The Moster Squad : 20th anniversary edition

The Monster Squad: 20th Anniversary Edition
Director: Fred Dekker
Starring Andre Gower, Duncan Regehr, Stephen Macht, Stan Shaw,& Tom Noonan

After being neglected by the DVD format for the last 20 years, Lionsgate has released one of my childhood favorite films, The Monster Squad and they didn't skimp on the extras one bit.

The Movie:
I was in the 4th grade when I originally saw The Monster Squad way back in 1987 and my memories of it are very fond and warm. So it was with much enthusiasm that I picked up this 20th anniversary edition and after 20 years the film still holds up well. The story is basically all of Universals Classic monsters coming back to face off with a group of kids that call themselves the Monster Squad. That's right Dracula, The Creature from the black lagoon, the Mummy, Frankensteins Monsters, and the Wolf man are after a special artifact that will give the monsters power over the world. But they're going to have a little trouble thanks to a group of kids that are making it their mission to stop them before its too late!

I remember loving this movie as a kid but I never saw it again in the 20 years since its release. I have to say that it is stil a lot of fun and a great way to spend 90 minutes. The Storyline is pretty much what you expect. An ensemble of kids ranging from cool to geeky that come together and start their own club called the Monster Squad. Much like the Goonies this film is a prepubescent kids dream only with monsters instead of pirates. Where this film excels above Goonies in my opinion is that the kids really aren't annoying one bit. They all seem pretty real and very reminscent of kids I knew in 1987. There's no constant screaming and yelling and the characters are all very likable. Unfortaunatly the movie didn't do well when it originally came out. It was too scary for kids and to kiddy for adults so it never did well. However the following for the movie grew on video and that following only got stronger over the years.

PICTURE:

This remastered wide screen version of the film looks amazing. Definitely the best this movie has ever looked. The colors are sharp, the blacks are black and the pastel clothing is bright!

Extras:

This film definitely deserves some love after being neglected for so long but Lionsgate may have given it a bit too much love. The feature contains 2 full length commentaries with the stars and the director. The Second disc is jammed with extras. The first a feature length documentary on the making of the film from idea to last year at a special screening of the film in Cherry Hill NJ. The documentary tells you all you need to know about the making of the film from conception to marketing to revival. Interviews with the stars, special effects personnel, director and producers provides more insight in the film then you could ever imagine. While it does seem a bit overlong and at times can drag but it was still a lot of fun to watch.

Rounding out the disc are deleted scenes, an interview with Tom Noonan as Frankenstein which is a bit weird, still galleries, trailers and TV spots. This is the definitive Monster Squad.

If you grew up in the 80's then this disc is almost required to own. The movie has held up very well and the extras are amazing. The monster Squad is one of the greatest Monster movies ever made and is easily better than modern monster fare such as The Mummy and Van Helsing. It's a perfect movie for a dark October night!

Movie: 4 out of 5 Bloody Axes
DVD Extras: 5 out of 5 Bloody Axes

Behind the Mask : DVD REVIEW

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
Directed by Scott Glosserman
Starring: Nathan Baesel, Angela Goethals, & Robert England

Behind the Mask is one of those films that had so much buzz behind it early on that I knew it was going to be hard for the film to live up to it all when I saw it. And I was right. The film is basically a behind the scenes look at a masked serial murderer. In the world of Behind the Mask characters like Freddy, Jason, and Michael Myers aren't just stories, they're real events that have taken place and are admired by people such as the films main character Leslie Vernon. An amatuer film crew led by Taylor ( ANgela Goenthals) is following Lesie around in the weeks leading up to the big event where he'll lure some sterotypical sex crazed teens to an old abandoned house where he'll proceed to pick them off one by one. Leslie is played with gleeful enthusiasm by Nathan Baesel. He sets up all the details needed to be the perfect masked killer. We're shown the work that goes into creating a mythology and preparing a location for the hunt. Finally leading up to the big night when he'll get to slash his way through victim after victim of unsuspecting teens.

Behind the mask is almost entirely filmed from the perspective of the documentary crew that's following Leslie. And in many ways this works very well and to the benefit of the film. Where it doesn't work is in scenes such as one in the library where the Leslie and the crew and scoping out their "survivor girl" the one lone girl that will come to the party and survive the night to kill Leslie at the end. Here the documentary style is dumped and its suddenly filmed in the style of a really mediocre slasher film. I get the joke but it happens so abruptly and comes across so cheesy that it just feels like it shits on all that it built up to that point. It only gets worse at the end of the film when the documentary camera is dumped entirely for the final act and we're treated to your typical slasher movie ending.

