The Rage: Carrie 2

  Had they obliterated all references to Carrie, The Rage would have been a decent little B movie. Piggybacking off another more successful franchise only hurt the film in my humble opinion.

   The Rage focuses on Rachel, who like her predecessor is an unpopular outcast with telekinetic abilities. And why not? She's Carrie's long lost sister after. That just annoys me to no end. In both the book and movie, Carrie's father died when she was young. Yet somehow decades later, he existed long enough to father another child.

   Why not have her be Carrie's niece? That would have been more realistic or even a throw away line on he left Carrie's mom and she simply lied about him dying. The Rage is paint by numbers, Rachel is an outcast, Rachel gets harassed, Rachel gets revenge. And to add insult to injury, a love story featuring the most boring characters on earth is shoehorned in.

   Rachel is simply not likable or  even interesting. Emily Bergl plays Rachel, she is normally a good actress but you simply can't see it with the mediocre script. One of the London twins stars her love interest, the sober one  I think.

  Amy Irving reprises her role as Sue Snell from the previous film. She doesn't really do much accept perform as a greek chorus. We now know whatever happened to Sue, we just don't care. And her death is pointless and kind of insulting. The ending is anti-climatic and the tacked on scare ending was unnecessary.

  The film only seems to be an excuse to parade around popular television actors and show off their CGI. Avoid this one and watch the far better miniseries that came out in 2002. It stars Angela Bettis who in my opinion is the best Carrie to ever grace the silver screen.

Bag of Bones Part 2

   A little late I know, this movie has been kicking around in my DVR for a week before I had a chance to watch it.

   The filmmakers have realized that they wasted 2 hours of footage watching Pierce Brosnan cry. Now important plot points are being hurled at you left and right. Bam! Max Devore is dead. Bam! Sarah Tidwell is the ghost that is haunting Mike. Bam! Maddie and Mike are an item. Bam! She's dead.

   So Mike realized that he has to destroy Sarah's corpse and end the madness. Sarah possesses a vagina shaped tree and tries to stop him. Joanna shows up in a red halter dress that proves bad fashion taste never dies. Her fighting style: boring Sarah to death with platitudes that Dr. Phil would find corny.

   Mike and Kyra are a family now and skipping off into the sunset. Let's just forget that he doesn't have legal custody. Or that he killed a cop. Or that there's a dead body in his house. Who needs logic when you can have a happy ending.

  Let's start with Max Devore what a waste of a good villian. He just tools through the film like a geriatric soothsayer spouting doom wherever he goes. But at least he gets a topless scene and a hot makeout session with his daughter. Okay, she was only his daughter in the book but still eww.

   This is not how I imagined Rogette at all. When I read the book I always imagined her looking like Beth Grant.

   Matt Frewer exists for one scenes bringing his scene count to four. You do not hire Matt Frewer and use him for four scenes. That's like buying a fine champagne and pouring it down the drain, it's wrong, wrong I say.

   And of course, who can forget Maddie the oldest 20 year old in the world. There's is not a moment where she doesn't come as jaded. There's no real emotion in this character at all. As for her and Mike's love story and her subsequent death, snore city. Had the couple shared more than a handful scenes this might have been important. A little less crying Pierce, a little more action.

   The only bright spot of this film is Anika Noni Rose. Even though she doesn't get enough screen time to show off her acting skills, she gets to show off her singing skills. The girl is just fabulous and I look forward to hearing more from her.

   The soundtrack is available through iTunes and is recommended. I bought her rendition of Frankie and Johnny as soon as I heard it.

  Remember when I said that Pierce Brosnan should never say frisky again? Well, I'm also going to add knockin' boots to that list as well. For shame, Pierce, for shame.

Stephen King's 'Bag Of Bones' Part 1

   
 Film adaptions of Stephen King's novels are in a word, a gamble. Sometimes they win and other times they bomb spectacularly. Sadly, Bag of Bones so far seems to be camping in the fail territory.

   The film and novel follow Mike Noonan, an author suffering from writer's block after the untimely death of his wife, Jo. He seeks refuge in their vacation home and soon finds himself being haunted by spirits from beyond. Mike also becomes embroiled in a custody battle between a young mother and her powerful father in law.

