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BETTIE PAGE - DARK ANGEL
starring Paige Richards, Dukey Flayswatter, Frederick Bald, Clinton Ehrlich
directed by Nico B, Color, , 2004

Distributed by Cult Epics
DVD Reviewed By: Chris Beyond

Having not seen the new Bettie Page Bio Flick yet, as of this writing, I do ponder the question, "Can or SHOULD Bettie Page ever be portrayed in film?" You know how there are just some songs by band that are just THEIRS and should never be covered by another band lest they look very silly doing so? Bettie Page seems like that. A song that nobody but the original can ever truely reproduce.

This Bettie Page Bio-flick came out a couple years ago. It was recenltly rereleased in order to ride some of the publicity of the upcoming major release film The Notorious Bettie Page. I'm not sure what to make of it. It seems like a film whose only purpose is to fetishize Bettie Page. Obviously there is some kind of direction going on in this film or the actors would just stand there reading lines, but so much of this film is so minimal, it feels like everyone was just hoping that the lead actress would look like Bettie Page enough, that nobody would care.

And look like Bettie Page she Does. Actress Paige Richards certainly does bear a resemblance to the famous pin-up star (save for the ears and boob job...and pubic landing strip). If only she had a better film to work with. It fails on many levels that are mostly technical. Direction, staging, blocking, and cinematography are it's biggest problems. The narration is terrible. Some of the acting is pretty bad too. You have to wonder how a few of these people got cast. Ok, so they aren't great actors, but you cast them. Now learn how to place them in the camera in a way that looks good.

Not everything is bad though. Cult film actor Dukey Flyswatter is actually perfectly cast as Bettie Page photographer Irving Klaw and great in his part as well. If only he had more to do in the film. You feel he has a cool take on the character, but the script - or lack of script - never allows him any elbow room to play with it more. He ends up being the most interesting character in a shallow film that plays out in a series of short scenes...not unlike the original Bettie Page loops. Perhaps if they played with that very idea a little more, it could have been a more interesting way to tell the story then what ended up on screen. In the end the films comes off like they were all in a big hurry to finish the film. That shows even in the action on screen.

The music in the film is good; finding itself somewhere in between Teenage Tupelo and Wild At Heart. It comes off a little generic at times, but again, I have to blame the people behind the scenes for this one. The most interesting musical break comes during a dream sequence. This sequence leads me to wonder if they would have been better off trying to produce a story from the Bettie Page comics rather than a telling of her life. I guess that's the movie I'm going to have to try to make instead.

If you are a hardcore Bettie page collector, then this is good as an oddity for your collection, but otherwise I think this movie will just tick off most casual fans of that girl whose eyes you'll never forget after seeing them even once. The normal edition of this film has some behind the scenes stuff. I found the lo-fi recording session of THE LEGENDARY CLARA WARD SINGERS to be interesting and shot in an almost true-dreamlike way. The new two disc release doesn't really add anything to justify the higher pricetage. You get to see Bunny Yeager as she is today (I was privilaged enough to work with her NEW photography for the film Broad Daylight that I designed the cover for). All in all, this film makes me look forward to the NEW film The Notorious Bettie Page even more. Somebody's gotta do it right. Right?

Just so you know, Cult Epics DOES release a lot of good stuff on their roster. So don't judge them from this one film. I actually highly recommend a lot of the films they release.

(Chris Beyond is the creator of No-Fi "Magazine"
and wishes he had the chance to photgraph Bettie.)

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FUTURE WAR
starring Daniel Bernhardt, Robert Z’Dar, Stacks and stacks of cardboard boxes, dinosaur toys
directed by Jeff Wadlow, Color, , 1996

Distributed by Trinity Home Entertainment
DVD Reviewed By: Ryan Lies

You know that the state of modern moviemaking is getting dire when I actually start to find more entertainment value in late 90’s straight-to-video SF crap than I do at the local multiplex. And that’s the simple, sad truth, folks. What was irredeemable crap back in 1997 is now cinematic gold compared to the dreck that passes for “movies” here in 2006.

Let me just say, for the sake of full disclosure, I did fast forward through a lot of this movie, but honestly, I kid you not … I still saw the whole movie. Trimming down an 82 minute piece of crap like Future War into a far more palatable 15, maybe 20 minutes is perfectly understandable, from my point of view. I mean, come on, I’m 32 now. I’m getting up there. I only have so much time left until I travel on to that big Geek Convention in the sky. 82 minutes is a long time to spend watching people walk around, or have interminable conversation about god knows what. You don’t need a roadmap to get the plot of a movie like Future War. Dialogue is great, but when it seems to be written by a dyslexic 4 year old, well … hey, that’s why God invented the FF button.

