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Post by nopersonality on Aug 14, 2011 12:53:18 GMT -5
Your Pain is Our Pleasure Hellraiser(1987 / director: Clive Barker) ★★★ In the world of low budget horror, there is a lot of art and very few art ists. It would seem the two just don't mix. Clive Barker came to horror cinema a master of the literary art, with a huge fanbase, and a lot of reputation to live up to. None of his films have proven that he could deliver something with the passion and intensity of his writing, but Hellraiser (film version of The Hellbound Heart novella) comes close. The real reason this is relevant is because of how many amateur mistakes are made here and how often they impact on the scenes they're in. When most directors make these kinds of technical errors, they don't matter because the mood is lighter or there is enough going on to take your mind off of them. The former you typically find in lower budgeted films such as this and it's intentional because the director wants to cover themselves (Joe Dante even tweaked a scene in Gremlins because he realized people would probably react poorly if they noticed the raw error). Unless the audience is meant to notice the flaw, it's important to do some kind of damage control work to smoothe the bumps out. In Hellraiser however, they're right up front and center, and the mood of the film is always - appropriately - either cold or brooding. So, when you see Kirsty looking intensely at something and immediately you recall; that's the same shot as they used earlier when she was in the same place... to say the least, it's distracting. The mood is too stiff to hide the film's obvious missteps and Barker is too wrapped up in the story to check out the surface. To be fair though, despite the fact that this can't stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the likes of Halloween, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Carrie, The Evil Dead, Suspiria, and others, it does have several moments that more than justify the hype and a deliciously original plot set-up. Who even thinks about the role of the mistress in horror films ( maybe Argento)? Or tries to use great sex as a motivation to turn someone into a killer (maybe Cronenberg)? The movie becomes downright intriguing with the implications of blood-spattering, skinless scenes of romance. In a traditional dirty, dusty, dilapidated haunted house, no less. No matter how many sequences are compromised by Barker's first-time director status, there's no denying it's a thrill to watch slinky Euro-bitch Clare Higgins dress up in yellow-and-black 80's chic decked out with cheap, thick plastic black star earrings and cruise outdoor bars for desperate goobers while pretending to not-be looking so they'll be willing to approach her. In this case, God is in the details and after a true war back and forth, the win happens to be in the film's favor. It also helps that the costuming and character makeup on the gang of Cenobites is so good, as are Doug Bradley's Pinhead and especially Andrew Robinson's Frank-in-Larry's-Skin as backup villains. The fact that it's basically a romantic triangle slasher film featuring a 4th player - Kirsty, the rather butch damsel in distress - and an admittedly interest-sparking mythology involving an entire dimension of luck-of-the-draw S&M destinations (leaving a lot to your imagination) makes up for the all too frequent freshman kinks. |
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Post by nopersonality on Aug 14, 2011 12:53:42 GMT -5
The Bitch is Back Hellbound: Hellraiser II(1988 / director: Tony Randel) ★½ So, as we all know, horror was considered a very strong and thriving genre for a long time - until the late 80's, when every single studio decided they wanted a piece of the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street franchise pie. No, this is actually true. Because although Halloween birthed a million and one scummy American and Canadian rip-offs (while Romero's Dawn of the Dead did the same overseas), the genre was still booming with creativity. As the slasher genre was dying its' last death, Carpenter gave us The Fog, Raimi gave us The Evil Dead, Cronenberg gave us Videodrome and The Fly, Romero gave us Creepshow, Cohen gave us Q the Winged Serpent, and 1981 gave us the finest werewolf films the genre had ever seen with The Howling and An American Werewolf in London. This is still to say nothing of the classics to come which would establish the new careers of Stuart Gordon (who will come up again in later paragraphs), Frank Henenlotter ( Basket Case, Brain Damage), Peter Jackson ( Bad Taste, Dead Alive), Tom Holland ( Fright Night), and a few others. No, the genre wasn't dead in the early 80's. It was just in a slump. And for awhile, the one constant throughout the years of questionable returns was guilt-free fun with the Jason and Freddy films. I mean, after all, Evil Dead II and Prom Night II weren't exactly good but they weren't nearly enough to call time-of-death on horror. Then, the clock struck 12:00 AM on January 1st, 1988, and everything went to hell. Literally. Although the year gave us 2 highly important film releases, Killer Klowns from Outer Space and Brain Damage (both high quality, must-see), people didn't flock to see those films. Probably because the big money went into pimping sequels. Critters had nothing to lose when it spawned a sequel that year, but Nightmare on Elm Street did. Part 4: The Dream Master was disappointing at best. But it was merely Child's Play compared to the one-two punch of Phantasm II and Hellbound: Hellraiser II. Phantasm II is another disaster for another time (as is the traumatically awful Scarecrows, just to show you how much original ideas were suffering that year as well). Hellraiser II may be superior to that trainwreck. Though it certainly makes some of the same fatal mistakes. Namely- flashbacks and a continuation on the same story with a couple new pieces. I don't know about you but I don't want the same story. With sequels, unless there's no story in the first place ( Friday the 13th), I want something new with some of the old pieces. Nightmare on Elm Street 3 and Prom Night II delivered this. But that was '87. In '88, it was in-vogue to incur memory loss and change details that were set-in-stone from the year before. For example, at the end of Clive Barker's Hellraiser, the box was gone. And so was Larry and Julia's house. Yes, the thing set alight and burnt to the ground. Not in this film. And so, now there's an excuse to put Kirsty in an asylum (where she spews forth silly bullshit about fairy tales, leading to awful, sternly spoken one-liners which you can smell coming from miles away), have something cursed from the old house make its' way onto the stage of our new hell arena (a dungeon of jailcells with cliched screaming crazy mental patients, mostly victims of