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Rating 2½
Directed by Michael Bay
Written by Caspian Tredwell-Owen, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, based on a story by Caspian Tredwell-Owen
Starring Ewan McGregor (Lincoln Six Echo / Tom Lincoln), Scarlett Johansson (Jordan Two Delta / Sarah Jordan), Sean Bean (Dr Merrick), Djimon Hounsou (Albert Laurent), Steve Buscemi (James McCord), Ethan Phillips (Jones Three Echo), Brian Stepanek (Gandu Three Echo), Michael Clark Duncan (Starkweather Two Delta / Jamil Starkweather), Siobhan Flynn (Lima One Alpha), Kim Coates (Charles Whitman), Alex Carter (Censor) and Shawnee Smith (Suzie)
Lincoln Six Echo lives in a self-contained high-tech underground colony of uncontaminated humans, each one waiting to win the “Lottery” and be allowed to go to an idyllic location called “the Island”, the last habitable place on the planet. Lincoln begins to question his surroundings and has a recurring nightmare, which brings him to the attention of Dr Merrick, who controls the area in which he lives. He also forms a close friendship with Jordan Two Delta and when she is announced as the next lottery winner and he discovers that everything they have always known is a lie (they are simply clones to be harvested for organ transplants or used for surrogate pregnancies), they escape from the complex and go on the run, relentlessly pursued by a deadly paramilitary squad.
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‘The Island’ is a 2005 sci-fi action film directed in typically abrasive fashion by Michael Bay. It has a 40% rotten rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 180 reviews. Rich Cline called it, “An intelligent, provocative premise wrapped in a bone-chillingly stupid action movie,” and Jeffrey Overstreet wrote, “It seems to assume that its audience is made of idiots, constantly reminding us of the simple plot details and having characters define things for each other.” It grossed just $36 million at the US box office against a production budget of $126 million and an outlay somewhere in the region of $45 million for domestic marketing and distribution. A further $127 million was grossed overseas. An accusation was made following the release of the film that it infringed the copyright of a forgotten 1979 film called ‘Parts: The Clonus Horror’. Settlement was reached out of court before it went to trial, allegedly for a seven-figure sum.
A number of familiar themes often pursued in science fiction are to be found here, drawing on libertarian political philosophies and ideologies, totalitarianism and commentary about science gone mad, in this case human cloning. There is no question that the film poses some interesting questions, but Michael Bay’s particular brand of filmmaking reduces the whole thing to the simple idea that everyone should be free to brandish big guns and cause maximum destruction. The constant stream of action sequences in the second half of the film’s two hours plus running time are slickly staged, but making everything bigger and louder and being brazen about the product placement does not make it better. These action sequences are, in fact, bone-headed and objectionably stupid.
Ewan McGregor is not an actor I have ever warmed to and nothing here changes that. Scarlett Johansson’s early promise seems to have dissipated somewhat since the days of ‘Ghost World’ and ‘Lost in Translation’. She lost me in promotional interviews for ‘The Island’ when she appeared to lay claim to having on-set tantrums because she wasn’t allowed to take her clothes off in the film. However, both are reasonably effective in the lead roles. The film itself is a perfectly serviceable action film, but the premise offers something beyond that and there is undoubtedly a much more intelligent if somewhat unoriginal film buried somewhere underneath the mind-numbing onslaught of explosions and general destruction.
I cannot pretend not to have enjoyed the film up to a point, despite some cringe-making dialogue (this is the second time I have watched it), but it could have been so much better and ends up being an offensive piece of mindless claptrap. I could not help but come away thinking there is a degree of irony in putting Michael Bay in the director’s chair of a film in which one of the central characters proves to be a megalomaniac with a God-complex.
Review posted 30 November 2009
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Rating 2½
Created by Alan Ball
Based on the Southern Vampire Mysteries novels by Charlaine Harris
EP1 ‘Nothing bu the Blood’ (Written by Alexander Woo, Directed by Daniel Minahan); EP2 ‘Keep This Party Going’ (Written by Brian Buckner, Directed by Michael Lehmann); EP3 ‘Scratches’ (Written by Raelle Tucker, Scott Winant); EP4 ‘Shake and Fingerpop’ (Written by Alan Ball, Directed by Michael Lehmenn); EP5 ‘Never Let Me Go’ (Written by Nancy Oliver, Directed by John Dahl); EP6 ‘Hard-Hearted Hannah’ (Written by Brian Buckner, Directed by Michael Lehmann); EP7 ‘Release Me’ (Written by Raelle Tucker, Directed by Michael Ruscio); EP8 ‘Timebomb’ (Written by Alexander Woo, Directed by John Dahl); EP9 ‘I Will Rise Up’ (Wriiten by Nancy Oliver, Directed by Scott Winant); EP10 ‘New World in My View’ (Written by Kate Barnow and Elisabeth R Finch, Directed by Adam Davidson); EP11 ‘Frenzy’ (Written by Alan Ball, Directed by Daniel Minahan); EP12 ‘Beyond Here Lies Nothin’’ (Written by Alexander Woo, Directed by Michael Cuesta)
Starring Anna Paquin (Sookie Stackhouse), Stephen Moyer (Bill Compton), Sam Trammell (Sam Merlotte), Ryan Kwanten (Jason Stackhouse), Rutina Wesley (Tara Thornton), Nelson Ellis (Lafayette Reynolds), Jim Parrack (Hoyt Fortenberry), Deborah Ann Woll (Jessica Hamby), Carrie Preston (Arlene Fowler), Chris Bauer (Detective Andy Bellefleur), Todd Lowe (Terry Bellefleur), Michelle Forbes (Maryann Forrester), Medcad Brooks (Benedict ‘Eggs’ Talley), Alexander Skarsgård (Eric Northman), Michael McMillian (Reverend Steve Newlin), Anna Camp (Sarah Newlin), Wes Brown (Luke McDonald), Mariana Klaveno (Lorena), Allan Hyde (Godric), Valerie Cruz (Isabel), Ed Quinn (Stan Davis), Christopher Gartin (Hugo), Adam Leadbeater (Karl), Ashley Jones (Daphne), William Sanderson (Sheriff Bud Dearborne), Adina Porter (Lettie Mae Thornton), Lizzy Caplan (Amy Burley), Kristin Bauer (Pam), Dale Raoul (Maxine Fortenberry) and Evan Rachel Wood (Sophie-Anne Leclerq)
The telepathic waitress Sookie Stackhouse and her vampire lover Bill Compton agree to go on a dangerous mission to Dallas to locate the whereabouts of a missing vampire sheriff, but with so many divided loyalties and double-crosses they do not know who they can trust. Sookie’s brother Jason joins the vehemently anti-vampire Fellowship of the Sun church, which is training an army to go to war with the vampires. Lafayette Reynolds goes missing after falling foul of the vampires for peddling “V”. The mysterious Maryann Forrester has a strange hypnotic hold over the people of Bon Temps, including Tara Thornton, and soon there are nightly mass orgies. Only Sam Trammell is able to resist her will, but he knows more about her than he is willing to admit.
