End of Days

If you look at Schwarzenegger’s career leading up to End of Days he had battled various types of enemies like robots, aliens, plain ol’ humans and even cinema itself.  But he hadn’t done ghosts or anything spiritual so to go up against Satan was new territory for him.  And curiously this didn’t take some fantasy/sword and sorcery kinda path which Arnie had tackled with the Conans or a more exaggerated/cartoonish reality like Batman & Robin.  Instead they went for the gritty boiler plate cop action movie angle.  Think about how crazy that approach is.  How is the devil supposed to fit in to a setup like that?

Well sorry to burst your bubble right off the bat but unfortunately the concept doesn’t play out nearly as ludicrous as what you’re imagining.  This is largely due to the movie treating Lucifer (Gabriel Byrne (Cool World, Hereditary)) like any run of the mill villain.  His goal is to procreate with human woman Christine (Robin Tunney (Vertical Limit, The Craft)) on the eve of the year 2000 (eastern standard time of course) which will bring about the end of the world.  But instead of having a laser beam focus like the T-1000 he takes his time visiting his worshipers and killing skateboarders.  He just bullshits around like many action movie bad guys.

This behavior makes Satan kind of incompetent here.  I mean when you look at the guy’s extensive powers you realize there’s no excuse why he can’t get the job done in a few hours at most.  He can cause explosions, hallucinations, murder people instantly, has superhuman strength, can resurrect the dead and make them his foot soldiers, weaken people’s minds to do his bidding and his piss is as flammable as gasoline.  That last one is by far the strangest attribute.  In any case no one stands a chance against this dude.  And with all these powers it somehow still takes him a day or two to find Christine making him look extra clumsy.

On top of that Satan has a whole lot of trouble fighting Schwarzenegger.  These two go toe to toe twice and it’s no question Schwarzenegger kicks the devil’s ass both times.  Arnie definitely works for it though and takes a beating in the process.  He should’ve died during one scene when a group of worshipers overwhelm him in sheer numbers but amazingly even the all powerful Satan pulls one of the biggest cliché moves of all time by letting the hero live so he can witness the villain’s grand scheme play out.

There are a few positives I wanna bring up though.  Schwarzenegger plays suicidal alcoholic cop Jericho Cane (damn, that’s ballsy to go for the double bible reference in a single name) whose wife and daughter were murdered in some sort of retaliation plot.  This is probably the darkest most grim character he had played up to that point.  Since then he’s done this type a few times like in Collateral Damage and Aftermath but back in the 90’s it was a little depressing to see him like this.  However, I think he pulls it off.  He carries the grief with him throughout the piece.  You can see it in his face and he doesn’t joke around quite as much as usual.  He’s also understandably dumbstruck when he finds out the devil actually exists.  I like Arnie as Jericho.  It stands out in his repertoire because he takes it a little more seriously.

Everyone else is fine.  Byrne is serviceable as Beelzebub who goes a somewhat sophisticated quiet rage route.  I wonder if it was a conscious choice to make this character an affluent white man in NYC.  It’s doubtful the filmmakers were going for any sort of message but I thought I’d ask that out loud.

Robin Tunney does as good a job as you can with a character like Christine.  This is supposed to be the most important person on the planet yet she’s simply a damsel in distress.  She doesn’t do a thing to help defeat Satan or aid Schwarzenegger.  That’s shitty.

The strongest aspect of the film is the cinematography (my man Peter fuckin’ Hyams (Sudden Death, The Relic) also directs).  Everything looks pretty great.  The lighting is especially moody with almost every scene being a bit underlit.  There’s also a bunch of smoke billowing up from beneath surfaces and a griminess to everything as if to say “is this world really worth saving anyway?”  And it’s cool when they’re stringing up Schwarzenegger on a makeshift cross while it’s raining but Satan is the only one who magically isn’t getting wet.

Overall this one has a strange vibe.  The script is too generic for the wacky baseline idea and the execution is a good deal better than it should be with some nice photography and quick cuts in an effort to make the story more exciting.

