Blacula

Blacula is a 1972 blaxploitation horror film produced for American International Pictures. It was directed by William Crain and stars William Marshall in the title role.

It's plot is simple. In 1780, Prince Mamuwalde (Marshall), the ruler of an African nation, seeks the help of Count Dracula (Charles Macaulay) in suppressing the slave trade. Dracula, who along with his other evils, is revealed here as a racist, not only refuses to help but also transforms Mamuwalde into a vampire ( denigrating him with the name "Blacula" into the bargain, the cad ) and imprisons him in a sealed coffin to suffer the un-ending thirst of the damned. Mamuwalde's wife Luva (McGee) is also imprisoned but, not being a vampire, dies in captivity. Almost two centuries later, in 1972, the coffin has been purchased as part of an estate by two gay interior decorators, and shipped to Los Angeles. The men open the coffin, becoming the vampire's first victims and starting the ball rolling, cinematically speaking.

The film was not reviewed by most mainstream critics of the time, but those that did were typically unfavorable toward the film. Despite this, the film has a strong cult following, and Marshall's performance in the lead has been widely praised. It was a financial success when it was originally released, and was immediately followed by a sequel, Scream Blacula Scream (1973), in which the vampire is made corporeal again by a Voodoo practitioner played by Pam Grier. Voodoo? Pam Grier?? Blacula??? Yes, this is as good as it sounds.

The success of the film also inspired the making of several other blaxploitation/horror crossovers in the mid-seventies, including Abby, Blackenstein, Dr. Black and Mr. Hyde, Ganja and Hess, The House on Skull Mountain, J. D.'s Revenge and Sugar Hill, although none of these films were as successful commercially as Blacula. Rumors circulated that Brides of Blacula and Son of Blacula were to have been made as well. But it was not to be.

Not only a look back into the kitschy 70's. These films remain enjoyable, and surprisingly well acted, with especially good performances from Marshall who at times is working with far from the best material. Even with the script sometimes letting him down, he is picture perfect as the lonely and sympathetic Mamuwalde. The plot might not break too many horror conventions, but then again, it doesn't have to. These films are well worth the hunt.

As one character says during the film, "Hey, man... that's a baaad cape!"

Blood The Last Vampire (2009)

Could it be that I have seen too many Japanese movies about a girl with a sword killing people. I liked Onechanbara, Zombie Self Defense Force, and quite a few others, but the this live action remake of the previous animated film bored me. The lead character, Saya, is like Marvel Comics’ character Blade, a half-human half-vampire who kills blood suckers, but she does it in a school uniform with only a sword. It’s all very dull with unoriginal fight scenes and unconvincing CGI.

It probably doesn’t help that too many non-Japanese people were involved in the production.

Whip It (2009)

Roller Derby is back and growing in popularity, so it was inevitable that someone would make a movie about it. Better that it is Drew Barrymore (in her directorial debut) rather than Disney looking to replicate the “success” of the Mighty Ducks. Roller Derby peaked in the middle of the 20th century before almost disappearing in the seventies. The glamorous, high profile, full contact women’s sport has been reborn (on basketball courts and in warehouses) with less hype, but a lot more soul, fashion sense, and DIY ethic. The new sport wears the old school quad skates and often appeals to girls who have no interest in more traditional sport. Whip It is based on the semi-autobiographical novel of just such a girl, Shauna Cross (aka Maggie Mayhem of the Los Angeles Derby Dolls.

Ellen Page (Juno) has had enough of her parents demands that she enter beauty pageants and finds a sport that lets her express her real self, roller derby. Page’s new identity as Babe Ruthless is wonderful for her until she falls out with her parents and best friend, and then her new romance goes sour. But, in typical Hollywood style, all things are better by the film’s end. It is disappointing that the movie is so cliched, with very little variation on the standard teen sports/coming of age movie. Why isn’t it okay to make a movie about a girl finding pastime she likes and becoming empowered without everyone being against her for doing so? Page is great and the scenes involving the derby girls (Juliette Lewis, Drew Barrymore, Zoe bell, etc) are good, but the rest of the film is mediocre and formulaic. The real derby is much more exciting.

Ellen Page does derby...

As does Raquel Welch in Kansas City Bomber in 1972...

And the Sydney Roller Derby League in a promotional bout at Sleaze Ball 2009...

The Machine Girl (2008)

Japanese schoolgirl Ami is upset when the Yakuza kill her brother and chop off her arm.

Revenge is quick in coming when Ami meets a couple that are keen to help her…
“It must be pretty tough to fight with just one arm. Don’t worry, I can design you a new one. One made of steel”, says the husband who makes her a prosthetic machine gun arm.

Does her plan to exact revenge on the Yakuza upset this couple? Apparently not, as the wife justifies the upcoming violence, “If you can think of a good way of getting revenge without killing people that desperately deserve it, let me know”.
“Okay, let’s kill, kill them all”, replies our heroine with perhaps a little more glee than is healthy.

