How They Began: BAD TASTE & DUEL

A great many filmmakers have gotten their starts in the horror genre; it's especially visceral nature and devoted fan-base make it an ideal starting point for young and unproven talents.  It can be made on the cheap, doesn't need high profile actors, and if the drama and characters leave something to be desired, audiences are likely to be more forgiving as long as the chills and gore keep on coming.  Sam Raimi (first film: THE EVIL DEAD), James Cameron (first film: PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING) and Guillermo del Toro (first film: CRONOS) are just a few of the major filmmakers who got their first break in scaring folks, but even a couple of the biggest names in the industry, the big name-brand movie moguls, Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson made their names on the story of a killer semi truck and the story of an alien fast food chain, respectively.

BAD TASTE  (HORROR-COMEDY/SCI-FI, 1987) 
Directed by Peter Jackson
Starring: Peter Jackson, Terry Potter, Pete O'Herne, Mike Minett, Craig Smith, Doug Wren
Not Rated (NC-17 level; extreme horror violence and gore).
92 minutes
SCAREmeter: 2/10 (may scare little kids, but hey, what doesn't?)
GOREmeter: 10/10 (has a reputation as one of the goriest movies ever; not always realistic, but really in-your-face over-the-top-and-back-again blood 'n' guts)
LAUGHmeter: 4/10
OVERALL: 2/4 
At age 26, Peter Jackson completed his first film, a labor of four years, made on a shoestring budget (reportedly around NZ$150,000-NZ$200,000) in his hometown of Pukerua Bay, New Zealand with his friends and co-workers, mostly on weekends, while working as a full-time photo-engraver at a local newspaper.  Jackson wrote, directed, produced, photographed, co-edited and starred in the film, plus designed the relatively extensive makeup and special effects.
For those who need a refresher, Jackson became a household name when his three-part film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of Rings made him the most-celebrated filmmaker of the 2000s and won him three Academy Awards.  THE LORD OF THE RINGS is vastly more sophisticated than BAD TASTE, but the roots are visible in his staging, use of rugged landscapes and economical makeup and special effects.

Peter Jackson as Robert, eating brains with a spoon in BAD TASTE.

The story reflects Jackson's twisted sense of humor; an alien race invades Earth with plans to harvest humans to serve as the newest product of their intergalactic fast food chain, and they're starting out with the little town of Kaihoro (kai being the Maori word for "food", horo meaning "town" or "village").  Humanity's last line of defense from becoming alien snack-burgers is the Astro Investigation and Defense Service (or, ahem, AIDS) agents Derek (Peter Jackson), Frank (Mike Minett), Ozzy (Terry Potter) and Barry (Peter O'Herne).  Then they basically spend the rest of the movie killing aliens in the most outrageously gory ways possible.
Jackson himself, who's had cameos in most of his films (most notably munching on a carrot in THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING), actually does some substantial acting in BAD TASTE, playing two distinctly different roles; the dimwitted alien Robert, who looks a lot like the bearded, long-haired guy we're familiar with, and the nerdy Derek, clean-shaven and bespectacled.
It's a cult classic with a lot of devoted fans, but it is undeniably the work of an amateur and a specific (bad) taste.  There are inspired moments of humor and action, and it's truly impressive what he and his friends were able to do with so little money or experience, but it's also cheesy, messy and basically an excuse for goofy splatter effects.  It doesn't matter really though, after all, the poster is of a butt-ugly alien holding a machine gun and flipping the middle finger (because BAD TASTE has to be in good taste to display in most major retailers, they added a second finger to the image for DVD covers), so, you know, it is what it is.


DUEL  (SUSPENSE/THRILLER, 1971) 
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Starring: Dennis Weaver, Jaqueline Scott, Carey Loftin, Tim Herbert, Eddie Firestone, Lou Frizzell, Eugene Dynarski, Shirley O'Hara
Rated PG for unspecified reasons (intense situations, some action/peril and brief language).
91 minutes
SCAREmeter: 4.5/10 (not necessarily scary, but pretty intense)
GOREmeter: 2.5/10 (a couple brief instances of blood)
LAUGHmeter: 2/10
OVERALL: 3.5/4

DUEL is considered Steven Spielberg's feature directorial debut.  At 17, Spielberg made an amateur feature-length film called FIRELIGHT, about people being abducted by extra-terrestrials, and screened the film at the local Phoenix Little Theater (a non-profit community theater) in Phoenix, Arizona.  The film's musical score was recorded by the local high school band and much of the cast was from the high school drama club.  The film cost $500 and grossed $501 dollars.  Two reels of the film, which Spielberg used as an early resume, are lost, but only a few minutes of footage are available to the public.  His first professional film was the 26-minute AMBLIN', which he later named his production company Amblin Entertainment after, accompanied by a logo depicting Elliot and E.T.'s bike ride past the moon from E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL.  Early in his professional directing career, Spielberg directed television episodes, including for Marcus Welby, M.D., Night Gallery and Columbo, as well a TV movie episode of The Name of the Game.
DUEL was actually a TV movie, produced as an ABC Movie of the Week, but Universal then bought it for a theatrical release in foreign markets and a limited theatrical release in the United States, making it Spielberg's first theatrically-released feature film.  On television, it ran 73 minutes, which was too short to play in major European markets, so Spielberg was given two more days of shooting to add several scenes (the initial production had already gone 3 days over, a trend of going over-budget and over-schedule that characterized Spielberg's early, but nonetheless, successful films).
It's the story of David Mann (Dennis Weaver), an emasculated man of the early 1970s, driving his red Plymouth Valiant along a California highway to a business meeting.  He and his wife (Jacqueline Scott) had a fight the night before, after he passively dismissed a man's aggressive sexual advances on her at a party.  Coming up behind the rusty hulk of tanker truck spewing a thick haze of exhaust, David passes it, wholly unaware of what he's just begun.  The truck accelerates to pull ahead and then resumes a leisurely pace right in front of David's car.  David pulls ahead again, and the truck blasts its horn at him.  Annoyed, eventually he allows the truck to pass, but it then drives ahead slower than before, and blocks the two lanes each time David tries to get past.  It becomes clear that the truck is not going to let David pass and get away with it, and if it can, the truck will kill David, prompting him to pass when there's an oncoming car out of David's view, or pushing him forward at a railroad stop as the train passes.  When he makes a stop, the truck waits for him, and when he takes a detour, the truck follows.
Most of the action in DUEL takes place between David in his Plymouth and the truck on the Californian desert roads, but for as small as it is compared to what Spielberg would do later, it's as hypnotic as going for a long drive on one of those roads yourself.  It's an amazingly easy film to slip right into. 
The driver (played by Carey Loftin) is never seen beyond an arm hanging out the window, or his boots seen beneath his rig at a fueling station; the truck, like the shark in Spielberg's blockbuster JAWS three years later, is less of a character and more of a force of nature.  It's not the driver that's important, the driver is incidental- the point is the big rusty 1955 Peterbilt 281.  As Spielberg would again do in JAWS, DUEL is the story of the everyman reasserting his masculinity in a world that's driven him to the brink.  It is a menace that has presented itself without empathy, without mercy, without reason; it is purely a monster.  DUEL is JAWS' much less famous cousin.

