I Knew It!

I knew there was a reason I didn't trust Mister Rogers as a kid!

Turn On The Sun!

August is already upon us, not that you’d know it in my neck of the woods. Toronto has had records rainfalls the last few months making it the most waterlogged region in Canada this summer, which is ridiculous considering the usual weather patterns of British Columbia and the Maritimes. Let’s hope this all turns around for us starting… NOW!

This Coverbox Wednesday I commemorate the lazy days of summer, a time for backyard barbeques, summer camp and GRUESOME DEATH!

Mayhem On Four Wheels

The subject of this month’s Final Girl Film Club selection is quite coincidental because I actually caught 1977’s The Car for the first time on late night TV just a few months ago. It’s a good thing that The Car is a highly enjoyable movie and one that I had no problem revisiting for the FGFC.

A large black car that kills without warning terrorizes the residents of a desert Utah community. The local sheriff (James Brolin) has to stop it before everyone in town becomes a victim of… The Car.

Coming out a full six years before Stephen King’s Christine, The Car is a little broader in scope. While Christine picked her targets, The Car is indiscriminate. It will go for anyone, including that annoying hitchhiker who was just TOO happy. The car is the star of this movie, as Jaws – which this movie is sometimes compared to – was the star of his. The Car itself, a customized Lincoln Mark III, has a very iconic look to it. It’s amazing how much the front grille can add personality (a face if you will) to an inanimate object.

The car basically has free reign here, especially considering it’s up against a sheriff’s department that unfortunately has the most flammable cop cars in the history of cinema. Maybe it’s because the film is sped up to make them appear to be going faster than they actually are. I kept expecting Benny Hill in drag to appear out from behind a mesa. Luckily, Brolin is the shit and rides a motorcycle! I should mention that there is actually some pretty good stunt work in this and for every laughable moment, there is one that stands out.

There are a lot of sass talking characters in this movie. Brolin’s kids are over precocious (“This is grown up talk huh?”), the town drunk/wife beater (played with extra crust by R.G. Armstrong) needs a smack and Brolin’s girlfriend (Kathleen Lloyd) never seems to be at a loss for words, which comes back to bite her in a scene I bet you’ve NEVER seen before. Ronny Cox – usually a badass, as in RoboCop and Deliverance – shows up here as a sniveling alcoholic deputy.

The movie is a little dated, sure - if not just for the fact that nowadays, with gas prices as they are, Evil would have to find some other cheaper alternative to raise hell - but The Car is a movie that’s great for those lazy Sundays, when you are looking for something fun. I mean, at one point, a fat woman yells out "CAT POOOO!" for Christ’s sake. What more incentive do you need?

Crazy About Munn

I may have mentioned before that I am an avid watcher of the G4 Network and as a result have become very fond of Olivia Munn, co-host of Attack Of The Show. Her on-air unpredictability (she’s prone to sudden outbursts of profanity), her acute fear of loud noises (hence said cursing) and never being afraid to look like an idiot for the sake of comedy are just a few reasons I find her so endearing. Oh, and she also happens to be incredibly easy on the eyes.

When I found out she was appearing in an upcoming horror flick called Insanitarium, I was naturally excited to have two of my worlds collide. Sure, it was a direct-to-DVD title likely to be shit on a stick, but at least Olivia had fifth billing, meaning she had more than just a walk-on part. Last night, I was finally able to sit down and watch Insanitarium. With the all the exhaustive G4 coverage of E3 & Comic-Con over the last few weeks, you’d think I’d be tired of her by now. Not a chance.

After Jack (Jesse Metcalfe) loses contact with his institutionalized sister Lily (Kiele Sanchez), he gets himself committed so that he can break her out. Once inside, he discovers that head of staff Dr. Gianetti (Peter Stormare) is performing radical experiments on his patients – and Lily may be next!

