Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

My latest foray to the cinema was to see the latest Ghost Rider outing. This was a little over a week ago, and I keep getting sidetracked when starting one of these here blog things. Anyways, here goes...

Firstly, as an actual comic book film the film works quite well. There's some greats shots where scenes mesh together, similar to how the panels of a comic book mesh together. It works. On the flip side of that, those going in to this without comic book blinkers on may just laugh in the face of all of the things that the film is trying to achieve. That said, surely somebody that makes the effort to go and watch this film must have the outlook of throwing logic out of the window. A film grounded in reality this is not, as is the case for a lot of the superhero flicks. This one really does embrace the comic book stylings though, similar in a way to X-Men: First Class. I'll tell you now though, it's not on the same level as First Class.

Burn Baby Burn... Disco Inferno!

For those of you who are unaware of the Ghost Rider character or the 2007 original starring Nic Cage, then here's a little history lesson for you. The Ghost Rider is Johnny Blaze, played in this film and the original by Nicolas Cage. He's a charismatic, daredevil (excuse the pun) motorcycle stuntman, performing death defying tricks and stunts in front of mass audiences, carefree and risking his life for the buzz of it all. Blaze's father becomes ill, severely ill as in knock-knock-knockin' on heaven's door, and Johnny has the chance to save his father. This chance comes at a price - he has to make a deal with the Devil, literally. Satan approaches Blaze with a contract, basically his soul in order to save his father's life. Depending on which origin you read, Blaze ends up signing the contract with his blood one way or another. This essentially makes him the Devil's bitch. In the 2007 film the Devil later calls on Johnny and gives Blaze the power of the Ghost Rider in order to stop Satan's son, Wes Bentley, from overpowering daddy dearest. The whole origin of the Johnny Blaze version of Ghost Rider is recapped during the opening credits sequence for those that missed the first movie or have never picked up one of the books.

Now on to this movie. The main plot of the sequel is that a stunning lady is on the run with her young son. On the run from whom, you may ask? The Devil (dun dun dun). The Devil employs some, for lack of a better term, goons to do his dirty work and track down the woman and her boy. The Devil wishes to channel his spirit through the boy and take over the earth. Simple, usual comic book fodder then. Idris Elba pops up as someone who is protecting the boy, and he tracks down a bedraggled Johnny Blaze in order to persuade him to use the power of the Ghost Rider to help the woman and child. If the Rider helps in this task then Idris will take him to some monks and show him how to rid himself of the Ghost Rider spirit once and for all. I should probably mention at this point that Johnny Blaze has now isolated himself in the hills of 'Eastern Europe'. Yep, no specific country, it's just referenced as 'Eastern Europe'. Blaze sees the power of the Rider as his curse as he cannot control it. The Rider punishes anyone that has ever performed an evil act, so Blaze is worried that the Rider crosses lines that he doesn't want to cross. On a side note, I so wish that the Ghost Rider could be unleashed on Michael Bay. For those of you who are unaware, Michael Bay and his Anchor Bay studio are rehashing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in to another live action film. I've just read an article that he now plans to change the Turtles origins to that of an alien kind. Yep, the Turtles came from outer space. Fucking ridiculous! Surely the key's in the title... Teenage MUTANT Ninja Turtles. They're mutants, not Teenage ALIEN Ninja Fucking Turtles. Dick.

Anyways, a quick deep breath and back to Ghost Rider we go.

The plot is fine for what it is. Ghost Rider can often come with a lot of religious undertones at times, but that's to be expected given the nature of how Blaze gets given his 'gift'. It goes without saying that he decides to help rescue the woman and child, looking to put an end to the Devil's task and also removing his own curse in the process. There's a heavy hint of Terminator 2 in the film, as Blaze strikes up a relationship with the child in question much similar to that of the leather clad motorcycle enthusiast and the smart, wise-ass boy in T2. The female lead is a lot more to look at than Linda Hamilton though. That said, there is something about Linda Hamilton in T2.

Heeeeere's Johnny!

So what about the other bits and bobs? Well, the acting isn't the best. Nicolas Cage spends half of the film feeling sorry for himself and the other half completely hamming it up to a new degree of crazy. There's 2 scenes in particular that come to mind when one thinks of the Nic Cage craziness. Firstly, there's a random cut scene that shows a Blaze/Rider hybrid speeding through tunnels on his bike (as illustrated above). This is a little unnerving and the placing of it in the movie is questionable. The second instance of Nic overacting as only Nic can is when he visits the monks in order to remove the Rider curse from himself. It's hard to take seriously as it's just basically Cage rolling around on the floor, laughing (supposedly maniacally) to himself and making whoop whoop noises. The rest of the cast are fine, although Ciaran Hinds, replacing Peter Fonda as the Devil, is shockingly bad. There's a plot piece that explains that his face is supposed to look weak due to him being in human form, but the guy just has no presence. He's supposed to be playing the biggest and baddest big bad there is, the Devil. For my money Satan in South Park: The Movie is more intimidating, and that's including when he's being made into Saddam's bitch.

The pace of the film is good, progressive and generally consistent. As I've mentioned, there's some nice meshing of scenes to give a comic book vibe to the film, as well as a vast improvement on the effects of the previous film. The CGI in the first film was fine, but nothing more than fine. There were parts, as with most CGI heavy films, where the effects looked ropey to say the least. In this film that seems to be rectified, especially on the actual Rider himself. The skull looks a lot more impressive and not too blatantly created on a computer. The practical effects on Decay, Satan's main handyman, are a nice touch too. The only thing that still gripes me about the Rider is the scenes in which you see his hands and fingers. I know that he's technically a skeleton of sorts, but the thin fingers and clear bone structure just look ridiculous and I can't help but think of the waiter from Scary Movie 2.

"Take my good hand"

All in all, as a comic book movie, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is fine by me. The first film felt a bit flat and a bit too simple in the way that the Rider just plowed through everyone in his sight. There are similar moments in this, but a few of his flaws are exposed a bit more, plus the internal angst felt by Blaze is highlighted well. There's a nice tone to the scenes where he is wallowing in isolation, away from loved ones. It's just a shame that the 'crazy' scenes are too over the top to be taken seriously and Satan himself has zero screen presence, charisma or appeal. On, and as for the 3D... it literally was unnoticeable - simply no need.

