It's Completely Unnecessary Horror Sequel Time!

Seriously, who asked for a sequel to 1999's House on Haunted Hill. I saw that when I was 15 and didn't actually find it too bad - although I haven't watch it since so who knows - but, really? Return to House on Haunted Hill. The title isn't even grammatically correct.


But, if you are interested and want to know it stars, well you're in for a treat! They managed to rope in some pretty big names. Observe:

Amanda Righetti - She was in some episodes of The OC. She had the hots for Ryan, if memory serves!

Erik Palladino - He was in Road Kill! But not the surprisingly good Road Kill with Paul Walker, Steve Zahn and Helen Hunt Leelee Sobieski, so really what's the point?

Cerina Vincent - If I'm remember correctly, she played the chick who had an, erm, interesting moment with a leg razor in Cabin Fever. SHE'S PRACTICALLY A SUPERSTAR!

Tom Riley - I imagine this guy is hoping Return to House on Haunted Hill is his big break!

Andrew Lee Potts - There is nothing remotely interesting about this guy's resume. He was on an episode of Heartbeat once!

Steven Pacey - He was on an episode of a show called M.I.T. - Murder Investigation Team a show that was surely not even in the slightest inspired by C.S.I. - Crime Scene Investigation. Not at all. Not one tiny bit.

Jeffrey Combs - The one cast-member with the possibility of being known... BY NAME!!! He's been of shows like Enterprise, The 4400, Justice League and Deep Space Nine and was in movies like Re-Animator and I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. He even played Montgomery Clift in a TV movie called Norma Jean and Marilyn and was in the cast of the unfortunately-canned TV series of The Net - that fantastically ridiculous Sandra Bullock internet thriller.

It turns out that Combs' character appeared in the original movie as well, making him the only one from the 1999 film to return. No Geoffrey Rush, Famke Janssen, Ali Larter, Peter Gallagher or Taye Diggs in this one. Although some of the movies Ali Larter made in the time between bouts of fame look like dogs. She played "Fardart" in National Lampoon's Homo Erectus. Uh-huh. I have no doubt she's be up for another round of house hauntings if it weren't for her role on Heroes. They could easily come up with a ridiculous excuse to have her character return to the house, surely.

!!Merry Scary Month of October!!

I finally got around to creating the latest banner, and it - naturally - has a scary theme. If you can't see it at the top of the page then hit refresh a few times and it should eventually pop up.

The banner is celebrating some of my favourite scary movies. That creepy white creature with the yellow teeth is actually Sheryl Lee as Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, a horror flick if ever I saw one. That black and white woman on the bottom there is actually from the original 1961 Robert Wise version of The Haunting. The big glowing orange thing is, I hope you're aware, the central image of the Halloween poster. And what an image! Over the top of that is Leatherface in all his Texas Chainsaw Massacre glory. Next to him is Simone Simon as the deadly femme fatale of the original 1942 Cat People. And then at the right of the banner is Heather Donahue in her famous Blair Witch Project pose.

The scary month is upon us and landing right in the middle of it all is my birthday on the 13th. I was, thankfully, not born on a Friday the 13th (although it was a Saturday!) but have already had a couple of birthday fall on that date. Starting the day after - hopefully - on the 14th will be a little project of mine that will run for a while, and that I hope people will get a kick out of. This latest banner is also a hint as to at least two of the contenders, but where will they lie?


And don't forget the 31 films that give you the willies countdown over at Shoot the Projectionist, which begins on said birthday the 13th. I'm sure it'll be filled with lots of images to give you the heebie jeebies in this merry month of October.

Spot the Odd One Out!

I took an image from one of this year's horror flicks, the remake of The Hitcher, and made some text additions. I ask you, dear readers, what is the odd one out. The smooth and shiny (perhaps panteen!) hair? The tight-fitting brown singlet top? The mini denim skirt with fringe hem? The leather calf boots? Or...


THE MOSSBERG 500 CRUISER WITH PISTOL GRIP???!!!
Hmmm. That's a tough one doncha think? You can click the image and look at it a bit bigger if you're stuck on what the answer is.

And to think, the scene in which this moment takes place Sophia Bush (the woman in the image, whoever she is) was just inside a van that was leaking petrol and set alight, prompting it to explode into a big giant fireball with her inside. I like knowing that she, and her silky smooth shiny hair, managed to get out of that pesky situation with nary a scratch on her and that she had suddenly acquired the ability to fire and charge an assault rifle.

Also, the movie was sorta shit. That's all.

Witchy Woman

O.T.I.S. has an interesting article up at the moment about the site's author taking a pilgrimage of sorts ot Burkittsville, Maryland. I'm sure you know the town whether you've been there or not, because it is the hometown (or, something like that) of witches named Blair and child abducters and cabins in the woods with bloody handprints on the wall.

Let's get this straight: I have no, nor have I ever, have any intention to ever visit this town. Never. Not once. Not even if my two best friends decided to - for some strange drug-fuelled reason - moved there and get married. No even if Hugh Jackman asked me to visit him on the set of his latest movie... okay, maybe I would visit for that. Much like how I will never ever drive through Texas - I honestly believe chainsaw-weilding maniacs will kill me if I do - or visit a clown college because they will grab me and shove me into one of their creepy clown cars and kidnap me.

The reasons is very simple:

The Blair Witch Project scared the LIVING DAYLIGHTS outta me!

To this very day I routinely label it as the scariest movie I've ever seen - I wear it as a badge of honour that in this day and age I can be brave enough (uh-huh, brave!) to state such a fact. I don't deny that I sat on my bed in the foetal position during a lot of it.

