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L. SOARES
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CINEMA
KNIFE FIGHT
2006
COLUMNS
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CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT NUMBER NINETEEN: HOSTEL
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(Originally
appeared in Hellnotes, January 25, 2006)
(Inside
a dilapidated mill, the walls covered with disgusting muck, MICHAEL
J. ARRUDA
and L.
L. SOARES wear butcher aprons. Behind them, strapped to a chair,
is the Gingerbread Man, and next to him, a tray full of knives, saws,
drills and a Slinky).
MJA
(taking
in surroundings):
Ah, this job takes us to the finest places!
LLS:
Kinda looks like my living room.
MJA:
We're here to review HOSTEL (2005), the new thriller produced by
Quentin Tarantino. Now, as most of you already know, I don't exactly have
an affinity for ultra-violent movies. You might say, I hate them. I might
say that too.
However, I went into HOSTEL with an open mind, and to prove it to you,
here it is (pulls out brain from a backpack). We had a good time together.
Both enjoyed the popcorn.
HOSTEL begins well. Three young men are backpacking through Europe, doing
the things that most young men either do or dream about doing - having
sex with beautiful women. They arrive at a hostel which supposedly has
the most incredible women in Europe. They are not disappointed, but then
the nightmare begins.
One of the guys disappears, and the search for their friend leads the
two young Americans to answers they're certainly not expecting to find,
involving dark rooms, brutal tortures and painful mutilations.
The first half of HOSTEL is well crafted, with fine European locations
and superb acting performances by its two male leads, Jay Hernandez and
Derek Richardson. Even though I didn't really like these characters at
first, they grew on me. I even cared for them a little bit. And when the
soundtrack played the siren song from THE WICKER MAN (1973) during one
of the steamy sex scenes, the film really won me over.
But then the violence is thrown in - like a bottle of ketchup on a burger.
You don't need a whole bottle of ketchup! It ruins the flavor.
LLS
(eating a dripping hamburger):
Says you!
MJA:
Instead of crafting a creative mystery, a chilling tale of terror, writer
director Eli Roth goes for the gross-out with graphic scenes of torture.
The fun stops here.
The second half of HOSTEL is a disappointment, which is sad because it
had an intriguing beginning. And the story itself, once explained, is
pretty dumb. HOSTEL is a movie with nothing to say, which is too bad,
because its premise led you to believe it did.
(To LLS)
I won't even ask you how you liked it. I'm sure you were slobbering with
glee the whole time.
LLS:
If HOSTEL is any idea what we have to look forward to in 2006, then this
is going to be a very good year for horror movies. Of course, you're wrong
about a lot of the movie, but since I'm shocked you even agreed to see
this flick, I guess I should be glad we're reviewing it at all.
MJA:
Hey, thank the open mind, here.
LLS:
The "Tarantino Presents" tag-line is obviously there to sell
tickets, but this movie stands or falls on the ability of the director,
Eli Roth. This is the same guy who gave us the overrated CABIN FEVER a
couple of years ago, which for me, was a big disappointment. But Roth
seems to truly love the genre, so I was rooting for him to finally live
up to his promise with his second film.
HOSTEL doesn't disappoint. I actually loved this movie from beginning
to end. In a lot of Hollywood horror movies, the "victims" are
one dimensional sheep waiting to get slaughtered. Most of them are pretty
annoying, too. But I liked the characters in HOSTEL and found them believable.
I know people just like Hernandez and Richardson's characters. They seemed
real to me. And so, I cared about what happened to them, which is crucial
if you're going to make a horror movie work.
The first half of the film is well-paced, pulls you in quickly, and keeps
you interested. We agree about that. But you're totally wrong about the
second half, and you're totally missing the point. The violence in HOSTEL
is not gratuitous. It's the point of the whole movie. It HAS to be there
because that's what the plot is all about. The way Tobe Hooper exploited
the fear Northerners had of the Deep South in the original TEXAS CHAINSAW
MASSACRE, Roth exploits the fear many Americans have of foreign countries.
MJA: I didn't find these characters afraid of Europe.
LLS:
Stick to your Hammer movies, Pollyanna. The very fact that the violent
scenes made you care about the characters means the movie succeeded. If
the torture scenes weren't so intense, then you wouldn't care as much.
MJA:
Well, I actually cared about these characters BEFORE the violence began.
LLS:
But this is a horror movie, dammit! I also think that in these times,
when incidents like the Abu Ghraib prison scandal are in the in the news,
a movie like HOSTEL is more relevant than ever.
MJA:
I don't buy that argument at all. The only relevance a film like HOSTEL
has in the real world is that it adds to the mindset that horror movies
are crap.