One thing’s for sure, this isn’t as bad as its reputation.  I remember when it came out and everyone shat on it hard.  There are some neat sequences like when Schwarzenegger is pursuing a mad gunman on a high rise roof while dangling from a helicopter and the subway train scene where you never know which part of the car Satan is gonna pop out from next.  Also, the scene where the devil tries to convince Schwarzenegger to join him is well done and enjoyable.  There’s certainly some good stuff to be had.

This is what you think the entire movie will be but
it's only a few seconds out of two hours

But it’s still a tough recommendation.  Maybe the biggest strike against it is it comes off a bit too much like a Se7en knock off.  There was this awkward trend in the second half of the 90’s where some folks tried to cash in on the huge success of that picture and before you knew it an entire slew of unbearably gloomy vaguely religious crime thrillers popped up.  You had The Glimmer Man, Kiss the Girls, The Bone Collector, Fallen and etc.  That was weird man.

Anyway, if the stars align this new year’s for Satan to come to NYC and start a merciless reign of doom let’s all hope Schwarzenegger will be there to stop the sonuvabitch cold.  Have a happy and a healthy and I’ll see you next decade!  Byeee!

Fatal Attraction

Spoilers in this piece, please check out the film if you haven’t yet.  You won’t regret it.

Yes, this is one of the best thrillers of all time but a really weird thing that sticks out is Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas (Black Rain)) doesn’t appear to have any motivation to cheat on his wife (Anne Archer (Clear and Present Danger)).  He gets along with her, he loves their kid, things are going well at his job and he has fun hanging out with his friends.  As far as we know he doesn’t have a history of affairs either.  So what gives?  Is it because his six year old daughter cock blocked him after the book release party?

At one point Alex Forrest (Glenn Close (Jagged Edge)) asks Dan point blank what he’s doing with her when he’s got a wife at home but Dan deflects and the subject is dropped.  Maybe this guy is so sex crazed and/or deprived that he can’t help himself.  Maybe he has a serious problem.  He’s clearly not in love with Alex otherwise he would want to continue seeing her.  Instead he’s adamant about the encounter being a two day fling.

If you step back for a moment Dan should be the bad guy here.  His dick brained impulsiveness crippled his marriage, scarred his daughter emotionally and put his family’s safety at risk.  But because Alex is such a deranged, mentally disturbed, seriously dangerous person our priorities shift.  Suddenly having an affair doesn’t seem so bad compared to kidnapping and attempted murder.  Ironically Dan commits some crimes of his own with breaking and entering and several counts (!!) of attempted murder.  Yet we’re still on his side.

Apart from the frenzied choking and stuff Dan can be cruel in other ways.  For instance he fakes a heart attack in front of Alex as a GOTCHA! hahaha moment.  Alex immediately returns the favor by pretending she witnessed her father die of heart attack when she was little.  I’m not saying tit for tat is really a good idea in most situations but I have to admit Dan sorta had that coming.

Fatal Attraction is a complicated movie because the characters are complicated.  I mean Dan’s wife didn’t do anything to deserve the heartbreak or knife attack that Dan is one hundred percent responsible for laying at her feet however she sticks with him in the end.  See what I’m talking about?

I wonder how the original ending would’ve changed my feelings.  It was completely different where Alex kills herself and gets Dan’s fingerprints on the knife framing him for the deed.  The film concludes with his arrest.  While it’s tempting to say Dan would’ve gotten his comeuppance I think going to prison, or being executed, for being an adulterous bastard is a punishment that’s too extreme.  Not only that but Alex would’ve won in this scenario.  She utterly destroyed the man’s life (and the lives of those closest to him) who rejected her and she doesn’t have to ever feel guilty about that because she’s not breathing anymore.  On paper this seems like an unsatisfying conclusion but then again refusing to give Dan a motive for cheating seems like it wouldn’t work either.

