Jan 16 2012
Seth Grahame-Smith’s ‘Abraham Lincoln Vampire Killer’ is a reasonably funny and charming tale in book form. It’s an unusually compelling portrait of the 16th president if you can set aside the wacky bits about him being a killer of the undead. Oh wait, that’s the hook of the entire thing, isn’t it? No matter, it’s a fun and deliciously silly read that does go to lengths to keep Lincoln a relatively grounded character. More
Jan 4 2012
Like many other genres, when horror movies are bad, they can be very bad. However, when they are good they can sometimes be great. The horror films of 2011 seemed to fall mostly along this divide; there was either mainstream junk not even worth a Redbox rental or vile, pretentious drivel disguised as indie horror or incredibly spooky and fascinating gems worth revisiting after the initial shivers dissapate. More
Nov 18 2011
I’ve come to accept the fact that I’m never going to like the Twilight films.
So, instead of subjecting myself to another torturous go-round of 40 yr old women catcalling young men on the screen and dippy teens jostling popcorn on my head every time Ed said something ‘perfect and sweet’, I sent our guest reviewer (sacrificial lamb) Megan in my stead. Here, finally, is a PCN review from the viewpoint of someone who actually enjoyed the books.
Take it away Meg….
Jul 17 2011
Ahh, the return of ‘The Howling’ series. It was only a matter of time. This trailer looks like what one would expect to see after the success of the ‘Twilight’ franchise. More ‘Scream’ than ‘The Howling’, this entry has the gall to trash the Meyer’s series at the same time it’s slavishly referencing it in a near reverant way.
What can one expect though? The Howling is one of the dodgiest collection of films to ever bear the same moniker (ok, maybe Silent Night, Deadly Night or Curse might take that cake). The first movie, directed by Joe Dante, is a mostly fun little piece of work that boasts good werewolves and some welcome black humor. It’s not a homerun however, and the follow-ups were increasingly bizarre and finally pathetic.
Howling II had Christopher Lee and almost always nude Sybil Danning. I don’t rememeber anymore. Howling III: The Marsupials is the best of the sequels by virtue of its complete insanity and the presence of unwashed Aussie bushbillies. Howling IV: The Original Nightmare was neither original nor nightmarish, Howling V: The Rebirth was like Clue with a werewolf. Howling VI: The Freaks was the first of the series to present vampire fx that were even worse than the wolf fx. Howling: New Moon Rising was ambitiously bad in the way it tried to tie the last few movies into what appeared to be a country line-dancing tutorial.
And now, there’s this. Werewolves who wish they were glittery vampires or buff Native American dudes. For shame.
Jun 12 2011
PCN RATING: 
The world has been torn apart and over-run by vampires, leaving the survivors inert, dead-eyed refuges in a burned-out America. No, I’m not talking about the aftermath of the Twilight phenomenon, but rather Jim Mickle and Nick Damici’s new horror drama, Stakeland. As hard as it may be to believe, the duo finally bring a refreshing and robust verve to the overexposed vampire genre. Produced by indie horror godfather Larry Fessenden, who did similar duty on 2009’s stellar House of the Devil, Stakeland is the best horror film I’ve seen this year.
What works is a no nonsense approach to a rather absurd premise; an unexplained vampire outbreak has occurred and swept across the United States, helped along by Aryan religious zealots who saw it as the purging they had been waiting for. Led by the loathsome Jebediah Loven, this Brotherhood treat the creatures like their own personal weapon from God; in one terrifying scene they fly over a city in their helicopters, dropping the beasties on the populace below. Once D.C. fell, so did the government.
Now the rest of country resembles something straight out of Mad Max or The Road, with small enclaves of people scraping to achieve normalcy amidst constant barbarism. There are rumors of a place called New Eden, somewhere north of Pennsylvania where it’s possible that humanity has managed to scrap together a reasonable existence. Others scoff at this, suggesting cannibalism and other human horrors, anything to minimize needless hope.
Striding across this despairing landscape is seventeen-year-old Martin (Connor Paolo) and the man who saved his life, a rugged vamp hunter and tracker known only as Mister (Nick Damici). Mister has taken Martin under his wing and shows him what little care and concern he knows; how to kill the monsters and survive. He sees this as both crucial and a kindness for the young boy. Violence and death are Mister’s particular gift, one he uses to save a harassed nun trying to outrun a pair of rapists. The waylaid woman is played by Kelly McGillis, the mileage picked up since Top Gun put to good use here. The sister has found a pragmatic struggle with her faith; in the face of this darkness where can God be found? She takes up with Mister and Martin, and along the road to New Eden they pick up two others, a pregnant singer named Belle and Willie (Sean Nelson), an ex-soldier who was tied up and left for the vamps by the Brotherhood because he is black. Ahead of them lie all the dangers that befall folks in horror films.
But, you see, Stakeland doesn’t play quite like your average horror movie. To be sure, it has a few good chills and a heaping amount of gore, nastiness and ferocious beasties. What sets it apart is that it focuses on its characters and navigates a bleak set-up with a surprising amount of hope. Fans of Cormac McCarthy might very well find more to savor in this straight-forward and terse vampire flick than in the soggy adaptation of McCarthy’s own The Road. The dialogue is written with economy and a certain gothic style. Martin’s narration is sometimes more broad than necessary, but when the characters speak, what they say sounds like the language used at the world’s unraveling. Sister questions why Martin should be along this quest, exclaiming ‘He’s a boy!’ to which Mister replies sardonically ‘Yea, he is. A live one.’
Mickle and Damici previously worked on Mulberry Street, the best entry in the After Dark Horror franchise. That movie was a seriously low budget fright fest about rat zombies taking over New York. Here, there’s much more to work with and the production values and the filmmaking are so good as to remind of early John Carpenter. Their movie alternates between slick scares and achingly lovely moments of human nature pushing through blackest night. The score has a classical bent that matches the beautiful, lonesome cinematography; the combined impact of both mark Stakeland as a kind of Southern-fried penny dreadful. The creature effects are gruesomely simplistic and efficient. The eerie image of a vamp nested in a barn loft, gnawing on what might be a human baby is the stuff of nightmares.
Damici cut a heroic swath through Mulberry Street as a retired boxer fighting to save his daughter, here he adds layers of grisly resolve to that performance and comes up with Mister, a man who is a loner at heart but will offer friendship in his own way. Mister is one of the few recent cinematic bad-asses who makes an impression without hip one liners or explicit weaponry. Everything is down to his character, and dark circumstances have caused him to evolve into an organism who is not to be screwed with. Connor Paolo as Martin does a good job of playing a kid in the midst of two different kinds of change—he’s growing into an adult physically at the same time he’s been defaulted into a man due to his circumstances. He has excellent camaraderie with Damici and the scenes of the two training against vamps at magic hour are some of my favorite ones in the film. McGillis is especially poignant in her role as a woman of faith looking for reasons to believe in the cess pool around her. Harris is no newcomer to horror films, having starred in Halloween’s 4 and 5 when she was just a child. Instead of gearing up for screams, she’s the sunny, sweet reminder of why the world deserves a second chance. When Mister relents and carries Belle because she’s too pregnant to walk, she teases his gruffness with a smile that forces his surrender.
There’s nothing wasted here, not the gore or the sets or the action scenes. Mickle wrings plenty of thrills out of his vampires, who aren’t the traditional fops with fangs or raging punkers with blood addiction. Instead they come off much like Romero’s zombies with fangs, ravenous critters that carry few traces of who they used to be. A late-in-the game twist moves the narrative closer to Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, and in a certain way this is an adaptation of that book if the screenplay had been penned by Flannery O’Connor. It’s as elegant and merciless in its mission as Mister is, and it works because we care about every last one of the central characters . I can’t recall the last time I’ve been this tense watching one of these things. Oh wait, I do remember; it was Ti West’s House of the Devil. Here’s to Mickle and Damici who join West as part of the small stable of horror directors whose next film I’ll eagerly anticipate.
