The Irrefutable Truth About Demons from New Zealand
The new millennium got off to a disappointing start with the news that George A Romero's Bruiser, his first film since 1993's The Dark Half would bypass a theatrical release. The fact that this followed a trio of less than stellar efforts (the others being Two Evil Eyes/Due occi diabolici from 1990 and 1988's Monkey Shines) dashed hopes that one of the best-loved genre directors could revitalize his career (thankfully Land of the Dead was only four years away). The film starts well, but squanders an interesting premise - in a mirror image of American Psycho, a put-upon corporate lackey (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' Jason Flemyng) wakes up without a face and sets about writing the wrongs done to him - with a lightweight parade of revenge killings and a flat, unsatisfactory denouement.
Several franchises trudged their weary path onward, or gasped their last in the early days of the decade, among them were the better than average Hellraiser: Inferno, the first to premiere on video and the feature debut of Scott Derrickson, that rarity in the Horror genre, an evangelical Christian, who went on to direct The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005) and the unfortunate The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) - he co-wrote with regular partner Paul Harris Boardman with whom he scripted Urban Legends: Final Cut the same year. Leprechaun in the Hood, was directed by Rob Spera who created the original Witchcraft movie in 1989 (see below for a sequel), but saved his biggest crime for this, Ice-T's most embarrassing screen appearance. Mirror, Mirror IV: Reflection, the last of the screenwriting Gascone sisters' series and best of the sequels, but not a patch on the 1990 original which was really quite good. Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman, came from writer/director Michael Cooney, son of the successful British screenwriter and playwright Ray Cooney (What a Carve Up!). Cooney Jr redeemed his creation of this franchise by scripting James Mangold's Identity (2003) and the upcoming (but suspiciously delayed) Shelter with Julianne Moore.
At the zero-budget end of the barrel we find Ted V Mikels, who gave us Corpse Grinders 2, the shot-on-video sequel to his 1971 original which is just ho-hum; Zombie Bloodbath 3: Zombie Armageddon, from Todd Sheets, the Kansas King of Gore, who delivered two of his hog-wild video bloodbaths in 2000, this and Catacombs; Addicted to Murder 3: Blood Lust from the prolific Kevin J Lindenmuth; the original Addicted to Love was voted best Underground Horror film by Cinefantastique magazine in 1996; Camp Blood II from Plaguers (2008) and Witchcraft XII: In the Lair of the Serpent director Brad Sykes, which if nothing else proves that there is a film worse than Plaguers; Camp Blood I and II editor/cinematographer, Jeff Leroy (Werewolf in a Women's Prison) directed the 3D Hunting Season (aka Grave Vengeance); and finally Witchcraft XI: Sisters in Blood, which features three Catholic school girls who, rehearsing for a production of Macbeth, open a gateway to Hell (big year for gateways, this), causing their clothes to fall off. A lot.
Outside the sequel arena we have The Convent from Mike Mendez (Gravedancers), which is a lot of fun and stars a foul-mouthed Adrienne Barbeau helping a bunch of college kids battle demon nuns. Chasing Sleep, a Lynchian psychological thriller, stars Jeff Daniels, Emily Bergl (The Rage: Carrie II), Gil Bellows ("Ally McBeal") and Julian McMahon (Fantastic Four). Big Monster on Campus (aka Boltneck) features Ryan Reynolds, two years before Van Wilder made him a star, from a script by Reeker (2005) director, Dave Payne. Horror 101 from James Glenn Dudeson (Day of the Dead 2: Contagium, Creepshow III) stars Bo Derek as a psychology professor (!) in a bland students-trapped-in-an-empty-school potboiler; Horror 102: Endgame followed in 2004. Island of the Dead marked a career nadir for Malcolm McDowell, who stars alongside Taliso Soto and Mos Def in the this Québec-shot killer fly nightmare. Also slumming it were Karen Black and Erik Estrada in Oliver Twisted, the only film as director by make-up effects man Dean Gates (Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead).
