The Faces of Horror

Horror movies have many faces, some are scary, some gory, some have monsters, things that go bump in the night, things that make you want to hide behind cushions and sleep with the lights on, some have serial killers turning hoards of pretty people into spaghetti , some are funny, some are creepy, some are just plain shit, but because there are so many sides to this face you should never dismiss it, talk to it first, make sure you’ve got the right face.

Two fine examples of how very different the faces of horror can be, are: Piranha (2010) and Let The Right One In.

Piranha

Roger Corman is a movie making legend, often referred to as ‘The King of B-movies’ making those ridiculous films that everybody wants to see, but Hollywood doesn’t want to make, and giving the big breaks to many a movie maker, including actor Jack Nicholson and Director James Cameron. Nicholson making a brief appearance in the Original Little Shop of Horrors, and Cameron Directing Piranha II: The Spawning, his debut film as a director, and sequel, obviously to Piranha.

Then last year Piranha was remade, in 3-D no less, but then again isn’t everything nowadays, and with it 3-D cash cow chicanery, came a cast of celluloid legends...and Kelly Brook. Some like Richard Dreyfuss (Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind) don’t last more than a scene, Dreyfuss is the first to meet a fishy end, others like the almighty Christopher Lloyd (The Back to the Future trilogy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) make brief appearances  being left un-deadified, with possible return potential in evitable sequel shocker. Then we have more central roles such as Elisabeth Shue’s sheriff, and her deputy Ving Rhames (Pulp Fiction, Mission Impossible series) and Jerry O’Connell (Stand by Me, Scream 2) as a pornographer and grade A asshole, a role which he pulls of brilliantly.

This is MTV horror, bright colours and beautiful people, beautiful people getting there tits out and loosing limbs. Popcorn horror at its most hilarious.


Let the Right One In

This is at the complete other end of the spectrum to Pirahna, no gratuitous boob shots or dick jokes, no CGI killers or over the top gory deaths, instead you’ve got quite and reflective, beauty and menace.

Based on the book by John Ajvide Lindqvist, who also wrote the screenplay, Let the Right One In follows the tale of 12 year old Oskar, lonely and bullied, and his friendship with a vampire child, in Stockholm suburb in the 1980’s. The horror element of the film is severally downplayed and the film focuses far more on the blossoming friendship between Oskar and Eli, but what I found just as interesting is the sub plot of Lacke, who’s trying to find out what happened to his best friend Jocke, the first victim of Eli, and then the attack and subsequent vampirism of his girlfriend .

Yeah its Swedish, yeah its subtitled, but don't let any of that put you off, its not Twilight minus the cast of Hollyoaks, or a bizarre piece of European cinema, its simply one of the best horror film your ever likely to see.

Piranha Trailer

Let The Right One In Trailer

Jack Nicholson in The Little Shop of Horrors

Mr. Miyagi Vs. Jackie Chan

When I was growing up there a couple of films that everybody had to see, such as Short Circuit, the story of a military robot that comes alive or Teenwolf, with its van surfing to the Beach boys, another of these must-sees was Karate Kid, with plenty of kids trying to recreate the crane kick in the playground.

Karate kid (1984) follows the story of Daniel LeRusso (Ralph Macchio) who moves to California from New Jersey, he quickly starts hanging out with some the local kids, and soon is eye is caught by Cheerleader and rich girl Ali Mills (Elisabeth Shue) much to the rage of her ex Jonny. Daniel gets in a fight over the girl, gets his ass kicked, and then is victimised by Jonny and his fellow Testosterone fuelled dickheads. Its while this unfolds that Daniel also befriends the maintenance man of the apartment block in which he resides, Mr. Miyagi, played by Pat Morita, a role which he was nominated for best supporting actor at the 1984 academy awards.

After saving Daniel from being turned into jam by Jonny and his hoods, Miyagi teaches him the ways of karate, so he can take on Jonny and is ilk, in an up coming karate tournament, where he will earn the respect of the thugs, hopefully with the result of being left alone.

Karate kid was a complete phenomenon , sporning two sequels , and a fourth film in which Mr. Miyagi takes on a new protégé in the form of future two time Oscar winner Hilary Swank. As well as a videogame encompassing the storyline of the first two movies, and an animated series, where the torment motif is abandoned for a more adventure based format.

Given the high regard that any 80’s kid like myself has for Karate Kid I was horrified to learn that a remake was in production, and then slightly relieved when I heard Jackie Chan was to play the Miyagi character, in this case Mr. Han. Well I think 80’s kids everywhere can breath a sigh of relief, they haven’t crushed the spirit of Karate Kid, giving doubters a chop to the face.

