Don't Answer the Phone

Directed by Robert Hammer.

1980. Rated R, 85 minutes.
Cast:

Nicholas Worth

Flo Lawrence

James Westmoreland

Ben Frank

A photographer (Worth) with some serious issues goes around raping and strangling women. In his spare time, he calls up psychiatrist Dr. Lindsay Gale (Lawrence) on her radio show. Worth gives a surprisingly good performance as our killer. However, he wasn't given much to work with in this no-budget thriller. Its effective in showing the villain unravel and become more frantic and even desperate as the film goes on. The rest of the script is so lame, and at times so stupid, you can't take any of it as seriously as its obviously meant to be. This just means there is a solid amount of unintentional humor. Sadly, the DVD version I got a hold of contains what appears to be a highly and oddly edited version. Some curse words are obviously cut from the audio while others aren't. Each kill scene abruptly ends just as the killer starts to rip the victim's clothes off yet during a couple scenes in an adult bookstore you can plainly see pictures of naked women plastered on all the walls. There's also the setup of a love scene from which we skip to the aftermath when the couple is lying in bed. Though its dimly lit you can still pretty clearly see her breasts. It's a bizarre viewing experience but in a frustrating, confusing manner moreso than the fun romps of 'so bad they're awesome' movies. Granted, I'll probably have to see the unedited version to really do a proper review. As it is, what I saw was painful.

MY SCORE: 2/10

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil

Directed by Eli Craig.

2010. Rated R, 88 minutes. 
Cast: 
Tyler Labine 
Alan Tudyk 
Katrina Bowden 
Jesse Moss 
Chelan Simmons 
Philip Granger 
Brandon Jay McLaren 
Christie Laing 
Travis Nelson 
Alex Arsenault

A group of college kids is doing what groups of college kids do in some of our favorite slasher flicks. They’re going on a camping trip deep in a secluded wooded area. These kids have seen a few of these movies themselves. Maybe they’ve seen too many. They’re even aware of the slaughter of another group of co-eds that happened twenty years ago in the very spot where they decide to roast marshmallows. Our bunch is made up of the usual cast of would-be victims: the obnoxious preppy guy, two blondes we can differentiate by cup size, a generic but not stereotypically urban black guy with matching girl, and a couple other “just dudes”. Somehow an Asian is missing, but I digress. All you really need to know is that they’re hyper-sensitive to the idea that the local yokels are homicidal maniacs itching for fresh meat.

Enter the local yokels. They’re named Tucker (Tudyk) and Dale (Labine) and are pretty obviously inspired by George and Lennie from Steinbeck’s classic “Of Mice and Men.” They are far from maniacal. Slow witted? Yes. Killers? No. They spend most of their time fishing and drinking beer. As luck would have it, they’re going into the same woods as the co-eds to fix up the old cabin Tucker has just purchased and intends to use as a vacation home. We get the idea they have not seen many slasher flicks. Through a massive misunderstanding the kids think they’ve stumbled into a real life version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Because of a series of unfortunate events, Tucker and Dale think the co-eds have some sort of weird suicide pact. Believe it or not, comedy ensues.

Yes, I said comedy. The dialogue is insanely funny and makes clear that everyone on both sides just wants out of the situation yet, no one can figure out how to make that happen. There is one exception: the obnoxious preppy guy. He’s anxious to rescue the not-as-busty blonde. It seems to him and the others that Tucker and Dale have her bound, gagged and are torturing her. More misunderstandings, of course.

On display is some seriously clever writing to keep this ruse going as long as it does. It also keeps us laughing in the process. That is, you’ll be laughing if you’re a slasher fan and/or can take a joke about our beloved genre. Oh, it helps to have a twisted sense of humor. I suppose a kid accidentally impaling himself on a spear isn’t funny to everyone. Meh…(shrugs shoulders)…I laughed and did so heartily. The wood chipper scene is even more hilarious. What can I say? Occasionally, I’m only physically an adult. No matter how mature you are, you’ll probably laugh even as you cringe. That’s because it’s all about tone. Tucker & Dale vs. Evil strikes the perfect one.

Happy Birthday to Me

Directed by J. Lee Thompson.

1981. Rated R, 110 minutes. 
Cast: 
Melissa Sue Anderson 
Glenn Ford 
Tracy E. Bregman 
Sharon Acker 
Lawrence Dane 
Frances Hyland 
Lisa Langlois

Slasher flicks are a not so private passion of mine, a guilty pleasure, if you will. I mean, what could be better than watching some psycho chop up teenagers? No, I don’t really want to murder teenagers even though I have one. Sigh. I’m just living vicariously through celluloid madmen. Hey! Hey kid! Get off my lawn! Ahem…sorry (looking for a heavy blunt object). Anyhoo, I’m going back to a hack ‘em up I first saw when I myself was a teen, the cult classic Happy Birthday to Me. Lol, I said Saw.

Like any good slasher flick, the plot is pretty simple. There’s a group of rich kids at Crawford University that all hang together and call themselves The Crawford Top Ten. Right as the movie begins someone starts killing them off…pause for dramatic effect…ONE BY ONE…muwahahahaha! Oh, ahem, moving on. Our task, and theirs, is to figure out who’s trying to get extra credit for homicide class. Homicide class, ha! That’s a good one. I slay me. Get it? I thought I told that kid to…”Think you’re tough? I used to eat punks like you for breakfast!”

“I got your breakfast right here, old man!”

