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HAUNTED HOUSE MONTH: Week 4

When it comes to slow burns, filmmaker Ti West knows what he’s doing. Following in the same low-key, suspense-building footsteps as his previous film, The House of the Devil, 2011’s THE INNKEEPERS features a young woman, Claire (Sara Paxton), who, along with her coworker, Luke (Pat Healy), are the only remaining employees of the closing, supposedly haunted Yankee Pedlar Inn. Not knowing what to do next with her life, Claire joins Luke in his quest to catch a ghost on camera, specifically the spirit of Madeline O’Malley, a woman who killed herself in the hotel decades earlier.

As with House of the Devil, The Innkeepers focuses most of its attention on the characters, especially Claire who’s very relatable and someone we want to see succeed and not be harmed. Claire is also a great juxtaposition to Luke, who’s very somber and cranky. At one point, Claire is more excited about her ghostly recordings than Luke, whose ghost-hunting website she’s volunteering her time to. Claire is the bright spot in a film filled with negative people and manipulative spirits. Her pleasant, somewhat naive personality is what ultimately victimizes her. A good film with terrific characters and a chilling finale.

The 2018 French NIGHT SHOT offers up found footage thrills. Nathalie (Nathalie Couturier), the host of a YouTube-type series of urban exploration videos, along with her cameraman (director Hugo König), hike to an abandoned hospital in the middle of the forest to film a new episode. Once inside the massive dwelling Nathalie tells of the place’s unsavory history, particularly the story of a certain doctor who performed fiendish experiments on pregnant women. It isn’t long until she and the cameraman are trapping inside the building’s sinister walls while being pursued by unseen supernatural forces.

Much like The Blair Witch Project, Night Shot uses its claustrophobic environment to disorient its characters and trap them in an unexplained time loop. The “gimmick” of the film is that it’s shot in one, unedited take. It’s also filmed in B&W, which adds to the creepiness of the atmosphere. As with many FF flicks, the story unfolds as a slow burn but it’s never uninteresting; quite the contrary, with the labyrinthine, decaying hospital being a character itself. It builds to a lurid, genuinely unsettling conclusion.

Believe it or not, at one point in time the Amityville story was taken seriously. But, as with most successful horror movies, the story became sequelized to death and the franchise eventually lost the plot completely. In the last few decades, the films have essentially become a marketing gimmick for any kind of low-budget haunted house flick – look at the 2011 Amityville Haunting, which is nothing more than a lifeless Paranormal Activity rip-off that has nothing to do with the original Amityville story at all. (And let’s not even get into Amityville in Space.)

Exception should be given to 1996’s overtly silly but undeniably entertaining AMITYVILLE: DOLLHOUSE. After a divorced father, Bill (Robin Thomas), and his new wife, Claire (Starr Andreeff), move their family – comprised of his and her kids from previous marriages – into a newly-built house, they begin to experience bizarre mood swings and supernatural occurrences. Bill has dreams of a demonic-like figure, Claire begins lusting after hunky teen stepson, Todd (Allen Cutler), and Claire’s young son, Jimmy (Jarrett Lennon), begins talking to the decaying, manipulative ghost of his deceased dad. Does all this have something to do with the weird dollhouse found in the backyard shed, one that is modeled after the infamous Long Island dwelling?

The foolish tie-in with the Amityville universe aside, Dollhouse is a surprisingly inventive little movie that’s much better made than you’d think. The plot is beyond ludicrous and the characters don’t seem to live in a reality where logic exists, yet the family is likable enough that you end up caring about their plight, even when they do incredibly stupid things – Todd’s sound system mysteriously cranks to top volume yet instead of simply removing his headphones from his head he fumbles with the wires while making a panicky face. In the end, the movie is so inherently dumb and giddy in its campy excesses it becomes a sight to see, especially during its batshit crazy climax. The Innkeepers: B+ Night Shot and Amityville: B

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HAUNTED HOUSE MONTH: Week 3

When it comes to remakes 1999’s cheesy HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL ranks as one of the more entertaining ones. Giving his best Vincent Price, distinguished actor Geoffrey Rush stars as theme park king, Stephen Price (get it?), who invites five guests to the abandoned cliff-side Vannacutt Institute for the Criminally Insane for his venomous wife’s (Famke Janssen) birthday party. Price offers the guests $1 million if they can survive the night inside the maze-like structure and retrofits the place with tricks and pranks, unaware that the place is actually haunted by the demented Dr. Vannacutt (Jeffrey Combs) and his patients who died from his hideous experiments.

