Killer Instincts

Dysfunction spirals toward depravity 

by Morgan P Salvo

Killer Joe’s opening credits gives us the head’s up on the second collaboration of writer Tracy Letts and Director William Friedkin (first was Bug). Garnishing an NC-17 rating due to some full frontal rampant nudity and some kick ass sexual simulation, there is an even weirder vibe that hangs on the entire flick resulting in a need to wash out your brain afterward.

Here again the writing/directing  duo tries to reinvent the critical fame of Bug with this screwed up potboiler, but Killer Joe allows the subject matter to only half translate to film. The whole viewing time I was wishing I was watching the play and not this mostly defective film version. But what is weird about this movie is that, even for all its flaws, it remains this extremely haunting memory. Replaying scenes in my head and the strange, warped, uncomfortable feeling I got from watching this flick has somehow morphed into the same feeling of recalling a dream, like ‘did that really happen?’

The plot is pretty far fetched but allows some diabolical fun. From the wrecked world of trailer trash comes the tale of a supremely dysfunctional family who gets wind of a detective (Matthew McConaughey) who moonlights as a hit man and they want the matriarch of the family dead so they can rake in the cash from her insurance policy. This major plot reels into minor sub text about what makes messed up people tick way more than worrying about the logistics of being believable, although the twists Killer Joe takes are pretty darn good and disturbing.

Reveling in demented glee, McConaughey seems to be having as much fun as he did in Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation. Matt fares pretty well as the cowboy detective who relates with soft spoken terror: a menacing monster capable of torture and humiliation, but I focused more on the fact that he whistles when he says words that in ‘s’. At first all the acting felt off kilter and forced except for Gina Gershon and Juno Temple who are both excellent. Then I actually put my finger on it halfway through -- I wanted two of lead actors, Thomas Haden Church and Emile Hirsh, to be different actors; almost anyone (aside from Justin Timberlake) because there was something inherently wrong with their delivery making most of their scenes a chore to get through. The best guy in the whole flick was Marc Macaulay, a solid character actor since the ’80s with 134 movies and/or TV episodes under his belt, who gives us scene-stealing screen time that indelibly smears the mind.

Director Friedkin juices up this flick with some great locations, nice bloodletting-violence and insanely wrong sexual situations. To enhance how Friedkin and Letts feel toward their audience, the assault of vindictiveness (not so coincidentally) plays along with how the characters in the film feel about themselves. Friedkin/ Letts have no regard for anyone else, which can be a good thing as it remains in the realm of art. It’s the imprint this flick makes on your brain where the impact lies. Unfortunately in so doing we lose the grasp of why and what’s happening on screen one time too many and that proves too distracting.

After a ton of disjointed weird dialogue, mounting danger, sexual innuendo and some mistake-ridden editing, the third act of the movie gets extremely engrossing. It will make you forgive the questionable acting and the cavernous loopholes. An earlier twist that is somewhat “thriller movie” based turns a new corner and we are at the crossroads of the sadomasochistic and disturbed. The unanswered questions of certain things fall into place still leaving everything totally ambiguous. But the wretched characters rear their ugly agendas in full force as dysfunction goes brutal and turbo. We begin to witness certain things that baffle, shock, titillate and disgust simultaneously. It’s a crescendo of a climax that almost makes the wait worth it.

Morbidity and lurid pleasure are batted around like softball practice, and there are some really quotable take home lines like calling Colonel Sanders’ grub  “K FRY C” or when Gershon is told she is “fumigating the gates of hell” after spraying on too much perfume.

Killer Joe is one slow burn towards an inevitable “didn’t-see-all-of-that-coming” ending. When all is said and done, this tall Texan tale coming from the pen of an Oklahoman playwright and the director of The French Connection is a prime example of hit and miss filmmaking. But due to the nasty weird-ass stuff battling it out on the screen this flick is worth a look and will undeniably stick with you forever.

Killer Joe

Starring Matthew McConaughey, Emile Hirsch, Juno Temple, Thomas Haden Church, Gina Gershon, Marc Macaulay

Directed by William Friedkin

Rated NC-17

3 stars

Exorcise Your Rights

 Exorcism Movies have a high rate of sucking. There are a slew of terrible, and I mean god-awful, grade z, drive-in, bad Exorcism flicks, too many to mention but let me take a stab a few highlights.