"I Even Fought in W.W.2, of Course, I Was Wearing Women's Undergarments Under My Uniform": ED WOOD

Horror movies have a low success rate, so much depends on timing and luck, and a large helping of talent doesn't hurt.  On the other hand, with a total lack of talent, you can get something really special.  But even hacks can have dreams and passions, and Americans love an underdog (Michael Bay and Brett Ratner are not underdogs- they're just awful), so Edward Wood, Jr., maker of such wonderful cinematic travesties as GLEN OR GLENDA, ORGY OF THE DEAD and PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, was basically the embodiment of the American Dream.

ED WOOD  (COMEDY/BIOPIC, 1994) 
Directed by Tim Burton
Starring: Johnny Depp, Martin Landau, Sarah Jessica Parker, Patricia Arquette, Jeffrey Jones, Lisa Marie, Bill Murray, G.D. Spradlin, Mike Starr, Vincent D'Onofrio
Rated R for some strong language.
SCAREmeter: 1.5/10 (scares aren't the point)
GOREmeter: 1.5/10 (some needle marks, I guess)
LAUGHmeter: 7/10
OVERALL: 4/4 

Tim Burton is one of the most recognizable names working behind-the-scenes in film today, but opinions on his more recent work has been decidedly divided.  His last two films, DARK SHADOWS and FRANKENWEENIE, both released in 2012, were attempts to return to his early years in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when his quirky, dark comedies with supernatural themes excited audiences with their originality and imaginative visuals.  Films like PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE (1985), BEETLEJUICE (1988), BATMAN (1989) and EDWARD SCISSORHANDS (1990) were critically-acclaimed box office hits, making Burton one of the most sought-after filmmakers in Hollywood.  DARK SHADOWS was panned by critics and flopped at the box office, and FRANKENWEENIE, a remake of a 1984 short film Burton made in his days at Disney, met with modestly positive reviews and a weak box office performance.
But in 1994, Burton showed how he could have matured into a more sophisticated talent, had he followed in the direction he proved himself capable of going in at that time.  A moderately-budgeted biopic, filmed in black-and-white, and Burton's first R-rated film; a departure from his largely youth-oriented films of before.
ED WOOD is based on the life of Edward D. Wood, Jr., an independent filmmaker who gained notoriety in the 1980s after his 1959 film PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE was declared the "worst movie ever made" and developed a cult status.  Opening in 1952, Ed Wood is an aspiring filmmaker filled with optimism, but no one will give him a chance.  Living with his girlfriend, actress Dolores Fuller (Sarah Jessica Parker), whose clothes he wears in secret as a transvestite, Wood directs poorly-reviewed plays in his spare time while working in the props department of a film studio.  His life is changed by a chance encounter with Bela Lugosi, the former A-list horror star best known as Dracula in the classic Universal Monsters films.  Wood befriends Lugosi, who has fallen into obscurity and become addicted to morphine and methadone in his depression and poverty, offering him work, and allowing Wood to sell his projects on whatever star-power Lugosi has left.  The film follows Wood through the productions of his three most famous films; the LGBT exploitation drama GLEN OR GLENDA, the sci-fi horror BRIDE OF THE MONSTER, and the sci-fi thriller PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE.  Through the making of these films, Wood assembles a troupe of outcasts and misfits, while struggling to finance his films and dealing with financiers who want to impose their own influence on his films.

Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi and Johnny Depp as Ed Wood, Jr.

ED WOOD marked Burton's second collaboration with his most famous collaborator, Johnny Depp, following EDWARD SCISSORHANDS in 1990.  Depp was best known for quirky, sullen roles, first appearing in A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984),  as well as in John Waters' musical CRY-BABY (1990) and WHAT'S EATING GILBERT GRAPE (1993), but as Ed Wood, Depp made the film auteur, who in life suffered from depression and alcoholism into a hilariously, blindly optimistic man, partially inspired by the Tin Man in THE WIZARD OF OZ and Ronald Reagan.  There's a very amusing contrast set between Wood, a man who would be posthumously declared "The Worst Director of All Time," and Orson Welles, the director of CITIZEN KANE, widely considered one of the greatest films ever made.  Ed bemoans that as he's approaching 30, Welles directed CITIZEN KANE by age 26, and like his idol, Ed writes, produces, directs and stars in his own films.
The obvious standout role is of Bela Lugosi, performed by Martin Landau.  Lugosi, although having fallen into obscurity by that time in his life, was a very theatrical man with well known mannerisms and intonations, and Landau becomes the role.  Of course, he's well-assisted by prosthetic makeup designed by legendary makeup artist Rick Baker, who petitioned for the role as soon as he caught wind of it, having been a lifelong fan of Lugosi.  Both Landau and Baker won richly deserved Academy Awards for their work on ED WOOD, Best Supporting Actor and Best Makeup, respectively.
Like practically every biographical film, people familiar with the subjects have expressed beefs with specifics of the treatment, especially involving Sarah Jessica Parker as Dolores Fuller, Wood's girlfriend who co-starred with him in GLEN OR GLENDA.  Seeing as she wasn't the last great love of his life, separating from him over his alcohol abuse and/or cross-dressing, depending on her conflicting interviews, she comes off in the film looking a little shrewish (a similar fate befell the character of Vivian Liberto, played by Ginnifer Goodwin, in WALK THE LINE).  The real-life Fuller disagreed with the portrayal of herself when she saw the film, but praised the film as a whole, particularly Depp's performance and Burton's direction.  Anyway, she wound up better off, having gone on to become a successful songwriter for the likes of Elvis Presley, Nat King Cole and Peggy Lee.  There has also been dispute over the relationship between Wood and Lugosi, whether it was indeed the close friendship as depicted in the film, or something more exploitative on Wood's part, taking advantage of the washed-up star in his last days.  ED WOOD makes no secret though that it isn't meant to be a totally authentic portrayal.
ED WOOD is an immensely nice film, like a big, fat, warm hug, telling the story of artists who were ridiculed and marginalized in their time, and their work may not even be good by today's standards either, but they're shown caring about what they do.  While Ed's girlfriend derides his casting of a financier's son in BRIDE OF THE MONSTER, he defiantly remarks, "The important thing is that the film is getting made."  Who cares if your good at what you're doing if you love doing it?  Honestly, there may be more to it than that in real life, but sometimes you need that kind of escapism.

