‘Suspiria’: An Exercise in Arthouse Existentialism

Director Luca Guadagnino’s interpretation of Suspiria, Dario Argento’s 1977 cult-classic, supernatural horror film, is ambitious, overstuffed, and dazzlingly convoluted—in other words, it’s brilliant. The film—as an overarching metaphor for insurrection and the transference of power—works on almost every level and establishes itself as less a remake and more a companion piece to Argento’s classic.

Guadagnino’s take is set against the riotous backdrop of a wall-divided, post-war Germany circa 1977, terror-ravaged by Red Army Faction bombings and background news reports chronicling the hijacking of a commercial airliner. Into this sociopolitical bedlam—which is largely superfluous to the film’s narrative—enters Susie (Dakota Johnson), a talented but inexperienced dancer (and former Mennonite) from Ohio who shows up at a legendary all-female dance company in Berlin for a long-shot audition. As luck would have it, a roster spot has opened up after another dancer goes MIA, and her subsequent impromptu audition draws both the attention and tacit approval of the company’s enigmatic artistic director Madame Blanc (the unrivaled Tilda Swinton in yet another memorable role…or three). The preternaturally gifted Susie quickly ascends the ranks as Blanc's protégé, earning her the role of the protagonist in the company’s upcoming recital of Volk, which we quickly surmise has all manner of consequential otherworldly implications.

While most of the hallmarks of Dario Argento’s original giallo are present and accounted for, Guadagnino and screenwriter David Kajganich add a new character named Dr. Josef Klemperer, who is introduced in the updated film’s first few minutes. One of the elderly psychotherapist’s patients is a student from the dance academy named Patricia (whose mania is played well by Chloe Grace Moretz) who rants about a coven of witches that controls Markos Dance Academy and the evil of “the Three Mothers”—a witch mythology Argento refashioned from the writings of Thomas de Quincey—in a nice meta-tribute to Argento’s original trilogy. Klemperer—haunted by the wife he lost in World War II and stricken with an all-consuming survivor's guilt—is particularly invested in helping Patricia. The character is played by a first-time actor credited as Lutz Ebersdorf—but it’s largely known now that the role is played by Swinton in drag. There could be much said here about Guadagnino’s choice with this bit of stunt casting in terms of feminist themes and gender fluidity, but the casting largely misfires because he’s generously peppered the entire film with so much thematically elsewhere. One legacy of the reimagined Suspiria that’s a given: The film will give film scholars and other academics years of material to dissect.

On the surface, Suspiria is an odd choice for the Italian director after the blockbuster success of his plaintive coming-of-age romance of last year’s sublime Call Me by Your Name. Trading in the sun-dappled Italian vistas of his previous film for the darker muted tones of the grittier, concrete jungle of post-war Berlin here, Guadagnino—aided by the superb camerawork of cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom—creates a purposeful contradiction to the Technicolor palette and deep jewel tones of Argento’s original. He opts for a severe and dispiriting look, its colorlessness periodically punctuated by vivid slashes of blood red to excellent dramatic effect. Mukdeeprom’s abrupt, purposefully clumsy whip-zooms charging toward the actors and the unexpected acceleration of cuts during otherwise unhurried scenes lends the film an authentic 1970s aesthetic that unites the two set design approaches.

Argento’s original Suspiria vision established tone largely through set design; Guadagnino opts to use dramatic choreography (mad props to choreographer Damien Jalet) to establish mood and escalate tension. Early on in the film, there’s a gut-churningly intense set-piece in which Susie’s feverish Salome-esque dance for Madame Blanc is juxtaposed against another dancer—whose attempt to flee the academy is thwarted by witchery—whose body is tossed around an adjacent dance studio and contorted in the most unearthly ways until she’s nothing but a protuberance of broken, misplaced bones. Aided by Walter Fasano’s precision-point editing, the scene is a strikingly gross yet captivatingly poetic bit of body horror.

Likewise, Guadagnino opts to choose his own fork in the road instead of following Argento down the same path he took with the original film’s score. That score—by Italian prog-rock band Goblin—was an intense wall of sound that blended screaming guitars, synthesizers, and wordless vocals to create an almost-deafening sound that matched the off-kilter, horror-schlock ambiance and garish visuals of Argento’s film. For his Suspiria, Guadagnino counters by engaging Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, who ably captures the idea of descending into madness with his intricately languorous and brooding updated score.

