Don't be Afraid of the Dark

I've long been a Guillermo DelToro booster. I saw Mimic in theaters and enjoyed it greatly. I followed his career catching up on Cronos and seeing The Devil's Backbone, Pan's Labyrinth and both the Hellboy films as they were released and generally loving them all. It's been three long years since the spectacular Hellboy 2 and good old Guillermo's been attached to more films than Justin Timberlake women, yet nothing has materialised. Until now. Well, he only wrote the script for Don't Be afraid of the Dark, but his fingerprints are all over this thing from the fairy tale mythos to the nasty critters to the murals on the wall even down to the brocaded headboard on the child's bed! And you know what? This movie stinks. It's absolute junk. It's a wannabe high brow Charles Band feature at best. Just because DelToro has a notebook full of doodles doesn't mean he has to shoehorn them into a lackluster creature feature starring two disinterested adults and one homely little girl.

After a moderately promising prologue, we're introduced to the most milquetoast "movie couple" I've ever seen. The lack of chemistry is simply astonishing. Guy Pearce and Katie Holmes literally seem like they just met 2 minutes before filming.... in every scene they share!!! It never comes across as anything than what it is, Pearce slumming for a big paycheck and Holmes taking a token role to remind people she's actually an actress and not just Cruise's indentured wife. The little girl in this film serves as a stark reminder of how much DelToro lucked out finding Ivana baqero for Pan's labyrinth. The camera loved her, she had innate talent and copious screen charisma. I don't mean to bag on a little girl, so let's just say the child actor in Don't be afraid of the Dark is not someone you want to spend an hour and forty minutes following around. So, right off the bat, I can't buy into the lead couple's relationship which emotionally distances me from the film and I dislike the protagonist, making it difficult for me to care when she's imperiled.

And what is she put into peril by? Spoiler alert for those who care........ It's pretty much the tooth fairy creatures from Hellboy 2, but less cartoonish, more ugly and without wings. So now the movie is repetitive as well. These sort of mythical creatures with fairy tale roots have long been a DelToro staple to flavor his films (such as the aforementioned Hellboy 2 sequence, which lasted 10 minutes), here, it's the entire course! I was intrigued by the films advertising, eager to learn what this house's secret was. After discovering it was simply alternate versions of the 8 inch tall turds from Subspecies rendered in better graphics, well, needless to say, I was a little disappointed. Not only is the threat underwhelming and silly, it's revealed far too early in the story, leaving the film makers no option but to "treat" us to a dreary, seemingly endless parade of sequences where characters are in a dark room, then something is really loud, then they fend off CGI beasties by pointing flashlights at them (cause they can't stand the light, natch). Not exactly gripping stuff to this 34 year old man. I felt the same as I did watching Child's Play all those years ago, inwardly screaming, "Why don't you just kick them?!?!?!?".

This being a tiresome exercise in convention, we get treated to all the classics. Flashlights being smacked around by the protagonists, sputtering light during tense situations when they need it so desperately. The child droning on and on about the threat and no one believing her. The stepmother trying to side with her and doing research at the library to uncover the horrible truth. The child making creepy drawings etc... You name it, this movie trots it out, by the numbers and every bit as brain numbing as it sounds. I wanted to leave about an hour in, but realized I had nothing better to do at home, so I stuck it out, hoping against hope there would be some redeeming quality to mitigate DelToro's complicit guilt in penning this drivel, but there was to be none. Please Guillermo, I beg of you to return to the directors chair. Just please do so once you've settled on a project infinitely more ambitious and deserving of your talents than this utter waste.

You Know What's Great? The Mangler!

Tobe Hooper's The Mangler, released in in the dead center of the most despised decade for horror among genre fans, seems to have become some sort of horror-dork anointed scapegoat for the entire time frame of the 90's. EVERYBODY hates this movie and I can not for the life of me understand why. I sit back and watch horror nerds bestow breathless accolades upon the Friday the 13th series, which I find to be a generally boring and bloodless affair with no style and even less substance, while trashing this quirky Hooper gem and I shake my head in disgusted disbelief. The go-to focal point in tearing The Mangler down is its outlandish premise of a possessed laundry folding machine become unquenchable killer after getting a taste for virgin blood during the dazzling credit sequence. I can scarcely think of a greater reason to recommend a film than it having the temerity to be unique to the point of being difficult, but I'll offer some more.

This film looks like magnificent. The production design is spot on, be it the hellish sweatshop conditions of the laundry factory or the cavernous descent into the underworld represented by the locations of the morgue and the photographers black room/office. The titular murderous machine is mightily impressive in all its limb chomping glory and looks threatening as hell sputtering sparks and smoke while blood spatters from its unholy maw. Hooper shoots the film with unmitigated flair, his camera always moving, always underscoring the thematic momentum of the story. From the manner he films laundry impresario Bill Gartley to emphasise how his damaged physicality embodies his despicable, heartless capitalism to the contrast of inviting Christmas lights and mystical doo dads in the trees of our protagonists brother in laws plot of land. The wooden bridge symbolizing the hardened cop coming over to his way of thinking about the supernatural by the end of the film. It's all deliberate and it all works.

