Brainjacked (2010)

A runaway named Tristan is lured by the charming Laney to a secret underworld run by a neurosurgeon that takes in teenagers with no place left to go. However, he prescribes each and every one of them trepanation, the practice of drilling holes into a person’s skull to alleviate mental anguish and psychological issues. Tristan submits to the operation to stop his head-grinding migraines, but the doctor has a nefarious ulterior motive for the operations…he turns these teenagers into mindless slaves that do his bidding!

Brainjacked promised a pretty cool plot, so I was ready for something that combined sci-fi thrills with some good old fashioned gore and plenty of laughs…but I ended up laughing for all the wrong reasons. I mean, how are you supposed to take seriously a film that features a doctor with a drill in place of a hand?? You’d think the writers would capitalize on this silliness and make the film light-hearted with plenty of laughs, but unfortunately Brainjacked is played straight as an arrow.

And, you know, if it had any comedy (intentional, that is) at all it might have actually been a decent movie! Disappointingly, it’s actually pretty dull and doesn’t capitalize on the fun of a “mad doctor”. Not even the gory “drill” effects could save this picture from the doldrums. Plus, all the drilling gets old pretty fast.

The film could have also benefitted by a more experienced director and editor. Some scenes are way too jumpy (like the confusing and frenetic opening scenes) while others just drag and drag. Also, the narrative structure of the story definitely needs some work. I really didn’t care for the opening scenes and how Tristan is introduced to the audience. I also thought it was odd how Laney just happened upon Tristan that night and decided to bring him back to the doctor. A bit too convenient for my taste…

Though Brainjacked had an interesting premise, in execution it just failed to delivery anything but boredom. It takes itself too seriously when it really should have had fun with its plot. I mean trepanation, crazy doctors, teenage sex slaves and teenagers programmed to kill?? It sounds like it could have made a great B-movie had it lightened up a little. Oh well…when this film comes out at the end of August, I’d avoid it unless you have a trepanation fetish!

Available from Amazon!

Book Review: Day by Day Armageddon - Beyond Exile by J.L. Bourne

Following up his novel Day by Day Armageddon (disclaimer: which I’ve never read), author J.L. Bourne gives us Beyond Exile, the next chapter in a military soldier’s attempt at surviving and documenting the zombie apocalypse.

I’ll be honest (as I always am) – I really wasn’t into this book when I first started reading. Perhaps it was because I hadn’t read the original, but I just couldn’t get into the short, direct journal entries filled with military jargon. However, after about 100 pages in the story really started making pace and I started enjoying it more and more!

Though I hadn’t read the original, I had no problem understanding what was going on. The film picks up with the narrator and a group of survivors holed up against the zombies in some underground military bunker. They eventually make contact with the military (or what’s left of it), but when our narrator goes on a recon mission for supplies his plane crashes, leaving him hundreds of miles from “home”. Can he make it through the zombie hordes and the dangerous radiation of major cities to return to the one home he has come to know?

There is lots of action in Beyond Exile, from swarming zombies (both of the fast and slow variety) to the threat of roving bands of bandits to rogue military units and so on. As our narrator traverses a rough landscape, dodging zombies and battling loneliness, I was left on the edge of my seat, rooting for him to make the long trek home unscathed.

Though some of the jargon left me baffled, lots of people familiar with the military, weapons and so on will be thrilled by the detail here. Author J.L. Bourne is a Naval man himself, and his military experience is evident in Beyond Exile. Though I might not have known what all the technical terms were, I think I got the general gist and besides, the jargon gave the story that much more credence.

Day by Day Armageddon: Beyond Exile is an entertaining, fast-paced book. Though a reading of Bourne’s first book in the series, Day by Day Armageddon might be beneficial to start, it’s definitely not necessary to enjoy its sequel. It took me a little while to get into the flow and style of the novel, but once I did I couldn’t put it down!

Buy it on Amazon!

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)

This 1959 film is Hammer Studios’ treatment of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes story. With a wonderful cast, including Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, and an atmospheric setting of a castle on the foggy English moors, this is a classic that pairs well with a dimmed room and plenty of popcorn.

