4 posts tagged “horror”
First of all, it stars Jeffrey Combs, or as you may be more familiar with, Dr. Herbert West. It is also directed by Stuart Gordon, director of Re-Animator.
Here's what it's about: Combs plays Edgar Allan Poe near the middle to end of his life. He's a drunk, he's low on cash and his wife (his cousin, of course) has TB. He's also hit a rut creative-wise. While he's trying to come up with a new story, their black cat seems to torment him and distract him at every turn. It gets to bad that Poe attempts to kill the cat, while he inadvertently burns down his house. Forced to move elsewhere, he is driven crazier still by the fact that the cat still seems to be alive, haunting him.
You can usually tell a stage actor when you see one on screen - Jeffrey Combs is a great performer and you can see his transformation from crazy to crazier and drunker. I really think we should see him in more features.
One of the great benefits of this series is that the directors are allowed almost total creative freedom, which they never seem to enjoy while making feature films. They also assured a certain budget that the feature benefits from. In this instance, there are two things to point out: first, you can tell Stuart Gordon is a low-budget director with low-budget sensibilities. A lot of times, characterization and story are emphasized. Secondly, those of you who remember Re-Animator remember that there's a certain amount of camp value because the gore is so ridiculous-looking, albeit well planned. From the almost sickening gore of Black Cat, you can imagine what he would've been capable of had Re-Animator would have looked like had he more money.
Good story (especially for Poe fans, like myself), great performances, great gore.
EDIT: After spinning this again and paying close attention to the opening credits of this feature, I found a really good explanation for the level of gore. In addition to Stuart Gordon really liking gore, the opening credits revealed that a certain Gregory Nicotero put some work into this feature. Can't believe I missed that one.
20 years ago, a very evil man was executed in a prison by lethal injection. Except, due to the fact that said man was evil, the execution went horribly awry and the guy exploded, causing all the inmates to turn into zombies and start a riot.
Now, in the present time, the prison has been converted to a progressive women's rehabilitation center (read: women's prison), and the latest inmate is a girl named Solitaire who, quite to the contrary of her name, prefers to be alone. However, it turns out that she kicks ass Bruce Lee-style and soon becomes the talk of the detention-center town.
Through a series of horrific events, the evil man is awakened, along with his zombified inmate pals, and they wreak havoc on the women. It is up to Solitaire to kick some zombie ass and stop this evil man, with whom she shares a special connection.
One of the benefits of this movie is that, due to the hodgepodge of genres thrown in, it's a genuinely original picture. All of the twists and turns feel new, despite having been seen elsewhere. Of course, there are some predictable moments ("of course...the evil baby bites his mother's nipple off."). However when watching a movie of this caliber, it's difficult to see past the digital effects and kung fu and realize that, besides two or three people, the bulk of the performances are worthy of Sci-Fi Channel original films. That being said, it doesn't really matter.
This is definitely something fun to watch, and though I don't indulge myself, would be awesome if you were baked.
P.S. In movies set inside a women's prison, the shower scenes are much more interesting.
If there was a "Mystery Science Theater 3000" show for more mature films, this one would definitely be featured.
I'm watching it right now, as I'm typing, and I've yet to find a plot. So far a skinny-dipping girl has died, some woman doing her laundry, and now there's a military combat scene happening. Interesting.
In fact, for the first 4 and a half minutes, there was only a naked girl tanning and then skinny-dipping, and then being pulled under the water by the lamest zombie ever.
Here's how the second woman died: she's walking through a village with her laundry, when bam! out of the corner pounces the zombie, in military dress. He brings her down to the ground and kills her by...making out with her neck a whole lot. There's a lot of blood, but maybe he bit his cheek. It was awesome when he pulls his mouth away from her neck, and there's no bite, just a smear of blood. He goes back in for seconds, and then you see there's some sort of paper mache on his face.
Here's a fun love scene that took place in a barn: the man is on top, kissing the woman all over. He then rubs his face all over her nipple. Methinks I have a lesson or two to learn.
So, what I've gathered so far, is that there's a military flashback, involving a Nazi soldier gettin' it on with some chick and having a baby, and they both died. The Nazi's body was thrown in the lake.
Cut to a scene where no less than ten young women pour out of a van near the lake, playing with a volleyball. Well, obviously every single one of them strip and run into the lake, splashing each other playfully, with some very happy, upbeat music playing the background. And then all but one gets pulled under and drowned. The survivor runs away, forgetting to cover her shame (i.e., her boobies!).
Near the end there's an entertaining little montage of the Nazi zombies roaming throughout town and attacking women in various forms of undress. And then almost right after that is an underwater pan of the zombies rising from the bottom to the surface, and if you look not so closely, you can see the doors to the tank they filming in. The next shot? Them emerging from the lake.
Oh, man, is this entertaining. Watch it and make your own MST3K jokes alone or with your friends.
"We'd better face the fact that the zombies have declared war."
Netflix has a new feature, no doubt to assuage the movie downloading trend and also to one-up the Blockbuster service, where you can actually watch movies online for free. Here are the details: For every dollar of your monthly premium, you get one hour of free movie-watching. For example, I pay $14.99 a month (tax excluded, which brings it to $16 even a month). This means that I get 15 hours a month free to watch movies online. Having watched this feature using this service, here's a small review:
The quality was surprisingly good - it seemed just about DVD quality, if just a little less than. Definitely watchable, even in full screen. None of this blurriness you can get on internet videos. It requires a consistent internet speed, so if your connection tends to go from excellent to poor, then be prepared to have the movie stopped for a period of time. And if your connection is fast enough, the movie will start right up. While I was watching the movie, my connection, for some reason flipped out. The movie paused, and a little bar showed up at the bottom with a timeline telling me my movie wold start again in 7 minutes. But then my connection stopped freaking out at it started right up again.
The audio quality is pretty good - it sounded good on my laptop speakers, so if you've got better ones on your computer, then good for you. The downside is that there are no subtitles available as of now, which I like to use from time to time, especially if there's a lot of background noise in my apartment. The other downside as of now is that there are only a limited amount of movies and TV shows available to watch as of now, but they are adding more all the time.
Okay, on to the movie. This is another "Masters of Horror" entry, the Showtime series where horror directors make original hour-long movies as episodes. However, this one is different because it was never aired. It was actually banned from broadcast. Before watching this one, and having seen several Takashi Miike flicks, I could imagine why. Now, having seen it, I completely understand why. Now, this doesn't mean it's an especially brutal Miike film; if anything, it's a pretty average one, given his penchant for really fucked-up (technical term) visuals. But I can understand how someone who hasn't seen his previous work would really be shocked at this. My opinion? It's a fuckin' horror show, you're supposed to be freaked out.
The story is pretty simple. A man, Billy Drago (John Bly!), comes to an island in search for a woman he loved, Kimomo. The island is basically for the sole purpose of travelers to come spend the night with a prostitute. Not finding her, he spends the night with a woman whose face is really messed up. She claims to have known Kimomo, and tells the man that she has died. Following that is some of the worst grief acting I've ever seen, courtesy of Billy Drago.
So the freaky-faced woman tells the man her story and the story of how Kimomo died. In that story is a torture sequence and lots of fetuses. Go figure.
All in all, it's an entertaining feature - though some of the acting could have been better, the story is definitely Miike caliber, as are the visuals. But if you're not used to Miike, you'll be cringing through part of it.
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