Clownhouse

Director: Victor Salva
Writer: Victor Salva
Released: 1989
Cast: Nathan Forrest Winters, Brian McHugh, Sam Rockwell, Tree

NIKKI says:
I knew the whole Victor Salva/paedophile thing from the time Powder came out, but for some reason, I held onto this movie. He did this one a fair while before Powder, and I'm sure the reason it remained in my collection was the whole clown thing. Scary carnivals are my thing, and this has a damn creepy one.

I didn't know, however, until after this viewing that the boy Salva was charged with molesting was the little boy from the movie. We decided after reading that to get rid of the movie. It's just kind of undiginifed to have it in our collection with such horrible things affiliated with it. Poor kid. And he was the one out protesting Powder, and somehow Salva is still allowed to make movies with young shirtless boys running all over the place. Crazy.

As far as Clownhouse, I used to think it was a cheesy Z-grade horror film with some mad clown visuals. Now, I just think it's icky.

Unrated

W Delta Z (aka The Killing Gene)

Director: Tom Shankland
Writer: Clive Bradley
Released: 2007
Cast: Stellan Skarsgård, Selma Blair, Melissa George

NIKKI says:
You know, WAZ started off okay. I thought the banter between Melissa George and Stellan Skarsgaard was geniune and effective. I also thought the Se7en-like energy the film had meant it might be a cut above your standard psychological slasher. Sadly, as the film went on, it lost much of its inital smart, low-key appeal. Which is to say, it went all torture-porn-y and showed way more than it needed to and just moved to extremes I really don't think it needed to go to. I don't think the story needed much alteration, just the depication of the sadist undertakings within it.

In a movie like this, I want to feel haunted by the things we do to each other, by the levels we'll go to when exacting revenge. Stepping away from a film like Se7ev, you certainly feel the grime on you, but that film didn't show us in ultra-graphic detail every cut and kill. Here, we see it all, and we're horribly desesnsitised to the Hostel way of vieweing horror effects in films that the atmosphere of terror is replaced by blatant gore which really isn't that shocking. It's like a movie pissing contest to see who can make the best looking snapping back fingernails. Boring.

Annoying really, because this had potential to be a really classy thriller. They just pushed it all too far and I didn't really care one way of the other in the end. I just wanted it all to stop.

2/5

The Devils

Director: Ken Russell
Writer: Ken Russell
Released: 1971
Cast: Oliver Reed, Vanessa Redgrave, Dudley Sutton, Michael Gothard

NIKKI says:
Yeah, this was just about the creepiest thing ever. Steve's been at me to watch it for a long time, but I'm just not the biggest Ken Russell fan. I think he's cool, I just don't really like his movies. I can't pinpoint why except to say they're so very 1970s-BRITISH. I know that's totally inappropriate and the wrong way to describe what I think when I think about movies like this. I get a sense of Fahrenheit 451 and Blow Up. and I just can't do it.

Even so, I did like this one. It had all those elements that bother me, but I was compelled, at last by scary Oliver Reed to put my unfounded and silly prejudices aside and enjoy. It is, though, a hard movie to enjoy. It's creepy and in your face and full of meaning and metaphor. Instead of trying to outline the complex plot, I'll let "Nizz" do it, courtesy of the Internet Movie Database:

Cardinal Richelieu and his power-hungry entourage seek to take control of seventeenth-century France, but need to destroy Father Grandier - the priest who runs the fortified town that prevents them from exerting total control. So they seek to destroy him by setting him up as a warlock in control of a devil-possessed nunnery, the mother superior of which is sexually obsessed by him. A mad witch-hunter is brought in to gather evidence against the priest, ready for the big trial

Couldn't have said it better myself. And there's a big scene with nuns having an exorcism-slash-orgy, and Oliver Reed goes around saying extremely profound things, and at the end I pretty much needed a shower. A religious experience, to say the least. And while I didn't entirely understand it, I certainly recognise its power. I think...

3/5

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Director: Marcus Nispel
Writer: Scott Kosar
Released: 2003
Cast: Jessica Biel, Eric Balfour, Jonathan Tucker, Erica Leerhsen, Mike Vogel, Andrew Bryniarski, R. Lee Ermey

NIKKI says: It's probably the best of the Next Generation Remakes, but it still has it's issues. We realised last night that it really does drag in the end, as Jessica Biel runs and hides from each and every character in the thing. And there's another issue -- there are too many damn characters. But, even so, it's frightening, it's got some good horror, it's teen victims aren't complete dunces you just wish someone would cut up. All in all, it's a good modern horror film.

