paranormal activity (2009)

Paranormal Activity (2009)
Written and Directed by Oren Peli


It is my belief an assessment of a film can be made after the dust has settled, kind of like not getting caught up in the moment of everyone playing dumb and being hip. However, you do want to be relevant, being based out of Maine, does have its limitations. But we're allowed to be out of the loop, so catching an independent movie here and there gets harder and harder.

I suppose you want me to talk about P.A.

I kind of want me to as well.

We've now entered the third week of this monstrously successful horror film made with limited funds (its being compared to Blair Witch, I believe this will go down as the most successful low budget movie ever, B.W.P. was made for a little over 100 grand, P.A. was shot for 15 grand, and is on track to rake in a hundred million box office receipts).

What is the average person saying? For the most part its a resounding thud, not a lot of people seem to be into it as much. With a lackluster opening and very little happening through the film up until the climatic ending, its hard to see why it is a success thus far.

Not to me.

With a clever marketing scheme, the movie has employed a very real couple of people (who you'll be yelling at to get out of the house), mixed with a story, and one other thing, its pretty original. The two actors are refreshing in their non-plastic faces of models, but look like regular people, their story, far fetched, makes for a good cinematic case of the power of suggestion. I leaned forward alot looking into the darkness of the hallway most of the film, trying to see what hides in the dark. Even with the camera essentially positioned in the corner of the bedroom for most of the film, I was surprised how very little that could happen could be so effective. I agree with the masses, its not great, its not the best thing ever. It's very clever, and being a man who wants to break into film, this is the type of story that makes me want to pull out the cell phone a make a movie comprised of 15 second shots.

Its hard to satisfy our jaded horror audience, its hard to scare them, but when you hear a grown man behind you in the theater say "FUCK THAT" as our lead actor goes into a room where the television turns on by itself you know they have at least done a good job at keeping the audience manipulated.

For me, its all about the last ten minutes, where honestly, I had chills, I laughed a little nervously, I felt like a little kid on my bed sheets around my neck trying to adjust my eyes to the lack of light.

P.A. is a great horror story, and probably couldn't have been handled any better than a small crew and two actors, it'd be a shame to remake this, it'd ruin its integrity. I disagree with haters saying it doesn't deserve the hype, it made tons of people go to the theaters, its the first horror movie in the last five years to out gross Saw in box office in October. It shows we can have new stories told in Hollywood, and better yet, we don't need Michael Bay to spend millions of dollars on a shallow remake of far superior original movie.

I love P.A. for what it is, just as I did with Blair Witch Project and Open Water, mostly because the film makers have passion in these films, not because they were worried about the green coming their way.

Be like me, be in the loop, watch, have your own opinion.

Oversexed Rugsuckers from Mars (1988)

Oversexed Rugsuckers from Mars (1988)

Written and directed by Michael Paul Girard

Move over Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, here’s a movie that suffers from the best title ever!

And is actually quite good.

The film centers around weird little aliens that land on Earth wondering where their human experiment went wrong. So to make up for it, they lace a vacuum cleaner with a strong pheromone that makes it irresistible to humans. The first person it see’s is a homeless man that falls madly in love with it.

However, the aliens again fail their experiment when the vacuum starts having a mind of its own, raping and killing the people it comes in contact with.

The homeless man loses track of the vacuum after being submitted to a psychiatric test. A couple is being torn apart by the sexy neighbor, and everything soon turns to chaos. The flick has got an Ed Wood go for broke approach, I really liked the clay mation, no matter how crude it is. Its loaded with bad dialogue, but with a movie like this, it doesn’t matter. A true cult classic.

Horror Hospital (1973)

Horror Hospital (1973)
Written by Anthony Balch and Alan Watson
Directed by Anthony Balch


Michael Gough plays dr Christian Storm, a very evil doctor who wants to harvest brainless and obedient zombies. He also uses a car to decapitate the people he doesn’t like.

