Constantine, Review by Case Wright

Posted on October 7, 2019 by casewright

Can one act stain your soul for all eternity? It turns out that if you attempt suicide, you’re going to Hell. Anywho, Constantine was a comic by Alan Moore (Watchmen) long before Keanu Reeves played the demon fighter. Full disclosure, I have purchased, but not read the comic. It’s long and I’m not sure if I can get through it for this horrorthon, but I WILL TRY!

Constantine was born with a “gift” that he could see demons among us. This drives him out of his mind; so, he commits suicide and is sent promptly to Hell. He’s tormented for what seems like an eternity, but in our time was just two minutes. He returns to Earth because paramedics revive him. Because he attempted to kill himself, he’s condemned to Hell when he dies. How do I know this?The “Half-Angel” Gabriel tells it to us in really clunky exposition. It turns out that Heaven and Hell are basically in a Cold War and can’t directly fight on Earth.

Constantine REALLY doesn’t want to go back to Hell. His solution is to fight demons for a living to get into heaven. He does an exorcism here and there and fights evil, but this isn’t his ticket back to heaven- as I was told by MORE exposition. Constantine is kind of a depressive and a little whiny at times. I guess that’s why I kept getting annoyed by him. Yeah, Yeah, your life sucks, but there’s no reason to do this all the time:

There’s a lot of these “I’m so broody Boohoo” moments in this film.

Like this one: broody 3.jpg

This one was a long trip to bummer time with a soupçon of anger:

broody 2.jpg

Between the complaining, Constantine uncovers a plot that Lucifer’s son Mammon is trying to break into earth and cause a lot of trouble. Trouble….Trouble….that starts with M …. and ends with N, which stands for Mammon!

Constantine was entertaining, but it seems kinda all over the place at times. The parts that had him hot on the trail of Mammon and his evil plans were fun, but all the side plots and side characters were a mixture of goofy and dull. Overall, it was a good burgers and fries flick. Not to say that the comics or the cartoon (yep, there’s a cartoon, I know because of Google) aren’t awesome, but if they are the same quality as the movie, they are beach reads or I’m stuck on public transportation reading. There might be sequel. Will I watch it? Yes, because despite my snark, I’m basically 14.

Horror Film Review: The Prodigy (dir by Nicholas McCarthy)

Posted on October 7, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The Prodigy, which was released way back in February, is yet another creepy kid movie.

You know how these movies go. There’s always some child who seems like a perfect little angel but is actually either psychotic or demon-possessed or maybe an alien. Whatever it is, the important thing is that the child can get away with killing people because no one thinks that an eight year-old would do that something like that. Inevitably, it’s the child’s mother who figure out what’s going on and it’s always up to her to try to stop her child’s reign of terror. Sometimes, the mother is successful. More often, she’s not and the movie ends with the little brat smiling at the camera or something. Seriously, you know how it goes!

Because there’s been so many of them, it’s usually easy to predict what’s going to happen in these creepy kid movies. At the same time, they’re effective because … well, let’s just be honest here. Kids are creepy. Even the ones that aren’t evil know that they can get away with stuff that no adult would be allowed to do. Add to that, they’ve got those high-pitched voices that can give you a migraine if you get stuck on airplane anywhere near one of them. Beyond that, these films also touch on every parent’s worst fear. What if your child does grow up to be evil? What if you mess up while you’re raising them and, as a result, other people suffer? What if your child grows up to have bad hygiene or an obnoxious attitude? I mean, I don’t have any children yet but these are the things that I imagine keep most parents up at night.

Anyway, in The Prodigy, the creepy kid is named Miles (Jackson Robert Scott). Miles is super smart. He started talking when he was just a toddler. However, after Mile turns 8, he starts to behave strangely. He pulls mean pranks on the babysitter. He attacks other children. He starts speaking Hungarian in his sleep and saying stuff like, “I’ll cut your eyes out and watch you die, whore.” After Miles does something bad, he always claims that he has no memory of what he did. Whenever Bad Miles takes control, Good Miles just seems to black out. Needless to say, his parents — Sarah (Taylor Schilling) and John (Peter Mooney) — are concerned about what’s happening with their son.

