The film cuts between scenes of Amy in the hospital and brief scenes of Dr. Sloan and Jacob as they monitor her through cameras mounted in the hospital room and interacting with each other discussing her case. The audience learns early on that Amy is a resident, working towards becoming a doctor, and as she becomes increasingly restless and Dr. Sloan says and does some things that make her suspicious, the uncertainty of Amy’s situation becomes more ominous. Given the little information she has, and the odd behavior of Dr. Sloan and Jacob, Amy begins to wonder if she is being treated for a mysterious sudden illness or is being held in the hospital for a more sinister purpose.
Now, the main problem with Isolation is the fact that you know going into it that it is a horror movie, so chances are you will be watching with a careful eye. For its first hour, Isolation does a good job of diverting attention away from its central question, and the scenes that could tip the film’s hand wisely play things close to the vest. However, once the third act begins, things turn disappointingly predictable. All this work is for naught, though, if you have somehow managed to see the film’s trailer before watching the movie– the trailer literally spoils every conceivable thing that could be spoiled in the course of the film’s storyline.
The trailer issue aside, Isolation is often effective, playing on the universal fear of extended hospitalization and of getting an unexplained and unknown illness. Eva Amurri delivers a strong performance in the lead as Amy, and David Harbour is very good as Dr. Sloan, hitting just the right tone of concern tempered with a brusque manner. The trouble with Isolation is not its cast, or production values, or even necessarily the structure and writing– although Amy conveniently avoids doing at least one very obvious thing that would put to bed her uncertainty about her situation until the film is nearly over. Mostly, Isolation is undone by the expectations viewers will bring to the film with the knowledge of its genre. As it is, Isolation is a neat little thriller, but a few different choices to confound expectations could have made it something much more.
It Stains the Sands Red (2016)
Originally published on Film Monthly 28 July 2017
Any diehard horror fan would be pardoned for suffering from prolonged zombie fatigue in today’s pop culture landscape. The Walking Dead is a hit long-running TV series, Night of the Living Dead has been used in every film that needs characters watching a public domain movie in it for decades, and independent filmmakers keep cranking out cheap zombie movies at a distressing pace. It’s damned tough to come up with a new wrinkle on the “zombie movie” formula–hard enough that most filmmakers don’t even try. Certainly there’s something to be said for a solid take on familiar material, but better is the occasional film that offers an unexpected tweak on the kind of movie horror fans have seen too many times. It Stains the Sands Red, the solo feature directing debut of Colin Minihan, splits the difference and provides an intriguing take on the zombie movie.
The zombie apocalypse is in full swing in Las Vegas. Molly (Brittany Allen) is getting the hell out of town with her boyfriend Nick (Merwin Mondesir), pedal to the floor all the way to a small airfield where some of Nick’s friends are waiting to take off to Mexico and wait out the end of the world lounging on a beach getting drunk. But when Nick has to pull off the road in a hurry, his car gets stuck in the sand, and before he and Molly can get it back on the road a single zombie (Juan Riedinger) shambles up from seemingly out of nowhere. As would be expected, the encounter does not end well and Molly soon finds herself striking out on foot through the desert toward the airfield. To further complicate her journey across the desert, the wounded zombie is staggering after her, and unlike Molly it never has to stop to rest.
The bulk of the running time in It Stains the Sand Red consists of Molly trekking across the desert with “Smalls” (the name she eventually gives her zombie companion) and using it as a sounding board to work through some of the issues that led her to the circumstances in which she lived when things in Vegas went south. She is presented with a series of problems unique to her situation: How can she find time to rest or stop to go to the bathroom when Smalls never stops coming at her? The fact that Smalls is more of a traditional Romero-style zombie works in her favor. He’s not terribly bright, he’s very single-minded, and he was already a little slow before taking a bullet wound in one leg. And it probably helps that he can’t understand the heaps of insults Molly piles on him on their long walk. Or can he?