The Exorcist

William Peter Blatty’s best seller comes to life in the big granddaddy of them all. When it came out I thought it sucked and was laughably bad but now I appreciate it after the flock of copycat regurgitations. Groundbreaking a for its day William Friedkin keeps the tension up and his excellent camera work and state of the art special effects (for the time) are top notch. It’s still overly quoted; I don’t anyone who hasn’t said, “Your mother sucks cocks in hell.” 

The Exorcist II: the Heretic

John Boorman’s (Deliverance) effort to add insanity to the overall feel of this flick succeeds, however it does not succeed in telling a coherent story. Worth a look for Richard Burton’s over the top performance which is a laugh riot

Exorcist III
 Heavy hitter George C. Scott stars and screenwriter William Peter Blatty directs with some very cool cinematic tricks but the thing to watch is Brad Dourif’ performance of epic Shakespearean proportions.

 





Exorcist: The Beginning aka Dominion

Before they exhausted all the demonic trimming from this worn out franchise Paul Shrader (American Gigolo/Affliction) had to put in his two cents in an attempt to tell a prequel. This abysmal \creep-fest is another testament to Shrader’s troubled soul and scattered focus: a boring mess.

Abby

The Blaxploitation answer to exorcizing demons is one of the funniest films I’ve ever seen. The line is actually uttered by the priest at a cocktail party “Leave her body ‘demond’ (yes the d is pronounced) and get out of here!!!”

The Rite

Anthony Hopkins cannot save this flick and in fact embarrasses himself by talking on such a stereotypical overdone part. It’s not a good sign when an exorcism movie pulls down a PG-13 rating. This means the amount of blood and/or cursing is probably insufficient. Hopkins once again glints his eyes, rattles off cantankerous innuendoes and sinister wisecracks in heavy makeup as CGI-enhanced veins pop out of his skin. Think an even more possessed Hannibal Lecter.  Another bogus entry “based on true events.”

The Unborn

Not scary enough to be good and too serious to be "so bad it's good." The gab-fest generic possession story goes beyond absurd and way beyond caring if it makes sense or not. Using the same material as Possession, this debacle is a horrid piece of symbolism and illiteracy. The Unborn's verbal nonsense, which tries to set the film up as a Jewish Exorcist, is enough to numb your mind. Most people will only sit through this atrocity waiting for the next jolt-scare, vicious blue-eyed-fang-face, unexplained slimy tentacles to squirm out of a wall or the next barf scene

The Last Exorcism
 A lot of movies piss me off but this one takes the cake. Showing so much promise then disemboweled by the putrid ending is a shame because finally I thought someone had mastered the genre. This was a brilliant little masterpiece that opted for such a cop-out ending that it ruined everything it had so gallantly strived for.

 
Teenage Exorcist

80’s drive-in schlock movie extraordinaire Fred Olen Ray has Michael Berryman of Hills Have Eyes and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest fame starring in this ridiculously cute silly and sexy exorcists movie for the kids. What will they think of next?  A neurotic grad student is transformed into a raven-haired, leather and lingerie-clad seductress by a demonic master. Campy beyond redemption.

The Unholy

This has the longest and most extreme amount of blood vomiting in any movie to date. Ben Cross stars a conflicted (for a change) priest battling a demon Daesidarius, or “The Unholy” that is systematically killing off priests. A gore-ific flick.

Lorna the Exorcist aka Exorcism

Okay, this is the one you’ve been waiting for: The masterpiece of Eurotrash horror from Jess Franco. Beginning with some sadomasochistic steamy lesbian action we move on to ridiculous plot, wretched acting, hilarious dubbing and great shots of Italy photography. This also includes go-go dancing, swinging cocktail parties, racy séances, lecherous priests, blood sacrifices, tons of nudity and a really insidious plot in other words, my kind of exorcist movie. Chalk up another entry in the pantheon of perversity from the demented mind of Eurosleaze maestro Franco.

 

Whatever Happened to Baby Em?

Enhancing Clichés and Opening Pandora’s Hasidic Box

By Morgan P Salvo

Good Lord, another Exorcism movie and with the tagline “based on true events”? Holy crap the only thing worse is a haunted house movie with the same claim to fame. Yet The Possession achieves the near impossible in that it makes us care for the two central characters Clyde (Jeffery Dean Morgan) and Emily “Em”  (Natasha Calis). This hasn’t happened since the original Exorcist where we sat on the edge of our seat out of concern for Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair and Jason Miller.