Director William Malone (Feardotcom) doesn’t shy away from the ghosts and ghouls that William Castle hinted at in the 1959 original, with the film offering up several creep monster FX, including one of the first of the fast-moving, head-shaking ghost that has become almost a staple in most of today’s haunted house flicks. The plot is complete hokum but the cast has fun with the material, especially Janssen and Rush who seem to relish going at each other’s throats.

At first sight, 2009’s handsomely photographed THE UNINVITED sounds like a retelling of the classic Ray Milland film of the same title from 1944, but is in fact a remake of an overrated 2003 South Korean movie called A Tale of Two Sisters. After being institutionalized for a suicide attempt, teenager Anna (Emily Browning) goes back home to find her father (David Strathairn) has become romantically involved with her deceased mother’s nurse, Rachel (Elizabeth Banks). While Anna and her sister, Alex (Arielle Kebbel), try to figure out the mysterious fire that killed their sick mother, Anna begins seeing ghostly visions and questioning not only Rachel’s true motivations but also her own sanity.

While the film looks great and its beautiful Maine setting could be a character itself, the screenplay is littered with too many red herrings and relies too heavily on Anna’s “is it real?” psychosis. The film also builds up a false narrative and presents a twist ending that is neither convincing nor credible. Banks gives a cold, tense performance as the “wicked stepmother” but Browning, whose shoulders the entire story rests on, is vacant and unsympathetic.

A superior ghost tale is the 2000 Robert Zemeckis-helmed WHAT LIES BENEATH. Michelle Pfeiffer is perfectly cast as Claire, a mother who a year after surviving a car accident comes to believe her newly renovated lake-side home is haunted. At first she thinks it might be the ghost of the missing wife of her brutish new neighbor (James Remar), but when things intensify Claire realizes her husband, Norman (Harrison Ford), may be connected.

While not perfect, What Lies Beneath is a terrific example of visual storytelling. The plot isn’t anything we haven’t seen before, but Zemeckis wisely presents it with an obvious love and understand of classic filmmaking, especially in the tradition of Hitchcock. The film unfolds as a mystery and slowly builds the tension, keeping you on your toes almost the whole time. Pfeiffer is extremely likable and warm, and her scenes with best friend Diana Scarwid are some of the strongest in the movie. And unlike a lesser movie like The Uninvited, What Lies Beneath doesn’t rely on a wobbly narrative that barely supports a “shock” ending, but instead cares more about strong characters and a simple but effective premise. House on Haunted Hill: B The Uninvited: C– What Lies Beneath: B+

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HAUNTED HOUSE MONTH: Week 2

Sort of the Blumhouse of the early ’00s, Dark Castle was a well known but short-lived production company that specialized in cheesy but entertaining horror. One of their offerings was 2002’s GHOST SHIP, a visually impressive haunted house variant about a ship salvage crew who stumble upon a luxury cruise liner that disappeared in 1962. Once aboard, they find a cargo full of gold, as well as the vengeful spirits of the ship’s previous passengers, all of whom died horrible deaths and are mad as hell.

Shot in the same frenzied vein as the House on Haunted Hill remake, Death Ship looks great, but its plot is paper-thin and relies too much on a rather uninteresting subplot that tries to function as a mystery. That aside, the cast is good – Julianna Margulies, Gabriel Byrne, and Karl Urban! – and the action moves at a brisk pace. The bloodthirsty ghosts are essentially the same breed as the murderous spirits from House on Haunted Hill and Thirteen Ghosts, offering up nothing new or exciting.

