The Cinema File #285: "Kiss Of The Damned" Review

Rounding out my impromptu trilogy of female-centric vampire movies from the past year, Kiss Of The Damned is a trashy throwback to 70's exploitation cinema with presumptions of artsy flair and just enough knowing nods to the old school horror canon to almost make you forget how shallow and messy it all is. It begins in the dark woods as a demonic, blood soaked killer stalks its prey and howls at the night, with a title card font taken straight out of a Hammer movie, ultimately promising more than it is capable of delivering. There are more than a few memorably stylish moments, maybe just enough to justify one viewing, but in its meandering attempt to do too much with too little, it fails to live up to the classics it is so obviously trying to emulate.

The Cinema File #283: "Byzantium" Review

I have a word document on my computer dedicated to rough drafts of my reviews, and at the top of the first page is a list of films that I have recently seen, but have yet to write about. Typically this list changes by the day as I attempt to review most if not all of the movies I see, but occasional there are one or two movies that linger for weeks, or even months. The Tina Fey dramedy Admission probably hung around the longest, stuck in the top spot until I finally gave up, unable to think of anything meaningful to say about it. Byzantium is a close second, but not for lack of an analytical approach. I just really wish I could pretend this movie never happened to me. Unfortunately, since I already reviewed one of the better vampire movies of the last few years, I suppose it’s only right that I tackle one of the worst.

Schlockbusted #9: "Fright Night 2: The New Blood" Review

I suppose this was bound to happen sooner or later. The dueling impulses of horror movies to generate endless sequels and invite modern remakes of classic films was a recipe for the kind of confusion brought about by a movie like Fright Night 2: The New Blood. Is it a sequel to the recent remake of Fright Night, or a remake of the original Fright Night 2, or both? Its billed as a sequel to the remake, but features a female villainess clearly evocative of the antagonist of the original Fright Night 2, and otherwise the plot is a reboot of the original Fright Night with no narrative connection to the previous remake. I'm at a loss for how to classify this movie, and even more bewildered by the fact that despite being a chintzy straight to DVD knockoff of one of my favorite 80's franchises, its one of the better vampire movies to come along in a long time.

The Cinema File #244: "Twixt" Review

Francis Ford Coppola, the legendary director of The Godfather Trilogy, Apocalypse Now, and, lest we ever forget, Jack AND Captain EO, produced the film Twixt based on a nightmare he had all the way back in 2011. Appearing only at a few film festivals here and there, it wasn't released widely until fairly recently, and only then punted unceremoniously direct to DVD. Going only by the director's reputation, one might have cause to wonder how any film he makes could be given this kind of treatment, but should you bother to sit through this weird tale of post-cognitive dreams and prepubescent vampire ghost things, you might have more cause to wonder why anyone thought it was a good idea to release it at all, or even make it in the first place.

The Cinema File #243: "The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones" Review

Ever since the fifth and thankfully last installment in the epic Twilight Saga graced our theater screens, Hollywood has been in a desperate search to find that next big terrible franchise inspired by some high concept young adult literary series. So far, the results have been a bit mixed, though with the exception of The Hunger Games, still generally disappointing. The Host presented us with an interesting setting and a potentially complex villain in its benign invaders, but was too poorly executed to take advantage of them. On the other hand, Beautiful Creatures, for all its complete lack of subtlety, had a certain campy Southern-fried charm. This of course brings us to The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones, the first in what I read could be as many as six films not counting various spin-offs, that despite a few bright spots and some obvious style and potential, makes me dread the coming years should this new “saga” come to fruition.

The Cinema File #177: "Dario Argento's Dracula 3D" Review

As much as I am a horror fan, and specifically horror of the 70's and 80's, I've never really been all that much of a Dario Argento devotee. I've never disliked him as a director, but I've also never really been all that excited about him either. The last Argento film I saw before today was Two Evil Eyes, and evidently I haven't been missing much, as my brief bit of research on the last few decades of the director's work suggests that he's had something of a Shyamalanian drop in quality since I stopped paying attention. Now, I'm never one to take the word of critical consensus blindly, so when I saw that the man who brought us Deep Red and Suspiria had produced his own vision of Bram Stoker's Dracula, I was legitimately intrigued. This is an instinct that I now regret deeply.

