So, the long-delayed “found footage” horror film Apollo 18 was finally released at the beginning of this month and critics, both mainstream and not-so-mainstream, have been having a collective orgy in expressing their hated for the film. It currently has a “rotten” rating over on Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert — a man who gave the god-awful remake of Straw Dogs a positive review (“better than the original!”) — didn’t care much for it. Over at Hitfix.com, the appropriately named Drew McWeeny practically popped a blood vessel expressing his hatred of the film. (McWeeny followed this up by giving Shark Night 3-D a positive review.) The toadsuckers at AwardsDaily.com haven’t even acknowledged that Apollo 18 exists. (Then again, the folks in charge of that movie site have lately been more obsessed with Barack Obama’s reelection chances than with film.) Yes, everyone’s been busy hating on Apollo 18 but you know what?
I kind of enjoyed it.
As the film’s trailer makes pretty obvious, Apollo 18 is the latest example of the mockumentary horror film. At the start of the film, we get a title card telling us that the film has been edited together from long-classified footage of a secret NASA mission to the moon. At the end of the film, we get another title card inviting us to visit a web site that, presumably, will have more information about how this footage was discovered. The found footage shows us two pleasantly bland astronauts who, once they’ve landed on the moon, find themselves being stalked by some sort of shadowy creature that always seems to be hanging out just slightly out of camera range.
As many critics pointed out, this film’s plot — once you get pass the novelty of where it takes place — is pretty much standard as far as “found footage” horror movies are concerned and yes, Apollo 18 would never have been made if not for the success of Paranormal Activity. However, I still enjoyed Apollo 18 because — unlike the Paranormal Activity films — Apollo 18 is truly an homage to the Grindhouse heart that beats within the whole found footage genre. Whether it’s the gimmicky nature of the film’s storyline or even the attempt to recreate both the Space program and the moon for next to no money, Apollo 18 is a film that belongs in a double feature with some other critically reviled but fun horror film. Much like Ruggero Deodato did with Cannibal Holocaust, director Gonalo Lopez-Gallego artfully uses scratched and overexposed film stock to create the feeling that we actually are watching footage that somebody just happened to come across out in the middle of the desert. The film’s plot is predictable and there’s not a lot of jump-out-of-your-seat scares but, like many good grindhouse films, Apollo 18 does create a palpable feeling of doom that doesn’t let up until the end credits. Even the film’s tongue-in-cheek claims to being factual are, in the end, rather likable.
Apollo 18 may not be a great film but it’s certainly doesn’t deserve the amount of hatred that it’s received. It’s an occasionally enjoyable film that was made by people who, at the very least, seem to understand why the old films of the grindhouse era are still being watched and rediscovered today.
It’s probably a bit too early to answer that question. After all, we’ve still got 3 months left to go in the year and Roland Emmerich’s take on Shakespeare (a.k.a. Anonymous) hasn’t been released yet. So, no, Rod Lurie’s remake of Straw Dogs cannot be called the worst film of 2011 yet. Instead, it’s just the worst film so far.
Straw Dogs is a remake of the 1971 Sam Peckinpah film. In the Peckinpah film, David Sumner (played by Dustin Hoffman) is a pacifist who, upon moving to the childhood home of his wife Amy (Susan George), is repeatedly harassed by the locals until he finally takes his very brutal revenge. It’s a flawed and uneven film that still carries quite a punch. I wouldn’t say I’ve ever enjoyed watching Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs but it’s undeniably powerful film. As for the remake, Peckinpah has been replaced with Rod Lurie, Hoffman by James Marsden, and Susan George’s controversial character is now played by Kate Bosworth. None of these changes are for the better.