A Quick Catch Up

Right, it's been a little while since I've been on this here blog type thing (18th October, 2011 if the Internet is to be believed). What started my absence was a changeover in Internet providers which left me without the joys of the 'net for about a month or so. In this time I typed a blog about the reformation of the Stone Roses and how giddy that had left me. I thought I'd upload this once my 'net came back on. One thing led to another and I've just not managed to get round to another blog since my 'net came back - I think I just got out of the habit of popping up little bits and bobs on here. Anyways, I went to (finally) upload said Roses blog yesterday when stupid, stupid, stoooooooooooooopid me deleted the whole of the My Documents folder. That meant that loads of stuff got deleted - not even to my Recycle Bin, just straight to data heaven - mainly my CV, various reports, most of my pictures and a few random things, such as some half baked ideas for films/TV shows and the aforementioned Roses blog. Pah!

So I'm starting from scratch with the hope of, once again, getting back into the habit of typing about random things to an ever small audience. The Roses blog was a huge piece, so no way am I going back on re-doing that. Let's just say that you'll have to take my word on the fact that I am ridiculously excited about the reformation of my favourite band of all time and the fact that I will be seeing them live in a matter of months. That is a day I honestly never thought would come.

One major problem I DO currently have though is a lack of hearing. My right ear is completely blocked up with all sorts of ear type crap. This has stopped me in my cinema going tracks for the last few weeks. It's put the shitter on me going to watch Star Wars: Episode 1 in 3D, The Woman in Black and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. I'm hoping I'll be able to catch them before their respective cinema runs come to an end.

Before I got all partially deaf, I managed to watch a fair few pieces of shit. The worst being a little known bad boy by the name of Sand Sharks. If you have the ability to read the title of the film then you can pretty much guess what it's about. Yep, you guessed it - it's about sharks in the sand. Leading the charge against these beasties is Brooke Hogan and a crop of similar level nobodies.

The FX budget went towards Brooke's chest

The film starts off with a couple of guys racing their dirt bikes across sand dunes. One of them goes missing, then the other one similarly disappears - getting taken by something from the sand. The FX in this one are horrible. I'm not talking low rent gore or poor quality CGI, I'm talking lazy CGI. You have to work within the boundaries of what you've got but there's no excuse for being lazy with it. When somebody is attacked then they literally just vanish into thin air, sometimes with a drop of blood left behind. It's literally now you see them, there's the sand shark, now you don't. I've tried to find examples online and this is one of the better ones. I especially like that the guy moves his head around like he's a cross between something from The Muppets and the classic riled up 1980's Nature Boy Ric Flair.

Now you see them, now you don't. I suppose you could say in a way it's playing to the film's strengths as they obviously have a small budget. It just looks so half assed to me though. Give me something more practical any day, or at least some bones and a bit of intestines left behind.

Something else that is off putting is the presence of Brooke Hogan as one of the leads. It's not so much the fact that she can't act (which she most definitely can't), it's more the fact that I can't help thinking that if you stuck a moustache on her then you'd have a mini-Hulkster. She must definitely have 3 Weetabix a day to be the size she is. It'd be wrong to call her ugly, but I wouldn't quite say she was pretty. I guess the phrase would be an intimidating physical presence. In Sand Sharks she's portrayed as a very girly girl though, which messes up the thought process even more so. Unfortunately for me, there's another shark film on my agenda called 2 Headed Shark Attack. The title of the film isn't the unfortunate bit. The unfortunate bit is that this also has Brooke-a-mania running wild all over it.

What'cha Gonna Do, Brother?!?!

On that note, I'm going to bring this little catch up to a close. My film watching is a bit restricted due to this stupid ear problem, but hopefully that rectifies itself in the next few days and I can plow on through the cinematic galaxy. Hopefully the next few turns of this galaxy don't involve Brooke Hogan, her guns and her surgically enhanced chest.

Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark...

Again, sorry for the lack of blog type stuff recently. I've been riddled with man flu. Now, you ask any man out there and they'll tell you that man flu is the worst illness on the planet. It takes it out of you as if you're a rhino giving birth.

As a result of said man flu I've been all a bit "meh" for the last week or so. I'm back to firing on most cylinders now though, which means I have been able to pop along to the cinema. That is exactly what I did, although I really wish that I hadn't. Let me start this by saying that I see good in basically ever film I see. I even enjoy films that I know are a pile of shit, such as the Shark Attack series or Ninja Terminator. If a film is shit then I almost have a sympathetic eye towards it. I'm not sure why this is. Maybe it's because the budget of these films is minuscule, maybe it's because I know that the actors really are doing their best, maybe it's because I know it's a small crew, small set and everyone is clubbing in together. So with all of that said, it has to be a movie that has some major things wrong with it for me to totally bash it and to see no redeeming features in it. That film, ladies and gentleman, would be Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark. I went into this with really high hopes. It looked like it could be genuinely creepy. It was written by Guillermo del Toro, who I am a massive fan of. It has Guy Pearce in it - again, someone who I am a massive fan of. It had that old style feel to it, like the spooky house or monster films of yesteryear - the kind of black and white film that as a kid I'd find on late night BBC2 and would be enthralled by the texture and the feel of the film. That is the type of film that I thought that this was going to harp back to. Sadly I was mistaken.

