What Lisa Watched Last Night: Less Than Zero (dir. by Marek Kanievska)

Posted on February 13, 2011 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I ended up watching the 1987 anti-drug propaganda piece, Less than Zero.

Why Was I Watching It?

Last night, I was hanging out with Jeff, our friend Evelyn, and Evelyn’s friend Steven and we were flipping stations, trying to find something that we could use for background noise. When we came across an announcement on FMC that Less Than Zero was about to start, I made the mistake of admitting that despite having read Bret Easton Ellis’s novel and heard a good deal about this film, I had never actually sat down and watched Less Than Zero.

Well, after everyone got finished making fun of me (boo hoo), it was agreed that we simply had to watch Less Than Zero.

“But,” I started, “isn’t Gone With Wind starting over on TCM…”

“Fuck Gone With The Wind,” someone (I think it was Evelyn because she’s a meanie) said, “you’ve never seen Less than Zero before.”

What’s It About?

It’s about rich kids in Los Angeles doing drugs. Clay (played by Andrew McCarthy, who my cousin Jessica met once and who she says was a really nice guy) is a college student who comes home to L.A. and discovers that his ex-girlfriend Blair (Jami Gertz) and best friend Julian (Robert Downey, Jr.) are addicted to cocaine and that Julian owes a lot of money to a drug dealer named Rip (James Spader).

(Personally, I would never buy drugs from someone named Rip — with the possible exception of Rip Torn.)

Anyway, Clay takes it upon himself to try to save the soul of everyone in California.

What Worked?

Downey and Spader are both great in this film. From what I’ve read, the general assumption seems to be that Downey was just playing himself here but whether or not he was, he still gives an excellent performance. Spader, meanwhile, turns Rip into a great villain by making evil sexy.

The film, full of garish neon and defiantly tacky pastels, looks great in its decadent, shallow way. The same thing can be said of the music.

What Didn’t Work?

Everything else. Less Than Zero really doesn’t work as an anti-drug film because the character of Clay seems so boring when compared to Julian and Rip.

If I had to choose between the three of them, I’d probably hang out with Rip because 1) he always seems to be having a good time, 2) he’s apparently not a drug addict himself, and 3) he’s got the most money of all of them. That therefore makes him preferable to both Julian, who is having a good time but is also a drug addict, and Clay who isn’t a drug addict yet appears to be miserable throughout the entire film.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

One night, years ago, I found myself making out with an ex-boyfriend in a convertible while one jagged bolt of lightning split the night sky above us and hundreds of scary guys on motorcycles drove past us. As is often the case, the memory was better than the ex.

Lessons Learned:

Drug dealers make the best dates.

Quickie Review: Return of the Living Dead 5: Rave to the Grave (dir. by Ellory Elkayem)

Posted on February 12, 2011 by Arleigh

There’s not much to say about Return of the Living Dead 5: Rave to the Grave other than it’s actually worse than the movie before it. Return of the Living Dead 4: Necropolis was really bad and not in the so bad it’s funny. What had been a cult horror franchise which had fun with the zombie genre in addition to putting some genuine scares in people, these last two Return of the Living Dead films should pretty much kill the franchise just when the zombie revival is still going on strong.

Ellory Elkayem does directing duty for this fifth installment. He also directed the fourth film. I had thought that not everything should be laid at Elkayem’s feet when it came to who to blame for the lackluster and awful film that was Necropolis, but after sitting through Rave to the Grave I have to say that whatever good will Ellory Elkayem built up with his funny take on the giant creature feature, Eight-Legged Freaks, has been wasted with his back-to-back filming of Necropolis and Rave to the Grave. Elkayem films both films one after the other and I am going to assume this was more to save on the budget than any sort of continuity with the actors hired to play recurring roles. If saving money was the main reason then it sure didn’t look like it. Except for a few hero-zombie (zombies given more screentime than most thus given a better make-up effect) scenes the film clearly shows it’s ultra low-budget pedrigree. I don’t have problems with low-budget horror movies as long as there’s a sense of energy and enjoyment by those making it, but neither Necropolis and Rave to the Grave showed any one of the two.

