DEAD ISLAND LIVE

REVIEW: TO JENNIFER

The line between art and "hey, let's make a movie because we can!" is becoming increasingly blurred. Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick bought a couple cameras, made The Blair Witch Project, and then made back most of their production budget by returning the cameras for a refund. The film cost them around a handful of Mercedes to produce and made back its budget 300 times. Several years later, Chris Kentis and Laura Lau bought a couple digital cameras, rented a boat, and shot Open Water without the support of a major studio. Unknown actors got in the water with real sharks for hours upon hours, and the filmmaking duo edited the film on their home computer. It was another box office smash. And it continued the new trend of do-it-yourself filmmaking began by the likes of Kevin Smith, Richard Linklater, and that damn Burkitsville witch. It proved if you had the materials and talent, you didn't need a major studio's resources or funding. 

In theory, this is great. The unachievable dream has become that much more achievable. The one-in-a-million chance for success tested and subjugated by a Michigan nerd who loved horror movies and made Evil Dead (and who currently rules Hollywood) is now the stuff of history.

Which brings us to a little film called To Jennifer, shot entirely on the iPhone 5 - a large part of the marketing platform. If it's the first time ever, I honestly don't know - but by film's end, it wouldn't have mattered if it were shot with the eye of God. 

Your main character is Joey (Chuck Pappas). His girlfriend is cheating on him, or so he thinks. So he decides to make a video about catching her in the act, so he can give it to her. I'm...not sure why. Along for the ride is his cousin (and cameraman), Steve (James Cullen Bressack, also writer/director), and their mutual friend Martin (Jody Barton). Their video diary takes them across multiple states, a failed plane ride, a couple ugly confrontations, and the inevitable and obvious twist ending.

To Jennifer is every scene from The Goonies when all the kids shout over each other, loudly, and without mercy, only now that yelling is crammed with testosterone, profanity, and behavior that would make most people severely uncomfortable, but instead makes everyone giggle. 

Because the film is shot on a phone, any attempt at direction is, at best, limited, and at worst, non-existent. There's only so much you can do to lend the film any kind of style. Due to this, the rather no-frills production will instead have to depend on the intrigue of the story and the power of its cast.

Speaking of, most of the cast does a fine job, at least at first. Pappas as Joey depends on your sympathy as he is your lead with a lot of baggage. He is the cuckolded boy of the story and should already have at least our attention, being that we've likely all been in his shoes and we know how much it blows. As the film progresses he veers into dangerous overacting territory, but being that his character is supposed to be on a somewhat downward spiral, it's not a detriment to the film. 

Continuing on, major fucking props goes to fucking Cullen Bressack as Steve, who tries his fucking best to be as fucking obnoxious as possible, rattling the audio with his fucking bawdy laughter and his over-the-top "I'm a party animal!" demeanor. Count how how many fucking times he can cram "fuck" into his dialogue - astrophysicists can't count that high - while simultaneously being completely fucking unlikable. Watch as Joey sadly confesses that his girlfriend is cheating on him as Steve laughs. Watch as Joey has a nervous breakdown on a plane as Steve laughs. Watch as Joey lays in a hospital bed as Steve laughs. Watch as Joey gets his ass handed to him at a party as Steve laughs. Watch as Joey is clearly becoming more and more mentally unbalanced over the course of his descent as Steve laughs - hard and squeakily.

To Jennifer has an interesting concept - a sort of road movie where friends could bond and help one of their own get over a sad development - but this is a double-edged sword, because all you're seeing is a bunch of college kids hanging out and doing what college kids do: drink, smoke pot, go to parties, talk about mackin' wit girls, etc. An approach like To Jennifer should be as realistic as possible, I admit that, but it shouldn't be so realistically mundane that I begin to wonder why I'm watching these random videos on that iPhone I found at the bus stop.