The general premise of the film is that a little girl is sent to live with her father, Guy Pearce, and his new girlfriend, Katie Holmes, whilst they are restoring an old house. The mother is hardly referred to, only referenced a few times to show that the poor little girl has been pushed from one parent to the other. The house is your usual old, antique, slightly spooky affair, complete with the usual characters, i.e the faithful maid, the slightly grump gardener, etc. The little girl is exploring the grounds when she comes across a disused basement that is hidden away under the house. With it being an old, creepy house, the entrance to the basement is hidden away behind a wall panel. Guy Pearce duly decides to knock away said panel and opens up the basement. This is where the film supposedly gets creepy. The little girl starts to hear things calling her name and speaking to her. This is when slightly erratic behavior starts to occur throughout the house, with Guy Pearce and Katie Holmes blaming the little girl for this. During the first half of the film it's established that the girl isn't the biggest fan of Katie Holmes in the step-mum-to-be role, whilst Guy Pearce is set up as bit of a cock who is just focused on work, work, work. This leads to you not really giving a shit about either of the main adult characters. You just don't care. This is my first problem with the film. My second problem is that it's supposed to be a mish-mash of horror/thriller/supernatural/monster films, yet it doesn't really showcase any major strengths in any of the aforementioned film types. About half way through it turns out that there are creatures running amok in the house, small little mischief-makers who bang on about child's teeth. Of course, the child knows exactly what's going on yet nobody believes her until it's more-or-less too late. When the little beasties do attack then you really don't give a shit as Guy Pearce is just a prick and Katie Holmes is Katie Holmes.

Don't Be Afraid Of Shit Films...

So that's where the main problem lies. None of the adult characters are sympathetic. The little girl, Bailee Madison, is fine in her role. She is great in the role of the grumpy kid who's been moved from pillar to post and has to try and adapt to her new life with her dad and the new love of his life. The film also never really has a scare moment, which surprised me. There wasn't a moment where I jumped or even flinched. I guess there's never any real sense of suspense for the most part. Usually in this type of film there's the slow build, which this has, and then the reveal. The reveal is made all the better by the suspense leading up to it. Here, when the reveal does finally come, it's just so-so. The effects work for the little creatures is fine, they don't look particularly bad or good. They do the job needed. It's just that you don't ever feel any real threat during the film. The suspense, for me, peaked in the opening few minutes when you see an old man going at a lady's teeth with a chisel. From there on out the film just seemed to lose my interest, which saddens me. I was really hoping for a lot from this film but I was just left with a typical Katie fucking Holmes performance. I'm not sure what it is about her that I don't like so much. She's just annoyed me for as long as I can remember. I never did the whole Dawon's Creek shit so I guess me and Miss Holmes (or should that be Mrs Cruise) got off on the wrong foot. She's just one of those actors that has done nothing of note to me, bar that topless scene from The Gift. She's just bland in anything that I see her in, bland, emotionless, wooden, annoying. After years of geek expectation for Batman Begins, she nearly ruined the film for me. Luckily her screen time was kept to a minimum. I'm one of those people that hate re-casting characters but I was literally shitting myself with joy when Maggie Gyllenhaal was announced as playing Rachel Dawes for The Dark Knight.

So to sum up, I had a good feeling for Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark yet I was left feeling like the film was a waste of what could have been. It had all of the factors to be great. Guillermo del Toro? Check. Creepy old house? Check. Little monsters? Check. Potentially creepy kid? Check. Katie Holmes death scene? You'll have to watch it and see.

The film at times felt like Critters in the way that it's little monsters were behaving. Whilst they were supposed to be menacing, you never really felt like they were going to do anything too brutal. The thing there is, Critters was meant to be firmly tongue in cheek and was on a small budget. Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark had a $25 million budget and was set up firmly as serious film. Now don't get me wrong, $25 million is nothing by today's standards, but the standard of the film is similar to the shit films that I mentioned in my opening paragraph. The only difference is, these films are firmly aware that they are shit.

On a slightly lighter note, my favourite band of all time are due to announce they're reunion today. Ian Brown, John Squire, Mani and Reni supposedly have a press conference booked for 3pm today. Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes. I'm not going to touch on the subject any further as I'm planning on a blog of sorts on the band. I'll just leave you with this.

Shark Night 3D

Again, sorry for the lack of blog-type stuff recently, I've been a busy bee. I'm planning on not doing a whole bunch of much over the next few weeks so that should mean more time to dabble with this stuff.

Now let's get down to business. The cinematic world is still reeling from Friday's release of Shark Night 3D. That's right, not Shark Night, not Shark Night 4D (see the Spy Kids franchise for that), and most definitely not Shark Night with smell-o-vision. Nope, this was Shark Night 3D! On a slightly side note, mid-way through the film I did get a smell of burning. I couldn't place whether it was the smell of knackered electrical items or the smell of burnt toast. It's a fine line to decipher between the two. So, yeah, I went to watch this shark infested beauty last night. For anybody that knows me then you know all about my irrational fear of sharks. You name it, I've done it (or not), as in I don't go into the sea (that's suicide!), as a kid I'd make sure I was always hunched up in a ball in the middle of the bench to make sure that no limbs were hanging over the edge of the bed for the waiting sharks (very sensible kid), and I try and do as little flying as possible (plane goes boom, drops from sky, I survive impact, land in ocean, sharks come to nibble on me). As well as this fear that I am very aware is all totally irrational, there's always a morbid curiosity and I'll watch any and all shit that I can find that involves sharks. That includes the piece of shit called Shark Night 3D.

Now it's not often that shark films come along these days. It's even rarer that they get a cinematic release, and it's even rarer still that the Odeon in Wrexham gets to show these films. Obviously there's a great demand from the Wrexham public to see more creature features. That said, upon walking into Screen 2 to watch the film last night I was greeted by the grand total of 2 other people in there. They were both on their own also. So there was 3 of us in the cinema, all sitting on our own. There were a few appreciate nods between us as I walked up the stairs to take my place amongst the popcorn covered seats. As the film began it immediately peaked my interest as the very first shot was a nice nod to Jaws (currently sat at approximately #4 on my favourite films of all time) as it was an underwater shot supposedly shot from a shark's point of view. As the scene unfolds it establishes a teenage couple messing around in the water. The boyfriend leaves the water to go and get some food (I can imagine him hunting antelope with a spear) and whilst he's gone his girlfriend gets devoured into a whole lot of bubbles and red stuff. There's another nice nod to Jaws in here too as the death of the girl echoes the opening scene death of Chrissy from Jaws. I think this is basically where my interest reached it's high point as the film slalomed down the toilet after this. The story picks up with a group of college kids, with each one supposedly ticking the box of a college stereotype. There's the brain, the athlete, the basket case, the princess and the criminal... oh wait, that's the wrong film. These stereotypes are the geek, the athlete, the pretty boy, the quirky guy, the girl with issues and a few other girls that really don't have much of their characters fleshed out (meaning you know that they're going to be getting munched at some point). The one big, big, big, big problem I have is the main guy. He's portrayed as the geek, the medical student who has poor people skills and who is never going to get anywhere with the ladies. The problem is that the dude is pretty ripped and has chiseled features. Just because his first scene shows him in a pair of glasses (and only the first scene) does not instantly make the guy your Anthony Michael Hall.