Then we meet rocker Jason, he wants to escape the scene and do something with his life. He answers an advertisement and hops on the next train where he meets Judy, a beautiful reserved girl who ends up spending the duration of the trip with. Magically they are going to the same place, but she is looking for her Aunt, who happens to be Dr. Storms assistant. Dwarf Skip Martin plays Frederick in a throw back to Igor, but provides most of the films utter hilarity, complete with slowly spoken dialogue and long uninterrupted pauses. Doc Storm also seems to have Biker Boys, men clad with white helmets and leather at his exposal.

Jason and Judy get caught up in the weird web, and start trying to save themselves from Dr Storms evil plans, which he has no qualms explaining to anybody about. Dr Storm seems like a failed James Bond villian, wheel chair bound and horribly scarred. There also seems to be a monster on the loose killing most of the females.

I love this film, its an excellent horror with loads of unintentional humor. Skip Martin is like a drool version of something out of Monty Python, my favorite instant is when he says “ Don’t…forget…to…brush…your…teeth”. Plus scenes of unexpected gore and lots of Hammer Horror inspired weirdness make this one to truly seek out.

Evils of the Night (1983)

Evils of the Night (1983)

W: Phillip D. Connors and Mardi Rustam

D: Mardi Rustam

Eegah man, this is a bad movie. Check this out, aliens have come down to Earth to get blood for their dying civilization. I’m with it. Or do we really ever know what the hell these ‘aliens’ who dress in silver so we know they are aliens, are up too?

No not really.

However, the movie apart from being terrible does have some surprising death scenes, my favorite the hero setups that are never paid off. I scratched my head a couple of times saying, ‘really, ok fair game.’ The really funny thing about this terrible eighties flick is the cast it got, John Carradine, Julie Newmar, Tina Louise (from Gilliagan’s Island) and porn stars Jerry Butler and Amber Lynn.

As tantalizing as that sounds, this movie is a mess. It crams a lot into its short run time, much like a fifties Ed Wood flick, which I think the makers were undeniably influenced by, this movie has so many Plan 9 From Outer Space overtones, I wouldn’t be surprised if they said they were setting out to remake it. The costumes are laughable as are the effects.

The Aliens turn to two dumb mechanics to help get the frolicking teens, but like I said they are dumb. Actually everybody is pretty dumb in this flick, with some really annoying characters, who thankfully get killed off. People are introduced, and then never seen again… its really unintentionally funny.

This one tries to hard to be something akin to The Blob and other teen horror sci fi movies that came from the drive in era… it’s a good thing it wasn’t a hit.

Look (2008)

Look
written and directed by Adam Rifkin

According to the opening credits, the average american is caught on a camera about 200 times in a given day. Thus begins the depraved, aggresively savage view of Adam Rifkin's Look. Actually, I lied, it starts off all nice and chipper, however, for dramatic purposes, where thrown into the lives of several people who will all interact, via Crash style, in each others lives one way or another.
did I mention the whole is filmed in a surviellance style. Whether its a cop car, an office camera, bathroom camera, parking lot surviellance , anything is used to tell the story. Just not a regular camera. the film is designed to show you how we can capture anything, at any moment.
there are several intersecting stories, one involving a teenage girl who is trying to seduce a teacher, a convienent store clerk (an awesome Giuseppe Andrews) and his friend, a lawyer and his affair, a cop killing, a deptartment store manager(first timer Hayes Macarthur, who is funny as hell) and his various indescretions, and the frequent tormenting of a fellow employee in an office building. The film also tackles heavy subject matter which may turn off alot of viewers, for instance the big three are, racial profiling, adultry and child abduction. The movie as it unfolds is a haunting exercise in what we are capable of seeing at any give moment.
Some uncontrollable mistakes can have the most devasting effects, and the most gut churning criminals can get away scot free, its all how it plays out. We are meant to look into these lives as if we are dropped in for a week.
I didn't know how the vocabulary of the film would work, but it works wonderfully, everything is really believable, very few instances actually take you out of the picture to make you realize its only a movie, but thats apart of its genius. We as compulsive human beings, are accustomed to watching the internet videos, the highlight cop reels, the reality tv shows, that we grasp onto the screen, without missing a single hint or beat. No matter how mundane something on the screen is, its means something. There are big laughs and rough shocks that happen, but its a work of genius. Most could pass it off as a mastubatory work of fiction. But this film is a better Crash. Not that I'm saying academy take notice, its just this is a fantastic movie, that will find its audience.
If not that, then a fine work in creativity.
Sure to be a cult classic.
From the director of Dark Backward and Detroit Rock City.

