Whirlpool: Otto Preminger

Otto Preminger's Whirlpool made its first mistake by centering on a truly preposterous idea: a villain who hypnotizes women into committing crimes for him. Maybe in the realm of horror such a story would work, but certainly not in the hard-boiled arena of film noir. Whirlpool's second mistake was that it unsuccessfully attempted to blend melodrama into a crime thriller. So not only does the audience have to deal with an unbelievable story, it has to contend with sub-par storytelling. I expected more from Preminger, honestly. But Whirlpool is a disappointment through and through. The one stand-out part of this film is José Ferrer as the hypnotist David Korvo. He is a delightfully smug bastard who knows that he's smarter than everyone else around him. He is a plotter, a schemer, a manipulator who knows how to cover all his bases. And that's another reason why Whirlpool fails: in the last scene Korvo stupidly confronts the heroes with a gun. For such a genius mastermind, this scene completely betrays his character and feels insulting towards the audience. This film isn't just a misfire. It's a complete disaster.

5/10

House of Strangers: Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Gino Monetti is a fascinating character. A rich Italian-American banker who clawed his way to the top from desperate poverty, Monetti is a hero to the community (he gives out loans to people without material collateral) and a villain to his sons. Well, three of his sons, anyhow. Joe, Tony, and Pietro hate Gino for oppressively controlling their lives, humiliating them in public, and paying them miniscule salaries while he sits at his desk smoking expensive cigars and lavishing affection, attention, and financial support to Max, his other son. See, Gino likes Max: he's a successful lawyer, engaged to be married to a nice Italian girl (while one of his other sons married a conspicuously blonde woman who doesn't even have the courtesy to like spaghetti), and his only son who doesn't resent him. So when Gino is arrested for his lax business practices, Joe, Tony, and Pietro throw him to the wolves and take over his business. And poor Max...he just hates to lose. When he realizes that his father is going to jail, he takes a gamble by attempting to bribe one of the jurors. And guess what? That gamble cost him his license and seven years upstate. Seven years later, Max is out and Gino is dead. Max returns to his old home to settle some accounts. But will his vengeance destroy his entire family? The reason why Joseph L. Mankiewicz's House of Strangers is more than just a dreary family drama is the characters of Gino and Max. Both are characters who simultaneously inspire sympathy and resentment. Gino (performed by the always phenomenal Edward G. Robinson) honestly thinks that he's doing right by his family and the community. But his arrogance, fury, and blindness to the feelings of his family prove to be his undoing. Max (Richard Conte) is also an arrogant fool who is incapable of accepting failure (my favorite scene is when he bursts into the house of a former lover and threatens to beat up her new beau because she is his girl whether she wants to be or not). But we sense that his fatherly devotion springs from a kind of filial piety, even if it is a respect that was purchased through years of favoritism instead of being properly earned. By the end, I had very conflicted feelings about whether or not Gino or Max were villains, heroes, or something else. Mere humans, perhaps? Yes, I think so. Well done, Mr. Mankiewicz.

8/10

Scandal Sheet: Phil Karlson

Phil Karlson's Scandal Sheet pops and crackles with a ceaseless energy that makes it both captivating and thoroughly entertaining. The film concerns the staff of the New York Express newspaper, once a respectable, Pulitzer-prize winning publication that now serves as a cheap, gossip-driven "scandal sheet." The paper is run by the unscrupulous Mark Chapman, a colossus of a man who takes no prisoners when it comes to exploiting tragedy and suffering to sell newspapers. Of course, this changes when Mark accidentally kills his estranged ex-wife. Now he has to deal with his own blood-thirsty reporters tearing open the case and threatening to expose his terrible crime. You reap what you sow, Mr. Chapman. If Scandal Sheet seems like a lost Samuel Fuller film, that's because it almost is. The film is based on Fuller's novel The Dark Page. And though it is very competently directed by Phil Karlson, the film is nevertheless dominated by Fuller's personality and obsession with newspapermen and sensationalism. Broderick Crawford gives a delightfully overwhelming performance as Chapman. Watch how he uses his giant build as a means of intimidating others and protecting himself when the heat is on. I haven't seen an actor sweat so nervously since Orson Welles in Touch of Evil (1958). John Derek gives an alternatively energetic and flat performance as Steve McClearly, the paper's number one reporter. He fails to gain much sympathy from the audience due to his own ruthless tactics as a reporter (he pretends to be a police officer in order to grill a devastated witness of a brutal murder in the film's opening scene). At one point he arrogantly dismisses the claims of an alcoholic former reporter named Charlie Barnes (in a performance that rivals Crawford's in excellence by Henry O'Neill) who had serendipitously discovered proof of Chapman's guilt. This leads to Barnes' murder at the hands of Chapman. Unfortunately, McClearly doesn't receive any proper punishment for this other than a good tongue-wagging by a fellow reporter. By the time of his death, we have grown to genuinely love Barnes. The fact that McClearly doesn't receive a decent comeuppance for his role in his death does his character no favors in the eyes of the audience. But Scandal Sheet is still a gripping film and a fine piece of noir filmmaking.

