Film Fatale

I'm not the only one who's bewildered by the criss crossing time lines (loops?) of THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES and the first two TERMINATOR movies. (I guess we're supposed to put T3 out of our minds, as though it didn't happen. But it did: I saw it.)

Todd Seavey leaps into the the whole time travel issue in this timely essay. By Seavey's count,

"(ignoring comic books and other spin-off material), there have been at least three Terminator timelines (though I’m using the term “timeline” loosely, since the general implication in the Terminator universe is that there is, strictly speaking, only one timeline and that it undergoes changes.... —this all quickly gets absurd if the time travelers of 2032 have potentially unlimited power to keep going back and changing things — Terminator quickly becomes Groundhog Day, or at least becomes that bit from Family Guy where Peter keeps going back in time and screwing up his first date with Lois."

Go ahead.

Geek out with him. He's a smart guy. He's done this before with the STAR WARS films and the fictional universes of the films, tv specials and books.

I'm happily trapped in the 1970s with the time-travelling (or comatose and dreaming) hero of LIFE ON MARS.

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What to wear to your end of the world party?
Out: Mad Max leather and homemade haircuts.
In: Guns, garters and deep red Apoca-lipstick.

This Sunday in the New York Daily News: Hot heroines(and a few heroes) of the Apocalyptic cinema

Milla Jovovich, RESIDENT EVIL: EXTINCTION
Rhona Mitra, DOOMSDAY
Will Smith, I AM LEGEND
Gerard Butler, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (the forthcoming remake)
Michelle Yeoh, SUNSHINE

and a few of favorites from the 1970s and 1980s

Adrienne Barbeau & Season Hubley, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981)
Rosalind Cash, THE OMEGA MAN (1971)
Linda Harrison, PLANET OF THE APES (1968)

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Want to see a wicked scary short film?
Watch TEN STEPS by Brendan Muldowney.

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 06:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Perhaps in recognition of the release of STARDUST -- a film with the most unsettling trailer I have seen since MAC & ME -- Film.com celebrates the Trippiest Movies Ever Made For Children.

Exhibit A is the recently rereleased LABYRINTH (1986), with David Bowie as a Goblin King who kidnaps the baby brother of pre-teen Jennifer Connelly, sending her off on a journey through creepy Muppet-land. Oh, it's weird. But Bowie cuts loose for a few amazing songs.

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 10:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Slate's Explainer tackles a science/science fiction question that's surely been nagging anyone who's seen SUNSHINE:

Can an astronaut survive for even a few moments outside of a spacecraft without wearing a spacesuit? Without giving away too much of the plot, there's a tense sequence in SUNSHINE, the new thriller from Danny Boyle, in which three crew members of a solar-bound craft end up outside of the ship with only one pressurized suit among them.

There's a similarly horrific moment in EVENT HORIZON: the space rescue team's youngest member, under the influence of a ghostly force, wanders into an airlock, seals himself in. And as his frantic crewmates race to save him from outside the ship, he opens the airlock.

Can't trust those airlocks, can you?

The unsecured airlock in a sci fi movie is analogous to the French patio doors of slasher movies: highly freakin' permeable. The devil can just walk right in without knocking.

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My favorite Italian horror tot: Nicoletta Elmi

Manhattan real estate-and-parenthood horror gets a slick update in JOSHUA, an indie chiller whose effectiveness depends a great deal on how freaked out you are by kids. And the prospect of those little anklebiters running your life.

Jacob Kogan's Joshua makes quite an impression as the perfect little piano-playing preppie. Sunset Gun's Kim Morgan confesses an affection for filmdom's creepy kiddies, and she's compiled a chillingly illustrated all-star team.

But Kim! You forgot one weird little moppet. Remember the spooky red haired girl who appeared in many of Dario Argento's movies, from DEEP RED to DEMONS? Sometimes freckle faced and cute. Sometimes a flame haired baby demon. That kid didn't say much, but she had presence.

Nicoletta Elmi is her name -- there are fan sites in Italian and English devoted to her.

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 09:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New York Magazine snarks on the B-movieish title for the J.J. Abrams movie: MONSTROUS.

