Welcome to Negromancer, a ComicBookBin blog (www.comicbookbin.com). This is rebirth of the former movie review website as a movie review and movie news website and blog.
All images and text appearing on this blog are © copyright and/or trademark their respective owners.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Review: 1981 Version of "Halloween II" is a Worthy Sequel
Halloween II (1981)
Running time: 92 minutes (1 hour, 32 minutes)
MPAA - R
DIRECTOR: Rick Rosenthal
WRITERS/PRODUCERS: John Carpenter and Debra Hill
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Dean Cundey
EDITORS: Mark Goldblatt and Skip Schoolnik
COMPOSERS: John Carpenter and Alan Howarth
HORROR/THRILLER
Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, Charles Cyphers, Jeffrey Kramer, Lance Guest, Pamela Susan Shoop, Dick Warlock, Leo Rossi, Gloria Gifford, Tawny Moyer, Ana Alicia, and Ford Rainey
Halloween II, the sequel to the highly influential 1978 horror film, Halloween, picks up right where the original ended. In fact, Halloween II begins with footage from the first film that finds high school babysitter, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), and psychiatrist-with-a-gun, Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence), fighting off masked killer, Michael Myers.
Loomis shot Myers six times at the end of the first film, but Myers walked away from what should have been kill shots. After that recap (with some new footage mixed in), Laurie is hauled off to the local hospital, but Myers tracks her across town and enters the hospital, where he begins to kill off the hospital staff so that no one can be in his way when he moves in to kill Laurie. Meanwhile, Dr. Loomis is running into his own problems, as Michael’s murder spree from the first film has the entire state in an uproar, with the blame placed squarely on Loomis’ shoulders. Dr. Loomis also learns a hidden secret, which reveals that Laurie was Michael’s main target all along. Can he get to the hospital in time?
Although the screen credits for Halloween II list John Carpenter, who directed the first film, as strictly a co-writer and co-producer for the second film, Carpenter thought Halloween II director, Rick Rosenthal, had delivered a sequel that was too tame. Carpenter did three days of re-shoots for Halloween II and added the new scenes into the footage Rosenthal shot in order to make the final version of the sequel bloodier, and Halloween II certainly is. The body counts exceeds 10 (whereas there were only four onscreen killings in the first film), and the sequel certainly reflects the gory nature of 1980’s slasher films like the Friday the 13th franchise, although the original Halloween, which almost single-handed gave birth to the 80’s slasher craze, does not have an abnormally high body count.
Despite the bodies piling up, Halloween II has a superbly chilling atmosphere that will have goose flesh raised and the viewer cowering in his seat. The hospital, operating on a nighttime skeleton crew, is all dark rooms and shadowy corridors, which is perfect for the spooky sequences of Myers slowing stalking the hallways, his slow footsteps bringing him from one scene of bloody mayhem to the next. Rosenthal, who would later direct the 2002 installment of this franchise, Halloween: Resurrection, should probably get credit for creating this frightful ambiance. Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasance give good performances, in particularly Pleasance, who gives Dr. Loomis a droll sense of humor and a matter of fact attitude about his quest to stop Myers. However, this flick’s true stars are the darkened exteriors and interiors and the murderous wraith that stalks them. Halloween II may be inferior to the original film, but it’s not inferior by a whole lot.
7 of 10
A-
Friday, June 02, 2006
---------------------------
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Review: "The Howling" Still Has Bite
The Howling (1981)
Running time: 91 minutes (1 hour, 31 minutes)
MPAA – R
DIRECTOR: Joe Dante
WRITERS: John Sayles and Terence H. Winkless (from the novel by Gary Brandner)
PRODUCER: Daniel H. Blatt, Jack Conrad, Michael Finnell, and Steven A. Lane
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jim Hora
EDITOR: Mark Goldblatt and Joe Dante
COMPOSER: Pino Donaggio
HORROR/THRILLER/DRAMA/FANTASY
Starring: Dee Wallace, Patrick Macnee, Dennis Dugan, Christopher Stone, Belinda Balaski, Kevin McCarthy, John Carradine, Slim Pickens, Elisabeth Brooks, Robert Picardo, Margie Impert, Noble Willingham, James Murtaugh, Jim McKrell, Kenneth Tobey, Don McLeod, and Dick Miller
The subject of this movie review is The Howling, a 1981 werewolf movie from director Joe Dante. The film is loosely based on Gary Brandner’s 1977 novel of the same name. The film starred real-life husband and wife Dee Wallace and Christopher Stone, who were married from 1980 to Christopher Stone’s death in 1995.
One of the few great werewolf movies of the last quarter of the 20th Century is The Hollowing. Directed by Joe Dante, the film is part tongue-in-cheek and part tribute to B-movie horror, but to describe the film as merely cheeky or cheesy would be a disservice to a film that features some really great scary movie atmosphere and some fantastic monster makeup effects.