I have a hard time watching the original Chain Saw, only because I find its horror so completely visceral and realistic. As soon as we put this one on, I remembered how well it also does its slimy, gruesome horror. There's something about both of these films that makes me forget they're just movies and gives me the absolute squeals. It all starts after the girl shoots herself in their van. GROSS. And then they go to the gas stations that's not really a gas station and there are all these flies on pig heads and it's gross. Then they find some teeth, then R. Lee Ermey wraps the girl in plastic, then Jessica has to help the old guy with the catheter, then the hot one gets hooked, then Eric Balfour gets his face cut off. Grossness everywhere. But effective grossness, and grossness that seems to fit the story being told. So, it works.

Yeah, so much as we love this movie, we had some problems with it last night. We realised that the remake perhaps tries to do too much. The old movie just had the three members of the family, and this one has mothers, fathers, sisters, grandparents, little kids... it's not good, and it overdoes the creepy. And the old movie really kept the action focused inside the house and with the family, which was really the main purpose of the film, to look at this strange group. The new movie takes the action outside and makes it a real can and mouse chase, and that can get tedious. I believe the political undertones of the first film are also removed. This one had a theme more like Friday the 13th, with Leatherface's mum pissed off at kids for tormenting her boy. Which is a bit boring, and kind of silly for a film set in the charged early 1970s.

I really didn't like, either, the final shot of Leatherface as Jessica gets away. He looks like as evil monster. In the original, he flails about on the road and looks like what he is, a confused stray.

Still, I enjoy the remake. I like the kids, it's absolutely beautiful to look at, and I scream at the gross stuff. Success.

3/5

Just Desserts: The Making of 'Creepshow

Director: Michael Felsher
Released: 2007
Cast: George A. Romero, Richard Rubinstein, Tom Savini, John Harrison, Nick Tallo, Tom Atkins, Adrienne Barbeau, Ed Harris, Bingo O'Malley

NIKKI says: I've never been the hugest fan of Creepshow. I think it has something to do with the cartoonishness of the whole thing, which I underestand is the point of it, but still never really drew me in. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that I wasn't into comic books as a kid? Because when I first saw the film, I found it kinda silly, and not really scary, and really not that entertaining. Apart from the bug one, which I've always thought was horrifying.

Still, even without a real love for the film, the documentary was fascinating. I enjoyed hearing all about the project and how it got off the ground, and how George Romero and Stephen King came to finally put it all together. It really made me miss that sort of old school filmmaking, where a couple of guys with mutual love for something join forces to bring it to life. This was back when it wasn't about names and budgets and studios and effects, but a real desire to want to see something very specific on screen. The idea and then the how-to, rather than the other way around.

I very much enjoyed, too, the different sorts of folks they spoke to here. From the major players in the project to the grips and the editors and other cool folks usually left in the sidelines.

Some great stories, some interesting filmmaking philosophies, a lot of great movie history. I really liked it. Pity they didn't talk to King, though. That was really the thing's only downfall.

3/5

Halloween: 20 Years Later (aka H20)

Director: Steve Miner
Writers: Robert Zappia, Matt Greenberg
Released: 1998
Cast: Jamie Lee Curtis, Josh Hartnett, Michelle Williams, Adam Arkin, Jodi Lynne O'Keefe, Adam Hann-Byrd, LL Cool J

Tropic Thunder

Director: Ben Stiller
Writers: Ben Stiller, Justin Theroux, Etan Cohen
Released: 2008
Cast: Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr, Jack Black, Jay Baruchel, Brandon T. Jackson, Nick Nolte

NIKKI says: So, who knew this was gonna be the most freakin' hilarious thing ever? Okay, so not EVER, but it was damn funny. I'm so over Ben Stiller, which made me shrug this one off as yet another vanity piece for the guy to go around yelling and making stupid faces. Consider -- he's really only got one classic in his comedy list and that's Zoolander. Everything else is just annoying. So, how is it that this works? Well, I think it has a lot to do with the fact that his character in this movie is very much like Derek Zoolander. A passionate innocent, with a huge ego and a small brain. Welcome back, Ben. I like you again.

