






your happy childhood ends here!
When I was little my brothers and I used to play a game we called "hot lava." To play the game, you simply pretend that your orange wall-to-wall shag carpeting is hot lava. You can climb and walk on the couch, the coffee table or any bureau or shelf you can reach but you can't let your feet touch the floor. If you're feeling adventurous you can throw books or sofa cushions down to make a path/walkway but if you should ever touch the ground with your feet, that's it…you're ash. Obviously this is the funnest, most challenging game ever invented so if you don't have orange shag wall-to-wall carpet, maybe you should invest in some today and check it out.
Wait a minute, my spell-check thingy is trying to tell me that "funnest" isn't a word. Are you serious? Would someone please make that a word already? It's frickin' 2010.
Where was I? Oh yea, so I was thinking about the game "hot lava" the whole time I was watching the lil' Aussie movie with a heart of gold called BLACK WATER! BLACK WATER (2007) is the story of some folks whose boat gets tipped over by a crocodile in the mangrove swamps of Australia and they end up clinging for their lives in some trees. Every time one of the survivors tries to climb down from said trees they more often than not get chomped to shreds by the cranky croc. I know that doesn't sound like much of a plot but trust me, this movie delivers the goods and it does so in a respectable way.
Rather than "hot lava" this movie will probably remind normal viewers of the same year's ROUGE, another Aussie swamp croc flick from the guy who did WOLF CREEK. Now, I liked ROGUE so I'm not going to rag on it but BLACK WATER handles similar material with a fraction of the budget and with no help from the ever persuasive RADHA MITCHELL. The biggest distinction though is that BLACK WATER actually uses real crocs rather than CGI beasts and what a difference that makes.
Don't tell the SYFI channel (it'll break its heart!) but Mother Nature made some creatures (crocodiles for instance) so scary that they need no embellishment. Your garden variety crocodile is covered with slimy dragon scales, has piercing demon eyes and a large snarly mouth which is host to about a zillion razor sharp teeth. It really doesn't have to guzzle radioactive waste and grow seventy feet tall to kick your ass. If you've only seen the depressed kind in your local concentration camp, I mean zoo, let me tell ya it's a different story on their own turf. BLACK WATER makes use of the whole "home team advantage" thing.
I hate to make broad generalizations but since this is a positive one, indulge me. Australian horror movies tend to have a genuine connection to their land that I admire. Films as varied as THE LONG WEEKEND(1978), WOLF CREEK and especially NICOLAS ROEG's borderline horror flick WALKABOUT(1971) have such a readable reverent awe towards nature that it just feeds into your primitive primal fears about how unblinkingly arbitrary survival is. Good for you, Australia! I swear to God as soon as they invent a teleporting device I'm going to come visit you! (There's really no way I could ever spend the 14 hours on an airplane it would take to visit you from where I am now.) By the way scientists, what the hell is the hold up with teleportation? I feel like if I was a scientist I would have figured that shit out by now. Do you guys already have teleportation and you're just not sharing it?
BLACK WATER is a tight little nature hates you thriller that's unlikely to inspire fanaticism but is, all and all, a guilt free satisfying experience. You get to know the characters, you care when they die and you empathize with their shitty day from hell that destroys all their pie in the sky dreams for the future in one fatal swoop. The biggest compliment I can give this movie is the simplest one; after it was done I checked IMDb to see if the directors (DAVID NERLICH & ANDREW TRAUCKI) had done anything else. Turns out TRAUCKI has just completed a shark movie called REEF, and if someone out there only had the foresight to invent a time machine (like it would be that hard), I could be watching it right now.
Full disclosure: I adore SARAH POLLEY. If you read this here blog you're probably well aware of all my isms, schemas and bugaboos about modern cinema; my hatred of gaudy bombastic formulae and my passionate, quiet love for the idiosyncratic. It's easy to damn the movie gods and shake your fist at the sky without a solution or example of a preferred route but I happen to have an example of the preferred route and her name is SARAH POLLEY. Here is a successful, intelligent and proficient artist who takes risks and explores the fringe without catering to spectacle or vanity. She's so damn dignified, in tune and self possessed, that I just want to buy her an ice cream cone; I almost feel that she'd let me. That's a real human face you're seeing on screen, those are real human teeth, real person eyes and real human emotions. Something about SARAH POLLEY makes every other film star look like a garish vaudeville cartoon. POLLEY is the last human on Earth in a world of vampires. I AM LEGEND is based on her life. Did I mention that I LOVE SARAH POLLEY with all that is left of my charcoal heart?