After a traumatic experience with a serial killer, TV news reporter, Karen White (Dee Wallace) and her husband, Bill Neill (Christopher Stone), move temporarily to a rustic California resort called The Colony, at the behest of the resort’s founder, Dr. George Waggner, who is Karen’s therapist. Once at the colony, both Karen and Bill dislike the kooky yokels. However, Bill starts to blend in after a comely and brazen young woman puts some moves on him. Karen is upset by this attention Bill is getting, but she is more worried by what she hears at night, right outside her window – the howling. Meanwhile, Karen’s colleagues, Terry Fisher (Belinda Balaski) and Christopher (Dennis Dugan), are getting closer to making a shocking connection between the serial killer who attacked Karen and The Colony.
The Howling for all its humorous edge is also quite intense. In fact, Dante directs the shrewdly and tightly (co-written script by John Sayles) in a straight fashion and with a straight face. Considering the subject matter, the viewer may take The Howling as a howler or as a riveting horror flick. It works quite well either way, plus, the film’s sexual edge is quite effective. The women in this film are by far the most interesting players. Dee Wallace and Belinda Balaski’s primary mode is either breathless wonder or wild-eye terror, and they do it so well.
The Howling’s best aspect is the monster costumes and special makeup effects; the werewolf transformation scenes are fascinating and mesmeric, each one a unique, mind-bending, imaginative showcase of the immense talents of Rob Bottin. Unfortunately for Bottin, his work was overshadowed by his mentor, Rick Baker, who won an Oscar for his make up work in 1981’s other werewolf movie, An American Werewolf in London. Bottin’s work, Dante’s directing, and the Sayles/Winkless script make this a must-see for horror movie fans.
8 of 10
A
April 6, 2005
----------------------------
Monday, October 29, 2012
"Ringu" a Gooseflesh Generator
Ringu (1998)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: Japanese
Running time: 96 minutes (1 hour, 36 minutes)
Not rated by the MPAA
DIRECTOR: Hideo Nakata
WRITER: Hiroshi Takahashi (from the novel by Kôji Suzuki)
PRODUCERS: Takashige Ichise, Shin'ya Kawai, and Takenori Sentô
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jun'ichirô Hayashi
EDITOR: Nobuyuki Takahashi
COMPOSER: Kenji Kawai
HORROR/MYSTERY with elements of a thriller
Starring: Nanako Matsushima, Hiroyuki Sanada, Rikiya Otaka, and Katsumi Muramatsu
The subject of this movie review is the 1998 Japanese horror film, Ring, which is better known under the title, Ringu. The film is directed by Hideo Nakata and is based upon Ring, a 1991 novel by Kôji Suzuki. Ringu was released in the United States and the United Kingdom in 2000.
In this film, there is an urban legend in Japan that if you watch a peculiar videotape, you will die a week later. After watching a mysterious videotape, a group of teenagers die gruesome deaths. One of the teenagers was the niece of reporter Reiko Asakawa (Nanako Matsushima), who had been trailing the urban legend of the cursed videotape for her newspaper. But her niece’s death troubles her and makes her believe that there may be some validity to the story. She tracks the tape to a mountain resort and watches it, and immediately after gets a phone call promising death in seven days. Reiko panics and fears for her life, so she calls on the help of her ex-husband Ryuji Takayama (Hiroyuki Sanada), who may actually already know something about the strange girl on the tape. Time becomes of the utmost purpose when the divorced couple’s young son, Yoichi (Rikiya Otaka), watches the tape, so they must uncover the secret of breaking the tape’s curse to save all their lives.
Ringu was the subject of a 2002 remake from DreamWorks Pictures called The Ring. Both films are based upon Kôji Suzuki novel, Ring (the first in a horror trilogy). Both films are similar, although Ringu is not as oblique as The Ring. Director Hideo Nakata drenches his films in deep and penetrating shadows, and haunting reflections suddenly appear dreamily in reflective surfaces when you least (but should) expect it. Even the daylight is filled with a sense of the haunted and the foreboding, and the most benign everyday sounds, such as a phone ringing, hints at evil. Nakata, more than Gore Verbinski did in his remake, creates the overwhelming suggestion that around every corner and just over one’s shoulder is doom and gruesome death.
Nakata’s best feat, however, may be in that he surrounds the cast with a sense of normal, everyday life. There is the illusion that everything is normal, and that what goes on every day happens this very day. But just beneath the normalcy is another real world of horror and creeping evil. That’s the scariest kind of horror of all.
