Werewolves Are NOT the New Zombies

Tyler Hoechlin of MTV's "Teen Wolf"

In the pantheon of Horror archetypes,Werewolf used to rank just below Vampire. Since a little black and white horror movie in 1968, werewolves have been knocked down a peg or two. Obviously, all three are insanely popular in genre TV. MTV's "Teen Wolf" (which I gave up on last season) and SyFy's "Being Human" and their new series "Bitten" prove that. They have been less successful on the big screen, of late. I don't know anyone who actually likes the Underworld movies and don't understand why they keep getting made and Benicio Del Toro's 2010 effort to reinvigorate yet another Universal Monsters franchise (The Wolfman) failed miserably and season one of producer/director Eli Roth's "Hemlock Grove" for Netflicks was a total bore. 

Personally, I can name only two werewolf movies in the last 30 years that were actually up to snuff. The first is director Joe Dante's (Mad Max; Gremlins) almost brilliantly realized 1981 version of Gary Brandner's novel The Howling. Featuring the first real physical werewolf transformation on film (thanks to Rob Bottin) and a very funny script by John Sayles, the movie ultimately fails when Dee Wallace (as a TV reporter) has an on-camera transformation, resulting in something that looks more like an over-sized Pekingese than a vicious killer.

Of course, probably the best werewolf movie ever made is John Landis' An American Werewolf in London. Scary, funny and romantic, Landis' movie set a bar which has yet to be met.

Runners up: Neil Jordan's very dark re-telling of 'Little Red Riding Hood,' The Company of Wolves and Christoph Gans' 2001 Brotherhood of the Wolf. 

Unfortunately, despite the presence of the eye-candy that is Jason Momoa, the upcoming French-made Wolves doesn't look likely to bring the subgenre back.

Personally... Cats are way scarier (and sexier):



More, anon.
Prospero

Netflix Revew: "Hansel & Gretel Get Baked"

I suppose a preface of sort is required here. For the past 10 years or so, my rock, K has spent Christmas Eve with Mom and myself. In a beautiful post on Facebook, K expressed how she was going to miss those weird and wonderful nights now that Mom was gone. And since I'll be at my sister's for Christmas Eve this year (something already passed by the time this post is published - how freaky is that?), I proposed that we have a Christmas Eve Eve with many of the traditions we've shared for so long. We were joined by our sweet, funny, weird, wonderful and adorable friend Michael for a lovely candle-lit night of good food, good drink and very good company. Honestly, everyone should be so lucky to have friends like mine - I love and thank them so much. 

Anyway... after dinner we decided to search Netflix for something to entertain us. K and Micheal searched through my personal list, which includes lots of movies only I (and a few of you... Pax...) would appreciate. And after an unabashedly intoxicated K had issues with the WiiMote, I took over, asking what they wanted to see. "Something funny!" they both said. So I went to the list of movies suggested because I'd watched Tucker and Dale vs Evil. I skipped along the menu until I hit upon a title that made me laugh and chose it, saying "If it sucks, we'll change it!" That title was Hansel & Gretel Get Baked. Starring "Castle" regular Molly Quinn as Gretel; the Twilight movies' Michael Welch as Hansel and a frighteningly over-surgeried and an almost unrecognizable Lara Flynn Boyle as a the immortal Bavarian-Nazi-Cannibal-Witch, Agnes who grows and sells enchanted dope to unsuspecting teens. Not surprisingly, the ingestion of those teens' flesh help both restore and maintain Agnes' youth.

Writer/Actor David Tillman's script is just clever enough to keep our interest, amusingly referencing  the story we all know and aided by costume designer Elizabeth Jett's very decidedly Tyrolean-inspired outfits for Ms Quinn. Add plenty of gross-out moments and hilarious puns (Agnes starts out as literally a 'Little Old Lady from Pasadena'), and Hansel & Gretel Get Baked ends up being a very funny modern take on the story via Cheech and Chong, where Skittles serve as breadcrumbs and hot young guys get slathered in herbed butter while strapped to a mortician's gurney. Cary Elwes makes a cameo as the Meter Man while a slew of other character actors you will recognize from every procedural TV show from the last 20 years crop up in other supporting roles.