Suspiria ’18 is a bold revisionist interpretation of Argento’s unassailable masterpiece, a refreshingly challenging film infused with an almost existentialist sense of dread. It’s a hypnotic exploration of the catharsis of female rage in which witches cast their spells through dance and, in the end, the ugliness of destruction is offset by the beauty of unexpected absolution. It’s a film that demands repeat viewings, if only to unpack its layers of themes. Loyalists are certain to appreciate Guadagnino’s inclusion of a touching cameo by Jessica Harper (the original film’s heroine) but fans expecting jump scares and a clean, linear narrative should look elsewhere; Guadagnino’s modern re-telling is a dense and cerebral slice of arthouse that’s as satisfyingly trippy as the original in its own right.

Back to the Boiler Room in ‘Nightmare’

Remakes: The much-abhorred pariahs of the current cinematic landscape, a trend that won’t seem to die despite scathing critical and fan reception. But, if opening weekend box office receipts for the reboot of the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET franchise are any indication, it’s a trend that’s here to stay – for awhile, at least.

I think I’ve been quite even-tempered about horror remakes, neither overly extolling their virtue nor proclaiming them to be the end of the world. That said, they’re starting to wear on my nerves a bit. The ones that work are the ones that take on lesser-known films or those that were so poorly made to begin with that the only way is up. Conversely, those that don’t work well are the ones that attempt to take on films that were pretty damn good to begin with. Some are a direct hit-or-miss for me. Rob Zombie’s reimagining of HALLOWEEN – hit; reboot of FRIDAY THE 13TH – miss. Three-dimensional slasher fun of MY BLOODY VALENTINE – hit; SyFy Channel remake of CHILDREN OF THE CORN – colossal, embarrassing miss. Inbred depravity of THE HILLS HAVE EYES – hit; teenage depravity of PROM NIGHT – miss. And until Hollywood takes heed and starts choosing films thatcould actually benefit from a second pass (See The Five Slasher Remakes You Meet in Heaven for my own inspired suggestions), I suspect there will be more misses than hits in the foreseeable future. Still, there are other remakes that fall somewhere in between for me – BLACK CHRISTMAS, SORORITY ROW, THE HITCHER, WHEN A STRANGER CALLS, THE STEPFATHER, THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT. Neither hit nor miss, these remakes found a way to playfully toy with their source material just enough for me to find some redemptive value despite their other more obvious shortcomings.

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET will fall squarely into this latter category, leaning slightly more toward a bona fide misfire (due mainly to the original film’s iconic standing in horror film history) but possessing a few saving-grace elements of a hit. Based faithfully on Wes Craven’s groundbreaking film of the same name from 1984, this newfangled NIGHTMARE finds equally celebrated Freddy Krueger – spectral child killer extraordinaire – once again dream-stalking the children of a group of vigilante parents who killed him. Again, the parents (BLUE STEEL’S Clancy Brown, FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS’ Connie Britton) remain secretive while the teenagers attempt to stay awake at all costs, with Freddy methodically hunting each of the Elm Street children in dreams that take them back to a pre-school where he molested them years before.

Although the boiler room, red- and green-striped sweater, and the legendary blade-tipped glove are all back and on full display, director Samuel Bray brings little, if anything, new or innovative to the proceedings. The film is competently shot and visually slick, but there’s just a dreamy feeling of going-through-the-motions throughout that makes this one a bit of a snoozefest. One of the more fascinating aspects of any remake for me is the filmmakers’ choices of what stays and what goes. Here, screenwriters Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer (who genre fans will undoubtedly soon hate for his work on the upcoming remake of John Carpenter’s THE THING remake) opt to keep the victim pool relatively small as in Craven’s original, with several of the more infamous set pieces (such as the Johnny Depp “blood geyser” scene) left out while others (the bathtub/glove between-the-legs shot, the levitation/flaying scene, and the jailhouse death) included.

So, those are the misses. How about the hits? Surprisingly, the one aspect of the film that I expected to be its strongest asset here – namely, the casting of comeback kid Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger – isn’t. Although props to Bray and company for refreshingly toning down Freddy’s campy sarcasm that we had to endure in the later original NIGHTMARE sequels and to the special effects team for Freddy’s decidedly more realistic burned face, Haley does yeoman’s work here, his voice sounding heavily filtered and monotone and about the farthest thing from sinister as one can get. Whereas Robert Englund found a way to bring his personality out through the role, Haley gets swallowed up in it, rendering him indistinguishable.

