Tag Archives: Michael Rooker

Lisa Marie Gets Super (dir. by James Gunn)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Super, a very dark and very Catholic comedy that pretends to just be your standard issue super hero movie, played for about three weeks down here in Dallas.  Despite a cast that included Kevin Bacon, Liv Tyler, Ellen Page, and Rainn Wilson, it kinda came and went like a ship in the night.  It got a few vaguely confused reviews from the local critics and the audience that I saw the film with seemed to be pretty confused as to what they were watching.  Which is a shame because if you give the film a chance, you’ll discover one of the best films of 2011.

In Super, Rainn Wilson plays a short order cook who, at various points in his life, has had visions in which he believes God has spoken to him.  When his wife, an ex-drug addict played by Liv Tyler, leaves him for a sleazy club owner and low-level drug dealer (Kevin Bacon), Wilson sinks into a deep depression until finally he has a vision in which God sends a bunch of hentai-style tentacles to cut off the top of Wilson’s head and literally place an idea in there.  That idea is for Wilson to become a costumed super hero and fight “evil.”

So, that’s what Wilson does, dressing up in what looks like a low-rent Halloween costume, and taking on all those who he considers to be evil and/or doing the wrong thing.  This could be anything from dealing drugs to cutting in line at the movies.  (And this is a big reason why I loved Super because it asked the same question that I always wonder when I see a super hero movie — i.e., who is to say what’s wrong and what’s right?)  Calling himself The Crimson Bolt, Wilson soon becomes a cult figure in the city but he still finds himself incapable of getting Tyler away from Bacon. 

Eventually, he finds himself saddled with a sidekick.  Ellen Page, giving a performance just as award-worthy as her more acclaimed role in Juno, plays Libby, who works in the local comic book store.  She is the only person who figures out that Wilson is actually the Crimson Bolt and she quickly decides that they should work together.  Calling herself Boltie, Page quickly turns out to be just as zealous in the pursuit of “justice” as Wilson.  Unlike Wilson, who sees himself as being on a holy mission, Page appears to just be happy to have an excuse to kill people.

It all leads to the expected final confrontation with the bad guys and a surprisingly poignant ending which forces the viewer to reconsider what they thought they knew about every character in the film.

Super’s low-budget is obvious in almost every frame of the film but it works to the movie’s advantage, creating an almost defiantly gritty atmosphere.  The film is also full of good performances.  I already mentioned Page but, in the lead role, Rainn Wilson is perfectly cast.  For those of us who love him on The Office, it’s sometimes hard to realize that Wilson is not Dwight Shrute, he’s just an actor playing a role.  However, with Super, Wilson proves himself to be a charismatic actor who, if given the right role, can easily carry the film.  Towards the end of the film, one of the bad guys taunts Wilson for concerning himself with seemingly minor things like people cutting in line.  Wilson shouts, “You shouldn’t cut!” with such righteous fury that it becomes clear  that he’s not talking about cutting in line as much as he talks about living in a world where people just no longer seem to care about doing the right thing.  It’s an unexpectedly effective scene and line and Wilson handles it perfectly.

Super is the latest film from a genius named James Gunn.  Now, I should admit that I am like crazy in lust with James Gunn.  Seriously, he’s handsome, he’s funny, he’s talented, he’s hot, he’s vulnerable, he’s dangerous, he’s Irish, and he comes from a Catholic background, which is pretty much a perfect description of my dream man.  Plus, he talked to me once on twitter and as a result, I got all giggly and red-faced and I sent him all of these gushy tweets which he never responded to, probably because I was like totally coming across like some sort of psycho stalker type.  So, some people are probably saying, “Well, gee, Lisa Marie, are you sure you’re not just letting your damp panties review this film as opposed to your unbiased judgment as a film watcher?”  And to those people, I say, “Shame on you and watch your mouth.  And speaking of mouths, guess where my mouth would be if I ever met James Gunn…”

