October 29th

The Walking Dead 5.16: "Conquer" directed by Greg Nicotero
Rick dropping a dead zombie in the middle of the meeting that was to decide whether to exile him or not is bad ass. And, not a bad way of convincing the pampered wimps in Alexandria that they need bad ass help. I imagine season 6 will be about encountering Negan's group -- the Wolves, I'm guessing, are what they are in the TV show -- and hopefully also contacting other safe zones in order to build up the army needed to defeat him. Should be good watchin'. I love this era in the comic stories.


Friday the 13th (2009) directed by Marcus Nispel

Derek Mears as Jason
13 Feb 2009

Freddy vs. Jason XIX: Jason Reborn
Remaking a Jason movie is not a big deal. Continuity never meant much in the original series, anyway, so pushing the reset button doesn't really lose us anything important. As long as there's a big guy wearing a hockey mask killing people around Crystal Lake, I don't really care.

Last time I watched this one five years ago, I didn't like it. I think I was too harsh. To be sure, this is a different version of Jason than we've seen before. He is the Jason from Part 2 made angrier and perhaps more realistic. He's created an underground shack underneath Camp Crystal Lake to live in, has set up alarms and traps on the property, and steals kerosene from a nearby farm when needed. He is the uber-mountain man, surviving on his own away from civilization. As I wrote in my Part 2 review, I've come to like the wild man version of Jason and it's nice to have him back after years of zombie Jason.

Though not quite as dreary as Nispel's Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, this is a darker movie than any of the other Jason films. Jason himself is meaner in this film than he's ever been. That sounds incredibly silly when discussing a man who has killed people by crushing their heads in his hands, but I think it has to do with the speed at which Jason kills. He's slower here. He wants people to suffer before they die. Instead of banging a girl in a sleeping bag against a tree to kill her, he ties her up above a campfire and slow-roasts her. Instead of instantly killing a guy when he throws an ax at his back, Jason merely paralyzing the poor man and uses his screams as bait for the other people hiding in the house.

My guess is that this change, more than anything else, is the source of people's dislike of the remake. I can understand. I'm an '80s slasher fan. I like my slasher killers to be more on the inventive side and less on the torture side of things. But, it's not the 1980s anymore. I don't think we can recapture that kind of fun and light slasher movie from when the SFX guys were kings. Technology is different and society is different. I am not opposed to trying something different with an old character as a way of keeping him alive in our culture's consciousness.

I think this change to Jason, for the most part, works. The big guy with the hockey mask looks very imposing and frightening in this film, confidently navigating his territory to clear it of invaders. You know that if he catches up with a character, they will have a very bad time of it. Though. at times, things feel a little too close to Texas Chainsaw Massacre for my liking. His underground layer is a little too Sawyer family for my taste, as is the old lady who mysteriously warns Clay about the woods.

If this ever does start a series, this isn't a bad place to start. Beginning with a super-serious take on Jason makes it much more difficult to jump into the self-parody era that slasher sequels always end up in. I cannot imagine remake Jason in space at all. That's probably a good thing.

Favorite Character
Trent (Travis Van Winkle): he was such the perfect douchebag character, I can't help but admire him. C'mon, who didn't love the bit where he screamed like a little girl when Jason was chasing him outside?

Favorite Sin
Hunting for a mythical field of weed.

Favorite Kill
Amanda (America Olivo), who, while still wrapped in her sleeping bag, is strung up over a campfire to roast.

Jason's Mood
"Git off ma land and leave me alone!"

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) directed by Samuel Bayer

Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy
27 Apr 2010

Freddy vs. Jason XX: Freddy Reborn
Speaking of super-serious takes, that's also the direction New Line took with the remake Freddy. I also hated this one when I last watched it five years ago. I think I was too harsh with this film as well.

There is no way anyone is ever going to be able to touch Robert Englund's performance as Freddy. He is a huge reason the character became so phenomenally popular. But, Englund has retired from the role. If we want Freddy to continue, like Dracula or Frankenstein, he needs to be recast. Further, the character needs to be re-imagined a little. Any new actor attempting to do a Robert Englund-as-Freddy impersonation is going to be hated from the first frame of film. And, Englund already covered the silly aspects of the character, so the only sensible direction to take Freddy is towards darkness.

Man, did they ever. This Freddy is absolutely loathsome. It was easy to cheer for old Freddy when he was, for example, boinging idiot stoners around in a video game nightmare. Anyone cheering for remake Freddy is a psychopath. The guy is now a full-on child molester who used to work at a pre-school. His main goal in the film is to keep his favorite child awake so long that she falls into a coma, allowing him to play with her forever. You should hate the villain in a horror movie and Haley's version of Freddy makes this very easy.

I think this was a great direction to take the character. What if one of those skeevy-looking molesters whose mugshots we see on the news was granted infinite powers in the dreamworld? This film, more than the original, answers that question. Haley's Freddy lacks any of Part 1's maniacal insanity and instead has a clarity of purpose that is just as disturbing in such a creature.

