Total Film's 50 Most Hated Movies of All Time # 34 - Van Helsing

Back in 2004, Van Helsing was probably 1 of the top 3 movies I was jacked for.  Why?  Well, why do think my blogger name is Stephenstein?  Growing up, I read all the books I could on the famous Universal Monsters.  Dracula, the Frankenstein Monster, the Wolfman, I inhaled it all.  When the classic Universal Monster sets came out, I bought the set that included the busts.  I was jacked for a movie that would have all three of the "top" Universal Monsters in them and I was especially excited to see them done the right way.


So, I watched Van Helsing in the theatre and the first half an hour or so was great, no complaints, the movie was delivering on all counts.  Then it got...stupid.  Why did Dracula want to be a father? (I mean, every time he turns a human into a vampire, is he not in essence their father?)  Why was The Wolfman basically a thug character?  Who the hell thought up that only a werewolf can defeat a vampire?  What the hell was going on here?


So, did not dig the movie, nevertheless.  I think it was a valiant attempt, but in the end it was not handled the right way.  That being said, I still bought the 3-disc version of the movie.  Why?  Because I still admire the Universal Monsters, I still like them in the movie, even if Richard Roxburgh hammed it up as Dracula and even if the Frankenstein Monster sounded to me like  a bad Broadway actor trying to sound Shakespearean or something.  The fact is, they were still the Universal Monsters, their design was neat and in the end, it was a passable, if not very flawed film. 


Therefore, if I can find myself not hating this film, even if they screwed up royally and I at least have some background with the Universal Monsters and their history, then I find it hard to believe that Total Film has any right to criticize this movie.  Unless they grew up with the Universal Monsters and loved what they were and just loved that whole film series, which I highly doubt, then their disdain for this movie, while being plausible in pointing out the problems with the plot of the film, has no basis to cross into outright hate.  To me, it was nice for Stephen Sommers to try, but at the end of the day, he lacks the skill to pull it off.  Here's hoping that the "reboot" actually works and we get a decent film that actually pays homage to the Universal Monsters properly instead of the half-baked attempt we got in 2004.


Rating: Worth the hate?  If I don't hate it, I don't see why you do.


- Stephenstein

Nevermore

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the grandfathers of horror.  You find a writer who writes most of their work in the horror genre these days and they were either influenced directly by or influenced by people whose work were influenced by Poe (myself included).  The man himself was said to have died under mysterious circumstances (he was found after having gone missing for 5 days, drunk out of his skull and yelling about a man named "Reynolds").  A Hollywood screenwriter I guess who was a fan of Poe's biography picked up on this and wrote a largely fictionalized account of what Poe's last days involved when he "disappeared".  A similar film was made about another famous writer who vanished for a short period of time (1979's Agatha starring Dustin Hoffman and Vanessa Redgrave, a fictionalized account of the 11 days Agatha Christie went missing in 1926). I guess whether you like the film or not hinges on how much real-life Poe stuff is involved and how you feel about the murder investigation which is the chief plot of the movie. 


Well, for those who want an accurate portrayal of Poe and his life, by all accounts, it's pretty accurate.  Poe is a drunk, he hates Rufus Griswold (who wrote his obituary in real life after he died) and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (who he hated for some reason), his destitute economical situation, his marriage to his wife Virginia, being kicked out of Westpoint, screaming for Reynolds when he died in an asylum, it's all in there, even shown or mentioned.  However, there is still things that did not happen (and we're not talking about the murder mystery either), stuff like he didn't actually own a house in Baltimore (as he was too poor), his relationship with Emily Hamilton (complete fiction) and when he was found just before he died, he was not wearing his own clothes, but someone else's (a minor point but in real life it showed his death may have been helped along by someone else).  So, if you're thinking this is a true reflection of Poe's life, like a lot of "autobiographical" films, there are elements of truth and elements of fiction and it depends what you're comfortable with in that regard.


So, on to the murder mystery.  I think it was okay, it was clever to have the murderer kill people like people died in some of Poe's works (such as The Pit and the Pendulum and the Cask of Amontillado) and the mystery itself is good enough to keep you guessing who the murderer is (though I narrowed it down quickly to where they at least worked).  I think the murderer when revealed is a little bit of "been there, done that" and their motives are fairly generic, which is a little disappointing, I think the premise of the film is better than the execution of the film.  I liked John Cusack as Poe, he brought some life and wit to the role.  I liked Luke Evans as the secondary character, the inspector trying to catch the murderer.  Everyone else is fine, but not noteworthy.  I did not find the romance stuff between Poe and Emily very convincing, for some reason it didn't work for me, maybe it was the age difference, I don't know, but it just smacked a little forced to me. 


However, I did overall enjoy the movie.  I thought it had great atmosphere, it reminded me a lot of From Hell which I enjoyed, though I liked that film a little better if for no other reason than I thought the story was a little better in From Hell and had more to do with actually finding Jack the Ripper where this one, the investigation takes longer to get to as they're trying to establish the relationship between Poe and Emily. That's not to say it was bad or anything, but for my own personal tastes, I think they could have got on with getting Poe involved with the mystery a little sooner.  Also, at the end of the day, putting Emily in danger with the murderer was not needed because the police already identified they needed Poe and would have made him help them regardless if Emily was in peril or not, so that was a bit superfluous as well.


In the end, The Raven is a nice movie that could have been better.  I liked Cusack as Poe, I think the premise was great, I liked the atmosphere of the movie, but I thought the film was somewhat generic for what it had to work with, I didn't think the romance was really needed or really worth the time invested in it and I'm going to give it a good rating, but not a great one. 


Rating: 3 out of 5 stars.


- Stephenstein

50 Most Hated Movies of all Time - #37 - A Nightmare on Elm Street

Now, before you start commenting that they obviously are naming the remake of this movie on the most hated list and not the original, let me stop you -- I know.  The original is considered a classic and obviously the first one wasn't.  What I find amusing though is that this film, Texas and Halloween all made the most hated list, but they still omitted other horror classics that got remade.  Friday the 13th? Black Christmas? The Hitcher? They made a completely useless prequel to John Carpenter's The Thing, why not get mad at that?  I guess we know now where the hierarchy of horror films stands with the person who originally made this list. 