Filmmakers who choose this subgenre cannot escape the inherent generic formula. All they can do is embellish on a tired old tale. Most of the time it’s done with smoke and mirrors: overdone special effects and /or piling on the bone snapping, contorting and gallons of gory blood oozing. Here Danish Director Bornedal (Nightwatch, Just Another Love Story) brings some nice ambient tricks to the table while setting a somber mood amidst the stereotypical shenanigans and exploring what the hell is going on with Emily and the box. But yes, there are a slew of special effects, like a hand in the larynx, swarms of moths either in the air or dive-bombing into mouths, droopy eyes rolling around while turning white, an insanely stupid MRI scene, oh, and wind - it seems all exorcism movies come with their own wind. Plus the possessed always have to barf up something, if not green pea soup or blood than some kind of insect, in this case moths.

The thin plot mildly thickens as basketball coach Clyde, saddened by divorce, tries to keep it all together with his weekend visits with his daughters (Calis and Madison Davenport) while dealing with his over-bitchy wife (Kyra Sedgwick) and her anal new boyfriend (Grant Show). Things are okay until Clyde buys Em a box at a garage sale. Then this flick can’t make up its mind if it’s a demonic box story, possession movie or a new installment of Hellraiser, but it wants to be Jewish more than anything. So following in the footsteps of The Unborn, soon we’re in Little Jerusalem, New York and the yarmulkes are flying.

The story is actually based on the article “Jinx in a Box” about a small wooden cabinet that went up for auction on EBay containing two locks of hair, one granite slab, one dried rosebud, one goblet, two wheat pennies, one candlestick and of course a “dybbuk," (literally translated: a dislocated spirit) popular in Yiddish folklore. The seller said the box was haunted and had caused bad luck and weird paranormal stunts. The prologue of the Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man covered this facet of Jewish folklore, as did Gary Oldman’s Rabbi in The Unborn. Of course the Coens’ version was more entertaining than this entire flick and much shorter. We get it --- evil possession is not just delegated to Catholicism. Jews can have demons, too.

The Possession covers all the demonic bases and leaves plenty of room for pathos and emoting by the actors, except for maybe Jewish hip hop musician Matisyahu who looks like he doesn’t know where he is the entire time. And thanks to the performances of Morgan and Calis we experience their pain, sorrow and fear. Sedgwick on the other hand over acts every nuance she can wring out of the tepid script, and my personal favorite was the brief encounter with the principal who obviously comes from the “you-gotta-look-like-a-principal” casting company.

Hokey throughout, there are glimpses of The Shining and The Omen and a great horror movie soundtrack yet too many fades to black. The overworked lines “Em’s not here” and “Noooo…take me instead!” are actually uttered.

I get the feeling that there’s no good way to end one of these flicks and this one is no exception. Possession’s climax is a rush job exorcism in the basement of a working hospital where they make a ton of noise with caterwauling incantations, wind howling and little girls screaming. Where the hell is hospital security?

Even though Possession has all the makings of a disaster, it never veers toward campy or “so-bad-it’s-good”, but rather falls into this bland category of “I’ve seen worse”. So I have to say, no harm no foul. This flick plays out with such conviction that it’s hard to fault it even if it is an exorcism movie.  

The Possession

Starring Jeffery Dean Morgan, Kyra Sedgwick, Madison Davenport, Natasha Calis, Grant Show, Matisyahu

Directed by Ole Bornedal

Rated PG-13

2 Stars

Tripping Down Jeremy Lane

 What made Renner famous

By Morgan P Salvo

As we all know (unless you live in a cave) The Bourne Legacy opened this week with Jeremy Renner taking over the reins from Matt Damon under the guise (or tagline) of “There was never just one…” The dude that caught our eye with his mesmerizing performances in Hurt Locker followed by The Town, both of which got him nominated for Oscars, traveled down a ragged indie flick road before catapulting into Bourne territory. If you’re like me some of these  movies you knew before hand going into the Hurt Locker while others will merely make you go—“oh yeah that was him!” His ability to blend in and still stand out is an acting trait rarely seen but when he has to turn it up, watch out. Here are some of the flicks Jeremy Renner did before he got famous.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Great movie great performances all around but Renner’s introspective supporting role as a cousin of James and one of the more moral-minded members of the notorious James Gang proves pivotal in this pensive drama.