7/10

Quicksand: Irving Pichel

Irving Pichel's Quicksand should be taught in every Screenwriting 101 class. It boasts a simple premise that seems like it was ripped right out of the film noir bible: good-natured auto mechanic Dan Brady (Andy Rooney in a fantastic performance against his usual character type) wants to take a beautiful young woman named Vera Novak (Jeanne Cagney) on a date. However, she is one of those high-class dames, so Dan wants to take her somewhere special. However, he is short on dough. So he takes $20 from the cash register at work with the intention of paying it back the next day he gets paid. However, things get complicated when the bookkeeper shows up early the next day and notices the imbalance. This flings Dan into a whirlwind of crime, blackmail, and eventually murder as he tries to escape a fate he clearly doesn't deserve. The screenplay by Robert Smith does wonders in how it sets up seemingly insignificant details which later come back to bite poor Dan. There is hardly a line, character, or prop that doesn't serve some kind of purpose to the story. The story is so tightly-executed that at times Quicksand almost becomes a dark comedy. My one big problem with the film is the ending: running from a supposed murder charge (of which he is unknowingly innocent), he stumbles upon a good Samaritan lawyer who is more than willing to help Dan prove his innocence. Combine this with an innocent woman who desperately loves him (for no real apparent reason) and is more than willing to wait for him while he is in prison and you have a needlessly out-of-place and upbeat ending. I almost wish that the film had ending like Martin Scorsese's After Hours (1985). Or here's a better idea: due to the same kind of random circumstances which propelled the film to begin with, Dan is cleared of all of his crimes...but is nailed in the end for the robbery of $20. But I suppose if Quicksand had had that ending, the film would not be languishing in obscurity.

8/10

Pacific Rim: Guillermo del Toro

Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim is everything I've ever wanted in a summer blockbuster: fun, exciting, chock full of fascinating characters, and featuring some of the best special effects (both practical and CGI) that I've ever seen. Pacific Rim is worthy of entry into the pantheon of great summer flicks along with Jaws (1975), Star Wars (1977), Raiders of the Lost Arc (1981), Jurassic Park (1993), and The Dark Knight (2008). Here is a film that eschews cynicism in favor of wide-eyed optimism towards both humanity and our capacity to achieve greatness. When giant monsters named 'Kaiju' start attacking earth, mankind rallies together to create Jaegers, or giant humanoid mecha capable of fighting them. The film primarily follows two pilots, Raleigh Becket (USA) and Mako Mori (JAP), as they come together to pilot the Gipsy Danger, one of the only surviving Jaegers after years of fighting and budget cuts from the world government. When a possible method of permanently stopping the Kaiju from entering our world from another dimension arises, the Gipsy Danger must join with the other remaining Jaegers to literally save the world...and all mankind. But Pacific Rim isn't perfect. For a film that boasts a story where the world literally comes together to defeat giant monsters, the non-English speaking Jaeger crews are swiftly and rather unceremoniously killed off just minutes into their first on-screen fight. I've heard a lot of talk concerning how Raleigh and Mako's relationship is supposedly progressive because they are treated more like brother and sister as opposed to two romantic leads. Well, I can say from experience that brothers and sisters don't enjoy secretly watching each other get dressed. But the film certainly has some powerful semiotic moments that spit in the face of how gender and racial roles have been depicted for decades in Hollywood (my favorite was when Stacker Pentecost, the gigantic black leader of the Jaeger crews, sincerely tells Mako, a tiny Japanese woman, that he is depending on her to protect him). Pacific Rim is a damn fine movie and anyone who loves quality entertainment owes it to themselves to check it out.

8/10

Gray’s Anatomy: Steven Soderbergh

You wouldn't think that listening to one person talk for 80 minutes would make for good cinema. I mean, there have been great movies like My Dinner with Andre (1981) that have literally been nothing but talking. But at least My Dinner with Andre had two characters having a dialogue. With the exception of some brief interviews with random people interspersed throughout the film (cumulatively they can't take up more than 15 or so minutes), Steven Soderbergh's Gray's Anatomy is just famed monologist Spalding Gray recounting the time that he was diagnosed with an eye condition known as a "macular pucker." And yet, I sat completely enthralled throughout the entire movie. He guides us through several different alternative medical treatments that he attempted before going in for an eye surgery: Christian Science, Native American sweat lodges, and even a radical, all raw vegetable diet. The stories may seem far-fetched, but Gray delivers them with such conviction, passion, and intensity that we can't help but believe in their authenticity. What was your favorite part? Mine was when he talked about watching a whole conga line of Japanese tourists get treated by a psychic surgeon. But much credit must also go to Soderbergh who manages to keep the film visually fresh with a multitude of bizarre sets, lights, and camera tricks. Monologuing is a stationary activity more suited for the stage than for celluloid. Yet Soderbergh manages to inject a sense of movement into the film without drawing too much attention away from where it matters.