But hey, what do I know? To Jennifer's Facebook page is covered in positive reviews. Perhaps other folks are seeing what I'm not. Perhaps I'm prejudiced against this next stage in filmmaking where all you need to make a film and have it distributed nationally is a cell phone. Perhaps I'm embittered because no one wants to give Don Coscarelli a few measly million to make Phantasm V, or that no one wants to fund any of John Carpenter's potential projects - you know, the man whose entire filmography is being remade and dumbed down in nearly their original order of release, to the "benefit" of the audience whose target age is decreasing year by year.

To Jennifer really could have been that next step in proving that a successful end result could be shot with something as simple as that thing in our pockets we used to use strictly for making phone calls. To Jennifer has a beginning, middle, end, actors, and makes use of available light quite handily. If your film is location heavy, intimate, and okay with the raw digital look, then this DIY approach really could be your new best friend if you're a filmmaker with a great concept and little money.

Sadly, To Jennifer seems more to be the result of kids who made a movie because they had a camera, rather than an original idea strong enough to withstand and complement its gimmick.

#HALLOWEEN: HAPPY HALLOW'S

It's finally here. Go nuts. You've earned it.

#HALLOWEEN: EVE OF HALLOWEEN

days of a haunting
eerie sounds of a ghastly glow
take a footstep to the front
and enter the beginning of the maze
the hassle itself to bring yourself down
as laughs in the back creep under your skin
the hectic fear harassing the fact that it's there
yet bounds like vines in a grappling play
the eve of Halloween
in the nearing of a haunted house
as they put up the slaying
and wander into a man-made trap
fall into the amiss
deep down in the black mist
and frighten yourself by a stare
as you watch another fight along beside you
as the eve of Halloween comes taunting back once again

#HALLOWEEN: DVD REVIEW: WNUF HALLOWEEN SPECIAL

To drench yourself in my love for the WNUF Halloween Special, refer to my previous in-depth review. Everything I could have said about the film I believe was already said. Instead I'll be going through the DVD release that Alternative Cinema was kind enough to send me. Strictly put, it's essential Halloween viewing.

Writer/director Chris LaMartina gets things going with a solo audio commentary. If you're even a casual listener of audio commentaries, you may have found that when some folks go solo, they can tend to fill their recording time with long bouts of silence, having no one by their side to spur them on and ask questions. That's not the problem here. LaMartina hits the ground running with his inspirations behind the project, how it came to be, and what he ultimately envisioned. He speaks rapidly and throws a lot of information at you, none of which is ever superfluous. The nature of the film, which is essentially one huge montage, has him leaping from point to point, and in terms of words per minute, puts Tarantino to shame.

Much of what I wondered while watching the film for the first time - the origin of the footage used, if the filmmakers shot it themselves or sifted through public domain stuff - is answered. Basically, it comes from everywhere! He also confirms his shout-out to The Monster Squad, which makes me feel like a total nerd for even picking up on it the first time. Yay!

Also included are additional commercials created specifically for the film but cut from the final running time. They range from awkward to amusing to slightly faux-erotic (and even contain a reference to Motel Hell). You'll love the "safe sex" commercial. That AIDs gag amazed me.

The next feature shows a side-by-side comparison showing what the original footage looked like versus the final version, after copying one VHS to the next three times. It's neat strictly on a technical level and is quite brief. Generally some video labels, like Criterion, will do the exact opposite when showing just how well they were able to remaster a film. Not here!

Moving right along are an amusing collection of bloopers, line flubs, and alternate dialogue. (That fucking vampire in the crowd kills it every time.)

Finishing things off are "Rewinding the Fast Forward," which shows in their entirety the sequences fast-forwarded during the film; something called "Meadowlands Showcase," which, frankly, defies description; and some trailers.

DVDs are available directly from the distributor, Alternative Cinema, and I honestly can't recommend it enough. I have a very small collection of films I make sure to watch every Halloween week. Going forward, WNUF Halloween Special will be part of that list.

---

For decades, obscure film collectors and lovers of esoteric cinema have sought it... 

