Afterlife.

Alice (Milla Jovovich) continues her mission to destroy the Umbrella Corporation, as well as reunite with her comrades, including Claire Redfield (Ali Larter) in Arcadia, a rumoured safe haven in Alaska.

So, what's better than Milla? Multiple Millas in 3-D! Let's get this out of the way right now, I had a blast watching this. I am actually one of the few people that enjoys these movies – okay, Apocalypse was a stretch – so I knew exactly what to expect. Concentrated eye candy.

The first sequence is a literal feast. Within a few minutes I was like, “now, THIS is how 3-D is SUPPOSED to be!” After all the post-3D stuff studios have been churning out since last year's Avatar, I'd almost forgotten how successfully it can be utilized. Every possible gimmick you can think of happens here and I had a huge smile on my face the whole time.


The movie is also perfectly augmented with a great score from Tomandandy. The Resident Evil movies have always sprinkled in bits of the games and Afterlife is no exception. It borrows heavily from the game's most recent incarnation Resident Evil 5, including the Executioner boss and the chest spider thingamajigs. The movie also has the most game characters involved as well, including a nice surprise during the end credits. Even the zombie dogs have a return appearance, which I thought looked friggin' wicked. There's even a water level, err, I mean, scene.

Now, I'm not going to try and tell you that there is a lot of substance to this movie because there isn't. In fact, the only story that exists is just filler in between action sequences. This shouldn't be news to anyone though, as I think the only one that really took a stab at storytelling was the initial installment – and I imagine that are large number of people that would argue even that. To be perfectly honest, it didn't bother me. Why?


Because, I could watch Milla read the phone book.

I guess the only real negative I can point out here is that a lot of the character's death scenes are fairly uninspired. They either happen in the blink of an eye or off screen. There were a few characters in particular that could have been offed far more dramatically.

The ending is, of course, another cliffhanger and call me crazy, but I am more than willing for another round, as long as it has Milla doing what she does best.

The Rundown.

The 35th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival kicks off today and I wanted to preview the films that you can expect to see me report on over the next ten days or so. I know very little - by choice of course - about the majority of these films, but what I do makes me think this could possibly be the strongest lineup I've seen in years.

Julia's Eyes, from producer Guillermo del Toro and newcomer Guillem Morales, is the newest in a long line of solid genre efforts from Spain. The film stars Belén Rueda, instantly recognizable from her turn in 2007's The Orphanage. If Eyes is just half as good as that was, it will be well worth the price of admission.

Brad Anderson returns to Midnight Madness - he was here with The Machinist in 2004 - with Vanishing on 7th St. I'm not crazy about the casting of Hayden Christensen, but the Twilight Zone-like hook, about a blackout causing mass disappearances in New York, makes up for it.

In four days, I'll finally be able to see a film I initially scoffed at, but now am very excited to see. Scott Reeves' Let Me In has great casting, an awesome look and from what I hear, an even darker interpretation of the source material.

How many times do you get to see a John Carpenter film for the first time? And with the Master of Horror himself in attendance, no less. The Ward has morphed over its several-year production - I seem to remember it originally being about a 'scared straight' program of delinquents getting trapped inside a prison during a riot - but the finished product about a girl (Mandy Lane's Amber Heard) fighting spectral forces inside an insane asylum sounds just as good to me.

James Wan is another Madness alumni (Saw premiered here in 2004) returning with a new terror. Insidious sees him re-team with writer Leigh Whannell and this time they have promised genuine scares over blood & guts. I am pulling for Wan, as I feel he's never been able to deliver a movie that doesn't fall apart in the third act. Maybe Insidious will be that film.

Although I was not a fan of Adam Wingard's last effort Pop Skull, I'm willing to give his newest A Horrible Way To Die a look. The storyline, which involves an escaped serial killer tracking down his ex-girlfriend does sound rather intriguing.

The Hong Kong/French co-production Red Nights is a real wild card. It sports a wicked visual flare that I'm completely on board with. Other than that, this is the one Midnight title that programmer Colin Geddes told me to make sure I had a ticket for.

Jim Mickle wowed me with his low-budget rat-zombie pic Mulberry Street in 2007 and now after hooking up with Larry Fessenden's Glass Eye Pix, it looks like they are poised to deliver another winner with Stake Land. Described as "a road movie with teeth", it promises to cancel out the lovey-dovey nonsense saturating vampire movies of late.

