Cavalcade of Schlock » Tom

Resident Evil: Afterlife

Tom — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 08:08:14 +0000

Generally, the fourth installment of a horror franchise is one of the stronger entries. Consider A Nightmare on Elm St. 4: The Dream Master (1988), Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984), Bride of Chucky (1998), and Saw IV (2006) to name a few of my favorites. With Resident Evil: Afterlife, writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson adds another to my list.

After a short and stunning opening credit sequence, Afterlife picks up essentially where Resident Evil: Extinction (2007) left off: a million, zillion super-powered Alices (Milla Jovovichs) are pissed and ready to destroy the evil Umbrella Corporation. The Alices take the fight directly to chairman Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts) deep in the heart of Nerv, I mean, Umbrella’s Japanese headquarters. Clad entirely in black and armed with sub-machine guns that never run out of bullets, Alice recreates some of the better action sequences for Peter Chung’s Aeon Flux (1991)for the first twenty minutes. After which the “real” Alice undergoes a tried and true videogame trope and is summarily de-powered.“Alice, you’ve just destroyed the evil corporation responsible for destroying the world and regained your long-lost humanity. What are you doing next?”

I’m not going to lie, if Alice went to Zombie Disney World, this could have been the greatest movie ever. Alas, we will have to settle for some exciting action set pieces as Alice searches for her friends and/or any humans left alive in a disturbingly empty world. Suprisingly, Anderson makes excellent use of 3-D. There are not too many shots designed for the “Oh my God, it’s coming at me!” effect. Primarily, it is used for creating larger depth of field shots that are stunning. Worthy of note are the use of rain in the opening credits, the airplane sequences, and shots of Alice escaping the zombies on the prison rooftop.

Similar to Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), Alice is surrounded by a smaller but much more memorable cast. Ali Larter reprises her role as Claire Redfield is promoted to secondary ass-kicker to Alice. Boris Kodjoe plays Luther West, who shows off some of the best post-NBA action moves since Michael Jordan in ProStars (1991). Kim Coates got a transfer from Silent Hill (2006) to play his trademarked jerk. When it comes to secondary characters, Afterlife follows strict “Red Shirt Protocol,” meaning if you’re the only non-name actor in a scene, watch your ass.

Overall, the Resident Evil film series has leaned more towards the action movie with zombies as opposed to zombie movie with action and Afterlife is no exception. There are explosions, roll-of-quarter shooting, jumping, sword-swinging, axe-throwing, kicking, and probably just a little too much slow motion. But, if you are going to the fourth Resident Evil movie, you are already a fan and on board for a tentacle-faced good time. Right, forgot to mention that. Upgraded zombies. With tentacle faces. On your marks, get set….FANFIC!

Hausu

Tom — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 14:01:40 +0000

Director Nobohiko Obayashi’s horror film/fever dream features 7 teenaged girls visiting the aunt of one in her haunted house in the Japanese countryside. One by one the titular house consumes them all in increasingly bizarre fashion. It should be noted that our “research” informs us that the majority of the plot was developed by Obayashi repeatedly asking his pre-teen daughter “and then what happens?” As the film defies the Cavalcade’s standard methods of review, we armed Tom with a 12 pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon and locked him in a room with the film.

All we found were empty beer cans and this review…

0:00 – 4 beers in, ready to watch Hausu
-totally wrote “bears” at first

1:00 – Well it’s Criterion…this must be a brilliant foreign film
-Oh, Hausu means “House”
-aaaand the title card just ate its own eyeball

2:00 – In Japan, flashbacks are green?
-pictures are red
-oooo, sailor scouts!
-“Fantasy” is her name?

3:00 – Even in Japan, the female gym teachers are gay
-“arranged marriage“ = beard

4:00 – Yeah, she’s envious of their impending summer vacation and not that two teen girls are skipping, hand in hand
-who can defy gravity?
-and have watched too much Laverne and Shirley.
-as the red sun of Krypton quietly sets on Japan

5:00 – Talking’s not a souvenir of a fun vacation
-soooo much random piano music
-”I’m so glad we decided to build our home in front of a matte painting.”

