Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a little look at what everybody's favorite Gordo filmmaker has to say about the sequel to HELLBOY from the Fantasy Film Fest, which seems to be kicking ass and taking names this year. Before you get to that stuff, though, the below reviewer fills you in on CREEP, a horror flick staring the yummy-yummy Franka Potente. Now, I hope the below review and I disagree because it sounds like it could be a really nice little spook-fest of a movie, but then again... I thought I'd flip for ANATOMY and I didn't... Anyway, let's get to the good stuff! Enjoy!
Hi Harry,
first time blabla...Hope you can use this:
I attended the Fantasy Filmfest in Berlin and had the misfortune on monday to watch the world premiere of "Creep" by british newcomer Christopher Smith, who was also there to see the movie the first time together with an audience. Spoilers follow, but i will make it short anyway:
Creep is basically the old lonely-young-woman-followed-by-maniac-with corpses-dropping -left-and-right story, this time playing in the London Underground after closing hours. After a short teaser following the adventures of a sewer-control-team, who of course split at the first hint of danger, and are then being attacked one after another with one "BOOH"-shock-cut after the other, we meet (very tired and pissed looking) german actress Franka Potente playing a german party girl in London, who falls to sleep on a subway station, misses the last train and is inexplicably not only overseen but also locked in. There by chance (uurgh) she does not only enter a train which again inexplicably appears despite the closing, but is also inexplicably attacked by a rapist who followed her from the last party AND stalked by a monster (not shown yet), who by chance already killed the train driver and attacks the rapist before chasing Franka. It's as silly as it sounds and that's just the beginning.
Franka then basically runs, crawls and sewer-dives (!) away screaming for the rest of the movie, trying to get help - with every helping person soon killed by the monster. Dark corners, sewers and BOOH every three minutes, a gory subterran abortion clinic, a monster-rape with a saw, screaming, BOOH!, screamin, some gore, BOOH!, you get it. Not a single idea is new here, the monster - while not being a bad make-up-job - is clearly seen for minutes after about half of the picture and gets more ridiciulous the more you see it. A boring slasher exerise like some of the old bad italian horror movies from the early 80ties of last century. Avoid this.
Christopher Smith, who is a nice guy and shows at least some basic understanding of making such movies, should try something original next, if he gets an offer again that is. At least he was able to channel some money from german filmfunds, which explains the presence of our "star" Franka Potente. Doesn't help much though.
Guillermo del Toro, Selma Blair and Ron Perlman presented Hellboy here in Berlin last night and were available for Q & A. Guillermo was very nice, funny and outspoken, but Ron and Selma (such a beautiful woman!) seemed tired (maybe after having given thousands of interviews before). They all confirmed that Hellboy 2 is signed and on the way, but Guillermo is at least making one other, smaller movie before that in spain. He told us, that The Devils Backbone is his personal favourite movie (mine too) and he was especially unhappy with Mimic and somewhat dissatisfied with Blade 2.
Abe Sapien was shortened for Hellboy regarding screen time for budget reasons (that's why he gets slashed by the demons underwater and cannot travel to Russia), and Hellboy himself was shortened for real for the same reasons, as initally he should have been much larger, which would have called for digitally enlarging Ron, who is in reality not as big as he looks on screen. So they just used the usual tricks (Camera angle, boxes, lower settings and smaller actors around him).
As for the story of Hellboy 2 Guillermo did not seem to have already made up his mind, but Abe and Selma's characters will get much more room and Kroenen seems not to come back in the first sequel (damn!). As they were not sure if there would be a sequel when making Hellboy, they tried to get as much good stuff from the comics into it as possible to have it on screen at least once. So many ideas were used up for Hellboy 1 and they seemingly have to search first for new ones to fill Hellboy 2.
Q&A ended after more than half an hour with much fun, applause and laughter. This was the first time big stars like Perlman and Blair attended the FFF (Fantasy-Filmfest), a sign that this festival is getting bigger and bigger. With about 70 movies in 7 cities (mainly horror, crime and asian action, not too much "real" fantasy or SF-movies anymore) and some short movies this 18 year old festival is now quite an institution.
If you use this call me
Roderich!
