Silence of the Cameras

Things that go bump at the camera are running their course
By Morgan P Salvo


Have you ever watched one of those Ghost Hunter paranormal TV shows? Me neither. I’ve tried, but it just doesn’t interest me to watch a bunch of pansy-ass nerds walking around with a bunch of gizmos acting all scared and ready to piss their pants around every corner. Maybe if they actually pissed their pants we’d have something. They might have - like I said, I’ve never made it through a whole episode. I wish I could say the same about the Paranormal Activity franchise. The third installment is now crushing it at the box office and all I can say is that I miss Saw. At least the Saw franchise is an intricate series - we know it continues from the one before and perfectly sets up the next installment. This Paranormal 3 is just a repetition of the same tricks, only ever so slightly embellishing on the last hand held camera “found footage” scare-fest. But scary tricks aside, this is still a one way ticket to Dullsville.
It’s no secret that I absolutely detested the first Paranormal. I skipped the second one and even though everyone said it was way better and scarier than the first (not a tough achievement) I highly doubt it, though it did have things I find scary in it, like babies. This third installment brings all the same supremely irritating qualities because it’s basically the same movie with different people in it. Seriously why continue having more annoying characters with idiotic supernatural plights?
Once again, a family suspects a threatening, supernatural presence has invaded their home so they begin to videotape themselves around the clock in hopes of capturing proof. This takes place in 1988 and is supposed to enlighten us as to why the sisters from the previous films have demons on their tails. Oddly, the footage in this prequel looks like it was shot on digital, with none of the VHS lines that would have existed from 1988, and it blows bazooka holes into the premise of the first two movies. If the sisters had been video taped essentially their whole life you’d think that, instead of constantly being documented, they’d finally throw in the ghostly towel or be wise enough to start one of those aforementioned TV shows where they get paid to almost piss their pants.
This time around the producers reeled in co-directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman whose first feature was 2010's questionable social-media “real life” mystery Catfish. I have to admit that a couple of the tricks they use are kind of cool (like the oscillating fan cam) and some of the jolt scares are way better than anything the predecessors came up with.
But the big glaring fault in P3 is that, with indisputable proof for what’s been going on in the house, it still takes forever for anything to really happen and an eternity for the characters to get a clue and then of course it’s too late and time for the movie to end with a big scary bang.
It’s amazing that anyone can fall for this ultra cheap super manipulative trick of demons and “found footage” again and again. I guess it’s like riding the carnival funhouse torture dungeon ride, you want to be scared so you get to be scared…plain and simple. The franchise’s brilliance is that it’s so cheap and yet so effective. I think it has to do with our Reality TV quick fix mentality. This movie preys on our childhood fears of the unknown and only gives us one kind of scare. Here the audience gets to stare at the camera footage of a room while some furniture gets thrown around, some doors open, and somebody stands in one place for really long. Then there’s some really loud bangs and clumping noises, as we wait for something to pop out of nowhere for a jolt-scare. Add amateurish fast forwards, jump cut and shaky camera work and formula is complete.
The one thing that is I found impressive and totally mind boggling is that the first Paranormal Activity cost just $15,000—the price of a used 2008 Honda Accord (or so I’m told) and the film went on to earn nearly $108 million at the U.S. box office and $194 million worldwide. Completely undeserved in my book but that’s another story. Update as of Sunday night P3 has raked in $54 million. Hmmm… I guess I might start making them too. YET....Anyone can make these movies in their sleep

Treading on thin ice, the threadbare premise of this franchise is just about worn past transparency. But PA3 dutifully sets things up for the next installment. One doesn’t need any kind of séance to determine that it will probably arrive around next Halloween. With the intention solely to make audiences piss their pants maybe the gimmick for Paranormal 4 will be to hand out diapers in the theatre. Saw, I beg of you, please come back.