Not everything works perfectly (Boyle's age makeups aren't quite convincing, though I suspect that may have more to do with her tragic cosmetic surgeries, than anything else). And some of the CGI FX (especially in the denouement) are a bit forced. But if you're looking for a funny, gory and gruesome distraction from all the Holiday nonsense you've been forced to endure in the past month or so, you could do certainly do worse than Hansel & Gretel Get Baked. I would definitely recommend it over the Big Studio crapfest that was Hansel &Gretel: Witch Hunters.

Screened at this year's Tribecca Film Festival, Hansel & Gretel Get Baked is currently available on Netflix and DVD. **1/2 (Two and a Half Out of Four Stars). Rated 'R' for Violence, Gore, Drug Use and Language, it was exactly what the three of us needed, even if K covered her eyes during the gory bits.

More, anon..
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Retro Review: "The Innkeepers"

Thanks again to Netflix, I was able to enjoy yet another movie I've been reading about for several years: director Ti West's 2011 haunted hotel movie, The Innkeepers. I recently saw West's debut House of the Devil and found it a bit tedious, but the he has upped his game here, creating compelling characters we actually care about (it may have helped that the young lead reminded me of a very talented young actress I've had the pleasure of directing twice - Yes, Sarah, I mean you!). 

It is the last weekend for the soon-to-be-closed Yankee Pedlar Inn leaving Claire (Sarah Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy) in charge. Luke is a wannabe paranormal investigator who swears he's encountered the hotel's ghost, a woman who supposedly committed suicide after being left at the alter. The only guests are a single woman with her young son and a former TV star turned psychic (Kelly McGillis). As Claire investigates the story of Madeline O'Malley and McGillis warns about going to the basement, the tension rises toward a truly scary ending. Taking cues from The Shining and even The Sentinel, West manages to create a modern ghost story with a kick, using a single location with a likeable and talented cast (which includes an hilarious turn from "Girls" creator, Lena Dunham). I can imagine Dear D squirming in his seat through this one. It certainly got my blood pumping, especially in the third act! *** (Three Out of Four Stars).

Fans of smart, tension-building horror should be quite pleased by The Innkeepers. Rated "R" by the MPAA for bloody images and language.

More, anon.
Prospero

Retro Review: "The Bay"

Netflix is a wonder, y'all. Why didn't you tell me about it before? Now I know it's not your fault. I'm not the best at electronics and thankfully sis set up my Wii for me (after having for three years) and now I have the service that put Blockbuster out of business. And because I do, I have seen quite a few movies I'd been reading about but missed their first times around (House of the Devil; VHS - a few others). Tonight, Michael and I watched director Barry Levinson's (Diner; Rainman; Toys) take on the Found Footage Horror genre, The Bay.

Set up like a documentary expose, The Bay tells the tale of a small Maryland town which is hit with an outbreak of a devastating parasites on July Fourth, 2009. Anchored by the account of TV news intern (Kether Donahue) and footage supposedly pieced together from surveillance cameras; cell phone cameras; video recorders; police dash-cams and Skype sessions, Levinson's film is both an indictment of corporate malfeasance and ecological indifference, with plenty of gross-outs along the way. Amidst the the Independence Day celebrations, the people of a small Maryland town along the Chesapeake bay are suddenly struck down by rashes, boils and other horrific symptoms which soon overwhelm the local hospital's ER and have the CDC at a loss. 

Unlike most 'Found Footage' films, Levinson doesn't rely on only one or two cameras to tell his story (Michael Wallach's screenplay is based on Levinson's original story), but uses a variety of digital cameras to capture the horrific events, lending an air of veracity often missing from many such movies. The performances from the mostly unknown cast (particularly Stephen Kinken as the confounded but dedicated ER doctor) are effective while the special effects are often quite cringe-worthy (in a good way). Levinson is a truly hit-or-miss director (I'm one of the few who actually likes the underrated Robin Williams fantasy Toys) but I think I have to count The Bay among his hits. Smart, effective and perfectly plausible, The Bay is almost reminiscent of The Ruins in its simple concept and execution. **1/2 (Two and a Half Stars Out of Four)

More, anon.
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Retro Review: "Battle Royale"

Over the years, several friends and fellow cinephiles have been telling me I had to see Kinji Fukasaku's 2000 Sci-Fi-Action-Splatter mashup, Battle Royale. Obviously an influence on Suzanne Collins' hugely successful YA novel "The Hunger Games" and its sequels, the tale is set in a dystopian future Japan where crime is at an all-time high, committed by bored and dangerous teenagers. The government passes the "BR Act" which calls for a class of 42 ninth-graders to be randomly selected each year and then taken to to a deserted island and made to fight one another to death, until only one is left standing. If by dawn on the third day, more than one is left alive then all are killed via the explosive monitor necklaces around their necks. 