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After an early false start, I liked the first season of ‘True Blood’ and I looked forward to watching this second season. It has some “wow” moments and the show has got the cliffhanger episode endings down to a fine art, but ultimately I found it all a little underwhelming and instead of having to force myself not to watch it too quickly I ended up having to make myself keep on watching.
A number of story threads come and go over the duration of the twelve episodes, but primarily the season concerns itself with the parallel storylines of Sookie and Bill going to Dallas in search of the 2,000-year-old vampire Godric and Jason’s recruitment into the army of the Fellowship of the Sun. Back in Bon Temps, Maryann Forrester imposes her will on the people and they participant in increasingly wild and uninhibited sex orgies. Part of the problem for me, apart from the constant stream of sex that, like the first season, quickly bores and becomes desensitising, is that too many characters become less interesting and more irritating than in season one and the various threads that make up the overall story arc are too often cumbersome and veer towards the prosaic. The ever-present problem of comparison to ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ also refuses to go away. The events in Bon Temps could be quite easily equated to the season four BtVS episode ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ (one of the least interesting and successful episodes of that show) and there seems to be more than just coincidental passing resemblance to events in the BtVS spin-off show ‘Angel’.
I found Maryann Forrester to be often a tedious and infuriating character, although undoubtedly an effective one and nicely acted by Michelle Forbes. While she might have had a supernatural hold over her followers, her irritating new-age manner was surely enough to put anyone off. Equally, I found Godric rather insipid, which made his beatific appearance and the fierce loyalty he commanded less convincing for me. As for Bill Compton, one of the show’s two principal characters, I am not warming to him very much at all and I don’t find him remotely interesting. Even Sookie Stackhouse was more irritating than not at times. On the plus side, I did like one new character, the newly turned vampire Jessica Hamby.
I enjoyed this second season up to a point, but not a single individual episode has stuck in my mind. I could name all 144 BtVS episodes and briefly describe the synopsis of each one. When I watched the short-lived ‘Point Pleasant’ each episode made an impact on me and left a footprint behind. These twelve ‘True Blood’ episodes have failed to do that and even though the season has ended on a cliffhanger I don’t at the moment feel any pressing need or urgency to discover what happens next. Having said that, viewing figures have increased dramatically and my opinion seems to be out of step with most of the reviews I have read.
The second season of ‘True Blood’ is based primarily on, but is not entirely faithful to, ‘Living Dead in Dallas’, the second Southern Vampire Mysteries novel, first published in March 2002.
Review posted 29 November 2009
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Rating 1
Directed by Peter Hyams
Written by Peter Hyams, based on the 1956 screenplay by Douglas Morrow
Starring Amber Tamblyn (Ella Crystal), Jesse Metcalfe (C J Nicholas), Michael Douglas (Mark Hunter), Joel David Moore (Corey Finley), Orlando Jones (Ben Nickerson) and Lawrence P Beron (Anthony Merchant)
An investigative news reporter looking for a story that will take his career to the next level suspects that the District Attorney, who is hotly tipped to be the next State Governor, has been deliberately planting evidence to secure convictions in high profile murder cases. To prove his suspicions, he deliberately fabricates circumstantial evidence against himself in an unsolved murder, but his plan goes horribly wrong.
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‘Beyond a Reasonable Doubt’ is a 2009 remake of a classic 1956 film with the same title. That film, starring Dana Andrews and Joan Fontaine, was the last American film directed by the legendary Austrian film director Fritz Lang, who was responsible for several landmark films including the 1927 German silent masterpiece ‘Metropolis’. This flat remake is anything but a classic.
Michael Douglas is reasonably effective as the smarmy District Attorney, but his character, like everything else in this film, is far too flimsy. Jesse Metcalfe gives the most charisma-free acting performance I have had the misfortune of viewing in a very long time and manages to bring down Amber Tamblyn, an intelligent and more than competent actress, with him. There is no on-screen chemistry with Metcalfe and her performance here is lifeless and uninvolving. She put me in mind of Sandra Bullock, without ever managing to project the spark that Bullock can bring to her performances, even in some of her more regrettable film choices.
The first 45 minutes or so are dire, killed by Metcalfe’s calamitous absence of presence. Matters do improve after that when Tamblyn takes centre-stage, but the climactic scenes are badly botched and the twist is so blatantly obvious, almost from the start and without needing to have any prior familiarity with the original film, that to say it’s an anti-climax would be a gross understatement. The film even manages to squeeze in a painfully dull and predictable car chase.
‘Beyond a Reasonable Doubt’ has a zero rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 22 reviews. I have no doubt it is not the only film to ever receive a zero rating, but it is the first one that I have come across.
Writer and director Peter Hyams has had a long career, which has produced a mixed bag of results, from interesting earlier outings like ‘Capricorn One’ and ‘Outland’ to the slightly more recent horror films ‘Relic’ and ‘End of Days’, with a couple of Jean-Claude Van Damme films in between. His past record suggests that he is a better director than this lame and hackneyed debacle would indicate.
Review posted 23 November 2009
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Rating 1
Directed by Spencer Gordon Bennet
Written by Orville H Hampton, from a story by Irving Black and Jack Rubin
Starring Arthur Franz (Cmdr Richard ‘Reef’ Holloway), Dick Foran (Cmdr Dan Wendover), Brett Halsey (Dr Carl Neilson Jr), Paul Duboy (Lt David Milburn), Bob Steele (CPO Grif Griffin), Victor Varconi (Dr Clifford Kent), Tom Conway (Sir Ian Hunt), Richard Tyler (Frogman Carney), Kenneth Becker (Frogman Powell), Jean Moorhead (Helen Milburn) and Joi Lansing (Julie)
The US Navy atomic submarine Tigershark is sent to the Arctic Circle with a team of scientists onboard to investigate a series of mysterious incidents, including the disappearance of several vessels, and encounters an aquatic flying saucer.
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‘The Atomic Submarine’ was released in 1959, five years after the US Navy launched the USS Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear submarine, and one year after the Soviet Union successfully launched its first nuclear submarine. The film is, effectively, a simplistic advertisement for the power of the nuclear deterrent, in which the counter-argument, calling for an end to armed conflict and the proliferation of nuclear weapons, is put forward by the young scientist Carl Neilson, until his wholesale change of ideology at the end of the film after he has seen at firsthand the threat posed by the “alien”.
The special effects don’t impress, although the minimalist interior of the alien craft is quite effective, stock footage is used throughout and the interior of the submarine is laughable – but this is a film made very quickly with minimal budget during the period when drive-in theatres were at the peak of their popularity. The acting is stilted but passable and the story is filled with so many gaping holes that it becomes one gigantic chasm. Having said that, despite the increasingly irritating voiceover, the film is solid and it has a certain charm as a curiosity of the period.
