No Clever Title...This Movie Was a Mess - The Wolfman (2010)

Sometimes trailers can be misleading. In the case of The Wolfman, I thought it looked to be a tad reminiscent of Bram Stoker's Dracula. It seemed like the film was going for a dream-like atmosphere that Francis Ford Coppola mastered 18 years ago (I feel old now), and I was intrigued. It's something that Tim Burton manages to do with just about every film he makes. Things don't look quite real, but they don't look fake either. It's a fine line to walk, and only a handful of directors can pull it off. But that's all irrelevant, because The Wolfman is not as good as its trailer makes it out to be. The cast is great and the material is ripe for a tragic tale of violence, love and remorse, but the final product is horribly, horribly flawed.

Now, as I understand it, the film went though a lot of development hell. Directors were changed and the editing was perhaps done with little time left, and it shows. I don't know any details, but if any of that is true, I can only wonder what I would have watched had the film been handled better. As it stands, it's a cobbled-together mess of good ideas and characters that makes me want to rip my hair out and eat it. I don't know why I would eat it, but that's what The Wolfman has reduced me to. For starters, the first half hour of the film contained the worst pacing and editing I've seen in years. Shit just starts happening without a moment to catch your breath or think about what's actually going on. It jumps from scene to scene at break-neck speed and doesn't let the viewer soak up anything being shown on the screen. They might as well have just started the thing with Benicio turning into a werewolf. Speaking of Benicio Del Toro, his character is shoddily introduced with an Emily Blunt voice-over of a letter she's writing to him. His brother (her fiance or husband, I forget) was missing and she was writing to ask for Benicio to come help aid in the search. That's all well and good, but 30 seconds of exposition later and there he is, standing inside his father's house. Ok, who is he? I don't know; there was a shot of him on stage doing Hamlet, so he's an actor. But the film never bothers to flesh his character out. In fact, the film doesn't flesh anyone out at all, and that's the most frustrating thing for me. If I'm supposed to care about what happens to these people, I need to have some kind of justification for investing my emotions. The Wolfman utterly fails in providing me with any reason to care, and that just makes the whole thing pointless.

pictured: Sir Not Appearing in this Film.

Also, a bizarre disappointment was Del Toro's performance. I know for a fact it's not due to his ability as an actor, so someone else needs to be kidney punched for making him do it. Every line he uttered was wooden and almost like he was reading it straight from the script. Everything else about him was fine, such as his facial expressions, posture, etc. But his line delivery was jarring and unnatural. Even more bizarre, however, was Anthony Hopkins' bi-polar accent. One minute he's speaking like he does in every other movie, and the next he has a full-on Irish accent. Then it's back to normal again. I can't for the life of me understand what the hell was going on with that. But the best performance of the film was pretty much wasted in Hugo Weaving as Inspector Abberline. He has a couple of stand-out scenes, then the film mostly forgets about him until he needs to shoot stuff at the end. There are numerous occasions - definitely with Abberline - where it seems like character development, scene transitions and plot points were cut from the film. Overall, it felt like about an hour of footage was dropped, and that hour was sorely needed.

In this scene, the gypsy lady was going to explain how to cure cancer, but the movie was getting close to its 102 minute runtime, so the camera just turned off.

This wouldn't be a Wolfman review without talking about the transformations and special effects, so here I go. Meh on both fronts. The werewolf transformations weren't awe-inspiring in the least. American Werewolf in London did the whole face-appendage-elongation thing 29 years ago, and did it way better. So my solution would be to not just stick with close-ups of hands and feet growing and changing, then quick face shots with the mouth open. I've seen that shit before, and I'm not impressed. Perhaps if it was done practically I might give it a pass, but it wasn't, so I won't. But the effects in general were hit-and-miss, with a lot of misses. There was an absolutely horrid-looking cgi bear in one scene that made my brain freeze and reboot. And I have a request for any special effects people who might be reading this: before we get any more shots of bi-pedal human-animal hybrids running on all fours, please make sure it doesn't look like shit. Thanks. As far as the blood and gore is concerned, well, werewolves sure do side slashes and head loppings a lot.

