Mothra

1961  ***

So you've heard me bitching about my October all October, but one postitive result (for me) is that I just relaxed and watched a lot of kaiju flicks.  The giant moth known as Mothra features briefly in the far superior Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster (review pending),  and I thought it would be a good idea to fill in the backstory.

Since moths are one of the easiest bugs to kill you might not think a giant one would be that big a deal, but that's not important right now.  What you need to know is this movie is about massive death and destruction caused by an evil lounge act manager named Nelson kidnapping two tiny, singing women and forcing them to go on tour.  

Nelson!  If there's anything must-see about this movie it's the gonzo presentation of the villain Nelson, whose name is uttered so many times you won't be able to hear "Nelson" again without thinking of his particular brand of pure but pathetic evil.  He may be unique among cinematic villains just in terms of the incredible disparity between his own sense of entitled evil (puffed up by the movie and the characters all around him) and the fact that he's kind of the worst villain ever.

"I'm ordering more tiny outfits!  Mu ha ha!"

He kidnaps these tiny women off their island and sticks them on stage, and people pay lots of money to hear them sing what is basically "Help, Mothra, come get us even though you'll kill everything in your path, including the people listening right now."  And back on the island the natives dance beneath a giant egg until a giant caterpillar emerges to eat Japan.  And while the caterpillar is eating Japan Nelson is still telling everyone to fuck off because it's not his problem.

So Nelson is basically a classic supervillain who only put together about a quarter of his plan.  Sure, he has influence over a city-destroying monster that shrugs off rockets -- which is a good start -- but beyond that he has no lair, no infrastructure to speak of, and indeed no real plan at all besides continuing to make money while the sites of his former shows are in flames.

Meanwhile the caterpillar Mothra makes a giant cocoon for itself, and Mankind rolls in some toy laser trucks to set it on fire.  With the new heat rays they blacken the outside of the cocoon and high five each other on the easy victory and then collectively say "gulp!" when a giant moth comes out.  It's a dark treatise on the hubris of man as he tries vainly to control his own fate while battling a humongous peanut.

Just like in Hamlet

Nelson, meanwhile, having no recourse but to whine and run away, flees to his native country of "Rolisica."  (This is an obvious stand-in for America but I guess Japan didn't want to insult us by implying our country seethes with unscrupulous lounge act managers.)  But Mothra shows up and starts trashing "New Kirk City" and people finally start getting sick of Nelson.  In his crowning moment, Nelson gets distracted while fleeing an angry crowd so he can kick an old man's cane out from under him for NO REASON.

While this is all good fun I can't really recommend Mothra that strongly.  I know kaiju flicks are intrinsically goofy but this one tips the balance, and there's not enough monster-on-city action.  Nevertheless, the portrayal of Nelson really is something else.  Best watched in a group.

Nelson!

Livide

(2011)****1/2

Lucie Klavel is starting her first day as a home care giver. She travels to different homes to administer meds with an older woman who is training her. One of the houses they visit is a run down old mansion owned by a famous dancer Mrs. Jessel. Lucie is told to wait in the car but curiosity gets the best of her and she ventures in. Once she enters the old woman's bedroom her partner commends her on her curiosity and tells her she is well suited for the job. Mrs. Jessel looks like a withered old corpse, she has a strange key around her neck which Lucie is told is the key to her treasure. Later that evening Lucie & 2 male friends, desperate for money, decide to break in and steal the treasure. They wind up being locked in a house of horrors instead.

Another French beauty from the director of Inside. This film is creepy as hell. The house is terrifying and if that wasn't enough to get me running that old woman would scare the life right out of anyone. I was hoping to find a perfect 5 star film here and believe me it has all the potential but doesn't quite earn that last half star for me. Still, I'll take a four and a half star scare fest any day of the week. Good stuff, I believe I'm having a love affair with French horror.

Beneath

(2014) ***

It is George Marsh’s last day as a well-respected coal miner. His estranged, environmental lawyer daughter, Samantha, requests that she be given the opportunity to accompany him on his last day on the job in order to understand him better. As you might predict a drilling accident traps George, Samantha and a group of miners 600 feet deep in the bowels of the mine and they are informed that it will take 72 hours for rescue. The miners immediately seek refuge in a surprisingly cool emergency pod. However, hysteria, claustrophobia and cabin fever start to set in and as the air mix starts to turn “bad”. Soon the coal miners begin to hallucinate and fighting breaks out. Eventually the story about a previous group of missing miners is revealed and Samantha begins to believe that something sinister is going on in the mine.



Like “Moon” (2009), the filmmakers of Beneath craft a realistic world where we watch people in very difficult jobs perform their duties. The cast is believable in their portrayal of crusty coalminers and never once to they veer into “stupid” territory (e.g. drinking, drugs, weed, sex, etc) which can ruin a movie (e.g. Prometheus). There is nothing inherently wrong with Beneath, it’s just been done before. The movie The Descent (2005) pretty much owns the claustrophobia of being stuck underground and Beneath never comes close to that scale of terror. Still, I’ll watch Jeff Fahey in anything.

Halloween Pics!

I figured before we get too far away from the day itself, I'd put some pictures up of our little monsters. 

Showing off her fangs.

Carver the Clown - creepy!

 And - I also have to include my batwall that I created for our second annual kids Halloween Party.  60 freaking bats I cut out and folded! It was totally worth it though...

