Last Alice movie for now, lol, I promise – normal service will resume soon. Oh and I did watch this yesterday – well, early this morning – I just, y’know, had to sleep eventually Most of this was written while watching anyway.

I was worried at first here because I have an horrendously dubbed version of this perhaps the creepiest of all Alice adaptations. Luckily, it’s really more about the images and sound effects than anything, the dialogue being mostly either sparse or redundant (I’d say at least 50% of it consists of “said the rabbit” lol which in the end becomes very annoying) – which makes the very first line, “this is a film for children. But remember to shut your eyes, or else you won’t see anything!” deliciously ironic in addition to being a fine warning for those of a sensitive disposition (I’ll just say it was probably unwise of me to add this to the schedule at the last minute as the last thing I watch before bedtime at 4 in the morning, lol – I’m writing this while watching because I’m sure in the morning I’ll either plainly think I dreamt it or will have merged it inseparably with whatever nightmares I might have after a full afternoon and evening of Alice …)

In short, it’s “Alice: The WTF Edition” – the images are so arresting and nightmarish that you genuinely can’t take your eyes off them; the sound and pace so visceral that you genuinely fear for the actress in the lead, for example when the mouse (actually it’s more like a rat here) in the pool of tears sets up camp on her head thinking it’s an island, hammering sticks into her scalp, her only protest “That’s too far!” coming as he tries to set fire to her hair. Perhaps surprisingly given the wacky means by which it’s done, the movie actually stays pretty close to the story – which makes it even more amazing that it feels so unpredictable compared to other adaptations. Each time, for example, that Alice breaks into one of the tiny desks that litter her journey, I found myself seriously not knowing what might come out of it or where she might be taken next or what might happen to her. It somehow lulls you into a state of anxiety, something that’s perfectly understandable when it comes to Alice but that none of the other adaptations really do so well as this one.

At 90 minutes the jerky motion and incessant sound effects certainly start to grate towards the end – I’ve a feeling this might be something that’s not so bad in the original Czech language version with the truly horrible dubbing girl’s voice taken away … in any case, it’s still another great interpretation of the story that’s worth watching if you like seeing things you’ve never seen before.

“If it’s not on camera, it’s like it never happened …. right?”

It sounded a little dodgy and I certainly didn’t want to be too hasty about being excited about this latest “official” installment in the Romero Dead series after Land (which I’ve watched most of again recently … in short, it really didn’t warrant a new review, it’s pretty unremarkable) ... but at the same time I kind of couldn’t help myself. Even though this mockumentary horror thing has been done almost to death now since Blair Witch leading through to Cloverfield, bringing the technique to the Dead series sounded pretty fascinating, and any time Romero returns to this series it’s exciting, as they’re always among the most important horror movies, if not always quite the best.

Overall, it works. While it’s not quite the “zombies in a mall” of the masterful Dawn, the social commentary here (though perhaps a little obvious: just about anyone who documents the dreary details of their life in a blog or who has neglected to truly experience a vacation because they were behind a camera the whole time will understand what it’s saying well enough) is certainly more pointed than that in Land.

It gets a little dull towards the end, the whole thing just isn’t as awash with the message as Dawn was, and it frequently becomes “just another teen horror movie”. But the end (“Are we really worth saving? You tell me.”) sends you out with genuine chills running down your spine. It’s in your face and feels like a hammer on the head, but it does the job of “implicating the audience” a million times better than, for example, Funny Games U.S.. There is some humour to counter this depressing stuff, however: I don’t think I’ve laughed more this year than I did over the “Hello, I’m Samuel” sign

The May Day staple Actually, I’m not sure if I’ve ever actually remembered to watch it on May 1st so this may actually be a first though it’s long been the plan. On this occasion I decided to watch the 15-minute-longer “director’s cut” – it took some deciding but in the end I remembered it’s really just the theatrical cut with deleted scenes spliced in so in a way you wind up watching both at the same time if you’re already familiar with the theatrical version.

I don’t think the extra scenes make a huge amount of difference – though it heightens our understanding of Howie to see him on the mainland at the start, the quality of the scenes (I’m not talking about the grainy nature of the print they had to use, I mean the general acting and production quality which dips below perfect more than a few times during the rest of the film) is the film at its most flawed and hokey. The sooner you get Edward Woodward in the same room as Britt Ekland or Christopher Lee here, the better, ‘cos that’s when all its failings go out of the window as it begins to soar into the ether.