 

Dahmer

Renner accomplishes the impossible here by making us feel sympathy for Jeffery Dahmer. His complex portrayal of the infamous serial killer is stellar in this strange dreamlike biopic. While this is not by any means a great flick the levels of pain, torment, mental anguish and even sick humor come through just by Renner’s mere facial expressions of dark loneliness. You have to wonder where Renner draws his inspiration from here. He pulls you deep into his inner angst and somehow, don’t ask me, you feel you know where he’s coming from. Brilliant.

A Little Trip to Heaven

A husband (Renner) and wife (Julia Stiles) tangle with an insurance adjuster (Forest Whitaker) over her dead brother's million-dollar insurance policy in Baltasar Kormákur’s (Contraband/Jar City) decent weirdly paced thriller. Renner steals the show as a sadistic creep and from the smattering of Renner’s scenes he proves a force to be reckoned with.

 

Swat

This little teaser for his upcoming action flicks which personally I think he should avoid, after all, his generic performances in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol or The Avengers prove to be paycheck flicks. Here he caught audience’s attention opposite Colin Farrell and Samuel L Jackson playing an ousted member of the Los Angeles Police Department's S.W.A.T team. The movie is a mess.

North Country

Renner inhabits the role of an iron mine supervisor who is a sexist boss that conspires against a female mine worker's (Charlize Theron) attempts to stop sexual harassment at work. You completely believe in his bigotry no problem.

 

28 Days Later

 In the post-apocalyptic horror sequel to the Zombie flick where they haul ass, Renner plays a US Army military dude that keeps our attention through his WTF plight running and shooting zombies. It’s debatable whether his character is an asshole or not.

 

The Heart is Deceitful Above all Things

Director Asia Argento’s sadomasochistic take on life, love, death, sex and motherhood… Renner steals the one big scene he’s in--- OK I have to admit it! I forgot he was even in this and I don’t remember what he did---saw it once and have it on the shelf to see again but I KNOW he was awesome OK?

TOTALLY HONORABLE MENTIONS:

 

Must-View Verhoeven: Painting the Dutch director by numbers

I decided that even though director Paul Verhoeven has now returned to his Dutch roots his visually stunning array of movies need to be divided into four definitive categories.

1) When Verhoeven was still Dutch and still good:

The Fourth Man,

This crazy, surreal, very cool movie is about life, death and sex. Jeroen Krabbé plays a man who has visions of impending danger and begins an affair with a mysterious woman, (Renée Soutendijk) who may lead him to his doom.

Soldier of Orange

 Offering the first glimpse of a young Rutger Hauer, this is an excellent film about the horrors of war. A character-driven story about Germans invading the Netherlands and a group of six university friends caught up in the events that follow. Also starring Jeroen Krabbé.

2) Absolute classics: 

RoboCop

 This overtly sadistic robotic ¾ robot ¼ cop action flick doesn’t skimp on the high octane chase scenes, coke snorting, and sex scenes not to mention bullets flying, guts spewing, blood spraying and slime oozing.  Kurtwood Smith goes directly to best brutal villain of the year (perhaps ever). My first reaction was “how are they going to top this?”  

Total Recall                                                 

 

Arnold goes to Mars…or does he? In this sci-fi mind-bender all stops are pulled out to deliver goods in a hectic race against time. This neat little twist and turns of events and its crazy-ass vivid colors and over-the-top state of the arts (for the time) special effects are superb. This movie will make you laugh again and again providing that you watch it more than once. And you should.

 3) So bad they’re good enough to have cult followings: 

                                                                                                        

Basic Instinct

  Famous for the Sharon Stone leg crossing scene this movie is so lame it boggles the mind. This insipid badly envisioned sells out thriller careens through sex and whodunit ice pick murders while Michael Douglas acts all flustered, hot and bothered and Stone sucks the air out of every room by being vampish . The teaming with screenwriter Joe Eszterhas (who had his heyday in the 90s) has a lot to do with Verhoeven’s decline.

Showgirls

 Speaking of sex, Verhoeven/ Eszterhas pull out all the stops in soap operatic nudie fest boasting perhaps maybe the most topless women in any move at one time I liked this movie from the very start due to its’ blatant campiness and ensuing absolute moronic drama. I was laughing at this atrocity immediately. It took the cult worshipping public forever to catch up.

 4) Franchised:

 Starship Troopers

 Hey you cannot go wrong with demolishing cockroaches from space in this super gory shoot ‘em up. Interspersed is a super sappy love story.

