DVD Review: 'Side Effects'

By: Heather Seebach

Say what you will about Steven Soderbergh, but the director's refusal to be boxed into one genre has given us a collection of films that are bold and diverse. In the last two years alone, he has tackled an infectious disease horror film, an ass-kicking action movie, a dramedy about male strippers, a Liberace biopic, and Side Effects, a Hitchcockian thriller about the world of pharmaceuticals.

Rooney Mara stars as Emily Taylor, a woman suffering from depression after her husband (Channing Tatum) is released from prison. She seeks the help of psychiatrist Dr. Jonathan Banks (Jude Law) who prescribes her an experimental new drug. But the pills have unexpected - and devastating - side effects, paving the way for a movie full of twists and turns.

The first half of the film unfolds like a warning against over-medication and reliance on pharmaceuticals. All around Emily, people seem to pop mood-altering pills like candy, and the doctors prescribing all the Zoloft, Xanax, etc. are raking in the cash and free rep lunches. Emily seemingly becomes a victim to corporate greed, a topic echoed in the Tatum storyline (he went to prison for insider trading). This portion of the movie drags quite a bit and is too heavy-handed for my taste. 

But the second half of the film focuses more on Dr. Banks, who also suffers the consequences of the new drug. Jude Law is great as his character spirals downward and becomes obsessed with paranoid theories. Here is where Side Effects goes from ethics lesson to Hitchcock thriller, and in turn, the pacing and excitement of the story finally pick up. 

Soderbergh favorite Channing Tatum unfortunately exists only as filler here, but the rest of the cast turns in solid performances, including Catherine Zeta-Jones as a cold psychiatrist with whom Banks butts heads. The film suffers from a slow start, and even a laughable moment here and there (including one Tatum scene that is crucial to the plot), but once it gets moving, the movie has some entertaining surprises up its sleeve. 

The DVD/Blu-ray/Digital Copy Combo release includes a behind-the-scenes featurettes and some viral-type materials like commercials for the fictional drugs in the movie. That release is available as of today, May 21st from Universal Studios Home Entertainment. You can also find it On Demand.

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Trailer: 'A Field in England'

The first trailer for Ben Wheatley's fourth feature film has landed! If you are not familiar with the name Ben Wheatley yet, you are missing out. 2011's Kill List is one of the most talked-about thrillers in recent memory (and one of my favorite films of that year). His recent black comedy Sightseers is already earning tons of praise (read Bradley Hadcroft's review for VDA here). Wheatley also contributed to The ABCs of Death with his 'U is for Unearthed' segment.

Wheatley's next venture is a quasi-psychadelic black-and-white period piece set during the English civil war. The official synopsis is as follows:

In the war-torn English countryside in 1648, a small group of deserters flee the raging battle through an overgrown field. They are captured and forced to help one of their captors in his search to find hidden treasure he believes is buried in the field. The group descends into a chaos of arguments, fighting, and paranoia, and as it becomes clear that the treasure might be something other than gold, they gradually become victim to the terrifying energies trapped inside the field.

The new trailer speaks volumes, take a look:

Looks bleak and beautiful, eh? The last 30 seconds of that trailer give me chills everytime I re-play it. Wheatley continues to prove he is one of the most exciting genre filmmakers working today. And with his knack for disturbing horror and twisted comedy, The Mighty Boosh's  Julian Barratt seems an apt and interesting choice of lead for England. 

Side note: no matter how many serious roles I see Michael Smiley in, I can't not see Tires from Spaced:

A Field in England releases in the UK on July 5th. Drafthouse Films has acquired it for US release in 2013 but no word yet on a specific date.

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Guilty Pleasures: 'My Boyfriend's Back'

By: Heather Seebach

When we horror fans think of zombies movies, this early 90s zom-rom-com is not usually the first one that springs to mind. But before carnage and gore became a staple in my life, I fell in love with My Boyfriend's Back. I thought more people were with me on this, but then I noticed the film's 10% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a meager 4.9 on IMDB. Still, it has a lingering cult following of which I am included.

Directed by Bob Balaban (a regular in Christopher Guest's films), My Boyfriend's Back is about a lovesick teenager Johnny Dingle, who returns from the dead so he can take his crush Missy McCloud to the prom. But of course, reanimation comes with a price - he has to consume human flesh to stay alive. Adding to Johnny's problems, he also has high school bullies and a mad doctor coming after him.

This morbidly cute comedy is stolen by supporting performances from Edward Hermann, Austin Pendleton, Cloris Leachman, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Getting to see the latter Academy Award winner say the phrase, "C'mere, you stinkin' dead yahoo-toucher!" is worth watching alone. Matthew Fox and Matthew McConaughey also appear in their first film roles. 

 

It is fitting this movie was written by Dean Lorey, who has penned works ranging from Arrested Development to Jason Goes to Hell. It's a silly adorable parody of teenage rom-coms of the 80s, and it brought zombies into that genre long before Shaun of the Dead and even longer before Warm Bodies.

I don't really think of this one as a shitty movie, I just consider it a "guilty pleasure" since I'm not one for romantic comedies. But I think most 80s/90s kids remember this one fondly. Doesn't this song just bring back memories? 