8/10

The Conjuring: James Wan

When was the last time you were legitimately scared in a movie theater? I don't mean scared as in startled, I mean scared as terrified? When was the last time a horror movie made you dread going to sleep at night? When was the last time that a horror movie made you make sure that every single part of your body was under the covers before you turned off the lights? I can answer that: James Wan's The Conjuring. A cross between The Exorcist (1973) and The Amityville Horror (1979), The Conjuring retells the (supposedly) true story of the 1971 Harrisville haunting wherein a large family moved into an old house only to be haunted, attacked, and possessed by demons. In order to save their family, they enlisted the real-life paranormal investigation team of Ed and Lorraine Warren. It turns out that the house is possessed by the spirit of a witch related to one of the historical Salem Witch Trial victims who, over the years, has possessed several mothers in order to sacrifice their children to Satan. Thematically, The Conjuring doesn't bring anything new to the table. We are presented with a list of cliched horror tropes: the old house, the creepy basement, the scary music box, a downright disturbing old doll (sort of a trademark for Wan) and no less than five creepy young girls. But since the film is (supposedly) based on a true story, these factors can be forgiven. What Wan excels at is using these cliches to deliver some of the most creative and effective scares in recent memory. There are a handful of traditional jump scares, but they are earned via Wan's talent for misdirecting the audience with camera angles, manipulation of foreground and background action, and bone-chilling tension. My favorite scene was when one girl "saw" a ghost behind their bedroom door and one of her sisters went to the corner it was blocking to investigate. An ordinary director would have had a boogeyman jump out of the shadowed corner and grab her. But Wan keeps his camera steady for several seconds, forcing the audience to dread the fact that they know that something is about to happen, they just don't know what and when and how and WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?! This is a film that establishes an atmosphere of terror and fear and uses it like a twisting needle in someone's spine. And now for the million dollar question: what was the scariest moment of the film, in my opinion? My answer: *clap* *clap*. You'll know it when you see it.

8/10

Shield for Murder: Edmond O'Brien, Howard W. Koch

Shield for Murder may very well be the most violent film noir I’ve ever seen. Hard-boiled depictions of violence has always been a mainstay of film noir, but Shield for Murder takes it to new, brutal heights. There are only a handful of on-screen deaths, but they are not clean killings. In most film noir (and early Westerns, too), a single bullet is enough to end a man's life. But here, death requires a terrible toll: one man is mugged and murdered in cold blood, another is beaten and then thrown down a flight of stairs, and the climactic gunfight spans several buildings full of innocent bystanders. In the film's most shocking moment, the protagonist, a crooked cop named Lieutenant Barney Nolan, pistol-whips two private investigators in a crowded restaurant. This scene ranks with the coffee pot assault from The Big Heat (1953) and the coke bottle attack from The Long Goodbye (1973) as one of the most unexpected and unnerving acts of violence in all of noir. It doesn't help that Lieutenant Nolan isn't the most sympathetic character: desperate to escape the hellish monotony of blue-collar life and the Sisyphean struggle against crime and social decay, Nolan coldly murders and robs a bookmaker for $25,000. Nolan wants to use the money to buy a house with his girlfriend and maybe, just maybe, start a new kind of life. There are just two problems: the bookmaker's boss fully suspects Nolan of the robbery and wants the money back and, unbeknownst to Nolan, there was a witness to the killing. And so Nolan gets pulled into a web of violence, theft, and doomed dreams. To actor (and co-director) Edmond O'Brien's credit, Nolan isn't a total monster. Indeed, we may be repulsed by his crimes, but we appreciate his sincere love for his girlfriend and his desire to give her a better life. But murder and robbery is something that neither the audience, nor the bleak universe of noir, can forgive.

9/10

Mystery Street: John Sturges

Don't let anybody trick you into thinking that the star of John Sturges' Mystery Street is Ricardo Montalban or Marshall Thompson. No, the true star here is Elsa Lanchester as Mrs. Smerrling, the prying, nosy, and ruthlessly opportunistic landlady who makes the film's biggest impression despite being a supporting character. Not since her turn as the Bride of Frankenstein has Lanchester been so fascinatingly devious onscreen. On its own, the plot of Mystery Street is very compelling: a standard story of a decent man who gets stuck with a murder rap for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. There are some fascinating scenes at the Harvard Medical School where we are introduced to forensic science and how it can be used to identify victims, time of death, and cause of death. These scenes predate other forensic procedurals like Michael Mann's Manhunter (1988) and the various CSI television shows in their nearly fetishistic approach to this branch of science. Massachusetts gumshoe cop Peter Morales (played by the always fantastic Montalban) then steals the narrative's focus for most of the rest of the film as he puts all of the case's pieces together. But every single time Lanchester shows up the audience squirms in their seats because they know that she is about to do something manipulative, ballsy, and stupid. My favorite examples? Where she tries to blackmail a murderous criminal twice while hamming it up as a poor, tired old lady who could really use a trip to Paris and maybe Venice, New York, and London while you're at it. Mystery Street is a wonderful film that could have easily survived without Mrs. Smerrling. But she is the delectable cherry on the top of a great noir sundae. Delicious!

7/10

Monsters University: Dan Scanlon

Was this movie necessary? No, it really wasn't. The original Monsters, Inc. (2001) was a marvelous film with a precise story that didn't need any additional expounding or explanation. But since being acquired by Disney, it was inevitable that the almighty Mickey Mouse Sequel Machine would turn its gaze back on the company's more successful properties. But leave it to Pixar to deliver an incredibly satisfying prequel in Dan Scanlon's Monsters University. Following the young Michael "Mike" Wazowski and James P. "Sulley" Sullivan as they try and graduate from the Scaring Program at Monsters University, the film starts by treading some familiar waters: Mike is the workaholic bookworm who has to earn his place in the college while Sulley is the jock-ish slacker who doesn't have to work hard at all to win friends and score high marks in Scaring Classes. At first I thought this would be a rather predictable story where Mike and Sulley have to put aside their differences and work together in order to graduate...and I was right. But where Monsters University shines is how they manage to use that story cliché as a springboard. They get into a nasty fight where they anger the (incredibly intimidating) Dean of the Scaring Program, get expelled, and make an ultimatum wherein if they can win an upcoming Scaring Contest between the campus' different fraternities and sororities, they can be let back into the Program. Of course the only fraternity available to them is Oozma Kappa, home to misfits, dweebs, and nerds. All of these misfits get their own small character arcs as they pull together with Mike and Sulley to try and win the Contest. The film is also incredibly funny. But unlike many other children's films, the comedy isn't just frantic slapstick and silly yelling. My favorite scene involves the Oozma Kappa fraternity initiation ceremony where...well, I don't want to spoil it. Did we need a prequel to Monsters, Inc.? No. But its success is a serendipitous treat.