Where the film fails in its inconsistancies in direction it succeeds in the casting of Nathan Baesel as Leslie Vernon. Baesel plays the part like a well trained athelete training for the big game. There's not a hint of moral dilemma for him and he's so excited about what he's doing that its hard not to want to see it all go his way. Angela Goethals plays Taylor who is leading this documentary. She's the perfect balance of wide eyed innocence and journalistic integrity. She becomes very wrapped up into what Leslie is doing and even sympathizes with him until she's forced to decide if she wants to let him kill these people or not.

The concept of Behind the Mask is a great one. The problem is that its inconsistent. It can't decide whether it wants to be serious or make fun of itself and that's unfortunate. It builds up this serious take on a masked killer through the eyes of a documentary camera which in itself has its own level of humor but it works well. The problem really lies with the cinematic camera and its slasher cliche's that do nothing to set the film apart as anything more than a slightly more intelligent slasher movie.

2.5 out of 5 bloody axes

The Messengers DVD REVIEW

The Messengers
Directed by the Pang Brothers
Starring Dylan McDermott, Penelope Ann Miller, John Corbett & Kristen Stewart


The Film:

The Pang Brothers might be the most overrated directors in Asian Cinema. Last I checked they only had one good movie called The Eye which had one scene in particular with a ghost in the hallway that almost made me lose control of my bowels! However that was then this is now. Since the Eye the Pang Brothers have continued to make movies that are overall uneven and by the numbers. The Messengers is their first US release and was produced by Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert who of course brought us the Evil Dead films.

Even with the Pangs behind this movie I thought that maybe, just maybe, that this time Raimi would get a good horror movie for his Ghost House production label but I'm sorry to say that its another strike.

The Messengers starts out with promise with a family being terrorized by a seemingly invisible entity that is trying to kill a mother and her son. From here we're introduced to a new family that is moving into the same house some time later. Dylan McDermott and Penelope Ann Miller are sort of sleep walking through their rolls of Mom and Dad to teenage daughter Kristen Stewart and young son that can see ghosts and can't speak conveniently. Apparently McDermott's character has been out of work for 2 years and decides to risk it all on starting a sunflower farm in the country. That's right... a sunflower farm. It doesn't get more random than that does it?

Soon after moving in the little boy begins seeing ghosts everywhere in the house and dauther, jesse is soon being attacked by invisible forces. The parents play the part of the typical oblivious bad parents that think their daughter is lying and hurting herself for attention. John Corbett shows up out of the blue and wanders around as a farm hand for a long time and appears to serve no purpose until the last reel of the movie where the plot and his involvement all come together. However if I imagine most viewers have figured it out by this point and are already getting pissed.

The Messengers is derivative of so many other recent movies that it almost seems schizophrenic. Ghosts float above the floor, crawl around in fast speeds and strut around like your typical Asian dark haired ghost all in the span of 10 minutes. There seems to be no real design for them. its Almost like the directors changed their mind on how to portray them from day to day making the movie seem very uneven. From what I understand about the Pang Brothers they often tag team direct a movie. One stays on set to direct, the other goes to the editing trailer to work on the film. Then the next day the switch. This would explain a lot.

The only stand out in this film is Kristen Stewart as Jesse. Her fear is very believable and its hard not to be sympathetic towards her character. I just wish we could have seen her in a better horror film than this. The rest of the characters really seem very thin and the acting is mediocre at best.

Visually the Messengers is interesting at times. Many shots are very well framed and executed but the shots that really count, the ghost shots, seem poorly thought out and almost always out of focus or obscured. Once scene in particular is ruined by focusing to closely on The characters of Jesse and the little boy to the point that you can't see the ghost walking up in the background at all. There are several scenes that just make you ask what the hell were they thinking?

I suppose teens might find this movie fulfilling but older horror fans are just going to turn it off in disgust. What could have been a decent horror film is nothing more that a rip off of many Asian horror films packed in to one bloated and glossy package.

DVD Extras:
I didn't even bother with watching them. I was too pissed to care.

FILM: 1/2 out of 5 Bloody Axes

Book Review: World War Z by Max Brooks

World War Z by Max Brooks

I’ve always been a zombie movie fan ever since I was just a tyke. And, unlike other horror films, I was always terrified by zombie movies. Even today I’ll often have nightmares after watching or reading a good zombie tale. There’s a couple reasons why I think it has this effect on me and many other people. First is the horror of the dead roaming the earth in swarms and eating people. Then there’s the concept that if it happened the world as we know it would end. It’s that fear of losing everything and being hunted that gets me to my soul.

This is why I jumped on Max Brooks latest Zombie epic, World War Z. The book details from outbreak to all out War to recovery of a world ravaged by a virus that reanimates the dead. The story unfolds from the perspectives of many people in countries all over the world. Meticulously researched, Brooks grounds everything in reality. There are no wild leaps here in logic, no magical happy ending or glossing over of mistakes made by bureaucrats and politicians. World War Z takes an uncompromising look at a disaster and a worldwide scale and how each country deals with and tries to contain the outbreak.

