Soundtrack available at Amazon.com

Let me ask you a question or three; you ever watch a movie and think “Hey, isn’t this movie ripping off such and such movie?” You ever watch a film and ask yourself “Is this movie going anywhere?” And after watching a flick, do you walk away thinking “What was the freaking point of this movie?” Well my fellow legion of Da’ flames… I have the displeasure of telling you that I asked all three questions during the course of this picture, in some cases multiple times.

The poor excuse of a story goes something a little like this; god almighty above has washed his hands of the human race and he’s hiring a cleaning service to mop up the globe, namely his angels. His entire “legion” is gonna come down and lay a god sized smack down on all us mud monkeys. However, we’ve still got one angel on humanity’s shoulder that’s ready, willing and able to stand up for all of us schmucks.

Enter the badass of angels himself, that flaming sword wielding broheem himself, Archangel Michael (only there’s no flaming sword here, but I’ll get to that later). Mike is all that’s standing between us and the rest of the angels, including his brother, Archangel Gabriel. He’s chopped off his wings, he’s taken up mucho guns, he wears his bad attitude on his sleeve, and he’s looking for a woman. Not just any woman will do however, he’s looking for a pregnant gal who’s about to deliver the mail anytime now (hey, whatever your into Michael, I wont judge you.)

The girl of his earthly obsession is a waitress in a middle of nowhere diner and mechanic shop in Arizona (the diner is named “Paradise Falls” coincidentally… yuck, yuck, yuck, I get it.) She’s been given a poor hand in life and things don’t look to get better for her. She lives with a nice guy and his dad who’ve taken her into their home to help her out as it seems her baby’s daddy is nowhere to be found. They all work at said diner, and the first big question is who gets to the scene of the action first, Michael or the legion? The second question; even if Michael gets there first, can he stop the legion and his brother Gabriel? I’d say fasten your seat belts cause it’s gonna be a bumpy ride, but I’d be a liar if I did.

Within a span of about thirty minutes, my “rip off radar” (Note: I patented this radar and I plan to start selling them on eBay soon) detected several movies from where I’ve seen it all before. Off the top of my head I recall such films as The Terminator, The Seventh Sign, Demon Knight, The Prophecy and a plethora of zombie films to round it out. From what I can tell, the writing and creative crew had no vision of their own and decided it best to take the best parts/ideas of all sorts of religious & zombie films and try to hide this fact behind an action based film.

While I can understand the desire to follow in the proven footsteps of other films (any of the films mentioned above are good to great films) there is something here I just can’t wrap my head around. If you’re using such a treasury of proven inspiration and ideas… how could you manage to fail at making this Frankenstein of a film worth watching? For such a loaded subject, there was no real theological debates to be had, no real explanation as to why god is putting us all on the chopping block or what’s so special about this unborn child all the fuss is over. Who is this kid, the second coming of Christ? I don’t know, and the film aint telling.

Another set of questions I had; why were the legion of angels so eager and maliciously evil in carrying out their duties? Are they really just as evil as those red devils residing deep in the Earth? Are the angels really just a bunch of evil fiends being held back on a leash by god almighty all this time? Actually, I may have answered my own question here as I couldn’t figure out what was up with that slave collar Michael pried off his neck at the beginning of the flick, the film sure didn’t bother to explain that either. Speaking of whom, is Michael the only angel gifted with any real sense? And where was his flaming sword? What’s the point of giving him “the sword” in the film if it’s not flaming? That sword kicked ass during the days of the rebel angels and its Michael’s shtick… use it by god, USE IT!!!

Honestly I don’t think the writers know the first thing about Christianity. Now I’m not saying I’m a devout student of the subject. But I have served my time in Sunday school, I’ve read many debates and theories on the parables and lessons the bible has to teach us, I’ve read many fictional stories that are either based on the subject (in fact I’m currently reading and enjoying This is My Blood by David Niall Wilson to review soon) or is influenced by the subject (like the incredibly good Menagerie series), and these stories all made sense and followed the bible’s tales “religiously”. Not once did I have to question or disagree with the storyline. With Legion, I was questioning it in a matter of minutes.

As far as I can tell, the writers and film crew gave the bible a big FU and came up with a flimsy and unexplainable story line for the sake of coming up with an action flick with angels. Again, I’m more of an interested party of the subject than a spiritual bloke, and yet even I took offense to what was being portrayed on screen, I can only imagine what the variety of offenses any self respecting Christian will feel while watching this god awful crap. Actually, I’m offended that I paid to see this beyatch to begin with, but I take these bullets so you won’t have to. Such is the passion of the reviewer.

My next question is on the “legion” itself… just exactly where were all the angels?

Riddle me this Batman; if you are a big bad angel, fully capable of delivering the wrath of god, with his expressed permission I might add, when why do you make the trip all the way down to Earth, only to possess human beings who are easily killed by gun fire? And why make them all look like rejects from The Dawn of the Dead? Cinematically it made sense as an excuse to tally a high death toll, but logically it makes about as much sense as seeing your dentist to check your prostate. And don’t get me wrong here; I don’t need lots of reason in an action flick. I don’t even mind a religious angle in said action film; I’m a firm believer in that it’s easier to spread the gospel with a full clip. All I ask is that the story and the methods make some semblance sense. None of that to be had here.

So what it all boiled down to was a film that’s really a poorly masked zombie apocalypse like film with two angels and a rag tag cast of humans all putting up their dukes in a senseless and tasteless stew. And about those rag tag humans and angels? An extra punch in the gut here is that the cast really didn’t do too bad of a job, considering what schlock they all had to work with. Dennis Quaid does his best impression of “Downtrodden Dennis”, did it well and took home a paycheck. The rest of the ensemble was newcomers for the most part, most of whom I recognized from various TV shows (look for Grey’s Anatomy/Private Practice “McHottie” Kate Walsh amongst the crew).

The two bright spots in this otherwise deep void of celluloid bleakness were the cast who played the archangels. Paul Bettany (Michael) and Kevin Durand (Gabriel) both carried a presence and style that gave their roles more that what was really deserved. In fact, there are two scenes in the film with the two of them discussion god’s will and their differences of opinion concerning it that actually grabbed my attention and displayed for the briefest of moments what this film REALLY could have been. They are the highlights of this film and I hope and pray to see more of these actors in future films. In fact, if there’s ever a sequel to this piece of crappola and if it were to be centered on these two doing more of what they did in their scenes together, I would be the first in line to witness it! However, as it stands these bits only served to frustrate me more as an example of what could have been if created to be more than just an excuse to make a quick buck.

In short, it’s a zombie flick, it’s a lame excuse of film way too loosely based on the teachings of Christianity, its should be offensive to Christians everywhere, its lame and confusing to try and follow, it’s a blatant rip off of several films that are worth watching and don’t deserve to be compared to this flick and possesses two brief shining moments of what Legion could have been.

In short, short… it’s a film that makes me prey that god will have mercy on the souls of both the writers and creative team behind this blasphemy on film.

Review by Steven Dawes

Avaialble at DriveThruHorror.com

Writer/director/producer Christian Petersen’s Midnight Chronicles is an indie film based on the fantasy role playing game Midnight from Fantasy Flight Games.  Evil rules in Midnight’s world of Aryth after Izrador, the dark god defeated the free races in a war 100 years prior.  Men are now enslaved while Elves and Dwarves have disappeared into the forests and mountains.  Hope resides in only the few brave enough to pursue it.  As Mag Kiln travels to Blackweir to investigate the disappearance of a fellow priest, others also descend on the small town where a complex web of good versus evil develops that has implications on the future of the dark forces that rule the land.

For as relatively small a production as it is, Midnight Chronicles is incredibly ambitious.  And while it surprisingly rises to the level of visual prowess demanded by its subject matter, it falls woefully short in the story department.  Like a lot of recent indie flicks, Midnight Chronicles is another impressive-but-flawed realization of a lot of hard work, money, and time and it’s also one hell of a mixed bag of movie pros and cons.  Unfortunately the cons are so fundamentally important to the art of storytelling that they are impossible to overlook.