Lurie’s version of Straw Dogs almost slavishly follows the plot of the original. He’s made just a few changes and none of those changes are for the better. The most obvious change is that, while the first Straw Dogs took place in rural England, Lurie’s version takes place in Mississippi. It’s pretty easy to guess Lurie’s logic here. Lurie, after all, previously created the television show Commander-in-Chief in which President Geena Davis heroically struggled to save the nation from fundamentalists with Southern drawls. Lurie’s vision of Mississippi is some sort of Blue State nightmare where everyone drives a pickup truck, goes to church, cheers at football games, and makes supportive comments regarding the War in Iraq. In the original Straw Dogs, David Sumner is a truly a stranger in a strange land, an American who doesn’t realize just how out-of-place he is in rural England. In the remake, David Sumner is just a guy on vacation from the West Coast. He really has no excuse for being quite as dense as he is when it comes to not pissing off the locals. By changing the locale, Rod Lurie essentially just makes his film into yet another example of Yankee paranoia. This wouldn’t be such a problem except that Lurie seems to be taking it all so seriously. He really seems to feel that he’s making a legitimate contribution to the whole Red State/Blue State divide. Watching the film, I had to wonder if Rod Lurie truly believed that it’s impossible to get a cell phone signal in Mississippi.
The other big difference is that in Lurie’s version, David Sumner is no longer a mathematician. Instead, he’s now a Hollywood screenwriter who is apparently working on an epic screenplay about the Battle of Stalingrad. (“I figured out a way to get Khrushchev in on the action!” he says at one point.) To be honest, David’s screenplay sounds kinda boring and it’s hard not to sympathize with the “hillbilly rednecks,” (as David calls them) who ask him why anybody would want to watch his movie. (The rednecks also ask him if he thinks that God had anything do with the Battle of Stalingrad. Speaking as a nonbeliever, I have to say that this film was almost hilariously paranoid about any sort of religious belief.) Part of the power of the first Straw Dogs came from the fact that David was an academic. He was a man whose life was about theory and that made it all the more shocking to see him explode into action. It also explained his non-existent social skills, because he was, after all, the product of a very insular, intellectual existence. However, in the remake, David just becomes a condescending jerk who’s working on a screenplay for a film that most viewers would have little interest in actually sitting through. (Add to that, it was hard not to feel that this new David was just Rod Lurie’s Mary Sue.)
David is in Mississippi because it’s the childhood home of his wife, Amy. The character of Amy is problematic in both versions of Straw Dogs but, to be honest, I found her character to be even more illogical and insulting in Lurie’s remake. In the original Straw Dogs, Amy is portrayed as an idiot who flirts with every man she sees, taunts her husband to the point of violence, and (by that film’s logic) puts herself in a situation that leads to her rape. The character is, in many ways, an insulting stereotype but at least she’s a consistent insulting stereotype. The remake’s Amy is presented as being a considerably stronger character. She doesn’t openly flirt with the local rednecks, she and her husband are a lot more obnoxiously lovey dovey, and (as opposed to in the first film), it’s never suggested that she actually enjoys being raped. Kudos to Lurie for trying to make her a stronger character. Yet, at the same time, the remake’s Amy still does a lot of the same illogical things as the original Amy. The original Amy at least had the excuse of being an idiot. The remake’s Amy just comes across as being an inconsistent, poorly-concieved character. Eventually, it becomes obvious that director Lurie wasn’t trying to make Amy into a stronger character as much as he was just trying to be politically correct. (Another thing that the two Amys have in common is that neither one of them wears a bra. It made sense in the original film because the original Amy was presented as being something of a wannabe flower child. In the remake, it just comes across as Lurie’s dirty boy excuse to get a peek at Kate Bosworth’s nipples. Seriously, who goes jogging without a sports bra?)
Anyway, the remake follows the path of the original. David and Amy return to Amy’s home village where they meet Amy’s ex-boyfriend Charlie Venner (played by an amazingly hot and sexy Alexander Skarsgard). David hires Charlie and his redneck buddies to repair the roof of an old barn. Charlie, who is obviously still attracted to Amy, spends the entire first part of the movie subtly humiliating David and basically being a bully. Somebody strangles Amy’s cat. Amy says it was Charlie and his friends. David replies, “I can’t just accuse them.” Eventually, David is taken on a deer hunt by Charlie’s friends and while he’s gone, Charlie and his buddy Chris rape Amy.
(In the original it was a snipe hunt and the sight of Dustin Hoffman searching for a nonexistent creature while his wife is being raped was quite disturbing and perfectly symbolized his character’s impotence. In the remake, David is once again left alone in the woods but this time, he shoots and kills a deer and, unfortunately, James Marsden isn’t a good enough actor to let us know what that means.)