Considered a modern horror classic, Hideo Nakata’s bleak 1998 chiller, RING, is a ghost story for the digital age. While investigating the mysterious deaths of her niece and two other high schoolers, reporter Reiko (Nanako Matsushima) discovers a silly urban legend might be all too real: a cursed videotape that will kill anyone a week after they’ve watched it. Based on a popular novel, the brilliance of the story is its use of technology as a weapon. The curse of the vengeful spirit being transmitted through a VHS tape might seem dated, but the release of the film corresponded perfectly with the rise of the internet and the digital revolution. How can you stop a supernatural virus that’s spread through wires?

A masterwork in minimalist horror, Ring was massively influential – the 2002 remake unleashed a wave of Asian horror revamps in Hollywood – and a clear inspiration for the Ju-on series and a host of similar “long hair ghost” movies. While the J-horror subgenre has plenty of fun titles (2003’s One Missed Call is an effective Ring rip-off), those movies don’t have the elegant subtlety of Nakata’s film, which relies mostly on atmosphere and suggestion rather than visceral scares, except, of course, for the famous twist ending.

Speaking of Japanese films, 2005’s DARK WATER was one of many remakes that came in the wake of the American The Ring. Recently divorced, fragile Dahlia (Jennifer Connelly) and her young daughter, Ceci (Ariel Gabe), move into a dank, leaking apartment on New York’s Roosevelt Island. Soon after, the daughter begins talking to an imaginary friend, and strange noises are heard from an unoccupied apartment upstairs where something sinister happened to the previous tenants. When Dahlia’s mental health unravels she must try to solve the mystery before Ceci is taken away from her.

A moody ghost story with good characters, a terrific cast, Dark Water is handsomely directed by Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries), but those expecting a traditional scare show like The Grudge might be disappointed with the movie’s slow pace and lack of showy special effects. That aside, this is a solid film with strong performances and a gripping mother-daughter relationship. Ring: A– Dark Water: B Ghost Ship: C+

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HAUNTED HOUSE MONTH: Week 1

This month I’ve decided to dive into haunted house/supernatural invasion movies, and to kick things off I watched the 1980 classic, THE CHANGELING. An old-fashioned ghost story, The Changeling stars the always good George C. Scott as a music professor who, after the death of his wife and child in a car accident, seeks a change of scenery by moving into a large house in Seattle. It isn’t long until he begins hearing strange noises coming from the attic, and eventually uncovers a murder mystery and decades-old secret.

The Changeling is an interesting film because it’s not your typical modern haunted house flick. Sandwiched between the visceral FX of Amityville Horror and Poltergeist, The Changeling seems like an idea that came from the 1940s, when ghost stories were more subtle and less about the “boo” moments. 

The screenplay (written by William Gray and Diana Maddox) flows as more of a mystery, and director Peter Medak keeps the attention on character development and story structure over visual supernatural activity. That’s not to say the movie doesn’t have its share of creepy moments – its rich atmosphere could be a character itself, with shadows playing a big part in the narrative’s otherworldly reality. 

On the complete opposite end of the cinematic spectrum is Lucio Fulci’s gory answer to Amityville, 1981’s THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY. Set in the same altered reality as Fulci’s gruesome twosome, City of the Living Dead and The Beyond, House features a small family who leave New York and move into dusty old “Oak Mansion” outside Boston. There, the dad (Paolo Malco) plans to continue the research his ex-colleague was performing before he committed suicide. Along with his wife (Catriona MacColl), who’s in a constant state of upset, and flop-top son (Giovanni Frezza), Dad discovers their new house harbors a deadly secret: the zombified Dr. Freudstein, a madman who performed diabolical experiments in the house 100 years earlier – and who needs fresh body parts to remain reanimated.

An example of excessive Italian horror at its hysterical best, House by the Cemetery is Fulci firing on all cylinders. The movie might appear to be just another run-of-the-mill Amityville/Shining wannabe – there’s a subplot involving the son’s (unexplained) psychic link with the spirit of Freudstein’s young daughter (Silvia Collatina) – yet Fulci’s unique style and eye for detail makes the movie work wonderfully. Fulci’s hallmarks are all over this, including extreme close-ups of maggot-infested body parts, a beautiful but nonsensical narrative, heavy atmosphere, and the always hilariously bad dubbing. Where else will you see a blood-drenched, two-minute bat attack?