Well, it's easier to spell than CTHULHU.

Note the resemblance between Valentino Cthulhu (makes a lovely gift) and that red and black photo on the New York mag site.

Coincidence?

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Before Steve McQueen was BULLITT, he was the teenage hero who kicked the -- wherever the ass-parts were -- on an undulating mass of outerspace menace in THE BLOB.

And that's reason enough to scream for joy. Slate mag is goes to Phoenixville, Pennsylvania for the fiftieth anniversary festivities.

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Creeping into cinemas without benefit of preview screenings comes CAPTIVITY.

So many questions demand answers. Is the movie as torture-porny as its billboard ad campaign? Can the film's director, Academy Award winner Roland Joffe, surpass his heavy breathing treatment of THE SCARLET LETTER?

Peter Sobczynski of Hollywood Bitchslap dares to view CAPTIVITY outside the safety of Chicago's Lake Street screening room and files this report.

"In a scene that plays like a educational film for starlets on the dangers of not having an entourage, Jennifer is drugged and kidnapped at the nightclub (thanks to one of those completely empty women’s bathrooms that are so commonplace at charity functions at hip nightclubs)."

And then he gets harsh.

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 06:24 PM | Permalink

In 1408, John Cusack doesn't believe in ghosts. But they believe in him.

Was it the web piracy of the HOSTEL sequel, the overexposure of director Eli Roth, market saturation of torture-porn horror, that led to the film's underwhelming box office performance?

Among this weekend's releases: 1408, the Stephen King adaptation starring an ideally cast John Cusack as a supernatural-debunker who dares to stay in a haunted hotel.

When 1408 comes out near the top of the heap, expect a bloodbath of Monday morning box office analysis declaring the death of slasher movies and the demand for suspense-driven terror. The next test for hard core horror is CAPTIVITY, already notorious for its Los Angeles billboard campaign. Starring Elisha Cuthbert as a fashion model in a SAW-like predicament, the movie's been pushed to mid-July.

Continue reading "Bored With Torture Horror? You're Not Alone" »

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 09:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dread Central reports that RESIDENT EVIL Paul W.S. Anderson's next gig will be not CASTLEVANIA but DEATH RACE 3000 -- the remake of the 1976 action comedy about a no-holds-barred race through the desert -- and over pedestrians who get in the way. There is a videogame version, too: As in the Paul Bartel-directed movie, you rack up points by running down hapless old people, kids and wrecked cars with rival drivers inside: kaboom, splat, etc. (For some reason, the original DEATH RACE 2000 is mixed up in my mind with the cartoon show THE WACKY RACES (featuring Snidely Whiplash and his laughing dog Mutley)

Props to reporter Johnny Butane being for the exclusive ) and but boo, dude, for even quicker with a reflexive slam on Anderson's "entire career" (Douse the lighter, Butane and put away your little internet-sized pitchfork. Who died and made you the arbiter of "potentially cool movies"?

I've never quite understood why the fanboys recoil from Anderson -- when pressed, they'll acknowledge that EVENT HORIZON did scare the hell out of them, RESIDENT EVIL -- while it did not follow the strictures

Continue reading "RES. EVIL Anderson To Drive DEATH RACE 3000" »

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 10:32 AM | Permalink

No Damien?

Neither the bratty pre-school son of the Devil (Harvey Stephens) of THE OMEN (1976) nor the distractingly handsome Sam Neill of THE OMEN III made Radar's list of the top ten horror movie villains. (I guess the SOUTH PARK episode pretty well destroyed Damien's villain cred - and besides, he was always more of a pouty icon than a truly active villain.)

Who and what did make the list?

A cannibal with a chainsaw.
A camp-counselor hating drowing victim.
A doll possessed by the spirit of a dead serial killer.
A child possessed and persecuted by Satan (wouldn't that make Satan the villain?)
A fundamentalist Nebraska boy who hates everyone over 19.
A Dutch Colonial house (boathouse included) located at 112 Ocean Avenue.

Who didn't make the list?

No supernatural villains from other countries: No little boy from THE GRUDGE. No Samara from THE RING. No undead, no vampires.