Gantz: Perfect Answer

 (2011)***1/2

An immediate continuation of the first Gantz film, this action packed sequel has all the fight of the first film and more. The aliens have now taken human form and there is a second small orb that those in possession of have the opportunity to trump the gantz crew and infiltrate the system. As the aliens fight for their existence so the gantz members fight to try and earn enough points to resurrect their loved ones.

I love that fro!

Perfect Answer is truly the perfect conclusion to this story. The only thing I really missed in this one were the monsters. With the aliens taking human form it becomes more of a ninja like combat flick than a monster alien battle. The story is solid and well played though so I guess I will just have to seek my monsters elsewhere.

Errors of the Human Body

 (2012)***

A brilliant scientist creates a deadly virus in error which nearly destroys his life. He takes the position at a renowned research facility in Dresden Germany where he discovers they are using a form of his deadly virus in a regeneration experiment. After being bitten by a mouse he contracts the virus and is inevitably doomed by his very own hand.

This is what you find when you have insomnia and you put random words like body in a search on Netflix. I like to call it a happy accident. So this film that I would never have discovered otherwise was actually very interesting. The reason for my lower rating has to do with the scientist's behavior. When he realizes he's contracted the virus he freaks out and takes off from the facility going through the streets of Germany. Now this guy is a scientist, a high-caliber scientist at that, he knows the risks of bringing that virus out into the world and yet it's exactly what he does. I can't even describe how pissed off I was at his irresponsible behavior. But I don't mean to discourage from the film itself, the subject matter is interesting, the characters are interesting and as a whole I did like it.

Horrorthon 2014 has come to a close!

Hey kiddies, I got caught up in some extra-corpse-ricular activities on Halloween and forgot to tell you to stop watching movies!  Being the good children you are I'm assuming that you all abided by Horrorthon rules and watched no films beyond 11:59pm on Friday night.  You know Gretchen doesn't like rule-breakers.  Now listen, you blood-thirsty little fiends, you have until Thanksgiving to get the rest of those reviews out.  Post as many as you want and good luck to the sinner, I mean winner.

Tomie: Forbidden Fruit

(2002)***1/2
There are seven or more films in this popular Japanese series. The common ground for all of them is Tomie an instigating siren who continuously gets murdered and comes back. In this installment Tomie befriends a young schoolgirl of the same name who has no other friends and takes to spending her time writing books about love and cannibalism. Tomie has a past with the girls' father who remembers her from when he was much younger. She uses her seductiveness to worm her way into the house and into the hearts of both father and daughter, that is until she gets too pushy and dad buries an axe in her head, but Tomie doesn't like to stay dead. After her father tells his daughter that he killed Tomie and chopped her into pieces she finds the head which in turn starts speaking to her so she takes it home where it begins to grow a new body.

Since the original Tomie film wasn't readily available I decided to go for one of the offshoots that had a decent rating. The Japanese certainly do have creative imaginations. I don't know what Tomie is but she's self-centered and obnoxious which inevitably is what gets her killed over and over again. Her body looked like a hybrid between a baby and a maggot when it started to grow back, gross. Such a weird flick and now for some reason I really want to see the rest of them.

House

(1977) ** SBIG

Japanese schoolgirls Gorgeous, Fantasy, Kung Fu, Sweet, Melody, Prof, and Mac are planning their holiday.  Their original plans gets nixed, so Gorgeous asks her aunt if they can visit her big old house in the countryside.  The old woman is very happy to have them, as she gets few visitors.  The young women hardly have time to get settled before the weirdness begins.

So, even though I don't know how to describe it, and it wasn't very good, I still feel like everyone needs to see it once.  A trippy, surreal horror-comedy "enhanced" by amateur acting, House earns its stars for bizarreness and originality.

The Satanic Rites of Dracula

(1973) ***

My final review of Christopher Lee/Peter Cushing movies of the year! Yay!!
This one was better than Dracula A.D. Most of the characters were played by the same actors, except for the granddaughter Jessica.

We have the opening scene where a satanic ritual is being played out in a mansion in the middle of the woods. There are captives in a couple of rooms that are being guarded by security in fancy knitted sweaters..but one escapes! He is picked up by the local police, who have been watching that house for a while. The escapee tells the officers that there were vampires there, which makes them seek out Professor Van Helsing once again!

Van Helsing does some digging around the mansion with his granddaughter, finding vampires chained to the walls in the basement! He finds out that Dracula is behind it all, pretending to be a property developer by day. He also finds out that Dracula means to rid the world of humans be developing a plague! (not quite sure how this fits into the vampire world)
Van Helsing kills the other vampires and saves his final battle for Dracula!

                                     Mr. Dracula got caught in a big thorn bush? Really?

At first I thought that me watching these out of order would be an issue, but the order didn't seem to matter. I am officially all Dracula-d out for the year! I leave you with a behind the scenes picture of Lee and Cushing having a lovely time..

You're Next

(2011)****

A family gathering is disrupted when a shooter starts firing arrows from a crossbow during their dinner. Doesn't take long to find out that there are not one but three assassins and they are picking off family members one by one.
A blog favorite this year You're Next is a wild and crazy slasher adventure from beginning to end. At first when the shooter begins firing the arrows the scene is a crazed melee of shaky camera, flying arrows, screaming, arguing and blood. It's almost like brain overload, I wanted to shut it off but once you get through that scene the rest of the movie is a super fun ride.