Colin (2008)
Colin (2008)
Country: UK
Production Company: Nowhere Fast Productions
Executive Producer/2nd Unit Director/Special Effects/Visual Effects: Justin Hayles
Producer/Director/Screenplay/Editor: Marc Price
Music: Dan Weekes, Jack Elphick
Special Effects/Visual Effects/Stunts: Leigh Crocombe,
Special Effects: Damien Largey
Make-up Design: Michelle Webb
Make-up Effects: Gayle Cooper, Jess Heath, Lyndsey Jones
Sales Agent: Helen Grace
Locations: Tooting, South West London, England.
Length: 90 mins.
Cast: Alastair Kirton (Colin), Daisy Aitkens (Linda, Colin's Sister), Kate Alderman (False Laura), Leanne Pammen (Laura), Tat Whalley (Marlen, Linda's Friend), Kerry Owen (Colin's Mother), Leigh Crocombe (Damien) Justin Mitchell-Davey (Slingshot Guy), Dan Weekes (Bitten Guy), Dominic Burgess (House Siege, Pots), Rami Hilmi (Harry), Simba Ngei (House Siege, Umbrella), Clare-Louise English (House Siege), Mari-Claire Turley (House Siege, Powerdrill), Sarah Strong (House Siege, Block), Andrew Nash (House Siege, Meat Cleaver), Alton Letto (House Siege, Mallet), Matthew Bulgo (Walkman), Bamshad Abedi-Amin (Zombie Mugger, Hat), Devon Tomlin (Zombie Mugger, Shoes), John Largey (Basement Guy).
Synopsis: With the sound of distant gunfire ringing in the air, Colin visits his friend Damien, having been bitten during a zombie attack. Bitten again by Damien, Colin slowly loses his life and becomes one of the undead. Forced to walk the streets of London, he encounters zombie carnage and human atrocities as his sister attempts to save him and revive his lost humanity.
Review: Colin has gained notoriety for its meagre budget - reportedly £45 (US$73), though one feels that this is a marketing ploy that has turned into a bit of a millstone - director Marc Price roped in the services of friends and acquaintances, and spent the money on syrup for fake blood, a crowbar, DV tape they didn't actually need, and coffee, the leftover grounds from which were then utilized for wound make-up.
Shooting the film on evenings and weekends in the streets around his flat, which he used for interiors, he editing the film during the day while answering the phone for a courier company and created the sound effects at night, chewing on Fruit Pastilles and recording Guy Fawkes' Day fireworks to use as background gunfire. Even the low-cost camcorder approach was compromised, as the three-chip Panasonic camera Price was using prior to making the film broke down and he was forced to use an old tape DV-Cam (the film is shot in a claustrophobic 4:3 ratio).
Received enthusiastically at festivals (it won the Special Jury Award, and placed second in Audience Awards at the Revenant Film Festival in Seattle in 2008, as well as playing Cannes and Sitges), but a little sniffily by mainstream critics (Time Out London called it "overlong" and "non-frightening"; though Sight & Sound said "it's one hell of a calling card."), the film makers are eschewing the Paranormal Activity approach and going straight to DVD in the UK, following a few selected screenings and a limited release.
So, the question remains: is it any good? Unlike Paranormal Activity, it never really transcends its homemade roots, the use of a DV tape, rather than a hyper-sharp, overly bright solid state system gives the images a blurry, gritty quality which plays well in the rare calmer scenes, but tends to make the action more confusing than it needs to be.
The concept of audience identification with a zombie protagonist (well-played here by Alistair Kirton) is not new, Bub from Romero's Day of the Dead is a clear influence (with a coffee shop named for actor Sherman Howard), but has never been taken to quite these extremes. However Price doesn't trust his own idea and the narrative takes several side excursions, some successful – a girl locked in a cellar full of blinded female zombies by a creepy pervert – others less so – a fight in a room full of zombies, shot before Kirton started work, sidelines Colin for too long, and veers too close to Romero and Peter Jackson.
Moments of humor and pathos leaven the grim, gut-munching proceedings: Colin's inability to stand after an initial attack due to the blood on the floor; a child's building block he toys with, before losing it down a drain; and the scenes with his sister (an excellent, but under-used Daisy Aitkens), and mother (Kerry Owen) have a real emotional pull that makes you wish more time had been spent on this aspect. The idea of portraying the humans as worse than the undead is also well-handled, particularly the intriguing figure of "Slingshot Guy", whose pellets are embedded with razor blades, and for whom Price created a complex back story he hopes to utilize in a comic book.