Allan is one of only a handful of speaking parts in the entire film, and she’s on-screen almost the entire time. Thankfully, she makes Molly a compelling character to spend time with. Director/co-writer Minihan–one of the “Vicious Brothers” who made a splash in the indie horror scene with Grave Encounters–uses the desolate locations and Allan’s great performance to maximum effect. The film falls into an easy rhythm, and it’s something of a disappointment when the story reaches its final act and takes a turn toward much more familiar zombie movie territory. Even then, it has one neat trick left in an ending that in any other circumstance would feel like a setup for a sequel, but here is the natural endpoint of its main character’s arc. There’s a lot to recommend It Stains the Sands Red, and anyone looking for a unique take on the tired “zombie movie” formula should seek it out.
The Jail: The Women’s Hell (2006)
Originally published on Daily Grindhouse 24 November 2016
Since last November, Intervision has released four of the last films made by Italian sleaze legend Bruno Mattei on DVD. First up was a pair of cannibal movies from 2004, probably at least in part intended to capitalize on the release of Eli Roth’s The Green Inferno. February saw the release of two zombie films Mattei made in 2007 just before his death, and now Intervision returns with a 2006 “women in prison” movie that is as generic as its title would suggest. You know everything you need to know about The Jail: The Women’s Hell before you even start watching it.
Jennifer (Yvette Yzon, who also starred in Mattei’s final pair of zombie movies) is taken on a boat with two other women to a remote jungle prison run by a sadistic female warden. Bad stuff happens to them for about ninety minutes. Roll credits. Seriously, that pretty much covers it: Jennifer and her fellow inmates are tortured, beaten, raped, forced into exotic dancing and prostitution at a local club, and more by the warden and her guards. They also have to contend with a snitch who gets them in trouble (triggering more punishment) and survive some epic catfights that break out for no good reason. In other words, if you’ve ever seen a WIP movie, you know exactly what to expect.
Approximately 45 minutes into the movie, a plot line finally appears. Jennifer gets in on an escape plan with some of her fellow inmates. It comes as very little surprise that the plan backfires, though, and the last thirty minutes or so of the film are made up of a protracted woman hunt. Will any of the women make it out alive, or will they suffer a fate worse than death at the hands of the vicious locals? More importantly, could anyone actually care at all what happens to any of these characters?
With the previous Mattei reissues, there was at least some entertainment value in watching him shamelessly ape Cannibal Holocaust in Mondo Cannibal and James Cameron with In the Land of the Cannibals (which is Aliens but with cannibals) and Zombies: The Beginning (which is Aliens but with zombies). This time around, Mattei is basically just cannibalizing his own 1980s WIP films Women’s Prison Massacre and Violence in a Women’s Prison, which weren’t that much fun the first time around anyway. All the hallmarks of Mattei’s late-period films are here: ugly digital video, atrocious dubbing, and a general feeling that everybody involved is just trying to get this thing over with as quickly as possible so they can get paid already. That can be entertaining in its own right, but The Jail is so mean-spirited and misogynist that any sense of fun is drained completely away, and it quickly devolves into a miserable slog.
This Intervision DVD does include a few interesting extras. “Acting for Bruno” is a featurette that includes interviews with Yvette Yzon and
Alvin Anson, in which they describe the process of working in front of the camera for Mattei. It will probably surprise no one familiar with his work that it mostly does not sound like a lot of fun. The other featurette, “Prison Inferno,” details the production of the film through interviews with producer Giovanni Paolucci and screenwriter Antonio Tentori. The stories all of these people have about making the movie are considerably more interesting than the film itself.
It’s great that companies like Intervision are out there giving movies legitimate U.S. home video releases, and no doubt Bruno Mattei fans are going to be excited to grab this disc for both the movie and its interesting peek behind the scenes. But unless you’re a diehard fan of WIP movies, The Jail: The Women’s Hellhas nothing to offer. It’s the cheapest, laziest, and ugliest kind of exploitation movie, carelessly cranked out to make a quick buck. If you’re not a fan of WIP movies, you’ll probably have as much fun with this one as it looks like everyone on-screen had making it.
Jennifer’s Body (2009)
Originally published on Film Monthly 30 December 2009
Circumstances were not kind to Jennifer’s Body. Arriving at the apex of a double backlash against Diablo Cody (the film’s screenwriter) and Megan Fox (playing the title role), any discussion of the actual quality of the film itself was drowned out by legions of critics trying to prove they hated one or the other more than anyone else. Unfortunately, what many people missed in the outcry against sassy dialogue is a fun, unique take on horror by women and for women.
