ZOMBIE 4: AFTER DEATH (1989)

Zombi 4: After Death began life simply as After Death, which explored similar ground but was otherwise completely unconnected to the Zombi series. But, in keeping with the Italian horror tradition, producers shoehorned it into the Zombi series in hopes of making a few more shekels.

Zombi 4 comes to you courtesy of Claudio Fragasso, screenwriter of Zombi 3, but who is most known (and infamous) to American audiences as being the co-writer/director of Troll 2. (I can’t state I’ve seen every Fragasso film, but the ones I have offer a very specific kind of entertainment. Troll 2 isn’t an exception to that rule, but more like an indicator of what a Fragasso film looks and sounds like.) As you watch Zombi 4, it’s clear that the filmmakers were going for something different, as it actually feels more in line (at least at first) with another popular Italian horror franchise, Demons, than the Zombi series. Don’t get me wrong, there are still some pretty lengthy scenes of zombie carnage with ghouls getting their entire heads exploded all while doing the slow-moving, dead-grunting thing, but the film’s opening deals with voodoo priests, hellish concubines, and mythological aspects, offering a bit more gimmickry beyond just “oh fuck, zombies,” which had been primarily the driving force of the series up to that point. (Zombi 3 played around with scientific experimentation being the reason behind the resurrection of the dead, but this whole subplot honestly feels like it’s going down in an entirely different movie, and in Zombi 4 it goes largely ignored beyond one line of dialogue.)

The plot of Zombi 4 is also more streamlined and coherent than the previous, but there’s also not a whole lot of substance, either. Characters end up in a place where they shouldn’t be, get stranded, and begin a fight for their lives as legions of ghouls begin unearthing and very very very slowly coming at them. Continuity is also insanely out the window, not just in terms of logic (characters transport from one environment to another with no explanation as to where they are or how they got there), but also in terms of flatout recklessness. For instance, one character (played by gay porn star Jeff Stryker) bellows that the only way to put the zombies down is to shoot them in the head; however, a little later, he sprays some automatic bullets into the chests of half a dozen ghouls and brings them down, anyway.

Zombi 4 is only slightly less insane than its predecessor, but believe me — that hardly has an effect on its overall level of enjoyment, which is damn near in line. The gore remains, as does the bad dubbing, worse dialogue, and the overall sense of “what IS this?” you’ll be frequently asking yourself. The assault rifle action hardly ever lets up, and when it does, there’s some bad bad dialogue to fill the void. (“When a man’s afraid he’s gonna die, there’s nothing he wants more than a woman by his side…and I want YOU.” ) That the zombies also talk and even use weapons (like the aforementioned assault rifles) only add to the nutsness on which Zombi 4 mostly depends to be worth a damn.

It also has a hell of a soundtrack, featuring tremendous ‘80s synth goodness by composer Al Festa, along with the rocking Zombie 4 anthem "Living After Death," which would have sounded right at home in Rocky 4, had Rocky 4 been a zombie movie.

If you’re in the mood for a curious and somewhat introspective take on Italian zombie horror, Fulci’s Zombie/Zombi 2 seems like the most obvious choice. But if you’re in the mood for something crazier, by all means, skip that one and jump right to Zombi 3 and Zombi 4: After Death. Fans of nutso Italian horror like Demons, StageFright, and Troll 2 (yep, it counts) are about to fill the Zombie voids in their lives they never knew they had.

MARK OF THE DEVIL (1970)

It's an undated 18th-century Austria, and two witch-hunters - Lord Cumberland (Henry Lom) and his apprentice, Count Christian von Meruh (Udo Kier), have come to a small village to root out its witchy influence. Already in attendance is Albino (pronounced Al-bee-no, and played by Reggie Nalder), the acting witch-hunter and all-around misogynist, who accuses any woman of witchcraft if she does not submit to his sexual demands. At first, Lord Cumberland seems to be rational, punishing Albino for his behavior and removing him from his service, but Cumberland soon lets the power go to his head and acts on his sexual desires much in the same way. His young apprentice has no choice to rebel, and that may have more than a little to do with the fact that he's begun falling in love with the beautiful and sultry Vanessa Benedikt (Olivera Katarina). Things soon spiral out of control as Lord Cumberland and his peons begin accusing the most random of people as being in league with the devil; the biggest offense, it would seem, is causing impotence in men. 

Talk about a limp reason! (Terrible.)

Goddamn, Udo Kier was handsome in his youth, wasn't he? What a handsome man! Look at those eyes! Why was he never cast as a James Bond villain? He's the perfect amount of handsome and miscellaneous European. They should have cast him in “A Man Too Handsome,” and James Bond would’ve fought how handsome he was. (This would have been one of the Timothy Dalton ones.) Man, I wish he'd come save me from Henry Lom!

