Fear Itself "Spooked"

This week’s Fear Itself episode was Brad Anderson’s entry Spooked.

An ex-cop turned private eye (Eric Roberts) unwittingly spends the night in a haunted house while on a stakeout.

This episode had a fairly predictable arc that, for me, quickly took the wind out of its sails. The framework of the story just wasn’t that strong and the ending was very curt and unsatisfying. However, putting said mediocre material in the hands of a talented filmmaker like Brad Anderson made a big difference. It’s well shot and you could see he was trying his darnedest to create as much atmosphere as possible. Spooked felt like a combination of themes and ideas from Anderson’s two previous efforts – Session 9 and The Machinist – but it’s nowhere near the quality of those. I must say that is was really good to see Cynthia Watros (Libby from TV’s Lost) again. I hadn’t realized how much I missed her until she came onscreen. There are some great visuals; especially the graffiti on the house walls and it’s the little details like that, that are the best parts of Spooked.

Spooked was a very uneven affair. There were points it had me, but then other stuff kept taking me out of it. Admittedly, not all of this was the show’s fault. The NBC watermarking is still a huge problem and there were also sound issues with the broadcast. Also, even with a DVR, forwarding through commercials still breaks the mood. I doubt these issues will be resolved, so I don’t know how much longer I’m going to put up with it before giving up. Who would have thought the major problem with Fear Itself being a network show would be the FORMAT, rather than the subject matter?

T.G.I.F13

I would be remiss of me not to showcase horror's most prolific horror franchise for this edition of the CW. Ye olde 1-3 comes around again this Friday. Jason Voorhees was a staple at my house growing up. Although Michael Myers was always my favourite, there was a certain extra entertainment value attached with every new installment of a Friday film. I, of course, had to see each new chapter on video because I was a litlin' during the eighties and was not the type to sneak into theatres. Although, my brother and his then girlfriend (now wife) did smuggle me into the Drive-In to see The Silence Of The Lambs when I was 16. No, I didn't stow away in the trunk, but I did do the sit-in-the-furthest-back-seat-and-look-old thing as we rolled by the entrance gate. Anyway, back on topic. Ah, Friday the 13th. No slasher icon has delivered a body count as high as big J.

I don't even remember how I was introduced to Friday the 13th, or the first time I watched it. It was during the VHS boom of the early eighties when I was being flooded with colourful clamshells with every trip to the video store with my dad. I can still remember the layouts of some of those long gone retailers from my childhood. So, without further ado, let's get this trip to Camp Crystal Lake underway.

Crazy Ralph, skewered Bacon, strip Monopoly and a headless Betsy Palmer. What's not to love?


Jason finally shuts up Crazy Ralph and shows that he does NOT give the handicapped special treatment. He hates everyone equally. Also, going against the regular horror trope, the dude who stays behind at the bar to get soused actually avoids a grim death.


This installment is of course where Jason dons the iconic hockey mask. I didn't actually see this movie in 3D until I was in my late twenties. I'd seen Part 3 countless times on VHS in my youth, but you never realize just how MANY 3D gimmicks there are in the movie until you actually experience it. It's a fucking blast. Another little anecdote is I remember seeing a TV Spot for Part 3 (it was mainly from 1:35 of THIS trailer on) and for some reason I thought the count up to thirteen represented sequels. "They can't possibly make THAT many parts, can they?" I asked excitedly.


Good ol' Tommy Jarvis. The 'Final' Chapter probably has the best Jason death sequence. I love that shit with Jason's face twitching as it slides down the machete blade. Ah, good times.


A New Beginning was pretty lame. Even WITH the vocal stylings of Miguel Nunez. Although, I must say, as a kid, I do remember being a little sad when Violet got it.


Jason returns! And now he's got super duper strength. He can punch right THROUGH people now. That's badass! So, if anything is to be learned from this movie, it's getting hit by lightning means you acquire superhuman strength. Electricity is awesome!


Ah, one of my favourites and, I think, the best Jason design. A New Blood was the first Friday to feature Kane Hodder and he was the only dude to play Voorhees multiple times. This guy was a bloodthirsty animal on two legs. The whole idea of someone (Tina, the telekinetic) who can hold their own facing off against the juggernaut was pretty cool and I guess, now that I think of it, a preamble to Freddy Vs. Jason (which was still fifteen years away at the time).