The Cinema File #165: "Vamp U" Review

A while back I reviewed a movie called Liberal Arts, where I marveled at the notion that a movie so boring could have been someone's passion project. In retrospect, I have no reason to think it even was, but I just have always assumed that something so big and unwieldy as a movie production has to at some point be based on a dream to do something really cool, even if the final product doesn't live up to it. I just watched a movie called Vamp U, which despite a notable uptick in quality in the second half might just be my least favorite film of 2013 so far, and beyond being really bad, in fact perplexing and somewhat gobsmacking in its badness in some respects, I just can't for the life of me comprehend how this concept even got past the first outline with anyone thinking it was a good idea.

The Idiot Box: Spinoffs I'd Like To See (Monster Edition)

Not This

I've been re-watching a lot of old TV shows on Netflix recently, and it inspired me to start a new series akin to my recent impromptu video games as movies thing, this time imagining the various ways I would expand and continue the universes of some of my favorite shows. Many of these proposed spinoffs will have already been suggested over the years, while others are entirely invented. I've decided to split these up by genre, starting with the one that led me to this in the first place - supernatural horror.

1: From Angel - Wolfram & Hart

I swear I'll finish the Buffy retrospective at some point eventually, but in the meantime, I'm almost halfway through Angel, the rare spinoff I'd argue was better than the original. One of the things I love about this show is how, unlike Buffy where evil was always an obstacle to be overcome, Angel's world was one where evil was a fact of life, and something you had to live with and account for. The best example of this theme lies with the recurring villains Wolfram & Hart, a demonically influenced law firm tasked with managing the day to day operations of Hell on Earth.

The Cinema File #82: "Vampire Dog" Review

(slow, muffled sob)

Okay, let's do this thing.

So I'm a big Norm MacDonald fan. If you don't remember him, he was the last good SNL Weekend Update anchor, and now shows up mostly to be the one funny joke in Adam Sandler/Rob Schneider movies. I loved his one and only written movie Dirty Work and his sitcom The Norm Show is on my list alongside Get A Life as one of the most underrated of all time. He's always been one of my favorite comedians, so whenever I see him pop up in something, I'm always curious to see what he brings to the table. Often, this instinct betrays me, as in today's feature, the second time Norm has suckered me with a talking dog movie, in this case, the Canadian straight to DVD effort Vampire Dog.

Vampire Dog is the story of, well, a Vampire Dog. I guess. I mean, he doesn't drink blood or turn into a Dog Bat, and he claims to be allergic to sunlight, but then goes into the sunlight with no ill effects. He has super speed and can mesmerize people, but for the most part, his supposed vampirism is as inconsistent as it is completely arbitrary to the plot. He might as well be Super Dog or FrankenDog for all it matters. Then again, talking about things mattering to the story is a luxury that a viewer of this movie does not have. Vampire Dog is where logic, reason, and entertainment go to die, and they don't come back to life at any point, undead or otherwise.

The Cinema File #58: "A Vampire's Tale (AKA: Umbrage - The First Vampire)" Review

Not since Beyond ReAnimator have I been able to say the following sentence: The best thing about this straight to DVD horror movie is a severed penis.

I can't really talk about it in specifics right now, but I just recently finished collaborating on a screenplay. I bring it up because I just spent three months or so working very hard to craft a narrative that made some kind of sense, juggling multiple characters around, making sure they all had some sort of arc and resolution, and that they were all ultimately necessary to the story. It was hard work, but it was rewarding, and the result is a possible movie that with a lot of luck may someday get made. Knowing that I could have shat out something like A Vampire's Tale in a few hours and had a straight to DVD film career makes that effort feel like a waste. Thank you movie, you've made me hate myself.

The Idiot Box: Buffy The Vampire Slayer Retrospective - Season Two

Season Two of Buffy The Vampire Slayer came back with a bang after a shortened and somewhat creatively lackluster first season, beginning what I consider to be the prime hey day of the show from Season Two to Season Five. We're introduced to Oz, Spike and Drusilla for the first time, all of whom would become important fixtures to the show and the larger Buffyverse in following seasons, and we learn the secret history of Jenny Calendar, which sets up perhaps one of the most tragic moments in the entire series. We also learn the full implications of Angel's curse, which not only provided the main emotional conflict of the season, but sets up what will define his character through the rest of the series and into his own spin off. Season Two was the year that Buffy the Vampire Slayer transformed from a weird genre experiment into a credible if not mainstream pop culture phenomenon, giving its growing niche audience a surprisingly profound and ultimately heart wrenching story to justify their devotion. It was better than the last one is what I'm saying.