Uh oh, I've really gotten off track here. I better get back to the film.

It goes without saying that Mark of the Devil, more than anything, is about men forcing their dominion over women, threatening them with torture and death should they not submit to their sexual whims. The majority of the men in the film are either villainous, or spineless and weak. Count von Meruh is the only decent male and ultimately ends up paying the price for it. Take that, add a few scenes of bodily torment, and what you have is an exploitation film masquerading as European gothic, but despite those specific tropes, Mark of the Devil did well enough financially that a sequel was commissioned, which maintains a religious vibe, retains Reggie Nalder in a different (and again villainous role), and tosses out the rest.

Mark of the Devil was a reactionary film based mostly off the success of 1968's Witchfinder General starring Vincent Price. Though the two films share a similar plot (that of witch-finding/destroying), Mark of the Devil is fine existing in shadow of the former so long as it gets to inflict all kinds of pain against its characters as well as revulsion against its audience.

Upon the film's premiere, sick bags were handed out to theatergoers who were there to see what was being marketed as "positively the most horrifying film ever made," which had been rated "V for violence." What that means in modern speak, by which time films that include a man's penis being bitten off and eaten by piranha have the potential to go theatrical, is that forty years later, it all plays rather tamely. Despite the tongues being ripped out and the bodies being stretched on the rack and the bed of nails poking all the butts, it doesn't quite retain the same amount of shock and horror as it did then. Normally that wouldn't be a big deal, since that's not the reason one should go see a film - regardless of it being horror – but that's really all Mark of the Devil had to which it could lay claim at that time. If we're being fair, it was an unoriginal plot conceived by piggy-backing off another infamous horror film (that underwent its own cuts to avoid getting a "V for violence" rating [just kidding, that doesn't exist]), but after all these years, the shock of the "violence" has worn off. Because of that, there’s not much else to carry the film beyond the array of very interesting and memorable performances (the best probably being the absolutely slimy role of Albino by Reggie Nalder).

Obviously, films have no choice, regardless of when they take place, but to reflect the zeitgeist of the times, and Mark of the Devil is no exception. While it was the brutality that drove audiences to see the film after word-of-mouth had begun spreading, it undoubtedly played much differently back then compared to how it plays today. Thankfully, though time has counteracted the appeal it once had, enough was left in place to justify first-timers to give it a chance. Of all the films made during this era, it's more that Mark of the Devil is one of the more infamous rather than the one of the better made, but that's okay. Sometimes that's reason enough.

BLU-RAY REVIEW: GRINDHOUSE RELEASING'S 'THE TOUGH ONES' (1976)

One of the most popular European cinematic sub-genres of the ‘60s and ‘70s was the giallo — a hyper-stylized approach to filmmaking pioneered by Italian filmmakers Mario Bava and Dario Argento, and largely credited as the inspiration behind the slasher sub-genre. Another movement also came to prominence during this time, spearheaded by European filmmakers less interested in depicting the ghastly crimes and more in the ensuing police investigations that looked into them—poliziotteschi: dark and gritty cop and crime thrillers that often offered the same kind of pulpy thrills and graphic violence, but in far less amounts. In American terms, films like Dirty Harry and The Laughing Policeman would fall under the poliziotteschi label, even though they were less graphic than their European colleagues. While poliziotteschi weren’t necessarily graphic with horrific imagery, they often could be.

Enter 1976’s The Tough Ones (aka Rome Armed To The Teeth – god I love Italian movie titles), directed by Umberto Lenzi (the giallo Seven Blood-Stained Orchids). Leaning back on the prior example of Dirty Harry, The Tough Ones tells your typical story of a police detective making it a personal mission to stop a killer while skirting “official channels” and “the book” in order to make that happen. Detective Leonardo Tanzi (the Frank Nero-looking Maurizio Merli) is that official channels skirter, furious with a system that coddles instead of punishes, and will absolutely, positively get his man -- by any means necessary. That man? The very Scorpio-ish Vincenzo Moretto (Tomas Milian), a hunchbacked slaughterhouse worker involved in much bloodier business than merely slicing cows down the middle, and who somehow manages to out-ooze Dirty Harry’s Andrew Robinson. (“I shat this out just for you,” he tells Tanzi at one point, holding up a bullet that Tanzi forced him to swallow in a total act of male dominance earlier in the film. Talk about having explosive poop! I’m sorry!)