The most interesting thing about World War Z is how you can take out the word “Zombie” and replace it with just about any natural or artificial disaster you can think of and the details of the story wouldn’t change that much. Brooks has captured the unpreparedness of not only our own United States to deal with this disaster but also countries all over the world. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that some type of viral outbreak could in fact occur on a world wide level and World War Z offers a lot of Insight into how unprepared the world is for such a disaster.

While the book goes into some very dark territory telling the story from perspectives and cultures from all over the world it does offer hope. While the world falls apart the human spirit certainly gets to thrive in this book and we see not only the willingness to survive but the willingness to help others. In stark contrast to that we also witness the rise of new dictators, witness the horrors of survivalist militias, and the general BS of the famous politicians.

The parallels from events such as the Iraq war, Hurricane Katrina, and even terrorism can be drawn from this book. But the must inspiring aspect of it is the simple fact that the world, while divided up by politics, religion and other BS that shouldn’t matter, can come together in the face of a crises. I just hope it doesn’t take the end of the world as we know it to get to that place.

World War Z has already been optioned for a film but I highly recommend any fan of the zombie sub genre to pick this up immediately. Even people who aren’t horror fans can get a lot from this story just from the socioeconomic standpoint. World War Z is by far the best zombie story I’ve ever read.

Halloween to Be Re-released in August

Here's the link!

... to a news release. Thank you very much Anchor Bay. You have a crumby logo, but I loves ya!

Pelts : Masters of Horror Season 2

After a pretty good start with "An incident on and off a mountain road" Masters of Horror soon degraded into mediocre Tales from the Crypt - esque stories without the twist. Some ranged from decent while others were just unbearable.

In season 1 Giallo master Dario Argento made Jennifer you basic deformed child in the woods comes home with a man, has sex with him and eats animals and neighbors story. While it was certainly nothing to write home about it was still a pretty decent episode for the series. For season 2 Argento decided to phone it in with Pelts, a story so incomprehensibly stupid I literally was pissed after viewing it for having wasted my time with it.

The Story begins with sex deprived, stripper humping, fur salesman played by Meat Loaf. Yes Meat Loaf. He wants to get into the pants of a hot stripper at his favorite local titty bar and after trying to rape her in the champagne room he vows that one day he will have her. Thus we're set up for the introduction of drunken fur trapper, played by the once great John Saxon, and his young friend who seems to be way too interested in raccoon fur.

The two trappers capture a bunch of raccoons in a part of the forest surrounded by strange ruins so of course you know immediately that these raccoons must be cursed or something right? The two talk about how amazing the pelts are and it becomes clear that Saxons young friend seems to be enamored with the pelts and for what seems like an eternity he strokes the pelts and smiles while really hokey music plays in the background.

To make a long story short Meat Loaf comes into ownership of said pelts and decides that these pelts are so perfect that they'd make the greatest fur coat ever to take to some tradeshow. Since I'm not much the fur lover I really didn't know if this was supposed to be taken seriously or not. I mean they're raccoon pelts! Do they even make coats out of Raccoon? there's all this talk about how amazing the pelts are and its enough to bore you to tears. Even with the implied supernatural-ness of the raccoon pelts There still appears to be absolutely no logic in play here at all.

The only redeeming value here, if there's any to be found, is the gore effects. If your a gore hound you might find this to be a pretty cool entry in the series. I'm not so much the gore hound. Don't get me wrong, I like gore if it works in conjunction with the story. I don't like gore for the sake of gore. While the gore in Pelts does follow the story the ridiculousness of the plot points playing out on screen just completely demolish any power the gore could have had. Its bad folks! Avoid this like the plague.

I don't have showtime but I added it to my Directv when Masters season one started just to watch it. After about 4 episodes I shut it off and after watching Pelts on DVD I have no regrets for doing so.

Masters of Horror: The Screwfly Solution

Masters of Horror: The Screwfly Solution

Dir: Joe Dante

Okay. I'll admit it. Before The Screwfly Solution, I'd never seen an episode of the Masters of Horror. Don't ask me why. I don't have a good answer. Other than that I like my horror like I like my women: without commercial breaks and more than an hour long.

I've tried that joke out for three hours and I still can't make it work. Moving on.

Needless to say, when a friend of mine said that he had picked up The Screwfly Solution on DVD, I was hesitant. But as details began to creep forward, my interest started to perk up.

"Elliot Gould is in it? M*A*S*H* is one of my favourite movies! Jason Priestly? Well... he's a very competent actor... Joe Dante directed? Joe DANTE??? Man! I loved Gremlins! I loved Innerspace! I... hated Small Soldiers, but that's almost forgivable! GREMLINS! What a great movie.