Rave to the Grave occurs one year after the events of Necropolis and the teenage survivors of that film have now graduated and attending college. The film never really makes it clear if they’re in back in the U.S. attending college or still in Eastern Europe where the previous film was set. Either way the survivors from the previous film seem to have moved on quite well from their horrific experiences in Necropolis. The fact that they don’t seem to recognize the newly found containment barrel marked with the label of 2-4-5 Trioxin just adds to the weird and huge plot hole between film four and five. One would think that these kids would have it etched forver in their minds that containment barrel with 2-4-5- Trioxin equals horror. Instead they naively investigate and research the barrel with one of their friends realizing he could turn the chemical leaking from the barrel into a new form of rave drug whose extreme hallucinogenic effects also hide a side-effect which basically turns anyone who partakes of the drug into a zombie.

The rest of the movie deals with the survivors finally realizing the crisis they’ve unleashed and instead of calling for police or military help decide to go to the same outdoor rave party where everyone is taking the drug to try and find the person who made the drug Z and stop him from taking them. Like I said earlier, the film really has major plot holes and most of the time doesn’t make much sense. What we get in the end is an excuse to have a huge set piece where the survivors get to shoot as many zombies as possible while at the same time allow for the random raver to suddenly become a zombie out of the blue. There’s also a subplot of a couple of bumbling Men-in-Black type agents whose job it is to recover the Trioxin barrel while remaining inconspicuous. The secret organization they belong to must be global since I could barely understand their lines with the heavy Russian accent used by both “actors”.

My disappointment in what could’ve been a nice follow-up to the first three Return of the Living Dead movies was compounded by the sheer Z-movie level of Rave to the Grave after the awful work that was Necropolis. For those wanting to see a good b-level zombie movie that’s bad but enjoyable at the same time should check out House of the Dead 2. Yes, the sequel to Uwe Boll’s rancid and awful House of the Dead ended up being better than the original and way more entertaining than Return of the Living Dead 5: Rave to the Grave. I wouldn’t even accept this film as a free dvd if someone gave it to me. In fact, I may end up punching that person as a reflex action.

Quickie Review: Return of the Living Dead 4: Necropolis (dir. by Ellory Elkayem)

Posted on February 11, 2011 by Arleigh

I remember watching the original Return of the Living Dead in 1985. That zombie movie played on the premise that Night of the Living Dead actually happened. It was a great twist and interesting idea. The zombies in that film weren’t shambling and dumb like the one’s in Romero’s film. Instead these zombies were pretty quick and could talk and formulate plans and traps. Also these zombies couldn’t be killed by destroying the brain. It was the birth of the superzombies and it made for a fun experience. One thing it also had was a nice dose of comedy mixed in with the horror.

A few years later they had a sequel to Return of the Living Dead that was a good second helping. Nothing to write home about but it was a fun gory flick. Then came a second sequel which dropped the comedy and instead tried to be Romeo and Juliet meets brain-eating zombies. Other than the usual gore and bloodsplatter this second sequel was an utter failure. It took over 10 years for someone to try making a couple more sequels, but sure enough someone found a way to do it. They even found a good enough director in Ellory Elkayem (he directed the fun, campy giant spider monster flick Eight-Legged Freaks). There was talk that this third sequel will return the ROTLD franchise back to its roots of horror mixed with comedy. I was stoked about the news. Then when it came time to see Return of the Living Dead 4: Necropolis, I found out that it was going to go direct-to-cable. This usually means bad news all around about the overall quality of the finished film, but I was still going to give it a chance.

I finally saw its premiere on Sci-Fi channel in 2005 and all my low expectations weren’t even reached by the what I saw on the TV. The movie starts off well enough and right from the get-go they don’t hide the fact that the film is taking place in some Eastern European country. Peter Coyote the — only actor with any sort of talent — makes his appearance in this scene and there’s not even any attempt to make his character abit mysterious of whether he’s a good guy or a bad guy. Coyote’s scientist role in the film screams evil mad scientist. The rest of the cast seemed like it was randomly picked from a college campus and from the streets of Romania. The dialogue was bad enough but having them read out loud by amateurs just made it all worse.

The whole premise of the film outside of reintroducing newcomers to the zombifying effects of Trioxin seemed like the writers were trying to emulate Resident Evil instead of Return of the Living Dead. There’s the mega-corporation which deals with everything known to man and also research and develops illegal biowarfare technology like zombies armed with hi-tech weapons. Resident Evil did this better (thats not saying much) so it goes without saying that ROTLD4: Necropolis just didn’t know what it wanted to be. There wasn’t any of the comedy that made the first two films in the franchise so fun to watch. It looked as if they tried to make a serious zombie movie and instead it turned out to be seriously bad.