Subnormal Stupidity--oh I mean...Paranormal Activity 3
Starring Chloe Csengery, Jessica Tyler Brown, Lauren Bittner, Christopher Nicholas Smith
Directed by: Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman
Rated R

If you can’t take the gore stay out of the theatre

Prequel to a remake holds some mighty frozen ground





By Morgan P Salvo

People booed. Some walked out. One guy even cursed the screen as the credits rolled. I laughed my ass off…nothing like a shameless rip-off of an already shameless remake.
Suffice it to say this is my kind of movie.
I was so primed to hate this movie. Back when I first saw a trailer for this 2011 The Thing all I could ask myself was why? I was afraid that I’m a little too familiar with the material. As a kid I used to watch the original Howard Hawks’ 50’s classic every Halloween afternoon on TV just to sift through all the slow moving technical scientific mumbo jumbo to get the big scary “Thing” payoff at the end. And the 1982 John Carpenter version’s over-the-top gory remake is one of my favorites.

This prequel takes all its cues from the ‘82 version and fills in all the gaps in basically the same formulaic predicaments of how to deal with the unknown entity. Basically the Thing can enter and hide in a human host and from there wreak havoc so it’s always a cat and mouse game of who could possibly be the inhuman culprit. It can only be killed by death by burning so the weapon of choice is the flame thrower. Still a good combo of the first two this Thing pretty much morphs into a replica of the second. Based in Antarctica a Norwegian expedition team (who are about 50 miles from where the Carpenter version takes place) find an entity encased in ice that looks like the Donnie Darko Bunny or an evil lobster claw and the fun starts here. The combination of blood spewing, gut churning, high camp and seriousness that so defined Carpenter’s stay intact in this prequel. Even with Mary Elizabeth Winstead the chick from final destination three and Eric Christian Olsen the guy form that cheerleader movie Fired Up! Hero Joel Edgerton and even Mr. Echo from Lost shows up Ulrich Thomsen is the stern and strict ( the kind you want to see get punched) scientist wearing the same fur hat from the 50s.
During the credits the movie continues and director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr somehow puts an entire European feel to this movie.
‘82 Thing was way before CGI so the special effects that might seem low tech by today’s standards but for the time it was state of the art super gruesome weirdness. But the funniest part was how 2011 Thing’s high tech CGI effects still come off cheesy and hilarious, a lot like the goopy creatures from Stuart Gordon’s From Beyond or Brian Yuzna’s Society. We’re still talking big gooey meaty slits, all teeth and tendrils with whipping fanged tentacles. We also get some of the craziest demon alien morphing onscreen to date. There are plenty of flying alien guts and even an updated head-with-spider legs creature that had me laughing in the aisles. Maybe this version didn’t live up to the disgruntled people’s expectations but all put together the Thing is a formula that can’t go wrong. I know now that I wasted energy thinking that I wasn’t going to like this flick. Whether it’s a prequel or the other side of the ice-slope they can keep making this kind of Thing anytime they want.

The Thing
Starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Eric Christian Olsen, Ulrich Thomsen
Directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr
Rated R
3 ½ stars

Et tu Clooney?

We’ve seen it all before but Clooney lets the actors shine
by
Morgan P Salvo

Pretty boy George Clooney gets a bad rap; from conservative attacks on his liberal politics to jabs at his good looks. Problem with that scenario is that Clooney is a really good director and couldn’t care less. Clooney is also a damn fine actor so it’s no surprise that Ides of March although driven by political force, is all about the acting. Touting a superb cast and drawing from source material Farragut North, a 2008 play by Beau Willimon, Ides tells the tale of an idealistic staffer (Ryan “I’m in every other movie” Gosling) who gets a crash course on dirty politics during his stint on the campaign trail working for a presidential candidate (Clooney). Unfortunately not much transpires that we’ve not experienced in the political movie realm. Nothing really new is revealed. There’s no surprise watching the inner workings behind political wheeling and dealing. We’re supposed to have enormous feeling for certain characters but alas as the film progresses you feel more inclined to hate just about everyone in this flick. Maybe that’s the point.
So that brings us back to the acting. Ides is all about the performances. It’s Gosling’s movie all the way but just seeing Paul Giamatti and Phillip Seymour Hoffman in the same flick is almost goose bump inducing. And the always dependable Marisa Tomei shows up and thankfully this time around doesn’t have to have sex with an ugly guy.
After being introduced to the chess game of politics, about a third of the way in I’m wondering… where is the tension? When it kicks in we get a good suspenseful feel for, say about three minutes and then everywhere you wish Ides would go just refuses to go there. Right when we think its going to go the path of Julius Caesar, Ides just kind of rides this self explanatory plane wherein everything is spelled out for you.
Clooney’s direction surprisingly underwhelms. The simplistic easygoing approach harkens back to the Hollywood of yesteryear, the problem is that style doesn’t mesh with today’s political hot topics. Sure pipe dreams are shattered and slimy shady dealings behind close doors are powerful but without the versatility or complexity of Tim Robbins’ Bob Roberts or Michael Ritchie’s The Candidate, the only motivating force is Clooney’s left wing agenda. Jabbing at the republicans’ vicious power and the democrats’ extreme wimpiness, more times than not under the guise of political intrigue Ides feels only like a vehicle to showcase Clooney’s left leaning politics.
I really liked where I thought it was going to go but in the end everything about this flick is just too obvious. Plus Clooney isn’t very pretty this time around.