8/10

Crossfire: Edward Dmytryk

You know, it's a good thing that Edmund Gwenn was so adorable in Miracle on 34th Street (1947), because if anybody other than Mr. Kris Kringle himself had stolen the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor from Robert Ryan in Edward Dmytryk's Crossfire, then there would definitely be some accounts that I would have to settle, if you catch my drift. Dmytryk's Crossfire tells the story of a group of demobilized soldiers who become embroiled in a murder scheme. Of course one of them is guilty and, of course, the wrong one becomes the primary suspect. But this isn't a mystery film. This is a film that delves deep into the subject of hatred and antisemitism. See, the victim was killed because he was a Jew. At least, that's what we as the audience knows. It takes the rest of the cast a while to figure it out. The film is well-shot and directed, but rather stale and stuffy, particularly in the early scenes. Robert Mitchum plays a soldier who takes it upon himself to try and identify the real killer. But the role doesn't give him anything decent to chew on, so his performance is flat and somewhat monotone. But the film makes up for it with Ryan's performance as the anti-Semitic, abusive, and violent murderer. Pay close attention to the final sequence where he is basically walked through the scene of one of his murders. Ryan's fear and apprehension is so palpable that the audience starts to sweat right along with him. His body language and facial expressions are the stuff of genius. In the end, Crossfire is certainly earnest in its attempts to condemn racism. And the film has a few moments of greatness (one shot of a cuckolded husband standing in an empty hallway as the camera slowly pulls away from him is a particularly striking visual evocation of impotent masculinity). But the film is ultimately too clunky and over-bearing, particularly when it begins to soapbox on hatred.

6/10

Visiting Hours: Jean-Claude Lord

If Jean-Claude Lord's Visiting Hours failed to leave much of an impression on me, then it wasn't because of one thoroughly disturbing scene with Colt Hawker, the film's misogynistic serial killer played by the terrific Michael Ironside. After repeated failures to kill a feminist activist named Deborah Ballin, he realizes that the only way that he can get to her is by getting admitted to the hospital where she is recovering from his first attack. So he takes some pills, puts his arm in a make-shift belt tourniquet, and smashes it against a beer bottle, sending shards of broken glass deep into his flesh. The scene is very shocking and viscerally effective. Although it is clearly gratuitous (he could have just faked an injury), it remains the most memorable part of the film. Honestly, the rest of the film is rather blasé: we have a stock killer plagued by a childhood trauma, a conveyor belt of hapless victims, and a bevy of cliched jump scares. Visiting Hours was apparently labeled as a Video Nasty. Yet the film is easily the least graphic film that I have yet seen on that list. The bottle scene is easily the most graphic (although an early scene where he cuts an elderly woman's hospital cords and watches her slowly suffocate is also chilling). This film is worth it for two words: Michael Ironside.

5/10

The Street With No Name: William Keighley

William Keighley's The Street With No Name is an audacious picture which successfully manages to combine a hard-boiled police procedural with a gloomy, atmospheric crime drama. A follow-up to Henry Hathaway's The House on 92nd Street (1945), the film follows undercover FBI agent Gene Cordell as he infiltrates a deadly gang responsible for several murders and robberies. The first part of the film is shot like a documentary: we are treated to a sternly narrated tour of the inner workings of the FBI and the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. Once Cordell is selected for the mission, the film switches gears into a tense and beautifully shot noir drama. Joseph MacDonald, one of the true treasures of classical Hollywood cinematography, is in top form, turning the city into an opaque labyrinth of dim corners, b[l]ack alleys, and street-lights. The film's stylization is organic in nature, somehow riding the thin line between bold noir and outright Expressionism. But the true wonder of The Street With No Name is Richard Widmark's performance as Alec Stiles, the sadistic, ruthless, and paranoid leader of the gang. Out of all of Widmark's infamous roles over the years, including the likes of Tommy Udo in Kiss of Death (1947) and Skip McCoy in Pickup on South Street (1953), Alec Stiles is my favorite of his characters. He propels an already great film into excellence with a performance that is equally intimidating, menacing, and unpredictable.