From the regional underground, Coven, the independent feature by Mark Borchardt, is virtually unique in that the making-of documentary - Chris Smith's highly recommended American Movie (1999) – is more famous that the film itself. Drainiac! from z-grade auteur Brett Piper (A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell) has little going for it but enthusiasm. Flesh Freaks was the first of Conall Pendergast's loving Canadian tributes to Fulci and Lewis (see also 2003's Kill Them and Eat Them), Pendergast wrote, directed, acted, produced, edited, handled special makeup effects, and operated the camera; his work won him a Merit Award from the 2000 American B-Movie Festival. Another first-time director, Sal Ciavarello, received the seal of approval from Roy Frumkes (Street Trash) and several genre sites for HPE: Hardcore Poisoned Eyes, the story of a girl and two friends searching for the Satanists responsible for her grandfather's death. Head Cheerleader Dead Cheerleader, stars the hardest working woman in show business, Debbie Rochon, but lacks ideas as well as budget, being a braindead Scream rip-off.
In the world of serial killer cash-ins that became so popular this decade, Chuck Parello's Ed Gein (aka In the Light of the Moon), purported to tell the true story behind America's most famous serial killer and the inspiration for Psycho (1960), Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), Deranged (1974), and The Silence of the Lambs (1990), but was too sensationalistic for a biopic and too much of a biopic to be an effective horror movie, despite a strong central performance from Steve Railsback (Lifeforce). Producer Hamish McAlpine went on to produce similar pics on Ted Bundy (2002) and The Hillside Strangler (2004). In 2007, Sean Stanek would produce Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield for director Michael Feifer (which kicked off his own series of serial killer biopics on Ted Bundy, the BTK Killer, the Boston Strangler, and Henry Lee Lucas), but in 2000, along with Corbin Timbrook, he co-wrote and co-directed A Crack in the Floor, which despite having a bunch of interesting cameos (Gary Busey, Bo Hopkins, Tracy Scoggins, David Naughton) is a forgettable backwoods movie about a killer (Roger Hewlett) who lives under the floor of the cabin in which his mother was raped and murdered and attacks anyone who dares enter. Stanek works as a motion capture supervisor these days (Beowulf, GI Joe), and briefly made the news as the first witness on the scene of Bonny Bakely's murder in 2001 when Robert Blake knocked on his apartment door asking for help.
The Showtime cable movie, Possessed stars Timothy Dalton as Father William Bowden, the priest who presided over the real-life event that formed the basis for William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist. Based on the book by Thomas B Allen (who's facts have been disputed), the film has some fine actors (Henry Czerny, Christopher Plummer), but unfortunately director Stephen E de Souza confirms the fact, evident from his first feature, Streetfighter (1994), that he would do better sticking to his screenwriting career (The Running Man, Die Hard). Also made for TV, this time for the USA Network, was The Darkling, with F Murray Abraham (Star Trek: Insurrection) and Aiden Gillen ("The Wire"), written by Preston Sturges Jr and directed by Po-Chih Leong, who also delivered Judd Nelson in The Cabin by the Lake the same year. Leong directed The Wisdom of Crocodiles (aka Immortality, 1998), which was a fine variation on the vampire myth, starring Jude Law and it's a shame that his move to the US caused this dip into TV and then a further descent into DTV action movies for Steven Seagal (Out of Reach, 2004) and Wesley Snipes (The Detonator, 2006).
New Zealander Ellory Elkayem's dry run for Eight Legged Freaks, They Nest, produced by The Kushner-Locke Company the year before they filed for Chapter 11, first appeared on the USA Network, is available on DVD as Creepy Crawlers and is worth checking out - there's still hope for Elkayem, even after the two dismal 2005 Return of the Living Dead sequels and Without a Paddle 2. Also from K-L and USA Network, Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula (aka Dracula: The Dark Prince on DVD and Dark Prince: Legend of Dracula in the UK) was directed by Joe Chappelle (Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers) shortly before he high-tailed it to a more successful career in Network and Cable television ("CSI: Miami", "The Wire") and stars Rudolf Martin ("24" Season 1"), Jane March (Tarzan and the Lost City), Peter Weller, and Roger Daltrey in an apologia for the life of Vlad the Impaler. It looks better than most Kushner-Locke productions and benefits from their usual use of Romanian locations and the local Full Moon crew. ABC and the Spelling company dropped a suitably campy remake of Satan's School for Girls, directed by Teen Wolf Too director Christopher Leitch, scripted by actor Michael Hitchcock (better known for playing Parker Posey's husband in Best in Show), and starring Shannon Doherty, Julie Benz, Taraji P Henson (years before her Oscar-nominated turn in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) and a returning Kate Jackson as the Dean.
