From the minds of the people who brought you Phantasm, Beastmaster, and Bubba Ho-Tep comes this movie about two dudes who dabble in otherworldly narcotics and go on adventures. It’s like Naked Lunch, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and Tim & Eric Awesome Show put together. If you aren’t a sick fuck with A.D.D., this movie will make you one. And that’s a good thing.
Just when I think I’m watching another low-budget turd, Paul Giamatti sits down at a table and starts talking. He is interviewing this guy Dave, which sets up the frame story for the rest of the film.
Dave’s story is fucking bonkers. He and his friend John, who dies at the end, have been shooting up with this drug they call “soy sauce.” It looks like soy sauce. It’s a little different though because it slithers around like Spiderman’s black costume and chooses whose circulatory system to invade. Also, the sauce grants one clairvoyant abilities, heightened senses, and the ability to communicate with/see/travel to other dimensions.
When they both get sauced out, they go on excellent adventures like Bill and Ted. They fight a demon made out of cold cuts who can turn doorknobs into cocks. They outwit a wanna be gangsta who is possessed by extra-terrestrial space dust. They capture giant bugs in hamster cages. They travel to another world to battle a malevolent organic super-computer who wants to come to our universe so it can feed innocent people to hordes of giant spiders and steal their imaginations.
I’m not even scratching the surface of all the shit they do. The movie’s pace is super-quick. You’ll get up to go to the bathroom when Dave rips a cop’s arm off and you’ll come back to see him talking on a hot dog like it’s a cell phone.
The effects are hilarious; make-up and gore effects are wonderful but the CGI is made-for-TV quality. The characters are the best part. John and Dave confront demons and monsters with Ash’s “swallow this” sensibilities. It definitely made me lol multiple times and I felt like real life was moving in slow motion once the film ended.
20 years after the original graced audiences with it’s campy presence, Pumpkinhead is back to exact revenge for another hate filled young man. The movie starts off generically enough as two guys on motorcycles are running from Pumpkinhead only to be trapped in a cabin. In this cabin they meet the man who called Pumpkinhead back to earth from hell, and we learn that the only way to kill Pumpkinhead is to kill the vessel which brought him to earth. This obviously becomes a key point later in the film, but we also get to meet Ed Harley (Lance Henrikson) who pops in throughout the movie to explain to the audience the internal logic of Pumpkinhead and how to kill it.
In the next scene we flash forward five years which seems strange given that the types of cars driven and the fashion sense on the people on screen would make me believe that we flashed back to the early eighties instead. Anyway we pick up in the midst of a feud between the Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s (Literally. That is how unoriginal they are), and the McCoy’s end up killing one of the teenage Hatfield sisters. Well this pisses off older brother Hatfield so he calls forward Pumpkinhead to exact revenge, despite the pleas of Lance Henrikson and his melted face.
From here we get people from LA providing the worst fake southern accents I have heard in a while, and Lance Henrkison looking like melted candle in his 4 minutes of screen time. The Pumpkinhead monster alternated between looking like a claymation puppet from a 60′ sci fi movie, and a mediocre beast formed out of paper mache. The kills are many and are well done considering how stupid Pumpkinhead looks, and the plot moved at a decent enough pace to keep the viewer interested between Pumpkinhead related maulings.
If you are a follower of the series or some kind of bizarre Lance Henrikson fan it is worth a watch.
Fantastic horror/thriller. It reminds me of those old Stepfather horror movies but it isn’t super-cheesy and obvious. In those movies, you know the Stepfather is a bat-shit serial killer because you watch him do most of his bat-shit killing. Stoker, however operates with ambiguity; the film isn’t dependent on dramatic irony. Is this guy a killer or just creepy? What’s really going on? Because of this prolonged uncertainty and torturous subtlety, this film has become one of my favorite thrillers.
Little 18 year old India’s daddy dies in an “accident” and it’s really tragic. Her mom, a grieving widow played by Nicole Kidman, cries a lot but tries to look on the bright side and bond with her daughter. SIKE! She drinks a bunch of wine.
Daddy’s brother, Uncle Charlie (played by the same sexy bastard who did Ozymandias in Watchmen) shows up to the funeral and takes it upon himself to move on in and become a father figure to little India and a hard dick figure for Nicole Kidman. He can speak French, cook, play tennis, and do other things that make it relatively easy for him to start feeling up Nicole Kidman. Nicole Kidman is fine with all this, but India isn’t, especially since ol’ Uncle Charlie is somehow charming like a Disney prince but also creepy as fuck. He reminds me of Patrick Bateman but clothed by Banana Republic.