Ides of March
Starring George Clooney, Ryan Gosling, Paul Giamatti, Phillip Seymour Hoffman Evan Rachel Wood, Marisa Tomei, Jeffrey Wright
Directed by George Clooney
Rated R







2 stars

Dream On….

Dream team of A-list actors and director cannot save the misguided path of Dream House
by
  Morgan P Salvo





Okay, here we go again with another installment of the haunted house genre. You know the ones with “haunting” and/or “house” in the title that I have proven are destined to suck. They don’t stand a ghost of a chance. This flick is no exception to the sucking rule but guess what? It’s not a haunted house movie, which now leads me to believe anything with just “house” in the title sucks. And yes, even that predictable TV series.
Beginning with scary angelic music Dream House introduces the typical new inhabitants in a strange and creepy house with a shady past where things creak, squeak, and go bump in the night all destined to make towering A-list film stars (Daniel Craig, Rachel Weiz, Naomi Watts) crap their pants. But all that changes midway through with a twist from the “is this all real?” Shutter Island school of twists, detouring into ridiculous hallucinations, visions, questionable sanity and yes…murder.

What I thought was going to be yet another in the big steaming pile of bad haunted house movies turns out not to be the case. Dream house is a steaming pile of a different entity. Moving at a snail’s pace with zero suspense, rife with stupidity, hack job screenwriting, and a huge dose of WTF, this flick manages to churn out a tepid psychological thriller at best. Even with two major plot twists, the movie is still so formulaic that you can almost see the solution boiling out of the science beaker. Attempting Hitchcock territory, it’s too lame and stupid to even come close. If we’re going to be treated to this kind of thriller I say thrill us and crank it up a notch. Director Jim Sheridan has jeopardized his substantial filmmaking credits (My left Foot, In America) as all he does is make a terrible “made-for-bad-TV” psychological mess look slick which makes it all the more glaringly apparent how truly awful this movie is. File this one under “too demeaning to experience” and move on. Bad writing abounds in movies these days, and screenwriter David Loucka who also wrote 1989’s Dream Team must have dreams on his mind. Well I have news for him and the filmmakers...keep dreaming. This flick could possibly induce nightmares for all the wrong reasons.
Dream house keeps you on the edge of your seat…geared to leave. A more appropriate title could be Outhouse. When a movie gets all phony with its transparent moodiness, absolutely ridiculous with its gaping plot holes, wretched dialogue and monstrously insulting acting from capable thespians, it’s downright painful.

Dream House
Starring Daniel Craig Rachel Weiz Naomi Watts
Directed by Jim Sheridan
Rated PG-13
1 star

Cultivating Familiarity

A somewhat reverent attempt at remake still plays out as sacrilege to the hilt




By
Morgan P Salvo

There would be no slow motion poetic ballet in violence without the genius director Sam Peckinpah. There would be no John Woo or Walter Hill movies. There would never have been The Wild Bunch, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia or Straw Dogs without Peckinpah. Now we have Straw Dogs without Peckinpah. Some may say homage, I say blasphemy

Peckinpah’s ’71 Straw Dogs was his most enigmatic, open wound of a movie, throughout commentary on bigotry, racism, social and religious dysfunction, (and if you look deep enough, health care), extols the fact that the use of violence is necessary. Peckinpah’s hard drinking/hard life influenced his filmmaking style and perpetual “last man standing” theme, be it against the changing time, the protection of one’s home or the preservation of self-respect. It wasn’t just the stories; it was Sam’s vision through cinematic styling that made his films shine with a kind of wrecked dignity. He has every right to spin in his grave for this remake.

