Mini-Review - Gyo: Tokyo Fish Attack (2012 - Dir. Takayuki Hirao)

Due to the time pressures of not having been too well recently and trying to get more painting done to start a new art career, I've been struggling to get many reviews written. So what I've decided is that I'll write longer reviews for really good (or bad) films and for the more average of offerings, I will do a little mini-review. Here we go then with my first. Gyo: Tokyo Fish Attack.

It all starts off as pretty bonkers, yet entertaining, with scenes of fish walking on metallic legs attacking people left, right and centre and even a cheeky threesome (fish not included).

Then, at about the halfway point, the fish creatures are replaced by human creatures and the whole thing - whilst continuing the bonkers theme - falls apart into a turgid mess. A disappointment after the promising first half.

2/10

evlkeith

Review - Robot Wars (1993 - Dir. Albert Band)

(Many apologies for the lack of posts recently but I haven't been that well. It's even a bit of a struggle writing this. With luck I'll be able to get round to writing a review of the excellent Wolf Children soon too.) 

I thought that Barbara Crampton could provide us with the first major shock of the FA Cup of Actors. After Émilie Dequenne failed to make the most of her goalmouth chances in The Girl on the Train (only receiving a rating of 6/10), I thought that Crampy could sneak in a cheeky little last minute winner with Robot Wars. Robots fighting. Great stuff. And as long as it didn't turn out like the underwhelming BBC series of the same name, where the flamethrower and chainsaw attachments never really amounted to much, how could it go wrong?

Pacific Rim went for a similar formula of robots fighting monsters and the fights were pretty great. It was the completely useless story that the fights hung off that let the whole film down. Well in Robot Wars, there's a similarly useless story, but sadly, the fights are virtually non-existent.

The Earth has had a bit of a bad time due to the toxic gas scare of 1993 (must have been that jar of curried pickled eggs I had from the Abbey Friar). The survivors are at war with a rebel faction called the Centros who want to resurrect a hidden mega robot. Luckily they've got their own mega robot in the form of a mechanised scorpion complete with nippy little pincer things. Drake, (Don Michael Paul - sounds like his parents couldn't make up their minds on his first name so they gave him three) a mega robot pilot, teams up with archaeologist Leda (Barbara Crampton) to thwart those pesky Centros. And no, there's not a hint of Lara Croft style costumery.

Yep, the plot's rubbish but it's the fights that are unforgivable. The first battle consists of close ups of the scorpion mega robot loping along, occasionally shooting, and a tank that, again, occasionally shoots. This goes on for ages. There is never a sniff of a wide shot to show any kind of manoeuvring. The whole thing feels like the scorpion and the tank are in two completely separate locations (which they are) and as a viewer I felt completely removed from the supposed action. (To simulate this battle just stare at the first photo below for five seconds then look at the next. Then repeat. For added fun, make a few shooty noises.)

The second (and final) battle isn't much better. At least this time the two protagonists share the screen for a bit of what can best be described as wriggling. It's pathetic. Without great fights there's nothing else going on that's worth your time.

I know that Barbara Crampton isn't known for her stunning performances in art films, yet her films are generally enjoyable (apart from the dire You're Next). The best you can say about her performance here is that it at least paid for a few jars of industrial size Marmite. (It's ironic that Crampy knocked out Joan Fontaine in the last round who suffered from the same phoned in performance in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.) Given that, she's easily the best aspect of this sorry mess. (Apart from the fact that it only lasts 71 minutes.)

I wasn't expecting much from a Charles Band production but when one of the highlights is a Puppet Master joke you know things are getting desperate. So sorry, Barbara you haven't managed to knock out the odds-on favourite in a startling giant-killing fashion. Dequenne, you're through to the semi-finals.
2/10
evlkeith

If you like this you could also try:
Pacific Rim, Robot Jox.

Review - 7 Days (2010 - Dir. Daniel Grou)

After making a resolution through watching the likes of Martyrs, Them and Eden Lake to avoid nasty, ‘real’ horror films, I found myself suckered into watching 7 Days. The cover looks like the standard Japanese ghost story and I honestly thought that was what I was about to experience. Usually not reading the blurb is a positive move, however in this case it was possibly a mistake, because 7 Days is one of the worst examples of the ‘nasty & real horror’ genre. And just like Martyrs, Frontiers and Switchblade Romance it’s French! At the risk of upsetting yet another nation; What’s wrong with these people? Lighten up a bit! (Cheers. That's all of our French readers gone. And for an alternative view on Martyrs, click here - evlkeith)

If you need a heart warming and uplifting experience this is possibly not your best film choice and there’s a big spoiler in the following paragraph. When Dr. Bruno Hamel’s (Claude Legault) daughter is abducted, abused and murdered, the good doctor manages to kidnap the perpetrator and then torture him for seven days. End of story. He uses all that medical training to good effect, but ultimately there are few other positive aspects.