Right up front, yes it’s true, Insanitarium isn’t a particularly good movie. The first half is pretty rough, due in no small part to Peter Stormare. This fucking guy, man! Does he miss meals so he can chew more scenery? I can only think of two movies (Fargo, where he basically does a low rent Mr. Blonde and Dancer In The Dark, his one saving grace) where he wasn’t a complete fucking cartoon. Also distracting was the gore work. Did they have two different companies working on this? I say this because some shots were solid and others… not so much. Who knew catheads screwed off as easily as bottle caps?

I will say that Insanitarium improves substantially in the last act, though that may have just been because I was into it by that point. I was clinging to hope that Olivia Munn’s character Nancy was going to make it, even though I was well aware that horror logic dictated she was the expendable character in the remaining group of four. She holds her own though and does well in her first substantial role in a feature. It was refreshing to see Olivia outside of her usual environment of baby oil slides and dangling hot dogs.

Olivia kicking ass and taking names.

In addition to Olivia, there were several other people of note in this. Armin Shimerman (Buffy’s Principal Snyder) plays a Hannibal Lecter type character in the maximum-security ward and I also recognized Kiele Sanchez and Carla Gallo from their time in TV’s Lost and Carnivàle respectively.

Without the Olivia factor, Insanitarium would be fairly forgettable for me, but you could do a lot worse. Like I said before, it really does go a long way to redeeming itself during its climax.

I hope to see you again soon Livie. Maybe next time you’ll even be the Final Girl!

Insert X Pun Here

Things have been so crazy around here, I barely had time to see the new X-Files movie, let alone review it. I thought about just letting it go, but my conscience wouldn’t allow it. You see, the X-Files used to take up so much of my psyche, that this new movie just HAD to be addressed. I originally wanted to do a whole lead up of articles about my favourite episodes, but the clock was not on my side. Having a full time job - that doesn’t involve writing about cool shit – really sucks sometimes!

Before I comment on the new X-Files movie, let us first go back in time fifteen years to when it all started. It was September 1993 and I was avidly watching (as any Evil Dead fan would) the new Bruce Campbell vehicle The Adventures Of Brisco County Jr. Then, one fateful night, I happened to catch the first five minutes of the show that came on right after Brisco called The X-Files. That episode was “Deep Throat”, the second one ever to air. I was immediately hooked. I recorded every episode and dubbed copies for my friends, endoctrining them all into watching the coolest show on television. As the show’s popularity increased, I became obsessed with the mythology and mulled over every detail of the show. I joined the first official fan club (run by two sisters in New Hampshire) and went to an X-Files convention held here in 1995. The X-Files is also the main reason I came online that year, getting a shitty (and expensive) Delphi account with its dos-based web browser just so I could have access to X-Files images and alt.tv.x-files.

So, the show pressed on for several years and even I – the huge fan that I am – acknowledge that the show went on two seasons too long. It’s not that I had a problem with Robert Patrick and Annabeth Gish (I actually really liked Agent Reyes), it was just that the show wasn’t as compelling. In fact, I recently took a look at a list of the last season’s episodes and couldn’t remember watching many of them, even though I know I MUST have. The show’s conclusion was unfulfilling, which only proved my point further that they should have ended it sooner.

So, six years later, a new X-Files feature film is upon us. The general consensus from people I talk to, whether they were fans of the show or not, is a resounding ‘meh’. I’ve also heard ‘why now?’, ‘too late’, and ‘pointless’ bandied about. I heard these opinions, even somewhat agreed with them, but still felt an obligation to revisit a franchise that was so near and dear to my heart not so long ago.

After an FBI agent is abducted, a convicted pedophile (Billy Connolly) claims he is having visions of her whereabouts. With no concrete leads, the FBI ask Scully (Gillian Anderson) to pull Mulder (David Duchovny) out of exile to help with the case. Running out of time, Mulder and Scully must figure out whether this man is really psychic, a suspect or just completely insane.