Finally, the search is over… Originally broadcast live on October 31, 1987, the "WNUF Halloween Special" is a stunning expose of terrifying supernatural activity that unfolded at the infamous Webber House, the site of ghastly murders. Local television personality Frank Stewart leads a group of paranormal investigators including Catholic exorcist, Father Joseph Matheson and the prolific husband-and-wife team Louis and Claire Berger. Together, the experts explore the darkest corners of the supposedly haunted Webber House, trying to prove the existence of the demonic entities within. Did they find the horrific truth or simply put superstitious rumors to rest?

SPECIFICATIONS: 82 mins. (171 mins. TRT) / Horror / Color / Not Rated / 4x3 / Region 0 / English / Stereo 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

• Audio Commentary with writer/director Chris LaMartina

• WNUF Commercials

• Bloopers and outtakes

• “Rewinding the FF”

• Trailers

• Meadowlands Showcase Halloween Show

• Aging the Video

 

#HALLOWEEN: EPIC PRANK

A flying grim reaper wreaks havoc on park-goers. Laughs ensue. 

ROB ZOMBIE'S HALLOWEEN (2007)

Once upon a time, a homeless man dressed like a hippie clown said, “I’ll make movies, I guess.” He then made House of 1,000 Corpses, which was terrible; it featured people with a lot of hair doing a lot of screaming. 

Then he made a sequel entitled The Devil’s Rejects, which was less bad, and which featured people with a lot of hair doing a lot of screaming.

Then, one day, this happened:

THE WEINSTEINS

Rob Zombie, this is the Weinsteins. 

Would you like to direct Halloween 9?

ROB ZOMBIE

No way, that’s stupid. I’d 

remake the original, though.

THE WEINSTEINS

But didn’t you famously say 

that remakes were the worst 

thing any filmmaker could do 

and why would anyone ever 

remake a movie that was 

already perfect?

ROB ZOMBIE

Yeah, but that only applies to 

people who aren't me. I’m an 

artist.

THE WEINSTEINS

That’s true. Your stage show has
a lot of skeletons! What's your 

pitch for a remake?

ROB ZOMBIE

Well, I'd tweak the original 

story to make all the characters 

repulsive and irredeemable white 

trash so you have no one to root 

for. I'd also add a lot more sex 

moans and Clint Howard.

THE WEINSTEINS

We’ve never actually seen the 

first film, but that all sounds 

fine with us. We’re artists.

ROB ZOMBIE

Can I write the whole script myself?
I can spell and stuff. I know 
ALL my letters. I’m an artist.

THE WEINSTEINS

We’ll leave you to it, as we’re 

courting Michael Berryman to 

star in the direct-to-video 

Children of the Corn Something.

And off went the artist Rob Zombie, along with his unending supply of stupid hats, to grab his Motorhead crayons and write the script. Mr. Zomb had never before made a film that existed in someone else's universe, as he had been primarily used to setting his stories in a magical land called Slime's Depression, but he rolled up his sleeves and prepared to dive into the Halloween universe, which took place in a rather picturesque town called Haddonfield, Illinois. Wisely, Rob Zombie chose to maintain this setting, quickly adding it to his script to assuage the fears of Halloween fans everywhere that he had their best interests at heart, that he wasn't going to let them down, and that he definitely knew how to spell "Haddonfield."

Cheap shots aside (which I do not plan on ceasing), John Carpenter's original film is a subtle exercise is slow-burn suspense and terror. It is low on violence, even lower on blood, and features a cast of legitimately likable and sympathetic characters.

Rob Zombie's film contains none of those attributes. It is a loud, flashy, ugly, unapologetic rock concert filled with unnecessary gore, hateable characters, and an unnecessary retconning of Michael Myers' past. It is dumb. It is a film that endeavors to showcase psychological disorders, but is written by a man who knows absolutely nothing about them. 

This same man knows even less about original screenwriting. 

In Rob Zombie's Halloween, cops asks, "Whatta we got?" and receptionists say, "Go in, he's expecting you," and bullies make fun of mothers. Halloween 2007 exists because Rob Zombie watched a few movies on television and said, "I can probably pull this off."