Pretty decent half-monster face, but it's been done better.

I feel I have to point out another pet peeve of mine. This applies to monster movies and straight-up horror films in general: STOP WITH THE JUMP-SCARES. Yea, I get it. 5 seconds of silence and camera-panning, then BAM! Scary thing with a shitty violin screech accompanying it! Instead of trying to surprise me with the same tactic 10 times, how about building actual tension and dread? It's a novel idea, I know.

In all honesty, the actual werewolf design was a bit hokey and it detracted from how bad-ass it should have looked. The filmmakers decided to lean heavily on the original design, which sort of looks like a really fucking hairy Guile (minus the blond hair color and tank top/wife beater). It's just, ummm.......no. And the numerous close-ups while running on all fours didn't help. At all.

In conclusion, I want to punch whoever is responsible for this disaster. A really cool monster movie/period piece is hidden underneath what turned out to be a rushed, poorly put together mess of a film. This thing could have been like an English-language Brotherhood of the Wolf, but instead we got stuck with a Lycanthropic Van Helsing. Oh, joy.

Public Introspection - JCVD (2008)

Right off the bat I'm starting with this clip, which is the opening scene of JCVD. It is in no way, shape or form indicative of the rest of the movie. In fact, put in context, it's the exact opposite of the film. But I thought it was an especially evocative opening, and once you've seen the whole thing, it gives some perspective as to how Van Damme sees (at least a part of) his career.

Once I had finished watching JCVD, I immediately had a LOT more respect for Jean-Claude Van Damme as an actor. He really did put a lot of himself up on display here, and the finished product speaks a lot toward some kind of redemption for him - both as an actor and as a person. It's not every day an actor allows a movie to capture parts of their personal life - complete with commentary - in order to seemingly help others on their own path. If I'm reading too much into the intentions of the film, then at the very least JCVD was a cathartic project for Van Damme, and maybe he can start making better movies from now on. I won't be holding my breath, but one can always hope (his IMDB isn't promising).

The film follows Van Damme as himself as he's going through a custody hearing for his daughter. In what I thought was a great touch, his wife's lawyer trots out the dvds of all of his movies and starts describing the different violent ways people are killed in them. "Run over by a car. Decapitated. Beaten to death." etc, etc. This is one example of Van Damme's self-critique that I found especially effective in terms of showing a man looking back at his life. Put another way, there aren't a lot of actors who would want to show the negative side of what they've been doing for the greater part of their entire lives, and certainly not in a movie they're starring in. So, props for that.

After the hearing, he gets a call from his lawyer saying the check he wrote bounced. So, off he goes to the post office to send the money. Oopsie, doopsey; he picked the wrong day to have a shitty legal battle over his offspring. As it turns out, three armed men are holding up the post office when he walks in, and he gets taken as a hostage along with everyone else. The gunmen decide to use him as their mouthpiece, presumably to stay as anonymous as possible. Obviously, the police think Van Damme is the lone perpetrator and act accordingly. The film makes good use of time and perspective, as it jumps between events to give the viewer multiple takes on certain situations. For instance, the first time you see Van Damme going to the post office, it's from the perspective of the video store dudes across the street, as they gawk and ask to pose for pictures with him. Later in the film, you get the same scenario, but from Van Damme's perspective. There are a lot of nice little directing touches throughout, and the film greatly benefits from this style. I was pretty impressed, being that I've never heard of the director before.

Now, there's a scene in particular I'd like to address. About three-quarters of the way through, Van Damme is sitting in a chair inside the post office. He's facing the camera, and all of a sudden he starts lifting upward - chair, camera and all. He lifts above the set, and you can see the fake walls, lights, and everything used to make the film. He stares at the camera and starts talking about his life. He talks about the highs, the lows, his regrets, his disappointments, and everything that made up the last 25 years of his life. It's pretty heavy stuff. The one thing I'll confess to is not knowing how much of his monologue was straight art, and what was really from the heart. Regardless, it all seems legit, and it's god-damned great. There are movies that have attempted to do this sort of thing, but a lot of time they shit all over themselves by doing so. But in the case of JCVD, for some reason it fit. It felt oddly organic, despite breaking all the rules set forth up to the point it happened. Basically, Godard can go fuck himself; this is how you eviscerate the 4th wall.