Watching X-Files: I Want To Believe was a very strange and surreal experience that is hard to describe. I felt very displaced. The world has moved on since the end of the show and it was clear early on that this movie, as most suspected, is five years too late. I’ll give you a perfect example. When Duchovny first came onscreen, I thought of Hank Moody (his current character on Californication). That’s how long it’s been! I don’t even really associate him with Mulder anymore. I won’t really go into details about how I felt about where they took the characters in the interim because frankly, I didn’t care that much. And that’s the tragedy here. So much time has passed since The X-Files was relevant that I felt totally disconnected from it. I don’t blame either Duchovny or Anderson for this because they were as good as ever, but everything else seemed out of whack. The story was fairly standard and driven forward by some outlandish MacGuffins that were really hard to overlook at times. There were some good moments though. Mulder’s one-liners are still on, there were a ton of Easter eggs for X-Philes to pick out and my man Callum Keith Rennie shows up as the villain. However, none of that changes the fact that X-Files: IWTB felt like an elongated episode and not one of the stronger entries either. I don’t remember it being that way with 1999’s Fight The Future. That seemed like a bigger, broader and more polished extension of the show, which also served as a clever bridge between the fifth and sixth seasons.

So, in the end, X-Files: IWTB is a take-it-or-leave-it experience. As a movie, it is fairly average, but as part of the X-Files canon, it fails to live up to the high quality of the show in its prime. This should really upset me as a fan, but as I said before… Meh.

Cool Stuff

I was working on the set of a buddy’s film all weekend, so I have only just now gotten caught up with all the news of the last week. Man, there was a lot of cool shit at Comic-Con in all forms of media. Here is just a taste.

Dexter Season 3! Glorious!!!

Also on the small screen this fall, is the new Alan Ball (of Six Feet Under fame) show True Blood. It's about vampires living among us and stars Anna Paquin. And it's on HBO. Okay, that's a whole lot of goodness I just threw out there... I need to take a breath.

In addition to the mouth-watering digital morsel that is Resident Evil 5, there is also an animated feature film on the way called Resident Evil: Degeneration. Anything RE has (for better or worse) my immediate attention.

Now, I know the new Robert Rodriguez/Rose McGowan project Red Sonja (pictured below) is not horror, but man oh man do I loooooove this poster! That shade of red makes me feel all tingly inside.

And this new Mandy Lane one sheet is cool too.

To comics now. Marvel and Stephen King teaming up again for a comic adaptation of his epic, The Stand. Hopefully, this adaptation will go where the sanitized mini-series wouldn’t.

I also ran across the website for this "live action comic book" Brielle & The Horror.

I am intrigued. If anyone out there knows anything about this, please feel free to give me a heads up.

I am really behind here guys, please bear with me.

The Most Dangerous Game

This month’s selection is the 2005 French film 13 Tzameti.

Struggling immigrant Sebastien (Georges Babluani) steals a dead man’s identity in order to make some easy cash. Unfortunately for him, he unknowingly enters into an underground gambling ring – where players bet their lives!

This film has a lot in common with my first non-horror selection Day Night, Day Night. It is simple, brimming with intensity and requires an investment of patience from the viewer. Once again, I will let the trailer sell the premise for you.



As you can imagine, 13 Tzameti has several hold-your-breath moments. It is a bare bones thriller that deserves an audience because it is a throwback to an old school style of filmmaking and I don’t just mean the black and white. Director and writer Géla Babluani (older brother of the film’s star) carefully grounds us in realism before thrusting into the insane world of the ‘game’. I think the scariest thing about the subject matter is that some incarnation of it likely exists out there somewhere. In fact, there is a special feature on the DVD where the filmmakers interview an alleged survivor of such a game.

Some have criticized the film’s pace and while I do agree that the middle act is its strongest, I was always completely ensconced in its dark world. Inevitably, the American remake is on the way, though with Babluani still at the helm. However, unlike Michael Haneke, who remade his own film Funny Games practically shot-for-shot, Babluani intends to avoid that by changing the story and shooting in colour.

If you are in the mood for something dark and subversive, I encourage you to check out 13 Tzameti.