Is it just me, or...?

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Don't these two poster designs seem to be subliminally reminiscent of each other?

BoGD at the Award Memes

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<--- Busey will do anything for $15 and a BK Quad Stacker. So it's award season within the horror blogger community and I'm surprised and honored to be snagging nods from an assortment of lovely fellow bloggers-in-arms. First up, Ms. Reaper over Dollar Bin Horror bestowed a Kreativ Blogger award upon BoGD's mantle. DBH is a great blog I ran into during the big Ms. Horror Blogosphere competition/scandal(?) and I had no idea Ms. Reaper knew this blog even existed, so double warm fuzzy thanks! Next up is another Kreativ Blogger from my once-Film Talk forum buddy Carl over at I Like Horror Movies whose mission appears to be to watch and review every horror film in history, twice. I'm frequently impressed by Carl's maniac viewing regime and hopefully ILHM will be a welcoming mega-prolific mainstay in our little sect for a long time to come.

Jay over at The Horror Section, the inspiration for this very blog, dropped another sissy-looking Kreativ Blogger upon my blogger stoop. I immensely enjoy Jay's witty contributions that consistently interest me (similar taste n' all) like few other blogs. Then that creepy dude from Videodrome, Professor Brian O'blivion at The Cathode Ray Mission, awarded BoGD with a One Lovely Blogger. I hate frilly coffee cups stuffed with pink roses (makes me turn all Randy Savage), but it's the gesture that counts. Nah, I'm happy to have the good professor as a reader and his January 1st Femme Fatale Friday entry on the beauty of Christina Lindberg needs to be dually noted as my pants spontaneously combusted on New Years from...errrrr...mysterious circumstances. Last but not least, Geof at Enter the Man Cave just included me in another One Lovely Blogger award handout. ETMC is one of the few non-genre specific blogs I frequent and I keep coming back for the surprising diversity in his content. So The Hangover is really that good, just curious?

Thank you guys very much for the very kind words and mentions! I'm always humbled by these, the comments, the hits, and the followers of this blog. As I've said before in the past, I started BoGD because I thought I could contribute something unique to the horror blogosphere and I'm excited to see what pops up on here daily despite this being my blog--if that makes any sense. I will notice some of my favorite blogs, besides the great ones above, in an upcoming entry. No, not another Ginger Bush ceremony, but something with my own little twist. Thanks again and continue to blog hard in 2010!

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Some quick thoughts on District 9 (2009)

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Yes, I know, along with my recent thoughts on Inglourious Basterds, I'm wandering off the horror reservation a bit. To be honest, I don't particularly buy much "new" product outside the genre, especially if it's science fiction. Uncertain why and no disrespect but I usually wait to catch stuff like this on television. Though District 9 was a gamble worth taking, as Neill Blomkamp's ambitious and exhilarating debut recalls the days when John Carpenter still had the midas touch. It could be likened to the sci-fi action cult classic (sans CGI) the director never made nestled between Escape from New York and The Thing.

That comparison is meant in the highest of regards despite reading a few differing opinions that make a big stink over this quality reducing District 9's underlying, lofty messages on mankind. The narrative makes, at least starting out, a clear allegory to the horrors of Apartheid in the slum districts of a racially segregated Soweto next to Johannesburg. The commentary on this parallel between the corralled aliens and their brutal human overlords exists throughout, but really doesn't make much impact. If one didn't know of the Apartheid era going in, they still wouldn't be aware of the factual South African history behind the film afterward. Blomkamp seems more determined to craft what the marketing promises once we have liftoff and that's perfectly fine. It's hard to expect biting exposé in a film that features destructive, cat food lovin' aliens that misuse human clothing and have weaponry that turns said humans into exploding bathtubs of Ragù.

Again, that's okeydoke. Reserve that brand of direct gut-wrenching high drama for the Mendes' and Eastwoods of cinema. The best Blomkamp can do is get those unaware to watch the making-ofs or root around the web for details about the origins of his film to discover the lingering historical artifact of Apartheid. District 9 instead kicks up a storm of slapdash invention around the intergalactic stranded, their technology, and the extremely uneasy relationship with their diabolical corporate human wranglers. This dazzling, rapid fire creation does come at the sacrifice of through explanations behind some alien surprises and plot quirks. How does the alien's version of gasoline cause human biological turmoil? Why does one of the alien's weapons have the ability to throw inanimate objects around? What is the alien's home planet like? Only those with unrealistic expectations out of their sci-fi or zero independent imagination would bitch over such a great array of fertile ideas from a film made outside Hollywood smashed into a brisk 112 minute package. Of course, there are always sequels to expand this world with boundless possibilities...