So, let's get down to it -- does this film deserve to be on the most hated list?  Well, as a movie in the series, it isn't really one of the better entries, Freddy for one thing is too short and basically, it's going back to Freddy's origin which quite frankly, has already been covered by the rest of the series, so it's pointless.  Also, calling A Nightmare on Elm Street obviously draws comparisons to the original and next to that film, this one is extremely deficient.  So, all in all, I don't think there's much point to this movie and I can understand if you're a Nightmare enthusiast, not being too enthralled with this film. 


I think though that is an extremely small subset of the population.  The fact is, people have been bagging on the Nightmare series for years, with every film, the reviews just got worse and worse.  Personally, I think the first five in the series are ridiculously solid and above a lot of the garbage people heap on them.  Sure, a menacing Freddy is better than a silly, wise-cracking Freddy, but there's enough imagination and creativity in those films, enough thrills and neat stuff happening to forgive their shortcomings.  Six was a hot mess and Seven is just in a league of its own, I can't even begin to tell you how special Seven is, just for what it goes for and the spin it puts on everything, New Nightmare is a crazy movie that will never be duplicated.  


So, what's my point?  My point is, people have decided they haven't liked the Nightmare series for years, so for them to hate this new addition, you have to convince me that you loved the original series, not just the original movie, but the whole damned thing because if you hate this movie, it's because it perverted everything that made the original movies so good (I'm not accepting "I love the first film but don't care about the rest, either...that's a copout if I ever heard one).  So, is this film a disgrace to the Nightmare series?  Frankly, it's not as bad as that -- somewhat pointless, no doubt and it has it's problems in terms of story, plotting and all the logic stuff.  It does have decent atmosphere though and Freddy is still the showcase of the film so...like I said, unless you have posters plastered all over your residence with Freddy's mug on it, then quite frankly, I don't get the hate. 


Rating: Worth the hate?  For non-Nightmare on Elm Street Series fans, I would say no.


- Stephenstein

Moon of the Wolf (1972)

A TV movie from 1972, Moon of the Wolf starts out as a police procedural then gets into the werewolf angle into its second half. When a woman is found dead in a small town around Louisiana, the sheriff questions the usual suspects and puts the clues together as to who could have done it. The girl died in a way that would suggest human involvement (she was struck in the head) and animal involvement (she was gnawed on by something that left teeth marks resembling a canine’s). She was pregnant with the coroner’s baby, which the corner tries to cover up, and her brother had a physical fight with her the night she died.

Truth be told, I found all of the stuff mentioned above more intriguing than the werewolf attacks that occur towards the end. And it seems like all of the dramatic elements I mention just disappear as soon as we learn who the werewolf is and he starts wolfing out (with black makeup around the nose and mouth and hairy appliances on his head, face and hands – not the most complex make up job). It’s a serviceable werewolf movie, but only has enough to hold interest for one viewing.

2.5/5

-Deceptisean

50 Most Hated Movies of all Time - #45 - Halloween (2007)

When they first announced they were going to remake Halloween, I'll be completely honest with you -- I was angry.  How dare they remake a horror classic!  Mind you, this was a complete knee-jerk reaction on my part because by this time, why not ,they were remaking every other horror classic!  It's just I like the first film so damned much, I just didn't see a point to doing this film.  Rob Zombie was doing it and it seemed though that everyone else was on board with it.  I thought they all were afterwards as well, as there was a part 2 which J-Man reviewed a few months back on this very website.  Needless to say, I may have been mistaken considering it's on this list now...but then again let's delve into this a tiny bit deeper...


I only saw the work print of this film, I guess you could call it the director's cut?  I'm not sure, but from what I saw, yeah, I didn't like it.  The first part was just pure backstory, trying to justify why Michael Myers turned out to be a knife-toting psychopath.  Umm...wasn't it that he was just purely and simply evil?  Must everything be explained ad nauseum?  Why did I go bald?  Well, you see Stephenstein, there are hair follicles and stuff happens sometimes...yeah, we don't need explanations for everything, especially considering we had a perfectly good reason in the first place.  The second half was like Halloween's greatest hits, just with more annoying people.  


That being said, I have come to understand that Rob Zombie himself is a big fan of the original Halloween (not to mention horror movies in general...House of 1,000 Corpses and Devil's Rejects, anyone?) and the wanted to pay a sort of homage to the original.  Now, whether or not he should have bothered with remaking it instead of making a part 9 and just making it really well, we could talk about that all day, but the point is, based on the second half and how Michael Myers is treated as a sort of anti-hero, I can believe he is a big fan of the original, if not the iconic killer of the series.  If he was going out with a smart-assed attitude that he would make a better Halloween than the original, (something I doubt anyone could do), than we may have a problem, Houston.  However, based on the fact he just really wanted to show his love for the original (as well as pander to today's audience who clearly all have ADD), then how can the film be hated?


Okay, so it wasn't as good as the original.  Did you think it would be?  Halloween is a classic, one of the first if not the first slasher film and to this day, it still gets me.  When the kid is running and bumps into Michael and you get that sound cue?  Awesome.  When he's chasing Laurie across the street and you have that unbelievably amazing soundtrack?  It doesn't get better than that, ladies and gentlemen.  You could say that I'm letting Zombie off the hook for Halloween while I blasted Singer for Superman Returns, but it's different.  Zombie loves Halloween and you can kind of see it, at least in the work print, which I consider the director's cut.  Singer didn't show any love for Superman in Superman Returns.  That enough is good enough for me to say this movie should not be on the hated list. 


Rating: Worth the hate?  No, but it should have been part 9 instead of a remake.  That may have avoided some of the hate, at least.


- Stephenstein

50 Most Hated Movies of all Time - #46 - The Exorcist II: The Heretic

The idiotic A-hole who made this list in the first place decided to break the streak of naming movies that had been released after the turn to the 21st century as "the most hated films of all time" and decided to name a movie that was actually made around or before the time he was born.  I know, I was shocked too.  Anyhow, this will mark a new review for me, because I never actually saw this movie.  However, unlike the drooling halfwit staff at Total Film, I'm actually going to do something they would never do...and actually research something before talking about it.  