Also worthy of note is the sound design and music, Price shot the film virtually silent and built up the soundtrack, layer by layer like an animated film, to eliminate passing airplanes and heckling bystanders. The music, by Dan Weekes (who also plays a victim who gets his ear bitten off, complete with earbud) and Jack Elphick, nods in the direction of Boards of Canada and Sigur Rós, and has moments of weird majesty and uplifting beauty.
Confusing, and headache-inducing at times, but with a neat Usual Suspects-inspired flashback wrap-up, there's enough good stuff here to make it worth your while (no US release is fixed as yet), and we can definitely look forward to Price's next film, Thunderchild, which centers on a gunner in a World War 2 bomber beset by a monster. Hopefully he'll have enough money to afford a tripod this time around.
Colin is release on DVD in the UK on Tuesday, 10.26.09.
Alistair Kirton (Colin), and director Marc Price at the Prince Charles Cinema, London, 10.23.09.
Ancient Art: The Bermuda Triangle (1979)
The Bermuda Triangle (1979)
Production Company: Schick Sunn Classics
Producers: James L. Conway, Charles E. Sellier Jr.
Director: Richard Friedenberg
Screenplay: Stephen Lord, based on the book by Charles Berlitz
Cinematographer: Henning Schellerup
Editor: John F. Link
Music: John Cameron
Art Director: Charles C. Bennett
Sound Editor: Jim Bryan
Length: 93 mins
Cast: Brad Crandall (Narrator), Fritz Lieber (Chavez), Harriet Medin (Frau Meise), Glenn Morshower (Gallivan), Warren Vanders (Captain Don Henry), Thalmus Rasulala (Coast Guard Officer), Vince Davis (Kasnar), David Ellzey (Gruebel), Steve Farrell (Wirshing), Tony Frank (Hicks), Ed Fry (Stivers), John William Galt (Peterson), Warren Munson (Carpenter), Albert Hall (Co-Pilot Flight 737), Anne Galvan (Flight Controller, Flight 727), Bobbie Faye Ferguson (Stewardess on Flight 727), Warren J. Kemmerling (Captain, Ellen Austin), Tommy G Kendrick (Radioman Scully).
I recently dug out an old scrapbook that's been gathering dust for years. It contains quite a few old ad matts, pulled from magazines in the 1970s and early 80s. Once in a while I'll pull out a page featuring a more obscure movie and see what I can discover.
The Bermuda Triangle is not to be confused with René Cardona's 1978 Mexican/Italian production of the same name, starring John Huston (aka Devil's Triangle of Bermuda, and The Secrets of the Bermuda Triangle), this was a dramatized documentary of the 1974 book by Charles Berlitz (head of the language teaching empire), which sold over 20 million copies in 30 languages.
Sunn Classics, part of the Schick razor corporation, was a production company and distributor who developed a highly successful blanket marketing approach: Purchase, or publish, best-seller on sensational subject/make low-budget film/soak market in advertising/count money. Other titles include: The Outer Space Connection (1975), In Search of Noah's Ark (1976), and The Mysterious Monsters (1976).
Their initial success was founded on The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams (1974), also directed by Richard Friedenberg who went on to a successful career as a screenwriter with Dying Young (1991), and received an Oscar nomination for A River Runs Through It (1992). After turning that into a successful TV series, Sunn produced or distributed a string of "unexplained mysteries" documentaries, before branching out into fiction films, with Hanger 18, and bigger budget fare like Uncommon Valor and Cujo (both 1983). They were purchased by the Taft Corporation (who produced 1981's The Boogens), but wound down by the mid-to-late 1980s. The name still exists, and the current owners (including Lang Elliot, founder of Tristar Pictures) have plans for a slate of new movies, and an ambitious $500M studio theme park.
Screenwriter Stephen Lord wrote "Keeper of the Purple Twilight" (1964) one of the finer episodes of "Outer Limits", as well as "Demon in Lace" (1975) for "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" and a 1982 TV adaptation of The Fall of the House of Usher, with Martin Landau, also for Sunn Classics. He is often credited as writer of the Cardona movie, but my guess is this stems from an IMdB snafu.