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 11:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Onion's AV Club writers (Noel Murray, Scott Tobias and Nathan Rabin) do a political reading of some horror films you may or may not have thought twice about, including the best of Showtime's MASTERS OF HORROR series, Joe Dante's "Homecoming."

In What Monster Could Have Done This? Horror Movies For Left Wingers, Horror Movies For Right Wingers, the critics write that this genre is often a "better gauge of what's making the country anxious than opinion polls are."

Both DEATHDREAM (1974) and HOMECOMING (Showtime, 2005) carry echoes of H.H. Monro's short story "The Monkey's Paw," in which traumatized soldiers, more dead than alive, come marching home from foreign wars--to the horror of the homeland.

The essay mentions Abel Ferrara's surprisingly effective 1993 remake of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, set on a military base. The most chilling moment: when pod person Meg Tilly reminds her still-human stepdaughter that no one cares about the alien takeover because "There's no one like you left."

Paranoid yet? Another remake is due in 2007. INVASION stars Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. The director is Oliver Hirshbiegel, who's best known for making DOWNFALL, the about living and working in the dead heart of the Third Reich in the last days of Nazi Germany. The most chilling moment: when Goebbels refuses to agreea surrender to British and American forces, even though it will mean sparing civilian lives. No, he says, the very young and the very old should be prepared to die in the streets. "It's their own fault. The people gave us the mandate."

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of Saturday Night Live's funniest-ever sketches had Kevin Spacey's impersonating a young Christopher Walken in a long lost screen test for the role of Han Solo in the original STAR WARS. (It went on and on--with ever more inappropriate 70s stars (Jack Lemmon, Woody Allen, Barbra Streisand) soldiering through George Lucas' turgid dialogue.

Andrew Hearst at Panopticist has linked to something almost as funny: Robby Benson's audition for the role of Luke Skywalker--and yes, that is Harrison Ford reading opposite him. Benson, who would go on to teen dream stardom in ICE CASTLES and a slew of TV movies, is...well, let's just say he's way more juvenile than Mark Hamill.

You Tube member Ghyslain is uploading a black and white treasure trove of real auditions for the roles of Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia. There are 90 minutes of screen tests, and not every actor announces him or herself at the start. But so far you should recognize the young Lisa Eilbacher (of AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN) and the very, very young Terri Nunn of the band Berlin.

I don't know who the dark haired, sharp featured actor is at the start of Terri Nunn's tape.

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 08:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over at Sunset Gun, the excellent Kim Morgan rounds up a bestiary of creatures gone wild -- the full complement of WHEN ANIMALS ATTACK flicks that preceded SNAKES ON A PLANE.

From the classy (Hitchock's THE BIRDS) to the traumatic (JAWS) to silly (FROGS), Morgan has seen them all--and she's included wonderfully cheesy posters and stills, too. Can anyone tell me why Joan Collins is smiling while she's being eaten by a giant insect in EMPIRE OF THE ANTS? (Maybe it's the other way around?

One fan points out that she omitted the must-see bunny-rage horror of NIGHT OF THE LEPUS, in which mutant rabbits terrorize a mining town. No amount of low angle and forced perspective shots can disguise the fact that the monsters are just little rabbits.

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 03:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Summertime is Zombie time at Cambridge's Brattle Theatre, where the undead can walk (slowly, of course) to ZOMBIE INFESTATION (July 21-24).

The festivities include the revenant version of the Run for the Roses. the Boston Zombie March, which begins at South Station at 6pm. Scary movies include NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (obviously), with a special appearance by undead daughter Kyra Schon and a midnight SECRET SCREENING that no one will TELL ME THE NAME OF. The weekend concludes with Sunday showings of EVIL DEAD 2.

Here's Kyra's official website -- she didn't make any more movies, but she does have the distinction being the cutest little zombie girl to eat her real life dad in an American Film Institute classic. So there!

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 09:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For those who can't get enough of Jack Black in his Mexican wrestler kit, help is on the way--in Los Angeles, at least.