Mon amour James Gunn

But let’s get back Super.  Super has been frequently compared to Kick-Ass (even though Super actually went into production first) and, on the surface, they do appear similar.  It’s only when you dig and look under the surface that you discover that Super and Kick-Ass have about as much in common as I do with that overly friendly girl who always takes our tickets at the Angelika.  (She’s the same girl who needs to stop smiling so much at Jeff every time we try to get popcorn.  Seriously, not kidding.)  While Kick-Ass was undeniably violent, it was also one of those films where the violence was rarely lingered over.  Super is not only incredibly violent but it’s also incredibly bloody.  Gunn doesn’t just show us the violence but he shows us the end results of the violence as well and, as a result, the audience is forced to consider how much we love to see people getting shot in the head just as long as we don’t have to worry about seeing the body afterwards.  Whereas Kick-Ass’s Aaron Johnson was portrayed as being a comic book fan who got to live out his fantasy, Rainn Wilson in Super is specifically portrayed as not being a comic book fan as much as he’s just a genuinely unstable guy who becomes a super hero in order to maintain the delusional black-and-white morality of his worldview.  Whereas Chloe Grace Moretz’s Hit Girl was portrayed as having been raised to kill, Ellen Page’s Boltie kills simply because she now suddenly has the opportunity to do so.  Finally, Kick-Ass actually ended up fighting true evil doers whereas the villains played by Kevin Bacon and Michael Rooker, in Super, are probably the most stable and sensible characters in the entire film.

In short, Super is that perfect rarity — a truly transgressive work of popular entertainment.

Yes, Super is one of those films that delights in challenging and even ticking off the audience.   The common filmgoer watches and asks, “If it’s a drama, then why is it so funny?  If it’s a comedy, then why does Rainn Wilson’s heartbreak seem so real and sincere?  If Rainn Wilson and Ellen Page are the good guys, why does the film suggest that they both might be sociopathic?  If Kevin Bacon’s the bad guy, why is he so likable here?”  As a result, the common filmgoer probably walked out of Super feeling confused and slightly annoyed that things didn’t work out the way they were expecting. 

Well, you know what?  The common filmgoer sucks.  The common filmgoer is responsible for every bad thing that has ever happened in the history of the world.  The common filmgoer is wasting oxygen that you, my deeply enlightened friends, could make much better use of.  This is not the site for the common filmgoer and if you’re still reading, then you’re not a common filmgoer either.

Super was made with you in mind.

James Gunn’s Super: Official Trailer

Posted on by Arleigh

In what could be 2011’s version of Kick-Ass, the latest film from writer-director James Gunn looks to take the superhero genre into the realm of ultraviolence and some heavy dark comedy. The film is simply titled Super and stars Rainn Wilson, Ellen Page, Liv Tyler and Kevin Bacon and it’s about Wilson’s character deciding he’s had enough of being the meek and the weak. His decision to take control of his life takes him into a very dark place where superheroes are made and lots of vigilante justice served on crime everywhere.

From the look of the trailer it definitely looks like its going to go even farther than what Kick-Ass did in 2010. This film may also share something with that film in that it probably won’t make the sort of money it’s supporters and fans are hoping it’ll make.

So, I suggest people see this film as soon as it comes in their area. People need to support films like this or they should just shut up about how Hollywood has run out of ideas and only cookie-cutter flicks are being pushed on the audience year in and year out.

 

Review: The Walking Dead (EP04) – “Vatos”

Posted on by Arleigh

[Some Spoilers Within]

We’re now into the first episode of the second half of this initial season. The Walking Dead has been a definitive hit for cable network AMC who has been hyping up the show every week for months. The pilot episode has been hailed as one of the best premiere shows and it helped that showrunner Frank Darabont wrote and directed it. Then we had the follow-up episode which have been hit-or-miss for some people with the second one being a miss for some who began to question whether Robert Kirkman’s comic book series will have the legs to last several seasons and beyond. The third episode allayed some of those fears, but still some people were still doubting whether the show can truly balance the intense drama and character interaction with the zombie mayhem and gore.

Now we’re on the fourth episode and when people heard that creator Robert Kirkman would be writing the episode more doubts started to creep in. I say this because as critically-acclaimed and popular the comic book series is there’s a vocal segment of the fans who think the book succeeds despite Kirkman’s writing which tend to be heavy on the exposition. They see him not knowing the concept of “less is more”. As a long-time fan I can see what these fans mean, but I also think he’s quite good in creating the scenarios his characters must navigate through.