The Tough Ones is hard-hitting and angry. Everyone is angry at everyone else. Tanzi hates Moretto, who hates him back. Tanzi and the police chief share an equal and mutual hatred. Tanzi, at times, even seems to hate the very woman he’s dating (Maria Rosaria Omaggio), as she basically represents the liberal society that releases all of the criminals he arrests on a daily basis. Like other films from this time period, and especially with it being an Italian production, The Tough Ones is very much indicative of its era. It’s impatient and cynical like lots of ‘70s cinema, with the added discomfort of pure misogyny, perpetrated against every single female character, and often at the hands of our lead hero. At the worst of them is a random rape attack committed by a group of thugs, most of which is thankfully left to the imagination, along with a disturbing insinuation that, post-rape, the victim was additionally sexually assaulted with a tree limb. There’s more than one instance of a woman being slapped, or talked down to, or outright threatened – not a single female character walks away unscathed in some form or another. Most cinephiles already well versed in this era of filmmaking likely won’t be surprised or turned off by this, but for those of you just getting started, best prepare yourself now.

Most importantly, Lenzi knows how to stage exciting action sequences, with the standout being an extended car chase that directly leads into the finale. The chase never reaches the heights of the graceful automotive ballet Bill Hickman achieved during his stunt driving in the likes of The French Connection, Bullitt, and The Seven-Ups, but only because Lenzi wants the car chase to look manic, gritty, and very dangerous instead. Leading up to that is an impressive barroom fight, which sees Tanzi taking on a Van Damme level of henchmen and reigning supreme. (A punk gets his head smashed through the glass top of a pinball machine and it’s the most satisfying thing.) The shootout during the climax, also, gets that blood pumping – that fun, unrealistically bright kind not seen since Romero’s Dawn Of The Dead. Like most Italian genre flicks, the plot doesn’t fully gel, and the editing can sometimes make the film’s events hard to follow, but, like Bullitt, the plot of which is near incomprehensible, Lenzi’s visceral way of presenting the story and the action make up for the weak cohesiveness. 

From a technical perspective, The Tough Ones looks and sounds fantastic, lovingly restored for a 4K presentation. The release comes with both English and Italian audio tracks, along with English subtitles for the Italian track only. You can attempt to watch English with English, but the subtitles barely match; the intent is the same, but the dialogue is always different. (One of the best examples of this is when someone calls someone else a “dummy” onscreen, but the subtitles replace it with “proletarian,” which I found very amusing.)

As typical for a title from Grindhouse Releasing, this new edition of The Tough Ones comes absolutely packed to the gills with special content, not the least of them being a third bonus CD of the film’s soundtrack by Franco Micalizzi. Most viewers will likely start with the new interview with director Lenzi, which runs 55 minutes in length. Lenzi starts at the beginning of his career, talking about how he got started, along with his admitted comfort in working in the crime genre over horror, despite his having contributed several titles to the latter. But if there’s a must-watch supplement on this release, it’s the 90-minute(!) interview with Tomas Milian. He explores similar ground as far as his start in filmmaking and acting, but his interview begins with a deeply personal and sad account of his childhood at the hands of loveless and abusive parents. If you’re anything like me, you’ll be hooked on his every word following this stunning admission.

The complete list of special features included on this release is as follows:

• NEW 4K RESTORATION OF THE UNRATED AND UNCENSORED DIRECTOR'S CUT OF THE FILM
• Optional Italian language soundtrack with optional English subtitles
• Audio commentary by Mike Malloy, director Of Eurocrime! The Italian Cop And Gangster Films That Ruled The 70s
• NEW in-depth interviews with director Umberto Lenzi, actors Tomas Milian, Maria Rosaria Omaggio, Sandra Cardini, Maria Rosaria Riuzzi and Corrado Solari, screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti, and composer Franco Micalizzi
• Special tribute to Maurizio Merli with appearances by Enzo Castellari and Ruggero Deodato
• Vintage VHS intro by cult movie superstar Sybil Danning!
• Original international theatrical trailer
• Liner notes by Italian crime film expert Roberto Curti
• Deluxe embossed slip cover
• BONUS CD – original soundtrack album by Franco Micalizzi – newly remastered in stunning 24 bit/192khz sound from the original master tapes
• AND OTHER SURPRISES...
• LIMITED BONUS - Custom 30-Caliber Metal Bullet Pen – Strictly Limited to 2500 Units

The Tough Ones is now on Blu-ray from Grindhouse Releasing. 

[Reprinted from Daily Grindhouse.]

PET SEMATARY (2019)

[Contains spoilers for the novel and both adaptations of Pet Sematary.]