Even the zombies themselves ended up being inconsistent with the zombies from the first two films. Some seemed smart enough but most were of the Romero kind which goes against everything that is ROTLD. Their feeding habits even changed from eating nothing but brains but to eating other parts of the body. Then the filmmakers made it so they’re not indestructible anymore. Shooting these zombies in the head will drop them like a sack of bricks.

There really wasn’t anything fun about this sequel. Zombie movies are suppose to be dumb, gory fun but instead Return of the Living Dead 4: Necropolis just ends up being dumb, horrible and awful. I had alot of hope in Ellory Elkayem as an up-and-coming genre director, but cranking out this film after making such a fun one in Eight-Legged Freaks is a mystery and saddening. I wouldn’t recommend this film as a rental on dvd. Just go rent the original trilogy of films in the series and leave this one alone.

Quickie Review: Return of the Living Dead 3 (dir. by Brian Yuzna)

Posted on February 10, 2011 by Arleigh

In 1993 horror fans were greeted with the release of Return of the Living Dead 3. This third film in the Return of the Living Dead series produced by John Russo ends up being a very good zombie movie and actually has genuine horror that the second film lacked. What ROTLDIII, its writers and directors seem to have left behind was the comedy side of the series which made them cult-classics to begin with.

Taking up directing duty this time around was genre-veteran Brian Yuzna (Beyond Re-Animator) who films this third entry purely on a horror standpoint. This film is serious horror from start to finish. This time around the military is still trying to find a way to use 2-4-5 Trioxin as a way to create zombie soldiers, but ones that could be easily controlled by them. To say that this project hasn’t met with success is an understatement. But it’s the story of the son of the military project director and his girlfriend who dominate the film’s plot. As portrayed by J. Trevor Edmond and Melinda Clarke, these two star-crossed lovers find themselves enmeshed with the dark secret of the project being held in secret. Son soon uses the Trioxin gas to try and ressurect his girlfriend who gets killed early on during an accident. What he gets instead is an undead girlfriend whose hunger for live brains (for some reason the zombies in this ROTLD sequel also feed on other bodily parts) can only be controlled when she causes herself bodily pain through extreme forms of piercing. The rest of the film deals with the father trying to save his son not just from himself and his undead girlfriend but from the hordes of escaped zombies in the facility.

The horror in the film was actually pretty good and this was helped a lot by the gore effects work which surpasses anything the first two films in the series had. The acting was decent enough with Melinda Clarke as the zombified girlfriend putting on a sexy, albeit creepy performance. If it wasn’t for the brain and flesh-eating she sure would’ve made for quite a poster girl for teenage boys.

In the end, Return of the Living Dead 3 continues the series admirably. Despite not having much humor and comedy in the film, this third film in the series more than makes up for it with high levels of gore and a definite sense of horror the first two didn’t much have not to mention a bit of romance which seemed to work.

X-Men: First Class Official Trailer

Posted on February 10, 2011 by Arleigh

Of all the Marvel Comic book films coming out this summer it is the one not being made by Marvel themselves which seems to be getting the biggest amount of negative press and buzz from the fans. The last couple weeks has seen pictures from the set either leaked by accident or on purpose to gauge fan reaction. To say that reaction has been underwhelming would be an understatement.

The film is 20th Century Fox Studios latest film on the X-Men franchise. A franchise which is now batting 2-for-4. The first two films in the franchise were thought of as being very good to great and the last two seen as a major mess or just plain awful. Now the fifth film has just released it’s first official trailer and from the look of things it looks to be retconning all the vents which occurred in the first four films. The scenes used for the trailer looked very good and the looks of the many (people complaining about the amount of characters in the third Nolan/Batman film will be apoplectic once they see First Class) characters gives me some hope.

The film has Matthew Vaughn just fresh off of Kick-Ass and it will be up to him to create a gem out of the rough stone people seem to be judging the film at the moment. X-Men: First Class is set for a June 3, 2011 release.