I’ll start with the things Midnight Chronicles does well.

The photography is beautiful and stark, utilizing various filters to washout primary colors and enhance the dark oppressive settings in which this story takes place.  Filmed in Wisconsin and Minnesota, Midnight Chronicles’ locations and sets are on par with movies that boast much larger budgets.  This is apparent immediately during the film’s large scale opening shot of slaves being marched through a vast valley overlooked by a kingdom nestled in the hills.

Midnight Chronicle’s sound production is also very well done.  This movie takes place in multiple and various settings, including large scale outdoor and underground locations.  It features crowds, fights, the occasional flock of birds, creatures, magic spells, you name it.  Yet the sound mix remains polished and consistent throughout.

The cast is wholly comprised of theatre, television commercial, and indie film talent based in the Twin Cities.  Midnight Chronicles has more characters than the average indie movie which usually predicts a huge drop off in performance between the leads and the supporting characters.  However, by casting capable actors rather than friends and family, Petersen by and large avoids the aforementioned indie flick malady.  While no one here threatens Brando’s spot on the all-time list, more importantly there are no sore thumbs in this group.

From a production perspective – the sets, the costumes, the effects, the acting, i.e. the tools used to help tell the story – this movie is top notch.  However, a movie’s entire reason for being is born well before the actors are cast, the sets are lighted, and the cameras role.  Storytelling matters most and it’s here that Midnight Chronicles falls short.

Midnight Chronicles’ script appears to have been a structural mess from square one.  I consider myself a fairly astute movie watcher and I spent over half the time wondering what the hell was going on.  This is because the very basic essentials of plot, specifically movie plot are never clearly defined and in some cases they’re missing all together.  For example, the three act structure is a forgotten concept.  This makes it difficult to discern who the protagonists and antagonists are as there is no clear main tension established early on.  The main tension defines when the first act ends and thrusts us into the bulk of the film armed with knowing who to root for, who to root against, and what they all want.  It’s a simple concept the by-product of which results in a compelling story.

Midnight Chronicles also suffers from a considerable lack of originality. Conceptually, it’s extremely similar to Tolkien’s Middle Earth mythos. There are Orcs, and Elves, and references to Dwarfs.  Even the proper names spoken throughout the film sound like they were cribbed from a Lord of the Rings improv group.  I understand that the source material for the movie is a strain of RPG that owes much of its existence to D&D and by extension the Tolkien books, but this is a level of similarity that’s off-putting and distracting.

It comes down to the fact that I’m on the outside looking in and that usually doesn’t bode well for one’s reaction to a film.  It’s certainly possible that Petersen is a bit too familiar with the source material for the film’s own good.  And maybe fans of the game will dive right into Midnight Chronicles and feel at home.  However, I’m neither familiar with the game, nor am I a gamer in general so perhaps too many of those source elements are lost on folks like me.  The bad news for Midnight Chronicles is that there are more of us on the outside than there are on the inside.

Christian Petersen’s film is an admirable effort.  Compared to the vast majority of true independent films, this movie is made with a superior level of effort and skill and the aesthetic results bear that out.  However, it must not be overlooked that in an age when digital cameras and high-end digital editing suites are commonplace, the production quality of a film is no longer enough to ignore its flaws.  As a matter fact, with this technology being both cheap and readily available to the masses it has put an emphasis on the most basic and timeless components of movie making – a creative angle on a well-crafted story.  If Midnight Chronicles had succeeded in these areas as well as it has in all other areas I’d be trying to sell you on the second coming of Peter Jackson.  Instead, I’m writing about a movie that didn’t quite fulfill its potential.

2.5 flames out 5

Review by Jason Thorson

Available at Amazon.com

Thankskilling can’t be dubbed “critic proof” because its success is yet to be determined.  A more accurate term to describe Kevin Stewart and Jordan Downey’s movie about a murderous turkey would be “anti-critic.”  This opinion is not lost on these two upstart filmmakers.  In fact, the following is an excerpt from the home page of Thankskillingmovie.com:

“ThanksKilling promises nothing but a cheesy good time.  It’s the perfect cult film to watch with drinks around Halloween or especially during Thanksgiving!  Laugh at it because it’s funny.  Laugh at it because it’s bad.  It’s meant to be taken with a grain of salt.”

So where does that leave me?  Well, imagine the judges from American Idol are huddling in your bathroom listening to you shower.  When you’re finished Randy Jackson taps you on the shoulder and says that your singing sounded a bit pitchy.  Then Simon Cowell proclaims your performance to have been dreadful.  I guess I’ll be playing the role of Paula Abdul for the next few paragraphs.  In other words, I’ll be the superfluous know-it-all, unable to offer any substantive analysis whatsoever.  Honestly, none is required.  I know it and so do both Stewart and Downey, but I’ll try nonetheless.

The premise of this flick is pretty simple.  Way back when, a Native American had cursed a turkey and unleashed it on the pilgrims.  Reanimated by an unfortunately aimed stream of dog wee-wee, the homicidal turkey resumes his rampage after spending a few centuries in the ground.  Enter the five college kids driving home together for Thanksgiving break who happened to have vehicle issues.  Wouldn’t you know it?  They end up being hunted down by the turkey.  Can they stop the turkey before it kills them all?  Will the turkey take over the entire world?  Do vertical stripes make me appear slimmer?  Does anyone care?

Thankskilling is not a horror movie, horror-comedy, or any other horror-related subgenre.  It’s really set up as a full on comedy the results of which aren’t very funny, and mainly comprised of superficial and sometimes offensive silliness.  The enjoyable aspect of this is that while watching the movie it’s obvious how much fun the performers and crew are having making Thankskilling despite the purposeful ridiculousness of the material.  This alone is at least strangely, if not potently, entertaining. 

The film’s cast is largely comprised of young folks who’d had either zero, very little, or exclusively pornographic acting experience prior to shooting Thankskilling.  The results are predictably bad, but clearly there were no Oscar aspirations involved in the making of this film.  The characters are all generic slasher archetypes.  There’s the jock, the slut, the nerd, the regular guy (or large, but lovable redneck in this case) and the good girl.  These archetypes are alluded to as such, but that’s where the self-aware movie conceit stops, leaving several potential jokes to die on the vine.  

Thankskilling was shot in 2007.  It took eleven days and merely $3,500.00, not including the marketing and distribution costs.  This is serious DIY horror, made by fans rather than by honest-to-goodness moviemakers.  And as such, it deserves some credit merely for existing, which is what I believe to have been the foremost objective of the crew.  And they certainly didn’t let all that telling-a-story mumbo jumbo stand in the way of their goal.

Despite its innumerable flaws, Thankskilling is an admirable accomplishment from a technical standpoint.  Shot on HDV using a Canon HX-A1 camera, the picture looks fantastic and comparable to many films shot with a much bigger budget and by people with much more experience.  The movie was put together using Final Cut Pro and the soundscape was designed in Pro tools.  The end result is a great looking and impressive sounding movie which clearly indicates that Kevin Stewart, Jordan Downey, and their crew are talented and resourceful enough to put together a quality production.  And that’s why Thankskilling is almost as admirable as it is frustrating as hell.

Never before have I been asked to review a movie the makers of which insist is “meant to be taken with a grain of salt.”  How does one analyze something that rests on the laurels of merely “being”?  Honestly, I’d rather not be the Paula Abdul in Thankskilling’s bathroom.  And after seeing how this crew created a legitimate movie out of next to nothing, I couldn’t help but wonder how big a splash they may have made had they devoted some effort toward the material they shot. 

