Lucid Dreams and Saturn Skies The Life and Writing of Andrew Kincaid

Tag Archives: Movies

Comic Book Science is Right for Once! (Sort of)–A Quasi Review of The Amazing Spider-Man

July 9, 2012 4:07 pm / 1 Comment /

The Amazing Spider-Man theatrical posterAfter watching Prometheus, I couldn’t resist rambling about some of the scientific failings of the movie.  Since I enjoyed putting the “biology” part of my Bachelors of Science to use, I decided to do the same for The Amazing Spider-Man.

But before the science, it’s time for a mini-review.  The Amazing Spider-Man is a reboot of the Spider-Man trilogy, which ended on a weak note with Spider-Man 3.  Unlike the reboot of the Batman or James Bond series, Spider-Man wasn’t exactly gritty.  Certainly it was darker thematically than its predecessors, but not quite so dark as to qualify for the term “gritty”.  On a similar note, The Amazing Spider-Man didn’t bring anything new to the table in terms of plot either.  Minus the mention of Peter’s parents, the focus on cross-species genetics as the cause of Spidey’s, and the Lizard’s mutations (and that the Lizard is the antagonist rather than the Green Goblin), it doesn’t differ a ton from Tobey McGuire’s Spider-Man.  The differences are more superficial, rather than what you’d expect from an ground up reboot.  For a more thorough (and spoiler-free!) review, check out my friend Amanda Rudd’s post “They Finally Got It Right: A Review of the Amazing Spider-Man”.

That being said, I found this an entertaining movie and I am looking forward to future sequels.  What I especially thought was interesting was how cross-species genetics was cited as the cause for Spidey’s powers.  It certainly makes more sense that a bite from a genetically modified spider would result in profound mutations in its victim, rather than the bite of a radioactive spider from the original comics.  That doesn’t answer the question of exactly how those unique properties were transferred to Parker, but hey it’s a movie, right?

You might be surprised to learn that cross-species genetics is not merely the stuff of comic books, but it’s a very real and very vital part of modern biology and modern pharmaceuticals.  While we can’t make giant lizard men or man-spiders, we can make glow in the dark kittens.

On a more practical note, cross species genetics have been saving lives for decades now.  Known as recombinant DNA technology, these are a set of techniques that allow scientists to manipulate DNA, the code containing the recipe for all life.  DNA is a funny thing–it can make all of the weird and wonderful shapes we see in nature, but on a basic level it’s all the same thing.  My DNA is the same chemically speaking as yours, and both of ours are the same as a spiders.  What differs is the DNA sequence–it is the sequence that determines what goes where at what time, be it in a spider, lizard, or a human.

Heeere kitty, kitty, kitty! From Gawker.com

Since DNA is universal across all (Earth) life, and it’s only the sequence that matters in terms of what is expressed, it stands to reason you could mix DNA sequences from one species into the DNA of another and potentially get the foreign DNA expressed.  Really, that’s what they were talking about in a basic sense in The Amazing Spider-Man.  People have been doing just that sort of thing for decades now, although with less city destroying and more life saving results.

That’s twice now that I’ve said that s0-called cross-species genetics can save lives.  You might be wondering what I mean by that, since in the movie that was the whole rationale behind their research as well.  We haven’t progressed to the point where we can use these technologies to jab you with a needle and force your arm to grow back, but we can use recombinant DNA technology to produce a variety of life saving chemicals, most famously insulin.

It used to be that insulin was taken from animals like cows and pigs, but this wasn’t a very efficient means of harvesting the stuff in sufficient quantities.  In the 1970′s, using recombinant DNA technology, researchers were able to splice the gene for human insulin production into E. Coli bacteria (yes, that E. Coli…it’s a useful lab organism, what can I say?).  These new strains of bacteria happily did what bacteria do, all the while pumping out live-saving insulin for the diabetics of the world.  Similar techniques are used to make everything from Hepatitis B vaccines to blood clotting factors.

While recombinant DNA technology has saved thousands and thousands of lives over the years, there is a dark side.  Similar techniques can be used to produce genetically modified organisms (GMOs) which include those adorable kittens up there, but they’re more famous for their role in agriculture.  There is a lot of worry about GMO crops out there these days, that somehow they could be harmful to consumers.  I’m not certain about that, but their income on the environment when they begin to spread on their own is certainly a cause for concern.  The jury is still out.

What we can be certain of is that movie and comic book science have both gotten better over the years.  I don’t expect my movies to be scientifically accurate in any way shape or form, but it is always nice when it happens.  In this case, the writers took a very real and very beneficial technology and used it to drive the plot behind an entertaining piece of cinema.  You can’t go wrong with that :)

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The Curse of Bigfoot

June 18, 2012 7:49 pm / 6 Comments /
Curse of Bigfoot is a 1978 movie about a group of high school students who unleash an inhuman monster from a crypt.

…seriously. You need to see this movie. I mean…come on! Look at the poster!

