Legion: An Artistic Interpretation

Courtesy of my husband and the Old Port Lobster Shack. This is the Angel Gabriel (in lesser known lobster form) coming to bring the smack down on humankind. Legion is a dumb, fun movie probably best enjoyed while stoned.

Saw VI- better than the last two...

There are two things that I like about the Saw films. One is the posters. Always very inventive. Two is the fact that Shawnee Smith stars in the films. I love Shawnee Smith. I can't explain why, but I think she it great. She was in the Blob remake, which is a guilty pleasure.

I stopped actually going to see the Saw films in the theaters after the 4th one. The 4th one sucked. I don't even remember it. The 5th sucked as well, but it was saved by the fact that Julie Benz was in it (4 and 5 are Shawnee lite films.) Now we come around to the 6th, and honestly because I can barely remember 4 and 5 I was more than a little lost here. Jigsaw is well dead, his wife and her boob job are trying to preserve his legacy, and Costas Mandylor, as Agent Hoffman, is continuing his work.

There are the requisite flashbacks (yeah Amanda!), gory traps (or games, whatever you want to call them) and the famous Saw twist ending. I may just be feeling generous but this Saw was pretty good. The traps/games and characters were interesting. The plot was a little less confusing (beginning with Saw III, the plot becomes very dense. You need a cliff notes book just to keep up), and the mystery of an envelope way back from Saw III is revealed. It even has a political message (a big fuck you to the health care industry!). Now, here is my ranking of the Saw films....

1. Saw (still a favorite for me. I own it and watch it if I see it on TV.)
2. Saw II (best twist ending.)
3. Saw VI (again, feeling generous.)
4. Saw III
5. Saw V
6. Saw IV (I really don't even remember this one. I know I saw it, but don't ask me to tell you about it.)

To the Devil....Nastassja Kinski!

Poster Disclaimer: The above scene does not appear in the movie. She is actually naked. I didn't want anyone to be disappointed while waiting for the lingerie scene only to find that she is totally naked. I know that would be such a disappointment...

To the Devil a Daughter is famous for being the last Hammer film. Made in 1976, it was Hammer's last stand, so to speak. Based on the novel of the same name by famed Brit Author Dennis Wheatley, To the Devil is an obvious response to The Exorcist. To the Devil is no Exorcist. But it is a pretty freaky deaky movie that stars the spawn of Kinski...Nastassia!

The film begins strongly. A nervous man approaches a famous author at a book signing. Turns out this author, John Verney (played by the awesome Richard Widmark) specializes in the occult. The nervous man (played by Denholm Elliot-good cast!) asks Verney to retrieve his daughter from the airport. The daughter, Catherine (Kinski) is a nun, and is in London to make her annual birthday visit to her father. Turns out she is not a nun for a regular church. She is a nun for the "Children on God," a group that happens to worship Astaroth (better known as the Prince of Darkness or Old Scratch.) The head of the church, Christopher Lee, has chosen Catherine to be the AVATAR for Astaroth. What this means I am not completely sure. See, Catherine's mother died during childbirth, and Catherine was baptised in her blood. Then, Catherine simulated sex with a statue of Astaroth while Christopher Lee raped a real woman. Then the real woman gave birth to a demon baby, who then rapes/enters/conjoins with Catherine in one of the most disturbing dream sequences I have ever seen. Then, Christopher Lee kills the demon baby for no good reason, Kinski takes off all of her clothes, Widmark kills Lee by throwing a rock at him and the movie ends. I shit you not, this is the whole movie. Oh, and Honor Blackman gets killed by a letter opener.

This film has one of the worst tacked on endings in all of film history. In the "special features" section of the DVD the filmmakers try to explain it, but they fail miserably. Christopher Lee is disgusted by the whole thing. Also in the special features, everyone talks about what an asshole Widmark was.

Obviously I loved this movie. I think everyone should see To the Devil a Daughter. Just be prepared to be totally confused and freaked out. Also: watch the special features. The documentary on making the film is better than the film itself!

Carriers: A damn fine movie....

Here's the deal: The film Carriers, written and directed by Alex and David Pastor, made me cry within the first 30 minutes. No, not the same kind of tears I was crying while watching Death Tunnel. Real honest to goodness emotional tears. The year is unknown. The setting is an United States decimated by a mysterious plague. Those affected are usually dead within a week. It is highly contagious. There is no cure. It is an Apocalypse. Four friends (2 brothers and 2 gals) who are not infected are making their way to the ocean. They know of an old abandoned hotel there where they can hole up until a cure is found. The journey is a constant battle. They are always running out of and looking for gas. They are trying to avoid the infected. They are trying to avoid other survivors like themselves. They are trying to keep their sanity and process all of the horror around them....