They are each given basic supplies and a 'weapon' of some kind, not all of which are particularly useful (a pot lid and a set of binoculars, for example), or are they? Some are much deadlier; sharp and/or explosive. Some kids vow to find a way out without fighting and a few immediately bail and take their own lives. Pacifist Nanahara vows to protect sweet Noriko and they soon make an unlikely alliance with "exchange student" Kawada, who is surprisingly well-versed in all sorts of things, including emergency first-aid, weapons and survival techniques, claiming his father was both a doctor and a sailor. Other alliances form and fall apart and the number quickly dwindles from the original 42. The violence is brutal and unforgiving, though as in many Japanese splatter movies, the blood sprays often seem a bit Pythonesque. And while it's not always easy to judge the acting in a foreign language film, it seemed to me the young cast did a fine job with dialog that often translated quite hilariously, which unsurprisingly is part of what made it work so well. I only hope it's as funny in Japanese as it is in the subtitled version I saw tonight.

While hardly a Turkey, it was also loads of fun to riff MST3K-style with my sweet, Elvin friend Joel* (who I haven't seen in ages and who came down from NYC just to see me and spend time with me today and I love him very much for doing so!), who is one of the people who has been telling me I should see it for 13 years... D'oh!

Hilarious; sick; violent and an undeniable comment on the Human Condition and the power of the survival instinct, Battle Royale is a must-see for my regular readers who haven't done so, yet. I'm just sorry I waited so long. Composer Masamichi Amano brilliantly augments his score with well-known and ironic passages of European Classic music. The effect is often quite stunning.  It was almost immediately apparent why this film is a modern cult classic and I now must seek out it's sequel. ***1/2 (Three and a Half Out of Four Stars).

*I picked Joel up at the Hamilton Train station after working one of my two mandatory Saturdays a year at the Day Job and he accompanied me on a few errands and then home where I made us lunch (Vodka Penne); he tried to convince me to take up Vikram yoga -- Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha! --  and we watched movies on Netflix (thanks for helping me set that up, Sis!). We later ordered Chinese delivery for dinner. When it arrived, the very familiar owner was delivering and he could see the TV. "Oh! You're watching an Asian movie?" he asked, surprised.

"Yes. 'Battle Royale,'" Joel and I both said.

"Oh. I don't know. I don't watch that crap!"

I haven't grinned so hardily in several weeks. Thanks again, Joel! Love you! And I promise to be in NYC soon!

More, anon.
Prospero

I May Have to Subscribe to Netflix

Writer/Director/Actor/Producer/'JewBear' Eli Roth is one the horror genre's busiest men. He recently opened the first permanent Haunted Attraction in Las Vegas  and is about to appear in the US premiere of a film he both co-wrote and produced, the Chilean horror movie Aftershock. Roth's latest project is the 13-episode werewolf series for Netflix, "Hemlock Grove." 

Starring the highly underrated Famke Janssen (X-Men; House on Haunted Hill); Dougray Scott (My Week with Marilyn); Lili Taylor ("Six Feet Under") and Bill (son of Stellan and brother of Alexander) Skarsgard, "Hemlock Grove" appears to be the werewolf series that MTV's "Teen Wolf" aspires to be. And though "Teen Wolf" certainly has its moments, I suspect that "Hemlock Grove" will be both bloodier and sexier. 

Thanks to fellow blogger and Facebook friend JA of My New Plaid Pants, comes the following trailer for the series, which has Uncle P almsot foaming at the mouth:

Roth wrote and directed one of the funniest and smartest horror movies ever (the underrated Cabin Fever -link NSFW) and was directly responsible for the mid-oughts 'Torture Porn' genre, thanks to the gory and terrifying Hostel. Roth's most recent project is the feature length version of Clown, based on a short film about a man who rents a clown suit which he can't seem to remove. D, Mia and Barb - don't watch this. It has a very Evil You Know What:

I may very well part with some hard-earned cash just to watch what promises to be a rather insane show when Netflix premiers all 13 episodes of "Hemlock Grove" this coming April. Hopefully, my holiday bills will be paid off by then.

More, anon.
Prospero