The story begins with a cruel aristocrat, Sir Hugo Baskerville, tormenting and exploiting his servants. After offering up a maid to his slovenly guests during a party, Sir Hugo discovers she has escaped and he gives chase. He catches up to the girl near some crumbling ruins on the moor and stabs her to death. However, immediately after he is killed by a “hound of hell”. Many years later the curse of the “hound of the Baskervilles” persists. Sherlock Holmes (Peter Cushing) and Watson (Andre Morell) are hired to investigate the most recent death of a Baskerville and to make sure the last remaining heir, Sir Henry (Christopher Lee) doesn’t succumb to the “curse”. Can Holmes solve the case before it’s too late?

I love old mystery movies like this! However, The Hound of the Baskervilles is really the cream of the crop! Its well-constructed plot, creepy setting and enjoyable characters all kept my attention for its entire running time. I was even trying to figure out “whodunit” half-way through, but I must admit Sherlock Holmes had me beat on this mystery!

First off, the setting is just gothically gorgeous…crumbling ruins in the moonlight, misty moors, old creaky castles, howling hounds, flickering candlelight…I could gush on and on, but you probably get the idea! I absolutely love the gothic aesthetic, especially when it’s pulled off in film correctly. I really wasn’t expecting a Sherlock Holmes tale to have such a creepy and romantic atmosphere, but Hound certainly did and pulled it off as well! Director Terence Fisher, no stranger to gothic horror, certainly shows off his skill in this film!

Secondly, the story was just fantastic. It is based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s tale, so I really shouldn’t be surprised! The film sticks pretty close to the original story as well, though a few liberties and changes were made. I’ve heard people b*tch and moan that they changed too much, but I don’t think that’s the case. The film’s ending feels a bit more realistic instead of the romantic ending Doyle imagined in his book and the other liberties are small enough to not really affect the whole of the story. Kudos to screenwriter Peter Bryan for sticking close to the original story while making it his own as well!

Lastly, the characters and the acting were excellent! I especially liked the cocksure and arrogant Sherlock Holmes that Peter Cushing played! Andre Morell was equally good as the competent Watson, whom we spend most of the first part of the film with. And who can forget Christopher Lee? Ladies and gentlemen, he is absolutely scrumptious here!! I mean, can I please just swoon in his arms? Anywho, Lee is great as the befuddled Sir Henry, who is not sure whether to believe his family’s curse or not. All of the other players in the film did a fine job, too.

The film didn’t need that many special effects, so there’s not much to talk about in that respect. A bloody knife and a mine that caves in on Holmes offer the most shocks in the film, besides the exciting ending, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the film is boring! Far from it, it’s amazing what director Fisher does with atmosphere and great actors! The cave-in and a nighttime chase through the moors were the most exciting scenes for me to watch, but the ending is also quite good and comes as a bit of a shock!

If you haven’t had the pleasure of watching Hammer’s Hound of the Baskervilles, do yourself a favor and get it now! It’s simply elementary, my dear readers!

Available on Amazon!

A Whisper in the Dark (1976)

I gotta tell you, I love slow-burning, mysterious ghost stories. The psychological impact of such films leave me wanting more, so I eagerly seek out titles I’m unfamiliar with. Such was the case with A Whisper in the Dark (aka Un Sussurro nel Buio), a 1976 production from Italy.

In this film, a wealthy family is vexed by the existence of Luca, the imaginary friend of their 12-year-old son Martino. Mother Camilla is affected the most, so much that her nerves are shot. It doesn’t help that she has two bratty daughters, or that her mother, The Countess, is visiting the mansion and her husband is a philandering fool. However, everyone soon begins to fear Martino and his imaginary friend Luca.

Why you ask? Well, it seems that anyone who has anything bad to say about Luca or Martino has something bad befall them. For example, when his sisters play a trick on him, Martino tells them Luca will get back at them. That afternoon, the sisters are to attend a party but it starts pouring rain. Even when they try to attend, their car gets a flat tire. In another instance, Martino discovers his father is having an affair and the adulteress is scared away by a toad placed in her bath.

