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klynnm
Reviews
Humanoids from the Deep (1996)
I lasted fifteen minutes
You are in dire straits when you remake a Corman movie and make it worse than the original. The original HUMANOIDS was fascinating, but this one feels like a Sci-Fi Channel TV movie - those are pretty terrible.
I love Robert Carradine and it was nice to see that Justin Walker from CLUELESS is still around, but this was just boring!!! I couldn't even stay with it long enough to get to the Humanoids! Sure, I could have forced myself through it, but, at a certain point, you just have to ask if you want to spend 90 minutes of your life this way.
I've seen the BUCKET OF BLOOD remake, which seems to be from the same "Roger Corman" presents series and it was far more interesting - better cast, better cinematography. Actually, though, come to think of it, I turned that one off too. Stick to the originals.
Sssssss (1973)
What a blast! - LOTS OF SPOILERS
Connoisseurs of fun, campy creature features have such a battle trying to find one worth watching again and again out of all the horrible ones. This one is a delight! Facts that instantly endear me to a creature feature: the incorporation of a freak show, the use of real animals, and a human-creature hybrid. This movie has it all! Throw in a catchy score, an actor I know I know but can't recognize, a hysterical bully, Harry the Lassie of snakes, and some cocktail party fodder science facts, and I am hooked!
I don't understand everyone says this movie is so bad. GOING OVERBOARD, STUFF STEPHANIE IN THE INCINERATOR, and REVENGE OF THE STEPFORD WIVES are bad beyond redemption. So bad they turn you off of food. SSSSSSS is fantastic.
Exorcist: The Beginning (2004)
Raiders of the Lost Art
This is an action movie - not a horror, and not an Exorcist prequel. The female lead is too pretty, everyone else too forgettable, the make-up too obvious, the editing too fast, and the plot too confusing. It feels like one of these dime-a-dozen horror movie remakes, but Exorcist was the filmmaker's horror movie, the thinking man's horror movie. This is 2 Fast 2 Furious on an archaeological dig.
And the hyenas!!! They don't work in either prequel.
One hopes this movie will disappear, for our sakes and Harlin's. Harlin is a fun director, but the Exorcist isn't supposed to be fun. It is supposed to be morose. It is hardly his fault, though. The book about this 2 prequel experiment is probably already in the works, and, like the films, few will buy it.
Schrader's version's themes, without knowing it, actually speak for the whole process: you can't win - you can only try to minimize the damage.
Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005)
Schrader's Rapture
Schrader's version actually feels like it came before. there was nothing in Harlin's action movie version that looked like it took place before 2004. The most immediately noticeable difference in this version and Exorcist: the Beginning, is that it makes sense, though it is almost the same story. And, as a bonus, we actually care.
Schrader actually had a "take" on the material. His vision, as is typical of Schrader, exalts old Hollywood, which is ironic considering he was canned for not being Hollywood enough. Everything from the cinematography, to the cast, to the effects, feel like it might have actually been made in the forties when it is set.
The cast is infinitely superior to Exorcist: The Beginning. Gabriel Mann, in particular, stands out. Sarsgaard is back to his old self. Pop-star Billy Crawford is a far more appealing and believable martyr than the child and Geena Davis/Saffron Burrows look-a-like possessions in The Beginning.
The make-up and effects are going to get bashed, but they too seemed as if they were meant to be intentional artifice. The characters' faces are clear and bright, instead of dusty, as they doubtlessly would be in that environment, and Cheche's bronzed, angelic demon god, covered in toe to bald head in glitter is obviously make-up, but he looks painted, like the androgynous rapture art covering the walls of the church. One has to admire Schrader for changing the make-up concept from Friedkin's original, which Harlin's version copied directly. One EXTREME slow motion shot is beautiful, as is a glittering dissolve. The skies during the climax look like the backgrounds of every store-bought portrait of Jesus or the saints, a high school photo day backdrop, or a Cecil B. DeMille movie. Either way, they make this film feel aged - in a good way. One brief shot is the fluorescent green of an Italian horror, and the dream sequence brings to mind Hitchcock's SPELLBOUND.
Both Paul Schrader and Renny Harlin got screwed in this deal. Morgan Creek clearly didn't want either of the men they hired, and didn't believe in either vision. Had Harlin's done better business, Schrader's would have disappeared. Now, they release Schrader's to make up for the disappointing box-office of Harlin's, but they don't advertise at all, and they release it the same weekend as REVENGE OF THE SITH. They obviously want to fail.