Could it have something to do with the fact that, at the same time that Miles was being born, a Hungarian serial killer named Edward Scarka was getting gunned down by the cops? Is it possible that Edward’s evil spirit is now inside of Miles and is trying to take control of him? Sarah certainly comes to think so! As for John — well, who cares? John is mostly just there to get upset and pout.

The Prodigy does have some scary moments. Director Nicholas McCarthy establishes an ominous atmosphere early on and the film remains remarkably bleak for the majority of its running time. I mean, there are some really dark moments in The Prodigy. But, at the same time, the whole crazy child plot is a bit too predictable and the film doesn’t really bring anything new to the terror tyke genre. Add to that, this is yet another film in which a family pet is gruesomely murdered for no particular reason. I guess we’re supposed to be shocked and say, “OH MY GOD, IF THEY’LL KILL THAT ADORABLE DOG, THEY’LL KILL ANYONE!” but the dog is so obviously doomed from the first moment that it appears that it just feels like lazy storytelling.

Outside of a few isolated moments, The Prodigy doesn’t really make much of an impression. It’s an efficient horror film that’s never really memorable.

Horror On The Lens: The Haunting of Helen Walker (dir by Tom McLoughlin)

Posted on October 7, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Stop me if this sounds familiar.

In Victorian-era England, a somewhat neurotic young woman is hired to serve as the governess for two children who live in a foreboding estate. Once the governess arrives, she discovers that the children — especially little Miles — can be a handful. She also discovers that there was a governess hired before her, a governess who died under mysterious circumstances. At night, the new governess hears strange noises and soon, she becomes convinced that she’s seen the ghosts of both her predecessor and the old governess’s lover, Peter Quint. Everyone else may think that the new governess has allowed the isolation of the estate to get to her but she’s convinced that the ghosts have possessed the children! She becomes determined to save the children, even at the risk of their own lives….

If that sounds familiar, then you’ve either read Henry James’ Turn of the Screw or you’ve seen one of the several movies that were based on his novella. The Haunting of Helen Walker, which was made-for-television and initially broadcast in 1995, reimagines James’s unnamed governess as Helen Walker, an American woman played by Valerie Bertinelli.

Now, The Haunting of Helen Walker does take some liberties with Henry James’s source material. The novella was a masterpiece of ambiguity. The Haunting of Helen Walker is …. less so. Let’s just say this version doesn’t leave much doubt as to whether or not there’s actually ghosts in the mansion. That said, it’s still an entertaining made-for-TV movie.

Check out my full review here and watch the film below.

Enjoy!

Cleaning Out The DVR: Let Us Live! (dir by John Brahm)

Posted on October 7, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In the 1939 film, Let Us Live!, Henry Fonda plays Brick Tennant. Brick is a poor but honest taxi driver who has always lived a law-abiding life and who is looking forward to marrying waitress named Mary Roberts (Maureen O’Sullivan). However, when a taxi is used as a getaway car in a violent robbery that leaves a policeman dead, Brick finds that he’s a suspect.

At first, Brick isn’t too worried. It turns out that every taxi driver in Boston is apparently being considered a suspect. Brick is just 1 out of 120. However, when the police bring Brick in to take part in a lineup, one of the witnesses insists that Brick and his friend, Joe Linden (Alan Baxter), were involved in the robbery. Despite the fact that Brick and Mary were at a church, planning their wedding, during the robbery, Brick and Joe are arrested and put on trial for murder. Despite Brick’s initial faith in the system, he and Joe are convicted and sentenced to die.

On death row, Brick faces the inhumane reality of American justice. He watches as other prisoners slowly lose their mind as a result of neglect and abuse. He watches as another prisoner drops dead in front of him, to the indifference of the guards. Even when Mary tells him that she’s still looking for evidence that will exonerate him, Brick says that he no longer cares. The state of Massachusetts is determined to kill him and he doesn’t believe that there’s any way stop them. As Mary puts it, Brick is now dead inside.

Still, Mary continued to investigate. Helping her is a police detective named Everett (Ralph Bellamy). Everett comes to realize that two innocent men are sitting on Death Row but will he and Mary be able to find the real culprits before the state executes Brick and Joe?