Season Two: (Second) First Impressions

The Idiot Box: Buffy The Vampire Slayer Retrospective - Season One

Joss Whedon's breakthrough series Buffy the Vampire Slayer lasted for seven seasons across two networks, doing for the teenage demographic what The X-Files did for adults only a few years before. It established a pattern that has been followed by countless shows since, essentially providing the blueprint for long running series like Smallville and Supernatural, as well as newcomer Arrow, and pretty much half the CW line-up as it stands today. Based on the considerably shittier movie of the same name, so poorly made that it's writer reportedly cried during the premiere, its one of the seminal shows of my young life that inspired me to want to write for television. Granted, half a dozen amateur pilot scripts later and I'm still just a shlub with a blog, but I thought if there was any show I should start with for my planned series of TV retrospectives, this was a natural introductory point.

Season One - (Second) First Impressions

It sounds weird to say after such a laudatory set up, but if I had to be honest right out of the gate about my feelings coming back to this show after so many years away, my first thought is that I cannot believe how terrible the majority of these first season episodes are compared to the show in its prime. Granted, a lot of really great shows have really bad first seasons, and this being a shorter season than most due to being a mid-season replacement means there was even less time to find their sea legs in time for the finale. But still...damn is this some bad television. This show almost rivals Star Trek: The Next Generation in terms of the chasm in quality between season one and the seasons to come. When it was airing for the first time, I didn't get into the show until season three, and I honestly don't know if I would have stuck with it had I started watching from the beginning.

From The Idea Hole: High Midnight

On a recent episode of my podcast, The Dirty Sons of Pitches, my co-hosts (and also friends I guess) and I took on the challenge of coming up with a new twist on the classic Universal Horror Monsters just in time for Halloween, which is to say several weeks before, but in the same month. A regular feature on our show is something called Pitch Redemption, where we go back to older episodes and try to come up with a better idea for a pitch theme where we weren't necessarily happy with what we threw out the first time, and today's trip down the Idea Hole (thankfully not in 3D) is in the spirit of that retrospective notion. As you no doubt remember from that podcast that I assume you listen to religiously, I pitched a number of projects including a post apocalyptic monster mash up, a monster support group comedy, and two TV shows, one involving a town full of Mr. Hyde style split personalities, and the other a teen drama about mopey high school Frankenstein monsters. That last one is actually a lot better than it sounds, I assure you. The point is, since then, I've come up with another idea that I'm beginning to like more and more, and its a movie, or possibly a series, called High Midnight.

It suddenly dawned on me while randomly perusing Wikipedia that several of the classic Universal Monster stories either take place or are inspired by stories that take place at sometime plausibly close to the Old West, just not in America. The novel Dracula and the movie The Wolf Man both take place just at the end of the 19th century, and the excavation of King Tut's tomb that inspired the Mummy series only a little more than a decade later. The novel for Frankenstein takes place 100 years earlier if not longer, some undefined time in the 18th century if I recall, but even then, a corpse'll keep that long for story purposes. The only one that doesn't fit is The Creature From The Black Lagoon, created from nuclear testing that didn't exist at the time, but we can even fudge that and say the Gillman was older than once thought and the nuclear origin was a misattribution. The point is, if there was ever a time and place both plausible enough historically and interesting enough for a knock down drag out fight between the big five, its the Weird Wild West. I know they've done individual monsters in that setting before to varying degrees of success, but I don't think anyone has tried to throw them all into the Western genre at once. Or at the very least, I'm assuming they haven't so this blog post will be relevant anyway.

The Cinema File #34: "Vamps" Review

Alright, it's entirely possible that Breaking Wind, Part 1 has completely destroyed my ability to fairly judge a mediocre film. I know I've said that shit before, but seriously, I have looked into the abyss, and it has changed me. I fear my taste in movies might have shifted, as one's hair might shift to white upon staring into the face of a Lovecraftian God. Case in point, I just watched Amy Heckerling's Vamps, a story about vampire single girls played by Alicia Silverstone and The B I'm not supposed to trust from Apartment 23...and I actually kind of liked it.