The best and most repeated advice I’ve ever heard is that a movie is only as good as its script, from multimillion dollar blockbusters to micro-budgeted guerrilla filmmaking abominations.  If the script is good, your movie will be good.  Period.  Filmmakers are storytellers much more than they are photographers.  It’s certainly possible to make what ends up becoming a cult movie using tasteless and ridiculous concepts and still tell a story.  In fact, I’d argue that it takes true genius to do so.  The Thankskilling crew won’t be invited to Mensa meetings any time soon, but they have shown the potential to contribute something worthwhile to the world of sick and depraved cinema in the future.

1 out of 5 Flames

Review by Jason Thorson

I’ve been hearing about this Mayan predicted apocalypse flick called 2012 for months now. The barrage of commercials on TV and in the movie house and all the controversy on the news concerning the accuracy of the Mayan calendar has stirred up a lot of publicity… and another guaranteed box office hit in Director Roland Emmerich’s back pocket. But what I get from all this is something much more terrifying than Mayan predictions; it meant another trip to the movies with my natural disaster film obsessive wifey.

You see, I’m not a fan of all these natural disaster films that keep cropping up. In my book, if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen ‘em all. And yet my gal can’t get enough of ‘em! Back in our “young love” days I learned early on about her second love; natural disaster films. I once had a “stay at home” date at her apartment and during a conversation I confessed that I’d never watched Armageddon. After getting a look from her like I had Bruce Willis crawling out of my left ear as Ben Affleck crawled out of right one, she whipped out her copy of the film and “strongly requested” that I watch it that very moment. Over the years since then, I was subjected to many others of its class by her hand like The Day after Tomorrow, 10,000 BC (both of which were directed by Roland E. coincidentally), Posidon and so on. To me these films are about two things; watching titanic loads of people die as a few choice survivors issue speeches about humanity before they pull heroic stunts that get usually get them killed.

And what was my verdict after watching 2012? It’s a movie about an EXTREME amount of people dying as a few choice survivors babble on about humanity before they pull heroic stunts that may get them killed. I also have a thought that we got this film as a preview of what’s to come in a few years, but that’s probably just the conspiracy theorist in me… or is it?

Anyway, 2012 holds the title as the biggest natural calamity on film yet, a film says Roland was determined to out do his previous efforts. It’s old recipe in his cookbook of cinematic death and disaster at this point and yet he decided that there’s got to be more ways to watch the masses become disaster fodder as the White House goes up in smoke at some point. Obliterating the White House would be his trademark, if his nature of creating nature’s fury on steroids for the Box Office hadn’t already claimed it. And that’s where my issues lie with this film… its all been done before and really didn’t need to be done again.

As I watched 2012 I couldn’t help but find familiar ground with Roland’s previous work, much less other big destruction films. In fact, I was almost disappointed that his old pal Godzilla didn’t show up to destroy Tokyo before the earthquakes & tsunamis could. It might have been a more entertaining movie if he had. To me, this movie felt old, it felt over inflated, it felt like watching a series of peeps repeatedly escaping doom by mere inches (more on that in a paragraph or two), and at a few points, I found it offensive to watch.

The offensive parts came in during a few of the many disaster moments. As I sat there in the theatre, people were laughing all around me (my wife included) at the absurdity of the cataclysmic shenanigans going on. In reality this should have been a horrific and terrifying aspect to behold as million of people are dying right before my very eyes. But Roland has the cast spouting one liners as they constantly dodge death by mere inches while all sort of visual humor keeps getting shoehorned into the scenes. People like to tell me to relax as it’s only a movie, but these type of films LOVE to pull these horrific bits and then throw in these “humanizing” moments to try and make you feel for all those people who just died while the audience laughed at all the visual humor and absurdities that killed them. I guess I just don’t get the joke.

Outside of the offensiveness, you have all the common fixins’ for this kind of stew. A few choice survivors to focus on and route for, a few antagonizing @$$holes you’d like to shoot to kill within minutes of meeting them, the scientific eggheads that predict the end of the world, and ungodly amount of near misses and every animal you see in the film survives. It seems to be the grand irony that animals MUST not suffer and die in movies, even as billions of people perish all around them.

The familiar faces of the cast come in to do their job well enough, but honestly they should as there’s lots of these kinda movies available for them to use as study materials. John “Doe” Cusask keeps his everyday Joe impression going as good as ever and is always a welcome addition to any film. Amanda Peet plays his ex-wife who looks as tasty as ever while playing protective mom to the ex-couples two kids. Danny Glover gives us a properly emotive President of the USA as Thandie Newton wastes her underappreciated talent as his daughter.

Oliver Platt plays that “evil side of humanity guy whom you wish would die a horrible and slow death but never does” character that shows up in every one of these films (but if he didn’t make it to the end, who else would listen to those speeches about Humanity?) He played this role a little too well for my liking, so I guess I gotta give him props for that. But the golden egg to look out for is Woody Harrelson as the nutty radio show host. He was a hoot AND a holler with this role and I kinda wished the film as all about him. Between this role and his recently starring in “Zombieland”, he’s had a good year. Can’t wait to see what you do next broheem!

Of course the real star of the movie goes by the name of “Destruction… Mass Destruction”, who apparently prefers his drinks shaken AND stirred. The special effects militia must have lived on coffee and cigarettes to churn out so much visual apocalypse. The California fault lines, Yellowstone National Park, giant cruise ships, Las Vegas, Rome and India go the way of the dodo as the film carries on. The CG crew appropriately conveys that no one is safe in this picture; I know I believed it. But as I really did care about the majority of the people (or the animals) that took a back seat to the gluttonous chaos, it didn’t matter how over the top or believable the CG effects looked.

By the end of the film, the title 2012 meant something completely different to me than what it was intended to. To me, the number 2012 meant the following;

-the number of special effects scenes used in the movie.
-the number of minutes the running time felt like (this movie went on and on.)
-the number of time I tried to figure out the scientific crap they dribbled on about and gave up tying. I’m still wondering what the hell a “neutrino” is since nobody bothered to explain them (even thought they’re what effectively pulled the apocalyptic cork.)
-the number of popcorn kernels in my popcorn bucket.
-the approximate dollar cost of said popcorn bucket and large drink (Orville Redenbacher must really stick it to the movie theatre business.)
-the number of near misses the protagonists face during their quest for survival.
-the approximate number of people that survived the planets’ temper tantrum.
And finally;
-the number of times I feel like I’ve seen it all before.

I guess it all crumbles down to this, 2012 is a type of movie that obviously has a built in audience and it’s calling out to them. If you’re into these sorts of flicks, then you’re in for a treat. If not, it will do nothing to change your mind about them. That being said, here’s a word of warning to you producers and directors planning on making more disaster flicks. You only have till the year 2012 to make ‘em and get ‘em in the theatres to make a quick buck. Eventually the Mayans will get the last laugh on us as the world blows itself up, so get crackin’!

Review by Steven Dawes

Director Ruben Fleischer’s Zombieland is not a horror movie.  It’s not even a horror-comedy.  It’s really a fairly straight forward comedy-comedy, the back drop of which involves zombies.  And as such it works pretty well, just not as well as its components suggest it should.

The world has been overrun by zombies and a most unlikely survivor nicknamed Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) is heading east across the country toward home hoping to find others, his family in particular.  As fate would have it, he crosses paths with Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), another survivor heading east and Columbus’ polar opposite in just about every way.  Soon the two of them run into a bad girl nicknamed Wichita (Emma Stone) and her twelve year old sister Little Rock (Abigail Breslin).  These girls were conning men out of their money before zombies became an issue and have since parlayed their game into a post apocalyptic art of survival as they head west.  After conning and strong arming our gentleman out of their vehicle and weapons twice, everyone agrees to head west together where they learn how to survive life with or without zombies.

Zombieland is a mash up of several familiar movie archetypes including the buddy movie, the road movie, the disaster movie, and of course the zombie movie.  It’s unapologetically rowdy and outrageous, but still finds room for a sweet spot, which may be its biggest strength.  It also benefits from being a very lean film.  There are only four principal characters and most of time they’re all together.  It’s a streamlined narrative represented clearly and concisely, clocking in at a fast-paced hour and twenty-seven minutes.