With this fourth episode titled “Vatos” we get Robert Kirkman writing not as a comic book writer but as someone who knows its a new medium and must write accordingly. In what I consider the best episode since the Darabont written and directed pilot, Robert Kirkman has shown just why millions of fans have flocked to read the comic book and why millions more have fallen in love with it’s tv adaptation.

The episode begins with a beautifully shot prologue of Amy and Andrea sitting in a boat fishing in the quarry lake and reminiscing about their father. It’s a nice tender moment which takes on a sad note as they finally voice every survivor’s fear. Are their parents alive? Maybe where they lived wasn’t hit hard. It’s survivor’s guilt to the nth degree as we and these characters know that the odds of any of the camp’s loved ones in far off places being alive are miniscule to none.

We also see a disturbing portent of what may yet come to pass as Jim, the mechanic from the past episode, seem to be losing his edge. It falls to Dale to notice Jim’s erratic behavior and then down to Shane to take care of things before Jim finally goes over the deep end and hurts not just himself but everyone else. I liked how Jim’s little revelation about what happened to his family arrived quite naturally and the effect it had on Lori and the others. Lori, Carol and Andrea may still have a semblance of a family, but Jim is the prime example of someone who has lost everything and may not have anything left to live for.

Now, we ended the third episode with Rick and his little band of Merle rescuers finding their quarry missing and not just from the roof but the hand he was cuffed with. We see the aftermath of Merle’s improbable, but quite the badass, escape from the roof. While we don’t see Michael Rooker as Merle in this episode his presence looms over everything and everyone. It’s during Rick and the groups attempt to find not just where Merle went but also the bag of guns Rick dropped in the pilot episode that we finally meet the episode’s title characters.

At first, it seemed like another attempt by Kirkman and the writers to drop stereotypical characters into an already crowded plate. Latino gangbangers becoming an immediate threat to Rick and his group. They even had a smooth-talking and intelligent leader that some may see as the show’s attempt on the typical drug lord. The confrontation between the two groups don’t come off so smoothly the first, second and third time, but it takes the intervention of the kindly grandma-type to ease the tensions. Tensions which reveals that people shouldn’t judge a book by it’s covers.

I definitely think this is like Kirkman’s shot across the bow of his detractors who think he cannot write beyond wordy exposition. The dialogue in this episode was some of the strongest and I’d say just slightly above of the pilot’s. There were more characters involved with two paralleling storylines to manage. Kirkman has shown with this episode that he actually knows the concept of “less is more” and that his true calling may not be writing comic books but writing teleplays for tv. I wouldn’t mind if all the episodes of The Walking Dead were written by just Darabont and Kirkman. I truly believe that this episode won’t be last time we see a Kirkman-written episode and that’s a good thing to look forward to.

In the end, “Vatos” more than lives up to the high standard the pilot episode set. It was an episode which was able to combine not just the dramatic interaction between character and groups (and not just conflicts, but the quieter moments) but also the very zombie mayhem and carnage fans of the genre expect the show to have. The episode which begins so calm and serene ends on a horrifying and sad way. This episode has finally illustrated what the comic book was all about. A story and journey of survivors living day by day trying to retain a semblance of their old lives only to have the ever-present threat of the zombie apocalypse shatter such misguided attempts.

Extras

* KNB EFX founder Greg Nicotera makes an appearance as a zombie in the second-half of the episode.

* Merle Dixon never appearing on-screen but still ends up being the badass of the episode.

* Guillermo’s (leader of the Vatos) hounds from hell.

* “Admit it, we only came back to Atlanta for the hat” (Glenn seeming to be the one person in every episode with the witty quip and remark to lighten things a bit)

* Breakin’ Bad veteran-director Johan Renck’s masterful handling of the episode’s climactic scene in the camp.

* The show loses a regular character and one of the cardboard ones.