8/10

REC: Jaume Balagueró, Paco Plaza

Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza's REC is nothing less than the heir apparent to George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968). Both feature helpless people trapped in a claustrophobic building trying to fight off waves of the undead. But whereas Night of the Living Dead was about a group of survivors trying to keep zombies out, REC is about a group of survivors who are trapped in a building that is already infested. When two reporters and a group of firemen respond to an alarm in an old apartment building, they are attacked by a blood-stained elderly woman. Before they can evacuate, the apartment is cordoned off by the military who threaten to shoot anyone who tries to leave. From there, the survivors must figure out how to escape from the building before they are killed by the re-animated corpses of the infected. And who knows? Maybe along the way they will discover the cause of the outbreak. Yes, REC is a found-footage film. But unlike a lot of found-footage films, most of it happens in real-time, thereby making this overused technique fresh and terrifyingly effective. I will also give REC credit for coming up with a new origin for a potential zombie outbreak: demons! Anyhow, the one criticism of this film that keeps it from scoring a 10/10 is that in the last third it relies much too heavily on jump scares that are meant to shock. But the first two-thirds are legitimately horrifying. This may very well be the definitive horror film of the 2000s.

9/10

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt: Fritz Lang

[Spoilers Ahead]

How could Fritz Lang, the director of Metropolis (1927), M (1931), and The Big Heat (1953), make a film as soulless and stale as Beyond a Reasonable Doubt? The film is based on an absurd premise, performed by unbelievable characters, and ends with one of the worst final-minute revelations/twists that I can think of. Here's the story: in order to prove the flaws of a justice system that allows capital punishment, newspaper publisher Austin Spencer decides to frame his future son-in-law Tom Garrett for a murder he didn't commit (with Tom's knowledge and participation, of course). When a nightclub dancer is found murdered, Austin and Tom seize the opportunity to plant incriminating evidence. Tom is arrested, charged with murder, and found guilty in a court of law. However, as Austin goes to the courtroom to deliver evidence that reveals the plot and Tom's innocence, he is killed in a car accident. Now Tom's estranged fiancee, Susan, has to find evidence on her own that he isn't guilty. This is an interesting story development. Up until this point, the film has been stylistically barren (a tragedy considering Lang's past status as one of the champions of German Expressionism) and stiltedly acted. But this twist could have been enough to salvage Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. However, Lang ruins it by adding in another twist: it turns out Tom was responsible for the murder and he used Austin's plan as a method to exploit double jeopardy laws. Here's the problem with this twist: for much of the movie we follow Tom. In all that time, I can't think of one instance where that twist was telegraphed. Because this further twist wasn't set up, it comes across as an unnecessarily cynical turn. So in addition to being visually unappealing, the story seems cheap and exploitative (and not in a good way). What a crying shame that this would be the final American film by one of the world's great directors.

5/10

The Ring: Gore Verbinski

Gore Verbinski's The Ring is a moody, atmospheric experience that could be enshrined as one of the best American horror films of its decade. It could be, but it probably won't be because the film ruins itself with a tacked on epilogue that ruins both the story and our affection for the main characters. For most of the film we watch as journalist Rachel Embry tries to unravel the mystery behind a weird tape that kills anyone who watches it. We like Rachel and we identify with her struggle when she discovers that her young son has accidentally watched the tape (an early scene where she nonchalantly shoos away her boss when he tries to fire her is particularly endearing). The secret surrounding the tape, its killing power, and the little girl who may or may not have created it are extremely compelling and chilling. The vast majority of the film is played like a mystery thriller with horror overtones. It actually reminded me of the scenes where John Ferguson first investigates Madeleine in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958). But the last few scenes are so out of place that they hurt to watch. Suddenly the lore surrounding the tape is re-written just because and Rachel becomes a heartless murderer. I can't get over how badly this ending betrays the spirit and nature of the rest of the film. I'm still going to give this film a great score because most of its run-time deserves such accolades. If it wasn't for that ending, though...imagine how much higher it could, no, how much higher it should have been.

8/10

Leave Her to Heaven: John M. Stahl

Why is John M. Stahl's Leave Her to Heaven considered a film noir? And no, I'm not just saying that because the film is shot in Technicolor instead of black-and-white. This film is more of a melodramatic thriller about a mentally unbalanced woman who marries a famous writer and kills off anybody who might steal his attention away from her. That's not to say that Leave Her to Heaven is a bad film. Gene Tierney gives a career-defining performance as the murderous Ellen Berent. For the first third of the film we don't even suspect that she is capable of cold-blooded murder. But then she allows her husband's disabled brother to drown while under her care. Next she forces herself to miscarry by "tripping" down a flight of stairs when she feels that he isn't paying enough attention to her. And finally she frames her adoptive sister Ruth for murder when she feels that she has become too chummy with her husband. Whose murder? Well, I won't spoil that for you. But despite the film's quality, I can't think of it as a film noir. According to David Hogan, the four big influences on film noir were: 1) post-World War II anxiety, 2) low budgets, 3) "hard-boiled" crime literature, and 4) the influence of German filmmakers and their predilection towards "expressionism, fatalism, and psychological melodrama. First off, the film makes no mention of World War II. Second, Technicolor cinematography and on-location shooting all over the United States isn't cheap. Third, while the film is based on a novel, its writer, Ben Ames Williams, can hardly be described as "hard-boiled." And fourth, while the film is definitely preoccupied with psychological melodrama, it can hardly be described as "expressionist" or "fatalistic." This is just a very, very pretty melodrama. Nothing more.