SPLICE is a great fit for POLLEY, its shell might distract you into thinking it's another sexy alien rampage dud like SPECIES but beneath the CGI shenanigans, primal, monumental emotions are stirred. This movie hit me on a level that I really wasn't prepared for. I'm going to try to explain how it made me feel and in the process I may also reveal that I have severe mental problems. Please do not call the guys with the nets to come and get me. This is between just you and I…
I have near constant nightmares that my cat is in danger and needs help and I can't help him. This has been going on forever.
(Also: Have you seen the footage of the pelican covered in oil? It means we're all going to burn in hell.)
Here's the thing people, and they won't teach you this in school, the bravest thing you can ever do in life is take on the responsibility of caring about some other creature's well being. I don't care if it's your dumb baby, your smooch partner or a goldfish, you're putting yourself in the position of being hurt and torn apart. SPLICE may pretend it's all about creating FRANKENSTEIN monsters that cannot be controlled but its real power comes from the HORROR of caring. As soon as POLLEY starts to care about the being she has created, she is screwed. There is no way things are going to work out well, she has very unscientifically opened her heart and her heart is doomed. The universe sees her heart as a dartboard.
There's a bunch of stuff in this movie about playing God (somebody's got to), gender identity and hipster apartment hunting but I really don't care about that stuff. I really loved how SPLICE makes you care and then makes you pay for it. I'm not sure if that was its intention or if I just need a vacation but I was really impressed by how it rakes maternal/paternal feelings and then just shoots them down without ever being too obvious about it. (There's also something here about POLLEY's character trying to correct her own upbringing and finding what a dead end that is that I found interesting as well.) Oh yeah, and I almost forgot, this is a horror movie and the ending really does deliver some tense scares. As you can tell this isn't so much a review as some random associations, if it was a review I'd give it a seriously high rating. On the surface it may seem like the standard mish-mash but there's something very special and different here kicking and screeching and determined to break through. In other words if you're like me and have spent the last year bitching about the government cheese that masquerades as cinema, go see SPLICE, it may cure your ills. As for me, I'm going to take a nap and inevitably dream of my poor cat covered in oil.
P.S. I think ADRIAN BRODY is in this movie too.
UNK SEZ: The comments are off today so that we can partake in a super THING contest! There are 11 images from your favorite movie and mine, JOHN CARPENTER'S THE THING below. Can you put them in the correct order that they occurred in the movie? Whoever gets the most right the fastest will be dubbed THE THING and will win a box of kindertrauma surprises including a multitude of comic books (including I, ZOMBIE and AMERICAN VAMPIRE), DVDs and whatever else we can cram in there.
I'll get you started, picture 11 (the one with the spaceship) comes first so 11=1! Can you do the next ten correctly? Are you THE THING? Good Luck kiddies! Email your answers to kindertrauma@gmail.com!
As screwed up as these people are they have forged their own family. They choose to die guns blazing rather than give in to the established order. There is acceptance among the unacceptable and good for them. There are some bonds made in life that will never be understood or accepted by others and it's important to know that they can't be destroyed by others either. Maybe I'll never be able to fully understand my sympathy for these devils but I feel it just the same. Remember, polite society frowned upon Jack, Janet and Terry's lifestyle choice too ya know!
(If you think about it, so much of the horror genre's power hinges on the viewers ability to accept and identify with antiheroes and outcasts. You're only watching half of FRANKENSTEIN if you view the creature as simply a beast and you're missing out on a lot of DRACULA if you are not taken in by the Count's charm.)
I do know that with THE DEVIL'S REJECTS, ZOMBIE set aflame any and all previous ideas about what a sequel could be and where it could go and that alone recommends it. (It's not everyday you see a neon splatterfest transformed into a dusty road movie after all and ultimately REJECTS does stand alone.) I guess I come and dance on Baby, Otis and Spaulding's floor because as reprehensible as they may be, I still secretly hope that they'll live and any movie that can leave me feeling the exact opposite of the way I'd expect to can come and knock on my door anytime it wants to.
