Category Archives: Film

Come Back to Me (2014)

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comebacktome02Reno Nevada 2002 — Dale is listening to his mother and boyfriend have the biggest little fight in the world.

He stays out of it as long as he can, stroking his pet bunny, then goes to their bedroom where his bloody mother begs for help.  It is a pretty big leap that the next thing we see are cops rolling up to the front of the house.  Did the boyfriend just let him call?  Did a neighbor call them? Whatever, the cops managed to let the boyfriend escape despite having guns drawn on him, and another one vomits up his donuts after seeing the bloody woman.

Las Vegas 2014 — Dale moves into the sunny neighborhood of Josh and Sarah who bring him a plate of cookies as a welcome gift.  Dale gives Sarah a thousand well-manicured yard stare before saying that she reminds him of someone.  Josh is a croupier on the strip and Sarah is working on her dissertation on internet pornography.  Wait — I can get a degree for this?  Dale was wise to have moved to Las Vegas where apparently a grocery store bagboy can afford a $300,000 house.

Sarah begins experiencing night terrors, blackouts, sudden vomiting.  Also, a scar she received in a bad car accident 3 months ago has faded completely.

After weird neighbor Dale asks where she has been for the past week week during a vacation with her husband, she decides to check out his house which is conveniently unlocked.  Another night terror.

She goes to the doctor and finds that she is pregnant.  She goes to tell her husband who is pretty surprised as he thought he was shooting blanks.

She continues with the night terrors, frequently finding blood on her hands and clothing. Finally she wises up and installs a security cam.  She invites Leslie, her doctor / friend over to stay with her since Josh has understandably bailed.  We get a Paranormal Activity view of them sleeping in the same bed.  Sadly watching all that internet porn has not given her any ideas.

Leslie is awakened by her dog barking, leading to some chilling scenes which turn out to be more night terrors.  But this time both Leslie and Sarah wake up from it.  It scares Leslie into labor.  Being the queen of diversity, she knows the father was either Korean or Black, but she somehow gives birth to a white baby.

Sarah wakes up from more night terrors and checks the security cam to find out the nightmares are real.  Dale had come into her room and raped her,and cut her throat, and  placed her back in bed where she “woke up.”

She does a little research and and finds out about how Dale had mysteriously brought his mother back to life many years ago after the police said there was no way she could be alive.  She is now in an institution.  Leslie realizes that her baby was fathered not by her croupier husband but by the creepier Dale.

Sarah goes to the institution.  we only see his mother from the side. His mother knows that he murders women and brings them back to life.

As a kid he killed rabbits, girls, his mother couldn’t live with creating a monster, so killed herself but he brought her back.  Finally, she set herself on fire so she would be institutionalized aware from her son.

Then ending is really something special.  The movie itself os fine, but the ending is shocking and original.

Post-Post:

  • It bugged me that Josh said he was a croupier, rhyming with soupier.  But that seems to be the preferred pronunciation.
  • Favorite Quote:  “I’d hold your hair back but I’m a sympathetic vomiter.”

Crawl or Die (2014)

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crawlordie00OK, I have no problem with shaky-cams, but combine them with strobing light and quick-cut editing, and this film is in a deep hole even before it goes into a deep hole.

A group of soldiers seems to be in a firefight trying to rescue some civilians on white jumpsuits.  They discover a hatch in the forest and send a woman down to investigate.  It seems to be their only option, so they all go down and seal the hatch behind them.

Oh great, the movie is a flashback.

A military commander is showing his troops a picture of the last fertile, virus-free woman in the wold.  The troops are to snag this woman, board The Oklahoma and take a month month journey to Earth-2.

OK, not a flashback movie, we’re back to the future.

They find the underground chamber leads to a series of hatches and tunnels.  They’re going to have to do a titular CRAWL (which is helpfully splashed on the screen).  They enter a long circular tunnel about three feet in diameter.  They whole time we hear the grunts of the reptilian creatures which are pursuing them.  So creatures and a virus — OK, I’m down with that.

crawlordie55As they debate taking a break so The Package (their code name for fertile Myrtle) can get some doctor prescribed sleep, one of the soldiers is pulled into a side tunnel by an alien.  And I mean, pulled the hard way, bending him backwards at the waist.  As the alien chows down on him, the others manage to get away.  I wasn’t under the impression that the aliens weren’t after them as a food source, but we’re not given much to go on.

As they reach another resting point, the leader Tank strips off her pants and gives them to the doctor to make bandages.  Having already dispensed with her jacket, she is now down to a sports bra and spandex panties.  She climbs 30 feet down another tubular tunnel and places lights every few feet so she will have a clear, lighted, unobstructed shot at the alien as it comes down the tunnel.  Unless, you know, she falls asleep.