How did daddy really die? Did Uncle Charlie have something to do with it? If he did kill daddy, will he kill again? India is the only one asking these questions and it’s up to the audience to figure out if her grief is getting the best of her or if Uncle Chuck is some kind of psycho.
I think Ebert said one of the scariest things about the movie Alien was the use of silence in the film. I think the same could be said of Stoker. There isn’t a Fargo-esque wood-chipper scene like in Stepfather, there is a lot of not-killing and really tense quiet scenes to make the audience question Uncle Charlie’s character. Oh, there’s some fucked up shit in the film. I promise. And some erotic shit. And some really violent shit. But you have to wait for it to be served to you. And when you get it, it’s tasty.
Cinematography/score are well done. Acting is great. There are some cool flashback scenes to help you figure out what might happen next. I recommend it.
Vampires are assholes. They just are. Vinnie Jones looks like an asshole. He just does. Some genius realized both of these truths, called Michael Madsen, some UFC girls, and DMX, and made this vampire movie. They probably tried to get Vin Diesel, but he must have known better. No worries, though. They got some Diesel carbon copy who looks decent in a V-Neck and has no body hair below his eyebrows to play the vampire slaying “hero” in the film.
So this guy, let’s call him Din Viesel, comes back from Afghanistan to find that his family has been killed by vampires. And his brother, Vinnie Jones, is a vampire. Bummer. Vinnie Jones has this cheap wig on and he looks like the bad guy from John Carpenter’s Vampires if instead of human plasma, he ate Sizzler buffet food every night.
Then an extremely convenient coincidence is revealed…
Michael Madsen tears himself away from a bottle of whiskey to deliver lines as a priest who tears himself away from a bottle of whiskey to explain that Din is destined to be a “Slayer” and it’s his duty to hunt and kill vampires. What do you know? It’s Din Viesel’s duty/destiny to kill vampires like the ones who killed his family and the one his brother has become!
There is a really lame sequence in which this Creed sounding band plays for like five minutes while Din runs through a forest alone, realizing he’s going to have to kill Vinnie Jones. It produced no emotions in me at all. It was like watching a glass of water. The rest of the film unfolds predictably with Din hacking through the vampire gang ranks, working his way to the inevitable showdown with Vinnie Jones.
DMX is a plot device. His only job is to deliver a LOT of exposition and show how great Vinnie Jones is at cracking Leprechaun-movie caliber puns while he kills people. DMX thankfully dies before referencing one of his songs. The UFC girls play sexy vampires.
There are a few required elements for a straight-to-DVD vampire movie, which this film shamelessly and thoughtlessly delivers: an abandoned warehouse, CGI blood effects, sexy vampires, a vampire choking a guy with one hand while lifting him off of the ground, rock-techno music, and a priest who smokes cigarettes.
I love the original Maniac and this remake sticks close to the original subject matter and makes tasteful and interesting tweaks.
Elijah Wood plays Frank, a mentally ill mannequin restoration expert who gets his jollies by stalking, stabbing, and scalping young women. After he does these things, he puts the scalp on one of his mannequins like a cute little hat and has pervy conversations with them. He even sets them up in sexual positions and cries and punches mirrors and stuff. Why does he do these things? His mommy was a drug abusing, promiscuous, bad mommy whose bad behavior traumatized little Frank. Poor Frank! He develops a friendship with a non-mannequin photographer, who happens to be a young woman with a sexy scalp. This complicates things for Frank. But just a little.
Maniac is waaaaay better than Mannequin and Mannequin 2 in case you were wondering.
The movie is brutal as fuck. You get graphic scalping scenes and disturbing hallucinations. There is LOTS of loud screaming and begging. Some of the death scenes wander from the realm of slasher into torture-porn land. One of my favorite parts of the original was Frank’s demented mumbling. Wood pulls this off quite well and has some dissociative identity disorder style arguments with himself while he’s ripping off the tops of skulls. It’s especially chilling because he’s Elijah Wood, who still looks like he’s a little boy. There are also some shots/sequences that pay homage to the original film, so if you are a fucking NERD (like me) you can get your “I see what they did there!” ego-stroking horror lulz too.