So, for those of you not in the know, The Exorcist is probably one of the most popular films of all time.  Released in 1973, it was the talk of the movie world, what with reports of strange occurrences on set, people fainting in the movie theatre during screenings and even hysterical insistence from some people with a few bricks shy of a full load that a demon inhabited the actual film.  Now, all ridiculous mishmash aside, people wouldn't talk this much about a film unless it was really, really good, really, really bad or really, really weird.  The Exorcist is really, really good.  So, I can understand if the sequel came out and it wasn't up to par with the original, that people wouldn't be impressed.  However, one of the worst of all time?


Well, maybe not so much.  I read an article on Wikipedia that some people say that the film has been misjudged and mistreated, that it's not the honking big pile of donkey crap that Total Film would have you believe.  They don't ultimately believe it's that great, but it does not deserve the derision that the film has received from multiple sources.  I find it interesting too to note that there have been 3 sequels after this film and I remember that 4 and 5 weren't received that well either...so, why does get all the blame?  Just because it's the direct sequel to the film?  See, this is the reason why I don't like Total Film or their stupid list: they have no perspective.  They don't question why they feel a film is hated or if there is another reason or if there is something else that causes the hatred.  They just knee-jerk "oh...bad movie...must...destroy...in...list."  My question is this: if none of the films will ever live up to the original, should they not be hated as well?  In fact, every sequel that does not live up to the original should be hated!  The list would be five miles long!


So, what's my point?  My point is, this movie probably isn't as hated as some believe and probably should not be on the list.  There have been other movies that have not only been worse than the original, but insulting by either recycling the original without adding to it (The Hangover Part II) or by crapping on everything that was good about the original (Superman Returns).  Ultimately, there are probably worse movies out there and more damaging ones than the Exorcist II.  However, for some strange reason, it made it on this list. 


Rating: Worth the hate?  Only if you're prepared to put every disappointing sequel on the list as well...


- Stephenstein 

Most Hated Movies of all Time # 48 - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

What do a beaver, a nun and the Queen of England all have in common? Chances are, Michael Bay has ruined all of their childhoods.  But, while the man who told TMNT fans to "chill" and managed to make the single worst Transformers movie it was possible to make (at least, in my opinion), there has also been a sub-genre of films where he has managed to anger the fans.  Namely, fans of 70's and 80's horror classics.  Starting with this one and including The Amityville Horror (okay, maybe the original wasn't a classic, it seemed pretty boring to me), The Hitcher, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street and oh no, he's also got his mitts on The Monster Squad to remake at a theatre near you, Michael Bay under his Platinum Dunes aegis, has managed to annoy fans of these films with his pointless remakes of them.  However, we're here to talk about one specifically, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the one that started it all.

Now, I did not see the original Texas film, so me comparing it to the original, isn't going to happen.  Everyone seems to agree the  original was and still is, a classic, so that's as far as we're going with that discussion.  However, I do not necessarily agree with this being on the list...not because it shouldn't be hated, but because I don't believe it is hated. 

Here's a number for you: $80, 571.655.  No, this isn't my salary for writing this post, it's actually much lower than that.  This number represents the North American Box Office for the Texas Chainsaw Massacre Remake.  Add in another $26.5 mil overseas (hey, it seems the folks over there realized there was no point to this remake, at least) and you have $107, 071,655 for a film that cost under $10 million to make.  So, quite simply, if this movie is hated, it would not have made this type of box office, Platinum Dunes would not have gone on to remake every frigging horror film made in the 70's/80's, maybe the other yahoos wouldn't have done so either and you're moral outrage would have been quelled.  However, that didn't happen.  This movie was popular enough that they not only made all those remakes, but they made a sequel as well.  So, there you go.

Yeah, the movie wasn't good, in my opinion and whatever the original was, it had to be better than this, but the plain truth is, I don't think this movie is hated because if it was, they wouldn't have done all the remakes and CONTINUE to do all the remakes.  So, despite the fact that true fans of the original probably aren't happy with this watered-down clanker and despite the fact when Platinum Dunes announces another remake, there's a collective series of groans across the 'Net, the fact is, none of this is possible without the first film being the success it was.

Rating: Worth the hate?  Probably, as it never should have been done on a remake, but the fact is, it wasn't, so it probably shouldn't even be on the list.

- Stephenstein

More of a nightmare

I used to be a big sucker for movies like Dream House.  A thriller with an interesting premise...even if the trailer gives away half the damn movie, it still looked like it had promise.  Okay, maybe I still am a sucker for these types of movies...or trailers if you will.


Did I like Dream House?  I liked bits of it.  The intro is standard: the happy family who are renovating the new house they just moved in to.  Then weird stuff happens.  We come to find out their were murders involving the previous owners the house, the father went nuts and murdered his wife and two daughters.  People won't look James Bond, I mean Daniel Craig in the eye.  They look skittish around him.  No...could it be?


Well yes, the second part of the film implies that Craig did indeed off the wifey and the two little ones.  For me, this was the most interesting part of the movie.  Craig comes to the realization that he may have been responsible for their murders and the ghosts (or is it hallucinations of Craig's sick mind?) refuse to believe that he killed them.  No matter how much he tries to convince them...or is it himself he's trying to convince?


Anyhow, the last third of the movie is just, it's ludicrous.  This is where Dream House fails.  Suffice to say, they had the real opportunity to do something different with this film, make it unique and something you don't see every day.  However, they went totally mainstream for the last part of the movie and it's really, really awful.  I'm talking contrived, tacked-on-so-we-can-have-a-happy-ending nonsense.  It makes no sense not just in the context of the movie, but in the framework of an everyday world.  This is really the sort of movie that needs, no DEMANDS more of a downer or dry ending.  Instead, it oddly turns out all roses and tulips. 


Unfortunately too, the way the film was put-together, you'll be able to know the final twist a mile away.  I'm not talking about "I think this happened", I'm talking about "this happened and this and this are the people involved."  It was almost like they got a neat script and they were like "okay, how can we make this completely amateurish?"


It's a shame really, because the promise for the film is there.  It's just not executed very well.  All the actors try hard but in actuality, they were there for a paycheck, you get the sense that all of them pretty much knew how this film was going to turn out.  I guess the best thing to come of this from Craig is he married Rachel Weisz in real life.  I guess that's a nice consolation prize for having this cheese on his filmography.


Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars.


- Stephenstein

What a fright

J-Man showed me the original a while back.  The trailer for this one looked not half-bad, so I was curious to see it, even though it was a remake.  I didn't pay money to see it though, which in retrospect, was probably a good thing...


