours and the number to the pizza shop is on the fridge. Why yes, there is another scene of her eating pizza. However, it’s not before we watch her explore t he bazillion rooms in the house, one by one, rather uneventfully. My popcorn is completely gone, I’ve licked all the faux butter from my fingers, even from beneath my fingernails – don’t judge, and nothing has happened. I’m pissed.
I’ve now written way too much about this movie. I figure if I had to suffer through it, I might as well not be alone. Eventually, the creepy old couple returns and reveals themselves to indeed by Satanists, along with some random dude who gave the one vaguely interesting moment to this point, and delivered the pizza. I’m guessing he’s their son. Everything after this is just stupid. You know what? I can be evil, too. I’m not even going to fill you in on all the lunacy that wraps up the proceedings. You’ll either succumb to the agony of not knowing and see it for yourself, or go to your grave with curiosity about the exciting conclusion gnawing at your soul. Okay, maybe not.
MY SCORE: 0/10Comment
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