Left to right: Bill Murray as Bunny Breckinridge, Sarah Jessica Parker as Dolores Fuller, and Johnny Depp as Edward Wood, Jr.

"In the Absence of Light, Darkness Prevails": HELLBOY

"There are things that go bump in the night, Agent Myers, make no mistake about that, and we are the ones who bump back."  If Nazis rose from their eternal damnation to unleash the hounds of Hell and the Dragon of Revelation on the world and begin the Apocalypse, would you send the military?  Hell no!  You'd send Beast of the Apocalypse at them, so have a little sympathy for this devil- he's on our side.
 
HELLBOY  (ACTION/FANTASY, 2004) 
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Ron Perlman, John Hurt, Selma Blair, Rupert Evans, Karel Roden, Jeffrey Tambor, Doug Jones, Billy Hodson, Corey Johnson, David Hyde Pierce (voice role)
Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action violence and frightening images.
122 minutes
SCAREmeter: 4.5/10 (sure to frighten young/sensitive children, nothing too scary for anyone over the age of ten)
GOREmeter: 4.5/10 (comic book/sci-fi monster gore, monsters torn to pieces, one villain appear gruesomely mutilated)
LAUGHmeter: 5.5/10
OVERALL: 3/4 

Before GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, Hellboy was probably the most obscure comic book superhero to have his own major Hollywood movie, at least one with a budget north of $50 million.  Based on a cult-favorite comic book series created by Mike Mignola and published by Dark Horse Comics, Hellboy is described as the "World's Greatest Paranormal Investigator", "Son of the Fallen One", "The Right Hand of Doom" and the "Beast of the Apocalypse", but he's also mankind's greatest ally in defense against the darker forces of this world and others.  One of his small but hugely devoted number of fans is Mexican-born filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, whose career has been marked by an unparalleled understanding of fairy tales and monsters, an incredibly lush visionary aesthetic and warm character relationships.
In HELLBOY, also known as HELLBOY: SEED OF DESTRUCTION, the titular demon is a top agent for a top-secret government agency called the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, or BPRD.  Having been brought into the world during an Nazi experiment blending science and black magic under the guidance of the "Mad Monk" Grigori Rasputin (Karl Roden) in WWII, the infant demon brought through a dimensional portal was intercepted by a team of Allied soldiers who dubbed him "Hellboy", and the red-skinned demon with a stone hand was raised in secrecy by the Allied occult specialist Professor Trevor "Broom" Bruttenholm (John Hurt; played in youth by Kevin Trainor), who, in essence, adopted him and helped found the BPRD.  In the present day, a resurrected Rasputin, flanked by his most devoted disciples, Ilsa Haupstein (Bridget Hodson), a Nazi scientist and Rasputin's lover, and Karl Ruprecht Kroenen (Ladislav Beran), a sword-wielding Nazi assassin,

returns to bring about the Apocalypse, to which Hellboy is the key.
HELLBOY came out toward the beginning of the new-found popularity of superhero movies that had been kick-started by the box office hits X-MEN (2000) and SPIDER-MAN (2002), and while most of the A-list characters had been taken, including the aforementioned, as well as HULK (2003), many studios were scraping for whatever they could get, such as the lesser known (at least among the non-comic-reading public) or otherwise less marketable adaptations of DAREDEVIL (2003), THE PUNISHER (2004), ELEKTRA (2005) and FANTASTIC FOUR (2005).  Del Toro had directed BLADE II (2002), also a superhero film but not in the same sense as Spider-Man, which finally gave him the clout to direct something more personal in HELLBOY, an unlikely comic book to adapt, but then again, everyone wanted superhero movies.  Although initially planned with a budget around $100 million (pretty standard for major action movies at the time), del Toro's choice of leading man led studio executives to cut the budget in half, ultimately made for a reported $66 million, but it was entirely worth it.  Ron Perlman, a B-list actor who del Toro worked with in his debut feature film CRONOS in 1993, is the only man that could play del Toro's Hellboy, and as inspired as inspired casting gets.  Covered in prosthetic makeup and red paint, Perlman is barely recognizable, but the character actor makes an unexpectedly likable leading man, making wisecracks while beating the hell out of monsters and pining after his morose fellow BPRD agent Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), an emo with unstable pyrokinetic abilities.  Indeed, the influence of SPIDER-MAN is present in their own big superhero-styled kiss.
The sequel will be even better...

"Back Off Man, I'm a Scientist": GHOSTBUSTERS

 Scares aren't for everyone, but laughs have about as wide an appeal as anything.  No matter how much your grandpa may love Abbott & Costello, there's simply no supernatural comedy more beloved than the 1984 comedy blockbuster GHOSTBUSTERS.

GHOSTBUSTERS  (SCI-FI/COMEDY, 1984) 
Directed by Ivan Reitman
Starring: Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver, Harold Ramis, Rick Moranis, Annie Potts, William Atherton, Ernie Hudson, David Margulies, Michael Ensign, Alice Drummond
Rated PG for unspecified reasons (PG-13 level; some language including sexual references, brief suggestive humor, scary images and smoking).
105 minutes
SCAREmeter: 3.5/10 (spooky supernatural moments, potentially frightening for those under 10)
GOREmeter: 3.5/10 (occasional ghoulish specters in partial decay, no blood or guts)
LAUGHmeter: 5/10
OVERALL: 3/4 