So, for those of you who are fans of the original, you won't be surprised to read that it's way better than this remake?  Why?  Simple.  The first one was more subtle, more clever, more charming.  Nothing embodies that more than Chris Sarandon, the original Jerry.  He was suave, he was charismatic.  When he seduced Amanda Bearse in the infamous club scene, you can believe despite the fact she's a virgin and won't even sleep with her boyfriend, Sarandon could somehow woo her out of her clothes, which he basically does, before turning her (temporarily) into a vampire.  In this version of the film, they're in the club, but Colin Farrell just picks Amy up and slings her over his shoulder like a caveman, there is a brief, very lame attempt at a seduction on his part.  


That's the problem with this film, though.  It just takes all the elements from the first film and continuously slams you over the head with it.  Farrell is a lot more overtly menacing as Jerry than Sarandon was, but because he so damned creepy, when Charley is telling his friends and Mom that Jerry's a vampire, they would at least think there's something wrong with the guy.  Another problem is, there's something wrong with almost everyone in the movie.  Charley at the beginning doesn't talk to Ed because he figures Amy, his girlfriend won't talk to him if he's friends with Ed because Ed is a huge nerd...which Charley is too, by the way.  Jerry is just a sleazy, creepy player who attracts women with his bad-boy persona.  Amy, she doesn't really do anything wrong, but you can sort of sense she can be a bitch if she needs to.  Peter Vincent is a huge disappointment, he's a drunken, womanizing, cowardly jackass.  It's hard to like any of the main characters, especially in the first twenty or so minutes in the film. 


That's not to say there isn't some good parts of the film.  The pacing is pretty good, there's a lot of stalking by Jerry on Charley and Amy and it doesn't take long for things to get moving, it's already established that Jerry is a vampire fifteen minutes into the film.  Peter Vincent is an actual occult student who knows lore about vampires and he has all sorts of cool artifacts and what-not in his penthouse.  I find Imogen Poots a lot more attractive as Amy than Amanda Bearse.  Yup, I'm reaching now, because there isn't a lot going for the film, the best thing I can say about it is it's pretty relentless in it's pace.  It's pretty evident that they missed a lot about what made the first film so good, though. 


So, that's Fright Night.  It's a straight vampire movie missing all of the charm of the first film.  It was sort of neat for Charley to be this horror movie fan and he gets to fight an actual vampire with Peter Vincent, whose show he watches on late-night television.  This Charley is a bland dweeb who is just lucky he got a girlfriend as hot as Amy, there's nothing that really stands out about him.  At the end of the day, if you can't cheer for the hero, you have to cheer for the villain, but he's nowhere as good as the original, either.  So, do yourself a favour, don't bother with this one and just pop in the original. 


Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars.


- Stephenstein

Dead on Arrival

So this is a film based on an Italian comic which I have never read, so I don't know how close it is to the source material.  From what I've read, it's not close, which is probably a good thing, considering I didn't care for the film at all.  Here's why.

First, there's Brandon Routh.  I gave him another chance after Superman Returns, hoping that he would prove that the colossal failure of that film was all Bryan Singer's doing.  Unfortunately, it's not.  Routh is very stiff as Dylan Dog.  He just doesn't seem to have fun in the role, he takes the whole thing gravely, almost wearily and it's not good.  When the lead in your movie, the guy you're supposed to be spending all the time with and rooting for, is wooden and appears that he couldn't care less about what he's doing in the film, that's bad.  His sidekick, who coincidently played Jimmy Olsen in Superman Returns, was pretty bad too.  He was just annoying, really just complaining and harping all the time about being turned into a zombie...it was just...I wanted him to shut up at one point.  Just shut up and stop your whining.

Then there's the plot.  They're after this artifact, and are competing with a pack of vampires for it.  They investigate where it is and at some point, you're like "how can they follow what's going on?"  It seems to change hands like a hot potato.  When they finally find it, I don't know how it got there or how they knew to look for it there.  It's just...bad.  There's a monster at the end, too.  The monster is supposed to be controlled by its master, but the monster refuses the master's control in one second.  Umm, so if it's supposed to be like a genie (which it is), then how can the monster just say "no, I'm not listening to you?"  You ever hear of a genie doing that?  The way it was defeated too, was just lame.  Just lame as all hell.

The monster's are the other big thing and I didn't even like the design of them!  The werewolves resembled the troll in Ernest Scared Stupid.  The Zombies all looked the same, just cataracts and boils on their skin, here's zombies.  The vampires were the standard Underworld/Twilight look.  Only the monster at the end and this big jacked-up zombie in the middle of the film had any really good designs.

It did have it's moments.  There's a Zombie support group for people who can't get over being zombies.  There's a body part store where zombies go to replace rotting parts.  The vampires were selling their blood as drugs to humans who became addicted to it.  Neat stuff here and there.  Nothing to save the film, however.

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars.

- Stephenstein



The Final Saw?

I refuse to call this film Saw 3D, just because actually saying 3D pisses me off. So, I'll be refering to this as Saw 7. I saw this yesterday, NOT in 3D, and here are my thoughts, as the series wraps up, supposedly.

First of all, and saying this will make people laugh, but I consider the Saw series to be a real landmark in movie-making. Why? Can you name me another movie series that lasted 7 movies, had the same actors play the same characters, referenced all the previous films, kept the same tone, the same story structure, and delivered the same amount of enjoyment, year after year, movie after movie? Can you name the another series that has lasted this amount of time, and delivered the same amount of quality, every single movie? Even the vaunted Harry Potter had a mis-step at 5 (in my opinion), and the Harry Potter 7.1 wasn't as good as some of the other ones, either.

It's just a really, really solid series, up and down, front to back, year after year, I looked forward to the next Saw. I looked forward to the traps, the staggering leaps in logic, how it was all tied together, what the twist was...all of it was awesome. Except for this 3D crap, I watched all the movies in the theatre...and p.s., I had a friend tell me there was hardly any 3D in the film, and he saw it in the theatre, so even that's a rip.