Plugging into the then-popularity of Nightmare on Elm Street, the THE HORROR SHOW is a 1989 entry in the “Is it a dream?” sub-subgenre. Detective McCarthy (Lance Henriksen) is haunted by dreams of deranged serial killer, Max Jenke (Brion James), who he helped capture and witnessed executed in the electric chair. But Jenke, whose spirit has invaded McCarthy’s home through some form of electric phenomena, won’t stay dead and terrorizes the family by slashing up their friends and framing McCarthy for the murders. 

Originally planned (and released overseas) as House III, this seems to have been an attempt at creating another Freddy Krueger, but it takes itself way too seriously and just comes off just a dumb rip-off. Henriksen gives the film more credit than it deserves and James is pure ham, but this does predate the similarly themed Shocker by several months. The Changeling and House by the Cemetery: B+ Horror Show: C  

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RANDOM REVIEWS: The Spiral Staircase, 10 Cloverfield Lane, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2

THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE (1946) d: Robert Siodmak. c: Dorothy McGuire, Ethel Barrymore, George Brent, Kent Smith, Rhoda Fleming, Elsa Lanchester, Gordon Oliver. Effective psychological chiller about a mute caregiver (McGuire) in a small New England town in the early 1900s terrorized by a killer of young women with disabilities. The film’s dense atmosphere creates an almost nightmarish world, while also successfully blending elements of film-noir into the story’s more dominant gothic setting. It should be noted this is one of the first movies to use the “black-gloved killer” that would become so prominent in Italian slashers of the ’60s and ’70s. The cast is good – especially Barrymore as the invalid matriarch of an estate that could house the identity of the murderer – but Siodmak’s direction is often cold, creating a barrier between the audience and the characters and softening the impact. A film that was ahead of its time, but one can’t help wonder how the story could have benefited had Hitchcock or Val Lewton gotten their hands on the material. B

10 CLOVERFIELD LANE (2016) d: Dan Trachtenberg. c: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Goodman, John Gallagher Jr. A white-knuckle thrill ride that works on multiple levels, this second film in the Cloverfield universe is perhaps the best sci-fi horror thriller in years. After surviving a car accident, a woman, Michelle (Windstead), wakes up in an underground bunker and is told by a strange man, Henry (Goodman), that some kind of attack has killed most of civilization in the surrounding areas. Things get worse when Michelle realizes Henry is not mentally stable, and the pressure rises as he makes life in the bunker difficult for her and another trapped survivor, Emmett (Gallagher Jr.). A simple premise is made rich thanks to a tight screenplay, which smartly places the audience in Michelle’s shoes and allows us to only know what she knows, which is mostly speculation from Henry. When surprising events unfold, they’re shocking and unpredictable. The claustrophobic environment of the bunker creates unease, especially when tension mounts between Henry and Michelle, creating some genuinely nail-biting moments. The characters are well-written and the chemistry between the actors feels organic and genuine. The surprise ending will leave you both on the edge of you seat and cheering. A

THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2 (1986) d: Tobe Hooper. c: Dennis Hopper, Caroline Williams, Jim Siedow, Bill Moseley, Bill Johnson. 14 years after the events in the first film, former Texas Ranger, Enright (Hopper), is looking for the infamous Sawyer family, unaware they’re now owners of an award-winning food truck (“The secret’s in the meat!”) and living under an abandoned theme park. When small-time radio DJ, Stretch (Williams), records the chainsaw murder of a caller, she uses the tape to help Enright catch the Sawyers, with dire consequences. Taking everything that’s been (wrongly) criticized about his earlier films, Hooper spins a delicious send-up by throwing in everything that was missing from the original Massacre (outrageous gore) and turning up the camp value – Moseley’s Chop Top is essentially a cartoon version of the hitchhiker from the ’74 film, while Williams’s Stretch is Sally dialed up to 11. A fun and colorful example of ’80s horror excess. B+

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SCI-FI/FANTASY MONTH: The Blob, Cabin in the Woods, and Resident Evil ’21