I sit here literally at a loss for words.  Last night I watched a movie so tremendously, horrifically, hilariously bad that they don’t make an -ly word strong enough to describe the mind-melting horrible awesomeness of it.  The moving I’m talking about is called Curse of Bigfoot, and it is a tour de force of B-movie horror at its finest.

A bit of background about how I came across this little gem.  My dad lent me a horror collection called Pure Terror, which contains fifty “classic” horror movies.  Such masterpieces as The Manster (panned as one of the worst movies ever made–I’ve yet to see it) and Track of the Moonbeast (which was victimized in a great episode of MST3K) are represented in the collection’s line up.   It sat on my TV stand for about three days before I finally decided to give it a look.  I saw Curse of Bigfoot on the back cover and my crappy movie sense started tingling.  Somehow, I knew that movie would be a rare treat and boy howdy I was not disappointed.

Curse of Bigfoot is…well, it’s sort of hard to say what it’s about because the thing is a mishmash. That’s because really it is an amalgamation of two movies.  Curse began life as Teenagers Battle the Thing in 1958.  Near as I can tell, Teenagers Battle the Thing never saw the light of day until 1978 (or maybe 1972…or 1974; I’ve seen three different release years) when the director  slapped on an extra thirty odd minutes of footage and called it Curse of Bigfoot.

An image of the monster from Curse of Bigfoot

Witness the glorious stupidity of…Bigfoot? Whatever the hell that thing is supposed to be, at any rate.

As you might guess, this Frankenstein of a movie involves teenagers.  But more on that in a second.  This is literally the only monster movie I’ve seen that reveals the titular beastie in the first ten minutes. And holy God is it hilarious!  It’s a guy in a gorilla suit with a paper mache mask made to vaguely resemble The Wolfman.  You can even see the eye holes.  I’m not kidding you one bit.  I have pictures!

The thirty odd minutes of footage added twenty years after the original (boy that’s weird to say) are a bunch of inarticulate nonsense that have little to do with the actual movie.  There’s a scene where a monster that looks suspiciously like the titular Bigfoot stalks a woman.  Mind you, the scene was done in broad daylight but it’s clear from the dialog that it was supposed to take place at night.  This scene though is a clip from a movie being shown in a high school, a class devoted entirely to mythological monsters apparently.  There’s talk about their guest speaker, who is coming to speak to them about Bigfoot, before another long clip that looks like an instructional film about the lumber industry cut with clips of a guy in a bad Bigfoot costume stalking a couple of loggers.  Finally, the speaker appears and tells the story of his encounter with Bigfoot.  In one of the greatest lines of the movie, the guest speaker describes how one of the young ladies with him on this expedition is now nothing more than a catatonic vegetable.

That’s right.  This movie doesn’t get to the ACTUAL movie until half an hour in, but boy is the wait worth it.  We’re treated to the worst acting and special effects this side of Troll 2.  The guest speaker is a former science teacher who, when he and his group encountered Bigfoot, was a part of an archeological dig (for some reason) that consisted of himself, an archeologist, and a gaggle of teenagers.

Another shot of Bigfoot from Curse of Bigfoot

…this is just endlessly hilarious.

The group eventually (I’m fast-forwarding a bit because there is a LOT of scene padding) discovers a mysterious crypt that contains a mummy encased in clay.  Being the wonderful archeologists they were, the group decides to gank the mummy from its resting place and stuff it into a shed, where it is revealed that the clay enclosed a horrify(ingly bad looking) monster!

The monster goes on what has to be the lamest rampage in B-movie history–I think it killed maybe one person and then at the thrilling climax of the film it just sort of stands there and lets the teenagers douse it with gasoline.

…sorry if I spoiled it for you.  As if you can spoil a movie as rotten as this.  Anyway, Curse of Bigfoot has to be seen to be believed.  It hits you like a freight train of awesome-badness.  If you’re like me and you like really, really lame movies you’ll want to do yourself a favor and give this one a look.  You’ll be glad you did.

How about you? Have you ever seen a movie so bad it was nearly a religious experience?  What’s the best/worst movie you’ve ever seen?


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A Horror Review Two-fer–The Human Centipede I and II

June 11, 2012 8:57 am / 8 Comments /
The Human Centipede, directed by Tom Six

“Their flesh is his fantasy”

Those who have read my blog for awhile now know that I have a distaste for the torture porn sub-genre–in my experience, most of them are little more than plot-less excuses to sling a bunch of gore and body parts at a camera array.  Like the exploitation films of the seventies onward, they’re all style and no substance but with one difference; namely, they trade style for something akin to blunt force trauma.  While exploitation films could be goofy fun, the cinematic equivalent of a Twinkie, torture porn often lacks the wink and nod toward the audience and instead focuses on showing the inner workings of the human anatomy as explicitly as possible.

…in light of that last sentence I should once again define torture porn.  It’s not actual pornography, but rather it is called torture porn because it features explicit displays of violence and torture.  Think movies like Saw (which is actually quite a good film…the later ones not so much) and Hostel (never seen it).  I’ve touched on the topic before in my review of the abominable film Philosophy of a Knife.

