.com for murder is terribad. Let's just get that out of the way: This is one of the worst movies I have ever watched. The only things that kept me from stopping midway through was that I wasn't expecting much to begin with and it was on the list for this month's marathon.
So .com for murder is a 2001 internet/crime/thriller written and directed by Nico Mastorakis and starring Nastassja Kinski, Roger Daltrey, and Nicollette Sheridan. Though, realistically I noticed Huey Lewis and Melinda Clarke more. Roger Daltrey is barely in the movie and the other two I didn't recognize at all.
Nastassja is presumably Roger Daltrey's wife and inexplicably in a leg cast. They have some chit-chat where he proves he's the MAN and insults the entire female gender as being technologically inept, then leaves for a business trip. The wife is left alone with her sister to take care of her since she's in a cast, and immediately guesses the password to Daltrey's internet account and hops on an erotic chat room. She hits on a girl that seems like she knows the screen name and then trolls some guy who is doing stuff in the room no one else can do.
This guy, woah, this guy. In his intro scene he is: Butt nekkid in a dark room with a huge TV-monitor, watching naked dancers blue-screened onto fire backgrounds. He's wearing a beanie, and has a ring painted around one eye. He's using a wireless keyboard that glows and has these little lights velcro'd to his fingers. He spends the entire movie quoting angst-ridden poetry, apparently from Faust. His only motivation to kill is for revenge since he thinks Daltrey's character had trolled him, and then curls up in his HUGE bathtub and cries.
The whole thing is non-sensical and character motivations are bizarre. The technology in the movie has absolutely no resemblance to anything that has ever existed. In one scene the killer is signed off and there are just low flames animating on his screen, I jokingly said "That must be his FIRE WALL, OHHHHH!" However, I was right and the screen was labeled "Firewall active". Literally the worst pun I could think of was what the writers decided to go with. It's just silly, poorly conceived, nonsense. Maybe Internet week was a poor choice.
ONWARD! To Hellworld!
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Monday, October 8, 2012
October Horror 2012: feardotcom
feardotcom.com.com...I have to say that I actually forgot to write this for several days after watching the movie, it really sort of washed over me.
feardotcom was directed by William Malone and release by Warner Brothers in 2002. It stars Stephen Dorff, Jeffrey Combs, and Natascha McElhone. There's a brief cameo by Udo Kier in the very beginning of the movie.
The movie itself is about a NYC cop (Dorff) teaming up with a Health Dept. Officer (McElhone) to uncover the cause behind a seemingly unrelated string of 4 deaths. I don't recall why the health department was involved, I think it was because of the black eyes on all 4 victims, but I don't exactly recall.
It turns out they all died exactly 48 hours after visiting a website, "www.feardotcom.com". I'm serious. At the time they made the movie they wanted to purchase the website "www.fear.com", which was owned by someone else who refused to sell. So they went ahead and made the movie anyway, but this led to some confused branding where you'd see "feardotcom.com", "feardot.com", etc. The website is the webcam site of a serial killer known as "The Doctor" who tortures his victims until they beg to die. But sometimes it's possessed by an alluring woman asking visitors if they want to hurt her, then tells them they're lying and demands they find her.
The movie is visually creative, but nothing hits. So you think it's cool while you're watching things but then forget exactly what had happened. The actors seem really disinterested, so none of the characters provide any emotional engagement. It's a pity because it looks interesting, but is too dull to resonate. The thing feels really similar to 2008's Untracable, except with a supernatural element and much weaker mystery.
A pretty unfortunate way to start internet week, but I wasn't expecting much. Horror doesn't usually seem to get technology. Anyway, we continue tomorrow with: .com For Murder.
feardotcom was directed by William Malone and release by Warner Brothers in 2002. It stars Stephen Dorff, Jeffrey Combs, and Natascha McElhone. There's a brief cameo by Udo Kier in the very beginning of the movie.
The movie itself is about a NYC cop (Dorff) teaming up with a Health Dept. Officer (McElhone) to uncover the cause behind a seemingly unrelated string of 4 deaths. I don't recall why the health department was involved, I think it was because of the black eyes on all 4 victims, but I don't exactly recall.