Amy never tells David that she was raped, nor does she go to the authorities. (This makes a sick sense in the original. In the remake, it just seems like an effort by Rod Lurie to degrade a previously strong woman.) The next night, David ends up sheltering the local sex pervert in his house while Charlie and his drunken friends attempt to break in. This leads to David revealing that, as opposed to being “a coward,” he’s actually as vicious a killer as everyone else in the film.
In the original version, this was a disturbing revelation if just because Sam Peckinpah emphasized not so much the killing as the fact that, as the siege progresses, David begins to enjoy the killing more and more. Once Peckinpah’s David has given into the reality that he too is an animal, you realize that it’ll be impossible for him to return to being the essentially decent man that he was before. In the original, you start out cheering David’s revenge but soon, you just want it to stop. Much like the originalTexas Chainsaw Massacre, the film is so thematically nightmarish that you end up thinking you’ve seen a lot more blood than you actually have. It sticks with you.
However, since Lurie’s remake is a film devoid of nuance or subtlety, the sudden explosion of violence on David’s part is neither surprising nor all that exciting. And since James Marsden is no Dustin Hoffman (to put it lightly), you don’t see any change in David once the violence begins. He’s not a man turning into an animal as much as he’s just a 90210 reject with a scowl on his face. He kills a lot of men but he looks oh so pretty doing it and Amy cheers him on every step of the way. (In the original, Amy was terrified of her husband’s new side. I would be too.) Since Lurie isn’t a good enough director to generate a sincere emotional response to seeing David turn into a killer, he instead lingers over all the blood and gore like a pervert struggling to catch his breath while secretly looking at a snuff website. In short, the original Straw Dogs condemned violence by pretending to celebrate it. The remake celebrates it by pretending to condemn.
Okay, you may be saying, so it’s not a great film. But is it really the worst of 2011 so far? After all, Alexander Skarsgard gives a charismatic, bad boy performance and James Woods has a few good scenes as a venomous former football coach. And director Lurie, while he may be incapable of keeping the action moving at a steady pace, does manage to make Mississippi look pretty. That’s all true but I still say that Straw Dogs is the worst movie of the year so far. Why?
Because it’s not only a remake of a film that didn’t need to be remade but it’s also a remake that was apparently made by people who don’t have a clue about what made the original an important film to begin with. It’s a film that’s gloriously unaware of its own tawdriness, a sordid mess that can’t even have fun with the possibilities inherent in being a sordid mess. Arrogantly, director Lurie invited you to compare his film to Sam Peckinpah’s by not just ripping off the film’s story (as countless other enjoyable films have done) but by claiming the title as well. It’s a film that represents Hollywood at its worst and for me, that’s why it’s earned the title of worst film of 2011 so far.
(One positive note: Perhaps this terrible, insulting remake will encourage someone to track down the original Straw Dogs and see how this story was meant to be told.)
Both Leonard and Arleigh have already written detailed (and positive) reviews of Contagion so I’m going to keep my review short and simple.
I say this with the greatest amount of respect for my fellow reviewers and to all of our readers who are probably going to vehemently disagree with me:
Contagion sucked.
Big time.
With this film, director Stephen Soderbergh takes material that is ripe for exploitation and histrionics and he presents it in a very clinical, low-key fashion and the result is a draggy film that takes itself way too seriously. Seriously, if you’re going to end the world, have some fun with it.
Soderbergh assembles an impressive cast and then he pretty much just strands them out in the middle of nowhere. I appreciate the fact that the director and the cast are trying to keep things rooted in reality but oh my God, the reality here is so boring. Most of the cast does an okay job but Jennifer Ehle, who plays one of the scientists looking for a cure, gives such an annoyingly mannered performance that watching her was like listening to some little kid running around in squeaky shoes. Seriously, if I had to hear one more artfully placed stammer from her, I was going to scream.
Finally, this is yet another film where the villain is a blogger. I mean, he’s even English, that’s how evil Jude Law’s blogger is. I mean, I’m sorry that all the old folks out there are so threatened by the Internet but this blogger-as-villain trend is just petty.