A remake of Pet Sematary has been bouncing around Hollywood since 2006, ever since George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh attempted to produce it through their then-new company Section Eight Productions, which had also done Christopher Nolan’s remake of Insomnia. Clooney was even set to star as Louis Creed, patriarch and serial burialist of the Creed family. That, obviously, didn’t happen. But, after a decade of development hell, Pet Sematary has arrived, and…this is what we got.

Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kölsch, the directorial pair behind the creepy and successful indie Starry Eyes, had their work cut out for them. Doing a remake is thankless. From the very beginning, you have two choices: stay faithful to the source material (King handled the screenplay for Mary Lambert’s 1989 take, so it’s nearly identical to the book), which will have people asking you, “Why bother?” (see: The Omen remake), or find ways to stay true to the spirit of the story while taking new chances. The danger with this latter approach is making changes that devout fans will see as arbitrary, but something about which the filmmakers can say, “See? It’s different.” Pet Sematary does this a lot—makes small, seemingly unnecessary changes. Yet, if you sat down with the redux for any five-minute segment without actually knowing what you were watching, by the end of those five minutes, you would know. It’s a familiar story with familiar characters, and certainly a familiar concept; Pet Sematary never strays so far as to become unrecognizable, but if you’re already intimate with the story, you can’t help but think, again, “Why bother?”

To its credit, Pet Sematary wants to include as much as it can from the novel that the filmmakers consider “essential,” but with everything vying for space, significant portions of these elements are spread too thin. Victor Pascow (Obssa Ahmed) is barely utilized, reduced to such a footnote that you have to wonder why the filmmakers felt compelled to include him; and despite a far more graphic head wound, complete with pulsating brain, the specter doesn’t come close to matching the former’s onscreen presence. Additionally, we’re robbed of Louis and Jud meeting for the first time, given the dynamic the two men will share and the things they will experience together; instead, we find that the men are already politely acquainted halfway through a throwaway dinner sequence. Weirdly, there’s a complete lack of acknowledgment regarding the connection between the existence of the pet cemetery and the very dangerous road that cuts through the Creed and Crandall estates, being that canon explicitly states the former exists because of the latter. Meanwhile, the Timmy Baterman story, one of the creepiest sequences from the original, is downgraded to a newspaper headline. The character of Zelda, the most terrifying part from the original and the novel, is reduced to a pile of rubber bones and limbs dropped repeatedly down an elevator shaft. (Seriously.) The mishandling of this character in particular is Pet Sematary’s worst offense.

From the first frame, even before a single “scary” thing has happened, Mary Lambert’s 1989 original adaptation oozes dread. You can feel that things will go very badly for the Creeds, and already your chest begins to tighten. For example, she knows everyone has read the book, and she knows everyone will be waiting with bated breath to see little Gage lose his life in the road. That’s why she, wisely, cunningly, even sadistically, introduces the Orinco truck several scenes before the final encounter, because she wants to milk that suspense for every ounce, interrupting a happy-go-lucky picnic more than once to cut back to the truck speeding down the road toward them. Now, when the Creeds 2.0 pull up to their new rural home, you already know bad things are going to happen—not because of any induced dread, but because you’ve experienced this story twice already, so no shit. Yet, there’s a complete lack of suspense or ominousness. The admittedly beautiful opening overhead drone shot of a burning house, which we all know to be Jud’s, is another immediate reminder that, yep, bad things are afoot, but it still doesn’t quite help stoke those brooding fires. Nor does the surprisingly lifeless score by Christopher Young, who ordinarily dominates the horror genre.  

Pet Sematary makes the same mistake as another high profile remake, Rob Zombie’s terrible Halloween: whenever the filmmakers deviate from the story audiences know and love, you can feel their spark, their interest, their excitement in exploring this new direction. But when leaning back on the mainstay elements from those same stories, you can feel their obligation to just barrel through and begin tackling all their material—to infuse the property with their identity, to put a stamp on a title that they’ve temporarily borrowed before sliding it back onto the shelf. Pet Sematary doesn’t fully come alive until, ironically, Ellie does—from the dead, that is. Obviously, this is the biggest change in this new iteration, as the filmmakers felt using Ellie as the resurrected child would provide additional pathos. With Ellie being older and in a position to understand what was happening to her, she could better echo those sentiments to her god-playing father, which was meant to boost the film’s philosophical look at death. 

But what, ultimately, did we learn from this? 

What we already knew from the novel and the original adaptation.

Sometimes, dead is better. 

