Movie Scum

In Scream 2, film geek Randy and his friends discuss the baffling properties of sucktacular sequels and how they all but destroyed the horror genre. It’s funny that such a statement is made in one of those very films (in my opinion at least), but even though sequels in general are easy to dismiss, especially ones that are written, produced, and released in less than a year, Saw II is one of those follow-ups that can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with its big brother and in some cases tower over it. It goes without saying that if you did not like the original film, you will not find much of interest here but Saw II is made in the framework of good sequels that build upon the first’s successes without being an outright carbon copy. Instead of just two random guys shackled in a filthy bathroom, one of the stories here is of eight random people trapped in a house full of dangerous cons, deadly traps, and even more deadly nerve gas. One of these eight is the son of the crooked Detective M

Written by: Digger For every Alfred Hitchcock, there is an Ed Wood. There are many talented directors working in the film industry today, but there are just as many infamously terrible directors churning out worthless trash on a regular basis. Uwe Boll, arguably the worst of the worst, has garnered a legion of haters since his earliest days in film making, and for many good reasons. “Doctor” Boll has no idea how tell a story visually, how to get good performances from actors, how to compose an interesting shot, or how to make a movie enjoyable in any way. After the cinematic train wreck that was House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, his second film to be released in American theaters, cemented the popular opinion of Boll as the king of schlock. The film opens with what is possibly the longest text crawl in movie history that flat out tells the audience this complicated back story about an ancient civilization and a dark world that they accidentally opened up and then some secret go

Six years later, it is quite remarkable that a movie like Saw could lead to one of the most prolific horror franchises of modern times. What started out in humble beginnings with a script hammered out by beginners, sold through a short excerpt of the feature, and a budget the size of most summer film’s catering department, Saw was able to make horror films distinct again even if that would lead to the danger of what some call “torture porn.” In anticipation of the latest and allegedly final installment opening this week, I decided to go back and revisit the Saw series as some of these films I have seen only once and in some cases many years ago. If anything can be said about the series (again, going from my hazy recollection), the basic premise of each of the films is similar but the plots have been totally different. At the opening here, we meet Adam and Dr. Gordon who are chained by the leg in a dingy, industrial bathroom with only a fleeting idea of how they got there and an o

Written by: Digger On the third of November, 1954, unsuspecting Japanese audiences were introduced to a character that would become the most recognizable movie monster of all time. Gojira (Godzilla to Americans) stomped his way into the popular consciousness throughout the next five decades. Godzilla has starred in a total of twenty-eight films (not including the crappy Roland Emmerich version) the latest of which is possibly the craziest of all. Godzilla: Final Wars was released on Godzilla’s 50th anniversary and, as the title implies, was meant to cap-off the latest series of Toho’s Godzilla films. We start off seeing a military unit from the Earth Defense Force that is engaging Godzilla at the South Pole. The strategic importance of defending the South Pole is up for debate, but a war ship named Gotengo launches a volley of missiles to bury Godzilla in an avalanche. Then a narration describes a brief history of Earth, stating that near constant warfare and pollution has released

Written by: Digger I’m going to diversify things up a little here today and throw a lady monster in the mix. Darkness Falls is the story of a young boy Kyle who is terrorized by, of all things, the Tooth Fairy. This isn’t your grandma’s Tooth Fairy I’m talking about either, or the Tooth Fairy from that other horror movie The Tooth Fairy that came out in 2006. The undead creature haunting this picture is Matilda Dixon, and she wins the award for most complicated back story of any monster, ever. Matilda’s legend begins when she was a kindly old spinster woman in the town of Darkness Falls (sounds like a cheerful place) where she was loved by all the children for paying them money for there baby teeth that had fallen out. What she did with those teeth is anyone’s guess, but she was eventually caught in a house fire and her face was burned so badly that she hid her face behind a porcelain mask. On top of all that, she was blamed for the disappearance of two children and hanged by the t

Written by: Digger Several legends of the common monster stable originated in European folklore, so it is oddly fitting when the creatures that American film industry have made popular become the focal point of a European production. Such is the case with Neil Marshall’s horror film Dog Soldiers, which has no shortage of -Spoiler Warning- werewolves. The film starts off with a young couple out for a romantic camping trip far from civilization, which in horror movie terms is pretty much a huge neon sign reading “Please attack us.” Sure enough, a big wolf hand reaches into the tent and makes short work of the two. Not too far away in the woods, a man is trying to escape from pursuers, but is eventually taken down. The man is Private Cooper (Kevin McKidd) and this was an exercise to test his resourcefulness for the British special forces. Captain Ryan (Liam Cunningham) is considering letting him join his team, but denies him entry, and beats the tar out of him, when Cooper refuses a d

