The Length of Love (The Book of Life, 2014)

La Muerta rules over the joyful Land of the Remembered, while Xibalba rules over the Land of the Forgotten. He tries to convince La Muerta to change sides, but she is not interested. He proposes a wager. Observing the rivalry of two young boys (Manolo and Joaquin) over their friend Maria, each god chooses a boy as the one who will marry Maria.

La Muerta disguises herself as an old woman who asks if Manolo might give her a piece of bread. Instead he generously offers a full loaf. Xibalba tries the same thing, but Joaquin is not so giving. Maria is sent off by her father, returning years later. Sensing Maria is favoring Manolo, Xibalba tricks Manolo into giving up his life.

In the afterlife, Manolo discovers he has been duped and seeks the help of La Muerta.

The design of this film is remarkably charming. The framing device is that a museum tour guide is telling the story, and all the characters look like wooden puppets.

The Land of the Dead is a wonderfully bright and colorful world. The characters are full of charm. La Muerta is a kind and gentle, yet fearless goddess. Xibalba on the other hand is both scheming and yet friendly (he is voiced by Ron Perlman, whose performance is just a lot of fun). And while the story frames Manolo as a kind and generous artist and Joaquin as a cheerful braggart? Joaquin is not a villain. The story is pitting the two against each other, and it obviously favors Manolo as the man for Maria. But Joaquin is seen as simply misguided and in need of a lesson. The film has sympathy for him. And then there is Maria. She is not interested in belonging to anyone and regularly challenges her two friends. And there is Chuy the pig who makes a sound like a goat.

The music of the Book of Life blends American Pop music with latin flavors to great effect. But the highlight are the two original tunes I Love You To Much and the Apology Song.

The Book of Life is a charming fairy tale of love, loss and rebirth.

March 6, 2018 0

Inner Conflict (The Hidden, 1987)

Detective Tom Beck has a head scratcher of a case. He is investigating a man who, up until a week prior had been a law abiding citizen. One day Jack DeVries just up started killing people, stealing cars, robbing banks and listening to heavy metal.

After taking the guy down, an FBI Agent named Lloyd Gallagher shows up to work with Beck. Gallagher seems to have other motives, suggesting there is something bigger at work…or at least that having DeVries in the hospital is not the end of the case.

The audience quickly learns the cause of DeVries’ behavior is an alien bug that can move from body to body. When he is in a body, it can withstand a barrage of bullets before having to find a new host. And this is where the problem lies, Gallagher can only destroy the alien when it is moving between bodies. His weapon cannot penetrate human flesh.

The two cops try and catch the alien, constantly a step behind. The film revels in it’s crazy concept, with car chases and bloody gun fights. The evil alien is a selfish and hedonistic teenager. He takes whatever he wants, and mainly what he wants is money, cars and power.

MacLachlan plays his role completely straight. He is the awkwardly out of place alien trying to fit in. There is a touching scene where he meets Beck’s daughter, and she seems to realize there is something different about him.

The Hidden is not a sci-fi classic, but it is a pretty good bit of fun trashy eighties excess.

January 24, 2018 0

The Hunter or the Hunted? Pt 9 (Predators, 2010)

After the second film, the Predator series went dormant. The alien hunters only saw the screen in the “team up” Alien vs Predator films. It was not until about 2009 Predator was announced as getting it’s own new film. It was spearheaded by Robert Rodriguez (Desperado, From Dusk Til Dawn, Sin City) and was referred to often as a reboot. The problem with the tendency to treat every film as a remake or reboot is that it is not always clear what a particular entry is. These days, people tend to refer to a new film in a franchise as a reboot, even when it is in continuity. Admittedly, it is a little unclear here. Nothing discounts the previous two films, but they are not really acknowledge in reference (# 2 made reference to the first film).

It does however feature the original Predator design along with a much bigger and more aggressive version.