Vamps follows the nightly exploits of two vampiress best friends who struggle to balance love, work, and unlife as perpetual twenty somethings while dealing with psychotic vampire lords, diminutive monster hunters, and their ever present craving for human blood. This might be really sexist, but when I saw the set up for this movie, my first thought was that it was kind of sad to see Alicia Silverstone, now a much older actress than she was in the last good Heckerling movie that made her famous, paired up with Krysten Ritter, who seems poised to assume the mantle of the latest young hot female movie star, as if they're both equally relevant.

The Cinema File #33: "The Thompsons" Review

This is getting ridiculous. The vampires in this movie are so not vampires, I almost feel like I need to find another movie to round out the freaking trilogy I'm doing!

I'd never heard of The Thompsons before I watched it, so I didn't know that it was actually a sequel to another movie called The Hamiltons, which obviously I still haven't seen. Both movies were independent productions written by the same people and evidently the main cast has all returned, and its possible that certain problems I have with the story are the result of my not seeing the previous installment, so bear with me on this one. Still, the movie is fairly self contained to the point where I would not have known of the previous film had I not done any research after watching it.

The Thompsons follows the titular vampire family, changing their names from the Hamiltons after the death of their parents and the events of the previous film to hide out from the cops. They're wanted for murder following a daylight robbery gone wrong that left their youngest sibling slowly dying from a gunshot wound to the chest. When it comes to what a vampire is supposed to be, there are at least three things wrong with that set up, and herein lies my first problem with this movie. Again, maybe it was explained better in the first one, though given my position on this subject, I doubt they could have done so in a way that would have satisfied me at least, but yet again, we have a movie that tells me it has vampires in it, and then gives me something completely different. 

The Cinema File #32: "The Harsh Light Of Day" Review

Well, its got vampires, and its not a Twilight parody, so there's that at least.

This is the first of three vampire-centric movies I intend to review in succession for this site in the coming days, in an attempt to cleanse my palette after the soul crushing experience that was Breaking Wind, Part 1. I haven't watched the other two movies yet, so I don't know quite how I'm going to feel by the end of this, though I can't imagine it will be any worse than I felt at the start. As for today's film, I have to say that while it has its flaws, mostly on the directorial side, I think I'm off to a pretty good start so far.

The Harsh Light Of Day is an independent British import about a man who seeks out supernatural powers to heal his paralyzed body and take revenge on the men who crippled him and murdered the woman he loves. Its a great concept first of all, basically Death Wish with vampires but with a lot more depth than that simplistic construction implies, and from a story perspective its handled very well. The movie throws us right in following the brutal assault and then builds with an ominous tone as you watch the main character realize what he's becoming after an ambiguous deal with a mysterious stranger. Once he's fully on board with everything, the final act has his mission coming to a somewhat anti-climactic, but mostly satisfying conclusion.

The Cinema File #31: "Breaking Wind, Part 1" Review

Okay, I'm officially starting to regret this "straight to DVD schlock" niche I've been building.

Now to be fair, I'm probably not the best guy to review a straight to DVD parody of the second to last Twilight movie, since I haven't actually seen the second to last Twilight movie, or any of them past the first one for that matter. That being said, the producers of Breaking Wind, Part 1 have seen fit to release this one just in time for Breaking Dawn Part 2, so I don't think it really matters that much. Besides, parody movies like this in the Epic Movie mold tend to stick to stuff you'd know, or could figure out, from the trailers anyway. Then again, that presupposes that I'm able to understand anything going on in this movie, let alone discern any logic to it, and really, I can't. I don't think that has anything to do with my at best casual understanding of Twilight, and everything to do with the undeniable shittiness of this movie.

I was initially hesitant to review this, because I didn't think there was a lot I could feasibly say about it other than coming up with different adjectives for "really bad", but then I realized, if I refuse to review it on those grounds, then this movie wins. To be so bad as to literally defy description so that you won't have any context with which to prejudge it might be this movie's only shot at roping in people to watch it. So far this year, my benchmark for shitty movies has been Arachnoquake, the SyFy Channel Original Movie where fucking Neelix from Voyager was the best part. The thing about that movie was, at least there was a best part! Breaking Wind is an inexorable void of suck the likes of which ye have never seen. Concepts like good and bad, best and worst, simply get lost in the mists of time as seconds turn into minutes, then minutes turn into hours, until you realize that its over, and this horrible, horrible thing just actually happened to you.