Thought-provoking on varied levels, action-packed, and surprisingly "gooey" yet not too much of a preachy diatribe. A technical marvel on a budget with a fantastic lead performance by newcomer Sharlto Copley who channels a bit of young De Niro by way of Timothy Balme's Lionel from Peter Jackson's Braindead (Dead Alive). A long overdue successful notch on the bedpost for cult film lovers who just like to flirt with science fiction...and everyone else.

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Video: Some More Clamshell Goodies

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Thanks and Some Top 10 Explanations...

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First and foremost, I'd like to thank Zach, the proprietor of the great Z for Zombies, for a runner-up nod for a Kreativ Blogger award. I always appreciate hearing feedback, good or bad, and as an aside I did read your entry Saturday, Zach, but I was saving it for today in a planned "catch up" odds and ends post. I've been a reader! Though speaking of negative feedback, today's odds and ends entry was shelved after receiving a very terse (well, angry) e-mail last night from an unnamed reader over my "Top 10 Horror Features of the Past Decade" entry. Complaining about my lack of explaination, myself being a "know-it-all", and running a "shit blog no one fucking cares about." Why, thank you...

Now listen, as the vast majority of you cool readers know, opinions are like assholes. I wasn't even going to fashion such a Top 10 simply because lists like that are always tough when considering the wealth of horror unleashed in the past ten years. I gave into blogger peer pressure and if everyone else is doing it--why can't I? After much deliberation over a stupid little blog entry, I decided to let the films speak for themselves and not let my thoughts clutter the presentation. That and I knew I'd probably go off on a tangent of some more than others, making my numbering seem off. In truth, selections 10 through 4 can be shuffled about amongst themselves, but I'm sticking to the Triforce of mastery that are the last three. In the process, I found out more than anything that those who condemn the genre as "dead" have no idea what they're talking about.

So I'm going regulate the following brainfarts on the Top 10 to the short and sweet. I'm writing this for you, and not that asshole behind the e-mail. Check these out.

10. El espinazo del diablo (2001) (The Devil's Backbone) - del Toro's last bow to Spanish horror "proper", a history lesson with a rich paranormal twist, before moving onto projects so large that they've already cast this and 1993's Cronos into a dim shadow. Eduardo Noriega and Federico Luppi are especially excellent in a period chiller that asks, "what is a ghost?"

09. Haute tension (2003) (High Tension) - An incredibly directed and scored debut by Alexandre Aja and Grégory Levasseur that harkens back in flashes to Carpenter's audaciousness with Halloween. A reluctant Philippe Nahon crafts the most unnerving slasher brute of the decade leading up to the most divisive concluding twist of the decade.

08. Marebito (2003) (The Stranger from Afar) - A seemingly natural technologically isolating extension of Japanese horror filmmaking melded with more universal vampiric delights. Profound results for something shot-on-the-fly in no time for inclusion in a series of low-budget films before Ju-on/Grudge milker Takashi Shimizu hopped a jet to helm the American Ju-on remake. It is disheartening that one of the best works Shinya Tsukamoto was involved in this past decade didn't see him behind the camera.

07. Trick 'r Treat (2007) - An old fashioned rousing horror anthology so damn good it makes you tear up a little and scornfully look at Hollywood kingmakers for abandoning the formula and this film. Instantly cemented either before-or-after Carpenter's cornerstone, director Dougherty deserves unconditional praise for the razor-bladed Snickers bar he's given to our favorite holiday.

06. Shaun of the Dead (2004) - Who would have figured the greatest tribute to the giddy joy of zombiedom and Romero's lifework would arrive in the form of a British relationship comedy during zero hour of a zombie outbreak. It's following only increases with each Comedy Central airing and has doomed Simon Pegg to forever be referred to as the titular character. Yet fret not, the work of you and your partners in crime will reap the gratitude of horror fans for decades to come. You've got red on you...

05. Låt den rätte komma in (2008) (Let the Right One In) - Going back to my November thoughts, "Director Tomas Alfredson, author/writer John Ajvide Lindqvist, and truly "beyond their years" performances from newcomers Kåre Hedebrant and Lina Leandersson construct a "realistically whimsical" fanged yarn that never betrays the horror genre...a true vampiric chiller for the new century that's wonderfully acted, paced, and photographed [that] deserves to stand proud in the pantheon of vampire screen greats...the mature, revitalized direction bloodsuckers need to follow..."