Director Spencer Gordon Bennet was known as the “King of the Serial Directors” and during his long career, dating from 1921 to 1974, he directed the first ‘Superman’ serial, in 1948, and its sequel ‘Atom Man vs Superman’ in 1950. Actor Tom Conway was the brother of the rather more famous George Sanders. Brett Halsey, who plays Carl Neilson, has had a long career in films and television and most recently appeared in a 2008 episode of the CBS network police procedural ‘Cold Case’.
Review posted on 23 November 2009
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Rating 2¾
Directed by Lucky McKee
Written by David Ross
Starring Agnes Bruckner (Heather Fasulo), Patricia Clarkson (Ms Traverse), Bruce Campbell (Joe Fasulo), Emma Campbell (Alice Fasulo), Lauren Birkell (Marcy Turner), Rachel Nichols (Samantha Wise), Kathleen Mackay (Ann Whales), Jane Gilchrist (Ms Cross), Catherine Colvey (Ms Leland), Marcia Bennett (Ms Mackinaw), Cary Charevoix (Ms Cary Lawrence), Colleen Williams (Ms Arbor), Jude Beny (School Nurse), Gordon Currie (The Sheriff) and Angela Bettis (Voice in the Woods)
1965: When she starts a fire in a forest that nearly burns down her parents’ house, Heather Fussulo, a rebellious and sullen teenager, is sent to the strict Falburn Academy, an isolated all-girls boarding school. She repeatedly hears voices in the surrounding woods and is plagued by strange nightmares – and then some of the other girls begin to mysteriously disappear.
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In 2002 Lucky McKee wrote and directed the low budget independent psychological horror film ‘May’, starring Angela Bettis and Anna Faris, which received a lot of critical attention, won several awards and became a cult favourite. His next film ‘The Woods’, this time as director only, working from a screenplay written by David Ross, gathered dust for three years after it was made until finally being released on DVD in October 2006.
‘The Woods’ is a creepy psychological horror film, employing witchcraft as a kind of allegory for sexual repression, and is clearly influenced by Dario Argento’s hugely influential 1977 film ‘Suspiria’, as has been mentioned more than once in articles and reviews I have read. It has a deliberately slow pace that helps to create the atmosphere of soul-destroying oppression and tedium caused by the strict and repressive regime in the school. There is all kinds of repressed sexual imagery represented in scenes throughout the film. However, the pace is so slow that the sense of suspense does begin to dissipate after a while and there are no surprises to be found here. It is possible to surmise almost from the start exactly where the film is going and once it arrives there it does prove to be a rather flavourless, unsatisfactory and frankly botched climax. Having said that, it is a film that refuses to tread the same by-the-numbers path of most current horror films and there is much to admire here, including nice understated use of some Lesley Gore tracks, even if it perhaps never fires on all cylinders and ultimately disappoints more than not.
‘The Woods’ has a 67% fresh rating from twelve reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, although there are extremes of opinion expressed. Nick Schager calls it “polished and inventive”, but David Nusair thinks it “a complete misfire”. I think it is perhaps a misfire, but one that is certainly worth watching.
Review published 22 November 2009
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Rating ½
Written and directed by Sean McConville
Starring Brittany Murphy (Alice Evans), Thora Birch (Lucy Woods), Marc Blucas (David Woods), Tammy Blanchard (Rebecca) and Claudia Troll (David’s Mother)
While she recovers from a traumatic psychological breakdown, Alice Evans takes up residence alone in an old isolated house to concentrate on writing a screenplay to meet a tight deadline. When strange things start to happen and she hears noises at night she investigates and finds a box full of MiniDV tapes, a filmed record of the daily lives of Lucy and David Woods, previous occupants of the house. As she watches the tapes she learns of the terrible events that took place there.
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It is difficult to know what to say about ‘Deadline’, except to comment that I can still not quite believe how bad it was. This is truly dreadful film that abjectly fails in everything it sets out to do. I know very little about Brittany Murphy, but nothing in previous films I have seen (for example, ‘The Prophecy II’ and ‘Cherry Falls’, neither of which is especially good) prepared me for the awfulness of her performance here. I remain undecided if it was a terrible piece of acting or if she is simply the victim of the mindboggling direction by the film’s writer Sean McConville. Thora Birch and Marc Blucas, two competent and likeable performers, fare marginally better, but only because they have far less screen time.
Maybe I am being unfairly critical of the film, but I came away from watching it thinking it was rotten.
Review posted 21 November 2009
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Rating 3¼
Written by Russell T Davies and Phil Ford
Directed by Graeme Harper
Starring David Tennant (The Doctor), Lindsay Duncan (Adelaide Brooke), Peter O’Brien (Ed Gold), Aleksander Mikic (Yuri Kerenski), Gemme Chan (Mia Bennett), Sharon Duncan Brewster (Maggie Cain), Chook Sibtain (Tarak Ital), Alan Ruscoe (Andy Stone), Cosima Shaw (Steffi Ehrich) and Michael Goldsmith (Roman Groom)
The TARDIS materialises on the planet Mars. The Doctor seems to have no particular reason for being there, but is apprehended when he stumbles across a research base. When he realises that this is Bowie Base One, the first human outpost on Mars, and that the date is 21 November 2059, the day on which the base was deliberately destroyed by a nuclear device detonated by its commander Adelaide Brooke, he identifies this as a fixed point in history that he must not interfere with, but can he just walk away and allow the inhabitants of the base to perish?
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David Tennant is now nearing the end of his time playing the Doctor and will hand over the reigns to Matt Smith (the eleventh Doctor) after ‘The End of Time’, the Christmas 2009 special. That will also be the last Doctor Who episode written by Russell T Davies before he steps down and makes way for Steven Moffat to take over as the head writer and executive producer. The last full season of the show ended in July 2008 and ‘The Waters of Mars’ is the third of the four “specials” that take the show into the new era.
Although I enjoyed ‘The Next Doctor’, broadcast during Christmas 2008, and ‘Planet of the Dead’, in April 2009, I did feel that they were both a notch or two below the revived show at its very best and that the format established by Russell T Davies was starting to feel a little tired and a little too familiar. For the first twenty-five minutes or so of ‘The Waters of Mars’ I was beginning to suspect that this episode would go the same way, but then it just seemed to step up a gear. One thing Russell T Davies is particularly good at is pouring on the emotional melodrama and there is lashings of it here. The sense of dark despondency and hopelessness that was present just beneath the surface during the brief incarnation of the ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and the first season with David Tennant returns with a bang, setting the scene perfectly for the all-important Christmas special.
There are all kinds of nice touches, not least the clever use of the name Bowie Base One. I also like the water-based alien life-forms, which I think are very effective, although I have come across a few opinions to the contrary. The Doctor’s sudden outpouring of arrogance and borderline megalomania in this episode put me in mind of Colin’s Baker’s Doctor. If I have a criticism it is that we never really get to know enough about any of the inhabitants of the base (apart from Lindsay Duncan’s character), which slightly defuses the emotional impact. This is a story that could easily have been stretched a lot further than its 60-minute running time.
