31 Days of Horror 2018: The House with a Clock in Its Walls

Aftershock

Directed by Nicolás López.

2013. Rated R, 89 minutes.

Cast:

Eli Roth

Ariel Levy

Nicolás Martínez

Andrea Osvárt

Natasha Yarovenko

Lorenza Izzo

Ramón Llao

Matías López

Álvaro López Álvarez

Selena Gomez

Gringo (Roth) is an American in Chile partying it up with Ariel (Levy) and Pollo (Martínez). He is the divorced father of a little girl he talks about often and for whom he drops everything to take her phone call. That includes when dad is in a loud bar trying to get a little nookie. And yes, it is all sorts of creepy watching middle-aged Roth hit on the barely legal Selena Gomez, making a cameo appearance. Thankfully, she turns him down and he turns his attentions to one of the three girls he and his buddies pal around for a few days.

Okay, sorry. I’ve just wasted an entire paragraph because none of this actually matters. The movie wastes your time with this as well as this portion of it goes on forever. The only thing that matters is that while Gringo, his buddies and the girls they are hanging with are at a nightclub an earthquake strikes and does enough damage to kill most of the people there. Plenty of folks outside die, as well. The whole city is a madhouse as everyone is trying to get somewhere safe. This includes our heroes who mostly survive the club. However, Ariel did lose a hand trying to help a bartender. Well, he didn’t actually lose it. They are carrying it around in hopes of getting him to a hospital so it can be reattached. The mass panic worsens when the sound of sirens is heard in the streets, a warning to everyone there might be a tsunami on the way. As if all of this weren’t bad enough, the crew is also running from a murderous gang of rapists they happen to cross paths with. Sounds like fun.

Unfortunately, Aftershock is not nearly as fun as it could ge. For starters, it takes way too long to get to the good stuff. We spend the first act getting to know these people in an obvious and ridiculously drawn out attempt at character development. Ordinarily, I’m all for movies trying to make me care about the people on the screen. Here, it completely backfires. First off, the acting is all sorts of horrible. Second, it probably wouldn’t matter if they were all brilliant performers because almost all of them are unlikeable. Even worse, their sexual misadventures are just plain boring. It feels like an infinitely extended version to the dreadful opening of the otherwise solid Cloverfield.

Finally, the tone never feels quite right. Much of the time it is stone-face serious. However, we get the sense that this material would benefit from a more tongue in cheek approach. On those rare occasions it displays a twisted sense of humor, the movie shines. For instance, the scene of Ariel trying to recover his severed hand as it is being trampled and kicked about the floor by stampeding party-goers is downright brilliant. Had the entire movie been made that way, we might have a cult classic on our hands. Instead, the gore piles up, women are brutalized just because, anyone who gets in the way of this is murdered, and it all ends on a disheartening note. None of this is done with even a hint of the fun had during the hand scene. It’s all just a misogynistic and nihilistic fantasy that makes a dated referendum on people with tattoos.

MY SCORE: 2/10

Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel

Directed by Alex Stapleton.

2011. Rated R, 95 minutes.

Cast:

Roger Corman

Julie Corman

Jack Nicholson

Martin Scorsese

Peter Bogdanovich

Ron Howard

Peter Fonda

David Carridine

Robert De Niro

Jonathan Demme

William Shatner

Bruce Dern

Pam Grier

Eli Roth

Quentin Tarantino

With good reason, Roger Corman is known as the king of the B's, as in B movies. After all, he's had his hands on close to four hundred pictures as director and/or producer. It adds up to about fifty years of movies so bad they're awesome. Most of these were made on the cheap, filmed entirely in a handful of days or less. All but one, The Intruder turned a profit. The man knows what his audience wants and gives it to them. That's the easy assessment of Corman, the schlock-meister making money off a never ending succession of cinematic turds. However, as this documentary shows, that is an off-handed dismissal of a career that is immensely important to cinematic history.