Other credits include Hollow Man, The Black Book, Flesh and Blood and Spetters

                                                                                   

                   

Rotten to the Core

Total Recall Picks and lifts form the original but goes nowhere fast, really fast

by Morgan P Salvo

Just like main hero Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell) Total Recall has a ton of problems. Quaid has a boring rut of a life and wants a change...some action. This flick is all about the action but has no substance and subsequently gives a boring take on a really cool idea. But the film’s main flaw lies in the filmmakers’ public announcement that this not a remake but a version that is more true to the story by Philip K. Dick.

Dick was around to help write the original screenplay based on his short story “We can remember it for you wholesale”. NOW I have to read it because of the two diverse treatments of this tale of a factory worker bored with his life who goes to the mind-bending world of REKAL where they give you any scenario fantasy you want, to take your mind off things and perhaps entertain yourself for a few days with some awesome memories. What could possibly go wrong? Quaid goes for the double agent spy fantasy and bam before the treatment is complete something goes awry and faster than you can say Schwarzenegger he is embroiled in murder, espionage, suspense double crosses, hailing bullets and car chases. You know… spy stuff.

We all know going in that this film is all about the special effects and the mind twisting adventure that is bestowed upon our hero. The Google Earth beginning shows us what’s left of population is in Great Britain and The Colony (Australia). Plot wise Recall is the same big mess that director Paul Verhoeven gave us in 1990. Mars as fantasyland has just been replaced by “the future” where workers toil away at earth’s core which I guess is just as hot and maddening as the angry red planet.

And like the original throughout the whole movie we are supposed to be guessing if we’re viewing the fantasy or reality. The original did a nice job bouncing that concept around but perhaps because of my knowledge the old version ruined most of the fun of the twists and turns but the ending is where it really falters. A weak hint at deciphering your own interpretation is not as much fun as the blatant ridiculousness of the first. The Blade Runner looking world is cool at least. It really looked like we just got transported to the Ridley Scott masterpiece. Recall is in the red light district and an upgraded three breasted hooker is back if only for a glimpse. Where most of the problem of this movie is that while a great looking generic action flick, it retains none of the K Dick wit and insight nor the roller coaster ride of Verhoeven’s flick.

Director Len Wiseman‘s credits include Live Free or Die Hard, Underworld and Underworld: Evolution. He starts his flick at madcap pursuit and quickly falls short while the antagonist is  running and jumping acrobatically to verandas landings and rooftops to stand utterly still in stagnation only to regurgitate stereo typical formulaic drivel. The best part by far is the hover cars. I saw an impressive special on how they did that and it was far more compelling than this flick. The Fast and Furious stunt team basically did all the driving in real cars as technicians green-screened the rest out. Wiseman wisely uses Kate Beckinsale’s action movie prowess again here. And I must say, I could watch two hours of almost anything starring Kate Beckinsale and Jessica Biel even when they offer no skimpy outfits.

This version is much more like how they took Deathrace 2000, a superb campy hilarious colorful grade z drive-in movie classic and turned it into DEATHRACE staring Jason Statham. This Total Recall strips away the psychedelic romp in Mars that was Verhoeven’s   genius. Guilty of being too generic this flick is absolutely devoid of humor. While there are some intentional and not-so-intentional laughs throughout, like a stash of futuristic Obama money and Bryan Cranston spewing poorly written villain lines while sporting a really bad hair-hat. Even with the metal detector scene as the exact same plump woman homage from the original only serves as an in-joke for cinephiles like me. I knew I was going to miss Michael Ironside’s character, the military leader in botched pursuit of Quaid. Here he has been replaced by a slew of robotic Star War Troopers.

The main problem with making a “based on” is causing curiosity as to its intentions. Is it emulation or sacrilege? Like the recent “non-remake” of Straw Dogs if I hadn’t seen the first would I like the second? Now that two movies have posed this question the answer is easy…no I don’t.

And like the “it’s-not-a-remake” fantasy world the filmmakers live in they also steal lines straight from the first one which is a dead give away that they are blatantly ripping off the original merely  masking their attempt by high tech wizardry. Which brings me to another question; this is the supersonic future, why are they shooting bullets? Where are the damn lasers?

When all the futuristic smoke clears we are left with the memory of a decaying society and planet with a couple of heroes and hope. Meanwhile I shall return to my newly envisioned corporation called “Selektive Memory” and have all elements of Total Recall wiped clean except for hover cars Jessica Biel and Kate Beckinsale. 

 

Total Recall

Starring Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Bokeem Woodbine, Bryan Cranston, Jessica Biel

Directed by Len Wiseman

Rated PG-13

2 stars