The remake follows the original very closely, while still being different enough to make it worth watching. This time the story follows Dre Parker a younger character than LeRusso, who this time moves to China after his single mother gets a new job, in the eighties moving halfway across America was a long way, but no longer with the days of social media, so a more drastic move seems logical to give Dre that same culture clash and sense of isolation Daniel felt. After hanging out with some fellow westerners, his eye is caught by a local girl, Mei Ling, much to the rage of family friend Cheng, I think you can see where this is going… so after an ass kicking he’s befriended by Mr. Han the apartment blocks maintenance man, and surprise surprise a karate/kung-fu expert, queue un-conventional training and montages.

Okay so its quite similar to the ‘84 version, the main difference for me is the difference between Mr. Miyagi and Mr. Han. Miyagi was a slightly eccentric old Japanese man, who’s wife died in child birth, a fact which didn’t really effect the character more than giving him background, but with Mr. Han it’s a different story. Mr. Han is a shy and socially awkward man, who’s wife and child were killed in car accident, for which he blames himself, and this is where the difference lies, Miyagi, had something bad happen to him, but he has excepted it as part of life, whereas Mr. Han’s guilt over the loss of his family deeply effects him and his day to day life, making him less of a superficial character, giving him much more depth. Jackie Chan has never acted better.

There are numerous differences between the two, for which I could properly go on all day, like the whole earning the tormenters respect through the tournament participation makes a lot more since within eastern culture, much more than some spoilt rich get having a change of heart after having his ass handed to him.

Macchio’s career pretty much peaked with the Karate Kid franchise, with only two note worthy exceptions, the first being My Cousin Vinny, where wrongly accused of murder, Macchio is left reliant on the inexperience of his lawyer cousin Vinny, played brilliantly by Joe Pesci, a film which won Marisa Tomei an Oscar for best supporting actress. The exception to the rule is the little known, though brilliant, Crossroads, and no, not the Britany spears movie, something far more spectacular, but I think that’s a ramble for another day.

Karate Kid 2010

Karate Kid

Jonah Hex

Jonah Hex had the potential to be one of the coolest films of 2010, the story of a scared bounty hunter with powers to talk to the dead, and a soundtrack written by Metal behemoths Mastodon , a film in which the principle cast of Josh Brolin, John Malkovich and Megan Fox all took pay cuts to appear in the film, a film which Thomas Jane, who voiced Hex in a animated short, wanted so badly he petitioned the studio to give him the live action role, even hiring a make-up artist to give him the Hex look, it had lot stacked in its favour, it had so much potential…

Originally created in 1971 by John Albano and Artist Tony Zuniga for DC Comics Jonah Hex has never been a major player in the comic stakes, despite having a number of successful runs, and as such he's always been held in high regard in geekdom, and given the way any comic worth its ink and staples his eaten up and made into a movie nowadays it was a matter of time before Hex got his turn.

Which brings back to the movie, seamless I know. I think the first issue Hex has is with the director, Jimmy Hayward with his first live action movie, and only his second as a head honcho, the first being Horton hears a Who. Horton was a logical progression , as Hayward started out as an animator on the brilliant kids series Reboot, about the world within a computer. Okay they did that in Tron, but it was still good, and the first 30 minute programme made entirely in CGI.

Hayward also worked at the King Kong of computer animation, Pixar where he worked as an animator on their first five features Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc. & Finding Nemo, at which point he defected to the dark side, otherwise known as Blue Sky Studios, who are most famous for the Ice Age films, and it was here Hayward worked on the rather forgettable Robots, anyone, no didn’t think so, and made his directorial debut with the aforementioned Horton.

History lesson over, and back to the point, Hayward shouldn’t have made the jump to live action, animation is clearly where he excels, and Hex looks like a animation, an animation where they couldn’t afford the crayons. The whole time your watching you can’t help but think it. There are two culprits for this cinematic crime, and evidence of both are apparent within the first ten minutes. The film starts with what seems like a ‘previously on Jonah Hex…’ type catch up, much more suited to something like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the problem is we’re not catching up on anything, this is our introduction to the world of Jonah Hex. This leads into what is one of the best sequences in the film, an animated comic book title sequence, but this brilliant introduction brings to things with it, the knowledge of how good the film could have been, and the continuing feel of the sci-fi channel. After the catch-up and introduction the pace doesn’t slow down at all, its meant to be fast and exhilarating, but comes of more like a Chav on a joyride rather than formula one, everything just seems like a frantic rush... for a live action film, in an animated one the pace would be fine.