While watching Let Us Live, I found it impossible not to compare the film to The Wrong Man, another film in which Henry Fonda played an innocent man being railroaded by the system. Both The Wrong Man and Let Us Live were based on a true stories, though Let Us Live takes considerably more liberty with its source material than The Wong Man does. Whereas The Wrong Man is a docudrama that’s full of moody atmosphere courtesy of director Alfred Hitchcock, Let Us Live is much more of a fast-paced, melodramatic B-move.

That said, Let Us Live! is still a definitely effective look at how an innocent man can be railroaded by a system that’s often more concerned with getting a quick conviction than actually searching for the truth. Sadly, the issues that Let Us Live deals with are just as relevant today as they were in 1939. The film’s power comes from Henry Fonda’s performance as Brick. It’s truly heart-breaking to watch Brick go from being a cheerful optimist to a man who has been so broken down by American justice that he can’t even bring himself to celebrate the news that he might be released. The film ends on a grim note, a reminder that some damage cannot be undone.

Let Us Live! is another good but obscure film that I discovered through TCM. Keep an eye out for it!

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Night School (dir by Ken Hughes)

Posted on October 6, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Someone is decapitating women in Boston and police Lt. Judd Austin (Leonard Mann) is determined to discover where the killer’s head is at!

The victims seem to come from all walks of life. A teacher’s aide loses her head while spinning around on a carousel. A worker at the local aquarium has her head tossed into a fish tank where it’s promptly nibbled at by a turtle. (Interestingly enough, the sharks ignore it.) Another head shows up in a kitchen and then another one in a toilet and then another one in a pond and …. well, you get the idea. There’s a lot of heads rolling around. The only thing that all of the victims have in common is Wendell College. Some were merely killed near the college. Others were enrolled in night classes.

Because the murderer wears a motorcycle helmet and a full black leather bodysuit, we’re not sure who the killer is. However, Lt. Austin promptly comes to the conclusion that the murderer is probably anthropology professor Vincent Millett (Drew Snyder), an unlikely lothario who is notorious for sleeping with his students and who has a collection of skulls in his apartment. Austin’s attitude is that no normal person would teach anthropology and since it also stands to reason that no normal person would run around Boston chopping off people’s heads, Millett must be the murderer. Millett doesn’t help himself by continually coming across as being a bit of an arrogant prick.

But is Millett the murderer? There are other suspects!

For instance, there’s Millett’s teaching assistant (and lover) Eleanor Adjai (Rachel Ward), on whom Millett performs some sort of odd blood ritual while the two of them are taking a shower together, the better so that director Ken Hughes can toss in a playful homage to Psycho.

And then there’s Gary (Bill McCann), the obviously disturbed busboy at the local diner who tries to follow Eleanor home one night.

And let’s not forget the dean of students, Helene (Annette Miller), who is portrayed as being a predatory lesbian because this movie was made in 1981.

And then there’s….

Well, actually, that’s it. One of the problems with Night School is there there really aren’t enough suspects. For a film like this to really work, you need a lot more red herrings. Savvy filmgoers already know that the most likely suspect isn’t going to be guilty because they never are. Unfortunately, that wipes out 50% of Night School‘s suspects and only leaves two others, one of whom is soon murdered. It all leads up to a surprise ending that’s not much of a surprise.

Night School is usually described as being a part of the slasher boom of the early 80s. While it’s true that Night School probably would never have been made if not for the financial success of Halloween and Friday the 13th, the film itself, with its whodunit plot and it’s gloved and masked killer, is more an American giallo than a traditional slasher film. That said, Night School never reaches the over-the-top, operatic heights of an Italian giallo. Instead, it’s a rather subdued version of the genre, happy to efficiently do it’s job without getting too caught up in issues of guilt, sin, and absolution. At the same time, some of the murders are cleverly staged and Rachel Ward brings some class to a film that could obviously use it. Night School gets the job done, even if it’s ultimately not that memorable.

Robots With A Cause: Class of 1999 (1990, directed by Mark L. Lester)

Posted on October 6, 2019 by Jedadiah Leland

The year is 1999 and John F. Kennedy High School sits in the middle of Seattle’s most dangerous neighborhood. Teenage gangs have taken over all of the major American cities and just going to school means putting your life in danger. However, Dr. Bob Forest (Stacy Keach!), the founder of MegaTech, has a solution. He has taken former military androids and reprogrammed them to serve as educators. JFK’s principal, Miles Langford (Malcolm McDowell!!), agrees to allow his school to be used a testing ground. Soon, Miss Conners (Pam Grier!!!) is teaching chemistry. Mr. Byles (Patrick Kilpatrick) is teaching gym. Mr. Hardin (John P. Ryan) is teaching history. When they’re not teaching, these robots are killing truant students and manipulating two rival street gangs into going to war.