I have been getting impatient for the arrival of the new era, but with ‘The Waters of Mars’ (coming after the extraordinary Torchwood series ‘Children of Earth’), Russell T Davies has shown us once again just what we will be losing when he is gone.
Review posted on 16 November 2009
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Rating 2½
Written by David Pirie
Directed by Catherine Morshead
Starring Robbie Coltrane (DI Douglas Hain), Amanda Hale (Carol Walsh), Bel Powley (Carrie Walsh), Lucy Cohu (Sally Walsh), Sharon Small (Dr Laura Maitland), Nicholas Gleaves (Oliver), Lorraine Ashbourne (Rachel), David Westhead (Tony Phillips), Andrew Tiernan (Whitaker), Steve Robertson (Andrew McGrath), Mali Harries (DC Hart), David Gyasi (Will), Jason Watkins (Ed Croom) and Michael Bertenshaw (Steve Tobias)
13-year-old Carrie Walsh discovers the body of her brutally raped and murdered mother Lucy, a prostitute, and disturbs an intruder in the house, only narrowly escaping with her own life. The case is assigned to the cynical and weary DI Douglas Hain, who immediately comes into conflict with Dr Laura Maitland, a child psychologist who is brought in to protect and counsel Carrie. However, Hain is much more intimately involved than he lets anyone know, ultimately leading to him being taken off the case and retired early from the police force. The murder remains unsolved and fourteen years later Carrie, now Carol, turns up on Hain’s doorstep, still looking for closure.
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‘Murderland’ refers to a psychological state in which a child becomes obsessed by a crime, something dealt with by James Elroy in his autobiographical novel ‘My Dark Places’, which deals with the murder of his mother when he was 10-years-old, his efforts to solve the case, and how that terrible event has shaped his life since. This three-part television mini-series was written by David Pirie, in part based on an idea he and Robbie Coltrane had discussed some years earlier, inspired by their shared interest in film noir. Pirie is a former film critic whose other work includes ‘The Strange Case of Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle’ and well-received adaptations of ‘The Woman in White’ and ‘The Wyvern Mystery’, the latter starring Naomi Watts, shortly before the start of her ascent in Hollywood.
In the first episode (“Carrie’s Story”) the events immediately leading up to the murder and its aftermath are seen through the eyes of 13-year-old Carrie Walsh. The second episode, “Hain’s Story”, deals with those same events, now seen through the eyes of Douglas Hain. The third episode (“Carol’s Story”) is set mainly in the present as Walsh and Hain are reunited and they slowly piece back together the evidence and their fragmented memories of what happened.
The opening episode is excellent, thanks in no small part to a superb performance by Bel Powley, who perfectly captures the mixture of wide-eyed innocence, sense of fear and incomprehension and the growing psychological obsession. The second part is perhaps hampered by a feeling of déjà vu because the story retraces its steps over old ground, but it establishes Hain’s hidden involvement in the life of the murder victim. Sadly, though, the whole thing falls apart in part three. It feels tissue-thin and the revelations are too easily stumbled upon. There is no longer any sharpness to the characters and there is a real lack of any sense that Carol is so obsessed by the murder of her mother that her whole life is put on hold and consumed by it. I thought the performance by Amanda Hale was a little too flat and suppressed, although clearly this is how we are invited to imagine the events of Carol’s life have left her – unable to find closure and move on.
Robbie Coltrane is always worth watching, but the excellent Sharon Small is wasted in a role that ultimately doesn’t amount to very much. The first episode gives us some idea how good the whole thing might have been, but sadly it does rather fizzle out by the end.
Review posted 15 November 2009
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Rating 2
Written and directed by Michael Dougherty
Starring Dylan Baker (Steven Wilkins), Anna Paquin (Laurie), Britt McKillip (Macy), Leslie Bibb (Emma), Tahmoh Penikett (Henry), Samm Todd (Rhonda), Jean-Luc Bilodeau (Schrader), Isabelle Deluce (Sara), Alberto Ghisi (Chip), Lauren Lee Smith (Danielle), Connor Christopher Levins (Billy Wilkins), Christine Willes (Mrs Henderson) and Brett Kelly (Charlie)
A series of bizarre and bloody events occur on Halloween, each one in some way connected.
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‘Trick r Treat’ was written and directed by Michael Dougherty and produced by Bryan Singer. Dougherty co-wrote ‘X2’ and ‘Superman Returns’, two big-budget blockbuster films directed by Singer. The film, which had a $12 million production budget, was originally scheduled for release to coincide with Halloween 2007, but following a number of isolated one-off screenings from December 2007 onwards it was eventually released to DVD in October 2009. It has an 86% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 21 reviews.
The film is an anthology of several Halloween stories, each one in some way linked to the others. It has an almost dreamlike quality to it and plays like a kind of grisly comic fairytale. It is very cleverly put together, with some nice touches and attention to detail, and it has a recognisable and likeable cast. Such an inventive horror film with touches of black comedy set around the Halloween holiday should have been a real treat, but for some reason I just didn’t take to it. One reviewer, Bill Gibron, writing for PopMatters, suggests that, “A second viewing is definitely needed before confirming its almost masterpiece status.”
There already is a Halloween masterpiece, of course, and it’s called ‘Halloween’. All other Halloween-based horror films are destined to be compared to that John Carpenter classic. I don’t think this one compares, but perhaps I need to give it that second viewing sometime.