Jun 4 2011
Didn’t quite get enough of Marvel’s badass vampire hunter from the Wesley Snipes films or the short-lived tv series?
If not, then you might be interested in what Japanese studio Madhouse is doing with the iconic character. Following in the footsteps of Iron Man, the X-Men and Wolverine, everyone’s favorite Daywalker will get the anime treatment in an upcoming series that will have its television debut on July 1st in Japan.
I wonder if the eventual American dub, much like the recent Supernatural anime series that grabbed Jensen Ackles as voice talent, will give Wesley a shot at reprising the role?
What do you think? Does this look like a good way to continue the Blade character? Here’s hoping that 60% of this isn’t still frame images and the other 40% animation so hectic it’s likely to cause epilepsy.
May 13 2011
PCN RATING: 
A curious nostalgia came over me during Scott Stewart’s new comic adaptation Priest. Whether watching Paul Bettany’s warrior-monk dispatch goopy eyeless monsters or race across a barren wasteland on a retro-future motorcycle, my mind kept returning to the B-movie cheapies of my youth. Filled with slick special effects, over-produced mega sets and a story hammered out of nothing but genre recyclables, Priest would have been right at home in that period of time between the late 1980’s and early to mid 90’s.
The real trouble is that while Stewart’s movie is visually stronger and less inherently silly than low-rent gems like Mega Force, Split Second, or Trancers, it lacks the most important things they all shared; a sense of humor and lack of grim seriousness. When your film is about a Catholic Empire fighting a vampire infestation in an apocalyptic future and your main character has a fearsome cross tattoo covering his entire face, it’s important to remember that dour solemnity isn’t your friend.
The potential for epic silliness or worthwhile speculative fiction exists within Priest’s compelling premise. Humanity has been warring with a race of vampires for hundreds of years and when that struggle finally ended it saw the inhuman beasties pushed into reservations sequestered in the burned-out wastelands while the humans huddle together in fortifications like Cathedral City, a giant enclave that resembles the nocturnal metropolises of Blade Runner, Dark City or Franklyn. The humans created an order of gifted soldiers called Priests to destroy the creatures and now that the war is over they mostly exist to ensure that the Church rules all. When one of these Priests (Bettany) learns that the vampires are back and have abducted his niece (Lily Collins), he betrays his Order and heads out into the wasteland to get her back.
A warrior haunted by his deeds, a homestead obliterated by attackers, a young girl stolen, and a diminished culture hated by society. You don’t necessarily have to have even seen John Ford’s The Searchers to recognize that plot or to know that Bettany’s character is the stand-in for Wayne’s Ethan Edwards. Both men have committed atrocities against the ‘savages’ and both are ready and willing to kil their niece if she’s been tainted or turned by their enemies. While it’s not uncommon for a second-tier pic like this to adapt a popular story for shorthand, Priest never really does anything audacious enough to explain why it chose The Searchers in the first place. The vampires, at least at first, aren’t even remotely tied to humanity and they don’t prove a good correlation to the Comanche people in Ford’s film. There’s no subtext or human thread; the resulting action climax of Priest isn’t analogous to the scene where Wayne chases down Natalie Wood and then ushers her into his arms.
Still, Priest should and could work as a fun Friday night monster movie if it were only a little more willing to lighten up or add some definition to its characters. The spiritual faith angle that sees a religious conglomerate leading the world against perceived evil could be very interesting if it really committed to the ideas it raises. Ultimately, when Bettany rebels it has less to do with a crisis of faith and more a worldly belief (the vampires are still out there, while the Church says no). When he draws the similarly bent Priestess (Maggie Q) to his cause, along with his niece’s fiancée Cam Gigadet, their union comes out of a need to fight monsters, not to explore spiritual fidelity.
Once the film moves from the city to the austere and foreboding landscapes of the wasteland, it changes gears and genres and becomes a kind of horror western filled with big, hair-raising set pieces and comic-book weaponry. These elements go down easier and I was having a great time with the growing camaraderie between Maggie Q’s sleek and severe battle babe and Bettany’s more reserved, single-minded assassin. There’s something stirring beneath the surface of these two but the script keeps pushing it aside.
When Karl Urban shows up looking like Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name, and reveals himself to be the villainous ‘Black Hat’—the first human vampire—the movie gets terrifyingly erratic and stiff at the same time. The pacing is off, the thrills are minimized and the dialogue is so wooden and obvious that one longs for the eloquence of Dwayne Johnson in Fast Five. What’s missing is that flavor of spirit and invention that inhabited even the tackiest bargain basement schlock title. Sure Bettany can weild those cross-shaped throwing stars, but he never gets a line as good as Rutger Hauer’s partner in Split Second, who when faced with the possibility of an alien rat-devil, stammered ‘ We need bigger guns—BIG, BIG guns…REALLY F—ING BIG GUNS!’ Cyborg 2 might have been trash, but Jack Palance still got to sneer and croon ‘If you’re gonna dine with the devil, you neeed a loooooonng spoon!’
After this film and Legion, I’m starting to wonder if Scott Stewart doesn’t have incriminating photos of Paul Bettany hidden somewhere. With his gaunt, haunted features and penchant for emotionally disarming performances, Bettany is a precious acting commodity that’s all but wasted in Stewart’s poor-man horror opuses. There’s something about the way he carries himself that meshes with Stewarts vision of individuals staging a rebellion against a spiritual tyranny, but then the films squander his war-weary renegades. The problem is that he, as well as co-stars Maggie Q, Christopher Plummer and Karl Urban are left to the wilderness in Priest—they are embodying types not characters, and there’s little room for nuance and variation amidst all the sound and fury and speeding action scenes.
Stewart demonstrates here in a way he did not with Legion that he has the technical sensibilities and attention-to-detail necessary to master genre fiction. However, his instincts as a director and storyteller are terribly lacking. He tries to cover up the fractured narrative with stone-faced sincerity and that ruptures on him too. Mixing and matching the action scenes to create a fresh rhythm backfires because the film’s dramatic DNA doesn’t support it. We shouldn’t be attacking the monster’s main nest in the middle of the film and ending on a wire-fu fight atop a barreling train. There’s a lot here for genre fans to savor, but it’s more like sampling the food at one of those wholesale clubs; tasty, yes, a worthwhile meal, no.
Jan 18 2011
It’s shaping up to be another cold, cold winter.
Snow has beenfalling here in Baltimore since late December andwhite flakes have been raining down indiscriminately from the heavens all around us. Although we have yet to hit the height of last year’s winter madness, the troubling threat of chill precipitation looms large.
2010′s blizzard still has many of us looking over our shoulders, waiting for Jack Frost to give us an icy wedgie. Mostly I’m not looking forward to days snowed in.And when you are there, lodged in your home, with no way to get out, it’s understandable that a bit of stir craziness might set in.
What better way to counteract that than with some good old fashioned cinematic madness?
Here’s hoping the rest of the year is smooth sailing from a meteorological standpoint, but if it isn’t, here are ten creepy chillers you can snuggle up with on a cold evening:
Frost Bite (Frostbiten)-
Before they were fey emo poets, vampires were not just fearsome entities but walking signposts of death and decay. When you get down to it, what better season for the Nosferatu than winter? The sun is dim, the evenings long and the days short, and with everyone wrapped up tight and shivering, it’s easier to go unnoticed. Lately, we have had a trio of cinematic vampires who have chosen the dreary northern climes to inhabit; 30 Days of Night , Let the Right One In, and this creepy import that features a town haunted by an ancient vampiric menace. Frostbiten, however, has all but slipped under the radar of horror fans. Really, that’s a shame because this fun little flick features plenty of humor, horror and zaniness. Not much of it is scary, but it’s always a hoot and a howl, featuring vamps that would make Buffy jealous, death by lawn gnome and, of all things, a talking dog. If you need a little malicious mirth to cheer your cold soul, try out Frostbiten.