Future War tells the story of a a race of cyborgs who travel back in time and kidnap humans, forcing them to work as slaves. The cyborgs have trained dinosaurs to hunt down anyone who escapes. One of the humans, played by martial “artist” Daniel Bernhardt (who looks like a cross between Jean-Claude VanDamme and porn-star Peter North) escapes and seeks help from a nun, who gathers her friends together to help the lost soul as he confronts plastic dinosaurs in an endless sea of cardboard boxes.


Huh? Yeah, I know. Whatever. Just believe me when I say that there are at least 20 solid gold minutes of this movie that must be seen to be believed. There is no rhyme or reason to anything. The special FX are some of the worst I’ve ever seen. The dinosaur effects are just about as good as those glimpsed in the old Ed Wood classic One Million AC/DC. And when I say there are a lot of cardboard boxes in this movie … I’m not kidding around. The filmmakers built at least 4 whole sets out of nothing but cardboard boxes.

Bernhardt, trying hard to act, but really just looking constipated, kicks the dinosaurs in the head, the drop to the ground and explode. There is a S.W.A.T. team of one! And when he gets killed, they send in five or six more guys as back up (one of the S.W.A.T. guys looks like me, too! Seriously.) The cyborgs can barely move. And what little of the dialogue I actually bore witness to was pretty funny. Bernhardt’s escaped slave refers to himself as a “tool,” and at one point the nun tells him “You’re a man,” (or something like that) and Bernhardt replies, “No, I’m a tool!” You said it buddy, not me.

Priceless crap. This DVD was given to me by a buddy of mine who picked it up at a pharmacy checkout for a dollar. It doesn’t even come in a snap-case, but a cardboard envelope. The cover art is completely nonreflective of the actual film (there’s a black dude with cyborg crap all over his face, and he kinda looks like Blade, but there ain’t no black cyborg dude in the movie.)

And the end fight scene, which takes place in a church is the apotheosis of bad movie climaxes. Our hero inexplicably loses his shirt and slow-motion kicks the crap out of Robert Z’dar, who’s frighteningly big chin is hidden behind Nintendo parts. And the windows! The windows they are fighting in front of are actually just sheets of white paper; you can actually SEE the creases in the paper! Huh? Who are they trying to fool here? Does it matter? No, I was just glad I wasn’t watching The Fog remake.

Daniel Bernhardt did play Agent Johnson in The Matrix: Reloaded, a worthless booger of a movie if ever there was one. In fact, I’ll say it, and I’ll say it proud: the twenty minutes of Future War that actually watched was at least 13 percent better than The Matrix: Reloaded. Maybe 14 percent; Reloaded didn’t have as many cardboard boxes in it.

So yeah, amazing. At one point back in the 90’s I could be heard lamenting the sad state of genre filmmaking, citing films like Future War and their ilk as examples of the decline in creativity and basic entertainment value of art-form I so loved. And yet here I am now, getting kicks out of a certifiable celluloid turd.

How times have changed. Man, how I’ve changed.

Now, I’m tired. Someone get me my arthritis pills and my plastic dinosaur toys, throw me in a cardboard refrigerator box, and let me drool myself to sleep. If I can even remember how to sleep.

What was I talking about again?

(Ryan Lies is a staffwriter to no-fi "magazine"
and often conveniantly falls into boxes.)

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THE HALFWAY HOUSE
starring Mary Woronov, Shawn Savage, Janet Tracy Keijser, Stephanie Leighs

written and directed by Kenneth J. Hall, Color, / , 2004

Distributed by BV Entertainment
DVD Reviewed By: Ryan Lies

Finally! Praise the Lord! Someone gets it right!

I’m speaking about the lost art of real exploitation filmmaking. The Halfway House is a dirty, nasty, profane, low-budget, gratuitous little gem. And the mastermind behind this nifty piece of trashy “art” is Kenneth J. Hall, a special-FX makeup artist who has worked on some of my favorite genre films: Batman Returns, Carnosaur, Gremlins 2 and The Terminator. He is also the creator of perennial direct-to-video Full Moon series Puppet Master. I should quickly mention, to further establish this man’s genre/exploitation cred, that he directed Linnea Quigley’s Horror Workout, a “film” I have yet to see but that I DO have a poster for hanging in my bathroom.

Anyway, Mr. Hall has done what many in this day and age have tried, but none too many have succeeded at, and that’s delivering a real, honest-to-goodness sick ‘n twisted exploitation flick. I mean, like they used to make ‘em. Hall’s flick harkens back to the days of Russ Meyer, Doris Wishman, Joe D’Amato and, hell, even old-school Troma … only, in most cases, The Halfway House is better. And by “better” I mean just as bad, but oh so damn gooooood!

The Halfway House tells the simple story of a young woman, Larissa Morgan, trying to find her missing sister; and the main culprit appears to be The Mary Magdalen Halfway House for Troubled Girls, lorded over by maniacally strict Sister Cecelia. Unbeknownst to our heroine, and the young cop she seduced into helping her, Sister Cecelia is sacrificing the girls to a tentacled demon that dwells in the basement, with the help of her mentally-deficient, and morally lascivious janitor.