On the other hand, Rooney Mara sucks in this film. Supposedly, she hated filming it so much she almost quit acting altogether. You can tell. She's a disgrace to the name "Nancy" and her dull performance drags the entire movie down.

My other large issue with the film are the references to the original. Any time they went out of their way to copy of bit from the original movie, it was horrible. Freddy stretching the wall above Nancy's bed? CGI crap. Freddy's glove between Nancy's legs in the bath? Where's the dragging down into the darkness part? Kris's death? Scarier in the original with Tina. Nancy seeing Kris in a bodybag being dragged down the hall? Creepier in the original. Had they just cut out all of the references (sadly, including Nancy herself) and confidently did their own thing for the entire movie, it would've been much improved.

Still, I feel like they got a lot right. The relentlessly dark tone of the film matches the new Freddy perfectly and makes the film scary in a different way than the rest of the series. "Why are you screaming? I haven't even cut you yet!" is actually my favorite Freddy line from any of the movies. The idea that prolonged insomnia would cause micronaps is brilliant, and is great way to have Freddy stalk the characters throughout the finale.

In the end, I think this version of Freddy was so incredibly dark that it had no chance of spawning a new series. Folks just don't want to watch a no-longer-merely-implied child molester torturing teens. That's fine. I'm sure Freddy will return in some other form eventually. Meantime, it was interesting to see this take on the character.

Favorite Character
Quentin (Kyle Gallner): the real hero of the film who replaces the largest useless Nancy as the guy who knows what's going on.

Favorite Sin
Saying "screw calling the police" and burning to death the guy who molested your child. There's no chance he's getting off on a technicality here.

Favorite Kill
Jesse (Thomas Dekker), who gets a razor glove shoved through his back and out his chest. But that doesn't kill him, as Freddy says: "Did you know that after the heart stops beating, the brain can function for well over seven minutes?" Easily the most disturbing kill in the entire series and a very clever use of the dreamworld.

Freddy's Mood
Filthy and very angry.

October 23rd

The Walking Dead 5.11: "The Distance" (2015) directed by Larysa Kondracki
I like how the greatest tension in this episode comes not from the zombies, or from the mysterious Aaron and his promises of safety, but from Rick. Whether Rick will go apeshit and kill or harm Aaron and ruin the group's chances of joining Alexandria is the primary source of concern. I think that means the showrunners have successfully conveyed how hard being on the road has been for Rick; how changed he is after all of the heartache of the previous 4 seasons; how difficult it would be to let go and trust a stranger in such an environment. Nice work.


The Walking Dead 5.12: "Remember" (2015) directed by Greg Nicotero
Thinking back, I remember the last time Rick and company had a chance to take showers. This was in season 1, in episode "TS-19." Of their trip to the CDC, I wrote:

Inside, they get a nice break, with real food and hot showers and safety from the dead.  We haven't seen them go through enough hardship for this to really mean anything.

Now we have. Now it means something. I like how it takes the group a long time to unwind. Spending years (?) under so much tension, it would be hard to sit back and not worry about things. This is great: it feels like a completely fresh direction for the show to explore. I love where the comics are right now, generally, and I'm excited to see Alexandria eventually expand into a linked collection of nearby communities.

I wonder if Alexandria has already met Nagen, or if he shows up as a new character to everyone? I wonder whose skull Nagen will bash in, given they love to switch up the big deaths in the TV show as compared to the comics? I'm sure Glen is safe. I'm betting it's Carol instead. We shall see.

October 19th

The Walking Dead 5.09: "What Happened and What's Going On" (2015) directed by Greg Nicotero
Interesting mid-season opening, with the majority of the episode dedicated to Tyreese's dying delusions. Somber in tone to match the character's exhaustion with the world they're forced to live in, the episode was also edited a little more arty than normal. I liked it. Though, personally, I think they should've re-sealed the wall and tried to build a community in that place. I'm guessing the trip to Washington will be as successful as the trip to the CDC in season 1.

My favorite bit was Tyreese's imagined BBC Radio report from when the zombie crisis first began (with the announcer voiced by Andrew Lincoln in his native accent, no less). I wish we'd get more glimpses into the time period when Rick was in his coma (but maybe that's what the spin-off show is about? I haven't paid attention).

September 30th

The Walking Dead 5.01: "No Sanctuary" (2014) directed by Greg Nicotero
I was pretty geeked about the show by the end of season 4, feeling that it had gotten to a great place of tension and drama. That mostly continues with the start of season 5, which finds the gang trapped in a train car in Terminus, the cannibal city. Though ready to fight their captors as soon as the doors open, they are disabled by a teargas canister and taken to a slaughter room instead. There, a man systematically cracks each person on the back of the head while another slits their throat over a trough. It's brutal and probably purposefully reminiscent of ISIS videos. With the help of a Rambo-ish version of Carol, our main characters manage to escape and leave Terminus burning.