This lack of explanation and fundamental foundation for the story should kind of ruin the movie.  How come it doesn’t then?  I guess the other components are so gripping it can’t be denied.  The casting and performances are excellent, the story is like a car crash you can’t look away from with Dan’s nightmare getting worse and worse and the cinematography is very measured with fancier angles and smart cutting shining through during the passionate intense scenes.

A particular highlight is the creepy tape Alex leaves for Dan where she rambles about how much she hates him in a cool and collected tone.  And the twists and turns of the finale are just fantastic as well.

But I don’t know what set decorator George DeTitta (Death Wish, Saturday Night Fever) was thinking with so many pictures on the walls in the Gallagher’s homes.  They have a lot of shit around the house in general (which may not be as bad as the Harfords from Eyes Wide Shut) but damn, they sure like to nail those photos to the wall.  Even the bathroom at their upstate house is littered with them.  With all those eyes staring at you it’s like there’s no privacy at all in that room.

Alright, this was an unusual type of write up but most of you out there already know how good this picture is so I wanted to bring up something that maybe you hadn’t thought about before.  A little change from the usual format.  But that’s it.  This is a one time deal.  Two ships passing in the night and all that.  You understand.

Before I go I’ll leave you with two things.  First is a picture I took at a wax museum I visited when I went to Niagara Falls in 2013.  They had a Fatal Attraction display and it’s hilariously awful, especially the Michael Douglas figure who looks emaciated and twenty years older than he’s supposed to.

The other item is a track some friends and I did many years ago where we sampled some audio from this film.  I think the song is funny bad but I don’t blame you if you think it’s just bad bad.

They Shall Not Grow Old

You might be thinking “World War I?  I don’t really care about that.  It’s no WWII buddy.”  First of all WWI was a catastrophic event that impacted hundreds of millions of lives and has been criminally overlooked as a pivotal part of modern history.  Yea, WWII was fuckin’ nuts but “the war to end all wars” is unbelievably fascinating.

Second, this doc is different.  It’s made by Peter Jackson of Lord of the Rings and King Kong 2005 fame.  He’s a serious WWI buff who has a huge collection of memorabilia like military outfits, weapons and period magazines (all of which were used as research materials).  When he was given the chance to put together this film he jumped at it.  He wasn’t given any kind of parameters as to what should be included or what type of movie to make at all.  Jackson spent a full year just sorting through the hundreds and hundreds of hours of film and audio.

And after hearing interviews of British vets done in the 50’s and 60’s it became evident that they should be telling the story.  So the entire narrative is made up of clips of first hand accounts of real soldiers that were there.  Their memories and stories are a treasure trove of insight.  We start with how some heard about the war being declared and how a helluva lot of them were underage when they signed up but lied and got in anyway.  Then we learn what training camp was like with drill instructors barking at you and hiking for dozens of miles on end.  Finally we move to the western front in France where the bulk of the picture is spent.  The soldiers’ accounts range from dispiriting, to humorous, to disgusting, to cordial to absolutely fucking terrifying.  Trench life, battle and all the dreary hours and days in between are recounted in stunning detail.

To go along with the unique narration Jackson meticulously restored footage from the war.  Scenes were brightened, darkened, jitteriness was removed, the speed of everything was adjusted to make it look like how it’s supposed to in real life instead of everyone scurrying around like wind up toys, and all of the western front footage was colorized and zoomed in slightly so it could be viewed in widescreen.  When you combine all these techniques the results are in-fuckin’-sane.  My jaw dropped to the point where I thought for a minute that Jackson shot modern day recreations.  But I soon realized no, I’m watching the actual shit from like 1914-1918.  Jackson did add sound effects to tie the whole thing together and that’s the final piece that puts it over the top.  It’s synced perfectly with the visuals so it truly is like you’re stepping back in time.  Amazing.

Jackson was a stickler for accuracy too.  For example there’s a part where a superior is reading a speech to his men and Jackson wanted audio to go with it.  So they found the boiler plate speech that was being circulated among the troops at the time, which regiment was in their specific shot, what part of Britain they were from and got someone from that region to recite the speech so the accent would be appropriate.  Jesus.

