Every generation deserves its Twilight Zone. For this writer, horror anthologies, such as Night Gallery; the films Creepshow and Vault of Horror; and the original Twilight Zone series, were the type of shows to haunt my childhood. In later years it became Tales from the Darkside and Tales from the Crypt. But for most children growing up in the ’90s, the one name that stood out for them was not Stephen King but that of R.L. Stine.
A new film from Miike means a new section of my life devoted to complete and utter bewilderment, although in the best sense possible. As always, the beginning stages of a Miike are met with both hands firmly grasped around the logistics and the intentions of the film at hand until the bizarre aspects of the narrative begin to wander in and out the narrative. This is when my grasp begins to falter, shakingly holding on for this time will be the time I continue to have a firm grasp of the proceedings.
The third installment of UNSUNG INDIES delves into Ian Clark's experimental MMXIII, an exploration into image capturing and creation. Employing a myriad of technologies to present ideas and philosophies, Clark effortlessly weaves his way through the beauty and power of an image and the time-consuming undertaking of searching for the perfect image. Misleading in its simplicity, MMXIII inexplicably accommodates a wealth of ideas, every still and every progression has the ability to spark thought and discussion.
Joe Wright’s fantasy/adventure/family film, Pan, chronicles the life of a 12-year-old boy, orphaned as an infant, who would eventually become the infamous Peter Pan. On the surface, this origin story had an intriguing premise: where Peter and his lost boys came from; how he came to be in Neverland (or Never Never Land, as I prefer); where he met Tinker Bell, Tiger Lily and the mermaids; etc. I was actually really excited for this one, but sadly, Pan failed to live up to its enormous potential.
Horror guru Eli Roth is back behind the camera once again, directing his silliest, most over-the-top picture yet – Knock Knock, a remake of the 1977 exploitation film Death Game. But while some may find joy in the shear campiness of this home invasion thriller, I found it entirely too goofy, tedious and poorly scripted.
Todd Strauss-Schulson’s The Final Girls takes the slasher genre and turns it on its head, delivering a consistently funny tale about a group of friends who unwittingly get sucked into a typical, cheesy ’80s horror film. It’s a concept that, on paper, sounds interesting enough, but it’s also one that could fall apart if not executed well. Fortunately, in this case, it all works wonderfully, managing to be an entertaining crowd-pleaser that does the seemingly impossible by making me like a PG-13-rated slasher flick.
Written and directed by J. Davis, the dramedy Manson Family Vacation cleverly delivers a funny and heartfelt story about two brothers at odds with one another, which is set to the odd backdrop of them following the history and philosophy of notorious criminal Charles Manson.
At Film Pulse I’ve always made it my No. 1 priority to talk about the medium of film and have actively avoided writing or discussing other creative outlets, such as music, television and video games. Sure, I’ve reviewed a few books here and there and even a board game, but they’ve always been based around movies. However, after playing a game called The Beginner’s Guide, I felt compelled to share my thoughts on it because, even though it’s not a film in the traditional sense, its compelling narrative evoked the same amount of emotion in me that a great piece of cinema would.
With so many horror-comedies coming out this year, it’s hard not to feel a sort of malaise when it comes to the “silly spookies” (as I now and will forever call them). Luckily, Jason Lei Howden’s feature debut, Deathgasm, is one of the good ones that, although mostly silly, doesn’t skimp on the spooky.
The film is your classic story about a group of hapless youngsters unwittingly unleashing a plague of demons upon the earth. Sure, it’s something we’ve seen before, but the setup of Deathgasm isn’t what makes it so damn fun – it’s the execution.
Miniature assassins of varying age are taught day-in day-out in the ways of death, yet the reasonings are fully disclosed. The script, written by Sarah Cyngler with Kleiman, focuses on the faction’s original partisan - Alexander (played by Jeremy Chabriel) - the eldest of the group, slowly approaching that all-important age when one starts to question the viewpoints of others (particularly, adults) and begins thinking independently.
Hot off his successful run playing Shawn Spencer on USA’s Psych, James Roday has hopped in the director’s seat with his feature film debut, Gravy, a horror-comedy that feels more like an R-rated episode of his show, rather than an actual fleshed-out movie.
For the second installment of Unsung Indies, I take a look at THE INTERNATIONAL SIGN FOR CHOKING. Written, directed and starring Zach Weintraub, alongside Sophia Takal, about a young man travelling to Buenos Aires looking to regroup while searching for possible documentary subjects, navigating a burgeoning romance, and searching for a woman from his past. All of these activities taking place within the meticulously-composed frames of cinematographer Nandan Rao.
Since The Parent Trap in '98, Meyers has found success with audiences (and, to a lesser extent, critics) who have embraced the optimistic nature of her films, despite their rather low-grade aesthetical qualities, and a propensity for happy endings that can border on the absurd. And yet, some of these films have an endearing, infectious quality. The Parent Trap was still, 17 years later the best distillation of Meyers's simplistic but effective formula. With The Intern, Meyers finally recaptures the magic she did in her debut film, and despite some silliness and a couple slight missteps, sidesteps the expected narrative for a film of this kind.
There are a couple stomach-churning moments in Eli Roth’s The Green Inferno, but probably not the ones you’d expect in a modern-day feature derived from the cannibal exploitation cinema of the ‘70s and ‘80s. After the ritualistic bloodletting begins in earnest, there’s a complete release of the tension Roth had effectively established, including an intense plane crash sequence and the initial encounter between a group of college-student activists and the South American tribe they traveled to the rainforest to protect.
A quote attributed to William Tecumseh Sherman prefaces the limited action of The Keeping Room - a female-driven, Civil War set survival - stating that “war is cruelty” with no hope of reform. While the overall action may be limited, the cruelty of which Sherman speaks lingers and looms in every second of every frame. It’s a sentiment echoed later on by Sam Worthington’s character, one of the two Yankee scouts bringing the quote to life through their ceaseless procession of destruction, operating only in configurations of three functioning modes - drinking, killing, and raping.
It’s an unfortunate thing, but some of you younger readers may only know The National Lampoon as that company that made a couple good movies a long time ago and a slew of straight-to-video garbage since then. In actuality however, The National Lampoon was one of the biggest comedy institutions of the late ’60s and ’70s and helped kickstart the careers of some of the biggest names in the world of humor.
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