Following the success of Anaconda (1997) and Lake Placcid (1999), giant reptiles reared their ugly heads throughout the decade and 2000 saw Tobe Hooper's Crocodile, from a story by producer Boaz Davidson, who spat out a bunch of similar Sci-Fi Channel nonsense like Spiders (2000), Octopus (2000), Mansquito (2005) and Mega Snake (2007) and is just very sad indeed. Another killer croc movie lacking bite was Blood Surf (aka Krocodylus), from director James DR Hickox, who is the son of director Douglas Hickox (Behemoth the Sea Monster, Theatre of Blood) and editor Anne V Coates (The Elephant Man), and brother of director Anthony Hickox (Waxwork, Hellraiser III), and should therefore know better - he followed this with Sabretooth (2002), which had an early appearance by Josh Holloway ("Lost"). Python, directed by Richard Clabaugh (DP on The Prophecy and Phantoms) has the benefit of appearances by Robert Englund, Jenny McCarthy and Casper Van Dien and is at least better than the Hillenbrand's King Cobra (1999), which is not saying much.
Troma Entertainment was undergoing something of a renaissance and Lloyd Kaufman followed the previous year's Terror Firmer with Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV, which was a significant improvement on the two previous self-confessed "rotten sequels", without abandoning any of the appalling taste we've come to expect from the Team - look out for directors, Eli Roth and James Gunn among a host of familiar faces. Also from Troma was the Blair Witch-style Legend of the Chupacabra, directed by special effects man Joe Castro (Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat); Chad Ferrin's first feature Unspeakable, a world away from the crude splatter comedy of the average Troma piece but worth seeking out for lovers of transgressive low budget nihilism; and the equally grim Dumpster Baby, which has its supporters but is deeply depressing.
A few old school schlockmeisters were still at it, thanks to Full Moon, with Fred Olen Ray producing his best film in years in Sideshow, with Phil Fondacaro (Troll) and Jamie Martz (Cloverfield) and make-up design by Gabe Bartalos (Brain Damage, Frankenhooker). A pseudonymous David de Coteau was less successful with Voodoo Academy (as Richard Chasen), a gay theological horror film (which makes it sound more interesting than it is) and Prison of the Dead (as Victoria Sloan) which is just terrible. Ted Nicolaou (Subspecies) turned out The Horrible Dr Bones, aimed at the "urban" market, whose title is it's own review – he was no more successful with The St. Francisville Experiment, for Kushner-Locke, which at least gained some notoriety as one of the first Blair Witch rip-offs.
Full Moon were also nurturing new talent in Dave Parker, their head of promotions, who got his chance to direct The Dead Hate the Living!, a tale of young film makers unleashing a horde of zombies in an abandoned hospital. Those who loved The Hills Run Red (2009) should check this out to see how far Parker has progressed, he spent the interim cutting "Making of" features for Bryan Singer and co-writing the script for Uwe Boll's wretched House of the Dead (2003). Full Moon also distributed the one film as director of former Cleveland Browns running back and actor, James Black (Soldier, Universal Soldier: The Return). The Vault bears a strong resemblance to both Prison of the Dead and The Dead Hate the Living!, and was, along with the utterly dreadful Killjoy, another of Full Moon's attempts to engage the African-American audience.
Roger Corman was as busy as ever, producing eight films in 2000 under the Concorde banner, including one "prestige" project, The Suicide Club (aka Game of Death), an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's story by Lev L Spiro (director of Corman's 1996 Alien Avengers), starring Jonathan Pryce (Pirates of the Caribbean), David Morrissey (Basic Instinct 2), and Paul Bettany (Legion), which was filmed in Ireland along with The Doorway, which is appallingly directed by publicist and author Michael B Druxman and top-lines Roy Scheider, who appears only briefly. Suffice it to say that when they handed Corman his recent lifetime achievement Oscar, the weren't thinking of this shocker.
Nick Palumbo would make his mark in 2004 with Murder-Set-Pieces, but his first feature, Nutbag, is an equally challenging view about a Las Vegas serial killer. Made for $40,000, shot on video and purporting to be a true-life story, it's as sick (but not as slick) as his later work and brings to mind William Lustig's Maniac (1980). Similar discomfort was engendered by Vulgar, an odd and awful outpouring from Kevin Smith's ViewAskew company. Clerks' Brian Christopher O'Halloran stars as Vulgar the Clown, on a killing spree after being gang-raped by a sadistic family (including Ethan Suplee of "My Name is Earl"). Direction, writing and editing is by actor Bryan Johnson (Steve Dave Pulasti in Mallrats and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back), who has yet to helm another film, something for which we should all be grateful.