6:00 – Fee fie foe fum, I smell an evil stepmom
-“earlier” when we were talking one minute ago?

7:00 – I love flashbacks in the one set they built

8:00 – She totally just “Wonder Womaned” into a new outfit!

9:00 – Damn right you hate him for moving on with his life after 8 years of mourning your mother’s death and marrying a new hot chick

10:00 – “Gorgeous” is a name?
-“Melody”
-“Kung Fu”
-“Prof”
-“Sweet”
-“Mac”
-Thank God all of their names are descriptive, my racist brain would not have understood their real names.

11:00 – And they all have one identifiable character trait!
-that dude’s driving a dune buggy like a normal car
-I had no idea Japan had a Hazzard Prefecture

12:00 – I want you to be my surrogate mommy, Auntie.
-you don’t mind, right?

13:00 – Mysterious random response letter? Check!

14:00 – Seriously, they could only afford one set for the house, and they built the backyard patio?
-and shot the scenes through the windows…

15:00 – Now them’s some jolly shoemakers…
-Togo’s been transported to a world where Benny Hill controls physics!

16:00 – That bucket is still stuck on his ass. May want to see a doctor about that.
-why is he singing in English?

17:00 – Trains are so much bigger in Japan
-her cat got her own ticket
-and we’ve gone cartoon

18:00 – Why do Japanese girls always drop acid on long train rides?
-Sepia = flashback now…

19:00 – Flappers and Samurai coexisted at the same time
-just like Jesus and Dinosaurs….
-are they watching the flashback, too?
-old school = his plane is going down but he’s so nonchalant

20:00 – And now we’ve gone purple
-I’ve often thought of mushroom clouds like cotton candy
-that cat is totally in on it!
-whatever it is…
-And now, beer #5

21:00 – America = scary is unpaved roads
-Japan = scary is rope bridges over 6 story gorges
-winner? Japan
-doomed-Mouseketeer roll call!

22:00 – Seriously, these girls are wandering into an lsd-fueled nightmare and are completely okay with their impending doom
-RUN! It’s the Watermelon Man!

23:00 – He said it! WE HAVE A TITLE!
-why are his pit stains blood stains?

24:00 – It’s the Addams Family house!

25:00 – Director sure does love his fish-eye lenses
-that cat has telekinesis!

27:00 – Why aren’t they scared of the witch and her witchy powers?
-wtf?
-that chandelier attacked them!
-and no on cares.
-the Japanese are so laid back

29:00 – Can you be a crazy cat lady with only one cat?
-that song’s not getting old at all….

30:00 – It is a big clock….

31:00 – Everyone’s so jolly…..

32:00 – The cupboard shoots rats….
-how could you lose a watermelon in a well?
-she’s going to eat them!

33:00 – Wait, bath? I thought they were cooking?

-why don’t more cooking shows take place in bathrooms?

-nope, cooking

35:00 – That’s not a watermelon! It’s Mac’s head?
-how is she not freaking out?
-Where did the puke come from?
-she’s got no body!

36:00 – These girls are not helping

37:00 – Auntie’s not eating watermelon, she’s eating Mac’s soul!
-and that’s an eyeball in her mouth…that tracks with her own eyes….

38:00 – Goddammit, if the girls want to take a bath together, you let them!
-Soooo single…

41:00 – There’s hair growing out of the water…
-the cicadas ARE noisy

42:00 – Attack of the sentient logs!
-good thing Kung Fu knows Kung Fu
-You’ll see Mac IN HELL!

43:00 – She just went in the refidgerator and is now upstairs….
-OH MY GOD SHE SEES ME!
-she’s dancing with the skeleton
-this is now Troma’s version of Peewee’s Playhouse

44:00 – Alright, halfway through. You can do this, O’Reilly!
-More cat pictures of the one cat that is totally the bad guy. I’m shocked. Shocked I say…

47:00 – There’s a dancing skeleton behind you!
-well, why wouldn’t it be a full moon?

48:00 – I don’t remember growing fangs…..

49:00 -That’s a bleeding mirror
-Girl, your face is falling off!
-and you’re on fire?