04. Session 9 (2001) - Those that know, know, yet Brad Anderson's magnificent walk through the condemned catacombs of Danvers State Hospital remains criminally underrated even within the horror community. This film was blessed with the happy accident of a subplot that if included would have severely damaged the extreme tension and psychosis found in Peter Mullan's flawless performance. The rest of the cast, yes even Caruso, hold their own and frankly this film towers over Anderson's more widely seen The Machinist.

03. Going Home (2002) - Cut up to fit into the pan-Asian horror anthology, Three (3 Extremes II), the rare hour-length director's cut of Peter Chan's contribution is the best horror feature to emerge from Hong Kong...ever. A bittersweet rumination on the power of photographs of loved ones and the struggle to hold on sewn into a Grand Guignol telling of a man patiently awaiting his wife's opening eyes. This feature was nominated for and won a slew of Hong Kong film awards and deserved all of them.

02. Kairo (2001) (Pulse) - I once pegged Romero's Dawn of the Dead as the horror genre's only true epic...until experiencing Kurosawa's terrifying coaxial apocalypse. As written above with Marebito, Pulse seems a ripe path for the country's horror offerings to explore. A strike at the loneliness in Japanese youth culture with an increasing technology dependency only exacerbating the disconnect; Kurosawa presents an end times scenario that systematically erases humanity with a ghostly virus hitting the Delete button. It might have seemed like a ripe path for other filmmakers to explore, but here Kurosawa's frightening red-taped vision proved definitive.

01. Martyrs (2008) - It's a very different climate, but perhaps in another time Laugier's vicious creation would have had the same potential to facilitate a sea change the likes of Hopper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. But unlike the 1973 milestone which annihilated the genre's golden age, Martyrs works to birth transcendence on the rungs of the critically despised torture porn subgenre pioneered by Saw and Hostel. Laugier gathers up the current state of Horror to show us how high stakes have gotten with its tremendously emotionally crushing exhibition of protagonists not "winning" or quickly dispatched before the credits roll.

Echoing Pasolini's Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom both in style and reaction, fury called for the death of Laugier while his film became a tentpole for censorship after even the ultra-liberal French Ministry of Culture got antsy. Martyrs throws its hopeless depravity not just at those willing to buy tickets to every remake to come down the pike, but also into the faces of veteran horror fans. It's not all been done and Martyrs typifies the places the genre is still afraid to tread on the silver screen.

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Some quick thoughts on The Abandoned (2006)

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Most horror fans know of Nacho Cerdà from his once underground gore tease, 1994's Aftermath. Widely circulated on VHS with a gruesome cover, the short details the necrophiliac fumblings of an embalmer and a freshly dead female corpse. Unearthed Films digitally debuted this nasty exercise with two other Cerdà early short subjects on DVD a few years ago and while extreme, the director displays genuine talent for precise cinematography in each.

The Abandoned marks Cerdà's first feature-length film, snapped up by After Dark Films and Lionsgate for a lightning speed theatrical run and belated inclusion in the first 8 Films to Die For DVD series. A woman (Marie, a bland Anastasia Hille) travels into the wilds of Russia to a foreboding forested homestead in an attempt to discover the circumstances of her mother's mysterious death and identity of her father. Upon arrival, she finds the home dilapidated with the only other occupant her long lost twin brother (Nicolai, Czech "that guy" actor Karel Roden) who was left abandoned with Marie when they were just infants found beside their dead mother. The two soon encounter another presence, ghastly doppelgangers of themselves, as the terror only increases with the silbling's approaching birthday.

Spoilers ahoy, so be forewarned. The Abandoned has so much promise, but ultimately this potential is chopblocked by massive final half logic leaps and nonsensical twists that only appear intelligent. The most engaging aspect are the decaying mirrors of the twins who are the embodiment of how they were supposed to die as infants by the hands of their enraged father. The story's point is that Marie and her brother were destined to die with fate only catching up decades later upon a return to their place of birth. It's sometimes better to let sleeping dogs lie.

While that's not exactly a fresh idea, it's one usually found somewhere within the constraints of ghostly yarns like this, and for awhile Cerdà's film really has you going both with its revelations and scares. There's quite a few moments that will made you jump, even if the abandoned interiors of the house echo the damp, ripped wallpaper motif of the Silent Hill universe. Cerdà's cold eye behind the camera masks much of the low budgetary ceiling and the principles deliver serviceable performances. The real problem is the aforementioned last reel when so many unexplained twists come so fast it's as if the film goes apeshit trying to conform to a tidy runtime instead of letting its natural course ride out.