psychological brain-scrambling, ala- a Re-Animator lobotomy by way of Nazi experimentions performed by poetic madman, Dr. Channard - but as kinda handsome as Kenneth Cranham is, he's no match for David Gale's Dr. Carl Hill on the sinister scale), and more devious games of cat and mouse with the new pieces. Or, should I say- new rules? Because this film really wants to get to that big Labyrinth you probably remember if you crossed paths with this thing while flipping channels. That's almost cool. But for us to get there, this movie speeds up the montage of killings to get Julia her new skin. Then, the movie tosses in some motivation (Kirsty's mission to rescue her father - wherever he is - meanwhile, the evil doctor and Julia are hatching their own plan - whatever that is) to take us into the world of hell the Cenobites live in. The place where all the "sights" are that Pinhead wanted to show Kirsty before- though almost none of them are up to snuff. When we finally get to the Labyrinth, we quickly see what this movie could have been in a sequence where mute female patient Tiffany runs into a section of the maze that looks a lot like a circus. Yes, Hellbound has a lot of great imagery scattered around. And a great deal of it is bundled up in Tiffany's story. Although we never find out anything about that, we do get great shots of her putting together various puzzles, flashbacks into her mother's surreal murder (a recurring image of a Stepford-like woman with lifeless eyes whose mouth is stifled by a black-gloved hand leaving the sound of a final squeak from her throat to echo over a shadowy shot of the girl all alone), and a few creepy clowns who appear in mirrors before they shatter. And that's all we get there. The other thing that keeps this movie from being a total shitfest is an even more delicious turn from Clare Higgins as Kirsty's wicked stepmother. This movie is too ugly to be a fairy tale, but almost every second with Higgins onscreen is a breath of fresh air. Her resurrection via a roomful of corpses hanging from chains (an image that looked a lot better in Nightmare on Elm Street 3) gives the movie opportunity for some wacked Universal-classic moments. Her bloody membraned husk wrapped up in The Mummy bandages until her glorious Bride of Frankenstein unraveling. And her confrontation scene with Kirsty finally makes good on the movie's underscored bitchy tension as Higgins lays some groundwork for the great Sigourney Weaver to later follow (in 1997's Snow White: A Tale of Terror) with the classic: "I'm no longer just the Wicked Stepmother. Now I'm the Evil Queen. So come on- take your best shot, Snow White!" Though thankfully, this sequel does away with ugly orange worms and Kirsty is given a far more attractive doomed love interest (William Hope), there has to be a point in returning to hell. A few improved effects and a story with promise of higher stakes is not going to do it. The horror genre suffered greatly for stupid stories like these with their painful predictability and sappy attempts at fleshing out characters. You'd do much better instead with a double feature of Barker's original paired with Stuart Gordon's goopy near-masterpiece, From Beyond. |
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Post by nopersonality on Aug 15, 2011 10:14:23 GMT -5
Don't Look Now Hellraiser III:
Hell on Earth(1992 / director: Anthony Hickox) ★★ So, 4 years before Dimension Films orbited into stardom with 1996's Scream, this fantasy, sci-fi, and horror branch of famed Miramax production house got their start making technically sleek but goofy sequels to hobbled franchises such as Halloween, Children of the Corn, and Hellraiser. I guess this means, sadly, their highest bid on Friday the 13th just wasn't enough, because- I had a lot of fun with Dimension films in the 90's. When their style was fresh, that is; it's since been beaten to a pulp by endless new-millennium survival flicks and French perv-torture garbage. But in the mid-90's, it was new and exciting and fun. How does it hold up? I wouldn't know. Though I remember how I felt watching them back in the day, it's been many years since I viewed them last. I abstained from buying the Children of the Corn sequels on DVD because they were just too expensive. I own them all on VHS but my player sucks. The Halloween sequels ( Curse of Michael Myers and H20: 20 Years Later) are available to me since I own them, but there's a difference between them. H20 was treated as a full-blown Hollywood production (thanks to Jamie Lee Curtis and the hip teen cast) and Curse was treated like the garbage it is (also, the disc is not in its' case since that was damaged when it was given to me as a gift- it's in some other case and I would have to hunt for it). Then, there's Hellraiser. But in all honesty, this is the only Dimension-made sequel I bothered to rent back in the day. I've always retained fond memories of it. So, let's see how those memories hold up; shall we? There is something of a musical chairs of main characters. Impossibly hunky Kevin Bernhardt as asshole club owner and oddities collector J.P. Monroe, Terry Farrell as impossibly sweet and driven career woman Joey, and Paula Marshall as the most likable cute little goth chick in history- Terri. Sort of a lost soul mixed with a street-weary punk, who single-handedly spearheads the story of this sequel into Argento's Trauma territory. She doesn't have an eating disorder but she appears to be constantly insecure, weepy inside, and wounded outside. Even though there aren't that many good men in this story (and some mistreatment of dogs takes down an otherwise helpful and kind man- in a truly bizarre detour moment during the "storage facility rummaging" scene), this sequel excels in the likable character department (you don't have to like Bernhardt- just his bulging muscles and farmboy good looks). But, clearly, most of the work here went into making a good-looking movie. And it is. So much so that glaring flaws in the acting (or just bad actors) are much easier to tolerate (remember I said this was really fresh back in 1993 when it first made its' rounds on Cinemax). Also, there are little pieces of stylistic strangeness sprinkled throughout the movie. Void acting style or not, they really stand out as interesting. Credit that to Waxwork director Anthony Hickox (son of the director of 1973's disastrous but almost not-crappy Theater of Blood) who this movie proves is exactly the talent it needed to carry out a watchable sequel- which this certainly is. Perhaps the ultimate key in continuing to like this movie is in seeing just how bad what came after it was. Several people involved in the making of this hopped the Wishmaster train years later and boy, what a pile of shit that movie is. Yeah, I kinda liked it in 1998 when I rented it but you know how the years change your opinions; I used to hate Jack Frost