Expensive deadpan comedy hit its stride in the late 1970s and early 80s, culminating in 1984 with the deadpan comedy special effects extravaganza GHOSTBUSTERS.  Costing $30 million, it grossed $295.2 million worldwide to become the second-highest-grossing film of the year behind another original action-comedy, BEVERLY HILLS COP.  In today's landscape where nearly every major movie is either a sequel, remake or otherwise adapted from a source material with a pre-established fanbase, all in the name of creating major franchises, the box office charts stand in stark contrast.  In the top ten movies of that year, only two are sequels, with INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM taking third place and STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK taking ninth, and on top of it all, the top two were comedies.
It opened on June 8th, 1984 against another classic supernatural comedy-thriller, GREMLINS, and held the number-one spot on the box office charts for seven consecutive weeks before it was dethroned by PURPLE RAIN and took number one again the following week.  A 1985 re-issue later made it the #1 comedy of the decade.
GHOSTBUSTERS was written by comedian Dan Aykroyd, who had achieved as one of the first Saturday Night Live cast and then starred alongside his good friend John Belushi in the 1980 comedy hit THE BLUES BROTHERS.  Aykroyd wasn't just kidding around with GHOSTBUSTERS; he has some unconventional beliefs, being a loud and proud spiritualist.  In addition to professing his beliefs in spirits that "exist between the fourth and fifth dimension, and that they visit us frequently," Aykroyd is a lifetime member and correspondent of the Mutual UFO Network, a civilian organization that investigates UFO sightings.  Aykroyd wrote the script with Belushi and himself in mind, as well as John Candy for a role that eventually went to Rick Moranis, but in the initial concept, the Ghostbusters, called "Ghostsmashers", were more like a Dr. Who-esque SWAT team who fight ghosts while traveling between space and time.  Introducing his ideas to filmmaker Ivan Reitman, director of Bill Murray-starring vehicles MEATBALLS and STRIPES, and writer/filmmaker/comedian Harold Ramis, who had co-written Reitman's aforementioned films as well as ANIMAL HOUSE and his own feature directorial debut CADDYSHACK.  With Ramis, Aykroyd reshaped the script into something more grounded and economically feasible.  Belushi died in 1982 before the script was finished, and the role intended for him went to Murray, with whom Reitman and Ramis had worked before.  Candy became unavailable, and his role, that of a conservative businessman, was re-written for Rick Moranis, another Canadian comedian who was best known as part of the comedy sketch duo Bob and Doug McKenzie with Dave Thomas, and the feature film they had written, directed and starred in based on their sketches, STRANGE BREW, in 1983.
In GHOSTBUSTERS, Murray stars as Dr. Peter Venkman, one third of a parapsychologist trio also including the much more enthusiastic Dr. Ray Stantz (Akyroyd) and tech whiz Dr. Egon Spengler (Ramis).  Working at Columbia University, Venkman hardly seems to care one way or another, using the school resources to pick up pretty young co-eds and torment the rest, although Stantz and Spengler are working on a way to locate and contain actual ghosts.  After they're all fired from the university, the three open up shop in a rundown New York City fire station and advertise as "Ghostbusters", using equipment developed by Stantz and Spengler to entrap ghosts within a containment unit indefinitely.  Not long after, New York seems overrun with paranormal activity, which some in the media attribute to the Ghostbusters hoaxing people, but they're so overworked, they hire a fourth man, Winstone Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson).  Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver), a musician who catches Venkman's eye, comes to them when the inside of her refrigerator transforms into an inter-dimensional portal and her apartment appears to be at the center of the soon-coming Gozer, a Sumerian god of destruction.  Making matters worse, Walter Peck (William Atherton, who cornered the market for play a-holes in the 80s), an overzealous EPA agent, charges the Ghostbusters with unlicensed waste management and deactivates their fully-loaded containment unit, unleashing all the captured specters back into the city.

From left: Ernie Hudson, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray and Harold Ramis.

GHOSTBUSTERS is one of the most beloved movies of the 1980s and spawned a multi-media franchise including two animated TV series, comic books, video games and a host of merchandise, including "Stay-Puft Marshmallows", which are stupid, square and for God-knows-what-reason, caffeinated, even though they were just ordinary marshmallows in the film as seen on Dana's kitchen counter.  The catchy theme song by Ray Parker, Jr. is a Halloween standard and was nominated for an Academy Award (competition was tight that year, including two songs from FOOTLOOSE, "Footloose" and "Let's Hear it for the Boy", Phil Collins' "Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)" from the little-remembered AGAINST ALL ODDS and the winner, Stevie Wonder's "I Just Called to Say I Love You", from the also otherwise forgotten THE WOMAN IN RED).  Curiously, Akyroyd was reportedly reluctant to make the 1989 sequel, although he's been driving the fight to make a third film that has been in development hell so long that "GHOSTBUSTERS III" has become a running joke in the world of movie journalism.  Just recently, BRIDESMAIDS director Paul Feig and THE HEAT writer Katie Dippold were reported to be working on a script for a Ghostbusters reboot with a cast led by women to be directed by Feig, which could turn out to be a real possibility, but for all of Aykroyd's efforts, the possibility of an actual sequel continuously has failed to break ground.
For all its popularity and cultural resonance, GHOSTBUSTERS is less a great film and more of a good one.  The obvious highlight is Murray as Dr. Venkman, his most famous role and heavily improvised, though not far removed from what I can imagine Belushi having done with it.  Murray's deadpan wit results in an assortment of great quotable lines such as, "Back off man, I'm a scientist," "Yes, it's true, this man has no dick," "Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!" and "We came, we saw, we kicked its ass!" just to list a few.  I also have to throw some love over to Ernie Hudson's Winston's line, "Ray, when someone asks you if you're a god, you say 'yes!'"
Most of it is very low-key, deadpan humor though, providing plenty of light chuckles, but little in the way of belly laughs, which I suppose is a matter of taste.  The script is structurally messy, with a climax that feels mismanaged, from the introduction of the giant Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man and jumping clunkily to the idea of crossing the streams to close the inter-dimensional portal, which, what do you know, it works and that's that.  It would be preferred to have some trial and error, rather than such a loosely-established plot device, from "don't cross the streams" to a "let's try it" and it all works out.  It's a fun movie, but undeniably imperfect.

Gozer the Traveler, the Destroyer, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

"Don't Be Such a Little Idiot Darling": REBECCA

The Master of Suspense came to the United States with an English novel to adapt, a Hitchcockian standard, a Gothic tale of intrigue, murder, questionable marriages and a hint of the supernatural.

REBECCA  (SUSPENSE/DRAMA, 1940) 
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders, Judith Anderson, Reginald Denny, Gladys Cooper, C. Aubrey Smith, Nigel Bruce, Florence Bates
Not Rated (PG level; thematic material and smoking).
130 minutes
SCAREmeter: 2/10 (Gothic and a little spooky, but not particularly scary)
GOREmeter: 1/10 (some dialogue about a murder, but not even a drop of onscreen blood) 
LAUGHmeter: 3/10
OVERALL: 3/4 