The Halfway House gets right to the point, and certainly doesn’t skimp on any of the goods. There’s blood, guts, catfights, dirty priests, boobs, ass, and sex, sex, sex! Not to mention the one-eyed Lovecraftian slime-ball with the taste for female flesh. I’m not kidding when I say that within the first three minutes of this flick we get boobs and a monster! First three minutes! Already the movie is better than Red Eye!

And my jaw almost dropped right off my smiling face when I came to the lesbian anal-fisting scene! Softcore, of course, but still! I’ll take it where I can get it! You go naughty girls! And don’t forget to say your prayers before you tuck yourselves in.

Not to say this flick is a masterpiece by any means, but it’s not really supposed to be. It’s supposed to be straight-up, wash-your-hands-after-you-watch-it fun, and so what if the acting isn’t always … um … believeable? Or the monster looks like It Conquered the World meets The Crawling Eye? I’ll take this slimy, rubbery beastie over CGI bullshit anyday!

Hall aims for the gut and the groin with this one, and he hit’s a bullseye every time. The PC-police should stay away, as should any religious-types who can’t take a joke (not since John Waters have a I seen a more blasphemous use for a religious object. I’ll say no more.)

Cult fave Mary Woronov (Death Race 2000) is deliciously bitch-wicked, and is a perfect, austere foil for the rebellious and yummy young eye-candy around her. Inspector Hinds, as played by Mike Gaglio is probably the most annoying cop ever put on film; but funny nonetheless (even though you want to coldcock the jerk.)

If you like your movies slimy, slutty and as uncouth as possible, then The Halfway House is a breath of fresh air. You don’t have to think too hard about it, you can just let that inner 13 year old out of his hiding spot, pretend you’re sneaking this out after your parents have gone to bed, and just enjoy. It’s been awhile since someone has delivered something so simple and yet so much fun.

The DVD comes in a Rated (yaaaawwn) version, and the super naughty Unrated Director’s Edition. And the unrated one has a ton of extra goodies on it: uncensored trailer, INSECTO CIRCUS music video, director’s audio commentary, deleted scenes, and a making-of featurette. The “rated” version only features an edited trailer and the aforementioned music video.

Certainly not for everyone, but that’s only because “everyone” doesn’t always know how to have a good time, taste be damned. I loved The Halfway House, even though I feel a little ashamed for doing so.

Kenneth J . Hall … you rock!!!! (I’ve been waiting awhile now to see Preggers, so I’m glad to hear you’re finally getting to it! May the gods of bad taste guide your way!)

(Ryan Lies is a staffwriter to no-fi "magazine"
and prefers to check into the seediest of motels.)

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SILENT HILL
starring Radha Mitchell, Laurie Holden, Deborah Kara Unger, Jodelle Ferland, Sean Bean
directed by Christophe Gans , Color, , 2006

Distributed by Tristar Pictures
Film Reviewed By: Chris Beyond

The SIlent Hill video game series is my favorite game series of all time. They are games that at first glance people might think plays like Resident Evil, but when you actually start playing, you realize that isn't the case at all. In A couple tears ago, I started writing a spec script based on the Silent Hill video game franchise. It wasn't based on any one of the games' stories, but it did take place in the same town with no liberties on the origins or previous stories that had happened there. More of a side-story, really. And that's exactly why I stopped writing it.

Flash forward to yesterday. There were no press screenings for Silent Hill, the new movie also based on the video game series of the same name. The fact that there was no press screening is usually a bad sign. It either means that the film isn't expected to be very good, or that the film isn't finished yet. (Ghostbusters wasn't finished until the film was delivered the NIGHT BEFORE the film was shipped to theaters when it premiered.) Me and Holly-tron go to see the film in a theater we've never been to before right at the end of the 2 Freeway in a town we've never been to before.

Silent Hill, the movie, is directed by Christophe Gans (Brotherhood Of The Wolf) and written by Roger Avery (Pulp Fiction, Killing Zoe). After a string of TERRIBLE TERRIBLE TERRIBLE films based on video games (Bloodrayne, Doom, Alone In The Dark), it seems like somebody figured out, as I did after getting to a certain point while writing, that the reason why these video games are so popular is because of the original stories in these video games... Roger Avery figured that out and thus pulls the bulk of the story in the film from the first (and in most people's opinion) BEST Silent Hill game.