I still remember recording that song from the TV speaker onto a cassette recorder and listening to it over and over. I feel so old now...

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'ABCs of Death 2' Directors Announced!

Looks like the ambitious 26-part anthology, The ABCs of Death will be getting a sequel, and some of the directors were revealed today at Cannes! The following filmmakers are already attached:

Bill Plympton (Your Face)

Alex De La Iglesias (The Last Circus)

Rodney Ascher (Room 237)  

Erik Matti (On The Job)

Lancelot Imasuen (founder of Nigerian "Nollywood")

Kristina Buozyte and Bruno Samper (Vanishing Waves)

Sion Sono (Cold Fish)

Vincenzo Natali (Cube)

Larry Fessenden (The Last Winter)

Marcus Dunstan (The Collection)

France’s Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo (Inside)

E.L. Katz (Cheap Thrills)

Jen and Sylvia Soska (American Mary)

Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado (Rabies)

Julian Gilbey (A Lonely Place To Die)

Dennison Ramalho (Love For Mother Only)

Jerome Sable (The Legend Of Beaver Dam)

Robert Morgan (Bobby Yeah)

There are definitely some exciting names in there, both the new and already well-loved. If nothing else, this could be another springboard for up-and-coming and international genre filmmakers. And perhaps most exciting of all, the 26th director will once again be selected via contest. The original competition was full of fantastic entries. To see my favorites, click here. I am very excited to see what shorts come out of the next one!

As for the feature itself, well, the first one was a mixed bag, as you would expect from a 26-part anthology. I loved some segments, liked a few, while others veered so far from their subject or were just lame. Even some well-known filmmakers dropped the ball there (hello, Ti West!). But I did enjoy the experience (and the guessing game with each new segment), so I am definitely looking forward to this second one. Much like V/H/S, they could keep shitting these anthologies out with fresh new filmmakers and I will keep coming back. I am always happy to have a horror buffet, especially with names as promising as those listed above.

Related Articles:

The ABCs of Death Review

Best of the ABCs of Death Competition

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Review: 'Texas Chainsaw'

By: Heather Seebach

When I heard 2013's Texas Chainsaw would be a direct sequel to Tobe Hooper's horror classic, my interest was piqued. When I heard Tobe himself and original star Marilyn Burns liked the new one, I was actually looking forward to it. But now that I have seen director John Luessenhop's modern take on Leatherface, I'm tempted to go on a chainsaw massacre myself. Even without 3-D (an annoyance from which I was thankfully spared), this sequel is a slap in the face to TCM fans and general movie-going audiences alike.

The film picks up right where The Texas Chain Saw Massacre left off, with Sally escaping Leatherface. The Sawyer family pays the consequences of that mistake, but some survive the ordeal. Cut to twenty-some years later: a young gal named Heather learns she has inherited her dead grandmother's estate which so happens to house a certain face-wearing homicidal maniac. Needless to say, carnage ensues for Heather and her friends when they decide to go check out her new Texas abode.

Firstly, Texas Chainsaw suffers the primary horror pitfall - stupid people doing stupid things. We fans have come to accept that sort of behavior, but sometimes it's just too ridiculous to be overlooked. The character arc of the protagonist is completely absurd. Even the cops do dumb shit in this movie (though one of their dumbest moves leads to the film's funniest moment, so I forgive that one). Secondly, the movie has wooden actors and painfully bad dialogue. It was a legitimate challenge for me to not turn this movie off when one of Heather's friends, who has just arrived in Texas, says to Leatherface: "Welcome to Texas, motherfucker!" On top of how cliche and illogical that line is, it is infuriatingly insulting to TCM fans.

So you like horror, right? You're used to dumb characters, bad acting, and crap dialogue, right? We still get to see Leatherface mess some people up, right? Well, yes and no. The movie begins with some promise - namely in the form of a mallet to someone's face and one suitably gory dismemberment. Then out of blue comes CGI blood, cartoony chainsaws flying at the screen, and laughably bad VFX on par with a SyFy Channel Original. The film's biggest death scene looks like someone created it in The Sims. Even the film's opening title card is absurdly amateur. And worst of all, Leatherface is reduced to some kind of sympathetic hero, completely removing the horror element from the film.

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Guest Review: 'Sightseers'

By: Bradley Hadcroft

Ben Wheatley’s third picture receives its U.S. release as I write this and it will be of great interest to see how this low-budget, Edgar Wright-produced genre mash-up translates across the pond. The humour is as low-key as it is jet-black and much more Steve Coogan than Monty Python. Sightseers united the critics but split the fans in the U.K. and it will be fascinating to see how it plays to an American audience.

The film tells the cautionary tale of two lovers Chris and Tina, played by Steve Oram (Kill List, Welcome to The Punch) and Alice Lowe (Hot Fuzz, The Worlds End) respectively. Both perched one heartless push away from the chasm of despair, the unstable duo embark upon an ill-fated road trip around Britain in Chris’ beloved Abbey Oxford caravan.