7/10

Mardi Gras Massacre: Jack Weis

Jack Weis' Mardi Gras Massacre is a semi-remake of Herschell Gordon Lewis' Blood Feast (1963), a film where a religious zealot mutilates and sacrifices young women to an ancient Babylonian god. Except in Mardi Gras Massacre, it's about a religious zealot sacrificing young prostitutes to an ancient Aztec god. So there are several scenes where the villain hires a prostitute, chains her to an altar, and guts them from genitals to gullet. It may just be me, but I could swear that they used the same torso prop for each of the murders. Anyhow, just like in Blood Feast, this film also has a sub-plot about the cops trying to solve the string of murders. What's more, one of the cops gets a sub-plot of his very own where he gets into a relationship with a prostitute! And guess what? It goes nowhere! I'll give Weis some credit: he at least knows how to frame a shot and take advantage of the fact that he was filming on location in New Orleans. But the acting is still incredibly stilted, the effects amateurish, and the murder scenes deliriously repetitive. At least in Blood Feast the murder scenes changed things up from kill to kill. The best part in Mardi Gras Massacre was a scene where the villain decided to let one of his victims escape because she was too innocent and pure-hearted for his purposes. But she insists on "getting it on" because he already paid her. And guess what happens? He murders her. Shocking, I know.

4/10

The Descent: Neil Marshall

The first 30 or so minutes of Neil Marshall's The Descent gives the audience hope that they may be in for more than the average horror film. The film is about a group of British women who get trapped in an unmarked, unexplored Appalachian cave while spelunking. And for a while the film manages to create an effective claustrophobic atmosphere. Inspired by American horror films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), The Thing (1982), and (I would argue) Alien (1979), Marshall wanted to ramp up the tension in the first act. And I would argue that he succeeded. There are three scenes that were particularly unnerving: when one woman gets trapped in a narrow passage when it begins to collapse, when the ladies have to cross a giant chasm with only a few tools, and when they are forced to reset a broken leg after one of their number survives a terrible fall. This last scene is a textbook example of how to include gore in a film without it seeming exploitative. But then the subterranean bogeymen show up and start picking them off one-by-one. From here the film becomes a mediocre slasher film. Instead of trying to maintain an atmosphere, the film becomes a series of jump scares and shock reveals that all culminate when one lady falls into pool of what I think was supposed to be blood but actually came across as a vat of spoiled strawberry jam. The creatures designs are interesting, but they lead to one of the film's biggest plot holes. If these monsters are subterranean dwellers who hunt on the outside and have since been undiscovered, why do they screech like banshees whenever they move in for the kill? These creatures have a scream that could give a howler monkey a run for its money. So assuming that it hunted above ground, wouldn't there at least be local legends of screaming monsters? And also, what kind of hunter screams and makes a ruckus before moving in for the kill? Basically, The Descent was a good film that unfortunately lost its nerve a third of the way in.

6/10

Despicable Me: Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud

I know that one of the main reasons why people like Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud's Despicable Me is the minions: those yellow, pill-shaped maniacs who seem impervious to injury. And, yes, they do help make an otherwise blasé film memorable. But here's my big problem with the minions: they exist in order to telegraph what emotion the audience should be feeling. During a happy scene, they smile. During a sad scene, they weep. During a funny scene, they cackle and babble in their indecipherable language. It seems like a cheap ploy to intensify audience reaction. But I digress. Despicable Me, a film about super-villain Gru who adopts three young orphans to help him in his super-schemes, does have a few things going for it. First, I did enjoy watching the single-parent dynamic between Gru and the three girls that he gradually starts to love. Watching how the world at large seems to just casually put up with the antics of full-fledged super-villains is also entertaining. The film features a charming art aesthetic, no doubt largely inspired by Pierre Coffin's French heritage. And a few of the film's jokes do work (my personal favorite was how the bank that funds international super-villains was labeled as "Formerly the Lehman Brothers"). But everything else about the film falls flat. Much of Gru's character and back-story is forced and contrived. And while Steve Carrell does an admirable job trying to bring life to this character, we can't help but feel that something is...lacking. Perhaps if Carrell had just picked one accent and not a vague mish-mash of Eastern European speech patterns. In general, the film is harmless children's entertainment. But in the era of Miyazaki and Pixar, "harmless" isn't good enough.

6/10

Ninja Terminator: Godfrey Ho

There are only two good things about Godfrey Ho's Ninja Terminator: Jang Lee Hwang and Richard Harrison's dub actor. Everything else about this cut-and-paste atrocity is a nightmare. The plot makes absolutely no sense: three ninjas (one played by Richard Harrison) break away from the "Ninja Empire" and steal the sacred Golden Ninja Warrior, an object that contains some kind of supreme ninja power. But about half of the film is made up of footage of Jang Lee Hwang casually kicking the daylights out of random people as part of a plot to rescue a kidnapped girl. Or at least I think that's what was happening. The editing between the Hwang stock footage and Ho's new Harrison footage is so disjointed that following the plot after the one hour mark isn't a possibility. What's worse, some of the footage that was obviously shot in widescreen was cropped for a different aspect ratio. As a result, many shots cut off characters that we are supposed to see. My favorite example was an early scene at a graveyard where the aspect ratio transfer was so terrible that we have to listen to an off-screen character give a prolonged monologue as we stare at an off-center graveyard. Ninja Terminator is an abysmal film and one of the worst martial arts films I've ever seen. That said, I believe that everyone needs to see this movie. It is one of the most unintentionally hysterical films ever made. From Harrison's novelty Garfield phone to the main antagonist's ridiculous blonde wig, everything in Ninja Terminator seems deliberately designed to be the most insane thing ever committed to celluloid. If someone told me that Ninja Terminator was a deliberate spoof of the ninja genre, I would have believed them. Check this film out!

