The Wicker Man (1973)

Directed by Robin Hardy.

1973. Rated R, 88 minutes.

Cast:

Edward Woodward

Christopher Lee

Diane Cilento

Britt Ekland

Anthony Shaffer

Ingrid Pitt

Lindsay Kemp

Russell Waters

Aubrey Morris

Irene Sunters

Paul Giovanni

Policeman Sgt. Neil Howie (Woodward) heads out to Summer Isle after receiving an anonymous letter notifying him that a child has gone missing. When he gets there, the locals deny they ever knew this girl existed. However, as he uncovers more and more evidence, their tunes begin to change. In addition, the lifestyle of the natives is offensive to his spirituality. Though they claim to be a devoutly religious group, promiscuity and drunkenness seem to be the two most prevalent behaviors. Often, the locals engage in one and/or the other in public. Sgt. Howie just can’t reconcile this with his own faith. He soon comes to think everyone on the island is stark, raving mad.

The sarge is right. Everyone here is completely bonkers. In fact, the entire movie is nuts. I can honestly say this is one of the most unique viewing experiences I've ever had. For starters, it stops barely shy of being a full-blown musical. Every time I turn around someone breaks into song. These numbers are either plain awful, overtly sexual or both. It doesn't help that the singing leaves a lot to be desired. Then you have to remember this is supposed to be a horror flick. I've seen horror musicals that have worked.Those either skew toward being a comedy or at least are keenly aware of how ridiculous they are and use that to their advantage. The Wicker Man seems strangely oblivious and to take itself more seriously than it should.

Despite it’s odd approach, TWM still delivers an interesting tale. The mystery of the missing girl is a winding path that concludes with a devilish twist. It’s the kind of thing many movies try but can’t get quite right. The reason it works here is two-fold. First, it never tips its hand. When you work back through the movie in your mind, there really are no clues that you missed. However, and this brings us to the second
reason,  we don’t feel cheated. In fact, it makes perfect sense given the situation and the people involved. We actually wonder why we didn't see it coming.

In the end, TWM is a goofy movie that succeeds almost in spite of itself. The silliness tests our patience. The rampant debauchery speaks to our basest needs and may either turn us on or off. Regardless, the story keeps dragging us along until we get to the “oh wow” ending.

MY SCORE: 8/10

Dark Shadows

Directed Tim Burton.

2012. Rated PG-13, 113 minutes.
Cast:
Johnny Depp
Michelle Pfeiffer
Eva Green
Helena Bonham Carter
Bella Heathcote
Chloë Grace Moretz
Jackie Earle Haley
Jonny Lee Miller
Christopher Lee
Alice Cooper

In 1972, the Collinses live in a gigantic secluded mansion in Maine that their ancestors built over 200 years earlier. Once extremely wealthy, they now barely manage to pay the bills since the family business isn’t doing so well. Luckily for them, they’re about to get some help. Thought long dead since he lived in the house when it was first built, Barnabus Collins (Depp) rises from his grave. Having been turned into a vampire by Angelique Bouchard (Green), a jilted witch, he has a score to settle. For you young whipper-snappers, this is based on the late 60s/early 70s soap opera of the same name.

We proceed with the normal jokes that follow people reemerging in a time much different than their own. Some are funny, some are not. More consistently humorous, but not overwhelmingly so, is Michelle Pfeiffer’s sarcasm and the (sorta) functional drunkenness of Burton regular Helena Bonham Carter. Both women are superb as is Eva Green in all her cackling witch glory. Chloë Grace Moretz gives a performance that comes across as bizarre. However, I don’t blame her as much as I do the screenplay which doesn’t properly flesh out her character. The one actor I do blame for their lackluster work is the star, Johnny Depp. This is hard for me because I’m pretty much a Depp apologist, but he doesn’t seem to have his heart in this one.

Still, our hero isn't the most noticeable problem with Dark Shadows. More of an issue is how insecure director Tim Burton is in his storytelling. The movie never seems sure of what it wants to be. It takes turns at parody (including of self), family drama, and straight forward horror without the proper meshing of the genres. The seams are clearly visible. As a result, we feel like we’re switching back and forth between several different movies involving the same characters. Any of them could be good but none are allowed to gather enough steam. We never get into the right frame of mind to enjoy it because as soon as we start to settle in there’s an abrupt change in tone and we have to start all over. Other problems include prematurely discarding subplots, especially those of the children, and a werewolf inexplicably popping up out of nowhere.