It’s one of those films that can be taken many different ways depending on your outlook on all the fronts it addresses. Whether you’re religious or not, what religion that may be, what your moral views and more happen to be (and if you’re anything like me, all these things will tend to shift wildly over time), the movie will affect you differently, but every different interpretation will be just as extraordinary as the next.

Usually when I watch this movie, while I’m not exactly on the side of the Summerisle residents, I find myself just as against Howie as I am them: because of his stubbornness, it’s almost fun to watch him being made (literally, in the end) a fool of, that is, of course, until it all goes too far at the end. This time, I was struck at the end how everybody actually wins and I found his ending almost a triumph for his faith, a sacrifice as powerful as that of Karras at the end of The Exorcist, even though all control is out of Howie’s hands, he makes his own death into something grander … through his singing, his praying, his resoluteness to the end.

The way we see Howie almost wallowing in his religion throughout the movie, most particularly the struggle we see in him as Willow tempts him through the thin walls of the inn, his end here is almost inevitable and almost the only way he can resolve his devotion to that quite miserable form of religion. He wins because until the very end he insists on his own beliefs, he never gives into temptation; by the rules of his religion, not to mention the law, he’s done right.

Contrast that with, by law, the “murderers” of Summerisle, that horrifying image of Lee and others swinging from side to side joyously singing “Summertime is coming in,”: their end is happier, but it’s really no different from Howie’s. They’re just as trapped by the rules of their religion, and they win too.

It’s a stunningly simple set-up, and for me it works everytime, if sometimes a little differently than expected. As I said, it’s flawed, but there’s so much (I haven’t even mentioned the beautiful songs by Paul Giovanni, it’s one soundtrack I’ll never grow tired of) to make up for the dips in quality.

The Tobe Hooper remake of the ‘78 “classic” immediately hits the highest level of interest that the original stirred in me by the mere presence of Angela Bettis, who I could happily watch for two hours waiting for a bus. That we see her early on doing her laundry, deliberately or not invoking memories of May, only pulls me in more. But that’s pretty much where the draw for me ends here, and it’s unlikely I’ll watch it again even for her.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with the movie – in fact, there are some really nice ideas. For one, the manner in which they use the source material – clinging to sketchy details but most importantly using the Bettis character as an outsider who witnesses the whole thing through the walls of her apartment in a spooky old Hollywood hotel. The first time she hears scary noises and reports them, it turns out to be some actors rehearsing, which makes the nailgun scene that follows, which I loved so much in the original, particularly riveting.

Unfortunately, it runs out of steam too quickly, and rather shoots itself in the foot in the end with occult nonsense the likes of which you’d expect to find in a dire 80s TV movie. The gore has nothing on the Seventies version, and really aside from Bettis there’s little reason to recommend it over the more haunting original.

Finally I get original and remake lined up the right way round, lol. I had the Tobe Hooper remake of this hanging around for ages, was saving it for this year’s Halloween but I noticed this week that both versions were showing on TV by what looks like pure coincidence on different channels so I couldn’t resist watching them in succession.

It’s embarrassing to say, but I really got lost by this one in the end, mainly because I just wasn’t ready for a lot more than the kind of average mindless slasher it’s easy to have on in the background yet still somehow absorb completely. It opens appallingly, bad acting and all, and I feared the worst; but then the nailgun sequence kind of turned my head and it gets a lot better thereafter in all departments: except, as I say, for a subplot with a kidnapped girl that I really think I missed the details of.

I’d certainly watch it again on a Halloween sometime paying closer attention. For now, for the nailgun scene alone it’s worth checking out – it reminded me of Last House on the Left a little, it’s ghastly, horrible, wrong, but somehow beautiful and impossible to avoid looking at, that song playing over it very like David Hess’ stuff on the Wes Craven movie. Which reminds me, the score deserves mention too – I always find it amazing that these days even a lot of large budgeted movies resort to Sampletank and the like for their music, when back in the 60s and 70s so many of the lowest budgets seemed able to afford some kind of orchestra, lol.

Again, I’m guilty of not having seen the original here which probably makes me a bad film lover, though it seems to be the right way to approach the thing as the director really made it almost exclusively because he felt too few people had seen the non-English-speaking production … which is kinda sad in itself to begin with.