It turns out they all died exactly 48 hours after visiting a website, "www.feardotcom.com". I'm serious. At the time they made the movie they wanted to purchase the website "www.fear.com", which was owned by someone else who refused to sell. So they went ahead and made the movie anyway, but this led to some confused branding where you'd see "feardotcom.com", "feardot.com", etc. The website is the webcam site of a serial killer known as "The Doctor" who tortures his victims until they beg to die. But sometimes it's possessed by an alluring woman asking visitors if they want to hurt her, then tells them they're lying and demands they find her.
The movie is visually creative, but nothing hits. So you think it's cool while you're watching things but then forget exactly what had happened. The actors seem really disinterested, so none of the characters provide any emotional engagement. It's a pity because it looks interesting, but is too dull to resonate. The thing feels really similar to 2008's Untracable, except with a supernatural element and much weaker mystery.
A pretty unfortunate way to start internet week, but I wasn't expecting much. Horror doesn't usually seem to get technology. Anyway, we continue tomorrow with: .com For Murder.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
October Horror 2012: In the Mouth of Madness
So we are a few days behind but tonight we watched John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness and most of 2007's Cthulhu.
In the Mouth of Madness was released in 1994 and based on a screenplay written by Michael De Luca. It's got a pretty stellar class including Sam Neill, Jürgen Prochnow, David Warner, Charlton Heston and Frances Bay. This is the only movie this week that's not directly based on a Lovecraft story, but is a completely original screenplay. Obviously it's heavily influenced by Lovecraft's work, but oddly doesn't have a lot to do with H.P.'s At the Mountains of Madness aside from some token mentions of Shoggoths. It's got more in common with The Shadow over Innsmouth.
It's a what-if story that deals with 2 major points: What if H.P. Lovecraft was a contemporary author, hugely popular in the 90s? And what if stories have the power to become real if enough people believe in the reality?
The movie once again uses the framing device of having the story told in flashback while John Trent (Sam Neill) narrates the events to Dr. Wrenn (David Warner). Trent is a freelance insurance investigator, which seems to be an oddly specific form of private detective, who is hired to track down the missing author Sutter Cane. Cane is some sort of modernized version of Lovecraft himself, possibly with a dash of Stephen King thrown in for good measure. He sets most of his stories in a fictionalized New England town and writes about indescribable other-worldly horrors. There's an added wrinkle that his books are rumored to be so deranged they actually make some people go mad.
The publishing company needs Trent to find Cane's latest manuscript because the book is due out soon and they've already started to market it. The story is called In the Mouth of Madness...oh, hey, I see what you did there! Trent manages to find a clue in Cane's cover art, leading him to a small town which seems to be a real-life manifestation of Hobb's End, the town from his stories. Hobb's End is another common fictional town used by several authors in several stories, very similar to Lovecraft's Arkham. There's a nice mashup of insanity, hallucinations, sea creatures along with the meta aspect of meeting the author of the story with the same name as the movie. The ending is wonderfully meta.
The soundtrack was a little odd. Carpenter's usually involved with the music in his own movies but the soundtracks in his 70s and 80s movies were a lot more fitting, once he hit the 90s he started featuring rock guitars. It fit decently in Ghosts of Mars, since that movie was really action-oriented. In this movie it just feels a little awkward.
The creature effects were better in The Resurrected, so this movie kindof fails to scare with those. It does have some good camera work, but the narrative is what's creepy here. It's unsettling, but only if you think about from the perspective of Trent's character. Even if you can't get into his skin, the movie is still fun because it is a great what-if story.
In the Mouth of Madness was released in 1994 and based on a screenplay written by Michael De Luca. It's got a pretty stellar class including Sam Neill, Jürgen Prochnow, David Warner, Charlton Heston and Frances Bay. This is the only movie this week that's not directly based on a Lovecraft story, but is a completely original screenplay. Obviously it's heavily influenced by Lovecraft's work, but oddly doesn't have a lot to do with H.P.'s At the Mountains of Madness aside from some token mentions of Shoggoths. It's got more in common with The Shadow over Innsmouth.
It's a what-if story that deals with 2 major points: What if H.P. Lovecraft was a contemporary author, hugely popular in the 90s? And what if stories have the power to become real if enough people believe in the reality?