The work of Sion Sono absolutely fascinates me. After the epicness of Love Exposure, I'm interested to see Sono go back to the darker side of things with his serial killer exploration Cold Fish.

So, there you go. Throw in a sci-fi indie darling, some docs & a couple of odd balls, and you can see I have a full slate.

See you on the other side!

Oh My!

Nuff said.

You See, Twitter IS Useful!

I want to take this opportunity - before all the TIFF madness hits – to talk about a Texas indie I saw recently called Underbelly.

After seeing a random Rue Morgue tweet mentioning it, I checked out the film’s website. The trailer looked semi-interesting, but it wasn’t until I viewed the first scene – also available on their site – that I was fully hooked. Luckily, I was able to find it on a subsequent trip to Eyesore.


A novelist (Mark Reeb) travelling with his wife, crosses paths with a gang of criminals on the run while passing through a small Texas town that seems to have a few secrets of its own.

You ever see one of those movies, where you know you liked it, but you can’t quite pin down why? Underbelly is one of those titles.

Despite the restraints of its ultra-low budget and a cast that is largely made up of non-actors, it still managed to quickly get me onboard. It hits you immediately with the aforementioned opening that has a great campfire tale quality that really brings the chills. I remember telling Schwartz about that scene while we were driving to the Expo and he was instantly intrigued. From there, Underbelly never lets the viewer in on where its going or what its intentions are. It is almost like writer/director Matt A. Cade had three or four different unfinished scripts that he decided to meld into one. However, the result isn't the disaster you'd expect.


I have to give props to Stuart “Feedback” Andrews for blurbing what might be the most astute movie description ever;

"It was like some bizarre cross pollination with Last House on the Left, The Vanishing, Pulp Fiction and The Ring."

You add Twin Peaks in there and you’ve got it nailed. The remarkable thing is that even though so much of this movie seems like something else, it becomes an entirely new animal when all these pieces are stitched together. It is amazing to me that I liked Underbelly as much as I did, as it often seemed to go out of its way to make me dislike it. From the shrill Sweet Lily character to its strange tangents, including a musical number – a little ditty about the right tool for the job – that comes out of nowhere. Although, to be fair, the latter was not as bad, as it was jarring. There was also a character that just disappeared with absolutely no explanation whatsoever*. Fortunately, by that time I was already in and willing to overlook many of the film’s shortcomings.


Sadly, I think the ending was a little too ambiguous for its own good. I know there is merit to letting the audience decide for themselves – some filmmakers have built their careers on being esoteric – but the way things are left in Underbelly erred more on the side of frustration for me. There are allusions to this on the DVD's fourty-five minute featurette. Almost every cast member says something like, “you'll have to ask Matt this” or “Matt would be the one to talk to about that”, but the interviewer never actually talks to him. I really wanted to hear more about the process.

As you can no doubt see, Underbelly is a unique little oddity that even a week after viewing it, is still rattling around in my brain.


*It’s a funny coincidence that I sandwiched Underbelly in between screenings of Piranha 3D & Machete, as they both also had characters that just inexplicably vanish in the third act.

Don't Kill The Messenger 73

Okay, things have settled down here enough for me to get back to doing these things on Sundays. Quite a bit has happened since the last DKTM, so let's get on with it.

Trailers Galore!

First up is a trailer for Mark Hartley's new documentary Machete Maidens Unleashed!



I saw Hartley's last doc Not Quite Hollywood at Midnight Madness a few years ago and it did not disappoint, so here's hoping his latest is just as entertaining and informative.

Next, is a trailer for Wes Craven's new slasher My Soul To Take.



Yeah, I know. Looks pretty generic, doesn't it? On the bright side, it could never be as bad as Cursed.

Here's a teaser for Hatchet 2.



I find all those chest-beating blurbs at the beginning a little bit of a turn-off. I was a huge fan of the first movie, but come on, it wasn't like, the wheel. I am interested to see how they ratchet up the gore though.

Another Bloody List.

My brother emailed this list the other day. It's Heavy.com's 20 Hottest Girls Of Horror.

Unfortunately, this list is flawed by some glaring omissions though. Where are Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Black Xmas, FD3), Jaime King (MBV3D, They Wait), Katheryn Winnick (Satan's Little Helper, Amusement) and Katherine Isabelle (FvsJ, Ginger Snaps) for starters? And no Milla? WTF??? I know she's first and foremost an action babe, but come on!!!

It would also have been nice if they only picked actresses who have been in more than one title. I wouldn't call Jessica Biel (as hot as she may be) a "girl of horror" anymore than I would Jessie Alba for being in the remake of The Eye.