With its all-star cast and its pretensions towards being an “important film,” Contagion should have been a fun, tawdry little romp. It should have been like a 21st Century Airport or Towering Inferno. Kate Winslet and Laurence Fishburne should have been having an adulterous affair. 2nd-rate television actors should have been dropping like flies. There should have been melodramatic music and dialogue like, “Excuse me, did you say the nurse was conducting the operation?”
When I’m Not There was first released in 2007, most critics gave most of their praise and attention to Cate Blanchett’s performance as one of the film’s six different representations of Bob Dylan. In fact, Blanchett was even nominated for Best Supporting Actress for grabbing her crotch and wearing a painfully fake mustache. When I first saw I’m Not There, I thought that Blanchett’s performance was overrated. Having recently rewatched it on DVD, I’ve changed my opinion slightly. I now think that her performance as “Jude Quinn” is probably the worst performance she’s ever given. Once you get over the fact that Cate Blanchett’s playing a man, the quicker it becomes obvious that she’s not a very convincing man.
In fact, on subsequent viewings, I’ve come to realize that the only part of the film that really works for me is the final section. This is the section where an aging Bob Dylan is played by (of all people) Richard Gere. This is the section where Gere is known as Billy the Kid and he ends up wandering through a surrealistic frontier town while searching for his dog. The town is full of people who look like they escape from an especially grim Fellini film and Bruce Greenwood pops up as Pat Garrett. When I first saw I’m Not There, this final sequence seemed drawn out and rather silly. However, on subsequent viewings, I’ve come to appreciate the fact that, with this end sequence, director Todd Haynes is at least finally being honest about being pretentious.
Another point in this sequence’s favor is that it features a haunting performance of Dylan’s Goin’ To Acapulco by Jim James and Calexico. The contrast between the heartfelt delivery of the song, the intellectual pretensions of the entire film, and the inherent Hollywood slickness of Richard Gere all add up to create a scene that I truly love.
As part of my continuing effort to get caught up on reviewing all of the movies that I’ve seen so far this year, allow me to offer up 6 very quick reviews of 6 very different documentaries that I’ve recently seen. Two of these documentaries — Buck and Senna — are still playing in theaters. The other four — American, Exporting Raymond, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, ResurrectDead— are all available On Demand and on DVD and Blu-ray.
1) American: The Bill Hicks Story(dir. by Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas)
This heartfelt documentary about the life of the late comedian Bill Hick and it shows why his defiantly anarchistic humor is even more relevent today as it was during his heyday. Here, his story is told through the use of cut-and-paste animation and it’s surprisingly poignant. I didn’t know a thing about Bill Hicks before I saw this film but I was crying by the end of it.
2) Buck (dir. by Cindy Meehl)
Buck is a portrait of both the real-life horse whisperer Buck Brannaman and the various ranchers and horse owners who come to his various “clinics.” The documentary covers Brannaman’s own abusive childhood and shows how he managed to turn the worst circumstances into something good. The film works best when it just allows the charismatic Buck to talk about his life and his beliefs. It’s less succesful when Hollywood phony Robert Redford pops up to talk about his feelings towards Buck.
3) Exporting Raymond (dir. by Phillip Rosenthal)
This is an interesting documentary in that it manages to be both entertaining and annoying at the same time. Phillip Rosenthal was the creator of one of the most oddly durable sitcoms of all time, Everybody Loves Raymond. In this documentary, which was directed by Rosenthal, we watch as he goes to Russia and deals with the resulting culture clash as he tries to adapt Raymond for Russian television. If you’re like me and you’re fascinated by all the behind-the-scenes production aspects of television and film, then you’ll find a lot to enjoy in this documentary. Unfortunately, Rosenthal himself is a bit too self-satisfied and, often times, he comes across like an almost stereotypical “ugly American.” There’s something annoying about watching a wealthy, American television producer going over to a country that’s perpetually on the verge of self-destruction and then bitching about how ugly all the buildings look.
