Mish Mash Horror Edition (Queen of the Damned, Drag Me to Hell, The Brood, Thirst)

Queen of the Damned

A vampire as the lead singer of a world renowned nu metal band you say?  I’m in!  Or at least I was until I actually saw the picture.  It’s fucking terrible.  The awful special effects and gothic sullen angsty music date the movie into an early grave.

I have to admit the set and costume design is kinda awesome though.  So at least parts of the image are nice to look at.  But the real star here has to be the powerhouse soundtrack with tunes by Korn, Disturbed, Papa Roach, Static-X, Linkin Park, Marilyn Manson and Orgy.  Not really my type of music but holy shit, what an impressive collection of bands from that very specific genre.  I think the only nu metal darling they left out was Limp Bizkit.  And this is all so ironic considering R&B sensation Aaliyah plays the titular role whose music I like a million times more (and which isn’t feature  here whatsoever).

But seriously guys, please don’t watch this movie.  It’s an affront to any creature with eyes and ears, dead or undead.

Drag Me to Hell

Great idea about a cursed woman (Alison Lohman (Matchstick Men)) who must battle a demon that wants her in hell very badly, like yesterday.  Sam Raimi (Darkman) knew how to start and end his movie but didn’t quite know what fill the middle portion with.  There’s an unfortunate stagnation and aimlessness that sets in.

The comedy is hysterical and spot on but the horror stuff is just alright.  There are flashes of that old Raimi magic like the knock down drag out fight in the parking garage, but they’re few and far between.  Overall it’s decent.

The Brood

This one woman’s (Samantha Eggar (The Phantom)) wrath is so powerful that she has the ability to manifest it as physical beings.  She literally gives birth to little deformed five year old girls that go around murdering anyone their mother despises.  And when I say “gives birth” it’s not in the traditional way.  She sorta grows this sack on her abdomen and then tears it open to get the rage babe out.  It’s a pretty fuckin’ weird ass concept but I wouldn’t expect anything less from David Cronenberg (who was going through a divorce and child custody battle at the time…a touch bitter are we?).

Oliver Reed (The Adventures of Baron Munchausen) is fantastic as Dr. Hal Raglan (the opening scene with him in particular is amazing), the intense score by Howard Shore is incredible with echoes of Bernard Herrmann’s Psycho and the visuals get all gross goopy fleshy in classic Cronenberg fashion.  I liked it.

Thirst

A priest volunteers his body for scientific research by agreeing to contract a deadly disease so a cure can be found.  All the test subjects die except for him.  Looks like he dodged a major bullet there.  Well the only teeny tiny snag is that now he’s a vampire.  Not only does he have an insatiable thirst for blood but if he doesn’t feed regularly then grotesque lesions form all over his body.

That plot synopsis may sound relatively straight forward but this is a big story with a lot going on.  It’s too much for me to really get into plus it’s better if you don’t know very much going in.  There’s tons of drama, tons of nasty blood splattering kills and tons of off kilter sexuality.  This is another pip from Chan-wook Park, the writer/director of Oldboy and The Handmaiden.

Halloween (2018)

This is par for the course for a Halloween sequel and that’s a pretty sad statement.  I was hoping for something smarter and possibly a little different than what we’ve seen in the past.  Instead the filmmakers went straight up the middle and threw in just about every slasher movie trope in existence. 

Plus there’s so much goddamn fan service.  At almost every turn there’s a reference to one of the previous installments and it’s really distracting.  “You’re the new Dr. Loomis”, a model of the Myers house in Laurie’s house, “the shape”, the falling off of a balcony from part I, the taking of a chef’s knife after a woman uses it to make a ham sandwich from part II, the Silver Shamrock masks from part III, transporting Michael from one sanitarium to another and escaping en route from part 4, the two goofy cops from part 5, bathroom stalking from part 6 and H20, Laurie’s borderline alcoholism from H20, someone else putting on Michael’s mask from Rob Zombie’s Halloween II and a zillion others.  (I didn’t pick out any obvious lifts from Resurrection or Zombie’s Halloween I)

The comedy is very silly and some of it is funny but then the movie is also extremely violent.  I don’t think those two elements fit well together here.  These drastic tone shifts are gonna wear you down after a while and they bring into question how seriously you should take the film.