You see, when I watch a horror movie the way my brain works is this - it's scary if I can imagine myself in the situation actually being scared. I can't imagine being scared in real life by a possessed doll or something like that, which is why I never find those sort of scary movies actually scary. They have no base in reality. Even something like Alien that's set in out of space I can still connect to it because, while I can't imagine being in space, I can imagine the situation. I generally don't find zombies and vampires scary unless it's done like Night of the Living Dead and has a sense of realism about it.

So, instead of generally not making any sense right now, I'll get back to The Blair Witch Project. For me it just feels like the ultimate scary experience. The situation that the characters in that movie are in, while obviously based in myth and legend, just feels like it could be real. And to couple it with such a mundane activity as camping in the woods just raises the creepiness.

The scene where the three filmmakers lost in the woods are asleep in their tend and start hearing noises just freaks me out. Have you ever been camping? It's just like that! And then the tent starts to shake?! Jesus Christ! And unlike a lot of scary movies, even the scenes in daylight are terrifying.

Of course the piece de resistance, if you will, of scariness in The Blair Witch Project is the scene in the house with the handprints. Something that's very rare in movies is when the very last frames pull the biggest punch. Once the film ended and the credits started to roll with that eerie music over the top I was literally shaking I was so scared.


Yet, I do like to torture myself, and I have indeed watched it more than once. Something about the rush of terror that goes through me when I watch a scary movie is hard to replicate in real life, which is why The Blair Witch Project scares me so much. I feel that if I went camping I could very easily have something like this happen to me. I can't however ever picture myself being terrorised by Chucky in any life.

I know this entry made, like, no sense, but that's how I get when discussing this movie. An incoherent mess.

Deep Blue Rogue

This was meant to only be a couple of paragraphs, hence it's kind of all over the place-ness...

The second film by Wolf Creek director Greg McLean is another strong effort, and another step forward in the progression of Aussie film - slowly realising that there's nothing wrong with a well-made genre flick. The film does have flaws though, don't get me wrong, but the pros mostly make up for it. Rogue features two very strong acts, the first two. The first being essentially the set up. It's not as character-forming as the work in Wolf Creek but there are about four times as many characters here as there were in that desert flick so that's understandable. These opening passages include stunning photography by the late Will Gibson (whoever says this will hurt Northern Territory tourism obviously hasn't seen the sweeping majestic cinematography on offer).


The second act is definitely the strongest as the band of characters fight for survival against the arrival of one motha of a crocodile - the first sighting (a mere shadow) had the entire cinema jumping out of their seats. Several great set pieces later (the rope sequence and the anchor sequence specifically) and two quite shocking character moments later we get to the third act, which unfortunately takes a turn for the worst with what is - quite literally - one of the most absurd plot developments I've seen in a long time (sorry, but it is ridiculous to the highest order) and I'm sure you'll be able to figure it out the moment a certain character gasps into proceedings. But, having said that, the third act is, at the same time, a sort of retro throwback to silly monster movies (15ft croc tails slamming people against rocks apparently don't do much damage,apparently!) and it's still fun, if just tainted by ruining a really great geniune shock (well, it shocked me, but I had forgotten about the trailer which sort of ruins the biggie) by following it up with one of the silliest moments. Still, McLean's command of the camera is in obvious spotlight here. As a filmmaking exorcise Rogue is, admittedly, not as good as Wolf Creek, but as a cinema-going experience I think it's better. And you won't feel like holding yourself in your bedroom slashing for days on end once this baby's finished - it even ends with a fade to white. Jesus Christ! What's McLean playing at here.


Perhaps the best thing about Rogue is the way it plays with viewers' expectations. People die who you wouldn't necessarily expect. People who you assume will die by the 20-minute mark don't ever meet their presumed date with destiny. Some people will be disappointed by this - the body count is perhaps much too low for some people's liking, to each their own - but I found it refreshing. What's that? The loud oaf turns out to be resourceful? Sounds crazy, but true. As I said, many will be turned off by this, I imagine some people will complain that there aren't enough scary moments. For me, the entire second act was scary. Just watching these people on this ever-disappearing piece of land in the middle of a croc-infested river is scarier than seeing people chomped to pieces.


I'd be remiss to not talk about the acting from the solid ensemble. There aren't any silly teenagers in distress here. The youngest castmember, Suburban Mayhem's Mia Wasikowska, equates herself well with the frantic proceedings. The rest of the non-mains are made up by the likes of ASHKA!!!!! Heather Mitchell as a thankfully un-gooey (can I trademark that phrase?) cancer patient, Wolf Creek's psychopathic John Jarratt as a solo adventurer with a reason, Stephen Curry as a loud photographer and Geoff Morrell as a desperately unhinged father. The leads aren't as memorable with American import Michael Vartan, Radha Mitchell (using her Aussie twang again) and Sam Worthington proving to be pretty faces, although Mitchell does has some fine moments as the conflicted captain.


Greg McLean has indeed crafted an old fashioned monster movie with a modern streak. At times it reeks of being an early screenplay that was only given a spritz of Spray 'N' Wipe around the edges (it adheres more to the screenwriting rulebook than Wolf Creek, which threw the rulebook out the window and gave it the "head on a stick" treatment). It works on a different game altogether than Wolf Creek, so it's not entirely fair to compare the two - although that's a given in any similar case. In the introduction he gave at the screening McLean said he wanted to make the sort of movie that foreign filmmakers would use our land for, and I think he succeeded. He has definitely utilised "Australia" as an idea and as a location. Early moments suggest a possible mythical Picnic at Hanging Rock-esque turn could be about to be played, while at other points it feels like a theatre production - Rogue the Musical!, perhaps? There is, generally, only three sets necessary, after all.