with a passion and not be able to see the fun in it (though, let's be real: Gremlins it ain't) while thoroughly enjoying Wes Craven's Shocker. More than A Nightmare on Elm Street. A true horror fan should be able to admit that this is a far better film than the likes of Wishmaster and, easily, a better sequel than anything to follow Clive Barker's original 1987 film. It'll never win the popularity contest over Hellbound but in my eyes, it's usually better to start a sequel with a clean slate of characters anyway. At least: let go of the previous film's protagonist (which Hellbound did not). I'm always game to see the villains return- sometimes it works (Jason Voorhees again). In the end, the best of the movie comes down to what Hickox is about to bring. Which is considerable. Visually, the movie is fantastic to view and the music isn't so bad. Also, parts of the 90's have begun to date but at the time this came out, it was right on the cusp of predicting Hollywood fashion. Terry Farrell actually walks away looking less dated than Sharon Stone in Sliver- or, since this movie is also very technology minded, anything in that entire film. And the worst is probably the decision to give Pinhead a good side. A whole other incarnation of himself; a human before he turned into the demon Pinhead. Named Elliot Spencer, he's a war (World War I?) captain who apparently became the ring leader of this cenobite race by being the first to discover the evil puzzle box (like Videodrome's Brian O'Blivion became their publicity spokesman by being: "Videodrome's FIRST VIC...TIM!"). Thanks movie - but, no, thanks - for the backstory. This works better when it's fast, hard, and lean. Which is the perfect way to describe the scenes that work- even the jump scares come off smelling like roses here. The extra story padding just confuses things and draws out what is best left brief. Things really explode just before the hour mark when we're lead into our central bloodbath (sadly existing fully uncut on some VHS versions but not on Paramount's region 1 widescreen DVD nor on Netflix's fullscreen print) by a truly creepy series of animated inanimate-objects hanging on the walls or by wires throughout the J.P. character's heavy metal bar / dance & dinner club (one question though: shouldn't it be grunge music, not 80's metal leftovers?). Better still is a long, action-packed chase scene with Farrell running through the city in plain view of anyone standing around as objects burst into flames and various mechanical things go haywire around her. Just a killer sequence; very reminiscent of what would become Final Destination 8 years later (though you have to see on the DVD's widescreen print- so, I hope you snagged a copy during the 3 or so years Paramount let it stay in-print). This is followed up by the long-in-coming church scene (you'd think no Hellraiser movie would be complete without it, but this is the first movie to include one) where the explosions and grotesque fun just don't stop. Crude as it is, it also presents a good argument for the often small-minded religious view versus intelligence. The intellectual outlook may sometimes lack a belief in an afterlife, but Pinhead's "limited imagination" line is nonetheless telling of the general hypocrisy of Christianity and Catholicism. Eventually, you know, the movie ends on its' epic loud and flashy mechanization. With quite a bit of filler but a downright intriguing coda. It's a familiar story, like My Bloody Valentine (the original): 25 minutes of quality intensity to make up for an hour plus of bland storytelling. Because, though I do enjoy it, there's no getting around that this is still missing something essential to really cross the finish line with. Oh, and... who asked for them to copy things from the previous movies? If I never see another flesh-coated skinned-body, or hear another hamfisted "come to daddy," or watch another goopy, drippy rebirth scene- it'll be too soon. And, I could never forget to mention this: what were they thinking with the army of "new" cenobites? They all look exactly the same except for their heads, which all feature some freakish Puppet Master-esque deformity-turned-deadly: fire-spitter, cigarette burner, car piston churner, camera lens hammer-er, CD disc hurler. You see the ridiculousness? But, still- how many times do you get to say with a movie like this that the ending is the best part? This review has been brought to you by: (Just kidding) |
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Post by nopersonality on Aug 16, 2011 9:55:58 GMT -5
Architectural Digest Hellraiser IV: Bloodline(1996 / director: Kevin Yagher) ★½ So, the story behind this movie is: Kevin Yagher (the guy famous for creating Chucky from Child's Play, Tales from the Crypt's Cryptkeeper, and the look for Freddy Krueger in a couple Nightmare on Elm Street films) pulled an "Alan Smithee" and asked the screen director's guild to have his name taken off the film due to studio tampering. I'm a bit surprised at that. The man makes bad horror- as evidenced by his two miserable Crypt episodes, "Lower Berth" and the especially painful "Strung Along." Another bad sign on this movie - other than the fact that the musical score sucks to high heavens - is seeing Peter Atkins' name in the writer's slot. Granted, he wrote Hellraiser III but the biggest problems with the movie were in that department. Not to mention he's also the guy who wrote all 4 Wishmaster movies. Atkins just isn't a good writer. So... bad writer + bad director (sorry, Kevin; you're still a hottie though) + In Space = ... Actually, before we finish that equation, let's just try to wrap our heads around the "in space" concept. And, this is still after the hi-tech sci-fi thriller trend had worn out its' welcome. Virtuosity, Strange Days, Johnny Mnemonic, Vibrations, Brainscan, Total Recall, Ghost in the Machine, Sliver (again), Suburban Commando- insert laugh here but no, seriously, it's relevant; just dig the power gloves on this opening character 3 minutes in. Since we've brought him up, indulge me on something: he's bald, he's white, he's cuffed, he's being interrogated by a police (type) force agent, he's making a speech and tells another person their little mind can't comprehend (yadda yadda yadda). Does that sound, oh, just a little Se7en-ish to anyone else? Speaking of rip-offs, and bare in mind I've never seen a Guillermo Del Toro film but, when the film then sinks us into flashbacks to watch the bald white dude in his toymaker phase (please forgive any potential Babes in Toyland implications), is it possible that we're entering Cronos land? I'll bend over backwards to make a connection when I can but guy who looks like Geppetto on a workbench putting together the architectural design for a handheld, medieval looking device in a story that involves monsters and religion... A little credit is warranted here: a