I guess I want to start before I go “off on one” so to speak (it’s not guaranteed but it’s possible … oh it’s always possible lol …) by saying, I get what the director is trying to do and say with this film (and, presumably, the original) – if only because his self-confessed intentions have been so well-documented. Again, I find this kind of sad – like the saying goes, if you could put it into words, well, what’s the point in painting it? And a lot of the more positive reviews of this movie seem to go in one direction against the criticism, amounting to, “You don’t get it. THIS is what it means,” which to me really says it all.

I didn’t personally get the intention in the end. By which I mean – I get it, but it didn’t work for me as apparently was intended. Though none of the horrors are actually shown onscreen, I felt as the end credits rolled that I’d seen them anyway – that I’d got my kicks, as it were, despite the approach. I saw Naomi Watts in her underwear and tied up, I heard her screams, and those screams were so terrifying that I looked away even though I knew there was nothing to see. So I won’t deny its incredible use of cinema … but, honestly, I never really felt like it was any different from what has come before – Texas Chainsaw, Last House, Clockwork Orange, Straw Dogs. Frankly, Cannibal Holocaust did a much better job of making me feel “involved” in the horror; in this whole department, there’s really only one short sequence here that lived up to what I expected.

Haneke is a fine film maker – you can feel a lot of Kubrickian influence here and I’m interested in seeing his other work. Naomi Watts and Tim Roth are fantastic. All the technical stuff is top notch. It takes a long time to get going, though, and even once it does it’s far from gripping; and in the end, personally I feel it fails miserably in its aspirations. I think those who think the naysayers are missing the point on this one need to go back and look at how intelligent a lot of the old nasties really were.

Again (sorry, I’m gonna have to say this on all 5 of these, some people might be coming to the individual review page …), it’s about a week since I saw this now so it won’t be the best of reviews, though most of it I wrote at the time.

I don’t know quite what to say of this because, yes, I won’t deny it made me laugh out loud a number of times. I think it’s more the unquestioning acceptance it seems to have gotten across the board (Total Film apparently called it a “labour of love” ... huh?) which made me feel somewhat cheated in the end. I probably love Jennifer Ellison more than anybody on the planet and hers are some of the lines that really gave me a kick; I’ll watch anything with one of the League of Gentlemen in and Reece Sheersmith doesn’t disappoint either; Andy Serkis is the icing on the cake and Doug Bradley’s name in the credits should really have me on the verge of climax.

But this is really about the most convoluted, unoriginal production I’ve seen in years, made even worse by the fact it feels at all turns as though the director really thought he had something unique, and somehow managed to convey that excitement to the cast to get them involved. I’ve been putting off watching the director’s debut London to Brighton for too long. I’m inclined after this to put it off even longer but I think actually I might have to watch it ASAP in the hope it’s as good as “they” say and might take the bad taste of this one out of my head. If it is that good, then truly, this is as bad a waste of British talent as the industry has seen these past 2 decades …

Well, I feel privileged, because the one thing that could ever hope to make this movie part watchable is perhaps watching it on the exact day it takes place, that is, April Fool’s Day 2008 lol. If you haven’t seen the original production that this is a remake of, then it’s possible you might get the one-hit kick off it that I seem to remember I might have as an impressionable 11 year old or whatever age I was when I snook a watch of it with my brother many years ago. On the other hand if you have seen the original, then you know how it’s probably the most pointless and stupid cheat of a horror movie ever made, no matter what its cheese value may be.

I’d been misled into thinking this remake had made big changes in the ending and as soon as I got wind of this, clicking around the ‘net as the movie began, I immediately stopped browsing for fear of spoiling the surprise. Unfortunately, aside from an admittedly hilarious genuine jolt, there’s really no change here. It takes a full 38 minutes to really get going – the pacing is way off, everything up the the graveside scene could and should be covered in 20 minutes max – once it’s in the zone, it works as a direct-to-video slasher I guess, but what kind of praise is that? It has a very tacky plastic 90210 shiny TV people feel to it which is strangely appropriate.

I’m a sucker for event-relevant viewing options and coupled with that one little shocker at the end I can’t entirely dismiss it … but, meh, I’ll be going to the ‘86 production on this day in the future …