LLS:
No. HOSTEL says a lot about human nature and isn't dumb at all. If HOSTEL
and Rob Zombie's latest film THE DEVIL'S REJECTS are any indication, there
is a new generation of horror directors coming up to take the mantle from
the old masters like Romero and Carpenter and Hooper.
And that's very pleasant news indeed.
MJA:
About as pleasant as the muck on those walls. Take a good look at that
muck, because that's the stuff films like HOSTEL are made of.
Horror deserves better.
LLS:
What horror deserves is its balls back, and HOSTEL is a step in the right
direction.
(Cranks up drill. Looks at Gingerbread Man.) Dessert, anyone?
---THE
END---
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CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT NUMBER TWENTY:
FINAL
DESTINATION 3 ||||||||||||
(Originally
appeared in Hellnotes, February 23, 2006)
(MICHAEL
J. ARRUDA
and L.
L. SOARES are looking at odd blurry pictures on a computer
screen.)
MJA:
These pictures will provide the clues. They'll tell us how we're going
to die!
(Image on computer
screen shows MJA
& LLS:
standing underneath a falling
safe, just inches above their heads).
MJA
(overacting):
If only we could see the clue!
(A loud pounding
at the door. LLS
opens door to find Grim Reaper, carnival
music playing behind him).
LLS:
Come on in.
(Death sits down.)
LLS:
We're reviewing the movie FINAL DESTINATION 3 this month. I haven't
seen the other films in the series, but the formula is pretty simple.
A
bunch of characters are involved in a disaster. Most die, but a few somehow
escape their fate. Death doesn't like people cheating him and goes about
putting an end to the lives of the survivors anyway, and people begin
dying
in strangely elaborate ways in the order they would have died if they'd
succumbed to the disaster. In the first movie, the disaster was a plane
crash. In the second, it was a pile-up on the highway. This time it's
a
faulty rollercoaster that runs off the tracks during a high school senior
outing. Wendy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) has a premonition of the upcoming
catastrophe and freaks out. She gets off the coaster with a few of her
friends before the rest of the passengers ride to their deaths.
It's up to Wendy
and her friend Kevin to stop Death from killing the
survivors. But Death is not easily bested.
There are some flaws.
Wendy's premonition scenes are particularly annoying,
especially when you're led to believe they're actually happening at the
time. And Wendy herself is a dour, self-professed control freak who can
get
tiresome at times with her ultra-seriousness.
(LLS
is playing chess with Death). This certainly isn't an Ingmar Bergman
movie, but it's fun and keeps you watching. It doesn't hurt that it's
also
R-rated, which means there's some nudity and gore -- minor points -- but
a
nice change from the sanitized blandness of most PG-13 horror movies we
have to sit through.
The movie's director,
James Wong, and co-writer Glen Morgan were also
writers for THE X-FILES (and wrote some of the best episodes). Wong and
Morgan know how to tell a story and ratchet up the suspense. I have to
admit, I wasn't looking forward to seeing a movie with a 3 in the title,
but this movie is better than it should be. What did you think?
MJA:
I thought the first 20 minutes were damn cool. See, I live in mortal
fear of roller coasters…
LLS:
Don't you mean merry-go-rounds?
MJA
(ignoring him):…and
the roller coaster sequence that begins the film
is one of the best I've ever seen. It truly captures what it's like to
be
afraid of riding a coaster, as well as the sights and sounds of an
amusement park. To make matters even better, the pay-off doesn't
disappoint. The actual accident is horrific -- extremely well done, I
thought. But then the film drifts off into silliness, relying on creative
and grotesque ways to kill off its victims. I'm surprised you liked this
movie. I thought it suffered from the "slaughtered sheep" problem
you've
mentioned before, in that the characters weren't fleshed out people we
cared about. The two leads aren't bad, but the rest are cardboard cutouts.
It's the old slasher formula, but without the slasher, which is another
problem.
LLS:
You're right, the movie does lapse into silliness at times, but in
this case that's intentional. This movie clearly has a sense of humor
about
itself, which somehow makes the lack of truly fleshed-out characters less
annoying.
MJA:
Yeah, that's what I heard -- that it had a good sense of humor about
it -- but I didn't find it that funny. FINAL DESTINATION 3 also suffers
from the lack of a villain. Death, unlike the fellow playing chess with
you, doesn't make an appearance. Evil personified would have been scarier.
LLS:
I actually found the lack of an actual slasher refreshing. Slashers
are a dime a dozen. And I think that an actual personification of death
would have made this movie even sillier.
