Shutter Island (2010)

After an extended sabbatical I have returned, and I'm broadening my reviews to whatever the hell I feel like writing about. I'm not making any promises as to the frequency of my blogging, but I do promise everything will remain horror related, cynical, biased and offensive.


It feels like blasphemy to even insinuate that Scorsese directed a bad movie. As usual, I'm taking it a step further.

"Shutter Island" was such an atrocious, ridiculously predictable, un-thrilling piece of shit, I wish I could erase it from my memory just to go back to idolizing Scorsese the way I did but 24 short hours ago.

"Shitty Island,"...ahem, excuse me, "Shutter Island," stars Leonardo Di Caprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley and about a dozen other actors who you instantly recognize, but spend the rest of the movie trying to figure out where from, exactly. Don't get me wrong, this was my sole source of entertainment for the first two excruciating hours of this movie. It begins with two U.S. Marshals (Leo Di Caprio, Mark Ruffalo) who travel to an excluded island whose only occupants are patients of an institution for the criminally insane, and their staff of doctors and nurses. The supposed purpose of their visit is to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a potentially dangerous female patient. As soon as the Marshals arrive, it's obvious that the staff is determined to be less than cooperative, and the conspiracy begins.

There were endless problems with this movie, a few of which I feel the need to touch on. First off, Shutter Island was so overly riddled with hellish dreams, hellish flashbacks and... need I say it?... hellish hallucinations, one can only assume the purpose of these would be to distract the viewer from the predictable plot and sub par performances from a fairly well-esteemed cast. And when I say predictable, I mean it took a butt load of self control not to start yelling at the characters...er...character (Teddy Daniels played by Leonardo Di Caprio) halfway through the film, not only to release some pent-up frustration, but with the hope of shedding some light on something people call "common sense."

In conclusion, I feel like I should say something positive about this ridiculous excuse for a psychological thriller/crime drama/intelligent movie billed as a horror, but I'd be lying if I said anything other than that the best part of this movie was the trailer for the Iron Man sequel.

I'm giving this movie a 4/10 because the setting was mildly creepy, and that's being generous.

"You Better Watch Out" (1980)

What is it about Christmas that brings out so much sexual frustration in the horror genre? And is it intentional? I like to think that it is, and the only way the industry knows to retaliate in the overtly wholesome winter wonderland created by mainstream media. I thought after Black Christmas holiday carols would never sound the same again, and you know what? I was right. They took on an eerie, unnatural quality. Now I guess I'll be looking at jolly Ol' Saint Nick in a whole new light. Or maybe I should say shadow-Ominous, child molesting shadow to be more exact.
"You Better Watch Out," was actually entitled "Christmas Evil" in the free movies section on my OnDemand. I'm not really sure why this is, or why movies change titles in any case, I'm assuming for most it has something to do with copyright infringement which I know nothing about and have no desire to google at the moment. With this B-rated flick however I have my doubts, partly because both titles have different release dates. I'm thinking this movie did so unbelievably bad with it's first release that someone decided to re-release it with a different title hoping to trick all us avid horror movie watchers into thinking it was not in fact the 100 minute douche-chill generator we would most likely remember from years earlier, which is unfortunate because it's actually quite watchable regardless the name. The fact that every poster I've seen for this movie is illustrated doesn't do much to sway my thinking that there was/is some intentional deception tied to the marketing of this film. Never the less, it made it's way into my living room as so many abominable slashers do, and just in time for Christmas, too. Aren't you the lucky bloggers.
Ok, so I'll get to the summary. Whatever this movie may be called it begins with a young boy, Harry, witnessing his mom and Santa fooling around one Christmas Eve. No, they didn't make a slasher based on a Jimmy Boyd song from the 50's, unless there's a version I haven't heard that goes "I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus... then brutally murdered four people thirty years later while delivering presents to handicapped children." Needless to say, Harry was more than a little affected by the scene being performed in front of the family Christmas tree when he was supposed to have been in bed... Or was he?
I realize I've given this movie a bit of a negative spin, and it's probably well-deserved. It's got some pretty corny acting and a pace slower than an ice cream truck passing a weight watchers meeting. However you might be surprised to hear that I, along with John Waters, in fact loved this movie. It's surprisingly complex and unpredictable, with no clear antagonist until the final scene of the movie, which also reveals a twist so unexpected for me I began to watch the movie again as soon as I had finished it. An all around pleasant surprise for someone sick to death of knowing how a horror film will end within the first 10 painful minutes. I would even go so far as to recommend this movie, only it would be better watched as a morbid and off-center indie flick instead of the bloody slasher it was billed as.