Jennifer’s Body is one of the few horror films that is centered on the kind of close friendship specific to women– the kind of relationship that drives films like Ginger Snaps and Heavenly Creatures. Needy (Amanda Seyfried) and Jennifer (Megan Fox) have been best friends since childhood. Or, as Needy puts it: “Sandbox love never dies.” Even though Jennifer is head of the cheerleading squad and Needy is mousy and bookish, they remain as close as ever, to the point where Needy’s boyfriend Chip (Johnny Simmons) feels a little weirded out and annoyed that Jennifer keeps “kidnapping” his girlfriend.
One night Jennifer convinces Needy to go see a local band at a dive bar. After a bizarre accident causes the bar to burn to the ground, the band disappears with Jennifer and Needy makes her way home. Later that night Jennifer visits, but something’s wrong, including the fact that she vomits sentient black goo all over Needy’s kitchen floor. Before long Jennifer is starting to look like the “normal girls,” and only eating boys will bring her back to her glamorous, supernaturally charged self. And Chip is starting to look pretty tasty…
Jennifer’s Body is an outstanding horror/comedy hybrid, carried by an excellent performance by Megan Fox as Jennifer. Given little more to do in the Transformers films than sweat and look worried, Fox admirably tears into the part of the demonic cheerleader. She’s clearly not concerned about looking rough, spending a good part of the movie covered in blood, bruises, and black ichor. Jennifer is sexy and terrifying in turns, one of the best female villains in recent horror films. The rest of the cast is solid, with a particularly good cameo role by J.K. Simmons as a hook-handed teacher.
Jennifer’s Body is a severely overlooked gem. Ignore the backlash and give it a chance, you’ll probably be surprised. I guarantee this is going to be a cult classic in years to come.
Jersey Shore Shark Attack (2012)
Originally published on Film Monthly 28 August 2012
It’s not too hard to imagine the pitch meeting for this one: A producer is watching Shark Week and catches a bit about the real-life 1916 “Jersey Shore Shark Attack.” It pretty much writes itself, really. SyFy has been rolling out new Creature Features pretty regularly for some time now, enlisting the aid of Roger Corman and the Asylum for such modern camp classics as DinoCroc and Sharktopus, and now comes Jersey Shore Shark Attack. It can’t possibly be as great as the title suggests, right? Right. But it still offers some dumb fun, which is all anyone can reasonably expect from something called Jersey Shore Shark Attack.
After a night of heavy partying, The Complication (Jeremy Luke) wakes up with D’Angela (Laura Harrison) in his bed and recently former girlfriend Nooki (Melissa Molinaro) beating down his front door. While he hurries D’Angela out of his room, his roommate Donnie (Joey Russo) fails to prevent Nooki from barging in. Nooki dresses The Complication down and then everyone ends up at Salie’s Bar– The Complication and Donnie meet up with Paulie Balzac (Daniel Booko) and JP (Ben Giroux), while Nooki gets a table with her friends BJ (Audi Resendez) and J-Moni (Alex Mauriello). When some rich kids come in and start a fight, JP flees and ends up in the water near some underwater construction that has attracted the most spectacularly unconvincing CGI sharks in film history.
JP then disappears and The Complication decides to get his friends together so they can figure out what happened to him. At this point, Jersey Shore Shark Attack begins to suspiciously resemble an episode of Scooby-Doo, only with this mock reality show cast instead of Shaggy and company. The Complication’s father (Jack Scalia) is the local sheriff, and doesn’t believe it when his son insists that JP was eaten by sharks. The influx of new man-eating predators threatens the gentrification plans of villainous developer Dolan (William Atherton), and even worse, there’s a real possibility that if the truth was revealed the solo concert by Joey Fatone (playing himself) might be canceled!
