American Psycho (s) - 1991/2000

 I just finished rereading the book American Psycho and then I rented the movie for $3.99 on Amazon in the next few minutes.  I have't read the book since about 2003ish and I haven't seen the movie in well over 15 years, how do they hold up?

American Psycho as a book is incredible to believe was actually published.  The book is obviously well written, is a satire, and it is brutal, but moreso it is trying to be offensive in every single way possible and slamming you over the head with it in every way.  The main character commits every sin, breaks every taboo, is racist and sexist and homophobic, and all while wearing this guise of not just normalcy but upper crust priviledge that you are forced to contend with.  It holds no punches with what it is saying; we allow and even encourage depravity in our society and we enjoy looking the other way when it shows its face.

The book and the movie both center around Patrick Bateman, a 27 year old Harvard graduated Vice President at a law firm who does nothing (sloth) all day except worry about his image (pride) and envy what others have.  He dines out at the best restaurants (gluttony) and fucks various prostitutes and others girlfriends (lust).  He is also a serial killer (wrath) who wants everything (greed).  

The first 150 pages are a showboat of his moral depravity in various ways as he goes about the little playground that is New York to the rich, and you begin to wonder where this is all going, until he kills a homeless man.  Similarly, in the movie, that is paralleled.  Once that wall is broken, there are brief sexual forays and violence, culminating in a crazy night of killings and him getting chased by the police, where he gets away and the end is left ambiguous.

There is certainly in both mediums a heavy amount of suggestion that nothing is indeed happening, that deaths are made-up and that the character is simply experiencing drug hallucinations or fantasies or what-have-you.  

The whole dialogue in this case about book versus movie is pointless, because the book is obviously way better, but the cool thing about both is they have stylistic flourishes, hilarious scenes and dialogue, and they truly paint a realistic picture of just how disgustingly vapid, empty, and inhuman the characters in their subject matter are. 

The strangest thing I found about the movie on this rewatch is that some of the shots are embarrassingly amateur, and the soundtrack despite being by John Cale is completely unremarkable.  If not for Christian Bale, this movie would likely have completely failed.  But it is riddled with talent beyond him, and they have quite the cast in this, Willem Dafoe, Reese Witherspoon, Josh Lucas, Jared Leto, Chloe Sevigny, it's a massive cast of future megastars.

The book is an insane experiment that I wonder what else is even similar to.  The movie is fine, a good coming of age movie for me and one that I will always look back on fondly, but honestly 3 stars is what it likely deserves.

Below - 2002

 In 1998 Darren Aronofsky put out his film Pi, and several studios chased after him to write or direct a movie for them.  He signed one deal for a film called Proteus which was going to be a combo of submarines with aliens.

Because Hollywood is as Hollywood does, this movie instead became whatever it is, which is a box office bomb submarine ghost movie directed by the guy that did The Chronicles of Riddick.  The movie that this became is Below, oddly enough starring Zach Galifianakis, Bruce Greenwood, and a bunch of other "that guy" type people who you probably saw in a 90s movie or an odd single episode of a TV show.

Below did turn the aliens into ghosts, and the submarine in the movie is picking up random pings and noises and odd things are happening everywhere and its all very scary and shit.  They also pick up female science officer Claire, who begins to stir up trouble on the ship cause she's a female but also cause she uncovers a story of a dead submarine captain, she sees signs of the ghosts, and she isn't under the new captains thumb the way the officers are.

Below isn't really scary or interesting, it moves quite slowly, and relies on an atmosphere for effect, but for me, it didn't do much.  I do not understand watching something that is in close quarters and getting claustrophobic, just like I couldn't watch something up high and feel fear of heights.  I'm not there.  I can parse that out real quick.  Other than that, nothing is really made clear or dangerous enough for you to be interested in the goings on so you watch, bored, wondering about the making of instead.

It could have been worse, but overall its one of those movies that's not even fun to talk about, so I will only give it 1.5 stars.

Evil Dead Rise - 2023

 Evil Dead is a franchise every horror hound knows, whether they've seen all the entries or not.  To set the record straight, I have seen them all, including the original Evil Dead.

Evil Dead was basically a student project level amateur horror movie by Sam Raimi and starring Bruce Campbell, and they made it on a shoestring budget but with enough passion and blood and guts that it caught peoples attention in the long dead zombie genre.  It has an archetypical cabin in the woods approach where some friends raise a undead presence that has a horror comedy appeal, and it goes from there.

