Mini Review: Rigor Mortis

You ever have one of those movies that you watch, get to the end and ask, "What was that?"  For me, that movie was Juno Mak's Rigor Mortis, a vampire/possession-zombie(?) movie that starts and ends in some kind of gray mud, which can probably serve as some sort of commentary on the entire film.  It was made in tribute to the Mr. Vampire series of films and stars a lot of the actors who made their name in those films.  I have not been able to track these down, but I have it on good authority (Wikipedia) that they exist.  So that's something.

Rigor Mortis belongs in the jiangshi genre.  Jiangshi are hopping corpses in Chinese folklore.  These are also known as "hopping vampire films", which sounds about right.  There were hopping entities in this film, complete with red tendrils protruding from their entire body, for reasons I wasn't entirely clear on.  Were they vampires?  I'm still not entirely sure.  They seemed to be more like demons or ghosts, but that's neither here nor there.

Vampires?

Let me try to explain the plot to you and we'll see if my head explodes.  A washed-up actor moves into a decrepit apartment complex with lots of strange characters.  He immediately tries to kill himself and is saved by a resident; a great rice cook/vampire hunter.

There's a woman who lives in the complex with her little white-haired son.  They used to live in an apartment, but now they don't, so they wander the halls, stealing food.  They live in the basement because the kindly security guard feels bad for them.  They used to live in the apartment the actor moved into, but her husband cheated on her and got killed by ghosts?  Maybe?  That whole scene was hard to follow.

There's a warlock.  Like, a straight-up warlock.  It might just be me projecting my thoughts when looking back, but I think he had a really dark goatee and wore a robe.  (He did not wear a robe.)  He coughs a lot and smokes "special cigarettes".  (Spoiler alert: it's the crushed-up bones of innocent children.)

There's an elderly lady and her husband.  He dies by falling down stairs, and the warlock convinces her to do a ritual that will revive her husband.  It's weird and creepy and she becomes unhinged quickly.  He becomes a monster who likes to kill, and she seems legitimately surprised by this, despite the fact that he looks like a monster and was raised from the dead by a warlock.

He's fine, you guys. He's just really sleepy.

There's a big fight scene at the end that I didn't fully understand.  There's a little scene after the fight scene that I didn't fully understand.

I feel like I would have understood this better if I had been very familiar with the Mr. Vampire films.  But I have never seen a Mr. Vampire film, so I was very much in the dark for the duration of the movie.

YAAAAAAAA!

It looked really cool, though.  I feel like this was one of those movies that would be perfect for putting on in the background of a Halloween party.  If I had Halloween parties, I would absolutely do that.  Mute the movie, throw some music on and glance over at the screen from time to time.  It would be tremendous.

I can't recommend it as an actual movie, though.  Cool as it may look, the story is absolutely nonsensical.  It wasn't a complete waste of time, but it was a 75% waste of time.

Rating: 1/5

Mini Review: Life After Beth

Description from IMDB:

A young man’s recently deceased girlfriend mysteriously returns from the dead, but he slowly realizes she is not the way he remembered her.

Notable actors: Aubrey Plaza, John C. Reilly, Molly Shannon, Cheryl Hines, Paul Reiser, Anna Kendrick, Dan DeHaan, Matthew Gray Gubler, Garry Marshall

It’s a well-known fact that I enjoy zombie movies.  Because I have seen so many, I find myself drawn to films that are a bit different from the norm.  I like seeing a familiar story from a different angle.  This is true of horror movies in general.  Fido.  Colin.  Shaun of the Dead.  The Cabin in the Woods.  Scream. And so on.  If there is a movie with a new way of looking at familiar tropes, chances are good that I’ll enjoy it.  (Not all of them, though.  American Zombie was terrible.)

So it shouldn’t be a surprise that I loved this movie.  It made me laugh pretty consistently throughout the entire movie.  It started off quickly (one of the first scenes is Beth’s funeral) and didn’t really hit any lulls.  The cast was terrific.  I wasn’t sold on Dane DeHaan at first, but he grew on me as the movie progressed.  I loved seeing how Plaza played Beth; she started as a sweet and fun amnesiac, and ended up being the flesh-craved zombie we knew she would become.  I loved John C. Reilly and Molly Shannon as her relentlessly naïve parents.  Most of all, I loved seeing this weird little story play out on the fringes of a citywide zombie outbreak.