THE BLOB (1988) d: Chuck Russell. c: Shawnee Smith, Kevin Dillon, Donovan Leitch, Joe Seneca, Candy Clark, Jeffrey DeMunn, Del Close. A near-perfect remake of the 1950s monster flick that not only improves upon the original’s special FX but expands the story with rich characters and spectacular set pieces. The residents of a small town become food for a gelatinous organism that grows bigger every time it eats humans, that is until a mysterious containment team is sent to handle the situation, making matters worse. Gory, exciting, and often surprising, this is what remakes should always aspire to be. Co-written by Frank Darabont, this gets major points for switching gender roles and making the spunky cheerleader (Smith) the gun-toting hero. Criminally overlooked during its initial release, this is a fantastic, inventive piece of genre filmmaking that deserves a place on the same mantel as Carpenter’s The Thing. A–

THE CABIN IN THE WOODS (2012) d: Drew Goddard. c: Kristin Connolly, Fran Kranz, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison, Jesse Williams, Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford. Vibrant horror-comedy-fantasy co-written by Joss Whedon about a group of college friends spending the weekend at a remote, woodsy cabin who are terrorized by a family of backwoods zombie-rednecks. Or so they think. Deliciously sending up the “teens in the woods” subgenre created by ’80s classic Evil Dead, Cabin works because the screenplay doesn’t only spoof its subject matter but highly respects and, clearly, enjoys it. The cast is likable and energetic (including Jenkins and Whitford as egocentric employees of a secret underground agency), and the pacing is terrific, building to a full-scare monster movie mash-up of epic proportions. B+

RESIDENT EVIL: WELCOME TO RACCOON CITY (2021) d: Johannes Roberts. c: Kaya Scodelario, Robbie Amell, Tom Hopper, Hannah John-Kamen, Avan Jogia, Donel Logue. Lively reboot of the groundbreaking video game series, this is set in 1998 with a young woman (Scodelario) going back to her hometown of Raccoon City, a small town built by the evil Umbrella Corp. When the locals start turning into blood-craving zombies, she and her cop brother (Amell), along with several others, must try to escape the doomed city, but not before bumping into a variety of mutated monsters. Following in the footsteps of the six-movie Resident Evil series, this offers nothing new, but is a more faithful adaptation of the original ’90s games, with iconic locations and certain sequences replicated and inserted into the action, which takes precedence over story. This is, however, very entertaining and moves at such a fast pace you won’t notice. B

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Mini-Reviews: TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE ’74 and ’22

THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974) d: Tobe Hooper. c: Marilyn Burns, Gunnar Hansen, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow, Paul A. Partain, Allen Danziger. Perhaps the perfect American horror film, this baby not only took the slasher movie to terrifying new levels but gave birth to one of horror cinema’s most memorable, and horrifying, villains: Leatherface. A seemingly fun summer afternoon in backwoods Texas for a van-load of friends is turned into a nightmare when they encounter a family of sadistic cannibals. The simple premise is made the more horrific thanks to Hooper’s handling of the material. The film utilizes sound, disorienting music, and extreme close-ups to create a claustrophobic environment that makes the ordeal intense and authentically brutal. The cast is amateur but good, especially Burns whose character, Sally, became a benchmark for future Final Girls. Unrelentingly suspenseful and unforgivingly grim, Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a masterpiece in horror filmmaking. A

TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (2022) d: David Blue Garcia. c: Elsie Fisher, Sarah Yarkin, Mark Burnham, Jacob Latimore, Olwen Fouéré, Alice Krige. Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a good example of a sequel being the polar opposite of its predecessor, Tobe Hooper’s seminal 1974 masterwork, also called The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Where Hooper’s film was well-written, smart, and relied on suspense and terror, the new TCM is lazy, soulless, and relies on cartoonish gore to keep you interested. A group of investors celebrating a town renovation project in the middle of nowhere Texas are put through the bloody ringer when old Leatherface (Burnham) comes crawling out of the woodwork, putting the chainsaw to, well, anyone. Leatherface’s cannibalistic needs seems to have disappeared (the film abandons that subplot completely) but his need for wearing the face masks of his victims is still vital. The make-up FX are on the cheap side (over half of the gore seems to be computer-generated), resulting in Bubba’s face looking like it’s melting through most of the movie. The five-minute return of the original’s Final Girl, Sally (Fouéré), is so ridiculously underwritten that it comes off as pointless. The film’s saving grace is the blood-drenched bus massacre scene, which is the only part of the movie that has a pulse – I’m even speculating the scene was an early idea for which the entire movie was written around. A shit stain on an otherwise decent horror film series. D–