Wind Chill-
I never really took inventory of Emily Blunt until I saw this 2006 indie ghost story that casts her as a self absorbed college student who catches a ride home with a guy on campus she doesn’t really know. Then, the two find themselves stranded together on a freezing back road during Christmas break. Sound romantic? It isn’t. In addition to the mounting unease that Blunt feels when she realizes her driving buddy might be a stalker, there’s also the possibility of hypothermia setting in before they are rescued, and the fact that the road they broke-down on is inhabited by a plethora of real ghosts. Blunt really delivers a strong performance and for entire chunks of the movie she is alone, pitted against the supernatural forces of this stretch of highway. There’s a feel of Jack London survival stories in all of the tragic details and in the nature of the ghosts themselves, who are playing out a long forgotten misery that traps all who come that way. It’s not a classic, but it does what it does effectively with a good amount of spookiness.
Transsiberian-
The atmosphere alone in Brad Anderson’s wintry suspense thriller makes it worthy of a place on this list. Anderson, who has channeled unspoken fears before in Session 9 and The Machinist,tells the story of a couple of missionaries (Mortimer and Harrelson) riding a train from China to Moscow, meeting up with a sketchy young couple, and getting involved with murder, international intrigue and a stone-faced Ben Kingsley who looks ready to snap. Mortimer and Harrelson have an odd chemistry as the couple, and Kingsley flip-flops between sinister and benign. All of this helps craft an uneasy sense that we can’t trust anything we see. The desolate, snowy scenery is matched against the cramped, claustrophobic confines of the train to deliver a thriller that moves single-minded about the business of fraying our nerves. Hitchcock would be proud of this one.
Ravenous-
Foreboding and gritty, Ravenous is half thriller, half dark comic farce. All of it is revolting in a thematic way. Guy Pearce and Robert Carlyle play two opposing forces battling it out at a military outpost in the Sierra Nevadas circa 1847. Pearce is Boyd, a disgraced soldier sent to the fort as punishment by his superior, and Carlye is Colqhoun, a pioneer whose party was lost in the wilderness and went cannibalistic. Colqhoun is the only survivor and he finds he not only has a taste for human flesh, but in keeping with Native American legend, he can absorb his victim’s power. The stage is set for all kinds of dark hi jinks as Carlyle starts eating his way through the outpost, and making converts as he goes. The cinematography is stunning and beautiful and director Bird captures several disconcerting shots of suspicious meat cooking on the stove. A thoughtful and cheerfully gross horror movie that will help curb that winter desire to snack all day.
Misery-
Got cabin fever? Well, no one handles the idea of cabin fever or interior isolation better than Stephen King, who has two titles on this list. There’s even a snowstorm in this one, albeit it mostly serves as a plot device to keep James Caan’s Paul Sheldon in the helpless care of the psychopathic Annie Wilkes, played to passive-aggressive perfection by Kathy Bates. What Annie does to Paul over the course of months he is in her ‘care’ ranges from subversively funny to downright harrowing. If you ever end up house bound as a result of the weather, or have to hole up for an extended period of time with company that isn’t exactly cheerful, just remember Sheldon’s misfortunes and that hot cocoa will taste all the sweeter. To this day, I can’t watch that scene involving the sledgehammer and Caan’s ankles without turning away.
Cold Prey-
A Swedish production and little known here in the US, Cold Prey is one of the best slasher films in recent memory and the arctic setting has almost everything to do with that. A couple of ski buddies head up to a remote and abandoned (aren’t they always?) resort in the mountains and there they find a force bent on dispatching them one by one. I gave up on dead teenager movies ages ago, but the style and suspense of Cold Preyreally works. The snow-capped mountains and ice glaciers are a spectacular canvas upon which to splash a little blood and viscera. The killer, a hulking giant in a snow parka, is a satisfying villain and among the ranks of the hapless youngsters, Ingrid Bolsø Berdal proves she can swing an ice-pick with the best of them. The perfect remedy for that long-distance ski vacation you’ve been planning. The film also has a sequel which manages to be similarly unnerving.
Runaway Train-
Based on a screenplay by the legendary Akira Kurosawa, Runaway Train is an action spectacle that never lets up and what really makes it sing are the performances by Jon Voight and Eric Roberts and the dazzling, snowy landscapes that the train hurtles through as it heads towards it’s destination. Runaway Train has a harsh, near existential quality to it that distinguishes it from other thrillers of the same era. Voight and Roberts, as two prisoners trying to make a getaway, are seemingly up against the whole universe in their bid for freedom. Although there’s much that feels metaphorical, the frozen, craggy wasteland that these men are thrust into pushes reality and consequence front and center. Intelligent, emotional and entertaining, Runaway Train is the perfect popcorn thriller for a cold afternoon.
A Simple Plan-
Quite possibly Sam Raimi’s best movie, and probably one of the most underrated, A Simple Plan captures the melancholy and eerie loneliness that can accompany a long winter. Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton are brothers who stumble upon a bag of money in a downed plane while they are out hunting. With Paxton’s wife Bridget Fonda, playing lady Macbeth, Paxton, Thornton and a family friend conspire to keep the money for themselves and then things begin to go amiss and haywire. A treatise on greed and the dangerous nature of moral compromise, A Simple Plan is heartbreaking in its emotional depiction of a family pulling apart in the face of temptation. Thornton, particularly, is poignant as a man who isn’t terribly bright, but is enough so that he understands how it is exactly that he doesn’t fit in. Paxton is compelling as a good man driven quickly and devastatingly from the path. The shivery scenery casts exactly the right funeral pall for the film’s events. Crows dangle menacingly from an icy tree and Thornton muses contemplatively “They eat dead things. What a weird job to have.”
The Shining-
The granddaddy classic of all isolated paranoid thrillers involving winter, Kubrick’s The Shining deviates significantly from the events of King’s book, but it is terrifying and scary nonetheless. Kubrick makes the Overlook a most menacing antagonist through long angle shots, still frames, and tracking scenes that capture the disquieting and the unsettling with no particular fanfare. When evil blossoms in such a potentially mundane scenario, everything becomes charged with fear very quickly. Images of swirling snow, and gently falling flakes have the same effect upon our psyche, and I don’t think there has ever been a more perfect use of interior/exterior contrast where setting is concerned. Forget all of that though, and you still have the main attraction; Jack going crazy and stalking his wife and child with an axe through the art deco halls of the Overlook. The ultimate family dysfunction winter madness medley, this one gets me every time.
The Thing-
This is it, the most distressing and sneaky piece of cold weather paranoia I have ever laid eyes on. John Carpenter designs a foreboding atmosphere with this Antarctic base camp and the star ship long frozen in the snow. It adopts all of the functions of the original Howard Hawks movie but it skews more closely to the short story “Who Goes There?” when it comes the shape-shifting identity of the monster. Kurt Russell testing the blood with fire to determine who among the crew isn’t what he appears to be is spine-tingling tension at its very best. The gooey fx that include a head on spindly spider legs, mutated husky dogs, and Wilford Brimley trying to eat his coworkers are still neat all these years later. I also appreciate the way the weather conditions are presented as merciless and dangerous, and don’t take a side seat once the alien terror shows up. There are few horror movies that work as well as The Thing and fewer still that stick with us when they are over.
How about you? Is there a particular movie that evokes the icy dread of winter? Any titles I missed that help reinforce that feeling of unease when the white stuff starts falling? Share with us below!
Jan 12 2011
Written by: Nathan Bartlebaugh
When discussions of the year’s best films and awards come round, horror movies often get slighted. And yet, every year, there are at least a handful of films and performances in the genre which stand out and above the rest. This year was slower in terms of horror, but there was enough product on the foreign and indie fronts to keep things interesting.