As for the ending, it’s dreadful; very strangely borrowing from Pet Sematary Two, it’s made even more frustrating by the fact that the alternate ending included on the home video release is far better—gloomier, more ominous, more satirical, and more tonally appropriate. The one that went to theaters was the stuff of Hollywood hokum, rendering whatever mature goodwill the film had achieved as kaput. Screenwriter Jeff Buhler says this is because they wanted the audience to leave with a smile, which seems like a bonehead decision, being that smiles don’t belong anywhere near Pet Sematary, a manuscript King found so vile that he shoved it into a drawer upon completing it, deciding it would never see the light of the day because he’d finally gone too far. 

In spite of all the whining, Pet Sematary isn’t a bad flick, and there are several things lending to its favor. Ellie’s post-resurrection appearance is subtly but deeply unnerving; a drooping eye hints at major damage going on beneath the surface (that bathtub sequence…Jesus), and young Jeté Laurence is incredibly creepy in the role before the film falls victim to the pitfalls of the “evil kid” genre. After a while, she’s reduced to a pint-sized zombie kid using “scary” glaring eyes and coming a little too close to rattling off ironic Chucky-like threats. Amy Seimetz as Rachel is easily the film’s most interesting character, and Seimetz’s performance is a large reason why: she ably sells Rachel’s extremely mangled view of death, due to her childhood experience with her sickened sister, Zelda. Lithgow, too, does fine with the role of Jud Crandall, made iconic by Fred Gwynne, though he sheds Gwynne’s folksiness in favor of curmudgeonness. He also doesn’t even attempt a New England accent. (Not a single a’yuh! What gives!) Lastly, there’s Jason Clarke—an actor capable of much more than the scripts he signs onto. It feels weird to say, but his take on Louis never reaches the same emotionally tormented heights of the original’s fairly unknown Dale Midkiff (whose “NOOOOOOOO!” is still one of the best anguished screams in cinema). 

The filmmakers poke fun at their audience by presenting sequences they think they know, only to see they’re heading off in different directions. (Jud’s death is a perfect example.) Additionally, and I don’t know this for sure, but I’d swear they lifted audio from the original flick, borrowing one use each of Zelda’s screechy “RAAAAACHEL!” and a growl from an undead Church. There also several loving nods to King’s other works, one of which includes an off-screen Jud telling a guest at Ellie’s birthday party about a rabid Saint Bernard. Widmyer and Kölsch’s design of the deadfall and the Indian burial ground behind it is ripped right from the film cells of old fashioned monster movies like Frankenstein and The Wolf Man, depicted as dreamlike and different, since this part of Ludlow’s woods are meant to be evil and mysterious. As a concept, this is tremendous, though it suffers in execution from some surprisingly shoddy green-screen. 

Paramount’s Blu-ray contains over 80 minutes of special features, including the before mentioned alternate ending, along with “Beyond the Deadfall,” which runs an hour in length across four different “chapters.” This supplement is rich with information and content, and goes beyond your standard EPK to delve heavily into the film’s genesis and production. (Stephen King does not appear.) Sadly, however, this is yet another studio release that lacks a commentary with the directors, and in its place are strange and very brief narrative pieces where several of the flick’s major characters have their own unique nightmares about the burial ground. Finally, we do get the story of Timmy Baterman, but in a weird one-man show where Lithgow, in character, sits down and presents the story as a campfire tale to us, the audience. 

Far worse adaptations have come from Stephen King, and if you asked the man himself, even he would probably rank this new version of Pet Sematary above bonafide classic The Shining, an adaptation he never misses the chance to impugn. Even so, it’s ironic that Pet Sematary’s main conflict comes from “those damned Orinco trucks” speeding dangerously back and forth, being that this new version of the story is standing directly in the middle of the road.

Pet Sematary is now available on Blu-ray from Paramount Pictures.

[Reprinted from Daily Grindhouse.]

THE 'BATMAN' SERIES (1989-1995)

Try to picture this, you young whippersnappers: there was once an era in Hollywood’s long reign when superhero movies hardly ever came out. I’m talking…hardly ever. If you Google “1990s superhero movies,” you’ll see peculiar results like Darkman, Orgazmo, (something called The Meteor Man), and even Jim Carrey’s The Mask, but as far as pure, undistilled, “guy puts on costume and fights bad guy in costume” comic book originals, this era was a wasteland. 