The technical execution was very impressive and ambitious. The whole thing (literally 100%, except for the ending) is shot as the 1st person point-of-view of Frank. And it isn’t fucking corny or bouncing all over the place like a found-footage movie. The only time you see him is his reflection or a photo. The director said he wanted the audience to feel “trapped in [the killer’s] body.” You might think this would take away from the suspense of the film; the audience always knows where Frank is, so he can’t jump out and scare us. Maybe. However, it is a different breed of terror to experience his ecstasy and conflict as he stalks his victims and executes them. The CGI effects are limited and realistic. The make-up is fucking hideous and traumatizing. It made me yell.
The soundtrack is incredible. It’s a mixture of A Clockwork Orange, Drive, and John Carpenter synths. One of my friends likened it to Argento music, which I can hear too. It really worked as a compliment to 1st person stalking / murdering. It’ll make you want to bump it as you drive around staring at people. Or park under a neon sign and glare at yourself in the rear-view mirror.
“Are you eating it or is it eating you?” B-movie gold!
Some old codger finds a puddle of white goo seeping from the earth, so he does what any of us would do: He tastes it. Turns out, it’s not molten bird shit or house paint or toxic waste; it’s a DELICIOUS yogurt like substance! “I can sell this to people!” the old goo-eater exclaims.
The mystery goo is marketed as “The Stuff” and is sold to consumers as an ice cream alternative. The Stuff has no calories, is satisfying, and is addicting like crack. What sucks is that The Stuff is also a sentient parasitic life form. If you get hooked on The Stuff, your body is controlled and then eventually eaten from the inside out. There are tons of scenes where people are orgasmically enjoying tubs of Stuff with shit-eating grins on their faces. Later, The Stuff fatally dumps out of their stupid mouths.
In addition to turning people into Stuff zombies, The Stuff can also maneuver around like The Blob and attack people, making for some hilarious 80’s CGI sequences.
The ice cream industry, suffering from the popularity of The Stuff, hires a hot shot PI to investigate the Stuff company. The PI forms a little Anti-Stuff detective league with an 8-year old kid and a fashion mogul. They do all sorts of shenanigans like blowing up a lake of Stuff, infiltrating a Stuff factory, and fighting hordes of Stuff zombies. These fights are great. Punch a Stuffy in the face and half their skull cracks off, revealing a Stuff geyser.
Paulie from Goodfellas plays an Army general.
There are elements from many of your favorite horror/sci-fi movies: The possessions by a foreign organism like in The Thing; the creepy food product like in Soilent Green; the few unlikely heroes who know the truth and set out to enlighten the public like in They Live. You could also read the movie as an allegory for marketing to middle class America, diet crazes, or the war on drugs. Mingle all this with B-movie charm and non-stop action, and you get The Stuff.
Alas, this dismal creation hath naught to offer. It lacks innovation, and its characters possess no semblance of likability. Every scare it attempts hinges solely upon jarring cuts accompanied by piercing synth stabs that throttle the eardrums most violently, especially if viewing this film in the stupor of an opium binge. The entire affair reeks of pretentious film students, eager to impress with their hollow craftsmanship. I am helpless to shield my eyes from this assault, Dear Reader! In this opium-induced stupor, I am both captive and slave to the abysmal narrative of Smiley, ensnared as I surrender to the seductive allure of the poppy’s embrace!
The unlikeable science-fiction drek Dark Skies, with desperate ambition, weaves three consecutive false climaxes, utilizing the tired device of awakening abruptly from a dream (within a dream within a dream). The result is a harrowing descent into a punishing conclusion, tormenting the viewer with the wretchedness of this alien tale. Smiley, on the other hand, audaciously subjects us to six such instances of false climax, followed by a double twist ending. Within this opium-infused dreamscape, my own skies darken, the boundaries of reason blur, and the fabric of reality unravels. Oh thank God for the poppy!
In the realm of Smiley, it is said that if one visits a particular video chat site and types “I did it for the lulz” thrice, a blade-wielding serial killer shall materialize behind the unsuspecting chat partner, proceeding to commit a gruesome murder. Protagonist Ashley and her dubious companion, lured by morbid curiosity, dare to test this nefarious ritual, only to be horrified when it indeed manifests its dark consequences. Thus unfolds a distressing journey through the labyrinth of paranoia and false scares, accompanied by abysmal acting, woeful writing, and the disconcerting presence of perspiring men engaging in vulgar acts within the confines of their virtual chat chambers. In the most maddening doldrums of my haze, I sought out the accursed chat chamber and tried in vain to configure a sort of feedback loop so that I might afflict myself with the hex of the “lulz,”thus freeing myself from the grip of this vile film.