I'm not reviewing the movie's storyline. There's a few games, a few traps. Someone thinks they have the upper-hand, they don't, Sean Patrick Flannery is the guy who has to go through the gaunlets of traps this time, there's some cameos from the past, there's some twists, and traps, and gore and more traps. Look, you know Saw, you know what you're going to get. It was one of the few franchises these days I could rely on to really please me, every single year. Spider-Man, Superman, Bourne, Pirates of the Caribbean, even Batman...have all disappointed me, in some way. Not Saw though. From beginning to end, this franchise has delivered the goods, and despite it not getting the recognition it deserves, I'm sure the fans of the Saw series are more passionate and die-hard than the "fans" who supposedly loved something like Iron Man since "day 1. "

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.

Rating of series: 5 out of 5 stars.

- Stephenstein

The Mummy (1959)

From the back of the DVD box: “In Hammer Studio’s vivid 1959 Technicolor reincarnation of The Mummy, screen horror icon Christopher Lee wraps on the moldy gauze bandages and emerges as the tormented Kharis, an avenger stalking the hills and bogs of Victorian England to track down archeologist John Banning (Peter Cushing) and other desecrators of his beloved Princess Ananka’s Egyptian tomb.”

Another great Hammer rejuvenation of a classic franchise. I love mummy movies, and this is pretty much what I think of when I think of Mummy flicks. This ain’t some cheap normal guy devoid of bandages. Lee sports the bandages through out the movie. He’s a friggin’ juggernaut too, an unstoppable force in all of his door busting, metal bending, crushing strangulation glory. Cushing is as good as ever as an archeologist slowly realizing that the curse of the tomb is real.

I was never bored with this one. It’s the classic definition of creature feature. And the colours are vibrant and pop off the screen, especially during the ancient Egypt flashbacks. This is what Mummy movies should be. I was always disappointed that the newer Brendan Fraser flicks were so adventure-oriented. When the hell did Mummy movies turn into Indiana Jones rip-offs?? Hollywood should make more Mummy movies like this one. They won’t, but they should.

After this, Hammer made three sequels, almost having nothing to do with each other: The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb (1964), The Mummy’s Shroud (1967), and Blood From the Mummy’s Tomb (1971) (which didn’t have a traditional wrapped-up mummy in it).

4 out of 5.

-Deceptisean

Horror of Dracula (1958)

From the DVD box: “Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, Britain’s Premier masters of the macabre, bring the Horror of Dracula to vivid, full-colour death in this retelling of Bram Stoker’s spellbinding vampire tale. Dracula (Lee), a centuries-old nobleman damned to an eternal half-life, travels from his native Transylvania to London. In the lurid nightlife of his adopted city, he finds new victims. He also finds Dr. Van Helsing (Cushing), a scientist who becomes the Count’s implacable foe in a deadly game of bat-and-mouse.”

This is the first of Hammer’s successful Dracula movies, teaming Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing as Dracula and Van Helsing respectively. Batman fans will also recognize Michael Gough (Alfred in WB’s 1989 to 1997 Batman films) as the brother of vampire victim Lucy. Christopher Lee starts out charming when he welcomes Jonathan Harker into his castle, but pours on the menace when he is revealed to be the vampire scourge Count Dracula. I love when Dracula is choking Van Helsing toward the end of the movie and a vague smile begins to slowly creep across the Count’s face when he realizes he’s winning the fight. Cushing is terrific as Van Helsing. He has a cool, calm demeanor compared to the panicked victims around him since the character has studied vampirism all his life and is intimately familiar with the creatures to the point of clinical coldness.

Dracula looks his best when ample amounts of blood are dipping from his mouth, complete with bloodshot eyes. It’s a classic look and is best done with Christopher Lee. Dracula’s defeat in the end is spectacular and very graphic. Note that I said “defeat” as, even though it looks like a death, we all know there are eight (count ‘em – EIGHT!!) Hammer Dracula films after this one.

Zippy pacing, great gory effects, terrific cinematography, and cool characters (like Van Helsing and Gogh’s character Arthur that you want to root for, and Dracula who is undeniably evil and terrifying) make Horror of Dracula a real treat.


4 out of 5.

-Deceptisean

Deadly Friend (1986)

Continuing on my horror movie binge, I dug out Deadly Friend out of my shelf. This was directed by Wes Craven in a time where he claimed his bitter divorce was affecting his work, resulting in a shoddy movie (I can’t remember where I saw this, it was on some show about horror movies). Deadly Friend took forever to come onto DVD, which it did a couple years ago. Before that, it was destined to be the long lost Wes Craven movie.

Well, despite what Craven himself might say, I really like this film. It has its flaws, but it’s not shit. Paul and his mother are new to some suburb somewhere. Paul’s a whiz kid who has built a robot with artificial intelligence. Anyway, Paul befriends a girl next door, Samantha (Kristy Swanson), whose father regularly abuses her. Paul encounters other denizens of his neighborhood, like the crazy lady who barricades her house and brandishes a shot gun, Elvira Parker (Anne Ramsey of Goonies and Throw Mama From The Train fame), and the local, snot-nosed biker toughs. Elvira destroys Pauls robot when they trespass on her lawn, and later Samantha is killed by her abusive father. So, Paul decides to rebuild his robot with Samantha’s body(!). Bloody revenge, Kristy Swanson looking as hot as she can in frumpy 80’s clothes, and awkward robot movement/acting ensue.

I really like the typical 80’s movie version of suburbia that was so pervasive in that decade. Everyone knows each other, kids play outside, there’s a golden hue to everything somehow – I like all of that. The robot itself is really cool for its time. Kinda looks like a 5 foot version of the TOMY robot toys of the period. Seeing Anne Ramsey is always cool. That voice and face cannot be matched. Her death in the movie is the infamous basketball to the head death, for which this movie was known on the internet for some time before the DVD was finally released. Her head explodes with the force of the ball and she runs around literally like a chicken with its head cut off. The father’s death is pretty damn good too, as far as these kinds of movies go.

On the down side, there are long drawn-out scenes that seemed unnecessary and could have been trimmed (like Paul and his friend retrieving Sam’s body from the hospital which you can fast forward through – we get it, they have to sneak in and get the body, we know they’ll succeed otherwise there would be no movie). Other than that, Kristy Swanson should sue her “mime coach” (as its credited in the end credits) for her laughable, arms outstretch, robot acting. It’s horrible. And what’s more, her hands are in the Vulcan “live long and prosper” symbol for the whole movie, supposedly mimicking the original robot’s pincers.