The film starts with the main character Rose taking her daughter Sharon to the titular abandoned town after a series of sleepwalking incidents where the child cries out the name of Silent Hill - a place that she's ever been to. He husband, fearing the worst finds out and tries to follow her. After a car chase and an accident, Rose finds herself alone in a gray town where ash falls from the sky like snow and all the roads lead to what seems like the edge of the world. After being arrested by a female police officer who doesn't understand where they are until they are attacked by a creature, Rose finds herself alone in handcuffs, having to fend for herself in a dilapidated town that seems to switch between two realities whenever an air raid siren is heard. The first incident of this is pulled right out of the video game and I was giddy in my seat. It was perfect in its execution and a great reassurance to any fans of the original. This proves why filmmakers need to trust the original source on these kind of things and why my own script wouldn't have worked (for a first film, anyway). The original Silent Hill game (released on the Playstation) reminds me of a good book that you have to go back and read sometime. Sure the graphics aren't as pretty as the ones that followed it,...but it's the STORY that makes it so great.

As in the original video game (except the lead character is now a woman searching for her daughter instead of the father), Rose finds clues that lead her to go to different locations, each one on the verge of falling apart. They seem bad enough on their own, but when "reality" begins to shift, those same locations go from cracked walls with peeling paint to rusted fences and grueling horror. The effect used during the transition was amazing. It even looks better than in the game. Hard to believe, but true.

So Rose's adventures lead to meeting a cult of people who are also trapped in the town, who may also be behind the fall of Silent Hill into darkness. The fact that they think she or her daughter may be a witch doesn't help either. From there on the film veers into a dark rollercoaster that leads to the heart of Silent Hill. And along the way we even get to meet Red Pyramid Head from Silent Hill 2. As you can imagine, it isn't a very happy meeting. (And, YIKES, did they ever capture him on film perfectly...dragging his large sword behind him and all.)

So, flaws... The film does have them. The dialogue can be a little rough at times. I think that the mythos of Silent Hill gets overexplained. There is a subplot of Rose's husband trying to find her that could have been cut down a LOT. And there are a few minor effects shots that didn't look quite finished.

On the upside, the film was very interesting. The story and acting was strong (Four strong female leads too! Can you believe it?). The music (written by the original game creator Akira Yamaoka) comes right out of the games...the soundtracks of which I actually own on disc and would need a whole other review to say how great they are. The effect during the climax was brilliant and shocking.

Some critics don't get this film. Others have been very vocally miffed about not being allowed to see the film before it hit theaters. I love Roger Ebert's review where he admitted that he just couldn't understand it. I think the fact that the film is based on a video game, makes people think that they need to play the game to enjoy it. I don't think that is the case. And by the sounds of the sreaming little girls in the theatre who obviously haven't played the game, I think the film is effective as a horror film. I say give the film a chance and see for yourself. It is about your own perception in the end...and that is exactly what the original intention of the film was suppossed to be anyway.

(Chris Beyond is the creator of No-Fi "Magazine"
and fears the monsters who may be waiting for him in the fog.)

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ALL-AMERICAN GIRL
THE COMPLETE SERIES
starring Margaret Cho, Clyde Kusatsu, Amy Hill, Judy Gold, Color, 1994-1995

Distributed by Shout Factory
DVDS Reviewed By: Chris Beyond

If you can remember all the way back to the mid ninties or are familiar with Margaret Cho's stand-up comedy in her recent films, you may have heard of her short lived television series ALL-AMERICAN GIRL. I doubt many if any of you actually saw the show.

Well you can see it now because it was just released on DVD this month.

ALL-AMERICAN GIRL stars Margaret Cho as Margaret Kim; A gal growing up in an extended family household that happens to be Asian American. This in itself was a major stepping stone for visability of Asian actors on the small screen in roles that weren't strictly throw away characters or kicking people left and right with great kung fu skill.

Did it really take that long to have a sitcom with Asian characters in the lead? That is frightening.

I love Margaret Cho. Her stand-up is great and I'll even be so bold to say that she is our generation's Richard Pryor. Actually that feels wrong saying that. Richard Pryor is our generation's Richard Pryor and Margaret Cho is our generation's Margaret Cho. I only wish I could say that I liked this show.

The problem with ALL-AMERICAN GIRL, beyond all of the controversy surrounding it from the Asian community giving it flack to her studio-pressured rapid weight loss which led to medical problems, is that it just isn't very good.

This wasn't all the fault of just this one show. Sitcom comedy in the nineties was a barren wasteland dominated by FRIENDS and SEINFELD. Ok, SIENFELD was ok. Still it all boils down to writing and while the show claims to be based on Margaret's stand-up comedy, it falls rather flat and it's pretty obvious that this was a studios vision/version of what life was like for a young Asian American woman growing up in the U.S.rather than her own more personal view which she tells in her stand-up.

