Hey folks, Harry here… I know I’ve been out of the loop for a bit – but life has been crazy – what with the tasks of my other professional engagements, the forging of a new life with “Yoko Yubari” and just editorial & administrative work here at AICN. Having said that – I’ve continued to see the various films that have been coming out.
My fave of the recent releases is probably BRICK – which I think is a brilliant application of the covenants of the Film Noir genre mold as applied to a High School flick. Stylistic, sharp and smart as hell. I really do feel it is a remarkable film… but then you’ve probably heard that.
I enjoyed THE WILD, though I wish that MADAGASCAR hadn’t polluted the story realm of this flick – as I do believe Spaz did a better job of it. And I mean that from the point of view of better animation and character design. I loved the audacious stylistic choices that were made. I thought the “pigeons” – “chameleons” – “those crazy carnivore cow things” and the Koala just kicked the appropriate amount of ass. Some of the jokes fell flat. And there was the unfortunate reality that it all felt like well traveled territory due to MADAGASCAR – but both of these films have been in the development world for quite some time.
I loved INSIDE MAN – thought it was easily the best film I’ve seen from Spike Lee in quite some time. Just a consummate “sting” situation, where you were constantly kept guessing. Having said that, I’ve liked most of Spike’s recent films, I just felt that Clive Owen was just such a magnetic personality in the film, that I just believed the story that much more. That said, SHOOT ‘EM UP is going to be the movie that launches Clive into the stratosphere… or at least I hope it will.
V FOR VENDETTA – I covered in my Top Ten list at the end of last year. I think it is a great film. I’ve seen it 5 times now and can not wait to own it on DVD. Could very well be Natalie’s best role ever. I think it’s gorgeous, poignant and just flat out a fantastic adaptation of the world the comic created. The Wachowski Brothers did a great job as producers to protect this film through the studio system. Great work.
FAILURE TO LAUNCH was a fun little ditty. A cloud lite comedy that mainly benefits from the pure awesome casting of Terry Bradshaw as the Dad to Matthew’s character. His Nude room sequence was hilariously unexpected and funny as hell in that… I didn’t expect to see that today, type of things. That said, it was awfully light. Didn’t really engage me completely – but was fun. I saw this back in late January on an early date with Yoko, and she and I had a light time with it – but agreed that it was just one of those things where how could he ever trust that manipulative lil bitch that was so controlling of his life --- and presumed to try and put an end to a lifestyle he held dear. Ahem.
Loved SLITHER to death. Thought it was a fantastic modern version of a balls out 80s horror flick. Wonderful slimy and gooey make up. However, having said that – I just kinda wish it had gone ever further. I love it. But, I just wanted DEAD ALIVE craziness. I wanted absurdity times a thousand. Ya know? But for a studio horror film… I kinda can’t believe they made it. Having said that – I’ve heard that it’s failure at the box office has gone a long ways towards dooming FEAST from ever being released by DIMENSION. I really hope not. The lesson from SLITHER isn’t that Horror Comedy can’t make money. It’s that you have to market it better. The trailers for the film were dreadful. I loved the poster, but I wish they’d had a serious of absurd posters and images to push from the film. And I really hope the Weinsteins go ahead and release FEAST this October. It’s a great crazy horror film.
Speaking of… there’s a film that doesn’t have significant distribution yet, that I’ve been given an early look at that was sort of why I set out to write this.
There have been a number of BIGFOOT, YETI and ABOMINIBLE SNOWMAN movies – and excuse me, but they all fucking sucked. From THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK to THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN to THE SNOW CREATURE… They’ve all just sucked. The best one was HARRY AND THE HENDERSONS, but then that was a “funny” film. A family film. The horror possibilities of the fearfully Abominable creature have languished in the hands of lesser filmmakers for over a half century now, the best BIGFOOT film is the little 1 minute sucker shot in 1967 by Bob Gimlin and Roger Patterson… the infamous “caught footage.” Rumors have gone around that the creature was created by John Chambers (of PLANET OF THE APES infamy) but these rumors have been denied for the last 40 years. This bit of film… God, the number of conversations I had about it. I remember once talking for like 2 hours with Guillermo Del Toro about that 1 minute of film. Listening to Guillermo lecture me on how it isn’t a costume. That in the footage, you can see the fur moving as though muscles and weight were attached to it like a real living creature would move. Contrasting it to the “fakery” of Chewbacca and how Chewie’s fur isn’t attached to muscles and as a result – YOU CAN TELL!
I shit you not. Guillermo is really into this sort of thing. So is Paul Dini. And a great many other celebs. They love BIGFOOT, the YETI and ol Bumble. Probably my favorite Abominable Snowman was in that dang RUDOLPH THE RED NOSED REINDEER. Again… Comedy.
Then – One day on MySpace I was befriended by Ryan Schifrin – who wrote a letter wanting to know if I would be interested in seeing his debut film. ABOMINABLE. One look at the Drew Struzan art and the cast list which carried the names of Dee Wallace Stone, Jeffrey Combs and Lance Henriksen… and a score by Ryan’s dad, LALO SCHIFRIN… well, shit… that’s all I needed to know.