50:00 – The piano’s going all Simon on her…

51:00 – My god, she’s being attacked by Futons. FUTONS!

53:00 – The disco jazz music of death!

54:00 – Yes, you will all disappear. Get out of the damn house!
-God in Heaven, the movie’s being invaded by Far From the Madding
Crowd…..

56:00 – Mr. Togo can’t save you now!
-Stop moving intermittently!

57:00 – I’ll call for help….with the oldest phone on the planet…that’s already on hold
… with Hell…shit…
-Her aunt is eating you one by one! That’s why you should be scared!

59:00 – Gorgeous is juggling souls in the Swamp of the Damned
-and here comes the Electric Mayhem to the rescue

60:00 – Not even Kung Fu’s Kung Fu can break down the door?
-wait, you’re going to try to use reason to figure this out?
-That’s madness!

61:00- Why are they not freaked out by finding the body parts of their best friends?

63:00 – And that’s a girl in Kabuki Make-up. They’re officially screwed.
-Hello, Beer #6
-how does no one notice the dancing skeleton?

64:00 – Yes, your fingers are gone.
-the piano is eating Melody!
-and the goldfish watch, nonchalantly unimpressed

65:00 – Wow, that girl is just a mess of parts
-and yet she seems okay with it

66:00 – Goddammit, what is going on?
-That clock is bleeding…green blood
-why am I shocked at this point?

67:00 – The fingers are playing piano by themselves…and keeping the beat fairly well…

68:00- WHO THE FUCK IS THAT GUY?

69:00 – Dammit, Togo, girls are dying! Get your dune-buggy-driving-ass in gear!
-that song will not stop playing

70:00 – That’s a giant head….
-They’re being attacked by The Rocky Horror Picture Show lips!

71:00 – Whelp, everything’s officially gone to hell now…
-Kung Fu’s going to Kung Fu her way out of this!

73:00 – I’m so confused I could cry right now….
-This is what happens with the Japanese remake Suspiria…

74:00 – Kung Fu is being lamped to death while Prof and Fantasy are being sucked into Toontown. What in God’s name are they putting in PBR these days?
-They’re all just a sea of parts now.
-HA! I told you it was the cat!

75:00 – And every piece of furniture is now bleeding… the cat’s blood

77:00 – Bananas! The one weakness of the watermelon vendor!
-And, there goes Prof

78:00 – The nudity is a little late in the game, but any port in a storm of “I don’t even know what anymore.”
-I can see where James Cameron stole the ending of Titanic now

79:00 – So, Gorgeous was her Aunt who was her Cat?

80:00 – How is there always wind blowing on the stepmom?

81:00 – Of course MR. Togo has been transformed into a pile of bananas in the next morning.

82:00 – GODDAMMIT WHAT IS GOING ON?
-Because you’ll be eaten! That’s why you don’t want to move into this house!

83:00 – How is this movie still going?

84:00 – I swear, this has turned into the Japanese version of the “Total Eclipse of the Heart” video

85:00 – She ate them all! That’s where her friends are!
-They’re going to eat you next!

86:00 – Don’t try to justify what you did! You’re a terrible person! I don’t care how awesome you look in slo-mo with the wind machine blowing!

87:00 – Goddamn you, Hausu. Goddamn you to hell!

Resident Evil: Extinction

Tom — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 18:35:52 +0000

When one gets to the third film of what could be a horror/sci-fi trilogy, certain gimmicks have to be introduced. These include but are not limited to: the end of the world (the risk of or the actual), deserts or cute critters of some sort. Not to be outdone, director Russell Mulcahy chocks Resident Evil: Extinction with all three!

The world is good and properly screwed by this third installment and Alice (Milla Jovovich) has taken up Leonard Smalls’ (Randall “Tex” Cobb in Raising Arizona (1987)) mantle as “the lone biker of the apocalypse.” Hiding from the evil Umbrella Corporation for fear of their turning her into a weapon, hiding from her friends for fear that they will be used against her by Umbrella and hiding from the hordes of zombies, because, well, they smell bad, Alice is wandering around directionless. Much like this movie.