I would give this movie a 7.0/10, and am once again disappointed by the lower ratings of my fellow movie reviewers. I would have to agree with John Waters on this one, "(You Better Watch Out) is the best Christmas movie ever made."

Shivers (1975)

Hamlet once said "What is a man, if his chief good and market of his time be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more." To this I ask, what's so wrong with that? Hamlets' ability to reason didn't bring him anything but pain, suffering, and inevitable death. Maybe if someone had sat Hamlet down and had a little discussion regarding the phrase "ignorance is bliss" things would have turned out a little better for our tragic hero. Let it be known that if there is ever a parasitic outbreak in which everyone contaminated reverts to basic natural instincts, I will be the first to jump ship. Same goes for any sort of zombie outbreak. Or if frontal lobotomies someday become the norm. It's hard for me to understand what isn't appealing about the idea of being completely content with just eating, sleeping and fucking for the rest of your life. Sorry Shakespeare, but the ability to reason is overrated.

Now picture this: Two elderly women are taking a casual stroll outside their secluded apartment building, one carrying a light plastic parasol above them. Meanwhile, a tenant dozens of stories up struggles on his patio, clutching and tearing at his throat. He leans over his balcony to cough up a fist sized slug, which manages to land directly onto the protective covering of the unsuspecting seniors below, leaving an unmistakable streak of blood on the transparent umbrella. The eldest of the elderly friends naively deducts, as old people so often do, that a bird flew into a window some stories above, and the friends wander away, comforting each other as to fate of the poor, innocent bird. Intrigued? That's what I thought.

"Shivers" takes place entirely in an apartment building on an island off of Montreal. Describing it as "secluded" is a bit of an understatement; Not only are the apartments on their own island, they have their own dental and medical offices located in the building as well. If you were thinking this would be the perfect place for an insane doctor to perform illegal medical experiments on a 12 year old girl, you were right. It also happens to be the perfect setting for that girl to go alittle nuts herself, and screw every male who happened past the peephole in her fully furnished apartment, thus infecting half the building with a highly experimental and top secret parasite. The plot thickens when the highly intuitive doctor, upon realizing the true danger of his experiment but NOT realizing the extent of a 12 year old girls' promiscuity, kills himself and his patient, leaving nothing so much as a hint as to rid the rest of the buildings occupants of his evil creation.

I've seen my fair share of parasite movies, and I'm not easily impressed. Not to mention this is the first film of David Cronenbergs', and it was made in 1975. Need I say that my expectations for this film were a tad low? There is a great premise to this movie though, which I have already described above, and some pretty memorable scenes, like when one of the slug-parasite-things crawls out of a bathtub drain and directly into the... er... snatch... of an unsuspecting bather. Thanks Cronenberg, It'll be strictly showers for a month thanks to that scene. No slugs in the cooch for me. On top of that, you see nipple in almost every scene of this film. I swear to God there is an unwritten rule that no woman under the age of 35 is allowed to wear a bra and be in a horror film made between 1970 and 1982. But then some would argue that's the best part of decades old horror movies, and it wouldn't hurt any movie being made today to take that page out of the book of its' predecessors... I tend to find it more amusing than necessary.

There were some disappointments I must point out before I finish this review. One being that every creature from every alien/parasite/unnamed leech-slug movie looks exactly the same. Terrifying, but the same. I guess it's not really fair to criticize a movie that came before other parasite movies because it's parasite is predictable-looking, but I can (and will) criticize it for having the most horribly acted fight scenes I have ever seen. There was a scene where a woman is supposedly trying to fight off a man who is attempting to rape her, and even though she was holding a fucking meat fork during the entire attack, it looks more like she pulls him into a chair and tries to caress him for a few minutes before deciding to stab him in the neck. But then maybe rape is her thing, and who am I to judge?

I actually checked imdb for a rating before I wrote this blog, which is something I never do for fear of being influenced in my own rating. I was disappointed to see this movie rated at a 6.5, I would give it closer to a 7.5. But my readers should keep in mind that imdbs' user submitted ratings are not only open for any moron with an Internet connection to cast a vote, it is also on a scale of every movie ever made, whereas my rating system is based on horror movies specifically. You know, the good ones :)

Halloween

Oh, Yes I did.

