Only now does it occur to me... BLADE: TRINITY (2004)

Only now does it occur to me... that while BLADE: TRINITY is primarily a vehicle for Ryan Reynolds to improvise proto-DEADPOOL one-liners

as Wesley Snipes offers stone-faced reactions (because he allegedly spent all of his time in his trailer and emerged only to shoot hasty reaction shots with stand-ins who were not spouting unscripted lines like "cock-juggling thundercunt");



and while it is likely the only time we will see Patton Oswalt play a 'Q'-style gadget-master;


and while it is far from the only time we will see James Remar standing around, looking bewildered, and waiting for his paycheck to clear;


and while it affords Natasha Lyonne the opportunity to issue an infodump of expository bullshit while looking stoned out of her mind;


it IS, however, the only time (thus far) you will see Parker Posey as a vampire archaeologist. A vampire archaeologist!




Diggin' up Dracula! I mean, that's objectively incredible.

Damn you, BLADE: TRINITY, for being so mediocre, and yet offering such a vision of what could have been. In this instance, "what could have been" is a movie exclusively starring Parker Posey as a vampire archaeologist. Kinda RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, but she's more afraid of garlic than snakes or whatever.

Later, she dons a white-collar power suit, and struts around like she's the lead in a vampire-themed DEVIL WEARS PRADA.

This, too, is a movie I would champion.

In fact, maybe the problem with most movies is that they don't star Parker Posey as the vampire version of some existing archetype. Imagine any movie you can and then add "Vampire Parker Posey" to the mix. Just try it.

A new version of CITIZEN KANE. Improved by Vampire Parker Posey. She adds a hint of the Gothic and some snobbish wit to the second act. She tells Charles Foster Kane to "Wipe that face off your head, bitch!"

A retelling of 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. The monoliths were placed by Vampire Parker Posey so she could drink the blood of a few astronauts. Done.

SUNSET BOULEVARD. Remake it with Vampire Parker Posey as Vampire Norma Desmond. I would watch the hell out of that. So would you.

Anyway, I'm off to study some vampire archeology. Will wonders never cease?

Film Review: LEMORA: A CHILD'S TALE OF THE SUPERNATURAL (1973, Richard Blackburn)

Stars: 3.5 of 5.

Running Time: 85 minutes.

Notable Cast or Crew: Lesley Taplin (THE ACTIVIST), Cheryl Smith (LASERBLAST, THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN), and Hy Pyke (BLADE RUNNER, DOLEMITE). Directed by Richard Blackburn (who also co-wrote EATING RAOUL and wrote and directed a TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE episode). Cinematography by Robert Caramico (BLACKENSTEIN, FALCON CREST, JUST SHOOT ME).
Tag-line: "Through the doors up the dark stairs behind this window... a possession is taking place! Run, little girl... innocence is in peril tonight!"

Best one-liner: "I am the unkillable. My spirit is the strongest ever."

Longtime readers of this site will know of my interest in what I call "melancholy horror," which I roughly define as a sub-genre of especially artistic horror/thriller/supernatural drama films that offer  genuine scares and genuine sadness in equal measure. They routinely begin and/or end with a tragedy, often of an accidental, non-supernatural variety; and they were made, by and large, between 1970 and 1981, mostly on lower budgets which lend them a 'documentary' feel. Their visuals are impressionistic, hypnotic, and dreamlike, the 1970s film stock often lending sunlight, candlelight, and fall colors a special ethereal prominence. LEMORA: A CHILD'S TALE OF THE SUPERNATURAL fits firmly into this category, a truly American indie that later found a cult audience in France. It's a peculiar hodgepodge of Jesus and Lovecraft, of folk tales and arthouse sensibilities, drenched in scary-weird amateur acting choices and vibrant, expressionistic lighting.