So, this new Ben is on the set making a movie in the jungle with rebel drug makers trying to kill him which he thinks is fake movie magic but after certain bizarre circumstances becomes completely real. He fumbles his way through the whole thing as his friends and fellow actors try to save him. Jack Black plays a heroin addict on detox whose only claim to fame is fart-joke movies, and Robert Downey, Jnr plays an Australian actor so immersed in his character of a black man that he can't stop talking like Mr. T.

Their mission to get Ben and go home occurs as Ben's agent, Matthew McCaonaughey, tries to get Tivo to his client trapped in the jungle without entertainment. He has to battle the big studio boss, Tom Cruise, to make this happen. But Tom wants to let Ben die and claim the insurance and buy Matthew a plane. So, Matthew has a moral dilemma on his hands, and Tom Cruise dances around a lot like a sex-monkey FREAK.

It's so ridiculous, I could not stop laughing. Who thinks of these things? I did enjoy the parallels between actors on set and soldiers in the jungle. That was very clever, and the way the whole thing pulled together with Cruise as some crazy President-like guy sacrificing his actors for money -- it was good.

I can see us going back to it every year like we do with Zoolander. Maybe we can double-team the both of the them?

"A little twig-man Oscar. I 'm going to call you Half-Squat, and you can call me ... papa."

Half-squat.

3/5

The Hitcher

Director: Robert Harmon
Writer: Eric Red
Released: 1986
Cast: C. Thomas Howell, Rutger Hauer, Jennifer Jason Lee, Jeffrey DeMunn

NIKKI says: I love going back to these old movies with new eyes. Steve said we should watch this with the idea that Jim Halsey and John Rider are the same guy. Apparently, that's a theory going around -- they are actually one and the same, and it's Jim going around doing these horrible things in some Tyler Durden split-personality freak parade.

So, I considered... and I could see where such confusion might come about. There are times when Jim seems completely nuts and just a paranoid kid. But then there are times when gas stations blow up and women get ripped in half by guys driving trucks that cops have told Jim to go and talk to. So, no -- whoever thought Jim and Rider were the same is a fool. The cops can SEE John Rider -- are you MENTAL?

Still, it was fun to look at in a different way. I still enjoy the movie after all these years. It used to freak me out way more than it does, and I always used to put it up there with Duel as far as the suspense. But I don't so much anymore. The more I see it, the more standard it becomes. That doesn't mean it's any less effective, but looking back, it could be more terrifying, and more freaky, and it could also be a bit more realistic, because at times, and maybe I saw this because I was trying to see Rider as Jim, but sometimes Rider seems supernatural. He can go anywhere, get into anything, do anything and never really get caught until the end. So, maybe that lets me down a bit now? He's not as scary a guy when there's that ghostly element to him.

But a good movie nonetheless. And Robert Harmon is one of the most underrated artists in film. He should be the touchstone for all young up and coming cinematographers. In fact, he should just work more. Where are you Robert Harmon?

3/5

An American Werewolf in London

Director: John Landis
Writer: John Landis
Released: 1981
Cast: David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, Griffin Dunne, John Woodvine, Brian Glover

WALL-E

Director: Andrew Stanton
Writers: Andrew Stanton, John Reardon
Released: 2008s
Cast: Ben Burtt, Ellisa Knight, Jeff Garlin, Fred Willard, John Ratzenberger, Kathy Najimy, Sigourney Weaver

NIKKI says: There's just something about that little trash machine that's had me obsessed with seeing this film for a while. I hate the cinema these days, though, so I was happy to wait for DVD much as it was killing me. But, a spur of the moment decision led us to the movies to finally see it. And I absolutely loved every second of it. Which is to say, I loved every second of Wall-E. Is there anything in the universe ever that is cuter than him? I can't think of a single thing. I can't think of a single moment in my entire life -- and I've seen a lot of CUTE -- that rivals the heart-melting two seconds when Wall-E tips his trash can lid hat to mimic Michael Crawford in Hello Dolly. There's nothing cuter in world history. And it makes me want to give this movie five stars.

But ... I wished the whole thing had been just Wall-E and Eve running around, because I didn't enjoy myself as much when the humans came into it. I can see the point being made about our fat ass lives and how we're just ruining everything with our need for more, more, more, and easier, easier, easier. But humans on the whole were kinda fat and stupid and I didn't really enjoy that aspect of the movie.