Cinematographer Henning Schellerup, started out as a director and camera operator in softcore sex films (Convicts' Women, Trader Hornee), before moving onto a successful first and second unit career on films such as Death Race 2000 (1975), Cannonball! (1976), A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984), and Maniac Cop (1988), and as a director for Sunn (a 1978 TV version of The Time Machine, and a 1980 Legend of Sleepy Hollow, starring Jeff Goldblum), and their offshoots, Grizzly Adams Productions and Sun-PKO.
The film is narrated by Brad Crandall, a former WNBC New York talk-radio host, who also handled voiceover on the companion feature Encounter with Disaster (1979) and several other Sunn features, as well as Kenneth Johnson's Universal TV series "Cliffhangers: The Curse of Dracula" (1979).
The surprisingly large cast features Harriet Medin, who had an early career in Italian shockers such as The Horrible Dr. Hichcock (1962), Black Sabbath (1963), and The Whip and the Body (1963), and played resistance leader Thomasina Paine in Death Race 2000 (1975), Thalmus Rasulala who was the doctor in Blacula (1972), and the Police Commissioner in New Jack City (1991), and a young Glenn Morshower, who as Agent Aaron Pierce, is the only actor, apart from Keifer Sutherland, to appear in every season of "24".
More unusual is the appearance of Fritz Leiber, author of Conjure Wife, made three times as Weird Woman (1944), Night of the Eagle (aka Burn, Witch, Burn!, 1962), and Witches' Brew (aka Witch Witch Is Which?, 1980), and about to be adapted again by director Billy Ray (Shattered Glass). The son of two Shakespearean actors, Leiber had acted before as far back as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), alongside his father, and appeared in Jack Woods' Equinox (1970), a film notable for effects work by Dennis Muren (Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds), David Allen (Q: The Winged Serpent), and Jim Danforth (When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth).
Bermuda Triangle went out on a double bill with Encounter with Disaster, another Sunn Classic piece, this time a collection of disaster footage, directed by Charles E Sellier, Jr (producer on Triangle), who wrote the novel Grizzly Adams was based upon, and later directed Silent Night, Deadly Night. Sellier was a devout Christian and unwittingly created one of the most controversial slasher films of the 80s (at least with enraged parents and Siskel and Ebert), in which an axe murdering Santa Claus attacks a Catholic orphanage.
Kirk (2009)
Kirk (2009)
Country: UK
Production Company: Strathendrick Film Society
Executive Producer: Joan Macpherson
Producer/Gaffer/Key Grip: Matthew Marwick
Director/Cinematographer/Editor/Visual Effects/Sound: Michael Ferns
Screenplay: Mairin Mcleod
Music: Raymond Ferns
Art Director: Carol Angel
Costumes: Tracy Macdonald
Special Make-up Effects: Irene Tremble, Jo Durham
Make-up: Christabel Shaw
Best Boy: Ryan Baston
Length: 90 mins
Budget: £7,355 (US$12,031)
Locations: Culross, Fife; Loch Lomond; Cashel Forest, Stirlingshire.
Cast: Mark Harvey (Reverend Robert Kirk), Amiera Darwish (Abigail Kirk), Callum Fuller (Reverend Young), Rachel Gibson (Mary Macpherson/Lady of the Loch), James Watterson (The Clerk).
James Watterson, Rachel Gibson, Mark Harvey, Amiera Darwish, and Callum Fuller.
Synopsis: Aberfoyle, Scotland, 1691. The Reverend Robert Kirk believes he has discovered a realm of supernatural beings that exists between Earth and Heaven. With the help of Mary Macpherson, a mysterious local girl who may be the bridge between worlds, Kirk desperately sets out to prove his theory to his pregnant wife, at the risk of alienating both her and the Church.
Review: Despite its inherent beauty and lyrical history, Scottish film has recently been known for hard-edged, contemporary material from the likes of Peter Mullan (Orphans), and Richard Jobson (16 Years of Alcohol), and gritty genre work from Craig Strachan (Wild Country), and Kerry Anne Mullaney (The Dead Outside). It's a delight, therefore to discover a new film from young talent that reflects the more whimsical side of Scottish life, experienced in fondly-remembered films like Local Hero (1983), and Whisky Galore! (1949), while exploring the darker events that can ensue when fantasy meets reality and complex morality.