Alfred Hitchcock is one of the, if not the, most universally-acclaimed filmmakers in the history of the medium, but "The Master of Suspense" never did win himself an Academy Award in a competitive category (he received the Irving G. Thalberg "honorary Oscar" in 1967, a non-competitive Academy Award category for "creative producers, whose bodies of work reflect a consistently high quality of motion picture production").  In the pantheon of classics that make up Hitchcock's body of work, only a single one of his films won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and it was the wrong one (Note: The Academy Award for Best Picture is awarded to the producer(s), in this case David O. Selznick).
REBECCA was Hitchcock's first Hollywood production, although he had already directed over twenty films in his home country of Great Britain, only a few of which are likely to be familiar with even devoted film buffs.  But REBECCA is only partly a Hitchcock film, as he directed under contract with one of the most prolific "auteur" producers of Hollywood's Golden Age- David O. Selznick.  Hitchcock delivers the Gothic styling, suspenseful intrigue and chauvinism, and Selznick brings the grandiose production and romanticism.
Released in 1940, REBECCA is adapted from the 1938 Gothic romantic mystery novel of the same name written by Daphne du Maurier (it was his second adaptation of her work, after JAMAICA INN and before THE BIRDS).  Joan Fontaine stars as the unnamed heroine, a sheepish, naive, mousy young woman finds herself courted by Maximilian "Maxim" de Winter (Laurence Olivier), a handsome, brooding, aristocratic widower while staying in Monte Carlo.  On the day she is to leave, Maxim flippantly asks her to become the second Mrs. de Winter, and she accepts.  The happy if unlikely couple return to the de Winter family estate in Cornwall, England, the luxurious mansion they call Manderley.  Try as she might to assimilate herself into this life of aristocratic nobility, the second Mrs. de Winter is constantly prevented by one who continues to hold her position well past her time, the original Mrs. de Winter, Rebecca.  Maxim refuses to speak of her or the mysterious circumstances of her death, but her enchanting spell holds sway over all the household, most especially with the ominous housekeeper of Manderley, Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson), who bears nothing but animosity toward the second Mrs. de Winter, who she considers little more than a pretender to the throne.  Secrets are revealed, further delving into the mysteries of the enigmatic Rebecca, a woman so charming, so perfect, so beloved; practically more an idea than a person, and the intrigues that plague the House of Manderley pile up toward a fiery conclusion.

When your creepy housekeeper tells you to commit suicide, you fire her.

Hitchcock was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director, but lost to John Ford for THE GRAPES OF WRATH.  While REBECCA was Hitchcock's sole Best Picture-winner, it is hardly his best film (PSYCHO, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, THE BIRDS, REAR WINDOW, SHADOW OF A DOUBT, take your pick; many people would include VERTIGO, I, respectfully, would not), and THE GRAPES OF WRATH is superior to it.  THE GRAPES OF WRATH isn't a good Halloween movie though, and REBECCA is.

"Suo Tempore": CRONOS

Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro is probably the finest mind crafting monsters and fairy tales for movies today, with an understanding of the heart, the horror, the energy and the ancient familiarities that are possessed by the most resonating fantasies.  His films are richly detailed and layered, and for all his gorgeous, Lovecraftian stylizations, his work is at its most fulfilling in his warmly sensitive treatment of relationships, human and non.  Coming from a staunch Catholic upbringing, del Toro's rendering of monsters and good vs. evil is informed by a culturally religious (especially folk religion) understanding, but with a humanist compassion and optimism.

CRONOS  (HORROR/DRAMA, 1993) 
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Federico Luppi, Ron Perlman, Claudio Brook, Margarita Isabel, Tamara Shanath, Daniel Giminez Cacho
Rated R for horror violence and for language.
94 minutes
SCAREmeter: 3.5/10 (not especially scary for adults, but morbid)
GOREmeter: 4.5/10 (momentary bloody and morbid imagery)
LAUGHmeter: 3.5/10
OVERALL: 3/4 

The journey of Guillermo del Toro's rise to becoming one of today's most celebrated film auteurs and a master monsters, at least in terms of feature filmmaking, begins with CRONOS, a Mexican reinventing of the vampire genre.
The film begins with a prologue that explains the origins of the titular Cronos mechanism, a device manufactured by a brilliant alchemist in 1536 that grants its user a curious kind of immortality.  In present day Mexico, the device falls into the unwitting hands of an elderly antiques dealer, Jesus Gris (Federico Luppi) who discovers it inside a reliquary in the form of an archangel figure.  Toying with the scarab-like device, it sprouts needle-like points, hooking into his skin and injecting him with something in the process.  The strange wound itches and he starts to crave the devices stingers, which leave him feeling refreshed and younger, and although the thought of it horrifies him, he finds himself craving human blood.  Making matters worse, a terminally-ill businessman by the name of De la Guardia (Claudio Brook) knows of the device and with his long-suffering nephew/henchman Angel (Ron Perlman), he has no scruples in his quest to appropriate the device in order to stave off his own death.
Although del Toro has proven many times since that he is more than capable of constructing genuine terror onscreen, CRONOS is a horror film for people who don't like horror films.  It's fairly violent, and as a vampire film, it's appropriately bloody without being overly so, but particularly scary and only momentarily horrific.  There's no question that this is a vampire story, but vampires are never specifically mentioned, approaching the concept as if it were an original idea, where people haven't heard of such an thing, and not necessarily considered with a fearful perspective.  This is a film that doesn't fear the vampire for the monster it is, but for the moral threat that it presents.

A Farewell to Arms: EVIL DEAD II

Success within horror or comedy, those two cousinly genres, is highly elusive- for every DR. STRANGELOVE there are a dozen Happy Madison productions, and for every SILENCE OF THE LAMBS there are a dozen Friday the 13th movies.  The great, culturally-resonating successes are instances of catching the figurative lightning in the figurative bottle, a matter of luck as much or more than talent.  Time and time again though, we've seen those that have done it once try to do it twice, and 99.9% of the time, they only end up electrocuted themselves, resulting in a stinking, oozing, unfortunate mess.  The exception that proves the rule comes no more than once in a few decades...

 EVIL DEAD II: DEAD BY DAWN  (HORROR-COMEDY, 1987) 
Directed by Sam Raimi
Starring: Bruce Campbell, Sarah Berry, Dan Hicks, Kassie Wesley, Ted Raimi, Denise Bixler, Richard Domeier, John Peaks, Lou Hancock
Rated R for unspecified reasons (strong bloody horror violence and gore throughout).
84 minutes
SCAREmeter: 4.5/10 (very creepy, but mitigated by consistent humor)
GOREmeter: 10/10 (lots and lots of gushing bloody geysers, gory mutilations)
LAUGHmeter: 6/10
OVERALL: 3.5/4 
**Available on Netflix Watch Instant**