The performances are uniformly excellent and more importantly, off the wall to the point of being psychotic. Ted Levine, a vastly under used character actor best known for his role of Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs, is let loose in the lead role of Detective John "Johnny" Hunton. He's stressed out, volatile, combative and terrifyingly histrionic. He seems like someone who should not be entrusted with a badge, but that's what makes the character compelling. His embittered pragmatism clashes wonderfully with the hippy dippy spirituality of his neighbor/Brother in law played with likable coolness by Daniel Matmoor. Their relationship becomes quite touching by the end of the film and extremely effective. Englund is hilariously awful (by which I mean great) as the differently abled head of the laundry with a million secrets and a soul so black he makes Dick Cheney seem huggable in contrast. My favorite performance in the film though, is that of Jeremy Crutchley as J.J.J. the towns post mortem photographer, who seems to have walked straight off the set of a 1950's noir film. He icily insinuates himself into these morbid situations and his bemused detachment belies a more poignant side to be revealed spectacularly toward the end. His final scene is a powerhouse of acting and his character one I think of often when considering the notion of facing the unavoidable specter of death.

The gore is top notch and plentiful, also something missing from most films of the era and the 80's in general. Englund's demise is one of the more fitting and bombastic villain death scenes I can recall. I also like how this film handles both practical gore and supernatural pyrotechnics with equal aplomb. This is a kitchen sink movie if ever there was one. It's got something to appeal to every kind of genre fan, except those slavishly devoted to dim witted, moronic, one-note slasher films consisting of tedious P.O.V. shots of vapid teenagers being followed around for what seems like an eternity before being killed off screen. There's none of that garbage in The Mangler, just good old fashioned entertainment consisting of bold characters, a compelling story, plentiful grue and masterful direction. I can't recommend it highly enough to first timers in the search of an evening of enthusiastic entertainment. And to those who have previously seen and dismissed it outright, I beg of you to give it another chance and appreciate what's there instead of bemoaning what isn't.

Thanks loyal Readers!

Just wanted to print a quick thank you to all my loyal readers and to all who took the time to send me a nice comment following my return from the beyond! It really helps as a pick me up and shows me the internet isn't just full of trolling assholes out to tear everything down for no reason. There's actually some decent people here to talk film! In any case, no matter how hard I try, I can't figure out how to post reply comments on my own blog anymore! It keeps asking me to sign in, which I do, then the verification, then it asks me to sign in again, then the verification.... It's like that painting of a guy painting himself painting a picture into infinity. So take this as my response and thanks again!

Back from the Dead!

As some of you might have heard, roughly three weeks ago, I suffered what the doctors referred to as sudden cardiac death. My heart stopped and I technically died. Thankfully, I was resuscitated, put on ice to allow my body and brain to recuperate and thanks to my healthy workout and eating regimen, am on my way to a full recovery. I don't want to get into the nuts and bolts of my medical shit as it's morbid and uninteresting to me, so I can only imagine how snooze inducing it would be to my readership. Suffice to say, I had a faulty valve and it was fixed. My being alive is indebted to my spartan lifestyle and the quick thinking of the gentleman who found me, not to mention the expertise of the many Doctor's who cared for me. The upshot is, I've been able to see a multitude of films recently, both theatrical and on home video. There's not much to do during a convalescence besides fade in and out of consciousness and stare blankly at flickering images. So, without further ado, here's what I've been watching lately!

Stakeland was fantastic. Maybe the best horror film of the year next to Insidious (not that there's much competition). It's epic, yet claustrophobic. Lyrical, yet blunt. Draining, yet invigorating. It's the kind of horror film that transcends genre while being indisputably of it. This is the kind of movie to point to when non-genre fans ridicule horror as the breeding ground for mouth breathing stupidity and senseless violence.

Rec2 was visceral as all get out, but ultimately tedious as all films featuring the found footage gambit are. Your Highness was a disappointing, vulgar festival of inconsequence. All high concept and no actual jokes, unless swearing and intimating molestation, sexual assault and rape at every turn count as jokes nowadays.

The Rise of the Planet of the Apes was exceptional and easily the best movie of the summer. It was thrilling, innovative, intelligent, complex and compassionate, a series of adjectives I usually can't associate with modern film. The Final Destination was great fun to me for some reason. I saw it with my father shortly after my own brush with death and found it endlessly amusing. I'm sure a large part of it was introducing my dad to the series and watching him squirm through the protracted and misleading set pieces. It was also just plain great to be out of the hospital, seeing a movie with the man who instilled in me my love of film.

Conan The Barbarian hit the sweet spot for me. It's unrelenting in it's pacing, action and violence. The story and characters are nothing new or that great, but they got the job done in a workmanlike fashion. The movie provided me with a much needed escape. I know every critic seemingly despises it, but I appreciated it's sloping brow mentality and cut rate fantasy film backdrops. It was a treat to sit through a film where no one whipped out a cell phone or gave a moments thought to political correctness. I doubt I will remember it much come years end, but I thought it was a blast when I saw it in the theater and that 's about as much as one can expect from the current crop of cinema.

I saw the Fright Night remake, which didn't fare as well for me. I guess I didn't see the point. Nothing was altered drastically enough to justify a redux and the violence and effects weren't nearly as visceral or creative as they were in the original. I watched the original on DVD the night after and was reminded how exciting, lively and clever it was, which only served to throw into sharper contrast how dull, drab and crude the inessential remake is. The original is so colorful and vibrant, while the remake is seemingly shot with all the lights out in black and white. If it's a stylistic choice, it was a bad one, cause the film verily dares you to watch it.

A great friend of mine sent me the blu's for Zombie Holocaust (or as I prefer to refer to it, Dr. Butcher MD!) and Criterion's Blow Out, so I can't wait to dig into those this coming week. Another good friend has loaned me his complete set of Planet of the Apes blurays, while Axl from Profondo Cinema sent me a care package of DVD goodness I can't wait to dip into! Thanks so much to all the friends and well wishers out there that made returning to the world of the living such a pleasant and touching affair. I'm on the mend and ready to get back at film dissection with a renewed purpose and vigor!