Geek with added pen

Not so much geek and not so much pen

That was my biggest gripe. The rest of the cast just play out like the usual background characters that you see in the OC. They're all nice and shiny but ultimately lacking substance. I guess I should get back to the plot rather than the cast, so these kids all end up going to a friend's place for the weekend. Now when I say a friend's place then I don't mean someone crashing on someone else's sofa after a few beers too many. Nope, I mean that one of the girls actually owns her own island in the middle of a huge lake which is miles from anywhere. It's almost as bad an idea as the whole tropical island plot of I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. At least that film had Jennifer Love Hewitt's breasts in to keep my attention. Whilst I'm at it, Shark Night is a PG, meaning no boobs, no language and no particularly gruesome deaths. So, anyway, these kids get to their destination after coming across a few rednecks on the way. We're not talking Deliverance style rednecks but it's worth making a note of the guys as they do pop up at times later on in the film. The girl that owns the island also happens to own a boat and so a few of the guys go water-skiing on the lake. The athlete is showing his moves off when all of a sudden he vanishes under the surface. This is where the sharks kick in. Whether he makes it or not, I'll let you watch and find out. You'd have thought one logical idea would be to stay on the land once they realise that there's sharks in the "salt-water" lake.

+

=

"I'm gonna eat your balls!"

Sadly for these kids they lack any kind of sense, even the medical student having moments that can only be described as a bit like Rodney from Only Fools & Horses. There's one moment where one of the guys loses an arm. This prompts some of the other guys to go and seek help, which means they have to go back into the water. This is a slightly plausible reason for why the cast would have to leave the land. The thing that shits all over logic is that the guy with one arm eventually ends up going back into the water to find the shark that attacked people. He goes in with one arm and a spear and literally wrestles with the shark as if he was "Macho Man" Randy Savage against Hulk Hogan. Ridiculous doesn't cover it. There's also a back story of two people falling out years ago because one ripped open the other's face open with a boat propeller by accident - I shit you not. There's then moments of sharks leaping through the air like Spider-man (obviously minus the outfit - now that is a film idea, Spider-shark!). After several of the supporting cast are offed in various munchable ways, the rednecks of earlier turn up to help. This is when things all go a bit sinister and there's a twist that is different to say the least. It kind of borrows parts from Hostel and Scream 4 but I'm not going to say any more on the subject.

I really hope that this is where the SFX budget went

To sum up, the plot was intriguing at times, the characters were paper thin in depth, the effects were poor at best, the need for 3D was a retarded idea and you had absolutely no sympathy for any of the characters involved. It's hard to care about the nasty things that are potentially happening to cheese-spewing, rich, ripped, good looking people. Shark Night fails to have the kitsch factor of Piranha 3D, whilst failing to have the serious tone of a Jaws, the scientific (if ridiculous) logic of a Deep Blue Sea or the brutally-honest-in-how-bad-they-are outlook of the various shark themed B movies that came before it. It does baffle me why they only went for a PG rating. Sure, Jaws had a PG rating but it also had a serious, strong story with a fantastic cast and one of the greatest directors of all time. I honestly expected Shark Night to go for the Piranha 3D route - play to your strengths. Don't take yourself too seriously, don't make ALL of your characters annoying, focus on the boobs and gore that has served similar films well over the years, make it camp, make it fun. I'm not sure, even after watching it, what Shark Night is entirely trying to set itself up as.

All in all, I did actually find parts of the film to be enjoyable but I do love shitty horror films, especially those involving sharks. For all those with a love of the very bad of the bad, you'll enjoy this for what it is. That said, most people will just think that the film is an absolute waste of 90 minutes of their life that they could have spent doing something more enjoyable, such as shoving a pineapple up their backside. 

I guess that means that I like pineapples.

Not the worst of views, I suppose...

Frankenhooker!

Well this week I've made a discovery of the best kind. I'm a big fan of Zone Horror, the awfully produced horror channel on Sky TV. Over the years it has shown some great short-story based TV shows that I used to watch as a kid. Shows such as Tales From The Crypt, Friday 13th, The Outer Limits and now Freddy's Nightmares. I've always been a sucker for this format of horror, especially for Crypt. I remember as a kid I'd get up at about 1am on, I think, a Monday night/Tuesday morning to watch WCW Worldwide on ITV. If I got up early enough then I'd catch the end of Tales From The Crypt. That was when I would be about 8. Years later I discovered Creepshow, Creepshow 2 and Body Bags. Three feature length films made up of the same idea of short stories. Creepshow 2 was so-so but the original Creepshow was brilliant. I was made up when it finally came out on DVD a few years ago, along with a fair few extras. My VHS copy had seen better days so it was also a bit of a relief to get it on DVD. As for Body Bags, Mark Hamill being a star baseball player on his way home, looking to play a music cassette but crashing his car and ending up with said tape wedged in his eye was brilliant. I can't do the scene justice, and I can't find a decent image of Hamill's reaction, but this is an image of part of that scene, dodgy moustache included:

Anyway, I'm getting slightly off point here. I had started to say about my love for Zone Horror. As well as the aforementioned short-story type horror shows, they have also shown some great unknown gems over the years. Now and again they'll show a well known film, normally something in the Hellraiser vein. One film I did come across a few years ago was The Tripper. Now I'm the type of person that will watch any and all horror films, regardless of how shit they sound or how low budget they look. I don't hold premise or budget against a film. To my surprise, The Tripper had Jason Mewes in it. As a big Kevin Smith fan, Mewes peaked my interest straight away. The summary of the film also said that it was directed by David Arquette and also featured appearances from Arquette, Courtney Cox-Arquette, Lukas Haas, Jaime King, Thomas Jane (Deep Blue Sea, Punisher and Boogie Nights REPRESENT!) and Paz de la Huerta. Obviously this was way before David started shaking the bacon with lots of other ladies who mainly seem to be varying forms of prostitutes or escorts. Anyway, I digress, The Tripper turned out to be a great little film about a Ronald Reagan obsessed serial killer who was taking out his aggression on hippies and stoners all whilst wearing a Reagan mask. There was also the immortal tag line of "Here's Ronnie!". Get it. Get it. Got. So, anyway, it's taking me what seems like a fair old ramble to establish that I have a lot of time for Zone Horror. Now on to the main point of this blog, Frankenhooker.