Plus, c'mon...her character's mom in this series is not the mom we all heard about when Margaret's on stage. On stage Margaret portrays her mother as warm, funny, and loving, but the actress on the show portrays her as cold, stern, and frustrated. This is sad because you can tell that everyone cast on the show is so talented, with special kudos going to the actors playing her dad (Clyde Kusatsu) and her grandmother (Amy Hill). Had they taken two steps back and reconsidered how they portrayed Margaret's relationship with her mother, I think this could have been a much better show.

So for a show that didn't last longer than a season, there are tons of interesting guest stars to look out for. David Cross, Quentin Tarantino (in an episode totally inspired by PULP FICTION), Jack Black, and, yes, Oprah.

The DVD collection of the show includes the entire series, commentary on four episodes with Margaret Cho and Amy Hill, a documentary on the show featuring interviews with the cast, and the final episode of ALL-AMERICAN GIRL which also acted as a pilot for a possible spin-off show featuring Air America Radio's Sam Seder and THE DREW CARY SHOW's Diedrich Bader as Margaret's new roommates in a FRIENDS-ish kind of direction.

So unless you are a Margaret Cho completist or a sitcom addict, I'd have a hard time recommending this series to purchase, but it does hide some gems in addition to being a television milestone so that's always something to keep in mind when deciding to go to the dvd store or the rental shop.

Oh, modern day porn... Some of you who have followed us since the days of No-Fi "Magazine" on paper may remember that we often featured reviews of silly porn flicks from the 70s. I think the only two modern porn flicks we ever reviewed were the films for Mondo Family Films that I did the box cover design for. By that time, I had already given up on the kitchiness of modern day porn. The films from Mondo Family Films...well, I'm not even sure that they were making porn for people from this planet. (Cool people to work for though.)

So anyway, This is one of three flicks sent to us from VCA. One of which, Neu Wave Hookers, we are going to talk about heavily in the next issue. This film, like that one, is directed to Eon McKai (whose name he took from the lead singer of MINOR THREAT who I've heard isn't too happy about it) and is part of a new wave of porn featuring gals and guys who don't look like your typical porn stars and more like people you'd find on Suicide Girls or Myspace. (Actually I think you CAN find these people on Myspace.)

So the first thing that strikes me IS the DVD cover. It has the "gonzo" look of most modern porn flicks at first glance, but when you look more closely, it's really not typical at all. Actual thought went into designing the cover and to be blunt it looks like something one of my friends who graduated from Art Center would have designed. Even the back cover which features hardcore photos is interesting... In fact I think this is the first time I ever thought that the BAR CODE looked cool on a package. The text, the hand written lettering, and even the logo for the film look cool.

Even when you put the DVD in, it seems different from what you'd expect to see. The DVD menus are interesting too. No moaning and groaning. Cool stationary shots of something in a room or a bed of plants make up the menu backgrounds with paper cutout text to select on top. I like it. Mind you, I'm totally a nrrrd for design.

This film itself does seem different than what I know modern porn films to be. In the film we follow art school student Mia (played by Keiko) who has a car crash fetish not unlike the characters in the Cronenberg (and superior) film called Crash. We don't really get to know this side of her beyond the fact that she has sex with her friend (played by Lili Anne who has a very strange piercing above her front teeth) after finger fun turns into a car wreck. After this scene we are introduced to the art school in question where we learn she spends her time fantasizing about her perverted (and sweaty) teacher and classmates. She also finds time to do the dirty stuff with her Jungle music fan friend (whose dancing in the film creeps me out like that gal in the car commercial parodied on the Chapelle Show) and some emo guy who ends up pie faced in a pretty funny shot after she returns the favor given to her.

I definitely appreciate the new approach taken for this kind of film, but having seen so many crazy old porn flicks from before my time, I know it's still missing something. Because of costs and probably chasing after talent that fits in this kind of film, there really is no strong story structure here. The sex scenes are just way too long so somebody like me who fast-forwards through those scenes only ends up with minutes of dialogue between the sex. The first film I did art for in this genre had long sex scenes too which seemed to go on forever, BUT it had a funny story to keep fans of weird and strange cinema interested too. Most of the gals in this film ARE cute, but when you listen to the film with commentary you realize that Keiko's real personality would have made the film stronger had her character been developed a little more.

Yes I realize I'm talking about a porno here and not The Great Gatsby, but you know - hey, it does have plenty going for it. The cinematography is good. I like the way they play with different types of video imagery (in lieu of film). Over all this film runs circles and circles around any other film by most other directors working today in porn. I'm also glad he refuses to work with women who have mangled their bodies with plastic surgery. The time for that is gone. Sure old creepy men who like to see women mess themselves up don't care, but I like to hope that most people do.