It’s difficult to determine whether or not the lack of direction helps or hurts this movie. If it were on purpose, Mulcahy may have been showing through the film the terror and nothingness that awaits us poor survivors of the zombie apocalypse: a life of scrounging for food and praying that there will be a point to any of it. On the other hand, if it were not on purpose, it just goes to show that the filmmakers had no idea what to do with this installment and said “Screw it, put ‘em in the desert and release the crows!” I go back and forth.

Don’t misunderstand, Extinction has a lot going for it, not the least of which is the sexiest pile of corpses I’ve ever seen. (Yeah, I said it. Find a cuter corpse pit and we’ll talk.) Building off the ending of Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), Alice has gone full-Tetsuo (Akira 1988). These powers come in hand when Claire Redfield’s (Ali Larter) convoy of survivors is attacked by a murder of zombie crows. That’s right, zombie crows. In one of the most metal moments in film history, Alice destroys them using her brain and fire.

Also, helping the film are above average zombie make-up and a heaping helping of Day of the Dead (1985) references. After five years, the zombies are looking a little worse for wear and the effects team did a wonderful job of showing that decomposing flesh and the sun do not mix. Meanwhile, Dr. Isaacs (Iain Glen) works in an underground Umbrella facility with the foolish notion of domesticating the zombies into a viable workforce. Care to guess how that goes?

Like most third films, Extinction does not stand well on its own. However, within the series, it is not a bad installment and sets up a great ending that does actually continue into the fourth installment.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse

Tom — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 20:41:54 +0000

In order to make a good horror movie sequel, the filmmakers must abide certain rules and conventions. None of which are more important than the underlying rule: More. And with More comes the equally important: Bigger. Happily, for action/horror junkies like myself, Alexander Witt understood these rules and delivered the wonderfully over-the-top Resident Evil: Apocalypse.

Picking up from before the previous installment left off, Witt shows the audience how the Umbrella Corporation’s T-Virus spread and devastated Raccoon City leading up to Resident Evil’s (2002) climactic cliffhanger. Joining (the finally named onscreen) Alice (Milla Jovovich) are a motley crew of actors that continue the first film’s tradition of English people pretending to be American including Sienna Guillory doing a disturbingly-accurate Jill Valentine impression, Oded Fehr being the man, Thomas Kretschman from the five year period in which he was the ONLY working creepy German in film, and Zach Wardplaying a Russian… Riiiiiight.

Their mission, should they choose to accept it, is to rescue Umbrella scientist, Charles Ashford’s (Jared Harris) daughter from the quarantined Raccoon City, kill as many zombies as possible in the process, evade and/or stop Nemesis, a monosyllabic hulking monster who uses a minigun but only when he’s tired of using his rocket launcher, and, just so things are not too easy, escape an impending nuclear missile strike.

Witt and screenwriter/producer Paul W.S. Andersonlike to pack as much as humanly possible into a sequel. Luckily, they have more money to do so than the first film and they waste not one penny. Right from the beginning, the scale of this sequel dwarfs the first film by focusing on an entire town, using primarily exterior shots to contrast the claustrophobic Hive, and inundates the audience with large action sequences. Within the first eleven minutes, we get car crashes, zombie executions and delightfully ridiculous helicopter stunts.

And all that’s before Alice destroys three Licker monsters in a church with a motorcycle, bullets and sheer badassery. Upping the ante from merely being tough, Alice now officially has superpowers! You see the T-Virus, which at least kills everything and at most turns every human it infects into a hideously deformed creature of superhuman size and strength, simply made Alice hotter, better, faster, and stronger. One could cry foul but this clearly falls under the “ What’s Good for the Goose is not Good for the Main Character” clause of science fiction/horror writing.

Aside from the larger scale of the film, Resident Evil: Apocalypse exceeds as a sequel for its greater sense of fun, for lack of a better word. Resident Evil was a very “serious” movie. Apocalypse on the other hand cannot take itself too seriously if only because at different points Alice runs down a building with no thought to gravity and feels conflicted about destroying a her friend who has now mutated into a horrible creature. It’s silly and Witt embraces this aspect by giving us gallows humor, creepy zombie children eating a grown woman, Grand Theft Auto references, and, because you’ve been good little boys and girls, Zombie Strippers.