Frankenhooker: "It's a stitch!"

What a brilliant little film?!?! I can't believe that I've never seen it up until now. I almost feel ashamed at that admission. I was flicking through Zone Horror over the weekend and the title caught my eye, I had a quick read of the synopsis and then used the trusty Sky+ button to record it. I got round to watching it on Sunday night and it was even better than it sounded. The basic plot is that an amateur 'mad-scientist' sees his girlfriend killed in a lawnmower accident. Yes, a lawnmower accident. One minute she's waving at him from across the lawn, the next she's chewed up by a lawnmower as we see her blood splat against a poor, unsuspecting gnome.

Poor Noddy had only just washed his beard

During this tragedy, our Dr Frankenstein in waiting, Jeffrey, manages to salvage the severed head of his girlfriend. From there on in he tries to come up with ideas on how to re-animate her. In his wisdom he decides that he can buy a shit load of hookers and use their body parts to make a body for the head of his beloved. This is all well and good but Jeffrey has a bit of a pickle when it comes to actually killing the ladies of the night. He decides to drill into his own brain, which somehow gives him a creative boost. He decides that he'll buy some crack and turn it into "Supercrack" using his science skills. If this was me then I'd market it as "Supercrack - guaranteed to get you higher faster than a speeding bullet". I think it's catchy. Maybe my skills are wasted in my current job and I should use my marketing knowledge to market drugs. I guess it's an option. Anyway, all tooled up with this wonder drug he goes out to get himself some hookers. By this point he's already researched his whores and has struck up a relationship with a pimp called Zorro. The character of Zorro is arguably the worst acting I have ever seen in any film, and I've seen myself act. It's so bad that it's scene stealing. You'll understand if you've seen the film. Anyway, Jeffrey ends up in a room with a shit load of hookers and a load of drugs. His original plan was to feed the hookers the Supercrack and watch them explode (literally!), but he has since had a change of heart. Just when he starts to realise that the whole thing is a bit of a stupid idea, the hookers discover the stash of Supercrack. Within all of 5 seconds of consuming the new drug of choice, they're all naked and fondling each other. This had me thinking that I should try and make some Supercrack of my own. I've already got a swish, catchy slogan sorted (see above) so if only I could make the product then I could attract me a room full of naked ladies. Hmmmm. So the naked ladies take the Supercrack and then they basically blow up, as in like a Catherine Wheel.

She definitely should have avoided the Chicken Vindaloo

I forgot to mention this but there's a great scene before all of the hookers go boom where Jeffrey basically checks each one's body out for the perfect limbs. I may have a soft spot for this scene because there's about 14 pairs of breasts on show, although I'm sure there's other merits to the scene. So Jeffrey toddles off to his garage (his lab) where he puts all of the hookers body parts in a storage tank. He then begins the task of choosing the best parts and putting them together to re-animate his girlfriend. Amazingly this works and his beloved comes back to the world of the living, only now she's full of hooker memories. This means that she pushes Jeffrey to one side and basically hits the streets, looking to hop on to any and all penises in sight. The only problem is that her lady parts are all now full of experimental goodness and cause her partner in passion to explode in a way similar to the aforementioned hookers. I won't give any more of the movie away apart from the fact that Zorro, the horribly acted Hispanic pimp, turns up to take revenge/ownership on the hooker that's made up of the parts of his former money makers.

All in all, the film is a blast. It's got a serious tone of Troma to it in some ways. It's gorey, it's badly acted, it's low budgeted, and it features some brilliantly awful lines - my personal favourite being "I'm not much of a sports fan but I do like a certain indoor sport. Mind if I stick my tongue down your throat?". I reckon that's guaranteed to make the ladies swoon on a Saturday night out in Wrexham. Maybe I'll try it and post a result of my findings on here. Or maybe I won't and I'll save myself a slap and a knee to the balls.

Other than Frankenhooker, I've been having a bit of a John Carpenter kind of week. The Thing, Halloween 2 and The Ward have followed my recent viewing of Elvis. Always a Carpenter fan, but that's another blog. On a non-film note, it's been a rum old week for Wrexham FC. Firstly, Dean Saunders left the club to move to Doncaster. A great move for Deano, moving up three divisions to the Championship. No qualms from me as any player would have made the same move, and any person would take a jump of three grades in their current job. All the best to Dean, Mal Purchase and Brian Carey. The current caretaker, Andy Morrell, got off to a great start with a 3-1 away win against Grimsby at the weekend. The good news from last night is that the Geoff Moss and Ian Roberts era is finally over. The fans now own the club so there can be no more excuses when it comes to results being affected by ownership. Time to get our heads on and maintain the form that currently has us sitting top of the Blue Square Bet Premiership, starting with tonight's game against Mansfield.

Come on the Town!

John Carpenter's Elvis

Right, it's been a week or more since I last posted. I guess I've been a bit of a busy bee. By busy bee I don't mean I've done anything constructive. I also don't mean that I've produced honey and stung inquisitive young children. I mean I've just been doing a few bits and bobs that has meant I've spent a little less time online. I've also rediscovered my love for all things Football Manager. Mainly it was visiting people for Birthdays and what not.