Anyhoo, this movie is worth checking out, especially if you like horror.


3.5 out of 5

-Deceptisean

The Reptile (1966)

AMC has taken to showing old Hammer horror movies on Friday nights, sometimes stringing four or five together in one night. I’ve tried to catch as much as I can. The other night they played The Reptile, a unique film in that the main monster was female (Hammer sometimes tried to stray away from the all-male sausage factory the world of monsters can sometimes be) and the monster wasn’t a vampire or other traditional beast.

The film opens with a man being attacked and killed (complete with puffy face, fothing mouth and blackened skin) by . . . something. His brother Harry Spalding and Harry’s wife Valerie arrive at the house of the dead brother sometime later. Harry is intent on finding out what really happened to his brother as other mysterious murders take place in the small village. Eventually, Harry finds out that the next door neighbors, Dr. Franklin and his daughter Anna, are prisoners of their own Indian servant who worships a snake cult and turns Anna into a half woman, half snake, determined to bring pain and chaos into the world.

As with most Hammer movies, the film unfolds as a mystery which eventually leads to the pay-off of seeing the monster, and then follows through for another 30 minutes with the story. I found this one kinda slow in the beginning (save for the kill in the beginning), introducing lots of characters that will eventually be fodder for the snake woman. When we finally do see the snake man (because there's another snake dude before we see the snake lady), it’s pretty pumped. The hideous face and flexible, realistic monster make-up come out of left field. The monster looks so good, it almost looks like it belongs in another movie. I don’t think they made any more Reptile movies beyond this one, which is a shame. The misty, secret, underground cave where rituals are performed to create the snake lady, images of cages full of bunnies, kittens and puppies on which the snake lady feeds, and the snake lady herself were enough to carry the film and make it a welcome change of pace from the usual vampire fare. But it takes a while to get to these things.

3 out of 5.


-Deceptisean

Not in 3D

Well, I refused to see this one in theatres, just because of the 3D garbage. I hate 3D. It's a gimmick, and I hate gimmicks, especially lame gimmicks, and 3D is in my opinion, a lame gimmick. So I waited, and caught this one elsewhere. I like the Resident Evil franchise, I own all the movies, so I wanted to see this one. Just not in 3D.

So what's new? Well, let's start with what's old. Alice and her clones are back (the clones don't last too long, unfortunately). Claire is back, and is joined by her brother, Chris (and you fans of the game franchise know who he is). K-Mart is back in a small role, as well. The zombies are still there, and Albert Wesker is back (he's the main villain now, and yeah, it only took 4 films to make him the main villain, but then again, they were too busy dealing with the various freaks).

This one starts off where the last one left off. Alice storms Umbrella's Tokyo base, and then heads to Alaska for a less than hopeful discovery. Then she ends in Los Angeles with Claire, where there's a bunch of new people to run into (including Chris), zombies to fight (including an Axeman who is a dead ringer for the terrifying Ax guy in Silent Hill), humans to fight with (Kim Coates is the resident jerk in this one), and at the end, when the credits are rolling, an old face returns, setting up who the main villain would be in the next movie (hint: this character was last seen in the 2nd film).

So how was it? Good. I wouldn't say I liked it more than part 3, but that's for a number of reasons.

Firstly, I was disappointed that the clones were wiped out fairly quickly. Okay, I know logistically, they can't have multiple Alice's running around the entire film. Okay, fine. Then why even introduce the idea? Then right at the beginning, they have Alice lose all her powers. Once again, this is because she can basically just create an earthquake, and wipe out everything, and it really doesn't matter in the rest of the film if she has the powers or not (Milla is still badass), but once again, then why bother? I'm not a fan of people losing powers, especially characters who are the main heroes.

I was disappointed by the last fight in the film, too. They set up Wesker as this unstoppable, superhuman guy, who took out both Claire and Chris, after fighting them both at the same time. Milla, though? De-powered Milla? She doesn't fight Wesker, the final boss. She just shoots him a couple of times in the head. That's it. That's the extent of the final confrontation between him and her. Big deal. They could have got anyone to do that. I wanted a big superhuman fight, not Kill Bill 2! Now, it's set up he can return in the next film as well, but if that's the extent their going to use him, then he might as well have stayed dead.

I did still like the movie, though. The action is pretty good (and you can see it all, so that's a plus). Milla uses a variety of weapons (swords, explosives, machine guns), and she's the same, Milla is the rock of this franchise, and as long as they have her, you're going to do okay in these films. The supporting cast is the usual assortment of stock types (the arrogant schmuck, the buff, but logical dude, the guy whose good with machinery), and the majority of fighting is relegated to enclosed spaces again (Umbrella's Tokyo Base, a Los Angeles prison), so if you're a fan of action taking place in small, enclosed locations, than you'll like this movie.

That's about it. It's Resident Evil, so you all know what to expect. It was a decent effort in the series, and I am curious to how 5 will play out.

Rating 3.5 out of 5 stars.

- Stephenstein

The Omen (1976)

Gregory Peck plays American Ambassador Robert Thorn who, while on a trip in Rome (and on June 6 at 6 a.m.), becomes the proud papa of a baby boy – or so he thought. The baby is stillborn, Peck is upset (the mother apparently doesn’t know!), and a Minister offers to switch the dead baby for one that’s perfectly alive (born on June 6 at 6 a.m.), saying “Your wife will be none the wiser!”. Reluctantly, Peck agrees, and so Peck and wife raise this boy as their own, naming him Damien Thorn. But mysterious deaths start occurring when Damien is 5, sending Peck on a journey of discovery and death that leads to the uncovering of a vast conspiracy. You see, some in the church believe that the boy is the son of the devil who has been sent to earth to destroy mankind, and will do anything to make that prophecy in the book of Revelations come true.

Despite some silliness in the premise, The Omen was a huge deal when it came out in 1976. In a time when studios still segregated their releases (big star-powered releases in white areas, blacksploitation in black neighborhoods, sexploitation in gritty, urban centres, and all movies cascading from limited release to wide release only if they were hits), The Omen was one of those few cross-over movies that was so successful, it attracted audiences of all types. Non-white audiences and rural audiences ventured to the rich urban areas to see what all the fuss was about, and as a result The Omen was a huge financial success for its time. Beyond that, Jerry Goldsmith’s score went on to win the Oscar for best original score, and is mostly responsible for all the choral chanting you hear in most scores today (especially in trailer music). As well, and most importantly to me, this is the movie that landed Richard Donner the gig to direct Superman.