As I eluded to in my opening paragraph, this is not an action movie. There's tension in the post office, to be sure, but there are no ridiculous heroics by Van Damme this time. He doesn't ever round-house kick a baddy in the face, and he ( ! ) never does the splits in his underwear. In fact, there's a fantastic scene between him and one of the gunmen, where the guy wants Van Damme to do the ol' kicking a cigarette out of someone's mouth without hitting him trick. Van Damme obliges, and the only fanfare he receives is forced applause from the hostages at the behest of the robber. It's actually sad, in the sense that he's being reduced to barking on command to do a parlor trick. It's another example of the way Van Damme talks about his career without actually saying a word.

JCVD is definitely a breath of fresh air. An actor known for playing basically the same dude over and over again opens up and actually plays himself. It's not tongue-in-cheek, it's not hokey or pandering, and it's not something you would expect from Jean-Claude Van Damme. As long as you go into the film without any preconceived notions, you'll be alright.

Ghosts of Mars (2001) AKA Rap VS Metal

Every true film buff has gorged themselves on the tasty offerings of John Carpenter at some point in their viewing history. It's true that the quality of his work over the years has gone from so so to just plain shitty, but when he hits that cinematic sweet spot, you're in for a treat. 2001's "Ghosts of Mars" doesn't quite hit the spot, but it does tickle it a bit with a nice cup of Carpenter jambalaya chock full "o" little reminders of why we ever loved the guy in the first place. You see, watching Carpenter films is kind of like eating pizza. Even when it's bad, it's still pretty good.

At some point in the future, the red planet is terraformed, colonized, and governed by a matriarchal society. Women may be from venus, but they rule the men on Mars. The story is basically told through the flashbacks of Melanie Ballard (Natasha Henstridge). She's a smoking hot, leather clad, pill popping space cop whose mission was to bring outlaw James "Desolation" Williams (Ice Cube) to justice for the murder and decapitation of several miners. She came back to town alone, unconscious, and handcuffed inside a train running on auto pilot. So what the hell happened to her and her crew? Nothing good if you know John Carpenter.

Desolation Williams is supposed to have been caught and jailed in the remote mining outpost of Shining Canyon, but when Ballard and her crew arrive, they quickly realize that strange things are afoot. The place is dead, Williams is indeed in jail, but there are many other shredded corpses scattered throughout the town. So if he was in jail, who was dicing up the miners? It seems that while digging, the hapless workers accidentally released the "ghosts" of the title. Once freed, these ghosts possess the majority of the town and cause them to self mutilate and destroy anything and everything. A nice little booby trap from an extinct alien society to keep any other species from ruling Mars.

Cube knows how to survive in South Central Mars

The plot really doesn't matter at all because this is a total b-movie experience. What does matter is that anyone possessed dresses up like a heavy metal reject complete with unique body piercings and funky tattoos. Even the evil leader of the metal horde resembles somebody who has taken their love for Marilyn Manson a little too far. This doesn't sit well with Ice-Cube and his South Central upbringing and the stage is set for a rap vs. metal showdown.
The criminals and the cops must barricade themselves in the police station and work together if they are to survive the imminent attack. Carpenter vets should instantly recognize a little "Assault on Precinct 13" at this point.


Rumor has it that this guy played Paul in The Wonder Years

Honestly, this is not even a fraction as good as some of his past works, but I still find a lot to like about the film. Henstridge is solid as the hero, and is supported by some decent talent like Jason Statham (has the ability to make any movie line sound cool), Pam Grier (tragically underused), and that one guy that's in other stuff but you don't know his name. How could you have a Carpenter movie without his signature repetitive musical score? You can't because it would suck, so of course we get that here in full force! Most of John's staples are present, and I think I love the fact that he blends so many genres together for this one. It's a western.......no wait.....it's sci fi.....no wait.....it's horror. Actually it's all of those, but mostly it's an excuse for Ice Cube to shoot white people. Check it out, it's straight out of Compton G!



classic Carpenter music

Court Martial, My Ass.