Imagine mixing Rebel With A Cause with The Terminator and you get an idea of what Class of 1999 is like. Two of the only good teenagers (played by Bradley Gregg and Traci Lind) figure out that the teachers are killing their classmates but they already know that they won’t be able to get anyone to listen to them because they’re just kids who go to school in a bad neighborhood. Meanwhile, the teachers have been programmed to do whatever has to be done to keep the peace in the school. Why suspend a disruptive student when you can just slam his head into a locker until he’s dead? Director Mark L. Lester (who previously directed Class of 1984) is an old pro when it comes to movies like this and he’s helped by a better-than-average cast. Any movie that features not only Stacy Keach and Malcolm McDowell but also Pam Grier is automatically going to be cooler than any movie that doesn’t.

When Class of 1999 was made, 1999 was considered to be the future and, in many ways, the movie did prove to be prophetic. We may not have robot teachers (yet) but the idea of arming teachers and expecting them to double as cops has become a very popular one over the past few years. Personally, I wouldn’t want to send my children to a school where the teachers all have to carry a gun while teaching but that may just be me.

International Horror Film Review: Beyond the Darkness (dir by Aristide Massaccesi, a.k.a. Joe D’Amato)

Posted on October 6, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

An odd film, this one is.

Now, me, I absolutely love Beyond the Darkness. However, this 1979 Italian film is definitely not for everyone and I’m always very careful about recommending it. At it’s heart, it’s a story about a man named Frank Wyler (Kieran Canter) who is so in love with Anna Volkl (Cinzia Monreale, who Italian horror fans will immediately recognize from her iconic role as Emily in Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond) that he won’t even allow death to keep them apart. At the same time, the film contains scenes of cannibalism, gore, and nudity (poor Cinzia Monreale had to spent the majority of the movie naked and pretending not to breathe) that were so graphic that the film was actually banned in several countries. Did I mention that Frank’s a taxidermist? If you’ve ever wanted to see a film about how messy taxidermy can be, I guess this would be the one to go with.

Frank is a young man who has inherited a villa in the country. He lives there with Iris (Franca Stoppi), the servant who has literally raised him from his birth. Frank is a handsome but strange man, one who spends most his time locked away in his garage and stuffing dead animals. (Before anyone panics, there’s no animal cruelty to be witnessed in this film. Though there is a bit of human cruelty….) Frank is in love with Anna but Anna has recently been taken ill. She’s in the hospital, where the doctor’s simply cannot figure out what’s wrong with her. Could it have something to do with the voodoo curse that the jealous Irish has placed on her?

When Anna finally dies, Iris is convinced that she’ll have Frank to herself but Frank has other ideas. After the funeral, Frank promptly digs Anna back up and then takes her body back to his garage. Unfortunately, along the way, an obnoxious hitchhiker (played by Lucia D’Elia) decides that Frank’s going to give her a ride. The hitchhiker ends up passing out in Frank’s van.

So, here Frank is. All he wants to do is stuff his dead girlfriend. But he’s got this obnoxious hitchhiker running around the garage and knocking over buckets of intestines! Frank kills the hitchhiker and Iris, despite being disgusted by the fact that Frank has insisted on bringing Anna home, helps him dispose of the hitchhiker’s body. The problem’s solved, except for the fact that Frank is now becoming obsessed with cannibalism….

Okay, it’s a weird film and it only gets weirder from there. As I said, it’s definitely not a film for everyone and there’s certain scenes that would be incredibly offensive if not for the fact that the film is so well-directed and Canter, Monreale, and Stoppi are all so well-cast and give such sincere performances that you can’t help but get caught up in the film’s storyline. Frank may be a spoiled, cannibalistic murderer and Anna might be dead but their love for each other is so sincere that you can’t help but feel for both of them. Director Aristide Massaccesi (who was usually credited under the name Joe D’Amato) creates an ominous and gothic atmosphere while Goblin provides a pulsating and moody score that perfectly mirror Frank’s descent into madness (Admittedly, Frank doesn’t have far to descend.) Massaccesi often said that he only made the film to gross people out but an accidental success is a success nonetheless.