Instead of methodically unspooling like Jacob's Ladder or Let's Scare Jessica to Death, The Abandoned seems to feel obligated to make an impact on those bored with its creepy tension. In return, we're subjected to flounder-floppin' turns, multiple conclusions, and what was fairly obvious at the midpoint coming to pass with little surprise. Less would have definitely been more and personally I would have been content with the creepy-as-all-shit doppelgangers being the sole source of the twin's fate over the spastic last twenty minute runaround.

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BoGD's Top 10 Horror Features of the Past Decade

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El espinazo del diablo (2001) (The Devil's Backbone) directed by Guillermo del Toro
Haute tension (2003) (High Tension) directed by Alexandre Aja
Marebito (2003) (The Stranger from Afar) directed by Takashi Shimizu


Trick 'r Treat (2007) directed by Michael Dougherty
Shaun of the Dead (2004) directed by Edgar Wright
Låt den rätte komma in (2008) (Let the Right One In) directed by Tomas Alfredson


Session 9 (2001) directed by Brad Anderson
Going Home (2002) (director's cut) directed by Peter Chan
Kairo (2001) (Pulse) directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Martyrs (2008) directed by Pascal Laugier

Some quick thoughts on Black Demons (1991)

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Three young reporters travel to Brazil for some reason with one of them obsessed with finding a Macumba priest for some reason. This particular reporter is accepted to view nighttime tribal rites to which he records on cassette and is given a necklace with a symbol that looks like it could be from Jane Seymour's Open Heart Collection by the blind high priest. Upon meeting another young couple, all decide to hold up in a large homestead that sits atop a former slave plantation. The white boy now seems possessed by the necklace and playing the ritualistic recording gives rise to a small graveyard full of black slave undead seeking revenge.

With Black Demons, cinéma fantasque auteur extraordinaire Umberto Lenzi presents us with the most challenging social question in his consummate oeuvre, "At the dawn of the 21st century, should we still be fearful of the Legend of the Six Negro Slaves?" I'm unsure whether Lenzi and screenwriter Olga Pehar intentionally decided to inject in seriously distasteful racial commentary, but some topics/elements the horror genre just shouldn't touch. Blinded and lynched slaves called upon to be a stock zombie menace being one of them.

It wouldn't be so bad if the slaves returned to exact terror on those directly responsible. Though Lenzi places the events in modern day and has the six rotting slaves desiring to indiscriminately murder six whites as the "Legend of the Six Negro Slaves" (not kidding) foretells. This discredits the inhuman plight of human slave labor as simple fodder for an extremely cheap and lazy Italian horror programmer. At one point, while trying to figure out their motives, the slaves are even referred to as "criminals" for attempting to escape to freedom from their owners. It doesn't help the word "negro" is uttered numerous times, "did the negros do it?", or that some Michael Cera-looking guy with curly brown hair and a heavy Russian/Serbian/Something accent repeatedly berates his black housemaid/indentured servant for trying to help rid the place of the evil slaves. To top it off, at the conclusion there's an inference to Christianity being the "right" and "good" religion over Macumba.

Otherwise, Black Demons actually isn't that bad considering how delicately it walks upon the all but collapsed old Italian film industry system. By the early '90s, even the made-for-Italian-television bottom had fallen out from under horror directors like Lenzi, and this is why this 1991 film sank into obscurity the minute the negative's reels were filed away. After watching a diet of D-list Mattei and Fragasso-directed drivel lately, Lenzi shows he hadn't lost his touch in the director's chair. Good use of panning, zooming, appropriate focus, and threadbare scary movie camera trickery are evidence that at least the director remembered how to swing a lens around from his glory days. Gore and make-up effects aren't abundant or intricate; but they're well done in that "old style" with admittedly creepy close-ups of acid-burned black physiognomies, fleshy eye gouges, and garden tool violence. For B-level pasta horror diehards, Lenzi fetishists, and perhaps white supremacists only.

As a sidenote concerning the interview on Shriek Show's DVD (which looks great BTW), Lenzi, being way too serious of his work as usual, calls actress Sonia Curtis mediocre, short, and ugly. He also places most of the blame for the cast sucking on her and even says the crew and Brazilian physicians thought she might have had AIDS after being admitted to the hospital for drinking unpasteurized milk. Stay classy, Umberto...

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Japan gets all the cool stuff...

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Found this picture of a collection of M1 Matango vinyl toys over at the Classic Horror Film Board.