The movie once again uses the framing device of having the story told in flashback while John Trent (Sam Neill) narrates the events to Dr. Wrenn (David Warner). Trent is a freelance insurance investigator, which seems to be an oddly specific form of private detective, who is hired to track down the missing author Sutter Cane. Cane is some sort of modernized version of Lovecraft himself, possibly with a dash of Stephen King thrown in for good measure. He sets most of his stories in a fictionalized New England town and writes about indescribable other-worldly horrors. There's an added wrinkle that his books are rumored to be so deranged they actually make some people go mad.
The publishing company needs Trent to find Cane's latest manuscript because the book is due out soon and they've already started to market it. The story is called In the Mouth of Madness...oh, hey, I see what you did there! Trent manages to find a clue in Cane's cover art, leading him to a small town which seems to be a real-life manifestation of Hobb's End, the town from his stories. Hobb's End is another common fictional town used by several authors in several stories, very similar to Lovecraft's Arkham. There's a nice mashup of insanity, hallucinations, sea creatures along with the meta aspect of meeting the author of the story with the same name as the movie. The ending is wonderfully meta.
The soundtrack was a little odd. Carpenter's usually involved with the music in his own movies but the soundtracks in his 70s and 80s movies were a lot more fitting, once he hit the 90s he started featuring rock guitars. It fit decently in Ghosts of Mars, since that movie was really action-oriented. In this movie it just feels a little awkward.
The creature effects were better in The Resurrected, so this movie kindof fails to scare with those. It does have some good camera work, but the narrative is what's creepy here. It's unsettling, but only if you think about from the perspective of Trent's character. Even if you can't get into his skin, the movie is still fun because it is a great what-if story.
Saturday, October 6, 2012
October Horror 2012: Re-animator
Re-animator is the 1985 cult classic H.P. Lovecraft adaptation directed by Stuart Gordon, who went on to direct a lot more Lovecraft adaptations based on the success of this. The movie is loosely based on Herbert West: Re-Animator and stars Jeffrey Combs in the lead role.
The original story was published in 6 parts in Weird Tales magazine, and maintains both of Lovecraft's hallmarks of the use of a framing story and of having the timeframe last several years. The movie departs from this by using a highly compressed timeframe of days, maybe weeks, and also telling the story with more a traditional 3rd person dramatic narrative. The story is also the first Lovecraft story to use the location of Miskatonic University.
The movie itself is an amazing exercise in pure 80's horror cheese. The acting is hilariously over the top and the soundtrack is almost cartoony. It was a lot of fun to watch, not being particularly scary or even disturbing. It felt a lot like The Evil Dead movies, but maybe a little more restrained. Gordon doesn't spray fake blood out of a firehose at people like Sam Raimi enjoys doing, but he definitely showers the set and actors in lots of strangely colored liquids. The movie is also a lot more perverted than anything from The Evil Dead. Some of what happens is downright nasty, but the movie sprints by almost gleefully.
The special effects are almost impressive for the time, but do look pretty weird and fake. I think it's by design, though. The movie revels in that odd sense of humor that calls attention to how corny everything is, but it's also got a massive sick streak. Well worth the watch.
Coming up, we close out Lovecraft week with John Carpenter's In The Mouth of Madness.
The original story was published in 6 parts in Weird Tales magazine, and maintains both of Lovecraft's hallmarks of the use of a framing story and of having the timeframe last several years. The movie departs from this by using a highly compressed timeframe of days, maybe weeks, and also telling the story with more a traditional 3rd person dramatic narrative. The story is also the first Lovecraft story to use the location of Miskatonic University.
The movie itself is an amazing exercise in pure 80's horror cheese. The acting is hilariously over the top and the soundtrack is almost cartoony. It was a lot of fun to watch, not being particularly scary or even disturbing. It felt a lot like The Evil Dead movies, but maybe a little more restrained. Gordon doesn't spray fake blood out of a firehose at people like Sam Raimi enjoys doing, but he definitely showers the set and actors in lots of strangely colored liquids. The movie is also a lot more perverted than anything from The Evil Dead. Some of what happens is downright nasty, but the movie sprints by almost gleefully.
The special effects are almost impressive for the time, but do look pretty weird and fake. I think it's by design, though. The movie revels in that odd sense of humor that calls attention to how corny everything is, but it's also got a massive sick streak. Well worth the watch.
Coming up, we close out Lovecraft week with John Carpenter's In The Mouth of Madness.