Holy shit guys I cannot recommend this enough.  Everything about this project is mind blowing.  Considering the age and generally poor condition all the footage was in Jackson and his team put together probably the most well restored pieces of film in existence.  Not only that but they had the brilliant idea of letting the soldiers involved in the war tell their stories themselves.  It’s incredibly compelling because this isn’t an overview of the entire war or even one major battle but instead the average (British) grunt’s tale.  It’s what they ate, how they dealt with boredom, what the living conditions were like, how they interacted with enemy soldiers and etc.  This indispensable minutiae paints a vivid and humanizing picture of The Great War.  This thing was comprised of people and this is what it was like day to day and how they coped.

You gotta see this.

Mish Mash 19 (Black Sunday, Firestarter, Psychomania, Green Room)

Black Sunday

Nicely done atmospheric picture about a young woman and her lover in the 1600’s who are accused of being witches.  A ceremony is attempted to destroy them but it’s unable to be completed leaving a window cracked.  Two hundred years later they’re accidentally woken up from their dormancy.  Now it’s revenge time.

There are some great visuals like the beautiful black and white photography, a ghostly horse drawn coach approaching in slow motion, a very convincing aging/de-aging effect on the witch’s face (Barbara Steele (Shivers)) and there’s an iron maiden type metal mask with spikes on the inside that’s smashed onto the witch’s face with a hammer causing blood to squirt out, ouch.

There’s a little confusion about what these creatures actually are though.  The narrator calls them vampires but everyone else says witches.  They exhibit qualities of both so I guess they’re sort of hybrids.

Anyway, this is a good one to check out.

Firestarter

First and foremost I would not classify this as a horror movie but I’m including it here because I saw it this season and I don’t want you to be thrown like I was.

This is a sci-fi film about a nine year old girl (Drew Barrymore (Batman Forever)) who can start fires with her mind and her father (David Keith (Men of Honor)) who can influence people with his mind.  They’re on the run from deep state government agents who want to capture them and weaponize their powers.  I mean Drew can fire start so hard it causes steel to buckle and concrete to explode so I can see why this might be a security threat.  The government folks are without a doubt the bad guys here but they have good reason to be concerned.  I’m just sayin’.

The strongest aspect is the casting.  David Keith and Drew Barrymore are very good together.  They seem totally believable and natural as father and daughter. 

And while I always enjoy Martin Sheen (Wall Street) the other stand out is George C. Scott (The Exorcist III) as John Rainbird.  He’s a ponytail sportin’, eye patch wearin’, evil as all fuck sonuvabitch.  The main reason he takes the assignment to capture Drew is so he can covertly befriend and eventually molest her.  Yea, he’s a straight up pedophile.  Scott is mesmerizing as he switches back and forth from a cold blooded mercenary in front of Sheen to a vulnerable, and even likeable, undercover janitor in the presence of Drew.  I don’t know how many people could’ve pulled off both sides of this performance so convincingly.

And the ending is completely off the wall.  I won’t spoil it but I will tell you the director was Mark L. Lester who did Commando right after this.  The endings to both are ridiculously similar and awesome.

This one runs a gamut of emotions and I guess I kinda liked it overall.  I’d say that ending is worth the journey.  See it!

Psychomania

The leader of a real groovy British biker gang (Nicky Henson (Syriana)) called The Living Dead commits suicide and comes back to life with the power of invincibility.  In order for this to work you have to really wanna die.  There’s no cheating death.  If you hesitate or don’t mean it you’ll stay dead.

Once this guy tears out of his grave on his motorcycle at full speed (cool idea by the way) he encourages his fellow gang members to do as he did.  When they’re reassembled they kill some folks but mainly they just putz around like they did when they were alive.  They play traffic games with cars and generally annoy people.  Seems like a waste of invincibility but, whatever.

The plot is pretty morbid and I wonder if it led to anyone attempting this self-destructive ritual in real life hoping they would return from the dead with special abilities.  I sure hope not.  To be clear though I’m not holding the filmmakers responsible for other people’s actions.