Posters After Dark.

I didn't get around to posting these during the festival, but here they are now. Below, are the five limited edition prints by artist Justin Erickson commemorating some of the great titles that have played Toronto After Dark over its five-year existence. Which one is your fave?

Bloggers Unite!

I also wanted to throw up a link to a recent post from Row Three. Mike Rot reached out to his fellow bloggers (including yours truly) and asked for a Top Five of TIFF films to which we were most looking forward. Click here to check it out.

Number 666.

To cap off the Festival Of Fear weekend was a very special screening of the 1971 picture The Devils with director Ken Russell in attendance.


You have no idea the amount of shuffling and restraint it took to orchestrate this review as my 666TH POST, but here goes.


Set in France in the 1600's, the story revolves around Father Grandier (Oliver Reed) and his efforts to protect his town from a greedy Cardinal who means to usurp control. Soon, Grandier is fending off charges of heresy and devil-worship.

Simply put, The Devils is a beautiful fucking film. It is an almost surreal experience to view on the big screen, as the filmmaking on display is quite spectacular. It is films like this where can really see the difference between how movies were made then as to how they are now. There was a certain, for lack of better term, weight to them back then. If you wanted to create a world, you had to build it, rather than simulate it with computers. I know I'm generalizing, but you get what I mean. It was more about the art, and less about the product.

Oliver Reed is awesome in this. I believe the word I'd use for his performance is commanding. He never half-assed it when he was in front of the camera though, did he? Vanessa Redgrave is also up to the task as the obsessed mother superior, Sister Jeanne. Her character is a hunchback and the physicality she adds to the role really makes it pop. You put the two of them together and you have a film to watch as far as I'm concerned. The Devils is one of those pictures where it seems like not a lot happens, but it is still completely engaging because you get caught up in the detailed reality it presents. Russell's Prince-like status among cinephiles is not unwarranted.

Reed, Russell & Redgrave on set.

For the Q&A, Richard Crouse did an excellent job with a tough interview. Up to that point in the weekend, I'd been hearing about how no one had been able to get little more than one word answers out of the man. Russell seemed to be in good spirits that evening though, or at least as good as it gets with the notoriously cantankerous eighty-three-year-old.

He was asked how it was directing Oliver Reed, to which Russell replied that they had a simple system. He would tell Reed that he wanted 'moody one', 'moody two', or 'moody three'.

Moody one was “keep it low key”, moody two was “okay Ollie, let yourself go a bit” and moody three was “for God's sake, stop it!”

Someone asked what he thought about the work of Frederico Fellini – as 8 1/2 had played The Bloor earlier that day – to which he stated “rubbish”. He did say that he was big fan of Stanley Kubrick's though, and then told a funny story about a phone conversation he once had with him. It does seem to me that those two souls would have got along.

It was a one-of-a-kind evening, with a treat of a film from a bygone era presented by an icon of cinema.

Festival Of Fear 2010

Last weekend, the Fan Expo hit Toronto with a crash and a bang. Here’s a rundown of what went down.

Friday

The word of the weekend is ‘overcrowded’. It was a logistical shitshow that ended up reflecting very poorly on the organizers. The Fan Expo happens at the Metro Convention Centre, which is comprised of two buildings, the North & South. For the past several years, it has been held in the South building because it outgrew the smaller space adjacent when the addition of the Horror & Gaming areas increased the event’s popularity. So, imagine my surprise when I found out that this year’s Expo was being held in the North building. Even though they were expecting record crowds due to appearances by fan faves Adam West, Stan Lee AND William Shatner among others. I did hear that the South building was booked well in advance by something else this year, but Hobby Star should have had a contingency plan other than ‘we’ll just have to deal with it on the day’.

Even with my premium pass, it took me an extra hour-and-a-half to breach the gates. God knows how long it took non-ticket holders to get inside. Anyway, when I finally got on the floor, I got my trades shopping done.


The Stand and Locke & Key are still not available in soft cover? What gives?

I walked past the G4 booth and saw the entire crew of Reviews on the Run, including Jeff Cannata from The Totally Rad Show, filming an episode, which was pretty cool.

The only Q&A I attended that day was Bill Moseley. He’s been to the Expo before, but it’s been a long time. It was pre-Devil’s Rejects for sure.