Dead Snow

Tom — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 13:02:25 +0000

Young filmmakers have the burden of trying to create something new in the wake of more than 50 years worth of film. One could argue that this is even more difficult when applied to the horror genre as one would think there could only be so many ways to dispatch your cast in interesting ways. However, despite this burden, filmmakers like Norway’s Tommy Wirkola should not overtly list the films inspired his Dod Sno (Dead Snow) (like Friday the 13^th (1980) and Evil Dead (1983))within the first 20 minutes for fear of not living up to the standard. Luckily for the audience, after a rocky start, Wirkola does just that.

Six Norwegian medical students have traveled to a small cabin in mountains near Oksfjord (they don’t have woods in Norway) to relax, drink, play twister and engage in snowmobile-related shenanigans. Everything goes swimmingly until a local camper relates the terrible history of the area during World War II. Apparently, the local people were subjugated by the Nazis (shocking, I know) for three years and at the end of the war mustered the courage to chase the Nazis out of their village and into the mountains where they met an unknown end. Our six students find out what happened to the Nazis the very next day when they are attacked by, you guessed it, Nazi Zombies!

Let’s take a moment and bask in the warm glow of such an incredible horror movie idea: NAZI ZOMBIES! Gentle readers, we must admit certain truths about ourselves as a movie-going audience. We love watching Nazis get brutally destroyed. We love watching zombies get decapitated and dismembered as much if not more than the Nazis. In Dod Sno, Wirkola has given us the horror movie equivalent of Reese’s Peanut Buttercups: Two great tastes that taste great together!

Now, our six Norwegian medical students are essentially interchangeable. They’re similar to the teens we’ve come to know and enjoy in most slasher films. What separates them, however, is that each one is more hardcore than the last. We’re talking “stitch up your own neck bite with no mirror and fishing line” hardcore. Without revealing the manner in which they are dispatched, I will say that the will to win is strong in all of them: if they’re going down, they’re taking as many Nazi Zombies as they can down with them. And there are oh so many Nazi Zombies.

Gore-wise there is more than enough to satisfy. The only problem is getting to it. The first half of the film goes on entirely too long and alternates between being an advertisement for the Norwegian tourism bureau and an Ace of Base video. (Yes, Ace of Base is Swedish but you get my point!) Once the gore begins, it dominates the second half of the film with excellent use of bayonets, snowmobiles, chainsaws, lower intestines, grenades, molotov cocktails, and communism. And just when you think you’ve seen everything, Wirkola escalates the situation.

What’s worse than Nazi Zombies?

SS Zombies…

Resident Evil

Tom — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 00:43:42 +0000

Remember the days before Alien vs. Predator (2004) premiered in theaters? You know, the days when it was not a requirement to hate Paul W.S. Anderson; but rather, a life choice similar in gravity to deciding one’s career, underwear preference and toilet paper roll position. Once again, we here at the Cavalcade of Schlock ask you to journey with us back to simpler times when all we knew from Anderson was the terrifying Event Horizon (1997) and the greatest Enter the Dragon (1973) remake, Mortal Kombat (1996) and take a look at the first installment of the Resident Evil series.

Milla Jovovich stars as the aptly unnamed, amnesiac protagonist, an employee of the evil Umbrella Corporation (Traveler’s Insurance, I’m looking at you!), the world’s leading developer for all things technological, pharmaceutical and Frankensteinian. Jovovich is a security operative stuck dealing with hordes of zombies after a botched theft of Umbrella’s T-Virus and an artificial intelligence-controlled security system kill everyone in Umbrella’s underground lab. Luckily, Jovovich is not alone. Joining her amidst an assortment of cookie-cutter paramilitary types are the always-annoying Michelle Rodriguez and the always under-used Colin Salmon.