Tina is desperate to escape her cloying mother and the terrible guilt of a tragic knitting needle accident while Chris is desperate to show her his simple but honest world. A world where tacky discount vouchers and desolate pencil museums blend with shit for lipstick and a dog-piss-soaked mattress. It’s not long before comedic farce and, in turn, bloody murder come knocking on the caravan door.

Most of the humour on show in this downbeat but loveable little movie is of the cringe-inducing variety and more often than not takes a detour down the sexually degenerative route. The juxtaposition of two ordinary people doing ordinary things but reacting extraordinarily violent in confrontational situations is somewhat of a one-trick pony. However, it does throw up many opportunities for tasteless sight gags and some excellent character acting. Not to mention some gory fun.

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Love practical FX? Well, they need you!

 

 

If you're like me, you LOVE horror/sci-fi special effects from the 70s, 80s, and 90s.  And most of those amazing creatures from Alien, Tremors, Monster Squad, Terminator, Predator, etc. were thanks largely to Tom Woodruff Jr. and Alec Gillis of Amalgamated Dynamics Inc. 

But lately, horror and sci-fi movies have been dominated by computer-generated monsters. CGI is a cheaper, faster alternative to the old-school methods, but the results are inferior. Take for instance 2011's The Thing, a prequel to John Carpenter's classic of the same name. Amalgamated Dynamics were brought in to create animatronics and puppets for the film. It gave us fans such great hope for this dying art form and what better film to do so than a follow-up to Rob Bottin's mind-blowing FX? Just look at the beautiful creations they came up with:

Then the prequel was released in theaters and it was as if millions of fan voices cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced - ADI's hard work had been covered up with digital "enhancement." Now, that digital FX work was done by the very talented Image Engine (who worked on District 9), and I understand the use of VFX to enhance the creations beyond their practical limitations. Sometimes the combination of the two techniques worked effectively in The Thing, but mostly it took us out of the movie and it broke the hearts of all who worked on those practical creature FX. I would kill to see the movie pre-digital enhacement of the creatures. 

Well, Woodruff Jr. and Gillis are looking to give us something even better now. They have launched a Kickstarter campaign to help make Harbinger Down, a sci-fi movie with 100% practical FX. They are raising a meager $350,000 and asking fans to contribute. Check out the Kickstarter page here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1117671683/harbinger-down-a-practical-creature-fx-film

 

 Harbinger Down will star Lance Henriksen and follow a team of grad students studying global warming on killer whales in the Bering Sea. They dredge up a piece of old Soviet wreckage that is harboring deadly, rapidly-mutating organisms. Obviously, this film will draw inspiration from Carpenter's The Thing, and that's not a bad thing. Check out this concept video where you'll see some of that:

If Gillis' evidence in that video wasn't enough, the following statement from their Kickstarter perfectly summarizes why this project is so important: 

Ridley Scott...told us that the original Alien suit restricted the performer's movements more than expected. That limitation led him to change the way he shot the creature, to a more horror-based approach. For instance, appearing in the flashlight beam held by Tom Skerritt was a way of avoiding having the Alien climbing or running. According to Ridley, embracing this limitation actually improved the film.  These days the 'solution' would probably be to digitally replace the Alien with an over-nuanced, hyper-active, CGI creation that looks like it belongs in a video game. And it wouldn't be as nearly as scary. That won't happen in Harbinger Down. What some would call 'limitations', we will embrace. And the film will be better for it.

The ADI guys are promising use of animatronics, puppets, miniatures, and even stop-motion animation. Harbinger Down is poised to be everything we fans have been begging for and now is the time to put our money where our mouths are. They are offering some sweet rewards, too, so you have no excuse! Click and contribute!

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What's New on Netflix? (5/10/13)

As part of my continuing series about the ebb and flow of Netflix Instant titles, here are the latest in new genre films! Some fantastic horror films in particular were just added today, take a look:

Antichrist

 
Not a horror film persay, but Lars von Trier's 2009 drama about a married couple coping with death is about as disturbing and horrific as they come. Not for the faint of heart.

Dead Snow 

One of my favorite recent horror comedies, Død snø is a Norwegian gorefest with abundant laughs and a kickass soundtrack. If you're looking to have a good time (rather than get mind-fucked), this Nazi-zombie flick is your best option. 

Hellgate

This is the 2011 direct-to-video movie starring Cary Elwes and William Hurt, not the 1990 horror-comedy. I haven't seen it, so I can't recommend it, but here's the synopsis: A western businessman, his Thai wife and son experience a horrible accident while visiting Bangkok. In the aftermath, they find there is a shadow world between life and death where endless darkness lies.

House at the End of the Street

Another one I have not seen because, frankly, it looked like shit. Jennifer Lawrence moves into a new home and uncovers a dark history surrounding the neighbor's house. Blah, blah, blah. If you're gonna watch it, at least you get Jennifer Lawrence. Who doesn't love her?

Kill List

The less you know about this movie, the better. All I'll tell you is it was one of my favorite genre films of 2011 (that has grown on me more since) and you should absolutely watch it!  If you dig gritty, slow-burn, and/or fucked-up horror, this is your movie right here.

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