Zombieland is wonderfully cast.  Tallahassee is role that Woody Harrelson was born to play.  He’s as redneck as one can be, from his snakeskin coat to the Dale Earnhardt-inspired 3’s he spray paints on the doors of the salvageable vehicles he finds along the way.  But he’s also a grieving father and a good guy at his core and Harrelson hits all the right notes whether they are loud and silly or nuanced and melancholy.  Playing Columbus, Jesse Eisenberg seems to be doing Michael Cera’s (Super Bad, Juno) shtick, but even so, he does it very well.  He embodies the anxiety-ridden everyman whose first time outside the nest happens to occur during a zombie apocalypse.  Emma Stone plays pretty-but-approachable in everything I’ve seen her in and here she does as well, only this time she gets to play a dynamic bad girl thereby countering her sweetness with a bad outer shell.  This outer shell is predictably a defense mechanism, but Stone’s portrayal makes it believable.  Abigail Breslin’s Little Rock is a role in stark departure from her prior work in movies such as Little Miss Sunshine by way of Little Rock’s maturity and tone.  Breslin plays dark and cynical as well as she does innocent and vulnerable, giving this character multiple layers.

Zombieland utilizes a well-stocked arsenal of fun movie conventions.  There are ridiculous action sequences involving speeding vehicles, and automatic weapons.  There are a few creative and gory kills, always requisite in stories in which there are zombies.  Hell, there are sequences during which the movie literally becomes a rollercoaster ride.  From the opening credits to the ending credits it’s clear that Ruben Fleischer is pulling out all the stops to send Zombieland over the top.  It’s for this very reason why it’s so difficult to explain how this movie never quite gets there.  All the parts are place: killer cast, high action, zombies – yet the sum of these parts doesn’t have the impact one would expect.

Fleischer’s film borrows the set up from Max Brooks’ book World War Z and then heads immediately into Shawn of the Dead territory – a remarkably similar film and a better one by almost every measure.  Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright’s zombie comedy, or zomedy if you will, from 2004 was one of the year’s best films, and it set an extremely high benchmark for all horror-comedies to follow.  Zombieland’s biggest problem is its inability to live up to that standard established by its lone predecessor.  Fleischer’s zomedy is funny and it has enough heart to elevate it above the superficial.  However, it merely hovers on the periphery of “Great”.  It’s only good which is a pretty innocuous criticism, but the film doesn’t feel like it’s going to leave a lasting impression. 

Score: 2.5 out of 5

Review by Jason Thorson

When I went out to see one of this weekend’s newest box office’s offerings “9”, I knew a scarce few details about it. I knew from the trailers it was CG animated, it has robots covered in burlap bags, I knew it had something to do with a post-apocalyptic setting, I knew that the #1 fan of darkness and the macabre himself Tim Burton produced it and I knew it carried a PG-13 rating. With these details I was eager to see it, and to make sure I was covering more bases since I planned to review this flick, I brought along my fourteen year old daughter with me to get her thoughts and insights. I assumed the film might have been more aimed at an audience more her age level than my own. To a point I was right on in my assumption, but in others points I was way off.

Doing some homework after paying 9 a visit, I’ve since learned that it was based off of an 11 minute silent short from new director Shane Acker as his thesis project from his grad school days at UCLA. The short film gave the world a 3-D setting, by that I mean Dark, Desolate & Destroyed. The homo-sapiens have long been snuffed out and the globe is now inhabited by a few burlap coated doll sized robots. The short was created using stop animation techniques.

It seems Acker is all grow’d up these days. He’s caught the eye of Tim Burton, who placed him in the director’s chair while he produced a full length animated film with a budget worthy of the much prettier CG animation technique and an additional hour and change added to the running time. And just what is 9 about? It’s a world with a 3-D setting, and by that I mean Dark, Desolate & Destroyed. The homo-sapiens have long been snuffed out and the globe is now inhabited by a few burlap coated (because rag doll looks are so passé these days I suppose) doll sized robots.

However, it’s now got a script behind it, written by Pamela Pettler (who’s no stranger to Tim Burton as she wrote his “Corpse Bride” flick). And as an added bonus, the time honored Tim Burton film constant composer Danny Elfman is thrown in this batch of cookie dough for good measure. So how does Acker fare with a script, a CGI studio and a script you might ask? Let open the burlap bag and dig in shall we?

Visually, while this is not a horror film, it boasts plenty of horrific and unnerving scenery and action for a PG-13 piece. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Shane is either a fan of Burton’s visual style or is more likely his protégé. The attention to detail is simply astounding here. The colors are all grays, browns, shadows and blackness. Shane successfully pains a bleak and scary world that sucked me into it in a first five minutes.

While this world was a crappy place where I pray I’ll never have to see first hand, I was somehow entranced by it, especially seeing it through the eyes of these doll sized robots. Shane could have added another hours worth of a guided tour of this bombed out planet and I’ve have watched it with fascinated glee like the dark & bleak atmosphere loving mook that I am.

Story and theme wise… I’m not quite sure what to say about it. Its head was based in a science fiction frame of mind, but its heart beat at an action films pace. Therefore as typical of an action film, it chose action and danger over substance and emotive, educational content. Any self respecting science fiction piece tries to teach us something about ourselves or warn us about something that we may do to ourselves if were not careful. 9 hinted and even fired a few warning shots across our noses about “being good to ourselves” and the “evils of technology gone wrong” and a few other conventions familiar to the genre. But in the end, its action heart won out and kept the “action and reaction” on center stage.

So, with this kind of nature I believe that 9 was indeed aimed at an audience closer to my kiddo’s age. But with Shane’s detail-heavy hand at the helm, he couldn’t help himself and gave the visual side of the flick much more than was required… and honestly more than the script deserved. The script provided no real jerky for a grizzled old sci-fi fan like me to chew on. I could pick out ideas and themes borrow from the many Terminator & Matrix flicks while pointing out where 9 walked the same road that Stanly Kubrck, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron and other Sci-fi hall of famer’s have boldly gone before. That being said, to all the teen larvae that haven’t seen such films before, it may feel like new ground for them and may tempt their pallet to want to enjoy other sci-fi flicks that really have something to say to them when they get older.

Shane seems to have his director brains firmly grounded in Tim Burtonville (especially his Edward Scissor Hands days) and created something that I’ve never seen before visually. The original look was one thing, but the visual creatively displayed on screen also helped elevate 9 to heights the script couldn’t have alone. The burlap bots are very tactile beings and use fish hooks, thread, camera lenses, bird skulls, headlight bulbs, lots of knives and sharp objects and myriad other items in extremely creative ways during their daily survival. Even the predators out to get them are pretty cleverly created concoctions (say that three times fast) of spare parts, bits and pieces. One of my personal favorite baddies is a frightening mix of a cat skeleton brimming with parts and motors; I will forever fear bionic cats from this day forward.

I make it a point to not ruin movie plots in my reviews (I really despise reviews who do this), so I wont go into a lot of detail about the story. Part of the reason is that there isn’t much more of a story than the constant fight for survival that’s creates an excuse for lots of action. But I will say the main villain reminded me of a mixture of things; its part one of the big bad bots from The Matrix Trilogy, part erector set-spider like thing with the dolls head attached from Toy Story and part “Big Daddy” from the Bio-Shock video game. It’s really menacing and provides for some genuinely creepy scary moments.

After talking to my daughter about what she got out 9 and what she enjoyed about it, her thoughts pretty closely reflected mine. She really didn’t take away much from it story wise. But she is smart enough that even she recognized that the film could have used more time getting to know the characters. I couldn’t agree more with her; while each of the nine bots have plenty of visual differences between them (including a number on their back side that signifies their order of creation); character wise, aside from 9 (voiced by Elijah Wood) the rest of the bunch follow easily recognizable clichés.