Though is this is all very exciting, I'm not sure I like how they're using the cannibals as compared to the comic series. In the comics, they were just a small group of nuts who would secretly kidnap people for food. They even grab and eat a part of Dale! I actually can't see the TV series going that far. Here, they're more of the stereotypical "small town with the dark secret" thing in the mold of Texas Chain Saw Massacre. I dunno. Maybe I'm just pissed that the group talked Rick out of going back to town to finish off the rest of the cannibals, like they so effectively -- and correctly -- did in the comic.

October 30th

The Walking Dead 4.14: "The Grove" (2014) directed by Michael Edison Satrazemis
An incredible episode and one of the show's best ever. Having discovered a seemingly idyllic cottage complete with hand-pumped well and plentiful pecan trees, Carol, Tyreese, Lizzie, Mika, and baby Judith consider staying there permanently. Lizzie's young mind, however, has been broken by the zombie apocalypse and she insists on considering the undead as just different kinds of people. She so wants to convince Carol of this that she stabs her little sister Mika to death in order to show that zombie Mika is just the same.

I was surprised the show went this dark. This is as dark as the comic series gets. Carol is forced to decide what to do with the little girl. She can no longer trust her around Judith. That means they can't possibly travel with her. They can't even sleep without worrying she'll do something. Life's already hard enough with the constant threat of zombies and human bad guys without having to worry about an insane child who may slaughter a baby. In the real world, we'd send the girl off to a care facility and visit her on the weekends. In zombieland, Carol is forced to a devastating conclusion. Excellent performances all around convey the hard reality the characters live in.


The Walking Dead 4.15: "Us" (2014) directed by Greg Nicotero
A bit of prep episode before the final episode. Glenn and Tara have a Stand-esque scary experience in a dark tunnel while Daryl learns how brutal his new companions are. I do kind of like Eugene's zombie dinosaur idea, though.


The Walking Dead 4.16: "A" (2014) directed by Michelle MacLaren
Wow, the last half of season 4 has been the absolute best this show has ever been. The lazy writing has been slowly replaced by tension, high emotion, and a tight focus on the theme of what the apocalypse is doing to children and their parents. This episode contains one of my favorite scenes from the comic series, when Rick and Carl (and Michonne and Daryl in the show version) are ambushed by nasty people on the side of the road. They plan to rape Carl and kill them all. Driven into a complete frenzy of parental protection, Rick viciously tears out the leader's throat with his teeth to save his son. It's gory and brutal and exactly what I would do to protect my own girls. That it also makes Rick, at that point, only little bit different from the walkers is both intentional and, I think, brilliant.

I wasn't sure if Terminus was going to end up being the community the comic characters currently live in or something more sinister. Seeing Denise Crosby frying meat at the entrance to the city in the previous episode seemed too Texas Chainsaw to be a coincidence and the piles of bones in this episode confirms these are the cannibals. They've got quite a nice setup here compared to their suburban comic versions. I didn't think I'd feel this way, but I can't wait to watch season 5 next year to see how Rick's group tears these folks near assholes.


The Fog (1979) directed by John Carpenter

Unexpectedly, the wife suggested this one as something to watch. She usually wants movies with more action in them, like 28 Days Later... or The Thing. So, I popped it in and she slowly grew more and more confused. "Is this the old version?" she asked. I wouldn't touch the remake with a 10-foot pole, so yep. "This is different that the newer one," she said. Where had she even seen the remake? I don't even own it. It took a little while, but I finally realized she had really wanted to watch The Mist and got things all mixed up. "Does this tie into The Mist?" she asked. Nope, nothing to do with that other movie in the least.

Despite not being The Mist, I was surprised when she liked the film. It doesn't have the precisely timed roller coaster scares of Halloween, or the pervasive paranoia of The Thing, or Kurt Russell's one-liners in Big Trouble or Escape from New York. It just has atmosphere. Literally and figuratively all at once. I can understand why some dislike the film. It's pure mood with a few faceless ghosts thrown doing a few slasher-kills thrown in. But when you're a little sleepy, bundled up in a blanket on cool night, it's just fine.

October 26th

Hell's Highway (2002) directed by Jeff Leroy

The final and namesake movie of my $5 Highway to Hell Collection was a bit of surprise. It's yet another no-budget camcorder movie in which a group of horny teens get lost in the desert and end up slaughtered. The acting is crappy. The sound is bad. There's a half-assed attempt to do some Blair Witch-y shaky cam stuff. And still, I thought the movie was a load of fun.

It's fun because the folks making the film are clearly having a ball and throwing all of their energy into the thing. They also know the power of upping the ante. The evil character getting hit by a car and having her head smashed was pretty cool. Cooler? Having her intestines stuck to the bumper of the car so that when the kids take off, her torso is dragged along for the ride. For icing on the cake? Have them discover the evil girl's head stuck in the wheel well, which explodes blood all over the slutty girl's face. It's so over-the-top, you can't help but laugh.