Yes, Adam Green’s Hatchet 2 was one of the poorest films of the year, but he also gave us Frozen, a compelling and haunting survival thriller. Zombies were run through the shredder with big budget gloss like Resident Evil and pop mediocrity like The Walking Dead, but the Brothers Deagol gave the undead a twisty unnerving spin with Makeout With Violence. Vampires weren’t all sparkle and mope in the Spierig’s Daybreakers and low-budget ghosties got to be creepy again in Lake Mungo.
Oct 14 2010
Well, it’s that time again. There’s been a slight reprieve between the summer’s release of Twilight: Eclipse and anything of substance to report regarding the next installment of Meyer’s vamp saga, Breaking Dawn. So, obviously it was time for Summit to light a fire under fans and casual observes alike in regards to this upcoming fourth installment.
The casting and directing choices for this series continue to get more interesting/perplexing with each entry. I have yet to like one of them, although I’m often a fan of the people involved. Now, Bill Condon (director of the brilliant James Whale biopic Gods and Monsters) is on tap as the director of what is arguably, the most bizarre and off-kilter of the novels. He’ll be delivering both parts of the novel in November 2011 and 2012 respectively. Which Condon will show up for work? The guy who has won Oscars or the dude who made Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh. Joking aside, if he can add any vitality at all to this franchise, I’m in his corner.
This casting update will give those unfamiliar with the books an idea of how the scope increases between books 3 and 4. This list is massive, with only a few names standing out to me as being instantly recognizable. Primarily of interest is the inclusionof Lee Pace, best known to genre fans as Ned the Piemaker from Pushing Daisies. Personally, I’m a big fan of his work in Tarsem Singh’s The Fall where he played a suicidal stuntman recovering in a 1920’s hospital. Here’s hoping his character has more to do than Bryce’s vamp in Eclipse.
So, fans of Twilight, here’s the press release detailing the casting of the various vampire covens in Breaking Dawn. Something to sink your teeth into on a fine October morning:
———————————————————————————————————————————-
THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN – Casting Update
Summit Entertainment announced today the following have been cast in THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN for roles in The Amazon Coven, The Egyptian Coven, The Irish Coven and The Romanian Coven as well as the American and European Nomads as outlined below.
THE AMAZON COVEN
The Amazon Coven is comprised of Tracey Heggins as Senna and Judi Shekoni as Zafrina.
Among the oldest vampires in the world, Senna and Zafrina are descendants of an ancient Amazonian tribe. They have lived outside of civilization for centuries and therefore make no attempt to keep up a human facade. Though they drink human blood, the Amazons have long been allies of Carlisle.
· Higgins is represented by Framework Entertainment; Shekoni is represented by Visionary Entertainment as well as Venture IAB in the US and International Artistes in the UK.
THE EGYPTIAN COVEN
The Egyptian Coven is comprised of:
Omar Metwally (RENDITION, MUNICH) as Amun.
Andrea Gabriel (Lost, House) as Kebi.
Rami Malek (NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM) as Benjamin.
Angela Sarafyan (LOVE HURTS, THE GOOD GUYS) as Tia.
The Egyptian Coven consists of Amun, Kebi, Benjamin, and Tia, with Amun as the leader. It is stated that even though they are not a biological family, they could pass for one. Amun is extremely protective of his family and fearful of Aro.
Metwally is represented by Untitled Entertainment and Paradigm; Gabriel is represented by Rebel Entertainment Partners; Malek is represented by WME and Kyle Fritz Management; and Sarafyan is represented by Innovative Artists.
THE IRISH COVEN
The Irish Coven is comprised of Marlane Barnes (THE TREE OF LIFE) as Maggie, Lisa Howard as Siobhan and Patrick Brennan as Liam.
The Irish Coven, a relatively young group, was founded by Siobhan and Liam, but Maggie’s talent made her an important element of it. They are not vegetarian but they are civilized.
· Barnes is represented by House of Representatives.
THE ROMANIAN COVEN
· The Romanian Coven is comprised of Noel Fisher (THE PACIFIC, FINAL DESTINATION 2) as Vladimir and Guri Weinberg (MUNICH) as Stefan.
· The Romanian Coven is one of the oldest covens in the world and they were the ruling vampire family until they were unseated by the Volturi. For that reason they harbor a centuries old resentment of the Italian coven.
· Fisher is represented by New Wave Entertainment and UTA; Weinberg is represented by Howard Entertainment and Defining Artists Agency.
THE AMERICAN NOMADS
· The American Nomads are comprised of:
o Lee Pace as Garrett (Pushing Daisies, THE GOOD SHEPHERD).
o Toni Trucks (MUSIC AND LYRICS) as Mary.
o Bill Tangradi (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) as Randall.
o Erik Odom as Peter.
o Valorie Curry (Veronica Mars) as Charlotte.
· Turned during the Revolutionary War, Garrett has chosen to live a nomadic existence, wandering the world on his own. Garrett has never lost the rebellious spirit of his human life, and loves a good fight, always rooting for the underdog. Though not a vegetarian, Garrett is among Carlisle’s closest and oldest friends.
· Mary and Randall are American nomadic vampires.
· Peter and Charlotte are nomadic vampires and mates. They were created during the aftermath of the Southern Vampire Wars, in which Jasper was a key player. They have remained friends with Jasper ever since.
· Pace is represented by CAA and Management 360. Trucks is represented by Henderson Hogan Agency. Odom is represented by Brick Entertainment. Curry is represented by Luber Roklin Entertainment. Tangradi is represented by The Gage Group.
THE EUROPEAN NOMADS
· The European Nomads are comprised of Joe Anderson (THE CRAZIES) as Alistair
· A nomadic vampire from England, Alistair has a misanthropic, brooding personality and a deep mistrust of all authority. Although he counts Carlisle as his closest acquaintance, he doesn’t visit more than once a century.
· Anderson is represented by CAA and Management 360.
About THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN
The next chapter of THE TWILIGHT SAGA will be released as two separate films with the first of the two slated to be released in theatres on November 18, 2011 and the second coming to theatres on November 16, 2012.
Academy Award® winner Bill Condon will direct both films starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner. The project, based on the fourth novel in author Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series, is currently being written by Melissa Rosenberg with Wyck Godfrey, Karen Rosenfelt and Stephenie Meyer producing.
THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN illuminates the secrets and mysteries of this spellbinding romantic epic that has entranced millions.
Oct 5 2010
PCN Rating: 
In all of the ways vampirism has manifested itself, I’m a bit surprised that it took this long to get a full blown metaphor linking it to the career of the rock musician. Sure, Anne Rice gave Lestat a brief stint as a rock god, and those Lost Boys of the 80s were only a stone’s throw away from punkers, but Rob Stefanuik’s Suck is the first sustained exploration—in film anyway—of what it might be like to be both a vampire and a rockstar. Turns out, it’s sometimes hard to tell the two apart, and being very good at the former is terifficaly helpful for the latter.
More a flat-out comedy than a horror film, Suck tells the story of a struggling Canadian rock band who suddenly find appeal when their female guitarist/vocalist Jennifer (Jessica Pare) gets bitten by the excessively styled vampire Queenie (Dimitiri Coats) one night after a show. At first, her bandmates—headliner Joey (Stefanuik himself), guitarist Sam (Paul Anthony) and drummer Tyler (Mike Lobel)—are suspicious but when she takes the stage and literally glows (not sparkles) with glam intensity, they change their tune. For the first time, they have an audience who actually recognizes they are on stage and isn’t calling for them to get lost.