1/10

Misery: Rob Reiner

In a long, distinguished career of giving the world nightmares, few of Stephen King's creations are as horrifying and memorable as Annie Wilkes. Novelist Paul Sheldon didn't know how doomed he was when he woke up inside Wilkes' cabin after surviving a terrible car crash. Every celebrity fears having to hang out with their "number one fan." Why? Because it doesn't seem...natural...for people to devote their lives so intensely to people they don't really know. Annie Wilkes is the summation of all these fears: a bipolar, psychopathic fan with a history of death, murder, and mayhem masked behind a sweet, smiling veneer. The scene where Annie "hobbles" Sheldon is rightfully regarded as one of the most terrifying moments in horror history. The scene's effectiveness is more evidence for my "less is more" theory of cinematic pain. Here's my theory: if you want to make the audience physically uncomfortable via violence, less is more. In the original novel, Annie cuts Paul's legs off. Certainly that is more painful to Paul than the movie's hobbling operation. But an audience will respond more to seeing Paul's feet getting smashed because they have no frame of reference for losing a leg. Everyone has twisted, sprained, broken, or injured their feet before. But few have actually lost limbs. It reminds me of the scene in Luis Puenzo's The Official Story (1985) where one of the character's fingers are smashed in a door hinge. It comes out of nowhere, is almost instantly over, and isn't sensationalized. And yet I still literally consider that to be the most violent thing I've ever seen on film. Remember: less is more. And director Rob Reiner gives us just enough horror and pain in Misery without crossing the line.

8/10

This is the End: Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg

Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's This is the End may not be the smartest comedy out there, but it is easily one of the funniest. I can't remember the last time I made such a howling ruckus in a theater. The film begins with a very simple premise: what if a bunch of famous actors were at a party when the biblical Apocalypse happened? Featuring numerous actors playing themselves (like James Franco, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogan, Jay Baruchel), they have to figure out how to survive after the world is consumed by literal hellfire. Of course the theology involved is very sketchy. Apparently the only requirement for being raptured to Heaven is being a good person. I wouldn't mind so much, but the film emphasizes that this isn't a generic apocalypse, but a specifically Christian one (they get their info from the Book of "Revelations," after all). But considering that a large chunk of the cast is Jewish, it makes sense that they side-stepped that essential requirement for salvation: faith in Jesus. But I'm getting side-tracked. There is some pretty jarring CGI used for demons and general shots of destruction. Being a special effects traditionalist, I would have preferred that they used models and costumes. But then I realized that maybe using CGI worked for this film. After all, obvious costume work would have ruined the illusion that the apocalypse is happening. And one of the best things about This is the End is that it makes the end times legitimately terrifying. If the threat of fire and brimstone was disrupted, then the story and comedy would have lapsed into parody. And This is the End is most certainly NOT a parody. It's a simple film about regular people flung into outrageous circumstances. With the exception of one sequence where Jonah Hill is, ahem, "possessed" by a demon, the comedy and drama comes naturally from the situations that the characters find themselves in: how do they protect themselves from looters? Where do they get food? Where do they get water? How do they cope with the literal end of the world? How do they pass the time with nothing but a giant pile of drugs and a single porno mag? What do you do when Emma Watson busts into your house with an axe? The answer: don't talk about rape. Seriously. Don't. She'll steal all of your alcohol.

9/10

The Quatermass Xperiment: Val Guest

It was in Val Guest's The Quatermass Xperiment that Hammer horror, that legendary cinematic sub-genre of gothic horror produced by Hammer Film Productions, was borne. The film is based on the BBC television serial The Quatermass Experiment (note the proper spelling of 'experiment' when compared to the film's title). The original serial told the story of an astronaut who is infected by an alien organism while in space. When he crash lands on earth, he transforms into a blob-like monstrosity that absorbs any living thing it comes into contact with. It is up to Professor Bernard Quatermass, head of the British Rocket Group, to find this creature and stop it before it releases spores which would destroy all life on earth. As the first Hammer horror film, its lack of overt stylization is fascinating. Exaggerated sets, rich colors, and graphic gore would become Hammer horror trademarks in later films. But Guest shot The Quatermass Xperiment in a more realistic manner, evoking newsreel footage. This realism creates an uneasy atmosphere that is unfortunately lessened in the final act when the plot morphs from a mystery-thriller into a creature feature. That's not to slight the special effects work, of course. The sets, make-up, and creature effects are superb for the era. But the best parts of the film are when Quatermass and his fellows try and figure out what happened to the poor astronaut. The scene where they watch the cockpit footage of the doomed spaceflight in silence is particularly chilling and effective. The Quatermass Xperiment isn't a perfect film. But it is still an enjoyable one.

