HOUSE OF THE DEVIL
All I have heard about over the past several months is just how incredible “House of the Devil” was supposed to be. A throwback to horror films of the 1980’s, the film is both set in and filmed with the same traditional effects of that era. Ti West has been held aloft and praised as a savior to the genre by some of the most prolific horror sites and magazines. I’ve heard it before, of course… they said the same stuff about Adam Green and his film “Hatchet”, they said the same about “Grace”, they also said the same thing about “[Rec]” and the French horror market in recent years. Once upon a time, the same writers also held Eli Roth up to the same praise with “Cabin Fever”. So, in all the years of hearing the hype and buying into it, I figured there could be no way that “House of the Devil” could be a miss with the kind of praise it had gotten.
I popped the DVD in and proceeded to spend the next hour plus watching a girl poke around a nearly empty house with an eerie soundtrack playing in the background. The story is kind of simple: A young college girl in need of money takes a job as a babysitter, only to discover there’s no baby and the professional couple is actually in need of someone to care for the elderly mother of the wife. And while the monotony is occasionally broken up by some of the most brutal and horrific violence in recent years, the rest of the film is just one long meandering bit of nothing and more nothing. The girls’ pacing and wandering brings her close to discovering the horrifying truth behind her employees, but we’re usually just stuck with watching her try doors, pick up photographs, and refill her water bottle several times throughout the evening. I’m usually the first person to defend the same plot devices being used over and over again, so long as those devices are used well…. House of the Devil uses the plot devices well, but it’s really a thirty minute episode of the Twilight Zone stretched out for about another hour with some of the most patience grinding slow pans of doors, windows, and the approaching lunar eclipse that acts as a constant reminder that “something” is about to happen. It takes a long time, long past the moment where I actually stopped caring about what was going on and just wanted to see the principle character do more than just poke around the empty house.
Eventually, the film does come to a fantastic climax with all the promised gore and violence I’d come to expect with all the rave reviews this movie had. But it was too late, because the film had already long ago lost my interest and I was now just thankful to see SOMETHING actually happen.
2 out of 5
Give ‘Em Hell, Malone
Thomas Jane is “Malone”, the hard drinkin’, ham-fisted, square-jawed, both-guns-blazing, anachronistic tough guy in this throw back to violent “film-noir” detective stories set in modern times…. Sort of? The film starts in the middle of a gun fight as Malone attempts to gain possession of a mysterious case, blasting away at the criminal thugs standing in his way. And right off, we start the whole movie with a brutal bloodbath with slow motion bullets plowing through body parts and sending the red stuff splattering all over the screen. This is “film-noir’ through the exploitation lens, with Jane gritting his teeth through just about every line of dialogue as he faces off against bizarre villains and shoots his way up to the main villain for a final showdown. Ving Rhames is exceptional as the featured henchman to the less than fabulous villain, a seasoned gunman whose own demons lead him on a deadly chase to bring down Malone.
This movie was CRAYYY-ZEEEE… not just a little insane or out of the ordinary, but that extra touch of something special to make it so bizarre that you ignore every little bad or cheese moment set up through the course of this movie. I have no idea why this film didn’t see just a little play in the theater, because it was a full throttle adrenaline rush and would have been a big cult hit for a large audience of freaks like me. So goes the Hollywood industry, though. They pretty much shovel the usual crap down our gullets while sending great films like this into forced obscurity!
4.5 out of 5.
GI Joe : Resolute
This quick animated feature uses many techniques from traditional anime in order to create a story in the traditional Joe universe of my youth. Growing up in the 80’s, GI Joe was a toy and afternoon cartoon staple for a lot of kids my age. Some twenty years later, Mattel continues to develop the product line with the occasional update for a new generation. “Resolute” was developed for the traditional fan, sort of a nostalgia piece for my generation with a mature edge. The film is more violent and graphic than the traditional series, featuring the graphic deaths of several characters. The films’ plot revolves around another threat from Cobra as the Commander uses a doomsday device to threaten the world for ransom. The Joes activate and embark on several missions that send their forces to deal with the multi-layered threat from Cobra.
The animation is top notch, with an interesting blend of styles. While they use some of the Japanese anime techniques to move the action along, the look is more in line with the traditional art of the television series. I thought the voice acting was a little forced with several of the characters, but others were spot on with the moment. Resolute was a perfect love letter to my childhood, and I recommend it for all fans of the older toy line.
4 out of 5.
Murder Party:
This morbid comedy won several awards on the Festival circuit before finding its way to my own DVD player on a lazy Sunday afternoon. A middle-aged parking enforcement officer finds an invitation to a “Murder Party” on Halloween. He creates a cardboard suit of armor and heads off into the night, finding several Art Students holed up in a warehouse. Our protagonist quickly discovers that he’s the “guest of honor” for a murder and the students bind him to a chair while they await the arrival of their ring-leader.
If you’ve ever spent an evening at an Art Show, open-mic poetry night, or some other form of self-indulgent pseudo-intellectuals waxing philosophic on the nature and appreciation for their art, you have a pretty good idea of the characters involved in this story. I’ve spent too many long nights with these people, watching them bicker, backstab, snipe, and create drama at every turn. Along the lines of “Very Bad Things”, the group dynamic begins to fall apart and revelations expose their insecurities and lies. The story threatens to crawl at a snails’ pace before the blood begins to splatter and chaos breaks free.
4 out of 5? I’m actually on the border with this one… it’s really good, but the slow parts really do start to grate on the nerves. There’s an almost endless stream of pretentious dialogue, but it’s all just a set up to the big moments later on in the film. The story basically places an extremely unkind mirror up to the Artiste Community, and the viciousness of that lifestyle is exposed.
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