strange firelight dinner sequence is decadently groteseque: a haughty French aristocrat and his wigged manservant bring a slutty wench to their table to pig out (on grapes? I know- if you're going to scarf, it might as well be on something healthy) before she looks up at the ceiling in a wonderfully disorienting shot that made me think the house itself was one giant puzzle box (chains with hooks hanging around the chandelier). This is kind of spoiled by YET ANOTHER trademark Hellraiser skinning scene (people- get OVER this freaking fetish already!!). Thankfully, the story jumps forward to 1996 and, the dialogue may be largely irrelevant to anything likely to peak our interests but, this is good for the movie. That there was ever any moment I found myself more impressed with this film than both of Yagher's episodes of Tales from the Crypt is something I appreciate. Casting makes little difference either way. I don't know what characters made it into the Mortal Kombat movie sequel(s) but, Valentina Vargas here would have made a killer Mileena!! Also, I'd be kicking myself if I didn't mention Nightmare on Elm Street 2's Kim Myers has a "major" role here (major as in less than 20 minutes total screentime) as the sobbing no-dimensional wife to the toymaker character's 1996 self. Bloodline also lifts the freaky mutant junkyard guard dogs from that film as well. Poor Adam Scott of Party Down gets a bit here- but proving that he looked exactly the same more than a decade before landing that role. He's actually dispatched rather quickly, in a kinda cool scene. This movie was actually quite close to being decent. It seemed perfectly content with riding on the visual pleasures of Hell on Earth until the dialogue becomes completely shitfaced. Unbelievably HUGE lapses in logic follow. The closest so far this series has actually come to being an overt slasher film: a pair of beefy blond twin cops just happen to find a room where Pinhead is hiding and threaten to shoot him with "don't make us put some pain on you." (What is this, a schoolyard fight scene?) You know what his response will be and by goodness, it's every bit as head-bangingly obnoxious as you can imagine. Pinhead continues down this road of cliche... OTHER MOVIES' cliches, that is, when he becomes a... hold on, you're going to need to mentally prepare for this one: he becomes a Hulk Hogan movie stereotype. Yes, you heard that correctly. Pinhead becomes Hulk Hogan's nemesis (in either Mr. Nanny or Suburban Commando- take your pick) and kidnaps the toymaker's son for bait. He even says THE WORD "bait" in his speech, I kid you not! Maybe a little Hulk Hogan movie nemesis meets - considering this character's vocation as a toymaker - The Great Mouse Detective's Ratigan (to class this up a little). And what's his evil motivation? Oh, yes- Pinhead has an evil speech relaying the motivation for his mischief in the film: he and the evil demon wench feel oppressed by having to use secret entrances to our world (Earth?) and don't want to sneak or "seep" through them anymore. I hope you're following this: they feel moving through the box's portal is beneath them and want a better way to travel. That's why they want to play a shallow cat and mouse game with the toymaker's family, which of course reminds us of Frank and Julia from the first movie. But even they had better motivation. These two have a lot of nerve but no tact whatsoever. Later, Pinhead has an almost touching moment where he looks at a picture of the planet Earth and his earlier speech of course makes perfect sense: he wants to conquer Earth. Damn it; where are the Power Rangers when you need them? |
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Post by nopersonality on Aug 17, 2011 7:41:00 GMT -5
Indecent Exposure Hellraiser V: Inferno(2000 / director: Scott Derrickson) ★ I honestly don't know what's more disappointing. When one sequel starts off telling you it's crappy but makes you enjoy it anyway ( Bloodline, which was at least funny at its' worst)... Or when another sequel draws you in for an hour and makes you think it will be a genuinely good movie, then slaps on one of the worst endings you've ever witnessed as a horror fan. I'm talking BAD. The kind of bad that doesn't just abandon ship- it sinks the whole thing almost entirely. This pisses me off, since my money was really on Inferno. It was so close to being a good movie that it's tragic. This sequel really wanted to carve an individual identity for itself. For once, the music score attempted to not remind us this was a Hellraiser movie every few minutes. More than style seemed to be propelling it forward. Its' hero (well, when you usually see a detective in the protagonist role, you assume he's some kind of hero) is a highly-flawed character. Seen stealing from a crime scene (and not because it's a clue that he wants to examine in the privacy of his home), picking up a hooker, beating witnesses to the ground, and taking a hit off a crack vial- this movie gets off to one hell of an unexpected start. Unfortunately, this doesn't last. The movie is 99 minutes long and some genius behind the camera (I'm not pointing fingers... yet) actually decided that the Cenobite action should start as soon as 14 minutes in. Bad move. This leads to CGI, which (for well over an hour) is a lot better handled than you'd expect, but not so well-handled is the almost Matrix-esque silliness involving a pair of Cenobite demonettes (think alien cheerleaders in dominatrix outfits) who start burrowing into the detective's skin. Is it cheap horror, filling the requirement for anyone who plonked down rental money? Sure. But this movie was on its' way to actually being something better. So this is our first sign that, when push comes to shove, the movie would rather take the easy way out. Of course, the point with this sequence seems to be dream-related and movies are infamously hackneyed when it comes to dreams. So far, the waking life of this character has been a lot more promising and this director can handle actors very well. You'd be surprised sometimes how far acting can take a movie with the right camerawork and editing. Both of which this sequel can claim. Following Inferno prior to its' epic downfall, whatever street-wise cred the movie was aiming for is entirely washed away by the piercing-guy interrogation scene. In fact, the most amusing moment (in a scene driven by potential sexual innuendo) is when our immoral detective shoots the guy a "don't forget about me" wink. Oh sure, this looks like it's escalating when he then grabs him and throws him to the wall, prison-style, while the suspect seems to anticipate this to play out like a prison fantasy. But this guy's entire performance doesn't rise above TV quality. It's hard to complain since at least the movie has him shirtless and spouting a line as beautiful as, "are you going to frisk me or fuck