It’s the shift in their luck, and only Joey—who used to date Jennifer and is feeling jealous over her star status—is objecting. They notice her crappy sleeping schedule and pigmentally exotic complexion, but are chalking both up to a relapsed drug habit. Only the roadie, Hugo ( Chris Ratz) knows Jen’s secret; he walks up while she’s using a slurpee straw to drain a convenience store employee. Now he’s reluctantly chopping up the bodies and hiding the evidence from her bandmates. Eventually, the jig is up, and the whole gang decide to convert. Their sleazy manager (Dave Foley), once on the verge of firing himself, is now clamoring to help them by procuring groupies the band can drain on their down time. Chasing on their tail, looking for Queenie out of matters of personal vengeance, is Eddie Van Helsing, and nothing more need be said about him beyond the fact he’s played by Malcolm McDowell with an eyepatch.
Despite being a low budget affair and Stefanuik’s first feature-length film, Suck looks well polished and visually flashy, boasting amongst its strengths a kind of technicolor pallette that doesn’t so much render the vamps pale as a beautiful, frosty blue. Jennifer looks like she might have hopped directly off the cover of Eerie! Or Tales from the Crypt, still carrying the shades of green ink around her lashes. The set design, which moves us in and out of hotel rooms and dingy Quebec clubs, is also appropriately robust and garish. Suck isn’t much interested in the rot and wreck of the rock lifestyle, but in the silliness and paegentry of it.
Less a mockery and more a goofy homage, it also drops a lot of recognizable rock faces into the mix. Most of those faces are a bit worse for the wear these days, and it drives home the metaphor of a life cheerfully sucked dry by excess. Henry Rollins, Iggy Pop and Moby (who plays a rocker whose fans throw raw steaks at him on stage) enhance the tonge-in-cheek atmosphere and strike a correlation between old-school performance art and old-school horror pop art. When Alice Cooper shows up, first as a bartender and then as a black-winged crossroads demon pitching a killer recruitment, he solidifies that gothic excess. Cooper, surprisingly reflective and mirthful in-person, has a great time digging up his old schtick and I suspect his speech at the end reflects the kind of thing he was hearing from record execs and managers quite a bit back in the 70s.
There’s such a good-natured vibe to Suck that even all of its gory accoutrements—including a bitchin’ bit where a vamp is impaled on the end of a guitar in mid-performance—can’t shake the feeling of, well, almost wholesomeness. Like Cooper and the old guard, Suck remembers a time when both rock and horror were capable of laughing at themselves and spurning their darkness by subtly mocking it. Anyone that has sat through their fair share of silly 80’s horror comedies—Saturday the 14th, Transylvania 6500, Vamp—will recongize a similar bent with Suck. It’s just plain fun, even if it gets its lines crossed and ultimately misses the boat its aiming to catch.
The biggest disappointment here is that Stefanuik, clearly juggling more ideas than he has room for, makes a half-hearted stab (hyuk!) at transforming the film into an out-and-out rock opera. Queenie’s seduction song (Coates is the frontman for Burning Brides) sets up the movie to follow the route of a musical, but after that most of the performances are solely on the stage. In the credits, we see bloopers where McDowell protests the fact he wasn’t given a number. I agree, and think Suck would have achieved the cult status it’s desperately seeking if it had strived harder to give the film a soundtrack it could be proud of, and that audience members could walk out humming. How much cooler would that sequence at the crossroads be if Cooper had a full band and orchestral accompaniment? Sucks jams just fine, but it could have really rocked out. Oh well, maybe next time.
Oct 1 2010
Running time: 95 min. Rating: R for strong bloody horror violence, language and a brief sexual situation.
Directed by: Matt Reeves. Written by: Matt Reeves & John Lindvquist
Starring: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Chloe Moretz, Richard Jenkins, Elias Koteas, Cara Buono, Sasha Barrese
Matt Reeves ‘Let Me In’ might be one of the best surprises of the fall movie going season. A remake of the excellent 2008 Swedish vampire drama ‘Let the Right One In, Reeves’ rendition isn’t a shot for shot recreation or n mainstream dumb-down of the unsettling and hauntingly poignant original. Instead, the experience is like visiting a really great funhouse attraction, except this time you get the opportunity to peek into rooms that were closed on the first go-round. Atmospheric, elegantly creepy, and subtly changing emphasis and scope, Let Me In spins the same story with more focus on the beguiling relationship at its center, the growing bond between a bullied 12-year old boy and the lonely vampire next door.
The film opens with a shot of the snow falling in New Mexico, and in the distance we see a string of police cars and ambulances navigating a winding road through the wilderness. Far away at first, we close in and see them racing to the scene of a car accident that reveals a man with severe acid burns on his body. It’s an unsettling opening, and rearranges some of the events from its predecessor, setting up Elias Koteas’ police officer as a good man hunting what he believes to be a serial killer stalking his town. And then, the story doubles back on itself to introduce the real focus, which is more a darkly twisted coming-of-age-story than a full-blown horror thriller. Set in the winter of1983, Let Me In finds the dark heart of Lindvquist’s novel and transplants it into a body with slightly more American sensibilities.
Young Owen, like Oskar before him, is a boy headed down a troubled road. He’s a quintessential latch-key kid of the 80’s, wandering around on his own while his mother tries to drink away the pain of a divorce. He’s taken up spinning fantasies of revenge against the kids who brutally bully him at school, and when he’s not doing that, he’s spying on the neighbors who share his shabby apartment complex, among them an amorous couple who give him his first glimpses into the world of adult sexuality. Owen’s life is drab and painful, punctuated by moments where he imagines stabbing the kids who torment him. Then, Abby and her ‘father’ move into the apartment next door and everything in his life starts to change.
Abbie, as is painfully obvious at this point, is a vampire. Owen doesn’t know at first, and in truth, he’s probably a little slow on the uptake. She may not sparkle, but the signs are there; she walks barefoot through the frozen snow, looks sick, pale and gaunt one day, and the next is a vision of adolescent energy and loveliness. He is also confused by the relationship she shares with the man he assumes is her dad; at night he can hear voices through the wall, shouting angrily at one another. Abby has an insatiable hunger that Owen doesn’t realize. In fact, all he’s aware of, truly, is that she’s a welcome playmate and someone who talks to him with interest in her voice, not the angry accusations of the schoolyard or the bland resignation of his mother. He gives her a Rubix cube and she leaves it for him on the jungle-gym the next morning, finished. A friendship is born, and when Abby sees that Owen’s starting to show the physical signs of the school abuse, she urges him to ‘hit harder.’
So, lets address that elephant in the room that likely has some genre fans spewing with rage or shrugging in ambivalence; is there any real reason that Let Me In needs to exist in the face of the smashing original film? In terms of necessity ,no. Alfredson’s film was a spellbinding and appropriately somber take on vampire/human interaction, without any of the dippy romanticism of Rice or Meyers and injected with plenty of creeping dread and icy malaise, relevant to the dour Swedish setting. Yes, we could have gotten along just fine without this American counterpart, which is also,oddly, the first new release from the renovated Hammer studios, those kings of Brit horror in the 60’s and 70’s. But, on it’s own terms, Let Me In is a surprisingly good movie, and one that keeps the essence of the beloved version, while shuffling around the rest of the pieces to make a movie that feels fresh and capable of standing on it’s own. Think of it as a continuation of the same conversation that began with Let the Right One In; a response of sorts to the subtly textured world of Lindvquist’s vampire lore.
For one thing, the change in era and setting add an underlying context that slightly solidifies the moral ambiguities related to Owen ushering Abby and her darkness into his life. Reagan is overheard giving his speech that espouses America ‘as a good nation’ and calls for the quashing of evil where it may be found. Tones of kitschy 80’s religious iconography are also always present, down to Owen being confronted by an airbrushed picture of Christ on his mother’s mirror while he’s thieving money from her purse. There’s an air of moral ‘rightness’ and ‘wrongness’ here that was only slightly suggested in the first picture, and here it takes on greater resonance, particularly in regards to Koteas’ righteous policeman that offers a counterpoint to Abby’s tragic brutality. Owen struggles with the choices, but kindness and warmth emanate from Abby, and the world of Reagan-era politics hasn’t offered him any help at home or at school. The expansion of the character who serves as Abby’s guardian (Richard Jenkins) also establishes the inevitable consequences of a life with this strange girl. Now, we go on the car rides and abduction trips used to secure her blood supply. There’s some odd humor built in here, as Jenkins waits in the back of a grungy teenager’s van, trying not to drown amidst the Twinkie wrappers while his prey makes a Slurpee pit stop.