When last we saw Ashley "Ash" Williams (Bruce Campbell), he had just seemingly destroyed the Book of the Dead, referred to as the Naturon Demonto, by throwing it in the fireplace and reduced his demonically-possessed friends to fragments of bone, blood and oatmeal.  Stepping out of the cabin at the break of dawn, Ash was then left to an unknown fate as the unseen evil spirits swooped down upon him.  Things get a little confusing when we slip into the sequel though.
Is it a remake?  Is it a sequel?  What the hell is this madness?!  Well, it's mostly a sequel, with a little bit of cheating.  The continuity between the Evil Dead trilogy is not at all clean, partly because Sam Raimi didn't have the rights to THE EVIL DEAD when making the sequel, but mostly because 'screw you'.  At the beginning of EVIL DEAD 2: DEAD BY DAWN, also known as EVIL DEAD II, we get a recap of the original film's events, but to save time and prepare a few adjustments for this film, only Ash and his girlfriend Linda (Denise Bixler, replacing Betsy Baker from the original film) show up at the cabin, but again, after a little bit of romancing of course, the recorded translations of the Book of the Dead, the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, left by archeologist Professor Knowby (John Peaks), are played, unleashing the evil spirits.  Linda is possessed by the spirits, prompting Ash to chop off her head with a shovel and bury the body.  This revising of THE EVIL DEAD ends when Ash is temporarily possessed by that unseen force that attacked him.  The sun rises, causing the spirits to flee, but Ash can't escape, because the only bridge out is completely destroyed.  Linda isn't completely dead either, and when night falls, her body climbs out of the ground, picks up its loose head and attacks Ash, biting his hand and attacking him with a chainsaw.  After gaining the upper hand, Ash is able to make short, bloody work of Linda's head and body, but his bitten hand has become possessed, attacking him.  Meanwhile, Professor Knowby's daughter, Annie (Sarah Berry), has just come into possession of the lost pages from the Necronomicon and is eager to share them with her father, bringing along her boyfriend, Professor Ed Getley (Richard Domeier).  On the way to the cabin, they discover the wrecked bridge but Jake (Dan Hicks) and Bobby Joe (Kassie DePaiva), a couple of hillbillies, agree to act as their guide on a hidden trail, bringing a few new victims of the evil spirits, known as "Deadites", while Ash is still battling his now very evil hand.

"Give me back my hand!"

I don't watch a lot of horror sequels.  They're almost never worth the time, but Evil Dead is an exception.  EVIL DEAD 2 is the most popular of the trilogy, which follows an odd trajectory, from horror, to horror-comedy, to comedy.  EVIL DEAD 2 lies in the middle, deftly balancing horror and comedy (personally, I like ARMY OF DARKNESS best, but we'll get to that), although admittedly, it might be a little confusing for first time viewers who jump straight into it from THE EVIL DEAD, because of the overlap.  Most people just keep the sequel in their Halloween viewing rotation.
Stephen King, who gave the original film a big hand up by writing an enthusiastic review for the obscure student film, showed up again to give the sequel a pitch to the money-men.  Mr. Eighties Movie Excess himself, Dino De Laurentiis, was producing several King adaptations adaptations at the time (including the infamous killer semi trucks movie MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE, also directed by King), and King was all like, "Hey bro, you should give some money to this guy, so that he can make a ridiculously bloody, funny horror movie starring little-known actors, but it'll be awesome."  I'm sure it was something like that.  Anyway, after looking into it, De Laurentiis approved the film for $3.6 million, not much, but still about ten times as much as the original.  Together with a bigger budget and some added experience, EVIL DEAD II is a much more polished production with better makeup and special effects (the fun B-movie practical kind with stop-motion animation, rubber puppets and pre-digital compositing).  Bruce Campbell is also a better actor, more Bruce Campbell-y and has a better haircut.  Taxidermied deer heads and gooseneck lamps laugh maniacally, after it smashes a bunch of plates on his head, Ash cuts off his hand with a chainsaw and fires at it with a shotgun, people die in geysers of blood reminiscent of a blender with a loose lid and fat old crones scream, "I'll swallow your soul!  I'll swallow your soul!"
If that doesn't sell you, then shut your face.

"Let's head on down into that cellar and carve ourselves a witch."

The Ultimate Experience in Grueling Terror: THE EVIL DEAD

Funny thing about horror is, there are exceptionally few cases of a greatness in the genre that comes along by financial resource and professional experience; movies like John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN and Tobe Hooper's THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE come along from young and hungry artists with the freedom to craft their vision with real nerve, but the line between the dreadfully inept PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE or TROLL 2 and the inspired but rough-around-the-edges schlock that makes careers can be surprisingly thin.  Mixing graphic gory mayhem with Three Stooges slapstick can be a step in the right direction though.

THE EVIL DEAD  (HORROR, 1981) 
Directed by Sam Raimi
Starring: Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Hal Delrich, Betsy Baker, Sarah York
Rated NC-17 for substantial graphic horror violence and gore.
85 minutes
SCAREmeter: 5/10 (fairly scary, but mitigated by overall cheesiness)
GOREmeter: 10/10 (gratuitous though generally unrealistic blood and guts sprayed and splattered with reckless abandon throughout)
LAUGHmeter: 4.5/10
OVERALL: 3/4 

The Part Where I Talk All About THE EVIL DEAD in the Context of British Film Censorship and "Video Nasties"
Conservative social activist Mary Whitehouse called Sam Raimi's ultra-low-budget horror film THE EVIL DEAD "the number one nasty," which is obviously how you know it's amazing.  When Mrs. Whitehouse referred to the film as a "nasty", she was referring to "video nasties", a term she is also attributed with coining.  Back in the early 1980s, when home video technology, ultimately dominated by VHS cassettes of course, was just then becoming widely available and popular, films that had been banned in the United Kingdom by the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) when seeking theatrical release were then being released on home video, which the BBFC had no jurisdiction over at the time.  The BBFC was and is charged with enacting the UK's obscenity laws by discerning which  media materials (primarily films) are "obscene" and "harmful" to the public, and thus illegal.  Their decisions are not final and may be overturned by local film boards, but it is the BBFC's legal mandate to interpret the laws and apply them to films seeking distribution in the UK.  A "video nasty" was any film considered prosecutable as "obscene" under the Obscene Publications Act of 1959, and a total of 72 films were identified by the Director of Public Prosecutions Office as "obscene"; these 72 films were the official video nasties, THE EVIL DEAD being amongst them.
The title of Number One Nasty as bestowed by Whitehouse was a little misleading, considering that it would be hard to argue that THE EVIL DEAD was the most graphic or violent or traumatizing on the DPP's list, but it was probably the most popular, or at least, one of the most popular (it's doubtful that many of these films would have been as popular as they became without Whitehouse's moral crusading against them).  Among the small few that are still given much attention, and even then only by film fans, and especially horror aficionados, including CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (particularly notable as an early "found-footage"-style film with extreme violence that led the director to arrested in his home country of Italy, because legal authorities believed it was a "snuff film" showing actual murders, however, after demonstrating the gore effects in court, the film was still banned in many countries for showing actual animal killings), THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE and ANDY WARHOL'S FRANKENSTEIN.  The video nasties panic was finally resolved by the Video Recording Act of 1984 passed by Parliament, which authorized the BBFC, re-dubbed the British Board of Film Classification, to interpret and enact obscenity laws, making the film classification system a legal mandate for films to be distributed theatrically or on video with only a small few and very specific exceptions, and unclassified films not excepted by the law were made contraband.
The BBFC was not so sure that THE EVIL DEAD was as bad as Whitehouse made it out to be, considering the highly stylized context of the violence and over-the-top gore blended with comedy.  It had been cut by 49 seconds to play in theaters in 1982, and that was the same version released on video without a classification.  The 49 seconds of cuts involved reducing the "potentially imitable" stabbing of a girl's ankle with a pencil, a lengthy eye-gouging and some more explicit bodily dismemberment.  Due to its since-developed notoriety, the BBFC was forced to apply stricter standards, and to be released on video with an '18' certificate, it was subjected to a total of 1 minute and 55 seconds in 1990.  It wasn't until 2000 that an uncut version of THE EVIL DEAD was passed by the BBFC, which decided the film could no longer be considered taboo.