The Cinema File #28: "Dark Shadows" Review

Weirdly enough, when you say the name of this movie three times, Beetlejuice still appears, but instead of scaring humans, he just cockslaps you in the face.

I've always had a love/hate relationship with Tim Burton, though in the last decade or so, its fallen a lot farther onto the hate side of that line. Still, despite his recent rash of remakes and re-imaginings, applying the time tested Burton style to properties that don't need it and are lesser for it, you can't deny the man's talent and vision when it does work. Granted, it hasn't really worked since the late 90's, but I really can't turn my back on the guy who gave us Beetlejuice completely, and I'm always looking forward to the Tim Burton movie that recaptures that playful and original Burton spirit that I used to so enjoy.

Dark Shadows is not this movie. Holy fucking shit balls is Dark Shadows not this movie. I can't quite say that its the worst movie I've seen all year, because I did sit through Arachnoquake, but it might just be the worst one I saw in theaters (even if the chasm of lost potential led me to be more disappointed in The Avengers). If you haven't seen it or seen the soap opera upon which it was based (both versions of which are available on Netflix I believe) Dark Shadows follows the Collins family living in a dilapidated mansion, dwelling in their faded relevance until they are joined by their vampiric ancestor Barnabas, who makes it his mission to reclaim his clan's former glory. Its a solid premise that falters in execution, setting up several characters that should by all rights be fun and interesting, but fail to encourage even the slightest bit of enjoyment.

The Cinema File #18: "Abraham Lincoln - Vampire Hunter" Review

I've seen two movies this month with vampires in them, one was a low budget SyFy Channel Original Movie, the other was Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. At the risk of being called a contrarian at this point, the better of the two is obvious, and it ain't the one with the bigger budget.

You'll probably hear this a lot in my reviews, but I haven't read the book upon which this movie is based. I'm told its quite good, and much better than the movie according to those who would know enough to compare them. I can't speak to that comparison. All I can say is what I think coming out of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, and for all its exciting albeit CGI enhanced visuals, I have no idea what I was supposed to enjoy about any of that. I guess the novelty of it is supposed to sustain me, the fact that its a famous historical figure in a wildly unfamiliar context, and not just any historical figure, but the automatically funny Abe Lincoln, but it just doesn't. The action is stylish enough, but so obviously computer generated as to lose almost all of its intensity. And the story...does anyone care about the story? Did anyone care when they were making it?

The Cinema File #14: "True Bloodthirst, aka Vampyre Nation" Review

You  know what, fuck it, I still like vampires.

It seems like every time the discussion of horror movies or movie monsters comes around to vampires, it quickly descends into a debate about how much they now suck compared to other classic monsters or just in general, mostly in the context of their recent romantic forays in the Twilight movies, and shows like True Blood and (I assume because I've never actually seen it) The Vampire Diaries. Admittedly, while True Blood has its moments, the two out of three of those properties I've seen have been pretty disappointing for exactly the reasons people tend to talk about, which is why, for all its many flaws, today's film, the SyFy Channel Original Movie True Bloodthirst (originally titled Vampyre Nation) is one that a part of me wants to really say I enjoyed. I'm not quite sure yet if that's the part of me that also holds the capacity for logic and reason, but we'll figure that out along the way.

I decided to review this movie basically out of a concern for monster movie fairness, having just reviewed a recent straight to DVD werewolf movie. Now all I have to do is find modern straight to DVD takes on Frankenstein, The Mummy, and The Creature From The Black Lagoon, and I can finally finish masturbating...I mean finish my collection of monster reviews. Yeah, that's it. Everything I can find on this movie in terms of other reviews describe it as a schlocky twist on the film Daybreakers, where vampires ruled the world, but it seems most of that came before the change in title to what actually is a better source for comparison, an action thriller version of True Blood, without all the romance and faeries and shit. The Daybreakers parallel is also sort of ironic considering that when I saw that movie, I remembered thinking that it was way more stylish and good looking than it's story deserved, and really would have worked better as a SyFy Channel Original Movie.