He didn't.

The "character" of Michael Myers, called The Shape in Carpenter/Hill's original script because he was never supposed to be a "character" but a mysterious force of evil, now has an all new backstory: his parents suck, his sister sucks, his life sucks, and he sucks. That's pretty much it. That's how Zombie decided to "explain" the boiling bloodlust of Michael Myers. That's Zombie's daring take on what makes someone become a killer: living in the lower tax bracket. 

Then Michael goes to school, where bathroom bullies accost him and make absurd sexual threats about his mother and sister.

His mother, Deborah, who is a stripper at the Rabbit in Red Lounge (hey, someone rented the first movie at least once!) is having a meeting with the school principal and Dr. Loomis, a child psychologist. After the principal lets the cat out of the bag and tells Mrs. Myers her son is fucking nuts (by letting the dead cat out of his drawer [in a bag], get it?), she kinda believes him but not really.

Then Michael kills the bully kid from the Geico commercial, all the while the audience drowns in this overwhelming amount of explanation that Rob Zombie said he was going to provide for Micheal's back story.

Later, at Michael's house, everyone continues to be really mean. Even though his mother is fresh from a meeting in which she was shown the dead cat Michael had in his locker and the dozens of photos of animals he's killed, she shrugs it all off and lets him go trick-or-treating, anyway. She can't take him, though, because she's gotta work. And since the rest of his family hates him, looks like he's shit out of luck and shit out of trick-or-treating.

It then hilariously cuts to Michael sitting outside on a curb, looking immensely sad, as "Love Hurts" plays. 

Upstairs, Michael's sister is in the seedy throes of pre-sex with her even seedier looking boyfriend. He takes out the iconic Shape mask and asks her if he can wear it while they bump uglies. She says no, much to my chagrin, as I would like this boy's face to go away forever.

And downstairs, Michael looks sad, eats some candy, and then thinks, "Oh, right, this is about when I go nuts for no reason."

This is exhausting, isn't it?

Michael proceeds to kill everyone and then shove a baseball bat up his dead sister's ass, because Rob Zombie once watched the original Halloween and said, "This is fucking boring – where's all the depravity?" The only one Michael doesn't kill is his infant sister, whom he calls Boo. 

At times, Rob Zombie's Halloween fools you into thinking it's actually trying to be a good movie. Notable examples include the sequence where Mrs. Myers comes home to her massacred family, which is complemented with the numerous news reports being transmitted at the site. With every character on screen freeze-framing so the only things moving are the lights from the police cars and Michael himself, it's actually  — dare I say it — well-executed.

Likewise, the sequences of young Michael at Smith's Grove Sanitarium don't hurt, and even threaten to be interesting, but unfortunately not enough time is spent here. Everyone's acting is downplayed and actually good, including Zombie's generally not-so-good wife, and the layering of Loomis' audio notes over choppy 8mm footage of Michael under observation works pretty well, offering it a sad-documentary kind of feel.

These sequences are the biggest red herring in cinema, as you fool yourself into thinking the film isn't a total junkyard filled with needless backwoods profanities, unrealistic characters, and unintentional humor.

But don't worry, the movie then resumes its usual level of painful mediocrity as we cut fifteen years later. Dr. Loomis peaces out of Michael's care because he's honestly given up. Instead he takes to the touring circuit to plug his book on the Myers case. Luckily he has a bunch of "Michael making mean face" pictures to support his claims that Michael is actually a psychopath!

And if you're watching the "director's" cut of this film, you get twice the rape with none of the enjoyment. What's interesting about the director's cut of the film versus the theatrical is that they are nearly completely different films. Only a filmmaker with a definitive vision is capable of shooting an entire film, then shrugging and shooting a bunch of other shit to see what he can do with it.

I hear that's how John Huston did it.