Written by: Digger In most movies that involve a monster of some sort, you usually get a story that revolves around one type of creature or ghost or alien. Rarely, a monster movie will have two or three different varieties of creature, but in the science-fiction comedy Evolution, you get an entire ecosystem’s worth of imaginative creatures. Ivan Reitman, most well known for directing Ghostbusters, took a serious and straight-forward script about an unusual alien invasion and turned it into a humorous outing in his own style. It begins with a meteor from the unknown reaches of deep space crashing to earth in the Arizona right on top of Wayne’s (Seann William Scott’s) car, turning it into a smoking hole in the ground. Ira Kane (David Duchovny) a professor at the local community college finds out about the meteor impact and suggests to his friend and geology professor Harry Block (Orlando Jones) that they check it out. Ira takes a sample from the meteor and discovers it contains nitro

Written by: Digger In 1922, during the German Expressionist movement of early silent cinema, director F.W. Murnau released the horror film Nosferatu onto an unsuspecting audience. The film’s image of the Dracula fill-in Count Orlock, portrayed by actor Max Schreck, became an iconic staple of horror movie history. Almost eight decades later, director E. Elias Merhige brings a secret history of the classic film’s creation to the screen in Shadow of the Vampire. The film opens with an intertitle card explaining how Marnau (John Malkovich) was unable to secure the rights for Dracula from Bram Stoker’s estate, but went on with the production under a different name. On a sound stage in Berlin, Marnau is filming the first scenes of his production Nosferatu with German actors Gustav von Wangenheim (Eddie Izzard) and Greta Schroeder (Catherine McCormack). After the shoot, the movie’s producer Albin (Udo Kier) discusses the crew’s plan to film much of the picture on location in a castle in S

Written by: Digger Few films have explored the terrifying notion of a possessed appendage. The Crawling Hand was entirely centered around the disembodied hand of a dead astronaut being controlled by an alien consciousness. In Evil Dead 2, Ash dueled with his own hand that had been infected by evil spirits. And, in 1999, audiences were introduced to the next evolution of the demonic limb in the horror comedy Idle Hands. Devon Sawa plays the improbably named Anton Tobias, the epitome of the stoned, high-school slacker that were so very prevalent throughout the nineties. The local news is buzzing with unsolved murders, but this is the least of Anton’s worries, as he is out of weed. He visits his friends Mick (Seth Green) and Pnub (Elden Henson) who convince him to smoke a mixture of oregano and nutmeg. Anyway, after all this dumb-fuckery, Anton discovers the bodies of his own parents, then murders Mick with a broken bottle and Pnub with a circular saw blade. Anton is horrified that hi

Written by: Digger This film starts with a little educational text stating that the South China Sea hides deep chasms that have never been explored by man, and that numerous ships have mysteriously vanished in those areas of the ocean for decades. If only we could find a way to surrender this movie to the depths of the ocean for all eternity. If I had to pick only a few words to describe the plot of Deep Rising, those words would be derivative and over-written. One piece of the story starts on a small boat captained by John Finnegan (Treat Williams) who is not out crab fishing but shuttling a band of black ops mercenary types to some obscure point in the middle of the ocean. The mercenary group is led by Hanover (Wes Studi) and is composed of half a dozen or so soldiers too bland to be memorable, although I did see Jason Flemyng and that guy that played Kano in Mortal Kombat in the mix. The black ops team turns hostile on Finnegan’s crew when the ship’s wormy mechanic Joel (Kevin J

It is rather fitting that I am reviewing this film on the heels of the announcement that Mike Judge is trying to resurrect Beavis & Butthead , his breakout work. Part of Judge’s strength in previous endeavors is his ability to represent an accurate view of normal, everyday people albeit in an exaggerated fashion. In this vein, Extract is no different. The problem with Extract is that these everyday people are kind of scum (and not of the movie variety). Judge is certainly a genius to be able to wring a compelling, and funny, story out of the events going on with Joel as the owner of an manufacturing company in the business of extract who hates his job, dislikes his employees, is sexually frustrated in his marriage, and could be facing a lawsuit from one of his employees who was injured on the job. Sounds good so far, right? We’ll go down the character sheet now: Joel hates his employees and possibly his life in general. His wife Suzie is itching to have an affair. Cindy is a

Written by: Digger The Relic, a techno-thriller from the late nineties is based on the best-selling novel of the same name by writers Douglas Preston and Lincoln Childs. Some critics described the film as Alien in a museum, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. Directed by Peter Hyams, probably best known for Timecop, the film largely takes place, unofficially, in Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History. Dr. Margo Green (Penelope Ann Miller) is an evolutionary biologist who is developing a new method of mapping genetic codes, but is in danger of loosing her funding to a rival scientist, Greg Li (Chi Muoi Lo). As such, Dr. Green spends most of the movie either pissed-off or terrified. In order to stay afloat, she must prepare herself for the museum's opening of their “Superstition” exhibit. Her office receives a package from Dr. Whitney, another researcher whom Margo does not like, who has been studying tribal practices and rituals in Brazil. All the crates c