Some quick thoughts on Bio-Zombie (1998)

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I hate not really enjoying Bio-Zombie (Sun faa sau si) for the unoffensive zombo romp that it's generally considered being. It's not alien that this one sometimes lands in top ten lists detailing the best undead numbers of all time. Good justification can be seen in that, with Cantonese horror dominated by hopping vampires and Anthony Wong murdering children, to my knowledge Wilson Yip's film is the only straight zombie flick hailing from one of China's thriving capitalist regions. That alone deserves recognition even with my qualms.

Like the Weasel's 1996 masterwork, Bio-Dome, this flesh-eating mall invasion shares a pair of young dude, nimrod protagonists and their misadventures...only with oatmeal-plastered zombies. Woody (Jordan Chan) and Bee (Sam Lee) run a shady VCD shop while looking to get one over on everyone, treating co-workers like trash, and mugging customers. Sorry to mention Pauly Shore again in the same paragraph, but at least Dome's Bud and Doyle aren't abrasive assholes.

Perhaps this is some statement on rebellious (or wannabe) Hong Kong youth culture, but there's an acceptance issue when later Woody and Bee are casually presented as the good guys in contrast to another asshole shop owner who relentlessly torments his wife. While this provides the dramatic motivation in the film's second half as situations test the bullshit arrogance of the duo, it's still hard to root for them with nearly fifty minutes of screaming, stealing, slapping, and drinking antagonistically aimed at others who don't deserve it before the zombies get serious.

The zombie infection dynamic is off-kilter with an unseen spread of the epidemic outside the mall, caused by toxic soda pop,eventually making its way into the building's corridors. We never see pardons attacked or the mall bustling with activity with most of the zombies simply appearing for the last half hour. The film finally picks up and it's like dominoes falling complete with brain drilling, decaps, parking garage smackdowns, and nifty character profiles. Special kudos go to the giga-hot Angela Tong for making the most heart-meltingly cute mock zombie groan while trying to eat a finger at the behest of an amorous sushi bar-working nerd turned poorly make-uped zombie.

The more cast members that meet a toothy slaughter--the better Bio-Zombie gets. The talky frenzy calms as Yip adopts a more serious tone rather than the otherwise dominating Americanized teen comedy shtick. It's actually not that hard to envision a domestic remake being crafted without too many cultural "adjustments" required in the translation. The ending, at least the one featured on Tokyo Shock's DVD, is pleasingly nihilistic and sends the film off on a high note. Bio-Zombie is worth seeing for the ardent zombie flick buff, but it's a shame Yip had such unlikable characters as leads and lets the adolescent laughs overwhelm the few very promising (yet unfulfilled) glimmers of undead cinema maturity.

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Let's Make It Three Days: Another Entry about Paranormal Activity!

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So Jayson, how about some VHS scans, a review of some obscure crap, or a video where you incessantly gloat about your collection? Yeah, I know how you feel, more about Paranormal Activity. This will be the last day of PA-madness...well, maybe until the weekend. Though I've found an interesting tidbit concerning the availability of the director's cut or at least a version differing from the theatrical cut.

Geof and Anthony on yesterday's entry commented about seeing the flick's original cut from a screener. Poking around torrents, there appears to be bootleg videos that all hover within 97 minutes. This runtime more-or-less matches the supposed duration of the director's cut. The resolution details of these videos also all match that of an anamorphic DVD presentation (852x480), so I'm assuming these are jacked from a DVD screener of the original cut they speak of. The last still at the bottom right (red arrow) of the encode preview below is from the film's third and original ending.

Just to be absolutely clear, there's the three endings and the versions they're tied to (spoilers, highlight to read): 1. The Paramount Theatrical Cut: Micah killed, throw at camera, and Katie possessed. / 2. The DVD's alternate ending: Micah killed, Katie slits own throat in front of camera. / 3. The original cut's ending: Micah killed, Katie possessed, police arrive.

Now, my skill with the whole torrent thing is that of a retarded chimp that's just been hit by a car while on Valium, so I have no idea how to download/play/whatever the file. Please don't ask me where to find it. I found this image through a simple Google Images search. I know of a guy at the swap meet whose had bootleg discs of the film for weeks, so hopefully he'll have them this coming weekend. See? I tried to be a good little media-responsible consumer and wait for what I figured was the "right" and legal home video release. Paramount didn't send review copies on DVD or Blu-ray out, so the most prevalent illegal version right now seems to be the original cut.

I seldom condone bootlegs of such recent, widely available films, but this is push coming to shove given what I've been annoying you with since Sunday. I bought Paramount's DVD legally from an "authorized" nationwide chain store, so they already have my $20. I want to see and own the original cut as a supplement. When Paramount gets around to doing the right thing, I'll end up buying their SE DVD with "the version you've never seen!" presumably with the arrival of Paranormal Activity Part Deux. Or perhaps when/if an overseas distributor saves the film from this version hell with their DVD or Blu-ray release, please!?!