"It's your sister Cheryl!"

The Part Where I Finally Get to the Film Itself
Sam Raimi was only 20 years old when shooting began on THE EVIL DEAD, which he made with a bunch of friends and associates in rural Tennessee for an unspecified budget estimated at no more than a few hundred thousand dollars which Raimi scrounged together from investors and friends.  His high school friend Bruce Campbell was cast as the leading man, and other cast members had worked previously with Raimi on his similarly-themed short film Within the Woods or responded to an ad that Raimi placed in a newspaper.
It may not have been the first "Cabin in the Woods" horror movie, but it is the definitive one that others try to imitate.  Five Michigan State University students drive into the Tennessee hills to spend spring break in a woodland cabin that they've rented for cheap.  Ashley "Ash" Williams (Campbell), with his girlfriend Linda (Betsy Baker), his sister Cheryl (Ellen Sandweiss), their friend Scotty (Hal Delrich) and his girlfriend Shelly (Sarah York) all arrive at the cabin and discover the Naturon Demonto, the Sumerian Book of the Dead in the cellar, along with the audio recordings of scholar who had been studying the book at the cabin.  Playing the recording, the scholar recites some of the ancient book's passages which, unbeknownst to them, unleashes evil spirits in the woods.  The first victim is Cheryl, who is physically attacked by demonically-possessed trees in the forest which rape her.  You read that right, a girl is raped by trees.  There is a shocking but mostly sickening humor to this, but it's undoubtedly the big unfortunate misstep of this film made by crass young men, so there you have it.  Not long after this attack, Cheryl appears possessed by the demons herself, which threaten and taunt the others and Cheryl cripples Linda with a pencil to the ankle.  They lock her in the cellar, which she peeks out from, continuing to taunt.  One by one, they fall victim to these demons which, as they learn from the scholar's recordings, can only be stopped by physical dismemberment.  Heads are chopped off with shovels, possessed girlfriends are hacked to pieces with axes, and when they try to leave, the bridge on the only road out of their has been destroyed.
Ash, our strong-jawed hero with a bad haircut is soon the only one left, relentless tormented by the demons, but nothing a little hacking and burning won't cure, even if he'll have to get dirty, as in lots and lots of gory substances spraying him in the face, to get the job done.
In the Evil Dead trilogy, THE EVIL DEAD is the only one that is really a true horror movie, even if it has its humorous touches, which would become more prominent with each subsequent installment.  This humor came to be called "splat-stick", a combination of slapstick comedy and splatter horror.  Although it was a tiny, no-name film, Raimi met with producer Irvin Shapiro, one of the co-founders of the Cannes Film Festival who expressed an interest in distributing it and arranged an out-of-competition screening of it at the 1982 Cannes, where none other than horror author Stephen King, a well-known purveyor of low budget horror.  King loved the film and raved about it to just about anyone who would listen, which rocketed the film into a spotlight rarely afforded such an otherwise obscure film.  The critical attention and word-of-mouth publicity turned the film into a sleeper hit, grossing over $2.5 million, which is nothing to say of it phenomenal success on video release.
It was the first NC-17-rated film I'd ever seen, although I didn't even realize it was rated at the time.  I had assumed it had never been rated when I first saw it some years ago, but that rating, which was issued in 1994, opens some interesting questions about the rating system and violence in film.  It's no secret that the MPAA rating system is inconsistent at best, but don't get a film student going on that topic, because they all think they know something just because they've seen THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED, a dreadfully overrated documentary.  The 2013 remake, EVIL DEAD plays it a lot more straight than the original, and while the gore isn't quite as in-your-face as the original, it's far more realistic and disturbing, while it received an R rating (it also had the "tree-rape", which there's just no excuse for a second time, jeez).
THE EVIL DEAD is not a well-produced movie; it looks cheap, feels amateurish and the acting leaves something to be desired to say the least (Hal Delrich as Scotty is probably the lowest point in that regard), but it doesn't just get by on luck alone.  There are glimmers of young talent, diamonds in the rough, and their enthusiasm and ingenuity shine through their inexperience, which gives the movie an affable quality.  Most of the tracking shots depicting an unseen, evil force speeding through the woods, including the famous opening shot, would most likely have been achieved using a Steadicam (a camera stabilizing mount to create smooth, non-shaky footage unaffected by the cameraman's movements, notably used in THE SHINING (1980)) on a big budget studio production, but Raimi's crew settled for a plank of wood to mount the camera on, and with one person carrying each end, sprinted through the swamp.  Other shots that might have been created using a dolly (a large rig on rails used to smoothly capture movement over a space) were made by sliding the camera across a board.  Joel Coen of the Coen brothers (with Ethan Coen, the makers of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN and FARGO) was also among the crew of THE EVIL DEAD as the assistant film editor, and would later use some similar innovative techniques on films like BLOOD SIMPLE and RAISING ARIZONA.
It is a schlocky, exploitative horror movie; cheesy, gory, demented and dumb, but when its enjoyable, it isn't quite in the sense that you enjoy a crappy low-budget horror movie because it's not just a crappy horror movie.  It's a dumb movie with sparks of brilliance and aware of its limitations without caring.  It's the ultimate experience in grueling terror, just because, but it would only get better with the sequels.

If chins could kill, right?