me?" But, honestly, Norman Reedus got further with his shirtless tattoo hunk in ultra-straight John Carpenter's Masters of Horror offering, Cigarette Burns. For legendary horror homo Clive Barker (even though he didn't produce or write this directly), that's gotta sting a little. Although, to throw the ball back in Barker's court: Lord of Illusions was gayer. Try though it may, a cowboy crotch shot here is no match for glitter-spandexed performance artist Butterfield. What really pissed me off was that, for once with a sequel in this franchise, I was able to say that making changes to the formula was really working. Unlike in the last movie where changing Pinhead into a big bully who kidnaps kids to get toymakers to pimp-out his ride made him irrevocably laughable, choosing to delete him from the majority of this movie was the right thing to do. This of course seems to piss him off, and he returns with a vengeance. Even with the alien cheerleaders (seriously- this director had a real head on his shoulders, he should have known how stupid that was), this movie was really working. The lead (Craig Sheffer, whom you might recognize from Barker's Nightbreed) and the more important actors were doing a perfectly commendable job (it's just the minor supporting actors who suck- the ice cream vendor, tattoo guy, the girl playing Sheffer's daughter), I already mentioned the music, the style was fantastic, it was edited and shot well, and it suggested substance- which is amazing for a direct-to-video sequel). Then Pinhead comes back into the picture (we see him briefly after the aliens show up). With yet another new, re-scripted agenda. And this is where the movie comes to a GRINDING halt. Beginning with an utterly embarrassing 12 MINUTE (again, I kid you not) shakycam / CGI slideshow of dream / flashback images to which Sheffer's acting and the film's music score both come crumbling down to dust, Pinhead reveals his masterplan for this character. Oh, wait, that's not entirely accurate. I'm going to spoil it for you: Sheffer's character, Joseph, does it first. He rips off the face of the male alien that has been harrassing him in the freak visions that keep popping up everywhere to find that it's his face underneath. So... all this time that he's been chased by demons, the demon... was himself? It took 89 minutes for the movie to give us this. As well as solving the all-important mystery of the unidentified child who's severed fingers keep turning up at the murder scenes. Who is this child? That's him too. Do you see a pattern emerging here? That's okay, the movie will then beat it into you further by showing Pinhead standing inbetween fingerless-child Joseph and adult alien-bloodyfaced Joseph. An image so stupidly pretentious, I am honestly astounded I didn't projectile vomit instantaneously at the sight of it. Again, the role of Pinhead has been trivialized. But for what? Just to shoehorn him in there somewhere when this movie proved for over an hour that we didn't need him anyway! The remaining 10 minutes are an actual PARADE of further atrocities of pretentiousness: Joseph is strung-up on hooks as he screams " WHY?!" (and he's actually taking this movie seriously), Pinhead compares this situation to the game of chess we see Joseph playing in an earlier scene, insisting that Joseph willingly set this whole thing up himself (wait- than why is Pinhead even here again?) while also insisting this was all payment for the bad things he did over the course of the movie (and this without the benefit of any one-man S&M revelations), and ending with a series of nightmare-within-a-nightmare "it was all a nightmare" wake-up scenes. The movie spent over an hour laying the groundwork for an interesting (or stylish) internal struggle within this character as a buildup to this one scene- so full of bullshit that it actually says "no, everything you watched before this scene was bullshit." If you thought this movie was good before the last 22 minutes, this movie thinks you're an idiot. And proceeds to treat you like one. |
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Post by nopersonality on Aug 18, 2011 11:19:35 GMT -5
The Meat Grinders of Your Mind Hellraiser VI: Hellseeker(2002 / director: Rick Bota) ★½ Okay, so if you're not familiar with the Hellraiser franchise, let me find a way to get you up to speed: the first movie was about a married woman Julia who cheated on her husband Larry with his brother Frank. Frank was a freak who had strange sexual desires and went looking for The Lament Configuration (aka- Pinhead's puzzle box) to open it up and see what it would do. Turns out the box was a portal to hell and if you open it up, demons take you to hell's backrooms section to hang you on hooks and torture you in various ways, making you feel pain until you derive sexual pleasure from it. Frank somehow found a way to escape, Julia helped him get back his skin (which the demons tore off of him), and she kept him hidden in Larry's house. This endangered Larry's daughter Kirsty who stole the box and opened it herself. UH OH! That means she has to go to hell. But not if she could make a deal to show Pinhead and his Cenobite minions to the escaped Frank so they would take him instead of her. And at the end, it turns into a huge mess where the demons take Julia in addition to Frank and they try to take Kirsty as well but she makes a narrow escape. The house burns down, Kirsty runs away, and that's it. This is the origin of the Hellraiser logic. Now... throw it away for the sequel- Hellbound: Hellraiser II. That film starts when Kirsty is tossed into an asylum because the writer(s) of that film decided they wanted to have her being tormented by memories more complex than she really had and create a shitty sidestory about a mad sadist scientist and they had an idea to rip off Labyrinth and call it hell. They wanted us to see hell and more skin being ripped off and some new crazy inventions and demons- so they made Kirsty want to go to hell, convinced that her father didn't die but was carted off there to be with Julia and Frank. Guess what? We never see her father again- turns out he actually died. What a shocker! So, by the end, like with the first film- she just wants to get the fuck out of there and for all the demons to go away. Seems to me she could have just not opened the box and grieved over his death like a normal person. Now this is what is called deviating from the formula and it's absolutely one of the key examples of the wrong way to do it. Every one of those ideas are bad and the film as a result is a piece of crap (well, except for the return of Clare Higgins and another excellent performance from her). The next sequel, Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth, is the best sequel so far. It starts all over again with completely different characters (well, except for Kirsty in one short piece of new backstory that