I’ll give a quick pat on the butt to Crispin Glover’s work; he was obviously inspired casting as the misfit robot #6. Another pat goes out to Christopher Plummer, who’s no stranger to voicing animated features. The duder’s in top notch form as the priestly leader of the pack #1. The other voice actors (Martin Landau, Jennifer Connelly and John C. Reilly) do a decent job, but don’t get a lot of material to work with. Case and point, the twin bots #4 and #5 are mute robots covered with a pair of garden gloves and they seem to exhibit more character than the speaking bots in their shared scenes. No doubt to the credit of Shane’s visual directing prowess.

So after all is said and built, 9 is a gorgeous piece of CG cinema that rivals Pixar in visual ability. However, in this day of being offered such tightly scripted Pixar films consistently, people will compare 9 as a poor cousin’s version of Wall-E. This is an unfair comparison as they are both very different movies while set in a similar theme. If 9 had a better script it would have (not could have, would have) really been something extraordinary. As is, it’s an above average popcorn film that deserved more. But regardless, I still encourage y’all to go out and see this one. Shane’s visual effort deserves to be witnessed at least once on the big screen (it’s a shame 9 didn’t make it out in IMAX format as it would have been worth it).

Side Note: I’m taking yet another jab at the worst movie of the year, “Transformers 2”. Trans 2 also displays good looks, but had plot holes galore, a childish attitude and idiocy that ran rampant and played twice as long as 9’s running time. It’s a merit to 9 that even at half the length it’s a much more enjoyable and mature of a film. It really says something tragic and sad to me that Trans 2 made over 400 million clams while this film will most likely get overlooked in the end. But this is not a social commentary, so I’ll get off my soap box now and build a few burlap bots of my own…you know, just in case the human race crosses the “finished” line.

Review by Steven Dawes

My experience watching Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2 was similar to how I imagine it must have been when George Foreman discovered he was as adept at selling grills as he was putting people to sleep with his fists.  In other words, it was not what I expected.   In fact I expected to hate it.  I was so disgusted with Zombie’s unfortunate stab at remaking, re-imagining, and regurgitating John Carpenter’s 1978 seminal slasher that for a while I became the elderly curmudgeon of horror movie journalism.  I may have even yelled at some kids to stay the hell off my lawn. 

However, this time it wasn’t long before I came to the slightly confusing realization that I wasn’t hating this dreaded sequel, an emotion I felt specifically entitled to given the majority of films I’ve suffered through lately, but rather I was riveted by Rob Zombie’s brutal, gritty, and most importantly, original chapter in one of horror’s most important and longest running series.

Halloween 2 begins immediately after the events of Zombie’s remake and it has nothing to do with the original sequel from 1981.  After watching Michael Myers escape the coroner’s van in a gnarly tone-setting opening sequence we skip ahead nearly a year.  Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) now lives with Annie (Danielle Harris) and her father, Sheriff Brackett (Brad Dourif) in their rural farmhouse just outside Haddonfield.  Although, everyone assumes that Michael Myers is dead and that his body will eventually turn up, Laurie and Annie bear the scars, both physical and psychological, from their encounter with Myers the previous year.  Suffering from horrifying nightmares, Laurie has embraced a darker lifestyle, immersing herself in the local punk scene and doing an abundance of hard partying.

Meanwhile, Dr. Loomis heads toward Haddonfield on a book tour that doesn’t sit well with much of the public.  He’s accused of profiteering off of the carnage caused by Myers, his former patient, and his book contains a sleazy and irresponsible betrayal to boot, albeit one that I won’t give away here. 

Coincidentally, a certain William Shatner-masked lunatic is also making his way back home for Halloween.

Here I find Zombie’s take on this well-trod mythos to be most compelling.  Michael Myers (Tyler Mane) isn’t just another generic horror icon who steps out of a vacuum and into Haddonfield to kill teenagers, only to repeat it next year.  Zombie’s Myers is a real character who’s encumbered by the same reality as the rest of the world.  He’s been surviving in the woods and farms outside of town, stealing food to get by.  When he finally makes his way to town, he’s wearing a hooded parka and sporting a long tangled mane of hair and a huge filthy beard.  These seemingly inconsequential attributes actually manage to contribute an alarming reality to such an identifiable character.

This Michael Myers is a monster of a man, completely psychopathic, probably schizophrenic, and suffering from deranged hallucinations and delusions, which are creatively represented by Zombie’s trademark dreamscape imagery and strategic juxtapositions.  And when Myers dons his tattered and iconic mask he’s in kill-mode, dispatching victims in a truly frightening and ultra brutal manner.

The cast is packed full of good performers that run the gamut of experience.  There are genre pros such as Brad Dourif, Caroline Williams, and Danielle Harris, television standouts such as Deadwood’s Dayton Callie and Heroes’ Brea Grant, veteran stars including Malcolm McDowell and Margot Kidder, and even Weird Al Yankovic playing himself in a small cameo.  It’s a cavalcade of character acting and it gives the movie a depth that enriches its realistic tone and gritty aesthetic.

Once again, KNB’s Wayne Toth is back to provide Rob Zombie with the messy innards and there are enough here to satisfy those of you who are of the sick and twisted variety.  The gore isn’t over the top, but rather it’s an extension of Zombie’s realistic portrayal of extreme violence which lends the gore a context that enhances its effectiveness.  There are more than enough squirm-inducing shots and there should be plenty more once the unrated DVD rolls out in a matter of months.

It appears that Zombie has learned from the mistakes he made with his first attempt at Halloween.  Without the abysmal first act of his 2007 remake, that movie may have been tolerable.  Instead he went for an elaboration of the original material wherein we’re forced to get to know one of film’s most evil monsters as a cute and misunderstood little kid.  The result is a mess.  The relevant information contained in that remake is compressed and clearly represented here in Halloween 2 as exposition.   This time the result is a tight and fast paced blend of horror, social commentary, and pop culture and I suspect it’s the movie Zombie wanted to make originally, had he not been confined by the enormous expectations that accompany Carpenter’s original film.   

I’ve proclaimed this before and I’ll do it again here: Rob Zombie has the potential to be a true master horror filmmaker.  His existing catalogue is a highlight reel of brilliant components, but he has yet to put it all together and make a film that represents his obvious talent.  Halloween 2 comes close to achieving that.  It feels informed by the entire breadth of past horror films that have worked and have thus become important.

Halloween 2 is not without flaws.  Rob Zombie is still a work in progress with serious holes in his game and some of these are apparent here.  The most notable is his inability to consistently coax performances from his actors that are tonally organic.  However, I can’t help but feel that the more experience he gets behind the camera (he’s sure to get plenty more opportunities), the better his results will be.  I’m hoping that the expectation-defying Halloween 2 is Rob Zombie’s first significant step in that direction.

3 out of 5 flames

Review by Jason Thorson

Rocky Joe Shields dives in to District 9 for Flames Rising.

Based on the short film Alive in Joburg, District 9 is more than just a mere science fiction summer action movie. Director Neill Blomkamp has created an exciting new world; the basis for this world is an alien-landing. Called “prawns,” the aliens landed 20 years ago over the South African city of Johannesburg. In District 9, we learn what has transpired over the next 20 years through interviews filmed in a documentary style. The people of Johannesburg have had enough, and want the aliens out of their city.

The movie begins with geeky bureaucrat Wikus van der Merwe, played wonderfully by newcomer Sharlto Copley, who has been assigned the task of getting the aliens to leave for District 10. Unfortunately, when Wikus comes into contact with an alien cylinder and sprays himself with the fluid inside, his DNA mutates, then turns him into one of the alien prawns. It has been reported that there was no scripted dialogue for Copley, which makes his performance even more astounding. Also, the movie has so many underlying layers you will want to see it twice. Visually stunning on a budget of $30 million, District 9 is the next great sci fi masterpiece.