The Screwfly Solution is loosely about a madness that slowly drifts north from the equator that makes men kill women in a violent rage, spouting religious epitaphs as they do so. That's pretty much the premise. The scientists (of whom Jason Priestley and Elliot Gould are two) know what's happening, but they're powerless to stop it. I could basically just skip everything in the middle and give you the end, but then I wouldn't be a very good reviewer, would I?

Or would I?

You see... the problem is... there isn't that much else to go on. Screwfly, like a lot of Dante's other works, seems to suffer from the problem of trying to be too much at once. Is it a relevant social commentary or a dark comedy or a horror flick? He's able to pull off this sort of balancing act in Gremlins, which is actually ABOUT something (curiosity vs. banal existence) and pretty much gets it right in The 'Burbs (curiosity vs... uh... banal existence?) but this time around, there's nothing there.

It could be that there wasn't enough time to sort out all the details in Sam Hamm's (writer of Batman and Monkeybone) adaptation of James Tiptee Jr.'s short story. It could be that they were focused on making it a cool, survival horror story in the style of a zombie flick. It have been a lot of things. But it's not.

Worse yet, it's almost entirely devoid of tension. Certainly, there are some real "uh oh, he/she is in trouble now" moments. There's some really gripping imagery. But on the whole, it doesn't gel.

And I have no idea what Elliot Gould was doing on this project. He couldn't have been phoning it in more. In fact, I think he was texting it in. I genuinely enjoy Gould in most things he does. But I suppose I should face it. It's not 1975 and Robert Altman didn't direct this.

If you'd like to see a movie that's similar and funny and scary, I would like to suggest renting a copy of Undead. You'll have more fun, I promise.

And with that, I think I'll skip Masters of Horror for the time being.

5/10. Passable and some of the ideas of the story resonated with me for a few days, but it probably made a better short story than a teleplay.

REVIEW: 28 Weeks Later

Director: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Starring: Robert Carlyle, Rose Byrne, Jeremy Renner, Amanda Walker

28 Days Later was one of those movies that really seemed to divide fans of zombie films. I liked the movie and thought that its take on a infectious disease called "Rage" that causes people to go insane and want to tear people apart and eat them was interesting and enjoyable. While I saw a few sequences that paid homage to Romero's zombie films I certainly didn't see enough to make me feel that Danny Boyle had completly ripped off the master for his story. The film did suffer from appearing as a low budget horror film shot of DV and of course it suffered from the same affliction almost all zombie films suffer from: The Humans are the real monster syndrome.

Thankfully director Juan Carlos Fesnadillo saw the same problems and decided to avoid them. 28 weeks Later manages to improve on the original in just about every way. The story starts off with a couple Don (Robert Carlyle) and his wife Alice (Catherine McCormack) who are hold up with other survivors in a secluded farm house. When the zombies attack Don cowardly abandons Alice and escapes. 28 Weeks Later the the US government has taken back control of London after all the infected have died from starvation. Slowly the troops are moving people back into the city. Don has survived and is living back in London. His two kids Tammy (Imogen Poots) and Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton) are also returning to the city via military transportation. Upon reuniting Don explains that their mother was taken off by the infected and died. The children are upset but accept thier fathers story. The kids decide they want to retrieve photos of their mother from their home outside the quarantined safe zone and sneak past security checkpoints. The find their mother hiding out in thier house and not infected. When they are returned to the quarantined zone the Alice is found to be immune to the effects of the virus but a carrier. After reuniting with Don and kissing him Don becomes infected and then all hell breaks loose as the virus starts infecting people one by one and the fight for survival begins again.

While the movie doesn't offer that much in the way of plot it certainly makes up for it in exciting escape sequences as the childres Tammy and Alex escape the quarantine zone dodging zombies and the government to get teh kids to safety and possibly find a vaccine to the virus with the help of Alex who a military medic believes may also be immune to. This film tries to avoid the "humans are the real Monsters" syndrome. When the US military decides they have to take out all the people in the city they really have no choice do to how fast the virus spreads. The soldiers certainly don't like having to do it but the alternative is to allow the virus to escape the quarantine and possibly spread.

The film accomplishes to combine the fear of disease with the zombie genre and does a pretty damn good job of it. The biggest problem with the film is Director Fresnadillo's over reliance on shaking camera movement during the action sequences to make it seam like more is going on than there is. While it at times certainly aides in creating that anxious feeling in the audience it also can make the audience nauseous. I would have liked to see a better balance in the use of the technique.

Overall 28 Weeks Later is one of the best Zombie films I've seen since Land of The Dead and it certainly overshadows the original 28 Days Later.

4 out of 5 Bloody Axes