4) The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (dir. by Morgan Spurlock)
In The Greatest Move Ever Sold, Morgan Spurlock sets out to make the “Iron Man of documentaries,” a documentary that is completely and totally funded by product placement. The documentary itself becomes about Spurlock’s attempts to find the corporate sponsors needed to make his documentary and the results are often hilarious and the film does succeed in getting you to think about how we are constantly bombarded with advertisements. At the same time, this is also a good example of a “Who cares?” documentary. Spurlock shows us how advertising works but he never really convinces us that it’s as big a problem as old toadsuckers like Ralph Nader and Noam Chomsky seem to think. In many ways, Morgan Spurlock is a more likable version of Michael Moore in that he primarily makes documentaries for people who already agree with him.
5) Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles (dir by John Foy)
This is a fascinating documentary about the mysterious Toynbee Tiles. The Toynbee Tiles are, to quote Wikipedia, “messages of mysterious origin found embedded in asphalt of streets in about two dozen major cities in the United States and four South American capitals.” That message is:
TOYNBEE IDEA
IN Kubrick’s 2001
RESURRECT DEAD
ON PLANET JUPITER.
These tiles first appeared in the 1990s and they’ve remained a perplexing unsolved mystery. Nobody’s sure what the mysterious message means, who wrote the message, or even how the tiles were embedded into the asphalt. This documentary is about not only the mysterious tiles but also the men who have, over the years, become obsessed with them and how that obsession has gone on to effect their own perception of reality. The movie even offers up a plausible theory of who is responsible for the tiles. Seriously, this is one of the most fascinating documentaries that I’ve ever seen.
6) Senna (dir. by Asif Kapadia)
Senna tells the life story of Ayrton Senna, a Brazilian formula one racer who was the world champion for three years before his own tragic death during a race. I have to admit that I don’t know much about Formula One racing and, as a result, I had some trouble following Senna. But Senna, seen in archival footage, is a charismatic and sometimes enigmatic figure and the racing footage is both exciting and, occasionally, frightening.
As I was writing up my review of Shark Night 3D, I found myself thinking about Soul Surfer, another film that came out earlier this year and also featured a character losing an arm to a shark. Oddly enough, both Shark Night and Soul Surfer feature supporting performances from former American Idol contestants. (Carrie Underwood has a small supporting role in Soul Surfer.) Beyond that, however, the two films couldn’t be any more different.
Soul Surfer is based on the true story of Bethany Hamilton, a surfer who, back in 2003, lost her arm to a shark. I can still remember when this happened because, despite the fact that I live in one of the most land-locked parts of the country, it really, really freaked me out. I have a morbid fear of somehow losing a limb whether by shark attack, car accident, or Jigsaw Killer. (I guess, in my case, car accident would be the most likely possibility.) I couldn’t help but look at the endless footage of a seemingly cheerful Hamilton being interviewed without wondering how I would react if the same thing happened to me. Would I be able to stay as positive as Hamilton? I hope I could but, to be honest, I probably wouldn’t.
That’s one reason why I avoided seeing Soul Surfer when it was first released to theaters and instead only saw it once it showed up On Demand and I was looking for a movie to watch before bedtime. Once I actually saw it, I was surprised to discover that Soul Surfer is an effective (if predictable) film that is occasionally even touching.
The film opens with some truly beautiful scenes set in Hawaii and rather quickly establishes Bethany Hamilton (played here by AnnaSophia Robb) as a normal teenage girl who just happens to be a very talented surfer. Hamilton loses her arm about thirty minutes in and the rest of the film is devoted to her struggle to come to terms with both the loss of her arm and her newfound fame. The film ends with Hamilton’s triumphant return to competetive surfing and, in its undeniably sincere and old-fashioned way, it makes for an undeniably touching moment. Robb is likable as Hamilton though the film’s true heart and soul is provided by Dennis Quaid and Helen Hunt. They play Hamilton’s parents and both of them prove they are capable of making even the most mawkish of lines effective.
Soul Surfer was popular with audiences but got slammed by critics who complained that the film was 1) predictable and 2) far too manipulative. I would say that these critics are missing the point and their criticism has more to do with their own need to show off their cynical credentials than anything they may have actually seen on-screen.
