2 posts tagged “television”

What a wonderful television event.  As you may know, I've reviewed two other "Masters of Horror" pieces, one about zombies by Joe Dante, the director of Small Soldiers and Gremlins, and one by the director of Dead or Alive and Ichi The Killer, Takashi Miike.  And I liked them both.  And this one has a lot going for it.

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.

Before I get to the actual movie, I wanted to talk about how I actually saw it.  I'm sorry if this sounds like a paid Netflix advertisement.

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.