All this begs the question of what next for Mr McLean? As I've previously stated directors that show the skill of McLean's level are routinely poached for overseas and I hope that doesn't happen in this case. McLean seems so well-suited to telling Australian stories. He knows the land and he knows the way around Australian characters - that the American tourism writer played by Vartan is the film's weakest character is no coincidence I'm sure.


One film that I kept coming back to when thinking about Rogue was Renny Harlin's scientifically-altered shark movie Deep Blue Sea from 1999. Both revel in a sort of old-fashioned entertainment. Like that movie (although, perhaps without as much nudgenudgewinkwink going on), Rogue proves to be a wildly entertaining movie for people who like their scares to be more of the fun variety. It's the type of movie that you can take a date to and watch them squirm and then jump into your pants when the "boo" moments happen. The type where you can jump and then settle back in your seat and laugh to yourself. The type where you can yell at the characters for being idiots. It's the sort of scary movie that has, unfortunately, been thrown to the wayside by directors wanting to play a cruel game of oneupmanship. Just sit back with a box of popcorn and enjoy the ride. B+

How Horrific!

The horror genre and Australian film have a beginning not too dissimilar to America, but unlike that country which embrased the genre and developed it into a money-making machine, the genre never really took ahold in Australia. In the beginning it was b-grade horror films that played at drive-ins and that revelled in absurdist violent and horror. In the early 1980s Movies like Richard Franklin's Roadgames (with Jamie Lee Curtis) and Patrick, Brian Trenchard-Smith's Turkey Shoot and The Man from Hong Kong and Arch Nicholson's Fortress were at the top of the genre. Films like Roadgames, Russell Mulcahy's Razorback and equally "grindhouse" titles such as Mad Max even regularly found themselves with statues and nominations from awards groups such as the Australian Film Institute.


Patrick
The genre seemed to disappear as many of the directors responsible for the "ozploitation" movement (as it was known) followed that well-trodden trail to Hollywood when the drive in's started to evaporate and the Australian film industry tried to become more prestigious and serious. George Miller went overseas and made films like Lorenzo's Oil and the Hollywood-ised Beyond Thunderdome, Mulcahy made films such as the Highlander series and Ricochets while Richard Franklin made the apparently decent Psycho II.


Roadgames
In 2000 a movie called Cut (featuring, bizarrely, Molly Ringwald and Kylie Minogue as the "first victim") was made as a way of re-establishing Australia's genre roots - if there's one problem with the Aussie film industry (there are many) that I can't understand, it's our reluctance to embrace genre films - alas, the film was a load of crap basically (even if looking back on it, it's ridiculously silly fun) and it didn't exactly set the box office on fire.


The same fate befell 2003's Lost Things by Martin Murphy. Getting much more press and attention, the $80,000 zombie flick Undead did moderately well. It's creators, The Spierig Brothers, won the FIPRESCI Prize at the Melbourne Internation Film Festival (MIFF) for "For daring to be everything that Australian films are not supposed to be: part of a popular, disreputable genre. We commend it as an entertainment that is also political, while showing the pleasures of hands-on filmmaking." See what I mean? But these last few years have seen a resurgance in the output of the horror genre, as well as it's marketability.


Undead
Greg McLean's Wolf Creek in 2005 is the one that kicked it off, although Australians had been prominant in previous years in the horror genre overseas. Aussie Jamie Blanks, who had only made the short horror title Silent Number in 1993, was in the helm of Hollywood slasher flicks Urban Legend (good) and Valentine (very bad), while James Wan and Leigh Whannell were behind the incredibly successful Saw franchise. Wan directed and Whannell wrote and starred in the original and easily the best before being dumped/stepping down). Wan and Whannell have since gone on to direct the Magic-inspired (I can only assume as much) Dead Silence and Death Sentence.

But back to McLean and Wolf Creek. The film was marketed as being "based on a true story" (aren't they all?), but was actually only inspired by the real life cases of Ivan Milat and Bradley John Murdoch, two serial killers who roamed the Aussie outback. Murdoch convicted in 2005 of the disappearance of British traveller Peter Falconio and the attempted kidnapping and torture of Falconio's girlfriend Joanna Lees, while Milat is serving time for the known murder of seven backpackers in the 1980s and 1990s.


Wolf Creek
Wolf Creek proved to be a watershed moment if you will. For a R18+ rated (Australia's harshest rating, equivelent to America's NC17) horror film whose biggest star was John Jarratt it's box office was phenomenal, and it went on to become the highest grossing Aussie film of 2005, even making it's debut at the number one position at the box office. It proved to be a minor hit in the UK and the US (where it's release was incredibly destroyed by a Christmas Day release). It even managed seven AFI nominations including a Best Director nod for McLean.


Wolf Creek again
Jamie Blanks has returned to Australia to make Storm Warning, which is apparently going to be another gorefest (it has been rated MA15+, but, if the trailer is any indication, it actually has a storyline to go with the violence) and Greg McLean's second feature outing Rogue is set for release in November (which I will discuss in the AFI guide soon). That's just the tip of the iceburg however as the IF In Production website demonstrates.

Amongst the upcoming titles are Black Water (image, right), described as "a terrifying tale of survival in the mangrove swamps of Northern Australia", although the poster makes me think it's a direct-to-dvd Rogue. There's The Hunt which sort of sounds like a twist on Battle Royale - "5 killers, 5 victims, 1 aim... to survive." The Forest sounds promising, described as "the terrifying tale of nine Australians who are abducted while holidaying in the picturesque Flinders Ranges". The horror comedy Zombies in Combies (love that title) seems to have taken a page from the Shaun of the Dead "rom-zom-com" book with it's storyline "a backpacking American is looking forward to meeting up with the girl of his dreams before an outbreak of zombiism thwarts his rural rendezvous." Nice.