All of this probably sounds like a lot more fun than it really is. The characters are goofy, but it seems like the producers couldn’t stand the idea of them being completely ridiculous, so they are taken more seriously than they should be. This does lead to one genuinely hilarious scene, in which the group finds a partially eaten corpse floating in the water and gets into an argument about whether it would be appropriate to give it a funeral. Otherwise, William Atherton is always fun but is reined in a bit here, and Joey Fatone is at least game for his appearance. The sharks are so thoroughly, embarrassingly awful that it truly cannot be overstated, which may be entertaining for some audience members (and just infuriating for others). There may be worse ways to spend 87 minutes than Jersey Shore Shark Attack, but there are also certainly a hell of a lot better.
Jocks (1986)
Originally published on Criticplanet.org
Jocks, in comparison to most other Crown International Pictures productions, has some serious star power. Not only are Christopher Lee and Richard Roundtree given top billing, but the film also stars a very young Mariska Hargitay in her second feature film appearance and Donald Gibb, the guy who played Ogre in the Revenge of the Nerds movies! So it’s a bit surprising that the film is such a disappointment. It’s a typical “underdog sports team” type of film, but maybe it’s the sport that undermines the story: this time out, it’s a ragtag group of tennis players. The sport of tennis doesn’t really fit comfortably with this type of story, a fact that is made more and more obvious as the film progresses and we actually have to see these guys play.
Christopher Lee plays the villainous President White, a no-nonsense kind of guy who is determined to better the reputation of his university for his own devious ends. Or something like that, it’s tough to see Christopher Lee and not assume he has some sort of evil in mind. White wants an athletics championship for his school post-haste, and he doesn’t seem to care what sport it comes from. He informs Coach Betlebom (R. G. Armstrong), the head of the Physical Education department, of this goal, which in turn sends Betlebom to tennis coach Chip Williams (Richard Roundtree) to inform him that the tennis program is being cut. Williams counters with a deal: if his team of zany oddballs can win a regional tournament held in Las Vegas, the tennis program stays.
Unsurprisingly, Williams has his work cut out for him. The team is made up of a typical “snobs vs. slobs” group of cut-ups: cocky party animal The Kid (Scott Strader), super nerdo Jeff (a post-Spring Break Perry Lang), Ogre– sorry, Ripper (Donald Gibb, sadly typecast), sex-crazed Tex (Adam Mills), effeminate African-American Andy (Stoney Jackson) and Chito (Trinidad Silva), a Mexican.
If you’ve seen The Beach Girls (1982), you’ll know more or less to expect how the minority characters are depicted: broadly and offensively. Imagine the crazy adventures awaiting these guys when they get to Las Vegas! Can they bring home the regional trophy and still manage to get in enough drinking, partying, and gambling to make the trip worthwhile?
The main problem with Jocks is that the story is extremely formulaic and the details aren’t that interesting. The Kid falls for Nicole (Mariska Hargitay), a girl who goes to the school whose team is our hero team’s sworn enemy, and some romantic misunderstandings ensue. It seems like each team the guys play is made up of a different ridiculous stereotype, making the actual tennis scenes painfully unfunny. Meanwhile, Christopher Lee and Richard Roundtree seem to be trying to keep out of the way as much as possible, which is probably for the best. Seeing them will just make most audiences want to turn this off and watch Horror of Dracula (1958) or Shaft (1971) again. This is a recurring problem with other cast members as well: Donald Gibb’s presence is a constant reminder of the superior Revenge of the Nerds (1984) (he’s seriously just playing the exact same character with a different name) and given the nature of syndicated television, chances are pretty good that an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is probably on if you want to see more of Mariska Hargitay without 80′s hair.
Kill (2011)
Originally published on Film Monthly 21 April 2012
Troma has made a name for itself over the last three decades (and change!) by releasing their own low-budget, lowbrow films as well as giving up-and-coming filmmakers a shot at working for no money. However, they also regularly license outside productions for release, and lately Troma has been having something of a renaissance, releasing Astron-6′s brilliant grindhouse satire Father’s Day and picking up great independent productions like the 80s-obsessed slasher comedy Blood Junkie and the outrageously bizarre and offensive film The Taint. Despite a few new hits, though, it seemed inevitable that Troma would still be releasing more than its share of misses. Kill lands firmly in the latter category.
The Unrepentant Cinephile Page 39