I was all revved up to see GEORGE ROMERO's new zombie burger SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD at the movie theater on Friday but I got distracted. Actually I think I was just wearing short pants and it was too hot to switch to long pants and too early in the season to expose the public to my zombie stems, so I stayed home. Later that night, at about one in the morning, I discovered that S.O.T.D. was one of those ON DEMAND "same day as theaters" specials offered up by my cable provider and I could watch it in the privacy of my own home while dressed like a deranged hillbilly. I wounded up saving some dough, having full access to my well-stocked fridge and enjoying the company of stinky cats rather than stinky humans…right on! I think I'm going to like this "same day as theaters" set-up a bunch. Will it kill movie theaters? Well movie theaters, in the words of LUNG LEG "You killed me first!"
So what is going on with this ROMERO chap anyway? SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD is a pretty weird movie. Fans that envision the film delivering an expansive apocalyptic view of the further infestation of the planet by zombies will be disappointed at best. On the other hand, if you don't mind ROMERO pulling out a magnifying glass and inspecting a strange little bubble of the mayhem, you might get a kick or two. At this point he does not seem to have neither the budget nor the inclination to keep unfolding the zombie map, so focusing on a tiny tale within his charted territory appears to suit him fine. There's a scene in SURVIVAL that shows a zombie postal worker chained to a mail box delivering the same mail over and over again and I couldn't help but wonder if that's how ROMERO might feel. His latest movie may not eclipse any of his others but it at least it shows him pulling against that chain a bit.
I'm not going to lie to you, SURVIVAL is no great shakes but ROMERO really does deserve credit for shuffling against the herd and fooling around with a couple of game changers. This joint is so myopic and audience ambivilant that it feels like ROMERO by way of JOHN SAYLES. In fact, if you can imagine the living dead invading THE SECRET OF ROAN INISH and MATEWAN you might get an idea of how unusual the overall tone is. It should be said that some of the visuals really shine, I was taken aback by an arresting shot of some animated heads propped up on a row of sticks and a glorious/bizarre PATTI SMITH looking zombie galloping on a horse while skeletal branches wave overhead. It's an overall crisp looking film that takes full advantage of the damp vibrant verdure that surrounds its autumnal island enviroment. It's a nice change of pallette after a career of mostly gritty visuals (or maybe my HD TV just frickin' rocks!!!)
The problem is that the story involving two rival families with opposing views on how to face the undead does not satisfy as much as the ones that satellite it and that the specter of death, the battery of a living dead movie really, is nowhere to be found. The zombies here may as well be robots; they're so clean and acceptable and they seem to putter around like firecrackers waiting to be lit and nothing more. Luckily there's an ace up ROMERO's sleeve named ALAN VAN SPRANG who SPRANG my VAN ALAN every time he was on screen. His character Sarge Crockett (who we got glimpse of in DIARY OF THE DEAD) is a charismatic throwback to the "scoundrel with a soul" archetypes of yesteryear. He carries the film to such a degree that it wilts when he's not present and his benching during the film's climax leaves it kind of flat.
I don't blame ROMERO, an older gentleman himself, for focusing on the misguided wrinkly patriarchs whose stubborn refusal to budge destroys everything that they hold dear. It's a nifty, maybe too forced parable for the inanities of war (Happy Memorial Day!) that probably inspired the entire film to begin with. Still, it's rather a wet blanket considering the stronger more enticing routes that he bypasses to get to his final shot. I was left feeling strangely similar to the way I did after watching THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE, that I had just seen a passable "C" movie worth watching for one lone "A" performance.
It will surprise exactly nobody that SURVIVAL ends with the threat of yet another entry in the series soon to come. If VAN SPRANG is signed on then frankly, so am I. Here's to hoping that in that next venture ROMERO will remember to invite that good old, worm-infested Grim Reaper too. A zombie movie that neglects to revel in decomposition is just begging to leave its target audience cold.
I'm not going to "review" the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET uber-doc NEVER SLEEP AGAIN: THE ELM STREET LEGACY so much as just shovel heaps and heaps of gushy praise upon it. I don't think there's any way a better, more in depth investigation of the franchise is ever going to exist. In other words, if you are an ELM STREET fan and you are sitting on the fence about whether to purchase this DVD or not, allow me to push you off of that fence via wrecking ball. I had penciled myself in for the usual and what I got was so much more.