From the UK, Lighthouse (released on US DVD as Dead of Night) was funded by the UK Arts Council and completed in 1999, but struggled to gain a release, coming out on video and DVD in the US in 2000 before getting a UK cinema airing in 2002. It's an effective, if derivative, slasher from first time helmer Simon Hunter, who would have better luck and a larger budget with The Mutant Chronicles (2008) and stars James Purefoy (Solomon Kane), Rachel Shelley (The Children) and Christopher Adamson (Pirates of the Caribbean); long since deleted, used copies sell for up to $140 on eBay. The 13th Sign was the first film by Adam Mason (co-directing with Jonty Acton), who has turned into something of a one-man horror industry - see also The Devil's Chair and Broken (both 2006). His first US film, Blood River (2009) toured festivals in 2009 but has yet to see a DVD release, which is a shame.
From Sheffield, South Yorkshire, Blood is an interesting low-budget indie from writer/director Charly Cantor, who has sadly released nothing since. Starring Adrian Rawlins (who went on to play Harry Potter's dad), the film is a meditation on lust and addiction, in which a girl (Lee Blakemore) has been genetically engineered to produce narcotic blood. Prosthetic effects are by Stuart Conran (Shaun of the Dead, The Descent) and it won a Jury Award at the Neuchâtel International Fantasy Film Festival. Blood was picked up for US DVD release in 2003 by The Asylum and can be viewed through Amazon-on-Demand.
Brian Yuzna's Faust: Love of the Damned was the first of nine Fantastic Factory films made in Barcelona with Spanish production company Filmax, which included Stuart Gordon's Dagon (2001), Darkness (2002), from a pre-[REC] Jaume Balagueró, and Yuzna's own Beyond Re-Animator (2003), Rottweiler (2004) and Beneath Still Waters (2005). While this was an interesting business prospect, most of the films were dreadful and Faust is no exception, a mess of blood, boobs, and variable Screaming Mad George effects, the adaptation of Tim Vigil and David Quinn's comic book (Vigil claims that Todd McFarlane "borrowed" the die for Spawn) has a certain over-the-top charm, but lead actor Mark Frost is unwatchably bad and not even Jeffrey Combs can redeem proceedings. Also from Spain, Jesus Franco gave us the boring thriller Broken Dolls and softcore deSade adaptation Helter Skelter, which appeared on a Sub Rosa DVD double bill; both can be avoided.
Seven Days to Live is a German/Czech co-production starring Sean Pertwee (Dog Soldiers), and Amanda Plummer (Pulp Fiction), as a couple who move into a mysterious house following the death of their son. Director Sebastien Niemann does a decent enough job from a script by Dirk Ahner, but their efforts sink under the familiarity of the storyline. There is some fun to be had spotting familiar Brit faces among the cast, including Gina Bellman ("Coupling") and Nick Brimble (Frankenstein Unbound), and Sean Chapman (Hellraiser). Also from Germany, The Calling stars Laura Harris (The Faculty, Severance), John Standing (V for Vendetta), and Alice Krige in another Satanic misfire, typical of 2000 (see Lost Souls and Bless the Child in Part 1) that benefits from location work on the coast of Cornwall.
The Irrefutable Truth About Demons (released on US DVD as The Truth About Demons), from New Zealand, features a young Karl Urban as a cult-debunking professor beset by Satanists who frame him for the murder of his girlfriend. Writer/Director Glenn Standring builds a tense, paranoid atmosphere, made more compelling by giving Urban's character some serious addiction problems. He followed this with Perfect Creature (2006), an interesting twist on the vampire myth, that prefigures the Spierig Brothers' Daybreakers (2009)
From Australia, Cut followed the prevailing 2000 trend of setting slasher films within slasher films, with Molly Ringwald as the token American actress and a cameo from Kylie Minogue as the first director of a cursed film production. Meanwhile, in Melbourne, a group of film students got together to make a film called Stygian, about a young couple attempting to find their way out of a netherworld. The film was co-written and directed by James Wan and, in a small role, featured Leigh Whannell who would together go on to create Saw (2004) and its annual sequels, the most profitable franchise in horror film history.
Check out Part One for a look at theatrically released horror movies of the year 2000, Part Three concentrates on Theatrical Science Fiction releases, Part Four will detail Direct-to-Video Science Fiction, and Part Five will look at Super Hero and Fantasy films, Foreign Language releases and list those actors and crew we lost that year.
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