Friday, October 5, 2012
October Horror 2012: Cthulhu
Cthulhu, released in 2007 and directed by Dan Gildark is a vague adaptation of The Shadow over Innsmouth. Their use of a gay protagonist is often discussed, but thankfully the film doesn't entirely hinge on it. It's just a point.
The story is moved from Innsmouth to a small coastal town in Washington state called Rivermouth and begins when Russel Marsh receives a phone call informing him of his mother's death. He's now living on the East coast with his partner, but drives home to attend to funeral and help his father put her affairs in order.
While there he spontaneously shaves his head, gets involved in uncovering a deep secret about his family, rekindles some old relationships, and gets drugged by Tori Spelling. It's a bit weird.
I liked the movie, the 1st and 3rd acts where both really good. It was disturbed, kindof creepy, mysterious, and uncomfortable. The psychology was good, the imagery was fantastic, and everything going on was pretty interesting. I guess it had a cliff hanger ending but the action building up to it was fun.
The 2nd act was where I wasn't enjoying myself. It was weird in all the wrong ways. Mainly the amount of time spent with Tori Spelling character was too damn high, and it was monumentally awkward because her and her wheelchair-bound husband effectively date rape Russel so that they could have a child. I understand that the fact the he's a Marsh and needs to have a child for the good of the cult, which most of the town are members of, but it just seemed really out of place and tasteless for a movie that for the most part was being really even and real about how a gay man might be treated when returning to his conservative and highly religious small town home. Yes, it's a religion based around Deep Ones and immortal half-breeds, but still a religion.
It was a good movie, I liked it, but that middle bit was just a bit off-putting.
Lovecraft week draws one step closer to its inevitable end, but before that comes the classic Reanimator.
The story is moved from Innsmouth to a small coastal town in Washington state called Rivermouth and begins when Russel Marsh receives a phone call informing him of his mother's death. He's now living on the East coast with his partner, but drives home to attend to funeral and help his father put her affairs in order.
While there he spontaneously shaves his head, gets involved in uncovering a deep secret about his family, rekindles some old relationships, and gets drugged by Tori Spelling. It's a bit weird.
I liked the movie, the 1st and 3rd acts where both really good. It was disturbed, kindof creepy, mysterious, and uncomfortable. The psychology was good, the imagery was fantastic, and everything going on was pretty interesting. I guess it had a cliff hanger ending but the action building up to it was fun.
The 2nd act was where I wasn't enjoying myself. It was weird in all the wrong ways. Mainly the amount of time spent with Tori Spelling character was too damn high, and it was monumentally awkward because her and her wheelchair-bound husband effectively date rape Russel so that they could have a child. I understand that the fact the he's a Marsh and needs to have a child for the good of the cult, which most of the town are members of, but it just seemed really out of place and tasteless for a movie that for the most part was being really even and real about how a gay man might be treated when returning to his conservative and highly religious small town home. Yes, it's a religion based around Deep Ones and immortal half-breeds, but still a religion.
It was a good movie, I liked it, but that middle bit was just a bit off-putting.
Lovecraft week draws one step closer to its inevitable end, but before that comes the classic Reanimator.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
October Horror 2012: The Call of Cthulhu
Alright, this one's a bit odd. It's a black & white silent movie based on the story of the same name, released in 2005 and produced by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. They call the filming style "Mythoscope" which is a blend of traditional and modern filming techniques that produces a film which very much adheres to the aesthetic of a movie from the 20s or 30s while still respecting certain modern sensibilities.
As such we have a lot of static cameras, but a few moving shots. What's funny is the static shots feel appropriate and refined but a lot of others that technically look better seem amateurish and out of place, like someone's home movie.
From what I can tell it's also the most accurate to the original story, aside from a few minor changes which do seem like they would make it easier to hook the narrative or make certain scenes easier to film. As an example, according to wikipedia the original story had the Alert crewed by cultists which would have required another scene with many many extras so they made it that the Alert was abandoned which required no additional cast members. Basically the sort of rigid adherence to the source material you'd expect from a group calling themselves the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society.
Beyond that I can't really judge anything because the movie is so far out of my realm of experience. It moved pretty briskly, and the music was nice. More dramatic than the silly scores I usually imagine going with silent movies. It was fun to watch...but it's really not my thing.
Tomorrow will be the 2007 Cthulhu, based on The Shadow Over Innsmouth. It will probably be the most "artistic" thing yet.