I will (hopefully) have some time off for New Years starting Thursday, so I'll have some time to relax and vary up the content of BoGD.

Some quick thoughts on Paranormal Activity (2007)

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First off, I'm still peeved at Paramount over their treatment of Paranormal Activity and its DVD/Blu-ray releases. I watched the film for the first time last night before reading about its multiple versions afterward. Now I feel like I haven't seen really "seen" the film despite seeing it...or at least some form of it. Like most of you reading this, I hate watching films altered from their original versions. Of course, this type of thing happens more often than we know, but in this case its so obvious and flagrant. Not to mention this being a horror film so it all feels more personal in a sense. Horror being released incomplete on home video in this day-and-age? That just doesn't happen...

Everyone probably already knows the story about Paramount snapping up the rights, sitting on it for well over a year, rumors of the studio planning a remake, and suddenly deciding to release the original with a "Demand It!" gimmick with the rest being recent history. I suspect the studio decided long before an official announcement to widely release the original. It just took time to "mold" the film for mainstream audiences, apparently supervised by unofficial Poltergeist director Steven Spielberg, and devise a marketing campaign to drum up hype.

This 86 minute theatrical version turned out to the most profitable film in history, but that's beside the point. I feel like I've witnessed only what Paramount designed for me to see--not director Peli. A small genre indie has been taken and coiled through a big studio post editing gristmill for maximum box office revenue. With this situation in mind, it's tough to truly judge the film without its intended arrangement.

Paranormal Activity is a Pollock in the horror genre. The $15,000 execution and aim is so simple that the split love/hate reaction speaks to the same polarizing effect of the art of Jackson Pollock. What makes the artist's work so significant, despite looking to some like paint wantonly splattered on canvas, is that it was never done before Pollock. Peli's film has a few processors, chiefly The Blair Witch Project, but its confoundedly "why didn't I think of that" concept, adaption of familiar traditional horror themes, and similar cultural impact make it a foundational example of the fresh found footage subgenre.

Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat do a fine job as the couple terrorized by a phantom attic-dwelling demon. Their "lived-in" acting falls into a middle ground between the vulnerable rawness of the people in Blair Witch and the wooden hyper-realism of the actors in Romero's Diary of the Dead. The effect being you don't find yourself clinging to their shoulders like you do in the chilly repeating woods freaked out by a witch, but stiffened with fright by the lingering noises and slamming doors. This is one intention that's hopefully original, surviving Paramount's bastardization.

My complaints are small, but I'm reserving them until I see Oren Peli's authentic creation. I will say the alternate ending on this DVD, which is quieter and more disturbing, seems to fit better in the context with what I've read about Peli's director's cut. There's also some visual cues earlier in the film that can be tied to this particular climax rather than the slambang as-seen-in-theaters chair jumping conclusion. Paranormal Activity seems a very worthy horror feature saddled with very unworthy treatment. Keep those fingers crossed.

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Paranormal Activity on DVD: Where's the Beef, Dammit?

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I was going to save this for a review tomorrow, but checking out the Paramount DVD just now (found early at Wal Mart), I found out some pertinent details regarding the versions available on this release. According the IMDB's alternate versions page, there's a "director's cut" of the feature that supposedly runs 99 minutes in length. This version isn't on this official DVD. The disc is advertised as having the R-rated theatrical version as well as an unrated version with an alternate ending. Both the theatrical version and unrated version run an exact total of one hour, twenty-six minutes, and twenty-five seconds according to my DVD player and DVD-ROM.

The unrated version is actually a bit of a falsehood, as the only thing that appears to be different is the ending. The ending described on the IMDB page linked above is not the alternate ending presented on this DVD. I assume Paramount didn't submit the disc's alternate ending to the MPAA so tacking it onto the R-rated cut makes the same cut then "unrated". According to this blog entry concerning the film's multiple endings at Roger really, the IMDB ending was the director's original, while the ending presented on this DVD is a "rare alternate ending screened publicly only once." Not spoiling it here, but the alternate ending on this disc is the last one described in detail by the author of Roger really.

Aside from the theatrical Spielberg cut and the seamlessly branched alternate ending, all of the material and aural alterations described in the "director's cut" aren't presented nor is the third ending (that was available to be seen online on YouTube and MovieWeb before Paramount pulled it). The DVD's only other extra is a trailer for Scorsese's Shutter Island (see the main menu here). Paramount appears to be holding out on us and that's bullshit. Where's the definitive DVD/Blu-ray release featuring the director's preferred version? Especially with how long we've had to wait to finally experience Oren Peli's film. Spread the word on this. Also anyone know if the director's cut or version featuring the third ending is available online, uhhh, nefariously?