With all of that in mind, you’ll understand why I put off seeing The Human Centipede for as long as I did.  This is one of those movies that people talk about in whispers, a movie that teenagers at sleep overs challenge each other to sit through without gagging.  That sort of thing.  Being that I tend to at least half pay attention to what goes on in the horror genre, I knew the entire premise of the movie: a German surgeon grafts three hapless tourists together end to end forming the titular Human Centipede.  Certainly a disgusting thing, considering the mechanics of their shared digestion, but I didn’t see how it was a concept that could carry an entire movie.  Plus, I’d heard that it was an abominably bad film from reviewers and a few people I knew who had seen it.

Still, the damned thing kept popping up on Netflix until my curiosity got the better of me and I finally watched it.  I knew The Human Centipede would be bad, but I couldn’t have expected it to be anywhere near as bad as it was.  There was no plot to speak of, just a bunch of stuff happening to pad out the length of the movie to an agonizing hour and a half.  When the Human Centipede was finally revealed, it really didn’t live up to the build up.  Maybe for people first seeing the movie, but not two or three years after it was made.  Plus, it didn’t help that the director couldn’t be bothered to develop his characters.  Had he done so, their plight would have been more disturbing.  Don’t get me wrong–the entire concept is disturbing.  But the movie lacks any kind of impact other than the gag factor because there is not any character development.  Rather than actual people, the victims of the mad doctor’s surgery are little more than the cinematic equivalent of cardboard cut outs.

That lack of character development led to one of the two things I found surprising about The Human Centipede.  The first was that the movie was boring.  Oh my good Lord was it boring!  Forty-five minutes in I felt like I’d been sitting there for two hours.  Both the lack of plot and the lack of any sort of characterization sucked any tension out of what could have been quite an intense movie.  Only one scene made me feel tense, and that was the crawling chase scene where the lead guy of the Human Centipede, a random Japanese guy, disabled the mad doctor and led an escape attempt.

“100% medically INaccurate”

The other bit that surprised me was the amount of restraint the director showed when it came to gore.  There was surprisingly little of it, despite the premise of the film.  That might have been a disappointment for the gore-hounds out there, but I was impressed.  But that feeling quickly dissipated when I decided to subject myself to The Human Centipede 2, where Tom Six more than made up for the lack.

You might ask me why I watched the second movie if I didn’t like the first.  I’m not sure I have an answer for that, other than that I’m a glutton for punishment.  If the first Human Centipede was terrible, the second was absolutely abysmal.  HC2 featured a bug-eyed recluse obsessed with the original The Human Centipede.  That’s right–HC2 takes place in the “real” world, where apparently someone liked The Human Centipede enough to try and reenact it.

…it only gets worse from there.  You might be asking how that’s possible, but believe me it is.  I’m not even sure what to say about HC2, other than that it is completely disgusting, stupid, and reprehensible.  The amount of gore in the movie isn’t quite cartoonish, but it is nearly so.  While HC1 tried to build tension and strike you with the horror of the scenario its characters found itself in, HC2 dropped all pretenses and became pure torture porn.  But it’s all filmed in black and white, so it’s artsy (that’s how that works, right?).  I think Tom Six attempted to top himself with HC2, and he certainly did but not how he intended.  He proved that you could make a movie even more boring, stupid, and offensive than The Human Centipede.  No mean feat, that.

Do you ever find yourself watching a movie you know is going to be awful in spite of yourself?  Have you seen either of these movies, and if so what did you think?


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The Allure of B-Movies

June 6, 2012 10:08 am / 11 Comments /
Poster art from the 1954 B-movie classic, THEM!

I also like the posters from the old days. They’re fun!

Ah…B-movies.  I enjoy cheesy old sci-fi/horror movies from the fifties and sixties, especially the black and white ones.  Those are my favorite types of B-movies, and I think the most iconic of the bunch although the genre is alive and well in the 21st century.  If you want proof, just flip to SyFy on Saturday nights at nine and you’ll see what I mean.

Even so, the B-movies from fifty or sixty years ago are in a league of their own.  They have an innocent charm that modern B-movies often lack.  There was no CGI back in those days, and often these movies were made on a shoestring budget, but the cheesy special effects were part of the fun.  Often B-movies followed a set formula.  Typically they involved an incident of science gone wrong–most often the culprit was radiation of some sort, but it could also be the work of a mad scientist–that resulted in some freakish monster (usually a guy in a rubber suit).  The protagonists turn to conservative forces such as the military and police, or toward science to find the solution to the problem.  I use the word “science” loosely here, because by today’s standards the science they played with was laughable.  Another subset of the genre involved an alien invasion, which would once again be thwarted by conservative forces or by science.