you might as well pretend wasn't even there) but the same idea for the story. The box exists independent of Kirsty, Frank, Julia, and Larry. It turns up in a city in the hands of another punk type character, no relation to anything we've seen before. The writer is attempting to expand upon what the box is and can do, or is remaking the idea itself for the purpose of just showing it happening again. Reminds me a lot of Friday the 13th, a franchise many of you know I admire for doing this same thing. It's a lightweight, meaningless sequel - like the next film in the series, Bloodline - that doesn't take itself too seriously and just wants to have fun. Some clearly unnecessary changes are made, of course, and they padded the movie with a lot of backstory and sidestory and dream drama that the movie would have been better without. But it's a small price to pay. So far, this is an example of keeping the formula the same but changing the characters and it's working. Hellraiser: Bloodline then comes along and, eventually, makes some utterly ridiculous and embarrassing changes the Pinhead character. This fourth sequel represents the turning point for the franchise, since the people in creative control have decided that any further sequels have to change Pinhead and his function in the story so much, that you can't recognize the movies anymore. This leads to two completely insane sequels: Inferno and Hellseeker. It's not the fact that Pinhead's role in the stories - which is in direct relation to his screentime - has been reduced that is the problem. The problem is that now he's been placed above the entire story, acting as a kind of guardian angel / puppet master pulling the strings of each "pro"tagonist and watching them dance in his overelaborate, preachy parables about bad men deluded into thinking they're still alive, on Earth, and in control of anything they believe is happening to them. That's right. With these new look-inside-yourself pontifications, Pinhead has transformed into a lousy, 5th-rate Hannibal Lecter (and don't forget that Hellraiser is Silence of the Lambs' senior by 4 years). I think it's a good idea to establish a few facts now. / Q: Where did these films go wrong? A: Everywhere. / Q: Is the franchise by this point beyond repair? A: No. Although it never should have become a franchise, each film has brought something good to the table. They just didn't know what to do with it. / Q: What does Hellseeker have to offer? A: Let's take a look right now. The film starts out with another retro techno-metal outfitting, very similar to Inferno. One important note on the music: lose the FUCKING cymbals! The opening scene is beautifully, naturally lit. With the camera right up in the actors' faces- making for a jarring introduction to our characters (one of whom we know from past Hellraisers). But this would be a good change for the series- to go with the flow, not act like it has something to prove. The acting sucks, except for Dean Winters as Trevor, this film's secretly evil (sure to be revealed by end of movie) protagonist, and Ashley Laurence, who makes her 4th appearence in the franchise. The movie's decision to bring back the Kirsty character wasn't a bad idea. However, it was unbelievably ill-advised to tie her in with a bunch of new morally bankrupt characters who are all annoying enough to get their own "I've been bad and I need to be taught a lesson" sequel. How are we supposed to believe she ever got mixed up with a group of people like this? Initially, every scene of hers just harps on this point. In the original film, she is shown to be a character of upstanding integrity and someone not easily pushed around. Here she enters a disastrous marriage with a man who cheats on her, gives her the puzzle box as a "gift" (apparently- he too is aware that it summons demons from hell), and threatens her life on their wedding anniversary. But really, this is more information than we know for the first 50 minutes at least. For half the movie, what we are treated to instead of another good-vs-bad game of wits is a guy-with-amnesia foray into shallow and bizarrely stupid (though, thankfully not obnoxious) attempts at mindfucking. With such amazingly compelling sights as a mute pierced biker with a boombox sitting menacingly on a bus and staring. Oh my GOD! It's SO BIZARRE! And (including, or with the exception of, the protagonist) the most boring and pointless set of characters you're likely to encounter in a movie this slick. (Actually, that's not fair considering all the remakes and movies of let's call it the Midnight Meat Train era). I can't tell what's more irritating - a CGI-heavy bit of stupidity involving a spit up eel ripping off Poltergeist II or the fact that a guy as BORING as this jackass actually has a home video labeled "Our Crazy Wedding." This guy doesn't do crazy. And neither does this movie. It's just incredible what little happens and how ridiculous that it takes so much time to get it done in. Pointless scene after pointless scene of people who have nothing interesting going on talking about things that don't mean a thing to us. Oh... but that's because this is a guy-with-amnesia story. All we need to know is wrapped up in the memories he most likely will never fully recover. When you have a movie with a bunch of scenes dealing with blocked-off story, the least these extra characters can do is provide us with something to keep us awake. Just throwing lazy stereotypes at us isn't enough. No, the movie needs something else to get by on. And it has an idea: sex! Surprisingly, it's the one element of Hellseeker which actually rises to the occasion and doesn't disappoint. I wasn't exaggerating when I said this guy is boring. He is a non-participant in the events of this film. Which actually makes him an ideal submissive in the film's S&M games (the one area of extreme where Inferno flaked, BIG time!). The less kinky of the three main sideshows here involves a very sexy neighbor in his apartment building who does a makeshift stripper dance and slowly tears the layers of her clothes off. Sounds kinda dull and flat, doesn't it? It isn't. This woman definitely knows how to work it. Even I was almost turned on. Prior to this, which all seems to be in his head, he's been having a wild fling with his skinny-bitch boss who offers him a promotion in exchange for some very rough sex. One scenario has her going at him from behind while pinning him in a hammerlock against a candy machine. Disturbing? He's smiling when he faces her afterward. The other has her proving what a ball-buster she can be by grinding her foot into his crotch. The sexuality of the movie seems cold and off-putting at first. But, I've learned a secret. Watch Dean Winters' mouth especially closely. He's trying to give an entirely serious, buttoned down performance but can't effectively hide the fact that he's either enjoying this or