*EDIT: The Spanish credit screens were for the Spanish language dub track also on the disc. Never seen such credits on a DVD before...

Some quick thoughts on Inglourious Basterds (2009)

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After finally getting down with Tarantino's latest last night, I'm still perplexed by Inglourious Basterds. Fits and starts of bold artistic strokes make for the most audacious revisionist WWII flick ever mounted. Yet the nonchalant pace and fuck you focus on minutiae make for a wartime "adventure" that's nowhere near as entertaining as other pulpy military classics such as Where Eagles Dare, The Dirty Dozen, and Kelly's Heroes. Despite all four of the aforementioned having similar 150 minute runtimes, Basterds lacks the "pick-and-go" watchability of the other three. In other words, I don't think I could start in the middle of Tarantino's film and get totally sucked like seeing Posey trying to stick the Major or hearing Oddball keep mentioning positive and negative waves, man.

Just to get this out of the way, people that wish to question Tarantino's moral compass by his film's complete absence of the Holocaust or negative portrayal of fucking Nazis (seriously, people?) are overripe with malformed politically correct rhetoric. Tarantino's intentions have always been clear and the marketing hasn't sold a false bill of goods to the masses. Inglourious Basterds is a cathartic, gory chunk of Nahhh-Z killin' and there's nothing wrong with that. An historical improvisation any levelheaded individual would find as an immensely gratifying, albeit hypothetical end to the upper fascist crust of the Third Reich. Perhaps some have sour grapes over certain performances in such a Nazi hating picture being so magnificent.

The best thing about Basterds is Christoph Waltz and Mélanie Laurent. Those harshly critical would only be doing a disservice to themselves to lump the perfect turns of these two into their gripes. Waltz is amazing diffusing just the right amount of sardonic hokum (it's a QT joint after all) into supreme jackboot prowess making his every word a source of utter dread. His Colonel Hans Landa is one of the greatest on-screen portraits of amiable villainy in decades. Mélanie Laurent's Shosanna Dreyfus shows an actress talent well beyond her twenty-six years. Female protagonist Dreyfus is stridently confident vocally yet continually says so much more in silence. It's the kind of American mainstream peel back into the world of superb acting craft abroad to savor while it lasts (Waltz as well), and no spoilers, but at one point you literally want to punch Quentin in the face over her character's path.

Everyone else are pretty much amoebas floating around these Herculean performances. This defeats the purpose of having Pitt and his bastards included at all. We hear much more about the dastardly exploits and murderous reputation of the group than we actually see. Besides some scalping, one instance of baseball bat cranial destruction, and the men clandestinely hopping about the film's map out of convenience. Til Schweiger brings the psychotic bad ass as Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz (har har) but again isn't given much to do along with his other basterds. Some in the group simply disappear and Pitt's cornball-accented Lt. Raine is no Eastwood or Marvin. Though Raine's "bonjourno" struggle with Landa at the premiere is hilarious. Eli Roth? No idea. I'm assuming these guys (especially Brad) had to be included for the sake of studio suit comfort, but given more time it's not impossible to imagine Tarantino slicing out these Jewish Nazi-slaughterers entirely in subsequent drafts in favor of the feature's real thrust.

Things intensely disliked are the out-of-period/-genre musical selections (Cat People, really?), the Sam Jackson-narrated explanations of Stiglitz's past and nitrate film's flashpoint, and the notices of who certain Nazi luminaries are by scribbled on-screen text. The tedium of the longwinded Hammersmark basement bar conversation is best fast-forwarded through in future viewings. I could watch Landa or Dreyfus for hours, but this mind-grinding scene is probably thee example of Tarantino becoming far too obsessively infatuated with his characters to the audience's detriment. Not having anywhere else to put this, the film's final reel is truly excellent and we witness a director working at a sustained career high as fates converge and some fascists meet a taste of the Hell they've wrought. If Inglourious Basterds proves anything, it's that Tarantino is almost there (this is akin to two different yet similar WWII films actively colliding) and there's more than enough here to deem this his best "actors film" up to this point...

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This whole Shock Festival thing...

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Am I the only left cold by Stephen Romano's Shock Festival, at least in paper form? Much like the faux trailers in Grindhouse, this book complies a pandora's box of pulpy 42nd Street backwash, filmmakers, and actors that never existed luridly splashed upon soiled paper found on the sticky floors of some seedy Big Apple dime theater. That sounds great...until you flip through the pages for yourself.