Anderson does an excellent job of getting the action started early and maintaining that momentum throughout the course of the film. (Also, starting with a semi-nude Jovovich doesn’t hurt.) However, Anderson is hindered by a low-budget. Get ready for a lot of shots that either look like the interior of every office building in which you have ever worked or else some unidentifiable void. What should be atmospheric and/or a creepy technological installation comes across at best Syfy Saturday fodder and at worst an Uwe Boll film. Compare this with Return of the Living Dead 4: Necropolis (2005) and tell me if there’s much of a difference.

While the action is fairly non-stop, the bulk of the action is based around classics of video game logic: the “go here to get something over there working,” the “find the artifact,” and the old standby “OHMYGOD WHY WON’T YOU DIE?” Adding to the video-game-en-scène are a heavily techno-inspired Marilyn Manson soundtrack, awkward/fixed camera angles, random piano blares, and frequent looks at the “map screen.” While these may seem like detractors, I found these homages enriched the film if only because Anderson did not randomly inject actual screen shots of the game into the film like other German-directed video game films (House of the Dead (2003))

My only real complaint is that 90% of the film is not scary. If you have seen any zombie movie before, you’ve seen all the scares, jumps, and pop outs in this film. [SPOILER] However, the ending sequence from the exit of the Hive to the final shot are truly scary. If only because the sequence pops out of nowhere and tonally feels like nothing else in the film. [END SPOILER] But, if you’re looking for a soild horror/action film, you could do worse than join the skinniest action star for 90 minutes of zombie ass-kicking. That and the end shot is absolute gold.

Chopping Mall

Tom — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 22:25:15 +0000

Gentle readers, it’s time to discuss a sad, sad truth: God hates you. Now, you may try to argue that God gave humans free will, dominion over all we survey, and, most importantly, life. However, you fail to notice that God is trying to kill life on the planet. Consider lightning. Possibly God’s most “metal” creation since, well, metal. Lightning can incinerate the living and bring inanimate things to life like Frankenstein’s Monster, Jason Voorhees (Friday the 13^th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986)), sea monkeys, and robots. And what do these all have in common? They all want to kill humans! Especially the sea monkeys. They’re just biding their time. As we learned in the seminal work on artificial intelligence, Short Circuit (1986), without the calming influence of Ally Sheedy, lightning-infected robots will rampage and destroy all living things. Such is the case with the security droids in Jim Wynorski’s Chopping Mall.

Continuing the 80′s trend of placing the plot of a slasher movie in new and exciting venues, three young, nubile couples hang out in the local mall after hours to have a pastel and big hair orgy in the furniture department. The mall has recently upgraded its security system with the installation of three security robots that resemble the bastard children of the Daleks and Vishnu. Unfortunately for our lovers, lightning has struck the mall and set the robots on a kill-crazy rampage. Locked in the mall, the the couples attempt to destroy the robots and survive until the doors open in the morning.

One of the real treats of the film is the cast. It’s essentially the lost and found of 80′s schlock cinema; featuring Russell Todd from Friday the 13^th Part 2 (1981), Kelli Maroney from Night of the Comet (1984), Dick Miller from Gremlins (1984) and everything else, a blink and you’ll miss it cameo from Rodney Eastman from A Nightmare on Elm St. 3: The Dream Warriors (1987), Mary Woronov from Death Race 2000 (1975), Gerrit Graham from Child’s Play 2 (1990) and one of the greatest scream queens, Barbara Crampton. And where there’s Barbara Crampton, there’s gratuitous nudity!

And what goes better with gratuitous nudity than gratuitous violence? These robots pull no punches as they deliver possibly the best head explosion since Scanners (1981). I give the teens credit as they also take the fight to the robots in an attempt to survive the night.

This movie was nothing but action and cheesy acting. I loved it. While the running time comes in on the shorter side, this movie would pair up nicely with any other slasher of the era and, in particular, I got a distinct Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1998) vibe.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Tom — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 20:27:45 +0000

If you’ve stumbled onto this website by accident and have somehow been unable to pick up on the obvious, we here at the Cavalcade love a bad movie. In fact, we meet every month to just rip a movie apart for four hours. It’s surprisingly cathartic. In 2009, when director Michael Bay unleashed the cinematic equivalent of the baby from Eraserhead (1977) known as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (RotF), we started chomping at the bit for the third installment. The third movie in any Sci-Fi/Fantasy series is always the worst and considering just how awful RotF was, DotM would probably be the worst movie since Ed Wood conned his way onto a film set. So you can imagine our surprise when we report that DotM is actually….good?