finds these scenes too funny to keep a straight face during. The more the movie experiments, the more interesting it is. Which is why it's disappointing that you have to actually turn off the audio in the scene where he finds his candy machine tryst was recorded and sent in a video to his computer. With the sound off, Winters gives an utterly hilarious physical performance. Too bad this is also cue for Pinhead to enter and give speeches. Which he does. About how much he enjoys creating alternate realities for his victims to explore and slowly lose their minds in. I don't know what any of this has to do with the original film's rub-the-box-and-go-to-hell plot, which is pretty much the whole reason for the box's existence. I wouldn't question a formula deviation under any other circumstances- but the movie doesn't try and invent a new story for the box or the Cenobites. So, if they operate under the same rules, why don't they perform the same tasks? Why not spoil this for you too: Winters ends up being hooked and chained just like Sheffer at the end of Inferno. This movie, like Inferno before it, remains hypocritical. You can't actually criticize a character for giving into desires and temptations, thereby qualifying them for the movie's torture prize, if they're not actually deriving any real pleasure from it. Especially in this movie where there's a jump scare, flash freakout, or guilty reflex reaction everytime he so much as sees a woman's bare breast. The idea that hell takes you after you touch the forbidden fruit doesn't make sense; you actually have to bite into it and taste it to have bought a fate cursing you to an eternity of pain. Pinhead and the Cenobites again come off like bullies poking this guy's open wounds. Sure, the ending does open the door on this guy's hidden demons- and it's a good excuse (unlike Inferno, which just pisses all over itself and the people trying to take it seriously). But, under the guise of potentially enjoyable mindfucks, the sequels have already begun being reduced to really bad moral lessons and that doesn't change here. It's too busy playing clever to be a real story. That coupled with the abundance of bad CGI and dozens upon dozens of awful images and pointless sequences thrown into the mix for no discernible reason- Hellseeker, like Bloodline, is another sequel that only works in short intervals. |
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Post by nopersonality on Aug 19, 2011 11:41:24 GMT -5
As If Hellraiser VII: Deader(2005 / director: Rick Bota) ½★ As you may or may not have noticed from my reviews thus far, the Hellraiser sequels have been getting progressively worse since the 90's ended. This is also a telling metaphor for the horror genre's decline. Hell on Earth and Bloodline are less serious, goofy sequels which were made during the endtimes of slapstick Terminator baddies like Freddy Krueger, the Tall Man, the Leprechaun, etc. Basically, the assembly line stopped for these movies (at the same time killing any chance Jack Frost or The Dentist had of becoming the new Chucky) and the whole genre shifted into ghost, Satanic, and internal-struggle horror after The Sixth Sense and The Blair Witch Project became big box office. Which is why Inferno and Hellseeker were not about Pinhead but rather about characters trying to solve a mystery while being haunted by memories and trapped between alternating realities. These weren't bad ideas. They were complex ideas that needed to be handled very carefully. Inferno tried admirably and failed, Hellseeker barely tried and failed most of the time. But after Hellraiser VII: Deader, I realize that I was a bit unfair with Inferno. You see... I meant it when I said it really had me until the extended, half-hour ending. That's a lot more than I can say for Hellseeker, which I was forced to give a half-star more because - though it's still pretty bad - its' small misdemeanors weren't as crushing as Inferno's one big crime. Technically, Hellseeker is a lesser film, but- you try watching them both and then tell me, when they're over and it's time to hand out the grade, which one's ending you liked better. Which one had you on its' side when the credits were rolling. Inferno and Deader have something essential in common: they're both posers. One film pretended to be something it wasn't and was almost believable (and Lord of Illusions comparisons only help to drive that home). The other couldn't be phonier if the crew of the film walked through the frame and waved at the camera. Deader (ha, ha - stupid title) arrived at the time when horror started being dominated by the Saw and Hostel formula. It's "about" a pissy, apathetic photo-journalist named Amy Klein who works for a pretentious, horny old windbag named Charles Richmond who has a stupid assignment he wants her to go on. It involves both of them watching an anonymous videotape of some faux-goth exhibitionists in a rundown warehouse in Romania trying to prove they can perform a miracle by recording one of them shooting themselves while the "cult"s leader - random European guy in white shirt and tan coat with long hair and earrings, so of course he's their messiah - brings them back to life. The footage they watch is ridiculously well-shot even though it's meant to be from a hand-operated camcorder. Faces appear clear in the shots, there are whip-pans to look at crows standing "meaningfully" in the background, and cutaways. Cutaways! That means this was edited by someone after it was shot to add dramatic impact. Dramatic impact means that it isn't meant to be realistic. However, Deader wants us to swallow that Amy and Charles are buying into this. Meaning- they believe it is realistic, reacting to it as though there weren't cutaways and pans to watch birds stand around. But there ARE cutaways and pans to birds standing around!! The movie is expecting us to ignore this but they've shown it to us anyway. Proving that we must now view these two characters as complete idiots. Not that the shit dialogue and stale performances don't do that on their own (though because the dialogue sucks so much, even if these are TV-trained actors, I won't hold that against them). Both the story and every human body we've seen are steeped in a mountain of cliches. Amy acts too-cool and high-above everyone she meets (this of course is very easy for her to get away with since she's white, thin, and every man we see tells us how much he wants to fuck her), and her entrance is fed to us by a cynical person who doesn't want people to get to know her first- he wants to tell them what to think (this of course is one area where I prefer show over tell). The cliche wagon doesn't stop there. I somehow forgot to mention in the Inferno review how much I fucking hate it when a movie tries to create a nifty title for a trend or figure they hope will intimidate the audience. It never leads to a plot