   Mike is played by Pierce Brosnan, he is definitely not how I pictured Mike. I am not sure who I would have cast, but Brosnan would not be on that list. Other problems I have with the casting is Melissa George playing the young mother, Maddie.

  Maddie is supposed to a 20 year old girl in over her head. Her youth and innocence are partly what drove the novel. Melissa George is 35 and no amount of suspended disbelief can change that. She comes off more like a jaded soccer mom than an innocent little flower.  Matt Frewer, one of my favorite actors also appears. However so far in the film, he is being woefully underused. Jason Priestley also appears as Mike's agent, Marty.

   The first part of the film is slow and borderline coma-inducing. I understand they are trying to set up the story but it feels more like 2 hours of filler before the good stuff happens. How many times do we have to see Brosnan cry? And the unnecessary montages featuring him jogging and writing are ludicrous. Just as the movie started to get interesting the cable decided to go out for ten minutes. God has a sense of humor.

    My main quibble with this film is how they handled Jo's death. In the book it was a brain embolism, in the movie it was one of the fakest bus crashes I had ever seen. The character was pregnant for Pete's sake, the bus seemed to be a low blow. I know filming a brain embolism would have been hard to do. They could've have easily changed it to a heart attack, a simple clutching of the chest would have been sufficient for the audience.

    Speaking of ridiculous scenes, one scene in particular demonstrated how much better a book is than a film. In the book, there is a moose head who inexplicably gets more screen time than Matt Frewer. His name is Bunter and he wears a little bell. Mike and Jo apparently knocked boots soon after buying Mr. Moose. After that they refer to sex as ringing Bunter's bell.

   Now when a book character silently reminisces on this, it's sweet and tender story. When a movie character blurts it out to an elderly caretaker that he just met, it's creepy and more than a little awkward. And Pierce Brosnan is officially never allowed to utter the word frisky ever again.

  I will be tuning into part 2, because I am a masochist who hates myself. But this movie better step up it's game and become interesting.

31 Days Of Horror #6: Maximum Overdrive

 
Many people have trashed Maximum Overdrive but I am not one of them. To me, this film is one of the better Stephen King film adaptations. There is action, comedy, cool cars, kickass music, and hot chicks, everything the '80s stood for.

   The movie based on the King short story Trucks where the very things that man made turn on them. The main action takes place at a tiny truck stop in North Carolina where a few survivors plot to escape. However they are surrounded by thousand hungry trucks demanding to be fed or else.

  Yeah flimsy plot but the movie manages to overcome it. You got what is probably Emilio Estevez's best role since Breakfast Club. A soundtrack consisting of nothing but AC/DC. The voice of Lisa Simpson, Yeardley Smith playing a neurotic newlywed. Marla Maples killed by a watermelon. Or the obligatory Stephen King cameo where he gets to utter this awesome line "Honey! C'mon over here, Sugar-buns. This machine just called me an asshole!"

  The kills are phenomenal, steamrollers, soda machines, and video games get to lay waste to the humans who underestimated them. There is not a single death scene in this picture that isn't worth applause.

 
Even the star of the film is not human, it's a kick ass semi truck bearing the face of the Green Goblin. This truck is fab, fab, fab. One day I will get my license, buy this truck and drive cross country scaring tourists and children alike.

If you like the '80s, you must watch this movie. Enough said.

Why You Fail At Horror

After reading Stephen King's recent EW article "Why Hollywood Can't Do Horror" I started thinking about the state of the horror film. I realized that the large majority of my favorite horror films come from '60s, '70s, and '80s. Very few of the recent films were likable or memorable enough to make me want to watch again. Horror has lost it's way in the recent years.

One thing I can't stand about recent horror is the gross-out factor that half of the movie director's are going for. If the film isn't filled with graphic dismemberment, disemboweled organs, and gore then it's considered boring. I hated The Hills Have Eyes remakes, I couldn't finish Wrong Turn, and I thought the entire Saw franchise was dumb. I don't like to vomit and don't see why I have to spend money so that a director can try his damnedest to make me do so.