Writers and directors back in the day took the formula I just described above and had all sorts of fun with it.  THEM! is a perfect example of the genre; in fact, it’s often cited as the textbook example of the B-movie genre.  The movie is about ants that become enormous as a result of radioactive fallout from nuclear testing out in Nevada.  These giant ants spread all over the world and establish colonies, and (naturally) it’s up to the U.S. Army and some scientists to clear the matter up.  It sounds silly, but seriously give THEM! a watch sometime when you can–it’s actually a pretty good movie.

Night of the Living Dead is also a B-movie modeled on a formula similar to the one I outlined above, but it’s noticeably darker and really helped to give birth to the modern horror movie (for better or worse).  NOTLD featured ghouls–the word zombie was never used in the movie itself–who were raised from the dead ostensibly by strange radiation from a Venus probe.  These ghouls were shown on film eating people.  And it’s hard to spoil a fifty year old movie, but suffice it to say the ending was NOT in line with the typical B-movie up to that point.  George Romero turned the B-movie formula on its head while simultaneously remaining faithful to the tradition–no small feat, that.  Night of the Living Dead is another example of a B-movie that, when you get beyond the cheap special effects and bad acting, was in the end a pretty good movie (one of my all time favorites, actually).

And that right there is why I like B-movies.  When you get beyond the goofy premises and hokey special effects and look deeply at the movie, they often tell pretty good stories.  They couldn’t rely on special effects like today’s movies–don’t get me wrong though, modern B-movies are great fun but they often rely too heavily on gore and SFX for my taste–so instead they had to attempt to tell a decent story.  That, and the actors actually had to act, while no doubt biting back laughter at the goofy looking dude in the rubber suit.  Granted, many B-movies were lousy in the story and acting departments both, but they at least made up for it with unintentional hilarity (Plan 9 From Outer Space comes to mind).

Zombies from George Romero's B-movie classic, Night of the Living Dead

Zombies. This picture has gotten a lot of mileage on this blog, I’ve noticed =P.

Those aren’t the only reasons I like B-movies.  Sometimes I get tired of the cynicism of our age, an attitude that leaks into our cinematic culture, as it must.  In terms of horror, that translates into nihilistic plots, gore, and copious amounts of sex.  There’s nothing wrong with any of that, but sometimes I get sick of it.  I want to interrupt myself at this point to say that I was brought up in a socially conservative household and live in a conservative area and while I do not subscribe to all of those beliefs now, their influence is still there.  So for me, it is a breath of fresh air to watch an old time movie where the most gore you might see is a bit of chocolate sauce smeared on someone’s shirt, that ends on a note of optimism rather than cynicism (NOTLD is an exception to all of this, of course).

The saying goes that “they don’t make’em like they used to”.  True to some extent.  While horror and movies in general have become objectively better in many ways than their predecessors from the old days, nothing can replace the fun and charm of the old time B-movies.

What are your cinematic guilty pleasures?  Do you like the B monster movies from the fifties and sixties, or do they bore you to tears?


Posted in: Life & Writing, Monsters & Mythology, Movie Reviews, Our Weird World, Reviews / Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Car (1977)

May 28, 2012 2:59 pm / 2 Comments /
The Car was a 1977 horror/thriller starring James Brolin about a killer, driverless car terrorizing a small town in the Southwest

“Is it a phantom, demon, or the devil himself?”

Historically, I only review movies that I enjoy, for the obvious reason that if the movie is truly bad (and not good bad or fun bad), I don’t finish it.  The last truly awful movie I reviewed was Philosophy of a Knife, mostly because it was downright offensive and I couldn’t contain my aggravation.

The Car is not a truly awful movie, and it is not offensive in any way shape or form.  It is the story of a demonic (maybe) car that haunts a small town in the American Southwest, killing anyone who comes close to it by running them over or, in a couple of instances, running them off a bridge.  It is up to the local sheriff, played by James Brolin, to try and stop the titular car’s rampage.

Now, this is a goofy premise for certain, and it’s one that probably sounds familiar.  Stephen King’s Christine is basically the same story, although Christine is possessed by a demon while the reason for the vehicular manslaughter in The Car is never revealed.  As far as I know it isn’t, anyway.  I didn’t stick around to see; the movie was only about halfway finished and it felt like I’d been sitting there for hours on end, a sure sign that I was watching a lousy movie.

That gets to the heart of the matter.  When I sat down to watch The Car, I expected goofy fun akin to Christine.  What I found instead was boredom.  The movie was just plain boring!  It dragged and dragged, to the point where I thought the ending was coming at about the midpoint of the movie.  When I checked the time, I thought there was no way they could pad out the next forty odd minutes and make them interesting in the least.  It was about that time that I clicked “Back to Browsing” and watched another episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent instead.

But then B-movies are a mixed bag.  Some are so bad they’re good, some are at least goofy enough to be entertaining, and others stink like roadkill in the hot summer sun.  I wouldn’t say The Car stunk to high heaven, but it wasn’t good by any means.  I’d give this one a skip if I were you.


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Red State (2011)

May 14, 2012 12:09 pm / 1 Comment /
Red State was a horror movie directed by Kevin Smith in 2011, that features a group of religous fanatics similar to Westboro Baptist who despise homosexuals.