Years have past since the events of RotF and the Autobots and Sam (Shia Labeouf) are busy trying to make their way in the world. However, since something has to happen or there is no movie (and even worse, no merchandising rights) the Decepticons start playing their old tricks again, revealing a secret withheld from the Autobots. As it turns out, the entire space race was actually to find a crashed Autobot ship on the moon; as opposed to the betterment of mankind (and the crushing of Communism). This sets off a chain of events that could legitimately end world. I cannot go into further details for fear of revealing spoilers as there is so much plot in this movie.

If you’ve just finished laughing hysterically, I will say it again: there is an actual plot in a Transformers movie directed by Michael Bay. I would not have believed it had I not seen it myself; but I did and I do. Granted, it is a “We have to prevent DOOM!” plot, but it is solid. A leads to B, which in turn leads to C-as opposed to RotF: wherein A lead to B lead to HIDEOUS RACISM and testicle jokes. It is almost as if Bay and the writers watched RotF, made notes as to where they went wrong and did the exact opposite for DotM. This includes keeping the story moving forward at all times, explaining what the hell is going on, presenting the Transformers as actual characters, balancing the action and the talking, and cutting any and all superfluous characters.

This leads into an even scarier admission: I even enjoyed the humans in this film. Whereas in the previous installments everyone was basically a caricature, here they are characters. Sam Witwicky is dealing with trying to get his first job out of college, and speaking as someone looking for work in this economy, I can identify with this character. Bay gives every character on screen something real to do that advances the story, even the previously annoying Wheelie and Brains.

Make no mistake: this is still a Michael Bay film. There are more than enough explosions, boobs, slow motion, low angles, and military advertising for the film to meet Mr. Bay’s demands that “everything be awesome!” However, he also decided to make his most solid picture since The Rock (1996), and for that we reluctantly thank him for making a movie that we will only be able to make fun of half as much as we had hoped.

Wraith, The

Tom — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 12:35:42 +0000

If you are frequenting this website, there is a strong possibility that you have seen The Crow (1994), Brandon Lee’s final picture about one man raining supernatural vengeance upon those that so thoroughly wronged himself and his girlfriend. The Crow takes itself very seriously almost to the point of turning into an emo-filled parade. However, if you’re less of a Hot Topic person and more of a Dick’s Sporting Goods guy, you may want to watch Mike Marvin’s The Wraith, the story of Charlie Sheen raining supernatural vengeance upon those that wronged him…..with car racing.

Packard Walsh (Nick Cassavetes) and his gang of “road pirates” (an actual term used in the film) stalk the highways of Arizona, strong-arming unwilling muscle car drivers into racing for pink slips and then chopping up the cars to sell the parts on the black market. The gang comes across as The New Kids on the Block equivalent of black marketeering. There is the leader (Packard), the preppy one Minty, the nerdy one (Rughead played by the one, the only Clint Howard), the gay one (Oggie), the redneck one (Gutterboy), and the so-addicted-to-drugs-he-snorts-transmission-fluid one (Skank). Their hideout/garage looks like the modern version of The Monkees’ old house adorned with neon and even sporting a pinball machine!

Packard’s frustrated. Sheriff Loomis (Randy Quaid) is giving his gang a hard time just because of all the violence and destruction they cause. The woman he loves (Sherilynn Fenn) will not put out no matter how many people he bludgeons to prove his undying love to her. And now, this kid on a motorcycle (Charlie Sheen) has ridden into town to steal his thunder. What’s a road pirate to do?