I've managed to take in a couple of new (to me) films in the last few days though. These were When You're Strange and Elvis. When You're Strange is the Johnny Depp narrated Doors documentary that came out last year and Elvis is the 1979 John Carpenter film that gave Kurt Russell his first leading role. Both were great watches, with The Doors doc just being made up purely of old footage of the band whereas the Elvis biopic didn't include a single second of footage of the actual King. I'll stop there for a second as I'm currently listening to Sleeper. Just a random line that I feel that more people should appreciate, from Delicious, "We should both go to bed 'til we make each other sore...". Love it. For those not aware of the genius of Sleeper, check out this funky little tune. For those that are aware of the genius of Sleeper, I salute you:

Now, the above song most certainly isn't Delicious but Inbetweener seems to be the only song that I can find a decent performance of on YouTube. I found an acoustic version of Delicious but the recording's all a bit too quiet. Bah, Inbetweener it is then. It reminds me of my Louise Wener love. Her, Donna Matthews (Elastica), Sonya Madan (Echobelly), Lauren Laverne (Kenickie) and, a bit later on, Charlotte Hatherley (Ash) were the girls for me. All stunning and all liked to dabble with the guitar to varying degrees. I'm a sucker for a woman with a guitar. I'm not sure what it is, but it just does things to me. I could spend days locked in a room with Elastica although obviously Justin would have to either wait outside or just sit and watch. Right, now that I've gotten totally off on a random tangent, err, Elvis, yeah.

So, Elvis, John Carpenter's '79 biopic of Elvis Aaron Presley. Great film. Over the years there's been many different screen incarnations of the King. My personal favourite still stands as Bruce Campbell in Bubba-Ho-Tep, but I digress. Kurt Russell's portrayal of Elvis is ridiculously good, more so in the fact that he covers many different stages of Elvis' life. The film starts of with a very young Elvis, maybe 8 or 9 years old. This sets up him receiving his first guitar as a Christmas present and also highlights the financial struggle that his family is undergoing with making ends meet. We then skip forward about 6 or 7 years to Kurt Russell's Elvis in high school, getting bullied for his non-conformist hairstyle. Russell then takes you on through the rest of the film and through the various stages of Elvis. There's the shy but charming schoolboy with his sweetheart, there's the nervous teenager that's never performed in front of an audience but ends up in a school talent contest, there's the mama's boy Elvis that records a record for his mother, there's the cocksure Elvis that starts to know how good he is, there's the Elvis that gets rejected at an audition, then there's the Elvis that goes on the meteoric rise that ends up with him becoming the biggest musical name on the planet. The film doesn't follow right through on the Elvis story, choosing to end on his big Las Vegas comeback of the late '60's rather than to end with the King sat on the toilet mid-log and mid-burger. Kurt Russell's performance is fantastic, showing innocence, arrogance, loving, hating, introvert, extrovert. He does a brilliant job of showing Elvis getting wrapped up in the whirlwind rise of himself, only to then realise that due to this he can no longer be just a normal man. He can no longer go for a walk, go on holiday, go shopping. The performance is astonishing for it's range, from the country boy who dreamed of being a rock star to the King of Rock & Roll who has too much fame for him to deal with. The strut, gestures, characteristics and dance moves that Russell shows are unbelievable. Such attention to detail, just so much down to the little things like the way he moves or alters clothing. I'd definitely recommend it to all Elvis fans and to all music or film fans in general. That said, I'm a huge John Carpenter and Kurt Russell fan, so maybe take my words with a grain of salt. One thing that may put a few people off is the running time. The film was originally meant to be split up and shown in installments on TV, hence the long running time that sits at about 2 hours 48 minutes. That said, a shit load of people were happy to invest that amount of time in that Lord of the Rings: Two Towers bullshit which basically focused on 3 hours of walking. As a wiser man than me once said, "even the fucking trees walked in those moves". If you don't know what I'm on about, have a nosey at this (excuse the French subtitles):

In regards to the above, I quite like the first and last Lord of the Rings films. That said, it riles me when people go on about them being the best films of all time or describing them as "The Trilogy". There's only one trilogy and that's "The Holy Trilogy", as in Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

I'm off to take in Wrexham's World Peace Day now so I guess I'll maybe write a bit more on When You're Strange on another day.

Fuckin' A!

Red State!

I recently got the chance to see a film that has had my attention since it was first announced. I'm a Kevin Smith guy, I love his films, I love the characters, I love the whole in-jokes thing, I love his Star Wars fascination, I love his comics obsession, I love his references, I love his dialogue, I love that he was the man that first showed me Jason Lee, I love the tight-knit group of actors that he uses in all of his films. So, yeah, there's a lot of Kev love from me. I also happen to be a big lover of the horror genre. My most traumatic experience as a kid was watching Jaws at the age of approximately 4. I never recovered. To this day, I still don't go in the sea. I also hate flying due to my shark phobia. That's why they call these things irrational films. Anyways, from as long as I can remember I've always been a horror fan. Jaws, Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday 13th, The Thing, Scream, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, It, An American Werewolf in London, Switchblade Romance, The Devil's Rejects, The Changeling (no, not the one with Mrs Brad Pitt in it), Trick 'r' Treat, Body Bags, Shivers, Creepshow - all favourites of mine. I'll watch any horror film, the worse the better. The low budget shit that gets shown at 3am on a Tuesday night on Zone Horror? I'll watch it. The sequel to the film that used to be good 6 sequels ago? I'll watch it. The totally unnecessary crossover of horror characters? I'll watch it. The one about a girl who is bullied at camp but then ends up being a transsexual serial killer? I'll watch it (see Sleepaway Camp). The point is, I'll watch any horror film going, regardless of quality. I even went to the cinema to watch Boogeyman. Right, so keep up, you've got Kevin Smith, director of some of my favourite films (Mallrats!!!!!), user of some of my favourite vulgarities (cunt rag), fanboy galore of all things comics-related, and who is now branching out to the field of horror. It's a perfect mix for me. The only hitch was that Smith was releasing the film in a totally unique way. He was basically cutting out all studio involvement and releasing the film himself, marketing the film himself, selling the film to himself. From there on out he's been moving across the USA and touring the film from cinema to cinema, town to town, state to state. I didn't hold out much hope of the film getting released over on this side of the pond, but there are scheduled showings set up at the moment, some involving Q&A sessions with Smith. Luckily for me, I managed to watch the film over the weekend. I've been looking to get tickets for the Red State showing and Q&A session at Odeon, Manchester later on this week, but the tickets have sold out. Either way, I've managed to view the film this weekend. Here's the trailer for anybody that hasn't heard of the film or has no idea as to what the film is about:

The film initially focuses on a group of three teenage friends, one of which arranges to meet a girl that he has met on the Internet. It turns out that he's managed to get this hot girl to agree to a foursome involving the three guys. It's probably best to point out now that the film actually opens by showing a group of people protesting outside of the funeral of a gay US solder. As it happens, after the three friends arrive at the trailer of the aforementioned hot lady it turns out to be a case of false advertising. Instead of the hot, young girl that has been talking to one of the friends, the person they find upon arrival is a middle aged Melissa Leo. The friends decide to go for it anyway, with one thing leading to another and them waking up amongst a cult. The cult are against homosexuality, sex, drugs, alcohol, etc. Generally all the good stuff - bar the homesexuality, although that's a matter of choice. Rather than tolerate the differences of others, the cult has their own methods of dealing with those that do not see things in the same way that they do, and their methods are extreme. Just as things start to take shape, John Goodman and his team of special agents turn up to help out the local Sheriff. Everything goes a bit bat-shit crazy once Goodman's boss gives him certain orders over the phone. That's all I'm going to say about the plot so that I don't give away too much. That said, "simple just shit itself" is my favourite film quote of recent memory. Genius from the man Smith!

Whilst Red State was classed as a horror I'd tend to lean more towards thriller/chiller than out and out horror. The horror aspect is more the extremities that these type of people go to in order to force their opinions on people. It's a great film that really pulls at the emotions at times. There's a few familiar faces in there, even a more filled-out Jen Schwalbach popping up along the way. I'd definitely recommend Red State but I'm not sure to who. I'm not sure that it's got a particular target audience. It's not an out-and-out horror, it's not a completely psychological affair, it's not an action movie, yet it seamlessly mixes elements of all three. It's a big change from Smith's usual fare although there's still certain parts of the dialogue that stand up there with some of Smith's more memorable. One thing I do have to say is that Michael Parks is fantastic again. Absolutely fantastic. According to Smith, Parks ad-libbed large parts of his diatribes. That's not a totally unheard of concept but you'll really appreciate that once you see how good Parks is in this. If you get the chance, get yourself along and watch Red State in the coming weeks. You won't be disappointed. If you are then you're of no use to me anyway.

On a sadder note, I've just heard that Cliff Robertson has died today at the age of 88 from natural causes. Being the superhero geek that I am, Cliff was Uncle Ben in the Spider-man trilogy to me. That said, he's one of those faces that you always see pop up in so many films and shows over the decades. To others he may be more remembered for his role in Charly and the Oscar that came with it, but to me he's Uncle Ben. Rest in Peace, sir.

Food time for me. I think it may be a Pant yr Ochain kinda day.

The Inbetweeners Movie

Right, so I've finally gotten around to watching The Inbetweeners Movie. Until last night I was in what felt like the 5% of the population that hadn't seen the film. It wasn't that I didn't want to see the film, it wasn't because I didn't like the TV show. For anybody that knows me, I'm a very, very crude and sarcastic person most of the time. So a TV show such as The Inbetweeners is right up my alley. The reason that I put off seeing the film for a few weeks is that the cinemas were constantly rammed with people who were seeing this film. Normally I'd pop along on one of my days off in the week but with it being the summer holidays then it still meant that students were in the cinema. Call me a grumpy old man but I like my cinema to be as void of people as much as possible. When I go to the cinema then I go to watch the film, I pay attention and take in as much detail as I can. So, add in a load of people who are chatting amongst themselves, dicking around on their phones or just generally being cocks, then it annoys the piss out of me. Hence me waiting for a few weeks to catch this film once some of the hype had died down. My cunning plan worked flawlessly as there was a grand total of 9 people in the cinema and I was one of those. It's a good film, an entertaining way to pass 80 odd minutes. It most definitely had some very funny parts, some brilliantly crude lines. The plot was stupidly predictable but that's to be expected with this sort of film. It works as a film in the same way as an American Pie, Private Parts, Dodgeball or a Kevin & Perry Go Large. It's not going to change your life but it's a fun way to pass the time. It's entertaining, pure and simple. Obviously the film's helped in the fact that it already has a solid and established audience. People know what to expect from the characters, from the script and from the dialogue. It's not for everybody, but I'm sure that people who have found the show to be a turn off won't bother to watch the film. In theory, that means that everybody that watches the film should enjoy it. That said, my mum was talking to me yesterday about going and watching it even though she's never watched the TV show and has no idea of the concept of the show or the film. That should be fun for her.

I feel a little let down by myself as I've had the last 5 days off work, and with those days I was planning on catching 5 different films. The plan was to take in, in no particular order, Fright Night, The Inbetweeners, Cowboys & Aliens, Apollo 18 and Conan. Final Destination 5 was also possibly on my hit list. I've only managed to get through 2 of those, although I did spend one day watching Wrexham play (and all that comes with it) so I guess that wasn't a total waste. Apollo 18 really had my interest until I listed to Turek on the Shock Waves podcast at Shock Till You Drop (Click here to listen to Shock Waves). They really buried the film and it got a brutal review. Normally I can take or leave reviews, but those guys normally get their shit spot on. I may still try and catch Apollo 18 at some point, although my interest has waned a lot. Final Destination was on my agenda until I read about there being a scene involving laser eye treatment. As a specs wearer, the thought of that kinda freaks me out. I'm not a fan of things poking round my eyes, hence why I choose not to wear contact lenses. Cowboys & Aliens has been on my hit list for a few weeks now but I was more warm to the concept and idea than the practicality. It just doesn't look right. I dunno. I'm pretty sure I'll end up catching it before it's cinema run ends. Conan, I'm not so sure.

One thing that has gotten my giddy, that I forgot to mention a few blogs ago, is that the trailer for Shark Night 3D was shown when I caught Fright Night. Now, I'd seen the trailer online before so there was no major surprise in that sense. The surprise to me was that the trailer was being shown in my little Odeon in the first place. The cinema here, the Odeon, isn't the biggest. It shows all of the major movies. A film like Shark Night, I thought, would fall by the wayside and not get a cinema run in my neck of the woods. In my head, by showing the trailer for the film then it's basically them committing to showing the film upon it's release. At least that's how it works in my head. That said, I wasn't expecting them to run Fright Night. Maybe I should give the Odeon a bit more credit. If they want to make a good impression on me then they'll somehow manage to have a word with Kevin Smith and get hold of Red State. Still, I'm looking at getting up to Manchester to see Red State and then attend a Q & A with Kev afterwards. I just need to think of a question to top my friend's previous question of if you were half man/half sausage, would the sausage be the top half or the bottom half. That's a deep question right there.