Quickie Review: Return of the Living Dead Part II (dir. by Ken Weiderhorn)

Posted on February 9, 2011 by Arleigh

1988 saw the release of Return of the Living Dead Part II. This film is a sort of sequel/reboot of the first film in that the story and even some of the characters bear too much of a similarity to the original film. Ken Weiderhorn both writes and directs this “sequel” and it shows. The film reuses alot of what made the first film a cult-classic amongst horror fans. Weiderhorn seems to be of the philosophy that if something ain’t broke then don’t fix it. What this does is make the film feel like a deja vu and maybe that was his intent since two of the main characters in the film say pretty much the same thing. Despite all this the film itself is pretty good and stays true to the original, albeit with abit more humor and better effects work.

Reprising similar roles they had in the first film are James Karen as Ed and Thom Mathews as Joey. Both work as in the post-burial industry and moonlight stealing valuables from the privates crypts and mausoleum in the cemetery they’re working in. Their characters act and almost have similar lines from Karen and Mathews’ characters of Frank and Freddy in the first film. Karen as Ed goes over-the-top once the 2-4-5 Trioxin gas is let loose and the dead bodies in the cemetery begin to come back to life seeking live brains. It’s these two characters who really keep the film from spiraling down to awful status. Even though their characters are similar to the original film, Karen and Mathews still bring a dose of great comedic timing and horror to the situation.

This time around the town has been safely evacuated by the military except for a few people who lived on the newly-built suburban housing area in the outskirt of town. It’s these survivors who must try and find a way to defeat the zombies and at the same time convince the military blockading the town that they’re not infected. There’s more action and comedy in this sequel. I think the comedy part of the film got way too much attention, but as I said earlier, Weiderhorn seems to think that if it worked in the original then it should work with more in this film. The effects work looks a bit better and probably due to an increase in the budget.

In the end, Return of the Living Dead Part II never brought anything new to the original it was following-up. The film pretty much reuses the same characters and situations. Weiderhorn does this to good effect and the finished product was an entertaining enough horror-comedy. Who knows how this sequel would’ve turned out if Russo had written it and O’Bannon back directing.

Quickie Review: Return of the Living Dead (dir. by Dan O’Bannon)

Posted on February 8, 2011 by Arleigh

Return of the Living Dead has to go down as one of the funniest and inventive take on the zombie subgenre that began after the release of George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. Due to a dispute between Romero and John Russo (co-producer of the original NOTLD), the sequels to Night of the Living Dead that were produced and directed by Romero dropped the “Living Dead” part in their titles. Russo retained the rights to create sequels using those words while Romero just kept the word “Dead” in the follow-up films to Night. It took Russo awhile, but he finally got to use those naming rights with 1985’s Return of the Living Dead.

Even though there were some acrimony between Romero and Russo, the screenplay for Return of the Living Dead makes several complimentary nods to Night of the Living Dead. The film’s premise was what if Romero’s first film was actually based on a true event and that the government and the military covered it up before people got a wind of it. The film takes that simple premise and creates an action-packed horror-comedy that still stands the test of time.

Unlike Romero’s films, Return of the Living Dead actually gives an explanation as to what causes the dead to return to life with a singular purpose of attacking the living. The cause of all this undead mayhem was due to a bioweapon nerve toxin called 2-4-5 Trioxin which was originally designed by the military to defoliate marijuana crops. To say that the side-effects of the gas had some interesting effects was an understatement. The zombies created by Trioxin do attack the living but they’re also much more livelier and smarter (retaining agility, strength and mental capacity of their previous life) than the traditional Romero-zombies. They also do not feed on just humans. They also feed on other animals. The last major difference between the Romero-zombies and the Trioxin-zombies was that the latter only wanted to feed on live brains to end the pain of being dead. These differences made for a much faster-paced horror movie. As much as I consider the Romero zombie films as the best out there, I hold a special place in my horror-fan heart for these Trioxin dudes.

The story by John Russo would be turned into a screenplay and directed by Dan O’Bannon also made Return of the Living Dead behave more as a horror-comedy than just a straight-up horror. The dialogue between the characters were full of great one-liners that would’ve sounded cheesy if not for the great and game performances from the cast. Clu Gulager as Burt Wilson (owner of the medical supplies warehouse where the lost canister of Trioxin was being stored in) did a great job being incredulous at the events happening around him. His back and forth with his friend Ernie (played with Peter Lorre eyes by Don Calfa), the local mortuary’s gun-toting mortician, keep the film lively and hilarious in-between scenes of horror.