True horror doesn't need the best guts money can by. Horror is supposed to scare you not gross you out. Take Psycho for instance, the shower scene still scares the pants off me. It plays off one of my basest fears. What if someone attacked me while I am in the shower. There is no escape, there is no weapon to defend you. The shower scene from Psycho is one of the most chilling scenes in horror cinema and you never saw the knife penetrate Janet Leigh. Some recent horror films keep the faith. The directors of such films as Hostel, Frailty, and Ginger Snaps know when to use gore and when to scare the pants off of you.

We don't need to understand the killer in horror movies, we don't want to. In the real world people are killed for just being in the wrong place at the wrong time, that is a scary thought. Slumber Party Massacre is a movie that comes to mind. Granted it wasn't the best slasher film of all time but the ending was awesome. When we find out the killer was just some random dude with no connection to the final girl, it was refreshing. We didn't have to delve into his psyche and find out the reason he killed, he simply killed.

1974's Black Christmas was also awesome in the fact that we never knew why the killer did it. He stayed mysterious and uncaught, stunned viewers wondered who he was and better yet who was Agnes. It some cases there are questions that never need answers. When you answer those questions you get Black Christmas the remake. A film filled with unlikable characters, boring subplots and gore gore gore galore. Oh and yes we now know why the killer did what he did. He's not a bad man just a kid who watched his mother kill his father. A kid who was forced to impregnate his mother. A kid who is forced to live in walls. What's the point of the back story? Are we supposed to forgive him because he just didn't know any better?

Today's horror takes itself way too seriously. Sometimes a good horror film can be deliciously cheesy as well. Not every horror film needs to be "deep". We don't need some slap in the face about what horrible people we are. We don't need a message on how we brought this horror on ourselves. Modern horror seems more about being discussed and revered than actually trying to scare the viewers.

I miss being scared by a horror movie. Not startled, not grossed out, not confused simply scared. I miss slasher films that were all about the slash, not burdened down by back story. Michael Myers was scariest in the first Halloween movie. Because you had no idea why he was on his spree. They gave you the facts, mysteriously killed sister and lived in Haddonfield. His scariness failed as soon they brought in relatives and thorn cults. Freddy from Nightmare On Elm Street 1, mysterious and scary. But of course the back story fairy had to interfere. I hate the back story fairy.

True horror is mystery, suspense, the kind of film that keeps you from sleeping at night. The film that makes you want to turn on all the lights. We don't need big budget movies fraught with gore and socio-political meaning. We just need to get the that delicious chill up our spines once more.

The Bucket List

One of our assignments for my blog tour is to write a bucket list. Here is mine.

I want to visit a foreign country preferably Indonesia

I'd like to bungee jump

I'd like to have a child

I want to be with my honey forever

I want to be fluent in at least three languages

I want to have published at least one book.

I'd like to sing in front of an audience but not karaoke

I want to scuba dive

I'd like to see my 100th birthday

I want to interview one of my idols, Stevie Nicks, Elizabeth Wurtzel, Madonna, Stephen King or Naomi Judd

I'd love to appear in a slasher film even I am the first character killed.


It's a weird list but then again I'm a weird girl.

The Mist

The Mist is probably one of the best Stephen King short stories I had ever read. And I admit when I saw the trailer it seemed like something I wanted to watch. And it was mostly.

The Mist explores the social dynamics of people trapped inside a supermarket by an unseen monster that's cloaked by a mysterious mist. As the people fight for survival not only from the monsters but from a growing faction of people following the words of a local religious nut.

The film was awesome, a great blend of suspense, horror, and even a little welcome humor. The special effects were perfect, a lot higher quality than I was expecting. The actors were just perfect for their roles.

Thomas Jane plays Billy Drayton, who is desperate to protect his 5 year old son and eventually escape the market in order to find his wife. Marcia Gay Harden is enigmatic as the local religious nut and really owns that role. Rounding out the cast are Andre Braugher, William Sadler, Frances Sternhagen, Alexa Davalos, and Chris Owen.

Sadly while the movie is mostly a fun and intense ride, it is hindered but one of the most upsetting and depressing endings I have ever witnesses. Consider your self warned.