Oi Vay! I remember not thinking this was a retarded idea when I was 14, but it's still never been one of my favourites. It does have Kelly Hu though.


The first Friday film I actually got to see in theatres. Imagine my dismay when I learned Jason (as in Kane Hodder, who also had a cameo as a police officer) was hardly in it. It might as well of been The Hidden 2. The ending added fuel to the Freddy Vs. Jason crossover, but it was still many years before the classic confrontation came to fruition.

This is where the story ends for The Horror Section, as it was almost ten years before Jason X hit screens and my movie clerk tenure was a distant memory by then. I hope you enjoyed this walk down memory lane and that your Friday the 13th is a bloody one.

Crikey!

Way back in 2006, there was talk of two killer croc movies coming down the pipe. The first was Michael Katleman’s Primeval and the second was Greg McLean’s Rogue. Then, things got a little murky. Rogue disappeared completely off the map and Buena Vista curiously decided to market Primeval as a serial killer film, which just confused audiences. I remember the television spots were even more ambiguous than the trailer linked above. Finally, Primeval came out in January 2007 to very little fanfare, but still no Rogue. This was irksome to me because it was the one of the pair that interested me the most. I liked McLean’s previous film Wolf Creek and knew that it would at least LOOK good.

I didn’t realize until later that the Weinsteins were involved, which is never good for smaller horror pictures in terms of release dates. This also meant that showings north of the border were even more unlikely. And you know how I feel about THAT.

Rogue played some festivals in 2007 and got a paltry amount of screens when it eventually came out this past January. It was a huge money loser and ended up being the total reverse of the success McLean had with Wolf Creek (which was a huge hit in Australia and did well abroad). But is Rogue any good? Did it deserve the death roll treatment? Well, having finally seen it a last weekend, I’ll give you my two cents.

During an Australian river tour, a giant crocodile attacks the boat. Stranded on an tiny island that will disappear with the approaching tide, the survivors desperately try to avoid becoming the huge reptile’s next meal.

Rogue is a well-made movie that I enjoyed watching. The photography of the Australian landscape and wildlife is excellent. In fact, the first act is almost like you’re watching a documentary on the Discovery channel. The cast is well rounded, including Radha Mitchell and Sam Worthington. It was also great to see the director bring back John Jarratt (the killer in Wolf Creek) as a character who was the complete opposite of the sadistic bastard from that film.

McLean makes an advisable decision to hold back showing the antagonist for as long as he possibly can. I remembered thinking to myself what a good choice this was because I knew when it finally showed up it was going to be computer generated and probably look like shit. So later, there it was full frame and I actually said - as it swam away with an unfortunate sod in its maw - ‘well that wasn’t as bad as I was expecting.’ Considering the low budget, and the reluctance of the powers-that-be to release it wide, I was expecting something in the vein of Boa vs. Python. Rogue’s croc is better than that. Sure, it's still CG, but it was good enough that I could suspend my disbelief and that’s really all you can ask for. Seeing afterwards, that WETA worked on the film explained why that was the case. The sound is also really complimentary. It adds a lot of weight to the action, ESPECIALLY in the climax where visual effects are heavily implemented.

In the end, I got all I wanted from Greg McLean’s follow up to Wolf Creek. It was simple, well executed and looked great. As far as creature features go, Rogue earns its place in the canon.

Fear Itself "The Sacrifice"

After their car breaks down, four criminals seek refuge in an old fort and are welcomed by the three sultry sisters that reside there. All seems fine… until night falls.

First off, I’d like to get something off my chest. I have a big problem with the state of network television logo watermarking. It’s been getting gradually more intrusive over the years and last night was the worse I’ve seen it so far. Putting a faded logo in the corner is okay I guess, but what is NOT okay, is THIS!