What does this have to do with Charlie Sheen wreaking his supernatural vengeance? Well, not a lot which is why the narrative is so confusing. Charlie Sheen is in the film for maybe 15 minutes all told and his scenes involve either him spouting philosophical nonsense that would even make Kwai Chang Caine grimace or taking Sherilynn Fenn’s bathing suit off. For all intents and purposes, Packard is the main character of the story of a ghost coming back from the dead to get revenge on Packard. Now, this would not be a downside if this were an extended episode of Tales from the Crypt. However, in an 80s movie that plays out more like Better Off Dead (1985) with race cars, it gets a little confusing as to for whom the audience is meant to root.

These are all the questions that will bother you if you can make it past the fact the plot is there only to service a 90 minute car commercial. And what fancy cars they are! The titular Wraith drives a one of a kind “Turbo Interceptor,” which comes across as the most interesting character in the film. Which, for the NASCAR crowd, will show that Mike Marvin was not a bad filmmaker, but was actually ahead of his time.

Freddy vs. Jason

Tom — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 15:00:53 +0000

(Transcript from a recent Cavalcade of Schlock editorial meeting:

Micah P: Tom, I’ve read your review for Freddy vs. Jason.

Tom: Yeah, I’m feeling pretty good about it. I think I nailed it.

Micah P.: …

All you wrote was “Greatest Movie Ever.” 500 times.

Tom: I know! Hook me up!

Micah P.:

End Transcript)

And now, a “real article” explaining the glory that is Freddy vs. Jason since Higgins will not let me back in the Cavalcade of Schlock building.

To understand: in August 2003, I was sitting in a packed movie theater on a Friday night. It had been twelve years since Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991) and ten years since Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993). The lights dimmed. The New Line Cinema logo appeared on the screen and the familiar piano theme from A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) filled the speakers followed quickly by Friday the 13^th’s trademark “Ch Ch Ch Ha Ha Ha.” From a crowd of fans that did not care about whether Neo would free the humans or if Middle Earth was going to burn the ground came a wave of applause and cheering erupted and did not stop for the next 97 gore filled minutes!

Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) has been stuck in Hell since the events of the aforementioned Final Nightmare. Krueger hatches a plan to reawaken the now officially unkillable Jason Voorhees (Ken Kirzinger) and have him kill teenagers on Elm Street in order to inspire fear in a new generation and regain his own powers. Jason proceeds to do just that. However, he will not stop killing, going so far as to kill teenagers that Freddy was going to kill himself. And, thus, a battle royale begins between the two horror icons for the privilege of killing the unsuspecting teenagers in the Ohio/New Jersey area.

Director Ronny Yu and writers Damian Shannon and Mark Swift did not have the easiest task putting these two characters together in one film. The production history on the film alone could fill up three articles. While both characters started as straight slashers, Freddy’s films took a different, more effects heavy direction in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors (1987) when director Chuck Russell started to take more advantage of the possibilities in attacking a person in one’s dreams. In addition, the victims in Freddy’s films have traditionally been marginally more intelligent than Jason’s. Elm Street kids tend to pick up on the fact that they are being picked off more quickly even if they do not know how or why. Crystal Lake campers tend to have two disadvantages: inebriation and Jason’s brutal efficiency. Jason usually kills 90% of the film’s victims in a 24 hour period before anyone knows what’s going on. As a result, FvJ plays more like a NoES film with Jason guest starring. However, this is balanced by Jason having the majority of the kills and having those kills be quintessentially Jason.

There is an impressive amount of gore and creativity in this film. Both Freddy and Jason’s style of murder are given equal spotlight. “Crafts-matic Adjustable Death” is a particular favorite. But this is all prologue to the titular fight and what a fight it is. Yu and company do not cheat the audience. We came to see Freddy fight Jason and what a fight we got to see! I have timed it, it lasts a solid half hour. The fight is equal parts WWE and Looney Tunes and never stops being fun.

There is so much Jason and Freddy violence that not even the deplorable acting by our teenage cannon fodder, excuse me, I mean, “victims” cannot even get annoying. But, they do try their damnedest. Jason Ritter, in particular, makes Keanu Reeves look like Laurence Olivier. Overall, this is a silly movie that is equal parts 80s slasher and Abbott and Costello monster film. FvJ is a great send off for two slashers that have given us so much joy.