This isn’t a very good movie.  The concept isn’t that fun I think because it stems from such a dark place.  The cast of characters is silly too with names like Chopped Meat, Gash and Hatchet and they have cartoonishly oversized goggles attached to their bike helmets and the girlfriend of the leader is such a goody two shoes who doesn’t fit in with what’s supposed to be a Clockwork Orange level outfit.

The whole piece is fairly lame with a faint rallying cry for suicide.  That’s an odd and disheartening combo.

Excellent title though.  It also goes by The Death Wheelers which isn’t bad but I definitely prefer Psychomania.

Green Room

Late to the party here but sure, I get why people were making a big deal out of this little movie a few years ago.  It has a nice setup of a punk band playing a neo-Nazi show in the sticks (not their idea but through a certain set of circumstances they reluctantly take the gig) and they accidentally witness the aftermath of a murder.  Now they’re held hostage until the situation is dealt with.

It’s all good.  Good acting, good tension, good pacing, well composed shots, etc.  I especially like how the main villain, Darcy (Patrick Stewart (Lifeforce)), is a fast thinker who makes quick decisions like he’s had to clean up similar messes many times before.  It’s a neat contrast to the inexperienced (in every way) band members who are trapped in the green room.  Their options are practically zero which extremely restricts their decision making and actions.

Darcy throws everything he can at the issue underestimating the ingenuity and fighting spirit of the young kids.  But there’s a point later on that shows the door to the green room can be broken down fairly easily.  So the incident could’ve been resolved much earlier but I’m glad it wasn’t ‘cause then we wouldn’t have this cool thriller.

And that’s how I would categorize it.  There are some gruesome deaths and a bit of gore but ultimately this isn’t a horror picture.  Neo-Nazis are scary in real life though and this is probably the only group you could do this kind of movie with.  You would have to drastically change the setup if you swapped out a different set of extremists.  This is also more clever than having the bad guys simply be a bunch of backwoods psychos.

If you’re looking for a taut picture that keeps you on your toes you’ve found one.

Harefooted Halloween: 3 from Hell

What I Liked: Rob Zombie still knows how to please the eye.  From the hellhole prison where Baby Firefly is kept to the luchador gangsters who wear white on black suits, the movie’s packed to the brim with the type of stylistic flourishes Zombie is known for.

Unfortunately Sid Haig was sick at the time of filming and was only able to make a cameo as Captain Spaulding, but his replacement is pretty good.  Winslow Foxworth Coltrane (Richard Brake (31)) is the half brother of Otis (Bill Moseley (Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out!)) and more on the reserved side.  At first I wasn’t totally on board with this character because he seemed too laid back and maybe wasn’t crazy enough for this bunch.  After spending some time with him though you see he’s just as tough and up for as much mayhem as the rest contributing his fair share of destruction.  I also realized that this relatively calmer character who doesn’t raise his voice much or get too excited is a good contrast to the bombastic Otis and the live action cartoon character Baby.  Brake does wonderfully in the role and is a nice addition to the fold.

Sheri Moon Zombie (Lords of Salem) goes all in on Baby’s eccentricity.  There are maybe two or three lines in the whole thing that she delivers straight without some weird inflection or delivery.  While this is guaranteed to annoy some people I appreciate the performance.  It makes sense with the character because she probably wouldn’t have received proper care for her mental health in prison, especially in the 80’s when the film is set.  So her condition would’ve continued to deteriorate over time with her drifting deeper into madness.

What I Didn’t Like: The biggest problem with the picture is that the story is extremely thin.  Otis gets broken out of jail by Winslow and then they break Baby out and then…?  When they get to this point even Otis admits he has no idea what to do next.  They decide to duck into Mexico for a while but that’s out of boredom more than anything else.

The action sequences are edited poorly most of the time.  They have a mid-2000’s vibe where you can’t follow what’s going on due to too many closeups and a million cuts.

Overall Impressions: I don’t really get the point of this movie honestly.  Zombie already did The Devil’s Rejects so I don’t know why he felt he had to do the same thing again fourteen years later.  I understand that it’s a chance to make a film with all his friends once more but they should’ve went for something less identical.