That huge ass peacock logo was there THE ENTIRE SHOW. I don’t give a shit that Nashville Star is on Monday at 9/8 Central. Fix that shit, NBC! This is exactly the kind of thing that makes people go, ‘you know what? I’ll just wait for the DVD’, and then forget about it entirely. This television spam is unfortunate because it distracts from an episode that wasn’t bad. It’s nothing spectacular, but it was certainly better than some of the episodes Garris trotted out for the second season of Masters Of Horror. The story had one extra layer than I was expecting and there’s a clever bit that I had to chuckle at. As a red blooded male, you know those moments where you think ‘I totally would have fallen for that!’ Well, there was one here.

The Sacrifice also looks great in high definition; none of this Masters 4x3 480i bullshit anymore. And my biggest concern about the sanitization of the product due to it being network was a non-issue, as making it gorier wouldn’t have added anything to the piece. I kept trying to remember where I’d seen Virginia (Mircea Monroe) before, until I finally decided it was just that she looked like Jessica Simpson. Also, unless there is another huge colonial fort set somewhere, that HAS to be the same one that was used for Ginger Snaps 3. What is it about this structure that attracts monsters?

You can see Virginia's not impressed by the watermark either.

Brad Anderson’s (of Session 9 and The Machinist) episode is next week. It is entitled “Spooked” and is about a private eye spending the night in a haunted house. Anderson has a firm grasp on this kind of stuff. In edition to the similarly themed Session 9, his Masters Of Horror episode “Sounds Like” was one of my faves from the sophomore season.

Oh My Sweet Lord In Heaven!

Jay likey!

Horror On The Tube

Now that Lost and CSI have come to a close for another season with hockey right behind it, television has become a very dry place. But fear not, because there’s nothing to fear, but Fear Itself. Ugh… I apologize, that sounded better in my head.

Several months ago, the producers of the Showtime horror anthology series Masters Of Horror announced that they would scrapping a planned third season and instead develop a new episodic project for NBC called Fear Itself. So, essentially Masters Of Horror Lite. That’s not to say that a 14A anthology show can’t be good, but a large part of the appeal of the Masters Of Horror series were the copious amounts of gore provided by KNB EFX. Though even Showtime displayed some very un-cable network like behaviour toward the end of its first season. MOH was supposed to be series where the filmmakers had free reign, but after recruiting Takashi Miike (infamous purveyor of all things batshit loco and perverse) to direct an episode, they banned it at the eleventh hour. Basically, they let the lion out of its cage, and then acted all surprised when it fucked their shit up. I’ll always be shaking my head about that one. But, I digress.

I was initally skeptical about Fear Itself, but Mick Garris and company have managed to assemble a decent line-up of guest directors for me to since give it the benefit of the doubt. The impressive list includes such icons as John Carpenter, John Landis and Stuart Gordon, as well as Brad Anderson, Ronny Yu and Mary Harron. It premieres tomorrow night and I plan to post my thoughts after each episode. First up, is “The Sacrifice” directed by relative newcomer Breck Eisner. Eisner has been tapped to direct three remakes over the next few years (The Crazies, Creature From The Black Lagoon and Flash Gordon*), but I’ll reserve judgment until I see his episode. Sacrifice is about four criminals who take refuge in an old fort and realize they are not alone.

June seems like an odd time to be rolling out this kind of programming, but if it’s good, it will hopefully catch on with some sort of audience. Click here for more info on the show.

*-according to Imdb.

RE5 FTW!

Now that the GTA IV release has come and gone, my attention now focuses onto the next big release. Resident Evil 5 looks like it's going to be effing SICK. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm looking to other games coming up, of course. Apart from the obvious long delayed Killzone 2, I'm interested in seeing all the new mechnanics Nour Polloni has been talking about in the new Alone In The Dark game and the F.E.A.R. sequel looks pretty sweet too, but nothing can really peak my interest like a new Resident Evil game. I mean, have you SEEN the fucking graphics in this thing?!

If not, check out this new trailer. The RE5 website is live now too.



It looks like they've improved on the already almost perfect experience of RE4. This game cannot come soon enough for me. For the next week, gamer website forums will inevitably be filled up with angry pundits crying racism in response to that 'Welcome To Africa' remark, but hey... that's their right I guess. And I mean how dare Capcom really... because nothing bad ever happens in Africa.