It does have its interesting points however, as we can all empathise with his extreme pain, and on a reptilian level, his actions. But it’s unnerving how the nation seems to support his actions on TV, how the officer in charge (Remy Girard) empathises so deeply and how the public aid his escape. I’m guessing this may be very true to life under the circumstances. The film asks you if revenge is ever justified? But leaves you in a depressing grey area clouded by instinct, grief and doubt. Let’s just say it does its job, but it's extremely disturbing viewing. 

In many ways a good film, but without the sense of hope that I need to propel me through the darkness. Not something I enjoyed and not something I’ll watch again, but it challenges your beliefs and attitudes to retribution in a brutal fashion. Not one for Grandma and best avoided if you have a weak stomach.

2/10
Doccortex

If you like this you could also try:
The Horseman, Big Bad Wolves.

Review - Rat Man (1988 - Dir. Giuliano Carnimeo (as Anthony Ascot))

Here we go then with David Warbeck's effort in his first round replay against Radha Mitchell. The title didn't really inspire me but I thought that Rat Man may contain some entertainment value in terms of sheer stupidity. Added to that it was written by Dardano Sacchetti so it could feasibly be okay.

Rat Man just cements my feeling that Dardano Sacchetti and Lucio Fulci did their best work together. Apart, well this is the kind of abomination we get. (Fulci can't claim to have done any better on his own, see Zombie Flesh Eaters 2 for evidence.) At least Rat Man has some semblance of a story. Well, vaguely anyway.

A mad scientist fellow decides it would be in the best interests of society if he could cross a rat with a monkey. Amazingly enough, especially with the film's title, he succeeds. He is so pleased with himself he thinks that he may possibly get a Nobel prize. What for? For creating a creature that lives in sewers and shows its backside to passersby? Mmm, maybe. The titular Rat Man escapes from his minuscule cage and goes on a rampage of scratching. (In a bid to further increase his chances of gaining the Nobel prize the scientist gave Ratty poisonous claws. Great.) Fred Williams (David Warbeck) and Terry (another one of Fulci's chums, Janet Agren) are on a search for Terry's model sister who is busy working with a photographer. In Ratty's stomping ground. Or should that be Ratty's pattering ground?

This is a bad film. Not quite up there with the aforementioned Zombie Flesh Eaters 2, but still, it's very bad. Obviously this is an exploitation film. It has gratuitous nudity and also the use of one of the world's shortest men, Nelson De La Rosa, who later went on to work with Marlon Brando in The Island of Dr. Moreau, possibly inspiring the character of Mini-Me. He plays the title role, replete with savage looking rat teeth. But despite being an expoilationer, it's not particularly funny. In general, it's dull. It follows the pattern of a character going off on their own, then getting clawed and severely deaded. Repeat until asleep.

David Warbeck does nothing to improve the proceedings. In his defence, he doesn't get masses of screen time. We spend most of our precious time with Terry's sister, Monique and her photographer chum. It's similar to Rutger Hauer's role in Hemoglobin. Do the job. Get Paid. Go home. Forget it. It doesn't look like a phoned in performance. More like it's been texted.

Any gore? After all it's only just been released uncut by Shameless. Not really. I only watched it yesterday and I can't remember anything that should have troubled the censors. 

It's not really a disappointing film because I wasn't expecting that much. But due to the lack of fun I found it a completely tiring experience. I can't see Warbeck recovering from this. It seems as though he's just given Mitchell a free pass to the next round.
2/10
evlkeith

If you like this you could also try:
Pieces, Willard.

Feature - You're Next (2011 - Dir. Adam Wingard) vs. The Innkeepers (2011 - Dir. Ti West)

I've seen both You're Next and The Innkeepers recently and seeing as though there seems to be some kind of friendly connection between the directors, (they both directed segments of the dire V/H/S and Ti West actually appears in You're Next) I decided to pit them against each other.

Both films suffer from some failings of current (and past) horror films: a reliance on loud noises for scares, characters who split up and go into dark rooms armed only with a torch, and worst of all not being horrific or scary in the slightest. Now let's get to the differences.

You're Next bucks the trend of having a heroine who starts off weak and then increases in strength throughout the film. Erin (Sharni Vinson from Home and Away) is a different character altogether. She goes to a dinner party with her partner Crispian at his family's home. They have a bit of snap accompanied by some not too pleasant chat - Crispian gets accused of baby-snatching by his brother - and then the film turns into a house under siege type affair as the family gets attacked by blokes in white animal masks. 