The other significant difference is down to the focus. Owen (Kodi-Smit McPhee) and Abby (Chloe Moretz) are pushed even further into the foreground of Let Me In than their Swedish counterparts in Let the Right One In. Alfredson’s original took the characters of the novel and created a kind of gothic triptych out of them. The subplot of an aging good ol’ boy and his girlfriend ran counter to Eli and Oskar, but it helped establish a structure that really banged home the oppression and resignation of the world Oskar lived in. Being a vampire might be well preferred to living and dying a sad footnote of an existence in a nothing town. Those characters still exist in the new film, but they have been pushed into the background, and are out of focus, gaining just enough definition so they register on our radar. Now, all the drama is filtered into those scenes on the playground and in a secret basement apartment that Owen finds; it’s down to the conversations and moments shared by these two kids. The big gamble here is that now, Let Me In rides almost completely on the performances of its young stars.
I love the original film, but there’s a coldness to all of the interaction—including Oskar and Eli—that has been melted away here. It isn’t that the first version was incomplete, but we are looking a little more deeply into what the first film showed us mostly in passing. There’s more of Owen testing the waters between he and Abby, and for her part, Abby is more inquisitive, more sensitive and aware of her role as Owen’s friend. There’s a touching scene where Owen buys them both candy from the convenience store and he’s crestfallen when she won’t try it. She sees his disappointment, and accepts one, pretends to eat it with satisfaction and then he finds her outside, wretching. Turns out Now n’Laters aren’t compatible with vampire physiology. A similar exploration of this same dynamic occurs later, when Owen, and the audience, get to see first hand what happens to Abby if she enters into his home uninvited.
The sexuality of the first film, which lingered over every scene, and was oddly challenged by the brief glimpse of Eli’s mutilated body, has been reduced greatly here, but then rolled over into subtext. The motivations of Owen and Abby’s protector aren’t driven by carnal need but by emotional love, and yet the boundaries of the adult world of physical intimacy and all it implies charges everything else. There are even suggestions that it’s a latent, nurtured homophobia that spurs on the violence that is inflicted on Owen at school. The part that blood plays in the story, and Abby’s desire for it, accounts for most of the moral darkness, with many of the uncomfortable intimations drained out.
If nothing else, Let Me In deserves to exist because of the performances, which are distinguished and interesting interpretations of the characters.It’s like watching a different acting troupe take on Shakespeare. Both films’ portrayals are made more interesting by the fact that the other exists McPhee is excellent as Owen, and he puts a spin on the character of Oskar by embracing his innocence and naivety first, and then letting the undercurrents of anger and stifled frustration bleed through. It makes him more endearing and fragile, and it opens up his relationship with Abby, who is played by Moretz as more of an outcast orphan than the weary vagabond that Lina Lindearsson brought to life in 08. She comes off both like a little girl and a feral animal, and through her eyes we get a better look at the life of her ‘familiars’ those that would help serve her in exchange for her companionship. Jenkins actually improves upon the character from the first film, making this man a forecast of what could be in store for Owen in the future; he’s tired, committed, and steadfast to Abby even though he’s asked to do terrible things. Koteas character should be throwaway but it anchors the picture’s resolve and exploration of good vs.evil. I was thankful for it’s inclusion.
As a filmmaker Matt Reeves makes Let Me In more fearsome and less languid than the other film, but he doesn’t do away the haunting atmosphere. It’s clear he has great respect for Alfredson’s original and that respect goes so far as to know when he can’t improve on something and chooses another tactic or approach. There’s a car crash filmed from the inside of the vehicle that is startling and visually impressive. It’s a thrilling moment, and the same goes for a late-in-the-game sequence where Koteas is creeping up on Abby’s hideout and Owen sits crouched in the shadows behind him, frozen. The sequence at the school pool at the end is mostly similar but it takes on a more hysterical verve. The 80’s setting is detailed and engrossing, and it ensures that no scene between the two pictures is exactly alike. Of all the films I’ve seen trying to recreate the experience of a kid in the 80s, this one comes closest to capturing what I remember. Particularly, that young restlessness, chained up by needlepoint sweaters with giraffes and bad hair-band music. Now, when Owen glimpses Abby undressing, Billy Idol is crooning on the soundtrack.
There are a shortage of great horror movies in the world, and in 2010, the list is even shorter still. American audiences rarely get to enjoy a thriller done with such restraint and passion. The world has three Twilight films and with each one, there’s less reason for them being. Through this lens, is it such a crime that now we also have two very good films based off Let The Right One In?
Jul 5 2010
Back in the 90’s we lived in blissful ignorance of the phenomenon that would come to dominate more than an entire decades summer blockbusters. The phenomenon known as the “comic book movie”. Apart from ‘The Crow’, and the inevitable implosion of the ‘Batman’ series, there weren’t really any films released in the 90’s that were based on funnybooks. Marvel was nearly bankrupt, DC were momentarily happy with their Batman cashcow, and the studios didn’t really know how to approach these adaptations. Until ‘Blade’.
Blade (1998)
Written by: Droid
Ninja Rating: 
There is an world that lays just beneath this one. It’s a vampire society, and has had an “understanding” with humans for hundreds of years. They live in the shadows, not causing too much noticeable trouble, and the humans look the other way. But an ambitious vampire named Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff) decides to challenge the societies rules, using vampire lore to resurrect the blood god La Magra to help him rule the humans. But the daywalker Blade (Wesley Snipes), and his buddy Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) stand in their way. Blade is a half-human, half-vampire, all badass vampire killing machine, employing garlic, silver, guns, knives, swords and good old fashioned fists to rid the world of vampires.
Wesley Snipes cuts an imposing figure as Blade. Usually playing a cocky, loud-mouthed character, Snipes is surprisingly well suited for the the strong, silent type, and he delivers his lines in a low growl that is almost painfully humourless. But, as a man who was infected by the vampire curse when his pregnant mother was bitten, and has grown up to deal with this curse, the character feels right. He is driven by his anger towards the vampires, both for himself and for his mother. When he rescues the haematologist Dr. Karen Jenson (N’Bushe Wright) after she is bitten by a vampire, it is not out of compassion for humanity, it is because of her resemblance to his mother, and the subconscious desire to re-write history.
Stephen Dorff is terrific as Blade’s arch enemy Deacon Frost. Full of arrogance and hatred, Frost doesn’t respect the powerful vampire council, and sets about employing himself as its new leader. Dorff brings an air of menace to the role, and is effectively outfitted in a distinctive cyber-punk chic (if such a style exists). Kristofferson is mainly resigned to delivering lengthy monologues explaining who everyone is, how things work and why they do what they do. Despite being encumbered with all the exposition, he handles it well and his gruff charisma masks the static nature of these scenes. Wright’s character is a staple of these kinds of films. The “normal” person who enters a fantastical world. She is the audience surrogate, what she learns, we learn and her role is essentially reduced to listening to the exposition, or as the ‘women in peril’. But Wright handles it professionally, albeit a bit blandly, and even though it’s a pretty cheap screenwriters tool (which can also be found in ‘Hellboy’, to name but one) it doesn’t mar the films effectiveness.