As the story unwinds or, more accurately, unhinges we experience Ninjas in tracksuits, a yakuza that looks like a giant garden gnome, ‘Super power bullets’, a drill bra, Japanese fetishes (school uniforms, white panties, and faux lesbianism), and a lot of dismemberment and spurting blood. A LOT of dismemberment and spurting blood. The English dubbing helps to make it even more entertaining.

This may be the greatest Japanese movie ever.

Caprica pilot (2009)

The wonderful Battlestar Galactica finished on a low with a dull, drawn out finale, but that doesn’t mean the show is dead. In the tradition of other science fiction shows (eg Babylon 5), it continues to live in one form or another. The first continuance is the series Caprica.

Caprica is set 58 years before Battlestar Galactica and the attack on the human colonies by the robotic Cylons. Caprica is a planet living in luxury and excess, much like ancient Rome, but with virtual reality and better sanitation. It’s a world of technological marvels, religious fanaticism, political rivalries, family squabbling, and all the other usual ingredients for a prime time soap opera. Eric Stoltz is Daniel Graystone and he is on the verge of creating Cylon technology. Esai Morales is Joseph Adama, father of William Adama (commander of Battlestar Galactica) and a political mover and shaker. These two men represent the families that are the centre of the story.

The bleak war scenario of Battlestar Galactica is replaced with a drama focused on a society on the verge of change (and destruction, but only the viewer knows that). The pilot is promising, and gives a clear indication of where Cylon technology comes from, and provided some clever jabs at monotheism and the war on terror. It will be interesting to see if the series can maintain the freshness of the pilot, and not disintegrate into trivial family rivalry (eg Dallas).

Dollhouse Season 1 (2009)

Joss Whedon (Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog) returns to the small screen with his much anticipated new series. Especially anticipated because it stars the popular and spunky Eliza Dushku (Faith from Buffy).

The secret Dollhouse organisation programs dolls (male and female) and hires them out to wealthy clients to do with what they will. The dolls (including Dushku as Echo) return and have their brains wiped until the next mission. The season starts without much focus and mostly seems like an excuse to put Eliza in a variety of provocative clothing, until episode 6 when the story starts going somewhere.

FBI agent Paul Ballard (Tahmoh Penikett from Battlestar Galactica) is obsessed with finding the Dollhouse and rescuing Dushku, but all he has is a photo and rumours. Penikett is the real star of the show, because his is the only character that has a goal. Dushku has a new persona each week, which is not very engaging, and the Dollhouse staff are fairly one dimensional. Alpha, a doll who caused trouble in the past, is a more interesting character and the cause of much concern in the organization. It’s a Whedon program, so you know there are motives and complex back stories but they aren’t obvious or explored in Season 1. It’s also a bit annoying being told how outrageously beautiful Dushku is. She’s good, but not that good.

The Pretender used a similar scenario (secret organisation with people who could change character) but had a more coherent story and relatable characters. Dollhouse lacks an angle to grab the attention, and normally Whedon is extremely good at creating a novel angle. Dollhouse is still better than a lot of what is on television, but the bar has been raised for dramas with the complex moral and social dilemmas and back stories in shows like Battlestar Galactica, Dexter, The Shield, etc. Hopefully Season 2 will change the direction for the best.

Episode 13 was filmed especially for the DVD release and/or overseas market. It takes place after the events of season 1 and is set in the near future where the Dollhouse technology is widespread and has lead to worldwide panic and fighting. It is an interesting scenario. Maybe more interesting than the series.

Star Trek (2009)

JJ Abrams (Lost, Cloverfield) directs the latest Interpretation of Star Trek, which goes back to tell the early days of Captain Kirk and how he became captain of the USS Enterprise.

The new film ignores some Star Trek canon while explaining some lore that was mentioned, but never explored, in the original series. It also has a quite a bit of Star Wars about it, especially the time spent on the young Kirk that makes him seem like Luke Skywalker, complete with noteworthy father. The film moves at quick pace, despite a few unnecessary scenes and unwarranted action, and is a much needed reimagination of a franchise that has drifted aimlessly at the cinema.

Chris Pine captures the rebelliousness, bravado, and sexual energy of William Shatner in his portrayal of Captain Kirk. Karl Urban plays Dr McCoy as cantankerous, and works with Pine to bring back the humour and humanity of the original series. Zachary Quinto’s Mr Spock is smug and arrogant, as opposed to Leonard Nimoy’s approach of subtlety and cool detachment, and fits uncomfortably in the cast. Simon Pegg’s arrives late in the movie as the wise cracking Scotty, and wastes no time establishing his character. There is even time to give more character to Uhuru, Chekov, and Sulu. Eric Bana makes another appearance in a blockbuster as he pops in and out of time as the bad guy, Nano. Star Trek is a big budget, action movie that remembers that characters drive a movie, not effects.

Eye Of The Beast

We reviewed Eye of the Beast sometime back, but I felt it was probably time to add my two cents to the mix."It's not nearly as bad as sebastian makes it sound". There, I've said it... Oh god, does this make me Margaret to his David now?? Either way, here's the trailer... see what you think.