I can't believe it, but that $5 collection was well worth the $5. I enjoyed half of the movies in the set, saw things I've never seen before, and got in a few chuckles. Not bad at all.

The Walking Dead 4.09: "After" (2014) directed by Greg Nicotero
Carl gets his own episode. Chandler Riggs must have felt pretty good knowing that the producers trusted his abilities enough to have him carry an entire episode nearly by himself. I vastly prefer seeing the parts of society I'm familiar with in their post-apocalyptic state, rather than the prison. This gives us a handful of nice moments in the episode: Carl's initial excitement at the TV & Xbox, then reality setting in while he rips the HDMI cable out to tie the front door; Carl saying "cool" when he stands in the middle of the road and observes the abandoned neighborhood that is now his to play with; and Carl finding and consuming an entire 120 oz of chocolate pudding.

September 28th

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) directed by Tobe Hooper

"If I have any more fun today, I don't think I can take it!" The universe was screaming at Franklin that day to turn around and go home. Pam reads him a very bad horoscope. A passing truck makes him fall down a hill while peeing. A crazy hitchhiker mysteriously burns a picture of Franklin, slashes him with a straight razor, and writes an arcane symbol on the side of the van in blood. A gas station owner directly tells them not to go and strongly suggests that the locals don't like trespassers. Once Franklin enters the house, he discovers a weirdly arranged pile of bones and feathers on the floor, and a mobile made of bones hanging directly over his head. This all makes Crazy Ralph shouting "You're all doomed!" in Friday the 13th looked like chopped liver.

On one level, this is comforting to us in the audience. Those dumb kids ignored all the warnings! What did they expect would happen? The Cabin in the Woods has this take as well, telling us that the kids are choosing their fate. But, on another level, it adds to the fear the movie creates. Would we alter our travel plans in real life if those things had happened to us? What if we're not paying proper attention to signs like this in our own lives? What if that flock of crows bursting out of the trees as you turn down a side road to take a scenic detour was a warning? What if that bum who cursed at you when you refused to give him change is something worse that just a bum? We often like to think that if we could just listen closely enough to what life / the universe / the stars / our intuition / God is trying to tell us, we could figure out what lies on the path before us. I think that's a terrifying thought if true, as it makes everything that happens to us completely our responsibility. That's a heavy weight.

On a completely different subject, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre could be seen as a pro-vegetarian film. As I see it, vegetarians -- at least, the moral ones, not necessarily the "for health reasons" ones -- extend their empathy further than us omnivores. Some will even tell you that killing cows for food is just as bad as murdering a person. Perhaps they have a point. Why do us meat-eaters draw the lines that we do? I won't eat dog meat or monkey meat, but I find the very intelligent pig to be quite tasty. What the cannibalistic Sawyers are doing is just adding one more meat to their internal good-to-eat list. Why is that wrong, but it's OK for me to eat pigs?

There's also an implication that participating in the slaughterhouse industry desensitized the family. Decades of slamming a sledgehammer into cows' heads must have an effect on a person. After a while, and it's clear by the decor of the house, the Sawyers had no problem killing any kind of animal at all. A vegan might argue that once you're OK with killing animals, moving on to killing people isn't a great leap. And, they also might have a point there. Serial killers almost always start by killing animals first.

I think I'll go make myself a bacon sandwich, just the same.

The Walking Dead 4.01: "30 Days Without an Accident" (2013) directed by Greg Nicotero
I can't say I was terribly excited to start watching this show again once season 4 appeared on Netflix. Outside of the fantastic first episode of season 1, The Walking Dead has mostly been a long chain of disappointments. I'm not expecting anything different for this year, though this premiere episode was a pretty good start. In fact, the scene in which the zombies fall through the rotted ceiling of the grocery store is one of the best zombie set pieces I've ever seen. I especially loved the first zombie to fall through whose entrails get tangled up in the broken ceiling, causing him to dangle like a flesh chandelier. I suspect this was 80% of the season's zombie budget, though, and we'll not being seeing anything so flashy until perhaps the finale.

It was nice to see the colony in the prison farming and, in general, being more practical about their survival (they've finally learned to poke zombies through the fence!). Hopefully, the Governor attacks in his tank as he did in the comic on this more settled prison later in the season.

October 29th

The Walking Dead 3.15: "This Sorrowful Life" (2013) directed by Greg Nicotero
As I thought, this episode sticks with the prison as they prepare for war.  Rick initially wants to send Michonne to the Gov in order to prevent the war and gets Daryl and Merle to help.  He changes his mind.  Merle still thinks it's a good idea and grabs Michonne on his own.  After some sweet-talking by Michonne, Merle also changes his mind and changes his trip into a suicide run at the Gov's gathering on the farm.  I liked the trick Merle used: turning up the stereo in a car to attract a herd of zombies, then jumping out and letting the car roll towards the enemy.  I had a similar idea for Daryl.  He should have some trick arrows -- like Green Arrow! -- with one being an arrow with an iPod, a speaker and super glue on it.