The story is loosely based on the legend behind the writing of The Secret Commonwealth of Elves Fauns and Fairies by the Reverend Robert Kirk (1644–1692), a scholar, Episcopalian minister, and seventh son of a seventh son, whose mysterious death was followed by reports of sightings, during which he claimed to be a captive of the Fairies. Kirk, an educated man (he was the first to translate the bible into Gaelic), who believed his birth gave him second sight (or "secret virtue" as he called it), was writing at a time when a belief in folklore was tantamount to witchcraft, and it's this tension, and the toll it took on his marriage, that form the basis of Mairin Mcleod's screenplay.
First time multi-hyphenate Michael Ferns deserves the respect of having his age sited only once – he's 17, and looks three years younger – as this is an assured debut, with the courage to take time to tell a good story, never succumbing to explicitly revealing the objects of Kirk's belief, except through dream sequences that may be the result of his fevered imagination.
Ferns and Mcleod have created a haunting elegy, a tone poem that intrigues and rewards the viewer with a wrenching emotional payoff as ambiguous as it is satisfying. The acting throughout also belies the lack of on-screen experience, with Mark Harvey as Kirk displaying the kind of tortured determination that Ben Affleck pulls off at his best, and Rachel Gibson, in a dual role as village girl Mary Macpherson, who claims to have seen the fairy folk, and as an ethereal spirit from the depths of the loch, evinces a wide-eyed innocence, and an enviable ability to withstand extremely cold water.
Callum Fuller as a minister in conflict with Kirk's beliefs, and with un-ecclesiastical designs on his wife, avoids the villainous mannerisms that would have made the character a cliché, and special mention must be made of Amiera Darwish, as Abigail Kirk, who carries the emotional weight of the film and is both stunning and intelligent in her performance.
Amiera Darwish as tortured Abigail Kirk.
Fern's camera work is also deserving of praise, shot on video, but processed to give a pleasingly filmic quality, he clearly knows how to move a camera – his master tracking shots being particularly effective – even if some interior close-ups would have benefited from being more locked down. The music, composed by the director's father Raymond, pulls you in from the first note, and acts as a tender counterpoint to the narrative (listen here on the composer's website) particularly in a pivotal scene where Kirk and Mary, unable to express their feelings in words, dance to celebrate their discovery. The only slight problem here is a tendency over-rely on the music, and a forgivable (given the budget) use of synthesized strings and choral effects.
Kirk was a worthy winner of Best Independent Feature, on its premiere at the 2009 International Festival of Fantastic Films in Manchester, but we may need to wait a while until Michael Ferns has completed his studies at The Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, to see him continue with his work. However, on this evidence, and with several shorts already completed in a variety of genres (including the horror film, Blind Man's Bluff), it's hopeful that Scotland may have found an heir to the vacant seat once occupied by the sadly missed Bill Forsyth and Alexander Mackendrick.
Box Office: Wild Things Still Hot, Paranormal Soars
A weekend that usually sees pre-Halloween openings for horror and supernatural movies (Max Payne in '08, 30 Days of Night in '07, The Prestige in '06) saw the box office up 39% year-on-year, thanks to strong business for new and widening releases.
Despite some baffled reviews that intimated it might struggle to find an audience, Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are hit the #1 spot with $32.47M this weekend, on 5,000 screens (budget is around $100M). Box Office Mojo reports Warner Brothers' stats that the audience was 43% 18 years plus, 12% 12-17 year olds, 27% parents with kids under 12, and 16% under 12s.
The #2 spot was taken by the Gerard Butler/Jaimie Foxx thriller Law Abiding Citizen, with $21.25M (on a budget of $50M), which is less that the $27.60M taken by The Ugly Truth, and just under the $21.78M pulled in by Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003), making it Butler's fourth highest opening (300 took $70.88M in its first weekend and is proving a hard act to follow).
The big story continues to be Paranormal Activity which, as promised, opened wide this weekend, though still on a modest 1,250 screens at 760 sites, pulling in $20.16M, for a four week total of $33.71. The fact that the per-screen averages at $26,530 is over three times that of Wild Things, means this one should hold strong through Halloween, and easily top $50M (a nice return on that reported $15,000 investment).
Couples Retreat retreated to #4, leaving this week's only other genre release The Stepfather to limp into fifth place with $12.30M, its $20M budget means an inevitable profit, but hopefully this less than stellar opening from the team behind Prom Night means they will rethink their strategy of remaking R-rated 80s horrors in PG-13 versions.