My main complaint is that the music seemed to overtake the dialog from time to time.  I loved the atmosphere of the music (dissonant guitar squawls, courtesy of the great Black Rebel Motorcycle Club), but it had a tendency to be louder than it had any reason to me.  Perhaps that was to contribute to the chaos on screen, but I could have done with it being a little lower in the mix.  (Look at me, complaining about music being too loud.  I’m officially old now.)

That’s a minor complaint, though.  It’s not a perfect movie, but I had a lot of fun with this.  I’m already looking forward to watching it again.

Rating: 4/5

Mini Review: Under the Skin

Thoughts on Under the Skin, in three different stages:

1. During the movie. 

What is going on?  She's an alien, right?  That's what the description said.  Is she going to be driving around in this van for the entire movie?  Are those guys actually having sex with her and then getting destroyed, or are they consumed and converted to fuel without ever touching her?  That seems kind of cruel. 

2. Immediately after the movie. 

That was okay, I guess.  I think I kind of liked it.  It was different than I thought it would be.  I liked the thought process behind her trying to eat cake.  "I think I'm starting to feel things.  Maybe I'm human.  Let me check by eating this cake."  There are worse ways to check to see if you're human or not, I suppose.

3.  The day after the movie.

I really loved that movie.  Scarlett Johansson gave a tremendous performance.  She gave her stoic character a ton of depth, and brought her subtle character arc to life with silence.  It was odd and heartbreaking, and I'm really looking forward to watching it again.

Translation: it's not necessarily an easy movie to watch, but it gets better the more you think about it.  Plus, it can kind of be described as "Art house Species," which I’m a fan of.

Rating: 4.5/5

Mini Review: Snowpiercer

Bong Joo-ho's Snowpiercer - based on a French graphic novel - has some not-so-subtle things to say about class warfare, but that's an article to be written by someone much smarter than me.  An attempt to reverse the effects of global warming have backfired, leaving the sole survivors of Earth to circle the frozen globe in a self-sustaining train, powered by a Sacred Engine.  There's a cautionary tale in that, but I'm not the man to unravel it.

Instead, I'll just talk about how much fun this movie was.  Curtis (Chris Evans) is leading a rebellion against the powers-that-be.  To do this, he must lead his ragtag group from the filthy rear car to the posh front car.  It was almost like a video game, with each car presenting its own challenges.  Some of them contain puzzles to be solved, with new truths being presented that may disrupt their quest.  Others may be a car full of hatchet wielding maniacs who cut open fish to intimidate their attackers.  Others may contain exposition dumps.

It's a dark action movie, all taking place inside a train barreling through snow-covered landscapes.  It's a post-apocalyptic movie unlike any I've seen.  And, while it's bleak, there is a small glimmer of hope.  It's also a lot of fun to watch.

The acting is terrific.  Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, John Hurt and Allison Pill are the highlights, but everyone here is great.

I've seen nothing but praise for this, and, while I loved it, I'll preach a little bit of caution.  I don't think it's quite as amazing as the rest of the world seems to think it is.  It’s a bit long and can drag at times, drawing out small scenes to be longer than they have any reason to be.  When I saw this, the hype level was still pretty low.  If I had seen it with sky-high expectations, I would have walked out disappointed.  As it was, I thoroughly enjoyed myself, even if I had some minor issues with it.

It’s not perfect, but it’s still really good.  Keep your expectations reasonable, and you’ll love it.

Rating: 4.5/5

Mini Review: Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead

I will talk to anyone and everyone about the extent of my love for the first Dead Snow.  It's a little slow out of the gate, but it eventually delivers the full-fledged insanity I hoped that it would, while still developing characters I wanted to spend some time with.  It's one of my favorite zombie movies of the past 5 years.  What Tommy Wirkola was able to do on a small budget (roughly $800K) is nothing short of extraordinary.

As I mentioned in my Trailer Talk post, I was very much looking forward to the sequel.  Seeing as how Wirkola's Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters made $225 million on a $50 million budget, he was given a little more money to play with this time around.  It's tough to find exact numbers, but it looks like this film had a budget of around $5.5 million.

As near as I can tell, Wirkola took that money and immediately asked himself, "How can I make this movie crazier than the first?"  The answer, of course, was more.  More characters.  More zombies.  More fights.  More intestines.  More blood.  More deaths.  More weapons.  More laughs.  More insanity.