Moseley talked about a new project he just finished called Rogue River in which he starred alongside his wife, Lucinda Jenney. At first, he was apprehensive about working with his spouse, but she really got into her role and made it a fun experience for the both of them.

He is really happy with the fan base that Repo: The Genetic Opera has garnered since its release last year. He mentioned that initially he had the choice of playing either Luigi or Pavi – the latter eventually went to Skinny Puppy’s Ogre. His decision to play Luigi was based almost solely on less makeup equating to more sleep.

Someone asked about if he was involved in Rob Zombie’s The Blob remake – a project that has already been quashed – and Moseley replied,

“I was already in the remake, from the eighties. I was Soldier #2. Not a big part, but at least I lived longer that Soldier #1.”

Aside from that though, the one character in particular he’d love to reprise would be Chop Top from Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.


Schwartz stayed at my place that night and we cracked open the newly released Evil Dead Blu-ray. I’ll elaborate more on this in a future post, but the transfer is pretty pristine – you can’t even see the edges of the matte painted moon inserts anymore! We watched it for a bit and then I threw in Kick-Ass, which, due to his being stranded in France during all that volcanic ash business, he hadn’t seen yet. He was naturally as enamoured by it as I continue to be.

Saturday

Predicting more chaos, we got up early, as even last year in the large building; the Saturday had a problem with log jamming.

We were right. It was all the bedlam of Friday to the power of ten. The trade show floor & food vendors were upstairs and the panels & screenings were downstairs and it wasn’t long before when you went downstairs, you weren’t allowed back up. My crew (Schwartz, Mikey & Berge) & I made the mistake of doing this. This, of course meant we had now had no access to food. Thank God for that granola bar I was carrying around, as it sustained me for twelve hours. Even worse, if you went outside the building for any reason, you weren’t allowed back in. The front doors were crammed five bodies deep with people awaiting entrance.

Kind of reminds me of a certain Romero flick.

I guess this is why San Diego Comic-Con sells all its passes in advance, so they can cap it off at some point. They seem to have it all figured out, as save for the occasional eye-stabbing incident, you generally don’t hear about problems with people being restricted access.

Okay, enough whining. Here's some of the cool stuff I came across during the show.

The usual suspects.

And one unusual.

A cute couple, don't you think?

I got my first taste of 3DTV at the Alliance booth. They were showing Piranha 3D and looping a surprising number of the movie’s money shots, I might add. All I know is, if the 3D looked as good projected at my local multiplex as it did here, nobody would have been dissing it.

Twisted T’s was out in full force this year, with some new designs including Night of the Creeps and Basket Case. They even had a Video Dead hoodie for fifty bucks. Sooooo tempting.


A new addition this year was the coffin rides. You get locked in a casket and hydraulics knock you around a bit, while an infrared camera displays your reactions on a screen for all to see. Not bad for four bucks. Darryl was trying to get me to go, but I was like, “if I lie down right now, I’m so going to sleep.”


Last year’s Expo was where I first became aware of a little eighties movie called Uninvited, or Cat on a Cruise Ship as it has been since affectionately dubbed. One of the poster vendors had an amazing poster of it last year and I vowed that if it was there this time, it would be mine. Oh yes, it would be mine. On Friday, Schwartz and I looked for it, but no luck. However, on Saturday…


The vendor even said “Twenty bucks? I’m giving this away!”

He also had a sweet poster of Deadly Eyes. You all know how I adore that movie, so that will be my poster to acquire next year, if the fates are kind.

Being stuck downstairs, we ended up just getting in line for the David Cronenberg panel a few hours early. Man, he is such an intelligent and well-spoken individual.

Rue Morgue editor Dave Alexander moderated the affair and spoke about how after trying for many years, he’s so glad to finally have him here at the Festival of Fear. Cronenberg was quick to point out that his not appearing before now was not from lack of desire; it was just always a scheduling conflict with whatever film he was working on at the time.


He is now editing his new film A Dangerous Method, which he just got back from shooting in Poland. At first that sounded like a strange locale, but apparently it was out of necessity. Financing projects has become increasingly hard for him, due to studios that specialize in funding independent projects (Picturehouse & Miramax, among others) all closing down in recent years.

A Dangerous Method is a period piece about pioneering psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud & Carl Jung and their relationship with a woman named Sabina Spielrein. Through some recently uncovered letters, it was revealed that Spielrein had an extremely profound influence on both of their careers and Cronenberg’s film explores this.

