Apparently Quarantine, a film starring Jennifer Carpenter (better known as Dexter's sister,) and a whole bunch of other people you've never heard of, is a remake of a Spanish film called [REC], which I'm sure is infinitely better. Not to say that Quarantine is without its positives, it's actually scarier than hell, in a "HOLY SHIT! THAT THING CAME FLYING OUTTA F@#KING NOWHERE, DIDN'T IT!!!" kinda way. It rips off a plethora of better horror films from the past 40 years, including Night of the Living Dead, Rabid, The Silence of the Lambs, and most obviously, The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield, with which it shares a wing in the motion sickness hall of fame. The entire thing is seen from the POV of a news cameraman who has tagged along with the local fire department for what they figured would be a routine evening. There is a longish, annoying, "getting to know you" sequence that opens the film which had me on the precipice of shutting the whole damn thing off so I wouldn't harm any of my video equipment.
Upon arriving at their first call of the evening, they slowly realize that they shouldn't be getting too close to the tenants of the building who seem to be foaming at the mouth and whose skin has turned all greenish-gray because those are the ones who will soon be pulling people's throats out. This realization comes much more slowly than you might think.
I haven't seen the film from which all the ideas for this one were stolen, but I would hope that we could be spared some of the "realism" as far as the camera work is concerned. Yeah, probably if some idiot local news camera guy were thrust into a situation where he was trapped in a building with a bunch of bloodthirsty apartment dwellers who have been infected with a mutant form of rabies by the lovable neighbor girl's dog, he could certainly have shot some footage that might come out looking very similar to what we find in Quarantine. Does that mean as producers of a Hollywood film, that we have to submit our audiences to that kind of torture in the theater? At home watching horror films, I sometimes find myself yelling things like "ARE YOU STUPID? DO NOT SOLVE THAT DEMONIC PUZZLE BOX!" Or, "JESUS, NO! DO NOT DANGLE YOUR FEET OVER THE SIDE OF THE BOAT!" I could go on and on. However, during this film, I was yelling things like, "COULD YOU POSSIBLY HOLD THAT F#%KING CAMERA STILL FOR FIVE AND HALF GODDAMNED SECONDS!!!" At one point, the camera guy drops his goddamned camera, and until he picks it up maybe 10 seconds later, it was like stumbling upon an oasis in the desert. The last half an hour or so of this movie is truly a test of your intestinal fortitude. I dare you to turn off the lights, fire this thing up on the 55", and do three or four shots of Jagermeister. Your nostrils will taste the acid. Trust me.
But if you can put aside the highly annoying perf by Carpenter, who deserved better, (her work on Dexter is top-knotch,) and some way-too realistic camera work, Quarantine is definitely worth a look for a bunch of gut wrenching scares. Fun and fast paced once it finally gets moving, (which takes far too long) I give Quarantine 3 out of 5 stars.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Mr. Crowley
We all know heavy metal music demands that its hypnotized, denim clad, tattooed, brain dead followers sacrifice homeless people to Satan. And skin cats. That goes without saying. What you may not know is that it also makes some pretty good reading suggestions. Inspired by various metal songs, I've read Dante's "Divine Comedy," Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls," Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land," and the stories of H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe, among others. I've read many books after hearing a song and being curious enough about a subject such as Jack the Ripper, Countess Bathory, Lizzy Borden and Gilles De Rais to hit the library or, more recently, to scour the web in search of information on these fascinating historical figures. However, for whatever reason, I never read much about Aleister Crowley. And I consider myself a pretty big Ozzy fan. So when I came across a huge ad for a film called Crowley in a recent issue of "Revolver" magazine, I figured here was my chance to brush up on a guy to which the Great Wizard of Ozz had deemed worthy of dedicating an entire tune. And a damned good one at that. And upon, further study of the credits, I discovered that the screenplay had been written by none other than Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson (with some help), for cripes sake! How could it get any better than this?
Well, it gets better than this, thankfully.
First the good stuff. Simon Callow, who plays a stuttering college professor who may or may not be possessed by the spirit of occultist Aleister Crowley, a bisexual drug addict with some disturbing sexual fetishes, is all kinds of fun to watch. He chews the scenery real hard, first as the bumbling college professor, then as the self-assured deviant who rampages through (fairly) modern day England. This perf alone is worth the rental. The rest of the leads pass most cringe tests, even if they offer uninspired performances in many cases. The scene that opens the film with two young men visiting the elderly Crowley at his home on the day of his death actually had me wishing they had flashed back to the actual events of Crowley's life, rather than the fictional nonsense that follows.