 

Review: The Walking Dead (EP03) – “Tell It to the Frogs”

Posted on by Arleigh

[Some Spoilers Within]

Ok, the second episode of The Walking Dead was seen by some as being too much like every past zombie films and stories that’s ever been told. It was too much about the typical zombie siege of a group of survivors inside a building with little to no way out of the predicament. Now add in the elements of infighting within the group not to mention a dangerous wild card of a character and some viewers were turned off by it. The fact that the episode was one of the goriest episodes of any show ever put on non-premium cable never got much press.

One character introduced in episode 2 which really polarized viewers was the one played by veteran genre actor Michael Rooker. The character was one Merle Dixon and he instantly appeared in the show as an uncouth, loud, abrasive redneck racist that for some the only thing missing was the song “Dixie” playing in the background. I must admit that the character of Merle Dixon was written and introduced rather awkwardly, but to say that the zombie apocalypse wouldn’t include such blatant racists individuals have way too an optimistic view of humanity.

It is how we start the third episode, titled “Tell It to the Frogs”, that has redeemed the character of Merle Dixon to some skeptics. I wouldn’t say redeemed as in they accepted the racist but that he might still have a part to play in this 6-episode first season of the show. In the second episode Merle was left behind by Rick and the group handcuffed on the roof of the very building which was now overrun by “walkers”. Fortunately for Merle, T-Dog (who had happened to drop the cuff keys down the drain in his attempt to free Merle) had chained and padlocked the door to the roof to keep Merle from becoming the next sun-burned meal for the walkers. Unfortunately for Merle the chain and padlock had some slack to it that the door could be opened with enough of a gap for a walker to stick its head through.

Merle opens the third episode talking to himself as he reminisces about punching some Army officer in the past. Right from the get-go we see Merle might have lost his mind somewhat. But as soon as his trip down racist memory lane ends he finally snaps back to reality and realizes he’s cuffed to the roof, no key to the cuffs and the zombies as working their damndest to push the chained roof door wide enough to get through. Before the scene moves to the intro credits me last see Merle trying to use his belt to pull the steel hacksaw to him while praying and condemning Jesus in equal amounts.

That was some fine acting from Michael Rooker and was one of the highlights of the episode. While it still doesn’t answer the question of how such a racist was even with the group in the building, it does confirm that Merle might not be all there mentally. The appearance of his brother Daryl halfway through the episode and showing the younger Dixon to be as racist but not as unhinged reminds me of the two characters from Of Mice and Men except these two are of the racist variety. George being the younger Dixon and the Lennie role taken on by Merle. It’ll be interesting how these two new characters to the series will unfold as the first season rushes towards its conclusion. The scene in the end with Daryl finding the aftermath of Merle’s attempts to escape his cuffs was another fine moment in an episode that was more about character interaction and drama than about violence and gore (thought there’s some of that in the episode).

While the episode begins and ends with the fate of Merle Dixon the bulk of the episode was the reunion of the Grimes family and how Rick’s miraculous arrival has changed the camp’s group dynamics with Shane Walsh (Jon Bernthal in a performance which turned his character of Shane from hated “black hat” of the show to one that was a complex character who may or may not still be a simple “black hat”) and his wife Lori.

The scene where Rick slowly makes himself seen by the camp was very touching and showed hints of the love triangle the show will be exploring between Rick, Lori and Shane. The fact that Shane’s the first to see Rick and his expression turns from curiosity about who this new survivor was to one of shocked disbelief that the man he had spoken of as being dead has come back to his life. A life he seemed to be remaking with Lori as his partner and him a surrogate father to Rick’s son Carl. The reaction by Lori to suddenly seeing her husband back in her life healthy and alive ran the spectrum of surprise, shock and guilt.

Even the complex reactions from Shane and Lori didn’t diminish the heartwarming reunion between father and son as Rick literally fell to his knees in tears to hug his son Carl. That scene definitely was a tearjerker for many and Lincoln’s performance was very believable. One could almost see the burden and tension drain away from Lincoln’s Rick. The goal he had set for himself since episode 1 was now complete and nothing else mattered at that moment.