Still, I was distracted from that most of the time by Wall-E and Eve. Ohh, they were just great, and whoever wrote thier little love connection story is a genius, because without words this great love story just came to life. It was fascinating to watch. Two characters who don't really ever say anything, and yet you see every moment, every emotion, every instance that drives them into this relationship. It's adorable.

So, I loved it. If the humans had been made a bit more realistic, I would give it a five.

4/5

Deer Woman

Director: John Landis
Writer: John Landis, Max Landis
Released: 2005
Cast: Brian Benben, Anthony Griffith, Cinthia Moura, Sonja Bennett

NIKKI says: Mmm... did I like Deer Woman? Not really. It's not something I would go back to. It was a bit silly, and though I recognise it had a sense of humour about itself, I still felt that strange Landis sheen over the top of it that draws me away from his other films in the same way. Why do I just dislike Landis so much? I don't know... but this was bearable, which is more than I can say about much of the other Masters of Horror episodes we've endured.

The gist is this: after a string of murders, a burned-out cop suggests the dead men are being killed by a deer-like creature. He discovers, then, a Native American legend that suggests that very thing -- a half-woman, half-deer creature exists that goes around seducing and stomping men.

Yep. And so it's up to the cop to bring it all home. Brian Benben plays the cop, and it was so great watching him after all these years. I don't think I've seen him in anything since Dream On, which counting Thriller and The Blues Brothers is only one of the few Landis thing I've really liked.

It was okay. No Homecoming, but okay.

2/5

Backwoods

Director: Marty Weiss
Writer: Anthony Jaswinski
Released: 2008
Cast: Jonathan Chase, Haylie Duff, Willow Geer, John Hemphill, Deborah Van Valkenburgh, Danny Nucci

STEVE says: When I said I wanted to do a Horror Classics month to counter balance all the crap we'd been watching, this was exactly the sort of thing I was talking about counter balancing.

Lifting bits from The Hills Have Eyes II (2007), Lake Dead (2007), Severance (2006), Wrong Turn 2: Dead End (2007), See No Evil (2006) and Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990), as well as a kill from Southern Comfort (1981), "original" is something Backwoods was never going to be accused of being. But neither is "boring", for that matter, so that's something.

I'm going to have to watch something really good now to counter balance this. Night of the Creeps good. Re-animator good. It didn't exactly suck - it was no Brutal, for example - but I could think of better ways to spend an evening.

2/5

NIKKI says: And once again I'm reminded why it's NOT as fun as it looks to pick random scare-fests off the New Release wall to bring home. Ohh, Backwoods, I said, it's like Severance, and it could be fun.

I should be banned from my own shop. It was shit. I knew it would be shit. And I am ashamed. But, it wasn't as shit as most. So, I might not get banned, just temporarily booted.

Apologies all around.

1.5/5

Roadkill (aka Joy Ride)

Director: John Dahl
Writer: Clay Tarver, JJ Abrahms,
Released: 2001
Cast: Steve Zahn, Paul Walker, Leelee Sobieski, Ted Levine

STEVE says: Much like Session 9, I didn't expect much from this one and ended up thoroughly digging it. You'd think I'd learn a lesson.

Walker and Zahn play brothers, driving halfway across the country to pick the friend Sobieski up from college. Just for kicks, Zahn picks up a CB radio to kill time along the way, and ends up pranking a truck driver who goes by the handle Rusty Nail. And then the fun begins.

A mix of road movies like The Hitcher and Duel with some Hitchcock thrown in for good measure, Roadkill is better than my preconceived notions would have had me believe. But isn't that always the way?

3.5/5

NIKKI says: I really like this movie. And it's the kind of movie we should hate -- a derivative, rather tame horror film with super-sexy stars of the day. It's all shiny and glossy. It should be right up there with I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. But, somehow, it's not. It has traces of The Hitcher and Duel, and a little bit of I Saw What You Did, but it stands on its own as a decent modern suspense flick. It's a popcorn movie, absolutely, with some great scares, some fun, and a couple of surprisingly awesome performances from Paul Walker and Steve Zahn.

Actually, you know, that's one of the major draws for me about this movie -- I have a feeling Steve Zahn might have adlibbed all his lines. And it's hilarious. If he didn't adlib, then he definitely came up with his own line readings because everyhting is yelled or popped or screamed in places where it so shouldn't be. And it's so great to watch. There were times when Steve and I were sure Paul Walker wasn't acting but reacting to Zahn's bizarreness. It gives the thing an extra dimension having Zahn in there nstead of another pretty boy or a chick, or whatever else could have inserted easily in.