Zombified Merle is stabbed by his own brother at the end of the episode.  I was happy and sad to see this character go.  I liked that he added a dash of "angry old cuss" into the group, to balance out the relatively happy little family the others in the prison have going.  On the other hand, they really defanged Merle's character in this season.  In season one, he was a racist asshole who was constantly stirring things up.  It was fun to watch the characters get angrier and angrier at the guy as the season went on until they were so pissed that they abandoned him.  Season three Merle was toned way, way down and just didn't feel like the same guy.


The Walking Dead 3.16: "Welcome to the Tombs" (2013) directed by Ernest R. Dickerson
Why in the hell would everyone move to the grimy prison instead of taking over the well-stocked, pleasant-looking Woodbury?  That's my only thought after a mediocre ending to a mediocre season of a mediocre show.  There are these constant dumb decisions the writers have the characters making in this show that make it impossible to love.

What I liked: Carl offing the Woodbury teen trying to surrender.  He's growing up in a messed up world and he's going to be a messed up kid.  This is the type of worry all parents are going to have in this universe.  Andrea dying.  Finally, this awful character is gone.  I was a little bummed that a giant chunk of the final minutes of the show were occupied by the sad piano melody-backed farewell to her, but, she was a major character, I suppose.

I'm disappointed that they're still in the prison instead of moving on like they have been doing at the end of every other season.  From what I'm hearing about season four from friends watching it, it doesn't sound like it's getting any better.  Ah well.  I still come back to it next October.


The Wicker Man: The Final Cut (1973) directed by Robin Hardy

In celebration of the blu-ray release of this fine film, I had myself a wickerthon.  First off, it's a pure joy to finally be able to watch this movie with film-like quality.  The extended version found in the Anchor Bay wooden box set was always my preferred cut, but was always painful to watch due to the extended scenes being lifted from a crappy tape copy.   No longer.  The final cut is, as far as I can tell, the same as the extended cut with just a little of the Howie-on-the-mainland stuff cut from the beginning.  I do miss one lost bit, where Howie's colleagues make fun of his sexless engagement (which reinforces the idea that this man is a virgin).  But, "Gentle Johnny" and the mating snails are here, so I am overall happy.

It's hard to describe why I like this movie so much.  It's a feeling.  Howie's investigation of Rowan's disappearance also serves as a perfect vehicle for the audience to see every facet of life on the island.  As the film reveals more and more of the otherworldly Summerisle, it's impossible not to fall in love with the place.  Everyone is happy.  Everyone is in tune with the cycle of nature.  The community is tight-knit.  No one is repressed or depressed.  Were it not for the whole human sacrifice thing, it would be an ideal place to live.

That's the rub, though, isn't it?  Maybe one thing the film is saying is that there are always trade-offs in the human pursuit of happiness.  The old beliefs practiced on Summerisle make it a paradise... except when the crops fail and the extremely violent parts of the old beliefs surface.  Christianity replaced the idea of continual sacrifice with the thought that one, final sacrifice of a demigod would suffice for all time.  That animals and people no longer needed to be slaughtered to appease invisible forces is a huge step forward for society.  This advancement is not without a cost, as we can see in Howie.  He suffers from an unhealthy repression of some of the fun parts of being human and a dourly rigid mode of thinking.  I'm honestly not sure which is better.

Watched: blu-ray from StudioCanal.

The Wicker Man (2006) directed by Neil LaBute

Like everyone with an Internet connection, I've laughed at the clip of Nicolas Cage in his bee helmet:


But, I'd never bothered to watch the entire movie.  Of all the movies in the world to remake, The Wicker Man is, honestly, the last I would've liked to have seen been attempted.  The original is lightening in a bottle.  It's the definition of lightening in a bottle.  No one will ever make a film like it again.  This remake was doomed from the start.

Still, I went into things with an open mind.  I was hoping that the rest of the film -- outside of Cage's standard over-the-top performance -- might have something to say.  I knew that this movie replaced the pagans with some sort of matriarchal society, so there was a wide open door for good some good social commentary.  Some aspects of a woman-dominated society may seem ideal, but in the end they can be just as violent as men.  That might be something to explore, right?

Yeah, no.  There's nothing here.  It seems as though the filmmakers had heard that the original film was considered a horror movie (though I always have trouble with that classification) are ran with that.  They immediately lost any goodwill I may have had about 10 minutes into the film when an over-loud phone rings and scares Cage.  That cliche?  In The Wicker Man?  Go to Hell.

Other horror cliches abound: Cage keeps catching glimpses of Rowan out of the corner of his eye and pursues her.  Cage repeatedly has dreams that the film tries to pretend are reality.  When he awakens, he wakes up in another nightmare and has to wake up a second time.  The women on the island exchange obvious knowing glances whenever they mislead Cage.  Cage finds the slaughtered body of the airplane pilot (Why?? Won't he be missed?  Don't they need supplies flown in?).  Cage's cellphone never works.  It goes on.

