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Remember when I was telling you all about the Phantasm webseries that might possibly have been in the works? Well, this next bit isn’t about confirming or denying same, but what we’ve got here is a bit of news on a possible remake. Or even possible sequel.
Director Don Coscarelli, an affirmed Master of Horror based on the short-lived Showtime series of the same name, had this to say:
“It’s something we’ve talked about through the years but the timing hasn’t worked out or getting the finances exactly right. I’ve been cooking up a couple of incarnations of things that I can’t talk about now but hopefully in the near future we could get something in the “Phantasm” world happening.”
Frankly, they could use it. The fourth installation was a joke that was made up of mostly clips from the earlier titles. We’re all dying to see The Tall Man get his in the end because he’s had THREE MOVIES to run amok and turn America into a gigantic cenotaph. I’m eagerly awaiting this one, and hope they can find some financing even in these slim times.
I’m all in favor of eye-catching headlines and attention-grabbing titles. I’ve used–or tried to use–my share and then some, but when you title a movie Sadistic Dismemberment, you’d better be swinging some serious meat around, otherwise you’re just pandering.
And in this case, yes, it’s pandering.
Sadistic Dismemberment is pretty much what it says on the box, following a young man around through his day, which mostly consists of getting up, brushing his teeth, eating some cereal and then rummaging around in what looks like his little sister’s closet before he’s caught and sadistically dismembered.
I have to admit, there were plenty of laughs in this one. Even I, a horror buff of decades, am not sure what use a pasta serving spoon, a ladle, and a small dog have in a graphic dismemberment.
Of course, the obvious problems are here. There’s no plot. Forget about understanding things like why the ghost is attacking this poor schlub. There’s plenty of continuity errors–things are almost cut off but never actually done, and will reappear whole in the next shot. The music is all taken directly from video games, and the director has apparently been inspired by a laundry list of Japanese horror films which he thanks in the end.
The Screenhead Ten Scale is always willing to acknowledge effort and thus hands over a straight five out of ten. It definitely made me laugh, but I think I was laughing AT it a lot more than WITH it.
If you’re not already getting AMC, on cable or satellite, you may have a good reason to coming up in the next few months–they’re hard at work on a new series based on Robert Kirkman’s comic The Walking Dead.
Zombie fans out there, you know how singlemindedly awesome this is, and the thought of a Walking Dead television series is enough to almost give you hope until you remember that THIS IS TELEVISION, and television often falls under the purview of the FCC, the biggest nanny-state outfit on the face of the earth. But not to worry, folks, apparently the boys at AMC have already put a standard on Kirkman’s work–no profanities at F-bomb rank or higher.
Considering that they just turned a foot into pudding on Mad Men, and that show airs during prime time, they might just be able to pull off a little zombie gore and authenticity. But even with some off-camera gore, a zombie based TV show is still a pretty awesome idea.
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs still rains the box office can only mean that people want to see light-hearted films during a time when there are economic woes and uncertainty in our leaders. Surrogates came in second, which is a serious science fiction story, perhaps bringing in only $15 million means, again, people want to be entertained with optimistic material.
Results:
1. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
$24,600,000
2. Surrogates
$15,000,000
3. Fame
$10,000,000
4. The Informant!
$7,000,000
5. Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All By Myself
$4,800,000
6. Pandorum
$4,400,000
7.
$4,000,000
8. Jennifer’s Body
$3,500,000
9. 9
$3,000,000
10. Inglourious Basterds
$3,000,000
(Source)
I generally approve of Japanese horror, because it’s a lot like the poem. When it’s good, it’s very good, but when it’s bad, it’s very bad indeed. Japanese horror seems to inevitably fall into one of two categories–crazy panic terror romp or chatty boring talkfest that goes nowhere.
Ju-On: The Grudge easily qualifies as one of the scariest movies I’ve ever seen. I referred a neophyte horror friend and her new hubby to this one (Dan and Mia, if you’re reading this, hi!) and it kept her up for two consecutive days. It didn’t freak me out quite this bad, but then I had years of experience at the time.
So when I heard that original Grudgemeister Takashi Shimizu was looking to bring back a new Japanese Grudge, my jaw dropped. The awesome part is that if I remember right, in Japan, there have been several installments of Ju-On, while there were only three Grudges here.
This one is slated to involve a family that moves into a new house in time for Christmas, and though everything seems fine at first, by the time a Santa Claus-suit-clad delivery man shows up, no one’s answering the door.
Spooky, I know, and I hope I get the chance to see it. I’ll keep you posted; hopefully it’ll make its way over here.
Okay, so we’ve now finished reviewing all the entries for the Halloween Horror Nights short film contest, and now we’re left with one critical question: who’s going to take it?