It does seem that with every subsequent film Cronenberg gets further away from the genre that spawned his career, but he insists he hasn’t turned his back on horror. It is just that the stories that have captured his imagination in the last decade or so just haven’t been of that ilk.

Cronenberg said he always wanted to be like the obscure novelists he read growing up, but realized quickly that when you are a filmmaker, you can’t survive like that. If no one sees your films, you won’t make too many before finding another line of work.

The highlight of this panel was when Ken Russell showed up to present Cronenberg with a Lifetime Achievement Award. It was an awesome moment between two amazing auteurs.

Cronenberg & Russell.

Sunday

This day was thankfully a lot less crazy. Perhaps a good number of people were just fed up with the crowds by then and stayed away. I walked around for a bit and picked up some bootleg smut.

I also picked up The Brain for ten bones. Schwartz often talks about this Canadian monster flick, so I figured what the hell. I'm sure you all remember the vintage VHS cover.

There were two Q&A’s today, which ended up being the best of the weekend.

The first was Heather Langenkamp, who is a real classy lady with a warm disposition.

There was a lot of talk about Never Sleep Again – a spectacular four-hour documentary that I’ve seen, but haven’t got around to talking about here – and her upcoming documentary I Am Nancy, which she just submitted to Sundance.


When the inevitable question about what she thought of the remake came, she said she wanted nothing to do with it. Langenkamp doesn’t want to imagine anyone other than Robert Englund as Freddy, and with good reason.

Someone asked if she ever had nightmares while filming those movies and she replied,

“Yes, I remember having two. On Part 3, I had this dream where I was protecting Patricia (Arquette) from Freddy. I think it came from the director really not treating Patricia all that well on the set. I felt really bad for her because he had a tendency to snap at her. I also had one on Part 7 about that scene where Freddy’s tongue wraps around my face. I remember being really bothered by that because it gave Freddy a dominance over Nancy that he’d never had before.”

Langenkamp also shared that the idea for the documentary I Am Nancy came from when she tried to get Wes Craven on the phone and his secretary didn’t know who she was, and even went so far as to get her to spell her last name. When Langenkamp told her friend (Arlene Marechal, the director of I Am Nancy, I believe) about it, she said,

“That’s ridiculous. You should have said, ‘if you’re in Wes’ office right now, why don’t you turn around and look on the wall. You see a poster for Nightmare On Elm Street? You look on there and you’ll see my name and THAT’S how you spell it.’”


She then said, “That’s it, we’re making a documentary about Nancy!”

The last panel of the day was Lance Henriksen. Schwartz & I had gotten to meet him briefly the day before when he got his Pumpkinhead poster signed. He’s a super cool guy who talks to you as if you’re old friends and his Q&A was no different. He looked like he was having a blast.


I was shocked to learn that there is apparently a Millennium movie in the works. Now, we all know that the second X-Files film was a bad idea, but the prospect of more Frank Black is intriguing to me. For some reason, the concept doesn’t seem as dated to me as it should be. The funny thing was that he didn’t originally want to do Millennium, or any TV for that matter, as he’d found it unfulfilling. His agent, knowing his dislike for television, sent him the Millennium script, but didn’t tell him it was a pilot until Henriksen was already interesting in playing the role.

One thing that I didn’t know about Henriksen was that he didn’t learn to read until pretty late in life. He’d left school around the third grade and just basically puttered around and fell into acting. It was basically through memorizing scripts that he finally learned.

He was full of great stories. His character Jesse from Near Dark basically came about while he has messing with a hitchhiker he picked up one night and he was originally supposed to play The Terminator. James Cameron even dressed him up in costume and sent him into the original pitch meeting at Orion Pictures.

Henriksen ended off with a little tidbit about filming Aliens, specifically the scene where Bishop does the knife trick in the mess hall. Hudson (Bill Paxton) getting in on the action was apparently something that Henriksen came up with on the day and improved – and by that I mean, he didn’t tell Paxton that his hand was going to be involved in the scene.


And that was pretty much all she wrote. There were unfortunately a LOT of scheduling conflicts this year, so there were a sizable amount of things – like a Durham County panel featuring Michelle Forbes and screenings of Long Pigs & If A Tree Falls – that I wasn’t able to see. It was still a successful weekend overall though.

Note: As I was writing this post, I received an email from Fan Expo Canada apologizing for the problems that beset its patrons this year. It's good to know they are aware they fucked up and are already taking strides to prevent it from happening again.

Photos (the good ones anyway) courtesy of Michael Schwartz of Cartoon & Horror.