The scene stealers in the film must go to a bumbling pair of Burt’s employees who inadvertently release the toxic and reanimating gas from the warehouse’s inventory of Trioxin canister. James Karen as the worldly and cynical Frank was a riot from start to end. His over-the-top performance had me in stitches. He played Frank with such a manic, panicky style that it was difficult not to get caught up in his hysterics. To balance out Frank’s Hardy with his more subdued, but no less panicked Laurel, was Thom Mathews as Freddy. Mathews would later appear in other horror movies in the decade and even reprise a similar role in this film’s sequel. His performance as the straight man to Karen’s fool was also very good. His slow decline into becoming one of the zombies after the initial inhalation of the Trioxin gas in the film’s introduction was funny and sad. Of all the zombies in the film he gets the brunt of the slapstick sequences, especially once he starts hunting his girlfriend for her brains. His professing of his love for her and at the same time wanting her to give up her brain was hilarious, if not creepy as well.

Another thing that Return of the Living Dead had that made it different from Romero’s zombie movies were the scenes of gratuitious nudity throughout the film. A majority of the nude scenes were courtesy of scream queen Linnea Quigley as the punk rock Trash whose morbid obsession with all things death made her an early victim for the zombies and later on as one of their leaders. I know that kids my age at that time replayed over and over the scene of her strip-tease down to nothing atop a graveyard headstone. Even now many fans of the film consider that sequence as one of their favorite.

Return of the Living Dead still counts as one of the best zombie movies out there and preceded the UK’s Shaun of the Dead by two decades as a great horror-comedy. There was a sequel a few years later to capitalize on the popularity of the first film. It tried to capture the hilarity and horror of the first one but did not measure up in the end.

Film Review: The Rite (dir. by Mikael Hafstrom)

Posted on February 6, 2011 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, me, Jeff, and my sister Erin braved the melting ice and snow in order to drive out to the AMC Valley View and see The Rite, which is the latest movie to come out about exorcism.

(Quick sidenote: Yes, the AMC Valley View has replaced the closed Regal Keystone as my place to see mainstream, establishment films. It’s actually a pretty nice little theater and it’s located in Valley View Mall so, at the very least, you can do some shopping before you see your film. Add to that, I think I’ve developed a girlcrush on the girl who always sells us our tickets because she’s 1) something like 6 feet tall and 2) she just gives off this really sarcastic, monotone, I-don’t-give-a-fuck vibe. Oh! And they’ve also got that old House of the Dead video game in the lobby and last night, Erin played it and Jeff and I were laughing so hard because she just started shooting everything! That said, the theater doesn’t do matinee showing and oh my God, I hate the drive up there because it means having to cross Coit road and once you get pass Coit, nobody knows how to drive. Bleh. But anyway….)

The Rite begins with those dreaded words: “The following is based on true events.” We then meet Michael Kovak (played by Colin O’Donoghue) who is the son of a mortician who lies about wanting to be a priest so he can get a scholarship to the seminary and get a college degree in psychology. His plan, of course, is to get the degree and then resign from the deaconate before actually taking his vows. However, when he attempts to resign, the Father Superior refuses to accept the resignation. He also refuses to accept Michael’s claim of having no faith in God. Instead, he convinces Michael to go to Rome and to take a class on exorcism. The theory here — and it’s the same theory that seems to crop up in every film ever made about exorcism — is that if you can see proof of the devil then therefore, you’re seeing proof of God because one can’t exist without the other. Some people would call that wishful thinking but regardless, Michael goes to Rome and who wouldn’t? Rome is full of old buildings, beautiful people, stray cats, great food, and romantic possibilities, after all.

Rome is also the home of Father Lukas (played by Anthony Hopkins) who is a veteran exorcist. When Michael expresses some doubts in Exorcism Class, he’s sent to learn from Lukas. Michael watches as Lukas performs several exorcisms and yet, he still refuses to believe that any of it is real. Even when the possessed start to spit up Holy Nails and pieces of the One True Cross, Michael continues to argue that it’s all a psychological condition. But then, Michael starts to have disturbing visions of his father (played by Rutger Hauer) and Lukas starts to act strangely and Michael comes to realize that, regardless of whether he believes in the devil, the devil certainly believes in him.

The Rite actually has a few things to recommend it. The scenes in Rome are shot to emphasize the eerie atmosphere over easy shocks and, as a result, the film creates a sense of unease that is so subtle that the viewer is almost seduced into sharing the film’s Manichean world view. Anthony Hopkins is always fun to watch on-screen and he knows exactly how much over-the-top to go in his performance without descending to the level of camp.