Review posted 15 November 2009
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Rating 3¾
Created by Alan Ball
Based on the Southern Vampire Mysteries novels by Charlaine Harris
EP1 ‘Strange Love’ (Written and Directed by Alan Ball); EP2 ‘The First Taste’ (Written by Alan Ball, Directed by Scott Winant); EP3 ‘Mine’ (Written by Alan Ball, Directed by John Dahl); EP4 ‘Escape from Dragon House’ (Written by Brian Buckner, Directed by Michael Lehmann); Ep5 ‘Sparks Fly Out’ (Written by Alexander Woo, Directed by Daniel Minahan); EP6 ‘Cold Ground’ (Written by Raelle Tucker, Directed by Nick Gomez); EP7 ‘Burning House of Love’ (Written by Chris Offutt, Directed by Marcos Siega); EP8 ‘The Fourth Man in the Fire’ (Written by Alexander Woo, Directed by Michael Lehmann); EP9 ‘Plaisir d’Amour’ (Written by Brian Buckner, Directed by Anthony M Hemingway); EP10 ‘I Don’t Wanna Know’ (Written by Chris Offutt, Directed by Scott Winant); EP11 ‘To Love is to Bury’ (Written and Directed by Nancy Oliver); EP12 ‘You’ll be the Death of Me’ (Written by Raelle Tucker, Directed by Alan Ball)
Starring Anna Paquin (Sookie Stackhouse), Stephen Moyer (Bill Compton), Sam Trammell (Sam Merlotte), Ryan Kwanten (Jason Stackhouse), Rutina Wesley (Tara Thornton), Nelson Ellis (Lafayette Reynolds), Michael Raymond-James (Rene Lenier), Jim Parrack (Hoyt Fortenberry), Carrie Preston (Arlene Fowler), William Sanderson (Sheriff Bud Dearborne), Chris Bauer (Detective Andy Bellefleur), Todd Lowe (Terry Bellefleur), Adina Porter (Lettie Mae Thornton), Alexander Skarsgård (Eric Northman), Lizzy Caplan (Amy Burley), Aisha Hinds (Miss Jeanette), Deborah Ann Woll (Jessica Hamby), Kristin Bauer (Pam), Michelle Forbes (Maryann Forrester) and Lois Smith (Adele Stackhouse)
Sookie Stackhouse is a telepath who works as a waitress in a diner in the small community of Bon Temps in Louisiana. Her best friend Tara Thornton works the bar and Tara’s cousin Lafayette Reynolds is a short order cook. He also deals drugs and has a gay porn website. Tara’s mother Lettie Mae is a violent long-term alcoholic who believes she is possessed by a demon. The diner is owned by Sam Merlotte, who is in love with Sookie but does not openly express his feelings towards her. Bill Compton, a vampire who was turned during the American Civil War, comes back to Bon Temps to take up residence in the old house owned by his family and despite the antagonism of some locals to his presence he begins a relationship with Sookie. When a number of brutal murders occur, Sookie’s feckless brother Jason is implicated and it becomes clear that she is being targeted.
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In a nutshell, ‘True Blood’ is Tennessee Williams with vampires. The show premiered on the HBO premium subscription cable television channel on 7 September 2008. It was created for television by Alan Ball, who was previously responsible for the acclaimed ‘Six Feet Under’, another HBO show. The first season comprises twelve episodes and is based primarily on ‘Dead Until Dark’, the first ‘Southern Vampire Mysteries’ novel by Charlaine Harris, which was published in 2001. The opening episode was watched by 1.4 million viewers and the twelfth episode was watched by 2.45 million viewers. The second season of the show premiered on 14 June 2009 and marked a considerable increase in viewer numbers, reaching a high of 5.3 million for the tenth episode (the twenty-second in total). Reviews were initially mixed, but have become increasingly enthusiastic.
I had high hopes for the show, but when I finally had an opportunity to watch it I stalled at the first episode. It stayed that way for a few months, before I eventually decided to give it another go. I went straight to episode two and this time I quickly became hooked, watching the whole of the first season in a week (the days of ‘The X Files’ or ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ when I could sometimes watch five or six episodes in a row are very much a thing of the past).
How much does ‘True Blood’ owe to ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’? There is an obvious similarity between the relationships of Sookie and Bill in ‘True Blood’ and Buffy and Angel in the early seasons of BtVS. Sookie’s telepathic abilities might be compared to Buffy’s in the season three BtVS episode ‘Earshot’ and the cripplingly addictive and hallucinogenic properties of “V” (vampire blood) bears more than a passing resemblance to the affect that magic has on Willow in season five of that earlier show. However, apart from the general fantasy elements, that’s more or less where it ends, although clearly the novels would seem to have been influenced to some degree by the BtVS template and that has carried through into the television series.
Although Sookie and Bill’s relationship is the central focus, I didn’t find this particular enthralling, but equally it was not too distracting and there were plenty of other story threads that kept me watching. I did feel that various storylines were being raced through too quickly without being allowed time to breathe and develop, almost as though they were trying to throw everything into the first season just in case the show was not renewed. It didn’t adversely affect my enjoyment and there were a few genuine “I was not expecting that!” moments. The over-abundance of frequently rather silly sex in the episodes did sometimes become wearisome, largely because it often seemed to be there for no other reason than the fact that it could be, but I found myself becoming desensitised to it and there was the occasional incorporation of humour, some that worked and some that didn’t. One thing the show does not do is subtlety.
There is a degree of analogy between the campaigns on both sides regarding the acceptance of vampires into society and the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, something referenced in one episode by the character Tara Thornton, but the subtext is undoubtedly influenced by much more recent ideological conflicts. It is very noticeable that the vampires have a clearly aggressive hidden agenda that is evident to all just beneath the surface of the conciliatory public face presented in the constant television debates that we see in the show. There is also the right-wing Christian Fellowship of the Sun. What will be done with this sub-text beyond simple dramatic effect remains to be seen.
Three actors in the main cast are not American. Anna Paquin, who was the initial reason I paid some attention to the show when I first heard about it, was born in Canada and brought up in New Zealand. Stephen Moyer is English and Ryan Kwanten, who I can still remember from his days as Vinnie Patterson in the television soap opera ‘Home and Away’, is Australian. I cannot judge how accurate or otherwise their Louisiana accents are. Both Paquin and Kwanten seem fine, although Moyer’s does occasionally sound a little odd, but I have no real point of reference, so any inadequacies in this area don’t affect me and it could well be that, in fact, Moyer’s is the more authentic of the three.
Anna Paquin is quite a distinctive actress, with just a hint of quirkiness in her performances. That applies here. From a few comments I have read, not all fans of the show are fond of her presence. In fact, some seem positively hostile and consider her to be the weak link, although I am guessing that this is simply a vocal minority. I have always liked her in what I’ve seen and that doesn’t change here, although Sookie is not necessarily the most interesting character.
I don’t know if ‘True Blood’ is as good as some critics have suggested, but although I have a few minor niggles, I am semi-hooked on it. In fact, it is fast becoming addictive.
Review posted 14 November 2009
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Rating 1
Directed by Katja von Garnier
Written by Ehren Kruger and Christopher Landon, based on the novel by Annette Curtis Klause
Starring Agnes Bruckner (Vivian), Hugh Dancy (Aiden), Olivier Martinez (Gabriel), Katja Reitmann (Astrid), Bryan Dick (Rafe), Kata Dobó (Beatrice) and Sandu Mihai Gruia (Pharmacist)
Aiden travels to Bucharest in Romania to do drawings and research the local legend of the loup-garou for his latest graphic novel. A chance meeting with Vivian, a mysterious nineteen-year-old chocolatier, sets a chain of events in motion that Aiden could not possibly have anticipated, as he discovers that some legends are more than just stories.
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‘Blood and Chocolate’ is very loosely based on a 1997 novel of the same name. That book is set in Maryland, but this is just one of many deviations that apparently exist in film. Loop-garou is the French word for werewolf. Having switched the story to Romania, the terms vârcolac or pricolici would have been more accurate. The film had been in talks and pre-production since 1997 and had gone through several directors before the German director Katja von Garnier signed on in 2005. The initial screenplay was written by Christopher Landon, the son of the actor Michael Landon (‘Bonanza’, ‘Little House on the Prairie’) and the film was released into cinemas in the U.S. at the beginning of 2007. It has an 11% rotten rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 71 reviews and grossed approximately $6.3 million at the box office worldwide.