It loses me a bit at the end, when everything starts to come together -- it goes a bit over the top for me, but the lead up is sensational. I love it.

3/5

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls

Director: Kenneth Bowser
Writer: Kenneth Bowser
Released: 2003
Cast: Roger Corman, Peter Bogdanovich, Karen Black, Dennis Hopper, Peter Bart, Peter Fonda, Mickey Dolenz, Richard Dreyfuss

STEVE says: For film class this term I thought we'd watch flicks from the guys who changed the way films were made - at least for a little while. To introduce the class to the type of films we'd be looking at, I decided to show them this doco first.

Good as it is, it's pretty much what you'd expect - Corman, Nicholson, Bogdanovich and Hopper give way to Coppola, Spielberg, Lucas and Scorsese as the doco chronicles Hollywood's brief taking-over by the long-hairs after the demise of the studio system, only to wrest control away from them in the end. Sad, really.

Got me thinking, though - next term we might just watch movies about movies. Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie, The Player, State and Main, or some docos like and Hearts of Darkness and Lost in La Mancha.

3.5/5

Nikki did not view.

Session 9

Director: Brad Anderson
Writer: Steven Gevedon, Brad Anderson
Released: 2001
Cast: Peter Mullan, David Caruso, Steven Gevedon, Josh Lucas, Brendan Sexton III

STEVE says: This is one that we originally almost passed by, largely because it stars David Caruso. I have no problem with him, personally, it's just that I was sick of hearing about him and what a Prima Donna he can be. Getting past that, we thought it might be a fun, low-budget haunted house pic to kick back to.

It turned out to be one of the scariest movies ever. Not only that, Session 9 manages to be suspenseful, scary and intelligent all at once, and without resorting to cheap scare tactics. I wish we hadn't watched it in the middle of the afternoon, though, because we may have cheated ourselves out of some of the effect. That said, the movie takes place in broad daylight from beginning to end, and the only dark places are those in the abandoned mental hospital it's set in - and there are many of those.

Watching again, nearly seven years later, I am still completely drawn in by it.

4/5

NIKKI says: This is without doubt one of my favourite movies of all time. I absolutely adore it. It comes so close to perfection -- it's scary, it's smart, it's tense, it's a great story, it's got a wonderful setting, it looks great, it's paced well, the acting is great... come to think of it, what faults are there?

We discovered this movie entirely by chance. Ooh, a horror flick set in an old mental hospital starring David Caurso -- that's the kind of stuff we love to watch and make fun of. Well, "fuck you" didn't the movie just shout in our faces? We were glued, enthralled, terrified all the way through. I couldn't sleep with Mary's voice in my head all night afterwards. And she still creeps me out. I think I looked behind me at least once watching this tonight, and I've seen it a bunch of times. It just does that -- it grows on you, creeps through you. It's an amazing piece of work.

Instead of more raving, I'll do a Top 5 Best Moments in Session 9, the best mental hospital movie with David Caruso EVER:

5. When you realise the phone is broken and Gordon is talking to himself.

4. Hank in the stairwell: "What are you doing here?" (OH MY GOD!)

3. The lights turning off as nyctophobic Warren runs out of the tunnel.

2. The little wobble on the tape player that puts a shake in the recorded voices. Oh god, whoever thought of that... It just makes the recordings seem even more authentic. I was convinced they're pulled a real interview from the '50s or something.

1. Simon. Yes, okay movie -- you win.

Why does it creep me out just thinking about it? A brilliant, amazing, awesome movie. Fuck it, I'm just gonna give it five.

5/5

Fright Night

Director: Tom Holland
Writer: Tom Holland
Released: 1985
Cast: William Ragsdale, Roddy McDowall, Chris Sarandon, Amanda Bearse, Stephen Geoffreys, Jonathan Stark

STEVE says: Score two for Tom Holland on the Guilty Pleasure-o-meter!

No, look - I love Fright Night, always have. I saw it five times in the theatre when it came out because it was Just So Cool. But then the 80s ended.

Fright Night does not hold up well in the new millennium. The soundtrack, the fashions, the hairstyles - it's all pretty embarrassing.