Yes, Soul Surfer is emotionally manipulative and yes, the film is predictable but so what?
The important thing is that the film works.
That’s a lot more than you can say for the much more cynical Shark Night 3D.
If nothing else, the new film Shark Night 3D has an appropriate title. The movie takes place over the course of one night, there are a few sharks, and it’s all presented in 3D. If only the rest of the film worked as well.
Basically, the film is about this college student named Sara (played by Sara Paxton) who invites all of her college friends to Louisiana for the weekend and basically gets them all killed. Among Sara’s friends are geeky-but-cute Nick (Dustin Milligan), geeky-but-not-so-cute Gordon (Joel David Moore, who was also in Avatar), token black guy Malik (Sinqua Walls), Malik’s girlfriend Maya (Alyssa Diaz), Beth (American Idol runner-up Katherine McPhee) who we know is doomed because she has both tattoos and big boobs, and Blake (Chris Zylka), who possesses no personality but he does have a really nice ass. Seriously. Unfortunately, Sara forgets to tell them that her psycho ex-boyfriend Dennis (Chris Carmack) is waiting for her, along with his redneck buddy Red (Josh Leonard).
There’s also a lot of sharks swimming around this lake and, since this is a 3D movie, these sharks are capable of jumping out of the water like dolphins and snatching people out of boats and off of docks. Seriously, these are some talented sharks. Malik gets his arm bitten off and it’s pretty much all downhill from there. Malik is talented too because, even after he gets his arm bitten off, he’s still capable of grabbing a harpoon and standing out in the middle of the lake, bleeding as he taunts the sharks. Now, as ludicrous as this sounds, it’s probably the film’s best moment. It’s certainly one of the only truly grindhouse moments in this film. At the very least, it suggests a self-awareness that is lacking from the rest of the film.
Shark Night 3D sucks. There, I said it. I feel a little bad about saying that because, obviously, you can’t judge Shark Night 3D by the same standard that you would judge a film like 8 1/2 or The Rules of the Game. As I watched the end credits roll, I wondered if maybe I was being too hard on this film. After all, a lot of the dialogue was so bad that the intention behind it had to have been satiric? Right? Was I just being unfair? So, mentally, I compared Shark Night 3D to last year’s Piranha 3D and I quickly realized that I wasn’t being unfair. Shark Night 3D sucks.
The cast is uniformly bland, the plot is silly without ever being enjoyable, and — worst of all — the sharks are boring. Remember how the killer fish in Piranha 3D managed to be both ludicrous and scary? Remember how they each seemed to have their own little diabolic personality? It made you root for the piranhas and, as a result, you didn’t mind the fact that they were eating cardboard characters. However, the sharks in Shark Night just look like CGI sharks. Remember how the piranhas were literally everywhere in Piranha 3D? In Shark Night, the sharks just pop up randomly whenever the film’s engine starts to run out of gas.
I think the ultimate verdict I can pass on Shark Night is this: I am usually a total aquaphobe. Seriously, I can’t swim. I don’t do boats. I don’t do water parks. When my family went to Hawaii, I spent a lot of time walking on the beach in my bikini but you better believe I ran like the wind whenever I saw the tide coming for me. Over Labor Day weekend, I spent a while wading in the shallow end of my uncle’s pool and my family was literally amazed that I didn’t freak out. So was I, for that matter. (Yay me!)
And yet, as I watched Shark Night — which was all about people going into the water and dying terrible deaths — not once did I cover my eyes.
As we wait for me to find the strength to actually review some of the movies I’ve seen recently, why not pass the time with a classic film that came out 109 years ago?
Directed and written by Georges Melies, A Trip to The Moon is often cited as the first sci-fi film and the image of the capsule crashing into the eye of the man in the moon is one of the most iconic in film history. Seen today, the film seems both charmingly innocent and remarkably ahead of its time.
For me, it always takes a minute or two to adjust to the aesthetic of early films. We’ve grown so used to all the editing tricks that modern filmmakers use to tell their stories that these old silent films, with their lack of dramatic camera movement and obvious theatrical origins, often take some effort to get used to. Still, the effort is often worth it.