Based on a book called “Siege at Trencher’s Farm”, Straw Dogs unfolds as an iconic tale of man’s violence towards man. It originally detailed the attempt of an American professor (Dustin Hoffman) and his British wife (Susan George) to return to the tranquility of her childhood home only to be confronted by mayhem and destruction. Director Rod Lurie has moved the setting to the Deep South, with way more beautiful people, pairing off rednecks and intellectuals. Now as a screenwriter, James Marsden is amiable as the lead, compared with Hoffman’s mathematician nebbish bookworm. Kate Bosworth, although good, is no George, who emanated promiscuous flirty sexual under currents. Alexander Skarsgård (True Blood) dutifully shows off his ability to act steamy and take his shirt off.
I kept asking myself as I watched, what if this wasn’t a remake of a movie in my top five movies of all times - would I like it? The honest answer is, I can’t tell. It’s a gallant effort and creates a certain overall mood and creepiness, but it lacks the tension from the original.’71 Straw Dogs was a very powerful and controversial movie for its time. In the last forty years we have become desensitized to onscreen violence. Let’s see if people are still talking about this version 40 years from now. Time will tell. I guess in the sea of bad movies I’m accustomed to viewing, this one might’ve been a standout. The only problem is, based on my prior knowledge of and commitment to Peckinpah’s version, I’ll never know.

Straw Dogs
Starring James Marsden, Kate Bosworth, Alexander Skarsgård, James Woods
Directed by Rod Lurie
Rated R
no stars until I figure it out

Creature From The A-Hole Lagoon

 Hoping against hope, my movie going experience proves more entertaining than Creature’s proof that they really don’t make them like they used to

By Morgan P Salvo

New horror movies give me hope. I had high hopes for this flick and for a while it seemed like my prayers had been answered but to my severe dismay this movie couldn’t live up to its potential.

It’s funny that when your dreams are shattered early on something else comes along to take the place. The best part by far was my movie theatre experience. Right when Creature’s big climatic shit is about to hit the fan the film stopped, flinched a little, then burns into a big char hole on the screen shutting everything down. No, this was not Rodriguez/Tarantino’s Grindhouse techno splicing tomfoolery this was an honest to god mistake. I had to go tell the help in the theatre that the film was screwed up. But this gives me a new kind of hope--- that theaters have projectors to show films that are still shot on film and people to bolt in to fix the problem. Ten minutes emergency time and the projectionist gave me and the other guy in the theatre the thumbs up and we were off to see how wretched the ending really was going to be. Until film turns to all digital there’s’ still hope for a good time at the movies.

Creature has special treat, guilty pleasure, drive-in homage all stamped into its very existence and very well could be all of those things if it kept up with its own ideas. What it is, is a cheesy lame excruciatingly cheap movie with no soul and one ridiculous disjointed scene after anotherreature begins with initial promise: in about the first 30 seconds a chick takes off her top goes inexplicably (like all good/bad horror movies) skinny dipping in the middle of a swampy bayou and in the next minute there’s alligator chomping gore. A road trip for three couples goes awry when they take a shortcut into bayou Weird-town and the creepy legend of Lockjaw— the man gator (A cross between a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and Pumpkin Head). Main problem here is Lockjaw is always shown in the dark and hard to see But not so for the road trip people. The couples, one just as irritating as the next, are formed from the depths of stereo-typicality. We have the practical joker, serious token black dude, beer guzzling marine, slut, stoner slut and prude-turned-slut. You can’t help but to root for each of their demise.

Taking the low-budget route Creature’s blood-letting action takes place off camera with splattery sound effects while people either get sprayed with blood or wield a bloody stump. To Make matters worse National Geographic type footage is used for shots of alligators clumsily edited into each gator scene. Skewered by too much dialogue it does however bring back my other unfulfilled wish: creepy psycho inbred hillbillies. Headed by Sid Haig (reprising his Captain Spalding antics from House of 1000 corpses) and Pruitt Vince-Taylor channeling Neville Brand in Eaten Alive, this array of backwoods numbskulls gives Creature its spunk. While I am thrilled that something this bad made it to the theaters its mind boggling. Creature really belongs on a shelf in a DVD rental store. Although it feels somewhat futile and even masochistic to derive any pleasure from something this cheesy, and I can’t recommend sitting through this one, as bad as Creature is it’s all one can hope for.
.