Erin is a strong character right from the off. Problems are thrown her way and she just sorts them with ruthless efficiency. Normally I would be applauding the use of a strong female character (let's face facts, Hollywood seems to have forgotten all about them in Prometheus and Gravity) but here she's too strong, almost to the point of being super powered. It's as if kryptonite didn't exist in the Superman universe. I never felt that she was in any danger. It's more along the lines of Rorschach being sent to prison in Watchmen (and indeed Daredevil in The Devil, Inside and Out), he's not in prison with them, they're in prison with him. In those examples, it's completely cool, but here it kills any tension and destroys any chance of this being scary in the slightest. (It doesn't help matters either that the other female characters run around screaming at every single minor thing that happens.)

Two other problems I have with You're Next are the colour palette and the severe lack of gore. This has to be one of the most beige films going. Hearing the director talking to the colour grader must have been a thrill-a-minute, "No, that's way too much colour. I can actually see a blue pixel there. Make it more beige. Ah, that's better. Nice and bland." Then the gore: it feels more like a slasher from the eighties where severe censorship was rife. It looks like it's been cut badly and that somewhere out there is a director's cut that has all of the juicy violence reinstated. I doubt this is the case though.

The Innkeepers suffers massively from the stupid characters syndrome also but it gets away with it due to a fantastically likeable performance from Sara Paxton (a distant relation to Bill Paxton). Her reactions to scary occurrences are priceless and had me chuckling away at the sheer quirkiness of it all. It distracted me from the low quality of the actual scares. 

Claire (Sara Paxton) works at a soon to be abandoned hotel with her friend Luke (Pat Healy) and they are trying to investigate stories of a ghost that supposedly roams the hotel for Luke's new website. Funnily enough, spooky things start to happen. 

Ti West's film suffers from the same thing as his previous film The House of the Devil: a great central performance that has the viewer caring for the main character, a fantastic slow build up that lasts for the majority of the film, and then a useless ending that is over way too quick. In the finale things start to kick off, there's a bit of running around (with the obligatory torch) and then she hits a problem. One problem. That's your lot. She doesn't overcome successively difficult trials to reach a thrilling climax. No. Just the one. If Ti West can put together a slow burning start with a meaty ending he may be able to produce a cracking film. As it is...

If I had to sum up You're Next in one word it would be 'smug'. There is a pervasive sense of smugness to the whole production. Whereas, the word I would use for The Innkeepers would be 'charming'. Shame about the ending which badly cripples the overall rating but I would still watch it again. Anyway, let's see the final score for these two horror offerings.

You're Next - 2/10
The Innkeepers - 5/10

evlkeith

If you like these you could also try:
A Horrible Way to Die, The House of the Devil.

Review - Hemoglobin (1997 - Dir. Peter Svatek)

Jennifer Connelly managed an average 5/10 in her first round match with Inventing the Abbotts. Now it's time for Rutger Hauer to hit back with full force.

After the first ten minutes or so of Hemoglobin (originally titled Bleeders) things seemed to be going quite well. The screenplay was written by Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett (of Alien fame) plus Charles Adair (of nothing else that has granted him any fame whatsoever). It's loosely based on H.P. Lovecraft's "The Lurking Fear", so that's another positive in its favour. What's more, it starts off with a little tale of narcissism where a lady has a dalliance with her twin brother because it's the closest she can get to having some 'How is your Father' with herself. This is taken to the logical conclusion with the inclusion of a character who just so happens to be an hermaphrodite. Topical stuff indeed in this celebrity selfie obsessed culture who would love nothing more than doing rudies with themselves because they're so great. 

You can probably sense that things go wrong with Hemoglobin. And they do. The main story revolves around a pale bloke called John Strauss (Roy Dupuis) who has a rare blood disease. His wife Kathleen (Kristin Lehman) and a disgraced Doctor (Rutger Hauer) are helping him to find a cure. Yet this is another of those films that I can't remember much about it despite only seeing it last night. This goes to show that the characters aren't up to much. Rutger Hauer was obviously just in need a pay cheque and knocked this off without any effort (as he occasionally does, but the poor fella has to eat.) Sadly there aren't any memorable Hauer moments, which is a shame seeing as though that's the only reason I got this.

There are some memorable moments though. One lady has a haircut that only be described as a monstrous grey helmet. It is so fake and so huge and so full of mullet that I couldn't help thinking that it was hiding some special effect creature head type thing that would be revealed later in the film. Yet no. It's just a bad wig. Or - and my sympathies go out to the lady if this true - it's just a bad haircut. (Unfortunately I can't find a photo to show you the helmet in all its glory but if you have a look at 9:30 on this little clip you're in for a treat. And it's in German too.)