That does it. Where’s …oh, almost forgot, the movie. We spend much of our time focusing on Virginia Wainwright AKA Ginny played by Melissa Sue Anderson. If you’re an old fart, like me, you’ll know she played Mary Ingalls on “Little House on the Prairie.” Obviously, Ginny is emotionally damaged by a painful past. What we can’t figure out is if she’s the “Final Girl” or the killer. On our way to that little revelation we get humor, both intentionally and not, some now iconic death scenes, some bad acting, an homage to one of the best scenes in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho that doesn’t involve a shower and finally one of the greatest WTF twists in the history of the genre. Damn, this sledgehammer’s a little too heavy. “Do yourself a favor, sonny and don’t be on my lawn when I get there! It’s gonna get ugly!”

“Screw you!”

“Did he just say…?” He’s gonna get it, now! Just wait ‘til I find…oh, you’re still here? If you’re a fan of slasher flicks, put this at the very top of your must-see list. Even by 1981 standards it isn’t the goriest movie, but the kills are creative and like I said iconic. The whodunit element keeps you on your toes and the last 15 minutes is absolutely bonkers. Don’t forget I said there are also lots of laughable elements, too. You know what this means. It’s so bad, it’s awesome! Oh happy day, I just found my chainsaw. Catch you guys later.

MY SCORE: -10/10

A Tale of Two Sisters

Directed by Ji-woon Kim.

2003. Rated R, 115 minutes.

Cast:

Su-jeong Lim

Jung-ah Yum

Geun-Young Moon

Kap-su Kim

Seung bi-Lee

Su-Mi (Lim) comes home from a mental institution to a sister who idolizes her, a stepmother who hates her and a father who's confused by her but hopes she can come to grips with the event that got her committed in the first place.

It starts off like a teenager vs. stepmother melodrama but creepy things start happening, each a little creepier than the last. Before you know it you find yourself trapped within a horror movie that doesn't necessarily want to scare you but to screw with your head really badly. And yes, by the time its all said and done the movie along with your brain has been twisted into a knot. The capper is a wonderfully ambiguous ending, open to all sorts of interpretation. The whole thing would've fell apart if not for two outstanding performances from our leading ladies. Lim as Su-Mi is positively brilliant and Yum as the stepmother ranges from the evil stepmom to a hysterical psycho, to wildeyed and fearful and even a few moments as a reserved professional. It's truly remarkable work.

It may start a little too slowly. Fans used to thrill-a-minute hack flicks with body parts flying everywhere might not give it the chance it deserves. It doesn't help that scaring you isn't really the movie's aim. Disturbing you is, but it works its way up to it rather than diving right at your jugular. Also, that ambiguous ending I love might be too vague for some. It will surely leave some scratching their heads wondering what they just saw.

Whoa...wha...where'd that hand come from?

This is for people into psychological horror flicks, having far more in common with the simmering build-up of Rosemary's Baby than the slice and dice meat-grinding of Friday the 13th. When the movie ends you'll have to decide what you think happened and no matter what conclusion you come to, its twisted. I highly recommend watching this in favor of the American remake, The Uninvited. Subtitleophobes beware, we're speaking Korean.

The Uninvited

Directed by Charles Guard, Thomas Guard.

2009. Rated PG-13, 87 minutes.

Cast:

Emily Browning

Arielle Kebbel

Elizabeth Banks

David Strathairn

Maya Massar

Kevin McNulty

Jesse Moss

Heather Doerksen

Dean Paul Gibson

A year or so after her mother died in a horrible fire, Anna (Browning) comes home from the mental institution. Of course, she still has ghastly visions and nightmares, a whiny older sister and dad's new girlfriend, and mom's ex-caretaker, appears to be...e-e-evil...muwahahahahaha...ahem...sorry. Anyhoo, it's a remake of the Korean movie A Tale of Two Sisters.

Whenever Anna starts seeing stuff, we get some fantastic visuals. There's not a drop of blood until very late in the movie but the sights are arresting, nonetheless. The twist at the end has been done before but its still fairly effective and almost enough to redeem the movie.

Unfortunately, the movie just plods along, re-enacting bits of better horror movies we've already seen. Though it's a remake of A Tale of Two Sisters, the movies that most readily come to mind are Pet Sematary and The Sixth Sense as it borrows heavily from both. Even if you don't see that comparison, there's another major problem: Elizabeth Banks is horribly miscast. She's supposed to be creepy, even a bit of a scary prospect for a stepmom but she can't quite pull it off. This is no knock on her acting ability in general, but she just doesn't seem to have a real dark side to pull from. It's too easy to tell that she's manufacturing vaguely mischevious facial expressions and delivers many of her lines flatly, mistaking monotone for menacing. The overall effect is we don't believe she had to do much of the conniving attributed to her to get into dad's bed. She's simply the hot blonde hanging around after his wife died; a wife that couldn't give him any for quite awhile anyway. Sorry to be blunt. Speaking of the dad, he's played by David Strathairn whom I respect a great deal as an actor. However, he seems to be slumming for a paycheck.

I will say this: the wanna-be boyfriend's back bends at a rather impressive angle.

Fans of The Sixth Sense will likely eat this up and proclaim it an awesome movie. For me, it was way too formulaic, moved way too slow. Seriously, I had no idea 87 minutes could take so long. Still, the last 15 minutes or so elevates the rest of it, making it an overall decent watch that comes up a bit short. Personally, I'm going to seek out the original.

MY SCORE: 5/10

Psycho (1960)

October Again!

Once again it's October, my favorite time of the movie viewing year.

Starting tomorrow, we begin our annual 31 days of horror.

As usual we'll hit some classics, some recent fare, even a comedy or three and a list somewhere in there.

Muahahahaha!!!