Daniel (Martin Starr), Blake (Ingrid Haas) and the Star Wars obsessed Monica (Jocelyn DeBoer) - self-appointed members of the Zombie Squad - travel from America to Norway to help Martin Hykkerud (the only survivor of the original) with his Nazi zombie problem.  "We've seen thousands of zombie movies," Daniel proclaims, as if this is enough information for Martin to have complete faith in their zombie-killing acumen.  Martin doesn't seem overly convinced, but put a hammer/shovel/hatchet in their hands, and they're more than willing to prove their worth.  Not to mention the fact that Blake has one of the all-time best zombie killing faces.

Martin had cut off his arm in the previous movie after being bitten.  In a case of mistaken identity (armdentity?), doctors attached a super-strength Nazi zombie arm to Martin.  At first, he found himself at war with it in a way that conjured up memories of Ash.  Eventually he learned to control it and found that he could bring the dead back to life.  Herzog - the leader of the Nazi zombies - has the same ability.  And so, as the trailer shows, we are treated to a massive zombie war: Herzog's zombies vs. Martin's zombies.  It's the kind of scene Wirkola didn't have money to do in the first film, and he's clearly holding nothing back here.  It's terrific.

The Evil Dead remake was a tense, nasty film, but it was clear the filmmakers were having fun as they dumped buckets of blood on the set.  That same feeling of glee is present here, only the events on the screen are much more comical.  Wirkola clearly had a lot of fun trying to think of new ways to kill people, or new ways to use their intestines.  With every new trick, I found myself grinning like an idiot.  I'm sure he was doing the same thing.

There's too much insanity to properly describe here.  If you like buckets of blood, miles of intestines and aren't easily offended, you need to watch this as soon as you can.  Even if you don't like zombie films, you're still likely to enjoy this one.

Rating: 5/5

Added note: I loved the chemistry between Martin and Roy (Stig Frode Henriksen) in the first film, so I was really happy to see Henriksen show up in this one as a different character.

Mini Review: Willow Creek

"Bobcat Goldthwait directed found footage Bigfoot movie."

That lovely bit of word soup is all I knew about this movie going in.  Since I had just visited the International Cryptozoology Museum, my interest in Bigfoot was at an all-time high.  My relationship with found footage has been a rocky one, but I was pretty excited about this. 

While I liked Kelly (Alexie Gilmore) pretty well, Jim (Bryce Johnson) really grated on my nerves.  One minute he's admonishing Kelly for not believing in Bigfoot and making fun of the town ("You don't believe?  You don't believe?  How could you not believe?  Believebelievebelieve?"), the next he's poking fun at a Bigfoot mural or jokingly interviewing a wooden Bigfoot or mocking a man who is singing a song about Bigfoot.  You can't have it both ways, fella. 

The movie was slow and riddled with plot holes/standard found footage complaints, but it was short (80 minutes) and provided a few good scares.  While it was ultimately disappointing, I thought it had enough going for it to offer a lukewarm recommendation.  Of course, that may just be my Bigfoot-mania talking.

Rating: 2.5/5

Mini Review: Oculus

As many of you know, I've been writing for Horror-Writers.net for quite some time now.  I started off writing reviews, but have since become the main TV writer there.  That (along with my time at PackerUpdate.net) has cut into my movie review time.  I'm still watching movies, but I find that I don't have as much time to write about them as I used to.  As much as I'd love to write a long, in-depth review on every movie I see, the reality is that I just can't do it at this time.
So I thought I'd change it up a bit.  In an attempt to ramp up this side of my writing, I'll be posting mini reviews for the horror movies I watch.  Nothing huge.  Just a sentence or paragraph saying what I thought about it.  Maybe I'll get around to writing full-length reviews of these.  Maybe I won't.  But these mini reviews should help me to still talk a bit about every movie I watch, if only a little.

First up, Oculus.

The trailer for this looked really creepy.  I had high hopes, but I was trying to keep my expectations low.    I had a fear that it would basically be Mirrors 3.
I'm happy to report that this was tremendous.  The cast was great (Karen Gillan and Katee Sackhoff, in particular).  Even the child actors were really good.
This was a really creepy film throughout.  I love how it played with the perception of reality.  I was never quite sure if what I was seeing was real or just an illusion of the mirror.  It hooked me early and kept me interested throughout.  There were a number of images that will be sticking with me for a long time.

Rating: 5/5