Horrorthon'08: THE FUNHOUSE (1981)

I'd never seen this old slasher movie before so it was nice to witness it for the first time on the big screen.

Directed by Tobe Hooper, the guy that maybe directed POLTERGEIST depending on who you listen to, it's a very dated film but it's dated in that lovable way that all quintessentially 80s films have dated. While you can't be nostalgic about a film you've never seen, there's still an air of nostalgia for the era and that comes shining through in THE FUNHOUSE.

That's not to say that it doesn't have its moments. The concept of an inbred crazy in a Frankenstein mask stalking youngsters in a deserted funhouse is certainly a winner for a start. It is, of course, all stuff we've seen before though and really it's only the odd moment that elevates it beyond the wasteland of countless other 80s horrors that aren't so fondly remembered. The creature is really cool though.

Horrorthon 2007 (Part 2)

Saturday also kicked off with another film I'd already seen, THE TRIPPER, but like MOTEL HELL I couldn't resist another chance to see it. It's not quite as mad as MOTEL HELL, but it does have some decent gore, some laughs and best of all the killer premise of an eighties-style slasher movie where the killer thinks he's Ronald Reagan. The politics of the film aren't exactly subtle but it's a whole lot of fun.

This was followed with END OF THE LINE, a low-budget Canadian film in which members of a religious order suddenly go on a killing spree. It's part slasher movie, part apocalyptic drama and despite some occasionally ropey acting it makes the most of its limited budget and its predominantly underground setting to weave an intriguing tale of religious fanatics and impending doom. It also has one of the best opening scares I've seen.

Another film I've seen before was up next - PREDATOR. It's been many years since I last saw it and - stop reading now if you don't want to feel old - I was too young to see it when it came out at the cinema. I wasn't therefore about to miss the chance to see it on the big screen. It doesn't disappoint. The creature itself is as cool as ever, but there are laughs aplenty to be had from the dated eighties machismo and daft one-liners as Arnie dispatches a bad guy. In fact, some of the dialogue is so bad I refuse to believe that it was even taken seriously first time round, but it certainly enhanced my enjoyment of this screening.

I skipped out on TEETH, having already seen it at Edinburgh (though I confess I was tempted to see it again just for the joy of once more seeing it with a large audience), but there was no escaping the dangers of young women as I followed it up with ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE. Mandy, in case you don't know, is the beautiful young girl that every guy in school has the hots for but who refuses to put out for any of them. So when she agrees to come away for a weekend in the country with her friends, they all see this as the opportunity to finally get their hands on her.

Well, it turns out that someone else has other ideas and once they get there, they all begin to get picked off one by one in some rather unpleasant ways. The killer is revealed early on, which is a mistake, although when you come to the end of the movie (I'll avoid spoiling it here) you understand why it was done. It's still a satisfactory shot in the arm for the slasher genre though and despite some pretty sadistic scenes it's a breath of fresh air compared to the current popularity of torture horror movies. It'll be out in cinemas shortly and I advise you to check it out.

For late night action on Saturday, there was a choice of two movies - a screening of eighties teen horror FRIGHT NIGHT or Lucio Fulci's THE PSYCHIC. Now, I'm a massive fan of Fulci, but since I figured that the former would be on film and the latter from DVD, I decided to decline the Fulci film - I still await my first big-screen Fulci experience - and go with another love of mine. Cheesy eighties horror.

When you watch films like FRIGHT NIGHT now, you can't help notice that the acting is terrible, the dialogue dated, the fashions and music dated even more and in general they're just not good movies. However, that only increases the charm for people like me. Again, I missed this one in the cinema (too young - sorry again) but was still nevertheless nostalgic for it anyway, based on my teenage years spent watching late-night horror movies on the BBC. It may have dated badly but it's as enjoyable as it's ever been, largely thanks to the presence of Roddy McDowall.

When a young man discovers that his new neighbour is probably a vampire responsible for killing several young ladies, he decides to do something about it, with the aid of his girlfriend and best friend. That isn't entirely successful, so he turns to washed up horror actor Peter Vincent (McDowall). The rest of the cast are pretty much second rate but you can't hide class - McDowall is superb, ironic since he's really being asked to play a pretty bad actor. His class shines through and he totally out-acts everyone else in the movie - it's worth watching for his turn alone, although I should also point out that in addition to whatever merits the film may have, it was also being screened from a new print, which looked terrific.