Well, that was my personal reaction flipping through this weightless tome at Borders a few weeks back. I had never heard of Shock Festival before this run-in and at first glance thought it had the makings of one of the most awesome cult film coffee books ever on aesthetic grounds. After about three seconds, this lust deflated with the realization everything was made up. Anyone whose been a devotee of maverick exploiters knows it's hard enough to keep up with the real selections lurking across the globe yet to land into our grubby hands for consumption.

Yes, it's colorfully rendered junk food (think those weird spongy pink peanuts) for those who hold Christina Lindberg and Soledad Miranda in goddess status. I just couldn't help thinking that, at best, this rather expensive ($25-40) book can be likened to an annoying dream. You know, those dreams were one finds great material wealth only to realize it'll all be gone once your eyes crack open? You then grumble and roll over trying to avoid the old hag.

This sounds mighty hypocritical of me, but why should I give a damn? No doubt much creativity, knowledge, and love of the aped material from Romano and artists pour from the pages. I'd just much rather pick up and actually learn something from a few Video Watchdogs, HorrorHounds, or a similar priced book/guide covering a real cult movie subgenre or filmmaker. The commissioned poster art and mentions of hiring Shock Festival for said art jobs on the official site only smell of the book being a portfolio with an MSRP for Mr. Romano. The 352-page book is like reading the back stats on baseball cards of players who went nowhere. Who really cares after an initial browse through it? It's not like years later you finally see one of these hidden gems and then pick the book back up to once again read with a new perspective.

There is a Shock Festival DVD release coming in at a whopping three discs (DVDTalk review) that seems like a better investment for the sake of the real trailers included. Still, give me 42nd Street Forever or give me death. Since this entry is basically free publicity for SF, I'd say judge for yourself (preferably first hand before you buy), just because Grindhouse's trailers rocked the Casbah doesn't necessarily lend the concept to something equally as good when presented in such large quantities.

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Nothing like a little Darkness on Christmas...

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"This one will fuck you up, a shame no one's heard of it!" Those were the words of the wigged-out and tatted-up dude I bought this tape from years ago. I was among those who had no idea what I was looking at, but just look at that damn cover all slathered in gratuitous porno for the horror fanatic's eyes. Even if what was recorded on the magnetic tape held within sucked, that's one hell of a cover to pass up. Not to mention when a guy wearing a Goatlord t-shirt with a tattoo sleeve depicting the bloody muscle structure under his skin tells you something will "fuck you up"--it's probably best to listen.

Film Threat Video's Darkness, the film's 1993 home video debut, marked my introduction to the realm of the genre known as no-budget splatter. Since then, I've seen quite a few suburban homebrew Karo syrup freakouts, but Leif Jonker's sprawling opus still stands as the most ambitious. The complaints of the film's distractors fall into the usual checkboxes of indies of this ilk. The extremely poor lighting (vastly helped by Barrel Entertainment's definitive DVDs), the actually-not-too-bad acting, some barely audible dialogue, plot holes, and even the metalhead attire of the youthful cast fall under the sights of critics. Although true to varying degrees, nitpicking such details misses the broader qualities of this rollicking DIY vampire epic.

Aside from very few other underground Super8/shot-on-video genre offerings, Darkness has an undeniable consistency. The showcase sequences involving gas station suicide, chainsaws pissed off at drywall, Olympic car wash stall spiriting, and mildly adverse reactions to the ultraviolet spectrum are paced evenly as to have no stretch become boring. The quieter moments in between don't drag with some story particulars glossed over for the sake of this welcoming brevity. This is a quality that's often found lacking from such basement horrors that make for a laborious sitdown. For this aspect alone, Jonker deserved a career in the genre (this is the director's sole film), as even horror with budgets tenfold struggle with this very issue.

It's tough to peg down, but the scenes of teen vampires and our teen heroes running from them have a certain adolescent vitality. You could edit a compelling video to R.E.M.'s Drive using these snippets. There's even a bit of moment-of-detonation atom bomb imagery mixed into all the grue. Last but certainly not least, the gore and splatter is tremendous. Heads become pop rocks, convenience store stand-offs become fodder for shock websites, flesh melts into red-slicked raw chicken meat, and trembling corpses become one with asphalt through self-mutilating yoga exercises. Darkness is a testament to picking up your parent's cheap camera and the perfect example of a horror film that admirably reaches far past its literal Denny's steak and eggs budget.

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