Watching The Omen 34 years later, it hasn’t aged terribly well. The movie really picks up steam an hour in (it’s an hour and forty minutes), but I’ll get to that in a bit. First off, as I said before, the premise seems odd. Why would Peck’s character agree to switching his baby for some strange newborn he doesn’t even know the medical history of?? Audiences in 1976 apparently didn’t seem to care. Also, I’ve seen many films where someone is supposed to be some sort of prophesied anti-christ, destined to destroy the world, and then nothing happens beyond a few “accidental” murders here and there immediately around said anti-christ. Nothing on a global scale. Humanity doesn’t suffer, is not enslaved, and is never in any real danger. That’s my problem with these Omen movies. You know, there are four in this series before they remade it. In The Omen II, the kid is a little older, some deaths heppen, and the movie ends. In the The Omen III: The Final Conflict, an up-and-coming Sam Neil plays a grown up Damien Thorn who still doesn’t do much. In The Omen IV: The Awakening, the devil is apparently disappointed with Damien’s performance in the last three movies becaue a new anti-christ is born, this time as a girl. She only lasts one movie, so I don’t think she was terribly successful either.

Aside from all of that, I really liked the second half of this film. That’s when Robert Thorn teams up with this photographer who sees visions in his photos of foreign objects slicing and dicing the subjects in his pictures, foretelling their deaths. There’s a neat impaling death, a cool decapitation, and Damien’s adoptive mother suffers not one, but two very high falls. Damien’s nanny turns out to be some sort of devil worshipper with a really mean dog (whom Peck fights in the final act). Robert and this photographer travel to the Middle east to uncover the truth about Damien, revealing that he is in fact the anti-christ, born under a comet that appeared on the opposite side of the world from where the Star of David appeared (and there’s other stuff about Jews returning to Zion, a Roman empire of sorts building, etc.). Robert, after a lot of coaxing, is then convinced that he must kill his five-year-old son. As you can see from the next three sequels, he doesn’t succeed.

Those final 40 minutes did a good job in setting up an atmosphere of foreboding and really saved this movie for me. Plus, Gregory Peck as the conflicted Robert Thorn is awesome. Just his face and old-world no-nonsense male attitude are cool (nowadays, we have frickin’ Michael Cera and his ilk, representing the wussification of the male in cinema).

The Omen is worth a peak nowadays, if only to glimpse at 70’s era apocalyptic paranoia, coming from a time where people really thought the world was coming to an end (the nuclear arms race, cold war tension, the oil crisis of the 70’s).

3 out of 5.

-Deceptisean

Hammer Dracula: Vampires As They Were Meant To Be

I’m getting into a horror movie vibe as Halloween fast approaches. I dug out some of my Hammer movies on DVD and decided to watch a couple of their Dracula movies. When Hammer started doing reinventions of popular Universal classic monsters in the 60's, Dracula became their most popular character with audiences demanding more Christopher Lee as the dreaded Count in movie after movie (depending on who you ask, there are about 9 Dracula movies – not all of them feature Dracula or Christopher Lee though). The two I decided to watch were Dracula Has Risen From the Grave and Taste the Blood of Dracula.

Dracula Has Risen from the Grave is the fourth in the Hammer Dracula series, after Dracula (a.k.a. Horror of Dracula), Brides of Dracula in which Christopher Lee did not appear, and Dracula: Prince of Darkness where Christopher Lee does appear as the Count, but does not speak. In Risen From the Grave, Christopher Lee does speak. This film features one of my favourite vampire hunters, Rupert Davies as the Monsignor. His authoritative facial expressions are awesome. You can believe that he’s this virtuous man of god that fears no devil as long as his faith is strong.

After Dracula desecrates a church by committing murder there, the Monsignor investigates and sees that everybody stays away from the church. When he asks the villagers if Dracula is dead, they’re not sure, so he goes to investigate Drac’s castle with a drunken priest. But when the priest panics, runs away and falls onto a frozen moat, he bleeds into the cracks of the ice where Dracula happens to be frozen, encased in the ice. Dracula tastes some of the blood and, well, you get the picture. I liked this one, the Monsignor is cool, especially with that giant, golden cross strapped to his back (on which Dracula is empaled in the end).


In Taste the Blood of Dracula, an antiques dealer is shown to have witnessed the impaling death of Dracula at the end of Risen. He collects Dracula’s cape and his blood, which has been turned into powder. Three foolish, rich, old men looking for a thrill are coaxed by a rich, spoiled devil worshipper into buying these Dracula items. He leads them into a ritual to bring Dracula back, but the three bolt in fear at last second, jeopardizing the ritual. The servant dies as Dracula is reborn (Christopher Lee again). Dismayed by the death of his servant, Dracula swears vengeance upon the three men and sets about killing them one by one, biting a couple other girls so they can do some of his evil bidding.

This one is cool. It has a shovel death, some classic Dracula-hypnotizing-girls action, great shots of Lee in the cape coming out of shadows or silhouette, and a lot of good Lee dialogue, delivered in that great menace which made him famous in the role. Whenever he kills one of the men, he snarls “The First!” or “The Second!” and keeps a tally. Dracula is defeated, while fighting the heroic couple of the story high up in a church, by backing into a stained glass window depicting a cross (oops!) and falling, dissolving into dust. This was followed by Scars of Dracula, which I don’t have, Dracula A.D. 1972 (catapulting Dracula into the “modern day” at the time, instead of Victorian England where the other movies took place), The Satanic Rites of Dracula (where Dracula is still in the 70’s and is CEO of a corporation that is secretly funding a satanic cult determined to wipe out all life on earth), and The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (an interesting movie taking place in the 1800’s again where China is battling their own vampire plague lead by 7 golden vampires. The Chinese recruit Van Helsing (Peter Cushing reprising his role from earlier Hammer Dracula movies). But Van Helsing soon discovers that the lead Golden Vampire is possessed by none other than the spirit of his old nemesis Dracula.).