All throughout this mess, the film bizarrely lifts entire paragraphs of dialogue from the original movie.  I really don't understand why.  Other than the vague structure -- man looks for lost girl on a private island, gets sacrificed by islanders -- nothing is the same in the movie.  I'm guessing it's pure creative bankruptcy.  Why craft your own dialogue when you can crudely plop some in from the original movie?  You can see clear evidence of this during the final scene.  When Cage is shown the wicker man for the first time, he screams at the top of his his lungs: "Oh my God!".  The same thing happens in the original.  The difference: the original wicker man had what was clearly a stack of bonfire logs around its legs and there were islanders with lit torches ready.  Howie immediately saw that they meant to burn him to death and that was utterly terrifying.  All the Cage sees in the remake is a giant wooden man.  No fire.  No logs.  He should be confused and not terrified.  The only reason he freaks out: that dialogue was mindlessly grabbed from the original script.

One aspect of the film fascinated me.  I had the idea that, as bad as it is, this was truly a proper American version of the film.  The British film is reserved and beautiful and didn't wait for the audience to keep up with it as Howie's investigation revealed more about Rowan and the island.  The American version is loud and ugly and dumb.  Cage spends most of the movie shouting, punching people, and asking for things be re-explained over and over.  It's just the type of movie and hero my country thinks it wants.  Way to be a stereotype, Wicker Man remake.

Watched: DVD from WB.

The Wicker Tree (2011) directed by Robin Hardy

I was hoping this spiritual sequel to the original film might take the bad taste of the remake out of my mouth.  It did, but just a little.  In this film, a couple of Texan evangelical Christians -- one of whom is a singer -- travel to Scotland to spread the word of Jesus and perform.  Naturally, they end up in a village populated by pagans who require them as a sacrifice.

The movie just doesn't feel right.  I think it was a good choice to use American evangelicals as the sacrificial subjects.  They are very much like Howie in the original film and they really do exist in great numbers over here (hard as it may be for Europeans to believe).  Making them cowboy-Texans -- complete with a cowboy hat that has a bullet hole in it (?!) -- was pushing things too far, though.  They felt more like a stereotype of what Robin Hardy thinks of Americans rather than real characters.

The Scottish village the Americans visit is no Summerisle.  We never get a feel for the place as we do in the original.  It's simply row housing with a handful of wacky characters living in them.   We never really get to see their life or what they're like as a community.  All we ever see is them either having sex or having secret conversations about their plans for the Americans.

The movie doesn't look right.  You can tell it was shot with digital cameras.  The film has a very flat look and the colors are, for the most part, very muted.  Some tinkering with color correction could've gone a long way to improve the look of the movie.  I will say I was very impressed with some of the scenes they captured that used natural light.  I've never seen naturally lit scenes filmed with digital cameras look quite so nice before.  In particular, the scene in which Lolly is bathing in a pond is very pretty.  We see shafts of sunshine breaking through the clouds to illuminate patches of her naked body.  Lovely.

The plot is a rehash of the original.  I didn't expect anything else.  Even if there were only one of these movies, "pagans sacrificing Christians" is Wicker Man's thing.  In this film, rather than failed crops, the pagans require blood to fix their community's infertility problem.  The true cause of this issue is pretty lame: the Lord Summerisle equivalent Sir Lachlan runs a nuclear power plant nearby.  This would've been a great idea in the 1980s, but nuclear waste fear is sort of passe by now.

There are a lot of bizarre things in the film that don't fit with the Wicker Man universe.  At one point, a man is stabbed in the testicles by a broken glass and it's played for laughs.  The male American ends up being cannibalized by the villagers (??).  The female American easily pushes Sir Lachlan into the titular tree and burns him to death.

In the end, it just doesn't feel right.

Watched: DVD from Anchor Bay.

October 22nd

The Walking Dead 3.11: "I Ain't a Judas" (2013) directed by Greg Nicotero

A filler episode consisting mostly of people talking.  The people in the prison talk about what to do about Woodbury.  The people in Woodbury talk about the prison.  Andrea talks to them both.  Carol talks to Andrea and tells her to sex up the Gov and then kill him.  We all know this isn't going to happen even before we see the scene were it doesn't happen.  TV Andrea is terrible that way.

Cut and Run (1985) directed by Ruggero Deodato

Supposedly, the last of Deodato's "Cannibal Trilogy," except, you know, there's no cannibals in this one.  Instead, it's a fairly typical '80s action movie (90% of which, including this one, involved the drug war) heightened with Italian-style gore.  Admittedly, the gore -- in the uncensored version on DVD -- is really good.  I've never seen decapitation done quite so well, and the scene in which a man is torn in half crotch-first was massively disturbing.