Rogue
Lastly, perhaps the biggest light on the horizon (after Rogue) in terms of both commercial (here and internationally) and quality success is the upcoming film Daybreakers. It's written and directed by the Spierig Brothers and alongside it's cast of Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe it features Australians Sam Neill, Claudia Karvan and Vince Colosimo (who you can see in the below picture). It has a budget of $21mil and is an Australian/US co-production like other recent big films Happy Feet and Moulin Rouge!


Daybreakers
Alas, with buzz and success comes the allure of Hollywood, which just recreates the whole cycle over again. Here's hoping people like Greg McLean, the Spierig brothers and Jamie Blanks choose to hang around these shores for a few more years to come.

(this entry was inspired by yesterdays viewing of Rogue, which, as I said, I will be discussing later)

"You're Gonna Die!"

I really don't know why I'm following the developments in the release of The Strangers starring Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman other than it seems to be exactly like French horror thriller Ils, which I had a dubious pleasure of seeing at MIFF.

Below is the "Yellow Band" (fucked if I know what the hell that means. You crazy Americans and your crazy colour-coding) trailer for The Strangers and it certainly makes the film look more action oriented than the more psychologically mind-fucking Ils. I do quite love the trailer actually. It doesn't show so much violence as to possibly turn people off. I'd go so far as to say it's one of the best trailers of the year. It's positively fucked up and scary as hell at the same time.

One bit that seemed odd was when the knock at the door is heard and they say "Isn't it four in the morning?" or whatever they say (because knocks on doors are odd at 4am doncha know) yet they have just gotten all dressed up for, seemingly, a nice night out (dinner and a scary movie, perhaps?)

Well Played, Poster: Storm Warning

This poster has apparently been floating around out there for a while now, but I only just saw it. It's the poster for an upcoming Aussie horror flick entitled Storm Warning. It is directed by Jamie Blanks (he made the ridiculously fun Urban Legend and ridiculously ridiculous Valentine) and will be released sometime in the next ten, twenty, thirty years (it's being distributed by Dimension, an extention of those pesky Weinstein brothers' company).

Upon seeing the poster I actually thought it was a tad silly, but then I saw the trailer and realised this poster perfect. It's probably the first poster in a long time that, like the film it's advertising, actually harkens back to the old days of horror. Those big bloodied eyes, the man with the shotgun, the ominous house. I particularly love the lightning strikes and the use of greens, blues and aquas throughout (the movie is connected to the water after all). And I love that it looks like an island in this expansive sea and these characters are warnings not to go there, with the very tip pointing at this lonely isolated boat (the movie is set on an island after all).


[click to enlarge]

It's actually quite great, don't you think? It totally tells you everything you need to know. "THE SHOCKING NEW FILM FROM THE DIRECTOR OF URBAN LEGEND" - while Urban Legend is neither shocking nor particularly great as anything than a silly post-Scream slasher flick - I love it when posters trump up their movies as things such as "SHOCKING!" Perhaps that's just me, but it really gets me pumped up. I wish movies by legendary directors had captions saying "THE STUNNING NEW FILM BY MARTIN SCORSESE" or whatever. Makes it feel special, non?

I'll ignore the silly tagline - "Survival Can Be Murder" huh? - and just focus on the fact that this feels like one of those old school painted posters that used to be so in vogue (and particularly amazing) and that it looks scary in itself. It hasn't gone out of it's way to look horrifying (no naked women holding decapitated heads, no decomposing limbs representing the number of sequels, etc), just a rather simple design, but done with enough pizazz to work incredibly well and to stand out. Even if the movie looks like it could either be a) really bloody scary or b) really gross, the poster is creepy and visually kind of amazing.

Funny Hah Hah...?

I watched Michael Haneke's Funny Games tonight and I felt like typing something down before I forgot about it, because I may not get a chance to do so tomorrow. I... I have major issues with it, which is sad because I so wanted to like it. I loved the opening sequence and the set up scenes were done well, but once the issue arrived it didn't leave until it, well, left.


My issue is to do with the villains. I didn't like them at all, but not in the "they're the bad guys, duh!" way. They made me feel unpleasant, and that's not something I want to feel in a movie. I can feel scared, nervous, tense, disturbed even (I would champion a film if it made me feel these things), but unpleasant isn't a feeling I enjoy having. It's a feeling when I don't want to watch the movie anymore. When no matter how good everything is (the acting or whatever) I just feel uncomfortable like I've got an itch under my skin and I ask myself "Why am I watching this?". I felt a really deep repulsion inside of me whenever these characters were on screen and it's a feeling that makes me sick to my stomach, quite frankly. Some people may find this trait in a movie to be a positive thing (especially in a movie such as Funny Games), I most certainly do not. I got this feeling during Romper Stomper. I got this feeling during Saw II. I got this feeling during The Last King of Scotland. And I got it during several other movies. I didn't find Funny Games scary, or tense, or nerve-racking or disturbing. I found it to be an unpleasant experience.

I'm sure Haneke had a reason for doing the things he did in this movie, but doesn't the idea of omnipotent villains sort of defeat the purpose of even making the movie in the first place? If the killers can simply reverse time to stop an attack against them then it renders the entire movie invalid and I feel cheated. Where's the payoff? I was reminded of recent French horror film Ils. That movie had a very bleak ending, but it was an ending that worked for the film. This end here just felt like a cheat, like I was being mocked for, GOSH, having the gaul to want a proper ending.