“Love Thy Neighbor”

Netflix has broadened my horizons in terms of horror movies.  It has put hundreds, if not thousands, of them at my fingertips for only about $8 a month.  As a result, I’ve watched many movies I wouldn’t normally watch (and my trips to the local video store have trickled to a stop, something I feel kind of bad about since I know the people who own it).  Red State is one such movie; my friends and I watched it on a lark a few months ago, and last night I decided to give it a re-watch.

Red State is sort of a hybrid movie; not quite horror, but not fully a thriller, with hints of an action movie sprinkled throughout.  The story follows three horny teenagers looking to get their rocks off in small town America.  The three go out one night in pursuit of a fling with a woman one of them met on a casual sex site online.  What should have been a stupid teenage adventure turns horrific when the woman, who turns out to be a middle aged member of an extreme fundamentalist church called Five Points Trinity Church, drugs the boys.  The three are taken to the church’s compound, where the bulk of the movie unfolds.

The social commentary aspect of Red State is not subtle in the least.  The head of Five Points Trinity Church is Abin Cooper, an angry and charismatic fire and brimstone preacher who rails against the evils of modern America, especially homosexuality.  His flock seemed to mostly consist of his family, including several young grandchildren.  His flock protest military funerals, and in the beginning of the film they’re seen protesting the funeral of a homosexual teen who was recently murdered.

All of this may sound familiar if you’ve kept track of the news in the last ten years or so; Five Points Trinity is a pretty unsubtle nod to the real life crazies in Westboro Baptist, headed by Fred Phelps.  The Five Pointers go one step further, though; while Phelps and his ilk call for God to smite America for its sins, Abin Cooper’s group takes divine justice into their own hands.  The recently murdered teen?  You guessed it; Cooper’s group was responsible.  Another murder of a homosexual man is graphically depicted soon after the teenagers are captured and let me tell ya, it’s disturbing (although, during the commission of the crime there is a fairly humorous moment when one church member cautions another not to get any of the man’s saliva on him else he catch “the gay”.  I can’t help but feel that some people genuinely believe that).

After the murder, Red State takes a turn toward action movie territory, when the ATF performs a (botched) raid on The Five Pointer’s compound, after one member shot a sheriff’s deputy.  This is were the movie becomes weird(er), as John Goodman of all people shows up as an ATF agent heading up the raid.  While the church is despicable, the government doesn’t come off much better as the situation quickly devolves into something similar to Waco.  There is a great twist toward the end of the movie; I won’t give it away, but I would say it’s certainly ironic and I remember laughing later when everything came out.

Red State was, at least in my opinion, a good movie.  It certainly had its flaws; I almost would have rather seen the movie stick with the teens attempting to escape the church, more like a The Texas Chainsaw Massacre type scenario, rather than turn to the action flick that it became.  Be that as it may, the movie ends better than the original planned ending, where the honest to God, Biblical Armageddon began.  I think the movie would have been better served had it been a straight horror flick, as I said in TCM style.  But that wasn’t the director’s vision, and you have to respect what Kevin Smith managed to accomplish, despite the movie’s obvious problems.


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Pet Sematary (1989)

April 9, 2012 8:53 pm / 9 Comments /
Pet Sematary was a 1989 horror movie based on the Stephen King novel of the same name. Directed by Mary Lambert.

“Sometimes, dead is better.”

I’ve seen a lot of horror movies based on Stephen King novels and short stories.  From these experiences, I’ve come to the conclusion that adapting the master of modern horror’s work to the silver screen can be tricky business.  Many movies based on King’s works are, to put it mildly, pretty awful.  Just look at Thinner and you’ll see what I mean.  Still fun in their own way, but objectively bad movies (especially Maximum Overdrive…but boy is that movie a blast!)

Every now and then though you get someone who knows how to handle a Stephen King story.  If you translate his stories directly to the screen, it just doesn’t work. His characters are too big, and they just become corny.  Rob Reiner is one of the few who can do King well, as he showed with Stand By Me and Misery.  Another who did a good job with King’s material was Mary Lambert, who directed Pet Sematary.

Pet Sematary follows the story of the Creed family, who move to a new house in Maine only to find a mysterious pet cemetery lay at the top of a trail that opened behind their house.  Beyond the cemetery, in an old Indian burial site, something evil lurks in the Earth. Waiting.

The movie followed the book quite well, although of course with a few changes that took little from the story itself.  The movie is downright creepy.  It is as if the best bits of the book were picked out and strung together on screen.  The sometimes goofy mannerisms King’s characters exhibit are present, but they give the movie a kind of charm.  Especially Jud Crandell, who some may know better as the guy who played Hermann Munster, and his heavy Maine accent and tendency to chain smoke.  That being said, the movie doesn’t devolve into the silliness that sometimes a Stephen King movie can drop into.