The show did have some moments which showed Darabont and the writers still feeling their way around Kirkman’s source material. One of it being the introduction of an abusive husband for one of the book’s regular faces in Carol. In the book the husband was only  mentioned as not having survived the trip to Atlanta but no mention of him ever being abusive. Like the introduction of Merle in the previous episode, the appearance of Ed as the caveman husband was done too haphazardly. Almost like someone out of stereotype casting call, Ed bullied his way around the women in the camp until Shane had to step in and put on an epic beating that added some depth to the character of Shane but also made one wonder if the addition of Ed was just as a way to give Shane an outlet for the anger and frustration he was feeling from the return of Rick and the subsequent frosty attitude by Lori towards him.

In the end, “Tell It to the Frogs” was a much stronger return for the show after a second episode that some thought was being too stereotypical of a zombie story. I enjoyed the second episode but understand why some reacted to negatively to it after such a powerful initial pilot episode. The crew of Darabont, Kirkman and the other writers definitely have a balance to do between dramatic storytelling and zombie mayhem as the show continues through this first season and into the next. While some of the characters, both new and old, do seem too one-dimensional and more like plot devices for the main characters the show is only in its third episode and to judge the whole thing on such a small sampling is not fair to the show and the people behind it. I think the show has hit a nice balance of drama and mayhem. Time will tell if the show will live or die by balancing the two or finally landing on one side or the other.

PS: Oh yeah, anyone who happens to be fans of Bambi and her mom will have a hard time watching this episode.

The Walking Dead – Behind the Scenes Sizzle Reel (AMC)

Posted on by Arleigh

It’s now just a little over a month to go before one of the most anticipated new shows on TV hits the airwaves. AMC’s tv series adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s critically-acclaimed and fan favorite comic book series The Walking Dead will premiere on Halloween night 2010 at 10pm. The show will also premiere within days in over 40-plus countries which would be an unprecedented feat for a first time tv series.

Frank Darabont and his band of writers seem to have taken Kirkman’s story and made the necessary changes to make it work on tv. One aspect of Kirkman’s storytelling was how some people thought it to be too expositionary. This left each page with too much talking while at the same time not fleshing out each character to be distinct from each other. While I can see that I don’t buy into that particular flaw in the story too much. This is a story of the end of the world and stress definitely plays a key role in how everyone reacts to their new environment.

From the AMC “sizzle” reel the network has released just in the last few days it looks like the show’s writers have taken Kirkman’s story, ideas and dialogue and made them flow much more naturally. Final judgement on whether this actually happens will have to wait until the show premieres, but Darabont has always been a writers first and filmmaker second so I definitely have much faith that he and his team will come out with a great product that takes the best from the comic book and trims the fat and gristle off by the wayside.

There’s also one thing the “sizzle” reel above shows which should answer the trepidations that some of the comic book’s fans have had since hearing th news of the adaptation. This was whether AMC will keep the gore and violence from the comic books or will it be toned down. From the looks of some of the scenes shown in the reel above the gore and violence is on-hand and from the look of things this may be the most gory thing on tv that’s not premium cable. I see blood, gore, viscera and all the nice gooey things that happens when a body’s insides are exposed to the environment. YUM!

Halloween 2010 needs to come now, but until then revisiting the comic books the series is adapting is a good way to pass the time.

Source: io9

The Walking Dead – Official Series Trailer (AMC)

Posted on by Arleigh

Well, it’s now official. AMC has finally released the very same trailer that people not fortunate enough to have attended San Diego Comic-Con last month. This trailer is under 5 minutes long and it’s the same one those who attended the Comic-Con panel for the show saw. Only shaky and grainy bootleg copies of the trailer has been seen outside of that panel. While some bootleg versions were quite good in quality they’re still not a substitute for the official release of the same trailer by AMC for everyone to watch.

This official trailer release was also AMC’s way of finally announcing the premiere date of the 90-minute pilot episode (directed by showrunner and producer Frank Darabont). The pilot will premiere worldwide on Halloween Night, October 31, 2010. While some thought the pilot will premiere early on AMC’s “Fearfest” campaign for October I think it’s appropriate that the series premieres on Halloween Night. I can definitely see many fans of the comic book series planning their Halloween parties to include group watch of the pilot episode the very same night.