For those that haven't seen the Shark Night 3D trailer then have a little click below. I'll hold my hands up and admit it looks shit, but it's my kind of shit. As a man that has a completely irrational fear of sharks (so much so that I get freaked out on airplanes due to the thought of sharks), I still get intrigued and interest in every single shark film out there, regardless of how shitty it is. Maybe subliminally I'm watching all of these to make sure that I have every single option covered when it comes to ways to kill a shark so that I'm fully prepped for when I have my face off with those grinning motherfuckers. Here's the trailer:

Anyways, on that note I should shoot off as I've got a report type thing to do for the end of this week that I really need to pull my finger out on. That and Wales are playing England at Wembley in a few hours. There's optimism there from me, but then I've never been a realist.

Cymru Am Byth :)

Sunday bloody Sunday

Just a quick drop in to add a bit more to my initial Fright Night post. Upon seeing all of the early pictures and the trailers, I was devastated by David Tennant's look for Peter Vincent. The initial images of David Tennant were more-or-less the complete opposite of Roddy McDowell in the original. Tennant seemed to be more of a Jack Sparrow/Keith Richards style Peter Vincent. His portrayal looked like it was going to be one of those moments where classic cinema moments are dragged into the present and modernised. Luckily for me, and possibly for others, Tennant sheds the Rolling Stones look midway through the film. There's a scene where he's talking to Charlie and he takes off his wig, peels off his facial hair and scrubs off his tattoos. I gave a big sigh of relief at this as then you actually get to see a good performance. I was resigned to a Keith Richards wannabe, Jack Sparrow style, so it was refreshing to see Tennant take off all of his shit and actually show a bit of the actual Peter Vincent character. That said, they did throw in a bit of an unnecessary plot with Peter Vincent and his parents. I'm not going to say any more and spoil things but it seemed a little forced and unbelievable. That said, I was sat in the cinema watching a film about a vampire called Jerry so I can't really criticize things for not being believable. All in all though, I'd give the film a big thumbs up. From the reports that I've read, the film bombed massively box office wise in the States. Apparently it made less in it's opening weekend than the 1985 original. That's a big blow. Regardless, go and see it, you'll thank me later. It's not going to change the face of the medium of film, but it's a fun way to kill 90 minutes of your life. I'm still not sold on the mum character though. Definitely not feeling any MILF vibes.

Moving swiftly on, the Town were awesome again yesterday. Like a lower league Barcelona, a small scale Manchester United, a non-league... Southampton. Another good performance, another 3 points and another dominant display. It baffles me to see us keep the ball so well as I'm just so conditioned to not seeing us play like that after all of those years. It's refreshing, it's positive, it's easy on the eye. The ball that Curtis Obeng put in for the 2nd goal was ridiculously good. It was basically begging Wright to put it out of it's misery. He finished it well and it was a relief to see him get his first goal for the Town. Again, Wright put a shift in. Great performance from the lad. There were moments where he was tracking back to full back and just generally being a pest. Fowler doesn't even get a mention because the performance that he put in is a given at this moment in time. Far too good for this level. His ball retention, his body shape, his vision... all top class. On a side note, it was good to see Dean Keates get a run out for the last 12 minutes or so. Again, another player that's too good for this level. The fact that he's on the bench at the moment shows the steps that we've made in regards to strength in depth. Last year Keates would have been thrown back into the team even if he was 40% match fit. At present we can afford to ease him back in gently and take our time with him. It'll be interesting to see what the starting line-up is when Keates is fully fit. You'd think maybe Tolley will make way but at the moment you can't change the team. Add to that the fact that Tolley is always a goal threat then you give yourself a bit of a conundrum. Either way, it's a good problem to have and the Town are sitting loud and proud at the top of the league. Happy day :)

Fright Night

Right, so I got around to checking out Fright Night yesterday. I say got around to but it was only out yesterday and I managed to get to the first showing at 1:45pm. The cinema had about 25 people in which is cool by me. The more empty the cinema then the more happy I am. That way there's less people to dick around with their phones or to just chat throughout the entire film.

Anyways, the film! It was surprisingly OK. The first 20 to 30 minutes were a bit bland but then it got going surprisingly well. It really surprised me how well it was done. It wasn't a direct carbon copy of the original Fright Night and actually changed things up quite well. I don't mean change things up in the "let's have Michael Myers talk" way, but they added scenes, removed scenes, threw in new bits. I'm not sure when writing my random thoughts whether I should talk fully about the film or try to avoid spoilers for people. I guess I should be kind and watch what I say. There's an interesting take on the whole vampires-can't-come-into-your-house-without-being-invited notion. Very clever. There's some parts that are a totally different from the original, and they work. The whole Evil Ed thing seems over a little quick initially, as in he's basically turned within the first 15 minutes or so and then doesn't pop up until about the hour mark. I'm not classing that as a spoiler as anybody that's seen the original Fright Night is expecting that. If you haven't seen the original Fright Night then fuck you, it's your own fault for not watching an '80's classic. One thing that was a little off putting is that I can never really buy Anton Yelchin as a school kid. I mean he's very baby faced but he's got massive wrinkles on his forehead whenever he talks and looks like one of those dudes who always partially look about 65 regardless of their actual age - like there's an old man waiting to burst out. They do manage to even throw in nods to the original film's make-up work, such as the genius big grin below.

Right, I think that covers it for now as I'm about to shoot off out to grab me a pie, pint and some entertaining Wrexham football. The Town are genuinely playing well at the moment, keeping possession, finding men, prepared to wait to find the right ball. It's a genuine joy to watch. Let's just hope we can keep it up against Kidderminster today. Fingers crossed that the Williams brothers don't come back to haunt us. Anyways, time for me to pop across the road for a pre-match pie and pint :)