As such we have a lot of static cameras, but a few moving shots. What's funny is the static shots feel appropriate and refined but a lot of others that technically look better seem amateurish and out of place, like someone's home movie.
From what I can tell it's also the most accurate to the original story, aside from a few minor changes which do seem like they would make it easier to hook the narrative or make certain scenes easier to film. As an example, according to wikipedia the original story had the Alert crewed by cultists which would have required another scene with many many extras so they made it that the Alert was abandoned which required no additional cast members. Basically the sort of rigid adherence to the source material you'd expect from a group calling themselves the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society.
Beyond that I can't really judge anything because the movie is so far out of my realm of experience. It moved pretty briskly, and the music was nice. More dramatic than the silly scores I usually imagine going with silent movies. It was fun to watch...but it's really not my thing.
Tomorrow will be the 2007 Cthulhu, based on The Shadow Over Innsmouth. It will probably be the most "artistic" thing yet.
October Horror 2012: The Resurrected
The Resurrected (aka Shatterbrain) is a 1992 direct to video horror movie directed by Dan O'Bannon, who's only previous directing credit was 1984's Return of The Living Dead. He'd also written the screenplay for Screamers and Total Recall and created characters for Alien. The movie starred Chris Sarandon, John Terry, and Jane Sibbett. It was based on The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, which Lovecraft actually wrote immediately prior to The Colour of Outer Space.
I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by this one. I wasn't sure what to expect since it was early 90's VHS release, but the movie was really good. It was tense, had a pretty compelling story, was decently acted, and had better effects than some movies I've seen that came out last year. The movie also seems to fit the pace of the original story the best, and may have actually extend the story. They've borrowed the framing device that Lovecraft is fond of and the story is told to the audience by someone else after-the-fact, often resulting in multiple levels of flashback.
Oddly, for as much as they seemed to respect the source material they changed the name of the narrator from Marinus Bicknell Willett to John March and changed his occupation from family doctor to private detective hired by Ward's estranged wife. I don't actually fault the movie here because it was a convincing angle and enabled them to add a few fun support characters.
The movie has token nods to Lovecraft's Cosmic mythology, but the horror elements here are the result of a person accessing an unnatural power. There aren't really far-reaching ramifications, there's no manipulation by unseen forces, just a power-mad alchemist discovering a secret to prolonging his life and even returning from the dead with a hunger for blood and super-human strength that almost makes him vampiric.
The mystery is tense and twists naturally, but the effects are stand-out. They really had some nasty looking blood and gore effects and a lot of a super-gross creature effects. It lent a lot of good creepiness and tension, especially to a certain underground scene involving a matchbook.
This was pretty much great. I think this is the strongest movie of the season so far and so far the only one that was actually scary in the traditional sense. The age on the first two movies this year made them a bit campy.
Tomorrow we watch the 2005 silent Call of Cthulhu from the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society.
I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by this one. I wasn't sure what to expect since it was early 90's VHS release, but the movie was really good. It was tense, had a pretty compelling story, was decently acted, and had better effects than some movies I've seen that came out last year. The movie also seems to fit the pace of the original story the best, and may have actually extend the story. They've borrowed the framing device that Lovecraft is fond of and the story is told to the audience by someone else after-the-fact, often resulting in multiple levels of flashback.
Oddly, for as much as they seemed to respect the source material they changed the name of the narrator from Marinus Bicknell Willett to John March and changed his occupation from family doctor to private detective hired by Ward's estranged wife. I don't actually fault the movie here because it was a convincing angle and enabled them to add a few fun support characters.
The movie has token nods to Lovecraft's Cosmic mythology, but the horror elements here are the result of a person accessing an unnatural power. There aren't really far-reaching ramifications, there's no manipulation by unseen forces, just a power-mad alchemist discovering a secret to prolonging his life and even returning from the dead with a hunger for blood and super-human strength that almost makes him vampiric.
The mystery is tense and twists naturally, but the effects are stand-out. They really had some nasty looking blood and gore effects and a lot of a super-gross creature effects. It lent a lot of good creepiness and tension, especially to a certain underground scene involving a matchbook.
This was pretty much great. I think this is the strongest movie of the season so far and so far the only one that was actually scary in the traditional sense. The age on the first two movies this year made them a bit campy.
Tomorrow we watch the 2005 silent Call of Cthulhu from the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society.
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