Still two months away and this trailer definitely doesn’t make the wait any easier.

Source: The Walking Dead (AMC)

The Walking Dead Comic-Con Bootlegged Trailer

Posted on by Arleigh

It may be weeks before AMC puts up a much more high-quality version of this trailer, but until then this is the only one non-Comic-Con goers can watch. The trailer definitely shows enough of what Darabont and his writers are going for to assuage any fear I have that they’re straying too far away from Kirkman’s laid out plans and that they may be staying too loyal to the original source.

I really like how the trailer shows enough scenes from the comic book’s first couple issues that fans have memorized. This series (6 episodes in total) will definitely be the show to watch this coming tv season. That scene with the zombies swarming in, around and over the tank sent chills up my spine.

I also love how loud and well the panel attendees received the trailer. Now time for the series to impress the non-fans. If the series does that then The Walking Dead will join Mad Men and Breaking Bad in creating a trifecta of the best shows on basic cable and probably tv in general.

Review: Slither (dir. by James Gunn)

Posted on by Arleigh

James Gunn first got his chance to work in the horror-comedy genre with his time in Troma Films. His first contribution to the genre being a send up of Shakespeare’s Romero and Juliet aptly titled as Tromeo and Juliet. He next moved on to penning scripts for the major studios with his first two being the critically-panned, but profitable two Scooby-Doo live-action films. Gunn next moved on to writing a script reimagining George A. Romero’s classic Dawn of the Dead. Despite howls of protest from the original film’s legion of fans, the film went on to be a modest success and helped bring about the renaissance of the current zombie mania in all facet of entertainment. Gunn follows up the success of his Dawn remake by not just writing the script but finally getting behind the camera and directing it himself. I’m glad to say that James Gunn’s first directorial debut with Slither has turned out to be one fun, gross-out, disgustingly hilarious horror-comedy that brings to mind the splatter-comedy films of the 1980’s.

I say that Slither has alot in common with the horror-comedy during the 80’s just for the fact that we’ve not seen a film of this kind since. Slither brings to mind such 80’s B-movie shlock classics like Critters, Return of the Living Dead, and Night of the Creeps. But Gunn also pays some an homage to cult classics like John Carpenter’s The Thing. One of the character’s in the film and a store are even named after The Thing‘s badass antihero, R.J. MacReady. Then there’s the tip of the hat to Romero’s zombies, though this time around I would say that Gunn had more in mind the quickthinking and funny undead from John Russo’s Return of the Living Dead. There’s even a shout out to Invasion of the Body Snatchers as the alien slug-controlled populace are actually part of a much larger organism who thinks for all.

The story Gunn came up with for Slither was pretty straightforward and simple. Intelligent alien organism bent on world domination hitches a ride on a meteor which travel the depths of space until it falls on an unsuspecting planet. Unfortunately, the planet in question for the film happens to be Earth. Right from the get go the comedic aspect of the film begins even as the alien-laden meteor crash lands its way to one Wheelsy, N.C. A podunk town where the most interesting to happen each year is the annual Deer Cheer which signals the start of Deer Hunting season. We get to see the mundane day-to-day life of the townspeople from the pretty high school teacher Starla Grant (adorably played and with a strong sense of marital fidelity by Elizabeth Banks), the town’s obnoxious and foulmouthed Mayor MacReady (Gregg Henry’s performance was hilarious and he gets pretty much all the best one-liners), to its Chief of Police Bill Pardy (Nathan Fillion in Han Solo mode).

The alien soon finds a host in the town’s richest person who also happens to be Starla’s much older husband, Grant Grant. Michael Rooker (Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer) plays Grant and his performance was both funny and sad. He pretty much starts morphing into a creature somewhere between Jabba the Hutt and a Lovecraftian squid-person. But through it all, Grant’s love for his wife manifests itself by way of the alien’s collective intelligence. When the townspeople all start getting infected by the large, slug-like offsprings of the main alien, it’s hilarious to find that they all share Grant’s love for Starla. It would seem that the alien collective learned abit or two from Grant about marital love and also a love of Air Supply’s syrupy ballad, “Every Woman in the World.” These zombies chant the word “Starla” instead of “brains.” The rest of the film was pretty much Starla, Bill Pardy and a small band of survivors trying to stop the Grant-alien, the slugs and the zombified townspeople from spreading out of Wheelsy and out onto the rest of the planet.