As best I could make out, a computer program is designed for creating a virtual reality of sorts. But to engage in the reality, the user must gear up in what looks like a 1930's deep diving suit. Somehow, Callow's character, while in this suit, is possessed of Crowley's spirit, whether in actuality or by electronic means, and Crowley is again unleashed on an unsuspecting public. As far as I could tell, the real life Crowley was never implicated in any murders, but the new Crowley soon is on a homocidal rampage, and dispatches a hooker and the leading lady's room mate. I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but the murders actually seem quite unneccesary. Sexual humiliation and degradation would have been enough here, and Crowley's foul perversities would seem even more devastating had his victims been allowed to live with them.
The over the top lecture scene , in which the possessed professor perverts the Bard, ends with him urinating on some horrified students unlucky enough to be sitting in the front row (another reason to pick a seat in the back row at lectures.) There's also a scene in which we get a nice close-up of the dean's desk which has been adorned with Crowley's defecation. In a later scene, we get to see a seance participant wetting herself in a manner that would make a horse jealous. It's all been done before, and yet still somewhat shocking, but to what use? Salo, an Italian shock film from the mid-seventies, made vigorous use of the human excretory system to mixed results, and partially camouflaged the fact that there was little else going on in the film. The material here seems to be quite disturbing and voluminous, and if used correctly, could yield a very rewarding film. It's too bad scenes like this got past the cutting room.
Overall, this film is worth checking out. Not to learn anything about the titular character, but for the tour-de-force performance by Callow, who should be getting some beefier roles. 2 out of 5 stars. Here's hoping that some young filmmaker sees this and decides he want to make a truly biographical film about one of the twentieth century's more fascinating characters.
Well, it gets better than this, thankfully.
First the good stuff. Simon Callow, who plays a stuttering college professor who may or may not be possessed by the spirit of occultist Aleister Crowley, a bisexual drug addict with some disturbing sexual fetishes, is all kinds of fun to watch. He chews the scenery real hard, first as the bumbling college professor, then as the self-assured deviant who rampages through (fairly) modern day England. This perf alone is worth the rental. The rest of the leads pass most cringe tests, even if they offer uninspired performances in many cases. The scene that opens the film with two young men visiting the elderly Crowley at his home on the day of his death actually had me wishing they had flashed back to the actual events of Crowley's life, rather than the fictional nonsense that follows.
As best I could make out, a computer program is designed for creating a virtual reality of sorts. But to engage in the reality, the user must gear up in what looks like a 1930's deep diving suit. Somehow, Callow's character, while in this suit, is possessed of Crowley's spirit, whether in actuality or by electronic means, and Crowley is again unleashed on an unsuspecting public. As far as I could tell, the real life Crowley was never implicated in any murders, but the new Crowley soon is on a homocidal rampage, and dispatches a hooker and the leading lady's room mate. I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but the murders actually seem quite unneccesary. Sexual humiliation and degradation would have been enough here, and Crowley's foul perversities would seem even more devastating had his victims been allowed to live with them.
The over the top lecture scene , in which the possessed professor perverts the Bard, ends with him urinating on some horrified students unlucky enough to be sitting in the front row (another reason to pick a seat in the back row at lectures.) There's also a scene in which we get a nice close-up of the dean's desk which has been adorned with Crowley's defecation. In a later scene, we get to see a seance participant wetting herself in a manner that would make a horse jealous. It's all been done before, and yet still somewhat shocking, but to what use? Salo, an Italian shock film from the mid-seventies, made vigorous use of the human excretory system to mixed results, and partially camouflaged the fact that there was little else going on in the film. The material here seems to be quite disturbing and voluminous, and if used correctly, could yield a very rewarding film. It's too bad scenes like this got past the cutting room.
Overall, this film is worth checking out. Not to learn anything about the titular character, but for the tour-de-force performance by Callow, who should be getting some beefier roles. 2 out of 5 stars. Here's hoping that some young filmmaker sees this and decides he want to make a truly biographical film about one of the twentieth century's more fascinating characters.
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