The first time I watched Ryan Schifrin’s ABOMINABLE – it was on my 14 inch Laptop screen with headphones while sitting in the dark at 4am in my tiny one room apartment while Yoko was asleep. It completely captured me. But… you know when you’re the only conscious person in a dark room in the middle of the night – there’s a chance that – well, you’re more susceptible to scares. The shadows of the room play with you. Make you feel unsafe. And with this film, where things stay in the shadows, till they decide to come out… it will fuck with you.
So the second time I watched it was at the new Geek Headquarters for 2. I’ve got a wonderful high end SHARP DLP projector and a 13 ft screen. It was a nice little night of film and merriment at Casa Del Knowles.
We had just watched a gorgeous letterboxed print of Fernando Di Leo’s TO BE TWENTY. A film with a curious amount of similarities to Eli Roth’s HOSTEL. The breathless Italian beauty of Gloria Guida and Lilli Carati had hypnotized our intimate audience with their “young, hot and pissed off” declarations… and though the amorous anthem of “la cultura” has entered my repertoire of film inside jokes forever… the film was rough and repetitive and it trimmed the audience we had to myself, Yoko, Babyface Nelson, Annette Kellerman and the bionically hip Stuntrocker!
Now – when the film played – we were seeing it nearly 13ft wide and 9ft tall in full Dolby Digital… and let me tell you… Lalo’s fucking score will curl the short hairs like a midget’s hot iron. With a few exceptions – the genre that Lalo is probably least considered for – is Horror. Western is probably the least. But Horror – hell the last full on Horror score that maestro Lalo scored was AMITYVILLE II: THE POSSESSION, a film I happen to be a huge fan of. He did do the original AMITYVILLE HORROR and DAY OF THE ANIMALS – but it’s a scarce plate of horror in a pretty damn diverse and filled career. The score for ABOMINABLE was absolutely inspired. Whether it was his wish to just kick ass for his son… or just the fact that he had a pretty goddamn good horror film to score… he did the most with it, and it shows.
This film is cheap. You can tell there wasn’t A LOT of money here… but the cast and crew did the most with what they had. First off, Matt McCoy does a great job of a guy coming back from a traumatic incident that essentially destroyed his life… to having to face something much much worse. The film takes elements of REAR WINDOW, 80’s Slasher films and just Man In Suit creature films to come up with something kinda special.
The scene of the 3 hunters – looking to bag “squatch,” as Jeffrey Combs calls him… well the scene is kinda beyond perfect. You got Jeffrey Combs as a coke bottle glass wearing oxygen tubed chain-smoking legend freak… Lance Henriksen as a fan of the Darwin Awards that loves to kill things and then ol Rex Linn, who found huge bites out of his 1200 lb quarter horse that just wants to bag this beast so he can sleep again. The three of them and a fire and the woods filled with noises, scents and wonderful horror film repartee! You just won’t believe how well done this scene is.
Matt McCoy’s paraplegic that talks to himself is great. He has this glimpse of the “whatever it is” in the woods. Just the red eyes – turning and focusing on him… His reaction is possibly the best single reaction in the history of cinema to, “I just saw something in the woods that shouldn’t fucking be there” that I’ve ever seen. He’s making underwear streaks with ever second of his tensed silently shitting self. It’s great.
As for the monster itself. It’s one part hysterical. But perhaps nine parts freaky fucking scary on top of that. Credit for the creature design reportedly goes to Federico D’Alessandro – who according to his IMDB page has certainly been seeing his career rocket since this film. On WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE and I AM LEGEND next.
However, the physical creation of the “Abominable” was overseen by Christien Tinsley… the make-up artist credited with the invention of the Prosthetic 3-D tattoo transfers used in THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST to create that lashed shredded meat of Christ look… and I don’t know which was more disturbing… that, or Abominable. First off… there’s the fucking gaping toothy maw of the creature. The whole thing is like a redneck nightmare version of me. It’s just disturbing as hell to see a creature that has your own personal look going for it. But then I’ve seen people in the world that reminded me of the Predator before. But hell – this thing is freaky awesome.
The slow build to the reveal is great, and there’s Fangoria cover quality gore in this thing. And two window gags that just kick unholy ass.
As of right now – there’s a beyond limited release planned for the film. Opening this past 14th of April in Seattle. Then April 21st in Los Angeles.
I kind of hate the fact that this is coming to the SciFi channel in late May. It deserves nationwide theatrical release. I get a lot of the shitty SciFi channel movies in advance and there’s never been a single one that I’ve given two shakes at a urinal for… this one though. This is fun. Scary. And above all other things… Freaky. Freaky is an underrated emotional response to a horror flick, but this has it in spades – and I know for a fact that with an audience… with the right perfect sound – it will kick an audience’s ass.
Hell – at my place – it elicited SCREAMS from not just Yoko… but seasoned jaded Genre hussy, Annette Kellerman. Seriously. Annette screamed. How fucking great is that? And she doesn’t do that regularly.
Now is this a great horror film? No. But it is a fantastic grade B horror flick. It’s old fashioned and fun. And Scary. And definitely FREAKY. And fun.