The film was slated by most critics and some compared it unfavourably to both ‘The Company of Wolves’ and ‘Ginger Snaps’. I was also put in mind of ‘The Howling’. Reviewing the film for Empire magazine, Kim Newman wrote, “If it came to a wolfbitch fight, the girls from Ginger Snaps could rip up the entire werewolf race from Blood and Chocolate without mussing their fur.” It would be difficult to argue with this supposition.
The film is an unholy mess that even manages to mangle the dilapidated elegance of its setting, largely due to the flashy and constantly irritating editing. It obviously thinks it is sexy and erotic and romantic and mystical and mysterious and foreboding – and fails miserably on every count. Agnes Bruckner could have been a clever piece of casting, but her East European heritage is not exploited and instead she rarely seems anything other than a young American woman and gives a slightly flat performance, although not a bad one. Hugh Dancy is quite personable as Aiden, but Olivier Martinez is a pantomime villain and the pack (led by Bryan Dick) are more like a bunch of spotty oiks on a champagne rampage in Mayfair than mystical shape-shifting wolves.
There is the seed of an interesting story, albeit one that is no more than a pale variation of ‘Romeo and Juliet’, but this is the worst film I have seen since ‘The Sin Eater’ - a real stinker.
Review posted on 9 November 2009
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Rating 3¾
Directed by Adrian Shergold
Written by Jeff Pope and Bob Mills
Starring Timothy Spall (Albert Pierrepoint), Juliet Stevenson (Annie Pierrepoint), Eddie Marsan (James ‘Tish’ Corbitt), Claire Keelan (Jessie Kelly), Maggie Ollerenshaw (Mary Pierrepoint), Clive Francis (Field Marshal ‘Monty’ Montgomery), Elizabeth Hopley (Dorothea Waddington), Sheyla Shahovich (Irma Grese), Michael Norton (Josef Kramer), Ben McKay (Timothy Evans), and Mary Stockley (Ruth Ellis)
Albert Pierrepoint follows in the footsteps of his father and uncle and becomes an executioner. He attends to the task strictly as a job to be done, taking great pride in his work and ensuring meticulous attention to detail. However, after he receives a personal request from Field Marshal Montgomery to preside over executions in Germany following the war crimes trials at the end of World War II, his name and picture appear in newspapers, making him something of a celebrity and he begins to question what he does, as the psychological impact it has on him and his wife Annie becomes ever harder to bear.
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Albert Pierrepoint worked as an Assistant Executioner from 1932, when he was 27 years old, and became a chief executioner in 1941. He is believed to have conducted at least 450 executions (and possibly as many as 608, as quoted at the end of the film) before resigning in 1956 because of a disagreement about his fees. The executions he presided over included those of Josef Kramer, the “Beast of Belson”, and Irma Grese, the “Beautiful Beast” who, at 22 years of age was the youngest woman to be executed under British law in the 20th Century. He also executed William Joyce (“Lord Haw-Haw”) and Derek Bentley, whose execution in 1953 came despite widespread pleas for clemency and is told in the 1991 film ‘Let Him Have It’. Bentley received a posthumous pardon in 1998. These two executions are not referenced in the film, but those of Timothy John Evans in 1950 and Ruth Ellis in 1955 are. Ellis was the last woman to be hanged in Britain and the controversy surrounding her execution lit the flame that would eventually lead to the abolition of the death penalty in 1964. Evans received a posthumous pardon in 1966 – Pierrepoint also, in 1953, executed the serial killer John Reginald Christie, who was actually responsible for the killing that Evans had been found guilty of.
‘Pierrepoint’ paints a picture of Britain as a monotonously drab and austere place, which is what it was, and shows Albert Pierrepoint going about his business in a methodical manner, deeming it his responsibility that each hanging be quick and painless and that the bodies of those he executed be treated with respect afterwards, because, as he explained, through their execution they had atoned for their sins. Executioners were not employed full time, but “invited” to preside over individual executions and paid per hanging, so Pierrepoint also worked as a drayman and later owned a pub called Help the Poor Struggler with his wife, using money earned in Germany to buy it – he presided over thirteen hangings in a single day on 13 December 1945 and is thought to have hanged over 200 war criminals in total. Pierrepoint did not tell his future wife Annie about his “other” job when they first met and it was not until 1944, over a year after they were married, that they first discussed it, although she had actually known about it for several years, but chose not to mention it, waiting instead for him to do so.
Timothy Spall is excellent in the role of Albert Pierrepoint, as is Juliet Stevenson, playing his wife, and Eddie Marsan as John ‘Tish’ Corbitt, the friend and regular in their pub who Pierrepoint was later called on to hang. The attention to detail means that the film certainly looks authentic.
I found the film fascinating but quite harrowing to watch and the claim that almost all adults in Britain now would be in favour of a return to the death penalty is, if that statistic is in any way true, a horrific thought. In his autobiography, published in 1974, eighteen years after he presided over his last hanging, Pierrepoint wrote, “I have come to the conclusion that executions solve nothing and are only an antiquated relic of a primitive desire for revenge which takes the easy way and hands over the responsibility for revenge to other people,” although some people have subsequently questioned whether he was being entirely truthful about his stance on capital punishment when he wrote these words.
Albert Pierrepoint died in 1992 and the age of 87. He wife Annie died in 1998 at the age of 93. Contrary to popular belief, Pierrepoint was not Britain’s last executioner (hangings continued to take place for another nine years after he resigned), but he was its most famous.
‘Pierrepoint’ has a 76% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 50 reviews. Roger Ebert made the excellent point that, “The key to the film is in the performances... The utter averageness of the characters, their lack of insight, their normality, contrasts with the subject matter in an unsettling way.” The film’s worldwide box office gross is a little under $640,000.
Review posted on 8 November 2009
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Rating 3½
Directed by Thorold Dickinson
Written by Patrick Kirwan and Donald Bull – adaptation by Thorold Dickinson and Alan Hyman, from an original story by Leonard Reginald Gribble
Starring Leslie Banks (Inspector Slade), Greta Gynt (Gwen Lee), Ian MacLean (Sergeant Clinton), Liane Linden (Inga Larson), Antony Bushell (John Doyce), Brian Worth (Philip Morring), Esmond Knight (Raille), Richard Norris (Setchley), Wyndham Goldie (Kindilett), Alastair Macintyre (Carter), David Keir (Dr Meadow), E V H Emmett (Himself), Tom Whittaker (Himself) and George Allison (Himself)
Arsenal, the most successful and celebrated professional football team in England, play a friendly against the Trojans, a (fictitious) amateur team. During the second half of the match, John Doyce, the newest addition to the amateur team’s side, collapses on the pitch and dies shortly afterwards. The flamboyant Inspector Slade of Scotland Yard is exasperated to be interrupted while producing rehearsals for the forthcoming Metropolitan Police charity show, but he discovers that Doyce has been poisoned and he has a murder enquiry to investigate.