Still, Holland's storytelling techniques again stand out... and are again let down by simple logic. (Charlie Brewster watches movies about vampires constantly, but has to go to his friend Ed to find out how to kill one?) But, you know, guilty pleasure.

And thanks again to Icons of Fright for the TWO Fright Night Pirate Commentaries! You guys rock.

3/5

NIKKI says: Never been the hugest fan of this movie. I think when I was little, I watched the second one more than this. In fact, I think this might only be the second time I've ever seen this movie? Maybe...

Steve is a big fan, so to have him sit there and come to the realisation that it's not really a great film worked double for me. I was quite bored. Maybe it's the cheese? It is a bit cheesy -- the effects and the style and Chris Sarandon's over the top performance.

Could be I'm just so much more into I Was a Teenage Vampire, which doesn't suffer from the logic issues this one does.

I can't see myself going back. Sorry Fright Night.

2/5

Child's Play

Director: Tom Holland
Writers: Don Mancini, John Lafia, Tom Holland
Released: 1988
Cast: Alex Vincent, Catherine Hicks, Chris Sarandon, Brad Dourif

STEVE says: And speaking of guilty pleasures...

I recently listened to a commentary for Child's Play by director Tom Holland. Seems MGM didn't ask him to be part of the 20th anniversary DVD release, so the gang over at Icons of Fright invited him to do what they're calling a Pirate Commentary, a valentine to the fans and a "fuck you" to the studio. Sweet.

Listening to Holland explain the development of the script (the original story, Blood Buddies, bearing only slight resemblance to the finished product), and how he fashioned the story (allowing people one by one to learn that Chucky really is alive, then removing those people until all of Andy's "safe places" are gone) was, frankly, more than I'd expected from what I remembered as a fun-but-kind-of-silly 80s horror flick. I was keen to watch it again and see if it was maybe better than I'd remembered.

It wasn't. I could see what Holland was talking about, and it's really kind of brilliant. I appreciate and respect his mastery of storytelling. But... little things, probably having more to do with Screen Time than Reality, put a heavy strain on my already stretched suspension of disbelief.

In the end, it didn't matter much. I'm not in this to hear realistic dialog, or to have explained to me how Chucky gets himself all the way across Chicago on his own, or to watch realistic police work (although I'm interested to know how the paperwork side of the case was dealt with). I'm in it to see a murderous talking doll stalk a six-year-old kid - because it's fun! And on that score, Holland delivered - which is more than can be said for any of the four miserable sequels.

3/5

Terror Train

Director: Roger Spottiswoode
Writer: TY Drake
Released: 1980
Cast: Jamie Lee Curtis, Ben Johnson, Hart Bochner, David Copperfield, Derek McKinnon,

STEVE says: Oh my. Watching it again, I can think of no earthly reason why I like this movie as much as I do. It follows the Halloween/Friday the 13th template of Evil Returning to Exact Revenge After Many Years, so it doesn't have originality going for it. The murders aren't that inventive, which seemed to be the sole excuse for making these movies after a while, although this one might have got in before they rounded that particular corner - either way, the kills are kinda boring. The editing pretty much excludes the person who turns out to be the killer from actually being the killer, and the red herring (David Copperfield) looks nothing like who we know the killer already to be.

And yet I rate it Good. Why?

I don't know. Might have something to do with it being one of the first slasher movies I saw as a kid, before even Friday the 13th or Halloween. I remember watching it over and over on HBO, this and RoadGames - both starring Jamie Lee Curtis. Coincidence? I think not.

It's a guilty pleasure, and I suspect we'll be viewing more than a couple before the month is out.

3/5

Rawhead Rex

Director: George Pavlou
Writer: Clive Barker
Released: 1986
Cast: David Dukes, Kelly Piper, Declan O'Brien, Niall Toibin, Niall O'Brien

STEVE says: Clive Barker has apparently disowned this movie - and he wrote the screenplay. Nothing I can say will give you a better idea of how bad this movie is.

In truth, though, it tries. It tries too hard. The story - ancient fertility god accidentally released from his subterranean prison wreaks havoc on Irish countryside - isn't the problem. Much of it is the direction, the fact that this is all taken so earnestly - the same problem Sometimes They Come Back suffered from. Everyone is so serious throughout, you'd think they were in an Ibsen play or something, rather than a schlocky monster flick.