Want to learn more about District 9? Check out the movie trailer below. Be sure to visit Traileraddict.com for more trailers. Some of the snippets you’ll see are quite graphic, so be forewarned!

Available at Amazon.com

Be it in the real world or the fiction realm there aren’t that many themes that manage to give me the creeps: it’s not that I am a particularly brave (nor picky) individual, it’s more that I am rather rational and find it difficult to empathize with other people’s irrational feelings: say Carpenter, for example, if immensely enjoyable, isn’t going to give me cold sweats. Of course, there are exceptions like social, psychedelic or metaphysical horror, especially subjects that fiddle with the notion of paradox.

I grabbed Primer in the room of my friend during an afternoon of boredom. After reading the phrase “Donnie Darko for Grown Ups” on the DVD cover, I slipped it in the DVD player. Donnie Darko has always been a mystery for me, as my opinion has conflicted with the opinion of most of my friends. Even though I hadn’t seen it, I thought it was a pointless teenage flick for wannabe intellectuals. Given that I didn’t know what Donnie Darko was about, when I pressed play I had no idea what Primer could be about.

The movie’s story starts a bit slowly; more than few plans follows the cryptic discussions of a group of young physicians working on a small scale experimental project in the garage of one of them. If the proficient use of scientific jargon is a bit intimidating at first, the quality of the script and the acting allow us to imagine behind their ethic or technical disagreements, the tensions and relations between the characters, dull young adults who recently joined the professional world.

This slightly lengthy introduction soon gives way to the main plot itself: in a similarly cryptic fashion, the viewer assists to the discovery of a physical phenomenon which enables some form of time travel. The device they build to experiment with their discovery is a human-sized box whose functioning is rather different from your average time-travel technology. The box needs to be first “activated” through magnetisation and filled with a particular gas. One then leaves the box for about five hours, comes back to it later on and then waits another five hours inside of it. When he gets out of the box, he is back at the moment where he actually activated the device, which was supposedly ten hours ago. This implies that no long term travel is possible, and can only happen from the present to the past. So you won’t find any dinosaurs or cyborgs here.

Shane Carruths excellent script presents characters that are all coherent, clever and easy to relate to: the rest of the film navigates elegantly from an exploration of the decaying relationship between the two main characters, to a psychological depiction of horror, as faced by the heroes when confronted to the paradox of time-travel. The very fact that the scenario, the direction and the acting are low-key and low budget allows the director to focus on the internal drama the characters encounter : time is not a linear concept and the spectator cannot help but being shaken to the bone while watching their evolution, from excitement through doubt and then traveling in the fast lane towards madness.

The analogy with Lovecraft springs naturally to mind when analyzing this unusual breed of fear and unease that is created throughout the movie: the core of the movie is the chilling spectacle of the decay and degradation of Abe (who manages to stay rational) and Aaron (whose collapsing reality leads into his own indulgent and egocentric brand of madness). Half drunk on power, half lost without his certainty; he loses his grip on morality and reality, and becomes increasingly ignorant of the risks of their technology. Aaron’s demise is much like the promises of power and unspeakable sights of the Old Ones had corrupted the mind of Lovecraft’s cultists.

The embodiment of the unspeakable in this movie’s plot is acted by the main characters “doubles.” When traveling into the future, they are exposed to the possibility of meeting themselves in the past. At first both Abe and Aaron are extremely prudent to avoid any such occurrence, and as they highlight in their dialog, the unforeseen consequences could be deadly – or even worse than that. But as Aaron sinks into madness, these tragic events and other forms of unexplainable paradoxes start happening in a more and more threatening fashion, building the intricate storyline into a riveting take of metaphysical horror.

At the end of the day, I guess Primer is not for every one: it’s a low budget, complex, psychological movie which is sometimes border-line pretentious, and sometimes a bit lengthy. You shouldn’t expect mind-blowing special effects, intense action scenes or inside jokes. Primer is for anyone who can get him or herself to follow the complex plot and to appreciate the layering of the subjects. For those movie viewers, Primer is an absolute “must-see.” The horror here is banality coated in strangeness and oddity, bordering the absurd, in the same way as Cube and even The Machinist attempted. The script is perfectly mastered and the low-budget never stopped me from identifying with the characters, but then again I am not the pickiest moviegoer when it comes to production…

Whether you ran out of reading Philip K. Dick or you want to bring something new to your Delta Green game setting, Primer is definitely a good time-travel film.

Review by Bertrand Marilier

Available at Amazon.com

Life-hating Goth girl Lara Baxter just turned 16.  Her birthday party mojo never materializes after her more popular sister, Helen, steals her thunder.  Shunned by her secret crush and neglected by her own mother, Lara retreats to the sanctuary of her altar to Ann Rice where she casts a spell on Helen.  The next day Helen wakes up bleeding profusely from her nose and dies a short time later.

Just as the family begins to mourn, Helen comes back from the morgue delirious and with an insatiable thirst for blood.  Older brother Raymond, a cross between Re-Animator’s Dr. Herbert West and Milwaukee’s own Jeff Dahmer, performs some tests on Helen’s blood in his bedroom/laboratory and determines that she’s a vampire.

This launches Thicker than Water into macabre territory as we follow the family and the lengths to which they’ll go to make sure Helen has all the sufficient vampire necessities.

The first thing that jumps out is that this movie is a true indie flick in every sense and as such it’s impressive.  Phil Messerer, a writer with some professional television editing under his belt, wrote, produced, directed, shot, and edited this project.  The cinematography is ambitious at times, but not gratuitously, and the film looks beautiful with its rich colors and deep blacks.  Despite an occasional awkward shot and uneven sound production throughout, Thicker than Water stands up well to other much higher budget films.

Messerer’s visual effects creator, Randall Leddy manages to make very little money go a long way in the gore department as well.  The old school practical effects recall the days of using anything and everything to achieve the desired illusion and the results are nasty, realistic, and red.  Thicker than Water isn’t at all driven by gore, but it has its share including various limb amputations, face removals, and a nice variety of projectile fluids and anatomical tidbits. 

The cast is not surprisingly comprised of unknowns, none of whom stick out as incapable as is usually the case in similar films.  In fact, Eilis Cahill and Devon Bailey, playing Lara and Helen respectively, are fantastic.  Cahill’s performance is dynamic and nuanced, playing Lara as dark and dour, but also sympathetic, not to mention she’s our anchor to the narrative.  Bailey’s Helen is also dynamic, beginning the movie as Mrs. Congeniality then evolving into a sickeningly deranged predator.  It’s an extreme arc that elicits both cringes and empathy.

The tone of the movie is difficult to pin down until the full premise is revealed at the end of the first act. Messerer seems to straddle the horror-comedy fence until Helen returns from the dead at which point the tone becomes much more decidedly disturbing.  This is where the narrative gathers strength as the film’s comedy elements feel inorganic and not altogether funny.

Messerer’s one undeniable misstep occurs in the film’s final act.  For some reason, the irresistible urge to explain everything takes over and we’re given some poorly timed and badly executed exposition regarding the origins of Helen’s vampirism.  Not only is this unnecessary, but it also compromises the narrative structure which is tight and allows the story to flow along nicely until this point.  Unfortunately this prevents Thicker than Water from reaching its fullest potential.

Thicker than Water: The Vampire Diaries Part 1 is a good movie.  It offers much more in the way of emotional depth and complexity than most other micro-budget indie movies, particularly in the horror genre.  Clearly, Phil Messerer and his collaborators have enormous potential and I look forward to seeing what they come up with next.

3.5 out of 5 flames

Review by Jason Thorson

Cheerbleeders is a short horror film by Peter Podgursky, the proud owner of a MFA in Film Production from USC. In fact, these eleven minutes of cinematic fun comprised his thesis project and it has since made the rounds at several horror film fests winning best short at the Phoenix Fear Film festival 2008.