The cast comprises nameless souls, Z-list attractions from the netherrealm of YouTube, and the sparing appearance of Keith David, who graces the screen for a mere fraction of time. A discerning eye would note the repetitive nature of the extras, for a limited number of souls populate the background, appearing repeatedly like apparitions haunting a forsaken realm. Although I admit, reality took on a most kaleidoscopic nature as the poppy drifted through my consciousness, so it is entirely possible that the duplicate phantoms were slivers of my shattered reality spinning and spinning and SPINNING as I longed for the release of the lulz!
The killer, named Smiley, is dubbed by one character as “the world’s first viral serial killer.” A far-fetched claim, indeed. Would it not be more fitting to deem him the “first emoticon-based serial killer”? For a decade or more, internet horror films have plagued the screens (recall Fear Dot Com), and countless cinematic endeavors have been born from urban legends (consider, for instance, Urban Legend). Smiley himself is a mere mortal, concealed in a nondescript trench coat. Oh, what an ostentatious display of imaginative genius!
Smiley’s countenance embodies what it feels like to view this film as seconds stretch into hours in a bewildering fog of opium: His eyes, sewn shut, and his mouth carved into a permanent, ghastly smile, resemble not only a disfigured, infected big toe, but also my own petrified countenance, no doubt frozen in a ghoulish and vacant gaze for days!
In a disconcerting twist, Ashley’s Ethics teacher speculates upon the possibility of the internet gaining consciousness and evolving into a malevolent force. Smiley, perchance, personifies this malevolence, delighting in the slaughter of those who indulge in lascivious acts within the digital realm… on the very internet itself. How this purported authority on Ethics is qualified to expound upon such matters (and why, in the name of all that is rational, would he discuss them within the confines of an Ethics class?) remains shrouded in uncertainty, akin to the wisps of chest hair protruding from his meticulously groomed attire and the wisps of cloud that shroud my mind.
My deepest solace lies in the conclusion of this accursed film, where none remain to feign performances, to utter senseless dialogue, or to desecrate the screen with their presence. In the quietude that ensues, I find respite from this torment that has plagued my very being. And now, visions of Smiley dance before my half-closed eyes, their ethereal forms shimmering with an otherworldly glow, as if painted by the hand of a mad artist who seeks to carve the lulz into my soul.
The guy who directed Maniac, which I love, and Maniac Cop, which I also enjoy, directs Uncle Sam, a movie about a ruthless “maniac” soldier (named Sam; lolz) who is killed in Desert Storm and then returns from the grave as an evil, murderous Uncle Sam. They could have called the movie “Maniac Soldier,” but I guess they really wanted a guy in an Uncle Sam suit.
Sam’s body is crispier than a sack of tater tots left in a house fire. He looks like Swamp Thing except he’s all black and grey. His corpse is shipped home to his grieving wife and shortly after arriving, Sam wakes up. How? Don’t ask me. The rest of the film is just a lumbering, zombie, Lurch-like, reanimated civil servant villain going on a killing spree and a sub-plot about Sam’s alcoholism/sadism. The “maniac” formula worked to achieve something of a cult following for Maniac Cop but the charm didn’t quite transfer for poor Uncle Sam.
Anyway, Sam’s crispy ass gets a hold of an Uncle Sam outfit and then starts murdering unpatriotic folks during some 4th of July festivities. He puts a little “’Merica” twist on his kills too. The best is the fireworks related death in which an unpatriotic Congressman gets lit the fuck up like a Christmas tree. There’s also some garden shears through eyeballs and an impaling on an American flagpole.
Each kill is pretty well thought out; there are more than simple stabbings and all sorts of goofy shit happens. Isaac Hayes shows up and he’s got a wooden leg. There’s a sack race. Uncle Sam gets shot with cannon balls.
There is some social commentary more transparent than Angelina Jolie, but I still appreciate it. Snippets of conversations about patriotism/pacifism, draft dodging, and the real purpose of soldiers pepper the film. I like that these things are in there and I’ll give Uncle Sam props for trying to make us think (just a little bit) during what would otherwise be a formulaic slasher flick.
BLOODCRYPT 