‘Blade’ is the second film from British director Stephen Norrington. After working on special effects for such films as ‘Aliens’ and ‘Split Second’, he made his first film, the ‘Alien’ rip off cheapie ‘Death Machine’ which went straight to video. Despite this, I happened upon it while perusing the weekly titles in my local video shop (those were the days), and was quite surprised that, despite it being totally unoriginal, it was pretty entertaining and featured a typically nutty performance from Brad Dourif. With a pretty large budget, a solid script from David S. Goyer and a good cast to work with, Norrington showed some real style and a wonderful ability to stage terrifically exciting action scenes where we can actually see what’s going on. It’s a real shame that he got pulled into the Don Murphy vortex of suck for his next film, ‘The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’, because he seemed to be a talented director with a lot of potential.
Released in late August, ‘Blade’ was a breath of fresh air after a very ordinary summer that included the rival asteroid films ‘Armageddon’ and ‘Deep Impact’, the irritatingly awful ‘Godzilla’ and the tired, unnecessary ‘Lethal Weapon 4’. It was followed by two sequels (one good, one awful) and a shortlived tv series. Unfortunately (depending on how you look at it), it also helped convince Marvel to push for feature films for their more well-known characters, such as the ‘X-Men’ and ‘Spiderman’, and the result is now a glut of mostly mediocre comic book adaptations hitting the big screen every summer.
But the quality of ‘Blade’ can’t be overlooked. It holds up today as an entertaining action thriller, featuring inventive kills (I was grinning from ear to ear when I first saw the spontaneous combustion of the vampires during the wonderful opening scene), good performances, terrific direction, an interesting, fully realised world and Wesley Snipes kung-fu kicking vampires simply to annoy them (why else does he bother?). If you haven’t seen it for a while, or for some reason have never seen it before, I recommend you stick it on, put your feet up and enjoy yourself.
Jun 29 2010
Leave it to the low-budget film scene to find a way to rejuvenate the modern concept of the vampire. And in the wake of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series, which has firmly locked in the nosferatu as mopey, faux-Victorian super heroes, a bloodsucking makeover was indeed in order. Phil Messerer’s Thicker than Water may be as low budget as they come but it’s also original, intelligent and legitimately funny. Unlike the current CW emo-vamp fiasco, this Vampire Diaries takes its titular creatures all the way back to their mythic roots and adds a few new wrinkles of its own. Most compelling among these fresh insights is that although they have given up solid food for the red stuff and prey often on the innocent, vampires do retain a fierce sense of mi familia.
Thicker than Water: The Vampire Diaries Part 1 (2009) NR 86 min, Directed & written by: Phil Messerer Starring: Devon Bailely, Ellis Cahill, JoJo Hristova, Michael Strelow, Myles MacVane
Written by:Nathan Bartlebaugh
Ninja Rating: 
The film opens with footage of the pyramids at Chichen Itza and a dodgy narration that introduces the viewer to the origin story of vampires. Moments later, it ditches this thread (turns out this ancient history legend is a framing device of sorts) and opens far away from Mexico in, of all places, the suburbs, with the Baxters. The Baxter family is a far cry from the dead-eyed Cullens; mama Baxter(Hristova) was once a russian ice-skater, papa Baxter is on the way out after announcing divorce at the dinner table, son Raymond has a veritable science lab in his bedroom, and the gothic Lara and preppy Helen are twin sisters who couldn’t be more different from one another. Initially, the script paints the whole clan as portraits of typical dysfunction, but when Helen gets sick shortly after her 16th birthday and then dies, Messerer forces all of the narrative elements into the orbit of this off-kilter family.
It isn’t much of a surprse to suggest that when good-girl Helen, who loves cute little animals, academics and Jesus, passes away, she doesn’t stay dead. Her return is the point where Thicker than Water ceases to be just another clunky indie movie and transforms into a creepy and poignant story of unconditional love and familial support that takes tried-and-true hallmark moments of togetherness and puts a deliciously twisted spin on them. Every member of the Baxter family, including the brooding loner, Lara(who initially blames herself for Helen’s death), is developed as a living-breathing person and not a stereotype or a plot device.
One of Messerer’s best choices for his film is the decision to subordinate his sprawling vampire origin myth to a smaller, more cloistered tale of a family coming around a member in need. When Helen returns to her mother’s doorstep, like the wayward zombie son of The Monkey’s Paw, plastic coroner’s sheet still wrapped around her like a bridal veil, the Baxters can’t help but feel blessed. When Raymond and Lara explain that she is a vampire, Helen is distraught. When they tell her that she has killed the coroner and fed on him to sustain herself–and that she will need to do so again–she is horrified and shocked. She once made a promise to God that she would live her life to benefit others, and cannot bring herself to voluntarily drink of the captured ’sarifices’ that Mama and Raymond procure for her. Also terrified of suicide (she’s a Catholic), Helen starves herself; abstaining from blood until the moment where her new, animalistic nature takes over and forces her into predatory mode.
The best performances in the film belong to Jo Jo Hristova and Devon Bailey. Hristova as the God-fearing matriarch of the clan is devout and pious, but doesn’t bat so much as an eye when deciding that if her daughter won’t feed on her own, she will go out and bring the food to her. She is not deluded about what she is doing–knows full-well that it is murder and that the fires of hell may await her–but Helen is her family and she will sacrifice everything for her if need be. In a darkly comic and thrilling scene, where Hristova and Cahill lure in a pair of Mormon preachers as potential sacrifices, the movie doesn’t shy away from religious discussion and the philosophical quandries of the problem with evil. Watch Hristova’s face, and you will see genuine conflict and resignation play out on her features. Later, towards the film’s finale, she rachets up one scene until it achieves a profoundly tragic power. This is anything but amateur work.
Bailey as Helen is the film’s strongest performance. She transforms this perky, self-confident social butterfly into a bitter, worn-out shell who strives to do the right thing, but is increasingly held in check by this new, dark and unnerving side of her personality. Whether it’s a poignant pe-death scene where she tells Lara that she wished she had been a better friend to her, or sequences where she sits at the dining room table shivering and convulsing with hunger, Bailey really seems to understand the ways in which her character is stretched through this ordeal; for Helen, being a vampire is an anathema to everything she has believed. That makes her more organic and believable, which is important because it provides a sturdy contrast when she turns into the vampire.
As the vampire, Bailey is a truly creep piece of work. This is one of the most unsettling interpretations to grace the screen since 1922′s Nosferatu. When she gives into the hunger, Helen doesn’t don scads of make-up or lumpy prosthetics. She doesn’t go all ‘cgi’. Instead, she twists her body into animal like configurations that would baffle a professional contortionist and mimics the kind of instinctive behavior that is found in big cats when they are hunting prey. Everytime Helen gives in, she seems to give away another piece of herself. When she goes under, she sheds every noticeable trace of humanity. To portray such an alien concept is no easy task. I look forward to where Bailey will take the character in future films.
Strelow and Cahill are also good in their respective roles, and although they don’t shine as brightly as Hristova and Bailey, they prevent their characters from being simple one-note types; in this case the closeted gay and the mopey goth. Myles MacVane as a creepy occult bookstore owner is more Crypt Keeper than Rupert Giles, and he and his hairless cat seem like they would be most at home on one of those late-night cable programs hosting old horror films. The film’s weakest acting spot is a late arrival from a Southern gentleman vampire. His presence hearkens back to the kind of amateur filmmaking that Messerer has largely avoided until that point.
And, ultimately, there is no getting around the fact that The Vampire Diaries feels alot closer to a student film in its materials and budget than it does to a polished feature. The musical cues are too numerous and often distracting; played so loud we often can’t hear anything else. Somtimes they feel just plain wrong. Though there is some truly creative cinematography,there are numerous shots that are unecessary and Messerer is still too young a filmmaker to start relying on musical montages already.