8 of 10
A
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Review: "28 Weeks Later" Surpasses First Film
28 Weeks Later (2007)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: UK/Spain
Running time: 100 minutes (1 hour, 40 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong violence and gore, language, and some sexuality/nudity
DIRECTOR: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
WRITERS: Enrique López Lavigne, Rowan Joffe, and Juan Carlos Fresnadillo & Jesús Olmo
PRODUCERS: Andrew Macdonald, Allon Reich, and Enrique López-Lavigne
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Enrique Chediak (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: Chris Gill
COMPOSER: John Murphy
HORROR/SCI-FI/ACTION/THRILLER
Starring: Catherine McCormack, Robert Carlyle, Jeremy Renner, Harold Perrineau, Imogen Poots, Mackintosh Muggleton, Rose Byrne, and Idris Elba
28 Weeks Later is a 2007 British horror film and sequel to the 2002 film, 28 Days Later… (released in the U.S. in 2003). Danny Boyle and Alex Garland, the director and writer of the original film, respectively, are this movie’s two executive producers.
While watching the British post-apocalyptic horror flick, 28 Weeks Later, one can’t help but understand that this brilliantly imagined film is speaking directly to its audience, here and now. The messages are writ large across the screen – everything from the foolishness of military occupations as a stopgap against the inevitable to the horrors that the careless manipulation of the environment can bring. It’s as if director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and his screenwriters made a gumbo out of the mental horrors of Edgar Allen Poe, George Romero, and George W. Bush.
28 Weeks Later opens six months after the events depicted in the first movie. American military forces have secured District One, an isolated section of London, where the survivors of the rage virus outbreak can repopulate and start again. Not everything goes as planned. The rage virus continues to live and is waiting to be spread again and finds its carrier in an English nuclear family.
What I like about 28 Weeks Later is that Juan Carlos Fresnadillo is unapologetic in composing a brutally gory horror flick. 28 Days Later… started off as a right vicious cheesy horror flick; then, it bogged own in a morality play/test of wills between a mad military type and desperate peaceniks. Both sides were wrong, and their little message theatre cooled off the infection-fed fever that was 28 Days Later… the first half. 28 Days Later… might make you think the horror genre and message movie couldn’t really go together.
Silly rabbit, great horror speaks to our deepest fears and anxieties – past, present, and future. Like George Romero, whose Night of the Living Dead and The Crazies influenced 28 Days Later…, Fresnadillo understands that a horror movie can essentially be a message movie without every trying to be obviously socio-political. The filmmakers can do this by creating scenes in which characters argue and debate their circumstances both in an intimate and in a larger context).
28 Weeks Later is swift, vicious, and smart. The script is grimly imaginative in creating deadly peril for its cast, and never letting the audience off the hook. Both biting and timely, the film says that the “rage” infection ain’t going away (which means a seemingly endless supply of infected/zombies) because the very structure of our society – a collective that can be both parasitic and symbiotic – is the perfect moist nesting ground for the disease.
Six months after the rage virus annihilated the British Isles, the U.S. Army declares that they have won and that rebuilding can begin. The blindness of the American forces to the reality of their environment mirrors current realities. Maybe, some of these fictional military types believe that being part of a hyper-power: with all its fire power, know-how, and cutting-edge technology, means that they can shape reality, but death on two, swift, rage-infected legs says otherwise.
8 of 10
A
Saturday, October 13, 2012
------------------------------
Review: "28 Days Later" is Just Short of Being Great
28 Days Later (2002)
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: United Kingdom
(U.S. release: June 2003)
Running time: 113 minutes (1 hour, 53 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong violence and gore, language and nudity
DIRECTOR: Danny Boyle
WRITER: Alex Garland
PRODUCER: Andrew Macdonald
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Anthony Dod Mantle
EDITOR: Chris Gill
COMPOSER: John Murphy
HORROR/SCI-FI/DRAMA
Starring: Cillian Murphy, Naomi Harris, Brendan Gleeson, Megan Burns, Noah Huntley, and Christopher Eccleston
What if the Danny Boyle, the director of the sublime Trainspotting and The Beach (hey, I really like that movie), decided to make a zombie movie? If you’re like me, you were excited the first time you heard about this project. Well, we got it…sort of. Released in the United Kingdom in 2002, 28 Days Later was a big hit, but we had to wait until the summer of 2003 before Americans saw it. It’s not quite the zombie gore fest that I expected, but it’s a very creepy post-apocalyptic drama.
A group of do-gooder animal rights activists (the road to Hell…) break into an animal research facility with a lab full of monkeys that are, a captured scientist tells them, “infected with rage.” An infected monkey attacks one of the activists and unleashes an epidemic that destroys the U.K. Whenever a human is exposed to even one drop of blood or saliva from the infected, he becomes locked into a permanent state of murderous rage. In 28 days, Great Britain is a dead civilization.