Laser Blast (1977)

Laser Blast (1977)
Written by: Franne Schacht and Frank Ray Perilli
Directed by: Michael Rae

What have your parents told you about playing with strange objects from outer space? Mine haven’t, and just like Billy in this movie, I don’t think I’d pay attention to them anyway.

Except, possibly when you look thirty and run around shirtless for the entirety of the movie. I don’t know if that would stop me either…

Anyway, Laserblast starts of with a weird looking
Kid running around with a laser and then aliens come down and annihilate him. It seems their mission was to kill the kid and retrieve the magical laser, but they didn’t and teased Billy gets a hold of it and starts getting cocky.

But that’s because nobody likes him in his hometown, he doesn’t have parents and only his girlfriend seems to put up with him. The cops just plain don’t like him either, so when Billy finds the laser he decides he’s a young kid again. Like I said, if you’re an actor who looks thirty playing…18(?)

There is a hidden stipulation, Billy mutates every time he fires the laser. I think the film makers had a hidden agenda for warning kids against masturbating, too bad they did it with bad writing, bad acting and cheap film stock… so if your kid masturbates, you know which film to blame…

I did however like the Ray Harryhausen inspired stop motion animation. Other than that, the movie is really bad, but damn fun.

Blood Harvest (1987)

Blood Harvest (1987)

W and D: Bill Rebane

Seriously, are you people jealous… this is it, the end all movies wish list crossed off…. The only horror movie with ‘Tip Toeing through the Tulips” singer songwriter Tiny Tim… I can feel your agony of defeat that I got to it first before you!

In various movie guides, I’ve had this film checked off with a loving star awaiting the day I’d see it. I mean, Tiny Tim! Horror! Blood! Boobs! Things you get to see any time of the day in one collective jewel case of awesome.

Boy, was I disappointed.

Depending on your level of love for horror, this is one shoddy, unremarkably campaigned movie. However and boy do I mean however…

Its got Tiny Tim!

As the killer no less? You ask?

No, but the marketing would make you believe it. I mean that’s why I wanted to watch it.

It’s the story of a girl Jill, who comes home from college and her child hood friend hook up and chat and her parents are out of town. Because that’s important for us to know. Meanwhile this town she grew up in has become poor due to her parents buying up most of the properties. So here and there the house is vandalized and she’s terrorized when nobody else is around.

The two people that are almost always around are her grade school friend and his song spewing brother Mervo the Marvelous. Cue title song, which is really good in hindsight. She is visited by girlfriends and her college boyfriend comes to spend the night. The boyfriend is played by Peter Krause, and if you don’t know Peter Krause, go get Six Feet Under, one of the best television shows in history and watch how marvelous he is in that. In this, he is wasted… literally, within minutes of his on screen appearance, his throat is slit and he is hung upside down.

Of course this looks really real.

Her friends are killed, she hasn’t heard from her parents… and everything is really discombobulated. A lot doesn’t make sense. Like what is Merv doing in the barn the whole time… except hanging out… Tiny Tim is the other talent wasted in this movie… its too bad, because I think as a strict slasher movie, the end is kind of cool… the entire build up is terrible though. Bad dialogue, bad writing and extremely terrible budget. There isn’t enough moments of weirdness, and I kind of get this image of the director going for two different movies, your atypical slasher and then a sorrowful portrayal of man whose not playing with all of his marbles. Tiny Tim must have been stoked to be in the flick, he prances, dances and sings and sometimes has Buffalo Bill, Silence of the Lambs, cutaway scenes.

You sometimes think a flick will change your life… it just makes you wonder…what if Tiny Tim actually played the killer… and what if he went on to play the Penguin…

But like most horror flicks… its worth look… there are worse movies out there.