And for someone who supposedly took a pay cut to appear in the film, John Malkovich looks bored, defiantly leaving Con Air’s Cyrus the Virus as his greatest work of villainy.

Lets hope this isn’t going to be the case with all western inspired comic book adapts, because Jon Favreau (Iron Man, Iron Man 2) is bring us Cowboys & Aliens this summer and that also has potential....

'Jonah Hex' Trailer HD

Cowboys & Aliens Trailer

The Nightmares ended!

In 1984 horror maestro Wes Craven created arguably the greatest movie monster ever, in the form of serial-killing slasher Freddy Kruger, first appearing in Nightmare on Elm Street and continued to terrorize over the next ten years through 5 more Elm Street movies.
Then in 1994 Craven flipped the horror concept on its head with New Nightmare, in which Kruger is a fictional movie villain, invading the real world and dreams of the cast and crew that created the ‘Elm street movies, with a number of people including Craven playing themselves. Kruger’s last outing was in the horror cross-over Freddy Vs. Jason, where Kruger faces off against Jason Voorhees, relentless killer of the Friday 13^th franchise. A pretty average slasher movie, which to be honest is irrelevant because the only reason you want to watch the film anyway is to see the two icons batter the shit out of one another.
Freddy Vs. Jason was also the 8^th and final time Robert Englund would fill the role of Kruger.

Nightmare on Elm streets follows the story of Nancy and her friends, including a young Johnny Depp in his film debut, who's dreams are being invaded by a sinister serial killer, with a hideously burnt and wielding a knife fingered glove, and if he kills you in your dreams you die for real. Kruger targets these particular teenagers as Nancy’s farther among others were responsible for his demise, as part of a lynch mob hunting down and killing him, after it was revealed he was responsible for a number of child murders in the area.

Nightmare on Elm Street is a horror classic, and most of the sequels are pretty good (barring 2 & 6), so when I found out there was going to be a new Elm Street, my interest was interested, but then learned it was to be a re-imagining, remembering that’s exactly what Tim Burton did with Planet of the Apes, at which point my interest become less interested. Later it turned out Englund wouldn’t be reprising the role of Kruger, at which point my interest started staring off into space, wait whats that Jackie Earle Haley a.k.a. Rorschach from Watchmen is playing Kruger, okay now my interest is paying attention.

Frankly my interest should have continued staring into space, perhaps going off to make a brew, and forgetting any notion of this remake/reboot because frankly its absolute bilge. The first problem, of which there is many, with the film is, none of the characters have any personality, bar one who is frankly an asshole, and whom you would happily stab in the face yourself. Played by Thomas Dekker, who corned the market in annoying teenagers in TV series The Sarah Connor Chronicles. This lack of personality means that you couldn’t give a severed head who lives or dies, secretly hoping Freddy rips them all into confetti and you can wake up from this nightmare early.

The second , and biggest travesty is they’ve managed to suck the soul out of Kruger, peeling away all trace of a personality, turning him into little more than a Scooby Doo villain, and he looks rubbish too, apparently hes been made to look more like an actual burns victim, but looks more like he’s wearing a leatherface mask. I've seen scarier pictures of Michael Jackson.

Thirdly he’s been turned from a wicked child killer with no motive other than he’s twisted evil in a jumper, into a child molester, allegedly this was closer to Craven’s original vision for the character, but it turns him from Hitler into Gary Glitter, yeah he’s sick, but not evil, and thereby not nearly as scary.

And for me the nail in the coffin, and its probably something that most people probably won’t pick up on, but I did and it wound me up no end, and the moment unfolds like this: Nancy and her potential new boyfriend, head into a basement and Nancy picks up a lantern, why there would be a lantern down there to start with is beside the point, she turns to PB (Potential Boyfriend) and asks for his lighter. Why would he have a lighter on him, when not once have we seen him smoke!! It wasn’t even a case of ‘oh look a lantern, if only we had something to light it’ ‘that’s okay I’ve got a lighter in my pocket’ no she just demands the light from PB. Never smoked!!!!

Yet again Hollywood desire to remake anything that was ever any good, as exceeded them once again., in this vein attempt to resurrect Freddy, they wanted to ’elm street movie aimed at today’s audience they could have just adapted A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Dealer by Jeffrey Thomas, a Elm street story set the modern day, but still in the world of the original films.

My interest has left, learnt to juggle, joined the circus and travels the world as The Great Intresto.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) - OFFICIAL TEASER TRAILER (HD)

Original Nightmare on elm street trailer