When 1989’s Batman came out, directed by Tim Burton, who at that time was fresh-faced and still worth a damn, it was an event. These days, that concept is a little hard to appreciate—especially in the superhero genre, since 800 fuckbillion superhero movies get released per year (a scientifically accurate figure, by the way). For perspective, once Matt Reeves’ The Batman is released (assuming in 2020), we will have seen three different actors take on the role of Batman in a span of eight years. However, Michael Keaton took on the role after a 23-year span between theatrical endeavors – Adam West had been the previous Batman back during the days when Batman was a goofball property and featured a lot of dancing. Burton’s relaunch of Batman, which was designed to actually embody the character as presented in the comics, was the movie to see. And man…everyone did. I was five years old at that time, but I ended up in a theater watching it all unfold, even if I had no idea what was happening (and even though it was NOT appropriate for a five-year-old. It had skeletons!). During its initial theatrical release, it pulled in $412 million at the box office, which, in today’s monies, comes to $850 million. (By comparison, Batman Begins made $375 million upon release, adjusted to $491 million.) To this day, Batman is the iconic superhero of the landscape, for many different reasons: because of the very varied ways he’s been brought successfully to the big and small screen, because of Christopher Nolan’s mind-bogglingly successful Dark Knight trilogy (the terrible Dark Knight Rises notwithstanding), and because Batman simply is the face of the superhero movement. 

It’s said that every generation who experiences decade-spanning franchises have their own version of a character, depending on which actor it was who brought that character to life. I exist in a sort of no-man’s land of broken rules in that regard. My James Bond is Daniel Craig, but my Batman, despite Christian Bale having taken on the role during the same era when Craig was running across rooftops and sweating profusely, will always be Michael Keaton (with a hat tip toward voice actor Kevin Conroy re: Batman: The Animated Series). Also, in spite of the radical evolution that technology and special effects have undergone in cinema over the last 30 years, as well as an adhering to the gritty and super-serious, Burton’s Batman, in my eyes, is the quintessential way to present that character – dark, yes, but not gritty, and not super-serious. (I’ll forgive the Prince soundtrack. Meddlin’ studios gonna meddle.) As for the actual production, the use of models and miniatures, stop motion effects, gigantic matte paintings, and drawn-on visual effects were the kinds of rudimentary tricks that channeled that kind of raw imagination tantamount to pitting Batman figures against Joker figures as a child. It reinforces the notion that we’re existing in a pure fantasyland. Maybe, in a move almost foretelling Nolan’s ultra-realistic take, Burton seemed to say, “Let’s not take this so seriously.” (When the Joker removes a handgun from his pants with a barrel longer than an elephant gun, you…kinda get that impression -- a far cry from Nolan’s Joker shooting a cop point blank with a shotgun as the soundtrack whines at you.) And lordy, that score by Danny Elfman is one of the best of all time; except for Indiana Jones or the aforementioned James Bond, I can’t think of a character who has a better theme song. It even carried over to Batman: The Animated Series, which premiered on television between Batman Returns and Batman Forever. (When a movie can give you chills, but all that’s happening is the Batmobile driving through a leaf-strewn road at night, you’ll know that’s the power of a tremendous musical score.)

As for Batman himself, this is a dark character, and though Nolan tried profusely, he could never quite resurrect that darkness, instead relying on depressing melancholy. Though he deserves the accolades for trying to plant the character in as realistic a setting as possible, asking and answering the question, “What would Batman and Gotham City look like if they were real?,” his trilogy never managed to tap into the same kind of gothic darkness that embodied that character and that fictional city. And then we have Burton’s marriage of time—cars and fashions suggest a 1930s aesthetic, yet the setting is evidently present day, due to the presence of modern devices like televisions and boom boxes (along with contradicting cars and fashions). Burton’s Batman not only exists in its own fictional city, but in its own fictional time period.

Largely inspired by the writing of H.P. Lovecraft, tropes of film noir, and gothic features from the 1920s and ‘30s, Burton’s Batman is a wonderland of moviemaking. And there’s a reason why so many of its scenes have become iconic, the best being the scene with a recently transformed Jack Napier (Jack Nicholson) glimpsing his new face in the mirror and laughing, creepily and unhinged, as he stumbles out of a basement surgical room. In a PG-13 superhero movie, it’s still one of the scariest fucking scenes ever committed to film. 

Burton not only wasn’t fazed by some of the criticism levied his way regarding the previous film’s gothic darkness and despair, he seemed to be driven by the 2010s’ anachronism of “hold my beer,” dialing up that same darkness and despair into his masterpiece Batman Returns. Keaton returns, and joining him are Michelle Pfeiffer and Danny DeVito’s still-ultimate takes on Catwoman and the Penguin, respectively. For a film that opens with a baby being thrown in a river in the dead of snowy winter (by father Paul Reubens!), Burton was once again saying, “Hang on – you’re not off the hook yet.” It also boasts Burton’s love for classic horror, naming one of his villains Max Schreck (Christopher Walken), the actor who played Count Orlok in 1922’s Nosferatu. (Future Leatherface and dog-hoarder Andrew Bryniarski plays his son). Burton also plays Selena Kyle’s transformation scene very subtly eerie: after Schreck throws her from her apartment window and she splats onto the snow-covered ground, she appears quite dead…and then a pack of stray cats come by and begin nibbling on her body, chewing hard enough on her fingers to draw blood. Was she simply stunned from the fall and awakes from the tiny teeth gnawing on her flesh, or did her spirit animals literally bring her back to life? Either way is equally acceptable in Burton’s world (although this would make his version of Catwoman the first ever zombie superhero). 