There are two scenes that are very well done however.  The one where Michael is finally decked out in full garb and goes on a killing spree through several neighborhood houses has impressive camera work that’s done in a few long tracking shots.  The other is when a babysitter is trying to close a closet door after searching her kid’s room for the boogie man.  They intercut that with her douchbag boyfriend smoking a joint and revving a motorcycle outside so there’s good subversion of expectations in not knowing who’s gonna get slayed.

The sensor light gag is a good idea but the timing of when the light goes on and off seems to be convenient for whenever Michael needs to do his thang and doesn’t follow any sort of normal pattern.  I know that’s nitpicky but I couldn’t help but notice.

They did get Michael right which is nice.  He looks and moves appropriately, not too stiff and not too agile.  The only moment that’s out of character is when he dumps a fist full of teeth into a bathroom stall to intimidate a lady that’s in there.  Michael kills and moves on.  He doesn’t torture or play with his victims.  He may be slow to pounce due to him being mentally deranged and maybe mulling over how he’s going to dispatch his prey, but he doesn’t do shit to fuck with them on purpose.

So besides a few good scenes, giving us a good Michael performance and the kick ass John & Cody Carpenter soundtrack (you better believe he (they) still got it in the music department) this comes off like bad fan fiction.  The dead giveaway is all the callbacks to the other Halloweens and how that almost seems like the driving force.  It’s disappointing more than anything and all the hype around it about this being a true love letter to the series, especially John Carpenter’s original, certainly doesn’t help.  We don’t need a love letter.  We need a script that doesn’t make you wonder how it passed inspection and filmmaking decisions that don’t make you roll your eyes in frustration.  Look, it’s not the worst movie (actually, it could be the second or third best installment) and I know I’m being harsh but damn, it sure is a whole lot dumber than I was expecting.  Like, all the other Halloween sequels kinda dumb.

Harefooted Halloween: Phantasm II

What I Liked: Turning almost any series into a road movie is a great idea.  The Devil’s Rejects, Logan and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly all worked well when put into perpetual motion.  Ok, Leatherface was crap, but you can add Phantasm II to the mix now.

Mike (James Le Gros (Point Break)) and Reggie (Reggie Bannister (Survival Quest)) become truly badass as armed to the teeth Tall Man hunting possessed maniacs on a mission.  This is a fantastic evolution for these characters.  It’s another proven route like Sarah Connor in T2 or Ash in Evil Dead II.

The practical effects are nice like the weird Tall Man slime baby that’s growing out of someone’s back or when a priest gets hanged by his own rosary in mid air.

What I Didn’t Like: The plot is almost nonexistent.  It seems like writer/director Don Coscarelli (The Beastmaster, John Dies at the End) had ideas for scenes but there’s not much connecting them.  And this is more of a problem than you might think.  I’ve seen this picture before and couldn’t remember what in the hell happened, but I just watched the fuckin’ thing now and still can’t really remember a whole lot.  The lack of a narrative and significant events is devastating to my memory.

Overall Impressions: Besides not being able to retain very much of the story it’s fun in the moment.  The Sam Raimi-ish attitude of just fucking around (which must’ve been intentional because Coscarelli and he are buds and there’s a reference to the guy on a bag full of cremated human remains) makes for an easy going experience that doesn’t take itself too seriously but still delivers on the creeps.  While the incredible original remains king it’s still a good one night stand.  Just don’t expect to remember anything in the morning.

Harefooted Halloween: Tales from the Crypt (1972)

What I Liked: Four of the five stories are great twisty tales about assholes getting their comeuppance.  The wife who murders her loving husband but then has to deal with an escaped lunatic dressed as Santa Claus might be my favorite segment.  The take they do on the Monkey’s Paw is pretty neat too where the undead husband gets his guts hacked up by his wife.  The only yarn I don’t like as much is the one where a young upper crusty brat drives his old disheveled neighbor across the street to suicide simply because he thinks the guy and his rundown house are bad for the neighborhood.  The kid doesn’t even know the man or have a strong motivation for fucking with him so it comes off too mean spirited.  The ending to that segment is appropriately gruesome though because the kid is a total piece of shit.