Pretty tame stuff, but it spooks the family enough that they bring in an “expert” to analyze Martino. When the professor threatens to take Martino away he mysteriously dies. Are all these instances mere coincidence or does Luca really exist?

A Whisper in the Dark starts off very strong. It has the creepy atmosphere of the surrounding countryside and forest, plus the foreboding mansion that lend it much gothic beauty. Then there are some spooky scenes, including Martino “interacting” with Luca, an artful shot of a lone red balloon floating through the gardens, the light sound of a child laughing, a swing swinging on its own, a weirdly unsettling kid’s costume party and a very effective scene where Camilla is kissed by invisible lips.

There is no doubt that the film is beautiful, lushly shot by director Marcello Aliprandi and cinematographer Claudio Cirillo (who actually plays a detective in the film and also does a cute intro before the film!). However, the film never really goes anywhere and the creepy scenes are far and in-between. Mostly we see the family interacting (dear lord those sisters are grating! If I was Luca I would have gotten rid of them long ago) instead of any real ghostly activity. And the fact that there is only one death was pretty disheartening. Of course, since the film is so ambiguous this is supposed to make us question if Luca really exists or if everything is just unhappy circumstance, but for me this wasn’t enough.

While I enjoyed the psychological games the film played with the audience, I just wish a little bit more had been done to scare the audience instead of puzzle them. The ending gives no resolution, but repeats a similar pattern of Martino telling everyone that Luca prefers peach jam on his toast, not plum (yes, a table setting and food is laid out for the invisible Luca). Previous to this scene is a bizarre dream-like sequence where Camilla decides to take care of Luca’s ghost (since he may be her own miscarried child) for herself and through fog and snow leads him out of the mansion’s gates. The next morning she wakes up on the muddy ground (sans snow or fog) and finds Luca back to his old tricks at the breakfast table. So much for resolution…

A Whisper in the Dark is a film I desperately wanted to love. Ghost stories are my absolute fave and the right ones send a delightful shiver down my back, but this film only left me mildly interested. While it is a beautiful film and has its unsettling moments, more should have been done with it. If you are like me and like subtle, atmospheric horror it does deserve at least a look, though!

Available from Amazon!

Alligator (1980)

Remember the urban legend about alligators running loose in the sewers? The legend goes that gators were taken home by overeager kids wanted them as pets, only to be flushed down the toilet when they became problematic. The gators ended up in the sewers, eating stray pets, bums and the occasional kid and causing general hysteria.

The 1980 film Alligator follows this same premise, but also throws in some nefarious corporation illegally doing cruel experiments on animals and dumping their growth-hormone packed corpses into the sewers. Well, this is all well and good for Mr. Gator (whose real name is Ramon) since he has a steady diet of pumped up puppies that cause him to reach 30 – 40 feet in length! Still, the hormones cause him to have an insatiable appetite, so soon he is roaming the streets of Chicago, looking for his next bite! Who is gonna stop him? How ‘bout a misogynistic cop with a receding hair line (Robert Forster) and a gator scientist (Robin Riker) who happens to be the same kid whose daddy ended up flushing the alligator all those years ago!

This entry into the “animals attack” subgenre is pretty entertaining, but it has some awful characters…they are so bad, in fact, that I was rooting for the alligator the whole time! First, it appears that EVERYONE in the film is misogynistic…NO ONE believes a woman can be…GASP!…SMART or a SCIENTIST! Every male character talks down to the lone female character (the alligator scientist) and she pretty much just takes it. The receding-hairline cop even tells her he isn’t gonna take her to dinner unless it’s guaranteed that she is gonna bone him…and when they finally gets to dinner he is a major ass (as if he wasn’t enough of one to begin with). The misogyny in this film is so annoying it pretty much becomes amusing after a while…and it’s just begging to have a drinking game created for every offensive remark made!