Following Burton’s departure from the series after his bow of Batman Returns, the remaining two installments fell under the tutelage of markedly different filmmaker Joel Schumacher, who dabbled in equally dark but less flamboyant features and had just enjoyed some critical raves for his first John Grisham adaptation, The Client.

For those even vaguely aware of the trajectory of the Batman series, most are aware that this is where the first dip in quality manifests. Almost everything about Batman Forever feels very different from what’s come before: Val Kilmer takes over for Keaton, gone is the bleached art deco and replaced with overbearing neon, and the villains (Tommy Lee Jones, replacing Billy Dee Williams, and Jim Carrey as Two-Face and the Riddler, respectively) are severely over the top. Even the composer is different, with Elliot Goldenthal taking over for Elfman.

On paper, casting Kilmer as the new Batman was a great idea; the actor had just come off the successful Tombstone where he drew raves for his performance as Doc Holiday—a character with mythical proportions whom one could argue was the superhero of the Wild West. Perhaps under a different director, Kilmer might have offered a different performance, but under Schumacher, who doesn’t seem suited for mega-budgeted productions, his performance seems somehow both antsy and flat.

Nicole Kidman, who plays the terribly named Chase Meridian (seriously?) seems to be along for the ride, going through the motions while seemingly knowing she doesn’t belong in this kind of big budget nonsense. (That she follows up on Michelle Pfeiffer doesn’t do her any favors.)

Capping off the Batman quadrilogy is Batman & Robin, easily the worst of the series, and the second entry in which the actor playing the villain receives top billing over the actor playing the titular hero (after Jack Nicholson’s trumping of Michael Keaton’s credit). Everything about this production seems to confirm what Schumacher has never missed a chance to disclose in the years following the sequel’s release: the studio was more interested in marketing a new line of glowing, neon Batman toys than making a coherent, actually good feature. And it shows.

After the studio balked at Kilmer’s demands for an increase in salary, he was shown the door, and in entered George Clooney, who at that point was pretty much known for ER and a handful of movies no one saw. Clooney has the dubious honor of having played the worst Batman to date, somehow ruining a character’s mystique and tragic aura more than Adam West ever did, and it’s not because he appears in the worst-yet Batman film, but because you can see he’s totally in it for the money and exposure.

As for the final product, there’s nothing I can say about it that hasn’t already been said: it’s dreadful, garish, and immature film -- the most distilled definition of studio product. Once Batman pulls out his own Batman credit card (which has an expiration date of FOREVER), and your arch villain (played by an all-in Arnold Schwarzenegger) rattles off his 37th pun about cold or ice, you just know you’re existing in the wasteland of nonsensical, big-budget tripe that Hollywood thought audiences wanted at the time. (It features some solid pre-breakup Smashing Pumpkins tracks, however – written specifically for this goofball movie.)

Following Batman & Robin’s release, and its critical condemnation across the board, the studio wasn’t keen on rushing another into production, so the theatrical arm of the franchise was dead in the water until Christopher Nolan came along to revitalize it ten years later with 2005’s Batman Begins.

And the rest is history.

The past couple years have been great for Batman aficionados. A new standalone film, The Batman, is gearing up for production from well-established filmmaker Matt Reeves (Cloverfield, War for the Planet of the Apes), Batman: The Animated Series enjoyed a complete, definitive Blu-ray release, and the original series that started it all has made its 4K debut. Whoever your generation’s Batman is, it’s a pretty good time to be a fan in general.

[Reprinted from Daily Grindhouse.]

BLU-RAY REVIEW: THREADS (1984)

For the first half of Threads, the audience is given a semi-documentary/semi-narrative look at the life and culture of citizens of the U.K. as they go about their lives, all while war threatens to rage in the world between the U.S. (naturally), Iran, and the Soviet Union. Reminders of this war come in the form of occasional narration as well as news reports that play on televisions in the backgrounds — news reports that, in the face of the unexpected pregnancy of Ruth (Karen Meagher) and Jimmy (Reece Dinsdale), for instance, mostly fall by the wayside and go unnoticed. While this isn’t a large part nor even the point of Threads, it is a noticeable addition: war will loom, our media will warn us, but we’ll be too busy wrapped up in our own soap opera lives to actually understand until it’s too late.