Some of the tenements of the series which entails The Evil Dead, Evil Dead II, Army of Darkness, Evil Dead (2013), and now Evil Dead Rise are: lots of blood and guts, living dead, unseen monsters shot from a first person perspective, and horror comedy.  Also, the isolated cabin the the woods approach is common, though does not appear in Army of Darkness.

Evil Dead Rise is the most recent legasequel or reboot or whatever we're calling it now.  Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell are on as co-producers and in the beginning a lady at a cabin in the woods goes crazy and kills her friend and boyfriend.  Flashback (?) to an apartment complex where mom sends the kids out for pizza and an earthquake happens, and a chasm opens up into an old prison (?) where one of the kids find a vinyl record (?) with the incantations that when played bring forth evil dead.

Convoluted much?  Yeah, this is a plot of convenience if I've ever seen one.  Why not just have the book turn up from a mystery package or a fucking weirdo or whatever else you could do here...?  The evil dead infests the mom of the family and now its mom versus three kids and their aunt, her sister.  

Here's the thing guys, it's not scary.  I'm not even sure it's trying to be.  But it is entertaining, and it moves quickly, and makeup and the setting are pretty cool.  But also, there is no horror comedy, the apartment setting is not inherantly scary or interesting, and the gore is the only thing to keep you watching.  There's a few cool ideas, but really I don't know why this is necessarily "The Evil Dead" besides just to cash in on IP, there is nothing about this that really is reminiscent of the rest of the franchise.

I think it was in the end fine for what it was though, I will give it 2.5 stars.

The Prowler - 1981

 Also known as Rosemary's Killer.

Here we have a prime 80s slasher that I have not yet reviewed, lets fix that eh?  I had definitely seen it, but it had been a while, and this one is a good one.  It deserves to be watched again.

The Prowler begins with classic WWII footage and reading of a Dear John letter to an unknown soldier.  Then we cut to a high school where the girl who wrote it, presumably, is hunted down and killed on graduation night.  Now in the modern day of 1981, the school has not had a graduation since, but they are about to kick it back into gear.  Because of this, a killer reappears and bodies start stacking up.

It's a fairly simple premise, we don't watch these for their originality.  What we watch them for is bodies, both dead and naked.  Also, it helps if effects are by Tom Savini, even if it's mostly cut out by the censorship people.  

What this movie has is an iconic looking killer with a pitchfork, and that dareisay is just about all you need to be a successful slasher, and this one is certainly good.  I'm trying to do the math in my head about why it isn't as well known and in fact it was not a financial success, but I can't even really say.  I guess it probably got buried by all the others.

Spoiler alert in the end of Friday the 13th a kid Jason leaps out of the lake and pulls down the final girl, it is then revealed to be a dream sorta.  Sorta because all the sequels that actually star Jason point towards that this did happen...?  At then end of this one, the final girl gets grabbed by a suddenly reanimated dead body, then that is a dream.  So by Friday the 13th logic, the sequel to this should have that dead body, that murder victim, now being a killer and hunting people.  I wanna see it!  Prowler 2.

I liked this, I'll give it 4 stars.

Pandorum - 2009

 The year is 2009.  My ex-girlfriend and future ex-wife is really into Ben Foster.  We rent this movie because of him and watch it and everyone instantly forgets it ever existed the very next day.

There is an epidemic of movies that completely vanish from memory, and this is one of them.  It's some gritty super stylized space horror movie co-produced by Paul WS Anderson.  The guy who made Event Horizon goes for take 2 in this Sunshine/Event Horizon/Sphere/every other movie like this redux.  Also, the ship is called Elysium in a world where the movie Elysium came out 4 years later.

The aforementioned Ben Foster and Dennis Quaid star in the movie, where they wake up on a spaceship that seems to be empty at first until they discover there's crazy creatures living aboard and some renegade humans that are surviving ala Aliens.  Space madness took hold aboard the ship of course, and also some Firefly shit happened, cuz it gave birth to the same creatures.

The movie telegraphs everything that will happen for a lot of it, and the rest is middling, emphasized by very of-the-time style, effects, and grittiness.  Everything is covered in an oily gross liquid, and everyone is sweaty and ugly.  The characters do not have much depth, the ship apparently has endless rusty basements where someone can live, or pools of unknown liquids can coagulate.