LEMORA is mostly notorious for a lengthy condemnation by the Catholic Legion of Decency, and the re-release poster pictured (at the top of the review) is retroactively trying to cash in on these religious horror aspects by making visual reference to CARRIE. Truthfully, the film has much more in common with melancholy gems like LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH (1971) or VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WONDERS (1970). Technically, this is a PG-rated children's movie, but it's also a perverse psychological miasma of adolescent paranoia and sexual aggression, and the fact that sections of it were filmed on abandoned sets from THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW only adds to the effect.

Welcome to Mayberry!

The plot revolves around the thirteen-year-old Lila Lee, a doe-eyed gangster's child turned evangelical starlet,

 

the "singin' angel daughter of a real life devil,"

who escapes her (possibly pedophilic?) foster Reverend for the Lovecraftian hamlet of Astaroth, where her father may be hiding out. Here, factions of proto-Fulci-esque zombies 

vie for dominance against Edwardian lesbian vampires who look like they just escaped the PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK.

To paraphrase Bush 43, "ladies and gentlemen, this is some weird shit." Essentially, every character that Lila Lee encounters attempts to exploit her to some end (whether by sexual or culinary means)

and the result is a deeply alienating life lesson (ostensibly for child viewers) regarding society's view of adolescent female sexuality. Minus the horror elements, it is a message that easily could have been delivered by Catherine Breillat, Simone de Beauvoir, or Chantal Akerman. LEMORA's inability to commit to a single horror trope (zombies, vampires, witchcraft, hag horror, ghosts, religious horror, haunted houses) feels deliberate, speaking to the universality of the message––almost as if to signal that all female Bildungsromane lead here, from  LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD to THE BELL JAR. 

At the center of all of this is a deeply bizarre performance by Lesley Taplin as the eponymous Lemora, a predatory vampiress who may very well be the most likable character in the film.

In the end, it's an obscure, atmospheric, and generally quiet entry into melancholy horror genre, and like ALICE IN WONDERLAND and many a coming-of-age fairy tale, it is ambiguous enough to inspire a wide range of reactions (I could just as easily analyze LEMORA as a progressive text, or regressive one).

Only now does it occur to me... BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, "HALLOWEEN" (2x06)

Only now does it occur to me... that the second season BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER episode "Halloween" is essentially an hour-long homage to underrated horror classic HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH! 

Malevolent sorcerer and costume shop owner Ethan Rayne (Robin Sachs)

 casts a spell that turns the children of Sunnydale into their Halloween costumes


whereupon children wearing ghoul masks become actual ghouls


and attack kindly old ladies.

This is remarkably similar to Conal Cochran's (Dan O'Herlihy) plan in HALLOWEEN III to turn children into piles of killer snakes and spiders via his Stonehenge-powered mask factory.

In BUFFY, this also means that Xander (Nicholas Brendon) becomes a soldier,

Willow (Alyson Hannigan) becomes a ghost,

and Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) becomes a helpless duchess from the 1700s.

This is all pretty absurd, but no more absurd than the glory that is HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH.  Happy Halloween, everybody!

2015 HALLOWEEN COUNTDOWN

1.  SCANNERS (1981, David Cronenberg)

2.  MICHAEL IRONSIDE: MENTAL SABOTEUR (2014, Karen Stetler)

3.  NOMADS (1986, John McTiernan)

4.  THE STUFF (1985, Larry Cohen)

5.  THE BEACH (2000, Danny Boyle)

6.  CHILD'S PLAY 2 (1990, John Lafia)

7.  NIGHT OF THE DEMONS (1988, Kevin S. Tenney)
8. VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (1995, John Carpenter)

9. BLACK ROSES (1988, John Fasano)

10. ...

Only now does it occur to me... FROM DUSK TILL DAWN 3: THE HANGMAN'S DAUGHTER

Only now does it occur to me... that FROM DUSK TILL DAWN 3: THE HANGMAN'S DAUGHTER is the finest Ambrose Bierce fan fiction ever made.