Zombieland officially became the most successful zombie movie of all time, with $7.8M, for a 17 day total of $60.82M, ahead of Dawn of the Dead (2004), Pet Cemetery (1989), Resident Evils Apocalypse (2004) and Extinction (2007), 28 Weeks Later (2007), Creepshow (1982), and Land of the Dead (2005).
Friday sees the release of Astro Boy, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, The Nightmare Before Christmas 3-D reissue, Ong Bak 2, and the inevitable Saw VI.
UPDATE: Actual figures show that Wild Things was underestimated (actual figure is $32.69M) and Paranormal Activity overestimated (actual: $19.67M), as were The Stepfather ($11.58M), and Zombieland ($7.61M).
Triangle (2009)
Triangle (2009)
Country: Australia/UK
Production Company: Icon Entertainment, Framestore and the UK Film Council present in association with The Pacific Film and Television Commission, a Dan Films and Pictures in Paradise Production
Executive Producers: Steve Norris, Mark Goodier, Stefanie Hue
Producer: Jason Newmark, Julie Baines, Chris Brown
Line Producer: Tom Hoffie
Director and Screenplay: Christopher Smith
Editor: Stuart Gazzard
Cinematographer: Robert Humphreys ACS
Music: Christian Henson
Production Design: Melinda Doring
Special Effects: Clint Ingram
Visual Effects: Framestore/Ivan Moran
Sound Editor/Designer: Peter Baldock
Make-up: Shane Thomas
Titles: Framestore/Anthony Gibbon
Stunts: Jimmy Christiansen
Budget: $12M
Length: 95 mins.
Cast: Melissa George (Jess), Michael Dorman (Greg), Rachael Carpani (Sally), Henry Nixon (Downey), Emma Lung (Heather), Liam Hemsworth (Victor), Joshua McIvor (Tommy), Bryan Probert (Driver)
Synopsis: Waitress Jess arrives a little dazed to embark on a yachting trip with Greg and his wealthy friends, who are mistrustful of her intentions. Once at sea, the boat is overturned in a storm, but the group is saved by a large cruise ship, which appears to be empty. Once on board, Jess becomes unnerved by a sense of deja vu, and is quickly sucked into a vortex of violence and inexplicable death.
Review: It's unfortunate that it took Christopher Smith four years of shuffling Post-It notes to bring together the script for Triangle, because in the meantime he's been usurped by the similar Timecrimes, which is a shame as it detracts somewhat from this neat little thriller.
Visually influenced by Dead Calm (bleached out exteriors), and The Shining (endless wood-bordered corridors), Smith has come on in leaps and bounds from his debut, the not terribly good Creep (2004), and the much better Severance (2006), and even if Triangle doesn't quite hold up to scrutiny, this is by far his best work, and bodes well for his mediaeval horror film The Black Death, currently in post production.
Premiering at September's Film4 Frightfest in London, Triangle has a circular narrative that borrows from Ambrose Bierce and John Clifford, and requires complete identification with the main character if we're going to buy the twists. Applause, then for Melissa George (Turistas, 30 Days of Night), who came to Smith's attention playing a similarly fractured psyche in HBO's "In Treatment". Her initial slack-jawed chill giving way to fear and determination, with a real emotional core to a character desperate to get back to her autistic son. The remaining ensemble don't really have much to do other than get killed (repeatedly), but New Zealander Michael Dorman (seen next in the Spierig's well-received sci-fi/vampire movie Daybreakers) registers strongly as the wealthy yachtsman falling for George's Jess.
Early references to Sisyphus (the ship is named for Aeolus, his father) anticipate the repetitive heart of the film, where Jess repeatedly encounters the same scenario, but each time in a different way until she figures out the horrific answer to escaping the cycle, and the identity of the masked figure with a shotgun. Unfortunately, this section is not as clever as Smith thinks it is, and undermines Jess's intelligence by having her view certain dire actions and then repeat them blindly. Thankfully this is balanced by some beautiful imagery – multiple identical corpses and a pile of lockets in particular - that underline the futility of her efforts.
The end section has been roundly criticized in certain quarters, and Smith does let himself off a little easily, relying on convenient amnesia and a head scratching deus ex machina, but it's a satisfying wrap up nonetheless, one that will have you second guessing yourself for a couple of hours afterwards, and amusingly allows the film to act as its own sequel.
Triangle is by no means perfect, but Smith deserves kudos for attempting a complex variation on the old dark house formula, and anything this far removed from dumb teens in peril should be applauded.