The film’s high points rest with a few members of the overall respectable cast. Although Rooney Mara never quite measures up to Heather Langenkamp as the new Nancy, Kyle Gallner (JENNIFER’S BODY, THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUTT) has enough of a unique screen presence to fill some of the void. (And, no, it has nothing to do with his on-screen appearance in a Speedo…OK, maybe a little!) Kellan Lutz (of TWILIGHT fame and PROM NIGHT remake infamy) shows up briefly (sadly, a missed opportunity to showcase his newly-acquired Calvin Klein underwear modeling skills).

But the real treat of the new NIGHTMARE is Katie Cassidy, who stands out as Kris (here in the Tina role from the original). Cassidy – who has been the shining light of the CW’s MELROSE PLACE reboot as Ella, a second-generation Heather Locklear – has positioned herself (whether intentionally or not) as a genuine scream queen, with roles in the remakes of both WHEN A STRANGER CALLS and BLACK CHRISTMAS, as well as a gig on last year’s ensemble slasher TV series HARPER’S ISLAND. In NIGHTMARE, Cassidy brings an authentic sense of fear to her role, from her blood-curdling scream in the film’s diner-set opening to her inevitable bedroom demise. It’s not often that you’ll hear me say something positive about the seemingly endless string of interchangeable star-harlots passing themselves off as young Hollywood, but Cassidy is the real deal and an actress to watch. It’s very clear from the expansion of the original character’s role here that the filmmakers knew they had something special in Cassidy – and wisely capitalized on it.

The new A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET plays it safe – safe enough not to inspire the wrath of loyalists like Rob Zombie did with Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN, but too safe to leave its mark as anything other than a pointless clone. If the intention of this NIGHTMARE update is to entice the new Red Bull generation onto Freddy’s playground, then, unfortunately, I suspect the film’s lack of distinguishing character and originality – that the original had in spades – will leave the monkey bars empty. Less enthralling than somewhat enjoyable, this new Freddy outing is more a mildly bad dream than full-blown nightmare.

‘The Stepfather’: Paternal Instincts of the Familiar Kind

One of the inherent problems with remakes – unless the creative forces behind them really veer from the source material (think John Carpenter’s THE THING) – is that the audience knows what’s coming. And when an audience walks into a theater with a good idea of how it will all pan out, logically, building suspense is an uphill battle. Such is the main problem with last year’s remake of THE STEPFATHER, an otherwise competent thriller whose main crime is familiarity.

Like its 1987 predecessor, the new and improved STEPFATHER concerns a psychopath (here played with deranged calm by NIP/TUCK’s Dylan Walsh) who has a penchant for loving and leaving (and butchering) entire families. Chameleon-like, our dangerous Daddy is just one pair of contact lenses and a box of Just For Men hair coloring away from his next set of victims. Following the prologue in which we see the aftermath of the titular character’s Christmas-time massacre of his current family, psycho pappy hits the road for Oregon where he quickly spies desperate divorcée Susan Harding (the always solid Sela Ward) and kids at the local grocery store. On cue, conversation and flirting ensue.

Flash forward six months, and stepfather-to-be has ingratiated himself into the Harding’s lives in tree-lined suburbia. But while young’uns Beth (Skyler Samuels) and Sean (Braeden Lemasters) take to the new paternal figure in their life, teenage son Michael (Penn Badgley) arrives home from military school with eyebrows and suspicions raised. And he’s not the only one. As the film progresses, those closest to the Harding family (the ex-husband, the concerned sister, the nosy feline-loving neighbor) also become suspicious of the man who’s got aversions to family photos and filling out his W-2 form — and that’s when the film’s respectable body count begins.

The whole thing comes to a head when Michael, with girlfriend Kelly (Amber Heard) in tow, uncovers the secret of the locked cabinets in the Harding house basement. If the whole thing sounds a bit like a Hardy Boys novel, well, it kind of is — right down to Badgley’s quasi-rebellious teen earnestness and the dark-and-stormy-night finale.

Acting is above-average here, with veterans Walsh and Ward ably aided by a recognizable supporting cast that includes Jon Tenney, Sherry (ER) Stringfield, and Paige Turco. Badgley, while lacking the qualities that endeared fans of the original to Jill Schoelen’s final girl, is an appealing enough ‘final guy’ — while Amber Heard is reduced to a clothing-challenged sidekick, spending the majority of the film’s running time in either her underwear or a bikini. Heard – who’s not unfamiliar to genre fare with roles in ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE and ZOMBIELAND already under her belt, while upcoming roles in AND SOON THE DARKNESS, THE WARD, and DRIVE ANGRY (from the team that brought audiences MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3-D) seem certain to cement her status as a bona fide scream queen – deserves better here than the film’s PG-13 T&A element.