There’s an effort being made in the execution though.  Aside from the aimless script, where Zombie’s ordinarily charming dialogue doesn’t pop quite enough, it doesn’t feel phoned in.  The showdown finale in particular where it turns into a western is handled well.

It’s just a shame that this third installment is a bit tired and doesn’t go in a different direction like the first sequel to House of 1,000 Corpses.  The Devil’s Rejects still feels fresh and you can really sense this young hungry filmmaker chomping at the bit to blow you away with some kick ass shit.

Look, this isn’t terrible it’s just disappointing.  But I have a feeling I’ll like it more as time goes on.

Harefooted Halloween: Bad Moon

What I Liked: In a move you generally only see in light hearted family movies the dog is the main protagonist and hero.  Thor (actually played by three different dogs) doesn’t speak, we never hear an inner monologue, there’s no narration or anything else like that.  Yet we know exactly what he’s thinking and feeling through his body language and actions and it’s an impressive feat.

Another unique aspect is the dynamic of the human characters.  Ted (Michael Paré (Village of the Damned (1995))) comes to visit his sister, Janet (Mariel Hemingway (Manhattan)), and her son, Brett (Mason Gamble (Arlington Road)), and stays with them for a few days.  There’s no romance or father figure dealings or any of the usual hokey crap you get with a typical setup of a husband and wife, estranged lovers or a single parent and their kid.  The mood is refreshing with a lack of sexual tension and strained parent-child relationships.

The werewolf design is really good.  It’s ferocious, wild eyed, tall, imposing, muscular and hairy.  The head is very pointed and wolf-like and it’s bipedal which are two features I strongly prefer in a werewolf (ones with flatter human faces or that roam on all fours aren’t as neat looking in my opinion).  The animatronics used for the facial movements are well done too.  They weren’t afraid to show this thing off either as it’s in a lot of the picture.

What I Didn’t Like: The way they shot the werewolf though is a mixed bag.  Half the time they use a good angle, throw some dramatic lighting on it, play with the shadows and try to make the beast look terrifying.  Then the other half of the time it’s shot so flatly exposing the effect for too much of what it is, a robot wolf head on a dude’s body.  It’s so weird to me how inconsistently this was handled.

The opening involving a sex scene in the jungle that gets interrupted by a werewolf attack feels out of place with the rest of it.  Even though all the werewolf attacks are kinda gory and nasty this one comes across more graphic and certainly gratuitous.

There’s a transformation scene that has some very bad looking CGI.  This part is wisely excised in the director’s cut (from what I read).

Overall Impressions: Doing a dead serious dog vs. werewolf movie is a cool and unique approach to a tale we’ve otherwise seen many times before.  This was based on a book called “Thor” by Wayne Smith and even though I’ve read that some pretty sizeable changes were made the core idea is there.

The screenplay was adapted by Eric Red (he also directs) who was Kathryn Bigelow’s writing partner back in the day on Near Dark and Blue Steel.  He likes to explore different twists on tried and true storylines and Bad Moon definitely fits in with those in that respect.

One big thing I appreciate is that Red and co went for a truly deadly and vicious version of the werewolf.  It doesn’t fuck around.  The monster tears everyone to shreds in a horrific manner each time.  The end battle with Thor is actually a little hard to watch because that dog gets aggressively thrown around and swatted a ton.

The juxtaposition of this ferocity and the non-werewolf stuff is sorta jarring though.  Aside from the sex scene at the beginning there isn’t any other sexuality, cursing or lewd behavior.  It’s pretty squeaky clean.  Whether it was done on purpose or not this makes the violence feel extra brutal.

I recommend this guy.  It has confidence in the material and its creature design.  Switching up the hero to a dog and playing around with the other characters’ relationships is a welcomed change.

Plus it’s got such a 90’s vibe with the pacific northwest setting and a soundtrack that could be straight out of a thriller from that time like Disclosure or The Hand that Rocks the Cradle.