True, Corman is a shrewd businessman who, to this day, is still churning out cheapos. Also true, his infamous guerilla-style filmmaking served as proving grounds for a number of Hollywood legends. Jack Nicholson, Martin Scorcese, Francis Ford Coppola, Jonathan Demme, James Cameron and Ron Howard all cut their teeth on his sets. Others he didn't technically "discover", but worked for him very early in their careers include Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Robert De Niro. There are many others, but you get the idea. In addition, he was instrumental in bringing the work of foreign masters such as Truffaut, Kurosawa and Fellini to the United States. Thereore, his legacy is much more about perseverance and the spirit of the auteur than it is about the types of movies he made. Corman's World is about a man who has taken a most unusual path to greatness.

Cabin Fever

Directed by Eli Roth
2002. Rated R, 92 minutes.
Cast:
Rider Strong
Jordan Ladd
James Debello
Cerina Vincent
Joey Kern
Arie Verveen
Robert Harris
Hal Courtney

A group of friends go out to a cabin in the woods to blow off some steam. A strange, rather quick working virus starts infecting everyone. Mayhem ensues. It's a weird watch because it starts dumb, even stays that way, but still manages to gather tremendous momentum as it goes along. The increasing frequency of gore with the passage of time helps. To seal the deal it gives us a very impressive ending. It's not a scary one but it's delivered with such a sharp, twisted sense of humor the whole thing is transformed into a satire. In my opinion, it's one of the best endings I've ever seen in a horror movie. YES, I already know everyone else seems to think this movie sucks. YES, I hated Roth's Hostel so much I didn't even bother with the sequel. I still liked this one.

MY SCORE: 7/10

Piranha (2010)

Directed by Alexandre Aja.

2010.
Rated R, 88 minutes.
Cast:
Elisabeth Shue
Steven R. McQueen
Jerry O’Connell
Jessica Szohr
Kelly Brook
Brooklynn Proulx
Paul Scheer
Ving Rhames
Christopher Lloyd
Richard Dreyfuss
Eli Roth
Gianna Michaels

Boobie and butts, blood and guts. I could probably stop there and you’d have all t he information you need about the 2010 version of Piranha. Just in case you somehow need more, I’ll tell you just a bit. Its set during spring break at a very popular lake. Let that marinate for a minute and you’ll probably get the idea. Is there a plot? Sure. Who cares, though? It’s only a dumb horror flick, right? Yup. What? You thought I was gonna get all deep and philosophical? Nope. What it all boils down to is this: there are coeds all over the lake as far as the eye can see, seemingly thousands…with a porn star or two mixed in for good measure…all in bikinis or less (long shorts, no shirt for the guys) and a rather large percentage of them get eaten by a school of piranha in graphic fashion. Basically, if you watch Piranha, you get exactly what you ask for. Don’t get the wrong idea, this is a good thing. A very good thing.

We move along rather swiftly, never going too long without an attack or a bare breast. The latter keeps the young male target audience engaged between episodes of the former. The former is comprised of screaming, flailing around in the water, more naked boobs and some truly spectacular gore. People are eaten down to and sometimes including their skeleton. Spring breakers often emerge from the lake having left parts of themselves behind. This is all rendered in wonderfully gruesome fashion. It’s a visual buffet of human carnage.

The relentless insanity of it all gives this remake and advantage over the thirty-plus year old original. That movie has its fair share of blood in the water. It even went so far as to make a number of its victims small children. However, it was far more concerned with being a parody of Jaws and other killer fish movies. Unfortunately, it isn’t particularly funny or clever. This new version pursues much simpler pleasures. It is only concerned with the exposing and mutilating of the human body. Judged on those terms it is an unmitigated success. The only bit of cleverness attempted is in some stunt casting. To that end, be on the lookout for Richard Dreyfuss, Christopher Lloyd and Eli Roth in bit parts.

Piranha is not a movie that’s going to transcend its genre. It’s dumb. It’s perverse. It’s gross. It’s simply one of “those” movies. There is nothing here for people who aren’t fans of gory horror flicks. For those that are, it’s a gold mine. It is what it is: so bad it’s awesome!

MY SCORE: -10/10