The magic of the Depp/Burton connection seems to be waning. As mentioned, Depp’s performance is somewhat less than thrilling and the typically goth-chic visuals of Tim Burton feel peculiarly restrained and his narrative is all over the map. Even the star in his trademark white face paint and funny hairdo is now cliché. The last truly excellent effort produced by the pair is 2007’s morbid musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. I like their following picture, 2010’s Alice in Wonderland, but that’s a polarizing film. This seems to be likewise.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Hugo

Directed by Martin Scorsese.

2011. Rated PG, 128 minutes.
Cast:
Asa Butterfield
Ben Kingsley
Chloë Grace Moretz
Sacha Baron Cohen
Jude Law

Ray Winstone
Helen McCrory
Richard Griffiths
Frances de la Tour
Christopher Lee

Hugo (Butterfield) is a tween-aged boy who lives alone inside the giant clock at the train station. Sort of. He’s supposed to be living there with his uncle Claude (Winstone) who is responsible for keeping the clock wound. However, Claude is a drunk and hasn’t been seen in quite some time. Hugo’s dad was already a widower when he died leaving his son in the care of his not-so-responsible brother. So Hugo keeps the clock running all by himself. He also works feverishly to fix the automaton his father left him, a robot that supposedly writes. Hugo has never seen it work.

Much of our hero’s day is spent scavenging food and parts from the shops in the station while avoiding station cop Inspector Gustave (Cohen). His favorite target is the toy store owned by crotchety old Papa Georges (Kingsley). When Georges catches Hugo, he makes the lad work for him to pay for all the stuff he’s stolen. He also confiscates the kid’s notebook which looks like a manual for the automaton. In an effort to get his notebook back, Hugo recruits Isabelle (Moretz) who lives with Papa Georges and his wife because her own parents have passed away. The two embark on a book retrieving adventure.

Eventually, we find out Hugo isn’t at all about the notebook , the writing robot or even the title character. Like Super 8, which I’ve recently watched, Hugo is actually a movie about movies. In this case, it focuses on the earliest days of filmmaking and how magical moving pictures must have been to people who had never heard of such a thing. By extension, it’s also about when we in the contemporary audience first fell in love with movies ourselves. After all, even the most cynical of us has been awed by a film and transported wholly into its world at some point in our lives. Finally, it makes an eloquent point about the need to step up the effort to preserve old films. If the viewer misses all that stuff about movies and merely focuses on the surface of Hugo, they’ll still get an enjoyable film.

Hugo is also about the visuals. That’s not quite right, the visuals are there to enhance the feeling that watching a movie is akin to witnessing magic. They are an important part of the film. Each shot is beautifully framed and the fluid movement of the camera has the effect of sweeping us away into this world. Unfortunately, I’m ill-qualified to comment any further. My lack of technical expertise aside, it’s a movie designed to be a 3D experience that I watched in 2D on a not-so-wide screen. Though I’m not a huge fan of the medium I would like to see this as it is meant to be seen.

Even without the funny glasses, I still had a good time watching Hugo. The story is thoroughly sweet and touching. Admittedly, that’s not what I’m normally looking for out of my Scorcese, but he makes it engaging. Interestingly enough, my children didn’t enjoy it as much despite the two youthful protagonists. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe you do need to understand a bit about the history of movies. After all, it is an adventure that leads not to a treasure of gold or something they deem tangible, but to an archive of silent films (I’m not spoiling anything). Maybe when I’m old and they’re making one of their obligatory visits I’ll force them to watch it with me just to see if they get it.

MY SCORE: 8/10

The Satanic Rites of Dracula

Directed by Alan Gibson.
1973. Rated R, 87 minutes.
Cast:
Christopher Lee
Peter Cushing
Michael Coles
William Franklyn
Joanna Lumley
Freddie Jones

Some powerful people in British politics are being investigated under the suspicion that they belong to a satanic cult. It soon becomes apparent this is no ordinary cult but they are, in fact, working for Count Dracula. The first problem is that Christopher Lee’s Dracula is one of the lamest incarnations of the character I’ve ever seen. He has nowhere near the mental capacity of the other movie vampires and seems to possess none of their supernatural powers save for transforming people into vampires and immortality provided he avoids the sun and wooden stakes through the heart. Well, this guy can also be killed by silver bullets. Hmmm, I always thought that was for werewolves. Whatever. Forgetting that he needs at least some humans to sustain his own life, he’s bent on getting the humans working for him to create a suped up version of the Bubonic Plague that will wipe out the entire species. And for some unexplained reason he keeps all the ladies he’s transformed chained up in the basement. With a good deal of cheesy dialogue, lame action scenes, nudity and Lee’s poor Bela Lugosi impersonation it definitely finds it’s way into the so-bad-it’s-awesome category.

MY SCORE: -10/10