And that's the second problem: the monster here, the titular Rawhead Rex, looks ridiculous. He's meant to be eight or nine feet tall (yet is able to walk through standard doorways whenever the plot calls for it without banging his skull), and this is achieved by placing Rawhead's head on top of - not over, mind you, but on top of - the actor's head. This makes his torso look longer in proportion to the rest of his body, and causes his arms to protrude from roughly the middle of his ribcage. It's not pretty. Neither are his crazy, rolling red hypno-eyes, or his mouth which seems to have no movement beyond simple open/close. I really half-expected to see a zipper running up his back.

Come to think of it, that might have made it all worth it.

2/5

NIKKI says: For the longest time I thought Rawhead Rex was a big scary dog who fought against Peter Weller. I would have sworn those two things were central to the film: dog and Peter Weller. I have no idea quite what planet I was on when I decided that. Bizarre.

I had no idea it was a Clive Barker story, either, though I probably read it as a kid. Back when I thought Cabal and Jacqueline Ess were, like, the goriest things ever and I was just so cool and grown up for not vomiting while reading them. I think back on them now, and I probably couldn't stomach them as well as I used to.

Anyway... Rawhead Rex was fairly lame. But I put that down to over-the-top acting and the worst make-up effects ever put on film. What possibly made these filmmakers think the big plastic head with the Mattel-like flashing red eyes could possibly be scary? I realise the film was made in the mid-1980s but there were scarier demons around at that point. It just looked like a big plastic mask. It barely moved. There was nothing real about it at all. Who thought of that? Ugh, terrible.

I had a hard time following the story, possibly because that awful mask was so disstracting. And I didn't feel what I think I should have after the little boy was killed. That seemed very out of place. Perhaps if I'd had more of a sense of just what Rex was up to, it may have come together a bit better. Reading up on the story later, I can see what was going on. I didn't grasp it so well watching the thing.

Peter Weller and a dog... if it's not this, what the hell am I thinking of?

2/5

Dellamorte Dellamore

Director: Michele Soavi
Writer: Gianni Romoli
Released: 1994
Cast: Rupert Everett, Anna Falchi, François Hadji-Lazaro, Mickey Knox

STEVE says: Sorry, did I say things could only go downhill after The Exorcist? My mistake. I didn't anticipate Dellamorte Dellamore being our second film.

Released in the States as Cemetery Man in 1996, I gave it a miss because the ads just made it look silly, and even back then I was sick to death of horror comedies. Five years later, my friend M'ike coerced me into watching his imported copy of the original Dellamorte cut, and I'll never be able to repay him. It was so incredible, so beautiful, so fucking amazing, I sat through the credits, rewound the tape, and watched it again. I watched it again the next day, and again the day after that, never tiring of it, never ceasing to find it enthralling.

And to this day, I still have no idea what it's really all about. To be honest, I don't want to know. It's like a Rorschach test: different people are going to see different things. But Martin Scorsese reckons it's one of the best Italian films of the 1990s, and if Marty likes it, I feel pretty secure in rating it as I do.

4.5/5

The Exorcist

Director: William Friedkin
Writer: William Peter Blatty
Released: 1973
Cast: Ellen Burstyn, Jason Miller, Linda Blair, Max von Sydow, Lee J. Cobb.

STEVE says: October is going to be horror month for us. As if we need to set aside a whole month, having watched 120 horror movies already this year, but it's October and it's timely and I like horror movies, so that's reason enough.

I wanted to start it off with a bang, though - something that packs a punch - and all credit to Universal Studios, I didn't think Dracula, Frankenstein, or The Wolf Man were going to quite set the tone. The Exorcist won out over such classics as Rosemary's Baby, The Shining and, yes, Fright Night, and I'm glad we went with it because, even though it's not what I'd class as "scary", it's still - 35 years later - one of the creepiest flicks ever.

What bugs me about it is, there's no wiggle room for those who might be, like myself, Faith-Challenged. There is no question that Regan is possessed. Even though we're given plenty of alternative medical explanations as to what might be wrong with her, including a "lesion" in her brain ("My name is Legion, for we are many."), it's pretty clear that reason loses the battle here and superstitions are put forth as fact. Since Father Karras is having a crisis of faith, and since proof denies faith, I think the story would have been better served had Karras not seen actual proof of Regan's possession, but only inferred whatever proof he needed to confirm his faith in the end, you dig?

