Evil Dead was a movie that changed how I viewed movies. No longer was I bound by strict genre categories and high budget sensibilities. Evil Dead and its sequels proved that a horror movie can be funny, and a love story can be dramatic and filled with action all without a huge budget.
The trilogy is a pop culture phenom with a highly dedicated fanbase, and if you haven’t seen it, you’ve heard it quoted at some point in your life. When news dropped that it would be receiving a sequel/remake, fans were understandably concerned. Sure, we all wanted to see Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell return to the series that catapulted them to stardom (at least in my eyes), but only if done in the right way.
One of the last films completed under the old MGM leadership (the other being Red Dawn, and both starring Thor) the release of this movie had been delayed several times, originally slated for wide release on February 5, 2010 – it has now been announced that it will come out April (Friday) the 13th, 2012. And let me just say – it’s about fricking time.
On December 18th, 1966, CBS debuted How the Grinch Stole Christmas on televisions everywhere. Since this was the year that my dad was born, I had to wait a few years to see it. When I did finally watch this hilarious cartoon, I loved it, and have ever since.
Narrated by horror legend Boris Karloff, this timeless movie (based off the 1957 book) tells the story of a grumpy recluse who hates Christmas. Not only does the Grinch hate Christmas, but all the singing and happiness that goes along with it. For this reason, he wants to get rid of it all together. So he does what any self-respecting Grinch would do, he decides to steal Christmas!
So Mr. Grinch goes around to all of the houses in the town of Whoville at night dressed as Santa Claus, and with his dog dressed like a reindeer, and he steals everything from Christmas trees to cans of ‘Who Hash’.
The next morning, as the Grinch awakes to witness the aftermath of his evening of cruelty, he instead hears every Who in Whoville singing. Despite the disappearance of their Christmas dinners and tress and presents and lights, the Whos were still singing.
This is when he realized that even though they didn’t have Christmas gifts or Christmas dinner, the Whos were still filled with love and the Christmas spirit. His heart which was once two sizes too small grew three times larger and he was filled up with the spirit of the holiday, at which point he then returns all of the Christmas gifts, and is even invited to carve the roast beast at dinner. He is a changed man. Er…Grinch.
How the Grinch Stole Christmas is, and always will be, one of the greatest Christmas movies to watch. It is a classic, and deserves a 5/5.
I feel like the entire film industry is beginning to revolve around pop culture. Now, this isn’t anything new, I know, but that doesn’t mean that it still isn’t frightening, with franchises that run for anywhere from five years (TwilightSaga) to 50 years (James Bond films). The surprising thing, though, is how much money these franchises make. Franchises like the Harry Potter films are in the multi-billions, as are franchises like Twilight and the James Bond movies.
The era of found footage films is in full flux right now. The surprisingly successful Paranormal Activity series, which has grossed almost $300 million dollars domestically, or The Blair Witch Project that grossed over $154 million dollars are both prime examples of this phenomena (no pun intended). Found footage films are successful because to be honest, they’re scary as hell, whether you want to believe it or not. It’s not always such a conscious recognition of the fear, but you have to admit that after you watch a Paranormal Activity movie, you tend to find yourself double-taking a little more than you usually do.
Recently, a film called Grave Encounters, which garnered positive reception at the Tribeca Film Festival, hit On-Demand as well as video stores soon after its initial festival run. The film, which was directed by The Vicious Brothers (who are neither brothers nor have the last name Vicious) for under $500,000, follows a camera crew who host a show called Grave Encounters, an intentional spoof of the popular show, Ghost Adventures. They decide to do what’s called a lock-down, a familiar procedure among fans of Ghost Adventures. The location? An abandoned mental institution that still maintains upkeep for some unknown reason. I presumed tours at first, but since there was no mention of this, I had nothing to go off.
The show, which is hosted by ghost expert Lance Preston (Sean Rogerson) and teched by his crew T.C. (Merwin Mondesir), Matt (Juan Riedinger), and Sasha (Ashleigh Gryzko), was in the middle of filming its first season when they decided to shoot in the location. Accompanied by “ghost expert” Houston Gray (Mackenzie Gray), the crew gets ready to go nowhere for an entire night of the hauntings that await them.
Grave Encounters makes it very clear that the entire “paranormal television” era is completely a sham, and that even the cast and crew don’t believe what they’re filming, which makes what they’re encountering that much more surprising. For the first 45 or so minutes, nothing too crazy happens. Tension is built amateurishly and then given up on just as quickly. If you decide to go and watch this movie, get used to the whole “so-much-tension-for-nothing” feel of the movie, because that’s the entire movie. In fact, anything resembling a good scare happens in the last half hour, and if you watched the first twenty minutes, and then skipped it to about 55 minutes, you really wouldn’t miss anything, I promise.