Anyways, whether this is a new start or simply a new installment is not that important. What we have is a group of people who find themselves falling from the sky. They apparently had not planned this themselves. As things unfold, we find that the most common trait the group has is they are mercenaries, soldiers, mob enforcers and so on. There is one odd man out named Edwin who is a doctor. He seems meek (but very smart). He is played by Topher Grace, so, you know something is up with him. Adrien Brody plays mercenary Royce. Royce takes on the role of defacto leader, convincing everyone they need to work together.

After encounters with strange animals, they start to try and find safety, only to realize they are not on earth. Unlike the previous films, the people being hunted have been dropped onto a planet that functions as a big game hunting preserve.

This does make for an interesting idea, though it is basically a jungle like the first film. The new Predator design is good, building off the previous design in a way that is sleeker and more threatening. While the film strives to have lots of surprises, in the end, there is not much new here. The humans are picked off by the predators in violent and bloody fights. But it is pretty straight forward action, and pretty predictable. Frankly, it feels like the franchise may have hit a wall, and truthfully, I don’t know that people will care all that much about it. The second two films are not strong enough to pretend this is a trilogy. It is just a decent action film followed by two okay sequels.

June 5, 2017 0

The Night He Became a Zombie (Halloween, 2007)

After the failure of Halloween Resurrection, The franchise regrouped and tried to figure out their next step. And they were stumped. So what they decided to do? Reboot the franchise.

Rob Zombie had two films under his belt, and while the response to House of a 1,000 Corpses was tepid, exploitation fans ate up the semi sequel the Devil’s Rejects. The producers decided Zombie could rev new life into the franchise.

The end result is kind of mixed. To begin, the original gave us very little of Michael’s childhood. He puts on a clown mask, kills his sister, his parents come home…BAM! Jump to the present. The film was more focused on Laurie and her friends, with little attention given to Michael’s past. All that we really got was he came from a standard suburban family.

Zombie changed all that. Instead, we were introduced to a little boy from a white trash home. his stripper mom has an abusive boyfriend…his sister Judith is verbally abusive and mom boyfriend leer at her…and so on. He is bullied at school, and little Mikey Myers has issues…he kills animals and gets into fights. And he actually kills before he kills his sister. He actually goes on a killing spree that culminates in his sister’s death. The only person left is his baby sister and mother.

Michael continues to be creepy and violent in the hospital. He grows up to escape, being hunted by his psychiatrist Sam Loomis. We are almost halfway through the film before we meet the teen Laurie Strode and her friends. So, the film tends to be a rush to get to the end, with Michael slashing what seems to be half the town.

The most enjoyable part of the film is the cast. It is a horror and exploitation who’s who. Brad Dourif (Child’s Play), Malcolm McDowell, Danielle Harris (Halloween 4 & 5), Ken Foree (Dawn of the Dead) among others play either prominent characters or have cameos.

This is a bloody exploitation take on the franchise, unlike prior attempts. Depending on the version you watch, it can be potentially triggering for a viewer. The theatrical cut has Michael fighting a bunch of guards to escape…in the unrated cut, he escapes when the sleazy asylum employees drag a girl into Michael’s room so they can rape her on his bed (?!). It is a pretty sickening scene that was not needed. And truth be told, I might like the film more if is was just Rob Zombie’s Exploitation Horror Movie. But calling its lead “monster” Michael Myers and having the title of Halloween invites a lot of comparisons.

The biggest is that part of what made Michael Myers scary in the original was his ambiguity. What little we could see was he appeared to come from a middle class family.There appeared to be no abuse. Michael appeared to lack any warning signs. That question made him very frightening. Rob Zombie’s Halloween gives us a view of a textbook case of the “childhood of a serial killer”. Michael has everything working against him. Michael should be haunting and this new back story ruins that. It makes Michael a predictable monster, rather than a foreboding shape.

Michael kills more in the reboot…and we get more profanity. The exploitation approach does make it stand out from the other horror reboots…rather than a glossier reboot, Zombie gives us a grittier one.

The standout for me in Rob Zombie’s Halloween films is probably Brad Dourif’s Sheriff Bracken. He remains a good-hearted heroic type angry with Loomis for what has been unleashed on this town he protects. Dourif does not seem to get a lot of those roles, and he is actually quite good at it.

October 30, 2015 1