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SPOTLIGHT: The FINAL DESTINATION Series

FINAL DESTINATION (2000) d: James Wong. c: Devon Sawa, Ali Larter, Kerr Smith, Kristin Cloke, Seann William Scott, Chad Donella, Tony Todd. A first-rate thrill ride from beginning to end, this giddy, grim chiller pits a group of survivors of a devastating plane crash (which came to one of them as a premonition moments before take-off) against the invisible force of Death as it comes to claim their lives. Will they succumb to their inevitable fate, or can they figure out Death’s design and escape its grasp once again? Originally created as an idea for The X-Files, Final Destination is a clever mash-up of classic Twilight Zone and a gory slasher, coming at the right moment, when horror was becoming nothing more than an endless series of glib Scream wannabes. The story flows at a wonderful pace, balancing humor and horror perfectly. The characters are likable and their interactions together feel organic and unforced. The strongest aspect about the film is the screenplay’s understanding that it’s not about the impending doom of the survivors, but about the suspense that death will happen. A–

FINAL DESTINATION 2 (2003) d: David R. Ellis. c: Ali Larter, A.J. Cook, Michael Landes, Keegan Connor Tracy, Jonathan Cherry, Terrence T.C. Carson, Tony Todd. Another premonition of disaster saves a group of strangers from death; this time it’s a massive, fiery pile-up on the freeway visualized by Kimberly (Cook), a young woman on her way to Florida. When the survivors start dying in bizarre ways, Kimberly seeks the help of Clear (Larter), the sole survivor of the first film’s plane crash. Lacking the excitement of the original, this plays down the suspense in favor of gory action. Many of the new characters are colorless nitwits who you can’t wait to see get their heads caved in. That’s not to say when it happens it’s not a lot of fun, because it is, with several of the death sequences cleverly designed to be misleading and, ultimately, spectacular. A solid sequel with a bang of a twist ending. B

FINAL DESTINATION 3 (2006) d: James Wong. c: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ryan Merriman, Kris Lemche, Texas Battle, Sam Easton, Amanda Crew, Alexz Johnson. Director Wong and co-writer Glen Morgan returned for the third outing in the series (after co-creating the original with Jeffrey Reddick). This one features a new batch of teens who are inadvertently saved from a roller coaster disaster after high school senior, Wendy (Winstead), warns them of their impending doom. Naturally, the survivors begin dying in gruesome fashion as Wendy and chum, Kevin (Merriman), try to solve Death’s latest design. Returning to the suspenseful form of first movie, FD3 heightens the tension by slowly turning the screws, especially during the opening sequence, and keeps its audience on its toes by prolonging the build-up. It also has one of the best kill sequences in the series involving tanning beds. Energetic and darkly humorous, this is almost as good as the first movie. B+

THE FINAL DESTINATION (2009) d: David R Ellis. c: Bobby Campo, Stephanie Honoré, Haley Webb, Mykelti Williamson, Nick Zano. The fourth entry in the series is dumb, cartoonish, rude, and a lot of fun! After escaping a series of deadly explosions at a haggard race track, a group of survivors are picked off one-by-one by ever-greedy Death. The juicy kills this time around include a decapitation by flying tire, and a poor schmuck who gets his guts sucked out of his butthole by a pool pump. All the characters are basically personality-free meat-bags, while the screenplay is devoid of any sense of logic. But none of that matters because director Ellis steps up the action and delivers a fast-paced frenzy of splatter and mayhem, with a character seemingly dying every five minutes or so. The movie also wisely skates around the whole “death’s design” idea, which bogged down the last few films in the series. If there’s anything I’ve learned from the FD movies is that there is never any rationale, and why should there be? B

