Eric Peter Kaiser | Through the Shattered Lens

(Back in 2011, Chris Mead — who wrote under the name Semtex Skittle — reviewed Miracle for this site. At the that time, I had not seen the film. Below are my thoughts but please, also be sure to read Chris’s review as well.)

Like all good people, I’m currently obsessed with the Winter Olympics. Earlier this week I asked a couple of friends if they could recommend some good Winter Olympics movies. A lot of movies were suggested but, without fail, everyone thought I should see Miracle. (A lot of people also suggested Cool Runnings, which I’ll be watching next week.) Having watched Miracle earlier today, I can see why everyone recommended it.

The year is 1980 and two hockey teams are about to face off at the Winter Olympics in upstate New York. (The location, to be exact, is Lake Placid. Fortunately, the giant alligators are nowhere to be seen.)

On one side you have the Russian team (or the Soviets as they were known back then). They are widely considered to be one of the greatest hockey teams in history. They are big, fierce, and determined. Coming from a system that has declared individuality to be a crime against the state, the Soviet team plays like a machine. The Soviets have won the gold in the last four Olympics. As one American coach puts it, their greatest strength is that every other hockey team in the world is terrified of them.

On the other side, you have the American team. However, this isn’t the type of American dream team that one would expect to see today. In 1980, professional athletes were not allowed to compete on the U.S. Olympic team. Instead, the 1980 hockey team is made up of amateurs and college players. Unlike the Soviet teams, the American don’t have a government that grooms and supports them. Instead, win or lose, they have to do it on their own.

Of course, it’s not just two hockey teams that are about to face off. It’s also two super powers and two very different ways of life. In 1980, the U.S. and the Soviet Union were the two most powerful rivals in the world. The Soviets were trapped in an endless and unpopular war in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, in the U.S., the economy was shaky, American citizens were being held hostage in Iran, and an ineffective President gave long-winded speeches about how unhappy everyone in the country appeared to be. Both countries needed a victory but only one could win.

And it would take a miracle for that winning team to be American…

I don’t think it requires a spoiler alert to tell you that’s exactly what happens. I mean, after all, I’m reviewing a film called Miracle! On top of that, it’s based on true events. The U.S. hockey team — made up of college students and led by Coach Herb Brooks (played, in one of his best performance, by Kurt Russell) — not only managed to defeat the highly favored Soviet team but they went on to win the gold medal.

Even if you didn’t know that the Americans beat the Russians, you would never have any doubt about how Miracle is going to end. Miracle is a film that utilizes almost every sports film cliché but it manages to do so with such sincerity and such style that you don’t mind the fact that the movie doesn’t exactly take you by surprise. Is there any actor who is as good at project sincerity and human decency as Kurt Russell? Whenever he says that he’s going to make his team into champions, you believe him. When he says that he’s being hard on them because he wants them to be the best, you never doubt him or his techniques. When he says that he’s proud of his team and his country, it brings tears to your eyes. If there’s ever a movie that deserves a chant of “USA! USA! USA!,” it’s Miracle.

There’s several very good films that I need to review over the next few days but, at the moment, I really need to write about Basement Jack, a low-budget 2009 slasher film that I watched on Chiller. Why do I need to write about Basement Jack? Well, I’m already hesitant to go to sleep because I know I’m going to have nightmares about this film. So, consider this to be my attempt at a quickie exorcism. Indulge me because I need to get this film out of my system.

Why Was I Watching This:

I love horror movies and, even though they always seem to end up giving me nightmares, these old school slasher films are like catnip to me. I can’t resist watching them, if just to see if they can keep the inherently predictable conventions of genre interesting.

What’s The Movie About:

Basement Jack (Eric Peter Kaiser) is a serial killer because when you’ve got a name like Basement Jack, it’s not like you’re going to become an accountant. Anyway, Jack’s thing is that he goes from town-to-town, selects a family to kill, and then secretly moves into their basement until there’s a thunder-storm. Once it starts raining, Jack proceeds to brutally kill the family.