Outside of the that, the only other thing in the movie I really liked was Michael Berryman.  He plays some nameless henchman of main bad guy (though completely underused in the movie) Richard Lynch.  The cool part is that he appears to have super powers.  Multiple times, he jumps straight out of river 10 feet into the air to grab some poor slob.  Once, he jumped right through the solid wooden floorboards of a cabin to grab somebody.  He's also a master of hiding in trees, and commands an army of naked natives using just a bird call.  He's a shirtless, hairless, speechless ninja and he's easily the best character in the film.

Watched: DVD from Anchor Bay.

American Horror Story 2.06: "Asylum: The Origins of Monstrosity" (2012) directed by David Semel

You know, I can't say I ever expected to see a TV series that featured a slasher killer as a main character.  That's pretty interesting.  Can they sustain Thredson's menace throughout multiple episodes?  Jason is usually dispatched after just 90 minutes of stalking, after all.  I do love the way Quinto is playing Bloody Face.  He's doing a sort of Norman Bates, but a hundred times more awkward.  Thredson's interactions with Lana, now chained to a bed, are very intense and wouldn't be out of place in a real horror film.  I completely love how he noticed her perspiration and heart rate and deduced her escape attempt.  Someone that perceptive keeping you captive is very scary.

American Horror Story 2.07: "Asylum: Dark Cousin" (2012) directed by Michael Rymer

Frances Conroy -- the maid from season one -- returns as the Angel of Death.  She's perfect.  Her gentle voice, pale skin, and jet black garb make for a striking figure.  I could understand Grace and Miles accepting this entity's help in leaving this world.  I hope we see more of her, especially interacting with the possessed Sister Mary Eunice.

I dig also Sister Jude's current arc.  Over the past few episodes, Sister Mary has engineered her complete breakdown.  Now, in this episode exactly midway through the season, Jude re-finds her strength.  I'm expecting her to go into battle against the possessed nun before the year is over.  Hopefully it will come together and we avoid any sappiness as in season one.

October 6th

The Walking Dead 3.04: "Killer Within" (2012) directed by Guy Ferland
Lori and newborn baby Judith's deaths in the comic series was the second instance -- after Rick's Luke Skywalker moment -- where I felt like I was punched in the gut.  This happens at the climax of Woodbury's attack on the prison after a very tense conflict between the two groups spanning weeks.

Obviously, things are quite a bit different in the TV series.  I'm not sure why Lori was killed off so early in the series.  Typically, you save the main character deaths and baby births for either the finale or the episode before the mid-season break.  It may be a comment on the popularity -- or lack thereof, I should say -- of Lori with fans of the show.  However, it does set up an interesting dynamic that wasn't present in the comics.  Now we get so see the completely unstable Rick -- talking to himself on the phone and such -- go up against the calm and practical Governor.  That could be interesting.

Also, having Carl put his own mother down is pretty grim.  Not quite as grim as Rick seeing Lori and the newborn killed because he pissed off the wrong warlord, but pretty grim.  I'm glad they're not shying away with taking Carl down the same messed up route he's taking in the comics.


The Simpsons 25.02: "Treehouse of Horror XXIV" (2013) directed by Rob Oliver
Attention Fox: I paid money to stream this on Amazon.  I didn't have to.  I could've easily pirated it.  Shove more ads into the front of your streaming shows and that's just what I and many others will do.

Like everyone is saying, the opening sequence directed by Guillermo del Toro is the best part of the episode by a long shot.  Hell, it's the best part of any "Treehouse of Horror" for a solid decade and half.  The real stories in the episode are the typical weakly amusing fare of the modern Simpsons.  The best story -- and most Halloween-y -- was probably the Dr. Seuss rip-off, but even that grated on my nerves after listening to their tortured Seussian rhyming for so long.

Do yourself a favor and watch just the opening, if you haven't, and have fun picking out the infinity of horror references:

The Walking Dead 3.05: "Say the Word" (2012) directed by Greg Nicotero
The reveal of the Governor's zombie daughter was weak.  He's shown combing her hair, but even before a chunk of scalp falls out and we see her dead face, we hear her zombie grunting noises.  Nice was to waste a surprise.  Should've saved this for later, maybe for us to discover at the same time Andrea inevitably does.

I'm sure the show won't be chopping Rick's hand off and I'm sure the interaction between Michonne and the Governor will be toned down compared to the comic series, but, damn, the fate of Lori's body in the TV show was worthy of the comic series.  Grief-maddened Rick finds a puddle of blood and gore where Lori had died.  Nearby, he stumbles upon a satisfied zombie with a bloated belly resting against a wall.  Damn, man.  The show had me afraid, when Rick started stabbing the zombie's tummy, that he was going to dig all of the Lori-chow out of it in order to bury her.  They didn't go that far out, but, still, this is the best representation of how horrific it is that we are zombie food I've ever seen.