(Grim Reaper grunts)
MJA:
I didn't mean I wanted a slasher or the Grim Reaper. I just think the
film suffers from not having a villain. I like villains.
LLS:
I do, too, but the fact that death is portrayed here as simply a force
that is inevitable worked better for me in this case.
(Grim Reaper nods
in approval).
MJA:
Inevitably predictable! It's the same old boring formula we've seen a
thousand times before, otherwise known as "second sequel syndrome":
(HALLOWEEN 3, NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3 (you get the idea).
LLS:
(to Death) Checkmate! (to MJA)
The real appeal of this movie was the
way death cleaned up after itself. I'm a fan of "elaborate death"
movies.
The peak for me was Vincent Price's movies from the 70s like THE ABOMINABLE
DR. PHIBES (where the deaths were based on the biblical plagues) and the
best of all, THEATER OF BLOOD (where the murders were based on Shakespeare's
plays). I don't think the FINAL DESTINATION movies are anywhere near as
cool, but I think they share the same sense of fun in
coming up with bizarre, convoluted death scenes. And I think that's just
enough to push this series slightly ahead of most tired, slasher sequels.
MJA:
I like those movies, too, and that's my point. This film doesn't have
a "Vincent Price" presence. I loved the beginning, but the rest
I found
boring and predictable.
(Grim Reaper pulls
a cord, and a giant safe falls from ceiling. It stops in
midair. LLS
reaches inside, grabs 3 beers, and hands one each to MJA
and
the Grim Reaper).
LLS
(to readers):
What else did
you expect? (points to Grim Reaper). He's a
horror fan.
---THE
END ---
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CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT NUMBER TWENTY-ONE:
THE
HILLS HAVE EYES (2006)||||||||||||
(Originally
appeared in Hellnotes, March 23, 2006. This version includes text
not in the original publication version)
(MICHAEL
J. ARRUDA
&
L. L. SOARES are stranded in the middle of the desert; their
Winnebago has a flat tire. Behind them, having emerged from the desert
hills, stand hundreds of malformed mutants, holding knives and forks and
all singing "We Are The World.")
MJA:
Aah, we're
just one big happy family here!
This month's movie,
THE HILLS HAVE EYES (2006), is a remake of the 1977 Wes Craven film of
the same name, a film I know you're a big fan of, L.
L. Myself, I was never really into it.
It's the story of
a family making a cross-country trip, who get stranded in the desert and
are preyed upon by vicious cannibalistic mutants. The mutants are the
result of atomic testing in the desert in the 1950s. And that's it in
a nutshell. If you're into seeing nice people terrorized, beaten, and
eaten by deformed people, then THE HILLS HAVE EYES is your cup of tea.
It's not mine.
It's not necessarily
a problem of blood and gore. I'm okay with that. It's the subject, the
plot. Watching a family brutally terrorized for 90 minutes for no other
reason that I can see, other than the whim of the filmmaker, is not my
idea of entertainment.
So I can't recommend
THE HILLS HAVE EYES, but I'm sure you loved it. So, take it away.
LLS:
(looks around
and waves ) Lookit all them muties! Looks like an Arruda family reunion!
MJA:
Hey, don't
insult my family! (surrounded by various monsters, vampires, aliens, and
a giant pink starfish all wearing "Arruda" T-shirts.)
LLS:
Y'know, the
whole time I was watching this movie, I couldn't help laughing, thinking
of what your reaction would be to certain scenes. That was enjoyable in
itself.
MJA:
Glad I could
brighten your day, Bud.
LLS:
Yeah, HILLS
is a remake of Craven's 70s classic. This time around, the movie is directed
by Alexandre Aja, whose last film, HIGH TENSION, was a mixed bag. It was
derivative as hell, which annoyed me, but it was also very well made and
atmospheric. While I didn't love HIGH TENSION, I could tell that Aja was
a director to watch, and since he seems to be short on original ideas,
he's the perfect guy to direct a remake. And he really excelled this time
around; his version of HILLS is a great movie.
MJA:
If you're a
sadist.
MUTANT( Pops up with white lips): Got Milk?
LLS:
I was amazed
how similar the two versions of HILLS are. There are whole scenes that
are exactly the same. The one big change is that, instead of being a group
of feral people living in the desert, who are clearly human, the villains
in the new movie are twisted and disfigured mutations. While this does
ratchet up the scares, it does take away any vestiges of humanity the
villains had in the original film. In Craven's version, the bad guys had
distinct personalities. Here, the monsters are more interchangeable, but
also more formidable.