Here’s the dirt: Best friends, Penny and Devon (Laurel Vail and Wyatt Fenner), are high school misfits in Blackfoot, Idaho – a tiny and isolated burg. When Penny brings an ancient urn to class, it accidentally spills its black slimy contents on Devon. This black sludge is essentially a gnarly love potion, turning him into…gasp…the most popular kid at school! Drunk with power, Devon holds sway over everyone, including the cheerleading squad, which he commands to massacre the football team, midgame. Can Penny stop the insidious evil known as unrestrained adolescent popularity?

Cheerbleeders is a slick looking and fast paced little film. Thematically, it’s very similar to any random episode of Buffy. Maybe not-so-coincidentally, Podgursky is currently the receptionist/office manager at J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot. Visually, it’s fantastic. The colors are vivid and the contrast is dynamic. The sets and costumes, while not requiring anything approaching The Lord of the Rings, are on point, nonetheless.

This film borrows several of its aesthetic quirks from a variety of sources, most obviously Evil Dead 2/Army of Darkness. The interplay between the film’s editing and its sound design recall scenes from these Raimi standards such as when Ash constructs his chainsaw prosthetic.

Despite not cultivating the next Marlon Brando, the acting here is also acceptable. Honestly, I’m sure the Oscars were never part of the game plan when Cheerbleeders was conceived. However, Laurel Vail’s Penny, the only part requiring any true thespian mojo, is well-played and Vail shows true acting acumen.

Cheerbleeders’ weaknesses are about what one can expect from a student film and pointing them out almost seems petty. But, alas, this is a review after all.  The most noticable problem is an inconstancy between dialogue recorded in scene vs. lines that had to be re-recorded and dubbed in post. Although, the all hardcore soundtrack, including bands such as Minor Threat, goes a hell of a long way toward me forgiving the dubbing issue.

Cheerbleeders gets the job done. It does so without being too terribly original, but it’s only eleven minutes long. That doesn’t leave a lot of opportunity to reinvent the wheel. It’s abundantly clear that a lot of skill and technique were required to come up with the end result that Podgursky and crew achieve. This bodes well for his future and, as horror fans, potentially ours as well.

2.5 out of 5 flames

Review by Jason Thorson

Visit www.cheerbleeders.com for cast photos, trailers and more information.

Not too long ago I would’ve decorated my kitchen with Evil Dead wallpaper had such a product been available. I was fully prepared to name my first born child Ash and the thought of having a chainsaw-enhanced appendage didn’t seem all that bad to me.

Then Sam Raimi made three underwhelming Spiderman movies and I managed to get married. These events ushered in a new, more restrained era in my life and I agreed to relinquish both the home decorating and child naming duties. I also grew bored with Sam Raimi as a filmmaker. I got through it mainly by buying approximately 17 versions of each Evil Dead movie on VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray. It’s obvious that those in the Home Video racket understand there are suckers out there like me, so why not release these movies incessantly and with slightly different packaging? I’ll buy them. But I digress.

In 2002, Raimi and his long time production partner and Evil Dead cohort, Rob Tapert, formed Ghost House Pictures, a production company focusing on horror flicks. It appeared the writing was on the wall for another installment of greatness. Needless to say, I was excited and hopeful. Then I waited out one release after another of mostly mediocre and Americanized Japanese ghost movies made by people not named Sam Raimi. There was The Grudge, The Boogeyman, The Messengers, etc. Just as I had given up hope again, late last year word got out that Raimi was making his long awaited directorial return to the horror genre with a movie called Drag Me to Hell.

Great! But what about The Evil Dead?

Well, for all intents and purposes, Drag Me to Hell is a thematic and tonal extension of The Evil Dead, only Bruce Campbell is now an attractive young blonde actress named Alison Lohman. But make no mistake, Drag me to Hell is the real deal, fully capable of cultivating is own cult of fanatic lunatics.

Lohman plays Christine Brown, an ostensibly happy young woman who’s got a nice-guy boyfriend played by Justin Long (Mac of Mac vs. PC fame) and a decent job as a loan officer. She learns that a promotion to the assistant manager position comes down to close consideration between her and her no-holds-barred co-worker, prompting her to make some uncharacteristically shrewd professional decisions. One of these decisions denies a third mortgage loan extension to Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver), an old and extraordinarily creepy gypsy woman. Christine’s decision assures the woman’s removal from her home. Feeling she’s been shamed, an enraged Mrs. Ganush confronts Christine in the parking garage culminating in a violent exchange involving malicious use of a stapler. This results in Mrs. Ganush cursing Christine, unleashing a demon to track her down and drag her to hell.

Like Raimi’s other genre offerings, Drag Me to Hell is every bit as inspired by the Three Stooges as it is H.P. Lovecraft. From beginning to end, we’re bombarded with over the top slapstick sequences that are hilariously funny. But the magic of Sam Raimi’s horror is that this shtick is juxtaposed against ghastly imagery and it’s taking place within horrifying contexts, making your reaction to it the most uncomfortable and tense outbursts of laughter possible.

Technically, Drag Me to Hell is beautiful. When Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn came out, Raimi’s oddball shooting and editing methods were considered ahead of their time despite being done on a miniscule budget. The times have certainly caught up with him as far as what’s possible to put on screen, however, Raimi’s style remains as unique as ever. Visually, the movie is full of classic Raimi conventions including extremely skewed angles, pulling focus in ways that boggle the mind, and high speed dolly shots alongside projectile eyeballs/torrents of vile fluids/flying ghouls/etc. Raimi’s reliance on sound and the lack thereof as a guide through chaotic and kinetic visual sequences is used heavily here as well. The sound profile of the movie navigates our journey through some scenes more than the camera does. It’s this carnival of sensory experiences that defines Raimi’s directorial style.

Most importantly, Drag Me to Hell is morbidly creepy. Sam Raimi understands the essence of what makes going to haunted attractions on Halloween so damn fun. It’s what makes Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood endure for centuries and across multiple cultures. For lack of a better description, Raimi possesses the unique ability to make you afraid of Grandma. He makes movies about witches that want to consume you, your soul and all and it’s a style of horror that’s classic, spooky, and all too rare anymore.

Drag Me to Hell is like a live action pulp comic book of Hitchcock doing Romero. It’s incredibly fun. If the goal of going to the movies is to be entertained, then this movie is a fantastic success. All the required elements are present: Alison Lohman’s dynamic performance which includes everything from hilarity to depravity, Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger’s KNB FX concoctions of latex and goop provide the cringe-worthiness, and of course the classically composed screenplay written and shot by Sam Raimi, bring to life his highly appealing and unique horror vision.

Here’s to hoping that Raimi continues to make films in the genre in which he started and that suits his superb talents the best. And who knows, if I ever have a daughter, maybe my wife will take the name Christine into consideration?

3.5 out of 5 flames

Review by Jason Thorson

Directed by Sam Raimi
Starring Alison Lohman and Justin Long.

Always treat others how you like to be treated, or else you will get a sinister Gypsy curse placed upon you. Within 3 days your life turns to hell, and then you go to there.

The movie tells the story of Christine (Lohman), a young loan officer who is struggling to get a promotion at her bank. She faces stiff competition from Stu (Reggie Lee), a conniving trainee who wants the same assistant manager position Christine wants. When the opportunity comes to make a decision that will help her career, she decides to foreclose on Mrs. Ganush’s house. Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver) believes Christine has shamed her by refusing to help her keep her home, and stalks Christine to her car. After an over the top fight scene involving car crashes, a fist fight involving office equipment, and a vicious gumming at the hands of Mrs. Ganush (you read that right), she places a curse upon Christine, calling on the Lamia to exact her revenge.

Christine seeks comfort with her husband Clay (Long), who is a psychology professor who does not believe in the paranormal and seems to express an atheistic element to the movie. He is supporting of his wife, even going so far as to support her going to see a fortune teller named Rham Jas (Dileep Rhao) and being a source of constant reassurance for her.