CREATURE
Starring Mehcad Brooks, Serinda Swan, Dillon Casey, Lauren Schneider, Aaron Hill
Director: Fred M. Andrews
Rated R
2 ½ stars

Blair Witch in Space

Apollo 18 belies its “found footage” scenario and goes for the gusto

by Morgan P Salvo




We all have to make choices. Like if someone tells you a story and says it really happened, you want to choose to believe it. And if it’s an especially good story even better. And if it’s embellished, all over the map and totally unbelievable but makes you laugh then all the better. In other words, so what if it’s not true?
If you want to believe, go ahead, but this movie sheds its “found footage” concept pretty quickly and just digs deep into delivering the horror movie goods. Note that right at the beginning here I am going to tell you: there are credits to Apollo 18.
Apollo’s plot is so simple it’s refreshing: disguised as lost footage of a secret mission to the moon, a few good men go into space and find out something is really wrong and mysteriously deadly. The astronauts quickly realize they’re space bait guinea pigs and now its life or space death at the hands of creepy life forms on the moon. As in Ridley Scott’s masterpiece Alien, their mission is not a return flight. The space program’s head honchos back on planet earth only want a specimen of the dangerous stuff to verify its existence and keep it monitored. So what’s the problem with sacrificing a few astronauts?
Although Apollo 18 comes from the formulaic ilk of frontrunner Blair Witch, the idiocy of the Paranormal Activity chain and the super pathetic The Fourth Kind “found footage” school of filmmaking, it drops that notion like a lead balloon and even lets you laugh at the fact that you know damn well no one could possibly be holding a camera for certain scenes unless it was a union dude from Hollywood. Don’t be looking for Tom Hanks or Ed Harris or the scent of Ron Howard’s fingers on this one. This Apollo goes for intensity with stone cold performances, real NASA footage and sci-fi terror ripped right out of Alien.
And there are monsters. They enter in true horror movie style out of nowhere, darting in silhouette forms across the screen. They also have that Descent kind of monster noise – you know--- the hamster chuckling, woodpecker pecking, trees creaking, gurgling kind of noise. And they are spider/rock demon/crab monsters (like in South Park) so watch out if you ever bought a moon rock as a souvenir - it could turn out to bite you in the ass or drill into your abdomen.
Of course there is a big dramatic pause at the end to let you feel like you’ve just watched something real and inform you to go to “Lunartruth.com” which is basically a pseudo site designed to promote the movie—in fact its frozen and you can’t click on anything (I checked). But sticking around the theatre you’ll see about 12 minutes of credits including actors, writers and a slew of techno post production teams that boggle the mind. A major plus among the credits is editor Patrick Lussier, whose inspired directing skills brought us Drive Angry and My Bloody Valentine. Lussier has a bloody field day throwing images in our faces and using literally every trick in the book: grainy film stock, skips, bleeps washouts, jump cuts, fuzzy film hair, dust scratches, burn holes… you name it, it’s in there. The rewarding part is that though the gimmicks abound they don’t hinder or distract but instead propel the simple yet crazy narrative.
The actors should be acknowledged because they were impeccable. Astronaut Warren Christie is like a stern combo of Luke Wilson and James Caviezel (aka Jesus) and his partner-in-space Lloyd Owen who turns evil through infection is just as Oscar-worthy reliable. There’s also an un-credited third dude who spends his time weightless in the hovering observer ship who does all his acting upside down but he’s still swinging with the script. Everyone else in the cast is portrayed in voice-overs via intercoms and radio transmissions We’re also treated to some very cool music during the credits by a band that I’ve never heard of called Parking Lot.
Unlike the abysmal Paranormal Activity that reeks of phoniness from the get go and wants you to believe so bad that it shoots itself in the foot, Apollo 18 shuns the documentary concept and goes for the jugular, giving the polar opposite effect. Lopez-Gallego, Lussier and company could give a shit if you believe or not. These filmmakers are here to entertain you plain and simple, which in the long run turns out to be a great choice.

Apollo 18
Starring Warren Christie, Lloyd Owen
Directed by Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego
Rated PG-13
3 stars