For a collection of future reviews from Frightfest see here. Triangle was released in the UK on 10.16.09, no US release date has been announced.
DVD Review: Trick 'r Treat (2007)
Trick 'r Treat (2007)
Country: Canada/USA
Production Company: Warner Brothers Pictures presents in association with Legendary Pictures, a Bad Hat Harry production
Executive Producers: Thomas Tull, Jon Jashini, William Fay, Alex Garcia, Ashok Amritaj, Michael Dougherty, Dan Harris
Producer: Bryan Singer
Co-Producer: Peter Lhotka
Director: Michael Dougherty
Screenplay: Michael Dougherty
Editor: Robert Ivison
Cinematographer: Glen MacPherson CSC, ASC
Music: Douglas Pipes
Production Design: Mark Freeborn
Art Director: Tony Wohlgemuth
Special Effects: New Deal Studios/Bob Comer, Dan Keeler
Visual Effects: Rainmaker Animation and Visual Effects/Charlene Eberle
Werewolves: Tatopoulos Studios
Sound Editor: Anke Bakker
Sound Designer: Kris Fenske
Special Effects Make-up: Bill Terezakis
Costumes: Trish Keating
Titles: Christina Beckert, Breehn Burns
Stunts: Ernie Jackson
Budget: $12M
Length: 82 mins.
Cast: Dylan Baker (Steven), Rochelle Aytes (Maria), Anna Paquin (Laurie), Brian Cox (Mr. Kreeg), Leslie Bibb (Emma), Quinn Lord (Sam/Peeping Tommy), Britt McKillip (Marcy), Lauren Lee Smith (Danielle), Isabelle Deluce (Sara), Jean-Luc Bilodeau (Schrader), Alberto Ghisi (Chip), Samm Todd (Rhonda), Moneca Delain (Janet), Tahmoh Penikett (Henry), Brett Kelly (Charlie), Connor Levins (Billy), James Willson (Alex), Patrick Gilmore (Bud The Cameraman), T-Roy Kozuki (Bud's Assistant), C. Ernst Harth (Giant Baby), Keanen Schnoor (Matthew), Catherine Barroll (Mother), Christine Willes (Mrs. Henderson), Ty Hill (Nathan), Laura Mennell (Allie), Gerald Paetz (School Bus Driver), Zip (Spite the Dog).
Synopsis: As Warren Valley, Ohio celebrates Halloween, the school Principal goes about his night job as a serial killer, a pack of girls, on the lookout for boys and a good time, harbor a deadly secret, a group of school children search for the remains of a tragic schoolbus accident, and the local grouch deals with a Pumpkin-headed demon.
Review: It's rare for a Technicolor, Panavision film, shot on 35mm, to land direct on DVD, but when the film comes from the increasingly mercurial Warner Brothers (who also delayed Richard Kelly's The Box from March to November of this year), it simply elicits a sigh. Originally festival screened in December 2007, and appearing on many genre critics' Best of 2008 lists, Trick 'r Treat was originally cut in linear fashion as a traditional portmanteau film. Recut Pulp Fiction-style the film was again tested in November of 2008, before WB threw up their hands and released it for Halloween 2009 direct to DVD and Blu-ray.
So, is this the ready-made classic many genre pundits would like us to believe, or the turkey that the instant backlash crowd have been railing against? The answer is neither, but it is a perfectly serviceable and enjoyable fright film, that perfectly captures the spirit of the season, even if it falls flat as often as it soars.
First time director Michael Dougherty is better known as a screenwriter (X2, Urban Legends 3, Superman Returns), and this started life as a spec script, picked up by Warner and Legendary who each supplied $6M. Quite why they lost their nerve, we may never know (Dougherty himself has never been told, and doesn't mention it on the commentary track), but the film's main benefit, may be what gave them pause: at its best, it's a perfect evocation of the 80s horror movie, not overly violent, but nasty where it needs to be. In short, good nostalgic fun, with an iconic new character who deserves his life as a spin-off action figure.
Reminiscent of Creepshow, and Carpenter at his best, with a dash of The Company of Wolves and Dan Curtis's Trilogy of Terror thrown in, the pleasures here are many, but the payoffs to each story are a let down, with the denouements eliciting more shrugs than aha's. The reveal that the bad guy in one story is the protagonist from an earlier tale is muddled by poor camera angles, and one victim's head on a plate is undermined by the fact that he was clearly buried alive and kicking in the previous scene.