Hey, whatever, The Exorcist works, and I'm glad we chose it to kick off the month. Only problem now is, it's pretty much all downhill from here.

4/5

Southern Comfort

Director: Walter Hill
Writers: Michael Kan, Walter Hill, David Giler
Released: 1981
Cast: Keith Carradine, Powers Boothe, Fred Ward, Franklyn Seales, TK Carter, Lewis Smith, Les Lannom, Peter Coyote

NIKKI says: And again I am horrified at the thought there are movies like this out there, in existence for more than 20 years, that I have overlooked, passed by, or not ever even heard of.

I wasn't hugely into this one. I was intrigued by the story -- National Guardsmen head onto a remote bayou for a training exercise and end up hunted by locals -- but something made me think it would be more like a River Kwai-type story than this crazy haunted-woods scenario. And then as it began, I was less than impressed with Peter Coyote assuming the commander role and yelling at his charges. All the standard war-movie stuff came out -- the ball-busters versus the rulebook followers, cheeky gun-toters versus straight soldiers. Here we go, I thought...

And then Peter Coyote gets shot in the head! And it all begins, and it's just sensational. It's tense, realistic, suspenseful, and while those characetrs are all rather standard, they're not exactly cookie-cutter and each was believable and sympathetic in his own way.

I really enjoyed the subtle horrors in this one, the cat-and-mouse goings on, and the film's structure, with tension building and building then exploding at the end. It was just a well made film, with some amazing performances. I haven't been that into Keith Carradine for ages. And Powers Boothe wasn't even really a bad guy, but just had me frightened all the way through. This powder-keg thing he had going on...

Anyway, loved it. Want more like it.

4/5

STEVE says: Never having been the biggest Walter Hill fan, I didn't expect much from this one. The tagline, "Not since Deliverance..." promised nothing much more than a rip-off of another movie I really wasn't the biggest fan of in the first place.

Well. Once again I walk away red-faced. And it wasn't just a matter of exceeding my low expectations, either. Southern Comfort was good. Better even than I remember Deliverance being, but now I want to go back and have another look at that one.

And while I'm at it, maybe I'm wrong about The Warriors, too.

Nah.

"Caaaaan Yooouuu Diiiiig Iiiiit?"

4/5

Smart People

Director: Noam Murro
Writer: Mark Poirier
Released: 2008
Cast: Dennis Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker, Thomas Haden Church, Ellen Page

NIKKI says: How does Hollywood let an audience know characters are smart? By having them use big or obscure words. Dennis Quaid knows the meaning of the word "eft" -- he must be a genius.

I'm really starting to hate Hollywood's idea of the "smart person". Seems those of us who might be book-schooled a bit more than the rest of the world also need to be repressed and smart-assy, and entirely unable to have any fun.

Take this movie... Dennis Quaid is the smartest professor in the world and he just snaps at the lower class, and thinks he's just so above everyone. His daughter is the same way -- super-smart, and a super-bitch, mean to people for no reason because life is too short to deal with, well, anyone else. Even Sarah Jessica Parker gets the treatment here -- she's smart, too, and a doctor no less, and you can tell from her limp hair, make-up-less face, and desire to sneak a cigarette when she's upset that she's also horribly repressed.

Who does it take to come into the fold and make everyone's lives happy again? A dope-smoking sponge, without any education whatsoever. If only life were so simple.

I found myself surprised at many turns in the story, which I put down to poor development. I didn't get a sense of why Sarah Jessica and Dennis Quaid even had their affair. I didn't get what prompted Juno to kiss Ned. And just for the life of me I don't understand the drama at the end when Sarah Jessica thinks she's pregnant. Why did she suddenly become a cruel bitch? She went into the affair knowing this man was utterly self-involved. So, why am I shocked when she finds out he's still that way later on?

No, the more I think about it, the less this worked for me. It's another one of those Squid and the Whale type movies where we're supposed to think all involved are on a higher plain but they just go around acting like assholes for no real, deep reasons.

2/5

The Left Handed Gun

Director: Arthur Penn
Writer: Leslie Stevens
Released: 1958
Cast: Paul Newman, Lita Milan, John Dehner, James Best

Silent Running

Director: Douglas Trumbull
Writers: Deric Washburn, Michael Cimino, Steven Bochco
Released: 1972
Cast: Bruce Dern, Cliff Potts, Ron Rifkin, Jesse Vint