The second straight-to-video sequel to Tarantino and Rodriguez's hardboiled vampire flick FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, THE HANGMAN'S DAUGHTER is a period piece, set in in 1913.  Essentially, it follows the structure of the original: a Western/crime drama which makes a sudden turn into horror territory around the one hour mark.

FROM DUSK TILL DAWN 2: TEXAS BLOOD MONEY was not without its high points, but part three outdoes it on nearly every count––primarily, in concept. 

Ambrose Bierce (THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY, AN OCCURRENCE AT OWL CREEK BRIDGE, THE DAMNED THING) was one of America's finest satirists, a witty, wayward, and delightfully bitter man whose attitude was somewhere between Jonathan Swift's and Robert Mitchum's.  "Nothing matters" was his motto, and, at seventy-one, rather than suffer the sins of geriatric boredom, traveled south into Mexico with the intention of joining the Revolution.  He was never seen again... 

"...Or was he?"  So supposes FROM DUSK TILL DAWN 3: THE HANGMAN'S DAUGHTER, which delivers the masterstroke of casting the inimitable Michael Parks (DEATH WISH 5, TWIN PEAKS, THE HITMAN, KILL BILL) as Mr. Bierce.


Parks delivers an understated performance that strives for poetry; he imbues the film with a haunting sense of élan vital.  And yes, I'm still talking about a straight-to-video vampire flick.  Remember, this is the actor who can make "waiting around and drinking coffee in a car" rife with pathos (in THE HITMAN).

Written by Robert Rodriguez's cousin Álvaro (and based on a story by the two cousins), THE HANGMAN'S DAUGHTER places a drunken and detached Bierce amid a sea of outlaws, missionaries, lawmen, revolutionaries, and Aztec vampires, where he can quote one-liners from THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY and generally not care a damn.

This is about as brilliant as having Oscar Wilde become Paladin's sidekick in a particularly memorable episode of HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL.

Director P.J. Pesce, long imprisoned by television and straight-to-DVD sequels (THE LOST BOYS: THE TRIBE, SMOKIN' ACES 2: ASSASSIN'S BALL, SNIPER 3) brings a genuine style to the proceedings; you see the talent and joie de vivre of a young director excited to be playing with the medium––this is not a man phoning it in, and boy, that makes a difference.

True to the Tarantino/Rodriguez oeuvre, it's packed with loving homages to everything from THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY to FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE to TAXI DRIVER, and composer Nathan Barr even turns in a borderline brilliant score, heavily inspired by Ennio Morricone by-way-of John Zorn.

Also of note: Danny Trejo is still tendin' bar eighty years prior (he has about three minutes of screentime),

Though he says, "We don't need no stinking brushes!" in perhaps the saddest nod to THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE ever made.

Sonia Braga (KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN) has a blast as the Elvira-ish innkeeper/madame (and mother of Salma Hayek's character from the first film),

and Temuera Morrison (ONCE WERE WARRIORS, Boba Fett's dad in the STAR WARS prequels), is the titular "Hangman" and he gives it his all in a sort of an "evil Yul Brynner" performance.

More "bizarro MAGNIFICENT SEVEN" than WESTWORLD.

Sure, there's plenty of bad CGI, and I would never call it a masterpiece, but the act of shoehorning a literary figure into a bargain bin horror flick and then hiring an actor capable of embodying said figure is something of an artistic coup, and it's why FROM DUSK TILL DAWN 3 ought to outlive its intended shelf-life.
 
Here's to you, Mr. Bierce... and Mr. Parks.

PS: And if you check it out, stay tuned after the end credits for a mildly amusing, meta scene involving the singular Mr. Parks.

Only now does it occur to me... VAMPIRE IN BROOKLYN

Only now does it occur to me... that Eddie Murphy was such a student of Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Look no further than this bit from the agonizing, Wes Craven-helmed, Eddie Murphy produced-written-starred vanity piece VAMPIRE IN BROOKLYN.  In 1995, vampire-mulleted Eddie Murphy's just hangin' out with his lady friend (Angela Bassett) at a bar when a venomous snake crashes the party.