Here then is Georges Melies 1902 science fiction epic, A Trip To The Moon.
Happy Labor Day! In honor of this holiday, I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge a unique genre of film that truly sparked my love affair with cinema. That genre, as you may have already guessed, was Italian horror.
Today’s song of the day comes from one of the greatest of the Italian horror films, Lucio Fulci’s Zombi 2. While the film’s very true artistry is often overshadowed by its infamous reputation and the score itself is clearly a product of its time (the late 70s), I think that Zombi 2 was a cinematic high point in general and a masterpiece of horror in specific. And a large part of that was due to Fabio Frizzi’s operatic yet foreboding score.
Here then is today’s song of the day, Fabio Frizzi’s Main Theme from Zombi 2.
Earlier tonight, I happened to catch, on Chiller, the 2011 film The Killing Jar.
Why Was I Watching It?
I was hoping that, at some point, the classic Siouxsie and the Banshees song would show up on the soundtrack. It didn’t.
What’s It About?
I’m trying to work up the strength necessary to go into it all but basically, there’s this diner down south and one night, right around closing time, a news story comes over the radio about a brutal murder that was committed at a nearby farm. There’s only a few people left in the diner — a depressed waitress (Tara from Buffy, a.k.a. Amber Benson), a tough trucker (Kevin Gage), a wimpy deputy (Lew Temple), a mysterious stranger (Harold Perrineau), two teenagers who don’t matter, and the Danny Trejo-look alike who apparently owns the place (Danny Trejo). Anyway, all these people are so upset to hear about the murders that they blame them on the first surly stranger who happens to step into the diner. Unfortunately, that stranger is played by Michael Madsen and he responds by shooting up the place (Danny Trejo’s head explodes in close-up) and holding the survivors hostage. Things get a little bit more complicated when Mr. Greene (Jake Busey) shows up and reveals that someone at the diner happens to be a contract killer known as Mr. Smith. Guess what? It’s not Michael Madsen.
After typing all that, I feel I have a responsibility to add that this all sounds a lot more interesting than it actually is.
What Works
Well, the big “twist” is kinda obvious and you probably figured out just from reading the previous paragraph. However, it’s still kinda fun, kinda being the word to remember. Benson and Gage both give pretty good performances and Busey seems to be having a lot of fun. Madsen, to be honest, seems to be on the verge of falling asleep in a few scenes but still, he can say more with an annoyed eye squint than most actors can with a 10-page monologue. However, the film really belongs to the always underappreciated Harold Perrineau and his combative, confrontational scene with Madsen is one of the few instances when the film really comes to life.
Danny Trejo’s head explodes with style.
What Doesn’t Work
Oh. My. God. Where to begin?
I can count the number of succesful “hostage” films on one hand and let’s just say that The Killing Jar is no Dog Day Afternoon. Taking place entirely in one location and with a small cast mouthing melodramatic dialogue, The Killing Jar unfolds like one of those really bad plays that an ex-boyfriend of mine used to write in high school. They always ended with everyone dead and always seemed to feature at least one evil redhead who ended up crying over the dead body of her ex-boyfriend.
Director Young does not help matters by confusing tension with meaningless pauses. There’s a lot of scenes of people glaring at each other but since nobody really comes across like a human being, the glares don’t mean anything.
HOWEVER, what really didn’t work about this film was the fact that the first 20 minutes of the film was taken up with Amber Benson asking people if they wanted a slice of “Pecan Pie,” that she claimed was “the best this side of the Mason-Dixon.” The problem here is that the film was clearly meant to be set in my part of the world. And in my part of the world, we pronounce it “PEH-cahn.” However, Benson repeatedly pronounced it “PEE-can.” Seriously, this annoyed me more than words can express. Listen up all you aspiring filmmakers — if you’re going to insist on setting your crappy films in my part of the world, at least try to get the pronunciation right. Speaking for myself, I don’t have the slightest idea what a PEE-can is supposed to be but it sounds kinda nasty. I’ll take a PEH-cahn over a PEE-can any day.
PEH-cahn Pie. Good Lord, people, it’s not that difficult.