FINAL DESTINATION 5 (2011) d: Steven Quale. c: Nicholas D’Agosto, Emma Bell, Miles Fisher, Arlen Escarpeta, Jacqueline MacInnes Wood, David Koechner, Courtney B. Vance, Tony Todd. Death stalks a new group of people, this time the employees of a company that narrowly escaped a deadly bridge collapse while on their way to a retreat. Much like FD4 the characters here aren’t going to win any personality awards and the death scenes have become almost cartoonish in their execution, with someone shouting, “Call 911!” after a woman’s fall results in her spine sticking out of her back. On a technical level, FD5 is probably the best in the series, with the bridge sequence rivaling anything seen in bigger budgeted Hollywood flicks. But by this fifth film the whole “Death’s Design” gimmick has worn thin, eliminating a lot of potential suspense and clever situations that earlier movies in the series were more successful at. That said, this one looks great, there’s no denying it’s never dull, and at times it goes down like candy. Slight but enjoyable, and with the best twist ending in the entire series. B–

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SCI-FI/FANTASY MONTH: Alien vs. Predator, John Dies at the End, The Omega Man, and Videodrome

ALIEN VS. PREDATOR (2004) d: Paul W. S. Anderson. c: Sanaa Lathan, Lance Henriksen, Raoul Bova, Ewen Bremner, Colin Salmon, Tommy Flanagan. This unabashedly fun merging of two of the biggest sci-fi/horror franchises of the ’80s has a group of explorers descending upon a hidden, ancient pyramid buried under the ice in Antarctica. They soon discover the site is where, millions of years ago, a war began between two extraterrestrial beings: the xenomorphs (aliens) and the alien bounty hunters (predators). Now, the humans are caught in the middle of a bloody rampage as the war rages on. Unlike the classic Alien and Aliens, AVP is best viewed as silly pulp entertainment and should never be taken seriously. The story is all over the place and most of the characters feel one-dimensional, but it’s fast-paced and the action is almost nonstop. Lathan makes for a spunky, smart heroine, although Ripley is sorely missed. Junky amusement that’s, dare I say, better than Alien 3. B–

JOHN DIES AT THE END (2012) d: Don Coscarelli. c: Chase Williamson, Rob Mayers, Paul Giamatti, Clancy Brown, Glynn Turman, Doug Jones. Two slacker friends, Dave (Williamson) and John (Mayers), in the midst of discovering a mysterious street drug that opens their minds to alternate dimensions and other supernatural activities, stumble upon a secret alien invasion of their small town. I think. Kooky and visually stimulating, John Dies at the End is a strange, albeit marginally entertaining, hodgepodge of comic book ideas and gory spectacle. To attempt understanding the confusing plotline is a lesson in futility. The film is intentionally incoherent and to try making sense of it is to miss the point; the world that Dave and his gang have inadvertently entered is a discombobulated mess where logic doesn’t apply. The practical FX look great, the digital ones not so much, but the movie’s cast is first-rate (especially Giamatti as a skeptical journalist) and take the material to a higher level, as does Coscarelli’s professional direction. Yet, despite its charms the movie never gels and feels more like a series of cool ideas better suited for several episodes of Black Mirror. Ultimately, it’s the screenplay that dies in the end. C

THE OMEGA MAN (1971) d: Boris Sagal. c: Charlton Heston, Anthony Zerbe, Rosalind Cash, Paul Koslo, Eric Laneuville. Thoughtful adaptation of the Richard Matheson book, I Am Legend, about Dr. Neville (Heston), a survivor in a post-apocalyptic world. Biological warfare has killed most of humanity and left the rest as light-sensitive mutants who see Neville, and other potential survivors, as the enemy. Part gothic horror, part sci-fi adventure, Omega Man replaces Matheson’s vampires with talking, intelligent monsters and in doing so creates a world that doesn’t question why bad things happen, but why we allowed it, eventually realizing that humans are humanity’s worst enemy. Although somewhat dated in tone, this is still very enjoyable and often exciting. The film was fairly transgressive for its time in its portrayal of an interracial relationship between Heston and Cash, especially in such a high-profile studio film. Worth a look if the 2007 Will Smith version (or the 1964 Vincent Price version) is not your cup of tea. B