Now that I’ve seen them all, I feel at least somewhat qualified to answer, and though there were a great many good pieces in there–in fact, there were really only a couple that we’re that hot–I think you know where my nod has to go: Fewdio’s Mockingbird.
Granted, The Nightmare actually was a wild moulange of creepy images, but the lack of a story killed it. And Samaritan was actually pretty scary if a bit predictable. And Lamaze of the Dead was a beautiful study in zombie movie fun but not a one of these could top the shock that Mockingbird presented.
That’s my pick for the top film of Halloween Horror Nights’ 2009 short film contest–it remains to be seen who’ll take the top prize home, but I know where my vote went.
Where’s your vote going? Hit the comments section below and fill us in!
All right, folks–with just one movie left to cover that’s not courtesy of the boys at Fewdio, we’re down to the wire in terms of what we’ve got left, and tonight, we’re tackling Samaritan, part of the Halloween Horror Nights short film contest lineup.
This time, a man on his way home gets a whole lot more than he bargained for while changing a flat tire. He thinks he may have found someone in trouble…but HE’S the one in trouble.
I have to admit, this is a downright creepy little package. There was a great adrenaline rush there through most of this, and they don’t waste much time at all getting to the downright freaky. I’m truly impressed by how good this turned out. It’s a spectacular chunk of awesome, all right, and about the only thing bad you can say for it is that they don’t do a whole lot of explaining the things you’ll see.
What was that on the road? What was that at his house? Why is all this unpleasant stuff happening to HIM? Plenty of things I would’ve liked to know, but thanks to the nature of short film, forget it.
The Screenhead Ten Scale gives this surprising blast of unexplained scary a respectable seven out of ten. This could’ve made a really sweet feature-length title with some expositition.
First, let me say how awesome it is that Bronson Pinchot can still find work, even in this economy. Second, let me further say that it isn’t every day I see a movie that actually makes me check my door locks and leaves me in fear for my safety. Sounds kind of broad, I know, but as long as the writer of Mr. Art Critic is running around free and unmedicated, I’m gonna have a tough time sleeping at night.
Bronson Pinchot stars as M.J. Clayton, the titular Mr. Art Critic, who’s apparently become renowned for his blistering reviews of art galleries and their respective shows. He sets off for a vacation on Mackinaw Island, proving once and for all that Michigan really IS the cheapest place to film movies. And while on vacation in the wilds of northern Michigan, he runs into a previous victim who ends up getting a twisted challenge out of him–can the critic actually MAKE art?
Clearly, somebody involved with this production has been blasted by critics before. So much so, in fact, that he felt the need to create an entire movie featuring one being systematically destroyed in every particular.
This movie represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the entire nature of criticism. There are damn few critics working today that actually operate like M.J. Clayton, and with good reason. Even if we’re so massively jaded that we can’t find anything we like anymore, chances are, we’ll still at least manage to connect SOMEBODY to it. Those that don’t, meanwhile, generally burn out under the constant stream of venom they emit. Real critics want to find something they like so they can tell everybody who reads them about it in a desperate bid to prove that their entire medium of choice (art, film, food, whatever) isn’t a completely irrelevant loss.
I’ve seen enough craptacular vampire movies to choke a horse, and I know that every single one I see has about a ninety-eight percent chance of sucking the second I settle in, but I can still manage to say that, if you like vampire movies, some certain titles might be good for you. Anyone could go back through my own body of work and discover that, while I personally may have found a movie unpleasant, I could still recommend it to certain kinds of enthusiasts. In fact, I’ll even have a specific recommendation for THIS crap sandwich. Stay tuned.
One of the movie’s final lines is “don’t listen to the damn critics”, as though we had nothing useful to say. The movie almost manages to begrudgingly admit that there are “some good critics out there”, as though it were being threatened with lawsuit or as some desperate last minute sop to the numerous critics who would be actually WRITING ABOUT THIS MOVIE. But even this is much too little much too late as they’ll then gleefully carry on with the demolition of M.J. Clayton.
This bizarre poison pen letter can’t even properly be called a movie as there’s just so little going on here that isn’t aimed directly at critics. I’m downright horrified that someone would write this. The only way I could be more unnerved is if the islanders got together and MURDERED the guy at the end of the art show.
What’s the SEQUEL look like? Clayton is publicly skinned and rolled in salt?
The Screenhead Ten Scale, meanwhile, will rise above the repeated slanders and character assassinations, but in the end realizes that this is just some sad attempt at payback and hands this grotesque wish-fulfillment fantasy a one out of ten. Don’t even bother seeing this unless you too have a mammoth grudge against critics.
See? Told you there’d be a specific recommendation!