At 95 minutes, Grave Encounters is actually a tad longer than most other found-footage films, but half as scary, and most of the time, twice as boring. As I mentioned before, nothing scary happens until the last 30 minutes, and even then, it’s not the kind of scary that stays with you for weeks and weeks upon end, but rather a more instant jump followed by possibly a nervous giggle, and then it’s completely forgotten mere minutes later. The directors, who also penned the script, set up every scare so uniformly that when the punchline to this bad joke finally comes, you feel like it’s something you’ve heard, or in this case, seen, a million times before.
That’s not to say that Grave Encounters doesn’t have its moments. The surprisingly committed performance by the lead, Sean Rogerson, drives the film very well. He plays the part of the “ghost expert” perfectly, investing us into the story as he would in an episode of his show. The rest of the cast falters in comparison, though, except for Juan Riedenger, who plays Matt, the most Canadian character in this horror film made north of the border. His eventual slip into deep psychosis is enough reason to watch this movie for just that alone.
The lack of believable acting is what sets this film and other films like it (Paranormal Entity) apart from great found footage films. The acting is what turns the film from entertaining into believable. For months after seeing movies like The Fourth Kind and the Blair Witch Project, I was absolutely convinced that the things I was seeing on screen were as real as it could get. I honestly thought that Blair Witch was a documentary.
As a horror film, Grave Encounters fails, and almost miserably at that. I’m the type of person who s**** their pants when they see one of those scary videos on YouTube, and not even the barrage of stuff popping out during the last 30 minutes could scare me, let alone entertain me. It’s almost depressing that in a genre of film that is so easy to scare with, Grave Encounters can’t even do its one job right, which is a shame considering the massive amount of potential it had.
We’ve all seen action stars muck it up by playing the tough guy in a kids movie and to be honest I haven’t seen many of them. Vin Diesel did The Pacifier; Jackie Chan did The Spy Next Door. Hell, The Rock has probably done the most with the worst of them being The Tooth Fairy. Honestly, don’t rip me for not having seen that one and still judging it. You know it sucks. The Great Arnold Schwarzenegger has even done it and there is no doubt that it worked, because I and countless others love Kindergarten Cop. Who wouldn’t to see Arnold yelling at kids and telling them there is no bathroom? However, Arnold did make a misstep and it was a giant one at that. There is also a name for it: Jingle All the Way.
Where to begin with this one…. Maybe with the premise: The movie involves the real reason for the holidays of course, which is parents attempting to murder one another for some idiotic piece of shit toy made in a sweat shop overseas. Now, this toy can range from something like ‘Tickle Me Elmo’ to…. Some other type of Elmo. The toy in this case though would be the very homoerotic Turbo Man toy.
Honestly the thing looks like Buzz Lightyear if he wore a suit that was bright red and gold that accentuated his man features to the max. Of course the black hole of acting named Jake Lloyd wants one of these Turbo Man action figures, so he has the highest hopes of his father Howard Langston to get him one. In fact, little orphan Ani-Vader Jamie pretty much has the assumption that his well off dad was smart enough and gave a big enough shit about him to get one before they sold out. Unfortunately little Vader, Howard doesn’t give a shit about you at all. His work has consumed him and he forgot all about the Turbo Man toy. (And I’m pretty sure he forgot about having a son too.)
So the main plot point of the movie is that ‘Howard Arnold Langston’ needs to brave the Christmas shopping season amidst a plethora of other rabid shopping parents scum. And by this time a Turbo Man action figure is harder to get than a McRib in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany during a solar eclipse. The rest of the movie follows Howard’s hijinx as he attempts to get his hands on a Turbo Man.
Arnie’s co-star in this is the comedic talent has-been Sinbad, who plays ‘Myron the Mailman’ who reinforces stereotypes of Postal Workers who are mentally unstable amongst other things. Sinbad is just as terrible as everything else in this movie and his brand of comedy where he simply yells his lines loudly in Ebonics just does not do himself or the film any justice. Myron the sleaze bag is not Howard’s only obstacle through all of this. We’ve got pissed off Moms, criminal minded Santas (of all shapes and sizes.), the horny neighbor that is all over his wife and even a reindeer…. Yeah you heard me. A frickin’ reindeer.
There’s no two ways about it people. This movie is terrible, as I’ve come to realize most Christmas movies are. The cast had it’s ups and downs to be sure, but not even Phil Hartman and The Terminator could pick up the slack left by Sinbad and Kid Vader. If you want to keep your holiday cheer intact please avoid this movie and spend your time volunteering in your local soup kitchen or ringing a bell for the Salvation Army. Then again if you must insist on watching it, just check out the 16 second version below.
After all is said an done I give the movie 0 out of 5 Christmas Trees. How dare you sully the name of Christmas… you bastards. Feliz Navidad!
The trilogy is a pop culture phenom with a highly dedicated fanbase, and if you haven’t seen it, you’ve heard it quoted at some point in your life. When news dropped that it would be receiving a sequel/remake, fans were understandably concerned. Sure, we all wanted to see Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell return to the series that catapulted them to stardom (at least in my eyes), but only if done in the right way.
Grizzly Bomb 