The scenes that did work were those without the villains (I can't be bothered finding out their names, quite frankly). The scenes after the incident (you'll know it if you've scene it) when the couple are alone in the house were tense and were scary. But then when the villains show back up and start, quite literally, reversing time it goes back to being an uncomfortable - and often silly - waste of time. What is the point of this movie? That filmmakers are manipulaters? Fiction is morphing into reality? By golly, that's a new one!

I will be interested to see how Haneke handles the reigns on the American remake (I will be interested on DVD, mind) to star Naomi Watts, Tim Roth and Skeevy McSkeeve Michael Pitt (who, purely by his similarity to the actor, I assume is playing the role of "Fatty"?) Speaking of Haneke, I must say I've been disappointed by him. The first of his films I ever saw was Hidden and I liked it a lot, but each film of his from his back catalogue that I have seen has disappointed. This, Code Unknown, The Piano Teacher (outside of Isabelle Huppert's performance) and Time of the Wolf was so boring I turned it off after 40 minutes. Am I just missing something or can someone help nudge me in the right line of thinking? C-

It was nice to see Ulrich Muhe though!

How Strange

This is a poster for the upcoming Liv Tyler/Scott Speedman film The Strangers. I normally wouldn't bother mentioning a film such as this, but I'm intrigued by it because it is the American remake of the French horror/thriller Ils, which I recently saw at MIFF. This version obviously focusing in on the "Liv Tyler fighting for her life" angle...


...as opposed to the first poster, which is one of the silliest/oddest/creepiest/perplexing posters I've seen in a long time. They didn't wear those masks in the original!


If it has any of the suspence and chills of Ils then it should be heartily scary experience. And for anyone who has seen the film, (spoilers if you haven't seen it) can they really keep such a, well, downbeat (that's a good description) ending or will they give it a Hollywood ending?

Hmmm... If you're commenting and you've seen Ils please use spoiler tags.

Five Random Observations/Thoughts

I'm terrified of clowns. I refuse to watch It because of it. The only clown I like is the one Bill Murray plays in Quick Change, but it helps that Quick Change is hilarious and brilliant. But, you know what's even worse than clowns. Clowns with painted on frowns. I mean, really. And today my supervisor mentioned clowns and then I had the clown theme music stuck in my head for ages and then all I could think of was how do they get so many clowns in those tiny cars?!?

Today I had a really bizarre moment at work. I started speaking in am American accent. Only three words ("where are you"). I'm not sure how, it just came out that way and it felt incredibly strange and I didn't like it. I'm not used to pronouncing my Rs so predominantly. Needless to say I snapped right out of it and went on my merry way. Next perhaps I'll start saying "tuna fish" (is it not tuna if you don't say "fish"?) and be wanting to go to summer camp.

I have two scars on my face that I don't remember getting. I have a vertical one above my left eyebrow and one horizontal one under my bottom lip. They're not very prominent at all, but I still wish I knew how they got there!

I'd really like someone to take a screengrab of that moment in Inland Empire where Laura Dern runs at the camera with that horrified look on her face. And how long will it be for David Lynch to make another movie, I wonder?

The Crying Game is amazing.

That's all.

I Think I Love This Poster

...and yet, I'm not quite keen enough on the poster for Pathology to reward it a "Well Played Poster" title. You're going to have to click it (below) to see it larger. I decided to put it in here in a smaller version because you kind of can't tell what it is in it's larger form when you're seeing it so close on a computer screen. I imagine seeing the larger version at a cinema, standing many metres away from it, the effect will be just as good, but up close it's like "wow, that's a lot of polaroid photos" and not much else. Yes?

I particularly love the tag line - notice the space between "no" and "body". As in "No body is safe" as opposed to the much lamer (and, thankfully, non existant) "Nobody is safe". Cause that would indeed be very lame. I think the movie has Milo Ventimiglia, which is alright I guess. It also, strangely, has Alyssa Milano.


A brief check of the film's IMDb page makes it sound much less interesting and creepy. "A group of medical students devise a deadly game: to see which one of them can commit the perfect murder." Hmm. They could just watch that episode of Veronica Mars where Veronica came up with the perfect murder and they'd be hunky dory, no?

Glenn's MIFF Experience

Initial comments on all films including The Untouchable, Still Life, Bella, Ils, Syndromes and a Century, The Boss of It All, A Walk Into the Sea, Savage Grace, The Man From London, Control and so-brief-they-barely-exist comments on David Lynch's Inland Empire with more words to come when I feel like it/get the time.


A work in progress. Will be updated with my thoughts and opinions once I've seen each movie. As you can tell I had to change something from the original bookings. I forgot I was going away to the Grampions for a weekend so I had to dump Syndromes and a Century and the Aussie doco Night. I instead picked up a different session of Syndromes as well as another doco I wanted to see and completely forgot about (so it was quite fortuitous actually) called A Walk Into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory about, as you can probably guess, the Warhol Factory. It features what is said to be the first ever recorded performance by The Velvet Underground (probably my favourite band ever - edit: which turned out to be a lie!) so that should be tops! It all starts tomorrow with screenings of The Untouchable and a film I've wanted to see for a long time, Still Life. Can't wait!