Book Of Blood (2008)

The unstoppable force that is Clive Barker returns again with an amalgam of two stories from his collection, Books Of Blood.

Professor of the paranormal, Mary Florescu, teams up with a medium, Simon McNeal, and heads to the scene of a bloody killing. What follows is a typical haunted house story as science versus things that go bump in the night. Unfortunately there is not enough science or bumping and it is all quite boring until the dead appear (and, even then, the interest generated is low and brief, but not in a good way like a Brazilian bikini). The house is an intersection between the highways of the dead and living, and the dead need a canvas to tell their stories. A human canvas. What happens to McNeal is more interesting than what happens in the house, but that doesn’t mean it is very interesting.

Barker produces Book Of Blood and his touch always helps to bring a bit more darkness and dirty sex to proceedings, but not enough to save the movie from dullness. Barker’s Hellraiser is a great example of spooky proceedings in a house. Book Of Blood is not.

Religulous (2008)

Bill Maher is a comedian and television star who is known for sociopolitical jokes and observations. Religulous has Maher teaming with producer and director Larry Charles (Seinfeld, The Tick, Borat, etc) to travel around the world and talk to the religiously inclined. The title of the movie provides a clue of what is to come, ie religion is ridiculous.

Maher visits a variety of religious leaders and believers to ask about their faith, and provoke them with logic and reason and historical/scientific facts. It doesn’t take much to upset the faithful, as their beliefs cannot hold up to any kind of rigorous, or even common sense, evaluation, and they don’t want to deal with that reality. Some of Maher’s subjects are tolerant, some are easily riled, and others seem oblivious to what is happening. Maher’s style is a touch too confrontational to inspire trust in his subjects, but that doesn’t stop the interviewees from providing incriminating examples on the dogma and hypocrisy of faith. I wonder what it would have been like if Maher had the gentle and amicable approach of someone like Louis Theroux. All you have to do for illuminating viewing is let the fanatics talk and they will make themselves and their beliefs seem ridiculous.

Nothing Maher does is new, but any effort to expose religion as farce is a good antidote to the constant propaganda of religions being a “good” force. Noone Maher talks to is convincing as to why their god exists or why their religion is right. Maybe that is the editing, and maybe that is the way it is. I don’t think it was the editing, they all seem delusional. The statistics and comparisons Maher uses are good, but the faithful have no interest in understanding where their gods come from or how their religion evolved.

The movie is unlikely to change your mind about god and the church, but it might convince you that you have seen the light and provide an assortment of laughs and shocks at what some people believe.

Smash Cut (2009)

Low budget film maker Able Whitman (David Hess from The Last House On The Left and Zombie Nation) is constantly derided by audiences and critics for his unrealistic horror movies. Whitman seeks solace in a strip bar (Ass Menagerie) and then crashes his car on the way home killing his stripper companion (the imaginatively named Gigi Spot).

A stroke of genius, or desperation, leads Whitman to use the dead stripper’s body as a prop in a movie, bringing a level of realism to his films that people respond to positively. Success comes at a price, and Whitman has to keep killing to satisfy his fans and producer, Philip Farmsworth Jr (Michael Berryman, from The Hills Have Eyes and The Devil’s Rejects, in an amazing wig).

Whitman’s actions attract the attention of the Gigi Spot’s sister and journalist April Carson (Sasha Grey from Homo Erectus, Ass Eaters Unanimous 19, Grand Theft Anal 11, and Gang Bang My Face) who goes undercover as an actress.

Smash Cut wants to be a homage to the works of people like Herschell Gordon Lewis, (Blood Feast, Two Thousand Maniacs), who has a small part in the movie, but it needs a little more humour, or a smarter idea, to become a cult piece in the new millennium.

Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel (2009)

Ray (Chris O’Dowd from The IT Crowd and The Boat That Rocked), Toby (Marc Wootton from My New Best Friend) and Pete (Dean Kennox Kelly from Shameless) spend a lot of time in the pub discussing their ideas for movies and life and quite often the subject is time travel. Ray and Toby like to consider themselves imagineers, but Pete just calls them nerds. Imagineering takes a diversion in to reality when chrononaut (that’s what informed nerds call a time traveler) Cassie (Anna Faris from Scary Movie and The House Bunny) appears and sets off a chain of events that leads to the three friends traveling forward and backward in time from the hotel bathroom, and experiencing thrills and chills and death and destruction along the way. Most of the trouble encountered stems from an editor (a time traveler that wants to change history) trying to kill the threesome.

FAQATT covers familiar time travel ground as scenes are played from different perspectives as the travelers try not to encounter themselves as they jump through time. It is a smartly crafted movie that is also awkward as it shifts between being clever, being a comedy, and being quite grim. The melding of these styles makes for unevenness as the film struggles to find a rhythm. Watchable, but not an equal to Red Dwarf’s science fiction comic coherency.