However, the mutant
angle sets up a great scene mid-way into the movie where the hero by default,
Doug, comes upon a strange little model town, full of mannequins. This
whole section wasn't in the original film and it's a fascinating addition.
Doug's run-in there with a man with a humungous head, who can't move,
is especially surreal. Aja knows how to create atmosphere and there is
a real sense of desperation that permeates the film.
HILLS is a family feud, with a modern family vs. the savage mutants who
want to eat them. The movie plays upon one of my favorite themes, the
fine line between "civilized" society and our animal natures.
In order to fight the mutants, the civilized family has to stoop to their
level. There is one scene where a bloodied Doug picks up his cracked glasses
and puts them on, which reminded me a lot of Dustin Hoffman in STRAW DOGS,
another movie about a civilized man forced to deal with savagery head
on.
I have to admit,
I liked this remake even better than the original - something that almost
never happens. Aja knows what he's doing here. Where most remakes jettison
what was good about the original film, his film keeps the good stuff from
Craven's version and builds on it.
Aaron Stanford as Doug does a fine job as the unlikely hero of the film.
The only other recognizable faces I saw were Kathleen Quinlan as the mother
and Emelie de Ravin (Claire from the TV show LOST) as the more rebellious
daughter, Brenda .But the acting is good all around, and the make-up effects
for the mutants are especially good.
This movie has a strong R rating for violence and doesn't flinch on the
violence and gore. It's even more graphic than Craven's original, where
more is implied than shown.
(Winnebago blows up behind them with a loud roar.)
MJA:
Oooh! Fireworks!
(Mutants all cheer!) You're right. Aja does a good job with the suspense
scenes. Technically, the film is fine. I also really liked the music score
by "tomandandy" (Tom Hajdu and Andy Milburn). But it's still
a barbaric tale that is too offensive for my tastes.
And forgetting the
fact that it is so offensive, it's also unbelievable, when you come right
down to it. Doug's character, who I also liked, has more lives than James
Bond and after a while begins to look like a bloodied Monty Python character
("I'm not dead, yet!")
And any film where
you're rooting for the dog - that raises a red flag for me. Why am I rooting
for the dog? Is it because the people are all dead?? Pretty much! The
hills may have eyes, but they're short on brains.
(Mutants stop singing.).
LLS:
Uh oh, now
you went and done it.
MJA:
Not to worry.
Okay, everybody, how about a round of "Kumbaya?"
---THE END---
On this
page, Cinema Knife Fight is © 2006 by L. L. Soares & Michael
J. Arruda
*********
CODA:
A LOOK BACK AT CKF
Well,
that's all folks. All twenty-one installments of CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT.
Every once in awhile, someone will ask me what happened to it and if it's
coming back.
Cinema
Knife Fight enjoyed an almost 3-year run in the horror industry newsletter
Hellnotes from 2004 to 2006. From what I gather, a lot of people
dug it's weird mix of "Siskel & Ebert"- type back-and-forth
of two critics who often disagreed, mixed with a gruesome over-the-top
sense of humor reminiscent of the old EC horror comics of the 1950s. I
know Michael and I really enjoyed writing it. Since Michael is a more
traditional horror fan, who tends to enjoy the films of the past (especially
the old Hammer films), and I'm a more blood & guts type of guy who
really fell in love with the more extreme films of the 1970s, we often
went in to see certain movies knowing full well that we'd have totally
different reactions to them. And that was half the fun. Once in awhile
we'd agree on a movie. But it was when we didn't that the column really
made people smile.
When
the Hellnotes newsletter folded, so did the column. I've tried
to find a new home for it since, but it hasn't happened yet. Which is
a shame, because I really think CKF was just starting to hit its stride
when it came to its untimely end. Hellnotes, thanks to our gracious
editor/publisher Judi Rohrig during our tenure there, offered us a really
nice little niche. I hope we can find a suitable home again.
In the
meantime, this site offers you all twenty-one installments, completely
uncut, for your reading pleasure. These archives even include a few columns
that were originally published in a slightly different form. For example,
the "uncut" final column seen here, where Michael and I review
Alexandre Aja's remake of THE HILLS HAVE EYES, features some text and
jokes not in the original published version.
Until
there are new CKF's, we at least have this first batch for anyone who
wants to check them out. I hope you have as much fun reading these columns
as we did writing them. Sure, they got pretty silly at times, but the
two rules Michael and I always tried to stay true to were: 1. give you
a fair, balanced review of each film we saw, and 2. give you some laughs
along the way. We did our best to stick to those rules with every column.
I hope
you enjoy the results.
L. L.
Soares
January 13, 2007
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