On the subject of special effects, they're not too bad. But the creature design is. Despite their passable appearance in photo form the monsters are laughable on screen looking like mutated versions of Yoda crossed with Frank Sidebottom. Saying that, they become quite creepy when seem from a distance en masse. 

The music is quite effective in the early stages and coupled with the cinematography it gives Hemoglobin the feel of Dead & Buried (another Dan O'Bannon/ Ronald Shusett script and also one of my favourite film posters). Apart from that there's not much else. (Oh, apart from the ridiculously thin moustache that Hauer has groomed.)

I hope Rutger Hauer managed to buy himself a couple of Pek and lamb fat sarnies from the proceeds of this film, then at least someone will have got some pleasure from this tedious offering.
2/10
evlkeith

At the end of that not so tense encounter Jennifer Connelly goes through to the next round of the FA Cup of Actors and poor old Rutger is out. She now faces Marc Singer in the quarter finals. Surely she has to be the favourite in that match. Oh well, we'll see...

If you like this you could also try:
Necronomicon, Dagon.

Review - Night of the Living Dead 3D: Re-Animation (2012 - Dir. Jeff Broadstreet)

Jeffrey Combs faces Marc Singer in this first round match of the FA Cup of Actors and it's got the potential of having a scoreline that your average football match could have. (I'll tell you now that Singer's entry isn't looking promising.) Anyway let's see what Jeffrey Combs is like in a goalmouth scramble.

I thought I'd escaped these pesky undead shamblers for a while after last year's Year of the Dead season. But no. Up comes this abomination as Combs' entry. The DVD came with two pairs of 3D glasses, not the posh new ones that would mean I'd need to fork out a fortune on a new telly but the old red and blue ones. I thought - in my stupidity - that the 3D aspect, plus the presence of Jeffrey Combs, would at least make it fun. 

I gave up on the glasses after about fifteen minutes. The 3D isn't even as good as Friday the 13th Part 3 and it started to make my head hurt. Suffice to say all of the usual 3D fun and games is present; things are thrust at the camera with stunning regularity and predictability. The other downside of the process is that the colours look very murky and brown. It makes a dour experience even worse.

The first half of the film pretty much involves people chatting, normally in pairs. Establishing shots, then close-ups of the two actors abound. For ages. And ages. It wouldn't be so bad if what they were talking about was interesting. It's not.

I suppose I better get round to the plot. Gerald Tovar (Andrew Divoff, from the low quality Wishmaster) runs a mortuary. But - and I can't believe I'm back to writing this so soon - the dead come back to life and some flesh munching ensues. Along comes Gerald's brother, Harold (Jeffrey Combs) who is in debt and needs some cash desperately. As you would in these situations, he comes up with an organ harvesting idea. Throw in a scene of necrophilia - probably written by a thirteen year old lad - and you're in for a classy experience.

It's all quite embarrassing really. The acting is pretty dire all round and makes this look immensely cheap. Despite that I found Divoff easier to watch than Combs, which surprised me a fair bit. Combs hams it up so much I half expected him to launch into a rendition of "Munch, munch, I want my lunch. Tea and breakfast too." (Many apologies for the highly obscure Porky Pig reference.) The worst offender in the acting stakes has to be Sarah Lieving. She wanders round - or even just stands - with the strangest baffled expression on her face. It looks like she's been given Xylazine just to get her through the whole sorry mess.

The effects are also poor. Surely one of the points of a zombie film is to see some poor hapless fellow have his head blown off with a shotgun. It's not that tricky. Make a fake body and head filled with all manner of loveliness. Add a blood pump or two. Then blow the head off. Gorgeous. Nope, not here. Rubbish CGI abounds. Saying that, the make-up effects on the zombies are not too bad. Standard issue, but professionally done.

There is one positive to this debacle. A scene that crops up about halfway through takes place in the crematorium and it is pretty atmospheric. You can almost smell the stench of rotting flesh - though sadly, this isn't helped by the overuse of buzzing fly sound effects. The points in the final rating all come from this one scene. Don't be fooled though, it really isn't worth the price of admission.

So my return to my rotting chums hasn't been the happy family reunion that it could have been. I was hoping for something along the lines of Dagon to come up as Jeffrey's entry but I suppose I've got to take whatever the random film generator throws at me. Now, you'd think from the rating that Combs is well out of the FA Cup. Just wait for Singer's entry and we'll see.
2/10
evlkeith

If you like this you could also try:
Having a look at any of the good entries from the Year of the Dead season.