Unfortunately, director Mikael Hafstrom never quite manages to settle on the correct pace for the film. Some scenes are over much too quickly while others seem to just drag on for an eternity. It seems to take forever for Michael just to get over to Rome and even once he does arrive in Italy, you’re never sure of how long he’s supposed to be there, how long he’s already been there, or how many days pass between his first meeting with Hopkins and the end of the film.

The film’s other big flaw, along with the slow pace, is the character of Michael or, more specifically, Colin O’Donoghue’s passively blank performance as Michael. Since the film is essentially meant to be about Michael’s struggle with belief, it would be good if the film’s star was capable of suggesting some sort of inner emotional life. Instead, O’Donoghue simply comes across as a block of wood that’s been whittled into the shape of a man. As a result, Micheal never seems to be a man in the throes of a crisis of faith. Instead, he just seems petulant. Anthony Hopkins is so dynamic and O’Donoghue so bland that you actually resent O’Donoghue for having more screen time.

Director Mikael Hafstrom deserves some credit for trying to make a “serious” movie about exorcism but, to be honest, I prefer the more unapologetically sordid approach of a film like The Last Exorcism. Ultimately, The Rite tries so hard to be serious that it forgets to be entertaining.

Film Review: The Prophecy (dir. by Gregory Widen)

Posted on February 5, 2011 by Arleigh

I first found out about this little cult film starring the very awesome Christopher Walken around 1993 or so when I was at the local Waldenbooks (yes there used to be bookstores not named Barnes & Noble or Borders back in the day) looking at the latest issue of Fangoria. Inside the magazine they were doing a brief feature on an upcoming horror film tentatively called God’s Army. All I saw was that it was to star Christopher Walken and it had gore and angels in it. That alone peaked my interest and I was looking forward to seeing it in the theaters. Almost two years passed and nothing about it was ever heard again until I visited the video rental place near my house and saw a VHS tape (yeah, those big videocassette thingies) with the title of The Prophecy and starring Christopher Walken.

This was the film I was so hyped to seeing in the theaters. The title had changed from it’s earlier (and much cooler) one of God’s Army. It would seem that it’s film distributor had little to no faith in the box-office potential of the film and just delayed it’s release to the point that when it did come out no one knew about it barely anyone saw it. It was a real damn shame since filmmaker Gregory Widen made such a good film that was able to mash-up horror, angels and a detective story all in one without creating a mess of things.

The Prophecy was about the war in heaven we were never taught about in Sunday school. We all know about the war in heaven where Lucifer and the rebel angels who followed him tried to overthrow God. That didn’t go over so well for Lucifer and he and his band of fallen angels were cast out into Hell by God and his right-hand man the Archangel Michael. This film talks about the second war in heaven soon thereafter which no one outside those who wrote little-known apocryphal texts about it (and being apocryphal they never were included in the Bible). This war now had a new group of angels led by the Archangel Gabriel rebelling against God for choosing humans (talking monkeys as these new rebels called them) above all living creatures including the angels themselves for God’s love. This war was now in a state of stalemate after countless millenia, but a prophecy about a soul so dark and evil was to be the tipping point for either side. This particular soul was to be found on Earth and whoever acquires it would break the stalemate and finally bring this second war to an end.

With this in mind we have Walken as the Archangel Gabriel coming down to Earth to look for this soul so he can finally win the war for his side (which also means the end of mankind). It’s the angel Simon (played by Eric Stoltz) who comes down to stop him from getting this soul or, at the very least, hide it from Gabriel. With these two factions of angels vying to acquire this soul we have a Detective Thomas Daggett smack in the middle of the case investigating all the weird happenings and deaths surrounding the battle between these two factions. The dead bodies of angels begin to appear on morgue slabs looking like eyeless, hermaphroditic specimens and angelic script found in crime scenes brings Daggett back to his time studying to be a priest before images of angels warring amongst themselves breaks him down and he quits the seminary to become a cop instead.

It would come down to these three factions racing against time to acquire this dark soul.

The film is not as gory as it’s feature in Fangoria made it out to be, but it is quite violent and bloody that I understand why it got the horror label attached to it. It’s more a dark fantasy thriller more than horror. It’s rare in today’s film that we see angels portrayed as the bloodthirsty beings that the really are. The film even points out this oft-ignored detail of God’s messengers. Angels are always the ones God sends to punish or send a very serious message to his chosen beings that is Man. The Prophecy shows this aspect of angels in full light and how their attitudes about humanity might lead some of them to hate God for raising Man above even them.