He uses a mystical technique to hypnotize and snatch the snake from the bar,

thus winning the day.

Way back in 1993, when Jean-Claude wore the same mullet in John Woo's HARD TARGET, he was enjoying some lady time in the bayou (with Yancy Butler) when a snake similarly crashed the party.

Without even ruffling his mullet, he grabbed said snake

 and employed a mystical technique to thwomp it into unconsciousness,

thus winning the day.

The big takeaway here is that Murphy has learned a lot from Mr. JCVD––and clearly the lessons have extended from entry-level stuff like fashion and grooming  into 300 and 400 level courses, like "How To Immobilize Snakes Mid-Romantic Rendezvous."  Eddie Murphy––he's just like the rest of us, eagerly awaiting the latest offerings of Professor Van Damme.

Film Review: DRACULA 3D (2012, Dario Argento)

Stars: 1 of 5.

Running Time: 110 minutes.

Tag-line: "ARGENTO'S 3-D"

Notable Cast or Crew: Asia Argento (TRAUMA, SCARLET DIVA, THE LAST MISTRESS), Rutger Hauer (THE HITCHER, BLADE RUNNER), Thomas Kretschmann (DOWNFALL, KING KONG '05), Unax Ugalde (GOYA'S GHOSTS).  Written by Argento, Enrique Cerezo (PHANTOMS, WITCHING AND BITCHING), Stefano Piani, and Antonio Tentori (Fulci's A CAT IN THE BRAIN).  Music by Claudio Simonetti (of Goblin fame).

Best One-liner:  "RAHHHHHHH!"

What to say?  What can one say?  I love you, Dario.  You used to be an artist, man.  An artist, for Chrissakes!  I love you, but you made a bad movie.  Worse-than-THE CARD PLAYER bad.  Worse-than-GIALLO bad.  Worse than bottommost barrel of bottom-of-the-barrel Fulci.  It can't even hold a candle to VAMPIRES: LOS MUERTOS.  I hesitate to even call this thing a movie.  It's more like an inferior Ren Faire filmed for the Hallmark Channel, but with a few reels switched out from a softcore sex movie, and a few others replaced by the gory bits from early first-person-shooters like DOOM or WOLFENSTEIN 3D.  Don't believe me?  See for yourself.  SEE FOR YOURSELF!!!

The corridors of Wolfenstein 3D...


...give way to Hallmark softcore?!


...And in some cases every terrible aspect converges, as seen in this freeze frame where a primitive CGI depiction of a nude woman is flung across the room by the invisible, Force-like rage of Dracula.

Good Lord, how did it come to this?  The lighting in SUSPIRIA is a work of art unto to itself; conversely, not only is this lit like a cheap TV movie, it's absolutely the brightest horror film I've ever seen.  Even the nighttime scenes are harshly illumed by crude floodlights.

I scoured the entire, nearly two-hour runtime of this film, and this is the most artistic screen capture I could find.  Whereas, if you freeze any random frame of DEEP RED or SUSPIRIA, you'll find a work of art worthy of hanging in a gallery.

If the internet is to be believed, this had a budget of nearly $8 million U.S.– how is that possible?  Was it a tax cheat of some kind?  A scenario like THE PRODUCERS?  SPRINGTIME FOR DRACULA?

Poor Asia Argento shows up out of a sense of family obligation in the way that some folks are guilted home for the holidays.

(And if that dress didn't come from a Ren Faire, I'll eat my goddamn shoe!)

Except at your last family get-together, your Dad probably didn't write a gratuitous nude bathing scene for you:

It's kind of troubling that, just off the top of my head, I can think of three gratuitous nude bathing scenes in which Asia has appeared in her father's films (MOTHER OF TEARS, TRAUMA, and DRACULA 3D). Yikes!