To be continued...

Horrorthon 2007 (Part 1)

I was surprised when looking over the programme for this year's Horrorthon (a horror film festival held around Halloween each year at the Irish Film Institute) at just how many of the films I'd already seen but that's not to say I was disappointed. On the contrary, it provided me with a chance to see some classics on the big screen, not to mention allowing me a couple of gaps in my viewing long enough to actually allow me to go out and eat occasionally.

The opening night consisted of the eagerly anticipated horror comic adaptation 30 DAYS OF NIGHT. It was certainly eagerly anticipated by me. More's the pity then that to save a little bit of money (I was late in booking a hotel) and due to a lack of holidays (too many film festivals) I didn't actually get there for the opening night. That meant I also missed James Wan's DEAD SILENCE, a shame since I was really quite interested in seeing this effort from the SAW creators.

So the festival for me kicked off properly on Friday afternoon with a screening of the completely insane MOTEL HELL. If that sounds familiar to you, it's because I saw it at the Glasgow Film Festival earlier this year. I wasn't about to pass up an opportunity to see it again though as stuff like this doesn't pop up in the cinemas very often, particularly in such a fine print. Crazy fun like they just don't make anymore.

And then to another one I was already familiar with. FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER (guess what, it wasn't really the final chapter) sees the return of Jason Vorhees who, in a brave departure from the previous films in the series, spends the film being really hard to kill and slaughtering naughty teenagers in a forest on the shores of Camp Crystal Lake. Yeah, okay, it's not a departure at all, it's the same thing again - but when a formula works, why change it? I love eighties slasher movies and the FRIDAY THE 13TH films are among my favourites. This one is notable for appearances by Crispin Glover (who I struggle to watch without wanting to shout "Hey McFly!") and eighties kid legend Corey Feldman. There's gore aplenty (courtesy of the great Tom Savini) and a fair amount of humour - some intended, some not - love it or hate it, you'll certainly not get bored. I for one am glad that the title turned out to be a misnomer.

Because I'm always trying to see Scottish films whenever I can, I was interested to see Robbie Fraser's low budget tale of love and drama among role-play gamers in Glasgow. There's enough humour in GAMERZ to keep the plot ticking along when it otherwise gets a bit dull, but in the end I can't make up my mind if this film is an attempt to humanise the stereotypical gaming geek or if it serves only to reinforce the image. Watchable but flawed - still, at least it's a Scottish movie that isn't just about alcoholics, junkies, gangsters and poverty-stricken kids from broken homes.

Having already seen BOTCHED (see last night's post about the Cork Film Festival) and Joshua (see my Edinburgh Film Festival coverage) I took the opportunity to skip out for some food. I was glad that I returned in time for the late show however...

Survivors from a wreck at sea find themselves washed ashore on a strange island where small doll-type-things lurk in the bushes waiting to attack and strange things start to happen, most notably the discovery of an acid lake (no reason is given). No, this is not the next season of LOST. It's the stupendously named ATTACK OF THE BEAST CREATURES.

This mid-eighties oddity truly defines the term "low budget horror", while ensuring that the quality is perfectly commensurate with the amount of money spent on it. As a movie it's a failure in almost every way except for the one most important aspect - it's entertaining. To call the plot basic is an understatement; to say it's well scripted would be a lie; to say the acting is wooden is to insult trees; and to describe the special effects as, well, special, is just wrong. The creatures are clearly some kind of puppet construction, thrown about by hand and made for zero money; some of the gore effects are rather entertaining in a quaint way; and thrown together with the absolutely dire filmmaking on offer, ATTACK OF THE BEAST CREATURES turns out to be the perfect late night movie to watch in a cinema full of like-minded people who know how to enjoy such movies.

Actually, now that I think about the film again, I really do hope the next season of LOST is like this. If the makers of the hit TV show want to spice things up a bit, then lets stop with the romance and whinging about dead family members and instead get some 12-inch puppets running rampage round acid lakes. That's what the viewers all want to see. They just don't know it yet.

To be continued...

EIFF 2007

Ah yes, I knew I'd forgotten something. The Edinburgh International Film Festival 2007. It took place in August, so obviously I wait until almost October before I start writing about it. I saw a lot of films and, let's be honest, nobody's that interested in a festival that finished ages ago, so I'll be brief with each film.