That said, the structure rewards repeated viewing, with characters from one story interjecting in another, and a cyclical ending that clears up an unclear point from the opening. For all its faults, Trick 'r Treat deserves a place in your player this Halloween, and for many more to come. Like the holiday itself, it's fun, noisy, sometimes annoying, but hard not to love.
The version under review is the Blu-ray, which does excellent service to the photography of Glen MacPherson (Rambo, The Final Destination), production design by Mark Freeborn (Black Christmas, "Harper's Island"), who collected leaves for months, and sound design by Kris Fenske ("Masters of Horror", The Haunting in Connecticut). Extras comprise a commentary track, with Dougherty, concept artist Breehn Burns (who created the comic art seen throughout), storyboarder Simeon Wilkins and composer Douglas Pipes (Monster House); "The Lore and Legends of Halloween", a 28-minute featurette; additional scenes with optional commentary; School FX bus comparison, showing how effects were added to a key scene; Seasons Greetings, the animated film school short made by Dougherty in 1996, with optional commentary; and a Digital Copy for download. Disappointingly, the DVD features only Season's Greetings.
Dorian Gray (2009)
Dorian Gray (2009)
Country: UK
Production Company: Ealing Studios in association with the UK Film Council present a Fragile Film in association with Aramid Entertainment, Alliance E Films, Inc, and Prescience.
Executive Producers: James Spring, Paul Brett, Charles Miller Smith, Tim Smith, Simon Fawcett, James Holland, Xavier Marchand
Producer: Barnaby Thompson
Co-Producer: Alexandra Ferguson
Director: Oliver Parker
Screenplay: Toby Finlay, from the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Editor: Guy Bensley
Cinematographer: Roger Pratt BSC
Music: Charlie Mole
Production Designer: John Beard
Special Effects: Mark Holt
Visual Effects: Charles Henley, Dominic Thomson
Sound Editor: Max Hoskins
Sound Effects: Samir Foco
Make-up: Jeremy Woodhead
Costumes: Ruth Meyers
Titles: Matt Curtis
Title Animation: Matt Lawrence
Stunts: Lee Sheward
Portrait Painter: Paul Renney
Length: 112 mins.
Cast: Ben Barnes (Dorian Gray), Colin Firth (Lord Henry Wotton), Ben Chaplin (Basil Hallward), Rebecca Hall (Emily Wotton), Douglas Henshall (Alan Campbell), Rachel Hurd-Wood (Sybil Vane), Emilia Fox (Lady Victoria Wotton), Caroline Goodall (Lady Radley), Johnny Harris (James Vane), Pip Torrens (Victor), Fiona Shaw (Agatha), Maryam d'Abo (Gladys), Jo Woodcock (Celia Radley) Michael Culkin (Lord Radley) Hugh Ross (Priest), David Sterne (Theatre Manager)
Synopsis: Dorian Gray arrives in London to claim the mansion inherited from his grandfather, a vicious monster who hated the boy and beat him as a child. Soon the toast of London society, his portrait is painted by acclaimed artist Basil Hallward, and he falls under the spell of dissolute Lord Henry Wotton. As Gray's life spirals into hedonism, he soon discovers that the portrait reflects the ruin to his body and soul, as he himself remains unmarked and youthful.
Review: Much as Oliver Parker's 2002 adaptation of Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest pales in comparison to Anthony Asquith's 1952 version, so his Dorian Gray will inevitably be measured against Albert Lewin's 1945 The Picture of Dorian Gray (unjustly overlooked, and not seen on DVD until 2008), and be found wanting.
On the bright side, the thing looks gorgeous, with the sure eye of Roger Pratt (Twelve Monkeys, Chocolat, two Harry Potters) deftly shooting the production design of John Beard (Thunderbirds, The Skeleton Key) – all dark mahogany, velvet, and powder blue Rolls Royces, with the exterior of Gray's mansion reeking of decay. And there is reasonable adherence to the source material, with a perfectly acceptable amping up of the sexual and homoerotic undertones present in Wilde's original story, that he himself toned down when he expanded it to novel length.
The main problems arise in the casting, with Ben Barnes (The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian) lacking the depth to carry off the decadent nobleman whose portrait stands as a metaphor for the rot and decay in the English upper classes. His demeanor may not have changed, when in 1916 he returns from his 25-year hiatus, but neither has his maturity. It's fine for him to remain pretty, but surely he would act more like a 45 year old man of 1916, and less like the petulant boy of 1891.