The Untouchable (screening 27/07):
This was really terrible. I contemplated walking out so I could say "I had my first walk out ever!" (if you exlude me walking out of The Patriot to get a drink and just not returning for 20 minutes) but then I was all "Wait, I don't have anywhere to go until the next movie", and then I frowned and decided to stick it out through the entire labourious 85 minutes of this awful French flim-flam shlack. D

Still Life (screening 27/07):
And then there was this, which was like some beautiful filmic poem. At first I wasn't feeling it at all - too mannered, and the performances were awkward - but then something just clicked, especially towards the second act which was an elegaic beauty of sorts. The cinematography was superb and the music! And, yeah, it was very good, indeed - much better than that ridiculous French crap, that's for sure. B+.


The Witnesses (screening 28/07):
I liked it, even if it was a bit long and the final act wasn't anywhere as interesting as the first two. More later, perhaps. B-

Control (screening 11/08):
Thoroughly interesting biopic of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis. It was nice to see a music biopic that wasn't on a person everyone considers a legend and who lead the typical rock star life (which movies like Ray, Walk the Line and La Vie en Rose have all followed to a tee to varying degrees of failure). In fact, for the most part Curtis' life seems relatively quaint compared to the overly-hystrionic lives of Edith Piaf and co. The downfall of Curtis was depression and not drug addiction, like it so routinely is with these biopic subjects. It was also nice to see a biopic on a musician that I knew I liked, yet knew nothing about. It was great to hear the first strums of a guitar and wonder "Is it 'Transmission'? 'Love Will Tear Us Apart'? 'She's Out of Control'?" Speaking of which, the performance sequences are all done nicely, and they look great in the clean black and white. Performances are good, especially Samantha Morton as Curtis' wife. It's essentially just another Samantha Morton performance, but just another Samantha Morton performance is always welcomed. B


Bella (screening 05/08):
Bella really does owe a lot to Before Sunset, doesn't it? But then again, so does Once and I don't hear anyone complaining about that movie. Hmm. Anyway. I really enjoyed this movie. Sometimes it's nice to just sit down in a darkened theatre for an hour and a half and be in the company of people who are interesting and a worth spending time with but who aren't depressed or on drugs or who have no reason to live. You know what I mean? I really liked the texture and vibrancy of the opening sequences. I really liked the connection between the two leads (Eduardo Verástegui and Tammy Blanchard). I really liked how the story developed. I really liked how the ending was completely unexpected. I just really liked Bella. Although it slightly terrified me how scarily similar Blanchard looks like Hilary Swank! B+

Ils (screening 05/08):
Eep! This movie was quite scary. It was only 70 minutes long, but then if they had filled out the running time it would just be "character development" and who wants that? We don't know anything about the two lead characters (played by Olivia Bonamy and Michaël Cohen) other than she's a teacher and he's a writer. I guess that I still felt for these people as they're brutally terrorised despite not knowing anything about them should count for something. I think the reason I was so scared was because it was based in reality. I don't tend to find vampires and werewolves and the like very scary at all. But something like The Blair Witch Project? ABSOLUTELY FRIGHTENING! Anyway, it also helps that two days before viewing this film I had a very similar experience (just, ya know, without the possible outcome of death - I'll explain later! It's terrifying). Oh, yeah, the movie. Umm. It's scary. Oh, and the sound design was amazing (I know!). B


INLAND EMPIRE (screening 07/08):
Flimflamshmozzleboogiewoogieamazingpurplemonkeydishwasher. A-... I think.

Syndromes and a Century (screening 08/08):
I don't think I "got" this movie. Actually. No. Scrap that. I don't think I didn't "get" it, I know I didn't "get" it. And not in the way that I didn't "get" Inland Empire, which despite not making sense was at least still fascinating and amazing to watch. Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Syndromes of a Century however I just didn't "get" and didn't really enjoy, either. I was into it for a while, but then... I dunno. Just nothing. I didn't "get" why the story started all over again. I didn't "get" what these people were talking about beyond the rudimentary. I didn't "get" what all the symbology was about. I dunno. It was weird and I nearly fell asleep (fourth film in 24 hours!) The cinematography and music was nice. C+


The Boss of it All (screening 10/08):
Lars Von Trier's attempt at a comedy is surprisingly good. It is essentially an episode of The Office set in Denmark and expanded to 100 minutes, but that can still be entertaining! I enjoyed seeing Von Trier regular Jens Albinus (Idioterne) as well as Mia Lhyne and Iben Hjejle. And while she didn't really do much I loved Louise Mieritz's character who works in the copy room but is afraid of the photocopier. Funny stuff. And, naturally, Von Trier inserts his own wicked sense of humour into the side proceedings. Overall it was an enjoyable time, which was only sullied by the unfortunate subtitles. This is a very white movie - there are white walls, while skies, white floors, white everything and they use... white subtitles. It made it very hard to read sometimes (it also didn't help that I had a big head in the way to the left of the screen and I had to keep moving my head around to see what they were saying!) B

A Walk Into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory (screening 10/08):
Damn! This could have been so much better. Alas, as it is, it gets by due to the strength of it's topic. This documentary by the niece of oft-forgotten Warhol Factory regular Danny Williams who mysterious disappeared without a trace. It features some amazing never-before-seen footage of the Factory taken by Williams as well as film clips. It even includes a rare short directed by Williams entitled The Factory, which uses Williams' trademark strobing and hectic editing (one talking head says that Williams would have been "happier than a shit eating pig" with todays use of rapid-fire editing).