Regardless, like at any awkward family function, Asia puts on a brave face:

Whew.  She is a real trouper and she deserves better.  That is all.

Dracula himself (Thomas Kretschmann) is awfully disappointing.

If the pun hadn't already been beaten into the dust, I would daresay that their Dracula "sucks."  I could say, he "makes my blood boil."  I might even say he "pounds the last nail into the coffin" that is this movie.  But I won't.
Instead, I'll say he sorta looks like a low-rent Daniel Craig and says things like "RAHHH" all the time.

Sometimes he says "AAAAAAAAH!"

With production value that reminds me of THE ROOM, I have to say this was a major missed opportunity: I think that Tommy Wiseau, with his ambiguous Euro accent and long dark tresses, would have made for a much better Dracula.

And their Harker (Unax Ugalde), don't get me started on their Harker– he makes Keanu Reeves in Coppola's DRACULA '92 look like a pro.  I repeat, their Harker makes Keanu look like a pro.

Rutger Hauer, as Van Helsing, limps in well past the hour-long mark to slay a few vamps.

He knows the score.  He probably didn't, back when he signed the contracts, but by the time he arrived on set and beheld its full indignity, he knew what to do.  "What to do" in this instance being to shamefully phone in his performance.  I don't, I won't, and I can't begrudge him that.

Eventually, he must contemplate the resilience of his 401K while observing Asia Argento wrapped in blobs of CGI fire.


Sure, we can pretend that it didn't happen, but we'd still know in our hearts that it did.

Hell, by the end it looks like this thing gave him PTSD, and this is a guy who survived the Hallmark version of THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE.

There, there.  It'll be okay, Rutger. 

But forget Rutger and Asia– it's the CGI that's the true star of this movie.  The true art of this movie, I should say.  Look at this incredible werewolf transformation.  I'd venture to say you've seen nothing quite like it this side of a Nintendo 64 cutscene:

"The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection."  –Michelangelo

"This world is but a canvas to our imagination."  –Henry David Thoreau



"Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable."  –George Bernard Shaw

"Art is the right hand of Nature.  The latter has only given us being, the former has made us men."  –Frederick Schiller

"Rules and models destroy genius and art."  –William Hazlitt

And what's this?  That ain't NOSFERATU's shadow creeping up the stairs:

What form of Dracula could that be...?  It couldn't possibly be a praying mantis, could it?  Because that would be ridiculous.

"The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance."  –Aristotle

Immediately after that bit with the mantis there, Dracula absconds with Mina, who has just witnessed the madness.  She wonders aloud, "What did I see?"

Dracula replies, "Nothing."  Ah, if only!

And it all ends in a classic fake-out, with the defeated Dracula's ashes rishing into a smoky CGI wolf's head that roars IN OUR FACE.

"The purpose of art is to wash the dust of daily life off of our souls."  –Pablo Picasso

One star.  For old time's sake, Dario.  For the love of the art.

–Sean Gill

2014 HALLOWEEN COUNTDOWN

1.  FROM DUSK TILL DAWN 2: TEXAS BLOOD MONEY (1999, Scott Spiegel)

2.  MARK OF THE VAMPIRE (1935, Tod Browning)

3.  FULL MOON HIGH (1981, Larry Cohen)

4.  EIGHT-LEGGED FREAKS (2002, Ellory Elkayem)

5.  MASTERS OF HORROR: WE ALL SCREAM FOR ICE CREAM (2007, Tom Holland)

6.  STEPHEN KING ON SONS OF ANARCHY (2010, Bill Gierhart)

7.  THE INITIATION (1984, Larry Stewart)

8.  MUTANTS (2008, Amir Valinia)

9.  JAWS 2 (1978, Jeannot Szwarc)

10.  THE PREMATURE BURIAL (1962, Roger Corman)

11. ...