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Reviews
Martyrs (2015)
Look at the 10s
Usually, when I find a movie I absolutely hated or a remake that had no business being remade, I come to IMDB for a laugh. I go to the reviews and I look to see who gave the movie a 10. This movie had me on the floor laughing. I saw that the film was released in January 2016. The four reviewers who gave this turkey a 10 all made their reviews within three months of the release date and all of those four reviewers have the movie as their only review - ever. I just love it when those who worked on a movie feel that have to jump on IMDB and give their film a 10 in a vain attempt to get people to watch their smoldering pile of celluloid.
It Stains the Sands Red (2016)
Brittany holds it together
I watched this at home (HBO, I think). Anyway, as soon as I discovered this was a zombie flick, I grabbed the remote and spun through the channels - nothing. Screw it, I decided to watch yet another goddamned zombie movie. So glad I did. The beginning, say the first 20 minutes, was nothing much. The zombie introduces itself and the next morning a Vegas stripper, Brittany Allen, is on the run...well actually she's just outpacing the clumsy zombie with a steady gait through the middle of the Mohave, all the while talking to the suit-and-tie clad walking corpse. There's a sand storm followed by a pretty graphic rape scene, but the movie picked up nicely after the stripper gets the zombie to pull his weight via a rope, an inflatable raft and a tire. Now, we got black humor. Now, we got something. After that, the flick just motors along nicely, and we discover that Brittany Allen can actually act! She spins flawlessly through a series of emotions right up to the final scene. Yeah, I still hate zombie movies, but this really wasn't one. This was a thriller/black comedy with a zombie as second banana.
The Lost Room (2006)
A Sci Fi Channel Fluke?
Don't for a moment lump "The Lost Room" with other Sci Fi Channel "epics" such as "Frankenfish," "Minotaur," "Blood Suckers," or that boring crapfest "Chupacabra: Dark Seas". This mini series is so entertaining, you'll never want it to end. Just think back to your favorite episode of "Outer Limits". You got one? OK, "The Lost Room" is three times better.
Peter Krause, as good here as he ever was in "Six Feet Under," plays a cop who stumbles upon several cults all wanting the same thing - about 100 ordinary objects that each bestows a signature extraordinary power to its owner. For example, there's a bus ticket that instantaneously (and kinda painfully) transports any attacker to Gallop, New Mexico; a comb that stops time for about 10 seconds; a pair of scissors that can "revolve things" (you'll just have to see it in action); and a motel key that opens any door in the world to grant access to the titular room.
There's a whole lot going on during the five-hour flick, but don't worry about getting lost along the way. The crisply-written script keeps everything in perfect order while moving along with virtually no lulls. It's a tense fantasy-drama to be sure, but not without moments of smart comedic relief (wait until you hear why a teenage girl with a bowling ball slams down in Gallop). Wonderfully acted and directed throughout, "The Lost Room" is one of those films that stick with you long after the closing credits.
Warning: "The Lost Room" plays out on two separately-rented discs, a small fact that the Blockbuster boneheads neglected to tell me. Immediately upon discovering there was still 90 minutes of the movie to go, I got dressed and drove the eight miles to get Disc 2. There was no way I was going to bed without knowing how the flick played out.
It was worth the drive (and extra four bucks).
Freakshow (2007)
Tod Browning (if he's still alive) should sue
On the DVD's cover of this straight-to-video mess is the hype, "In the Tradition of Tod Browning's FREAKS." As bad as Browning's opus was, it was a masterpiece compared to this 2007 version. Oh, sure, there are similarities between the two freak flicks. Both Browning's and Bell's exploitation expos are badly acted, technically inept, and appear to have been edited with hedge shears (some of the scene shifts in "Freakshow" are so badly constructed, the viewer has no idea what happened).
Anyway, "Freakshow" does follow (read: "steal") the plot of "Freaks" (a white trash non-freak chick attempts to marry a circus freak to get at his money). In the original, the horny mark was a midget, but in this movie, the "victim husband" is a guy with bad teeth and covered with boils. The viewer gets to meet a large variety of physically and mentally deformed characters (none of whom could act) in the original. In this remake, there's a bunch of freaks, too; one armless dude, one legless guy, a handful of dwarfs and a bunch of extras in bad make-up and cheap masks (none of these people can act, either).
"Freakshow" meanders on really not reminding the viewer of Browning's flick until the pre-wedding party scene where the freaks induct the bride-to-be into their world. If you remember that wonderful scene from the original flick ("One of us! One of us!") you're going to hate the way it was re-imagined for this movie. And then there's the ending.
Tod Browning's final scene revealed that enigmatic and jaw-dropping "duck-girl." The viewer had no idea how she got that way, but they knew that the freaks had turned the unfaithful woman into the greatest freak of all. It seems that Keith Leopard, "Freakshow" scribe, decided that anyone who plunked down four bucks to rent this turkey deserves to see how... perhaps, I've said enough. Suffice it to say that the reason the film had no production values to speak of was because they had spent all of their money on the special effects for the last 10 gut-wrenching minutes. A lot of times, an "unrated" tag on a film is nothing more than a marketing tool. Those last 10 minutes take "Freakshow" way out of "R" land.
Tod Browning's "Freaks" really was nothing more than cinematic filler leading up to the final, quick glance of duck-girl. "Freakshow" also wants the viewer to be amazed at the final denouement.
But, you are going to be soooooo disappointed.
May (2002)
McKee and Bettis: a great team
I read somewhere once that actors were merely clay and directors were the sculptors. Nowhere is that more true than with the movie "May." I've seen Angela Bettis in "Last Best Sunday," "Girl;Interrupted," "Perfume," and most recently, "The Toolbox Murders." In none of those films did Bettis rise above the ordinary. But in the hands of Lucky McKee, in his directorial debut, Bettis becomes a work of art. I know she's only about 30, but "May" is the movie she'll be remembered for, in exactly the same way as Faye Wray is to "King Kong."
It's as if McKee knew exactly what he had to work with in Bettis and he proceeded to build a movie specifically around her talents. For the life of me, I can't think of another actress who could have pulled off the part of May Canaday. In "May," Bettis slowly and methodically transforms from a geeky wallflower who can hardly speak in the presence of her love object played by Jeremy Sisto, to a beautiful murdering seductress who completely overwhelms Sisto's senses. And you know that McKee has created something out of the ordinary when you realize that May does some pretty horrendous things to people who really don't deserve it, and yet the audience is always on May's side.
In the hands of a Paltrow or Thurmond or Bello, May would have become yet another Hollywood splatter queen or, even worse, a poster child for empowerment. Angela Bettis' May, though, is a real flesh and blood girl who never elicits a single groan or eye roll from the audience.
McKee's opus is sweet comedy that morphs into black comedy, and ends up as sheer horror and through it all we never stop rooting for May.