Apologies for geeking out on everyone, but I just thought I'd share some thoughts on a Star Trek: TOS episode. Season 1, episode 20 entitled Court Martial, to be exact. I watch so much Star Trek , and GPS does plan on attending a convention one of these days. I also happen to have an original-style Captain's shirt. What are you looking at?

Honestly, my gripes are valid for this episode. Look, I get that you have to take pretty much everything put forth in that series with a huge grain of salt. I really do. Yet and still, this shit is ridiculous. The episode is about the Enterprise encountering a particularly nasty ion storm in which a crew member was ejected out into space by Kirk. Of course, ejecting crew members into space isn't at the top of Kirk's to-do list. Why, then, as the episode title suggests, is he under court martial? Well, the controversy surrounds his decision to jettison this dude during an ion storm. You know, come to think of it, I don't even really know why he had to be let go. The storm was fucking the ship up, and I think the guy was still out in his shuttle craft. The danger eventually became too great for Kirk to risk bringing him in or something, so the guy in the shuttle craft had to be sacrificed for the good of the Enterprise.

Ok, so far (ambiguous plot withstanding) I'm with the episode. Sounds pretty cut-and-dry to me. Ah, but this is Star Trek: TOS we're talking about. Something bizarre and ridiculous has to happen. So, at this point, Kirk has to give his report to star base 11 about just what the fuck happened during the ion storm. In his report, he says he released the dude's pod AFTER he signaled red alert, and only at the last possible moment. But somehow the ship's log has Kirk releasing the pod BEFORE red alert. Big difference. But why would Kirk do that? Of course, the dude he left to space-death has hated Kirk ever since he found a fuck-up of his so many years ago. Kirk reported the fuck-up and, subsequently, the dude's career never took off like he thought it would. So...does Kirk secretly hate the guy for having such a stupid grudge on him? What do you think? OF COURSE NOT. But hey, most of the fun of these kinds of episodes comes from the "how" not the "why".

Random hot picture of Uhura. I miss the skirts.

Unfortunately, the "how" is fucking retarded. First off, Kirk is court martialed, which means he'll stand trial. Alright. But here's a kicker: the prosecution is a former flame of his. Shocking, I know. I think it's required that every Earth colony have one in the population. But my first thought was, "Wait a minute. Doesn't that present a gigantic conflict of interest?" I mean, if you're the sole prosecutor but the defendant is a lover of yours, well...I dunno. I'm not a lawyer, but I would find it pretty damn hard to give my all to convicting someone I have/had lovey-dovey feelings for. Guilty: conflict of interest, at least according to me. So that's the first problem, but far from the most frustrating.

The most frustrating comes when the trial is in session. Somehow, the prosecution procures video from the incident that clearly shows Kirk releasing the dude's pod before red alert is initiated. This poses two conundrums in my mind: 1) Since the video is obviously wrong, how can that be altered? We're going on 1960s logic here, where there was no such thing as Photoshop, let alone complex video editing software. If there was video, there was video. This goes unexplained as the truth unfolds, and it's just dumb. How can recorded video that's supposedly unalterable be totally inaccurate? 2) It's pretty clear when Kirk and his lawyer see the video being played back that they've never seen it before. Can you guess my next objection? Yes, this evidence should have been inadmissible. There's a reason you can't just submit evidence on the fly without both counsels being given time to review and prepare their case. That's cause for immediate objection, in this case, on the side of the defense, and the judge would also immediately agree and throw the evidence right out. Case closed, but not in Star Trek: TOS. Instead, both Kirk and his lawyer stare dumbstruck at the video, and then continue to say that they can't refute what the computer has logged. Umm, yes you can. "We were never given this evidence, your honor. I object to the prosecution using inadmissible evidence and ask that the court strike it from the record." Oh, well, I guess Kirk's highly sought-after lawyer hadn't come across this kind of thing before. Or he's a fucking moron. One or the other.