The inclusion of the passages from Myles’ dark tome recounting the first vampire’s journey across the world is part of the film’s refreshing originality and telling it via engravings worthy of Varney the Vampire only reinforces those ties to true gothic horror. However, all of those more mythic elements have little bearing on the story in this film. I kept waiting for them to gain relevance but they must be waiting around for the sequel, which is already in the cards. Apparently, even indie features think in franchise terms these days.
For all of it’s faults, Thicker than Water: The Vampire Diaries does what few films of its caliber can do;it stands on its own. It is so good, that it challenges us to compare it not to shoddy DTV movies made on a similar budget, but to all of the more established familiar entries in the genre. It is a delightful surprise to realize that it holds it own. Proving the specific strengths of independent filmmaking, Thicker than Water skips the last 50 some years of vampire lore and manifests itself as a bloody, witty penny dreadful awaiting more freakishly compelling future installments.
Jun 29 2010
Twilight: Eclipse’ is the best of the series so far. The bad news? It’s a part of this series.
Bringing in a new director in David Slade (Hard Candy, 30 Days of Night) and replacing the villainous red-head Victoria with Bryce Dallas Howard, Eclipse brings back, more or less, the entire cast of the previous entries. Even Dakota Fanning and her ridiculous make-up (frosted eye-shadow above blazing red eyes, really?) have returned.
Written by: Nathan Bartlebaugh
When Eclipse opens, Bella Swan is in ‘negotiations’ with vampire Ed regarding her transition from the human world to the vampire world. You remember Bella; the mopey, adolescent blank slate upon which creatures of the night project their dreams and desires. She wants Eddie to bite her, but not before he gives her one night of love in mortal form, an experience she can take with her into the vampire life.
As for Ed, despite 100 plus years of likely sexual frustration, he insists that they be married first. Bella, who’s totally fine with giving up her pulse, family, and V8 consumption for the red stuff, balks at this. ‘Don’t 2 out of 3 marriages end in divorce?’ she asks. Hey, if you follow the lore, 3 out of 3 vampire/human relationships end in bloodshed. Unless you are Angel and Buffy, and then it’s just a lot of fuming and sulking afterwards.
To give distraction to this decision is Jacob Black, the Native American wolf bud of Bella’s whose Indian name seems to be ‘Runs with Six-packs’. If Ed is the moody, lackadaisical stoner poet who will talk you into a lather, but then saunter off to doze in the corner, Jake is the red-blooded real deal, ready to jump your bones at the very utterance of the word ‘go’. Maybe, even before.
In Jake’s werewolf clan, who meet in the woods and have helpful campfires where they show well-produced movie flashbacks, you don’t just get the ‘hots’ for someone, you ‘imprint’ upon them, and they become your soul mate. This was honestly sort of vaguely explained, but it sounds to me a lot like what happens to stalkers right before they decide hanging outside your house in a rain slicker sans pants is a good idea.
Either way, Bella is seemingly committed to Edward, aware of Jacob’s ardor for her, and yet still allows him to drive her around and cuddle her in front of her beau. She spends inordinate amounts of time with him, sitting in close proximity, letting him wax on about her wonderfulness, and then says ‘I thought I was perfectly clear’ when he expresses that he is in love with her. Bella, we’ve seen fog banks that were more perfectly clear than you.
At this point, most of Eclipse has devolved into the kind of clunky, uninteresting romantic waffle that grounded the first two films. While Lautner, Pattinson, and Stewart have all grown as actors, they still can’t imbue any of these people with a real soul or better yet, a backbone. Even Jake, who seems like a go-getter, just comes off as creepy and pushy. Since this entire franchise is essentially a bookish girl’s wet dream, the guys have to be forward and pining because it cements the attraction of having two different kinds of stud locking horns over you. Thankfully, director Slade hasn’t completely forgotten about the other vampires; you know the ones who bite people and actually suck blood?
When a newborn group of vamps start popping up in the Seattle area, the Cullenses rightly deduce that someone is building an army of bloodsuckers. Alice, the member of the family with the clairvoyance, sees visions of a prep vampire named Riley Biers rallying the troops to track and hunt Bella. In an effort to keep their pigment-challenged doll safe, Ed and Jake execute a truce between the vampire and wolf clans to stand together against the oncoming invasion. There it is then, at the center of this supposed fantasy epic is the simple truth; all worlds–human, vampire, werewolf–apparently revolve around Bella Swan, who just might be the dullest girl in a school full of dull girls. Honestly, making Bella the thematic lynchpin of the series is one of its greatest flaws, not least because she’s wholly uninteresting and not engaging as a character.
As a director, David Slade commits himself to delivering the best possible Twilight film he can make. With the exception of some murky special effects involving the wolves and the frozen setting at film’s end, he succeeds admirably. This is a better looking, more fearsome movie than the ones that came before, and there are even odd moments of beauty like an army of vampires rising up out of a lake, the wolves slowly picking their way out of the forest to meet the Cullens clan, and a shadowy, frightening scene outside of a bar in Seattle where a young man is stalked by..something. Despite populating Eclipse with one too many flashbacks (this was no doubt an attempt to cram most of the book into the film), Slade keeps an even hand on the pacing. It’s impossible to liven up the scenes between Edward and Bella, but he does manage to strike up a certain verve for the scenes with Jacob, and even if it’s only on a small level, he brings to the franchise what it is sorely, sorely lacking; a sense of humor.
Slade’s previous credits include a film about a pedophilic predator and one about vampires, and he’s able to draw from both when sketching out the sordid love triangle at the heart of this movie. The film’s humor mostly comes at the expense of these oh-so-serious lovers. What nearly amounts to a case of Jacob forcing himself upon Bella in the book is established in the film as a heated, dim-bulb move on Jake’s part and results in the line ‘I kissed Bella, and she broke her hand punching me in the face.’ Later, in a tent on a mountain in the middle of a snowstorm, Bella is freezing, Ed can’t warm her up, and so he’s forced to sit there and make small talk with Jake while this bare-chested dude snuggles intimately with his woman. The fact that Slade allows the two guys to make and hold eye contact for many minutes while Bella sleeps is actually pretty funny. Ed seems pretty much ready to go, but Jake balks at the idea of ever being ‘friends’. Yes, Ed, if he never starts, he never has to quit you.
About that scene in the tent. It makes little sense. For one, Ed and Bella have taken certain steps to sealing their bond, and yet Jake is still allowed shenanigans like this one. I get that Ed is just trying to be chivalric, but at some point you got to take some kind of a stand. Furthermore, Jake is a shape-shifting werewolf the size of a Clydesdale—wouldn’t it make more sense for him to take on his wolf persona, which is no doubt a more efficient conductor of heat and less awkward for everyone concerned? No of course not, because ultimately this scene only exists as an over-heated fantasy for Bella and all of those young women for whom she plays avatar.
Oh, how exquisitely sexy to be fawned over by a chaste, enigmatic gentleman (who still hasn’t given up leering as an art form) and also snorgled up by a beefy, salt-of-the earth man’s man. And to think that I’ve heard these stories referred to as ‘Jane Austen with vampires’.Let me tell you, if Jane Austen saw this, she’d be kicking your ass with her perfectly coiffed Regency boots.
At any rate, Twilight Eclipse is ultimately more of the same old dreck the franchise has been shoveling our way. If you are a fan of the series, then you are likely to enjoy this one best out of the three. It is well made and everyone is doing what they can to give it a certain sheen of reality. There are plot developments here that will achieve a payoff if you are invested in where this story is going. All others needn’t bother with this one, because nothing in it is going to convert you.
For me it goes back to my original complaint with the series, which is that the central relationship lacks interesting characters or real dramatic feeling. Since Twilight ultimately has very little to do with vampires, werewolves and things that go bump in the night, and much more to do with a couple of teens skirting around the issue of wanting to bump in the night, we need characters with whom we can connect. You can scoff at old John Hughes movies all you want, but if he were to have given us teen vampires, they wouldn’t have sucked. At least, not like this.