Director Nelson McCormick and screenwriter J.S. Cardone both show marked improvement here over their last collaboration, 2008’s colossal PROM NIGHT misfire. McCormick’s direction hums along at an appropriately brisk pace, occasionally getting bogged down a bit by some extraneous bits of character exposition and dialogue in Cardone’s otherwise faithful treatment of Donald Westlake’s original screenplay.

Where THE STEPFATHER falters is in the lack of risk the creative team takes with the source material. There are very few variations on the original film, with killer Daddy escaping at film’s end and already chatting up his next family. Hey, if Rob Zombie decided that Michael Myers needed a backstory, couldn’t Cardone come up with something for David Harris? Getting to know the why behind this always-a-stepfather-never-a-Dad character has some serious potential, and almost feels somehow necessary considering the brutality of the character’s modus operandi. That would have been interesting. And any hints of freshness (including a few bits of homoeroticism between Walsh and well-pectoraled Badgley) are never fully realized. There are no surprises to be found here, no bit of originality that takes the film in a slightly different direction from the original. And a slight detour on a road less traveled would have made all the difference in this otherwise respectable slasher/thriller.

The Five Slasher Remakes You Meet in Heaven

So, Jeff Allard over at Dinner with Max Jenke recently posted “Five Slasher Remakes That MUST Happen Before the World Ends.” His choices were (in descending order): THE FUNHOUSE, THE BURNING, PIECES, THE PROWLER, and CURTAINS. Inspired choices indeed.

That got me thinking. If the dreaded remake is here to stay – at least for the immediate future – which slashers could actually benefit from a reimagining? So, feeling inspired by my fellow blogger’s fantasy list, I set out to compile my own.

5. MOTEL HELL

Even though there have been rumblings about this one for what seems like forever, I’m including it on my list because it’s been in development hell for several years now, its eventuality nothing close to a certainty just yet. And when I tell you my vision, you’re going to groan. Loudly.

Two words: Rob Zombie.

Think about it — the ultimate grindhouse version of one of the campiest, moodiest slasher films ever. Just picture Zombie’s take on Motel Hello and its characters — proprietors Farmer Vincent and sister Ida, Ivan and the Terribles, lecherous Sheriff Bruce, Biker Bo and final girl Terry, hookers Debbie and Suzi, swingers Edith and Bob, and Reverend Billy. Come on! This is one time that Zombie’s penchant for casting his buddies would actually work. Picture it: Karen Black as Ida? Sherri Moon-Zombie as hooker Debbie? Sid Haig as Ivan or Reverend Billy? Bill Moseley as Sheriff Bruce? Brad Dourif as Farmer Vincent? William Forsythe as swinging Bob? Dee Wallace or Priscilla Barnes as swinging Edie? Danny Trejo as Biker Bo? Lew Temple and EG Daily as two of the Terribles?

Who better to capture the seediness of a rural, out-of-the-way roadside motel? Imagine Zombie’s take on certain elements of the film: the psychedelic spiral wheel that’s used to hypnotize the throat-slit victims being harvested in Farmer Vincent’s secret garden or the scene where Vincent and Ida nitrous oxide the swingers or the cow-in-the-middle-of-the-road trap that the hapless hookers stumble upon and ensuing car chase or the final chainsaw showdown in the slaughter house.

Admit it. The Grand Guignol/heavy metal possibilities here are endless.

4. HUMONGOUS

Like the better known HELL NIGHT and THE FUNHOUSE, HUMONGOUS was one of the few sub-human slashers that had all the right elements – a good back story, a creepy isolated location, interesting character dynamics (by slasher standards anyway), and killer music – and an overall crappy execution. Indeed, the original is more known in slasher circles for its frustratingly dim lighting and what you can’t see more than the genuine sense of atmosphere PROM NIGHT director Paul Lynch was able to create.

Yes, a return to Dog Island is a must-see travel destination, complete with loony Ida’s Labor Day rape that spawns ‘ole Humongo, a pack of vicious dogs, a quintet of carefree, free-wheeling teens out for a pleasure cruise on Daddy’s yacht, a stranded boater adrift in a fog bank, destructive sibling rivalry, and blueberries. Lots of blueberries.