So, after these two redneck hospital orderlies shove a female patient into Michael's room so they can rape her in front of him and maybe try to get him to rape her as well (?), they are VERY surprised when Michael, who is ten feet tall and has hundreds of different masks hanging all over his cell and who killed his entire family and who is clearly out of his mind, suddenly springs into action and commits violence upon them.

After a quick cameo from Clint Howard, we then see the scene that compelled Zombie to make this film — the absolute unquenchable desire to answer the so-far unanswered question in the pantheon of unanswered questions which propelled Zombie towards his ultimate goal of fleshing out the origins of Michael Myers: we finally FINALLY find out how he got his jumpsuit. It was from...some guy (Ken Foree) taking a shit...while wearing a jumpsuit.

From this point to the end, the film becomes a beat-for-beat remake of the original Carpenter film, which means it's the same, only far less good. We can no longer even find distraction in all the awful "new" stuff. All we can do is sit and watch and be reminded of when this was done previously, and much, much better. Even the original film's soundtrack is utilized — not re-orchestrated, mind you, but literally re-appropriated.

We meet Laurie Strode, perhaps the most famous heroine in all of horror cinema. Big shoes to fill — even more than Dr. Loomis — but Rob Zombie felt that Scout Taylor Compton was up to the task. And she's...not great.

Her friends don't fare much better. Zombie's depiction of Lynda makes her worse than Tucker Carlson, and poor Halloween-series alumni Danielle Harris is saddled with a very obnoxious version of Annie. These girls curse like Tarantino, call each other "bitches," and do nothing to be individuals. They all talk the same, act the same, and annoy the same. They are not in the least bit likable.

Followed by:

We revisit the requisite Halloween beats: Sheriff Brackett makes his appearance, Judith Myers' tombstone is stolen, Loomis deals with a bunch of Smith's Grove bureaucrats.

Then:

• Laurie babysits Tommy Doyle, educates him on the boogeyman, and looks bored with her life.
• Dr. Loomis attempts to convince Sheriff Brackett that evil has come to his town.
• Annie brings Lindsey Wallace over to the Doyle house.
• Annie dumps Lindsey on her good friend, Laurie.
• Annie tells Laurie she's set her up with Ben Tramer.

Dear god, we've seen this movie already. WE SAW IT THIRTY YEARS AGO.

Only this time with a sexy twist!

Followed by:

"It's so fucking warm!" Paul adds, apparently having sex with a living person for the first time.

Not long after this, we arrive at the third-act twist/non-twist, which is the big reveal that Laurie Strode is Michael Myers' sister. Once asked in an interview if he had lifted this from the finale of the original Halloween 2, he replied, "Honestly, no, I had completely forgotten about that," even though he also uses the song "Mr. Sandman," which famously appears in Halloween 2. Must be some kind of coincidence!

But hey, who am I to call Rob Zombie a liar? It's not like he ever goes back on his word, like that time he said he'd never make a Halloween 2.

Halloween takes way too long to end, as Laurie is chased through two houses, a pool, and a police car (during which Dr. Loomis very amusingly shouts, "Michael, what the hell!").

The film ends as it began: limply with little care or talent, feeling nothing more than like a passionless Google project. I liken it to the Republicans Googling random GOP governors to see who would make a good Vice-President during the 2008 election and finding Sarah Palin. Even the fucking font chosen for the open and closing credit reeks of "Jeeves, what's that font they used for Halloween?" "Copperplate Gothic!" "Thanks, Jeeves." (It's not.)

And as these closing credits begin rolling (and I see "Based on a Film by John Carpenter and Debra Hill," as opposed to "Based on the Film," as if the connection between the two films were tenuous at best), I must admit I am terrified. Truly. Not because of anything the film presented, and not even by the idea that this film exists and is now attached to the legacy of the original Halloween forever.

No, what’s terrifying is…people actually said this is better than the original.

But hey, we’re all allowed to have our own opinions, right? That's what makes us human, after all — our own interests, passions, and ideas.

Having said that, if you want to slather yourself in cinematic excrement, be my...guess?

Where, indeed.