The film balances well between horror and comedy. The horror aspect of Slither comes from the many gory scenes. Trust me when I say that this film has more than its share of blood, gore and splatter. We’re shown dead and gutted pets and farm animals. Not to mention the requisite flesheating performed by the zombies. the great thing about the scenes of horror in Slither was the absence of CGI except for a scene or two and even then it was difficult to pinpoint which was CGI and which was animatronics and make-up effects. Slither‘s monster effect owes alot to the work of Rob Bottin and his crew who did the disgustingly creative effects on Carpenter’s The Thing. I’m glad to see that Gunn decided to forgo CGI for these scenes and went for more realism. Even if such realism were nauseatingly disgusting and gross. Just what a horror movie was suppose to be. The comedy part came not from the aliens and the scenes of horror, but from the characters reactions to the unfolding events around them.

Just like Shaun of the Dead, Slither’s characters stumble, bumble and trip their way through the crisis. Even Fillion’s character of Bill the Chief goes against the stereotypical hero from these type of film. He’s a smartass about his job and how he sees the people he’s suppose to protect, but when the time comes to do his job as protector he tries to do the best he can even though the best he can doesn’t measure up to what we’re suppose to get from our heroes. The dialogue was fast and wickedly sharp which made for alot of hilarious one-liners and most of them coming from the mouth of Slither’s Mr. Pibb-obssessed Mayor MacReady and his penchant for overreacting to everything and also for calling everyone cocksucker.

Slither doesn’t try to be anything but what it set out to be: a funny horror film with a large helping of slapstick, splatter and slime. In that respect, James Gunn succeeded with his writing and directing of Slither. The movie doesn’t bring any originality to the horror-comedy genre. To be honest, there’s not much originality left to bring to the genre, but Slither takes all the usual conventions from those 80’s horror-comedies and gives it a new millenium vibe. The acting by the cast was well-done and showed that they must’ve have fun doing the film. The special effects were done old-school style with nary a CGI-effect to be seen except for a few brief scenes. In the end, Slither was one fun, rollercoaster of a movie that scared the audience into jumping and recoiling in their seats and at the same time making them scream, shout and laugh when doing so. I’ve never had as much fun these last couple years watching a movie like I did with Slither.

Review: Henry – Portrait of a Serial Killer (dir. by John McNaughton)

Posted on by Arleigh

“It’s always the same… and it’s always different.” — Henry

John McNaughton’s directorial debut deserves its reputation as one of the most unsettling first features in American cinema. Working with a reported $125,000 budget, a committed cast and crew, and the premise of fictionalizing a week in the life of serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, McNaughton created something raw, unflinching, and difficult to shake. Completed in 1986 but held back from its eventual 1990 theatrical release by a prolonged ratings battle, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer challenges more than the audience’s tolerance for violence. It challenges the reassuring conventions through which movies usually make violence entertaining.

Loosely inspired by Lucas rather than functioning as a faithful biography, the film offers neither a comprehensive criminal history nor an explanation that makes its subject comfortably understandable. Its Henry exists in an American landscape of cheap apartments, anonymous streets, and seemingly endless highways. Roger Ebert described the film as “an unforgettable portrait of the pathology of a man for whom killing is not a crime but simply a way of passing time and relieving boredom.” That observation gets at its horror: murder has become part of the texture of Henry’s everyday existence.

The opening establishes that perspective with devastating economy. McNaughton presents bodies left behind in different locations, cutting between the aftermath of violence and Henry moving through ordinary surroundings. We encounter the results before we can impose a familiar dramatic structure on them. These deaths are not arranged as the satisfying conclusion to a chase or the payoff to an elaborate suspense sequence. They register as abandoned lives, their stillness made more disturbing by the suggestion that the man responsible has already moved on.