I can hear the bones snapping now.

3. SILENT SCREAM

An off-campus boardinghouse by the sea. A trio of college students. A dark family history. A secret staircase.

No, I’m not describing the plot from a Nancy Drew detective novel but rather the deliciously gothic elements of the oft-overlooked 1980 slasher SILENT SCREAM. This movie basically screams remake, and it’s got a small enough original audience balanced by just the right amount of name recognition to pique interest old and new alike. Plus, the film’s got some intergenerational appeal, with roles for an attractive ingénue or two, a fierce middle-age actress good at crazy, and a beloved veteran actress with a penchant for stern. (Who are your choices for old Mrs. Engels and her deranged daughter Victoria? I’m thinking that the sorely underrated Belinda Balaski is due for a comeback…)

2. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

That this one hasn’t already been fast-tracked for a remake is beyond me. It’s got source material that needs only minor tweaking —an updating of “the six most bizarre murders you’ll ever see” and perhaps a retooling of the mask-ripping finale. In addition, the whole “Crawford Academy Top Ten” fits perfectly with the GOSSIP GIRL generation’s obsession with social status. There’s the Agatha Christie-style mystery at its core, a large ensemble of characters to murder inventively, and the still surprisingly untapped concept of birthday parties as a backdrop.

One quick note to remake producers. I’ve got only three requisite nods to the original that must be included: Etienne must sniff the panties, Steve must deep-throat the shish kebab, and Winston must give Mrs. Patterson (better known as “mommy”) head.

1. CURTAINS

Like Mr. Allard, CURTAINS also tops my list of remake-musts. As I’ve written elsewhere, CURTAINS is an unpolished gem with a great, simple slasher set-up (a half-dozen actresses vying for a coveted movie role), terrific setting (an out-of-the-way mansion in snowy winter), decidedly frightening killer (old hag face), some creepy imagery (the eyeless doll standing in the middle of the rain-slicked road, arms outstretched) and some of the best murder set pieces ripe for the picking (ice skating, anyone?).

As I shared at Dinner with Max Jenke, I actually tried (unsuccessfully) for nearly two years to secure the remake rights to this film, first tracking it down through the Canadian company that held its international distribution rights and then to the American company that acquired its international catalog. I got so far as to connect with an attorney for the new company, but emails went unreturned and talks went nowhere.

My idea for the remake: the ultimate slasher geek’s dream. Same plot, only age the storyline with its audience. Six former scream queens (think mid- to late-40s) vying for a coveted role in a SCREAM-like slasher, with a seventh being duped by the lecherous director into spending time in an insane asylum for research. All converge on the mansion of the director and are quickly snowbound with the hag-faced killer from the original. Oh, the casting possibilities. Think of all the slasher gals from our youth who we’d like to reconnect with, leading off with CURTAINS alums Lesleh Donaldson (HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME, FUNERAL HOME) and Sandee Currie (TERROR TRAIN). Perhaps Jamie Rose (JUST BEFORE DAWN) or Amy Steel (APRIL FOOL’S DAY, FRIDAY THE 13TH, PART 2) or Anne-Marie Martin (PROM NIGHT, THE BOOGENS) or Linda Blair (HELL NIGHT) or Largo Woodruff (THE FUNHOUSE) or Adrienne King (FRIDAY THE 13TH) or Lenore Zann (VISITING HOURS, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME) or…

You get the point.

Return to 'Sorority Row'

With the slasher remake trend showing no signs of abating, those who count themselves among the weary (present company excluded, although the F13 remake somewhat tested my seemingly limitless tolerance for slasher crap) may take some comfort in what can be best described as a more logical change in the tide: moving away from retreads of the classics (Halloween, Friday the 13th, When a Stranger Calls) toward the more obscure. With a remake of Tobe Hooper's Funhouse just announced, looks like another worthy slasher redux is also on its way to a multiplex near you.

Sorority Row is a reimagining of The House on Sorority Row (1983), in which a sorority prank gone wrong gives rise to slasher mayhem and murder among the coed set. I have a soft spot for the original because of the frequent good natured debates I have with my friend Jodi (who co-starred in the film and graces one of the VHS covers) over what I swear is the dubbing of her voice - a claim she has categorically refuted in the past. (She's one of the interviewees in the forthcoming Butcher Knives & Body Counts anthology, so perhaps she'll finally fess up!).