Christopher Walker does a great job conveying Gabriel’s hate and contempt for humans. His Gabriel is like one of those pundits always on tv (both liberal and consevative) who are so into their sides’ message that they never see the other side as anything but the enemy. One could almost say that Walken’s Gabriel is like then apocalypse-hungry version of Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann in one body. This is not to say that Walken goes over-the-top with his performance. In fact, he’s quite subdued in how he uses those many tics and voice mannerisms a whole cottage industry has grown around in.

Walken’s portrayal of Gabriel infuses what could’ve become a one-note villain with lots of layers and complexities that the rest of the cast were able to play off from. His character would be terrifying one moment then smoothly switch over to being funny and charming then back to terror. It’s due to his great performance that the other cast members like Stoltz as the weary, loyal angel Simon and Koteas as the fallen religious cop Daggett were able to bring their own performance to another level. This is quite a feat since the dialogue in the film was a mixed bag of horror cliches and interesting Biblical-speak about secret wars, apocryphal books and prophecies. The film even has a nice appearance of the first fallen angel himself and none other than Viggo Mortensen plays Lucifer.

The Prophecy does have a feeling that it was always one misstep away from becoming an awful film. This had happened with 2010’s Legion and did that film about angels and the apocalypse turn out to be a huge steaming pile of shit-turd. But while Dimension Film saw the film fall over on the side of bad for myself and those who have come to admire and love this cult classic the film stayed balance between good and bad. Widen’s film never went over to the side of becoming a truly great film, but it also never fell on the side that Legion ended up on. What Prophecy ended up becoming was a film that was almost grindhouse in nature, but even then it still looked too good with too many good performances to be given that label. The fact that it contains one of Christopher Walken’s best performances speaks well of a film that many critics during it’s early days had dismissed as just another bad horror film.

In the end, this film became just one of the many little-gems that got lost in film studio money politics. I definitely would recommend this cult film to people who haven’t seen it, but I would tell them to stop at just this film and not even go near the four sequels which came after it.

From Vanishing Point To Shivers, Here’s 6 More Trailers

Posted on February 5, 2011 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As the snow outside slowly melts and I try to decide what to wear when I go see The Rite tonight, why don’t you enjoy six more of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Trailers?

1) Vanishing Point (1971)

I had to include this trailer at some point since Vanishing Point is one of the key influences on Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof section of Grindhouse. Is Vanishing Point the ultimate trip? Maybe but I think there’s one other film that came out the same year that might disagree…

2) The Jesus Trip (1971)

And here it is! I haven’t seen this actual film but the trailer would seem to indicate that this is some sort of religious biker film. But then you have that final scene in the trailer and you’re kinda like, “Uhmmm….sacreligious much?” Anyway, this is one of those trailers that I find myself watching over and over again. I guess I was destined to grow obsessed with this trailer as it appeals to both my exploitation fanatic side and my fallen Catholic side. Put them both together and I guess you’ve got The Jesus Trip.

Seriously, this is just a weird trailer.

3) Horror House On Highway 5 (1985)

I’ve come across this film on DVD a few times and I’ve always been seriously temped to buy it just on the basis of the title. However, I may just end up settling for having seen the trailer because, to be honest, the trailer would seem to indicate that there’s a lot of really, really ugly people in this movie. And ugly people kinda sorta make me nervous.

4) Revenge of the Cheerleaders (1976)

I guess this is like the grindhouse version of Bring It On. Watching the trailer, I have to wonder why high schools in 70s movies always looked so dirty and unwashed. I mean — BLEH! Seriously, if my school had been that dirty, I would have ended up dropping out of school when I was 15. I mean, gawd damn! Get out the Scrubbing Bubbles and every sanitizer you can find and just — oh my God. I think it’s the cafeteria that really makes me shudder. Anyway, as for the rest of the trailer, I asked my sister Erin if it looked like a truthful depiction of high school cheerleading since she used to be one and she said no because most cheerleader don’t survive getting blown up as easily as the ones in this trailer.

5) Bad Girls Go To Hell (1965)

This is a film from the notoriously odd Doris Wishman. Someday, somebody — maybe even me — is going to turn the life of Doris Wishman into a great novel and an even better film.