Which she does.  She wakes up at the last possible second and begins blasting the creature.  Not sure if it is only mostly dead, she leaves Doc to keep at eye on it.  Big mistake.  We get our first good look at the alien and it is pretty similar to . . . er, an alien — the H.R. Giger kind, with the long head and maybe even a smaller set of choppers in its mouth.

crawlordie18So now we are down to Tank and The Package with half the movie left to go.  After coming to the end of the tunnel, they have no option but to climb through an even small hole which seems to have been burrowed through the earth.  This one is maybe two feet in diameter.  I must admit, this did get me squirming.  Every time you think she might have reached the surface or a chamber, its just more tiny tunnel with no way to back up.

Improbably, one of the aliens has squeezed his giant noggin into the hole and is right behind them.  And speaking of behinds, this movie has the most extraordinary number of butt-shots in history.  Not that that’s a bad thing — Tank has clearly been spending time at the gym.  Sadly, the alien catches up to The Package and kills her.

Tank cuts the rope and continues down the hole.  She makes it through the earthen tunnel to another piece of tube.  This one is so small, she can barely manage the leverage to wriggle through.  And yet that alien is still chasing her with that giant melon.

crawlordie54After dropping through a slot to another lower level, she finds the ony way out is a horizontal slit which is just comical at this point.  A C cup wouldn’t have made it.  The only way things could get worse is if the tunnel was full of dirt.  So it is, and she has to start digging her way through.

With 5 minutes to go, there were a few directions this could go.  The ending was a little bit of a cheat, but after the intensity of the past hour, I was fine with it.

Complete lack of characterization: I was fine with it.  After a few minutes I even had to turn on Closed Captions to see what anyone’s name was.

Lighting: This was a mess from the first jittery scenes all the way through the tunnels. Maybe it worked using the the flashlights to light the scene rather than real camera equipment. No problem.

Sound: I loved the relentless clawing, roaring, chomping and scraping in the background as a constant reminder of Tank’s predicament.

The only real disappointment is in the dialogue, of which there is thankfully very little — especially in the last scene which is stunningly lame.

Also, maybe I’m an old-fashioned guy, but I don’t want my heroine to be named Tank. Who would have bought Tank: Tomb Raider?  Although maybe it would have helped the dreadful movies.  A last name only like Ripley, I’m OK with.

Having a female protagonist named Tank is like having a cat name Frank — it just ain’t something I want to cuddle with.

I never expected to see a film more claustrophobic than Buried, but this is it.

crawlordie50

This is just about the only decent shot we get of Tank.

 

 

Swerve (2011)

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swerve01Aussie #1 delivers a briefcase of money to Aussie #2.  The Aussies trade briefcases, cocaine for money.   When #1 realizes the drugs are fake, he spins the car around and heads for #2.  Had be bothered to lift a single bag, he would have seen the bomb hidden under the drugs and been able to chuck it out of the convertible.  However, he does not and dies in a huge explosion which not only destroys the car but completely stops its forward inertia — gee, almost like they blew up a stationary car.  But it is very well done and the movie is off to a great start.

A beautiful blonde tears out in her car and sees a man (Aussie #3) with car trouble on the side of the road.  She blows by him kicking up sand and grit into his face.  As beautiful women do.

Aussie #2, swerving to the wrong side of the road tries to avoid the oncoming Blondie and runs off the road executing a few rolls .  Aussie #3 — whose car is running again, I guess — stops to check on Blondie and Aussie #2.  For crying out loud, I hope these people get names soon.

Aussie #3 finds Aussie #2 is dead and has with him a briefcase full of money; fortunately for Aussie #3, not American dollars.

swerve09Aussie #3 alerts the police and foolishly hands over the cash.  The sheriff offers Aussie #3 a room at his house, drives him there, and his wife is the blonde.  I can tell at IMDb that she is Jina.  She calls her husband — the sheriff — Frank, so Aussie #2 must be Colin.

A Nazi-ish looking guy shows up on the scene and the bodies start stacking up as he looks for the missing cash.  Naturally, being a noir-ish story, there are twists, the cash moves around, backs are stabbed, people left for dead come back to life, and through it all there is a local battle of the marching bands that periodically takes over the streets in the small town.

swerve21It’s no Red Rock West, but it’s pretty good.

swerve13Post-Post:

  • Sheriff Frank was the lead human in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.
  • OK, it’s the name of the town, but worst hotel name ever:  Neverest Hotel.

 

Static (2012)

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static08This is a strange case where I actually enjoyed the film overall, but can’t figure out why, and would never recommend it to anyone.

Jonathan Dade (Milo Ventimiglia) is just finishing up his latest book (writing, not reading).  He celebrates with a walk in the woods to see the grave-marker of his 3 year old son Thomas who recently drowned.   Afterward, the festivities continue over a mostly silent dinner with his wife Addie (Sarah Shahi).

The might be the most low-key movie I’ve ever seen.  After every take, the director must have said, “That’s was great, now let’s take it down a notch.”  After a Kubrickian 700 takes, we would reach the sullenness of this movie.  But somehow it worked for me.

That night, as they are in bed, there is a knocking at the door.  Rachel (Sara Paxton) says she had car trouble and was chased by men wearing gas masks.  They invite her in.  While Jonathan inexplicably goes out to look for the men in gas masks, the gals have a chance to talk.