In fact you can see examples of exactly what I'm talking about in the trailers included in the extras of other films (where I spied two actresses who worked on the films I did designs for). Other extras on this disc feature a funny behind the scenes video, actress bios, scene selections with funny descriptions. Perhaps the best extra on this DVD is the free MP3s of the actually pretty good soundtrack featuring THE DOES, TERMINAL 11, EDIT, LIBYTHTH, WHOMAN, and more that you find when you put the disc in your computer. The soundtrack of the next film I review by Eon McKai even features bands that have been interviewed or reviewed in No-Fi "Magazine" and have even played live on No-Fi "Radio"!!! That is so crazy! Look for that review the 3rd week of March!

So to sum up Art School Sluts...lots and lots of sex (maybe too much), interesting direction, pretty girls, and guys who don't look like typical porn star guys.

(chris beyond created no-fi "magazine
and has met the real harvey the wallbanger.)

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CRY_WOLF
starring Julian Morris, Lindy Booth, Jon Bon Jovi, Jared Padalecki
directed by Jeff Wadlow, Color, , 2005

Distributed by MCA Home Video
DVD Reviewed By: Taryn

Cry_Wolf is the debut feature film by Jeff Wadlow which was paid for with the million dollar prize he and his co-writer won in a short film contest. The film played for a short time in theatres and is now available on DVD.

The opening scene of Cry_Wolf looked to be groan-inducingly generic.  Attractive girl, chased through (severely underlit) woods by a big, masked someone. She trips, hurts her ankle but drags herself behind a tree and manages to shut up and hide.  
Then, an appreciable twist: the hunter whips out his cell phone, dials...and the girl’s cell rings, giving her hidey-hole away.  Bang, dead.
 
Cut immediately to the movie proper and ostensible protagonist: Owen (Brit kid exiled to this tony, tiny college prep after his ouster from several schools across the pond.)  He kindly exposits this for the audience when he meets Dodger (her mom was a Dickens scholar …)
 
No time is wasted before meeting the meat – call them the Liar’s Club.  That night, Owen’s roommate Tom invites him to the old chapel where the Bennetton ad-friendly group meet to play ‘their’ game.  There’s a moderator – Dodger, natch – a Wolf and sheep.  There’s a pot to be won, either by the sheep who correctly guesses the Wolf’s identity or the Wolf, if he/she escapes detection.

So basically, they’re playing Mafia.
 
Dodger picks “the new guy”, who easily wins, telling them they all have “tells” when they lie that they don’t notice since they’re so close-knit.  He goes home with the kitty but disgruntled new friends.
 
Dodger mulls that over and decides they play a new game: acting as a team, they’ll lie to the whole school.  Their medium – the Internets.  The group eagerly fleshes out the “townie’s” (did John Hughes write this?) recent murder in the woods into a serial killer’s agenda.  Everyone jumps in with gruesome scenarios – featuring each other as the victims-to-be (shown in quick flashes.)  Randall, the “self-mutilator” is left in the old chapel to exsanguinate.  The dimbulb, vaguely slutty Latina (standing in for the typical blonde), Mercedes, is so self-absorbed, admiring herself in the mirror, that she doesn’t realize she’s being snuck up on by the killer.  That suggestion comes from her token (and dreadlock’d) boyfriend.  And so on.
 
With friends like these …
 
Their e-mail spreads, in a nifty they-tell-two-friends-and-so-on divvying up of the screen, until the pixels meld together to form the killer’s back.  
 
Cue the only “name” in the cast – Jon Bon Jovi – as a bespectacled, tweed-jacket-with-elbow-patches journalism professor.  There’s an odd scene where he invites Owen to play chess and warns him that sending hoax e-mails could get him shipped to the headmaster’s office.  
 
Suspicions begin to mount amongst the ‘friends’ when threatening IMs from “The Wolf” pop up, rooms are trashed, people go missing, knives are planted.  
 
Owen IMs the group, calling them to the old chapel to “finish the game.”  Accusations fly.  Who trashed Tom’s side of the room?  The obvious answer would be Owen, but Dreads cops to that – he wanted to put a scare in Owen.  Tom asks why his PC was trashed.  Dreads: “I was in character.”  
 
Dodger storms out – but not before swearing that her desktop romance with Dr. BJ is over.  The kiss Owen saw was “forced.”  She even infers to Owen that more than a kiss was forced …
 
Dreads calls Mercedes, who skipped the group meeting. She tells him she’s in her skivvies and he requests a camera-phone pic (best line of the movie: “It’s Phone Sex 2.0!”)
 
When he gets it he sees someone behind her. Tom bursts in in time to join Dreads in listening to Mercedes’ death screams.  They call campus police (not 911?) who stall, figuring it ties in with the hoax e-mail baloney.
 
Back at the chapel, Regina (heretofore unremarkable Asian lass) notices blood on her sweatshirt. And there’s Randall, bled out, in a confession booth.
 
I’ll leave you here, sans spoilers.
 
A scene or two more of students discussing the murder or a student outside of the group getting killed (wrong-place-wrong-time) was desperately needed to set a better, fear- and tension-soaked mood.  