device that actually works and it fucking reeks of Nightmare on Elm Street 4's re-write of "Now I lay me down to sleep" from "I pray the lord" to "the master of dreams" (and this is a complaint from a non-religious guy). In Inferno, it was "The Engineer." Here, as you may have guessed, it's "Deaders." / Q: Have you ever heard of The Engineer? A: Fuck you. / Q: Have you ever heard of "Deaders"? A: Have YOU ever heard of: no one but an idiot thinks you're clever? / Brain-Deader seems to describe this movie best. Now, how to describe the Deader movement we see profiled in the videotape they watch... Think of The Craft's circle of four meets one of those Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying groups- only with no sense of conviction. Which describes this movie perfectly. Amy takes the assignment, travels to Romania to learn more about Marla- the latest girl to join the Deaders "cult" and... well, here's where I explain why this movie gets a half star. The actress playing this character, Georgina Rylance, is the only cast member throughout the entire film who decides to try and act. To try as hard as she can to make us believe that she believes this. She's entirely successful in drumming up sincerity and a couple of her lines even have a chilling effect. Too bad for her though that once she vanishes (which she does several times throughout the movie), we're left with words from a story that ends up being worth nothing because it's impossible to believe. How perfect that the line "I know you don't think I have a pulse" should be uttered in any context by a "living" character in this movie- nobody but Marla registers as remotely human or demonic- including Doug Bradley as Pinhead, who should have freed himself from this franchise's shackles long before this point. Other things happen in the movie (we get flashbacks to Amy's father abusing or raping her, a little girl who has nothing to do with the "cult" acts weird in a mental hospital, we hop a train full of - as Jawbreaker called them - body art rejects waving at the camera while they get naked, make out, drink and do drugs, and Sting-lookalike Marc Warren flashes us his beautiful rear end). But unless you're moved by people who are little more than glorified Barbie dolls, G.I. Joe action figures, and Lego pieces - you won't care. Unless you are a rabid fan of Rylance, or a glutton for abject torture, there is absolutely no reason to watch this movie. |
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Post by nopersonality on Aug 20, 2011 9:41:04 GMT -5
Shallow Grave Hellraiser VIII: Hellworld(2005 / director: Rick Bota) ★ Well... finally, my suffering with this infernal franchise is over. But I still have to review this movie. What can I say; as usual, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that this sequel is a giant step above Deader- a movie so bad, I really wanted to draw blood (which may or may not have been the inspiration behind the violent fantasies I described yesterday in the "Last TV Show You Watched" thread). Compared to that, the bad news doesn't seem so bad. And it isn't. It's just, in all honesty, this sequel is dumb. Really, really, REALLY dumb. But, since Deader proved definitively that there are worse things than being dumb, I can't sit here and pretend that bothers me. This sequel barely has the wit to attempt to play around with morality and mindfucking. What it's really interested in is some very old-fashioned Friday the 13th / Nightmare on Elm Street (with a little bit of Saw's traps mixed in) slasher mayhem: if you're an especially annoying, horny, or over-the-top stereotype, expect Pinhead and his minions to slice and dice ya. That's all there is to it. Well, sorta... there's still some game playing going on. Extraordinarily, this film and me seem to share something in common: we're not very fond of the new-millennium. So this thing plugs up its' nose and plunges us backwards in the memory pool, rewinding horror trends to... oh, yeah... the 90's! Right off the bat, cheap religious imagery in a cheaply shot location with nuns takes me back to the days of Little Witches, Devil in the Flesh, True Crime (the 1995 Alicia Silverstone erotic thriller which shares a title with the Clint Eastwood flick), and on a more expensive, mainstream note- The Craft. But, that's just me. And it's just the opening scene. The next scene, taking place "Two Years Later" into the future, continues the parade of 90's plot references by introducing our characters as internet gamer-enthusiasts who can't get enough of their favorite childhood computer game... Hellworld. That's right, they know about everything - Pinhead, the puzzle box, the Cenobites - and they think it's all a game. Not just that- they make masks of them, wear Pinhead t-shirts, and strategize about the right way to finesse the online Lament Configuration open. In case you hadn't noticed, this couldn't be more Wes Craven's New Nightmare if it tried. Now that we know who we're dealing with, the plot must go on. This involves a double reference to Urban Legend and House on Haunted Hill '99 as the group of 20-somethings pile in the car (in a scene that cements the 90's influences by having the characters toss self-referential Scream-isms left and right, and muse about the lore of the game, ala- Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2) en route to an all-night "old dark house" party dedicated to indulging in the mythology of everything Hellworld while drinking, dancing, and screwing. Even the soundtrack screams 90's (which can only be a good thing). Though, unlike Scream, this movie wants to show you the sleaze you've come to expect in the genre (and its' even more soulless, boring, and unattractive here in reference to earlier films than it was during the exploitation sub-genre's heyday) and all the self-referencial dialogue just winds up being squirm-inducingly lame. Nothing here is fresh or even effective- it's just painfully predictable. So to keep it from dying, they try to liven the formula up with Saw's traps, revenge, and twist ending. Surprisingly, these things do wake you up and get your attention. But not because they're finally clever or made good use of in the story. Mostly because when you piece together what little the characters have to say about the "tragic event from their past that unites them," you have to stop the movie and say: "wait a minute..." The film's 2-part twist climax does stop for a moment to question the validity of Lance Henricksen's Jigsaw rip-off character. And, if you like the two characters you know are going to make it, there's even a happy ending in it for you. Of course, what this movie spends over an hour trying to accomplish, Bones did better in 5 minutes. |
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Post by nopersonality on Aug 21, 2011 5:13:10 GMT -5
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