In any event, the new film looks like one of those rare exceptions when a remake actually works, maybe even improves upon the original. Lots of cool imagery going on here - from its cloaked villian (and its shades of Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer) and its attractive cast of coed victims (Black Christmas 2006, anyone?) to the innocuous tire iron seemingly making its bid for iconic instrument of death status and the fun-with-a-capital-F appearance of Carrie Fisher sporting a shotgun and spouting lines you can just imagine a crowded theater of kids going crazy with nervous laughter and applause for. File this one under "Good times ahead."

SORORITY ROW Trailer in High-Definition

Movie Review: Friday the 13th (2009)

How many words are there in the English lexicon to denote bland? Uninspired? Lifeless? There probably aren’t enough to adequately convey the degree of mediocrity to the much-ballyhooed reboot of the iconic Friday the 13th franchise.

By now, anyone past potty-training age is familiar with the tale of Jason Voorhees, mongoloid drowning victim and casualty of his oversexed camp counselors’ indifference. He’s the hockey-masked psychopath with the really big machete and an even bigger Oedipal complex who’s made mince meat out of countless vice-engaging teens over the course of eleven films. Now, make that an even dozen.

Friday the 13th is a loose amalgamation of the first four Friday films, although the franchise’s second installment seems prevalent here. We’ve got a rushed pre-credit re-enactment of the infamous Alice/Mrs. Voorhees showdown during which Betsy Palmer’s stand-in (I mean, can we really call her anything else?) summarizes the thrust of the first film before losing her head. We’re then treated to a relatively effective extended prologue in which a group of sexed-up young folk on the hunt for a marijuana patch enter the hallowed perimeter of (wait for it) Camp Crystal Lake twenty years later. Jason comes, Jason kills.

Flash forward an additional six weeks and we’re introduced to carload #2 of over-sexed young folk on their way to the lakeside cabin of hoity-toity Trent (Travis Van Winkle). There’s the usual assortment of Jason fodder: the jokester, the token African-American, blonds with boobies, and an interchangeable stud or two for good measure (and extra kills). But, wait, this is a fusion of four films, so we’ve also got a nod to the Final Chapter with Clay Miller (Supernatural's Jared Padalecki) doing a door-to-door search for his younger sister Whitney (The Mentalist's Amanda Righetti), who’s seemingly among the victims from the prologue. Before you can say “Is Corey Feldman going to make a cameo?,” Jason comes and Jason kills. Only this Jason (played with relish by looming Derek Mears) is bigger, leaner, meaner, and faster. A lot faster.

The movie is equidistant between decent and abysmal, and it wears its mediocrity like drywall sports wallpaper in a doctor’s office. Although there are some inventive murder set pieces (the water skiing scene is particularly well-done), for all its speed and a production budget Cunningham and company would have killed for in the original 1980 film, the movie feels like it’s just plodding along. Director Marcus Nispel shows zero acumen for the slasher genre (leading one to believe that his arguably superior Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake was a fluke) and everything here comes across like he’s making a slasher film by how-to manual. There’s no heart, soul, or an ounce of energy anywhere to be found. Missed opportunities abound — from the criminally underused original score and summer camp setting to the confounding lack of a few well-placed winks to fans of the original (myriad actors assembled for the recent His Name Was Jason documentary and no one thought to give one of them a cameo? Come on, even Black Christmas managed to scare up Andrea Martin!). There’s also the mystifying addition of catacombs beneath Camp Crystal Lake, populated with more old collectibles than an episode of Antiques Roadshow. Jason the junk collector? Underground passageways beneath a summer camp for kids? Thirty years of films to cull from, build upon, and re-imagine, and this is what the filmmakers offer up? Even a diehard slasher fan (present company included) is going to balk.

It’s hard to review the new Friday the 13th without compare to that other high-profile slasher remake of late — Rob Zombie’s Halloween (2007). Say what you will about Zombie’s reimagining, but at least he had the guts to actually re-envision the source material. With Friday the 13th, Nispel merely re-edits. Whereas Zombie – for better or for worse – added to the Michael Myers mythos and expanded upon that iconic killer’s back story, Nispel and screenwriters Damian Shannon and Mark Swift offer nothing new, revised, expanded, or otherwise. It’s just another casual Friday at the office.