The gore was minimal (despite this being the unrated version), the kills shown in flashes (a la Saw, ugh) and in grainy, sped-up Mtv-o-vision.  Double ugh.
 
Bonus features include:

• Two short films made by the filmmakers prior to Cry_Wolf, including the one that won them the budget of this film.  Short synopsis on both: godawful cinematic wanking.
• Two deleted scenes, which should’ve stayed in the movie.
• A set tour, led by the sonambulating actor who played Owen.
• Casting, or rather filmed auditions.  Yawn.  Even the ironic commentary, wherein the filmmakers proclaim to hate teen-scream movies cast with 30-year olds, fails to enliven this.

(Taryn is a contributing writer to no-fi "magazine
and sometimes poses for our covers too.)

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THE HILLS HAVE EYES
starring Aaron Stanford, Vinessa Shaw, Kathleen Quinlan, Dan Byrd
directed by Alexandre Aja, Color, , 2006

Distributed by Fox Searchlight
Film Reviewed By: Chris Beyond

A family travels across the country in a trailer, only to take a wrong turn in the middle of nowhere where they find themselves attacked by mutant cannibals.

We've seen this movie before... We really have. And yet we haven't.

This is the remake of THE HILLS HAVE EYES which was originally directed by Wes Craven (A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET) in 1977. That film was never a huge hit, but is certainly a cult classic. It took this ordinary all American family and placed it in the middle of an impossible situation where every step the took was punished by something terrible happening to them in the opposite direction. Much like his previous film THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, this was "porno" for horror fans. This makes sense because Wes, much like many people in Hollywood, started out in the adult film industry. In those two films (and most films in the horror genre since), sexual penetration is replaced by deadly sharp or blunt object penetration. A good example of this would be the Tina death scene in the beginning of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. It takes place in bed, You see her being penetrated by Freddy's finger knives, and it ends when body fluids fly all over the place.

This new version of THE HILLS HAVE EYES is directed by French director Alexandre Aja whose last horror film HIGH TENSION garnered much deserved praise for its excellent balance of style, story, horror...and, well,
tension.

Having seen the film at an advanced press screening I have to say I was very surprised. Recent remakes of horror films from the 70s like THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and DAWN OF THE DEAD were "ok" but not a really good "ok" if you know what I mean. They should have renamed that first film THE TEXAS SHERRIFF MASSACRE. I love R. Lee Ermey and everything, but c'mon. And do I really need to explain why the new DAWN OF THE DEAD paled in comparison to the original?

Get it? "Paled"... Zombie movie...? Forget it.

Well, I am happy to announce that the new version of THE HILLS HAVE EYES is on equal ground with the original. And when it comes to scenes of violence and gore, I think it even TOPS the original. Maybe you don't understand what I'm saying. I LOVE the original. LOVE IT! And yet this film has been able to do what the other recent remakes failed to do; actually capture the spirit of the original. The other films reek of dollar signs. This film actually feels like the people involved in the production really liked the original. Perhaps it helps that Wes Craven is a producer on this new version. Characters are actually developed in this film!!! (Ok, the mutant family actually take a step back and to the side, but more on that later.)

It is so refreshing that the studios figured out why the original worked and used that as the bible for this film. I really expected this to be a remake in name only more along the lines of WRONG TURN...which in it's own way was trying to be a remake of the original THE HILLS HAVE EYES. Now I realize that some of you liked WRONG TURN. It had moments.  But it also pulled back the camera when scenes got too rough, This film doesn't do that.

In fact, again, I was surprised how much they were able to get away with in this film with a R rating in this day and age of religion in politics. I hope you like pickaxes, because you are going to be very familiar with them by the end of this film...even in the beginning of the film, really.

But I'll tell you the secret as to why the scary scenes in this film worked... Because you really do care about the characters! Why do so many horror films go out of their way to make you dislike the characters to the point where you know they are going to be killed? The characters in this film are people who DO have flaws, but you still like them. The patriarch of the family is an NRA card carrying Republican whose family scoffs at the oldest daughter's cell phone salesman / obsessively whining husband. The mother tries to hold the family together. The son is likeable, but obviously his dad's favorite. The oldest daughter, fresh from having a baby (traveling with them), finds herself in the middle of her dad and husband while the youngest daughter is annoyed to be stuck in the desert when they could have already been in California.

Everything is turned on its head when they are given bad directions by a strange gas station attendant which sends them into harm's way. This is when they start to meet the mutants of the desert hills. These people were created when their forefathers decided not to leave their mining town when the US Government was still conducting above ground atomic testing nearby. They're also not very friendly. I doubt any of you would invite them to a party.

So you know how it goes... The mutants stalk the family, who after a car "accident" in the middle of this particular nowhere, are trapped in this situation. Things go from bad to worse when they are methodically murdered one by one until the survivors decide to take a stand. Yes, we've seen this before,...but it's how it is done that makes it so different.