When they regroup at the house, we finally get a spark of life as Rachel is abducted by one of the masked men.  Luckily, Jonathan has a gun.  In a safe.  In his office.  Which is in another building in the compound.  He apparently is a pretty successful writer though the movie makes nothing of this.

static11As with all home invasion movies, there is a great sense of creepiness and violation as the strangers enter.  Much of the movie is cat and mouse as the couple variously flees and attacks the men.  An oddity that is explained later is that the men, while menacing, never seem to take the opportunity to hurt the couple when they have a chance.

These guys make Michael Myers look like a sprinter.  Several times all that stands between them and the homeowners is a rickety front door, or a louvered interior doot that your finer serial killers would cut through like butter.  The masked men seem content to just scare the bejeebus out of them.

I appreciated that all of this made sense eventually, and also that it was something different than the standard slasher film.

The actors were fine.  Certainly Sarah Paxton was better her than in Cheap Thrills.  The denouement was good.  The costumes were intriguing.  But it was just so leaden — the colors, the voices, the mood.  The positives carried it for me, but I couldn’t suggest anyone else sit through it.

static16Post-Post:

  • A commentor at IMDb noted that both Ventimiglia and Shahi have played roles as Sylvester Stallone’s kids
  • In looking for this film on IMDb, I see The Ring was originally called Static.  How could that be since it was based on Japanese film called Ringu, not Staticu.

Phase IV (1974)

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phaseiv01Phase I — An event in space prompts predictions of doom.  The effect is most profound on the insects.  Dr. Hubbs, a biologist, notices that ants of different species are meeting, communicating, cooperating, making decisions, which is unheard of.

Then we get a couple of minutes of nothing but ants crawling around.  And ya know what — it’s pretty good. Different species, drones, queens, babies, all coming together like a subterranean Diversity Fair.

Dr. Hubbs also notices the disappearance of natural ant predators such as the mantises, millipedes, beetles and spiders.  We understand why when we witness a take-down of a spider by a swarm of ants.  Obviously, Hubbs predicts a huge increase in the number of ants.  He proposes a government program to study the problem.  For once, I agree.

Hubbs recruits another scientist — James Lesko — to examine an area in Arizona where strange monoliths have arisen.  Then they go to a grassy field where sheep have been killed by insects. They talk to the last farmer in the area who is creating a gasoline moat which he will set on fire if the ants get too close.

phaseiv06Phase II — A facility has been constructed.  After a couple of weeks of no activity from the ants, Hubbs blows up a few monoliths.  This gets the ants moving and they attack the farmer’s horse and then the house.  The farmer lights his gas moat, shoots the horse, then they flee the farm, ending up at the facility.  Sadly, they are killed by a deluge of yellow insecticide the scientists disburse after the ants disrupt their power.  Except for the daughter Kendra who managed to find shelter through a cellar door — to the cellar of this pre-fab metal shack in the desert, I guess.  The ants also manage to blow up the scientist’s truck.

phaseiv09The next day, after the ants adapt to the yellow poison, they build some sort of reflective surface to reflect the sun’s rays at the facility to raise the temperature.  Lesko tries to call for help, but ants in the radio have shorted it out.

Hubbs turns up the air conditioner, and Lesko creates a high-pitched noise which crumbles the mounts.  Unfortunately, the ants are way ahead of them and chew through the wiring in the air conditioning unit.

Phase III — On a monitor, they see a mouse get swarmed by ants and stripped to the bone.  They begin searching for the queen.  For some reason, Kendra goes outside with no shoes and is bitten.  Then Hubbs goes out with no shoes to kill the queen, but falls into a pit and is swarmed by the ants.  That leaves Lesko to go smoke out the queen.

phaseiv11He goes out to a giant anthill and throws in a canister.  He then slides down into the hole himself, sliding down to the bottom.  Strangely, the bottom of the anthill has a perfectly square entrance into another chamber.  There he sees Kendra rise from the dirt, alive but changed by the ants in ways we do not know.

phaseiv12This is a slowly paced film, but never boring.  There are interesting ideas and a lot of fascinating shots of ants going about their ant business.  I give it 3.5 out of 4 phases.

There is a lost ending posted on YouTube which adds a psychedelic coda to the film.  It combines the the incoherence of the 2001 light show with the dream-like imagery of Spellbound (not the one about the spelling bee).

Post-Post:

  • Ironically this was the only movie directed by Saul Bass, who made his name creating distinctive movie credits — and it has no opening credits.
  • There is bit-part royalty in this film:  The farmer is played by Alan Gifford who was Gary Lockwood’s father in 2001.  His wife is played by Helen Horton who was the voice of Mother in Alien.
  • There was an unrelated movie titled Phase IV released in 2002.  Really, out of all the Phases, you had to pick IV?
  • “If ants weighed 40 lbs, we’d all be in chains” — Ron Bennington
  • MST3K offered insect repellent advice during their episode of this film: “When you’re out in the woods, you can’t beat Off.”