Shot in confuso-vision, where you cannot tell what is happening half the time, and spoken almost entirely in spat out whispers, this movie is ridiculously of the time.  Also, this movie makes the weird common mistake of having characters name things...?  These guys get space madness, which they call Pandorum.  Why would they call it Pandorum, exactly?  Its insanity.  They wouldn't randomly decide to name insanity after Pandora's Box.  Why would they do that?

In the end, its exactly what you might expect, and it certainly didn't require a rewatch.  If you want this type of thing, go watch Sunshine instead.

Shattered - 1991

 Nailed the year.

I don't know why this is the second time I've seen this movie, and I don't remember when I saw it either.  But I definitely have seen this before.  Yet, I still rented it on Amazon just now for $4.

Tom Berenger and Bob Hoskins star in this erotic thriller type flick, an odd and interesting mystery.  In the beginning a car goes off a cliff and Tom Berenger is badly wounded in the crash, his wife luckily not so much.  As he regains his face and his capabilities, his life and his memories return, only there are some mysterious missing things and other memories that point to an odd mystery.  

Shot and set in San Francisco, this movie is a delight  It moves quickly and the weirdness of it is just enough to keep you going.  Directed by Wolfgang Petersen, it has a flair and a style that is unique enough to differentiate it, and it can be genuinely fun sometimes with its flairs.  

The whole movie also features a hilarious turn that the company our main character works for is going to take this giant barge out into the ocean and sink it - but the barge is rusted out and leaking chemicals and toxic waste.  It's hilarious and the set is great, and to think they are going to dump it would be super funny if it did not reflect real life.

I liked it both times, and it holds up on a rewatch.  I will give it 3.5 stars.

The Fantasist - 1986

 Where to start with this one, yikes.

The Fantastist is an oddly named movie that somehow fits to this odd Irish-British horror movie that is not a horror movie, not a drama, not a thriller, but sorta just a watch and barely pay attention what-have-you.

The essential plot, I guess, is someone is calling women and sexually coming on to them and then mudering them.  You wouldn't really know that's happening because it doesn't, really, after the first opening scene.  Instead you follow some random denizens of this small town and you eventually zero in on this one woman and follow her as she is generally affected by the crimes and starts to date odd and problematic Danny.

Even though this is from the director of the classic The Wicker Man, and even though it apparently had Level 42 in it, this movie is nearly incomprehensible in feel.  I could not really tell you what happened in this movie.  It was absolutely ridiculous.

There's some nudity and all, but overall this is a dud with two capital Ds.  I give it zero stars.

The Last House on the Left - 1972

 Wes Craven, I always say, defined horror in three different decades.  You would count either this or The Hills Have Eyes, Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984 , and Scream in 1996.

Such an influencer, and while I had heard of this movie and I've seen almost every single Craven movie, this one I actually had not seen!  So, well, here we go.  Also, this is of course continuing my watching marathon of the Video Nasty flicks from the 70s and 80s.  

Here's a thought:  there was a time in film wherein original films, sci fi, drama, horror, what-be-it, were originated as porn and for some reason they became something more.  This is the type of thing that is lost to the ages.  People set out with a budget and a bunch of producers, and either way porn doesn't sell these days so that avenue is limited.  Last House began as a porn film and Craven et al decided to make it not, basically and the rest as they say is history, hence, my conclusion being, in the modern day this film does not happen?

Porn influences include a scene of lesbian rape which still has dialogue about it in the movie but it is not seen, multiple rape scenes, and an obviously tinged idea for including more.  The plot of the beast is your basic rape revenge, a group meets some psychopaths, they torture and eventually kill them.  Then the psychos stay with the parents of the main girl they killed, parents catch on, and now its revenge.

I mean, it's odd to look back on this moment of film.  This whole series is all but forgotten; I ask you, what is the best known rape revenge movie?  Kill Bill attempted to resurrect the idea but it omitted the rape, so I ask you, what is it?  It might be this, and this is mostly known because like I said Craven redefined horror many times.  

This is above standard for this fare, and I'll give it 4 stars.  Nasty Scale: 4/10

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within - 2001

 If memory serves me right, I went to see this movie in theaters in 2001.  I may have dragged my mom or brother with me.  What can I say, I was curious and it looked weird!