7/10

The File on Thelma Jordon: Robert Siodmak

There is a great moment near the end of Robert Siodmak's The File on Thelma Jordon where the eponymous Thelma realizes in a sudden moment of clarity that she will never be free of two men who have plagued her for years. The first is her long-time lover Tony Laredo, a crooked jewel thief whose plans have left one woman dead and another man ruined. This poor sap, assistant district attorney Cleve Marshall, is the other man in Thelma's life. While Tony may command Thelma's physical loyalty, her emotions are with Cleve. It's just too bad that she played him like a violin and managed to trick him into getting her off a murder rap. Indeed, The File on Thelma Jordon is a film about loyalty. At first we think that Thelma truly loves Cleve. When she comes to him and reports that her aunt has been murdered and she doesn't know what to do, we sympathize. But, alas, this is all part of the plan. Siodmak does a fantastic job playing with our expectations about who is guilty, who is innocent, and who is a hapless bystander at the wrong place at the wrong time. By the end when Thelma has her moment of clarity, we sympathize once again in her impossible decision. There aren't many film noir femme fatales that manage to hold on to our empathy until the very end. But then again, there aren't many film noir like The File on Thelma Jordon.

7/10

Zombie vs. Ninja: Godfrey Ho

We meet again, Godfrey Ho. For those who are not familiar with this chopsocky legend, Ho was a Hong Kong based film director who made over 80 movies during the 80's via a "cut-and-paste" technique. This technique is described as such: "He would film footage for one micro-budget picture, and then edit and splice the shots together in a different order, adding in footage from...various obscure or unreleased...Asian movies...to fill the gaps, and then dubbing over the result to create a final product. This allowed him to create several Z movies with the budget of one." In an attempt to reach a wider international audience, much of the original footage that Ho would shoot would involve Caucasian actors, such as Richard Harrison or Pierre Kirby, in leading roles. The results were cinematic Frankenstein abominations bereft of narrative coherence. The 1989 film Zombie vs. Ninja was the first Ho film that I managed to watch from beginning to end. I had previously tried watching some of his other films, but they were so boring and confusing that I had to give up. Think about that for a second: I've watched Béla Tarr's Sátántangó (1994) and THESE were the films that exhausted my patience. Anyhow, Zombie vs. Ninja is essentially the South Korean film The Undertaker in Sohwa Province (1983) with new footage featuring Kirby as the legendary ninja Duncan who pops into the film every 15-20 minutes to give a pep talk to the main characters. The basic story is that after a young man named Ethan (yes...a South Korean named 'Ethan') is beaten during an attack that killed his father, he becomes the apprentice of the local undertaker who teaches him an odd style of martial arts. Part of Ethan's training is fighting re-animated corpses brought back to life by his master. I have to complement the South Korean footage: the numerous fight scenes actually do a great job demonstrating Ethan's growth as a fighter. But the atrocious, borderline offensive dubbing and the added Kirby footage do nothing but drag down and complicate this otherwise straightforward martial arts film. And while these additions do provide the film with a layer of camp and kitsch, it is not enough to salvage the production.

3/10

The Amityville Horror: Stuart Rosenberg

Whether or not the events Stuart Rosenberg's The Amityville Horror is based on are true is irrelevant. What matters is that for several years much of America thought that it was true. Therefore Rosenberg was able to indulge in many seemingly superfluous details and characters that in hindsight only serve to drag the film down. To viewers in the 70's, Father Delaney's experiences might have seemed like vital information. However, by the time the third act comes along, Delaney has far out-stayed his welcome (despite the fact that the scene where he gets into a shouting match with Church officials is one of the best in the film). While individual moments are certainly chilling, the film loses much of its tension by insisting on portraying the events of the possession within the historically accurate time-frame. By the time 20 or so days have gone by and the supernatural manifestations have become overtly violent, we begin to lose sympathy with the family for not leaving the house. It reminds me of another great horror film that centered on an average, middle class family besieged by a possessed house: Tobe Hooper's Poltergeist (1982). But whereas the family in that film had a reason to stay in the house (their daughter had been sucked into an alternate dimension), The Amityville Horror gives no plausible explanation for why the Lutzes stay at 112 Ocean Avenue. I know that they were trying to be historically accurate, but in a film that relies on jump scares like the glowing eyes outside of the little girl's window, you can't break the pace with huge gaps in the timeline. But there is still much about The Amityville Horror to love: the sets, the acting, and the impeccable atmosphere up until the third act.

6/10

The Candy Snatchers: Guerdon Trueblood

I miss the 70s. That decade was really the last time when American cinema was allowed to slow down, take its time, and breathe without risking losing its audience. Take Guerdon Trueblood's The Candy Snatchers, an exploitation film about a trio of amateur criminals who kidnap the step-daughter of a jewelry store employee and hold her for ransom. Despite its content, the film is leisurely paced and unhurried, allowing time to explore the characters. It seems that The Candy Snatchers is labeled an "exploitation" film, but I'm not sure if that description fits. There is nudity, but it is brief. There is violence, but it pales in comparison to other films of the era. And the criminals are not stock characters but actual people with back-stories and motivations. My favorite character is a young autistic boy who is the only witness of the crime. Savagely abused by his frustrated parents, his plight seems to predict a generation of unwanted children raised by pharmaceuticals. One of the criminals, a chubby Army vet named Eddy, is equally magnetic, being simultaneously sympathetic (he is the only criminal who tries to help the girl and has been unfairly abused both by society and the government) and repulsive (in a sexually frustrated rage he rapes his female co-conspirator). The film also features a stunningly cynical twist: the father doesn't want to rescue his step-daughter because he will collect on her $2 million inheritance and plans to flee to Brazil with his lover as soon as he gets the check. The scene where he confronts Eddy and smilingly gives him his thanks for disposing of her is both chilling and infuriating. This film is too smart and too well-made to be clumped in with other exploitation films of the era.

7/10