Unfortunately director Esther Robinson chooses to film the movie in a very bizarre manner. Closeups are routinely out of focus, simple moments - for example, the viewing of a newspaper clipping - are used for more focus pulling and shaky camera movements (so much so that we can't even see what we're meant to be looking at). At one point the camera even veers away from a person talking and focuses on the wall for several seconds. It's as if director of photography Adam Cohen wasn't even there. And in all the old footage taken from Warhol's famous Factory, we never know who is who because they aren't labelled. That Brigid Berlin sure is a character though, isn't she? C+


Savage Grace (screening 12/08):
Hahah! This movie is utterly bonkers. It's not getting anywhere near the Oscars though, which is a shame for Julianne Moore because it's wonderfully entertaining here as an incestuous mother. The film does have major flaws though, particularly when it comes to said incest storyline. There are hints throughout that lead to how it comes about, but the sexuality of all of it's characters is incredibly confused so when it comes around the the scenes in question it hasn't really been explained as to why it's happening. Everybody in this movie must be bisexual, that's my theory. B-

The Man From London (screening 12/08):
Oh dear, this was painful. Firstly though, the cinematography in Bela Tarr's film noir of sorts is amazing, as is the sound design, which is all crashing waves and haunting sound effects. The music score sounds like some long lost collaboration between Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch, which is a good thing.

...but.

There's not necessarily always a "but" as they say, but there most definitely is in the case of The Man From London. This film is painful. It really is. It is in swift need of an editor (it's only 2 hours and 10 minutes, but it feels like 20) to cut down all the extraneous scenes. Actually, if they did that there'd be no movie because it has no plot. There is a vague form of a plot, but it's a subplot - and barely - and the rest of the movie is just filled with characters, quite literally, staring and stuff. Occasionally they walk somewhere. Sometimes they move from left to right, but that's about it. There's next to no dialogue in the entire first 30 minutes. There are scenes that last five minutes of characters walking somewhere and we don't even get to see where they're going! We just see them walking and that's it. No point whatsoever. Frustrating! And Tilda Swinton is incredibly bizarre. It's like she's in one of those poorly dubbed Asian kung-fu movies. Her lips are moving but it appears that she's been dubbed (the dialogue isn't in English), which makes me wonder why they cast Swinton in the first place if she can't speak the language. And furthermore, if she can speak the language why not let the dialogue soundtrack reflect that? And why were all the actors delayed? I swear there was a chasm of empty space between each line of dialogue. Ugh. This movie was terrible. D+ (for the photography and music).

Glenn Presents an SMS Conversation Between He and Simon About "Frorrer"

My good friend Simon is just like me! Except he's a hetero, lives in Sydney and has lame(r) taste in music. We had an entirely bizarre conversation via SMS today after I saw the French horror flick Ils last night. Here it is all it's all too brief glory.

GLENN:
Ils was quite scary.

SIMON:
Argh! Ils! Me want see! Maybe i'll go the blind import...

GLENN:
It's really short though! It's only 70minutes. Is that even technically feature length?

SIMON:
Yeah. just. I guess they kept it short to keep it effective? French horror is getting big! It's the new j-horror. Frorrer?

GLENN:
But haute tension was so bad! Like, really bloody bad!

SIMON:
I liked everything but the ending in that! Plus toronto has a couple of decent looking ones. And there's one called sheitan with vincent gallo playing this crazy dude and... um... his sister. That one wasn't that great.

GLENN:
Vincent Gallo can go suck donkey balls. That's all.

SIMON:
Wait! Cassel. Vincent cassel. Whoops. Sorry!

GLENN:
omg I need to see that movie! I love vincent cassel! Majorly.

SIMON:
Yeah, its not great. And it's pretty damn gross. But it's out here, at least!

GLENN:
But... Vincent cassel! Anything is better than j-horror though, don't you think!

SIMON:
It plays on very real fears! Of girls with creepy long hair! No, it's pretty bad, but it's prolific!

And then I was at work and the conversation ended. Just like this entry is ending... now. Now.

Underrated Movie of the Week

Day of the Triffids, 1962, dir. Steve Sekely, starring Howard Keel, Nicole Maurey, Jannette Scott, Kieron Moore, Mervyn Jones, Alison Leggatt, Colette Wilde, Ewan Roberts and Janina Faye

Lucky Clover

I haven't discussed JJ Abram's Cloverfield project yet. I was waiting until I saw an official version of the teaser than played before American cinemas showing Transformers. We got jipped - we got trailers for Licence to Wed and Die Hard 4.0. YAWN. Anyway. I had seen it in an unofficial bootleg (as if there's ever an "official bootlet"?) of the teaser and thought it was amazing. Well, today's my (and some of you guys' as well) lucky day as an official teaser has gone up on Apple.

It's really quite incredible. In the bootleg copy I watched I hadn't even noticed all those wild roars off in the background. Nor did I notice the man saying "It's alive! It's huge!" Man, this is good. I love the idea of doing a monster movie completely in handheld camera format. And I also love that it's an original idea (from the sounds of it).

It does have three big cons against, though. First is JJ Abrams, the film's producer. JJ's three television programs, Felicity, Alias and Lost all showed no clear idea (to me, anyway) that he can't structure something beyong maybe 2 seasons. Until he manages to create a great premise (which he's done, three times) and make it work for year after year after year I will continue to see him as so incredibly overrated. Secondly, it's director is some guy called Matt Reeves. His only film directorial role was for that deplorably Ross Gellar movie The Pallbearer. Yikes. He has worked in TV a lot, but nevertheless. Thirdly, it's being released in January. This screams to me as an August release, but oh well. Surely it's got to be better than other January fare like Hostel or White Noise or those Madea movies or whatever they are. Surely. Right?






Also, check out Ja at My New Plaid Pants. He actually likes Lost (Maybe it's just because the show has died in Australia, but I'm shocked to read that many people still put themselves through that show) and he's already blogged a bit about this movie. It'll surely be another of the movies he blogs about obsessively, no?

Getting Ready to Watch a Scary Movie...