Here, Spock is pictured while puzzling out the mysteries of the universe. Bones is thinking "Dammit, Spock, I'm a doctor not a space-chess player."

My other, more minor objection comes at the (sort of) expense of Spock. He has to resort to giving a demonstration to the court detailing how he can beat the computer at chess five times, when the best result should be a stale-mate. So, you're telling me that in the 24th century, one would have to physically show a game of chess between the Enterprise's on-board computer and a Vulcan to demonstrate that computers can be fallible? Fuck off. That still doesn't explain how the video was altered to look like Kirk hit the button before the red alert was triggered. If the video was altered, wouldn't they be able to figure that little tid-bit out? Yes, like I said, we're dealing with a show made in the '60s which was way before any schmuck could make his own Bigfoot discovery video. Still, even armed with that knowledge, this shit is a tough sell.

I've devoted more time than I initially planned to on this shit, so I'll just end with a challenge. For all you hardcore Trekkies out there, riddle me this:

How was the video forged?

Why was Kirk's lawyer so fucking incompetent?

How did Finney, who hid himself from the Enterprise's sensors, STILL evade the sensors when he re-boarded the ship? They would know right away when he came back aboard.

FUCK YOU IF YOU THINK YOU'RE SMARTER THAN LOGIC. You're rationalizing, and Spock himself would punch you in the face.

This trailer is shall we say.......KICK-ASS!

April 16th cannot get here soon enough!!!!!!


Kick-Ass

Trailer Park | MySpace Video

Get ready to KICK-ASS!!!

I'm usually not so uber-geeky that I get excited over movie posters, but these have me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. If you are not familiar with the Kick-Ass property, then let's review. It's a comic book by Mark Millar (of Wanted fame) about a guy with no powers or skills that wants to be a superhero. He dons a disguise, a couple of sticks, and patrols the streets with the intention of smiting evil. Things don't initially go well for this rookie crime fighter and he is almost killed during his first outing. It's a normal world inhabited by costumed heros, villains, and an 11 year old girl that has uncanny skills with a samurai sword. The film will be brought to us in 2010 by Matthew Vaughn (04's Layer Cake) so be excited..........be very excited!!!

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Trailer

Man, I knew this day was fast approaching, but I hadn't properly steeled myself for it. Honestly, I don't know how I feel about this trailer yet, having only watched it once. It didn't fill my heart with wonder and amazement, but it didn't turn it to stone, either. I did notice a few instances of re-enacting the game mechanics, which could be cool. I'll watch it a few more times and let it grow on/spread like a plague over me.

[adding...] Ok, I watched it again. They're trying too hard with the witty banter, the CG looks impressive, and parts of it look too much like a movie based on a game. Still, Mike Newell is directing, so score one point for the film. We'll see.


Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time in HD

Trailer Park | MySpace Video

Scream, Scream For Your Lives! - The Tingler (1959)

William Castle was a cool dude. He directed a handful of neat little horror films - a couple of which went on to be remade (one good, one not so good) - and while he will never be confused with the man he most wanted to emulate, namely Alfred Hitchcock, he will go down in history for trying his own brand of scare tactics. For example, if you were to have seen The Tingler in theaters, you could have been one of the lucky audience members to receive an electric jolt from your chair in the hopes of scaring you even further. Did the tactic actually work? I wasn't there to find out, but it probably did work on some people. Others probably thought it was annoying. My point is that Castle was at least inventive enough to try different, out of the box things to make his movies more exciting. He also produced Rosemary's Baby. Bonus points for that. The Tingler had moments of brilliance, to be sure, but it also left something to be desired in the monster that gave the picture its title.