Hurd Hatfield in the Lewin version was accused of being too steely and cold for the part, but his performance perfectly balanced that of George Sanders and Angela Lansbury as Sibyl Vane. Vane, here an actress in a back street theater production of Hamlet (she plays Ophelia in the films most clunkingly prescient foreshadowing) – is played by Rachel Hurd-Wood (An American Haunting, Solomon Kane) with such a total lack of charisma, that her downfall comes as a welcome relief, getting her out of the way and us onto the interesting stuff. Ironic given that, in Wilde's original, Gray spurns her because her love for him has wrecked her ability to act.
In compensation, the whole film is carried on Colin Firth's admirable shoulders, his Wotton dropping Wilde's epithets perfectly, a biting tongue masquerading his weakness of character and injecting the line "You have the only two things worth having: beauty and youth" with just a hint of venom, suggesting he wants to destroy Gray as much as control him. Rebecca Hall's character, Emily Wotten, is new but while her performance as Lord Henry's emancipated daughter brighten's proceedings towards the end, the fact that she's a photographer should have had greater resonance.
The biggest error here, is the treatment of the painting. In the 1945 version, Ivan Albright’s portrait (which can be viewed today in the Art Institute of Chicago) was shown in color within the black and white film, a neat trick that accentuated the beauty of the original, and gave the horrific final image added shock value. Here we have cheesy CGI, reminiscent of Ghostbusters 2, only rescued by a memorable closing shot of Gray's fiery demise, which is then promptly undermined by a coda showing the painting improbably intact.
The main issue with any adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray is that Wilde's intent wasn't to horrify, but to create a metaphor to uncover the ugly hypocrisy of the upper classes. We are therefore left with a kind of Jekyll and Hyde light, a film lacking the weight of a period costume drama, but with little in the way of compensatory thrills.
Dorian Gray was released in the UK on 09.09.09, no US release date has yet been announced.
Box Office: Zombies Hold On, Big Activity
The Vince Vaughn comedy Couples Retreat may have taken top honors at the weekend box office, but the real stories are a sturdy zomcom hold over and a certain little fright movie's record breaking success.
In the #2 spot, Zombieland is showing good legs with $15M, down just 39.4% from last weeks's opening, giving it a two week total of $47.80M against its $23.6M budget, unsurprisingly there is talk of a sequel.
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, is also holding on well, with $12M in its fourth week, meaning it should cross the $100M mark sometime in the next few days, which will be a relief to Sony, as that's exactly what it cost to produce. In other animated news Toy Story/Toy Story 2 (3D) took an expected 38.6% tumble to the #4 spot with $7.67M ($22.67 total).
The week's big news however is that Paranormal Activity pulled in an impressive $7.06M on just 160 screens, breaking Platoon's weekend record for the most money earned on less than 200 sites ($3.7M on 174 screens, which to be fair would work out to about $7M when adjusted for inflation). With a $44,163 per screen average being far and way the highest of the week, it looks like Paramount's slow-roll strategy has paid off as the movie goes into wide release next weekend. Its total so far is $8.28M, is its safe to say that someone in Paramount's marketing department will be getting more that a subscription to the Jelly of the Month club this holiday season.
Surrogates is holding on perhaps a little better than expected with $4.11M for a total of $32.57M after three weeks, but Ricky Gervais' The Invention of Lying drops 52% with $3.37M in week two on poor word of mouth. Little else of note this week, but we look forward to Paranormal going wide next weekend against The Stepfather remake and Black Dynamite, along with the long-anticipated release of Spike Jonze and David Eggers' Where the Wild Things Are.
UPDATE: Final figures proved an underestimate in the total for Paranormal Activity, putting the film in the #4 spot, ahead of the Toy Story double bill, with $7.90M.
Paranormal Activity Hits One Million, Goes Wide
At 10.34pm PST on Friday October 9th, Paranormal Activities' marketing plan finally paid off, with the one millionth demand on the Eventful-driven website www.paranormalmovie.com.
Whether or not you feel that the campaign—driven as it is by a major studio—is a little disingenuous, the fact is that an effectively scary movie, shot for $15,000 in the director's home will now get the audience it truly deserves. Oren Peli deserves our congratulations.