This is my entry for The Performance That Changed My Life Blog-a-Thon over at All About My Movies, run by the delightful Emma.


An eleven and a half minute cameo may not be a typical selection for something as epic-in-scope as "the performance that changed my life", but I found it hard to think of a particular performance that changed the way I viewed movies or the craft as acting in general. I found the movies themselves are what have changed my life, and I've discussed them before (but I can't be bothered digging around the archives).

So instead I took a bit of a detour. I decided upon a specific scene that changed my life and that scene would be the opening sequence of Wes Craven's 1996 horror comedy thriller Scream. The film, which single handedly reinvigorated the horror genre (whether you like it or not), was ingenius in it's casting of the character of Casey Becker - a blonde seemingly all-American high schooler with a football jock boyfriend ("He's big! And he plays football! And he'll kick the shit out of you!") with a penchant for scary movies ("Halloween! You know, the one with the guy in the white mask who walks around and stalks babysitters.").


For a role that is actually just over eleven minutes long the makers decided to cast Drew Barrymore. She who was once a huge star as a child before descending into a drug-fuelled chasm. By the time Scream came around she was slowly making her way back into the mainsteam and it was these eleven and a half minutes that have pretty much solidified her place back in the world of film making.


The scene in question is a classic and created now a stock-standard slasher tradition - the opening scene murder. Usually played by an attractive well-known actress who becomes the first victim of the film's murderous villain. The scene in Scream is so incredibly scary and shocking in it's means (gutting? really?!) that upon watching it on VHS back in 1997 on a sick day from school (the mother had hired it out and I just happened to be in the room while she watched it) I was riveted. It struck me. It hit me at a core. Remember, I would have only been 12 at the time, too.


But you may be saying to yourself "it's not the performance!" but, oh - it most certainly is. Or, the performance is at least a major part of it, anyway. If I was to do an UMA award presentation for 1996 I would probably go as far as to nominate Barrymore for Best Supporting Actress (but, I would need to see more contenders first). If Judi Dench can win an Oscar for 8 minutes, then Drew Barrymore can be nominated for an UMA for eleven and change!


Barrymore puts so much into this small part that is transcends being a mere "opening scene murder" and becomes one of the scariest scenes in cinema history. The sight of nosey ol' Gertie from ET playing wicked games ("Jason! Jason!") on the phone with a mysterious hidden voice is fuckin' freaky, alright?! And if Barrymore sounds legitimately terrified it's because she is. Wes Craven actually threatened to murder a puppy just so she could look geniunely frightened. How sick is that?! I guess it worked though. There is pure terror in her eyes.


The reason though as to why Barrymore's performance (probably the best of her career, just fyi) changed my life is because of the effect it instantly had on me. This scene, this performance - as I said - instantly grabbed me. It got me hook, like and sinker. I continued watching this movie with the sort of hyper-scared enthusiasm that I think only younger people can have. I still get it after watching it more than one hundred times (I watched it once a day for about two months in 1997. I wore out the VHS for sure). I had seen movies before this that you could call "scary", but upon watching this one my eyes opened. "You can do this in a movie?" (I suspect this is the only reasoning for the continued Saw franchise, natch) I wondered how it was possible to elicit such a reaction from me. How could watching Barrymore fight for her life charge me up so much? I scared myself for a bit when watching it.


Scream lead me down a garden path to a place where I am today. After watching this movie I was intrigued as every other budding movie buff is around that age - "What else is out there?" My household soon got the crazy program of sorts called "The Internet" and it was because of Scream - and because of those eleven minutes - that lead me to seek out places on the Internet that could satiate my desire to know everything. I discovered websites such as IMDb, Dark Horizons and the like. I devoured film information. What movies were coming out, what movies were being made, who was being cast in what. I spent hours just letting my brain soak it all up. Those were the early stages of the film nerd I am now.


After the release of Scream 2 (a movie I like even more than the first) I started to visit forums about the franchise. I met a lot of fans. We discussed what could happen in Scream 3 (including who would be the opening scene murder, of course) alongside many other things Scream and non-Scream related. Many of them I am still friends with today. One of them, Jen, from Sydney is holidaying in Melbourne next week and we're catching up (we're going to the Pixar Exhibit at ACMI, funnily enough). Another, Jo, came all the way from Perth just to celebrate my 21st with me, and I've met others from California, Alaska, Sydney and somewhere in Holland, plus I've had the pleasure of knowing many others from all over Australia, America, England and various other places. So it changed my life in a personal sense as well.


It also got me writing from a young age, a past-time that I continue to this very day (clearly) and that I wish to persue as a career of some sort throughout my life. I began writing silly horror movies about killers on the set of a movie (which would, curiously, go on to be the plot of Scream 3) and other horror movie ripoffs - all of which would feature an opening scene murder. But nothing I, nor anybody else - professional or not - could ever compare to what Craven, Kevin Williamson (the writer) and Barrymore achieved in the opening of Scream. I may have been a sick twisted fifteen-year-old, but I'm fairly sure I wouldn't have liked Hostel then, either!


Barrymore's performance more than anything opening my eyes to what a person could do on screen. She made me feel for a character that I only knew for eleven minutes. It gave me an expectation for the future. If someone is capable of this in the short amount of time that they had, and in a slasher film no less, then why should I expect any less? It's not my favourite performance of all time, or one of my top 20 or 50 or whatever, but it was a vital part in (cue Thomas Newman score) The Evolution of Me... Coming to cinemas July 14.

I could post the final image of Barrymore in Scream, but it's tres gruesome (ENTRAILS! BLOOD!) so I'll exorcise good taste and leave it at that.