On the 28th day, bike courier Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes from a coma he suffered after a car hit him and finds himself in a completely empty hospital. Not long after that he runs into group of infected humans, now murderous “zombies.” These “rage” creatures aren’t like the traditional foot-shuffling zombies we’ve come to love, especially in George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and its sequels. They’ll chase a healthy human down with the speed of a track star and the single-minded zeal of a crackhead. Jim meets a handful of survivors including tough girl Selena (Naomi Harris) and father-daughter team Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and Hannah (Megan Burns). Jim and a few of the survivors eventually end up at a military compound where they discover that their most desperate struggle for survival might not be against the ghouls.
28 Days Later taps into two of post-9/11 biggest worries, the threat of terrorism and lethal contagion. Arriving in America on the heels of the SARS scare, the film has dreary and sort of dreadful sense of realism. I found the “rage” disease and the speedy, raspy, blood-vomited monsters a bit farfetched (but still scary), so the entire horror genre angle of the film was mildly retarded; it simply just didn’t have the blow-to-the-gut immediacy and terror of something like Day of the Dead. The scariest thing about this film is the idea of how much harm humanity can do itself. The most potent violence in this film is simple man vs. man bloodletting, be it from sudden bloodlust or from cold, calculated murder.
If the characters appear thin, it’s because of the weight of their troubles. The audience is more focused on the both the film’s setting and concept than the characters. Besides, in a horror movie, characters of depth are largely a waste since the sole reason of characters in horror movies is to be acted upon violently. Still, I like what I saw. Brendan Gleeson always brings a strong dramatic presence to any film in which he appears. He’s the solid, archetypical father figure struggling to save his charges from the chaos of a mad world. I like Cillian Murphy’s gangly Jim, but it’s a bit hard to buy him as a hero. However, he works as a believable everyman who shows up out of the blue; at least one of that kind survives every the apocalypse in a post-apocalypse film. I really dug Naomi Harris’s Selena; she’s a warrior and the best genre heroine since The Matrix’s Trinity.
It would have been simpler just to make a cool-looking MTV-style zombie movie, but Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland went and got all-artful on us. In the film, the threat of a sudden and bloody-vicious zombie attack is a quite palatable fear that you can feel in your soul, but genre considerations apparently had to give way to a bit of social commentary. The film speaks with a lot of hopelessness concerning the state of human affairs with just enough of hopeful resolution to make it a Hollywood ending. I have mixed feelings about this film, mostly because I didn’t get what I wanted.
Still, I can’t get the ominous and grainy images of 28 Days Later out of my head. Boyle shot the film on digital video reportedly for budgetary reasons; if this is true (others say the choice was artistic), it is a happy accident for sure. The “docu-realism” look of the film will make it a memorable movie about the end of the world, as we know it.
6 of 10
B
-------------------------------
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Berserk: The Golden Age Arc 1 Debuts on Neon Alley
First Installment Of Anime Feature Film Trilogy About A Young Medieval Mercenary Premieres On New 24-Hour Anime Channel
Don’t miss the visceral clash of arms and armor as VIZ Media premieres BERSERK: THE GOLDEN AGE ARC I – THE EGG OF THE KING exclusively on Neon Alley this Sunday, October 28th at 8:00pm EST / 5:00pm PST. The highly anticipated anime film repeats at 12:00am EST / 8:00pm PST, and will air again throughout the week.
Neon Alley is VIZ Media’s new 24-hour anime channel featuring the world’s best titles (dubbed in English and uncut). For a limited time only, the subscription-based service is offering a one-week free trial, available for fans who sign up at NeonAlley.com.
Combining a foreboding medieval European-inspired setting with fantasy and exquisitely detailed swordsmanship, BERSERK: THE GOLDEN AGE ARC I – THE EGG OF THE KING follows lone mercenary, Guts, as he travels a land where a hundred-year-old war is taking place. His ferocity and ability to kill enemies attracts the attention of Griffith, leader of the mercenary group “The Band of the Hawk,” and Guts is recruited to the unit. Thanks to their continued victories on the battlefield, the bond between Guts and Griffith deepens, but despite all their success, Guts begins to question his reasons for fighting for Griffith’s dream. Unknown to Guts, this unyielding dream is about to bestow a horrible fate on them both.
BERSERK: THE Golden Age Arc film trilogy was produced in Japan by Studio 4ºC and is based on the bestselling medieval dark fantasy manga (graphic novel) series created by Kentaro Miura.
For more information on the BERSERK: THE GOLDEN AGE ARC film trilogy, please visit the official Facebook page at: www.facebook.com/BerserkFilm.
For more information on Neon Alley and to register for updates, please visit NeonAlley.com.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)