Pretty heavy stuff. Much like The Road. But, as much as I loved the novel "The Road," the film left me cold. This film, Carriers, carries the emotional weight that should have been present in The Road. Plus it is scary! My only complaint is that the ending felt a little tacked on, but in no way did that detract from the film. I can't recommend this enough. It's like the Horror Gods are smiling down on me after the shittiness of Death Tunnel. First Nosferatu and now this.

By the way, the scene that had me crying like a baby involved the great Christopher Meloni. Meloni plays a father whose young daughter is infected. The 4 friends have to make a choice about what to do with him and the girl. It is heart wrenching. I was not prepared--I love it when a movie surprises you!!

The Edge of Horror: Moon

I had a mini Sam Rockwell film festival recently. I watched Moon, Directed by Duncan Jones (son of David Bowie) and starring Rockwell as Sam Bell, an engineer stationed on a lunar base nearing the end of his 3 year contract. Bell is the solitary employee on the base, with only a HAL like computer voiced by Kevin Spacey to keep him company. Bell is already a little stir crazy, but he has his job and recorded messages from his wife and little daughter to keep him sane. Out of the blue he starts to have hallucinations of a teenage girl on the base. This leads to an accident involving a lunar rover.

From this point on the films becomes a psychological science fiction thriller. Sam realizes he is not alone. There is someone else on the base- and the identity of this person will change the course of Sam's life. That's all I will say. If you have seen the trailer you know who the other person is, but you don't know "why" he is. Neither did I until just before the big reveal. I love it when a movie can still surprise me. Moon is not a horror film, but it does have some creepy elements to it. Sam is isolated, alone, fearing for his sanity, and becoming aware that great forces are at work against him. Highly recommended.

The other Rockwell film I saw was Choke, based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk. It is a really funny movie which stays pretty close to the book.

I also watched The Pregnancy Pact on the Lifetime channel last night, only because I was too lazy to get up and go to bed. The acting was on par with Death Tunnel. I have only myself to blame....(this film did not star Sam Rockwell.)

Nosferatu: AKA-Most awesome Kinski movie EVER..

Just when my faith was shattered due to the extreme crappiness of Death Tunnel, along comes Werner Herzog and the late, great Klaus Kinski to restore my faith in the horror film (I didn't REALLY lose it, but I was a bitter old cow for a couple of days.) I had been searching for Herzog's 1979 film for a while. I could only find it as part of a Herzog DVD set, and as much as I would love to own that, funds were not available. Low and behold the SAME day I made the fatal decision to buy Death Tunnel (my friend actually bought it, and I made him take it home. It is his shame now) I found a copy of Nosferatu for 20 bucks!!

Happy day! Nosferatu is all that I hoped it would be. It is a loving tribute by Herzog to F. W. Murnau's silent film, as well as an update of Bram Stoker's masterpiece. The beautiful Isabelle Adjani plays Lucy Harker, wife of Jonathan and object of Count Dracula's lust. Jonathan (Bruno Ganz) comes under Dracula's spell after visiting Transylvania to have him sign papers. He is bitten, but manages to escape Dracula's castle. He races home to save Lucy, but instead begins to lose his mind. Meanwhile, a ship has arrived at port with the whole crew dead. It is overrun with rats, and the townsfolk fear that it carries the plague. As you can imagine it carries something far worse than the plague. It carries Klaus Kinski!!!

It falls on Lucy's shoulders to defeat the Count. This Lucy (Mina in the novel) is well aware of Dracula's intentions and she uses them to ultimately defeat him. This being a Herzog film the ending is kind of a downer.

I loved it!! It is classic Herzog, from the nature shots to the amazing score. Kinski is in top form- scary, funny, and sympathetic as the monster who is doomed to live forever. The set design is amazing, the acting is top notch all around. Piece of advice-- if you get the version I bought, watch the German version. I watched both and found the German just creepier....

Thank you once again Werner Herzog. Now read me some more bedtime stories so I can fall asleep.....

Lovecraft movies make me happy

I probably won't get to see this for 3-4 years, but I am just happy knowing it exists. Thanks to Bloody Disgusting and Dread Central. And Dwido. Thanks Dwido.