VIDEODROME (1983) d: David Cronenberg. c: James Woods, Debbie Harry, Sonja Smits, Jack Creley, Leslie Carlson. Pseudo-intellectual claptrap about the owner of a small TV station (Woods) specializing in obscure adult entertainment who comes across a strange broadcast signal that shows nothing but torture and violence. When he investigates the origin of the transmission, he gets caught up in a conspiracy dealing with mind-control, hallucinations, and false reality. The film is trying to say something about the effects television has on society, especially those with “soft” minds in a harsh reality, but its story is too jumbled in its absurd dream-like structure that it becomes nothing more than a cold, insensitive exercise in pretentious art. Woods and Harry are good, but the only reason to watch this is for Rick Baker’s outrageous makeup FX. C–

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SCI-FI/FANTASY MONTH: Altered States, Blade, Lord of Illusions, and The McPherson Tape

ALTERED STATES (1980) d: Ken Russell. c: William Hurt, Blair Brown, Bob Balaban, Charles Haid. A brilliant scientist (Hurt), obsessed with accessing the brain’s unexplored subconscious, experiments with hallucinogens and taps into a metaphysical reality, eventually physically devolving back to early man and other primordial states. If you can ignore the fundamentally silly story idea you might be able to enjoy this visually arresting adaptation of Paddy Chayefsky’s novel, which can read as a variant of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. There’s a bit too much uninteresting scientific jibber-jabber and most of the characters are cold and unsympathetic, but Dick Smith’s still-impressive makeup FX are first-rate and there’s no denying Russell’s direction is often exciting. A rushed happy ending slightly stains an otherwise good film. B–

BLADE (1998) d: Stephen Norrington. c: Wesley Snipes, Stephen Dorff, Kris Kristofferson, N’Bushe Wright, Donal Logue, Udo Kier. Before 2000’s X-Men blew open the comic book movie floodgates, there came this solid adaptation of the supernatural Marvel character created by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan: Blade (Snipes), a half-vampire, half-mortal man who uses his physiology to become the perfect vampire hunter. Blade must stop a rogue vampire (Dorff) and his army of followers when they try to fulfill a prophecy that will bring an end to all humans in the form of an all-powerful vampire being. Snipes is well cast as the titular anti-superhero and he and Kristofferson, as Blade’s father figure, play well off each other. The pacing could be tighter (the movie feels too long), but this is harmless popcorn fun best enjoyed with your brain turned off. B

LORD OF ILLUSIONS (1995) d: Clive Barker. c: Scott Bakula, Famke Janssen, Kevin J. O’Conner, Daniel Von Bargen, J. Trevor Edmond, Joseph Latimore. A vastly underrated supernatural noir from Barker, based on his short story about guilt-ridden P.I. D’Amour (Bakula), who gets involved in the accidental death of famous illusionist, Swann (O’Conner). D’Amour eventually discovers Swann and his wife (Janssen) are surviving victims of a murderous cult leader known as Nix (Von Bargen), who apparently held otherworldly powers and can rise from the dead. Visually impressive, this is perhaps Barker’s best work on a technical level, with some imaginative set pieces and good use of digital FX that don’t drown the story but help move it along. The characters are complex and interesting, and the acting is good, especially O’Conner as the troubled, and magically gifted, illusionist. Ignored upon its initial release, this deserves another look. B+

THE McPHERSON TAPE (1989) d: Dean Alioto. c: Tommy Giavocchini, Patrick Kelley, Shirly McCalla, Stacey Shulman, Christine Staples. Predating The Blair Witch Project by ten years, this micro-budget yarn chronicles a small family gathering interrupted by the sudden arrival of a UFO, all captured with a VHS camcorder. A clever concept and a realistic setting helps sustain interest for most of the story, but a lot of the time is spent on the family running around and screaming at each other. There’s also too much time wasted on characters questioning the relevance of the videocamera – something found footage would later wisely skate around – and a lot of the action happens in the dark, making it difficult to see what’s going on. Inventive on many levels, lackluster on others. C+