"The Apocalypse is Nigh!": THIS IS THE END

THIS IS THE END  (COMEDY-HORROR, 2013) 
Directed by Evan Goldberg & Seth Rogen
Starring: James Franco, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Emma Watson, Michael Cera, Rihanna, David Krumholtz, Aziz Ansari, Paul Rudd, Kevin Hart, Channing Tatum, Mindy Kaling, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Jason Segel
Rated R for crude and sexual content throughout, brief graphic nudity, pervasive language, drug use and some violence.
SCAREmeter: 4/10 (some dark and slightly spooky, but mostly humorous, horror parodies)
GOREmeter: 7.5/10 (many very bloody/gory death scenes in a comedic context, lots of bodily fluids)
LAUGHmeter: 9.5/10
OVERALL: 4/4
 
A low-budget adaptation of the popular Protestant Christian book series Left Behind starring Nicholas Cage was released this weekend, but it hardly seems worthwhile after summer 2013's comedy hit THIS IS THE END, which is the final word on "rapture fiction."  Nah, I get the point; LEFT BEHIND is for the fundamentalists, but THIS IS THE END is for the rest of us rotten bastards.
On the night of actor James Franco's housewarming party, filled with dozens of the hottest Hollywood talents, the Rapture hits, beginning the Biblical Apocalypse as the righteous are taken up into the sky in conduits of blue light, and the Hollywood Hills burst into flames, while fiery chasms open up in the Earth taking down Michael Cera, Rihanna, Aziz Ansari, Paul Rudd and other popular entertainers to burn in the fires of Hell.  A group of survivors, Franco, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Craig Robinson and Jonah Hill hole up in Franco's fortress-like mansion, but soon discover they have an unexpected guest, Danny McBride, who everyone hates and crashed the party.  Tensions frequently threaten to explode as Seth and Jay struggle to salvage their friendship threatened by Seth's new L.A. life and Jay's old Canadian life, Jonah hides behind a facade of psychotic friendliness, Craig and Jay try to follow the teaching of the Bible to get raptured and Danny pisses everyone off.  Emma Watson even shows up for a moment, but ends up stealing their food storage.
THIS IS THE END is incredibly, achingly funny, but also a great Halloween-time movie, with many homages to classic horror movies like ROSEMARY'S BABY and THE EXORCIST, some surprisingly tense demon monster attacks and an awful lot of gore.  The extreme slapstick violence of this movie is right up my alley, like when the guys freak out at a severed head, kicking it at each other and Jonah tries to respectfully pick up the head, then panics when an excessive amount of blood gushes out the neck.  This movie has a lot of twisted humor, which is probably the only really big reservation in recommending it; it is not shy about taking its often-gross (violent, scatological and/or sexual) gags all the way, sometimes just past the point that it gets too sick, just before shifting gears into something else.  It's not a significant detriment to the film, but may very well be a turn-off for some sensibilities. It's so funny though.
A-listers (and B-listers, they acknowledge their differing levels of fame) play ridiculous versions of themselves, in the process taking notice of some of their worse movies ("Let's not make a YOUR HIGHNESS 2") and the funny excesses of celebrity life, and then seeing that all play out under the pressures of the Apocalypse- it's like a dream come true.

Jay Baruchel (left) and Seth Rogen (right) have an encounter with Satan in THIS IS THE END.

"Signing Off...": GRAVE ENCOUNTERS

GRAVE ENCOUNTERS  (HORROR, 2011) 
Directed by The Vicious Brothers (Colin Minihan, Stuart Ortiz)
Starring: Sean Rogerson, Ashleigh Gryzko, Merwin Mondesir, Mackenzie Gray, Juan Riedinger, Arthur Corber, Bob Rathie, Ben Wilkinson
Not Rated (contains R-level pervasive language and intense terror/violence).
SCAREmeter: 7.5/10 (very frightening, disturbing)
GOREmeter: 6.5/10 (some brief, gruesome, bloody supernatural and surgical images)
LAUGHmeter: 3.5/10
OVERALL: 2.5/4 
Available on Netfilx Streaming

I loathe "paranormal reality shows," such as Ghosthunters or Destination Truth.  I just plain despise them.  I can barely stomach reality television as it is (they're supposed to be "unscripted," but somehow their plots are more contrived and trite than the average church video), but then you mix in "paranormal investigator" hacks and false scares in a lurid combination, and it's a media travesty.  So I got a few light laughs out of the early scenes in the 2011 cult independent horror film GRAVE ENCOUNTERS, as the cast of one such paranormal investigation crack up off camera at their dramatic "in-character" antics.  Ironically, the movie occasionally succumbs to a similar approach, but most of the time, it's a fun haunted hospital chiller.
Presented as "found footage," the raw footage (edited for time) of the unfinished last episode of a short-lived series called Grave Encounters, in which a crew led by host Lance Preston (played by Sean Rogerson), along with "occult specialist" Sasha Parker (played by Ashleigh Gryzko), "medium" Houston Grey (Mackenzie Gray) and a sound and camera crew.  For their ill-fated six episode, Grave Encounters goes to the Collingwood Psychiatric Hospital, where Dr. Arthur Friedkin secretly performed experimental surgery on thousands of patients before the hospital was closed in 1965, and is now reputed to be haunted by former patients and hospital staff.
Like these things tend go, it starts off uneventful, as the characters attempt to spend a single night locked in the hospital, but gradually, the spooks start to present themselves, and by then, it's too late to leave.
I'm not partial to horror as a genre; it's fine, and a great horror movie is as great as any other great movie, but like comedy, there's a distinctly lower success rate for horror movies than say, drama or action, because it's a trickier atmosphere and pacing and relies more on the particular audiences' experience.  But there are types of horror movies that I'm more likely to be entertained by, even if it isn't particularly smart or creative, and GRAVE ENCOUNTERS falls into that category.  I get a kick out of atmospheric horror movies, especially haunted houses and similar ilk, with morbid tropes and ghosts.  Basically, I enjoy a scary movie that translates the traditional haunted house ride to the screen.  It's not like that's the only kind of horror movie that I like, but a lesser movie playing by those rules gets an advantage with me.
GRAVE ENCOUNTERS is occasionally corny.  I do not like the "found-footage" technique, especially as the characters start having to justify why they're still filming the onscreen horrors ("We gotta document this," and "People are gonna want to see this,").  The characters aren't terribly likeable to begin with, but similarly to THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, as tensions rise and the characters start acting more stressed and on edge, I tend to hate them.  But when people wake up from a nap to find hospital I.D. wristbands with their names and information strapped on without explanation, I love it.  When the ghosts of suicide victims explode from within a bathtub of blood-red water and drag unsuspecting victims back with them into oblivion, I love it.  When ghostly doctors strap the living down to the operating table and perform a lobotomy, I'm having a hell of a time.