The action can go from a slow burn to shaky cam action, but I found that the best shots came when the camera stayed still. The cinematography is really beautiful, as is the desert (which was shot in Morocco). The screen is often filled with contrasts of red from desert to blood. The actors are believable with special kudos to Aaron Stanford as the whining husband and Dan Byrd as the son. Where I think this film pulled back from the original is the dynamics of the mutant family. In fact we barely even get to see the head of that clan, Pappa Jupiter. They also no longer all go by names of Roman gods. Yes, we still have Pluto. He certainly isn't as good as the original and always excellent Michael Berryman in that role, but carries his own. Actually the new Pluto make-up really reminded me of Sloth from THE GOONIES.

And for you fans of the original, the main family in danger is still called the Carter family and, yes, they still have two dogs who lose no character in this new version as well.

So if you haven't guessed by now, I fully recommend this movie for all horror fans. In fact I demand that all studios thinking about doing another 70s remake see this film to learn how it should be done. If I had the power, I'd cut the last few seconds of the film before release but that's a minor quibble with a film that I enjoyed so much, I plan to see it again when it is released in theatres everywhere on March 10th, 2006.

I've seen this movie before...and I'm going to see it again...again.

(Chris Beyond is the creator no-fi "magazine
and knows to fear the desert sun most of all.)

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JARHEAD
starring Jake Gyllenhall, Peter Sarsgaard, Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper
directed by Sam Mendes, Color, , 2005

Distributed by Universal
DVD Reviewed By: Chris Beyond

Once upon a time, a man named George Bush sent our soldiers to the Middle East to fight the army of a man named Saddam Hussein who was once financed by the country now fighting him. This was the very early nineties and it was a war that we won in a very short time. Well, we won it for the time being.

Jarhead is the film based on the book of the same name about the author's experiences during that war and is directed by American Beauty's Sam Mendes. It's a look inside the mind of the modern Marine, the reality of modern warfare, and what can happen when that reality collides with what they were trained to do.

In the film we follow Anthony Swofford (aka "Swoff" played by Donnie Darko's Jake Gyllenhall) through basic training, through the sniper program, and into Kuwait where the film spends most of its time. Through him we learn what it was like to be in that particular war where most of the soldiers saw little to no action on the battlefield as outgunned enemy soldiers surrendered left and right after the first shots rang out. In effect the film reveals itself not to be a war movie as we know it, but as a film about waiting for something to happen. Thus, perhaps, this is the most accurate film about the Kuwait war to date. Sorry Three Kings. I don't think most soldiers were searching for treasure over there.

What it does seem like is that what soldiers really wanted (apart from staying alive) was to see some action. Modern combat and a technologically inferior enemy found our soldiers trying to play catch up with the tanks and planes that were already winning the war for us. And in the months before the actual combat, the film shows our soldiers practically going crazy from all the waiting. In the film we see Swoff demoted after trading his nightwatch shift to attend a Christmas party wearing only a thong and a Santa cap, after which threatening to kill the soldier that got him in trouble at gunpoint. We see soldiers forced to play football in the hot dessert sun in full gas mask gear for news cameras. And we see the horrors of dessert latrine duty. (Gasp!)

When the war begins is when these same soldiers begin to realize that the battle they have been preparing for mentally and physically may end before they get a chance to fight in it. Can a soldier be a soldier if he doesn't have a chance to fight when there is an obvious war going on just miles away?

I liked this film, but I have to say that I'm not really big on war films. David 1X had a chance to view this film before me and he loved war films, but didn't like this film so much. Something to keep in mind when deciding to buy or rent this film. Just to be safe, you might want to try a rental first.

The DVD of the film comes in two editions. A normal one disc edition with the standard commentary (actually TWO commentary tracks), deleted scenes, and trailers. The two disc collectors edition has a lot more behind the scenes material as well as a look at the lives of actual soldiers. One surprising thing to come out of the deleted scenes and commentary shows how Hollywood can manipulate the audience at will. In the film we never learn that much about the character played by Peter Sarsgaard. Through the commentary we learn that aspects of his character were cut down in order to make him seem more "mysterious". For example the reason for his character knowing he'll be kicked out of the Marines when they return home. Or the reason behind what happens to him at the end of the film. The film had valid explanations for this that were pretty simple, but the director decided to axe them. What I got from that was that they felt that this character wasn't strong enough so they cut him down in order to make him stronger. It sounds like it shouldn't make sense, but it does.

So Jarhead is an interesting film and certainly relevant for the current conflict going on in Iraq, Afghanistan, and..uh...all of the Middle East, pretty much. I can definitely recommend it, but perhaps not to diehard war movie fans who like to see constant blood and guts everywhere.

Jarhead will be available everywhere on DVD on March 7th.