My first viewing was INTOLERANCE, a very long and very old silent movie directed by movie pioneer D.W. Griffiths. It's a sort of apology for his landmark but racist BIRTH OF A NATION, and it tells of three separate love stories in three time periods. It featured the writing of Anita Loos, to whom this year's retrospective was dedicated, hence the film's inclusion here. The verdict? It's tough to sit through three hours of this stuff (time has not been kind) but there are undeniably still things to admire. Most notably, the scenes of ancient Babylon are absolutely breathtaking, no matter when the film was made. I really feel sorry for the guy who provided the live musical accompaniment on the piano though - he must have really wanted a break by the time he'd finished.

HIS PICTURE IN THE PAPERS and THE SOCIAL SECRETARY were two more (shorter) films written by Loos which again had their moments (both of them were rather more light-hearted than the hefty INTOLERANCE) but again, are very much of their time.

The first of the new films I saw was the Japanese film ARIA, in which a man still grieving over the death of his wife goes on a road trip with a colleague and a mysterious woman. I'm not going to say any more than that because the joy of the film lies in its mystery. It's never made explicitly clear who the woman is, though there are many potential candidates; the film is to be absorbed (and be absorbed into) rather than watched. It's all about mood, it's beautifully shot and you really need to see it. As far as new movies go, I got off to a good start.

The next one was TRADER'S DREAMS, a German documentary about people all over the world trying to make their living on eBay. The film brings out a lot of issues and emotions as it looks at people using eBay because they're desperate, using it simply to make a living, using it to exploit/help (depending on your viewpoint) people who haven't really entered the internet age. Despite all this though, the most interesting parts to me, and I mean this in a car crash sort of way, were the scenes focusing on the eBay phenomenon, which basically involved lots of Americans going mental in an eBay-organised stadium-sized event. How odd.

The next film I saw was also a documentary and slightly more entertaining and interesting, though also even more disturbing. CRAZY LOVE is about a man who got so insanely jealous that he hired some goons to through blinding acid into his girlfriend's face. For this horrific act, he went to jail. When he eventually got out, they got back together and married. It's a bizarre story and I couldn't decide whether it merited a full length film or just an episode of Jerry Springer.

More from the Anita Loos retrospective (alcoholism tale THE STRUGGLE - better than the other retrospective films so far but as far as old movies about alcoholics go, it's not a patch on THE SMALL BACK ROOM) was followed by another new film, JOSHUA.

JOSHUA is the next in an ancestral line going back to THE OMEN and ROSEMARY'S BABY and sees a small boy being very smart and evil-like and weird things happening to his parents, possibly as a result of their having another child. It's not an out and out horror film as such, but still delivers on the chills and suspense and is a satisfying thriller that will probably suffer from being in the shadow of other more famous evil kid movies.

Talking of odd kids, BILLY THE KID was one of the more popular films at the festival. This documentary follows a young man with a disability over the course of a few days, offering insights into his school life, love life, personal life and generally what is going on in his mind. It's a valiant attempt to tell us something about judging people but rather than becoming overly preachy it wins us over by virtue of the titular character, who comes across as a charming, funny and likable (though undeniably short-tempered at times) person. He certainly seemed to win over the audience I was with.

Next was Quentin Tarantino's DEATH PROOF. This is Tarantino's half of his tribute (together with Robert Rodriguez, who came up with PLANET TERROR) to trashy exploitation cinema of the 1970s. It was released in the states as GRINDHOUSE, and featured both films stitched together with bits cut out, damaged prints, fake trailers, etc. to fully replicate the grindhouse experience. Sadly it bombed in the US so the powers that be have decided to split it into two films. The first to see a release here is Tarantino's half.

Sadly, it looks like it would have been better in its original form. I've not seen the original cut so I don't know for certain, but this version with footage restored feels too long. People talk about Tarantino's skill for natural dialogue, but to me it was too natural, i.e. it was just dull. Lots of women sitting about talking about stuff without ever really saying anything interesting - I could get that by walking into a pub and sitting down next to some drunks. It doesn't necessarily make for good cinema.

Anyway, the story involves a villainous, er, villain called Stuntman Mike, who stalks such women and then kills them with his death-proof car. Typical slasher stuff. The film is rescued however by Kurt Russell, who plays Mike, and is clearly having a ball. The film explodes into life whenever he is on screen, but sadly fades away again whenever he isn't. An enjoyable ride, but I really want to see GRINDHOUSE even more now.