Pet Sematary will probably look dated to modern viewers, although to my surprise it’s younger than I am.  I suggest those who enjoy Stephen King give it a look, even if they don’t like old horror movies (and if you don’t, shame on you! You’re missing out!).  It certainly isn’t the best movie based on King’s works, but it can certainly stand on its own as a solid horror movie.


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Philosophy of a Knife (2008)

March 19, 2012 8:55 pm / 5 Comments /
Philosophy of a Knife is a shock film by Andrey Iskanov, chronicling the atrocities of Unit 731 during WW2.

“God Created Heaven. Man Created Hell.”

Last night, I did something that I don’t normally do.  I watched what is purported by some to be among the most shocking horror movies ever made.  Now, as I said, I don’t normally try those kind of movies.  Don’t get me wrong, I like horror and I won’t shy away from a horror movie that shows blood and brutality, only so long as the blood, brutality, and breasts aren’t the sole focus of the film.  There has to be at least something resembling a story and likable characters for me to get into a movie – the three B’s of torture-porn are secondary to me.

…I should explain what I mean when I say “torture-porn”.  No, I’m not talking about actual pornography.  Torture-porn is a sub-genre of horror that focuses almost exclusively on gore and violence – the more over the top, the better.  Examples of the genre that general audiences might be familiar with are Saw and Hostel.  I suppose you could also call the genre “shock”, as the entire point is to shock and appall the audience.

Philosophy of a Knife is just such a movie, although the director (Andrey Iskanov) tries to pass it off as a documentary.  The movie is meant to shine a spotlight on the atrocities committed by Unit 731, a unit of the Japanese army that researched biological and chemical weapons technology among other things during the Second World War.  Unit 731 committed atrocities in their pursuit of knowledge, such as infecting prisoners of war with bubonic plague or other pathogens and using live prisoners to test the limits of human physical endurance under conditions of extreme heat, cold, or pressure.  Some people suffered vivisection, which is essentially an autopsy performed while the victim was alive. These crimes aren’t well known for a variety of reasons, not the least of which because they were perpetrated against Russians, Chinese, and Koreans, and because they were overshadowed by the sheer scale of Nazi atrocities.

This is a story that needs to be told – what was done to the victims of Unit 731 was awful, and those who did it need to be held accountable, by history at least if not the courts.  However, Philosophy of a Knife takes a subject worthy of an extensive documentary treatment and exploits it to make what amounted to a crappy, low budget torture-porn flick.

Philosophy of a Knife is a 4 hour long movie, divided into two parts, that alternates supposed archive footage including stills and film reels with recreations of the horrors perpetrated against prisoners.  The movie was shot in grainy black and white.  It’s poorly edited, and it spends long (really long!) minutes showing snow fall, exterior shots, and people marching or walking down hallways.  The music and sound effects are meant to be industrial and to add an air of menace to the movie.  They don’t.  They’re grating.  The movie feels like a cross between a Nine Inch Nails video and a David Lynch film.

And the acting…oy the acting!  I’ve seen people show more distress standing in line at Wal-Mart than these people did supposedly walking to their executions!  Seriously.  These folks were stoic as monks as they walked to their inevitable and incredibly painful deaths.

Oh and about the actors.  Apparently, Andrey Iskanov believed that the Japanese only performed their experiments on Russian supermodels because those were the only people he hired.  In the interest of history, I’d like to point out that most of the victims were Korean and Chinese, with a smattering of other nationalities thrown in, including American POWS.  Approximately 580,000 people were murdered in the gruesome experiments the unit carried out, some in the actual facilities and others during field tests of biological and chemical weapons.

And now to the most disgusting part of this film – the recreations.  These were meant to show in gruesome detail the experiments that the Japanese staff conducted on prisoners.  Now, I can’t comment on later parts of the film because I only made it an hour into this turd, but the section I saw had a few scenes of the torture.

Shiro Ishii, commander of Unit 731

Ishii, architect of death. He was the commander of Unit 731.

How do I not sound like a monster here?  The scenes didn’t have an effect on me.  At all.  Mind you, I may be hardened from watching and reading a lot of horror, but I still cringe at movies like Saw, Se7en, and some zombie movies.  I’m not an ice man, and I’m certainly not jaded.  The scenes in Philosophy of a Knife were almost laughable because the special effects were so lousy, especially for a movie made in 2008.  If there was supposed to be some sort of great emotional gut punch from the recreations, it was lost on me.

The recreations weren’t disgusting (only) because of their content, but because of what they were meant to exploit – the very real suffering that real people experienced at the hands of the Japanese over sixty years ago.  Most disgusting of all, the movie was dedicated both to the victims and their executioners.  Andrey Iskanov should be ashamed of himself for exploiting a subject that should be given a serious documentary treatment by making it a movie that attempts to be both a schlocky gore flick and an art film, while failing miserably at both.  Judging by the pretension oozing from this movie, I doubt shame is an emotion this guy is capable of feeling.  Do yourself a favor and ignore this turd.

For more information about Unit 731 than you’d learn in the film, check out Wikipedia. 