And that’s just the first half.

Halfway through Threads, the bomb drops. The U.K. is decimated. Initial estimates say 10-20 million citizens are killed. And we’re there the whole time. We never cut away. We never cut back to a clean room in a clean country that was shielded from the attack. The U.K. is reduced to black and gray: formless and void of anything that once resembled life and culture. Smoldering bodies and body parts are strewn in the streets, buildings are burned out husks or entirely gone, people huddle in cellars hidden beneath mattresses thinking this will save them from the bigger threat from a nuclear bomb: radiation. But of course it doesn’t.

The most surprising thing about Threads is its lineage: it wasn’t some banned Video Nasty from the 1970s and ’80s that’s just now enjoying a controversial video release. This thing was made for television — first broadcast in the U.K. before enjoying an encore presentation in the U.S. You’d have to have seen Threads for yourself to know how shocking a revelation this is, because Threads is a brutal gut punch. It’s dark, bleak, angry, cynical, graphic, bloody — everything that also describes war. It is the closest approximation to what post-nuclear life can look like, and hopefully that’s the closest we will all ever get. Above all, it’s the clever editing that enforces such an illusion. Establishing shots of everyday homes and stores and businesses are married to stock footage of demolitions and explosions, one after the other; a simple shot of a cat playing on grass, when reversed and shown only in brief cuts, now looks like an animal suffocating from poisoned air.  Keep in mind, Threads isn’t exactly a Frankenstein of stock footage — only the bomb drop and immediate post-bomb decimation relies on these different footage sources; otherwise, Threads is entirely new footage, but it manages to match the dark and colorless tone of these destructive sequences. And as for the new footage, and its own sense of horror…look no further than the camera angles shot in an almost purposely pedestrian manner that capture a group of office workers from behind as they slip a deceased co-worker’s body into garbage bags, or a woman we presume to be the mother of the dead baby in her arms as she looks into the camera with dead eyes.

This edition of Threads, brought to you by Severin Films, includes a nice collection of special features: audio commentary with director Mick Jackson; “Audition For The Apocalypse: Interview With Actress Karen Meagher,” “Shooting The Annihilation: Interview With Director Of Photography Andrew Dunn,” “Destruction Designer: Interview With Production Designer Christopher Robilliard,” “Interview With Film Writer Stephen Thrower,” and the US Trailer.

Threads is extremely effective and unnerving. It’s an absolutely harrowing experience — one that left me shell shocked and in a daze. It actually coerced me into leaving my house after watching it and randomly driving to a more populated area just to see and be among people for the reminder that society still existed. It’s probably the most psychologically disturbing non-horror horror film I’ve ever seen — and I never want to see it again.

HALLOWEEN 35th

For the 35th Anniversary Edition release, Anchor Bay and Trancas went back to the vaults to present the film as never before, creating an all-new HD transfer personally supervised by the film's original cinematographer, Academy Award-nominee Dean Cundey (Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Apollo 13, the Back to the Future trilogy), a new 7.1 audio mix (as well as the original mono audio), a brand-new feature length audio commentary by writer/director John Carpenter and star Jamie Lee Curtis, an all-new bonus feature with Ms. Curtis, and select legacy bonus features from previous ABE releases. The new release is being made available in collectible limited-edition DigiBook packaging (only for the first printing), with 20 pages of archival photos, an essay by Halloween historian Stef Hutchinson and specially commissioned cover art by Jay Shaw.

"Anchor Bay Entertainment has been home to Halloween for almost 20 years," noted Malek Akkad, President of Trancas International Films and son of Moustapha Akkad. "I'm so happy that we're partnering with them to present the definitive edition of what is widely acknowledged as one of the seminal horror films of the 20th century."

Halloween: 35th Anniversary Edition features 1080p video, Dolby TrueHD 7.1 and Original Mono audio tracks, and the following extras:

• All-new commentary track with writer/director John Carpenter and star Jamie Lee Curtis
• "The Night She Came Home" new featurette with Jamie Lee Curtis (HD)
• On Location
• Trailers
• TV & Radio Spots
• Additional Scenes from TV Version

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This sucker streets September 24. While I am glad we're finally getting an approved transfer from Dean Cundey, I remain cautiously optimistic about which older extras they'll be porting over. That feature-length doc from previous releases better be in place. Still iffy on the artwork, but it's growing on me.

And bring on that new commentary. Criterion's old one was good, but I hate that spliced-together approach. Put 'em in the same room, I say.