Nerd Prom Is Nigh!

The doors open today on the 2011 Fan Expo at The Toronto Convention Centre.

It runs four days this year, so it’s going to be a lot to absorb. However, you can be sure I will sift through everything as fast as possible to give you the highlights of what went down.

Tonight, I’m just planning to grab my pass and do some quick shopping, before heading off to The Underground for this--

Way to start things off right! If you’d like more info on the Expo, click here.

It's Hammer Time!

Seeing The Tower the other day prompted me to learn more about the company that could have spawned such a “special” film. Here is the intro for Emmeritus Productions.

Emmeritus was a Hamilton, Ontario based company that made ultra-low budget features for local television station CHCH during the 1980’s. When I looked them up on Imdb, I was elated to find they had quite the catalogue, many of which I remembered from my coverbox browsing days. Boasting titles such as Shock Chamber, Blue Murder, The Hijacking of Studio 4, Ladybear & Niagara Strip, how can my interest not be piqued? You can be sure I will be actively searching for anything from these guys from now on.

For more info on Emmeritus, check out this awesome article about them on Canuxploitation.com, which includes several coverboxes and a promo video.

Hillbilly Hijinks.

It’s been a long road for Tucker & Dale vs Evil. After seeing its first screening at Sundance over a year-and-a-half ago, it finally played Toronto last week.

A couple of easy-going rednecks (Alan Tudyk & Taylor Labine) are mistaken for inbred psychopaths by a group of vacationing college kids.

I had a fun time with Tucker & Dale vs Evil. As you can no doubt tell by the trailer, the movie does recycle the same joke over and over – obstensibly making it the Three’s Company of horror comedies – but I still found it entertaining. The role reversal device within its stretched out premise is an interesting one and mixes well with the splatstick. There are moments that the movie dragged to be sure, though I felt that the movie ultimately succeeded because of Tudyk and Labine. They worked well together, had great comic timing and were the main reason why the theatre was still full of laughter – and not crickets – an hour in. I like Tyler Labine. I recall his tiny, yet memorable appearances as a stoner on The X-Files and I’m glad he’s made the big time – you can also see him in the recent Rise of the Planet of the Apes – because he’s very likable onscreen.

The fact that this movie sat on the shelf for so long only serves to its detriment and that’s a shame, as making horror fans wait this long only leads to overhype and raised expectation. While I don’t think Tucker & Dale vs Evil is anything spectacular, it is really hard not to like. It’s wholly inoffensive, sometimes charming and the protagonists are lovable losers. It is also one of those movies that is best viewed in a group environment. Throw it on at your next party for shits & giggles, and see if you don’t have one or two people grinning like a banjo boy.

Not So Cool, Brewster.

The latest remake on the block is the flashy 3D redo of Tom Holland's 1985 horror classic Fright Night.

All hell breaks loose when Charley (Anton Yelchin) realizes that his new neighbour Jerry Dandridge (Colin Farrell) is a vampire and preying on the residents of his neighbourhood.

I was really hoping I was going to like Fright Night more than I actually did. Don't get me wrong, it's a serviceable movie, but there were numerous things about it that hindered my enjoyment. As you would while watching a remake, you tend to wait for the cues from its predecessor and I found that the good deal of them never came. That is due to, apart from sharing the same characters and byline, it feeling like a completely different movie. I understand why the filmmakers wanted to get away from just doing a shot-for-shot redux – as that makes no sense either – but in their attempt to distance themselves from the original, they also managed to suck most of the fun out of it, as well. The first half is shrunk down considerably and the Rear Window aspect, my favourite thing about the original, is completely downplayed. Here, within twenty minutes, Charley's friend Ed (Chris Mintz-Plasse) is telling him matter-of-factly that his neighbour is a vampire. In Holland's version, we were shown that. In Craig Gillespie's, we are told it. You see the difference?

Unfortunately, this is not the only stuff from the original that is cast aside. Charley's girlfriend, Amy plays a much less relevant part in this one, which irked me as I'm a big fan of Imogen Poots. However, perhaps the most disapponting tweak was that there didn't seem to be all that much interaction between Charley & Jerry before the shit hit the fan. I think if it wasn't for the strong talent involved here, Fright Night could have been a real failure. Farrell has fun with the role, playing up the calculating and predatory aspects of his vampiric nature and David Tennant is great as stage show illusionist Peter Vincent, even if he was just doing his best Russell Brand impersonation.

The changes to the story could have all been forgiven, if I didn't keep getting distracted by the heavy use of often sub par visual effects. There was an entire sequence in the desert that was rife with bad CG. It's a shame because the original sported some really creative practical effects, and this one almost actively avoided them. I really hope this isn't a sign of things to come with The Thing prequel, as that would seriously break my heart.

Putting all that aside, Fright Night does have its share of good ideas and some sly references to the original movie, but as a whole, it doesn't add up to anything substantial. I guess I was a little more optimistic than perhaps I should have been.

DKTM 115

Hello all. Here is some stuff to keep you cool, during these last few weeks of summer.

Crazy Clown Countdown.

This week it was announced that David Lynch's music album Crazy Clown Time will release on November 8th. Lynch, in collaboration with musician Dean Hurley, wrote, produced and performed the 14-track album. Here below, are the two winners of the 2010 Lynch video competition for the tracks "A Good Day" and "I Know." I couldn't be more excited for this!