The Tingler centers around the "scientific" (we all know how loosely the term is thrown about in horror films) experiments of Dr. Warren Chapin, played by the great Vincent Price. There's already something going for your horror movie if Price is starring in it, and The Tingler is no exception. He doesn't play the mad scientist type like one would expect. For the most part, he's actually a pretty decent guy. There's an incident with his bitch of a wife early on, but she deserved it. That bitch. Anyways, Dr. Chapin thinks he can isolate a physical being attached to the spinal column of every human being in the throes of absolute fear. The only problem is performing an autopsy on someone who died at the height of fear, while at the same time never vocalizing it by screaming. Where would you find someone like that? Why, Dr. Chapin just happens to know a deaf mute! Great success! Now, all he has to do is scare the shit out of her until she dies. I said Dr. Chapin was a decent guy for the most part. He still obviously has maniacal tendencies, but my only point was that he doesn't play the part of the unwittingly asshole-ish scientist who neglects everyone around him. Other than his going too far for the sake of science, he's pretty normal, which is nice to see.

Here's one of the more dramatically horrific scenes in the movie. It's a cool effect, even though you can tell an obvious quality difference in the camera used for the scene.

So after succeeding in killing a deaf mute for the glory of science and reason, Dr. Chapin then goes about trying to study the Tingler that was inside her. Of course, it escapes, and madness and mayhem briefly ensue. In fact, a Tingler isn't actually seen until right around that part in the movie, which, as it turns out, was for the better. The puppet they used for the Tingler was pretty damn awful, and it was only made worse by watching the strings pull it around every time it moved. And by every time it moved, I mean every time it moved. Oh, well, I guess. You get the good effects with the bad when you watch older movies. The clip above is an example of good effects.




But for the better part of the film, it doesn't rely on the stupid stringed puppet to elicit fear. To me, at least, it was more about going too far when it's obvious what you're doing is putting people in danger. Yea, yea, we've all seen a shit-load of movies that deal with that very same subject, but I think Price's performance makes it a little better than most other films that tried the same thing. The Tingler takes a two-pronged approach when dealing with what should and shouldn't be considered ethical and moral. Dr. Chapin thinks he's only doing what's necessary, while condemning another character for going too far. It's interesting to see a man rationalize his own behavior and actions, only to then go and scold someone else for doing something roughly equivalent.

The one thing I'll say about Vincent Price, even though I loathe to say it, is that he isn't the best overly dramatic actor. When a scene requires that he go a bit over-the-top, it doesn't usually work out very well. The same goes for when he needs to do something physically demanding. I think Price is at his best when he's cool, calm and collected. He can be creepy as all hell, a total prick, or the nicest guy in the world. But just like the rest of us, he isn't perfect.

This movie was made in 1959, and I don't think LSD was something the audience could identify as easily as we could now. Still...not a very convincing acid trip.

All in all, I'm glad I own The Tingler. It handles itself well when it comes to believable characters, and the morality play it was striving to be overrides the Ed Wood-esque monstrosity it tried to pass off as the actual Tingler. Vincent Price is awesome, that neat color trick I showed you above was cool, if a little gimmicky, and the two characters the story really dealt with kept me invested. I wish Dr. Chapin's wife (that bitch) would have got more of what was coming to her, though. It happened to Price once, so why not?

We May Be Trapped - Kaidan (2007)

Not to be confused with its 1964 predecessor, Kaidan is a drama first and foremost. Its horror elements play sporadically throughout the film, and it's not about multiple ghost stories. Subsequently, it doesn't sit quietly next to the rest of director Hideo Nakata's body of work. If he tried to make it a morality play, I failed to see the practical application of its moral core (life is unfair; deal with it?). That being said, I was engrossed in the characters and setting, and the trademark Nakata eeriness reared its ugly (pretty) head less frequently as one would assume, but to similar great effect. In fact, I would argue that it does a much better job of creeping the fuck out of viewers since it takes the time to build around its central characters. I don't know about you, but I cared just enough about the main characters in Ringu and Dark Water to get the job done. But with Kaidan, I think the characters and their world took center stage. The horror elements came in due time, but only after sufficient time was spent setting up the why. The why is very important when trying to manipulate emotions. Kaidan succeeded mightily in manipulating mine.