As the movie progresses, Christine suffers from an endless series of bad luck and pure mystical attacks by the Lamia as it makes her life come crashing down upon her. Christine fears for her life, as few seem to believe her and Rham Jas’ offers of help keep failing. She is desperate, even willing to try absolutely radical plans to save her soul. She turns to Rham Jas and his friend Shaun San Dena (Adriana Barraza) to help fight the Lamia on a supernatural level.

While it is impossible to reveal more about the plot without revealing many spoilers, the film stays true to Raimi’s old horror films. She is the quirky yet funny hero who must face an other-wordly opponent and tries radical, thought provoking, and sometimes darkly humorous actions to try to save the day. The movie has all the elements of a Raimi movie; sudden bursts of action, surprising scary moments, and pieces of humor interspersed throughout.

Mrs. Ganush is the primary villain of this movie, eclipsing the role that the Lamia has as the main villain. Her spirit harasses Christine throughout the movie, sometimes inspiring pure terror and sometimes bringing out the movie’s horror. When compared to the threat of the Lamia, Mrs. Ganush represents a slow, painful death full of disease and brutality where as the Lamia is seen as the ultimate force of destruction, swift and merciless.

The horror in the film comes from the unexpected. Mrs. Ganush lashes out at near random moments, and sudden shifts in the shadows fill the audience with dread. The soundtrack is the biggest sign that something terrible is going to occur, with sudden violin playing and booming bass notes tearing through the silence. Sudden zoom ins and zoom outs help with surprising the audience, as Mrs. Ganush can appear out of nowhere.

The movie’s small cast captures their roles well. The film was not overly complicated and the supporting characters in the movie accented the plot. While at times the plot feels cheesy or repetitive, Long and Lohman do their best to spice up the dialogue or keep the scenes flowing. Long and Lohman work well together, as their relationship in the movie seems close and real. Other characters, such as Rham Jas, give the supernatural elements of the movie a deeper meaning. Although he felt like he was giving exposition on the Lamia at times, Dileep Rhao performed well as the stereotypical fortune teller who knows too many dark secrets.

To say that Drag Me To Hell lacked social commentary discredits the film because of how much it forced it on the audience. While it tried to portray how treating others with dignity and respect should be how everyone lives their life, it takes this to the extremes. Christine knew she should have given Mrs. Ganush an extension on her house and she had the power to do so, but in the end the one time she is cruel to another person she is damned to hell for it. Christine is portrayed as having trouble admitting she did anything wrong, even when the Lamia is breathing down her neck. It felt forced throughout the entire film in a similar way to Raimi overusing the “With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility” line throughout his Spider-Man movies.

One problem I had with the film was how by the end of it, you were exposed to so many sudden twists and scares that by the time the credits start to roll you feel exhausted. Some of the scary scenes were genuinely scary; the sudden shadow movements, the old woman’s grotesque nature, and the first few scenes where the gypsy appears will make you jump and twist in your seat. This becomes overused by the end, appearing in rhythmic routine with the music and losing their ability to instill fear.

Drag Me To Hell offers a near endless series of twists and shockers that will more than satisfy any Raimi fan and will still appeal to those who love horror movies. For those who were expecting something different however, it is still on par with Raimi’s Evil Dead trilogy. The plot was not original but has short moments of originality entwined within.

I am giving this film 3 out of 5 Flames, as it was entertaining and the humorous moments help keep the movie from becoming boring.

Review by John D. Kennedy

Friday the 13th opens with a flashback to Crystal Lake in 1980 as Alice beheads Pamela Voorhees with a machete. Then we’re introduced to a cadre of modern day horn dogs as they trek through the deep woods somewhere near the now abandoned Camp Crystal Lake. The coordinates of their marijuana crop have been programmed into their GPS unit, but they can’t seem to find anything. Sensing they’re close they decide to make camp and resume searching come morning. Hot casual sex ensues as well as some pot smoking followed by a cavalcade of brutal butchering courtesy of Jason Voorhees. And that’s just the prologue, ladies and gentlemen.

Six weeks later another group of young hellions stops by a local shop on the way to a Crystal Lake vacation home owned by one of their parents. There they meet another hansom young man who’s handing out missing persons flyers picturing his sister whom we recognize from the prologue. Then it’s off to the lake. Once they get to the house, more sex occurs as well as a little bong action and mass alcohol consumption. What happens next may shock you, but Jason shows up and kills most of them.

So what’s the verdict?

I went into this movie with irrationally high hopes, practically guaranteeing my disappointment. What I got was a mixed bag of well-worn slasher conceits, most of which narrowly miss the mark. Marcus Nispel’s Friday the 13th isn’t a remake, but it clearly is not a “re-imagining”. There are no new wrinkles added to the pre-existing early Friday the 13th mythology. It’s merely a solid, albeit predictable Friday the 13th movie.

The extended prologue borrows many elements from Friday the 13th Part II as well as a few from the original film. During this first 20 minutes the movie shows a lot of promise: Jason is extremely violent, there’s sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll, and a couple of the kills are delightfully brutal. Bearing that in mind, please allow me to make something clear: Us fans of the series only want one thing and we expect to get it. It’s all about the kills!

As the rest of the movie borrows elements from both Friday the 13th Parts III and IV, it unfortunately settles for the expected gaggle of horny teens getting dispatched by Jason in a variety of ways, though surprisingly none of them are particularly memorable, nor frightening. As a matter of fact, the creativity and violence of the kills is sorely lacking, having seemingly been used up in the prologue. This is hugely disappointing given the “new twists to your old favorites” hype leading up to this movie’s release.

Derek Mears seems to have the right look and physicality to play Jason. He’s big and appears powerful, yet agile as well. When Nispel does him justice, Mears brings the exact presence necessary to the screen for the type of Jason this film wants to represent. However, the majority of the time Mears is on screen he’s shot in such a way as to make me think Jason really could’ve been played by any random big guy wearing the get up, no matter what Kane Hodder says. Most of Jason’s entrances into the frame are telegraphed and flat which reaffirms for me the fact that Marcus Nispel has very little experience telling scary stories as a filmmaker.

Most of the other stingers, or jump moments, are plagued by this same problem. There are the expected scenes when suspense is building effectively, but these always seem to payoff clumsily and before truly reaching a crescendo.

For the most part screenwriters, Damien Shannon and Mark Swift (the same duo that gave us Freddy vs. Jason), end up doing an admirable job of weaving elements from the first four movies into something coherent and organic. Although, somewhat over-ambitiously, they figure out a way to tweak the formula by giving us two survivor girls so that we’re kept guessing which one survives until the very end. In doing so they add an element to Jason’s modus operandi that I won’t give away here, but that I found unappealing and I’m sure most fans of the series will agree. Needless to say, this plot device comes at a price not worth paying.

The movie plays on a high technical level, looking and sounding great, and the acting is far superior to that in any of the other Friday films. It’s clear that Nispel and crew treat the subject matter with respect rather than as fodder for campy humor. But the bottom line is that if you’re going to step outside the evolution of this mythology and take it back to a place we’ve already been, then the core of what makes these movies somehow appealing needs to be amped up, or else it’s just a waste of time. Marcus Nispel and company do not bring anything to the table that even remotely accomplishes this.

I still haven’t forgiven this crew for their blasphemous and unwarranted remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but Friday the 13th is a different animal altogether. There’ve been eleven of them. Jason’s died several times, he’s gone to Manhattan, he’s gone to the future, he’s gone to outer space, he’s gone to hell, he’s even battled Freddy Krueger. Given all that, it should have been relatively easy to take the chances necessary to give us something worthwhile, rather than utterly ridiculous. I mean really – no matter what these filmmakers did it wasn’t going to be as bad as the majority of the other Friday the 13th films.

And that’s just it. Friday the 13th isn’t bad, but the problem is that it isn’t good either. It merely hits the same old notes and with very little gusto, doing nothing to justify its own existence.

2 out of 5 flames

Review by Jason Thorson