The Walking Dead 3.06: "Hounded" (2012) directed by Daniel Attias
I don't know if it's Laurie Holden's acting -- she always seems to have this dumb half-smile on her face -- or the writing or both, but I can see why fans turned on Andrea this season.  I hate to keep referencing the comic series -- they're two different mediums and changes are not only expected, but required -- but Andrea in the comic is such a awesome badass.  She's not a cartoon like ninja-Michonne, but a real person hardened by the fall of the world, physically scarred, and deadly with a sniper rifle.  After Rick, she's my favorite character in the comics.  In the show, the only thing she shares with her comic counterpart is her name.  TV Andrea is so wishy-washy, she's hard to watch.  I spent the last few episodes wishing Michonne would snap and punch her.

Sweet.  Merle captured Glenn and Maggie and brought them to Woodbury.  Now we can finally get rocking with the conflict between the two groups.  But, c'mon... did Merle teleport like Jason Vorhees seems to?  He leaves the Governor and then just happened to wander in exactly the right direction to find Glenn, Maggie, and Michonne at the same time?  Lucky guy.

October 24th

Survival of the Dead (2009) directed by George A. Romero

The roads are clear and the Internet still works.  Minor things, but they set the wrong tone.  A world in which, a month into a zombie outbreak, you can still watch YouTube on your iPhone just doesn't feel apocalyptic enough.  Who's manning all of those server rooms to make this happen while the rest of the world goes to hell?  If you're going to go that way -- things are still running, but there's all these annoying zombies making it a little harder than normal -- Romero should've ran with the idea I once read that he had for part 4: the living dead have become little more than a nuisance; just more homeless on the street for people to ignore.

Instead, for this sixth go-round, Romero goes back to the "let's civilize the zombies" idea again.  This time, a man -- not unlike Hershel in The Walking Dead -- thinks the zombies are just sick people.  He keeps them chained up on his island, where they repeatedly perform a minor task they used to do while alive.  His goal is to train one to eat something other than humans in an effort to find a way to coexist with the creatures.  Sounds familiar.

I'm not really sure I follow the logic of this train of thought, though.  At the end of the movie, the zombies do indeed eat a horse.  So what?  I eat chickens, but that doesn't mean cows are safe around me.  Saying this is a path to making the zombie safe to be around is like saying, "don't worry about the tiger walking around town.  I've trained him to eat only cat food."

In the end, I don't think Romero really had anything new to say here.  People are violent and will kill each other over stupid things like differences of opinions.  Zombies can learn.  You may have to turn into a little bit of a bastard to survive zombieland, but there are lines never to cross.  We've tackled all of this stuff in previous Living Dead movies.

I do like the final image.  If the visual of two zombies shooting empty guns at each other with a gigantic full moon behind them is the last of the Romeroverse, well, that'll be fine.

Watched: blu-ray from Magnolia.

Sarge (2009)


The Walking Dead 2.10: "18 Miles Out" (2012) directed by Ernest R. Dickerson
How much time is passing?  How in the hell is Randall walking around OK after getting his calf muscle torn to shreds on a fence?  And, where are they?  Rick gives a nice speech about how winter may slow or end the zombie plague.  Aren't they in Georgia, having just fled the CDC in Atlanta?  Why is Rick talking about snowmobiles?  I'm pretty sure they get rare dustings of snow there in winter and nothing more.

I'm also not sure why the show expects us to care much about whether Hershel's other daughter kills herself or not.  I don't think the girl has ever had any lines before this episode and her catatonic state from the episodes prior has been the series' lamest storyline.  I don't even remember what her name is.

At least Rick and Shane have come to blows, opening the way for Carl to do what he should'a done long ago.


The Walking Dead 2.11: "Judge, Jury, Executioner" (2012) directed by Gregory Nicotero
I love the group's moral quandary in this episode.  It's a tough one.  If Randall's group really has 30 people in it, I think the implication is that he's from the Governor's group.  If that's the case, knowing what the Governor is like from the comics, I think Shane is right: they need to off him for the safety of the group.  Easier said than done, though, as Rick finds out.  Should they continue to pretend to be civilized?  Or is that impossible in the world they now live in?  Great, great stuff.  This is exactly what this series can be at its best.

Is this the episode that started the complaints I've seen all over the damn Internet about Carl wandering off into the woods without supervision?  There's only two more episodes left after this.  I suppose if he does it again and gets lost like Sophia, that may be annoying.  But, still, his wandering in this episode is completely understandable to me.  He's a 10ish-year-old boy and, up to this point, the farm has been perfectly safe.  I'd be curious to go explore and watch a zombie, too.  I'm more worried that the idiot lost Daryl's gun in the woods.

Wow.  Dale, man.  He survived a long, long time in the comic series.  I wasn't expecting him to be dying a horrifically agonizing death by being ripped open by a zombie and then shot in the head.  Poor TV Dale never got to date Andrea or get his leg chopped off.  If the series continues to shock me by mixing up the details of which bad things happens to which character, that's just fine.  I just hope they have the balls to torture the members of the Grimes family as much as they've been tortured in the comics.  Nothing in a comic book has ever gotten to me more than the three major things that happen to the members of that family over the course of the series.