It was a tough decision whether or not to review Halloween, especially with the infamous night so quickly approaching. Is it possible that I'm sabotaging myself by setting expectations too high? In case you haven't noticed, I'm a fan of the obscure. And there's a perfectly good reason for that; I simply like to expose unbiased minds to my opinions before they have formed their own. You can't really hate a review if you haven't seen the movie. I sort of trick you into thinking my reviews are thoughtful and original. Such will never be the case with a Halloween review however. Halloween is well known. Mainstream even, and if you don't believe me you haven't been paying close enough attention to your trick-or-treater's over the years. In writing this I am forced to assume anyone stumbling across this little blog has already seen and judged this movie, probably more than once, and will be judging my review much more harshly than the former. May Michael Myers stab you in your sleep. No, I'm just kidding, but to thwart all you haters I'm going to throw a few sequels into this review. I'm probably just weeding out all casual review-loving Halloween fans, allowing for some serious blog insult PWNage that only leet typing, porn downloading, inter-nerdy Halloween fanatics can hurl. Oh well, they can't all be winners.

This seems to be a recurring theme in my blog, but when I think Halloween I think gay sex. No I'm just kidding. Man what has gotten into me tonight? Too much candy corn and South Park maybe... ? Jamie Leigh Curtis is what I meant. I mean, why? Why Jamie, do you have the emotional range of a cucumber? Yeah you've got some lungs on you (take that any way you want), but in Halloween II you look down right anorexic. Didn't anyone tell you that Halloween II takes place on the same fucking night as the original? Even if the paramedics had shot you up with crystal meth and made you jog to the hospital you would have looked better than you did in the sequel. And that scene where you were supposed to be comatose and the nurse finds you? I honestly thought for a second you were pretending to be asleep and just forgot to shut your eyes. Ok, I'm done. For now.
I would have to say that my favorite part of Halloween has got to be Dr. Loomis. Good ol' gun-toting, nut job Dr. Loomis. Dr. Loomis reminds me of one of those homeless guys you see in big cities standing on a soap box declaring that "HE SHALL RETURN AND HIS WRATH SHALL BE MIGHTY!" You'd think that a man with a PhD. in psychology would find a better way of convincing feeble-minded townsfolk that a homicidal maniac is on the loose, but not Dr. Loomis. He keeps on waving his gun and frantically yelling in proper English about someone not being human. But how could you not love a character who returned for four sequels despite his growing ridiculousness, and probably would have returned for more had the actor who played him not died in 1995? But all good things must one day die from complications of heart valve replacement surgery, as Dr Loomis used to say. Sort of a morbid foreshadowing, now that I think of it...
So seriously, how does one sum up such movies as the Halloween series? Their ever lasting presence is undeniable, therefore you are forced to either love them or hate them, and I love them with a passion. Their scenes will be reenacted, characters duplicated, and story lines ripped off, as has been done, for countless horror movies to come, all the while popping out sequels that faithful followers would never dream of missing. Michael Myers will haunt us as long as the tradition of Halloween is celebrated. He will bring a rejuvenated spirit of Halloween to those too young to understand ancient druid rituals. He will scare the shit out of our great, great grandchildren. We should all be so lucky.




"I remember Halloween,
This day anything goes."
-The Misfits

"Repulsion" (1965)

There's a reason you've never heard of this movie, and it's not because it blows. It's because it's old. Like original "Psycho" old. Actually, it's alot like "Psycho" now that I think of it. All the way down to the homicidal driving force of guilt due to sexual perversion.

Carol has always been a bit off center; apathetic when it comes to the mechanical, everyday repetitions of life. Her disinterests include boys, conversations, food, and sleep, to name a few. Her interests include rape hallucinations and listening to her sister get it on every night with her live-in boyfriend. In fact, Carols' life sort of revolves around her sisters' to an increasingly unhealthy degree. She sure is dreading that trip her sister will be taking with her stupid boyfriend in a few days...
"While the cat's away the mouse will play," is how the saying goes. For Carol it goes alittle more along the lines of "While the cat's away the mouse will go nuts and kill two men in the apartment while severing a womans' finger at work and carrying a rabbit heart around in her purse." So basically, this movie has everything you would expect from a Polanski film, including unexpectability. Polanski somehow manages to combine extreme suspense, sexual perversion, and a timelessness so rare to films, it makes me more than alittle bit sad that it's not more well known. There is a scene in this film where the adversary commits murder via straight razor that was so anticipated it made me flinch. I repeat, a film from 1965 made me flinch. How cool is that?
I know it seems like I completely gave this film away, but there is so much to this movie that is just visually necessary. It's impossible to explain. I would give this movie a 9.0/10. While being alittle slow at times, the only way to explain this films unpopularity is to assume that it was too far ahead of it's time, as is the style of Roman Polanski.