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Filmed in 1939 and released in February 1940, six months after Britain had entered the Second World War, ‘The Arsenal Stadium Mystery’ centres around a murder that takes place on the pitch during a friendly match involving the 1937/8 English championship winning Arsenal team. Several members of that Arsenal team appear in the film and there are speaking roles for Tom Whittaker, the team’s famous trainer, and George Allison, the team’s manager between 1934 and 1947. Two lines of dialogue spoken by Allison during the film, “They don’t play your game, they play the attacking game,” and “It’s one-nil to the Arsenal, that’s the way we like it,” seem to echo forward to the early 90s and the era of the dreaded “boring, boring Arsenal”, before the arrival of Arsène Wenger ion 1996.
There is some very appealing authenticity in the scenes of the match itself, some of which was filmed during the last league match Arsenal played (against Brentford FC in May 1939) before the outbreak of war. Leslie Banks plays the role of the investigating police inspector, an eccentric who keeps a selection of different hats close to hand to suit every occasion, with a twinkle in his eye and the film trundles along nicely, the identity of the killer eventually seeming not to matter very much. There is some unintentional comedy to be had from Liane Linden’s wildly wavering “Swedish” accent. Bizarrely, Linden was actually Swedish, although it’s hard to believe given her mangled accent in this film.
Leslie Banks was a popular film actor, both in Britain and Hollywood. His best known roles include the 1932 film ‘The Most Dangerous Game’, alongside Joel McCrea and Fay Wray, and Alfred Hitchcock’s first version of ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’, made in 1934 and starring Peter Lorre. Greta Gynt was a Norwegian actress who appeared in British films in the 1930s and ‘40s and was initially promoted as a kind of British Jean Harlow. By the time of her death in London in 2000 at the age of 83 she had been retired from acting for 37 years and was almost completely forgotten.
Review posted 8 November 2009
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Rating 2¼
Directed by Jim Gillespie
Written by Flint Dille, John Zuur Platten and Brandon Boyce, from a story by Flint Dille and John Zuur Platten
Starring Agnes Bruckner (Eden Sinclair), Jonathan Jackson (Eric), Laura Ramsey (Rachel), D J Cotrona (Sean), Meagan Good (CeCe), Rick Cramer (Ray Sawyer), Bijou Phillips (Tammy), Davetta Sherwood (Patty), Pawel Szajda (Ricky), Stacy Travis (Laura Sinclair), Marcus Lyle Brown (Terry Parker), James Pickens Jr (Sheriff), Deborah Duke (Miss Emmie) and Method Man (Deputy Turner)
Following an automobile accident on the outskirts of a small town in Louisiana, Ray Sawyer, the owner of a local filling station, dies while rescuing an elderly woman from her car before it falls off a bridge into the swamp below. An old battered suitcase inside the car contains poisonous snakes, talismans used in voodoo ceremonies to suck evil spirits out of people. The body of Ray is now possessed by these evil spirits and goes on a murderous rampage.
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‘Venom’ is a by-the-numbers horror film directed by Jim Gillespie, whose previous films include the 1997 box-office hit ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’. It was produced by Kevin Williamson, the writer of that film and ‘Scream’ (and its immediate sequel). Williamson was also the creator of the television series ‘Dawson’s Creek’. The film went on release in American cinemas in 2005 just a few weeks after Hurricane Katrina had caused widespread devastation and loss of life in New Orleans and southeast Louisiana and grossed just $882,000 at the box office. It was slated by critics and has a 10% rotten rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 61 reviews.
This is a fairly run-of-the-mill horror film that offers nothing new and conforms to all the clichés one might expect from a film of this type in this setting, as evocative as it is. I quite like the early scenes, up to and immediately after the automobile accident, but after that it somewhat predictably degenerates into a bloodbath with decidedly too much screaming for my liking. However, although it is all rather mediocre, it is also effectively done, given that there are several gaping holes in the plot, and I actually quite enjoyed it. Agnes Bruckner, whose other films include ‘Murder by Numbers’, ‘The Woods’ and ‘Blood and Chocolate’, is competent and believable in the lead role.
Review posted 8 November 2009
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Rating 3
Directed by Karyn Kusama
Written by Diablo Cody
Starring Amanda Seyfried (Needy), Megan Fox (Jennifer), Johnny Simmons (Chip), Kyle Gallner (Colin), Adam Brody (Nikolai Wolf), Chris Pratt (Roman), Josh Emerson (Jonas), J K Simmons (Mr Wroblewski), Valerie Tian (Chastity), Carrie Genzel (Jennifer’s Mom), Amy Sedaris (Needy’s Mom), Cynthia Stevenson (Chip’s Mom) and Lance Henriksen (Driver)
Jennifer is a flag girl, arrogant and confident. Needy is insecure and her somewhat unlikely best friend. They have been inseparable since childhood, although they seem to have little in common. One night they narrowly escape death in a raging fire when they go to see the rock band Low Shoulder in a nearby bar. Jennifer goes off with the band in their van. She returns later that night, covered in blood and vomiting a black ferromagnetic fluid, but the next day acts as if nothing has happened. Mysterious and horrific deaths follow and Needy begins to suspect that Jennifer is a succubus.
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‘Jennifer’s Body’ is the follow-up film by Diablo Cody, the writer responsible for the acclaimed multi-award winning 2007 comedy drama ‘Juno’. Jason Reitman, the director of that film and ‘Thank You For Smoking’, is one of the producers here. ‘Jennifer’s Body’ was directed by Karyn Kusama, whose two previous films include the widely unloved ‘Æon Flux’. The film has met with mixed reviews and has a 45% rotten rating at Rotten Tomatoes. It grossed a decidedly underwhelming $16 million in the U.S. and has only just started to receive worldwide release.
In spite of the appalling promotion, which seems intent on putting off more potential viewers than it entices, the apparent relative failure of ‘Jennifer’s Body’ seems strange, given that it’s a horror film starring Megan Fox, who is one of the top teen pin-ups of the moment, but it’s a black comedy and comedy-horror films are manifestly difficult to promote and often underwhelm at the box office. Writer Diablo Cody also seems to elicit a mixed reaction, seemingly because she was once a professional stripper and refuses to be embarrassed about it, and I get the impression there has been an undercurrent of desire for her to fail after the success of ‘Juno’.