That approach gives the film its grim, almost documentary texture. Its power comes less from the quantity of blood than from the absence of comforting distance. There is little visual glamour to soften the ugliness, and little sense that the violence belongs to a separate, recognizably cinematic universe. The rooms are cramped, the conversations awkward, and the surroundings indifferent. McNaughton makes the extraordinary horror of murder coexist with the dullness of daily life. What unsettles us is not simply that Henry kills, but that killing seems to interrupt his routine so little.

Michael Rooker’s performance is essential to that effect. He does not announce Henry’s dangerousness through constant theatrical menace. Instead, he gives him a watchfulness and emotional opacity that make his quieter moments as troubling as his outbursts. Henry can appear withdrawn, practical, even momentarily considerate, without becoming someone we truly understand. Rooker refuses to turn him into either a charismatic monster or an easily diagnosed collection of symptoms. We keep looking for a stable personality beneath his behavior, only to discover how little reassurance that search provides.

Henry’s former cellmate and roommate, Otis, supplies a different kind of ugliness. Played with repellent enthusiasm by Tom Towles, he initially seems more buffoonish than threatening. That impression gradually collapses as Henry introduces him to murder. Where Henry often appears detached, Otis becomes excited by the possibilities. Violence gives him an outlet for impulses that were already present, and his growing enthusiasm makes their companionship increasingly sickening. Henry does not create Otis’s cruelty so much as offer it permission and a practical education.

[youtubhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxxZ8yspQyw]

Their relationship reaches its most disturbing expression in the videotaped home invasion. The sequence strips away whatever distance remains between violence as an event and violence as something consumed. When the recording becomes material for playback, Otis’s pleasure forces us to confront the relationship between perpetrator, spectator, and image. His desire to revisit the murders is repulsive, but the film makes that revulsion uncomfortable rather than easy. We, too, are watching images of people being brutalized, although our reasons for watching may be entirely different.

This is where Henry becomes more than an exercise in endurance. McNaughton raises a question about spectatorship without pretending that every audience member has the same response. Do we recoil, become numb, or continue watching because the film has made looking away feel like abandoning its argument? The sequence does not prove that watching fictional violence makes someone equivalent to Otis. Instead, it exposes how framing, repetition, and emotional distance can transform suffering into a consumable object. The distinction between his appetite and our attention remains crucial, but it is no longer comfortable.

Henry’s relative restraint beside Otis creates another trap. Because Otis expresses such obvious delight in degradation, Henry can begin to look like the lesser evil. His apparent detachment becomes something we are tempted to mistake for a boundary, perhaps even a surviving moral principle. Yet indifference is not mercy, and a lack of visible excitement does not diminish the suffering he causes. The film understands how desperately an audience will search for someone to identify with, then makes that instinct a source of dread.

Becky, Otis’s sister, gives that search its emotional weight. Tracy Arnold brings vulnerability to a character whose longing for affection makes Henry’s occasional gentleness seem meaningful. She wants to believe that escape is possible, and the audience wants to believe it with her. Their scenes allow the possibility of another kind of movie to emerge: one in which damaged people recognize each other and find some fragile way forward. McNaughton lets that possibility exist without promising that Henry can fulfill it.

The ending destroys that hope without turning the destruction into a conventional climax. As Henry and Becky leave together, their departure briefly resembles an escape from the ugliness that has surrounded them. We are ready to interpret movement as progress and tenderness as transformation. The final roadside image exposes how much we have supplied ourselves. Henry has not necessarily changed because someone loves him, nor has the story become redemptive because we need relief. What remains is the road, his mobility, and the terrible suggestion of repetition.

I consider Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer a great work of American filmmaking because its severity serves a coherent purpose. Its ugliness will repel some viewers, and its methods deserve scrutiny rather than automatic praise for being uncompromising. But McNaughton does not use brutality merely to decorate a thin story. He builds a character study around the absence of the explanations and consolations we expect. The result is not entertainment in any reassuring sense. It is a confrontation with a man whose capacity for murder exists alongside an almost unbearable ordinariness—and a film that refuses to make that contradiction easier to live with.