I should also add that while Tarantino wasn't there to promote it, Zoe Bell (stuntwoman turned actress who stars in the film) was on hand to do a Q&A at this, the film's UK premiere, and didn't disappoint. As well as being an extremely accomplished stuntwoman, she's also a very charismatic and funny young lady who was a lot more fun to listen to than most of the characters in DEATH PROOF.

My EIFF round-up will continue shortly...

FrightFest: Glasgow Film Festival 2007

The FrightFest programming on the Saturday kicked off at lunchtime with a screening of THE TRIPPER, a throwback to 80s slasher movies directed by David Arquette. It's an affectionate homage to a much maligned genre and it positively glows with nostalgia; it also recreates the atmosphere and plot contrivances of a typical 80s slasher movie too, but remains tongue-in-cheek without being outright spoofery.

The plot, as with all such movies, is pretty simple. A bunch of youngsters head into the country for a music festival and end up falling foul of a mysterious killer who picks them off one by one. There are a few familiar faces in the cast - Jason Mewes of CLERKS fame plays himself as always, Arquette pops up in a cameo as a redneck and Paul "Pee-Wee Herman" Reubens puts in a hilarious turn as a music promoter.

The film is a riot from start to finish - mad, unadulterated fun with a decent helping of gore and violence (in a funny way, naturally) but the real star of the show is the premise of the killer himself. I don't want to say any more in case I spoil it, but let me just say it's very 80s, very political and very, very funny. HALLOWEEN was never like this. I've no idea when this is likely to hit cinemas, but when it does be sure to see it with a crowd for maximum enjoyment.

Maximum enjoyment is not a phrase likely to be associated with documentary/horror hybrid S&MAN (which is pronounced as "sandman" in case you're wondering). It follows a filmmaker's attempts to interview a young low-budget filmmaker who appears to be stalking victims and killing them before selling the videos to fans of extreme horror.

The film is dull from start to end, and the look at the kind of extreme, low-budget shockers being produce by the depraved minds of the horror underground just reminds me how little interest I have in them. I won't even mention the people responsible as I've no desire to spread the word about their work.

THE MESSENGERS is an American film, but from the Asian horror masters the Pang brothers. Unfortunately, this effort proves to be just as uninspired as the numerous American remakes of Asian horror have proven to be. I used to like Penelope Ann Miller so it's a shame to see her slumming it in a turkey like this - it's full of cliche and predictable "frights" (I use the term loosely) and can best be described as horror by numbers. I gather it was a number one at the American box office but frankly that just reflects the downside of the current interest in horror - that people after their horror fix will happily watch anything in the hope that it'll be the next SAW. This isn't. It's not even for adults.

TURISTAS (which, we were told by FrightFest honcho Alan Jones, will be released under the new title of PARADISE LOST) is another attempt at grabbing a piece of the HOSTEL market. Youngsters trekking through Brazil find a lovely, secluded beach, get up to all manner of drunken antics and then fall foul of a bloke who runs a secret organ-harvesting operation that likes to prey on tourists.

This film is another failure. For large parts of the film, we are expected to simply admire how good the young folk look in their swimming outfits on the beach, underwater, etc. When the horror starts, it's simply a pale imitation of the other similar films that have gone before. Ever since SAW and HOSTEL enjoyed the success they did, it seems horror consists of a person being rendered helpless and tortured in a supposedly shocking manner, preferably in a dimly-lit, dingy little room, before making their action-packed final-reel escape. Whoopee. I defy anyone with even a passing knowledge of horror to be surprised at who lives and who dies. I had it pegged from early on and I'd be surprised if nobody else did.

I've no doubt that when it's released it'll do some reasonable box office but it's not particularly demanding fair and even on the level of exploitation it's not a real winner.

Praise be then that we managed to finish the day with a brand new print of classic video nasty MOTEL HELL. This sleazy little effort is a hilarious (sometimes deliberately so, sometimes not) tale about a dirty little motel that makes a bit of money on the side from a rather unusual meat product.

It's totally barmy, it's bad taste, it's over the top, it's everything that was great about late 70s and early 80s nasties and, best of all, it's got Rory Calhoun wearing a pig's head while having a chainsaw battle with another equally-armed guy. If that isn't why cinema was invented, I don't know what is.

The rest of the films I saw at Glasgow this year will follow sometime next week...