On the plus side, the film has an interesting anti-animal cruelty/anti-animal testing perspective. The corporation, CEO and flunky “scientist” that are abusing and killing animals in lab tests are looked upon as the villains (as they should be). I found it interesting that the film had such a strong animal rights message considering that the alligator is blown to smithereens at the end. However, I’ll take animal welfare messages where I can get them, and it appears that Alligator at least has some good points about the cruelty of animal testing as well as showing how unnecessary it is in most cases (in most cases, I’m not saying all, as this is a very sticky subject).

Also, I found it interesting that I was cheering for the alligator the whole way through. “Ramon” kinda became like a superhero during the film as he took down the bad guys (most satisfying scene: seeing the CEO of the corporation get smooshed!). I didn’t care about our supposed “hero”, the cop, or even the woman gator scientist. No, I just wanted to see Ramon slither away and live another day to take a bite out of crime! Sadly, he doesn’t survive…

For an “animals attack” film, I sure don’t recall that much blood…there’s one memorable scene at the beginning where an alligator wrangler (you know, those guys in the swamp who put on shows for crowds, opening gators’ mouths, wrestling them, etc.) gets his leg bitten off, but from there the gator manglings all kinda blur together. Even the satisfying scene where the CEO gets his due isn’t all that bloody. However, I will say that the alligator looks great! Or maybe I was too distracted by the misogynistic cracks to notice…Anywho, director Lewis Teague used both an animatronic, mechanical alligator (which often malfunctioned) as well as a regular sized alligator in miniature sets. Though sometimes it was obvious, I think it still looked great nonetheless!

Alligator is a pretty decent “animals attack” horror film. If you can get past the annoying characters, misogyny and lack of gore, definitely check it out. If you don’t think you’ll like it, check it out anyway and just make a drinking game out of all the misogyny that occurs!

Salud!

Available from Amazon!

Babysitter Wanted (2008)

I’ve been waiting (and waiting) to check out Babysitter Wanted for quite some time. Its official release happened in 2008, but it hadn’t hit DVD until this past July. By that point this flick had kinda fallen off my radar and it wasn’t until a friend asked what I thought of it that I remembered this film and eagerly checked it out.

From the cover art you’d assume this is a typical slasher, but remember what your mom told you about judging a book from its cover? I made the same mistake, but was pleasantly surprised by the turn of events in Babysitter Wanted.

Starting off much like the awesome House of the Devil (review), Babysitter Wanted finds the sweet Angie (Sarah Thompson) arriving to her new community college campus to study art history. Her brand new roomie doesn’t have a bed for her, so our dear Angie is in need of some cash…and fast. While poking around the sparse campus, Angie befriends a cute boy, notices some “missing person” posters, and appears to find the perfect babysitting gig. That Friday night she sets out for the isolated farm of the Stanton’s (Bruce Thomas and Kristen Dalton), where she’ll be babysitting their young son Sam (Kai Caster). All seems well until Sam wakes up and eats some unusual food for a little kid…and then the weird phone calls commence and strange noises outside convince Angie that someone is trying to get in. Police Chief Dinneli (Bill Moseley) isn’t much help, but promises to come around to check on Angie. Meanwhile, Angie discovers something unsettling about Sam, the intruder outside and the Stanton’s…will she survive the night?

Ok, I will try not to give anything away in this review because this film is best seen cold, without knowing much about it. I believe the surprise factor of its twists and turns really heightened my enjoyment of it! Be warned, though, spoilers may be present, so proceed with caution!

The film may start off like a slasher, complete with Angie feeling like someone is stalking her. Then when she is babysitting the weird phone calls start…heavy breathing on the other end, but no speaking. Of course, I thought the film was heading into familiar territory, especially when someone started rattling the door and eventually forced themselves into the house and Angie was forced to hide. However, it then took a completely sinister turn that really knocked me off my rocker! The rest of the film was peppered with the occult, torture and black humor. And I don’t wanna say any more because it would give too much away…

For an independent film, Babysitter Wanted looks great…it’s spookily lit, competently shot and features great direction from co-directors Jonas Barnes (who also wrote the film) and Michael Manasseri.