Anyway, these old Hammer pictures can be a little quaint looking nowadays, but I still love them. They're classic and the Dracula movies, especially, really outlined the character as this horrible concentration of evil and plague upon the world that can spread easily, moreso than the Universal movies (though I love the Universals too). And Christopher Lee was a great Dracula. This ain't no romatic, teen dream vampire. Dracula would kill your family and your dog with no hesitation or qualm. He's pure evil, as it should be.

Dracula Has Risen from the Grave 3.5/5

Taste the Blood of Dracula 3.5/5

-Deceptisean

One more Nightmare

Hollywood, Hollywood. Why must you remake everything? Isn't it bad enough that you did a Friday the 13th "reboot" and a Halloween "reboot", must you have nailed the unholy trilogy? Was this really necessary? Were people screaming for the Nightmare franchise to be rebooted? Well, as we've all learned now by reading this blog, nothing, and I mean nothing, is sacred in Hollywood. Anyhow, I finally caught this one, just to see if it sucked as much as I thought it would. Actually, it didn't. Which doesn't mean it should have been made in the first place.

Everyone was applauding the casting of Jackie Earl Haley as Freddy. Now, I like Jackie...he was great as Rorschach in Watchmen. That doesn't mean he should get every role in the planet, though. He tries his best, and his best is still good, but I don't know if I buy him as Freddy. He's too short, for one thing, and unfortunately, they shot him short. I don't think Robert Englund is the tallest man on planet Earth, but filmmakers were usually smart enough to shoot him in a way that he filled the frame...made him more intimidating (at least, before he became jokey Freddy). There's one shot, when Freddy is fighting with Nancy, and I swear she's taller than him! Couldn't they have put a track below him, at least?

Then, there's Nancy. In this one, she's an outsider, right from the beginning. Okay, is that just to show us how isolated she is to begin with? So when Freddy starts his shenanigans, it's set up that she can't confide or turn to anyone (thus setting up her relationship with the smart, yet awkward boy)? I will say, this Freddy was kind of perplexing. What were they going for? Why turn Freddy from a murderer into a simple molester (if there is such a thing), and try and throw the "he didn't do it" angle at the viewer? Because, if you're watching this, you're either a dumb teenager (whose opinion doesn't count), or you've caught a Nightmare or 2, and know who Freddy is...and know Freddy can never, ever be innocent. He kills children in their dreams! It doesn't get more bad than that.

Then there's the Mom. Okay, so she hid evidence that Nancy went to that school, so she wouldn't remember what Freddy did to her. So why keep a class picture of Nancy and her schoolmates in her drawer! Neatly labelled with everyone's names! You know, Nancy doesn't need to remember Freddy diddling her, but I want to keep a souvenir of that! Huh? What kind of irresponsible parenting is this? Luckily, she gets the most gruesome death in the entire movie.

I will commend the filmmakers that they really tried hard to make Freddy serious. There are no real quips, and Freddy shows up a lot, and I do mean A LOT in this movie, which is satisfying, because you don't have to wait around to see Freddy. He shows up in the first 5 minutes. The makeup...I'm not completely sold on. I read they tried to emulate what a real burn victim would look like...but I like Frankenstein's green look, and what's the last time you saw a corpse that was green? So, that's fine and dandy, but why screw with a classic?

Anyhow, this movie was actually better than I thought it would be (which shows the expectations I walked in with). At least Freddy was serious, and he was doing stuff, and trying to get scares. The script didn't make sense at parts, I was indifferent to the new makeup, and Freddy wasn't menacing enough to live up to his predecessor, despite Haley's best try. Catch this one, only if you're a collector of the series, and you get every Nightmare, or whatever. Otherwise, you probably have a better movie to watch.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars.

- Stephenstein

Crazy for you

Missed this one in the theatre, as well. That's right, I am making up for all past wrongs! Pretty soon, a guy named Mike Phillips is going to have me knocking on his door, demanding "why did you pick on me all that time in high school? WHY? What did I ever do to you?" before collapsing into a sobbing heap at his feet. Yes, that will surely intimidate him.

So, this is one that it was wise we didn't end up paying money for. Why? It just doesn't work. Maybe the original doesn't, either (I somehow doubt it though, considering George A. Romero made it, and he is the MAN), but this remake just didn't do it for me. Why? I'll explain.

Firstly, this film was made in the wrong time period. When Romero made it in the 70's, America was just getting around to the idea that hey, maybe our government really isn't that good! Maybe they don't have our best interests at heart! Maybe the army is a bunch of macho idiots who can't do anything right, and would panic and shoot their own citizens at a moment's notice! Stuff that would be really, you know, revolutionary and thought provoking in that era. Nowadays, we know the government is corrupt. We know the army is their enforcers, and the ideals they stood for no longer has the quote unquote "higher moral" ground. We know all this, there's been a gazillion movies on this theme. Well, now it's a gazillion and one. Hardly a feature that makes it stand out.

Number 2, what really makes an effective horror film is a) a really neat story, or b) a really neat or charasmatic monster, or c) funny, interesting teens that at least keep us entertained while the bad guy slices them to bits, or best of all d) all of the above. This film does not have any letter of the alphabet. I will give them this, there's no long lead-up, people are crazy like 4 minutes into the film, but if there's no buildup or establishment of the characters, than you need a lot of crazy (pardon the pun) action, or extreme gore, or something. It' just paint by the numbers (the sheriff realizes something is wrong, the sheriff grabs his doctor wife, conveniently, neither are affected, the army moves in, it becomes a question of avoiding the Crazies and the military, sheriff, wife, and hangers-on look for a way out, people die). There's nothing there you haven't seen before, and it was done better before. This is just mediocre, run-of-the-mill stuff.

Finally, 3rd point, if you're going to make a horror movie, at least have some good deaths. There's nothing. Most people die off-screen, the one potentially tense scene, where people are tied to beds, and a Crazie is walking around, impaling people with a pitchfork, is partially ruined by the filming technique. Crazy lifts up pitchfork, and then the next shot, pitchfork goes through bottom of the bed. Wow. You know you're in trouble, when your Aunt Selma can watch the horror film with you. It was pretty watered down, no gore, no suspense, just Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, and the supporting actors running from one spot to the next.

So, I would not bother with this one, or if you're feeling that my review has peaked your interest (which I doubt), find a way to watch it for free. Better yet, watch the original...it's probably better.

Rating 2.5 out of 5 stars.

I bid thee a fond goodnight.

- Stephenstein