This famously unsuccessful CGI story was weird then and its weird now.  Directed by the creator of the video game, Hironobu Sakaguchi, it took over 2 years to animate at an estimated 200 years of effort by a large team of animators working around the clock.  It went overbudget, it was riding a wave of unspecified anxiety about what it was, and then it came out and lost an estimated 95 million dollars and folded Square as a film production company.

Rewatching this today, as perhaps the third time I've seen it, I remember a lot about the film when it came out and my perception.  Basically, I think there were multiple reasons for this as a failure but one of the major reasons comes down to that it is not that interesting of a story, that doesn't have clear resolution or clarity at all really.  I could not tell you what really happens in this movie.

Bare bones of the plot are that there is this invading ghostly race of aliens called Phantoms which are deadly and dangerous and now on Earth post a meteoric strike.  A team of Aki Ross, a bunch of soldiers, and an old scientist are on the case, especially once it's revealed that Aki is actually infected with the alien presence somehow, and it is contained within her; her being the first to survive such an encounter.  Now they have to collect spirits or something from all over in order to stop the aliens...I guess.

The CGI characters are well rendered, and the entire affair is a fun little romp, it just gets buried in the plot of it all, which I really couldn't tell ya about.  I like this movie more than most, but I will admit it is definitely not like, good, or anything.  I'll give it 2.5.

Something Evil - 1972

A while ago I watched The Sugarland Express, digging into the early filmography of Steven Spielberg, we'll call them the "pre-Jaws years".  I am not into plugging many other things on this blog, but I will plug Film Encounters of the Spielberg Kind, a podcast going through the films of the original "cute little guy" Stevy Spiels.  I watched this because of them.

Something Evil is about...wait for it...something evil.  Yeah.  In this case, a house, and specifically, one which a man kills himself at in the early opening of this movie.  Cue a couple who are on a drive and see the for sale sign and decide on a whim to purchase the home.  The house is evil, as said because houses are a verb and thus "things" as in "somethings".

Spielberg had directed Duel at this point which was a bigger success than it had set out to be, but I guess it was determined that he wasn't quite ready for the real thing yet, and so the studio made him direct this made-for-TV movie of the week for CBS.  

I'm no stranger to the realm of made-for-TV and specifically made-for-TV horror, which this is.  This is basically your average sorta demon infestation haunted house movie, with a slow plot movement and a few more character moments than expected, as well as some well executed flourishes from a young go-getter like Spielberg who was showing off and trying to get noticed.  

I basically gave the plot earlier, but to close the loop on it, the wife starts hearing weird noises, the son seems aloof and distant, and hubby is now constantly gone because the commute to his job is much longer.  Woman is going crazy and that's the plot.  Also worthy of being noted is the odd choice of having the hubby's job be a television commercial filmer and the stupid Apple Bar product commercial he's making is legit hilarious stuff.  Seems like it is unintentionally making fun of itself.

The movie is good, it moves fine and the ending is weird.  I doubt anyone is going to look this one up anytime really soon, but it is on youtube, and I would still give it a standard 2.5.

Batman and Robin - 1997

 On rewatch, Batman from 1989 is great and somehow still underrated, Batman Returns from 1992 is fun and crazy maybe a bit overly long, Batman Forever from 1995 is worse than you remember and similar to Batman and Robin in 1997.  And Batman and Robin is...  yeah, awful.

I'm watching these cause I am showing my girlfriend the films of Christopher Nolan, and it is interesting to view Batman Begins through the lens of "this is in reaction to where Batman had gone" as well as its cool to watch Forever and Robin cause its like "this is why the franchise sat there in squalor for almost 10 years after very quick sequels."

Batman and Robin brings in George Clooney to star as Batman, Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze, Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy, and Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl.  The movie is gracefully 30 minutes less that Batman Forever, but it really camps it up, it does add nipples to the Bat-Suits, and it lets everyone chew the scenery as much as they should desire, which lets be honest here, lots of them wanted to.

I always wonder when these came out how many people were comparing it to the 60s TV show.  At this point off the air for almost 30 years, is it safe to say that it wasn't in the public consciousness, especially considering the movies had always at least a little bit been aimed at children?  That said I don't give this movie as much of a hard time as others, leaning into the kids stuff seems obvious at this point, being a good ten years before Iron Man and the MCU.  We forget just how sneered upon these ideas and genres were at this point.

My point is not, though, that this is good, it is that this is understandable, but do I like it. no.  It is too much and it's too bad to be so bad its good.  I'll give it a 1.5.