High Hopes & 'Bloody' Hearts

A glimmer of hope amongst the seemingly endless tide of 80's slasher remakes:



I was impressed by screenwriter Todd Farmer's passion for the project when I sat down and interviewed him over at Dark Scribe Magazine. It seems like all involved have (perhaps) made something worthwhile here. Plus, the film is in 3-D, but apparently using a new technology that really enhances the experience.

My Bloody Valentine 3-D opens in theaters on January 16, 2009.

Movie Review: April Fool's Day (2008)

There are reasons films skip theaters and are released directly to DVD. And while some decent films end up the poor stepchildren when film companies change hands, legitimately getting caught in a custody quagmire during the transition from one company to another, some languish endlessly on film studio shelves because they’re just plain bad. Worse, some studios cut their losses early when the powers-that-be realize they’ve got a bonafide turkey on their hands and skip right to our living rooms with their inferior product. April Fool’s Day falls squarely into the latter category.

Based on the 1986 slasher flick of the same name that seemingly endures despite its much-debated, love-it-or-hate-it ending, April Fool’s Day takes everything that made the original film work – a strong sense of setting, a believable camaraderie among the characters, an element of mystery, and a playfulness that never overshadowed the terror elements – and ditches it in favor of vapid cliché wrapped in a glossy, music video sheen. To say that the film has no substantive value as a work of horror would be kind, as this exercise in cinematic futility actually insults its intended viewers with its lifelessness.

Directed by Mitchell Altieri and Phil Flores, wisely credited here under their ambiguous collective alter-ego “The Butcher Brothers,” show no understanding of the source material, which even diehards of the original film would admit had room for improvement. Instead, they opt for 91 minutes of excruciatingly bad dialogue and a convoluted mess of a plot that exists solely to showcase a seemingly intrinsic lack of aptitude for suspense and terror. It’s hard to figure out if the filmmakers were shooting for post-Scream satire or an old-school slasher here because the film I saw delivers neither. Chalk this up as a bonafide sophomore slump for the directors of the sorta-highly-acclaimed indie The Hamiltons, which won both the Santa Barbara and Malibu International Film Festivals and was selected for inclusion in After Dark Films’ inaugural HorrorFest as one of “8 Films to Die For” back in 2006.

In the agonizingly long prologue that overstays its welcome like an obnoxious dinner guest, a bunch of bluebloods with impossibly pretentious names like Blaine and Torrance and Milan gather on the titular holiday at the elegant, Dynasty-esque mansion of fellow snooty princess Desiree Cartier (Taylor Cole, who’s seriously channeling Tiffani-Amber Thiessen here) for an annual debutante ball reserved for only the uppermost-crust of North Carolina society. Convenient calendar designation not withstanding, Desiree’s got something of a penchant for pranks and practical jokes – and not those of the plastic dog doo-doo or whoopee cushion variety either, but rather the scandalous, reputation-ruining sex tape sort. Twenty-five minutes and one ill-advised roofie later, one of the interchangeable well-to-dos goes headfirst over a convenient balcony and the requisite revenge motive is established.

Flash forward (not forward enough, mind you) one year, and the well-to-dos receive an ominous summons (even the calligraphy font eschews all sense of dread!) to gather at the dead well-to-do’s gravesite. There they receive a package and a warning (allegedly from the dead well-to-do herself) that unless someone fesses up to the slipped roofie that caused her demise, the blood will start flowing like vintage champagne. And just so her fellow well-to-do’s know she means business from beyond the grave (or maybe because she knows we live in an age of crippling skepticism), the dead well-to-do includes a video of a Perez Hilton wannabe from their tawdry little group drowning in his swimming pool. Sadly, there is little blood flowing or a modicum of tension in what follows.

What does follow is a bland succession of “kills” that lead up to the penultimate reveals (plural – remember, these guys are clever) of who’s really behind the “carnage” and why – which is what you’ll be asking yourself as the credits finally start to roll. Stage 6, the company behind the distribution of this piece of unadulterated dreck, should be sued for fraud, advertising an “Unrated” edition of what boils down to a tame PG-13 level of gore and adult content. That longtime producer Frank Mancuso Jr. (who produced both the original April Fool’s Day as well as several films in the Friday the 13th franchise among others) would attach his name to this project shows that even legendary producers get hard up for cash sometimes.

Skip this uninspired slasher redux and watch the original, flaws intact, instead. Guaranteed it’ll be more fun creating a worthy remake in your own head than to sit through this.