My first impression as I started to watch ‘Jennifer’s Body’ was that it put me in mind of the 2000 Canadian werewolf film ‘Ginger Snaps’ and although the two films do follow a somewhat different path, that immediate correlation stayed with me throughout, although I don’t think this is a patch on that earlier film. I was aware of Megan Fox, although the only thing I had seen her in was the ABC television network sitcom ‘Hope & Faith’, in which she had a nondescript role and gave a performance so wooden that I was not in the least surprised by claims that she cannot act. Her performance in ‘Jennifer’s Body’ is actually quite effective, up to a point, although I came away from it with the sense that her acting ability is limited at best. Without knowing that she had already been widely compared to Angelina Jolie (something I did not read about until after I had watched the film), I was instantly put in mind of that actress. I have always been mystified by the acclaim afforded to Jolie’s acting, which I find stiff and mediocre at best – I thought her performance in ‘Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow’ was atrocious in the extreme, entering the territory of Elizabeth Hurley at her very worst (‘Beyond Bedlam’). Fox and Jolie seem to share not only vaguely similar looks, but also similar dead-eyed acting styles.
My main criticism of ‘Jennifer’s Body’ would be that the soundtrack is often overly intrusive, competing too much with Cody’s arch and knowing dialogue, and ultimately the film doesn’t seem to have much of anything to say, apart from some vague references to celebrity and the pursuit of success. On the plus side, it is quite sharp, although not as attractive and engaging as ‘Juno’, and the presence of Amanda Seyfried is a big plus. She is very effective in the role of Needy. Ultimately, the film is neither as smart as it tries to be or the flop that some reviews have suggested. It’s somewhere in between and in a period when American filmmaking seems to be in a creative slump it is one of the better releases I have seen in a while.
Review posted 7 November 2009
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Rating 3
Directed by Sam Raimi
Written by Sam Raimi and Ivan Raimi
Starring Alison Lohman (Christine Brown), Justin Long (Clay Dalton), Lorna Raver (Sylvia Ganush), Dileep Rao (Rham Jas), David Paymer (Mr Jacks), Reggie Lee (Stu Rubin), Adriana Barraza (Shaun San Dena), Molly Cheek (Trudy Dalton), Chelcie Ross (Leonard Dalton), Bojana Novakovic (Ilenka Ganush) and Kevin Foster (Milos)
Christine Brown is a loans officer who is trying to secure a promotion at the bank where she works. Told that she has to prove her ability to make hard decisions, she rejects the request of Sylvia Ganush to extend her loan, meaning that the old woman will now be evicted from her house. When Mrs Ganush goes down on her knees to beg, Christine calls Security to have her escorted from the building. In retaliation, Mrs Ganush curses Christine, condemning her to terrible torment for the next three days, after which she will be dragged to hell. It is now a desperate fight against time to find a way of ending the curse before it is too late.
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Sam Raimi is one of the masters of American horror films, having first made his name with ‘The Evil Dead’ in 1981 and its two sequels. His films as a director have been diverse, frequently taking him outside the horror genre, and in recent years he has concentrated on the hugely successful ‘Spider Man’ franchise (a fourth film is currently in pre-production and is due for release sometime in 2011). ‘Drag Me To Hell’ is Raimi’s first horror film as a director since ‘Army of Darkness’ in 1993, unless one counts his excellent 2000 gothic psychological thriller ‘The Gift’. The film was released in 2009 to near universal praise and often ecstatic reviews – and has been described as the best horror film of the decade. It has a 92% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 202 reviews and a reasonable but not overly impressive worldwide box office gross a little under $83 million, against a production budget of $30 million.
Reviewing the film for the British daily newspaper The Independent, Anthony Quinn called it, “cheap, nasty and rather a magnificent.” I am not convinced it is any of these things. It definitely is not cheap and nasty, but neither is it particularly magnificent. It certainly harks back to horror films from an era before Wes Craven’s ‘Scream’ trilogy and it has absolutely nothing in common with the loathsome likes of ‘Hostel’ and ‘Captivity’. There is plenty of slapstick humour to be found here and it is expertly made, bearing many of the hallmarks of Sam Raimi’s directing style. Somehow, though, I never really engaged with the film. Part of the problem I suspect is simply that I guessed almost immediately where it was heading and simply spent the next ninety minutes waiting for that to happen. The reviews, generally, seem a little over-effusive to me, but, in fairness, perhaps I am missing something and should watch it again sometime.
Ellen Page was originally cast in the role of Christine Brown, but had to pull out, which is a pity. I didn’t have any previous awareness of Alison Lohman and while her performance here was perfectly competent, I didn’t really like it very much – there just seemed to be something missing.
‘Drag Me To Hell’ is a film I think I would probably defer judgement on at this stage. I certainly seem to be out-of-step with general opinion about it, but while I didn’t dislike it by any means, I came away feeling slightly underwhelmed by it all.
Review posted 5 November 2009
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Lincoln Six Echo lives in a self-contained high-tech underground colony of uncontaminated humans, each one waiting to win the “Lottery” and be allowed to go to an idyllic location called “the Island”, the last habitable place on the planet. Lincoln begins to question his surroundings and has a recurring nightmare, which brings him to the attention of Dr Merrick, who controls the area in which he lives. He also forms a close friendship with Jordan Two Delta and when she is announced as the next lottery winner and he discovers that everything they have always known is a lie (they are simply clones to be harvested for organ transplants or used for surrogate pregnancies), they escape from the complex and go on the run, relentlessly pursued by a deadly paramilitary squad.
‘The Island’ is a 2005 sci-fi action film directed in typically abrasive fashion by Michael Bay. It has a 40% rotten rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 180 reviews. Rich Cline called it, “An intelligent, provocative premise wrapped in a bone-chillingly stupid action movie,” and Jeffrey Overstreet wrote, “It seems to assume that its audience is made of idiots, constantly reminding us of the simple plot details and having characters define things for each other.” It grossed just $36 million at the US box office against a production budget of $126 million and an outlay somewhere in the region of $45 million for domestic marketing and distribution. A further $127 million was grossed overseas. An accusation was made following the release of the film that it infringed the copyright of a forgotten 1979 film called ‘Parts: The Clonus Horror’. Settlement was reached out of court before it went to trial, allegedly for a seven-figure sum.
A number of familiar themes often pursued in science fiction are to be found here, drawing on libertarian political philosophies and ideologies, totalitarianism and commentary about science gone mad, in this case human cloning. There is no question that the film poses some interesting questions, but Michael Bay’s particular brand of filmmaking reduces the whole thing to the simple idea that everyone should be free to brandish big guns and cause maximum destruction. The constant stream of action sequences in the second half of the film’s two hours plus running time are slickly staged, but making everything bigger and louder and being brazen about the product placement does not make it better. These action sequences are, in fact, bone-headed and objectionably stupid.
Ewan McGregor is not an actor I have ever warmed to and nothing here changes that. Scarlett Johansson’s early promise seems to have dissipated somewhat since the days of ‘Ghost World’ and ‘Lost in Translation’. She lost me in promotional interviews for ‘The Island’ when she appeared to lay claim to having on-set tantrums because she wasn’t allowed to take her clothes off in the film. However, both are reasonably effective in the lead roles. The film itself is a perfectly serviceable action film, but the premise offers something beyond that and there is undoubtedly a much more intelligent if somewhat unoriginal film buried somewhere underneath the mind-numbing onslaught of explosions and general destruction.