Posted in: Movie Reviews, Reviews / Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hellraiser

March 5, 2012 2:55 pm / 6 Comments /
Clive Barker's Hellraiser is a haunting story of pain and torture. Adapted from a novella by Barker entitled "The Hell-Bound Heart", Hellraiser has gone on to spawn a series of nine movies and a comic series. The movie features the character known as Pinhead, a Cenobite.

“Demon to some. Angel to others”

Every now and then I come across a movie that sticks with me long past its run time.  I’ve made no bones about the fact that The Exorcist scared the bejeebers out of me, and it definitely qualifies as a movie that’s stuck with me.  Another movie that’s had a similar impact on me was Hellraiser, although for different reasons than Blatty’s classic demonic possession story.

Actually, The Exorcist and Hellraiser couldn’t be more different movies.  The only similarities they share in common are the facts that demons and heavy use of Catholic themes are integral to the theme and atmosphere of each movie.  Clive Barker’s Hellraiser is the story of Frank Cotton, a hedonist, who has become jaded with all the sensual experiences this world has to offer.  During his travels, he has come across stories of something called the Lament Configuration, a puzzle box that can open the doorway to the ultimate sensual experience.  When Frank purchases the mysterious box from a shadowy salesman in a nondescript desert city, the seller says “It is yours.  It was always yours” in a ghoulish foreshadowing of the horror to come.  When Frank solves the puzzle box, hooks shoot out from it and imbed in his flesh.  Hooks shoot from all over and he is literally torn to pieces.  Bizarre, pale skinned beings appear, mutilated and dressed in what looks like leather S&M gear.  They gather up the mutilated shreds of Frank’s body and disappear into their own dimension.

Mind you, barely fifteen minutes of the movie has passed by this point.  It only gets weirder from there, when Frank is accidentally revived when his brother drips blood on the floor of the room where Frank had been ripped apart. Frank is nothing more than a dessicated corpse when he returns, a result of the “experiments” the Cenobites have performed on him. He enlists his brother’s wife, with whom he had an affair, to help him return to his old body.

As I’ve said, Hellraiser has stuck with me for a long time.  A lot of it has to do with the central figures of the story – the Cenobites.  They are the mutilated, seemingly demonic beings I described earlier.  In reality, as Pinhead said in the movie, “We are angels to some, and demons to others”.  They are amoral former humans, devoted entirely to the pursuit of the ultimate sensual experience, beyond pleasure and pain.  This pursuit has lead them to an alternate dimension, where they perform “experiments” in experience – which in layman’s terms mean they engage in a ridiculously extreme form of sadomasochism.  Hence their mutilated bodies and their penchant for sticking hooks into people.  They only come when summoned, and in that way “recruit” more explorers into their experiments.  In that sense, they aren’t necessarily evil (as they are portrayed later in the series) but rather they’re simply forces that people can run afoul of if they make the wrong choices, a fact alluded to by the merchant when he sold the box to Frank in the beginning of the story.

Pinhead - the leader of the cenobites in Hellraiser.

Pinhead, the leader of the Cenobites in the Hellraiser movie. Although the novella the Hell-Bound heart apparently differed, I haven’t read it so I can’t comment.

It is hard to articulate exactly why I find the movie so bizarrely fascinating.  Some of the reason is because the story is very stark and nihilistic.  The story is ultimately about people who are dissatisfied with their lives, who take extreme measures in pursuit of what they believe will give them happiness.  In the end though, these pursuits only end in pain and destruction for themselves and those around them.

Hellraiser offers a vision of hell distinct from the Abrahamic tradition I was raised in, namely a hell that isn’t necessarily for the evil, but one for those who choose it.  It is not a moralistic hell, but a different way to exist.  But even in this “hell” where people go to find the ultimate pleasure, it cannot be found.  After all, the Cenobites have been there for Lord knows how long but keep performing their “experiments”, so then it’s reasonable to assume they haven’t reached the peak level of experience they’ve set out to find. The Cenobites are like the hungry ghosts of the Buddhist tradition – they seek fulfillment but never find it, and thus are stuck in the endless cycle of suffering.

In my mind, the Cenobite “hell” is a metaphor (albeit an extreme one) for how we live our lives in this world.  People are dissatisfied, and no matter what they buy, do, or consume nothing can fill that void.  They are like the Cenobites, continually seeking after a satisfaction they can never achieve, a satisfaction that is nothing more than an illusion.

Maybe that’s why the movie has stuck with me for so long – despite its supernatural themes and its over the top gore, it is in a very real sense a stark view of how many of us live our lives.


Posted in: Life & Writing / Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ahh! Real Zombies – A Brief Look at a Potential Zombie Virus

February 17, 2012 10:09 pm / 13 Comments /
An image of the girl zombie from Night of the Living Dead by George A. Romero

The little girl zombie from Night of the Living Dead – quite possibly the creepiest zombie in all zombie history.