Karen (Michelle Marrow) is only person to have ever survived being attacked by Jack. Now, Jack is obsessed with Karen and follows her from town to town. So, Karen decides to turn the tables and she starts following Jack. Except, of course, Jack was already following her so it would seem like for her to follow him, all she would really have to do would be turn around. But anyway, I guess the important thing is that Karen-and-Jack have one of those hunter/hunted connections.

Jack and Karen both end up in a new small town where Jack sets off on another murder spree while Karen hunts for him. She does this by teaming up with a seriously incompetent cop named Chris (Sam Skoryna). Unfortunately, all of Chris’s fellow officers are 1) convinced that Karen is the murderer and 2) kinda stupid. Will Karen be able to convince the cops that Jack is real? Will Jack continually manage to stand back up after taking more damage than anyone should, realistically, be able to take? And most importantly, will Lisa be able to sleep tonight?

What Worked?

Oh my God, this film should not have disturbed me as much as it did. Seriously, I’ve seen thousands of horror movies that all had better production values, better gore effects, and better acting. And yet, Basement Jack really made me paranoid. I think that’s because director Shelton does manage to create a legitimate feeling of dread that saturates every ludicrous frame of this movie. There is remarkably little humor in this film and, as opposed to a lot of slasher films, all of the victims here just come across as normal, likable people (as opposed to being slasher movie stereotypes).

Kaiser is a genuinely scary killer and Morrow makes for a sympathetic protagonist. She brings a lot of conviction to her role. Exploitation vet Lynn Lowry (remember her from the original Crazies and I Drink Your Blood?) plays Basement Jack’s domineering mother and wow, she is scary.

Now, I’m going to admit there’s one image in this film that I know is going to give me nightmares tonight. It’s of a policewoman who, after being gutted by Jack, is seen lying on the floor, trying to stuff her intestines back into her body and oh my God, I wish I hadn’t seen that because it really got to me. I’ve read several other reviews that have all criticized the CGI gore effects as looking fake. Maybe they do, I’m not really an expert on anatomy. All I know is that image of those intestines sprouting out across a twitching body; that image is trapped in my head. It’s something that I truly wish I hadn’t seen but I still have to list it as something that worked because film horror is supposed to leave the viewer uncomfortable.

What Didn’t Work:

Oh, trust me, a lot didn’t work. Like most slasher films, this one was riddled with a combination of plot holes and characters just acting as stupid as can be.

As our male lead, Sam Skoryna displayed all the charisma of a spilled intestine and, to be honest, most of the other actors gave performances that were fairly atrocious. For some reason, one of the film’s detectives is played by musician Billy Morrison and his English accent is just so jarringly out-of-place in the film’s middle American setting. (What makes the situation especially odd is that no one in the film ever comments on his accent. Trust me — I live in middle America. Hell, I’ll be really pretentious — I mean like Sasha Stone pretentious — and say that I am Middle America. No, actually, forget I said that. That sounds really stupid. Anyway, my point is that if you’re the only Englishman in town, people are going to remind you of that every chance they get.)

An attempt was made to give Basement Jack some backstory and to explain why he does what he does. And by that, I mean that this is one of those movies where the action comes to a sudden halt every few minutes juts so we can be told that a man,who hides in people’s basements and only kills when it’s raining, is mentally ill. Gee, filmmakers, thanks for clearing that up.

And finally (SPOILER!), I am so sick of seeing slasher movies that end with a close-up of the killer’s signature killing tool just so we can suddenly see the killer’s hand come out of nowhere and grab the weapon. I mean, is anyone ever surprised by this anymore? I guess, at one time, this seemed like a twist ending but today, it just comes across as being lazy. (END OF SPOILER!)

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments:

Just like our heroine Karen, I usually try to flirt my way out of traffic tickets as well.

Lessons Learned:

It doesn’t take much to give me nightmares.