Horror Film Review: The Fourth Kind (dir by Olatunde Osunsanmi)

Posted on October 6, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“I’m actress Milla Jovovich, and I will be portraying Dr. Abigail Tyler in The Fourth Kind. This film is a dramatization of events that occurred October 1st through the 9th of 2000, in the Northern Alaskan town of Nome. To better explain the events of this story, the director has included actual archived footage throughout the film. This footage was acquired from Nome psychologist Dr. Abigail Tyler, who has personally documented over 65 hours of video and audio materials during the time of the incidents. To better protect their privacy, we have changed the names and professions of many of the people involved. Every dramatized scene in this movie is supported by either archived audio, video or as it was related by Dr. Tyler during extensive interviews with the director. In the end, what you believe is yours to decide. Please be advised, that some of what you’re about to see is extremely disturbing.”

And so began the 2009 film, The Fourth Kind! Milla Jovovich plays Dr. Abbey Tyler, who is still emotionally devastated by the murder of her husband and who finds herself interviewing a lot of potential UFO abductees in Nome, Alaska. You may remember that, when this film came out, there was a lot of online debate over whether or not it was based on a true story. That’s because the film was advertised as containing actual “documentary footage” of Dr. Tyler talking to hypnotized alien abductees. Often times, during the film, a split screen was used so you could watch the “original” Dr. Tyler interviewing a patient while, at the same time, Milla Jovovich and an actor “recreated” the scene for the film.

Of course, the really interesting question here isn’t whether or not the documentary footage was real. Instead, to me, the real mystery of the film is why, if you had all of this amazing footage of real people freaking out under hypnosis, would you then make a movie starring Milla Jovovich, Will Patton, and Elias Koteas? It seems like a better idea would be to just make a documentary and save a lot of money on paying the cast.

Anyway, as you probably already guesses, the documentary footage was faked as well and there is no Dr. Abigail Tyler. Still, you have to admire the amount of effort that director Olatunde Osunsanmi put into trying to convince us that we were watching something based on a true story. I mean, he went far beyond just using the whole shaky cam stuff that most found footage horror movies fall back on. Wisely, Onsunsanmi made sure that none of the actors in the found footage were more attractive than the actors in the movie that was supposedly based upon it. Anyone who has seen enough “based on a true story” movies knows that the real people never look as good as the people hired to play them. I mean, honestly, this is a gimmick that Orson Welles would probably have appreciated. That said, Welles probably would have gotten better performances out of the actors in his fake documentary. When Milla Jovovovich is more convincing as a psychologist than the woman who were told actually is a psychologist, it’s a problem.

As for the film itself, it has a few effective jump scares. There’s a lot of people yelling in strange voices and, when Abbey’s daughter vanishes, Milla Jovovich does a good enough job communicating the anguish that any mother would feel if her child was abducted by aliens. Dependable actors like Will Patton and Elias Koteas show up and do what they can with underwritten roles. The Fourth Kind isn’t a bad movie but its storyline and characters are never as interesting as its gimmick. It’s the type of horror film that might make you jump while you’re watching but, a week later, all you’ll remember is Milla Jovovich introducing herself.

Horror on the Lens: The Creeping Terror (dir by Vic Savage)

Posted on October 6, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Watching The Creeping Terror is an October tradition here at the Shattered Lens. How could anyone resist a film about a killer carpet, especially one that features a random dance party?

Read my review here.

Read Patrick’s review here.

And enjoy the film!

Joker (dir. by Todd Phillips)

Posted on October 5, 2019 by Leonard Wilson

JokerPoster When I used to play games like Vampire: The Masquerade, they had this disclaimer that said: “You are not really a Vampire. If you can’t distinguish between fantasy and reality, you need to put this book down.”

I think the same can be said of Todd Phillips Joker, and it may be the source of a lot of the fear associated with it.