I find myself writing about zombies on this blog pretty often.  And why not?  Zombies are not only a pop culture phenomenon, but they’ve also long been a facet of folklore.  Now the rotting shamblers are all but ubiquitous, popping up in everything from commercials to television shows to movies.  Some folks have even gone so far as to plan their survival strategy for a zombie apocalypse – its gotten to the point where I can’t tell if people are having fun with it or if they honestly believe that one day the dead will rise.

Which leads to the million dollar question – could there be a real-life pathogen that could reanimate dead flesh like in the movies?  In a word, no.  But could there be pathogen of some sort that could result in an outbreak rather like 28 Days Later, where the zombies weren’t technically dead?

I think the latter scenario is more plausible from a biological perspective.  After all, in that movie the zombies weren’t walking corpses, but rather people infected with a virus.  The virus in 28 Days Later was called Rage, and it spread to the human population via infected monkeys released by animal activists (darned British equivalent of PETA!).  It was transmissible by fluid exchange, typically by bites.  It resulted in profound behavioral changes; namely it changed the British population into a pack of rabid, man eating maniacs that craved the warm flesh of the uninfected.

To determine if there is any virus out there that could be a potential zombie pathogen, let’s use Rage as a model.  So, we are looking for a virus that results in behavioral changes in its victims, especially an increase in violent and erratic behavior.  Also, said virus would have to be transmissible from human to human via fluid transfer (i.e. via blood, saliva, or sexual fluids).   It would require a rapid onset of symptoms, to make treatment with vaccines nearly impossible, and it would be almost 100% fatal.

Such constraints really limit the pool of likely suspects.  Barring the evolution of some new virus (not a completely implausible scenario given how fast these things evolve), a virus as ancient as mankind is the only viable suspect: rabies.  We’ve discussed rabies’ folkloric influence here on LDSS before, but could the virus be responsible for bringing to life yet another movie monster?

A dog with rabies

A dog afflicted with late stage rabies, so called “dumb” paralytic rabies.

Let’s see how it measures up.  Rabies is transmissible via bodily fluids – it’s usually spread by bites from infected animals such as bats, dogs, racoons, skunks, or foxes, among many other vectors.  It infects the central nervous system, and on the onset of symptoms it results in changes in behavior – disorientation, aggression, anxiety, paranoia, delirium, hydrophobia, depression, and mania.  Also, rabies is deadly 99% of the time, if left untreated.

So far, it looks like rabies is a pretty good candidate for an apocalyptic zombie virus. But don’t go boarding up your windows just yet zombie survival fans, because there are some serious flaws that prevent the virus from being a viable real world substitute for Rage.

For one, rabies is not easily transmissible among humans.  Most humans who are infected with the virus only become so after being bitten by an infected animal, often a dog or a bat.  However, there are no documented cases that I can find where rabies has been transmitted from person to person.  It’s even difficult for transmission to occur from animal to animal – once the primary carrier has passed its viral load to a victim, the secondary victim often can’t pass the virus on to any other individuals.

Another check against rabies as a zombie virus is the fact that it has a long incubation period – anywhere from ten days to a year.  The length of time before the onset of symptoms varies depending on how far the viral load has to travel along the peripheral nervous system until it reaches the brain, at which point the classic rabies symptoms commence.  This slow incubation period allows for medical intervention with vaccines, which if administered quickly enough are usually effective in preventing death.

It’s looking like rabies is a pretty lousy candidate for an apocalyptic zombie pathogen at this point.  But for the zombiephobes out there who are sighing with relief right now, I wouldn’t be so hasty.  Viruses are funny little organisms (well, not technically – they aren’t even alive in any real sense so they aren’t actually organisms.)  They evolve very quickly, and they tend to do things that surprise us. 

Two striped skunks

Who knew the bringers of the apocalypse would be so cute?

For example, in the northern part of Arizona, skunks and foxes infected with rabies have been cropping up.  This isn’t unusual in and of itself, but the strain of rabies they’re infected with is quite odd.  This strain of rabies can be spread easily from skunk to skunk (or fox to fox) via casual interactions, not unlike the flu which so plagues human populations in winter months.  This new strain seems to be spreading far and wide amongst wild fox and skunk populations.

For the moment though, this doesn’t make the disease anymore transmissible to humans.  It could make the disease more likely to spread to pets, however, which could lead to humans catching secondary infections they’re bit by their infected pets.  Experts aren’t worried just yet that rabies will spread like wildfire, like the flu, among human populations. In part because the new strain hasn’t been found in humans yet, and also because despite its increased virulence, this strain of rabies virus has the same incubation time as regular old rabies.  So, vaccines are still an effective treatment should it jump the species barrier.

But you never know.  A rabies virus that spreads easily from person to person, and one that happens to mutate a faster incubation time could very well be a real world equivalent to a zombie virus.

However, I wouldn’t hold my breath.  From everything I know of biology, zombies are only barely on this side of plausible.  So rest well, zombiephobes.  The walking dead will remain the stuff of nightmares, where they belong.


Posted in: Monsters & Mythology, Our Weird World / Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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