NEVER SLEEP AGAIN amazingly gathers nearly everybody ever involved in the series (most importantly JENNIFER RUBIN) and all the no-shows have been added to my shit-list. (Careful JOHNNY DEPP, counting ALICE IN WONDERLAND, that's two strikes against you this year. You are inching ever closer to the dartboard zone!) This fat blunt is four hours long but it never wears out its welcome. A second disc of equal length is included with outtakes and a smorgasbord of extras and mini-docs. There's sure to be some stuff you've heard before but there's plenty of eye opening new info too (Did you know that Kristen's mom in ELM STREET 3 is the real life mother of that hand jiving punkette from FRIDAY 5? I live for such info!) I have to hand it to directors DANIEL FARRANDS and ANDREW KASCH for not being afraid to steer their ship into atypical areas. Finally the nonstop gayness that is ELM STREET 2 has been officially recognized by its creators. I could have spent four hours hearing stories about that sequel alone.
Outside of the dream universe, NEVER SLEEP AGAIN stands as an interesting portrait/eulogy to NEW LINE CINEMA itself. You might even give the later installments of the franchise a bit more slack when you learn about their intense scattershot histories. It's all around handsomely put together with stop-motion animated inserts and title screens and you even get a peek at some special effects and gore left on the cutting room floor. If you're a horrible, superficial person like me you'll also get the chance to evaluate how well or poorly all the actors have aged. There are some real jaw droppers in both the yowza and yikes categories. The end credits, which spotlight the performers delivering their character's most famous lines is pure nostalgic gold.
Cliché as it may sound, NEVER SLEEP AGAIN is a dream come true for NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET fans, so much so that even talking about it makes me wish I had the time to watch it again. Good golly, it turns out 2010 is not such a bad year for Freddy fanatics after all!
"Run, human centipede run!!!" Who knew I'd find myself yelling that sentence at my television screen? So I finally broke down and watched that movie about the not exceptionally sane surgeon who sews folks together in the worst way you can think of. I'm probably not the best audience for this type of thing because as much as I love lots of blood and gore, I like pretending that people don't poop even more. Being reminded that they do indeed do such a regrettable, albeit (allegedly) natural, thing is not my idea of a good time. I admit it, I was prepared to hate this one, but thankfully the crazy doctor keeps his modern home so immaculate that I wasn't as nauseated as I thought I'd be. If you had to be a human centipede, you really couldn't ask for better digs.
I can't think of any movie that swings from downright silly to "oh, the humanity!" depressing as often as this kooky contraption does. Even more startling is the fact that it serves up a few scenes of genuine suspense. No, I'm not talking about expertly orchestrated HITCHCOCK-ian suspense; I mean that frustrating kind where you find yourself trying to mentally will the characters not do the stupidest things you've ever witnessed while they're trying to escape. Take note, I don't care who the hell you are, I‘m not going back to save you if we're ever found in this situation and I alone break free. In fact, I expect there will be a perfect cut-out Unkle Lancifer silhouette in the wall that I've crashed through while exiting the premises. If THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE's main priority is to invent and subject the viewer to the worst possible way to meet their maker, I begrudgingly have to admit it has earned the coveted slow clap.
You're never going to get me to say that this logic mocking movie is good but I think it might be anyway. If nothing else it is a perfect "dare" watch to subject sleepover guests to. This is the type of cult atrocity that makes me wish I still worked at a video store so that I could switch its case with that of MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY. Truth told, the movie balances the line of being truly disturbing but it never really crosses it fully. As in your face as the premise may be, your imagination will really determine just how much it crawls into your psyche. In the end I felt that the constant sound of (muffled) whimpering from the centipede creation was far more upsetting (and annoying) than anything I actually saw. Maybe I'm downplaying the anguish a bit here as I do remember there were several times that I just wanted to turn the thing off and reclaim my semi-cloudy disposition. (Tellingly, 1990s SKI SCHOOL was watched as a chaser.)
I guess you can blame DIETER LASER for my not bailing before the film ended. He is so over the top and intense as the mad doctor that I couldn't look away. The guy doesn't even look real. There were a couple times when I thought I was being presented with a latex model only to find out a moment later that what I was seeing was his actual head. He's really so extreme and cartoon broad that he's able to keep things from teetering too far into the grim. There are surely moments when you're liable to find yourself sliding into the overall awfulness of the situation but his energy and bizarreness pulls you out. Ultimately, HUMAN CENTIPEDE's well earned, sick reputation can't hide the fact that unlike a lot of big budget horror we've recently endured, there is a positively retro joy of the genre's grotesqueries stitching this freak show together. It's really up to the viewer to decide, you can take it in as either a hilarious, obscene joke or a soul wrenching mediation on man's inhumanity to human centipedes (and Rottweilers.) Either way I'd say considering its mostly rubber vomit aspirations, the operation is somewhat of a shocking success.