I believe the big fear that everyone has with Joker is that it’s going to incite people to violence and/or mimicry. It’s the same kind of fear that probably happened with films like Death Wish and Taxi Driver. It’s also the kind of thing that did happen with 1993’s The Program, a film that contained a scene with kids laying down in the middle of a busy road. Someone actually tried it, and ended up dying. As a result, people get a little nervous when Hollywood produces something that could lead to someone mimicking what they see on screen. In that sense, any film has the potential to have an idiot try it out, despite all of the warnings.

If that makes you in any way uncomfortable, the movie will be out on VOD in 3 months time, not a long wait. Still, Joaquin Phoenix’s performance is easily worth the price of admission.

Looking past all that, Joker is actually very good. The Crow, The Dark Knight and Conan the Barbarian are comic book films, but are so serious that you wouldn’t really associate them with a comic unless you knew it beforehand. Joker falls into the same category for me. This might be a little off putting for some who are expecting a more “comic action” like performance along the lines of say, Batman Forever. It’s the kind of film where if you stripped the credits from it and sat someone down to watch it, they might not figure it all out until 3 quarters of the way in. It feels like just another film, save that happens to be dropped in Gotham City.

Joker is the story of Arthur Fleck, a man with a variant of Tourettes that causes him to laugh at inappropriate moments, among other issues. Working as a clown and hoping to become aThrough a series of events, Arthur falls and is pushed until he reaches a breaking point. That is the quickest way to explain Joker without divulging too much. Let’s focus on the particulars.

Todd Phillips’ direction is good here. We move from scene to scene with ease, and as far as I could tell, there didn’t appear to be any editing issues (which is more than what I can say with The Dark Knight). Gotham is a dark, gritty city, reminiscent of NYC during the late 70’s. The film also manages to make connections to DC Lore in some great ways, My only complaint there is that while it’s a city that could use the Batman, it wasn’t exactly screaming for help. Personally, I thought it would be better if you saw that Gotham had more issues of corruption or crime. Nothing bad, just a nitpick.

From a casting standpoint, Phoenix is the heart and soul of Joker. Having dropped some weight for the role, Phoenix throws himself fully into the role of a man trying to keep it together while his world slowly crumbles. Come awards season, I would be shocked if he wasn’t at least in talks for nominations. Between the moments of laughter, there’s a lot of pain being expressed. Granted, this isn’t entirely new to Joaquin Phoenix, who had a similar role in The Master, but he definitely takes it to some new levels here.

Zazie Beetz (Deadpool 2) is okay here as a woman living in the same apartment complex as Arthur, but isn’t given too much to do here. The same could be said of Frances Conroy (Six Feet Under), who plays Arthur’s mother, who tries to keep him on the right path. Robert DeNiro also stars as a late night tv show host who Arthur admires, which will remind some viewers of Martin Scorcese’s The King of Comedy. Of particular note is the score of the film, handled by Hildur Gudnadottir (Sicario: Day of the Soldado), which ties in nicely to every scene with its haunting themes.

If I had any problems with Joker, it would be that the film makes it sound like being a loner automatically qualifies you for crime. There are tons of people who prefer solitude to companionship (or at least in short doses). It showcases both Mental Illness and firearms in such a way that could scare some audiences, suggesting that if you are medicated and stop, you will eventually cause someone some harm. If you own a gun, someone will probably be harmed. Having grown up around cops, guns, and family members with Bipolar Disorder, I don’t agree with that. This didn’t make the film bad in any way for me. In the context of the film, however, Joker is bound to raise some concerns.

Again, it’s mainly nitpicks, but for a story that shows the rise of a villain, it does work. There’s nothing mystical about Joker’s rise, and perhaps that’s scarier than finding out he was irradiated by gamma rays or some other superpower. I will say that watching Phoenix have these strange moments of slow tai chi like movements had me wondering what was up with him. That was strange, indeed.

Joker is also a film that doesn’t have a whole lot in the way of action. If you’re expecting a major third-act action sequence, it’s not exactly there. As a dramatic piece, Joker excels at moving the story forward, and as someone who was originally tired of the idea of yet another Batman related story (with all of the heroes /villains DC has at their disposal), this film was quite the surprise.

Overall, Joker is definitely worth the watch for Joaquin Phoenix’s performance, though if you’re not ready for it at the theatre, you can always wait for it on Digital / VOD.