The brevity of each story works well.  These fables are relatively simple affairs so spending about fifteen mins on each one is perfect.  Everything is streamlined to cram as much suspense into the plots as possible.

What I Didn’t Like: The segment concerning the douche who abuses his power in running a home for the blind tips its hand too early with how they’re going to conclude.  I wish they had shown a little more restraint there because it would’ve been kind of a nuts reveal had we not known what the residents of the home were up to.

Overall Impressions: This film is a favorite of Robert Zemeckis (Flight, Romancing the Stone) who produced the much more well known HBO version of Tales from the Crypt and directed some episodes.  If you’re curious to check out this ancestor from almost twenty years prior you won’t be disappointed.  They share some of the same stories and it’s interesting to see the different approaches each took.  

This is definitely one of the strongest anthology horror movies out there.  All the sections are solid, the performances are excellent and there’s a nice broody look and atmosphere to the entire piece.  They walk the fine line of presenting you something that’s truly creepy and not too silly, gory or light.  Everyone likes a good old fashioned ghost story and this is as traditional and classy as it gets.

Harefooted Halloween: Pet Sematary II

What I Liked: It’s all about Clancy Brown’s (Extreme Prejudice, Blue Steel) demented performance.  He plays a cop/step-father who gets brought back from the dead except he’s all psychotic now.  The funny thing is he sorta pretends to be normal, or at least does semi-normal stuff and it takes forever for anyone to catch on.  Like he farms rabbits on the side and when he becomes zombified he kills a whole bunch, cooks them up and proceeds to stuff wads of food in his mouth and laugh about it with these dead eyes.  That scene alone is worth the price of admission.  Jeez…

The story gets exponentially crazier as it goes but it still manages to sneak up on you.  Before you know it you’re knee deep in zany shit.  For example, after Edward Furlong (T2, Detroit Rock City) witnesses how horribly wrong reanimating a dead dog and a dead Clancy Brown turns out he still decides the best thing to do is resurrect his deceased mother.  Also, Anthony Edwards (Zodiac, Miracle Mile) dreams he has sex with his late wife except she has a rabid dog’s head that wants to bite his arm off.  Man I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had that dream.

The rockin’ soundtrack is fuckin’ rad with The Ramones returning to once again contribute a song.  While “Poison Heart” isn’t as good as “Pet Sematary” and wasn’t written specifically for the movie it’s still a pretty cool tune.

What I Didn’t Like: The story involving yet another group of people who bring once living things back to life is silly as shit.  The whole town seems to know about the magical Indian burial ground but they feel it’s just something they have to live with.  Sometimes people are gonna want to mess around with the laws of nature and hey, what can you do?

The acting is pretty terrible all around except for Brown how hams it up so much I can’t deny it brought me a good amount of joy.  He does the same weird, and I guess exaggerated (?), Maine accent that Fred Gwynne did in the original and it comes off laughably bad.

Overall Impressions: Interestingly I don’t think you need to have seen the first film to understand this one.  It works on its own because there aren’t any of the same characters and it’s a brand new plot line.  Well, new-ish.  The same shit happens where you progress from a dead animal to a dead human and they’re all fucked up and a bunch of folks get murdered as a result.  But the existence of an Indian burial ground and the process needed to revive a departed creature is explained all over again.

An unusual aspect is that there are two main stories happening at once and both are given equal attention.  There’s the Ed Furlong/Anthony Edwards dead mother/wife plot and the Clancy Brown is an awful person plot.  If this were more traditional the Clancy one would take a backseat but I wonder if the filmmakers liked the madcap acting so much that they gave him more screen time.  In any case the dual story idea actually works and keeps things moving along.

By the time it’s over we’ve gone on some kinda journey and we’re watching all the victims of the film inexplicably flash across the screen for one last awkward goodbye.  Seriously, who puts a little compilation clip of the dead characters at the end of a horror picture, or any picture for that matter?  if it was a true story, maybe.  But otherwise, what the hell?

Boy I’d really like to recommend this based on the bizarre creepy fun factor, but I know that’s slightly unethical.  It’s not a good movie exactly.  However, with the right group of people (you know, the type who enjoy watching someone take a power drill to a guy’s open shoulder wound) then there’s a good time in here.