Discover the movies that inspired NACHO LIBRE: the Mexican horror movies of the 1950s and 60s, when science and religion and (of course) wrestlers grappled with supernatural creatures (Aztec mummies, Vampire babes, angry skeletons and "doll people." (I can't believe where that thing's tongue is licking on the poster for EL BARON DEL TERROR: lurid!)

The Haunted Hacienda has assembled a fabuloso exhibit of vintage movie posters and lobby cards. Who's been collecting all this stuff? It comes from the Del Valle Archives, in collaboration with the Drkrm. Gallery

Check it out before June 24th 2006.

Regular gallery hours are Tues-Saturday 11am-5pm.
For more info call 323-223-6867 or email drkrm@mac.com.

The website is: drkrm.com

All gallery events are free and open to the public.

Continue reading "More NACHO, Please" »

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 10:23 PM | Permalink

Showtime's Masters of Horror began with a shudder -- the truly unsettling adaptation of Joe Lansdale's short story "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road," directed by Don Coscarelli, and "Homecoming," Joe Dante's sombre vision of where the war dead wander.

Series producer Mick Garris has said that the fall 2005 series has been renewed, and the pay cable network promises another set of thirteen one-hour chillers by fall. This summer, the entire series will roll out on DVD - and that will include (come August) s to the episode that Showtime decided was too offensive to show.

Thank you Poland for posting the link to UK's Bravo network, which will air the Takashi Miike episode that Showtime found too gruesome to show. In it, a samurai visits a Japanese brothel and discovers that he should have chosen the lady who wasn't scratching her her head.

Gross!

But how is that more horrible or offensive than these episodes

Title: Deer Woman
Director: Joe Landis
Plot: Something about a Native American spirit who appears in the form of a Maxim cover model and eats idiots. And the problem with this is ... what?

Title: Dreams in the Witch House
Director: Stuart Gordon
Based upon a story by: H.P. Lovecraft
Plot: Twitchy grad student believes that housemate-- and maybe housemate's shrieking baby, too-- are hellspawn. Bye, baby.

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 10:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Silent Hill
Dir. Christopher Gans. 2006. R. 120mins. Radha Mitchell, Sean Bean, Laurie Holden, Alice Krige.

Say this for Silent Hill: the movie looks just like the game it's based on. The same yellow fogs, the same faceless monsters lumbering along dark hallways, the same dead-eyed characters who blunder into peril, searching alone for loved ones. You know those dead video game eyes: that one-percent-less-than-lifelike facial expression displayed by even the most ingeniously rendered video game characters. The kind of eyes you'll get while trying to get through two hours of this movie.

Slow and scare-free, Silent Hill nonetheless has a gloomy beauty—if you like looking at photography books of ruined industrial towns, peeling paint and rusty stairwells. There's not much story here: For reasons never made clear, the heroine, Rose (Radha Mitchell) drives her weird little girl Sharon (Jodelle Ferland) who is adopted, from Ohio to the town of Silent Hill, West Virginia.

Warned off by Rose's estranged husband (he's googled SILENT HILL: the entries all came up HAUNTED) and local police, mother and daughter soon run afoul of Silent Hill's strange powers. It's located atop a coal mine which frequently explodes, and despite a steady precipitation of coal dust and ash, no one ever coughs or wheezes, not even the crazed religious cult that chases Rose as she chases her runaway daughter. Far too late in the story, Rose observes that in Silent Hill, "something terrible happened."

That's the funniest line in an awfully grim film.

One interesting note on it, though:

Screenwriter Roger Avary got the idea for the movie's version of Silent Hill from the coal town turned ghost town Centralia, Pennsylvania. Beneath it, a coal fire has been burning since 1963.

The former town of Centralia has been the subject of magazine stories in Harper's (February 2004) and Esquire (August 1999)

Sony's Silent Hill website has more on the movie, Avary and the town.
Ugo has extensive coverage here.
http://silenthill.ugo.com/features/realsilenthill/default.asp

Sony's SILENT HILL site

http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/silenthill/index.html

They also link to a history of Centralia

http://www.offroaders.com/album/centralia/centralia.htm

Posted by Justine_FilmFatale at 12:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)