Also excellent is the acting. Sarah Thompson really shines as the innocent Angie who later gets tough as she battles the bad guy(s). Despite her “pure” nature, she’s not annoying and you come to care for her through her sweet and vulnerable nature. As things progress, she forces herself to toughen up and her transformation from innocent to kick-ass comes naturally! I also enjoyed Kai Caster’s performance as the creepy Sam, as well as Kristen Dalton and Bruce Thomas as the parents. Even genre-fave Bill Moseley turned out a good performance, this time as a good guy!

My complaints with the film are few, but I felt the pacing towards the beginning was a bit slow. Also several plot holes bothered me…the roommate angle was dropped pretty quick, so why show it at all? It’s like she was just used for convenience in explaining the disappearances around campus and disappeared herself after that. Also, what ever happened to Angie’s boy toy? He pretty much disappeared until the end and it was never really explained why (unless I missed something?).

Despite these annoyances, I thoroughly enjoyed Babysitter Wanted. It certainly threw me for a loop and uses many different tropes from the horror genre to create surprise and suspense. Despite the many different aspects it uses, it still manages to remain grounded and is a hell of an entertaining good time!

Available on Amazon!

Meadowoods (2010)

You all know that faux documentaries are nothing new in the horror genre. “Found footage” flicks have been popular from Cannibal Holocaust to Paranormal Activity and are now more common than ever thanks to the heightened scare factor, immediacy and realism of faux docs. Plus, they can be relatively cheap to make for filmmakers on a budget! However, they are so “dime-a-dozen” nowadays that sometimes they are more a chore to sit through than a pleasure.

So, I didn’t really have high hopes for Meadowoods, where three college students decide to film themselves planning and executing a murder.

The three disenfranchised college kids are Stephanie (Michelle Roe), a bitter young woman who has lost all faith in humanity, Travis (Connor Thorp), the seemingly happy-go-lucky leader of the group but who hides a sinister, sociopathic nature and the brooding cameraman Ryan (Michael Downey). The three are fed up with being neglected by their parents and living in a small podunk town, so to go down in history they decide to kidnap and kill a random person, filming everything. However, once their plan starts to become a reality, Ryan starts having second thoughts, especially after he gets close to their intended victim.

I wasn’t expecting too much out of Meadowoods and figured it would just be another throw-away serial killer flick with lots of violence and brutality. Lucky me, I actually got a rather chilling story about the ambivalence and indifference of seemingly ordinary people. The scare factor in Meadowlands isn’t in the final scenes where the kids’ quarry is trapped and tortured, but rather in the scenes where each of the kids are interviewed, stating their reasons for wanting to kill someone, their views on death and the afterlife and so on. Their coldness and flippancy towards killing another is absolutely chilling and portraying this is where this film succeeds!

Of course, none of this would have worked without competent and convincing actors and surprisingly for an indie film the acting here is top-notch across the board. Connor Thorp, Michelle Roe and Michael Downey all do a stunning job playing the trio of friends. They were all entirely convincing as bored college kids looking for a sick thrill. Very spooky performances! And Ila Schactler gave another believable performance as their intended victim. She was likable and perfect as the girl next door!

I also want to give kudos to writers Stuart Ball, Scott Phillips (who also directed) and Anna Siri for creating such realistic characters and such a chilling story. I appreciated that the characters weren’t your stereotypical stupid teens and that the script offered more than just violence.

My only problem with Meadowlands was the ending, which dragged a bit too much in my opinion. It was almost like they used most of it as padding since it got so repetitive. The taunting and torturing of the victim was fine, but did we really need to see her sit there and scream for what seemed like 20 minutes straight? I think the ending killed the unsettling feel of the rest of the film, which is unfortunate since I enjoyed the first part of the film so much.

However, I would still recommend you check out Meadowlands. It isn’t your typical “found footage” horror film and really takes the time to frighten us psychologically through its portrait of today’s bored youth.

Available from Amazon!