A nameless narrator begins the film by telling of a sad and gruesome tale of murder. Soetsu Minagawa was an acupuncturist. He had two daughters which he rasied alone after his wife's passing. I guess times were hard for acupuncturists back then, because Minagawa decided to lend money with ridiculous interest rates as a side business. When I say ridiculous interest rates, I'm talking literally over 200%. I'd be pissed if I borrowed from that guy. But if I agreed to his terms, oh well, it sucks to be me. But Shinzaemon Fukai didn't see things as I would have. Fukai was a samurai who borrowed 30 yen from Minagawa at some point. Years later, Minagawa came calling to collect the debt. According to his utterly stupid interest rates, Fukai owed him 65 yen. Yes, the interest rate was that high. If Minagawa was a credit card company, he'd be above the pack. Regardless, the debt was there, plain and simple. What would any ordinary, honor-bound samurai do in that situation? Pay his debt? Hah, I say to you. Why, no, in that situation, Fukai did what any other self-respecting asshole would have done. He killed Minagawa and dumped his body in a lake. Right on: no more debt. Maybe Fukai's subsequent maddness and suicide had nothing to do with this ordeal, or maybe fate grabbed him by the balls and squeezed. Either way, the last laugh was with Minagawa (who did say he would come back and kill him).



So that whole schpeil is the backdrop for the rest of the film. Both families had children, and their fates will forever be intertwined. By intertwined, I mean horribly mangled together in a clusterfuck of sadness with spikes of joy. I'm talking face-disfiguring and murderous. Good times. Honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way. The film really plays out like a fantastic version of a low-rent melodrama. Its like all the peliculas and soap operas were somehow serviced with a complete and utter makeover; the cast replaced with believable actors; the plot toned down in every respectable way; yet the defiant fuck-you spirit to logic remains intact. Realistic in its intentions it's not; realistic in emotional appeal, it might very well be.

The film centrally deals with the rightful immaturity of one character (the younger male), and the incredulous immaturity of another (the older female). Both characters are linked by their familial pastimes, but neither one knows it. I tend to side with one in particular, but that might just be my overriding logical nature taking hold. Still, the chick is a bitch, and I wouldn't have put up with it. Basically, the daughter of the slain loansman becomes romantically envolved with the son of the asshole samurai. As fate would have it, the daughter of the loansmen has major issues and is obsessed with the samurai's son. He loves her as well, but not to the same extent that she does. She ends up dying, and the samurai's son can't live up to his promise he made to her before she passed. Honestly, it was a shit promise from the get-go, and I wouldn't hold him to it if it were up to me. But I'm not a psycho hose beast, so what do I know?

A walk in the pouring rain out in the middle of nowhere is a great romantic getaway.

The film has its fair share of Days of our Lives moments - double-crossings from characters who aren't even in the film save for this particular plot point - but it doesn't get bogged down in the minutia of randomness that daytime television succumbs to. Its characters, while not necessarily likeable, make the story worthwhile. I really don't think the main dude deserved any of what was coming to him, but that didn't hinder my engagement with what was going on. I think that's a testament to Hideo Nakata, who manages to keep a lot of his subtle horror intact while creating a much better overall dramatic experience. The one thing I'll knock the film for is the narrator. He's only used twice in the film - once in the beginning, and once about 3/4ths of the way through. The beginning was very much suited for narration. The second time it happens, not so much. It almost takes away from what the film tried to accomplish with the narration. Almost. It didn't distract me too much from what was going on, but instead just enough to notice. Oh well; no one is perfect, unless your name is Ridley Scott.



If you're looking for a straight-up J-horror movie, then most definitely look elsewhere. But if you want to experience a lot of what the best of J-horror has to offer, while at the same time getting a great dramatic, character-driven film, then Kaidan is your ticket. Just don't fall in love with it only to move on to other projects. If you end up without a head, at the very least don't blame me.

Zod Kitchens.