Blood Drenched Rainbows.

This week at GamesCom, Suda 51, overseer of quirky over-the-top games like No More Heroes and Shadows of the Damned, announced a new title coming in 2012 called Lollipop Chainsaw. Written by director James Gunn (Slither, Super), you need only the trailer below to see the glorious pairing these two make.

The great thing is, even if this game is total shite, it'll still be infinitely more enjoyable than Dead Rising 2.

The Re-Enactment Is Coming.

For those of you that will be in Toronto next weekend for the Fan Expo, I corgially invite you to check out a sneak preview of Android Re-Enactment on Sunday, August 28. Yes, the feature I worked on many moons ago is finally ready to unleash on an unsuspecting populace.

The screening is at 2pm in Rm#709 and the cast & crew will be in attendance to answer your burning questions. Hope to see you there!

It's All A Little Hazy Part 2

With our bellies full of chili, we moved from Devil Times Five onto the second feature of the night’s double bill, an old Canadian TV movie called The Tower. This was an eighties relic – snapped up last time I was at Eyesore – made by a company called Emmeritus Productions, who made a bunch of movies for Canadian television during that magical decade.

LOLA, an office building’s security system powered by the body heat of its occupants(!) goes haywire and starts sucking the life from the unfortunate people trapped inside.

Here is what I recall, as everyone still in attendance, was fading fast by this point.

I remember the production value being astonishingly minimal. It made your average soap opera look like Dreamworks.

I remember the term “BTU” being used a LOT. Like the most ever.

Behold the state-of-the-art graphics!

I remember the actors occasionally slipping into their accents, resulting in lines like, “We have to find a way oot.”

I remember thinking that the filmmakers ripped their visual effects from Dr. Who.

I remember LOLA sometimes phrasing random sentences as questions.

I remember the girl in the yellow bikini.

The Tower's best asset, Miss Zuzana Struss.

Then I remember wondering how it was that she was going out with the security guard – the Bruce McCulloch of nightwatchmen.

I remember the location suddenly switching to a strip club… for like, half-an-hour.

Eighties Photobomb!

And then to an apartment, or rather a hotel room dressed to look like an apartment. You could actually overhear the conversation happening next door coming through the wall.

But, most of all I remember thinking the movie felt like it was three hours long. Even if you took out the scenes of people wandering around the building halls and staircases, it would still feel overwrought. Yet, because it is SO eighties and SO Canadian, I can’t help but feel somewhat endeared to it.

Ain't that the sad truth.

So, you know what that means? Chalk up another successful movie night!

It's All A Little Hazy

I had another VHS movie night last Saturday’s eve. The first movie planned was the 1974 horror flick Devil Times Five. I’d had this movie on my shelf for quite sometime, and after seeing the trailer during Suspect’s recent anniversary party, I figured it was time to crack it open. However, we got started kinda late, so by the time the movie began to unspool, we were all pretty intoxicated.

When a bus transporting five psychotic children crashes, they escape and are taken in by the unsuspecting occupants of a nearby mountain retreat. Of course, it isn't long before the bodies start piling up.

Based on my foggy mental state, here are my recollections of this movie.

I remember the credits sequence being perhaps the longest in existence. Every few minutes someone in the room would pipe up, “How are the credits still going?!”

This is the second act!

I remember being lost – and I wasn’t alone – as to what the hell was going on, but at the same time, not really caring.

I remember a black & white slow motion death scene that – like the opening credits – seemed to go on forevvvvvvvver.

I remember coming to the realization that all my childhood I mistakenly thought my teachers were telling me I was cute.

Now it all makes sense...

I remember there was a very un-sexy sex scene.

I remember there was Christmas music.

I remember wondering at one point if I was watching Of Mice and Men, due to the appearance of an outspoken retard named Lenny Ralph. He even owned pet rabbits!

I remember there being an actor who looked an awful lot like Elwy Yost.

Seventies Photobomb!

I remember a lot of orange.

I remember a catfight breaking out in the bedroom.

"What are you guys doin? Auditioning for the Olympics or somethin?"

I remember there was a couple named Papa Doc & Lovely.

I remember Papa Doc pronouncing piranha, “piran-ya”

I remember there were many choice lines, many of which ended up on Mitchell’s live Twitter feed. (mild spoilers)

And finally, I remember it got pretty good toward the end.

Oh, and I recall delicious chili, prepared by DirtyRobot, being served around 1 a.m.

A couple of days later, I decided to re-watch Devil Time Five. Was it really that incoherent, or was just our combined level of inebriation? It turns out it was mostly us, but not completely.

The opening credits really do go on for ten minutes, and that black & white slo-mo bit for almost as long. It’s funny because there is a similar technique used in They Call Her One Eye – also 1974 – so maybe it was just a global filmmaking trend that year. The child actors are all suitably crazy insane and give the movie a really bizarre tone. You can certainly accuse this movie of excessively elongating its first half, but it does end up earning its place at the grown-ups table of seventies’ survival flicks.

I was hoping Devil Times Five would be something more along the lines of Who Can Kill A Child? or the more recent The Children, but I’m definitely glad I gave it another watch to fill in some of the substantial blanks.

That's all for now, but check back tomorrow for Part 2.